In The Blue

The totally predictable death of Michael Jackson

2009-06-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

We have all watched for years.

I need to take a long, hot bath to rid myself of that dirty feeling.

Sickening.

Wait for the innocents of Europe and Asia to wake up to this. They have a deep and abiding inexplicable love for M.J. I sat there for years in awe of the musical naivete.

Wait for it because it will happen. Tears and maudlin displays will take place around the globe for months.

On CNN he is being compared to Mozart, Shakespeare, and John Lennon. NO, really.

I WANT CHAUCER.

Christ.

About that Axis of Evil

2009-06-24T18:06:00.001-07:00

Betcha BushCo. are rubbing their bloody hands together with glee in what has been obvious anticipation for years that they were going to be right.

Look at those headlines just filling up the news.

Major bombings in Iraq? Yep, we can't leave now because actually we weren't really planning to leave in the first place but never mind that.

North Korea is out of control and going to nuke us? Yes siree.

The Iranian government has been proven to be nothing but evil oppressors?

Check.

We need more war?

You betcha! Especially when you are Military Industrial Complex enablers and abedders.

Self-fulfilling prophecies tend to work like that.

At Least 65 Killed as US Drones Attack South Waziristan Funeral Procession

2009-06-24T02:08:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, US drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan, and when locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors, they launched more missiles at them, leaving a total of 13 dead. The timing and target of the attack were controversial, as was the tactic of luring locals in with a first strike to maximize the kill count. Today, locals were involved in a funeral procession when the US struck again.

Drones attacked what they suspected was a “militant hideout” early today, killing at least 17. When mourners gathered to offer prayers for those slain in the first attack, the drones struck again, attacking the procession it self and bringing the overall toll to at least 65, according to witnesses.

The recent attacks show a level of aggression and a willingness to target gatherings likely to contain many innocent people unseen in previous US strikes in the area. Generally speaking, most of the dozens of attacks against South Waziristan have been isolated strikes against buildings, and were not followed up with supplementary attacks on the gathering crowds.

OH TWITTER? WHERE ART THOU?

Thought for the day: If you are operating a drone, are you a man?

Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild

2009-06-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

Into the Wild is an amazing film. Based on a true story; it examines the unquenchable human spirit without flinching.

On a side note, I really admire Eddie Vedder and all of the different projects he's been involved with over the years.

I lived in Copenhagen and attended Roskilde Festival when so many died as Pearl Jam took the stage. After that nightmare the band disappeared for years. I can see why.

I watched a boy suffocate underneath the blue sky with sunshine all over his face while laying on his back just staring upwards. I'll never forget it.

How's that surge working out for us?

2009-06-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

AP: Bomb strikes Shiite market in Baghdad, killing 69

Must have been good planning to build that behemoth American Embassy in Bagdhad the size of the Vatican. I'll bet they're right on top of things with their Starbucks and Taco Bells and insulated little no-bid contract world they've created.

Yes, indeedy.

Iran: An Outsider Looking In

2009-06-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

An outsider's observation on the Iranian situation:

I am unsure what to think about the utter shaming of the entire world via Iran's world wide net capabilities that are UNSTOPPABLE in comparison to any country on the planet. Can Iran give some of their massive tech dick to the rest of us losers? WOW.

Suddenly via Twitter we know more about Iran than any other country at any other time or at the same time to expose vile executions, government excess and Blackwater zeal?

What is this? I am very happy for the idea of mass rebellion against a skewed vote but where were we when this happened here? Our Supreme Court DID appoint Bush and stop the vote counting under his brother Jeb although Al Gore had already won by half a million votes. Anthrax, 9/11, Katrina under martial law, declaring war on multiple fronts without the approval of Congress...

Where are the cameras for the daily killings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the obvious sickness that Israel committed under the cloak of utter silence in the latest incursion against civilians in Palestine, not to mention their last?

Is this sudden Iranian expose weird or am I wrong?

I simply don't get it.

So many of our soldiers have raped and killed. Where are the twitters? If not from those who are ordered to fight for our country; where are the videos and twitters and blog posts from those whom we rape and kill or who do the same to us?

Burning Man 2008

2009-06-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

"You ain't artsier than me...
cuz you got sideburns and a vintage T."

Feckin' sweet. I love Burning Man. I want to be the guy on the stilts. ;D

CIA seeks laid-off bankers in N.Y. recruitment drive

2009-06-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

Somebody want to explain this?

Edit: Bankers. CIA. Bankers. CIA.

Oops. I meant the neo-conservative/neo-liberal paradigm that just won't go the fuck away.

I wonder what kind of weird chimera offered up the now defunct Office of Special Plans?
Har.

Sy Hersh: Selective Intelligence

From the WTF Files:

2009-06-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

Court finds convicts have no right to test DNA

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Thursday that convicts have no constitutional right to test DNA evidence in hopes of proving their innocence long after they were found guilty of a crime.

Ok. Let's pretend to put the obvious moral problems with this judgement aside and take the side of the taxpayers who are continuously footing the bill from the stints of petty criminals all the way to death row housing at what many times results in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year per inmate...and no one on the Supreme Court sees fit to foot a bill for DNA proof of the crime?

Big Fat WTF. Where is the concept of justice here?

Even if your just a dick and only consider the cost/benefit ratio, there is nothing in this for us average Americans. Morally, monetarily or otherwise.

PERIOD.

Mr. Obama, Tear Down This Empire

2009-06-18T03:39:00.000-07:00

Laurence Vance:

Those who believe that it is in the national interest of the United States to intervene in conflicts around the globe, attempt to control foreign governments, and spread our political and economic systems to other countries by force argue that we are not an empire because we haven’t annexed any country’s soil in over a hundred years. But America’s unprecedented global presence of troops, bases, and ships clearly says otherwise.

The extent of the U.S. global empire is almost incalculable. The Department of Defense’s “Base Structure Report” states that the Department’s physical assets consist of “more than 545,700 facilities (buildings, structures and linear structures) located on more than 5,400 sites, on approximately 40 million acres.” There are 268 sites in Germany alone. The 316,238 buildings occupied by the DOD comprise over 2.2 billion square feet with a value of over $455 billion. The DOD manages almost 30 million acres of land worldwide. There are over 700 U.S. military bases on foreign soil in 63 countries. The United States has official commitments to provide security to over 35 countries.

In addition to the 1.1 million U.S. military personnel stationed in the United States and its territories, there are almost 300,000 U.S. troops in foreign countries—not even counting the over 200,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. With its geographic command centers (NORTHCOM, CENTCOM, etc.) that cover the globe, the United States apparently views the whole earth as its territory. According to the DOD’s quarterly report titled “Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country,” there are U.S. troops stationed in 146 countries and 12 territories in every corner of the globe. This means that U.S. troops occupy about 75 percent of the world’s countries.

READ ON

Shame: The ‘Antiwar’ Democrats Who Sold Out

2009-06-18T03:21:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Scahill:

In a vote that should go down in recent histories as a day of shame for the Democrats, on Tuesday the House voted to approve another $106 billion dollars for the bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and increasingly Pakistan). To put a fine point on the interconnection of the iron fist of U.S. militarism and the hidden hand of free market neoliberal economics, the bill included a massive initiative to give the International Monetary Fund billions more in U.S. taxpayer funds.

What once Democrats could argue was "Bush’s war," they now officially own. In fact, only five Republicans voted for the supplemental (though overwhelmingly not on the issue of the war funding). Ron Paul, who made clear he was voting against the war, was a notable exception. READ ON

These Are Obama’s Wars Now

Joshua Frank:

Despite Obama’s historic (albeit rhetoric filled) speech in Cairo, the new Commander in Chief is still not about to radically change, let alone reform, the US’s long-standing role in the Middle East. A master of his craft, Obama is simply candy coating the delivery of US imperialism in the region. Given the lack of opposition to Obama’s policies back home, it is becoming clear that he may well be more dangerous than his predecessor when it comes to the US’s motivations internationally.

Had Bush pushed for more military funds at this stage, the antiwar movement (if you can call it that) would have been organizing opposition weeks in advance, calling out the neocons for wasting our scarce tax dollars during a recession on a never-ending, directionless war. But since Obama’s a Democrat, a beloved one at that, mums the word. READ ON

Tom Waits - It's Alright With Me - 1990

2009-06-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

"Dance on down to the government and tell them you're eager to rule because you know what's good for you."

The Ending of America's Financial-Military Empire

2009-06-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

Michael Hudson: Appointment in Yekaterinburg

Everyone should take a look at this. I'm currently doing research on what Hudson writes and find myself gob-smacked.

Naturally, no one is paying attention. Especially the MSM whose corporate paylords wouldn't approve of an informed citizenry.

There might be pitchforks or gasp; some accountability.

The Top 10 Most Absurd TIME Covers of The Past 40 Years

2009-06-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

Awww. It's Henry and Claire Luce. RUN FOR YOU LIVES, KIDDIES.

"Mr. Luce's mag does satanism, porn, crack, Pokemon, and more!

As a service to future historians of the long, slow death of the newsweekly, Reason offers this Top 10 list of the most horrifying, silly, irresponsible, or downright ridiculous Time cover panics from the past 40 years."

How very revealing.

The fear-mongering and self-appointed cultural watchdog that is TIME mag is utterly vile. They lost me when they constantly advocated the illegal war on Iraq which has subsequently bankrupted our nation, among other things. That was back in the day when I didn't understand the corporate kleptocracy and how it operates.

Ah, the good ol' days when ignorance was certainly bliss.

The genius of George Orwell

2009-06-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

Next week marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Jeremy Paxman of The Telegraph pays tribute to one of England's greatest writers.

excerpt: It is hard to imagine many people less suited to the job of an imperial policeman than Orwell. Yet, while he hated imperialism, he could still remark that the British empire was ''a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it".

Tre allegri ragazzi morti - Il mondo prima

2009-06-07T02:28:00.000-07:00

The Pogues: Lorelei

2009-06-07T02:19:00.000-07:00

An Alaskan Village Sinks Into the Sea

2009-06-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

From Buzzflash: America's first community of climate change refugees is a town occupied by more than 300 Yup'ik Eskimos called Newtok. Their houses are literally sinking into the softening ground or being swept into the eroding banks of the Ninglick River, which empties into the Bering Sea. This writer described how the "vague sense of things being out of kilter forms itself into a vision of imminent disaster" as the permafrost -- which acts as a foundation for the entire village -- melts.

The town of Newtok may be small, but some 90,000 other Alaskans also live on permafrost and may soon find themselves in a situation similar to that of the indigenous people in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region. The residents of Newtok are merely closer to the water than other Alaskans; with seawater gobbling up their land at up to 90 feet a year, all of the village's listing buildings will soon be swallowed up.

Let's hear it for Roger Waters: "We don't need no occupation"

2009-06-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

Ex-Pink Floyd frontman arrives in region to support Cinema Jenin project in West Bank city; harshly condemns occupation and its effects on Palestinian population.

And let's not forget Waters 2006 visit:
Roger Waters, due to perform Thursday in Neve Shalom, scrawls 'tear down the wall'on Israel's security fence

WTF: Wake up America

2009-06-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

Medical bills underlie 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.

More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.

"Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote.

"Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."

Personally I'll wager that the number is a lot higher than this.

When is the march on the mall in D.C.? The national strike?

This nation has been turned into a debtor's prison while everyone was busy acting patriotic. (Whatever that means.)

Why are we acting like a nation of sheep? I puzzle over this question often.

Tank Man? Brave Man.

2009-06-03T20:30:00.001-07:00

Random Acts of Kindness

2009-06-03T03:23:00.000-07:00

Our world is in serious trouble for lack of mutual, dare I say it, empathy. I love the words contained in this video.

We are one species. We are star stuff.

-Carl Sagan

The Ghosts of Indoors

2009-06-02T10:57:00.001-07:00

Living with

Agoraphobia.

Many years ago humanity suffered an affliction known as the Bush administration which brought my young mind to attention.

Once I started studying history I realized there is nothing new under the sun.

Excepting the steady advance of technology and the terrible irony that is likewise; Dick Cheney.