I was holding up a big sign reading 'WORST PRESIDENT EVER' at the 16th and Broadway demonstration tonight. Everybody honking, everybody waving, shouting — one or two scowling drunk assholes in pickups, peeling out around the corner. I saw Cindy Sheehan on the island — I went up to her, and introduced myself, and went to shake her hand — she smiled, and said 'I don't shake hands', and gave me a big hug. This woman just glows in the dark.
I feel all famous.
I'm reading an amazing book called "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder to Jeremy that is a great overview of the history of philosophy. During the description of the flowering of Christianity he stopped me and interjected,
"But heaven isn't real! It's just a big cloud filled with angels who are occasionally farting to make it bigger."
This is his honest perception, nothing I have taught him. He's also adamantly opposed to the doctine of original sin and insists he has no need whotsever to be saved. Is there hope for this son of a a liberal space hippie?
Втихомолку марксистские сообщения.
Вы не можете понять.
Я безопасен.
Скоро я приеду домой.
Малюсенькие люди, страх.
From 
:
PASADENA, CA—NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists overseeing the ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission said Monday that the Spirit's latest transmissions could indicate a growing resentment of the Red Planet.
Spirit completes a diagram of an erect human penis on the planet's dusty surface.
"Spirit has been displaying some anomalous behavior," said Project Manager John Callas, who noted the rover's unsuccessful attempts to flip itself over and otherwise damage its scientific instruments. "And the thousand or so daily messages of 'STILL NO WATER' really point to a crisis of purpose."
The "robot geologist," as NASA describes Spirit, has been operating independently for over 990 Martian sols—nearly the equivalent of three Earth years. However, scientists estimate that, in recent weeks, Spirit has been functioning on the level of a rover who has been on Mars for approximately 6,160 sols.
According to Callas, Spirit was operating normally until the onset of the Martian winter, whose shorter days and frigid temperatures typically mean a slower pace for exploratory rovers. "We began getting the occasional transmission along the lines of 'ANOTHER SOIL SAMPLE OF THE EXACT SAME COMPOSITION AS THE LAST ONE,'" Callas said. "Most of the time, she'd power down and not transmit much of anything, which, at the time, didn't particularly concern us."
But as the winter lingered, Spirit began producing thousands of pages of sometimes rambling and dubious data, ranging from complaints that the Martian surface was made up almost entirely of the same basalt, to long-winded rants questioning the exorbitant cost and scientific relevance of the mission.
Project leaders receive data from the Mars rover Spirit.
"Granted, Spirit has been extraordinarily useful to our work," Callas said. "Last week, however, we received three straight days of images of the same rock with the message 'HAPPY NOW?'"
Mission Project Scientist Bruce Banerdt said that Spirit will often roll down Gusev crater and up the opposite side for no apparent reason, missing "countless" potential opportunities for scientific discovery.
"Once, when we radioed her to please leave the lecturing and hypothesis-making to the mission project team, she responded by forming her robotic arm into an obscene gesture," Banerdt said. "That arm contains a state-of-the-art spectrometer meant to provide crucial mineralogy data."
Project organizers said the most distressing instance of erratic behavior occurred last week, when images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed that Spirit had scrawled the message 'FUCK MARS' in the thick, iron oxide dust that gives the planet its characteristic red color.
"The orbiting Mars Odyssey has cut off transmissions from Spirit, which seems to envy the craft's ability to fly freely around in space," Banerdt said. "Similarly, data suggests Spirit is convinced that [sister rover] Opportunity has found water and isn't telling anyone."
Despite these malfunctions, mission leaders remain optimistic that the rover will eventually return to full working order.
"Hopefully these malfunctions will straighten themselves out," Callas said. "In the meantime, we'll simply have to try to glean what usable data we can from 'OVERPRICED SPACE-ROOMBA AWAITING MORE BULLSHIT ORDERS.'"
NASA remains optimistic that the rover will remain at least partially operational for the foreseeable future. However, because of the Spirit's recent proclivity toward ramming into boulders at full speed, scientists have remotely disabled its 1.5-pound rock-abrasion tool so the rover is unable to terminate the mission prematurely.
Yes, it's true; the United States is helping dictators across the world root out any thoughts of democracy as viable government. The very definition of the word is now changing — to fit the vision of men who privately hate everything it stands for.
From the Washington Post:
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 26, 2006; A18DAMASCUS, Syria — Horror at the bloodshed accompanying the U.S. effort to bring democracy to Iraq has accomplished what human rights activists, analysts and others say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been unable to do by himself: silence public demands for democratic reforms here.
The idea of the government as a bulwark of stability and security has long been the watchword of Syrian bureaucrats and village elders. But since Iraq's descent into sectarian and ethnic war — and after Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, on the other side of Syria — even Syrian activists concede that the country's feeble rights movement is moribund.
Advocates of democracy are equated now with supporters of America, even "traitors," said Maan Abdul Salam, 36, a Damascus publisher who has coordinated conferences on women's rights and similar topics.
"Now, talking about democracy and freedom has become very difficult and sensitive," Salam said. "The people are not believing these thoughts anymore. When the U.S. came to Iraq, it came in the name of democracy and freedom. But all we see are bodies, bodies, bodies."
If you haven't heard this song in awhile, listen again. There is no other artist who plays and writes and sings like this. I've been listening to it over and over — this is brilliant. Beautiful. And it fits the tenor of these days, as well as the days she wrote it in.
Joni Mitchell.
'…life is our cause…'
… give it a few years at the rate things are going.
My wife grew up under the repressive totalitarian government of the USSR. She's obviously impressed by the freedoms we have here in the US, and when I talk about how bad things are getting under Bush, she'll point to something like Steven Colbert's tounguelashing of the president to his face at the correspondent's dinner, or any Daily Show episode, as proof that we have an amazingly open system where we're free to say just about anything without fear of reprisal. Free speech is so fundamental in this country we must be at or near the top if all countries were ranked for freedom of the press, right?
Wrong. We're 53rd.
According to the 2006 Press Freedom Index put out by Reporters Without Borders, the US has slipped 9 places since last year's report. In the first year the report was released the US was in 17th place out of 168 nations covered by the index.Finland, Iceland, Ireland, and the Netherlands tie for first with the Czech Republic coming in a strong second. North Korea remains well in last place. Other countries that easily out-John Stewart us include Bolivia (16th), Bosnia and Herzegovina (19th), Cyprus (30th) and El Salvador (41st). We're tied with Botswan, Croatia, and Tonga.
…Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.
We better watch out, because even some of those evil Arab countries are gaining on us…
But except for Yemen and Saudi Arabia (161st), all the Arab peninsula countries considerably improved their rank. Kuwait (73rd) kept its place at the top of the group, just ahead of the United Arab Emirates (77th) and Qatar (80th).
At least our friendly Islamic allies are free and open, though. Pakistan (157th) and Uzbekistan (158th) have a whole 10 countries with worse records than they do, including Saudi Arabia, China and Iran. Russia is all the way up at 147th.
More information about the organization behind this report, Reporters Without Borders , can be found here.
From Democratic Underground Poster Dems Will Win.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/24/73123/443
"We have been through spring practice, now the game is on."
- Capt. David Angood, Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) for USS Boxer (LHD 4) Expeditionary Strike GroupThis is it folks. As I have warned, history changes on October 31st. It is now apparent that Bush does intend to have our ships sunk in the GUlf by Iran in a last-ditch effort to save himself and the GOP with a short bounce in the polls caused by a New Pearl Harbor. THe USS Boxer Strike Group has now joined the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group and the Eisenhower and Enterprise Carrier Groups off the coast of Iran.
This will create a new neo-con reality as the last week before the election will only be news of World War III.
Warfare Commanders: Ensuring Strike Group SuccessESG 5 is comprised of Boxer, Bunker Hill, USS Dubuque, USS Comstock (LSD 45), USS Benfold (DDG 65), and USS Howard (DDG 83). ESG 5 also includes PHIBRON 5, the 15th MEU, Coast Guard Cutter Midgett (WHEC 726) and Canadian Frigate HMCS Ottawa (FFH 341).
The strike group's warfare command is comprised of PHIBRON 5 as Mine Warfare Commander, Maritime Interdiction Commander, Maritime Strike Operations Commander and Amphibious Warfare Commander. The warfare command also includes Howard as Air Defense Commander, Boxer as Information Warfare Commander, Bunker Hill as Sea Combat Commander and the Commanding Officer of the 15th MEU.
The strike group is currently conducting operations in support of the global war on terrorism while transiting to the Persian Gulf.
They have been massing air power and built new air bases all around Iraq:
Despite the misgivings of the military professionals, Joseph Cirincione wrote in the March issue of Foreign Policy that conversations with senior officials in the Pentagon and the White House had convinced him that the decision for war had already been made.The Washington Post has reported that at least since March, large teams have been working on invasion plans in the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, while the Iran "desk" at the State Department has been augmented to task force size. It reports to Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of the vice president, who is assistant secretary of state for the Near East. In the Pentagon, a similar organization has been established under Neoconservative Abram Shulsky.
In addition a new outpost has been set up in Dubai to coordinate plans. On October 2, a powerful naval battle group around the giant aircraft carrier Eisenhower sailed for the Persian Gulf and is due to arrive a week before the November Congressional elections to join a similar battle group led by the aircraft carrier Enterprise. Meanwhile aircraft of the U.S. Air Force are being readied in bases surrounding Iran and in distant locations. These forces could deliver destructive power that would dwarf the aerial assaults on Iraq.Don't forget how much gathering an Armada like this costs. They are not fooling around with exercises anymore. This is not going to be a drill.
The DailyKOS author points out that stocking up on potassium iodide is a good idea for the inevitable nuclear retaliation to the planned Bushco nuking of the Natanz research facility. The author also notes that World War III would knock any vote-stealing and the election itself off the airwaves…
– From Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground. Where I live.
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