The TV series.
I really did watch that show in the 60's.  Would you believe I recently saw the Steve Carell  movie of the same name?

(Wait a minute; my shoe is  ringing....excuse me, I'll have to take the call inside the cone of silence...oh, they hung up.  Missed it by that much.)

Okay, now that I've got that out of my system, I have to ask; are we living in a real life 60's spy spoof situation comedy?

Just a few weeks ago, Wikileaks let loose tens of thousands of documents related to the war in Afghanistan.  Julian Assange, the man behind Wikileaks, gained top spot on several shit lists around the world.

So, with Presidents and Defense Secretaries unhappy with his actions, it must have seemed prudent to Mr. Assange to safe-guard the content of Wikileaks.  Not surprisingly, Sweden offered sanctuary.

Some portion of Wikileaks' servers have been moved to the "Pionen" White Mountains data center owned by Swedish broadband provider Bahnhof, as first reported  by Norwegian news site VG Nett last Friday. That data center will store Wikileaks' data 30 meters below ground inside a Cold-War-era nuclear bunker carved out of a large rock hill in downtown Stockholm. The server farm has a single entrance and is outfitted by half-meter thick metal doors and backup generators pulled from German submarines-fitting safeguards, perhaps, for an organization that raised the ire of several powerful military forces last month when it released thousands of classified Afghanistan war documents.

If you visit Andy Greenberg's blog, The Firewall, from which the above passage was taken, you will find a video tour of the underground data center.

Actually, Wikileaks has located its servers in different countries and its headquarters is located...nowhere.  This faint mystery of location lends a decided thrill, when all is said and done.  I mean, hiding documents in an old bunker for safekeeping?  How Man from U.N.C.L.E. is that?

:o)

This entry is going to run all over the place.  I tried to keep it contained in one general area, but it kept leaking out and getting all gooey and mixed up with other things.  So, let's start, oh, about 25,000 years ago, in Frawnce and Espania.

Read more »

     Newsweek is not a publication I normally read unless I'm in a waiting room and the only choice for entertainment is between it and Golf Digest.  But, every once in a while an online Newsweek article will catch my attention and I'm hooked.  I mean, who can resist looking to find out where the United States sits in relation to the rest of the world?   (Hint:  We ain't number 1.  In anything.  So much for American Exceptionalism.  Ah, well.  Finnish Exceptionalism doesn't have the same ring to it, but what ya gonna do?)
     You can find out just how ordinary we actually are by using this cool interactive feature that lists all 100 countries ranked.
     The 100 countries were ranked in Education, Health, Quality of Life, Economic Dynamism, and Political Environment.  How Newsweek measured these categories is documented and explained here.
     I'm still slogging through all the rest of the related articles in this online issue.  It's some interesting reading.
      Newsweek, as a print publication, is in financial trouble, not unlike many magazines. It was sold this month (August 2010) by its owner, the Washington Post, to Harman Media, reportedly for one dollar. Whether or not this was a savvy business deal or an indulgence of a wealthy man, only time will tell.  But,if this "World's Best Countries" spread is a last hurrah, it's a good one.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY):

"Every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we waste there, is a waste," said Nadler. "An intelligent policy is not to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets, failed....It will take tens of years, hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives, and we don't need to do it. We don't need to do it. We, frankly, have no right to do it. It's a fool's errand, and I just hope and pray that we get wise enough to stop sending our young men and women to waste their lives there, and our money that could be used to prop up our own people."

On July 1, 2010, Rep. Nadler spoke out against the war in Afghanistan at a press conference of the Out of Afghanistan Congressional Caucus.  His remarks can be found here. 

Why aren't the anti-war people giving this guy a boost?  When somebody says something like this:

"I think that this war [Afghanistan], if it goes on and if it escalates, has the potential to destroy this presidency and to destroy the Democratic majorities in Congress," Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) told Raw Story in an interview.

The New York congressman, who has called the Afghanistan war a "fool's errand," said he has no qualms opposing Obama and Democratic leaders on this sensitive issue ahead of the midterm elections, despite the harsh climate for his party.

"When you're dealing with war and peace you can't think of it in those terms," he said. "People are dying. The security of our country, the honor of our country, the lives of our men and women, the lives of foreign men and women - are at stake. And that's a lot more important, frankly, than partisan advantage."

....why isn't he being promoted by those against the wars?   I don't live in New York so it isn't surprising I've never heard of this guy, but the other day when LisB was asking for suggestions for leaders, why did no one offer the name Jerrold Nadler?  Surely someone who reads TPMCafe must be in his district?

"...more important than partisan advantage."

Damn!  Somebody gets it.  Somebody in Congress gets it.

As a bonus, Rep. Nadler doesn't have a problem holding people accountable for their crimes.

In an interview with Raw Story, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) invoked a "supremacy of laws" when critiquing President Barack Obama's decision to "look forward and not backwards" on his predecessor's abuses of power.

"Those who misuse government power to break the law and subject people to improper pressure or torture ought to be prosecuted," said Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. "That's why we have laws."

Oh, yeah.

This guy's going on my "keep an eye on 'em" list, along with Grayson and Franken.

 From Stand for the Land, July 3, 2010:

Today, we received word that an American flag was hung upside down from a jack pine on Eagle Rock in observance of the Fourth of July and in response to the United States Environmental Protection Agency's recent decision to let Rio Tinto-Kennecott, a foreign corporation, decide for itself that it doesn't need required permits to take over public land.

We received two anonymous quotes explaining that, "Our government is giving land away, everything is going to hell and we're in distress"

"The flag represents three things, the people, the land, and the constitution, which is simply a statement of the people who live on the land.  Currently, I feel all three are in great distress.  This is what the upside down flag hanging at Eagle Rock means to me."

See photos and read the rest here, if you wish.

And if you haven't been following my posts about Eagle Rock, you can read them at the links below, if you have the time and inclination.  It will help to explain how things got to distress level.

Taking a Stand For the Land (and the Water) Eagle Rock **CLARIFICATION**
....and All My Relation
Don't Just Hear Me EPA.....Listen!
The End of The End
They Have NOT Given Up
An Update on the Rally to Keep the Water CLEAN
Unlawfully Imprisoned

If not, suffice it to say, Eagle Rock (a sacred place of the Anishinaabe people) and concern for the safety of the rivers and Great Lakes has become a personal mission of mine.

The EPA has made its decision.  Rio Tinto-Kennecott does not need a permit to release 184 million gallons of treated waste-water every year at its proposed mine...a mine that will be located 900 feet underneath the Salmon-Trout River. Kennecott assures that the treated water will pass testing that will deem it safe.  But, here's the catch:  The waste water they will release may pass testing, but it is still dirty water.  Dirtier than what they began with.   Apparently, the EPA does not take that small detail seriously.  And with all the other environmental concerns crammed through the sausage maker, the mine is now a go.

Let's put it this way.  No matter how many rules and regs they adhere to, or pretend to adhere to, Kennecott will leave behind a dirty, messed up environment.

I don't know why I'm so surprised that the EPA has failed to protect the environment.  After all, they've done such a swell job everywhere else.  Maybe I was hoping that with the oil gusher in the Gulf, they would sit up and pay closer attention to the rules and regs, trying to make a good impression on the great unwashed for a change.  Silly me.  

As usual, the Big Corporations get their way and Earth, our Earth, gets punched, drilled, blown up, scraped, melted, poisoned, squeezed, burned and sucked dry.  Ah well, who cares, really?  After all, there are other planets non-hostile to human life we can move to.  Right?  If we behave ourselves, maybe they'll let us bring our pets when we take off for....wherever.

Sorry, I'm a little cranky right now and probably will be for a while...or until I figure out what the next step is.

In the meantime, the upside down American flag flying atop the sacred Eagle Rock reflects the condition my condition is in at the moment.  Our country is in distress.  Deep, deep distress.

I'm not alone.  Apparently, some others have expressed their distress as well.

If you're near Marquette in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, living there or passing through, and you've a mind to express your distress, don't forget to bring a flag with you.  Here's a map. 

Peace. 



At all costs.

Bart Stupak (D-MI) wrote an op-ed today.  I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere so I thought I'd post the link here at TPM.  Mostly, it pertains to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and discusses the current sulfuide mining adventure, but he does mention BP as well, and touches on his investigations as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

--we have uncovered thousands of pages of documents showing BP was willing to cut corners on safety in order to save time and money -- this despite the fact that BP's own engineers described the well as a "nightmare well."

Also ran across this little blurb in its entirety below...

June 15, 2010
Categories:  Energy

ExxonMobil's thick media strategy playbook

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) has dinged ExxonMobil, revealing documents that show they devoted 40 pages to a media strategy in their overall disaster plans and a fraction of that to a cleanup strategy

A 40-page appendix outlining how to deal with the media is part of the company's oil spill handbook. It addresses more than 60 topics with prepared talking points.

Here's the problem: the handbook contains just five pages for resources protection and nine pages for oil removal strategy.

Perhaps more of this subcommittee's investigations will be made available for public study.

As an added bonus, when you go to the  'Stand for the Land' link, the top banner photo shows what I did last weekend.  I was in that circle of women on the shore of Lake Superior.

Peace.

Imagine this: A place of prayer has been enclosed by a twelve foot fence, topped with three strands of barbed wire and surrounded by guards.

Imagine, if you will, your church, or temple, or mosque, fenced off and you are not allowed past the fence.  Or, if you are not a church going sort, imagine a favorite spot of yours, one with deep personal meaning for you, one that you visit to find peace, or sanctuary.  A place that you go to restore your soul and spirit.  Now imagine that you are no longer allowed in that place. 
Your prayers cannot be heard there. 
Your spirit cannot be strengthened there. 
Your peace cannot be restored there.

I do not have to imagine this. 
For me, this is real.

Read more »

Here is a link to a ten page Fact Sheet from the Environmental Justice Summit II held in 2002.  It's a .pdf file.   I know it sounds boring so I will make it easy for you.  Go to page 3.  Right near the top is a paragraph heading, "Corporate Welfare".  It's a beaut.

Or, you can just give this a quick read:

Corporate Welfare. Corporations routinely pollute the air, ground, and drinking water while being subsidized by tax breaks from the state. Many states have a "look-the-other-way environmental policy" that subsidizes threats to human health and the natural environment. For example, Louisiana is a leader in doling out corporate welfare to polluters. In the 1990s, the state wiped off the books $3.1 billion in property taxes to polluting companies. The state's top five worse polluters received $111 million dollars over the past decade. (my bold)

This summary is from eight years ago.  It makes one wonder, does it not?  Has this kind of corporate welfare continued in Louisiana?  How can one of the poorest states in the union afford to give away billions of dollars to rich corporations?

School kids can easily find the state of Louisiana on a map because it's shaped like the letter L.  But, more and more, it's beginning to be shaped like a pretzel.

thepeoplechoose has a blog up along the same vein, which prompted me to put this one up.  I mean, are Big Oil and the Feds screwing Louisiana or is Louisiana screwing us?  And why is Big Oil the only one reaching the Big O?  It couldn't be all the free lubricant, could it?  Naw.

See what I mean about the pretzel?

This will be just a quick post with a link to a video of the rally in Lansing, Michigan held June 3, 2010 on the capital steps.   I wrote about this rally in a previous entry.

And here's a link to the song Eagle Rock - A Song for the People written and performed by Drew Nelson (with the words in the comment space below).  This video is from Yoopernewsman and is the same song performed in the middle of the first linked video.  I include it because of the photos, showing the encampment at Eagle Rock and telling the story.

Link to Stand for the Land website and an entry by Cynthia Pryor, rally organizer.  

And here is a write-up from The State News.

One of the points of the rally was to hand deliver an Environmental Justice petition containing 10,000 signatures to governor Jennifer Granholm.   Granholm, however, was unable to receive them personally so the signatures were left with security people.  Apparently, she was too busy preparing for a guest shot on Keith Olbermann's show in order to give her support about the mishandled baseball call in Detroit the day before, because as we all have just learned, pitching a perfect baseball game is waaaaaay more important than the signatures of 10,000 people concerned about keeping the water clean in her adopted state.

NOTE:  Please see my last comment below concerning the number of signatures on the petition.  10,000 is in error.  The correct number is 1,000.   I'm sorry for the confusion.

The protesters of Eagle Rock are still protesting.  It is not the end of the end. Kennecott may have removed them from the proposed mine area, but they have not given up!

Read here, please.

This is very short notice.  But, if you are in Michigan, especially if you are anywhere near the state capitol in Lansing, and if you love the Great Lakes, there will be a rally tomorrow, June 3, 2010 to hand deliver an Environmental Justice petition to Governor Granholm.


The rally begins at 11am, Wednesday (tomorrow), June 3rd.

Schedule:

• 11:00 am Meet on Capitol Lawn
• 11:30 am Reading of the Environmental Justice Petition
• Reading a Tribal Rights Statement
• Eagle Rock - sung by Drew Nelson

Other Voices Joining In

• 2:00 pm Deliver the petitions and Tribal Rights Statement to the Governor's office
• 3:00 pm Walk to Natural Resources Commission Meeting -
• 333 E. Michigan Ave - Lansing Center

They are asking, just short of begging, people to come out in support.  Wear blue...the color of water.  Bring a sign...May I suggest:

NO MORE
POISON
FOR PROFIT!

One more thing I am asking of those who live outside of Michigan...if you know people in the state, would you please pass this info to them?  The bigger the showing at the rally the better.  Even if only for an hour...a lunch break.  Don't forget to wear blue.



The water in the Great Lakes belongs to all of us, like the water in the Gulf of Mexico belongs to all of us.  It is our job to be good stewards, to take care of that which takes care of us.  We have sadly and sorely abused the water of the Gulf.  We have a chance to protect what is truly sacred to human life before it is ruined by those whose only interest is profit by plunder.

Chi migwetch.
Thank you, very much.

~Wahbigwanabenooje~

Republicans want our ideas.  Seriously.  They are asking us what we think and they made a website and everything to make it easy to tell 'em.  And you don't even have to be a Republican.  You can be normal.

But, here....let them tell it in their own words...

This site was developed as part of an official effort to increase the dialogue between Americans and their Congress. Here, Americans are provided a new platform to share their priorities and ideas for a national policy agenda. As Republicans, we are committed to our principles of limited, more accountable government; economic freedom; lower taxes; fiscal responsibility; protecting life, American values, and the Constitution; and providing for strong national security. This is an open forum, however, where all Americans are welcome to respectfully offer their opinions, regardless of party affiliation and whether we endorse them or not. It is our hope the active engagement of the American people will produce a robust debate that will aid in the construction of a new American agenda.

So, I think we should tell them. 
AMERICA SPEAKING OUT
It's our duty as United States citizens.
Vote early and often.

                                     

In the middle of oil spills and bomb droppings and other political dramas, I forget there is another side to news coverage.  There are scads of subjects that are serious and of consequence to many people around the world.  These stories are of importance to everyone.  

Take tight pants for instance.

Now, I've worn my share of tight britches.  Back in the day.  Before my butt fell down on the job.  But, I digress.
 
As I recall, wearing tight pants didn't have much to do with freedom.  In fact, it tended to restrict movement to a degree, but as long as you remembered to tie your shoes before you zipped up, you were good to go.

The freedom to wear tight pants!  That's America, baby!

But, not so in Meulaboh, Indonesia.  Nope. The authorities in a district of Aceh province are banning tight pants on Muslim women.

During raids Thursday, Islamic police caught 18 women traveling on motorbikes who were wearing traditional headscarves but were also dressed in jeans. Each woman was given a long skirt and her pants were confiscated. They were released from police custody after giving their identities and receiving advice from Islamic preachers.

Now, ordinarily I keep my nose pretty much out of other peoples religious rules and regs.  I mean, as long as babies aren't being sacrificed and/or used for fornication, it's not really my job to judge what happens inside a particular religion.

This, however, struck me at a peculiar angle.  The Muslim women in West Aceh were already wearing pants and form fitting dresses; they purchased them from local merchants.  I mean, it wasn't like they were sending away to Fredrick's of Hollywood for red pleather pants and crotchless draws or anything like that. They were just doing what they saw other women doing.

Then along comes these regulations to enforce moral values and the next thing these Muslim women know, Islamic policemen are confiscating their pants.

I'll tell ya this much.  If some policeman made me give up an $80 pair of jeans and replaced it with a cheap $2 skirt and a stern talking to from a priest, I'd be sluggin' me a cop 'round about then and probably the priest,  too.  Oh!  I would soooooo not make a good Muslim lady.  I'd probably already have been stoned to death anyways.

Which is another thing.  This same bunch that is forcing this dress code upon Muslim women are the same folks that  made stoning to death the punishment for adultery and imposed prison sentences and public lashings for homosexuals and pedophiles.
So,

• No Poofs
• No Pervs
• No Pants
• No Poontang

Seriously though, thinking about this, if I was a betting woman, and I ain't, I'd put some coin on the Muslim women that they will be the leaders out of this particular wilderness.  Pandora's box and all that.

Women do not rise up because men allow them to.  They rise up because they demand it.  Personal freedom can belong to these Muslim women again.  They were given a taste of it and it will work its way through them and then through their daughters.  That's how it works.

Because, once you've ridden with the top down, wearing a scarf and a pair of skinny black pants, you're Audrey Hepburn forever.

                                            

I just caught Face the Nation.  If you have been following the Gulf oil spill, you might find this weeks' program interesting.  A few new things came out in the interviews of Carol Browner, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), and Bob Dudley, BP Managing Director,  conducted by guest host, John Dickerson.

The video and transcript are not yet available, but if you are in a later time zone, it's worth the half hour.

Yesterday, two people were arrested at Eagle Rock.

I have written before of Eagle Rock and the struggle to keep Kennecott, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto, from mining so close to such a sensitive environmental area in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, as well as it being a ceremonial sacred site to Native Americans.  The area means a great deal to many people.

I am a little too discouraged this day to write much so I'm just going to copy and paste a few things with a link.

According to Gabriel Caplett, a camper at the Eagle Rock settlement, "Kennecott seems to have a habit of blowing things out of proportion.  We've seen this when they wasted taxpayer resources getting a citizen arrested for sitting on a stump with her dog.  While campers at Eagle Rock have had to listen to Kennecott supporters drive by at night yelling racial slurs, swerving at us while we walk on the road, throwing beer cans and, in one incident reported to the State Police, firing shots, Kennecott gets the State Police investigating a camper who tapped a construction worker on the butt with a jackpine twig.  This is kind of ironic coming from a company with one of the worst human rights and worker rights records around the world."

Link to article containing above blockquote here.

The protesters are sticking with their original argument: it's still state land, and they have just as much of a right to be there as Kennecott does.

The campers planted a garden at the Eagle Rock site.

Kennecott has already dismantled our community garden.

Kristi Mills, director of Save the Wild U.P., an organization actively involved with protesting the project, said the individuals who refused to leave were making a brave statement.

"It's been a long struggle for over a month now ... their sacrifice is to be commended," Mills said. "I think it's a sad state of affairs that people were arrested for what they believe in."

The protesters are gone now.  Empty tents left behind.

Does it sound like the protesters are giving up?  I can't tell.  Are they giving up?  I don't know.  All I really know is, these are the kind of people who stand up and say out loud what a lot of us wish we had the guts to say, the guts to do.

They are all that stand between us and the next oil spill, the next assault on our own Earth by our own hand because we cannot depend upon our government and its agencies to act on our behalf and we certainly cannot depend on the corporations because their only concern is profit at everyone's cost but their own.    I listen to the reassurances of both government and corporation, but I don't feel any better.  All my relation will continue to suffer.   The people of the Gulf.  The grasses in the marshland.  And the water.  The water.

Compromises. 
Why do I feel like I'm living through health care reform hell one more time? 
Make a stand. 
Give something up. 
Move your stand. 
Make a new stand. 
Give up something else. 
Move your stand again. 
Make a stand. 
There goes another little piece of my heart now, baby. 
Move your stand.

Make a stand......until you stand for nothing.

This is how it ends.

What began as an information hunt on the EPA got pushed aside (sorta) as I read a transcript from Democracy Now.  An EPA investigator, Scott West, now retired, recounts his experience leading an investigation of BP following a major oil pipeline leak in Alaska's North Slope in 2006.

I tried several times to link directly to the Democracy Now site but was unable to for some reason, possibly my crappy dial-up service.   But, as a bonus at the Micheal Moore site, Mr. West left a long, interesting comment taking up where the interview was cut short when the satellite feed was interupted.

After reading the interview, it just reinforces my impression that while the EPA is doing its job, its findings are being rendered toothless by those a few rungs up the ladder, who in turn do the bidding of the international corporate puppet-masters.  

The U.S. government is not alone in this.  The governments of other countries are equally culpable.  British Petroleum, Rio Tinto, and the like, are international corporations whose records of human abuse and environmental abuse worldwide are substantial.  Yet these practices are routinely overlooked by the agencies in all of the countries in which the giant corps operate.  Agencies created to protect and preserve we humans and the planet we call ours.  I mean, what is the point of having these agencies if their findings are ignored?

This is a whole wide world problem...not just ours.  We are not an isolated nation anymore!

The people of the United States have to rid themselves of the remnants of the isolationist national identity that we've hidden behind for decades.  Beginning with WWII, we reached our hand out and other countries have reached their hand in.  The result was globalization....what other result could there have been?  There is no going back.  There is no living in the past.  We have to begin to think we are a part of something bigger than just us.  So, when we point to catastrophes and demand explanations, blameworthiness, and resurrections of despoiled regions, we do so on behalf of the entire world.  It's not just for us.  It just seems like it is.

And we cannot let the criminal element of our world be in charge of crime scenes. 


May 21st, 2010
May 22nd, 2010
May 23rd, 2010

Ladies and gentlemen, we are owned.  We, and the planet we inhabit, have been hand delivered by the world governments unto the corporations to do with as they please.  They will not rest until they own the air we breath, the water we drink, and the food we eat.....which we will all be able to purchase at a reasonable price.  Or not.

I am wondering...could now be time to remove my peace sign....