I've probably posted this before. If so I'm posting it again. This song is only for those who have ever been in love.


Beeswing -- Richard Thompson

I was nineteen when I came to town
They called in the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags
The Hawks against the Doves

I took a job in the Steamie
Down on Cauldrum Street
I fell in love with a laundry girl
Was working next to me

( Lyrics Below The Cut )
If I could just taste
All of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Then I wouldn't want her any other way

I'm getting emails about posts and replies from two days ago.

And people worry about CO₂. I guess it all boils down to what you think the biggest threats to peace and human life are.

Weather as a Force Multiplier:
Owning the Weather in 2025
A Research Paper
Presented To
Air Force 2025
by
Col Tamzy J. House
Lt Col James B. Near, Jr.
LTC William B. Shields (USA)
Maj Ronald J. Celentano
Maj David M. Husband
Maj Ann E. Mercer
Maj James E. Pugh
August 1996

( Executive Summary )

Wow.

The only way to effectively bring about a revolution for the betterment of mankind is to reach the individual. The message is simple: You are freedom. You are peace. You are love. You are truth. You mustn’t wait for anyone else. You mustn’t be afraid. You mustn’t worry that mass murderers are continually lauded as bringers of peace. It will continue. But we needn’t continue along with it. They’ve set the table, but what they’re serving is rancid leftovers. Walk away. It will feel better when you do it in your own way, not the way some charismatic leader tells you to. If you are willing, you are The Prince of Peace. ~ B.R. Merrick

It's not.

https://www.chiaobama.com/flare/next

http://www.chia.com/

America! What a country!

Two weeks before going to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama sells his new Vietnam-lite to the world out of a US military academy. George Orwell, we salute you. War is indeed peace. ~ Pepe Escobar

Here are a couple of sources I've found.

Nightwatch, an "open source" intelligence summary:

"NightWatch is an executive level intelligence recap drawn from domestic and international reporting and is provided as a service by AFCEA Intelligence.

"Mr. John McCreary is the NightWatch editor. John spent 38 years serving the Department of Defense Intelligence as a strategic analyst, most of that time in the Directorate of Intelligence (J2) office of the Joint Staff serving the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the Secretary of Defense."
http://www.afcea.org/mission/intel/nightwatch.asp

The raw links are here:
http://nightwatch.afcea.org/

Asia Times Online:

"Asia Times Online comprises atimes.com, a free website, atimes.net, an advertisement-free site for subscribers, and atchinese.com, a free site for Chinese readers around the world. These are quality Internet-only publications that report on and examine geopolitical, political, economic and business issues. We look at these issues from an Asian perspective; this distinguishes us from the mainstream English-language media, whose reporting on Asian matters is generally by Westerners, for Westerners."
http://www.atimes.com/

I'm surprised I've even got sync

Capacity Used: 88% 100%
Noise Margin: 6.5 dB 6.0 dB
Output Power: 20.0 dBm 12.0 dBm
Attenuation: 58.5 dB 31.5 dB

Speed (kbps): 0 3008 0 736

The real choice Obama faced was not how many troops to send. We do not have enough troops to commit a militarily meaningful number. The real choice was to get out now or get out later. His duty as chief executive, the state of America’s treasury (empty), concern for the well-being of our troops and their families, and the hopelessness of the situation all dictated he get out now. By punting the decision, he showed America and the world what he is made of. Dec. 1, 2009, was the date the Obama presidency failed. ~ William S. Lind

...mainly because I don't think I'm qualified to discuss it, not with any credibility anyway, but this is just way too much to not at least mention.

Whichever side you take on this issue you've got to admit this looks bad.

From The Sunday Times
November 29, 2009

Climate change data dumped

Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

Read it all here...

Let's bring the boys home now

Mr. President, here's the answer. CALL ALL OUR TROOPS HOME – AND NOW. Forget "world opinion," forget conservatives like me, forget your own clamoring leftists. Don't waste one more American life on foreign soil...

There is clearly no greater obstacle to a truly empirical approach to spiritual experience than our current beliefs about God. ~ Sam Harris. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason p. 214

The National parties and their presidential candidates, with the Eastern Establishment assiduously fostering the process behind the scenes, moved closer together and nearly met in the center with almost identical candidates and platforms, although the process was concealed as much as possible, by the revival of obsolescent or meaningless war cries and slogans (often going back to the Civil War). … The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy. … Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies. - Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 1247-1248.

If you consider yourself to be a libertarian--either left or right flavor--or a progressive, or if you just have an interest is politics or foreign policy, I highly recommend this series of essays by Arthur Silber. If, on the other hand, you are are a staunch backer of the GOP or a "serious" Democrat I can only say, move along, nothing to see here.

Part I: Iraq Is the Democrats' War, Too

Part II: Why the Stories We Tell Matter So Much

Part III: The Open Door to Worldwide Hegemony

Part IV: A "Splendid People" Set Out for Empire

Part V: A Global Empire of Bases

(Sidebar): Ah, Democracy...Ah, Peace

Part VI: Global Interventionism -- A Disastrous Policy Supported by Indefensible Ideas

Part VII: The Mythology of the "Good Guy" American

Part VIII: Unwelcome History -- Religion, the Progressives, Empire and the Drug War

Hat tip to jblaque



Actually, I'm sitting home in my pajamas making sure the packets are passing.

So many meetings of the war council! So much intense deliberation over so many months! So many knowledgeable experts training their finely honed minds on the problem of Afghanistan and Pakistan! So many challenges to conventional wisdom and the policies inherited from the reviled Bush administration! So much independence of thought, sober reflection, and careful calibration of the array of competing objectives and concerns!

Truly, the operations of our government -- and if not of government generally, certainly of the Obama administration -- are a wonder to behold. We are comforted by their deliberate, subtle approach, we are bathed in the soothing liquid of their studious avoidance of easy slogans and empty rhetoric. These are profoundly thoughtful people, putting forth their best effort to arrive at the best solution for all concerned.

And so, so many people fall for this stinking load of unmitigated shit. ~ Arthur Silber

Thunderbird just worked, too.

My main computer died a few days ago. I don't have the money or the time to build another right now so I'm working off my trusty laptop. One of the biggest nuisances was not having my bookmarks and cached logins.

( Geekiness below the cut... )