Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Pilgrimage
Take a turn, take a turn
Take our fortune, take our fortune
They called the clip a two-headed cow
Your hate clipped and distant, your luck, pilgrimage
Rest assured this will not last, take a turn for the worst
Your hate clipped and distant, your luck a two-headed cow
The pilgrimage has gained momentum
Take a turn, take a turn
Take our fortune, take our fortune
Speakin' in tongues, it's worth a broken lip
Your hate clipped and distant, your luck, pilgrimage
Rest assured this will not last, take a turn for the worst
Your hate clipped and distant, your luck a two-headed cow
The pilgrimage has gained momentum
Take a turn (take a turn), take a turn (take a turn)
Take our fortune (take a turn), take our fortune
Pilgrimage, pilgrimage
Speakin' in tongues, it's worth a broken lip
Your hate clipped and distant, your luck
Rest assured this will not last, take a turn for the worst
Your hate clipped and distant, your luck two-headed
The pilgrimage has gained momentum
Take a turn (take a turn), take a turn (take a turn)
Take our fortune (take a turn), take our fortune
Pilgrimage, pilgrimage
The pilgrimage has gained momentum
Take a turn (take a turn), take a turn (take a turn)
Take our fortune (take a turn), take our fortune (take a turn)
Take a turn (take a turn), take a turn (take a turn)
Take our fortune (take a turn), take our fortune
Lyrics by Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe from the album, Murmur.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
ConsPIRACY?
VS. 
Somali pirating is a lucrative business these days. This year has seen a surge of more than 75% hijackings this year, with most of these unconventional transactions ending in a sizable paycheck. Last Saturday or Sunday, the exact day has yet to be established, the pirates captured a Saudi supertanker, the Sirius Star, with a cargo of crude oil in the Indian Ocean. This feat has led to two new personal records with the Sirius Star being the 1)largest vessel aquired and the Indian Ocean being the 2)farthest out-to-sea pursuit for these modern day buccaneers!
Oddly enough, the ship was found today anchored in Harardhere, a pirate stronghold in Somalia.
This morning, Somalis woke to an enormous ship near their shores. "As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore," said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman.
The Somali pirates' most contentious plundering to date is the Ukrainian ship, the Faina, with tons of war goodies in the Gulf of Aden.
Who will buy my sweet weaponry, two tanks for a trillion pennies?
Ripe Strawberries! Ripe Strawberries!
Since September, US Naval, NATO, EU and Indian warships have surrounded the captive ship and it's crew so that the pirates can't unload the warfare booty.
I wonder how long this will take? Will they suppress the pirates in battle? Or wait out the heavily armed cargo until the pirates receive their ransom? For conspiracy fun, wouldn't this be a good way to transfer weapons to an unsanctioned country? To pretend that pirates are confiscating weapons?
Update 11.18.08 from MSNBC: Somali pirates hijacked an Iranian cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden — their seventh ship in 12 days. This is freakin' insane!
Update 11.20.08 from MSNBC: The Great Creation, a Hong Kong-flagged chemical tanker seized on Sept. 18, was released after a $1.67 million ransom was paid. The Genius, another Hong Kong-flagged chemical tanker which was hijacked Sept. 26, was also returned in exchange for an unknown sum. Earlier this week, pirates released the Stolt Valor, a Japanese chemical tanker after paying hijackers $2.5 million. An associate of the gang holding that ship, the MV Faina(the ship with military arsenal), said they rejected a $2.5 million ransom offer this week. "The pirates and a broker met in the forest(!) between Galkayo and Haradheere ... but the pirates stood by their demand for $8 million," the associate, Hussein Hassan, told Reuters.
Where will all this money go?
Consequently, the British are advising against paying ransom citing that doing so only encourages more hijacking.
For pete's sake, who was the first one to encourage them? Jean Ping, chairman of the African Union Commission, said the increasing piracy was being aggravated by the country's feuding politicians and "a clear indication of the further deterioration of the situation with far-reaching consequences for this country, the region and ... international community." (And no, the red does not mean that Jesus is speaking...)
Here they come! There's nothing we can do to stop them!
Pirate jungle gym
Don't mess, man. Really, don't even mess.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Jeffrey R. Holmstead is a Prick
Holmstead, left, shillin'.
Jeffrey R. Holmstead -- who helped initiate the rule change (to allow coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters to be built near national parks and wilderness areas) while chief of EPA's air and radiation office and who now heads the environmental strategies group at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani (You picked a winner, jerks) -- said it is unsurprising that regional officials would have a position different from that at headquarters.
"The headquarters perspective tends to be much broader (and deranged)," Holmstead said, adding that the Bush administration has pursued air pollution reductions but has seen its proposals tied up in court (What?! Really?! When? Oh, poor helpful and green Bush Administration! They are just trying to heal the planet, dammit!). "Air quality in national parks, in particular, has very little to do with an individual source. (?!) What you really want to do is lower air pollution in that region." Yeah, by localizing and not broadening you git!
Regional EPA officials, he added, want "every weapon in their arsenal" to reduce pollution from a given source: "Regions are focused on a permit for a specific plant. Often what they focus on is anything that gives them leverage." Over pollution? I can not wait until Bush is out of the office.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sweet Sabotage!
I'll see your Lewis and raise you a Martin.
Blog takeover courtesy of http://freethehumanbeings.blogspot.com/ --check it out!
Diabolical!!
Hee hee !!! I crashed Andi's website! I crashed Andi's website! I crashed Andi's blog!! Hee hee!!!!! Now all power is mine!!! All power is mine!!! ALL POWER IS MINE !!!! Wwwwhhhhhaaaaaaa!!!! Nothing can stop me now!!! At last---- I will take over the WHOLE WORLD !!!
Short-lived dance craze
My friend is becoming a traditional dance historian. I love this idea. I will start with preserving the dances of the 1960s. Reference source: my mom.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Freedom for all People
Okay, so I did it. I gave into my curiosity and watched an episode of Celebrity Rehab Season 2. Uljie mentioned this new season to me, but she never said that Rodney King was on it. In this episode, Mr. King recants the infamous horrible tragedy of racism and brutality that he was the victim of. He told of how the riots began when participants of a Gay Rights Parade decided to focus their public statement on the injustice caused to Rodney King. These are people with compassion that made a public display for the rights of man. Rights that their country won't give them. We live in a shameful America until our Rights are legally given to all. It is not the law of the land to recoil at the preference of an individual. It is not even a civil law. This is a law of Religiocity in a nation that was born with a separation of Church and State. We must not let our free religious views condemn another human being. What is a religion? A mode of rules that one prefers to follow. Religion, in a sense, is still a civil idea. It's the spiritual part of religion that makes it otherworldly. A decree of no one religion is what our forefathers were intending when they gave our country the freedom of religion. They did not condone nor condemn the gods that each religion revered. Jesus Christ, the founder of the idealogy that runs in several of this nation's religions, was of kind nature that knew the answer is love. Jesus was the answer to the seemingly hateful and fearing god of his people. Again, this version of god is in style again. Our countrymen and women must quit using Jesus in this brand of Christianity that causes paranoia. These people need our help to get through this sickness. Jesus did not hate anyone. Anyone. Jesus loved everyone. That means that Jesus loved gay people. When these gay men and women stood up to injustice and cried out for humanity they were being more like Jesus than any Right-winged Christian in our nation. And they weren't wearing WWJD wristbands. I agree with Rodney King when he said, "gays bring flavor to the world; they're some real people".
A Veteran's Day Wish
Article from Alternet:
On this day, Veteran's Day, we would like to express to the American public why we, veterans of the Global War on Terror, have chosen to refuse orders to reactivate into military service. We are direct witnesses to the horrors of this war, having experienced its atrocities at their source, and we have decided that we can no longer carry out these illegal and immoral policies.
We believe that veterans and active-duty GIs are in a key position to stop illegal and unjust war, and we are inspired by the resistance of troops who stood against the war in Vietnam. One of the preeminent reasons for the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam was increasing dissent among the active-duty troops stationed abroad and at home. By the end of the war, there were entire units refusing to participate in combat, many going as far as outright mutiny.
The United States learned a lesson from the Vietnam War: that it is unlikely, except in the event of self-defense, that regular civilians will execute the life-threatening orders that are given to them by military authority. The solution of policy makers was to create an all-volunteer force that negated the need for a draft. This translates into a mercenary force composed of America's disadvantaged: a sector of the U.S. demographic that is particularly susceptible to military recruitment for lack of other options and finding themselves with deployment orders again and again.
To compensate for huge pitfalls in recruitment since the invasion of Iraq, the military has resorted to recalling former service members. This policy is known as "involuntary activation" and utilizes deactivated service members who still have time on their contracts in the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR) to fill shortcomings in specific job specialties. The abuse and misuse of this policy has escalated under the current administration to such a degree that it can now only be viewed as a "backdoor draft" that targets the same disadvantaged individuals the military sought out for enlistment, namely because they are better at not questioning orders.
However, we have now begun to question these orders. We are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and members of the IRR who have refused or will refuse any activation orders that would lead to us serving an unjust and imperial U.S. foreign policy. It is a prevailing notion that this refusal is unpatriotic, but we consider our actions the only choice. Not only did the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan do great harm to the people of those countries, but it undermined the ostensible goal with which the wars were begun: Instead of stopping terrorism, it has proliferated terrorism, an expectation that was predicted well before the war started.
By refusing activation, we are refusing to participate in wars that serve the purposes of furthering the careers of politicians and high-ranking officers. We openly support other IRR members who follow in these footsteps. The military is a force that rules through fear of retribution for disobeying its will. In reality, more than a third of IRRs simply refuse to report to duty. Most of the rest report out of fear that the military will change their discharge status or prosecute them for desertion, but up to this point, prosecution has been rare. Members of the IRR are not under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and thus far, the military has had a practice of not prosecuting them with criminal charges unless they report in some form or function to activate. Very few willingly volunteer for activation.
There can be no promise that President-Elect Barack Obama will stop the stressful and unfair techniques of back-to-back deployments, "stop-loss" or the "backdoor draft" that are damaging the psychology of veterans in irreparable ways. Nor that he will stop encouraging global violence by unlawful uses of force. It is in this vein that we turn to organizations like Courage to Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War and many other large-scale and grassroots organizations to solicit change in a largely unrepresentative democracy, and to allow the voices of the people to ring through the halls of the Capital.
Benjamin Lewis, former Marine Corps mortarman, Iraq veteran, IRR recall resister, peace activist
Brandon Neely, former U.S. Army Military police officer, Iraq veteran, IRR recall refuser
On this day, Veteran's Day, we would like to express to the American public why we, veterans of the Global War on Terror, have chosen to refuse orders to reactivate into military service. We are direct witnesses to the horrors of this war, having experienced its atrocities at their source, and we have decided that we can no longer carry out these illegal and immoral policies.
We believe that veterans and active-duty GIs are in a key position to stop illegal and unjust war, and we are inspired by the resistance of troops who stood against the war in Vietnam. One of the preeminent reasons for the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam was increasing dissent among the active-duty troops stationed abroad and at home. By the end of the war, there were entire units refusing to participate in combat, many going as far as outright mutiny.
The United States learned a lesson from the Vietnam War: that it is unlikely, except in the event of self-defense, that regular civilians will execute the life-threatening orders that are given to them by military authority. The solution of policy makers was to create an all-volunteer force that negated the need for a draft. This translates into a mercenary force composed of America's disadvantaged: a sector of the U.S. demographic that is particularly susceptible to military recruitment for lack of other options and finding themselves with deployment orders again and again.
To compensate for huge pitfalls in recruitment since the invasion of Iraq, the military has resorted to recalling former service members. This policy is known as "involuntary activation" and utilizes deactivated service members who still have time on their contracts in the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR) to fill shortcomings in specific job specialties. The abuse and misuse of this policy has escalated under the current administration to such a degree that it can now only be viewed as a "backdoor draft" that targets the same disadvantaged individuals the military sought out for enlistment, namely because they are better at not questioning orders.
However, we have now begun to question these orders. We are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and members of the IRR who have refused or will refuse any activation orders that would lead to us serving an unjust and imperial U.S. foreign policy. It is a prevailing notion that this refusal is unpatriotic, but we consider our actions the only choice. Not only did the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan do great harm to the people of those countries, but it undermined the ostensible goal with which the wars were begun: Instead of stopping terrorism, it has proliferated terrorism, an expectation that was predicted well before the war started.
By refusing activation, we are refusing to participate in wars that serve the purposes of furthering the careers of politicians and high-ranking officers. We openly support other IRR members who follow in these footsteps. The military is a force that rules through fear of retribution for disobeying its will. In reality, more than a third of IRRs simply refuse to report to duty. Most of the rest report out of fear that the military will change their discharge status or prosecute them for desertion, but up to this point, prosecution has been rare. Members of the IRR are not under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and thus far, the military has had a practice of not prosecuting them with criminal charges unless they report in some form or function to activate. Very few willingly volunteer for activation.
There can be no promise that President-Elect Barack Obama will stop the stressful and unfair techniques of back-to-back deployments, "stop-loss" or the "backdoor draft" that are damaging the psychology of veterans in irreparable ways. Nor that he will stop encouraging global violence by unlawful uses of force. It is in this vein that we turn to organizations like Courage to Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War and many other large-scale and grassroots organizations to solicit change in a largely unrepresentative democracy, and to allow the voices of the people to ring through the halls of the Capital.
Benjamin Lewis, former Marine Corps mortarman, Iraq veteran, IRR recall resister, peace activist
Brandon Neely, former U.S. Army Military police officer, Iraq veteran, IRR recall refuser
Monday, November 10, 2008
Funky Monks
Somewhere in Jerusalem at the tomb of Jesus....
A bearded Armenian monk in a red and pink robe and a black-clad Greek Orthodox monk with a bloody gash on his forehead are taken away in handcuffs.
Such was the finale to an unsuccessful march to commemorate the 4th-century discovery of a wooden cross that is believed to be the crime scene of Jesus Christ's murder. The skirmish started when Greek Orthodox monks objected to Armenian monks marching without one of their own monks in the procession.
Serafim, a Greek Orthodox monk, was wounded when an Armenian monk punched him from behind and broke his glasses. "We were keeping resistance so that the procession could not pass through...and establish a right that they don't have."
Father Pakrat of the Armenian Patriarchate said that the Greek monks started it.
Countering this affront, the chief secretary of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate, Archbishop Aristarchos, denied his monks initiated the violence with the statement, "Did not!"
Countering this affront, the chief secretary of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate, Archbishop Aristarchos, denied his monks initiated the violence with the statement, "Did not!"
At the scene of the brawl, Israeli riot police armed with assault rifles stood beside Golgotha where Jesus is believed to have been crucified.
Control of the church is divided among six Christian sects. Not surprisingly, they regularly fight over turf, for instance:
*The Israeli government has wanted to build a fire exit in the church, which regularly fills with thousands of pilgrims and has only one main door, but the sects cannot agree where the exit will be built. Why bother with the safety of God's children? If they burn to a fiery death at least they are in a church, right? That's so Old Testament!
*A ladder placed on a ledge over the entrance sometime in the 19th Century has remained there ever since because of a dispute over who has the authority to take it down. Why doesn't maintenance just put the ladder up and play dumb?
*More recently, a spat between Ethiopian and Coptic Christians is delaying badly needed renovations to a rooftop monastery that engineers say could collapse. Hellish inferno, faulty roof? There is obviously no preservation in Jesus' name.
They say God works in mysterious ways...
These sects' so-called Christian values are literally destroying this ancient church. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is not just any church, this is THE church of Christianity, or of what Christianity has become. If this infighting is going on within the base, what is happening to the branches? It's time for Christianity to save itself. Love thy brother and all that. I think these monks should start with verse nine of the beatitudes:
Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Look over yonder what do you see
The sun is a-risin' most definitely
A new day is comin' people are changin'
Ain't it beautiful
crystal blue persuasion
Better get ready gonna see the light
Love, love is the answer
and that's all right
So don't you give up now so easy to find
Just look to your soul and open your mind
Crystal blue persuasion, mm-hmm
It's a new vibration
Crystal blue persuasion, crystal
Blue persuasion
Maybe tomorrow when He looks down
Every green field and every town
All of his children every nation
There'll be peace and good brotherhood
Crystal blue persuasion
Crystal blue persuasion
Lyrics by Tommy James & the Shondells
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
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