BROTHERS

I don't know where I was when Bobby Kennedy died.
I know exactly where I was when JFK was killed.
I was in my 10th grade English class.
I was at work when Senator Ted Kennedy died.
May America remember them and the good that they did (and tried to do) as the Ship of State sails forth into new and dangerous waters.

PROGRESS PLUNGE

All our lauded technological progress---our very civilization---is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.
Albert Einstein

Artificial life will be created within four months, a controversial scientist has predicted. Craig Venter, who led a private project to sequence the human genome, told The Times that his team had cleared a critical hurdle to creating man-made organisms in a laboratory. “Assuming we don’t make any errors, I think it should work and we should have the first synthetic species by the end of the year,” he said.



***


I believe that an error has already occurred, and it's that you have created new, man-made organisms.

But that’s man for you.

Or science.

No stone left unturned.

Nothing will stop the march of science.

It’s like the pool where I swam when I was a boy.

The pool’s name was Progress Plunge.

First, the pool water is clean and clear, and then there appears a kids’ big turd, floating around…

Yikes!

Run...

I mean swim for your life!

It all begins quite innocently, and with all of the best intentions, and then the uh-ohs begin to befall the scientists, and then ...

Earth.

The serenity of science suddenly slides into insanity and destruction.

You can take the atom as an example, or lasers, or rockets, or hydrogen energy---

Or even our blessed computers that we’re all so addicted to.

Yes, one of these days they, too, will be a danger for us.

Love turns into Hate.

Progress becomes a horse of a different color, or in this case an entirely new organism.

Maybe, though, we’ll need these new life-forms to fight those super-intelligent computers.


Dr Venter said the research was particularly important because it opened the door to altering algae and bacteria to perform useful functions. “This could be one of the most powerful tools in biology,” he said.


From

Artificial life is only months away, says biologist Craig Venter

August 21, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6804599.ece

DON'T MAKE MY DAY

BO:
Good afternoon gentlemen.
Before I take any questions, I first want to draw your attention to my new six-shooters. Nice, aren't they?
Now for some questions.
Yes, Clint...and please don't ask me to say, "Go ahead, make my day."

CLINT:
Thank you, Mr. President.
Why do you believe that packing a gun (or two) will be a good thing to do in light of the amount violence in our world today.

BO:
Well, Clint, I'm packing to show the world's punks and terrorists that I'm more than just a community planner. I've got 'em, but I don't want to have to use them. Yes, Annie.

ANNIE:
Mr. President, is your gun-toting a reaction to a few citizens who have brought their guns to maybe show that they are tired of being messed with?

BO:
Well, Annie I'm not sure what you mean by being messed with, but I'm sure that more than one American is upset with the way things are; but as I've said before, I believe that little by little things are getting better, and will continue to do so.

[A Secret Serviceman walks up to President Obama and hands him a box of ammo.]

BO:
Up to now, my pistols have been empty, but it looks like the SS wants me to have live ammunition, since it seems that the anger level of the crowd has risen, and I don't want to take any chances.
Next question. Yes, the man in the back with the bow and arrow. Robin?

ROBIN:
Yes. Thank you Mr. President.
Sir, as a candidate you said that your administration would be more transparent than the previous one. But have you been a straight shooter with the American Public? I'm thinking now of the public option in the Health Care proposal.

BO:
Well, Robin. I am a straight shooter, and if you come out to the White House firing range, you'll see for yourself just how straight.
But, no, I still want a public option.
All options are on the table...sitting there with my heaters.
One more question. Yes, Mohammad.

MOHAMMAD:
Mr. President, today you said that the war in Afghanistan is a war of necessity---not choice--- and that the Taliban want to attack the U.S.
Is this really accurate?
Isn't this the same type of message that George Bush gave Americans for eight years?
And John Brennan from your Homeland Security office recently said that (quote),
"The United States is no longer engaged in a 'war on terrorism'; neither is it fighting "jihadists" nor locked in a 'global war'...it is now soley a 'war with Al Qaeda'.

BO:
Well, Mohammad, the ruthless Taliban don't want to just grow and sell poppies.
They want to take over Afghanistan, and once again enslave freedom-loving Afghans.
We simply can't let the brutal Taliban get their way again.
We owe this to the people of Afghanistan.
Thank you.
I'm off to the firing range.

AMOEBAS TEA AND THE HEADS OF LAMB

I almost stopped drinking coffee when I lived in Kabul.
Tea was poured and imbibed 24-7.
Tea, tea, tea.
Would you like some tea? Yes. More tea? Why of course.
It was the first thing you did when you visited anyone.
Tea, tea, tea.
No teasers...and, please...
NO COFFEE!

Amoebas and not the Taliban were THE ENEMY when I lived in Afghanistan.
Boil your water or you'll get Amoebiasis!
Boiling water was also something that was done 24-7.

Men carried the heads of lamb upon their own heads.
I never ate any of these heads.
This heady experience just didn't appeal to me.

FINALLY A COMMENT THAT WAS AIRED ON JACK CAFFERTY'S FILE AUGUST 14, 2009

It’s Vietnam all over again, or as John Fogerty says and sings, it’s “Deja Vu” all over again.
Like ants, the Taliban will keep moving, charging, and killing, and American lives will continue to be sacrificed.
For what?
I would like President Obama to tell the American people very specifically what we are doing in Afghanistan.
More importantly, do the people of Afghanistan want us there, or do they want us out?
It seems like a very big waste of money when Americans die, and when there is only more and more escalation after a decade-long invasion.
Oh, and where in the blazes is bin Laden?

MORE MENCKEN GEMS

[From Happy Days, 1940]

"When arc-lights began to light the streets, along about 1885, they attracted so many beetles of gigantic size that their glare was actually obscured. The beetles at once acquired the name of electric-light bugs, and it was believed that the arc carbons produced them by a kind of spontaneous generation, and that their bite was dangerous as that of a tarantula.
These flies were no concern to my brother Charlie and me; they seemed to be innocuous and even friendly compared to the chiggers, bumble-bees and hornets that occasionally beset us. Indeed, they were a source of pleasant recreation to us, for very often, on hot Summer evenings, we would retire to the kitchen, stretch out flat on our backs on the table, and pop away at them with slingshots as they roosted in dense clumps upon the ceiling."

"The Baltimore of the eighties was a noisy town, for the impact of iron wagon tires on hard cobblestone was almost like that of a hammer on
an anvil."




[From Heathen Days, 1943]

"---what a foul smell, indeed, a gymnasium has! how it suggests a mixture of Salvation Army, elephant house, and county jail!"




[From the Smart Set, May 1919]

"Whoso approaches women still faces the immemorial dangers. Civilization has not made them a bit more safe than they were in Solomon's time; they are still inordinately menacing, and hence inordinately provocative, and hence inordinately charming."

"The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who, on grounds of decorum and morality avoids the game of love."




[From the Smart Set, May 1920]

"The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection---the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases."




[From the Smart Set, January 1921]

",,,he [Woodrow Wilson] knew better than they did how to arrest the boobery with words that were simply words, and nothing else...He knew how to make them glow, and weep. He wasted no time upon the heads of dupes, but aimed directly at their ears, diaphragms and hearts."




[From In Defense of Women, 1922]

"Men do not demand genuine beauty, even in the most modest doses; they are quite content with the mere appearance of beauty. That is to say, they show no talent whatever for differentiating
between the artificial and the real. The film of face powder, skillfully applied, is as satisfying to them as an epidermis of damask...False bosoms intrigue them as effectively as the soundest of living fascia."




[From the Smart Set, 1923]

"In all my years of search in this world, from the Golden Gate in the West to the Vistula in the East, and from the Orkney Islands in the North to the Spanish Main in the South, I have never met a thoroughly moral man who was honorable."




[From the Smart Set, December 1919]

"The hardest thing about death is not that men die tragically, but that most of them die ridiculously."

"The dying man doesn't struggle much and he isn't much afraid. As his alkalies give out he succumbs to a blest stupidity. His mind fogs. He will power vanishes. He submits decently. He scarcely gives a damn."




EPITAPH
[From the Smart Set, December 1921]

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

HIRED HOOLIGANS

THE MOB HAS MANY HEADS, BUT NO BRAINS.
Thomas Fuller


Halloween is already here, or I'm just seeing bad outtakes from Night of the Living Dead.

With the sound off, I'm watching wailing persons flailing their flippers, and they're making me think that I'm looking at the spawn of Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

These are not the best citizens or "voices" that America has to offer the world.

They are ignorant rabble and cattle (with my apology to all cows).

These jostling and shouting crowds drown out sanity and veracity.

Their angry and rowdy rhetoric is not persuasive.

Where in the world are we heading?

Q & A

Should the Obama administration launch a criminal investigation of CIA treatment of detainees?

Yes, but that’s not enough.
The entire Iraq war should be under investigation.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz etc. all should be placed under a microscope, preferably the Scanning Tunneling kind.
Before the extent of torture came to light, here's what I wrote on page one in my book WHY ARE WE IN IRAQ:

Saddam Hussein is dead and gone.
His fate was sealed soon after he climbed out of his spider hole.
Bush’s War will continue, and Saddam Hussein can now hang out with virgins in paradise.
How much better do we feel now that a brutal dictator has been put to death?
The United States of America is itself hanging in the balance of truth and justice.
Will the Bush administration be prosecuted for any Crimes or Misdemeanors?
Will President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney escape investigation for a war that was dictated and prosecuted with fabrication and obfuscation?
We may feel good about the hanging of Saddam Hussein, but we should not feel satisfied until our own leaders are brought to justice for an unjust and unnecessary war.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Steny Hoyer call the town hall protests against health care reform “Un-American.” Are they?

They’re not Un-American, but they are ugly and disruptive.
At least these protesters can do their protesting.
Didn’t George W. Bush only hand-pick his audiences?
The Republicans are dishing out what they didn’t want done to them and their own “mob rules.”
One thing for sure, if this unruliness escalates into behavior more extreme, then it won’t just be Un-American, it will be Un-Civilized.



Should the House cancel its order for $550 million worth of new jets?

Is that $550 million Monopoly money?
Isn’t it the (un)funny money that’s been used for a long time now in the good old U.S.A.?
Maybe Congress should do less jetting and more reading, you know, like reading what they vote for before they vote.

POISONOUS WEEDS AND CRUNCHY CHEETOS

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
Upton Sinclair






Is America's soul becoming bankrupt?

The erosion of its soul started a long time ago.

Too many wars because of Lies & Greed (not National Security).

China and other countries now practically own us.

It doesn't matter who is president.

The country was already becoming bankrupt.

Are we living on BORROWED time?

The Iraq war was based upon a big lie.


P.S. I changed the title from POISONOUS WEEDS to POISONOUS WEEDS AND CRUNCHY CHEETOS.
I had to lighten the tenebrous tone of the above opinions, and this change dawned on me as I was eating my crunchy Cheetos.


***

From "A French Revelation,or The Burning Bush"
By James A. Haught [Editor of the Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)]

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse.
Honest. This isn't a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."
This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its "coalition of the willing" to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush's call and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs."

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn't comply with Bush's request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal.

It's awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who "got saved." He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

For six years, Americans really haven't known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn't in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq's oil---or to protect Israel---or to complete Bush's father's vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.

***

From THE 911 MYSTERY PLANE AND THE VANISHING OF AMERICA by Mark H. Gaffney:

So, why the rush to war after the September 11 attack? If the Bush administration had conclusive evidence that al Qaeda was responsible, why not release it? Was the Bush White House tight-lipped because the actual evidence would have exposed the complicity of the US military and intelligence community?
Regrettably, there is considerable evidence that elements of the Bush administration were complicit in the 9/11 attack, and may even have helped stage it.
Bin Laden was actually under the protection of US security agencies prior to the 9/11 attack. According to Le Figaro, bin Laden checked in to the American Hospital in Dubai on July 4, 2001, just two months before 9/11, where he received medical treatment over a ten-day period for a serious kidney ailment.
Soon after G.W. Bush entered office the White House ordered the FBI to "back off" from ongoing investigations of Osama bin Laden and other members of his family, some of whom were living in the US at the time. Do we dare to connect these dots? Surely the story in Le Figaro suggests that elements of the US intelligence establishment knew about the coming 9/11 attack and allowed bin Laden to remain free to play his assigned role.
"The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11", said Rex Tomb/Chief of Investigative Publicity for the F.B.I.

***

By Mad Plato:

Why aren’t our tiny, delusional apple-carts being upset?

Why do the bandwagons upon which we hooded sheep sit continue to roll along with mute indignation or anger at what happened?

The current versions of the "truth" (that is, the propaganda which is propagated and perpetuated) live on.

These "other" explanations are very disturbing---as they should be---and as they are---but the public and media refuse to face them because they are so awful and so "out there".

Yes, there are many poisonous weeds...

And their treasonous and infamous roots grow around the souls of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and Blackwater, and Halliburton, and ALL who benefited from the chicanery that took this nation into Iraq. Obama continues the charade in Afghanistan.

It's time to stop bleeding this nation and its patriots.

Bring them home.

The Bush Jr. White House still needs thorough, Independent Investigating, but it probably will never occur because the "new Pearl Harbor" foisted upon us, and that murdered thousands and millions, is just too perfidious to contemplate or admit.

Our attention is riveted on the present and the future, but it may be the past that has condemned both.


***


FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE:
THE GW BUSH - OSAMA BIN LADIN CONNECTION

James R. Bath, friend and neighbor of George W. Bush, was used as a cash funnel from Osama bin Laden's rich father, Sheikh bin Laden, to set George W. Bush up in business, according to reputable sources from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
The connection between GW Bush, the bin Laden family, and the Bank Commerce Credit International (BCCI) is well documented.
Bin Laden-backed BCCI money was funneled into the Bush family in return for favors.

"Bath---who made his fortune by investing money for Mahfouz and another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh bin-Laden, was an original investor in George Bush Jr.’s oil exploration company..."
[from The Outlaw Bank]

"Bath provided financing to George W. Bush, the future president's eldest son, when he went into the oil business..."
from [False Profits]

"Bath told me he was in the CIA... he had been recruited by George Bush himself 1n 1976 when Bush was director of the agency... Bath and George, Jr. were pals and flew together in the same Air National Guard unit, and Bath lived down the street from the Bush family when George, Sr. was living in Houston... he became representative for Sheikh Khalid bin-Mafouz... one of the richest men in the world, and he was a controlling shareholder in BCCI..."
[from The Outlaw Bank]

"During George Bush's tenure as CIA director, the agency was allegedly involved in a very curious business deal with James R. Bath, a Texas businessman who is a friend and sometime financial backer of one of Bush's sons (George Bush, Jr.). Bath was also a business associate of Khalid bin Mafouze and an important BCCI insider."



BIN LADEN MONEY SENT TO GW BUSH THROUGH JAMES R. BATH

"... BCCI would make payments to key officials, sometimes in suitcases filled with cash. As BCCI officer Abdur Askhia stated in interviews to the Subcommittee staff: Abedi's philosophy was to appeal to every sector.

Osama bin Laden, whose funds were inherited from his father, Sheikh bin Laden's BCCI investments, has been operating out of Afghanistan since he was established as a conduit for CIA funds in the 1980's. "Afghanistan was by far the biggest; it was, in fact, the biggest CIA operation of all time, both in terms of dollars spent ($5-$6 billion) and personnel involved..."
[from The CIA's Greatest Hits]



IT WAS THE OIL...NOT Gog and Magog STUPID!

THE TICKER IS TICKING

I keep watching this TV commercial where a woman swears that she survived her stroke (or heart attack) because she quickly ate some aspirin.

That I might experience a coronary event (it doesn't sound as bad as heart attack or stroke) is a sanguine but scary likelihood, and so I make it a practice to always have a few 325mg aspirin in my shirt pocket.

It can't hurt, but the attack itself will probably hurt a great deal.

John Ritter and I were born in the same year.
This very funny and likable actor died from an aortic dissection caused by a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect.
(The causes of death can sure have some very peculiar names.)

The word undiagnosed sticks out like a sore thumb.
So what do I do to make sure that I am diagnosed?
Certainly not what I do now which is very little.

It's time to get off of my caboose and have the old engine checked...
BEFORE the stroke or coronary event strikes.

We just never know when we'll go.

TEN BY MENCKEN

I
"The art of writing, like the art of love, runs all the way from a kind of routine hard to distinguish from piling bricks to a kind of frenzy closely related to delirium tremens. Nearly all the whole of everyday journalism belongs to the former category: it is, in its customary aspects, no more than the reduction of vivid and recent impressions to banal sequences of time-worn words and phrases."

II
"All professional philosophers tend to assume that common sense means the mental habit of the common man. Nothing could be further from the mark. The common man is chiefly to be distinguished by his plentiful lack of common sense: he believes things on evidence that is too scanty, or that distorts the plain facts, or that is full of non sequiturs. Common sense really involves making full use of all the demonstrable evidence---and of nothing but the demonstrable evidence."

III
"Men are the only animals who devote themselves assiduously to making one another unhappy. It is, I suppose, one of their godlike qualities. Jahweh, as the Old Testament shows, spends a large part of His time trying to ruin the business and comfort of all other gods."

IV
"War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands."

V
"The belief that man is immortal is a vestige of the childish egoism which once made him believe that the earth is the center of the solar system. This last is probably still cherished by four Americans out of five."

VI
"It is never possible for a metaphysician to state his ideas in plain English. Those ideas, with few exceptions, are inherently nonsensical, and he is forced to formulate them in a vague and unintelligible jargon."

VII
"Metaphysics is a refuge for men who have a strong desire to appear learned and profound but have nothing worth hearing to say. Their speculations have helped mankind hardly more than those of the astrologers. What we regard as good in metaphysics is really psychology: the rest is only blah."

VII
"Life on this earth is not only without rational significance, but also apparently unintentional. The cosmic laws seem to have been set going for some purpose unrelated to human existence. Man is thus a sort of accidental product, as the sparks are an accidental by-product of the horseshoe a blacksmith fashions on his anvil."

VIII
"It is probably true that the advance of civilization will gradually diminish the popularity of war, but it remains doubtful that it will abolish war altogether. The Greeks, by all the standards held up by schoolmasters, were certainly civilized, and yet they fought many wars. The popes, including even some of the best popes, fought many wars."

IX
"It always takes two or three years of war, with a series of costly disasters, to set up any genuine demand for peace."

X
"The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore."

TEN WORDS

The Talisman by Le'Rav

Sounds of Fun by Gerald Schwartz

Azure Sky by Kim Huber

Azure Shore by Janna Sokova

FAVORITE WORDS:

FACTOTUM

SCINTILLA

SYZYGY

AZURE

TALISMAN

LEAST FAVORITE WORDS:

BORING

DISINGENUOUS

BOTTOMLINE

DOABLE

FINALIZE

Q & A AND MINOR REPORTS

What does it mean when more than one in 10 Americans is on antidepressants?

It means that we need to take antidepressants because we...
Overeat---
Over-drink---
Over-stimulate ourselves with news and information---
And all of those unpronounceable "legal" drugs.
It also means we should buy lot of stocks in antidepressants.


***

Sure would be terrible, wouldn't it, not to have to pay to go to the hospital or doctor?
Michael Moore's "Sicko" shows just how painful it ISN'T.
People in countries who have this scary and terrible "socialized medicine" are incredulous that mighty America does not.
It makes this country look like the laughing stock of the world.
Capitalism may just fall on its greedy knees sooner than you can shake a stick or say "Karl Marx".


***

Yeah, aren't we just great...
Capitalist enslavers---
Covert coup-makers---
Native American decimators---
Cradle of Civilization killers (for Democracy, naturally)---
Mexico annexation-takers?
But I am glad that I live here in America to be able to say, think, and write these things.
Yes, this is America, land of low-paid migrant workers, landscapers, and servants.
We're a mighty, proud (profane?) people, aren't we?

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Special Comment last night by Keith Olbermann pointed out the millions and millions of dollars that are paying off senators and representatives, and buying their political votes to oppose ANY Public Health Care.
He gave names of both Republicans and Democrats who are shills for the insurance-medical-pharmaceutical leviathan.
Public Health Care is a threat and enemy to the Corporate, hooligan, buzzards.
The American people are secondary to the special interests of the super-profitable insurance-medical-pharmaceutical leviathan.
The fight for Public Health Care is a "war" as deceitful, corrupt, and horrible as the deceitful and horrible Iraq war was.
Until Americans rise up out of their beds and easy chairs, and leave their flat-screens and computers, and begin to fill the streets with their voices, this "war" will be won (as it has always been won) by the filthy-rich "crooks".
America, wake-up!
Let Congress and Greedy corporations know that you are sick and tired of them...
And you won't take it anymore.
First, however, call Washington to let them know.
And keep in mind that these powers-that be just love it when they hear people say, "Oh, we can't do anything. They're in power. Even our votes don't matter anymore."

ANOTHER SUNDAY MORNING SWIMMING WITH SHARKS DROWNING IN DEBTS SURROUNDED BY PYTHONS

Car sales are up.
The Stock Market is near 10,000 again.
Earth has not been hit by a planet-killing asteroid.
Race relations hit a bump in the road, and are being repaired with
beers & cheers...

BUT

There's plenty of time and space remaining for

MORE

spears & sneers...

smears & jeers...

fears & tears.

But I'm enjoying the ride, thankful for the food I eat, the water (and coffee!) I drink, and the air I breathe...

AND

I am hopeful in spite of all the odds, all of the oddballs, and all of the hateful thinkers and speakers.

This country and myself are still as good as we want to become.

As a young person who lived hungrily during the crazy, beautiful, turbulent days of the sixties and seventies---and maybe these adjectives describe every decade with more or less emphatic accuracy---I am still hopeful.

YES WE CAN:

Improve.
Innovate.
Educate.
Intregate.

YES WE CAN.

YES WE WILL.


Dum Spiro Spero