Diagram of The Plame Game

clipped from www.bradblog.com Our job on this committee is to find out how the breach happened. Now, I'd like to show you a chart that we prepared on the committee --- you'll see it up on the screens, and we're putting it up here on paper. That chart is a graphic depiction of all the ways that your classified CIA employment was disclosed to White House officials and then to the press. Every colored block on that chart is an individual, and every arrow shows a disclosure of classified information. That classified information was your CIA employment status. And the arrows are based on the testimony in Mr. Libby's criminal case and press reports. This chart shows over 20 different disclosures about your employment. Let me ask you, looking at this chart, are you surprised that so many people had access to the classified information about your CIA employment? MS. PLAME WILSON: Yes, I am, Congressman. And I'm also surprised at how carelessly they used it.

Putting politics before patriotic and professional duty will be the epitaph of this era. Waxman is right and has been right all along - these people must be impeached. And by "These People" I mean Bush, Cheney and all co-conspiritors. And then convicted. And then Prosecuted for racketeering, war crimes and treason.

This particular crime is, of course, treason. And if we are to believe "this is a time of war," then it would be treason during a time of war.

Karma. It's a bitch.

McCain commits to his "base" in Dumfuckastan

McCain sews up the dead-ender vote with this correction to a "mistaken" comment by a staffer.

t r u t h o u t | McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too: "[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation's fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution."

The mistake was thinking there was an ethical bone remaining in McCain's body.

McCain's new position plainly contradicts statements he made in a December 20, 2007, interview with the Boston Globe where he implicitly criticized Bush's five-year secret end-run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop.

Canada votes to grant asylum to US war resisters

Parliament on Tuesday voted to allow US resisters of the Iraq war who fled to Canada to stay in this country, thus avoiding military court-martial in the United States.

read more | digg story

Apolitical Warm Fuzzies!

The Cat House on the Kings is a true feel-good video. It's a real place, too, and it deserves your support. All you have to do to feel good is pass this around and - I hope, drop a couple dollars into the tip jar.

GREED

GREED II

Thought provoking essay on the intersection of economics and ethics.

Zazzle special on business cards...

They are offering free shipping on a pack of twenty slimline contact cards. Needless to say, I have a few designs you might like to look at. And if you don't like those, there are hundreds of others.

Design Credit: Rainbow Pride Profile Card Template by webcarve Get this custom profilecard at Zazzle

Ron Paul, Change and Obama

As some or all of you know, I no longer endorse Ron Paul for President. That was a very reluctant choice, for at heart I am a Conservative. Indeed, I am a some senses a Paleo-conservative, even as is Alex Jones.

I have come to the decision that for the moment, at this particular time, what is needed is another FDR. As a reflexive conservative, I of course despise all that Franlin D. Roosevelt stood for - and yet as an American - and indeed, as a Canadian, I stand upon his legacy.

As a Canadian-American, I have come to the realization that at some points in time, one must allow Radicalism to reign, in order to rationalize, regulate and restate it in terms of the status quo ante.

For some time past - and I include the Clinton years in this - we have haplessly drifted rightward, to the land of "I don't give a fuck about you."

Taken in isolation, Bill Clinton was one of the best Republican Presidents of the last Century - and all the things he is given credit for, the balanced budget, "Welfare Reform" and the surplus are things that are honestly things that are triumphs of a deliberately Conservative leadership. One can also point to the economic prosperity under Clinton - and the corresponding growth in enterprises such as privatized prisons - as being indicative as the objectives and fruits of a genuinely Conservative president.

Clearly, when Bill Clinton is held up by the Right as the Great Demon of the Left, it is time for the People to demand a correction toward the Center.

That is what happened with FDR, and that is what is going to happen with Obama. Yes, he is more "radical" than what we are accustomed to - but in point of fact, "radicalism" and "conservatism" have never been strange bedfellows.

Scratch a genuine conservative and you will find an idealist, one who genuinely believes that the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Deceleration of Independence are all fundamental to that which is quintessentially American.

American Conservatism is built upon extremely radical ideas - the sovereignty of the individual, as advised by the wisdom of crowds and the power of open and honest debate among equals - regardless of social advantages.

Ron Paul has overstepped his place if he genuinely desires to be President. Or rather, he would be wasted in that capacity, would find it an infuriating and demeaning exercise in compromise and would, alas, find himself unable to implement or even effectively express his best ideas.

Further, I'm afraid that in order to become more universally appealing, he would have to revise his views regarding abortion and the rights of women.

And yet, and as much as I disagree with him on these points, I find his refusal to cede a matter of principle in order to gain a scintilla of political momentum to be genuinely endearing. Indeed, the less I find Ron Paul to be eligible as my choice of president, the more I find him to be one of the few people I really wish to know.

I endorse and support Obama. That does not mean that I particularly care if I like him as an individual.

I LIKE Ron Paul. And the more I like him, the less willing I am for him to be thrown under the bus of History.

Let us face it. FDR, whatever else you may say about him, was a martyr to the cause of these United States. He chose to sacrifice what remained of his life for his country, and I think it a good thing that we have enacted term limits so that no others may answer the call to that degree.

Did he made the choices I would have? No. Not. At. All.

Ever.

And yet, grudgingly, I must admit something - his choices worked out about as well as my vision would have in theory. But in fact, his vision worked out in practice. So, as radical as FDR was at the time, HIS vision brought us a stable status quo that held far, far longer than his tenure; indeed, it lasted until the Neocons who desire to dismantle every vestige of it.

And as Dr. Phil is wont to say: "How's that workin' out for you?"

Ron Paul represents a very old tradition within American politics, one that predates Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and even the majority of Whigs. He represents the best of both Jefferson and Hamilton who, if they agreed on anything, agreed upon a common standard upon which disagreement could be based.

Both Hamilton and Jefferson were men of substantial property. Indeed, in terms of effective wealth and influence, both would be billionaires today. Each gained their wealth by different means, and each viewed that wealth in different ways, but neither could conceivably be considered to be unbiased by it. And as far as I know, both knew the importance of real, hard, inarguable cash money as a foundation to the economy.

Further, and obviously, I think both would concede that the Federal Reserve is largely a scam.

I cannot go farther than that. For myself, I think it a scam that has achieved real positives - but I think also that it's time has come and gone.

Further than that, I giggle shamelessly in the face of an economy based on gold or silver, though I think currency minted of these metals would go a long way toward reestablishing faith in it's "basement value."

That is to say, I would approve of a dollar that is worth no less than once ounce fine silver, as constitutionally defined - but I would not at all object to it being worth so much more that we regularly use paper Yen as small change.

Or so I believe in my ignorance, and in this regard, I commend Ron Paul to Barack Obama, who probably knows no more about the function of currency in the economy than do I.

What I do know - and this is for sure - is that neither man has the entirety of understanding required to repair our economy and our personal self-confidence. Even including John Edwards' perspective, I come to this conclusion so I must say that if Obama cannot include Ron Paul in his official Cabinet - he should include him in his Kitchen Cabinet. The man has earned that place, if only by making a Fed chairman cry in front of Congress.

Dominionist Bush Appointee Resigns, facing funding changes in family planning services.

Just as health care providers get wind or possible changes to federal funding for family planning services, Susan Orr, Bush's pick to administer the program steps down from her position after just eight months on the job. Citing a professorship from Regent University on one's resume should now be known as the embarrassment that it's become.

read more | digg story

James Baker: "Diplomacy is not Appeasement"

Uttered on Fox News, no less...




One more reason to wake up and smell the bullshit, people. This "appeasement" meme regarding Obama was not just odious, it's factually wrong, and had anyone taken it seriously might have done even more damage to our international credibility. I'd say "If that were possible..." but I look up and there are no black helicopters yet, and no troops wearing blue berets and driving white jeeps.

But that eventuality hasn't been completely inconceivable since 2004, and it IS the sort of outcome that we as citizens should be concerned about. Especially since as humiliating as such an outcome would be, the alternative would have us all waving little blue flags.

McCain's Lobbyist Problem: 5 Down and Counting

The guy who won't be owned by Washington lobbyists — owned by Washington lobbyists. Or in other words, the Perfect Republican Punchline. Whatever a Republican says, the complete opposite turns out to be true.

read more | digg story

Will we ever prosecute People Like That when they have robbed and murdered People Like Us?

We just won't go where that leads. It's hard to even talk about impeaching the President much less prosecuting him and his co-conspirators for aggravated murder and racketeering. I think the idea that such a thing should be done stuns us.

These are very real crimes committed for very ordinary reasons of power and profit differing only in terms of scale from ordinary muggings and murders. What bothers is that we are supposed to have a society and culture that precludes people like that gaining a position such as this.

Vincent Bugliosi: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder - Politics on The Huffington Post:

"In a November 15, 2005, editorial, the New York Times said that 'the president and his top advisers . . . did not allow the American people, or even Congress, to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments of their own. It's obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein's weapons and his terrorist connections.' But if it's 'obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans' in taking them to a war that tens of thousands of people have paid for with their lives, now what? No punishment? If not, under what theory? Again, you're just going to go on to the next paragraph?

I'm not going to go on to the next unrelated paragraph."

If Bush, in fact, intentionally misled this nation into war, what is the proper punishment for him? Since many Americans routinely want criminal defendants to be executed for murdering only one person, if we weren't speaking of the president of the United States as the defendant here, to discuss anything less than the death penalty for someone responsible for over 100,000 deaths would on its face seem ludicrous. But we are dealing with the president of the United States here.

On the other hand, the intensity of rage against Bush in America has been such (it never came remotely this close with Clinton because, at bottom, there was nothing of any real substance to have any serious rage against him for) that if I heard it once I heard it ten times that "someone should put a bullet in his head." That, fortunately, is just loose talk, and even more fortunately not the way we do things in America. In any event, if an American jury were to find Bush guilty of first degree murder, it would be up to them to decide what the appropriate punishment should be, one of their options being the imposition of the death penalty.

I'm going to write MY next paragraph here.

What allowed such a confederation of murderous dunces to gain power? Who gains most from this climate of fear and the terror of black helicopters and fluoridated water supplies? What particular groups seek influence over not merely our spiritual health, but our material wealth and the ways we choose to spend it?

Yes, I've said it before and I've said it again, the unholy alliance between the Religious Right (Dominionists and Prosperity Gospel types) and the political right has created a toxic karmic waste dump. The likely outcome in the immediate short term is likely the end of the Republican Party as we know it, but it may also lead to the end of the Religious Right as people see these scandals unravel to reveal major secular and religious "wingers" having had unholy congress with one another for profit.

When people seek out a moral example to follow, only to find that those teachings either lead directly to personal pain and loss or that the leadership does the exact opposite themselves, it's only reasonable to expect the flock to scatter. No moral compass is better than the assuredly wrong one.

"Tweety" opens a can of whoopass; Kevin James plays Sylvester

How about asking him an easier question. Like, well, "Define Appeasement, Sir." You could even have someone bring him a dictionary...

Child-Internet-Safety-Software and other false comforts.

"Do you have child internet safety software on your computer? If you do, just what are you thinking?"

Back in the day, when I ran what many would call a "porn site," I refused on principle to put up links to net-nanny, cyber-sitter and other such spyware. Why? I checked them out. Net-nanny was set up to censor "Liberal" links, such as the National Organization of Women, not just "adult material." My notice was "protected by the human brain" and instead of "Adult Material," I labeled it as being "for grownups." I'm going to check these folks out. I smell a far more substantial story.

(Later)... no. Simply a variation of the old "Internet, Threat or Menace" idea, with some good ideas that are essentially aimed at making parental panic responses more effective and to suggest (accurately) that if one is paranoid about one's kid's safety, reliance on such tools is a foolish delusion.

Our resources will help you to stop the criminals. We’ll show you how to thwart sexual predators cold in their tracks. We can also help you stay in front of the problem. And, the problem cannot be overstated. According to a study released in 2002 by the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrown-away Children (NISMART II), an estimated 6 children per hour are abducted by a non-family member. In approximately 50% of these cases, the children are sexually assaulted. By the time children are 18, the surveys indicate that as many as one in eight boys and one in five girls will have been sexually abused.

This makes every child a potential target for sexual predators. This could make your child an unwitting target, too. Don’t let that happen!

Sexual predators are on our streets, in our neighborhoods and at our schools. Not only are they there, they are an ever growing danger on the Internet.

Be prepared and take charge of you child’s safety. Take ACTION!

Ok, like all the best "call to action" types of appeals, these assertions are at least somewhat true - although the data of surveys about sexual abuse percentages have been called into question.

You see, it really helps the statistics if you count all sexual encounters before the age of 18 regardless of consent and regardless of who initiated what. I'm not saying that this added pile is not a problem - but it's quite a different problem. Actually, it's several different issues, each one requiring it's own specific response. It's distinctly useless to treat them all as the same "crime," inasmuch as that any reasonable assessment causes one to put the quotes around the term, for clearly, in many particular cases, that is an arbitrary distinction.

And that's damn dangerous, because there are other things in the same pile that are treated as being the exact same crime that are inarguably criminal. Expanding the pile to include things that are criminal only because they offend taboos rather than cause provable harm trivializes the actual harm done by real criminals and gains them apologists.

Years and years ago, as I was trying to make sense of that pile of festering crap I laughingly refer to as my "childhood," I took a side trip into trying to comprehend pedophelia and sexual predation. I read both sides of the issue. I have to say, honestly, that it's hard to tell exactly which perspective is more delusional, but one statistic - presented by the "hang 'em high" crowd - struck me hard enough to leave a permanent mark.

I found a citation that restated it with higher numbers and in even more alarming terms:

The second classification of sexual offender is defined as a preferential child molester. These offenders have a sexual preference for children and usually maintain these desires throughout their lives. Preferential child molesters can have an astounding number of victims and these crimes can remain undiscovered for many years. In 1995, a child molestation case in Texas caused a national uproar when the suspect was due to be released from prison after serving a six-year sentence for the rape of a 6year-old boy. He told the police that he got away with abusing over 240 children before getting caught for molesting a single child and if released, would do it again⁽⁴⁾. One long-term study of hundreds of sex offenders found that the pedophile child molester committed an average of 281 acts with 150 partners.

For the moment, let us take the sexual aspect out of it. Indeed, let us take the underage aspect out of it, and remember that in order to have a sexual encounter, first there must be a relationship and trust, because that is how this particular sort of person operates - by non-violent seduction.

You might think that would be easier with someone underage - and if we are speaking of those under the age of, oh, say, six, that may well be true. Nonetheless, that is a relative statement.

I've been involved in the raising of children, and it would be foolish indeed for anyone to think that a trusting relationship with a child is something that can be assumed.

So, let us look at it from the perspective of sheer numbers. 150 partners. On average. In the particular case cited, 240, before a misstep or mistake that caused discovery. Let us assume that this was in fact due to the "victim" feeling they had been factually abused.

I wonder just how many ordinary heterosexuals who are sexually attracted to persons within their own age cohort could manage a statistic better than one out of three.

So, let us put aside for the moment what the pedophile is doing wrong. Take that as a given - especially since the particular person was self-aware enough to inform society that he could not be trusted and would offend again. A person, obviously, of genuine conscience and who obviously must care for children, a trait that is obviously key to their better-than-average statistics and who is aware that their nature is absolute conflict with an outcome they must strongly believe in. Consider that genuine criminals tend to lie to the parole board about such matters.

In order to achieve a sexual goal, he had to do a tremendous lot of right in order to even get into talking distance of "wrong." I don't want him running around loose - but I do damn well want him available as a resource. I want him to be able to expiate his sins, if you will, by telling us what he did to make children feel cared for and loved. Because, folks, that is what it takes, not just to exploit a child, but to raise a child so that they become solid and sane members of society. And in that regard, a child is harder to delude than many adults.

The implication that certain pedophiles may well be making a net contribution to society is not to be taken as approval. The fact that parasites infect the body politic, and that more successful parasites are to a degree benign or somewhat commensal is immaterial.

The parasite is not the problem. Indeed, it's pointless to even BLAME the parasite. The problem is that there is a niche that a parasite can adapt themselves to fit. To the extent that they fill that niche by doing something that the family or culture cannot or will not do, than the net ethical equation is that the parasite is being permitted to exist as an alternate to society or family dealing with it's issues. You see, if you blame the parasite for exploiting a niche that actually needs to be filled in order for family or society to function - the net result will simply be a succession of successfully better adapted tapeworms who are more successful at controlling the family or the social matrix toward the end of maintaining their comfortable existence.

As would you, I might add.

Now, let me refer to a few things that I learned along the way, both from offenders and survivors. And let me underline something - this sort of person is the sort that many survivors refer to as "their favorite perp.¹"



Indeed, and this is a wildly conditional statement, made up of a number of different inputs, but, that particular "perp" was the one that definitely made a difference toward the positive in their survival.

Tragically, many children and indeed, many adults these days, are so conditioned that they cannot actually trust a relationship unless they are exploited to a degree that permits them to believe they are of a minimum absolute value to another person. That is to see, they see themselves as being primarily sexual objects as the foundation of their entire self-worth.

In this context, a "good perp" is one who made contributions to a level of self-worth beyond sexual availability.

But it could be worse. At least they have the minimum self-worth required in order to survive and perhaps grow. Those who's self-worth is crushed usually find some awkward and messy way to die, often taking others with them.

There are many personal profiles on Yahoo and other services that would underline this with used brainfloss, but aside from being NSFW, I feel it's my job to floss my brain so you don't have to. :P

Let me put this as bluntly as I can. I'm afraid that in a certain dark and tragic way, those survivors who were victimized in this particular way by the sort of person we are speaking of were lucky.

Which leads me back to the selection criteria of such pedophiles. Getting into the head of a pedophile requires that you read their verbal dribblings, and I did just enough of it to feel a genuine sad caring for the poor bastards - while simultaneously wishing to scrub myself with bleach. But at some level, I had to admit that there was an extent to which that reaction was the result of considering and listening to soemething that violated one of the strongest social taboos we have. Well, actually, it's several, but let us not overly complexity this.

The bottom line is that the majority of molesters were molested themselves in ways that arrested their own personal development, and there is very likely a further required inherent sexual orientation required to overcome common-sense aversion to risking everything for satisfactions that could be had safely and cheaply in other ways, if those were in any way at all acceptable.

They cannot be cured, any more than you can "cure" a homosexual. But as I said, it's obviously a complex of predisposition and experience. The experience itself is something that IS within our ability to control, to preclude if possible, and if not entirely possible, it's certainly possible to create an ethical context in which the child will grow into a person who will not damage other persons regardless of their own missteps.

Sexual predators are no different than any other sort of predator. Ultimately, successful predators exploit weakness, opportunity and the ignorance of their victims. Ask any rabbit that reaches adulthood how that works.

The fact that so much predation exists and the consequences so widespread among the population should of course alarm and concern us, but not in the ways we are told we should be concerned and alarmed by the ramshackle taboo system we laughingly refer to as "western morality."

You see, a moral system - in order to work at all - is first ethical, and based on real information about real persons, not dogmatic presumptions about human sexuality that are not just presumably, but provably untrue.

It should fairly easy and reasonable to follow a well-designed moral code and the benefits for doing so should be obvious to both the practitioner and all who see. It should definitely NOT be in conflict with the existing social matrix or require certain false-to-fact assumptions in order for it to function, since if it's advice is otherwise worth following, it can be completely disrupted by a follower learning that a basic foundation of it is provably untrue.

Trust me, this can lead to the Uncharted Swamps of Suck. The pun is intended - but not as the primary message. That is to say, not only does the result suck - but as the joke goes, not particularly WELL, either.

Most importantly, in order to be effectively protected from a predator, one must know what a predator looks like, what they smell like, their likely strategies and tactics and what techniques one can use to avoid being prey. There is absolutely no way to achieve this end while at the same time requiring that the "prey" be kept ignorant of the very existence of wolves.

Indeed, it's rather obvious to me that our current assumptions about the appropriateness of speaking about, much less teaching appropriate sexuality is so much to the advantage of sexual predators that it's wise to assume that any advice that relies upon conventional morality and assumptions of the workability of "Traditional Family Values" is questionable at best, almost certainly dangerously irrelevant to actual situations, and - frankly - designed and spread with exactly that in mind. It will work for some; perhaps many - but it will predictably create, isolate and make vulnerable enough victims to keep the predators fed, while keeping the vast majority ignorant of the true nature of the problem.

I believe that to be a problem that must be addressed. I'd underline this with strong language, but frankly, I cannot think of language strong enough. Suffice it to say that when "moral" conduct leads directly and predictably to the lifelong harm and misery of a large segment of the population, the word for it is not "Morality." "Evil" is a much more appropriate word... though again, not nearly strong enough from the perspective of myself and others who have been considered to be the disposable price of a proper sense of vigilant propriety.

That morality has an underlying foundation of fear and hatred and in order to function at all, requires it's adherents to become numb to the consequences on actual persons of applying and enforcing broad, rigid, authoritarian principles. All persons who are unable to function within it's narrow strictures are defined as disposable, while those capable of adhering to it's appearances while exploiting those within or without are not even identified as problematic. Morality, in these United States, has become almost entirely an exercise in visible propriety that need have no genuine meaning beyond "not getting caught."

One should not ask, "how did Ted Haggard get away with it so long?" The question is, how could such a person, who's very taste in church art, rhetoric, teachings and mannerisms should have been ringing alarm bells among the discerning have actually passed the first interview, or even graduated from divinity school, should he actually have any such training.

My personal opinion is that there is no longer any place for persons of discernment and conscious, deliberate ethical concern in either church or politics anywhere east of Center, and has not been for some long time.

The fact that the powerful among church and state have clearly ordered things to allow them to indulge the vile habits in private that they condemn in public to be more than enough reason to personally implement a change. Alas, the usual reaction is to deny in the face of manifold and obvious horrors that any such thing could possibly be true.

Yes, I do mean you. Stop expecting other people to live up to standards you expect on your behalf. Set high standards for yourself, live up to them, and set a good example - or, frankly, you are damned.

To quote Christopher Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," "Why, this IS hell, nor am I out of it."

1 - I'm choosing to be a complete and utter bastard and make you search through Ghostwolf's story to find the precise reference. Frankly, the reference won't make a whole hell of a lot of sense until you get a sense of the alternatives.

You will be tempted to say "that couldn't happen today." Yes it does. Check Google News "Child Sexual Abuse" and note the dates.

You will be tempted to say "It couldn't happen in my town." If your town has more than ten thousand, it certainly does - and there are probably several instances on record. Ask a social worker. Be prepared to buy them a drink, though and offer a shoulder. NOBODY gets paid enough to deal with this crap.

"They will make it look like suicide”

clipped from blog.puppetgov.com List of Suicides by whistle blowers or those that knew things 1 DC Madame….: had clients with the Pentagon and Govt 2 Lt. Col. Marshall A. Gutierrez Iraqi/Kuwait procurement officer: http://iraq.pigstye.net/article.php/GutierrezMarshallA 3 Abdulrahman,US citizen, contractor whistle-blower: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmView… 6 Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil {re Westhusing letter to Maj. Gen. Fil on May 28, 2005],: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_S._Westhusing 10. David Kelly, British Weapons Expert on WMDs : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly 11. James Hatfield, wrote book on George Bush and his crimes : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hatfield 13 Margie Schoedinger (1965?-2003) was an American woman who filed a civil suit against former Texas governor and current U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002, alleging that Bush had sexually assaulted her. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margie_Schoedinger clipped from blog.puppetgov.com DC Madam: “They will make it look like suicide”

A provocative clip. I'm going to get back to this later. The real question is not so much whether it's true that whistle blowers are being eliminated - it's whether or not you find it automatically plausible.

‘Air Tree’ Structures in Madrid produce Oxygen and Energy

clipped from www.inhabitat.com The city of Madrid soon plans to add a striking new structure that will “climatically transform” its urban architecture. Designed by Urban Ecosystems, the Air Tree pavilion is to be built from recycled materials and will be 100% energy self-sufficient. Using photovoltaic cells, the Air Tree produces a substantial amount of energy, which is then sold back to the local electric companies, the profits being used for maintenance of the structure. The second byproduct is of course oxygen - hence the name ‘Air Tree’! The surrounding environment near the air tree will be naturally conditioned, reducing the heat island effect found in most city centers. The air trees will be implemented city wide in the coming years. Furthermore, the structure, made from lightweight recycled materials, can be easily disassembled and moved to another site when needed. The trees will cool the surrounding environments and as a bonus generate clean electricity.

Now, what a great idea. Put up two or three of these in any good sized city and use it to generate electricity for electric vehicles and pigtailed hybreds; hydrogen for hydrogen cars and sell fresh produce and food made with fresh produce - with car service.

The Ghost of Barry Goldwater: Barry Knows Dead and Conservatism Ain't It

Yep. I'm a Conservative. Or a Progressive. Funny how it all boils down to the ability to question authority and laugh at the answer.

The Ghost of Barry Goldwater: Barry Knows Dead and Conservatism Ain't It

There's more...

The Conservative supports the right of workers to unionize and bargain collectively for their own Betterment. But he also supports the right of the individual to eschew forced membership in such groups as his conscience dictates.

The Conservative supports access to education for all and the formation of public services that “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty”. But Barry insists that these services be controlled at the local level, where they are accountable to the people who benefit or suffer under them.

The Conservative supports free enterprise and, as a direct consequence, sees Corporatism, as anathema to individual liberty, honest government, and democracy. As such we oppose laws that protect corporations from public accountability, specialized tax incentives for specific businesses, public funding or stipends of any kind for business, protectionism from foreign or domestic competition, and policy that subordinates the greater public good for the narrow corporate good.

The Conservative supports legislation that protects people from discrimination, enables and facilitates free speech, holds moneyed interests accountable to the people, seeks equality under the law, and protects the liberty of the individual. But we do not support legislation that treats the individual like dull witted chattel, who must be corralled and trained to better their natures. That’s the providence of T.V. preachers and Liberal do-gooders.

What Hath The Patriot Act Wrought?

clipped from www.justicefortracy.com Help Tracy Ingle find justice. Tracy is yet another innocent victim of no-knock warrants and the so-called war on drugs. Please read his story below and take a look at the limited press coverage of the incident. Everyone in America needs to hear about this. Press Coverage Shot in the Dark - David Koon Radley Balko - The Agitator Reason.com - Tracy Ingle: Another Drug War Outrage Information About the Incident Tracy Ingle was asleep in his house when armed police using a no-knock warrant burst in. Unsure about what was happening, he reached for a non-functioning pistol, but began to drop it as soon as he realized who they were. The gesture was too late -- officers shot him 5 times. He and his family are trying to get a lawyer to fight this injustice but do not have the necessary funds, yet.

When there are real Grey Lensmen, we can try this again.

"Idealism counts - but it counts with a sword"

clipped from echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com Who Pays As They Wait For Our Ideals? by Anthony McCarthy  The all or nothing fixation, the worst kind of this idealism, is a form of self-satisfied preening. It has been with us for as long as one leftist could attain personal status by being the most leftist in the room. It has helped lead us into the disaster we find ourselves in today. And it has produced nothing. Nothing. Rigid, uncompromising and insistent idealism is sterile and useless in the real world. It would be better to call it what it really is, vanity.

Everything said here is just as correct when speaking of the US Right.

Pit the two against one another and you have the perfect conditions for a civil war, for many of the same reasons that led Jefferson to predict the First.

Pheonix Feeley wins $29000 for topless bust

clipped from people.tribe.net Daily News June 17, 2007 New Yorker Jill Coccaro, who goes by name Phoenix Feeley has banked $29K for her false arrest. (Photo Courtesy Istock.com)

Her bust can be validated, but the ARREST could not be - as it happens to be legal to be topless in NYC.

Of course, the cops roughed her up and took her in for a mental checkup before the DA gave them the embarrassing news.

Patience; under reconstruction

Just in case you were about to bellow:

I got sick enough of my earlier template that I bit my lip and started work on redoing the site. This is probably the only post for today...

[Update: AAAAGGHHH!!!! ]

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The invisible hand is caught in a reacharound.

Lets see what that invisible hand is up to today | hell's handmaiden: "The story, the day the music died, is a sad tale of corporate shenanagins and consumer pain. Read the article and ask yourself, “Where exactly is that invisible hand in all of this?”

The answer I’d like to propose is that it doesn’t exist. It isn’t there, not in the way that most of your hard right free market proponents need it to be. Ponder. I’m going to leave it at that for now, though if you wondering why I claim to not bash Smith but only the right wing twits who never read him: Smith “made it clear in his writings that quite considerable structure was required in society before the invisible hand mechanism could work efficiently.” The twits tend to forget that ‘considerable social structure’ part and head straight for ‘get the government the hell out of everything’ thus creating what I like to think of as a government so minimal that it stops working."

As I've dryly noted here and there, now and again, I'm a great believer in the free market. And some day I'd like to try it for myself to see how it works.

In fact, Smith was pretty firm on that, that considerable "market intervention" was required to keep the market from being "cornered." Proponents of "lazez-fair" regulation see no problem with that - or apparently milk and gas hitting the four dollar mark.

There can be no individual liberty if we are reduced to slavery in effect by economic means. And that has always been the preferred option - serfs are ever so much easier to maintain than slaves. Worse yet, one has legal obligations toward slaves.

So, as a libertarian, I'm pro choice (as the gag goes, on everything), pro fair trade, pro social justice, pro infrastructure, pro just-big-enough-government and pro REAL , fair and free markets.

The closest thing that we have ever had is the Web, by the by, and you can tell that the Faux Libertarians are doing their damnedest to turn it all into AOHell.

Isn't it odd that in order to be that sort of Libertarian, you have to both deny your own individuality while also denying the possibility that individual definitions of value and reward might apply?

At this point you may wonder why I don't just call myself a Liberal and be done with it. Re-read the above paragraph and substitute the word "liberal."

Having the wrong thing done unto me for the wrong reasons under the delusion that it's possible to meaningfully calculate "the greatest good of the greatest number" in most areas of social policy leads inevitably to the struggle over the right to choose what "blessings" we will receive.

Oddly, it seems that the same people who decry regulation - are all too willing to advise "prudent" intervention when Liberals are in power.

Meditating on "Postie" ethics.

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There is another side to the Google Spanking story. I stumbled across the exact sort of blogger that I'd consider to be a problem, and his response to being considered the problem.

From the small biz blog.

It's true. I guess my blog just isn't good enough for them.

WordPress told me to get out of Dodge; that they didn't want my scummy blog soiling their servers.

According to them, a blog that promotes online businesses, products and information is against their terms of service, labeling all blogs of this sort "Get Rich Quick" blogs. Exactly how is WordPress doing business? Online, isn't it? Pot, kettle, black.

Take your biz and shove it, WordPress!

Anyone else had any bad experiences to report with WordPress?

Regards,

Tony

My first thought was, "what part of terms and services did you not understand?" I've looked into Wordpress. It's a teense fascist in some ways. Blogger is a lot looser in letting you do your thing. What you want to do should dictate the services you use, especially if you aren't paying for the services. The idea is to perform a service of value in order to get paid, not to get paid for creating nothing of value using stolen bandwidth. (This is why Blogger gets the top bar on my site. Bind not the mouth of the kine that treadeth the grain.)

I use Blogger because I like the interface and because I write controversial things from time to time - and have suffered DNS and hack jobs as a result. I'm not an IT guy, and Google has some of the smartest people in the world making and interface that allows even an idiot to create a professional-looking blog.

And clearly they do. See above. WordPress - and this is just an impression, folks - seems to think of it's users as an unfortunate necessity, and certainly a resource that needs weeding. Well, I can understand both viewpoints.

And frankly, were it my servers, I would have done the same. The "small business blog" above is not just spam. It is "make money fast spam." Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam... and it is embarrassing to me that they are a "featured blog" on Pay Per Post today. That is a problem. If they are featured, people think I'm doing what they do. Worse yet, potential advertisers will look at the featured site - and run like hell!

You see, I approach a paid post as being content, first and foremost. I'm attaching my name to it, after all, and my credibility is simply not for sale. At least, not that cheaply.

But I do have to consider the fact that in choosing to take paid posts, people will assume that I do it in the same way and for the same reasons. Worse yet, I have a feeling that this "postie" gets the juicy offers while I'm down in the five to ten dollar range, after the massive Google Spank.

Well, if this is a typical example of a "Good Postie" - spank us again. But I think a more targeted approach would be a good idea.

This "small business blog" is simply a scam to get paid posts into engines, essentially getting free advertising. And it is blatantly using a free blog service (once wordpress, now Blogger) to do that. It's theft of services, plain and simple - even more so with Blogger, since that's a Google service, and Google owns Adwords and, of course, Google.

Me, I strive to produce content that's worth indexing. Most businesses suck at bragging about themselves - hell, sometimes it's hard to discern what it is they do. They often overlook the better aspects of their products and services, as well as entire demographics that might like what they have to offer. Well, that's the sort of post I do, if I take the post at all.

Just do a site search for "payperpost" and you can review what I've done for yourself.

But there is one thing I refuse to do, and that is pretend that I'm passing on the good word from the goodness of my heart. My readers deserve that very important piece of information, and I'm not going to lie either by commission or omission.

So, even though often advertisers say "No in-post disclosure" - meaning no obvious indication that it is a paid post, I often cheerfully ignore it - although, to be frank, I'm far more likely to just snort and pass on by. You want me to write a positive article on your business, a hundred words, and give no indication that this turd landed in my feed for a princely five bucks? No. I also want something worth writing about, and your offer tells me that you GOT nothin'.

Look, you clearly get what you pay for. And clearly, a slot on sites like "the small business blog" is going to generate what those of us who learned some of the webmaster trade in the Adult industry refer to as "crap traffic."

"Crap traffic" is traffic that may be overwhelming, but has a conversion rate of under half a percent. Or in other words, all they want is something for nothing. And this traffic is helpfully generated by a class of entrepreneurs (to be kind) that also want something for nothing. Free traffic, or money from you in return for a lot of nothing worth having. Some of those entrepreneurs do sites like this, others deluge your inbox with offers to "optimize your site."

Caveat Emptor always applies. And this applies to advertisers, to bloggers, and of course to readers. "What's in it for you, that I believe this?"

A lot of the time, I click through on an offer only to find some useless eye-bleeding monstrosity that sells overpriced crap to stupid people. I don't take those opportunities, because I absolutely do not want my site linked to that site. I don't use "nofollow" on these posts, because if I'm willing to write about it, I DO wish to be associated with it in the Google Index.

For myself, I hope that you think well enough of me that you would not assume I'd waste your time and mine for trivial sums. What's in it for me is a great post on a topic I probably would not have come across any other way. In other words, it's just like Alternet or Media Matters in a very real sense, but with a kicker: You think well enough of yourself or your product to pay me an honorarium for the time it takes to do the background and the post.

That's an important thing to know. And I think it's important for my readers to know as well - especially when you leave what is said up to me. I'm perfectly willing to take your money and tell you that you have a bad site or a crappy idea. That sort of feedback may be less welcome, but it's cheap at the price. And I STILL get a good post that attracts traffic organically.

But I may be in a distinct minority. That saddens me. I confess I'm not a very social being, so checking out "the community" didn't much interest or appeal to me. If I had, I may well have thought twice before joining - but it is an idea of such potential value to me and potentially of general value to the web - that I think I would have ultimately come down on the side of doing it right. The web really cannot exist without a commercial aspect to it, but in order for that to be properly realized, we have to figure out ways of doing it that are not simply newspaper ads that blink.

In fact - and I learned this creating ads for a local newspaper with knife and wax, while mildly high from the developer solution from the optical typesetter - that the best ads were informative ones. Those were the ones that became regular accounts. Those ads were content that readers who were familiar with a business would actually want.

IZEA has taken a good deal of crap for the fallout and disappointment, some of it quite justified, but I think some of it was simply the fact that they overlooked the necessity to have a much stronger imposed code of ethics. For instance - the two or three post a day limit means little if you have seven blogs, all of them mostly spam.

And I think in part that is due to the fact that in order to make more than beer money, with blogs of average rank, you have to really grind them out, do the minimum, crank out a minimal interstitial about your cat and then grind out another, Rinse, repeat.

Now, I personally want to be able to make money blogging. I want it to be what I do for my career. But I don't intend to change what I talk about or the way I talk - because that is essential to my ambitions and the thing that makes a post from me distinct in it's own right.

Advertisers need to be both willing and able to reward those of us who go the extra mile, and to consider us as individuals with individual perspectives. Further, I think a greater recognition for the value of a post over time is required.

I mean, I don't know if some bloggers go back and strip out paid posts. I don't, but I could see some advantages to it, I suppose, in terms of maintaining page rank. And it's not exactly dishonest...

But then, there's that ethics thing, again. I give full measure, pressed down and running over as a policy. As a result, my PPP posts are approved automatically, and payouts are quick. Once I got into a groove, I haven't had a single post rejected. And in some ways I'm a little miffed, because some of the posts I have written for money get higher traffic than my own, "far more important" content.

But, however they get here, they are here, and I get a chance at putting one of my little ethics bugs in their brains.

I can't do that if I cheat to do it. I do not want someone clicking on a google entry from my blog and going "Oh, crap. Scammed again." And I think that is ultimately the attitude that will separate the wheat from the chaff. And I think that IZEA's "SocialSpark" network will be the forum in which the means to do that will be sorted out.

And no, this was not a paid post. If you like it, buy a t-shirt or something. :P

An Ethical Business Model

The good folks at lifelock would like me to remind you about them. I've blogged enthusiastically about their credit monitoring and identity-theft protection before and I'd be happy to do it again - but that's what hyperlinks are for.

I get a lot of traffic looking for that post. And yet identity theft has not stopped, because frankly lots of us find the whole thing too baffling and confusing to deal with.

For the seventh year in a row, identity theft tops the Federal Trade Commission's complaint list, accounting for 36 percent of the 674,354 complaints received between January 1 and December 31, 2006.*

Now, you might think that having a credit card with what seems like a similar service is the same thing, but it's not. It's generally not as comprehensive as Lifelock's - and it's not really a service to you - it's their routine fraud prevention presented as a service. (Ever had to call your card number to confirm that you really did want to buy a left-handed garden rake for Uncle Joey?)

Lifelock has no transactional interest in your doings, other than being paid a flat fee for keeping an eye on things. Their website is a model of openness, and frankly, I think it should be a research assignment in all business and marketing classes. Very little hype, no weasel words, and all limitations in the same type size as the promise. It's a model of an ethical contract.

And THAT is the point to this post. I don't need to tell you to trust them. Everything you need to know is on their site - including the rarely mentioned but vital bit of information - to what extent they can be trusted.

That extent is one million dollars.

It's a Faux Analogy! Peanut Butter V. Science

Proof that having a really good suit and a tv-trained voice does not make you smart. Or Correct. Or in these Post Faux Days - Credible.

A spokesmuffin and a supposed engineer try to discredit Evolution - with peanut butter.



HT to "Hell's Handmaiden" who has some even MORE hilarity in store for y'all. Better yet, one of them is Creationist Generated.

The response is from "The Bacon Eating Athiest Jew" - so I betcha know where that's going.

I just had to chime in here to assert that you don't have to be an athiest to find these people too goddam* embarrassing to stand near.

*Not Demanding, Sir and or Madame. PLEADING!

Google Spanked Non-Erotically.

Way back in the days of yore, I had a Google page-rank of five, based on posts, links and traffic that I'd damn well earned. Then I tried to monetize that traffic using PayPerPost.

Now, I'd tried using Google AdWords, but after a few tries and a few unexplained account cancellations that seemed to revolve around newsworthy nippleage and/or the odd f-bomb I drop to gain attention, I decided that Google AdWords were incompatible with the blog you see here. You see, I don't write in order to optimize for money and traffic. I write what I write, based on my sources. And PayPerPost is one of my better sources for ideas.

I've found that generally if people are willing to pay you to blog about something - and willing to accept an honest response (the little +/- icon) - then generally if my site qualifies given the keywords I've set up, it might just be the idea I don't have for the day.

That's why my PPP assignments tend to be sporadic. It's this blogger's way of dealing with writer's block.

Well, I was one of many people who's blogs were "spanked" by Google with a drastic, arbitrary and of course economically devastating drop in page-rank, for the sin, apparently of taking money to write particular posts. You know, as opposed for taking a salary or a sponsorship to write entire blogs.

Somehow, apparently, that's more ethical? Or perhaps it's due to the fact that such blogs tend to be entirely acceptable to Google Adwords, since they are already hewing to some form of company line or theme that makes it easy for them to assign keywords. Well, whatever - but while my content may not be all that predictable, it did earn that PR5 honestly.

And of course, Google Pagerank has been a critical number when seeking out sponsorships and putting a value on your display advertising space.

Well, Izea.com has struck back with Izea Page Rank. Here's mine.




The idea, of course, is to compete with Google and Alexa, neither of which are seemingly all that friendly to the individual, entrepreneurial blogger.

It doesn't particularly bother me about Alexa not being all that great for me. It has always favored really high-traffic sites. Google, though, is supposed to go by the ethos of "first, do no evil."

Now having said that, I have not said anything before this because it was absolutely clear why some action of this sort was probably required. Google's search engine was getting cluttered by crappy pages from crappy blogs that exist only to exploit engine traffic.

Of course, the same could be said of AdWords blogs. And it should be. You see, there's little point in buying AdWords if it's going to give you crap traffic. Well, it's hard to know what criteria went into the "spanking," other than the obvious - those of us who were spanked know that we aren't considered suitable for Google.

But just as obviously, there were definitely "civilian casualties," people who take occasional posts, for whatever reason.

And personally, I think that a well-written, contextually appropriate paid post of mine stacks up against an unpaid piece of crap by someone wanting to churn out keyword-filled entries for their AdWords blog.

Yes, Google, Yes; I KNOW there has to be a way to filter out the Make Money Fast people. I also know that it's likely to be imperfect. I'm even willing to take something of a personal hit in order to improve search results. I use the damn things too. But in point of fact, people use Google to find stuff to buy all the freaking time - and posts like mine really do add value to that end of the business.

You, Google, need to get on board, and take a look at the ethical and practical rethinking that Izea is doing over at SocialSpark. The idea kicks ass. Maybe you should, I dunno, share data or something?

Oh frack, it's almost too late to do anything for Mother's day!!!

Ok, you poor negligent bastards, it's too late for anything other than mothers day flowers
from 1-800-Flowers.com. This may not be the tone which they would prefer - but this is Graphictruth. And the Graphictruth is, if it was not for neglegant bastards like you with large wallets and short memories, there would BE no teleflorist's at all. So at least use the one you can remember, and the one that is known for doing a better job than you could do at any hour. I mean, just because your alternative is a quick run to the 7-11, don't settle for a service that won't do any better than that.

1-800-Flowers.com - the first name in genuine gratitude for the absent-minded.

Oh, yeah. I forgot the day too...

Today's Posts are brought to you by...

The point I want to make.

You see, I haven't made any money for a while, and I need to, because I desperately need two video cards. Or, more accurately, that was my motivation for clicking on Pay Per Post. You may have noticed - or not - that I haven't done a paid post for some time.

Well, as I said, today I needed the money, and so I clicked onto PPP. And, not only did I find two opportunities, I found the idea I needed for today. It's an idea that's been perculating in the back of my mind, it's all about new media and new economy vs. old media and old economy and it turns out that these two paid opps precisely illustate exactly what I want to say.

And this turns out to underline an idea that I've had in the back of my mind since my days in the newspaper biz; the idea that the most powerful ads were ones that underlined the article(s) on the same page, and vice versa, that an article acually gained some degree of importance by making advertisers compete to be on the same page - whether or not that correlation was real or completely accidental. This was back in the day of knife and wax, and I still think of advertising as my first calling.

You see, I spent most of my time as a newspaperperson designing, writing and physically placing ads. Before that, I designed and placed ads in all sorts of niche media for Judges Guild, an RPG company that specialized in D12 game systems and had a small ad budget that needed to be targeted wisely.

Like most very small companies, Judges Guild lived and died on advertising coupled by word of mouth and had very, very little discretionary income to use for that advertising. Every single penny was begrudged, as it came out of the owner's food budget.

Literally.

Now, I want you to take a glance at all the ads on this site for a moment. Scroll up, scroll down, the article will still be here when you get back. All the graphical and all the text adds are placed here by someone who is taking a few pennies from their food budget in hopes it will make you click on something.

Consider the reality and implications of that. Consider the fact that in many, many cases, these people are taking the entrepreneurial course because it allows them to be creative; or even more viscerally; because it allows them to feed their family about as well as welfare would, but with some dignity and hope attached.

This is also something of an epiphiany for me, and more importantly, it's going to be an important day in terms of illustrating the new reality of web-based media and advertising. You see, it used to be commonly understood that advertising drove media. But in the new media, adverising is "cost plus" - that is to say that advertising is something that the media owner can choose and place, and their success at that relates entirely as to it's relevance.

And second, direct media buys - such as google ad-words, blogpspot, and my own choice, Project Wonderful - are completely depeneant upon the tracking of my niche.

Furthermore, - and here's a beutiful and wonderful thing about the web - I can actually sell advertising "futures." I mean, in a sense. Today's posts, for instance. As a demonstration and experiment, based on my faith in the importance of this serious articles, will carry with them a unique "Project Wonderful" button bar, targeted at SEO optimizers, newsletter engine producers and all others who specialize in marketing the stuff that creative people make.

Ultimately - speaking from practice, direct creative experience and from direct observation of the market, creative people really suck at marketing their own work. And yes, I include myself in that category. Marketing is an entirely separate skillset, so radically different that I would have to say that no creative person should even consider going without at least an informal reality check from a marketer, and vice versa. People who are just getting into flexing their marketing muscles search desperately for things worth selligng - and it's my observation that they tend to run through several painfully instructive relationships before they find the thing, the people or the ideas that mesh with their personal particular talents.

This of course implies that it would make a great deal of sense for an internet marketing agency to scoop up people who are driven to the trade, who want to market, and who need to be put together with a deserving client, so they don't have to do their time in the ghettos of MLM or affiliate marketing.

My illustration of what that would look like is in my next post, and just to underline that, I will be paid for it.

Ethics are universal and ethical transactions always pay off better and over a longer term than unethical transactions. But it's not always easy to find a ethos that expresses one's ethic in a time of extraordinarily rapid change. I've decided to return to the vary basis of life to continue my exploration of that principle; survival, happiness and long-term prosperity are all direct evidence of learning to do the right thing.