A View from the Balcony

2005-12-16T09:26:00.000-05:00

e.e. cummings - all ignorance toboggans into know

all ignorance toboggans into know
and trudges up to ignorance again:
but winter's not forever,even snow
melts;and if spring should spoil the game,what then?

all history's a winter sport or three:
but were it five,i'd still insist that all
history is too small for even me;
for me and you,exceedingly too small.

Swoop(shrill collective myth)into thy grave
merely to toil the scale to shrillerness
per every madge and mabel dick and dave
--tomorrow is our permanent address

and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do,
we'll move away still further:into now

2005-12-14T22:27:00.000-05:00

Just one more LIE repeated over and over and over ad nauseum: from 12.14.05 Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12...nt-night-fraud/

Silent Night forced re-write is (OF COURSE) a LIE:

______________

"... as it turns out, the entire story is a fraud.

Ridgeway Elementary didn’t change the lyrics to “Silent Night.” What they did was perform a 1988 copyrighted play called “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift.”

That play actually contains numerous songs about Christmas, including the grand finale, an audience-led group singing of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” The play’s creator, Dwight Elrich, happens to lead the New Covenant Singers of Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles.

In fact, “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift” has been performed in several churches, including the Oakwood Forest Christian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee, the St. Anthony Parish School in Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church of Abeline, Texas.

So why are the Silent Night lyrics changed in “Little Tree’s Christmas”? Because the play is about a small, lonely Christmas tree that is told it is “too scraggly, it will never sell.” That character sings the revised lyrics — “Cold in the night, No one in sight, Winter winds whirl and bite” — in a scene lamenting his sad state. The rewording has absolutely nothing to do with “secularizing” the song.

Sorry, Virginia, there is no “War on Christmas.”

___________

Just one more chapter of the hate and lie mongering right taking a page from one of the great propagandists 'teams' of the past (Goebbels & Hitler):

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."

Joseph M. Goebbels

"By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell – and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed."

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

and

so it (continues to) go(es)...

isn't ANYone else 'catching' this? it's SO clear from here.

2005-12-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

"...putting the nation’s business on hold...

Hastert has scheduled the first House session of 2006 for Jan. 31 — after a holiday break of more than a month, and two weeks after senators are due to return to Washington.

hmmmm... and these are the same folks (re-thug-licans) that went absolutely fu**ing ballistic ("Dems preventing congress from doing the people's business/work... blahblahblah") when (Give 'Em Hell) Harry Reid shut down the Senate for (just) a couple of hours and here we have the House in collusion with Delay to 'delay' the doing of the people's business so that he has an opportunity to speed up his trial and perhaps keep his grip on the House. A-MAZ-ING

It's clear from here (the cheap seats) that many/most Americans have the attention spans of fuit flies!

2005-12-07T23:12:00.000-05:00

"...shape, lead and inform..."

Friends and enablers of the likes of Cunningham's crowd: The Homeland Defense Journal

an open email to the editor and publisher, 06 DEC, 2005

Don Dickson/Dan Verton

It would appear that your statement of purpose: "It's to shape, lead and inform this community that Homeland Defense Journal introduced a monthly print publication."

( http://homelanddefensejournal.com/about.html ) is inaccurate.

How is it that an orgnaization (Market*Access) that traces it's 'homeland defense' roots to a U.S. Capitol Police and the GSA's Federal Protective Service suggestion for a conference* find it's way to soliciting** a sham defense corporation, Mirror Labs, for inclusion in it's very first Directory of Homeland Defense Research and Development Labatories?

A directory that includes the likes of recognized defense contractors/contributors:

* NASA -Langley
* The Naval Surface Warfare Center
* Northrop Grumman
* PARC

* "...in November 2000, officers from the U.S. Capitol Police and the General Services Administration's Federal Protective Service suggested to Market*Access International that it organize a conference to direct government and industry attention to a new area of interest -- something called "homeland defense."
About Homeland Defense Journal: http://homelanddefensejournal.com/about.html

** "The government agencies and companies listed here responded to our call for information and requested publication in the Homeland Defense Journal." Don Dickson Directory of Homeland Defense Research and Development Labatories - First installment: May 22, 2002

Recent disclosures born of the Cunningham indictments and subsequent guilty plea, beg several additional questions:

How did you and/or Marianne Dunn come to originally solicit Mirror Labs for your directory's first installment?

"...we developed a strategy to collect information on labs, their application areas, and key points of contact." ? And, maintain their listing in the SEP 25, 2002 issue? ( http://www.homelanddefensejournal.com/archives/pdfs/RnD_Lab_9_25.pdf )

Why wasn't MirrorLabs listed in the directory in the 25 SEP, 2002 edition?

What is your knowledge of and relationship with ACDS, Inc.? http://www.adcs.com/

" " " " " " " " Defense Technologies LLC?

What is your relationship with Wilkes?

A concerned citizen and Vietnam veteran

2005-11-30T15:04:00.000-05:00

Bush @ US Naval Academy: 30 NOV, 2005 - 'Stay the Course' (Take 48)

"...stay as long as necessary..."

?!?

As the old (Texas, by the way) saying goes: 'When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is STOP DIGGING!'

WE invaded a soverign nation under false pretenses where we continue as unwanted occupiers and now the 'Great Mis-Leader' wants us to 'put our shoulders into it' and help him and his NeoCon buddies keep digging!?

No SALE!

Iraq is going to dismantle itself whether we are there or not, just like Yugoslavia did after Tito. It's just a matter of how many more American kids are going to die for the lies of '43 and Cheney and Rice and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Perle and Feith et al.

It's clear from here (the cheap seats): Get out Now!

2005-11-29T02:03:00.000-05:00

Cunningham and MZM: The White House Connection

(from today's - 28 NOV 2005- Think Progress posting: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/28/cunningham-white-house/)

Today, Duke Cunningham pled guilty to receiving over $2 million in bribes from Mitchell Wade and his company, MZM Inc., in exchange for legislative favors. It’s worth noting that MZM also did some unusual business with the White House:

[O]ver the past three years it [MZM Inc.] was also awarded several contracts, worth more than $600,000, by the Executive Office of the President. They include a $140,000 deal for office furniture in 2002 and several for unspecified “intelligence services.*”

* see also:

Pentagon Ends New Work On D.C. Firm's Contract
MZM to Name New CEO as Relationship With Congressman Is Under Investigation

By Renae Merle and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Page D01

Government procurement records show that MZM, which Wade started in 1993, did not report any revenue from prime contract awards until 2003. Most of its revenue has come from the agreement the Pentagon just cut off. But over the past three years it was also awarded several contracts, worth more than $600,000, by the Executive Office of the President. They include a $140,000 deal for office furniture in 2002 and several for unspecified "intelligence services."

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.

One of the company's contracts was to provide linguists to the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the first U.S.-run administrator put in place after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The contract, which expired last year, was initially expected to be worth about $1.2 million but grew to $5 million overall, an Army spokesman said.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Let's see... $600K in 'No business like No bidness' unspecified "intellignece services" including a $140K ‘furniture’ contract by the Executive Office of the President to privately held DC startup defense firm that posted no IRS returns before 2003? What’s the mystery/connection? Thinking caps people, thinking (and remembering) caps. You know it’s NOT for furniture and it WAS 2002 so, what do you ‘think’ ? How about a(nother) RePug campaign slush fund. Remember the machinations of CREEP in the ‘72 elections:

Reelection: The full story behind Nixon’s victory in 1972 may never be known. The former leaders of the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) have proved somewhat reluctant to reveal the full extent of their criminal activities. This much is already clear: Nixon raised and spent more money than any candidate in history–including millions of dollars of illegal corporate contributions; every arm of Government was politicized to an unprecedented degree in order to insure his reelection; a massive campaign of sabotage and espionage helped to divide and discredit the President’s opponents.

(http://www.trivia-library.com/a/president-richard-m-nixon-reelection-and-creep.htm)

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Now, do the ‘math’: $140K + many other as yet (if ever to be) discovered/disclosed $140K’s = +5 Senate seats, complete control over congress and carte blanche to pursue a NeoCon inspired invasion of Iraq.

Watergate's 'unraveling' and CREEP discoveries began by 'pulling the string' of a failed burglary.

It's clear from here (the cheap seats). It's time to 'pull' this office furniture and intelligence gathering 'string'.

2005-11-27T23:19:00.000-05:00

Blinding Flashes of the Obvious