I conceived this blog as an auxilary to my PressWatch broadcasts on KBOO 90.7 FM Community Radio (kboo.fm), so I intended at first to post my notes for the programs; but it occurs to me that re-use of material under "fair use" probably doesn't apply as well to this electronic forum, so I'm going to stop doing that.
Instead I'll post URLs for the kboo.fm webcasts. Here's the link (you'll have to cut and paste) for last week's comments on reversing global warming (see also the post below):
http://www.kboo.fm/node/5651
--and here's the link for this week's program on war, corruption, and the economic meltdown:
http://www.kboo.fm/node/5650
There. This week on PressWatch, I started off with a mention of cocaine shenanigans from madcowprod.com--go there, you'll be shocked, and that isn't easy these days, is it? I also quoted George Soros at length, about the reason that, this time, the economic crash will keep crashing. It's about the end of a paradigm, the logical result of all these years of Reagan voodoo economics. I suppose there's a reason George Bush Junior got bad grades in economics.
Now, to the personal. I have just come close to losing my house, just like so many others--not because I had adjustable rate mortgages (mine are fixed). Not because I had no savings--I had four months' worth. No--it's because I was off work for nine months and more; and the only reason I'm working at all is because I'm a union member.
Yep, that old dinosaur, the supposedly corrupt Union, saved my transgendered ass. I was able to return to work , not because the Company wanted me (at all) but because the union contract preserved my eligibility after all those months. Herein lies the moral of today's lesson. Now go home.
Kidding. Because there's more to say; the reason I was off work was due to the collapse of my ability to concentrate--pathologized as Panic Disorder. But there's more still; I had panic disorder because of gender harrassment. And the reason I suffer so much gender harrassment, in part, is because the neocons, the Republicans, and the conservative Democrats learned long ago that they could mobilize people based on their fears. It's difficult and even a little frightening, under our system of patriarchy and gender apartheid, to accept transwomen as members of society--and so it was quite easy to get people to fear and hate. Not a day passes without an insult, or some harrassment, or a threat, or actual violence. It's enough to drive anyone nuts. It took years to break me.
But now I'm "cured" and I'm back, driving a city bus. My mortgages will be saved, and I'll stay in my home. I don't want to paint a saintly picture of the Union--in fact, a majority (but not an essential supermajority) of Union members in my workplace voted to support an anti-gay measure just a couple of years ago. But it's the basic human right of organization for collective bargaining that kept my job--a good thing, because I didn't find any other workplace that wanted to hire me. Who wants trouble?
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
to the barricades!
There is a mechanism for reversing global warming. Not slowing--REVERSING. And you can do something about it. Read, copy and paste (with url) the following articles and commentary, which show that, amazingly, we have the capacity to create a world-wide ENGINE TO REVERSE GLOBAL WARMING simply by demanding some simple changes in air traffic patterns!
................
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/
(CNN) -- The thin wisps of condensation that trail jet airliners have a significant influence on the climate, according to scientists who studied U.S. skies during a rare interruption in national air traffic after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
During the three-day commercial flight hiatus, when the artificial clouds known as contrails all but disappeared, the variations in high and low temperatures increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) each day, said meteorological researchers.
While the temperature range is significant, whether the jet clouds have a net effect on global warming remains unknown.
"I think what we've shown are that contrails are capable of affecting temperatures," said lead scientist David Travis of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. "Which direction, in terms of net heating or cooling, is still up in the air."
Contrails Explainer:
Long white wisps of artificial clouds high in the atmosphere, contrails are the condensation trails left behind by jet airplanes.
Similar to human exhalation making a fog in chilly weather, contrails form when warm humid engine exhaust meets extremely cool air in the atmosphere.
Air temperatures where contrails form are generally lower than minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius).
Like natural cirrus clouds, contrails insulate the planet, blocking out incoming solar energy from above and keeping in heat down below.
Scientists estimate that contrails cover some 0.1 percent of the Earth's overall surface, with regional concentrations as high as 20 percent.
In many ways, contrails behave in the same manner as cirrus clouds, thin high-altitude floaters that block out solar energy from above and trap in heat below. n many ways, contrails behave in the same manner as cirrus clouds, thin high-altitude floaters that block out solar energy from above and trap in heat below.
As a result, they help reduce the daily range in daytime highs and nighttime lows. Contrails, by providing additional insulation, further reduce the variability.
With air traffic growing and contrails becoming more prevalent, the natural variation will further decline and could disrupt regional ecosystems, some scientists speculate.
....(read more at the above url)....
Here's more on that topic:
http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/contrails.html
Katie Green, Penn State:
[snip]....
Looking at daytime highs and nighttime lows, Carleton and Travis found the average daily temperature range across the no-fly period to be almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit larger than when jets do fly. This implies, Carleton explains, that contrails lower daytime maximum temperatures and increase nighttime low temperatures—probably in the same way that cirrus clouds do, by blocking some solar radiation from reaching earth's surface during the day, and insulating against heat loss at night.
Since finding this association, Carleton has used contrails as a sort of metric for measuring meteorological and climatic change. Because these jet signatures can only form when the upper atmosphere is humid and cold, they mostly appear over the Midwest and Northeast. Interestingly, notes Carleton, since the 1970s the frequency of contrail formation has outpaced the increase of air traffic in these areas. If this trend continues, he says, it could further decrease daily temperature ranges and even evaporation for those regions, a change that could be detrimental to certain trees, plants or insects sensitive to temperature and moisture changes.
Will such climate change prompt airlines to seek to reduce jet emissions, similar to automotive companies?
"Given the financial problems of the larger airlines in recent years, contrails are not likely to gain their attention," Carleton says. But governments in Europe and Britain "where jets also hash mark the sky" are becoming concerned, he says. Some steps that could cut down on contrails, he suggests, would be reducing the amount of sulfur in jet fuel, and re-routing flight paths either to lower altitudes, where the air is warmer, or higher altitudes, where it's often dryer.
—Katie Greene [end article]
…………………..
This data suggests obvious mechanisms for reversing global climate change. Flight patterns for jets should be altered for maximum contrail formation during the day and eliminated at night. David Travis’ studies showed that contrails very significantly reduce warming during daylight hours, and he also showed that night-radiation of heat into space is more efficient absent the contrails.
Kate Greene commented in her article that airline corporations are unlikely to be interested in making the change—and that’s where you come in. The airlines must be forced into the new schedule of global warming reversal by an unstoppable demand from the people. Forward these articles and their urls to your friends and to public officials. Get their attention with a follow-up phone call.
Call the NOAA and get them on board. Call your representatives, Senators, and any politician who doesn’t want to waste away the planet with the catastrophic events that will follow the total polar melt, which as I mentioned last week, may come any summer now and probably before 2013. The airlines must be put on notice worldwide to route their planes over high-humidity areas during the day, and to stop all flights at night through contrail-forming thermoclines, or raise their cruising levels above the contrail-forming layers.
Don’t let the planet’s ecosystem die while you stand around doing nothing. We have a means to save ourselves and repair the world for our children and future generations, and we can’t afford to let corporate rule get in the way.
By the way, this suggestion for saving the planet is UNTESTED. I do know, however, of an absolutely certain way to force global warming into the methane-clathrate-exposure stage, into the most-everyone-dies stage, and that's by doing nothing--and doing nothing includes limiting your power and car use, riding a bicycle, recycling--those are all admirable things and you should keep doing them, but they won't stop this global warming, which has already gone into a momentum that greenhouse-gas reduction can't stop in our lifetimes. This plan for contrail shielding is the only method available to us to reverse global warming. This is it. There's no time to dawdle or sneer.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
1401 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room 6217
Washington, DC 20230
Phone: (202) 482-6090
Fax: (202) 482-3154
Sen. Ron Weyden
Portland, OR
1220 SW 3rd Avenue
Suite 585
Portland, OR 97204
(503) 326-7525
Senator Gordon Smith
Portland, OR Office
One World Trade Center
121 SW Salmon Street, Suite 1250
Portland, OR 97204
Phone: 503.326.3386
Fax: 503.326.2900
Rep. Earl Blumenauer
729 N.E. Oregon Street
Suite 115
Portland, OR 97232
(503) 231-2300
Fax: (503) 230-5413
Fax for Scheduling Requests: (503) 230-5413
Of course these agencies and politicians also have web forms for contact.
And now for bad news (DID YOU CALL OR FAX YET??)
ScienceDaily (Jan. 16, 2008) — An international team of scientists, led by Dr Edward Hanna at the University of Sheffield, has demonstrated that recent warm summers have caused the most extreme Greenland ice melting in 50 years.
The new research provides further evidence of a key impact of global warming and helps scientists place recent satellite observations of Greenland´s shrinking ice mass in a longer-term climatic context.
Dr Hanna of the University´s Department of Geography, alongside some of the World´s leading Greenland glaciologists and climatologists, analysed a combination of key meteorological and glaciological records spanning a number of decades as part of the research.
The findings show how the Greenland Ice Sheet responded to more regional, rather than global, changes in climate between the 1960s and early 1990s. However the last fifteen years has seen an increase in ice melting and a striking correspondence of Greenland with global temperature variations, demonstrating Greenland´s recent response to global warming.
Summer 2003 was exceptionally warm around the margins of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which resulted in the second-highest meltwater running off from the Ice Sheet of the last 50 years. Summer 2005 experienced a record-high melt, which was very recently superseded in summer 2007 – a year almost as warm as 2003.
....(read more at:)
University of Sheffield (2008, January 16). Record Warm Summers Cause Extreme Ice Melt In Greenland. ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/01/080115102706.htm
...........................
War research for today's PressWatch:
A massive naval buildup is taking place in the Persian Gulf. USS Lincoln leaving port today for ‘training,’ USS Stennis information is consistently blocked, the USS Truman is in the Persian ("Arabian") Gulf, USS Enterprise is also in the Persian Gulf, and the USS Nimitz just arrived at the Persian Gulf; all those are vast nuclear-powered aircraft carriers with their attendant warship, submarine and supply flotillas. The supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk (not nuclear) may be in Yokosuka port.
…………….
Globalresearch.ca
Bush: Iran guilty if US ships are hit
Remarks made after US Navy withdrew allegations against Iran
Global Research, January 15, 2008
Press TV (Iran)
US President George W. Bush says the White House would hold Iran responsible if American ships were attacked in the Persian Gulf.
Bush insisted that Tehran had behaved provocatively during an incident in the Strait of Hormuz involving an identification check by Iranian boats.
The remarks came after the US Navy withdrew the allegation that Iran had harassed US warships in the Persian Gulf.
"If they hit our ships, we will hold Iran responsible," said the president. [more at globalresearch.ca]
………………
Here's some official bullstuff from Associated Press:
TERENCE HUNT
AP News
Jan 13, 2008 02:36 EST
A naval commander told President Bush on Sunday that he is taking the recent confrontation between Iranian and U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf "deadly seriously."
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush did not raise the showdown in the Hormuz Strait when he spoke with U.S. Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf. But Perino said Cosgriff told the president that he took it very seriously when an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats on Jan. 6 charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near Iranian waters. The Iranian naval forces vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire....
------------------------
Grim enough for you? Take a laugh break with my new satire "Jeezus!" If you loved "Left Behind," you'll despise "Jeezus!"
http://www.lulu.com/content/1011766
................
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/
(CNN) -- The thin wisps of condensation that trail jet airliners have a significant influence on the climate, according to scientists who studied U.S. skies during a rare interruption in national air traffic after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
During the three-day commercial flight hiatus, when the artificial clouds known as contrails all but disappeared, the variations in high and low temperatures increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) each day, said meteorological researchers.
While the temperature range is significant, whether the jet clouds have a net effect on global warming remains unknown.
"I think what we've shown are that contrails are capable of affecting temperatures," said lead scientist David Travis of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. "Which direction, in terms of net heating or cooling, is still up in the air."
Contrails Explainer:
Long white wisps of artificial clouds high in the atmosphere, contrails are the condensation trails left behind by jet airplanes.
Similar to human exhalation making a fog in chilly weather, contrails form when warm humid engine exhaust meets extremely cool air in the atmosphere.
Air temperatures where contrails form are generally lower than minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius).
Like natural cirrus clouds, contrails insulate the planet, blocking out incoming solar energy from above and keeping in heat down below.
Scientists estimate that contrails cover some 0.1 percent of the Earth's overall surface, with regional concentrations as high as 20 percent.
In many ways, contrails behave in the same manner as cirrus clouds, thin high-altitude floaters that block out solar energy from above and trap in heat below. n many ways, contrails behave in the same manner as cirrus clouds, thin high-altitude floaters that block out solar energy from above and trap in heat below.
As a result, they help reduce the daily range in daytime highs and nighttime lows. Contrails, by providing additional insulation, further reduce the variability.
With air traffic growing and contrails becoming more prevalent, the natural variation will further decline and could disrupt regional ecosystems, some scientists speculate.
....(read more at the above url)....
Here's more on that topic:
http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/contrails.html
Katie Green, Penn State:
[snip]....
Looking at daytime highs and nighttime lows, Carleton and Travis found the average daily temperature range across the no-fly period to be almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit larger than when jets do fly. This implies, Carleton explains, that contrails lower daytime maximum temperatures and increase nighttime low temperatures—probably in the same way that cirrus clouds do, by blocking some solar radiation from reaching earth's surface during the day, and insulating against heat loss at night.
Since finding this association, Carleton has used contrails as a sort of metric for measuring meteorological and climatic change. Because these jet signatures can only form when the upper atmosphere is humid and cold, they mostly appear over the Midwest and Northeast. Interestingly, notes Carleton, since the 1970s the frequency of contrail formation has outpaced the increase of air traffic in these areas. If this trend continues, he says, it could further decrease daily temperature ranges and even evaporation for those regions, a change that could be detrimental to certain trees, plants or insects sensitive to temperature and moisture changes.
Will such climate change prompt airlines to seek to reduce jet emissions, similar to automotive companies?
"Given the financial problems of the larger airlines in recent years, contrails are not likely to gain their attention," Carleton says. But governments in Europe and Britain "where jets also hash mark the sky" are becoming concerned, he says. Some steps that could cut down on contrails, he suggests, would be reducing the amount of sulfur in jet fuel, and re-routing flight paths either to lower altitudes, where the air is warmer, or higher altitudes, where it's often dryer.
—Katie Greene [end article]
…………………..
This data suggests obvious mechanisms for reversing global climate change. Flight patterns for jets should be altered for maximum contrail formation during the day and eliminated at night. David Travis’ studies showed that contrails very significantly reduce warming during daylight hours, and he also showed that night-radiation of heat into space is more efficient absent the contrails.
Kate Greene commented in her article that airline corporations are unlikely to be interested in making the change—and that’s where you come in. The airlines must be forced into the new schedule of global warming reversal by an unstoppable demand from the people. Forward these articles and their urls to your friends and to public officials. Get their attention with a follow-up phone call.
Call the NOAA and get them on board. Call your representatives, Senators, and any politician who doesn’t want to waste away the planet with the catastrophic events that will follow the total polar melt, which as I mentioned last week, may come any summer now and probably before 2013. The airlines must be put on notice worldwide to route their planes over high-humidity areas during the day, and to stop all flights at night through contrail-forming thermoclines, or raise their cruising levels above the contrail-forming layers.
Don’t let the planet’s ecosystem die while you stand around doing nothing. We have a means to save ourselves and repair the world for our children and future generations, and we can’t afford to let corporate rule get in the way.
By the way, this suggestion for saving the planet is UNTESTED. I do know, however, of an absolutely certain way to force global warming into the methane-clathrate-exposure stage, into the most-everyone-dies stage, and that's by doing nothing--and doing nothing includes limiting your power and car use, riding a bicycle, recycling--those are all admirable things and you should keep doing them, but they won't stop this global warming, which has already gone into a momentum that greenhouse-gas reduction can't stop in our lifetimes. This plan for contrail shielding is the only method available to us to reverse global warming. This is it. There's no time to dawdle or sneer.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
1401 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room 6217
Washington, DC 20230
Phone: (202) 482-6090
Fax: (202) 482-3154
Sen. Ron Weyden
Portland, OR
1220 SW 3rd Avenue
Suite 585
Portland, OR 97204
(503) 326-7525
Senator Gordon Smith
Portland, OR Office
One World Trade Center
121 SW Salmon Street, Suite 1250
Portland, OR 97204
Phone: 503.326.3386
Fax: 503.326.2900
Rep. Earl Blumenauer
729 N.E. Oregon Street
Suite 115
Portland, OR 97232
(503) 231-2300
Fax: (503) 230-5413
Fax for Scheduling Requests: (503) 230-5413
Of course these agencies and politicians also have web forms for contact.
And now for bad news (DID YOU CALL OR FAX YET??)
ScienceDaily (Jan. 16, 2008) — An international team of scientists, led by Dr Edward Hanna at the University of Sheffield, has demonstrated that recent warm summers have caused the most extreme Greenland ice melting in 50 years.
The new research provides further evidence of a key impact of global warming and helps scientists place recent satellite observations of Greenland´s shrinking ice mass in a longer-term climatic context.
Dr Hanna of the University´s Department of Geography, alongside some of the World´s leading Greenland glaciologists and climatologists, analysed a combination of key meteorological and glaciological records spanning a number of decades as part of the research.
The findings show how the Greenland Ice Sheet responded to more regional, rather than global, changes in climate between the 1960s and early 1990s. However the last fifteen years has seen an increase in ice melting and a striking correspondence of Greenland with global temperature variations, demonstrating Greenland´s recent response to global warming.
Summer 2003 was exceptionally warm around the margins of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which resulted in the second-highest meltwater running off from the Ice Sheet of the last 50 years. Summer 2005 experienced a record-high melt, which was very recently superseded in summer 2007 – a year almost as warm as 2003.
....(read more at:)
University of Sheffield (2008, January 16). Record Warm Summers Cause Extreme Ice Melt In Greenland. ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/01/080115102706.htm
...........................
War research for today's PressWatch:
A massive naval buildup is taking place in the Persian Gulf. USS Lincoln leaving port today for ‘training,’ USS Stennis information is consistently blocked, the USS Truman is in the Persian ("Arabian") Gulf, USS Enterprise is also in the Persian Gulf, and the USS Nimitz just arrived at the Persian Gulf; all those are vast nuclear-powered aircraft carriers with their attendant warship, submarine and supply flotillas. The supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk (not nuclear) may be in Yokosuka port.
…………….
Globalresearch.ca
Bush: Iran guilty if US ships are hit
Remarks made after US Navy withdrew allegations against Iran
Global Research, January 15, 2008
Press TV (Iran)
US President George W. Bush says the White House would hold Iran responsible if American ships were attacked in the Persian Gulf.
Bush insisted that Tehran had behaved provocatively during an incident in the Strait of Hormuz involving an identification check by Iranian boats.
The remarks came after the US Navy withdrew the allegation that Iran had harassed US warships in the Persian Gulf.
"If they hit our ships, we will hold Iran responsible," said the president. [more at globalresearch.ca]
………………
Here's some official bullstuff from Associated Press:
TERENCE HUNT
AP News
Jan 13, 2008 02:36 EST
A naval commander told President Bush on Sunday that he is taking the recent confrontation between Iranian and U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf "deadly seriously."
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush did not raise the showdown in the Hormuz Strait when he spoke with U.S. Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf. But Perino said Cosgriff told the president that he took it very seriously when an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats on Jan. 6 charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near Iranian waters. The Iranian naval forces vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire....
------------------------
Grim enough for you? Take a laugh break with my new satire "Jeezus!" If you loved "Left Behind," you'll despise "Jeezus!"
http://www.lulu.com/content/1011766
Saturday, January 12, 2008
buildup
As far as I can tell from trolling info sites on the Web, the nuclear carrier battle groups Enterprise, Truman, and Nimitz are in the Persian Gulf area, and the Marine carrier Kearsarge is in Haifa port.
Good flying weather is on the way.
Good flying weather is on the way.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
LHS/Diebold, Rove, and global meltdown
Welcome KBOO listeners!
This is the first post-PressWatch blog post, which is to say it's the first following a mention on KBOO. I think it will take several weeks' shows to produce that cyber-response, but it's worth the wait, because I'm eager to be on board with the new form of radio, the interactive radio-plus-Web that will hopefully increase participation on both ends and build a new information paradigm that will challenge the corporate-owned mind-control press.
You can find the most recent PressWatch audio on kboo.fm.
Why has the corporate-owned media accepted the New Hampshire voting results for Clinton when (a) they are at variance with the polls, unlike all other results (b) they are on LHS/Diebold hackable machines (c) they favor Rove's predicted/favored winner for the Democratic primaries and (d) Rove himself, despite his involvement in Plame's outing and the attorney/caging corruption, is writing for the New York Times as a "respectable" elections commentator? If there is a name to anti-democracy, it is Karl Rove. Did someone forget? Are we all supposed to obediently pretend it ain't so?
On global warming's absence from the MSM, it's useful to follow the money--as in this machine translation from
Deutsche Welle: "…[The governments of] Russia, Canada, the USA, Denmark and Norway have waited exactly for this instant. Still the assumed treasures are hidden under the eternal ice, but the more the ice cover abates, the closer the possibility of mining these treasures comes. Russian researchers estimate ten billion tons of oil and gas in the Lomonossow, a submarine mountain range, which extends between Greenland and east Siberia and runs rather exactly under the north pole. "
They may not have long to wait: Polar melt may occur by 2013; if we assume that will be in August, we have 2,065 days left to sit on our hands or demand action from US and world governments. The melting of the pole may trigger storms or release more tundra methane or ocean clathrates, worsening the situation.
Here is some of the copy I used for this week's show--first, from the BBC:
Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco
Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.
Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.
Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.
In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly
Professor Peter Wadhams:
"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."
[....]
But it is has become apparent in recent years that the real, observed rate of summer ice melting is now starting to run well ahead of the models.
The minimum ice extent reached in September 2007 shattered the previous record for ice withdrawal set in 2005, of 5.32 million square km.
The long-term average minimum, based on data from 1979 to 2000, is 6.74 million square km. In comparison, 2007 was lower by 2.61 million square km, an area approximately equal to the size of Alaska and Texas combined, or the size of 10 United Kingdoms.
.....[There is much more to that report--find it at:]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm
Could it get worse? Yes:
(AP) OSLO -- The next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should deal with the "frightening" possibility Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets start melting at the same time, the chief UN climate scientist said yesterday.
The panel, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. activist and politician Al Gore, has released four climate assessment reports already, including summaries for policy makers that are approved by government representatives.
Though there are no firm plans for a fifth report, the panel is still inviting scientists to submit material on glaciers in the far north and south, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said.
"My hope is the next report, if there is one, will be able to provide much better information on the possibility of these two large bodies of ice possibly melting, in what seems like a frightening situation," Pachauri said during a visit to Oslo.
Go ahead--add to the comments and vote in the poll!
Theresa
This is the first post-PressWatch blog post, which is to say it's the first following a mention on KBOO. I think it will take several weeks' shows to produce that cyber-response, but it's worth the wait, because I'm eager to be on board with the new form of radio, the interactive radio-plus-Web that will hopefully increase participation on both ends and build a new information paradigm that will challenge the corporate-owned mind-control press.
You can find the most recent PressWatch audio on kboo.fm.
Why has the corporate-owned media accepted the New Hampshire voting results for Clinton when (a) they are at variance with the polls, unlike all other results (b) they are on LHS/Diebold hackable machines (c) they favor Rove's predicted/favored winner for the Democratic primaries and (d) Rove himself, despite his involvement in Plame's outing and the attorney/caging corruption, is writing for the New York Times as a "respectable" elections commentator? If there is a name to anti-democracy, it is Karl Rove. Did someone forget? Are we all supposed to obediently pretend it ain't so?
On global warming's absence from the MSM, it's useful to follow the money--as in this machine translation from
Deutsche Welle: "…[The governments of] Russia, Canada, the USA, Denmark and Norway have waited exactly for this instant. Still the assumed treasures are hidden under the eternal ice, but the more the ice cover abates, the closer the possibility of mining these treasures comes. Russian researchers estimate ten billion tons of oil and gas in the Lomonossow, a submarine mountain range, which extends between Greenland and east Siberia and runs rather exactly under the north pole. "
They may not have long to wait: Polar melt may occur by 2013; if we assume that will be in August, we have 2,065 days left to sit on our hands or demand action from US and world governments. The melting of the pole may trigger storms or release more tundra methane or ocean clathrates, worsening the situation.
Here is some of the copy I used for this week's show--first, from the BBC:
Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco
Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.
Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.
Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.
In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly
Professor Peter Wadhams:
"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."
[....]
But it is has become apparent in recent years that the real, observed rate of summer ice melting is now starting to run well ahead of the models.
The minimum ice extent reached in September 2007 shattered the previous record for ice withdrawal set in 2005, of 5.32 million square km.
The long-term average minimum, based on data from 1979 to 2000, is 6.74 million square km. In comparison, 2007 was lower by 2.61 million square km, an area approximately equal to the size of Alaska and Texas combined, or the size of 10 United Kingdoms.
.....[There is much more to that report--find it at:]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm
Could it get worse? Yes:
(AP) OSLO -- The next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should deal with the "frightening" possibility Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets start melting at the same time, the chief UN climate scientist said yesterday.
The panel, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. activist and politician Al Gore, has released four climate assessment reports already, including summaries for policy makers that are approved by government representatives.
Though there are no firm plans for a fifth report, the panel is still inviting scientists to submit material on glaciers in the far north and south, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said.
"My hope is the next report, if there is one, will be able to provide much better information on the possibility of these two large bodies of ice possibly melting, in what seems like a frightening situation," Pachauri said during a visit to Oslo.
Go ahead--add to the comments and vote in the poll!
Theresa
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
I've been researching some technology, as best I can, without scientific training. It isn't easy; when I see a phrase describing a device like the "spl sim/50-mW peak power 4.3-THz quantum cascade laser," I have to look at the abbreviations and slowly tease the meaning out. I know I'm on thin ice.
The key words in this case are "thz laser," which refers to a device that uses terahertz-frequency light. It seems that this near-infrared frequency is quite useful for peering into brain metabolism. Apparently (according to a Japanese study) it causes brain cells to add adenosine triphosphate, after prolonged exposure. It's used for detecting tumors, too, but my interest here is in what our corporate-and-government scientists want to do with it. Here's a hint:
"Enormous efforts are made to achieve advances in image quality and acquisition time of today's standard medical imaging modalities as X-ray fluoroscopy, computed tomography, magnetic resonance and ultrasound. However, new principal diagnostic insights cannot be expected from the linear extension of the physical principles of these methods. In this paper a review is given on imaging modalities in the 1012 Hz - 1014 Hz domain that include new physical principles as terahertz and diffuse optical imaging or well known principles - that had been rejected some years ago and are recently raised to interest by detector advances - as thermography."
(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1616778&isnumber=33900)
Or in other words, we'd gone as far as we could with MRIs and CAT scans, but now we've got terahertz.
Thermography, computer aided tomography and terahertz lasers--add 'em all together, develop an analytical software based on observations, and you've got real-time mind reading technology.
Raw Story (rawstory.com) ran an article in '06 stating that the ACLU had lodged a complaint about mind reading technology being sold to the US government (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/ACLU_objects_as_two_companies_offer_0628.html). But it turns out that information is sooooo '06. THAT old article is merely about magnetic image resonance:
"Two private companies have announced that they will begin to offer "lie detection" services using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), as early as this summer. fMRI can produce live, real-time images of people's brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli.
These companies are marketing their services to federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and to state and local police departments."
Pff. Bosh. We scoff at that rusty old stuff. Heck, with that old machine you would have to physically restrain your victim--er, I mean suspected terrorist--while torturing, excuse me I mean interrogating. Well, to be fair, I suppose a non-lethal dose of scopalomine, while terrifying, would produce the necessary more-or-less temporary paralysis. But this is the shiny new year, and with the portability of terahertz lasers, our saviors in the secret police agencies will be able to read our minds' metabolic traces and signatures--at a distance.
Well, what's the big deal?--you may ask. After all, you've never had a stray thought. Have you?
I didn't generate this information (I'm sorry to say) from my buh-RILLiant analysis of scientific progress. No, it would have slipped right past my high-school-educated nose without an article in globalresearch.ca: "Intrusive Brain Reading Surveillance Technology: Hacking the Mind," by Carole Smith, Global Research, December 13, 2007. (Rather than paste in another clumsy url, I'll just let you use the search bar at the site.) Smith says that the US army has already deployed a nasty mess-with-your-head device called the Long Range Audio Device (LRAD), which uses diffractive microwave beams to project a voice (or voices or nasty suggestions) directly into your head, making you think that you're suffering from audio hallucinations, or possibly instructions from God. Now it will be possible to coordinate such flimflammery with direct observations of your mental process.
Smith says the ball is already rolling, quoting the Guardian:
"A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person’s brain and read their intentions before they act.
The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists’ ability to probe people’s minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.
‘Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall,’ said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University."
You don't suppose that our good ol' Uncle Sam might use such technology to, say, snoop on dissenters or drive people mad....do you?
Because that would be an awfully disloyal thought. What kind of terrorist sympathizer or potential homegrown terrorist thinks a thought like that? Better put it out of your mind.
Fast.
The key words in this case are "thz laser," which refers to a device that uses terahertz-frequency light. It seems that this near-infrared frequency is quite useful for peering into brain metabolism. Apparently (according to a Japanese study) it causes brain cells to add adenosine triphosphate, after prolonged exposure. It's used for detecting tumors, too, but my interest here is in what our corporate-and-government scientists want to do with it. Here's a hint:
"Enormous efforts are made to achieve advances in image quality and acquisition time of today's standard medical imaging modalities as X-ray fluoroscopy, computed tomography, magnetic resonance and ultrasound. However, new principal diagnostic insights cannot be expected from the linear extension of the physical principles of these methods. In this paper a review is given on imaging modalities in the 1012 Hz - 1014 Hz domain that include new physical principles as terahertz and diffuse optical imaging or well known principles - that had been rejected some years ago and are recently raised to interest by detector advances - as thermography."
(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1616778&isnumber=33900)
Or in other words, we'd gone as far as we could with MRIs and CAT scans, but now we've got terahertz.
Thermography, computer aided tomography and terahertz lasers--add 'em all together, develop an analytical software based on observations, and you've got real-time mind reading technology.
Raw Story (rawstory.com) ran an article in '06 stating that the ACLU had lodged a complaint about mind reading technology being sold to the US government (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/ACLU_objects_as_two_companies_offer_0628.html). But it turns out that information is sooooo '06. THAT old article is merely about magnetic image resonance:
"Two private companies have announced that they will begin to offer "lie detection" services using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), as early as this summer. fMRI can produce live, real-time images of people's brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli.
These companies are marketing their services to federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and to state and local police departments."
Pff. Bosh. We scoff at that rusty old stuff. Heck, with that old machine you would have to physically restrain your victim--er, I mean suspected terrorist--while torturing, excuse me I mean interrogating. Well, to be fair, I suppose a non-lethal dose of scopalomine, while terrifying, would produce the necessary more-or-less temporary paralysis. But this is the shiny new year, and with the portability of terahertz lasers, our saviors in the secret police agencies will be able to read our minds' metabolic traces and signatures--at a distance.
Well, what's the big deal?--you may ask. After all, you've never had a stray thought. Have you?
I didn't generate this information (I'm sorry to say) from my buh-RILLiant analysis of scientific progress. No, it would have slipped right past my high-school-educated nose without an article in globalresearch.ca: "Intrusive Brain Reading Surveillance Technology: Hacking the Mind," by Carole Smith, Global Research, December 13, 2007. (Rather than paste in another clumsy url, I'll just let you use the search bar at the site.) Smith says that the US army has already deployed a nasty mess-with-your-head device called the Long Range Audio Device (LRAD), which uses diffractive microwave beams to project a voice (or voices or nasty suggestions) directly into your head, making you think that you're suffering from audio hallucinations, or possibly instructions from God. Now it will be possible to coordinate such flimflammery with direct observations of your mental process.
Smith says the ball is already rolling, quoting the Guardian:
"A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person’s brain and read their intentions before they act.
The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists’ ability to probe people’s minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.
‘Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall,’ said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University."
You don't suppose that our good ol' Uncle Sam might use such technology to, say, snoop on dissenters or drive people mad....do you?
Because that would be an awfully disloyal thought. What kind of terrorist sympathizer or potential homegrown terrorist thinks a thought like that? Better put it out of your mind.
Fast.
Friday, January 4, 2008
off the agenda
Take a look at some of the posts over the last year on gregpalast.com or blackboxvoting.org, and you'll see part of the problem I have with the US Presidential election season, namely, that the whole question of whether we actually get to vote is unanswered. We have the chair of the Kansas GOP actually putting to print his brag that he has successfully "caged" (i.e. stolen) votes in a wholesale manner. It's the tip of an ongoing 50-state Republican antidemocracy effort, started and previously supervised by a certain Mr. Rove. That's on top of the already exposed thrown election in 2004 Ohio, on top of all manner of vote "spoilage," topped off by outright theft, like Diebold machines that switch votes right in your face.
Shall I make a list of other things off the Obama/Huckabee agenda? There's:
Socialized medicine
The vicious and escalating air war against Iraq
The planned-for-Spring air war versus Iran
Accountability for torture, Presidential signing statements, illegal war we were lied into, etc. (no impeachments, all pardoned)
Global climate change--the polar ice cap is to melt by 2013, is anyone awake? Hello?!
Millions of new Americans without documents or access to their own Social Security payments (Bienvenidos, indeed!)
--And that's just a start.
Oh, did I say "millions of new Americans?" Yes, I meant that. I didn't sign on to Left and progressive ideas just to select a class of people and sneer at them as "illegals." It was illegal to free slaves once here, but now we celebrate those who did it. We on the Left need to show some BIG solidarity for Hispanic immigrants or else admit that we have lost our hearts and our ideals. Writer and professor Aviva Chomsky points out in her book "They Take Our Jobs!" that nuestra hermanas y hermanos put $7 BILLION per year into Social Security. They have to leave it here, too. We can take a snot-nosed attitude towards millions of working class people and say they have to leave, or we can admit that they're already US Americans, stand up for their inalienable human rights, and form an unstoppable coalition. Not a tough choice if you ask me. Who's with me? (Is that a cricket?)
I didn't say it would be easy; I'm talking about by-and-large Catholics, and yes, the Pope's a Nazi (see my previous post). So what. We either have the guts for revolution, or we don't.
But to return to the point: With all these items off the agenda, the Presidential elections serve mostly as a mind-control forum conducted by the corporate media. Wherever their corporatist agenda is threatened, they attack--as in the Howard Dean audio-manipulated "scream," as in asking Dennis Kucinich about freaking UFOs, as in keeping Ron Paul off the FOX debates even though he outranks Giuliani in any poll (no, I'm not for Ron Paul).
The TV stays off.
Shall I make a list of other things off the Obama/Huckabee agenda? There's:
Socialized medicine
The vicious and escalating air war against Iraq
The planned-for-Spring air war versus Iran
Accountability for torture, Presidential signing statements, illegal war we were lied into, etc. (no impeachments, all pardoned)
Global climate change--the polar ice cap is to melt by 2013, is anyone awake? Hello?!
Millions of new Americans without documents or access to their own Social Security payments (Bienvenidos, indeed!)
--And that's just a start.
Oh, did I say "millions of new Americans?" Yes, I meant that. I didn't sign on to Left and progressive ideas just to select a class of people and sneer at them as "illegals." It was illegal to free slaves once here, but now we celebrate those who did it. We on the Left need to show some BIG solidarity for Hispanic immigrants or else admit that we have lost our hearts and our ideals. Writer and professor Aviva Chomsky points out in her book "They Take Our Jobs!" that nuestra hermanas y hermanos put $7 BILLION per year into Social Security. They have to leave it here, too. We can take a snot-nosed attitude towards millions of working class people and say they have to leave, or we can admit that they're already US Americans, stand up for their inalienable human rights, and form an unstoppable coalition. Not a tough choice if you ask me. Who's with me? (Is that a cricket?)
I didn't say it would be easy; I'm talking about by-and-large Catholics, and yes, the Pope's a Nazi (see my previous post). So what. We either have the guts for revolution, or we don't.
But to return to the point: With all these items off the agenda, the Presidential elections serve mostly as a mind-control forum conducted by the corporate media. Wherever their corporatist agenda is threatened, they attack--as in the Howard Dean audio-manipulated "scream," as in asking Dennis Kucinich about freaking UFOs, as in keeping Ron Paul off the FOX debates even though he outranks Giuliani in any poll (no, I'm not for Ron Paul).
The TV stays off.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Pope strikes a blow for Peace
The latest New Year's statement from Pope Benedict implies that the presence of gay and lesbian couples is deleterious to world peace. His argument, if I follow it correctly, is that peace can only prevail if male-and-female couples produce children. It's an argument that does not fall far from his former Fuhrer's position that gays, lesbians and trans persons were a threat to the cleanliness of the State. That was the policy while Johnny Ratzinger, now Pope, was serving in the Hitler Youth, and then as an antiaircraft gunner in the Wehrmacht. I think Johnny learned it well.
I'm about to go take a test to see if I'm smart enough to clean buses. I had a superior position driving the buses for years, a better paying (twice as much) position that brought me into contact with the public, where I received the occasional compliment and safe driving award. I was driven from that job by individuals, and sometimes groups of people, who saw me as a sort of uber-queer, a person who was so obviously homosexual that I wore a dress to a job (a job many of them would kill for, one of the last blue-collar union jobs in the US).
These defenders of Purity are egged on by the Karl Roves, the Popes, the Huckabees, and other demagogues of this world, who long ago figured out that if one cannot articulate a helpful or progressive policy in order to unify the masses, a common enemy will do, and the weaker that enemy the better. In my case, the masses are told that I am a danger to their children. Anyone knows that anything goes defending one's kids! Hence the cavalcade of insults, threats, and assaults that literally destroyed my ability to safely concentrate on driving a 13-ton behemoth.
The phenomenon is made weirder and more ironic, by the fact that some of the worst perpetrators are sadly closeted individuals themselves. Lately the gaysplosions that revealed Haggard and Craig are in the news; previously it was J. Edgar Hoover, likely next it'll be Carl Rove and the Pope. As I go off, pencil in hand, hoping for work after eight months off for panic disorder, I wonder if people are slowly catching on that bigotry is a convenient harness and rein for the masters.
Update: I passed the test, and found out that there were only as many applicants as available positions! Hooray for probable solvency!
I'm about to go take a test to see if I'm smart enough to clean buses. I had a superior position driving the buses for years, a better paying (twice as much) position that brought me into contact with the public, where I received the occasional compliment and safe driving award. I was driven from that job by individuals, and sometimes groups of people, who saw me as a sort of uber-queer, a person who was so obviously homosexual that I wore a dress to a job (a job many of them would kill for, one of the last blue-collar union jobs in the US).
These defenders of Purity are egged on by the Karl Roves, the Popes, the Huckabees, and other demagogues of this world, who long ago figured out that if one cannot articulate a helpful or progressive policy in order to unify the masses, a common enemy will do, and the weaker that enemy the better. In my case, the masses are told that I am a danger to their children. Anyone knows that anything goes defending one's kids! Hence the cavalcade of insults, threats, and assaults that literally destroyed my ability to safely concentrate on driving a 13-ton behemoth.
The phenomenon is made weirder and more ironic, by the fact that some of the worst perpetrators are sadly closeted individuals themselves. Lately the gaysplosions that revealed Haggard and Craig are in the news; previously it was J. Edgar Hoover, likely next it'll be Carl Rove and the Pope. As I go off, pencil in hand, hoping for work after eight months off for panic disorder, I wonder if people are slowly catching on that bigotry is a convenient harness and rein for the masters.
Update: I passed the test, and found out that there were only as many applicants as available positions! Hooray for probable solvency!
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
the as-if factor in Iowa
There's a reason I put off looking at the US Presidential races--it's not just the glossy shallowness of the media coverage, but the whole As If factor. What, for example, does Hilary Clinton stand for? Here's a snippet: ""As we start this new year, America is at a crossroads....We're a nation at war in a dangerous world. We have a faltering economy and 47 million people without health care." There's your meat and potatoes. There's your substance.
As If. As if Hilary had the guts or the plans to push forward socialized health care, thereby bringing US citizens into the civilized world. Oh no hell no, she has never stood for such a thing. And the "dangerous world" is a lot more dangerous because of her votes fot the Iraq war and the upcoming Iran war. (Sure, Iranatrocity's still on the agenda, otherwise you'd see plenty of expensive and obvious military demobilization.) Obama has at least criticized Clinton for her Iraq war vote, but neither he nor Edwards will come out with a troops withdrawal proposal. And Kucinich--well, he's been sufficiently starved of media coverage, that he now must advise his supporters to come out for Obama, wherever they number under fifteen percent in the caucus.
Ugh. Blech. Yeccch. I hate looking at the Presidential races. It's as if...as if we had some sort of pseudo-election system, in which candidates had to compete for attention by buying multimillion-dollar ad packages on corporate media, that they obtained by sucking up to corporate interests, so that they could never really represent the majority of the people. It's as if the inheritance class had the game sewed up tight. As if.
Then there are the Republicans, who somehow go out and pretend that they're legitimate standard-bearers, and not representatives of a criminal confederation with an indelible history of war, poverty, hatred, and division. Huckabee (this is just FASCINATING) turns out to be more Godly than Romney, apparently because his Christian gay-hating weirdness is somehow more acceptable than Romney's Christian gay-hating weirdness. What I want to know is, how are the snake-handling rapturists gonna vote, when their choice is limited to two anti-evolutionists? Will they turn on Romney over the Jesus Jammies issue? Maybe they want some real choice, like anacondas versus cottonmouth rattlers.
As If. As if Hilary had the guts or the plans to push forward socialized health care, thereby bringing US citizens into the civilized world. Oh no hell no, she has never stood for such a thing. And the "dangerous world" is a lot more dangerous because of her votes fot the Iraq war and the upcoming Iran war. (Sure, Iranatrocity's still on the agenda, otherwise you'd see plenty of expensive and obvious military demobilization.) Obama has at least criticized Clinton for her Iraq war vote, but neither he nor Edwards will come out with a troops withdrawal proposal. And Kucinich--well, he's been sufficiently starved of media coverage, that he now must advise his supporters to come out for Obama, wherever they number under fifteen percent in the caucus.
Ugh. Blech. Yeccch. I hate looking at the Presidential races. It's as if...as if we had some sort of pseudo-election system, in which candidates had to compete for attention by buying multimillion-dollar ad packages on corporate media, that they obtained by sucking up to corporate interests, so that they could never really represent the majority of the people. It's as if the inheritance class had the game sewed up tight. As if.
Then there are the Republicans, who somehow go out and pretend that they're legitimate standard-bearers, and not representatives of a criminal confederation with an indelible history of war, poverty, hatred, and division. Huckabee (this is just FASCINATING) turns out to be more Godly than Romney, apparently because his Christian gay-hating weirdness is somehow more acceptable than Romney's Christian gay-hating weirdness. What I want to know is, how are the snake-handling rapturists gonna vote, when their choice is limited to two anti-evolutionists? Will they turn on Romney over the Jesus Jammies issue? Maybe they want some real choice, like anacondas versus cottonmouth rattlers.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Joining the twenty-first century
I have to thank my sister Kat for prodding me into this effort. I was pleased to see that there were no photos on Google Images of me, so I'll be providing a photograph via scanner, I think (that's another avenue of technology I am presently insufficiently aware of).
However, I am up to speed on the conduct of the corporate-owned government, or so I do flatter myself, and it is in that spirit that I offer the following imaginary
Omnibus Antifascist and Democracy Restoral act of 2008:
(cornet fanfare in A Major, flat seven)
Be it resolved by the People of the United States in Congress Assembled, that
The Bill of Rights, the Ten Amendments appended to the Constitution
of the United States, are reaffirmed as supreme Constitutional Law in
the United States, and are not now nor ever to be superseded by mere
legislative corruptions such as the Patriot Act, nor any Emergency
Declarations by the President or others; nor shall the freedoms and
rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights be diminished or replaced by
misguided contradictions, as one might find in the Warren Defense Act,
the Sedition Act, the Homegrown Terrorism Act, or any other inferior
document or Presidential decree. The War on Terror is disbanded as an
agent of deception and corruption, and shall not be used as further
excuse for any acts of imperialism, repression or fascism. The
Separation of Powers enshrined in the Constitution remains in effect,
and thus immediately reverses all Wars not declared by Congress, and
removes any President not elected by a vote of the People, and any
Agency not dedicated to the Freedom and Welfare of the American
People. All Secret Police agencies are now disbanded and rendered
null and void, and all Prisons held for the purpose of intimidating
enemies and dissenters are now to be emptied and immediately
destroyed. All Funding of the US government shall be appropriated by
the House of Representatives in the manner prescribed by the
Constitution, and no Secret Funding will be allowed.
As the Preamble to the Constitution directs, the Government of the
United States is and shall remain in service to all of the People of
the United States and in no wise may be construed to exist for the
benefit of mere Corporations. Furthermore no Corporation shall be
granted unnatural rights or status similar to that of natural Persons.
There. That should set some things right. Now wouldn't you prefer that your legislatures work on stuff like that, rather than on the Thoughtcrime Act ( Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act) or the Hooray for Christmas Act?
(Here's a link that I'll try pasting in 21st-Century Style (ohh me back narrr!))
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-giraldi/the-violent-radicalizatio_b_74091.html
(Did it work?) This Act is still cooking and would criminalize you and me and the NAACP lunch counter sitters.
....................
I'm not doing my KBOO show this week 'cause I have to take an employment test.
If you want a copy of my book JEEZUS!, you're out of luck. You should have pledged! Oh wait, that's a BIG FAT LIE and in fact all you have to do is go to the self-publisher website lulu.com and type my name and/or the book name into the search bar, and then pay them to have a copy shipped to you; or else you can find me personally (lots of luck) and see if one of the six remaining copies in my possession is still available; or you can procrastinate still further, because I'm (nervously) going to try to punch little buttons on this 'puter until some sort of advertisement appears for it on this blog. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee
theresa mitchell
However, I am up to speed on the conduct of the corporate-owned government, or so I do flatter myself, and it is in that spirit that I offer the following imaginary
Omnibus Antifascist and Democracy Restoral act of 2008:
(cornet fanfare in A Major, flat seven)
Be it resolved by the People of the United States in Congress Assembled, that
The Bill of Rights, the Ten Amendments appended to the Constitution
of the United States, are reaffirmed as supreme Constitutional Law in
the United States, and are not now nor ever to be superseded by mere
legislative corruptions such as the Patriot Act, nor any Emergency
Declarations by the President or others; nor shall the freedoms and
rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights be diminished or replaced by
misguided contradictions, as one might find in the Warren Defense Act,
the Sedition Act, the Homegrown Terrorism Act, or any other inferior
document or Presidential decree. The War on Terror is disbanded as an
agent of deception and corruption, and shall not be used as further
excuse for any acts of imperialism, repression or fascism. The
Separation of Powers enshrined in the Constitution remains in effect,
and thus immediately reverses all Wars not declared by Congress, and
removes any President not elected by a vote of the People, and any
Agency not dedicated to the Freedom and Welfare of the American
People. All Secret Police agencies are now disbanded and rendered
null and void, and all Prisons held for the purpose of intimidating
enemies and dissenters are now to be emptied and immediately
destroyed. All Funding of the US government shall be appropriated by
the House of Representatives in the manner prescribed by the
Constitution, and no Secret Funding will be allowed.
As the Preamble to the Constitution directs, the Government of the
United States is and shall remain in service to all of the People of
the United States and in no wise may be construed to exist for the
benefit of mere Corporations. Furthermore no Corporation shall be
granted unnatural rights or status similar to that of natural Persons.
There. That should set some things right. Now wouldn't you prefer that your legislatures work on stuff like that, rather than on the Thoughtcrime Act ( Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act) or the Hooray for Christmas Act?
(Here's a link that I'll try pasting in 21st-Century Style (ohh me back narrr!))
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-giraldi/the-violent-radicalizatio_b_74091.html
(Did it work?) This Act is still cooking and would criminalize you and me and the NAACP lunch counter sitters.
....................
I'm not doing my KBOO show this week 'cause I have to take an employment test.
If you want a copy of my book JEEZUS!, you're out of luck. You should have pledged! Oh wait, that's a BIG FAT LIE and in fact all you have to do is go to the self-publisher website lulu.com and type my name and/or the book name into the search bar, and then pay them to have a copy shipped to you; or else you can find me personally (lots of luck) and see if one of the six remaining copies in my possession is still available; or you can procrastinate still further, because I'm (nervously) going to try to punch little buttons on this 'puter until some sort of advertisement appears for it on this blog. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee
theresa mitchell
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