Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Read the whole story
Will Wall Street's Meltdown Turn America Into a Police State?
By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted September 30, 2008.
Failing banks? Endless war? Call Homeland Security.
"Raw capitalism is dead." -- Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary

"Can't we just all go out and say things are OK?" -- President Bush, to congressional leaders during bailout negotiations

I'm not much of an Army Times reader, but after reading that a brigade was shipping from Iraq in October to serve as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks" in the homeland right before the election, my antennae perked up. Same as they did when I read that an electoral college doomsday scenario exists in which Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote that gives McCain-Palin the White House.
That is, if Cheney and Bush don't take it for themselves. That may sound like fantasy, but don't kill the messenger. They are all strands of the Gordian knot the Bush administration has tied around the neck of the American people for the last two presidential terms, best represented today by the failed bailout of banks, brokers and other complicit parties that have since jacked the American people out of trillions. And while the Army Times revelation or election doomsday may turn out to be paranoia rather than prescience, the evidence just isn't there.
Like I said: antennae.
They've come in handy as bullshit detectors since Bush stole the election from a flat-footed Al Gore and set about engineering the
greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in American history. If you factor in Monday's failed takeover, as well as the $5 trillion the American people now owe thanks to the "bailout" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not to mention the continuing hyper-expensive occupation of Iraq and so on, our citizenry is now so far in the hole that it's pointless griping about numbers.
If you want one, use the figure put forth by Dennis Kucinich: half a quadrillion dollars. We have evolved past the point of economic or geopolitical reality and entered a phase of pure concept.
And all vectors of that phase point toward the conclusion that the proverbial shit has totally hit the fan -- head on, and all over again.
The one thing I can't understand is how easily they lie and how happily they deceive.....one would think it harder than it appears.

"That is the secret of happiness and virtue--liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny." Aldous Huxley/Brave New World



Found this absurdity at the Huffingtonpost....my place for news and information....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/mccain-palin-joint-interv_n_130412.html

"Pressed to explain why Gov. Sarah Palin had expressed a view on Pakistan that contradicted his, John McCain described any discussion of the matter as "gotcha journalism."
"Look," he said during a joint interview with Palin on CBS Evening News. "I understand this day and age gotcha-journalism. Is that a pizza place? In a conversation with someone who you didn't hear...the question very well, you don't know the context of the conversation. Grab a phrase."
He then added, "Gov. Palin and I agree that you don't announce that you're going to attack another country."
The defense was flimsy. Palin had previously voiced support for targeting terrorists in Pakistan even without that country's approval, during her first national television interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. Moreover, her statement seemed pretty definitive. Appearing at a Philadelphia restaurant over the weekend, the Alaska Governor said of a raid into Pakistan: "If that's what we have to do to stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely we should."

Monday, September 29, 2008

THIS has GOT to be the best definition of Sarah Palin EVER!






http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokebushpostturtle.htm


While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose
hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a
conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah
Palin, and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President .
The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.'
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post
turtle was.
The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you
come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top - that's a post
turtle.'
The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued
to explain.
"You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up
there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just
wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with!"
Found this beauty at the Huffington Post....I did get a chuckle....thanks Mr. Weinberger. I will be planted in front of my TV on Thursday night for this historic moment.

David Weinberger is the co-author of the international bestseller The Cluetrain Manifesto and the author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. A fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, Weinberger has written for such publications as Wired, The New York Times, Smithsonian, and the Harvard Business Review and has been a frequent commentator for NPR's All Things Considered. In 1994, he founded Evident Marketing, a strategic marketing firm on technology issues, and he served as senior Internet adviser to the Howard Dean campaign.
Top 10 Reasons Sarah Palin Cancels the Debate
10. Suspicious Russian tourists spotted across the Bering strait in Dezhnevo
9. Wrasslin' a bear
8. Learns Tina Fey will be watching
7. When taken on tour of White House by McCain handlers, is "inadvertently" locked in Cheney's man-sized safe
6. Schedule for memorizing state capitals thrown off by need for new schedule to memorize states
5. Speechless after finally looking up what "MILF" stands for
4. On deadline to finish her book, Namin' Your Baby the Alaskan Way
3. Needs more time to really nail those hilarious hair-plug zingers
2. No matter how hard she scrubs, she can't get Kissinger's moral stank off of her
1. Stuck in traffic on the Bridge to Nowhere


Sunday, September 28, 2008


watch the video below to hear it with your own ears....we still can trust our own ears cant we?



RFK Jr., Mike Papantonio: "Is Your Vote Safe?"
Monday 22 September 2008
by: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ring of Fire
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed concern for the safety of the vote in the 2008 election. (Photo: wikimedia.org)
Transcript from Ring of Fire on Air America Radio
Bobby: "There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000. It was originally suggested by Democrats and Republicans but it was passed by a Republican congress with a Republican senate and a Republican president. And instead of reforming what happened in Florida it basically institutionalized all the problems that happened in Florida. And institutionalized a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their vote counted.
"One of these requirements under HAVA is called "the perfect match" and what that does is little known but it is devastating. A quarter of the voters in Colorado have just been removed from the rolls because of this - just this one scam. And what it does is they use a computer system to compare your registration application to all other government records of you in the state. So they'll look at your social security records, your motor vehicle records and any time you've had any interaction with the government and if there is any information on your voter registration that is different than the information on another government record that they find they remove you from the voting rolls.
"For example, if I registered as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and yet my motor vehicle license said Robert Frances Kennedy Jr. I'd be removed from the rolls. If your initial is different, if you leave an initial out, if you leave a "Jr." out, if you leave a hyphen out in your name. And what they've done is a study in New York that said 80% of the errors are errors that were done by state clerks who are taking down this information. And particularly immigrant communities that people tend to vote Democratic, people have names … spell Muhammad with an "o" instead of a "u" (crosstalk)
Pap: "Are the Democrats Suing to Stop This?"
Bobby: "No, the Democrats are doing nothing to stop it. In New Jersey, which is a swing state, 300,000 voters in New Jersey were just sent letters saying that they are now ineligible to vote. New jersey is nice enough to actually notify them - most states will not even notify them. And New Jersey intends to send out 870,000 letters so that is three quarters of a million people off the voting rolls in a state that could decide this vote by 50,000 votes. And these are Democrats that are being pushed off the rolls.
Bobby: "Let me tell you about one other of these scams people should know about. If you're a newly registered voter - and of course the Democrats have done these gigantic registration drives - 12 million people on registration - if you're a new voter you MUST include your license or some other state I.D. when you come to vote. What that means is that if you're a college kid (and college kids now - they're sending in absentee ballots - they're not going to the voting place, they do everything online or they do everything remotely - they don't dream of going to the precinct house voting on election day and waiting in a long line) so if they send in the absentee ballot and they don't include a color copy of their license their vote is going to be thrown into a trash can. And none of these people know this because you have had to read the law in order to know it. So there is no notification for when you fill out your registration form, so all of those 12 million people that the Democrats have registered: those ballots are going to be just thrown out.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, admitting that until recently she was a vocal supporter of Sarah Palin, now says the vice presidential nominee should bow out:

Parker says her turnaround came from watching Palin in interview. Like other critics, she wasn't impressed:

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there.

It's so bad, Parker says, that Palin should quit the race:

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

pitney@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

Another cringe-inducing performance by Sarah Palin in part II of her interview with Katie Couric.

In the segment below, Couric presses Palin to explain why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience. Palin doesn't seem to have improved her answer since she was asked the same question by Charlie Gibson. WATCH THE ACTUAL VIDEO HERE;

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/palin-talks-russia-with-k_n_129318.html

Here's the transcript:

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?


PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--

COURIC: Mock?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.

Friday, September 26, 2008




http://colorofchange.org/michigan08/
Lose your home, Lose your vote?

Demand that John McCain stand up against his party's shameful strategy to challenge voters This year, Republicans in Michigan have hit an all-new low--they plan to target homeowners subject to foreclosure and prevent them from voting.
— To read the full email we sent to our members, with references, click here. —
Join us in demanding that John McCain denounce this plan and call on Republican leaders--in Michigan and around the country--to end this illegal strategy.

CBS Sarah Palin interview

I dont understand her answer....
Maybe it is because there is no answer.

IS SHE FOR REAL???

Miss Carolina Is Incredibly Stupid

anyone else see the similarities between the Miss Teen answer to a question and the Palin/Couric interview....
you be the judge...
is the question really being answered?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

This piece is explosive....as more and more is being unearthed from the Alaskan soil...Americans must be armed with the news that the major networks refuse to report......read the whole story @ http://www.alternet.org/story/100069/has_sarah_palin_been_picked_as_the_titular_head_of_the_coming_police_state/
Has Sarah Palin Been Picked as the Titular Head of the Coming Police State?
By
Naomi Wolf, Huffington Post. Posted September 24, 2008.
Palin will help to establish a true and irreversible 'fear society' in this once free once proud nation
.
"Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.
You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom.
I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -- but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.
Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas -- this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.
Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protege Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.
What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.
How, you may ask, can I assert this? How can I argue, as I now do, that there is actually a war being ramped up against US citizens and our democracy and that Sarah Palin is the figurehead and muse for that war?
Look at the RNC. This is supposed to be McCain's America. But you see the unmistakable theatre of Rove's S and M imagery -- and you see stages eight, nine and ten of the steps to a dictatorship as I outlined them in The End of America. Preemptive arrest? Abusive arrest? "Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."
Journalists were arrested -- for reporting. Amy Goodman and ABC producers were arrested. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and others were forced to lie face down as armed agents tied their hands behind their backs. The riot police wore the black S&M gear of the Rovian fantasy life and carried the four foot batons cops carry in North Korea. All this is not John McCain's imagery or strategy: it is Karl Rove's.
In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state:
"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism… [they] 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty."
"Paid, confidential informants… infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."
Under the Palin-Rove police state, you will see escalating infringements on your
access to a free internet:
"Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God…Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing 'inappropriate content'. At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election…"
Under the coming Palin-Rove police state, you will witness the plans now underway to bring Iraqi troops to patrol the streets of our nation. This is not McCain's fantasy: it is
Rove's and Cheney's.
Under the Palin-Rove police state, there will be no further true elections. Mark Crispin Miller has done sensational and under-reported investigating t o establish that -- as I warned -- indeed the GOP staffers on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have been
.
The evidence is also buried on the
Website of the Majority House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. >From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications witho ut a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

-- "Senate panel's GOP staff spied on Democrats" By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff January 22, 2004
Do you think that spying like this will ever end under a Palin-Rove regime? Dream on. If she and McCain are elected, then every single strategy memo and speech and debate prep note from every opposition candidate from now and on into forever will be read by the regime in power while it is still in the computers of the challengers.
Under the Palin-Rove police state, citizens will be targeted with state cyberterrorism. Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda, a former Reagan official, warned me three years ago that the Bush team went after a Republican who had crossed them through cyberstalking: they messed with his email, messed with his phones and I believe messed with his bank account -- he became a cyber-pariah, unemployable and haunted. With modern technology, there really is less place to hide from the state than there was in East Germany in the Cold War era. I remember feeling a chill: of course. That is the wave of the future once we breach the protections around citizens of FISA and the fourth amendment. That way lies the abyss for us all.
Am I trying to scare you? I am. I am trying to scare you to death and ask you to scare your Republican and independent friends most of all. How do you know when it is war on citizens? When there are mass arrests, journalists are jailed, the opposition is infiltrated, rights are stripped and leaders start to ignore the rule of law.
Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.
I am not telling you this because it's about my life. I am telling you this because it is about your life -- whoever you are, Conservative or Liberal, independent or evangelical. Your politics will not protect you in a police state. History shows that nothing protects you in a police state. This is not about my fear and anxiety: it is about what awaits you and everyone you love unless you see this for what it is:
Scharansky divided nations into "fear societies" and "free societies." Make no mistake: Sarah "Evita" Palin is Rove and Cheney's cosmetic rebranding of their fascist push: she will help to establish a true and irreversible "fear society" in this once free once proud nation. For God's sake, do not let her; do not let them."
Naomi Wolf is the author of 'The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot' (Chelsea Green, 2007).

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Watch the trailer....http://www.linktv.org/programs/time_bomb

TIME-BOMB: America's Debt Crises, Causes, Consequences and Solutions

TIME-BOMB is a powerful new documentary that puts the spotlight on America's exploding national debt and the fact that our leaders are risking our economic future through shortsighted fiscal policies. With each passing day that we do nothing to address our twin deficits, we increase the chances that we will soon be facing an economic crisis of major proportions. TIME-BOMB shows why the hard-earned assets of all Americans are at risk and, on a more profound, level shows why Democracy itself is threatened. The movie features interviews with citizens who have had the courage speak out truthfully about these issues including:
* Senator Warren Rudman, Co-author, Graham-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act * George Soros: Financier, Philanthropist, Author: The Bubble of American Supremacy * Peter G. Peterson, Chairman, The Blackstone Group, Author: Running on Empty * Lawrence Kotlikoff: Chairman, The Economics Department, Boston University * Kenneth Rogoff: Harvard Economics Professor and Ex-Chief of Research, IMF * Steven Rattner: Principal, The Quadrangle Group, Ex- New York Times Reporter * Benjamin Friedman: Harvard Economics Professor, Author: Day of Reckoning * Ben Cohen: Co-founder: Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream and TrueMajority.com * Senator Robert Byrd: Member Senate Budget and Foreign Relations Committees and numerous ordinary citizens recorded in spontaneous on the street interviews.

TIME-BOMB is a remarkable film not only because it offers a penetrating analysis of perhaps the most dangerous threat facing America, but also because it does it in a thoroughly engrossing and entertaining manner. TIME-BOMB takes the Michael Moore genre and applies it to the spheres of economics and political science with a delicate blend of humor, musical parody and serious inquiry.

TIME-BOMB exposes George W. Bush's faith-based, supply side economics for what it is: nothing more than pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. It shows how George Bush squandered a $5 trillion government surplus and now runs record deficits in one of the greatest miscalculations in human history. While George Bush has framed America's future in terms of the possible threats of terrorist attacks, he has virtually ignored the mounting threat of our looming fiscal crisis. Here a distinguished array of economic experts, activists, statesmen and business executives show why that threat is more real to our nation than most of us would have dared imagine.

America ignores the message of TIME-BOMB at its peril. Unless we address our "twin deficits" soon, the American economy will be falling like the towers of the World Trade Center, and no one will be remember why the war on terrorism seemed so important. After seeing this movie, you suddenly realize that there is no escaping the fact that America is moving ahead full-throttle towards an economic crisis of major proportions. And somehow we seem blissfully unaware that anything of this nature awaits us.

Cast: George Soros, Senator Warren Rudman, Peter G. Peterson, Harvard Economics Professors, and others.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/welcome-to-the-final-stag_b_127990.html
Larisa Alexandrovna
Posted September 20, 2008 08:11 PM (EST)
If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it. ~ Julius Caesar
In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism -
a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected (although the funny math told a still believed myth) - by a few corrupt judges on the US Supreme Court. That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but unavoidable.
Let me first point you to the Bush administration's so-called Wall Street bailout bill,
here, so that you can see for yourself that this treachery is being conducted in the light of day. Fascism is finally and formally out of the right-wing closet even if the F word is not yet openly being used (although it should be, and often).
Now, if you do not yet understand that the Wall Street crisis is a man-made disaster done through intentional deregulation and corruption, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell to you (or
Sara Palin does anyway).

This manufactured crisis is now to be remedied, if the fiscal fascists get their way, with the total transfer of Congressional powers (the few that still remain) to the Executive Branch and the total transfer of public funds into corporate (via government as intermediary) hands.
Adam Davidson of NPR blogs about the so-called bailout bill as follows:
I would guess that this has to be one of the biggest peacetime transfers of power from Congress to the Administration in history. (Anyone know?). Certainly one of the most concise.
The Treasury Secretary can buy broadly defined assets, on any terms he wants, he can hire anyone he wants to do it and can appoint private sector companies as financial deputies of the US government. And he can write whatever regulation he thinks are needed.
Most importantly, Davidson points to this passage in the bill:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

The Bush family, in the form of Prescott Bush, has tried a more aggressive coup before in order to install fascism in this country. This treasonous plot was called "the Business Plot," because the high-level plotters - including Prescott Bush - were Wall Street men who openly supported fascism.


It seems this time around, the Bush family is trying the more subtle approach to open bloodshed: first create a crisis, then under the guise of addressing that crisis, overthrow democracy. Yes, it does sound terribly conspiracy-theory-esque when explained just this way. But what else does one call a criminal conspiracy to destroy Congressional powers permanently, alter Judicial powers permanently, and steal public funds?
As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.
No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?
The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.
You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won't be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot.
UPDATE
You guys have to read this,
the guy is near ready to call 911 and report me to the secret police for daring to suggest that I fear that there may be a revolution and want everyone to contact Congress and demand no passage of the Coup Wall Street bill (oh, and did I mention that he calls himself the Confederate Yankee?)
"I can only hope the lawful authorities are monitoring such enticements towards insurrection with all due seriousness, and find a nice, well-lit and cheery cell for those who require one."
Enticements? I did not realize I was standing on a street- corner pulling on my fishnet stockings in hopes of starting a revolt. Now let us examine what I actually wrote - I will bold the key points:
As I see it now, we have but two options and I have long alluded to hoping against hope that one of these options would not be the only one left to a peaceful people. The first and frankly most preferable option is for Congress to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot.
No time needs to be wasted on hearings as we already now have in writing, formally as presented to Congress, the intentions of this administration to nullify Congressional powers permanently, to alter Judicial powers permanently, and to openly steal public funds using as blackmail the total collapse of the US economy if these powers are not handed over. You do see how this is blackmail, do you not? You do see how this is a manufactured crisis precisely designed to be used as blackmail, do you not?
The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will.
Hmmm, sounds like a massive terrorist plot, right? Oh, and don't forget to contact your members of Congress. Seriously, is this guy taking heroin with his coffee? Which part of "I hope against hope" and "I fear" is an enticement for anything that would require me to be arrested and put in jail? Freedom of speech, a no-no in Confederate Americana. Stop by and tell this guy what you think of his hopes that I end up in prison.
UPDATE 2
Another kook joins the distortion train
and swift-boat party. This one is actually now claiming that I am calling for an insurrection (wow, in a few hours they will be claiming that I armed the rebels, and charging the Bastille). And if you read the comments section of this blog, you will find yet more examples of rabid xenophobia and bigotry.
And yet even more stunning? Not a one of them can seem to find the time to react to the unlimited power the Executive Branch is demanding. Perhaps they are too busy eating their racist Obama waffles?
On a side note, please use the phrase "insurrection in bed" in every comment since the right wing requires a distraction, even an imaginary one.
UPDATE 3I have gotten some emails where people appear confused by my use of the Caesar quote. Just to clarify, this is in reference to Bush as Caesar, not my support of Caesar. This is in reference to the massive Bush power grab buried in the bailout "coup" bill. Sorry for any confusion.;)

Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column yesterday titled "Cash for Trash," boiled the Bush Bailout down to two words: Trust Me.
"Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now. But I'd urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don't let yourself be railroaded -- if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we'll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future." http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/22/opinion/edkrugman.php



President Bush wants Congress to give his Treasury Secretary (Henry Paulson, a former Wall Street executive) $700 billion with no congressional or court oversight.

That amounts to $2,000 for every single American.
Would it help families struggling to keep their homes? NO.

Do taxpayers get any share of the firms we're bailing out, so we can benefit from any eventual profit? NO.

Would the firms we're bailing out be required to stop paying their executives multimillion-dollar salaries? NO.

This is a pure giveaway of epic proportions.
Even some Republicans are admitting this is crazy. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) asked, "Just how long can the poor beleaguered taxpayer be expected to bear all the losses and bear all the risk?"

Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) said, "I'm getting a lot of calls from my district, with people saying, why are you bailing out the big guys and not us?"
Here are the principles Obama laid out over the weekend:
No blank check.

We must insist on independent accountability and oversight.
Main Street, not just Wall Street.


We need an emergency economic plan to help working families—a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, create infrastructure jobs, etc.


Help homeowners stay in their homes.


We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities.

Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street.

Rescue requires mutual responsibility. Institutions that benefit from taxpayer help must help protect American homeowners and the American economy.


We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility.
Build a regulatory structure for the 21st Century.


We should commit ourselves to new rules of the road for the 21st Century economy.

A global response. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets.6
There are many in Congress who want to do the right thing, but they need to know the public has their back. Can you sign our petition to Congress today?


Sources:
1. "Administration Is Seeking $700 Billion for Wall Street," New York Times, September 20, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21cong.html
2. Ibid.
3. "What Wall Street Should Be Required to Do, to Get A Blank Check From Taxpayers," Blog post by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, September 21, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=30341&id=13979-7999784-3dcfuYx&t=6
4. "Lawmakers Left On the Sidelines As Fed, Treasury Take Swift Action," Washington Post, September 18, 2008 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=30342&id=13979-7999784-3dcfuYx&t=7
5. "Democrats eye bailout—and more," Politico, September 19, 2008 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13644.html
6. "Senator Obama's Statement of Principles for the Treasury Proposal," September 21, 2008 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=30343&id=13979-7999784-3dcfuYx&t=8

Monday, September 22, 2008


From our friends at A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and True Majority






Demand that the Bailout Legislation Be Rejected


We are witnessing a bankers' coup d’etat. In the name of saving the economy from a crisis created by their own greed and immense profits, Bush and the biggest bankers have taken a country and a people hostage.


“Give us your money and tear up what’s left of your Constitution or we will sink your economy,” is the message from Wall Street and the Bush Administration. “Give us the power and money we demand or you will be left jobless from a new economic depression."


Under the pretext of the banking crisis, the Bush Administration is changing the way this country operates. This is not simply taking trillions of dollars from the people and giving it to the richest bankers to do with as they see fit.




Congress is poised to vote to give the Executive Branch of government, and specifically the White House’s political appointees in the Treasury Department, the absolute right to take our money and give it to domestic and foreign banks and corporations without any oversight of elected officials, from the courts, or from the people.


The new legislation states: “Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars.


We will not stand by and let the Bush Administration formalize its vision of a “government of, by and for the richest bankers." The new system institutionalizes theft on a grand scale.


Lehman Brothers bankers will receive $2.5 billion in bonuses after their company went bankrupt last week, but the new dictatorial authority under the White House and Treasury Department has ruled out any relief for the millions of working families who are being foreclosed. We live in a $15 trillion annual economy. Instead of taking our tax dollars and giving it to the already rich and powerful, these funds should be used provide to decent paying jobs, affordable housing, health care and a good education for our children. There is another way! Now is the time to hear the voice of the people. A spineless Congress authorized Bush’s illegal war in Iraq and rubber-stamped the Patriot Act. Now they are being herded like sheep again to give the White House and Wall Street dictatorial control over the people’s money.Click here to send your letter to Congress

FROM TRUE MAJORITY.ORG

Call your Senators right now and urge them to stop the Bush corporate bailout.In his last days in office, George Bush is trying to scare Congress into giving away the treasury to Wall Street.
Those are extreme words, but not as extreme as the reality -- over the weekend a plan was concocted to give away $1.8 trillion dollars of tax money with NO limits on how it's spent, and no guarantees we'll ever see it again.1 And the Treasury Secretary had the gall to say limiting payouts to executives who created this mess would be a "deal breaker."2 This is a deal which SHOULD be broken. Or at least re-negotiated. Economists have already made clear that this is a bad deal for everyone except the corporations and wealthy investors whose greed created the crisis.3
Tell your Senators to oppose George Bush's corporate bailout:
http://www.truemajority.org/NoBailout/index.php?state=MI
The Bush administration is trying to ram this through in only 72 hours by claiming there will be dire consequences if we don't pass the bailout exactly as written. Once again they're using fear to scare Congress and the American people into submission. We have to stop them.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

THIS WOULD BE UNBELIEVABLE IF IT WERE NOT CAPTURED ON FILM...NO ONE IN AMERICA WOULD BELIEVE THIS POSSIBLE IN OUR COUNTRY...IN OUR DEMOCRACY.
WHY WAS THIS NOT SHOWN ON ALL MAJOR NEWS NETWORKS....WHY? BECAUSE WE SLOWLY LET OUR DEMOCRACY ERODE...IT IS A POLICE STATE...STAY AWARE ...THIS IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE AND WORSE. PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO...IT MATTERS.
IT GIVES NEW LIFE TO THE INFAMOUS LINE: "DONT TAZE ME, BRO"

Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul
Posted by
Laura Flanders, Firedoglake at 3:47 AM on September 19, 2008.
"Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/99433/incredible_documentary_footage_of_mass_arrest_in_st._paul/
"ST. PAUL, Minnesota (September 18, 2008) Video released today shows the indiscriminate arrest of a crowd of two hundred at the waterfront across from a concert on Harriet Island Regional Park during this month's Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The video includes multiple angles of the event as well as an interview with the cameraman who buried his footage and was one of almost two hundred people arrested for rioting without probable cause.
More than eight hundred people were arrested in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention. This video shows that at least twenty percent of the eight hundred plus arrested were seized without due cause."

John McCain Invented the Blackberry (Techno remix)

The republican echo chamber is un-real.

Friday, September 19, 2008

With the unending rhetoric in this country about minority hand-outs and advantage...below is an article which provides clarity if not insight !!! Rest to sure, I, too, have been benefited from these privileges...

What Privileges Do McCain and Palin Receive Because They're White?
By Tim Wise ( http://www.alternet.org/authors/4152/ ), BuzzFlash ( http://www.buzzflash.com/ ). Posted September 18, 2008
11 ways McCain and Palin have enjoyed preferential treatment in the presidential race.

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.


1) White privilege is when you can get pregnant at 17 like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.


2)White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.


3)White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some course work at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.


4)White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-size colleges, and then governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. senator, two-term state senator and constitutional law scholar means you're "untested."


5)White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.


6) White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do -- like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the eight-hour workday, or an end to child labor -- and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small-town mayor and 20-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college -- you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.


7) White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women and made them give your party a "second look."


8)White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.


9) White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then having people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.


10) White privilege is being able to claim that your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.


And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising and the United States is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

Thursday, September 18, 2008


From our friends at TrueMajority.org
Million Doors for Peace
Each year since the Iraq war began we have seen and participated in massive anti-war demonstrations in Washington and around the country. THIS YEAR IS DIFFERENT. This year, we're taking the message directly to our neighbors, instead of relying on the media.
JOIN thousands of us on Sept. 20th, as we go door-to-door in our communities across America, finding the next wave of the movement to End the Iraq War.
http://www.milliondoorsforpeace.org/signup.php?code=tm3
WOOOO BOY.....THIS DOG NEEDS SOME LIPSTICK...DONT YOU THINK?

Some Alaskan women express their Right of Free Speech! watch the video

http://bigshow.bigfolio.com/?s=000011662&t=0e6a8ae03101be65098418ccb735e4a1
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grew up in Hawaii raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'

* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you're a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow , Trig, and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating in 6 years, you're well grounded.


* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people (more than the entire state of Alaska...), become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while co/sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you 'don't have any real leadership experience.'

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, member of the PTA, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 6,000 people (at the time), 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people altogether, then you're 'qualified' to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.


* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, then left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the following month,
you're a Christian and a solid representative of 'moral values'.

* If you teach responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are 'eroding the fiber of
society'.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.

* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

This religious arrogance scares me more than bombs...this "brand" of control and manipulation is one of the real threats that face this country, add it with a favorite side kick "Corporate Control" and we have a real fascist state going on.
for the whole story see http://www.truthout.org/article/a-palin-theocracy
A Palin Theocracy
Thursday 11 September 2008
by: Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t Perspective
(Photo: The Daily Pulse)
John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate has invigorated a lackluster campaign. The media can't stop talking about her. Given McCain's age and state of health (his medical file was nearly 1,200 pages long), Palin would indeed be a heartbeat away from becoming president. But what would a Palin administration really look like?
Palin is a radical, right-wing, fundamentalist Christian who would love to create a theocracy. She believes we are living in the "end times" which will result in a bloody inferno from which only true Christians will be saved. Palin recently attended a service in her Wasilla Bible Church run by David Brickner, who runs Jews for Jesus, a group the Anti-Defamation League criticizes for its "aggressive and deceptive" proselytizing of Jews. Those who don't accept Jesus as their savior will burn in Hell, according to Palin's brand of theology.
As governor of Alaska, Palin asked her congregation to pray for the natural gas pipeline, which she characterized as "God's will." She thinks the war in Iraq is a "task that is from God." Palin has pushed for creationism to be taught in schools, and she opposes stem cell research.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

My intuition always told me this....but did I listen..........................................................
What the Chemical Industry Doesn't Want You to Know about Everyday Products
By
Elaine Shannon, AlterNet. Posted September 15, 2008.



"It takes a lot of nerve to go up against the $3 trillion-a-year global chemical industry.
Ask University of Missouri-Columbia scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons. They've been in the industry's crosshairs for more than a decade, since their experiments turned up the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts of bisphenol A (BPA), an artificial sex hormone and integral component of a vast array of plastic products, caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice.
Their findings touched off a steady drumbeat that has led to a ban on BPA-laden baby bottles in Canada, mounting support for a similar ban in the U.S., major retailers pulling plastic products off their shelves, a consumer run on glass baby bottles and a blizzard of scientific reports raising increasingly disturbing questions about the chemical's dangers at the trace levels to which people are routinely exposed.
But back in early 1997, when the Missouri team produced its pioneering research on low-dose BPA, challenging the chemical-industrial complex seemed quixotic, even risky. Soon after the report appeared, a scientist from Dow Chemical Company, a major BPA manufacturer, showed up at the Missouri lab, disputed the data and declared, as Vom Saal recalls, "We want you to know how distressed we are by your research."
"It was not a subtle threat," Vom Saal says. "It was really, really clear, and we ended up saying, threatening us is really not a good idea."

By that time, Vom Saal, Welshons and their Missouri colleagues realized that they had a tiger by the tail. The financial stakes were mind-boggling. The global chemical industry produces about 6 billion pounds of BPA annually, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales. The value of BPA-based manufactured goods, from cell phones and computers to epoxy coatings and dental bindings, is probably incalculable. Though scientists have known since the 1930s that BPA mimics estrogen in the body, for unrelated reasons, the chemical serves as an essential building block of hard, clear polycarbonate plastics and tough epoxy resins, ubiquitous materials in the modern world.
"It's probably the largest volume endocrine-disrupting chemical in commerce," says Vom Saal. "This stuff is in everything." Because plastics made with BPA break down easily when heated, microwaved, washed with strong detergents or wrapped around acidic foods like tomatoes, trace amounts of the potent hormone leach into food from epoxy lacquer can linings, polycarbonate bottles and other plastic food packaging.

The industry's scorched-earth approach has caused many advocates for toxic law reform, frustrated with skirmishing state by state and toxin by toxin, to line up behind a comprehensive federal legislative proposal, the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, that would require chemical manufacturers to prove substances like BPA are safe before they go on the market.
Meanwhile, a research team from a Yale University medical school research team has come up with some of the most troubling data yet: after injecting African green monkeys for 28 days with BPA at the level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is safe for people, the researchers found the chemical "causes the loss of connections between brain cells." "We observed a devastating effect on synapses in the monkey brain," says Yale scientist Tibor Hajszan. In humans, these losses could lead to memory and learning problems and depression.
Industry officials called the study flawed and lacked proof of BPA danger to the human brain. Yale team leader Csaba Leranth says the experiment, the first major neurological study using primates, was designed "to more closely mimic the slow and continuous conditions under which humans would normally be exposed to BPA." He said the study is "more indicative than past research of how BPA may actually affect humans," but his team hopes to conduct additional studies to advance understanding of BPA on primate brain functions.
But, says Leranth, "science is expensive," and grants for ambitious projects are scarcer than ever, due to the Bush administration's commitments overseas and spiraling federal debt."

Monday, September 15, 2008

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
The Three Trillion Dollar War
The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict
The true cost of the Iraq War is $3 trillion—and counting—rather than the $50 billion projected by the White House.
Apart from its tragic human toll, the Iraq War will be staggeringly expensive in financial terms. This sobering study by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes casts a spotlight on expense items that have been hidden from the U.S. taxpayer, including not only big-ticket items like replacing military equipment (being used up at six times the peacetime rate) but also the cost of caring for thousands of wounded veterans—for the rest of their lives. Shifting to a global focus, the authors investigate the cost in lives and economic damage within Iraq and the region. Finally, with the chilling precision of an actuary, the authors measure what the U.S. taxpayer’s money would have produced if instead it had been invested in the further growth of the U.S. economy. Written in language as simple as the details are disturbing, this book will forever change the way we think about the war.
Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University is the author of Making Globalization Work and Globalization and Its Discontents. Linda J. Bilmes, a professor of public finance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, is a former assistant secretary for management and budget in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Author Web site:
ThreeTrillionDollarWar.org

Friday, September 12, 2008

Sara Palin on Wolves and Wildlife

TO MY WILD WOMYN FRIENDS....
THIS IS WRONG...THIS IS SO WRONG.
HOWELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!