Has God made an uglier, more repulsive creature that the possum? This one was at the cat food last night. Three of the cats sat there and watched him eat their food. He looked around, sniffed the air and moved close to one of the them and sniffed him. He was FAT and he had a look about him like he must have been in the bathroom when God passed out brains.

Forget Deputy Dawg and that cool Possible Possum, possums got beat with the ugly stick!

The real deal. Ewwwwwwww!

McCain: (Eye's twinkling) "Heh, heh, I pushed the button this morning."

 

Newsman: What button Mr President?

 

McCain: You know, THE BUTTON.

 

Newsman: God have mercy on our souls,

 

McCain: Heh, heh. Next question ... let's see ... there in the back ....

 

Thanks to Bernie K,

Pfizer  Corp. announced today that Viagra will soon be  available in liquid form, and will be marketed  by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for  use as a mixer.. It will now be possible for a  man to literally pour himself a stiff one.  Obviously we can no longer call this a soft  drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of  "cocktails", "highballs" and just an old fashioned "stiff drink." Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of MOUNT  & DO. 


Thought  for the day: There is more money being spent on  breast implants and Viagra today than on  Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040,  there should be a large elderly population with  perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no  recollection of what to do with  them.

I don't write this stuff, I just pass it along ... Gene

C-Street, home for liars and wayward adulterers with one hand in the upper levels of government and the other up Jesus's robe,

Bart Stupak who surely must know what's best for women, witness his Op-Ed in today's New York Times concerning his amendment to the House health care reform bill, Op-Ed Contributor - What My Amendment Won’t Do - NYTimes.com wherein he states:

"Our amendment maintains current law, which says that there should be no federal financing for abortion."

I think that's interesting, an amendment that states the bill it's inserted in should maintain current law. Damn, why shouldn't every bill that comes out of the House have that stipulation? How about a separate bill from the House that says:

"All bills issuing from this House of Congress shall maintain current law unless the nature of the bill is to change current law or unless the bill addresses something not presently covered under current law."

The congressman doth protest too much. methinks. Bart Stupak would have us believe that his intentions are honest and genuine in the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts amendment. Hmmmm, three Congressmen to maintain what's already law. Curious and curiouser.

The irony of Stupak's nanny state-ments and the accompanying humor stem, in part, from the ridiculous assertion that, distilled to its essence says, "I know what's best for you but I don't know where I live." I cite the Michigan Messenger http://michiganmessenger.com/23484/stupak-denies-knowledg...:

Despite weeks of media attention paid to the now-infamous “C Street” house owned by The Family, a secretive Christian group, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak — who lives at the house near the U.S. Capitol — denied any knowledge of the nature of the mysterious Washington, D.C., rowhouse and any involvement with the organization that owns it and uses as a seat of influence on Capitol Hill ...

Jeff Sharlet, contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and the author of “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,” lived for a time at Ivanwald, another boarding house owned by the group in Arlington, Va., this one for younger men without political power.

Sharlet said that Stupak’s denial of any knowledge of The Family or its activities is false. “When I lived with The Family at Ivanwald, a house for younger men being groomed for leadership, I was told that Stupak was a regular visitor to the Cedars,” Sharlet said. The Cedars is yet another compound owned by The Family, one that hosts weekly prayer events led by former Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese.

EDWARD MEESE? SHEESH! I HATE MEESES TO PIECES!

These pieces of shit decide how we run our Government! Clowns like Stupak turn my stomach but it's nothing compared to the military connections between those who would have Jesus outfitted in an M-16 and the fervently religious psychopaths that we've elected.

For more disturbing information and the shadowy connection Between Sen. James Inhofe, his multiple visits to Uganda and The Family, check out Chris Rodda: "C Street" and the Military but like all Huffington Post online articles, it keep loading, reloading and freezing. This is the second reference I've seen to my own Congressman, Mike Doyle, and the Family, I've come up blank trying to google it.  Gene

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low….

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

But says bloggers are missing the point he’s making in the e-mail by not reading the article cited in it. That article – An Imperative for Climate Change Planning (.pdf) — actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise.

“It says we don’t have an observing system adequate to track it, but there are all other kinds of signs aside from global mean temperatures — including melting of Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels and a lot of other indicators — that global warming is continuing,” he says.

Gavin Schmidt, a research scientist with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the e-mails offer no damning indictment of climate researchers, and that bloggers are reading information in them out of context.

“There’s nothing in the e-mails that shows that global warming is a hoax,” he told Threat Level. “There’s no funding by nefarious groups. There’s no politics in any of these things; nobody from the [United Nations] telling people what to do. There’s nothing hidden, no manipulation.

“It’s just scientists talking about science, and they're talking relatively openly as people in private e-mails generally are freer with their thoughts than they would be in a public forum. The few quotes that are being pulled out [are out] of context. People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way.”

Trenberth agrees.

“If you read all of these e-mails, you will be surprised at the integrity of these scientists,” he says. “The unfortunate thing about this is that people can cherry pick and take things out of context.”

•  Azerbaijan is emerging as an important exporter of oil and natural gas and as a transport corridor between Europe and Central Asia. Its strategic location bordering the Caspian Sea has attracted significant international interest in developing its oil and natural gas reserves.
• Oil production in Azerbaijan more than quadrupled between 1997 and 2008 to 875,000 bbl/d and is expected to increase further as new wells come online.
  

For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation's resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours. What we have fought for — and what we continue to fight for — is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.

Gene and Quezacotl in equal measure

On the eve of Obama's big announcement it's important to remember why we fight,

1998 Unocal Statement:
Suspension of activities related to proposed
natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan

As a result of sharply deteriorating political conditions in the region, Unocal, which serves as the development manager for the Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline consortium, has suspended all activities involving the proposed pipeline project in Afghanistan.

From the 1998 Congressional Record.
Emphasis added to text.

U.S. INTERESTS IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN
REPUBLICS HEARING BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION
FEBRUARY 12, 1998

Next we would like to hear from Mr. John J. Maresca, vice president of international relations, Unocal Corporation. You may proceed as you wish.

STATEMENT OF JOHN J. MARESCA, VICE
PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, UNOCAL CORPORATION

Mr. Maresca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's nice to see you again. I am John Maresca, vice president for international relations of the Unocal Corporation. Unocal, as you know, is one of the world's leading energy resource and project development companies. I appreciate your invitation to speak here today. I believe these hearings are important and timely. I congratulate you for focusing on Central Asia oil and gas reserves and the role they play in shaping U.S. policy.

I would like to focus today on three issues. First, the need for multiple pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas resources. Second, the need for U.S. support for international and regional efforts to achieve balanced and lasting political settlements to the conflicts in the region, including Afghanistan. Third, the need for structured assistance to encourage economic reforms and the development of appropriate investment climates in the region. In this regard, we specifically support repeal or removal of section 907 of the Freedom Support Act.

Mr. Chairman, the Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves. Just to give an idea of the scale, proven natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day. By 2010, western companies could increase production to about 4.5 million barrels a day, an increase of more than 500 percent in only 15 years. If this occurs, the region would represent about 5 percent of the world's total oil production.

One major problem has yet to be resolved: how to get the region's vast energy resources to the markets where they are needed. Central Asia is isolated. Their natural resources are land locked, both geographically and politically. Each of the countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia faces difficult political challenges. Some have unsettled wars or latent conflicts. Others have evolving systems where the laws and even the courts are dynamic and changing. In addition, a chief technical obstacle which we in the industry face in transporting oil is the region's existing pipeline infrastructure.

Because the region's pipelines were constructed during the Moscow-centered Soviet period, they tend to head north and west toward Russia. There are no connections to the south and east. But Russia is currently unlikely to absorb large new quantities of foreign oil. It's unlikely to be a significant market for new energy in the next decade. It lacks the capacity to deliver it to other markets.

Two major infrastructure projects are seeking to meet the need for additional export capacity. One, under the aegis of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, plans to build a pipeline west from the northern Caspian to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Oil would then go by tanker through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean and world markets.

The other project is sponsored by the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, a consortium of 11 foreign oil companies, including four American companies, Unocal, Amoco, Exxon and Pennzoil. This consortium conceives of two possible routes, one line would angle north and cross the north Caucasus to Novorossiysk. The other route would cross Georgia to a shipping terminal on the Black Sea. This second route could be extended west and south across Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

But even if both pipelines were built, they would not have enough total capacity to transport all the oil expected to flow from the region in the future. Nor would they have the capability to move it to the right markets. Other export pipelines must be built.

At Unocal, we believe that the central factor in planning these pipelines should be the location of the future energy markets that are most likely to need these new supplies. Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union are all slow growth markets where demand will grow at only a half a percent to perhaps 1.2 percent per year during the period 1995 to 2010.

Asia is a different story all together. It will have a rapidly increasing energy consumption need. Prior to the recent turbulence in the Asian Pacific economies, we at Unocal anticipated that this region's demand for oil would almost double by 2010. Although the short-term increase in demand will probably not meet these expectations, we stand behind our long-term estimates.

I should note that it is in everyone's interest that there be adequate supplies for Asia's increasing energy requirements. If Asia's energy needs are not satisfied, they will simply put pressure on all world markets, driving prices upwards everywhere.

The key question then is how the energy resources of Central Asia can be made available to nearby Asian markets. There are two possible solutions, with several variations. One option is to go east across China, but this would mean constructing a pipeline of more than 3,000 kilometers just to reach Central China. In addition, there would have to be a 2,000-kilometer connection to reach the main population centers along the coast. The question then is what will be the cost of transporting oil through this pipeline, and what would be the netback which the producers would receive.

For those who are not familiar with the terminology, the netback is the price which the producer receives for his oil or gas at the well head after all the transportation costs have been deducted. So it's the price he receives for the oil he produces at the well head.

The second option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route is across Afghanistan, which has of course its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades, and is still divided by civil war. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, we have worked very closely with the University of Nebraska at Omaha in developing a training program for Afghanistan which will be open to both men and women, and which will operate in both parts of the country, the north and south.

Unocal foresees a pipeline which would become part of a regional system that will gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The 1,040-mile long oil pipeline would extend south through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast. This 42-inch diameter pipeline will have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per day. The estimated cost of the project, which is similar in scope to the trans-Alaska pipeline, is about $2.5 billion.

Given the plentiful natural gas supplies of Central Asia, our aim is to link gas resources with the nearest viable markets. This is basic for the commercial viability of any gas project. But these projects also face geopolitical challenges. Unocal and the Turkish company Koc Holding are interested in bringing competitive gas supplies to Turkey. The proposed Eurasia natural gas pipeline would transport gas from Turkmenistan directly across the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey. Of course the demarcation of the Caspian remains an issue.

Last October, the Central Asia Gas Pipeline Consortium, called CentGas, in which Unocal holds an interest, was formed to develop a gas pipeline which will link Turkmenistan's vast Dauletabad gas field with markets in Pakistan and possibly India. The proposed 790-mile pipeline will open up new markets for this gas, traveling from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Multan in Pakistan. The proposed extension would move gas on to New Delhi, where it would connect with an existing pipeline. As with the proposed Central Asia oil pipeline, CentGas can not begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan Government is in place.

The Central Asia and Caspian region is blessed with abundant oil and gas that can enhance the lives of the region's residents, and provide energy for growth in both Europe and Asia. The impact of these resources on U.S. commercial interests and U.S. foreign policy is also significant. Without peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the region, cross-border oil and gas pipelines are not likely to be built. We urge the Administration and the Congress to give strong support to the U.N.-led peace process in Afghanistan. The U.S. Government should use its influence to help find solutions to all of the region's conflicts.

U.S. assistance in developing these new economies will be crucial to business success. We thus also encourage strong technical assistance programs throughout the region. Specifically, we urge repeal or removal of section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. This section unfairly restricts U.S. Government assistance to the government of Azerbaijan and limits U.S. influence in the region.

Developing cost-effective export routes for Central Asian resources is a formidable task, but not an impossible one. Unocal and other American companies like it are fully prepared to undertake the job and to make Central Asia once again into the crossroads it has been in the past. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

• Iran's Cabinet OKs building 10 more uranium enrichment plants, state news agency IRNA announces.
•  Four sheriff's deputies fatally shot in what officials describe as an ambush in a coffee shop near Seattle, Washington.

According to testimony yesterday ( October 29, 2009) before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, a temp employee of Bonner & Associates forged 14 letters, making them appear as if they came from community groups and sending them to members of Congress. The letters urged the lawmakers to vote against upcoming cap and trade legislation

 

That’s according to H. Leighton Steward, co-author of the “Sugar Busters!” diet books, veteran of the oil industry, honorary director of the American Petroleum Institute, and one of the forces behind the CO2 is Green Web site. His partner in this venture is Corbin J. Robertson Jr., chief executive of and leading shareholder in Natural Resource Partners, an owner of coal resources.

Their argument, in a nutshell: carbon dioxide cannot be a pollutant because we exhale it and plants need it to grow. Their site boasts of a petition signed by 31,478 scientists (9,029 of them with Ph.D.s, the site says), that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be beneficial; more CO2 means better crops, but not necessarily a warmer planet since other factors play a bigger role in heating the planet.

Now comes sanity and reason and science. Dr. Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford and winner of the collective 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with his colleagues on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, asserts: “Fraud is their middle name. These guys lie with impunity. They’re counting on the media to cover it and the average person not to look it up.” Schneider compares these stalling and dissembling tactics of the oil and coal industries on climate change now to what the tobacco companies did in the 1950s. “They know they’re lying, same as tobacco industry did, and they’re getting away with it again.”

It all sounds to me like that fat, female, German commandant  in one of the hundreds of holocaust movies that I've seen telling the jews about to be executed in the gas cambers,  "Breath deep, it's good for you!"   Gene

The peoplem, and they haven't shown any biological signs that they aren't actually people, although, I have my doubts, composed this fine Pie Chart. They are so smart that the percentages add up to 193%, Not only do they go the extra mine when reporting the news, they go the extra 93%. The way I see it is; when you're stupid you're too stupid to know you're stupid,  just look at Texas.  

To the people that think Fox is a News organization, you're just pulling our leg, right? You're just messing around with our heads right? You're just so far right that you always think your right, right?  I mean, you got that God thing going and all.  Gene

Patton Oswald, whom, by the way, I heard of for the first time 10 minutes ago, Is a foul mouthed, irreverent comedian in the mold of Sam Kinison. In short, he's hilarious, but if you have any sacred cows that moo hell and damnation in your ear, your either afraid to like him or can't suspend YOUR wicked beliefs long enough to entertain someone else's wicked beliefs and have a damn good laugh while you're at it.

My daughter's boyfriend did the animation for this Patton Oswald (is that his real name?) cartoon, and damn-it, I'm proud that she's seeing someone that isn't afraid to go outside the mold of normality and as the Holy Sage of Cartoons, Olive Oil once said, "Oh, Popeye, she's a chip off the old block head."  Gene, with a little help from my friends  ...

• The CIA
• The Pentagon
• The executive branch
• The Judicial branch
• Congress
• The limitless ways that the government has expanded its power to snoop into out lives
• Official oppression

• Although highly controversial in the actual trial details, effectively in 2003, a judge ruled in Fox News' favor that lying is constitutionally protected by the first amendment, the right to free speech.
• Blackwater wantonly kills civilians
• Our cowardly use of drones kill indiscriminately in Pakistan
• The same Goldman Sachs executives that drove the free market into the ground are put in charge of fixing it
• Tax codes are designed for the wealthy and even though they make higher incomes do not always pay a higher tax based on their adjusted gross income
• A neutered, ineffectual Health Care Bill may be passed and if so touted as a success for Democrats
• Illiteracy is on the rise
• Prisons and homeless shelters are bursting at the seams
• Corporations are given sweetheart tax deals nationwide and are viewed with reverence and fervor
• We are living under a self -imposed caste system, only this time, the unclean are you and me
• The religious right has treated the New Testament like a legal document, inserting loopholes, exclusins and perverting its message.

Oops! Wrong video ...

 Wizard of Oz, The - If I Only Had A Brain - Ray Bolger & Judy Garland.mp3

I made a personal vow that I'd never watch the Beverly Hillbillies movie and I haven't, but, while I was in frantic search mode at 3:00 AM this morning, looking at digital cameras on ebay, I heard it. The Beverly Hillbillies theme music was coming from the living room television that I had left on so as to trick myself into believing that I wasn't the biggest loser in the world, alone and forgotten, while the rest of the world slept on sleep number beds and memory foam.

I don't have anything against the Hillbillies, in fact, I loved them. I remember as a small child when they came on the sit-com scene. I knew that they were something special and would usher in a whole new era of television counter to the I Love Lucy, Honeymooners model.

The begats: and the Hillbillies begat Green Acres and Green Acres somehow begat Archie Bunker and Archie begat The Jeffersons. TV was maturing and somehow turned the tables on its viewers and it cast a light on who we were and why being who we were was hilarious. Norman Lear was indeed learing at us through the interdimensional porthole known as television.

Jed is dead, he came this close (a very tiny space between the pointer finger and the thumb) to being immortalized as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of OZ, but In a bizarre twist of fate, he contracted aluminium poisoning from the tin man make-up who he was originally cast to play. Ray Bolger was amenable to switching roles and became the tin man while Buddy Ebsen became too sick to play the scarecrow, much to his everlasting chagrin and Jack Haley was brought in for the Scarecrow role and the rest is movie history.

Most of those actors that we loved in the second wave of television sit-comery are dead and it depressed me to watch them young and vital, well Jed and Granny weren't young but they sure as hell were vita, whizzing and pasting and pooting through their careers only to end up as as a meaningless Barnaby Jones robot and, I suppose dying as she lived, Irene Ryan died happily suffering a stroke during a Broadway performance of Pippin.

Dick Van Dyke also ended his career on a down beat as some detective / doctor / wizened old elf that wore a doomed expression that loudly exclaimed, "Is it payday yet?"

I can hardly watch Monty Python. Not only is it dead man walking, he's mocking, talking, joking, and existing forever in some film canister that lays lifelessly on a dusty store room shelf. Ok, it's not a dusty store room shelf, it's a temperature and humidity controlled environment but that's only because they can march them out generation upon generations and make MONEY on them, or, it, or whatever pictures of dead people should be called.

For some reason I'm not prone to apply these standards to movies, maybe because I have such a personal relationship with television, me and Howdy Doody were buds. It's like watching your friends grow old and die, meanwhile your great grandfather and mother, the movies, were dead long before you came on the scene.  Gene

The man who would be Governor of Michigan, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) has a large mouth and small brain. If not completely traitorous he does his little monkey dance right on the edge, someone throw him a banana to shut him up. Rachel Maddow makes quick work of exposing him for the reckless, loose lipped, pandering, egocentric demagogue he is. ****************************************************** Farewell Lou Dobbs. He leaves amidst controversy and contentions of racism and that he was dismissed for allegedly leaving disparaging comments, under an alias, on a stripper's blog. Here's an example of his style. While contending that he 'believes" that Obama is a citizen, he has amassed evidence to the contrary and then innocently asks, "Why doesn't he just produce the birth certificate?" Roland Martin eviscerates Lou Dobbs' argument even with republican Congressman Ted Poe (TX-02) joining the fray against common sense, the will of the American people and displays his own penchant for "soft racism."

From McClatchy Newspapers by James Rosen:

Posted on Thursday, November 5, 2009

Senate rejects effort to block civilian trials for 9/11 suspects

WASHINGTON — After an emotional debate over how to keep Americans safe, the Senate Thursday narrowly defeated an effort to prevent civilian trials in U.S. courts for the accused planners of the 9/11 attacks.

The Senate's 54-45 vote to reject the measure by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., opens the door for President Barack Obama to bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to trial in federal court, rather than the military commissions Graham helped create.

Obama has pledged to shutter the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January and transfer some of its 220 detainees to the U.S. for trials in civilian courts.

Three Democrats — Jim Webb of Virginia and Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor — and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut joined all 40 Senate Republicans in voting for the measure.

Graham, a military lawyer who's served active duty in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, pleaded with his colleagues to back his amendment to a spending measure for the Justice Department and other federal agencies.

"Tell the president that we're not going to sit by as a body and watch the mastermind of 9/11 go into civilian court and criminalize this war," Graham said. "If he goes to federal court, here's what awaits — a chaos zoo trial."

Graham, who helped craft the 2009 Military Commissions Act, said he wants all the Guantanamo detainees to be tried before military tribunals. He crafted his measure narrowly, however, to focus on Mohammed and five other alleged Sept. 11 plotters at the Guantanamo prison.

"Khalid Sheik Mohammed didn't rob a liquor store," Graham said. "He took this nation to war, and he killed 3,000 of our innocent citizens."

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said federal courts have convicted 195 felons of terror-related crimes since the 2001 attacks, while military tribunals have produced only three convictions.

"The Graham amendment would be an unprecedented intrusion into the authority of the executive branch of our government to combat terrorism," Durbin said. "To argue that we cannot successfully prosecute a terrorist in an American court is to ignore the truth and to ignore history."

The Supreme Court struck down the military commission system set up by President George W. Bush, and in a later ruling put restrictions on revamped tribunals that Congress had subsequently created.

Christopher Anders, the senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, hailed the terrorism vote.

"Thankfully, the Senate has made the right decision by not tying the president's hands when it comes to prosecuting detainees," Anders said. "Making it more difficult to prosecute detainees in our federal courts only serves to delay bringing them to justice."

A bevy of powerful senators joined the nearly three-hour debate, among them the chairmen of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary committees, 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and a former federal judge and former prosecutors.

"We're the most powerful nation on earth, with the most tested court system on earth," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. "Are we going to tell the world . . . we're not up to trying the people who have struck at us?"

 The Good:

General Eric Shinseki Eric Shinseki - SourceWatch

General Wesly Clark Anti-terrorist expert exposes Bush's weakness on security  

 

General McCaffrey One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex - Series - NYTimes.com

General Stanley McChrystal  Jon Krakauer: McChrystal's Explanation For Pat Tillman Cover-up Is "Preposterous"

This one is good if you can hold the 3-D effect. It comes out of the screen at least two levels. Slightly cross your eyes until you get the 3-D effect and then you can relax them and enjoy.

Since we're the same age and have the same political philosophy, Billy Boy Arnold - It Should Have Been Me.mp3

Thanks, again, to Bernie K,                                   

After a two year loan to the United States, Michelangelo's David is being returned to Italy .

 Olivia Newton-John - I Honestly Love You.mp3

Six Year old boy rides strange Moscow cloud to father's laboratory in the Bavarian Alps.

Little Eddie Munster climbed aboard his father's cloud sent to bring him back to his laboratory in the Bavarian Alps for a second operation. Eddie was born part vampire and part undead Frankenstein Monster. His father who is all Monster has been trying to infuse Eddie with human stem cells in an effort to check and in some cases reverse his natural tendensies and developemnet towards Monsterism.  Little Eddie was surprised by all the fuss and said to our, on the scene reporter, Gene Z., "Man, all this excitment makes me want to bite a neck." Little Eddie was taken into protective custody after he fell through the strange cloud over Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski's forest reserve in Krzemionki.

LIttle Eddie Munster

Professor Munster.

Rachel slaps em down but like an evil "Rocky" they stagger to their feet expecting the other side to throw the fight,

Not a big surprise or even a small one but I've given up on the human race. Oh, individuals are fine for a while until they get under your skin but groups are so bound by "group think" that they negate their own purposes and then have to make personal concessions so that they can live within their group hypocrisy.

A big, for instance, jumps right out at me; all those supposed grass roots organizations that the conservatives or whatever they are like to tout as sprouting from the ground up.

The theory being; people are so tired of the status quo, or so afraid to change the status quo, they will unite around either some charismatic leader or political idea being purposed by less than charismatic followers. Surely, get enough people in a room, vocal and irrepressible, and the ones that haven't made up their minds, or are even opposed to the propositions being put forth, will feel a certain pressure to join the throng. The rest like drawing little Hitler moustaches.

We have millions of empty drums pounding themselves in an effort to express their frustration at the expense of the other 98% of their brain. Here's a perfect example that I watched unfold last night. This man, Tim Philips, is not one iota short of having the chutzpa of a holocaust denier.

Summation: We are grass roots even though we start from the top down and use the American people to fight for rich people's interests at the expense of their own, and "Yes, we can fool all the people all the time."

The following is Doman Auto Sales' response to the complaint I filed against them with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office and Bureau of Consumer Protection. I had to retype their response and my reply because I couldn't get the consistency that I desired through the scanning software.The whole story was relayed in a previous blog that somehow got lost in the chronosynclastic infundibulum of the Internet.

DOMAN AUTO & MARINE SALES, INC.

Dear A. David Etzi,

We have read the above complaint and would like to thank you for the opportunity to preserve goodwill for our business.

We sold Mr. Zizis the vehicle as shown on our sales contract over several days. Mr. Zizis inspected and test drove the vehicle. We believe he took the car to a mechanic to have it looked over before purchase. He noted several things wrong with the vehicle, cosmetic ( dents and interior condition ) and mechanical ( engine oil seepage ) including the air conditioner and made an offer. His offer on the vehicle, which was listed for $2750.00, was $2000.000 plus costs and we were to repair the air conditioning only ( at our expense ). In our opinion, Mr. Zizis knew exactly what he was purchasing. We maintained full disclosure of the vehicle and terms of the sale. You will note that on the contract there are items circled and underlined for emphasis. In addition, the vehicle had current state safety inspection and did not exhibit any of the conditions Mr. Zizis quotes at the time of the sale. We agreed to his offer and repaired the air conditioning. The following day Mr. Zizis returned, test drove and inspected the vehicle again. Finding it satisfactory, he purchased as shown on the sales contract. Mr. Zizis did purchase a service contract and elected not to have the components he refers to be covered components. He declined the additional coverage even though it was available to him.

We find it noteworthy that no documentation for the repairs has been included with the complaint and incomprehensible the Mr. Zizis could pay $2,367.70 for a car and request we pay $2,435.32 for his maintenance. We have no way of rebutting the second hand information he quotes. However, we believe any maintenance costs the vehicle needs have been grossly exaggerated. In addition, we have no means of monitoring the use of the vehicle once it leaves our facility. We understand that maintenance repairs for consumers can be untimely. However, they can be caused or magnified by consumer use, misuse or neglect. Please note on his statement regarding a hydraulic leak, "after a day there were hydraulic leaks in the driveway. I called the dealer the following week. There are a number of questions we will never have an answer to. But, it is entirely the customer's responsibility to maintain the proper operation of the vehicle so that consequential damage does not result. This is especially true at Mr. Zizis' price point. If we were to believe Mr. Zizis that several major components in the braking system were faulty at the point of sale, we believe they would have manifested themselves over the course of the several days while he was test driving and purchasing. Again. we have no way of controlling what happens to a vehicle after it leaves our facility.

As a dealer we feel we have completed our portion of the transaction in good faith. Mr. Zizis, an experienced  car buyer, inspected, negotiated price, requested specific repairs and was fully aware the condition of the vehicle before purchasing. We stand by the terms of the sale and in Mr. Zizis' own words "I was satisfied". We also take exception to the use of innuendo in this forum.

If you have any questions or need additional information, I can be reached at the address, telephone number or email address above.

Sincerely,

Chris Pantelis, Doman Auto Sals, Inc.

 

My rebuttal, also sent to the Attorney General:

Re: Doman Auto& Marine Sales, Inc.

Dear Mr. A David Etzi,

In Doman's response to my complaint against them, the third sentence is a complete fabrication; "[We] believe he [Gene Zizis] took the car to a mechanic to have it looked at before purchase." They know full well this isn't true.

All that I noted that was wrong with the vehicle was the air conditioner wasn't working. I did not make a counter offer. Their salesman, Bob Smith, offered to fix the air conditioner and lower the price.

They say, "In their opinion Mr. Zizis knew exactly what he was purchasing." Yes this is true; I was purchasing a car, which I thought had an operational braking system. They site the underlined portions of the sale contract and the fact that it had a current state inspection sticker as if to indicate that they are relieved of ANY responsibility for selling a car with a leaking corroded brake line system.

I'm to believe, according to them, and so are you and the Bureau of Consumer Protection that a problem of such magnitude developed, in the two days that I took charge of the car, that the brake lines spontaniously corroded and ALL the brake fluid leaked our causing the brake pedal to go to the floor while being driven. I consider the absence of any kind of tangible proof that they didn't know what they were selling as sheer fabrication and an insult to my intelligence.

They mentioned that I purchased a service contract and that I chose one that didn't cover the specific components that were bad. This is completely irrelevant. Addressing the test drive, there was only one, not two as they state in their response, the one I took originally when I first saw he car on their lot. A test drive will not indicate that there's a hydraulic leak until the amount of fluid is at a critical level. They could have simply filled the master cylinder every morning to avoid any test drive braking problems.

Doman's finds it noteworthy that no documentation for the repairs has been included with the complaint. As I stated to you, I originally sent all of my records to the Harrisburg Office and I called you as soon ( today ) as I received Doman's response to ask whether or not they had forwarded the records to you. I also called Harrisburg but they were unable to tell me if they had.

Doman also calls my information second hand information while I suppose theirs is solid gold.

In the third paragraph down, towards the bottom of the page, they assert that "Any maintenance costs the vehicle needs have been grossly exaggerated." Maintenance? Replacing corroded brake lines is maintenance?

They save the disclaimer for last: "We have no means of monitoring the use of the vehicle once it leaves our facility." ( In this case, two days after it leaves their facility ). Then to add salt to the wound, "They [the maintenance costs] can be caused or magnified by consumer use, misuse or neglect." They then quote my statement, "After a day there were hydraulic fluid leaks in the driveway, I called the dealer the following week." It was Saturday when I observed the leaks.

They hammer their maintenance point calling it, "The customer's responsibility to maintain the proper operation of their vehicle so that consequential  damage does not result." I know how to maintain a vehicle.

Their final paragraph, they feel that they have completed their portion of the transaction in good faith and take exception of the use of innuendo in this forum. Well, I take exception that someone in my household could have been killed due to their flat out neglect and then when they get caught, hide behind their mumbo jumbo.

Yours truly,   Gene

At the risk of being boring, I have MORE PICTUES of our visit to Natalie's,

Housing in Hoboken, Great place and Franks Sinatra's home town.

Cat painting that struck me in the Antique Emporium of Asbury Park.

See, I told you.

The following pictures are more things from the Antique Emporium, Things I like but wouldn't buy because they're expensive and I have no place to put them.

I love this painting and almost did buy it, almost. Uncle Sam getting down and dirty, rolling up his sleeves to do what must be done. If only ...

This is so out of focus and a rather shitty attempt to repair it with the software from my photography program but I'll bet you still get the idea.

This ship's compass was huge, almost a foot across. The actual magnetic part floats in some fluid for mimimal resistance. I didn't even ask, "How much?"

Beautiful hand painted tray.                                                                                                                                                                     

Loved this unusual clock.                                                                                             

Big Marlins like this used to be everywhere, they are getting rarer and rarer.

The British invasion never sleeps.

It's staying alive. ( These painting were huge maybe 7 or 8 foot tall).

Baby you can drive my car.

 Pretty stuff and a half decent photo.                                                                             

 Love the black babies.

We got back to Elizabeth, N.J., where Natalie lives, just in time to wittness the Hermandad del Senor de los Milagros de Elizabeth procession. The long poles are used to lift up the overhead wires.

After a particularly difficult pass under the wires, the spectators clapped.

A band followed behind and some woman pulling up her pants.                                                                                          

 The carriers, of the huge, heavy Jesus box.

We said our goodbyes the next morning and were on the road back home.   Gene

I love New York.

 Natalie , Our daughter, looking a little defiant, a little vunerable and cute. 

 Some old guy sitting with my wife.

Strike a pose.

Grand Central Station where we discovered the secret of the arches; you stand facing a corner in the domed room and talk while someone stands in the ach on the other side of the diagonal facing the corner, you can talk to each other as plain as day.

 Street scenes. 

 We saw this guy later at the subway station with his guitar and a wha-wha pedal, Not a bad Jimmy Hedrix. He did Little Wing and Vodoo Child.

Art for sale. A little vulgar but IT'S NEW YORK CITY!

One of the hundreds of public libraries.

Fire escapes are everywhere.                                                              

Natalie and her new Beau, he's an illustrator and cartoonist. How cool is that?

These little bronze guys are on the loose in the subway.

To be continued ...

 Fuses blow, car in tow and I don't know, or, A crap a nap, and a slap,

Theoretic magnetic regions are randomly distributed within an iron bar, each having their own north and south poles. Strike the iron bar with a sharp blow from a hammer and the theoretical magnetic regions align. You now have a multitude of norths and corresponding souths magnifying the strength of the magnetic field. The bar has become magnetically polarized. Cut the bar in half and you have two bar magnets, cuts those halves in half and you have four bar magnets, You never lose a pole. When one is present the other is present.

 

You could bend the bar magnet so that the two poles touch and thereby cancel one another out. You could demagnetise the bar with a second sharp blow or you could heat it, Heating the bar magnet permits the magnetic regions to lose their allegiance to one another and go back to random distribution. No one is sure why any of this works the way but it does and current theories explain it rather well. However, a theory is never proof. A theory is an explanation for certain phenomena based on observation, tests, laws and facts. A theory is a weighty thing. It is not a crack pot idea as certain sects would have us believe.

 

Numerous sharp blows have polarized factions across the country: the birthers, the death panelists, the preemptive war crowd, the gun slingers, the laissez-faire capitalists, the demagogues and the woefully ill informed Fox viewers.

 

The blow; was it Watergate? Reagan? A Bush under every rock? Vietnam? Or was it that most damaging sharp blow in recent history, 9-11? Whatever it was, or is, these things are the primary factors in our zeitgeist. 

 

Some, simply need to shake the stupidity that holds them in place and almost everyone thinks that by resisting change, change will never come, They're wrong, the change is here and it reflects our efforts to deny it. Rather that a natural outflow of our justice and good will,  the change is as  twisted as it is convoluted, trying to jam itself into the space allotted for it.

 

Strike the bar and allow the magnetic regions to become random again. They will eventually align themselves, but maybe, this time, rather that point to war and hate, a new way will appear. Or, are we too steeped in fear to even take the chance?

 Steve Martin - King Tut.mp3

 

 

Hello, Make a wish Foundation, how may I assist you?

 

I have a candidate for you, to grant his wish.

 

(Sotto voice, Doesn't everyone?)

 

Hello?

 

Yes I'm sorry you cut out for a second, you were saying something about a child and making an application to grant a wish?

 

He's not a child.

 

This is very irregular, who are we talking about?

 

Me.

 

And how old are you?

 

Fifty eight.

 

I'm sorry sir but the Make a wish Foundation is only for children.

 

I'm a child at heart.

 

Yes I'm sure, You have a nice day.

 

Wait, wait, I'm going to die.

 

Aren't we all?

 

But I mean soon.

 

How soon?

 

Real soon, the doctor said I'll never make it to seventy.

 

And you're fifty eight?

 

Yes.

 

You have twelve years to go, enjoy what you have. Now I really ...

 

It's just a small wish. Probably won't cost as much as

sending a kid and his family to Disney world.

 

Money isn't the issue.

 

Can I talk to the supervisor?

 

One moment.

 

Hello, I have a child here that I believes qualifies for your Make a wish thingie. There must have been a misunderstanding with the first person I spoke to.

 

Ok, let's start this way ... What is the child's wish?

 

Oh, it's going to sound silly after all this hub bub.

 

The wish please?

 

I want ... .errrrr ... My son wants to shoot down a helicopter with an automatic weapon before he dies.

 

Click ...

Two black men and a bug man, 

It seems that everyone has something to say. People with no more oratory skill, or knowledge than Sarah Palin are given a world stage to pontificate on things far beyond their ken. Worst still, credentials have been replaced by notoriety: *Tom Delay, **Ken Blackwell and ***Alan Keyes come to mind but the choices are endless and the nation's premier nut house (Washington) is rife with choices.

Like a cricket's stridulation we are incessantly beaming our noises into the ether, but, while Crickets have their "ears" located on the knees of their front legs, we have our heads up our asses., probably accounting for the shitty discourse that passes for normal today. And let us not forget that the most beautiful array of Peacock feathers emanate from his anus.

All this is to say that our sometimes beautiful, floral speeches are as much meant to attract as our outraged screeds are to repel. Although we wish words alone could do the trick, it isn't that easy, words, in no way, necessarily define our thoughts or positions.

What does define our ethos, logos and pathos then? Just like momma used to say, "Our actions speak louder than our words." It's our actions that matter, call it what you will, but our refusal to be civil and moral, check that, a refusal to do what's required of us to be upright human beings, we fail to florish, and while branding it as good policy, it is as selfish and thoughtless as it is expedient and in most situations, ruthlessly discharged.

Man's default position is to be always be stuck in a decreasingly spacious box. Some start off in large boxes and some in small ones. To push back has limited value. Like Obama and his people we can hope to not lose more ground, or, like Alexander the Great we can cut the Gordian knot that ties us to our potential fate and in one decisive, bold stroke free ourselves from the bonds that hold us powerless . . Gene

*In 2005, a Texas grand jury indicted DeLay on criminal charges that he had conspired to violate campaign finance laws during that period. DeLay denied the charges and pled not guilty, saying they were politically motivated and the law he was indicted under did not apply until later,

**Ohio voters sued Blackwell on August 31, 2006 in a case called King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell in which individual voters and three voters' rights groups alleged that, in his capacity as Secretary of State, Blackwell "allocated [2004] election resources in a racially discriminatory manner and instituted racially discriminatory procedures for provisional voting, purging voters from the statewide voter registration database, and maintaining the chain of custody of ballots. The complaint alleged that these actions led to the dilution and/or cancellation of plaintiffs' vote due to ballot cancellation and tampering, long poll lines, mechanical difficulties with voting machines, and unclear precinct boundaries." The complaint claims that plaintiffs reasonably feared these problems would recur in the November, 2006, election, and asked the court to appoint a special master to perform Blackwell's election administration duties in that election.

This is the same Ken Blackwell that wrote, criticizing ACORN:

As negotiations over Congress’s emergency rescue bill continued over the weekend, repeated rumors leaked out that the Democrats were trying to funnel money to a hyper-partisan organization involved in criminal voter fraud. I’m speaking of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — known by its acronym, ACORN. Although ACORN was cut from the final legislation, it’s important to understand this organization and its long history with, of all people, Barack Obama. And it’s important to see how partisan this emergency legislation has become.

***Goofy black bastard: