Invest in air: in the Age of Finite-ism...

The perils are destined to come, wave upon wave, if we continue to allow President Bush and other State leaders to deny factual knowledge such as is found in the World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Report.

Stopping the trend is going to take radical thinking, and here's one of the most drastic.

The developed world should be buying oxygen from the rain-forest countries that are currently decimating their rainforests, those vital components in the CO₂ <> O exchange cycle. Thousands of hectares of rainforest have disappeared every day, and the effect becomes measurable, as found in statistics correlating rain forest lost against total diminishing oxygen-producing capacities. (Image Credit: ESA)

Solution? Invest!

Pay landowners or local/regional government entities in the Southern Hemisphere an annual 'rent' in sufficient quantities, that they think twice about taking whole hillsides or drainages and carving out those biomes. Such a solution could easily be afforded by the wealthiest nations, especially those that might choose to forgo their 'arms race component', currently sapping many governments of their ability to perform for citizens' benefit.

Because Post-Industrial Man forgets, sometimes, that we live ON the land, and we've entered the age of Finite-ism.

We know there are not infinite oceans.
The Freshwater cycle has become very tightly managed across the Planet.
Agri-business redefines 'farming' as ruthlessly as it possibly can.

And living with an automobile, or two, or three, has definitely influenced Global warming: we're driving down the wrong road!

Finding the bio-capacity in your region a bit too suicidal, if not for yourself, then for your children? Do you know how to measure the Global Footprint of your region? Consider the 'tentacles' of commerce that eminate from New York City, or Tokyo: dense in humanity, void of resources – the thousands of trucks making hourly deliveries – of foodstuffs and other vital necessities.

Consider that the alternatives to mass humanitarian suffering involve proper investment in electric transportation technology for scooters, lightmass-mass transit, and sustainable large-village developments. In combination, these would help create a model that reverses Humanity's downward course, providing a more sustainable 'global footprint' and reflect the new-found maturity for the 21st and 22nd Centuries.

The concept to overcome, is 'Econo-Societal Inertia': being locked in by a transportation system based unsustainably on economic behemoths (the automobile-truck transport paradigm) that semi-autonomously impose a darker future on all of us.

The solution is literally 'outside the box'; those citizens living without a car in the near future (as does ZENmud himself), are the pioneers of a better tomorrow...

ZENmud

You know when Cheney talks, Halliburton listens...

Cheney... as they said about Nixon: "Dick Cheney - before he dicks you!"


Nice country, that Paraguay...

ZENmud

No Mission Accomplished...

You can argue with the following, but the key word is 'with'.

United States involvement in World War II can be pinpointed to have started on December 7, 1941: “A day that will live in Infamy....” And that war ended, September 2, 1945. From the day the bases and stationed battleships were attacked in Pearl Harbor, we count 1,366 days, or 3 years, 8 months and 27 days.

Now, there was no attack of the United States by Iraq in 2002, nor 2003. There was a need, however, seen by an intransigent group of cowboy capitalists, to increase their hold on the reins of power in Washington, DC.

Having possession of the tools of absolute power, this cabal slapped together a plan for ruthless hegemonic conquest, wrapped in the satin of total media support. Stunningly presented to we, the people, as the 'March to War', and reinforced by a presentation to the United Nations that maximized the definition of 'insincere', boosted through an overwhelmingly-lopsided mediatic focus and timed for maximum political benefit, the world witnessed the United States invading Iraq, and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. As leaders of the economic world, these acts were interpreted by our fellow planetary travelers as a metamorphosis of our modern era through the worst possible light.
(PHOTO Credit: kobnet.net )

But the war began.

That war: the 2nd Iraqi War, or the Second Bush War, or the Third Oil War, has now gone forward over 1,300 days, and will attain the longevity of the US involvement in World War II before Christmas: December 16th, 2006: 1,366 daze.

Dazed?

Consider the financials:

World War II costs in then (current) and 1990 dollars were:
288 billion (current) or 2,091.3 billion (1990)

Our Iraq II, or Bush II, or OIL War III has cost at best:
300 billion (2005) or TWO TRILLION

(Short-sighted non-thinkers, tend to forget to factor-in the long-term medical costs for our veterans that have suffered grievous injuries and Depleted Uranium poisoning, as well as the interest paid by financing this war off-budget through sales of bonds to China, Japan and the developed world)

Not to forget that Coalition members offered the US some 54 billion in contributions for US aggression against Saddam in the Persian Gulf war: perhaps the best warfare 'deal' a government ever negotiated!

How to turn back Humanity from the dark and eerie abyss of total egotism and abject derogation of powers?

Turn back? Or move forward?

Forward, or above: into a greater Humanity.....?

ZENmud

If Sammy Davis met Jon Stewart....

He's the new Iraqi TV star, Saaed Khalifa! If Iraqis can laugh, there will always be hope...

I've re-shot the IHT photo
(credit: Al Sharqiya via NYTimes )
that accompanied this story: take some time to support the new Iraq... (my photo is from the IHT page; the original is certainly nicer)

"... the show, "Hurry up, He's Dead" became the talk of Baghdad, delighting and shocking audiences with its needling of anyone with a hand in Iraq's gloomy predicament."

ZENmud

wishful thinking....

You know what would be fantastic?

If all the USA bombasts, who made we, the 'reality based community', feel un-American... our brothers, our fathers, our bosses, our MEDIA...

Well, don't hold your breath, but if they just said "I'm truly sorry..."

There may be a way to salvage the United States from the Republican-debt-load, and the added hatred wrought by NeoConArtists for the last eight years...

ZENmud

STOP THE WORLD... Bush changing course!

Seems like Bubble Boy has found that Staying the Course isn't the way: STOP THE COURSE is now in vogue... (thanks to Planet Dan for a graphic!)

Article from NY Times gives the full story!

Cheerio,

ZENmud

Don't enable an addict...

Remind your Republican 'friends', if you're still talking to them (are they in contrition now? Are they passing regrets for making you feel like anti-Bush equals 'anti-American'?), that they have to make a choice, a choice based on their own conscience:

There's no denying now, what further Republican 'mandates' will give US citizens...

ZENmud

It's up to YOU...

The time is overdue: end the madness of Bush the Lesser! Don't empower his addiction to cruel and inhuman behaviour.

Remember what Smokey the Bear said: "Only YOU can prevent forest fires." Stop unsupportable aggression; defie fearmongering; enable our country to restore its sullied reputation; allow our Armed Forces to come home and do what we did train them well: protect America.

No one voting Republican (okay, for national office seekers) will any longer be able to avoid the stain of crimes against Humanity from the Bush regime.

The choice is clear and overdue: Republicans now know who the man they were sold as pResident is, now know what he is capable (or incapable) of doing, and are now the party that could reject Bush-Republicanism.

The countdown is E-17 and counting...

ZENmud

FIREBOMBS

You could forget reading the 38p. PDF of the new Military Commissions Act 2006... just pack your car NOW!!!

And get out of the country.

Why? Read the first page of the new Law, Sections §1 and §2. Especially §2.

“The authority to establish military commissions under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code, as added by section 3(a), may not be construed to alter or limit the authority of the President under the Constitution of the United States and laws of the United States to establish military commissions for areas declared to be under martial law or in occupied territories should circumstances so require.”

Did you see what I saw?

“to alter or limit the authority of the President under the Constitution of the United States and laws of the United States to establish military commissions for areas declared to be under martial law or...”

“... DECLARED TO BE UNDER MARTIAL LAW or...”

And they didn't even try to hide it: it's located right there on the first page. Bush the LESSER can declare Martial law, round up the most vociferous domestic opponents to his policies of distortion, discrimination and deception, and put them into Martial law FEMA camps, announce fiat justice under Martial law, establish even more outrageous Commissions with even lesser bestowed 'privileges' (certainly 'rights' no longer applies) to withhold justice for even longer periods.

So while worrying about the fine print far within this Act, the legal effect provided by inclusion of this second Section of this Act grants il Supremo Dictatore incredibly broad powers to oppress and interrogate, not known since the Nazis, Romans or the Inquisition.

Remember the story of Abu Bakker Qassim ?

See my post -
Essay: a VICIOUS CiraqLE

It would not take much effort to become convinced that a good two-thirds of Guantanamo detainees were procured in similar fashion to Abu Bakker Qassim.

If a great number of Bush' captive 'alien unlawful enemy combatants' now under Guantanamo lock and key were bought and delivered by US soldiers or officers paying prices that certainly ran into the $5,000.00 range, it greatly changes the parameters of the Bush Administration's definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'.

The average citizen-taxpayer, has no idea how much of our government taxes were paid to Iraqi or Afghani informers, in return for their denouncing of neighbors and rivals.

These are the people who sadly became our detained 'unlawful enemy combatants'. Furthermore, at this point in time, these individuals most likely remained confined solely for the reason that, should Bush the Lesser release them, they'd proclaim these unjust detentions and demand redress for their heinous sufferings, as did Qassim.

And if Bush can now impose on us, through a declaration of Martial law in tandem with an attack on either Iran, or North Korea (Syria?), what he's proven capable of doing in Afghanistan or Iraq... well: it looks more like the Winter of America might not end...

ZENmud

Send this to everyone!

What's better than watching George W Bush fall on his sword?

This!

MarshmallowCloudGeorgie

I'm still laughing...

ZENmud

In Defense of FLOYD LANDIS

Listen, friends, we're going to follow my other great love today: cycling!

So be aware, as we've no doubt been overexposed to innuendo, that:

If you are a successful, non-French racer that enters the Tour de France, be assured that:
You have NO GUARANTEE:
- that the French testing lab will be able to transcribe your official UCI testing ID number onto relevant sample bottles, as well as verification and chain-of-custody paperwork;
- that your urine samples will pass into sterile containers;
- that your test results will be handled scientifically;
- that your samples will be tested on accurately calibrated machinery;
- that achieved results will be analysed according to WADA rules and regulations;
- that your case will remain confidential according to WADA rules and regulations;
- that WADA will maintain any semblance of neutrality.

Here is my summary of Attorney Howard Jacob's submission to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA):

1) Confidentiality destroyed:

2) Carbon isotope results (CIR) do not satisfy WADA positivity criteria:
a- only one of four metabolites tested clearly exceeds the 3% threshold provided by WADA;
b- best indicator / measurement value proves FL did not use testosterone;
c- the 5α-Androstanediol 13C-values reported by French lab LNDD are inaccurate.

3) Without a positive CIR (method referred to is Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry) there is no case for testosterone doping.

WADA Tech Doc TD2004EAAS controls, requiring that the values be compared between metabolites believed to be affected by exogenous testosterone use, and those metabolites that are not so affected.

Sparing you all the mind-numbing (to me :-) science jargon, a point made is that LNDD only calculated the 'measured differences' based on the 'corrected values' *as they determined*, and ignored comparison of the 'true values'...

So:

ONE
WADA declares that positivity is established for these purposes 'when the metabolites 13C/12C value differs by 3 delta units or more from the urinary reference standard chosen.'

The key phrase is 'the metabolites' (there are four, I believe).

LANDIS four values (corrected, then true) were:
C -2.02% -3.51% -2.65% -6.39%
T -1.83 -3.18 -2.63 -5.72
(Sidebar: in most 'Rule of Law' countries (whether or not US still qualifies is another issue), “ambiguities in the law as written must be construed against the drafting body (WADA)...”)

The WADA criteria displays ambiguity by not specifying “all the metabolites” OR “each and every metabolite”, or, conversely "any number of the metabolites" OR "any of the metabolites".

Implied is that LNDD/L'Equipe/WADA 'declared' LANDIS positive based on the one metabolite reading of -5.72 or -6.39%, and that appears to negate or twist the essence of this testing rule.

TWO
Published scholarly articles all point to one measurement ( the 5βAdiol – 5βPdiol measurement) as being most reliable. And that ratio should be **higher** than measured differences 5αAdiol – 5βPdiol. (this constitutes the T/E ratio we've read about).

LANDIS 'A' Sample

5βAdiol – 5βPdiol : -2.15% (Line 1 should be greater than 6% !!!) 5αAdiol – 5βPdiol : -6.14%

LANDIS 'B' Sample
5βAdiol – 5βPdiol : -2.65% (Line 1 should be greater than 6% !!!)
5αAdiol – 5βPdiol : -6.39%

THREE
Sparing myself and you all the math, I simply cut-n-paste Jacob's statement regarding a variation of sampling with values of >-28.31% : “These figures are inconsistent with reported figures as shown above, and in fact, are more consistent with measurement or calibration error.”

“The LNDD readings for 5αAdiol in the negative control urine are so low that they must be inaccurate. In fact, those readings look more like positive control urine values that negative controls. If the negative control urine readings for 5αAdiol are excessively low, it must be the case that the LNDD readings of the Landis sample for 5αAdiol are also excessively low and inaccurate, thus explaining the large difference in the 5αAdiol - 5βPdiol measurement. As this measurement in the Landis sample is totally at odds with any of the other measurements as discussed above, it is submitted that the result must stem from laboratory error.”

FOUR (you'll love this)
Not one document in this charade uses LANDIS UCI testing number! Jacob points out that “Clinical laboratories making these types of gross errors could easily find themselves answering to a WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT (caps added). Simply stated, if LNDD cannot get the sample code number correct, how can they be trusted to accurately report quantitative test results?”

LANDIS is (for testing purposes) racer 995474.

995474.

Sample A is labeled 994474. (inaccurate)

Corrections to lab test results are supposed to be stricken through with one single stroke and initialed. LANDIS lab test results have White-Out and no initials for corrections.

In the chain-of-custody papers, the ID number is 995476 (inaccurate).
On the summary page for the lab record, the number is 995475 (inaccurate).

(those thinking I or Jacob are 'nit-picking' should refer to his quoted line, above).

(SIDEBAR: it was mentioned that because of LANDIS' special dispensation for cortisone for his hip pain, any intelligent lab staffer could immediately recognize/ID any sample, as being taken from LANDIS)

FIVE
CONTAMINATION

WADA rules (this is from a PowerPoint prepared by LANDIS' (former?) doctor Arnie Baker, MD) “are that if contamination or degradation levels of free testosterone or epitestosterone exceed 5%, the sample should not be analyzed.” LANDIS ratio (on this) = 7.7% ; and he colorfully added “Just like food WITH MOLD or MAGGOTS, such a sample should not be used.”
CONCLUSION

Based on: a- ambiguous rules,
b- tests not in any way conclusive of positivity,
c- a strong likelihood ('preponderence of the evidence'?) of laboratory mis-calibration, incompetence, malfeasance or negligence, and contamination of the base samples, along with
d- breaches of confidentiality by ALL parties: the French lab, French media, UCI, Tour de France, and Dick (“IDIOT”) Pound / WADA;

The verdict to follow! (But I'd rather read yours!)

Thanks for reading...
ZENmud

Baghdad dreaming...

It has come to this...

The photo above, which I found at Buzzflash, offers a link to the Casper, Wyoming Star Tribune , is of a Baghdad woman passing by a series of posters, translated as: "No matter how strong the storm, it will go away in the end"...

And from Bartcop the other day...

Who said it better than Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now? "The horror... the horror..."

Because a woman can't safely walk next year in Baghdad, if people in the Untied Snakes can't vote in some rational system of governance.

(thanks Bill)

ZENmud

Another USA?

Here's what I was thinking, along the way to today...





It isn't difficult to question whether the USA would be what it is, without a violent oppressing past...

ZENmud

ZENmud NEWS flash!

Hi all,

ZENmud (a whatever of www.multimediORwrite.com ) has enjoyed a very busy weekend, which dealt with two major events: the birth of a new Association, NGO favoring the resolution of Palestinian and Israeli conflicts, and my invitation/desire to become involved in a film project that will document this new NGO in action!

I will be back to regular posting soon, and have excellent photoShop cartoons coming in the not distant future...


I haven't seen Bartcop or Buzzflash in days... so that's the next priority!


As they say along the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River (photo thanks to www.cliffshade.com/.../black_canyon/bcg10.jpg )


"40 O's and 40 O's is: adios!"

ZENmud

W: it's OCTOBER SURPRISE month...

If you had gone rafting with me on the Arkansas River, in Brown's Canyon, and we entered the zone Toilet-Bowl to House Rock (we're very literal, there... liberal here...), we might have stopped, to demonstrate and watch as small driftwood sticks tossed into the current got caught in the torrential whirlpool, turning swiftly, around and around, but always slowly moving closer to disappearing down the epicenter...

I sense this in the United States...

a brewing mass hysteria...

created from a litany of policies...

horrible, deadly: augmented by the spices of conveniently-timed 'news flashes' of terrorists' collective literary offerings, perfected through a 'regime change' that Bush and his Congress are effecting on the United States Constitution.

A mass hysteria that Bush could overcome with a bit of Martial law, mass internment of 'oppositionistas' and further media control...

Welcome to October, the month of Bush Family surprises...

ZENmud

Rescue Republicans...

Some of my best friends are 'Republicans', and that word is in quotations due to the perversions of their party leadership, effected through the slow takeover (say the last 20 years or more) by an alliance of Neoconservative activists, the Dixiecratic Southern 'Wal-Mart Americans' and the radically-religious Right.

This potent witches' brew begat the MSM media that coddled the Right wing shenanigans of the Iran-Contra scandal, enjoyed the ratings brought under the Persian Gulf war (or the First Oil War, or BushWAR the First) through the inquisition of Bill Clinton, and the endless coverups of this New Millennium misAdministration.

But I digress historically, in order to address what I feel is the only sure way for America to stop this
two-wheels-up,

careening-through-a-banked-turn misAdministration: Republican remorse.

The Party of Lincoln, the party of Hoover, the Party of Eisenhower, has become the Party of Nixon.

A schizophrenic man, Nixon is remembered today through the harsh reality of vengeance, now being exacted by his accolytes: the Rumsfelds and Cheneys of our day. Amplified through support by the MSM, their Machiavellian policies take root like vile weeds and blossom: death and oppression without and within American territory.

Vengeance: against the New Deal which gave broken labor a chance, against the Kennedys and Kings who offered hope to the common man, against the very soldiers to whose families they profess loud their support while emptying the Veteran's Administration of funding for health care.

Only Republicans can take back their party, focus on the issues that made their philosophy worthy of debate, and renounce the sanctity that they have profited from in the era of Bush the Lesser, as much as that major part of the media that sanctified their actions...

Republicans can do this in three ways: not voting at all, or voting for a Democratic candidate this year, or beginning to actively participate in Republican caucus sessions, or conventions.

Take your party back, dear true Republicans, and fight with us, to take back our country from a group of madmen (and a woman or two...).

ZENmud

FOLEYTIO

Foleytio...

What can one say about the House co-Chairman of the (See Wonkette's post) House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, if not that this exhibits (for maybe the last time?) the truth of the Bush the Lesser's 'Doctrine'?

Which is:

“Governing Americans can be a sick, profitable joke, and we can make this JOKE SICKER than anyone ever has...”

Imagine if you will, a country which believes in the universe painted so darkly by the Republicans:

terrorists are EVERYwhere so.... we should change the Constitution to reflect the 'greater menace';

America is so unSAFE, we should send our Armies to distant lands and create a greater stream of terrorists through undiscriminating attacks on civilians, wedding ceremonies and children;

At FIVE thousand dollars apiece, we should 'buy' denouncements of neighbors by Iraqi and Afghani citizens, to fill our prisons with innocent men we can call 'dangerous terrorists', whose only crime would be to signal (upon release) to the world, the effects of those neighbors' false accusations that were accepted by American authorities; their imprisonment, torture and the correlated increase of funding to expand and 'improve' the facilities represented by installations at Guantanemo, etc...

The Katrina-ing of American society: perhaps the first measurable case of “disaster-occasioned ethnic cleansing” in world history...

And FOLEYTIO... Soon to be a term of art to describe sick, sexual practices by people in power against young innocent Americans...

It all accumulates in the psyche of the average American... and throughout Wal-Mart America, this resonance is in disharmony with the fecal desire of Republicans to inflict more of their policies on more and more of the world. And who can tell, what drives someone 'postal' more than moral despair?

Democrats certainly aren't perfect, but a page is ALWAYS younger than an intern: 16 will get ya 25 in some states...

Hang on for another post or two..

ZENmud

Oral Statement for the Record (Congressional)

If it weren't for good old Republican ingenuity: they'll go to ANY lengths to avoid the Iraq War issue... thanks to Republican Mark Foley, a 'good friend of the President' and Jeb Bush... what a kinky flipping group!!!

Good-bye, Mark (NB: Ctrl+F "Foley"); the only question is who will drag themselves after you, and can Democratic House members maintain the pressure this warrants, after the abuse they've condoned by 'freedom Fries' Republicans?


I hope George can get along without you, at 'coming' fundraisers throughout
Florida... the Ship of State under Bush the Lesser is starting to look like the Titanic...





ZENmud

After America, what?

Thinking short-term, gives one a focus on the coming early-November elections, and if one is not for the current misAdministration, one might hope for a great turn of events, and one might have a fifty per cent chance. “I figured the odds were fifty-fifty...” Frank Zappa.

A longer-term focus, and a cynic's eye, sees subterfuge at the ballot box, and a less-than fifty per cent chance of change in the makeup of the House of Representatives, or the Senate.

What happens to the world via BushCO, in the following years, if Congress stays in the hands of the...

?

Their War FOR Terror can evolve into new locations, could evolve into nuclear options, could involve massive internment of American dissidents, and could bankrupt the United States Treasury as the Afghanistan campaign helped to implode the Soviet Union.

Whither thou, America?

The tax cuts for the wealthiest, and the budget deficits demanded by Bush the Lesser, have allowed these privileged and connected few to bank millions in new income or wealth. It would help to know if those who amass new profits are holding those in American dollars, or whether they have 'diversified' their holdings, into Euros or gold, foreign stocks or whatever.

For it would make sense if one could, to protect one's own fortune while voting and agitating for the end of the United States of America, through support of this misAdministration and its internal and foreign policies. If I had banked an extra ten million in profits, I think I'd be holding one quarter in dollars, one quarter in Swiss francs, and one half in Euros.

Why?

It won't take much longer for Bush' policies to bankrupt the Treasury. At two billion dollars per week ($2,000,000,000/wk ), America is drying up its future resources faster than it even is aware... and if we're very lucky, Bush the Lesser would end up here:

ZENmud

If America IMPLODES (as UbL helped the...

... CIA to do)
Remember, when he was an ally of the US counteractions in Afghanistan, he said as much. See his letter of 24 November 2004.

ZENmud