This is Getting Bullshit Now


For those of you who might be watching the other “disaster of the month” on TV (first the tsunami, then Katrina, now an Earthquake in Pakistan), closer to home there is quite a large amount of rain falling in the Northeast.

Rain like I’ve never seen before. It’s been raining, and raining hard now for 6 days straight. If there is a break, it is brief and becomes an annoying cold mist. After that, another downpour for 3 hours.

The soil and roads finally couldn’t take the beating anymore, and everything around here is flooded. Not a “New Orleans” flood, but one of those floods where you’re second-guessing whether or not the car will actually make it through the road-turned-river, or stall out.

So, we’ve decided to get two of every animal…

Looks like Mother Nature is doing a little housekeeping in the last 12 months or so. Water, wind, earth…fire is next, so anyone near a volcano might want to think about packing their shit up.

Four Years Later, and What Have We Learned


Nothing. With the exception of the fact that Bush isn’t concerned about Osama, that the war in Iraq was based on lies, and that the Government can’t protect it’s own people from any known threat; mother nature, or terrorism.

If anyone believes the official story on 9/11, I’d ask you to visit the links below, and form your own opinions.

To the several thousand people that have died, rest in peace, and to the relatives and friends of those that have died, I hope you are able to go on with, and make sense of your purpose.

Lets Roll 9/11
9/11 In Plane Site
9/11 Truth
Conspiracy Planet

Two Weeks Later, and What Have We Learned


It’s been just about two weeks now since Katrina hit the United States. An untold number of deaths, as the water in New Orleans is still flooding the city, leaving countless bodies still submerged. The cost for cleanup and recovery is currently $300 billion, but that’s $100 million more than the estimate only 2 days ago. Pledged donations from foreign nations are plentiful and aid from many countries was even turned away.

What have we learned?

  • Doesn’t expect any evacuation plan to work as designed.
  • Do not put 100% trust in anything the Government tells you.
  • FEMA failed the American people.
  • Bush failed the American people.
  • People are animals; rapes, murders at the Superdome.
  • Confusion at all levels of Government is rampant, and 4 years after 9/11 no advances in command and control architecture have been made.
  • Thousands dead, 160,000 homes lost, and 400,000 jobs.
  • September 11th damage covered 16 square blocks. Damage from Katrina is 90,000 square miles.

And topping this list, important enough to put here, is this: Firms with Bush Ties Snag Katrina Deals.

It makes me think of what my friend Rev. Goat just told me: ‘Let me say this before it goes any further; New Orleans didn’t die of natural causes, she was murdered.'”

That about says it all.

A Government That Failed Its People

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. –And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

–John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Foreign Aid Has Arrived


On the same day that FEMA (now known as “Failed Emergency Management Agency”) was finally able to get the military into New Orleans, I have thankfully been proven wrong to an early post, as foreign aid to the U.S. in the wake of hurricane Katrina has been made available.

According to the BBC, over 44 foreign governments and agencies have offered aid.

Singapore has sent helocopters to help with the movement of supplies.

Venezueala has offered cheap fuel-oil, but the U.S. has not decided whether to accept the offer.

Israel is offering medical teams.

Shri Lanka donated $25,000 to the American Red Cross.

Japan is offering $200,000.

Australia is offering $8,000,000. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer stated “The United States is so often at the forefront of international aid efforts to help less fortunate nations.”

And it looks like the International Energy will be releasing two million barrels of oil per day to sell to the U.S. to help gas prices here.

Well, it’s a good start.

Edit: 10 mins after writing this, I found this link on CNN describing in detail the foreign aid being offered.

The Aftermath of Katrina


A few days has passed since my last post here, and Katrina has come ashore, and devasted the Gulf coast. As of right now, 8/31/05 9:35pm, here is what has happened if you don’t already know:

o 80% of New Orleans submerged under 20+ feet of water.

o Widespread looting

o Recovery still going on 4-days later, helicopters picking people off their roofs.

o Gas soon-to-be over $4/gallon, and expected to peak around $5.

o Bodies floating around the flood-waters because police and rescuers are concentrated on those that remain alive.

o Thousands expected to be dead.

o Costs of recovery estimated in the tens of billions, a decade of time.

o Disease spreading due to stagnant, corpse-infected water.

o 10,000 more National Guard troops being activated, Navy sending ships to the Gulf including a floating military hospital.

What countries have pledged any money yet? None.

Generosity has always been a key trait of the United States, going back many many years. Why is it that the United States is always criticized for not doing enough soon enough for other countries when a disaster strikes, and when we need help, no one even steps up to the plate?

Germany, France, Russia, Australia, Canada? Hello?

However, now is not the time to politicize this. The people in the affected regions need help. Let’s hope they get what they need.

To see a list of fine United States companies that are donating money or equipment, please click here.

Hurricane Katrina


As of this writing (3pm EST 8/28/05), Hurricane Katrina was churning through the Gulf of Mexico toward the below-sea-level city of New Orleans, LA with expected landfall of the eye at 7AM on 8/29/05. Current sustained winds are 180mph, with gusts about 200mph.

This storm will be devastating. It is a category 5 storm, on the Saffir-Simpson scale which represents the most powerful storm.

Destruction of life and property will be wide-spread, even with the current mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.

FEMA is currently prepared to act, as I’m sure the National Guard is on stand-by as well.

After that, who will help?

For the Tsunami relief effort, the U.S. is #4 on the top list of donators, donating over $350 million dollars to the relief.

For all that the U.S. does for other countries, who will help us? Time will tell, but it’s my guess that no other nation will donate help or money to our time of need.

Someone please prove me wrong.

The American Terrorist – Pat Robertson


If you haven’t heard it already, conservative religious rightwinger – Pat Robertson – said on his “700 Club” show that we should assassinate Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela.

Now, minus all of the boring details, this is what Pat Robertson said originally:

“If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

Amid much public backlash here in America, from Venezuela, and from around the world, Robertson apologized today, 48 hours after he made the statement. In the “apology” (which was more of a clarification), he said he was misinterpreted.

“Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement,” he said in a written statement. I didn’t say ‘assassination.’ I said our special forces should ‘take him out.’ And ‘take him out’ can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time,”

Now, “take him out” to me means assassination.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday that Robertson has the right of any private citizen to say whatever he wants but added that the broadcaster’s remarks “do not represent the views of the United States.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also dismissed Robertson’s comments Tuesday, saying “our department doesn’t do that kind of thing.”

Alvarez said the Christian Coalition, which Robertson started but no longer leads, claims some 2 million members and helped jump-start President Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign after his New Hampshire primary loss to Sen. John McCain.

He has suggested in the past that a meteor could strike Florida because of unofficial “Gay Days” at Disney World and that feminism caused women to kill their children, practice witchcraft and become lesbians.

And that, my friends, is insanity.

MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack


No, no, I’m not advocating drug use. For those that didn’t get the reference in the title, it is the name of an old, rather obscure Beck song. I believe off the single (import?) of Loser from back circa 1993 or so. Anyway, onto the point of the story before I digress…

On 7/2/05 was the Live 8 concerts from around the world, Philadelphia, London, and Paris just to name a few. MTV and VH-1 were covering the events as they unfolded in all of the cities.

I’ll just get straight to the point. MTV?…you suck!. My girlfriend and I are sitting in a Courtyard Marriot in Saratoga Springs, NY enjoying the day as we wait for our DMB concert to start at 7pm later that evening. So, we decided to watch the Live 8 coverage on MTV, especially since DMB was playing there, and then scurrying back up to upstate NY for their evening show.

This is how a typical hour’s segment of Live 8 coverage happened on MTV. Talking, talking, blah blah, performers in the background, commercial, talking, interviewing the crowd, 1 full song shown, “lets see whats going on in London, Jim” (cut to London), commercial, talking, interviewing the crowd, and so on.

In an hour’s time, if we saw 5 minutes of music, it would have been a lot. Instead, MTV just simply showing the concerts uninterrupted by senseless banter and commentary. I kept my mouth shut after the first 45 minutes, but when I realized this was more about MTV advertising than showing the music, I was pretty damn disgusted. What makes MTV think that me, sitting in my living room, that I care about what 3 drunk idiots from Ocean City, NJ think about the Live 8 concerts. I don’t care, SHOW ME PINK FLOYD.

Instead, and I never thought I’d say this, AOL – yes, AOL – had an Internet broadcast of the concerts, and they still have it online in archives for people to view.

Thanks MTV, for once again, really dropping the ball on an event. You people could fuck up a wet dream.