The Evening Blues - 3-22-18



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: R.L. Burnside

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features North Mississippi bluesman R.L. Burnside. Enjoy!

R.L. Burnside - Rollin' and Tumblin'

“A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.”

-- Edward Abbey


News and Opinion

Paul Ehrlich: 'Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades'

A shattering collapse of civilisation is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich. In May, it will be 50 years since the eminent biologist published his most famous and controversial book, The Population Bomb. But Ehrlich remains as outspoken as ever.

The world’s optimum population is less than two billion people – 5.6 billion fewer than on the planet today, he argues, and there is an increasing toxification of the entire planet by synthetic chemicals that may be more dangerous to people and wildlife than climate change. Ehrlich also says an unprecedented redistribution of wealth is needed to end the over-consumption of resources, but “the rich who now run the global system – that hold the annual ‘world destroyer’ meetings in Davos – are unlikely to let it happen”.

The Population Bomb, written with his wife Anne Ehrlich in 1968, predicted “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the 1970s – a fate that was avoided by the green revolution in intensive agriculture. Many details and timings of events were wrong, Paul Ehrlich acknowledges today, but he says the book was correct overall.

“Population growth, along with over-consumption per capita, is driving civilisation over the edge: billions of people are now hungry or micronutrient malnourished, and climate disruption is killing people.” ...

“It is a near certainty in the next few decades, and the risk is increasing continually as long as perpetual growth of the human enterprise remains the goal of economic and political systems,” he says. “As I’ve said many times, ‘perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell’.”

15 Years After Invasion of Iraq, Amnesia & Distortion Obscure U.S. Record of War Crimes & Torture

Trump and Saudis engaged in nuclear talks

Until now, the Trump administration has kept quiet on Riyadh’s desire for a domestic nuclear infrastructure – and has declined to outline the president’s views on its potential development of nuclear arms. But during their visit to Washington this week, the Saudis were less timid. “Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible,” the prince said in an interview. ...

White House officials say that Iran’s nuclear program, governed by a deal widely considered within the region as flawed, topped the agenda of Trump’s meetings with Muhammad. But descriptions of their day of meetings did not reference any discussion on energy. Now they are acknowledging those talks included critical discussions about Saudi’s nuclear aspirations – and the inseparable effects of the deal with Iran on nuclear proliferation throughout the wider Middle East.

“We continue to engage with our Saudi partners on their plans for a civil nuclear program and possible US supply of nuclear equipment and material,” said one National Security Council representative, asked whether the talks, which included [Energy Secretary] Rick Perry, focused on the Saudi nuclear program. The official declined to comment on the prince’s threat to build nuclear weapons.

The US is considering whether to allow Riyadh to enrich its own uranium domestically using US-made equipment, in exchange for permitting US-based energy companies to construct and operate nuclear reactors in the kingdom. At issue is the US Atomic Energy Act, which requires nations accepting and operating US nuclear material and equipment to vow not to use those resources to construct nuclear bombs.

Are Israel & Saudi Arabia Pressuring U.S. Toward War with Iran?

Here's a teaser for Gareth Porter's excellent article about neocon warmonger John Bolton. The article contains considerably more detail than can be fairly excerpted.

The Untold Story of John Bolton’s Campaign for War With Iran

In my reporting on U.S.-Israeli policy, I have tracked numerous episodes in which the United States and/or Israel made moves that seemed to indicate preparations for war against Iran. Each time—in 2007, in 2008, and again in 2011—those moves, presented in corporate media as presaging attacks on Tehran, were actually bluffs aimed at putting pressure on the Iranian government.

But the strong likelihood that Donald Trump will now choose John Bolton as his next national security advisor creates a prospect of war with Iran that is very real. Bolton is no ordinary neoconservative hawk. He has been obsessed for many years with going to war against the Islamic Republic, calling repeatedly for bombing Iran in his regular appearances on Fox News, without the slightest indication that he understands the consequences of such a policy.

His is not merely a rhetorical stance: Bolton actively conspired during his tenure as the Bush administration’s policymaker on Iran from 2002 through 2004 to establish the political conditions necessary for the administration to carry out military action. ... Bolton’s high-profile advocacy of war with Iran is well known. What is not at all well known is that, when he was under secretary of state for arms control and international security, he executed a complex and devious strategy aimed at creating the justification for a U.S. attack on Iran. Bolton sought to convict the Islamic Republic in the court of international public opinion of having a covert nuclear weapons program using a combination of diplomatic pressure, crude propaganda, and fabricated evidence.

Despite the fact that Bolton was technically under the supervision of Secretary of State Colin Powell, his actual boss in devising and carrying out that strategy was Vice President Dick Cheney. Bolton was also the administration’s main point of contact with the Israeli government, and with Cheney’s backing, he was able to flout normal State Department rules by taking a series of trips to Israel in 2003 and 2004 without having the required clearance from the State Department’s Bureau for Near Eastern Affairs.

Thus, at the very moment that Powell was saying administration policy was not to attack Iran, Bolton was working with the Israelis to lay the groundwork for just such a war.

Russian Ambassador to the UK: "Britain has a bad record of violating international law"

Russia foreign ministry: Britain may be behind attack on Skripal's daughter

“Logic suggests that there are only two possible things,” Vladimir Yermakov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s non-proliferation and arms control department, told a meeting with foreign ambassadors based in Moscow.

“Either the British authorities are not able to provide protection from such a, let’s say, terrorist attack on their soil, or they, whether directly or indirectly, I am not accusing anyone, have orchestrated an attack on a Russian citizen”, Yermakov said.

Libya: "Sarkozy, for very suspicious reasons, and Cameron really wanted to go into that war!"

An excellent article, worth a full read. Here's a teaser:

From Belfast to Guantánamo: the Alleged Torture of Northern Ireland’s “Hooded Men”

For Jim Auld, it began at a house party. On August 9, 1971, while he and his friends drank pints of beer and danced to the Rolling Stones in their nationalist neighborhood of West Belfast, the government of Northern Ireland and the British Army launched “Operation Demetrius.” Auld strolled back to his parents’ house around 3:30 a.m. and thought it was odd that the lights were still on. He found the door already open, and a man with a rifle waiting for him on the other side. Soldiers jumped out from the bushes and shoved him inside.

Auld’s memory of that evening remains sharp because of what followed: He and 13 other Irish Catholics were subjected to treatment that on Tuesday the European Court of Human Rights declared “inhumane and degrading,” but rejected to revise as legally torture. The government took the men to a secret detention facility and used them as guinea pigs to perfect what would later be called the “Five Techniques.” The court had originally ruled in 1978 that the treatment was not severe or cruel enough to be classified as torture.

In 2014, the Irish government appealed to have the case revised after an investigation uncovered that high cabinet British government officials had authorized the detainment and hid evidence from the court showing the treatment’s long-lasting effects. An all-star legal team, including Amal Clooney, represented the men.

Although the British government banned the use of the Five Techniques in 1972, the country’s military would go on to use them until at least 2003, when they resulted in the death of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi civilian detainee. The U.S. also adopted and fine-tuned the same methods for use after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Bush administration cited the European court’s 1978 verdict in defense of its so-called enhanced interrogation techniques during the war on terror. Similarly, the Israeli government used the verdict to defend itself against accusations of torturing Palestinian detainees. The fate of the 14 Irishmen – who became known as the “Hooded Men” because their heads were hooded through their interrogations – had international ramifications.

Israel Jails Ahed Tamimi’s Mother for Facebook Live Video of Palestinian Teen Slapping Soldier

An Israeli military court sentenced Ahed Tamimi, a teenage Palestinian activist, to eight months in jail on Wednesday for slapping an Israeli soldier during a confrontation outside her family home in the occupied West Bank that was streamed live on Facebook. The girl’s mother, Nariman, was convicted of incitement for sharing the recording online, and also sentenced to eight months in prison.

The video, viewed millions of times on social networks, prompted an outcry from the Israeli public at the supposed humiliation of a heavily armed soldier, tasked with enforcing his nation’s military rule over Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, backing away from a physical confrontation with a 16-year-old girl.

The mother and daughter have both been held in pre-trial detention since December.

The ruling could have a chilling effect not just on journalists but on Palestinian activists who routinely record their encounters with Israeli troops, both to document abuses and to provide a measure of accountability. Several years ago, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, which works to monitor the day to day reality of the occupation many Israelis ignore, provided cameras to Nariman Tamimi and another relative in the village of Nabi Saleh.

Such videos have drawn international attention to Israel’s ongoing occupation, and prompted conspiracy theories among far-right Israelis who maintain that every unflattering glimpse of the day to day reality in the occupied West Bank must be, somehow, staged for the cameras by Palestinians. ... Israeli military courts have reportedly charged dozens of young Palestinians with incitement based on their Facebook posts in the past three years. On Thursday, another young woman from Bethlehem was reportedly sentenced to seven months in jail for a Facebook post.


Marielle Franco murder: Brazilian authorities under global pressure to find killers

As pressure grows on the authorities in Brazil to find the killers of Rio de Janeiro councillor Marielle Franco, an open letter by international activists, writers, journalists, film-makers, politicians and actors has called for an investigation of her murder by an independent commission. Franco and her driver were shot dead on 14 March, in a targeted assassination which unleashed a wave of anger across Brazil, and provoked urgent debate on the country’s racism, violence and impunity.

The human rights activist from Rio’s Maré favela complex had denounced killings blamed on police and was in charge of a city council commission monitoring the Brazilian government’s “federal intervention” which put the military in charge of policing in Rio state. “She vehemently challenged the impunity surrounding extrajudicial killings of Black youth by security forces,” write the authors of the letter, published in the Guardian and O Globo. “Marielle’s activism earned her many powerful enemies.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ava DuVernay, Arundhati Roy, Angela Davis, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Black Lives Matter co-founders Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, Naomi Campbell, Noam Chomsky, and actors Thandie Newton, Gael García Bernal and Narcos star Wagner Moura are among the signatories. “Given that Marielle’s assassination bears all the hallmarks of a targeted assassination, we call for the creation of an independent commission comprised of prominent and respected national and international human rights and legal experts and tasked with carrying out an independent investigation,” they wrote.

Dutch voters just shot down a major spying law that would allow DNA database

Dutch voters narrowly rejected a controversial law on Wednesday which would have given government intelligence agencies the power to carry out mass surveillance.

Both houses of parliament had already approved the proposed law, but the issue went to a national referendum after more than 300,000 people signed a petition expressing their opposition. While the referendum was non-binding, Prime Minister Mark Rutte pledged to take the outcome seriously. The legislation may now face revision, even though the prime minister supports it.

With 89 percent of the vote counted on Thursday, the “no” vote had 48.8 percent, to the “yes” campaign’s 47.3 percent. Exit polls, however, had shown the vote going the opposite way.

Obama Data Mined Facebook Before Cambridge Analytica

The FTC Is Powerless to Regulate Facebook Right Now. Ask Chuck Schumer Why.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is holding up what would be an easy confirmation for nominees to run the Federal Trade Commission, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The agency has been operating with only two commissioners on its five-member panel since last February, amid constant delays to get a new team in place. The situation took on new resonance this week, after revelations of Cambridge Analytica harvesting data on 50 million Facebook users, and questions about whether Facebook violated privacy rules in the process. The FTC is reportedly investigating the data release. But there’s essentially nobody running the agency at the moment, as the commissioners are lame ducks without the power to dictate policy to career staff. ...

Schumer is blocking the confirmation of four commissioners — Republican chair Joseph Simons, Republicans Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, and Democrat Rohit Chopra — all of whom won unanimous support in the Senate Commerce Committee in February. The reason is mostly parochial: The fifth nominee is Schumer’s chief counsel, Becca Kelly Slaughter. Schumer didn’t recommend Slaughter for the second Democratic slot on the panel until late January, and she’s still going through a federal background check and has yet to be formally nominated by the White House.

Traditionally nominees for independent agencies get confirmed in pairs, so members of both parties have an interest in voting yes. Schumer wants to wait until all five can be voted on, so Slaughter isn’t orphaned. Senate leaders have offered a compromise: Immediately confirm Simons, the chair, Chopra, the Democrat, and potentially Phillips, while holding back one or two Republicans to pair with Slaughter when her nomination is ready. “If Schumer agreed to that deal, [Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell would take it,” said the Senate source. Schumer hasn’t taken it. That puts the FTC in limbo, at the mercy of the vetting process for Slaughter, which may not wrap up until mid-May or later.

Trump reveals $60bn of fresh tariffs on China as EU wins reprieve

Financial markets have taken fright after Donald Trump fired the latest shots in an escalating trade war between the world’s two biggest economies by announcing $60bn (£42.5bn) of further tariffs on China.

Amid relief in Brussels that the EU had won a temporary reprieve from Trump’s already announced action to protect the US from imports of steel and aluminium, Wall Street braced itself for retaliation from Beijing.

Trump told reporters that the US trade deficit with Beijing was out of control at about $504bn.

“It is the largest deficit of any country in the history of our world. It’s out of control,” the US president said as he signed a memorandum. “We have a tremendous intellectual property theft situation going on, which likewise is hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Just 24 hours before tariffs were to be enforced on the EU, the Trump administration announced it was exempting the bloc, along with Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and South Korea, while trade talks with those nations were ongoing.

China is ready to throwdown if Trump starts a trade war

Beijing reminded Donald Trump on Thursday that it would retaliate if the president imposed the anticipated tariffs worth billions of dollars on Chinese goods.

“China will certainly take all necessary measures to resolutely defend its legitimate rights and interests,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said Thursday, stoking fears of a trade war.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing would seek talks to find a mutually beneficial solution, but would not shy away from a fight.

Police muted their body cameras after fatally shooting unarmed black man

Several minutes after Sacramento police fatally shot an unarmed black man in his own backyard on Sunday night, they muted their body cameras, body camera footage released on Wednesday by the department shows.

The officers, however, kept talking to each other and other bystanders for at least two minutes.

The Sacramento Police Department released the footage just days after two of its officers shot and killed the man, identified as 22-year-old Stephon Clark by the Sacramento Bee, on Sunday. Initially, police thought the man had a gun. Then, the department said he had a “toolbar.” But he was only carrying a cell phone, according to a final clarification the department released on Tuesday.



the horse race



Trump’s head lawyer in the Russia probe is quitting

President Trump’s lead lawyer in the special counsel’s investigation of his campaign’s ties to Russia is quitting, the lawyer told NBC on Thursday.

John Dowd joined the president’s legal team in June 2017, but he and Trump have frequently disagreed, most significantly about whether Trump should agree to an in-person interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, according to the New York Times. Two people briefed on the matter told the Times that Dowd has already resigned.



the evening greens


'Great Pacific garbage patch' sprawling with far more debris than thought

An enormous area of rubbish floating in the Pacific Ocean is teeming with far more debris than previously thought, heightening alarm that the world’s oceans are being increasingly choked by trillions of pieces of plastic.

The sprawling patch of detritus – spanning 1.6m sq km, (617,763 sq miles) more than twice the size of France – contains at least 79,000 tons of plastic, new research published in Nature has found. This mass of waste is up to 16 times larger than previous estimates and provides a sobering challenge to a team that will start an ambitious attempt to clean up the vast swath of the Pacific this summer.

The analysis, conducted by boat and air surveys taken over two years, found that pollution in the so-called Great Pacific garbage patch is almost exclusively plastic and is “increasing exponentially”. Microplastics, measuring less than 0.5cm (0.2in), make up the bulk of the estimated 1.8tn pieces floating in the garbage patch, which is kept in rough formation by a swirling ocean gyre.

While tiny fragments of plastic are the most numerous, nearly half of the weight of rubbish is composed of discarded fishing nets. Other items spotted in the stew of plastic include bottles, plates, buoys, ropes and even a toilet seat.

Trees older than America: a primeval Alaskan forest is at risk in the Trump era

At south-east Alaska’s last industrial-scale sawmill, wheel loaders stack debarked logs two storeys high on the frozen ground. A bumper sticker on a battered Ford in the parking lot reads “Cut Kill Dig Drill”, a mantra that many in the 49th state appreciate repeating. Viking Lumber Company employs 34 people and sustains itself primarily on old-growth trees harvested from the Tongass, the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. Many of them have been around longer than the United States – some for 1,000 years.

Under the Trump administration, the future of these ancient trees is uncertain. The Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski is pushing for more old-growth logging, and has sought to attach pro-logging provisions to the omnibus bill on US government spending that is being negotiated this week in Congress. If such efforts are successful, the country stands at risk of losing some of its last remaining coniferous old growth in order to sustain south-east Alaska’s last industrial-scale sawmill.

Bryce Dahlstrom, the Viking vice-president, who declined to comment for this article, has said elsewhere that his mill cannot afford to modernize equipment dating from the 1940s to accommodate smaller-radius young and second growth. If he runs out of old growth, his mill will shut down. Meanwhile, conservationists – joined by a growing number of fishermen and tourism representatives – insist that the Tongass, and the region, cannot afford to cut more old-growth trees.

In 2014 a motley group of timber executives, conservationists, fishermen and Native shareholders came together at the behest of the US Forest Service to examine the sustainability of the practice. In 2016, after hundreds of hours in conference rooms examining maps and modeling timber stands, and much bad coffee, they settled on a plan that set aside units of old growth for logging but ultimately phased out the large-scale cuts over the course of two decades.

Senator Murkowski has proposed scrapping this plan, reasoning that it takes too much old growth off the table too quickly. Her hesitancy to support the move away from old growth is consistent with her efforts to unlock Alaska for gold, timber and oil extraction. She recently spearheaded the successful push to open the Arctic for oil drilling. Born in the logging town of Ketchikan, she has long been in the thrall of the old-growth timber industry.


Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country

Brazil’s Marielle Franco Denounced Three Murders in the Days Before Her Assassination. These Are the Stories.

ICE Contractor Says It Doesn’t Use Solitary Confinement. Photos of Its Isolation Cells Reveal Otherwise.

Syrian rebel victory in Afrin reveals strength of Turkish-backed force

Saudi Crown Prince Boasted That Jared Kushner Was “In His Pocket”

Syria: Turkish President threatens to launch wider offensive against Kurds after capturing Afrin

Calls to end Yemen war renewed after US Senate bill failure


A Little Night Music

R. L. Burnside - Miss Maybelle

R.L. Burnside - See My Jumper Hanging On the Line

RL Burnside - Shake'em On Down

R.L. Burnside - Everything Is Broken

R.L. Burnside - Peaches

R.L. Burnside - Goin' Down South

R L Burnside - My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble

R.L.Burnside - It's Bad You Know

R.L. Burnside Live Performance in 1984


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OLinda's picture

Initially, police thought the man had a gun. Then, the department said he had a “toolbar.” But he was only carrying a cell phone,

I don't know if the cops keep thinking they see a gun, or if they just say it after the fact to try to give an excuse. My car registration and proof of insurance is in the glove compartment in a black plastic sleeve, made just for that purpose. It is clear on one side, but black on one side. I find myself worrying about reaching over and pulling something black out of the compartment with a cop at the car window. Finally decided to switch it out and just put my registration in a regular white envelope.

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@OLinda
When I get stopped, it's both hands on the wheel when they walk up. When they ask for registration, I tell them it's in the glovebox, would you like me to get it? Then I make sure they can see both hands as I slowly retrieve it.

It's pointless arguing any kind of point with cops. They don't know the laws, and they will shoot you to protect their ignorance...

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OLinda's picture

@BORG_US_BORG

Either way, I'd rather not pull anything black out. I don't have a cell phone, but if I get one, it will be pink or yellow - maybe Hello Kitty. If I had kids, and especially if they were black, I wouldn't let them carry a black phone. You're right though, if they want to shoot you, they will.

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joe shikspack's picture

@OLinda

I don't know if the cops keep thinking they see a gun, or if they just say it after the fact to try to give an excuse.

well, they say that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

somebody ought to compose a list of all the things that cops have seen that were said to resemble weapons of some sort in subsequent testimony attempting to justify lethal force. i bet it would be an interesting list.

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Thankfully I don't have any children of my own. My financial situation has always been precarious to even consider it, plus I like my own time.

Whenever a friend or acquaintance has a child, I look them straight in the eye and tell them they need to be fighting right now for a habitable earth in the near future,with everything they have got, as if their childs life depends upon it, because it does.

I see nothing but death, extinction, scarcity, fascism, and corporate world emperors waging a war against 99.9999999% of the rest of the worlds population, in the not very distant future. Like maybe 1 generation.

"They" are talking about climate change impacts in Africa are creating even more pressure on the last remaining populations of large mammals there. Elephants possibly being extinct within 10-15 years.

I'm totally atheist, but still recognize the messages in faiths. Doesn't anybody understand, why can't we collectively understand as global citizens, that this Earth IS the Garden of Eden? Everything is provided, we are a part of it, not separate of it. We have to take care of our Garden or it will become barren and blow away.

All these wars are so completely wasteful, of lives, energy, intelligence, resources, possibility, TIME and the FUTURE.

We are squandering the future over outmoded concepts. You can't bomb your way to peace. We need to work together, everyone together in the world to tackle these real and pressing issues that affect us all, even the rich pigs.We need the Earth absolutely, it doesn't need us AT ALL. Colonizing Mars is a fools errand, how can one reasonably expect we are going to create an oasis on a barren rock, millions of miles away from us, while we are here in the Garden, killing everyone and thing, and stripping every asset from nature as fast as possibly possible and turning it into a barren polluted wasteland?

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@BORG_US_BORG

save the traveling?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

joe shikspack's picture

@BORG_US_BORG

well stated.

You can't bomb your way to peace.

surely, the people who engage in this behavior know that. peace is obviously not their goal.

in the same way, the rich people looking to colonize new zealand bolt holes or mars are merely thieves looking to make off with their ill-gotten gains while the rest of us pay the price for their corruption and decadence.

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@BORG_US_BORG And, with the last century or so, I'm thinking the good Earth would be glad to see us gone. If not the Earth herownself, I'm guessing greater than 99% of its other inhabitants.

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OLinda's picture

Apparently, Joe Biden said he could beat up D. Trump. So Trump says no he, Trump, would win a fight with Biden. I'm so sick of the childishness coming from our so-called leaders/officials. I'm old enough to remember when top pols were statesmen-like, or at least they faked it pretty well when talking to press.

Jake Tapper had this to say about it. i don't have TV so am not that familiar with Jake, but he went up a couple points of esteem in my eyes.

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joe shikspack's picture

@OLinda

i, for one, applaud them. i have long thought that the world would be a better place if ego-driven old men would duke it out amongst themselves instead of having young men and military hardware enact their penis-waving fantasies.

down the road from where i live, in bladensburg, maryland is the former congressional dueling grounds. i have long thought that the tradition of members of the millionaire's club duelling should be revived seeing as term limits never seem to get enacted.

there's not much left of the bladensburg grounds, in fact it took me a while to find them, but it's certainly large enough for a boxing ring.

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NCTim's picture

Living loud. Thanks Joe!

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

joe shikspack's picture

@NCTim

that r.l. really knew how to throw a riotous good time. Smile

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bad news and 'bad' blues ballads, bad to the bone. How much more bad before we get mad? Like an open air insane asylum mad.

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joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

it is bad, you know.

How much more bad before we get mad?

heh, you mean the human race is not insane already? a quick perusal of the catalog of destructive behaviors should confirm that in the face of any fleeting doubts.

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@joe shikspack

a quick perusal of the catalog of destructive behaviors should confirm that in the face of any fleeting doubts

I think to hope I can guess where you were going with this, but to remove all doubt...

In the faces of all the doubts which are fleeing, we are seeing a purpose in the insanity people reel thru. Negate the insanity, create a new reality. Forego the powerless overlords. Re-focus on our strengths to create change within this lifetime by all the energy we have built.

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OzoneTom's picture

John Bolton to replace McMaster as Trump administration National Security Advisor.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/22/trump-removes-h-...

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joe shikspack's picture

@OzoneTom

yep, if it wasn't kind of sick and perverse, i'd start a pool on how long it will take bolton and the neocons to get this war off the ground.

hmmm, perhaps my time would be better spent digging and stocking a fallout shelter.

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