Yesterday's GRAPHICS ...

Yesterday's graphic: Wall

And the previous graphic as well: Looking Up

'Our' government at work ...

Mustn't let anything get in the way of taking public money and resources and handing it over to the corporate mafia:

... 889 scientists had "personally experienced at least one instance of political interference in their work over the last 5 years." Some 394 of these scientists reported that their own findings had been misrepresented by EPA officials. In addition, 285 noted instances in which data had been selected or omitted to weaken a regulation, and 224 had been ordered to "inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from an EPA scientific document." Scientists who reported political interference tended to work in offices that write regulations rather than in basic research labs. Hundreds said they feared retaliation by officials if they voiced concerns about EPA regulations.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Is there a definition for journalistic integrity? Media organizations simply ignore — collectively blackout — any stories that expose major corruption in their news reporting ...

It has become harder, Geoghegan says, to use a term like “us” to describe us as a country. “In no other developed country, at no other time in history,” Geoghegan writes, “has there ever been such a steady increase in inequality as there has been in the United States.”

Bush partisans scoffed at critics who worried these new spy powers might be used for nefarious political purposes. After all, that hasn’t happened since the ’70s — during the last ill-fated war (Vietnam) waged by a criminally inclined Republican president (Nixon) — and the ’80s — during the last illegal war (Central America) waged by a morally challenged Republican president (Reagan).

At this rather late stage in life, I'm realizing that the solid America I thought I knew may never have existed. Running very close, under the surface, was a frightened, somewhat hysterical culture that could lose its civilized moorings all at once. I had naively thought that there were some things that Americans would find unthinkable --- torture was one of them.

... the US Ambassador to Canada told her the legal changes wrought in New Orleans will not be put before the three national Congresses for a vote. “We don’t want to open up another NAFTA.” So, they’ll skip the voting stuff. Democracy is so, like, 20th Century.

Torture is always immoral. End of discussion.

When people are in this mode [Us-versus-Them], ideology and fear carry every decision. Those who want to discuss other worldviews or see a wider range of possibilities are considered traitors; and this forecloses almost all creative responses to problems. Furthermore, every resource the culture has must be diverted to winning the battle at hand, without regard for the future costs. Over time, relying on the Us-versus-Them archetype drives societies to eat their seed corn, leaving them bankrupt on every possible front. Still, this is the worldview that defines conservatism.

I went away last weekend and returned to a world of pus dripping stupidity. On Monday morning, wanting to catch up, I tried to sort out who was bitter, elitist, who betrayed their elitism by decrying elitist allegations of bitterness… and then I went to find a bottle of soda, Pop Rocks, and a trampoline.

More about paintball guns on the Arizona border ...

Yesterday I linked to this post by the Border Reporter. A most informative comments has been posted about the subject:

Here are some practical arguments as to why I disagree with the US government spending $3 million bucks on a terrible idea.

Rep. Senator Lincoln Chafee meets the monster ...

at-Largely has an excerpt from Chafee's book describing a meeting between some Republican Senators and that monster who's called Cheney.

Former Republican Senator's "Chilling Account" of first meeting with Cheney...

Paintball guns on the border? ...

Border Reporter writes:

Claiming that attacks against agents have increased to terrifying levels, the U.S. Border Patrol plans to arm its agents with paintball guns and shoot the got-aways who perpetrate the attacks.

Wikipedia reference to paintball guns (markers) used by law enforcement:

Paintball markers have been used by law enforcement as antiriot weapons, in two modes:

• Loaded with pepper-spray projectiles: see Riot gun#Pepper Ball rounds.
• Loaded with paint projectiles to try to mark particular rioters so that police can easily identify and arrest them later.

Yesterday's Graphic ...

Dragon

And the one before: Face

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

The President of the United States has openly, proudly admitted that he approved the use of interrogation methods that are by every measure -- including the measure of United States law -- criminal acts of torture. It is one of the most brazen and scandalous confessions of wrongdoing ever uttered by an American leader -- and it has had no impact whatsoever. No scandal, no outcry, no protest, no prosecution.

... As obvious as it seems, men who fetishize warrior values and fail to live up to them, often feel they have something to prove. That's at least partly how we wind up with people sitting around a table calling Colin Powell a wimp for timidly mentioning that torture might not be a good idea.

Perhaps it is time to reconsider our social currency.

Employers' needs are not the object of government. The public interest, that forgotten quantity, is its purpose. ...

Myths that the United States is a nation of laws, not men, die hard. ...

And it's not just monthly ...

Testosterone and cortisol can take men on a behavioral roller coaster ride. In institutions like the stock exchanges this hormone induced behavior can be a daily occurrence:

A former Wall Street trader himself, Coates says the idea came to him during the dot-com boom, when traders "seemed to be on a drug, exhibiting manic behavior." When the bubble burst, he says, "they were really like people with a hangover."

Is the US becoming more and more repressive? ...

When Will We Ban Cigarettes? Reading The Tea Leaves

And corporate run slave-prisons will be the solution to the increasing number of US citizens deemed 'criminals' for the crime of getting caught breathing. Sounds like a best selling science fiction, or is that fantasy [so difficult to distinguish these days] novel.

The outcry was silence ...

The United States of America, the country I have been so proud of for most of my life, is now officially a lawless state that tortures people. The citizens of the United States of America have accepted a government guilty of the same war crimes for which it helped prosecute, imprison and execute Nazis and their collaborators and enablers. That the United States of America was a torture state has been increasingly apparent for some time. But now there is no more pretense. The president has openly admitted the involvement of his administration in implementing torture as policy. And the outcry ... was silence ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... Why is the ACLU seemingly alone in calling for a Special Counsel to investigate clear war crimes by this government?

In cov’rage quite sloppy at best,
The press attacked Hill’ry with zest,
Disputing her facts.
But ’twas they who were lax.
Cuz if Clinton says east they say west.

This is the behavior of a sick child, not one of the most powerful and privileged men in the world, but Glenn and Joan must watch with daily fury as the truth is blatantly ignored, the US propaganda corps has its marching orders and by God they will be enforced, no matter what happens, no matter how many die, no matter how stupid, unlawful, childish or grossly offensive the episode the result is always the same: ignore it, hide it, confuse it, the Republicans are in power, don’t take the country down.

Hiding the truth is in fact the surest way to take the country down, a basic fact of life most five-year-olds learn very well, but one our Republican and “journalism” brethren refuse to learn, no matter the sickening, outrageous scope of their behavior. ...

Pollan claims that in the Western diet, good old food has been replaced by nutrients, mom's good advice by nutritional experts, common sense by confusion, and for most, a relatively good diet by a bad and dangerous one. ...

We have tended to segment health care into periods of life, but are now beginning to wake up to the fact that disease and disability are cumulative, and build over a lifetime.

If this were simply a story of an airline trying to cut corners, and in the process putting passengers at risk, it would be startling enough. But in this case, we’re talking about federal inspectors who were pressured by their superiors to allow an airline to put passengers at risk.

... To me, the 2008 Democratic primary campaign is a watershed event in the history of the progressive blogosphere. It has revealed that some of the alleged "progressive" bloggers are fundamentally no different than the media and the deranged right-wing bloggers they have long claimed to detest. The Trina Bechtel incident is the "crowning" event on a sickening trend in this election campaign - where Gore was replaced by Clinton and the "media" was supplemented by an influential portion of the allegedly "progressive" blogosphere. I can easily see an entire book being written on the work of these jokers who have turned the credibility of the blogosphere to dust because of their Clinton-hatred. There used to be a time when bloggers like Glenn Greenwald and Atrios used to write again and again about how the right-wing blogosphere was almost always wrong, especially in their attacks on Democrats. Today, it is clear that such blog posts could equally well be written about a prominent section of the formerly "progressive" blogosphere.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Man, I'm sick of reading Pravda in NY Times drag

Elitist finger wagging at members of an oppressed group is not only counter-productive, but it is consistent with how minority groups are dealt with around the world. ...

Rape In The Military: The Other Inbound Wounded

Third rate candidates talk about events.
Second rate candidates talk about issues.
First rate candidates talk about principles.
Can The Press Really Elect McCain?

So I ask again, should these US Attorneys not be suspended while Congress investigates so that they can not further damage the legal system in the interim? Should state legislatures be this afraid of a US Attorney appointed by a President of a different political party, so afraid that they have become (as NYT notes) paranoid and nervous enough that a northern publication, the New York Times, would actually run an article on it and even title it "Fear, Paranoia and, Yes, Some Loathing in Alabama State House?"?

Apparently, Alabama is running toward the Soviet model with open arms and Mississippi is close on its heels, while the Congress has failed to demand something as basic as the temporary removal of these prosecutors while they investigate allegations of corruption against these three US Attorneys.

The US Business Model of Life and other absurdities ...

Yesterday I posted a quote from a conference where some are suggesting it was time to shift from product development to discovery research in the fight against AIDS.

Imagine a world where the main emphasis is on the next health related product that can be developed, preferably with the public's money but without the public's ownership, and where that health product will be legally protected so that the end business owners can sell it at inflated costs for years and years, often back to the same public's government organizations that initially invested in the development of the product. That's the world we live in ...

Today I read this post: Shareholder Wealth Maximization in Action

Thus, Walgreen CEO Jeffrey Rein, speaking to shareholders, said “If attendees of the meeting needed to cough, he joked, they should leave the room and ‘go to a movie theater or on a bus’ to spread their germs. ‘We’re really hoping for a very strong flu season’.” While P&G CEO A.G. Lafley said on a quarterly analyst call: “Unfortunately, people have not been getting sick at a rate that we would all like yet.” Finally, LifePoint Hospitals CFO David Dill mused that "You have a strong flu season, and the ancillary business is very profitable . . . On the pediatric side, young kids coming into the hospital, that’s a nice margin for us, as well.”

Truths presented as humor. When people get the flu Walgreens and other corporations make more money selling flu related products. Walgreens' job is definitely not to serve the public. Walgreens' job is making money. The purpose of Walgreens' management is to make the maximum profit which in turn increases the investment value for it's shareholder (joke) so the job of Walgreens' management is to ensure there are an increasing number of people with the flu. Or Walgreens could just change to manufacturing weapons, start another war and kill people directly. That would work just as well and, well, it appears to be the American way. Abortion, no. Genocide, yes. The word is VALUES. Keep repeating a few key words and the whole world, well, at least the US will fall into line ...