The Great Global Warming Swindle
Category: News and Politics

Greenpeace Co-founder Patrick Moore:

"When I left Greenpeace, it was in the midst of them adopting a campaign to ban chlorine worldwide.

"I said, 'You guys, this is one of the elements in the periodic table, you know. I mean, I'm not sure if that's in our jurisdiction to be banning a whole element....'

"The other reason that environmental extremism emerged was because world communism failed, the wall came down, and a lot of peaceniks and political activists moved into the environmental movement--bringing their neo-Marxism with them--and learned to use green language in a very clever way to cloak agendas that actually have more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization than they do anything with ecology or science."

This is an excerpt from an interview in a documentary produced by C4 (UK), a publicly-owned broadcaster that, unlike the BBC, does not receive license fee funds.

If you are die-hard anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-establishment, then the information in this flick will probably trigger synaptic inhibitors in your inactive brains. That class of viewers aside, check out this very interesting and engaging counter-point to Al Gore's Hollywood box-office smash.

Go to the google video search page for this program to watch it.

7:09 AM - 25 Comments - 20 Kudos - Add Comment

Roads Long
Category: Writing and Poetry

Roads long
Home awaits us
We are almost back to Texas

Desert life
The In-betweeners
The Salt that spread
Through ancient forests

From the fragile coast
Tectonic terror
Iconic bastion of U.S. pop
That spreads around
And out among us
Electronically transmitted
Information

Trancing distance
Punctuated by oases
66: the dust bowl trail to ocean

Eastward pointing
The sun's reflection
Objects in mirror
Are closer than they appear

Metallic blue-hazed mountains
As the sun sets on the Mojave

Another Texan Exodus

We are the children
Of Sojourners
A pixelated mass
Rising to our better natures
By word of law and common understanding

4:00 PM - 40 Comments - 40 Kudos - Add Comment

An Open Letter to the Sun
Current mood: hot
Category: News and Politics

Dear Sun a.k.a. Ball of Fire in the Center of Our Solar System:

Please stop being so hot. It's making all of us over here on this soft-core rock a little mixed up.

You see, you are big, and we are but tiny compared to you. In addition, you are extremely hot, reaching temperatures of up to 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit while we punies each generate an average temperature below 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Moreover, you have existed for millions of years, observing in yourself over that time temperature fluctuations marked in thousand-year cycles, which periodically generate radiation storms that impact the surface temperatures on every planet in your domain; yet, we, even with our bourgeoning knowledge of plastic surgery and stem-cell science, have in recent times resignedly attained an average life span of around seventy years, and we have difficulty concerning ourselves with anything more than the seven-day forecast.

Please Sun, hear our cry. Albert Gore has got our pants in a global-warming wad. He always talks about how bad we are, but we know who the true hot head is.

Sincerely,

Homo sapiens Against Solar Warming

Currently listening : Nothing Like the Sun By Sting Release date: 25 October, 1990

8:04 AM - 18 Comments - 11 Kudos - Add Comment

Over Again
Category: Music

click song
Ambivalent decisions
When true love is your mission

And I know that you can
Start over and over again

Reach out for a connection
With true love in your vision

9:23 AM - 6 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Let It Go
Category: Music

click here to listen on winnjackson.com

How men explain God in
The stories of a generation
Defining tragedies en masse as
Divine retribution

We spin
Running into ourselves
We bend
Submissively to the Unknown
Trying to let go

Ambitious, theological
Justifications of our actions
Unbalanced, unperfected ways
Past, present, future chain reactions

We spin
To get in touch with our Souls
We bend
Submissively to the Unknown
Trying to let go
We climb
To reach the top of the mountain
Zen
Sit there and breathe in the air
To know
Got to let it go
Let it go

11:37 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

a song I did for a friend
Category: Music

click here to listen on winnjackson.com

11:09 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

IP in the Desert
Category: News and Politics

Burning Man infighting: proof that paradise/utopia is only as attainable as enlightened thought is universal and sustainable. I've witnessed the man burn, and imagined when I was there for my brief stint in the summer of 2000 that the innocence of it all would only continue to erode with time. From what I know about the history of the event, it is like any other attempt to artificially perpetuate a transcendent occurrence in time: those fleeting, magical moments of clarity and perspective that draw individuals together in communion.

Burning Man began on a beach in the San Francisco area. Those gathered at the beginning were there to share in a cathartic letting go of life's troubles, a cleansing by fire of stresses and woes. Three of them acted upon an urge to share this act with others and to broaden the scope of the event into an idea that encompassed self-expression and self-reliance. As with all such attempts to impose tradition on what may have been, on many levels, mere spontanaity, the passing of years has produced an oversized, watered-down version of the original.

The success of Burning Man is remarkable considering the restrictions its operators have set on commercial activity during the event. Participants have gotten by these many years without the use of federal currency. Consequently, commercial interests are the very thing now at the root of a lawsuit that has Burning Man's founders arbitrating, not the future of the event, but its ownership. Should Burning Man, its name, logo, and derivatives thereof, be set free in the public domain for all to exploit, or should it be kept under wraps by a select few bound to protect and uphold its sanctity?

The dispute cuts to the very core of Burning Man's principles, revealing the innate flaws in the community it imagines according to the philosophy upon which it was founded. If Burning Man is to remain an event in the Nevadan playa which plays upon an idealistic fantasy, then its ownership should remain locked, allowing the continued control of its artificial framework. For instance, we can all accept the need for Disney to control things of a Disney nature. But if Burning Man is ever to become something more than it is, something beyond a whimsical, counter-cultural institution, by acting as a framework for society upon which people rely for their livelihoods, then its exploitation should not be fought. That would be akin to allowing the trademarking of Buddha or the American flag.

9:15 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

You alone
Category: Writing and Poetry

For you alone would I sit until dusk
For you alone would lay beside me then
In early hours would you begin to sew
The fabric frayed and worn by time's rough course
And add a special thread into the weave
For you alone would mend my broken dream

1:49 PM - 12 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

Syria and Iran: Pest Control
Category: News and Politics

Any local investigative journalist would be happy to come to the rescue of a homeowner being taken advantage of by a scam artist who secretly releases pests into a home, waits for the homeowner to give up trying to fight them off, and then, armed with his professional-grade equipment and industry expertise gouges the consumer with a fat fee for his services. Iraq is turning into a scamground not unlike what happens when a home is inundated with a mysterious infestation of pests. For over three years, coalition forces, working beside a young, democratically elected Iraqi government, have tried to stave off the attempts of a loose network of jihad-loving fascists attempting to undo the march of freedom.

Unlike traditional warfare, the fascists are identified and unified only by their cause--to make their brand of Islam supreme in the world; no nation claims them, and they claim no nation. However, there are many indications that support for these jihadis, if not at the least implicitly so, comes from the very sources now entering the stage to rescue and take charge of the situation. Like the pest control scam artist releases a flood of vermin into a household, Syria and Iran have stood idly by while their respective borders with Iraq have been used as the thoroughfares for supply lines to the extremists. Only now are they ready to offer their help.

Because they have no official ties with the jihadis, Syria and Iran are publicly removed enough to now enter as a pest control team, claiming the ability to accomplish what coalition forces have not been able to do: stop the bloodshed and help bring order to Iraq. The help of Iraq's seemingly magnanimous neighbors carries one primary condition: coalition forces must leave. Under traditional warfare terms, this exchange of power and consequential withdrawal of troops would be considered a surrender.

Meanwhile, instead of vying on the side of the victim-homeowner (Iraq and the coalition), the mainstream media--both Western and Middle Eastern--have succumbed to the upsidedownness of it all, making the victim into the villain.

11:38 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Gorbachev and the Wall
Category: News and Politics

Gorby, speaking this week in Texas (Midland to be exact--i.e. Bush's backyard), compared our proposed south-border wall to the one that divided Berlin.

I now know that one of the new requirements for reception of the Nobel Prize for Peace is to have a skewed vision of history. Like his counterpart, our ex-Pres Carter (who seems to think Bush is to blame for Clinton's North Korean policy punt), Gorby can't seem to see things for what they are and were. The Berlin Wall was built to "stop the drain of labor and economic output associated with the daily migration of huge numbers of professionals and skilled workers from East to West Berlin, and the attendant defections." Wikipedia. "Berlin Wall," 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_wall (18 October 2006). Effectively, the wall in Berlin was built by a Communist regime to keep in freedom-loving people against their will.

Our government's proposed wall represents quite the opposite. It is more like the wall China built to keep out invaders. Unlike China, we do not wish to isolate ourselves. On the contrary, we merely desire to control the floodgates and cease from having others violate our sovereignty as a nation, whether they be foreign nationals who wish to illegally entitle themselves to the benefits of our economic system or those who wish to destroy us by some other means. Aside from that, post-wall-construction, we intend to remain an open society robustly and unapologetically adapted to modern security threats.

Meanwhile, Gorby would do better going down to Mexico City and figuring how to translate "perestroika" into Spanish.

11:58 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Batman and Old Glory
Category: News and Politics

Frank Miller, the creator of Batman, talks about patriotism in this segment transcribed from NPR, Morning Edition, September 11, 2006:

I was just a boy in the 1960s. My adolescence wasn't infused with the civil rights struggle or the sexual revolution or the Vietnam War, but with their aftermath.

My high school teachers were ex-hippies and Vietnam vets. People who protested the war and people who served as soldiers. I was taught more about John Lennon than I was about Thomas Jefferson.

Both of my parents were World War II veterans. FDR-era patriots. And I was exactly the age to rebel against them.

It all fit together rather neatly. I could never stomach the flower-child twaddle of the '60s crowd and I was ready to believe that our flag was just an old piece of cloth and that patriotism was just some quaint relic, best left behind us.

It was all about the ideas. I schooled myself in the writings of Madison and Franklin and Adams and Jefferson. I came to love those noble, indestructible ideas. They were ideas, to my young mind, of rebellion and independence, not of idolatry.

But not that piece of old cloth. To me, that stood for unthinking patriotism. It meant about as much to me as that insipid peace sign that was everywhere I looked: just another symbol of a generation's sentimentality, of its narcissistic worship of its own past glories.

Then came that sunny September morning when airplanes crashed into towers a very few miles from my home and thousands of my neighbors were ruthlessly incinerated -- reduced to ash. Now, I draw and write comic books. One thing my job involves is making up bad guys. Imagining human villainy in all its forms. Now the real thing had shown up. The real thing murdered my neighbors. In my city. In my country. Breathing in that awful, chalky crap that filled up the lungs of every New Yorker, then coughing it right out, not knowing what I was coughing up.

For the first time in my life, I know how it feels to face an existential menace. They want us to die. All of a sudden I realize what my parents were talking about all those years.

Patriotism, I now believe, isn't some sentimental, old conceit. It's self-preservation. I believe patriotism is central to a nation's survival. Ben Franklin said it: If we don't all hang together, we all hang separately. Just like you have to fight to protect your friends and family, and you count on them to watch your own back.

So you've got to do what you can to help your country survive. That's if you think your country is worth a damn. Warts and all.

So I've gotten rather fond of that old piece of cloth. Now, when I look at it, I see something precious. I see something perishable.

9:13 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Awaiting Approval
Category: MySpace

Dear Friends:



Get over your 14-year-old-(this-profile-is-set-to-private) selves.

What is myspace without my ability to comment you while you sleep? You have the power to delete...

Get over yourselves with the comment naziing. Paranoid is your middle name, Howard_Hughes_wannabes.

P.S.
Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!

9:07 AM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

The Plan of Our Enemy (in Their Own Words)
Category: News and Politics

You may hate reading, but your life and your future depends on reading this and letting it sink in...

Al-Qaeda Intends To Launch "A Media Campaign ... To Create A Wedge Between The American People And Their Government." (Letter From Osama Bin Laden To Mullah Omar, Released By The White House Press Office, 9/5/06)

This Media Campaign Will Stress "That [The American] Government Would Bring Them More Losses, In Finances And In Casualties." (Letter From Osama Bin Laden To Mullah Omar, Released By The White House Press Office, 9/5/06)

"[The American People] Are Being Sacrificed To Serve The Big Investors, Especially The Jews." (Letter From Osama Bin Laden To Mullah Omar, Released By The White House Press Office, 9/5/06)

The Media Campaign "Aims At Creating Pressure From The American People On The American Government To Stop Their Campaign Against Afghanistan." (Letter From Osama Bin Laden To Mullah Omar, Released By The White House Press Office, 9/5/06)

"There Will Be Continuing Enmity Until Everyone Believes In Allah. We Will Not Meet [The Enemy] Halfway And There Will Be No Room For Dialogue With Them." (Al Qaeda Charter, Released By The White House Press Office, 9/5/06)

"O young people of Islam: Follow the orders of Almighty God and His messenger and kill those people. Follow the example of Muhammad Bin-Musallamah and his companions. Death is better than living on this earth with the unbelievers amongst us, making a mockery of our religion and prophet, God's peace and blessings upon him. Fear God, try to please Him, and do not consult with anyone regarding the killing of those unbelievers." (Translation Of Bin Laden's 52-Minute Audiotape, Posted On Jihadist Website, 4/27/06)

"On the blessed Tuesday 11 September 2001 they launched their attacks with their planes in an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor, unmatched by any in humankind before them. Yet with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, there occurred an even bigger destruction: that of the great American Dream and legend of Democracy." (Translation Of Purported Bin Laden Audio Message, Posted On Islamist Site, 2/14/03)

"Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun." (Al-Qaeda Training Manual, Available At: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/, Accessed 9/5/06)

"These attacks took off the skin of the American wolf and they have been left standing in their filthy, naked reality. Thus the whole World awoke from its sleep and the Muslims realized the importance of the belief of loving and hating for the sake of Allah; the ties of brotherhood between the Muslims have become stronger, which is a very good sign and a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous Islamic Khilafah insha-Allah." (Translation Of Purported Bin Laden Audio Message, Posted On Islamist Site, 2/14/03)

"The war with Israel is not about a treaty, a cease-fire agreement, Sykes-Picot borders, national zeal, or disputed borders. It is rather a jihad for the sake of God until the religion of God is established. It is jihad for the liberation of Palestine, all Palestine, as well as every land that was a home for Islam, from Andalusia to Iraq. The whole world is an open field for us." (Al-Zawahiri's 'Full' Message On War In Lebanon, Gaza Strip, Posted On Jihadist Website, 7/28/06)

"Supporting the jihad in Palestine with one's life, money, and opinion is the individual duty of every Muslim because Palestine was a land of Islam that was occupied by the infidels. This means that its liberation and the reinstatement of Islamic rule there is the individual duty of every Muslim as unanimously decided by the nation's scholars. And such is the case with every land occupied by infidels." (Al-Zawahiri's June Video Message Supporting Palestinians, Posted On Jihadist Site, 6/11/06)

"Guidelines for Beating and Killing Hostages: Religious scholars have permitted beating. In this tradition, we find permission to interrogate the hostage for the purpose of obtaining information. It is permitted to strike the nonbeliever who has no covenant until he reveals the news, information, and secrets of his people. The religious scholars have also permitted the killing of a hostage if he insists on withholding information from Moslems." (Al-Qaeda Training Manual, Available At: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/, Accessed 9/5/06)

The Al-Qaeda Governing Structure Should Include An "Execution Unit" Responsible For "Sorting Out, Arrest, Murder, And Destruction." (Al Anbar Plan, Released By The White House Press Office, 9/5/06)

"So We Are Continuing This Policy In Bleeding America To The Point Of Bankruptcy." ('Full Transcript' Of Bin Laden's Message, Posted On Al-Jazirah Site, 11/1/04)

"And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (When they pointed out that) for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost according to the lowest estimate more than 500 billion dollars. Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs." ('Full Transcript' Of Bin Laden's Message, Posted On Al-Jazirah Site, 11/1/04)

"In conclusion, America is definitely a great power, with an unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation. Therefore, it is very easy to target that flimsy base and concentrate on their weak points and even if we are able to target one tenth of these weak points, we will be able [to] crush and destroy them and remove them from ruling and conquering the World." (Translation Of Purported Bin Laden Audio Message, Posted On Islamist Site, 2/14/03)

"It has been made clear during our defending and fighting against the American enemy that this enemy's combat strategy is heavily dependent on the psychological aspect of war due to its large and efficient media apparatus and of course its indiscriminate aerial bombing which hides the cowardice and lack of fighting spirit of the American soldier. Likewise, let me remind you of the defeat of the American forces in Beirut in 1982, soon after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when the Lebanese resistance was personified by the truck laden with explosives that struck the main military base of the US Marines in Beirut, killing 242 soldiers towards Hell was their destination and what an evil destination that is." (Translation Of Purported Bin Laden Audio Message, Posted On Islamist Site, 2/14/03)

"We found that out from our brothers who fought the Americans in Somalia. They did not see it as a power worthy of any mention. It was the big propaganda that the United State used to terrify people before fighting them. Our brothers, who were here in Afghanistan, also tried the Americans. God gave them and the mujahidin success in Somalia and the United States pull out, trailing disappointment, defeat, and failure behind it. It achieved nothing. It left quicker than people had imagined." (Full Text Of Interview With Al-Qaeda Leader Osama Bin Laden, 10/21/01)

"I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic nation: Listen and understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate." (Text Of Bin Laden's Audio Message To Muslims In Iraq, Posted On Jihadist Websites, 12/28/04)

"This Is A War Of Destiny Between Infidelity And Islam." (Text Of Bin Laden's Audio Message To Muslims In Iraq, Posted On Jihadist Websites, 12/28/04)

"The Whole World Is Watching This War And The Two Adversaries; The Islamic Nation, On The One Hand, And The United States And Its Allies On The Other. It Is Either Victory And Glory Or Misery And Humiliation." (Text Of Bin Laden's Audio Message To Muslims In Iraq, Posted On Jihadist Websites, 12/28/04)

"So we must think for a long time about our next steps and how we want to attain it, and it is my humble opinion that the Jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals: The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq... The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity." (Complete Text Of Al-Zawahiri Letter To Al-Zarqawi, 7/9/05, Available At: http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20051011_release.htm, Accessed 9/5/06)

"Finally, I would like to tell you that the war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever as the wind blows in this direction with God's help." (Bin Laden Threatens New Operations, Offers 'Long-Term Truce,' Posted On Al-Jazirah Net, 1/19/06)

"Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute.... I conclude my speech with the slogan that will continue to reverberate on all occasions so that nobody will think that we have weakened. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America." (Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah Supports Intifadah, Vows 'Death to America,' Aired On Beirut Al-Manar Television, 9/27/02)

"Undoubtedly, I say that this slogan and goal is achievable, and with the support and power of God, we will soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism and will breathe in the brilliant time of Islamic sovereignty over today's world." (Iran's President Warns Muslims Of 'Conspiracies Of World Imperialism,' Available At: www.sharifnews.com, Accessed 10/26/05)

1:07 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Gore v. Sun
Category: News and Politics

Cool your jets, Albert Gore. This place, this planet, will come to an end, but not as you falsely prophecy. Against your desire to deem us panic stricken according to your charts and graphs of our activities falls one of the simplest lessons we learned in grade-school science: the alien being which casts itself through our atmosphere and radiates us with its foreign, extraterrestrial emissions, the sun, which is a star, has a life cycle, and our closest one happens to be close to on-the-way-out. Shouldn't we remark upon the fact that we have reached a point in our macro-growth cycle as a species to reason that fact of life, along with this complex correlative of it: the life sustaining faculties of our earth are reciprocally relative to the sun's life? The man who calmly and with resolve went about building a boat for the flood, the coming of which was divined unto him, is like the one of us who in the same way prepares for a literal end, which end he rations with his conscious eye. The justification for developing new energy may come from bigotry toward nations; it may come from self-loathing within a capitalist citizenry; but, certainly may it come from enlightened beings who, while seeing a literal end in sight, claim the survival of our species as a moral.

12:39 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

brain lite
Category: Writing and Poetry

for now silence
no hum of machine
funny the disquieting
nature of technological ineptitude
that peace not be found
from the absence of sound
but in its reconnection
so tied am I to this
creature of computation
this wonderment of
silicon and dust

9:56 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment