Atrocities

"Atrocities are no less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research."
--George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwright and Critic

Seeds

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
--Pythagoras, Pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher

Euphemisms, Thy Name Is ABC

My email to ABC News, in response to their "Breaking News":

But if it were the terrorists on the other side, you wouldn't use euphemisms like "Has Approved Widening Ground Offensive", would you? You'd probably--and accurately--use language like, "Vows More Terrorist Attacks On Innocent Civilians". Why, then, does Israel get a pass for doing the same thing?

_________________

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:
ISRAELI SECURITY CABINET HAS APPROVED WIDENING GROUND OFFENSIVE IN LEBANON
http://abcnews.go.com/?CMP=EMC-1396

Larry King: It's All How You Look At It

My email to Larry King Live:

Re Larry King's Email:
CNN Tonight: Israel Says No to Cease-Fire

___________________________

How about: Israel Says Yes To More Brutal Killings Of Innocent Civilians

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Bill Of Rights

U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.Full Article, Chicago Sun-Times, July 30, 2006

Cradle-To-Grave Toxins

A wire service article on the number and expense of vaccinations for young people failed to mention any safety issues. That resulted in my letter to the editor of USA Today, among others:


Dear Editor,

In limited cases there is a place for some vaccinations provided they contain no dangerous preservatives. The most illuminating case is that of Jonas Salk who, not for an ongoing stream of corporate profits or executive perks, but simply to prevent suffering, created the polio vaccine. When asked whether he would seek a patent that would make him rich beyond belief, Dr. Salk replied, ""There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" Unfortunately, the multinational corporations that now rule the roost take a much different view.

To increase their profit margins, vaccine makers have for years used Thimerosal, a preservative containing mercury. But the poisoning does not stop there. Other substances that come with vaccines include aluminum hydroxide, animal tissues, MSG, and phenoxyethanol (antifreeze). See Dr. Joseph Mercola's article for more information, http://www.mercola.com/2004/sep/1/vaccines.htm.

Add to the mercury from vaccinations that from most dental fillings and other sources, and it's no wonder that the autism rate in this country is soaring. "Syndromes" such as Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue, supposedly "incurable" by conventional medicine standards, are multiplying, with BigPharma offering only a permanent stream of additional chemicals to maintain a minimal quality of life.

So why isn't the government putting a stop to this? Why are parents being told their children will be deprived of a public education unless they allow their children to be given the Purple Kool-Aid? Because the pharmaceutical companies have the best government money can buy. See, for example, The Center For Public Integrity's well-documented analysis at http://www.publicintegrity.org/rx/report.aspx?aid=723. Where are the exposés on television? Your first clue should be all the advertisements-count how many there are in a single half-hour of the evening network news, or during your favorites soap opera. BigPharma spent more than $4 billion on advertising in 2004 alone. For details, see the article from U.S. News And World Report at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/050606/6consumer.htm. Ask your doctor? Sure, if you can be heard over the roar of the $21 billion plus spent by the pharmaceutical drug cartel in 2003 to "influence" the opinions of medical practitioners, http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050730/bob10.asp. (Or just look at your doctor's pens, notepads, tissue boxes, coffee cups, clocks, and other drug paraphernalia. Then turn around and run for your life).

If all this concerns you, too bad-the pharmaceutical drug cartel has at its disposal swarms of social workers and a court system that will swipe your child and prosecute you for being an unfit parent in the event you refuse to allow toxic chemicals to be pumped in the bodies of the most innocent and vulnerable members of our society. It gives a whole new meaning to "substance abuse".

We live in a polluted society that peddles drugs which merely mask symptoms while the underlying condition continues, with the added bonus that the drugs have side effects that will result in new health problems that will get you "treatment" consisting of, yes you guessed it, more drugs! When all this becomes too much for a body weakened to the point that it can no longer has the spirit to continue the battle, the "death with dignity" movement is ready to send you gently into that dark night once your usefulness as a profit center for drug companies has expired. And BigPharma will be there with claws outstretched for their piece of the action as you receive your final injection.

Cradle-to-grave pharmaceuticals? There's something sick about that. Wake up America and save, if not yourself, at least the children.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

Led

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery."
--Octavia Butler

Free Will

"This free will business is a bit terrifying anyway. It's almost pleasanter to obey, and make the most of it."
--Ugo Betti (1892-1953) Italian Playwright

Birds

"God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages." --Jacques Deval, Afin de vivre bel et bien

The Toxic Hospital

Poisoned Pigeons Create Hazmat Incident

An attempt to control pigeons at a hospital escalated into a hazardous material incident as sick and dying birds falling from the sky forced a temporary shutdown of the emergency room.

Full Article, SF Chronicle, July 28, 2006

___________________________

My letter to the SF Chronicle:

Dear Editor:

Ellis Hospital used a toxic substance around the most vulnerable of our society because they viewed it as a cheap way of eliminating a "problem", i.e. the presence of some of God's creatures.

By worsening the health of already-ailing people, not to mention their own employees, visitors, and others having business at the facility, Ellis Hospital has generated more business for itself. Blue Cross, other insurance companies, patients, and other victims, must be thrilled at all the extra money they will now be expected to cough up for services necessitated by Ellis Hospital's misconduct.

Rather than address the pigeon population with a constructive non-deadly approach, Ellis Hospital has made abundantly clear its contempt for living beings, and its worship of the Almighty Dollar.

To top it off, I have no doubt that the government, in its typical Mafia fashion, will at most just cut another sweetheart deal with the hospital making a modest payoff to the government, a/k/a “a fine”, with none of those responsible going to jail where they belong.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

UPDATE: The Morality Game

So far Melanie Martinez hasn't been given her job back, but Mark Morford has a great column in the SF Chronicle of July 28, 2006:


Dumb People Make Children Cry PBS fires young, female kiddie-show host over old, naughty video. Smart people groan

Courageous

"Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes."
--Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish Journalist, Writer, Dramatist

GINGER THE POMERANIAN LIVES

Last Thursday, I Posted an item about Ginger, a Pomeranian that the facists in Medina County Ohio were going to murder for nipping one of their storm troopers, along with information on an online Petition and contact information for the Medina County Gazette.

There were over 2,000 people who signed the online petition, most of whom said they would adopt Ginger. The Medina County Gazette indicated, in an earlier article that they too got letters, but avoided the question of how many. So the claim in the article, below, that only two people were interested in adopting Ginger, is just plain ludicrous--and the article eventually even concedes that. At any rate, Ginger lives, and let us celebrate her new life far, far away from Ohio!!!

TLC
____________________________________________________________

Pa. woman, son make trip to save doomed Pomeranian at county’s animal shelter
By DENISE SULLIVAN, Staff Writer
LAFAYETTE TWP. — Ginger, the Pomeranian quarantined for biting an animal shelter employee, has gone to a loving home.
Rita O'Shea, of Evans City, Pa., came to the Medina County Animal Shelter at 6334 Deerview Lane just before it opened Wed-nesday morning to adopt the female dog, who is around 8 or 9 years old.
"I've worked before with dogs that have biting issues," said O'Shea, a former rescue worker. "I was concerned she'd go to someone with no experience."
O'Shea, who left home at 6:45 a.m. to reach the shelter in time, was one of two parties interested in adopting Ginger.
The other, Frances Patterson, of Kent, came just in case no one else was available to adopt the dog.
"If someone else wants to take her, that's fine," Patterson said. "I just wanted to make sure she has a home."
Ginger is not O'Shea's only rescued dog. She also adopted a Papillon from Manhattan two years ago.
O'Shea, who came armed with a pocket of treats, knelt on the floor inside the shelter to meet Ginger.
"We're friends now," she said as the dog ate from her hand.
Ginger was brought into the shelter July 13 after someone found her at Medina High School. Two days after that, Ginger bit an employee who had been holding the dog on her lap.
Individuals and rescue groups flooded the shelter's and Commissioner Sharon Ray's inboxes with phone calls and e-mails decrying the practice of euthanizing dogs that bite.
After consulting with the county prosecutor's office, Ray said in this case alone, the dog could be adopted, but only by a rescue group that signs a waiver and agrees not to transfer ownership of Ginger.
Ginger had been quarantined since the bite, and officially was eligible for adoption Wednesday at 10 a.m.
"This turned out really well," Ray said. "I think Ginger's going to have a happy, forever home."
The shelter's average adoption rate of 80 percent, one of the highest in Ohio, is mainly the result of the staff's hard work, she noted.
"The staff really works hard," she noted. "They're all animal lovers."

Source: Medina County Gazette

Proof: Howard Dean Is Just Another Hack

My letter to the SF Chronicle, among other papers. The Chronicle's article, typical of the wire service coverage, can be found here.

TLC
_________________________________

Dear Editor:

In a speech given July 26, 2006, Howard Dean stated:

"We don't need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah."

To claim that the US is in Iraq to bring democracy should eliminate any illusion that Dean is part of an enlightened faction within the Democrat party. Dean has now made clear that he is no more independent of the multinational oil cartel than Hillary Clinton, George Bu$h, and Dick Cheney.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

Minds

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." --Malcolm S. Forbes (1919-1990) American Publisher, Businessman

Clinton - Lieberman - War: Any Questions?

In the course of endorsing war monger Joe Lieberman against anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, Bill Clinton had this incredible line showing, once again, that Denial is not just a river in Egypt:

"We're not responsible for the fact that that a lot of those kids still don't have body armor … and there's billions of dollars that have been given out in no-bid contracts and millions that are just missing. We're not responsible for that.
Full Article, LA Times, July 25, 2006


TLC

Goals

"Unless the distant goals of meaning, greatness, and destiny are addressed, we can't make an intelligent decision about what to do tomorrow morning-- much less set the long-term strategy for a company. Nothing is more practical than for people to deepen themselves."
--Peter Koestenbaum

The Morality Game

UPDATE: SF Chronicle Columnist Mark Morford hits it on the head!



The PBS Kids Sprout network has fired the host of "The Good Night Show" after learning she had appeared in videos called "Technical Virgin."

The host, Melanie Martinez, had alerted network officials about one of the videos late last week and she was immediately taken off the air.

"PBS Kids Sprout has determined that the dialogue in this video is inappropriate for her role as a preschool program host and may undermine her character's credibility with our audience," said Sandy Wax, network president.

In the two "Technical Virgin" videos - made before she landed the children's show job - she spoofs PSAs about how young women can keep their virginity.

Full Article, SF Chronicle, July 24, 2006

______________________

My letter to the SF Chronicle:


Dear Editor:

Hey boys and girls, let’s play The Morality Game!

Whose face and comments should be on YOUR television screen every day?

Melanie Martinez, the popular and delightful host of "The Good Night Show", who in the past spoofed those ridiculous “public service announcements” on maintaining virginity that are about as convincing as “Reefer Madness” was to preventing marijuana use?

Or a man whose cabal has stolen the Presidency twice, who has killed nearly 2,600 Americans and untold tens of thousands of Iraqis so far, with hundreds of thousands more Iraqis to die long agonizing deaths thanks to the strewing of depleted uranium throughout Iraq, all to ensure that the multinational oil cartel controls the supply of oil and thus can maintain high prices and exorbitant profits?

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

It's Official: Obesity surgery--40% of patients suffer complications

Four of every 10 patients who undergo weight-loss surgery develop complications within six months, the federal government said Sunday.

Many of the complications were so serious that patients were readmitted to hospitals or visited emergency rooms within six months.

The most common complications included vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal hernias, infections, pneumonia and respiratory failure, as well as the leaking of gastric juices caused by imperfect surgical connections between the stomach and the intestines.

Full Article, SF Chronicle, July 24, 2006

I've been warning people for years...but what do I know? What does Dr. Joseph Mercola know? Quite a bit, visit his website and do a search on gastric bypass

Now that the government says it, billions of dollars and many thousands of damaged lives later, maybe people will start to wake up? Naaaahhhh, just a one-day blip on the corporate media screen, and then back to slice and dice as usual.

TLC

Bush's Morality

Letter to the SF Chronicle, July 24, 2006:

Bush's Morality

Editor -- President Bush's stem-cell research bill veto has derailed the potential to relieve suffering and painful deaths. His pro-life morals come from a mythical god that tells him it is immoral to use stem cells that will eventually be destroyed, while it is OK and moral for him to send young men and women to be destroyed (die and be severely injured) in his immoral war. How much more of this morality can we stand!
A lifelong conservative Republican. Godfrey (Ben) Baumgartner

Utah: Gunning Down The Wildlife

The SF Chronicle ran an article about a bear who put his or her mouth around the arm of a boy scout, causing no harm of any import. The bear was soon therafter blown away.


My letter to the San Francisco Chronicle:


Dear Editor:

Once again, another sentient being has been shot down in cold blood ("Bear Killed After Biting Boy Scout").

Apparently Utah has been taking lessons from the killing spree of the California Department Of Fish And Game. No attempt was made to sedate the bear with a tranquilizer gun and relocate him or her. Note that the news media has obediently gone along with the Orwellian Newspeak by referring to the bear as "it", which plays into the hands of those who do not want the public to think about the fact that one of God's living breathing creations has been senselessly killed. To further manipulate the public, the killer is called a "conservation officer", although the only things being conserved are a little bit of money and any sense of morality.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

JFK & Dante

One of President Kennedy's favorite quotations was based upon an interpretation of Dante's Inferno. As Robert Kennedy explained in 1964, "President Kennedy's favorite quote was really from Dante, 'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.'" This supposed quotation is not actually in Dante's work, but is based upon a similar one. In the Inferno, Dante and his guide Virgil, on their way to Hell, pass by a group of dead souls outside the entrance to Hell. These individuals, when alive, remained neutral at a time of great moral decision. Virgil explains to Dante that these souls cannot enter either Heaven or Hell because they did not choose one side or another. They are therefore worse than the greatest sinners in Hell because they are repugnant to both God and Satan alike, and have been left to mourn their fate as insignificant beings neither hailed nor cursed in life or death, endlessly travailing below Heaven but outside of Hell. This scene occurs in the third canto of the Inferno (the following is a translation from the original written in the Italian vernacular):

Here sighs and lamentations and loud cries 
were echoing across the starless air, 
so that, as soon as I [Dante] set out, I wept.

Strange utterances, horrible pronouncements, 
accents of anger, words of suffering, 
and voice shrill and faints, and beating hands -

All went to make a tumult that will whirl 
forever through that turbid, timeless air, 
like sand that eddies when a whirlwind swirls.

And I - my head oppressed by horror - said: 
"Master [Virgil], what is it that I hear? Who are 
those people so defeated by their pain?"

And he to me: "This miserable way 
is taken by the sorry souls of those 
who lived without disgrace and without praise.

They now commingle with the coward angels, 
the company of those who were not rebels 
nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.

The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened, 
have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them - 
even the wicked cannot glory in them."

And I: "What is it, master, that oppresses 
these souls, compelling them to wail so loud?" 
He answered: "I shall tell you in few words.

Those who are here can place no hope in death, 
and their blind life is so abject that they 
are envious of every other fate.

The world will let no fame of theirs endure; 
both justice and compassion must disdain them; 
let us not talk of them, but look and pass."

And I, looking more closely, saw a banner 
that, as it wheeled about, raced on - so quick 
that any respite seemed unsuited to it.

Behind that banner trailed so long a file 
of people - I should never have believed 
that death could have unmade so many souls.

After I had identified a few, 
I saw and recognized the shade of him 
who made, through cowardice, the great refusal.

At once I understood with certainty: 
this company constrained the cowardly, 
hateful to God and to His enemies.

These wretched ones, who never were alive, 
went naked and were stung again, again 
by horseflies and by wasps that circled them.

The insects streaked their faces with their blood, 
which, mingled with their tears, fell at their feet, 
where it was gathered up by sickening worms.

 

 Source: https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/life-of-john-f-kennedy/fast-facts-john-f-kennedy/john-f-kennedys-favorite-quotations-dantes-inferno 

(Link updated January 2, 2021.  I have also copied/pasted the text in case something changed between my original Post and now.)

Your Tax Dollars At Work In Lebanon

U.S. military intelligence experts believe the ease at which the Israeli soldier is handling the artillery shell is an indication that the payload contains light-weight gas and not a fuel-air mixture or thermobaric bomb components. WMR continues to receive reports from Lebanon of depleted uranium shells being used by the Israelis. The New York Times today is reporting that the U.S. is stepping up its delivery of "precision-guided" munitions to Israel.

Full Article, July 22/23, 2006, including a graphic photograph on what your tax dollars are buying, from Investigative Reporter Wayne Madsen.

The Plot To Depose Rep. Cynthia McKinney

Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, facing a run-off with County Commissioner Hank Johnson on August 8, is being targeted by out-of-state money being funneled through law enforcement associations dedicated to her defeat. The involvement of the law enforcement associations stems from an altercation in April between a US Capitol policeman and McKinney. The cop was the main actor in a pre-planned incident designed to embarrass McKinney in an election year and cost her the 4th congressional district seat.

Full Article, from Investigative Reporter Wayne Madsen, July 22/23, 2006


Representative Cynthia McKinney is one of the very few members of Congress to consistently stand up to the Fourth Reich. See my previous Post on Rep. McKinney.

TLC

Education Department Report: Public v. Private Schools

The SF Chronicle recently carried a NY Times article by Diana Jean Schemo on public v. private schools:

The federal Education Department reported Friday that, in reading and math, children attending public schools generally do as well as or better than comparable children in private schools.

Full Article, July 15, 2006.

______________________

This prompted the following letter to the SF Chronicle, and other papers:


Dear Editor,

Your article, "Little separates public, private schools", on the federal Education Department's report, misses the point.

What the Education Department looked at is the performance of children on standardized tests. If the role of private schools is to march in lockstep with the federal mandate of, "No Standardized Test Left Behind", then perhaps the study has merit.

However, if the role of schools is to give the next generation tools that allow them to think creatively, and empower them for a world that will require new and creative answers that their elders have been unable to provide, then the output of an assembly line is being compared with that of artists. As with artists, not all private schools provide the same quality of output. Thus the generalizations provided by the Education Department, in comparing the substantially homogenized public school system with private schools of diverse quality, and then using as the yardstick for comparison examinations that measure student's test-taking abilities, are of nominal if any value.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

Involvement

"Emerson and Thoreau both learned from their experience as reformers that withdrawal of the good simply abandons the field to the evil."

"Emerson and Thoreau began with a philosophy of individual renewal of spirit and imagination, but they both came to understand that social justice would require more than private philosophizing: one had to take a principled stand and bring others along."

--Len Gougeon, Ph.D
University Of Scranton, Pennsylvania
From his Letter To The Editor, Harpers Magazine, August, 2006

Preparing For The War On Iran

The Plan: [P]lant Desert Storm-vintage biological and chemical weapons shells, confiscated by U.S. forces in Iraq, on the Iranian side of the Iraqi border. The weapons will be used as "proof" of Iran's plan to "attack" U.S. troops in Iraq. That will be used to justify, ex post facto, the coming U.S. attack on Iran.

Full Story, from Investigative Reporter Wayne Madsen, July 21, 2006

The Deer Hunter

UPDATE, September 6, 2006:

On September 5, 2006, the "hunter", Gene Bitler, was sentenced to serve five years and one month for attempted second degree murder, to be followed by a sentence of 34 months for misdemeanor charges including criminal hunting and contributing to the misconduct of his teenage boys, who were with him at the time the attack.

Full Article, Topeka Capital-Journal

That prompted a new letter to the editor:


Dear Editor:

Gene Bitler, who stabbed farmer Marvin Macy and left him to die, was convicted, among other things, of "criminal hunting". It's perfectly fine to kill, just do so while your government-issued killing permit is in effect.

Bitler was also convicted of contributing to the misconduct of his teenage boys. But in Kansas, teaching children to kill innocent deer is considered a normal, healthy activity.

Deer today, farmers tomorrow. How sad that so many cannot connect even rudimentary dots.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark
______________________________________________

Kansas is, of course, not the only place where the slaughter of sentient deer is considered a "sport". And yet the cavalier attitudes of too many Kansans, coupled with their inability to connect the dots, provides an endless source of opportunities for enlightenment. See my previous Posts on the topic of deer.

Today's Salina [Kansas] Journal brings us the story of the tragic stabbing of a farmer who apparently caught a "hunter" on the farmer's land with a fresh kill. The "hunter", not wanting to be turned in and lose his "prize", slashed and stabbed the farmer repeatedly. Through sheer will to live, not to mention a healthy lifestyle, the farmer survived. You can read the whole bloody article here.

This prompted a letter to the editor. Send your own letter, and then post a copy in the Comments section, below.


Dear Editor,

Whatever the legal outcome, the knife attack on Clay County farmer Marvin Macy by hunter Gene Bitler was horrible indeed.

Yet one should not be surprised that, in a society where one has the "right" to take the life of sentient beings for mere entertainment, the disregard for the value of lives of others does not stop with those who walk on four legs.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

Books

"To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves."
--Claude Arien Helvetius (1715-1771) French Philosopher

URGENT: Help Save Ginger, A Scared Sweet Pomeranian In Ohio

UPDATE: GINGER LIVES!!!!


Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/562271171

Picture Of Ginger: http://www.petfinder.com/fotos/OH240/OH240.6652396-1-pn.jpg

My comments added to the Petition:Ohio's reputation is already in the toilet for its use of gas chambers to murder innocent cats and dogs, a mentality reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Let the sparing of this sweet girl's life mark the first step toward change.--TLC, signatory # 1,143

And then I sent the following letter, below, to the editor of the Medina County Gazette, http://www.medina-gazette.com, email address for letters opinion@ohio.net Be sure to include your name, address, and daytime phone number! In this case, anonymous letters aren't going to have the effect that people actually putting their name on the line will have. Let Medina County know that, indeed, The Whole World Is Watching!

____________________________

Dear Editor,

I am quite outraged that the Medina County Animal Shelter plans to murder, on July 25, 2006, a sweet and terrified Pomeranian because she panicked and bit someone.

According to the Shelter, the Medina County Health Department requires that all animals who bite someone while imprisoned must be killed. However, informed sources at the Health Department are clear that is NOT Health Department policy.

Ohio's reputation is already in the toilet for its use of gas chambers to murder innocent cats and dogs, a mentality reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Let the sparing of this sweet Pomeranian's life mark the first step toward change.

And may the citizens of your community rise up and demand that those running the "Shelter" be replaced with people that have a heart and a brain.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark
____________________________
PERMISSION TO CROSSPOST
==================
If a dog bites someone in the shelters in Ohio, they go into quarantine and then are killed!! No matter what, they won't let a rescue take...they kill the dog regardless. This scared little pom bit someone at the Medina Shelter and is in quarantine now. She will be killed on Tuesday the 25th if we do NOT flood Sharon with calls and let her know our feelings on this. This dog has a rescue willing to take...there should be NO reason to kill this dog. Please call Sharon NOW. This dog only has a few days left. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

PLEASE CROSSPOST AND CIRCULATE!

Sharon Rey County Commissioner's office330-722-9212 (this is in Ohio)

In a message dated 7/20/2006 6:33:32 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, linda.furness1@btinternet.com writes:

SAVE GINGER - PLEASE SIGN PETITION!!!

Please take a moment of your time and help us save Little Ginger.... Sign the petition & Cross Post!!!!! http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/562271171

LOOK at her face, We all know how scared these little ones can be!!! She does not deserve to die!!!! http://www.petfinder.com/fotos/OH240/OH240.6652396-1-pn.jpg

Here is Ginger's story. She was picked up as a stray and put in the pound she bit an employee of the Medina County Animal Shelter on Saturday July 15, 2006. Then she was placed in quarenteen for 10 days. A Pom Posse Volunteer called and they said no rescue could take. They turned it over to Regina another very dedicated Pom Posse Volunteer and she called and talked to the animal shelter two days straight July 17th and 18th. They said she will be PTS after the quarenteen period is over no matter the outcome. This is their policy. No adopter or rescue can take the dog once it has biten someone. I did ask for a waiver and was denied this option. The animal control officers say the health department of the county made this rule. But all the health department employees tell me that that is not true.

Rachel

Democracy in Crisis - An Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

From BradBlog, July 18, 2006. Read the entire interview, beginning to end. Feel free to Post your comments, below: How DO we save the noble experiment known as the United States Of America?

TLC

Not

"Go not for every grief to the physician, nor for every quarrel to the lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot."
--George Herbert
English clergyman & metaphysical poet (1593 - 1633)

Chronic(le) Disconnect

A doctor and two nurses were arrested Tuesday after Louisiana's attorney general accused them of using lethal injections to kill four elderly New Orleans hospital patients during the hellish aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Quoting other hospital staff, a state affidavit portrayed Dr. Anna Pou as methodically ordering up a list of patients remaining at the flooded Memorial Medical Center, three days after the storm. Many already had been evacuated from the hospital, which was surrounded by 5 feet of water and was baking in 100-degree-plus heat. The sickest, however, were still there.

All three were released without bail Tuesday. But the arrest warrant prepared by the attorney general says the three committed second-degree murder, a crime that could draw a life sentence.

SF Chronicle--send your own and Post it in the comments section, below:


Dear Editor,

A doctor and two nurses face imprisonment for the rest of their lives for what, with 20-20 hindsight, MIGHT have been an error in judgment. At a time when FEMA flailed hopelessly in Katrina's aftermath and Bu$h told Cuba that he would rather see people die than receive help from Cuban doctors, three medical professionals had to make difficult choices in how to best prevent four extremely physically ill patients from senseless suffering.

Meanwhile, Bu$h, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co. have killed, maimed, and tortured over 100,000 innocent people to expand the US corporate empire, yet they continue to live lives of luxury, no pesky Nuremberg Tribunal to rain on their parade.

To top off this total disconnect, the Chronicle chose to run three dark, forbidding photographs of the accused that are more befitting something out of a showtrial in a third-world nation than of the United States Of America where the presumption of innocence is still cherished-well, unless it clashes with an opportunity to hawk more newspapers through sensationalism.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

Bob Herbert: Bush Administration Defines The Term 'tyranny'

Congress is dithering and the American public doesn't even seem particularly concerned as the administration of George W. Bush systematically trashes such fundamental American values as justice, due process, respect for human rights and submission to the rule of law. In the kangaroo courts that the administration concocted to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a defendant could be prevented from seeing the evidence against him, would not have the right to attend his own trial and would not have the right to appeal the sentence to a civilian court.

Source, and full article--well worth your time: the Bush Bulge story, about Bush being fed his lines via satellite receiver during the 2004 debates with John Kerry.
--TLC

Help Elect Bernie Sanders To The Senate

While I have no use for Barbara Boxer, she is doing a poll on where money she diverts from useful groups should be spent. Amazingly, she lists Bernie Sanders as someone she might give some of that money to, if he gets enough votes on her website. So hold your nose, and set your browser to:

http://ga4.org/pacforachange/senate_vote.html


TLC

"Protect Our Borders" & Mexico Beheadings

Perhaps someone has emailed you the "news" article that vaguely describes the rather unpleasant beheadings of four people in Mexico by a "mob". The implication is that we'd better do something about controlling our borders lest those Mexican "savages" keep coming into the US of A.

My reply...


Interesting story...except it completely lacks context.

As you will see from the LA Times article below, you can thank the druggies in the USA, constantly bombarded with the message by the corporate media and the prescription drug cartel that drugs are a perfectly acceptable way of life. And if you think the US government isn't complicit, do a Google search on (without the quotation marks) "CIA crack cocaine". And visit investigative journalist http://www.waynemadsenreports.com and find out about the continued importation of drugs courtesy of the red white and blue.

Until people in the USA are willing to do something about their two addictions that are killing this nation and the world--drugs (both prescription and non-prescription) and oil, the savage violence described by the article you sent-violence that pales in comparison to that inflicted upon the people of Iraq each and every day by the US government because we and our OPEC friends want to control the supply and thus the price of oil-will continue to escalate (what's the difference between love and depleted uranium? Depleted uranium is forever).

TLC
___________________

Mexico's Cartels Escalate Drug War
Gangs enlist militias, whose tactics include beheadings, in battles over smuggling routes.
By Richard Marosi
Times Staff Writer
June 23, 2006

TIJUANA — The caller painted an ominous scene: A convoy of 40 vehicles carrying 70 heavily armed and masked men was prowling the streets of Rosarito Beach on Tuesday evening. The three police officers who arrived were quickly abducted. The next morning, their mutilated bodies turned up in an empty lot.

Their heads were found in the Tijuana River later that day.

The assault is believed to be one of the largest in Baja California, and is the latest in a series of precisely executed paramilitary operations that have beset Mexican cities as drug cartels escalate their battles to control key smuggling routes.

With Mexican authorities relying more heavily on the military to combat drug smuggling, traffickers have responded in kind, forming large forces of assailants and arming them with frightening arrays of weaponry.

In April, nearly two dozen heavily armed men tried to assassinate Baja California's top-ranking public safety official in a shootout on a Mexicali street. The attackers fired grenades and more than 600 rounds from assault weapons, wounding three bodyguards.

Over the last year, commando-style raids have been regular occurrences in Tijuana, with convoys of masked gunmen snatching victims from restaurants and street corners in brazen daylight raids.

"It's a disturbing manifestation of the latest drug war frenzy…. The militarization of the drug war in many ways on the side of law enforcement has corresponded with the militarization of tactics and personnel on the criminal side," said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

The situation, Shirk added, "has heightened the competition and raised the stakes in a way that has led to extreme violence, at a level we have not seen before in Mexico."
In Nuevo Laredo, on the Texas border, a raging turf war between the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels has killed more than 230 people in the last 18 months.

The defection of an anti-drug commando unit, the Zetas, from the Mexican military to the Gulf cartel in the late 1990s paved the way for military-style assaults, experts say.
Federal officials say they killed or captured the original group, but they believe jailed Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas still has at least 120 cadres trained by the Zetas at his command as recently as last August, and increasingly is using them to battle the rival cartel led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

But the violence is not limited to cities along the U.S.-Mexico border. In Apatzingan, in the central state of Michoacan, four men were killed and a police officer and four bystanders wounded in an Aug. 18 shootout between rival drug gangs that involved dozens of paramilitary gunmen in 10 vehicles.

Two weeks earlier, police in nearby Uruapan, also in Michoacan, had arrested a group of 10 suspected drug gang members armed with AK-47s and AR-15s.

Cartels also are using increasingly brutal methods to intimidate their enemies. The Rosarito Beach beheadings followed the decapitation in April of a police commander in Acapulco, whose head was found in a public plaza.

Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the top organized crime prosecutor in the Mexican attorney general's office, has taken over the investigation of the Baja California beheadings. In an interview for today's editions of the Mexico City newspaper El Universal, Santiago said the abductions and beheadings were characteristic of the brutal Central American-based Mara Salvatrucha gang, which has become increasingly involved in the Mexican drug trade.

"Acts like the ones we have just seen are manifestations of groups related to the Maras," he said. "We have seen the phenomenon of decapitation in El Salvador, a brutal act of intimidation that is occurring here as drug gangs are worn down and resort to recruiting this kind of group."

Jeffrey McIllwain, a criminal justice professor at San Diego State University who studies border security issues, believes the violence is a sign that pressure from law enforcement is affecting the cartels' bottom line.

"The fact is that it has hurt operations, severely in some cases … so it makes sense that the cartels would step up their game," McIllwain said.

In Baja California, the crime wave could signal an escalation of the fierce war to control the lucrative Tijuana smuggling corridor, which traditionally has been controlled by the Arellano-Felix cartel. Several top-ranking members of the cartel have been killed or arrested in recent years, and other cartels may be sensing weakness, experts say.

Some recent attacks were shocking for their audacity, experts say. Last month, three men armed with AK-47s stormed into the Mexican federal attorney general's office in Tijuana and shot two agents, killing one. In December, assailants attacked the Tijuana home of a state police commander, killing two of his bodyguards. In October, Tijuana's chief of homicides narrowly escaped an attack by assailants who fired more than 50 bullets at his car.

"It's a more aggressive form of violence, with new ingredients," said Victor Clark, a border expert and director of Tijuana's Binational Center for Human Rights.
---------------------------------------------------
Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Source: Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2006

Ideas II

"The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television."
--Andrew Ross

US: Not Finding It With Both Hands

And let's make those darned Iraqis pay us restitution for having to invade their country after they didn't bow down to the demands of the US-OPEC oil cartel!

At least the Brits know their a** from a hole in the ground:

"Tony Blair told MPs that 5,000 Britons would be evacuated by the end of the week. A Downing St official added: "We are doing this carefully; it is not a race."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1823823,00.html

TLC
_______________

From Larry King's email, July 18, 2006:
Caught in the crossfire of the Mideast crisis! Americans trying to get out of Beirut give their eyewitness accounts as the bombs and rockets keep flying and the death toll rises. After a week of deadly attacks, some 350 of the estimated 25,000 Americans in Lebanon have been evacuated so far.

And now, controversy over whether they should have to pay to be rescued!

Madsen On The Washington Press Corp

Great article by investigative reporter Wayne Madsen today, July 18, 2006. Covers the Washington Post as, for the most part, a mouthpiece for Bu$h & Company--notes that the WaPo owns the Kaplan internet correspondence school (have you been spammed by Kaplan too? Now you know who to thank!). And much more. A quick but very enlightening read, well worth a couple minutes of your time.

TLC

U.N. report: Iraq on 100 dead a day

U.N. report: Iraq on 100 dead a day

According to a new United Nations report, nearly 6,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in sectarian fighting in May and June. As Reuters notes, any "estimates of mortality from violence" are necessarily approximate in "a country with barely functioning public institutions where relatives routinely remove the bodies of victims for burial with little legal formality." Still, even as a rough estimate, the U.N. number is more than a little breathtaking. Six thousand deaths in two months is almost 100 deaths a day in a country with just 26 million residents. Adjusted for population differences, that would be the equivalent of a 9/11 about every two and a half days in the United States.
-- Tim Grieve

Source: Salon, July 18, 2006

Hillary: Bu$h In A Dress

Sen. Hillary Clinton Vows Support for Israel At Rally

Meanwhile on Monday thousands of supporters of Israel gathered in New York. Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton addressed the crowd vowing support for Israel.

Sen. Hillary Clinton: "We will support her efforts to send a message to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians, to the Iraniains, to all who seek death and domination instead of life and freedom that we will not permit this to happen and we will take whatever steps are necessary."

Prior to the rally, Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch threw a fundraising breakfast for Hillary Clinton in New York.

Source: Democracy Now, July 18, 2006

Of Economics And Religion

From The Salina [Kansas] Journal's Extension 333 anonymous comment line, July 18, 2006:

"Sen. Brownback voted for the big tax cuts for rich people and he voted against raising the minimum wage for poor people. I hope he just shuts up about being a Christian."

A Tale Of Two Utility Companies

Now if the same thing had happened in Humboldt County California under the leadership of PG&E, how long would it have taken them to pull their head out? A little example of how amazing it is that people put up with such lousy utility "service" in California, while rural Clay Center Kansas, with two blown transformers, is up and running within the hour!

TLC
________________________________

An hour without power
Monday, July 17, 2006 08:14 pm
Exploding transformers hit Clay Center
By TIM UNRUH, Salina Journal

CLAY CENTER -- Two large transformers exploded at a Clay Center substation Sunday afternoon, causing Clay Center and its hinterlands to be without power for a hour.

About 5,000 people lost electricity, superintendent of utilities Bill Callaway said.

The city fired up its generators and restored power, he said. Monday, portions of the city went powerless for about 45 minutes while city and Westar officials evaluated damage.

Sunday's high temperature was 104 degrees in Clay Center. It was 102 Monday, Callaway said.

Preparation

" Nobody is ever old until the day that dreams are replaced by regrets... Some people see mistakes as failure in life, whilst others see it as gaining experience for handling what they will have to overcome tomorrow. Are you preparing yourself for tomorrow or are you like the fool who wants only to follow in the footsteps of another...Never to experience the greatness of personal victory?"
--Jannie Putter

More Ways To Spread Enlightenment--The Killing Fields Of England

My earlier Post on the murder of over 10,000 innocent greyhounds in England provided the original London Times investigative report.

The Guardian UK did an article on the Greyhound slaughter, basically revisiting the investigative reporting by the London Times. To help spread enlightenment, you should send a letter to the Guardian, too.

Likewise, the Independent UK also covered the London Times piece. Spread the word with your letter to the Independent UK.

The BBC picked up the story, although they spun it as if the greyhound associations were really concerned about what they've condoned and known about for so many years. The BBC uses a webform, just copy/paste one of your other letters.


For the Greyhounds, and for those working to stop the self-destructive insanity of the human race, thank you.

TLC

The Killing Fields Of England

My letter to the London Times, followed by the article concerned. Send the Times a letter of your own, and Post it below.

TLC
_________________________

Dear Editor,

Congratulations for having the courage to do an undercover investigation on David Smith, murderer of over 10,000 innocent sentient greyhounds.

Certainly those who have been dumping the greyhounds after they have served their "useful financial purpose", along with the greyhound racing associations that have known about this all along, are equally culpable.

But does any of this come as a surprise, in a world in which Iraqis are slaughtered right-and-left, their land strewn with depleted uranium, so that the multinational oil companies in conjunction with OPEC can ensure that Iraqi oil does not flood the market and bring down oil prices?

Is it any surprise that the greyhound slaughter is occurring in England-and the same thing happens in the U.S.-countries that claim to be "Christian", yet who share little in common with the teachings of Jesus?

When government has no respect for life, just for money, particularly where that standard is reinforced by the corporate media, it is a natural consequence of the callous indifference of the masses that such atrocities occur. Perhaps your article will light a candle that will outrage people enough to finally demand change.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark
_______________________________________________________

The Sunday Times July 16, 2006
Revealed: the man who killed 10,000 dogs
Daniel Foggo

THE secret slaughter of at least 10,000 racing greyhounds by one man has been exposed by an undercover investigation.

For the past 15 years David Smith, a builders' merchant, has been killing healthy greyhounds no longer considered by their trainers to be fast enough to race. He buries them in a one-acre plot at the back of his home in Seaham, Co Durham.

Last week The Sunday Times covertly filmed Smith on two consecutive days receiving greyhounds from trainers before killing them with a bolt gun, dumping them in the plot and covering over the "graves" using a mechanical digger.

He told an undercover reporter it took him three years to fill the field, at which point he simply started all over again. "Within a year the bodies have gone," said Smith. "It takes me about three years to get across there and by the time I get there I can start back here again and there are only a few bones left."

According to Sunday Times calculations and testimony of two racing insiders, it is conservatively estimated Smith has killed at least 10,000 dogs.

The scandal, described as the "canine killing fields" by one campaigner, has shocked the government and greyhound industry, which attracts bets of £2.5 billion a year.

Ben Bradshaw, minister for animal welfare, said Smith's business was "horrendous" and promised an inquiry into the slaughter and potential health and environmental hazard of such a large-scale dumping of dogs' bodies. Alistair McLean, chief executive of the National Greyhound Racing Club, which governs the sport, described it as a "euthanasia factory" and promised an inquiry. "This is disgraceful. We categorically don't endorse this kind of thing," he said.

The RSPCA has previously expressed "grave concerns" about the fate of up to 12,000 retired greyhounds that go missing every year. A spokesman said: "There is no justification for killing these animals simply because they can't do their job any more."

Smith charges owners and trainers £10 to kill unwanted dogs, many only a few years old. One trainer, who asked not to be named, said: "This man kills dogs for 40 licensed trainers and there are at least 10,000 dogs in his field. People in the industry have been going to him for years. Many of the bigwigs knew it was going on."

Since 1997 anyone has been able to own a bolt gun to kill animals without a licence, although they can be prosecuted if the animals are put down inhumanely or without the owner's permission. A new code of practice proposed under the animal welfare bill would restrict the killing of greyhounds to vets using "humane" lethal injections.

After being confronted this weekend Smith said he would stop killing dogs, which he said he had done in the past for "humane" reasons.

Source: London Times, July 16, 2006

Petition: Tell Congress To Use Its Purse Strongs To Constrain Israeli Aggression

It's a start...

TLC
______________________

Sign Here

TELL CONGRESS TO USE ITS PURSE STRINGS TO CONSTRAIN ISRAELI AGGRESSION

Over the weekend an ad hoc group of Jewish leaders in Los Angeles denounced Israel's collective punishment attacks on civilians and their infrastructure. It is time for Congress to do the same thing, and to back it up with a threat to cut off all military aid and foreign assistance to Israel.

This last Thursday, July 13th, the diplomatically hostile John Bolton vetoed a U.N. security council resolution calling for ALL sides to exercise restraint. This was in response to Israel's "disproportionate" over-reaction in launching a massive new military assault on Gaza because of the kidnaping of a single soldier. The resolution called not just for Israel to suspend its attacks, but for the other side to do the same and to release that soldier. But even that was not reasonable enough for the rabid war-mongers who are driving current U.S. and Israeli policy.

The failure of the U.N. to act because of the Bush administration's anti-leadership has now precipitated even graver escalations of insanity as Israel attacks the Beirut international airport, power stations and other civilian installations. This NOT self defense. This is the Bush Doctrine of gross violations of the Geneva Conventions. These are war crimes of aggression which no atrocity on the other side can justify. And they must stop.

We have no direct influence on Hamas or Hezbollah. But we are currently giving Israel $2.5 billion dollars a year in foreign aid, most of it direct military assistance. It is time for us to stop being apologists for the inexcusable. It it time to demand Israel conduct itself as a civilized nation or we're cutting them off. Congress must lead where the president will not.

Call your members of Congress NOW at 888-355-3588 or 800-828-0498 and demand action, and follow up by submitting this action page.


Sign Here

Tools

"The only tools one needs in life are WD-40 to make things go and duct tape to make them stop. "
--Gareth Mark

Selling Our Infrastructure Out From Under Us

Foreign companies buying U.S. roads, bridges

Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.

About half the states now let companies build and operate roads. Many changed their laws recently to do so.

Full Article, July 15, 2006, Associated Press


How many years has this been going on, how much of our infrastructure has been sold so that consumers can get clobbered yet again while our tax dollars go to finance wars around the world for empire that benefits multinational corporations that are busily exporting our jobs? I don't recall any previous wire service articles on the selling of roads and bridges.

TLC

Hooked

"A silent nation, hooked on medication, stares into a blue flickering light."
--Calexico
"Service And Repair"

Softening The Masses For Martial Law

Responding to an increased number of soldiers getting in trouble at Manhattan nightspots, Fort Riley has begun having military officers walk the beat with police three nights a week.

The military officers don't have the authority to make arrests, carry firearms, physically restrain soldiers or participate in the surveillance or capture of civilians. But they do have military authority over soldiers and can enforce military codes of conduct.

Full Article, Wichita Eagle-Beacon, July 14, 2006


As the American people see increasing numbers of military troops on our streets, will they wake up to the creeping totalitarianism? And if they begin to wake up, will it be imposed anyhow?

TLC

"Christianity" vs. "The Rest"

From the website of the "Animal Control" division of the City Of Pacific Grove, California:

It is illegal in Pacific Grove to intentionally place or distribute feed, salt blocks or other attractants for deer. People who feed deer do more harm than good, according to the California Department of Fish and Game. One important reason is that deer are the primary prey of mountain lions. Concentrating deer by feeding can attract mountain lions well within the city limits. It may become necessary to kill these lions for public safety.
_____________________

Ah, the government at work. If we let the deer starve to death, then mountain lions will starve to death, and we won't have to waste our time killing the mountain lions.

I thought the Bible spoke of man in terms of being caretakers of the animal kingdom, not slaughterers. Remind me again, what is the difference between "Christianity" as practiced in the U.S., and all those other "violent" religions?

TLC

Bush, The Middle East, And The Useless Corporate Press

Asked whether Bush has any plans to speak to Israeli officials, Snow said: "At this point -- look, I think -- the Israeli leaders have been consulted, and they've been consulted by the secretary of state and the national security advisor. And they'll continue their conversations, and there is no -- I don’t want to say there's no need, I'd just say the president has not expressed any plans to speak with the prime minister, but should it become necessary, he will." And with that, a member of the White House press corps asked Snow about the president's plans for a bike ride this afternoon.
Full Article by Tim Grieve at Salon, July 14, 2006

Charity

"Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it."
--John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) American Industrialist, Philanthropist

Occupying Forces

"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."
-- Henry Kissinger(1923- ) Former US Secretary of StateSource: Speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Bilderburgers meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate to the meeting.

Karma Dings The Flesh Peddler

Feedlot owner fined $31,000
Cattleman didn't have proper permits to run business

Mike Beneke knows he was wrong. But knowing that won't make all the dollar signs go away.

Beneke, 47, lives east of Lincolnville in southeast Marion County. He has 500 acres of land and about 5,200 head of cattle.

His company, B&B Cattle Co., has been operating there for about 6 years. The problem: He doesn't have the required state permit, never has, and now he is being fined $31,000.

According to a news release from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Beneke's firm "has been operating a confined animal feeding operation of about 5,200-head of cattle without a permit, operating without water pollution controls and practicing improper collection, handling and disposal of animal and other wastes."

Full Story, The Salina [Kansas] Journal, July 13, 2006

____________________________________

My letter to The Salina Journal:


Dear Editor,

Thou doth protest too much in your editorial masquerading as a “news” story.

Poor farmer Beneke, the mean old government fined him $31,000 for not having “proper permits”—which is all that many of your readers, who just skimmed the headline, would have learned.

But when one digs into the substance of the article, it turns out that Mr. Beneke was saving quite a bundle of money—over a quarter of a million dollars—by not bothering to comply with the laws concerning pollution from farming operations. Laws enacted to protect others from such completely irresponsible conduct. THAT is why he was fined—not for some failure to jump through paperwork hoops.

Since when is it a God-given right to poison other members of society in order to line one’s own pocket? The Natural Resources Defense Council has a good outline of just a few of the problems caused by operations like that of Mr. Beneke, http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp

So notwithstanding the Journal's misleading headline and not-so-subtle editorial slant, this was not a case of some bureaucracy run amok, but rather one of another rampant polluter getting massaged, not even slapped, on the hand.

A more appropriate sanction would be to make Mr. Beneke to drink untreated farming runoff for the next six years.

Is the Kansas Department of Health and Environment going to force this overgrown brat to clean up all of his mess? Will the government end up bankrolling the cleanup? Or are Mr. Beneke’s neighbors and the rest of society going to continue to pay the price with their impaired health, just as they have for the past six years?

Terry L. Clark

"Sport"

"Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself."
--Froude

Certainty

"No great deed, private or public, had ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty." --Leon Wieseltier, in The New Republic

Greg Palast Interview: The Attempt To Steal Mexico's Presidency

Deja Vu all over again. If you missed Florida in 2000, you can watch the same sorts of tactics being tried in Mexico. But unlike the gringos, the people of Mexico and their winning presidential candidate do not appear to be docile lapdogs. Great interview with investigative reporter Greg Palast--you can read the transcript, listen to the audio, or watch the video, as you prefer, here.

TLC

Knowledge

"If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search." --Sir John Templeton

Swearing-In Formaility As "Breaking News"

On July 10, 2006, the Mickey Mouse network breathless announced, in a "Breaking News" email:

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:HENRY J. PAULSON IS SWORN IN AS NEW SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY


To which I replied:

And the sun rose in the east this morning. Why is the formality of a swearing-in considered "Breaking News"?

TLC
____________________________________________________

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:HENRY J. PAULSON IS SWORN IN AS NEW SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

The Shooting Down Of TWA 800

July 11, 2006 -- The tenth anniversary of the TWA 800 crash off of Long Island, July 17, 2006, is approaching and the mainstream media, as expected, will be spinning the "official" conclusion that the Boeing 747 crashed as the result of center fuel tank spontaneous combustion. WMR has learned from FBI sources that TWA 800 was shot down on July 17, 1996, by a Stinger missile fired from a leased speedboat by individuals associated with white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Full Story, by investigative journalist Wayne Madsen

Making Cuba Safe For Electoral Theft

A U.S. presidential commission on Monday urged Washington to spend $80 million to help nongovernmental groups hasten change in Cuba, but some dissidents here said the move would do them more harm than good.

Secretary of State Condolezza Rice said "we are offering support for the efforts of Cubans to prepare for the day when they will recover their sovereignty and can select a government of their choosing through free and fair multiparty elections."

Full Story, SF Chronicle, July 10, 2006


My letter to the SF Chronicle:

Dear Editor,

How much of the $80 million that Bu$h and company want to spend destabilizing Cuba will go toward “voting machines” that guarantee the result that U.S. corporations want? Are there sufficient funds to cover the dumping of “inconvenient” ballots in landfills as has recently happened in Mexico?

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

Another Day, Another Abandonment

Today's idiocy comes from a woman who has a "dog trainer" that told her to dump the loyal family dog. The trainer, it should be noted, did a lousy job at helping the dog with some fairly manageable issues. The woman wrote, "We are having our first baby in 2 months...I have to do the right thing."

My response--the dog owner is obviously beyond help, so the comment was sent as therapy for the rescue person and myself:


Put the baby up for adoption! The baby will otherwise have unfit parents with a definite lack of loyalty and significant commitment issues.

And get a dog trainer that has a f'ing clue.

TLC

Creating A Military Reflective Of Bu$h & Cheney

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."

The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."

"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "


Full Article, New York Times, July 7, 2006

Standing

"Courage is doing or saying what you think is right, not what others want you to do or say."
--Kevin Edge

Men & Women

"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then."
--Katharine Hepburn

Solitude

"The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude."
--Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) British Novelist, Essayist, Critic

Another Irresponsible Generation On The Way

Another day, another excuse-filled tale of someone wanting to dump companion animals because they are inconvenient and require a bit of effort. This time the situation involved a family with children. This got my blood boiling, and so I fired off the following response:


And what is wrong with letting children have the experience of having someone to love and care for, so that they learn how to be responsible members of society, so that they develop the ability to care for someone other than their selfish selves and their own inflated delusions of grandeur? It's no wonder the world's going to hell in a handbasket, all of this Me, Me, Me, it's all about me and to hell with anyone else. It is of some comfort to know that children who are taught to be self-obsessed and self-indulgent will, when their parents become senior citizens and eventually infirm, have learned the lessons of their youth very well...

Terry L. Clark
___________________________________

The original email read:

Hello everyone,

My tenderhearted neighbor rescued a beautiful light gray pregnant stray cat from traffic a couple of months ago. Since she has exotic cats at her house she thought it would be a good idea for my kids to take in the cat and care for her during her confinement. They agreed (when I wasn't home) and now $265 in vet bills and cat stuff later we have a sweet mama cat, very well mannered and social, and 5 feisty kittens that have just turned a month old.

We are having fun getting them weaned and box trained. My plan is to go back to having ZERO cats at my house ASAP so if anyone would like the mama and/or a kitten let me know. I will get their shots, get mama spayed and declawed, whatever it takes. Mama comes with all the normal cat paraphenalia that you would expect. (She really IS sweet and pretty) The kittens are very socialized, having been receiving nonstop visitors from among the neighborhood kids night and day, to cuddle them and tell them how cute they are.
One is solid black, the others are black with some gray stripes. Their names are Shaq, Tiger, Batman, Wonder Woman and Bubbles. Mama is Daisy. Let me know if there is anyway I can bribe you to adopt one of these darling kitties!!!!! I am not beneath groveling and doing whatever it takes! And you might as well know that according to my kids I am a mean, cold-hearted cat hater and I just blew my nomination for Mother of the Year!

Meow, meow, meow......
___________________________________

My reply to that email elicited the following response, below, the need for free spay/neuter programs--and I would not limit such programs to those who walk on four legs--for anyone without regard to income. The response simply confirms my point about the need for children to learn and be taught responsibility. Inmates run the asylum, children run the family. Perhaps one of the children will grow old (not up), dodge the draft and go a.w.o.l., and who knows, maybe even achieve high political office thanks not to their own talents, but due to family contacts and power.

TLC
___________________________________

Well,

Nothing is wrong with letting children have the experience of loving and caring for something other than themselves. The problem here is that the kids have been enjoying having the mama cat and then the kittens to amuse themselves with, but when it comes to the actual caring of them they are not stepping up to the plate. For instance, when the litter box needs cleaned there is always grumpiness or an arguement about whose turn it is. And unless I nag, or do it myself, it doesn't get done. Since I have my own five kids, a husband, a grandchild, a restaurant, catering business and a real estate business to care for, my plate is full. I have decided the cats deserve a home where they WILL be given the care they deserve. And the part about being a mean, cold-hearted cat hater was as attempt at humor, in reality I am none of those things. And I could beat out most women for Mother of the Year!

CBS Entertainment "News"

Lead story on tonight's "Entertainment Tonight": Katie Couric preparing to syrupify what was once known as the CBS Evening News, and her tour of the US.

Followed by a segment on Johnny Depp's "Pirates" movie. Later in the show, a segment of similar earth-shattering significance, Nicole Kidman, n/k/a Nicole Urban.

In one sense, it's sad that Uncle Walter lived long enough to see what has become of his network. On the other hand, perhaps Walter will speak out and educate those too young to remember, and those intellectually numbed by the glowing blue orb of pap and submission, of the potential of television to communicate useful information.

TLC

FIB Plans To Take Away Any Pretense Of Internet Privacy

The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned.

Solutions

"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." --H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

What Kind

"What kind of a God is it that's upset by a cartoon in Danish?"
--Salman Rushdie
Bill Moyers, "Faith And Reason", June 25, 2006


Or by the Beatles (especially Lennon's solo work)?
--TLC

Priorities: Deer or Stuff

The Salina [Kansas] Journal published an editorial advocating the mass killing of deer, basically because of all the damage to vehicles caused by their colliding with deer. That editorial, and my response, were previously covered in detail.

If one were to look at the dollar amounts, teenagers cause much more damage to vehicles than deer. Should we adopt a similar "solution" since, in the minds of some, protection of property is paramount?

TLC

Lighthouses

"It’s easy to act as if you are a weathervane, always changing your beliefs and words, trying to please everyone around you. But we were born to be lighthouses, not weathervanes."
--Robert Cooper, 21st century optimal living expert
from The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership & Life

Adulterers in Chief

Lurking just over the horizon are liabilities for three Republicans who have topped several national, independent polls for the GOP's favorite 2008 nominee: Sen. John McCain (affair, divorce), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (affair, divorce, affair, divorce), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (divorce, affair, nasty divorce). Together, they form the most maritally challenged crop of presidential hopefuls in American political history.
Full Story, AlterNet, June 28, 2006

Touch-Screen "Voting" Machines Come To Salina

My letter to The Salina [Kansas] Journal, responding to today's front-page article:


Dear Editor,

Your front-page article on the new "voting" machines contains not a word about which company manufactures them. Complete silence on how such machines are being used to help steal elections around the country, most notoriously the Presidency in 2000 and 2004. The contrivances are being taken out like a beloved elderly member of the family for visits to Republicans, Democrats, the Senior Center, and civic groups. Saline County's Clerk is recording a 4 - 5 minute video for Cable Access TV. A federal grant-how nice, "somebody else" is paying for those things. No facts, like how easy it is to hack the machines and the lack of a sound audit trail, to blur the public relations campaign with even a glimmer of a reality check. A surround sound of warm fuzzy feelings.

Thank you Salina Journal, may we have another serving of the Purple Kool-Aid that symbolizes the loss of the right to have one's vote counted, the latest lockstep toward the death of democracy? I'm sure Uncle Joe Stalin would be proud of you, and that George Orwell would say, "I tried to warn them".

For anyone interested in maintaining at least the illusion of a shred of democracy, insist on a paper ballot.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Clark

Seas

"The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore."
--Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890, Painter

Larry King Tonight: A Conversation With Adolf Hitler & Eva Braun

Hummm, doesn't look like they'll be taking calls... 

TLC 

__________________ 

From CNN Larry King's email, July 6, 2006: 

 Larry King Live at 9:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, July 06, 2006 CNN Tonight: President George W. Bush & Laura Bush! An exclusive from the White House with president George W. Bush and Laura Bush! A candid conversation on North Korea, Iraq, terrorism and more. The President and Laura Bush

Threats To The Courts: Boogeyman v. Real Ones

Kansas checking security at all of its courthouses

A pilot project began last fall in Kansas, but the effort will accelerate soon when Kansas Homeland Security begins courthouse-by-courthouse inspections. The inspections are designed to determine how well each courthouse is prepared for threats ranging from a shooting or terrorist attack to a natural disaster.

Besides looking at threats to people, the inspectors will look at how well a courthouse protects its paper records and computer files. And they will ask how a courthouse would function if pandemic flu struck its employees, Keefover said.

Full Article, Wichita Eagle-Beacon, July 5, 2006

_________________________________

Of course, this will do nothing to protect the Courts from political pressure, intimidation, and blackmail, or the packing of the Courts with wingnuts, which are far greater and much more immediate threats.

TLC

Limited Time, Unlimited Potential

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
--Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs speech to Stanford Graduating Class June 2005

Watering Down The News

Former mayor's actions create disappointment
by Mike Morrow, 7/4/2006

Attempts by several residents of Fortuna, including former Mayor Odell Shelton, to circulate ALLEGED misinformation about the city’s finances and proposed water and sewer rates will be addressed at a special news briefing this morning.

City Manager Duane Rigge called the news conference because, HE CONTENDS, Shelton and other individuals are spreading misinformation through door-to-door distribution of a form letter.


Source: Eureka Reporter, July 5, 2006


Now re-read the above without the words in bold.

That's how the first two paragraphs of the article originally read, in a newspaper whose Mission Statement proclaims, emphasis added: "Our mission is to present fair, balanced and independent coverage of events and issues in the Greater Eureka area."

The rest of the article did use appropriate qualifiers. However, it is common knowledge that many people just read the first paragraph or two of an article, then move on to the next. Thus, for that audience, a quite distorted picture is painted, as the above article illustrates.

I do not profess to have read every word in the local papers on the question of whether Fortuna needs to raise its water rates substantially, and if so then how that increase should be distributed. From what I have read, however, I do not think one could accurately divine the truth even if they did read every article in all of the area newspapers. For example, one area of virtual silence is the City Of Fortuna's ability to blow $52,000.00 toward Debi August's attorney's fees (See AUGUST'S BILL)--if they can flush that kind of money away, what more is available to help offset increased bills for low income and elderly people? Alas, most of what passes for "reporting" around here is the reporting of press releases, rarely with any substantive analysis. That topic, however, I save for another day.

What this Post addresses is how the omission of a few key words changes the impact of a supposed news story.

After the ten thousandth reading of the word "alleged" in connection with the accused perpetrators of horrific crimes, one could reasonably assume that the first reaction of most people to such an article is, "Yeah, the s.o.b. probably did it". But even then, those readers still have some question in their mind, reflected by the view that the s.o.b "probably", not "definitely", did it. Imagine, in contrast, a world in which newspapers gave a constant drumbeat of, "Yeah, the s.o.b. did it" with no qualifiers. How soon would the minds of the masses be completely washed, the only thing remaining being drip drying.

How many minds will be whitewashed by today's instance of bias? Probably not that many IF this is a one-time deal. However, judging by the history of the Eureka Reporter, the bias goes on forever and the party never ends. See, for example, my Post, We Shade The News--You Figure It Out.

But one should not be completely ungrateful toward the Eureka Reporter--After all, Rob Arkley's paper gives us daily reminders to not swallow news from the corporate media without considering the source and the motives.

TLC

Colorado v. Humboldt County

(07-03) 20:38 PDT Steamboat Springs, Colo. (AP) -- The number of campers at the Rainbow Family's annual gathering in northern Colorado swelled to about 10,000 over the weekend, but there were no reports of clashes between campers and law enforcement, the National Forest Service said Monday.

Full Article, SF Chronicle, July 3, 2006. Some of this article, from the AP Wire Service, appeared in the Eureka Reporter of July 4th, but is not on their website, probably due to the expense of purchasing the reprint rights.


Now contrast the tranquility of Steamboat Springs Colorado with Humboldt "Hippieland" California:


A federal court jury in San Francisco yesterday found that Humboldt County and city of Eureka law-enforcement officers used excessive force on nonviolent protesters in 1997 when they swabbed them in the eye areas with pepper spray.
Eureka Reporter, April 29, 2005


Demonstrators and protesters gathered in front of the federal building on the corner of Fifth and H streets on Wednesday in an attempt to “end the Bush regime” and “bring home the troops.”
According to EPD Public Information Officer Suzie Owsley, EPD issued “numerous citations for a variety of offenses, including: walking against a red light, riding bikes on the sidewalk, and riding against traffic in the wrong lane,” related to the demonstration.
Eureka Reporter, November 4, 2005


And get a load of the Brown Shirts at the peaceful May 1st march in support of immigrants!
Eureka Reporter, May 2, 2006

TLC

A Tale Of Two Electorates

I'm fascinated by the possibility that the people of Mexico, a country that has long been portrayed by the US corporate media as a basket case of corruption, might just take to the streets if they conclude their election has been stolen. Contrast that with the US, the shining bastion of democracy, where people are sitting back, whacked out on their prescription medications and pacified with fluoride in their water supply as they are further sedated by the calming blue orb of television, watching the Fourth Reich steal the Presidency and other offices as if they are but mere spectators in a movie theatre.

TLC

More On Ken Lay's Departure

Is Ken Lay Dead? And if so, Was it Really a Heart Attack?
Great article by Rob Kall over at OpEdNews, expounding on the possibilities. See also my earlier Post on the subject.

TLC

Impeachment Comes To Main Street

Great article by Ed Adelman, followed by more encouraging news from Dave Lindorff on the treacherous Joe Lieberman. Enjoy!

TLC

The Biggest Threat To Our Troops

"I'm going to make you this promise: I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done."
--George Dubya Bu$h, July 4, 2006, Fort Bragg


Sounds like a threat to Moi, along the lines of, "We're gonna kill every one of you that aren't rich or connected or smart enough to get out of the military, if that's what it takes.

Draft dodgers like Bu$h and Cheney tend to be the most enthusiastic about sending people to a war that they would flee like the chicken$hits they are...


TLC

Going After The REAL Criminals

Bin Laden? Yawn, who cares. Sterioid use? Prosecute 'em to the full extent of the law!

TLC

Motivating The Troops

Posters found in US military bases in Iraq:

"Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet."

"Kilo Company: Killed more people than cancer."


New York Times, July 5, 2006

Ken Lay: The Man Who Knew Too Much?

Enron's founder and chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, died of a heart attack at his vacation home in Colorado, according to his spokeswoman.
Full Article, NY Times, July 5, 2006

Perhaps it was pure natural causes, perhaps just stress from facing the prospect of prison. But if it turns out that Lay was talking with prosecutors, or even exploring the possibility, with the goal of getting a reduced sentence, then perhaps Lay was pushed out the door.

TLC

Casino Monies

In an article on the increase of political campaign bribes, er, “donations”, came this little gem:

According to the website www.politicalmoneyline.com, tribes nationwide have given $25 million over the past five years alone.
Eureka Times-Standard, July 2, 2006

Another example of the law of unintended consequences, or at least unannounced consequences since this one wasn’t rocket science when the matter first came up. How completely predictable that, when government creates a virtual monopoly, or through inaction allows one to come into existence (utility companies, oil companies), that the cartel will use its power, first to maintain its privilege, and later to purchase special benefits. The casinos came because the white man politicians saw an opportunity to use the Native Americans as a way of fetching large amounts of tax revenue without “raising taxes”. Although anyone with a passing familiarity with casinos knows they are a tax on the math-impaired, and raise the cost of government due to lost productivity resulting from their appeal to and encouragement of despair (I’m doomed, I’m powerless, my only way out is to hit the jackpot), not to mention the other substantial government and general societal costs caused by the gambling addictions that are encouraged.

There is something specially sad about this latest reminder that the Native Americans who have such a rich culture and science continue to be corrupted by the white man. First their healthy diet became poisoned by the introduction and adoption of alcohol, which besides the obvious problems also brings with it an addiction to sugar. Genocide, spiritual, cultural, and physical. Acceptance of processed and later junk food, furthering the vicious cycle between alcohol and sugar. Diabetes soared. Healing methods that worked well for many centuries are being replaced, not supplemented, by pharmacological masking of symptoms and the corruption of prescription drug money.

The casinos came on the pretext of easy money for governments, wrapped in the warm-fuzzy promise that revenues would also be used by the tribes to help peoples who have suffered so greatly. And while that does sometimes happen, all too often the result has been just the creation of another special interest group, rather than the empowerment that was promised. Had the casinos came a hundred years earlier, perhaps the culture would have been strong enough for the funds to have been used for empowerment of the multitudes rather than of and for the few.

One can still hope that things will be turned around by people of conscience and tradition in the Native American community, and that they will join with principled visionaries in other communities to take the best of each and make a better world. Our work, our journey, continues.

TLC

Lessons Learned

"Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat - of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity." --"Adolf Hitler" by John Toland, page 202 "...Let me remind you only of the witch-hunts of the middle ages, the horrors of the French revolution, or the genocide of the American Indians... in such periods there are always only a very few who do not succumb. But when it is all over, everyone, horrified, asks `for heaven's sake, how could I?' " --Albert Speer, Hitler's minister of war production, writing from prison in 1953.

Decisions

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret."
--Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881) Swiss Philosopher, Poet, Critic

CIA shuts down secret unit that hunted for bin Laden

The CIA has closed down a secret unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials said Monday.

The terrorist tracking unit, known inside the spy agency as "Alec station," was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned to other offices within the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

Full Article, SF Chronicle, July 4, 2006

Thus implicitly admitting what became obvious with Tora Bora, the children won't be so suckered, er, terrified, if the boogeyman is actually caught.

TLC

Bu$h The Prophet

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator."
December 18, 2000--See The Video


and again on July 26, 2001:

"a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier."