Tag Archives: politics

Sunday morning thoughts December 18, 2011

Posted on December 18, 2011 by | 40 comments

Good morning readers.  I’m obliged you came for a visit and read.

I’m going to start this morning by telling you something you ought to know already, but mightn’t:

Sometimes I take myself a lot more seriously than is justified by my history of being ‘right’ compared to my history of being ‘wrong’.  People who’ve known me forever are acutely aware of this.  The terms, ‘alarmist‘ and ‘melodramatic‘ have occasionally been used with brutal accuracy by people in a position to arrive at informed judgements.

Keep in mind I’m the guy who dumped a second career within a couple of years of being able to draw a hefty retirement check because I believed so thoroughly Y2K was going to happen, leading eventually to my current situation.  Keep in mind I also spent a lot of years climbing and unclimbing mountains searching for a lost gold mine I believed I’d find.

And keep in mind I don’t regret any of it.

So with all that in mind, I think those of you who read my ‘indefinite detention’ posts of the past few days would be well advised to examine other opinions, even though I still believe I’m generally right.  My believing it shouldn’t carry any weight for you.

Here’s another viewpoint offering up a mitigated set of possibilities regarding the same situation and the activities leading to it:

Addicting Info – The Knowledge You Crave http://tinyurl.com/cjs4xav

The NDAA Is A Horrible Bill, And Why Obama Is Going To Sign It
December 17, 2011 By Wendy Gittleson

If you’ve formed any opinions based on anything I’ve said here I think you owe it to yourself to read it.   Wendy Gittleson is certainly a lot more qualified to have an opinion than I am, most likely.  Even though I don’t necessarily agree.

Old Jules

40 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Current Issues, Politics

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Indefinite detention Act voids US Constitution

Posted on December 16, 2011 by | 25 comments

Promote Liberty

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25 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Politics

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Indefinite Detention, Rip Van Winkleism, and Respecting the Future

Posted on December 16, 2011 by | 19 comments

Yesterday I was talking on the phone with my friend, Rich, in North Carolina.  We were discussing this ‘indefinite detention’ thing going on in Congress and the fact it’s a lead-pipe cinch it’s going to happen.   The US Government is defacto eliminating habeas corpus.

The conversation kept drifting back to the question, “How in the world did we get here?  How did it come to this?”

The answer always came back the same.  “We followed the yellow brick road.”  We did it.  He did it.  I did it.  We all did it.  We saluted, marched in step, ignored the unpleasant obvious, and allowed ourselves to be cogs in a giant wheel.   We closed our eyes and Rip Van Winkled our way into this.

We abdicated.  When we saw our energy needs exceeding our capabilities to produce energy we took the comfortable route of ‘protecting’ sources someone else owned and kept the thermostats where they were.   We wanted government services we couldn’t afford, so we signed the chits to let our descendants pay for it.  When we saw the elected officials rubber-stamping the desires of multi-national corporations to move our production and manufacturing to countries where someone else could do it, we tacitly helped fill the void with government jobs.   We watched them add layer after layer of new cop functions at every level.  We watched them militarize the police throughout the country.  We cheered as they imposed increasingly draconian measures of ‘protection’ of us against the microscopic threat our lives would be touched by terrorism.

We marched in step because it was the easy way and trusted someone else would pay the price.

We’re there now.  There’s no going back.  There’s not a damned thing you, I, anyone can do about it.  It’s time to salute the future.  Congress and the president wouldn’t have done this if they didn’t plan to use it.

Sometime during the next few years you’re going to have some choices to make.  You can watch them haul off people you don’t like for indefinite detention.  You are going to watch that, whether you like it or not.  But since you don’t like those people anyway it will be easier to accept.

So long as it’s someone else.

We’re there and we’ve gotten what we paid for.

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me to be a strange place to find ourselves.  Hog-tied, handcuffed, at the absolute mercy of the whims of people we were crazy ever to trust and really never did.

Old Jules

19 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Politics

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Suspending Habeus Corpus Here

Posted on December 16, 2011 by | 8 comments

This cold and moisture is taking a toll on The Great Speckled Bird:

The Great Speckled Bird: Respecting our Betters

The Liar: The Great Speckled Bird, Part 2

News from the Middle of Nowhere

October Quietude, Dead Bugs and Old Roosters

Every night someone, coons, deer, hogs, break into Fortress #1 where I keep the two younger roosters and the Communist Americauna, the Commie because it’s the only where she’ll sleep, roosters because daytimes they want to beat hell out of TGSB.

Every morning I go out and repair it before releasing the roosters into the pen and the Commie hen to free range.  And by mid-day the two roosters have usually found a way out, by which time TGSB is usually in the other henhouse anyway, stove up and just wanting to rest.

If they don’t find a way out, I usually let them out mid-afternoon because I don’t care for the idea of anything being penned up all time.  It allows them to run free for a few hours before bedtime. 

But they’re still a potential threat to TGSB, and they’re a nuisance to get back into the pen, will never go in until the Commie hen re-enters to roost.

Today I’m pulling a page from the immediate, current activities of the US Congress and Whitehouse.  As of today I’m going to fix that pen so they can’t get out.  Period.  Until I take it into my head they’ve been there long enough so’s I feel good.

Suspending Habeus  Corpus, I am.   Indefinite detention for anyone strikes my fancy.  Maybe if I decide I don’t like one of the cats I’ll put him/her in there, too.

Remember where you heard it first.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2011, Chickens, Country Life, Current Issues, Politics, Poultry, Solitude

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Barbed-Wire Utopia

Posted on December 15, 2011 by | 10 comments

Abundant grass pastoral bliss
Hills and arroyos
Of cow-price scowls
Beyond their ken
Herd grazes reverie
Pond and hay mollified
 
Bicker snort sling slobber push
For turns at salt and mineral block
While even forked branch
Fence stretchers fatten
 
For foam tray
And clear-plastic
Heaven
 
Of beef futures

Old Jules
Copyright NineLives Press

 

10 Comments

Posted in 2011, Poetry, Politics

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Scenes and Platforms – 2012 Election Campaign Trail in Movie and Song

Posted on December 14, 2011 by | 8 comments

A bit of fun on a December afternoon.

THE CANDIDATES [BOTH PARTIES]:

 

Am I JFK? Ronald Reagan?  FDR?  George Wallace?

 

 

Democrats:

 

Republicans:

 

ECONOMY:

Democrats:

 

Republicans:

 

TRADE AND BUDGET DEFICITS [BOTH PARTIES]

The pretense:

 

The reality: 

 

FOREIGN POLICY:

Democrats:

 

Republicans:

 

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Human Behavior, Politics

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Guide: Adopt Selective ‘Remember’ BS Rhetoric With Surgical Precision

Posted on December 7, 2011 by | 20 comments

Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood

Just keep it safe and simple pretending to remember something about the ‘fighting’ by Allied troops across the planet.  Hug yourself with some feelgood to help you feel sensitive and patriotic.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491548/Alive-safe-brutal-Japanese-soldiers-butchered-20-000-Allied-seamen-cold-blood.html

Carefully remember today ONLY the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor carrying some vague message we should remain prepared against similar future events. 

Carefully do NOT remember the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the savage treatment of Allied POWs and civilians in occupied territories of The Greater-East-Asian-Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Carefully do NOT remember the beheading of hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners, the starvation and death by disease of a huge percentage of other prisoners compared to elsewhere, almost anywhere among the armies of either side.

Carefully do NOT remember  the overwhelming percentage of that conduct was perpetrated by enlisted men and officers below the rank of captain.  Men who returned to their homes to be accepted within a couple of years as allies and fast friends of the US and other nations they fought, invaded, raped, pillaged and slaughtered only months earlier.

Carefully do NOT remember the Marshall Plan and the rebuilding of Japanese industry and infrastructure destroyed by the war, rendering much of US industry obsolete or absolescent.  DON’T remember the 20,000 suicide-before-surrender Japanese cliff-jumps at Okinawa.

And while you’re at it see if you can find a feelgood argument with someone  about the ethical and moral side of the atomic bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Better to forget all of it than pretend to remember some of it.  Crank up your Mazda, turn on the FM and listen to some oldies while you remember what it was like to have a job.  What happened 1941 – 1945 had nothing at all to do with anything happening today.

You don’t remember a damned thing about anything that happened to other people.  Just remember Santy’s coming to town.

Old Jules

 

20 Comments

Posted in 1940's, 2011, America, Hawaii, History

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Blind Chickens, Talking Diamonds and Greedy Galaxies

Posted on December 4, 2011 by | 18 comments

I’m aware some of you readers keep chickens.  If you’re having problems with blindness among them you might be interested in joining http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_Ranging_Chickens/ where there’s an interesting discussion going on about the problem.  This was the beginning post for the thread:

Blind Rooster
Posted: Sat Dec 3, 2011 5:47 am (PST)
Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. Monday afternoon, I noticed two hens on the wrong side of the fence, so went to retrieve them, and find the rest of their little band. Found all but one rooster. Couldn’t find him in any of the “regular” places, but they do have lots of room to roam. Figured I’d check again before bedtime, as he’s usually the first one in. Didn’t show up. Put everyone else in, and went hunting, for feathers if nothing else:(. Well, I found him by the fence, but inside. Just sitting there. He let me pick him up without protest, but he’s always been laid-back. Still, I knew something was wrong. Put him in a different coop, with shelves instead of bar roosts. The next day he was down on the floor, walking around, but bumping into the screening for the duck section, and sitting in corners/nests. Realized his vision was at least partially gone. Blocked him in, and started antibiotics, since I had no idea what else to do. That night he was back up on the shelf, so he must have some vision, I guess. Wasn’t eating or drinking that I could see, just walked over everything. Brought him into the Hospital Unit (a carrier in my bathrooom :). He began to drink, and finally eat. He crows (oh, swell) but his cue seems to be noise rather than light. Put him outside yesterday (in a big crate) afternoon for some sun, but he just sat there. Some of the other chickens did come scratch around him, but he seemed oblivious.
His eyes look odd, not whiteish, but the center (behind the cornea and inside the iris, where it should be black) looks “solid”, if that makes any sense.

Any thoughts?

Free_Ranging_Chickens@yahoogroups.com

Meanwhile, you readers involved in clandestine, extra-marital relationships might be well-advised to remove your diamond jewelry before checking into some seedy motel. 

In the quantum world, diamonds can communicate with each other

December 2, 2011 By Joel N. Shurkin

The vibrational states of two spatially separated, millimeter-sized diamonds are entangled at room temperature by scattering a pair of strong pump pulses (green). The generated motional entanglement is verified by observing nonclassical correlations in the inelastically scattered light. Credit: Dr. Lee and colleagues, Image Copyright Science|AAAS  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-quantum-world-diamonds.html

Elsewhere in the news, the 99% movement has suffered a disturbing setback with the discovery we live in a greedy galaxy, gobbling up smaller galaxies.  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-beast-tails.html

Barred Spiral Milky Way. Illustration Credit: R. Hurt (SSC), JPL-Caltech, NASA

The Milky Way galaxy continues to devour its small neighbouring dwarf galaxies and the evidence is spread out across the sky.

Government and Wall Street Cray computers working on the problem tentatively estimate the 99 percenters are actually 0.000000000000001 percenters galaxy-wide.  Political and financial-industry hired-guns are working three shifts to prepare television documentaries and PR campaigns to assist in correcting the error.

In a related story, multi-national corporations and Wall Street banks have hired a team of astrophysicists and astronomers to study black holes in an effort to develop more thorough strategies and techniques to solidify and expand their holdings.  Additionally, the illustration on the right suggests black holes might also provide improved methods in the use of pepper-spray.

“An optical image of the sky showing the location of the black hole, Cygnus X-1. (Right) An artist’s conception of the black hole system, showing the black hole drawing material towards it from a massive, blue companion star. This material forms a disk and jets that emit radiation. Credit: Optical: DSS; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

“Black holes are among the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity. A black hole is thought to be point-like in dimension, but it is surrounded by an imaginary surface, or “edge,” of finite size (its “event horizon”) within which anything that ventures becomes lost forever to the rest of the universe.”  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-black-hole-unmasked.html

The overall optimism derived from these stories was something I wanted to share with you readers to lift whatever waning spirits you might experiencing his crisp, rainy morning.

Old Jules

18 Comments

Posted in 2011, Animals, Astronomy, Chickens, Communication, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Politics, Poultry

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Old Sol’s Party-Animal Mood Swings Bring Mixed-Reactions

Posted on December 4, 2011 by | 8 comments

Old Sol was practicing his quickdraw:

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/pics/a/Alexandra-Hart-2011-12-03-11-22-20–

Alexandra Hart 
Image taken: Dec. 3, 2011
Location: Cheshire, UK 
 
Details: This prominence lifted off within 10 minutes, very spectacular! Taken with a Coronado PST and DMK41

 http://spaceweather.com/

ERUPTING FILAMENT: Today, with little warning, a magnetic filament rapidly erupted on the sun. Between 10:30 and 11:30 UT, observers in Europe watched tendrils of hot plasma rocket away from the sun’s NW limb. Debris from the explosion is not expected to hit Earth. Images: #1, #2, #3.

Astrophysicists aren’t certain what he was shooting at, but several noted deer season recently opened.  Others speculate Alpha Centauri was throwing bottles or tin-cans in the air for him.

With no flares of significance in days, the sun is strangely quiet. Nevertheless, the view remains dynamic. Rogerio Marcon of Campinas, Brasil, took this picture of the local starscape on Dec. 2nd.   Using a telescope tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen, Marco captured 20 billion sq. km of seething plasma and magnetic filaments; also included in the field is the dark core of sunspot 1364 (lower right). It doesn’t look very quiet. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of M-class solar flares in the next 24 hours.  http://spaceweather.com/

Some astrophysicists noted 20 billion sq. km of seething plasma and magnetic filaments could be considered a middling lot, everything else being equal.

PHD candidates from UC Berkeley and MIT have gone on record with a theory there’s some kind of celebration going on up there.  NASA space cadets believe otherwise, but refuse to elaborate except to darkly hint Old Sol’s expressing his displeasure about agency budget cuts.

Israel and the CIA aren’t saying what’s causing it, but are planning airstrikes on unnamed Central Asian targets in retaliation.

Old Jules

 

8 Comments

Posted in 2011, Astronomy

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December 1, 2011 – The Best Laid Plans

Posted on December 1, 2011 by | 7 comments

Good morning to you readers. I’m obliged you came by for a visit and read. I went to sleep last night with the thought on my mind to try a run into Kerrville today.  I figured I’d wander around in the AutoZone store for a while to see if I could locate some Chinese engineered tool designed to outsmart Japanese mechanical engineers.

But it turned out to be one of those nights when a lot goes on.  A high wind rose for a while and started dropping dead tree branches, I assume it was, with a lot of fanfare and drama, on things probably didn’t need any trees falling on them.  I recently got that fuel-line bulb replacement for the chainsaw For Want of a Nail – Something Worth Knowing Chainsaw-wise and at that point my middle of the night thinking changed my plans for the day. 

Seemed everything was stacking up for me to spend the day bringing down dead oaks and cutting firewood.   I settled back to sleep peacefully dreaming of a fire in the woodstove and a few layers less clothing on my agingly fragile bod.

Daylight was still a long way off when I was awakened by a ruckus on the front porch I interpreted as the cats telegraphing me there was a coon out there bothering them, so I got the .22 and the spotlight and went out to unravel whatever was happening.  Turned out it was the invader-cat crosswise with Hydrox, second-in-command around here.

I adopted my mean-evil-ugly persona, put down the .22 and started yelling and waving my arms around to break up the spitting growling party, then chased the invader-cat off the porch and across the meadow keeping it lit up in the spotlight.  Hydrox was playing point-man, but chasing with no intention of catching.  The invader-cat has me figured out, I reckons, and kept turning around hoping I’d say something friendly and we could come to an agreement, adding a cat to the local population.

But that ain’t going to happen.  You can’t stop a man who knows he’s right and keeps coming.  Hydrox and I chased that cat clean into the woods to the east, me breathing steam and gutsy language.

When I got back to the porch with Hydrox the other three were waiting and demanded a prayer-meeting.  They all saw me put down that .22 and interpreted it as an ominous sign I might be sneaking around wondering if we couldn’t fit another cat into the equation.  The consensus was that we can’t.

So one of the jobs today is puzzling out how to get the invader-cat into the live-trap and deliver it to one of the herd of wildlife-rescue women springing up like weeds all over the Texas Hill Country.

It looks like a pretty good cat and I’ve got to tip my hat to the fact it’s awfully well groomed for a stray.  But it’s a long way from anyone likely to be grooming it.  Just the fact it’s survived out in the woods a while, though, has me thinking it mightn’t be easy to lure into the live trap.

Anyway, after daybreak I went out for a perusal of whatever damage the trees might have accomplished and found things are normal, though one’s a lot nearer the ground than it was yesterday.  It’s foggy, cold and feels like rain.  Maybe I’ll cut wood, and maybe I won’t.

But what I originally intended to tell you this morning was that last night I came across a blog where someone’s discovered an identical replication in nature between a beetle and a parasite duplicating the relationship between government and high-finance interests, multi-national corporations, almost every facet of human organizational structure.  I think it might be where we learned how to do all the stuff we do.

Mind-controlling beetle parasite.

Instead of studying cats, chickens, deer and other critters to puzzle out what’s going on with us humans I think I need me one-each of those beetles and parasites.  I’ll keep you updated on whether I find one.

Maybe old Franz Kafka wasn’t too far wrong.

Old Jules

7 Comments

Posted in 2011, America, Current Issues, Homesteading, Politics, Senior Citizens, Texas

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