Lou Dobbs' Dream Come True - Homeland Security and Buttoning Up the Borders

I have never wished as much for a show to fail as I do this one:

ABC is launching a new reality show in January featuring the Department of Homeland Security.
"Homeland Security USA" will feature agents at the country's borders discussing their efforts to keep us safe from the fearsome terrors we face from other countries.

There will be no political agenda, according to producers. Maybe not implicitly, but it sure as hell sounds like it's going to play into this country's growing paranoia about the rest of the world.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hXj0ZeF7mcnlIpu9i_d8dg-XtMrQD958KKOG0

The department is cooperating, saying it's a great opportunity to let us know what they do.

So now we'll have an opportunity to see just how dangerous everything is - from the threat posed by neighboring countries to the postcard from overseas.

Don't try to tell me it's a public service. We've learned caution. It'll be a long time before we forget the lessons of 9-11.

It doesn't take much to turn people into a bunch of scared rabbits, especially in an economy that's already scaring the pants off most of us. How wonderful to offer us the opportunity to focus that fear on something outside our control, giving our brains a break from the necessary contemplation of our past mistakes and how we can improve the future! Why, borrowing more than we can afford to pay off isn't the problem - it's that weird stuff some foreign terrorist tries to put in our mail! Everything will be just fine if we just shut down, close the doors and tell the world we're out to lunch!

If you ever watch Lou Dobbs, you'll know this show is probably going to be his Holy Grail. There's not a problem in this country that Lou doesn't think can be laid at the feet of illegal immigrants. Here's one for you, Lou.

I'm not a fan of reality TV. Most programs show us not the best, but the worst in humanity. Shame on ABC for creating a program aimed at fear mongering. Don't try to tell me it's a tip of the hat to those hard-working employees of the DHS. Nobody watches that and everyone knows it.

Fear sells. And ABC is selling fear. Don't you buy it.

Happy Chaotic Holidays

The holidays are upon us. The gifts are bought, almost wrapped, the tree is up and though there are no ornaments on it yet, there are lights. It's pretty freaking festive.

But it's going to be a weird one this year. Handsome Significant Other, who broke his knee on the ice last year getting me a package of Oreos, is finally getting surgery on one of his knees...three days before Christmas.

It's an outpatient thing and he'll be home, but we have no idea how he'll feel. Will he be able to climb the stairs or will he sleep on the couch admiring the unfinished tree? Will he finish wrapping gifts or will he stare into the distance in a drugged stupor while I try not to look at what I'm wrapping for him?

Perhaps he'll sit by the fire and wonder how Scrooge is doing.


It's been the weirdest year ever.

He broke his knee, he injured the good knee, he's become a familiar face at the local emergency room. Our last visit was after he poked himself in the eye with a plant. Scratched cornea. Two weeks of agony.

We met NY's governor, Trace Adkins, and I've talked to a slew of interesting people. We elected Barack Obama.

But all in all, I gotta say I'm ready for a new year. This one's been too weird even for me.

Happy new year and better luck to all in 2009!

Executive Orders: When is Bush's Pen Going to Go Dry?

The Race To The Finish is On...and efforts to slow down the Bush Administration's last minute effort to recreate the nation in its own image are mobilizing.

The big giveaway of 300 thousand acres of Utah wilderness to oil and gas companies is being blocked by a lawsuit, at least temporarily.


http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/081219a.asp

The Executive Order is a scary thing in the wrong hands. A president signs an order and, with no checks and balances from anywhere, effects change.

Here's the latest health news...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-health-conscience_fridec19,0,4837485.story

My view, of course, isn't shared by everyone. In fact I found a blog fretting about what our new "Marxist in Chief" will do once he's sworn in.

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2008/11/10/marching-orders-upcoming-obama-executive-orders/

I find it remarkable that someone who's attempting to restore a democracy that's been hacked to ribbons is labeled a marxist. Did we call Bush a fascist? It's not a reach.

Fascism is an authoritarian or totalitarian nationalist ideology.^[1][2] It is primarily concerned with solving the perceived problems of national decline or decadence, by achieving a millenarian national rebirth, exalting the nation or race above all else, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Fascists typically seek to form a mass movement of militants who are willing to engage in violence against their perceived enemies. (courtesy Wikipedia)

Fascists don't like democracy, you argue? Neither does President Bush and his sidekick, Dead Eye Dick.

So the Guy in the Oval Office spends his days adjusting the earplugs so he doesn't hear us howling outside his window and signs signs signs.

Here are some executive orders signed before December. There have been dozens since. And once they're signed, it's not easy to undo them.

This one creates a presidential transition council...but specifically says the candidates must be "major party". An effort to create problems if a third party should become viable?

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-24465.pdf

Can't read the original one this one amends...it was done in the 40s. But it relates to social security numbers and privacy regarding federal agencies...and the amendment knocks out words like "shall" and substitutes "may" and eliminates the word "exclusively". It's sketchy at best.

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-27771.pdf

This one's a bit mind bending...its topic is supposedly reorganizing federal agencies to exempt them from certain labor regulations. But what it does is reclassify the departments of energy, transportation, homeland security, justice and the treasury as agencies whose primary function is intelligence and national security. Whoa. Since when? And what might this reclassification accomplish besides the labor impact?

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-27771.pdf

Are you paying attention? If you're not, don't complain about what happens.

Cheney Okayed Waterboarding: It's Not Torture

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow doesn't usually stutter. She's the queen of smooth. But she was stuttering with disbelief last night and I can't argue.

The vice president of the United States confirmed, in a taped interview, that he authorized the use of an interrogation technique that we labeled torture after it was used against our soldiers in World War II.

Let me say that another way: the use of waterboarding was called a war crime after World War II. Maddow, clearly beyond outrage, pointed out the people responsible were hanged. Our vice president confidently confirms that he authorized the use of this technique at the prison camp at Guantanamo. He stands by his actions.

A plus B equals...you know. Waterboard equals war crime plus official okay equals...war criminal.
But this one's safe, isn't he? We haven't stood up to any of this yet, why would we start now?

Where is the tidal wave of public anger? Where are the headlines? Where are the editorials calling for him to be indicted? I'm not seeing much. Just for the basic story I had to go to the Seattle Times.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2006/10/25/2003323270.jpg

You're not angry yet? You don't feel like a chump? Why don't you look at what our vice president was saying two years ago. At what point do we finally stand up, confront this evil and condemn it? No time to read the whole article? It reports on Cheney's defense of waterboarding as a no-brainer, while reiterating his belief that this country doesn't torture. In 2006. Oh. My. God.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/27/usa.guantanamo

And just in case you're still not angry, please remember that Friday is the day the Bush Administration has quietly offered 300 thousand acres of wilderness in Utah's red rock area for gas and oil companies leases. We voted for change - isn't it time we did something to help create it ourselves? Write!

http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/wilderness_giveaway

Bush: This Looks Like a Good Place to Drill

The waning days of the Bush administration are proving to be as horrific as the preceding eight years.

On December 19th, Utah's Redrock wilderness is going on the auction block, courtesy our Fearless Leader.

Oil and gas speculators are invited to bid on drilling rights for 300 thousand acres this Friday.

It was all done in classic Bush/Cheney style....they didn't tell anybody what they were doing. According to the NRDC, the plan was hatched on election day and no one even told the National Parks service what was happening until after it was all agreed upon.

Want to scream? Me, too. Go here and write an email to your legislators instead:

http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/wilderness_giveaway

If the auction goes through it won't be easy to reverse those leases. And the new administration shouldn't even have to deal with this garbage. Amazingly, while our economy slides down the chute and no one's reaching for the brake in the White House, the outgoing president and his buddies are reserving their attention for getting in some last minute goodies for their oil pals.

The land up for grabs includes Desolation Canyon, an area proposed for national park status. It's just the latest in a long string of efforts to exploit what's left of our land to get at a finite source of fuel. It's short sighted, it's sneaky and it's just bad policy.

If you agree, make noise. Make a lot of noise.

http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/wilderness_giveaway

Why Do Humans Suck So Much?

I'm about ready to give up. Seriously. We've got Bernie Madoff and his Limitless Greed, Hank Paulson and his Tunnel Vision, George Bush, who doesn't seem to notice anything except a shoe winging toward his head. We've got Republicans, we've got Democrats, we've got liberals and conservatives. We have, in my opinion, a really stupid collection of beings that call themselves Americans. And every day I seem to find out that our cruelty, selfishness and sense of entitlement is bigger than I thought.

I was collapsed on the couch last night, soaking in the usually-harmless drug of television entertainment. But there was a show on chimpanzees that I came in on about halfway through. It was Nature's 25th anniversary special: "Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History". These were chimps that have been in advertising, in the movies, in the circus. They've been pets. They've been prisoners in medical labs. And they're now in chimp sanctuaries.
The show ended with the release of some of the chimps into a new island - a place where they could wander with no bars between them and the sky. One ailing chimp couldn't bring himself to step onto the grass. Concrete was all he'd ever known. And one aging chimp immediately clambered up a tree and stayed there.

That was enough to rip my heart, but I found something else was even worse. At one point, the man who'd raised two of the now-rescued chimps was found and invited to come visit the animals. He'd had to give them up and they'd been sold, bred and sent to labs. It had been twenty years since they'd ridden in his car or had an ice cream.

"No way will they remember me," he said as they walked toward the cages. "I don't even remember people after twenty years."

But they did. Their joy in hearing his voice was unmistakable. They let down their guard and behaved in ways the staff had never seen. And I fell apart.

Our arrogance and our biblical belief that all creatures are here to serve us has turned us into monsters. We imprison animals and torture them to make sure our mascara won't make our eyes sting. We enslave creatures for our own trivial wants as well as our medical needs. We even eat them. And they know what is going on.

When my kids were young they helped raise two dairy cows for 4H. And long after they'd given up 4H and moved on to other hobbies, they went back to that farm. When they called their cows' names, those cows came running. They know. Don't tell me how smart animals are or aren't - they're aware. And we act like we don't know.

Just when I think I'm aware of all the rotten things we do, I get slapped in the face with one I'd never considered. We'd better hope there is no heaven and no hell, because what we as a species and particularly as a nation are doing is unforgivable.

Madoff: The Last Straw For Wall Street?

It seems the days of equating "Wall Street job" with prestige and money are as extinct as the dodo bird. Tell someone you work on Wall Street and if they don't sneer or throw vegetables at you, they're at least going to shake their heads. Thank Bernie Madoff. His 50 billion dollar shell game may be the weight that sinks Wall Street's floundering reputation. Even hardened Wall Streeters are professing shock at the size, scope and audacity of Madoff's scheme. He's taking people down with him, and the Dow is expected to be dragged down as well. It's massive.

There's an angle here no one is talking about for fear of being offensive, but I'm wondering.
Did Madoff have a Jewish connection? Did he take advantage of a cultural sense of loyalty to line his own pockets?

One NY Times article quotes Palm Beach investors with names that seem to indicate Jewish backgrounds. A charity in the Boston area dedicated to preserving Jewish cultural identity has lost everything with the collapse of Madoff's fund. Did Madoff, whose fund was built on exclusivity and reputation, take advantage of connections that leaned heavily toward Jews to build his massive scheme?

And if he did, is this the latest kick in the teeth for people who are just a generation removed from the Holocaust?

What the fall of Bernard Madoff proves is that just because someone knows what they're doing, because they appear successful and even show steady growth, it doesn't mean that you can trust them.

The Jews have a word for people like Bernard Madoff: shyster.