Friday, August 31, 2012

Is Mitt Human?

Never has a campaign had to work so hard to try to pitch a presentation that a candidate really is human.  They had a formidable challenge, with Robot Mitt.  All that smiling & hugging & handshaking- it was painful to watch.

The RNC was short on facts. Lots of innuendo, conjecture, implications.... but when they say they will provide jobs, they don't really say how they will magically make family wage jobs appear.  They also don't say exactly how they will save medicare (in shreds & tatters, say those who have read Ryan's plan).

It is all just blowing hot air. Empty promises, pandering & saying whatever it is America needs to hear in order to elect this top of the heap of 1%ers.

To hear Mitt bloviate about how hard it is to work 2 $9 dollar an hour jobs to make ends meet & you have to sell your home for less than what is owed.
That's $9 dollars an hour before taxes Mitt.
And people are not just taking a loss on selling their homes, they are getting evicted in foreclosure.... while Banksters are getting bailed out-- like Bain did w stim money, and Ryan also took stimulus monies. So easy to dis what Obama did without fact checking, but hypocrites they are. I'm so glad the Democratic convention is last-- they get the final word. It will be their job to  shed light on the details that slick Mitt & Ryan glossed over, or flat out lied about, in their feel good pitch.








These guys are like snake oil salesmen. They got up on stage and tell bold faced lies, half truths, and make unsubstantiated claims, in an unfettered environment.



Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Reality check in Romneyville

5 sons & 18 beautiful grandchildren.
Still in love. 
Daughter of a Welsh Coal Miner .
Pays $77,000 a year for her Dressage Horse upkeep.
Has a REAL marriage. 
Is REAL rich. 
The Romney's are the top 1% of the 1%ers. 




Meanwhile.... MIC CHECK
Occupy Wall Street is
Occupying the RNC. 


Members of the movement tellBusiness Insider that hundreds of protestors are already camped out near the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the RNC will be held, in a spot they've dubbed 'Romneyville'.
Tampa's city council hasalready ruled not to evict them from the area, and Occupiers say chartered buses will bring hundreds more to join them over the weekend. Another camp is being set up in Freedom Park, also near the Forum.
"The ironic thing," said one event coordinator, John Penley, "is that we're set up near an army supply store that sells gas masks."
Penley is coordinating an event called the "Let Them Eat Cake Drum Circle Dance Party" in Romneyville on Sunday night at 9:00 pm.
Oh what fun~ 
These topics of focus/workshops sound most interesting:

Vagina Open Mic



Fix Shit Up is an effort to voice our opposition to the agenda being put forth at the Republican National Convention while giving back to the local community. Fix Shit Up aims to rebuild and restructure our inequitable society and spread an alternative understanding of anti-authoritarianism and anti-capitalism.
There is warranted rage over rapid environmental destruction, endless need for war, the current, parasitic economic system, and other dangerous ideals electoral, state-centered politics and the rep
ublican party specifically represent. There is much to be dismantled. Only when weeds are uprooted do vegetable gardens and flowers have a chance to grow and flourish. Therefore we stand in solidarity with autonomous direct actions against symbols and institutions of global capitalism, militarism, and the RNC and DNC.



Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The GOP phone

Who says they are the "Party of No"?, they say yes (to all the wrong things)...
the GOP phone has apps for that...

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Give yourself to love


Yes indeed. this week we are celebrating love. 
All kinds of love really- compassionate love, parental love, family love, 
and the love of your partner. 
This week we celebrate 25 years of marital bliss. 
Ok, for the sake of this retrospective & segway- we've made it through this far &
we've been though a lot. A quarter century of living has encompassed vast arrays
of scenarios we've experienced, endured & embraced.
Don't know how I would live life without you. 


Friday, August 17, 2012

Ain't that a shot in the ass...


Gawker reports:
"A Nevada movie theater patron sustained a buttock injury last night when the handgun he was carrying in his pocket accidentally went off after falling to the floor.
The incident occurred last night during a screening of The Bourne Legacy at a Century 14 theater in downtown Sparks. No other injuries were reported, and no panic ensued.
"Witnesses inside the theater at the time the shot was fired stated that a (man) was adjusting himself in his seat when a gun he had on him discharged," Sgt. Pay Dyer said in a statement released to the press.
The 56-year-old, who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, proceeded to apologize to other moviegoers in his immediate vicinity and exit the theater. Police tracked him down to a Reno hospital; his injury was not considered life-threatening.
Police say they will hand off the case to the Sparks City Attorney's Office, which may decide to bring charges against the man."
With all the insane gun madness going on in this country (seriously are you able to keep track of even the last few weeks? The movie theater massacre, a Texas eviction shootout,  A Virginia man
opened fire on some D.C. conservative policy organization, openly discriminatory anti gay, anti abortion place.  Things are so bad here in the U.S.  some idiot shoots his own ass in a movie theater, are we ready to admit we have a gun problem?

No, maybe we see future movie theater instructions to please turn off your cell phones, use the cup holders, and that the ammo clip out of your gun. 
It looks like it will just be a matter of time before we will be seeing movie theaters advertising that they prescreen movie goers with airport style metal detectors. Will we have Homeland security, doing pat downs  @ elementary schools, College campuses, malls &  theaters?
Land of the free...





Blows hot air


Sunday, August 12, 2012

Romney's Disaster


Mitt Romney has chosen his running mate. He was trolling for a running mate & now he has selected a Troll! Paul Ryan- a silver spoon-fed white rich guy who talks the talk, but fails to walk the walk.

Romney flubs the intro of Ryan

Ryan is of the ilk to cut medicare, in order to deal w the deficit... because after all, the rich have theirs, and those with less, who have paid into the system all their working lives, are not entitled to
the benefits they already prepaid. They want to work "budget magic" on the backs of the non wealthy. Even then, budget magic is really voodoo when you consider the following facts from MSNBC:


  • In addition to Medicare, Ryan was one of the driving forces to partially privatize Social Security after George W. Bush’s rigged Diebold election tampering victory in the 2004 presidential election.
  • There are also holes in Ryan’s budget-hawk armor: He voted for some of the biggest drivers of the deficit/debt -- the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, all of which weren’t paid for. Moreover, Ryan voted against the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles recommendations.
  • Has never held statewide office and has no foreign-policy experience. Both could be  ARE liabilities.
Hopefully the lackluster, even negative choice may serve to enhance Romney's election run demise. 

The idea that Ryan as VP could potentially become President of the US by default, should be enough to inspire us to vote against this dreadful duo. 

In the end whatever lipstick they put on these pigs, I hope people have the sense to reject him for at least their own self preservation... because tampering with Medicare & Social Security, while giving the OK to war spending & tax cuts for the rich*-- are not OK. 

* One could argue that Obama preserved the Tax Cuts for the rich for 4 years as well, but he did fight to keep tax cuts for the Middle Class, and not in favor of huge changes to Medicare & or Social Security. 
Indeed, I will have to hold my nose this election, but as I was schooled many years ago, at least vote against those who would do more harm. 



Saturday, August 11, 2012

Gun madness



We need to keep coming back to this gun control topic as long as the death toll keeps rising. This week, it was people in their place of worship, a Sikh temple lost six people who were there to pray, in peace.
There was a time when people were killed by guns who were involved in drugs or gang turf wars. It was still senseless, but we could console ourselves by saying they were mixed up in bad choices. Then the killing went beyond just those involved, and innocent bystanders were gunned down... only the bystanders were often children who happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I do remember the Mother of a Columbine Colorado school shooting, whose daughter was shot & killed, saying how she felt when someone attending the funeral said, "she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time". The Mother could not accept that statement- and she is right.

How could a teen attending high school, going to classes be "in the wrong place at the wrong time", enough to be shot & killed? Looking back to recent mass shootings in the USA, high school, college, movie theater, and church have become random killing fields, that one not make it out alive?
Indeed one local man said sane gun owners prevail, and his only regret was that a sane gun owner was not armed & at the movie theater, so the massacre did not go on to the extent that it did.

Oh! And it is determined that the shooter is mentally unstable, and may suffer from mental illness.
Ya think?

But then you look back at the shoulda, coulda woulda.
Jered Lochner (the Arizona shooter who disagreed w the congresswoman & decided to open fire in a strip mall parking lot where the congresswoman Gabby Giffords was there to listen to constituents.
Prior to his killing spree, the Community College he attended, felt he was mentally unstable & told him a mental evaluation would be needed to continue to attend classes.

In retrospect, the latest Colorado shooter, Holmes was being seen for mental health issues, and the physician had concerns, enough to mention it to the greater board, but when he dropped out of school, they no longer had jurisdiction over his care.

Have we HIPPA'ed ourselves into a corner-- so many laws & rules about patient privacy that mental health care professionals have to take a hands off approach, even when all the red flag warning signs are there?
Of course we don;t want to go to the opposite extreme-- where anyone who seeks mental health care has the stigma of being judged-- but there have been these cases where writings & things being said are outside the scope of general mental health. They have crossed the line into extreme violent thoughts and perhaps even developing plans for how such violence might be carried out.

But the volatile link is that anyone with those thoughts can waltz into a K Mart, or Wal Mart, or go online & buy as much guns & ammo & body armor as they like. The ease with which any ordinary citizen can access firepower that exceed that of the average police officer is where we get into trouble.
It is too easy for the unstable mind fantasizing violence, to put it into motion.

No the answer is not to arm cops w military style assault rifles, or worse, having more ordinary citizens packing more volatile high powered, rapid fire weaponry. Upping the ante here is the wrong way to go.

I contend these innocent victims were in the right place- high school, college, movie theater or church, and the element that is wrong, is our society allowing too easy access to assault rifles, and dropping the ball on all the warning signs that were observed and either ignored, or prohibited from continued follow up with mental health care.

We wind up with "do nothing" politicians, who give speeches after the slaughter & that's it.
On Monday, I attended a Hiroshima Nagasaki memorial event where people worldwide lit floating lanterns in solidarity for peace. Whether it be nukes or assault rifles, this madness must stop.






Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Awesome


European Space Agency
                                        This image of the Earth taken by the European weather satellite MSG-3.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Never again

Today is the 67th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bomb attack by the USA in Japan. 
Take the time to reflect. 









This instrument is the Koto, played by Koto Master Mitsuki Dazai

Friday, August 3, 2012

A horse of course....



The elite Romney family spends more on their horse than almost double the average annual income of ordinary Americans.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

EDITORIAL RANT


NRA has a seven-step plan
The National Rifle Association has the formula spelled out exactly:
1) Work hard to get high-powered weapons and unlimited amounts of ammunition into the hands of anyone who asks for it.
2) Encourage legislation to allow those weapons anywhere and everywhere in our society.
3) When the inevitable massacre happens, hunker down.
4) Release a prepared message saying the NRA is “praying” for the victims and their families.
5) Blitz the media with the message that now is not the time to discuss gun control, for to do so would be to politicize the tragedy.
6) Intimidate any politician who dares to speak against this madness.
7) Go to step one, repeat as necessary.
JIM SCHMIDT

Painfully, this editorial is all too accurate. 
They added flying flags at half mast to the routine... but so far  Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is the only politician stepping up to address the issue. 


CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois Governor Pat Quinn on Tuesday proposed a state ban on assault weapons in the aftermath of the July 20 movie theater massacre in Colorado in which a former graduate student is charged with killing 12 people with guns including a semi-automatic rifle.
Quinn, a Democrat, called himself a "strong supporter" of the constitutional right to bear arms, but said in a letter to state legislators that the proliferation of military-style assault weapons undermines public safety.