General Interest

When cataclysmic disasters strike, it usually doesn’t take long for TV prophets like Pat Robertson, John Hagee and the late, unlamented Jerry Falwell to pronounce them portentous signs of God’s wrath. Equally predictable: God’s punishments are always closely aligned with the prophets’ right-wing political views. It’s notable then that with the biggest-ever oil slick bearing down on Gulf Coast beaches and a spate of deadly tornadoes and floods across the South over the past few weeks, interpreters of divine vengeance have been eerily quiet.

I just listened to NY’s Jonathan Tasini on the Brian Lehrer show on wnyc.

Tasini is facing an uphill race for US Senator from New York against Gillibrand, benefactress of Wall Street largess, particularly from SEC-investigated Goldman Sachs. She is the latest puppet crony for corporations within our Congress. Schumer, also from New York, was a major architect for deregulation on their behalf declares Tasini.

Such an uphill battle, in fact, that though he faced down Hillary Clinton for the Senate race long ago and won almost one-quarter of the vote, The New York Times recently declared in print that Gillibrand was running uncontested on the Democratic ticket, which is a damn lie, upsetting Tasini’s mom, most significantly.

Why no acknowledgment? Because an honest candidate not cronied up with oodles of corporate backing will be WILLFULLY ignored by our premier national newspaper. In your face, America. The fourth estate is totally cronied up with corporations. Doesn’t that make you want to get Tasini elected all the more??? Disenfranchise honest truth-to-power candidates. That's the name of this long-term game.

Jonathan Tasini FIGHTS BACK as Wall Street showers his senate opponent, BENEFACTRESS-OF-THE-CRONY-STATUS-QUO, Gillibrand, with campaign cash. He is launching a new website called: DUMPWALLSTREETMONEY-DOT-COM!!!!!

Please SIGN THE PETITION addressed to:

Tim Kaine / Chair / Democratic National Committee
and
Michael Steele / Chair / Republican National Committee.

“We believe that Wall Street’s undue influence over members of Congress, via campaign cash, is a central reason for the current economic crisis—too many legislators let Wall Street and banks run wild in return for pocketing checks to finance elections.

Therefore, we demand that the leaders of the two parties immediately call on every candidate for office, as well as all party-related committees, to return every dollar collected from Goldman Sachs-related contributions given the serious charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging a systematic fraud perpetrated on the American people by Goldman Sachs.”

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

It's not just a matter of a few frogs that are endangered

It's a domino effect

If the frogs disappear, there's a good chance the Clark's Nutcracker (bird) disappears. If that disappears, there's a good chance the Whitebark Pine disappears. And then ...

Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frog's Site Fidelity May Lead to Further Decline

ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2010) — USDA Forest Service researchers found that site fidelity, the tendency to return to previously occupied habitats, is strong in the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog. Research showed how the cumulative effects of a changing climate and introduced non-native trout are negatively impacting the habitat of a species already gone from 90 percent of its historic localities, and will further stress frogs with strong site fidelity.

200 years of jurisprudence is being overturned by our constitutional law educated President, observed guest pundit Jack Rice on Countdown 4-7-10. He and Olbermann were discussing the President's recent authorization of the assassination of an American citizen.

Of course the writ of habeas corpus -- a legal action, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention -- was overturned by the Bush administration and incredibly, to many of us, that decision was sustained by President Obama. The foundations of habeas corpus were established by the Magna Carta of 1215 in England. Our original 13 colonies used them to organize our constitutional republic.

Eli Lake explains how Bush and now Obama have legally accessed such extreme executive power :

Burger King commercials being tested for Arab TV:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

"How Saudis Really See Americans":

The ads were developed by Dubai-based Tonic Communications for the Gulf region’s Burger King franchise-holder, Riyadh-based Olayan Group, a Saudi-owned international conglomerate.

Olayan officials did not respond to an email and phone messages seeking comment, and a Tonic official said he was not given permission by his client to speak with a reporter.

But it is clear that the ads are targeting the Gulf region’s savvy and travel-loving young adult population. Of the 70,000 Saudis studying abroad on government scholarships, about 24,000 of them are in the United States.

The Startling Effects of Going Vegetarian for Just One Day

Sometimes, solutions to the world's biggest problems are right in front of us. The following statistics are eye-opening, to say the least.

April 2, 2009

I've written extensively on the consequences of eating meat -- on our health, our sense of "right living", and on the environment. It is one of those daily practices that has such a broad and deep effect that I think it merits looking at over and over again, from all the different perspectives. Sometimes, solutions to the world's biggest problems are right in front of us. The following statistics are eye-opening, to say the least.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

— 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;

— 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;

— 70 million gallons of gas -- enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;

Citigroup's Rubin's and Prince's "Duh" testimony in Congress about the financial crisis! So, sorry, America. We had no idea. Is that as good as the accountability gets?

Time to resurrect the story of Brooksley Born this week and try to sustain in our memory how clearly it indicts these masters of the universe who have gang-raped Americans of their financial security. The truth of Born's story won't be highlighted with any help from a corporate-loving media, unfortunately, or a Congress that colluded with the financial clique headed by Greenspan that "killed" messenger Born's message OVER A DECADE AGO.

This is an article I wrote about Brooksley Born back on October 24, 2009 for FDL's Seminal. With the assembly line of fresh hells and horrors and the kabuki exercises in faux-accountability the cronies of the banking industry are pulling with their paid off cronies in Congress, let us remember what actually was going down back then. I have bolded certain assertions worth remembering.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/11000

No Foes to Fraud — Greenspan, Rubin, Summers — Owe Brooksley Born and the American Taxpayer a Big Fat Apology and a Ton of Money
By: libbyliberal Saturday October 24, 2009 12:16 pm

I was at a branch of B&N tonight as the boxes of a fresh, new book, A Captain’s Duty, by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty (Hyperion Press) were being unpacked. Phillips has become a popular guest on radio programs this week. (WNYC, Leonard Lopate tomorrow, Thursday afternoon FYI). I had heard Phillips interviewed on NPR before I left for B&N, and to my surprise I had completely stopped my usual "multi-tasking" and was sitting riveted, hanging onto his every word.

Flipping through the book later, it did not disappoint. He is an intrepid, hard working, well-respected career Merchant Mariner … a captain .. who is now one of many vulnerable sea people in the million square miles of ocean off the coast of Africa vulnerable to pirating. These days, one small skiff with its sophisticated weaponry can easily overcome a ship. In 1991 the government of Somalia collapsed. There was mass starvation. Pirating subsequently began to thrive with a number of ambitious and lawless youth. In 2008 alone, pirates garnered $120 million for overtaking ships and crews and charging exorbitant ransoms.

One band of pirates incredibly meet their match with Captain Phillips, who dramatically relates his harrowing experience. Phillips offered himself up as a hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew. He endures a constantly life-threatening five day stand off and at one point nearly escapes. This enrages the pirates so much they intensify their cruelty toward him. He pits his will against theirs. His courage and his wit are dazzling.

I am slapping this down really fast cuz I am really, really, really angry. I will write a fuller blog later I am sure on the Iran and US situation, but I couldn't let this moment pass. Please indulge me.

I caught part of a podcast of Meet the Press. A part where David Gregory sets up Senator Joe Lieberman to "war monger" once again for war with Iran. That part begins at 30:25 if you access the podcast link for Meet the Press before next Sunday 4/11/10.

David Gregory disingenuously asks Senator Lieberman if Lieberman is AFRAID that the US and the West, in general, are DRIFTING to a war with Iran. Drifting to war with Iran? We all know damn well Lieberman is paddling away like crazy to get us there!

Of course Lieberman has already earlier in the show reminded all of us we were attacked on 9/11 and we are at WAR WAR WAR ... but that is when he was talking about ... what was it.... not throwing out the law in dealing with enemy combatants.. but the question was more aptly WHICH LAW should be used with them. That is the question, he said. You mean the real law, Joe, or the jingoistic faux-law that Bush imposed and Obama is following up on? But that is for another blog ... grrrrrr. Anyway, .... back to Iran ....

Ted Rall in his rather short but chilling article Obama Revives Clinton’s Disastrous Triangulation Strategy reveals that Obama actually laid out his appreciation for amoral political pragmatism in his ever-popular The Audacity of Hope:

"It was Bill Clinton who recognized that the categories of conservative and liberal played to Republican advantage and were inadequate to address our problems … Clinton's third way...tapped into the pragmatic, non-ideological attitude of Americans."

Rall points out that Obama’s use of triangulation is like Clinton’s was, only on steroids, or in Rall's words, “triangulation gone wild”. Clinton, Rall asserts, “forgot he was a Democrat,” thanks to this theory of a powerful adviser, Dick Morris, now an actual Republican operative and Fox News darling, and Clinton’s greatest achievements were Republican party platforms, “free trade deals like NAFTA and WTO", reforming welfare, and balancing the federal budget from the working and middle classes.

Because of Clintonian triangulation, the liberal base of the Democratic Party saw the 1990s as a squandered opportunity: eight years of unprecedented economic expansion with not one new social program, not even national healthcare, to show for it. They got the message: voting Democratic doesn't guarantee Democratic policies. Unenthused, liberals stayed home or voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Liberal disgust for triangulation (they called it "selling out") sufficiently reduced Al Gore's margin of victory to allow George W. Bush to steal Florida and the national election. It took the Democrats six years to begin to recover.

The Truth About Meg Whitman

The Truth About Steve Poizner

8 Wonders of the Solar System, art by Ron Miller

I'm moving this paragraph to the top to summarize what he's doing

The Attorney General's wording uses the word "taxes" four times, associated with the words "raise" and "increase". It includes the conservative language "spending and tax increases," usually used to vilify liberals. His title and summary raises voters' fears that their taxes could be raised. It replaces the intent of the initiative to promote democracy via majority vote by a purported but untrue intent to raise taxes on individual voters.

Brown v. Democracy

By George Lakoff UC Berkeley

With the California Financial Crisis at stake, the impartiality of the California Attorney General has come under scrutiny.

Proponents of the California Democracy Act, a ballot initiative that would restore a majority vote for revenue and budget in the legislature, are asking Jerry Brown, the Attorney General, for a new title and summary. An exhaustive poll has shown that Brown's title and summary changed the meaning and intent of the proposed initiative by one of the largest margins ever seen in a poll.

So we shake off the disappointment and renew our spirits for the next wave of universal healthcare activism.

I was reviewing some of my old pitches for Single Payer. I also found some terrific links of videos explaining and promoting a Single Payer - Expanded Medicare for All system. I trust they will be of use again soon enough, along with new upgraded ones, in our marathon campaign, ever growing (despite disinformation of media and craven pols), for universal healthcare in America.

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COOKIE MONSTER: Me Want Coooooookies!!!!!!!!

Channel surfing this morning I skimmed by Sesame Street and there was that scamp, Cookie Monster. “ME WANT COOKIES!!!” he roared. Can Cookie Monster say anything else?

Cookie Monster brilliantly shows not tells Sesame Street-viewing kids about the dangers of being driven solely by one’s primitive, self-indulgent appetite – an “id” gone wild! Sesame Street is teaching children about empathy and healthy, reasonable behavior.