Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster sues family for distributing raw milk
Attorney general seeks to stop sale of raw milk away from family farm.
Conway -- A Laclede County family's delivery of farm-fresh raw milk to customers in Springfield is clashing with a state law barring commercial distribution of the commodity.
Attorney General Chris Koster is suing Armand and Teddi Bechard of Conway, seeking to stop them from setting up drop-off points for the sale of their unprocessed milk.
In Missouri, it is legal to sell raw milk from the farms or deliver it directly to the customer. But it's illegal for a farmer to distribute unprocessed milk or offer it for sale at a market or in a parking lot, according to Koster and two opinions issued from then-Attorney General Jack Danforth in the mid-1970s.
On April 8 and April 15, the Bechards' daughters -- ages 17 and 21 -- set up in a parking lot in front of Mama Jean's Natural Market on South Campbell Avenue to distribute raw milk to customers who had pre-ordered it from the Bechard Family Farm.
Armand Bechard said his girls were using the parking lot as a drop-off point, not as a place to market their product. But the state of Missouri doesn't see it that way.
Two undercover inspectors from the Springfield-Greene County Health Department approached them separately on each occasion and asked whether they had an extra gallon of milk to sell, according to court documents.
"They said, 'yeah, we've got extra milk,' " Armand Bechard said.
The girls, who were labeled "representatives" of the farm in the lawsuit, agreed to the sale because a customer did not show up, which Armand Bechard said is "very rare."
The law, found in Chapter 196.935 of Missouri Revised Statues, says "an individual may purchase and have delivered to him for his own use raw milk or cream from a farm."
"The law says a person can purchase raw milk or cream from 'a farm,' " Armand Bechard said. "It doesn't say from 'the farm,' which I think is a distinction."
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
Memory Hole Funnies: The "surrender" of the Panama Canal to the "Chi-Coms"
On the 10th anniversary of the hand over of control of the Panama Canal to an alleged Chinese military front Al Kamen of the Washington Post does a service by digging up the following quotes from the usual "experts" and scare mongering politicians:
These quotes reveal a number of points that are worth briefly hitting upon.
First- it is worth remembering just how much this crap resonated among the budding right wing populism then exploding onto the internet as a force to be reckoned with 10 years ago. I know- I was very much amused by it even then- when I was a self identified Clinton hating GOP party member in good standing. The right took this line of crap and held one of the first right wing internet hysterical fear orgies. Article after article- appeared in their lower tier propaganda organs (that the American communist mainstream media of course- "hid" from us) about how the evil Chi-coms were gonna do this or that. It was all hogwash.
Secondly- note the paranoia and the extreme self centered narcissism of the quotes above. A China that "hates democracy" and views the US as its "primary enemy?" Huh? Oh right! We are the center of the world and everyone hates us because we are so damned free and awesome and stuff that they want to destroy us! Never mind the actual security concerns of China which could care less about this country. Never mind that China has at least four major emerging powers right in its own neighborhood to deal with. Never mind that China has almost zero ability to project military power must past the South China Sea. And never mind that there exists exactly zero intent on the part of the Chinese to "rule the world". No foreign elite even approaches the level of self aggrandizing rule the world type rhetoric that American ruling elites routinely and without even thinking about engage in all the time.
Our elites think that everyone thinks like them. They project their own desires (a desire to rule the world) onto everyone else. it is quite bizarre. China has exactly zero reason to want to "take over" this country. They are simply not even aligned to think in such terms.
Look at this statement. Just look at it:
What? Why? What in the world for? And Russia could put laser beams on sharks! Is there any line of fearful BS from these Washington "defense" types that we won't swallow whole? They wouldn't be selling us this crap if we were not sucking it down and coming back for more.
China is currently encircled by US military bases and US satraps. We buzz their airspace routinely and engage in naval exercises just outside their territorial waters all the time. But it is China, without so much as a SINGLE foreign military base that is the threat- to us! Amazing. Again- I will say it- this is the behavior and belief system of a sociopath.
"If we do nothing, I can guarantee you that within a decade, a communist Chinese regime that hates democracy and sees America as its primary enemy will dominate the tiny country of Panama, and thus dominate the Panama Canal, one of the world's most important strategic points," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) told a House subcommittee on Dec. 7, 1999, as it debated the handover.
Retired Adm. Thomas Moorer warned that China could sneak missiles into Panama and use it as a launchpad for attacking the United States. And former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger wrote that fall that Panama's contract with Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa to control ports at both ends of the passage was "the biggest threat to the canal."
Then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he was "alarmed" by the Chicom contract, which "could, in fact, be a threat to our national security." The Clintonites were "allowing a scenario to develop where U.S. national security interests could not be protected without confronting the Chinese Communists in the Americas," Lott said.
These quotes reveal a number of points that are worth briefly hitting upon.
First- it is worth remembering just how much this crap resonated among the budding right wing populism then exploding onto the internet as a force to be reckoned with 10 years ago. I know- I was very much amused by it even then- when I was a self identified Clinton hating GOP party member in good standing. The right took this line of crap and held one of the first right wing internet hysterical fear orgies. Article after article- appeared in their lower tier propaganda organs (that the American communist mainstream media of course- "hid" from us) about how the evil Chi-coms were gonna do this or that. It was all hogwash.
Secondly- note the paranoia and the extreme self centered narcissism of the quotes above. A China that "hates democracy" and views the US as its "primary enemy?" Huh? Oh right! We are the center of the world and everyone hates us because we are so damned free and awesome and stuff that they want to destroy us! Never mind the actual security concerns of China which could care less about this country. Never mind that China has at least four major emerging powers right in its own neighborhood to deal with. Never mind that China has almost zero ability to project military power must past the South China Sea. And never mind that there exists exactly zero intent on the part of the Chinese to "rule the world". No foreign elite even approaches the level of self aggrandizing rule the world type rhetoric that American ruling elites routinely and without even thinking about engage in all the time.
Our elites think that everyone thinks like them. They project their own desires (a desire to rule the world) onto everyone else. it is quite bizarre. China has exactly zero reason to want to "take over" this country. They are simply not even aligned to think in such terms.
Look at this statement. Just look at it:
China could sneak missiles into Panama and use it as a launchpad for attacking the United States.
What? Why? What in the world for? And Russia could put laser beams on sharks! Is there any line of fearful BS from these Washington "defense" types that we won't swallow whole? They wouldn't be selling us this crap if we were not sucking it down and coming back for more.
China is currently encircled by US military bases and US satraps. We buzz their airspace routinely and engage in naval exercises just outside their territorial waters all the time. But it is China, without so much as a SINGLE foreign military base that is the threat- to us! Amazing. Again- I will say it- this is the behavior and belief system of a sociopath.
The "American Way" Revealed?
Here is a rather depressing description of the sort of society the US has become. Try as I might I can't really find much to disagree with in this analysis . . . which doesn't mean that I would agree on the solutions this author might prescribe for what ails us.
I would quibble with statements like "Our Western society quite openly embraces war as a means of solving problems, and for quite some time now has fashioned its entire social and economic structure around the preparation for war." That seems a bit overdone. Our "entire society" does not revolve around preparation for war. Indeed- compared to other countries there are few overt signs in public life of how militarized we have become. Our military is actually rather well hidden here at home. But other than what I view as some rhetorical license- I am largely in agreement with Floyd here.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it." -- Henry David Thoreau
To me, this quote from Thoreau expresses the only rational, moral and humane stance that a citizen can take toward the vast and brutal machinery of the American imperial state in our time. The crimes of this state are monstrous, and mounting. But what is worse is that these crimes are not aberrations; they are the very essence of the system -- they are its goal, its product, its lifeblood.
And what is this crimeful essence? Matt Taibbi described it well in a recent article:
Our Western society quite openly embraces war as a means of solving problems, and for quite some time now has fashioned its entire social and economic structure around the preparation for war.
I believe this is an indisputable fact. Decades of historical evidence give it proof. The last three decades especially have seen the relentless acceleration of this systemic evolution. The quality of life for ordinary Americans, those outside the golden circle of the elite and their retainers, has decayed immeasurably – and measurably. Stagnant wages. Degraded infrastructure. A poisoned food chain. Whole communities -- with all their social, political, cultural and family networks -- gutted by the heedless flight of capital to cheap labor (and slave labor) markets abroad, and by the dissolution of an embodied economic life into the shadow-play of high finance, the ghostly manipulation of numbers that produces nothing of value except gargantuan profits for a very few. A bonfire of public amenities, making daily life harder, harsher, constricted, diminished. Ever-growing social and economic disparity, shrinking the circle of opportunity. Two million citizens behind bars, in prisons overflowing with non-violent drug cases – nightmarish institutions given over to gangs, neglect, punitive regimens and private profit.
Yet this long, grinding process of diminishment and degradation has been accompanied by a never-ending expansion of the war machine into a dominant position over almost every aspect of American life. Not even the ending of the Cold War slowed this excrescence; defense budgets grew, new enemies were found, there were new missions, new commands, new wars. The ruling elite of American society were – and are – obviously willing to let the welfare, prosperity, opportunities and liberties of the common people sink deeper and deeper into the mire, in order to finance a system structured around war, with all the attendant corruption, brutalization and accrual of authoritarian power that war brings.
This is the system we have. It’s right out in the open. There is a deep-rooted expectation – and not, alas, just among the elite -- that the world should jump to America’s tune, by force if necessary. And when, for whatever reason, some part of the world does not jump – or bump and grind – to the Potomac beat, then it becomes a “problem” that must be “solved,” by one means or another, with, of course, “all options on the table,” all the time. And whether these “problems” are approached with blunt, bullying talk or a degree of cajolery and pious rhetoric, the chosen stance is always backed up with the ever-present threat of military action, up to and including the last of those “options” that always decorate the table: utter annihilation.
This is not even questioned, must less debated or challenged. America’s right to intervene in the affairs other nations by violent force (along with a constant series of illegal covert activities) – and to impose an empire of military plantations across the length and breadth of the entire planet – is the basic assumption, the underlying principle, the fervently held faith shared by both national parties, and the entire elite Establishment. And if you want to have the necessary instruments to maintain such a state of hegemony, then you must indeed structure your society and economy around war.
I would quibble with statements like "Our Western society quite openly embraces war as a means of solving problems, and for quite some time now has fashioned its entire social and economic structure around the preparation for war." That seems a bit overdone. Our "entire society" does not revolve around preparation for war. Indeed- compared to other countries there are few overt signs in public life of how militarized we have become. Our military is actually rather well hidden here at home. But other than what I view as some rhetorical license- I am largely in agreement with Floyd here.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The Pro Wrestling Candidates
Ronald Reagan was an actor for Hollywood B-movies, divorced and remarried, loved FDR, but made a good living as a speaker to corporations looking to defend their property rights against organized labor. He then ran for Governor, and upon election, jacked up taxes, legalized abortion (at about the same time Jimi Hendrix wrote an anti-abortion song--do we really understand that period?) and made divorce a lot easier in California. He would never pass a balanced budget.
Our parent's generation calls this a 'conservative' as far as I can tell. Our parent's generation is clearly pretty radical. Why the conservative movement, a series of propaganda organs created from Barry Goldwater’s pilfered mailing lists, fell for a thespian, one of the lowest professions of the historic anglo-celt culture, can only be attributed to the additions of technology in the modern state's arsenal of information warfare.
I grew up a fan of professional wrestling; I was hooked the moment channel 25 began running World Class Championship Wrestling out of Texas in the Boston area. With failing fortunes of the babyface family, the von Erichs, the patriarch, Fritz, of WCCW, decided to pull back, and a Cape Cod promotion, the World Wrestling Federation, with a pure showman of an owner, Vince McMahon, filled the void and finished off the localist tradition of that American folk theater, pro wrestling.
Jesse Ventura became a household name amongst the young as an announcer (his wrestling days were done by the national tv era) and curiously as things would turn, he was a heel, not a face. The WWF would nearly collapse in the 90s due to a steroid scandal, and the desires of one Ted Turner to seek revenge on Vince McMahon.
Vince's operation would be saved on a fluke, and a cultural change. The face was Jake Roberts running as a pious Christian--the crowd was in on Jake's notorious failures as a human being, but writers hadn't yet accounted for the Internet, and he was wrestling one Stone Cold Steve Austin, a sort of redneck, beer drinking biker guy.
Austin beat him, and the crowd went nuts, which they weren't suppose to do...Austin 3:16 was born, and the anti-hero had arrived at the folk level.
The barbarians had been released.
Jesse Ventura in this same short time span, started a run for the Minnesota Governor as an Independent using the machinery of Perot’s Reform Party. He now had a Hollywood career behind him, and shape shifted from various forms of populism from Right (anti-tax) to Left (gay rights and so forth.) Married, kids, Navy Seal bio; didn't do much as a Governor.
Jesse declined to run for a second term, and instead, signed a three year deal with MSNBC for a show to start in 2003. Word got out that he was anti-war, and MSNBC canceled the show, but paid him a couple of million bucks to do nothing for the next three years.
I didn't follow much of Ventura in the ‘tween years, I guess he wrote a book, but he turned up at the Rally for the Republic, Ron Paul’s Alt Republican convention in Minnesota in Sept. of 2008, and gave a limited but effective crowd pleasing speech.
By chance on Saturday, flipping HD channels, I caught Ventura doing a guest appearance on the now WWE's Raw show, which reruns on HD Sat Nights.
I was curious, and was rewarded with Ventura declaring “Cheney’s a coward, that’s just good strategy” in a response to Vince...and it's worth noting, he was playing the heel role to Vince McMahon's face role as announcers. (It should be noted, Vince's wife is running for CT Senate as a Republican in a three way primary that includes Peter Schiff.)
And if you, dear reader, think you are getting so ahead of the curve, ahead of the Conditioners, the script writers of the WWE, with Ventura cast as the match maker, set up a match:
Sheamus the Celtic Warrior (no tats, pale as can be, red hair, heel) vs John Cena (who plays the modern American uber-military patriot, face.)
How funny is that I thought--there has to be something here. Put that match in Boston, and the face-heel reverses itself--even though Cena is a Mass-boy.
Last night, on some obscure cable channel Trutv (owned by--Turner Networks), Jesse Ventura began an 8 episode run of a show on contemporary conspiracy theories--9/11 to come. 1.6 million watched a more obscure theory on HAARP.
For all the talk of Palin, the Super Mom of Feminist myth, should Ventura run in 2012, he could make an interesting show of it.
Yes, it's all fake, but I know who'd I be cheering for.
Our parent's generation calls this a 'conservative' as far as I can tell. Our parent's generation is clearly pretty radical. Why the conservative movement, a series of propaganda organs created from Barry Goldwater’s pilfered mailing lists, fell for a thespian, one of the lowest professions of the historic anglo-celt culture, can only be attributed to the additions of technology in the modern state's arsenal of information warfare.
I grew up a fan of professional wrestling; I was hooked the moment channel 25 began running World Class Championship Wrestling out of Texas in the Boston area. With failing fortunes of the babyface family, the von Erichs, the patriarch, Fritz, of WCCW, decided to pull back, and a Cape Cod promotion, the World Wrestling Federation, with a pure showman of an owner, Vince McMahon, filled the void and finished off the localist tradition of that American folk theater, pro wrestling.
Jesse Ventura became a household name amongst the young as an announcer (his wrestling days were done by the national tv era) and curiously as things would turn, he was a heel, not a face. The WWF would nearly collapse in the 90s due to a steroid scandal, and the desires of one Ted Turner to seek revenge on Vince McMahon.
Vince's operation would be saved on a fluke, and a cultural change. The face was Jake Roberts running as a pious Christian--the crowd was in on Jake's notorious failures as a human being, but writers hadn't yet accounted for the Internet, and he was wrestling one Stone Cold Steve Austin, a sort of redneck, beer drinking biker guy.
Austin beat him, and the crowd went nuts, which they weren't suppose to do...Austin 3:16 was born, and the anti-hero had arrived at the folk level.
The barbarians had been released.
Jesse Ventura in this same short time span, started a run for the Minnesota Governor as an Independent using the machinery of Perot’s Reform Party. He now had a Hollywood career behind him, and shape shifted from various forms of populism from Right (anti-tax) to Left (gay rights and so forth.) Married, kids, Navy Seal bio; didn't do much as a Governor.
Jesse declined to run for a second term, and instead, signed a three year deal with MSNBC for a show to start in 2003. Word got out that he was anti-war, and MSNBC canceled the show, but paid him a couple of million bucks to do nothing for the next three years.
I didn't follow much of Ventura in the ‘tween years, I guess he wrote a book, but he turned up at the Rally for the Republic, Ron Paul’s Alt Republican convention in Minnesota in Sept. of 2008, and gave a limited but effective crowd pleasing speech.
By chance on Saturday, flipping HD channels, I caught Ventura doing a guest appearance on the now WWE's Raw show, which reruns on HD Sat Nights.
I was curious, and was rewarded with Ventura declaring “Cheney’s a coward, that’s just good strategy” in a response to Vince...and it's worth noting, he was playing the heel role to Vince McMahon's face role as announcers. (It should be noted, Vince's wife is running for CT Senate as a Republican in a three way primary that includes Peter Schiff.)
And if you, dear reader, think you are getting so ahead of the curve, ahead of the Conditioners, the script writers of the WWE, with Ventura cast as the match maker, set up a match:
Sheamus the Celtic Warrior (no tats, pale as can be, red hair, heel) vs John Cena (who plays the modern American uber-military patriot, face.)
How funny is that I thought--there has to be something here. Put that match in Boston, and the face-heel reverses itself--even though Cena is a Mass-boy.
Last night, on some obscure cable channel Trutv (owned by--Turner Networks), Jesse Ventura began an 8 episode run of a show on contemporary conspiracy theories--9/11 to come. 1.6 million watched a more obscure theory on HAARP.
For all the talk of Palin, the Super Mom of Feminist myth, should Ventura run in 2012, he could make an interesting show of it.
Yes, it's all fake, but I know who'd I be cheering for.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Kook Watch: Little Green Footballs breaks with "the right"
I have to admit to not reading Little Green Footballs in a long time. The few times I did go there it seemed to be just a mainstream right of center site that regurgitated Neocon talking points. I dismissed it as a less hysterical version of Frontpagemagazine.com.
Well, the founder of LGF and also of "Pajamas media", Charles Johnson, made a splash Monday with this post announcing his "break" with "the right":
Why I Parted Ways With The Right
But in reading his list of reasons for why he is breaking with "the right" I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling. Lumping in Lew Rockwell (and by extension Ron Paul followers and libertarians) as well as all tea party types and anyone who so much as questions "global warming" with white racialists and the sad, paranoid, tribalistic, kooks of a site like Freerepublic.com is the tip off.
The other tip off is the absence of any major Neocon names from his list of kooks.
His "break" with "the right" is really him just re-aligning himself with the liberal wing of the two party fraud.
Essentially Johnson has seen the writing on the wall and knows that "the right" is being Kookified and he doesn't want to be caught on their side of the fence when the process is completed (which it will be by the next presidential election).
His "break" is actually nothing of the sort for he quite intentionally has grouped wholly disparate ideologies and outlooks that offer real potential for true opposition to the Beltway Oligarchic stranglehold with the legions of kooks now being presented by our media as the face of conservatism and of the GOP.
Johnson's "break" post is simply an established blogger trying to re-align himself with the ascendent side of the DC two party fraud. And his lumping of all "anti government" tea party types in with his list of kooks is the purposeful telegraphing to the establishment that he is ready, willing, and able to be their boy.
He has simply gone from being a "National Review" type war hawk to being a "New Republic" type war hawk. Call me underwhelmed. A wholly cosmetic change. LGF remains what it has always been- an establishment echo chamber.
Thanks to reader Destro for bringing this to my attention.
Well, the founder of LGF and also of "Pajamas media", Charles Johnson, made a splash Monday with this post announcing his "break" with "the right":
Why I Parted Ways With The Right
But in reading his list of reasons for why he is breaking with "the right" I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling. Lumping in Lew Rockwell (and by extension Ron Paul followers and libertarians) as well as all tea party types and anyone who so much as questions "global warming" with white racialists and the sad, paranoid, tribalistic, kooks of a site like Freerepublic.com is the tip off.
The other tip off is the absence of any major Neocon names from his list of kooks.
His "break" with "the right" is really him just re-aligning himself with the liberal wing of the two party fraud.
Essentially Johnson has seen the writing on the wall and knows that "the right" is being Kookified and he doesn't want to be caught on their side of the fence when the process is completed (which it will be by the next presidential election).
His "break" is actually nothing of the sort for he quite intentionally has grouped wholly disparate ideologies and outlooks that offer real potential for true opposition to the Beltway Oligarchic stranglehold with the legions of kooks now being presented by our media as the face of conservatism and of the GOP.
Johnson's "break" post is simply an established blogger trying to re-align himself with the ascendent side of the DC two party fraud. And his lumping of all "anti government" tea party types in with his list of kooks is the purposeful telegraphing to the establishment that he is ready, willing, and able to be their boy.
He has simply gone from being a "National Review" type war hawk to being a "New Republic" type war hawk. Call me underwhelmed. A wholly cosmetic change. LGF remains what it has always been- an establishment echo chamber.
Thanks to reader Destro for bringing this to my attention.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Front Man Obama
From the comments section of the New York Times on Obama's upcoming speech (which they actually have the audacity to bill as a "withdrawal plan") I found this gem from "examerican":
Maybe not quite as powerless as that but does anyone truly think Obama is the most powerful man in this country? That he could stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even if he wanted to (he doesn't want to)?
I think a lot of people are catching onto the two party fraud. They know on an instinctive level that Obama is a front man- a marketing mascot like the Geico Gecko lizard. But for whom? Who is running our imperial capital? I'm sick of saying "them". We need to understand the power dynamics at work in DC.
To make sense out of Barrack that coincides with daily American Life think of Barrack Obama like this:
Barrack Obama is to America like Ronald McDonald is to McDonalds or like Bozo the Clown is to the Ringling Brothers Circus.
He is simply a marketing tool.
Maybe not quite as powerless as that but does anyone truly think Obama is the most powerful man in this country? That he could stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even if he wanted to (he doesn't want to)?
I think a lot of people are catching onto the two party fraud. They know on an instinctive level that Obama is a front man- a marketing mascot like the Geico Gecko lizard. But for whom? Who is running our imperial capital? I'm sick of saying "them". We need to understand the power dynamics at work in DC.
Obama's Afghanistan Speech: "Stop it. Just stop it . . "
. . . is all that needs to be said about Obama's speech announcing a "new" and improved strategy for Afghanistan that is neither new nor improved. It will be the same old crap we have heard a dozen times about both Iraq and Afghanistan. I am sick of it.
All the arguments out of the pro war camp are patently absurd lies or outright fantasy. Since the foundation arguments for why the US is in Afghanistan are themselves a string of lies- all other reasons since have equally been lies. And they are obvious lies. Al Qaeda isn't in Afghanistan. There is barely even a real Al Qaeda to begin with. The Taliban isn't going to take over Pakistan and get their nukes. There hasn't been a single Pashtun who has undertaken the 8000 mile journey to come here and do anything to this country. If you are an average American you should quite literally fear a random meteor strike killing you on your way to work more than you should fear the "Taliban" or being killed by "Al Qaeda".
For the average American- the Afghan war is of zero benefit. In fact- it is a liability. If the US "wins" there then we will be no safer, the war on Terror will not be any closer to being won (as it isn't intended to be won). Just you watch as our government tells us how "Al Qaeda" has "reformed" their ranks in Somalia or Iran or where ever they want as "Al Qaeda" is a meaningless undefined appellation for any Muslim who pisses off our DC Beltway parasite elite or is a threat to their interests in some way. And we will be stuck with the bill for more huge foreign military bases and another war down the road that will likewise be a giant sucking liability that Americans will have to pay for without any sort of benefit whatsoever.
So stop it.
That is all that needs to be said. If you are pro-war just fucking stop it already! Stop making an ass chimp out of yourself and stop wasting my time because I am done arguing with such types. The obvious giant piece of bullshit that is the Afghanistan war merits no more of a response to those who insist that it should go on than "Stop- stop embarrassing yourself and me with your blathering bullshit. You know and I know you are full of it- and if you don't know that - then you are a stupid chump not worth my time."
I usually try not to use profanity on this blog but when it comes to this subject- when it comes to the imbecility and childish sophistry of what I can't even call "arguments" from the pro war side - I simply have no patience anymore. I am sick and tired of having to defeat the same lies over and over and over again. I refuse to sit here and write a line by line refutation of Obama's bullshit on this. It has already been done a thousand times over.
All the arguments out of the pro war camp are patently absurd lies or outright fantasy. Since the foundation arguments for why the US is in Afghanistan are themselves a string of lies- all other reasons since have equally been lies. And they are obvious lies. Al Qaeda isn't in Afghanistan. There is barely even a real Al Qaeda to begin with. The Taliban isn't going to take over Pakistan and get their nukes. There hasn't been a single Pashtun who has undertaken the 8000 mile journey to come here and do anything to this country. If you are an average American you should quite literally fear a random meteor strike killing you on your way to work more than you should fear the "Taliban" or being killed by "Al Qaeda".
For the average American- the Afghan war is of zero benefit. In fact- it is a liability. If the US "wins" there then we will be no safer, the war on Terror will not be any closer to being won (as it isn't intended to be won). Just you watch as our government tells us how "Al Qaeda" has "reformed" their ranks in Somalia or Iran or where ever they want as "Al Qaeda" is a meaningless undefined appellation for any Muslim who pisses off our DC Beltway parasite elite or is a threat to their interests in some way. And we will be stuck with the bill for more huge foreign military bases and another war down the road that will likewise be a giant sucking liability that Americans will have to pay for without any sort of benefit whatsoever.
So stop it.
That is all that needs to be said. If you are pro-war just fucking stop it already! Stop making an ass chimp out of yourself and stop wasting my time because I am done arguing with such types. The obvious giant piece of bullshit that is the Afghanistan war merits no more of a response to those who insist that it should go on than "Stop- stop embarrassing yourself and me with your blathering bullshit. You know and I know you are full of it- and if you don't know that - then you are a stupid chump not worth my time."
I usually try not to use profanity on this blog but when it comes to this subject- when it comes to the imbecility and childish sophistry of what I can't even call "arguments" from the pro war side - I simply have no patience anymore. I am sick and tired of having to defeat the same lies over and over and over again. I refuse to sit here and write a line by line refutation of Obama's bullshit on this. It has already been done a thousand times over.
Culture Post: Weed vs Booze
Lew Rockwell has an opinion piece by Mark Thornton today on the case for weed legalization from the perspective of safety. He outlines the arguments of these authors on why "The Pot" is safer and healthier than booze and has far less societal costs.
Now there is nothing scientific about this- but within my extended family and friends network I can't think of one person who is not either agnostic on legalization or in favor of it. The cultural tide has turned on Marijuana use. It no longer carries the social stigma it once did.
The last hurdle argument was that the weed was a "gateway" drug to harder drugs. Well- that argument stands as silly as there are literally millions of professional successful Americans who have been lifetime weed smokers who didn't end up and will never end up with a needle hanging out of their arm while sitting on a shit stained toilet in a back alley somewhere- drooling on themselves.
I have friends who smoke weed socially and there is little if any stigma about it anymore. It comes out at block parties now (once the kids are asleep) and no one thinks twice about it.
Living in downtown Boston there is an area across the street from me that has 4 bars at an intersection. Thursday thru Saturday I can amuse myself from my window by watching the parade of drunks as they poor out of these bars at closing time only to engage in rolling street brawls or as they abuse the local convenience store immigrant clerks. Often times the Boston Police will have a large Paddy wagon at the ready a few streets away to make the nightly drunk arrests.
I have yet to ever see anyone engage in a brawl after a night of weed smoking. I haven't seen someone on weed kick in the door to a 7/11 or yell obscenities at the top of their lungs as they stumble about the streets. Never seen an episode of "Cops" in which the police show up to arrest a weed smoker after he belted his wife in the eye. And I doubt to many people have found themselves naked in a strange bed lying next to someone whose name they can't remember after a night of hitting the bong.
As far as I am concerned- the time has come for legalization of Marijuana. It is a crime that people are arrested for using or distributing this relatively harmless vice.
Now there is nothing scientific about this- but within my extended family and friends network I can't think of one person who is not either agnostic on legalization or in favor of it. The cultural tide has turned on Marijuana use. It no longer carries the social stigma it once did.
The last hurdle argument was that the weed was a "gateway" drug to harder drugs. Well- that argument stands as silly as there are literally millions of professional successful Americans who have been lifetime weed smokers who didn't end up and will never end up with a needle hanging out of their arm while sitting on a shit stained toilet in a back alley somewhere- drooling on themselves.
I have friends who smoke weed socially and there is little if any stigma about it anymore. It comes out at block parties now (once the kids are asleep) and no one thinks twice about it.
Living in downtown Boston there is an area across the street from me that has 4 bars at an intersection. Thursday thru Saturday I can amuse myself from my window by watching the parade of drunks as they poor out of these bars at closing time only to engage in rolling street brawls or as they abuse the local convenience store immigrant clerks. Often times the Boston Police will have a large Paddy wagon at the ready a few streets away to make the nightly drunk arrests.
I have yet to ever see anyone engage in a brawl after a night of weed smoking. I haven't seen someone on weed kick in the door to a 7/11 or yell obscenities at the top of their lungs as they stumble about the streets. Never seen an episode of "Cops" in which the police show up to arrest a weed smoker after he belted his wife in the eye. And I doubt to many people have found themselves naked in a strange bed lying next to someone whose name they can't remember after a night of hitting the bong.
As far as I am concerned- the time has come for legalization of Marijuana. It is a crime that people are arrested for using or distributing this relatively harmless vice.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The "Al Qaeda in Iraq" seesaw
I have hit this theme over and over and over on this blog and I will continue to do so every time "Al Qaeda" or "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is "defeated" only to be "reformed" or vice versa.
Last weeks we got this headline in the Washington Post that quickly went viral in our MSM:
Wow. And what follows is what we always get in our MSM about "Al Qaeda"- a non quantitative story thinly sourced in which almost nothing of substance is actually said about this group.
And what was "Al Qaeda in Iraq" doing 18 months ago?
Yep. It was "never closer to defeat." Check out these stories just a year and a half ago about how "Al Qaeda in Iraq" was all but defeated. And what do these stories have in common with the above? Again- nothing of substance is actually said about "Al Qaeda" or "Al Qaeda in Iraq".
I think "Al Qaeda" has quite literally been "almost defeated" only to be "reformed" a year to 18 months later about 4 times since 9/11. Do you get the idea that "Al Qaeda" is whatever DC wants it to be at any given moment to justify or vindicate whatever policies needs justifying or vindicating?
Last weeks we got this headline in the Washington Post that quickly went viral in our MSM:
Al-Qaeda in Iraq regaining strength
Wow. And what follows is what we always get in our MSM about "Al Qaeda"- a non quantitative story thinly sourced in which almost nothing of substance is actually said about this group.
And what was "Al Qaeda in Iraq" doing 18 months ago?
Yep. It was "never closer to defeat." Check out these stories just a year and a half ago about how "Al Qaeda in Iraq" was all but defeated. And what do these stories have in common with the above? Again- nothing of substance is actually said about "Al Qaeda" or "Al Qaeda in Iraq".
I think "Al Qaeda" has quite literally been "almost defeated" only to be "reformed" a year to 18 months later about 4 times since 9/11. Do you get the idea that "Al Qaeda" is whatever DC wants it to be at any given moment to justify or vindicate whatever policies needs justifying or vindicating?
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Movie Review: "The Road" delivers
My traditional "Black Friday" movie going choice this year was "The Road"- based upon the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, author of "No Country for Old Men".
"The Road" is not your typical post apocalyptic end-of-the-world movie. It is a searing, heart wrenching, and horrifying portrayal of the very final days of humanity on Earth. But it is also the story of a Father's undying love for his son. The two themes combined make one emotionally powerful movie.
The movie takes place about 10 years after an unnamed and apparently non man made cataclysm has blackened the sky with a thick ash cover (maybe a meteor strike like the one that killed the dinosaurs). The days are, at best, filled with a grey light in which a thick ash hovers in the air and has covered everything. It is always cold. The nights are starless and moonless and blacker than one can imagine- in which even the light of camp fires doesn't travel very far.
With no sun light- all vegetation has died and all animals as well. Nothing grows. The landscape is an eroding muddy mess and trees stand dead- shorn of limbs and foilage. Wild fires sweep across sections of dead forests at will.
Most of the human population is dead- dying of mass starvation, disease, mindless violence, or suicide in the decade prior. Towns and cities lie empty, abandoned, and ransacked of all items that might prove useful for survivors. Canned foods are like gold and very rare- with scavengers scouring abandoned houses methodically for a chance discovery of an odd old canned food good or for clothes and blankets to keep warm with.
All other useful resources are likewise depleted forcing the few alive to scavenge the dregs of what is left. Fuel and ammunition are all but gone as well.
A large number of those left alive are the worst and most evil among us- who have survived by abandoning every shred of their humanity and have become vicious cannibals- hunting down stray road wanderers in packs- and devouring their own dead immediately.
This movie renders all sci-fi fantasy portrayals of the end of humanity -wether it be extinction through zombies or human exterminating machines or invading aliens- to be without point as nothing can be more horrifyingly degenerate as human behavior during times of famine.
The movie takes place at Humanity's end game- the final gasping last breaths of an entire species. You get the idea that one or two more years and there won't be a soul left alive on Earth.
The landscape is death itself. Death hovers about everything. The humans that are left are forever caked in the ashen death of the whole planet- covered in dirt and grime from head to toe- with only their eyes showing any hint of life- like little flames waiting to be snuffed out.
This isn't your typical "Road Warrior" type end of the world movie. There isn't a paradise enclave of civilization still left somewhere. The bad guys don't have a "Barter Town" as even they are reduced to small groups. It is a world in which literally every stranger encountered represents a potentially lethal end. There is no Mel Gibson type hero on the road dispensing justice to the cannibals. The cannibals are like a virus - consuming the last of humanity before they consume each other. They are normally dressed and normal in appearance which makes them all the more terrifying. It is a world without hope for a future.
It is against this backdrop of complete hopelessness that we follow the road travels of a nameless father and his son of about ten years old who had been born shortly after the cataclysmic event- as they try to reach the coast on just a vague and wholly without substance idea that things might be different there.
The father and son travel with an old supermarket cart laden with the few things they need- extra blankets- clothes and whatever food and fuel they can find- which isn't much. They are both emaciated. The father is clearly slowly dying- coughing up blood every morning. The father carries a revolver with just two rounds left- one bullet for each of them for when the time comes . . .
The father and son- have been abandoned by their wife and mother who, hopeless and consumed with despair, had simply wandered off into the total blackness of a night a short time before the story begins to commit suicide. But they press on - telling themselves that they must "carry the fire" - meaning the last vestiges of human ethics and morality.
This movie is in short- the worst nightmares of any father with a young child.
This is a powerful movie not for the weak of heart. The cinematography is haunting and even- oddly beautiful at times.
This isn't a "Sci-fi" movie. It is much more than that. I would recommend it though be prepared for a movie that will get under your skin for days.
"The Road" is not your typical post apocalyptic end-of-the-world movie. It is a searing, heart wrenching, and horrifying portrayal of the very final days of humanity on Earth. But it is also the story of a Father's undying love for his son. The two themes combined make one emotionally powerful movie.
The movie takes place about 10 years after an unnamed and apparently non man made cataclysm has blackened the sky with a thick ash cover (maybe a meteor strike like the one that killed the dinosaurs). The days are, at best, filled with a grey light in which a thick ash hovers in the air and has covered everything. It is always cold. The nights are starless and moonless and blacker than one can imagine- in which even the light of camp fires doesn't travel very far.
With no sun light- all vegetation has died and all animals as well. Nothing grows. The landscape is an eroding muddy mess and trees stand dead- shorn of limbs and foilage. Wild fires sweep across sections of dead forests at will.
Most of the human population is dead- dying of mass starvation, disease, mindless violence, or suicide in the decade prior. Towns and cities lie empty, abandoned, and ransacked of all items that might prove useful for survivors. Canned foods are like gold and very rare- with scavengers scouring abandoned houses methodically for a chance discovery of an odd old canned food good or for clothes and blankets to keep warm with.
All other useful resources are likewise depleted forcing the few alive to scavenge the dregs of what is left. Fuel and ammunition are all but gone as well.
A large number of those left alive are the worst and most evil among us- who have survived by abandoning every shred of their humanity and have become vicious cannibals- hunting down stray road wanderers in packs- and devouring their own dead immediately.
This movie renders all sci-fi fantasy portrayals of the end of humanity -wether it be extinction through zombies or human exterminating machines or invading aliens- to be without point as nothing can be more horrifyingly degenerate as human behavior during times of famine.
The movie takes place at Humanity's end game- the final gasping last breaths of an entire species. You get the idea that one or two more years and there won't be a soul left alive on Earth.
The landscape is death itself. Death hovers about everything. The humans that are left are forever caked in the ashen death of the whole planet- covered in dirt and grime from head to toe- with only their eyes showing any hint of life- like little flames waiting to be snuffed out.
This isn't your typical "Road Warrior" type end of the world movie. There isn't a paradise enclave of civilization still left somewhere. The bad guys don't have a "Barter Town" as even they are reduced to small groups. It is a world in which literally every stranger encountered represents a potentially lethal end. There is no Mel Gibson type hero on the road dispensing justice to the cannibals. The cannibals are like a virus - consuming the last of humanity before they consume each other. They are normally dressed and normal in appearance which makes them all the more terrifying. It is a world without hope for a future.
It is against this backdrop of complete hopelessness that we follow the road travels of a nameless father and his son of about ten years old who had been born shortly after the cataclysmic event- as they try to reach the coast on just a vague and wholly without substance idea that things might be different there.
The father and son travel with an old supermarket cart laden with the few things they need- extra blankets- clothes and whatever food and fuel they can find- which isn't much. They are both emaciated. The father is clearly slowly dying- coughing up blood every morning. The father carries a revolver with just two rounds left- one bullet for each of them for when the time comes . . .
The father and son- have been abandoned by their wife and mother who, hopeless and consumed with despair, had simply wandered off into the total blackness of a night a short time before the story begins to commit suicide. But they press on - telling themselves that they must "carry the fire" - meaning the last vestiges of human ethics and morality.
This movie is in short- the worst nightmares of any father with a young child.
This is a powerful movie not for the weak of heart. The cinematography is haunting and even- oddly beautiful at times.
This isn't a "Sci-fi" movie. It is much more than that. I would recommend it though be prepared for a movie that will get under your skin for days.
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