Bush è il vampire dell'olio

How much clearer can it be: Bush has more than doubled oil prices and will probably kill the economy.

È completamente chiaro. Bush ha raddoppiato il prezzo di benzina ed ucciderà l'economia.

the despot alone

The Snow man busts with some inadvertent truth:

In the totalitarian states the despot alone has the opportunity to declare what he or she wants to do. And frankly, they are much more warlike.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."

New spy boss a Cheney tool

This is frightening news:

The new CIA director will be a secretive henchman of Dick Cheney who's behind the illegal spying on millions of Americans.

Late Friday night, word leaked out that Gen. Michael Hayden is the White House choice to take over CIA duties from suddenly-fired spook insider Porter Goss.

Hayden, a 61-year-old Air Force general, was the "human face" of the National Security Agency's criminal spying on Americans that actually began before the convenient 9/11 attacks.

Accused in July 2001 of using the NSA to spy on millions of Americans, Hayden made the bizarre claim that everything was fine because the White House and Pentagon held the reins.

"We aren't off the leash, so to speak, guarding ourselves. We have a body of oversight within the executive branch, in the Department of Defense, in the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board."

Hayden made the claims on the TV show Nightline back in the summer of 2001.

When the latest NSA spying scandal made the news in January, Hayden was sarcastically dismissive of the concerns of Americans.

In 2005, he was moved from the "highest ranking military intelligence officer in the U.S. military" to the new post known as "principal deputy director of national intelligence."

That post was created by U.S. supervillain John Negroponte, who just last year was made "the nation's first director of national intelligence," with Hayden as his second-in-command.

(Some of the many recent rumors about Porter Goss' sudden shameful resignation as head of the CIA say that Negroponte is holding the axe.)

A lifelong spook operating under cover of an Air Force uniform, Hayden was put in charge of NSA -- known as "No Such Agency" for much of its cryptic history -- by none other than Bill Clinton.

Clinton had authorized the first attempt at constant electronic surveillance of Americans, a repugnant project called Echelon that was launched in concert with his police-state comrade Tony Blair.

Conspiracy theories

I believe every word of this, and I'm not paranoid. However, I believe every word of this, too.

I don't trust the government to run a competent investigation (qv: Warren Report), or to execute a competent conspiracy/coverup on the scale of the Kennedy assassination, Area 51, etc.

That doesn't mean that there aren't certainly things that are being hidden to manipulate us. More careful sleuthing is needed to uncover the truth.

I definitely agree that Bush/Cheney were anticipating 9/11:

The Busheviks were forewarned ("Bin Laden determined to strike in the US"), but they expected attacks on the scale of the USS Cole and the African embassies: perhaps a few dozen casualties -- "acceptable." They did not take countermeasures because they saw a strategic advantage in such a "mini-Pearl Harbor." For such a purpose, the attack on The Pentagon would suffice. They did not expect the destruction of the World Trade Center. However, after 9/11 the die was cast, and so they eagerly launched their "war on terror," along with the policy outrages that were to follow: the USA PATRIOT ACT, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo. The Iraq War, we now know from Richard Clarke and the Downing Street memos, was on the drawing boards long before 9/11, awaiting just such an event to set it in motion.

In any decent country there would be blood in the streets over this...

Things that really matter

I'm coming to the end of a ridiculously chaotic period in my life, and I'm thinking about what's important to me going forward, what my focus should be.

Obviously, to me anyway, the relationship comes first. I put all this energy into my solitary spiritual trip and now I am broadening that out to include a relationship, making a home with someone... and blending our spiritual energies in a way that makes sense for both of us. I am really building momentum on my health, adding more and more good habits and building up positive feedback. My work is also important, not as an end in itself really, but as another sort of creative expression. Learning, it seems like, is part of my art form and so I am learning a lot at work.

I feel like history is swirling all around me, that we are moving into this incredible historic moment with the spread of war, environmental devastation and the beginning of the collapse of the Empire. I have put so much energy over the past 10 years or so learning about the state of the world and now I have all this information and so little of a sense of what to do with it. I guess I don't feel there's very much that can happen to affect the enormous momentum of events, but maybe there are things that can help people handle the consequences of events and begin to recapture some of their power.

Traveling with my girl is huge. The trip to Italy this year, and Venezuela next year, absolutely have to happen. These plans affect the choices I make about work, which is why I am working so hard these days. A lot of the leisure learning I am doing: advancing my Italian, world affairs, history... these will all also giude my travel plans and the things I want to learn about the world.

So, here I am. Every day, these are my priorities:

1. Build the relationship and treat D with greater love, respect and kindness every day
2. Take time for meditation and be thankful for all the good things in my life
   
3. Add positive health habits regularly
4. Keep learning new things and write more
5. Think about how to help others and save the world
   

Rebooting my life...

So this is my fourth attempt to compose a new entry. This ancient brick of a laptop rebooted thrice while I was writing, and I'm thinking about sending it in for repair. (Before, I was thinking about getting one of those new Apple laptops, but every time I had that thought the computer would reboot again. Shhhh...)

What would it be like if I didn't have a computer at my house for a series of days? How would my life change? It is interesting to think about. I'm getting to the point where I hardly find anything interesting to read online - news just outrages me, and I can't read for pleasure online... I must have that tactile sense of a book in my hands. Maybe it's time to go on a computer fast... maybe I'd actually develop something of an attention span. Maybe I'd start writing in my paper journal again. Imagine that...

Anyway, to the point of the original entry: my life has changed subtly but sort of dramatically since coming back from New York and going on days. I was musing about the difference between wanting and having, and how that energy changes my focus. I feel like I have been spending a huge amount of time and attention over the years seeking a relationship that doesn't leave me wanting more, a job that actually pays money, something to do in the evenings. A decade on a rock makes even sleepy San Diego seem like a wonderland, I'm not making a ton of money but my expenses are low enough that I can enjoy myself on my income and, well... D is everything I have ever wanted in a woman and more.

So now I am reflecting on how to ground that seeking energy in my life. Certainly, I want to deepen my relationship, progress in my career and broaden my interests, so I think there's always going to be some expansive dynamic in my life. At the same time, there's a certain abiding energy that I would like to develop: just being with things as they are. I get to a place of utter contentment when I'm with D, for example, that i think comes from complete absorption in the moment. I would like to expand that into other areas of my life.

And, as always, the answer comes down to more meditation, more practice, more making it real and not just lip service to an ideal. Which makes me think of the paradox of practice: effort without striving for a goal. I think that may be part of what I am groping around for here... that the dynamic I am talking about fostering in my life is just that kind of deepening, intensifying energy, but in a settled way, not looking for external stimulation to bring me satisfaction.

Hmm.

Anyway, I have to fix this damn computer.

This is how freedom dies...

Bush has taken total power. And Americans are paying attention to - what? - Brad and Angelina's baby. Don't cross this president, or he might crush your child's testicles.

Goddess help me. Fuck this country.

Okay, I promise I'll write something more personal and meaningful soon. Rrrrrrrrr... I'm freakin'.

My life, rated...

This is dorky, but at least I got a good score:

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	8.1
Mind:	8.1
Body:	8.8
Spirit:	9.2
Friends/Family:	4.2
Love:	8.5
Finance:	8.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Last night shift!

I'm finally finished with the 10pm - 6am shift from fucking hell! The work has been really easy, and I have made good money... however it's been pretty hard on my body and my personal life. Night shift just sucks no matter how you slice it.

At the beginning I bullshitted myself that I was going to do all these things during this rotation -- write more, study Italian -- but it mostly didn't happen. I mean, I wrote in my blog a fair amount, and I spent some time studying D's Italian book, but for the most part the last three months have been a haze. I looked in my regular journal the other day and I saw I didn't write in it since right after D and I got back together... back in September.

I am really looking forward to day shift though, and I have reasonable expectations I think. I am starting to get my old workout routine back, and all I am talking about doing is ratcheting the intensity up and meditating regularly. And getting back into sailing and learning salsa and doing yoga. And getting as much overtime as I can. And spending more time with Denise.

Yeah, totally reasonable...

Coastal elitists...

Denise and I spent New Year's in New York (for those of you who have not heard me brag on this endlessly for the past week). Yesterday I was telling her how I sort of felt at home in NYC, at least in Manhattan, because I felt like I could relate to a lot of the people. Culturally, it seems to me, New York and California are more alike than they are different.

She expressed some feelings about having a night off and there not really being that much to do other than things she always did. We started talking about how limited San Diego is, though we both really love it here and kind of feel we should appreciate it more. But a few days riding Manhattan subways clued us in to how fragmented we are in California: everyone's in their cars, and you go from Point A to Point B, not walking through neighborhoods as we did there. We heard so many different languages in New York, and there were a few neither of us could identify. In San Diego, whites and Latinos barely interact, and you hardly ever see any other minorities. They're out there, but we don't mix very much.

Then, I got her to talk a little about Oklahoma, and in many ways she made it sound like New Jersey. Some of the same things that drove me out of my "homeland" caused D to flee OK: the narrowness of the people, the seeming lack of interest in anything outside their own little worlds, the bitterness and the intolerant gossipyness. I opined that the reason so many people in what I (humorously) refer to as "flyover country" have serious aggression issues just goes back to a lack of love, whether through getting stuck in loveless relationships because of children, or just the inability ot meet the right person in a small community. Denise said she thought it had more to do with people unable to see beyond their limits, and unable or unwilling to seek out their dreams. I think she has a point, but in a certain sense I think we're describing the same dynamic from different perspectives.

Anyway, I'm trying to do less political stuff and actually write down things I feel. For once, it seems, what I'm feeling doesn't directly involve my private life with D and so seems fair game for this page.

I'd genuinely love to read some comments on what seems like a highly condescending elitist conversation. I mean, I know I'm painting with a broad brush here, but I wouldn't have spoken or wirtten in as much detail as I have if I didn't think the ideas had some merit. Just trying to gain some perspective.

If only...

CIA Chief Admits To Torture After Six-Hour Beating, Electrocution

December 21, 2005 | The Onion, issue 41•51

LANGLEY, VA—An internal CIA investigation into the possible use of illegal and inhumane interrogation techniques produced a confession from CIA director Porter Goss Monday, with the aid of waterboarding, food and light deprivation, and the application of wire hangers hooked to a car battery to the testicles. "I did it. We did it. We all did it. The president knew. The president did it. Please, God, please stop," said a voice identified as Goss' on recordings produced by CIA auditors. "Stop, please stop. I'm sorry. I won't do it again. The president won't do it again. Please let me die." Critics of the methods used to obtain the information continue to claim that torture is an ineffective means of obtaining intelligence, pointing out that Goss did not sound sorry.

Fucking bandits...

In a year of record budget deficits and tax cuts for the rich, the United States Senate voted late last night to cut programs for - you guessed it - students, the poor, and the elderly. Way to fucking go, you bastards.

Federal program cuts

The spending-cut bills passed by the House on Monday and the Senate on Wednesday would scale back funding for a range of federal programs over the next five years. Savings would amount to about $40 billion. President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law after the House agrees to small changes made by the Senate.

• Program: Student loans
• Total cuts: $22 billion
• Major changes: Charge graduates higher repayment rates; scale back government subsidies for banks and other lenders; reduce government administrative expenses.
• Program: Medicare
• Total cuts: $6 billion
• Major changes: Charge high-income beneficiaries more for their insurance for doctor visits; reduce payments to managed care providers.
• Program: Medicaid
• Total cuts: $5 billion
• Major changes: Tighten rules against sheltering assets for determining Medicaid eligibility; allow states to reduce services and charge higher co-payments, particularly for recipients above the poverty line.
• Program: Pensions
• Total cuts: $4 billion
• Major changes: Raise the fee charged by the government to guarantee private pensions.
• Program: Child support
• Total cuts: $2 billion
• Major changes: Cut federal aid to states for enforcement of child-support payments by parents.

It's official: we live in a police state...

More plagiarism From C. William Michael's 2002 book ''No Greater Threat: America After September 11 and the Rise of the National Security State'' (via Sean Gonsalves), here are the 12 most common characteristics of a national security state:

1. Visible increase in uniformed security.
   Got that;
2. Lack of accountability in law enforcement.
   George Tenet got a medal for his fine WMD work and ''Brownie'' was praised for doing "a heckuva job" in the Katrina aftermath;
3. Reduced judiciary and executive treatment of suspects.
   Can you say ''detainee''?;
4. Secrecy of ruling authority and momentum of threat.
   It's an open secret that this administration has taken official secrecy to a whole new level;
5. Media in the service of the state.
   The Times held the eavesdropping story for a year, to say nothing of the WMD reporting of the major media in the run-up to the war;
6. National resources devoted to security threat.
   The most recent budget passed in Congress speaks for itself;
7. Patriotism moving to nationalism.
   Since 9-11, America was divided in two - between those who don't know the difference between patriotism and nationalism and those who are terrorist-sympathizing, blame-America-first traitors;
8. Lack of critical response by religions.
   Name one prominent national church leader critical of the way U.S. power has been wielded. At this point, I'll settle for a religious leader who isn't telling their parishioners to vote Republican to stop abortion and gay rights or who isn't calling for the assassination of foreign leaders;
9. Wartime mentality and permanent war economy.
   See any Bush speech;
10. Targeted individuals and groups.
    Scott Ritter, Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson, Cindy Sheehan and MoveOn.org come to mind;
11. Direct attack on dissent.
    See previous comment;
    
12. Increased surveillance of citizenry.
    Or as it's being called now, a ''special collection program.''

New York New York big city of dreams...

Yo folks... I'm going to NYC for New Year's!! Most everybody likely to read this probably knows already, but I just can't brag on this enough. Denise was going to go to London for a couple weeks, but it just didn't work out economically, and at a certain point it just occurred to me... why should she give up a perfectly good NYC - SD round trip? We'd have just ended up at some random San Diego bar, so why not do something memorable?

Little did I know what I set in motion. I already knew that Hyatt employees get reduced rates at Hyatt hotels, but as it turns out they actually get free nights at Hyatt hotels... so we're staying for two nights at the fucking Grand Hyatt New York - for free. And it turns out my high school girlfriend is going out of town for New Year's Eve, so we get to stay at her cool-ass Chelsea flat that night. So it's clear that this trip was totally meant to happen.

Not going to go into too much personal detail here, just to be sensitive to my girl's privacy... other than to note that we celebrated six months from the day we met, and it kicked major ass, and she knows how incredible she is, so 'nuff said. Me, I want to shout it from the rooftops, but not everybody is as big an exhibitionist as I am, so what can you do.

I'll write later about the news confirming that the country of my birth is now publicly acknowledged by the Presdent to be a dictatorship - "I do what I want, and fuck you if you don't like it" - but right now I'm feeling happy and in no mood to rage in my usual fashion.

Watchi this space, though...

"A stick in McCain's eye..."

Who the fuck are they kidding? The media is all spinning Bush's deal on the so-called torture ban as a defeat for the president, but doesn't the media read... the media? There was an article in the New York Times way back on Wednesday where it was reported that the new classified addendum to the Army Field Manual will permit all sorts of new "interrogation techniques" (torture) such as "stress positions" (torture) and "sensory deprivation and humiliation" (torture).

Since the McCain "deal" involves making the Army Field Manual the standard by which "torture" is judged, then it would seem that McCain got screwed and Bush wins. Again.

Idiots.

Resting in peace...

The state killed Tookie Williams at 0h35 this morning. I don't know enough about the case to be sure how I feel about it. I am against the death penalty. I am against locking someone in a cage for the extent of their life with no purpose.

What I would like to see, instead of the "retributive" justice we have in this country, is a true system of restorative justice. Let Tookie spend his life working in the community of the people he killed. Let him be a spokesman against gang violence, against hate between blacks and Asians. Let him work his ass off for the rest of his life for the families of the people he killed.

I understand the human desire for retribution... if someone killed a person I love, I would want to kill them with my own hands. And I'm a pacifist! But having the desire for retribution doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it smart policy. And it doesn't do anything to save future victims of violence.

RIP Stanley Williams.

RIP Albert Owens.

RIP Yang Yen-i.

RIP Yang Tsai-Shai Chen.

RIP Yang Lin Yu-Chin.

Rumsfeld smacked down in press conference...

Marine General Peter Pace actually had to confront Rumsfeld in public when the Secretary of Defense said that American troops weren't supposed to stop Iraqis from torturing people.

"Obviously," the murderous fascist said, "the United States does not have a responsibility when a sovereign country engages in something that they disapprove of." Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, disagreed. "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it."

Rumsfeld, his blood pressure probably peaking by now, snapped "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it."Then, the General contradicted his boss a second time, in public. You gotta love the fucking Marines.

Albert Einstein said, "only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe."

"A working-class hero is something to be..."

I just read that Thursday will be twenty-five years since John Lennon's murder. I remember that dark, cold morning: December 8, 1980... I was - what? 14 years old, wow.

I woke up and turned on WMMR, and they were playing only John Lennon and Beatles tunes. The DJ came on and told me the news, and I remember distinctly the feeling of my whole world crashing down. I had just started getting into old Beatles, mostly the pre-Beatlemania stuff, but it wasn't like I was a Beatles freak. However, the news just devastated me, as it obviously did people who were a lot older than me. When the DJ reported that he was killed, he used the word "assassinated," which was weird 'cause I thought they just said that about Presidents and Kings, not rock stars...

I was totally freaked out, and I went into the kitchen and asking my mom, "Did you hear?" It was only then that I started to cry. I pulled it together in time for school, and in my History of Rock class (yes, my high school did have that as an elective) this girl Lynn Gallo asked me if I cried. I told her no, of course... didn't want her to think I was a pussy. All I really remember about the rest of that day was that I was the only person who was at all affected. I felt kind of the same way on September 11 in Hawai'i, when it seemed like I was the only person walking around like something deep and profound had broken in the world.

I just soaked up all the Lennon stuff on the radio and TV. I taped all 8 or whatever hours of the Andy Peebles BBC Lennon interviews off the radio and played them over and over again, in bed with my huge old headphones plugged into my Panasonic tape recorder, listening to John and Yoko talking about world peace. I've always had it in my head that his murder was my "radicalising event" in the way that old hippies had the assassination of JFK. When I look back on it now, though, I'm struck by how much Lennon's philosophy affected the development of my outlook on the world. I definitely became a leftist that day... however, I hadn't realised until just now that I also became a Buddhist on that day, though I didn't act on it until much later.

I've changed so much - and yet really so little - in the quarter century that passed since then. I think what I mean is that I tried at different points in my life to be someone different - doing drugs in my teens, joining a commune in my 20s - only to come back to the essential core which is who I was way back then. At this late date in my life - nearing 40!!! - I feel more like that long-ago teenager than I have in all the intervening years. It seems really important to hold faith with that dumb idealistic kid.

To Whom It May Concern
(with apologies to Adrian Mitchell)

I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Iraq.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Iraq.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Iraq.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Iraq.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Up on Mount Soledad drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Iraq.

You put your "interrogators" in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Iraq.

All work and no play...

I am working my 12 hour shift right now. It's super intense in a certain sense, just being here for so damn long. On the other hand, it's Sunday night, it's quiet, and I'm not exhausted yet. On the one foot, though, there was this great yard party Celso had going for the Chargers-Raiders game, and it was a beautiful warm clear day and my baby was out of work by 3pm. On the other foot, I'm making good money. So it's a mixed bag.

I'm finally actually working on my Italian, as I had planned to do months ago. I'm just usually so mind-wasted that I can't do anything. I'm trying to really use my time better, and I think it is having a good effect. Just spacing out or reading tends to deaden the mind, while doing something actively that requires thought seems to keep the brain-fog down a bit.

I would be more depressed if there wasn't a light at the end of the tunnel; already Jeff, Dave, and - most importantly - Chris have told me that I will be coming off nights soon. Nobody can put a date on it but it is clear that they need me on days. It is going to be a revolution in my life to rejoin the human race, and I am really really hopeful that I can be back on days while Denise is on break. It's sort of amazing that our relationship hasn't been more stressed by our opposite schedules.

I really, really can't understand why the media lets the government get away with such obvious, patent untruths. They keep saying "we do not torture" but are fighting a law that makes it clear that torture is against the law (which it is already, even with so-called "enemy combatants"- under the Fourth Geneva Convention). They say that we're not flying people around to torture them, but that we need to fly people around to torture them because "we're at war" (we're not, actually). They lie and lie and lie, and have no shame because they know they can get away with it. I almost blame the media more - agree with them or not, at least the government has an agenda. What is the media's agenda, other than being butt-boys to power?

This is freaky but pretty cool... people fucking inside an MRI machine. I know it's a clinical and a little gross, but I've always been curious just where things go inside there. I paid attention in sex ed and all, but you know... seeing is believing.