Tannishblog

Newsporn star Bill O’Reilly showed his brand of professionalism when he yelled and shoved a Barack Obama campaign staffer. Bill’s response: "I might have called him an SOB." A consummate professional.

As they say: "And now for something completely different." (OK - so I couldn’t think up a reasonable segue. Sorry.)

Wired Magazine outlines the Top Ten New Organisms of 2007, starting with hypoallergenic cats and ending with a yeast that can "Smell" poison. way cool.

“A kinder, gentler nation.” Remember those words? What ever happened to that idea?

Notwithstanding the absurdity of using such a phrase as political rhetoric, I remain partial to the idea - especially these days. It’s a bitter irony the utterer of those words is also responsible for the man who, as president, is presiding over the opposite national direction. One could say that all Presidents since Eisenhower have been steering our nation in that direction. The only difference is Our Mr. Bush has a deficit of subtlety.

Being kinder and gentler has its place, even in politics. Perhaps that is why Barack Obama surfaced as the Democratic winner in Iowa yesterday. The man exudes kindness and gentility. (being the most telegenic candidate by fair amount can’t hurt, either.)

While the O-man is not my favorite, I believe he is more electable than any other. Charisma is a large part of game, and Barack’s gleaming smile and steady confidence has projected him far already. And, I believe in his rhetoric about compromise. Having worked within the Illinois congress, he’s had a fair amount of challenge working for his constituency: Illinois being a Red State with a Blue lesion growing on it’s northeast corner. Hammering out the details is old hat even for such a youthful politician.

Dennis Kucinick is not so young, and he also has that Kinder, Gentler Nation aura. He’s my pick for the Presidency, although I suspect I’ll only get to vote for him in the Primaries. America is not about to elect a man that believes in Strength Through Peace. A flash flood of wisdom is unlikely to penetrate the grass roots of Political Ideology anytime soon.

But a man can dream, can’t he?

Or for a still unlikely - yet more realistic - fantasy, let’s Have Barack pick Dennis as his running mate when he accepts the nomination at the Democratic Convention. That would be amazing! Enter the Age of Carebear Politics. That thought is so “out there” even I can’t imagine the repercussions. But leading the world from the heart must be better than leading the world from the ass.

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

Two headlines placed next to each other in the Washington Post’s daily email caught my eye. For clarity I’ll also include the first paragraph of each story - no more needs saying.

Bush Signs Domestic Spending Bill but Criticizes Pet Projects

WACO, Tex., Dec. 26 — President Bush signed a $555 billion domestic spending bill into law Wednesday, but not without taking a swipe at Congress for including pet projects that total about $10 billion.

Wars Cost $15 Billion a Month, GOP Senator Says

The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism — nearly $15 billion a month — came last week from one of the Senate’s leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.

wow……..

All of a sudden, Mike Huckabee is a frontrunner in the Republican rat race. Is there anyone who truly believes that a Repub can win the White House after the ongoing catastrophe that is Bush/Cheney/Rice/Iraq/Iran??????

Really.

For those few people so seeped in denial, my condolences. No one can argue with a sick mind. However, no matter how idealistic, how inexperienced, how indoctrinate a Democratic candidate might be, there’s no chance a Republican has for the top seat. None.

So why bother to give Mike an inch of news coverage? Only to save face in the coming disaster of credibility when the house of cards perpetrated by the Bush administration, held up by the MSM, comes inevitably to fall. A weak overture, but the only available stance left to a  failed and failing institution

The NEWS as we know it is dead. Government, as we know it, has failed. Grass roots, restructuring politics, along with our adrift national identity, will regain - with strength - a rule "by the people, for the people." Or our Great Experiment will crumble. It has come to the Point of No Return.

Ask yourself: Where will you stand. Will you stand beside the Predatory Lenders, that steal your dreams? Will you stand beside the hospitals, drug companies, and their legions of lobbyists, who hold profits before public health? Will you stand beside the Gun Lobby, as they set aside Human Life, Human Decency, to increase monetary gains? And will you stand beside a military machine that is bent upon destroying innocents for the tactical advantage of controlling oil manufacturing and distribution? Ask yourself: where does your interest lie? What path most benefits your children?

Ask yourself: What is the Lesser Evil - and, isn’t is still evil? Is it justified?

My hometown of Chicago has unveiled a planned upgrade to its already extensive surveillance system. No longer the “Hog Butcher* to the World”, the City of Broad Shoulders is morphing into the City of Big Brother.

If that’s what helps us clinch the 2016 Olympic bid, I’m all for it. I’ve seen some of the cameras hanging off lampposts about town. The neighborhoods so decorated could use a constant eye. There’s a fine line between oppressive oversight and community service. Even the most well-intentioned neighborhood watch program is vulnerable to misuse. Until that occurs, I say: bring on the bots!

*Thanks, Travis

Filed under the tab of “I Wish I Wrote That,” is Chris Rowthorn’s blistering assessment of the Florida University Taser Incident as found on Smirking Chimp.

The four players in the present-day American political drama were all represented at the University of Florida on Monday:

1) Andrew Meyer writhing on the ground in agony represents the Constitution and the freedom of speech and the protection from unlawful arrest that it enshrines.
2) The police holding Mr. Meyer to the ground and inflicting torture with 50,000 volts of electricity represent the fascist forces in America led by George W. Bush and their attempts to kill the Constitution.
3) John Kerry droning impotently on in the background and allowing the torture to occur through his shameful lack of courage and principle represents today’s Democratic Party.
4) The majority of the students who sat passively by while one of their own was tortured for speaking out represent the largely apathetic American populace.

And, of course, after the fact, the fifth and perhaps most important player in the drama made its inevitable entrance: the press. Major press outlets and even some supposedly left-wing political blogs were united in suggesting that Mr. Meyer actually deserved to be tasered because of his history as a prankster. Thus, the American media has sanctioned the torture of an American citizen who exercised his freedom of speech. In this they stand firmly in the tradition of all fascist states, in which certain undesirables and those who dared to speak out were officially sanctioned as targets of violence.

After the smoke clears, no one is left standing. All the implemented capable have crept away. But that’s on the inside: on the outside, America has become a Terrorist Organization as well. From The Truth Will Set you Free comes a post called “Shake and Bake” that graphically illustrates (you’ve been warned) the effect of US Military policy in the 2005 pacification of Falluja. Apparently, Shake and Bake is the cutesy name for alternating rounds of high explosives and rounds of white phosphorus.

Although white phosphorus often has no effect on clothes, when it makes contact with a person’s skin, it will burn it down to the bone. If the gas is inhaled, it will blister the throat and lungs, causing rapid suffocation, burning the body from the inside.

How many gallons of blood does it take to refine a gallon of gasoline? How long will we remain the Apathetic Americans? How much longer can this go on? These are questions you should ask yourself. No possible answer can remotely satisfy.

Florida seems to be the testing grounds for the New American Century, wherein fear acts as crowd control and police brutality becomes de rigeur. It is become the breeding ground of the modern police state. Unfortunately, the crowd hasn’t quite gotten the message yet. The State that Tasers unruly children has turned its Protectors of the Peace against a more conventional target: liberal college students. From Chicago Tribune:

A University of Florida student was Tasered and arrested after trying to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry about the 2004 election and other subjects during a campus forum.

Videos of the incident posted on several Web sites show officers pulling Andrew Meyer, 21, away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.

“He apparently asked several questions — he went on for quite awhile — then he was asked to stop,” university spokesman Steve Orlando said. “He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset.”

As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., is heard to say, “That’s alright, let me answer his question.” Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles to escape for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room.

Meyer screams for help and asks “What did I do?” as he tries to break away from officers. He is forced to the ground and officers order him to stop resisting. Meyer says he will walk out if the officers let him go.

As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student’s “very important question,” Meyer struggles on the ground and yells at the officers to release him, crying out, “Don’t Tase me, bro,” just before he is Tasered. He is then led from the room, screaming, “What did I do?”

Must have been some questions!

Liberal use of Tasers on liberal arts students conjures flashback images of the police in Valve Software’s brilliant near-future PC adventure Half Life 2, wherein masked and black suited militia freely use stun batons on the oppressed citizenry.

It’s an odd coincidence that such behavior occurs in Jeb Bush’s former territory. Rigging election results was just an appetizer for an insidious creep toward greater martial control. Be forewarned.

The Washington Post notes a contradiction between General Patreus’ testimony and actions taken by his commanders in New Halliburton:

A week ago today, Gen. David H. Petraeus started his rounds on Capitol Hill, reporting that security in Iraq was improving to the point that a small number of troops could begin coming home by year’s end.

But 10 days ago, his commanders in Baghdad began advertising for private contractors to work in combat-supply warehouses on U.S. bases throughout Iraq because half the soldiers who had been working in the warehouses were needed for patrols, combat and protection of U.S. forces.

I see a precedence occurring here: Respond to the Cries of the American public, media and congressional pressure to lower troop levels by replacing them with Mercenaries.
That’s right! We’re not supposed to use that word; private security companies don’t like it - it gives them a bad image, or something…

But since the dictionary says:

mer·ce·nar·y /ˈmɜrsəˌnɛri/
–adjective
1. working or acting merely for money or other reward; venal.
2. hired to serve in a foreign army, guerrilla organization, etc.
–noun
3. a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.
4. any hireling.

I can only assume a corporation willing to work in a foreign nation as part of an outside army (albeit from the same nation, but NOT enlisted in that nation’s armed forces), willing to provide tactical and logistical assistance to a national military, can indeed be defined as a Corps of Mercenaries.

So while the quagmire continues and public support wanes, the Administration is orchestrating a bait-and-switch by replacing one set of soldiers for another. All they have to worry about is how to funnel the cost of their Shadow Army into the defense budget. Shouldn’t be too difficult.

Today’s Washington Post reports on the resurgence of Al-Qaida. They haven’t been sitting idle while We’ve been distracted by George Bush’s Excellent Iraqi Adventure. On the contrary; while the American Media has been obsessed with the scene in New Halliburton, our "friends" in Nuclear Pakistan have been harboring terrorists. Remember Bush’s tough talk about nation who would stoop so low?  How we wouldn’t tolerate that? Just another in the long list of little white lies emanating from the White House.

Dodging the U.S. military in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, al-Qaeda Central reconstituted itself across the Pakistani border, returning to the rugged tribal areas surrounding the organization’s birthplace, the dusty frontier city of Peshawar. In the first few years, Pakistani and U.S. authorities captured many senior leaders; in the past 18 months, no major figure has been killed or caught in Pakistan.

As for the War on Terrorism ™, we’ve had the same luck as we’ve had on the War on Drugs ™ or the War on Poverty ™; bad luck. In fact, I can’t remember American winning a war since Korea. We did win that one, right? It seems the days of America winning all of its wars is long past.

Today, al-Qaeda operates much the way it did before 2001. The network is governed by a shura, or leadership council, that meets regularly and reports to bin Laden, who continues to approve some major decisions, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. About 200 people belong to the core group and many receive regular salaries, another senior U.S. intelligence official said.

"They do appear to meet with a frequency that enables them to act as an organization and not just as a loose bunch of guys," the second official said.

We’ve been led to believe otherwise:

"Thanks to President Musharraf’s leadership, on the al-Qaeda front we’ve dismantled the chief operators," Bush said. Although bin Laden was still at large, his lieutenants were "no longer a threat to the United States or Pakistan," Bush added.

But then as Keith Olberman noted, the President has been "playing" us.

Six months later, Musharraf was nearly killed in an assassination attempt by al-Qaeda operatives. Shortly afterward, a group of al-Qaeda leaders held a summit of their own in the Pakistani region of Waziristan, where they plotted fresh attacks thousands of miles away in Britain, including targets in London and financial institutions in the United States, according to Pakistani officials.

Many U.S., Pakistani and European intelligence officials now agree that al-Qaeda’s ability to launch operations around the globe didn’t diminish after the invasion of Afghanistan as much as previously thought.

As American’s learned during the Cold War (did we win that one?), a government can get  away with anything once a "clear and present danger" can be seen to exist. As we’ve learned to our dismay during this presidency, the danger need not be real. Repeat after me: "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Very good.

Al-Qaida is a real threat. Perhaps that’s why we let Osama Bin Laden escape into the unruly hills of Pakistan, so our leaders can perpetuate the Cold War mentality among the American people so lucrative to what’s left of America’s industrial base, i.e. the Defense Industry.

So as long as the bullet makers need to sell bullets, America needs a bad guy - a bogeyman - to sell to its voters as a National Security threat. If enough people fear, not leeway is given lawmakers to erode freedom, promote questionable business practices abroad, and to invade sovereign nations. If the people fear enough, America can be morphed into a police state in the mane of Homeland Security. That is not the America the veterans of World War Two we’re dying for.

Let us not forget that the last nation that rallied its people "for the Fatherland," used the same tactics we see today. Zieg Heil!

That’s exactly what I asked myself as I clicked the link at Digg.com. The resulting Wall Street Journal article highlights the emerging netroots efforts surrounding the Republican dark horse Presidential candidate. Not having paid much attention to the Re-thug-lican party, I hadn’t heard of him.

Further along the page of hot Diggs is another mention of Ron Paul, this one from a blogger concerned about America’s emerging governance trend. Here I find an article by the man himself, snipped for rapid propagation. I’ll highlight what caught my fancy:

Our love for liberty above all has been so diminished that we tolerate intrusions into our privacy that would have been abhorred just a few years ago. We tolerate inconveniences and infringements upon our liberties in a manner that reflects poorly on our great national character of rugged individualism. American history, at least in part, is a history of people who don’t like being told what to do. Yet we are increasingly empowering the federal government and its agents to run our lives.

Terror, fear, and crises like 9-11 are used to achieve complacency and obedience, especially when citizens are deluded into believing they are still a free people. The loss of liberty, we are assured, will be minimal, short-lived, and necessary. Many citizens believe that once the war on terror is over, restrictions on their liberties will be reversed. But this war is undeclared and open-ended, with no precise enemy and no expressly stated final goal. Terrorism will never be eradicated completely; does this mean future presidents will assert extraordinary war powers indefinitely?

Is this man the John Galt of our era? Probably not. But he’s got my attention.