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POPSMost wet behind the ears, Sarah Palin 4 President I am still in a state of shock over McCain's pick for a running mate. On the Internet there is a site (http://www.inews3.com/landing.php) where you can put in your own name for President and a propaganda video will appear announcing you or anyone you choose, as a candidate for president of the USA. Using Sarah Palin name is as apropos as any Jane/John Schmo. Holy cow, haven't we had enough of the PETER PRINCIPAL ("In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.") in the oval office? Goes to show what McCain really cares about... AND IT AIN'T "WE THE PEOPLE"! thinkingblue
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POPSKumbaya my O! Kumbaya These values and differences will be a real shock to him when they don't roll over and acquiesce to his every desire. Kind of like a 16 year old entering the work force and being surprised that management won't let you help make the rules...
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POPSThe State Religion: The myth of national security stands between us and the future
I repeat: "Toughness" and strength through militarism speak to the myth of nationalism but will get us only deeper into the quagmire that President Bad Example has bequeathed us as his legacy. We won't stop terrorism with shock-and-awe bombing, torture and pre-emptive global bullying. Almost everybody knows this by now, but our presidential candidates still genuflect before the almighty defense budget, varying only in the fervor they are able to project. This is scary, is it not -- that we might wind up with More of the Same as our next commander-in-chief, simply because we lack the capacity to step outside the stagnant mythology of macho nationalism. "Preachers warn of hellfire to offer rescue from it, which is available to those who submit," writes Carroll. "This feedback loop of damnation-salvation-submission serves the people by offering meaning, and it serves the elite by protecting the structure of power. In religion, all of this is overt. In presidential politics, it is im
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POPSQuotes : Douglas Adams
If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of Species'. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well. * As quoted in Richard Dawkins' Eulogy for Douglas Adams
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POPSFatal massacre at Finnish highschool I read the killer's manifest from the internet yesterday. I gotta say in some level I agree with him about some issues of this world and society but his ways to "solve" those things were totally wrong. I'm deeply sorry for those people who died and their families. It is said "noone could imagine this to happen" . That is bullshit! This guy had shouted these things everywhere and anyone could see he's out of his mind. If "normal" teenager acts in this way he did MAYBY PEOPLE SHOULD NOTICE IT! For God sake everyone is so ignorant these days. Do you have to kill people before anyone gives a s*it about what you say. That's so crazy.
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POPSA Nightmare That Won't End "We believe the cause of trying to wake up our little area of the Midwest to the raging lunacy of the Bush Administration's plans to launch war on Iran is worth our work, our paint, and our possible inconvenience. So all this pre-Halloween weekend, we will be at work to stencil as many of these fluorescent orange banners as possible. Then, on Monday, it'll be time to synchronize our watches and hit the Twin Cities pedestrian overpasses. Maybe it's not Mission Impossible after all--it's scary stuff alright but not that hard to do something, to hold a banner and communicate with our fellow citizens AND our elected leaders."
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POPSUS-American conservatives' language shapes reality The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis examines the idea that language shapes our reality. The theory is that the words we use will determine how we view the world around us. hetoricians know this. Politicians know this as well. It’s the use of this knowledge that conservatives have taken to a new level. Lenin’s quote that “a lie told often enough becomes truth” appears to have become the foundation for conservative politicking. There has been a purposeful, well-choreographed, full-on onslaught of language and terms incorporated by conservatives. he declarations of patriotism and support for family values. The claim to relate to the middle class and even “compassionate-conservative” ideas Conservatives have developed buzzwords used to support their positions and debase the opposition ...]: pre-9/11 thinking, form of a mushroom cloud, Shock and Awe, slow bleed, and cut-and-run . Even support the troops has been usurped to mean support the war.
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POPSAmericas shock Doctrin
In any case here is a description in Naomi Klein's words--Watch the video!: "My publisher came up with the idea of a "web trailer" but we ended up with a powerful piece of cinema instead. I never saw the film as a promotional tool for the book, or even an adaptation of it. I always saw it as a companion piece to the book, as a way to enter the same subject matter -- shock therapy, disorientation, torture -- on a different, much more emotional level. The central idea of the book is about the use of shocks to exploit people, whether an individual in a torture cell or an entire society. That is such a visual, physical idea that I felt limited by what I could do with mere words on a page -- I could argue and document but I knew that a true artist could find ways to take that argument and reach people on a deeper level. That's what Alfonso did. When I finished the book, I sent it to Alfonso because I adore his films and felt that the future he created for Children of Men was
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POPSThe End of 'Easy Oil' Peak oil is becoming conventional wisdom amongst the people who study these things. The real economic shock will be, not when the oil actually peaks, but when the wider population begins to take it on board. Will there be hoarding making the situation worse than it is, earlier than necessary? This might spur significant behaviour change earlier, which might be a good thing.
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POPSWhere are the Republicans? Only .5% of Americans fighting in Iraq.
By Cptenaud. There's no vacation for our troops in Iraq, Joe Galloway writes that as we are, "hard upon the dog days of August. Members of the U.S. Congress and the Iraqi parliament will soon slither away to the shade of cooler rocks, and President Bush will no doubt head off to Crawford to take his frustrations out on some brush with a chainsaw. Meanwhile, in Iraq, the 60,000 American combat troops who daily patrol the most dangerous streets and roads in the world will carry on fighting, dying and bleeding in the broiling sun where temperatures nudge the 130-degree mark and 40 pounds of body armor and Kevlar helmet plus weapon and ammunition weigh more with every step an Infantryman takes. The politicians in Washington and Baghdad will take their summer breaks, happy to postpone any further thought of Iraq at least until September, when the U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus makes his progress report on the American troop surge to Congress, as though that may make some dif
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POPSLook for Bargain on Libby/Cheney Case The Libby trial is as much about the Bush WH is it is about Libby. Testimony implicates Cheney's involvement in the orchestrated smear of WIlson and the criminal disclosure of his wifes work with the CIA. This is getting very tense.
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POPSWhistler in the NYTimes Cheesy write-up of Whistler in the NYTimes. If you're coming to ski just for a day, don't eat lunch in the Village! Stuff a sandwich in your jacket, or at least eat on the mountain. And don't get in line at 9:30am, get started at 8. And note: Whistler opened this weekend - so early! All this freaking rain we're getting in Vancouver = wicked early season skiing: a nice change from a couple disappointing seasons in recent years.
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