deconstruct the question, damn it!

A poll released yesterday in the Washington Post went like this:

Washington Post/ABC (Jan. 23-26) “As you may know, the National Security Agency has been investigating people suspected of involvement with terrorism by secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails between some people in the United States and other countries, without first getting court approval to do so. Would you consider this wiretapping of telephone calls and e-mails without court approval as an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?”

Acceptable 56%. Unacceptable 43%.

The first thing you notice about the question is the how far down in the question the mention of "court approval" is. Okay, maybe the not the first thing, but it is the substantively important issue behind the question, and is so relegated to obscurity and to mistatement, that it promotes bias in the reader for a more "acceptable" response. First and foremost the NSA is collecting non-specific electronic communications of every domestic to international (and by that we have learned that if a person or group or corporation operates outside the US in some way, even if they live and work in the US and are US citizens they are included as international for this purpose) connection then screening it for possible terrorist relations. I have to really appreciate the line "between some people" as if the Post has evidence that suggests the NSA filters are person specific in all cases. This is not true and is a fictitious and false premise placed into the question to promote their agenda. Where is the real question regarding FISA warrants and the various Constitutional protections of US citizens?

Properly asked this question would need to say the NSA is secretly screening every telecommunications and electronic communications connection that flows through the major switching networks in the US without bothering to abide by the 4th amendment. The NSA is not and has not been just "investigating people suspected of involvement in terrorism," but rather sifting through everyones communications to find possible links. It has been doing so since before 9/11 under instructions from the VP who insisted his boss authorize such unconstitutional intrusions to observe various US officials and citizens. Is this acceptable?? I don't think so. And ABC/WaPo's question begs to ignore reality and fact and hopes that it can influence and promote agendas that enable and empower it to remain in a profitable condition for a little while longer. I guess the US Constitution is a mere triviality when compared with generating and insuring profitability in the short term.

Parnoid delusionary conspiracy theory #42

It would be irresponsible of me to assume that what i am about to link together would have any degree of truth to it; suffice it to say, i am just putting a number of different economic, environmental, and Bushco behaviors together to see towards what direction they are pointing.

Oil prices are skyrocketing even though big-Oil has been using their huge pool of enormous wealth to maintain subsidies keeping the price artifically lowered in the US. And yet Big Oil is still generating obscene profits, recapitalizing their US dollars into Euros in order to be better prepared for the dramatic Iran-Euro Bourse advent in a bit over two months.

There is evidence that peak oil production is past, and that the development of the assumed resources mixed in coal shale and oil sands require no less than a price of $80 a barrel to facilitate. At that price a non-subsidized gallon of gas in the US would run around $4.80 for regular unleaded. Such a 200% increase would cripple the infrastructure past the breaking point. In order to maintain the subsidy BigOil has streamlined its production, although that has strained the total gasoline supply availability. There is an expected 14¢ per gallon price increase in the next couple of weeks.

The US stock market is falling due to the long term projected losses against both the price of energy and the recently released projected figures for the overall increase in actual indebtedness of the US government and its population. Within five years the US will be required to spend more than 25% of its GDP on paying off debt, mostly to foreign governments and entities (at 50% we would be acting like most of the third world countries).

While attempting to secure control of the Middle Eastern oil reserves the US has discovered that military action only promotes its own uroboros spiralling escalation. Eventually we would have to use nuclear weapons, then send in special teams (can you see the enslaved impoverished dissenters of Bushco in that role?) to control the oil flows and refineries in the wake of the near permanent destruction of the populations.

2005 was yet another hottest year ever, with a winter in which records are broken for constant rain in the northern parts of US while records are broken for droughts in the southern. These two climatic problems spell doom for massive agri-biz in terms of available water resources for production. Combining the increase costs of energy and food production the US will slide closer to a great depression.

The tactics used by US forces in Iraq are nothing short of practice for using US troops in the US to control the population and quell all dissent. Bushco has been developing strategies and plans that will empower it to declare martial law, disband Congress, and use military might to establish the necessary limited elite ownership society that it will represent. As the environment continues to collapse, as the economy implodes from its own lack of value, as the President declares he is the law and must follow only his own thoughts rather than any other written laws, as the MSM realizes its only hope is to become prostrated synchophants(CNN hiring FoxNews like clones), as US corporate entities move assets to their international offices---then we have the need to be governed by a police state. Well, then about 28% of the population will feel they need it.

eco-terrorism by another name--eminent domain??

Eco-terror indictments

Feds charge 11; five alleged to be behind '98 Vail fire

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News
January 21, 2006

A five-year reign of destruction orchestrated by a band of eco- vandals who struck from Seattle to the high country of Colorado came crashing down Friday with the indictments of 11 people on federal charges of domestic terrorism. The 65-count indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in Washington, D.C., includes allegations that four of the 11 - plus an unindicted co-conspirator - were behind the 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort that caused $12 million in damage and set a devastating standard for sabotage in the name of environmental preservation. In all, the grand jury indictment covers 17 acts committed from 1996 through 2001 in five states. Most were in the Pacific Northwest and ranged from arsons at U.S. Forest Service facilities and government research labs to fires at meat plants, a lumberyard and a Chevrolet truck dealership. Throughout the 83-page charging document, prosecutors outlined a litany of attacks and tactics that included oaths of secrecy among defendants, the use of false identification, dark clothing and masks, spray-painted messages to law enforcement and efforts to spread signature bomb- making techniques to unrelated vandals in hopes of misleading investigators. "The indictment tells a story of 4 1/2 years of arson, vandalism, violence and destruction claimed to have been executed on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front or Earth Liberation Front - extremist movements known to support acts of domestic terrorism," Gonzales said.

One must really appreciate the line: "devastating standard for sabotage in the name of environmental preservation!" I am just a bit confused however by the definition of 'domestic terrorism' that is being used to umbrella acts of vandalism, in which not one person is injured nor killed, as something so similar to the labels applied to Al Qaeda. Wow i mean if burning buildings and and blowing up billboards and cars were a worthy of the label "terrorist" i can't imagine what one would call physically removing people from their residences, bulldozing them to the ground, and never once paying anyone any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Oh, that is called eminent domain.

This constant "labelling" of acts as "terrorism" by Bushco, which are viewed to be in opposition to their plans to annex the US and divide it into various military security states borderiing enclaves of the very wealthy, is nothing more nor less than propaganda spewing. It is unlikely that many of those charged in this matter will see trial or the inside of jails. In typical Bushco fashion they have charged people who are essentially innocent in hopes of breaking them to reveal who actually committed the crimes. This is all PR with little or no substance. This is Bushco diverting attention from their huge criminal conspiracies onto a convenient target to get whatever minor irritating media off their backs. The verbiage is meant to shock and awe, but the overall value of the actions is nothing more than is done in the name of big business each and every day in this country. Interesting isn't it???

UPDATE: What a difference intelligence makes (yes pun intended). The SeattlePost Intelligencer's story this morning concerning the indictments of the eleven individuals, does not mention the terror connotation at all. Rather it portrays the events and acts in the clear light of fact and reality. When you shred the story of the propoganda and spin of Bushco you get a much different perspective on the acts of the Justice Department in this case. Can you say borderline incompetence???

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/256560_ecoterror21.html

main streaming media spews ignorant crap

I didn't want to start my series on LSD this way at all, but last night was just too fucking much. The following is from a letter i sent to MAPS to support my own letter writing efforts to counter the idiotic propaganda of CBS.

Last night on CBS two 'dramatic' programs, back-to-back, undid all of the efforts to promote intelligent discourse on psychedelics that you, and all of the rest of us, have been undertaking in the last several years. It could not have been merely coincidental, nor could the scheduling have been programmed not to follow the wonderful and informative celebrations in Basel. These stupid shows, provided idiotic premises for using LSD and MDMA to kill people. MAPS, and others, need to write in protest to CBS, to Mark Gordon Productions/Touchstone TV (Criminal Minds), and to Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI-NY).

The premise of the episode of Criminal Minds (info below) was that some disgruntled chemist used LSD mixed with Rohypnol and put into "jolly rancher" style candy in a bank display, to "terrorize" a community. Each of the persons, who consumed what was described as 10X the street dose of LSD, suffered severe psychotic breaks and commited horrendous and horrible acts of violence. Those of us, who were fortunate to use LSD legally in the 60's, remember quite well taking dosages at this level (current disco street doses of 75 to 100 mcgs times a factor of 10 = 1000 mcgs) and much much higher as well. With the very notable exceptions of the extraordinarily few 'bad trips' (in terms of overall numbers of users, dosage levels, acid test participants and so forth), to have each and every person who received the dose in the TV show freaking out and committing violence makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The sole purpose of the script was clearly to cast "reefer madness" like aspersions on LSD for the unfortunately millions of viewers.

The very next hour of CSI-NY that followed on the same network, had the cast chase down a smuggling ring of MDMA who used an "oil resin" version of "ecstasy" suspended in body paint as the transportation medium. A model who was painted with the body paint --and of course there was no mention whatsoever of DMSO or other solvent forms that would enable the body paint to be absorbed through the skin (of course there was also no mention at all of how the smugglers were going to get the MDMA out of the paint)--died from an "overdose" of "Ecstasy!" How this was possible, the pretexts for it, the manner in which the storyline portrayed the processes, all were really unbelievable and insincerely presented. It was all too clear to me that CBS and the producers of the two shows were engaged in an effort to attack and discredit psychedelic use in our culture.

Please make an effort to counter this abhorrent propaganda. If you can, please request scripts and statements from CBS- Mark Gordon Productions- Jerry Bruckheimer Productions? I fear we are back to the debacle of the mid-to-late 60's when LSD was publicly disparaged as the worst of all nemeses.

memes, memes, memes, memes....

You have to explain America to someone from not here, but you can only use ten movies. Go!

1. Syriana
2. White Dawn
3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
4. Koyanisqatsi
5. At Play in the Fields of the Lord
6. Incident at Wounded Knee
7. Rollerball (the original)
8. Soylent Green
9. Dead Man
10. Targets

all the little eichmanns...

over the next few days i will post my reflections on LSD and the state of the planet, but today i offer a quick note on seeing the US from the outside.

A few years ago a dear friend of mine from Austria was struggling about whether to raise her son in a US Waldorf school or an Austrian one. She remarked that there was so much neo-Nazi fascism in her homeland and especially in the all white waldorf education programs there. She chose to stay in the US in what is a very multi-cultural program for the lily white community in which it exists. However i think her observation concerning neo-nazism is off the mark.

In Europe, the neos are very visible, and as such are the subject of conversation and chastisement. Debates about their presence and influence are constant and wonderfully erudite. In the US that is not the case at all. Indeed the US is filled with burgeoning fascist totalitarianism masked behind the banners of fear and threat. Millions of US citizens are willing to forgo all of their constitutional protections for the illusion of a secure state of national affairs. They are so willing to do so that they offer up every bit of their own economic security for it. The US is a nation of millions upon millions of little eichmann's waiting for the moment when they can unleash their own terror on their fellow citizens, when they discover that they have no money, no means of access to their needs, no control over their own lives, no power over their own politics, no rights, no liberties. They will turn on one another as the good little reich consumers they have been taught to be. They believe that Big Brother is the hand of their gods watching every move to protect them prior to the rapture. They support the nuclear destruction of all other nations that they are told (lied to) are threats to their well being, no matter how insanely ludicrous the reasons. The US will go down its own flaming wars of inter-cultural rivalries as believers in the GOP burn the houses of their neighboring Dems, or drive them off the road in rages hoping that the security forces will continue to kill threats as trivial as someone raising a political issue in a line waiting to checkout of a grocery store.

Someday, a hundred years from now, someone in a Euro or South American country will write about the neo-con fascist dictatorship that took control of the US with the willing robotic support of a hundred million brain dead fearful subjects. The story of the little eichmanns of the 21st century will be told as a warning to the planet's survivors moving forward into the 22nd century struggling with radiation, deadly toxicities, and too warm to sustain much life.

the importance of being free... from Bushco.

Bill McKibben writes:
"

What it means is that we face an actual tragedy. The world, as it turns out, cannot afford two countries behaving like the United States. It lacks the atmosphere (and it also may lack the resources, as this summer's scramble for control over oil makes clear. We can't let the Chinese buy Unocal, because we need its reserves for us). And the reason it's an actual tragedy is because, right now, a rapidly growing China is actually accomplishing some measurable good with its growth. People are enjoying some meat, sending their brothers to school, heating their huts. Whereas we're burning nine times as much energy per capita so that we can: air-condition game rooms and mow half-acre lots, drive SUVs on every errand, eat tomatoes flown in from Chile. I understand that our country has people living in poverty, some of whom are now losing their jobs to Chinese competition, but that's simply our shame - we have all the money on earth, and we haven't figured out how to spread it around. China has hundreds of millions of people too poor to have clean water, and they sense that a few decades of burning coal might do something about that.

Which is why it seems intuitively obvious when you're in China that the goal of the twenty-first century must somehow be to simultaneously develop the economies of the poorest parts of the world and undevelop those of the rich - to transfer enough technology and wealth that we're able to meet somewhere in the middle, with us using less energy so that they can use more, and eating less meat so that they can eat more. (Indeed, baby steps toward such transfers of technology and wealth are enshrined in the Kyoto formula.)

One name for this kind of statistical mean is "Europe" or "Japan", whose citizens use half the energy of Americans. But try to imagine the political possibilities in America of taking Chinese aspirations seriously - of acknowledging that there isn't room for two of us to behave in this way, and that we don't own the rights to our lifestyle simply because we got there first. The current president's father announced, on his way to the parley in Rio that gave rise to the Kyoto treaty, that "the American way of life is not up for negotiation". That's what defines a tragedy.

I don't think in the end it's a real promise - I'm not sure that if the Chinese someday got as rich as we are they'd be any happier than us. That's why meeting in the middle makes so much sense."

And Mark Crispin Miller writes:

—Arctic sea ice is melting fast. There was 20 percent less of it than normal this summer, and as Dr. Mark Serreze, one of the researchers from Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center, told reporters, "the feeling is we are reaching a tipping point or threshold beyond which sea ice will not recover." That is particularly bad news because it creates a potent feedback effect: instead of blinding white ice that bounces sunlight back into space, there is now open blue water that soaks up the sun's heat, amplifying the melting process.

—In the tundra of Siberia, other researchers report that permafrost has begun to melt rapidly, and, as it does, formerly frozen methane—which, like the more prevalent carbon dioxide, acts as a heat-trapping "greenhouse gas"—is escaping into the atmosphere. In some places last winter, the methane bubbled up so steadily that puddles of standing water couldn't freeze even in the depths of the Russian winter.

—British researchers, examining almost six thousand soil borings across the UK, found another feedback effect. Warmer temperatures (growing seasons now last eleven days longer at that latitude) meant that microbial activity had increased dramatically in the soil. This, in turn, meant that much of the carbon long stored in the soil was now being released into the atmosphere. The quantities were large enough to negate all the work that Britain had done to switch away from coal to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. "All the consequences of global warming will occur more rapidly," said Guy Kirk, chief scientist on the study. "That's the scary thing. The amount of time we have got to do something about it is smaller than we thought."

Now consider that the current administration is fully aware of these scenarios. They know that the release of methane, a gas that is several times more capable of retaining heat than carbon dioxide, will be highly destructive of the planet. They know that the living standard in the US is so utterly beyond the carrying capacity of the planet that no other nation can be allowed to enjoy it as we do. And they know that in order to preserve their power and control over all the resources of a dying planet they must use all available military force. The only thing that can stop them is the population of the US, and thus Bushco must control the population. The suspension of the US Constitution in order to save the US (the rich elite who must maintain their standard of living at all costs to the rest of the planet) Bushco must create a militarized security state in the US. We will not be allowed to move forward to initiate downward use of resources. We will not be allowed to protest the abuse the US lifestyle perpetrates on the Earth. We must not be permitted to dissent and converse and critique the behavior of this government. Those who choose to suggest change and improvements and alternative behaviors will be marginalized.

Simply put, we the citizens, have the power to remove these people before it is too late. They in turn will do everything they can, including controlling the media, using technology to invade the privacy of citizens, beatdown all resistance, and hope that people choose to not pay attention. They dare us to look behind the curtain!!

these sorts of memes, when you are old

are really sort of fun:

Four Jobs You’ve Had

< style="font-family: arial;">1. Chair of Native American Studies
2. President of a local chapter of a state Education Association
3. Teacher of teachers and teacher of students
4. Supervising Ocean Lifeguard/Ranger and PIO for Beach Lifeguards

Four "thematically linked" Movies You Could Watch Over and Over

1. White Dawn
2. Emerald Forest
3. At Play in the Fields of the Lord
4. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Four Places You’ve Lived

1. Malibu
2. Rapid City, SD
3. South Lake Tahoe region
4. Pacific Northwest--Portland and Spokane

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch
1. the Daily Show
2. the Colbert Report
3. at the same time Tuesday: Law & Order-CI, NCIS, House, CSI's
3.5 at the same time Friday: Monk, Numbers, Nip/Tuck, CSI's
4. all live music at anytime on any station... no matter the genre

Four Places You’ve Been on Vacation
1. South America--every country
2. Central America--all except Nicaragua and Belize
3. Every state of the US and across most of North America/ Canada and Mexico
4. deep multi-dimensional spaces

Four Blogs You Visit Daily
1. Michael Berube
2. Cosmic Variance
3. Preemptive Karma and HorsesAss
4. Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Four of Your Favorite Foods
1. sushi, especially uni and hamachi
2. thai spicy noodles w/ seafood stir frys
3. buffalo chili
4. clam chowders

Four Places You’d Rather Be
1. Africa
2. Southeast Asia and Australia
3. Japan
4. Florence and Basel

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without
1. Dick's Picks--any of the 37 sets
2. Frank Zappa's "have i offended someone" and "you can't do this on stage anymore"
3. the Grateful Dead movie soundtrack expanded box set in 5.1
4. currently listening to Garcia Plays Dylan

Four Vehicles You’ve Owned
1. 2005 Subaru WRX STi
2. 2002 Subaru WRX
3. 1998 Subaru RS 2.5
4. 1995 Subaru Legacy 2.5

they're so vain....

no, not the stones; the SuperBowl TV producers!
The Rolling Stones would be too old to watch their own Super Bowl performance, organisers have ruled.Two thousand people will be invited onto the pitch to watch the band's half-time performance on 5 February. But only people aged between 18 and 45 are eligible, US National Football League spokesman Brian McCarthy said. "You have to attend rehearsal and be able to stand for long stretches of time," he told Detroit Free Press. <> The NFL said it would be a "once-in-a-lifetime chance" to experience the prestigious US event "from a totally unique perspective". Age restrictions were applied because the task was physically demanding, Mr McCarthy added. Volunteers will be expected to dance, sing and cheer, remain on their feet for long periods and wait in a tunnel for most of the first half. They must attend up to five rehearsals lasting up to seven hours each.

Let me ponder this for a moment. Now that the NFL has officially reversed its policy one must consider that the "official" reason given was no more valid than the myriad excuses for invading Iraq--as in a complete lie. But why?? Well, i am old enough to be an average aged member of the Rolling Stones. I produce rock-n-roll festivals and concerts and spend most of the summer on my feet running from place to place at a venue trying to facilitate and organize and insure stuff is done. I do lots of heavy lifting (you ever lift speaker cabinets or drum risers?) and tremendous amounts of motivating audience and other people to participate in the process. But of course rehearsing and standing around on my feet for hours and running a whole 50 yards and back would be dangerous and too strenuous according to the NFL.

No, what is really going on is all about demographic shares and TV audience attention and how many scantily clad young female bodies they can have gyrating and bouncing up and down, and how few not quite attractive visuals they can hide. This is all about image and not one bit about health and safety. This is the future of sexism and agism and classism in this country. Fascist media types controlling the public's perception of who is living in our culture. Baby boomer types are passe, it is their kids and grandkids that will spend the money. The NFL is a business all about marketing and entertainment that is predicated on youth. And it just doesn't work for them to solicite older people--no matter how experienced and healthy they are--to provide back up images for their advertising revenue. Because the half time show is nothing more and nothing less than a commercial for commercials. They are all bastards.

When Bush speaks...

well we could all fill in our own versions of the rest of that; i particularly would go with something about qweeffing. I also have found that for the last year or so, everytime i read a byline or headline that suggests that what follows is a report about something he has said, i immediately stop and reject it out of hand. The man is incapable of telling the truth. Some columnists/reporters in the last few days profer that Bush is completely out of the loop of reality, and sent forward with talking-pointed speeches written by a closed staff surrounding Rove. Then Rove tells Scotty boy exactly what to say for the next couple of hours, and as the dutiful boob Scotty is, he regurgitates and vomits ad infinitum.

Cheney isn't much different. He seems particularly incapable of saying anything about anything other than increasing the level of fear among the populace. He certainly cares not one iota for truth or fact, yet seems to actually understand what may be real, and chooses to ignore it, whereas his puppet-twin is completely clueless. I am beginning to think there is a prankster farce element to it all, within Bushco itself. Send out "W" with a speech filled with lies, watch him speil and fill the verbiage with emotional energy, and then listen to him freak out when Scotty repeats Rove's corrections to what the shrubbery said. They must throw dice or spin a wheel for whose turn it is to come up with the next version of this prank. Someone pulls the short straw and is forced to actually tell the raging shrieking alcoholic mumbler that he misspoke; while the "winner" is the one who crafts the text in such a way that even Scotty has to equivocate in his later followup corrective lying.

Because if it isn't a prank, if it isn't a joke, then all of these people are freaking insane.

2006 begins balanced on a sharp edged blade

The future of the US constitutional form of government hasn't been as precarious as it is today since the Civil War period. I can't recall a time in my near 60 years, even counting those few days in October a long time ago (can we all say cuban missle crisis boys and girls), when so many people appear so willing, or completely apathetically nihilistic, to simply abandon all of our constitutional protections. The issue isn't really about what Bushco has been doing--nor about the behaviors of various officials, lobbyists, corporate leadership, et al, but rather how the citizens of this country are accepting of it all. The media has its own economic welfare to consider and thus vaccillates between challenging the infringements, supporting the fear based messages or most usually ignoring the issues altogether. But the people, my god, what are they thinking? Why aren't they screaming from the rooftops, shutting down the financial institutions, refusing to pay taxes, demanding their representatives immediately shut down governance until a full and complete investigation of where and how all this went so wrong??

IT is really very simple. There simply is no excuse whatsoever, no rational reason, for anyone to suggest that the constitution must be ignored in order to save it. If people really want to live in a militarized, security industry controlled police state, then they need to stand up and make that very clear, especially to their neighbors. Tell me you want me to agree to give up my rights and liberties so you can feel like you will be less afraid!!! Tell me you want me to agree to have my children and grandchildren grow up with less freedom and liberty than i, for the sake of your petty and evil laced anxieties!! Tell me that, or else shut up and fight to protect your rights!!