Recall the parable about the splinter in one's eye...

as you read this: "As we have said many times before, Mr. Gross is a dedicated international development worker who was in Cuba providing support to members of the Cuban Jewish community," Crowley said. "He has been held without charges for more than a year, contrary to all international human rights obligations and commitments regarding justice and due process." Crowley is the US State Department press secretary, Gross is an American citizen being held in Cuba on charges of crimes against the state and suspicion of espionage. Apparently our own State Department can't see the hypocrisy in this statement. Five hundred miles east of Havana there are hundreds being held without charges for more than a year, contrary to all international human rights obligations and commitments regarding justice and due process. And there is the incarceration of PFC Bradley Manning as well. Our government has drifted far from being a shining light of freedom in the world. More often than not, that light is the explosion of a rocket or bomb. An explosion that more than likely will kill more civilian non-combatants as it does enemy combatants. Gross story and Crowley quote from this Politico article: http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0211/gross_misjustice_1c473214-5544-4d2b-a4e8-885988bb0eb8.html Palmetto Yankee

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown...a modern political tale

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown....a modern political tale"

In the first five minutes of this animated classic, we have a microcosm of America in 2010. Lucy, with her "signed document" is the Republicans and their "Pledge to America". Charlie Brown is America, who, even though deep down knows Lucy's going to pull the football away when he tries to kick it, still succumbs to her entreaty that this time it'll be different because she has presented him with a "signed document." Same old Lucy, same old result. America trusts the Republicans not to do what they've always done, because this time they've given us a "Pledge to America". America ends up flat on its back. Again. That is the definition of insanity.

Sharia Law - No Way! Christian Law - Dat's OK!

While it's not the loudest sound in the right-wing echo chamber at the moment, volume is building among the more fervent Islamo-fascist warning of the impending loss of all of our Constitutional freedoms and protections to Muslims and Sharia.

Somebody should knock these folks up side of the head with a few state law books.

Most states have prohibitions against sales of wine, beer or liquor for off-premises consumption on Sunday. In some states, its a flat-out ban on Sunday sales of wine, beer or liquor.

Now where do you suppose all this No Drinking On Sunday crap originated?

Yeah, that's right. This limitation on our freedom to purchase and consume a bottle of beer on Sunday is brought to you courtesy of The American Taliban - the fundagelicals who would have us all worship their supernatural being or face earthly as well as after-life punishment for not bowing down to them and their mythology.

And their minions are screeching about the Sharia? Get the splinter out of your own eye first, my friend.

A Wise Man Speaks Again

Nothing I can say can add to the wisdom of this man.

http://www.desertdispatch.com/opinion/nation-8770-cross-mojave.html

When No One Can Hear You Shouting

The Rom Houben story is getting lots of attention. Sadly, the skeptics who see this as another example of the MSM swallowing whole the discredited practice of "facilitated communication" just aren't getting the same coverage. Damned ironic, isn't it. A man who supposedly has been conscious, but unable to be heard for more than 20 years is now the focus of skeptics, scientists and the medical community, and those who challenge the "happy story" of consciousness restored are themselves unable to be heard.

This brings me to my own story of being silenced this past Veteran's Day. The closest "big city daily newspaper", the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail, in its annual efforts to assuage its guilt over not hiring veterans in any substantial numbers, let alone having many (any?) as reporters, editors, etc. goes out of its way to cover any veteran's event within an hour's drive of their offices. It's the usual coverage - every two bit small town local paper does it.

But nobody does it as bad as the AIM. Because the AIM doesn't know the difference between a soldier mounted on a horse and the place where Jesus, according to Christian history, was crucified.

Yes, the AIM, it's reporters and editors, are so fucking ignorant they cannot get these simple facts clear in their apparently anally inserted heads - The Army has Cavalry Units and Divisions, and Jesus died at Calvary. Over and over again, the pinheads at the AIM write stories of veterans who served with the 1st Calvary Division, or the 7th Calvary. News stories, obits, it makes no difference. The pinheads cannot for the life of them understand its CAVALRY.

And they don't want to be corrected, either. I had occasion to criticize the AIM over a policy change about a year ago, and my Letter to the Editor, while it conformed to their petty and arbitrary rules, was never acknowledged or published. So when this recent wave of journalistic nausea swept over the paper around Veteran's Day, with Calvary this and Calvary that, I spoke up, futile as it might be.

First, I twice called the number listed where, at least in theory, the pinhead powers that be at the AIM will listen and correct errors of fact published in their fish wrap. Silly me. My past experience with the AIM's inability to graciously accept tactfully offered criticism was again unacknowledged and ignored.

OK, let's try another tack - the online edition of the AIM, where one can attach comments to news stories.

Well, guess what. That's right. The pinheads at the AIM didn't take kindly to seeing their hard work criticized by a mere customer on their own website. My entire post, attached to an article where they twice referred to a person as having served in the CALVARY during the Vietnam War was scrubbed/removed/flushed down the memory hole.

Wonder why newspapers are dying? Look no further than the Anderson Independent Mail for the answer. Wrapping a fish in the AIM should be considered animal abuse. Placing it in the bottom of the cage of a large bird suffering from diarrhea is the only possible, responsible use for the Anderson (SC) Independent Mail.

From tiny ACORNs mighty oaks will grow

To hear it from the BeckHannityLimbaugh echo chamber, ACORN and all of its employees should be hauled out of their offices, tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. Or worse.

All this righteous bloviating because in a couple of cities a pair of white bread, right wing "instigative reporters" managed to fool some folks at ACORN into believing they were a pimp and his ho', and were looking for help dodging taxes. And a couple of really dumb fucks at ACORN went along with the Halloween outfits and actually tried to help them.

OK, so some folks at ACORN screwed up. And some folks got fired for their stupidity. And FAUX news got the exclusive story.

And Congress cuts ACORN's funding, and the right wing moans in orgasmic ecstasy.

But what I don't understand is why this broad brush destruction of ACORN isn't practiced on some of our other established institutions when its discovered that a few of their members stray off the reservation.

Like the CHURCH!

Compared to the Catholic Church, ACORN's transgressions weren't even misdemeanors. And the followers of the Pope aren't alone in their financial, societal and sexual transgressions. Every friggin' one of the thousands of invisible cloud being pushing denominations across this country has screwed someone, literally and figuratively, but they go merrily on their way.

If the right wing wants to really put the screws to the groups that are fucking over America, maybe it ought to look at the wealth sheltering asshole at the front of their church. Chances are he/she has stolen more on any given day of worship than ACORN could in a year.

Georgia Pastor Gunned Down by Cops

A 28 year old pastor from Lavonia, GA was shot and killed by county undercover cops as he, apparently scared by the two men rushing his car with guns drawn, attempted to back out of a convenience store parking lot.

The officers claim they identified themselves to the young man, and that they were wearing their badges on a lanyard around their necks. Store surveillance video is silent, and with no audio, one cannot determine what they may have said to Ayers.

But what is clear from the video is that these undercover officers were so aggressive in their actions that they didn't even put their own vehicle in Park. They jumped out of their vehicle, and it is clearly seen continuing to roll away.

And what had Pastor Jonathan Ayers done to deserve being summarily executed on a Toccoa GA street? Had he just robbed the convenience store, or other establishment? Had he committed a hit and run? Had he threatened anyone's life.

No, no and no.

Jonathan Ayers had been seen in the company of a woman who was under observation by the undercover police. The woman had been in the Ayer's vehicle. She had gotten out. She was apparently nowhere near the scene. But because she had been in Pastor Ayers' vehicle, he became a target. Literally, as it turned out.

Jonathan Ayers was gunned down on the streets of Toccoa GA because another person the police had an interest in had been in his car, and gotten out. And for this heinous act, Ayers was rushed by two undercover cops, guns drawn, and because Jonathan Ayers, probably believing he was about to be robbed (he had just withdrawn money from the store's ATM) or carjacked, attempted to flee from what he probably believed was an assault on his person, he continued to back out of the parking place, trying to get to safety.

And for that "crime", he was shot and killed.

Now the cops say Ayers tried to back over one of the officers. Watch the video. The officer is along side the vehicle. Ayers didn't try to back over him. The cop was never in danger of being backed over. (video at www.wneg32.tv)

There is no justification for the use of deadly physical force by these officers. They gunned down Pastor Jonathan Ayers, plain and simple. Any of us, under similiar circumstances, would have done the same thing - try flee from two aggressive men who have approached our vehicle with guns drawn.

Nothing Jonathan Ayers did justifies his execution at the hands of two undercover cops. Everything these cops did cries out for investigation, and justice.

Justice for the memory of Jonathan Ayers, his widow, and the unborn child who will never know their father.