Sign the petition, The Declaration of Muff-Independence and be a part of the Muff Heard 'Round the World! http://www.freedommuffins.com/
Are you outraged at the cataclysmic catastrophe that is unfolding, and will continue to unfold for years in the Gulf of Mexico? Are you disgusted by the long trail of wanton disregard for our lives, the lives of our wildlife, our livelihoods, and the very land, air and waters of our country that has lead directly to this calamitous disaster? Are you heart sick and tired of the outrageous greed and short-term thinking that is the root cause of this devastating tragedy and the other tragedies that have been foisted on our nation in recent times?
Well then show your outrage! Stick it to the slickers! Sign The Declaration of Muff-Independence so that we can deliver one million signatures to the Perps, our President and our Congress on July 4th, Independence Day 2010! Let them know loud and clear that we demand restoration, that this can NEVER be allowed to happen again, that This Will Not Stand, Dude! FREEDOM MUFFINS FOR ALL!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Why Helen Thomas was Right about Israel
When Helen Thomas dared to criticize Israel, America's sacred cow, her decades-long career as a journalist was summarily brought to an end with the predictable false claims of anti-semetism. To do this she was of course taken out of context when she said “Jews should get the hell out of Palestine.” When asked where they should go she said they should “go home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else.”
Obviously she was refering to the tens of thousands of Jews who immigrate to Israel every single year and the implication that has on the single biggest stumbling block to peace, Israel's continuing refusal to stop building settlements on Palestinian land and carving up their country. Helen Thomas dared to put her finger on the problem and got burned.
The Israeli people want peace, but they're held hostage by the ultraorthodox (fundamentalists) who, like all nationalists, believe that they hold claim all the land that was under their rule at any time in history, by god! It appears that the Palestinian people are also held hostage by the fundamentalists in their midst and want to move forward to peace.
From yesterday's Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/24/headlines
(emphasis added)
A new poll shows a majority of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories support reaching a peace agreement with the Israeli government. According to the Norwegian-based group FAFO, 73 percent of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza say they support negotiations with Israel but that the talks should be preconditioned on a settlement freeze. The poll also shows growing support for nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation, with the number of Palestinians who oppose rocket attacks from Gaza increasing to 61 percent from 53 percent. Israel has refused a settlement freeze while also rejecting any peace agreement that would involve giving up its large settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
Obviously she was refering to the tens of thousands of Jews who immigrate to Israel every single year and the implication that has on the single biggest stumbling block to peace, Israel's continuing refusal to stop building settlements on Palestinian land and carving up their country. Helen Thomas dared to put her finger on the problem and got burned.
The Israeli people want peace, but they're held hostage by the ultraorthodox (fundamentalists) who, like all nationalists, believe that they hold claim all the land that was under their rule at any time in history, by god! It appears that the Palestinian people are also held hostage by the fundamentalists in their midst and want to move forward to peace.
From yesterday's Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/24/headlines
(emphasis added)
A new poll shows a majority of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories support reaching a peace agreement with the Israeli government. According to the Norwegian-based group FAFO, 73 percent of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza say they support negotiations with Israel but that the talks should be preconditioned on a settlement freeze. The poll also shows growing support for nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation, with the number of Palestinians who oppose rocket attacks from Gaza increasing to 61 percent from 53 percent. Israel has refused a settlement freeze while also rejecting any peace agreement that would involve giving up its large settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Commentary on Tea Party shenanigans going on in Florida
So, the Tea Baggers (sorry, Partiers) don't like the flavor of politics? Ha! This is almost too rich to see them implode.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
New blog about Tea Party Hypocrisy!
http://www.teapartypledge.info/
Please share and spread the word, and it is still very much a work in progress (not the pledge so much, but the links and content).
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Climate Change and the Merchants of Doubt
If someone told you cigarettes are safe, would you give them to your children? Why on earth then would you take that exact same person’s word on global warming and the climate you’ll leave for your children!? http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/
I heard a great show recently (Thursday 6/3 - 8:00) on WPR with Naomi Areskes, a geologist (yeah!) and one of the authors of Merchants of Doubt – How a Handful of Scientists Obscure the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming: http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=jca
It seems that the same three names emerge repeatedly in the denial and sowing of doubt on major subjects where the science has actually been settled for some time, including DDT, Acid Rain, the Ozone Hole, Tobacco Hazards and Global Warming. Seriously? Tobacco and DDT!?
Cold warriors Fred Seitz, Fred Singer and Bill Neirenberg all worked on Starwars, Ronny’s Raygun project in the 1980s and were vehement anticommunists. When the Soviet Union collapsed they needed a new enemy (because that’s an essential conservative component). They were also free-market fundamentalists and believed that any government regulation lead directly to communism. Ironic, since global warming is a very real and concrete example of a failure of the so called free market place, just like the BP spill. In fact the externality of costs from global warming is probably the largest market failure in the history of the planet. So these market fundamentalists went to work for that pillar of corporate virtue RJ Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute. What fool would believe that a wholesome product like cigarettes cause cancer and emphysema?
These ideologues then turned on environmentalists as their new enemy, believing that environmentalists are like watermelons, green on the outside but red on the inside. They founded the George C. Marshall Institute http://www.marshall.org/ and worked closely with Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Heartland Group, all rightwing “think tanks” and all funded in large measure by the fossil industries. Unlike actual research scientists these groups carefully study how to change public opinion and then put their funding behind those efforts. And they’ve used an all too compliant media to convince a significant portion of the American public that there are two sides to every issue when there is not, especially in these cases. They even used the Fairness Doctrine (you know how much Cons love that) to threaten PBS into giving the pro-Starwars side equal time when essentially there were three scientist claiming it would work versus thousands who said it wouldn’t work, a fact that George Warcriminal Bush aptly proved 20 years later.
Doubt is their product and they use any minor uncertainty or disagreement and conflate it to convince the public that there are still major question surrounding the science that threatens the profits of their corporate sponsors. They use threats, intimidation, illegitimate lawsuits and lies (like the recent climate change email dust up) to advance their agenda.
One of these lies was that Roger Ravelle, one of the first scientists to study and warn about Global Warming and a mentor of Al Gore, recanted on his death bed. A young grad student, Justin Lancaster who worked with Ravelle and knew it was lie began to speak out, but Fred Singer threatened to sue him and because he had no money he settled out of court and agreed to a 10-year gag order that has now expired. Scientists, including the authors of this book have been threatened and targeted with ad homonym for espousing their anti-fossil views that the industrialists consider to be a threat to their profits for which they are willing to sacrifice future generations.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2010-06-01-deathmerchants01_ST_N.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/naomi_oreskes_on_merchants_of.php
I heard a great show recently (Thursday 6/3 - 8:00) on WPR with Naomi Areskes, a geologist (yeah!) and one of the authors of Merchants of Doubt – How a Handful of Scientists Obscure the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming: http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=jca
It seems that the same three names emerge repeatedly in the denial and sowing of doubt on major subjects where the science has actually been settled for some time, including DDT, Acid Rain, the Ozone Hole, Tobacco Hazards and Global Warming. Seriously? Tobacco and DDT!?
Cold warriors Fred Seitz, Fred Singer and Bill Neirenberg all worked on Starwars, Ronny’s Raygun project in the 1980s and were vehement anticommunists. When the Soviet Union collapsed they needed a new enemy (because that’s an essential conservative component). They were also free-market fundamentalists and believed that any government regulation lead directly to communism. Ironic, since global warming is a very real and concrete example of a failure of the so called free market place, just like the BP spill. In fact the externality of costs from global warming is probably the largest market failure in the history of the planet. So these market fundamentalists went to work for that pillar of corporate virtue RJ Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute. What fool would believe that a wholesome product like cigarettes cause cancer and emphysema?
These ideologues then turned on environmentalists as their new enemy, believing that environmentalists are like watermelons, green on the outside but red on the inside. They founded the George C. Marshall Institute http://www.marshall.org/ and worked closely with Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Heartland Group, all rightwing “think tanks” and all funded in large measure by the fossil industries. Unlike actual research scientists these groups carefully study how to change public opinion and then put their funding behind those efforts. And they’ve used an all too compliant media to convince a significant portion of the American public that there are two sides to every issue when there is not, especially in these cases. They even used the Fairness Doctrine (you know how much Cons love that) to threaten PBS into giving the pro-Starwars side equal time when essentially there were three scientist claiming it would work versus thousands who said it wouldn’t work, a fact that George Warcriminal Bush aptly proved 20 years later.
Doubt is their product and they use any minor uncertainty or disagreement and conflate it to convince the public that there are still major question surrounding the science that threatens the profits of their corporate sponsors. They use threats, intimidation, illegitimate lawsuits and lies (like the recent climate change email dust up) to advance their agenda.
One of these lies was that Roger Ravelle, one of the first scientists to study and warn about Global Warming and a mentor of Al Gore, recanted on his death bed. A young grad student, Justin Lancaster who worked with Ravelle and knew it was lie began to speak out, but Fred Singer threatened to sue him and because he had no money he settled out of court and agreed to a 10-year gag order that has now expired. Scientists, including the authors of this book have been threatened and targeted with ad homonym for espousing their anti-fossil views that the industrialists consider to be a threat to their profits for which they are willing to sacrifice future generations.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2010-06-01-deathmerchants01_ST_N.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/naomi_oreskes_on_merchants_of.php
Monday, June 14, 2010
Teabagnorance
Saw a car this weekend with a teabagger sticker on one side of the back window and one on the other side that said "Government Sucks, Obama Swallows". So clever.
There's no point trying to fathom what that means other than that the driver is an ignorant moron which is emblematic of the Teabaggers.
There's no point trying to fathom what that means other than that the driver is an ignorant moron which is emblematic of the Teabaggers.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
WTF, This is Obama's NID Nominee!?
From today's Democracy Now!: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/10/headlines
Obama’s Intel Nominee Tied to False Iraq WMD Claim
The Associated Press reports a Senate vote on President Barack Obama’s choice for national intelligence director could be delayed into the fall because of questions about whether the nominee would be too close to the Pentagon. The nominee, James Clapper, is a retired Air Force general who currently serves as undersecretary of defense for intelligence. From 2001 to 2006, Clapper headed the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In that position, Clapper played a key role in promoting the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 invasion. In October 2003, Clapper said it was unquestionably true that Iraq moved WMDs to Syria ahead of the war. The website ThinkProgress reports former Bush adviser Karl Rove has cited Clapper’s theory to defend claims by the Bush administration that it believed Iraq posed an imminent security threat to the United States.
Obama’s Intel Nominee Tied to False Iraq WMD Claim
The Associated Press reports a Senate vote on President Barack Obama’s choice for national intelligence director could be delayed into the fall because of questions about whether the nominee would be too close to the Pentagon. The nominee, James Clapper, is a retired Air Force general who currently serves as undersecretary of defense for intelligence. From 2001 to 2006, Clapper headed the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In that position, Clapper played a key role in promoting the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction prior to the 2003 invasion. In October 2003, Clapper said it was unquestionably true that Iraq moved WMDs to Syria ahead of the war. The website ThinkProgress reports former Bush adviser Karl Rove has cited Clapper’s theory to defend claims by the Bush administration that it believed Iraq posed an imminent security threat to the United States.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Republicon Professed Beliefs are Lies
Republicons profess to share a set of core beliefs, the strictly orthodox adherence to which is increasingly insisted upon. But if one observes the actual practices of the GOPleadership it becomes more than obvious that these beliefs are a pack of lies, laying bare the GOPocrisy of the their real motivations and agenda as summarily demonstrated below.
Competition: Republicans say they believe in competition, but of course it’s a lie. Their mythical hero Ronald Reagan stopped the enforcement of Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s Anti-Trust laws. This has resulted in wave after wave of corporate mergers as companies have bought up their competition. You know what happens when you buy up the competition? It goes away. And we’re left with fewer and larger companies with a stranglehold on entire sectors of our economy leading collusion, price fixing and the stifling of competition.
Judicial Activism: Republicans love to spout against “judicial activism” and legislating from the bench. But the two most blatant and outrageous examples of judicial activism are the cases of Bush v Gore and Citizens United v FEC which were perpetrated by robed Republican hacks on the Supreme Court overturning decades on legislation in the later case and Constitutional law in the former.
Smaller Government: The government has grown bigger and more intrusive under every Republican Administration. The only parts of government that the GOPsters wish to shrink are those that seek to protect the rights and interests of workers, consumers and average citizens against the predations of their corporate sponsors and the fickle whims of the fantastically mythological free market.
Fiscal Responsibility: The notion that Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility is of course ludicrous on its face. The large deficits that our federal government has run up have been under Republican administrations and under so called conservative policies. Engaging in foreign misadventures for fun and private profit while borrowing the money and running up the public debt sure as hell isn’t responsible, fiscally or otherwise. It’s time banditry, stealing from tomorrow’s generations and paying off today’s cronies.
Local Control: Please! The Republican Party is one of the most top-down organizations around. Their core purpose is the preservation of power and control for those who have it. They insist on strict adherence ideological purity and the party line, not the purpose of the representatives to reflect the interests of their local constituents. If Republicans believed in local control they would insist that elections be decided locally and not based on the influence of money from shadowy sources from far away.
Jobs: Yeah right! Please refer to the item on Competition above. The reduced competition and waves of mergers have destroyed millions of jobs. The only jobs Republicans believe in are their own.
Immigration: The Republican leadership loves illegal immigration and it’s been unwritten federal policy since Ronald Reagan enacted it in the 1980’s. The Republicans have used illegal immigration to weaken unions to drive down labor costs, to undermine the security of workers in their jobs and livelihoods and to fulfill the demand for cheap labor of their corporate sponsors, increase their bottom line and transfer wealth from average Americans to corporate/political contributor class.
Redistribution of Wealth: Republicans scream about it, but they are only against the redistribution of wealth downward. Thirty years of Con policies have very effectively redistributed wealth to the top few percent of Americans by income.
Sovereignty: Republicans love to sing the praises of American sovereignty. That is until it stands in the way of trade or corporate profits. NAFTA, a great Con idea, gave away American sovereignty to a secret three judge panel that can, in secret proceedings overturn any American law if it is seen to restrain the current or even future profits of a foreign corporation. What the Republicans believe in is corporate sovereignty, plain and simple.
Family Values: Republican “family” values are groin centered. But they are against measures that seek to address the real needs of families that extend well beyond the region of the human groin. They oppose efforts to ensure that people filling low skill positions that are necessary for our economy make a family supporting wage and have healthcare for themselves and their children. They oppose affordable housing and public transportation that would allow workers to get to where the jobs are without having to maintain a reliable automobile. Republican family values means valuing one’s own family.
Life: Don’t even get me started!
Competition: Republicans say they believe in competition, but of course it’s a lie. Their mythical hero Ronald Reagan stopped the enforcement of Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s Anti-Trust laws. This has resulted in wave after wave of corporate mergers as companies have bought up their competition. You know what happens when you buy up the competition? It goes away. And we’re left with fewer and larger companies with a stranglehold on entire sectors of our economy leading collusion, price fixing and the stifling of competition.
Judicial Activism: Republicans love to spout against “judicial activism” and legislating from the bench. But the two most blatant and outrageous examples of judicial activism are the cases of Bush v Gore and Citizens United v FEC which were perpetrated by robed Republican hacks on the Supreme Court overturning decades on legislation in the later case and Constitutional law in the former.
Smaller Government: The government has grown bigger and more intrusive under every Republican Administration. The only parts of government that the GOPsters wish to shrink are those that seek to protect the rights and interests of workers, consumers and average citizens against the predations of their corporate sponsors and the fickle whims of the fantastically mythological free market.
Fiscal Responsibility: The notion that Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility is of course ludicrous on its face. The large deficits that our federal government has run up have been under Republican administrations and under so called conservative policies. Engaging in foreign misadventures for fun and private profit while borrowing the money and running up the public debt sure as hell isn’t responsible, fiscally or otherwise. It’s time banditry, stealing from tomorrow’s generations and paying off today’s cronies.
Local Control: Please! The Republican Party is one of the most top-down organizations around. Their core purpose is the preservation of power and control for those who have it. They insist on strict adherence ideological purity and the party line, not the purpose of the representatives to reflect the interests of their local constituents. If Republicans believed in local control they would insist that elections be decided locally and not based on the influence of money from shadowy sources from far away.
Jobs: Yeah right! Please refer to the item on Competition above. The reduced competition and waves of mergers have destroyed millions of jobs. The only jobs Republicans believe in are their own.
Immigration: The Republican leadership loves illegal immigration and it’s been unwritten federal policy since Ronald Reagan enacted it in the 1980’s. The Republicans have used illegal immigration to weaken unions to drive down labor costs, to undermine the security of workers in their jobs and livelihoods and to fulfill the demand for cheap labor of their corporate sponsors, increase their bottom line and transfer wealth from average Americans to corporate/political contributor class.
Redistribution of Wealth: Republicans scream about it, but they are only against the redistribution of wealth downward. Thirty years of Con policies have very effectively redistributed wealth to the top few percent of Americans by income.
Sovereignty: Republicans love to sing the praises of American sovereignty. That is until it stands in the way of trade or corporate profits. NAFTA, a great Con idea, gave away American sovereignty to a secret three judge panel that can, in secret proceedings overturn any American law if it is seen to restrain the current or even future profits of a foreign corporation. What the Republicans believe in is corporate sovereignty, plain and simple.
Family Values: Republican “family” values are groin centered. But they are against measures that seek to address the real needs of families that extend well beyond the region of the human groin. They oppose efforts to ensure that people filling low skill positions that are necessary for our economy make a family supporting wage and have healthcare for themselves and their children. They oppose affordable housing and public transportation that would allow workers to get to where the jobs are without having to maintain a reliable automobile. Republican family values means valuing one’s own family.
Life: Don’t even get me started!
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