Nobody wants to see New Orleans have to deal with another large scale storm, especially since its not even rebuilt from Katrina...but, if such a tragedy should befall the city...

On Tap for the Republican Convention: Karmic Payback?

And now, a brief word about the Republican National Convention:

There is apparently a real chance that Hurricane Gustav could hit New Orleans next Monday -- which happens to be the day that President Bush, Laura Bush, and Vice President Cheney are scheduled to speak.

Politico, the political Web site, is warning that the storm could disrupt Mr. Bush's presentation -- and bring back memories of Hurricane Katrina's lethal impact on New Orleans. Talk about going off message.

President Bush has never been accountable for his unconscionable missteps during Hurricane Katrina.

There has never been an adequate investigation of what went wrong. Too little has been done to assure that a similar tragedy will not happen again. New Orleans has not been rebuilt. And the government has not done enough to help the survivors.

We hope Gustav fades harmlessly away. And if it does hit land, we hope the people in its path are properly taken care of.

We must say, though, that we like the idea that as the Bush administration comes to an end, nature is forcing the President and the Republican National Committee to think back to the horrifically bungled response to Katrina -- one of the worst part-natural, part-man-made disasters in American History.

At the Democrat convention, Bill Clinton:

"People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

from a conversation I started elsewhere.

Who decides what is productive or not? Is the stoned out artist sitting at the table pen in hand day-dreaming less productive if they get up and walk away not having put pen to paper?

Does productive always mean tangible product?

And further, what if there is no market for the product (if there is one); is the artist wasting his time or life?

Is it to our best advantage to let market forces be the sole measure of productivity and determine what activities will or will not be seen or supported by society?

You read those books where luxury
Comes as a guest to take a slave
Books where artists in noble poverty
Go like virgins to the grave
Don't you get sensitive on me
'Cause I know you're just too proud
You couldn't step outside the Boho dance now
Even if good fortune allowed
- joni mitchell (The Boho Dance)

Poverty and such is a small sacrifice to pay to be remembered forever

True, if that sort of desire for immortality is what motivates someone. On the other hand, I have known cultural contributors whose contributions were completely ephemeral and who had or have no wide spread audience to reproduce fame or reward beyond their immediate contacts. And I think we should draw a distinction between living in enforced poverty and consciously living sparingly, under a Spartan or minimalist aesthetic.

Given the wealth of western cultures, it is completely affordable to provide every person with a minimal citizens income that would allow for a much wider set of individual pursuits than are presently allowed because of the constraints of having everyone's personal sense of productivity being tied to a bottom line mentality and that bottom line in turn being defined by a consensus about what is or is not utile at the moment.

And I think most of the resistance to this sort thing has nothing to do with the expense per se to provide such a citizen's income, but rather is based on an erroneous, yet common place Calvanistic, Christian work ethic which has little patience with work that is less than apparently muscular or concretely evident. Anything else is regarded as suspiciouly slothful and therefore antithetical to the idea of being productive.

ISP's confirm '2012: The Year The Internet Ends'

Dylan Pattyn , who is currently writing an article for Time Magazine on the issue, has official confirmation from sources within Bell Canada and is interviewing a marketing representative from TELUS who confirms the story and states that TELUS has already started blocking all websites that aren't in the subscription package for mobile Internet access. They could not confirm whether it would happen in 2012 because both stated it may actually happen sooner (as early as 2010). Interviews with these sources, more confirmation from other sources and more in-depth information on the issue is set to be published in Time Magazine soon.

What can we do?

The reason why we're releasing this information is because we believe we can stop it. More awareness means more mainstream media shedding light on it, more political interest and more pressure on the ISP's to keep the Internet an open free space. We started this social network as a platform for Internet activism where we can join forces, share ideas and organize any form of protest that may have an impact. If we want to make a difference in this, we have to join together and stand united as one powerful voice against it.

Join the movement.

God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!

Reply:

Relax, homosexuals are as natural as the weather.
If you sneak up on one asleep and carefully spread the hair on their heads you will see a "Made by God" stamp on their scalp. No really, its true...try it sometime.

Indulge me this small sermonette:

Q: Who made you?
A: God made me.

Q: What else did God make?
A: God made me and all things -- except Steve.

Q: Why did God make all things except Steve?
A: God made all things except Steve for His own glory.

"Steve" has emerged as a central figure in American theology. He even played a significant role in the recent national elections. Yet despite his enormous influence, we know little about Steve aside from a single reference to him in our holy texts. This reference is, like the catechism, extra-canonical but considered authoritative:

"God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

This oft-quoted text presents a mystery. If God did not make Steve, then where did this uncreature come from? How did Steve come to be?

God did not make Steve, therefore we must also assume that Steve was never born. If Steve had been born, after all, then he would be "begotten, not made." Surely we are not meant to conclude that Steve is a little-known fourth member of the Trinity.

Thus again we come to mystery. Steve was neither made nor begotten; yet Steve is.

What can we do in the face of such mystery? It is beyond our ken. We cannot hope to understand, we can only drop to our knees to sing a bewildered hymn of praise to the Creator of all things except Steve.

hat tip to Vinay

One of Tesla's major concepts was the idea of wireless transmission of power. Now the theoretical proposition has nearly come to fruition:

Wireless recharging one step closer to reality

Imagine juicing up your laptop computer or cell phone without plugging it into an electrical socket.

That's a luxury that could be provided by wireless power transmission, a concept that has been bandied about for decades but is creeping closer to becoming viable.

Building off work unveiled last year by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, Intel Corp. demonstrated Thursday how to make a 60-watt light bulb glow from an energy source 3 feet away.

The Intel team did it with relatively high efficiency, losing only a quarter of the energy the researchers started with.

"That, to me, is the most striking part about it: transmitting 60 watts at 75 percent efficiency over several feet," said Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner.

"The power pack for your laptop isn't that efficient. ... It's one of those things that's almost too good to be true."

Wireless transmission of electricity makes use of some basic physics. Electric coils that resonate at the same frequency can transmit energy to each other at a distance.

ok... next.

I like Biden.

That is all.

Here's the root cause of the mess that is the Homeland Security fiasco. We have a bunch of hammer headed people trying to manage a computer system that is a complete mess.
7 years !!! -- and they can't figure out that a 5 year old kid with a common name is not a terrorist and shouldn't be on a no-fly list. Pull the frigging plug on this crap and fire everyone.

Anti-terror agency defends computer system

he National Counterterrorism Center is disputing charges that the computer system that compiles information on terrorists and suspected terrorists from government agencies is ineffective and hindering its ability to track terrorists.

"There has been no degradation in the capability to access, manage and share terrorist information," the center said in a statement on Friday.

Rep. Brad Miller, D-North Carolina, is asking for an investigation into the center's computer systems. Miller says that half a billion dollars has been spent on a computer upgrade that is riddled with flaws.

"It's been seven years since 9/11, and we appear to be no better prepared, no better able to connect the dots than we were seven years ago," Miller said.

The computer system is used to create government watch lists and provides information to federal, state and local officials.

According to a congressional staff report prepared by Miller's House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, the system put in place after the September 11 attacks has limitations that make it difficult to search or locate key data.

For instance, the report says, information about "pocket litter" -- the scraps of paper in a suspect's pocket that can yield important clues like phone numbers, credit cards and addresses -- is contained in 23 tables rather than just one.

The report says the system upgrade, called Railhead, does not have the ability to search e-mails and discussion threads, images or attachments.

In tests, it couldn't match different spellings of suspected terrorists' names, a common problem associated with translating Arabic names into English. And it will not connect to intelligence community Web sites like the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency.

"It's like having a dictionary without it being in alphabetical order," Miller said. "The information may be there; you just can't find it."

In its statement, the center said regular reviews have identified program shortcomings that have been quickly addressed. It noted that the House and Senate intelligence committees have been briefed multiple times and that the program has received congressional support.

"Representative Miller's Subcommittee has had no interaction with the NCTC or the Intelligence Community on the Railhead Program," the statement said.

The Homeland Security bureaucracy needs to be eliminated. If this is the way that it is being run, it is a complete disaster and has no place in the American social landscape.

Are these people who are officiating this monstrous sham on innocent people even worthy of contempt? I think not and they should all be fired. This is simply retarded.

Name on government watch list threatens pilot's career

(CNN) -- For Erich Scherfen, being on a government terror watch list isn't just a matter of inconvenience. It could end his career.

Scherfen served in the U.S. military for 13 years, as an Army infantryman in the first Gulf War and then as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. After receiving an honorable discharge, he was hired as a pilot by Colgan Air Inc., a regional airline operating in the Northeast and Texas.

In April, Colgan informed Scherfen that he was on a government list and would be suspended from his job. He was told he faced termination on September 1 unless he was able to clear his name.

But Scherfen, of Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, has been unable to do so and said fears it could mean he has no future as a pilot.

"My entire career depends on me getting off this list," he told CNN. "I probably won't be able to get a job anywhere else in the world having this mark that I'm on this list."

Witold Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing Scherfen and his wife in a lawsuit, calls the government actions "unfair" and "unjust."

"It is quite clear when the government does something that takes away not just your job, but your occupation, your career, they have to provide you with some means to clear your name," Walczak said.

This is remarkable:

If you would shrink the world's population (ca. 6.3 billion), to the size of a village with 100 people then:

• 57 would be Asian, 21 would be European, 14 would be American and 8 would be African
  
• 52 would be female, 48 would be male
  
• 30 would be white and 70 would be people of colour
  
• 30 would be christian 70 wouldn't be
  
• 89 would be heterosexual 11 would be homosexual
  
• 59% of the world's wealth would be owned by 6 people who would all come from the USA
  
• 80 people would have sub-standard-housing
  
• 50 would suffer from starvation
  
• Just one person would own a computer
• Just one person would have had an academic education

Shine

Oh let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on Wall Street and Vegas
Place your bets
Shine on the fishermen
With nothing in their nets
Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas
Shine on our Frankenstein technologies
Shine on science
With its tunnel vision
Shine on fertile farmland
Buried under subdivisions

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on the dazzling darkness
That restores us in deep sleep
Shine on what we throw away
And what we keep

Shine on Reverend Pearson
Who threw away
The vain old God
kept Dickens and Rembrandt and Beethoven
And fresh plowed sod
Shine on good earth, good air, good water
And a safe place
For kids to play
Shine on bombs exploding
Half a mile away

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on world-wide traffic jams
Honking day and night
Shine on another asshole
Passing on the right!
Shine on the red light runners
Busy talking on their cell phones
Shine on the Catholic Church
And the prisons that it owns
Shine on all the Churches
They all love less and less
Shine on a hopeful girl
In a dreamy dress

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on good humor
Shine on good will
Shine on lousy leadership
Licensed to kill
Shine on dying soldiers
In patriotic pain
Shine on mass destruction
In some God's name!
Shine on the pioneers
Those seekers of mental health
Craving simplicity
They traveled inward
Past themselves...
May all their little lights shine

- joni mitchell

The Wheel

A Bill Moyers interview with the author is well worth your time.

"America's in a pickle. Our friends, the Russians, with whom we were about to conduct joint military exercises, decided instead to attack some of our other friends, the Georgians, who not only aspire to democracy but control access to lots of oil and pipelines in which American energy companies have huge investments. But when President Bush demands Russia go home and leave Georgia alone, his pal Vladimir Putin - the modern Russian czar - gets that sardonic smile on his face.

He knows that American troops are spread so thin in Iraq and Afghanistan that Uncle Sam more resembles Gulliver, tied down by too many commitments, too much hubris, and too many mistakes, than he does to Superman. It's a pickle and a predicament, and it's serious."

Here she come. I live at the purple dot.

probably going to lose power since the latest updates are indicating the path has changed to right over where I live.

I'll be back apres le deluge.

It can't get clearer than this:

Be sure to watch them all.

Here's a plausible explanation for the recent turmoil with Russia as explained by a former Reagan Assistance Secretary of the US Treasury Paul Craig Roberts on Russia Today

Washington sanctioned assault on South Ossetia

Here's a bit of unexpected good news.

Courts Support Rights of Gay Students

By Deb Price

A high-school senior in Florida turned to a teacher's aide for help last September after younger students taunted her for being gay, saying "dykes" are "nasty," "gross" and "sick."

In doing the right thing, "Jane Doe" set off a shocking but ultimately inspiring chain of events in Panama City.

The resulting federal court ruling and a similar one also won by the American Civil Liberties Union are timely reminders that gay and gay-friendly kids have the right to express themselves and form clubs.

In Jane's case, the principal of Ponce de Leon High School called her in, told her it wasn't "right" to be gay and asked whether her parents knew her sexual orientation. Jane said no. The principal informed them, leading her father to threaten to kick her out.

Jane's school friends stuck up for her by doing such things as writing "Gay Pride" on themselves and wearing gay-friendly T-shirts.

Principal David Davis continued to behave outrageously -- hauling in 30 students, grilling them about their orientation, prohibiting them from displaying gay-friendly messages, and even "lift(ing) the shirts of female students to verify that no such writings were present on their bodies," according to court documents.

The principal suspended 11 students for belonging to an "illegal organization," apparently a reference to supporting Jane.

This would be great if its real.

Georgians say they have proof of Bigfoot

A policeman and a former corrections officer say that on Friday, they will unveil evidence of what they claim is their biggest capture ever: the body of Bigfoot.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, a pair of Bigfoot-hunting hobbyists from north Georgia, say they found the creature's body in a wooded area and spotted several similar creatures that were still alive.

The carcass of the furry half-man, half-ape is 7 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs more than 500 pounds, they say. However, the two are not disclosing the exact location of their discovery in order to protect the remaining creatures.

Tom Nelson, chairman of the biology department at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, said he's "pretty skeptical" the world will feast its eyes on a new species Friday.

"That would certainly rock mammalogy," joked Nelson, who specializes in the study of mammals. "I see a research grant in my future."