Movie critics everywhere will be stricken with fear…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:56 AM Permalink
… as I dare to use the movie "Conan the Barbarian" (and, yes, I dare) as an example of how our civilization is devolving to the Dark Ages and even further back to the Stone Ages.
I begin with the premise that most people are at least vaguely familiar with the story of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), leader of an evil Snake Cult who destroyed Conan's village as a child, killed his parents, and enslaved Conan, condemning him to a life of slavery and forced servitude until sold 15 years later to another slave driver, trained in the art of combat, and who then became one of the most famous and vicious killers of men ever known.
After having become a champion in the ring, killing and smashing every opponent who faced him, the slave owner who was his master asked Conan: Conan, what is best in life? To which Conan replied:
To crush your enemy! To see him driven before you! And to hear the lamentations of his women!
And it struck me that would seem to have always been the goal of men who would make war.
Even our political conversations have sunk to, or below, that level: it is not enough to impugn your enemies motives during civil discourse, no, you must paint a picture of those who disagree as being socialist and fascist on par with tyrants and dictators of years past, the Caesars of old, the Hitlers of the new.
And the vitriol must not only be vicious, but mean and ugly-spirited, your opponent painted as one with whom it is impossible to engage in civil dialogue as the dialogue grows ever more dangerous, imputing motives to your political enemy that would be disgusting to pedophiles, rapists and child molesters for to do anything less just might leave a small gap in the walls of hatred which have been so carefully constructed over time and allow the election of your most hated enemies: your neighbors, your friends, people with time and valuable experience within government. And that would never do.
Only the bigoted, prejudiced, radical religious right, gun-toting, tea-bagging, jerk offs that fight for the right to allow everyone handguns all the time, those who would forbid a woman control of her own body, those who would rewrite history to change the Constitution to the flavor-of-the-day or ignore it entirely, those who would assert that we haven't lost the war on terror when it is clear that bin Laden can indeed send a single man to a mountaintop to waive the flag of Al-Qaede and our leaders will indeed spend billions and billions of dollars fighting a non-existant threat, only those who hunger for eternal war and consider, as Conan did, that what was best in life to be:
To crush your enemy! To see him driven before you! And to hear the lamentations of his women!
Well I, for one, have decided to forgo (as best I can) all the vitriolic ad hominem attacks against persons with whom I disagree and return to writing more of the things I care about most in life: the peace I so dearly want for our country, the end of senseless and fruitless wars, finding better ways to provide better care for our sick and infirm, working towards the goal of making America number 1 in longevity instead of dead last (No pun intended) among industrial nations.
I really want to work past this now-ingrained vileness I feel so reflexively against so many people and political parties and look for ways to once again make America great.
I want to answer that question, "What is most important in life?" thusly:
All you need is love as the Beatles sang is true, and I have truly been shown favor by fate for being so lucky as to have my Warrior Woman with me for thirty-six years and still being as madly in love with her today as the first day I met her. Within 10 minutes of meeting her I told her she would be mine forever and, well, here we are. So if anyone ever tells you there is no such thing as love at first site, feel sorrow for them, but always remember it is real, it does happen, and it's a beautiful thing when it does.
Then start teaching them about the most important things in life and help bring an end to hatred.
Jesus Christ Bobby, don't you think god already knows about the spill, and that your policies are helped cause it!? Instead of asking folks to pray how about asking them to go down to the shore and clean some birds or use those absorbent ShamWows to clean up the mess.
Do you reckon that eventually the citizens of the world…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:39 PM Permalink
…will ever figure out that all of their great ideas have come to naught, that as long as the world depends on oil we will be eternally at war with all the other citizens also trying to squeeze the last drop of oil from the planet and that, when that last drop has been squeezed and the oil has run dry, our lack of planning for alternative means of renewable clean energy will take us right on back to the dark ages of large sailing ships or coal or wood-burning steamships once again leading to exponential increases in pollution and the inevitable declines in the general welfare and health of us all.
When will the governments of the world, the U.S. the chief example usually cited, figure out that nothing is gained by warfare or the development of ever more powerful weapons can only lead to "bigger and better wars" where we can have our troops sitting in comfortable chairs and using drone-type weaponry to launch lethal attacks against large groups of people in the hopes of killing one or two "persons of value?"
When are the people running our government going to realize that our bringing back of torture as a legitimate part of warfare, after centuries spent trying to rid ourselves of this abominable practice, only brings evil and men who practice evil back into society with patina of righteousness.
When will people learn that so-called churches that preach goodness, kindness, and generosity to all have no intention whatever in acting in a manner that is good, kind, or generous. Churches that will "cover-up" the degeneration of priests most foul, not by punishing them for their acts of child molestation, but will quietly transfer them to a different parish without a word of admonition or even warning to the new parish.
It has long been one of my sore spots that tax exempt churches owning billions of dollars in property preach piety and helping the least among us while they dress in their silken robes, eat from real silver plates using what would be some of the worlds most expensive silverware, drinking from real jewel encrusted golden chalices, and then strolling through their very own 104 acre private country and gaze upon some of the world's most beautiful and expensive artwork, sculptors, and a King Midas-like fortune of gold stolen from the new world in the name of the church by any means, fair or foul, including some of the earliest examples of chemical warfare, sending the disease infested blankets of sailors whom had died of smallpox as gifts to the local populations with no immunity from European diseases, killing millions.
I just can't understand why people don't look back, learn from history. and realize that after centuries of hard fought changes to the betterment of man that we are now sliding backwards ever faster into a dark ages that will make the first Dark Ages look like a grade-school picnic.
Devising evermore efficient ways to kill other people to steal their resources, take their land, and trying to seize the remaining supplies of oil left to the world has set us well on the way to becoming to mot despised country in the world.
The Big Dick Cheney claims to have thwarted one terrorist plot after another, yet cannot cite one single example of any such successes.
gwb - the burning bush - makes wild claims, too, that the actions he took, especially Gitmo, the legal abomination of all time, have kept Americans safe when in reality his policies made it impossible to prosecute any of these "terrorists," and, furthermore, elicited such worthless information as to set us back years in our efforts to do so.
Our relentless and desperate search for oil is now leading to the death of the Gulf of Mexico. an ecological disaster of unequaled proportions, entirely man made, and made in the futile hope that when the wells do finally go dry we might have an almost one year supply of oil. A year! Boy, now that's gonna keep everything going alright.
And the solution is so simple. Something as simple a building code change, mandating that every new buildings rooftop have solar panels built into them and hooked up to a central grid could alone provide electricity enough to convert every car into a plug in electric car, with electrical supplies so plentiful it would cost pennies a mile to drive them.
The same with wind power. Build 'em! Hook 'em into a nationwide grid system. Geothermal, using earth's "hot spots" to provide the steam to drive hugh generators. Tidal generators to take advantage of our on-going tides
There is just so much we could and should be doing that we aren't even trying that it staggers my mind. But it the rate of society's degeneration after having fought for thousands of years to overcome so much senseless brutality and cruelty of men that really blows my mind.
It's time for a return to the sixties and the Summer of Love and, more importantly, it's rapidly approaching the time for us to hand the reigns over to our newest generation and pray that they screw it up as badly as our generation has.
posted by The Vidiot @ 12:43 PM Permalink
And it's got a sort of supernatural spin to it. And there's a bunch of bad guys who murdered millions and the whole world is looking for them. Where are they? God [or whoever], will you help us find them? And then there's a weird earthquake in a place not known for earthquakes. And then, a tornado blows through that same area that is also not known for that sort of weather activity.
Watching this movie, you'd think, hmmmm, maybe the bad guys are there! The signs all point to it!
Just saying that if there is a god or aliens or someone in the know who can manage such things, well, you know, they might be trying to tell us something.
Google's won the first round of the enormous lawsuit Viacom brought against it. Viacom is suing Google for $1 billion for not having copyright lawyers inspect all the videos that get uploaded to YouTube before they're made live (they're also asking that Google eliminate private videos because these movies -- often of personal moments in YouTubers' lives -- can't be inspected by Viacom's copyright enforcers).
The lawsuit has been a circus. Filings in the case reveal that Viacom paid dozens of marketing companies to clandestinely upload its videos to YouTube (sometimes "roughing them up" to make them look like pirate-chic leaks). Viacom uploaded so much of its content to YouTube that it actually lost track of which videos were "really" pirated, and which ones it had put there, and sent legal threats to Google over videos it had placed itself.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:34 AM Permalink
Two things struck me as odd this week.
First was the whole McChrystal-to-Petraeus thing. Why on earth would McChrystal say all that stuff to a freakin' Rolling Stone journalist knowing full well it was going to get printed and talked about?
Here's my theory: that there is some extreme dissatisfaction in the military with regards to Obama and Biden. Like to the point where, in any other country, they'd be planning and executing a coupe by now. What if McChrystal threw himself on a sword to send a message to the administration that the military is pissed and the Obama administration had better get their act together.
Just a thought. (Bill, please chime in on this one 'cause I know very little about the military and if such a scenario is possible.)
Second, and a little more obvious, when Obama issued the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, big oil acted all pissed and all the little liberals went "Yay! Obama!" and everyone seemed fine. I mean, who doesn't want to put big oil in their place? Then the southern judge said, "No, uh-uh, state's rights, bee-yatch" and put the kibosh on the moratorium. How did that little drama benefit anybody?
Well, I'll tell you. By issuing the moratorium, Obama appeared to be doing the will of the people though he knew full well that it would get overturned in the southern court. Getting it overturned makes big oil happy, and politicians love it when big oil is happy. It's a win-win. The oilmen can continue to drill, and Obama comes out looking like he tried to do something.
Just a little food for thought.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Teen Vidiot went back to Louisiana to spend the summer with his mom and I have about eight loads of laundry to get to, my effort to purge the house of his adolescent stank. My word! Teen-aged boys are stanky.
UPDATE: I was just listening to the WRH radio show from last night and I'm not the only one who thinks McChrystal threw himself on a sword. The guy who called in thought it was because McChrystal is against the upcoming war with Iran and went off because of that OR he was set up because of his opposition to that upcoming war.
Last week, Drew Wheelan, the conservation coordinator for the American Birding Association, was filming himself across the street from the BP building/Deepwater Horizon response command in Houma, Louisiana. As he explained to me, he was standing in a field that did not belong to the oil company when a police officer approached him and asked him for ID and "strongly suggest[ed]" that he get lost since "BP doesn't want people filming"
According to the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) sources within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Pentagon and Interior and Energy Departments told the Obama Administration that the newly-discovered estimated 3-4 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico would cover America's oil needs for up to eight months if there was a military attack on Iran that resulted in the bottling up of the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic, resulting in a cut-off of oil to the United States from the Persian Gulf.
If you voted for Obama, you have to be embarrassed about it by now, aren't you? Nobody forced him to make that decision. He could've said what 80% of the US public would say: "Why the hell do we want to go to war with Iran?" But instead, he bowed to corporate and political interests. He's a weak piece of crap. You know it. I know it.
Just when I think I've fallen into the drink (and, no, I don't mean the Gulf Of Mexico)…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:15 PM Permalink
…lost my senses, my ability to breathe or think, the gigantic group of shish kabob-like tines holding the blocks of memories forming what's left of my mind that slowly spins there, allowing me to run freely along one tine at a time able to visit blocks as I leap from one to each new one, feeling like Rocky the Flying Squirrel, until I have either run out of blocks with memories or have grown bored or sick or half-insane (did I really say half?), mostly from the chronic pain that dominates the competition for my thought and time I find myself having to make a leap of faith to a new tine, kinda like closing your eyes, throwing yourself off a cliff, and hoping that a new tine will have rotated into a place upon which I can land.
I spent most of my time for the last couple of week seeing old doctors and new. The new doctor doubled again the amount of instant relief (ir) morphine in order to raise my total intake daily to the same amounts for the slow and instant relief. 'Bout 1/4 gram a day total.
As a result, the last few days I have awakened with a clear mind, and, I suppose, not being in screaming agony, as some sign of a possible return of sanity, a distinct disinterest in politics, what general has said what disparaging the president, for which he will almost certainly be given the option to either fall on his sword or enclose himself within the confines of his sumptuous tent with his service weapon and a silver bullet (to ward off any further dissent within the ranks by other wolf man-type officers) and told to do his duty.
I do worry endlessly about the Gulf, though, and those beautiful snow white sands of Fort Walton Beach, which the press, for some reason, chose to ignore and simply bypassed it going directly to Destin. I suppose there is a fairness in that as, if the incoming tides through Destin Pass bring a substantial amount of the oil during the incoming tide into Choctawhatchee Bay and, further, into Navarre Sound, a large part of local fishing and reasons for visiting this area will disappear without comment.
I remember the red snapper boats leaving the Destin piers loaded with tourists before dawn to head out to the really deep waters to bring back thousands of pounds of fresh snapper, while their trolling counterparts with the hugh outriggers fished for the plentiful blue mackerel, spanish mackerel, albacore and more. Even thought the big boats had radios and kept each other advised of where the fish were all us Florida kids knew all you had to do was watch for the seagulls that would gather in hugh numbers to feed on the small fish and bits and pieces of fish floating to the surface from semi-deep mackerel attacks and just get there before the charters could have time to try to surround and shut out us in smaller boats.
I suppose the hugh pods of dolphins I grew up with are now gone. I actually had the privilege of watching two dolphins break away from the pod while I waited in the water for my dad to spin back around to pick me up after I dropped off the rope skiing and literally kill a blue shark, both going out at full speed, then breaking in what almost appeared to be the two sides of a heart. When the first dolphin slammed into the (maybe 7-8 feet long, 400-500 pounds in weight) shark's gills it literally knocked the shark several feet off his track, and when the second dolphin slammed into its gills from the other side it was clear that the shark was dead or dying, and slowly sank down into the deep. Then the dolphins came back up to play.
That pod always seemed to know somehow when we were in the area and would swim alongside at 30-35 knots, tail-walking, laughing at us, and really seemed to invite us to stop and play. They loved running alongside us and playing while we kids would waterski on the Gulf just off Destin.
The thought that even if there are no longer any dolphins members of that pod alive, it's beyond sad that the area of the Gulf there, formerly the home to more pods of dolphins that could be counted, now faces the loss of these beautiful creatures whom have always thrown their lot in with man and saved many a swimmer from drowning or being eaten by sharks,
If you have never swam with dolphins let me tell you, they are the gentlest, most intelligent, and good-hearted creatures you could ever meet, and vastly more intelligent than man. You can't help but sense it.
But deep-drilling is safe. The oil companies said so and still do. The politicians say it is and fight to have the drilling resume.
"I'm speaking now totally for myself, I'm not speaking for the Republican Party, I'm not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives, but myself. But I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday.
I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown, with the Attorney General of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people, participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that's unprecedented in our nation's history, that's got not legal standing, and which sets I think a terrible precedent for the future."
Gosh Joe, you say you aren't speaking for the Rethugs!?
Say it ain't so Joe, because in your prepared remarks you echoed exactly the talking points prepared for you by the Republican Study Committee!
So make up your dammed minds rethugs; either the government isn't doing enough or it's doing too much.
It's sure easy for Barton (R-TX_BP) to say, his Gulf coast is up wind and tides and his biggest contributor is the oily industry.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:48 AM Permalink
I do so much work on a computer that it occasionally messes with my head. Yesterday, when I was riding the train home, I was thinking of the Oilcano and wishing I could hit a Command-Z or even a Force Quit to just make the oil go away. How dumb is that?
I really should stop reading stuff about it. When I read about the animals freaking out and heading for shallow water or how far out of hand it's gotten, or random fish die-offs or that there is a chance they could've fixed this at the get-go, I just get more and more depressed and despondent.
The Oilcano is like a nightmare I can't wake up from and I just want it to go away.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:29 AM Permalink
Good evening my fellow Americans, and the world.
Like you, I am pissed, concerned and worried for our future as a nation and as a species.
But I'm the president, and I can at least try to do something.
First, the United States, as of this moment, owns all of BP and all of it's subsidiaries. Fuck corporate law. Anything having to do with BP, any company that has BP in its name, any subsidiary that has ever been a part of BP is now our bitch. Additionally, any company that had anything to do with the building of that well or inspection of that well, is also, now, our bitch. And that includes Halliburton.
Second, every single one of those motherfuckers at the top of those organizations will be tried, convicted and then executed in a public forum. Think "Roman Colosseum." Get creative. Suggestions for execution methods will be collected at a website we'll set up tomorrow.
Third, the gulf coast will be evacuated and BP's assets will pay for all of it, including the hotel bills and relocation costs. It's not safe, the air is bad, I don't care what the EPA says, they're lying. Get out now.
Fourth, I will be pulling our troops out of the Middle East. We need them here, now, more than ever. As an added benefit, it will cost us less to help with the rebuilding of those countries than it does to maintain an armed force over there. These troops WILL NOT, and I repeat, WILL NOT be used for social control or martial law. They will be used to help with relocation, moving private assets -- meaning you, the people's private assets, not corporations -- out of the Gulf region and to help with the cleanup efforts.
And finally, anybody who wants to turn their house solar, build a wind farm or do anything that decreases our dependence on oil -- except build nuclear facilities -- will have the full support, financial or otherwise, of the United States government, no strings attached.
This shit happened on my watch and I'm going to deal with it. I'm sorry that I was sucked in by the money that the oil companies shoved into my coffers. I shouldn't have let something as petty as money deter me from doing what's right for the people of this great nation.
You elected me because you thought I was the best man for the job and up until now, I have been less than that. From this day forward, I will fight hard for you, not for me, not for my party, not for corporations, but for you. If that means that in the future, I have to abolish the Federal Reserve, reinstate our own currency or zero out everybody's mortgages and student loans, I'll do it. Fuck political ramifications.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:23 AM Permalink
Have you all noticed how, when the well first blew, the estimates were low and ever since, they've been incrementally increasing? Like today's story:
Government scientists Tuesday increased the estimate of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day, up to 50 percent more than previously estimated. That translates into 1.5 million gallons to 2.5 million gallons per day.
The government's previous estimate, issued last week, was 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day.
Why might this be so? I don't really think it's because they don't know. That might play only a small part. The REAL reason, IMHO, is that most of the public's anger, at this point, has dissipated due to utter exhaustion. Throwing higher numbers at us certainly irks us, but the time for outright anger and rage has already passed.
We're a bunch of freaking frogs and they're slowly turning up the heat.
posted by The Vidiot @ 10:04 PM Permalink
Here is video of oil seeping from the GOM floor.
And here's a video they probably don't want you to see.
Indeed.
The confident and proud leader of the Americans announced today for the good people of America to enjoy the beaches of Florida. He said the sun is out, the water is blue, and, in his words, "Florida is open for business." To say the least, his remarks are a chilling reminder of the nation-state's policies.
Bullshit - Pure Big Pricks Butt Plug Bungling Phucktards Big Polluters Buying Politicians Beyond Phucked Black Piss Burning Platform Bubonic Plague Barrak's Proxy Been Played British Pollution Black Poison Blackwater Phorreal Buggering Parasites Blithering Pillocks Biocidal Panzootic
As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.
So when the Israeli government says they are blockading arms, they are actually blockading aid to Palestinians. (See Palestinians/Palestine.)
Original post below: Some more thoughts on Israel's latest act of state sponsored terrorism.
First, why is Israel blockading Gaza? Instead of resorting to a bushism of 'the terrists hate us fer arr freedoms' let us look at what Israel has to say:
BBC News has seen documents, submitted to an Israeli Court, which give more detail than ever before about how and why Israel maintains its Gaza blockade.
In one document, Israel describes the import curbs as "a central pillar in the armed conflict with Hamas".
It also confirms estimates were made of how many calories Gazans need, but says these were not used for policy-making. [...] Israel says the blockade is to pressure Hamas, which does not recognise Israel and backs attacks on its citizens.[Well, that's not quite true, Hamas was the democratically elected gov't of Palestinians and has supported attacks on Israeli citizens, but it also recognizes Israel's right to exist.] [...] But Israel has never published a list of banned items, saying it approves requests on a case-by-case basis. [...] "Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip - Red Lines" which sets out the minimum calorie intake needed by Gaza's million and a half inhabitants, according to their age and sex. [...] Among the large range of goods currently forbidden are jam, chocolate, wood for furniture, fruit juice, textiles, and plastic toys.
Sounds like "collective punishment" to me and recalls certain images from Jewish history.
I guess those damn kids should have stayed off Israel's lawn.
Several years ago, when Ariel Sharon was prime minister, his main advisor, Dov Weisglass “jokingly” said that Israel’s siege was intended to put Gazans on a diet:“It’s like a meeting with a dietitian. We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death.”
Israel on Thursday rejected calls from the United Nations and others for an international investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla but left the door open to foreign involvement.
Israel says the commandos used force, killing nine people, only after activists attacked them with knives, crowbars and clubs, as well as two pistols grabbed from raiders. Activists who had set sail for Gaza with tons of aid, hoping to break Israel's 3-year-old blockade of Gaza, say Israeli commandos fired first.
Officials have insisted Israel's military already is investigating the raid and the country is capable of conducting a credible review.
Has there ever been an investigation that Israel's military conducted that didn't clear themselves? And to attack someone in international waters in a pre-dawn raid with attack boats and helicopter gunships and then blame the victims because they defended themselves with clubs against guns is ridiculous.
And come on now, the best commandos in the world are whining 'but he had a stick, I was forced to shoot him 4 times in the head' just doesn't wash.
The organization, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, says the military seized video and equipment from dozens of reporters on board the main ship.
The FPA demanded Thursday that the military stop using the captured material without permission and identify the source of the video already released. The material appeared Wednesday on the army's YouTube site labeled as "captured."
The FPA says the military is now selectively using footage to bolster its claims that commandos opened fire only after being attacked.
What was Israel's intention for what they did? It was definitely an act of war against every country with a flag on one of those ships. If not an act of war, then the soldiers who fired and killed those people need to be rounded up and released to the dead citizen's country for a proper murder trial.
With so much going on in so many areas, reported in so many media venues, and the serious problems…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 3:50 PM Permalink
…plaguing America today, problems, people, political groups and hatred run amok (a word of Philippine origins as it happens; commonly used in a sentence such as, "My Warrior Woman ran so amok to protect, shelter and seek aid for me that the VA Clinic Staff kept a wide, wide, distance from her and the doctors she corralled to assist me and did not dare get in her way.") that are so rapidly destroying America and its ideals that the speed with which they are dismantling our institutions seem to be increasing exponentially by orders of magnitude.
Last week or sometime before (I have no functioning time frame of reference- coulda been last week or two years ago) I wrote of my feelings about the anger, hatred, angry hatred, hateful anger and any combination thereof that was further seriously damaging my already severely damaged psyche.
This, too, concerns me greatly. The destructions of our seas, the engine that drives our planet and allows it to function is becoming seriously impaired, possibly to the point from which there can be no return.
Having seen the folly of believing an undersea oil spill can be contained it still doesn't, won't, can't seem to be understood that once our seas are so damaged they can no longer perform their functions that acid and otherwise polluted rain will fall to begin the final destruction of our planet.
Small example: The Japanese and others in that region have so overwhelmed the whale populations, whales that would have consumed vast quantities of nutritious plankton that the sheer number of plankton available that would otherwise be consumed by whales is now be eaten by hugh jellyfish, growing up to five feet wide and weighing several hundred pounds that is crowding out many other fish and alone now migrate up the coast of Japan rending and tearing so many fishing nets that the fisherman cannot keep up replacing them. Other fleets go out, and with all the plankton consumed by jellyfish, come back with loads of fish insufficient to support their own families, much less any one else. Almost two-thirds of Japan is now surrounded by these jellyfish, tearing net and rendering fishing impossible.
I believe this to be a direct consequence of overfishing the whales that would ordinarily have eaten the plankton and thus stopped the jellyfish migration from the China Sea to the Sea of Japan as the whales and other fish would have consumed that source of food.
In Europe, especially Spain and Portugal, the absence of open ocean food has brought swarm after swarm of jellyfish, most of them, unfortunately being box jellyfish, which sting with the most powerful poison that exists in the natural world. Strong enough to kill a heavy, but healthy, adult in under two minutes. And that from a box jellyfish less than five inches across; they grow to several feet in dome-size with tentacle trails of a hundred feet or more.
These things are happening for a reason and that reason is man. These radical groups spouting now are the jellyfish of America and will kill America just as their sea bound relatives destroy human life.
Pursuant to 14 CFR section 91.137(a)(1) temporary flight restrictions are in effect for deepwater horizon/mississippi canyon (mc252) incident cleanup and reconstitution operations an area bounded by: 290500n/0904000w or the leeville /lev/ vortac 258 degree radial at 30.1 NM to 300000n/0890000w or the gulfport /gpt/ vortac 169 degree radial at 24.7 NM to 300000n/0870000w or the crestview /cew/ vortac 196 degree radial at 52.2 NM to 280000n/0870000w or the panama city /pfn/ vortac 208 degree radial at 149.6 NM to 280000n/0904000w or the leeville /lev/ vortac 201 degree radial at 76.3 NM to the point of beginning at and below 3000 feet AGL excluding the airspace outside of 12 nautical miles from the us coastline.
Here's a map of the closed area. (h/t UrbanSurvival)
Trying to control what the public sees, I suppose.
posted by The Vidiot @ 9:32 AM Permalink
On a lighter note, my uncle had an idea for the oil.
In my family, and lots of other Italian families, there are women who know how to read water and oil. Mostly, folks would go to these women with a headache or some such malady and ask the woman to tell them if someone had given him the "malooch" meaning an evil eye. Then the woman would say a few prayers and sprinkle some oil in some water and watch how the water interacts with the oil. If the oil blended or blended to a degree, then yes someone has given you the malooch and there are ways to ward that stuff off; prayers could be said, talismans blessed and worn. I know how to do it, my mom knows how to do it and we both learned it from Cousin Barbie who was the queen of it. One time, I told her to read a friend of mine and when she did it, she said "are other people involved because there's a lot of people and a lot of malooch going on." When I told my friend he said that a bunch of them had played with a Ouija board in high school and something weird happened and since then, everyone in the room has either had a bad accident or a traumatic life or committed suicide. So you know, the oil and water thing works.
Anyway, my uncle's idea was to gather up all the Italian malooch readers out there, send them to the gulf and have them read the oil and pray together. That way, the oil will disperse, and everyone in the gulf region will be relieved of their headache.
posted by The Vidiot @ 8:47 AM Permalink
So, I'm surfing around, looking at some of my more goofy favorites, seeing as I just can't get motivated to do the breakfast dishes, and I stumble upon this thread on a forum called godlikeproductions. Now, that website is very kooky. Lots of conspiracy stuff, Israel bashing, Zionist supporting, doom and gloom kind of stuff. I love it. It feels like a comic strip to me.
Anyway, today, I finally noticed a thread that's been around since the 11th of April of this year. Its starts with the first post by a person called "eyeseeall" and he wrote:
In 9 days we will witness an event so catastrophic it will change society as we know it.
Our financial stability will be crippled
Our entertainment and media centers demolished
destructive forces will ripple throughout the depths destroying more.
Our stock market will begin to fail
3.2 million dead
1 million injured
10 million homeless.
refugee camps
war
famine
plague
And it's just the beginning . . . . 4.20.2010
and further down the page:
I don't play around when it comes to these dreams.
I predicted my own house burning down I predicted 9/11 two days before it happened when I was in High School. I predicted the tsunami in 2004 that happened on my 18th birthday.
I am really shaken, and scared, and worried. prepare for the goddamn WORST.
Interesting, no? I read through the thread so you don't have to. On the 20th, when the oil rig blew, eyeseeall felt like his dream had been a tremendous fail. But if you remember, on the 2oth, the oil rig story was barely reported. Additionally, it took a few days for what actually happened to sink in. Well, same thing on that that thread. Most folks were calling it a fail until the 22nd or so. And even a month later, there are a few shills that still saying that "media didn't crumble" and picking at the prediction that way. I say it's a big enough deal that he got the date AND said it was only the beginning.
Anyway, further into the thread, somebody posted this video. It's one of those silly connect the dots things but, watch it to the end. There's a 'punchline'.
Then look at the location of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig:
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:45 AM Permalink
That's what I really feel like it is. I'm walking down the street with my dog. It's a lovely day. She's prancing and sniffing away, oblivious to almost everything but the occasional dog, squirrel or pigeon, and I'm thinking, "How much longer is life going to be this good?"
Dark, I know.
Unwarranted? I hope so. But I think not. I can't shake this feeling that it's really the end of the world as we know it. And I don't mean the Earth is going to dissolve into a bazillion bits or anything, but a lot of human beings will die. I only hope that the ones who survive aren't the ignorant cousin-f--king kind.
{sigh}
The media has started to dig into it a bit, but they're covering it like it's just another story, granted, a big one, but just another story,
It's tempting to believe that the Gulf spill, like so many disasters inherited by Obama, was the fault of the Texas oilman who preceded him in office. But, though George W. Bush paved the way for the catastrophe, it was Obama who gave BP the green light to drill. "Bush owns eight years of the mess," says Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California. "But after more than a year on the job, Salazar owns it too."
It's not just a story. Sure, we all know that Rham Emanuel was BP's bitch
Remember Rahm Emanuel's rent-free D.C. apartment? The owner: A BP adviser
And that BP would rather spend billions revamping it's reputation than cleaning up the mess they made
BP has embarked on an aggressive campaign to repair its public image in the wake of its disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It has repeatedly run full-page ads in major newspapers, retained high-powered lobbying and public relations firms, and launched a series of television ads with CEO Tony Hayward looking apologetic. The company has even hired Anne Womack-Kolton, a former top aide to Vice President Cheney, to be its new spokesperson.
BP notes the fall in its share price in US trading last night. The company is not aware of any reason which justifies this share price movement.
Also, with so many politicians in their pockets, it's no wonder they're ready to spend billions on PR. Hell, the government will just take over and have the taxpayer pay for the cleanup.
Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry...and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.
But what they can't dodge is the fact that the oil is much worse than anything anyone can possibly imagine.
New figures for the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico show the amount of oil spewing may have been up to twice as much as previously thought, according to scientists consulting with the federal government. That could mean 42 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have already fouled the Gulf's fragile waters, affecting people who live, work and play along the coast from Louisiana to Florida -- and perhaps beyond.
In their last report before the United Nations Security Council votes on sanctions against Iran, international nuclear inspectors declared Monday that Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons.
Ahh, there's the rub that their hysterical headline reduces a mountain to a molehill. See, if the standard of having a nuclear weapon is dependent on "further enrichment" then every country in the world has a nuke.
So what we need to take away from this is that Iran doesn't have weapons grade uranium, AKA nuke. And to acquire it they would need to enrich uranium well beyond their current technical expertise. The last 1% takes as much refining as the first 99%, and they would have a lot less resultant material.
One would hope that the NYT, or us, had learned their lesson after lying us into one war, but I guess to them that's a feature, not a bug.
Having grown up in the "Age of Aquarius" I am both shocked and…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:12 PM Permalink
…disappointed that I am still capable of such vile hatred and disgust at the conduct of my fellow man.
For the longest period of my life I was just about as mellow and good-natured as anyone pursuing a life in law enforcement could be. It was much more satisfying to me to look a guy in the eye and tell him to go ahead and throw that punch or swing that bar stool, reminding him all the while of the many violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice he was going to violate just to get his ass kicked anyway. More often than not even a guy that was dead drunk would realize the truth of my words and bring himself under enough control to forestall any violence and, consequently, stop me from doing him great harm with merely my ink pen. It's true: the pen is mightier than the sword.
If it didn't stop him, he not only got his ass whipped, but I would wield my pen so artfully that he would be lucky to not be discharged under "less than honorable" conditions, a death knell for future employment.
But there was no personal animus involved, I simply did my job to the very best of my ability, which was considerable at the time as I worked every unique section the Air Force had for a Security Policeman back in the early '70s and did so with distinction.
Even when I left the service and became a professional bounty hunter for fifteen years there was never any personal anger held against the skip I was chasing; mostly I was simply chasing a person that had broken two promises: 1- that he/she would make all their court appearances or, 2-pay off the bond if they did decide to run. Hell, if a guy brought in ten grand cash to pay off his bond I'd give him a ride to the airport. That is the only duty a bondsman has to a court, either produce the defendant or pay off the bond. There were exceptions, of course, as a child molester or rapist could NEVER buy his way out of trouble. Period.
Even when I was stricken with the two Agent Orange cancers I never felt hate towards the military or the life I had willfully chosen to lead, just as I know that if I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a single thing, even the tiniest or least important-seeming decision, from fear that any change at all might prevent my meeting my Warrior Woman, the love of my love, the light that guides me, and she with whom I willingly and lovingly vowed to remain 'til death do us part.
So for the largest portion of my life I completely disavowed hatred, refused to allow myself to feel it, and conducted my life rather well in its absence.
Now I look back at the last couple of postings I made here at VidiotSpeak and I am shocked, appalled, and physically sickened by the words I have written expressing this most destructive emotion of all. Hatred.
Hatred for the people destroying my country, hatred for an unjust country of people in the Middle East that constitute the greatest threat to Middle East peace and all the inequities and evils of men who would destroy other men and countries just because they got a raw deal in WWII and now feel entitled to their hatred and the superiority to the thousands they kill and starve to death.
I was absent from these pages yesterday. I was absent because night before last I re-read my last two posts and felt so physically ill that I quite literally slept the entire day yesterday and all night, except for a brief moment of wakefulness to kiss my beloved good-bye for the day at 2 A.M., and then cuddled up with all my little Boston Terriers, who, as all dogs, have no notion nor need for hatred and that acts to ameliorate those feelings within me, and then returned to sleep.
I have damaged my psyche with all these feelings of hatred and, believe me, it was damaged enough as it was. I haven't been well for a very long time now and I realize I must stop this continual spiral into ever greater hatred as it serves me ill.
So I would just like to urge everyone, all of us, to remember that we are all trapped on this planet earth with companions we either love or, instead of hating, should feel dispassion towards those with whom we cannot agree or find any common ground whatever.
This is my opinion, of course, but it comes from a heart damaged by life, held together by those whom I love and whom love me, and I hope that everyone who reads this will realize what a grave mistake is hatred and stop to think what each of us can do to bring a little more love into our small section of Planet Earth.
I spoke to several people who have a work history with BP, and two of them told me they are certain that British Petroleum is NOT trying to stop the oil coming out of the well. What they are trying to do, I was told, is SAVE the oil well so that they can capture the oil and sell it.
Then our economic system is even more dangerous than I thought it was... and believe me, I thought it was pretty damn bad before.
The unsurpassed savagery of the Jewish State, Israel…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:27 PM Permalink
…could be ended quite peacefully if they would only obey UN Resolution 242, extant since 1967. Any other state so abjectly ignoring a UN Resolution would have long ago had the derision of the world heaped upon them and, possibly, forced used against them to force compliance with that resolution.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242
November 22, 1967
Following the June '67, Six-Day War, the situation in the Middle East was discussed by the UN General Assembly, which referred the issue to the Security Council. After lengthy discussion, a final draft for a Security Council resolution was presented by the British Ambassador, Lord Caradon, on November 22, 1967. It was adopted on the same day.
This resolution, numbered 242, established provisions and principles which, it was hoped, would lead to a solution of the conflict. Resolution 242 was to become the cornerstone of Middle East diplomatic efforts in the coming decades.
The Security Council, Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East,
Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,
Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter,
Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:
Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
Affirms further the necessity
For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;
For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;
For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;
Requests the Secretary General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;
Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible.
I have absolutely nothing against the jewish people, as usual my beef is with their leaders who constantly defy the law and spirit of resolution 22, and I'm sick and tired of their always playing the 'poor wittle victims" when nothing could be further from the truth.
Here, again, they are the aggressors in international waters blockading relief supplies to the people from whom they stole the rich farm land and still seek to keep imprisioned the real owners of the land, starving and dying while the Israelis creep further and further within Palestinian borders and seek to destroy the people whose land they have stolen.
I am both embarrassed and ashamed that the American government not only condones this tyrannical behavior but actively assists the jews in oppressing, killing, and starving those people whom they wish to oppress, starve, and oppress just because those people want back lands wrongfully stolen from them.
Quick! Name one other nation allowed to ignore a UN Security Council Resolution for forty-three years without consequence.
But this is just my opinion and I will never concede that it is wrong.
posted by The Sailor @ 12:23 PM Permalink
Whether you call it piracy or state-sponsored terrorism, Israel just committed both. They attacked unarmed humanitarian aid ships in International waters and killed 19 people.
Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza.
At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, Israeli radio reported.
The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast.
Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters, saying: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves."
You have a right to defend yourselves from food and doctors!? OK, even if I were to acknowledge that, why would you kill them in international waters!?
No, a thousand time NO, you don't get to attack and kill people in international waters just because you think they might attack, when you've established they have no offensive capabilities! These folks were just trying to deliver humanitarian aid to a place that has been devastated by war.
My suggestion? Stop giving Israel our tax money and arms.
Update: The Guardian/UK is putting the death toll at 10:
[...] "I am one of the first passengers to be sent home, just because I have baby. When we arrived at the Israeli port of Ashdod we were met by the Israeli interior and foreign ministry officials and police; there were no soldiers. They asked me only a few questions. But they took everything – cameras, laptops, cellphones, personal belongings including our clothes," she said. [...] Michalis Grigoropoulos, who was at the wheel of the Free Mediterranean, said: "We were in international waters. The Israelis acted like pirates, completely out of the normal way that they conduct nautical exercises, and seized our ship. They took us hostage, pointing guns at our heads; they descended from helicopters and fired tear gas and bullets. There was absolutely nothing we could do … Those who tried to resist forming a human ring on the bridge were given electric shocks."
Grigoropoulos, who insisted the ship was full of humanitarian aid bound for Gaza "and nothing more", said that, once detained, the human rights activists were not allowed to contact a lawyer or the Greek embassy in Tel Aviv. "They didn't let us go to the toilet, eat or drink water and throughout they videoed us. They confiscated everything, mobile phones, laptops, cameras and personal effects.
It's especially telling that Israel is confiscating evidence of their assault.
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.
All you need is love as the Beatles sang is true, and I have truly been shown favor by fate for being so lucky as to have my Warrior Woman with me for thirty-six years and still being as madly in love with her today as the first day I met her. Within 10 minutes of meeting her I told her she would be mine forever and, well, here we are. So if anyone ever tells you there is no such thing as love at first site, feel sorrow for them, but always remember it is real, it does happen, and it's a beautiful thing when it does.
