http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/health-fears-over-use-of-sweetener-1.929341
Health fears over use of sweetener
Coca Cola and Pepsi switched to sweetening their US products with HFCS in 1984
30 Oct 2009
A sugary ingredient that is commonly used to flavour processed foods and soft drinks could be a major cause of high blood pressure, new research has found.
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is abundant in many types of foods and beverages, including fizzy drinks, biscuits, ketchup and bread, and was originally viewed as a “healthy” method of sweetening.
Its introduction 20 years ago has caused consumption of the fruit sugar fructose to rise sharply, alongside increasing levels of obesity.
Although healthy amounts of fructose exist naturally in fruit, excessive amounts of the sugar may be harmful. Studies have already shown that large quantities of fructose cause the liver to pump fats into the bloodstream that may damage arteries.
Links to insulin resistance and diabetes have been documented, with research also concluding that when people consume artificial sweeteners they have an increased desire to keep eating.
Researchers who carried out the new study in the US looked at more than 4500 adults with no prior history of high blood pressure.
Fructose intake was calculated by asking participants to rate their consumption of foods such as fruit juices, soft drinks, bakery products and confectionery.
The study found that people who ate or drank more than 74 grams of fructose per day, the equivalent to 2.5 sugary soft drinks, increased their risk of developing high blood pressure.
“Normal” blood pressure is said to be a reading of around 120/80 millimetres of mercury (mmHg) depending on age. The first figure relates to blood pressure when the heart is actively beating, the second is the reading of the blood pressure between beats.
More than 74 grams of fructose a day increased the chances of a higher reading of 135/85mmHg by 28%, the study found. It also increased the likelihood of a higher reading of 140/90mmHg by 36% and 160/100mmHg by 87%.
Since it was first developed in the United States in the 1970s, HFCS has widely replaced sugar as a result of the vast corn subsidies offered to farmers and the high price of sugar tariffs and quotas.
While there is no naturally occurring fructose in corn syrup, an enzyme was discovered in the 1950s that could turn its glucose content into fructose. This process was refined in the 1970s, leading to the mass production of HFCS. The product is also easier to blend and transport given its liquid form.
HFCS is now preferred over cane sugar among the vast majority of American food and drink manufacturers thanks to its low production costs. Coca Cola and Pepsi switched to sweetening their products with the substance in 1984, but continue to use sugar in other nations. Four main companies in the US control 85% of the HFCS market.
The use of HFCS in Europe has not been as widespread as in America. In 2005, the EU set a production quota of 303,000 tonnes a year. By contrast, the EU produced an average of 18.6 million tons of sugar annually between 1999 and 2001.
Americans today consume 30% more fructose than they did 20 years ago and up to four times more than they did 100 years ago, those behind the latest study reported yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology in California.
Dr Diana Jalal, from the University of Colorado, and colleagues wrote in their paper: “These results indicate that high fructose intake in the form of added sugars is significantly and independently associated with higher blood pressure levels in the US adult population with no previous history of hypertension.”
Further work was needed to see if lowering fructose consumption could normalise blood pressure, Dr Jalal said.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Psychic 'mind-reading' computer
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1224489/Psychic-plug-brain-thoughts-screen-developed.html
Psychic 'mind-reading' computer will show your thoughts on screen
By David Derbyshire
02nd November 2009
A mind-reading machine that can produce pictures of what a person is seeing or remembering has been developed by scientists.
The device studies patterns of brainwave activity and turns them into a moving image on a computer screen.
While the idea of a telepathy machine might sound like something from science fiction, the scientists say it could one day be used to solve crimes.
In a pioneering experiment, an American team scanned the brain activity of two volunteers watching a video and used the results to recreate the images they were seeing.
Although the results were crude, the technique was able to reproduce the rough shape of a man in a white shirt and a city skyline.
Professor Jack Gallant, who carried out the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'At the moment when you see something and want to describe it you have to use words or draw it and it doesn't work very well.
'This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness's memory of a crime.'
The experiment is the latest in a series of studies designed to show how brain scans can reveal our innermost thoughts.
Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, normally found in hospitals, the American team scanned the brains of two volunteers while they watched videos.
The results were fed into a computer which looked for links between colours, shapes and movements on the screen, and patterns of activity in the brain.
The computer software was then given the brain scans of the volunteers as they watched a different video and was asked to recreate what they were seeing.
According to Dr Gallant, who has yet to publish the results of the experiment, the software was close to the mark.
In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt, the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but was unable to handle details of his face.
In another, the volunteers watched an image of a city skyline with a plane flying past.
The software was able to recreate the skyline - but not the aircraft.
Psychic 'mind-reading' computer will show your thoughts on screen
By David Derbyshire
02nd November 2009
A mind-reading machine that can produce pictures of what a person is seeing or remembering has been developed by scientists.
The device studies patterns of brainwave activity and turns them into a moving image on a computer screen.
While the idea of a telepathy machine might sound like something from science fiction, the scientists say it could one day be used to solve crimes.
In a pioneering experiment, an American team scanned the brain activity of two volunteers watching a video and used the results to recreate the images they were seeing.
Although the results were crude, the technique was able to reproduce the rough shape of a man in a white shirt and a city skyline.
Professor Jack Gallant, who carried out the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'At the moment when you see something and want to describe it you have to use words or draw it and it doesn't work very well.
'This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness's memory of a crime.'
The experiment is the latest in a series of studies designed to show how brain scans can reveal our innermost thoughts.
Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, normally found in hospitals, the American team scanned the brains of two volunteers while they watched videos.
The results were fed into a computer which looked for links between colours, shapes and movements on the screen, and patterns of activity in the brain.
The computer software was then given the brain scans of the volunteers as they watched a different video and was asked to recreate what they were seeing.
According to Dr Gallant, who has yet to publish the results of the experiment, the software was close to the mark.
In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt, the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but was unable to handle details of his face.
In another, the volunteers watched an image of a city skyline with a plane flying past.
The software was able to recreate the skyline - but not the aircraft.
FCC Takes First Step Toward Net Neutrality Rules
http://www.pcworld.com/article/174143/fcc_takes_first_step_toward_net_neutrality_rules.html
FCC Takes First Step Toward Net Neutrality Rules
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Oct 22, 2009
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has taken the first step toward creating formal net neutrality rules, despite a huge lobbying effort from opposing groups in recent days.
The FCC voted Thursday to open a rulemaking process and begin receiving comments on a proposal to create new net neutrality rules following a contentious debate on whether new regulations are needed.
The FCC is still months away from voting on the final regulations, but the rules, as proposed, would allow Web users to run the legal applications and access the legal Web sites of their choice, while prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content. Providers could use "reasonable" network management to reduce congestion and maintain quality of service, but the rules would require them to be transparent with consumers about their efforts.
Under the FCC proposal, wireless broadband services would be included in the net neutrality rules. The FCC will seek comments on how to treat managed network services.
The rules are necessary to protect innovation on the Internet and preserve the openness that has allowed the Internet to blossom, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
"The problem is not merely that we've seen some significant situations where broadband providers have degraded the data streams of popular lawful services and blocked consumer access to lawful applications," he said. "The heart of the problem is that ... we face the dangerous combination of an uncertain legal framework with ongoing as well as emerging challenges to a free and open Internet.
"Given the potentially huge consequences of having the open Internet diminished through inaction, the time is now to move forward with consideration of fair and reasonable rules of the road," he added.
But Commissioner Robert McDowell suggested the Internet has seen massive growth because of a lack of regulations. The proposed rules regulate network providers, but not Web applications vendors, while supporters assume new innovation will come from applications and not networks, he said.
"The Internet is perhaps the greatest deregulatory success story of all time," said McDowell, a Republican. "No government has ever succeeded in mandating innovation and investment."
New rules could inadvertently hurt the growth of the Internet and give a precedent to other nations that want to create all kinds of new Internet regulations, McDowell added. But he praised Genachowski for creating an open and collegial rulemaking process.
Net neutrality advocates began pressing hard for new rules in 2005, after the FCC phased out rules requiring traditional telecom carriers to share their broadband networks with competitors. That same year, the FCC approved four informal net neutrality principles, but broadband provider Comcast, in a lawsuit, has challenged the FCC's authority to enforce those principles.
Net neutrality advocates argue that formal regulations are needed because broadband providers could decide to block or slow some Web sites or applications in favor of others. Since the FCC deregulated network sharing rules in 2005, Web users have few choices for broadband providers and not many options for alternative service if their providers start blocking some Web content, net neutrality advocates say.
But opponents of net neutrality say new rules aren't needed. The FCC has taken action against broadband providers in just two cases, including one in which Comcast was accused of widespread slowing of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer service. New regulations could slow or halt new broadband investment, making it difficult to meet President Barack Obama's goal of bringing broadband to all U.S. residents, opponents say.
In addition to opposition from large broadband providers AT&T and Verizon Communications, a group of about 90 U.S. lawmakers raised concerns about new regulations in the past week. In addition, 44 telecom-related companies, including Cisco Systems, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola and Nokia, wrote a letter to the FCC opposing new rules, as well as several minority groups concerned about the effect on broadband deployment.
On the other side are 28 digital rights and consumer groups, including Free Press and Public Knowledge, Internet pioneers including Vint Cerf and David Reed, and top executives of Web-based companies, including Google, Amazon.com, eBay and Facebook.
On Wednesday, 30 tech-focused venture capitalists sent a letter to the FCC supporting new rules, and this week, more than 20,000 U.S. residents have signed a letter calling for net neutrality rules, according to Save the Internet, a pro-net neutrality group.
Obama and Genachowski, both Democrats, have both said net neutrality rules are among their top tech priorities. Genachowski said the rules as proposed are not perfect or set in stone.
But FCC member Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican, questioned whether the FCC has the authority to regulate broadband, even though she said the rulemaking process presents "thoughtful" questions about Internet freedoms.
New rules could hamper innovation from broadband providers and slow the jobs created through the Internet, she said. "I don't want to get in the way of that," she added. "If innovation and investment are confined to the corners of the Internet, consumers will suffer."
FCC Takes First Step Toward Net Neutrality Rules
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Oct 22, 2009
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has taken the first step toward creating formal net neutrality rules, despite a huge lobbying effort from opposing groups in recent days.
The FCC voted Thursday to open a rulemaking process and begin receiving comments on a proposal to create new net neutrality rules following a contentious debate on whether new regulations are needed.
The FCC is still months away from voting on the final regulations, but the rules, as proposed, would allow Web users to run the legal applications and access the legal Web sites of their choice, while prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content. Providers could use "reasonable" network management to reduce congestion and maintain quality of service, but the rules would require them to be transparent with consumers about their efforts.
Under the FCC proposal, wireless broadband services would be included in the net neutrality rules. The FCC will seek comments on how to treat managed network services.
The rules are necessary to protect innovation on the Internet and preserve the openness that has allowed the Internet to blossom, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
"The problem is not merely that we've seen some significant situations where broadband providers have degraded the data streams of popular lawful services and blocked consumer access to lawful applications," he said. "The heart of the problem is that ... we face the dangerous combination of an uncertain legal framework with ongoing as well as emerging challenges to a free and open Internet.
"Given the potentially huge consequences of having the open Internet diminished through inaction, the time is now to move forward with consideration of fair and reasonable rules of the road," he added.
But Commissioner Robert McDowell suggested the Internet has seen massive growth because of a lack of regulations. The proposed rules regulate network providers, but not Web applications vendors, while supporters assume new innovation will come from applications and not networks, he said.
"The Internet is perhaps the greatest deregulatory success story of all time," said McDowell, a Republican. "No government has ever succeeded in mandating innovation and investment."
New rules could inadvertently hurt the growth of the Internet and give a precedent to other nations that want to create all kinds of new Internet regulations, McDowell added. But he praised Genachowski for creating an open and collegial rulemaking process.
Net neutrality advocates began pressing hard for new rules in 2005, after the FCC phased out rules requiring traditional telecom carriers to share their broadband networks with competitors. That same year, the FCC approved four informal net neutrality principles, but broadband provider Comcast, in a lawsuit, has challenged the FCC's authority to enforce those principles.
Net neutrality advocates argue that formal regulations are needed because broadband providers could decide to block or slow some Web sites or applications in favor of others. Since the FCC deregulated network sharing rules in 2005, Web users have few choices for broadband providers and not many options for alternative service if their providers start blocking some Web content, net neutrality advocates say.
But opponents of net neutrality say new rules aren't needed. The FCC has taken action against broadband providers in just two cases, including one in which Comcast was accused of widespread slowing of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer service. New regulations could slow or halt new broadband investment, making it difficult to meet President Barack Obama's goal of bringing broadband to all U.S. residents, opponents say.
In addition to opposition from large broadband providers AT&T and Verizon Communications, a group of about 90 U.S. lawmakers raised concerns about new regulations in the past week. In addition, 44 telecom-related companies, including Cisco Systems, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola and Nokia, wrote a letter to the FCC opposing new rules, as well as several minority groups concerned about the effect on broadband deployment.
On the other side are 28 digital rights and consumer groups, including Free Press and Public Knowledge, Internet pioneers including Vint Cerf and David Reed, and top executives of Web-based companies, including Google, Amazon.com, eBay and Facebook.
On Wednesday, 30 tech-focused venture capitalists sent a letter to the FCC supporting new rules, and this week, more than 20,000 U.S. residents have signed a letter calling for net neutrality rules, according to Save the Internet, a pro-net neutrality group.
Obama and Genachowski, both Democrats, have both said net neutrality rules are among their top tech priorities. Genachowski said the rules as proposed are not perfect or set in stone.
But FCC member Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican, questioned whether the FCC has the authority to regulate broadband, even though she said the rulemaking process presents "thoughtful" questions about Internet freedoms.
New rules could hamper innovation from broadband providers and slow the jobs created through the Internet, she said. "I don't want to get in the way of that," she added. "If innovation and investment are confined to the corners of the Internet, consumers will suffer."
Modern man a wimp says anthropologist
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59D0BR20091014Modern man a wimp says anthropologist
Wed Oct 14, 2009
John Mehaffey
LONDON (Reuters) - Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.
Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.
Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.
These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male."
McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.
"If you're reading this then you -- or the male you have bought it for -- are the worst man in history.
"No ifs, no buts -- the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet."
Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.
His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.
FLEET-FOOTED ABORIGINALS
An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge. Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year's Beijing Olympics.
In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.
"We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal," he said.
"But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.
"We can tell that T8 is accelerating toward the end of his tracks."
McAllister said it was probable that any number of T8's contemporaries could have run as fast.
"We have to remember too how incredibly rare these fossilizations are," he said. "What are the odds that you would get the fastest runner in Australia at that particular time in that particular place in such a way that was going to be preserved?"
Turning to the high jump, McAllister said photographs taken by a German anthropologist showed young men jumping heights of up to 2.52 meters in the early years of last century.
STARK DECLINE
"It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood," he said.
"It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves."
McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10 percent more muscle bulk than modern European man. Trained to capacity she would have reached 90 percent of Schwarzenegger's bulk at his peak in the 1970s.
"But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem," he said.
Manthropology abounds with other examples:
* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.
* Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.
* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48).
McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: "Given other evidence of Aboriginal man's superb athleticism you'd have to wonder whether they couldn't have taken out every modern javelin event they entered."
Why the decline?
"We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear," McAllister replied. "These people were much more robust than we were.
"We don't see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There's been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it's a different story.
"At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.
"The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress. We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.
"We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven't developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn't come close to replicating that.
"We wouldn't want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from."
(Editing by Clare Fallon; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
Medical-pot backers react to new Obama policy
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/19/MNO01A7S79.DTL
Medical-pot backers react to new Obama policy
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO -- Medical marijuana advocates in California said the Obama administration's announcement of new guidelines for pot prosecutions Monday contained some hopeful signs, but lacked the specifics needed to keep patients and their suppliers out of court.
"It's an extremely welcome rhetorical de-escalation of the federal government's long-standing war on medical marijuana patients," said Stephen Gutwillig, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
Dale Gieringer, California coordinator of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the administration's advice to U.S. attorneys that they respect state law - such as California's Proposition 215, the 1996 measure legalizing medicinal use of the drug - was encouraging.
However, he added, "the policy has major loopholes that give prosecutors broad discretion to determine what they think is legal."
A Justice Department memo, sent Monday to federal prosecutors in California and 13 other states whose laws allow medical use of marijuana, provides guidelines to implement the policy Attorney General Eric Holder announced in March: that federal authorities should refrain from arresting or prosecuting people who are complying with their state's laws.
Federal prosecutors should focus on major drug traffickers and networks, rather than on those who "are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws" on medical marijuana, said Deputy Attorney General David Ogden.
But he added some qualifications: Prosecutors can go after those who sell marijuana for profit, a category that federal authorities have commonly invoked in charging growers and sellers of medicinal pot.
San Francisco's U.S. attorney, Joseph Russoniello, asserted in August that most of California's 300 marijuana dispensaries make profits, in violation of state guidelines, and are therefore open to federal prosecution.
Ogden also said the Justice Department would fight any effort by people now charged with marijuana-related crimes in federal court to claim that they were simply following state law. And even those who are clearly complying with a state's law can be investigated and prosecuted, he said, in the pursuit of "important federal interests."
'Lot of discretion'
"It leaves a lot of discretion up to the U.S. attorneys," said Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group for patients who use marijuana. "We hope that these guidelines rein in rogue prosecutors like Russoniello. There's no guarantee that's going to happen."
Russoniello's office is prosecuting owners of two Hayward-area medical marijuana dispensaries that were licensed by local governments. In March, after Holder's announcement, federal agents raided Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic in San Francisco, which had a city permit. No charges were filed.
Russoniello's office referred inquiries Monday to the Justice Department, where spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Ogden's memo was intended to provide "guidance and clarification" to prosecutors and does not change administration policy.
Judges go easy
Since Holder's announcement, prosecutors have told several federal judges in California that the new policy did not justify leniency for marijuana defendants whose cases originated during President George W. Bush's administration.
Judges have nonetheless imposed lighter sentences than the Justice Department wanted, notably a one-year term for a Central Coast pot club operator for whom prosecutors sought five years.
Although Monday's guidelines, like Holder's earlier statement, do not expressly apply to pending cases, defense lawyers will argue to judges that the Obama administration's memo justifies a break in sentencing, said Joe Elford, lawyer for Americans for Safe Access.
He also predicted that some prisoners would cite the memo in asking President Obama for clemency.
The guidelines don't say how federal authorities would respond if California legalized marijuana for personal use, as proposed in an Assembly bill and several pending initiatives. But Gutwillig, whose organization advocates legalization, said he saw a glimmer of hope.
"The Obama administration has taken a further step today to follow the lead of the states on marijuana policy," he said.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Medical-pot backers react to new Obama policy
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO -- Medical marijuana advocates in California said the Obama administration's announcement of new guidelines for pot prosecutions Monday contained some hopeful signs, but lacked the specifics needed to keep patients and their suppliers out of court.
"It's an extremely welcome rhetorical de-escalation of the federal government's long-standing war on medical marijuana patients," said Stephen Gutwillig, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
Dale Gieringer, California coordinator of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the administration's advice to U.S. attorneys that they respect state law - such as California's Proposition 215, the 1996 measure legalizing medicinal use of the drug - was encouraging.
However, he added, "the policy has major loopholes that give prosecutors broad discretion to determine what they think is legal."
A Justice Department memo, sent Monday to federal prosecutors in California and 13 other states whose laws allow medical use of marijuana, provides guidelines to implement the policy Attorney General Eric Holder announced in March: that federal authorities should refrain from arresting or prosecuting people who are complying with their state's laws.
Federal prosecutors should focus on major drug traffickers and networks, rather than on those who "are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws" on medical marijuana, said Deputy Attorney General David Ogden.
But he added some qualifications: Prosecutors can go after those who sell marijuana for profit, a category that federal authorities have commonly invoked in charging growers and sellers of medicinal pot.
San Francisco's U.S. attorney, Joseph Russoniello, asserted in August that most of California's 300 marijuana dispensaries make profits, in violation of state guidelines, and are therefore open to federal prosecution.
Ogden also said the Justice Department would fight any effort by people now charged with marijuana-related crimes in federal court to claim that they were simply following state law. And even those who are clearly complying with a state's law can be investigated and prosecuted, he said, in the pursuit of "important federal interests."
'Lot of discretion'
"It leaves a lot of discretion up to the U.S. attorneys," said Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group for patients who use marijuana. "We hope that these guidelines rein in rogue prosecutors like Russoniello. There's no guarantee that's going to happen."
Russoniello's office is prosecuting owners of two Hayward-area medical marijuana dispensaries that were licensed by local governments. In March, after Holder's announcement, federal agents raided Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic in San Francisco, which had a city permit. No charges were filed.
Russoniello's office referred inquiries Monday to the Justice Department, where spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Ogden's memo was intended to provide "guidance and clarification" to prosecutors and does not change administration policy.
Judges go easy
Since Holder's announcement, prosecutors have told several federal judges in California that the new policy did not justify leniency for marijuana defendants whose cases originated during President George W. Bush's administration.
Judges have nonetheless imposed lighter sentences than the Justice Department wanted, notably a one-year term for a Central Coast pot club operator for whom prosecutors sought five years.
Although Monday's guidelines, like Holder's earlier statement, do not expressly apply to pending cases, defense lawyers will argue to judges that the Obama administration's memo justifies a break in sentencing, said Joe Elford, lawyer for Americans for Safe Access.
He also predicted that some prisoners would cite the memo in asking President Obama for clemency.
The guidelines don't say how federal authorities would respond if California legalized marijuana for personal use, as proposed in an Assembly bill and several pending initiatives. But Gutwillig, whose organization advocates legalization, said he saw a glimmer of hope.
"The Obama administration has taken a further step today to follow the lead of the states on marijuana policy," he said.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
New Age Mafia Rivalry Causes Deaths?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
New Age Mafia Rivalry Causes Deaths?
ALEXANDRIA, Minn. (Wireless Flash - FlashNews) – A new mafia rivalry may be to blame for a couple of sketchy, sweaty deaths. Two people recently died at a “sweat lodge” retreat in Arizona hosted by New Age author James Arthur Ray.
He charged $9,000 a head to stuff 64 people into a tiny, sauna-like room covered in tarps and blankets, promising they’d be spiritually cleansed by the ritual.
Two people died and many suffered oxygen deprivation, but visionary Jaye Beldo thinks a curse may be partly to blame. In addition to Ray’s own negligence, Beldo believes the retreat was sabotaged by a rival “New Age mafia” that’s jealous of Ray’s success.
They may have cursed Ray into abandoning common sense for greedy profit, since “sweat lodges” were used by Native Americans to actually help people, not make money off them.
Beldo believes New Age leaders are trying to “take each other out” so they’re the only ones able to swindle cult followings with their “teachings.”
Copyright © 2009 Wireless Flash News Inc. All rights reserved. Wireless Flash® and FlashNews® are registered trademarks of Wireless Flash News Inc.
LavaCocktail.com
'A Toast to Your Psychic Health!'
New Age Mafia Rivalry Causes Deaths?
ALEXANDRIA, Minn. (Wireless Flash - FlashNews) – A new mafia rivalry may be to blame for a couple of sketchy, sweaty deaths. Two people recently died at a “sweat lodge” retreat in Arizona hosted by New Age author James Arthur Ray.
He charged $9,000 a head to stuff 64 people into a tiny, sauna-like room covered in tarps and blankets, promising they’d be spiritually cleansed by the ritual.
Two people died and many suffered oxygen deprivation, but visionary Jaye Beldo thinks a curse may be partly to blame. In addition to Ray’s own negligence, Beldo believes the retreat was sabotaged by a rival “New Age mafia” that’s jealous of Ray’s success.
They may have cursed Ray into abandoning common sense for greedy profit, since “sweat lodges” were used by Native Americans to actually help people, not make money off them.
Beldo believes New Age leaders are trying to “take each other out” so they’re the only ones able to swindle cult followings with their “teachings.”
Copyright © 2009 Wireless Flash News Inc. All rights reserved. Wireless Flash® and FlashNews® are registered trademarks of Wireless Flash News Inc.
LavaCocktail.com
'A Toast to Your Psychic Health!'
Steve Jobs - CEO of the Decade
http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/03/technology/steve_jobs_legacy.fortune/index.htmSteve Jobs's legacy
Steve Jobs - CEO of the Decade
Harvard professor Nancy F. Koehn shows us how Steve Jobs stacks up with other great entrepreneurs in history.
By Nancy F. Koehn, contributor
November 5, 2009
(Fortune magazine) -- First and foremost, Steve Jobs is an entrepreneur. And that is how history will long remember him. Not primarily as a fiduciary or an institution builder or an administrator (though he has worn all those hats), but rather as an individual who relentlessly pursued new opportunities.
From the first Apple computers to the breakthrough innovations of the past eight years -- the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, and his Apple stores -- he has chased new possibilities without being deterred by whatever obstacles he encountered.
Over and over again he has turned his eye and his energy -- and at times, it has seemed, his entire being -- to what might be gained by creating a new offering or taking an unorthodox strategic path.
That puts him in the company of other great entrepreneurs of the past two centuries, men and women such as Josiah Wedgwood, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Estée Lauder.
Each of these people -- and especially Steve Jobs -- has been defined by the intense drive, unflagging curiosity, and keen commercial imagination that have allowed them to see products and industries and possibilities that might be. Each of these individuals has also been extremely hardworking, demanding of themselves and others. All have been compelled more by the significance of their own vision than by their doubts.
Jobs came of age in a moment of far-reaching economic, social, and technological change that we now call the Information Revolution. (Not so long ago -- in the early 1990s -- we used the term Computer Revolution, a shift in language that speaks to the breadth of change involved.) Wedgwood, the 18th-century British chinamaker who created the first real consumer brand, grew up in the Industrial Revolution, another period of profound change. And Rockefeller laid the foundations of the modern oil industry in the 1870s and 1880s, when the railroad and the coming of mass production were transforming the U.S. from an agrarian into an industrial society.
Like Wedgwood and Rockefeller, Jobs has had a sense -- analytic and intuitive -- that in a time of great transformation, a lot is up for grabs. Imbued with a perception of his own importance on a stage where everything from telephony to music distribution to consumers' relationships with technology is being disrupted, Jobs felt there was simply no time to lose.
This understanding has fueled the rapid-fire pace of his actions and his obsession with "what's next?" in products (although he would never rush to market a product he thought imperfect). It may have also fed his often harsh, dictatorial, and somehow still-inspiring management style.
People who work with Jobs talk about his maniacal attention to the smallest design detail. For Jobs, working in a world of engineers who are focused on the power of technology, this paradigm has never been enough. Yes, his products must be functional and fast. But they must also be beautiful.
One of Steve Jobs' two heroes reflects that commitment to both aesthetics and functional integrity. According to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a longtime friend, Jobs greatly admires Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the famous Parisian tower and the Statue of Liberty. "Eiffel is an interesting character," Ellison explained, "because he was a terrific engineer and had a wonderful artistic sense."
When Jobs decided to open the now remarkably successful Apple retail stores in 2001, the money and time that he and his team put into their design -- which involved building a prototype of a store in a warehouse -- were intended to create an experience that went deeper than retail.
And overhauling the initial store layout, not to mention going through three types of lighting just to make sure iMacs would shine as brilliantly in the stores as they did in glossy print ads, has paid off handsomely. Apple stores reached $1 billion in sales faster than any retail business in history.
Customers in the stores have no idea of the resources that Jobs invested in what was initially seen as a very risky venture for the company. And from Jobs' perspective, they do not need to know. As he once explained to Fortune, "They just feel it. They feel something's a little different."
Not surprisingly, Jobs has been widely labeled as one of the most hands-on CEOs in America. Biographers have said similar things about Andrew Carnegie, who was obsessed with the minute aspects of driving down costs in the young steel industry in the 1890s, and about Henry Ford, who, 20 years later, was fixated on all aspects of bringing a Model T to every American household.
Ford, as did Jobs, put great faith in his judgment about where consumer desire was headed. "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse," the carmaker allegedly commented. For virtually his entire career, Jobs has taken that comment to heart, serving as a kind of one-man band of market research and product development.
In an interview with Fortune, Jobs once described how he had turned new technologies into products: "There's a certain amount of homework involved, true, but mostly it's just picking up on things you can see on the periphery. Sometimes when you're almost asleep, you realize something you wouldn't otherwise have noted. I subscribe to a half-dozen Internet news services, and I get about 300 e-mails a day, many from people I don't know, hawking crazy ideas. And I've always paid close attention to the whispers around me."
The MacBook Air and the iPod, like the Macintosh in the early 1980s, owe much more to the "whispers" Jobs has heard, his imagination, and his precise product standards than they do to any organized focus group.
Estée Lauder, the ambitious, empathic entrepreneur who created a huge new market for fine skin care, cosmetics, and fragrances in the postwar period, had the same sixth sense about the consumer. She admired and sometimes emulated Old World European nobility, especially their classic taste and grace in everyday living.
And she brought this inspiration to the making, packaging, and marketing of her products. For Lauder, makeup was much more than a combination of chemicals that women used to improve their appearance. Cosmetics were a vehicle for self-expression and customer empowerment. They were also a source of daily joy and positive energy.
Like Lauder, Jobs is primarily concerned with products that enhance our everyday life, a belief that takes shape in Apple's "digital hub" strategy. According to Jobs, we are now in the midst of the third age of computing, the age of a "digital lifestyle" (the first era was the age of productivity, spanning 1980 to 1994, and the second was the age of the Internet, which lasted from 1994 to 2000).
In this stage of evolution, personal computers like the iMac and MacBook connect and enhance a wide range of products, from digital cameras to smartphones to MP3 players, all of which are reconfiguring how we interact with TV, film, and music as well as each other.
In this context, Jobs sees the products that Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has developed -- such as the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone -- as offerings that help us each be better than we would be without them. Many years ago Jobs called the computer a "bicycle for the mind," a remarkable tool that greatly increases man's efficiency of locomotion, broadly conceived. Even now, as Apple releases products that expand our traditional notion of the computer, he continues to give us devices that complement and enhance our everyday life.
It is hard to imagine that his influence would have run so deep in our society if he hadn't been able to consistently communicate his vision of a richer digital life to employees, customers, Wall Street, and others.
And he has done this charismatically. Jobs has a kind of aura or mystery around him that has made him a celebrity. (In a recent Junior Achievement poll, American teenagers voted Jobs the person they most admire -- ahead of Oprah Winfrey and the Olsen twins.)
When the Apple founder, who is always meticulously rehearsed, walks onstage for a keynote event, the audience responds as if he were a rock star or a religious prophet. People scream. Employees, customers, analysts, and rivals hang on his every word. Industry experts run to their computers furiously to enter their latest blog entry on the future of high tech.
When he introduced the iPhone in early 2007, Jobs hailed it as a "revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone." In design and capabilities, it was "like having your life in your pocket. It's the ultimate digital device." And it's ultimate marketing.
The more we learn about this brilliant, dogged, at times merciless, and yet supple entrepreneur, the more we realize that he believes he is out to change the world. And that's what seems to motivate him. He shows almost no need to display his financial worth and power. (Jobs does have a Gulfstream V, but there are few other trappings of great wealth around him or his family.)
No, the revolution of which Jobs is so much a part is unfolding by virtue of the products he makes and how consumers use them. It is a mostly peaceful revolution that will, in Steve Jobs' eyes, liberate men and women around the world.
More than 15 years ago, before most of us e-mailed regularly or had added the word "playlist" to our vocabulary, Jobs sketched out his vision of the Information Revolution's impact to Rolling Stone: "Putting the Internet into people's houses is going to be really what the information superhighway is all about, not digital convergence in the set-top box." And this development, in tandem with vast increases in computing power, meant for Jobs that the world is "clearly a better place. Individuals can now do things that only large groups of people with lots of money could do before. What that means is, we have much more opportunity for people to get to the marketplace -- not just the marketplace of commerce but the marketplace of ideas. The marketplace of publications, the marketplace of public policy. You name it."
If Jobs is right about the ways in which the Information Revolution both empowers individuals and democratizes existing power structures -- and the jury is still out on this -- his historical legacy may indeed be greater than his impact on business. It may just bear some resemblance to Jobs' other hero, Mohandas Gandhi, who staged another kind of peaceful and far-reaching revolution some 70 years ago and who saw opportunity where others saw only obstacles.
Jobs' ability to change technology, music, and entertainment has earned him great authority. Ironically, Jobs has chosen not to exercise it outside the boundaries of his industry. Unlike Rockefeller and Carnegie, each of whom created powerful foundations with big agendas for social change, Jobs has shown little interest in philanthropy. And he rarely speaks out on political or environmental issues. For a man as passionate as Jobs, one who loves Bob Dylan and the countercultural zeitgeist that he has come to represent, this seems strange. Out of keeping with the enormous ego for which Jobs is famous (and infamous). But maybe that's next.
Nancy F. Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School; her most recently published book is titled "The Story of American Business."
Obama in New Orleans
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/obam-o17.shtml
Obama in New Orleans: The callous face of the US ruling elite
By Patrick Martin
17 October 2009
In a brief, four-hour stopover in New Orleans en route to a fund-raising dinner with millionaire Democrats in California, President Barack Obama made perfunctory promises to the people of the devastated city, barely disguising his indifference to their plight.
The visit, coming one day after the stock market soared above 10,000 and the Wall Street Journal estimated that compensation at major banks and financial firms would hit a record $140 billion this year, underscored the chasm that separates rich and poor in Obama’s America.
Obama has waited nine months from his inauguration to visit the city which in 2005 became a worldwide symbol of the failure of the Bush administration and the callousness of the US ruling elite, as more than 1,000 Americans died and hundreds of thousands of poor and working class people lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.
The New Orleans visit was intended as a photo-op, with heartwarming footage of cheering school children and grateful citizens, but the reality of growing popular disillusionment and anger intruded when a college student challenged Obama during his appearance at a town hall meeting at the University of New Orleans.
Gabriel Bordenave, 29, cited the continued stalling by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on funds to rebuild the main health care facility for the poor of New Orleans, Charity Hospital. “I expected as much from the Bush administration,” he told Obama, “but why are we still being nickel-and-dimed?”
Obama responded defensively with political boilerplate. His administration was “working as hard as we can as quickly as we can,” he said, citing unspecified “complications” in coordinating efforts with state and local governments—although he had just defended Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin when they were booed by the crowd during introductions.
“I wish I could just write a check,” he continued, and someone in the audience shouted out, “Why not?”
Obama was visibly put out, first by Bordenave’s question, then by the interruption. He proceeded to lecture his critics: “You say, why not? There’s this whole thing about the Constitution.” He then continued that in Washington, “everyone will attack you for spending money, unless you are spending it on them.”
This was a thinly concealed slur. His audience of hurricane survivors, Obama was suggesting, were just another special interest group seeking money from the federal government. Bordenave later told the New York Times, “I kind of thought (the Constitution reference) was a blow-off answer.”
While claiming that his administration would not follow the example of its predecessor in ignoring the suffering caused by Katrina, Obama mimicked one of the most notorious episodes of the Bush presidency. Bush left his Texas ranch to fly over the hurricane zone in early September 2005, on his way to Washington. Obama stopped off in New Orleans for three hours and 45 minutes on his way to a fundraising event in San Francisco.
At the Westin St. Francis Hotel, nearly 1,000 well-heeled supporters packed a ballroom, paying up to $1,000 each, while 160 high rollers chipped in $34,000 per couple for dinner with the president upstairs. Obama was introduced at the dinner by Mark Gorenberg, managing director of the venture capital firm Hummer Winblad. Joining them at the podium was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband is a multimillionaire real estate investor.
Obama’s performance in New Orleans was so callous and arrogant that it drew criticism from two African-American columnists usually in the administration camp, both writing on their newspapers’ web sites. Jim Mitchell of the Dallas Morning-News observed that the president “snaps at a person who asks a very reasonable question—why the area doesn’t have a full service hospital back up and running so many years after Katrina.” He added that Obama’s response was “snide, elusive, and surprisingly, politically tone deaf.”
Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post called Obama’s “brief display of drive-by compassion” in New Orleans “by far the worst outing of his presidency thus far.” Dismissing Obama’s claim that it was difficult to expedite the flow of funds to the storm-ravaged area, he wrote: “We now know that our government can make hundreds of billions of dollars available to irresponsible Wall Street institutions within a matter of days, if necessary. We can open up the floodgates of credit to too-big-to-fail banks at the stroke of a pen. But when it comes to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, well, these things take time.”
The contrast is indeed stark. While Obama boasted of having freed up $1.5 billion in federal funds for Gulf Coast recovery projects since taking office, this compares to more than $12 trillion made available to Wall Street financial interests—8,000 times more. Obama’s new money for Katrina recovery is less than one week’s expenditure on the war in Afghanistan.
The indifference of the president was demonstrated in the perfunctory character of his tour of the hurricane zone. He stopped at a public charter school in the Lower Ninth Ward, the same school visited by George W. Bush during one of his post-Katrina jaunts. The school sits in an area that remains 75 percent uninhabited. Then the presidential motorcade made its way to the University of New Orleans field house for an hour-long town hall, and Obama was on his way back to the airport.
Obama did not bother to visit the other areas hardest hit by Katrina, including the vast New Orleans East area, which remains the site of mile upon mile of flood damage, or the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast.
It was not that Obama lacked time to go to these areas. The day after his stopover in New Orleans, he was back in the region for an event with George H. W. Bush, to mark the 20th anniversary of the former president’s “A Thousand Points of Light” foundation, at Texas A&M University. In all, Obama spent far more time with venture capitalists and Bush loyalists than with the people of New Orleans.
The visit to the Bush foundation was particularly provocative. It amounted to a message to the American people that when the next disaster hits, they should look to private charity, not the federal government, for assistance.
This is in keeping with the record of the Obama administration on reconstruction of the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast. Last month, the Institute for Southern Studies published a survey of 50 community leaders from coastal Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, who gave the Obama administration a D+ for its recovery efforts, only slightly better than the D- they awarded the Bush administration.
The only area where Obama rated a C- was in his willingness to “publicly acknowledge the challenges facing recovering Gulf Coast communities.” In other words, Obama is better than Bush in talking about recovery, but gets the same D’s for doing anything about it.
The administration’s lowest scores came on the biggest reconstruction issues: helping displaced families return home, rebuilding infrastructure, increasing protection against hurricanes, and reviving the coastal economy through job-creation.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune cited an Obama administration document revealing that the Second Congressional District of Louisiana, which comprises most of Orleans Parish and the entire city of New Orleans, was receiving the lowest amount of funding for any congressional district in the country from the economic stimulus package passed last February.
The social needs in the area remain enormous. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, there are 62,557 homes vacant or abandoned in Orleans Parish, about one third of the total number of homes in existence before Katrina. A survey showed that 40 percent of these abandoned or vacant homes showed signs of habitation, in some cases by the former owners attempting to rebuild, in other cases by squatters and the homeless.
The Katrina Recovery Index published by the Institute of Southern Studies gives a glimpse of the dimensions of the social crisis in New Orleans, more than four years after Katrina:
• 100,000 displaced persons from New Orleans are now living in Houston, Texas.
• The percentage of households with children in New Orleans has fallen from 30 percent to 20 percent.
• Only 752 federal housing vouchers have been issued in New Orleans; since the waiting list for vouchers was established, 16 people on it have died.
• Rents in New Orleans are up 40 percent since Katrina.
• Demand for emergency food relief at New Orleans-area food pantries is up 35 percent.
• 60 percent of New Orleans school children now attend privately-operated charter schools.
• 43 percent of the city’s medical facilities have not reopened since Katrina.
• Two-thirds of the city’s population reports chronic health problems, up 45 percent since 2006.
• The suicide rate in New Orleans is up 200 percent since Katrina, while only one local hospital provides in-patient mental health care.
• Louisiana ranks 50th among US states for overall health care quality.
Obama in New Orleans: The callous face of the US ruling elite
By Patrick Martin
17 October 2009
In a brief, four-hour stopover in New Orleans en route to a fund-raising dinner with millionaire Democrats in California, President Barack Obama made perfunctory promises to the people of the devastated city, barely disguising his indifference to their plight.
The visit, coming one day after the stock market soared above 10,000 and the Wall Street Journal estimated that compensation at major banks and financial firms would hit a record $140 billion this year, underscored the chasm that separates rich and poor in Obama’s America.
Obama has waited nine months from his inauguration to visit the city which in 2005 became a worldwide symbol of the failure of the Bush administration and the callousness of the US ruling elite, as more than 1,000 Americans died and hundreds of thousands of poor and working class people lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.
The New Orleans visit was intended as a photo-op, with heartwarming footage of cheering school children and grateful citizens, but the reality of growing popular disillusionment and anger intruded when a college student challenged Obama during his appearance at a town hall meeting at the University of New Orleans.
Gabriel Bordenave, 29, cited the continued stalling by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on funds to rebuild the main health care facility for the poor of New Orleans, Charity Hospital. “I expected as much from the Bush administration,” he told Obama, “but why are we still being nickel-and-dimed?”
Obama responded defensively with political boilerplate. His administration was “working as hard as we can as quickly as we can,” he said, citing unspecified “complications” in coordinating efforts with state and local governments—although he had just defended Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin when they were booed by the crowd during introductions.
“I wish I could just write a check,” he continued, and someone in the audience shouted out, “Why not?”
Obama was visibly put out, first by Bordenave’s question, then by the interruption. He proceeded to lecture his critics: “You say, why not? There’s this whole thing about the Constitution.” He then continued that in Washington, “everyone will attack you for spending money, unless you are spending it on them.”
This was a thinly concealed slur. His audience of hurricane survivors, Obama was suggesting, were just another special interest group seeking money from the federal government. Bordenave later told the New York Times, “I kind of thought (the Constitution reference) was a blow-off answer.”
While claiming that his administration would not follow the example of its predecessor in ignoring the suffering caused by Katrina, Obama mimicked one of the most notorious episodes of the Bush presidency. Bush left his Texas ranch to fly over the hurricane zone in early September 2005, on his way to Washington. Obama stopped off in New Orleans for three hours and 45 minutes on his way to a fundraising event in San Francisco.
At the Westin St. Francis Hotel, nearly 1,000 well-heeled supporters packed a ballroom, paying up to $1,000 each, while 160 high rollers chipped in $34,000 per couple for dinner with the president upstairs. Obama was introduced at the dinner by Mark Gorenberg, managing director of the venture capital firm Hummer Winblad. Joining them at the podium was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband is a multimillionaire real estate investor.
Obama’s performance in New Orleans was so callous and arrogant that it drew criticism from two African-American columnists usually in the administration camp, both writing on their newspapers’ web sites. Jim Mitchell of the Dallas Morning-News observed that the president “snaps at a person who asks a very reasonable question—why the area doesn’t have a full service hospital back up and running so many years after Katrina.” He added that Obama’s response was “snide, elusive, and surprisingly, politically tone deaf.”
Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post called Obama’s “brief display of drive-by compassion” in New Orleans “by far the worst outing of his presidency thus far.” Dismissing Obama’s claim that it was difficult to expedite the flow of funds to the storm-ravaged area, he wrote: “We now know that our government can make hundreds of billions of dollars available to irresponsible Wall Street institutions within a matter of days, if necessary. We can open up the floodgates of credit to too-big-to-fail banks at the stroke of a pen. But when it comes to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, well, these things take time.”
The contrast is indeed stark. While Obama boasted of having freed up $1.5 billion in federal funds for Gulf Coast recovery projects since taking office, this compares to more than $12 trillion made available to Wall Street financial interests—8,000 times more. Obama’s new money for Katrina recovery is less than one week’s expenditure on the war in Afghanistan.
The indifference of the president was demonstrated in the perfunctory character of his tour of the hurricane zone. He stopped at a public charter school in the Lower Ninth Ward, the same school visited by George W. Bush during one of his post-Katrina jaunts. The school sits in an area that remains 75 percent uninhabited. Then the presidential motorcade made its way to the University of New Orleans field house for an hour-long town hall, and Obama was on his way back to the airport.
Obama did not bother to visit the other areas hardest hit by Katrina, including the vast New Orleans East area, which remains the site of mile upon mile of flood damage, or the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast.
It was not that Obama lacked time to go to these areas. The day after his stopover in New Orleans, he was back in the region for an event with George H. W. Bush, to mark the 20th anniversary of the former president’s “A Thousand Points of Light” foundation, at Texas A&M University. In all, Obama spent far more time with venture capitalists and Bush loyalists than with the people of New Orleans.
The visit to the Bush foundation was particularly provocative. It amounted to a message to the American people that when the next disaster hits, they should look to private charity, not the federal government, for assistance.
This is in keeping with the record of the Obama administration on reconstruction of the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast. Last month, the Institute for Southern Studies published a survey of 50 community leaders from coastal Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, who gave the Obama administration a D+ for its recovery efforts, only slightly better than the D- they awarded the Bush administration.
The only area where Obama rated a C- was in his willingness to “publicly acknowledge the challenges facing recovering Gulf Coast communities.” In other words, Obama is better than Bush in talking about recovery, but gets the same D’s for doing anything about it.
The administration’s lowest scores came on the biggest reconstruction issues: helping displaced families return home, rebuilding infrastructure, increasing protection against hurricanes, and reviving the coastal economy through job-creation.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune cited an Obama administration document revealing that the Second Congressional District of Louisiana, which comprises most of Orleans Parish and the entire city of New Orleans, was receiving the lowest amount of funding for any congressional district in the country from the economic stimulus package passed last February.
The social needs in the area remain enormous. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, there are 62,557 homes vacant or abandoned in Orleans Parish, about one third of the total number of homes in existence before Katrina. A survey showed that 40 percent of these abandoned or vacant homes showed signs of habitation, in some cases by the former owners attempting to rebuild, in other cases by squatters and the homeless.
The Katrina Recovery Index published by the Institute of Southern Studies gives a glimpse of the dimensions of the social crisis in New Orleans, more than four years after Katrina:
• 100,000 displaced persons from New Orleans are now living in Houston, Texas.
• The percentage of households with children in New Orleans has fallen from 30 percent to 20 percent.
• Only 752 federal housing vouchers have been issued in New Orleans; since the waiting list for vouchers was established, 16 people on it have died.
• Rents in New Orleans are up 40 percent since Katrina.
• Demand for emergency food relief at New Orleans-area food pantries is up 35 percent.
• 60 percent of New Orleans school children now attend privately-operated charter schools.
• 43 percent of the city’s medical facilities have not reopened since Katrina.
• Two-thirds of the city’s population reports chronic health problems, up 45 percent since 2006.
• The suicide rate in New Orleans is up 200 percent since Katrina, while only one local hospital provides in-patient mental health care.
• Louisiana ranks 50th among US states for overall health care quality.
Michael Moore's Action Plan
"Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now"
You've Seen the Movie -- Now It's Time to ACT!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Friends,
It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"
You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.
Here they are:
FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:
1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.
2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.
3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.
4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)
5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!
FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:
1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter!
2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE. It's time to re-up! Get everyone back together and go to the monthly meeting of your town or county Democratic Party -- and become the majority that runs it! There will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking like you mean business. President Obama's agenda will never happen without mass grass roots action -- and he won't feel encouraged to do the right thing if no one has his back, whether it's to stand with him, or push him in the right direction. When you all become the local Democratic Party, send me a photo of the group and I'll post it on my website.
3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don't have to settle for the incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don't believe it can happen? Check out these examples of regular citizens who got elected: State Senator Deb Simpson, California State Assemblyman Isadore Hall, Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods, Wisconsin State Assemblyman Chris Danou, and Washington State Representative Larry Seaquist. The list goes on and on -- and you should be on it!
4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website.)
5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you and a couple friends). The mainstream media is owned by corporate America and, with few exceptions, it will never tell the whole truth -- so you have to do it! Start a blog! Start a website of real local news (here's an example: The Michigan Messenger). Tweet your friends and use Facebook to let them know what they need to do politically. The daily papers are dying. If you don't fill that void, who will?
FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:
1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.
2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card.
3. Do not invest in the stock market. If you have any extra cash, put it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your mother some flowers.
4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run. Here's how to do it (more info here). Nothing is more American than democracy, and democracy shouldn't be checked at the door when you enter your workplace. Another way to Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free person, and you giving up eight hours of your life every day to someone else is to be properly compensated and respected.
5. Take care of yourself and your family. Sorry to go all Oprah on you, but she's right: Find a place of peace in your life and make the choice to be around people who are not full of negativity and cynicism. Look for those who nurture and love. Turn off the TV and the Blackberry and go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat fruits and vegetables and cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (and, as Michael Pollan says, "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants"). Get seven hours of sleep each night and take the time to read a book a month. I know this sounds like I've turned into your grandma, but, dammit, take a good hard look at Granny -- she's fit, she's rested and she knows the names of both of her U.S. Senators without having to Google them. We might do well to listen to her. If we don't put our own "oxygen mask" on first (as they say on the airplane), we will be of no use to the rest of the nation in enacting any of this action plan!
I'm sure there are many other ideas you can come up with on how we can build this movement. Get creative. Think outside the politics-as-usual box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried. Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something with reckless abandon. It may just liberate you and your community and your nation.
And when you act, send me your stories, your photos and your video -- and be sure to post your ideas in the comments beneath this letter on my site so they can be shared with millions.
C'mon people -- we can do this! I expect nothing less of all of you, my true and trusted fellow travelers!
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
You've Seen the Movie -- Now It's Time to ACT!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Friends,
It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"
You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.
Here they are:
FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:
1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.
2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.
3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.
4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)
5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!
FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:
1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter!
2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE. It's time to re-up! Get everyone back together and go to the monthly meeting of your town or county Democratic Party -- and become the majority that runs it! There will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking like you mean business. President Obama's agenda will never happen without mass grass roots action -- and he won't feel encouraged to do the right thing if no one has his back, whether it's to stand with him, or push him in the right direction. When you all become the local Democratic Party, send me a photo of the group and I'll post it on my website.
3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don't have to settle for the incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don't believe it can happen? Check out these examples of regular citizens who got elected: State Senator Deb Simpson, California State Assemblyman Isadore Hall, Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods, Wisconsin State Assemblyman Chris Danou, and Washington State Representative Larry Seaquist. The list goes on and on -- and you should be on it!
4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website.)
5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you and a couple friends). The mainstream media is owned by corporate America and, with few exceptions, it will never tell the whole truth -- so you have to do it! Start a blog! Start a website of real local news (here's an example: The Michigan Messenger). Tweet your friends and use Facebook to let them know what they need to do politically. The daily papers are dying. If you don't fill that void, who will?
FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:
1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.
2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card.
3. Do not invest in the stock market. If you have any extra cash, put it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your mother some flowers.
4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run. Here's how to do it (more info here). Nothing is more American than democracy, and democracy shouldn't be checked at the door when you enter your workplace. Another way to Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free person, and you giving up eight hours of your life every day to someone else is to be properly compensated and respected.
5. Take care of yourself and your family. Sorry to go all Oprah on you, but she's right: Find a place of peace in your life and make the choice to be around people who are not full of negativity and cynicism. Look for those who nurture and love. Turn off the TV and the Blackberry and go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat fruits and vegetables and cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (and, as Michael Pollan says, "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants"). Get seven hours of sleep each night and take the time to read a book a month. I know this sounds like I've turned into your grandma, but, dammit, take a good hard look at Granny -- she's fit, she's rested and she knows the names of both of her U.S. Senators without having to Google them. We might do well to listen to her. If we don't put our own "oxygen mask" on first (as they say on the airplane), we will be of no use to the rest of the nation in enacting any of this action plan!
I'm sure there are many other ideas you can come up with on how we can build this movement. Get creative. Think outside the politics-as-usual box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried. Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something with reckless abandon. It may just liberate you and your community and your nation.
And when you act, send me your stories, your photos and your video -- and be sure to post your ideas in the comments beneath this letter on my site so they can be shared with millions.
C'mon people -- we can do this! I expect nothing less of all of you, my true and trusted fellow travelers!
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, jihadist or patsy?
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5264.shtml
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, jihadist or patsy?
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Nov 13, 2009
The story as it unwinds seems too scripted to be true. That Army psychiatrist and Major Nidal M. Hasan went on a rampage at Fort Hood with two guns blazing, a .357 Magnum and a semi-automatic pistol with laser target-finder, after shouting the Arabic phrase ‘Allah Akbar’ (God is Greatest) as he opened fire, and will live (so far) to talk about it, though an Army-appointed lawyer says he will never get a fair trial.
Hasan coincidentally received his masters in chemistry at Virginia Tech, famous for the infamous Seung-Hui Cho, the campus killer gunman credited on April 19, 2007, with the deadliest shooting rampage in modern history. Seung-Hui’s sister curiously works for a State Department office that oversees billions of dollars in American aid for Iraq. See the link to Citizens for Legitimate Government on him and his ‘Missing Records.’ It’s more of the script, the association of Hasan with Seung-Hui.
Consider, too, that in 2007, Major Hasan, who received his medical degree in psychiatry from Walter Reed Hospital, spoke there, warning of threats within the ranks of Muslim Soldiers in a 50-slide Power-Point presentation, titled The Koranic World View As it Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military. “He stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan,” reports the Nov. 10 Washington Post, which includes Hasan’s entire presentation.
Hasan went so far as to say, “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.” How and why these words didn’t get his military superiors to question him seems beyond understanding, unless that, too, was part of the script. Could it be that they felt he was speaking the truth? But there was a more than veiled threat in the presentation, which you’ll see if you read it.
In fact, Hasan entered Walter Reed in 2003 and spent six years as an intern, resident and fellow. He was transferred to Fort Hood as a psychiatrist in July 2009 and was to leave soon for Afghanistan and had asked on numerous occasions not to be deployed. He even offered the U.S. government its money back for his Walter Reed education, every dollar of it. He did not want to fight fellow Muslims. Yet no one raised an eye? This is a U.S. Army major speaking, not some slacker from the sticks trying to dodge combat.
Of course, aside from his glaringly strong (if not correct) feelings against the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, his supervisors found him quite competent counseling wounded PTSD soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the NY Times’ Details Emerge about Fort Hood suspect’s history, “Col. Kimberly Kesling, deputy commander of clinical services at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, said she had known Hasan.
“‘You wouldn’t think that someone who works in your facility and provided excellent care for his patients, which he did, could do something like this,’ Kesling said. She described him as ‘a quiet man who wouldn’t seek the limelight’ and said she was shocked when she heard he was the suspect in the shootings.’” One can only imagine the tales he heard, which would only bolster his philosophical antipathy to the War on Terror, which he considered and claims to be a war on Islam, with which any number of Americans would agree.
This is all vaguely reminiscent of supposed communist-sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald and his feelings for Cuba, which purportedly drove him towards a similar “lone gunman” assassination of President Kennedy, which today is amply questioned by millions of Americans who believe it involved the CIA, the Mob, the Defense Industry, and George H.W. Bush, Sr., among a number of the usual suspects.
Yet, an ABC News headline from Nov. 9 screams Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan Efforts to Contact al Qaeda: Army Major in Fort Hood Massacre Used ‘Electronic Means’ (the computer) to Connect with Terrorists: “U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with an individual associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News. According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan’s contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.”
Why is it unclear, or is it just being withheld, or is there nothing of consequence to report, or is it a sheer lie?
This is coming from ABC News, which on every anniversary of JFK’s assassination, runs a “last word” piece on how it was committed by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, the network being a long-standing CIA front. And here, they have automatically established that the fabled ‘Al Qaeda,’ created, funded, and branded by the CIA, was in contact with Major Hasan. So, what did they do about it? Nothing! Read the balance of the article for the indignant ire of the politicians, so reminiscent of all the leads to the CIA and other presences in the JFK assassination, whose inquiry was led by Allan Dulles, the CIA head Kennedy fired in “1961 over Operation Northwoods, a proposed covert CIA operation aimed at gaining popular support for a war against Cuba by framing Cuba for stage real or simulated attacks on American citizens.”
Of course, echoing ABC News is the New York Times with U.S. Knew of Suspect’s Tie to Radical Cleric. Aha, even more ties on the path to jihad, even more foreknowledge: “Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between the military psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings [itals mine].” And what did they do about it?
“But the federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages from the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, did not suggest any threat of violence and concluding that no further action was warranted, government officials said Monday.” Oh, then why mention it in the first place? It goes on . . .
“Major Hasan’s 10 to 20 messages to Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Major Hasan worshiped, indicate that the troubled [now he’s nuts] military psychiatrist came to the attention of the authorities long before last Thursday’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but that the authorities left him in his post.” Why? Why? Why? Unless it’s all sheer BS.
Is this not reminiscent of 9/11 and the continued incompetence before, during and after it of various intelligence and government agencies, not to mention NORAD, the Pentagon, the executive branch? And nary a soul was fired after the terrible event.
All they could do was blame 19 head-shots of Muslims pulled out of a file by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who wouldn’t claim with complete surety their authenticity. And then the next step was declaring the War on Terror and preemptively, illegally, attacking Afghanistan, supposedly in search of (the Muslim goat) Osama bin Laden, who supposedly engineered it. Several years after 9/11, he was taken off the FBI’s Most Wanted list for the crime for lack of evidence to prove he was responsible for it. And then there was Iraq, claiming this time (the Muslim goat) Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and was about to use them any second, which was subsequently proven totally false.
So now Hasan is buried in Al Qaeda next to a radical cleric with strong anti-American teachings. Paydirt! The news networks have created a grid-like spider-web that holds its fly morsel, Hasan, to shame Islam. Does this not buttress the whole sagging “conspiracy theory” of the administration, particularly as more and more books, DVDs, architects, engineers, military men, pilots speak out against the flaws in the administration’s “9/11 conspiracy theory?” Does this not hit us over the head again with “a Muslim did it, remember 9/11?” Why was the intelligence at Fort Hood, the FBI, and CIA asleep at the wheel -- perhaps part of the script?
It also comes out in the same Times story linked above, “In 2000 and 2001, Mr. Awlaki [the radical cleric] served as an imam at two mosques in the United States frequented by three future Sept. 11 hijackers. Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi attended the Rabat mosque in San Diego, where Mr. Awlaki later admitted meeting Mr. Hazmi several times but ‘claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed,’ according to the report of the national Sept. 11 commission.” Uh huh, uh huh, we’re building to something here and . . .
“Both Mr. Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, later attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., after Mr. Awlaki had moved there in early 2001. The Sept. 11 commission report expressed ‘suspicion’ about the coincidence, but said its investigators were unable to find Mr. Awlaki to question him.” Yes, but . . .
“Major Hasan attended the same Virginia mosque, but it is not known whether they met there.” Hasan attended the same mosque, but it’s not known if he and Hani, the idiot who couldn’t fly a Cessna, met there. But nevertheless we take from this, if you’re political I.Q. isn’t below 40, the implication that Hasan was connected to the hijackers, because he’s a “nut killer terrorist,” too.
Yet who left him to do his killing but the very people in charge of his career. Or maybe someone in the backroom said, “Hands off Hasan. We have other plans for him. He’s in the bigger picture.” Ah, so much like Oswald, or David Chapman who shot John Lennon. Chapman then calmly sat down on the sidewalk after he did it, waiting for the police to come and take him. His handler, the doorman Jose Perdomo, went gone for the day, saying bye-bye to Chapman, as this Manchurian patsy went off to life imprisonment. And not in a mental hospital, but in a straight-up prison, which he “chose” to do, uh huh, uh huh.
And yet there’s more. Hasan supposedly wasn’t a lone gunman. No, he had three accomplices they say, one dead, and two in custody. Sort of makes sense. I mean to kill 13 people and wound 29 in a matter of minutes, supposedly thrusting a hundred rounds of ammo into the clips of his two pistols, Hasan would have to be John Wayne plus Superman. It would ruin the whole movie. But who are the accomplices? Well, there’s an account from CNN of the capture of one of them on a golf course two and a half miles away as 30 to 40 sirening cars full of MPs came to get him. Here is the short piece . . .
“(CNN) -- A senior officer who was playing golf Thursday near Fort Hood, Texas, told CNN he witnessed the arrest of one of the two surviving suspects of the shooting at the Army installation.
“Shortly after the shooting, the officer said, military police told him to clear the course and he saw other MPs surround the building that held the golf carts, he said.
The senior officer said he ducked into a nearby house for cover as 30 to 40 cars carrying MPs approached.
“He said he saw a soldier in battle-dress uniform, his hands in the air. The MPs ordered him to lie on the ground and open his uniform, presumably to ensure he was not carrying explosives, the senior officer said.” Presumably, they found no bomb.
“He said an MP told him that authorities considered the man to be a suspect in the shootings after having overheard the man say he was with the shooter. The man was surrounded for 25 to 30 minutes, until a convoy of vehicles arrived, led by a Ford Crown Victoria and carrying men in suits, and he was taken away, the senior officer said.” Sirening up to a suspect in 40 cars, wow, that’s stealth for you. And who was the man? And where is he now?
But they probably caught a few other suspects as well. I wonder if they’re all Muslims. And speaking of that, how do we jibe Hasan’s violent nature with Reuters’ article U.S. Army gunman’s act “impossible” – grandfather, who by the way lives on the West Bank in Palestine, where the Hasan family came from via Jordan to America.
“AL-BIREH, West Bank, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The grandfather of a U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting dead 13 people and wounding 30 others at a base in Texas said on Saturday he found it impossible to believe his grandson had committed the act.
“’He is a doctor and loves the U.S.’ Ismail Mustafa Hamad told Reuters in an interview at his home in the Palestinian town of al-Bireh. ‘America made him what he is.’” Now, there’s a certain, deep irony to that statement.
The article concludes ”Hasan, who had spent years counseling wounded soldiers, many of whom had lost limbs fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, last visited him in the occupied West Bank some 10 years ago. Hamad said he had since visited his grandson in the United States. Hamad appeared to rule out a political motive.” Didn’t the poor old man know everything is political everywhere in this universe?
And so it goes, the contradictions, the lies, the suspected truth of what this orchestrated event means, and how it will bolster, supercharge resentment against Muslims once again and perpetuate our wars against their nations. And the folks who hold the puppet strings, will we be seeing them, hearing from them, or just listening to their news releases? Conflicting, accusatory, guilt in the highest from association, etc. All I can say is, “Good night, America, and good luck.”
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net. His new book, “State Of Shock: Poems from 9/11 on” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, jihadist or patsy?
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Nov 13, 2009
The story as it unwinds seems too scripted to be true. That Army psychiatrist and Major Nidal M. Hasan went on a rampage at Fort Hood with two guns blazing, a .357 Magnum and a semi-automatic pistol with laser target-finder, after shouting the Arabic phrase ‘Allah Akbar’ (God is Greatest) as he opened fire, and will live (so far) to talk about it, though an Army-appointed lawyer says he will never get a fair trial.
Hasan coincidentally received his masters in chemistry at Virginia Tech, famous for the infamous Seung-Hui Cho, the campus killer gunman credited on April 19, 2007, with the deadliest shooting rampage in modern history. Seung-Hui’s sister curiously works for a State Department office that oversees billions of dollars in American aid for Iraq. See the link to Citizens for Legitimate Government on him and his ‘Missing Records.’ It’s more of the script, the association of Hasan with Seung-Hui.
Consider, too, that in 2007, Major Hasan, who received his medical degree in psychiatry from Walter Reed Hospital, spoke there, warning of threats within the ranks of Muslim Soldiers in a 50-slide Power-Point presentation, titled The Koranic World View As it Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military. “He stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan,” reports the Nov. 10 Washington Post, which includes Hasan’s entire presentation.
Hasan went so far as to say, “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.” How and why these words didn’t get his military superiors to question him seems beyond understanding, unless that, too, was part of the script. Could it be that they felt he was speaking the truth? But there was a more than veiled threat in the presentation, which you’ll see if you read it.
In fact, Hasan entered Walter Reed in 2003 and spent six years as an intern, resident and fellow. He was transferred to Fort Hood as a psychiatrist in July 2009 and was to leave soon for Afghanistan and had asked on numerous occasions not to be deployed. He even offered the U.S. government its money back for his Walter Reed education, every dollar of it. He did not want to fight fellow Muslims. Yet no one raised an eye? This is a U.S. Army major speaking, not some slacker from the sticks trying to dodge combat.
Of course, aside from his glaringly strong (if not correct) feelings against the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, his supervisors found him quite competent counseling wounded PTSD soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the NY Times’ Details Emerge about Fort Hood suspect’s history, “Col. Kimberly Kesling, deputy commander of clinical services at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, said she had known Hasan.
“‘You wouldn’t think that someone who works in your facility and provided excellent care for his patients, which he did, could do something like this,’ Kesling said. She described him as ‘a quiet man who wouldn’t seek the limelight’ and said she was shocked when she heard he was the suspect in the shootings.’” One can only imagine the tales he heard, which would only bolster his philosophical antipathy to the War on Terror, which he considered and claims to be a war on Islam, with which any number of Americans would agree.
This is all vaguely reminiscent of supposed communist-sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald and his feelings for Cuba, which purportedly drove him towards a similar “lone gunman” assassination of President Kennedy, which today is amply questioned by millions of Americans who believe it involved the CIA, the Mob, the Defense Industry, and George H.W. Bush, Sr., among a number of the usual suspects.
Yet, an ABC News headline from Nov. 9 screams Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan Efforts to Contact al Qaeda: Army Major in Fort Hood Massacre Used ‘Electronic Means’ (the computer) to Connect with Terrorists: “U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with an individual associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News. According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan’s contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.”
Why is it unclear, or is it just being withheld, or is there nothing of consequence to report, or is it a sheer lie?
This is coming from ABC News, which on every anniversary of JFK’s assassination, runs a “last word” piece on how it was committed by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, the network being a long-standing CIA front. And here, they have automatically established that the fabled ‘Al Qaeda,’ created, funded, and branded by the CIA, was in contact with Major Hasan. So, what did they do about it? Nothing! Read the balance of the article for the indignant ire of the politicians, so reminiscent of all the leads to the CIA and other presences in the JFK assassination, whose inquiry was led by Allan Dulles, the CIA head Kennedy fired in “1961 over Operation Northwoods, a proposed covert CIA operation aimed at gaining popular support for a war against Cuba by framing Cuba for stage real or simulated attacks on American citizens.”
Of course, echoing ABC News is the New York Times with U.S. Knew of Suspect’s Tie to Radical Cleric. Aha, even more ties on the path to jihad, even more foreknowledge: “Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between the military psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings [itals mine].” And what did they do about it?
“But the federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages from the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, did not suggest any threat of violence and concluding that no further action was warranted, government officials said Monday.” Oh, then why mention it in the first place? It goes on . . .
“Major Hasan’s 10 to 20 messages to Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Major Hasan worshiped, indicate that the troubled [now he’s nuts] military psychiatrist came to the attention of the authorities long before last Thursday’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but that the authorities left him in his post.” Why? Why? Why? Unless it’s all sheer BS.
Is this not reminiscent of 9/11 and the continued incompetence before, during and after it of various intelligence and government agencies, not to mention NORAD, the Pentagon, the executive branch? And nary a soul was fired after the terrible event.
All they could do was blame 19 head-shots of Muslims pulled out of a file by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who wouldn’t claim with complete surety their authenticity. And then the next step was declaring the War on Terror and preemptively, illegally, attacking Afghanistan, supposedly in search of (the Muslim goat) Osama bin Laden, who supposedly engineered it. Several years after 9/11, he was taken off the FBI’s Most Wanted list for the crime for lack of evidence to prove he was responsible for it. And then there was Iraq, claiming this time (the Muslim goat) Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and was about to use them any second, which was subsequently proven totally false.
So now Hasan is buried in Al Qaeda next to a radical cleric with strong anti-American teachings. Paydirt! The news networks have created a grid-like spider-web that holds its fly morsel, Hasan, to shame Islam. Does this not buttress the whole sagging “conspiracy theory” of the administration, particularly as more and more books, DVDs, architects, engineers, military men, pilots speak out against the flaws in the administration’s “9/11 conspiracy theory?” Does this not hit us over the head again with “a Muslim did it, remember 9/11?” Why was the intelligence at Fort Hood, the FBI, and CIA asleep at the wheel -- perhaps part of the script?
It also comes out in the same Times story linked above, “In 2000 and 2001, Mr. Awlaki [the radical cleric] served as an imam at two mosques in the United States frequented by three future Sept. 11 hijackers. Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi attended the Rabat mosque in San Diego, where Mr. Awlaki later admitted meeting Mr. Hazmi several times but ‘claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed,’ according to the report of the national Sept. 11 commission.” Uh huh, uh huh, we’re building to something here and . . .
“Both Mr. Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, later attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., after Mr. Awlaki had moved there in early 2001. The Sept. 11 commission report expressed ‘suspicion’ about the coincidence, but said its investigators were unable to find Mr. Awlaki to question him.” Yes, but . . .
“Major Hasan attended the same Virginia mosque, but it is not known whether they met there.” Hasan attended the same mosque, but it’s not known if he and Hani, the idiot who couldn’t fly a Cessna, met there. But nevertheless we take from this, if you’re political I.Q. isn’t below 40, the implication that Hasan was connected to the hijackers, because he’s a “nut killer terrorist,” too.
Yet who left him to do his killing but the very people in charge of his career. Or maybe someone in the backroom said, “Hands off Hasan. We have other plans for him. He’s in the bigger picture.” Ah, so much like Oswald, or David Chapman who shot John Lennon. Chapman then calmly sat down on the sidewalk after he did it, waiting for the police to come and take him. His handler, the doorman Jose Perdomo, went gone for the day, saying bye-bye to Chapman, as this Manchurian patsy went off to life imprisonment. And not in a mental hospital, but in a straight-up prison, which he “chose” to do, uh huh, uh huh.
And yet there’s more. Hasan supposedly wasn’t a lone gunman. No, he had three accomplices they say, one dead, and two in custody. Sort of makes sense. I mean to kill 13 people and wound 29 in a matter of minutes, supposedly thrusting a hundred rounds of ammo into the clips of his two pistols, Hasan would have to be John Wayne plus Superman. It would ruin the whole movie. But who are the accomplices? Well, there’s an account from CNN of the capture of one of them on a golf course two and a half miles away as 30 to 40 sirening cars full of MPs came to get him. Here is the short piece . . .
“(CNN) -- A senior officer who was playing golf Thursday near Fort Hood, Texas, told CNN he witnessed the arrest of one of the two surviving suspects of the shooting at the Army installation.
“Shortly after the shooting, the officer said, military police told him to clear the course and he saw other MPs surround the building that held the golf carts, he said.
The senior officer said he ducked into a nearby house for cover as 30 to 40 cars carrying MPs approached.
“He said he saw a soldier in battle-dress uniform, his hands in the air. The MPs ordered him to lie on the ground and open his uniform, presumably to ensure he was not carrying explosives, the senior officer said.” Presumably, they found no bomb.
“He said an MP told him that authorities considered the man to be a suspect in the shootings after having overheard the man say he was with the shooter. The man was surrounded for 25 to 30 minutes, until a convoy of vehicles arrived, led by a Ford Crown Victoria and carrying men in suits, and he was taken away, the senior officer said.” Sirening up to a suspect in 40 cars, wow, that’s stealth for you. And who was the man? And where is he now?
But they probably caught a few other suspects as well. I wonder if they’re all Muslims. And speaking of that, how do we jibe Hasan’s violent nature with Reuters’ article U.S. Army gunman’s act “impossible” – grandfather, who by the way lives on the West Bank in Palestine, where the Hasan family came from via Jordan to America.
“AL-BIREH, West Bank, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The grandfather of a U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of shooting dead 13 people and wounding 30 others at a base in Texas said on Saturday he found it impossible to believe his grandson had committed the act.
“’He is a doctor and loves the U.S.’ Ismail Mustafa Hamad told Reuters in an interview at his home in the Palestinian town of al-Bireh. ‘America made him what he is.’” Now, there’s a certain, deep irony to that statement.
The article concludes ”Hasan, who had spent years counseling wounded soldiers, many of whom had lost limbs fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, last visited him in the occupied West Bank some 10 years ago. Hamad said he had since visited his grandson in the United States. Hamad appeared to rule out a political motive.” Didn’t the poor old man know everything is political everywhere in this universe?
And so it goes, the contradictions, the lies, the suspected truth of what this orchestrated event means, and how it will bolster, supercharge resentment against Muslims once again and perpetuate our wars against their nations. And the folks who hold the puppet strings, will we be seeing them, hearing from them, or just listening to their news releases? Conflicting, accusatory, guilt in the highest from association, etc. All I can say is, “Good night, America, and good luck.”
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net. His new book, “State Of Shock: Poems from 9/11 on” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.
After Mickey’s Makeover, Less Mr. Nice Guy
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/business/media/05mickey.htmlAfter Mickey’s Makeover, Less Mr. Nice Guy
By BROOKS BARNES
November 4, 2009
LOS ANGELES — For decades, the Walt Disney Company has largely kept Mickey Mouse frozen under glass, fearful that even the tiniest tinkering might tarnish the brand and upend his $5 billion or so in annual merchandise sales. One false move and Disney could have New Coke on its hands.
Now, however, concerned that Mickey has become more of a corporate symbol than a beloved character for recent generations of young people, Disney is taking the risky step of re-imagining him for the future.
The first glimmer of this will be the introduction next year of a new video game, Epic Mickey, in which the formerly squeaky clean character can be cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic, as he traverses a forbidding wasteland.
And at the same time, in a parallel but separate effort, Disney has quietly embarked on an even larger project to rethink the character’s personality, from the way Mickey walks and talks to the way he appears on the Disney Channel and how children interact with him on the Web — even what his house looks like at Disney World.
“Holy cow, the opportunity to mess with one of the most recognizable icons on Planet Earth,” said Warren Spector, the creative director of Junction Point, a Disney-owned game developer that spearheaded Epic Mickey.
The effort to re-engineer Mickey is still in its early stages, but it involves the top creative and marketing minds in the company, all the way up to Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive.
The project was given new impetus this week with the announcement that, after 20 years of negotiations, the company has finally received the blessing of the Chinese government to open a theme park in Shanghai, potentially unlocking a new giant market for all things Mickey.
Disney executives are treading carefully, and trying to keep a low profile, as they discuss how much they dare tweak one of the most durable characters in pop culture history to induce new generations of texting, tech-savvy children to embrace him. Disney executives will keenly watch how Epic Mickey is received, to inform the broader overhaul.
Keeping cartoon characters trapped in amber is one of the surest routes to irrelevancy. While Mickey remains a superstar in many homes, particularly overseas, his static nature has resulted in a generation of Americans — the one that grew up with Nickelodeon and Pixar — that knows him, but may not love him. Domestic sales in particular have declined: of his $5 billion in merchandise sales in 2009, less than 20 percent will come from the United States.
“There’s a distinct risk of alienating your core consumer when you tweak a sacred character, but at this point it’s a risk they have to take,” said Matt Britton, the managing partner of Mr. Youth, a New York brand consultant firm.
In Epic Mickey, the foundation of which a group of interns dreamed up in 2004, the title character still exhibits the hallmarks that younger generations know: he is adventurous, enthusiastic and curious. “Mickey is never going to be evil or go around killing people,” Mr. Spector said.
But Mickey won’t be bland anymore, either. “I wanted him to be able to be naughty — when you’re playing as Mickey you can misbehave and even be a little selfish,” Mr. Spector said.
In many ways, it is a return to Mickey at his creation. When the character made its debut in “Steamboat Willie” in 1928, he was the Bart Simpson of his time: an uninhibited rabble-rouser who got into fistfights, played tricks on his friends (pity Clarabelle Cow) and, later, was amorously aggressive with Minnie.
Epic Mickey, designed for Nintendo’s Wii console, is set in a “cartoon wasteland” where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations live. The chief inhabitant is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a cartoon character Walt Disney created in 1927 as a precursor to Mickey but ultimately abandoned in a dispute with Universal Studios. In the game, Oswald has become bitter and envious of Mickey’s popularity. The game also features a disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck and a “twisted, broken, dangerous” version of Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World.” Using paint and thinner thrown from a magic paintbrush, Mickey must stop the Phantom Blot overlord, gain the trust of Oswald and save the day.
Consumers will not be able to buy the game before fall of next year. Anticipation is intense. “Wow! This is amazing,” said Eli Gee on GameInformer.com. “I’m really... REALLY excited.”
Other observers are less impressed. “The approach warrants a lot of caution given the difficulty that publishers have had gaining traction on the Wii,” said Doug Creutz, a media analyst at Cowen and Company.
Industry veterans with experience in the family niche think that the Disney brand can overcome such hurdles.
“This is a huge opportunity to create more relevancy for Mickey and pull him into the fastest-growing entertainment medium,” said Jim Wilson, the chief executive of Atari’s North American business. “If it’s a good game — and given the strength of the developer and I.P., the likelihood of that is high — people are going to buy it.”
Not that the idea is not radical. “I was told to withhold judgment until I had seen the whole pitch,” said Graham Hopper, executive vice president for Disney Interactive Studios.
Disney has big video game ambitions, spending at least $180 million on their development this year alone. It has had successful spinoff titles, but no true self-published blockbusters. Disney generated about $86 million in retail sales from January to September in the United States, according to NPD data. Nintendo of America, the leading seller of games, had about $1 billion in sales.
Mr. Iger solved a right problems with the game by making a deal with NBC Universal in 2006. In the negotiations, Mr. Iger persuaded NBC Universal to trade the Oswald rights for rights to Al Michaels, the sportscaster. NBC wanted Mr. Michaels for its new football franchise and Mr. Michaels wanted to go, but Disney held him in a longtime contract through its ESPN unit.
In the interim, Mr. Spector has struggled with the correct 3-D model of the mouse, consulting with animators and John Lasseter, the Pixar co-founder.
Considerable effort has gone into instilling a backdrop of choice and consequence. Players can either behave in an entirely happy way and help other characters — and have an easier go of it in the wasteland — or choose more selfish, destructive behavior with a harsher outcome, including a Mickey that starts to physically resemble a rat.
“Ultimately,” Mr. Spector said, “players must ask themselves, ‘What kind of hero am I?’ ”
When it comes to Mickey, Disney is asking it, too.
A version of this article appeared in print on November 5, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.
Babewatch
Part I
Maxim Meets Battlestar Galactica
These photos of Grace Park & Tricia Helfer remind me I should've been following Battlestar Galactica more closely...
Photos courtesy of Maxim and JustJared.buzznet.com
Part 2: M.I.A.
M.I.A. in a shark shirt and leather pants...
Part 3: Shakira Rolling Stone Cover
Part 4: Jessica Alba Machete Poster
Part 5: Eliza Dushku in DollhouseWe're going to miss this show...
The Coming Labor War in the NFL
By Dave Zirin
When Rush Limbaugh was unceremoniously dumped in his efforts to secure a minority share of the St. Louis Rams, he may have been little more than collateral damage in a brewing collision between NFL owners and the NFL Players Association. After the union raised objections, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell squashed Limbaugh like a waterbug. Given the potential conflict brewing between NFL management and labor, Rush was a public relations disaster Goodell could hardly afford.
The collective bargaining agreement is due to expire at the end of the 2010 season and all signs are that an era of labor/management partnership is not at hand. As Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King wrote this week, “It's going to get ugly. There's better than a 50-percent chance, I believe, of some work stoppage in 2011, as incredibly golden-goose-killing as that sounds.”
The idea of a labor stoppage could revive a rack of memories the owners want best buried. During the 1980s, the NFL was the site of two of the most bitter sports strikes/lockouts in history. In 1987, when “scab football” was played by “the replacements” in front of half empty stadiums, locked out players in some NFL cities brought rifles to their picket lines. In others, they physically assaulted the scab players that attempted to break the lines. In today’s 24-hour sports media environment, the idea of round-the-clock picket line drama, is nothing the owners want.
The negotiations also occur within the context of a new study showing that retired NFL players suffer from advanced Alzheimer’s disease and other brain trauma at five times the national rate among men over 50. For men under 50, the number is 19 times the national rate. Congress held hearings in the subject last week and both the union and the owners are going to be pressed to explain why so little has been done for so long. For years the owners have spoken about concussions the way the tobacco industry used to bleat about lung cancer. They would say “research has not shown” that football causes the attendant brain injuries. Those days are done. Both the union and owners will be pressed to address this during the upcoming negotiations.
But that will require a spirit of cooperation that may not exist as negotiations are brought to a boil. The issues that separate them seem minor: NFLPA President Smith and the union want more financial transparency. The owners want to dial back concessions they made in the last CBA and get a larger share of the revenue back.
But the two main sources of tension aren’t on the bargaining table: The first is the economy. The NFL, long thought to be recession proof is feeling the squeeze. In the best of times, football is a blue-collar game at white-collar prices. But this year attendance has dropped, in no small part because ticket prices remain prohibitive even amidst the crisis. A family of four, purchasing modest concessions, will now pay over $400. The result is that empty seats dot stadiums around the country. This leads to “blackouts” where games aren’t broadcast in local markets. In 2008, only nine games were blacked out during the entire season. In 2009 Jacksonville alone has already announced that they will have to blackout eight. The league will want to cut costs in this climate and the union will feel a need to hold the line. The golden goose has lost a bit of its luster.
It’s worth noting that the NFL is only highest profile example of the economic crisis pervading the world of sports. The National Football League's red-headed stepchild, the Arena Football League, had to cancel its last season. In 2009, 21 of the 30 Major League Baseball teams saw attendance drops. The Ladies Professional Golf Association has seen their corporate sponsorships flee and the Women’s National Basketball Association eliminated roster spots in preparation for a downturn.,
The National Basketball Association in particular has looked vulnerable in the current climate. The league took out a $175 million line of credit to aid financially failing teams even though Commissioner David Stern tried to spin this as a sign of the league's health, which was a little bit sad. The NBA also has contract negotiations after the 2010 season which could make the NFL battle look tepid by comparison. It’s this dire economy which stands as the primary reason labor peace won’t be coming to the NFL.
While the dire economy is the primary reason to bet against labor peace in the NFL, another good one is new Players Association president DeMaurice Smith. The NFLPA is generally seen as the weakest of the sports unions because it’s the only league without guaranteed contracts. Smith, a connected Capitol Hill lawyer, was elected in March following the sudden death of Gene Upshaw, wants to show that despite not being a former player he will be strong for his players. Upon assuming leadership he said, “There isn’t a day where I don’t hope for peace, but at the same time, there isn’t a day where we won’t prepare for war.”
Smith has told ESPN that he has called upon his players to put aside 25 percent of their salaries over the next two years. “I look at the way in which it looks like we’re moving to this lockout, and first and foremost, we have to be in a position where our young men are in a position to be able to take care of themselves and their families,” he said.
It’s this combative stance, along with declining revenues that signal to many an NFL watcher that the golden goose might soon be cooked.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
When Rush Limbaugh was unceremoniously dumped in his efforts to secure a minority share of the St. Louis Rams, he may have been little more than collateral damage in a brewing collision between NFL owners and the NFL Players Association. After the union raised objections, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell squashed Limbaugh like a waterbug. Given the potential conflict brewing between NFL management and labor, Rush was a public relations disaster Goodell could hardly afford.
The collective bargaining agreement is due to expire at the end of the 2010 season and all signs are that an era of labor/management partnership is not at hand. As Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King wrote this week, “It's going to get ugly. There's better than a 50-percent chance, I believe, of some work stoppage in 2011, as incredibly golden-goose-killing as that sounds.”
The idea of a labor stoppage could revive a rack of memories the owners want best buried. During the 1980s, the NFL was the site of two of the most bitter sports strikes/lockouts in history. In 1987, when “scab football” was played by “the replacements” in front of half empty stadiums, locked out players in some NFL cities brought rifles to their picket lines. In others, they physically assaulted the scab players that attempted to break the lines. In today’s 24-hour sports media environment, the idea of round-the-clock picket line drama, is nothing the owners want.
The negotiations also occur within the context of a new study showing that retired NFL players suffer from advanced Alzheimer’s disease and other brain trauma at five times the national rate among men over 50. For men under 50, the number is 19 times the national rate. Congress held hearings in the subject last week and both the union and the owners are going to be pressed to explain why so little has been done for so long. For years the owners have spoken about concussions the way the tobacco industry used to bleat about lung cancer. They would say “research has not shown” that football causes the attendant brain injuries. Those days are done. Both the union and owners will be pressed to address this during the upcoming negotiations.
But that will require a spirit of cooperation that may not exist as negotiations are brought to a boil. The issues that separate them seem minor: NFLPA President Smith and the union want more financial transparency. The owners want to dial back concessions they made in the last CBA and get a larger share of the revenue back.
But the two main sources of tension aren’t on the bargaining table: The first is the economy. The NFL, long thought to be recession proof is feeling the squeeze. In the best of times, football is a blue-collar game at white-collar prices. But this year attendance has dropped, in no small part because ticket prices remain prohibitive even amidst the crisis. A family of four, purchasing modest concessions, will now pay over $400. The result is that empty seats dot stadiums around the country. This leads to “blackouts” where games aren’t broadcast in local markets. In 2008, only nine games were blacked out during the entire season. In 2009 Jacksonville alone has already announced that they will have to blackout eight. The league will want to cut costs in this climate and the union will feel a need to hold the line. The golden goose has lost a bit of its luster.
It’s worth noting that the NFL is only highest profile example of the economic crisis pervading the world of sports. The National Football League's red-headed stepchild, the Arena Football League, had to cancel its last season. In 2009, 21 of the 30 Major League Baseball teams saw attendance drops. The Ladies Professional Golf Association has seen their corporate sponsorships flee and the Women’s National Basketball Association eliminated roster spots in preparation for a downturn.,
The National Basketball Association in particular has looked vulnerable in the current climate. The league took out a $175 million line of credit to aid financially failing teams even though Commissioner David Stern tried to spin this as a sign of the league's health, which was a little bit sad. The NBA also has contract negotiations after the 2010 season which could make the NFL battle look tepid by comparison. It’s this dire economy which stands as the primary reason labor peace won’t be coming to the NFL.
While the dire economy is the primary reason to bet against labor peace in the NFL, another good one is new Players Association president DeMaurice Smith. The NFLPA is generally seen as the weakest of the sports unions because it’s the only league without guaranteed contracts. Smith, a connected Capitol Hill lawyer, was elected in March following the sudden death of Gene Upshaw, wants to show that despite not being a former player he will be strong for his players. Upon assuming leadership he said, “There isn’t a day where I don’t hope for peace, but at the same time, there isn’t a day where we won’t prepare for war.”
Smith has told ESPN that he has called upon his players to put aside 25 percent of their salaries over the next two years. “I look at the way in which it looks like we’re moving to this lockout, and first and foremost, we have to be in a position where our young men are in a position to be able to take care of themselves and their families,” he said.
It’s this combative stance, along with declining revenues that signal to many an NFL watcher that the golden goose might soon be cooked.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
Something About Nicole
Thanks to Richard Metzger & DangerousMinds.net for the following...http://www.prehensile.com/tales/zeldman/zeldman.htm
Tattle Tales are true tales of sex, madness, and the planet by guest writers. And this week's offering is a humdinger of a Tale. "Jeffrey Zeldman Presents" was one of the first sites I ever visited on the web. Years later, Jeffrey Zeldman contributes this week's Tale of the Week. I'm a happy, happy Halcyon. If you've never visited Zeldman.com, make it your first stop after you read this incredible tale. Or go now. We'll wait for you.
Something About Nicole
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Let's talk about sex.
And movie stars.
And Stanley (Spartacus, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining) Kubrick, brilliant though reclusive filmmaker, who has spent the last five years making "Eyes Wide Shut," a movie starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and costarring Harvey Keitel.
Make that formerly costarring Harvey Keitel.
Yes, there is dirt, and yes, I am here to share it with you.
You know, friends, in my role as the web's answer to Barbara Walters, I am frequently asked, "Could you move, please? I was sitting there."
But I am also frequently asked about those "insider gems" and "delightful tidbits" which only a "connected insider" such as myself could possess.
And this is one of those tidbits.
And I'm sharing it with you.
So here goes.
Most of Keitel's scenes have been shot, and the movie is close to good to go.
But there is a problem.
Keitel and Kidman just did a scene in which Keitel's character is supposed to stand behind Kidman's character and masturbate.
Keitel is not only a fine actor, he is a method actor.
You probably see what is coming – as it were.
Kidman didn't.
Keitel did not simulate masturbation, he engaged in it on the set.
Now, in the heat of action, many of us lose sight of our goals, and succumb to an overwhelming impulse. Keitel is, in that respect, no different from you or I, dear reader.
He ejaculated into Nicole Kidman's hair.
She walked quickly off the soundstage.
The next morning, Stanley Kubrick, one of the great living geniuses of cinema, was confronted by Mr. and Mrs. Tom Cruise.
The two told him simply, "Us or Keitel."
Kubrick reluctantly fired Mr. Keitel.
A replacement actor was hired (his name escapes me – it's not Wilfred Brimley, but it's also not an actor who is likely to duplicate Keitel's accident).
Good scenes which were shot and edited are now being redone at great expense because Keitel cannot appear in the picture.
Whether the film will be as good without Keitel, we will never know.
But now you, gentle readers, know the unpublishable truth. Verified by two sources at the company financing the film.
I can picture the conversation at Nobu:
SCORCESE: Harvey, Harvey, what's this about you and Kubrick? Robert, this tuna is great.
DENIRO: (nods)
KEITEL: (shrugs)
DENIRO: You know what I heard ...
SCORCESE: Pass the saki?
DENIRO: ... I heard this motherfucker got himself fired ...
KEITEL: Shut the fuck up.
DENIRO: ... 'cause he came in Nicole Kidman's hair!
(LAUGHTER.)
KEITEL: Shut the fuck up.
SCORCESE (OVER): Get the fuck out of here! Harvey?
KEITEL: Yeah. (SHRUG.) Came in 'er hair.
(LAUGHTER.)
DENIRO (OVER): Jesus, I can't breathe.
(LAUGHTER.)
(BEAT.)
SCORCESE: I'd a done that.
(LAUGHTER)
DENIRO: So, was it good?
(LAUGHTER. BEAT.)
KEITEL: It was pretty good.
(LAUGHTER)
KEITEL (faint smile): I'd do it again.
DENIRO: So the fuck would I.
SCORCESE: I would do that.
(LAUGHTER.)
(An elegant waitress presents the bill.)
DENIRO: (tearing up bill) On the house, Harve.
Events involving "Eyes Wide Shut" are based on anecdotes related to your humble web author by various Hollywood insiders who may never speak to us again. The scene at Nobu is entirely imaginary – as should be obvious. But nothing is ever obvious to lawyers, hence this disclaimer. We will deny it all, if pressed.
Zappa Meets Kirby
http://royalflushmagazine.com/2009/10/13/zappa_meets_kirby/World’s Finest – Royal Flush 6 Exclusive!
Step inside the Fourth World as we relive that one magical day when…
FRANK ZAPPA met JACK KIRBY !
by Jeff Newelt • Illustration by Rick Veitch • Photos by Michael James Zuccaro
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
I’ve always been a sucker for the big teamup: Superman / Shazam. Hulk / Thing. chocolate & peanut butter. So when I came across a photo of Jack Kirby and Frank Zappa embracing finally, my synapses started firing like FBI at Waco.
Were they friends? Did they hang? Play action figures together? WTF! I had to know.
For those not so in-the-know as us ubergeekanoids, Jack Kirby was the visionary artist who created The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk, Thor, Silver Surfer, Captain America…the Marvel universe sprang forth from his (and writer Stan Lee’s) head. In the ’70s, Jack went solo, rocking out idiosyncratic cosmic characters – the New Gods, Omac, Forever People, Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, Kamandi, Demon, all nutty, jazzy, psychedelically mythic stuff.
Frank Zappa was a musical iconoclast and genius composer/producer/guitar player. He wove together humor, avant-garde classical guitar-rock, doo-wop, dada, jazz-fusion, and political satire, hired the badass-est musicians, and rolled with world leaders like Czech playwright/philosopher Vaclav Havel. His songs are like audio comic books, hypervisual with colorful characters and scenarios like “Camarillo Brillo,” which includes the lines “She had a snake for a pet / and an amulet / and she was breeding a dwarf / But she wasn’t done yet / She had gray-green skin / A doll with a pin / I told her she was awright / But I couldn’t come in.” Sounds just like a character out of Kirby’s Demon.
Jack and Frank, both universe builders, one music, the other, comics. But what was the connection?
Fast-forward to present day. I’m at a conference in New Mexico teaching social media to female entrepreneurs, and one lady says, “Yer not one of those comics people, are you? My husband’s one, Steve Sherman.” D’OH! Steve Sherman was one of Kirby’s fabled assistants! I reached out to Steve and turns out Jack and Frank Zappa were not only pals, but also essentially neighbors. How was this friendship kept secret so long?
A mere week later, I wind up having drinks with fellow Flusher Paul Pope and none other than Frank’s youngest son, Ahmet Zappa! We learned all about Kingdom Comics, the new graphic novel line Ahmet is helming for Disney.
Contextual rewind: Not just a comics impresario, Ahmet’s been rocking in different media since he was a wee young lad. He was lead singer/songwriter in Z, a band he formed with his brother Dweezil in the early ’90s, an actor on Roseanne and Growing Pains and in films such as Pump up the Volume and Jack Frost, and most recently hosted VH1’s But Can They Sing?
So I had to show Ahmet my Blackberry screensaver, the image I had found of his dad and Jack together, and Ahmet goes, “Whoa, I never saw that! That’s in my living room… Jack would come over and smoke cigars and Frank would smoke cigarettes, and they’d talk and talk.”
One of the things Frank and Jack had in common: the prodigious amount of cosmic goodness that extruded from their respective noggins was not the result of drugs; they both enjoyed tobaccy but only the unwacky. We had other stuff to discuss that evening, so I made Ahmet promise to reconnect ASAP to spill the magic beans on this egregiously undocumented duo. And he kept his promise.
Ahmet, one of four Zappa kids, the other three being Moon Unit (the oldest), Dweezil (second oldest), and Diva (youngest), was always into superheroes his entire life.
“I loved Spider-man; it’s the jam,” gushed Ahmet. “My dad loved comics and was the first to advertise rock n’ roll in comics, for We’re Only In It For The Money [in Fantastic Four #72, 1968, Natch!]. My mother made Dweezil and I costumes of Spider-Man and The Mighty Thor.”
The son of a gregarious rock star, Ahmet grew up meeting every celebrity musician under the sun. But it wasn’t a rocker who gave Ahmet that first feeling of being around greatness. “I was not starstruck at all by rock stars because music is its own language and my father spoke it, so we spoke it,” Ahmet explains matter-of-factly. “This totally demystified the fame or the celebrity. There was no currency for ‘oooh, that guy sold a million records, we just cared about good music. One of the most significant moments in my life is when my dad said, ‘meet Jack, he’s the guy who created all those superheroes you love.’ That blew my little mind. I thought it was awesome and weird that my dad had this friendship with this guy. It was like meeting like a real magician!”And Jack brought some presents for the kids, but oddly, they weren’t comics. “Actually, he first came over with these Mr. Men books, you know Mr. Tickle, Mr. Impossible… I thought they were fantastic, and was like ‘did you do these too?’ Weird. Dunno why he brought those instead of his own books, but later, of course, he wound up giving us comics too. Jack gave me this Silver Surfer book. I didn’t know what to make of this silver dude on a surfboard; it didn’t make any sense but, he was super cool. This was around the time Empire came out and was HUGE [1981 –ed.], and I remember Jack confided in Frank that he felt like the stories he created helped shape the Star Wars saga, that he saw direct parallels between his characters and the movie’s story arcs.”
Of all rock stars in the world, Zappa, famously an outspoken champion of free speech and artist’s rights, was the ultimate sympathetic ear.
“He told my dad stuff like, ‘Darth Vader was Doctor Doom and the Force is the Source’ and that George Lucas ripped him off. Now this you may not know, and I was only a kid, but I remember learning at the dinner table that my dad was asked to write the music for Star Wars; he turned it down, he said he wasn’t interested. That would’ve been really strange, the lives of us Star Wars fans woulda taken a different turn and that whole score woulda sounded like Tatooine Cantina music.”
Two powerful worlds that happened to collide one special night in 1981. A friendship began and a mutual bond was formed. These two titans are now sadly no longer with us, but their spirit lives on now through their family keeping tradition alive.
The only regret, Royal Flush readers, is that we’ll never get to visit the parallel universe where Frank Zappa actually got to score Star Wars. The place called the Fourth World. ?
The Porn Star and the Politician
http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/latest/stormy-daniels-louisiana-senateThe Porn Star and the Politician
By Christy Smith
STORMY DANIELS, a 30-year-old adult film star with more than 150 steamy flicks to her name, is getting set to heat up Louisiana's 2010 Senate race. Daniels, the star of Operation Desert Stormy—in which she plays a CIA agent who fights terrorists while wearing Army-fatigue booty shorts—says she plans to toss her G-string in the ring (although she hadn't officially announced her candidacy as of press time). We asked the Baton Rouge native why she wants to forgo porn for politics.
Q: Why shoot for the Senate?
A: I was drafted by a group called Draft Stormy, a grassroots movement in Louisiana that wanted someone who was the polar opposite of current senator David Vitter. They figured I would be perfect because I am open and honest about my sexuality, unlike Vitter. I realized that this is my chance to make a difference, to do something unselfish, noble, and to help a lot of people.
Q: You're referring to Senator Vitter's link to a Washington, D.C. escort service . . .
A: I'm not one to judge someone's sexual activity, but what annoys me is that he's so hard-core "family values," and he puts his wife and kids out there, saying he's a Christian family man. Then he's caught up in a prostitution scandal. He's a hypocrite.
Q: How much will your résumé be a factor?
A: It's actually starting to work in my favor—I have nothing to hide. A sex tape of me isn't going to pop up and shame me; there are 150 of them at the video store.
Q: Do you think you're more qualified than Senator Vitter?
A: Absolutely not. But in one movie, I did play a Secret Service agent marooned on an island controlled by North Korea. I butt heads with dictator Kim Jong-il and come out on top.
Q: What's the most important issue facing Louisiana today?
A: The biggest issue in Louisiana is the economy. In New Orleans, tourism is down, and the crime rate is up. I want to make Louisiana a better place to live—create jobs, rebuild the Gulf Coast, and make health care affordable.
Q: What's your party affiliation?
A: As far as the two-party political system goes, I swing both ways. But I'm leaning toward the Libertarian Party.
Q: Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton?
A: Hillary Clinton. She's a well-rounded woman, extremely knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, and carries herself with dignity.
Q: Your campaign adviser's car was bombed in July, although he wasn't in the car. Was this politically motivated?
A: I hope so. I hope someone is that afraid or interested in what I'm doing that they would try to scare me out of the race.
Q: If you're elected, will you quit porn?
A: Probably, but only because of HD...and gravity.
Quote of the Month: Dennis Kucinich
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) made the following statement on the House Floor about H. Res 867, which condemns the ‘Goldstone Report’ or the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict:
“Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.
“Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian.
“The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the 'Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right' resolution.
“Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.
“How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?
“How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to the human security of jobs, education and health care?
“We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim.”
Source:
http://warincontext.org/2009/11/04/us-house-rejects-goldstone-report/
“Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.
“Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian.
“The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the 'Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right' resolution.
“Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.
“How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?
“How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to the human security of jobs, education and health care?
“We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim.”
Source:
http://warincontext.org/2009/11/04/us-house-rejects-goldstone-report/
What recovery?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gNiyJ905Ho0Ur96V2TQhsBX19lGwD9BQB7CG0
What recovery? Unemployment shoots past 10 percent
By JEANNINE AVERSA and CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER (AP)
Nov 6, 2009
WASHINGTON — Just when it was beginning to look a little better, the economy relapsed Friday with a return to double-digit unemployment for only the second time since World War II and warnings that next year will be even worse than previously thought.
The jobless rate rocketed to 10.2 percent in October, the highest since early 1983, dealing a psychological blow to Americans as they prepare holiday shopping lists. It was another worse-than-expected report casting a shadow over the struggling recovery.
President Barack Obama called it "a sobering number that underscores the economic challenges that lie ahead." He signed a measure to extend unemployment benefits and to expand a tax credit for homebuyers.
Economists had not expected the 10 percent mark to come so quickly and immediately darkened their forecasts. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, and Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., predicted the rate will peak at 11 percent by mid-2010. They earlier had projected 10.5 percent.
Unemployment at 11 percent would be a post-World War II record. Only once since then has joblessness hit double digits in the United States — from September 1982 to July 1983, topping out at 10.8 percent.
"It's not a good report," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for New York-based investment firm Miller Tabak & Co. "What we're seeing is a validation of the idea that a jobless recovery is perfectly on track."
The Labor Department, using a survey of company payrolls, said the economy shed 190,000 jobs in October. A separate survey of households found 558,000 more people were unemployed last month than in September. Some 15.7 million Americans are out of work.
The survey of companies doesn't count the self-employed and undercounts employees of small businesses. So the economic picture could be even more dire.
One struggling small business, homebuilder Miller and Smith Inc. of McLean, Va., has trimmed its work force to about 100 from 350 at the height of the housing market in 2005. The company has been hurt by a slowdown in building and surging health care costs.
Troubles for small businesses could have a disproportionate effect on the economy, because they account for about 60 percent of the nation's jobs. They tend to rely on credit cards and home equity lines — both of which banks have tightened — for cash flow.
And the unemployment rate doesn't include people without jobs who have stopped looking, or those who have settled for part-time jobs. Counting those people, the unemployment rate would be 17.5 percent, the highest since at least 1994.
Economists had expected unemployment to rise to no more than 9.9 percent, up just a tick from September's 9.8 percent, and the surprising jump added to fears that the recovery could fizzle if Americans don't spend.
Already, consumer confidence for October came in well below what analysts were expecting. Shoppers' sentiments about the state of the economy are the gloomiest in nearly three decades.
Stores, always with an eye on holiday sales, are especially worried this year.
"This is a situation where the recovery balloon is getting off the ground but might not have enough power to keep rising," said Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight.
Sitting at a St. Louis unemployment center, Paul Branyon, who was laid off in July from a Williams-Sonoma factory in Tennessee and now lives with relatives, shook his head and laughed at the notion that the recession is over.
"It's getting actually harder right now," the 26-year-old said. "It seems like everywhere you go, people are losing jobs. People are cutting back. So it's going to get harder before it gets easier."
The economy actually grew from July to September for the first time in a year, but that's no consolation for people like Jose Betancourt, 57, who goes to a Miami-area career center twice a week to take computer education classes.
Betancourt has been out of work since July, when he was laid off from his supermarket maintenance job. He lives on about $600 a month in unemployment benefits, barely enough for the rent for his efficiency apartment, food and utilities.
He has trouble believing the recession is over. In his neighborhood, he sees other jobless people and empty stores.
"It's as if they just gave the economy a nice coat of varnish to make everyone feel better," he said. "I'm in a state of anxiety, and I see it all around Miami."
The worst recession since the 1930s may be over, but the recovery isn't expected to be strong enough to stem job losses and get businesses hiring again. And the unemployed are staying out of work longer. The count of people jobless for six months or longer stands at a record 5.6 million.
As for employers, few are confident enough in the recovery to hire. Art McKeen, plant manager of the Baldor Electric Co. factory in suburban St. Louis, says the plant has no plans add workers any time soon.
Baldor cut back production last year and put workers on part-time hours rather than lay them off. Orders have picked up again, but not enough to justify hiring. "We don't have the need for them right now," McKeen said.
Prospects that the government might pass a second stimulus bill appear dim. Congress is already grappling with sweeping health care legislation, raising concerns about further swelling the federal deficit.
"More debt, more spending ... clearly has not worked — particularly in a time of double-digit unemployment," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Democrats said the economy would have been in worse shape without the first stimulus.
October was the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has lost jobs, the longest on record dating back 70 years. Losses at factories, construction companies, retailers and financial services companies far outweighed gains in education and health care, professional and business services and elsewhere. Government payrolls were flat.
One faint sign of hope: Temporary employment grew by 33,700 jobs, its third straight month of gains after steep losses earlier this year. Employers are likely to add temporary workers before hiring permanent ones.
Chris Rupkey, an economist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, called the big jump in the jobless rate "a kick in the stomach" and predicted a slog ahead. It could take at least four years for the jobless rate to drop to more normal levels of 5 or 6 percent.
"The last two recoveries from recession in the '90s and 2001 were jobless, and this one is clearly headed down the same road," he said.
Associated Press Writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Anne Flaherty in Washington, Emily Fredrix in Milwaukee, Christopher Leonard in St. Louis, Adrian Sainz in Miami, Andrew Vanacore in New York and Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
What recovery? Unemployment shoots past 10 percent
By JEANNINE AVERSA and CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER (AP)
Nov 6, 2009
WASHINGTON — Just when it was beginning to look a little better, the economy relapsed Friday with a return to double-digit unemployment for only the second time since World War II and warnings that next year will be even worse than previously thought.
The jobless rate rocketed to 10.2 percent in October, the highest since early 1983, dealing a psychological blow to Americans as they prepare holiday shopping lists. It was another worse-than-expected report casting a shadow over the struggling recovery.
President Barack Obama called it "a sobering number that underscores the economic challenges that lie ahead." He signed a measure to extend unemployment benefits and to expand a tax credit for homebuyers.
Economists had not expected the 10 percent mark to come so quickly and immediately darkened their forecasts. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, and Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., predicted the rate will peak at 11 percent by mid-2010. They earlier had projected 10.5 percent.
Unemployment at 11 percent would be a post-World War II record. Only once since then has joblessness hit double digits in the United States — from September 1982 to July 1983, topping out at 10.8 percent.
"It's not a good report," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for New York-based investment firm Miller Tabak & Co. "What we're seeing is a validation of the idea that a jobless recovery is perfectly on track."
The Labor Department, using a survey of company payrolls, said the economy shed 190,000 jobs in October. A separate survey of households found 558,000 more people were unemployed last month than in September. Some 15.7 million Americans are out of work.
The survey of companies doesn't count the self-employed and undercounts employees of small businesses. So the economic picture could be even more dire.
One struggling small business, homebuilder Miller and Smith Inc. of McLean, Va., has trimmed its work force to about 100 from 350 at the height of the housing market in 2005. The company has been hurt by a slowdown in building and surging health care costs.
Troubles for small businesses could have a disproportionate effect on the economy, because they account for about 60 percent of the nation's jobs. They tend to rely on credit cards and home equity lines — both of which banks have tightened — for cash flow.
And the unemployment rate doesn't include people without jobs who have stopped looking, or those who have settled for part-time jobs. Counting those people, the unemployment rate would be 17.5 percent, the highest since at least 1994.
Economists had expected unemployment to rise to no more than 9.9 percent, up just a tick from September's 9.8 percent, and the surprising jump added to fears that the recovery could fizzle if Americans don't spend.
Already, consumer confidence for October came in well below what analysts were expecting. Shoppers' sentiments about the state of the economy are the gloomiest in nearly three decades.
Stores, always with an eye on holiday sales, are especially worried this year.
"This is a situation where the recovery balloon is getting off the ground but might not have enough power to keep rising," said Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight.
Sitting at a St. Louis unemployment center, Paul Branyon, who was laid off in July from a Williams-Sonoma factory in Tennessee and now lives with relatives, shook his head and laughed at the notion that the recession is over.
"It's getting actually harder right now," the 26-year-old said. "It seems like everywhere you go, people are losing jobs. People are cutting back. So it's going to get harder before it gets easier."
The economy actually grew from July to September for the first time in a year, but that's no consolation for people like Jose Betancourt, 57, who goes to a Miami-area career center twice a week to take computer education classes.
Betancourt has been out of work since July, when he was laid off from his supermarket maintenance job. He lives on about $600 a month in unemployment benefits, barely enough for the rent for his efficiency apartment, food and utilities.
He has trouble believing the recession is over. In his neighborhood, he sees other jobless people and empty stores.
"It's as if they just gave the economy a nice coat of varnish to make everyone feel better," he said. "I'm in a state of anxiety, and I see it all around Miami."
The worst recession since the 1930s may be over, but the recovery isn't expected to be strong enough to stem job losses and get businesses hiring again. And the unemployed are staying out of work longer. The count of people jobless for six months or longer stands at a record 5.6 million.
As for employers, few are confident enough in the recovery to hire. Art McKeen, plant manager of the Baldor Electric Co. factory in suburban St. Louis, says the plant has no plans add workers any time soon.
Baldor cut back production last year and put workers on part-time hours rather than lay them off. Orders have picked up again, but not enough to justify hiring. "We don't have the need for them right now," McKeen said.
Prospects that the government might pass a second stimulus bill appear dim. Congress is already grappling with sweeping health care legislation, raising concerns about further swelling the federal deficit.
"More debt, more spending ... clearly has not worked — particularly in a time of double-digit unemployment," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Democrats said the economy would have been in worse shape without the first stimulus.
October was the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has lost jobs, the longest on record dating back 70 years. Losses at factories, construction companies, retailers and financial services companies far outweighed gains in education and health care, professional and business services and elsewhere. Government payrolls were flat.
One faint sign of hope: Temporary employment grew by 33,700 jobs, its third straight month of gains after steep losses earlier this year. Employers are likely to add temporary workers before hiring permanent ones.
Chris Rupkey, an economist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, called the big jump in the jobless rate "a kick in the stomach" and predicted a slog ahead. It could take at least four years for the jobless rate to drop to more normal levels of 5 or 6 percent.
"The last two recoveries from recession in the '90s and 2001 were jobless, and this one is clearly headed down the same road," he said.
Associated Press Writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Anne Flaherty in Washington, Emily Fredrix in Milwaukee, Christopher Leonard in St. Louis, Adrian Sainz in Miami, Andrew Vanacore in New York and Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
Dogshit Park & other atrocities
Remember Todd Fahey and Wisdom's Maw? Err... well, even if you don't, there's a collection of supremely twisted short stories that are coming online as "a book" close to Christmas. Here's some photos from the upcoming collection...
Health "Reform" Fact of the Week
"The public-option debate is frustrating some Democrats, who have come to believe that a government-run plan is neither as radical as its conservative critics have portrayed, nor as important as its liberal supporters contend. Any public plan is likely to have a relatively narrow scope, as it would be offered only to people who don't have access to coverage through an employer. The public option would effectively be just another insurance plan offered on the open market. It would likely be administered by a private insurance provider, charging premiums and copayments like any other policy. In an early estimate of the House bill, the Congressional Budget Office forecast that fewer than 12 million people would buy insurance through the government plan."
So, as I've been warning, even the "public option" debate is a fraud, as the Democrats have no interest in providing an honest alternative to the insurance oligopoly...
Source: Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102304081.html
So, as I've been warning, even the "public option" debate is a fraud, as the Democrats have no interest in providing an honest alternative to the insurance oligopoly...
Source: Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102304081.html
If Democrats Don't Pass Health Insurance Reform...
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/if-democrats-dont-pass-health-insurance-reform-year-what-do-we-lose-and-what-do-we-gain
If Democrats Don't Pass Health Insurance Reform This Year, What Do We Lose? And What Do We Gain?
Wed, 11/04/2009
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
The version of health care reform championed by the White House and Congressional Democrats will force millions to buy crappy insurance from private providers with no interest in health care but plenty of interest in profits. Its pubic option is a cruel hoax that will not take effect till 2013 and even then will leave tens of millions uninsured. Now Democratic leaders in Congress say it might not pass this year anyway. Is that really so bad?
The “public option” in the president's health care bill is like the “clean” in clean coal. One harnesses the awesome power of the word clean and attaches it to coal, which is anything but. Likewise Democrats deploy the rhetorical power of the words “public” as in “everybody in, nobody out” and “option” as in choice to describe an arrangement will be neither public or for most, an available option.
The president said it himself in early September. His public option will be neither public nor optional for any more than a tiny percentage of Americans, and unlike his wars and bank bailouts, has to be “deficit neutral.” It will force millions under penalty of law to buy the deceptive and defective products of greedy private insurers.
Most alarmingly, the Democratic version of the public option will be rigidly means-tested to ensure that only the poorest get in, and financed with a John McCain style tax on those who receive nearly adequate benefits from their employers. This is a patented recipe for ghettoizing and socially stigmatizing those who do avail themselves of the public option, setting one segment of society against another poorer one, the exact reverse of the everybody in, nobody out spirit of social security and Medicare.
And though we are told that insurers will not be able to deny policies on the basis of pre-existing conditions, there is mounting evidence that insurers intend to enforce the same discriminatory requirements by claiming that conditions such as diabetes, overweight, smoking and more are the result of patient behaviors and “lifestyle choices” for which the insurance company cannot be liable unless it is able to charge more. The president has even deceitfully lowered the number of uninsured referred to in all the Democrats' pronouncements by subtracting the 12 or 15 million undocumented from all its numbers, as though they are expected to live in our midst as an underclass with no access to health services.
In the year since the last election the president has made concession after concession to drug and insurance companies, to private health care providers and their lobbyists. The White House, establishment Democrats and their echo chambers in the corporate media and even on the internet have worked hard to suppress voices advocating the simple, practical and elegant solution of single payer Medicare For All, which is still favored in polls by a substantial majority of Americans.
The longer the health care reform drama takes to unfold, the shabbier the president and his party are looking. With overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Congress, the Republicans can no longer be blamed for anything, and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are sending signals that they may not be able to pass the president's health insurance reform this year. They can't blame Republicans for this because there are not enough Republicans to stop legislation in either chamber. The Republican talking point on health care now is that the president is spending too much time on it, and needs to concentrate on something, anything else, like sending another 40 or 50 thousand troops to Iraq.
Ever men and women of their word, Democratic leaders in Congress have stripped out of the president's bills any chance for states to pursue their own single payer regimes, and backtracked on promises to allow a floor vote on the Medicare For All measure, HR 676.
Deceit has its price. The initiative has passed to the forces of single payer, the solution championed by Barack Obama up until his 2004 election to the US Senate.
In dozens of cities and towns across the nation Americans are seizing that initiative. The wave of demonstrations and sit-ins at the offices of insurance companies continues to grow. At the beginning of October, www.mobilizeforheathcare.org initiated actions in New York and DC. A month later more than a thousand people have volunteered to be arrested to put single payer back on the table in cities and towns across the country. Sit-ins are planned for more than two dozen cities today, and by year's end at this rate, will be occurring in more than sixty cities by the end of the year.
What Single Payer Health Care Will Do For Ordinary Families
The principal fact of economic life in America these days is profound insecurity. Tens of millions cannot find work, and tens of millions more who have found it live with the everyday question of what will happen if one of them gets sick or injured. People take jobs they don't want and put up with treatment from employers they would not otherwise take because of this insecurity. Wal-Mart is just the biggest of many employers who enforce a high turnover policy on their workforces, so that people will view their oppressive and dictatorial work environments as something to be endured because they are only passing phases on the way to some other station in life.
In fact, the next job for most Wal-Mart workers will be very like the last, and the next after that one too. But if workers in dead-end jobs had the security of guaranteed health care, they'd be much more inclined to stay where they are and organize and fight for better working conditions. Service workers are underpaid not because of the nature of the work, any more than west coast dockworkers seventy years ago were underpaid because they were drunkards and thieves. They are underpaid because they have not succeeded in organizing and fighting for their rights. This is why elite bodies like the US Chamber of Commerce are stubbornly resisting anything like Medicare For All. The economy, and the present health insurance regime serve them well, and they want to preserve it.
Medicare For All, single payer will enable the working poor to make a stand where they are, and lift themselves out of poverty by organizing for and demanding a greater share of the wealth they produce every day. By removing the dread of financial ruin due to illness or injury, single payer will enable working people to fight for their own collective economic uplift. That's why the struggle for guaranteed and universal single payer, Medicare For All is the real deal right now, the key to unlocking a better life for millions in the near future, a concrete focus of the civil and human rights movements of our time.
It's time to mobilize for Medicare For All, now. Go to www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org and take your future, your family's future into your hands. Donate to provide legal assistance and bail money and other expenses. Volunteer to be present at a legal demonstration, or to put your body on the line in a nonviolent demonstration for health care now at the offices of an insurance company near you.
Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta, and is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com.
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If Democrats Don't Pass Health Insurance Reform This Year, What Do We Lose? And What Do We Gain?
Wed, 11/04/2009
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
The version of health care reform championed by the White House and Congressional Democrats will force millions to buy crappy insurance from private providers with no interest in health care but plenty of interest in profits. Its pubic option is a cruel hoax that will not take effect till 2013 and even then will leave tens of millions uninsured. Now Democratic leaders in Congress say it might not pass this year anyway. Is that really so bad?
The “public option” in the president's health care bill is like the “clean” in clean coal. One harnesses the awesome power of the word clean and attaches it to coal, which is anything but. Likewise Democrats deploy the rhetorical power of the words “public” as in “everybody in, nobody out” and “option” as in choice to describe an arrangement will be neither public or for most, an available option.
The president said it himself in early September. His public option will be neither public nor optional for any more than a tiny percentage of Americans, and unlike his wars and bank bailouts, has to be “deficit neutral.” It will force millions under penalty of law to buy the deceptive and defective products of greedy private insurers.
Most alarmingly, the Democratic version of the public option will be rigidly means-tested to ensure that only the poorest get in, and financed with a John McCain style tax on those who receive nearly adequate benefits from their employers. This is a patented recipe for ghettoizing and socially stigmatizing those who do avail themselves of the public option, setting one segment of society against another poorer one, the exact reverse of the everybody in, nobody out spirit of social security and Medicare.
And though we are told that insurers will not be able to deny policies on the basis of pre-existing conditions, there is mounting evidence that insurers intend to enforce the same discriminatory requirements by claiming that conditions such as diabetes, overweight, smoking and more are the result of patient behaviors and “lifestyle choices” for which the insurance company cannot be liable unless it is able to charge more. The president has even deceitfully lowered the number of uninsured referred to in all the Democrats' pronouncements by subtracting the 12 or 15 million undocumented from all its numbers, as though they are expected to live in our midst as an underclass with no access to health services.
In the year since the last election the president has made concession after concession to drug and insurance companies, to private health care providers and their lobbyists. The White House, establishment Democrats and their echo chambers in the corporate media and even on the internet have worked hard to suppress voices advocating the simple, practical and elegant solution of single payer Medicare For All, which is still favored in polls by a substantial majority of Americans.
The longer the health care reform drama takes to unfold, the shabbier the president and his party are looking. With overwhelming majorities in both Houses of Congress, the Republicans can no longer be blamed for anything, and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are sending signals that they may not be able to pass the president's health insurance reform this year. They can't blame Republicans for this because there are not enough Republicans to stop legislation in either chamber. The Republican talking point on health care now is that the president is spending too much time on it, and needs to concentrate on something, anything else, like sending another 40 or 50 thousand troops to Iraq.
Ever men and women of their word, Democratic leaders in Congress have stripped out of the president's bills any chance for states to pursue their own single payer regimes, and backtracked on promises to allow a floor vote on the Medicare For All measure, HR 676.
Deceit has its price. The initiative has passed to the forces of single payer, the solution championed by Barack Obama up until his 2004 election to the US Senate.
In dozens of cities and towns across the nation Americans are seizing that initiative. The wave of demonstrations and sit-ins at the offices of insurance companies continues to grow. At the beginning of October, www.mobilizeforheathcare.org initiated actions in New York and DC. A month later more than a thousand people have volunteered to be arrested to put single payer back on the table in cities and towns across the country. Sit-ins are planned for more than two dozen cities today, and by year's end at this rate, will be occurring in more than sixty cities by the end of the year.
What Single Payer Health Care Will Do For Ordinary Families
The principal fact of economic life in America these days is profound insecurity. Tens of millions cannot find work, and tens of millions more who have found it live with the everyday question of what will happen if one of them gets sick or injured. People take jobs they don't want and put up with treatment from employers they would not otherwise take because of this insecurity. Wal-Mart is just the biggest of many employers who enforce a high turnover policy on their workforces, so that people will view their oppressive and dictatorial work environments as something to be endured because they are only passing phases on the way to some other station in life.
In fact, the next job for most Wal-Mart workers will be very like the last, and the next after that one too. But if workers in dead-end jobs had the security of guaranteed health care, they'd be much more inclined to stay where they are and organize and fight for better working conditions. Service workers are underpaid not because of the nature of the work, any more than west coast dockworkers seventy years ago were underpaid because they were drunkards and thieves. They are underpaid because they have not succeeded in organizing and fighting for their rights. This is why elite bodies like the US Chamber of Commerce are stubbornly resisting anything like Medicare For All. The economy, and the present health insurance regime serve them well, and they want to preserve it.
Medicare For All, single payer will enable the working poor to make a stand where they are, and lift themselves out of poverty by organizing for and demanding a greater share of the wealth they produce every day. By removing the dread of financial ruin due to illness or injury, single payer will enable working people to fight for their own collective economic uplift. That's why the struggle for guaranteed and universal single payer, Medicare For All is the real deal right now, the key to unlocking a better life for millions in the near future, a concrete focus of the civil and human rights movements of our time.
It's time to mobilize for Medicare For All, now. Go to www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org and take your future, your family's future into your hands. Donate to provide legal assistance and bail money and other expenses. Volunteer to be present at a legal demonstration, or to put your body on the line in a nonviolent demonstration for health care now at the offices of an insurance company near you.
Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta, and is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com.
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Walmart, Neighborhood Market...
I was driving past a Walmart yesterday and discovered it was branding itself as a "Neighborhood Market" now. I guess that's true, if by "Neighborhood Market" you mean "Evil multinational corporation that destroys local businesses with predatory practices, engages in massive labor law fraud, squashes unions, and exploits virtual slave labor in the Third World and China."
Monday, October 12, 2009
UFOs As Agents Of Deconstruction
http://www.ufomystic.com/wake-up-down-there/ufos-as-agents-of-deconstruction/Oct 07 2009
UFOs As Agents Of Deconstruction
Greg Bishop
In the Archaeus Project’s 1989 journal Cyberbiological Studies of the Imaginal Component In The UFO Contact Experience Carl Raschke wrote an essay entitled “UFOs: Ultraterrestrial Agents of Cultural Deconstruction.” Raschke offered the idea that the search for meaning behind the UFO enigma was caught up in cultural ideas about aliens coming from other planets in structured craft. He also proposed that whatever was behind the UFO problem was acting as a catalyst for change in cultural ideas about what was possible and even acceptable.
Raschke noted that,”…the UFO puzzle for both investigators and the public unfolds along a trajectory that Jacques Vallee terms that of ‘recursive unsolvability.’ In mathematics a recursive function is one in which the solution cannot be reached by a simple set of successive, linear operations, but is gained only by successive, partial tallies, each of which incrementally redefines the problem itself.”
The UFO debate appears to surround a concept that is continually redefined by a set of partial answers that redefine the question. The end result is that the solution bears less relevance to the original query.
Most can agree that the UFO question has not been solved conclusively by anyone, and the introduction of new concepts like the abduction engima, FOIA document searches and the recent rise of the disclosure movement have changed the focus and character of UFO study over the last 20-30 years. In the 1950s and ’60s, “occupant” cases were dismissed by the mainstream research community as embarrassing and a distraction to the important issue of popularizing the idea that sightings of UFOs were enough to make the subject worthy of respectability and serious study.
With the 1967 publication of Flying Saucer Occupants by Coral and Jim Lorenzen, the idea of “piloted” UFOs was taken more seriously. The idea of abductions was virtually ignored from 1966 (when Interrupted Journey told the strange story of Betty and Barney Hill) until 1981, when Budd Hopkins’ Missing Time was published, and got a real boost in 1987 with Whitley Strieber’s Communion.
Each time a new concept was introduced, the UFO question was redefined. Are we are simply discovering heretofore unrecognized aspects of the phenomenon, or does some symbiosis of reported observations occur, working subrosa in concert with expectations? I would argue that since we are dealing with something that is not amenable to controlled testing and repeatability at will, that expectations very likely play a role in defining the questions and any ultimate answer.
If there is an intelligence or intelligences behind the phenomenon, what it has been doing (probably for millenia) either looks like nonsense or some inscrutable attempt to change human thinking and perception. The very exposure to a UFO or occupant sighting is enough to rearrange one’s concepts of what is real, or even acceptable to our minds and senses. The issue of lasting physical or psychological changes was addressed by Jacques Vallee in his anomalies classification matrix published in his 1990 Book Confrontations.
An article by Benedict Carey from the New York Times reports on research into seemingly nonsensical events and how they are useful in deconstructing our endless search for structure and meaning, injecting helpful doses of depatterning. Participants in a study were asked to read an absurdist short story by Franz Kafka and then given a test that analyzed their ability to find hidden patterns in strings of letters:
The test is a standard measure of what researchers call implicit learning: knowledge gained without awareness. The students had no idea what patterns their brain was sensing or how well they were performing.
But perform they did. They chose about 30 percent more of the letter strings, and were almost twice as accurate in their choices, than a comparison group of 20 students who had read a different short story, a coherent one.
What this may indicate is that UFOs may exist as a mega-experiment in deconstructing our ideas of what is possible, our place in the universe, our ways of accepting what is real and even our methods of cataloging sensory input. The question remains as to who is conducting the experiment, and how much we are either subjects, equal partners, or almost wholly responsible for the experiments and the results.
Ostensibly, the UFO question is whether a non-human source is causing sightings, abductions, radar returns and flying saucer religions, but the intricacies of the problem impinge on so many other areas that we redefine them as well. Examples include reported physics of UFO movement, the question of cultural antecedents and perhaps how our society decides what is acceptable as serious study. That last one may be the most deconstructive effect of all. Changes in our mindset, and not any so-called “answers” may be the real reason behind the whole thing, or at least the most meaningful. There may indeed be “knowledge gained without awareness.”
In the end, this may all be a metaphor for something so inscrutable as to be inexplicable in language or thoughts of which we are currently capable.
Moon crash: the search for water
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/10/091009_mooncrash_nh_sl.shtml9 october, 2009
Moon crash: the search for water
The American space agency, Nasa, says two unmanned spacecraft have crashed into the moon as planned in an experiment seeking evidence of water.
However, live pictures of an expected plume of debris failed to materialise.
A rocket was steered into a crater near the lunar south pole at a speed of 8,000km/h, followed by a satellite probe equipped with cameras and other instruments.
The probe was designed to analyse debris thrown up by the impact, and send the results back to Earth, before it too crashed into the moon.
Doomed Dome: The Future That Never Was
http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/politics/doomed-dome-future-never-was
Doomed Dome: The Future That Never WasDavid Appell
September 30, 2009
In the bright and shiny future, we all live in green, gleaming communities, monorailed shuttles at the ready, climate-controlled at all times -- a sort of Logan’s Run, but without the forced euthanasia. It almost happened in, of all places, an old mill town in northern Vermont.
Winooski and its 7,000 people lie just north of Burlington, Vermont and next to Lake Champlain. The name means “wild onion” in the language of the Abenaki Indians, for the plants that grew along the river of the same name, whose rapids powered the mills that sustained the town for decades. But by the 1960s the mills had lost to modern technologies, and Winooski became a kind of poor and overshadowed cousin to its progressive (some said socialist) neighbor.
Vermont, the saying goes, is nine months of winter and three months of bad skiing. Winooski’s January lows are -20 Fahrenheit or lower, and winters see 75 or more inches of snow. Residents shovel the stuff for months, and then unshovel it in the spring, spreading the high piles across their driveways to encourage melting. Getting from your car to the store can at times feel like the Iditarod.
In the late 1970s the U.S was in its second energy crisis of the decade and roiled by double-digit inflation. Oil was at a then-shocking $38 a barrel ($107 in today’s dollars), having risen eightfold in the previous ten years, and Jimmy Carter went on television in a Cardigan sweater to urge Americans to turn down their thermostats. Few towns were hurting more than frigid Winooski, whose residents spent about $4 million a year to stay thawed.
One night in 1979 a group of its creative young city planners went to dinner and Mark Tigan, then the city’s 32-year-old director of community development and planning, decided that not enough attention was being paid to energy conservation. Then, in the way that only a few glasses of wine can facilitate brainstorming, someone said, half tongue-in-cheek, they should put a dome over the city.
The next morning it still seemed like a good idea -- or, at least, not necessarily completely absurd.
At the time, Winooski was second in the amount of federal money received per capita, and was favored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development as a place to pilot new ideas. Tigan had his staff prepare a white paper on the dome. They wrote that a one square mile dome would reduce resident’s heating bills by up to 90 percent. Tigan presented the idea to the city council.
Clem Bissonette, then on Winnoski’s city council and now its ex-mayor, asked Tigan, “Are you nuts?” But when Tigan explained it could mean millions in HUD money, Bissonette and the rest of the city council quickly signed on, and a young reporter named Jodie Peck who was covering the meeting wrote about it for the next day’s Burlington paper.
The following morning, Tigan recalls, three satellite trucks were parked in front of city hall, and within days the town was receiving 20 bags of mail a day from enthusiasts all around the world. Companies were calling, wanting to build the Winooski Dome.
The city’s request for $55,000 for a feasibility study went to Washington, and enthusiasts pushed it up through channels. A deputy assistant secretary at HUD named Bob Embrey said he would fund it.
“I didn’t hear one organized voice against it,” said Tigan. “The Woodchucks loved it,” he said, referring to the city’s long-time French-Canadian residents, “since it meant that they’d never have to shovel snow again. They thought of it as their little piece of Tampa Bay.”
Naturally the media was full of questions, and Tigan and his staff had few real answers. Basically, he says, they made it up on the fly. “They asked how high it would be, and we said 250 feet, so it wouldn’t block planes but clear the town’s highest building (eleven stories). Would it be clear or opaque? ‘Of course you’ll be able to see through it,’ we said. What about automobile exhaust? ‘Oh, we’ll have electric cars or monorails inside.' By the time the media was done constructing it, we had a picture in place.”
Naturally, the media was full of questions, and Tigan had few real answers. Basically, he says, they made it up on the fly.
Tigan contracted with John Anderson, a Vermont conceptual architect, to produce drawings of the Dome. Anderson’s vision was not a hemispheric shape, but more like the top half of a hamburger bun. He colored it whiteish yellow and eschewed any inside support structures.
Anderson’s picture was the first tangible view of the Dome. Thinking ahead, he envisioned a vinyl-like material attached over a network of metal cables, ranging from transparent (on the southern side, to allow in sunlight) to opaque on the northern side. Air would be brought inside by large fans and heated or cooled as necessary. The Dome would be held up by air pressure just slightly above atmospheric pressure. Entrances and exits would consist of double doors, akin to an airlock. The homes inside would require no individual heating or cooling -- “you could grow tomatoes all year-round” he said. If the Dome were punctured it would come down slowly, allowing for ample warning. Anderson now recalls it as a “totally fun” project, though he did occasionally get insulted in restaurants by some local residents. “What will happen to our children?” they asked.
Enthusiasts organized an International Dome Symposium, held in March 1980. Buckminster Fuller, then busy assisting in Brasilia, the planned capital city in Brazil that had been hacked out wholesale from the Amazonian jungle, flew in to express his enthusiasm. Fuller (naturally) proposed a structure of multiple geodesic domes, but in any case declared the engineering “not terribly difficult,” and pointed to already existing structures like large airport terminals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Fuller had built the “US Pavilion” at Expo Montreal in 1976 -- three-fourths of a sphere consisting of 1900 molded, transparent Plexiglas panels, 200 feet high and 250 feet in diameter, covering 1.1 acres. Winooski’s dome would cover nearly the entire town, 800 times that area. He stressed that the biggest challenge was not keeping the dome up, but holding it down against the force of rising warm air.
Tigan and his staff waded deeper into the idea. Someone calculated that it would make economic sense if heating oil rose above $1.25 a gallon -- it was then at $0.99 per gallon. (Today it sells for about twice that, in current dollars.) And then there was the money saved on snowplowing. They applied for HUD money, not so much to study the feasibility of the engineering, but to learn how people might react to such a unique living situation, and to refine the economics and the environment.
Everyone had an opinion. The New York Times editorialized against the Dome, saying it would ruin the view. The financial pages of Saudi Arabian newspapers feared it for the precedent it might set. Tigan appeared on the Letterman show, McNeil and Lehrer, and others. Then, Senator William Proxmire from Wisconsin, famous (and some said, short-sighted) for his “Golden Fleece Awards,” given monthly to a project he deemed a waste of federal funds, got wind of the idea. President Carter, struggling for reelection in a terrible economy with Americans being held hostage in Iran, personally called up Embrey -- the project backer at HUD. In May, 1980, HUD turned down Winooski’s request for funds.
After Ronald Reagan won the autumn election, money for such projects dried up very quickly. Peck, the reporter who broke the story and who is now a realtor in Vermont, called it “wonderful publicity for the town, but it was a great idea that would never work.”
Tigan, now an associate professor of Community Development at the Clark University, disagrees. “Economically it’s a slam dunk,” he said. The biggest issue, he believes, would be the public taking of land via eminent domain to secure the area around the edges, illustrated by the 2005 controversial Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. City of New London. Such issues, Tigan expects, will become more common in the future as environmental sustainability and even survival become economic issues.
“You could have had year-round fly-fishing,” he says with a bit of a sigh. “If I had stayed in Winooski, it would be under a dome now.”
David Appell is a freelance science journalist living in St. Helens, Oregon.
LA Co. DA to prosecute OTC medical marijuana
http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_13518094
LA Co. DA to prosecute OTC medical marijuana
10/08/2009
MONTEBELLO, Calif.—The Los Angeles County district attorney says medical marijuana dispensaries in the county are operating illegally and will be prosecuted.
Steve Cooley said Thursday at a narcotics officers training session in Montebello that he and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich believe over-the-counter sales are illegal, based on a state Supreme Court decision last year.
Cooley says his office is already preparing to prosecute a Culver City dispensary called Organica.
The city attorney's office says there are hundreds of dispensaries in the county operating under a 1996 voter initiative that allowed medical marijuana use, and a state law that allows for collective growing of marijuana.
Outside the training session, about 100 medical marijuana advocates protested.
———
Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/
LA Co. DA to prosecute OTC medical marijuana
10/08/2009
MONTEBELLO, Calif.—The Los Angeles County district attorney says medical marijuana dispensaries in the county are operating illegally and will be prosecuted.
Steve Cooley said Thursday at a narcotics officers training session in Montebello that he and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich believe over-the-counter sales are illegal, based on a state Supreme Court decision last year.
Cooley says his office is already preparing to prosecute a Culver City dispensary called Organica.
The city attorney's office says there are hundreds of dispensaries in the county operating under a 1996 voter initiative that allowed medical marijuana use, and a state law that allows for collective growing of marijuana.
Outside the training session, about 100 medical marijuana advocates protested.
———
Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/
The Perils of FDS: Fun Deficiency Syndrome
http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/neuro/perils-fds-fun-deficiency-syndromeThe Perils of FDS: Fun Deficiency Syndrome
James Kent
October 7, 2009
Modern cosmetic pharmacology focuses so heavily on eliminating depression that it entirely misses one essential point: depressed people are suffering from a lack of fun. Nobody ever describes depression as a “Fun Deficiency Syndrome,” but lack of fun is clearly the root cause of all depression. It is impossible to be depressed when you are having fun, yet modern therapies for depression seek only to minimize depressive symptoms while doing nothing to maximize the daily intake of fun. This backwards approach to treating fun deficiency syndrome — or FDS — is not only dangerously ineffective, it will be viewed by future generations as one of the greatest failures of medicine.
While depression has been studied under a microscope, science has barely scratched the surface on fun. The scientific study of fun is considered to be a frivolous exercise, and this assumption would be correct because fun is frivolous. The mistake made by science and academia is in underestimating the value of fun, treating fun as a non-serious diversion instead of a rational goal worthy of scientific examination. This oversight is unfortunate because fun is arguably the greatest thing a human can have. Everyone likes to have fun... no, we love to have fun. When we are having fun we forget ourselves and become one with our actions in a moment of pure playful enjoyment. Having fun goes beyond being happy. Happiness implies a baseline level of contentment and good feelings but it does not include the amusement, exhilaration, laughter and joy associated with fun. If depression is the illness of our age, fun is the cure.
The roots of FDS can be traced through human developmental stages. Most people have plenty of fun as children, but the onset of adolescence and high school creates a perfect storm of jaded anxiety that dampens the levels of fun easily found in childhood. The onset of FDS in adolescence leads teenagers to naturally seek extremes of fun behavior to counteract their social anxiety. These extremes include partying, fighting, competitive sports and mating behaviors where risk is maximized to produce the most fun. Most people do not consider this adolescent fun-seeking activity to be a neurologically-wired behavior to cope with developmental anxiety and depression, but it obviously is. This fun-seeking stage lasts well into early adulthood when chronic FDS becomes more problematic. By middle age, most people are chronically low on fun and this is when depression becomes most acute. If lack of fun is constant and goes untreated it can lead directly to mid-life crisis and, eventually, grumpy-old-fart syndrome.
Fun can be scientifically reduced to two distinct variables: risk and reward. It is easy to understand why reward is fun, but risk is the key to maximizing the impact of reward to produce fun. The most extreme examples of this dynamic can be found in compulsive behaviors that can become highly addictive, like sex and gambling. Sex and gambling are both fun and risky, and the higher the risk the more satisfying and more fun the reward. Also, consider horror movies or amusement park rides where a constant level of fear and anxiety is sustained throughout the experience until the resolution brings a safe and satisfying reward. Fun is thus the science of using risk to build tension, and then strategically releasing that tension with a pleasurable reward to maximize enjoyment. Fun is therapeutic because it reduces anxiety and produces neurochemicals that combat depression. Fun is one of nature’s best and most powerful medicines. If you could put fun in a pill it would almost certainly be illegal.
The major pharmacological variables of the risk/reward fun dynamic are adrenaline and dopamine, the key catecholamines produced in response to stress. By now we should all be familiar with the manic exhilaration of an adrenaline rush and the self-satisfied clarity of a dopamine high. Of all the drugs in the world, amphetamines may be the best at stimulating this specific chemical cocktail. It is no mystery why amphetamines lead to risky behaviors. Risky behaviors are even more rewarding under the influence of amphetamines and thus more fun. One side of the dopamine cycle leads the subject to seek out new and fun activities; the other side stimulates the satisfying feeling of reward in response to new experiences. Increasing the levels of risk in these fun-seeking behaviors increases the adrenaline rush and thus increases the sensual intensity of the reward and emotional impact of the resulting memory. The experience of intense fun is therefore more than a trivial diversion: it is a pivotal psychological landmark in the lifetime of an individual which can create long-term changes in selfimage, mood, and behavior.
If we follow a simple clinical spectrum for FDS, it can be assumed that the longer individuals go without fun, the more depressed they will become. Chronic lack of fun over time will always result in low self-esteem and the inability to enjoy activities that were once fun when they were new but have now become mundane. People suffering from chronic FDS will claim to lack the time or motivation to seek out new activities, and at the extreme end of the disorder, subjects will claim that seeking fun is a complete waste of time. This is a chronic lack of dopamine talking, and the only cure for people with FDS is to force them to go out and have fun. Unfortunately subjects with undiagnosed FDS may actually think they don’t deserve to have fun, and that they don’t even deserve to have friends, so snapping someone with chronic FDS out of their cycle is not always easy. In extreme cases the only solution may be dancing, a surprise party, or a spontaneous and poorly-planned road trip. Bring beer.
People are the final component in fun... other people. Fun is always more fun when it is shared with other people. This is why partying is an essential human behavior for regulating feelings of self-esteem and social worth. Having fun with other humans in a social setting stimulates serotonin and oxcytocin, two neurochemicals essential to feelings of security and being loved. So if you’re feeling depressed and nothing seems to be working, the only solution is to call some friends and go out and have some fun. It is clinically proven to make you feel better.
James Kent is the former publisher of Psychedelic Illuminations and Trip Magazine. He currently edits DoseNation.com, a drug blog featuring news, humor and commentary.
The Perils of CFSS (Compulsive Fun-Seeking Syndrome)
On the flip-side of FDS, we find people who suffer from Compulsive Fun-Seeking syndrome (CFSS). People with CFSS are commonly referred to as adrenaline junkies, thrill seekers, compulsive risk takers and teenagers. While this syndrome is viewed as valuable by the gambling, prostitution, dope, and extreme sports industries, it should be noted that CFSS is a legitimate pathology with a distinct pharmacological profile. CFSS can be artificially simulated by dopamine agonists, including amphetamines, pot, caffeine and alcohol. More oddly, dopamine agonists used to treat Parkinson’s Disease or Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), which selectively stimulate motor pathways and selectively avoid the reward pathways, can also cause compulsive behaviors such as gambling or financial risktaking. As the result of CFSS, we find people who chronically seek risky behaviors in the hopes of finding fun, but who fail to feel any long-term satisfaction from the rewards they receive. This syndrome is also called attention-deficit disorder (ADD), or it may be categorized by particular compulsions or addictions, but in actuality these are all symptoms of an underlying CFSS disorder. People with CFSS will become depressed in the absence of fun faster than people who do not have this syndrome.
Cancer Cure Genius Silenced by Medical Mafia
http://www.naturalnews.com/027104_cancer_Chi_cancer_cure.html
Royal Rife: Cancer Cure Genius Silenced by Medical Mafia
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Paul Fassa, citizen journalist
(NaturalNews) What if someone invented an electronic device that would destroy pathogens, bacteria, and even viruses with no toxic side effects? What if that same device could wipe out cancer by altering the cancer's cellular environment or by killing cancer viruses with an electronic or ultra sonic beam? That was accomplished years ago. The researcher who invented and perfected this device had an odd name, Royal Raymond Rife. But his associates and colleagues knew him as Roy Rife.
The original Rife machine, based on a naval radio frequency oscillator, evolved to the Rife Ray Tube. It is the basis of Rife technology that underwent successful trials and experiments as it was developed in the 1930's. You'd think that further research into Rife's findings would have been supported and propagated further for the welfare of all. And at first it was. But guess what, Rife's technology was suppressed by the medical mafia, and very little has come of it. Nothing new here.
How It Works (Basically)
Have you ever seen or heard of singers who could shatter wine glasses by hitting and sustaining the right note? How about striking a tuning fork held next to another of the same pitch that is not struck, but vibrates and makes a tone anyway? These are visible examples of vibrational reciprocity in the sonic range. From this basic understanding, Rife developed what he called resonance therapy.
Imagine if minuscule pathogens had energy frequencies beyond the sonic range that, if induced, would cause the pathogen to implode or explode. This Rife called the Mortal Oscillatory Resonance or MOR. It is technology within the arena of energetic healing, but more in the western mode of challenging pathogens with technological machinery from outside. With a special microscope of his own making, Rife was able to observe and record the MOR of many pathogens.
Instead of dealing with the vibrational field of the patient, or the patient's chi energy, Rife used high frequency energies created by electronic machinery to alter both pathogens and their environments. The difference between Rife's Ray Beam and common radiation therapy was that only those specific MOR frequencies of targeted microorganisms had negative responses. All other cells were left unharmed. This is the essence of Rife's technology.
Also included in his research was observing morphing pathogenic bacteria and viruses into different less destructive forms. He was among a growing number of microbiologists and researchers who had adopted Pleomorphism as an explanation of microorganism life. Pleomorphism posits that the life form of a pathogenic microbe alters, possibly many times.
Rife also noticed corresponding changes in the tissue or blood environment of these morphing microorganisms. This led to the theory that the condition of the germs' medium, i.e. the blood or tissue, was the cause of disease and not the germ. Rife did observe the pH changes in what is now called the field or terrain in the microorganism's host environment as well as its association with bacterial/viral morphing.
He considered that the field pH changes influenced the microorganisms morphing, causing them to become more pathogenic or more benign depending on the pH factor. This was the precursor to the field or terrain theory as a source of disease that many holistic healers now embrace over the germ theory. Rife was beginning to realize this in spite of being able to kill the germs of many diseases with his ray tube.
Monomorphismwas the accepted theory at that time since microscopy was not able to observe the mutable morphing of microorganisms. This re-enforced the old germ theory and made a lot of people in western medicine happy to be in their profession. What was usually observed with the microscopes of that time were simply shells of dead viruses and bacteria.
Because the electronics of electronic microscopes killed the tiny microbes, electronic microscopes were unable to observe pleomorphic alterations or the result of the correct resonance (MOR) applied for its destruction while alive. As is the nature for accepted doctrine, especially when there are significant monetary interests, monomorphism was in and pleomorphism was out!
This despite the fact that to pleomorphism advocates' glee, Rife's Universal Microscope made observing microbes changing form a reality. Photos and films were provided to scientists who were open to this, and eventually a couple of prominent scientists gained access to Rife's Universal Microscope to observe the previously unseen phenomena first hand.
Rife's Early Achievements
Royal Raymond Rife left the United States after his medical education and trained for six years at the Carl Zeis Optical Company in Germany. The unique and complex microscope he created used different mediums for bending light than normal optics used prior to his ultimate invention, which he called the Universal Microscope. That achievement alone brought him fame in the inner circles of the scientific community.
However, the mother for this invention was his desire to see the tiniest microorganisms alive for as long as desired, enabling him to notice when they disintegrated or changed form from a focused ultra sonic frequency. The Universal Microscope enabled Rife to painstakingly record the exact frequencies, or MOR (mortal oscillatory resonance) to destroy different pathogens, even viruses, that were commonly found in the blood and tissues from many of the diseases.
During Rife's time, a virus was defined simply as a living microorganism too small to be seen with a microscope. Of course, his unique microscope changed that. With its astounding 31,000X magnifying power, which some say could be boosted to twice that power with special UV lighting, Rife was able to observe microorganisms morph into different forms, sometimes as many as 16, and disintegrate with the corresponding mortal oscillatory resonance (MOR) frequencies.
For his scientific genius, Rife was nominated for the Alternative Nobel Prize, Europe's arrangement to award more risk taking ventures passed over by the Swedish Noble Prize. Rife's genius was boundless, he excelled in microbiology, optics, and other mechanical and electronic applications.
Henry Timken, Jr., the wealthy owner of Timken Roller Bearing Company became Rife's patron, enabling Roy Rife to maintain independent research without interruption. Out of gratitude for a Rife invention that had reduced his production costs, Timken established a laboratory on his estate in San Diego, CA for Rife to research as he desired with the best equipment available. It was a state of the art lab.
Rife was also introduced to Dr. Milbank Johnson, who was the head of a regional medical board and affiliated with the University of Southern California (USC) medical department. Dr. Johnson admired and respected Rife's ideas and ingenuity. As the head of a regional medical institution, he had political clout in the medical community throughout the nation. Dr. Johnson's support of Rife's work enabled Rife to continue his research unabated by medical authority throughout the 1930's.
Dr. Johnson helped Rife network with a couple of eminent bacteriologists who were interested in pleomorphism research, Dr. Arthur Kendall of Northwestern University in Chicago and Dr. E. C. Rosenow of the Rochester, Minnesota Mayo Clinic. Those two participated with Rife by using his Universal Microscope to see what Roy Rife was seeing to confirm their theories.
After experimenting by infecting lab animals and curing them, Rife was confident that his research could now extend to real life human cancer victims. Dr. Johnson set up clinical trials out of USC's medical school. The clinical trail results were monitored by a team of physicians headed by pathologist Alvin Ford, MD.
Rife was presented with 16 terminal cancer victims afflicted by a variety of malignancies. The USC team of physicians declared 14 of those 16 were clinically cured within 70 days. The other 2 took 20 days longer. The treatments included short breaks with nutrients to promote lymphatic elimination of the destroyed microbes.
In 1940, Dr. Arthur W. Yale announced that Rife had discovered a technique for curing cancer so unique and amazing that medicine was on the verge of completely eliminating the second highest cause of disease death in America. Unfortunately, Dr. Yale did not have the last word.
The Beginning of Betrayal and Suppression
Any threat to the medical mafia with a cancer cure that was not dependent on AMA surgery or Big Pharma drugs needed to be openly challenged by the monomorphic crowd, whose theory supported curing by surgical removal, dangerous radiation, or poisonous drugs. And Rife's Ray Beam therapy was not just for curing cancer, but for curing any and all diseases without the use of surgery or drugs!
For every Rifean there were many others whose careers were threatened by anything outside of their cash flow boxes. Dr. Thomas Rivers was among the first to attack, and he was right out of the Rockefeller Institute. He was joined by Dr. Hans Zinser, a Harvard Medical School microbiologist. They declared Rife's theories and techniques as worthless. Naturally, many others in the habit of obedience to authority joined in.
But this was just the beginning of Rife's descent into doom. Around 1936, Rife realized he needed to form an independent company producing more manageable machines than the monstrosity in his lab. Rife contracted an individual who understood his invention, and who demonstrated the ability to package Rife's devices more compactly while maintaining their efficiency. That man was Philip Hoyland, an electronic/electrical engineer.
Rife, Hoyland, and two other associates formed the Beam Ray Corporation with the idea of making and distributing the machines to clinicians and physicians. Soon, along came the doctor who had never practiced medicine, Morris Fishbein, the notorious alternative cancer cure hit man and head of the AMA. Just as he has done with others who had come up with cancer cures outside the cut, burn, and poison mode, Fishbein made a move to possess and control Rife's technology at first.
He bribed Hoyland with $10,000 to file a suit against Rife in order to obtain the company and include a Fishbein agent on the board of directors while excluding Rife. Ten grand was quite a lot in those days. Rife counter sued and won in 1939. The litigation and betrayal took an emotional and financial toll on the normally reclusive scientist, and he began drinking.
Then the big bad Fishbein decided if he couldn't have the Rife operation, he'd destroy it. This was Morris Fishbein's MO with others who had come up with alternative cancer cures, but would not allow him to virtually steal them away and possibly hide them. He used his Machiavellian clout to ban doctors from using Rife technology and even confiscated equipment.
A small circle of doctors in California continued despite the national pressure, thanks to the protection of a politically powerful medical person, the same Dr. Milbank Johnson who was always in Rife's corner. However, Dr. Johnson passed away in 1944, and the AMA had its way as medical mafia terrorists!
Suspiciously, upon Dr. Johnson's death, many of the documents from the USC clinical trails he had held completely disappeared. Not long after, investigators suspected that he was poisoned just prior to announcing Rife's successes publicly.
Equipment was confiscated, laboratories were destroyed, one doctor was harassed to the point of quitting the profession, and another was reported as having committed suicide! The wife of another doctor had a nervous breakdown, forcing her to receive shock therapy during her two months in a mental hospital. Medical mafia is an appropriate term after all!
Rife MOR Therapy on Life Support
Again, Roy Rife made another attempt at manufacturing and distributing his Rife Ray Beam devices with the technology for using them correctly. He partnered with an engineer named John Crane, who had encouraged Rife to continue. They made a bit of a stir with even better designs that were easier to use around 1960.
But even without Fishbein, who was forced to retire in 1954 because of the AMA scandals discovered by the 1953 Fitzgerald congressional committee, the FDA took over harassment activities and seized Rife and Crane's latest equipment.
All this plus the death of his beloved wife of over 30 years left Rife a broken man. In 1961, at the age of 73, Roy Rife fled the country to nearby Mexico. Rife had added Valium to his drinking habit, yet he managed to live until 1971, when he died in Mexico at the age of 83. John Crane later explained that Rife was a great researcher, but was not cut out to be a fighter. However, John Crane was a knowledgeable and outspoken fighter.
After Rife's exodus to Mexico, John Crane still attempted to bring Rife's technology to public awareness while railing against the medical establishment's suppression of his constitutional rights. He was criminally indicted and tried on charges involving practicing medicine without a license. The trail jury was screened to eliminate all those with any medical knowledge, especially alternative healing, while retaining an AMA doctor as the jury foreman!
Rife submitted a deposition from Mexico to support Crane's defense, but it was not even admitted. Talk about getting railroaded! Crane was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Two of the three counts against Crane were overturned later, and he was released from prison after serving 3 years and 1 month.
Yet even after his release from prison, Crane continued his work underground and compiled and produced a 1000 page manual on the Rife machine's design and use, which has survived after his death in 1995. Thanks to John Crane's persistent work, Rife's ray beam technology managed to stay alive, but only on life support.
In 1986, Barry Lynes, author of The Cancer Cure That Worked: 50 Years of Suppression, a book that chronicles Royal Raymond Rife's life and work, submitted an article to every member of the U.S. Congress and the staff and students of George Washington University's medical school as a last gasp effort to openly investigate Rife's work without bias. Nothing, not even one response, came of it.
Currently, the life support system for Rife's work is a scattered group of technically oriented individuals and holistic and allopathic doctors, connecting by Internet throughout the world, especially from Europe. They are holding Rife's technology together, some even using it, in the hopes that someday it will see the light of day for all of humanity.
About the author
Paul Fassa has managed to survive the Standard American Diet (SAD) and his youthful folly by deprogramming gradually from mainstream health ideology and studying holistic health matters informally with his wife while incorporating them into his lifestyle as a vegetarian.
He also practices Chi-Lel Chi Gong, and he is trained as a polarity therapy practitioner. He is dedicated to warning others of the corruption of food and medicine in our time, and guiding others toward a better direction for health. You can visit his blog at http://healthmaven.blogspot.com
Royal Rife: Cancer Cure Genius Silenced by Medical Mafia
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Paul Fassa, citizen journalist
(NaturalNews) What if someone invented an electronic device that would destroy pathogens, bacteria, and even viruses with no toxic side effects? What if that same device could wipe out cancer by altering the cancer's cellular environment or by killing cancer viruses with an electronic or ultra sonic beam? That was accomplished years ago. The researcher who invented and perfected this device had an odd name, Royal Raymond Rife. But his associates and colleagues knew him as Roy Rife.
The original Rife machine, based on a naval radio frequency oscillator, evolved to the Rife Ray Tube. It is the basis of Rife technology that underwent successful trials and experiments as it was developed in the 1930's. You'd think that further research into Rife's findings would have been supported and propagated further for the welfare of all. And at first it was. But guess what, Rife's technology was suppressed by the medical mafia, and very little has come of it. Nothing new here.
How It Works (Basically)
Have you ever seen or heard of singers who could shatter wine glasses by hitting and sustaining the right note? How about striking a tuning fork held next to another of the same pitch that is not struck, but vibrates and makes a tone anyway? These are visible examples of vibrational reciprocity in the sonic range. From this basic understanding, Rife developed what he called resonance therapy.
Imagine if minuscule pathogens had energy frequencies beyond the sonic range that, if induced, would cause the pathogen to implode or explode. This Rife called the Mortal Oscillatory Resonance or MOR. It is technology within the arena of energetic healing, but more in the western mode of challenging pathogens with technological machinery from outside. With a special microscope of his own making, Rife was able to observe and record the MOR of many pathogens.
Instead of dealing with the vibrational field of the patient, or the patient's chi energy, Rife used high frequency energies created by electronic machinery to alter both pathogens and their environments. The difference between Rife's Ray Beam and common radiation therapy was that only those specific MOR frequencies of targeted microorganisms had negative responses. All other cells were left unharmed. This is the essence of Rife's technology.
Also included in his research was observing morphing pathogenic bacteria and viruses into different less destructive forms. He was among a growing number of microbiologists and researchers who had adopted Pleomorphism as an explanation of microorganism life. Pleomorphism posits that the life form of a pathogenic microbe alters, possibly many times.
Rife also noticed corresponding changes in the tissue or blood environment of these morphing microorganisms. This led to the theory that the condition of the germs' medium, i.e. the blood or tissue, was the cause of disease and not the germ. Rife did observe the pH changes in what is now called the field or terrain in the microorganism's host environment as well as its association with bacterial/viral morphing.
He considered that the field pH changes influenced the microorganisms morphing, causing them to become more pathogenic or more benign depending on the pH factor. This was the precursor to the field or terrain theory as a source of disease that many holistic healers now embrace over the germ theory. Rife was beginning to realize this in spite of being able to kill the germs of many diseases with his ray tube.
Monomorphismwas the accepted theory at that time since microscopy was not able to observe the mutable morphing of microorganisms. This re-enforced the old germ theory and made a lot of people in western medicine happy to be in their profession. What was usually observed with the microscopes of that time were simply shells of dead viruses and bacteria.
Because the electronics of electronic microscopes killed the tiny microbes, electronic microscopes were unable to observe pleomorphic alterations or the result of the correct resonance (MOR) applied for its destruction while alive. As is the nature for accepted doctrine, especially when there are significant monetary interests, monomorphism was in and pleomorphism was out!
This despite the fact that to pleomorphism advocates' glee, Rife's Universal Microscope made observing microbes changing form a reality. Photos and films were provided to scientists who were open to this, and eventually a couple of prominent scientists gained access to Rife's Universal Microscope to observe the previously unseen phenomena first hand.
Rife's Early Achievements
Royal Raymond Rife left the United States after his medical education and trained for six years at the Carl Zeis Optical Company in Germany. The unique and complex microscope he created used different mediums for bending light than normal optics used prior to his ultimate invention, which he called the Universal Microscope. That achievement alone brought him fame in the inner circles of the scientific community.
However, the mother for this invention was his desire to see the tiniest microorganisms alive for as long as desired, enabling him to notice when they disintegrated or changed form from a focused ultra sonic frequency. The Universal Microscope enabled Rife to painstakingly record the exact frequencies, or MOR (mortal oscillatory resonance) to destroy different pathogens, even viruses, that were commonly found in the blood and tissues from many of the diseases.
During Rife's time, a virus was defined simply as a living microorganism too small to be seen with a microscope. Of course, his unique microscope changed that. With its astounding 31,000X magnifying power, which some say could be boosted to twice that power with special UV lighting, Rife was able to observe microorganisms morph into different forms, sometimes as many as 16, and disintegrate with the corresponding mortal oscillatory resonance (MOR) frequencies.
For his scientific genius, Rife was nominated for the Alternative Nobel Prize, Europe's arrangement to award more risk taking ventures passed over by the Swedish Noble Prize. Rife's genius was boundless, he excelled in microbiology, optics, and other mechanical and electronic applications.
Henry Timken, Jr., the wealthy owner of Timken Roller Bearing Company became Rife's patron, enabling Roy Rife to maintain independent research without interruption. Out of gratitude for a Rife invention that had reduced his production costs, Timken established a laboratory on his estate in San Diego, CA for Rife to research as he desired with the best equipment available. It was a state of the art lab.
Rife was also introduced to Dr. Milbank Johnson, who was the head of a regional medical board and affiliated with the University of Southern California (USC) medical department. Dr. Johnson admired and respected Rife's ideas and ingenuity. As the head of a regional medical institution, he had political clout in the medical community throughout the nation. Dr. Johnson's support of Rife's work enabled Rife to continue his research unabated by medical authority throughout the 1930's.
Dr. Johnson helped Rife network with a couple of eminent bacteriologists who were interested in pleomorphism research, Dr. Arthur Kendall of Northwestern University in Chicago and Dr. E. C. Rosenow of the Rochester, Minnesota Mayo Clinic. Those two participated with Rife by using his Universal Microscope to see what Roy Rife was seeing to confirm their theories.
After experimenting by infecting lab animals and curing them, Rife was confident that his research could now extend to real life human cancer victims. Dr. Johnson set up clinical trials out of USC's medical school. The clinical trail results were monitored by a team of physicians headed by pathologist Alvin Ford, MD.
Rife was presented with 16 terminal cancer victims afflicted by a variety of malignancies. The USC team of physicians declared 14 of those 16 were clinically cured within 70 days. The other 2 took 20 days longer. The treatments included short breaks with nutrients to promote lymphatic elimination of the destroyed microbes.
In 1940, Dr. Arthur W. Yale announced that Rife had discovered a technique for curing cancer so unique and amazing that medicine was on the verge of completely eliminating the second highest cause of disease death in America. Unfortunately, Dr. Yale did not have the last word.
The Beginning of Betrayal and Suppression
Any threat to the medical mafia with a cancer cure that was not dependent on AMA surgery or Big Pharma drugs needed to be openly challenged by the monomorphic crowd, whose theory supported curing by surgical removal, dangerous radiation, or poisonous drugs. And Rife's Ray Beam therapy was not just for curing cancer, but for curing any and all diseases without the use of surgery or drugs!
For every Rifean there were many others whose careers were threatened by anything outside of their cash flow boxes. Dr. Thomas Rivers was among the first to attack, and he was right out of the Rockefeller Institute. He was joined by Dr. Hans Zinser, a Harvard Medical School microbiologist. They declared Rife's theories and techniques as worthless. Naturally, many others in the habit of obedience to authority joined in.
But this was just the beginning of Rife's descent into doom. Around 1936, Rife realized he needed to form an independent company producing more manageable machines than the monstrosity in his lab. Rife contracted an individual who understood his invention, and who demonstrated the ability to package Rife's devices more compactly while maintaining their efficiency. That man was Philip Hoyland, an electronic/electrical engineer.
Rife, Hoyland, and two other associates formed the Beam Ray Corporation with the idea of making and distributing the machines to clinicians and physicians. Soon, along came the doctor who had never practiced medicine, Morris Fishbein, the notorious alternative cancer cure hit man and head of the AMA. Just as he has done with others who had come up with cancer cures outside the cut, burn, and poison mode, Fishbein made a move to possess and control Rife's technology at first.
He bribed Hoyland with $10,000 to file a suit against Rife in order to obtain the company and include a Fishbein agent on the board of directors while excluding Rife. Ten grand was quite a lot in those days. Rife counter sued and won in 1939. The litigation and betrayal took an emotional and financial toll on the normally reclusive scientist, and he began drinking.
Then the big bad Fishbein decided if he couldn't have the Rife operation, he'd destroy it. This was Morris Fishbein's MO with others who had come up with alternative cancer cures, but would not allow him to virtually steal them away and possibly hide them. He used his Machiavellian clout to ban doctors from using Rife technology and even confiscated equipment.
A small circle of doctors in California continued despite the national pressure, thanks to the protection of a politically powerful medical person, the same Dr. Milbank Johnson who was always in Rife's corner. However, Dr. Johnson passed away in 1944, and the AMA had its way as medical mafia terrorists!
Suspiciously, upon Dr. Johnson's death, many of the documents from the USC clinical trails he had held completely disappeared. Not long after, investigators suspected that he was poisoned just prior to announcing Rife's successes publicly.
Equipment was confiscated, laboratories were destroyed, one doctor was harassed to the point of quitting the profession, and another was reported as having committed suicide! The wife of another doctor had a nervous breakdown, forcing her to receive shock therapy during her two months in a mental hospital. Medical mafia is an appropriate term after all!
Rife MOR Therapy on Life Support
Again, Roy Rife made another attempt at manufacturing and distributing his Rife Ray Beam devices with the technology for using them correctly. He partnered with an engineer named John Crane, who had encouraged Rife to continue. They made a bit of a stir with even better designs that were easier to use around 1960.
But even without Fishbein, who was forced to retire in 1954 because of the AMA scandals discovered by the 1953 Fitzgerald congressional committee, the FDA took over harassment activities and seized Rife and Crane's latest equipment.
All this plus the death of his beloved wife of over 30 years left Rife a broken man. In 1961, at the age of 73, Roy Rife fled the country to nearby Mexico. Rife had added Valium to his drinking habit, yet he managed to live until 1971, when he died in Mexico at the age of 83. John Crane later explained that Rife was a great researcher, but was not cut out to be a fighter. However, John Crane was a knowledgeable and outspoken fighter.
After Rife's exodus to Mexico, John Crane still attempted to bring Rife's technology to public awareness while railing against the medical establishment's suppression of his constitutional rights. He was criminally indicted and tried on charges involving practicing medicine without a license. The trail jury was screened to eliminate all those with any medical knowledge, especially alternative healing, while retaining an AMA doctor as the jury foreman!
Rife submitted a deposition from Mexico to support Crane's defense, but it was not even admitted. Talk about getting railroaded! Crane was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Two of the three counts against Crane were overturned later, and he was released from prison after serving 3 years and 1 month.
Yet even after his release from prison, Crane continued his work underground and compiled and produced a 1000 page manual on the Rife machine's design and use, which has survived after his death in 1995. Thanks to John Crane's persistent work, Rife's ray beam technology managed to stay alive, but only on life support.
In 1986, Barry Lynes, author of The Cancer Cure That Worked: 50 Years of Suppression, a book that chronicles Royal Raymond Rife's life and work, submitted an article to every member of the U.S. Congress and the staff and students of George Washington University's medical school as a last gasp effort to openly investigate Rife's work without bias. Nothing, not even one response, came of it.
Currently, the life support system for Rife's work is a scattered group of technically oriented individuals and holistic and allopathic doctors, connecting by Internet throughout the world, especially from Europe. They are holding Rife's technology together, some even using it, in the hopes that someday it will see the light of day for all of humanity.
About the author
Paul Fassa has managed to survive the Standard American Diet (SAD) and his youthful folly by deprogramming gradually from mainstream health ideology and studying holistic health matters informally with his wife while incorporating them into his lifestyle as a vegetarian.
He also practices Chi-Lel Chi Gong, and he is trained as a polarity therapy practitioner. He is dedicated to warning others of the corruption of food and medicine in our time, and guiding others toward a better direction for health. You can visit his blog at http://healthmaven.blogspot.com
War Criminal Obama Deserves An Oscar
http://www.prisonplanet.com/war-criminal-obama-deserves-an-oscar-but-not-a-nobel-peace-prize.html
War Criminal Obama Deserves An Oscar, But Not A Nobel Peace Prize
Barack is good at propagandizing for an attack on Iran, and he has dutifully expanded the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but a peacenik he is not
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, October 9, 2009
In a world where war criminals like Tony Blair are rewarded and those that oppose war criminals, like the Iraqi shoe thrower Muntadhar al-Zeidi, are imprisoned and tortured, it comes as no surprise that another war criminal – Barack H. Obama – has been rewarded for his stoic service to imperial bloodletting with the Nobel Peace Prize.
The man who gallantly promised “change” from the Bush regime’s illegal wars and a return to diplomacy over belligerency in dealing with Iran, has perpetuated the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while expanding another in Pakistan and becoming belligerent towards Iran.
How in anyone’s mind can such behavior constitute a move towards peace?
Obama has done nothing to dismantle the sprawling network of well over 700 U.S. military bases all over the world.
Instead of coming to an understanding with Iran over their nuclear power program, Obama gleefully read from his trusty teleprompter and crafted the hoax that the Iranian nuclear facility at Qom was an evil secret that the Iranians had kept hidden from America as part of a clandestine agenda to build nuclear weapons. In reality, Iran had followed precisely the guidelines set out by the IAEA on when to report the facility and the U.S. had known about it for several years anyway.
Obama’s slick propaganda in expressing his shock at the “discovery” of the plant was worthy of an Oscar but not a Nobel Peace Prize, since the scam has increased the likelihood of sanctions on Iran that will only accelerate the path to war.
By dutifully playing his part in this contrived hoax, Obama was mimicking the tactics of how George W. Bush sold the attack on Iraq.
As Paul Craig Roberts wrote, “By accusing Iran of having a secret “nuclear weapons program” and demanding that Iran “come clean” about the nonexistent program, adding that he does not rule out a military attack on Iran, Obama mimics the discredited Bush regime’s use of nonexistent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” to set up Iraq for invasion.”
The fact that Obama launched himself into the role of war hawk in an effort to propagandize for belligerency towards Iran completely discredits the claim by Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland that Obama “Has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations.”
Obama’s acting skills in front of a teleprompter and his slick rhetoric about peace and diplomacy may look good on the surface, but the reality of what he has actually done to further the PNAC agenda for endless war underlines why the award of the Peace Prize is a sick joke.
If Obama intended to bring peace to the world, then why were his early appointments mostly neo-liberal war hawks who have a history of backing military adventurism?
If Obama is such a huge peacenik, then why has he sent 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan already, with tens of thousands more at least on the way?
If Obama plans to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and bring peace to the region, then why has he gone back on his promise and ensured that tens of thousands of U.S. troops will remain in the country?
If Obama is so deserving of being recognized for his efforts towards peace, then why has he intensified the Bush-era missile drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have killed and injured countless innocent civilians?
If Obama is so interested in promoting peace, then why does he protect war criminals who have violated the Geneva Conventions from prosecution?
Beyond the meaningless platitudes served up by his fellow elitist snobs, the true hilarity of Obama receiving the prize was illustrated by just a couple of individuals who the corporate media dared to quote.
Issam al-Khazraji, a day laborer in Baghdad, told Reuters: “He doesn’t deserve this prize. All these problems — Iraq, Afghanistan — have not been solved…The man of ‘change’ hasn’t changed anything yet.”
“Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, called the award an embarrassing “joke.”
“By implementing his war continuation plan, Obama will complete the work of Bush and his militarist clique,” writes author Chris Floyd, and in doing so send, “an apparently endless stream of American troops to die — and, in even greater numbers, to kill — in a criminal action that has helped bankrupt our own country while sending waves of violent instability and extremism around the world. It will further enfilth a cesspool of corruption and war profiteering that has already reached staggering, world-historical proportions.”
Floyd encapsulates perfectly why Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award is a disgusting farce, an insult to those who really are fighting for peace in the world, and just another reminder that the Nobel Peace Prize represents little more than a gaggle of back-slapping elitists who bestow awards upon each other so that they can pose as global saviors to the public when in reality they are mostly a bunch of crooks, con-artists and deceivers.
War Criminal Obama Deserves An Oscar, But Not A Nobel Peace Prize
Barack is good at propagandizing for an attack on Iran, and he has dutifully expanded the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but a peacenik he is not
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, October 9, 2009
In a world where war criminals like Tony Blair are rewarded and those that oppose war criminals, like the Iraqi shoe thrower Muntadhar al-Zeidi, are imprisoned and tortured, it comes as no surprise that another war criminal – Barack H. Obama – has been rewarded for his stoic service to imperial bloodletting with the Nobel Peace Prize.
The man who gallantly promised “change” from the Bush regime’s illegal wars and a return to diplomacy over belligerency in dealing with Iran, has perpetuated the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while expanding another in Pakistan and becoming belligerent towards Iran.
How in anyone’s mind can such behavior constitute a move towards peace?
Obama has done nothing to dismantle the sprawling network of well over 700 U.S. military bases all over the world.
Instead of coming to an understanding with Iran over their nuclear power program, Obama gleefully read from his trusty teleprompter and crafted the hoax that the Iranian nuclear facility at Qom was an evil secret that the Iranians had kept hidden from America as part of a clandestine agenda to build nuclear weapons. In reality, Iran had followed precisely the guidelines set out by the IAEA on when to report the facility and the U.S. had known about it for several years anyway.
Obama’s slick propaganda in expressing his shock at the “discovery” of the plant was worthy of an Oscar but not a Nobel Peace Prize, since the scam has increased the likelihood of sanctions on Iran that will only accelerate the path to war.
By dutifully playing his part in this contrived hoax, Obama was mimicking the tactics of how George W. Bush sold the attack on Iraq.
As Paul Craig Roberts wrote, “By accusing Iran of having a secret “nuclear weapons program” and demanding that Iran “come clean” about the nonexistent program, adding that he does not rule out a military attack on Iran, Obama mimics the discredited Bush regime’s use of nonexistent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” to set up Iraq for invasion.”
The fact that Obama launched himself into the role of war hawk in an effort to propagandize for belligerency towards Iran completely discredits the claim by Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland that Obama “Has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations.”
Obama’s acting skills in front of a teleprompter and his slick rhetoric about peace and diplomacy may look good on the surface, but the reality of what he has actually done to further the PNAC agenda for endless war underlines why the award of the Peace Prize is a sick joke.
If Obama intended to bring peace to the world, then why were his early appointments mostly neo-liberal war hawks who have a history of backing military adventurism?
If Obama is such a huge peacenik, then why has he sent 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan already, with tens of thousands more at least on the way?
If Obama plans to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and bring peace to the region, then why has he gone back on his promise and ensured that tens of thousands of U.S. troops will remain in the country?
If Obama is so deserving of being recognized for his efforts towards peace, then why has he intensified the Bush-era missile drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have killed and injured countless innocent civilians?
If Obama is so interested in promoting peace, then why does he protect war criminals who have violated the Geneva Conventions from prosecution?
Beyond the meaningless platitudes served up by his fellow elitist snobs, the true hilarity of Obama receiving the prize was illustrated by just a couple of individuals who the corporate media dared to quote.
Issam al-Khazraji, a day laborer in Baghdad, told Reuters: “He doesn’t deserve this prize. All these problems — Iraq, Afghanistan — have not been solved…The man of ‘change’ hasn’t changed anything yet.”
“Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, called the award an embarrassing “joke.”
“By implementing his war continuation plan, Obama will complete the work of Bush and his militarist clique,” writes author Chris Floyd, and in doing so send, “an apparently endless stream of American troops to die — and, in even greater numbers, to kill — in a criminal action that has helped bankrupt our own country while sending waves of violent instability and extremism around the world. It will further enfilth a cesspool of corruption and war profiteering that has already reached staggering, world-historical proportions.”
Floyd encapsulates perfectly why Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award is a disgusting farce, an insult to those who really are fighting for peace in the world, and just another reminder that the Nobel Peace Prize represents little more than a gaggle of back-slapping elitists who bestow awards upon each other so that they can pose as global saviors to the public when in reality they are mostly a bunch of crooks, con-artists and deceivers.
Prize fools
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6868838.ece
From The Times
October 10, 2009
Prize fools
The Nobel committee’s award to President Obama demeans the peace prize, appears politically partisan and should embarrass the White House
When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the satirist Tom Lehrer remarked that he saw no further need to perform as the award had made satire obsolete. By offering the world’s most prestigious political accolade to Barack Obama, a man who has held office for barely nine months, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is in danger of putting the entire comedy industry out of business.
The committee has put hope above results, promise above achievement. The prize undermines the selfless triumphs of earlier winners. Indeed, the award’s obvious political intent looks partisan, a signal of European relief at the end of the Bush presidency.
The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s action in “strengthening international co-operation between peoples”. That is a worthy aim and America’s re-engagement in multilateral diplomacy has been warmly welcomed by its allies. But it is hard to point to any substantive results yet. Much was promised to the Muslim world in the President’s speech in Cairo; on the ground, the failure still to achieve any tangible progress towards a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians has left all sides disillusioned. In Moscow, the talk of pressing the reset button in relations was welcome, as was Mr Obama’s abandonment of the US missile shield in Europe. But so far none of this has led to the scrapping of any more nuclear warheads.
The nomination of Mr Obama, among more than 200 other contenders, had to be made within weeks of his inauguration. Was this a message of support for the election of America’s first black president? Or was it a self-defeating way of trying to align the peace committee with the excitement that marked his first few weeks in office? Mr Obama yesterday responded with characteristic eloquence and modesty in announcing his acceptance. He would, however, have done better to have let it be known to those sounding out the White House beforehand that he saw the prize as premature, ill judged and embarrassing at a time when he is preoccupied with fighting a war in Afghanistan.
There have, of course, been previous awards that have been widely condemned as undeserved. The most contentious was probably the 1973 prize to Dr Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for their talks on an end to the Vietnam War. Dr Kissinger had just backed the US bombing of Cambodia, and Le Duc Tho — the only nominee to reject the prize — negotiated in bad faith while the Communists prepared plans to invade South Vietnam. Some awards, especially those to Arabs and Israelis, have proved overoptimistic; others, such as the 2005 prize to Mohamed ElBaradei, have been politically partisan.
This year there was no shortage of qualified contenders, men and women who may not have the glamour of Mr Obama but who have easily fulfilled the criteria of individuals who have done their utmost, often at great personal cost, to promote peace, reconciliation and human rights.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean Prime Minister, may seem naive in his faith in sharing power with President Mugabe. But no one can doubt the courage of a man who has been tortured and imprisoned for his actions in defence of democracy. Denis Muwege is a physician in war-torn Congo who has opened a clinic to help the many victims of rape. Senator Piedad Córdoba has mediated in Colombia’s civil war. Greg Mortenson is an American former US army medic who has made it his mission to build schools for Afghan girls in places where warlords and drug dealers kill people for trying. All would have been worthy peace prize winners.
This year, however, no prize has been given for peace. Instead, this is a Nobel prize for politics.
From The Times
October 10, 2009
Prize fools
The Nobel committee’s award to President Obama demeans the peace prize, appears politically partisan and should embarrass the White House
When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the satirist Tom Lehrer remarked that he saw no further need to perform as the award had made satire obsolete. By offering the world’s most prestigious political accolade to Barack Obama, a man who has held office for barely nine months, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is in danger of putting the entire comedy industry out of business.
The committee has put hope above results, promise above achievement. The prize undermines the selfless triumphs of earlier winners. Indeed, the award’s obvious political intent looks partisan, a signal of European relief at the end of the Bush presidency.
The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s action in “strengthening international co-operation between peoples”. That is a worthy aim and America’s re-engagement in multilateral diplomacy has been warmly welcomed by its allies. But it is hard to point to any substantive results yet. Much was promised to the Muslim world in the President’s speech in Cairo; on the ground, the failure still to achieve any tangible progress towards a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians has left all sides disillusioned. In Moscow, the talk of pressing the reset button in relations was welcome, as was Mr Obama’s abandonment of the US missile shield in Europe. But so far none of this has led to the scrapping of any more nuclear warheads.
The nomination of Mr Obama, among more than 200 other contenders, had to be made within weeks of his inauguration. Was this a message of support for the election of America’s first black president? Or was it a self-defeating way of trying to align the peace committee with the excitement that marked his first few weeks in office? Mr Obama yesterday responded with characteristic eloquence and modesty in announcing his acceptance. He would, however, have done better to have let it be known to those sounding out the White House beforehand that he saw the prize as premature, ill judged and embarrassing at a time when he is preoccupied with fighting a war in Afghanistan.
There have, of course, been previous awards that have been widely condemned as undeserved. The most contentious was probably the 1973 prize to Dr Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for their talks on an end to the Vietnam War. Dr Kissinger had just backed the US bombing of Cambodia, and Le Duc Tho — the only nominee to reject the prize — negotiated in bad faith while the Communists prepared plans to invade South Vietnam. Some awards, especially those to Arabs and Israelis, have proved overoptimistic; others, such as the 2005 prize to Mohamed ElBaradei, have been politically partisan.
This year there was no shortage of qualified contenders, men and women who may not have the glamour of Mr Obama but who have easily fulfilled the criteria of individuals who have done their utmost, often at great personal cost, to promote peace, reconciliation and human rights.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean Prime Minister, may seem naive in his faith in sharing power with President Mugabe. But no one can doubt the courage of a man who has been tortured and imprisoned for his actions in defence of democracy. Denis Muwege is a physician in war-torn Congo who has opened a clinic to help the many victims of rape. Senator Piedad Córdoba has mediated in Colombia’s civil war. Greg Mortenson is an American former US army medic who has made it his mission to build schools for Afghan girls in places where warlords and drug dealers kill people for trying. All would have been worthy peace prize winners.
This year, however, no prize has been given for peace. Instead, this is a Nobel prize for politics.
Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6867711.ece
October 9, 2009
Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize
Michael Binyon
The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s decision to “strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. Many people will point out that, while the President has indeed promised to “reset” relations with Russia and offer a fresh start to relations with the Muslim world, there is little so far to show for his fine words.
East-West relations are little better than they were six months ago, and any change is probably due largely to the global economic downturn; and America’s vaunted determination to re-engage with the Muslim world has failed to make any concrete progress towards ending the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.
The spectacle of Mr Obama mounting the podium in Oslo to accept a prize that once went to Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Theresa would be all the more absurd if it follows a White House decision to send up to 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. However just such a war may be deemed in Western eyes, Muslims would not be the only group to complain that peace is hardly compatible with an escalation in hostilities.
The Nobel committee has made controversial awards before. Some have appeared to reward hope rather than achievement: the 1976 prize for the two peace campaigners in Northern Ireland, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, was clearly intended to send a signal to the two battling communities in Ulster. But the political influence of the two winners turned out, sadly, to be negligible.
In the Middle East, the award to Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt in 1978 also looks, in retrospect, as naive as the later award to Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin — although it could be argued that both the Camp David and Oslo accords, while not bringing peace, were at least attempts to break the deadlock.
Mr Obama’s prize is more likely, however, to be compared with the most contentious prize of all: the 1973 prize to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for their negotiations to end the Vietnam war. Dr Kissinger was branded a warmonger for his support for the bombing campaign in Cambodia; and the Vietnamese negotiator was subsequently seen as a liar whose government never intended to honour a peace deal but was waiting for the moment to attack South Vietnam.
Mr Obama becomes the third sitting US President to receive the prize. The committee said today that he had “captured the world’s attention”. It is certainly true that his energy and aspirations have dazzled many of his supporters. Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement. The achievements of all previous winners have been diminished.
October 9, 2009
Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize
Michael Binyon
The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s decision to “strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. Many people will point out that, while the President has indeed promised to “reset” relations with Russia and offer a fresh start to relations with the Muslim world, there is little so far to show for his fine words.
East-West relations are little better than they were six months ago, and any change is probably due largely to the global economic downturn; and America’s vaunted determination to re-engage with the Muslim world has failed to make any concrete progress towards ending the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.
The spectacle of Mr Obama mounting the podium in Oslo to accept a prize that once went to Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Theresa would be all the more absurd if it follows a White House decision to send up to 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. However just such a war may be deemed in Western eyes, Muslims would not be the only group to complain that peace is hardly compatible with an escalation in hostilities.
The Nobel committee has made controversial awards before. Some have appeared to reward hope rather than achievement: the 1976 prize for the two peace campaigners in Northern Ireland, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, was clearly intended to send a signal to the two battling communities in Ulster. But the political influence of the two winners turned out, sadly, to be negligible.
In the Middle East, the award to Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt in 1978 also looks, in retrospect, as naive as the later award to Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin — although it could be argued that both the Camp David and Oslo accords, while not bringing peace, were at least attempts to break the deadlock.
Mr Obama’s prize is more likely, however, to be compared with the most contentious prize of all: the 1973 prize to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for their negotiations to end the Vietnam war. Dr Kissinger was branded a warmonger for his support for the bombing campaign in Cambodia; and the Vietnamese negotiator was subsequently seen as a liar whose government never intended to honour a peace deal but was waiting for the moment to attack South Vietnam.
Mr Obama becomes the third sitting US President to receive the prize. The committee said today that he had “captured the world’s attention”. It is certainly true that his energy and aspirations have dazzled many of his supporters. Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement. The achievements of all previous winners have been diminished.
All hail king Obama...
http://www.examiner.com/x-18061-San-Antonio-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m10d9-All-hail-king-Obama-Nobel-Peace-Prize-winner--2009
All hail king Obama... Nobel Peace Prize winner - 2009
October 9, 2009
San Antonio Civil Rights Examiner
Ramiro Escamilla
"And the award goes to..."
If there was any doubt about who runs the world before, it is no longer in question. Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. Along with becoming the first president to chair the UN Security Council (largely because it is in direct violation of Section 9 of the United States Constitution), never producing an official "Birth Certificate" to squash the claims of his Kenyan birth which even his grandmother admitted to being fact (A "Certification of Live Birth" was produced but is not an official record with witnesses and can be issued at any time in a persons life--That document has been looked over by professionals and said to have irregularities in it as well) and having pushed for (even starring in commercials in support of) the "banker bailouts" that have now reached a total of over 23 trillion -- yes with a "T"-- dollars, Obama has extended troop levels and withdrawal dates in Iraq, & Afghanistan. Also remember that in his first days in office he signed off on aerial drone attacks on Pakistani territories that killed innocent civilians. Let's list his great accomplishments and compare them to George Bush, shall we?
Patriot Act renewal? - Check
Stance on FISA? (warrantless wire-tapping started by Bush) and the legal immunity with it - Check
Rendition? (the act of sending suspects to countries that specialize in torture for help with "enhanced interrogation techniques" - Check
Keeping GITMO Open? - Check
Secret prisons? (Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan) - Check
Indefinite detention? (held with no chance of being released if charged terrorism) - Check
Stance on Iran? - Check
Stance on Palestine? - Check
Stance on Russia? - Check
Aid to China with all its humane treatment of its citizens? - Check
Iraq troop levels the same and a reevaluation in 2011?(right before the next election) - Check
Afghanistan troop levels increased? (with no withdrawal date) - Check
Drone attacks on any nation we aren't officially at war with? - Check
Hiring lobbyists to run his presidency? (which he said he wouldn't do in his campaign) - Check
Pushing bills through Congress without more than a few hours to read them? (some being over 1,000 pages long) - Check
And on and on... It seems that the only thing that changed in the last election was our President's ability to read a teleprompter without the errors worthy of comedic jabs from the late night talk show hosts and a keen ability to create the illusion of change through an unprecedented daily media blitz without actually giving us any at all. So, while we hear new words, we see old actions... or perhaps that's just it, we don't see them. Perhaps good intentions and mission statements are all we care about now? Perhaps we should only judge a President on his words and never his actions? If that is the case, then yes... we have a fantastic, peace-pushing, progressive president... Glad we don't have that warmongering, legislative pork-loving, financially inept, imperialistic, lying George Bush anymore! Oh, wait...
As my favorite athlete says: Talk is Cheap.
All hail king Obama... Nobel Peace Prize winner - 2009
October 9, 2009
San Antonio Civil Rights Examiner
Ramiro Escamilla
"And the award goes to..."
If there was any doubt about who runs the world before, it is no longer in question. Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. Along with becoming the first president to chair the UN Security Council (largely because it is in direct violation of Section 9 of the United States Constitution), never producing an official "Birth Certificate" to squash the claims of his Kenyan birth which even his grandmother admitted to being fact (A "Certification of Live Birth" was produced but is not an official record with witnesses and can be issued at any time in a persons life--That document has been looked over by professionals and said to have irregularities in it as well) and having pushed for (even starring in commercials in support of) the "banker bailouts" that have now reached a total of over 23 trillion -- yes with a "T"-- dollars, Obama has extended troop levels and withdrawal dates in Iraq, & Afghanistan. Also remember that in his first days in office he signed off on aerial drone attacks on Pakistani territories that killed innocent civilians. Let's list his great accomplishments and compare them to George Bush, shall we?
Patriot Act renewal? - Check
Stance on FISA? (warrantless wire-tapping started by Bush) and the legal immunity with it - Check
Rendition? (the act of sending suspects to countries that specialize in torture for help with "enhanced interrogation techniques" - Check
Keeping GITMO Open? - Check
Secret prisons? (Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan) - Check
Indefinite detention? (held with no chance of being released if charged terrorism) - Check
Stance on Iran? - Check
Stance on Palestine? - Check
Stance on Russia? - Check
Aid to China with all its humane treatment of its citizens? - Check
Iraq troop levels the same and a reevaluation in 2011?(right before the next election) - Check
Afghanistan troop levels increased? (with no withdrawal date) - Check
Drone attacks on any nation we aren't officially at war with? - Check
Hiring lobbyists to run his presidency? (which he said he wouldn't do in his campaign) - Check
Pushing bills through Congress without more than a few hours to read them? (some being over 1,000 pages long) - Check
And on and on... It seems that the only thing that changed in the last election was our President's ability to read a teleprompter without the errors worthy of comedic jabs from the late night talk show hosts and a keen ability to create the illusion of change through an unprecedented daily media blitz without actually giving us any at all. So, while we hear new words, we see old actions... or perhaps that's just it, we don't see them. Perhaps good intentions and mission statements are all we care about now? Perhaps we should only judge a President on his words and never his actions? If that is the case, then yes... we have a fantastic, peace-pushing, progressive president... Glad we don't have that warmongering, legislative pork-loving, financially inept, imperialistic, lying George Bush anymore! Oh, wait...
As my favorite athlete says: Talk is Cheap.
Sarah Palin & The Nobel Prize...
Sarah Palin has just won the Nobel Prize for literature thanks to her inspiring promise that she may one day actually read a book...
Obama awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/09/nobel.peace.prize/index.html
Obama awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Story Highlights
NEW: President Obama awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel committee praised Obama for efforts to "strengthen international diplomacy"
Obama is third sitting U.S. president, fourth overall to receive award
10-9-9
(CNN) -- President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a stunning decision that comes just eight months into his presidency.
Less than nine months into his presidency, Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
The president had not been mentioned as among front-runners for the prize, and the roomful of reporters gasped when Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, uttered Obama's name.
The president, who was awakened to be told he had won, said he was humbled to be selected, according to an administration official.
The Nobel committee recognized Obama's efforts to solve complex global problems including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said.
Jagland said the decision was "unanimous" and came with ease.
He rejected the notion that Obama had been recognized prematurely for his efforts and said the committee wanted to promote the president just it had Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union.
"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population," it said.
Obama's recognition comes less than a year after he became the first African-American to win the White House. He is the fourth U.S. president to win the prestigious prize and the third sitting president to do so.
Jagland said he hoped the prize would help Obama resolve the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, last year's laureate, said it was clear the Nobel committee wanted to encourage Obama on the issues he has been discussing on the world stage.
"I see this as an important encouragement," Ahtisaari said.
The committee wanted to be "far more daring" than in recent times and make an impact on global politics, said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the International Peace Research Institute.
And Wangari Muta Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who won the 2004 Peace Prize, said the win for Obama, whose father was Kenyan, would help Africa move forward.
"I think it is extraordinary," she said. "It will be even greater inspiration for the world. He has shown how we can probably come together, work together in a cooperative way."
The award comes at a crucial time for Obama, who has initiated peace missions to key parts of the globe.
Obama's envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has returned to the region to advocate for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Mitchell met Thursday with Israeli President Shimon Peres. He plans to meet Friday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before talking with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton starts a six-day trip to Europe and Russia on Friday. On the trip, the secretary will discuss the next steps on Iran and North Korea, and international efforts to have the two countries end their nuclear programs.
The centerpiece of the trip will be her visit to Moscow, where she will work toward an agreement to take the place of the Start II arms control pact, which expires December 5. She also will address the new bilateral presidential commission that is working on a broad range of issues, from arms control to health.
Mohamed ElBaradei, who won the 2005 peace prize for his efforts to prevent nuclear energy being used for military means, said Obama deserved to win for his efforts to bring Iran to the table for direct nuclear talks with the United States.
"I could not think of anybody who is more deserving," said ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
As the news of Obama's win broke online, postings on social network sites Twitter and Facebook expressed surprise. Many started with the word: Wow.
The last sitting U.S. president to win the peace prize was Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The other was Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Jimmy Carter had been out of office for more than two decades when he won in 2002.
This year's Peace Prize nominees included 172 people -- among them three Chinese dissidents, an Afghan activist and a controversial Colombian lawmaker -- and 33 organizations, the highest number of nominations ever.
The deadline for nominations must be postmarked by February 1 each year. Obama was inaugurated on January 20.
The Nobel recipient receives a prize of about $1.4 million.
Obama awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Story Highlights
NEW: President Obama awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel committee praised Obama for efforts to "strengthen international diplomacy"
Obama is third sitting U.S. president, fourth overall to receive award
10-9-9
(CNN) -- President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a stunning decision that comes just eight months into his presidency.
Less than nine months into his presidency, Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
The president had not been mentioned as among front-runners for the prize, and the roomful of reporters gasped when Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, uttered Obama's name.
The president, who was awakened to be told he had won, said he was humbled to be selected, according to an administration official.
The Nobel committee recognized Obama's efforts to solve complex global problems including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said.
Jagland said the decision was "unanimous" and came with ease.
He rejected the notion that Obama had been recognized prematurely for his efforts and said the committee wanted to promote the president just it had Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union.
"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population," it said.
Obama's recognition comes less than a year after he became the first African-American to win the White House. He is the fourth U.S. president to win the prestigious prize and the third sitting president to do so.
Jagland said he hoped the prize would help Obama resolve the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, last year's laureate, said it was clear the Nobel committee wanted to encourage Obama on the issues he has been discussing on the world stage.
"I see this as an important encouragement," Ahtisaari said.
The committee wanted to be "far more daring" than in recent times and make an impact on global politics, said Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the International Peace Research Institute.
And Wangari Muta Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who won the 2004 Peace Prize, said the win for Obama, whose father was Kenyan, would help Africa move forward.
"I think it is extraordinary," she said. "It will be even greater inspiration for the world. He has shown how we can probably come together, work together in a cooperative way."
The award comes at a crucial time for Obama, who has initiated peace missions to key parts of the globe.
Obama's envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has returned to the region to advocate for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Mitchell met Thursday with Israeli President Shimon Peres. He plans to meet Friday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before talking with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton starts a six-day trip to Europe and Russia on Friday. On the trip, the secretary will discuss the next steps on Iran and North Korea, and international efforts to have the two countries end their nuclear programs.
The centerpiece of the trip will be her visit to Moscow, where she will work toward an agreement to take the place of the Start II arms control pact, which expires December 5. She also will address the new bilateral presidential commission that is working on a broad range of issues, from arms control to health.
Mohamed ElBaradei, who won the 2005 peace prize for his efforts to prevent nuclear energy being used for military means, said Obama deserved to win for his efforts to bring Iran to the table for direct nuclear talks with the United States.
"I could not think of anybody who is more deserving," said ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
As the news of Obama's win broke online, postings on social network sites Twitter and Facebook expressed surprise. Many started with the word: Wow.
The last sitting U.S. president to win the peace prize was Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The other was Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Jimmy Carter had been out of office for more than two decades when he won in 2002.
This year's Peace Prize nominees included 172 people -- among them three Chinese dissidents, an Afghan activist and a controversial Colombian lawmaker -- and 33 organizations, the highest number of nominations ever.
The deadline for nominations must be postmarked by February 1 each year. Obama was inaugurated on January 20.
The Nobel recipient receives a prize of about $1.4 million.
Barack "Pia Zadora" Obama
Robert Sterling, Konformist.com
When I first heard it this morning, I thought it was a joke. I could see him winning American Idol, but the Nobel Peace Prize? Maybe this isn't Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize evil, but seriously, what the fuck has he done? They're giving a Nobel Peace Prize because a guy can speak without sounding like a retard?
Here's my prediction: As Barack Obama begins his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Kanye West rushes on stage and shouts: “Yo Obama, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!” Which is actually a better argument than the justification for giving it to Obama.
But seriously, if I was Obama, I'd be looking for a bucket of pig's blood in the rafters above him, because this whole thing still makes absolutely no sense...
When I first heard it this morning, I thought it was a joke. I could see him winning American Idol, but the Nobel Peace Prize? Maybe this isn't Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize evil, but seriously, what the fuck has he done? They're giving a Nobel Peace Prize because a guy can speak without sounding like a retard?
Here's my prediction: As Barack Obama begins his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Kanye West rushes on stage and shouts: “Yo Obama, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!” Which is actually a better argument than the justification for giving it to Obama.
But seriously, if I was Obama, I'd be looking for a bucket of pig's blood in the rafters above him, because this whole thing still makes absolutely no sense...
Kate Beckinsale Is the Sexiest Woman Alive
http://www.esquire.com/women/women-we-love/kate-beckinsale-pictures-1109
October 2, 2009
Kate Beckinsale Is the Sexiest Woman Alive
For a decade, we've loved her — beautiful, crisp, smart, tough. Isn't it time to pay more attention to Kate Beckinsale?
By Tom Chiarella
She wants to meet in one of those places where women meet other women for lunch, to talk forever, to eat salads and split entrées, where the sweaters are stretchy, the jewelry outsized, the purses massive and sexless, where fruity tea is served in ceramic pots. From the bench across the street, I can see this much. In the hour before we meet, twenty-three women and nary a man cross the threshold.Then up the sidewalk here she comes, the acrobatic, rubber-suited ass-kicking vampire of the Underworld movies, the corseted vampire hunter of the underappreciated action lark Van Helsing, the willowy, repressed Ph.D. candidate of the widely overlooked Laurel Canyon. She's got her shoulder into the shank of the wind, elbows clamped around a head-to-calf sweater, a big black purse netted to her side, and face covered by the thick black gusts of her own hair. She knows the friendly, undersexed dress code, the mousy habit of this kind of establishment.
After she's delivered her grrrl hugs to the management, I introduce myself. In the dark portico, she looks a little moonless, unilluminated behind the sunglasses. But in the solarium on the second floor, when we're left alone behind French doors, she drops the sweater from her shoulders with a shrug. She's wearing hot pants, a trim white blouse over a tank top, black boots with heels. If there is a difference between femininity and sexiness, this may be it. She is sexy, boot to temple. The wrought-iron furniture? Feminine in every curlicue.
"Fuck, it's hot in here," is the first thing she says, jangling me out of the ungovernable vibe of the room. There's a tiny window behind me that opens onto some indefinite interior space that somehow provides a little breeze, and I crack it. "Oh, better," she says. "It's very windy out there today. It's a bit Wizard of Oz or something."
On her finger: skull ring. Huge. This rose-gold skull staring from the crook of her knuckle. Biggest ring I've ever seen. Pearls in the eyeholes and everything. Cool. And definitely not sexless.
"Is this all right?" she says. She means the room. It is, I tell her, though I admit I had my doubts from across the street, when it looked as if we were meeting in the estrogen lounge. Kate laughs. A big, rooted, unstagey laugh. Not loud. Ample. Bigger than the room, not as big as the ring. "Were you worried that there would be a G-spot orgasm class in the corner?"
She eases herself behind the table, sits as if she's falling. Then she snorts, taking a glance at my pad when I lay it on the table. I tell her I'm happy to show it to her. There's a question about her American accent, which I first heard eleven years ago in The Last Days of Disco. And a quote from a guy on the plane who watched her most recent movie with me on the flight over. It's a little drama called Nothing But the Truth, in which Kate plays a journalist jailed for not revealing her sources — a dainty reporter/soccer mom who transforms into a hard-ass prison convict. You never heard of it, neither had he, neither had I, because a last-minute bankruptcy last December sent it into the pit of straight-to-DVD despair rather than onto the Oscar short list. The guy on the plane loved it. We both did. I wrote down what he said. "Who knew the woman would have all the balls," the quote reads, "in the best movie you never heard of?"After that, I have a question about all the fighting she does in movies — does it feel good to punch a man? — followed by a list of the things that make a woman sexy, doodled as I sat on a bench across the street, which is really just a description of my girlfriend. Like this: I like a woman who smokes, drinks shots, eats meat, plays a little tennis, thinks she can speak French, and so on. There were other pages, other questions, below that.
I read to her a bit of my list, and she checks herself off with a laugh. "I do eat meat, I don't smoke, I don't really drink, I do sing," she says. "I don't sing well, however." She seems to think this disqualifies her. She goes on: "Given that I can't sing like Freddie Mercury, obviously I'm not going to pursue it as a career. What would be the point?" Freddie Mercury? I admit to holding a fairly unadulterated, semi-sexual affection for the seventies icon, the mystic Indian rock-balladeer, lead singer of Queen. Kate is the first person I've known since Andi Koller, my girlfriend the summer after senior year at good old McQuaid Jesuit High School, to share with me the opinion that Freddie Mercury may be the gold-standard pop-singing voice. Fuck Michael Jackson, we had said back then. But this is the effect of this restaurant — the twist of wicker, the paroxysm of houseplants — making me act strangely like a girl, while Kate Beckinsale acts like she's got a set. Maybe we're both overcompensating — she's talking to the guy from the magazine that named her the Sexiest Woman Alive, and I'm trying to look natural eating a frisée salad. Freddie Mercury. Christ.
Sometimes Kate leans into the table — over it, really, getting very close. To anyone who's watching, it would look as if we're hatching a plan. I'm going down my list of questions, and Kate, in close like this, growls a little, her smile ever curled, and rattles off her memories like a Gatling gun, talking about growing up in West London in the eighties: "I got flashed a lot. Ten or eleven incidents in one period. I'd be flagged down, someone would ask me for directions, and I have terrible eyesight, so I'd lean into the car to look at the map, and there it was, propped up inside the road atlas."
Her younger self seems to be a character in her narrative now, someone Kate looks at as a kind of favorite niece, worthy of a few laughs in her adolescent clunkings. "I was on the cover of Elegant Bride magazine when I think I actually cried. I was looking sort of misty, bridey eyed. It was mortifying. There I was, in my riot-grrrl feminist stage, with a puppy."
She runs a finger around the neck of her water glass and listens, a kind of winsome retreat. She's more easily seen in these moments: long, not tall particularly, just lengthy — arms, fingers, legs. Strong, too. Not straight-from-the-gym, pumped-up strong. Strong like a lever.
"This whole notion of being named Sexiest Woman Alive is going to earn me quite a beating," she says. "You can't have that title with four brothers. I'll get wedgies. Headlocks. Noogies."Seems fair, I allow. They are your brothers.
"If you're any kind of a human," she says, "you know the title is utterly ludicrous." Then she gives an on-the-other-hand nod. "But I like the idea of it, too. I do. I'm feeling that I must earn this. I need to go out and become much better at pole dancing or something."
The food comes. We eat. We offer each other bites, the way women do. She wants none of the grilled sardines in front of me. "I'm squeamish about fish," she says. "Not all fish. Just if it resembles a whole fish. Then I'm fucked."
I look down at the two sardines staring up at her from my plate and offer to send them back. She refuses. I cover their oily eyes in arugula, which just makes her laugh. "It's very visceral of you to worry," she says. "But I think it's weird if what someone else is eating bothers me. I think that's extra fussy."
I do take a spear of her asparagus. It's quite good. But as I'm eating it, it occurs to me that I'm giving in to the momentum of the venue, that I may have left my testicles in my hotel room in Mayfair. So I let myself take a long glance at Kate as she talks more about her friendships as a young woman. "I worked with Emma Thompson when I was starting out," she says. "We went out to Italy and lived together during the production of Much Ado About Nothing. And she was fairly feminist at that time, and she'd say, 'Let's not shave our armpits, because they wouldn't have done that in Shakespeare's time!' And I'd say, 'Okay!' I don't know what my boyfriend at college made of that one. Luckily he wasn't an American."
At this juncture I think she's waiting for me to giggle in agreement that American men are boors for not appreciating a woman's hairy armpit. Never mind what I am or am not, I have to put an end to this. So I act a little like a boor. I dip my head and try to get a look at her armpit right then and there. "I do now," she says, maybe slightly taken aback. Sometimes she gives the impression of pent-up energy, as if every soft part of her conceals a wire spring. She does seem as if she could pick you off from a water tower with a crossbow, then kid you about the way you landed. Yet in the very next breath, she might be a bit stricken by the sight of bones in her chicken. Capable and vulnerable.I give her the story about the guy on the airplane, how he noticed Nothing But the Truth from one seat over, then asked to watch it, too, and how much he'd liked Kate as the hero. The fact that this movie never saw the light of day must have been the worst kind of anticlimax. Heartbreaking, even.
"It was. It's an odd thing to have this sort of spread of incredible reviews and then nobody sees it," she says. "I have prayed — prayed — for film companies to go bankrupt on films I've made, and then this happens on the one I love. Usually it's the ones you're most embarrassed about that are on the side of every bus."
She was back this fall with one she might have hoped stayed off the buses, a same-old Antarctic detective story called Whiteout, and again this winter with an arresting drama built on great performances (including hers), Everybody's Fine, with Robert De Niro. She has always worked steadily, but this may be one of the movies that stands out for her and reminds the world of her skill — like Brokedown Palace, like the otherwise lifeless Pearl Harbor, even The Aviator, in which she played a stunning Ava Gardner.
"After Nothing But the Truth, I just woke up not being able to get a hard-on for being an actor," she says, speaking from the shadow of her mane. "Now I have to surrender a little. It's over. I think my sabbatical has to be over." As she eats, small details become apparent. Her fingernails are pretty chipped up, for one thing. She makes a fist on the flat of the tablecloth, tucking her lousy manicure out of sight. I get caught looking.
"I have big hands," she says. True. Her hands are large, outsized, but lithe. Big enough that they arouse simple verbs: to wrap, to grip, to hold, to crush. It seems a natural point to ask her the punching question. Does it feel good to punch a man?
"What's dangerous about doing action movies is that I'm used to men on wires. I punch a guy and he flies over a wall. So I tend to feel like that's me that did that," she says. "Which leads me to the fact that yes, I do think I could kick your ass." Further attempted neutering from the heart of the Notting Hill Womyn's Lunch Cotillion. That's when I invite her to punch me."Please," I say. "As hard as you can." I ask twice.
"I could crush you like a bug," she says. It amuses her to say this. A single lock of out-of-place hair hangs over her face, bobbing in front of her mouth as she speaks. Her breath keeps it moving. Then she dips her napkin in her drinking water and presses it to her neck. And finally it is just too hot for her. She stands, unfolds to her tiptoes, slides her thighs between the tables, and eases herself through toward me. She sits down, shoulder to shoulder, out of the heat.
"I know I can't, though," she says. "Sometimes, I'll get going with my brother, we'll wrestle, and he'll hold me down. Once you're pinned by someone who weighs twice as much as you do, there really isn't much you can do except flail at the testicles with your toe. I do tend to walk around like a Chihuahua in my house. You know, one of those little dogs that sees the big dogs and starts giving them attitude? I'm a Chihuahua with the soul of a lion."
She turns her head, then does a little double take, drawing in very close to my face. Something is amiss.
"You know that gray in your eyebrow?" she says, breathing on my cheek. "If I had a Sharpie, I could take that right out for you."
The tinny revival of Steel Magnolias parades onward, and I feel increasingly like Zooey Deschanel, always the girl's best girlfriend. Even so, I can't help but blurt out, "What about my beard? It's so gray. Can you help me with that?"She sits back and assesses the situation. Why would I ask her about this stuff? What's with all the sisterly camaraderie? "I think that's quite beyond saving," she declares. "But the eyebrow I could fix quite nicely."
I do hate the gray in my eyebrow, and I do have a Sharpie in my bag. I hand it over, so she can drag the tint along the gray hairs in my left eyebrow. "Sit still," she chides. Then she actually kneels on my chair, her knee between my legs, bites her lip, and begins working. "You're getting a woman's trade secret here," she tells me, resting her elbow on my shoulder. As she works, she asks me what I'm doing after this. I sigh and tell her that I have to buy a present for my boss's baby while I'm overseas. The girliest of errands.
"Oh, fabulous!" she says, dropping an exclamation point almost directly into my ear, since she's basically sharing the rattan chair with me now, knee to crotch, her breath on my face, her massive palm hinged on my cheekbone, a pose suggesting a lap dance by a dental hygienist. "Can I come with you then?" she says.
I give up the fight. Sometimes you have to surrender to the place you're in. That could be a thing only women know. I could use an extra pair of eyes, I tell her. I'd be pleased if she came along. And since we both noticed the cutest little baby store on that very block, we decide there's no rush. There is comfort in lingering. We order tea. Chamomile for Kate. Himalayan pear for me. We talk forever. It's delightful.
Why NFL Owners Must Flush Rush
By Dave Zirin
National Football League owners could be on the verge of a catastrophic error in judgment. In a league that is 70 percent African-American, an unapologetic racist is in talks to buy a team. Yes, Rush Limbaugh, along with St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts, is close to buying the St. Louis Rams. In his last NFL intervention, the man who claims “talent on loan from God” lasted less than a month as an NFL commentator on ESPN after saying the Philadelphia Eagles' Donavon McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.
Limbaugh said to KMOX radio, "Dave and I are part of a bid to buy the Rams, and we are continuing the process. But I can say no more because of a confidentiality clause in our agreement with Goldman Sachs." So Rush Limbaugh, champion of East Coast elite-bashing, is in financial cahoots with bailout world champion Goldman Sachs.
But financial scuzziness aside, Limbaugh's bid must be stopped. The NFL owners have the power to nix any prospective owner, and if they have a shred of conscience in their overfed, underworked bodies, they should collectively veto Limbaugh's joining their exclusive club.
This has nothing to do with Limbaugh's conservative politics. Most NFL owners are to the right of Dick Cheney. Over the last twenty years, officials on twenty-three of the thirty-two NFL clubs have donated more money to Republicans than Democrats.
Most of them are also anonymous figures on the sports landscape. However, with Limbaugh at the helm, the face of one of the most valuable sports properties in the world would officially be a person who has a history of brazen contempt for people of African heritage.
How can the NFL in good conscience embrace an owner who once said , "The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
In a league that has practiced historic partnerships with the NAACP, how can you have an owner who has said, “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
In a league with an all-white ownership and a paucity of African Americans in front office positions, how can you have an owner who says, “We didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”
In a league that has long had a mutually beneficial interaction with whoever was occupying the oval office, how can you have an owner who compares the President to a Nazi and says about “life in "Obama's America":
“The white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on."’
And finally, in a league made up of predominately African-American athletes, how can you have an owner who says, "[Black people] are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?"
You might think that NFL players with their nonguaranteed contracts and short shelf life may not be the first people to speak out against Limbaugh. But you'd be wrong.
New York Giant Mathias Kiwanuka said in the New York Daily News , "I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants; it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play."
McNabb said in his weekly press conference, "If he's rewarded to buy them, congratulations to him. But I won't be in St. Louis anytime soon."
New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott said, "I can only imagine how his players would feel.... He could offer me whatever he wanted; I wouldn't play for him."
In the NFL there has always been one code of conduct for players and one for ownership. Retired player Roman Oben called out the hypocrisy perfe ctly: "Character is a constant point of emphasis for NFL and team officials when it comes to the players; potential owners should be held to the same level of scrutiny and accountability."
Oben is absolutely right. In a league where commissioner Roger Goodell constantly drones on about "character," the idea that a prominent bigot could rise to a position of power would be an example of unforgivable hypocrisy. Tell your local NFL owner: you must flush Rush.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
National Football League owners could be on the verge of a catastrophic error in judgment. In a league that is 70 percent African-American, an unapologetic racist is in talks to buy a team. Yes, Rush Limbaugh, along with St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts, is close to buying the St. Louis Rams. In his last NFL intervention, the man who claims “talent on loan from God” lasted less than a month as an NFL commentator on ESPN after saying the Philadelphia Eagles' Donavon McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.
Limbaugh said to KMOX radio, "Dave and I are part of a bid to buy the Rams, and we are continuing the process. But I can say no more because of a confidentiality clause in our agreement with Goldman Sachs." So Rush Limbaugh, champion of East Coast elite-bashing, is in financial cahoots with bailout world champion Goldman Sachs.
But financial scuzziness aside, Limbaugh's bid must be stopped. The NFL owners have the power to nix any prospective owner, and if they have a shred of conscience in their overfed, underworked bodies, they should collectively veto Limbaugh's joining their exclusive club.
This has nothing to do with Limbaugh's conservative politics. Most NFL owners are to the right of Dick Cheney. Over the last twenty years, officials on twenty-three of the thirty-two NFL clubs have donated more money to Republicans than Democrats.
Most of them are also anonymous figures on the sports landscape. However, with Limbaugh at the helm, the face of one of the most valuable sports properties in the world would officially be a person who has a history of brazen contempt for people of African heritage.
How can the NFL in good conscience embrace an owner who once said , "The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
In a league that has practiced historic partnerships with the NAACP, how can you have an owner who has said, “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
In a league with an all-white ownership and a paucity of African Americans in front office positions, how can you have an owner who says, “We didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”
In a league that has long had a mutually beneficial interaction with whoever was occupying the oval office, how can you have an owner who compares the President to a Nazi and says about “life in "Obama's America":
“The white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on."’
And finally, in a league made up of predominately African-American athletes, how can you have an owner who says, "[Black people] are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?"
You might think that NFL players with their nonguaranteed contracts and short shelf life may not be the first people to speak out against Limbaugh. But you'd be wrong.
New York Giant Mathias Kiwanuka said in the New York Daily News , "I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants; it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play."
McNabb said in his weekly press conference, "If he's rewarded to buy them, congratulations to him. But I won't be in St. Louis anytime soon."
New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott said, "I can only imagine how his players would feel.... He could offer me whatever he wanted; I wouldn't play for him."
In the NFL there has always been one code of conduct for players and one for ownership. Retired player Roman Oben called out the hypocrisy perfe ctly: "Character is a constant point of emphasis for NFL and team officials when it comes to the players; potential owners should be held to the same level of scrutiny and accountability."
Oben is absolutely right. In a league where commissioner Roger Goodell constantly drones on about "character," the idea that a prominent bigot could rise to a position of power would be an example of unforgivable hypocrisy. Tell your local NFL owner: you must flush Rush.
Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
The Masturbating to Mary Tyler Moore Society
http://www.dangerousminds.net/index.php/site/comments/the_masturbating_to_mary_tyler_moore_society/
The Masturbating to Mary Tyler Moore Society10.10.2009
Richard Metzger
Topics:
Kooks
There are many times a day we modern folk here at Dangerous Minds, have the occasion to click on a link sent from a total stranger only to have our minds completely stop working for a moment. This was one of those times… times ten.
Behold the flyer for Masturbating to Mary Tyler Moore. Apparently a “society” founded by a fellow named James J. Kagel of Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Kagel is (or was) attempting to connect to others who share his fetish for, in his words, “jacking off” to photographs of beloved actress and comedienne, Mary Tyler Moore’s “beautifully curved, ever so shapely, silken, creamy smooth, seductive, velvety soft, long, lean, graceful, tantilizing, erotic, sinuously sexy LEGS [...] (not to mention her lickable feet)!” End quote.
Kagel goes on to totally over-share about his fetish for MTM’s legs developed as a boy watching her on the Dick Van Dyke Show and her own eponymously-titled, long-running TV series. He mentions that he is “proud” to admit to masturbating to Moore’s gams — I, for one, believe him — and that his wife bears a “slight resemblance” in the face and legs department to the actress. He even asks members of the Mary Tyler Moore Masturbation Society to send him their own MTM leg fantasies! (I wonder how many people joined?!?!)
Clearly a product of a pre-Internet time (I’m guessing late 80s) you can pretty much tell that it was made with a type-writer, scissors and glue stick. I won’t describe any more of it, you’ll have to read it for yourself, but this truly had us ON THE FLOOR gasping for breath. This flyer is all kinds of wrong, but my god is it fucking hilarious. Even the obvious, kooky sincerity of it is mind-bending in the extreme.
And then you have to wonder what Mary Tyler Moore herself thought about this when she saw it, because you just know that at some point in the last twenty years, someone had to have shown this to her.
Golf, rugby make Olympic roster for 2016, 2020
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jnx2wRLvYAjUAXw0oCm9_rsGT49QD9B7JJT01
Golf, rugby make Olympic roster for 2016, 2020
By MATTIAS KAREN (AP)
10-9-9
COPENHAGEN — All those beautiful beaches and Tiger Woods, too!
After more than a century on the sidelines, golf will return to the Olympics at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. Rugby, last played in 1924, is coming back as well.
Both were reinstated for the 2016 and 2020 games after a vote Friday by the International Olympic Committee.
Each sport received majority support in separate votes after leading athletes and officials from both camps gave presentations, including a taped video message from Woods and other top pros. Woods has indicated he would play in the Olympics if golf were accepted for 2016.
"There are millions of young golfers worldwide who would be proud to represent their country," Woods said from the Presidents Cup in San Francisco. "It would be an honor for anyone who plays this game to become an Olympian."
Golf was approved 63-27 with two abstentions. Rugby was voted in 81-8 with one abstention.
Golf will stage a 72-hole stroke-play tournament for men and women, with 60 players in each field. Rugby will organize a four-day seven-a-side tournament — instead of the more traditional 15-a-side game — for 12 men's and women's teams. Golf will stage a 72-hole stroke-play tournament for men and women, with 60 players in each field.
The venue and schedule for both sports in Rio de Janeiro has yet to be decided. The golf tournament will not necessarily be played Thursday through Sunday, bid leader Ty Votaw said.
"It might be Wednesday to Saturday," Votaw said. "Or it might be that the women's competition is first, and the men's is second. ... All of those things need to be worked out over the next seven years."
Padraig Harrington and Michelle Wie addressed the IOC in person before the vote. Wie talked about taking up golf when she was 4 but never being able to dream of an Olympic medal until now.
"I can dream about doing something that neither Tiger nor Ernie (Els) have ever done, and that is to make the final putt to win an Olympic gold medal," Wie said. "If this dream comes true, somewhere in the world there will be another 4-year-old who sees me on that podium and perhaps starts her own Olympic dream."
Rugby officials touted their sport as a modern game that can attract young fans and new sponsors.
"The sevens format is made for television, made for sponsors, and most importantly loved for fans and players alike," said bid leader Mike Miller, the secretary-general of the International Rugby Board. "Rugby and Rio were made for each other. A great atmosphere, great sport and a good time. And I think that's what the Olympic Games are going to be all about."
Golf gave a commitment to the IOC that it would not stage any major championships on the Olympic dates. The Rugby Sevens World Cup will be canceled if the sport is added to the Olympics.
They are the first new sports added since triathlon and taekwondo joined the program for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
The vote was a reversal of the IOC's decision four years ago to reject golf and rugby for the 2012 Olympics, and brings the number of summer Olympic sports back to 28. There have been two openings on the program since baseball and softball were dropped in 2005 for the 2012 London Games.
Rugby and golf both made their Olympic debuts at the second modern games in Paris in 1900. Golf was played again only at the 1904 St. Louis Games, and 15-a-side rugby was featured three more times, its last appearance in the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Their status for the 2020 Olympics will be reviewed by the IOC in 2017.
Friday's vote also was a victory for Jacques Rogge, the IOC president who was re-elected to a final four-year term hours earlier. The 67-year-old Belgian, the president since 2001, was the only candidate.
"Time will show your decision (on the new sports) was very wise," Rogge said.
Golf and rugby were put forward by the executive board in August under Rogge's guidance, at the expense of five other sports that were cut — baseball, softball, squash, karate and roller sports.
The selection process angered some IOC members, who wanted all seven sports put to a vote by the entire assembly. Senior Canadian member Dick Pound complained before the vote that the members were never told why the two sports were selected over the other five.
"It is not fair to the other five sports," Pound said. "Because you decided the way you did, it is not a transparent process."
The new selection system was put in place after the IOC failed to agree on which two sports should be added to the 2012 program, leaving the London Games with 26 sports instead of the usual 28. A similar failure this time would have been a blow to Rogge and the executive board.
As expected, golf faced more opposition than rugby. It also faced tougher questioning from IOC members, about the high cost of playing the sport, its accessibility in developing countries and the fact that some top clubs don't admit women members.
"There are some serious problems with some clubs where major events are held, in terms of discrimination," American member Anita Defranz said. She urged the IOC to "avoid going down a road that may be harmful to our image."
Votaw, however, was not concerned with the level of opposition within the Olympic body.
"We're not thinking about the 27 votes," he said. "We're just pleased with the 60-plus."
Golf, rugby make Olympic roster for 2016, 2020
By MATTIAS KAREN (AP)
10-9-9
COPENHAGEN — All those beautiful beaches and Tiger Woods, too!
After more than a century on the sidelines, golf will return to the Olympics at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. Rugby, last played in 1924, is coming back as well.
Both were reinstated for the 2016 and 2020 games after a vote Friday by the International Olympic Committee.
Each sport received majority support in separate votes after leading athletes and officials from both camps gave presentations, including a taped video message from Woods and other top pros. Woods has indicated he would play in the Olympics if golf were accepted for 2016.
"There are millions of young golfers worldwide who would be proud to represent their country," Woods said from the Presidents Cup in San Francisco. "It would be an honor for anyone who plays this game to become an Olympian."
Golf was approved 63-27 with two abstentions. Rugby was voted in 81-8 with one abstention.
Golf will stage a 72-hole stroke-play tournament for men and women, with 60 players in each field. Rugby will organize a four-day seven-a-side tournament — instead of the more traditional 15-a-side game — for 12 men's and women's teams. Golf will stage a 72-hole stroke-play tournament for men and women, with 60 players in each field.
The venue and schedule for both sports in Rio de Janeiro has yet to be decided. The golf tournament will not necessarily be played Thursday through Sunday, bid leader Ty Votaw said.
"It might be Wednesday to Saturday," Votaw said. "Or it might be that the women's competition is first, and the men's is second. ... All of those things need to be worked out over the next seven years."
Padraig Harrington and Michelle Wie addressed the IOC in person before the vote. Wie talked about taking up golf when she was 4 but never being able to dream of an Olympic medal until now.
"I can dream about doing something that neither Tiger nor Ernie (Els) have ever done, and that is to make the final putt to win an Olympic gold medal," Wie said. "If this dream comes true, somewhere in the world there will be another 4-year-old who sees me on that podium and perhaps starts her own Olympic dream."
Rugby officials touted their sport as a modern game that can attract young fans and new sponsors.
"The sevens format is made for television, made for sponsors, and most importantly loved for fans and players alike," said bid leader Mike Miller, the secretary-general of the International Rugby Board. "Rugby and Rio were made for each other. A great atmosphere, great sport and a good time. And I think that's what the Olympic Games are going to be all about."
Golf gave a commitment to the IOC that it would not stage any major championships on the Olympic dates. The Rugby Sevens World Cup will be canceled if the sport is added to the Olympics.
They are the first new sports added since triathlon and taekwondo joined the program for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
The vote was a reversal of the IOC's decision four years ago to reject golf and rugby for the 2012 Olympics, and brings the number of summer Olympic sports back to 28. There have been two openings on the program since baseball and softball were dropped in 2005 for the 2012 London Games.
Rugby and golf both made their Olympic debuts at the second modern games in Paris in 1900. Golf was played again only at the 1904 St. Louis Games, and 15-a-side rugby was featured three more times, its last appearance in the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Their status for the 2020 Olympics will be reviewed by the IOC in 2017.
Friday's vote also was a victory for Jacques Rogge, the IOC president who was re-elected to a final four-year term hours earlier. The 67-year-old Belgian, the president since 2001, was the only candidate.
"Time will show your decision (on the new sports) was very wise," Rogge said.
Golf and rugby were put forward by the executive board in August under Rogge's guidance, at the expense of five other sports that were cut — baseball, softball, squash, karate and roller sports.
The selection process angered some IOC members, who wanted all seven sports put to a vote by the entire assembly. Senior Canadian member Dick Pound complained before the vote that the members were never told why the two sports were selected over the other five.
"It is not fair to the other five sports," Pound said. "Because you decided the way you did, it is not a transparent process."
The new selection system was put in place after the IOC failed to agree on which two sports should be added to the 2012 program, leaving the London Games with 26 sports instead of the usual 28. A similar failure this time would have been a blow to Rogge and the executive board.
As expected, golf faced more opposition than rugby. It also faced tougher questioning from IOC members, about the high cost of playing the sport, its accessibility in developing countries and the fact that some top clubs don't admit women members.
"There are some serious problems with some clubs where major events are held, in terms of discrimination," American member Anita Defranz said. She urged the IOC to "avoid going down a road that may be harmful to our image."
Votaw, however, was not concerned with the level of opposition within the Olympic body.
"We're not thinking about the 27 votes," he said. "We're just pleased with the 60-plus."
Marge Simpson -- Playboy Cover Girl
http://www.tmz.com/2009/10/09/marge-simpson-strips-down-for-playboy/Marge Simpson -- Playboy Cover Girl
Oct 9th 2009
This is the closest you'll ever get to finding out if the carpet really does match the blue drapes.
TMZ has obtained the cover for Marge Simpson's November issue of Playboy -- and needless to say, she's got a bangin' bod for having popped her first kid out thirty years ago (Show debuted in 1989, Bart was 10 ... and still is).
We're told Marge also strips down for her three-page spread inside the magazine -- posing in a bunch of sexy cartoon lingerie.
Roll over, Jessica Rabbit.
Firesign Theatre returns to its Los Angeles roots
http://www.latimes.com/theguide/events-and-festivals/la-et-guidefeature8-2009oct08,0,7878256.storyThe Firesign Theatre returns to its Los Angeles roots
'Forward Into the Past' is the comedy icons' new show.
By Richard Metzger
October 8, 2009
The Library of Congress called the Firesign Theatre "the Beatles of Comedy" when its 1970 album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers" was selected for the National Recording Registry.
An apt comparison, considering that, along with contemporaries Monty Python in Britain, the searing and psychedelic satirical troupe helped invent a literary brand of album comedy that lodged itself in the culture of college students across the country. The group paved the way for later arrivals such as Cheech & Chong, "Saturday Night Live" and Second City.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of one of its most popular characters, detective Nick Danger, Third Eye, the four-man troupe makes a rare local appearance next week, performing Oct. 14 to 17 at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre with a new show, "Forward Into the Past."
Although the group started in Los Angeles in 1966, this will be the first time it has performed in its hometown in more than 15 years.
"We've been together for 43 years. We've been together longer than the Stones, longer than anybody," member Peter Bergman said.
Hollywood voice-over actor (and "Big Brother" announcer) Philip Proctor arches an eyebrow and shrugs. "We started in the '60s and now we're all entering our 70s. . .," he added, whistling.
The Firesign Theatre's psychedelic "theater of the mind" took shape in the North Hollywood studios of radio station KPFK. Bergman's late-night Radio Free Oz show eventually included KPFK producers David Ossman and Philip Austin, along with Proctor, who Bergman met as a student at Yale. The group began performing as the Firesign Theatre, a reference to the fact that all four members were astrological fire signs. The group has been nominated for Grammys three times.
"We honed our craft on live radio," recalls Ossman. "When we got into the studio to record our first album, 'Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,' we were creating something for people to listen to more than once. We made albums to sit on the shelf alongside 'Rubber Soul,' 'Highway 61' and 'Absolutely Free.' "
Austin, who plays Nick Danger, adds, "We were born here. There have always been a lot of smart people in Hollywood and we built our reputation on entertaining them."
"Forward Into the Past" will feature a selection of the Firesign Theatre's greatest hits and new material. The Nick Danger character first appeared on the group's second album, "How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All?" in 1969. In the new show's second act, inspired by Barnsdall's Shakespeare Company, the members will be presenting scenes from "Shakespeare's Lost Comedie: Anythynge You Want To." After each show, the group will sign autographs and mingle with fans, bringing to mind the old Danger quip, "Well, now the gum's on the other shoe."
calendar@latimes.com
Firesign Theatre's 'Forward Into the Past'
Where: Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Oct 14 to 17
Price: $60, general; $75, premium.
Contact: (323) 644-6272; http://www.firesigntheatre.com/
Jack LaLanne at 95
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/07/MNAH1A2IRP.DTLJack LaLanne at 95
He exercised his personal demons
Scott Ostler, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Bad food and sloth ooze over our planet like hot fudge mixed with giblet gravy. Fast food speeds us to our doublewide coffins, and we gave up exercise when watches started winding themselves.
But the battle to deliver mankind from its bad habits rages. Leading the charge, as he has for 80 years, is the Bay Area's gift to world health, Jack LaLanne.
He's 95, in fabulous shape although no longer the slab of muscle who inspired a nation via his daily exercise TV program. The brain is still cooking, and that's always been LaLanne's most effective tool.
Jack's wife, Elaine, says she fell in love with him a half century ago not for his muscles.
"I was not interested in his body," says Elaine LaLanne, also in super shape at 84. "I was attracted to his mind. I thought, 'He's got a brain. He's got a brain.' "
"And he's sittin' on it," LaLanne whispers, squeezing the biceps of an interviewer, who suddenly regrets skipping his morning push-ups.
The LaLannes were in town Wednesday for a party in honor of Jack's 95th birthday, at John's Grill, where the Jack LaLanne Salad never goes off the menu.
Teaming with wife
They're a team, Jack and Elaine. When the subject of doughnuts comes up, Elaine says, "Jack, tell him what the healthiest part of the doughnut is."
"The hole!" LaLanne says.
When the interviewer mentions that he watched LaLanne's TV show in the '50s, because his mom tuned in daily, LaLanne gives the interviewer's biceps another firm squeeze and confides, "I spent a lot of time on the floor with your mother."
But seriously, folks. Beneath the jokes and whimsy is a man as serious as a heart attack mixed with a stroke. He'll make you smile, but he'll also grab you by the arm, and by the head and the heart, and lead you to a better life.
LaLanne has made a fortune, but he won't retire. He carries on his crusade with the zeal of a man whose jumpsuit is on fire.
"If you believe something, live it!" LaLanne barks.
He recently wrapped up a tour promoting his 11th book, "Live Young Forever: 12 Steps to Optimum Health, Fitness & Longevity." One reason to trust what the man preaches: He has seen the dark side.
A reformed sugarholic
LaLanne at 15 was "a miserable goddamn kid. It was like hell." He was a sugarholic, gorging on sweets then barfing to make room for more. He was constantly sick, underweight, had zero energy, headaches so bad he would bang his head against a wall. He had an explosive temper, severe depression and a head full of demons when he dropped out of Berkeley High.
Then a neighbor gave Jack and his mother tickets to a lecture by clean-eating advocate Paul Bragg. Boom! Jack LaLanne was born.
Says LaLanne, "Bragg said, 'My dear friends, it matters not what your physical condition is. If you obey nature's laws, you will be born again.' I went home and prayed, 'Dear God, give me the willpower to refrain from those foods that are killing me.' "
Soon LaLanne was healthy beyond his dreams. He became a football star, a wrestling champ and a babe magnet. At 22, he opened a gym in downtown Oakland, and when business didn't boom - maybe because in 1936 nobody knew what the hell a gym was - he told himself, "Jack, people are not coming to you. You gotta go to them!"
He trained cops and firefighters, he recruited at high schools, and in 1951, he began hosting a daily exercise show on KGO (Channel 7) - where he met Elaine - that became a network smash, running until 1985.
Using his personality and pep - with his muscles serving as his background singers - he bullied a nation into rethinking its nonapproach to nutrition and exercise. He invented and pioneered the fitness industry.
"My whole life," LaLanne says, "is, 'How can I help people like that man (Bragg) helped me?' "
Now Jack and Elaine sell their juicers on infomercials, the book is out, and he's still preaching the gospel. The seeming futility of shaping up the world does not daunt him.
"I never think about that," LaLanne says. "I think about things that I can improve."
Still working out
One thing he can always improve is himself. LaLanne works out two hours a day, mostly swimming and lifting weights, at the LaLanne mansion on the Central Coast.
"I work at living," he says, leaning close and squeezing an arm. "Most people work at dying. Dying's easy."
One of LaLanne's most effective sales devices has been his amazing feats of strength. When Arnold Schwarzenegger came to America in 1968 and became an instant sensation on the Southern California muscle scene, LaLanne challenged the kid to a duel at Muscle Beach. The Austrian Oak was 21; the Oakland Oak was 54.
"I beat him in chin-ups and push-ups," LaLanne says. "He said, 'That Jack LaLanne's an animal! I was sore for four days. I couldn't lift my arms!' "
At age 70, handcuffed, LaLanne towed 70 loaded boats 1.5 miles in Long Beach Harbor. Now LaLanne's most outrageous publicity stunt is kicking life's butt on a daily basis.
"What feat are you going to do this year?" Elaine asks, lobbing another softball to her slugger hubby.
"I'm going to tow Elaine across the bathtub!"
LaLanne's innovations
Jack LaLanne invented fitness. His innovations include:
The gym/spa: In 1936, he opened the Jack LaLanne Physical Culture Studio at 409 15th St. in Oakland, the first modern gym. He eventually sold his chain of studios to Bally.
Mind-body fusion: Now it's a popular concept. "You can't separate the mind and body," he says.
Exercise machines: The kind with cables, pulleys and weight selectors. LaLanne didn't patent them, but he invented them, including the first leg-extension machine.
Muscles on women: Before LaLanne's TV show, a woman's only workout was behind a vacuum cleaner.
Muscles on athletes: LaLanne helped dispel the "muscle-bound" myth. He was a fine athlete and a 4-handicap golfer.
Exercise videos: His TV show was the first workout video, live.
Varying workout routines: It's what some now call "muscle confusion." LaLanne changes his workout routine every 30 days. And he'll do a particular lift slow today, fast tomorrow.
Yoga: He has never called it that, but from the beginning he preached the importance of stretching.
E-mail Scott Ostler at sostler@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
John Shirley: BLEAK HISTORY
http://www.john-shirley.com/John-Shirley-Bleak-History.htmlJohn Shirley: BLEAK HISTORY
CLASSIFIED: APPARENT SUPERNATURAL
Pocket, August 2009
Trade Paperback, 384 pages
ISBN: 9781416584124
Also available as an original e-book
ISBN: 9781416584261
Subject: Gabriel Bleak. Status: Civilian. Paranormal skills: Powerful. Able to manipulate AS energies and communicate with UBEs (e.g. "ghosts" and other entities). Psychological profile: Extremely independent, potentially dangerous. Caution is urged....
As far as Gabriel Bleak is concerned, talking to the dead is just another way of making a living. It gives him the competitive edge to survive as a bounty hunter, or "skip tracer," in the psychic minefield known as New York City. Unfortunately, his gift also makes him a prime target. A top-secret division of Homeland Security has been monitoring the recent emergence of human supernaturals, with Gabriel Bleak being the strongest on record. If they control Gabriel, they'll gain access to the Hidden -- the entity-based energy field that connects all life on Earth. But Gabriel's got other ideas. With a growing underground movement called the Shadow Community -- and an uneasy alliance of spirits, elementals, and other beings -- Gabriel's about to face the greatest demonic uprising since the Dark Ages. But this time, history is not going to repeat itself. This time, the future is Bleak. Gabriel Bleak.
REVIEWS:
"Shirley has a gift for storytelling that emphasizes both depth of character and immediacy of vision. Verdict: This gritty and fast-moving horror urban fantasy will appeal to readers who enjoy dark supernatural thrillers."-- Library Journal
"I could tell just from the blurb on the back that Bleak History by John Shirley was going to be one heck of a story. I certainly was not disappointed. This book was full of tension, suspense, and a wonderful touch of the paranormal. Throw in a little romance as well as a little self discovery and we get a thrilling story with enough adrenaline pumping action to get every heart pumping." -- A Journey of Books
"Fast-paced and action-packed, Bleak History reads like a movie. John Shirley carefully built up the alternate reality and the references to New York locations adds to the book's appeal. Gabriel Bleak and Agent Sarikosca are strong, sympathetic characters. Gabriel Bleak's strong sense of humanity is one of the best parts of the novel...Bleak History reminded me at times of the TV series Heroes and of the movie The Matrix.--StartingFresh
"Bleak History was definitely a surprising read for me. I was expecting an urban fantasy that is pretty similar to a lot that I've read recently but Shirley really kicks it up a notch with Gabriel Bleak and the ShadowComm members. It's really different than any urban fantasy that I've ever read. There is a lot of detail in the numerous characters and the story has a lot of depth. It isn't the usual puff piece that has every cliche in the genre. And the book has its own unique theories about the paranormal and spiritual afterlife...I really enjoyed the way Gabriel wasn't your average hero. He was just a guy trying to get through life with an amazing talent." -- ReadingWithMonie
"The world-building is challenging and different...Action scenes are frequent and varied ranging from the fascinating whenever paranormal powers are demonstrated to the horrific...Events are not without their moments of levity, especially scenes with Gabriel and ghosts he encounters....Bleak History is strongest on the action and it sometimes overwhelms the character development, but still delivers an energetic thriller that will satisfy readers with a craving for something a little different on the urban fantasy landscape." -- SciFiGuy
"[Shirley] is very good at describing the paranormal abilities of his characters, and it drew me in. This novel was action packed, and I'm hoping there will be a sequel, as I would love to know more about Gabriel Bleak and the Shadow Community." -- Falling Off the Shelf
"I very much enjoyed Bleak History because the concept is so unique.... Shirley has managed to make a distinctive and interesting world of his own within the genre....There is a lot of action in the book between getting chased, darker forces committing crimes, and seeking out the truth of what is happening. The book barely lags or takes a breath, but there are a few moments of quiet reflection for the characters." -- Morbid Romantic
"The action is fast here. The bad guys are everywhere Gabriel turns, and they aren't above using local law enforcement to assist in Gabriel's location and detention. So who can he trust? Guess you'll have to read and find out. I did like Bleak History, but I'm thinking I'd probably prefer a screen version--lots of explosions to ooh and aah at..." -- DreysLibrary
"Reads like a...summer blockbuster, loaded with action... Steeped in its own detailed mythology, Shirley's fast-paced romp through the occult is clever..." -- Publishers Weekly
"If you like to read about spirits, demons, etc. I think you should pick up this book." -- Readaholic
Excerpt:
CHAPTER ONE
A humid New York summer day. And someone was following him.
Gabriel Bleak always knew when he was being followed. This time, he could feel the tracker about half a block back. He sensed it was a woman, blinking her eyes in the hot light searing off the windows of the high Manhattan buildings. She was hurrying through the crowd to keep him in sight. He couldn't read her mind -- but, as long as her attention was fixed on him for more than a few seconds, he could see what she saw. Attention itself had a psychic energy, a power he could feel, could connect to.
It was hot and humid, it was July in the city, and the corner of Broadway and Thirty-third was thronged with people, all hurrying along. Bleak sometimes felt as if the people were giving off the heat on a day like this. As if the summer heat rose from the body heat of the shifting, elbowing, insistent crowd; the humidity was a by-product of their sweat, their countless exhalations, their sticky, thronging thoughts.
Bleak figured that illusion troubled him because he could feel their lives around him.
He didn't feel any hostility from the woman following him, and none of that telltale psychic pulse that would indicate she was part of the Shadow Community. So he would take his time evading her.
Bleak stopped to wait for a double-decker tourist bus to pass in front of him. Japanese, French, German, Iowan faces looked down at him from the roofless top deck of the bus; the Statue of Liberty's face, painted hugely on the side, slid ponderously past, and it was as if she were looking at him too.
The bus passed, and Bleak pressed on through its cloud of exhaust, holding his breath. Dodging a taxi, he made it to the farther corner. Yankee Hank's Bar was up ahead. He'd slip in there, see what move she'd make when he cut the trail short.
The fingers of his right hand balled into a half-fist as he conjured a bullet of the Hidden's force; drawn from the energy field coating the world itself, the power pulsed down through his arm as raw energy flow, coalescing into a glimmering bullet shape within the forge of his fingers. He cupped the bullet in his right hand, close against his hip, so no one could see it. Bleak could see it though, if he looked. He felt it pulsing there, hot and volatile, a mindless compaction of life itself -- in this form, potentially destructive. He would throw it only if he had to. If he didn't use it against his enemy, he couldn't reabsorb it, he'd have to release it into the background field -- which would draw attention to him. It was bright outside, no one would see it in his hand, but in a dark room, the energy bullet would show up, as if he had a little ball of fireflies trapped in his fingers.
Bleak was aware, suddenly, that the woman following him had an apparatus of some kind in her right hand -- an electronic device. She would glance at it, then hide it in her palm, cupped against her side -- echoing the way he was hiding the energy bullet. He got a glimpse of the gadget from his flickering share of her point of view. Looked like some kind of handheld EM detection meter...only, it wasn't. What was it? A weapon?
He turned, used his left hand to open the bar's door -- his right still cupping the energy bullet -- and went into the suddenly cool air-conditioned room, a dark space shot through with the light of beer signs and a couple of red-shaded dangling overhead lamps the color of banked embers. Baseball souvenirs on the walls. ESPN baseball was a rectangle of bright greens and whites on the flat screen over the bar. The bartender, a man with short, curly red hair, long sideburns, was one Seamus Flaherty, who nodded at Bleak when he came in. Bleak was a familiar face here. He sometimes drank himself into a safe numbness in Yankee Hank's, when his sensitivity to the Hidden became too much to bear. He spent a good deal of mental energy separating out the material world and the Hidden; trying to stay focused, not get lost.
Bleak had learned to compartmentalize. This is me, in the world that ordinary people share; this is me taking part in the Hidden. That didn't always work. Then he turned to beer -- and a few shots to go with it.
Seamus didn't know about any of that -- couldn't see the bullet of energy glowing in Bleak's hand; it was below the level of the bar as Bleak walked by the three men on the middle stools. They were arguing about a game.
To Seamus, rinsing a beer glass, Bleak was just a mediumheight, lanky, relatively young man with sandy hair who always seemed two weeks overdue for a haircut; brittle blue eyes; a man not quite thirty, in an old Army Rangers jacket, jeans, big black boots. Pretty much the same outfit most anytime, though Bleak changed the tees under the jacket. Bleak had a collection of fading rock-band T-shirts. Today he wore the Dictators.
The drinkers in the bar didn't take much notice. Yankee Hank's was decorated with New York Yankees paraphernalia -- dusty jerseys, fading autographed balls, curling baseball cards -- and if you were a Yankees fan, these days, you pretty much stayed drunk, either because they were doing great or doing badly, depending on what week it was. The drinkers were slurring drunk, not sodden drunk, but they didn't notice much except the little drama on the sports channel.
As Bleak walked by, Seamus called out, "Thinking of starting up our softball team, this summer, Gabe, you in?"
"Sure, man, if I can pitch!"
Seamus gave him an affirming wink and Bleak strode on to the back room, empty except for Yankees posters and neon beer signs, two large red-felt pool tables, and restroom entrances in the farther wall. He toyed with the idea of going into the men's restroom, waiting his tracker out. But if she was really hunting him, she wouldn't let the men's room sign stop her.
He walked over to the other side of a pool table, turned toward the door, hesitated there, trying to think it through. If she wasn't Shadow Community, who was she? She could be a fed. Maybe Central Containment.
Bleak decided he wanted to know whom she was working for. And what the instrument in her hand was.
He couldn't see her, now, because she'd lost sight of him. He only had sight of her, psychically, when she had him in sight. He waited.
The energy bullet had lost some of its power through the attrition of time, but it was still hot in his hand. Holding it there for that long, he might get a slight burn on his skin. Still, he pulsed a little more power into it, building it up to full strength.
Over the noise from a television ad for a men's perfume absolutely guaranteed to attract women, he heard Seamus ask someone what he could get for them. It was her. Bleak thought she said a glass of chardonnay, but he couldn't hear it clearly, then she asked a muffled question, and Seamus said, "The ladies' is back there, miss."
She was still tracking him. But whoever she was, she was staying undercover about it.
His grip tightened around the energy bullet, compressing its charge a little more. But he kept it out of sight below the edge of a pool table.
She walked in, then, a pale woman with bobbed raven hair; she wore a conservative dove-gray dress with a matching jacket, red pumps, matching red-leather purse over her left shoulder, nails the same color. An expression you'd expect on a prosecuting attorney added hardness to an otherwise appealing, heart-shaped face; pursed full lips. Her paleness wasn't unhealthy, it was like something he'd seen in Renaissance paintings. She was a head shorter than Bleak -- but there was no sense that she was intimidated. She stopped just inside the billiard room, standing there with her feet well apart. He noticed she had her purse open. He could just make out the top of a gun butt in there. In her right hand was what looked like one of those devices carpenters use to find metal studs hidden in the walls. Only it was more complicated looking, sleeker. And as she came closer, she held it low enough so that he could see its little LCD screen. Where a tiny red arrow was pointing right at Bleak.
The gun butt convinced Bleak there was no use in playing it cute. "It'd be better if you left that gun in your purse, miss," he warned, keeping his voice gentle but raising his hand, opening his fingers enough so she could see the energy bullet shifting through orange, red, purple, violet, incandescent blue, yellow; back to orange, red, purple. "And that other thing you have pointed at me -- mind telling me what it is? I mean, it's only fair." He smiled. Hoped it was a disarming smile. "If I had a creepy little device pointed at you, I'd tell you why."
She stared at the energy bullet cupped in his hand, fascinated, her eyes widening fractionally. Her voice surprisingly husky, she said, "Okay. You're the real thing. Gabriel Bleak, you are required to come with me -- and right now. The federal government requires your presence."
He looked closely at her. When she'd said, The federal government requires your presence, he'd sensed ambivalence. She was a strong woman, and she could make an arrest. But she didn't quite believe in the job. She wasn't completely one of them. She'd do her job. But he could hear the doubt in her voice; see it in her eyes. Too bad he had no time to persuade her to let him go. Other agents would be not far away. And they'd be here soon.
Bleak shook his head. "Like to help you out. But last time the government 'required' me, things kinda...didn't work out."
He tossed the energy bullet from his right hand to his left, as if one hand were playing catch with the other. The flaring, hissing passage of it startled her -- she took half a step back. He grinned.
"Easy with that thing," she snapped. "Just -- get rid of it. Trust us and it'll be all right. I can't guarantee your safety if you don't surrender."
"Mind telling me, for starts, what happens if I go with you?"
"I was just told to get a...a confirmation on you. Then I bring you in. I don't know any more than that."
She delivered the disclaimer believably. But Bleak could feel dishonesty the way someone else might feel a sudden cold breeze. She'd been honest right up to I don't know any more than that. He looked into her eyes -- and felt himself held there. An indefinable familiarity hummed between their interlocked gazes, in that long moment. As if he knew...not her face -- but something inside her.
She glanced over her shoulder, showing a flicker of irritation -- and not irritation with him.
He tossed the energy bullet back to his other hand. It made a sizzling sound passing through the air. "Expecting someone?"
She looked at the glow of power nestled in his hand. "Put that thing out and just...come along. We'll talk, Mr. Bleak. All right?"
"Love to have a drink with you, if you had a different profession, miss. I might even have gone with 'just come along.' But...just 'come along' with a government agent?" He shook his head. "I've got work to do, for one thing."
"You're a skip tracer, from what I've heard. You can do that anytime. We don't need to be in any kind of...of confrontation, here."
"Sure, okay, but -- come to think of it..." He tossed the energy bullet up so it hissed and spiraled, caught it in his right hand. "You haven't even shown me ID. They make up badges for your department yet?" He smiled. There was something about her...
She grimaced, glanced over her shoulder again.
"Someone slow to back you up?" Bleak added thoughtfully, "You're not NYPD or FBI. I'd have had their badges stuck in my face till I was blind...so that leaves CCA, right?"
She looked at him flatly, then tilted her purse so he could see the badge clipped to the inside flap: Homeland Security, Central Containment Authority. "CCA agent Loraine Sarikosca. So you know about CCA. Not many are aware it exists. Lot of you people know?"
"I think I read about it on the Internet somewhere." Truth was, all the ShadowComm knew. A few had escaped and told their stories. And the Hidden disclosed a good many secrets.
She gave a small shake of her head. "The Internet. I don't think so."
"Way it is now, anybody can be detained. So I guess I won't ask what authority you have. But" -- he tossed the energy bullet from his right hand to his left -- "what excuse do you have?"
"What?" She seemed startled. As if she'd been wondering herself.
"What rationale? What excuse? To just take people away."
Her eyes followed the energy bullet as it went back to his right hand. "There is a...a national security directive...having to do with extraordinary paranormal capabilities. The risk to the public...the possibility you could be of..." She broke off, licking her lips.
"What were you going to say -- about the possibility? That I could be useful?"
"We'll talk about it in the car."
"Will we?"
Bleak saw the uncertainty in her eyes -- and saw it locked away, a moment later. Her eyes going cold.
"Yes," she said, her voice flat. "Now...I'm going to ask you to make that little fireball of yours go away. Here -- I'll turn off the detector. Even steven." She clicked the device off with a flick of her thumb, put it in the purse as casually as a woman putting away a cell phone -- but her hand came out of the purse with the gun.
Bleak knew the gun was coming and was already releasing the bullet with a snapping motion -- like a man snapping a whip. The energy bullet sped from his hand like a spinning meteor, straight at her rising gun-hand, whistling faintly as it went. She shouted in surprise and pain as the packet of energy struck her snub-nosed .38 square in the cylinder, sent it flying from her singed fingers -- its metal glowing red-hot, trailing smoke.
"Get down!" he yelled, rushing around the pool table to tackle her, the two of them going heavily to the tiled floor. The gun clattered against the wall -- and exploded, as every bullet in the gun went off, detonated by the energy charge, bullets cracking into the ceiling and the floor, the room acrid with gun smoke. She tried to pull away...he thought he felt her heartbeat, for a moment...hoped she knew he was trying to save her life.
"What the fuck!" yelled Seamus from the next room.
Bleak had an impulse to see if Agent Sarikosca was okay -- he liked her nerviness, and he knew she was just doing her job -- but he made himself get up and dodge into the men's room instead.
"Come back here, dammit!" she yelled, behind him. So good. She was okay.
"Call nine-whuh-one!" one of the barflies yelled, in the background, as Bleak turned, slammed the door shut, then shot a burst of energy from his hand to melt the metal of the lock. Not enough to hold it forever, but it'd slow her down. A moment later the door creaked as someone on the other side slammed it with a shoulder. "Call nine-whuh-one!" shrieked the barfly again, muffled now.
Two booths on the right, urinals left, sink and window straight ahead. He shook his head, looking at the glazed-glass window over the sink. Painted shut, and anyway too small for him.
But he heard her out there, talking on a cell. "Yeah, just get in here -- he's blocked the door somehow -- " Then an aside to Seamus: "I'm sorry, sir, this is federal business, you're going to have to stay out of here.... No, sir, there's no fire, just a small explosion.... No, sir, I'm not hurt, now you're going to have to..."
Bleak walked over to the sink, examined the wall. Touched it with the palm of his hand. Maybe.
Thump! as someone slammed into the door. Grunted in pain. Slammed it again.
And there were more agents coming.
Bleak sighed. It seemed he'd used up this bar. Seamus wasn't going to be happy with him.
Nothing to lose. He put his hands on the wall above the sink, closed his eyes. Drew energy from the background field, channeled it through his arms...
He stopped, aware of a spiritual scrutiny. Deep contact with the background field exposed any disembodied entities handy; it revealed the Hidden. And someone was there.
Bleak opened his eyes and found he was staring at himself in slightly reflective window glass over the sink -- and saw that something...someone...was behind him, looking over his shoulder. A set of disembodied eyes. A face was filling in, around them. Looked like a teenage boy, maybe eighteen. Just old enough to get into a bar in New York. He could even make out the acne, because that was how the ghost thought of itself.
A drug OD, Bleak suspected. The ghost might have been here for years.
"You ought to let go, kid," Bleak said. "You're stuck here. You're dead, see."
The kid shook his head, at first like someone shaking their head "no," then faster and faster, till his face was a blur, as he receded, his denial becoming a retreat through space itself -- and Bleak closed his eyes again, focused the power he'd drawn, directed it into the wall above the sink, felt the plaster crack and shudder and give way. Something clanged noisily to the floor.
Bleak opened his eyes to see a rough oblong hole, a gap three feet high in the wall, the sink broken down on the tiles, water gushing from a pipe, wetting his boots.
He heard the door breaking down behind him --
He reached out, caught the still-hot edges of the wall, wincing at the contact, put his right foot on the pipe, and levered himself up and through, out partway into the alley behind the building. Running footsteps behind him; someone grabbed his left ankle but he twisted free, got to his feet in the alley. A car was just pulling in twenty-five yards to his left, one of the dark blue, compact natural-gas hybrids favored by the CCA. Bleak thought about invoking help from the disembodied, but he didn't want to incur debts if he didn't have to. He started to the right, looking for a way out -- but it was a dead end. Trash cans against a brick wall.
He turned back toward the car rolling slowly, inexorably toward him. Someone was hurrying up behind the car -- a blond man in a suit, an agent in wraparound mirror sunglasses, raising a pistol. Someone behind him yelled, "Keep your head down, Arnie!"
"You!" shouted "Arnie" from behind the car. "Hands up! You've assaulted a federal agent! I've got every right to take you down! Hands up, do it now!" He was aiming his pistol over the top of the car.
Bleak backed up, coalescing another energy bullet in his right hand.
Agent Sarikosca appeared at the alley's mouth, behind Arnie, her mouth open. She'd been running. She glared past the blond agent.
"Bleak! Put your hands on the wall, give it up! I promise you won't be harmed!"
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Bleak said, looking up toward a fire escape. No, out of reach.
The car was bearing down on him...and stopped, rocking on its shocks, about thirty feet away.
He thought he might be able to hit the sedan with a compacted energy bullet to make the engine explode, but if he did that, he'd probably kill the guys inside. And he didn't want to kill anyone if he didn't have to.
He knew what surrendering to the CCA could mean. Maybe the stories about its prisoners were just rumors, but he thought it wiser to believe them.
"I'm counting two and I'm opening fire!" Arnie yelled.
That made up Bleak's mind for him.
Heart thudding so loudly he seemed to hear it echo in the alley, Bleak snapped the energy bullet toward the agent -- aiming it so it'd whip close to the man's left ear. Scare him into screwing up his aim. The agent yelled, ducked aside from the meteoric energy bullet, fired his weapon as he stumbled. A bullet cracked past Bleak. He'd heard that sound often enough in his life to know what it was.
Still recoiling from Bleak's energy bullet, Arnie stumbled back --
Bleak ran straight for the car coming at him. As he went, he reached out to the planetary field, felt it concentrated between the narrow walls of the alley. A pretty strong water source must run under the pavement. That helped.
He stretched out his arms wide as he ran, caught the energy in his opened hands, compressed it with the extension of his senses, molding it into a shape formed by his mind.
The car's driver and passenger were opening their doors, getting out with guns in hand -- but Bleak was running up an invisible ramp in the air. Right over their car.
"Son of a bitch!" the driver shouted -- he was another set of sunglasses in a suit -- as Bleak ran through the air above the car, creating more of the invisible ramp ahead of him as he went. He waved the ramp away just as he passed the trunk of the car on the far side, and the support vanished from under him. He dropped down to a crouch behind the agents as one of them, the driver, got out of the car and turned, fired at him, the bullet cutting the air near his shoulder.
Then Arnie was there, right in front of him on the sidewalk, raising the gun. Bleak used more standard combat skills, Ranger hand-to-hand. He set himself and kicked out, connecting with Arnie's wrist. Arnie yelped in pain, grimacing, as the gun spun away. Agent Sarikosca came from behind her partner, tried to barricade Bleak, but he dodged past her, like a quarterback with the football, and kept going, leaving her and Arnie behind.
Running, Bleak sensed someone he knew on the sidewalk ahead. Wondered if it was coincidence. It was Pigeon Lady: an elderly woman no more than five feet tall, who seemed to live in a perpetual flurry of pigeons; a droppings-white watch cap pulled over her spray of gray hair; she wore layers of bird-spackled wool, whatever the weather, stuck with fallen pinfeathers. And she wore pigeons like more clothing, something like thirty of them whirring and cooing about her, sitting on her head, her shoulders, her arms, whether she was feeding them or not. Her seamed face turned toward him; her watery eyes took him in, running past. Nodded distantly to him, turning to see men with suits, sunglasses, and guns five strides behind him. Feds, aiming at Bleak's back.
The pigeons erupted from her in a volcanic cloud of flapping blue and gray, making whickering sounds in their flurrying, to fill the air just behind Bleak. They flew at the faces of the CCA men; flapping wildly, blocking all sight of the agents' quarry, for several long, precious moments.
Carried on the psychic wind of their wings, Bleak heard thoughts, other people's thoughts he could never ordinarily have heard. He was not usually telepathic -- not like that. Mostly he could only hear the minds of the dead.
Run, cross the street, Bleak, the Pigeon Lady thought. We'll keep them back.Someone else thinking, What the hell's up with these birds? It's like that Hitchcock movie...the damn things're too close to my eyes...the smell, the feathers --
Where's he gone?
There -- I've got a shot at him!
"No, Drake, hold your fire, you'll hit civilians!" Sarikosca shouted, as Bleak sprinted up Thirty-fifth toward Broadway, running full out, suddenly aware of the humid heat. As if he were running upstream through hot water. He drew his power from the living environment around him, but the process took something from him too -- had taken a great deal for that last little gag, running on the air -- and he was feeling it. And thinking, "Drake" she said? Drake Zweig from military intelligence? It would be a natural jump, from Army Intelligence to CCA. Maybe Zweig had ID'd him. He hoped it wasn't that particular prick.
Bleak saw the female agent at the corner, with Arnie just behind her. Trying to block him off. He took in a deep breath and cut to the right, dodging around a wheezing fat woman with runny eye makeup and a bearded man in a turban; ducked behind a disused mailbox, then cut between two parked taxis and ran into traffic, right in front of a bus. He sprinted past the front of a big city bus a whisker ahead of being run down, the bus blaring its horn -- then he turned to follow it through the intersection, running along beside it. Traffic was heavy and the bus was moving only as fast as he could run.
Bleak used the bus's bulk to hide behind as he crossed Broadway, aware that a round-mouthed little girl was ogling him from a window just beside his head, her pudgy fingers pressed to the glass. He waved at her and she waved back, then, wheezing, he angled off into the thick crowd on the sidewalk, cut into a department store...and lost them. For now.
"We lost him," said Drake Zweig, coming back to the car in the alley. "Dammit." Zweig was a short, middle-aged man in a gray suit tight over his barrel chest. He wore his gray hair in a kind of oily pompadour, to give him height; wide face, eyes set slightly too far apart, his mouth almost lipless. He had large hands -- there was a story he'd used those big thumbs on the eyes of detainees, back in Iraq, years ago, when he'd worked for the CIA at Abu Ghraib.
"What about the detector?" Arnie asked, ruefully rubbing his bruised wrist.
"Out of range -- he must've slipped off to a subway. Caught a lucky train."
Loraine Sarikosca was standing by the car, spraying her burn with analgesic, then winding a bandage around her hand. She wanted to tell Zweig he should have taken her advice, brought in four more cars for this guy. She just wondered why it'd taken so long for her backup to show, in the bar. Had General Forsythe told them to hold off -- see how she handled it alone? It was quite possible.
"I can confirm the ID, all right," Zweig went on. "Gabriel Bleak."
Arnie tilted his dark glasses back on the top of his blond head, revealing pale blue eyes. "Hot as hell out here. So, Drake -- how you know this Bleak?"
"Let's take it to the car," Loraine said. She knew Zweig didn't like her talking as if she had rank on him -- only, she did have rank on him, so he could stuff it. She didn't want them airing this on the street.
They all got in, Loraine in the back behind Zweig, Arnie beside her. Zweig's partner, riding shotgun, was Dorrick Johnson, an African-American agent who rarely contributed more than a cynical shake of his head to any conversation. But Dorrick had good judgment. Such as the good judgment to put on the airconditioning as soon as Zweig got the car fired up.
"How's your hand, Loraine?" Arnie asked.
"It's okay, just a little red." It hurt like a bastard but she didn't want to be taken off the job. "Your wrist?"
"Throbs. Doesn't seem broken. If I run into that guy again..."
"Keep a professional attitude, Arnie, okay? Forsythe wants them intact."
Zweig just then got around to answering Arnie's question, so it sounded like a non sequitur. "Bleak fucked with me on intel, of course, in Afghanistan." Zweig snorted. "He was Army Rangers. Supposed to be a tough bunch. But he was such an old lady about the civilians."
"Some 'old lady.' " Arnie said ruefully. "Almost blew off Loraine's hand. And he made us look like dicks."
"Used magic," Zweig snorted. "Didn't have the stones to use a gun. I don't really see the advantage of this weird-ass trick of his. Making a gun blow up."
"Think about it," Loraine said, gingerly touching the bandaged hand. She winced. "He shoots me, that's a real clear crime. He makes the gun explode with a power the court doesn't recognize as even existing, he just says, 'What, so your gun went blooey, why is that my fault?' No weapon, nothing the police can hold him on, really. No forensic evidence. He doesn't have to reload the thing -- seems to pull it right out of the air. It's always there, even when he seems disarmed. And then there's the psychological effect -- I was pretty startled, I got to admit."
"We're feds. New rules, we can take him in, don't need 'evidence,' " Dorrick pointed out. Dorrick was new to CCA -- which was itself fairly new. Dorrick was a transfer from FBI. Not his choice.
Loraine nodded abstractedly. "We don't need evidence if we can get him without the police being involved -- not always possible, from what I hear." Her mind mostly on wondering if the agency had brought the other detectors into the area, as she'd requested. They were testers -- only a few prototypes existed. Bleak might still be close by.
She'd been standing so close to him -- why didn't she just tackle him? Would he really have used that energy bullet on her, directly? She wasn't sure. She suspected he probably wouldn't have. But she wasn't sure why she felt that way.
I won't ask what authority you have...but what excuse do you have?
The words haunted her. She'd asked herself the same thing, more than once, since signing on with CCA. And somehow he knew that.
There was an official rationale, of course. ShadowComm types were breaking a law that almost no one knew existed. Something you were told about once you were detained: a law against using paranormal abilities -- the real thing, ShadowComm abilities, not the usual fake psychics and pseudowitches. Specifically, it was forbidden to use ShadowComm powers except in a contained and controlled government context. Otherwise, the government claimed, you were doing the equivalent of experimenting with plutonium in your garage. Thought to be that dangerous. Especially since the phenomenon started popping up all over, during the last thirty years. And who knew what political orientation any ShadowComm had? Suppose they were anarchists -- or Jihadists? Too big a risk.
But still, the question bothered her. Could the "containment" be justified? They were officially at war -- always, always at war, with the Pan Jihad -- and detaining ShadowComm, till they could be retrained, was a bit like the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. But even so...
Her cell phone buzzed. She reached for it, and its vibrating corresponded unnervingly with the throbbing in her burned hand. "Sarikosca."
"Loraine, the police are at the bar." It was Dr. Helman, at CCA's Washington, D.C., office. His low voice almost like a man parodying an affectless monotone. He seemed to consider it a classy detachment. She pictured him, a chunky little man, perhaps forty-five, with slickedback, dark black hair and black eyes and old-fashioned, professorial suits, probably polishing his wire-rim glasses on his tie -- usually a broad silk tie with hand-painted lilies and mums on it -- as he spoke into a rather old-fashioned Bluetooth earpiece. She found him odious but he was her boss, and as expert as anyone in their most peculiar area of expertise. "We're sending people in to cover it for you, you won't have to go back in there."
"That's good." How would she have explained it to the cops? "We screwed up. I guess I screwed up. He got away. But...I got a good look at him."
"Oh, we have confirmed the ID. We know all about Mr. Gabriel Bleak. I was hoping you'd meet face-to-face. Did you...well. We'll discuss it later. I want a full report on your encounter with him. Everything -- every last thing."
We know all about Mr. Gabriel Bleak. She opened her mouth to ask if she was being sent on assignments without a full briefing. Then she closed it again. You never got full briefings, at CCA. Which was typical of intelligence services -- sometimes it had been like that when she'd worked at the DIA. But CCA struck her as particularly "Chinese boxes" oriented: every shut box always contained another. The agency's primary mission seemed to have another one tucked away inside it. Theoretically the CCA existed to prevent supernatural destabilization of the country -- and to use specially talented individuals to defl ect threats to the USA. Terrorists with WMDs were hard to detect -- but with the supernatural on your side, you might catch them.
Only, sometimes she thought there was another mission she hadn't been told about.
"How's the hand?" Helman asked.
"It's just a minor burn." Close enough to true.
"Good. Because you're going to be busy. Today, see if you can fi nd Bleak, pick up his trail. This is straight from General Forsythe -- Bleak's a priority."
"Why Bleak especially? There are a lot of other possibles out there."
"The general was adamant. We find him or we find another place to work."
*
Oil at $200, Stocks Can Keep Rallying: Jim Rogers
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33236976
Oil at $200, Stocks Can Keep Rallying: Jim Rogers
Friday, 9 Oct 2009
Reuters
Investor Jim Rogers, a prominent commodities bull, said Thursday the U.S. government bond market will be the next bubble to burst due to unsustainable borrowing, and agricultural commodities and precious metals are among his favorite investment picks.
Rogers also said stock markets could head for a pullback following a strong rally.
"It's overdue for a correction. Certainly, it would not be surprising if there were a correction after a straight-up move for six months," Rogers told Reuters Television in an interview.
He was not "selling the market short," and the equities market could keep rising for a long period of time, Rogers said.
After the Reuters interview, Rogers said at a seminar hosted by ETF Securities that the bull market in U.S. Treasurys has come to an end.
"The next bubble that I see developing is in the United States government bond market. It is inconceivable to me that anybody would lend money to the U.S. government for 30 years in U.S. dollars at 3 to 6 percent interest rate," he said. "So, somewhere along the line, this bubble is going to pop. If any of you own bonds, I'd be terribly worried, I would think about getting out of the bond."
Hot Commodities
Rogers said agricultural products, precious metals and oil remained among his favorite commodity picks.
"I know that inventories of agricultural products are the lowest they have been in decades. We have shortages of everything developing in agriculture," he said.
He said sugar, which recently hit a 28-1/2-year high, could go much higher in the next decade.
Among precious metals, Rogers said palladium and silver looked more attractive due to cheaper prices, but he would buy gold in the long term because the metal has historically been regarded as a real asset.
Rogers said he was certain crude oil could trade as high as $200 per barrel over the course of the bull market because of depletion.
Rogers, who resides in Singapore, had co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1970. The fund, since closed, returned 4,200 percent over the next decade, compared with a 50 percent gain in the S&P 500 index.
Asked about his investment philosophy, Rogers warned against chasing hot markets and venturing into unfamiliar assets.
"Investors should only invest in things that they know a lot about..., and that's how you are going to get through all of these and survive. Even though that means just putting your money in the bank," he said."It's better to earn 1 percent a year than to lose 1 percent a year."
Oil at $200, Stocks Can Keep Rallying: Jim Rogers
Friday, 9 Oct 2009
Reuters
Investor Jim Rogers, a prominent commodities bull, said Thursday the U.S. government bond market will be the next bubble to burst due to unsustainable borrowing, and agricultural commodities and precious metals are among his favorite investment picks.
Rogers also said stock markets could head for a pullback following a strong rally.
"It's overdue for a correction. Certainly, it would not be surprising if there were a correction after a straight-up move for six months," Rogers told Reuters Television in an interview.
He was not "selling the market short," and the equities market could keep rising for a long period of time, Rogers said.
After the Reuters interview, Rogers said at a seminar hosted by ETF Securities that the bull market in U.S. Treasurys has come to an end.
"The next bubble that I see developing is in the United States government bond market. It is inconceivable to me that anybody would lend money to the U.S. government for 30 years in U.S. dollars at 3 to 6 percent interest rate," he said. "So, somewhere along the line, this bubble is going to pop. If any of you own bonds, I'd be terribly worried, I would think about getting out of the bond."
Hot Commodities
Rogers said agricultural products, precious metals and oil remained among his favorite commodity picks.
"I know that inventories of agricultural products are the lowest they have been in decades. We have shortages of everything developing in agriculture," he said.
He said sugar, which recently hit a 28-1/2-year high, could go much higher in the next decade.
Among precious metals, Rogers said palladium and silver looked more attractive due to cheaper prices, but he would buy gold in the long term because the metal has historically been regarded as a real asset.
Rogers said he was certain crude oil could trade as high as $200 per barrel over the course of the bull market because of depletion.
Rogers, who resides in Singapore, had co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1970. The fund, since closed, returned 4,200 percent over the next decade, compared with a 50 percent gain in the S&P 500 index.
Asked about his investment philosophy, Rogers warned against chasing hot markets and venturing into unfamiliar assets.
"Investors should only invest in things that they know a lot about..., and that's how you are going to get through all of these and survive. Even though that means just putting your money in the bank," he said."It's better to earn 1 percent a year than to lose 1 percent a year."
GM Expected to Seal Hummer Sale
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574462111444795076.html
OCTOBER 8, 2009
GM Expected to Seal Hummer Sale
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
BEIJING – General Motors Co. is expected to seal a deal as early as Friday to sell its Hummer unit to China's Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. for $150 million, according to people close to the talks—a high-profile acquisition China's central government could still balk at because of Hummer's reputation for gas-guzzling excess.
Tengzhong Chief Executive Yang Yi has flown to Detroit, where Hummer has headquarters, this week and is likely to be on hand to announce the deal with GM, according to these people.
They said the deal would allow Tengzhong, based in the western Chinese city of Chengdu in Sichuan province, to take over the Hummer brand and acquire the technology to produce its products: two hulking SUVs called H2 and H3.
The people said Tengzhong-owned Hummer would remain a U.S.-headquartered brand with manufacturing capability, although there is a possibility a Hummer factory will be built in China down the road to make the brand, currently focused on North America, a more global brand. The people said Tengzhong would retain Hummer's current management, led by CEO Jim Taylor, and take over core members of the brand's engineering team.
Write to Norihiko Shirouzu at norihiko.shirouzu@wsj.com
OCTOBER 8, 2009
GM Expected to Seal Hummer Sale
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
BEIJING – General Motors Co. is expected to seal a deal as early as Friday to sell its Hummer unit to China's Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. for $150 million, according to people close to the talks—a high-profile acquisition China's central government could still balk at because of Hummer's reputation for gas-guzzling excess.
Tengzhong Chief Executive Yang Yi has flown to Detroit, where Hummer has headquarters, this week and is likely to be on hand to announce the deal with GM, according to these people.
They said the deal would allow Tengzhong, based in the western Chinese city of Chengdu in Sichuan province, to take over the Hummer brand and acquire the technology to produce its products: two hulking SUVs called H2 and H3.
The people said Tengzhong-owned Hummer would remain a U.S.-headquartered brand with manufacturing capability, although there is a possibility a Hummer factory will be built in China down the road to make the brand, currently focused on North America, a more global brand. The people said Tengzhong would retain Hummer's current management, led by CEO Jim Taylor, and take over core members of the brand's engineering team.
Write to Norihiko Shirouzu at norihiko.shirouzu@wsj.com
U.S. Budget Deficit Estimate $1.4 Trillion
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/10/07/business/business-uk-usa-budget.html
U.S. Budget Deficit Estimate $1.4 Trillion
October 7, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government spent a record $1.4 trillion (876.9 billion pounds) more than it collected in the fiscal year ended September 30, congressional analysts said on Wednesday, in their final estimate before the official numbers are issued.
Bank bailouts, stimulus spending and declining tax revenues due to a deep recession led the government to post a deficit that amounts to 9.9 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product for the 2009 fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said.
The Treasury Department will report the actual deficit later this month. The deficit for fiscal 2008 was $459 billion.
The $1.4 trillion estimate is less than the budget office's estimate of $1.58 trillion issued in August, but the discrepancy arises from differences in calculating the costs of bailing out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not any sudden change in economic conditions, CBO said.
The government took in $2.1 trillion in fiscal 2009, a 16.6 percent drop from the previous year as the recession led to sharp declines in individual and corporate income taxes, CBO said.
On the other half of the ledger, outlays increased 17.8 percent to $3.5 trillion, CBO said.
Among the most expensive items were $154 billion for bailouts under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, $91 billion for the Fannie and Freddie bailouts, and $100 billion under the massive stimulus package approved in February.
Excluding items in the stimulus package, spending for unemployment benefits more than doubled to $120 billion, CBO said.
One bright spot: the government's interest payments on its debt actually decreased 23 percent to $199 billion thanks to lower interest rates, CBO said.
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, editing by Philip Barbara)
U.S. Budget Deficit Estimate $1.4 Trillion
October 7, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government spent a record $1.4 trillion (876.9 billion pounds) more than it collected in the fiscal year ended September 30, congressional analysts said on Wednesday, in their final estimate before the official numbers are issued.
Bank bailouts, stimulus spending and declining tax revenues due to a deep recession led the government to post a deficit that amounts to 9.9 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product for the 2009 fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said.
The Treasury Department will report the actual deficit later this month. The deficit for fiscal 2008 was $459 billion.
The $1.4 trillion estimate is less than the budget office's estimate of $1.58 trillion issued in August, but the discrepancy arises from differences in calculating the costs of bailing out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not any sudden change in economic conditions, CBO said.
The government took in $2.1 trillion in fiscal 2009, a 16.6 percent drop from the previous year as the recession led to sharp declines in individual and corporate income taxes, CBO said.
On the other half of the ledger, outlays increased 17.8 percent to $3.5 trillion, CBO said.
Among the most expensive items were $154 billion for bailouts under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, $91 billion for the Fannie and Freddie bailouts, and $100 billion under the massive stimulus package approved in February.
Excluding items in the stimulus package, spending for unemployment benefits more than doubled to $120 billion, CBO said.
One bright spot: the government's interest payments on its debt actually decreased 23 percent to $199 billion thanks to lower interest rates, CBO said.
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, editing by Philip Barbara)
The myth of the man-cession
http://blogs.reuters.com/columns/2009/10/06/the-myth-of-the-man-cession/
Christopher Swann
October 6th, 2009
The myth of the man-cession
Sometimes it’s hard to be a man. The current recession is a case in point.
Men account for three quarters of the 7 million U.S. job losses. That has led to talk of a “man-cession.” With male unemployment rampant, women are on the cusp of a historic breakthrough –before the end of the year, women are likely to form a majority of salaried U.S. workers for the first time.
The novelty of the man-cession has been overstated, however. Delve deeper, and men have not been doing so badly by historic standards. Nor have women been making great breakthroughs.
First, recessions are almost always man-cessions. In 2001, the most recent downturn, women accounted for just 14 percent of job losses, U.S. government figures show. The picture was even clearer in the recession of the early 1990s. Of the 1.2 million positions that disappeared, females accounted for just 22,000 — slightly less than 2 percent.
Nor can this be explained by the fact that there were fewer women working. Even in the early 1990s women accounted for 47 percent of the workforce.
The reason that men are more sensitive — to recessions at least — is that they are overrepresented in highly cyclical sectors. Nine out of 10 workers in construction, and seven out of 10 in manufacturing, are male. These sectors generally take the biggest tumble when the economy declines. Women, meanwhile, dominate the most cosseted portions of the economy: healthcare, education and government.
Despite this, the current downturn has been no cakewalk for women. While women have been better at clinging onto their jobs, they have not done so well holding onto their salaries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women in full-time work saw their annual earnings fall at twice the pace of men in the early stages of the recession — losing almost 2 percent last year.
The news actually gets worse for women. Most measures of employment and salary suggest the gender revolution has stalled. The gulf between male and female salaries, which narrowed dramatically in the last 25 years, has started to widen again.
In 2005 women on average earned 81 percent as much as men. By the end of last year, this was slipping back to 79.9 percent. Much of this is accounted for by shorter working hours and choice of industry.
Even taking this into account, however, academics like Shelley Correll at Stanford University have shown that there is still a “motherhood penalty” built into the workforce. Correll calculates that mothers who work just as hard as male counterparts earn about 5 percent less per child.
Progress on the desegregation of the workforce and attitudes to gender roles have not advanced since the mid-1990s. This is despite the fact that women are now outpacing men academically — earning 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent of master’s.
Since superior academic performance doesn’t seem to be narrowing the gap, we need a renewed drive by government and companies to root out discrimination and create a more family-friendly work place. Although the United States has excellent anti-discrimination laws, enforcement is woefully underfunded.
Another necessary but more expensive step would be greater provision of childcare. Increasing the length of the school day, lowering the starting age and reducing school vacations would all help — as could more generous paternity leave. Larger employers should be encouraged to expand the provision of workplace nurseries — a reliable way of attracting highly skilled mothers.
As the slide in manufacturing and production tails off, male workers can expect some relief. The problems of many women in the workforce are far more ingrained and harder to deal with. Man-cession aside, it’s still a man’s world.
Christopher Swann
October 6th, 2009
The myth of the man-cession
Sometimes it’s hard to be a man. The current recession is a case in point.
Men account for three quarters of the 7 million U.S. job losses. That has led to talk of a “man-cession.” With male unemployment rampant, women are on the cusp of a historic breakthrough –before the end of the year, women are likely to form a majority of salaried U.S. workers for the first time.
The novelty of the man-cession has been overstated, however. Delve deeper, and men have not been doing so badly by historic standards. Nor have women been making great breakthroughs.
First, recessions are almost always man-cessions. In 2001, the most recent downturn, women accounted for just 14 percent of job losses, U.S. government figures show. The picture was even clearer in the recession of the early 1990s. Of the 1.2 million positions that disappeared, females accounted for just 22,000 — slightly less than 2 percent.
Nor can this be explained by the fact that there were fewer women working. Even in the early 1990s women accounted for 47 percent of the workforce.
The reason that men are more sensitive — to recessions at least — is that they are overrepresented in highly cyclical sectors. Nine out of 10 workers in construction, and seven out of 10 in manufacturing, are male. These sectors generally take the biggest tumble when the economy declines. Women, meanwhile, dominate the most cosseted portions of the economy: healthcare, education and government.
Despite this, the current downturn has been no cakewalk for women. While women have been better at clinging onto their jobs, they have not done so well holding onto their salaries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women in full-time work saw their annual earnings fall at twice the pace of men in the early stages of the recession — losing almost 2 percent last year.
The news actually gets worse for women. Most measures of employment and salary suggest the gender revolution has stalled. The gulf between male and female salaries, which narrowed dramatically in the last 25 years, has started to widen again.
In 2005 women on average earned 81 percent as much as men. By the end of last year, this was slipping back to 79.9 percent. Much of this is accounted for by shorter working hours and choice of industry.
Even taking this into account, however, academics like Shelley Correll at Stanford University have shown that there is still a “motherhood penalty” built into the workforce. Correll calculates that mothers who work just as hard as male counterparts earn about 5 percent less per child.
Progress on the desegregation of the workforce and attitudes to gender roles have not advanced since the mid-1990s. This is despite the fact that women are now outpacing men academically — earning 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent of master’s.
Since superior academic performance doesn’t seem to be narrowing the gap, we need a renewed drive by government and companies to root out discrimination and create a more family-friendly work place. Although the United States has excellent anti-discrimination laws, enforcement is woefully underfunded.
Another necessary but more expensive step would be greater provision of childcare. Increasing the length of the school day, lowering the starting age and reducing school vacations would all help — as could more generous paternity leave. Larger employers should be encouraged to expand the provision of workplace nurseries — a reliable way of attracting highly skilled mothers.
As the slide in manufacturing and production tails off, male workers can expect some relief. The problems of many women in the workforce are far more ingrained and harder to deal with. Man-cession aside, it’s still a man’s world.
Bank Of America Cuts Deal With Another YouTuber
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/debtors-revolt-bank-of-am_n_315351.html
Arthur Delaney
arthur@huffingtonpost.com
Debtors' Revolt: Bank Of America Cuts Deal With Another YouTuber
10-9-09
Got a gripe with Bank of America? Put it on YouTube.
Ben Frasier of Douglas, Ore. said in a YouTube video that he wouldn't make any more payments on a $30,000 personal line of credit unless Bank of America would let him settle up with a lump sum.
Bank of America wasn't interested in the offer when Frasier made it over the phone. But after he made his demand publicly, and it received some media attention, Bank of America made an offer that Frasier is happy with.
The video-sharing website has become an effective complaint department for angry customers willing to put their faces to a declaration of "debtors revolt!" Ann Minch of Red Bluff, Calif., did it first in September, when she refused to pay a credit card debt unless Bank of America lowered her rate. After her story went viral, Bank of America agreed to her demand. And Darren Bryant of Pensacola, Fla., won attention from the bank within four hours of "going YouTube" after he wasted 20 hours calling the bank to no avail.
Another person uploads a "debtors revolt" rant against Bank of America and other big banks almost every day.
Frasier said that because of an unexpectedly high interest rate, he paid $8,000 but dented the $30,000 loan's principal by only $1,500. He said in his video that he wanted pay Bank of America $23,000 and call it even. After some negotiation over email, a Bank of America agent made the following offer on Thursday:
Based on the new payment amount from you of 15,134.78 and the credits to that account that I stated below, it would leave a remaining balance on the account of roughly $12,215.00. I would then be able to set that amount to a 60 month payoff term and an interest rate of 8.99%. The new payment on that amount for the 60 months would be roughly $260.00.
Frasier replied that he would accept the offer as soon as he saw it on paper. He told the Huffington Post he's happy with the deal, though he thought the way he got it was ridiculous.
"In terms of YouTube, it was a very effective mode of communicating with them," Frasier told the Huffington Post on Friday. "You have to go someplace unsecure to tell your story where everybody knows pretty much who you are, everybody knows the details. You'd think you could do that on Bank of America's website. It's an incredible website. Unfortunately, you just don't command the attention you do on YouTube."
Bank of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Huffington Post, but a spokeswoman previously said, "Our associates talk to millions of customers every day and we work very hard to help them. It is more likely that we can work with them when they call us directly to resolve their issues."
Debtors' Revolt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/debtors-revolt-former-ban_n_307088.html
Arthur Delaney
arthur@huffingtonpost.com
Debtors' Revolt: Former Bank Of America Employee Boards The Bandwagon
10-5-09
A former Bank of America employee has joined the fledgling "debtors' revolt" movement.
"I was an assistant branch manager for Bank of America for two years," said Ben Frasier, a 27-year-old father of three in Douglas, Ore., in a YouTube video. "I quit my job because of the unscrupulous sales practices that were required to be performed in an effort to meet sales quotas. What I'm telling the world is that Bank of America will stop at nothing to turn an insane profit at your expense."
Frasier told the Huffington Post that he made his video after seeing Ann Minch's epic rant, in which the Red Bluff, Calif. woman demanded Bank of America reduce the interest rate on her credit card in September. He's not the only one -- dozens of people have since boarded the bandwagon.
"It was all because of Ann Minch that I got rolling on this deal," said Frasier.
Frasier, an insurance salesman, said he quit his job with Bank of America two years ago out of disgust. "If you didn't sell so many credit cards, if you weren't successful pushing it down peoples' throats, you got written up," he said.
His biggest gripe is his own. In his video, Frasier explains that last fall he and his grandfather took out a $30,000 personal line of credit to fix up a foreclosed property he planned to flip. He thought he'd signed up for an interest rate of 5.1 percent, but on his first statement he discovered his rate had somehow risen to 32 percent. He said he sold the property at a loss and has $23,000 in proceeds he wants to use to pay off the remaining balance on the loan, which he said stands at $28,000 after about $8,000 in payments, with less than $1,500 going to principal.
"You're not getting another penny from me until you settle," said Frasier.
Frasier said Bank of America told him it would lower his interest rate, but he says he has not yet gotten a response to his settlement offer.
A Bank of America spokeswoman told the Huffington Post via email that "we have talked with the customer directly and have gone through his account with him. While we don't share the details of that conversation, we believe we have addressed any concerns."
"Our associates talk to millions of customers every day and we work very hard to help them. It is more likely that we can work with them when they call us directly to resolve their issues."
Other debtors who've made videos have gotten results. Ann Minch won a reduced interest rate on her credit card. And Darren Bryant of Pensacola, Fla. heard from Bank of America within four hours of posting his video on Monday (but they didn't make him an offer).
Arthur Delaney
arthur@huffingtonpost.com
Debtors' Revolt: Former Bank Of America Employee Boards The Bandwagon
10-5-09
A former Bank of America employee has joined the fledgling "debtors' revolt" movement.
"I was an assistant branch manager for Bank of America for two years," said Ben Frasier, a 27-year-old father of three in Douglas, Ore., in a YouTube video. "I quit my job because of the unscrupulous sales practices that were required to be performed in an effort to meet sales quotas. What I'm telling the world is that Bank of America will stop at nothing to turn an insane profit at your expense."
Frasier told the Huffington Post that he made his video after seeing Ann Minch's epic rant, in which the Red Bluff, Calif. woman demanded Bank of America reduce the interest rate on her credit card in September. He's not the only one -- dozens of people have since boarded the bandwagon.
"It was all because of Ann Minch that I got rolling on this deal," said Frasier.
Frasier, an insurance salesman, said he quit his job with Bank of America two years ago out of disgust. "If you didn't sell so many credit cards, if you weren't successful pushing it down peoples' throats, you got written up," he said.
His biggest gripe is his own. In his video, Frasier explains that last fall he and his grandfather took out a $30,000 personal line of credit to fix up a foreclosed property he planned to flip. He thought he'd signed up for an interest rate of 5.1 percent, but on his first statement he discovered his rate had somehow risen to 32 percent. He said he sold the property at a loss and has $23,000 in proceeds he wants to use to pay off the remaining balance on the loan, which he said stands at $28,000 after about $8,000 in payments, with less than $1,500 going to principal.
"You're not getting another penny from me until you settle," said Frasier.
Frasier said Bank of America told him it would lower his interest rate, but he says he has not yet gotten a response to his settlement offer.
A Bank of America spokeswoman told the Huffington Post via email that "we have talked with the customer directly and have gone through his account with him. While we don't share the details of that conversation, we believe we have addressed any concerns."
"Our associates talk to millions of customers every day and we work very hard to help them. It is more likely that we can work with them when they call us directly to resolve their issues."
Other debtors who've made videos have gotten results. Ann Minch won a reduced interest rate on her credit card. And Darren Bryant of Pensacola, Fla. heard from Bank of America within four hours of posting his video on Monday (but they didn't make him an offer).
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