And, in our interconnectedness...

...shall we all flourish or die.

From Defenders of Wildlife:

Today, the Bush/Cheney Administration is stripping these amazing animals of vital federal protections, officially opening the door to the shooting, trapping, and killing of up to 1,200 wolves.

Under existing state management plans -- plans approved by the Bush Administration -- all but 300 hundred wolves could be killed. That’s 80% of the wild wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies!

As I wrote last month, federal officials already made it easier to kill wolves while they were still protected under the Endangered Species Act. Now they’re taking the final step, and eliminating these federal protections altogether.

Idaho officials want to use aerial gunning to kill wolves in their state. Wyoming agencies have left the door open to the use of traps and poison to eliminate wolves. And officials in both states -- and Montana -- have proposed wolf hunts.

States could start the killing by the end of March.

Please make a tax-deductible emergency donation right now and help support our work to save these wolves.

Mother, it is time for the 2-leggeds to reap what they have sown.

Every thing is connected...Elder's Meditation

Elder's Meditation of the Day - February 21,2008

"Every thing or living being that exists in this world, be it trees, flowers, birds, grasses, rocks, soil of the earth, or human beings, has its unique manner of existence --its essence, its spirit that makes it what it is. That is what is meant by connectedness."
--Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA

Scientists are finally realizing what the Elders have taught for thousands of years-every- thing is connected. Because everything is interconnected, whatever you do to any one thing, you do to everything. If you poison any part of the earth, the poison eventually affects everything else. If you poison the plants, the birds will eat the plants, which poisons the birds. The birds are eaten by humans which poisons the humans. The humans will have babies who could be deformed because the plants were poisoned. We must learn to live in harmony with the earth. We must learn to think good things. Every good thought is felt by everything, which causes everything to be happy.

Creator, let my thoughts only be good thoughts.

"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving
the Constitution of the United States as our
Fathers made it inviolate. The people of the
United States are the rightful masters of
both Congress and the Courts, not to
overthrow the Constitution, but to
overthrow the men who pervert
the Constitution."

- - Abraham Lincoln

True Costs of Shipping

According to the article in the Guardian, the true costs of shipping are much worse than previously suspected. They include not only the damage to the environment from the massive pollution they cause with oil spills and other toxic leaks, but also an immense addition to global warming, much more than most folks knew or guessed. Well, I sort of guessed.

snippet:

The true scale of climate change emissions from shipping is almost three times higher than previously believed, according to a leaked UN study seen by the Guardian.

It calculates that annual emissions from the world's merchant fleet have already reached 1.12bn tonnes of CO₂, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas.

The report suggests that shipping emissions - which are not taken into account by European targets for cutting global warming - will become one of the largest single sources of man made CO₂after cars, housing, agriculture and industry. By comparison, the aviation industry, which has been under heavy pressure to clean up, is responsible for about 650m tonnes of CO₂emissions a year, just over half that from shipping.

For the rest of this rather damming article, go here.

How many hints does it take till we know that too many creatures have died?

"When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?"

Taxi To The Darkside

Looks to be an excellent documentary, one which lifts the veil on some of the many secrets this administration loves to keep from us. The theme is torture, one of my especial hatreds. Anyway, since it is a good film, up for all sorts of awards, and really should be seen by everyone, naturally, it will not be seen or heard of by many. Discovery channel is not helping, having just canceled the scheduled airing. Why? Because it is too "controversial." Bush always gets his way. Here is the link to the trailer:

Taxi To The Darkside

Re the Torture "Experiment"

Found an excellent article/argument on torture and the lovely kids who espouse its use on CommonDreams.org today. Written by Caroline Arnold and labeled "The Ticking Time Bomb Thought-Experiment," it is well worth a thorough read. I dearly love that Attorney General Mukasey is included in the experiment.

One of my favorite paragraphs goes as follows:

We need to ask ourselves why so many of us indulge in these brutal thought-experiments and engage with their underlying illogic, counterproductiveness and inhumanity. We need to understand how human weakness for bullying, hurting, power, revenge, and anger can be so easily exploited for power, profit and pleasure.

As anyone with half a brain surely realizes, waterboarding does not simulate drowning, it is drowning. Your lungs fill with water. That is drowning. I have posted, previously, a detailed article on what actually happens in waterboarding, which is a dying process, stopped just short of death when it works, or, not. Sometimes the victim has to be resuscitated. Sometimes, more than once. It is extremely painful, and, I, for one, would say anything to avoid or stop the process were it directed at me. What would you do? Hum?

You May Shoot To Kill

Every time I think I have heard the scariest news yet, I hear something scarier.
From Alternet:

FBI Deputizes Private Contractors With Extraordinary Powers, Including 'Shoot to Kill'
By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive. Posted February 8, 2008

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does -- and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law. InfraGard is "a child of the FBI," says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

InfraGard started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats.

"Then the FBI cloned it," says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.

re info given to Infragard member at meeting:

"The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage," he says. "From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we'd be given specific benefits." These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out. But that's not all.

"Then they said when -- not if -- martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn't be prosecuted," he says.

For the rest of this frightening article, go here.

Another US & World Water Crisis Report

From Alternet, one of my daily news sources, comes this report:

How Global Warming Will Affect the Water Crisis

Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet at 3:50 PM on February 7, 2008.

Here's an important heads up: Things are going to get more bleak in the U.S. when it comes to available fresh water.

Here's what the UK's Telegraph had to say:

An impending crisis in America's water supply is signalled by a study that concludes more than half of the recent decline seen in the west can be linked to human activities. Scientists have been documenting significant changes in water flow in the western United States for the past 50 years. Now it has been found that to 60 percent of the changes in river flow, snow pack and winter air temperatures in the region during this period can be attributed to human-caused climate change.

Dr Tim Barnett of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues conclude that for the inhabitants, from Seattle to Los Angeles, the results "are not good news" and call for immediate action to secure future supplies.

The report came from the journal, Science, and it also said there would be shifts in water supply worldwide. That's the funny thing about climate change. The winners would likely be "Eurasia, Alaska, Canada, and some tropical regions," with more water. Losers, where there would be substantial decline in water availabity, would be "southern Europe, the Middle East, southern Africa and southwestern North America."

For the rest of the article, go to the above link.

Not a surprise, I would say, to those of us following the global warming/world water supply situation. Still, it is another piece of news for the USA and the world to digest. It also helps to explain to me why Maine has become the new England(or Oregon),with milder wet weather dominating the daily weather scene yet again this winter. Keeps getting weirder every day, every season, every year.

Way to go, Vermont!

Maybe I should move there? Just love those independent, brave, and zesty Vermonters.
From Alternet:
Vermont Town Heavily Backs Proposal to Issue Arrest Warrants for Bush, Cheney
Posted by Adam Howard, AlterNet at 9:10 AM on February 6, 2008.

Since Pelosi, Reid and the other Democratic leaders in Congress appear to be too afraid to hold Bush and Cheney responsible for their numerous crimes, the Vermont town of Brattleboro has taken matters into its own hands:

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. - The tone has changed in e-mails this Vermont town has been receiving on its proposal to issue warrants for the arrests of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Now, more people are supporting the resolution.

Brattleboro's town offices have been flooded with 7,000 e-mails since its selectboard voted Jan. 25 to include the item on its Town Meeting Day agenda.

For the rest of the article, go to the above link.
Would it not be wonderful if all the states, or, at least, a majority of the states, were to follow in kind? We could say "goodbye" and "good riddance" to the 2 biggest crooks/scoundrels in the world.

Urgent Alert re Polar Bears

From World Wildlife Conservation Action Network, this:

In only three days, on February 6, the Department of the Interior plans to move ahead with leasing nearly 30 million acres in Alaska's pristine Chukchi Sea for oil and gas activities.
Together, the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas support an estimated one-fifth of the world's polar bear population. The polar bear's existence is already threatened by the impact of climate change-induced loss of sea ice. Its chances for survival will be greatly diminished if much of its remaining critical habitat is turned into a vast oil and gas field. The Chukchi Sea lease must be halted until protective measures are in place for the polar bear.

Go to this site and TAKE ACTION! This must be done immediately.

Do it for the bears, do it for Mother, do it for survival.

Low numbers for Salmon run

San Francisco Chronicle
Salmon arriving in record low numbers
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Central Valley fall run of chinook salmon apparently has collapsed, portending sharp fishing restrictions and rising prices for consumers while providing further evidence that the state's water demands are causing widespread ecological damage.

The bad news for commercial and sport fishermen and the salmon-consuming public surfaced Tuesday when a fisheries-management group warned that the numbers of the bay's biggest wild salmon run had plummeted to near record lows.

In April, the Pacific Fishery Management Council will set restrictions on the salmon season, which typically starts in May. A shortage could drive up the price of West Coast wild salmon. The council's leaders said the news is troubling because normally healthy runs of Central Valley chinook salmon are heavily relied upon by fishermen. Runs on the other river systems historically have been smaller.

"The low returns are particularly distressing since this stock has consistently been the healthy 'workhorse' for salmon fisheries off California and most of Oregon," the council's executive director, Donald McIsaac, said in a statement Tuesday."

Rest of article here.


And so it goes. Poor fish, poor humans, poor Mother.

Now Who Do I Vote For?!

With my two favorites, Kucinich and Edwards, gone from the race, I no longer feel like voting at all. I was looking forward to the primary in my state being the first in years in which I could vote for someone (Kucinich) I really wanted to have become Pres, rather than the lesser of two evils. Well, much as I would love a woman in the WH, Hillary will never get my vote. Two much of a Repug for my taste. And, Obama? Never could see what all the hooplah was about. Yeah, he speaks well; so what. He is a kid who projects well. No experience and much too malleable in this stage of the game.
As important as the primaries are and as important as it is to get a Dem into the WH asap, I will be voting for a Dem I really do not want, once again. And, yes, I will go vote, even if it is half-heartedly.

Elder's Meditation on Grief

"We grieve more because we have been disconnected from our earth, our first Mother, our spiritual Mother."

--Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA

Where does all life come from? The Earth. Where does everything return to? The Earth. Where do values come them? The Earth. Many people are lost because they don't know the importance of connection to the Earth. They connect to money, to relationships, to success, to goals. When we are disconnected from the Earth, we have feelings of being sad or lost. When we are connected to the Earth, we feel warm and secure.

Great Spirit, help me to stay connected to the Mother Earth.

White Bison

(Someone should tell C & B)

From the land of scary...

...more scary stuff to curl your hair.
Still cannot believe all this is happening in my home, the US of A.

Pioneering Blackwater Protesters Given Secret Trial and Criminal Conviction

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. Posted January 29, 2008.

Blackwater is entirely illegal and should be obliterated at once.
The Blackwater_7 should be treated as heroes.

Breech of New Hampshire chain of custody

Please distribute widely, Digg, Blog, reprints, get this to the media, etc.

Incontrovertible evidence - ballot box rips, slices and openings: Click here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHL_YMBolRs

BALLOTS WERE NOT SECURED FOR THE NEW HAMPSHIRE RECOUNT.

Both candidates' money should be returned because the state of New Hampshire failed to secure the recount ballots. The above video shows state officials' responses when asked who is responsible for the chain of custody breakdown, and shows specific wards and towns with ballot box chain of custody breaches.

Related videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQEQ7qHvgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiiaBqwqkXs

Upcoming video: On the trail of ""Butch and Hoppy" ... Stay tuned ...

Please feel free to distribute, reprint or excerpt from the information in the stories linked above, with link to Black Box Voting and the video link above.

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
bev@blackboxvoting.org

When Outrage is not Enough

Been "away" and struggling for balance, an endless struggle for a "Libra."
Just discovered a new hero, action, and, site in John Nirenberg of Vermont (Blessed State), marching to Washington to seek out Pelosi (blood traitor), and,:
March In My Name.

Unable to go myself, this time, I will be supporting John and friends with all my might. I have been asking myself, "self, where are my heroes?" John arrived via Alternet (who got it from Julie Bolcer, The Village Voice) just in time. Can we clone him?

Best wishes to you, John. Hope you can move that barely-a-Democrat rock called Pelosi and the turn-coat, John Conyers, to put the much-needed-now! impeachment back on the table where it should have been all along!

BTW, Happy Solstice, everyone. The days for those in the northern hemisphere are now inching longer, hurray!!!

Love is the Law

Darkness seems to spread from heart to mind;
Soulless evil clings to every crime.
Eager Knights of God bedeck the scene.
Vigilantes all whose thought's are mean.

Sing the Song of Pain my heart decries.
Hollow chests of blackness to defy.
Enter bitter spirits of unrest;
Hear us now we are the sweet unblessed.

Love is the Law; it matters not the Source.
Heart is the place from which all Blessings come.
Bind not your Soul to that which is unreal;
Love is the Law, Love is the Light.

Within my hands I hold a beating heart;
A child is dying, with his Mother not.
I try to comfort him, what can I say?
You are a Blessed Soul unleashed today.

There are some evil men who like to play
With other humans, why? I cannot say.
Some twisted sickness lies within them deep.
Perhaps an ugly rage that cannot sleep.

Love is the Law; no matter which religion.
Heart is the source of all that's right.
Close not your Thought to that which could reveal
Love is the Law, Love is the Light.

Within my Home a sense of Darkness spreads;
Its stretching fingers weave an awesome thread
That reaches out to all with motive dark.
I fear the Light is now a threatened Ark.

Dominion speaks of finite latitudes,
With voices deep, all filled with platitudes.
Within that space is filled an awesome void.
How can you speak to that which is a ploy?

Love is the Law; the source of all the Light.
Heart is the place of gentle breeze Delight.
Within your grasp a single breath away
Is Heaven's Joy, Love is the Way.

Poem/Pic link: Love is the Law
Copyright ©2004 Amena Lynn Andersson

WW III?

What the hell does BushCo think he is doing? Threatening Iran when we cannot even manage Iraq and our military forces are stretched to the breaking point, as is our economy, is bad enough. But, now, threatening Russia (with an anti-missile shield on its borders) to the point that Putin Warns NATO Against Border Buildup while NATO criticized the US decision as "regrettable."

This cannot go on. Putin is as much of a bully as BushCo and is pushing hard to make Russia a super-power again. With BushCo starting wars whenever it feels like it, for purely greedy reasons (power, oil, wealth, dominion), wherever it feels like it, this could all escalate way too fast and hard. Can you say "cold war" or maybe "radiatingly hot war?" That is all this planet needs to finish it off, once and for all. These little power kings are as crazy as loons. They must be removed from power right now, before it is too late. Ever seen "On the Beach?"

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Sigh.

Addendum: Just noticed that Digby has some words on this subject area. Always a good read and thought-provoker, Digby.

Stolen "Thank Yous"

I am pretty busy this week,especially today so I am going to cheat and pass along an email of "thank yous" sent by the Center for American Progrss Action's "The Progress Report," as I've not a bit of originality at hand at the moment and I found this list to be a good one. And, my regrets to all Native Americans for being of the race that wrecked their nations and this land since setting foot on this continent. Wish it had never happened. Here's hoping all people learn to truly live together in Peace in future.

21 Reasons To Give Thanks

We're thankful for our country's troops.
We're thankful the minimum wage has been increased for the first time in a decade.
We're thankful MC Rove has more free time to work on his dance moves.
We're thankful Congress has "wasted time" trying to end the war in Iraq.
We're thankful radio stations don't play "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."
We're thankful for journalists like Molly Ivins, who was never afraid to "raise hell."
We're (not) thankful for wide stances.
We're thankful to Michael Moore, whose documentary SiCKO started a national discussion on health care reform.
We're thankful people don't call us Buzzy, Cookie, Brownie, or Scooter.
We're thankful we can now call Al Gore the "Oscar-winning, Emmy-winning, Nobel Prize laureate" former vice president of the United States.
We're thankful Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales won't visit our bedside if we're sick in the hospital.
We're thankful not all Dick Cheney's cousins think like he does.
We're thankful to be considered one of the "ten most dangerous organizations in America."
We're thankful that visiting the Mall of America isn't really like visiting Iraq.
We're thankful President Bush isn't giving out any more back rubs.
We're thankful for 12-year olds who can take down Rush Limbaugh in a fight.
We're thankful our Halloween costumes aren't very "original."
We're thankful no one (except the birds) gets hurt when Dick Cheney goes hunting now.
We're thankful for "phony soldiers" who have the courage to speak out about the war in Iraq.
We're thankful the "Commander Guy" has only 425 days left in office.
And last but not least: We're thankful to The Progress Report readers for their tips, energy, and support.

Every one of those thank yous contains a link on the original page, so, to really enjoy this list, please follow the link above.

Oh yes, please have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving while never forgetting the millions in the world who are suffering and would like to be sitting with us.

Waterboarding...a detailed description to give you the Willies

Want to know what waterboarding is all about? I just read a detailed description on Daily Kos that gave me all I'd ever want to know and more. Don't read this while eating.

Things That Are Not Torture by Hunter.

I suggest this be done to all of this current administration as well as our Congresspersons, and, especially, all members of the injustice department so that they can have a better understanding of just what exactly we are doing to our prisoners.
You know, in the name of education.

BTW, I just blogged this on Daily Kos at the above mentioned site:

Put It On Your Blogs, E-Mail It Everywhere...
We can put it out there. We can snail-mail, e-mail, and hand deliver it to all and sundry. This is what we do if we are serious about making change. If it is "in their faces" in a really big way, I believe that it will have effect. I am an ancient grassroots, house-to-house canvasser and I know that we can make a difference. Believe it. Calling a Senator at home, actually talking to this person one on one, can be an amazing experience, for both. Try it on for size. Just sayin'....

I mean every word of that, so, get to work, my friends.