Sometimes the best intelligence information available is when someone who likes and respects you picks up a phone and calls in a tip. Often it is because they hate someone else more than they hate you.
Not even the free, the proud and the exceptional in DC can be this stupid, can they?
DAN CHAPMAN, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION (MCT) POSTED: Friday, October 25, 2013, 10:15 PM
Coming soon maybe to a grocery store near you - chicken from China.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture ruled recently that poultry processed in China can now be sold in the United States. But first the birds must be born and raised in the U.S., Canada or Chile. Then they're exported to China before being shipped back to the Americas.
Food safety experts worry about the quality of chicken processed in a country notorious for avian influenza and food-borne illnesses. And they predict that China will eventually seek to broaden the export rules to allow chickens born and raised in China.
"I've never been to China, but my impression is it's very polluted and the food isn't always safe," said Annie Hall, shopping recently at a Kroger's in Atlanta. "We've got chicken farming and processing plants right up the road on I-85. We have enough here already. It doesn't make sense to ship chickens all over the world."
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/consumer_news/Ruling_opens_door_to_US_sales_of_chicken_from_China.html#O6kP6xGTIvVOiD7X.99
"Cheat" what an antiquated concept when dealing with Nations.
Requires that all sides agree to a "Standard" set of Rules...
Tokyo: Aiming to collect information on China, the National security Agency asked the Japan government in 2011 to felicitate the monitoring of fibre-optic cables carrying personal phone calls and email data across the Asia-Pacific region, reported the Kyodo news agency.
The request was rejected by Japan but the experts say that the US had its eye on China as most of the cables connecting China to other parts in Asia Pacific region cross through Japan, added the report.
After France, Germany and Spain, Japan is the latest country in the fray after a set of exposes were leaked against the US government spying on other nations.
Earlier today, even the Spanish media reported that the US spied on over 60 million calls in the country in one month time.
When the US ignores the Standard, garners an "unfair" advantage it is never referred to as "cheating". If any other player attempts the same, they are "cheating".
The greatest "cheat" in the game, the US manipulation of the Global money supply.
Iv’e been to China, tasted the air, seen some of the most interesting colors of pond and river water and observed experienced Japanese business travelers at the airport bringing in their own food in coolers to sustain themselves while in China.
Food safety experts worry about the quality of chicken processed in a country notorious for avian influenza and food-borne illnesses. And they predict that China will eventually seek to broaden the export rules to allow chickens born and raised in China.
I don't have an article to post about this but DOZENS of importers of European food products have told me (directly) that under the Obama administration, importing food from Europe, now takes 2 times as long to get thru customs.
Of course, under the previous administrations food was not considered part of the terrorist threat, but ...
In the "Real" world biological attacks upon the US, delivered through imported food stuffs, delivered to "Soft" targets, is much more a "Real" threat to the safety and security of the American people than an EMP attack on US fueled by paranoid fears of mischievous Persians.
Customs inspections, an integral part of Homeland Defense.
Importation of European goods is a on purpose slow down of traditional sources. If you are importing foods from africa, the arab world or even south america?
just as fast as normal.
The risk of an emp is real, it's just not an issue for an illiterate fool who lives on 350 acres he stole from others....
I am sure if an emp ever occurs the people that lived within 10 miles of your reach would be dead by your hand. Their food, medicine and property would be looted by you, since you only live for yourself.
The terrorists that attacked the United States did not stage out of Africa or the Middle East.
The terrorist used Europe as the staging area for their attacks, precisely because of the easy access to the US from Europe.
The Hamburg cell (German: Hamburger Zelle) or Hamburg terror cell (German: Hamburger Terrorzelle) was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany that included students who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks. Important members included Mohamed Atta, who led the four hijacking teams in 2001 and piloted American Airlines Flight 11; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who conspired with the other three members but was unable to enter the United States; and Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted United Airlines Flight 175. Less important members included Said Bahaji, Zakariya Essabar, Mounir el-Motassadeq, and Abdelghani Mzoudi. Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines Flight 93, and failed to hit an unknown target in Washington D.C. is also listed in the Hamburg cell.
When Colonal Q, of Libya, launched his terrorist campaign on the US, it staged out of Europe, rather than Africa or the Middle East.
The Israeli ignores history to advocate for loose security from the continent that most endangers US, rather than to access the threat levels realistically and take steps to ensure the safety of the US, from the "Real" threats that the US is exposed to.
Th Islamification of Europe and the subsequent threat to the US created by that demographic shift, ignored by the Israeli.
They should be putting rubber throw away gloves in each package and instructions to cook the hell out of it. And have some Cipro around the house. I do.
Give that sucker about a fifteen minute microwave before putting it in the oven at 550* for three hours. Won't be much left but it won't kill ya either.
Out on the farm they'd just grab one of the chickens twist its neck, slaughter it, and cook. Sometimes they'd whack the head off with a large knife - it's true they will run around a bit headless. Odd thing to see.
Israel sticks to it's obligations and releases the names of 26 additional convicted palestinian murderers set to be released in the 2nd round of releases. To which Abbas? now is traveling the world trying increasing the boycott of Israel by nations.
To top this off?
Rockets fired by Hamas into Israel, aimed at civilians were shot to show Hamas's displeasure at the Fatah (PA) getting results at talks with Israel.
Maybe Israel should take the 5 murderers, set to be released by Israel and shoot them into Gaza?
NIPTON, Calif.—Once we passed Whiskey Pete's, a tawdry castle-turned-casino/hotel where rooms go for $36 a night, I got my first glimpse of Ivanpah, the world's largest solar project, which cost $2.6 billion to build. The contrast between the two structures near the California-Nevada border some 50 miles south of Las Vegas was stunning.
Ivanpah, a solar-thermal system jointly owned by Google, BrightSource Energy, and NRG, uses more than 300,000 mirrors (technically called heliostats) to concentrate the sun's energy. The futuristic project will begin generating electricity by year's end for 140,000 California homes.
The day I visited was overcast, which raises the obvious question: How can Ivanpah work without sunlight?
"Because there are more mirrors at any given point of time than is needed, it compensates for weather conditions to ensure you're getting enough reflected sunshine," said Joe Desmond, senior vice president of marketing and government affairs at BrightSource, who gave me the tour. "By and large, this has some of the best sun anywhere on the planet," Desmond added quickly, referring to the Ivanpah dry lake, the Mojave Desert basin where the project is located.
Although the closest large city to Ivanpah is Vegas, the installation is situated in California and embodies the Golden State's ambitious energy and change-climate agenda.
"People are surprised they don't know that we're building the largest solar facility in the world in our country right now," said David Hayes, former deputy Interior secretary, who helped permit the 3,500 acres of public lands the project takes up.
Back in the 70's on the farm, I used some of my workman's comp award to buy a shitload of mirror tiles to build my very own Heliostat. Don't know WTF I thought I would do with this concentrated sunshine, nor how some mechanic-farmer dude w/no electricity would BUILD a functional device, but that's what I did.
...and I wasn't smoking dope or taking drugs. (other than the Ruffie Alternative Energy Obsession Rufioid)
How the fuck would I generate electricity? Heat Water? I did that with black polyethylene tubing in a glass covered black box, complemented by a galvanized pipe loop in our woodstove, and a campfire under our cast iron tub in the sideyard.
Maybe it was transient brain trauma that was the source of my super-mini Workmen's Comp Bonanza.
"vanpah is a prototype of how companies use a mix of government policies to make a business plan work for an innovative but not yet fully scaled technology. In April 2011, Ivanpah won a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Energy Department, the largest amount awarded under the stimulus-funded program. Once the project begins generating electricity, it will begin to pay back that loan. Enter another government policy: the 30 percent investment tax credit for solar systems. "Almost all of that [tax credit] will be used to pay the loan down immediately," Desmond said.
While it might seem counterintuitive that a company would pay back the government with federal money, Desmond says that's how the Energy Department designed it.
"One of the things DOE negotiated on behalf of the taxpayers is that when the tax credit becomes available that it be used to immediately pay back the balance to the benefit of the taxpayers," Desmond said."
"Brighter days seem to be on the horizon. EIA predicts that over the next 30 years, even without a significant boost in government promotion of renewable energy, production will increase by 150 percent. Solar power specifically is expected to go up by more than 1,000 percent.
By 2040, EIA estimates, renewable energy, led by wind and solar, will comprise one-fifth of total U.S. electricity. While it still accounts for a distinctly minority share of power generation after coal and natural gas, renewable energy's relative projected growth is significant."
Meanwhile, Fracking on Federal lands could far exceed that in two years if The Man would allow it.
Nuclear Fusion, that reactor is a reliable as any on Earth.
If it becomes unreliable, if it were to fail, all life on Planet Earth would end, regardless of the number of coal fired electrical generating plants available. If the fusion reactor fails, so does all life on Earth.
The sun never sets, it shines somewhere on the planet, every minute of every day.
The only people that would think nuclear fusion is an unreliable source of energy, Luddites.
That is just another reason to embrace the fusion reactor and abandon fission. Fission is just to dangerous to humans. To hard to control for a millennium.
Not so our fusion reactor. It has a proven track record of safety, going back tens of thousands of years.
Cows do not have homes. They are a grazing range animal, that do not require or have homes.
Cows cannot "own" real property. They have no conscience knowledge of proprietary "rights".
allen uses an expression design to obscure reality, misdirect attention and advance an agenda of "Equal Rights" for bovine that is directly out of the PETA handbook for animal rights revolutionaries.
By projecting "Human" wants and desires upon the cattle, allen attempts to elevate their status on the evolutionary ladder. Creating an image of Elsie the Cow, as a life form equal in stature to humans.
Maybe allen does not realize the vernacular choice he made is designed to both devalue human life and elevate domesticated animals to the status of man.
Advancing the concepts promoted at the Animal Planet Temple, he is.
Elsie has some value. She produces milk. All anon-rat produces is shit. Elsie is further up the evolutionary ladder than anon-rat. And she doesn't make death threats, curse, whine, follow one around, nor lie.
An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are - ... Consequently, say the signatories, the scientific evidence is increasingly indicating that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.
The group consists of cognitive scientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists, and computational neuroscientists -- all of whom were attending the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and Non-Human Animals. The declaration was signed in the presence of Stephen Hawking, and included such signatories as Christof Koch, David Edelman, Edward Boyden, Philip Low, Irene Pepperberg, and many more.
Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation Gary L. Francione
Animals as Things: Neither Use Nor Treatment Raises a Moral Issue
Until the nineteenth century, the Western view was, with few exceptions, that nonhumans were completely outside the moral and legal community, and that neither our use nor our treatment of them raised any moral or legal concern. We could use them for whatever purpose we wanted, and we could inflict pain and suffering on them pursuant to those uses without violating any obligations that we owed to them. That is, nonhumans were regarded as things that were indistinguishable from inanimate objects and toward which we thus could have no moral or legal obligations. Although we might have a legal obligation that concerned animals—such as an obligation not to injure our neighbor’s cow—this was an obligation that we owed to our neighbor not to damage her property but not an obligation that we owed to the cow. To the limited extent that the cruel treatment of animals was thought to raise a moral issue, it was only because of a concern that humans who abused animals were more likely to ill treat other humans. Again, the obligation concerned animals but was owed to other humans and did not recognize that nonhuman animals had any moral significance.
The first is what we might regard as “spiritual” inferiority. Western civilization has long entertained the notion that humans (or at least some of them) are created in the image of God and have greater value—with some people referring to souls—that justifies excluding animals from the moral community altogether. The creation story in the book of Genesis talks about God giving “dominion” to humans, a notion interpreted to mean that God authorized the domination of nonhumans by humans. Indeed, the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), who was central to the development of the modern theory of private property, based the exclusive ownership of property on the supposedly absolute control that God gave us over animals, as described in Genesis.
The second form of inferiority is what we might consider “natural” inferiority, based on the purported lack in nonhumans of some special mental characteristic regarded as uniquely human. According to this view, although animals are similar to us in that they are sentient or consciously aware, their minds are otherwise different from ours. That is, they lack cognitive characteristics possessed by all or most humans, such as rationality, abstract thought, language ability, reflective self-awareness, or the ability to engage in reciprocal moral relations. This qualitative difference between humans and animals, it was claimed, allowed us to ignore animal interests and to treat animals as things. For example, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) recognized that animals were sentient and could suffer but denied that we had any direct moral obligations to animals because they were neither rational nor self-aware. Kant maintained that our treatment of animals was morally relevant only to the extent that it made us more likely to treat other humans in the same callous way.
The central theme of my 1995 book, Animals, Property, and the Law, is that because animals are property—they are commodities with only extrinsic or conditional value—the level of “humane” treatment required under animal welfare laws will, for the most part, be limited to what is required to exploit animals in an efficient manner. We generally protect animal interests only to the extent that we also derive an economic benefit from doing so. For example, we may require that a cow be stunned so that she is unconscious during slaughter, but stunning also reduces damage to the carcass and injuries to workers from a large, moving animal. Although cows have many other interests at various stages of their life and at the time of their death, we do not protect these other interests because we do not derive an economic benefit from doing so. The “suffering” of producers who make less profit, or of consumers who have to pay more for animal products, generally outweighs the suffering of the animals, who almost always lose the supposed balance of interests.
The result is that even the most “humane” nations treat animals who are used for food in ways that would be considered torture if humans were so treated. The same analysis applies to our other animal uses.
In certain respects, the regulation of animal exploitation is similar to the regulation of human slavery in North America. Although many laws supposedly required the “humane” treatment of slaves and prohibited the infliction of “unnecessary” punishment, these laws offered almost no protection for slaves. In conflicts between slave owners and slaves, the latter almost always lost. Slave welfare laws, like animal welfare laws, generally required that slave owners merely act as rational property owners but did not recognize the inherent value of the slaves. Slave owners were, of course, free to treat their slaves, or particular slaves, better. But as far as the law was concerned, slaves were merely economic commodities with only extrinsic or conditional value, and slave owners were essentially free to value their slaves’ interests as they chose, just as we are free to value the interests of our dogs and cats and treat them as members of our families or abandon them at a shelter or have them killed because we no longer want them.
In sum, the animal welfare position, which is the common contemporary paradigm for thinking about our moral and legal obligations to animals, does not question our use per se of animals but focuses only on the treatment of animals we use.
Animal Rights: The Primary Problem is Use, Not Treatment
The animal rights position—as I have developed it in my Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? and in my other work—is that the principal problem is not how we use animals but that we use animals for human purposes at all.
We have no moral justification for using nonhumans, however “humanely” we treat them.
To the extent that we do use animals, it is, of course, always better to cause less pain than more pain. It is better that a rapist not torture the victim in addition to committing the rape.
But just as it is not morally acceptable to commit rape even if you do not torture the victim, it is not morally acceptable to use nonhumans as human resources despite how we treat them.
The answer is clear. There is no rational justification for our continuing to deny this one right to nonhumans, however “humanely” we treat them. We can, of course, fall back on religious superstition and claim that animal use is justified because animals do not have souls, are not created in God’s image, or are otherwise inferior spiritually. Alternatively, we can claim that our use of animals is acceptable because we are human and they are not, which is like saying we are white and they are black; we are men and they are women; we are straight and they are gay.
The animal rights position does not mean releasing our domesticated nonhumans to run wild in the street. If we took animals seriously and recognized our obligation not to treat them as things, then we would stop producing and facilitating the production of domestic animals altogether. We would care for the ones whom we have here now, but we would stop breeding more for human consumption. And with respect to nondomesticated nonhumans, we would simply leave them alone.
June 5, 2013 — We don't just share our lives with animals; we are animals -- a reality that we often choose to forget in modern Western culture. Research published in the June special issue of SAGE journal, Social Science Information (SSI), delves deeper into our relationship with other creatures, critically examining our own animal nature, and looking at how animals profoundly influence our culture -- perhaps more so than we had initially thought.
We have often been told in Western thought that the human species is one that is highly developed, above that of the animal kingdom, a division that is clear cut and one that clearly sets the human species apart. Yet Dominique Lestel, a highly influential researcher studying animality (our animal nature), opposes the separation of human and animal life. Lestel ask us to reframe the question of animality, asking us to view humanization as an ongoing performative practice, rather than an historical threshold that was crossed long ago.
Looking at the relationship between animal and human, Lestel argues that species loss has both an ecological and symbolic consequence on our culture, as every species contributes to our very being, our meaning. He warns that "each species that disappears is a part of our imagination that we amputate perhaps irreversibly."
According to Lestel, the question is "not that of knowing how I share my life with others, but how others shape me and how I shape others," The work focuses on the interrelatedness of all animals (humans included), where more usually we tend to highlight the boundaries between us.
In addition to humans' place in the animal kingdom at a scientific level, Lestel also highlights our essential, existential animality in his opening comments with fellow editor, Hollis Taylor. "A key question now is to know how the human of the 21st century can reactivate his animality and animalize himself anew when all Western thought since the Greeks tells him that he is human precisely because of this rupture with animality," Lestel suggests, building on his critique of the very philosophical foundations of the ethological tradition.
"To be human does not mean to have fled animality, but on the contrary to live within it and to let it live within us…we are animals and animals are us.
Chickens from China? No doubt part of some trade deal that will allow the US to ship in more auto parts or widgets. Who cares about food safety if there is a buck to be made?
When I was working in China, we would bring our own chopsticks. I have seen them, in a small restaurant in Pudong, take the used chopsticks and throw them in a dirty pail of water for reuse. We only drank bottled water there but at one of our JVs I was given a bottle of water, sealed, that had a piece of black something about a half inch round floating around in it.
Most of us must have given the impression of being drunks to the Chinese because every time we visited some rural area before we would eat anything that they served us we would coat our stomachs with plenty of hard liquor. One of my colleagues came back from a three week trip there and had a two and a half inch (forget what they called it) visibly crawling around his leg under the skin.
When anyone on our team got the least bit sick (other than with the runs which was ubiquitous) the standard practice was to fly them immediately to Hong Kong for treatment. The Huangpu river runs by the Bund in Shanghai. The pollution is so high the standing joke for any of the newcomers is don't fall in. They don't pull you out they just shoot you. Every time I went there, when I got home I was suffering from coughing problems that lasted for weeks.
I took my wife with me on one of my trips and we spend a few days in Beijing to do some sightseeing. One of the days the air was so polluted and filled with sand we couldn't leave the hotel.
That was years ago and I'm sure any tours there take care of their people but it's a tough place to visit on your own. However, based on experience, my wife now checks every container of food before buying it to make sure it doesn't come from the Far East. You would be surprised at what they sell in Dollar Stores.
I'm sure it is the chicken farmers who are behind this. Someone asked if we could trust the Chinese. I'm sure the chicken farmers are hoping to break into the Chinese market and that many of the chickens they send there won't make their way back.
Whackadoodle does go on and on and on, doesn't he. Like the Engergizer Bunnie Go home Whackadoodle, no one likes you! Go any where else, Whackadoodle, you are alone, all alone in a world of Anonymous authors!
IAF strikes underground rocket launchers in Gaza following rocket attacks on Israel http://www.jpost.com/Defense/IAF-strikes-underground-rocket-launchers-in-Gaza-following-rocket-attacks-on-Israel-329913
Charlie from Chicago was one of the old guys, 33 or something. Foul mouthed, chain smoking, smart and disrespectful, one of the best scope dopes in the business and a genius in the use of irony.
Let us see if the Palestinians register a formal complaint with the UN over this draconian ghettoization of a peace loving people. My money goes to "no": they will not. They complain only when Israel attempts to keep the contagion isolated.
At some point, one hopes the Egyptians reclaim the nest of vipers, force law and order, and excise this cancer from the ME.
Benghazi witnesses grilled in secret on Capitol Hill
The Justice Department had asked GOP Rep. Darrell Issa not to interview the two security agents, saying it could jeopardize prosecution of the terrorists who attacked the U.S. mission in Libya in 2012.
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Benghazi, Libya Libyan troops after a terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year. (Mohammad Hannon / Associated Press / September 14, 2012) Related photos » By Richard A. Serrano October 28, 2013, 5:00 a.m. WASHINGTON — Two of the Justice Department's key witnesses in last year's terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, were summoned to Capitol Hill this month and grilled for hours in separate legal depositions.
Responding to congressional subpoenas, the State Department security agents were asked how the Libyan terrorists stormed the mission and set parts of it on fire, how they were armed and how they killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, sources with knowledge of the matter said. The agents also were asked about security breakdowns and whether the administration reacted appropriately to the Sept. 11, 2012, assault.
How those highly guarded and secret interviews came about was part of an increasingly bitter dispute between two branches of the federal government.
Prosecutors are under intense pressure to arrest and convict the terrorists, while the Republican-led House is determined to find who is responsible for any lapse in security that night, and whether the administration misled the public when officials initially said the attack stemmed from a protest.
PHOTOS: 2013's memorable political moments
Weeks before the interviews, top Justice Department officials repeatedly warned Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) against doing so, saying it would seriously jeopardize any criminal prosecution of the terrorists. They wrote three times to the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, strongly urging him not to insist on interviewing the agents.
The interviews have not been released. But the Justice Department expressed concern that Issa might reveal some details from the interviews, or that defense lawyers could subpoena them if suspects are apprehended, according to the sources, who did not have permission to speak publicly, citing the ongoing investigation. At least one person has been named in a sealed indictment in the Benghazi attacks.
The interviews "would prematurely alert individuals who may be charged about details of the government's case against them," and would give defense lawyers a golden opportunity to review the depositions and impeach the agents if they testified as prosecution witnesses, the Justice Department warned in one of the letters, according to sources.
"For over a year, department prosecutors and FBI agents have been investigating the attack and preparing for prosecution," top Justice Department officials told Issa on Sept. 23, in the first of their letters. "They have made substantial progress despite the difficulties in obtaining evidence, locating witnesses, and other issues.… We believe that a successful prosecution here is vital to protecting our national security interests."
Issa, mounting his own congressional investigation, learned the agents' names in May, and in September began pushing for access to them. The agents are Alec Henderson, who was stationed in Benghazi, and John Martinec, then based in Tripoli.
The California congressman complained that the administration was not interested in the full story of what happened in Benghazi, and that an internal State Department review was "not fully independent." He is unhappy that four State Department officials, initially placed on paid leave, were reinstated.
Issa initially gave the Justice Department until Sept. 24 to comply with his request or, he said, he would issue subpoenas. But on Sept. 18, six days before that deadline, he announced he had just signed and issued subpoenas for Henderson and Martinec.
"We finally have reached the end of our rope," Issa said at a congressional hearing as he announced his decision.
Earlier he had also demanded access to a third agent, David Ubben, who was seriously injured in the Benghazi attack. But Issa did not subpoena him.
The powerful Republican House chairman learned the identities of the three agents from Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, who testified before the committee.
Hicks revealed that "Martinec ran into my villa [in Tripoli] yelling, 'Greg, Greg, the consulate's under attack.'" He said Martinec had been in phone contact with Henderson in Benghazi, and that Henderson told Martinec "the consulate had been breached and there were at least 20 hostile individuals armed in the compound."
Hicks described Martinec as providing "a mountain of moral support, particularly to the guys who were in Benghazi."
Hicks said Ubben was hit by mortar fire on an annex roof. "I knew David was severely wounded," Hicks said. "Doctors saved David Ubben's leg and they may very well have saved his life."
The dispute over the agents erupted Sept. 10 when Issa wrote to Secretary of State John F. Kerry seeking to specifically interview Ubben and later talk to other witnesses. "Their testimony is key in order to understand what took place in Benghazi," Issa wrote.
Peter J. Kadzik, principal deputy assistant attorney general, responded three days later, asking Issa not to insist on the interviews. He said there were past incidents where defense attorneys used outside depositions to "exploit alleged discrepancies in witness statements." He added, "The risk of inadvertent inconsistencies among multiple statements of witnesses is almost unavoidable," and later warned that the interviews could harm the agents' safety, as well as that of "other potential witnesses."
Issa was unmoved. On Oct. 8, Henderson was interviewed for eight hours. Martinec went next, for five hours on Oct. 10. No prosecutors or FBI agents were allowed inside. But the witnesses were accompanied by their attorneys. Democratic staff on the committee also was permitted to sit in.
Explaining why he went forward, Issa said at the earlier hearing: "We want to make certain that our government learns the proper lessons from this tragedy so it never happens again, and so that the right people are held accountable."
Quirk, if you are too proud to go on Food Stamps, and The Dollar Store is too high end for your budget, the wife and I can send you some lentils and black winter peas and soft white wheat for noodles each month.
If the daughter's new horse should up and die like the last one, we can send some horse meat, too.
Thinking of Alaska, I was speaking to my lawyer's secretary the other day. She is from up that way and the subject of the frozen toe arose. There is a tavern up there way way north that has a frost bitten toe in formaldehyde in a jar and one can win a T-Shirt with toe logo if one puts the toe in one's drink and drinks the drink. She said though one's lips must touch the toe, which was news to me, and if you should shallow the toe you must give up one of your own toes as a replacement. This place is in the Yukon, she said, and not Alaska.
I recall when Quirk, Hamdoon and I were drinking there one frozen midnight, and Q was trying to impress an Eskimo girl. She wasn't impressed when Q swallowed the toe, saying if you think I kissing you you're crazy.
She was even less impressed when Quirk tried to flee to avoid the amputation of one of his toes. They had to tie him down. She said what the hell it's only a toe, and walking out on him said my old boy friend is missing an entire foot.
And that is how Quirk came to have a missing big toe on his left foot, and explains why he wobbles a little sometimes when he walks.
Watch out, you might get what you're after Cool babies, strange but not a stranger I'm an ordinary guy Burning down the house Hold tight, wait 'till the party's over Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather There has got to be a way Burning down the house Here's your ticket, pack your bags, time for jumpin' overboard Transportation is here Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are Fightin' fire with fire All wet, hey you might need a raincoat Shakedown, dreams walking in broad daylight Three hundred sixty five degrees Burning down the house It was once upon a place, sometimes I listen to myself Gonna come in first place People on their way to work said, "Baby what did you except?" Gonna burst into flame, go ahead
Burning down the house My house is out of the ordinary That's right, don't want to hurt nobody Some things sure can sweep me off my feet Burning down the house No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin' yet Everything's stuck together I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set Fighting fire with fire
Jack would burn the house down, but that's no reason to consider him anti-Semitic; because he really likes the occupants, but politics ain't beanbag.
Jack Straw to ‘Post’: ‘I am not remotely anti-Semitic’ http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Jack-Straw-to-Post-I-am-not-remotely-anti-Semitic-330008
Watch out, you might get what you're after Cool babies, strange but not a stranger I'm an ordinary guy Burning down the house Hold tight, wait 'till the party's over Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather There has got to be a way Burning down the house Here's your ticket, pack your bags, time for jumpin' overboard Transportation is here Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are Fightin' fire with fire All wet, hey you might need a raincoat Shakedown, dreams walking in broad daylight Three hundred sixty five degrees Burning down the house It was once upon a place, sometimes I listen to myself Gonna come in first place People on their way to work said, "Baby what did you except?" Gonna burst into flame, go ahead
Burning down the house My house is out of the ordinary That's right, don't want to hurt nobody Some things sure can sweep me off my feet Burning down the house No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin' yet Everything's stuck together I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set Fighting fire with fire
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-on-one I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on Running on-running on empty Running on-running blind Running on-running into the sun But I'm running behind Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own I don't know when that road turned into the road I'm on Running on-running on empty Running on-running blind Running on-running into the sun But I'm running behind Everyone I know, everywhere I go People need some reason to believe I don't know about anyone but me If it takes all night, that'll be all right If I can get you to smile before I leave Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through Looking into their eyes I see them running too Running on-running on empty Running on-running blind Running on-running into the sun But I'm running behind Honey you really tempt me You know the way you look so kind I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find Running into the sun but I'm running behind Transcribed by Derrick Brashear Trouble From Lindsay Buckingham's Law and Order album I really should be saying goodnight, little girl, I really shouldn't stay any more. It's been so long since I felt this way, I've forgotten what love is for. I should run on the double... I think I'm in trouble, I think I'm in trouble. So come to me darlin', hold me tight, Let your honey keep you warm. It's been so long since anyone touched me, I've forgotten what love is for. I should run on the double... I think I'm in trouble, I think I'm in trouble.
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-o-one I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on
Running on - running on empty Running on - running blind Running on - running into the sun But I'm running behind
Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own I don't know when that road turned onto the road I'm on
Running on - running on empty Running on - running blind Running on - running into the sun But I'm running behind
Everyone I know, everywhere I go People need some reason to believe I don't know about anyone but me If it takes all night, that'll be all right If I can get you to smile before I leave
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through Looking into their eyes I see them running too
Running on - running on empty Running on - running blind Running on - running into the sun But I'm running behind
Honey you really tempt me You know the way you look so kind I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find Running into the sun but I'm running behind
Jsck started calling himself 'Jack' early on,, taking the name "Jack" after the 14th century peasant leader Jack Straw.
Quirk, whose first name is Jack, started calling himself Quirk after the 12th Century Kin'gs Fool and Adviser "Jack" Quirk. This fellow had been hanging out in Sherwood Forest, robbing passersbys,and finally got caught, and it was work for the King or the noose. Sir Quirk was given this option as the King thought him witty when he proclaimed all he had been doing was arboreal research and feeding squirrels in Sherwood Forest Our Quirk had once been arrested for panhandling and begging food in a heavily treed park, so figured the name fit and has been Quirk ever since. And that is how Quirk came to be called Quirk.
From the podium, will you admit that when president said, if you have a plan, you'll get to keep it, that that was not true?"
After some throat clearing, Carney said, "So it's true there are existing health care plans on the individual market that do not meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act."
That, even if true is inconsequential, when compare to the DEATH of 600,000 Americans and the hundred years of Jim Crow that followed, all because Abe Lincoln was an inept politician from Illinois. Illinois does seem to produce a lot of inept politicians that become President, at least a couple.
Regardless ObamaCare is less than a literary dispute, it is nothing when compared to the slaughter of over 600,000 and the wind riffled graves that now hold the bodies.
Embraced tightly by the earth, deep within her grasp, where no mere riffling wind will dislodge them. Illinois does produce a lot of those! Illinois
Fudd writes, time and again of his disrespect of human life.
He belittles those that paid the ultimate price to save the Union. He belittle those that fought for independence from the Federal government. He belittle the value of life, by supporting Murder on Demand.
He tells us that murdering babies empowers women.
The riffling wind has whittled his brain, right down to the stem.
“Occupation, curfew, settlements, closed military zone, administrative detention, siege, preventive strike, terrorist infrastructure, transfer. Their WAR destroys language. Speaks genocide with the words of a quiet technician.
Occupation means that you cannot trust the OPEN SKY, or any open street near to the gates of snipers tower. It means that you cannot trust the future or have faith that the past will always be there.
Occupation means you live out your live under military rule, and the constant threat of death, a quick death from a snipers bullet or a rocket attack from an M16.
A crushing, suffocating death, a slow bleeding death in an ambulance stopped for hours at a checkpoint. A dark death, at a torture table in an Israeli prison: just a random arbitrary death.
A cold calculated death: from a curable disease. A thousand small deaths while you watch your family dying around you.
Occupation means that every day you die, and the world watches in silence. As if your death was nothing, as if you were a stone falling in the earth, water falling over water.
And if you face all of this death and indifference and keep your humanity, and your love and your dignity and YOU refuse to surrender to their terror, then you know something of the courage that is Palestine.”
“I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing?
We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right.
I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right … to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there.
History moves on and you can’t really turn it back”
Maternal DNA Richards and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is contained in the cytoplasm of the egg and passed down only from the mother, from more than 3,500 people throughout the Near East, the Caucusus and Europe, including Ashkenazi Jews.
The team found that four founders were responsible for 40 percent of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA, and that all of these founders originated in Europe. The majority of the remaining people could be traced to other European lineages.
"...It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us-the lesson of the fearsome word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.” ___Arendt
Sometimes the best intelligence information available is when someone who likes and respects you picks up a phone and calls in a tip. Often it is because they hate someone else more than they hate you.
ReplyDeleteOne question:
ReplyDeleteWhat does Obama ever know and when does he ever know it?
The German Chancellor’s cell phone?
ReplyDeleteDid any of the assholes think to ask the question:
ReplyDeleteWhat if they find out?
You may think it is a great idea to cheat on your wife, but what if she finds out?
ReplyDeleteJust another day in the homeland amongst the exceptional.
ReplyDeleteNot even the free, the proud and the exceptional in DC can be this stupid, can they?
ReplyDeleteDAN CHAPMAN, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION (MCT)
POSTED: Friday, October 25, 2013, 10:15 PM
Coming soon maybe to a grocery store near you - chicken from China.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture ruled recently that poultry processed in China can now be sold in the United States. But first the birds must be born and raised in the U.S., Canada or Chile. Then they're exported to China before being shipped back to the Americas.
Food safety experts worry about the quality of chicken processed in a country notorious for avian influenza and food-borne illnesses. And they predict that China will eventually seek to broaden the export rules to allow chickens born and raised in China.
"I've never been to China, but my impression is it's very polluted and the food isn't always safe," said Annie Hall, shopping recently at a Kroger's in Atlanta. "We've got chicken farming and processing plants right up the road on I-85. We have enough here already. It doesn't make sense to ship chickens all over the world."
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/consumer_news/Ruling_opens_door_to_US_sales_of_chicken_from_China.html#O6kP6xGTIvVOiD7X.99
...great...The Chinese won't cheat this time...
Delete"Cheat" what an antiquated concept when dealing with Nations.
DeleteRequires that all sides agree to a "Standard" set of Rules...
Tokyo: Aiming to collect information on China, the National security Agency asked the Japan government in 2011 to felicitate the monitoring of fibre-optic cables carrying personal phone calls and email data across the Asia-Pacific region, reported the Kyodo news agency.
The request was rejected by Japan but the experts say that the US had its eye on China as most of the cables connecting China to other parts in Asia Pacific region cross through Japan, added the report.
After France, Germany and Spain, Japan is the latest country in the fray after a set of exposes were leaked against the US government spying on other nations.
Earlier today, even the Spanish media reported that the US spied on over 60 million calls in the country in one month time.
When the US ignores the Standard, garners an "unfair" advantage it is never referred to as "cheating".
If any other player attempts the same, they are "cheating".
The greatest "cheat" in the game, the US manipulation of the Global money supply.
Iv’e been to China, tasted the air, seen some of the most interesting colors of pond and river water and observed experienced Japanese business travelers at the airport bringing in their own food in coolers to sustain themselves while in China.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteFood safety experts worry about the quality of chicken processed in a country notorious for avian influenza and food-borne illnesses. And they predict that China will eventually seek to broaden the export rules to allow chickens born and raised in China.
ReplyDeleteWhat could possibly go wromg?
I don't have an article to post about this but DOZENS of importers of European food products have told me (directly) that under the Obama administration, importing food from Europe, now takes 2 times as long to get thru customs.
DeleteOf course, under the previous administrations food was not considered part of the terrorist threat, but ...
DeleteIn the "Real" world biological attacks upon the US, delivered through imported food stuffs, delivered to "Soft" targets, is much more a "Real" threat to the safety and security of the American people than an EMP attack on US fueled by paranoid fears of mischievous Persians.
Customs inspections, an integral part of Homeland Defense.
Actually Alex, once again you are full of shit.
DeleteImportation of European goods is a on purpose slow down of traditional sources. If you are importing foods from africa, the arab world or even south america?
just as fast as normal.
The risk of an emp is real, it's just not an issue for an illiterate fool who lives on 350 acres he stole from others....
I am sure if an emp ever occurs the people that lived within 10 miles of your reach would be dead by your hand. Their food, medicine and property would be looted by you, since you only live for yourself.
The terrorists that attacked the United States did not stage out of Africa or the Middle East.
DeleteThe terrorist used Europe as the staging area for their attacks, precisely because of the easy access to the US from Europe.
The Hamburg cell (German: Hamburger Zelle) or Hamburg terror cell (German: Hamburger Terrorzelle) was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany that included students who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks. Important members included Mohamed Atta, who led the four hijacking teams in 2001 and piloted American Airlines Flight 11; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who conspired with the other three members but was unable to enter the United States; and Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted United Airlines Flight 175. Less important members included Said Bahaji, Zakariya Essabar, Mounir el-Motassadeq, and Abdelghani Mzoudi. Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines Flight 93, and failed to hit an unknown target in Washington D.C. is also listed in the Hamburg cell.
When Colonal Q, of Libya, launched his terrorist campaign on the US, it staged out of Europe, rather than Africa or the Middle East.
The Israeli ignores history to advocate for loose security from the continent that most endangers US, rather than to access the threat levels realistically and take steps to ensure the safety of the US, from the "Real" threats that the US is exposed to.
Th Islamification of Europe and the subsequent threat to the US created by that demographic shift, ignored by the Israeli.
Weren't you the asshole that wanted to declare himself KIng from the secure base when Hinckley shot the Boss, Smart Alec?
DeleteThey should be putting rubber throw away gloves in each package and instructions to cook the hell out of it. And have some Cipro around the house. I do.
ReplyDeleteGive that sucker about a fifteen minute microwave before putting it in the oven at 550* for three hours. Won't be much left but it won't kill ya either.
DeleteOut on the farm they'd just grab one of the chickens twist its neck, slaughter it, and cook. Sometimes they'd whack the head off with a large knife - it's true they will run around a bit headless. Odd thing to see.
DeleteLet's see any of us do that.
DeleteIn fact:
Who's first?
Remember that chemical pollution affair in the Chi-Com food chain?
DeleteMela something, wasn't it?
Israel sticks to it's obligations and releases the names of 26 additional convicted palestinian murderers set to be released in the 2nd round of releases. To which Abbas? now is traveling the world trying increasing the boycott of Israel by nations.
ReplyDeleteTo top this off?
Rockets fired by Hamas into Israel, aimed at civilians were shot to show Hamas's displeasure at the Fatah (PA) getting results at talks with Israel.
Maybe Israel should take the 5 murderers, set to be released by Israel and shoot them into Gaza?
clarification: 5 of the 26 palestinian murderers come from gaza....
DeleteThe real question? How many of these palestinian murderers are now actually going to spy for Israel?
DeleteThey will be welcomed home as heroes, after all they murdered Jews. What number are now spying for Israel?
Hopefully within 6 months many of them will be lynched by their fellow Palestinians for being collaborators.
Here ya go Rufus:
DeleteOn the outskirts of Vegas, the world’s largest solar project is ready to power up.
NIPTON, Calif.—Once we passed Whiskey Pete's, a tawdry castle-turned-casino/hotel where rooms go for $36 a night, I got my first glimpse of Ivanpah, the world's largest solar project, which cost $2.6 billion to build. The contrast between the two structures near the California-Nevada border some 50 miles south of Las Vegas was stunning.
Ivanpah, a solar-thermal system jointly owned by Google, BrightSource Energy, and NRG, uses more than 300,000 mirrors (technically called heliostats) to concentrate the sun's energy. The futuristic project will begin generating electricity by year's end for 140,000 California homes.
The day I visited was overcast, which raises the obvious question: How can Ivanpah work without sunlight?
"Because there are more mirrors at any given point of time than is needed, it compensates for weather conditions to ensure you're getting enough reflected sunshine," said Joe Desmond, senior vice president of marketing and government affairs at BrightSource, who gave me the tour. "By and large, this has some of the best sun anywhere on the planet," Desmond added quickly, referring to the Ivanpah dry lake, the Mojave Desert basin where the project is located.
Although the closest large city to Ivanpah is Vegas, the installation is situated in California and embodies the Golden State's ambitious energy and change-climate agenda.
"People are surprised they don't know that we're building the largest solar facility in the world in our country right now," said David Hayes, former deputy Interior secretary, who helped permit the 3,500 acres of public lands the project takes up.
Back in the 70's on the farm, I used some of my workman's comp award to buy a shitload of mirror tiles to build my very own Heliostat.
DeleteDon't know WTF I thought I would do with this concentrated sunshine, nor how some mechanic-farmer dude w/no electricity would BUILD a functional device, but that's what I did.
...and I wasn't smoking dope or taking drugs.
(other than the Ruffie Alternative Energy Obsession Rufioid)
How the fuck would I generate electricity?
Heat Water?
I did that with black polyethylene tubing in a glass covered black box, complemented by a galvanized pipe loop in our woodstove, and a campfire under our cast iron tub in the sideyard.
Maybe it was transient brain trauma that was the source of my super-mini Workmen's Comp Bonanza.
...or simple alternative energy mania.
At least I was on the cutting edge.
In my head.
The Mirror Tiles went unused when we sold the farm.
Delete"THE transient brain trauma"
Delete...I like to think it was transient, at least.
"vanpah is a prototype of how companies use a mix of government policies to make a business plan work for an innovative but not yet fully scaled technology. In April 2011, Ivanpah won a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Energy Department, the largest amount awarded under the stimulus-funded program. Once the project begins generating electricity, it will begin to pay back that loan. Enter another government policy: the 30 percent investment tax credit for solar systems. "Almost all of that [tax credit] will be used to pay the loan down immediately," Desmond said.
DeleteWhile it might seem counterintuitive that a company would pay back the government with federal money, Desmond says that's how the Energy Department designed it.
"One of the things DOE negotiated on behalf of the taxpayers is that when the tax credit becomes available that it be used to immediately pay back the balance to the benefit of the taxpayers," Desmond said."
---
Maybe it'll be another Solyndra.
Like Doug's non-starter.
Nuthin times nuthin is nuthin.
More realistically, I think:
DeleteI'm living on the income from The Kid's PV Solar Setup that I financed.
He paid me back the tax credit, and is paying off the rest via his non-existent electric bill.
Perhaps wiser nearing 70, but I'd much rather be 30 again.
"Brighter days seem to be on the horizon. EIA predicts that over the next 30 years, even without a significant boost in government promotion of renewable energy, production will increase by 150 percent. Solar power specifically is expected to go up by more than 1,000 percent.
DeleteBy 2040, EIA estimates, renewable energy, led by wind and solar, will comprise one-fifth of total U.S. electricity. While it still accounts for a distinctly minority share of power generation after coal and natural gas, renewable energy's relative projected growth is significant."
Meanwhile, Fracking on Federal lands could far exceed that in two years if The Man would allow it.
Think I benefited from an additional Hawaii Tax Credit "owed" to the kid.
DeleteIn a couple billion years you solar guys are going to learn the error of your way. We need reliable energy.
DeleteNuclear Fusion, that reactor is a reliable as any on Earth.
DeleteIf it becomes unreliable, if it were to fail, all life on Planet Earth would end, regardless of the number of coal fired electrical generating plants available. If the fusion reactor fails, so does all life on Earth.
The sun never sets, it shines somewhere on the planet, every minute of every day.
The only people that would think nuclear fusion is an unreliable source of energy, Luddites.
Fukushima Rat
DeleteLocal Fission Fail
That is just another reason to embrace the fusion reactor and abandon fission.
DeleteFission is just to dangerous to humans.
To hard to control for a millennium.
Not so our fusion reactor. It has a proven track record of safety, going back tens of thousands of years.
Good Ol Sol
DeleteBack on topic:
ReplyDeleteObama is all about transparency, he'll get to the bottom of this.
Israel's flag was removed from a swimming event in US ally Qatar but Israeli swimmer won two medals anyway.
ReplyDeleteSpitz
DeleteAll time bad hair guy.
CBS: Obama administration knew all along that Benghazi was terror attack (still waiting for an apology)
ReplyDeleteSebelius says Obamacare's Exchange site needed 6 YEARS of development instead of 2 (still waiting for an apology)
White House admits they were behind rumor GOP leader told Obama 'I cannot even stand to look at you' (still waiting for an apology).
Obamacare increases premiums in 42 states, when Obama sold it as a way to decrease costs (still waiting for an apology).
You will wait till the cows come home.
DeleteIf you like the cow that roamed,
Deleteyou can keep that cow.
Honest.
Cows do not have homes.
DeleteThey are a grazing range animal, that do not require or have homes.
Cows cannot "own" real property. They have no conscience knowledge of proprietary "rights".
allen uses an expression design to obscure reality, misdirect attention and advance an agenda of "Equal Rights" for bovine that is directly out of the PETA handbook for animal rights revolutionaries.
By projecting "Human" wants and desires upon the cattle, allen attempts to elevate their status on the evolutionary ladder. Creating an image of Elsie the Cow, as a life form equal in stature to humans.
Maybe allen does not realize the vernacular choice he made is designed to both devalue human life and elevate domesticated animals to the status of man.
Advancing the concepts promoted at the Animal Planet Temple, he is.
...Right... :-)
DeleteEvery Cow a Contented Cow
DeleteGive Change a Chance.
...and Hope
Elsie has some value. She produces milk. All anon-rat produces is shit. Elsie is further up the evolutionary ladder than anon-rat. And she doesn't make death threats, curse, whine, follow one around, nor lie.
DeleteFudd, what an ugly thing to say... does this mean we're not friends anymore?
DeleteYou know, Fudd, if I thought you weren't my friend, I just don't think I could bear it.
“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
DeleteBibi Apologizes ...
Deleteadmits that there were “operational mistakes”
Sometimes all you need is a simple 'sorry.'
Delete?
ReplyDelete:-o
DeleteAn international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are -
...
Consequently, say the signatories, the scientific evidence is increasingly indicating that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.
The group consists of cognitive scientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists, and computational neuroscientists -- all of whom were attending the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and Non-Human Animals. The declaration was signed in the presence of Stephen Hawking, and included such signatories as Christof Koch, David Edelman, Edward Boyden, Philip Low, Irene Pepperberg, and many more.
While you sort all that out, I'm going to have a hamburger and fries. Let me know if spuds are also sentient. :-)
DeleteAnimals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation
DeleteGary L. Francione
Animals as Things: Neither Use Nor Treatment Raises a Moral Issue
Until the nineteenth century, the Western view was, with few exceptions, that nonhumans were completely outside the moral and legal community, and that neither our use nor our treatment of them raised any moral or legal concern. We could use them for whatever purpose we wanted, and we could inflict pain and suffering on them pursuant to those uses without violating any obligations that we owed to them. That is, nonhumans were regarded as things that were indistinguishable from inanimate objects and toward which we thus could have no moral or legal obligations. Although we might have a legal obligation that concerned animals—such as an obligation not to injure our neighbor’s cow—this was an obligation that we owed to our neighbor not to damage her property but not an obligation that we owed to the cow. To the limited extent that the cruel treatment of animals was thought to raise a moral issue, it was only because of a concern that humans who abused animals were more likely to ill treat other humans. Again, the obligation concerned animals but was owed to other humans and did not recognize that nonhuman animals had any moral significance.
The first is what we might regard as “spiritual” inferiority. Western civilization has long entertained the notion that humans (or at least some of them) are created in the image of God and have greater value—with some people referring to souls—that justifies excluding animals from the moral community altogether. The creation story in the book of Genesis talks about God giving “dominion” to humans, a notion interpreted to mean that God authorized the domination of nonhumans by humans. Indeed, the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), who was central to the development of the modern theory of private property, based the exclusive ownership of property on the supposedly absolute control that God gave us over animals, as described in Genesis.
The second form of inferiority is what we might consider “natural” inferiority, based on the purported lack in nonhumans of some special mental characteristic regarded as uniquely human. According to this view, although animals are similar to us in that they are sentient or consciously aware, their minds are otherwise different from ours. That is, they lack cognitive characteristics possessed by all or most humans, such as rationality, abstract thought, language ability, reflective self-awareness, or the ability to engage in reciprocal moral relations. This qualitative difference between humans and animals, it was claimed, allowed us to ignore animal interests and to treat animals as things. For example, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) recognized that animals were sentient and could suffer but denied that we had any direct moral obligations to animals because they were neither rational nor self-aware. Kant maintained that our treatment of animals was morally relevant only to the extent that it made us more likely to treat other humans in the same callous way.
The central theme of my 1995 book, Animals, Property, and the Law, is that because animals are property—they are commodities with only extrinsic or conditional value—the level of “humane” treatment required under animal welfare laws will, for the most part, be limited to what is required to exploit animals in an efficient manner. We generally protect animal interests only to the extent that we also derive an economic benefit from doing so. For example, we may require that a cow be stunned so that she is unconscious during slaughter, but stunning also reduces damage to the carcass and injuries to workers from a large, moving animal. Although cows have many other interests at various stages of their life and at the time of their death, we do not protect these other interests because we do not derive an economic benefit from doing so. The “suffering” of producers who make less profit, or of consumers who have to pay more for animal products, generally outweighs the suffering of the animals, who almost always lose the supposed balance of interests.
DeleteThe result is that even the most “humane” nations treat animals who are used for food in ways that would be considered torture if humans were so treated. The same analysis applies to our other animal uses.
In certain respects, the regulation of animal exploitation is similar to the regulation of human slavery in North America. Although many laws supposedly required the “humane” treatment of slaves and prohibited the infliction of “unnecessary” punishment, these laws offered almost no protection for slaves. In conflicts between slave owners and slaves, the latter almost always lost. Slave welfare laws, like animal welfare laws, generally required that slave owners merely act as rational property owners but did not recognize the inherent value of the slaves. Slave owners were, of course, free to treat their slaves, or particular slaves, better. But as far as the law was concerned, slaves were merely economic commodities with only extrinsic or conditional value, and slave owners were essentially free to value their slaves’ interests as they chose, just as we are free to value the interests of our dogs and cats and treat them as members of our families or abandon them at a shelter or have them killed because we no longer want them.
DeleteIn sum, the animal welfare position, which is the common contemporary paradigm for thinking about our moral and legal obligations to animals, does not question our use per se of animals but focuses only on the treatment of animals we use.
Animal Rights: The Primary Problem is Use, Not Treatment
DeleteThe animal rights position—as I have developed it in my Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? and in my other work—is that the principal problem is not how we use animals but that we use animals for human purposes at all.
We have no moral justification for using nonhumans, however “humanely” we treat them.
To the extent that we do use animals, it is, of course, always better to cause less pain than more pain.
It is better that a rapist not torture the victim in addition to committing the rape.
But just as it is not morally acceptable to commit rape even if you do not torture the victim, it is not morally acceptable to use nonhumans as human resources despite how we treat them.
The answer is clear. There is no rational justification for our continuing to deny this one right to nonhumans, however “humanely” we treat them. We can, of course, fall back on religious superstition and claim that animal use is justified because animals do not have souls, are not created in God’s image, or are otherwise inferior spiritually. Alternatively, we can claim that our use of animals is acceptable because we are human and they are not, which is like saying we are white and they are black; we are men and they are women; we are straight and they are gay.
DeleteThe animal rights position does not mean releasing our domesticated nonhumans to run wild in the street. If we took animals seriously and recognized our obligation not to treat them as things, then we would stop producing and facilitating the production of domestic animals altogether. We would care for the ones whom we have here now, but we would stop breeding more for human consumption. And with respect to nondomesticated nonhumans, we would simply leave them alone.
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13950-2/animals-as-persons/excerpt
DeleteYou need to learn to respect human rights first, Whackadoodle, then you may begin to think about the animals.
DeleteIt was allen who wanted cows to have homes
DeleteNo one else Farmer Fudd!
It is qllen who demands cow have rights to homes and lands!
You have no ability to provide an authentication of anonymous authorship, unless ...
Anonymous is Whackadoodle, now we know!
"Earlier, Spanish newspaper El Mundo said the NSA recently tracked over 60 million calls in Spain in the space of a month..."
ReplyDeleteSpain summons U.S. ambassador over spying
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-nsa-spied-60-million-spanish-phone-calls-082941146.html
Mike Enzi ranks Fourth in Conservative Ratings in the House:
ReplyDeleteWhat is Liz Cheney's argument for why she needs to replace him?
She needs the job.
DeleteAlong with nearly 435 others.
Deletehttp://www.cnbc.com/id/101146803
ReplyDeleteAnother Obamacare glitch: Data center shuts down
Verizon!
If you like your Glitch, you can keep your Glitch.
DeleteTHREE FACEBOOK LIKES!
Delete...according to Saturday Nite Live.
Animals and Humans: A False Divide?
ReplyDeleteJune 5, 2013 — We don't just share our lives with animals; we are animals -- a reality that we often choose to forget in modern Western culture. Research published in the June special issue of SAGE journal, Social Science Information (SSI), delves deeper into our relationship with other creatures, critically examining our own animal nature, and looking at how animals profoundly influence our culture -- perhaps more so than we had initially thought.
We have often been told in Western thought that the human species is one that is highly developed, above that of the animal kingdom, a division that is clear cut and one that clearly sets the human species apart. Yet Dominique Lestel, a highly influential researcher studying animality (our animal nature), opposes the separation of human and animal life. Lestel ask us to reframe the question of animality, asking us to view humanization as an ongoing performative practice, rather than an historical threshold that was crossed long ago.
Looking at the relationship between animal and human, Lestel argues that species loss has both an ecological and symbolic consequence on our culture, as every species contributes to our very being, our meaning. He warns that "each species that disappears is a part of our imagination that we amputate perhaps irreversibly."
According to Lestel, the question is "not that of knowing how I share my life with others, but how others shape me and how I shape others," The work focuses on the interrelatedness of all animals (humans included), where more usually we tend to highlight the boundaries between us.
In addition to humans' place in the animal kingdom at a scientific level, Lestel also highlights our essential, existential animality in his opening comments with fellow editor, Hollis Taylor. "A key question now is to know how the human of the 21st century can reactivate his animality and animalize himself anew when all Western thought since the Greeks tells him that he is human precisely because of this rupture with animality," Lestel suggests, building on his critique of the very philosophical foundations of the ethological tradition.
"To be human does not mean to have fled animality, but on the contrary to live within it and to let it live within us…we are animals and animals are us.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130605133712.htm
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ReplyDeleteChickens from China? No doubt part of some trade deal that will allow the US to ship in more auto parts or widgets. Who cares about food safety if there is a buck to be made?
When I was working in China, we would bring our own chopsticks. I have seen them, in a small restaurant in Pudong, take the used chopsticks and throw them in a dirty pail of water for reuse. We only drank bottled water there but at one of our JVs I was given a bottle of water, sealed, that had a piece of black something about a half inch round floating around in it.
Most of us must have given the impression of being drunks to the Chinese because every time we visited some rural area before we would eat anything that they served us we would coat our stomachs with plenty of hard liquor. One of my colleagues came back from a three week trip there and had a two and a half inch (forget what they called it) visibly crawling around his leg under the skin.
When anyone on our team got the least bit sick (other than with the runs which was ubiquitous) the standard practice was to fly them immediately to Hong Kong for treatment. The Huangpu river runs by the Bund in Shanghai. The pollution is so high the standing joke for any of the newcomers is don't fall in. They don't pull you out they just shoot you. Every time I went there, when I got home I was suffering from coughing problems that lasted for weeks.
I took my wife with me on one of my trips and we spend a few days in Beijing to do some sightseeing. One of the days the air was so polluted and filled with sand we couldn't leave the hotel.
That was years ago and I'm sure any tours there take care of their people but it's a tough place to visit on your own. However, based on experience, my wife now checks every container of food before buying it to make sure it doesn't come from the Far East. You would be surprised at what they sell in Dollar Stores.
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.
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DeleteOr Kroger's for that matter.
==========================
I'm sure it is the chicken farmers who are behind this. Someone asked if we could trust the Chinese. I'm sure the chicken farmers are hoping to break into the Chinese market and that many of the chickens they send there won't make their way back.
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You need to get on Food Stamps, Quirk, and avoid those Dollar Stores. Move up the economic ladder. Join the human race. Suck off others for a living.
DeleteWhackadoodle does go on and on and on, doesn't he.
DeleteLike the Engergizer Bunnie
Go home Whackadoodle, no one likes you!
Go any where else, Whackadoodle, you are alone, all alone in a world of Anonymous authors!
Whackadoodle, Whackadoodle, Whackadoodle do!
Gee, why can't we all get along?
ReplyDeleteIAF strikes underground rocket launchers in Gaza following rocket attacks on Israel
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/IAF-strikes-underground-rocket-launchers-in-Gaza-following-rocket-attacks-on-Israel-329913
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step"___Anon
ReplyDeleteFirst Beduin tank commander: My parents are proud of me
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/First-Beduin-tank-commander-My-parents-are-proud-of-me-329893
Charlie from Chicago was one of the old guys, 33 or something. Foul mouthed, chain smoking, smart and disrespectful, one of the best scope dopes in the business and a genius in the use of irony.
ReplyDelete… oops, have to run.
The Egyptians have boarded the peace train.
ReplyDeleteEgypt closes Rafah Gaza crossing indefinitely
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Egypt-closes-Rafah-Gaza-crossing-indefinitely-329911
I'm beginning to like the new current crop of rulers in Egypt.
DeleteLet us see if the Palestinians register a formal complaint with the UN over this draconian ghettoization of a peace loving people. My money goes to "no": they will not. They complain only when Israel attempts to keep the contagion isolated.
DeleteAt some point, one hopes the Egyptians reclaim the nest of vipers, force law and order, and excise this cancer from the ME.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWhackadoodle tol us not to wory abou Egypt, that Whackadoodle do do do was
DeleteRight, Right, right on the money, again.
That Whackadoodle do do head!
Benghazi witnesses grilled in secret on Capitol Hill
ReplyDeleteThe Justice Department had asked GOP Rep. Darrell Issa not to interview the two security agents, saying it could jeopardize prosecution of the terrorists who attacked the U.S. mission in Libya in 2012.
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Benghazi, Libya
Libyan troops after a terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year. (Mohammad Hannon / Associated Press / September 14, 2012)
Related photos »
By Richard A. Serrano
October 28, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
WASHINGTON — Two of the Justice Department's key witnesses in last year's terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, were summoned to Capitol Hill this month and grilled for hours in separate legal depositions.
Responding to congressional subpoenas, the State Department security agents were asked how the Libyan terrorists stormed the mission and set parts of it on fire, how they were armed and how they killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, sources with knowledge of the matter said. The agents also were asked about security breakdowns and whether the administration reacted appropriately to the Sept. 11, 2012, assault.
How those highly guarded and secret interviews came about was part of an increasingly bitter dispute between two branches of the federal government.
Prosecutors are under intense pressure to arrest and convict the terrorists, while the Republican-led House is determined to find who is responsible for any lapse in security that night, and whether the administration misled the public when officials initially said the attack stemmed from a protest.
PHOTOS: 2013's memorable political moments
Weeks before the interviews, top Justice Department officials repeatedly warned Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) against doing so, saying it would seriously jeopardize any criminal prosecution of the terrorists. They wrote three times to the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, strongly urging him not to insist on interviewing the agents.
The interviews have not been released. But the Justice Department expressed concern that Issa might reveal some details from the interviews, or that defense lawyers could subpoena them if suspects are apprehended, according to the sources, who did not have permission to speak publicly, citing the ongoing investigation. At least one person has been named in a sealed indictment in the Benghazi attacks.
The interviews "would prematurely alert individuals who may be charged about details of the government's case against them," and would give defense lawyers a golden opportunity to review the depositions and impeach the agents if they testified as prosecution witnesses, the Justice Department warned in one of the letters, according to sources.
"For over a year, department prosecutors and FBI agents have been investigating the attack and preparing for prosecution," top Justice Department officials told Issa on Sept. 23, in the first of their letters. "They have made substantial progress despite the difficulties in obtaining evidence, locating witnesses, and other issues.… We believe that a successful prosecution here is vital to protecting our national security interests."
Issa, mounting his own congressional investigation, learned the agents' names in May, and in September began pushing for access to them. The agents are Alec Henderson, who was stationed in Benghazi, and John Martinec, then based in Tripoli.
The California congressman complained that the administration was not interested in the full story of what happened in Benghazi, and that an internal State Department review was "not fully independent." He is unhappy that four State Department officials, initially placed on paid leave, were reinstated.
Issa initially gave the Justice Department until Sept. 24 to comply with his request or, he said, he would issue subpoenas. But on Sept. 18, six days before that deadline, he announced he had just signed and issued subpoenas for Henderson and Martinec.
Delete"We finally have reached the end of our rope," Issa said at a congressional hearing as he announced his decision.
Earlier he had also demanded access to a third agent, David Ubben, who was seriously injured in the Benghazi attack. But Issa did not subpoena him.
The powerful Republican House chairman learned the identities of the three agents from Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, who testified before the committee.
Hicks revealed that "Martinec ran into my villa [in Tripoli] yelling, 'Greg, Greg, the consulate's under attack.'" He said Martinec had been in phone contact with Henderson in Benghazi, and that Henderson told Martinec "the consulate had been breached and there were at least 20 hostile individuals armed in the compound."
Hicks described Martinec as providing "a mountain of moral support, particularly to the guys who were in Benghazi."
Hicks said Ubben was hit by mortar fire on an annex roof. "I knew David was severely wounded," Hicks said. "Doctors saved David Ubben's leg and they may very well have saved his life."
The dispute over the agents erupted Sept. 10 when Issa wrote to Secretary of State John F. Kerry seeking to specifically interview Ubben and later talk to other witnesses. "Their testimony is key in order to understand what took place in Benghazi," Issa wrote.
Peter J. Kadzik, principal deputy assistant attorney general, responded three days later, asking Issa not to insist on the interviews. He said there were past incidents where defense attorneys used outside depositions to "exploit alleged discrepancies in witness statements." He added, "The risk of inadvertent inconsistencies among multiple statements of witnesses is almost unavoidable," and later warned that the interviews could harm the agents' safety, as well as that of "other potential witnesses."
Issa was unmoved. On Oct. 8, Henderson was interviewed for eight hours. Martinec went next, for five hours on Oct. 10. No prosecutors or FBI agents were allowed inside. But the witnesses were accompanied by their attorneys. Democratic staff on the committee also was permitted to sit in.
Explaining why he went forward, Issa said at the earlier hearing: "We want to make certain that our government learns the proper lessons from this tragedy so it never happens again, and so that the right people are held accountable."
richard.serrano@latimes.com
I'm beginning to like Issa.
DeleteI am going to think about Sarah suckin' on Issa's big Vandal, yes, I like hm THAT much!
DeleteGo Vandals!
Whackadoodle likes Issa, but not Sarah!
DeleteIssa gonna dream of Sarah for the rest of my life.
If only she had a Skype account, I'd call her!
The idea of seeing those big titties, on the flat screen almost as good as being there!
Restoring Israel’s Rights: The Levy Report
ReplyDeleteOctober 28, 2013 By Arlene Kushner
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arlene-kushner/restoring-israels-rights-the-levy-report/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=f5b13f6238-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-f5b13f6238-156481579
...interesting report, thanks...
DeleteQuirk, if you are too proud to go on Food Stamps, and The Dollar Store is too high end for your budget, the wife and I can send you some lentils and black winter peas and soft white wheat for noodles each month.
ReplyDeleteIf the daughter's new horse should up and die like the last one, we can send some horse meat, too.
Always thinking of you first,
bobbo
That is not an authentic bobbo posting
DeleteThis is not fair, that Whackadoodle do do is doing it, again!!
Alaska Suspends Obamacare Enrollments After Signing Up 3 People.......drudge
ReplyDeleteAlaska must be a wonderful state. I must go there sometime. Even some of the democrats there seem more or less reasonable..
Thinking of Alaska, I was speaking to my lawyer's secretary the other day. She is from up that way and the subject of the frozen toe arose. There is a tavern up there way way north that has a frost bitten toe in formaldehyde in a jar and one can win a T-Shirt with toe logo if one puts the toe in one's drink and drinks the drink. She said though one's lips must touch the toe, which was news to me, and if you should shallow the toe you must give up one of your own toes as a replacement. This place is in the Yukon, she said, and not Alaska.
DeleteI recall when Quirk, Hamdoon and I were drinking there one frozen midnight, and Q was trying to impress an Eskimo girl. She wasn't impressed when Q swallowed the toe, saying if you think I kissing you you're crazy.
She was even less impressed when Quirk tried to flee to avoid the amputation of one of his toes. They had to tie him down. She said what the hell it's only a toe, and walking out on him said my old boy friend is missing an entire foot.
And that is how Quirk came to have a missing big toe on his left foot, and explains why he wobbles a little sometimes when he walks.
We've got a match
DeleteWatch out, you might get what you're after
Cool babies, strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house
Hold tight, wait 'till the party's over
Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house
Here's your ticket, pack your bags, time for jumpin' overboard
Transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are
Fightin' fire with fire
All wet, hey you might need a raincoat
Shakedown, dreams walking in broad daylight
Three hundred sixty five degrees
Burning down the house
It was once upon a place, sometimes I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work said, "Baby what did you except?"
Gonna burst into flame, go ahead
Burning down the house
My house is out of the ordinary
That's right, don't want to hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house
No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin' yet
Everything's stuck together
I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fighting fire with fire
Burning down the house
Jack would burn the house down, but that's no reason to consider him anti-Semitic; because he really likes the occupants, but politics ain't beanbag.
ReplyDeleteJack Straw to ‘Post’: ‘I am not remotely anti-Semitic’
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Jack-Straw-to-Post-I-am-not-remotely-anti-Semitic-330008
We've got a match
DeleteWatch out, you might get what you're after
Cool babies, strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house
Hold tight, wait 'till the party's over
Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house
Here's your ticket, pack your bags, time for jumpin' overboard
Transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are
Fightin' fire with fire
All wet, hey you might need a raincoat
Shakedown, dreams walking in broad daylight
Three hundred sixty five degrees
Burning down the house
It was once upon a place, sometimes I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work said, "Baby what did you except?"
Gonna burst into flame, go ahead
Burning down the house
My house is out of the ordinary
That's right, don't want to hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house
No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin' yet
Everything's stuck together
I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fighting fire with fire
Burning down the house
Running on Empty
DeleteLooking out at the road rushing under my wheels
DeleteLooking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-on-one
I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on
Running on-running on empty
Running on-running blind
Running on-running into the sun
But I'm running behind
Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don't know when that road turned into the road I'm on
Running on-running on empty
Running on-running blind
Running on-running into the sun
But I'm running behind
Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don't know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too
Running on-running on empty
Running on-running blind
Running on-running into the sun
But I'm running behind
Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind
You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
Running into the sun but I'm running behind
Transcribed by Derrick Brashear
Trouble
From Lindsay Buckingham's Law and Order album
I really should be saying goodnight, little girl,
I really shouldn't stay any more.
It's been so long since I felt this way,
I've forgotten what love is for.
I should run on the double...
I think I'm in trouble,
I think I'm in trouble.
So come to me darlin', hold me tight,
Let your honey keep you warm.
It's been so long since anyone touched me,
I've forgotten what love is for.
I should run on the double...
I think I'm in trouble,
I think I'm in trouble.
No Shit, Sherwood!
Delete"Running On Empty"
DeleteLooking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-o-one
I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on
Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind
Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don't know when that road turned onto the road I'm on
Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind
Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don't know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too
Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind
Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind
You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
Running into the sun but I'm running behind
Jsck started calling himself 'Jack' early on,, taking the name "Jack" after the 14th century peasant leader Jack Straw.
ReplyDeleteQuirk, whose first name is Jack, started calling himself Quirk after the 12th Century Kin'gs Fool and Adviser "Jack" Quirk. This fellow had been hanging out in Sherwood Forest, robbing passersbys,and finally got caught, and it was work for the King or the noose. Sir Quirk was given this option as the King thought him witty when he proclaimed all he had been doing was arboreal research and feeding squirrels in Sherwood Forest Our Quirk had once been arrested for panhandling and begging food in a heavily treed park, so figured the name fit and has been Quirk ever since. And that is how Quirk came to be called Quirk.
.
You Don't Know Jack!
DeleteJackass was already taken.
DeleteI did not know Sherwood Forest was in the land of the Chi-Coms.
Delete...source of our food supply.
Jack did.
He was there.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou can get a plan that meets the new standard at affordable prices.
ReplyDeleteIf you like the idea of your deductible going from $25 to $5000.
...or around 200 times higher.
(Mine was 15 Bucks)
When we were young and healthy, we carried catastrophic insurance.
The Hospital Crew were shocked when I paid for our Kid's delivery in cash.
Ed Henery
From the podium, will you admit that when president said, if you have a plan, you'll get to keep it, that that was not true?"
After some throat clearing, Carney said, "So it's true there are existing health care plans on the individual market that do not meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act."
----
Hard to admit Rufus was right all along.
When he wasn't.
ObamaCare, nothing but the riffling winds, stirring drought-shriveled leaves on the trees
DeleteThe hazards of ObamaCare are nothing when compared to 600,000 American dead!
Over a disagreement about a literary construct!
Merry Christmas to all,
Deleteand to all a good fright.
ObamaCare is estimated to take ten years off the life span of us all, sooner or later.
DeleteCrunch them numbers, Wind Passer.
Cite your source!
DeleteThat, even if true is inconsequential, when compare to the DEATH of 600,000 Americans and the hundred years of Jim Crow that followed, all because Abe Lincoln was an inept politician from Illinois.
Illinois does seem to produce a lot of inept politicians that become President, at least a couple.
Regardless ObamaCare is less than a literary dispute, it is nothing when compared to the slaughter of over 600,000 and the wind riffled graves that now hold the bodies.
Embraced tightly by the earth, deep within her grasp, where no mere riffling wind will dislodge them.
Illinois does produce a lot of those!
Illinois
Illinois does seem t
69 Million for Penn State to pay for Sandusky.
ReplyDelete...hope UCSB does not have to pay off my rape victims.
Definition:
Having sex w/a person over the legal alcohol limit.
Out of box and into the fright!
ReplyDeleteGas Passer doesn't have a clue what moves the world. Hint: those pyramids weren't build due to economic necessity.
ReplyDeleteNor does the survival of the Jewish people have anything to do with banking, as Gas Passer imagines.
Myth moves the world.
And therefore it is true to say that our Civil War was a literary event, a dispute between two alternative ways of reading current myth.
Boston 3
St Louis 1
The gas you pass really stinks, Passer. Can't you keep it to yourself, like polite persons try to do?
g'nite
What a crock o shit this anonymouse tries to spread.
Delete600,000 dead Americans and still the Farmer Fudd tries to pass responsibility for his lack of respect for the dead to others.
Why doesn't Farmer Fudd respect dead Americans, brave Americans that died so he could get the benefits of Federal Land Grants?
He disrespects the dead, because he has no respect for life.
Evidence by his support of Murder On Demand, for babies of inconvenience.
Fudd writes, time and again of his disrespect of human life.
DeleteHe belittles those that paid the ultimate price to save the Union.
He belittle those that fought for independence from the Federal government.
He belittle the value of life, by supporting Murder on Demand.
He tells us that murdering babies empowers women.
The riffling wind has whittled his brain, right down to the stem.
Every sentence you have written is a lie, and, further, you know that it is a lie.
ReplyDeleteYou are a work of deformed art, rat.
You need help. Get help for your sake and for others.
You have claimed to be a professional asshole. This recognition actually shows you might not be beyond help.
Get a counselor.
You are bonkers.
Now that I have finally found my cell phone, it's bed time.
Had to have the wife call my number.
out
“If the crow has to be shoved down your throat; maybe you should just let it fly.”
Delete
Delete"I apologize for lying to you.
I promise I won't deceive you except in matters of this sort.<
“I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I said it really.
I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing.
I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done.
I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry.”
DeleteIf you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.
ReplyDeleteWhy should I apologize because God throws in crystal chandeliers, mahogany floors, and the best construction in the world?
“Occupation, curfew, settlements, closed military zone, administrative detention, siege, preventive strike, terrorist infrastructure, transfer. Their WAR destroys language. Speaks genocide with the words of a quiet technician.
ReplyDeleteOccupation means that you cannot trust the OPEN SKY, or any open street near to the gates of snipers tower. It means that you cannot trust the future or have faith that the past will always be there.
Occupation means you live out your live under military rule, and the constant threat of death, a quick death from a snipers bullet or a rocket attack from an M16.
A crushing, suffocating death, a slow bleeding death in an ambulance stopped for hours at a checkpoint. A dark death, at a torture table in an Israeli prison: just a random arbitrary death.
A cold calculated death: from a curable disease. A thousand small deaths while you watch your family dying around you.
Occupation means that every day you die, and the world watches in silence. As if your death was nothing, as if you were a stone falling in the earth, water falling over water.
And if you face all of this death and indifference and keep your humanity, and your love and your dignity and YOU refuse to surrender to their terror, then you know something of the courage that is Palestine.”
Delete“I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have.
Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel.
I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not.
I said: what are we doing?
We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea.
The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled.
I was laughed at, but I was right.
I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right …
to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago,
people they consider their ancestors, were living there.
History moves on and you can’t really turn it back”
Ashkenazi Jews are genetically Europeans
DeleteMaternal DNA
Richards and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is contained in the cytoplasm of the egg and passed down only from the mother, from more than 3,500 people throughout the Near East, the Caucusus and Europe, including Ashkenazi Jews.
The team found that four founders were responsible for 40 percent of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA, and that all of these founders originated in Europe. The majority of the remaining people could be traced to other European lineages.
"...It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us-the lesson of the fearsome word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.”
Delete___Arendt
Delete“They're called 'facts', and my role is to amplify those, not cheerlead. And I don't care at all what you think of my motives.”