Saturday, June 24, 2006

Life: It's quality not quantity

"Who wants to live forever?" - Queen

The British philosopher, Queen, once asked the age old question, "Who wants to live forever?", and the answer, as it turns out, is a fellah from Fuquay-Varina named Larry. But after seeing "An Inconvenient Truth", even Larry is beginning to have his doubts.

It is not good to live forever, and do not attempt to try it at home, especially if you live in a trailer. Hell, look at Aaron Spelling! He has some pretty nice digs, and yet he died. Unless the whole thing was a media stunt cooked up by NASA or PETA in order to bring The Love Boat back. But fact is...the Love Boat IS back, and we are on it. It is the Peace Train we are not on. And this is troubling, at least to Cat Stevens. Dog Stevens, however, is ebullient, but he is one of the famous Dogs of War we read about on the backs of cereal boxes. There are no Dogs of Peace, only Cats of Peace...and they are napping.

So don't go and try to live forever. After a few centuries you will begin to smell.
Instead, be content to live NOW, which is, of course, a show created by Bill Moyers, who knows how to live in the brief time he has been given.

Until the Supreme Court reverses the decision, it is still Quality, not Quantity...so seek quality in the life you have. I have, and can report that I am well on my way to having one hundred dollars. American!

Life is good. Well, at least I can pretend it is. In reality it is no bowl of cherries; no walk in the park. Perhaps realizing this helps us to let go when loved ones do leave us. Until then...

Love everything that breathes.


Back to you, Dan.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Thursday, June 22, 2006

John Edwards, "The Real Deal", lays out his vision at National Press Club



My conscience and intuition tells me there are only two people who deserve to be at the top of the Democratic Ticket, and indeed, the United States of America. One of them is Al Gore, the other is John Edwards.

Here is one reason why Senator Edwards should be our leader. He is one of the ones we've been waiting for.

The Deadly Lies of the Bush Administration : The Smoking Guns

Dick Cheney: The Dark Side
"Darkening of the Light"

If you happened to miss this important documentary, there is still a chance.
FRONTLINE can be seen and discussed by following THIS LINK.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Living Systems (Paperback) - Now only 275.00!



Book Description
This book has some of the characteristics of an encyclopedia. It presents and analyzes many diverse facts about cells, organs, organisms, groups, organizations, societies, and supranational systems, but it integrates all this knowledge into a single conceptual system. The book is a presentation of the state of current knowledge in all of the sciences relevant to these seven levels of living systems. It also provides a theoretical integration and a methodological approach to quantitative basic research, and how applied research and development can arise from this.

LINK

"It is one of the most important books of the 20th century and, if attention is paid, will be an important guidebook to the 21st."

On Net Neutrality

Tell Congress to Support the Internet Neutrality Act of 2006

The Next Big Fight Over Media Ownership

Salon.com Exclusive: AT&T may be hiding a second NSA domestic spying operation in St. Louis

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

NYC


Central Park


2nd Avenue


The Dairy, Central Park


View from the Dairy

What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.

MORE

New York City


Park Avenue, NYC


Plaza Hotel, From Central Park


"Grow Life"


Anonymoses (detail)

Dick Cheney: The Dark Side : FRONTLINE tonight!

On September 11, 2001, deep inside a White House bunker, Vice President Dick Cheney was ordering U.S. fighter planes to shoot down any commercial airliner still in the air above America. At that moment, CIA Director George Tenet was meeting with his counter-terrorism team in Langley, Virginia. Both leaders acted fast, to prepare their country for a new kind of war. But soon a debate would grow over the goals of the war on terror, and the decision to go to war in Iraq. Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and others saw Iraq as an important part of a broader plan to remake the Middle East and project American power worldwide. Meanwhile Tenet, facing division in his own organization, saw non-state actors such as Al Qaeda as the highest priority. FRONTLINE's investigation of the ensuing conflict includes more than forty interviews, thousands of pages of documentary evidence, and a substantial photographic archive. It is the third documentary about the war on terror from the team that produced Rumsfeld's War and The Torture Question.
Tamara Beckwith








Detail from "Creation" by anonyMoses

Monday, June 19, 2006

POWWOWIRAQSI - War Music in the Age of George the Unready


Click to enlarge

PREMIERE: "Free Speech": Jim Lehrer with Ben Bradlee

Tonight at 10 PM on PBS!

The Death of News - Mark Crispin Miller

In short, our very lives and liberty are at unprecedented risk because our press has long since disappeared into "the media"--a mammoth antidemocratic oligopoly that is far more responsive to its owners, big shareholders and good buddies in the government than it is to the rest of us, the people of this country.

Donations by corporations shift from right to left

What if we only made left turns?

A number of large companies are shifting campaign contributions to Democrats, an indication that business leaders feel the minority party is poised to make gains in the November election today's issue of the WALL STREET JOURNAL reports...

Reynolds Price delights on Terry Gross' Fresh Air

Wonderful interview on Fresh Air with Reynolds Price...
(Another treasure you'll never hear on Rush Limbaugh)

Did Ford Motor Co. (not American voters) Pick Taylor Hicks?

Imagine this scenerio:

Ford Motor Company, a major sponsor of American Idol, "test drives" the American Idol contestants by creating commercials with Taylor, Katharine, Elliott, Chris, Kellie and so on.
(They actually did do this, but whether they were test-driving the candidates is questiionable.)

It comes down to two. Katharine and Taylor. But is Katharine really a Ford kinda person? Not really. She is Prius kinda person. Ford is tough. Not girly. They need Taylor to win, so he can become their new face...which he is indeed becoming.

But the votes are close. Too close. Better pressure the judges to talk down Katharine and talk up Taylor....which the judges actually do. Surely you remember the negative talk toward Katharine in the final days. "It wasn't my favorite."...and so on...

There was a clear bias against Katharine by the judges.

Did Ford have anything to do with this? Did the judges get pressure from Ford to make sure Taylor Hicks won, and thus become the new face of Ford? Were American votes thwarted, influenced, thrown out? (It would be nothing new.)

This is my question.

In those final days of the show, I sensed that there was something untoward going on. I think, frankly, it was one of the sources of anxiety on the part of the judges. At the time, I couldn't figure who may have been the source of bias, but now that the outcome is playing out, and Taylor has become the new face of Ford...the source emerges.

This is just a hunch. I have no proof. But there is plenty of precedent...with Bush 2000, Bush 2004, Salt Lake City Olympics...

I never called in a vote, but it may even be the case that these calls had a cost. Either way, the American People would be quite cross, I think, if it turned out that Ford's vote had more weight than theirs.

Any insider dope on this matter?

Sunday, June 18, 2006

What Would The Antichrist Do?

Beatitudes of the Antichrist

Blessed are the arrogant: for theirs is the Kingdom of Selfishness.
Blessed are the strong, for they will dominate the earth.
Blessed are they who cause mourning: for they shall spread discomfort.
Blessed are they who thwart justice: for they shall get away with it.
Blessed are the merciless: for they shall obtain money.
Blessed are the mean: for they shall ignore God.
Blessed are the warmakers: for they shall be called the children of Satan.
Blessed are they that persecute for injustice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Hell.


What would the Antichrist do?
He would start wars, kill people, be haughty and arrogant, ignore the poor, send the poor and downtrodden off to die in his war for Mammon and self-aggrandizement.
He would lie, cheat and steal to get his way.
He would pollute and denigrate the environment, and the people who depend on it.
He would bury the truth, and spin, spin, spin.
He would not walk among but poor, but rather wall himself away from them.

Washington is full of candidates for the position of Antichrist-in-Chief,
and many are willing lackeys for sub-positions.

Too bad God is dead, because he or she would have had a field day throwing these mousy little antichrists out on their ass.

And yet there they sit. Asses as wide as Texas.

Don't bring our killing machines home

Maybe the Republicans are on to something...
Maybe we SHOULD leave our killing machines...over there!
The homeland is violent enough, and growing more violent.
Do we need more killing machines?

Make them stay in Iraq. Forever!
Hell, they volunteered!
Send ALL warmongers there too.
Maybe then America will witness peace.

Don't bring our killing machines home.
We have enough already.

Now you claim I am using reverse psychology?
Does it make you uncomfortable
to hit you from the Right?
When you are the one who really wants them gone...

Bring our children home.
We have broken them enough already.
And they grow tired of being pawns.