Blogs

June 8, Wednesday, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Pete Escovedo is viewed as one of the standard bearers of Latin jazz. His orchestra is considered one of the finest ensembles in Latin jazz. It is a joyous concoction of Latin rhythms with elements of jazz, R & B, and funk that is hard to resist.
Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, Central Library. Limited seating on a first come basis. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Free!

Source: Sacramento Public Library Events

.

.

Keep these charts in mind while reading the story. Link to the 1st chart on the top left. Link to 2nd on the top right, and 3rd on the bottom left. And the link to the 4th, on the bottom right.

How Our Largest Corporations Made $170 Billion During Great Recession And Paid No Taxes

House GOP leadership crafting Libya bill as alternative to measure ending US role

Congressional officials say the House Republican leadership is crafting legislation allowing the U.S. military to continue participating in the NATO-led operation against Libya.

The measure would be an alternative to anti-war Democrat Dennis Kucinich's proposal to end U.S. involvement. And it would set up House members for a potential political tug-of-war, even as dozens of their own yearn for precisely that kind of showdown with President Barack Obama.

A vote on the issue was postponed on Wednesday, and officials in both parties said it was because Kucinich's legislation was gaining ground.

Gail Hornstein

Millicent Monks

Psychologist Gail Hornstein talks about her book, AGNES’ JACKET: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness in this interview. And Millicent Monks talks about her memoir, SONGS OF THREE ISLANDS: A Story of Mental Illness in an Iconic American Family. It’s about how she coped with a mother and a daughter who are mentally ill. Monks is the great-grandniece of Andrew Carnegie.
Source: Gail Hornstein & Millicent Monks: Overcoming the Stigma of Mental Illness

Egyptian army

On Planet Money, they look at the Egyptian military's deep business ties to everything from dishwashers to resort hotels. And they consider how those ties influence how the military responds to the crisis.
Source: The Friday Podcast: Egypt's Military, Inc.

Music includes Earth Anthem, The Fool on the Hill, Who Are The Brain Police, My Home Town, I Shall Be Released Any Day Now, Living For The Love Of You, Proud Mary, We'll Meet Again, Taste of Honey, Johnny I Hardly Know You

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

(523 Obama-dumping days until 2012 election-Hugh's Obama's Scandals List)

I spent two hours last night protesting Henry Kissinger’s appearance at the 92nd St. Y in NYC. Kissinger is hawking his new 600-page book on American Chinese relations and in which he assuredly buffs, revises and rationalizes his lengthy and deadly role in global history. “Hawking” is the right verb for the aged but dangerous Mr. Kissinger.

There were about 60 of us. We caused a bit of a stir on a refreshingly mild and busy Tuesday evening as the pedestrian and vehicular traffic streamed along Lexington Avenue.

I held a sign that read “ARREST KISSINGER” and wore the small square orange pin “IMPEACH THE WAR CRIMINALS” that the back flap of my knapsack usually sports.

Some of our protesting chants decried Kissinger as a war criminal. Some chants decried the 92nd St. Y for enabling him with their celebrity speaker’s forum.

Proponents of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative constantly proclaim that the controversial process to create a network of “marine protected areas” (MPAs) in California marine waters is "open, transparent and inclusive" and based on "science."

Unfortunately, MLPA advocates fail to ask California’s game wardens, the ones who actually have to enforce the Fish and Game laws, what they think about these glorious new "ocean parks."

Jerry Karnow, the president of the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, has repeatedly criticized the Fish and Game Commission for approving the creation of new marine protected areas to be enforced by a Department that already has lowest ratio of wardens to residents of any state in the nation. He has frequently noted how many wardens consider the new MPAs to be "marine poaching areas" because of the lack of personnel for enforcement.

In a letter to Mr. Tom Napoli, MLPA South Coast CEQA, Department of Fish and Game, on October 18, 2010, Karnow was blunt about the impact the creation of new MPAs would have on the wardens.

“Establishing additional MPAs without sufficient enforcement will invite poaching and other lawless behavior and endanger the safety of game wardens and will, eventually, lead to the onduty injury or death of a warden,” stated Karnow.

(525 Obama-dumping days until 2012 election-Hugh's Obama's Scandals List)

Jefferson Memorial -- police state response to dancing protesters.

On May 28, 2011 Television host Adam Kokesh and several other activists participating in a flash-mob were arrested at the publicly-funded Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Their crime? Silently dancing, in celebration of the first amendment's champion; a clear violation of their right to free-expression.

Update:

After reading about this and watching the video, I googled an article I'd read a while back written by Kevin Zeese in consortiumnews about a flower-laying demonstration at a publicly-accessible Iwo Jima statue replica at the entrance of Quantico by some Bradley Manning protestors. Here are some excerpts of the paramilitary over-reaction to the protestors:

On March 20, Americans, in a vet-led assembly, gathered to support PFC Bradley Manning who is accused of leaking documents to WikiLeaks and who has been held in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Base for seven months.

From John Reiger:

Here (below) is my letter-2-editor that was printed in the Sacramento Bee today, Fri. 5/27/11. It was in response to a story that Gates hoped the Iraqi's would invited the US to stay on militarily. In light of recent demonstrations in Iraq, I'm hoping that will not happen. Too many dead and injured troops already!!

---------------

Defense Secretary Gates now wants the Iraqis to invite us to stay. I suppose that’s an improvement over our uninvited invasion. But how crazy is it that after we've illegally invaded their country and bombed them back into third world living conditions, we are now asking them to ask us to stay?

Let’s hope the Iraqi government does not do this. Although Americans seem to think the war in Iraq is over, American troops are still being killed and injured there. American money is still being wasted on a military occupation that has no real military purpose.

The only Americans who should be in Iraq are civilian reconstruction helpers. The only U.S. money spent on Iraq should be used to help that devastated country rebuild. We have a moral obligation to help them rebuild, and moral and financial reasons to end our military presence.

John C. Reiger

When I was a child, I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away
childish things. For now we see through a
glass, darkly; but then face to face: now
I know in part; but then shall I know even
as also I am known.

A few years ago I wrote a post with the same title, that was about the FISA "debate," (more here, and here, and here) and didn't really know the full quote from 1 Corinthians 13 verse 11 (went to Catholic schools where we didn't have to memorize bible passages). After further reflection, this quote is even more relevant to what I've come to feel, namely that I did look at our national political leadership in a simplistic, and probably childish way. I thought our political leadership had our best interests at heart, when, now, it's become crystal clear, that that couldn't be further from the actual getting-down-to-brass-tacks-truth.

The two issues that prompted me to write this post are the Senate voting for the undebatable (thanks to Harry Reid) renewal of the three expiring sections of the Patriot Act and the House voting for Forever War

Bill, and the rest of the bloggers on this website, and I, have written post, after post, after post, after post, after post explaining the futility of war, but it falls on the deaf ears the "leadership," in this country. Here's a Special Comment from 2007 by Keith Olbermann on the sell-out by the Democrats on war funding

Really? Congress? Really?

From the youtube description

NOTE: The physics in this might not be 100% correct, but this was more for fun than actual science/calculations. Also we had to give it a rating for how physically correct it was, I only used XP and RP which basically meant physics outside this universe.

(528 Obama-dumping days until 2012 election-Hugh's Obama's Scandals List)

Dana Frank reports that 70 members of the US Congress are calling for suspension of U.S. military and police aid to Honduras because of how, especially in the last two months, there has been a serious acceleration of government repression.

Frank also reports that ousted President Zelaya will be allowed to return to the country:

On May 22, Zelaya and the current president of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, signed a pact permitting Zelaya to return free of the trumped-up charges the coup makers leveled against him when the Honduran military packed him onto a plane to Costa Rica on June 28, 2009. Lobo also promised to allow plebiscites and to recognize the National Front of Popular Resistance, the broad coalition uniting labor, women’s groups, peasant organizations, gay alliances and Afro-indigenous movements.

But both of these “concessions” are already legally on the books, and grant nothing concrete to the opposition.

Zelaya’s return itself does have enormous popular significance. For hundreds of thousands of Hondurans, including those who are quite critical of him, he is the grand symbol of resistance to the ongoing military coup. He represents constitutional order, the rule of law and a hope for a different Honduran future based on social justice.

The killing of millions of Sacramento splittail, a native minnow species, and thousands of threatened Central Valley spring-run chinook salmon at the state and federal water project pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta over the past week highlights the folly of H.R. 1837, the resolution by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) to guarantee water supplies to corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

The San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act “would undo years of efforts to balance Delta restoration with water supply reliability and to restore the San Joaquin River,” according to a news release from Restore the Delta.

“H.R. 1837 is an end run around California’s water rights laws,” said Delta pear farmer Brett Baker. “It puts junior rights holders ahead of Delta agriculture, Indian tribes, and fish. Forget public trust protections.”

Recovery of the West Coast’s recreational and commercial fishing industries is threatened by operation of federal and state water projects, which create conditions hostile to Central Valley Chinook salmon and other species.

During the 8-day period from May 16 though May 23, the federal pumps killed 4,241,089 Sacramento splittail and the state facilities took 157,349 fish. That’s a total of 4,400,073 splittail.