I see the bad moon arising, I feel trouble on the way…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 10:51 AM Permalink
…I see earth quakes and lightnin'. I see bad times today.
Don't go 'round tonight it's bound and take your life, there's a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes a-blowing, I know the end is coming soon. I fear rivers over flowing. I hear the voice of rage and ruin.
Don't go 'round tonight it's bound and take your life, there's a bad moon on the rise.
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Look's like we're in for nasty weather. One eye is taken for an eye.
Don't go 'round tonight it's bound and take your life, there's a bad moon on the rise.
JOHN FOGERTY - Bad Moon Rising
AMERICA AS WE KNEW IT HAS ALREADY DISAPPEARED. AMERICA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM WILL BE GRIEVOUSLY WOUNDED BY THE REPUBLICANS/TEA BAGGING PARTY THIS YEAR AND, IF THEY ARE ALLOWED TO WIN, AMERICA WILL DIE FOR GOOD IN 2012 UNLESS GOOD MEN AND WOMEN STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR THE SOUL OF THIS COUNTRY.
I have felt the bad moon arising for quite some time now. All the signs of America's impending death surround us and have grown immensely since the beginning of the end when the vicious, uncaring for anything for power rethuglican party almost succeeded in impeaching Bill Clinton over a sexual peccadillo having absolutely nothing to do with the execution of his duties as president (he never swore an oath to not fool around, after all).
The sanctimonious insults made while ignoring the depravity and criminality within their own party emboldened the re-pub-lie-cans to steal a national election shortly thereafter by so intimidating Al Gore and his supporters, still embarrassed by the national disgrace of Clinton, with outrageous claims and employing thousands of lawyers to fight against an honest recount of the Florida vote and supported by a corrupt ruling of the SCOTUS allowed gwb, the worst world leader in history, to assume the presidency.
As soon as gwb and the big dick were elected they went about systematically destroying the balance of power within our political system and wildly claimed, Nixon-like, that if the president does it, it is not illegal. bush and cohorts sought to further consolidate their power by insuring bush, one way or another, would be a "war president" able to expand his authority exponentially. I believe bush and his administration, half mad with planning for war, ignored everything else that ultimately lead to the terrorist attack of 9/11, but gladly seized the opportunity to declare war against someone, anyone, knowing that he would somehow extend his war of aggression to Iraq, with or without the approval of the American public.
That the wars he declared were illegal wars of aggression cannot be doubted. An entire nation cannot be ascribed the blame and considered to have declared war against another nation based upon the actions of fifty or sixty men whom do not in any way have any involvement whatever in the government of that country. It is ludicrous to even assume so, otherwise the acts of any small groups of men with no official affiliation with the government of a country could commit some small act of terror just to have war declared against a country from which they do not even claim citizenship. Sounds stupid right on the face of it doesn't it? Yet that is precisely what allowed bush to further push America closer to its own destruction.
What has resulted from eight years of rethuglican rule is the hardening of the hearts and minds of the right-wing religious zealots and gun packing NRA members, raised without empathy or the smallest shred of tolerance for those different than they rising ever higher in both elective offices and heightened awareness with a citizenship direly afraid of becoming a minority within the country that they call "theirs." Mean-spirited, hateful people, so steeped in prejudice and hatred of anyone different from themselves that they have devoted themselves to stopping the natural growth of this country at all costs, starting with those most easily identified as what they perceive as a threat to themselves and their base of power: the educated, the elders, the sick, the infirm, the illegal immigrants, those who oppose them politically, and anyone who dares to speak out in behalf of any of these groups.
And it's easy to understand why. The educated too easily sees through the evil espoused by these teabaggers and their ilk, making it more difficult for teabaggers to just overthrow the government. But they also understand that the educated are unwitting allies in that they understand the need for freedom of speech, even hate speech, and thus allow the teabagger-types to continue spouting their hateful rhetoric unabated. This, plus the fact that ever less money is spend to educate the public, works in their favor, helping them revert to the days of women being chattel, forced to carry even a rapists' baby or one born of incestuous relationships. That's why it is so damned important to them to reverse Roe v. Wade, ignoring the historical truth that inbreeding has brought about the destruction of many a tyrannical family.
The elders, the sick, and the infirm are easy groups to control: play ball with us or we teabaggers will simply see that the medicines you need will be sold at a higher premium for profit here in America than anywhere else in the world. This has already been accomplished quite handily by millionaire legislators receiving the world's best health care free of charge. It is also becoming easier and easier to call for the repeal of any health care bills already passed and this is, in fact, going to be one of the main political promises made by the republicans and teabaggers, now indistinguishable from one another.
So all this, being under fairly good control, leaves the xenophobic fear of anyone differing in appearance or speaking a different language from themselves as the main target of their insanity. Arizona is only the beginning, the xenophobic fear growing ever larger and consuming and involving ever larger groups of American citizenry in Texas, California, and even the northern border states which threaten the teabagger's desire for full control of the population by refusing to allow Americans to purchase needed medications in Canada for a half, a third, or one-tenth the price of the same drugs here in America.
It was once said that the greatest trick the devil ever performed was convincing people he didn't exist.
The greatest, and I believe the most pernicious trick attempted by the teabaggers is to destroy American freedoms from within by slowly, inexorably passing one extra-constitutional law after another until our most precious document and one of the greatest documents in history, the U.S. Constitution is reduced to being nothing more than mere suggestions having nothing to do with the realities of society and the wishes of a small, desperate minority desiring to obtain and retain power by literally ridding the country of anyone staunchly defending the constitution and that for which it stands.
The destruction of America is imminent my friends. All it now takes is for men and women of good will do nothing. Just sit at home. Don't register to vote. Don't actually go out and vote. And, thereby, watch as America disintegrates before your very eyes. And it will then be too late to take action. Too late to do anything but lament the destruction of American by a small, but vocal and dedicated, minority that took action while the rest of us slept.
WAKE UP AMERICA! It is now more vital than ever to get off our collectively lazy asses, register, and then actually go to the polls for this years mid-term elections and the elections of 2012. To fail to do this will be tantamount to handing the keys of America to the reckless, drunk with power, prejudiced, hateful people of the teabagging/republican parties (which may claim to be two different parties but are in actuality one and the same. The rethugs just use the teabaggers to spout the most outlandish and hateful things without rebuke, but with plausible deniability.)
Remember, the teabaggers can only win if the good citizens do not take seriously the dire threat to our country that is posed by these asinine haters. They demonstrate their ignorance of what is happening in America by simply failing to note that white women are now a minority group. Or maybe they do see the handwriting on the wall and foresee the day when white men will be in the minority as well, the thought of which would surely drive them mad: mad with hatred, mad with fear, mad at the thought of losing power, mad that their children will inevitably be assimilated into a multi-complex society bearing no physical appearance to the mostly white society in which they grew up.
I noted in a post long ago that America finally stopped living the lie that if you applied yourself, worked hard, and did well in life, you, too, could be elected president. The election of President Obama broke through what was the great American lie for over two hundred years and I, for one, recognized this and hailed it as perhaps one of our country's greatest achievements. At last the promise of America had been kept and for the first time in our history it was true: anyone could be elected president, without regard to the color of their skin.
That is why I believe that for a few election cycles women were placed on the ballot. Not so they could be elected, as that never even came close to happening, but to perpetuate the charade that they could run. When a person of color actually won the presidency it scared the bejebus out of our white power structure and they realized that they must do anything and everything possible to paint Obama in such a light as to forever stop any future votes for persons of color. Oh, sure, it didn't hurt to have a few token blacks and women in congress or the senate, but the presidency was the exclusive domain of white males for over two hundred years and is now the reason we see this full court press to lash out at immigrants and/or any liberal politicians who might, god forbid, someday elect an Hispanic woman president.
This would never do and for me accounts for the vicious, non-sensical, vehement and hateful reactions on the part of the right-wing zealots making up the rethug/teabag party.
This is just my opinion and I could be wrong. but if I am correct America has precious little time to right itself and live up to the principles we have espoused for over two hundred years.
GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND VOTE AMERICANS OR WATCH YOUR COUNTRY DEVOLVE TO THE DARK AGES.
I see clean beaches and I want them painted black…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:36 PM Permalink
…[with apologies to Mick jagger and the Rolling Stones].
As reported by the Vidiot below it just isn't enough for the oil industry or the 'pub-lie-cans to have one of the world's biggest environmental disasters taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, they want to continue drilling for oil all over the place so they can exponentially increase the odds of another disaster.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill had been number one. Now BP has surpassed the Exxon spill to get the number one disaster-creator post, and I guess we'll just have to wait to see which oil company, aided by greedy politicians, will create the next "worlds greatest environmental disaster" and seize the title from British Petroleum. (This is reminiscent of George Carlin, on SNL years ago, reporting: "I'm sure that most of you have heard of the competition going on between Richard Pryor and me. First Richard had a heart attack, so I had a heart attack, then Richard set himself on fire and I said f**k that! and had another heart attack!")
Also, as the Vidiot noted below, Russian scientist are saying what should have been said all along: that this is a gargantuan toxic spill that could lead to toxic "acid rain" falling on the eastern coast of America. I guess that's if it doesn't get snagged by the jet stream and spread over who knows how large an area. In other words, the cure may be worse than the disease (where have I heard, or lived through, that before?)
Does anyone reasonable believe that BP and our government were not already aware of this? Is anyone surprised by this information regarding toxic acid rain remaining unreleased by authorities given the governments penchant for NOT releasing such info as was done with Agent Orange?
I think it's also kind of deceiving to report the spill as "19,000 barrels a day" as opposed to putting it into language everyone can understand. Forty-two gallons to a barrel means that the spill is over three-quarters of a million gallons a day.
798,000 gallons a day. That's a figure that should rightfully engender awareness of the horrific nature of this spill.
And if this spill continues to grow, or tides, winds, or other factors start wiping out fishing and polluting the beaches of other countries and island groups how many trillions of dollars, potentially, could America be fairly made, or at least urged, to pay and from wince would come the money?
The MSM (sure to be followed by every rightwing, lunatic fringe, mouth-breathing republican or teaparty member)…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:32 AM Permalink
…is breathlessly reporting that there may be scurrilous action afoot in that Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania was offered a job in the current administration by the dreaded and despised Bill Clinton in order to discourage Sestak from running for Arlen Spector's senatorial seat.
This strikes me as hilariously funny as I always assumed it was common knowledge that political parties have always sought to have their favorite son or daughter on the ballot and that they often offer any opposing candidate a position elsewhere in the party or with any of the large number of "think tanks" maintained by the political parties for just such a purpose. 'Specially the 'pub-lie-cans, a party with so many conservative think tanks that you might believe that the solution for all the worlds problems is imminent.
Of course though it would be bad form for the 'pub-lie-cans to allow any election to pass without trying to besmirch the reputation of the president or the intent of the democratic party, as well as taking another cheap shot at that most reviled-on-the-right former president Bill Clinton. It's doubly ridiculous when you stop to consider that the worst president and most despised former world leader, former presidential officeholder gwb, has been appearing in commercial pleas for help to gain donations to provide relief to earthquake victims in Haiti or tsunami victims a couple of years ago, with Bill Clinton in a desperate attempt to associate himself with one of America's great presidents [my opinion] to try and rehabilitate his (gwb) image by appearing to be a humanitarian and not the worlds worst torturer, starter of wars of aggression for oil, war criminal supreme, once considered the world's greatest threat to peace, and the number one terrorist of all. Even gwb's daddy appeared with sonny boy and that ne'er-do-well and reckless premature eja…well, you know what I mean…Bill Clinton in order to sanitize gwb's reputation.
So, to recap: it is now either a crime or despicable illegal or unethical act to offer a job to a potential candidate to discourage that candidate from running for a particular office, especially an unpaid position within an administration as we all know how tempting a non-paying job is and how men (or women) will sell their souls to the devil and be absolutely corrupted beyond any hope of redemption for even having heard of such an offer, much less having the non-paying job actually offered.
Utah Republican Sen. Bennett, rejected by party, considering running as a write-in candidate
Sen. Bob Bennett said on Tuesday he's still considering running for a fourth term as a write-in candidate even as Republican leaders publicly discouraged him from doing so.
Bennett failed to win enough delegates at the Utah GOP convention on Saturday to advance to the state's primary election. Conservatives and "tea party" activists rejected his bid. He said Tuesday that some of his Senate colleagues privately have encouraged him to run as a write-in, but he declined to identify them.
'Pub-lie-cans are too cheap to even offer a non-paying job, but IOKIYAR to discourage candidates from running.
Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day. ... A greater danger involving Corexit 9500, and as outlined by Russian scientists in this report, is that with its 2.61ppm toxicity level, and when combined with the heating Gulf of Mexico waters, its molecules will be able to “phase transition” from their present liquid to a gaseous state allowing them to be absorbed into clouds and allowing their release as “toxic rain” upon all of Eastern North America.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:47 AM Permalink
or rather, what my mom pointed out.
Yesterday, as she was leaving her apartment, when she got to the the elevators, she heard whooshing water. So, the elevators weren't working and when she got to the stairs, there was a torrent of water flowing down them. She lives on the 9th floor of a 27-floor building. When she made it down the slippery stairs, she got the desk and saw the building manager running around, clucking like a doped up chicken. She also saw a bunch of other folks running around, bumping into things and not really being able to figure anything out. And then it hit her; people can't problem solve any more. Nobody knows what to do when presented with a messy problem.
Same thing with the Oilcano* in the Gulf. Everybody was busy pointing fingers and arguing with each other, the end result being the mess we're in now.
And honestly, I see it in my every day life. Just look around at how people maneuver through their day. Little things confuse them, big things stymie them.
She said she knew that the old ones would know what to do. Her dad, my grampa, worked for the B&O railroad as a train crash inspector. He barely had an 8th grade education, yet the man could figure anything out. There was one story about how a locomotive had overturned and my grampa had to figure out how to right it with little to no real equipment. He jerryrigged some pulleys and levers and popped it right up. I told a civil engineer what my grampa did and how he did it and he was like "That was brilliant! He came up with that all on his own? Man! Impressive."
Do you think anybody these days, least of all with an 8th grade education, can even think themselves out of a paper bag? No. Corporations have taken over the job of thinking for us. They do all the work and the problems solving. And now, our society is completely reliant upon them.
This is not good, people. Not good at all.
*I've settled on Oilcano as the word to be used from now on. It best describes it, donchyathink?
President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a rare meeting with Senate Republicans, but the 75-minute session yielded little progress on hot-button topics and left some senators with bruised feelings.
Did President Obama huut yur por wittl feewins!? Good.
From day one of Obama's election repugs bragged about being the party of no and obstructing everything even if they had voted for it before. (See Waterloo, Presidential appointments, legislation, &c, &c, &c.)
What's hard to believe is that Dems keep falling for this monkey flinging crap. Obama & the Dems keep adopting rethug legislative compromises to get the rethug votes and then the rethugs turn around and still vote NO.
At what point does one just say F**k you and do the right thing? (BTW, senator roberts, the POTUS doesn't need to take a valium, you need to take lithium. Your chemical imbalance from voting NO on things you proposed shows signs of Bicameral Disorder.)
Republicans argued Tuesday that it would put the nation's finances at risk if Congress gave aiing Sept. 11 responders a permanent, guaranteed program to ensure they get health care. [...] Speaking to dozens of responders gathered in a Capitol Hill hearing chamber, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) argued that their demand for the federal government to help "would be just if we weren't spending money already."
Gosh Shimkus, you mean like spending money that you've voted for on wars on countries that had nothing to do with 9/11?
But his statement is all you need to know about republican philosophy.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:21 AM Permalink
Along with all the corporate malfeasance that occurred, the Gulf Gusher probably could've been stopped dead in it's tracks:
I am, as a Professional Plumbing Contractor and former Welder, amazed that BP ignored the requests to use an 8 hour window to make and test the CPP and CPP with piping and ball valve then STOP THE LEAK since 042610 through today 052010. More amazing is the failure of the United States President and others to TAKE OVER THE SITE IN THE INTERESTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY UNTIL EVERYTHING IS REMOVED FROM THE SEA BED AND CONFIRMATION OF CRIMINAL ACTS OR TERRORISM IF NOT MURDER ARE CONFIRMED.
posted by The Sailor @ 7:02 PM Permalink
Normally if I'm going to blogwhore anyone it's the people I work with, they are great writers and good humans and they make me strive to better at both. But this guy hits them over the fence, or qualifies first, or sinks the winning basket, or whatever it is that Hoosiers do.
e.g. DUNNO how it is in your neighborhood, but around here if someone begins a sentence "When I was in college I took a course in…" and the course in question was not some practical or technical instruction (ceramics, glass-blowing, accounting), and the observation which follows does not merely affirm, or perhaps modify, some general banality ("and it's pronounced 'kill'"; "and math is hard"), then the one thing you are about to learn--have already learned--is that the speaker doesn't know what th' fuck he's talking about.
Read the whole thing. I hope he's a descendant of James Whitcomb Riley, because his prose is near as good as JWC's poetry.
I do good work, my colleagues here do really good work, Doghouse Riley has moments that make me go 'damn, that's so good I wonder why I do this.'
I'll still go on doing this, because just like playing guitar or writing songs or writing, I can't help it, I just gotta do it. But damn! when someone is that good ya just gotta acknowledge it.
1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 3:18 PM Permalink
…are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Amendment 14 of the U.S. Constitution.
Arizona is planning to pass a law in blatant violation of this amendment in an effort to stop granting so-called "anchor babies", children of illegal aliens, the citizenship and protections under the law that is the right of every person born in America.
It is interesting that the portion of this amendment stating, "…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." does not in any way distinguish or allow a different standard to apply to non-citizens, illegal aliens, prisoners held by the military, nor any other class of "person(s)" whatever.
This, the utter flaunting of constitutional provisions and amendments, is exactly what is destroying America and the American Dream. I am mortified at the actions of the citizens of Arizona through their lawfully elected leaders.
Maybe Arizona should be expelled from our union, maybe we should cease extending the protections of the constitution to its citizens and build a thirty foot tall border fence around the entire state and, further, prohibit any Arizonan from claiming to be a citizen of these United States or able to invoke any protection under the provisions of the 14th Amendment.
If they are wont to continually violate the constitution and its amendments as ratified by at least two-thirds of the states then extant, why shouldn't we?
Without having read the third most popular and emailed articles from the NYT today…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:51 PM Permalink
…titled "Labels Urged for Food That Can Choke" I have to laugh and wonder if there is an article somewhere noting that radiation scarring from treatments received 16-years ago lead to the hardening and virtual destruction of every cartilaginous structure in a person's head and neck that renders every food a choking hazard?
Believe me, it's a bitch to feel a piece of food or pill of medicine going into your lungs that leads to coughing so hard to eject it that a person cracks or fractures ribs.
It's only happened maybe a half-dozen times in the last five years and extremely limits the kind of foods I consume. And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the double pneumonia I had a few months ago.
Seven million gallons of oil polluting our seas and I cannot but wonder…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:58 PM Permalink
…why the matter of this "leak" has not been turned over to the military so they might go in with Red Adair-like planning to calculate the precise amount of C-4, Simtex, or almost any other explosive device, and figure out the exact placement of the device to crush the leaking pipe and, if not sealing it completely, at least achieve a great reduction of the size of the leak.
I can't help but imagine that a Cray or other supercomputer would be able to calculate how much explosive material and its exact placement to do this within minutes (or seconds) of inputting the appropriate data.
For those who are too young or so old they have forgotten about Red Adair and his wildcatters exploits in extinguishing oil well fires, Red was one of the greatest experts of his day and used the precise placement of explosives directly into the flames of the fire so that when detonated the subsequent vacuum created immediately extinguished the fire, leaving only the capping of the gushing oil well to complete the job.
Red Adair and his exploits were memorialized in the 1968 movie "Hellfighter" starring John Wayne as Chance Buckman, Vera Miles as Madelyn Buckman, and one of the most beautiful and enchanting women ever [my opinion] Katherine Ross as Tish Buckman. I guess they changed the names so they wouldn't have to pay hugh royalties to Red though I do seem to remember a screen credit that Red Adair and crew were the inspiration for the film.
Have we become so enamored with highly technical solutions as to forget the application of brute explosive force?
A Small Town in Arkansas Mourns Two Slain Officers
Sergeant Paudert and Officer Evans were shot to death on Thursday during a traffic stop on Interstate 40 East, prompting a wide dragnet that paralyzed the area and ended in a hail of gunfire between the police and two suspects — Jerry R. Kane Jr., 45, and his son Joseph, 16 — in a Wal-Mart parking lot here about 90 minutes later, as shoppers scurried for cover.
The Kanes were killed in the gun battle, and Sheriff Dick Busby of Crittenden County and his chief deputy, W. A. Wren, were wounded.…
…as the authorities worked to piece together the sequence of events that led to Thursday’s shootings, residents of West Memphis continued to wonder sadly how their small community had become the scene of such a gritty tableau — one that left their police department’s drug task force cut in half.
The town of about 30,000 sits just west of the Mississippi River flood plains and the Memphis skyline, near Interstates 40 and 55…
It saddens me also that such violence has hit this town which has grown to 30,000 people from the 3,000 who lived there back in the fifties.
My grandparents were the only pharmacists there and ran Arnett's Drugstore. A polite young man named Elvis Presley, a truck driver then, used to deliver supplies to the store and occasionally, upon invitation, would come to sing with the choir at our small Methodist Church.
It took me years to figure out how my grandmother would know everywhere any of us kids had gone or what we had done there: she was the town's only pharmacist, she knew everybody and everybody knew her; all she had to do was pick up or answer the phone to receive all the information she needed to either praise us or punish us for good deeds or transgressions.
In the background of the site where interviews and updates were given, off in the distance, I could see the hugh water tower located by the Community Center, a giant brick building overlooking the expansive playground with all the accoutrements, towering slides, several merry-go-rounds, monkey bars, and just about everything a kid could desire as well as the town swimming pools.
It is shocking to me that such violence has stricken the community that was essentially as crime-free as any small southern town could be. We lived in a big brick house at 501 Arlington Drive, if memory serves, where the most exciting events were the bells of neighborhood ice cream trucks and the sounds and fog of the jeeps spraying DDT that rolled out in waves that would block the starlight and which we kids followed as far as we were permitted. That house cost $3,650 in 1954, a year after my birth.
I will never forget [hopefully, as my memory is problematic nowadays] walking past the Chevy dealer's lot on the way to the barber shop and stopping and looking with awe upon the 1963 Corvette priced at $3,700, shocked that a car could be more expensive than our house.
I remember the lessons of "duck and hide" under the desks at school in the event of nuclear attack and the warnings to not eat the snow until it was determined whether or not it had been contaminated by the fallout of above-ground atomic bomb testing.
It's sad to contemplate not just the natural growth of the town, but the taking over of it's economy by Walmart, which itself was created in Arkansas by Sam Walton, and the consequent collapse of the societal norm that brought drugs and violence into the lives of West Memphis' current residents, as I would bet there is no larger employer there. We've all heard of the devastation and poverty that can befall a small town when Walmart moves in with slave wages they can get away with paying in the absence of competition regarding employment.
My heart goes out to the two slain officers and their families.
posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:55 AM Permalink
…that their reliance on the new law they have enacted regarding the forcing of citizens to "present their papers" on demand based on their appearance is very likely going to be ruled unconstitutional.
Long ago in California there was a man named Edward C. Lawson, a man of color who wore Rastafarian-like braided dreadlocks and who enjoyed taking late night walks in enclaves reserved for the wealthy and "elite" of society, and whom was arrested fifteen times for failing to provide identification upon demand of a peace officer in accordance with California Penal Code Section 647(e).
Edward didn't like that and took his case through various courts which upheld that the rights of a citizen exceeded those of a peace officer arresting a person for merely failing to show identification. It was held, within the framework of that legal term of art, that this was unconstitutional:
A California statute requires persons who loiter or wander on the streets to identify themselves and to account for their presence when requested by a peace officer. The California Court of Appeal has construed the statute to require a person to provide "credible and reliable" identification when requested by a police officer who has reasonable suspicion of criminal activity sufficient to justify a stop under the standards of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 . The California court has defined "credible and reliable" identification as "carrying reasonable assurance that the identification is authentic and providing means for later getting in touch with the person who has identified himself." Appellee, who had been arrested and convicted under the statute, brought an action in Federal District Court challenging the statute's constitutionality. The District Court held the statute unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.…
The statute, as drafted and as construed by the state court, is unconstitutionally vague on its face within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to clarify what is contemplated by the requirement that a suspect provide a "credible and reliable" identification. As such, the statute vests virtually complete discretion in the hands of the police to determine whether the suspect has satisfied the statute and must be permitted to go on his way in the absence of probable cause to arrest.…
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court…
Individual who had been arrested and convicted for violating a California statute requiring persons who loiter or wander on the streets to provide a "credible and reliable" identification and to account for their presence when requested by a police officer, brought suit for declaratory and injunctive relief challenging the statute's constitutionality. The District Court held the statute unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 658 F.2d 1362, affirmed and California officials appealed. The Supreme Court, Justice O'Connor, held that the statute was unconstitutionally vague by failing to clarify what was contemplated by the requirement that a suspect provide a "credible and reliable" identification. Affirmed.
Justice Brennan filed a concurring opinion.…
Merely to facilitate the general law enforcement objectives of investigating and preventing unspecified crimes, States may not authorize the arrest and criminal prosecution of an individual for failing to produce identification or further information on demand by a police officer.…
"a person who is stopped on less than probable cause cannot be punished for failing to identify himself." -- Lawson v. Kolender, 658 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1981)…
In Lawson v. Kolender, for example, the plaintiff had been arrested 15 times under a California vagrancy statute which "require[d] a person to provide reliable identification when requested by a police officer who has a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity . . . ." 658 F.2d at 1366. The Ninth Circuit concluded that such a statute violates the Fourth Amendment because it "subverts the probable cause requirement" in that it "authorizes arrest and conviction for conduct that is no more than suspicious." Id. at 1367, quoting in part Powell v. Stone, 507 F.2d 93, 96 (9th Cir. 1974), rev'd on other grounds, 428 U.S. 465 (1976). As the court explained, "as a result of the demand for identification, the statutes bootstrap the authority to arrest on less than probable cause, and the serious intrusion on personal security outweighs the mere possibility that identification may provide a link leading to arrest." Lawson, 658 F.2d at 1366-1367.Edward Lawson
It should be noted that Mr. Lawson himself, in Pro Per, [generally speaking this means he brought this action himself, without benefit of an attorney. Bill] spit right in the eye of California and had its Penal Code Section 647(e) ruled unconstitutional, and that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld all decisions to that effect in lower courts.
So to the people and right [or is it left?] thinking citizens footing the bill for their state legislators bigotry and ignorance, we folks here in California say, "Been there. Done that." It's a shame that your state will further exhaust the limited funds of your taxes, suffer the humiliation and indignity of having many, many large corporations withdrawing from Arizona or changing their minds about entering into Arizona, and suffer the derision of people who recognize bigotry, bias, and prejudice when they see it.
posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:08 AM Permalink
…but my beloved wife of thirty-six years, whose touch still sends shivers down my spine, whose glance warms me as sunshine on a bright summer morning, whose mere presence speeds my heart, my Warrior Woman, without whom I would not have such a wonderful son, or even be alive today, as I know it was she that pulled be back from the fierce maw of death from cancer, she was exclusively mine for the last ten glorious days as she was on vacation from her job. I could not think of anything or, especially, anyone with whom I could possibly have been happier or more excited, more in love with, and I am still amazed that everything else, the entire world, falls from view as I simply gaze at her.
I lack adequate words to describe how deliriously happy I have been and remain so I'll leave this explanatory post now and try to return to trying to make sense of this insane country within which we live and the almost medieval cruelty that we now witness daily.
Gulf Coast senators are pressing federal regulators to resume processing permits for off-shore drilling in shallow waters, saying that a moratorium imposed earlier this month is too broad.
posted by The Vidiot @ 12:06 PM PermalinkThese guys still aren't incarcerated and facing the death penalty because.....?
Crude oil spread through fragile US marshlands Thursday, a month after a drilling rig blast released a devastating spill that now threatens Florida, Cuba and even beyond.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government's top weather forecaster said a "small portion" of light sheen from the giant oil slick has already entered the Loop Current, which could carry the oil down to the Florida Keys, to Cuba and even up the U.S. East Coast.
Tar, feather, hang. In that order please.
Honestly, I think they should execute them on pay-per-view and the money raised would go to oil cleanup.
posted by The Vidiot @ 8:05 AM Permalink
You know, as a society, we're sort of comfortable with the concept of a hero saving the day. It started with Superman, Batman, Spiderman. All of them bailed us out of dire, no escape situations. More recently, we have actors like Stallone, Willis, and Will Smith doing the saving. Now, the actors are crossing over into real life.
So remember that time in Waterworld when that machine could turn urine into clean water? Well, Kevin Costner was apparently so inspired by the technology, and so devastated by the Exxon-Valdez spill, that he paid scientists millions of dollars to develop a similar system for oil. The resulting centrifuge machines, named "Ocean Therapy," will now be applied to the Gulf of Mexico. The world actually has Waterworld to thank for something.
Well, he may not be a superb actor, but at least he's not wasting his time drinking and drugging like the rest 'em. And hey! If it works, he can play himself in the movie!
Whenever I would say "The US Government works for corporations, not we the people"...
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:18 AM Permalink
I'd get these sort of quizzical, stupefied faces staring back at me. Not any more. Here is your proof:
Kelly Cobiella reports that a CBS News team was threatened with arrest by Coast Guard officials in the Gulf of Mexico who said they were acting under the authority of British Petroleum.
So, here we have a private company, BP, utilizing the military forces of its host company, the Coast Guard, to do their policing for them.
posted by The Sailor @ 6:17 PM Permalink
A 7 year old girl was killed by a Detroit cop at 12:40 am last Sunday. That's a fact. Some of what follows is spin and conjecture. Spin one:
[...] The shooting happened at 12:40 a.m., when the Special Response Team executed a no-knock search warrant on the duplex in the 4000 block of Lillibridge. Officers rushed in after throwing a stun grenade through the glass of a front window.
Family members said they were told by police the gun discharged when Mertilla Jones, 46, attempted to wrestle away the officer's weapon.
Knowing that wasn't going to work the cops walked it back:
Sunday, police spokesman John Roach said the weapon may have fired simply because Jones and the officer collided.
So we've gone to 'wrestled with' to merely 'collided'.
It didn't stop her grandmother from being hauled off to jail.
Mertilla Jones was held until Sunday afternoon, and it remained unclear if she will face charges. Police said she spent several hours hospitalized with what police described as medical issues.
Well of course she had 'medical issues' you shot her granddaughter in cold blood and then you arrested her!
It just gets worse:[Deputy Police Chief] Godbee said, calling Sunday "probably the worst day of my career." F**k you and your career, a 7 year old child died!
And there's more:
Godbee would not comment on reports that neighbors told officers that there were children in the house, and pointed out toys in the front yard.
Godbee didn't say if the suspect in Blake's slaying was arrested in the downstairs or upstairs apartment. Godbee said, "The suspect was within the scope of our search warrant." He added that the warrant allowed police to search both units.
As it turns out, the suspect did not live there, they killed a little girl and have already lied about it multiple times.
And it gets worse, maybe spin, but it was allegedly caught on tape that we haven't seen:
An attorney for the family of a 7-year-old girl who was killed by a police officer's bullet during a weekend raid at their home said Monday that he saw video of the raid that contradicts the police department's version of what happened.
Attorney Geoffrey Fieger said he watched three or four minutes of video that showed police fired into the home after lobbing a flash grenade through the window.
So maybe we can find out the truth, partially because the pro-cop reality TV show 48 Hours were following these cops for their shoot.
Did the fact that 48 Hours was shooting affect the Detroit shooting?
While national experts say flash-bang grenades are useful tools in high-risk situations, Detroit police told the Free Press the devices are rarely used.
"In my entire career, we've only used these in barricaded-gunmen situations as a diversionary tactic," one police officer said, adding he was involved in hundreds of high-risk arrests and raids.
I've only quoted small parts of the articles, under fair use copyright.
But here's my take from reading all of them: The cops were showboating in front of cameras. Instead of waiting waiting for the alleged murderer to exit the UPSTAIRS apartment, they decided to toss a flash/bang grenade thru the window of the downstairs apartment which landed on a 7 year old girl and her grandmother. It set the little girl on fire and her grandma thought this was a bad thing. ergo, little girl dies, granma is hauled to jail, a guy upstairs in a different apartment is arrested, who might be the shooter from a couple of days before.
The cops claim they had the right to no-knock, flashbang, invade both apartments. If that is true, then the judge who signed the warrants needs to be charged with conspiracy to murder, just like the cops (yes, it's plural, just like felony murder) need to have a fair trial, and then be sentenced to LWOP.
Indiana Republican Rep. Mark Souder announced Tuesday he would resign from Congress, effective Friday, because he had an affair with a staffer.
Souder said in a statement provided by his office that he has "sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff."
The affair began after Jackson was hired in a part-time role in 2004, according to a source knowledgeable about the relationship. Jackson, who is married, was hired to play guest host with Souder for a daily radio spot he recorded for WFCV, a Christian radio station in Fort Wayne.
OK, so it's been going on since 2004, but he just now had his come-to-jebus moment, and his partner in 'family values' slime is also married.
Boy, it sure doesn't get any worse, than that ... wait a minute, if you call now you can receive the abstinence video he recorded with his married 'staffer' (Jeez, I'm starting to love that term;-) Well, what I always say is abstinence makes the fond grow harder!
Snark aside, some folks in the wrongwing will always come back with 'but, but, Dems did it too!' argument. So let me just state: I personally don't care about anyone's consensual sex life, even external to one's marriage. It's not my business, and infidelity should only concern those directly involved ... EXCEPT when you run on a hypocritical platform that deliberately peeks into other folks' bedrooms and practices.
Backers of legislation to raise the economic-damage liability cap for oil companies to $10 billion plan to seek passage through the committee process after the legislation failed to win expedited approval yesterday.
Though, Dr. Vidiot just reminded me that OF COURSE they won't impose anything on BP. Their jobs aren't to represent us; they're jobs are to secure the safety of big business.
Update: So, I'm in the shower, and it occurs to me that putting up a post with the word 'shot' in it could get me a knock on the door by the FBI. So, just for the record (and for those asshats in the Federal Surveillance Bureaus), I am not nor will I ever be one of those people who goes around shooting big oil execs or elected officials. I am, though, one of the people who will be applauding the folks who do. OK?
It's a sad state of affairs when we get to this level of paranoia with our government.
The oil thing is NOT a SPILL. We should not use that term. It is major rupture in mother earth that was human induced. The take I have seen is that if they don't get a lid on this bitch real soon it is going to start releasing toxic fumes of cancer causing stink over a large swath of the SE U.S.. This is beyond 'sucks'. This is in the realm of trees and ropes.
Then today I thought maybe there is a higher deity and this is his/her way of saying .....you wanted that Mideast oil so bad that you killed 3000 of your own.....well take this MF'ers.....
On my favorite music artists has just releasead all her stuff for free.
posted by The Vidiot @ 1:54 PM Permalink
Sort of awesome really. Her name is Jane Siberry. I saw her perform in the Village back in the late 80s. I had never heard of her and everyone was like "I can't describe it but you'll love it." And boy did I. Here's my favorite album of hers, "The Walking" (My favorite so far anyway. I've not heard her recent stuff.) Here's the link to the rest of it.
IT IS FREE, A GIFT FROM JANE. TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT.
posted by The Vidiot @ 9:52 AM Permalink
We went to see "A Behanding in Spokane" last night for Teen Vidiot's 15th (yikes) birthday. It was, odd. Well, Christopher Walken is odd. I wasn't crazy about all the swearing (mind you, I can swear like a longshoreman and it bothered ME a bit) and some of the plot was a little ridiculous (even Teen Vidiot pointed that out). But I mostly liked it. Though, I had been warned in advance that some of the critics had panned it as too racist. Well, obviously, that's the part that made me laugh.
The first time Walken said "nigger" you could hear subtle little gasps in the audience. And that made me laugh. Those gasps were only slightly audible, of course, when the black guy called the Walken character a "crazy assed mutherfuckin' cracker" so THAT made me laugh too. (No worries. Walken made me laugh too. He's just so bloody weird.)
I think it's funny how folks are so sensitive about "those words." What they fail to understand is if they just stopped caring about them, "those words" would lose their power and ignorant, mean people wouldn't be able to use them to hurt people any more.
I saw the play's usage of "those words" less racist and more about taking the piss out of them. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just toooo liberal.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:26 AM Permalink
First they say the 'leak' isn't all that bad. Then, a week later, it's about five times worse then they thought. Now, two weeks out, it's ten times worse than they thought.
Unlike the torrent unleashed in the Gulf, the news they feed us is spoon fed in bite-sized pieces; they wait for us to masticate and swallow before they say any more.
"Oh, the damage will be localized." becomes "It might spread out" to "It's complete and utter devastation... and where was the media when all this was happening? THAT'S what we REALLY should be talking about!"
posted by Bill Arnett @ 3:01 PM Permalink
…Mouth-breathing right wings fanatics and those Republicans in the Senate who cater to that small minority and who will react likewise to those fanatics are really going to try and make Elena Kagan seem to be a fire-breathing liberal, unqualified for this office, and will seek to twist any stray comment ever uttered or written by her into an albatross to hang around her neck.
They'll take every cheap shot they can, ask questions of her that consume so much time she will be unable to adequately express her views in the time remaining to the politician who will cut her off by, "…reclaiming their time…," a time honored device by which a senator can cut off any answer from her that will obviously demonstrate her, in my opinion, superior intellect, temperate viewpoints and her ability to run logic circles around her questioner. Yes, it just wouldn't do to allow her, metaphorically speaking, to show how ignorant her interrogator is in comparison is to her, mental midgets questioning an intellectual giant insofar as law and life within the law is concerned.
I asked the same question when President Obama was elected to office: What's wrong with intelligent, unbiased, articulate people holding important public offices? And I believe our country can only be as good as it formerly was by doing this very thing.
It will be refreshing to have a SCOTUS Justice whom is steeped in the law and its application and implications for the country instead of some brown-noser whose head is always up some politician's ass. Many court appointees brown-nose and show fealty to one political party or viewpoint in order to get appointed to a lifetime position that guarantees them many years to seek achieving their patrons agenda. An agenda that seems to me is almost always detrimental to the citizens of this once great country; decisions made that further narrow the rights of us all instead of expanding our rights so that the 'regular person' can feel hope instead of fear, obtain an education versus the struggle to find a job paying a living wage, being secure in our homes, persons, and effects compared to suffering the raging paranoia that causes and permits illegal wiretapping, spying on innocent groups or people, the bankrupting and looting of the country's spirit, assets, and treasure that naturally follow the moral depravity of torture, Predator drones, land mines, cluster bombs, and the unspeakable horrors of genocide and displacement of millions in a vain attempt to force democracy upon people who do not wish for nor ask for a democracy.
And oil, too. Can't forget about the oil belonging to others that America attempts to steal with, I believe, little success.Especially when we could have legitimately purchased that oil on the open market without paying so dearly with the loss of American lives, and without the added cost of war, weapons, defense spending, and a wildly out of control administration as created by gwb.
But that's just my opinion and I certainly could be wrong.
I don't care about Iran or their laughingstock president…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:55 PM Permalink
…but it gets sorely annoying to hear the incorrect translation of a quote from one of his speeches that Ahmadinejad, "…threatened to wipe Israel off the map…," a mistranslation used by the MSM, too many politicians, and innumerable times by various talking heads and supposed experts. It was again shown onscreen by MSNBC newsreader Peter Alexander just this morning.
Juan Cole, whom I believe is considered an authority both on Iran and the languages spoken in Iran, New Persian and Farsi, has repeatedly debunked this myth despite the efforts of one journalist, Christopher Hitchens, to perpetuate the bad translation and seek to use it as justification for the idea that Iran is a radical country seeking the destruction of Israel.
I refer you to Mr. Cole's Informed Comment where he again criticizes Mr. Hitchens' alleged theft of Mr. Cole's email and Hitchens' persistent use of the incorrect translation of Ahmadinejad's quotation.
…he [Hitchens] should behave like a journalist, not like a hired gun for the far Right, smearing hapless targets of his ire. That isn’t journalism. For some reason it drives the Right absolutely crazy that I keep this little web log, and so they keep trotting out these clowns in amateurish sniping attacks. It is rather sad, that one person standing up to them puts them into such piranha-like frenzy.
The precise reason for Hitchens’ theft and publication of my private mail is that I object to the characterization of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as having “threatened to wipe Israel off the map.” I object to this translation of what he said on two grounds. First, it gives the impression that he wants to play Hitler to Israel’s Poland, mobilizing an armored corps to move in and kill people.
But the actual quote, which comes from an old speech of Khomeini, does not imply military action, or killing anyone at all. The second reason is that it is just an inexact translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. He quoted Khomeini that “the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.” It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks.
Mr. Cole isn't the only authority on Iran and its languages to make this correction of a false translation. There was also a Jewish group of scholars, the name of which escapes me, that agreed with Mr. Cole and his proper translation of the quote, [I am still recovering from an awful bevy of deleterious side effects caused by some prescribed medications and just don't have the energy or clarity of thought to do the research to find the name of this group. But I assure you this group exists. Bill]
I have grown so tired of the ability of the far Right to keep repeating a lie so many times in so many venues that the lie eventually becomes considered to be the truth. It's farging amazing to watch this process, repeated countless times by the far Right, in turning a lie into the truth. It's even more amazing to me that people don't recognize what's happening and buy into the new 'truth' whole hog.
But that's just my opinion and I certainly could be wrong.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:14 AM Permalink
Who Obama picked as a supreme court justice is about as important as a gnat on a dog's ass.
The oil spill, if left unchecked, could mean the end of life as we know it. And guess what? Those criminals don't have a plan B.
See, if that spill continues unabated, the gulf and a huge portion of the Atlantic will become a deadzone. The plankton dies, then the fish that eat the plankton will die and so and so forth right up the food chain and you know what rests at the top of that food chain? Us. Sure, we don't rely entirely on fish for our diets, but lots of animals do. And lots of biological cycles rely on the oceans. Things like carbon absorption, just to name a big one.
This spill could cause the decimation of a goodly portion of the creatures on this planet.
Lord, if you're out there, or, Aliens, if you're watching, NOW IS THE TIME!
posted by The Vidiot @ 6:26 PM Permalink
I've been walking around, looking at folks living their lives, talking on their phones, raising their kids and thinking "so, this what Armageddon looks like."
Officials for BP on Saturday encountered a significant setback in their efforts to attach a containment dome over a leaking well on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico, forcing them to move the dome aside while they find another method to cap the crude oil flowing into the Gulf since April 20.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:54 AM Permalink
As I'm sure you heard, during his interview with the lilliputian Stephanopoulos, Ahmadinejad said that he'd "heard that Osama bin Laden is in... Washington, D.C." Sure, if you take it literally, it sounds stupid.
But really, I thought it was a very clever statement. Obviously what he meant was that bin Laden only exists in the minds of the folks in DC.
I thought it was great.
Of course, it went right over Steph's head, but that's 'cause he's so tiny.
What's so insane, when I look over that sickening slick moving toward the Delta, is that containing spilled oil is really quite simple and easy. And from my investigation, BP has figured out a very low-cost way to prepare for this task: BP lies. BP prevaricates, BP fabricates and BP obfuscates.
posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:24 PM Permalink
…'though for how long this time I cannot say. This last round of deleterious side effects to medications prescribed almost literally left me without a mind. It is usually my hands that bear the brunt of damage done, and I'm very displeased with myself for not recognizing what through the haze of my mind that my hands had again gone numb with no sensory perceptions, not even one.
My hands became as bird's feet, their relaxed state clutching tightly, instead of laying there opened lightly, the tendons hurting badly, and I'm doubly P.O.'d I did not recognize this because my mind was busy being absorbed madly with wild, incoherent thought that caused me to do things I knew I ought not. I had much time for introspection, searching desperately to find the right direction in which I must go, but I found my ability to think had slowed to a crawl, really, really slow. So I dumped all of those newer medicines that had recently been prescribed knowing it must be them that was robbing me of reason, leaving me almost blind.
As I sat for many, many days I realized I did not just want to disappear without leaving some type of memory, proof I was here, so that if I should happen to be discovered with a blank stare and unable to move my body corporeal people would know I had been there.
I used to have a well organized mind, a master of compartmentalization, where each day I would take stock by opening drawers of this giant chest, withdrawing the contents that varied wildly at best. But I opened each drawer one at a time, viewing its contents I would decide if there was anything I could do to deal with the problem, a solution for that problem inside. If there was nothing I could do the viewing would be quick, and that problem returned to it's drawer, and thus I would proceed opening never more than one drawer at a time taking stock of the day ahead so rarely would anything be a surprise.
I find now that my beautiful chest of an infinite number of drawers no longer exists and my thoughts versus my deeds present a dichotomy I cannot reconcile, but having an inordinate amount of time I began thinking at light speed to see what I could learn from this loss of capability of mind. I was shocked at what found there, but it does explain many things about the possibilities of the present occupant I find…there.
Inside my head there is a multiple number of tines, tines like those of a rotating spit cooking hot dogs at a fair or a street vendor selling his wares to people of all kind. And loaded up on each tine are blocks skewered shish-kabob like are tumbling, jumbling blocks one would buy for a child, of many different colors, different pictures, images, writings and creatures ranging from mild to wild.
I am perched upon the tine at its apogee, furthest from the bottom of my psyche, free to run along and leap from block to block to re-experience different memories of other, better times, the things that make up me. After exploring each block in kind this spit of multiple tines continues on its rotation and I must make a leap in good faith hoping to land upon or at least be able to grab hold of one of the blocks or sink, no flotation for me. There I am again free to run up and down these blocks of memory that store the memories of my mind and the perspective I have gained from this I have finally grasped and now know why entire blocks of my life turn in and out in a way that was baffling, but for me, being the only choice I have, it really is better than nothing at all and is often even effective.
I know that there are not an infinite number of tines or the blocks arrayed there, and that not all tines contain the same number of blocks which is why I feel sometimes that I am locked out of my mind without a guide to aide me in returning to one of the tines - which I guess is fine or it would not happen so naturally and happen without from me even a whine. It is these times where I am I know not where I am that I remember a snatch of a quote from Aldous Huxley,"…nor am I the captain of my soul. I am merely its noisiest passenger…"
During those times I rail in my head, I will miss as I grab for the next tine rotating into view, and I remember different words, wiser words, giving me a clue: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." [Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900]
It's a foregone conclusion (at least to me) that one day while taking the next leap of faith I will miss miss; I will fall into the abyss; whether my corporeal body choses to go or not my mind will shrivel up and the slowly-spinning tines of blocks will cease, my mind will quiver as well, And I fear inside I will become a shrieking wraith no one can see, or hear or find me all alone, and if the eyes are the windows to the soul people will look and find there is no one home.
I am finished now memorializing my fears and explaining the processes of my mind. Perhaps it will edify and teach the reasons I come and then so often go. But I will do my earnest best to keep up with the rest of the wonderful people with whom I write, the ones who went out on a limb, that took so many chances, for I don't think I have ever concealed that within me insanity dances, driven mad by pain, again and again, soon to start all over courtesy of the government I faithfully served and wound up living this life I don't believe I deserved.
But that's just my opinion and you are free to examine your own life. It's very like peeling the layers of an onion. Unless you live in eternal pain as do I or if you lack adequate time to make such observations of Self, figure out what you can and place it in the back of your mind, there, there upon a shelf.
posted by The Vidiot @ 8:57 AM Permalink
And here's the way I think things should work, and it's going to piss off more than a few people. Wouldn't be the first time.
(I actually wrote half of this and Dr. Vidiot helped with the other half. I knew what I wanted to say but damned if I can say it half as well as he can... which is why he's the Phd and I'm a really good cook.)
I think that as a state's population shifts, like in Arizona, with a huge influx of, in this case, Spanish-speaking Mexicans, all of the institutions in that state should organically adjust. More Spanish should be spoken and be on used on signage. More of the immigrants should take public control of the reigns of power. The power structure should shift over and adequately reflect the make-up of the population. And since I believe that Nation States are illegitimate and oppressive structures, that no 'government' has the right to dictate where I can live and work, where I can travel and where I can't, that boundaries are arbitrary (constructed based on the wishes of a power elite), I do not view these ‘immigrants’ as illegal.
Mexicans are not simply living where they want to live. Instead, they chase jobs. The worthless value of the Mexican peso, the free trade treaty signed with NAFTA, and the continued exploitation and oppression of millions of indigenous people have all contributed to this mass migration of immigrants. Legalizing racial profiling only exacerbates the problem. It criminalizes the poor that the system produced; blaming the victim in an economic system that systematically produces poverty, misery, and decay. America needs to exploit the indigenous, weak, and powerless for profit (to do the shit work) while at the same time fears and despises those who they mercilessly exploit. The end result is further punishment against those unfortunate enough to migrate to a country that hates them, only to secure petty wages that still offer an improvement to the grim conditions faced in Mexico.
Meanwhile, those who support this policy of criminalizing the poor support white supremacy. The Arizona law is but one more of many steps to secure white power and domination that is perceived to be in peril with the transforming population. As the dominant population becomes numerically impoverished compared to the increasing minority population, racist laws will continue to pass, compensating for the rising immigrant population. Yes, they want the indigenous working for the white man, but they must remember that the white man controls the law, culture, state, and all that is social. This is what happens when the dominant population becomes, at the same time (due to immigration) the minority population. White power must remain though white people are no longer the majority. This law is only an extension of white power already firmly embedded in all American institutions.
Further, white bourgeoisie values and morals are taught in the schools as well as what is considered proper civic values and behaviors, all working to reproduce class; art museums showcase Eurocentric art leaving some space for “folk” and “indigenous” art to demonstrate tolerance for “othernesss,” the economic system, including ideas of free trade, finance capital, and market investment is fashioned by the dominant white culture and continues to benefit the small, privileged white few over the masses of humans, the economic system is set up to keep the masses -- especially the indigenous and colored -- in toil and misery. In short, racism is embedded in all our institutions, but this is not enough.
The more the powerless population (in this case poor Mexicans) increase in numbers, the more racist laws are imposed to control them, thus rendering them in a perpetual cycle of inferiority and powerlessness. You can ask, “What part did nation states play in producing poverty and than criminalizing the impoverished they create? What right do nations states have in preventing individuals from migrating simply to alleviate the misery that free trade helped produce?
Another point, American and western corporations have the right to enter into Mexico and set up billion dollar tourist industries (while at the same time forcefully removing thousands and millions of Mexicans out of their homes). Perhaps then too, based on free trade, Mexican corporations have the right to enter into Brooklyn and other places in the United States, remove Americans from their homes and set up billion dollar industries for their own country.
Your task is as follows: admit to your racism and accept it. You want to preserve white culture and those who do not assimilate to the ideas and values of this culture are punished and purged. Admit that what you want is white preservation, white power, and maintaining the privileges of a few. Then, perhaps, a fruitful discussion can be had.
What most white folks don’t realize is that they are just as punished as the Mexicans, only their income is just a bit higher. Most white folks are just as disposable. So why do they identify with their white captors? Is it just because they share a European ancestry? Is it Stockholm syndrome? We as a whole are closer to the indigenous and marginalized in the world than we are to the privileged elite (those who finance the politicians) who pass laws like the Arizona laws. They are not looking out for our interests. We should instead join with our brothers, the marginalized, since that is whom we are closer to, and in case anyone has yet to notice, we are quickly on our way to their same fate.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:59 AM Permalink
I swear, Louisiana can't cut a break.
Oh, and just let me say at the outset that this was NOT terrorism. It wasn't eco-terrorism (as claimed by Rush Limbaugh because no environmentally minded person would risk Lousiana's wetlands to make a point.) Nor was it so-called islamo-fascist terrorism because that just doesn't exist. Islamo-fascist terrorism is completely manufactured by our government to excuse their bad behavior in the Middle East. No, this was corporate malfeasance at its most extreme.
We've been watching the developments regarding the BP mess in the Gulf. At first, it was sort of under our radar. The MSM didn't really sound any alarms about it, but after a few days, it has begun to sink in and this is a disaster of massive proportions. This may be unrecoverable. At least after Katrina, rebuilding was an option. This? I don't know how this can be fixed. To be sure, areas where they get the shrimp and crawfish, the two main staples of Louisiana food, will be wiped out.
And the wetlands, ohmygawd, the wetlands. They're so fragile as it is. They're going to be inundated by oil and destroyed. The bayous, home to the real Cajun culture and no to mention the marine life (including my favorite, pelicans), will be destroyed. And what if there's a hurricane (as there most assuredly will be)? What then? And I fear that once that oil moves up the waterways, every time New Orleans floods, it won't just be brackish water and a little sewage that wells up in the streets. Residue like that could make the city really unlivable. (And for those of you only mildly familiar with NOLA, that city is a cultural gem. No NOLA means no NOLA Mardi Gras, No NOLA Jazz Fest, No Satchmo fest, No French Quarter fest, no fests of any kind, no NOLA gumbo, no NOLA crawfish etoufee, no second lines, no Lagniappe, no NOLA brass bands, no NOLA Saints, no church services that end early so folks can go home and watch The Saints, no Parkway Bakery, no Liuzza's. I could go on. You get the point.)
Oh, and guess what company put those now-blown cement caps on that oil well (just a few days before BTW)? Halliburton. They screwed up BIG time. This isn't just a few messed up showers in Iraq, this is a f-ck up of such monumental proportions, done by a company hell-bent (as they all are) on maximizing their profits, that corners were cut and now, the rest of us, the little people, are left to deal with the mess and there's a real possibility that a national treasure has been destroyed. And can we trust them to fix it and fix it properly? No.
The chemicals BP is now relying on to break up the steady flow of leaking oil from deep below the Gulf of Mexico could create a new set of environmental problems. ... On Thursday BP began using the chemical compounds to dissolve the crude oil, both on the surface and deep below, deploying an estimated 100,000 gallons. Dispersing the oil is considered one of the best ways to protect birds and keep the slick from making landfall. But the dispersants contain harmful toxins of their own and can concentrate leftover oil toxins in the water, where they can kill fish and migrate great distances.
I don't know what the solution is to this mess. I don't know how it's even possible to save the waterways down there. But if I were living there right now, I'd sure as shit be trying to do something.
If we can't cap that hole that oil is going to destroy the oceans of the world. It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?
We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet. Who knows how big of a reservoir of oil is down there.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:47 AM Permalink
and the idiots turn it into a three-ring circus of manufactured fear.
A car bomb in Times Square? Really. I mean, Bloomberg has turned this town into a police state, you can't even drive around Times Square anymore. It's all outdoor seating and pedestrian walks. Getting an SUV in there is no easy feat. And parking it? If I even tried that, I'd have a half-dozen or so of NY's "finest" telling me to get the hell out of there. (I'm not saying the cops were in on it, but it's likely they may have been purposefully distracted.) Also, there are other weird things:
Why would the terrorists use a false license plate instead of renting a legitimate car? How did they get hold of a license plate which the owner had sent for scrapping? Why use an SUV instead of a roomy mini-van, which is standard car for bombings, and less conspicuous for parking? Not the least, technical failures are extremely uncommon in car bombs, which are carefully assembled in suitable conditions.
Of course, some folks from Pakistan have taken credit.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility in a video posted on the Internet on Sunday, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. SITE, a U.S.-based terrorist tracking organization, first uncovered the video on YouTube; it later appeared to have been removed from the website.
I'm sorry if I'm suspicious but none of this passes my smell test. It was a set up and not by the folks who are claiming responsibility. I don't even believe those so-called 'claims of responsibility' any more. It benefits the State far more to have it's citizens frightened than it benefits a few loonies trying to make a point.
1.(sometimes capital letters 'V' and 'S' with no space) a style of writing or saying something using emotion and/or logic and snark, esp. in order to elucidate the obvious while pretending to be objective.
2. anything written by The Vidiot, The Sailor, Mr. Vidiot and anyone else they allow to post on the blog “vidiotspeak”
[Origin: loosely based on new + speak, coined by George Orwell in his novel, 1984 (1949)]
And for godsakes, stay away from FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
Watch the BBC news or ITN news instead.
"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385)
A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement.
