Alan Miller & Dr. David Overbey

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Texas Plane Crash Intentional


The man suspected of intentionally crashing an airplane into a Texas office building today appears to have posted a lengthy online diatribe attacking the Internal Revenue Service and declaring that, "I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand." The six-page manifesto, which you'll find below, is dated "2/18/10" and is signed "Joe Stack (1956-2010)." Andrew Joseph Stack, 53, has been identified as the man who flew a small plane into an Austin building housing IRS offices. The statement was uploaded to the front page of a web site that was registered in 2003 by a Joe Stack, who listed an address in San Marcos, Texas, which is about 35 miles south of Austin. The online posting is titled "Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man... take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
There's not a lot in the manifesto that I can disagree with.  I disagree with the action he took but his idea of two sets of laws, one for the extremely wealthy and one for the rest of us, the idea that all but the ultra-wealthy and mega-corporations (ultra-megas) have no representation in government, the idea that our government is ultra-punitive against anyone who makes a mistake except the ultra-megas who get nearly instantaneous and massive government aid... yeah.  That's all pretty true. 

But it's the lawmakers (and apparently his accountant and bad luck to a large degree) that screwed up his life, not the poor fuckers that work for the I.R.S.  The vast majority* of those people do not deserve to have an airplane crashed into them.  It's like beating up your sink because your water got turned off.  Why didn't he aim for his Senator's house?  Those are the people we know for sure are fucking us for the benefit of the ultra-megas.  None of us can walk into our Senator's office and most of us will not get satisfaction if we have a complaint.  But by god if the head of Morgan Chase drops by to ask a favor he is whisked in from his limo straight to the office.  We can't have men of his stature kept waiting.  But if you're a working person who's had your entire income and savings wiped out due to a change in tax language you might as well be a flea for the impact you'll have.

*I would suggest that there are a few people at the I.R.S., just as in the general population, that do deserve having an airplane, bus, or other vehicle crashed into them.  But very few.  Most people are pretty OK most of the time.  My fear is that copycats will attempt something like Oklahoma City.  Most of those involved in that bombing are still free.

Cartoonists Pay Cheney to Stick Around (Mr. Fish cartoon)

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Daily Show Mocks Typical Dimwit Americans' Climate Change Denial

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All We Are Saying Is Give War a Chance




Dr. David W. Overbey - Ah, Cupid was in the air this past week, but he wasn’t shooting arrows of passion into the hearts of lovers . . . he was firing rounds of machine-gun bullets into the evil Taliban! Indeed, the NY Times tribute to the annual celebration of love and romance was one of the most blatant pro-war propaganda pieces I’ve ever read not translated from German.
Once again it is obvious to me that America’s mainstream war-mongering, psychotic zeitgeist marches on, unfettered, undaunted, and popular as ever! Here I thought Valentine’s Day was a time to focus on love and romance, the magic of two human hearts coming together, the dizziness and ecstasy of warm vapors tingling our veins and sex organs. What a forlorn Romantic I am! As it turns out, once again I’m wrong: Valentine’s Day is a day to pander to the majority cross-section of American women whose clits throb at the sight of face-painted big muscle soldiers spilling blood in a never-ending corpse fest, the flag and Christ-child transposed on the heavens above a precious sea of oil denied the good Christians of America by a bunch miserly sandniggers.

No wonder I never I get laid.

The piece is a narrative depicting Company K as a group of young heroes who become men by facing combat for the first time and wiping out sinister and cowardly Taliban who bait them into an open field rigged with explosives and attempt to ambush them . . . but are outdone by the good guys fighting for freedom! The last line of the “article” says it all: the nurturing commanders make sure their nascent professional killers in the company are all accounted for (so cute!) while they traverse a field littered with Taliban corpses. As always, the Americans are the winners! Which is good, because after all, if you want to get laid on Valentine’s Day (or any other time of year) you can’t be a loser! Losers don’t get pussy, understand? The Times piece is obvious propaganda disguised as journalism, appealing to the huge cross-section of Americans—especially women—who love and are apparently aroused by war, e.g. “Navy seals rock!”

Don’t tell me the high school I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass pro-war mindset is relegated to the white trash hotspots of the Midwest and South. The NY Times knows its audience and demographic, and the fact it would publish pro-war propaganda on a holiday traditionally inspired by love (you know, the opposite of war, as in “make love not war”) betrays what really turns Americans on: glorifying systematic mass murder. What it took Jeffrey Dahmer years to do, without CIA clearance or tax payer dollars, Company K accomplished all in the course of a “cumming”-of-age afternoon.

Obviously, this kind of propaganda is a symptom of America’s collective September 11 complex: a mass denial of epic proportions. The sad truth is that the war of terrorism lasted for about an hour and a half: the time it took for the hijackers to get control of the planes, veer them toward their targets, and blow them up . . . with the additional half hour encore of watching people jump out of windows a hundred stories above ground, and the crescendo of the towers falling and a whole city of people running for their lives away from a monstrous swath of debris about to devour them. That was the end of it, and America got its ass kicked. It was a huge loss on our home turf—horrifying, humiliating, and the beginning of the end of the American dynasty. So the collective, typically dumbass American response has been to drag out that awful morning until, apparently, the end of time, the idea being that if that horrible moment is never allowed to end, then we can somehow still rescue victory from the smoldering heap of burnt flesh and jet fuel left at ground zero, the graveyard of a nation. Dragging out and drawing out the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is like continuing to jack off over a hot woman who dominated you instead of fucked you. It’s sick and sad. It’s something somehow even worse than war: a perpetual surrender that turns everything—even a sappy holiday of overpriced dinners, chocolate, and condoms—into a codified ritual where the only way to be sexy is to put on that uniform and keep on killing.

Global Warming Deniers Oddly Silent While Noisey

Dimwits like everyone at Fox Noise are busy harrumphing global climate change because it's snowed a lot across the middle of America.  In winter.  Why are they so quiet about the fact there isn't enough snow (and it's occasionally raining) in Vancouver, a place that is historically very cold and snow covered this time of year?  Wait, wait!  I know the answer!  It's because they're fucking morons.

Our Republican President

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Teabaggers

Ogre-oid: Iowa Woman Arrested for Thinking About Abortion

from Nerve 

 If you thought anti-abortion idiots were idiots before, this story will only make you furious. If you thought pro-choicers were a bunch of baby-killin’ creeps before… well, you’ll probably feel a bit uncomfortable about your position after this…

A pregnant woman arrived at an Iowa hospital claiming to have fainted and fallen down the stairs. She was relieved to hear that her baby was fine and mentioned to the nurse that she was glad she wanted to have the baby, even though she’d thought of having an abortion or giving it up for adoption due to the fact that she’s getting divorced and is jobless. The nurse called in a doctor, who got the same comments out of her.
You can probably guess what happened next:

Next thing Taylor knew, she was being arrested for attempted feticide. Apparently the nurse and doctor thought that Taylor threw herself down the stairs on purpose.
According to Iowa state law, attempted feticide is an trying “to intentionally terminate a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy.” At least 37 states have similar laws. Taylor spent two days in jail before being released. That’s right, a pregnant woman was jailed for admitting to thinking about an abortion at some point early in her pregnancy and then having the audacity to fall down some stairs a couple of months later. [Women's Rights]
Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that: these people jumped the gun a bit in assuming that thoughts from months ago that she dismissed are the reason she fell down the stairs. It’s a bit like evacuating an airport because a guy admitted that he had some flammable liquid in his truck last week.
The good news is Ms. Taylor will not be prosecuted — but only because she isn’t as far along as initially thought. As the original article points out, Iowa thinks abortion can become a bigger deal depending on the size of the fetus.

from Nerve

Monday, February 15, 2010

Pine Mouth - Long Story Short: Stay Away from Chinese Pine Nuts

Pine Mouth - Long Story Short: Stay Away from Chinese Pine Nuts

Friday after we recorded the podcast, Dave made a pesto.  Yesterday (Sunday) I was tidying up the kitchen and went to put the pine nuts in the right cabinet.  Of course I popped some in my mouth and went about my business.  As I finished the beer I was drinking I noticed a distinct bitter flavor in the back of my mouth which I dismissed as some lingering aftertaste of the Abita Turbodog I had left over from the Superbowl.  By the time I went to bed it had gotten pervasive though the last Turbodog had been consumed four or five hours before.

Unfortunately today I am constantly tasting this bitter taste in the back of my mouth and tongue.  I complained about it to my better half earlier today and she asked if I had eaten any pine nuts.  It actually took me a few moments to realize I had snacked on them.  Turns out she had read on one of her food blogs about the phenomenon known as "pine mouth" that was being caused by certain pine nuts.  Sadly this effect would appear to persist for days and even weeks! Its onset may have been triggered by my snacking on the pine nuts and that effecting those I had eaten as pesto two days before, or the snacked pine nuts may have been coincidental

Here's a picture of the offending pine nuts:



If there was ever an argument against buying any "American" types of food from China, this is it. The closest thing to a scientific study of this (totally observational but observed by scientists self experimenting) is here, and a pretty good article about it is here.  Not much information out there (though what is has thousands of responses of people experiencing this) but one thing I can tell you is if this taste sticks around for a couple of weeks I'm going to be very unhappy.  Here's a quick synopsis of what I've found out:
1.  It would appear this is caused by Chinese pine nuts only.
2.  It is probably caused by the nuts being heated in transit (imagine containers full of them riding cargo ships across the ocean) and the heat altering certain triglycerides.
3.  This is not caused by contamination by heavy metals or pesticides.
4.  It seems onset is around two days after ingestion.
5.  The effects last from several days to over two weeks.
6.  It does not effect smell but wreaks havoc on your taste buds.

M.O. pod Episode 5 at Vimeo


Modus Operandi Podcast episode 5 2/12/2010 from alan evil on Vimeo.

Ogre-oid: $708,000,000,000 Defense Budget

How do military advisers solve our wars?
MORE WAR

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Class Action Settlement in Becker v. Disctrict of Columbia


Notice to Class and Proof of Claim Form Released for
April 15, 2000 Becker v DC Mass Arrest Class Action Settlement
(Please redistribute widely and post on all appropriate web sites)
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund is pleased to announce that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has granted preliminary approval to the class action settlement in Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., relating to the April 15, 2000 mass arrest of nearly 700 people in Washington, D.C.
This sets in motion the process for class members to receive up to $18,000 each in compensation for their claims. This is the largest class action settlement of protestor claims in U.S. history.
This historic victory is the consequence of nearly ten years of hard-fought litigation by PCJF attorneys.
In addition to monetary payments, the arrest of class members will be expunged; each arrestee who participates in the settlement will receive a court order declaring his or her arrest to be legally null and void. There is also substantial equitable relief, changes in the law and to police policies and practices that have been achieved in the course of the litigation.
Click here to view the Notice to Class Members, which describes the litigation and settlement and answers questions that potential claimants may have.
Click here to download the Proof of Claim form, which must be filled out and timely submitted by potential claimants to the Class Administrator.
The deadline for submitting the Proof of Claim form requires that it be postmarked by no later than May 17, 2010. Please go to www.BeckerSettlement.com for additional information.
Please re-post this email to e-mail lists, web sites, Facebook pages or organizations where it may be viewed by potential class members. You can use the buttons below to forward this email or post it to Facebook or Twitter. There will also be additional publication notifying class members in various media outlets.
The class is "all persons who were detained and arrested on April 15, 2000 near the area of 20th Street, NW and I and K Streets, Washington D.C., in connection with the protest against the Prison Industrial Complex during the IMF/World Bank demonstrations."
If you believe you are a member of the class and wish to seek payment under the settlement, do not delay in submitting your Proof of Claim. Do not wait until you can include hard-to-find arrest paperwork.
Even if you need time to locate any arrest related records or paperwork, you should file your Proof of Claim without delay. The first way the Class Administrator will try to confirm your eligibility is by comparing your name/contact information to records provided by law enforcement in litigation or to the Administrator. In other words, if your arrest can be matched or confirmed against law enforcement records, there will be no need to send in any arrest related documentation. If a match is made, the Administrator will send you a letter advising so. If not, the Administrator will send you a letter requesting additional information or paperwork.
You can send in your Proof of Claim form immediately with copies of any arrest related paperwork or things (such as a property bag or ID bracelet) that are readily available. Continue to gather any related records, in case they are needed or requested.
If you know others who were arrested, please use our e-Card announcement to send a notification to them by e-mail. Click here to send an e-Card announcement to one (or a list) of e-mail addresses.
The official web site, established by the Class Administrator, is at www.BeckerSettlement.com. Additional materials are available there, and answers to frequently asked questions will be posted there as questions are presented to the Administrator. If you have questions, please first read the Notice to Class Members, which is in Q & A format and answers many important questions about the settlement and the process. The Class Administrator has also set up a toll free number, 1-877-567-4780, in case you have questions that are not answered in the notice or on the web site.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Virginia Enacts Law Against Anti-Christ... I Am Not Kidding

Beastie Boys: Virginia House Passes Bill To Ward Off Antichrist

...The Post reports that Del. Mark L. Cole (R –Fredericksburg), the bill’s sponsor, has both privacy and religious concerns. He thinks the microchips could someday be used as the “mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation.
  “My understanding – and I’m not a theologian – but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times,” Cole told The Post. “Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”
  Okaaay.
  So let me get this straight: the Antichrist – the personification of Evil itself – is going to show up in America and start imposing the mark of Beast. He rolls through states such California, Kansas and Delaware, but when he gets to the Virginia line, he and his legions of demons just have to stop dead in their sulfurous tracks.
  “Sorry, boys,” he’ll say. “Virginia’s got a law that says we can’t mess with the good folks there.”
  You know, I’m not sure I buy it. (more)

 

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Monday, February 8, 2010

Ogrefest for 2/4/2010

For those of you new to MOPod, the world, especially the United States is an ogrefest.  We are surrounded by ogres acting in a particularly ogre-ish manner.  These actions we call "ogre-oids" and they accumulate into the never ending Ogrefest.  Last weeks ogre-oids are:

5.  Rush Limbaugh is not dead.  If one thing is wrong with this world, it's this man's continued breathing.


4.  The media's mindless blithering about the end of the manned moon program.  Though Dave and Alan's views on the subject are different they both agree our "news" organizations have managed yet again to fail to portray this subject with any kind of depth or honesty.

3.  U.S. military deaths in Pakistan.  Surprise!  Our military has been lying to us and the world!  Who woulda thunk it?

2.  Abstinence only education study touted in headlines to prove that it actually works.  If by "works" they mean it delayed kids from having sex by a few months and left them completely uneducated about how not to get pregnant or contract STD's then, yeah, it "works."  Read this article and its links.

1.  Toyota's belated and poorly handled recall of most of their car models because of sticking accelerators and the newly revealed issue with the Prius's braking system.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Beyond Common Ground


“Without contraries is no progression.”
-William Blake
Over and over again I’ve read too many times to keep track of (I’ll do some digging in the NY Times stacks at the library to find some article links) about how the big problem our country and government face is that we can’t seem to find common ground. “Let’s stop looking at each as liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, put our differences aside, and work together for the common good.” Or as Cal Thomas, typical arch-conservative icon and columnist wrote today about President Obama, “he needs to find common ground with Republicans, not scorched Earth.” Besides being cliché and mundane, this ubiquitous mindset fails to realize that all cultures are based on a common ground; if there were no common ground (like the speaking of English or use of silverware instead of chopsticks) there would be no coherent culture. While the common ground may not be visible or explicit or consciously recognized, it is there just like the polluted air we breathe or the potholes we drive over or the desolate infrastructure through which we traverse or the media and advertising in which we are all saturated.
The problem is not that we don’t have common ground. It’s that we can’t get beyond it.
There is no reason why, nor is it possible or desirable, we should agree on or hold common views on everything. In fact, such a condition is unsustainable (humans are too complex and varied) not to mention incompatible with a democratic society or any other benevolent political system antithetical to tyranny.
In a country as geographically vast as ours, there is no reason we shouldn’t have some anything-goes-liberal territories and others that are keep-it-the-same-do-it-the-same oppressive and boring conservative territories. Depending on your preference (a reference to J.S. Mill’s seminal 1859 essay On Liberty), you can have your pick. That’s right: choice! Imagine that in a free country! For example, I concede the entire state of Utah (Colorado is just as beautiful with way better people), the South, and the Midwest. But there ought to not be just little specs but entire regions of this country that can come out of the shadows and be full of fun, experimentation, open-mindedness, curiosity, and intellectual vibrancy, not clouded by military goons who have nothing better to do but become cops and take their PTSD out on a completely harmless, if not partially unsavory, local population. For people who don’t like a place like that, take your guns and get the fuck out. Or better, do the rest of us a favor and kill yourselves.
The so-called health care debate exemplifies the folly of the “common ground” trope. As I said earlier in our blog (see “Massachusucks”) there is no common ground or political middle ground when it comes to health care: either you think everyone should have health care and receive world-class medical treatment when they need or you do not. There is no compromise there. When Obama blandly declared last fall that the key to health care reform was “to bring together the best ideas of both parties” he was not seeking common ground; he was giving in, surrendering. Republicans do not want universal health care and will do everything to make sure it will never happen (and this being an extremely conservative country dominated by Republican politics and priorities, they will win as always). Consistent with the proverb above from Blake, the predictable result from Obama’s complacency has been that no progress has been made. Obama, in quintessential Democrat tradition, refuses to assert himself as a contrary to the Republicans, so everything stalls and nothing happens.
When nothing happens during an administration that campaigned on the platform of “change,” that betrays the common ground the country and government refuse to go beyond: the conservative principle of preserving the status quo—at all costs, no matter how obvious it is the status quo sucks. Imagine you have been a “productive” employee for a company for a number of years. While your tax dollars are appropriated by the government to bailout incredibly rich people whose obsessive greed has wrecked the economy, you get fired because your company is not a giant investment bank—a coded term for a branch of the treasury—so you lose your health care plan. You or a loved one then come down with an illness that would be treatable with either medication or surgery, but guess what? Can’t help ya! It’s too much to ask! We need to build schools and bridges and hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the billions of dollars we’ve already spent blowing those countries up. This is a scenario that clearly sucks and can only improve if it is changed, that is, if we move beyond the common ground that increasingly feels like a prison built on quicksand.
Below I’ve itemized twenty examples of prevailing ideas that define the rigid and miserable common ground that is 21st century America:
1) Adult life has little purpose or meaning beyond having a job and making money.
2) A job is necessarily something alienating, stressful, and mundane, offering little or no reward beyond monetary compensation.
3) All human conflict must be dealt with through violence, punishment, and criminal justice.
4) To take an intellectual, thoughtful approach toward daunting problems like terrorism, or one’s relationship with food and the environment, is a waste of time;
5) Worse still, such an approach is regarded as deviance from our government and corporate leaders who have already told us how we will deal with these problems, and thus a clear sign that one hates America.
6) Science is something one “believes in” or not.
7) All good ideas have already been thought of—and it is ridiculous to think of our current economic and political systems as antiquated and in need of overhaul.
8) Despite the fact our financial banking system ruined the economy, still the one people in the country who have any credibility or the brains to deal with problems in the “real world” are superrich businesspeople.
9) Anything associated with being liberal is bad, and “big government.”
10) To value family, neighborhood, and community is antiquated and utopian.
11) Saturation in digital media environments is normal and the only effective way to communicate or sustain relationships.
12) War is the answer and victory is always achievable.
13) Anything enriching to human experience, any form of play or private meditation is wrong and irresponsible.
14) Despite its obvious dangers and the considerable expense and toll it takes on the planet’s resources, getting around by car all the time to do everything is normal, the best and only practical way to get around.
15) By constantly being at war, having more police, putting more people in prison, and taking away more rights and liberties, we are maximizing our freedom.
16) Efficiency and profit are the only worthwhile value systems and any other approach to life or value system is worthless, childish, and impractical, and must be squashed (see #3).
17) Only those with lots of money should have any rights or a voice in how society should work.
18) By extension, intelligent and educated people are elitist and should not be trusted, since they value enlightenment instead of profit and wish to impose their views on everyone else.
19) The planet Earth is an obstacle to optimum economic performance.
20) America is the greatest country ever in the history of the world, and it is nothing short of sheer treasonous insanity (that’s what happens when them hippies to do too much of that dope and LSD) to propose that other countries have better policies concerning education, health care, and the economy, and that America might be well served to learn from and to some extent emulate these other countries.
Yes, yes, I know: not every single American agrees with all of these viewpoints. But I’m talking about a culture, not individuals. As my MoPod colleague has aptly observed, people are idiots everywhere. But the difference in cultures is in how people come together, not the percentage of them who are war-mongering morons. While any number of you out there may disagree with these ideological hubs of America’s common ground, it doesn’t matter: these are the ideas that have shaped American politics for my entire conscious life and show no signs of giving way. One reason America cannot get beyond common ground, I think, is that so many Americans fail to make the distinction between individual Americans and American culture—since they know so many people who “aren’t like that” they refuse to look at the big picture and thus take seriously the need to change it. For me, this is just another form of conservatism, which is the prevailing ideology of this incredibly conservative country. There is more to being a conservative than being a fiscal (the rich should have all the money, pay no taxes, and control everything) or social (anyone who is not an uptight Christian should be thrown in jail) conservative. A huge amount of America’s conservative population is made up of people I would call “the apathetic”—people who, no matter how bad things get or how obvious it should be to have a sense of urgency to move beyond the status quo, seem genetically incapable of the slightest sentiment or civic concern. They’re assholes, basically, but in a more insidious way than the in-your-face types that characterize the fiscal and social conservatives. They’re simply just all about themselves. You don’t have to protest, join the Peace Corps, or stop bathing (I do still occasionally bathe) to be a remotely community-oriented human being. Just refusing to believe the avalanche of bullshit our corporate-state controlled media shits down our throats non-stop, thinking about things like the economy and education, and mainly just making time to socialize and listen to the people around you instead of treating them as transparent décor can actually make an important difference in your neo, quasi, on-life-support-community, and yes, to satiate your chronic solipsism, your own suckshit life. Sometimes I think remembering that you are a part of something much larger than yourself actually helps to see that’s exactly why you are important, not why you don’t matter. I got that feeling a lot out in Colorado, when every day I traversed the beautiful Earth beneath 14,100 feet of mountain. I was—and still am, I guess, connected to that, and connected to the stars and galaxies beyond.
In closing, I would like to emphasize that by going beyond common ground I do not mean to leave behind all the good things upon which healthy traditions have been based. What’s important for a culture to stay vital is to add new to the old. The old is has been around for a long time for a reason: it’s good; it has offered sustainable pleasure and value for the human experience. Rural electrification (new) of the family farm (old) is an example of what I’m talking about; getting rid of the family farm is obviously very bad, and something I will discuss at greater length in an upcoming blog entry. In other words, just because one moves beyond common ground doesn’t mean the ground beneath us caves in. It means, as nomads, we have room to grow, to discover, to be ourselves, to be different from one another—a fundamental trait of humanity, in all its glorious strangeness. The common ground will always be there for those of you who want nothing out of life but conformity and self-aggrandizement (e.g. those of you who suck). There are still some of us out there who haven’t forgotten the need for a private, meditative inner world that has no need for affirmation or permission. To reference one of the clichés discussed at the opening, in many ways there is no “common good.” Humans are not identical in their needs and backgrounds. What I need, what is good for me, is not for everyone, not even necessarily understandable to everyone. I don’t need everyone else to understand me anyway and God knows I will never find most other Americans likeable, much less understandable. And until we move beyond common ground, you guess it . . .
. . . nothing good is ever going to happen again.

Worth Watching: Obama Schools the Republicans



It's about fucking time. He's smarter than any Republican in the room, and the best the GOP has to offer was in that room. Their smartest asked him questions and he spanked every last one of them with the facts. Also available as .mp3 file.

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