Don’t Make Fun Of The Crippled Boy

Roy Zimmerman

Amazing (and Scary) Phenomena

I have always gotten excited by the wonders and sites of planet earth– BUT even though my heart desirers to see and do so very much, there are things I know would scare me. Even holding onto the rail– I know I would feel my heart throbbing in my neck! L.

Golden Ray photos of amazing mass migration sent from a boat crew that hirers out for voyages and cruises… fishing etc.

Looking like giant leaves floating in the sea thousands of Golden Rays are seen here gathering off the coast of Mexico. The spectacular scene was captured as the magnificent creatures made one of their biannual mass migrations to more agreeable waters. Gliding silently beneath the waves they turned vast areas of blue water to gold off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. Sandra Critelli, an amateur photographer, stumbled across the phenomenon while looking forwhale sharks.

She said: “It was an unreal image, very difficult to describe. The surface of the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind.

“It’s hard to say exactly how many there were but in the range of a few thousand.

“We were surrounded by them without seeing the edge of the school and we could see many under the water surface too.

“I feel very fortunate I was there in the right place at the right time to experienced nature at his best.”

Measuring up to 7ft (2.1 metres) from wing-tip to wing-tip, Golden rays are also more prosaically known as cow nose rays. They have long, pointed pectoral fins that separate into two lobes in front of their high-domed heads and give them a cow-like appearance.

Despite having poisonous stingers they are known to be shy and non-threatening when in large schools. The population in the Gulf of Mexico migrates, in schools of as many as 10,000, clockwise from western Florida to the Yucatan.

Dirty, F#cking, Liberal Hippie

…We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.

In little more than two decades we’ve gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It’s a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.

What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important.

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade — a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas. I’m announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit.

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.

I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation I will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.

Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.

Point four: I’m asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source.

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.

We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

Point six: I’m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I’m proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense — I tell you it is an act of patriotism.

Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation’s strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.

[...]

I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation’s problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act. We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

Twelve hours from now I will speak again in Kansas City, to expand and to explain further our energy program. Just as the search for solutions to our energy shortages has now led us to a new awareness of our Nation’s deeper problems, so our willingness to work for those solutions in energy can strengthen us to attack those deeper problems.

I will continue to travel this country, to hear the people of America. You can help me to develop a national agenda for the 1980s. I will listen and I will act. We will act together. These were the promises I made three years ago, and I intend to keep them.

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources — America’s people, America’s values, and America’s confidence.

I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy secure nation.

In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country. With God’s help and for the sake of our nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail.

Thank you and good night.

B’Man: h/t digby

Now which of you neocon apologists are going to call him a hippie after 30+ years of Reagan’s idiotic trickle down theory of ruining America?

Sheeple.

American Jewish Attitudes Towards Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

From Alternet, Attackerman (Spencer Ackerman) posts the findings of a J-Street poll with results that fly in the face of the neocon AIPAC agenda. This proves one crystal clear point: the AIPAC lobby and the neocon leadership of America (and Israel) are at odds with most Jews.

Poll on American Jewish Attitudes Finds They’re Liberal, Hate Bush and Want Israel-Palestine Deal

J Street, The pro-peace/pro-Israel/pro-Palestine Jewish lobby just released a monster of a poll on American Jewish political attitudes. The takeaway: we’re liberal as hell; we hate Bush; we know Bush has been a disaster for Israel; we’ll support any peace deal the Israelis make; and the only thing we’re uncomfortable with to that end is giving East Jerusalem back to the Palestinians.

Let’s go down the line. Seventy-four percent of us view Bush unfavorably and 83 percent of us disapprove of his job performance. While 76 percent of the country as a whole says the U.S. is on the wrong track, an astonishing 90 percent of American Jews say the same. Only 21 percent of us approve of the Iraq war and only 29 percent think Bush is good for Israel, and those are clearly the shmucks that kissed ass in Hebrew school and snitched when the rest of us used the synagogue phone booth and cloakroom to make out or get high.

When asked if the U.S. should or shouldn’t actively broker Mideast peace, it broke down 55 percent for U.S. involvement and 30 percent against. J Street, the menschen, took that a step further and examined support for the hard choices peace requires. “Even if it meant the United States publicly stating its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs?” Yes — 75 percent; no — 25 percent. “Even if it meant the United States exerting pressure on both Israelis and Arabs to make the compromises necessary for peace?” Yes — 70 percent; no — 30 percent.

In terms of negotiating positions for an Arab-Israeli settlement, 59 percent agree that Israel will need to “withdraw from most of the West Bank and dismantle many of the Israeli settlements.” Another 58 percent agree that for full peace with Syria — and an abandonment of their support for Hamas and Hezbollah — Israel should get out of the Golan. Only 44 percent, though, endorse the statement that Palestinian East Jerusalem should be part of the state of Palestine. And while that’s the only non-majority position among American Jews for what can fairly be called the dovish line, 44 percent is still a substantial amount of support.

J Street’s poll supports its contention that the attitudes of most of us are far, far out of whack with what this country’s self-appointed Jewish leaders — the Joe Liebermans, the AIPACs, the Sheldon Adelsons, the Commentary magazines — say we’re about and what we’re actually about.

WTF Thursday: Urine A Whole Lotta Trouble Now

Jonathon Turley posted this today. Truly, WTF is wrong with people?

Urine a Lot of Trouble, Mr. Patton: Ohio Man Arrested for Collecting Boys’ Urine for Personal Consumption

If you ever wondered why we needed a catch-all criminal mischief provision, Allan Patton, 56, has the answer. Patton shut-off the urinals at the Hilliard West Municipal Pool in Ohio and inserted cups so that he could drink the urine of boys. He suffers from what is known as urophilia – which either means being really really crazy or having a sexual fetish involving urine — or both. The case, however, does present a novel issue of the appropriate criminal charge.

Patton is on home confinement pending trial. Previously, Patton was escorted out of the restrooms at Dublin’s Sports Ohio, where he was lurking.

The key to charge here would be tampering with the urinals, presumably. The interesting aspect of the crime is that urine is discarded and, therefore, trash and valueless. The Supreme Court in cases like Greenwood held that owners have no expectation of privacy in their trash. My guess is that he also did not cause damage to the urinals by merely shutting them off. That leaves trespass and criminal mischief. The problem with the latter charge is precisely its advantage — it is very ambiguous so that it can be used in a wide range of cases.

He is a registered sex offender so he can likely be charged for simply violating court orders on staying away from areas frequented by children. This is not some harmless guy with a disgusting fetish. He previously was sentenced for assaulting boys.

For the full story, click here.

MPP-TV Profiles in Marijuana Reform with Jim Hightower

From Alternet:

Jim Hightower on Pot — Sharing His Thoughts on Pot, That Is

Marijuana Policy Project

Watch the Marijuana Policy Project’s Profiles in Marijuana Reform interview with author and national radio commentator, Jim Hightower in the video to the right. This is a project of MPP.tv.

Here’s more from the MPP; its quick FAQ –
Marijuana: Myths vs. Reality

Myth: There is no scientific evidence proving marijuana’s therapeutic qualities.

Reality: In a White House-commissioned 1999 report, the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine declared that “nausea, appetite loss, pain, and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting and all can be mitigated by marijuana.”

Myth: Marijuana’s potential health benefits are insignificant compared to the damage caused by smoking the drug.

Reality: Marijuana need not be administered by smoking: It can be taken in food, tea, or through a smokeless vaporizer. Furthermore, a 2006 study by a leading pulmonologist, Dr. Donald Tashkin, found that even regular and heavy smoking of marijuana does not lead to lung cancer.

Myth: Allowing the medical use of marijuana will send the wrong message to children and lead to more youths using the drug.

Reality: In the 10 medical marijuana states that have before-and-after data, studies have unanimously shown that not only has youth use of marijuana not gone up overall, it actually has declined since medical marijuana became legal.

Myth: Marijuana is a gateway drug to harder substances, and therefore medical marijuana use will lead to dangerous drug use.

Reality: In science, the distinction between cause and correlation is a crucial one. A White House-commissioned study by the Institute of Medicine found that marijuana “does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse; that is, care must be taken not to attribute cause to association.” Moreover, claims about marijuana being a gateway make no sense in the context of medical marijuana: Patients often use marijuana instead of highly addictive prescription medicines like morphine and Oxycontin. Medical marijuana is a safe alternative for patients whose other options are not as reliable or effective.

Myth: Supporting medical marijuana is politically risky.

Reality: Across the country and with increasing frequency, public opinion polls show that support for medical marijuana is popular and steadily rising — and cuts across demographic and party lines. A 2004 AARP poll showed that 72% of seniors support medical marijuana, and a 2005 Gallup poll found that 78% of Americans support “making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering.” Compassion and relief from suffering are nonpartisan issues that all legislators can — and should — support.

Who was/is Eddie Mcfadden?

My summertime mystery! Who exactly was/is Eddie Mcfadden?

Things I know:

He was born in 1928

He played guitar with many Jazz legends… And on countless albums with countless musicians. His name is mentioned with repect and admiration from critics and fellow musicains in the industry.

… and I now own an original oil painting of him that hung in an old jazz and blues Club.

I have searched the web…for a biography, history, photograph… anything about this man!

 

Eddie McFadden

I have left emails at contact links along the way asking for information– etc.

Anyone out there up for a mystery ?? Wanna help? Any help would be appreciated!!

This man HAS to have some history somewhere…

Every War has it’s “GO!” pills– nothing new.

Night of the Living Meds

The U.S. military’s sleep-reduction program.

 

By William Saletan/slate

You don’t have to worry anymore about the possibility of an arms race in pharmaceutical enhancement of combat troops. It’s already here. The evidence is laid out in “Human Performance,” a report commissioned by the Pentagon’s Office of Defense Research and Engineering. The document, issued by a defense science advisory group known as JASON, was published earlier this year. It was flagged by Secrecy News and came to Slate’s attention through Wired’s military blog, Danger Room.

The report is unclassified because there’s nothing earth-shattering in it. Indeed, it debunks some fanciful brain-augmentation scenarios. What it offers instead is a level-headed account of how cognitive performance-enhancement technology is already entering military practice. The gateway application for this technology isn’t sensory acuity or information processing. It’s sleep reduction.

According to the report, “The most immediate human performance factor in military effectiveness is degradation of performance under stressful conditions, particularly sleep deprivation. If an opposing force had a significant sleep advantage, this would pose a serious threat.” Consequently, “the manipulation and understanding of human sleep is one part of human performance modification where significant breakthroughs could have national security consequences.”

That’s the theory. But it’s not just a theory, the report notes; it’s a proven pattern in military history.

Sleep deprivation is known to have significantly harmful impact on physical performance, alertness, and the ability to perform complex cognitive tasks. In planning their campaigns, battlefield commanders have to weigh carefully the negative impact on the effectiveness of their forces of extended periods of wakefulness and combat. In addition, under appropriate conditions on the tactical battlefield, sleep deprivation and exhaustion can be and has been exploited militarily as a specific mechanism to weaken opposing forces. This observation … is illustrated by accounts of General George Patton’s almost legendary pattern of driving his army with extreme aggressiveness in World War II, based on his stated conviction that it was the way to reach his goal more rapidly and with fewer casualties. The point is to maximally exploit the state of exhaustion of one’s enemy. It seems intuitive that, in combat between two armies at comparable levels of sleep deprivation, the advantage is with the force on offense in its ability to stress the opposition’s state of exhaustion.

Deprivation. Degradation. Exhaustion. Harmful impact

. All of these terms imply a deficit, a reduction from normal performance. This is another reason why sleep modification is the gateway app for cognitive military enhancement. We can tell ourselves and the rest of the world that we’re not really making our troops superhuman; we’re just restoring their natural powers. In the report’s words:

If we take as a given that soldiers on the battlefield will always need to undergo sleep deprivation, sometimes severe, and given that such sleep deprivation leads to large performance degradation, it follows that any method for improving how soldiers behave under sleep deprivation will have significant consequences for either our own forces or an adversary that learns to solve this problem.

In concrete terms, sleep modification will save lives. This is the trump card for any controversial biotechnology. The report calculates:

[T]he maximum casualty rate depends strongly on the individual’s sleep need, τ0. Hence any effort to improve human performance to minimize τ0 for given tasks can lead to a significant decrease in the casualty rate, of [about] 20 percent. … Suppose a human could be engineered who slept for the same amount of time as a giraffe (1.9 hours per night). This would lead to an approximately twofold decrease in the casualty rate. An adversary would need an approximately 40 percent increase in the troop level to compensate for this advantage.

Massively reduced casualties—how could anyone oppose that? In the face of these numbers, sleep modification, if practical, ceases to be an option. It becomes an obligation. Foregoing it begins to feel as derelict as failing to supply our troops with adequate body armor.

But is it practical? Will it harm our brave young men and women? Relax. Our brave young men and women are already doing it. The report notes:

The use of supplements, primarily to ameliorate sleep deprivation and to improve physical performance, is report[ed] to be common among US military personnel. This behavior is a cultural norm in the US and is recognized, but not endorsed, by the US military. For instance the PX at most military bases stock popular supplements.

The part about the military not “endorsing” these chemicals is pretty rich. The armed forces are up to their eyeballs in research on drugs to facilitate sleep reduction. The report cites a recent study, conducted by the Military Nutrition Division of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, which

involved tests of the effects of caffeine on performance for a group of Navy SEALS, following 72 hours of intense training activity with almost total sleep deprivation. A variety of metrics were used, including computer-based tests of reaction speed and mental acuity, psychiatric self-assessment surveys, and marksmanship tests. The test was to determine the optimal caffeine dose to ameliorate the effects of fatigue and stress.

The study concluded that caffeine “significantly improved visual vigilance, choice reaction time, repeated acquisition, self-reported fatigue and sleepiness.”

But caffeine was only the beginning. “The US military … has a long-standing effort in tracking and evaluating popular supplements,” says the report. “To date, 86 proposed ergogenic and cognitive aids have been evaluated.” These apparently include “amphetamines and modafinil,” which “are known to be effective for combating the effects of sleep deficit.” But the hot target now is a class of chemicals called ampakines. On this subject, the report cites several studies funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, particularly a paper called “Facilitation of Task Performance and Removal of the Effects of Sleep Deprivation by an Ampakine (CX717) in Nonhuman Primates.” The report notes that the study found

a clear improvement in performance, correlated with changes in fMRI patterns, when the monkeys were treated with ampakines. … Repeating the tasks with sleep-deprived monkeys that had been administered ampakines … restored performance to levels comparable to or better than those for well-rested monkeys without ampakine treatment.

Clearly, we’re well on our way to systematizing sleep reduction. But we don’t want to be accused of starting the pharmaceutical arms race. So let’s blame it on somebody else. Let’s say we’re doing this research not to enhance our troops, but to prepare for the possibility that our enemies will enhance theirs first. Accordingly, the report advises the armed forces to

Monitor enemy activities in sleep research, and maintain close understanding of open source sleep research. Use in-house military research on the safety and effectiveness of newly developing drugs for ameliorating the effects of sleep deprivation, such as ampakines, as a baseline for evaluating potential activities of adversaries.

There you have it: To make the world safe from sleep reduction, we’re working night and day on the world’s most advanced program in sleep reduction. You can rest easy, knowing our troops are wide awake.

The “who is in charge” game

Does the Bush administration have a secret succession order that bypasses Congress?Suppose the worst happens, and the next terrorist attack hits Washington hard, taking out the president and the vice president. What happens next?

Well, sometime in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan issued a “secret executive order” that in the event of the death of the president and the vice president “established a means of re-creating the executive branch.” Reagan’s order violated the express terms of the Constitution and governing statutes. Does a similar order exist today? We aren’t told. But we do know that Dick Cheney participated in the secret “doomsday” exercises under the Reagan order, and given his central role at present, it is imperative for Congress to find out.Congress last considered the problem of a dual vacancy in the presidency and the vice presidency when Harry Truman was in the White House. In the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, lawmakers stipulated that if both positions are empty, power passes first to the Speaker of the House or, if she, too, does not survive, to the president pro tem of the Senate. But relying on James Mann’s earlier book Rise of the Vulcans, Mayer reports that Reagan “amended the process for speed and clarity … without informing Congress that it had been sidestepped.” We don’t know how. But if the order bypasses the speaker and the Senate president pro tempore in favor of an official in the executive branch, we have a recipe for a constitutional crisis. With al-Qaida back in business in Pakistan and terrorist incidents proliferating around the world, this is no time to ignore that grim risk. A coup by the executive branch would be especially devastating at a time at which Democrats control the House. In the scenario I’m envisioning, Nancy Pelosi would assert her claim as acting president under existing statutes while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or some other executive official, would simultaneously assert her competing authority under the executive order. When confronting these competing claims, it would be the military that would call the shots. As the Washington Post reported three years ago, the Pentagon has “devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country.” In acting on these plans, would the Joint Chiefs choose to recognize the constitutional authority of Pelosi as commander in chief? Or would they respond to the commands of the executive official presiding over the “doomsday” crisis center at some “undisclosed location”? To ask the question is to answer it: The whole point of these “doomsday” exercises is to assure instant obedience to the will of the executive on the other side of the hot line. We are staring at a clear and present danger to the republic. Where does the Bush administration figure into all of this?  Since Sept. 11 , the question of presidential succession has been a preoccupation of some of the most responsible statesmen in Washington. Most notably, James Baker joined the late Lloyd Cutler to chair a bipartisan AEI-Brookings Institution commission on the subject. But their recommendations went nowhere in Congress, and I have always wondered why the Bush administration was content to remain on the sidelines. After all, the administration is certainly serious about terrorism. Why, then, didn’t it take energetic steps to make much needed revisions to the law of presidential succession inherited from the days of Harry Truman?  Despite the administration’s repeated acts of lawlessness, I must confess to a certain naivete. It never occurred to me that Bush didn’t care how Congress responded to the problem because he had issued a secret executive order that took the law into his own hands. After all, when he issued a public directive on the matter on continuity in government in 2007, he explicitly pledged to act “consistent[ly]” with the Presidential Succession Act. At the same time, however, his directive refers to a secret appendix. And as Ron Rosenbaum pointed out to reporters, even members of the House Committee on Homeland Security have been denied access to the document.  The committee, and Congress, should not take “no” for an answer. But they should also move beyond the appendix and demand to know whether investigative reports of a secret succession order are well-founded. If Reagan did issue an illegal order, Congress should publicly determine how subsequent administrations dealt with it. Perhaps President George H. W. Bush or Bill Clinton expressly repudiated the order. Or perhaps they reaffirmed it, thereby laying the foundation for President Bush, with the encouragement of Vice President Cheney, to do the same—through a process entirely independent of the administration’s formal directives on the subject. In any event, it is time for Congress to find out. Even if Reagan’s initial illegal order has been rescinded, Congress must deprive it of all value as a precedent. Lawmakers should pass legislation that expressly nullifies all secret orders, present and future, through which the president asserts the imperial privilege of naming his own successor. We must decisively repudiate these illegal moves before they explode in our faces.