alchemy and the near horizons

2011-01-25T23:02:00.000-05:00

99 │ prayer for Annie

It is easy to say, Annie,
that we hate life,
and that we thus hate
and rue our lives.

We can hate life, my dear,
and pound away at our pillows
as if we know, most decidedly, better—

the first of three heavy, heavy snows,
and a hard, deep, mysterious tumor,
remember (when is it melting)?

Nutmeg
Nutt Nutt
Nutterbutter Peanut Butter (that’s her real name)
Nutty

But we do not, bamboo.

Today, Sunday, the 2nd of May 2010,
the heat descended on 41 Madison
like a terrible and profound weight,
and the terribly humid evening wore us down
like doves.

Spring had turned a corner.
Vicious winter had finally given way to wistful summer,
and the hummingbird’s flighty metabolic flare
rose like the first red ruby
of the season
(to take a drink).

And we cried as such
needy, needy dogs:

Fuzzy Nut
Weary Nut
Nutt Nutt of Ellis, Nutt Nutt of Doris
Nutty Nutty Ms. Nutty

Earlier in the day, in a wonderfully shaded haven
in a neighborhood far, far away,
a beautiful young girl rescued
a torpid eastern tent caterpillar
from a desperate deckbound
captivity and death,
taking the solitary fern frond
under which the caterpillar
had been found
with her.

This was fortune, what did it mean,
and the caterpillar did go gladly up
the cherry tree
at the delicate drop
of her fingertip.

Nutty.

At the same time, sadly, some 40 miles away,
a beautiful young woman (this one with wild eyes and wild hair)
saw her companion
close her sweet little eyes
for the duration.

We wonder about such things as correlation.
We wonder about fate and lessons.

But for now, Father Time, we beg you, let us not lose sight of what it is that we are doing:

Nutter Butter
Ms. Nutty Nutty
Nutty of Yesteryear
Nutty of Nevermore

For her keepers now we pray for carrots.
We pray for simple bedding and strawberries too.
We pray for brown eyes and the sparkling gift of Christmas.
And to her progenitors we say thank you.

Be well, we pray,
and rest easy, Nutmeg.

Always.

Forever.

Amen.

On the constitutionality of the individual mandate

2010-03-24T10:49:00.003-04:00

Best argument on why the individual mandate is both constitutional and necessary that I've seen thus far. . . .

From David Orentlicher:

The Supreme Court would have to overturn 70 years of case law to side with the attorneys general challenging the health care legislation. To be sure, there is a germ of truth to the argument that the federal government may not require people to buy an insurance policy. If Congress passed a law whose only provision entailed a mandate to purchase a product, and violators of the law were automatically subject to incarceration, constitutional concerns would arise. Imagine a criminal law that required people to buy an American-made automobile to bolster the domestic car industry. But that is not the kind of mandate that Congress passed. Rather, the obligation to purchase insurance, with its financial penalty of $750, falls readily within the commerce clause authority of Congress.

Under the commerce clause, Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, and the health care insurance industry clearly satisfies the Supreme Court's understanding of interstate commerce. Further, the new legislation constitutes an important effort to regulate the health care insurance industry. Key elements of the legislation are the provisions that prohibit insurers from denying coverage or raising prices because of a person's "preexisting" medical conditions. Under current industry practices, many people cannot obtain health care coverage because they have heart disease or other medical problems that cause insurers to refuse coverage or charge higher premiums. The new law would prohibit these denials and higher charges so everyone can purchase affordable coverage.

But insurers cannot be asked to eliminate the higher charges unless everyone is required to have insurance. Otherwise, many people would wait until they became sick before buying coverage. In short, the individual mandate is a necessary component of the effort by Congress to protect people from unaffordable health insurance premiums. And under the Constitution, Congress is entitled to "make all laws which shall be necessary" for carrying out its commerce clause and other specified powers. Thus, the court made it clear in the medical marijuana case (Raich v. Gonzales) that Congress may regulate in areas that might not ordinarily fall within the commerce clause power if the policy is part of a broad regulatory program that falls within the commerce clause power.

Exceeding the record

2010-02-10T19:57:00.032-05:00

Tromped through the Patuxent Woods in Columbia, MD this afternoon at the height of this week's second nor'easter. Something is wrong. Snapshots below:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

__________________________

All photos from Columbia, MD, 10 February 2010.

From top to bottom:

1 - Sinewy meshwork from the one and only back patio creature me I
2 - Sinewy meshwork from the one and only back patio creature me II
3 - Implications of leaning right
4 - Welcome to Poplar Glen Apartments!
5 - Faux exodus
6 - On behalf of Populus deltoides
7 - 203, uphill, empty inside, and none too amused
8 - Synaptic futility and failure, early phases
9 - In remembrance of the red-shouldered hawk, not appearing here
10 - God damn
11 - In remembrance of the wondrous and mysterious red fox hiding
12 - Closer to dunking
13 - Tell me why, godly, tell me why (and make it stop)
14 - 11650, buttressed equally and righteously on either side I might add
15 - Corridor to Jesus I
16 - Corridor to Jesus II
17 - Most deeply felt indication
18 - This is no longer amusing
19 - 35!
20 - Bend approaching Watch Chain Way and Poplar Glen, pedestrians no more
21 - Tree of yore no doubt, tree of yore
22 - Grim battles ahead
23 - Snow monster, large, and if I may, forlorn

People are encouraged not to panic

2010-02-10T11:58:00.023-05:00

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT

You can quickly become disoriented. Wait for emergency help to arrive. Periodically run your engine for heat. Ensure your exhaust pipe is cleared. Crack your windows, for God's sake, to avoid poisoning. Make yourself visible by tying a colored cloth to your antenna. Move your arms from time to time, your legs, fingers, and toes. Doing so will help keep the blood from coagulating.

_______________

Adapted from National Weather Service, Howard County, MD, 10 February 2010

As yet another system begins to emerge over the central United States

2010-02-07T09:36:00.013-05:00

First, a reminder of some predictions. From the Farmers' Almanac online at http://www.farmersalmanac.com:

Blizzards?

Although 3/4 of the US is predicted to see near- or below-average precipitation this winter, that does not mean, natalnorgs, that there will not be any winter storms. On the contrary, significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. For the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, for instance, we are predicting a major snowfall in mid-February, possibly even blizzard conditions....

And thus:

__________________________

All photos from Annapolis, MD, 5–6 February 2010.

From top to bottom:

- Hill at height
- Madison at height
- Madison after storm
- Trek up Jefferson
- West after storm
- Igloo for a car

In memory of the Donners

2010-02-05T18:25:00.009-05:00

THIS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS STORM IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE RECORD SNOWFALL. TRAVEL CONDITIONS TONIGHT ACROSS THE REGION WILL BE EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS AND LIFE-THREATENING. HELP YOUR LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT FIRST RESPONDERS AND TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES BY STAYING OFF THE ROADS.

vl: TIME TO CHECK ME OUT SOME HASTINGS PASS...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Cutoff

Snow incredible here. Nearly 1900. Worst yet to come...

Possums

2010-01-28T13:07:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Blues Clueless

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Michael Moore interview w/ Democracy Now!

2010-01-26T20:47:00.012-05:00

Michael Moore's approach is often misguided, bullying, alarmist, and over the top, but sometimes he absolutely nails it, and I thought his interview with Amy Brown was in many ways right on the mark about our current state of affairs. Among the topics covered: Haiti, Afghanistan, this week's Supreme Court ruling on corporate funding in elections (as he rightly points out, a very depressing and debilitating decision indeed), the weakness and ineptitude of both Obama (grow a pair, sir) and the Democrats as a whole, and the fate of Bernanke and Geithner. It's fairly long, but it's well worth a gander in my humble opinion. Nice precursor to the State of the Union tomorrow night too.

Here's hoping everyone's doing well.

- vl

And in so thinking to varying degrees (as I am hereby being stripped) on perhaps another tactic to be used in the war on terror

2010-01-17T18:14:00.008-05:00

Why Haiti Matters:
What America Must Do
and How

Adapted from http://www.newsweek.com/id/231131/output/print

Background

During the this past week we have been moved by the devastation in Haiti. Entire swaths of Port-au-Prince are in ruins. Families seek shelter in makeshift camps. Children search desperately for their mothers and fathers; mothers and fathers search desperately for their children. Both to no avail. Anarchy reigns in the darkened streets.

We have ordered

We have ordered a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives in Haiti. We have instructed the leaders of all agencies to make our response a top priority across the federal government. We are mobilizing every element of our national capacity: the resources of development agencies, the strength of our armed forces, and most important, the compassion of the American people. And we are working closely with the Haitian government, the United Nations, and the many international partners who are also aiding in this extraordinary effort. We act on behalf of all who have been affected. We act for the thousands of American citizens who are in Haiti and for their families back home. We act on behalf of the Haitian people. And we act for a very simple reason. In times of tragedy, we step forward and help. That is who we are. That is what we do. At no time is that more true than in moments of great peril and human suffering. When we show our compassion, the world looks to us. That advances our leadership. That shows the character of our country. And it is why every citizen can look at this relief effort with the pride of knowing that America is acting on behalf of our common humanity.

Tell me who,
and why it matters

Right now, our search-and-rescue teams are on the ground, pulling people from the rubble. Americans from Virginia and California and Florida have worked round the clock to save people whom they've never met. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen quickly deployed to the scene. Hand in hand with our civilians, they're laboring day and night to facilitate a massive logistical enterprise; to deliver and distribute food, water, and medicine to save lives; and to prevent an even larger humanitarian catastrophe.

Greater help is on the way. This will be a complex and difficult rescue and recovery operation, and it takes time to move all of the resources necessary into such a devastated environment. But more American rescue teams, doctors, nurses, and paramedics will arrive to care for the injured. More water, food, and supplies will be delivered. An aircraft carrier has arrived. A naval hospital ship has been deployed. And additional aircraft and heavy equipment will restore communications and clear roads and ports to speed relief and hasten recovery.

In the days, months, and years ahead, we will need to work closely with the government and people of Haiti to reclaim the momentum that they achieved before the earthquake. It is particularly devastating that this crisis has come at a time when—at long last, after decades of conflict and instability—Haiti was showing hopeful signs of political and economic progress. As the tremors fade and Haiti no longer tops the headlines or leads the evening news, our mission will be to help the people of Haiti to continue on their path to a brighter future. We will be there with the Haitian government and the United Nations every step of the way.

Grime upon which to return

2010-01-11T21:06:00.007-05:00

natalnorgs!

My how I have not missed you.

Nevertheless, a fascinating defense in the making for your perusal...

11 January 2010
Adapted from AP report

On a balmy Sunday morning in May, on the east side of Wichita, Kansas, a man by the name of Scott Roeder rose inconspicuously from his pew at Reformation Lutheran and walked discreetly to the foyer, where two ushers had been chatting around a table. Mr. Roeder carried with him a .22-caliber handgun, and as he moseyed on into the foyer he pressed the barrel to the forehead of one of the ushers, unsuspecting abortion doctor George Tiller, and blew his brains all to hell. Roeder's premeditated, first-degree murder trial begins Wednesday, and no one—not even Roeder himself—disputes the fact that he killed Tiller. But what had been expected to be an open-and-shut murder trial was upended Friday when a judge decided to let Roeder argue he should be convicted of voluntary manslaughter because he believed the May 31 slaying would save unborn children. Prosecutors on Monday challenged the ruling, arguing that such a defense is not appropriately considered with premeditated first-degree murder when there is no evidence of an imminent attack at the time of the killing. Jury selection was thus delayed. A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon to give the defense time to respond. "The State encourages this Court to not be the first to enable a defendant to justify premeditated murder because of an emotionally charged political belief," the prosecution wrote. "Such a ruling has far-reaching consequences...."
____________

See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/us/13roeder.html?ref=us

2009-10-28T08:39:00.003-04:00

95 ǀ reconnaissance

Let us remember by flight
that we were never designed to fly.

Let us suppose—golden once, then dropped,
starry-eyed and spiraling—that we landed
on the corner of proxy and spin.

At some point during the heralded age of enmity and beyond,
we began to utter our first word.
We were terrified at first,
and we said so.

We said pen and reckoned—
would you not know it?—
we would say it again.

We said paper for the sake of saying something else.

To be sure, all of it was random,
but it was full steam ahead nonetheless,
and section by section
the whole thing fell apart
before us.

We said some other things too, later, ha,
just for kicks—

like whispering was for bursting secrets,
capital for opportunistic trogs.

We even ghoulishly believed in those days
that the wind and flames were equally proportionate
to the classless whims
of our rulers, principles, and aims.

Yes, god,
we believed in anything.

2009-08-01T23:26:00.003-04:00

94 │ almsgiving

To be said in the twilight, wandering, and for whom
all of our lives had been numb to the touch
then to think, my god, of this planet
through which we entered unwittingly to form
as strokes of luck inhabiting bodies
the trade off being infinite spaces secret
obsequious flickers and fancies
Forget-me-nots yielding and weeping
and the glorious passing sky that had been
waiting for us suspended
overcome by our whimsical nature
and the very essence
of that we sought

for Gretchen Moer, on the day of her burial, 1 August 2009

2009-07-25T16:39:00.003-04:00

93│ colonial parkway triangular

Send me to the pits, La Brea, and did I say wrangling, uneasily?
Sink me, motherfucker, because time is short.
Tomorrow is who I’d rather be. Forget me not
you know how, and who I am I gather
like saber-toothed storm clouds.
Go home. It can be sunny in time.

Alas, I know how to cast spells with my eyes closed—animals.
And just like that a dead deer on the suburban sidewalk this morning.
Only when you disappear down into the hollows
will the deer be gone…

Just a week ago I watched Charlotte burn
the dug-out insides of a canoe. Thanks for the recommendation.
The finishing touches were smoldering but wickedly hot,
and no one, I swore, could see the smoke
rising over the palisade
except for us.

[A large canoe could glide quietly along with twenty men.]

Moments later, while inside the hut,
we took the hearth broom from the wattle- and daub-walled holder
and swept away the leaves and soot
and then imagined the invasion.
We scrambled to latch shut
all the doors and all the windows. Sadly,
there were not too many.

Tourist season was his favorite.
Each time the distant muskets or cannons erratically rang out,
the lollipop man in the gift shop would proudly say:
“Oops, ladies and gentlemen,
there goes another one.”
And would rear back and bellow…

2009-06-06T15:39:00.006-04:00

92 │ thunderheads in easy remembrance: a personal account

Perhaps I could write this to say that the disappearance was what mattered.

We were one, once, and all of a sudden we shattered into
an incomprehensible seafaring debris field.

This planet was nearly just an ocean.

Thar—a floating arm, a floating leg, a floating head—behold—that is us!
Thar we blow! Quickly!

Look at us. We had only time
to be mortified, jettisoned, and—if we were lucky—
forgiven.

How sad, but spirited,
and although spiraling like fiery meteors all the same
we became the otherworldly cumulonimbus
from which we came
(and were cushioned): truly, extraordinaire.

However:

It was the sudden outcome that proved to be
most vexing.

Indeed, here we are, but no matter!

In fact, I remember being dead and drowning
and wondering all the while
how I could and could not be both.

And how to explain what eventually went wrong
underwater? ...

6 June 2009

________________________________

See http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/af447

2009-05-30T15:21:00.011-04:00

91│ homebody, missing, put it back together again

Recently mowed mourning man made his way into the meadow. He was a happier sort of scamp now that the rains had ended, and skipping why not he decided that no one, probably (if it could be said), would be looking. It was early. And the sun and sky parabolically reflected in that space all that the heavy glistening could offer. His companion had been there too—and the airplanes, as always, those airplanes—rising and falling again and again in their customary patterns above his head. What a wonder he thought. And how splendid. So like him, anyway, the sadness parted—bidding adieu in most heartbreaking fashion—going away, as he recalled wistfully, some years later, for a little less than forever.

for Isabelle Muneera-Copeland Murdock, my most precious girl,
far away in Essouira, Maroc

30 May 2009

2009-05-29T18:32:00.012-04:00

90│ my heavens how good it is to see you

In the hall of sweet persimmons the rule of phantoms marched,
spun, and stood attention—
such squirming, squeamish, garrulous little boys—
a psychophalanx of babble and whims—
flanked on both sides by a mean and virile brand of willow—
and in the rear, a buzzard, a bat—
directed, clearly, toward the impressionable sort—
the spasmodic furies, us, the toasted bursts,
the innumerable moons of Jupiter for god’s sake—
whomever—to be certain—
you did not want to encounter their kind—
still there they were—all the same—saluting you—
pleading

2009-04-19T10:11:00.003-04:00

86│ my apologies, it has been too long, and thus here we go again (early spring poem)

It could be that we are hatched as a vulnerable flyer,
and that is how we return.
Let us say in this case, if you’ll forgive me, a robin.

We are hatched again by that robin,
the progression releases anew,

and we flutter back
as we ought and need
to our sanctuary
of dried-up mud and refuse—
dead grass and twigs.

Yes! And from a perfectly blue elliptical sphere
we have cracked,

remembering:

We were nourished almost solely
on worms.

Sunday, 19 April 2009

Wahoo McDaniel wants to know ...

2009-02-24T19:28:00.006-05:00

Will you be watching the President's congressional speech esta noche?

Transformative philosophy asks: What can one do today to promote a promise of emancipation through enlightenment?

2009-01-27T21:03:00.008-05:00

Interviewer: Hisham Melhem (see brief bio at http://www.publicpolicyseminars.com/melhem.html)

Interesting link to Al-Arabiya profile here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/04/africa/profile.php

natalnorg note: Interview loops back to beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian segment near the 5-min mark.

People who have been exploited all their lives do not on the whole become with age progressive

2009-01-25T10:05:00.014-05:00

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Dave Obey (D - WI), Chairman
http://www.obey.house.gov

e Release
15 January 2009
Contact: Kirstin Brost - (202) 225-2771

American Recovery and Reinvestment: A Summary

Action, and action now. The economy is in a crisis not seen since the Great Depression. Credit is frozen, and consumer purchasing power is in decline. In the last 4 months the country has lost 2 million jobs. We stand to lose another 3 to 5 million in the next year.

The economy is shutting down.¹

In the next 2 weeks Congress will consider the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009. This package is the first crucial step in a concerted effort to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and begin the process of transforming it for the 21st century. The package includes $275 billion in economic recovery tax cuts and $550 billion in thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments. Unprecedented accountability measures have also been included.

The package contains targeted efforts in each of the following core areas:

• Energy - $54B
• Science and Technology - $16B
• Transit Infrastructure/Transportation - $90B
• Education - $142B
• Healthcare - $24B
• Worker Protection - $102B
• Public Sector - $91B

Unemployment rates are expected to rise to between 8% and 9% this year (and by some estimates to as high as 12%). Tough choices have been made in this legislation, and fiscal discipline will demand more tough choices in the future. We will face a large deficit for years to come. Without this package, those deficits could be devastating. We face the risk of economic chaos.

Since 2001 US worker productivity has risen, and 96% of the income growth has gone to the wealthiest 10%. While the wealthiest reaped the benefits from record high worker productivity, the remaining 90% of Americans struggled to sustain their standard of living. They sustained it by borrowing … and borrowing … and borrowing. When they could borrow no more, the bottom collapsed.

Our immediate aim is to prevent the loss of millions of jobs. Our ultimate aim is to make the investments that restore the ability of average middle income families to increase their income and build a decent future for their children.

Executive Summary

Accountability

A historic level of transparency, oversight, and accountability will help guarantee taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and Americans can see the results of their investments. In many instances funds are distributed through existing formulas to programs with proven track records and accountability measures already in place. How funds are spent, all announcements of contract and grant competitions and awards, and formula grant allocations must be posted on a special website created by the President.

Program managers will also be listed so the public knows who to hold accountable. Public notification of funding must include a description of the investment funded, the purpose, the total cost, and why the activity should be funded with recovery dollars. Governors, mayors, or others making funding decisions must personally certify that the investment has been fully vetted and is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. This will also be placed on the recovery website.

A Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board will be created to review management of recovery dollars and to signal and investigate any potential problems. The seven-member board will include Inspectors General and Deputy Cabinet secretaries. The Government Accountability Office and the Inspectors General will be provided with additional funding and access to conduct special recovery funding reviews. State and local whistleblowers who report fraud and abuse will be protected.

This plan targets investments to key areas that will create and preserve good jobs while strengthening the ability of this economy to become more efficient and produce more opportunities for employment.

There are no earmarks in this package.

Energy

To put people back to work today and reduce our dependence on foreign oil tomorrow, we will strengthen efforts directed at doubling renewable energy production and renovate public buildings to make them more energy-efficient. Investments include the following:

• $32 billion to transform the nation’s energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid and focusing investment in renewable technology

• $16 billion to repair public housing and make key energy efficiency retrofits

•$6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes

TOTAL: $54B

Science and Technology

We need to put scientists to work looking for the next great discovery. We need to create jobs in new and expanding technologies, making smart investments that will help businesses in every community succeed in a global economy. For every dollar invested in broadband the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment. Investments include the following:

• $10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation

• $6 billion to expand broadband Internet access so businesses in rural and other underserved areas can connect to the global economy

TOTAL: $16B

Transit Infrastructure/Transportation

To build a 21st-century economy, we must engage contractors across the nation. We must create jobs to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges. We must modernize public buildings and put people to work cleaning our air, water, and land. Investments include the following:

• $30 billion for highway construction

• $31 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure

• $19 billion for clean water, flood control, and environmental restoration investments

• $10 billion for transit and rail to reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption

TOTAL: $90B

Education

To remain prosperous and competitive, we must enable more children to learn in 21st-century classrooms, labs, and libraries. Investments include the following:

• $41 billion to local school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion; see http://idea.ed.gov), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology Program ($1 billion)

• $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cutbacks to key services, including $39 billion to local school districts and public colleges and universities distributed through existing state and federal formulas; $15 billion to states as bonus grants as a reward for meeting key performance measures; and $25 billion to states for other high-priority needs such as public safety and other critical services

• $16 billion to increase the Pell grant (http://www.ed.gov/programs/fpg/index.html) by $500

• $6 billion for higher education modernization

TOTAL: $142B

Healthcare

We will lower the costs of healthcare. To save not only jobs but also money and lives, we will update and computerize our healthcare system to cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help drastically reduce healthcare costs (by billions) each year. Investments will include the following:

• $20 billion for health information technology to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients, and introduce cost-saving efficiencies

• $4.1 billion to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective healthcare treatments

TOTAL: $24B

Worker Protection

High unemployment and rising costs have exceeded what most Americans earn. We will provide direct tax relief to 95% of American workers and spur investment and job growth for American businesses. We will also help workers train and find jobs and help struggling families make ends meet. Investments include the following:

• $43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and job training

• $39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer-provided healthcare under COBRA² and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid

• $20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit by ~13% to help defray rising food costs

TOTAL: $102B

Public Sector

We will provide relief to states so they can continue to employ teachers, firefighters, and police officers and provide vital services without having to unnecessarily raise middle class taxes.

• $87 billion for a temporary increase in the Medicaid matching rate

• $4 billion for state and local law enforcement funding

TOTAL: $91B
__________________

natalnorg note: The reader should be advised that the outline of this economic stimulus package has been modified (in some cases quite considerably and creatively so) from http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/PressSummary01-15-09.pdf. Changes apart from standard mechanical copyediting include rewording, reformatting, and restructuring. The Editor of alchemy strongly believes, however, that no substantive changes have been introduced here. The bill in its 647-page entirety deserves some perusal as well and is thus made available here: http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/HR1.pdf. Refer back to the outline from the House of Appropriations for a more accessible, detailed review of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. As for the Act itself, the Editor renders no judgment except to say that we will be talking about this legislation for as long as we are a nation. That is the natalnorg promise and guarantee. This is the New Deal for our time, ladies and gentlemen. God bless you for reading. A good Sunday to you. And to the survival of the planet, I say Amen.

- vl

¹ Conservative economist Mark Zandi. See http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/default.asp.
² See employee's guide at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/pdf/cobraemployee.pdf for detailed information regarding this act.

2009-01-15T20:43:00.010-05:00

soaring: we did not see it coming: guardians to be here

We were holding people, hugging them … holding their hands, warming them with our body heat. We tried to take them to the back ... which was warmer. It was furthest from the entrance.

2009-01-10T22:41:00.003-05:00

85│transmural

For starters, sobbing wretchedly—

the elder, one deep night,
shook the younger,
and suddenly aloud:

Why are these cities black, son?
Why this ashen earth!
Wherefore art thou rainbows?

[huh son, he said, tell me]

And on and on incredulity went,
stretching out in shook to another fine and dreamy hayseed of crosses, stars, and crescents.

I am your host this evening.

And heroically he was
off his medication.

With this pardonable droplet of sin I give you
a reckoning! Do not warn me!

[there is no trespassing, etc.]

They say it was a long night
for young shook.

9 January 2009

In whose confusion discordant atoms warred

2009-01-04T10:09:00.008-05:00

Slouching Toward a Palestinian Holocaust

by Richard Falk
The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research

29 June 2007

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
William Butler Yeats - The Second Coming

There is little doubt that the Nazi Holocaust was as close to unconditional evil as has been revealed throughout the entire bloody history of the human species. Its massiveness, unconcealed genocidal intent, and reliance on the mentality and instruments of modernity give its enactment in the death camps of Europe a special status in our moral imagination. This special status is exhibited in the continuing presentation of its gruesome realities through film, books, and a variety of cultural artifacts more than six decades after the events in question ceased. The permanent memory of the Holocaust is also kept alive by the existence of several notable museums devoted exclusively to the depiction of the horrors that took place during the period of Nazi rule in Germany.

Against this background, it is especially painful for me, as an American Jew, to feel compelled to portray the ongoing and intensifying abuse of the Palestinian people by Israel through a reliance on such an inflammatory metaphor as ‘holocaust.’ The word is derived from the Greek holos (meaning ‘completely’) and kaustos (meaning ‘burnt’), and was used in ancient Greece to refer to the complete burning of a sacrificial offering to a divinity. Because such a background implies a religious undertaking, there is some inclination in Jewish literature to prefer the Hebrew word ‘Shoah’ that can be translated roughly as ‘calamity,’ and was the name given to the 1985 epic nine-hour narration of the Nazi experience by the French filmmaker, Claude Lanzmann. The Germans themselves were more antiseptic in their designation, officially naming their undertaking as the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Qestion.’ The label is, of course, inaccurate as a variety of non-Jewish identities were also targets of this genocidal assault, including the Roma and Sinti(‘gypsies), Jehovah Witnesses, gays, disabled persons, political opponents.

Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy. If ever the ethos of ‘a responsibility to protect,’ recently adopted by the UN Security Council as the basis of ‘humanitarian intervention’ is applicable, it would be to act now to start protecting the people of Gaza from further pain and suffering. But it would be unrealistic to expect the UN to do anything in the face of this crisis, given the pattern of US support for Israel and taking into account the extent to which European governments have lent their weight to recent illicit efforts to crush Hamas as a Palestinian political force.

Even if the pressures exerted on Gaza were to be acknowledged as having genocidal potential and even if Israel’s impunity under America’s geopolitical umbrella is put aside, there is little assurance that any sort of protective action in Gaza would be taken. There were strong advance signals in 1994 of a genocide to come in Rwanda, and yet nothing was done to stop it; the UN and the world watched while the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnians took place, an incident that the World Court described as ‘genocide’ a few months ago; similarly, there have been repeated allegations of genocidal conduct in Darfur over the course of the last several years, and hardly an international finger has been raised, either to protect those threatened or to resolve the conflict in some manner that shares power and resources among the contending ethnic groups.

But Gaza is morally far worse, although mass death has not yet resulted. It is far worse because the international community is watching the ugly spectacle unfold while some of its most influential members actively encourage and assist Israel in its approach to Gaza. Not only the United States, but also the European Union, are complicit, as are such neighbors as Egypt and Jordan apparently motivated by their worries that Hamas is somehow connected with their own problems associated with the rising strength of the Muslim Brotherhood within their own borders. It is helpful to recall that the liberal democracies of Europe paid homage to Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games, and then turned away tens of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. I am not suggesting that the comparison should be viewed as literal, but to insist that a pattern of criminality associated with Israeli policies in Gaza has actually been supported by the leading democracies of the 21st century.

To ground these allegations, it is necessary to consider the background of the current situation. For over four decades, ever since 1967, Gaza has been occupied by Israel in a manner that turned this crowded area into a cauldron of pain and suffering for the entire population on a daily basis, with more than half of Gazans living in miserable refugees camps and even more dependent on humanitarian relief to satisfy basic human needs. With great fanfare, under Sharon’s leadership, Israel supposedly ended its military occupation and dismantled its settlements in 2005. The process was largely a sham as Israel maintained full control over borders, air space, offshore seas, as well as asserted its military control of Gaza, engaging in violent incursions, sending missiles to Gaza at will on assassination missions that themselves violate international humanitarian law, and managing to kill more than 300 Gazan civilians since its supposed physical departure.

As unacceptable as is this earlier part of the story, a dramatic turn for the worse occurred when Hamas prevailed in the January 2006 national legislative elections. It is a bitter irony that Hamas was encouraged, especially by Washington, to participate in the elections to show its commitment to a political process (as an alternative to violence) and then was badly punished for having the temerity to succeed. These elections were internationally monitored under the leadership of the former American president, Jimmy Carter, and pronounced as completely fair.

Carter has recently termed this Israeli/American refusal to accept the outcome of such a democratic verdict as itself ‘criminal.’ It is also deeply discrediting of the campaign of the Bush presidency to promote democracy in the region, an effort already under a dark shadow in view of the policy failure in Iraq.

After winning the Palestinian elections, Hamas was castigated as a terrorist organization that had not renounced violence against Israel and had refused to recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate political entity. In fact, the behavior and outlook of Hamas is quite different. From the outset of its political Hamas was ready to work with other Palestinian groups, especially Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, to establish a ‘unity’ government. More than this, their leadership revealed a willingness to move toward an acceptance of Israel’s existence if Israel would in turn agree to move back to its 1967 borders, implementing finally unanimous Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

Even more dramatically, Hamas proposed a ten-year truce with Israel, and went so far as to put in place a unilateral ceasefire that lasted for eighteen months, and was broken only to engage in rather pathetic strikes mainly taking place in response to Israeli violent provocations in Gaza. As Efraim Halevi, former head of Israel’s Mossad was reported to have said, ‘What Isreal needs from Hamas is an end to violence, not diplomatic recognition.’ And this is precisely what Hamas offered and what Israel rejected.

The main weapon available to Hamas, and other Palestinian extremist elements, were Qassam missiles that resulted in producing no more than 12 Israeli deaths in six years. While each civilian death is an unacceptable tragedy, the ratio of death and injury for the two sides in so unequal as to call into question the security logic of continuously inflicting excessive force and collective punishment on the entire beleaguered Gazan population, which is accurately regarded as the world’s largest ‘prison.’

Instead of trying diplomacy and respecting democratic results, Israel and the United States used their leverage to reverse the outcome of the 2006 elections by organizing a variety of international efforts designed to make Hamas fail in its attempts to govern in Gaza. Such efforts were reinforced by the related unwillingness of the defeated Fatah elements to cooperate with Hamas in establishing a government that would be representative of Palestinians as a whole. The main anti-Hamas tactic relied upon was to support Abbas as the sole legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, to impose an economic boycott on the Palestinians generally, to send in weapons for Fatah militias and to enlist neighbors in these efforts, particularly Egypt and Jordan. The United States Government appointed a special envoy, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, to work with Abbas forces, and helped channel $40 million to buildup the Presidential Guard, which were the Fatah forces associated with Abbas.

This was a particularly disgraceful policy. Fatah militias, especially in Gaza, had long been wildly corrupt and often used their weapons to terrorize their adversaries and intimidate the population in a variety of thuggish ways. It was this pattern of abuse by Fatah that was significantly responsible for the Hamas victory in the 2006 elections, along with the popular feelings that Fatah, as a political actor, had neither the will nor capacity to achieve results helpful to the Palestinian people, while Hamas had managed resistance and community service efforts that were widely admired by Gazans.

The latest phase of this external/internal dynamic was to induce civil strife in Gaza that led a complete takeover by Hamas forces. With standard irony, a set of policies adopted by Israel in partnership with the United States once more produced exactly the opposite of their intended effects. The impact of the refusal to honor the election results has after 18 months made Hamas much stronger throughout the Palestinian territories, and put it in control of Gaza. Such an outcome is reminiscent of a similar effect of the 2006 Lebanon War that was undertaken by the Israel/United States strategic partnership to destroy Hezbollah, but had the actual consequence of making Hezbollah a much stronger, more respected force in Lebanon and throughout the region.

The Israel and the United States seemed trapped in a faulty logic that is incapable of learning from mistakes, and takes every setback as a sign that instead of shifting course, the faulty undertaking should be expanded and intensified, that failure resulted from doing too little of the right thing, rather than is the case, doing the wrong thing. So instead of taking advantage of Hamas’ renewed call for a unity government, its clarification that it is not against Fatah, but only that “[w]e have fought against a small clique within Fatah,” (Abu Ubaya, Hamas military commander), Israel seems more determined than ever to foment civil war in Palestine, to make the Gazans pay with their wellbeing and lives to the extent necessary to crush their will, and to separate once and for all the destinies of Gaza and the West Bank.

The insidious new turn of Israeli occupation policy is as follows: push Abbas to rely on hard-line no compromise approach toward Hamas, highlighted by the creation of an unelected ‘emergency’ government to replace the elected leadership. The emergency designated prime minister, Salam Fayyad, appointed to replace the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, as head of the Palestinian Authority. It is revealing to recall that when Fayyad’s party was on the 2006 election list its candidates won only 2% of the vote. Israel is also reportedly ready to ease some West Bank restrictions on movement in such a way as to convince Palestinians that they can have a better future if they repudiate Hamas and place their bets on Abbas, by now a most discredited political figure who has substantially sold out the Palestinian cause to gain favor and support from Israel/United States, as well as to prevail in the internal Palestinian power struggle.

To promote these goals it is conceivable, although unlikely, that Israel might release Marwan Barghouti, the only credible Fatah leader, from prison provided Barghouti would be willing to accept the Israeli approach of Sharon/Olmert to the establishment of a Palestinian state. This latter step is doubtful, as Barghouti is a far cry from Abbas, and would be highly unlikely to agree to anything less than a full withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders, including the elimination of West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.

This latest turn in policy needs to be understood in the wider context of the Israeli refusal to reach a reasonable compromise with the Palestinian people since 1967. There is widespread recognition that such an outcome would depend on Israeli withdrawal, establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as capital, and sufficient external financial assistance to give the Palestinians the prospect of economic viability. The truth is that there is no Israeli leadership with the vision or backing to negotiate such a solution, and so the struggle will continue with violence on both sides.

The Israeli approach to the Palestinian challenge is based on isolating Gaza and cantonizing the West Bank, leaving the settlement blocs intact, and appropriating the whole of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. For years this sidestepping of diplomacy has dominated Israeli behavior, including during the Oslo peace process that was initiated on the White House lawn in 1993 by the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat.

While talking about peace, the number of Israeli settlers doubled, huge sums were invested in settlement roads linked directly to Israel, and the process of Israeli settlement and Palestinian displacement from East Jerusalem was moving ahead at a steady pace. Significantly, also, the ‘moderate’ Arafat was totally discredited as a Palestinian leader capable of negotiating with Israel, being treated as dangerous precisely because he was willing to accept a reasonable compromise. Interestingly, until recently when he became useful in the effort to reverse the Hamas electoral victory, Abbas was treated by Isreal as too weak, too lacking in authority, to act on behalf of the Palestinian people in a negotiating process, one more excuse for persisting with its preferred unilateralist course.

These considerations also make it highly unlikely that Barghouti will be released from prison unless there is some dramatic change of heart on the Israeli side. Instead of working toward some kind of political resolution, Israel has built an elaborate and illegal security wall on Palestinian territory, expanded the settlements, made life intolerable for the 1.4 million people crammed into Gaza, and pretends that such unlawful ‘facts on the ground’ are a path leading toward security and peace.

On June 25, 2007 leaders from Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority met in Sharm El Sheik on the Red Sea to move ahead with their anti-Hamas diplomacy. Israel proposes to release 250 Fatah prisoners (of 9,000 Palestinians currently held) and to hand over Palestinian revenues to Abbas on an installment basis, provided none of the funds is used in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe unfolds day by day. These leaders agreed to cooperate in this effort to break Hamas and to impose a Fatah-led Palestinian Authority on an unwilling Palestine population. Remember that Hamas prevailed in the 2006 elections, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank as well. To deny Palestinian their right of self-determination is almost certain to backfire in a manner similar to similar efforts, producing a radicalized version of what is being opposed. As some commentators have expressed, getting rid of Hamas means establishing al Qaeda!

Israel is currently stiffening the boycott on economic relations that has brought the people of Gaza to the brink of collective starvation. This set of policies, carried on for more than four decades, has imposed a sub-human existence on a people that have been repeatedly and systematically made the target of a variety of severe forms of collective punishment. The entire population of Gaza is treated as the ‘enemy’ of Israel, and little pretext is made in Tel Aviv of acknowledging the innocence of this long victimized civilian society.

To persist with such an approach under present circumstances is indeed genocidal, and risks destroying an entire Palestinian community that is an integral part of an ethnic whole. It is this prospect that makes appropriate the warning of a Palestinian holocaust in the making, and should remind the world of the famous post-Nazi pledge of ‘never again.’

___________________

Photo caption: Sunset. Gaza. 3 January 2009. Photo courtesy Getty Images.

Riddles for the new year - 1

2009-01-01T10:46:00.007-05:00

Aboubacar says

If Palestine wants peace they can get it, easily. If they prefer war they will smell the smoke forever. Arabs are ignorant. They know only their dictator who put fire on them. An Arab man asks a black man in Egypt (the Arab in Arabic): "Where are you from?" The black man answers: "From Guinea." The Arab asks: "Is Guinea in America or Europe?" Then the Arab asks: "Are there women in your country, cars, houses?"

natalnorg note: Comment taken and adapted from Al Jazeera English, "Obama's Gaza silence condemned." See http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/12/2008123101532604810.html.

And in so parting for the night I present to you the wholesome, absolute reminder of what has been conceived, and what has been done?

2008-12-12T23:45:00.013-05:00

I refer the skedaddling reader with all due haste and seriousness to the following conclusions from the SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN US CUSTODY:

Senate Armed Services Committee Conclusions

1: On February 7, 2002, President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. Following the President's determination, techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and stress positions, used in SERE training to simulate tactics used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions, were authorized for use in interrogations of detainees in US custody.

2: Members of the President's Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. National Security Council Principals reviewed the CIA's interrogation program during that period.

Conclusions on SERE Training Techniques and Interrogations

1: The use of techniques similar to those used in SERE resistance training – such as stripping students of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, and treating them like animals – was at odds with the commitment to humane treatment of detainees in US custody. Using those techniques for interrogating detainees was also inconsistent with the goal of collecting accurate intelligence information, as the purpose of SERE resistance training is to increase the ability of US personnel to resist abusive interrogations and the techniques used were based, in part, on Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to elicit false confessions.

2: The use of techniques in interrogations derived from SERE resistance training created a serious risk of physical and psychological harm to detainees. The SERE schools employ strict controls to reduce the risk of physical and psychological harm to students during training. Those controls include medical and psychological screening for students, interventions by trained psychologists during training, and code words to ensure that students can stop the application of a technique at any time should the need arise. Those same controls are not present in real world interrogations.

Conclusions on Senior Official Consideration of SERE Techniques for Interrogations

1: In July 2002, the Office of the Secretary of Defense General Counsel solicited information from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) on SERE techniques for use during interrogations. That solicitation, prompted by requests from Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II, reflected the view that abusive tactics similar to those used by our enemies should be considered for use against detainees in US custody.

2: The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) interrogation program included at least one SERE training technique, waterboarding. Senior Administration lawyers, including Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and David Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, were consulted on the development of legal analysis of CIA interrogation techniques. Legal opinions subsequently issued by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) interpreted legal obligations under US anti-torture laws and determined the legality of CIA interrogation techniques. Those OLC opinions distorted the meaning and intent of anti-torture laws, rationalized the abuse of detainees in US custody and influenced Department of Defense determinations as to what interrogation techniques were legal for use during interrogations conducted by US military personnel.

Conclusions on JPRA Offensive Activities

1: Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) efforts in support of "offensive" interrogation operations went beyond the agency's knowledge and expertise. JPRA's support to US government interrogation efforts contributed to detainee abuse. JPRA's offensive support also influenced the development of policies that authorized abusive interrogation techniques for use against detainees in US custody.

2: Detainee abuse occurred during JPRA's support to Special Mission Unit (SMU) Task Force (TF) interrogation operations in Iraq in September 2003. JPRA Commander Colonel Randy Moulton's authorization of SERE instructors, who had no experience in detainee interrogations, to actively participate in Task Force interrogations using SERE resistance training techniques was a serious failure in judgment. The Special Mission Unit Task Force Commander's failure to order that SERE resistance training techniques not be used in detainee interrogations was a serious failure in leadership that led to the abuse of detainees in Task Force custody. Iraq is a Geneva Convention theater and techniques used in SERE school are inconsistent with the obligations of US personnel under the Geneva Conventions.

3: Combatant Command requests for JPRA "offensive" interrogation support and US Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) authorization of that support led to JPRA operating outside the agency's charter and beyond its expertise. Only when JFCOM's Staff Judge Advocate became aware of and raised concerns about JPRA's support to offensive interrogation operations in late September 2003 did JFCOM leadership begin to take steps to curtail JPRA's "offensive" activities. It was not until September 2004, however, that JFCOM issued a formal policy stating that support to offensive interrogation operations was outside JPRA's charter.

Conclusions on GTMO's Request for Aggressive Techniques

1: Interrogation techniques in Guantanamo Bay's (GTMO) October 11, 2002 request for authority submitted by Major General Michael Dunlavey were influenced by JPRA training for GTMO interrogation personnel and included techniques similar to those used in SERE training to teach US personnel to resist abusive enemy interrogations. GTMO Staff Judge Advocate Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver's legal review justifying the October 11, 2002 GTMO request was profoundly in error and legally insufficient. Leaders at GTMO, including Major General Dunlavey's successor, Major General Geoffrey Miller, ignored warnings from DoD's Criminal Investigative Task Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the techniques were potentially unlawful and that their use would strengthen detainee resistance.

2: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers's decision to cut short the legal and policy review of the October 11, 2002 GTMO request initiated by his Legal Counsel, then-Captain Jane Dalton, undermined the military's review process. Subsequent conclusions reached by Chairman Myers and Captain Dalton regarding the legality of interrogation techniques in the request followed a grossly deficient review and were at odds with conclusions previously reached by the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Criminal Investigative Task Force.

3: Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II's effort to cut short the legal and policy review of the October 11, 2002 GTMO request initiated by then- Captain Jane Dalton, Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was inappropriate and undermined the military's review process. The General Counsel's subsequent review was grossly deficient. Mr. Haynes's one page recommendation to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld failed to address the serious legal concerns that had been previously raised by the military services about techniques in the GTMO request. Further, Mr. Haynes's reliance on a legal memo produced by GTMO's Staff Judge Advocate that senior military lawyers called "legally insufficient" and "woefully inadequate" is deeply troubling.

4: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there. Secretary Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002 approval of Mr. Haynes's recommendation that most of the techniques contained in GTMO's October 11, 2002 request be authorized, influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques, including military working dogs, forced nudity, and stress positions, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

5: Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II's direction to the Department of Defense's Detainee Working Group in early 2003 to consider a legal memo from John Yoo of the Department of Justice's OLC as authoritative, blocked the Working Group from conducting a fair and complete legal analysis and resulted in a report that, in the words of then- Department of the Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora contained "profound mistakes in its legal analysis." Reliance on the OLC memo resulted in a final Working Group report that recommended approval of several aggressive techniques, including removal of clothing, sleep deprivation, and slapping, similar to those used in SERE training to teach US personnel to resist abusive interrogations.

Conclusions on Interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan

1: Special Mission Unit (SMU) Task Force (TF) interrogation policies were influenced by the Secretary of Defense's December 2, 2002 approval of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at GTMO. SMU TF interrogation policies in Iraq included the use of aggressive interrogation techniques such as military working dogs and stress positions. SMU TF policies were a direct cause of detainee abuse and influenced interrogation policies at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq.

2: During his assessment visit to Iraq in August and September 2003, GTMO Commander Major General Geoffrey Miller encouraged a view that interrogators should be more aggressive during detainee interrogations.

3: Interrogation policies approved by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, which included the use of military working dogs and stress positions, were a direct cause of detainee abuse in Iraq. Lieutenant General Sanchez's decision to issue his September 14, 2003 policy with the knowledge that there were ongoing discussions as to the legality of some techniques in it was a serious error in judgment. The September policy was superseded on October 12, 2003 as a result of legal concerns raised by US Central Command. That superseding policy, however, contained ambiguities and contributed to confusion about whether aggressive techniques, such as military working dogs, were authorized for use during interrogations.

4: US Central Command (CENTCOM) failed to conduct proper oversight of Special Mission Unit Task Force interrogation policies. Though aggressive interrogation techniques were removed from Combined Joint Task Force 7 interrogation policies after CENTCOM raised legal concerns about their inclusion in the September 14, 2003 policy issued by Lieutenant General Sanchez, SMU TF interrogation policies authorized some of those same techniques, including stress positions and military working dogs.

5: The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in US military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

See full report at http://www.democrats.com/senate-armed-services-committee-report-on-torture.

See Senate Armed Services website at http://armed-services.senate.gov.
_____

natalnorg disclaimer: style, formatting, and minor editing compliments of the chef

2008-12-12T17:58:00.007-05:00

84│the animosity in the past made it hard to predict¹

12 December 2008

Welcome to Bladen County ladies and gentlemen—
Tar Heel Plaza to be exact: prosperous capital of sin and swine.
Direct your attention, if you will, if you please,

over thataways. That’s Smithfield, fine people—grisly Camp Smithfield,
home of the world's largest

hog processing plant,
the one that put the ever-loving swill and swish-chute

in your gummies,

rollies,

and packers. [This is a lottery.]

Today: 4000 ballots cast like anglers for a cat.

I cannot say that anyone cheated.

Judgment.

Said Fulcher, poor, poor Fulcher, Fulcher of the livestock section:

We are able to speak now

We will be treated fairly

Alas, another lesson and hoedown for the cafeteria netheryear and netherfolk:

A lot of people have not been treated fairly

But a victory and victory dance alike

cannot be scorned. Remember.

And so upon the Plaza steps the workers danced and danced and danced.

It went on and on like that, reeling.

And all throughout the evening the sun imagined and wanted desperately to say,

Fulcher again, voice cracking:

We have worked hard for this and we did it and we can continue to do it

All I want is for everybody to be together

As long as we do that we can make it

Not to all of a sudden spring

a full moon on you, but a full moon it is, and dark,

a full moon nonetheless, chasing me, now.

I mean to tell you a full moon, and a dark moon.

My man dread: There is a sense of relief that it will finally be over.

________________

¹ See http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=312956. A can of thanks to DMS, Fancy Corners, and e for the inspiration and impetus.

Here the rain falls heavily and cold

2008-12-11T22:45:00.006-05:00

art education 101 1965

As the world population grows to a peak of somewhere shy of maximum sustainable levels

2008-12-11T00:06:00.016-05:00

See http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/energy-choice-nobelist-with-climate-passion/?em

If you've got 102 min to spare during this wondrous holiday season (and might I recommend SANTASTIC for all of you adventurers and rabble-rousers), then I beg of you, faithful readers, glorious sliders and beholders of the mighty atom, to please check out my man on the Helios spotworks, Dr. Chu, coming at you, Sir Energy Secretary forthcoming, a nice and sprawling lecture indeed, energy servants!

Hello again. It's me. How are you? Got to thinking: What would a McCain administration Energy Secretary have looked like? Good question. Let me present to you, yes ...

Voila! Indeed! The return! Sr. Joe:

Homage

2008-12-02T22:51:00.005-05:00

Nita, June 2006

Presenting The Fairy Garden Flower Princess

2008-11-21T18:12:00.016-05:00

2008-11-20T01:30:00.003-05:00

83│only one road

remember

actually driving hurry

fast around one turn

needing to slow down

all of a sudden normal everyday

experience

and the truck the other way

this moment of panic coming at me in all directions and weird descriptions

retaining wall instinctual habitual lots of ways not even conscious

knew where I was

and knew what my options were

because of where I was on the road

and everything and all

I can remember was this truck,

turning, coming at me,

massive vehicle, massive thing,

on a bend,

tons of vegetation,

vines, overhanging vines,

monkeys,

flat palms,

[bouganville], those,

tropical hardwoods, again,

vines,

remember seeing, turning, bigger forms,

bigger force,

larger object, very tip of car

behind truck, a flash,

what kind of car,

registering, quickly,

how many cars behind that car,

fear, more fear,

braking hard, instant reaction,

nothing one can do …

I am fucked,

I am completely fucked, I said,

whispering, screaming to myself,

darkness,

aftershock, the heart,

back in the conscious realm,

looking around, a tonne of cars,

there was really a line of cars,

knowing the lack of regard to law,

up, up, get up, scared to get up, no pain,

not feeling any pain at all,

disbelief, all of a sudden alive again,

feeling OK, so unbelievable,

who knows what is going to happen,

still in danger, get out of this road, instinct,

jumping out of the road immediately,

a really bad decision as it turned out, if only

I would have crawled—

saving one of my ligaments; it could have helped in recovery,

frantic energy, get yourself out of this experience,

out of this spot, we just got hit here,

is there going to be in-patient care,

it is not so common here,

no lights, you don’t have to say that, no lights,

excruciation:

it is not supposed to bend like that,

1 November 2008 – Washington, DC

2008-11-17T21:30:00.015-05:00

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the government and form a new one

2008-11-13T23:50:00.016-05:00

DIPLOMATIC MEMO

Helene Cooper
13 November 2008
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Russians want him to hold off on the installation of a missile defense shield in Poland. The Europeans want him to renounce the idea of “regime change” when it comes to Iran, while the Israelis want to be sure he does not give Iran a pass when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Oh, and let’s not forget the Taliban, which issued a statement this week urging him to “put an end to all the policies being followed by his Opposition Party, the Republicans, and pull out U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.”

There is a world of advice out there for President-Elect Obama. Within minutes of his election, the calls from foreign governments began, Obama aides said, and they have not stopped.

While the first telephone exchanges between Mr. Obama and foreign leaders were limited to pledges of future cooperation and invitations to visit, those leaders and their aides have also been contacting Obama’s advisers and their surrogates with suggestions on how an Obama administration should conduct, and change, American foreign policy.

There are also signs that some foreign governments are moving to alter the playing field even before Obama takes office. On Wednesday alone, North Korea said it would not allow international inspectors to take soil and nuclear waste samples from its main nuclear complex; Iran said it successfully tested a new long-range missile that it claimed was capable of reaching southeastern Europe; and Russia rejected an American proposal meant to assuage Russian fears over the planned missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The foreign efforts to sway the new team are normal during any presidential transition, but they are accelerated in this case, foreign policy experts say, because of the historic nature of Obama’s election and the significantly different course that world leaders expect him to pursue in American foreign policy.

“We have heard a lot of important ideas from our friends and allies,” said Denis McDonough, a foreign policy adviser to Obama. “We consider them closely in an effort to be a partner that listens, as the president-elect shapes his agenda to advance U.S. interests from his first day in office.”

But until Inauguration Day, Mr. McDonough said, the Obama team will be in a listen-only mode.

Even before the election, senior advisers to Mr. Obama — including Anthony Lake, the former national security adviser — had been meeting with European officials, including Pierre Vimont, the French ambassador to Washington, and Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador, European diplomats said. British and French officials are urging the Obama team to work on tone and mood before sitting down to talk with Iran, out of concern that Obama’s pledge to open talks with Iran without preconditions could lead to trouble.

The Bush administration has repeatedly denied that it is seeking a government change in Iran. But Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and other senior officials have also balked at giving Iran any direct assurance of that, and they have maintained publicly that all options remain on the table to confront Iran over its nuclear program.

Vice President-Elect Joseph Biden has said he thinks the Bush administration should explicitly assure the Iranian leadership that it would not seek a regime change, as one part of the incentives and sanctions that the United States and Europe have been offering in hopes of prying Iran away from its nuclear program.

Obama, for his part, has been a little less clear.

In an interview in September he said, “I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hell-bent on regime change just for the sake of regime change, but expect changes in behavior, and there are both carrots and there are sticks available to them for those changes in behavior.”

European officials said that the Obama advisers have played their cards close to the chest. “They come in, they listen and they say, ‘Thank you very much,’ ” said one official of a European embassy in Washington. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said over breakfast with reporters in Washington this week that he thinks “the personality of Barack Obama can make a difference” when it comes to Iran. But Mr. Kouchner also urged that Mr. Obama exercise caution, using a speech at the Brookings Institution to warn against undermining the carefully plotted, but so far unsuccessful, transatlantic effort to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions (see http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2008/1112_kouchner/20081112_kouchner.pdf).

Israel has been pushing, too.

A senior Israeli official said that the Israeli government is in touch with Obama’s close aides, in particular Dennis B. Ross, President Clinton’s former envoy to the Middle East. “For us, it’s Iran,” the official said, adding that Israel wants to make sure that Obama will tackle the Iran issue as soon as he takes office. “We can’t afford a vacuum.”

Russia, too, has already made a proposal, one that is close to Moscow’s heart. Last Friday, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr V. Grushko said that Russia would not deploy missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave that borders Poland, if Obama were to scrap the Bush administration’s planned missile defense shield. Obama has said that he supports a missile shield provided that the technology is workable and cost-efficient.

As for the Taliban, it seems unlikely that Obama will be acceding to its call for American troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan. He said during the campaign that, to the contrary, he would increase the number of American combat brigades deployed there.

Still, there could be room for compromise. Along with its usual invective against the Bush administration, the Taliban called in its statement for Obama to “respect the rights of the people to independence and observe the norms of human rights.”

“In short,” the Taliban statement said, “he should set out on a policy that will have a message of peace for the war-stricken world.”

Introductions – Rahm Emanuel

2008-11-06T21:09:00.005-05:00

"A New Deal for a New Economy"
14 January 2008
Chicago, IL

*

John, Thank you. As I said upstairs when a couple of us met, John is the Chair of a one-man-caucus, Republicans for Emanuel. So, the bylaws are simple. And after that introduction, John, with all your Republican friends, my recommendation is to go into the Witness Protection Plan.

Though I, actually, I’d want to know the date of when you speak, because I’d actually like to come back to that one. I think some of the people here would actually prefer you first and me second.

One thing John mentioned, the office, you should all know there is an office in the Capitol I have, I don’t have, I use. It was actually Dan Rostenkowski’s office, when he was the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. So it has, for a short Jewish kid from Chicago, a lot of history in it, in a great sense. It has a dead-on view of the Washington Monument. And there is nothing as beautiful and powerful in the morning, when I’m sitting there looking at the sunrise, and watching the Washington Monument.

I’m going to try to get through this speech and then we’ll do some questions-and-answers, or as Henry Kissinger used to say, “Does anybody have any questions for my answers?” He was serious, and I’m joking, obviously. And I want to thank John for those kind words. Its moments like that you wish your parents were here. Because you know your mother would be proud, and your father would be amazed at those words.

One side note before I speak, my brother’s in-laws are here. So if you could all just be respectful, some members of the family are here, when you’re asking questions. They’re just here to figure out what kind of family the got themselves involved in.

Let me start with a few things. We just went through an election, 2006, just a year ago, and we’re about to go into a Presidential election. Most significant election since 1952 in this sense; neither Party has a presumptive nominee. And that’s why I think the American people, as you can see to-date, and we’ll see tomorrow also in Michigan, are in record numbers, voting. They know this is a big election.

[The] 2006 election was a “change” election. Every decade the American people have a big election; ’46, ’58, ’74, ’82, ’94, ‘2006. Every decade the American people have a big election. What’s historical, and we talked about this a little upstairs, is that usually after the election there is a pull-back. And, in fact, it is a “change” election more now than in 2006.

In 2006, out of the 30 seats we won, 16 were in the suburbs. And I said after the election, and the good news is a year later I still believe what I said, is that it was a “new suburban populism” emerging in the country.

We won 16 seats, a little over half, in the suburbs from New York all the way to the West Coast. The ads we ran, and the debates we had on economic issues, you would have associated with what had been, in the 1980’s and parts of early 90’s, with more rural, industrial districts, than you would have with people populated from office parks.

Now look, in our Party, trade and globalization is the division inside our Party. In the Republican Party, its immigration. Both touching the same vein of insecurity. Both touching that vein.

Now, in the last twenty years, and I don’t have to say it in this room, but at least its sounds smart maybe when you listen in relation to the rest of the speech, so I’ll say it: the economy has doubled in size. The American economy has doubled in size, when there has been a massive integration in globalization. You, as business people would ask yourselves, if something is this successful, and the customer is that negative about it, why? And that’s what I’m going to try to pose today in this speech.

People are this negative about something that is done so well, you would ask, if your consumers and customers rejected it this much; if it’s that good, why do they reject it?

And so I think you have to take a step back. And my own view on this, is that, and I really fundamentally believe is that I we need a New Deal for the New Economy. And if you don’t put a human face on globalization, the American people are going to put a halt to it.

And I know that there is a lot of discussion in the Press and Washington, about a stimulus, and I’ll address that subject in the Q&A, but I want to take a slightly longer-term view about dealing with what I think the challenges are over the horizon. That regardless of who we elect for President, I think are going to be facing those, the next President, the next Congress, and the next Senate, and its dealing with what I call “The New Deal for the New Economy.”

Everybody knows that we have 47 million who go without insurance. In the last six years, health care costs have gone up 78 percent. But I want to take it, not from the health care perspective, but from the political perspective. Four Presidents have tried universal health care, four have failed: Truman, Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton. Three of them, Truman, Johnson, and Clinton, all had their own parties controlling Congress. And all three failed.

Now, I believe in universal health care. I believe it’s essential not just for the uninsured people, not just for the controlling of cost. I think most importantly, [the lack of insurance is] a threat to one of the most central parts of our economy, and that is the mobility of our workforce. People do not need jobs, because of fear of losing healthcare. Six years ago, 66% of the people got their health care through their employer. Today, it’s a 60%, and it’s continually dropping.

There are two roads to health care; reform and universal. One is to try “big,” which I think the next President will try. And as you can already see, I happen to see that the next President will be a Democrat. I happen to believe, they’ll go big. I believe, though, that if you look at the history of the politics of health care reform, we have failed at universal health care, but we have succeeded at universalizing health care for populations; Medicare, Medicaid, veterans, children’s health insurance.

The political system has failed to deal with the universal health care plan that has succeeded in universalizing health care for population segments. I think the next President should try “big,” but the next thing I would do is kids’ health care, complete that project, we’re not going to get that done, hopefully with this President, but I don’t think we will.

And the second is, bring Medicare down to early-retirees who are 58-64. It’s the fastest growing group of working uninsured in this country. Medicare delivers health care more efficiently and on a more cost effective basis than any other insurance company in the country. And you should not stop at 65. And I’ve had people who are 58-64 pay a higher premium based on market rates, etc. You could deal with chronic illnesses and other illnesses where it’d be cost effective. But Medicare should be brought down from 65 to 58 and allow people to buy in at a much higher premium.

It would deal with the uninsured basis; it would help stabilize Medicare’s cost for the long term. It would also take off costs from a lot of private employers. I mean, I’ll just give you one example. I talked to Ford executives, it’d save them 17 billion dollars a year if they didn’t have these early retirees’ health care costs on their bottom line. And the combination of dealing with children’s health care, dealing with early retirees, plus caring for chronic illnesses, heart disease, diabetes, etc., you could ring out close to 700 billions dollars in health care costs.

And there will be two roads open to the next President; go universal or have a back-up plan that takes a segment of the population and universalizes their health care. But we have got to get health care costs under control. And that is the way to do it.

Second, is savings. And I have a piece I handed out here, a piece I wrote in the Wall Street Journal about retirement. Seventy-five million workers in the United States have no employer-based retirement. None. Social Security is all they have. Which is why I always say, everybody, they’re crazy to say our big crisis is Social Security. No, our big crisis is savings.

We have a negative savings rate in this country for the first time since the Great Depression. In the last thirty-two years the Congress has put in place close to sixteen separate tax deductions or credits encouraging savings, and at every point, the savings rate has gone down. So whatever we’ve done, stop doing it. It’s not working.

I happen to believe, and what I propose, is targeted towards the 75 million people who don’t participate in any employer-based savings. I sponsored the automatic enrollment in 401(k)’s. That was my bill that passed. I believe that since you can’t force people to save, that at 1% above Social Security people should be automatically enrolled in a thrift-savings-like plan that Federal Employees have. They’d manage all the costs and all the fees. Fidelity and Vanguard competes for all the employees. They have five plans to pick from, if you don’t have a plan, you go into a life-cycle account. It’s all worked through for you. And one of the things we know from automatic enrollment is if you take the complexity out of it, enrollment and participation increases.

We will not, from a political system, solve Social Security if 75 million people get their only retirement security from Social Security. I represent a little over 30,000 flight attendants, and people who work in airlines. That’s why I have a great district by the way. I represent a lot of people in the airline industry. If I told them what I was going to do to their Social Security what has happened under a private plan, they’d run me out on a rail. I don’t care how Democratic that district is. You will not take the political system and fix Social Security if you’ve got 75 million workers without a retirement or some type of savings agenda. And we’ve got to get those 75 million participating in a savings plan.

Automatically enrolled, 1% above Social Security, if they choose not to be in it, that’s fine, managed by the thrift-savings plan that has the federal employees, and it would be open to all companies who don’t have an existing plan.

Just so you know, Martin Feldstein, after I wrote that piece, came to see me and said “the White House is very interested in doing this if you are interested.” And I said “I’m very interested in doing this.” And one of the things we are going to try to get done this Congress is, a savings plan, post what happened on Social Security, that targets this area.

My colleague Rich Neal from Boston, has an automatic enrollment IRA, I have an automatic enrollment, because I believe you have to make a 401(k) universal in the workplace.

The third area is energy, and energy independence. Now, I believe, new technologies, and John and I were just talking about this, but new technologies and energy can be for the economy what the internet, computer, and technology was for the last twenty years.

Now, it used to be that new technologies came through the economy, operated for about twenty five years, through the economy, worked their way through. Now the cycle is about 7 years. We need to make an investment as a country in the area of energy technology and energy conservation.

It is the next frontier from, not only a technological place, but an economic place. Now we’ve made a lot of progress. I read an article over the break, and some other pieces on this, but in 2005, without much effort, the United States economy saved more energy than the European Union used. There are entities like the Rocky Mountain Institute, using the technology that Boeing has used for the Dreamliner, created an SUV that gets 67 miles to the gallon.

All of this is doable and accessible, but if we don’t start investing in this type of technology, and start making this a national effort here, we’re going to miss an opportunity of historic importance.

And then lastly, education. The two most significant events, in my view, of the last hundred years, economically, have been the G.I. Bill, and High School Education. You could not have the Industrial Revolution without the High School Education. And the G.I. Bill was essential for the “American Century” to be known as the “American Century,” and for the growth we’ve had.

But we have not done anything differently as a country, on training our workforce, since the G.I. Bill, of significance. We know you earn what you learn, in today’s economy.

We know that in the next twenty years, three quarters of the jobs will require a minimum of two years of college education. And we know for a fact that only one out four workers is getting a post high school education. So, we have a natural mismatch between what the workplace requires and what the workforce is producing.

And I believe you have to make a one-year post high school education universal, and required, just like the high school education was required. I don’t care if you go become an apprentice at the IBEW. I don’t care if you go to the community college and do computer science. And I don’t care whether you go to a four-year institute. But you have to have a workforce that has the skills and capacity to compete and win.

And what you have to require people to do - we have too much invested as a country in you - is you have to go post your high school education to some other institution for one-year. I’d like to make it more.

Now if you give folks in this country a workforce with strength, a retirement plan, a healthcare security, and an stronger economy overall with investment in new energy and technology, you’ll be giving not only the American people, but the American economy, the ability compete and win in a globalized economy. And the security, where they see, in a global economy, that it has more opportunities associated with it, than costs associated it.

When we passed NAFTA in the White House in 1994, we passed it with about a thirty vote margin. When the President of the United States, with a Republican House and Senate passed CAFTA, which deals with Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, no where the economic activity or value of NAFTA, it had a lot more political importance to the country than economic importance. And for those countries, it had a lot more economic importance than political importance. They passed CAFTA by a one vote margin in a Republican House.

President Clinton passed NAFTA with a thirty vote margin, and had a lot more economic activity. And then you tie that to what I just said about what happened in the 2006 elections. If you believe in the importance of globalization, and you believe in the importance of the further integration of the American economy, and the only way to get there is through the Doha Round and other trade deals. Unless, over the next twenty years, we put a human face on globalization, give people a sense that this is not a gun at their head, but an opportunity to advance themselves economically, unless you do that the American people are going to get a halt to globalization. Full stop. It will take political suicide to get a trade deal through the United States Congress and Senate.

And I’m not only advocating a universal post-high school education, a universal retirement, health care security at the place of employment, and a major investment in energy technology, just as a way for people to deal with their anxieties; I think you have to make that type of New Deal for a New Economy, because it’s the right thing to do to succeed in the same way the New Deal was the right as answer to what was going on, and the transformation that was going on, at the time of the Depression.

And it's not - don’t get me wrong - I do think it will address anxieties, but I am not proposing these things to address anxieties. I am proposing these things because I believe it’s the only way we can succeed.

The truth is, in the last thirty or forty years we got away because we were big, we were bad, and we could afford to. With China, India, Brazil, to name a few countries coming on, with that type of work force, with that type of skill training, our ability to get away with what we got away with in the last thirty years is over. That deal is done. And we need to have a new economic and political paradigm to deal with the changing world. And if we don’t do it, our economic position and leadership is going to alter fundamentally.

And so I believe, and I also think, as I’ve always said – that politics is not far from my mind - the first party that figures out to put a human face on globalization will have a political dominance in the same way that Roosevelt Coalition, and the Roosevelt Agenda, had a dominance in this country for about thirty or forty years. It has that much significance politically. And all the discussion you are going to hear in 2008, is going to be like the discussion you heard in 2006. It’s going to be dealing with people’s fears on the economic side.

And one closing comment, when you talk to people about trade. And I do. I’m kind of crazy, I still do my office hours at grocery stores. So whoever wants to come talk to me, can come talk to me. A lot of people don’t want to come talk to me, they want to go get their groceries and go on, which is usually my family members.

When people talk about trade, they are never talking about trade. They are never talking about trade. They are talking about their health care, their incomes, and their retirement security. You go to a John Deere plant, here in Illinois, everyone of these workers know that one out of three of their tractors are destined for an overseas market, so their job is tied to trade. Yet, it’s the most vehemently opposed workforce to globalization. Why?

If you talk to them, just listen. They are worried about losing their health care. They are worried about losing their good paying job. And they are worried about losing their retirement security. It’s not about trade, it’s about everything else that trade affects, that every trade discussion is about. And that’s why we have to come up - for those of us who believe that globalization has been a net positive -we have to come up with an agenda, that deals with and helps advance the ability of globalization to continue down the path of success.

Because in twenty years, the fact that we doubled the size of the economy, I think if we do what’s right, we can do that again. And we have the full potential to do it. And our greatest unmarked resources and capacity, and our greatest markets are right here at home. So we have to invest in the American people so they feel they have an opportunity to do as well in this globalized economy, as a number of people sitting in the room have done.

If we do that we have a great chance at a great decade again. If we don’t, the American people are going to have a full stop on what’s going on as it relates to the last twenty years.

So with that, I want to thank you…

2008-10-31T22:51:00.002-04:00

82│spirits to bring along magically and fair

31 October 2008

Once, in the beginning, a collection, fine—
a sad reminder of things to come. Sunshine, first,
then darkness, why
not?

There was beckoning to be sure—

but who’d be doing the beckoning
and who’d be the one beckoned
remained in doubt.

[my shadows]

I speak to you freely. You are mine.

And, surprisingly:

I am a man and a mouse and a room and a sprout and an 8 ball and a falcon and a miser (and a miser).

Trust me when I reach over
and tap you on the shoulder.

We are one in the same I will say.
Hell if we are one in the same.

2008-10-25T18:07:00.007-04:00

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now
almost complete legal combination—

piece of machinery so to speak—

compounded of the Nebraska doctrine
and the Dred Scott decision.

Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do,
and how well adapted,

but also let him study
the history of its construction, and trace,

if he can, or rather fail, if he can,
to trace the evidence of design and concert of action,

among its chief architects,
from the beginning.

And in connecting the landscape with the quiet of the sky

2008-10-24T18:42:00.021-04:00

Middle Patuxent Environmental Protection Area – early October 2008. Title of post adapted from "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey," William Wordsworth (1798).

2008-10-22T21:07:00.012-04:00

something over which: one has rights

Feudalism, by its very nature, gives rise to a hierarchy of rank, to a predominantly static social structure in which every man knows his place, according to whom it is that he owes service. ... In order to preserve existing relationships in perpetuity, rights of succession ... are strictly controlled by various laws, or customs, of entail.

2008-10-22T20:51:00.007-04:00

NOT JUST OIL,

There are many reasons why you may want to work in the oil industry.

Endorsements

2008-10-19T14:10:00.004-04:00

Indeed, no one, we think, has until now doubted that the strength of the present-day movement lies in the awakening of the masses.

My apologies for the absence, such a delay, but back again I am with a reminder

2008-10-17T19:23:00.023-04:00

I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views. That's what the American people are concerned about. That’s why they want to know what his answers are. Two of [his] three mentors are Father Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright. Now, these are very strange, anti-American mentors. Barack Obama has been associating with anti-Americans, by and large─the people who are radical leftists. That's the real question about Barack Obama.

─ Michele Bachmann (R) ─ Minnesota

Imagine

And thus, in context:

_____________

List of photos (from top to bottom, left to right):

- Katrina, 2005.
- Aftermath, Hiroshima, 1945.
- God bless America, my home sweet home, ca. 1960s.
- McCarthy to Truman, 1950.
- The sweet blossoming of napalm, 1972.
- Hello Baghdad, 2006.
- Ah, sweet land of liberty: Abu Ghraib, 2006.

Turning for a very brief space to Van Winkle, and why we can clearly understand why some species, once lost, should never reappear

2008-09-27T22:32:00.016-04:00

In members of the same class the average amount of change during long and equal periods of time, may, perhaps, be the same, but as the accumulation of the long-enduring formations depends upon great masses having been deposited on areas while subsiding, our formations have been almost necessarily accumulated at wide and irregularly intermittent intervals; consequently, the amount of change exhibited (embedded in consecutive formations) is not equal; each formation does not mark a new and complete act of creations but only an occasional scene, taken almost at hazard, in a slowly changing drama ...

A message from Ms. Naomi Solomon

2008-09-25T13:40:00.006-04:00

From Naomi Solomon

N�38 rue des Martyrs Cocody

Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire

ATTN: DEAREST ONES OF GOD

I am the above-named person from Kuwait.

I am married to Mr. Anthony Solomon, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004.

We were married for eleven years without a child.

He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.

Before his death we were both born-again Christian.

Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home, which the Bible is against.

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 million (two million five hundred US dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account.

Presently, the fund is still with the bank.

Recently, my doctor told me that I have serious sickness, which is cancer problem.

The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness.

Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein.

I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God, and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained.

The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth.

I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don’t want my husband’s efforts to be used by unbelievers.

I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way.

This is why I am taking this decision.

I am not afraid of death—hence I know where I am going.

I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord.

Exodus says that the Lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.

I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health—hence the presence of my husband relatives is around me always I don’t want them to know about this development.

With God all things are possible.

As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan.

I want you and the church to always pray for me because the Lord is my shepherd.

My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian.

Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth.

Yours,

Naomi

And in the midst of it they ran1

2008-09-24T21:02:00.007-04:00

They used to tell me I was building a dream,
so I followed me
the mob.

When there was earth to plow or guns to bear,
I was right there
on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream,
peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line
just waiting for some bread?

Once I built a railroad. I made it run,
made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad:

Now it's done,
brother,
can you spare a dime.

Once I built a tower to the sun—brick, rivet, and lime.
Once I built a tower.
Now it's done brother can you spare a dime.

Once in khaki suits I'm telling you we looked swell.
Full of that Yankee Doodle Dum—half a million boots through hell.

[And I, the kid with the drum.]

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al?
It was Al all the time.

Why don't you remember? I'm your pal, Buddy,
can you spare a dime?

_________

1 Adapted From Harburg, Y. (1931) Brother, can you spare a dime? Retrieved 24 September 2008 from http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/cherries.html.

constitutionally, may I present to you the Paulson Plan, upon which we need to act quickly and decisively

2008-09-24T00:10:00.009-04:00

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY

TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS

Section 1. Short Title.

This Act may be cited as $treason$ ???

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

(b) Necessary Actions.--The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;

(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them;

(4) establishing vehicles that are authorized, subject to supervision by the Secretary, to purchase mortgage-related assets and issue obligations; and

(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act.

Sec. 3. Considerations.

In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for--

(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and

(2) protecting the taxpayer.

Sec. 4. Reports to Congress.

Within three months of the first exercise of the authority granted in section 2(a), and semiannually thereafter, the Secretary shall report to the Committees on the Budget, Financial Services, and Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committees on the Budget, Finance, and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate with respect to the authorities exercised under this Act and the considerations required by section 3.

Sec. 5. Rights; Management; Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Exercise of Rights.--The Secretary may, at any time, exercise any rights received in connection with mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act.

(b) Management of Mortgage-Related Assets.--The Secretary shall have authority to manage mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act, including revenues and portfolio risks therefrom.
(c) Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.--The Secretary may, at any time, upon terms and conditions and at prices determined by the Secretary, sell, or enter into securities loans, repurchase transactions or other financial transactions in regard to, any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act.
(d) Application of Sunset to Mortgage-Related Assets.--The authority of the Secretary to hold any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act before the termination date in section 9, or to purchase or fund the purchase of a mortgage-related asset under a commitment entered into before the termination date in section 9, is not subject to the provisions of section 9.

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time

Sec. 7. Funding.

For the purpose of the authorities granted in this Act, and for the costs of administering those authorities, the Secretary may use the proceeds of the sale of any securities issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, and the purposes for which securities may be issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, are extended to include actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses. Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed appropriated at the time of such expenditure.
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

[natal note: NON-REVIEWABLE, PEOPLES, BY ANY COURT OF LAW OR ANY ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCY! YES, ACT SWIFTLY, CONGRESS, SWIFTLY!]

Sec. 9. Termination of Authority.

The authorities under this Act, with the exception of authorities granted in sections 2(b)(5), 5 and 7, shall terminate two years from the date of enactment of this Act.

Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.

Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.

Sec. 11. Credit Reform.

The costs of purchases of mortgage-related assets made under section 2(a) of this Act shall be determined as provided under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, as applicable.

Sec. 12. Definitions.

For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) Mortgage-Related Assets.--The term “mortgage-related assets” means residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008.

(2) Secretary.--The term “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Treasury.¹

(3) United States.--The term “United States” means the States, territories, and possessions of the United States and the District of Columbia.

______________

¹Also lovingly referred to at some cocktail parties as "Sr. Autocrat."

There seem to be some issues in regard to ellipses

2008-09-22T23:36:00.005-04:00

In some places, they are standard ... In others, a fourth dot is added. Yet in others, a fifth.

I've tried to catch them all.

Good night everyone, who, who, who ...

Given her performance or lack thereof

2008-09-22T20:15:00.026-04:00

The doomed man sticks to his little whims.

The doomed man wakes up before dawn—the hour for executions.

His need of tradition.

The doomed man likes to complain of his poor memory.

The doomed man is always concealing some fear.

Self-deception is possible for a time, etc.

*
Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence....The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

—FDR

All the same, you are interested in change

2008-09-21T11:40:00.019-04:00

The constitutional state, in my review, does not exclude the changes being made in the laws when historical development demand them. For example, existing laws protect property. Anyone who possesses more property than anyone else should not have more rights, but the law gives him power. That is why it is always the strong who love the constitutional state. The need to change laws is always primarily the need of the weaker people, not of those who are enabled by the law to rule without apparent force, since their power is a legal one, acquired through property. It is true that conditions here and now are peaceful.

Homage 9.20.082

2008-09-20T23:08:00.006-04:00

Bob Horner, 1978

Homage 9.20.081

2008-09-20T14:14:00.014-04:00

Yankee Stadium 1923: farewell

Turning for a very brief space to animals

2008-09-20T12:44:00.006-04:00

on the land there are some hermaphrodites, as land-mollusca and earthworms; but these all pair ... we can understand this remarkable fact ... for we know of no other means, analogous to the action of insects and of the wind in the case of plants, ... by which an occasional cross might blow ... here the currents offer an obvious means for an occasional cross ... and in the case of flowers, I have failed

2008-09-20T00:33:00.003-04:00

75 ǀ counsel

Probably should leave me be
and head elsewhere
if I were you and it’s my advice you want.

Pack you up!
your pretty green bags and get the hell on out
of dodge. Skedaddling now (you slippery devil)

would be optimal for all, you know—

because you done broke

one
too
many
hearts.

Oh I’ve been told
your intentions were good
and your promises were clean,

but I just assume
you get right back on your horse
and flag tomorrow’s lottery

folks on down.

el cazador 1217

2008-09-20T00:16:00.005-04:00

The cabinet of Dr. Caligula

2008-09-18T23:36:00.015-04:00

I meet with no one!

No one
(goddammit)

DO YOU HEAR ME PLANET Z-TERRO? NO ONE!

(Oozers—I like me this here button)

Homage 9.17.08

2008-09-17T20:35:00.015-04:00

Hair, ca. 1971

FOR THIS TIME OF GREAT UNCERTAINTY

2008-09-16T20:45:00.010-04:00

Get to the essence of mango.

Alarmed?

2008-09-15T23:30:00.012-04:00

Good night, I say, good night, good night, good night; again I say good night, good night, good night; and may I wish you a good night, good night, good night?; sleep well, good night, good night, good night; Amen, good night, good night, good night; and for the sake of, good night, good night, good night; thereby wandering nowhere, good night, good night, good night; like my car do you, good night, good night, good night?; or do you think I drive homeward, good night, good night, good night?; an awful semblance, good night, good night, good night; well then so be it, good night, good night, good night; glad to be here, good night, good night, good night; glad to go, good night, good night, good night; my hands to keep from trembling, good night, good night, good night; my face to keep but long, good night, good night, good night; my hands I've got them folded, good night, good night, good night; my voice I'll keep that gone, good night, good night, good night...

2008-09-15T23:26:00.003-04:00

77 ǀ de’pouille

Gilbert is a part of my yore:
rivers, & speakers too, crocodiles—
Ss tonight ladies & gentlemen.

Not here, not here,
& so be it Heineken & me—

hanging.

First of August 2008,
without her.

Dehydration mother, & gasping.

This life really is oh so cold & scary.

[How can one imagine otherwise?]

My friend, woebegone,
well, she doth play
the fiddle.

She likes the looks of the shimmering pond
it’s true, but then there’s them goose droppings—

godforsaken goose droppings on a hot day in July
by the dock. Chalk. Stomp. Stump.

The best kind, splattered.

LISTEN

I can tell you that we have inattentive matters.

Believe me:
for once.

Step aside.

Listen up

2008-09-15T21:22:00.012-04:00

The emblem of Norg, a small, old village of the Noordenveld municipality in the province Drenthe, should be a must for any and all municipalities.

Thus, under its charm (and permaglow) I have come—
reasonably, proudly, and, I must say,
ultravioletly to adopt it.

Join me in this most earnest of underground lunar celebrations!

Join me on our march across the Vollmerhausen!

Let the procession begin as each and every natalnorg among you emerges—
brazen, courageous, intact.

And then, rising:

2008-09-15T01:25:00.002-04:00

78 ǀ of unimproved mettle hot and full

afterward

Fortinbras tossed me by the wayside he did—

[For the others
I dare say
he tossed them too]

the scoundrel:

swallowing dust,
remembering.

You see—he was a drifter in those days,
& with a dash
of the Wildman in him
he lifted me up
by my balls
& chucked me over his head.

Hi there—I’m the Lasso from El Paso, he said—

[staring me down after each flip around,
preposterously cracking his whip]

Ya! Ya! Ya! Nice to meet you.

I’ve come here to give you
a little spinner, a little shine—

All right now? I ain’t gonʹ hurt you none.

Ya! There—you with me?

Oh, & I was dear brethren—I was.

[How could I not be?]

Then Fortinbras closed his eyes….
______

It was a sequel really.
It just went on.

Amalgam of lift and fancy

2008-09-15T01:20:00.003-04:00

2008-09-15T01:13:00.002-04:00

79 ǀ day of swine and roses

Uno, this is uno, the Copeland design.

We feature a Ferris wheel cutout at the county as the wildcard
if you don’t mind,
steamrolling, helpless,
rickety 13,
a coil no more than 5.

You can slide if you want to—
slide if you want,

but
don’t
you dare
look
down:

culminating.

Draw the mad hatter my man!

It’ll be red or black—

one or the other
in due time.

That is my promise—
only $1 per game.

Dealer: We offer no other colors.
Skin us if you must, if you must, if you must.
We are ready for a scalping.

And as for you Ms. Cotton Candy?

Sadly,
there she went,
spun sugar,

overboard.

*

Note: Since it consisted mostly of air…

To illustrate

2008-09-15T01:05:00.002-04:00

Pardon me folks

2008-09-15T00:56:00.010-04:00

Nature is rarely (if ever) perfectly predictable, and usually there is substantial variation of the observed points around the fitted regression line. The deviation of a particular point from the regression line is called the residual value.

2008-09-01T16:46:00.001-04:00

80 ǀ first to be called curtain

Believe it or not,
the man, a troubled one,
a hummingbird once before,
sabotaged his own trajectory
simply
by swimming in it.

Now I know that sounds like a bit of a fetch-feeder.

Truth: water sprinklers
tickling your fine-toothed fancy.

There mister, yourself sir,

older but human still, and ugly in this life,
bent, why, a coin, an old man, a cane, whiskers,
over, swinging, to pick it up presumably,
perhaps an analysis, a study, mirrors, a breeze (a bear),
and then back down.

Sadness is the steady thornbeat of our being.
Sadness comes again.

We revel homeward as manatee,
find comfort there as eggs,
dream don’t it whet your whistle,
sound the sirens—putrid, one—as dames.

May I say bravo, Johnny Mac, bravo?

2008-09-01T12:42:00.004-04:00

And we want this fucker to be our next president: