••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Thursday, March 31, 2011

npr

several, but not all, of the following links go to audio and transcript in addition to story:

TIMELINE:
A Nuclear Crisis Unfolds In Japan

March 31, 2011

The Future Of Nuclear Energy In The U.S.
March 31, 2011

Got Radiation?
Only Harmless Traces Found In U.S. Milk

March 31, 2011

Bird's-Eye View Of Japan's Stricken Nuclear Plant Shows Vast Damage
March 31, 2011

Are Nuclear Plants Safe?
Environmentalists Are Split

March 28, 2011

Lessons Learned From Three Mile Island's Meltdown
March 28, 2011

Energy Think Tank:
Nuclear's Future Is OK

March 27, 2011

Japan's Nuclear Crisis: Science

Japan's Nuclear Crisis: Health

i have only a couple questions right now: first, when did "green" become "clean"? and, does anyone really think alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays are clean?

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

here's the key excerpt from the march 17 UN security council press release, laying down the law on military action in libya:

Adopting resolution 1973 (2011) by a vote of 10 in favour to none against, with 5 abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russian Federation), the Council authorized Member States, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory....
if you wonder why i call it "law," recall that the UN charter is a treaty signed by the president and ratified by the senate, and the constitution says treaties are part of the supreme law of the land:

The U.S. Senate, by a vote of 89 to 2, gave its consent to the ratification of the UN Charter on July 28, 1945.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=United_Nations

Article VI
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land....
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

and that's why obama didn't need congressional approval, which he couldn't have gotten in time to stop a slaughter, because we all know damn well the gops would've delayed it.

(i'm not arguing morality here, just legality.)

BEIJING (Reuters) – Dollar dominance is sowing the seeds of financial turmoil, and the solution is to promote new reserve currencies, a Chinese government economist said in a paper published on the eve of a G20 meeting about how to reform the global monetary system.

Although not an official policy statement, the paper by Xu Hongcai, a department deputy director at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, offered a window onto the domestic pressures bearing on Beijing to move away from a dollar-centric global economy.

The China Center, a top government think tank, has represented the Chinese government in organizing a forum on Thursday in Nanjing that will bring together finance ministers, central bankers and academics from the Group of 20 wealthy and developing economies.
[more]

this idea is not as inflammatory as the headline makes it seem. other economists have suggested that there's no good reason the world shouldn't have 2 or 3 reserve currencies.
from repower america


Today will be a showdown on science and climate in the Senate. Votes are planned on three amendments that would stop the EPA from limiting the pollution that causes climate change. These amendments are being considered as part of an unrelated small business bill.

These efforts to block limits on global warming pollution — which scientific evidence tells us causes climate change, harms our health and damages the environment — ignore science and the sworn duty of elected officials to act in the best interest of the people. Climate science deniers are becoming more desperate and more aggressive in their efforts to roll back the Clean Air Act — the only law that offers Americans protection from such pollution. Make no mistake, climate deniers are mounting an all-out assault on reason, science, health, the environment and basic common sense.

The three amendments being offered in the Senate would do the following:

•Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s amendment would permanently remove the authority under the Clean Air Act to limit the pollution that causes climate change.

•Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ amendment would prevent EPA from setting limits on smaller polluters and on emissions from the agricultural industry – such as reducing methane emissions from industrial animal farms.

•Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller’s amendment would delay EPA’s plans to limit pollution from large facilities for two years.

Mischief is afoot in the House too. On March 15, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted to pass Representative Upton’s bill, which would permanently prevent limits on greenhouse gas pollution. Next week, the full House is scheduled to vote on the measure.

So, Congress is considering either permanently or temporarily preventing limits on greenhouse gas pollution, the effects of which science tell us are harmful to human health (PDF) by increasing respiratory problems, heat-related deaths, and risks to humans from intensifying storms. Not to mention that this pollution contributes to (PDF) sea level rise, reduced biodiversity and negative impacts on the infrastructure we depend on daily.

There is no logic to these actions to deny climate change science or block the actions scientists tell us must be taken. Some in Congress believe that Congress, not the EPA, should be the one setting limits on pollution. However, last year the Senate had a chance, but failed to pass comprehensive climate legislation that would have reduced global warming pollution, created jobs and promoted a 21st-century clean energy economy.

So, let me get this straight — Congress had an opportunity to pass climate legislation but failed to act, and now some in Congress claim the EPA can’t limit pollution until Congress has a chance to act. Am I the only one feeling dizzy (and angry) watching Congress try to prevent progress by stalling and chasing its tail?

Over a comprehensive two-year process, EPA relied on information from some of the most well-respected scientific institutions in the world – ultimately resulting in the determination that the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change harms our health and the environment. We can’t substitute science with politics. Our leaders should stop playing games with our health and our planet’s future. Instead, they should acknowledge the reality of the climate crisis we face, and support limits on global warming pollution so we can move toward a clean energy economy.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said it was recalling more than 700,000 bottles or packages of Tylenol and other consumer medicines made at a now-closed plant, the latest in a litany of recalls by the company.

J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit recalled one lot of Tylenol 8 Hour Extended Release Caplets, or 34,056 bottles, from retailers, the company said.

The company cited a musty odor that has prompted many other J&J recalls. The product was made at its Fort Washington, Pennsylvania plant before J&J closed the facility in April 2010.
[more]
ingenuity of enemies of liberty


As if America's debate over abortion weren't contentious enough, it's lately been stirred by the addition of another hot-button issue: race.

Yesterday, Arizona became the first state in the nation to outlaw abortions performed on the basis of the race or gender of the fetus. And an anti-abortion billboard that uses an image of President Obama to target Chicago's black community has sparked a furor.

The Arizona bill, signed into law on Tuesday by Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, makes it a felony for doctors or other medical professionals to perform an abortion in order to help parents choose their offspring on the basis of race or gender. The law does not punish the woman having the abortion.

"Governor Brewer believes society has a responsibility to protect its most vulnerable -- the unborn -- and this legislation is consistent with her strong pro-life track record," a spokesman for Brewer told Reuters.

But opponents of the unusual measure contend there's little evidence that fetuses in Arizona are being aborted on the basis of gender or race. And they say the law could lead doctors to ask women about their reasons for having an abortion--something supporters of abortion rights view as a private decision.

About 1,700 miles away, in Chicago, a Texas-based anti-abortion group unveiled a billboard in the predominantly black neighborhood of Englewood. Next to a picture of Obama, it reads: "Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted."
[more]

TOKYO – Fears about contaminated seafood spread Wednesday despite reassurances that radiation in the waters off Japan's troubled atomic plant pose no health risk, as the country's respected emperor consoled evacuees from the tsunami and nuclear emergency zone.

While experts say radioactive particles are unlikely to build up significantly in fish, the seafood concerns in the country that gave the world sushi are yet another blemish for Brand Japan. It has already been hit by contamination of milk, vegetables and water, plus shortages of auto and tech parts after a massive quake and tsunami disabled a coastal nuclear power plant.

Setbacks at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex mounted Wednesday, as the plant's operator, Tokyo Power Electric Co., announced that its president was hospitalized. Masataka Shimizu has not been seen since a news conference two days after the March 11 quake that spawned the destructive wave. His absence fueled speculation that he had suffered a breakdown.
[more]
what a buddy we have in boehner


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to kill President Barack Obama's signature program to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.

A bill to terminate the program was approved on a 252-170 vote. But the bill is unlikely to clear the Senate.

It was the last in series of four measures brought forward by newly empowered House Republicans to end government assistance for homeowners hurt by the housing crisis.

Republicans argued the foreclosure prevention plan, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program, is ineffective and not worthy of taxpayer support amid soaring budget deficits. The vote broke largely along party lines.

The program, which offers incentives for lenders to modify loans, was launched to great fanfare in the spring of 2009. The Obama administration had hoped it would permanently lower mortgage payments for 3 million to 4 million homeowners.
[more]

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

christie makes nj international laughingstock

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's $1 billion in cuts to school aid last year left the state unable to meet its obligation to provide all children with a "thorough and efficient" education, a judge ruled Tuesday.

In looking at the issue for the state Supreme Court, Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne concluded that Republican governor's cuts hit high-risk districts the hardest. The high court will now consider responses to Doyne's report and whether to do anything about it.
[more]

Friday, March 18, 2011

what happens when one decadent practice meets another?

diplomatic immunity or blood money. take your pick or add them together. this time you get injustice from one point of view, freedom from another.

Monday, March 14, 2011

shima shima

from hiro to fuku in less than 66 years
PBS, NPR and the Demoncretin party are breeding commies like roaches.

In the scientific method, we form a hypothesis, experment and reach a conclusion.

So for 100 years we ran the same experiment in human suffering "socialism".

We did "East Germany vs. West Germany" we did "North Korea vs. South Korea" we did "Cuba vs. the rest of Latin America (yes Cuba is the poorest in this hemisphere) we did "Tiawan vs. China" we did "Eastern Bloc Europe vs. Western Europe" we did "The United States vs. USSR" we did and we did and we did, and at one point we were even willing to blow the entire planet up over this question about "who's property is it?"

After all the death and human suffering and grinding poverty we still have people here in the USA that believe it will work this time, no matter how many times we test it.

That according to Einstein is the definition of insanity.

I think 6% of GDP is reasonable (period)... to take 28-50% of the fruit of anybodies labor is theft. It's not your money, get it. If you take it by force you are stealing.

Before 1913 the US Government took no income taxes and the US was by far the riches country the world had ever seen in so short a time with the largest middle class ever.

So commies unite for tested and proven poverty!

unions gave us our big middle class. nobody complained about the federal deficit before the '80s, when reagan cut taxes for the rich.

communist countries were never truly socialist. stalin abandoned marx's fundamental principle of 'from each according to ability, to each according to need' by changing the last word to 'work' instead of 'need.'

oppressive dictatorship is bad whether right or left, but capitalist countries made it worse by refusing to trade with commies and doing all they could to sabotage them. that made them paranoid and even more oppressive as well as hurting their economies.

but no, cuba's not the poorest in the hemisphere. check your facts.

oh, and last time i looked, china's gdp was pretty high and growing fast.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

want to know why the right recovers so fast after a loss,
and the left doesn't?

because 30 or 40 (or more) years ago,
right-wingers started reading

this and this!
want to know how political propagandists fool us?

here's your first lesson!
people to watch
(closely! [very closely!] {with a magnifier})


james o'keefe


andrew breitbart


frank luntz

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

fresh air





radio times


Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Are the press, labor movement, universities, and liberal religious organizations letting down the disenfranchised? Pulitzer Prize winner CHRIS HEDGES, former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, has been following the free-market trend, and thinks it’s responsible for the poor losing their defense against corporate excesses of power. The author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning and I Don’t Believe in Atheists, Hedges writes in his new book, Death of the Liberal Class, the lower classes are no longer protected by traditional liberal institutions.
[listen]
radio times


Monday, February 28th, 2011

For more than a week, public employee union members have been protesting in Wisconsin over Republican Governor Scott Walker’s budget bill that would increase their benefit contribution and cut their collective bargaining power. The labor protests have spread to other states like Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio and mobilized union supporters and opponents around the nation. This hour, we’ll look at the standoff in Wisconsin and the national implications. Our guests are NANCY MACLEAN, an historian of labor and public policy at Duke University and CHRIS EDWARDS, the director of tax policy studies at The Cato Institute.
[listen]