mousemusings...multimedia, music, progressive politics, video, web design and general rants
Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.
~Kurt Vonnegut
Sunday, April 30, 2006

May Day: International Workers Day


The Brief Origins of May Day

The Real Labor Day
Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying
We'll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers' Commonwealth.
~Joe Hill

Thousands Ready to Leave Jobs for a Day
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


A New Season

the half-empty glass
leaking rust-tinged memories
into the polished keyhole
of a closed door
stained
with
streaks of manipulation
frozen beneath intense sunshine
baked
broiled
burned

your tender wounds
bathed
in inexperienced light
filtered through
a soft lace
of magnolia blossoms
tinged with a
magical root stimulant
gingerly seeping
into untrodden soil
slowly but resolutely
nourishes lush lusty growth
and places on my mantle
a vase
holding
a picture
of you

~cyndy

posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Saturday, April 29, 2006

Robert Scheer: Top Spy’s Story on Prewar Intel Is Finally Told



This is the illustration for Robert Scheer's essay on prewar intelligence. He discusses how the story was squelched by the media before the 2004 election.
posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link |   | |


Friday Government News Release Watch

Often, our government issues its most interesting news releases of Friday. The idea is that they are less likely to get widespread coverage if they are released just beforethe weekend. Therefore, we need to pay special attention to these items.
FBI Investigated 3,501 People Without Warrants
Received Details From Banks, Credit Card, Telephone and Internet Companies
By MARK SHERMAN, AP

WASHINGTON (April 29) - The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday.

It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena.

Friday's disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration's sweeping anti-terror law.
I've often thought that there should be a special section in the Sunday paper, summarizing all the news released that the government makes on Friday.
posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link |   | |

line
Friday, April 28, 2006

Is This a Good Political Move by the Leaker in Chief?

Bush Approves Takeover of Military Plants by Dubai


93% of those surveyed on the page said NO.

When I saw the headline I expected a spoof site. You know; ports, plants, they all sound the same.
What a great example of the decider listening before he makes a decision. I thought he heard the voices roar with the ports debacle, but, now I'm imagining him squatted and rocking back and forth in a corner of the Oval Office with his fingers in his ears saying "I can't hear you". (That's assuming the Oval Office has corners, of course)
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Do you ever realize, in the middle of the night, what you've done?

Why can't you truthfully tell us, Mr. President, the reasons you led America into war? Was it for the WMD, for regime change, for the oil, for grand neocon visions, to avenge your father, to win elections at home? What were your real intentions? Are you afraid to tell us? Or is the truth that, deep down, you never really knew?
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Sunday, April 23, 2006

Plain Truth About Bunker-Buster Nukes

President Bush has let us know that he hears the voices (of the opposition), but unfortunately he gives no indication that he has listened to the voices, or attempted any kind of critical analysis. He has let us know that he is the decider, but he gives no indication of whether his decisions are based upon consideration of both sides (or n sides) of the issue.

There are reasons to think that Bush does not consider issues in their entirety. The conservative-leaning UK paper, The Times, recently commented:
Bush’s Washington still pays far too much heed to some of the wilder propagandists based in think tanks. Increasingly, bodies such as the AEI (for which I once wrote a scholarly volume on British political history) are less keen on sponsoring thinking and research. They are giving desk space and star roles to a breed of fast-talking practitioners of the television soundbite.
We know that he has listened to the folks at the , which generally advocates the preemptive use of force. From a recent Think Progress post:
This tidbit about President Bush’s schedule was buried in today’s [4/22/2006]Washington Post:

Bush traveled Friday night to Stanford University, where he met privately with members of the libertarian Hoover Institution to discuss the war. He concluded the day with a private dinner held by George P. Shultz, a Hoover fellow and former secretary of state.

Why is this significant? The Hoover Institution is a think tank that has been aggressively promoting the viability of a preemptive military strike in Iran. Here’s just a couple of recent examples —

Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at Hoover:

[Europe] will be able to think of all sorts of nicer alternatives to taking out Iran’s nuclear development sites. They will be able to come up with all sorts of abstract arguments and moral equivalence, such as: Other countries have nuclear weapons. Why not Iran? Debating abstract questions is much easier than confronting concrete and often brutal alternatives. The big question is whether we are serious or suicidal. [Creators Syndicate, 1/3/06]

Tod Lindberg, a research fellow at Hoover:

Whatever it is that Saddam was going to perpetrate in his remaining years in power, whatever he intended to bequeath to his sons and whatever in turn they would do to follow up on his legacy, this we have prevented… Which takes us back to Iran…I don’t think it would be a good idea to wait around in the hope that we never arrive at the moment when we realize we should have done something. [Washington Times, 4/18/06]

George P. Schultz, who hosted the event, was an “early defender of the use of pre-emptive force to deal with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.”
So he has listened to one side of the issue, but has he heard, and does he understand, the other side? Has he even given careful consideration to the one side he has listened to?

I can't help but notice that the first quote from a Hoover fellow (Sowell) dismisses the validity of "abstract arguments," while the second quote (Lindberg) presents an abstract argument. Moreover, Lindberg's argument is flawed: since it is always true that another country might someday use force against us, we cannot use the mere possibility as a rationale for use of preemptive force. There has to be some specific threshold. Henry Kissinger explained this in an opinion piece published in the International Herald Tribune:
Pre-emptive strategy involves an inherent dilemma: It is based on assumptions that cannot be proved when they are made. When the scope for action is greatest, knowledge is at a minimum. When knowledge is high, the scope for pre-emption has often disappeared. Had Churchill’s early warning been heeded, the Nazi plague could have been destroyed at relatively little cost. A decade later, tens of millions of dead paid the price for the quest for certainty of the statesmen of the 1930s.

American policy needs to navigate this element of uncertainty. The key question becomes: How is the threat to be defined, and through what institutions can resistance to it be implemented? If each nation claims the right to define its pre-emptive rights for itself, the absence of any rules would spell international chaos, not international order.
To get an idea of the chaos that could come from premature unilateral action, consider the possible outcomes that could occur if the US were to use nuclear weapons against Iran. There are two issue to consider. One issue is the direct effect of the use of a nuclear bunker-buster bomb. Another is the implication of the use of such a weapon with regard to international relations.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has prepared some information on the subject. The article explains the widespread destructive effects of the weapons. They point out that it is widely believed that earth-penetrating nuclear weapons result in an explosion that is contained underground. This is not the case.
The depth at which even a small nuclear weapon must be buried to ensure that it is "contained" —that is, that no radiation is released when it explodes—is much greater than the achievable penetration depth, so that it is impossible to prevent radioactive fallout from a nuclear EPW.
They illustrate the point with an example:
For example, the new nuclear earth penetrator that the United States plans to research would use a 1.2-megaton weapon. According to a simulation using software developed for the Pentagon, if one of these weapons were used against the underground nuclear facility in Esfahan, Iran, 3 million people would be killed by radiation within 2 weeks of the explosion, and 35 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India would be exposed to increased levels of cancer-causing radiation.
The article containing these quotes is here. For those who don't have the patience to read a fairly technical article on the subject, the UCS has prepared a short animation (using Flash video) that covers the key points. The article also contains a discussion of the deleterious effect that the use of a nuclear weapon would have on international relations. They argue that our security situation would be worsened by the use of a nuclear weapon against Iran.

Others have expressed concern about the implications of new US nuclear weapons policy, regardless of whether we actually use a nuclear weapon against Iran. Matters of particular concern are the Nuclear Posture Review delivered to Congress in December 2001, and the March 2005 Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations. Some informed persons have pointed out that the DJNO now embraces a policy of the US using nuclear weapons against countries that do not have nuclear weapons. Apparently, the previous policy was that we would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear foe. The idea was to provide a disincentive for countries contemplating the development of nuclear weapons. We wanted other countries to know that they would be giving up some degree of security if they developed nuclear weapons. Now, that disincentive has been removed. Almost 2,000 physicists have signed a petition protesting this policy revision.
Instead, this new U.S. policy conveys a clear message to the 182 non-nuclear weapon states that the United States is moving strongly away from disarmament, and is in fact prepared to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries. It provides a strong incentive for countries to abandon the NPT and pursue nuclear weapons themselves and dramatically increases the risk of nuclear proliferation, and ultimately the risk that regional conflicts will explode into all-out nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.
The rationale for the petition is described here, at Globalsecurity.org.

If President Bush is ever to gain some semblance of credibility on matters of national security and foreign policy, he is gong to have to show that he not only hears the voice of opposition, but that he listens and understands. If he understood the UCS objections to the use of a nuclear bunker-buster, he would not have decided to leave that option open. So far, there is no indication that he is even aware of the arguments against his policy of preemptive force. Until he can present some facts that underlie a cogent counterargument to the position taken by the scientific community, he needs to stop being the decider, and start being the listener.
posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link |   | |


Encourage Congress to Hold Israel Accountable

With the recent publication of the working paper by mainstream scholars breaking the silence/taboo about the inordinate and counter-productive influence of the American pro-Israel lobby, the Council for the National Interest Foundation (our true national interest hardly being served at present) put a full-page ad on the back page of this past Sunday's NYT front section.

Now is a great time to lend your voice by signing this petition that will be sent to your Congressperson. [Of course, read the whole thing to allay any concerns you have that this is some neo-fucking-Nazi group!] Donations are also accepted to get more ads into other papers, etc.
posted by Andy | link |   | |


Neil Young's protest album to go online

Starting April 28, fans can log onto Young's Web site, www.neilyoung.com, and listen to the 10-track collection in its entirety, free of charge, said Bill Bentley, a spokesman for Warner Music Group's Reprise Records. The album will first become commercially available as a digital download beginning May 2, "and we plan to get it into retail stores as soon after that as we can get them manufactured," Bentley said.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Friday, April 21, 2006

Video Interview with Neil Young

Asked about his new album "Living with War", and one of his new songs, "Impeach the President" he explains, here at youtube.com

Reviews and more at livingwithwar.blogspot.com, apparently it's Neil Young's new blog, but I'm not sure about that.
and
downwithtyranny.blogspot.com, an entertaining progressive blog who has Neil posts with exclusive information here, and here.

I also recommend you check often at Neil Young's site and read the streaming lyrics that scroll across the bottom of the main page. More lyric tickers here and more to come. I, for one, can't wait to hear them. May the free world rock again!


UPDATE: More Neil Young news here, a blog dedicated to Neil Young News.

posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Thursday, April 20, 2006

Scathing

posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Take Note: Managing the Atom

Iran News
A new Iran blog by experts at Harvard University.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


A Stroll Down Memory Lane


For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker:

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH
posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link |   | |


Fibs

I'm late to the party.
1/1/2/3/5/8

found in the comments, a stacked form of the fib:

George,
make
my day
say you want
to retire away
from all those hacks on the beltway
deep in the brush in the hush of the discreet mesquites
to contemplate your legacy
nevermore to make
war on them
or us
or
rove
~Max Entropy

The hottest blog of the week.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Holy F -*ing Handkerchief!

No comment.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Question and Question Again, our Foreign Policy and our Leadership

We know where incompetence has taken us the past few years and neither the public nor the media has been vigilant. We have some acute warning signs that very few in the media are latching onto.

I'm worried. I'm worried that young people don't even grasp the dangers of nuclear war. I honestly don't think they have a clue; it's just a glorified form of warfare in their minds. Shock and Awe, how cool.

I'm worried that they don't even know what non-proliferation means or what the Non-Proliferation Treaty were intended to achieve. I'm worried that we don't pay attention to history, to the mistakes of the past, or to words from people who have lived it. I'm worried that people still have a misconception that foreign policy is sound in the hands of Republicans. What a successful mudball of disinformation that particular concept has been until recently! I'm just not sure it's been squashed or stomped on enough. I'm sure many people are still unaware of PNAC and only have heard the term 'neocon' but haven't paid attention to any further details. Of course, it isn't like the details are out there for the average American to see. I'm afraid the average American is against the war for the reason Scott Ritter points out: "Americans aren't against the war in Iraq because it is wrong; they are against it because we are losing."

About a year ago Robert McNamara wrote the article, Apocalypse Soon, "he believes the United States must no longer rely on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. To do so is immoral, illegal, and dreadfully dangerous." We can get a sense of how diplomatically destructive our current policy is when we read the news of escalating tension with Iran, but McNamara chills me to the bone, beyond the idea of diplomatic destruction, more to a visceral cellular destruction pointing to a bomb inside me, like a bomb threatening to backfire.

Joseph Cirincione writes Fool Me Twice, an extension of his interview that I pointed to here. He writes: "We cannot let the political or ideological agenda of a small group determine a national security decision that could create havoc in a critical area of the globe. Not again."

This is what Bush said in his first debate with Kerry when asked what the biggest threat facing this country was:

George W Bush: We've increased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation about 35% since I've been the president.

Secondly, we've set up what's called the - well, first of all, I agree with my opponent that the biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network.

And that's why proliferation is one of the centrepieces of a multi-prong strategy to make the country safer.

Yes, that was a completely nonsensical answer and leaves one wondering if the 35% increase in funding was instead funding to increase our own proliferation.

Just look what we're doing:
In 1995 and 2000, the 187 countries in the NPT met in a series of major international conferences in New York to reaffirm their commitment to the treaty. At the time, the United States joined the rest of the "nuclear club" in promising, again, the "unequivocal undertaking" to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.

As soon as he was elected, George W. Bush renounced those commitments. We need the nukes because we're the good guys, went the rationale. The administration pulled out of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at the same time (although a moratorium is in effect).

With a series of moves capped off by the deal with India, Bush has now renounced the central idea that "the proliferation of nuclear weapons" itself, as the NPT reads, "would seriously enhance the danger of nuclear war." The administration wants a new order where Washington decides -- without objective criteria -- which countries are worthy of nuclear technology and which ones are not. India's nuclear program -- which U.S. policy makers have condemned since the mid 1970s -- is fine. Pakistan's is fine. Israel's, no problem. Iran? No way.

That may not seem so bad on the surface, but it sends the worst possible message: All those years of complaints that the NPT was a discriminatory treaty set up by the powerful to keep the powerless from creating an even playing field have been proved right by George Bush. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a nonproliferation vet -- told PBS's News Hour, that the deal "blows a hole through any attempts in the future that we could make to convince the Pakistanis, or the Iranians, or the North Koreans, or for that matter any other country in world that might interested in obtaining nuclear weapons, that there is a level playing field, that there is a real set of safeguards."


There is a lot of experience and insight in the links provided above. There are a few more words of experience below, but I don't think they apply exclusively to Rumsfeld. He may have made recommendations but someone else made the incompetent dangerous decisions. Bush is at the epicenter of the problem himself.

THE GENERALS SPEAK OUT

Quotes from the retired generals who are calling for
the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld:

"We went to war with a flawed plan that didn't account for the hard work to
build the peace after we took down the regime. We also served under a
secretary of defense who didn't understand leadership, who was abusive, who
was arrogant, who didn't build a strong team."— Retired Army Maj. Gen. John
Batiste

"My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done
with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who
have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results."— Retired
Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold

"They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda. I think
that's a mistake, and that's why I think he should resign."— Retired Army
Maj. Gen. John Riggs

"We grow up in a culture where accountability, learning to accept
responsibility, admitting mistakes and learning from them was critical to
us. When we don't see that happening it worries us. Poor military judgment
has been used throughout this mission." — Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni,
former chief of U.S. Central Command

"I really believe that we need a new secretary of defense because Secretary
Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him. ... I think we need senior
military leaders who understand the principles of war and apply them
ruthlessly, and when the time comes, they need to call it like it is."—
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack

"He has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and
tactically, and is far more than anyone responsible for what has happened to
our important mission in Iraq. ... Mr. Rumsfeld must step down."— Retired
Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton

It's past time to ask questions.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Sunday, April 16, 2006

Government Watchdog





This is a cartoon to go along with the prior post. The source, by Nick Anderson, Kentucky -- The Louisville Courier-Journal, is here.


posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link |   | |

line
Saturday, April 15, 2006

Don't expect the Democrats to keep us out of war


Will Press Put Out Fire on Iran?

The media dropped its guard in the run-up to the attack on Iraq. Will they redeem themselves if pressure builds for an air strike or war against Iran? There are some indications that some lessons may have been learned. [...]


Newspapers may be in the role of bullpen stopper right now, with the current Iran "semi-crisis." In baseball lingo, they should try to "put out the fire" there, after losing one for the home team in Iraq three years ago.


To those who would say that this inflates the power or even role of the press in America today, I would reply: You don't expect the Democrats to keep us out of war, do you? Just as they would not stand up to the president on Iraq for fear of appearing "weak on terror," they would likely be wary of appearing "weak on the Tehran Bomb." Let's face it: All the Democrats want to do right now is stagger through to November with an unpopular president in office, and hope that, maybe, they can re-take at least one house of Congress -- without having to stick their necks out.


So the media, usually only a middle-reliever or in a mop-up role on this playing field, might have to pitch with the game on the line.



That's from a column on the website for Editor and Publisher, written by Greg Mitchell. It is written perhaps more harshly that I might have written it, but the sentiment is the same.


Mitchell goes on to give a few example of the press starting to show some spirited opposition to the government's propaganda campaign. Unfortunately, for every example he gives, there are many examples of the press blithely parroting the Administration's efforts to prepare the minds of Americans for battle.


I hope he's right, but that is not how I see the media responding at this point. They are still the stenographers for the Project for a New American Century, as far as I am concerned.


As Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols put it, back in 2003:



At Bush's last prewar press conference, the White House press corps looked more like stenographers than journalists. Even some reporters were appalled; ABC News White House correspondent Terry Moran said the reporters looked "like zombies," while Copley News Service Washington correspondent George Condon Jr. told AJR that it "just became an article of faith among a lot of people: 'Look at this White House press corps; it's just abdicated all responsibility.'" Millions of Americans agreed. "I talked to people everywhere I went who said that if the media, especially the television media, had done its job, there wouldn't have been a war," says Representative Jim McDermott.
posted by : Joseph j7uy5 | link |   | |

line
Friday, April 14, 2006

Neil Young: Living With War



“Neil just finished writing and recording – with no warning – a new album called Living With War. It all happened in three days.”

Details are pretty scarce, but the featured track, titled “Impeach the President,” features a rap with Bush’s voice set to the choir chanting “flip/flop” and the like.
more here and here.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Sunday, April 09, 2006

Thinking While Linking

I really just want to gather these links here while I think quietly to myself.

Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say
The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration.

And via The Corpus Callosum, "Operation Tiramisu"
WHY, if this talk about Iran is supposedly all about protecting Israel, as Bush stated the other day, would Bush out an Israeli intelligence operation undoing months of painstaking effort and possibly endangering operatives?? Is it a hobby of his?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Neocon Plan to Wreck the Economy
“White House apparently hoped that by the time anyone found out about the flooding of the market with dollars, they could stage an event, such as an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, that would distract the public entirely.”


Iran Maneuvers: Of Missile Tests & "Salami Tactics"

Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
The Seymour Hersh article.

With the bone of optimism I still try to chomp on, I was wondering if perhaps the administration was perfectly happy letting the internet disseminate propaganda for them, in effect calling someone's bluff, that was until I listened to this interview with Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the rhetoric surrounding Iran, and what it all means.

Too many times lately have I sat with my mouth gaping in disbelief while this administration has done the unthinkable. I can only echo Kathryn Cramer's words right now because my words are stuck somewhere between a lump in my throat and outrage fatigue. "Why don't we just . . . ---- . . . be very very careful".

As I find other links that feed either the lump, the thought, or the outrage I'll add them to this entry.

UPDATES:
Belligerent Until the Bitter End
If You Can't Win One War, Start Another

by Paul Craig Roberts
"The classic method of war finance is inflation".
"We are witnessing the American citizen's loss of his voice and the rise of concentrated power. The primacy that the neocons are seeking over the world will prevail over the American people, too".

Stop a U.S. nuclear attack on Iran!

UPDATE 2 added April 10
Early Warning
WAPO William Arkin

"In my mind, the role of journalism is to give the public the tools to decide. This includes an understanding of not just the situation on the ground in Iran, but also an understanding of the intelligence community's understanding. There should be no more slam dunks.

...The public not only needs to know whether the three bears have arrived at a trancelike state, under the allusion that their furniture is perfect, unable to seek any flaws because they've cut off all the outside Goldilocks from giving any input.

In the world of covering national security, particularly up against a singularly-minded and secretive Bush administration, finding out what's really going on in the three bear's house is mighty difficult."
A war with Iran started purposefully or by accident, will be a mess. What is happening now though is not just an administration prudently preparing for the unfortunate against an aggressive and crazed state, it is also aggressive and crazed, driven by groupthink and a closed circle of bears.

The public needs to know first, that this planning includes preemptive plans that the President could approve and implement with 12 hours notice. Congress should take notice of the fact that there is a real war plan -- CONPLAN 8022 -- and it could be implemented tomorrow.

Second, the public needs to know that the train has left the station on bigger war planning, that a ground war -- despite the Post claim yesterday that a land invasion "is not contemplated" -- is also being prepared. It is a real war plan; I've heard CONPLAN 1025.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Calvin Does Piss Christ



I was just thinking how it would look to merge these two commom car window decals, weren't you?
posted by Andy | link |   | |

line
Friday, April 07, 2006

Flashback and Flashpoints

"I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."


"When America speaks, we ought to mean what we said," Bush told the World Affairs Council of Charlotte. "I meant what we said when we embraced that resolution that said 'Disclose. Disarm. Or face serious consequences.' Words mean something in this world if you're trying to protect the American people."

It's pretty easy to take appropriate action and show us words mean something. Resign. Just. go. now. Protect us by leaving. Save us the expense and trouble of booting you out.

If the hypocrisy doesn't raise the hair on your toes, the following will...

Ray McGovern is interviewed on Flashpoints Radio. After listening to it, I fully understand his meaning of 'outrage fatigue', but cannot come up with a better description either. It's a must listen. This took me beyond outrage or even shame. Fright is even mild.

"I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington".
~Harry Taylor
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Thank You Harry Taylor!



posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Aha! Favors The Prepared Mind

...the brain functions differently when a person arrives at "Aha!" solutions, compared to methodical solutions. The current study reveals that the distinct patterns of brain activity leading to "Aha!" moments of insight begin much earlier than the time a problem is solved. The research suggests that people can mentally prepare to have an "Aha!" solution even before a problem is presented. Specifically, as people prepare for problems that they solve with insight, their pattern of brain activity suggests that they are focusing attention inwardly, are ready to switch to new trains of thought, and perhaps are actively silencing irrelevant thoughts. These findings are important because they show that people can mentally prepare to solve problems with different thinking styles and that these different forms of preparation can be identified with specific patterns of brain activity. This study may eventually lead to an understanding of how to put people in the optimal "frame of mind" to deal with particular types of problems.

...) it may be that how a person is thinking before problem solving begins is just as important as the kind of thinking involved in reaching the solution, and perhaps even determines whether the solution will be derived with a sudden insight.


This partially explains the Aha! moments upon waking, or while taking a quiet walk and it also explains why heavyhandedness and forced production will often yield less creativity/innovation than does allowing flexibility in the workplace.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Thursday, April 06, 2006

The trip of a lifetime

Pam Sakuda, 58, is dying of cancer. Last year she took part in a controversial pilot project which uses psilocybin (pronounced sil-o-cybin), which comes from magic mushrooms, to help patients cope with the anxiety of being terminally ill.

...) It's far too early to say whether psychedelics do have a role in modern psychiatry. But Pam Sakuda is convinced her experience of psilocybin has helped her face death.

"It was a dramatic difference from the morning to the afternoon," she says. "I came to see that being so afraid and so negative about all the things I wouldn't be able to do was really limiting the time I do have left. I started to live fully and richly and intensely."
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Orion

Here are a few links from Orion magazine that I'm busy with even as I smile with the news of Delay delayed.

A five-week online video exploration with author. lecturer, and de facto cultural historian
James Howard Kunstler

The Idea of a Local Economy
by Wendell Berry

Telling Stories
The Restorative Power of Myth
by Kelpie Wilson

After I'm finished with these, I'm moving on to the archives.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line
Monday, April 03, 2006

How the GOP Became God's Own Party

A Fatal Convergence?
by Kevin Phillips, the author of "American Theocracy: The Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century"

I'm linking to this for Andy who always rolls his eyes whenever I mention Armageddon. He never lived in the South.

Kevin Phillips writes: "On the most important front, I am beginning to think that the Southern-dominated, biblically driven Washington GOP represents a rogue coalition, like the Southern, proslavery politics that controlled Washington until Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860."

I want him (Kevin Phillips) to think just beyond his preceeding thought and expand upon it. I suggest it is precisely a rogue coalition, grown directly from those proslavery politics, passed down through the generations to the tune of 'the south will rise again'. White southern churches live it. Believe me. There is a rogue coalition that has been manipulating some very gullible true believers from the day they wore their first diaper.

More from his article:
The United States, some $4 trillion in hock internationally, has become the world's leading debtor, increasingly nagged by worry that some nations will sell dollars in their reserves and switch their holdings to rival currencies. Washington prints bonds and dollar-green IOUs, which European and Asian bankers accumulate until for some reason they lose patience. This is the debt Achilles' heel, which stands alongside the oil Achilles' heel.

Unfortunately, more danger lurks in the responsiveness of the new GOP coalition to Christian evangelicals, fundamentalists and Pentecostals, who muster some 40 percent of the party electorate. Many millions believe that the Armageddon described in the Bible is coming soon. Chaos in the explosive Middle East, far from being a threat, actually heralds the second coming of Jesus Christ. Oil price spikes, murderous hurricanes, deadly tsunamis and melting polar ice caps lend further credence.

No reason to fix anything. God already fixed the voting machines.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |


Nothing to See Here

I could write a little about the secret Saudi nuclear program. The one they are working on with the help of Pakistan, or I could overlook it just as our government seems to be doing. Someone else will open the Pandora's box of nuclear proliferation.
There's nothing to see here. It's kind of like looking for the 911 Truth.
posted by Cyndy | link |   | |

line



Feeds and Info

xml

Subscribe with Bloglines

Blogroll Me!

email


xml pill


feedburner

FeedBurner.com Logo

add to my yahoo



Google
Web
mousemusings


www.flickr.com
Cyndy's photos More of Cyndy's photos


Via BuzzFeed

Recent Comments




My Del.icio.us


subscribe to
my del.icio.us feed






Categories


My




Archives

2000
8, 9, 10, 11

2001
2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

2002
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

2003
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

2004
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

2005
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

2006
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

2007
1, 2, 3



Links
Green
Political
Progressive Blog Alliance


sTaRe Network

blogger pro



blogrank
LS Blogs

www.blogwise.com

blogarama
Blogarama


Listed on BlogShares


blogstreet

Progressive Women's Blog Ring
Join | List | Previous | Next | Random | Previous 5 | Next 5 | Skip Previous | Skip Next