Monthly Archives: June 2010

Today’s Quote-to-Quote: The Katherine’s Still Walk Among Us…

June 30, 2010
By

…and they still want to take the country back –- to the era of the Salem Witch Trials. “If people aren’t involved in helping godly men in getting elected, then we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That isn’t what our founding fathers intended and that certainly isn’t what God intended … We need to take back this country … And if we don’t get involved as Christians, then how could we possibly take it back? If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.” …”Father, once again, once again, we’ll rejoice with Your son and bring this nation into alignment with Your government and Your Kingdom’s principles and authority.” – Katherine Harris, former Florida Secretary of State and Bush-Cheney campaign co-chair, who stopped a legal state recount in Florida in 2000 and named Bush the winner of the state’s electoral votes and the presidency, despite numerous complaints of vote fraud and irregularity. “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with…

Read more »

The ‘Ms’ Adventures of Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III

June 30, 2010
By
The ‘Ms’ Adventures of Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III

Read more »

Inspection- Taking Out the Trash

June 30, 2010
By

I have written this column before. I will write it again. Some observations must be repeated. Of course refining the vision, making the point more obvious, is part of the process. I believe we need to take out the trash. I am also inviting Conservatives, and those more right of center, to visit and comment… not that they weren’t welcome before. I extend the invitation only because these days we each seem to live in our own; all too individual, information Valhallas, and rarely leave to visit the intellectual universe that sometimes lives right across the road, or in our own families. The few times we do is like a family of morons at a zoo: point, laugh, mock and move on. The animals being observed are often more intelligent. Social services and welfare is the topic. Let’s build a common foundation here. I’m sure the right and the left disagree as to how many abuse occurs when such services are used. I semi-equally assume we disagree who qualifies and who shouldn’t for such help. But let’s get beyond this and arrive at the core of the debate. Should there be any social services at all?

Read more »

Great Question

June 29, 2010
By
Great Question

Courtesy bartcop.com

Read more »

Would You Eat Here?

June 29, 2010
By
Would You Eat Here?

Pictures courtesy Huffington Post

Read more »

Ana Been Trippin’

June 29, 2010
By
Ana Been Trippin’

HERD ABOUT IT? by Ana Grarian In the last two weeks I have been bombarded by sights and sounds, experiences and conversations that have left my head reeling with pain and relief. As a country girl living alone, in a quiet apartment, in a small tree filled city, the hectic pace of group travel through multiple cities was disorienting. It was also exciting, enlightening and encouraging. Since coming home I have tried to digest my experience and integrate it in some logical fashion with images and stories that have come across my computer. Many of my readers know that I am constantly asking, “why do they want to move us out of the country?”. More and more I think it is because they don’t want people to see what is being done to this beautiful country we call home. And perhaps, so we become inured to concrete and steel and the industrialization of a landscape. Several images kept returning to my thoughts this week. The view from a winding mountain road of a mountain top removal coal mine in West Virginia. A similar view of a huge landfill in western New York State. An image from the Rachel Maddow show…

Read more »

The Third Depression

June 28, 2010
By
The Third Depression

Written by Paul Krugman for The New York Times Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31. Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses. We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

Read more »

Just How Smart is My Nephew?

June 28, 2010
By

I sent out a link to our postings here at LT regarding the oil hitting the beaches of one of my favorite places on Earth: Pensacola Beach and the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Amongst the many recipients: my nephew, Mike. Here was his response… I know people who STILL think we humans are “too small to affect the Earth.” I want to bring them to Pensacola and throw tar-balls at their faces. If there was ever a time for we humans to really push to stop using ancient dead plants and animals for fuel it’s now. Anyway, I’m totally pissed about this whole thing! There is a scale in astrobiology called the “Kardashev scale” that measures how advanced civilizations are. There’s Type I, II, and III mainly. Type III would be a civilization that can harness energy of an entire galaxy without negative disruptions for anyone else, II’s harness the energy of their local sun/star without negative disruptions, and “a Type I civilization has achieved mastery of the resources of its home planet” without negative disruptions… We’re TYPE 0! We’re sucking! (We may even be -1 type) The saddest part is that we already have the capability and technology to be…

Read more »

Feds Won’t Charge Blackwater in Sudan Sanctions Case

June 28, 2010
By

Erik D. Prince, founder and owner of Xe (formerly Blackwater). (Photo: U.S. Military) Written by Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and Joseph Neff for McClatchy Newspapers Washington – The security contractor Blackwater Worldwide tried for two years to secure lucrative defense business in Southern Sudan while the country was under U.S. economic sanctions, according to current and former U.S. officials and hundreds of pages of documents reviewed by McClatchy. The effort to drum up new business in East Africa by Blackwater owner Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who had close ties with top officials in the George W. Bush White House and the CIA, became a major element in a continuing four-year federal investigation into allegations of sanctions violations, illegal exports and bribery. The Obama administration, however, has decided for now not to bring criminal charges against Blackwater, according to a U.S. official close to the case.

Read more »

Teaching with Fear

June 28, 2010
By
Teaching with Fear

Written by Dallas Darling for Truthout When teachers Marbeth Verani and Adeline Koscher held up their signs questioning the lengthy and ongoing wars in Afghanistan at a school assembly honoring six students who enlisted in the U.S. military, their gesture recalled a choice I made twenty years ago. Verani and Koscher will have to live with their choice, as I must live with mine, and they will more than likely suffer reprimands and severe consequences for their actions. After the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, in which 5,000 innocent civilians were slaughtered and 60,000 people were left homeless, I filed for Conscientious Objector Status in the U.S. Army as a commissioned officer. (My decision was also influenced by my work with veterans from the Vietnam Conflict and my embrace of the major tenets of pacifism and nonviolence. I wanted to seek a path other than militarism and war.) Instead, I was activated for Gulf War One. When I reported to my designated military base, I refused to carry a weapon and participate in what I considered to be acts of violence and dehumanization of the “other.” I was placed under military surveillance and considered a threat to national security. Since…

Read more »

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9 other subscribers