Little Rockets Earn You Big Fat Bombs; 13 vs 1100 dead....

These photos are just a few of those at StopTheWarNow that compare the thousands of loud by largely ineffective homemade rockets Palestinians trapped in Gaza shoot out at Israel in foolish acts of defiance. All they earn is massive bombing and 75 plus deaths of men, women and children a day from Israelis intent on keeping every acre of land they've taken in 60 years; Israel intends to take more land, meanwhile making Gaza and the West Bank unlivable for Palestinians so they'll leave it. Hasn't worked yet, has it Israel?

SMALL ROCKETS VS. BIG BOMBS


MINOR V. MAJOR DESTRUCTION

13 DEATHS V. 1100 DEATHS
WILL OBAMA STOP THIS MADNESS?? FIVE MORE DAYS WILL TELL....

This is what Israeli massacres to support colonization look like....

Dead Palestinian mother and two children killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza December, 2008. More at Palestinian Mother's web site.

It's wrong to bomb refugees in ghettos and camps....

I think Israel supporters are naive to think that starving and then slaughtering people in Gaza will not lead to at least suspicion of Jews who support this attack, at least among the 99.5 percent of the world who isn't cheering on the killing of Arabs out of bigotry! And many people's rage against the attack will turn into bigotry against Jews. You don't need to be a psychiatrist to figure that out.

And it just becomes common sense after a while that the Israelis are acting like the Nazis, much as they hate that comparison. When you lay siege to a territory, effectively deny them the right to leave to work or seek medical attention (under threat of not being allowed to return), refuse to allow them to import adequate food and medical supplies, and fire indiscriminately at innocents under the slightest pretext, what do you call that territory? A ghetto, a camp - or even a concentration camp?

Above is a photo of ruins of Warsaw Ghetto after the Nazis blew it up block by block to destroy Jewish resistance. Nazis killed thirteen thousand Jews, mostly noncombatants, during the battle. The Nazis certainly did not allow them food, water or medical supplies.

How many noncombatant Palestinian men, women and children will die during this politically motivated attack on Gaza? Olmert's party knows it can't stop the HAMAS rockets - which HAMAS claims are defensive - without a decent settlement with the Palestinians. However, Olmert's Kadima party can use the attack to win the next election over the even more vicious Netanyahu!

The Israelis are averaging 50 kills a day - with 40 seeking shelter today killed by Israeli tank fire at a United Nations school. Certainly more than thirteen thousand have been killed during Israel's 60 years of aggressive land grabs and ethnic cleansing and 60 years of attacks on militants with little thought to the deaths of innocents.

I'll let the photos below from White House Protest express my disgust.

"Imagine No Countries" brings in a another Times Square New Year

Last year I reported on the Times Square 2009 ball drop: "The last song playing in the background over loud speakers in Times Square? John Lennon's "Imagine" - coincidentally (?) a theme of this blog..." Guess what? They did it again!! This time I caught part of it videotaping the television and made a fun short video! (Yes, that is views of the Dakota and "Strawberry Fields" in NYC in the beginning.)

Recycling 2008 Resolutions to 2009

Below are my 2008 New Years resolutions - OOPS! I barely held to even two of them. I got lots of good hugs and kisses from the dog and re-made two music videos from last year. I'm such a loser!!

No, I'm just an addict - "Hi, my name is Carol and I'm addicted to editing wikipeHaHa!" Restricting myself to 1000 calories and 1 hour of wikiHaHa a day should be my bottom line resolution. Otherwise, let's just re-up those resolutions from 2008 to 2009. Carol, don't make me do this again NEXT year!!
Sure, I can look as good as I did in 1989 - in my "Thank You for Pot Smoking" T-shirt. Well, at least I can try to fit into it again.

Protesting Israel's Savagery in Gaza at Obama's HQ ; Yes we can Free Palestine graphic

It took Israel being more savagely murderous than usual in bombing the hell out of Gaza to get me out to another protest. (Don't get me started on the smarmy little collection of opportunistic left-wing property smashers, women trashers, cheating married bi-guys and pedophile-wannabee(s) all-American males lurking on the periphery who I tried to avoid. I ended up getting to know too much about the guys who took over the peace group I dropped out of -- before they kicked me out for complaining too loudly about their obnoxious behavior. Yuk! Another reason in a short list I've avoided protests the last year or so!)

Like a lot of people I've been weighing Obama's various appointments to see if he's likely to stop Israel's attempts to ethnically cleanse most of Gaza and the West Bank - and get the U.S. into a 5 trillion dollar war against Iran. Appointing Rahm Emanuel, son of an Irgun terrorist who jokes about being central casting's idea of a terrorist, was the bad news. His Cabinet seems to lack rabid Israel-firsters, depending on whether Hillary wants to make nice with all Bill's big Arab contributors. His personal advisers are more iffy.

But Obama's refusal to condemn Israel's "war criminal" attacks collectively punishing and killing Gaza civilians for the crimes of a few is a huge negative. It will have to be offset by his firing Emanuel the week after Emanuel resigns his House of Representative seat and forcing all those dozens of Israel lobbies to register as foreign agents to even start to make up for it. (Wearing button to right wouldn't hurt either!)

Which is what 75 or so of us were effectively telling Obama as we protested his headquarters in Washington DC yesterday. And there's another one at State Department today, hopefully ending up at Obama's again!

I got two good photos before my camera went dead. See all the cops protecting the building? Lots of great photos at the White House Protest site.

Bush gets shoed out.... Need Constitutional Amendment on Pardons

Code Pink had fun at the White House. Dang, even a good shoeing can't get me out to demonstrations these days! But the excellent point was made that Bush will be pardoning all sorts of felons on his last days in office. Will the American people finally be pissed off enough to push through a constitutional amendment limited the president's power to do so if there is any chance it's one of his cronies? Or someone who committed a crime at his behest?

Wish YOU A Merry Solstice Video

Traditional holiday songs with solstice celebration lyrics. Carol's voice and video...

November's Secessionist Developments

Continuing with the theme of the graphic I left up on my blog for most of November - with a new graphic at the left.

Frankly, there are so many secession google alerts coming in, I'd have to give up my wikipYupYup editing addiction to keep track of them. (Yes, I'm trying to develop a secession addiction.) But I cover the three that seemed of special interest to me: the 3rd Secession Convention and two high profile predictions of coming chaos and even the break up of the United States

First, fifty-five people attended the mid-November 2008 Third North American Secessionist Convention in Manchester, New Hampshire. That number hardly reflects the growing number of people looking at secession as the way of dealing with a bankrupt government that has destroyed the economy and still spends taxpayers trillions more into debt to try to exert military control over the world. Secession and break up of the United States is a movement (or a bunch of movements!) whose time is on the near horizon. My main concern is to keep it focused on tolerance, good democratic processes and nonviolence, and not become just another battle between macho men over who can prove his manhood with the most bloody violence!

Below is the first of 3 videos at the Middlebury Institute YouTube page. Below that are some excerpts convention reports.

Given that the convention happened just after the 2008 presidential elections, only the Associated Press carried a short story, unlike the longer stories carried by a number of publications in 2006 and 2007. The Burlington Free Press wrote: "We have lame policies. We have a lame president. We have a lame Congress. And we can expect lame results," said speaker Gerald Celente of Rhinebeck, N.Y., founder of the Trends Research Institute. "We envision America breaking up the way the former Soviet Union broke up." (More below.) Thomas Naylor of the Vermont Republic secession group said that the separation would mean Vermonters could "disengage from the Wall Street global economy" and "cease contributing tax dollars to the federal government's $700 billion bailout and its military operations."... "Naylor called on U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to resign, run for governor of Vermont, and lead the state to independence. The senator Thursday declined the offer, saying through his spokesman thanks, but no thanks. 'Obviously I do not believe in secession,' Sanders said in an e-mail."

The libertarian Free State Observer noted that "Kirkpatrick Sale, director of the Middlebury Institute and organizer of the annual event, makes a point of referring to it as a convention, not a conference, because its attendees are delegates of various organizations, just as the First and Second Constitutional Conventions of what would become the USA were attended by representatives of various states and territories." Its report included a long detailed description of the speakers. The convention issued the Manchester Declaration which repeated many of the themes mentioned above.

However, radical political decentralization and secession made it into the news anyway. In November a lot was written in mainstream news articles and varous blogs about Gerald Celente's predictions that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts. Linda Moulton Howe interviews Celente, including on that topic, here. In the video below Celente says government has to shrink, but doesn't mention the U.S. breaking up -- or maybe FoxNews edited that part out!


Russian professor of economics Igor Panarin also got a lot of mainstream news coverage, including on CNN and/or MSNBC cable news, for saying that because of the coming economic depression the United States will break up into six separate states in the near future. This video is from Russia Today.

Yes, We Can! Secede!!

Spread the news with this
UN-copyrighted government issued,
carol altered graphic.

A momentary sigh of relief...

Well, at least we can relax that Mad Bomber McCain wasn't elected. Now we can watch and see if B. Hussein Obama's appointments show he'll be another warmongering socialist like Bush... or not. Come on, B. Hussein, at least register AIPAC et al as foreign agents!

In either case, two years from now a lot of people will be disappointed with B. Hussein. I assume we'll still think of him as a nice guy - unlike Clinton who showed his evil colors on April 19, 1993 when he made fun of 82 people killed by the feds and lost the house and senate the very next year.

And secession and radical decentralist direct supermajority political alternatives will just keep looking better and better.

Obamies a Commie? Will he search my butt on DC metro?

Much as I hate 9-5 work and would love to get a $500 a week check for sitting on my butt, I worry under Commie-ism they might actually make me work 8 am to 8 pm and only pay me $500 a month! And what if I write that high consciousness radical decentralist best seller - commies won't let it be published, not to mention let me make millions off it. So dang, this video sure sounds like Obama wants to take the money I don't have and redistribute it to people who hate to work just as much as I do! (Or at least he did before he got in the Senate and realized commie-ism is just so anti-globalization protest passe.)

Of course, unless Obama declares martial law he won't get too far since congress knows too much socialism, especially if coupled with more wars and violent enforcement of gun laws, ala Waco, could lead to another 1994 - Republicans taking over congress in 2010.

In any case, I'd rather fight a commie-izing president than just live in terror of one bent on nuclear destruction to avenge his six years in prison camp or whatever McCain's psychopathology is.

Speaking of martial law, is Obama really going to continue with this new policy of random searches of riders on the DC metro. Especially, I bet, ones who flaunt their keffiyahs like I do?

I might freak out and start speaking really crappy German: "Vas is das? You vant to touch my body? Sieg hiel, mine fuhrer, your vishin is my commandin!" Or I can just count and see how many 8 or 10 or 14 people they are "randomly searching" and make sure I'm not in that count! And let them bite their tongues as I flounce by in my Kafiyyeh.

...As a woman I have no country...

"Therefore if you insist upon fighting to protect me or `our' country let it be understood, soberly and rationally between us, that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits which I have not shared and probably will not share; but not to gratify my instincts, or to protect either myself or my country. For, The outsider will say, in fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is The whole world." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas, 1938.

Amazing Hubble Stellar Photos

Living in North East DC among a lot of homes and street lights, even on the clearest nights I can see only a dozen stars in the sky.

Last week I could see that the electricity went out in about a 3/4 mile radius of my house on a hill - and low and behold even on a hazy night I could see at least 50 stars! Nostalgia to staying at a house on a lake when I was a kid and we could see hundreds - or my one bus trip through rural Texas where the stars really were the brightest I'd ever seen in my life!

So it was exciting today to finally discover there are web pages filled with these amazing photos of stars and galaxies all over the universe. This site is particularly cool because it categorized the photos by type and you can click for a larger one.



This is a link to Wikipedia's catalog. Below are some of my favorites.

This is why we evolved ourselves, after all, to glory in that which we created on the way to becoming sentient and inventing the Internet!!

Bush and McCain Agree - "I want to be dictator!" See videos.

This week John McCain made his own "I want to be dictator" statement as a book end to George Bush's of several years ago. Enjoy them both below - and try not to have too many nightmares since McCain probably won't be elected, even if there is some manufactured terrorist incident or Israel attacks Iran. The American people are on to you guys! (Hopefully not famous last words.)

Happy Birthday Gandhi-ji!!

Geez, it was only 139 years ago little Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was born in Porbander, India. And now every October 2 Indians - and the world - celebrate his October 2 birthday - known in India as Gandhi Jayanti. Washington DC even has it's own Gandhi statue near Dupont Circle.

See my site What Would Gandhi Do? Search YouTube for lots of Gandhi Video. Below is one of my favorite scenes from "the movie"!

No, Jim Lehrer, the Prez does NOT "rule" the country! Oops!

Well, John McCain gave up on blackmailing the country by refusing to debate unless he solved the financial crisis, and showed for the first presidential debate with Barack Obama. I got a souvenir photo. I had to lock myself in my room so the two republicans in the living room wouldn't get annoyed by my hooting at McCain's silliness, but they could hear it anyway. The best part was when Obama accidently called McCain "Tom" and McCain looked like he was going to blow a gasket, but was holding it in best he could.

The most shocking part was when Jim Lehrer said, in asking the candidates a spontaneous question, what would the candidate do about some issue or other when "you rule the country."

Jim! Jim! Jim! King George was kicked out of the country once and for good in 1783 - that's 225 years ago!!! The President does NOT rule the country!! Oi! Oi! Oi!

But now my memory starts to perk up, like Sarah Palin when she can't answer a question, and I wikipedia up the List of United States federal executive orders. And I note that G.W. Bush’s orders of the last 7 years are more than all others put together in the past. And then memory stirs of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that let’s the president arrest, torture and execute me without a warrant, trial or even telling my family what happened to me. And then passed in July and so quickly forgotten, the Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq which lets Bush - or presidents McCain or Palin - take all my property and forbid anyone from ever hiring Iraq war protesters like me, or even letting people hire or rent to me -- assuming, of course, he hasn’t already tortured and executed me.

I take it back, Jim. You are right. The President DOES rule America - and all us poor peons, too. We can only hope that when Obama wins -- insufficient computer voting tampering willing -- he will turn out to be a closet libertarian, repeal all these fucking laws and FREE THE SLAVES! Or we can just secede from the union and free ourselves. Your decision!

Great Antiwar Music Videos

The first is from Youtube/JoinTheOpposition, called "Perfect sight, no vision." The second is my own music video "I Died for a Lie: A Soldier's Lament."

McCain Blackmails America: Gimme $700 Billion or I won't debate!

John McCain threatens not to debate Obama if there is no $700 billion Wall Street bail out deal in time to put him on a plane to the "Old Miss" debate. (He's probably already lost Mississippi even if he does show!)

Evidently McCain thinks that Congress and Obama and the American people are SO desperate to see him debate Friday night, we're willing to quickly bend to the will of Bush/McCain to throw $700 billion ($200 billion more than the cost of the Iraq war so far) at Bush/McCain's rich cronies. (Like we believe it when he denies his lobbyist handlers are aiming to cover their former and future employers' financial asses.)

Whether or not he gets his way, this gives you the an excellent idea of what kind of a threatening, bullying president he would make. How long before he's at war against Iran and Pakistan, drafting two million young Americans (male and female), declaring a national emergency and giving himself dictatorial powers, and shutting down all the critical blogs and throwing their writers in camps. The latter will be Sarah Palin's job. Thank heavens the American people seem to be on to the both of them.

McCain thought the worst thing that would get out would be how horrible the operations on his facial skin cancer have disfigured him - and may again in the future. The uglier he gets on the outside, the uglier he gets on the inside - and he can't wait to take it all out on us!

John, repeat to yourself, preferably while doing deep breathing relaxation exercises, "I love myself. Everyone loves me" and feel the self-love and compassion for others percolate throughout your soul and body - and feel the desire to strike out and destroy dissipate.

Exorcizing Stevens' and Palin's Demons - Secede, Alaska, Secede!

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is getting his demons exorcised in a trial this week. Though as a Washington DC resident I was called for the pool, they didn't even interview me, not to mention choose me. See my honest answers to intimate questions in their twenty page juror questionnaire at my Vermont Commons SECEDE & SURVIVE blog. Remember, potential jurors, they can arrest you if you lie on that form and then act "prejudiced" in the jury room, so let your true opinions rip!

And then we have Kenyan witch hunter Pastor Thomas Muthee laying hands on John McCain's Vice President Sarah Palin to protect her from witchcraft - (the short, to the point version). Muthee also prayed in this and a later video to help her become President of the United States - probably after some witch takes care of McCain for her. You can bet Muthee's praying he holds the bible when Palin's sworn in!

Poor John McCain, his snow ball brain is melting down faster than the economy... Oh, what am I thinking! He's busy working with Bush to blackmail Obama into canceling the debate that McCain is not and never will be ready for. After the two of them shove a $700 billion dollar rip off for their crony friends down our throats, they'll probably cancel the election. After Bush appoints McCain vice president and then steps down? HMMM!

Why should Alaska secede? (Besides the wicked plans to sell it to China to pay off the national debt?) With crooked nutty politicians like that, wouldn't you?

Vets 4 Peace Banner Drop at Archives to Prosecute Bush/Cheney

The Los Angeles Times linked to their Youtube page. I wrote there: "Some times it takes twenty years, but people gotta keep working to get the war criminals prosecuted. Just the beginning..."

The banner...

The Empire Melts Down...

Those of us who have been studying economics for 40 years - 30 of them libertarian free market economics - have known this week was coming. The one where all the government crony corporations and millionaires who have been scamming Americans and sucking us dry collapse good and hard. First it was the gold standard which artificially limited the amount of credit that could be extended, helping to stifle competition against large existing businesses and the already wealthy. Populists called for Silver as a basis of exchange and repeated William Jennings Bryan's slogan "Don't Crucify Humanity on a Cross of Gold." Given the constant populist uprisings, the power elite in 1913 created the Federal Reserve System to control the expansion of the money supply so that they could skim off the top. (If rich bankers borrow from the public at 3% interest and then make sure inflation averages 3%, they are getting that money for free every year - and even making a buck when inflation goes over 3%! What a great scam!)

They over-expanded the money supply during the twenties, encouraging fun practices like buying stock on margin (no money down!), leading to a 1929 bursting stock market bubble. And then the government under Hoover and then Roosevelt decided to be conservative and refused to put enough money into the system to facilitate trade, leading to an 12 year depression. Credit remained relatively tight with the elites happy to live off all that profitable borrowed money for 40 years - until Jimmy Carter started printing all that money. The U.S. experienced 10% plus inflation for the first time since - the Revolutionary War??

Suddenly people began to realize there is a difference between a government printing money, thereby causing across the board inflation, and banks extending credit to foment real production and trade. Of course, if the government says it's "OK" banks extend more money than is prudent creating bubbles and financial collapse for the least prudent banks and investors. It was in the early eighties I myself studied up on monetary theory and wrote my still formidable article "Trade Creates Money" - the title based on E.C. Riegel's theories of the legitimate expansion of the money supply. (I sent it to economists Friedrich Hayek, who loved it, and Milton Friedman, who hated it.)

Unfortunately, libertarians, who were all against government fiat money-caused inflation, were divided between gold standard advocates and those who believed free market banking would show us what monetary system - or competing systems - worked best. So we couldn't educate the baby boomers who were sick and tired of being poor and started demanding or engineering a loosening of credit - and what we baby boom brats wanted, we got. (Don't ask me for a reliable source on that one, just sounds reasonable to me!)

The elites just found new additional ways to rip us all off, of course, between excessive credit card fees, wacky investment schemes, war profiteering, etc. And then came in 1995 Clinton and his buddies got that great idea to force banks to loan to anybody who wanted to buy a house, whether or not they could afford it. Pretty soon the sharks were telling poor folks they could afford to move into $200,000 houses, getting a guarantee from Fannie or Freddie Mae. The sharks walked off with big fat fees. The permutations of the scams they pulled boggle the mind.

But don't take my word for it. The Investor's Business Daily article The Real Culprits In This Meltdown was re-printed by dozens of publications this week. It said most importantly:

''The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory." Yes, the market was fueled by greed and over leveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers.'' Obviously the Bush administration also was totally complicit.

Mark Skousen's Ride out Wall Street's hurricane - The real reasons we're in this mess – and how to clean it up Christian Science Monitor article says in part:

...did not Congress amend the Community Reinvestment Act in 1995 to require commercial and mortgage banks to lend to high-risk borrowers? Banks that failed to comply were hit with fines and faced rejection when they requested mergers and branch expansions. Suddenly the sub-prime mortgage business boomed, and Countrywide Financial became its poster child. Furthermore, to encourage home ownership, did not the federal government offer an implicit guarantee to cover the performance of mortgage-securities giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? The result was corporate abuse and a systematic easy-money policy that lasted for more than a decade in real estate. Like all artificial inflationary policies, the overheated property market led inevitably to widespread turbulence. Recently the quasi-private Financial Accounting Standards Board imposed "mark-to-market" accounting regulations on financial institutions, forcing mortgages and other loans to be written down to zero simply because they couldn't be sold, even if they were still being paid by customers. As a result, we've seen financial tornadoes causing institutions to be downgraded and, in some cases, completely collapse.

OK, if your heart is beating too fast and your debts and impending job loss are making your nervous, take a break and watch a meditation video and then I'll continue...

Now there doubtless were lots of other factors at work here. A systematic study of relevant government laws and regulations, and selective exemptions to them, can help explain a lot. Few of us are aware of even 1% of the tens of thousands of laws and regulations that make the rich richer and the middle class and poor, poorer.

We have seen there are government-induced boom bust cycles which are far more devastating than any natural cycles which may or may not exist. But instead of allowing companies and individuals who most foolishly jumped on the bandwagon fail, while allowing productive companies and credit-worthy individuals to keep obtaining sufficient credit, governments are now "solving" the problem by printing money and throwing it at the most irresponsible - and or crooked and or connected to Bush/Cheney - lenders and borrowers. The rich cannot be allowed to go broke even if we all pay for it with inflation, even massive inflation cannot be far behind.

Solution wise, we have to assume people will always do stupid, manic and crooked things with money, especially with lots of money. What is the best way to protect yourself? Trusting politicians and bureaucrats who are constantly corrupted by wealthy, greedy and often crooked special interests? Or hiring an affordable private consumer agency whose researchers are totally on top of which banks, investment houses, insurers, etc. are trustworthy and which are not. Who do you trust - Bill Clinton and George Bush or Ralph Nader and Consumer Reports? :-)

Yes, get the government out of the money and banking and investment and mortgage business. It's like letting the Mafia run Las Vegas, except it's the economy! Of course, being a smart consumer is the other half. Banking in a local credit union where you have a say in where you money gets invested can help protect the little guy. Playing the stock market only if you know what you are doing, can afford to lose or stick it out through cyclic downturns. And not falling for phony schemes that are too good to be true. I wrote an idealistic article in the mid-1980s called Finding Freedom in Your Own Back Yard about local economics. Keeping things local where we can keep our eyes on them remains a pretty good idea. In economics and in government...secede and survive!!

McCain - Fit to Push to the Red Button

If the Republicans were running someone (weird but) SANE like Mitt Romney, I probably wouldn't be paying this much attention on my blog to the election. But with someone like McCain running who I believe is mentally deranged and would quickly get us into a world nuclear war, I can't help but obsess and warn those25-30 odd people who happen by a day. Here's a video advertisement from a progressive democratic group which has been played at least on MSNBC. It shows one of McCain's prisoner of war buddies saying John McCain is not someone he wants near the red button. John McCain - Unfit to lead

Sarah P. and Hillary C. together... (not)

On Saturday Night Live September 14. Funny funny funny and even a couple good comments on sexism - or were they sexist? (They usually are disgustingly so on SNL.) Here's the permanent NBC link.

Bob Barr's SnubGate - See the links!

On September 10th Libertarian Party presidential candidate threw away a couple hundred thousand votes when he retracted his promise to attend a Ron Paul press conference, one announcing Paul had turned down an invitation to endorse Insane McCain and instead to announce 4 principles of unity among third party candidates. Instead Barr held his own press conference at the same venue just a few hours later, inviting Ron Paul to be his vice presidential running mate and claiming he was thus exerting "real" leadership! Barr's obnoxious aide Shane Cory actually told a Paul staffer to "fuck himself."

Considering that Ron Paul as a republican had been able to attract more libertarian sympathizers than Barr, and raise more money in a few hours than Barr has raised in his whole campaign, that's some chutzpah!

Disgusted and outraged Ron Paul supporters and Libertarian Party members dropped their support for Barr on the spot, and started organizing petition and other campaigns to have the Libertarian National Committee drop him from the ticket. Not likely given the LNC's sympathies to Barr and the lack of a more sensational crime. Below are a few links to read some news and commentary.

There were dozens of mainstream news stories including:
* Associated Press Paul says he turned down appeal to endorse McCain
* ABC News Bob Barr Attends Ron Paul Rally to Woo Paul Supporters
* Dana Milbank in the Washington Post Third-Party Candidates Choose Clown Makeup Over Pig Lipstick (Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, Chuck Baldwin and Ralph Nader -- the picture of unity)
*Barr's home state Atlanta Constitution, taking him semi-seriously, Barr asks Ron Paul to be his running mate.
* Wiki news article Controversy Spreads over Libertarian candidate Bob Barr

Then some statements issued by Paul and Barr:
* 9/11 Campaign Blog - Principled Leadership in Times of Crisis
* Bob Barr Shows Leadership to Unify Liberty Movement
* Libertarian Party statement defending Barr's bad behavior and trashing Paul!
* Another statement defending Barr's actions in more general terms
* Statement from Don Rasmussen, Events Coordinator for Paul's Campaign for Liberty.
* Reactions from Ron Paul supporters on Campaign Liberty site

And lots of commentary:
* LP founder David Nolan The Barr Campaign is over
* United Liberty's Blow by Blow description of events
* Independent Political Reports Collection of Articles on SnubGate (good place to keep up to date)
* LewRockwell.Com archives Sept 10 and Sept 11 and Sept 12
* LP member Jim Duensing's thoughts

There's the Petition to dump Barr and comments about it. UPDATE: Wikinews on move in National Libertarian Committee to Dump Barr.

And of course there's William Hughes videos of whole Paul event. And below Paul and Ralph Nader on CNN discussing the press conference.

Ultimate Update from Bob Barr's home state Atlanta Constitution: Libertarian idol Ron Paul endorses someone who’s not Bob Barr

Take a Meditation Break...

Just type "meditation" in the YouTube search engine and you'll get all sorts of cool meditation videos.

Another Low Consciousness Post - Lipstick on McCain Pig

I know, I know. I should be posting ideas and strategies and resources for raising human consciousness so abominations like large nation states, patriarchal theocratic religions and 2 years of 24 hour a day cable news coverage of U.S. presidential elections would be distant memories of atrocities enshrined in the holocaust museums of the future.

Next post. I PROMISE!!!

Update: The good news is that Christopher Ketcham has an opinion piece in today's Los Angeles Times entitled The Americans secessionist streak about secessionist sympathizers from Sarah Palin (yes, you ARE girl) to the 22% of Americans who support secession to the North American Secessionist conventions.

Here's the relevant quotes about the Lipstick Secessionist: Sarah Palin's secessionist sympathies sparked minor hysteria last week. Her crime was hailing with round praise the work of the cranky Alaskan Independence Party, which advocates a statewide plebiscite on the secession of Alaska from the Union. "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government," the party's late founder, gold miner Joe Vogler, once said. "And I won't be buried under their damn flag." Palin's husband was a member of the AIP for seven years, and Palin herself has courted the AIP for more than a decade. In an address to the party convention this spring, wearing a ski parka and looking like she was about to decamp into the back country, Palin told the secessionists, "Keep up the good work."

Could it be that Palin, like her minister, thinks in the last days after God destroys the rest of the nation and Alaska becomes a "refuge state," it will secede?

Smak Dem Christians Down...

The horror stories about Sarah Palin's incompetence, opportunism, revenge seeking, egotism, unfaithfulness and long time membership in a church that thinks the whole world is going to be destroyed except Alaska continue to proliferate... After all didn't her minister recently say God was going to STRIKE AMERICA DOWN? Is that the same as "God damn America??" (Is Palin part of the plan to strike America down?)

As we all know Christianity through the centuries most often has been a faith run largely by corrupt opportunists who only repeat the Sermon on the Mount if it suits their nefarious plans, but prefer to scare the heck out of people with fire, brimstone, nazis, communists, islamists, etc. to keep them under control. Sarah Palin is no different and probably will set up a big concentration camp for all the journalists and bloggers who diss her before she -- universal consciousness forbid - gets elected VP. And then when "God takes McCain" (his rage attack over her antics causes a heart attack??) and Sara becomes president. This hilarious video by Jay Spears makes the point that this is NOT a Christian nation.

Sarah Palin - just another Xian Zionist nut job

I had fun for a week fantasizing about a whistleblowing secessionist just a rage-induced brain aneurysm away from the presidency. But Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com puts Sarah Palin in perspective in Sarah Palin: The Xena of the War Party. ...Prior to being plucked from obscurity by the neocons who run the McCain campaign, Sarah Palin was a complete unknown. Today, she is the object of a burgeoning cult that proclaims her to be the virtual incarnation of the Republican renewal... McCain really wanted Joe Lieberman, the last surviving member of the Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic party, whose neoconservative credentials, electoral appeal in certain key areas, and ability to provoke the Obama-crats made him the natural choice... McCain and his top advisors are ideologues who care about one thing and one thing only: war. The glory of it, the utility of it, the necessity of it. It's the McCain panacea, like "free silver" was to William Jennings Bryan and socialism was to Eugene Debs. It's his answer to everything: it solves all problems, and, more importantly, stifles all criticism. If you doubt his veracity, question his good intentions, or point out his inconsistencies, you're attacking a war hero, doubting the divine wisdom suffering is supposed to impart. Religion also played an important role in the choice of Palin: she's a member of a dispensationalist sect, within the Pentecostalist tradition, a "born again" Christian who believes in the Rapture and the centrality of Israel in world affairs. This latter belief is a theological verity with the dispensationalists, who make up the rank-and-file of the GOP's electoral machine: after the Rapture, when the anointed are raised up to heaven and the rest of us are left on earth, the church will be represented by the Chosen People of God – the Jews. According to the biblical prophecy, they will gather together in the land of Israel, their historic home, and this signals the coming of the End Times. Israel, for the dispensationalists, is the key issue: its interests must be defended at all costs, even above the national interests of the US. Israel is, in short, a non-negotiable item, and it's easy to see how this fits very neatly into the neoconservative agenda. According to news reports, Palin was diverted away from a fundraiser for a pro-life group headed up by Phyllis Schlafly so she could attend a grilling session conducted jointly by AIPAC and Lieberman, but this hardly seemed necessary. After all, the woman has a little Israeli flag in her office.... The McCainiacs chose Palin out of jealousy: they wanted an Obama of their own, and since they couldn't have one, they settled on Palin – the Bizarro Obama... Sarah, who looks – and acts – an awful lot like Xena, the Warrior Princess, is the perfect messenger for the GOP's credo of unmitigated militarism. Her speech to the Republican convention was, in large part, a continuation of the theme of the previous night: aggressive nationalism rationalized by religious fervor. It's a big gamble, because Palin's unreadiness to be President, in the event of McCain's untimely demise, is all too apparent. Far from injecting a youthful note into the campaign, Palin's physical presence next to the Old Man only underscores his advanced age – and the prospect of President Palin staring us in the face.

Why McCain Only Can Say "COUNTRY First"

How many thousands of Americans wondered why John McCain and his (temporary?) running mate's slogan is COUNTRY FIRST. Which country? (Sarah Palin was vetted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this week and we know what country they put first.)

But why couldn't all those McCain signs read AMERICA FIRST!?!?!

Could it be because AMERICA FIRST is a slogan associated with those who oppose foreign wars in general, and especially those which have not been approved by the U.S. Congress per the U.S. Constitution?

There's the AMERICA FIRST COMMITTEE which some wikipedia editor opined "was the foremost pressure group against American entry into the Second World War. It may have been the largest anti-war organization in American history." It was "established September 4, 1940 by Yale University law student R. Douglas Stuart, Jr., along with other students including future President Gerald Ford, Sargent Shriver and future Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart." Its most provocative belief: "American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European war."

And today there is a poorly organized AMERICA FIRST PARTY with a great looking web site and some excellent foreign policy principles (I only quote the more libertarian ones):

• Support a military whose mission is to protect our nation, not police the world
• Seek friendship with all nations, but avoid entangling alliances
• Work to maintain our nation's sovereignty and oppose all attempts to make our nation subservient to the precursors of global government
• Apply American values to our foreign policy

However, John McCain, who is an arch imperialist who wants America to rule the world and smash anyone who gets in our way, certainly would not want to be confused with anti-war, anti-imperialist, pro-Constitution, pro-liberty fanatics!!

The man who sang BOMB! BOMB! BOMB! BOMB! BOMB! IRAN!! can't wait to get his fingers on the nuclear trigger. For six years he dreamed and schemed of his revenge on all of those who caused him 2000 days of pain and torture in a filthy prisoner of war cell. One - how about two - of the many videos on McCain's psychopathology.

Update: September 18, 2008 - Keith Olbermann openly wonders "Which country was McCain talking about anyway?" I just hope he's that snotty once Obama gets elected.

Sarah Palin's Secession Videos

Leave it to crazy old coot McCain to stumble (read, poor vetting) into choosing as his vice-president some one so controversial he'll probably have to dump her before the election. (The National Enquirer promises to expose her affair with her husband's business partner next week - that's the same publication Republicans applauded for exposing John Edward's affair just last month.)

But the "funnest" laugh out loud part for us secessionists, is all the speculation over just how much of a secessionist Ms. Palin really is!

The L.A. Times reported on September 3rd: she was not a member but she has cheered the work of AIP...according to its website, "its primary goal is merely a vote on secession."... "Keep up the good work," Sarah Palin told members of the Alaskan Independence Party in a videotaped speech to their convention six months ago in Fairbanks. She wished the party luck on what she called its "inspiring convention."... her husband, Todd, was a member of the party for seven years...McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said Palin did not support secession...He sidestepped the question of whether she favored a statewide vote on secession. The Times' Rosa Brook had a very funny discussion of "Palin's Secession Flirtation" the next day.

The first video below is Governor Palin's message to the latest Alaskan Independence Party convention. The second comes from Youtube user Defederalization's collection of videos from the 2007 Second North American Secessionist Convention. In it, at six minutes, the Alaska party's chair Dexter Clark mentions Palin, saying she was an "AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town -- that was a nonpartisan job. But you get along to go along. She eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics." His second amusing video from Clark is here.