The Cat in the Hat, elusive happy endings, and the [election] mess that is so big, and so deep, and so tall

I haven't been sleeping well lately. Every new revelation about the state of our elections puts me in a tailspin. The rush to vote on Rep. Holt's Bill (now unaffectionately known as Microsoft 811), and the degree to which both the public and our members of Congress don't adequately understand the issues and what's at stake, are very disturbing.

I can't even escape through reading. I picked up some interesting books from the library, among them a mystery that revolves around home improvements, and the latest novel by Michael Chabon. Ordinarily, they would have piqued my interest, but now, I couldn't get into either of them. I'm going to read A Margin of Error, Ballots of Straw by Lani Massey Brown, a computer expert who has been closely watching elections from her perch in Florida. Like Man of the Year her book talks about what could happen at election time with computers running the show. At least it's fiction, even if I haven't strayed very far from the topic I've become obsessed with.

Will the United States really bomb Iran?

"They're about taking out the entire Iranian military." This particular spine-chiller comes from Alexis Debat, excitingly identified as "director of terrorism and national security" at the Nixon Center. According to Debat, the big takeout is what the U.S. Air Force has in store, as opposed to mere "pinprick strikes" against the infamous nuclear facilities.

            Predicting imminent war on Iran has been one of the top two items in Cassandra's repertoire for a couple of years now, rivaled only by global warming as a sure-fire way to sell newspapers and boost website hits.

            Debat was re-roasting that well-scorched chestnut, the "Shock and Awe" strategy, whereby -- back in March of 2003 -- the U.S. Air Force proposed to reduce Iraq's entire military to smoldering ruins. In the event, "Shock and Awe" was a resounding failure, like all such pledges by Air Force commanders to destroy the enemy's military since the birth of aerial bombardments nearly a century ago. Such failures have never stopped the U.S. Air Force from trying once again, and there are no doubt vivid attack plans now circulating the government.

Scene of the crime

WASHINGTON -- New Orleans was the destination for the high winds that two years ago struck a great American city. But the true path of destruction began in our nation's capital.

            The levees broke in the Big Easy after Hurricane Katrina. But here is where the trust was broken.

            Americans were not accustomed to watching their government do nothing but watch and whistle while fellow citizens worked to save themselves. Despite warnings about hurricane strength, earlier press reports about levees compromised by Army Corps decisions and academic predictions of a major disaster, the Bush administration did not respond with haste.

            Its claims of never having imagined any of this were among the great lies told at the time.

            It was fully complicit, starting with its decision to dispatch a bureaucrat who knew more about horses than responding to federal emergencies and disasters.

Join the Energy saving [r]evolution - first 7 steps

We need to kick start an energy [r]evolution! By burning fossil fuels for energy, we're altering our atmosphere - causing climate change. To reverse it, we'll need to stop burning so much coal and oil. Renewable energy like wind and solar power is part of the answer, but the fastest (and most cost effective) way to reduce our global warming pollution is simply use less energy.

What's so revolutionary about that?

Sure, energy efficiency is only common sense. But the idea that with smarter technology we can have growing economies while using less and less energy is new and bold. It's the sort of thing that might even happen without us if we had the time to wait. But we don't. The effects of climate change are already starting to pile up, construction begins on new power plants literally every week and billions of energy wasting lightbulbs are still sold every year.

Consider this: A simple switch to energy saving bulbs in the EU alone, would save 20 million tonnes of CO2, equal to shutting down 25 medium-size dirty power plants; and this is before we consider the efficiency of other household products, or even cars!

The public bathroom

http://mattbors.com

Get out of the Valley of Elah

I spent a day meeting with Congress Members and their staffers, urging them to end the occupation of Iraq, and having them tell me they would never "defund our troops."  In the evening I watched Paul Haggis's new film "In the Valley of Elah."  I walked out stunned, shaken, far more angry than I'd been, and convinced that we shouldn't be asking Congress Members to end the occupation, we should be asking them to watch this movie.  If any Congress Member were to watch this movie and allow another dime to "fund our troops" we would at least be clear in our duty to have that individual locked up for the safety of those around them.

The genius doctor who diagnosed Nuke Power's deadly disease

The nuke power industry now wants $50 billion and more in loan guarantees to build new atomic reactors. As it strong-arms Congress, the warnings of the great Dr. John Gofman, who passed away last week at 88, loom ever larger.

One of history's most respected and revered medical and nuclear pioneers, Gofman's research showed as early as 1969 that "normal" radioactive reactor emissions could kill 32,000 Americans per year.

At the time, Gofman was the chief medical researcher for the Atomic Energy Commission. He told the AEC that reactor emissions must be radically reduced. The AEC demanded he change his findings, then forced him out when he refused.

Since then, reactor backers have ceaselessly and erroneously attacked Gofman and his findings. But they could hardly have picked a more brilliant, committed opponent. Gofman was both relentless and uncorrupted. His findings should have doomed from the start an industry he called "insane."

If not now, when?  General Strike on 9/11/2007

Washington, DC -- We've endured seven years of cascading failures from 911 to Iraq enabled by rigged elections and supported by a decadent set of politicians who lack the will to even fight for themselves. 

But let's not lose hope.  We’ll get a Democratic majority in Congress.  They'll do something!  We’ll be out of trouble in no time.  Plus, we’ll have the type of investigations we need to get the real solution in place – impeachment.  It will be like a Roman triumph – the Truth enters the Capitol to the cheers of the people all across America.

We tried that. It failed.

Now it's up to us, the people, who are ever so inconvenient to the rulers of this country.  We, the citizens, are the last line of defense against the complete removal of any form of freedom and security that we now retain. 

We’re the last line in a defense that to date has never truly formed.  How can you have a strong defense if there’s no communication?  The corporate media has done a sterling job of masking the very information that would have made the current insanity impossible. 

Joseph Stephen Zoretic

Joseph Stephen Zoretic December 25, 1968 to August 27, 2007

The Ohio Patient Network was quite saddened to learn of the untimely death of one of our founding members, Joe Zoretic. On Monday, August 27, 2007, Joe suffered a massive heart attack that resulted from an undiagnosed heart condition. Residing with his family in Lakewood, Ohio, he was 38 years old.

Joseph Stephen Zoretic was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 25, 1968.  He spent his elementary years in nearby Maple Heights and high school years in Parma. He worked for Sabre Enterprises of Cleveland for 13 years as a Cold Header / Machinist.

Joe met the love of his life, wife Dee Dee, in fall of 1989, and the two were married on November 27, 1992. They have one son Stephen who was born in 1993.

Joe became involved with the other ‘love’ of his life, drug policy, in 1992 via emerging online community bulletin board systems, now known as the Internet. Like many young people of his time, he realized the inherent inaccuracy and injustice behind the popular “Just Say No” programs of the 1980s that resulted in the arrest of his friends and their

The prerequisite for salvation

The poster exploits the howling demons of our culture. It’s my morning smack-in-the-eye, bright gold, four feet high, dominated by a female in stark silhouette striding resolutely into the wreckage of post-apocalypse Las Vegas. She wields a wicked-looking blaster in each hand.

The ad, for the movie “Resident Evil: Extinction,” occupies the spot on the elevated train platform where I await the start of my daily commute to work. This is not a movie I’m going to see, but I can’t avoid feeling the impact of its throbbing message: Justice cometh, and she has a nice butt, and she’s armed.

Wow. The gears mesh — yet again! — on the perfect delusion. For entertainment, we hop ourselves up on sex and road rage, and fantasy bleeds into reality. The result is an armed, frightened society and a high-tech war on terror that promises to cut a terrible swath of destruction across the planet before it runs out of, so to speak, gas.

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