When Justice packs up and leaves the lands…..(Update)

and the Villagers have to fin for themselves, you have the most serious of situations.

As Civil Rights Leader Malcolm X said:

“Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had! Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok!”

First, it was Pres. Obama making secret deals with the drugsters, then there were multiple “No vote of confidence” presented to the Democratic Congress followed by the U.S. Supreme Court giving away the store, and now the Department of Justice is caught red-handed playing footsies with American war criminals, all happening between January 20, 2009 and February 18, 2010. I struggle to remain optimistic.

Justice Department Report Accuses Torture Memo Writers Of 'Poor Judgment'
By Sam Stein
Excerpt:
On Friday, the Justice Department released a long-awaited watchdog report on the Bush administration legal team that authorized the now-infamous torture memos. And in a move destined to anger critics of the past administration's conduct, the career official in charge of the investigation overruled a previous finding of misconduct -- exonerating the lawyers under examination.
Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/19/justice-department-report_n_469608.html

Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-SPAN and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB

(Update)
I toast the wisdom of diarist don mikulecky

The two party system does not work and can't be fixed by a third party.
by don mikulecky
Excerpt:
These systems are far from perfect, but far superior to ours in my judgement.  Real change comes when there is already a functioning changed structure or set of functioning institutions out there in the society.  The idea that you can change a society by electing people to office is very naive at best.  Only if the elected people are expressing an already viable set of social changes can this even hope to work.
Read more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/20/839098/-The-two-party-system-does-not-work-and-cant-be-fixed-by-a-third-party.

R.I.P. Joe Stack

I ask myself if Mr. Stack was really angry when he burned his house down and ran his Piper Cherokee airplane into an Austin office building.

Upon reading and hearing parts of his “alleged” suicide letter, I did not see or hear any curse words that he used. If I were as angry as Mr. Stack is said to have been, I would have been cursing like a MF! I would have written down names, calling each one a dirty bastard and talked about their mama like a dog! But that’s me and Joe Stack was a white boy and things like burning your house down and running your airplane into an office building in Austin, Texas is what a white boy like Joe Stack would do when he gets angry, er, upset about something.

Mr. Stack was just upset. Scott Roeder was “upset” like that when he murdered abortion doctor George Tiller. James Von Brunn was equally upset when he shot up the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. murdering security guard, Stephen Jones.

Hear ye all! Mr. Joe Stack did not perform a terrorist act! He was just (ahem) upset about something and that’s not being a terrorist! Case closed!! Now about Tiger Woods. We want to get to the bottom of this. We are still trying to determined if Tiger terrorized all those poor white women before or while he was having sex with them……
As always,
BB
PS. Tiger Woods needs tuh hang 'round with thuh “Brothas”. They’ll learn him how to handle hisself. (Smile)

How the F*** was that NOT a terrorist attack?
by mrWr0ng
Read more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/19/838641/-How-the-F***-was-that-NOT-a-terrorist-attack

Summer use to mean good vegetables and watermelon (Update)

Tonight I ate a dish of lettuce, a few olives topped with Italian dressing. There was no tomato nor cucumber on the plate. Since I seldom ware my teeth when eating at home, I forgo having difficult to chew cucumber on my plate with my lettuce and it is not so bad due to the fact cucumbers don’t taste like they use to taste “back in the day”. Back in the day I use to peel and slice’em, sprinkling a generous amount of salt on them to bring out more flavor and toss them on my lettuce heap in about ten to twenty minutes or so.

It is the tomato I miss most of all! Whatever the variety of tomato, in my opinion, it is the tomato that makes a plate of lettuce, olives and Italian dressing a salad. Without the tomato, all I envision is an assortment of lettuce with something else added to it; not anything I would honor by calling a (gasp) salad.

I have tasted the so called organic tomato, the vine ripened one and so on and so on, but the tomato that I remember no longer exist, at least not at the commercial markets I frequent.

It is my understanding Monsanto Seed Company is messin’ wif me and my love of a good tomato. My understanding is the seed company has something to do with genetically engineering seeds distributed worldwide combined with procedures for lack of fertilizers during the growing season and a whole bunch of stuff. If this is indeed the case and is the major reason my tomato no longer taste good to me, then I do not have nice things to say about the Monsanto Seed Company.

And then there is the watermelon. A fruit no longer having a defining flavor. To me there is little difference between the taste of watermelon and an equally tasteless cantaloupe or banana. I note the banana no longer even smells like a banana. These fruits may look differently but to me, they all lack one major characteristic; they are devoid of defining flavors!

There is no way a human body can extract from these fruits what the body needs to maintain itself so it needs booster shots of insulin to bypass the natural resistance of our body’s protecting elements. I wonder if the reason obese people are so fat now-a-days is due to the fact they are getting such small amounts of ingredients, if any, their bodies need to properly function as intended, so they have to over-eat the Monsanto products to compensate their body needs thereby setting off alternate chain reactions?

As to the effect of Monsanto foods on our digestive track, there are a whole lot of people effected with colon problems and conditions we never heard of in the old days. I don’t think they existed! I often smile thinking about having to take insulin everytime I have to eat foods that caused me having to take insulin in the first place. It‘s a real trip!

Finally, whoever controls our food chain in designating countries to grow foods that is not native to that country. I am mindful a few years back India had to call in specialist to save a watermelon crop. India? Watermelon? What happened to “Negroes and the South?” I am also mindful the massive growing of pineapples in Hawaii and bananas in the Caribbean has also been shifted to other countries. New World Order? You bet’cha! Booo!
Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-SPAN and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB
Variations on a theme…….

King Obesity
By RALPH NADER
Excerpt:
King Obesity sat grandly on a huge hassock atop a throne composed of solidified animal fat surveying his domain. The last thirty years have been bullish for Obesity, during which the number of seriously overweight children in America tripled. Eating fat, sugary and salty food while sitting for hours daily looking at video screens, being bused to and from school, and not having to bother with physical education, millions of lads and lassies were following orders.
Read more at:
http://counterpunch.com/nader02182010.html

(Update)
Monsanto Submitted "Fake Scientific Data" Says Former Exec
by dsnodgrass
Excerpt:
Monsanto's former managing directior of India operations is talking, and it's not pretty for the behemoth of genetic modification. Tiruvadi Jagadisan is accusing his former employer of faking scientific data with the intent of evading the government's regulatory requirements.
Read more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/19/838659/-Monsanto-Submitted-Fake-Scientific-Data-Says-Former-Exec

And
Don’t hasten introduction of Bt brinjal: M.S. Swaminathan
Excerpt:
“Brinjal is consumed throughout one’s life. It’s a vegetable of very widespread consumption. Therefore what will be the chronic effect? Brinjal,(eggplant) there is so much of variability in the country. Will that variability and the biodiversity be destroyed by growing one or two varieties of brinjal in the place of numerous [varieties]? What happens if the resistance breaks down? We would have then lost our bio-diversity. Are steps being taken?” Dr. Swaminathan said.
Read more at:
http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/article98332.ece
Hat tip to diarist Bronxist

On becoming a discriminating blog reader

My opinion on becoming a discriminating blog reader is one who can “Belly up to the bar..” and upon finding out his favorite whiskey is all gone, he can accept another brand and still enjoy watching Miss Lola And Her Wonder Girls when they come to town performing on the tiny multipurpose stage.

My imagination was excited when I heard a conservative member of a think tank group saying he prepare groups to interact on the internet. That confession awakened my thoughts as to why a positive post or diary would garner positive comments up to a certain point then suddenly there is a slew of negatives comments which kills the thread.

I think during the brief interim of the positive comments, the naysayer monitoring the site for certain issues has a chance to contact his team and its members subsequently descend upon the site like a cloud of locus. I think they want to use a debate team format which is not appropriate. The website is not set up for such an issue. Debating teams have a rigid format. If that is not the case and they just want to be assholes, many times they succeed.

There are many times I do not read comments due to the fact I know the obstructionists are out there on that particular issue so I just want the post or diary I enjoyed reading to stand on the merits of the author’s writing and forego reading the comments altogether. This may not be fair to the author but hey, that‘s the kind of guy I am.

And while I am on the subject, I have almost stopped reading all stories from Huffington Post for two explicit reason: Huffington Post has begun to put two headlines under most any article on Pres. Obama and his wife, Michelle. For example, one article may read Michelle Obama To Appear On Fox News and the article right below it would read something like “How zoo keepers are keeping animals warm”. If memory serves me correctly, this difference on the Huffington Post website started happening shortly after her controversial new-hire last year.

The other reason is I do not like being faked out with names of articles being different than names the author attached to them. Matt Drug does both of these odious things and is the reason I stopped reading his site months ago with no regrets whatsoever!

Finally It's Time: 99% Good-Bye---Updated
by Phil S 33
Excerpt:
The president has many faults; and we need to criticize him, and push him---but do we need to tear apart this community while doing so??
Read more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/17/837836/-Finally-Its-Time:-99-Good-ByeUpdated

As always,

BB

Pres. Obama: Bi-Racial Dilemma?

I never had a bi-racial friend but something tells me they have stories to tell. Not Blacks stories and not white stories but bi-racial ones. Are there jokes they tell amongst themselves? Do they think of their Black consciousness and their white consciousness?

I imagine they can use combinations of words describing their voyages in life that would make my ears ring. I can but imagine the world they would describe to me. Navigating through two worlds in America, one Black and one white has to be -I can think of no other word- an experience.

There is always fear and confusion of the unknown; always that mystic we want to probe and conquered and bring order to. We want to put our nervous system to rest and let it be; bury it deep enough so we can live.

Only after reading the diary of Keith Olbermann do I now raise the question to myself I had poo-pah’ed when Hillary first asked it on the campaign trail: “Who is Barack Obama?” I ask that question not of myself but I wonder does he himself know? Do we see the President’s essence in what many consider his struggles with bi-partisanship? I remain baffled with the President hiring two people whom he feels best represents him and would fight his battles for and or with him: Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel. Do our answers lie within those three angles, a triangle, if you will?
As always,
BB

P.S. Odd as it may appear, I wonder if Hillary and Rahm represent parental figures to the President?
Special Comment: Tea Parties And Race
by Keith Olbermann
Excerpt:
Fatal racism, passive racism, self-rationalized racism. It all blended together for me yesterday, and it led me to think about the Tea Party group, who they are, who they aren't, and what they're afraid of.

And
The whole of the "anger at government" movement is predicated on this.  
Times are tough, the future is confusing, the threat from those who would dismantle our way of life is real (as if we weren't to some extent doing it for them). And the president is black. But you can't come out and say that's why you are scared. Say that, and in all but the lifeless fringes of our society, you are an outcast.
Read more and comments at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/15/837380/-Special-Comment:-Tea-Parties-And-Race

Saving face: Showtime for the truly racist (Update)

Always the problem of not allowing a Black to have something you can not have.
Always the problem you can take and do whatever you want due to your white, privileged statue.
Always, “Big you and little Black me”.

Now that we have the Black Presidency of Barack Obama, you racist, ill-wishers and serious hate mongers have the job of maintaining your status amongst your friends and relatives.

Those friends and relatives are the people who know first hand your feelings about Blacks and other people of color. And so it is those varied friends and relatives do wait and with baited breath to see and count the times how you, their “Hero,” really handle your feelings regarding Blacks. They are ever ready to heap accolades upon you and with you loving every minute of it.

However, with President Obama they want fresh stories for you to tell; fresh things for you to do. They want newer incidences to write and talk about to their own friends and relatives. They are no longer desirous of you re-telling vintage stories as to why you voted for George Wallace or selectively failed “arrogant niggers” in your classroom or how you urinated on the vegetables at a Black woman’s market because you were not going into her “Black nigger” bathroom.

Those are stories of old; stories of “the good ol’ days”. They want more contemporary ones, don’t they, and they are bugging you, aren’t they? After all, like it or not, you have made yourself their hero! Now go get’em!

-Hay Jake, did you really call your Black supervisor a lying coon yesterday? Right to his face?? Wow-weeee!! And did you then turn 'round and call your boss a dirty ol' Jew? What do you mean you're not crazy??

Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-SPAN and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB

The Iceman Cometh
He's cool, calm, and out to get Obama.
By: Howard Fineman
The blizzard had paralyzed Washington. So it was an apt day for a chat (by phone) with Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is working successfully—yet with surprisingly little personal notoriety—to bury the Barack Obama presidency in an unplowed cul-de-sac called the U.S. Senate. As the GOP leader there, McConnell strands Democrats in snowdrifts of parliamentary procedure and nasty talking points. "We are not just reflexively looking for areas where there will be no progress," he assured me. Having spent many years listening to McConnell, I can translate: he is reflexively looking for areas where there will be no progress. MORE HERE
Read more here:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233529

(Update)
A Cold Civil War
by Timbuk3
Excerpt:
Digby has a post up today discussing the extreme polarization, both in the congress and the electorate.

And
"There is not likely to be another bloody civil war, but we are in a cold civil war and have been for quite some time."
Read more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/15/837196/-A-Cold-Civil-War

Thoughts on the Fareed Zakaria Show

I knew it! The moment Fareed Zakaria said his show, Global Public Square (GPS), will no longer publicly display answers to his weekly question, there were disturbing relationships to be made. He went on to say the answers could be obtained only after visiting his website.

In my opinion, Mr. Zakaria always ask elegant, sophisticated and extremely penetrating questions and gets equal responses from his viewing audience. To me, the question surfaces as to why the “powers that be” in his association instituted this new feature in its program. The answer I come up with is the new practice is just one more effort to stifle critical thinking here in America. The oligarchy does not want us Villagers exposed to that form of thinking. They may not be able to stop Mr. Zakaria from asking questions but they sure can control exposing the answers. Critical thinking skills are the last thing the oligarchy want us to have and for Mr. Zakaria to have a following of such thinkers shall not be. They are having enough problems manipulating the movement of the TeaBaggers and that movement escalated from a television personality, Mr. Santalli.

What happened on Mr. Zakaria’s show fully demonstrates to me one of the numerous fallacies in our educational system and further proves why our rankings in the global community is always poor to grave in all areas save our prison community. I feel a relationship could be made between our prison complex and our abilities as a country for critical thinking skills thereby boding very badly on our educational system and related exposures.

Mr. Paul Volker was on GPS today lamenting why high officials in the financial community and who are not elected officials are not pushing for imposing rigid restraints on our banking community. To me, he appeared completely baffled and frustrated.

Finally, on GPS today, I find the relationship between the concerns of Mr. Volker and the decision of the “powers that be” not exposing answers to questions raised during the show further exacerbates disturbing elements as to the mis-management of America. It’s a stretch, I know, but what can I say? That’s the kind of guy I am. A blogger wrote long ago, “How do you un-think a thought” especially if you enjoy writing and you are also, alas, snowbound?
Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-SPAN and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB
)