The impending Sup. Ct. Travesty -- the overturning of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

I cannot believe that those DESPICABLE conservative sick justices on the Sup. Ct. and what that JERK Scalia said.  He called the 1965 Voting Rights Act -- "racial ENTITLEMENT."   He is a SLOB and Thomas who benefited from all the liberal actions that made life better for African Americans and others is already on record as saying it is unconstitutional!!!!  He gives new meaning to the name Uncle Tom.  Roberts too said something like "things have changed in the south"  with what the RepublicRAT Party of racist bullshit [sorry, I'm angry] has done during the 2012 elections and with what they pulled to have the Sup Ct of conservative five MORONS overturn that law is a travesty.

I remember well the days and the deaths of the civil rights activists Goodman, Cheney and  Schwerner.  We fought hard and walked with our African brothers and sisters to erase discrimination from the face of this country.  

What seems to be coming down will be one of the most DISGUSTING DASTARDLY decisions this rancid court will make IF they deem the Act unconstitutional   It appears although I do not know for sure that they will turn the clock backward and do just that. 

Jesse Jackson said it does not matter what they do as we will FIGHT discrimination as we always did in the days of civil rights action.  This should NOT be over with a bad decision.   African Americans and those who stand with them should DEMAND that their right to vote be protected.

I HOPE African Americans and we who support everyone's quest for equality let the Sup. Ct. know in no uncertain terms and by any means legally necessary that declaring the 1965 Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional when many congresses have reinstated it and so much blood has been spilled over it is UNACCEPTABLE!

Republican leadership MUST be thrown out in the 2014 elections in both the state and the federal legislatures and return this nation to a fair and democratic nation that we can be proud of again.   ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!  Oh yes, by the way, if you are from Mass. elect Ed Markey as our next senator from Massachusetts.

To Serve Man -- Sequester the Republican Party

Our nation changed November, 2010.  The Congress passed the president’s landmark health care legislation and the Republican Party took over the argument infiltrating town halls, stirring up the white rage of racial animus and feigning economic reasons for it.  Those Republican economic policies favor the top 2% but those that formed the new Tea Party Republicans did not and do not, still, understand.  This rage won them in 2010 the House majority.  Although recently the 2012 re-election of the president brought more Democrats to the table in the Senate keeping the majority and even collectively winning more votes than the Republican Party in the House, gerrymandering districts in the House allowed this Republican Party and its vicious minions to continue to control and obstruct it.  Imagine, the Democrats control two bodies of a three tiered government and the nation STILL catapults from economic crises to economic crises like a skier tumbling down a hill. 

 

Republicans, through the Frankenstein Tea Party they created, fed racist hatred already embedded in too many of the white body politic against our first African American president.  I believed they perceived it was time to mount a previously thought insurmountable task of defeating this president.  The Tea Party rose up with their ugly signs spewing the angry rhetoric of race hatred, a sentiment which lies deep in the American sinew and like an inoperable cancer it could kill a country.  Republicans cannot now defeat the president electorally, of course, but they can defeat his historical legacy and they think when economic conditions return this nation to recession through Republican obstructionism it will in 2014 allow them to take it all no matter the cost to the nation.  Cancer, the emperor of all maladies, (the title of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s great book) could and WILL kill Republicans too.

 

Tea Baggers want austerity to end our deficit.  They want the nation to cut its spending on some of the most important functions that government provides and ones which the majority of people love such as airport security, clean water, clean air, roads, bridges, education, homeland security, and medical research to name a very few.  They think like a household one does not spend more money when one is in debt.  They do not know whether through their own ignorance or because of their persuasive masters’ mendacious arguments that their own lives, their children's lives, and generations after them, IF they exist, will depend on these programs too and that a country is NOT like a household.

 

IMPORTANTLY a nation does NOT thrive under austerity.  It dies.  It thrives when the nation creates jobs sometimes through government and its stimulus when needed.  We need only to look at Greece, Italy and much of Europe to see why austerity in a depressed economy makes that economy worse.  Many will succumb, including the families of Tea Bag Republicans, to the poverty and decay that austerity cuts will bring.

 

This is a tragedy because it does NOT have to happen.   When sequester cuts happen, if Congressional agreement does not evolve, they will NOT be for the faint (yes that is the correct word) of heart. The Tea Baggers do NOT realize it is they who WILL suffer as they are NOT a part of the economic top 2%. Those in the middle class and those who are poor will, of course, suffer the most.  Austerity, in truth, helps no one. Republican Speaker Boehner knows it but cannot seize control of the know-nothing part of his Republican Party that thinks a postage stamp size for government is a good idea.  Politics is after all about power and Boehner does NOT want to lose it even at the expense of the nation.

The massive greed of Wall Street led to the Great Recession and the spending on trumped up non-funded wars led to the deficit about which the Republicans say they care so much.  George Bush put two wars on a Chinese credit card and THAT is responsible for a large part of our deficit about which deficit the Republican Party waxes insane.

 

As a remedy Republicans want spending cuts to those programs necessary for this nation to function.  NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR AUSTERITY.  Those who have created this monster within the Republican Party do not realize the monster will eat them too. The “Twilight Zone” episode "To Serve Man" is exactly what the Republican Party is advocating except the man that they will truly serve on a platter is themselves, taking this nation yet again into an economic quicksand that will swallow all of us if we let them! 

 

Write or contact those in the Republican Party who would do this to us and let them know if the sequester cuts go through they will get is their own sequester when they are thrown out of office in 2014.  It will be a savored just reward for an anything-but-just party!

 

Out Out Damn Spot -- Reworked

MSNBC headline from Britain:   "Britain's top Catholic cleric resigns amid allegations of inappropriate behavior."

Here or following is the link:  http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/25/17086012-britains-top-catholic-cleric-resigns-amid-allegations-of-inappropriate-behavior?lite

My intent is NOT to be critical of one religion over another but to be critical of ALL orthodoxy within the major organized religions.  The singularly male controlled hierarchical nature of orthodox religion is obvious.  Where one blots women out of positions of power and relegates that institution to solely male control one often gets monumentally sick often violent sexual and anomic social behavior.  In the face of SO much loathsome news about the Vatican's corrupt opaque essence it cried out to me for a response about it and I wrote:

Pope Benedict XVI is too tired and old so he must resign, he says.  It is the first resignation of a pope in 700 years. I suspect there is more to this resignation than that.  Why does this even matter to me?  Mostly, it does not as it surely has no influence in my life but in a way it does because this institution directs its clergy in hypocritical fashion from the pulpit in our country and around the world to advocate for political issues that suppress and most importantly oppress human beings by spending money in elections against policy it does not like. It has influence on voters.

Charles Dickens could not have given the Austrian born Pope Benedict XVI a better name – the former Cardinal Ratzinger.  There is, it seems to me, a poetic malevolence to this name.  He had a childhood in the Nazi Youth and I believe continued to hold some of the ideological and anti-Semitic views with which he was infused at a young age. It was evidenced by certain tolerances by him of priests who would be a part of a right wing extremist Catholic sect called Opus Dei and conduct in Latin the inclusion of centuries old anti-Semitic passages in the mass which had been long erased from its liturgy.  He was forced to apologize to the Jewish people more than once.

As an adult in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, he was in control of the hidden sex scandals and other corruptions which saturated the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, aka the Inquisition, a morphed Middle Ages papal institution he once led.  The church has tortured and slaughtered in its history many Jews and others it considered heretics. Now while it does not physically slaughter it emotionally still does.  It stands silent in the face of a great sin and crimes against humanity by the cover-up of the massive sexual abuse of children by hundreds of its priests around the world.  The Pope himself was named in a lawsuit suing the church for its alleged decades-long and ugly cover-up of priest pedophiles.

Many popes, including this present one, ignored these crimes.  The church tried to keep this evidence behind its walls through its silence while it moved those accused priests around the world like pawns on a checkerboard and did nothing except when forced to do a little for its victims of this dastardly abuse.  This corrupt and disordered celibate institution will probably conduct business as usual, select a new pope and its great perversion of justice will go on.  Since we are not living in the Middle Ages resignation of this pope will make no difference to most but the church in its infinite odious wisdom will continue to advocate for policies against women and advocate against, in mind numbing hypocrisy, all forms of gay rights even though the institution of the church contains many adult homosexual priests who are NOT pedophiles.  It did nothing about the true crimes it perpetrated and would still be doing nothing, hiding in the dark to this day if not for the press blowing the scandal sky high to see the light of day.

I suspect there is more behind this pope's resignation as the Vatileaks whistle blower, the Pope's butler, revealed in documents he released.  The documents showed a church saturated with scandal from pedophile sins to the theft of millions by some of the Vatican hierarchy. We may never know the true extent of all of this perversion of justice and illegality even though the church could finally, now, have an opportunity to remake itself, ultimately reopen churches to their faithful and in so doing fill its coffers with the gold it lost.  I am sure, however, it will not remake much.

I submit Pope Benedict and the Church he led will surely take advantage of his age in its explanation of his resignation but I suspect he is resigning because of something much more heinous.   The pope has soaked his hands in blood by his own acquiescence to his Church’s abuse of children.  Where this will lead I have no idea but this damn spot, like Lady Macbeth's, cannot be washed out.  

Now this is a shockeroo -- NOT. There are gay priests at the Vatican who use male hookers!!? Holy shitsky Batman, who'd have thunk it?

I am NOT anti-Catholic but I am anti Vatican.  What a total hypocritical joke that is the Church. Who on this earth would give up their good money to join this sewer of theft, pedophilia and the visitation to male prostitutes by priests?!

TIP of the iceberg? Me thinks SO! Watch the Vatican and the press cover this putrid story up!”

Here is the link below or simply go to Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

'GOSSIP, MISINFORMATION, AND SOMETIMES SLANDER'

Vatican Slams Report That Gay Scandal Led To Pope's Resignation... But Doesn't Deny Rumor

Sorry half gets cut off..go to the site link.

A Letter to Rachel Maddow re: Documentary "Hubris"

I have sent a copy  of the notification of the airing of "Hubris."    Just when I think you cannot get any better than you are, Rachel, you yet again surpass yourself.  I cannot wait to watch your documentary and only wish it aired tonight.

It is of course recorded by me as all of your shows are. Mostly I watch them as shown but record them just in case I miss it.

You are the GREATEST thing to happen to progressive journalism.  What a find you were for MSNBC.  You are in my mind beyond great, you are life saving.  This documentary on the as Tom Ricks called it "Fiasco" of Iraq that killed and devastatingly wounded thousands of human beings including thousands of our soldiers was a travesty of justice that had implications not only for the deaths it perpetrated, if that were not bad enough, but all but erased our nation's standing in the world.  Worse than even all those things has been the utter devastation and instability in the Middle East which, in pertinent part, I believe we can lay at the feet of the Iraq War impolitic policy.

I dare anyone, John Country Last McCain included, to debate you on every point.  They never would allow themselves to get into the ring with you.  Your lethality to conservatives is well known and I applaud in the most emphatic way your brilliant success.  We as progressives owe a debt of gratitude to you we could not possibly repay.  

Thank you for your brilliance, thank you for all you do, thank you most of all for being!

May I remind you -- the prescience of George Carlin!

I selectively sent this because some cannot take it.  It has profanity.  But let's face it our system is profane so what's a little verbal profanity to explain it.  George Carlin had it right over five years ago before his death. But it's truth and everyone should know it!

here or 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14SllPPLxY

The Last Gong Show

I direct your attention to an article in today's Boston Globe entitled "Shale oil helps revive East Coast refineries. Offers cheaper gas; US could top Saudi output" See link to this article here or below:

A rightwinger says one thing; a progressive says another as to the efficacy of the various energy alternatives.  What is one who really wants the truth without an ideological bent to think?  

From the articles I have read fracking seems simply awful and lethal since SO much ground water is polluted by the chemicals used to extract the oil and gas from the abundance of shale within the earth.  It is so polluting it causes tap water to become flammable.  It increases cancer rates, immunological problems, and pulmonary diseases of both animals and people who have been duped by corporate power to sell their land or parts of it for this nefarious purpose.  Fracking seems fantastic for the US economy because it could propel us to be the premier energy producer in the world.  That seems absolutely dazzlingly wonderful but I suspect it is not so because getting to the shale is, so far, unsafe at any speed. 

Nuclear energy comes with huge risk especially as the plants that make it age. God knows oil is climate change polluting.  It is, whether the wingnuts want to believe it or not, changing our planet’s climate and not for the better.  We can see that all around us every day of every month of every year.  

Those who are invested in the immense corporate power of oil want the digging of the oil pipeline from Canada to Louisiana to proceed and they want the fracking of shale to be explored no matter the cost to human life.  

The lamestream media keeps the negatives of these things out of the news except for a paucity of sensationalist headlines here and there. The Chernobyl-like Fukishima disaster in Japan, which is still emitting radioactive material, has gone off the media's radar screen.  The Fourth Estate should be critical of power but are wimps who bow to the presence of the almighty buck.  Beware of those bearing Trojan Horse gifts.  They may not be gifts at all but a one-way ticket to an early grave for those of us who are not born into vast sums of money to escape the devastating disasters these pollutants bring. 

What to do?  We could use those energies we have now as long as we have a plan to minimize them and develop endless alternative sources of energy in the form of wind and solar that could be made available now.  But we do not, of course, have a plan as we hold off until the last gong show which may, in fact, ultimately, for all of us, be too late.  

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/02/18/shale-oil-reviving-east-coast-refineries/mkFoGwSYUtqTYPNfTiib7O/story.html

Little Girl holding sign NRA KILLS OUR KIDS

The Despicable John McCain and an Email to him

YOU of all people, Mr. McCain, are angry at Senator Hagel since he ideologically split with your party because of a PHONY TRUMPED UP war killing THOUSANDS and creating unbelievable instability in that neck of the woods? SHAME ON YOU, Mr. McCain. Once you were thought to have a mind of your own now you fault Mr. Hagel for having one himself and on moral grounds objecting to a disastrous war. HE WAS RIGHT about it maybe that's what gets you. SHAME ON YOU! 

IF we EVER on planet earth thought Republicans would be willing to compromise with this president we can see now finally what a mistake it was to think that. Lindsay Graham and YOU, who professed your adoration for your war compatriot Hagel, NOW stab him in the back to hold up the process. This is DESPICABLE. This obstruction has NEVER been done before to a president's choice for Secretary of Defense. 

First Susan Rice with your mendacious FAUX charges on Benghazi because of words she said on a talk show when it first happened. Rice had NOTHING to do with Benghazi and YOU knew it. Republicans did that to poke a stick in the eye of the president and for nothing more. Hagel is eminently qualified.  

If the president is guilty of Benghazi which he was NOT then how come Republican HYPOCRITES did not indict George Bush for taking us to a PHONY Iraq war killing THOUSANDS. One can see how SICKENING the minority racist bastard extremists who control the Republican Party are and YOU are controlled by them. Yes, I believe much if not most of the opposition Tea Baggers will do anything in their power to defeat this sterling African American president. This fuels their animus and you go where the power is despite your own one time singularity. 

ONCE you were a moral man but NO more. If we do nothing else for our Democratic humanitarian cause we WILL remember this -- Our lives, OUR children's lives and ALL those who come after them WILL be cut short because of your party's vicious bastards' attempts at pulling Medicare and Social Security out from under them. Republicans have wanted to do that since FDR. If the nation keeps electing Republican mendacious vipers like you never were BUT are now we are in BIG trouble. Republicans are gunning for our money and everyone else's money to give to Wall Street to invest, then have the market fail like it did in 2007 and the Wall Street BUMS will take it all. Hagel is just a symbol of what the obstruction is about. How could YOU do that to your good friend for George Bush, a little despicable man who killed thousands for a lie? If allowed these inanimate object Republicans will see to it that they, their corporations, the pigs they feed at the trough and their racist cronies will take it all. 

You are forewarned. We WILL do anything one can that is legal to tell these monster Republicans we KNOW what they are up to and that we the Democrats, Independents and even fair minded Republicans of humane thought WILL do everything in our power to defeat these know nothings come 2014 and beyond. YOU a war hero, are compromising national security by not confirming the multi-qualified Hagel. Tell your cronies in no uncertain terms Republicans WILL pay the electoral price in the not to distant future. We WILL not forget and say NEVER AGAIN!

A PROGRAM NOTE OF GREAT INTEREST: Rachel Maddow Monday, Feb. 18 -- Hubris 9:00 p.m. Selling the Iraq War

As stated on the TRMS web site – "Join Rachel Maddow for the step by step true story of how the American people were sold on the Iraq War – Premiers February 18, 2013 at 9:00 p.m. on MSNBC.”

If one cares about whether or not a president takes a nation to war, the most solemn decision he can ever make, then this is, I think, a MUST see.  Rachel Maddow is to me an American treasure.  She is brilliant, she is thoughtful, and she is an MSNBC star of progressive political commentary.  She makes astute and correct assessments of political history made in our nation.

In my experience over decades watching the news from Cronkite to the present, Rachel Maddow is one of the BEST that news commentary has to offer.  My world is influenced in the best way possible by this extraordinary host.  I am thrilled she is on our side.  What did our country do without her?  I can tell you.  It was led into useless wars killing hundreds of thousands of human beings no questions asked by a feckless media.

Rachel saves lives and influences politics in a humane and compassionate way.  Long may she do this, for me, for our country and, indeed, for the world.

A Title for the President's Administration

I had a thought (only one).  Maybe it's been said before I do not know but John Kennedy had the New Frontier, LBJ had the Great Society and Franklin Roosevelt had the New Deal.  I think this presidency should be perfectly characterized as 

THE FAIR DEAL

I like it 

I am sure that most have heard because of the difficult time Republicans are giving the president on the Hagel nomination as they did for Susan Rice they will need now 60 votes for cloture.  Send a message to ESPECIALLY the senate Republicans that this is unacceptable and they are slowly but surely ruining their chances for 2014.  

I am sure Republicans will try to block a plethora of additional presidential cabinet posts.  How much does that frost me?  A LOT.  They will not let this president breathe.  I want them electorally DEMOLISHED in 2014!

REPUBLICANS LIE, THEY STEAL AND THEY SUPPRESS THE MINORITY VOTE.  THERE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH REASON WHY WE NEED TO CRUSH THOSE REPUGLICAN RACIST TROJAN HORSES IN 2014 AND BEYOND. 

ONWARD

Rubio's Burried Headline.

Very poignant email by Arshad Hasan scroll down. She gets to the crux of the Republican agenda of cuts to benefits which are the foundation for 98% of our country. Republicans would DECIMATE the middle class of our nation, kick the poor in the teeth, eat all of it and leave the bones to be buried ... literally. DO NOT BE DUPED by how nice Republicans sound. They are NOT nice. 

In practice what the Republicans want to do would be devastating! Remember 2007 when the Republicans brought this country to its knees and nearly into the abyss. They are in pertinent part responsible for why our nation has tragically for the middle class economically nose dived. We are coming back but Congress must act and give an assist to a Democratic economic agenda which, if not fought tooth and nail by the Republican Party of division, hate and discord, would heal our wounds.

DO NOT LET IT. 2014 is the year of the CRUSH. Crush the Republican -- split down the middle composed of know nothings -- Party before we have no country left!

-----Original Message-----
From: Arshad Hasan

Sent: Wed, Feb 13, 2013 12:22 am
Subject: Marco Rubio buried the headline

Natalie -

Republicans just launched a new attack on Social Security.

Marco Rubio's response to the President's State of the Union buried the headline: Republicans want to make devastating cuts to Social Security benefits. Maybe you missed it because Rubio awkwardly took a sip of water and then tried to sell those cuts to the American people as a plan to reduce the deficit and "save" Social Security.

The Republican plan to "save" Social Security? It's just another scheme to push down working families and prop up subsidies for big corporations.

That's why we're joining Rep. Alan Grayson and our friends at the PCCC in telling Democrats to take any and all benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid off the table and pass a jobs bill that will put Americans back to work.

Tell Democrats in Congress: Vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Republicans can't cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid on their own -- they'll try to use the next budget showdown to force Democrats to join them in passing these cuts.

We can't let that happen. We need to get Democrats on the record right now -- we need them to pledge to vote no on any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. We get enough Democrats to do that, and we win.

Join Rep. Alan Grayson and tell Democrats in Congress to take Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid off the table.

Thank you for all that you do.

-Arshad

Arshad Hasan, Executive Director
Democracy for America


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[NOVA] "Earth from Space" -- a suggestion to watch -- with a caveat below

This program looks utterly fabulous.  We will be taping it and watching it all. This is television at its most profound and a force for good.  It is a force for intellectual curiosity and instruction as to who we are and what transpires on our beautiful beautiful planet.  It makes one want desperately to be a steward of this one earth on which we miraculously reside and especially to stop earth's killer -- polluting and climate changing fossil fuels!

A Caveat must be mentioned:  PBS is now funded and its programming perhaps overseen by the Koch Brothers, who are right wing funders of right wing extremism and the Republican Party.  Their fortune is in oil and many other things.  Still, that does not mean all programming is tainted and it means some programming has worth.  BUT one should always know that this right wing slant has taken over what USED to be one of the best public stations on earth and, in my opinion, because of that fact, it no longer is.  I no longer give money to support its broadcasting but I will watch certain things I deem have merit.  

It is a sad fact and reality of the world in which we live that money buys it all and NOT for humane purposes.  It extends far and wide even to the media.  Beware and if you give to PBS I suggest you stop and tell them exactly why.  The Koch Brothers are major funders of the Tea Baggies, are major deniers of global climate change going against 98% of scientific expertise in the subject.  Beware of ALL things bearing their name!  --WHY WE MUST ELECT DEMOCRATS IN 2014 AND BEYOND!

-----Original Message-----
From: NOVA <novanewsletter@wgbh.org>
To: natalierosen <natalierosen@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb 12, 2013 7:21 am
Subject: [NOVA] "Earth from Space"

If you have trouble viewing this email, read the online version.

NOVA PRESENTS Earth from Space Airing Wednesday February 13 at 9 pm on PBS (Check local listings) Watch a Preview "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate and surprising web of forces that sustains life on earth. Viewers witness how dust blown from the Sahara fertilizes the Amazon; how a vast submarine "waterfall" off Antarctica helps drive ocean currents around the world; and how the Sun's heating up of the southern Atlantic gives birth to a colossally powerful hurricane. From the microscopic world of water molecules vaporizing over the ocean to the magnetic field that is bigger than Earth itself, the show reveals the astonishing beauty and complexity of our dynamic planet. WEB FEATURES Watch a Preview Watch a preview of the program online now.  The Uses of Satellite Imagery Images from near-Earth orbit help us with everything from weather forecasting and disaster management to archeology. "Earth from Space” is now available on DVD from shopPBS.org.NOVA email subscribers receive an exclusive offer of 20% off your order of $60 or more at shopPBS.org. Enter promotion code: NOVANEWSLETTER to receive your discount. Cannot be combined with other offers. Valid thru 2/31/13. NOVA Launches New Energy Lab  NOVA is excited to announce the launch of the Energy Lab, the second Lab in a growing collection of research offerings on the NOVA Labs site. In this Lockheed Martin-funded site, students design renewable energy systems for cities across the U.S. and compete with Lab participants nationally. Visit the site now to design your own renewable energy system. 2012 Visitor/Viewer Survey Message Calling all NOVA scienceNOW viewers and/or digital content explorers! We rely on your feedback to learn and improve. Please take 5-10 minutes to complete this survey being conducted by our external evaluation firm. Become a NOVA and NOVA scienceNOW fan on Facebook, follow us onTwitter, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you for your interest in NOVA. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. You can send a message directly to nova@wgbh.org, or use ourfeedback form.  TWITTER  FACEBOOK  ITUNES  YOUTUBE  RSS  INSIDE NOVA      Major funding for this program is provided by The Kendeda Fund. Additional funding for this program is provided by Millicent Bell, through the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation.Funding for NOVA is provided by David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS viewers.

Skyfall -- Adele -- Beautiful

I was never a music groupie   I loved the music of my youth and even the music of my mother's youth but, in modern times, that love of contemporary music left me -- too much sex, too much violence, too loud and often too vulgar.  That is not who I am.  Consequently, I tune out award shows like the Grammy's because generally speaking -- very generally speaking -- I do not like much contemporary sound -- UNTIL I decided to see what all the hype was about Adele.  Below is the Youtube of her song, "Skyfall" that has won her much acclaim including a Golden Globe and a Grammy.  Her voice is gorgeous and haunting, the words profound. No wonder everyone loves her there is much to love.  

Enjoy here or below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeumyOzKqgI

The POOPED Pope? -- "Out out damn spot"

Pope Benedict XVI is too tired and must resign, he says.  It is the first resignation of a pope in 700 years. Why does this even matter to me?  Mostly, it does not as it surely has no influence in MY life BUT in a way it does because this institution directs its clergy in hypocritical fashion from the pulpit in our country and around the world to advocate for political issues that suppress and most importantly oppress human beings spending money against policy it does not like. It has influence on voters.

 

The Austrian born Pope Benedict XVI I thought was ugliness incarnate from the time he was selected Pope. Charles Dickens could not have given him a better name – The former Cardinal Ratzinger.  He had a childhood in the Nazi Youth and I believe continued to hold some of the ideological and anti-Semitic views with which he was infused at a young age. It was evidenced by certain tolerances by him of priests who would conduct in Latin the inclusion of century’s old anti-Semitic passages in the mass which had been long erased from its liturgy.  He apologized to the Jewish people more than once.

 

As an adult in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, he was in control of the hidden sex scandals and other corruptions which saturated the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, aka the Inquisition, a morphed institution he once led.  The church has tortured and slaughtered in its history many -- many Jews and others it considered heretics.  Now while it does not physically slaughter it emotionally still does.  It stands silent in the face of a great sin against humanity with the massive sexual abuse of children by hundreds of its priests around the world and then actively for decades covered those unthinkable crimes up.

 

I recently viewed "Mea Culpa: Silence in the House of God" an HBO documentary by the great Alex Gibney.  Its synopsis in part says: 

 

[Mea Culpa] investigates the secret crimes of Father Lawrence Murphy, a charismatic Milwaukee priest who abused more than 200 Deaf children in a school under his control. The film documents the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the U.S., which led to a case that spanned three decades and ultimately resulted in a lawsuit against the pontiff himself. The investigation helped uncover documents from the secret Vatican archives that show the Pope, who must operate within the mysterious rules of the Roman Curia, as both responsible and helpless in the face of evil.

 

Many popes, including this present one, ignored these crimes.  The church tries to keep this evidence and its silence behind its walls while they move those accused priests around the world like pawns on a checkerboard and do nothing for its victims.  This corrupt and disordered celibate institution will probably conduct business as usual and its great perversion against children will go on.  Since we are not living in the Middle Ages (or at least I THINK we are not) resignation of this pope will make no difference to most but the church in its infinite odious wisdom will continue to advocate for policies against women and advocate against, in mind numbing hypocrisy, ALL forms of gay rights even though the institution of the church contains many adult innocent homosexual priests within it.  It did nothing about the TRUE crimes it perpetrated and would still be doing nothing, hiding in the dark to this day if not for the press blowing the scandal sky high to see the light of day.

 

The church could finally, now, have an opportunity to remake itself, ultimately reopen churches to their faithful and in so doing fill its coffers with the gold it lost.  I am sure, however, it will not remake much.

 

I submit the Pope is NOT too pooped although the church will surely take advantage of his age in its explanation of his resignation.   No, I suspect the Pope is NOT too pooped but rather has soaked his own hands in blood by the acquiescence of his Church’s own sexual abuse of children.  This damn spot, like Lady Macbeth's, cannot be washed out.  

 

 

Block the Block

This appeared on Huffington in response to the article stating Graham of S. Carolina to block two top Obama pics for Sec. of Defense and CIA -- Hagel and Brennan respectively, two eminently qualified men.  This person hit the nail on the proverbial head and did it more succinctly than I!  Both of us are adamantly committed to Republicans losing their shirt in 2014!  I cannot wait.  

“Benghaziism and Birtherism."

Both words begin with "B" and end in unceasing GOPTea shenanigans.

How many times must President Obama publish his Hawaiian Birth Certificate to no avail?

How many meetings must Senators have over Benghazi, culminating in that stellar meeting with former Sec. of State and future President Hillary Clinton, before they’ll believe the facts?

But the GOPTea has anathema to FACTS. Their 24/7 propaganda Fox-machine eschews them and pays pundits to ignore polls and believe instead their own faux-polling that predicts Romney landslides (although one of the Fox pundits was lately let go, hello.)

If the GOPTea had actually done ANYTHING for our country and the American people since 2008 I might listen to what they had to say. But they’ve done NOTHING except obstruct and filibuster year after year all legislation and cabinet and judicial appointments.

The MAJORITY of Americans want to move FORWARD. The MAJORITY of Americans voted TWICE for President Obama, giving him more than 51% of the popular vote, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since Eisenhower. We the people want President Obama’s agenda and appointees. But the GOPTea is deaf to the will of we the people that pay them and keep paying them to do nothingfor our country or us.

The 2014 elections cannot come fast enough and they will not be a repeat of 2010. They will mark an even greater victory for Democrats than 2012. Count on it, Senator Graham.”

Graham Cracker Block

Huff Post Headline:  Lindsey Graham Plans To Block Chuck Hagel, John Brennan To Get Answers On Benghazi (VIDEO) -- link below.

These Republicans are simply just bastards.  Forgive the profanity but that is the ONLY epithet I can manage to use to aptly describe them.  They are utterly sickening racist slime. The president could say he is giving everyone a box of chocolates with his own money and the Lindsey Grahams of the RepublicRAT Party would call for his overthrow.

I wonder if Graham opposed Brennan when Brennan was in the Bush administration.  I suspect he did not.  It simply makes Democrats all the more FURIOUS and all the more determined to give them a FINAL electoral smashing in 2014.

We are waiting patiently as justice WILL work its magic.  We WILL take back the House, secure the Senate even more and, of course, the executive is ours to kick sand in their ugly faces.  Hopefully, the presidency will be in our hands beyond 2016as the president will pass his baton to the next Democrat (hoping for Hillary.)  They are DESPICABLE!

WHY WE MUST BE DETERMINED TO WIN IT ALL.  

ONWARD TO 2014!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/10/lindsey-graham-chuck-hagel_n_2657802.html#comments

Science Rules -- A Raging Planet

I feel bad for NYC and Staten Island.  It is deja vu all over again for them as it seems like Hurricane Sandy is repeating itself if that is possible.  Extend that through Boston on to Portland, Maine and beyond, the inconvenient truth that Al Gore talked about in his famous presentation, is coming truer beyond anyone's predication that it would so soon. 

 

I am a science worshiper and kneel at its alter.  Either you believe in science or you don't and why one would not staggers the rational mind at the ignorance that is reflected in so much of our population.

 

Science rules.  Its truth as reflected in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics cannot be denied. Science is NOT faith because it is provable and repeatable.  Climate change is accepted by at least 98% (or more now) of the best scientists and I believe them!

 

When one considers collectively ALL the disasters in recent time it shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Al Gore knew what he was talking about when he produced "An Inconvenient Truth."  He knew it was true because he was talking TO scientists.  As far back as the 1970's he with the scientists that influenced him could see the remarkable change in weather patterns in coincidence with the Industrial Age and its burning of filthy fossil fuels that polluted the atmosphere, dramatically increased global warming that produces the explosive weather events we are now experiencing.  An increase in temperature from the burning of fossil fuels and its deadly pollutive influence on the earth's atmosphere are robbing us of billions, ruining our beautiful planet and ultimately will, I fear, kill us all.

 

The floods, the fires, the intense hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, droughts, crushing record breaking heat in the summer, tornadoes, mud slides from saturating rain and now the snow hurricanes in winter are more than enough to prove the point. Al Gore's inconvenient truth was 100% correct but this country does little to ameliorate the effects of its massive contribution to climate change. 

 

Instead of fixing infrastructure, the national electric grid, burying electric and telephone lines, developing alternative energies of wind and solar we have IDIOTS wanting a dastardly uber dirty pipe line dug from Canada to Louisiana to feed the pig's insatiable appetite for more filthy polluting oil. The pipeline will carry one of the world's dirtiest fuels tar sands oil warming the planet further.  Why attempt to fix climate change for generations to come when we can spend trillions on trumped up wars to feed the military industrial complex beast and kill a lot of people in the process?

 

In addition, we now proudly can attest this country has more natural gas to be gleaned from fracking shale than Saudi Arabia has oil.  The corporatists say it will make us energy self sufficient.  The problem is we will not live to tell this dirty story.  The innocent, duped by the corporations that frack their land, try to drink the fire water from their taps lit up by chemicals used to frack that gas out of the earth sickening them with cancer and other insufferable diseases that fracking causes.  

 

Moreover, superstitious, ridiculous and extreme religious wackoism will kill us all through the ignorance it spreads.  This country could lead the way BUT it must destroy the power of the stupids that occupy a large part of the Republican political spectrum.

 

The earth is NOT flat, a god's will does NOT cause disease but bacteria, viruses and DNA do. Evolution is truth and it should not be debated with those who want to believe in comforting fairy tale myths of sky gods, seas parting, virgins giving birth and men rising from the dead.   

 

Moses played by Charlton Heston in the absurd film "The Ten Commandments" did get one thing right however.  He said "If man does not live by the law he will die by the law." It is, though, the law of science and not man's law that has the last word.  There is NO question now that we are living on a raging planet and that the planet's explosive weather is due to one animal -- MAN.  If he does not obey the laws of science he WILL die by its laws that will sentence him to extinction sooner than he ever thought possible.