An Unenviable Life

• 
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  Ex-CIA chief will be sentenced for leaking military secrets - AOL.com

  CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Former CIA Director David...
  
  
  

  It is beyond my imagination how a man in David Petraeus's position could have such lapses in ethical judgement and not think about the security of a position that impacts national security as much as his did. No matter how lightly he got off his reputation is permanently besmirched and his career in government over.
  
  Why he did not monitor his every movement, every message sent, every memo written, every person with whom he associated and place the mountain of classified and unclassified information he possessed under uber secure lock and key I will never know.
  
  It boggles the mind and is more than worrisome that there are others who treat their positions that mean life and death for us all so cavalierly. Shame on anyone who occupies high positions of national and international power caught with their pants literally down especially in our time of global upheaval.
  
  Is it so difficult to say no to urges that are better left to when they are not employed in sensitive national security positions?  They deserve the punishment they get despite the sadness I feel for men (and women too) who ruin an otherwise enviable life!

Health for Sale -- The Wizard of Oz in the Crosshairs

Dr. Mehmet Oz is being pilloried by some physicians for his advocacy programming which they think is often filled with unproven junk science and are calling for Columbia University to take him off its medical staff.  I link the Huffington Post article here and below.

 

I do not have a strong opinion on GMO food, one of the subjects of the doctors' objections to Dr. Oz programming but I do have strong opinions on transparency and scientific testing of products especially food and pharmaceuticals that one ingests into one's body.  I am for strict governmental regulatory transparency of the testing of them.

 

Dr. Oz claims his positions fall into the "free speech" category and he will continue to broadcast them.  I think free speech is not the issue since it is not the government limiting his constitutionally protected free speech but it is the demand by certain physicians that he cease advocacy for those things that are not proven scientifically efficacious through the replication of rigorous scientific testing and methodology. 

 

Free speech is a ruse.  No one is limiting Dr. Oz’s freedom to speak.  He may say anything he wants but when one is allegedly a man of science one cannot say the earth is flat.  In other words, one cannot say and should not say a certain pharmaceutical therapy is a magic bullet, for example, for weight loss when it has not been studied sufficiently or even studied at all.  It is NOT his free speech right which is at issue but his touting of alleged "cures" for ailments the study of which does not meet the strict standards of scientific testing.  Dr. Oz’s fountain of valid scientific information first aired on the Oprah show eventually, in my opinion, devolved often into junk science. 

 

Our fast food nation wants a fast working magic pill and cure for everything especially for weight loss.  They do NOT want to do the hard work and diligence required to lose weight. There is no substitution in pill form that will do what calorie cutting and exercise will but, admittedly, it is hard to perfect and many fail.  

 

When one touts this pill or that as a magic bullet which has not been proven as such it becomes a charlatan’s lie that makes the purveyors of them very very rich and the buyers of them poorer.  Those who often cannot afford it but are star struck by fame and cult of personality will spend money they do not have on products that do not work.  I believe Dr. Oz devolved from his first excellent shows on Oprah into a technologically glitzed up version of the snake oil salesmen of yore who alleged that his tonic would be a cure all for everything but when analyzed was, in truth, only alcohol which cured nothing but surely did make people feel no pain.

 

Until Dr. Oz provides rigorous solid scientific study and proof for the pharmacological treatments for which he advocates or the positions he takes he loses me.  In fact, he lost me a long time ago.  It is no accident that the preponderance of his viewers are women and gullible ones at that because after all a famous, charismatic medical man must know it all and save them. 

 

I say to his viewers and to Oprah enthusiasts too:  QUESTION EVERYTHING because EVERYTHING in this nation is for sale!

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/21/media/dr-mehmet-oz-accusations/index.html

The Democratic Party is the ONLY Party that regulates.  2016 is the last chance cafe to switch the leadership of this nation from the 1% to the rest of us.  VOTE!

US Intelligence on Iraq WMD -- counter to NYT's Judith Miller -- Sleeping for Eternity

The press like the NYT reporter Judith Miller reporting on the Iraq War in 2003 was complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of both US and Iraqis human beings  (The estimate of Iraqi deaths is hard to address.  It is no doubt in the hundreds of thousands), the wounding of many more and the displacing of millions.  ISIS, ISIL, Al Qaeda and other radical groups exist now all over the Middle East where they never existed before destabilizing it by creating a region dissolved in utter dehumanizing chaos. 

This mayhem can and should be laid at George W. Bush's, Cheney's and their NeoCon henchmen's feet.  It was through their lies, cheer-leading for and cherry-picking of evidence for the Iraq War that this is so.  The Middle East is in deep trouble and our nation may be as well.  The disintegrating of former Middle East states such as Yemen, Syria, and Libya through US policy made the reality of the Arab Spring we see before our very eyes. 

Do the former policy makers sleep well at night?  I bet they do but those who have volunteered and have been called upon to fight the phony trumped up wars pay for them dearly and do not sleep well if they sleep at all unless they sleep for eternity very well indeed.

Those who perpetrated the egregious Iraq War policy need to be held accountable.  They should not be allowed to get away with literally murder and those journalists like Judith Miller who failed to ask the proper questions should pay with their jobs -- they shouldn't have them.

I post the following Factcheck.org that addresses the issues that Judith Miller did not address very well.  She and all those who supported the Iraq war must live with the consequential deaths they have delivered and decide, if they care at all, how to live with the catastrophes they have wrought. 

Factcheck.org

"One senator, Bob Graham of Florida, then chairman of the intelligence committee, has said that reading the full, classified 2002 NIE led him to vote against the war resolution. He had urged his colleagues to read the entire 92-page classified report prior to the vote. Graham said in a National Public Radio interview in June 2007 that he found the report to be "pocked with dissent, conditions, [and] minority opinions on a variety of critical issues."

Graham was one of the few who disbelieved the report’s conclusions, however. And it’s not at all clear that more lawmakers would have doubted it had they read the full report. The unclassified portions do make clear that not all intelligence agencies agreed on all points. The Department of Energy’s technical experts didn’t agree that some aluminum tubes bought by Iraq were for use in uranium-enriching centrifuges, saying they were more likely for use as rocket launchers. And the State Department’s intelligence experts said they saw no "compelling case" that Iraq had an "integrated and comprehensive" program to get nuclear weapons.

"Washington Post: No more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page National Intelligence Estimate executive summary, according to several congressional aides responsible for safeguarding the classified material."

In 2007 the Washington, D.C., newspaper The Hill surveyed current and former senators and reported that 22 of those who were serving in 2002 sent word they had read the full report. Since it would be embarrassing now to admit not reading it before voting on such an important matter, we suspect that number is inflated. But whether the true number is six or 22, it’s clear that only a small minority of the 100-member Senate read this important intelligence summary in full.

–Brooks Jackson

Sources

Director of National Intelligence. "Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction," National Intelligence Estimate October 2002. portions declassified, 18 July 2003.

Priest,  Dana. "Congressional Oversight of Intelligence Criticized; Committee Members, Others Cite Lack of Attention to Reports on Iraqi Arms, Al Qaeda Threat." Washington Post, 27 April 2004.

TPP a consumer nighmare!

A relative of mine is livid about the latest important trade legislation on TPP pasted below.  It is supported incredulously to me by the president and REPUBLICANS.  Elizabeth Warren is livid as I am sure is Bernie Sanders.  I believe the critics of this bill and you should read what it does then write the White House, the Senate and Congress to NOT pass this bill.  It needs thorough vetting!  KNOW what your legislators are doing sometimes behind our backs!

Congress Introduces Fast Track Legislation to Help Enact Anti-Consumer Trade Bills

Congress Introduces Fast Track Legislation to Help Enact Anti-Consumer Trade Bills

by Stephen Lendman

Congressional passage of so-called "trade promotion authority" (TPA) will let Obama expedite the legislative process for pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) bills.

The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (TPA 2015) lets Obama and his trade representative, complicit with corporate predators, rush through Congress, with minimal hearings and no amendments, legislation global justice advocates call NAFTA on steroids.

TPP and TTIP are trade bills from hell. They're stealth corporate coup d'etats.

They're giveaways to banksters and other corporate predators. They're freedom and ecosystem-destroying nightmares.

They're secretive, multi-national trade deals giving monied interests more power than ever at the expense of personal freedom for consumers and environmental sanity.

They're ripoffs on the grandest scale. They'll establish unrestricted supranational global trade rules. 

Corporate giants wrote them. Their demands will override domestic laws.

They'll trample on national sovereignty, privacy and personal freedoms.

They'll permit unrestricted trade in goods, services, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers, government procurement and competition policies, and intellectual property (IP).

IP includes copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related considerations. 

One-sided pro-business structuring harms popular rights. At stake is a free and open Internet, its global infrastructure, and worldwide innovation under level playing field rules.

Power brokers want secretive provisions established with no public knowledge of their destructive harm.

TPP and TTIP rewrite global IP enforcement rules. They include numerous other anti-populist provisions.

They override national sovereignty. They prioritize investor rights over public ones.

Obama lied saying:

"The bill put forward today would help us write (trade) rules in a way that avoids the mistakes from our past, seizes opportunities for our future, and stays true to our values."

"It would level the playing field, give our workers a fair shot, and for the first time, include strong fully enforceable protections for workers’ rights, the environment, and a free and open internet."

Fact: Trade rules Obama advocates are polar opposite what he claims. They'll benefit monied interests at the expense of all others.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) calls fast track legislation a way to "legitimize White House secrecy and clear the way for (anti-consumer) trade deals."

They impose restrictive digital regulations. They create a new Chief Transparency Officer - a likely corporate official with authority to:

"consult with Congress on transparency policy, coordinate transparency in trade negotiations, engage and assist the public, and advise the United States Trade Representative on transparency policy."

Given existing strict confidentiality rules (and greater than ever corporate empowerment on trade), nothing meaningful will be done to improve transparency.

As things now stand, fast track text language will be made public 60 days before signed if passed.

According to EFF, it doesn't matter. "(T)he text is already locked down from any further amendments."

Fast track "t(ies) the hands of Congress so that it is unable to give meaningful input into the agreement during its drafting, or to thoroughly review the agreement once it is completed."

It can only vote up or down with no changes. Most troubling is what's excluded from negotiating objectives.

Nothing requires "balance in copyright, such as the fair use right," says EFF.

"(I)f a country's adoption of a fair use style right causes loss to a foreign investor, it could even be challenged as a breach of the agreement…"

"(W)e do not see anything in this bill that would truly remedy the secretive, undemocratic process of trade agreements," EFF stresses.

Fast track will likely be voted on next week. Passage "would legitimize the White House's corporate-captured, backroom (secretive, anti-consumer) trade negotiations."

Lori Wallach heads Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch (GTW). Fast track authority "delegate(s) away Congress' constitutional authority and (grants) blank-check (presidential) power," she explains.

Fast track "would make it easier for corporations to offshore American jobs, would undermine our wages by forcing Americans to compete with Vietnamese workers making less than 60 cents an hour and would expose our consumer and environmental safeguards to attack by foreign corporations in extra-judicial tribunals" - run by corporate predators.

Congress is being asked to yield its constitutional trade authority to diktat presidential power.

Congress permitted fast track for only 5 of the past 21 years - 2002-2007.

It remains to be seen if it'll authorize what demands rejection - what hugely benefits America's 1% at the expense of all others.

Heaven's Gate--A Mattered Life

I loved Yvonne Abraham's April 16 editorial in the Boston Globe: "Why Odin Lloyd's life matters" linked here or below. What is to be said about a nation that puts money and fame far beyond anything else? It is who we are and because of it one gets the Patriots' star Aaron Hernandez spectacle for days. In truth Hernandez should get none of our attention but I will admit to the frailty of being glued to a sensationalist story. Worse, I spent much of the evening of the verdict not simply talking about it but thinking about it. I could not get Aaron Hernandez out of my mind but not why one might think.

I weep. I weep for all the Hernandezes who live a life filled with dastardly deeds. I weep not for Aaron Hernandez per se but I weep for life itself and its many filled with gifted potential wasted. 

Hernandez, with his fame, money and inordinate talent could have helped those who needed his help. He could have made trips to Boston Children's Hospital or to any hospital visiting with kids who were not so lucky to have been bestowed the gifts that Hernandez was given. He could have made a difference and meant something to those who needed something. He could have served as an example not only to those children but to his own daughter the affections of whom he has squandered. What a shame it is indeed. His life could have been so good and less fortunate people could have reaped so much from it.

For a short time we are given a gift to see life's beauty. This gift was wasted on Aaron Hernandez and thousands more like he who sit in jails to decompose. He should have thanked fate that he was blessed to view heaven's gate and could have used those blessings for the collective good.

It is Odin Lloyd's misfortune to have tripped over a curse that was Hernandez. In the end I will think of Odin Lloyd and his mother. If his mother is an example of who Odin Lloyd was then he must have been a very nice man indeed! We should and I will in time forget Aaron Hernandez and, in the end, I hope to remember longer the mattered life he so chillingly and malevolently took.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/04/15/why-odin-lloyd-black-life-matters/gC3G5uWMhVHDBMdEZ6wPKP/story.html#comments

Freedom FROM Religion--the Unfathomable Consequences of a Religious State

Last evening I watched a PBS Frontline’s broadcast entitled “The Fight for Yemen.” I post it here or below for your interest.

The most alarming battle for Yemen to me is the utter hopelessness of it all as the north and the south fracture into never-ending obliterating sectarian war while the heretofore government leadership of Yemen flees to Saudi Arabia. Houthis (pronounced H-O-U-T-E-E-S) (mostly Shia), Al Qaeda (mostly Sunni) and ISIS too battle for control of a nation strategically important to the US and its Sunni ally Saudi Arabia as well. Even the Saudis are bombing Houthis in Yemen. Much of the Middle East from Syria in the north to Yemen in the south is fractured by sectarian religious violence for power and control. Innocent people, naturally, are caught in the middle of the mind numbing chaos where hundreds have died and hundreds more will die as the chaotic anarchy, nearly impossible to quell, will go on unresolved. Will all the violence end in the establishment of stable nation states for those whose misfortune it is to have been born into a religiously fractured world? I suspect the answer to that for now certainly is no.

"Death to America," "Death to Israel" and "Death to the Jews" is the cacophonous refrain one hears over and over and over again in Yemen. There is, of course, no possibility of negotiation because disputes among religious fanatics in the extreme are impossible to negotiate. Destruction is everywhere.
 
The know-nothing George W. Bush and his allies for a “New American Century” began a war in Iraq that has been responsible for the destabilization of the Middle East region and the rekindling of a centuries-old religious split between Shia and Sunni Muslims for control of the Islamic world.

Islam is not the only faith where religious extremism abides . There is plenty to go around among orthodox, ultra-orthodox Jews and the mind numbing fanaticism of Fundamentalist Christianity especially within the Republican Party in our own nation.

The purpose of my thoughts now, though, is not illuminating the alliances in the fight for Yemen although one would do well to watch the Frontline broadcast of it but to post my views concerning the dangerous wedding of church and state around the globe.
 
I had the pleasure several days ago to hear an ad for a group which Ron Reagan, Jr. began. The group is entitled “Freedom FROM Religion” and it can be found at the link here or below. I support Ron Reagan, Jr. in his effort to maintain the separation of church and state. I only wish the father had been more like the son.

Fanatical religious adherence marrying religion and state no matter to which religion its adherents belong is a deep threat to all of us who value civil liberties, free speech questioning and progressive policies honed over decades which help so many.

The Republican Party especially wants to tie our nation to fundamentalist Christianity something our Founders would have thought abhorrent. It is exactly what they did NOT want because they saw in Europe the violence religion tied to the state created. I believe religious fanaticism is the greatest threat not only to our nation but to the entire globe as many join policy loaded with religious superstition and myth to the state while rejecting the truth that only science and academic inquiry can bestow. The offspring of this wedding is a hateful and murderous child.

What religious fanatics want is chilling as they try to reverse progress honed over centuries that accepts the facts of science and learns fanatical religious belief is factually fallacious. Subscription to fanatical religious beliefs and commanding others to believe them affects all of us whether through the denial of human rights to minorities to the denial of climate change and the biological truth of evolution. It retards man’s growth.

Religious fanatics, violent and extreme, want Armageddon and an existential clash of civilizations. If we are not vigilant against this cancer that is exactly what we will get. Freedom FROM religion is what we need because its opposite carries with it the unfathomable consequences of a religious state.

http://video.pbs.org/program/frontline/

http://ffrf.org/

Sushi Anyone?

The Huffington front page headline and articles below my thoughts make my head explode.  Is there anything, even the president proclaiming an executive observation that it is a sunny day, this man's racist, vile, obstructionist, nullifying Congress and many of their sidecar electorate will not oppose?  His graying hair and aging countenance tell the story of a man who has experienced enhanced interrogation techniques.  My head may explode but my heart breaks.

To enhance what it means not to ratify the pending crafted with blood, sweat and tears, historic nuclear treaty with Iran I post the Youtube below my thoughts.  I urge you to send this to anyone you choose lest they forget what the word nuclear truly means. 

Most of our information self-deprived electorate have, I would guess, no idea of the essence of nuclear war.  If one asked the man/woman on the street what Hiroshima and Nagasaki were I would not be surprised if they said a new type of Sushi.  The link is here or below my thoughts.  It will bring them up to speed.  This is what the nuclear agreement with Iran is all about and this is what the know nothings do not understand when they moronically say about the Middle East "nuke em." Congress will sow the wind and reap the whirlwind bestowing it upon your children if they override the president.  I urge you to watch it in its entirety then call your Congresspersons and tell them to ratify the nuclear treaty with Iran if civilization matters to you at all! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwkyPvlWPM0
                   

                                        HARD SELL

Obama: Sanctions Could Be Reimposed If Deal Broken...
Congress Nears Veto Override... Schumer Bucks White House... Wrong About Iraq, Wrong About Iran...

A Little Holy Humor--VERY CLEVER!!

During these serious and troubled times, people of all faiths should remember these four great religious truths:
1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's Chosen People.
2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world.
4. Baptists do not recognize each other at the liquor store.

GOOD SAMARITAN A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan. She asked the class,  "If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do? "A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, "I think I'd throw up."

DID NOAH FISH? A Sunday school teacher asked, "Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark ?" "No," replied Johnny. "How could he, with just two worms."

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD  A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible - Psalm 23.  She gave the youngsters a month to learn the chapter. Little Rick was excited about the task - but he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Ricky was so nervous.   When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, "The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know."

UNANSWERED PRAYER The preacher's 5 year-old daughter noticed that her father always paused and bowed his head for a moment before starting his sermon. One day, she asked him why. "Well, Honey," he began, proud that his daughter was so observant of his messages. "I'm asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon." "How come He doesn't answer it?" she asked.

BEING THANKFUL  A Rabbi said to a precocious six-year-old boy, "So your mother says your prayers for you each night? That's very commendable. What does she say?"   The little boy replied, "Thank God he's in bed!"

ALL MEN / ALL GIRLS When my daughter, Kelli, said her bedtime prayers, she would bless every family member, every friend, and every animal (current and past). For several weeks, after we had finished the nightly prayer, Kelli would say, "And all girls. "This soon became part of her nightly routine, to include this closing. My curiosity finally got the best of me and I asked her, "Kelli, why do you always add the part about all girls? "Her response, "Because everybody always finish their prayers by saying 'All Men'!"

SAY A PRAYER Little Johnny and his family were having Sunday dinner at his Grandmother's house.  Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served.  When Little Johnny received his plate, he started eating right away.  "Johnny! Please wait until we say our prayer." said his mother. “I don't need to," the boy replied. "Of course, you do" his mother insisted. "We always say a prayer before eating at our house." "That's at our house." Johnny explained. "But this is Grandma's house and she knows how to cook."

THE BIBLE  Did you know that... When you carry the Bible, Satan has a headache. When you open it, he collapses. When he sees you are reading it, he faints. Let's read the Bible every day so he keeps on fainting. Maybe one day he'll have a stroke and never wake up.  And did you also know that when you are about to forward this email to others the devil will discourage you, but forward it anyway.

Historic Agreement -- I have Met the Enemy

I have tears rolling down my cheeks. Finally, finally our president is getting credit for what he can do. See link here or below.  One can only imagine how this nation could have economically returned even more strongly then it has if we did not have an enemy -- the nearly all white racist Republican Party, whose power is by, for and of white men dedicated from day one to the destruction of the first African American man in the oval office.

Let's see how far the Republican Party will go to defeat this third world nuclear war avoidance eminently historic agreement with Iran whose forgers are worthy of a Nobel Peace prize. So far the obstructionist nullifying Republican Party has been somewhat silent. It must mean the agreement Obama and Secretary Kerry so diligently forged is so good even they are muted. We'll see for how long.

If Republicans block the president on this, work for and expect the resounding defeat of this poisonous Party in 2016. "I have met the enemy and it is us." Illustrator Walt Kelly, in the 1960s and referred to the turmoil caused by the Vietnam War.

 PEACEPREZ

THE MAN WHO MAY HAVE STOPPED A WAR... 'Practical Peacemaker'... 'A Way To Be Worthy Of The Nobel Peace Prize'... Obama Gets His Breakthrough...

Deal Of A Lifetime... 'Astonishingly Good'... Iran To Shut Down 12,000+ Centrifuges... Enriched Uranium Cut By 97%... Enrichment Sites Turned Into Research Centers... Iranians Rejoice: 'This Will Bring Hope To Our Life'... How The Deal Happened.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Pensive

The attempt by Republican Governor Mike Pence of Indiana to eradicate a group's civil libertarian rights through the passage of the so called "Religious Freedom Act" which he signed into law fooled few. Who in this nation is denied the ability to believe as one chooses? No one is denied that right. Those believers do not, however, have the right to use their religious belief as a projectile aimed at denying human rights to others. Those attempts by Republicans at returning to another era of Jim Crow, outlawed by the Court decades ago, show us how important elections are. Elections matter as black lives matter, as Hispanic lives matter, as women's lives matter and as homosexual's lives matter. Mike Pence stammering no answer answer during the ABC interview by George Stephanopoulos proved he could not tell the truth. It was a simple question Stephanopoulous posed: Is the Indiana Religious Freedom Law aimed at allowing businesses to discriminate against homosexuals? He could not answer except with political gobbledygook because the simple answer is, of course, yes!

Those of us who bathe in the glow of so many civil liberties wins are knocked back on our heels again by the hammer of tyranny’s reality. The religious liberty laws are the latest back door tool of choice for religious zealots across the nation as the Court soon may allow, one hopes, the ability of everyone to marry if they choose. The hateful Republican Party with its large composition of religious crack pots is now drunk with power. Gerrymandered districts in combination with Democrats, progressives, minorities and the young not voting in off-year elections have placed many state houses and even the Congress in the treacherous unyielding rightwing extremist and obstructionist grasp. This should serve as a lesson. When progressives, Democrats, liberals and other allies who are the majority do not vote it allows the usurpation of power by a minority of Republican right wing radicals who not only do not care for the hard fought for rights of those in this nation who once had no rights but, in fact, want to roll those rights back.

We are heartened by those legions of corporations and individuals who are making Mr. Pence’s job, as he says, very difficult and laud them for supporting the rights of minorities to own the same rights that the majority has taken for granted. Big business Walmart and small business enterprises deserve praise and support when they help all of us defeat injustice. Signs in businesses saying “We serve everyone” give me hope. We should support businesses and states that support human rights and boycott those which do not.

Science and the truth it delivers after centuries of evolving study cannot be denied. The Bible was wrong when it thought the earth was the center of the universe, wrong when it thought disease was brought on by a god’s wrath and it is just as wrong when it ostracizes or stones to death, through Deuteronomy’s ignorance, those whose affectational preference is DNA determined. The Bible knew nothing about astronomy, nothing of the archeologically discovered truths of man's evolutionary origin and certainly knew nothing about DNA. Whether it is the absolute truth of evolution or the truth of what the physicians of the American Psychiatric Association have determined that homosexuality is normal for those who feel it, ancient beliefs are shredded because they are based upon superstition and myth instead of science-based fact.

Most who label themselves LGBT know that their affectational preference began well before they even had a conceptualization of society's dastardly ostracism and punishment for it. Governor Pence and the ridiculous minions at his side during the signing of the Religious Freedom bill are consummately wrong. Homosexuality when it occurs is woven into a plethora of one’s genetic code as tightly as the genes that determine the color of one’s eyes. Shame on Governor Pence for showing no pensive thought before he signed the ignorant “Religious Freedom” bill, shame on Indiana for electing medieval monstrosities and shame on our nation if it does not bestow on one minority the ability to enjoy the same rights as everyone else.

Polio and killing cancer

FABULOUS SIXTY MINUTES PROGRAMMING linked here or below. If you did not see it you can get it online.  I loved it and thought it was so interesting. For those of us who feel that polio struck us but now it's gone and to see a use for this monstrosity virus to actually help possibly cure the emperor of all maladies as Siddhartha Mukerjee's book calls it is so inspiring to me.

Polio of all viruses that produced so much suffering in the 1950's and now even elsewhere in the world that there actually is a use for it makes me feel it was not in vain. Wonderful inspiring episode of 60 Minutes. 

http://cbsn.ws/1HecRCQ

On another note:

HBO tonight has Ken Burns's PBS documentary on the history of cancer treatment based on Sidarthartha Mukerjee's book.  I bought Siddhartha Mukerjee's "Emperor of All Maladies -- a Biography of Cancer" book awhile ago and it is brilliant.  Series is I think three or four episodes.

The Moral Center Compass

Prime Minister Netanyahu's clarifying intractability against a two state solution between Palestinians and the Jewish state showed clearly to me what his minions of the ultra-orthodox, orthodox, and one-state advocates are all about. In short, they are not about me. Netanyahu's bait-and-switch selling and his racist warnings of "Arabs voting in droves" on the day of his election finally gave me permission to reject what in my heart I knew was immoral and wrong.

His political expedience and the orgasmic Republican delight hearing his speech along with his ugly racist words on the eve of his election Netanyahu forced me and many other Jews I know to turn our backs on his version of Israeli non-peace with the Palestinian people. When some Republicans with their sidecar of a Fox News echo chamber opined in minor key mourning that they wished Netanyahu were our president it made my stomach turn. I then reversed my political course.

Now, finally, I could without guilt commit to a two state policy that I know in my heart is morally right. It is easy now to reject the barbarism of what was done in places like Gaza and in the West Bank bulldozing settlements. No longer am I compelled to make rationalizations and excuses for the inexcusable. No longer do I have the angel of guilt sitting on my shoulder commanding me to look the other way lest Israel suffer an existential life or death fate. I have had talks with several Jewish friends agreeing with me that Netanyahu's political expediency gave us a permission slip for what we wanted to do all along and what we felt guilty about doing at any other time – waxing critical of the State of Israel.

How dare Mr. Netanyahu kick dirt in the face of my president and how dare he threaten the nuclear ever-so-important talks between the US and Iran. I am old enough to ask if there is no peace now when will there be peace and will I ever be around to see it?

In truth, I still worry about both orthodox fanatical Judaism and I surely worry about those Palestinians who, too, will remain uncompromising and extreme. I do not want Jews to commit suicide BUT I cannot account for every crack in the building of an edifice of peace. I must account for my own humanitarian views and promulgate them no matter what the what ifs are as I can only account for myself. The only power I have is my written and oral word BUT I can, through our vast technological devices, be an advocate for humane policies with empathy toward those who have little hope.

I may not know what it is like not to have the kind of hope that Palestinians do not have but I know what it is like when life takes a sour turn and the lack of hope seems to be one's constant companion. I am an empathetic human being first and I cannot stand to see the innocent bludgeoned. Thank you, Mr. Netanyahu, for showing me a return to the moral center compass of a path I honed many decades ago!

2016 Showpiece Budget

The below so called "budget vote" has NO force in law. It is merely a showpiece for Republicans who want to run for president and is why I say REJECT wholeheartedly any 2016 Republicon attempt at the presidency. They are NOT about 98% of you.

I almost threw up at the headline BUT reading it further it was just for show. Whew I breathed a sigh of relief. The president would never sign it as long as HE or another Democrat occupies the presidency. REMEMBER THAT!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/senate-budget-vote-republic…

Senate Passes GOP Budget After Late-Night Debate

WASHINGTON -- The Senate early Friday passed a Republican budget plan that would cut spending by $5.1 trillion over 10 years, raise military funding and repeal Obamacare. The non-binding budget, debated all week and passed 52-46...

huffingtonpost.com

Brain Bleed

If you care to see how utterly mind blowing the Middle East is with the US and its taxpayers, conservatives say they care so much about, in the middle of the mess I created a simplified picture of sorts explaining alliances that exist today as yet another former ally, Yemen, falls. I entitle it "What Bush has Wrought."

The first thing you must know is that before the Iraq invasion by Bush and his neo Con Project for a New American Century "geniuses," the Middle East, in large part, was a compilation of states controlled by strong men in the form often of military dictatorships like Sadam Hussein's Iraq. No, it was not a Jeffersonian Democracy in that neck of the tinderbox woods but it did keep the lid at least partially on. Now the lid is off.  Yes, students, Democracy is not for everyone.  5000 American deaths later, tens of thousands wounded and a tab of 4 trillion and counting into perpetuity says that is so. It is your tax dollar at work!

The US pounced on Iraq based on the lies of WMD that Iraq did not possess and made "shock and awe" war on country that did nothing to the US.  It did not matter as preemptive-war Bush created his brand new American rationale for war -- strike anyone no matter who before they strike you and do not worry about who attacked whom first or what WMD they allegedly possessed and surely do not worry about telling the truth. War is very good for business doncha know.

"We got him" referring to Sadam Hussein said the proud bloviating Bush as this less-than-brilliant (I say charitably) president donned the flight suit equipped with his outlined manly genitalia, marched onto the USS Lincoln and proclaimed "Mission Accomplished." 

This is what he accomplished -- explosive anarchy in a region where the Bush NeoCon geniuses did not evidently realize that sectarian rift between Shia and Sunni ruled the day and often erupted into sectarian war with each other.  Throw ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and many other violent groups that were NEVER in Iraq until after the US invasion into the mix and one gets a witches' brew of Shakespearean proportion. 

Thirteen years later -- yes, THIRTEEN years later -- mission is as far from accomplished as god allegedly was not on the first day of Biblical mythical creation. In few words it is a Middle East mess that the US created waging a war on Iraq and blowing the region up in "shock and awe" war based on WMD lies. The Bush regime blew up a tinder box region and like a bull in a china shop broke up nearly every blessed state on the Middle East map in the process. Humpty Dumpty is broken never to be repaired in the foreseeable future IF ever! So here, in short (very short) form is how it sorts out just so you will know when world war breaks out.

I had to actually make myself a chart of sorts to figure out the alliances between Iran, Iraq, and ISIS, etc. now that Yemen, important US ally, is falling.  Saudi Arabia is stepping in to try to save Yemen. The US is supporting Saudi Arabia (Sunnis) that began airstrikes against Houthi (Shias) rebels in Yemen.  But (and here is the crucial point) the US is supporting Iran/Shias in Iraq against ISIS, ISIL, Al Qaeda and AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.)  Salt and pepper in Syria which experts say is the road that leads to all of it and my brain begins to bleed. 

The Bush invasion began the break up into sectarian violence of Iraq handing Iran the key to Iraq and exploding the region.  Other states followed in the so called Arab Spring with revolts of Tunisia and Egypt with its eventual military ousting an elected Morsi who is now in jail.  Last I looked Al-Sisi ruled Egypt -- key -- last I looked.

Who in the US is going to try to figure this out? Few so the US policy maker men of sterling intellect can throw any damn thing they want as a rationale for permanent war and most of the American electorate will buy it because they haven't a clue about the region and worse are not even curious.

Ah, for the good old days of Spy vs. Spy anti Communism when things were simpler.  Of course, this leads me to my next thought of the Ukrainian Russian v. US mess too not to mention the Palestinian/Israeli insanity and the stage is set.  Is the world inching to WWIII with Pakistan, Israel, Russia and US nukes?  I do not know.  I have to go back to bed and hide as my brain is still bleeding from all of it.


Yes, electing Republicans is such a good idea -- NOT

News flash: Just heard the Germanwings plane was brought down deliberately by the co-pilot. Yes, God help us all!

If you want to know the whole truth with no commercial slant as is characteristic of the mainstream news, click on the link here or below from "Democracy Now."  It will talk about, as you scroll down, what the true situation in Iraq and the Middle East now is.

One word aptly describes what Bush's invasion of Iraq 13 years ago has wrought -- a MESS.  It unleashed an unlivable horror of sectarian revolts and the overthrow of stability -- tyrannical yes but mostly stable regimes nonetheless.  Hundreds of thousands in this violent and fragile part of the world have been slaughtered with millions of refugees among them and, including Afghanistan, about 8 thousand Americans more than the number of dead on 9/11 and still counting as war against vicious brutal ISIS never before in Iraq until Bush invaded is ongoing.

If you are tired of negative reports then I say that's too bad because it is your life, your children's lives and succeeding generations' lives that are at stake.  The Iraq War 13 years ago hardly ushered in the paradise of Jeffersonian democracy and a "New American Century" that Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle and his war criminal henchmen propagandized it would.

Again, THINK before you allow your nation to commit its youngest and strongest to wars that are in no one's interest except the forces of gargantuan money that profit from it. American's memories are short and that is too bad too because our strength like Rome of centuries past is being sapped through expensive, long, brutal, and never-ending war across the globe. 

Is this the world you want to leave for your children?  I hope fervently it is not already too late!

http://www.democracynow.org/

Electing Republican or the status quo anything will perpetuate these massive killing fields.

A Rich Man's Trick

Well believe it or not I watched this THREE hour documentary (link here or at the bottom) "JFK to 911 Everything is a Rich Man's Trick" and come out of it scratching my head no more well informed than I have ever been. Do I think it speaks truth -- well some of it is compelling.

I dare you to watch it because it takes perseverance. Of course I would love to know your thoughts if you do. Frankly, I'm stumped!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM

My Day

The editorial of retired Globe Columnist Alan Berger entitled "The Unintended Consequences of Israel's Vote" is excellent. I post the link to it as well as the article itself below my thoughts here in italics about it.

I learned one thing if nothing else from Iraq -- the interloping of the west through war never works as one thought it would and, in fact, the opposite from one's wishes often occurs. Western power interests think only of WWII -- the last great flag waiving success of the west (with little note and credit given to Soviet help of course.)

The US dropping bombs on Arab heads makes for angry Arabs and dropping bombs on Persian heads will spell god knows what unintended horrific consequences. One would think one would learn from one's mistakes but the part of the US electorate that loves the remembrances of past war glories uses war as a tactic on steroids now. Those tactics face little popular opposition sending a volunteer army to war with no protest. Flag waving for violent aggression is a great discord elixir for more war and more war and more war and more.

Many think lefty liberals like I ridiculously idealistic who do not know the realities of history and the bellicose nature of man but I say results post WWII speak for themselves. In war and in interloping, we have lost on every front -- Natalie's Eleanor Roosevelt's "My Day" editorial and blogger thoughts for my own day!


http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/03/20/the-unintended-consequences-israel-vote/FGkaccc9NfkIYTkzDY3qqN/story.html

The unintended consequences of Israel’s vote by Alan Berger -- Retired Globe Columnist

Criticizing the expressed will of the electorate in a democracy is generally regarded as bad form, and anyone who laments this week’s Israeli vote to return Benjamin Netanyahu to power as prime minister in a hard-right government is certain to hear an orchestrated chorus of complaints. But he who dares adopt the prophetic voice must be prepared to tolerate a little heckling.

My critique is not moralistic. It’s hardly even political. My anxiety derives from a principle that appears to govern the geopolitics of the greater Middle East. Call it the rule of unintended consequences.

We could start almost anywhere in the region’s tortured recent history. But for the sake of coherence, let’s begin with Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982. The declared purpose was to rout the PLO, which had established something like its own state within Lebanon. The Shiites of southern Lebanon, who felt oppressed by the PLO interlopers, welcomed the Israeli invaders as liberators, tossing flowers on their tanks.

Then arrogant Israeli policy makers made the fateful mistake of staying too long. Much too long. Instead of leaving after a few weeks, they occupied southern Lebanon for 18 years. The ultimate outcome was to make bitter enemies of people who started out as Israel’s best friends in the region. Israel’s extended occupation of southern Lebanon gave Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini a welcome rationale for the creation of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party that sold itself as leader of an armed resistance against Israel but is now fighting in Syria, under Iran’s guidance, to preserve the regime of Bashar al Assad.

In the Israeli defense ministry, in 1986, I asked Uri Lubrani, the official in charge of Israeli operations in Lebanon, why Israeli soldiers were still occupying the south of Lebanon. The PLO was long gone and, rather than being showered with flowers, Israeli tanks were being blown up by improvised explosive devices.

Lubrani’s truculent answer was a foreshadowing of the hardline stance Netanyahu has taken against a negotiated two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians. Security would only come from a stubborn reliance on force, Lubrani insisted then. Allowing Palestinians to have their own state, Netanyahu claims today, would bring about a “Hamastan’’ on the West Bank and Israel’s Ben Gurion airport would come under missile attack from sovereign Palestinian territory.

The renowned Israeli author Amos Oz offered a vision recently of where Netanyahu’s three nos — no real negotiations, no division of the land, no Palestinian state — would ultimately lead. “If two states do not come into existence now and fast, there will be one state,” Oz warned. “If one state comes into existence, it will be an Arab one from the sea to the Jordan River. If an Arab state is established, I do not envy our children and grandchildren.” Although this truly Zionist vision may reflect an excessive fear of the Other, at least Oz the imaginative novelist is willing to envision the oncoming future that Netanyahu the petty politician refuses to contemplate.

Recall that Israel’s security mavens once sponsored a nascent Hamas, with the peculiar idea that an Islamist Palestinian movement propounding piety would be a useful counter to the militant nationalism of Yasser Arafat’s PLO. For Israeli hawks willing to entertain a little self-critical reflection, this comes under the heading of “What were they thinking?’’

That same rubric may one day be applied to those Israeli voters who heeded Netanyahu’s appeals to beat back a wave of Israeli Arab citizens and simple-minded peaceniks who would hand the country over to its various enemies in Tehran, Gaza, Stockholm, and Washington. The great danger to Israelis is that they may get what they voted for.

If Netanyahu at the helm of an ever more reactionary government succeeds at preventing a nuclear deal with Iran and avoiding a two-state peace accord with the Palestinians, Israelis will be confronted with hostility from their European trading partners, an Iran renewing its enrichment activities, Americans coming to view Israel as an ally solely of right-wing Republicans, and a Palestinian population driven by hopelessness to a third violent intifada.

These may not be the outcomes Israeli voters wanted. But the consequences of fateful choices in the Middle East are rarely those intended.

The Theory of Everything

If there is another film that I have enjoyed more than "The Theory of Everything" I do not know what it is and throughout my life have seen hundreds of films.

 

"The Theory of Everything" is a biographical sketch of Stephen Hawking, the Einsteinian astrophysicist genius diagnosed with the neuro-motor degenerative disease, ALS.  When diagnosed as a young man he was given two years to live.  He is now 72 defying the odds. Stephen Hawking remains one of human history's most phenomenal minds of science and one of the most profound contributors to the science of astrophysics.

 

Eddie Redmayne, as Stephen Hawking, deserved the Oscar for best actor and then some.  His portrayal of a man with this degenerative disease was nothing short of brilliant.  He turned into Stephen Hawking as I forgot, most of the time, this was an actor portraying him.  Felicity Jones as Hawking's wife was excellently performed as well.  One must, I think, see this film to grasp its all-encompassing resplendence.

"The Theory of Everything" speaks to the deepest most enduring and profound questions of life -- how did we, our planet, and indeed the universe begin and will it end.  It asks, too, the most unanswerable question -- why.  "The Theory of Everything" of course cannot answer everything but man's big brain can make the generational attempt to try.  Every day we live we see the relevance of physics and the leaps forward in history science has made.

 

For those who love relationship films it had that too.  His wife Jane's dedication to him through much of his ordeal was breathtaking.  Having three children with him amid the onslaught of the disease defied credulity.

 

In the end the message of the film speaks loud and clear to me as Hawking, through his voice synthesizer states: "Where there is life there is hope!"  Indeed, the life of Stephen Hawking proves that hypothesis eminently true.

 

 

By the Rivers of Babylon

The election of Bibi Netanyau, a political hack, is the worst thing for the state of Israel since Rome destroyed the Temple. This will come back to haunt. 

The electorate in many places is just plain stupid (the US included of course) but I thought they were smarter in Israel. When one votes for violent Parties one get violence and that is what Netanyahu did for his allegedly beloved state by rejecting a two state solution for the most craven of reasons -- to get elected. Do Israelis and their Prime Minister think Palestinians will sit still for this? 

Palestinians now are a people with no hope. Has anyone taken a good look at Gaza no matter who threw the first stone?  It is UNLIVABLE and that creates angry people. Jews will die, Mr. Netanyahu, and their deaths will be at your hands because you care about one thing -- YOU-- and evidently the religious wingnuts are too stupid to realize that -- big surprise -- NOT. Netanyahu and his yahoos, put Palestinian backs up against the wall. A HOPE at least a shred of hope for peace has been dashed. 

I have supported the Jewish state since I was cognizant of politics and honed my left of center political beliefs because of the Holocaust. Israel, when you elected this war-monger-in-chief who appealed in the US to the Republican Party of hate and kicked dirt in the face of the president you lost me, doomed Israel to eternal war and backed Israel into the world's corner. Israel will be isolated further and the UN may hold it to account as will possibly the World Court for war crimes.

Take heart, Mr. Netanyahu, someday you will not be able to hold your enemies back and your reign of terror will be silenced.  Unfortunately, there will be hell to pay for the rest of us!

 Psalm 137:1 (ASV) By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion.

If you do not believe me read this:



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/israel-elections-benjamin-n…

The Netanyahu Jackboot; in our time

The fiasco of the Israeli election of Netanyahu after he bold faced lied and amended his position going religious extreme right to win an election is disgusting. He, in the last electoral minute, opposed a two state solution -- agreements that nations have tried to hone over the last 40 years. It makes my head explode.

I am THROUGH defending the indefensible. No one can crush the bodies of innocents with overwhelming force, bomb women and children rolling over them with tanks keeping them living in squalor, tear down homes, terrorize people in the middle of the night merely because they can. My people, the examples of the Holocaust, now make excuses for those who would perpetrate the same but this time on a different people in a different way. Dead is still dead no matter how it is inflicted. I thought my people were better than that.

Denial of a two state solution after 40 years of so many nations advocating for it will mean eternal war. The jackboot of those who suffered from a jackboot on their neck at so many other times in history will raise their own jackboot to crush innocents. I cannot and will not be a party to that. Israel, unless it reverses course, has lost me.

Here is a list of attempts found on Wiki to hone a two state solution: Camp David Accords 1978, Madrid Conference 1991, Oslo Accords 1993/95, Hebron Protocol 1997, Wye River Memorandum 1998, Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum 1999, Camp David Summit (parameters) 2000, Taba Summit 2001, Road Map 2003, Agreement on Movement and Access 2005 , Annapolis Conference 2007, Mitchell-led talks 2010-11, Kerry-led-talks 2010-11.

On another front: Domestically the Republicans here are like flypaper. One cannot keep them from sticking on one's shoe. Their unlimited money has poisoned every single humanitarian well as George Carlin's "American Dream" soliloquy said it would. The powers that be, he said, "own you" and they do unless the 98% rise up and change course -- seemingly now unlikely.

Headlines like "Republicans Hit CIA on Climate Change" fill me with incredulity; Republicans get elected denying science? This will and is coming back to bite them in their posterior and may, before their reign of terror is through, take all of us down in the process.

I want to align myself to powers that can do something for humanity and third parties from the left like the Green Party or Ralph Nader's Party fail all the time. Hell, Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Third-Party failed. I stick with the Democratic Party because it is the only Party that has a chance to perfect at least some of the humane and structural change that our nation so desperately needs.

My hope is that you cannot deny science nor crush the powerless all of the time. It will come back to haunt all of us as it already has in our time so many times. 

Elect Democrats. As Thom Hartmann talk-master of the left says: "It's up to you. Tag you're it."

911 Hijacking Catastrophe

 Yours is not to do or die but yours is to always question why!

911 Hijacking Catastrophe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2YTDb86bK4

Feel Good News

Most mainstream local and national news are what I call saccharinized to meet the expectations of a low information audience that loves the feel-good look of feel-good sugar- coated news. They do not want to and even many cannot understand complexity which our times dictate one must have to understand why our nation does what it does.

News is reported by the winners here and reports at the other end go unexamined. Our more than aggressive foreign entanglements are rarely dissected to see just what it is our nation is doing and why we are doing it by looking at it from all sides.

The powerless both here and abroad are at the mercy of the forces of massive money and Herculean power against which they, sadly, can never compete much less prevail. Many do not even realize that they are being manipulated, in many cases duped and elect those who do not care at all about them creating a quagmired uncompromising Congress on steroids ready to ditch at the speed of light the interests of the sick, the troubled and the dispossessed.
100% of us should be in this together but alas the 2% richest will steal food from most all the rest while never paying their own fair share.

If you do not realize by now the reasons that Democrats must retake the Senate, the House and keep the presidency then you never will. It is important as life and death that a Republican not go near the echelons of power and only we, through our Democratic vote can make this so!