To feel good about America is harder everyday then this:
Glory to Floyd, a guy who understands truth, effort, and pain. When we as a country can understand these virtues we can talk perhaps on a zen-like basis with those who live daily with all the pain. We all cry, no amount of bike riding can erase this.
Nazbols, Gary Kasparov, and Mikhail Kasyanov met in Moscow for the "Other Russia" conference.This was in contrast to the G-8 conference in St. Petersburg later this week. In a first Eduard Liminov of the National Bolshevik Party attended the meeting which was addressed by the British ambassador and attended by American and Canadian representitives. Pro Putin youth attempted to disrupt the meeting. Just how serious these contacts are remains to be seen
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On the fourth of July I was launching illegal fireworks in SE Wisconsin. Later I heard North Korea was doing the same on a slightly bigger scale. Righteous indignation gave way to the fact that many in the rest of world no longer care about our concerns. Could it be our unilateral foreign policy (U.S. Strategic Command) has come back to bite us? In the 1990s the US promised the Russians we would not expand NATO. We fucked them. Not surprisingly things have come around, the Russians are trying to increase their influence on the Korean peninsula as well as everywhere else.Will the Chinese bail our ass out? I doubt it.
Its hard to believe just how much the MSM wants a "real terrorist" threat or attack to justify the reduction of freedom in our country. Last night I was treated to an apparent "attack" by a hapless group of guys who couldn't even afford to buy weapons, let alone use them. Meanwhile we are assured that they've sworn an oath to Bin Laden or Satan, take your pick. Do you think an "informer" promised weapons or other things to these guys to make them think they would be "historic people". It's pathetic, its America today. The fact that there are people who are set-ups to this type of crap is not going unnoticed is shown in the following article in BlackNewsWeekly.
I saw a great c-span program discussing the White House response to concerns about privacy and the recent domestic spying scandals. I will say that Carolyn Maloney did a great job of interogating Carol Dinkins, the White House appointee to justify domestic spying. This woman looked like a recently revived zombie trying to explain the Bush position on domestic spying. Needless to say I was not surprised to find out she was part of a Houston law firm defending Enron and associate of Alberto (torture is alright) Gonzales.
There are times when I wonder how much the U.S. counts on "magical thinking" to get itself through the future. For example look at the USAF recent comments on laser weapons. Even better is work on invisibility which I look forward to with enthusiasim.Another article explores this further.Tin Huey might be right. We can't get along so what do we do? Is there a better alternative for our children then the Bush Paradigm? We can only hope so.
Real World Music defies convention and is not stereotypical American "folk music". So I'm glad to introduce Ivan Kupala and Nortec Collective as real music from different parts of the world that takes a little effort to appreciate but is worth the effort.
" As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H. L. Mencken
In a refreshing show of ecumenicism religious fanatics have come together to condem "The Da Vinci Code".The Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims in Russia (where 1/7 of the population is Islamic) denounced the film as blasphemous. In their words,
"We equal this film with the recent Prophet Muhammad extremist cartoons as the novel and the film desecrate the Prophet Isa (Jesus Christ) worshipped by the Muslims."
Not to be upstaged the Vatican issued their own denunciation, Cardinal Paul Poupard worried that "millions of people "would watch the film and believe it to be true. ... What I'm concerned about is that decent people who do not have the proper religious education will take this nonsense for the real thing."
More interesting stuff from south of the border. Chico Science & Naco Zumbi continue to intrigue. Sadly I hear that Chico Scienece was killed in a MVA in Brazil in the 1990s. One can only speculate how far this guy could have gone. La Mujer de Mi Hermano is a great sound track that introduces (to me at least) what I thought might be there, namely cool Mexican music. I'm looking forward to CDs from Nortec Collective and the Mexican Institute of Sound.
The Russian headline says it all, "Wild Dick Takes a Shot at the Kremlin."As if having the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, possibly Iran, and all the terrorists in the world that we don't like wasn't enough, Cheney decides its time to piss off the Russians. It's entirely without irony that he takes on the Russians for stifling democracy by media concentration, intimidating its neighbors through its economic and energy influences, and just generally not going along with the script.The glaring hypocrisy of all of this is mind boggling and of course went entirely unnoticed by our own sycophants that pass themselves off as journalists. I highly recommend Karen Kwiatkowski's analysis in the "Huffington Post" for a real dissection.
I've spent years looking for Thaivox. Now I've found them. Russian techno-rock similar to Deadушки.Also Herb Alpert Rewhipped, the only reason I took trumpet lessons in the early 1970s.
There are times when I wonder if the Iranian apocolyptic fanatics are in cahoots with our own.The Guardian provides additional fodder for this line of thought with this article. Nuclear No also has an interesting commentary from an anonymous Russian scientist, Mayak, detailing some hitherto unknown concerns about the Iranians including numerous nuclear accidents and shortcomings in the Russian export control area. Not comforting reading. ArmsControlWonk explains why we won't nuke Iran. This is because we have so many other bombs of various kinds we won't need to use nukes. Now I will sleep better...not.
Recently I came across two different articles that give drasticly different interpetations of the stategic nuclear situation facing the U.S. Nuclear No, a Russian anti-proliferation site, quotes an article from "Foriegn Affairs" which basically says the U.S. will be the Uber state of nuclear powers on Earth. They cite technological issues as well as the state of other powers arsenals to support this argument. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Nuclear Notebook states that Russia has 5,830 operational nuclear weapons. Nonoperational weapons when added to this bring the number to approximately 16,000 warheads. Now even if we destroy 99% of their weapons anywhere from 58 to 160 nuclear explosions coud hit the U.S. One can only begin to wonder which interpretation our curent government leans towards and the mind numbing implications.
