My head hurts

Update 7:56 AM 10/28/2007
according to this map the Potrero (Harris) fire started in Tecate, Mexico and the one choking me was the Witch fire.

The smoke is choking me right now. The ash is falling. The sky grey, the light is orange. I'm gonna have to buy another air filter for my car. I'm so sick of this shit. Every October I pack the trunk and get ready to bail.

Fire prompts evacuations, road closures near Potrero

Fire spreading near Potrero
October 21, 2007
Fire crews are battling a brush fire that has consumed 50 to 80 acres near Potrero this morning.

Potrero? What the hell is a Potrero?

Oh yeah, Potrero. (Scroll down on the linked page and watch the video.)

No, I'm not in Potrero, there's fricking fires all over

Frontline ----- Cheney's Law

If you believe that democracy has a place in US government, you'll wonder how this fucker (yes, I hate Cheney, with a purple passion) got so much power and managed to stay in the highest levels of government for so long.

5:29 PM 10/20/2007

I don't know how I got to energy supplies from Cheney (Halliburton?) but I can tell that now I'm about done---the links from Growth is Madness' links started MC Hammer in my brain. Man, I didn't even see Happy Feet

Thinking about Russia, & Russian immigrants today, all over the news

From Russia, with hate

Does this surprise me? No.
Unhh uhh
Nope

Russian Organized Crime: The New Threat? (c) 1997

Russia could be a place of brutal repression as described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in :
The Gulag Archipelago
xviii introduction to the perennial classics edition says
"To read Gulag through the moral lens is to understand that government power can perpetrate all sorts of atrocities upon human beings, body and soul, but it can never succeed in quenching the human spirit."

Here is a survey of Russian American immigrants , which proves to me, once again, that there are all different types of immigrants in America.

Th WaPo oct 19

Zeitgeist the movie

What a fun time waster. Pretty basic stuff.

L R & Center

PBS NOW
Immigration on Main Street

Bill Moyers tonight,
Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater

The Military-Industrial Complex

The Balance of Trade

Wednsday's IHOP

Remember that line in that movie "I am Sam?"

I think of that line every Wednesday when I have to read the Fishwrap.

Housing slump persists
Credit crunch fuels drop in sales, prices in 6-county region
By Roger Showley
STAFF WRITER
October 17, 2007

Credit crunch, credit crunch, credit crunch, yeah, if I repeat that enough, I'll start to believe it. It can't have anything to do with a BUBBLE (inflated by greedy moneylenders who lent money to people that didn't understand what kind of crazy balloon payment they were going to be stuck with after a couple of years) that fucking had to pop sooner or later, right?

Staph 'superbug' infections on rise
More than 90,000 cases seen in U.S. each year
By Lindsey Tanner
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 17, 2007

Bush-era Justice officials shift focus
Less emphasis on mob, environment, civil rights
By Dan Eggen and John Solomon
THE WASHINGTON POST
October 17, 2007

Dot-com zeal raises specter of bubble bust
By Brad Stone and Matt Richtel
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
October 17, 2007

So, OK today wasn't so bad, most of the stories came from other papers. I didn't figure it would take me long to find an article in the Fishwrap that make me wonder what was missing from it.

Ummmm, yeah.

State shares its notes on quagga mussels
By Terry Rodgers
STAFF WRITER
October 17, 2007

...Quagga mussels are native to Russia and Ukraine. They were first found in North America 18 years ago in Lake Erie, having hitchhiked to the the United States in the ballast water of oceangoing ships....

Hmm, I've heard that if you have an invasive species that is taking over the native species one of the ways to control it you find out where it came from and go back and look for a natural predator. I figured one of these links would do that.

umm, not here

no, not here either

nope, not here

Frustrated with the links, I Googled what preys on quagga mussels?

I mean Jeeez, how much chlorine can you pump into the water before it's just not drinkable?
And you lazy boaters, drain your damn boats.


My progressive talk radio station is switching to sports talk.

Get a load of some of the comments. I'm a liberal, or one of "the libs" as one cretin comments. I have to deal with these people every day. *Sigh*

So the interests who fund the fishwrap got their way. They want to control the only media in San Diego, they are not used to having to explain themselves to the rabble, and they certainly don't want the rabble to have a microphone.

Michelle Malkin and credibility

The right wing screech monster (I have another nickname for her, but I'll be nice) that thinks concentration camps are ok, and stalks twelve year olds is worried about Air America's credibility.

Bwaaaa haa haa haaa haa ha hahahahaha.

Ok Magalang, now go back to your cage and sharpen your claws, teeth, and practice foaming until O'Liely needs you, mmmmmmkay?

NYT Oct 15 2007

Interim Heads Increasingly Run Federal Agencies
Published: October 15, 2007
By PHILIP SHENON

An Internet Jihad Aims at U.S. Viewers
October 15, 2007
By MICHAEL MOSS and SOUAD MEKHENNET
...“America needs to listen to Shaykh Usaamah very carefully and take his message with great seriousness,” he wrote on his blog. “America is known to be a people of arrogance.”

Yeah? And Saudi's aren't? Khan is a putrid little f*#kwad. His pansy ass wouldn't last ten minutes in Saudi Arabia.

A Golf Course Where Water Is No Hazard
October 15, 2007
Qargha Journal

Patients Warned as Maker Halts Sale of Heart Implant Part
October 15, 2007
By BARNABY J. FEDER


First Lady Raising Her Profile Without Changing Her Image
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: October 15, 2007
Laura Bush discussing Myanmar in May with Senators Dianne Feinstein of California, left, and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.


Giuliani Sells New York as the Town He Tamed
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
October 15, 2007

Child brides, Stolen lives

I almost gave up on this show last night because the first half was so depressing.

I couldn't stop thinking about 'Planet of Slums' by Mike Davis.

The second half of the show was much more hopeful , and well worth an hour of your time, if you've got it.

Cheaper to keep her

California law bars landlords from asking tenants' immigration status

JULIANA BARBASSA Associated Press Writer
(AP) - SAN FRANCISCO-
California is again forging its own path on immigration reform by becoming the first state to prohibit landlords from asking tenants' immigration status.The law signed this week by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger elicited a sigh of relief among landlord associations concerned that without it, they would be forced to take on the cost and the liability of enforcing federal laws as "de-facto immigration cops," said Nancy Ahlswede, executive director of the Apartment Association, California Southern Cities....


Effort to Curb Illegal Worker's Hiring Blocked
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 11, 2007; 2:04 PM

A federal judge barred the Bush administration yesterday from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially "staggering" impact on law-abiding workers and companies.

...the chasm that the issue has opened between the Republican Party and its traditional business allies.

The case also called attention to the gulf between Washington rhetoric about the need to curtail illegal immigration and the economic reality that many U.S. employers rely on illegal labor, as well as to the government's inability for nearly three decades to develop adequate tools for identifying undocumented workers...

In a statement, Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Calif.), an opponent of Bush's approach who won election to the House last year on the issue, criticized the court. "What part of 'illegal' does Judge Breyer not understand?"... ...

Overall, 7.2 million illegal immigrants account for at least 10 percent of low-skilled U.S. workers and 5 percent of the total U.S. workforce, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of 2005 census data.

Illegal immigrants make up even greater portions of workers in specific industries, including 24 percent in farming, 17 percent in cleaning, 14 percent in construction and 12 percent in food preparation. But the government's record in developing tools to screen such workers is spotty, largely because of successful efforts by employers, labor unions and civil rights groups to water them down...

... On Aug. 31, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney issued a temporary restraining order pending an Oct. 1 hearing before Breyer, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 and is the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer

Correction to This Article
Earlier versions of this story gave the wrong relationship between U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer and Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer. They are brothers. This version has been corrected.

Danny Schechter the News Dissector

Has a blog post that we on the left should heed today:

If Fox Can Create a Business Channel, Why Can't We?

...We can sit on the sidelines and ignore this new channel, or we can snipe at and put it down it as the latest Murdochian invason by the evil empire. We can make fun of it, and feel self-righteous while exposing its likely lies and crimes against truth.

These responses won’t amount to much.

Or we can recognize that the we need credible economy/business news too, a channel and outlet that probes more deeply, that examines the shoddy practies and illicit deals by the Miliitary Industrial and Media complex and its kissing cousin, the equally insidious credit and debt complex. We need to know not just about business but about political economy. We need to know how these markets work and who influencing them and subsidizing them. We need to understand how rules and regulations were broken to permit subprime ‘ponzi” schemes like the subprime lending that is now leading to millions of foreclosures...

Congressional braniacs

Um, yeah, who's brilliant idea was it to bring up a hundred year old genocide whan when what's happening in Iraq could be called genocide?

Turkey mulls cutting military ties with U.S. over genocide vote

Yeah, and both the Turkish government and the US government would rather you call them civil wars, thank you very much.

Reading Now

New book to read: $30

A gallon of milk and a pack of cancer sticks: $9.40

The grin I exchanged with somebody sporting this on their vehicle: Priceless

Louisiana Most Corrupt State in the Nation,

Mississippi Second, Illinois Sixth, New Jersey Ninth
21 Corporate Crime Reporter 40, October 8, 2007

Louisiana is the most corrupt state in the nation...

...California (23)(2.07),....



Pakistan jets pound 'rebel bases'


Pakistani warplanes have attacked suspected pro-Taleban positions near the Afghan border for a fourth day.



The army faces well-armed, well-trained militants in Waziristan

I wish I gave a crap today. About anything.

Finished reading

"Legacy of Ashes
The History of the CIA"
By Tim Weiner © 2007
Tim Weiner is a New York Times reporter who has written on American intelligence for twenty years. He was awarded a Pulitzer price for this work on national security programs. He has traveled to Afghanistan and other nations to investigate CIA covert operations first hand. This is his third book.

On page 411 in the book is an interesting passage on William Casey. {Casey was the OSS chief in London during WWII. He was a Wall Street operator who made his money selling tax-shelter strategies. He was Reagan’s campaign manager.}

He was the director of the CIA at the time.

December 15, (1986) Casey had a seizure in his 7th floor office. He was wheeled out on a stretcher before anyone grasped what had happened. At Georgetown University Hospital, his doctors determined that he had an undiagnosed, central nervous system lymphoma-a malignant spider’s web spreading in his brain, a rare disease, difficult to detect. It often led to inexplicably bizarre behavior in the twelve to fifteen months before it was discovered.

{ So Reagan sleeps through briefings and the director of CIA has some weird cancer in his brain. Iran-Contra anyone? }

There’s a passage on page 510 that left me with my mouth hanging open:

The clandestine service began to abandon the techniques of the past - political warfare, propaganda, and covert action - because it lacked the skills to conduct them. The agency remained a place where few people spoke Arabic or Persian, Korean or Chinese. It still denied employment to patriotic Arab Americans on security grounds if they still had relatives living in the Middle East as most did.

Huh? Who’s security does this protect? The security of Americans? The relatives still living in the old country? So I guess deaing with liars, cheats, thieves and drug dealers has proven to be a more efficient way to gather intelligence. Yeah, tell that to all the families of the foreign CIA recruits that got killed upon discovery. Mmmmmm hmmmm, OKaybee.

On page 512 a now familiar lament from anyone with three brain cells left:

At he end of Dwight Eisenhower’s years a president, a few days after he lamented the legacy of intelligence failures he would pass on to his successors, he gave his farewell address to the nation and famously warned" "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplace power exists and will persist." Little more than a half century later the surge of secret spending on national security after 9/11 had created a booming intelligence-industrial complex.

Corporate clones of the CIA started sprouting all over the suburbs of Washington and beyond. Patriotism for profit became a $50 billion-a-year business by some estimates-a sum about the size of the intelligence budget itself. This phenomenon traced back fifteen years. After the cold war the agency began contracting out thousands of jobs to fill the perceived void created by the budget cuts that began in 1992. A CIA officer could file his retirement papers, turn in his blue identification badge, go to work for a much better salary at a military contractor such as Lockheed Martin or Booz Allen Hamilton, then return to the CIA the next day wearing a green badge. After September 11 the outsourcing went out of control. Green-badge bosses started openly recruiting in the CIA’s cafeteria.

…Lockheed Martin posted help wanted ads for "counterterrorism analysts" to interrogate suspected terrorists at Guantánamo prison.

So this book mentions some local hotshot names of people who are in hot water, and then mentions Blackwater USA. This company wants to set up a training camp a few miles from Tecate, Mexico in a tiny little place called Potrero. I was listening to the only local progressive talk radio show in San Diego this morning and a listener called in to say that she was at the protest yesterday in Potrero. She said that she felt like the Blackwater goons were trying to intimidate the Blackwater protesters. They were filming and one of these goons was pointing his finger at the protesters and making it look like a gun. I wasn’t there because I figured that something like that would happen. I've tangled with right-wing idealogues before. They're so stupid and brainwashed that reasoning with them is a waste of time, but they're kind of like cornered badgers, you don't want to fuck with them, they're nasty little shits.

Three hundred against Blackwater, and fifteen for Blackwater at the protest:

Blackwater foes begin fight with their feet

The right-wing brainwashed morons who commented on the Fishwrap article just crack me up. I wonder if any of them have ever looked up the word 'liberal' in a dictionary.

My biggest pet peeve

The one nobody wants to talk about, deal with, pull their stupid heads out of their butts on, etc.

Overpopulation or sometimes they call it population momentum

Obviously I am not a Cornucopian

Wow, I got to here and then decided to go see what Growth is Madness had been up to lately.

Nosing around looking for information on what I consider the most important issue of my life and our time, I found this clip from a meeting last month.

It's fascinating. Let's face it, human rights don't have a chance unless population issues are addressed in a humane and productive way.

The Real News interviews Gore Vidal

If you're tired of being treated like an idiot by the mainstream media, this is the interview to watch. Some of the things I heard him say weren't fun to listen to, but it made me feel better to hear him say them.

Ok, now I'm off to go explore more stories on The Real News network site.

Chris Matthews on Jon Stewart

And this unrelated story caught my eye this morning:

The Point of Net Neutrality
Saturday, September 29, 2007; Page A17

"Capitalism and Freedom" Unmasked

"Capitalism and Freedom" Unmasked

By Stephen Lendman

10/04/07 "ICH" -- -

Iraq above all other nations today is a ghoulish testimony to the myth of free market magic, but it's even worse than that. It proves Friedmanomics a crime against humanity and the man who led it a Nobel prize-winning fraud whose legacy is failure. His real time record is so horrific, it's unrevealed in the mainstream to suppress it.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18505.htm

Today I spoke with a woman from Vietnam. She said her family of ten tried to escape from Vietnam eight times because her father hated the communists. I asked if she thought that the communists there were controlled by the Chinese communists, and she said "No, they different." When she said she had 8 siblings I asked her if I looked a little green. I didn't go off on my population control tirade, but I couldn't help wondering why so few governments consider it a priority to help women control the size of their broods. She certainly didn't seem like she wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps on that one. I love San Diego because I get to meet all kinds of neat people here. People who can share stories from all over the world.

Stop Blackwater

Erik Prince testified today

Here's an interpretation of what happened.

(Oh Jeez, I just caught this sentence from the above article: "Every indication is that Prince is a very bad man." Totally cracks me up. I used to listen to squids try to impress me by trying to bullshit me into believing that they were Navy Seals. They didn't realize that that didn't impress or even interest most chicks raised in San Diego. Why? Because we knew that they were assholes. By the time I was eighteen I had had about enough of guys who thought that they were Billy BadAss.)

The asshole acts like his shit don't stink because of The Bush administration's ties to Blackwater


We don't want Blackwater in San Diego.

Encampment and Demonstration to Stop Blackwater West from building a training facility in San Diego County

Stop Blackwater in Potrero October 6-7 2007

The cancer that is killing this country is out of control in this city.
The military-industrial-complex can't even be surgically removed from San Diego.
The triage nurse just rolls her eyes and calls for morphine.

Here's a nice little local article about Brent Wilkes, Dukie Cunningham, ho's and hot tubs, and Wilkes' troubles before the Dukie thing.

He he he, this made me laugh

Conscientious people are less prone to Alzheimer's
Mon Oct 1, 2007 7:02pm EDT
CHICAGO, Oct 1 (Reuters) - People who lead a good clean life -- those who are conscientious, self-disciplined and scrupulous -- appear to be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday.


The finding is the latest from a long-running study of nearly 1,000 Catholic nuns, priests and brothers by Robert Wilson of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The study appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

NYT Front Page

What I gotta read today and...

Exoneration Using DNA Brings Change in Legal System
October 1, 2007

Loyal Network Backs Obama After His Help
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Published: October 1, 2007
In 2000, after losing a Congressional race, Barack Obama was looking to revive his political fortunes. And he soon found a springboard — a group of black entrepreneurs also trying to break out.

October 1, 2007
Darfur Rebels Kill 10 in Peace Force
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

...Mr. Mezni said the rebels, whose precise affiliation was unclear as of late Sunday, came at the camp from every direction in what he called a “deliberate and sustained attack.” ...

The Everyman Who Exposed Tainted Toothpaste
October 1, 2007
By WALT BOGDANICH
...The news set off alarms. In 2006 the government had mistakenly mixed mislabeled diethylene glycol into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine, and Panama was still coping with its aftermath. The day before Dr. Alleyne’s announcement, a front-page newspaper article here reported the finding by The Times that the diethylene glycol in the cold medicine had come from a Chinese company not certified to sell pharmaceutical ingredients, and that it had been sold under a false label...
...Over the years, counterfeiters have used diethylene glycol as a cheap substitute for its more expensive chemical cousin, glycerin, a common ingredient in medicine, food and household products...
...The toothpaste had entered Panama through the Colón Free Trade Zone on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal. One of the world’s biggest free zones, with 30,000 workers and 2,500 businesses, it is a place where billions of dollars in goods are unloaded, stored and either sold or reshipped free of tariffs. From there, 5,000 to 6,000 tubes slipped into the Panamanian market, without proper certification, mixed in with animal products, investigators said. A much larger number of tubes were reshipped from the free zone to other Latin American countries...

Barred From Public Housing, Even to See Family
October 1, 2007
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
...For decades, crime has been a grim fact of life for public housing tenants, some of whom say they have no sympathy for neighbors who are barred for breaking the law....

Mets Complete Stunning Collapse October 1, 2007
Marlins 8, Mets 1
By BEN SHPIGEL

...what I want to read:

Two Clues for the Clueless
October 1, 2007

...In a reality-based existence, it is more effective to modify one's own behavior than to try to govern the behavior of other sovereign individuals and entities...

I like Jim Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation


And my friend Annie Banannie, who keeps me from staying in bed all day with the covers pulled over my head. I'm fortunate to be able to call her a friend.

I need a music break

Bonnie Raitt -- Unnecessarily mercenary

Rickie Lee Jones -- Dat Dere

John Mayer -- Daughters

It's a charade

Terror finance trail vanishes in Saudi Arabia
The kingdom has pledged to crack down on funding activities for the likes of al-Qa'ida. So why the secrecy?

Paul Cochrane reports
Published: 30 September 2007


MMMM. Color me cynical. As the "investigations" drag on forever, people in high places in both US and SA governments continue to make obscene amounts of money on arms sales and new "war on ________" (fill in the blanks) programs that need nifty new spy gadgets.

Some things just never seem to change.

The question I have is...

How do we stop wars from happening whether they be for power, profit, or simple basic need if there are no world leaders willing to be honest about the problems of overpopulation?

Problems that are getting worse because of global warming (See Myanmar). Whether you believe that global warming is caused by human activity or you don't, the fact of the matter is that more suffering is happening because of the one human activity that happens to be extremely successful:


BREEDING.

Or as I like to call it--squirting out brats.

Bill Moyers Journal

I was too tired to watch it last night, I'm watching it now.

Well, um.. the trailer's funny, but only if you've been paying attention

"We don't do body counts," Gen. Tommy Franks, who directed the Iraq invasion, has said.
Saturday, May 3, 2003

In their testimony, Sergeant Vela and other soldiers described how their teams were pushed beyond limits by battalion commanders eager to raise their kill ratio against a ruthless enemy.
Published: September 28, 2007

Senate wants Blackwater answers
Posted by Jim Tankersley on September 28, 2007 11:32 AM Permalink

Veterans of PTSD
9.28.07

War Inc. trailer



John Cusack interviews Naomi Klein

Milton Friedman is dead.

The fantasies he sold are being exposed as fantasies.

Naomi Klein's the Shock Doctrine

The Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein on the Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Monday, September 17th, 2007
Watch or listen to the Amy Goodman interview.

WaPo today

Increase In War Funding Sought
$42 Billion Boost Would Raise 2008 Total to $190 Billion
By Josh White and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A01

...In a rare sign of bipartisan consensus over war policy, the Senate plan to divide Iraq, conceived by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), was approved 75 to 23, with support from 26 Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.)...What? Who me cynical?

'I Failed Him. I Failed My Baby.'
Man Sought Help for Son Weeks Before D.C. Police Killed Him
By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A01

GM, Union Agree on Contract to End Strike
Deal Seen as Model Across Industries
By Sholnn Freeman and Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A01

In Flood-Prone Bangladesh, a Future That Floats
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A01

Report Says Fixes Slow To Come at Walter Reed
By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A01

Democratic Rivals Press Clinton, Courteously
By Dan Balz and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 27, 2007; A01

A story I missed, & some I didn't-- Project Censored

# 3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources
Source:
MoonofAlabama.org 2/21/2007
Title: “Understanding AFRICOM”
Author: Bryan Hunt


Student Researcher: Ioana Lupu
Faculty Evaluator: Marco Calavita, Ph.D

In February 2007 the White House announced the formation of the US African Command (AFRICOM), a new unified Pentagon command center in Africa, to be established by September 2008. This military penetration of Africa is being presented as a humanitarian guard in the Global War on Terror. The real objective is, however, the procurement and control of Africa’s oil and its global delivery systems.