Fuck* the troops

No, I'm not gay. I don't literally mean fuck the men.
No, I am not advocating raping the women either, although a lot of women in the military are being raped by the men in the military.
Yes, I know a lot of young people are led by the invisible hand of the market into the military, to escape their desperate backgrounds. And, no, I don't expect them to be all noble, when they are only cooks stationed in West Germany, while indifferent Americans watch Notre Dame play Michigan in the Sugar Bowl.

What I mean is that many American soldiers, that I believe should know better, are indifferent to the plight of prisoners and civilians in their area of operation. The opposite of love, as in love your enemy, is not hate. It is indifference. So maybe they cannot be sent to jail for what they do; but they can be sent to hell.

Hello PTSD, hello suicide.
*

1980s, Guatemala, Rios Montt

1951, Completes class at the School of the Americas.
1954, participates in the coup of Arbenz.
1970, named Chief of Staff of the Army of Guatemala.
1978, becomes a Pentecostal. Befriends Pat Robertson.
1982, seizes power, backed by the CIA
June 9th, starts the "guns or butter" program.
December, President Reagan says "Ríos Montt is a great man".
Israel sends military aid, and gives military training in Israel.
1983, CIA cable notes bodies are "appearing in ditches"
1999, Clinton apologizes for US support of reign of terror.
1999, Guatemalan government admits massacre at Dos Erres.
2012, Ríos Montt indicted for crimes against humanity
wikipedia

Zero Dark Thrity

Zero-Dark-Thirty, although it is a work of fiction, may cross the line of advocating "immanent lawless action". Torture is an ongoing policy of friend (Islam Karimov) and foe alike, and this movie may give aid and comfort to those who practice it. We know that the Constitution allows immoral speech, but the government in other cases has sought to constrain speech in time of war if that speech poses a threat to national security.

Cloth Mother

.

The Adam Hotel, Gaza

At the small port.

July 2000: Peak Crossing Speed

A three hour crossing, but it's all downhill from here.

Citizens United

Or "May one shout fire in a crowded theatre"?

We meant well

Starting at 11:00. The UN starts a/the cholera epidemic in Haiti

Transition from fossil fuels

citation
Replacing all the energy currently being used with renewables will not be "enough". The demand for energy will continue to grow. Hahaha.

Not from Hawaii

From Easter Island.
That would explain a lot.

Fix social security

Restore the retirement age to 65.

Clean Coal

Yes, get the mercury out. Now.

Who manipulates the dollar?

China has used the dollar as its currency for years.
Q: Who is in the basement of the fed pumping out more greenbacks, as QE1, QE2, QE3?
A: Not China.

Pretend I am not speaking

Don't nod. Maybe look away, distracted.

ConocoPhillips to drill

in the Burgess Shale, for natural gas.

Protect the children

Everywhere.

Why do they hate us

They HATE us for our FREEdom

Moving mountains

All the carbon
and twice the oxygen
goes into the air.

For every train of coal
three trainloads of CO2
For every mountain,
three.

Clean burning gas

1. Methane burns to release energy, creating water and CO₂.
    So gas is cleaner, not clean.
    Cleaner than what? Cleaner than coal.
2. Uranium does not burn to release energy.
    Does this make nuclear cleaner than gas?
    Consider the whole life cycle.
    The mining, the waste, the accidents.

Will Pennsylvania be the new Texas

or the new New Jersey.
"beautiful piece of country and turned it into this huge trash dump". GasLand

The difference between theory and practice

In theory, there is no difference.
In practice, there is a difference.

This explains how fracking contaminates well water.

Einstein Explains the Curvature of Political Space

Near large amounts of cash, the truth bends.

Separate. but equal

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.

Before You Dig

We need
1. Activated watchdog agencies
2. Comprehensive, online, open records with maps
3. Unconditional clean water guarantee
4. Unconditional clean air guarantee
5. Unconditional land value guarantee
6. Unconditional health care
      One fiasco at a time
      West Valley Nuclear Dump Site
      Dioxin in Lake Ontario

We can afford to be cautious.

Did Jesus believe in free market capitalism?

The holy dollar, here.

Is barium in the blood

A sign of water well contamination with fracking fluid?

Combination sink stove

The latest "must have" kitchen appliance.
video

Screen shot from GASLAND @31:30

The Halliburton loophole, click to enlarge.
2005 Energy Act, pdf page 102
Drillers do not want to be subject to the Safe Drinking Water Act. Is there confusion about this?

Excludes injection of fluids
Note that the exclusion is for sand and for fluids.
Barium and arsenic are not fluids at the temperatures and pressures used in fracking. They are dissolved solids.

SUNY at Buffalo / SRSI

In mythology, Circe was a powerful witch who, with the help of herbs, muttering incantations, or praying to her gods, could turn men into animals or create unsubstantial images of beasts. She was able to darken the heavens by hiding the moon or the sun behind clouds.

The problems with fracking

1. Air pollution
2. Water pollution
3. Land destruction
4. Corruption of government

1. Air Pollution
 *  The fracking fluid is allowed to evaporate
 *  Condensate tank venting is not measured
       These vapors destroy animal(human) habitat
       and add to global warming

2. Water Pollution
 *  Fracking fluid cannot be "cleaned"
 *  Aquafers are made undrinkable by coincidence

3. Land is devastated, like
 *  mountain top removal
 *  Love Canal and dioxin
 *  West Valley nuclear reprocessing
 *  British Columbia tar sands pipeline
 *  and earthquakes

4. Government is corrupted
 *  campaign finance
 *  distortions under oath, like tobacco
 *  misinformation campaigns, like seat-belts
 *  opponents treated as insurgents

=====
some problems are related to any drilling
fracking requires more wells
More, with photos

The Meaning of the Superfund

What does the superfund demonstrate?
That when there is short term money to be made that leaves long term problems, the government hasn't managed to avoid the temptation to be buddies to the powerful.

Dee Hoffmeister's condensate tank

To get a fire started, you need fuel, oxygen, and heat.
How did these three things get together, or rather where?
One guess, the condensate tank was venting hydrocarbons at the wrong time. Eh?

Medicare

Moving from fixed-benefit to fixed-contribution.

Another problem with fracking

Natural gas is methane.
The material that comes up the well bore is shale oil and gas: gas and liquid. Some gas is vented, and some liquids vaporize.

Let's finish cleaning up West Valley before we jump into fracking.
What's the rush? The gas isn't going anywhere.

Less impact than what

vendor
It is true that with horizontal drilling, you can choose where to locate the drill rig, so that rigs do not need to be "in your face".
But this flexibility is a feature of horizontal drilling of any kind. The environmental benefit is that this flexibility can be used to minimize disruption of the land surface. It does not address the environmental problems specific to fracking, or automatically result in a better landscape.

It might be the case that the owner of the desired site would not sign the lease agreement, but his neighbor would.

One problem with fracking

vendor
In conventional drilling,
  - The gas has migrated from an oily shale strata
  - to a porous sandstone reservoir.
  - A hole into the reservoir accesses the pressurized gas.
In fracking,
  - The gas has not migrated from the oily shale.
  - Sandy fluid is forced in to make channels for the gas
  - Some of the fluid comes back out and is a disposal problem.

Fracking injects sandy water plus additives into the well, to make cracks in the shale, and jam the cracks open. A third of the fluid that goes in comes out again, but now mixed with hydrocarbons and metals from the oily shale. The first step in disposing of these produced fluids is to allow the fluid to evaporate.
These vapors are one problem with fracking.

Occupy Nairobi

AK47s belong

on the streets of other people's cities.
Obama, referring to Aurora Colorado

We need a national energy policy

Other than invade the Middle East.
And CFLs.

Commander-in-Chief

Q: What does the Constitution mean when it says the President is the Commander In Chief?
A: It means that he is in charge of the armed forces; that he is at the top of the chain of command by virtue of his office.

It does not mean he can do whatever crosses his mind.

Oaklahoma City

McVee says he was motivated by Waco.

Close Guantanamo

Simple demonstration in Buffalo.
The Peace Center joins Women in Black on Elmwood.

Overthrow the system in New York

Campaign finance reform (facebook) S7036

Overthrow the governmentby force and violence

See story

Global warming

The planet Mercury cools to -300F at night. But the earth, which is twice as far from the sun, is warm at night. The atmosphere acts like blanket, or a greenhouse. It scatters heat, making it harder for heat to escape, just as during the day it scatters sunlight, making the sky blue. In space, beyond the atmosphere, the sky is black.

Many molecules scatter heat. Water scatters heat as does carbon dioxide. Because of the burning of coal and oil, carbon dioxide concentrations have been increasing much faster than have concentrations of other compounds. One ton of coal creates three tons of CO2, and we have burned truckloads and trainloads and mountains of coal recently.

An increase of average temperature of a few degrees corresponds to a large increase in energy in the atmosphere.
I believe in global warming. Do you?

Obama, the Marxist

Marxism is the politics of hunger. So those who say Obama is a Marxist are at least right, that he ought to be a Marxist.

Von Braun was one military man we got

But we also snagged other Nazis, after the war.
The CIA got SS Sturmbanfuhrer Alois Brunner to help Egypt with interrogation methods, probably because the agency was then inexperienced in brutality and wanted men of expertise.
-----
Aldoph describer Alois as one of his best men.
A Kidnapping in Milan, Ch 5 Torment, p145, Steven Hendricks

The hour that the ship comes in

This is it.
And here is another.

The case of Jimmy Eagle and the Boots

On June 25 and 26, 1975, two FBI agents cruised the AIM headquarters near Pine Ridge in search of a pair of missing boots; one agent per boot. The murder of 60 indians was on the back burner until the boot caper was resolved. By 1PM on the 26th, after the death of indian number 61, hundreds of agents descended onto the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The boots were never recovered.
This is Leonard Peltier case.

Busy levelling the playing field

Making the world safe for ... something.

M&T Bank, scene of the crime

Indymedia

Committed to non-violence

Was Washington, was Andrew Jackson, was Polk, Lincoln?
Was Truman? Was Kennedy, Reagan, Bush? Is Obama?
William Henry Harrison did not start a war in his 80 days in office,
but he was at Tippecanoe, and killed lots of indians in Ohio.

Political prisoners

View Political Prisoners in a larger map
And if you are mentally ill, or get that way, it's not looking good..

What's wrong with Smart Meters

The purpose of the "smart meter" idea is to stabilize demand, and attempt to allow all power plants to run at close to capacity all the time, since plants are expensive to build, and the owners hate to see them idle.

The "smart" strategy, to achieve this goal, is to price electricity by the minute rather than by the month: have a rate plan under which the price of electricity goes up as demand goes up, and goes down as demand goes down. A rising price will tend shed demand and reduce peaking, while falling prices will tend to attract load and fill the valleys: crate a rate plan that enough customers will subscribe to to help match demand to the supply.

The customer modifies his usage in accordance with the minute-by-minute rate in his rate plan. One rate plan may be based on historical demand, and the customer may only need to avoid known peak periods. Another plan may set the price according to real-time demand. No one will know the rates in advance. These customers may use their computers to regulate their electric use.

For either type of rate plan, the meter needs to keep track of actual usage each minute, but that's all.

The example often given with the "smart meter" presentation is that the electric company can turn off your electric water heater during peak demand, and "you will never even notice". This assumes that you have an electric hot water heater, which you don't. Possibly there will be a program to get everyone to use electric hot water heaters...
This is what is wrong with smart meters.

Arab Spring: You're next, Assad

Kids were saying that in school last March, "You're next Assad",
the mindless ones were. The teachers were agast.
When they went outside, they wrote it on the walls. Hahaha.
Somehow Bashar found out.
He arrested some kids, and pulled out their fingernails.
This bothered the parents.They wanted their kids back.
He didn't want to give them back. He shot some parents.
Then things began to go downhill.
------
He said "Children? Forget you have children."
Go home and make more.
Call us if you need help.

Freedom is not free

If you are poor, you cannot afford it. But in the works: freedom stamps.

the whole truth, so help me God

I am not so worried about people who do not believe in God,
as I am about people who do not believe in truth, in reality.
Who say - let's be practical.

The culture of poverty

They have only themselves to blame;
they have only themselves.
To blame.
If you give them a marshmello, do they not eat it?
The poor are different. Not really human. Not really.
And they are wrecking it for everyone.
If there were no poor, we could all be rich.

Self possessed

Rid of delusion.
Except covered in gold. Somewhat toxic. Questionable choice.

The Cliff Dwellers of Kabul

Occupy Buffalo - Winter 2012

A nice winter day for the Buffalo.

A photo from the old days. Familiar?

Omagh

August 15, 1998 14:50 BST
A few minutes before the bomb, in the car there,
goes off. Looks like plenty of parking.

Stepford Wife

Glenn Greenwald on Fran Townsend. Salon.
This time you've gone too far.

And the Mau Mau?

War as a last resort

Force is a last resort only if it fixes the problem, if it is the final solution. Otherwise you have to try something else.

What does Rick Santorum have

that Noam Chomsky does not have?
I'm asking.

The Green Economy

Lettuce join.

Democracy Now

Is there Democracy in the dark?
Say you don't know what is behind each door.
Or you know it's a box, but not what's in the box.

The new checks and balances

Where merchants rule, freedom is free trade,
and sanctity is the sanctity of contract.

Killing innocent women and children

And men. Don't forget killing innocent men.

The War on Drugs

Smuggler, president

What about the wall of separation between

the press and the state?

Jessica Radack and other heroes

Dave Lindorf
Jane Mayer
Bradley Manning
Julian Assange
John Kiriakou
Thomas Drake, pictured
Ray McGovern
Daniel Ellsberg
Sibel Edmonds
Coleen Rowley
Julie Sirrs
*

Seven die during protest over Koran burning

The Afghan Interior Ministry says seven people have died in the turmoil related to the Muslim holy books.

The ministry says in a statement the deaths occurred Wednesday in the Afghan capital of Kabul, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, and in the provinces of Logar and Parwan. Four of the dead were killed during a protest in Parwan. The ministry said security guards at a U.S. base outside Kabul killed one man, and another isolated shooting occurred at Jalalabad and at Logar.

"The Embassy is on lockdown; all travel suspended," the embassy announced on its Twitter page Wednesday. "Please, everyone, be safe out there."

Is this all?

With Betty Friedan, with the Feminine Mystique, which begins: "The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?'"

Half empty

You're worried your house is under water?