I dashed out soon after hearing today's eruption was underway, but it was over so fast that by the time I got to the first good viewpoint, there was nothing left of the eruption plume but a smudge of haze. Looks like there's going to be other opportunities, however.
I was lying awake trying to get back to sleep at around 3AM this morning, and decided to turn on the radio for a while. Happened across a replay of the neo-fascist talk show Savage Nation.
Savage was ranting on about how Monkey Boy had to have a "Judas" somewhere on his staff that sabotaged his preparation for the debate and handed him all the wrong talking points. He then goes on with some bizarre theory on how Kerry is an "alpha male" type who used body language to intimidate his hero Monkey Boy into a submissive mood by shaking his hand in a certain way. No, I'm not making this up.
A caller managed to get through the screeners and pointed out part of the obvious, that if Monkey Boy was so easily wrapped around other's little fingers with body language, then he's probably not the sort of person you want as President going out and negotiating with foreign leaders. Savage hung up on him before any expounding could be done about how Savage's own accusations belie a belief that Bush is a complete nincompoop.
Looks like I may have been wrong when I said that Air America Radio will probably fail.
Though, of course, it will take time to tell.
It's simply amazing how so many right-wingers admire Japan and hold it up as a model to aspire to, while at the same time of course dismissing Europe as too socialistic and anti-individualistic to be of interest as any sort of model to Americans.
The irony, of course, is that American culture evolved fairly recently from European culture, and is much closer to it than Japanese culture. If any culture has relevance as a model to Americans, it's European culture (and, perhaps even more relevantly, the cultures of other nations whose cultures evolved from British culture, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).
But those cultures don't worship capitalism and the capitalist elite as much as right-wingers like, so once again logic gets thrown out the window in the name of ideological convenience.
Equally curious is how the fact that Japan has universal health care never gets mentioned in the long list of admirable Japanese characteristics worth emulating.
In a featured special series, the newspaper of record in this state is clamoring for restrictions to be placed on over-the-counter sales of pseudoephedrine because it can be used to synthesize methamphetamine.
The restrictions fall short of an outright ban. Yet. But just you wait. I can see happening to Sudafed what happened to codeine-containing cough syrups, which went from being freely available to being available only if you ask for them and show ID to being totally banned without a prescription.
I remember the time I has a nasty dry cough that was keeping me awake at night. So I want to the pharmacy and asked for what I had always been able to get at the pharmecy in the small New Mexico town where I used to live, and was made to feel like a criminal for even knowing the name of the product. And, of course, went home empty-handed and spent several more sleepless nights thanks to the War on Drugs. Fuck you very much.
I theoretically could have made a doctor's appointment, but not in time to get the medicine I needed, and knowing how the War on Drugs operates the doctor would have made me feel like a criminal for asking for narcotic cough syrup. In fact, the next time I got such a cough, I did and he did. Fuck you very much again, drug warriors.
Yes, I know that people use such substances recreationally and sometimes hurt themselves because of it. News flash — there's never been a time in human history when people haven't attempted to get high on various substances. Even birds sometimes show a distinct preference for eating fermented fruit, which they eat the point of getting drunk.
The desire for altered states of consciousness runs very deep, and it's not going to disappear just because some social engineers pass laws saying this or that is illegal. In fact, the average clandestine drug lab is going to be much more persistent in finding ways around the silly new law than cold or allergy suffers. So the end result of any ban or restrictions will be to make cold and allergy patients more miserable while drug abuse continues to be a problem.
Beware: Will listeners be willing to throw their current radio sets out, shell out hundreds per set and than an ongoing monthly fee to continue to hear Howard Stern? Perhaps, but I'm skeptical satellite radio can compete with traditional broadcast FM in terms of listenership.
This is an interesting accusation. It certainly makes sense on some level, given Monkey Boy's difficulty in stringing coherent sentences together. As poor has his performance in the first debate was, his diction was still much better than par.
The problem I have with it is that it looks so amateurish and obvious. you'd think his handlers would have access to more high-tech and miniaturized equipment. Maybe they had some low-level staffer make a retail cash purchase so as to better conceal — nah, even that seems farfetched. With a modicum of advance planning, I don't see how they could have much trouble anonymously procuring something more advanced.
Whatever the case, you can be sure that if he's wired, his handlers are going to be doing a much better job of concealing it tonight. I'd certainly love to be there in person with my two VHF radio sets, scanning the waves for goodies.
This allegation on IsBushWired is interesting:
Postscript: A poster to IsBushWired comments that she heard the prompter for Bush's 9/11 address on a New York station: "I was watching ABC in NYC. I had no cable and I could only get ABC from my antenna at that time (the only station that transmitters on the Empire State instead of WTC). I definitely heard the prompter. I posted about it at the time at Salon."First, because it's so clownishly inept. Use a signal in plain unencrypted FM so close to a TV frequency that it can be tuned by millions of consumer electronic devices? Then again, a long time ago when I lived in an area with less RF noise, I managed to eavesdrop on sensitive military communications being conducted in plaintext. There's a long history of being stupid when it comes to the security of transmitted radio signals.
The ABC television in New York City is WABC on channel 7. The sound carrier for channel 7 is 179.75 megahertz. Looking here here, and here, we see that there's no shortage of wireless microphones that use frequencies close to channel 7's sound carrier. Both TV stations and wireless microphones use frequency modulation to transmit audio, so the audio detected by the portable TV's receiver will be intelligible. They don't have to be spot-on the TV audio frequency to be heard because consumer grade electronics are usually pretty sloppy when it comes to frequency selectivity. Be lucky enough to have a seat near the hidden transmitter antenna and you'll hear it.
Having more than once spotted likely bargains (no or just one bidder, low maximum on competing bid, closing soon) on eBay, that, shortly after I submitted a winning bid, get retaliated against into non-bargain price territory, I decided to try a sniping service.
Damned if it doesn't work like a charm. Not only that, it's surprisingly fun to have the momemt of suspense not knowing if you'll win the auction or not, then finding out you have. And there's nothing the other guy can do about it. Muahahaha.
I decided to keep an eye (well, ear) on the enemy and listen to Rush Limbaugh this morning. He spent a good chunk of time railing on how the Democrats were bashing the Republicans instead of coming out with a positive message of their own. Of course, his very act of doing this entailed (drumroll) a Republican bashing the Democrats instead of coming out with a positive message of his own.
Which isn't to say that Limbaugh's observation was incorrect. It was interesting to watch all operatives for the Democrats trolling the streets of Portland looking for voters to register in August and September. Their spiel was always about voting against Bush rather than voting for Kerry (or anyone or anything else).
That's right, even the two enshrined participants in the system acknowledge by their own actions the inability of that system to create anything that people want.
Ran across this when trying to locate some other quotes to back something up I'm attempting to write:
I've come, Herr Chancellor, to congratulate you on destroying Communism in Germany and acting as a bulwark against Communism in Russia.You see, people always present Chamberlain's appeasement at Munich as the foibles of a liberal peacenik. They weren't. They were the foibles of hard-headed realpolitik, the foibles of anticommunism-at-all-costs.
— Lord Halifax, Neville Chamberlain's Foreign Secretary, greeting Hitler at Munich.
I'll give you some very good examples of direct action. Monsanto. WTO. IMF. Brussels. All extra-parliamentary. Only they're not called that. None of them were elected. And when Ford closes Dagenham, that's direct action. So you've got to be clear in your mind, that governments are driven by direct action from capital. [...]Full quote here.
So we can add advocacy of direct action to internationalism and class consciousness when it comes to the core values of the ruling class. Whom, as I wrote in that earlier piece, want others to worship at an altar they refuse to kneel before themselves.
[...] We are in a situation where we are grossly overdeployed, and it is unlike any other period in the 229-year history of the Army. We have never conducted a sustained combat operation with a volunteer force, with a force that we have to compete in the job market to hire every year. Every other force that we've ever done this with, going back to the Vietnam period to something comparable, has been a draftee conscript force.Full story here.
— Gen. Thomas White (US Army - Ret.), Secretary of the Army, 2001-2003.
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise! It's nationalism at work after all!
Went up into the hills with my binoculars and camera, and a steam plume rising above Mt. St. Helens was faintly visible through the haze. Because that haze was so thick, I didn't even bother trying to photograph it. I've taken photos in thinner haze that didn't turn out.
Boy am I glad I didn't have the misfortune of being a schoolkid in Puyallup, WA.
Thankfully, not all Wiccans are as dense as the School Board that's trying to “protect” them from possibly being offended:
Lisa Lawrence, facilitator of Gaia's Grove in Puyallup and Wiccan high priestess of Sacred Oak Circle in Puyallup and Tacoma, believes the issue is bigger than a Wiccan question.In fact, something didn't seem quite right when I first read this story. From when I lived in the Puget Sound region, I recall Puyallup as an unusually conservative town, about the last place one would expect to be concerned about New Agers with fragile egos. As some Wiccans have theorized here, it might be a way for the local School Board to cave into the demands of Christian fundamentalist parents (and there's plenty of them in Puyallup) who don't want their children having anything to do with a “satanic” holiday. All the while conveniently deflecting blame for it onto the few New Agers in Puyallup."Taking Halloween away from children, that's just ridiculous," she told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Lawrence does not have children in Puyallup schools.
"We don't particularly care for the images of witches but there are a lot of stereotypical images that a lot of people don't like, but that's part of life," said Lawrence. "People dress up as perverted priests, sexy nuns, drunken Irishmen, nerds, obese people, every group has its stereotype that is mocked or made fun of.
So if anything, I'm being too kind to the Puyallup School Board by calling them idiots. They may well be calculating, scheming bigots.
Then read something written by an author who witnessed his native country go fascist first-hand.
“If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example.”Look, bin Laden is a creep. But however distasteful he is, his question does demonstrate how ludicrous the Bushies claim that “they attacked us because they hate our freedom” really is.
— Osama bin Laden, in today's videotaped statement
I can understand the desire to prevent fatal encounters.
Alas that understanding doesn't extend to the concept of small dogs itself. I've always felt there's just something basically and fundamentally wrong with a dog that's smaller than a cat. The painful, high-pitched yapping noise many of them make when barking doesn't help, either.
In a strange example of synchronicity, I found myself several days ago wondering about what was happening with the anarchist movement in Poland. On Thursday, I arrived at Laughing Horse Books to do a shift and a fellow with a thick Eastern European accent was talking to the person behind the counter. You guessed it, he was a Polish anarchist.
We talked a little on Thursday, then he gave a presentation today. It appears that they really have their stuff together in Poland. Unlike in the USA, where anarchism tends to be a clannish and subcultural thing associated with punk rock, in Poland it's more than that. There's the punk connections, to be sure, but the anarchists there are actively involved in doing outreach to others and building bridges beyond the subculture. There's been a number of anarchist-inspired worker occupations of factories slated for closure near Poznan, for example.
Despite having a Dutch surname from my father's side of the family, everyone on my mother's side is Polish, which makes that the biggest part of my ethnic makeup. Not only that, but most of my Polish ancestors come from the area around Poznan. As much as I try to cultivate a sense of internationalism, it's really hard for me not to feel some sort of kinship and bond with those in a land I've never even been to. Tribal or ethnic identity is a surprisingly strong thing.
I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, as long as one doesn't let ethnic pride morph into ethnic supremacy. I don't think my ancestry makes me better than anyone, it's just something that makes me, me, something I appreciate.
It's definitely a thought that comes to mind after reading this.
One thing I've learned after watching the Soviet Empire melt into nothingness is that the end can come surprisingly fast for an empire, and can happen with a whimper as easily as a bang. Often, nobody knows the end is coming until suddenly it's there.
John Dean's scenario certainly sounds plausible. A wild card is how much the Democrats will feel like fighting passionately. Liberalism in recent decades has become dominated by a pathological desire to be loved by all people and at all times. One expression of this desire is a tendency to concede issues like crazy and avoid playing to win, because if you win then the other side may hate you for it.
Then again, this time the Democrats have their attack lawyers at the ready. As do the Republicans, of course. We live in interesting times.
Liberals buy into so much of the mythology of the status quo. They think capitalism and government are inevitable constructs simply because they exist. I honestly believe most liberals have never made sincere effort to think of some ways a world without corporations could exist.
Instead of being able to see how corporations, the class structure, and the state oppress people, and seeing things like poverty and environmental destruction as oppression, they see the results of the oppression, take the oppressive institutions as unquestioned givens, and conclude the problem is merely a lack of regulations. If only the right set of rules could be drawn up and properly enforced, all would be well. Inevitably, this mindset extends to other areas, and liberalism ends up being the quest for the perfect set of rules and regulations.
This has really started to grate on me as I've been barefoot more and more. Out on the coast in Newport, the rednecks, fishermen, and loggers really didn't care. So what if I was strange and different — my feet weren't on their body. Who cares what the folks in Salem might think; I'm obviously not hurting anyone. Sure, I may hurt myself by stepping on something, but that's my problem. They may think I'm crazy to take the risk, but they also think the decision is my business.
In this case, the “folks in Salem” think… well, absolutely nothing. State law is silent on the subject of footwear (or lack thereof) worn by customers of retail establishments. But that doesn't matter to the Nice Liberals in Portland. There just must be something to prevent it. There has to be. Even though there's not. There's not much risk in it to me, either — I can walk on (and even crush) shards of broken glass uninjured. The human body is much tougher and stronger than most people give it credit. But just try telling them that.
It all makes me consider leaving the city at times. I used to think the liberal city folks were so much more enlightened than the conservative rural folks. But the difference isn't as one-sided in favor of the city liberals as I had thought. I'd be exchanging the nanny state ideology for homophobic social conservatism (not to mention the Bushist fascism, hmmm).
So, all in all, Portland's still a net win over cowboy country. But some days I just wish I was in a small, rural town.
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