Decisions

"There is a time when we must firmly choose the course we will follow, or the relentless drift of events will make the decision for us."
--Herbert Prochnow

Dangers

"In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it."
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)

Mistakes

"If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."
--Mary Pickford (1893-1979, Canadian-born American Actress)

Ease II

"There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering." --Theodore Roosevelt, US President

BBQ

"I turned vegetarian after 9/11. A friend of mine came back from New York and said that he couldn't stand the smell of burnt flesh. It immediately reminded me of a barbecue." --Alyssa Milano

FBI Builds Database of People’s Physical Characteristics

The Washington Post reports the FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world’s largest computer database of peoples" physical characteristics including digital images of faces, fingerprints, palm patterns, iris patterns and other biometric information. The project will give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of workers who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law. The plan is drawing criticism from those who worry that people’s bodies will become de facto national identification cards. Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union said: “It’s going to be an essential component of tracking. It’s enabling the Always On Surveillance Society.”

Source: Democracy Now, December 26, 2007

Dare 1.5

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

Fight For Them

FIGHT FOR THEM

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
The stockings where hung by the chimney with care
In the hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there

But at the North Pole sudden changes arose
All down to Rudolph and his ruby red nose
Clipboard in hand, a breed expert arrived
He motioned to Santa saying," please step aside".

A smooth haired coat and a muscular build
A broad deep chest our Rudolph did yield
The breed expert's pen, created pages of ticks
Then he suddenly called out "good lord, we've been tricked!"

"This creatures no donkey and clearly no horse!
I know these things! I've attended the course!"
Look at my clipboard the boxes are full!
It's very obvious to me: Rudolph is a pit bull!

Out with the measuring sticks, he explained to Santa the law
And he measured poor Rudolph from shoulder to floor.
As the spectacle continued Santa said with a sigh,
"He's a reindeer you fool! Why must he die?"

"The law is the law" the expert said standing tall,
Then picked up his mobile and made a quick call
The sound of sirens filled the peaceful night air
and Rudolph removed to who knew where?

Days turned to weeks and confused and alone
Rudolph pined for the place he called home
As the first snow started falling Rudolph gave up the fight
And he took his last breath on a cold winters night

You may think this is funny, if a little untrue.
But how would you like it, if it happened to you?
If your dog was taken because of its look?
Because it ticked enough boxes in some silly book?

Regardless of parentage it doesn't matter what breed
If it ticks enough boxes then it's a done deed
So humor me here and pretend this is true
Think how you would feel if it happened to you.

Cuddle your hounds while you have them close by
For some spend this Christmas, waiting to die.
Now back to the story, it doesn't end there
One more short verse I need to share

Santa fetched Rudolph's body and cried for his friend
And swore to himself, this would not be the end
And I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight
"The law is wrong, please help us to fight."

--Author Unknown

Worlds

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."
--Douglas Everett, American Hockey Player

Apathy II

"Apathy is the behavior of a slave."
--Richard Wagenvoord

Defenseless

"What sickens us so much about the cruelty shown to poor animals? I suppose this: first, that they have done us no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching… there is something so very dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us and who cannot defend themselves; who are utterly in our power."
--John Henry Newman

Down

"Never look down on anybody unless you are helping them up."
--Jesse Jackson (1941-, American clergyman, Civil Rights leader)

Huckabee Equates Environmentalism With Pornography

Huckabee Equates Environmentalism With Pornography

Meanwhile the past writings and comments of Republican Mike Huckabee are coming under increasing scrutiny now that he has become the Republican frontrunner in Iowa. In 1998 Huckabee published a children’s book that equated environmentalism with pornography. The book was titled “Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence.” Huckabee wrote: “Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities.” Huckabee also equated homosexuality to necrophilia. He wrote: “It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.”

Source: Democracy Now, December 18, 2007

Protection

"A bikini and a barbwire fence may have no similarity to you
but they both protect what's inside without obstructing the view."
--Unknown

Strategy

"Defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory."
--Douglas MacArthur, US Army general

Repent

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)

Daily

"In America, every day is a new beginning, and every sunset is merely the latest milestone on a voyage that never ends. For this is the land that has never become, but is always in the act of becoming."
--Ronald Reagan, 40th US president

Conditions

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."
--Henri-Frederic Amiel, philosopher, educator

Be Nice

Tradition

"People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times."
--Issac Bashevis Singer

Plans

"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail."
--Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970, Author

Patriotism

"You make men love their government and their country by giving them the kind of government and the kind of country that inspire respect and love; a country that is free and unafraid, that lets the discontented talk in order to learn the causes of their discontent and end those causes, that refuses to impel men to spy on their neighbors, that protects its citizens vigorously from harmful acts while it leaves the remedies for objectionable ideas to counter-argument and time."
-- Zecharian Chafee, Jr. (1865-1957)
Source: Free Speech in the United States, 1942

Remember

"The free must remember the forgotten"
--Amnesty International

Limits II

"Your only limitations are those you set up in your mind, or permit others to set up for you."
--Og Mandino

Win

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
--Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) first female US Representative

Rolling Stone's Strange Take On Romney

Tim at Rolling Stone has a strange take on the Boston Globe's revelations on Mitt Romney continuing to use "illegal immigrants":

This is good, fair journalism in its execution, mind you. But don’t tell me the assigning editor didn’t have an ax to grind…

____________________________

My Post at Rolling Stone:

Is there something wrong with the editor of the Boston Globe, knowing what a hypocritical nutcase that playing-without-a-face-mitt Romney is, acting to help avert yet another national disaster?

TLC

Bu$h Family Thievery--Ready For Jeb?

A government money market debacle unfolding in Florida is raising questions about former governor and presidential brother Jeb Bush's possible involvement in the mess…

Of course! Where ever there's a Bush and public money, you can count on some sort of massive fraud that costs the taxpayers billions.

Always.

You've got George, Sr. and the S&L fiasco of the eighties, which required over a billion dollars of taxpayer money to bail out his son Neil's Silverado Savings and Loan alone after Neil's own pardners defaulted on a bunch of lousy loans Neil made to them.

You've got George, Sr., again, in the eighties with this incredibly bizarre intelligence operation run out of the Vice President's office, involving drugs, selling weapons to terrorists, and funding the worst kind of depraved murdering thugs the South American military juntas could turn loose on Central America.

Then, in the end, everyone got pardoned or sweet immunity deals, before Bush, Sr. sent in the United States military to take out Noriega for reasons that have never, to this day, been made clear to the American People.

The taxpayers got the bill. God only knows what the real point of all that was.

You've got George, Jr. making a fortune off of the Arlington Sports Authority, using the government power of eminent domain and taxpayer subsidies to seize private property for the benefit of himself and his pardners.

You've got George and Jeb defrauding taxpayers and using public property to benefit their family friends by overpaying for worthless gas and oil rights in the Everglades and pretending it's all about protecting the environment.

You've got Neil poking his ugly, greedy mug back up from under whatever rock he slithered under to cash in on his big brudder's No Child Left Behind thing.

You've got the unprecedented, inefficient, out of control private contracting of government functions under George W., basically using taxpayer money to subsidize non-competitive Republican bidnessmen.

You had George W. trying to channel your taxpayer provided Social Security to his family friends and associates on Wall Street, just like he did with your taxpayer provided Medicare to his family friends and associates in the pharmaceutical industry.

And on and on...

Basically, this is an entire family that sees the Federal gubment as nothing more than a giant, bottomless piggy bank for their own personal bidness schemes. This is a family that views the Great American People as nothing more than captive, involuntary investors for them, their friends, their families, and their supporters.


Source, and more: Bottle Of Blog, December 3, 2007

Barbaric

“On profit-driven factory farms, veal calves are confined to dark wooden crates so small that they are prevented from lying down or scratching themselves. These creatures feel; they know pain. They suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain. Egg-laying hens are confined to battery cages. Unable to spread their wings, they are reduced to nothing more than an egg-laying machine. . . . The law clearly requires that these poor creatures be stunned and rendered insensitive to pain before [the slaughtering] process begins. Federal law is being ignored. Animal cruelty abounds. It is sickening. It is infuriating. Barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food—and even more so, more so. Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous. Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a civilized society.”
--Senator Robert Byrd (on the floor of the U.S. Senate, July 9, 2001)

Ex-Italian President: Intel Agencies Know 9/11 An Inside Job

Former Italian President and the man who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio Francesco Cossiga has gone public on 9/11, telling Italy's most respected newspaper that the attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad and that this was common knowledge amongst global intelligence agencies.

Cossiga gained respect from opposition parties as one of a rare breed - an honest politician - and led the country for seven years until April 1992.

Cossiga's tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio - a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Gladio's specialty was to carry out what they coined "false flag operations," terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition. Cossiga's revelations contributed to an Italian parliamentary investigation of Gladio in 2000, during which evidence was unearthed that the attacks were being overseen by the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

Source, and full article: Prison Planet, December 4, 2007

"Failures"

"I will tell you that there have been no failures in my life. I don't want to sound like some metaphysical queen, but there have been no failures. There have been some tremendous lessons."
--Oprah Winfrey (1954-, American TV Personality, Actress, Author)

Ideas III

"Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away."
--Earl Nightingale

Honorable

"In these times prison may be where an honorable citizen must be."
--Ed Kinane

Tightrope

"Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting."
--Karl Wallenda