All Men Are Created Equal

All white men. All white males. Not the Irish.
----
This statement is a passive assertion of one consequence
and only one consequence, of that statement:
We are every bit as good as they are.
----
It is a statement made by the weaker to the stronger.

Is a soldier a citizen?

Isn't he entitled to a speedy trial then?
Oh, I see, he isn't charged with doing anything.
He is just TDA solitary Levenworth.

The rich are insulated from climate change

The poor, not so much.

Freedom of the printing press

Does freedom of the press primarily mean the papers?
Does freedom of speech primarily mean the talk shows?

The First Amendment protects the common man, the little guy; protects him from being prosecuted for his ideas, spoken or written, public or private.
Freedom of the xerox, of the telephone, of the spray can.

The emperor has or has not clothes

All governments lie.
The issue is not true vs false.
The issue is deniable vs undeniable.

That's why cameras are essential.

Tomorrowland

Separation of church and state is new, even though
Christ said His kingdom was already somewhere else;
and you can't get there from here, not easily.

Maybe Buddha didn't want to found a church.
He didn't want to live in Tomorrowland.

Feed the homeless

Oh wait, it was feed the hungry.

Cant see the forest for the trees?

Sorry, those trees are the forest.
Can't see the government for the politics?
The glorious fruit of our democracy is
to help the rich and powerful at home,
and abroad.

St Teresa, Life

16. ...

But do we suppose that God is better pleased when men account us wise and discreet persons? We think that there is but little edification given if people do not go about, with great gravity, in a dignified way. Even in the friar, the ecclesiastic, and the nun, if they wear old and patched garments, we think it a novelty, and a scandal to the weak; and even if they are very recollected and given to prayer.

Such is the state of the world, and so forgotten are matters of perfection, and those grand impetuosities of the Saints. More mischief, I think, is done in this way, than by any scandal that might arise if the religious showed in their actions, as they proclaim it in words, that the world is to be held in contempt.

Out of scandals such as this, our Lord obtains great fruit. If some people are scandalized, others come to their senses: anyhow, we should have before us some likeness of that which our Lord and His Apostles endured; for we have need of it now more than ever.

Water

Water has three states: solid, liquid, gas.
As gas, it is in the atmosphere; about 1% is water.
Liquid water is in the lower places.
Solid water is in the colder places.
The more solid water, the less liquid water, the more land in the lower places.
The more liquid water, the more land in the colder places.

Whistleblower or Enemy of the State?

What's the difference?
Meyer

Onward Christian Soldiers

The new Prince of peace.

WW III to be declared, ten years later

Congress acts.
This is for the war in Pakistan.
They say: No more Lybias. Know what I mean?
They mean we got to be able to do the humanitarian interventions against terrorists, and it just might take more than 60 days.

Supreme Court confirms rendition

But decides that the program is top secret.
Will the Court get in trouble for revealing a state secret?
Probably not, unless they are tried in a military court,
and sent to Guantanamo before their appeal can be heard.

Fukushima... One line was down?

I wish I knew Japanese.
The x's in boxes [x] are "transmission towers".

Not proof that Obama is American

An American would arrest people who boasted in writing of committing a felony, who killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, who subverted the Constitution.

Work on the Yonomori line

The Yonomori Line is a low voltage line south to a distribution substation near Yonomori. It leaves the Daiichi plant towards the south, going along the first base line of the ballfield. Notice that the insulators differ from one side to the other. The Yonomori Line is not connected to the Fukushima transmission substation. It looks like it might be owned by Tohoku, as it goes South, then West then North to a substation just west of Momouchi 桃内駅.

Fukushima transmission lines and substation

click image to enlarge
Daini was powered by midnight by the Fukushima substation. Why do we think that all six transmission circuits to Daiichi failed?
[4 circuits on the Okuma Lines (275kv) to units 1+2 and 3+4 and 2 circuits on the Futaba Line (500kv) to units 5+6. The Yonomori Line is not connected.]
Three towers would need to fail for a "station blackout".
Farther north, there were towers damaged or destroyed in the lowland swept by the tsunami, but they were in the path of the tsunami, close to the coast, and there were not many.

Cheney's Secret Energy Task Force

The documents indicate an investigation is needed.
Palast says it was not about oil; it was about money. We don't like some joker messing up the market. We prefer controlling prices.
But Venezuela in '02, remember?, didn't do the trick.

Hearings on Guantanamo, 12/2007

Mostly empty chairs.
Looks like Grassley and Leahy, and one other senator.

This American Life - looking for a moral compass

399 Act 3: Malaria injections induce psychotic breaks - GITMO
363 Act 2: Naked short selling. What the SEC is not doing.
357 Act 2: Lawrence Wright. Can you speak Arabic?
356: A look at the DoJ. The Best Terrorists We Could Find
353: Pope George II, speaking ex catheda
292: Lakhani's sandbox
282. DIY - The Justice System
280: In the country of Falluja with the National Guard
260. Act 1: Show trials.
254: Kunar Province
253: Like Palau
251 Act 2: The West Bank
229. The Dark Side of Hose Padilla

Afghan Youth Volunteers

YouTube

With friends like these

Ms Clinton considers Silvio Berlusconi to be her “best friend”
and Uzbek dictator Karimov a very good friend
and deposed Tunisian dictator Ben Ali a very good friend
and Egypt’s murderous dictator Mubarak is a friend as well.

Hey I just thought of somthing

End-stage Capitalism

Twin Cities Media Alliance h/t Truthout

Why we invaded Iraq

See Ray McGovern's article on Israel, Blair, and Hillary.
Remember "Everything."?

Obama struggles with killing people overseas

Regarding Raymond Davis

Blackwater vs. drones.

Each method has advantages and disadvantages.

Obama: We've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future and that is if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution.

However, Article 31.1c does exclude from protection any professional actions undertaken outside of the official functions.

Guantanameros

Issue #3, Wed Mar 1st.

Guantanameros

Issue #2, Wed Feb 22nd.

Ray McGovern

Learning about how the Egyptians oppressed the people.

Coaling Station

Guantanamo is a coaling station.

State sponsored terrorism

Shooting from a helicopter is not war.
It's conquest.

Guantanameros

Issue #1, Wed Feb 15th

The King has always been Commander-in-Chief

Nothing new there.
And the good kings were war mongers.

Sensory depravation is torture

and we all saw it.
And so is mefloquine, aka "lariam",
the anti-malarial with a side effect like "Russian roulette"
except using a four-shooter rather than a six-shooter.
Audio from This American Life, Act 3, about events of October 12th and 13th
Losing one's mind, thanks to lariam.

One word

leave
eh haal

The clock cannot be turned back

No dictator is above the law, so they say.

Alexander, the Great Killer

Should we name our new destroyers the
USS Yoo, USS Addington, USS Rumsfeld, USS Bush,
USS Gonzalez

The Law must not follow politics

Politics must follow the Law.

If you had an outfit you could be a soldier too

and then you would be entitled to professional courtesy.

The Kids Are Alright

What do we want When do we want it.

x
Levée en masse - - Dying for one's country

At the prayer breakfast

U.S.Attorney General Michael Mukasey (R) refuses to join FBI Director Robert Muller in a prayer for Bradley Manning,
imprisoned at the Marine Base in Quantico, Virginia.

He said dryly

Guantanamo has never been open.
See news article "UN seeks access to POWs at Guantanamo"
reported June 23, 2005 by npr here
The US is ignoring their requests.

Habeas Corpus v. Make me

"Despotic King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215" says the display at the National Archives. If despotic King John abandoned his right to send commoners to the tower, doesn't that make our president more despotic than King John? Yes, it does.
Our constitution does not allow the legislature to condemn free men (no bills of attainder). The 4th amendment prevents the executive from doing the same.
If they are not prisoners of war, then they are just prisoners.

Rupert Murdoch

buys Al Jazeera. You think I'm kidding?

Freedom's just another word

for nothing left to lose
Or protect.

Hosni Mubarak replies

on Twitter

Langston Hughes, on Egypt

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Not good

More bad papers as we poke through the closet.
Our friend in Egypt, the #2 beneficiary of our foreign aid,
intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is a sociopath.

Diego Garcia

View Larger Map
Luckily, uninhabited.

The War On Terror

"The war to end all peace." Norman Solomon

Juan Bosch, President of the Dominican Republic

During the uprising to restore Juan Bosch, Johnson says: "we are really going to have to set-up that government down there, run it, and stabilize it, some way or another. This Bosch is no good."
Tom Mann, assistant, says: "The man to get back is Balaguer."