Scare-Ya Palin - What you see is what you get

Scare-Ya Palin Outdoes Herself | CommonDreams.org

I lived in Alaskaland for fifteen years, where I became familiar with the Palin Phenom, long before Sarah left the basketball court for politics.

In Alaska, when someone asks you if you can do something, the Official Alaska State Response is, "Sure! Why not?" Then if it turns out you can't do it, at least you know more about it than before you started. No one checks on your credentials, especially for women.

Alaska is a small town; wherever you go you run into someone you know. Anyone who wants to can become, well, Governor. Wally Hickel was George Bush, v. 0.1. Remember the Owner State, the water pipeline to Lalaland?

Sarah Palin is no mystery to Alaskans. The puzzlement has always been, "Why did she want to go Outside and play with folks in the Lesser States?"

Alaska is also the State of Unfinished Projects, due to the overwhelming negative correlation between money and brains. There's piles of money lying about to buy new projects and very little qualifications to see them through. Closets in Juneau are stuffed, Fibber McGee-like, with all sorts of paraphernalia left over from grand projects never fulfilled.

So quitting as governor in the first term is very Alaskan, in keeping with Palin's experience growing up in the Unfinished State.

I have no excuses for Republicans.

Time is money?

Time is not money.

Money is a fiction dreamed up by economists to control the minds of the people.

Time is precious. Each moment unique, each moment eternity.

Treasure each moment, live each moment to the fullest.

"All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain."

(Un)sustainable Growth

"The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, 'billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse'."

In this article in Commondreams: "The Planet's Future," Jonathan Owen clearly states the inevitability of the collapse of what we optimistically call "civilization."

Since "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron, collapse is the only possible outcome of the present course of many human societies. Whether or not this equates with a Mad Max "collapse of civilization" remains to be seen.

The State of the Future report, backed by Unesco, the World Bank, the US Army and the Rockefeller Foundation, comes to the obviously ingrown conclusion that in order for human society to continue on its present course, technologies must be developed to overcome limitations of Peak Oil and climate change so that 10 billion people can continue to live on this planet in a state of continued economic growth and consumption.

This, of course, is impossible.

The only sustainable forms of human economic activity are shrinkage followed by steady state. There are already far too many humans consuming far too much to be sustainable even on the short term of human life spans. Continued growth in a finite system is impossible and any scenario that ignores this reality is fantasy at best and destructive in the long term.

Human numbers will decline. Human economic production will decline. These declines can either be gradual and manageable, or they will be precipitous and catastrophic, for humans and many other species.

Governments and corporations have proven themselves incapable of perceiving and acting on necessary changes to forestall the destructive collapse of human economies. It remains for individual humans, acting within local communities, to lead the way to steady state economies based on local production for local consumption within natural resource limitations.

Step into the future! Grow your food at home, support your local farmers markets, turn your backs on corporations and distant central governments. Build the future right here at home where we can all keep an eye on it.

Your grandchildren will thank you for your wisdom and foresight.

Three Score Years, and Homeward Bound

On July 12, 1949, after four hours of struggle, I entered this world at 4:29 in the afternoon. The doctor proclaimed me "normal," a condition I have striven to maintain over the ensuing 60 years.

It's been an interesting ride these six decades, from the optimism of the 50s, the 60s Revolution, which I mostly missed, through the MADness of the Cold War, and the even madder madness of the Reagan Right-Wing Revulsion, a brief respite of hope, then the grinding intellectual poverty of the Bush fascist regime, still lingering despite political changes in Washington.

I feel I've grown into my aspirations of curmudgeonliness and have now fully arrived. My expectations have been realized, and despite another era of hope, not yet fulfilled, I see no meaningful change on the horizon.

If I take care of my body, I should have another twenty years or so left to appreciate the great human comedy. I fully expect to see environmental conditions deteriorate worldwide during that time, resulting in deteriorating human conditions, and, thus, increased human strife, misery and woe, and increased destruction of the natural world.

"Twas ever thus," quoth Mr. Natural. I see no reason to expect that human beings will suddenly develop intelligence and common sense, at least not in time to make any difference to climate change and Peak Oil, the twin spectres looming over all, mostly unappreciated. If we upright bipeds had any real intelligence, we'd drop this insane social system based on greed and the folly of economists, scrap private automobiles, re-create a real system of public transportation, call all our soldiers and missionaries home to rebuild, refurbish and recycle the technological dead ends lying about the place. Plenty of work for everyone, no need for anyone to stand on the dole que. Plenty of food and housing to go around, in sufficiency.

This, of course, will never happen, so we are left with the alternative, which is to charge full bore toward the abyss with our eyes closed, praying for the best outcome.

When I think of what's to come, I'm glad I was born in 1949, young enough to peer out over the edge, too old to experience the sudden, fatal stop at the bottom.

Anarchy, whatever you call it

Today I visited a new on-line dictionary called Wordnik. As is my habit, I tested it with my favorite word, "anarchy." Here are the results:

American Heritage Dictionary (3)
noun Absence of any form of political authority.
noun Political disorder and confusion.
noun Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

Century Dictionary (1)
Absence or insufficiency of government; a state of society in which there is no capable supreme power, and in which the several functions of the state are performed badly or not at all; social and political confusion.

Webster's Unabridged (1913) (1)
Absence of government; the state of society where there is no law or supreme power; a state of lawlessness; political confusion.

WordNet (1)
a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government)

thus is demonstrated the depths to which the English language, and popular thought, have plunged.

Anarchy, of course, means no ruler, not no rules. The confusion of anarchy with chaos came about as a result of decades of government propaganda against those who agitated against the status quo of centralized, authoritarian, coercive government. Anarchy is characterized by self-reliance, self-discipline, democracy and mutual aid, supposedly the goals of society in the united States, but in reality the antithesis of the ruling ideals of those who control government in this country, which is to keep its citizens in thrall to consumerism, debt, fear, and hierarchical authority.

Interestingly enough, recent "crises" in energy and economy are paving the way for a new resurgence of anarchy. Call it localism, sustainability, Democracy, ethnic identity, or what have you, the thrust nevertheless is to bring control of our lives back home from the central authority that has demonstrated a complete inability to plan and control the lives of the people across this vast continent.

We will, of necessity, return to a focus on local economies, local food production and distribution, local social support systems, local health care, local education, as the economics of global and even national economies crumbles in the face of rapidly increasing energy costs brought about by Peak Oil and climate change.

The politicians will keep arguing about the source of global warming and what to do about it, while the corporate toadies continue to line their pockets with filthy lucre. Meanwhile, here at home, the people are turning more and more to local gardens, farmers markets, and local economies. We are beginning to deal with the realities of transportation in a world of increasingly expensive oil, and increasing evidence of environmental damage as a result of burning that oil in our burgeoning fleets of private automobiles. The culture of the private automobile is beginning to erode, slowly of course, yet the sanctity of the private automobile is beginning to show a trace of tarnish.

I see this as a healthy step toward anarchy, self-rule, government by the people and for the people. Call it what you will, it's time to throw the authoritarian monkeys off our backs and take control of our lives.

It's Nature's Way.

Religion = Brain Dysfunction?

Jack Burns has a great description in this post: The Southern Wedding of a Fundamentalist Christian wedding, replete with all of the hypocrisy and flamboyant irrationalisty that one would expect from extremist religion.

Now we learn that this god thing may be a brain dysfunction. The BBC reveals, in this article, that epileptics can have religious experiences during seizures, and even atheists can have a "universal oneness" experience through brain stimulation. It seems that human brains are hard-wired to produce what is interpreted as a religious experience under unusual stimulation.

Just as I thought - religion is an irrational, abnormal brain condition that has been exploited for the benefit of those seeking power over others.

Which means, of course, that religion can be cured!

A Self-Correcting problem

Drinking from Plastic Bottles 'Increases Exposure to Gender-Bending Chemical'




Here's how we deal with bottled water and the people who use it:

breed them out of existence!

Subterfuge and the Science of Repeating Lies | CommonDreams.org

In this article, Roberto Rodriguez explains how official state language manipulates the masses to accept war as legitimate foreign policy.

Especially when delivered on TeeVee, the technology that creates a compliant and receptive mental state among its viewers, such rhetoric, when applied consistently and repeatedly, is amazingly effective in changing the way people think. Just look at the difference among those who watch Faux News, MSNBC and those who don't watch TeeVee at all.

Richard Nixon loved TeeVee and attempted to control it from the White House.

Nuff said.

US Out of WAR, NOW!

Even with Obama in Charge, Anti-War Democrats Powerless

It's not about Afghanistan or Iraq. It's about war as an instrument of foreign policy.

The united States government has used the military as the strong arm of big business for over two hundred years, having learned the techniques well from our bloody British ancestors. Big Business walks softly about the planet, carrying the big sticks of the CIA, NSA, Pentagon and now a phalanx of pecuniary mercenaries, in the fight for the fun of it as much as the money, paving the way for Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Agriculture, their paths greased by American consumers ground under their wheels.

Torture, mutilation, genocide, and environmental destruction are the collateral damage of official uS policy. Too bad our fancy flying robot murderers kill more innocent children, grandparents, brides and grooms and party guests than targeted combatants. Fortunes of war. The "acceptable" (for us) price (for them) of spreading democracy. Let's spread it thick!

Countries have life spans just like their citizens. It's time for the united States to grow up. We have a new Democratic President and a Democratic Congress. If there ever was a time to steer this country from the path of it war, it is now.

Let's make it so.

You mean everything really is hitched to everything else?

According to this article in Wired, epidemiologists have long anticipated that swine flu would evolve in factory pig farms and jump to humans. Factory farms serve as incubators of myriad diseases, where animals are packed so closely together they can't turn around and they stand in their own shit and urine 24 hours a day. Pigs are shipped across North America between birth and slaughter, spreading whatever viruses they happen to contain.

It was only a matter of time.

It doesn't take threats to humans to show that factory farming is morally wrong.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
- Mahatma Gandhi