Randian Ryan? Extra Extra Read All About It Ayn Rand Spinning in her Grave

Maureen Dowd says it best here and below. Paul Ryan professes, at least economically, to be the philosophical lover of Ayn Rand's so called "rugged individualism" -- deregulated capitalism lover of small government run wild. For a guy who professes such a life changing admiration of anything economically Randian it certainly is quizzical how he voted as a US House Representative not only for Bush's TARP (bank bailout) he professes to loathe and for the reckless unpaid spending for the NO weapons of mass destruction Iraq War. Salt and pepper in a few other unpaid for spending sprees like Bush's Medicare Part D to boot and you can almost hear Ayn Rand spinning like a top in her grave.

Paul Ryan never saw an unreasonable 4th Amendment rollover he did not like as he supported every national security bill allowing government access to anything you own including your life habeas corpus be damned. Ayn Rand hated most things big government but Paul Ryan does not. He loves it especially if it means government can snoop on even granny's phone calls, email, her sex life, limit her access to contraception, and end the availability of abortion. Granny worries about contraception and abortion? Well, no, but you get my drift.

Paul Ryan was not exactly a rags to riches guy either but more like a riches to riches guy who was raised in a more than affluent home, a lifestyle he had to "overcome" to make himself richer. He wants everyone else to sink or swim on their own and raise themselves up by their bootstraps that he already possessed as a child. If you do not posses such bootstraps well too bad it’s your bad.
 
Extra, extra read all about it, Republican Paul Ryan, hypocrite de jour, contender for the Republican heart-beat away from the presidency VP slot. Beware of Trojan Horse Republicans bearing things they say are gifts. They may not be gifts at all but venomous richest 1% snakes taking everything you have and stuffing their made on Wall Street pants pockets with your taxpayer money they dupe you to cough up forcing the middle class and the poor to pay more and the richest 1% to pay less. It is trickle UP economics sublime. Is this the American Dream my 4th grade teacher said was the essence of America? I do not think so. How about the American Nightmare for the lower 99%.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

Your Election is being Bought by 47 Billionaires (and they are Buying War, Climate Change)

Read this and ACT accordingly!

Your Election is being Bought by 47 Billionaires (and they are Buying War, Climate Change)

The Public Interest Group Education Fund and the NGO Demos released a study in early August on the financing of the presidential campaign.

They found that nearly 60% of the almost quarter of a billion dollars raised by Super PACs from individuals derived from just 47 people, who gave at least $1 million each (obviously some gave much more).

47 people. That’s democracy?
 
Of these 47, the most generous (or greedy) are Sheldon Adelson and his wife, who gave $36 million themselves. Since the total known amount from individuals is $240 million, some 15 percent of the individual contributions, or one-sixth, are coming from one family.





Some 94% of these funds came from a little more than a thousand donors, each of whom gave $10,000 or more (47 clearly gave a million or more).

There are also super pacs funded by corporations, not just individuals! And there are anonymous donors.

The Super Pacs are turning this presidential election into a toxic slamming match beyond anything seen in the recent past.

These extremely wealthy and arrogant people are not giving this money for their health. They are expecting something for it.

The Koch brothers want to kill green energy and preserve the value of their petroleum.

Sheldon Adelson and his wife want Mitt Romney to start a war with Iran. (Adelson is a major backer of far rightwing Likud Party PM Binyamin Netanyahu).

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them– and it won’t be you; you can’t afford them.

After Nicolas Sarkozy lost the presidency in France, SWAT teams went into his house looking for evidence that he had received $50,000 illicitly from the L’oreal heiress. $50,000? Our politicians get that in their sleep; and it wouldn’t be illegal!

"The Ryan Choice" -- the ALWAYS correct Robert Reisch

Robert Reisch's opinion is, in my view, always correct. He is the consummate intellect and humanitarian to boot. I attach his opinion here and below. It is well worth reading and passing on.

Yet another reason to add to the plethora of reasons why the Re-election of the President is life saving, necessary and why adding to the Democratic Senate Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts is imperative.

Register to vote Democrats or Independents leaning Democratic who need to be signed up in every state. Do not let these Republican vile, lying, voter thieves and thugs have their way.

Your life, my life, your children's lives and all those who come after us depend upon it. Vote as if that is the case because it is!

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/12903-the-ryan-choice@aol.com ,

FORWARD

EXCELLENT POST by KURT STONE "The Ryan Factor"

EXCELLENT POST by KURT STONE: http://www.kurtfstone.typepad.com/

August 12, 2012
The Ryan Factor

Audio Link to The Ryan Factor

So now it is official: Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan is going to be Mitt Romney's running mate. R&R: the tonsorial twosome -- the best-coifed ticket since Washington and Adams; perhaps the most economically obtuse since Harding and Coolidge. In introducing Ryan, best known for the eponymous budget plan which would turn Medicare into a voucher system and partially privatize Social Security, Romney made a slip of Freudian Romney and Ryanproportions, when he asked those assembled before him to " . . . join me in welcome [sic] the next president of the United States, Paul Ryan!" Made aware of his verbal gaffe, Romney got huge laughs when he added, "Every now and then I'm known to make a mistake." Realizing that this statement could also be somewhat problematic, he quickly added, "I did not make a mistake with this guy. (In all fairness, four years ago, when he introduced his running mate, Barack Obama said "So let me introduce to you the next president -- the next vice president of the US of America, Joe Biden." Not to be outdone, Biden, who has a long and well-documented track record of verbal miscues, referred to his future boss as "Barack America.")

In naming Ryan even before he becomes the GOP's official nominee (which will likely come later this month), Romney is seeking to deflect attention away from his blunder-filled trek abroad, questions about his personal finances and the need to reconcile his new-found "seriously conservative" verbiage with his fairly recent past. Of course, in bringing Ryan, the 42-year old Ayn Rand-loving House Budget Chair on board, Romney is also trying to shore up credibility with the Tea Party faction that is currently calling most of the political shots in what was once called the "Party of Lincoln." This last point is crucial, for Tea Partiers have believed all along that Romney is a non-too closeted liberal. Up until 24-hours ago, about the only thing the former Massachusetts governor had going for him in the eyes of the Republican right is that his name is not Obama. To anoint Ryan, who, rightfully or not, Tea Partiers consider to be on the side of the family-values-smaller-government-is-better-deficit-destroying angels, it gives Romney a bit of political cover.


Historically, vice presidential candidates have been chosen because of any of a number of reasons:

They provide credibility and coverage in areas which the person at the top of the ticket may be lacking. (Think Biden in foreign policy or Mondale in Washington politics);
They have regional popularity and might help bring in votes from crucial states. (Think Wilson's VP Thomas Marshall in the Midwest or LBJ in the South);
They represent a balance of image. (Think Garret Hobart's jocosity to Wm. McKinley's seriousness or John Nance Garner's plainspoken everyman to FDR's eastern blueblood);
For reasons best left to speculation. (Think Agnew, Palin and Quayle)

Of these four categories (and of course, there are more), Ryan best fits into the first: Providing "credibility and coverage . . ." Goodness knows, his selection has nothing to do with regional popularity, for truth to tell, he has never run a state-wide race, and barely known outside of Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District. And when it comes to image or personality, he is virtually as boring and verbally flat-footed as Romney. His selection then, is mostly due to his conservative, pro-Tea Party, ultimate deficit hawk bone fides. But even these credentials are going to be called into question once the media and the Obama campaign finish putting in their two cents.

What is the public going to learn about Paul Ryan?

First -- though not necessarily foremost -- that Ryan, the man whose economic "roadmap" would:

Give across-the-board tax cuts by reducing income tax rates;
Eliminate income taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest;
Abolish the corporate income tax, estate tax and alternative minimum tax;
Privatize a portion of Social Security;
Eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance and
Privatize Medicare

That he himself received Social Security benefits upon the death of his father, which he used to help pay for his college education. Many will no doubt see this as a glaring inconsistency. An insightful friend, Alan Wald, wrote somewhat tongue in cheek that "[Ryan] wants to gut Social Security . . . . Let him pay back all that survivor's . . . commie pinko money . . . he should have refused the money out of principle . . . . Until he returns the money, he has no right to proclaim that he has a solution."

Second, that Ryan, the man who many Republicans consider to be the intellectual leader of their party's drive to shrink government has, over the course of his Congressional career, consistently voted for big bank bailouts, unfunded mandates and unnecessary wars. According to Democrat Ron Zerban, who has mounted a serious challenge to Ryan in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District (Ryan can run for reelection and V.P. at the same time), "Ryan is a root cause of many of the financial issues our country faces today," says Zerban."From supporting two unfunded wars, to dumping millions of senior citizens into the Medicare Part D ‘donut hole' while tying the hands of the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, and from fighting for subsidies for Big Oil that his family personally benefits from, to supporting the unfunded Bush tax cuts for his wealthiest campaign contributors, Paul Ryan's hypocrisy is astounding."

Third, that Ryan is just another career politician who has spent his entire post-college life working on Capitol Hill. Conservative chatterboxes who constantly deride President Obama for never having worked a single day in the world of business had better start treading lightly; neither has the gentleman from Janesville. Just how smart is it to select a veteran member of the House of Representatives . . . an institution even less popular than the I.R.S.?

Vice Presidential picks are supposed to help, not hinder national tickets. And while Paul Ryan may help Mitt Romney a bit with the Tea Party wing of the GOP, he could easily be a disaster with moderates and independents, not to mention women, gays and immigrants. In selecting Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and his advisors -- who I sometimes think must be working on the sly for Barack Obama -- have all but guaranteed that the future of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and not the economy, will be the campaign's central issue. Unlike Mitt Romney, who has a history of changing positions on most every issue, Paul Ryan has, for the most part, been a model of consistency. And in politics, this isn't always a good thing; it gives one almost no room in which to maneuver, to make those nuanced tweaks which can soothe ruffled feathers and increase electability.

One thing that all vice presidential candidates should bring to the table is the certainty that they can take over the top spot should, God forbid, the need arise. One wonders about Paul Ryan. Unlike Joe Biden, Ryan has even less foreign policy experience than his boss. Unlike George H.W. Bush, Ryan has no experience outside the confines of Capitol Hill. And unlike Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey or Walter Mondale, Paul Ryan doesn't know the meaning of the word compromise.

Romney and Ryan may well be the best-looking ticket in American history. Then too, they will likely prove to be the stiffest, most narrowly-focused, pro-business, anti-middle class pairing since Taft and Sherman more than a century ago. One thing you do have to grant Paul Ryan: he has excited both hard-core conservatives and progressives -- the former because he's one of them, and the latter because he is the personification of what Bill Clinton recently termed "Bush policies on steroids."

May Paul Ryan do for Mitt Romney what Sarah Palin did for John McCain!

©2012 Kurt F. Stone

For Whom Does the Bell Toll?

Recounting so many Republican policies whether domestic, economic or foreign policy issues the utter inhumanity, meanness and horrific nature of what the Republicans say is shown in the racist and violent signs they have carried. It makes the re-election of the President and Elizabeth Warren for US Senate not optional but mandatory. This, indeed, is, as Doris Kearns Goodwin said of the New Deal FDR era, no ordinary time. This is a time in Horatio Alger style this nation either sinks or swims. Romney and his side kick Ryan will return us to the George Bush era except this time on steroids with massive debt paid for on the backs of NOT the rich but the middle class and poor -- i.e. probably most of us.

These mendacious charlatans talk a good game for their gullible followers but they will most definitely not deliver for them. They will buy up as Bain Capital did all the trimmings, economically ravage them and pocket trillions.

America, they are coming for it all. Wall Street wants it all. Even though they say one will be allowed to choose the Social Security option, in the long term Wall Street mendacity will prevail. They will offer you junk and then take credit default swaps out to insure themselves when you lose. Make no mistake you WILL lose. They do not care about the poor or the middle class. They care about themselves -- the richest 1%.

If you have to die because of these insane, ineffective, and moronic health care vouchers that Paul Ryan touts then so be it. Vouchers will buy you little anyway. Health care will be for the elites like Romney, Donald Trump, and Paul Ryan. Does anyone on planet earth think Ann Romney worries about the cost of her MS (a very costly malady?) Disease and death are equal opportunity employers but waging a war over sickness depends on whether or not you will be able to afford the massive cost of health care. Ann Romney will NEVER die from lack of healthcare but you and I will and the Republican peanut gallery will cheer as they did during the Republican debates when they said of the unlucky uninsured: "Let him die!"

For whom does the bell toll? What the ignorant in the Republican Party do not realize is that the bell tolls for them as well as it does for us.

The Life You Save May Be Your Very Own

Romney Hood and his Merry Band (Cartoon)


Posted: 11 Aug 2012 07:42 AM PDT






Heat Wave: The Best Reporting on our Rising Temperatures (Currier)


Posted: 10 Aug 2012 09:05 PM PDT

Heat Wave: The Best Reporting on Our Rising Temperatures


by Cora Currier and Suevon Lee ProPublica,


July was the hottest month ever in the continental U.S., and the past twelve months have been hotter than any such period on record. Half of all counties in the country have been declared disaster areas, mainly due to drought. We’ve rounded up some of the best journalism on the effects of rising temperatures. Got others you’re burning to share? Add them in the comments.


Profits on Carbon Credits Drive Output of a Harmful Gas, New York Times, August 2012 Under a U.N. carbon credit program, manufacturers can get credits for reducing emission of greenhouse gases. But air-conditioner and refrigerator manufacturers realized they could profit from a waste gas produced while making coolant, and they started making and destroying more of it to earn credits. The result: more production of the original coolant, which also contributes to global warming and damages the ozone layer.


In Drought-Stricken Midwest, It’s Fodder Vs. Fuel, NPR, July 2012 A U.S. law requires gas companies to buy a certain amount of ethanol, which is made from corn. That means ethanol factories are buying up the crop. Farmers who need corn for livestock, and who are already struggling with drought, say the system isn’t fair.


Wildfire: Red slurry’s toxic dark side, Denver Post, June 2012 Hundreds of thousands of gallons of “red slurry” were dropped on wildfires raging in Colorado. The chemical mixture is effective at firefighting, but it’s also full of toxins, including ammonia and nitrates, which threaten the water supply and wildlife. For more background on the Colorado fires, read I-News Network’s account on how more people are moving into the state’s high-risk “red zones”, even as the frequency of fires has increased over the past decade.


Oysters in deep trouble: Is Pacific Ocean’s chemistry killing sea life?, The Seattle Times, April 2012 Since 2005, millions of Pacific oysters in a Washington estuary have failed to reproduce and the oyster larvae have been dying. Though region-specific causes contributed to the decline, some scientists believe that greenhouse gases are leading to increased corrosive seawater sooner than expected.


The Great Oasis, The New Yorker, December 2011 About a third of the earth is covered in desert, a percentage that increases each year thanks in part to climate change and unsustainable farming. The New Yorker’s Burkhard Bilger examines the science and politics involved in various countries’ efforts to stop desertification, from China and Israel to Oman and Nigeria.


Our Dying Forests, The Salt Lake Tribune, September 2011 This multi-part series centers on the decline of the once-lush forestation in the Rocky Mountain West, where warmer winters and longer growing seasons have sparked an explosion of native beetle species that have destroyed 40 million acres of moisture-starved spruce, firs and aspen.


Extreme Heat Blanches Coral, and Threat is Seen, The New York Times, September 2010 In 2010 many of the world’s coral reefs turned white in reaction to too-warm waters. Coral bleaching and die-offs often occur in years when El Niño or other unusual weather patterns contribute to hot ocean temperatures, but scientists say that global warming is also playing a factor in what they call “global bleachings.”


Losing Louisiana, The Times-Picayune, December 2008 Rising sea levels pose a particular problem for Louisiana’s fragile coastline, where the land is sinking and protective wetlands have been ravaged by development and hurricanes. North Carolina’s shore is also seeing the impact of rising seas, as the Charlotte Observer covered in a recent series on coastal erosion.


JUAN COLE -- INFORMED COMMENT


______

Mirrored from ProPublica.

Ryan The Terrible

The pick of Paul Ryan as Romney's VP is proof positive how nothing can be taken for granted.  If you think Romney is bad and I SURELY do, Ryan is 1000 times worse and he's young and cute I suppose if you like that type!  Kiss Medicare and Social Security goodbye if they get in and especially get in with a Republican Congress.  Read the 100% correct quote from a blogger and heed!

One blogger said it perfectly:  I just took my 90 year old mother for radiation. She has cancer. She handed over her "freedom-hating entitlement card" and it will cost her very little for treatment. Thank heavens for FDR. I know that without Medicare and her supplemental she would have no hope. Unfortunately if we elect these two, the prognosis for people my age (55) heading into old age will be abysmal. No 50+ person should vote for these two. I know first hand that no amount of saving in a privatized system can protect people from rising healthcare costs. I hope these two tank and burn by Labor Day.

  

Fond Remembrances of the Poll Tax Era -- SOMEBODY PAHLEESE HELP

A quick less than syntactically perfect opinion. The title to this opinion lest anyone take everything literally, is, of course, sarcastic!

Listening to Rachel Maddow last evening was tantamount to raising my blood pressure to 200. She reported on the HEIGHT of viciousness and undemocratic unfairness. It is equal ONLY to the years before the 1965 Voting Rights Act bringing back fond memories when the last gasp of the white south to retain power was to make voting tied to a payment -- the poll tax. People of color often poor, living in the vicious segregationist racist soaked south, could not pay and therefore could not vote. Voter suppression is now illegal reversed over decades by people who were brave enough to fight it and who sometimes gave their lives fighting against it.

Now it is happening yet again and often includes the pre-Civil War "FREE" states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and others that are CRITICAL for the president to win re-election. He handily did win those states in 2008 when voting was fair. Since then 2010 happened and Republican legislatures have made a concerted effort to deny Democrats fair voting access through a myriad of what should be illegal means.

The instant case involves Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted, who gave a signed thumbs up yesterday which will allow early voting in ONLY Republican counties. Early voting makes voting easier especially in a state in which many in 2004 were denied access to the polls because of voter volume and a Republican effort to deny thousands the right to vote. Democratic counties which are some of the biggest counties in Ohio like Cuyahoga County and others Mr. Husted dictates CANNOT vote early.

Yes, you are incredulous and so am I. Instead of screaming or crying I decided to put an email out and send it to the immediate world.

What can you do? You can write, you can call AND you can send this to ANYONE you may know or even to an attorney you may know in Ohio, US attorneys or the Justice Department in those states which are doing these dastardly deeds asking someone to bring suit against this flagrant abridgment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by Republicans who are using any means necessary no matter how corrupt or illegal to deny Democrats i.e. African Americans, elderly, disabled, Hispanics and more the right to vote.

This action in Ohio is barbaric, regressive and inflammatory in the extreme. I HOPE our friends in Ohio take this injustice very seriously as it could mean the difference between our president's reelection or the 1% advocate Willard Mitt Romney elevated to the presidency illegally. It is OUTRAGEOUS. If you want to know more about it Google Rachel Maddow's show and I am sure you can get the details.

In the final analysis ELECTIONS MATTER. 2010 Congressional and State elections were BRUTAL for Democrats and we are paying now for voter apathy then. Governors and state legislatures ARE important and we MUST reverse 2010 Republican deadly poisonous infection but we cannot do a thing if we are denied the right to vote equally the same as everyone else.

FIGHT THIS! NEVER GIVE UP RE-ELECT THE PRESIDENT 2012 and THOSE IN MASS ELECT THE BRILLIANT ELIZABETH WARREN TO THE US SENATE

WHAT ANOTHER GAFFF!! WOW it's BIG :)

You have probably heard that the Republicans are going ballistic EVEN the rancid Limbaugh thought he would have a stroke. When commenting on the political ad of the president that shows a man who was ruined by Bain, lost his job and health care. His wife became ill, did not have healthcare and ultimately died because of it. Bain essentially took the man's company, loaded it with debt and bankrupted it.

Fast forward to several hours ago. When Romney's campaign worker was asked about the ad and the worker losing his wife because Romney sank the company ultimately getting rid of health care and thereby essentially killing his wife. She blew it BIG time. She said well, if that worker lived in Massachusetts she would have HAD healthcare. Really really? WOW you have got to be kidding. Romney's campaign said that??? So I guess Romenycare aka Obamacare aka the Affordable Care Act is a good thing! NOT exactly the message Romney wanted to convey.

Bring Romneybot on. He suffers from a bad case of foot in mouth disease. Wonder if there is a health care plan to treat it!

LOL. This was a GOOD day!

Yet another reason we MUST re-elect the president and Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate!!

ONE MORE THING Re: Hiroshima

There are always other sides to an issue.

I have read accounts that said Hiroshima and Nagasaki WERE of military and strategic significance in that it is where Japan warships and weaponry were made. I have also read that even after Hiroshima Japan would not surrender and that it took Nagaski and the order of the Emperor to finally prevail. I do not know the truth of this.

We KNOW history is told by the winners. Just why did Japan do something so ill conceived as the bombing of Pearl Harbor? I have read accounts that said Japan wanted to stop the US in its tracks from stopping their ultimate goal which was riveted on China. While US attentions were fixed on Hitler's Europe they thought a sneak attack would work.

Where is the truth? I do not know. I only know when I view the picture of the child with her facial skin burned off from radiation of an exploded nuclear device it makes me sad and in truth it makes me want to throw up! Can one IMAGINE how it made these innocents feel?

There is truth too, though, let no man or country mistake, the US is seething with violence and will not rest until an attack on it is met with utter brute force on a perpetrator. The US is huge and it's power is devastating. There is NOTHING the US will not do to protect itself and there is nearly nothing it will not do to retain power and economic dominance even if that economic power is among only the 1%

It is a dangerous world and the US is NOT the only dangerous country in it. It simply happens for now to possess the most devastating and destructive weaponry on planet earth. So far I would rather be here than anywhere else BUT others are climbing that weapons ladder of "success" quickly. Something must be done to save our planet and us FAST or there will be nothing left to save.

The Rumor is it is Ryan for Romney VP -- The Ruination of the Middle Class

The Rumor is it will be Paul Ryan who will be Romney’s choice for vice-president. Paul Ryan's budget would be the final undoing of the middle class which has been decimated by Republican economic policies for decades. It has nearly ruined a nation and even the world. The truth of his budget will not THIS TIME be lost in a Republican web sown of easy listening. It is my opinion that this is the worst of the three Romney could choose for vice-president because, in no small part, Ryan is young and could over time reintroduce the most destructive policies that have been responsible for over 30 years of an economic sewer and the near ruination of the middle class. Yes, Clinton was mixed in with those polices but NOT the way Republicans were. Ryan/Romney are the embodiment of the destruction of the nation as we once knew it.

FDR put in place a role for government to help its people when needed. Social Security and then Medicare which followed two decades later did that. If you are retired and your 401K has been either obliterated or significantly reduced then YOU DEPEND on Social Security and Medicare. These are life saving programs and the Republicans, America, are coming for it. They want it ALL and want the market to rule it. What could possibly go wrong with putting YOUR ENTIRE FUTURE in the hands of Wall Street? These political foxes do not give one care about most of you! They care about the1%'s accumulation of wealth.

In the final analysis it really does not matter who the Republicans put up for VP. This Republican ticket is a ticket to suicide for the middle class and I suspect you will NOT be duped this time by the easily absorbed intoxicants of Republican mantras. The Republican Party has become the TRUE death panels whether in their aggressive war policies OR their 1% economic gifts to the 1% wealthiest in this nation and you should NEVER forget it.

The Worship of Science--Rethinking our Deepest Truths

This is one of the most gorgeously written pieces I have ever read and perhaps is one of the most disturbing. These are issues on which we must NOT turn our backs. It is necessary to think on it. It made me rethink my own worship of science. Perhaps it will make you think about your deepest truths as well. Click here or below.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/12823-the-science-of-genocide

The Most Amazing Two Minutes you will EVER spend!

A little unnecessary background but I'm going to give it anyway -- A relative of mine who happens to be one of the most brilliant humans I have ever met on planet earth and probably the nicest person whom I have ever had the pleasure to know sent me a YouTube.  He would hate my bragging about him but I cannot help it he is that nice -- and if one will allow me a bit of lookism he is handsome too.  He is a graduate of Harvard undergraduate and Harvard Medical.  Are we proud of him in our family -- yes, deliriously so.  

I sent out recently a Chomsky article on the impact of Hiroshima and he sent me the following short 2 minute rendition of the beginning of life, the emergence of man, the rise of culture,  learning, science and more.

You will never see another video that is more riveting.  I urge you to watch this here or below and be amazed.  Do NOT forget to use sound.  It is truly a wonder!  If you find it as amazing as I you will need to revisit it two or three times perhaps stopping to see each important frame.  ENJOY! p.s. do not stop if the screen goes dark for a second as there is more and the pauses are necessary as the age of evolutionary development proceeds.

  http://marcbrecy.perso.neuf.fr/history.html

Go and Sin No More -- Understanding the Violence of the American Extremist Right

The piece below is MOST excellent and is entitled "White Terrorism at Oak Creek: The Paranoid Style in American Violence" by Prof. Juan Cole.  It should be required reading for students everywhere in this country OR simply passed out on a street corner for everyone to learn.

The voices of reasoned intellect are always a joy to behold. I love receiving Prof. Cole’s (University of Michigan Professor of Middle Eastern and American politics) “Informed Comment” pasted below and find it, more often than not, a breath of fresh air in the polluted stream that is the American politics of this ever-more-increasingly-dangerous country!

His first piece on diversity in NASA's control room is illuminating and shows that wonderful things happen when we all work together.  

The Second Piece "White Terrorism at Oak Creek" ... [the Sikh Temple slaughter] attempts to understand the virulence and violence that is the American extremist right, how it is nourished by those in mainstream power and even appears in the Republican candidacy for the presidency in the form of Mitt Romney.  It is bone chilling indeed.  

What have we become and where are we going?  There is a violence in our land and its roots run deeply in the American soul and psyche perhaps from the very beginning.  Read to understand who we have become and then go, sin no more and teach the multitudes that love is stronger than hate!

Informed Comment

---

• On Human unity and the “Curiosity” NASA Control Room
• White Terrorism at Oak Creek: The Paranoid Style in American Violence
• 58 Murders by firearms a year in Britain, 8,775 in US (Oak Creek Reprint Edn.)

On Human unity and the “Curiosity” NASA Control Room Posted: 06 Aug 2012 11:41 AM PDT In this video of the NASA control room during the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, I don’t see only one race or gender. I see human beings of various shades and cultures and both sexes, collaborating in a project far beyond the atmosphere of our home planet. (3:13 in is the explosion of delight). In fact, the control room reminded me a little of the 1966 deck of the Star Trek Enterprise, and I’m sure Gene Rodenberry would be jumping up and down for joy along with them. We humans have common achievements every day. No technology we use in our daily life has been developed by only one sort of human being. The medical procedures and inventions that save our lives are invented by all kinds of people, and the physicians who deploy them are likewise diverse. Why can’t we erupt in joy together more often, as that control room did, in celebration of the wonder of human beings’ achievement of unprecedented insights into our universe?

White Terrorism at Oak Creek: The Paranoid Style in American Violence Posted: 06 Aug 2012 06:06 AM PDT We still have only rumors about Wade Michael Page, the gunman who walked into a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin near Milwaukee and opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon (weapons that should be illegal) on men women and children beginning to gather for a day of worship, singing and feasting. He killed 6 Americans and critically wounded 3 others, including a Wisconsin policeman kneeling to help one of the Sikh victims. Others were more lightly wounded and went to ordinary hospitals rather than to the trauma unit. Page is said to have served in the military, discharged for misconduct in 1998. He is said to have had a 9/11 tattoo.  He was in a white supremacist punk band, “End Apathy.” He likely thought he was targeting American Muslims. He operated in an atmosphere of virulent hate speech against American Muslims. A discourse of Islamophobia has plagued the United States in the past decade, pushed by unscrupulous bigots in public life and by entire media organizations such as Fox Cable News and other media properties of billionaire yellow press lord Rupert Murdoch. Among them is also Rush Limbaugh, who, incredibly, is still broadcast to US soldiers abroad. Among the hatemongers are Frank Gaffney, and his acolyte Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn), Rep. Peter King (R-NY) Daniel Pipes, James Woolsey, Robert Spencer, Steve Emerson, John Bolton, and sometimes Rudi Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and others, most associated with the Republican Party. The push for hate speech against American Muslims is funded by a small group of billionaires through their foundations. Some of the Muslim-haters are connected to the US arms industry and are hoping for profits from further wars in the Middle East. Others are Israel-firster fanatics. Others are looking for a bogey man to scare Americans with, so as to convince them to vote against their interests, as they used Communism during the Cold War to convince ordinary Americans to give up their constitutional rights. It is legitimate to criticize Muslim organizations and parties, and to work against violent groups like al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda is a tiny fringe religious-nationalist movement; far fewer Muslims have been involved in it than white southerners have been involved in the Ku Klux Klan. Nevertheless, American politicians at least implicitly attempted to tar all Muslims with its brush. Like anti-Semitism, racist anti-Muslim discourse has illegitimate properties. It shouldn’t be acceptable to attribute to Muslims a vast general conspiracy. It shouldn’t be acceptable to assert that they are all dishonest and lying about their real beliefs. It shouldn’t be acceptable to lie and allege that they believe in casually murdering non-Muslims. Their religious law, or sharia, shouldn’t be demonized more than the Talmud or Roman Catholic canon law. It shouldn’t be acceptable to accuse them all of waging jihad or holy war. Since many in the hate-the-Muslims network are closely associated with the campaign of Mitt Romney, reporters should ask Romney again whether he is willing to repudiate this kind of hate speech. As in Norway, where the Muslim-hating network (fostered also by hateful web sites like “Gates of Vienna,” “Elders of Ziyon,” and a host of others) deeply influenced mass murderer Anders Breivik, so in the United States the purveying of a negative image of Muslims predictably has resulted in violence. In Norway, Breivik targeted what he called liberals soft on the alleged Muslim menace. In the US, Wade targeted people he thought looked like Muslims, the Sikhs. (Actually I don’t know any American Muslims who wear turbans, as observant Sikh men do, but Hollywood stereotypes die hard). As always, hatemongering never only affects the objects of hatred. It distorts and wounds the people who promote it, and it usually spills over onto society in general. Neoconservative anti-Muslim bigots are usually indirectly also promoting anti-Semitism in the long term. Did Michele Bachmann, Peter King, Daniel Pipes and the others cause the Wisconsin shootings? No. Did they create an intellectual and cultural atmosphere that naturalized such violence against the supposed Other? Well, Bachmann publicly alleged that a minor aide to Hillary Clinton of Pakistani heritage is at the center of a vast infiltration of the American government by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. You decide. The image emerging of Page is emblematic of America in the past decade and a half. We are a violent country infested by dangerous semi-automatic weapons. Not only do we have far more murders, and especially murders by firearm, than other societies with advanced economies, but we launch far more wars than other such countries, and spend more than the next 20 advanced countries combined on our war industry. The mindset of frontier warriors taming the encircling savages, which goes back to early American history and, later, the legends of the Old West, informs both domestic attitudes and foreign policy. George W. Bush actually talked about the “romance” of fighting the Pushtuns of Afghanistan. The US mass media suspected that the shooter actually intended to massacre Muslims, and some unfortunately referred to the temple attendees as “innocent,” as though a mosque congregation would not have been equally innocent. Sikhism is a north Indian religion that began with ecstatic worship of a generally monotheistic sort some 500 years ago in India. It is an independent religion whose adherents say its scriptures are divinely revealed. As a historian I’m bound to say that it grows out of the cultural mix of Hinduism, Bhakti (ecstatic popular worship), and Sufi Islam (Muslim mysticism) of Mughal India in the early modern period). It is specially associated with the Punjab region of India (and what is now Pakistan). Sikhs say there are some half a million adherents in the United States, though sociologists assert that the figure is more like 100,000. Sikhs are just wonderful people, and a person’s heart is shredded at the idea of this horrible atrocity committed against them. Sikhs have all too often been targeted by perpetrators of hate crimes in the US. The characteristics rumored of the shooter mirror the worst of America in the Bush era and after. The Muslim-hating political discourse, already discussed, was pioneered by Karl Rove in 2006. As for a mistaken target, the United States government attacked Iraq in 2003 after an insidious propaganda campaign that falsely attributed the September 11, 2001 attacks to the government of Saddam Hussein (a conspiracy theory pushed with special ferocity by then Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, other Neoconservatives tied to the Israeli right wing, and by vice president Dick Cheney). There was never any credible evidence linking Iraq to 9/11 and I said so repeatedly and publicly in 2002 and early 2003. In fact, al-Qaeda was fostered in the 1980s by the United States and its regional allies as a way of pushing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. Paranoid “revenge” on Iraq to the extent that some US soldiers in the illegal invasion actually wore pictures of the Twin Towers, the building destroyed by the al-Qaeda hijackers, on their backpacks. I showed in myEngaging the Muslim World that in fact Saddam Hussein was afraid of al-Qaeda and had put out an all points bulletin for a suspected al-Qaeda operative who was rumored to be in Iraq in summer of 2002. The crazed US invasion of Iraq set off social turmoil that has left tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and the country still a basket case nine years later. Thousands of Americans were plunged into a quixotic attempt to occupy an Arab Muslim country, forced in many cases into acts of brutality against Iraqi civilians that continue to haunt them. Large numbers of Americans who served in Iraq suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. As the fruitless war ground on, the US army became desperate for recruits, and allegedly increasingly let in members of biker gangs and criminal elements, latter-day Pages. It is horrible to contemplate that our own government, which is terrified of a few Occupy Wall Street hippies, happily gave advanced weapons training and battlefield experience to criminals and white supremacists so as to put down the Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation. The violence, hatred, paranoia and racism that courses in the subterranean depths of the American psyche has played out on the world stage in the past decade, but also in countless small acts of bigotry and maliciousness at home, as with Rep. Peter King’s hearings on the alleged radicalization of the American Muslim community (an IRA supporter himself, has he had any hearings on the radicalization of white people?) and the campaigns by Evangelical politicians to condemn Muslim canon law or sharia or to prevent Muslims from building mosques and worshiping freely. That we are all victims of this campaign of hate is eloquently underlined by what happened at Oak Creek.

58 Murders by firearms a year in Britain, 8,775 in US (Oak Creek Reprint Edn.) Posted: 05 Aug 2012 09:05 PM PDT Updated Number of Murders, United States, 2010: 12,996 Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2010: 8,775 Number of Murders, Britain, 2011*: 638 (Since Britain’s population is 1/5 that of US, this is equivalent to 3,095 US murders) Number of Murders by firearms, Britain, 2011*: 58 (equivalent to 290 US murders) Number of Murders by crossbow in Britain, 2011*: 2 (equivalent to 10 US murders). For more on murder by firearms in Britain, see the BBC. The international comparisons show conclusively that fewer gun owners per capita produce not only fewer murders by firearm, but fewer murders per capita over all. In the case of Britain, firearms murders are 30 times fewer than in the US per capita. Do hunters really need semi-automatic AR-15 assault weapons? Is that how they roll in deer season? TheUS public doesn’t think so. *British crime statistics are September to September, so 2011 is actually 2010-2011.

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Seeking Peace -- A Letter to the Sikh Commnity

To the people of the Sikh community in Ashland and elsewhere, our hearts are with you at this very sad time. As a Jewish person, my brethren and I are no stranger to senseless violence committed by those whose ignorance is a blight upon this nation.

Please know the one who committed this senseless act of violence and murder against those sitting in prayer at the Temple in Wisconsin is in a distinct minority and that the majority stand with you and we mourn together. I offer my heartfelt hope after the initial period of grief your community and ALL of our communities stand stronger collectively for a more peaceful and loving world.

In Hiroshima's Shadow" -- A chilling article by Noam Chomsky

In Hiroshima's Shadow is an excellent article written by Noam Chomsky here or below . We would do well to read it and heed its sober contents.

What can one say to this oh so disturbing article. The word I use is chilling. I expect man will at some point because he is simply dying to (forgive the pun) drop another nuclear device. The first time against Japan the US had the edge. No one really would challenge its power BUT now that is not the case.

Man stares into the abyss and I wonder how long he can hold out before jumping off this suicidal cliff!

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/266-32/12778-in-hiroshimas-shadow#addcomments

A Stroke of Magic

Sometimes in my zeal to write an opinion quickly syntax suffers. Zealotry, too, should never prevail but passion sadly, at times, rules. Mea culpa; colloquially my bad! I wrote to the News later what I thought was a better constructed, more thoughtful but still rather humorous opinion about Chick-Fil-A in reality a serious-to-the-lives-of-many subject.

Lest the marriage equality deniers get anyone depressed here is a bit of levity. I agree with Mr. Boriskin's August 3, 2012 letters to the editor opinion in the "Metro West News." The mayors of the various cities who voiced their opposition to Chick-Fil-A did not deny these peddlers of hate anything. They too were simply voicing an opinion and stated as such albeit after they thought about First Amendment issues.

Just as the owner of Chick-Fil-A has the right to voice his opinion so do the various mayors who oppose Chick-Fil-A and, in reality did not stop it from selling its unhealthful wares.

It seems Chick-Fil-A is surviving just fine. Oh by the way for all the protesters of Chik-Fil-A spewing their hate fear not. These people who are chewing down Chick-Fil-A by the bag full of grease will be deceased or disabled in no time flat as Chick-Fil-STROKE works its magic.

What's the Matter with Kansas and the Rest of the Nation

Mr. Leonard wrote the most descriptive analysis of what is the matter with Kansas and the rest of the nation for that matter that I have read in his article in Salon entitled "Our Chick-Fil-A Economy." I post it here and below.  He is PRECISELY on point.

Now, what in nature's name do we do about it? May I advocate for liberal northern secession?

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/03/our_chick_fil_a_economy/?source=newsletter

TAKE THE TEA PARTY DOWN!

I was just sent the link below and it should be sent to everyone you  know . The ONLY way we can TRULY win is to take down the Tea Party in Congress POST HASTE! Many have NO idea what the Tea Party is about. The Democratic Party should be dedicated to taking them ALL down in the House and PREVENT them from taking the Senate! Click here or below:

Here are more ways to help us deliver a knockout blow to the worst Tea Party extremists in Congress: Learn more about the ten Tea Party extremists we’re going after:

http://act.credoaction.com/take_down/the-ten.html?rc=ie_actblue_confemail

Help us spread the word about the CREDO SuperPAC and tell your friends about our campaign to make these members of Congress pay for their extremism:

http://act.credoaction.com/take_down/share.html?rc=ie_actblue_confemail

Larger Than My Life

A great man to me, Gore Vidal, died today and I am sad. I am sad as I always am when genius dies no matter how old. He was 86, a curmudgeon and, for many, not their cup of tea but he was mine. He was because his critical analysis of culture and his mantra of question everything is my motto. He was a man of towering brillance, a man of letters to whom few, in our age, can compare.

His works are many, varied and legendary. A few of his famous writings include: Williwaw, The City and the Pillar, Julian, Myra Breckinridge, Washington DC, Burr, Myron, Lincoln, Empire, The Best Man, An Evening with Richard Nixon, The American Presidency, Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta; Screenplays: I Accuse, Ben Hur, Suddenly, Last Summer, The Best Man, Is Paris Burning?, Caligula to name a few.

Vidal suffered fools badly. He had little patience for the brutality of nations and especially for the stupidity of the men who run them. He was born into American royalty and he knew the best and the brightest because he was among them. He was liberal in politics waxing more left and cynical as he aged and so he eschewed many politicos, the rich and the famous who hit our TV and silver screen. He was adversarial to many including a life-long estrangement from the late William F. Buckley, the conservative icon. I viewed the actual 1960's debate that forever finished their conversation. Vidal called Buckley a "crypto Nazi." He possibly was extreme in his appellation of Buckley as such but I, then, secretly agreed!

Three men have died recently whom I held on my too-big-to-fail intellectual giants’ pedestal. Some think my folly is that I raise some humans to god-like status. Maybe I do only because I cannot match their intelligence, wit and accomplishments. I miss Howard Zinn, I miss Christopher Hitchens and now I will miss Gore Vidal. I miss all those committed to the development of intellect and rational thought. The pedestal on which I placed them in my psychic scheme was large because they were larger than my life ever was or could be and I will, as long as I live, envy their intelligence and mourn their loss.

I enclose an MSNBC link to his biography here and below. A list of his works can be found at Wiki link below and here.


http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/08/01/13060511-celebrated-author-playwright-gore-vidal-dies-at-86?threadId=3531888&commentId=68500949#c68500949

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal