Bush Calls For Panic

Bush Calls For Panic

October 15, 2008

WASHINGTON—In a nationally televised address to the American people Wednesday night, President Bush called upon every man, woman, and child to spiral uncontrollably downward into complete and utter panic.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush assured citizens that in these times of great uncertainty, the best and only course of action is to come under the throes of a sudden, overwhelming fear marked by hysterical or irrational behavior.

“My fellow Americans, the time for running aimlessly through streets while shrieking and waving our arms above our heads is now,” Bush said. “I understand that many of you are worried about your economic future and our situation overseas, and you have every right to be. Yet there is only one thing we as a nation can do in times like these: give up all hope and devolve into a lawless, post-apocalyptic, every-man-for-himself society.”

“For those of you who have remained resolute in your belief that things will turn around eventually, I urge you to close your eyes, take shallow rapid breaths, and begin freaking out immediately,” Bush added. “At this point, anyone who isn’t scared to death needs to wake the fuck up—because we’re screwed here.”

The president then picked up the telephone from his desk and hurled it through the Oval Office window.

During the address, Bush laid out a historic five-point plan for panic that he hopes will help the American people fall apart as quickly as possible. The plan—which many are calling Bush’s most well-thought-out proposal to date—calls for citizens to abandon their daily routines entirely, and engage in a weeklong period of bloodcurdling screaming, arm flailing, dry heaving, and gnawing on one’s fingers while rocking back and forth in alternating bouts of maniacal laughter and gentle sobbing.

Under the new bill, Americans are also advised to withdraw all their money from U.S. banks and the stock market, place it in a Maxwell House coffee tin, and bury it in a safe place in their backyard. In addition, Bush has urged the legalization of Americans trampling one another in a mad rush to compete for the nation’s dwindling resources, and proposed allocating $3 billion toward a program that would give every citizen a gun and a bottle of 140-proof whiskey.

The final part of the plan calls for the immediate release of all convicted felons and death-row inmates from the nation’s prisons.

Immediately after Congress approves his plan, the president said he will order multiple B-2 stealth bombers to fly over America’s cities at low altitude. The resulting sonic boom, Bush said, will set off all car alarms and cause all babies to cry uncontrollably, which he believes will promote a real sense of chaos throughout the nation. In addition, Bush intends to release 50 live cobras into the Senate chamber.

“I realize this is a difficult vote for members of Congress, but at this critical time in our nation’s history, it is imperative that we not sit back and pretend like everything is fine, because everything’s not fine, it’s just not,” Bush said. “Even if Congress fails to act, I still intend to do what is right and lead this country into mass hysteria by acting outside the framework of the U.S. Constitution, overriding the entire democratic process, and setting the Lincoln Memorial on fire.”

Early reactions on Capitol Hill to Bush’s call for panic have thus far been positive. Leading House Republicans and Democrats said they appreciate the president’s candor, and will encourage their constituents to comply with Bush’s request to “find something and smash it with all of their strength.”

“For most of the day tomorrow, I intend to do my part by remaining in my boarded-up home and getting worked up about our standing in the world,” Pacoima, CA resident Harold Miller said. “And then at night, I plan to lie awake in my bed and be scared to death about the loss of my job, pension, and retirement fund. Then I plan to run out into the streets in my bathrobe and shout that the End of Days is coming.”

Bush told Americans that if at any point they catch themselves feeling even slightly at ease, they should remind themselves that, in the end, everything is going to be completely fucked.

h/t The Onion

“The plan—which many are calling Bush’s most well-thought-out proposal to date—calls for citizens to abandon their daily routines entirely, and engage in a weeklong period of bloodcurdling screaming, arm flailing, dry heaving, and gnawing on one’s fingers while rocking back and forth in alternating bouts of maniacal laughter and gentle sobbing.”

I’ve been doing this for quite some time.

Next Stop… Martial Law

Professor Torrance Stephens never fails to amaze me with the depth of his posts and foresight. He lays out how the dreaded military takeover of America’s cities and towns is seemingly upon us, no matter how much one wants to ignore it or shrug us off as conspiracy nuts. Every indication is like a flashing neon light… every i dotted and t crossed, as it were. Here he goes wild and works to provide links and a clear trail to what is impending. Besides, he won As the 2009 Black Web Award in the category of Best Business and Political Blog:

Next Stop… Martial Law

from Raw Dawg Buffalo by Torrance Stephens – All-Mi-T

Alright Jones, recess is over, but Re-cess-is-on, so fuc the dumb shit. And before I go any further, would like to formally request that all bich azz ni double G a’s leave the room. I will wait. Now as you may have concoursed, I take pride in rumination and critical thought – that is to say beyond thought just to think. Meaning I not a pedantic. Nor have I ever considered myself to be a prognosticator, nor have I ever had the desire to tell some one that they would fuc they momma and kill they daddy as the Sooth Sayer did informed Oedipus in Oedipus Rex. Although I did attempt in vain for the past 16 months to acquaint readers with the anticipated collapse of the US financial sector, and maybe even the government. Now I got one more for you in two words – martial law.

Martial law has been defined as: military rule that is imposed on a civilian population when the civil authorities cannot maintain law and order, as during an emergency. If such occurs, based on my knowledge of some past Executive Orders, we can expect that: all communications media will be seized by the Federal Government including radio, TV, newspapers, telephones, and the internet. Meaning no More making of the band or Reality TV, for they will be under federal control. Hence, the First Amendment will be suspended indefinitely (Executive Order 10995). Executive Order 11000 states that all civilians can be used for work under federal supervision. Executive Orders 10998 and 10999 state that all food resources, farms and farm equipment will be seized and that all forms of transportation will go into government control.

Yes martial law can be declared even if the STOCK MARKET crashes. Now true, martial law aint exactly mentioned in the Constitution, but the suspension of habeas corpus is in Article 1, Section 9, and the activation of the militia in time of rebellion or invasion is in Article 1, Section 8. Article 1, Section 9 states, “The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Habeas corpus basically says that a person may not be held by the government without a valid reason for being held.

Add to that the facts that the Feds got a little practice in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina after it hit New Orleans. Folk here also know that Beginning in 1999, the government negotiated into a series of single-bid contracts ($385 million) with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations INSIDE the United States. The KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME.

If one of these centers/sites/camps aint been built around your area, no fear, they will likely use the Post Office. I mean next time you go to the Post Office (in pic) look in the back and see if they got fencing with barbed wire on top that can be locked and gated – LMBAO. Plus we already know (at least I do) that the A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, was updated for developing a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.” And to top it off, the current President, signed into law Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007” (H.R.5122) (2) on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”

Now I aint trying to scare nobody, but as I said in the first paragraph, I take pride in rumination and critical thought. So yawl enjoy the debate, I aint watching. I mean like Obama but he is disappointing and cant see the forest for the trees – meaning, he cant see that no matter what he does, we in this economic mess for the next ten years at a minimum. And McCain, he has PTSD. Have read each and every proposal and plan both have put out – I mean them ALL. So enjoy the bet and I betcha by golly wow, no one mentions or talks about the likelihood of the suspension of Habeas Corpus, but recant, your folk here did, just like I told yawl for the last 16 months what was gone happen to our economy, even naming banks that was gone fail before they was on the news. Ignorance and freedom is incompatible. So no post until Friday or Saturday fol – so marinate on this folk, for the next stop, like the MARTA train, will be martial law.

Assholes of Assholes!

This is grounds for divorce! What a freakin’ idiot! He has

as much ethics as Palin.

She’ll be changing her name ….<


Dad names girl ‘Sarah McCain Palin’

ELIZABETHTON , Tenn., Oct. 14 (UPI) — A Tennessee man says he named his newborn daughter Sarah McCain Palin Ciptak in honor of the Republican presidential ticket without telling his wife.

Mark Ciptak of Carter County said he and his wife had planned to name their child Ava Grace, but he “secretively went and got another set of forms” for Social Security officials and the Tennessee Department of Health to have his daughter named after Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Kingsport (Tenn) Times-News reported Tuesday.

Ciptak said when he broke the news to his wife Layla she did not seem to take his claim seriously.

“I don’t think she believes me yet. It’s going to take some more convincing,” he said.

He said the name was chosen “to get the word out” about the McCain campaign.

“I can’t give a lot of financial support for the campaign,” he said. “I do have a sign up in my yard, but I Can Do very little. Is this going to change the course of the election? I doubt it. But it’s something that I did to help out the campaign and the cause.”

The Story of Skidboot

This is the story of Skidboot and his ” bestest-owner-friend”. This is such a cool ass story! I also feel this guys is a ‘real’ person– he is actually just who he is. Sincere and just a good’ole guy. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

The ending…

 

 

 

Sweet Tears Of Innocents—

Yep– I came across this old clip of the Artlinkletter Show, “Kids Say The Darndest Things”. I not only laughed aloud, … I found sweet tears of innocents rolling down my face as I recalled days gone by. Especially with times being as they are now– this was just too, too sweet and funny. Enjoy!

Cheney goes to hospital for irregular heartbeat

I wonder what his co-pay was?

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney went to the hospital Wednesday after experiencing an abnormal heartbeat and was scheduled to have an outpatient procedure to “restore his normal rhythm,” his office said.

Cheney, 67, was to go to George Washington University Hospital to have a cardiology procedure for the second time in less than a year. The condition forced him to cancel his attendance Wednesday at a campaign event for Marty Ozinga, an Illinois Republican who’s running for a seat in the House of Representatives, Cheney’s office said in a three-paragraph statement.

His office said that after experiencing a problem, the vice president went to the White House physician, who found that Cheney was having a recurrence of atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart.

Cheney suffered the same condition in November 2007, and doctors administered an electric shock then. Cheney has had four heart attacks, the first at age 37. He’s had quadruple bypass surgery and two angioplasties, and a pacemaker was implanted in his chest in 2001. The device was replaced last year.

Atrial fibrillation is a common type of irregular heartbeat. Episodes aren’t life-threatening, and patients sometimes aren’t aware that they’ve had them. If the condition continues unchecked, however, it can increase the formation of blood clots, which can travel to the brain and cause a stroke.

Fuck him. Even if he got a stroke, it wouldn’t cost him his house, his job, his everything. Fuck him.

12-Year-Old Boy Scouts Offer To Give Breast Exams For Merit Badges

Ahhhh… makes my heart proud to know that America still has a few enterprising youths.

Two prospective Eagle Scouts explain how they are preventing breast cancer by helping women examine their breasts.

Another Republican Pedophile? What Is It About Thugs and Children?

h/t Jonathon Turley

Former Journalist and Politician Arrested In New York for Attempted Sex With Minor

Former New York State Republican Assemblyman and National Public Radio (NPR) reporter Chris Ortloff has been arrested for attempting to lure a minor into having sex with him. Ortloff is currently on the state parole board and was arrested at a hotel in Colonie, N.Y.by the New York State Police Internet Crimes Task Force. He allegedly was trying to set up a sexual encounter with fictitious 11- and 12-year-old sisters.

After working as a reporter for National Public Radio in the late 1970s, Ortloff worked as an anchor and reporter for WPTZ before beginning his 20-year political career, eventually becoming chair for the Clinton County Republican Committee.

For the full story, click here.

Fair Warning! If anyone, reTHUGlican or DemocRAT touches my daughter, I promise I will cut the fingers off that touched my daughter, shove them up your ass, then put a 9 in your skull.

Is that clear?

Tubular Solar Panels Offer Cost Savings and Greater Efficiency

One major way that Americans can help themselves and also help eliminate our dependence on oil is to go solar. There have been several issues that impede this move (costs associated with having solar cells ‘track’ the sun’s movement). Flat panels are getting cheaper, but they must be manipulated to ensure that they are always gathering as much sunlight, as possible, as the sun moves across the sky.

One way to eliminate moving the panels is to redesign the panel into a round, solar panels tube, mounted on a white roof (for maximum reflectivity).

Found on Yahoo! Green:

Tubular solar panels slash costs, boost efficiency

By Hank Green

There are a lot of reasons to think that flat solar panels would be the right way to go. The best way to capture sunlight is by being perpendicular to the sun and it’s usually cheaper to make things flat than round. But the folks at Solyndra have discovered that this traditional wisdom might be a bit faulty.

First, as to the second point, when dealing with thin-film CIGS solar panels, cylindrical is just as good as flat. But the first point, concerning harvesting the maximum amount of sunlight, gets a little confusing.

The cylindrical solar panels (think of fluorescent tube lights…except in reverse) can absorb energy from every direction, and when combined with a white roof (which are now the only legal, flat roofs in California) can capture up to 20% more light than traditional solar panels. The other gigantic advantage is that they don’t have to move to track the sun. The panels are always presenting some of their face directly perpendicular to the sun.

By removing solar-tracking and orientation from the equation, these systems can simply be laid onto roofs. Tracking solar panels have to be able to resist the force of strong winds, these will just lay flat and out of the way, reducing installation costs, which often comprise about half of the price of a solar project.

And with 30 billion square feet of flat roofs in America, this could be quite a market for cheap, clean electricity. Solyndra just announced that they’ve got $1.2 billion in contracts throughout Europe and America, and I can’t imagine that going anywhere but up.

Via Scientific American

How To Succeed When The Empire Is Failing

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of this country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

– Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864

Twenty Principle Points to Guide the Urgent Building of Sustainable Communities

1. As we evaluate “economic development” in our community, always ask how any proposed change or new development will effect the entire community; the commonwealth of citizens and the surrounding ecology.

2. Meet as many local needs from local sources as possible through the mutual work of citizens. Build a local and regional economy that supports the creative and productive enterprise of local free market entrepreneurs, not state subsidized multi-national corporate behemoths. It is good to remember that the dictionary definition of fascism is simply “the merger of state and corporate interests.”

3. Use local resources to meet local needs first, and then market any surplus outside of your local community in concentric circles of distribution. Sell closest to source first to minimize energy used in transport of goods.

4. The industrial concept of “labor saving” technology diminishes the real economy of a community if it results in an increase of unemployment or substandard quality of goods produced. Technology and mechanization may save time and money from a one dimensional view, and then cost the community greatly from a “whole system” perspective. Rapidly rising energy costs are changing this equation dramatically. This requires constant reassessment.

Our present industrial model of agriculture is a striking case in point; We now spend 10 calories of petrochemical energy to produce 1 calorie of food energy. Industrial agriculture presently operates with a huge net loss to the community; It is only propped up with expensive subsidy programs. In the USA, the petroleum industry receives nearly 100 billion in annual subsidies. The actual cost of petrochemical fuels is $10; $3 at the pump, and $7 in tax payments, and this doesn’t even measure the huge impending costs of climate chaos from a carbon burning culture. The bio-fuel and agricultural sector is propped up with another $100 billion in subsidies. Subsidies can only be supported as long as the global economy buys US paper currency. Our global monetary system is not sustainable; it’s based on “shared illusion”. Once this illusory bubble collapses, the entire economic system collapses. A real economy must be built in each local region by real people with real resources within a new real value paradigm.

5. Set up intergenerational communities where the old and young work within a “whole system” community structure to care for the specific needs of people at each stage of the life-cycle. Institutional childcare and the exploitive nursing home industry have very high social and financial costs. We must integrate all ages into efficient systems of a well functioning local community. Inter-generational co-housing is a good model to develop.

6. Develop appropriate technology for adding value within the community at a scale that is in balance with nature, the actual community scale, the real human social scale and the actual carrying capacity of the local ecology.

7. Develop small scale industry and business to support local farm, fishery, and forest economies to produce real goods for real needs. A sustainable society can only be supported with resources from sustainable sources.

8. Produce as much of the energy needed by the community as possible at the local level. Conserve and utilize all energy within intelligent systems to lessen the actual need for energy. Effective conservation is much more cost effective than chasing an illusory and temporary techno-fix. Nature conserves energy whenever possible. There is no waste in nature. We need to apply scientific bio-mimicry to build an efficient human ecological-economy.

9. Work to increase the real income within the community and lessen the need to purchase resources and services outside of your community. The net value of economic activity is the only valid and real measure.

10. Set up integrated systems to circulate money produced locally within the local economy through as many cycles as possible with inter-dependent local goods and services. Bank locally. Support the local economy in all sectors.

11. Build direct local connections between urban consumers and rural producers of food and energy.

12. Be aware of the real economic value of neighborly acts and community cohesion. A safe, sane society is much less costly to operate than a society burdened with systemic dis-enfranchisement that leads to crime and violence.
A world that works for all of us can only be built up from local communities that work for all of the participants.

13. Develop reality based currencies, web-based direct value trading and traditional barter systems to replace the inflationary/imaginary global money system. As the sub-prime mortgage crash is painfully demonstrating, a sustainable economy must be based on the trade of real goods and services, not just financial “paper”. Sustainable societies can only be operated on real resources and real capital, not false credit conjured up out of thin air.

14. A local community works best if connections are built with other local communities. Live locally, and connect globally for knowledge exchange. An interconnected “global village” is possible with our present electronic voice and web communication. Knowledge is the most viable resource to transport over long distance in an energy scarce era. “Best practice” in permaculture, energy conservation and production of real value can be shared in this way. We need to see the survival of the entire human enterprise as a shared global responsibility. A fear based “survivalist” mentality is deadly. Life only works when we understand the multiple layers of our global ecology.

15. Maintain the human community without despoiling any adjacent or distant ecosystem. It is all connected.

16. As we plan the operating systems of our sustainable economy, we must include the entire natural living system; The local ecology of land, water, air, native fauna and flora are full members of the community. We need a “whole systems perspective” to decide the best course of action for each community and the human species as a whole.

17. Account for real ecological costs now hidden. Have those that cause these costs pay for the cost. No more corporate or governmental deferral of real and measurable costs to future generations. Our children deserve this.

18. Always think about how our actions contribute to measurable economic value, not just the movement of cash. An industry may in fact generate a lot of cash, but create huge long term loss to the community in social and ecological costs and damage. We need a new economic measure; RPP, Real Productive Product to replace GDP.

19. Start to reclaim our democracy at the local level first, then as a local populist power base is established, real citizens can reclaim their birthright of political power that’s been usurped by our present political mercenaries that are controlled by special interest groups and multi-national corporations at the state, federal and global level.

20. Work with all of our local business and industries to shift out of economic connections to the military/industrial complex. 60% of all public funds are spent on military largesse and outright waste. Huge portions of the general economy are hard wired into the military industrial complex. This is not sustainable and it will crash. We can maintain real “defense” with an intelligent and effective alternative to our current corrupt empire building oligarchy.

Empire is always based on violence and economic overreach through military exploits. There’s never been a sustainable empire in human history. The current U.S. empire is no exception. We’re at an epochal crossroads; Make a conscious choice to shift into a sustainable economy, or let history repeat itself one more time with collapse.

The average U.S. citizen consumes 32 times the resources of the average person anywhere else in the world. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot claim to be against war and global climate change as long as we participate in this orgy of consumption every day. If you do not want to support the death and destruction of war and you do not want to endanger your children with the effects of unmitigated climate chaos, then only you can make the change in your own day to day lifestyle. Opt out of the mass consumer economy. Power-down your own lifestyle to a sustainable “low consumption/high value” lifestyle. Vote for a new world reality with the way you live today.

h/t World Prout Assembly

B’Man’s Patriot Watch: Ralph Nader Addresses REAL Issues on PBS

h/t to my buddy Brian at Memoirs of a Godless Heathen where he posted a link to the PBS interview with Ralph Nader yesterday. Ralph is a true leader and American hero. He has done more for this country than either McCain or Obama, hands down. He is more ‘presidential’ than either.

To quote Brian:

I happen to be flipping through the channels and decided to watch some news on PBS. Lo and behold I see none other than Ralph Nader giving an interview. I suggest anyone reading this download the following MP3 to hear the entire interview:

Nader on PBS

I have to admit, I almost flipped. I had almost fallen for the Obama fever. Don’t get me wrong, I like Obama, but compared with Nader’s performance tonight, his speeches are elementary mantras of little substance. Now I can see why they don’t like to let independent candidates into the debates: most of them would clean the major party politicians’ clocks.

Brian nails it. Most Americans are duped into believing that the swell words from Obama will bring ‘Change’. It won’t.

I wish you people would wake the fuck up.

Depression In Disguise

From Glenn Beck’s Program, Peter Schiff explains that all we are doing is causing hyper-inflation, which only drives the dollar’s value down (to almost nothing).

h/t DeProgram

Where is the Justice for me? A plea from Troy Davis

Troy Davis was convicted of killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1991. There was no murder weapon or physical evidence tying Davis to the crime. Not only that, but seven of the nine original witnesses have since recanted or changed their initial testimonies in sworn affidavits. One of the remaining 2 witnesses (“Red” Coles) is thought to be the actual murderer (how convenient).

Today, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case and gave the go-ahead for his execution. This appears to be bogus in every fashion, but I don’t know. It sure as hell seems questionable enough to have another trial, so, why don’t they? These judges refused to consider whether executing an innocent person violates the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

“The Supreme Court’s decision is truly shocking, given that significant evidence of Davis’ innocence will never have a chance to be examined,” said Larry Cox, executive director for AIUSA. “Faulty eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, and the hallmark of Davis’ case. This was an opportunity for the Court to clarify the constitutionality of putting the innocent to death –- and in Davis’ case, his innocence could only be determined with a new hearing or trial.”

“It is disgraceful that the highest court in the land could sink so low when doubts surrounding Davis’ guilt are so high,” Cox added.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Davis’ petition for writ of certiorari that was submitted on constitutional grounds of due process and cruel and unusual punishment violations if an individual is put to death despite significant claims to innocence. Davis’ attorneys filed the petition after the Georgia Supreme Court’s narrow 4-3 ruling to deny Davis an evidentiary hearing last March; the ruling was based on technicalities rather than basic questions of guilt and innocence.

Oh, I see. a technical issue, not the basic question of guilt or innocence? That explains it.

Let me get this clear, the Supreme Court gave him a stay of execution (two hours before he was to be killed), but then refused to give him another trial? What was the point?

Here is something that Troy wrote himself:

Where is the Justice for me?

A plea from Troy Davis

Where is the Justice for me? In 1989 I surrendered myself to the police for crimes I knew I was innocent of in an effort to seek justice through the court system in Savannah, Georgia USA. But like so many death penalty cases, that was not my fate and I have been denied justice. During my imprisonment I have lost more than my freedom, I lost my father and my family has suffered terribly, many times being treated as less than human and even as criminals. In the past I have had lawyers who refused my input, and would not represent me in the manner that I wanted to be represented. I have had witnesses against me threatened into making false statements to seal my death sentence and witnesses who wanted to tell the truth were vilified in court.

For the entire two years I was in jail awaiting trial I wore a handmade cross around my neck, it gave me peace and when a news reporter made a statement in the local news, “Cop-killer wears cross to court,” the cross was immediately taken as if I was unworthy to believe in God or him in me. The only time my family was allowed to enter the courtroom on my behalf was during the sentencing phase where my mother and sister had to beg for my life and the prosecutor simply said, “I was only fit for killing.” Where is the Justice for me, when the courts have refused to allow me relief when multiple witnesses have recanted their testimonies that they lied against me?

Because of the Anti-Terrorism Bill, the blatant racism and bias in the U.S. Court System, I remain on death row in spite of a compelling case of my innocence. Finally I have a private law firm trying to help save my life in the court system, but it is like no one wants to admit the system made another grave mistake. Am I to be made an example of to save face? Does anyone care about my family who has been victimized by this death sentence for over 16 years? Does anyone care that my family has the fate of knowing the time and manner by which I may be killed by the state of Georgia?

I truly understand a life has been lost and I have prayed for that family just as I pray for mine, but I am Innocent and all I ask for is a True Day in a Just Court. If I am so guilty why do the courts deny me that? The truth is that they have no real case; the truth is I am Innocent.

Where is the Justice for me?

By Troy A. Davis

The Presidential Debates Are A Scam: Where Is Ralph Nader’s Voice

Are you still debating the debates? Did Obama win? Was McCain too nasty?

I’ll let you in on a little secret: you have fallen for it. You, rednecks, have taken the hook, line and sinker and you cannot get away. You believe that you are deciding between the two best choices, but you are too ignorant to realize that the very choice you make is made for you.

It would be embarrassing, if not so prevalent among those whose lives are being effected the most and the fact that your idiotic sheeple attitude is also screwing me.

So let me ask you, are you content with the choice that the two parties gave you? Do you even know anything about the third party tickets, who, in most every instance stand for your wants and needs more than either of the two that the powers that be gracefully gave you to choose from? Are you falling all over yourself thanking them for such a wonderful duo?

Baaaaa for me, people. Baaaaa!

h/t Alternet

The Presidential Debates Are a Scam

By David Bollier, OnTheCommons.org. Posted October 15, 2008.

Have you wondered why the presidential debates don’t present any serious ideas or encourage any substantive exchanges about policy and political philosophy? Have you noticed that the events resemble a whirring jukebox of familiar sound bites — a highly produced, tightly scripted affair with with no surprises and little passion?

There’s a reason. Both candidates and their political parties want it this way. The debates are not the production of some independent third party like the League of Women Voters, the host university or news organizations. They are co-produced by the Democratic and Republican Parties themselves, who have ingeniously disguised their actual roles by nominally delegating control to the Commission on Presidential Debates

The Commission sounds like some venerable group of eminent graybeards and experts. Not so. It is a group of party apparatchiks whose express goal is to broker the terms of the debate in order to advance and protect each candidate’s interests. For the 2008 debates, the Commission negotiated a 31-page memo of understanding that lays out in precise detail the rules of stagecraft, questioning, follow-up, audience deportment, and other conditions. The contents of this memo, however, have not been disclosed despite requests by citizen groups.

We do know the upshot of the memo, however: a series of carefully orchestrated PR events that pretend to host a wide-open, vigorous debate.

The truth is, no one can really learn much about the candidates or their ideas when the format has such rigid time limits on answers and predictable questions from mainstream news anchors. The moderators are constrained from asking tough follow-up questions, and the audience is forced to sit like zombies in a funeral parlor. Even with the so-called “town hall meeting” format, there is no genuine back-and-forth dialogue between candidates and citizens. Nor are there any direct candidate-to-candidate exchanges. Third-party candidates have been summarily excluded, so there are no disruptive questions that might expose the limited vision of the two major parties. (Ralph Nader was famously excluded from the 2000 presidential debates because his citizen support was deemed too insignificant to make a difference in the election.)

In short, the presidential debates are shams if they are to be considered debates. They are meant to simulate honest, spontaneous exchanges of ideas but in fact, their real goal is to prevent any spontaneity, depth, complexity or worrisome surprises.

A more open format would give candidates greater latitude to express themselves at length and with nuance. But that’s apparently what the two parties really don’t want. An open format leaves too much room for candidates to be caught off-guard or exposed as superficial. An open format would require candidates to be able to go beyond repetitious talking points and rehearsed accusations and one-liners.

In 1998, former CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite wrote, “The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become … the candidates participate only with the guarantee of a format that defies meaningful discourse.” It is a testament to the state of mainstream journalism that leading news anchors happily agree to participate in these farces. It’s great PR exposure, after all.

One of the best debunkings of the modern presidential debates is George Farah’s book, No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates (Seven Stories Press, 2004). Farah charges that the Commission on Presidential Debates “acts as an effective screen for the two parties to evade citizens’ most pressing questions, and absorbs the political costs that would otherwise accrue to the parties. This function of the CPD, as an arms-length organ of the parties, amounts to a shocking institutional rigging of the electoral process that degrades our democracy and signals worrying bipartisan contempt for transparency in this country’s highest elected office.”

This year, however, an insurgent citizen coalition is arising to challenge the rigged presidential debates. The Open Debate Coalition, led by Professor Lawrence Lessig, has sent a letter to the Obama and McCain campaigns asking them to change the ground rules for the debates. The coalition spans a broad left-right political spectrum. It includes Craig Newmark of Craiglist; Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post; filmmaker Robert Greenwald; Mindy Finn, a Republican strategist; Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia; Patrick Ruffini, a former Republican National Committee eCampaign Director; and many others.

The Coalition has asked that the debate moderator have broad discretion to ask follow-up questions after a candidate’s answer, and that the public be able to use the Internet to vote on which questions shall be asked. The Coalition has also asked that, as a stipulation of the next debate, the media pool must release all 2008 debate footage into the public domain.

This is an issue because on at least two occasions, TV networks have invoked copyright law to prevent candidates from using footage from the debates. Bloggers and other commentators should not be constrained from using video snippets from the debates because the host TV network asserts copyright control over its footage. The event ought to be available to every citizen, especially now that citizens have their own video-production and -publishing capacities.

Despite promising responses to the Coalition’s letter from both candidates, it remains to be seen whether the media pool will put their video of the debate into the public domain and whether moderator Tom Brokaw will use any citizen questions that citizens have voted on at Google’s website.

Perhaps the bigger question is whether the Commission on Presidential Debates will reform its practices in the future. Right now, the “debates” use a format that is deliberately designed to minimize actual debate, maximize positive PR for the candidates, and deflect any criticism of the debate format away from the two major parties. It’s time to open the closed debate structure to citizen voices and a more open format. The two parties should not be able to enclose democratic debate. Citizens, not parties, ought to reclaim the debates. If the United States hopes to recover its moral authority as a champion of democracy, it needs to start walking the talk. What better venue than the presidential debates?

Riding us over a cliff–

from the huffington report–

The New Socialism Is The New Capitalism

QUESTION: What’s the difference between capitalism and socialism according to Henry Paulson?

ANSWER: Socialism is when big government steals from the banks to bail out the people; capitalism is when big government steals from the people to bail out the banks.

At the bottom of the over-leveraged credit tower (where people don’t have the cash to pay their debts) are ordinary erstwhile home owners and mortgage holders who made foolish decisions to buy houses they couldn’t afford and have now lost their homes. Then come the banks that issued the bad mortgages by convincing guileless citizens the prices of their homes could only go up, and variable rate mortgages had no down sides. Then come all the secondary markets whose oblivious denizens bought all the bad paper apparently having no idea what they were buying.

The bailout makes nice noises about the poor saps at the bottom, but proceeds top down, because unless the banks and hedge funds and insurance companies are saved, the whole system crashes (sort of like it already did).

Besides, bailing out the bottom is socialism – can’t have that; while bailing out the banks is capitalism, or the kind of capitalism that lets taxpayers shoulder all the risk and banks keep all the profit. Well, to be sure, with the Democrats whining so much, Paulson has agreed to demand an equity position in the banks he bails so that at least some of the eventual profits, if there ever are any, come back into the Federal Treasury.

But real oversight, regulation, control, ownership by our government over the corporate institutions that precipitated the crisis – that won’t happen. The foolish corporate riders who rode us over the cliff will remain in the saddle while the foolish consumer victims are being pulled from the chasm and prepared for a new round of spending.

Which is to say we are not going to see any recognition that overproduction and over consuming by a capitalist system that manufactures needs rather than goods to sell all the stuff it has to sell to stay afloat is what really lies behind the crisis. Or that capitalism must change its ways – like producing goods we actually need and taking responsibility for bad decisions it makes. On the contrary, the market’s heading up (for a day at least), and the credit pump is being primed so consumers will start spending again, and we can go back to where we were before phase one of the crisis started. Back to spending our way to phase two of the crisis.

The blind greed is already evident in the vicissitudes of the market, where hysterical gloom on Friday is inevitably succeeded by hysterical exuberance on Monday. For all the chaos and sense of impending doom, no fundamental lessons have been learned.