Hillman Wonders of the World

Hillman Top 100 Wonders of the World. How many have you seen?

Your Normal Day

Ever wonder how people all over the world spend theirtypical day?

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him - New York Times

Totally in keeping with this administration:
"The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming."

Things that make you go hmmm....

Scholars for 9/11 Truth has some intriguing questions about what really happened on 9/11.

Tiananmen Square

Since the anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre is approaching and in light of Google's decision to self-censor their search engine for the criminal Chinese regime I thought this would be a good time to remember The Tiananman Square massacre

DevilDucky - Bush's Blame Czar

DevilDucky - Bush's Blame Czar

The 12 Days of Whoopsmas

Mark Fiore

Exclusive: Jihadball!

Michael Moore has great exclusive photos of Chris Matthews (Hardball). Matthews recently compared Osama bin Laden's recent audio tape to Michael Moore.

JFK MURDER SOLVED

Ever hear of James Files? I hadn't until today. Read
The Confession of James Files and ponder.

Shutting Themselves In - New York Times

Strange phenomenon in Japan highlighted in the January 15th issue of New York Times Magazine

"One morning when he was 15, Takeshi shut the door to his bedroom, and for the next four years he did not come out. He didn't go to school. He didn't have a job. He didn't have friends. Month after month, he spent 23 hours a day in a room no bigger than a king-size mattress, where he ate dumplings, rice and other leftovers that his mother had cooked, watched TV game shows and listened to Radiohead and Nirvana. 'Anything,' he said, 'that was dark and sounded desperate.'"

PHOTO.mondo | LIFE IN FRAMES

PHOTO.mondo

South Park Scientology episode

Let's see how long this episode of Tom Cruise "coming out of the closet" episode of South Park lasts on the Internet. TC has already forced it off the airwaves.

A Waste of Time? You Decide.

To believe or not to believe?:

'There are none more ignorant and useless, than they that seek answers on their knees, with their eyes closed.'- anon.

Al Gore Rocks!

If you missed Al Gore on C-SPAN watch it now! He absolutely skewers the adminstration for abuse of Executive Powers and breaking the law. This is not about "right" vs "left", this is about right vs wrong. I strongly believe that we must act promptly to check this brazen grab for power. Gore states the case eloquently. Why can't he be our president? Instead we have a smirking chimp who isn't even as curious about the world as "Curious George" the monkey--a smirking chimp who rewards incompetence, "doesn't do nuance", and insists on "staying the course" even if it leads us to hell.

Pikes Peak from Bob's Road

 The view from the junction of the Barr Trail with Bob's Road, over 9,000' elevation, January 15th, 2006: a photo I took during a loop run from Manitou Springs via the Ute Pass Trail, Longs Ranch Road, Bob's Road, and return to Manitou on the Barr Trail. As I popped out on the Barr Trail just after taking this picture I met a climber returning from the summit of Pikes. He had started his trek at 11:30 P.M. the previous night and had stood on the summit under a full moon at 6:30 that morning.
 

Interview: Mark Crispin Miller Connects the Dots

Buzzflash Interviews Mark Crispin Miller:

"The subversion of electoral democracy ... takes vast planning and tremendous effort, and a ton of laundered cash. In short, it has to be that movement's main concern; and I believe that it is Bush/Cheney's main concern, and that it is the main concern of the regime's most fervent backers."

...

"Here's another pertinent story that the press recently ignored - a story about 2004. A few weeks ago, it came out that ACORN [Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now] had prevailed in all three trials - two in Florida, one in Ohio - where they'd been sued for "voter fraud" by GOP-connected law firms. The last of the three cases was "dismissed with prejudice." This is highly significant, since ACORN's legendary criminality had long been trumpeted by right-wing propagandists as a veritable sea of evidence that all the fraud out there was Democratic handiwork. Nearly all the lurid propaganda tales of Democratic "voter fraud" concerned ACORN. Vented by a multitude of rightist pols and pundits, those tales ended up in countless mainstream news reports that airily referred to fraud committed "by both sides" in the 2004 campaign.

The point of such fake "balance" was, of course, to skirt the inconvenient fact that the season's vast election fraud was primarily the work of the Republicans. Indeed, even if the propaganda stories about ACORN were all true, there would still be no comparison between such trivial Democratic monkey business and the systematic and collective perfidy of the Bush Republicans."

...

Political Compass Litmus Test

Found this Political Compass Litmus Test on Dr. Kathleen Reardon's home page via Huffington Post. How would George W. Bush answer? Cheney?:


__When a mistake is made, I don't automatically insist on rigid adherence to the course.

__Power is a dangerous vehicle and I don't abuse it.

__Shaping my personal history is less important to me than constructively shaping the future of this country for all of its citizens.

__When a crisis occurs, the buck does indeed stop here?

__I surround myself with thinkers whose views may differ from my own and I listen and learn from them.

__Honesty and accuracy dictate my interactions with the people at whose behest I serve.

__There is a line at which politics becomes pernicious and I refuse to cross it.

__ War is a last resort.

__ My power is as a negotiator, not as a bully.

__I strive daily to be a person of integrity.



Ten points for each “True.” It’s a start.
"

Give 'Em Hell Harry | If we can beat mob, we can fight DeLay-style politics

Harry Reid: "My term on the gaming commission came to an end in 1981, and when it did, I thought I had seen such corruption for the last time. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. It is not quite the mafia of Las Vegas in the 1970s, but what is happening today in Washington is every bit as corrupt and the consequences for our country have been severe.

Our nation’s capital has been overrun by organized crime � Tom DeLay-style."

Independent: Global warming to speed up as carbon levels show sharp rise

Independent Online Edition > "Global warming is set to accelerate alarmingly because of a sharp jump in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."

Bush makes 'government incompetence' a reality

Molly Ivins

A Tale of Two Quagmires

Noam Chomskyinterviewed by Michael Hastings
Newsweek, January 9, 2006

Hastings: Where do you see Iraq heading right now?
Chomsky: Well, it's extremely difficult to talk about this because of a very rigid doctrine that prevails in the United States and Britain which prevents us from looking at the situation realistically. The doctrine, to oversimplify, is that we have to believe the United States would have so-called liberated Iraq even if its main products were lettuce and pickles and [the] main energy resource of the world were in central Africa. Anyone who doesn't accept that is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or a lunatic or something. But anyone with a functioning brain knows that that's not true—as all Iraqis do, for example. The United States invaded Iraq because its major resource is oil. And it gives the United States, to quote [Zbigniew] Brzezinski, 'critical leverage' over its competitors, Europe and Japan. That's a policy that goes way back to the second world war. That's the fundamental reason for invading Iraq, not anything else.

Once we recognize that, we're able to begin talking about where Iraq is going. For example, there's a lot of talk about the United States bringing [about] a sovereign independent Iraq. That can't possibly be true. All you have to do is ask yourself what the policies would be in a more-or-less democratic Iraq. We know what they're likely to be. A democratic Iraq will have a Shiite majority, [with] close links to Iran. Furthermore, it's right across the border from Saudi Arabia, where there's a Shiite population which has been brutally repressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. If there are any moves toward sovereignty in Shiite Iraq, or at least some sort of freedom, there are going to be effects across the border. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabia's oil is. So you can see the ultimate nightmare developing from Washington's point of view.

Ugly phrase conceals an uglier truth

Salman Rushdie explains "extraordinary rendition":

"...the question isn't whether or not a given individual is 'good' or 'bad.' The question is whether or not we are - whether or not our governments have dragged us into immorality by discarding due process of law, which is generally accorded to be second only to individual rights as the most important pillar of a free society."

...

'Torture is an unqualified evil,' Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood added. 'It can never be justified. Rather, it must always be punished.'

The dreadful probability is that the US outsourcing of torture will allow it to escape punishment. It will not allow it to escape moral obloquy."

Bush removal ended Guam investigation

Bush removal ended Guam investigation: "A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after."

From Arianna Huffington.

Pikes Peak from the Waldo Canyon Trail

Photo from the Incline Club Sunday run along the Waldo Canyon Trail.
 

William Rivers Pitt on Abramoff Scandal

If you are inclined to believe the wingnut spin that this bribery goes equally to Democrats and Repugs just take a look here.

ONLY Repugs were on the take. NO DEMOCRATS.

What it means if Bush wiretapped CNN's Christiane Amanpour

What it means to John Kerry, Wesley Clark, and Bill Clinton if Bush wiretapped CNN's Christiane Amanpour: AMERICAblog

Yearly Review (Harpers.org)

Harpers Year in Review

Earthship Inventor unveils latest plans for educating youth

Michael Reynolds is profiled by Taos News.

Very cool web site on earthship communities in and around Taos, New Mexico.