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September 23, 2009
FBI: Census worker possibly murdered by anti-government extremists
My father is a census worker, so this hits especially close to home for me.
MSNBC.com
Full Story after the jump
WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating whether anti-government sentiment led to the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest.
The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment. An autopsy report is pending.
Investigators have said little about the case. The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, said Wednesday the man was found hanging from a tree and the word "fed" was written on the dead man's chest. The official did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word.
FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is helping state police with the case.
"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that's part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a census worker," said Beyer.
Beyer declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.
Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau's southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is "an apparent homicide" but nothing else.
'Deeply saddened'
Census employees were told Sparkman's truck was found nearby, and a computer he was using for work was found inside it, she said. He worked part-time for the Census, usually conducting interviews once or twice a month.
Sparkman has worked for the Census since 2003, spanning five counties in the surrounding area. Much of his recent work had been in Clay County, officials said.
Door-to-door operations have been suspended in Clay County pending a resolution of the investigation, Scurry-Johnson said.
The U.S. Census Bureau is overseen by the Commerce Department.
"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our co-worker," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with William Sparkman's son, other family and friends."
Locke called him "a shining example of the hardworking men and women employed by the Census Bureau."
Full Story after the jump
MSNBC.com
Full Story after the jump
WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating whether anti-government sentiment led to the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest.
The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment. An autopsy report is pending.
Investigators have said little about the case. The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, said Wednesday the man was found hanging from a tree and the word "fed" was written on the dead man's chest. The official did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word.
FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is helping state police with the case.
"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that's part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a census worker," said Beyer.
Beyer declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.
Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau's southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is "an apparent homicide" but nothing else.
'Deeply saddened'
Census employees were told Sparkman's truck was found nearby, and a computer he was using for work was found inside it, she said. He worked part-time for the Census, usually conducting interviews once or twice a month.
Sparkman has worked for the Census since 2003, spanning five counties in the surrounding area. Much of his recent work had been in Clay County, officials said.
Door-to-door operations have been suspended in Clay County pending a resolution of the investigation, Scurry-Johnson said.
The U.S. Census Bureau is overseen by the Commerce Department.
"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our co-worker," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with William Sparkman's son, other family and friends."
Locke called him "a shining example of the hardworking men and women employed by the Census Bureau."
Full Story after the jump
September 22, 2009
The Punk Patriot * Wealth Distribution in America
MY NEW CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/ThePunkPatriot
BLOG: http://punkpatriot.blogspot.com
STORE: http://punkpatriot.etsy.com
Single Payer Insurgency! UPDATE
Fuck yeah. Check this out:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpkrw4
Go Single Payer insurgents! Go!
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpkrw4
Go Single Payer insurgents! Go!
September 18, 2009
Sexting Fail / Single Payer Insurgency
Check out this video!
We need a single payer insurgency into all the namby pamby groups out there. I explain how to do it.
September 15, 2009
DON'T GET ROLLED
MY NEW CHANNEL:
http://www.youtube.com/THEPUNKPATRIOT
ACTION LINK:
http://dontgetrolled.org
LYING CORPORATE CRONIES:
http://www.citizensunited.org/
PUBLIC CITIZEN'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL (THE GOOD GUYS):
http://www.youtube.com/user/PublicCit...
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STORE: http://punkpatriot.etsy.com
FACEBOOK! http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pun...
Conservative chain letters from my grandfather
Normally, when I get an chain-email that's full of illogical conservative nonsense from my Glenn Beck-loving, Rush Limbaugh listening grandfather, I usually just disregard it, because it's usually petty bullshit.
But since the conservatives have taken to just plain making shit up, and since nobody is calling them on their bullshit, I think it's time we stop being passive about this, and call them out when they're full of shit. Every single time. They're like children. If you give them leeway, they will think they can get away with it. So since I did the work once, I figure you should have the benefit of using this as information ammunition should you come across the same stupidity.
Now, today I got an email about the cash for clunkers program. I want to point out that this isn't in defense of the program. It's in defense of MATH.
So here's the email I got:
A barrel of oil is 42 gallons of oil.
Depending on refining efficiency, the gasoline extracted can vary, but averages about 20 gallons per barrel, in reality, it's about 19.7 gallons, but rounding up for ease of math...
(from the Dept of Energy's website)
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99288.htm
FIRST ERROR: 224million gallons a year doesn't equate to 5 million barrels of oil.
Check it out:
20/1 = 224,000,000/x
x=11,200,000
224 million gallons would come from 11.2 million barrels of oil.
That's more than twice the figure given.
SECOND ERROR: 5 million is NOT 1/4 of our daily petroleum consumption.
The USA uses 8,989,000 barrels of oil a day in transportation.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
So even if the savings was 5million, it would be more than half of our daily consumption, not a fourth.
What's more, 11.2 million barrels (the actual savings in this hypothetical) is not 1/4 of 8.989 million either-- 11.2 million is roughly 120% of 8.989 million.
THIRD ERROR: 11.2 million barrels would cost $784 million at $70/bbl.
FOURTH ERROR: The average car has a lifespan of 20 years. Over twenty years, a savings of $784 million/yr = $15.68 billion
If all cars swapped out in the Cash for Clunkers deal were a swap of 15 to 25mpg, that means we spent less than $3 billion to save $15.68 billion dollars.
FIFTH ERROR: The most popular car purchased in the Cash for Clunkers program was the Toyota Camery, which gets 31mpg.
At 12,000 miles a year, that's 387 gallons a year, a fuel savings of 412 gallons over the 15 mpg car, per year.
If everybody bought a Camery, that's 288million gallons saved a year. That's $14.4 million barrels of oil. That's a little over one billion dollars a year.
And $20.16 billion dollars saved over the course of the lifetime of those vehicles.
A legitimate argument would have been that we're removing between $15-20 billion dollars from our GDP in petroleum sales.
But since the conservatives have taken to just plain making shit up, and since nobody is calling them on their bullshit, I think it's time we stop being passive about this, and call them out when they're full of shit. Every single time. They're like children. If you give them leeway, they will think they can get away with it. So since I did the work once, I figure you should have the benefit of using this as information ammunition should you come across the same stupidity.
Now, today I got an email about the cash for clunkers program. I want to point out that this isn't in defense of the program. It's in defense of MATH.
So here's the email I got:
A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline.Ha ha ha. Except for one thing. Somebody might want to check their math:
A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average "Cash for Clunkers" transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons / year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's US consumption.
And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $70/bbl.
So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $350 million.
How good a deal was that ???
They'll probably do a great job with health care though!!
A barrel of oil is 42 gallons of oil.
Depending on refining efficiency, the gasoline extracted can vary, but averages about 20 gallons per barrel, in reality, it's about 19.7 gallons, but rounding up for ease of math...
(from the Dept of Energy's website)
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99288.htm
FIRST ERROR: 224million gallons a year doesn't equate to 5 million barrels of oil.
Check it out:
20/1 = 224,000,000/x
x=11,200,000
224 million gallons would come from 11.2 million barrels of oil.
That's more than twice the figure given.
SECOND ERROR: 5 million is NOT 1/4 of our daily petroleum consumption.
The USA uses 8,989,000 barrels of oil a day in transportation.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
So even if the savings was 5million, it would be more than half of our daily consumption, not a fourth.
What's more, 11.2 million barrels (the actual savings in this hypothetical) is not 1/4 of 8.989 million either-- 11.2 million is roughly 120% of 8.989 million.
THIRD ERROR: 11.2 million barrels would cost $784 million at $70/bbl.
FOURTH ERROR: The average car has a lifespan of 20 years. Over twenty years, a savings of $784 million/yr = $15.68 billion
If all cars swapped out in the Cash for Clunkers deal were a swap of 15 to 25mpg, that means we spent less than $3 billion to save $15.68 billion dollars.
FIFTH ERROR: The most popular car purchased in the Cash for Clunkers program was the Toyota Camery, which gets 31mpg.
At 12,000 miles a year, that's 387 gallons a year, a fuel savings of 412 gallons over the 15 mpg car, per year.
If everybody bought a Camery, that's 288million gallons saved a year. That's $14.4 million barrels of oil. That's a little over one billion dollars a year.
And $20.16 billion dollars saved over the course of the lifetime of those vehicles.
A legitimate argument would have been that we're removing between $15-20 billion dollars from our GDP in petroleum sales.
September 12, 2009
The Defiling of tragedy
While cynics will say 9/11 has been used primarily to justify a trillion-dollar occupation and destruction of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, optimists will point out that 9/11 could also get you a “free” 99-cent sack of grease fries down at the Burger King, in Hilltop Plaza:
A list of more crimes against decency you might want to look at.
A list of more crimes against decency you might want to look at.
September 11, 2009
Where were you on 9-11-01?
I remember waking up, getting ready for English class. It was my second week of my freshman year of college. Before leaving to catch the bus to the other campus, I was checking the primussucks.com bullitan board, as was my habit at the time. There were several posts about the "airline accident" in NYC, and then suddenly, there were posts of a second plane hitting. It was probably a few minutes after 9am. My class didn't start until 10:30am.
I ran downstairs to see what was going on on the news. I sat there watching in disbeleif. I had become friends with the RD of the dorm, and I ran and got her, because I figured she ought to know.
She and I sat there watching transfixed as the towers burned. As the first tower fell, I was in total disbelief. I knew at that time that a steel structure building had never collapsed due to fire. Cookie was concerned that the buildings might burn down, and I mentioned that to her. Time was static, so I don't know how many minutes after that I was proven wrong. I imagined all the people's lives inside being extinguished in a horrible instant, and my could feel my heart, and my soul, fall to the floor with the tower. Felt completely empty.
Cookie, the RD turned to me and said, "I would hate to be president right now." I looked at her, and asked if she was kidding. I looked back at the television and said, looking into the smoke, "for at least a year after something like this, you could pass whatever laws you wanted to. If he wants to the Senate to declare war, he can declare war on whomever he wants. Nobody will question the President during a crisis like this."
Looking back, I don't know why I said that, or how I knew that's what would happen. I'm not a Machiavellian person. It was what little American history I'd studied, probably; knowing how we interned the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Knowing how we had the Red Scare during the 1950s. During the Gulf War I was too young to understand what was going on, but I knew enough by the time Clinton was in office that I was against Clinton bombing Iraqi aspirin factories during the Monica Lewinsky scandal as a distraction. I had followed the 2000 election quite closely as a Senior in high school, watched as it was stolen, and was convinced that G.W. Bush would, like his father before him, declare war on somebody. I even have a letter I was assigned to write myself in High School by myself as a College Sophomore writing to my self as a High School Senior about what the future holds for me. It scares me a little now, but I said in that letter, half joking, "with George W Bush in office, we're sure to be at war with somebody by now, for no good reason." There was an inevitability I felt about it. Perhaps I was just jaded.
Sitting there watching as the remaining tower burned, Cookie looked back at me after my comment with tears and bit of anger in her eyes, visibly upset by what I'd said, and understandably. She said then, what I would come to agree with in the following October, when the congress passed the USAPATRIOT act. She said then, sitting next to me, "I hope you're wrong."
I wish I had been too.
***
Back on the couch, watching the images of the one tower smolder, still feeling raw as I felt the souls of every person in tower two extinguished in an instant, I didn't know what the appropriate thing to do was. Everything felt out of place and inappropriate in light of recent events. At 10:00 or so, I went and got on the bus to go to the Portland campus.
English class was still held, and I thank my professor to this day for not canceling class. His example is exactly what was actually meant when they said, "If we change our ways, the terrorists have won." For an hour and a half, we did grammar and writing style, as if nothing had happened.
I don't think Mr Phillipson realized at the time exactly what was happening or how serious it was, and he apologized the following class period for not having canceled class, but several of us thanked him.
Those of us who came into class, looked around confused about what to do or feel. Then our professor came in, threw his books down on the table, and said, "so, crazy stuff going on huh? Okay, let's do grammar."
At the time it struck me as being cold and detached, but looking back, it was exactly what we needed. It was nice to leave the insanity that was going on outside and focus on "Strunk and White." That class that day was a sort of psychic haven, while people standing outside the classroom door watching the screens, talking to one another about the end of the world.
***
That night, there was a girl in my dorm whom like most kids in my building in the 2nd week of classes, I didn't know, she was on the phone that night in the hallway, calling over and over again, crying, trying to find out if a friend of hers was on one of those four flights.
The phone lines were still all completely jammed as everybody in the USA was calling their loved ones to find out if they were okay. I really wanted for her friend or relative not to have been on one of those planes. It turned out that her friend was indeed on one of those planes. She dropped out of school. I did not see her again after that.
Over the next couple days, as the list of names of those who were in the towers came in, I made a list, and printed it off, and hung it up in the hallway of my dorm outside my room. I made it a point to read every single one and imagine who they were, see in my minds eye the person attached to that name. Something inside of me broke, but for the better. The bubble of security that had come with being an American born in the 1980s, the end of the Cold War nothing but a fuzzy childhood memory, had been not popped but shattered. There was an entire world of people out there, and it mattered what our government did. We could die because people in our government were killing people somewhere else in the world. I hadn't been paying attention in much detail to what my government had been doing. It was time for me to start.
I remember watching over the next few days, as no clear case was built for Osama Bin Laden. They just started repeating that it was suspected to be him, and at some point, it shifted from being suspected to be him, to be unquestionably by him, without any supporting evidence to report confirming this. It was because of this that I became skeptical of the official storyline very early on. There just wasn't any evidence to support what they were saying, or if there was, they certainly weren't presenting it. They were just stating things as fact with no evidence. The Bush administration refused to investigate for nearly two years, despite the pleas of family members who had lost their loved ones. Documents released on the matter were few, and those that were were almost entirely redacted.
It seemed like the talking heads were just making it all up, and just expecting us to believe whatever they said because we were in a state of shock, and they were the NEWS.
I had become too cynical and skeptical to just believe whatever I was told. All I wanted was evidence. Apparently four women who had lost their husbands in the attacks felt the same way. The whole thing reminded me too much of George Orwell's "1984."
Later, on October 26th, 2001, I saw on the crawl at the bottom of the screen that the congress had passed a new "anti-terrorism" bill. I didn't understand the need. Terrorism was illegal already. They didn't need to pass a law against it. I wondered what it could possibly be about. With the help of Jefferson.gov and the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, I started reading through the USAPATRIOT act. Turns out it was something straight out of 1984. At that point, I became more skeptical of the official story. Especially as I then learned from the New York Center for Constitutional Rights that this bill had been prepared and drafted a year prior, but was introduced at the last minute, giving nobody a chance to read it.
And that's really when everything began to change. Our libraries were (and still are) subject to search at any time by federal agents, and librarians who spoke out were slapped with law suits and detaining orders, telling them that they could not speak to anybody not even a lawyer. The librarians started putting up signs saying that federal agents had NOT searched their records yet. Over time those signs disappeared, and the librarians couldn't talk about it, by law.
I checked Jefferson.gov to find out who'd voted against the USAPATRIOT act. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. They became my heroes, even though I didn't know who they were at the time.
I became urgently interested in foreign affairs, history, and policy. I asked the questions that everybody was discouraged from asking, like, "why do they hate us?" I didn't want to go to the mall or go shopping or go to Disneyland, like Bush advised. I didn't want to "soak up the sun, and tell everyone to lighten up" as Sherly Crow's song, released just barely a year after, suggested. This was serious, and the responsibility was personal.
I researched our CIA's and Military's history in the Middle East and all around the world. It became clear to me through study why the USA was hated. 9-11 was, as Ron Paul said, "blowback."
For me, 9-11 was a wake up call, an alarm going off, calling me to civic responsibility. To personal responsibility. It seemed to me that most of the country hit the snooze button.
Don't forget.
..||..
I ran downstairs to see what was going on on the news. I sat there watching in disbeleif. I had become friends with the RD of the dorm, and I ran and got her, because I figured she ought to know.
She and I sat there watching transfixed as the towers burned. As the first tower fell, I was in total disbelief. I knew at that time that a steel structure building had never collapsed due to fire. Cookie was concerned that the buildings might burn down, and I mentioned that to her. Time was static, so I don't know how many minutes after that I was proven wrong. I imagined all the people's lives inside being extinguished in a horrible instant, and my could feel my heart, and my soul, fall to the floor with the tower. Felt completely empty.
Cookie, the RD turned to me and said, "I would hate to be president right now." I looked at her, and asked if she was kidding. I looked back at the television and said, looking into the smoke, "for at least a year after something like this, you could pass whatever laws you wanted to. If he wants to the Senate to declare war, he can declare war on whomever he wants. Nobody will question the President during a crisis like this."
Looking back, I don't know why I said that, or how I knew that's what would happen. I'm not a Machiavellian person. It was what little American history I'd studied, probably; knowing how we interned the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. Knowing how we had the Red Scare during the 1950s. During the Gulf War I was too young to understand what was going on, but I knew enough by the time Clinton was in office that I was against Clinton bombing Iraqi aspirin factories during the Monica Lewinsky scandal as a distraction. I had followed the 2000 election quite closely as a Senior in high school, watched as it was stolen, and was convinced that G.W. Bush would, like his father before him, declare war on somebody. I even have a letter I was assigned to write myself in High School by myself as a College Sophomore writing to my self as a High School Senior about what the future holds for me. It scares me a little now, but I said in that letter, half joking, "with George W Bush in office, we're sure to be at war with somebody by now, for no good reason." There was an inevitability I felt about it. Perhaps I was just jaded.
Sitting there watching as the remaining tower burned, Cookie looked back at me after my comment with tears and bit of anger in her eyes, visibly upset by what I'd said, and understandably. She said then, what I would come to agree with in the following October, when the congress passed the USAPATRIOT act. She said then, sitting next to me, "I hope you're wrong."
I wish I had been too.
Back on the couch, watching the images of the one tower smolder, still feeling raw as I felt the souls of every person in tower two extinguished in an instant, I didn't know what the appropriate thing to do was. Everything felt out of place and inappropriate in light of recent events. At 10:00 or so, I went and got on the bus to go to the Portland campus.
English class was still held, and I thank my professor to this day for not canceling class. His example is exactly what was actually meant when they said, "If we change our ways, the terrorists have won." For an hour and a half, we did grammar and writing style, as if nothing had happened.
I don't think Mr Phillipson realized at the time exactly what was happening or how serious it was, and he apologized the following class period for not having canceled class, but several of us thanked him.
Those of us who came into class, looked around confused about what to do or feel. Then our professor came in, threw his books down on the table, and said, "so, crazy stuff going on huh? Okay, let's do grammar."
At the time it struck me as being cold and detached, but looking back, it was exactly what we needed. It was nice to leave the insanity that was going on outside and focus on "Strunk and White." That class that day was a sort of psychic haven, while people standing outside the classroom door watching the screens, talking to one another about the end of the world.
That night, there was a girl in my dorm whom like most kids in my building in the 2nd week of classes, I didn't know, she was on the phone that night in the hallway, calling over and over again, crying, trying to find out if a friend of hers was on one of those four flights.
The phone lines were still all completely jammed as everybody in the USA was calling their loved ones to find out if they were okay. I really wanted for her friend or relative not to have been on one of those planes. It turned out that her friend was indeed on one of those planes. She dropped out of school. I did not see her again after that.
Over the next couple days, as the list of names of those who were in the towers came in, I made a list, and printed it off, and hung it up in the hallway of my dorm outside my room. I made it a point to read every single one and imagine who they were, see in my minds eye the person attached to that name. Something inside of me broke, but for the better. The bubble of security that had come with being an American born in the 1980s, the end of the Cold War nothing but a fuzzy childhood memory, had been not popped but shattered. There was an entire world of people out there, and it mattered what our government did. We could die because people in our government were killing people somewhere else in the world. I hadn't been paying attention in much detail to what my government had been doing. It was time for me to start.
I remember watching over the next few days, as no clear case was built for Osama Bin Laden. They just started repeating that it was suspected to be him, and at some point, it shifted from being suspected to be him, to be unquestionably by him, without any supporting evidence to report confirming this. It was because of this that I became skeptical of the official storyline very early on. There just wasn't any evidence to support what they were saying, or if there was, they certainly weren't presenting it. They were just stating things as fact with no evidence. The Bush administration refused to investigate for nearly two years, despite the pleas of family members who had lost their loved ones. Documents released on the matter were few, and those that were were almost entirely redacted.
It seemed like the talking heads were just making it all up, and just expecting us to believe whatever they said because we were in a state of shock, and they were the NEWS.
I had become too cynical and skeptical to just believe whatever I was told. All I wanted was evidence. Apparently four women who had lost their husbands in the attacks felt the same way. The whole thing reminded me too much of George Orwell's "1984."
Later, on October 26th, 2001, I saw on the crawl at the bottom of the screen that the congress had passed a new "anti-terrorism" bill. I didn't understand the need. Terrorism was illegal already. They didn't need to pass a law against it. I wondered what it could possibly be about. With the help of Jefferson.gov and the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, I started reading through the USAPATRIOT act. Turns out it was something straight out of 1984. At that point, I became more skeptical of the official story. Especially as I then learned from the New York Center for Constitutional Rights that this bill had been prepared and drafted a year prior, but was introduced at the last minute, giving nobody a chance to read it.
And that's really when everything began to change. Our libraries were (and still are) subject to search at any time by federal agents, and librarians who spoke out were slapped with law suits and detaining orders, telling them that they could not speak to anybody not even a lawyer. The librarians started putting up signs saying that federal agents had NOT searched their records yet. Over time those signs disappeared, and the librarians couldn't talk about it, by law.
I checked Jefferson.gov to find out who'd voted against the USAPATRIOT act. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. They became my heroes, even though I didn't know who they were at the time.
I became urgently interested in foreign affairs, history, and policy. I asked the questions that everybody was discouraged from asking, like, "why do they hate us?" I didn't want to go to the mall or go shopping or go to Disneyland, like Bush advised. I didn't want to "soak up the sun, and tell everyone to lighten up" as Sherly Crow's song, released just barely a year after, suggested. This was serious, and the responsibility was personal.
I researched our CIA's and Military's history in the Middle East and all around the world. It became clear to me through study why the USA was hated. 9-11 was, as Ron Paul said, "blowback."
For me, 9-11 was a wake up call, an alarm going off, calling me to civic responsibility. To personal responsibility. It seemed to me that most of the country hit the snooze button.
Don't forget.
..||..
September 9, 2009
Obama's Speech: pros, cons, the nitty gritty of the public option
And now for something I NEVER do, an actual blog entry. Hey, videos take time.
SO:
The details of the Public Option are not new, if you've done any research on your own, but since most Americans haven't, it was nice to see the details laid out in Obama's speech-- though I think that with some of the new compromises, such as the trigger mechanisms to cut spending if cost savings aren't realized, if adopted, would pretty much doom the plan to fail. Which I think is the point. Private insurance is scared shitless right now, and they are doing everything they can to kill this thing (just like they do with 12% their customers every year).
The details of the plan, more or less, are as follows: The Public Option will be a non-profit insurance company, like the Postal Service is for mail, and will NOT be subsidized by the tax payer-- directly. If you can't afford the plan, then you will get a voucher to assist you to buy one, either from a private insurance company, or from the public option. While that sounds nice, it's a contrived way of routing government money into private insurance subsidies via the consumer. It wouldn't be so bad if the government simply subsidized people who could not afford insurance, or if they just gave anybody who wanted to sign up for Medicare, a Medicare card.
But with the mandate on the individual to purchase health insurance, (which the Republicans also support), everybody has to buy a plan, and so every citizen effectively becomes a way for the government to funnel federal money, through your forced purchase of a plan, to the insurance companies. This is supposed to drive down costs by increasing the market and spreading the risk across the whole of society, but I'm highly skeptical that it will have any effect. Afterall, the profit motive in insurance IS the problem, which thankfully Obama recognized, when he talked about the former CEO of an insurance company who talked about how insurance companies are rewarded for denying claims and denying care to the ill. But without pushing for Medicare for All, it's just a rhetorical victory on the part of progressives, not anything useful as far as policy goes.
The key reforms sought by Obama are as follows:
1) Make it illegal to deny claims based on pre-existing conditions.
2) Make it illegal to change the terms of the plan you purchase.
3) Create a health insurance exchange, through which Americans can do what Wal*Mart and Sam's Club does, which is use collective purchasing power at large volume to reduce costs to the individual.
Obama hedged on the cost, rather than saying one trillion, over the course of ten years, he said "over 900 billion" which sounds less scary, but means the same thing, which also isn't scary.
It is, as Obama was smart to point out, less than we've spent in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I thought it was sad that, even though the President dispelled the myths and disinformation that the Republicans have been spreading, the Republican response speech held afterward was to repeat the very lies and disinformation that were dispelled not ten minutes prior. Claims like "Medicare is going to be cut by $200 billion."
While it is factually true that within Medicare there will be a cut of $200 billion dollars, the cuts are coming from subsidies to insurance companies, which is wasted money. Medicare doesn't need to hire an insurance company to pay out doctor's bills. Medicare can pay doctor's bills on it's own, without losing money to an insurance company skimming corporate profits off the top on the way there.
What's more, is that this cut money is then being redistributed and then spent within the medicare program, so that the net effect is that there is no cut, and that rather than going to corporate profits, more money is going to medical expenses-- which is what Medicare is designed to do. So it's not actually a cut, but a reallocation of funds.
Republicans claim that there were many misstatements in Obama's speech. On that point I can agree. Obama said, "health insurance CEOs aren't bad people."
That is false. To run such a business, and to know that your decisions to increase your profits would kill 18,000 people every year, would require a total divorce with any human decency or sense of morality. Such a person would not be a good person by any standard I can think of. A good person would have a sense of human decency and a sense of morals, of right and wrong.
Another thing that upset me quite a bit, was when Obama mentioned that young healthy people choose not to purchase health insurance because they are willing to take the risk. FUCK THAT-- I don't have insurance because it's fucking expensive, and I'm broke as shit. I would LOVE to have health insurance. Sign me up for Medicare right now! Just don't criminalize my poverty, because I won't be able to afford to purchase one. My car just died, and I can barely afford to fix that, let alone make additional monthly payments on some private plan that is going to overcharge me, and then won't even provide any benefits when I need them. And the individual mandate, in effect, criminalizes poverty. That really sucks.
Obama said that he intends to be the last president to take up the issue of health care reform. I don't know what that is supposed to mean. These reforms are timid, the mandates are wrong-headed, and what's been put forth so far is certainly a far cry from actually fixing what's wrong with our health insurance market here in America.
I know that this isn't an important part of the speech, but it was thrilling to see the joint session erupt with protests from the Republican members of congress when Obama addressed head on the lies that have been propagated. I think the president should be required to speak at the joint session more often, like once a month, so that it would be more like the British House of parliament.
It was certainly a stark contrast between the Republicans protesting the lies being confronted head-on and dismissed tonight, versus the joint sessions that the Bush administration held after September 11th, and then leading up to the Iraq war, where everybody in Congress was silent. The Democrats sat idly by and were very quiet. No boos or disruptions. And that was when we were talking about killing people. Now we are trying to save lives, and the Republicans are hooting and hollering in protest, with one Republican from South Carolina yelling and calling the president a liar. An interesting contrast to note.
Republicans also held up pieces of paper, which I thought was a stupid form of protest, if indeed that's what it was. It made no sense whatsoever on the home TV. I'm sure THEY knew what the significance of those papers were, but nobody at home on their couches did. With the protesting and the hooting and hollering, they came across as having totally lost it, which they probably have. They were from the House, after all. There was one congressperson with a sheet of paper in his lap with the words written, "What Bill?" in large black ink letters. This one protest I thought was valid and does bring up a good point; there are currently something like six different bills, one of which is HR 676, another-- and the one that Democrats are usually talking about, is HR 3200. There are others as well, but they propose the creating of small co-opts that wouldn't have the bargaining power to lower costs like the health insurance exchange proposed in HR 3200.
Obama did a great thing with the last ten minutes of his speech, calling into question the idea that government itself is somehow un-American. It was a rebuttal to the anarcho-capitalist philosophy of Reagan and Goldwater that though meek, has been LONG overdue. There once was a time when Republicans ran on a platform increasing welfare spending, like Richard Nixon, or Dwight Eisenhower, for instance. Obama made an emotional and philosophical appeal, but I think it's one that is much needed for the sake of the public debate. If those sound-bytes are the one that end up being repeated over and over in the 24 hour news cycle, health insurance reform will be a cinch, and it will hopefully mark the turn of the tide away from that anarcho-capitalist, nonsense. Or as Evo Morales calls it, "Barbarian Capitalism."
SO:
The details of the Public Option are not new, if you've done any research on your own, but since most Americans haven't, it was nice to see the details laid out in Obama's speech-- though I think that with some of the new compromises, such as the trigger mechanisms to cut spending if cost savings aren't realized, if adopted, would pretty much doom the plan to fail. Which I think is the point. Private insurance is scared shitless right now, and they are doing everything they can to kill this thing (just like they do with 12% their customers every year).
The details of the plan, more or less, are as follows: The Public Option will be a non-profit insurance company, like the Postal Service is for mail, and will NOT be subsidized by the tax payer-- directly. If you can't afford the plan, then you will get a voucher to assist you to buy one, either from a private insurance company, or from the public option. While that sounds nice, it's a contrived way of routing government money into private insurance subsidies via the consumer. It wouldn't be so bad if the government simply subsidized people who could not afford insurance, or if they just gave anybody who wanted to sign up for Medicare, a Medicare card.
But with the mandate on the individual to purchase health insurance, (which the Republicans also support), everybody has to buy a plan, and so every citizen effectively becomes a way for the government to funnel federal money, through your forced purchase of a plan, to the insurance companies. This is supposed to drive down costs by increasing the market and spreading the risk across the whole of society, but I'm highly skeptical that it will have any effect. Afterall, the profit motive in insurance IS the problem, which thankfully Obama recognized, when he talked about the former CEO of an insurance company who talked about how insurance companies are rewarded for denying claims and denying care to the ill. But without pushing for Medicare for All, it's just a rhetorical victory on the part of progressives, not anything useful as far as policy goes.
The key reforms sought by Obama are as follows:
1) Make it illegal to deny claims based on pre-existing conditions.
2) Make it illegal to change the terms of the plan you purchase.
3) Create a health insurance exchange, through which Americans can do what Wal*Mart and Sam's Club does, which is use collective purchasing power at large volume to reduce costs to the individual.
Obama hedged on the cost, rather than saying one trillion, over the course of ten years, he said "over 900 billion" which sounds less scary, but means the same thing, which also isn't scary.
It is, as Obama was smart to point out, less than we've spent in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I thought it was sad that, even though the President dispelled the myths and disinformation that the Republicans have been spreading, the Republican response speech held afterward was to repeat the very lies and disinformation that were dispelled not ten minutes prior. Claims like "Medicare is going to be cut by $200 billion."
While it is factually true that within Medicare there will be a cut of $200 billion dollars, the cuts are coming from subsidies to insurance companies, which is wasted money. Medicare doesn't need to hire an insurance company to pay out doctor's bills. Medicare can pay doctor's bills on it's own, without losing money to an insurance company skimming corporate profits off the top on the way there.
What's more, is that this cut money is then being redistributed and then spent within the medicare program, so that the net effect is that there is no cut, and that rather than going to corporate profits, more money is going to medical expenses-- which is what Medicare is designed to do. So it's not actually a cut, but a reallocation of funds.
Republicans claim that there were many misstatements in Obama's speech. On that point I can agree. Obama said, "health insurance CEOs aren't bad people."
That is false. To run such a business, and to know that your decisions to increase your profits would kill 18,000 people every year, would require a total divorce with any human decency or sense of morality. Such a person would not be a good person by any standard I can think of. A good person would have a sense of human decency and a sense of morals, of right and wrong.
Another thing that upset me quite a bit, was when Obama mentioned that young healthy people choose not to purchase health insurance because they are willing to take the risk. FUCK THAT-- I don't have insurance because it's fucking expensive, and I'm broke as shit. I would LOVE to have health insurance. Sign me up for Medicare right now! Just don't criminalize my poverty, because I won't be able to afford to purchase one. My car just died, and I can barely afford to fix that, let alone make additional monthly payments on some private plan that is going to overcharge me, and then won't even provide any benefits when I need them. And the individual mandate, in effect, criminalizes poverty. That really sucks.
Obama said that he intends to be the last president to take up the issue of health care reform. I don't know what that is supposed to mean. These reforms are timid, the mandates are wrong-headed, and what's been put forth so far is certainly a far cry from actually fixing what's wrong with our health insurance market here in America.
I know that this isn't an important part of the speech, but it was thrilling to see the joint session erupt with protests from the Republican members of congress when Obama addressed head on the lies that have been propagated. I think the president should be required to speak at the joint session more often, like once a month, so that it would be more like the British House of parliament.
It was certainly a stark contrast between the Republicans protesting the lies being confronted head-on and dismissed tonight, versus the joint sessions that the Bush administration held after September 11th, and then leading up to the Iraq war, where everybody in Congress was silent. The Democrats sat idly by and were very quiet. No boos or disruptions. And that was when we were talking about killing people. Now we are trying to save lives, and the Republicans are hooting and hollering in protest, with one Republican from South Carolina yelling and calling the president a liar. An interesting contrast to note.
Republicans also held up pieces of paper, which I thought was a stupid form of protest, if indeed that's what it was. It made no sense whatsoever on the home TV. I'm sure THEY knew what the significance of those papers were, but nobody at home on their couches did. With the protesting and the hooting and hollering, they came across as having totally lost it, which they probably have. They were from the House, after all. There was one congressperson with a sheet of paper in his lap with the words written, "What Bill?" in large black ink letters. This one protest I thought was valid and does bring up a good point; there are currently something like six different bills, one of which is HR 676, another-- and the one that Democrats are usually talking about, is HR 3200. There are others as well, but they propose the creating of small co-opts that wouldn't have the bargaining power to lower costs like the health insurance exchange proposed in HR 3200.
Obama did a great thing with the last ten minutes of his speech, calling into question the idea that government itself is somehow un-American. It was a rebuttal to the anarcho-capitalist philosophy of Reagan and Goldwater that though meek, has been LONG overdue. There once was a time when Republicans ran on a platform increasing welfare spending, like Richard Nixon, or Dwight Eisenhower, for instance. Obama made an emotional and philosophical appeal, but I think it's one that is much needed for the sake of the public debate. If those sound-bytes are the one that end up being repeated over and over in the 24 hour news cycle, health insurance reform will be a cinch, and it will hopefully mark the turn of the tide away from that anarcho-capitalist, nonsense. Or as Evo Morales calls it, "Barbarian Capitalism."
September 7, 2009
September 4, 2009
Sexting FAIL / Single Payer INSURGENTS
NEW CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/ThePunkPatriot
BLOG: http://punkpatriot.blogspot.com (that's here)
STORE: http://punkpatriot.etsy.com
LINKS FROM THE VIDEO:
PUBLIC CITIZEN:
http://www.citizen.org
SINGLE PAYER ACTION
http://www.singlepayeraction.org
HEALTHCARE NOW
http://www.healthcare-now.org
MAD AS HELL DOCTORS:
http://www.madashelldoctors.com
MoveOn.org PHOTOPETITION:
http://pol.moveon.org/cantwait/?id=16978-1712649-vyKddNx&t=1
MY BLOG ABOUT IT:
http://punkpatriot.blogspot.com/2009/08/moveon.html
ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA:
http://www.barackobama.com
DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA:
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/
Army Strong
This was originally posted on Cindy Sheehans channel. It is re- poster here by request and with full permission. http://www.youtube.com/cindyforcongress Visit her channel and tell her I sent you!
September 1, 2009
August 28, 2009
IT'S PICKLE TIME!!!
IT'S PICKLE TIME!
But really, when ISN'T it pickle time?
Pickles are awesome. For $10, you can be too.
Yes, that's right, wearing this t-shirt makes you awesome.
************
On Green Only, choice between dark and light green.
Please specify your size, or you're getting whatever I have laying around.
But really, when ISN'T it pickle time?
Pickles are awesome. For $10, you can be too.
Yes, that's right, wearing this t-shirt makes you awesome.
************
On Green Only, choice between dark and light green.
Please specify your size, or you're getting whatever I have laying around.
August 27, 2009
August 26, 2009
Hey Davis Fleetwood, Nice Shirt You've Got There!
Top Rated YouTube Political Personality Davis Fleetwood is wearing a rather dashing t-shirt from punkpatriot.etsy.com
And so can you!
August 25, 2009
SINGLE PAYER IS GAINING STEAM!!
CBS has a report about the exchange between Rep Weiner and Joe Scarborough on MSNBC about single payer health care.
"A Single-Payer Plan Makes So Much Sense Even Joe Scarborough Can't Argue With It"
SWEET. Thank GOD that Single Payer voices are starting to be heard in the mainstream.
Be sure to keep the pressure on by pushing for Single Payer in MoveOn.org's photo petition
Read the full article after the jump.
See the video of the exchange described here below:
"A Single-Payer Plan Makes So Much Sense Even Joe Scarborough Can't Argue With It"
SWEET. Thank GOD that Single Payer voices are starting to be heard in the mainstream.
Be sure to keep the pressure on by pushing for Single Payer in MoveOn.org's photo petition
Read the full article after the jump.
See the video of the exchange described here below:
Universal Health Care Message to Americans From Canadian Doctors & Health Care Experts
"Trying to get there incrementally is like trying to cross a chasm in two steps."
"This is a time for courage and it's not a moment to take tiny steps."
Hey, MoveOn... Move OVER!
MoveOn.org is hosting a photo petition where they want you to use their materials.
Ever the wimps, and always taking their marching orders from the DNC, their photo petition is in support of the public option.
I say we hijack it, and use their photo petition for SINGLE PAYER.
Here's the photo that I submit:
So here's the plan-- contact all the people on your lists, and ask them to do the same.
MoveOn.org is supposedly keeping the DNC honest. (HAHAHA!) Let's keep MoveOn.org honest.
PS: You can totally use the MoveOn.org sign that they have for you to print out:
Ever the wimps, and always taking their marching orders from the DNC, their photo petition is in support of the public option.
I say we hijack it, and use their photo petition for SINGLE PAYER.
Here's the photo that I submit:
So here's the plan-- contact all the people on your lists, and ask them to do the same.
MoveOn.org is supposedly keeping the DNC honest. (HAHAHA!) Let's keep MoveOn.org honest.
PS: You can totally use the MoveOn.org sign that they have for you to print out:
August 20, 2009
August 19, 2009
The Onion: Congress divided over how to best deny Americans health care
"WASHINGTON—After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.
"Both parties understand that the current system is broken," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. "But what we can't seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue."
"Ultimately, though, it's our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve," Pelosi added.
The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.
"We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. "If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there's no reason we can't work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population."
"That's what America is all about," he added."
[More after the jump.]
President Obama is taking Questions on Healthcare
CLICK HERE TO ASK A QUESTION
Here's what I'm asking:
"Since Single Payer is the best option when it comes to reducing costs, increasing the quality of care, and covering 100% of the population, will you call on the American people to lobby congress in support of HR 676?"
Here's what I'm asking:
"Since Single Payer is the best option when it comes to reducing costs, increasing the quality of care, and covering 100% of the population, will you call on the American people to lobby congress in support of HR 676?"
August 18, 2009
Citizens lobby for HR 676 in Washington DC
If you watch the mainstream press, you will hear that a single-payer health care plan will not be seriously considered by lawmakers crafting reform of the US health care system. Advocates of HR 676, the single-payer health care plan in the House of Representatives, beg to differ. This video follows their efforts at a rally in Upper Senate Park.
August 11, 2009
The Punk Patriot * How to Vote like a Pro
The Punk Patriot becomes preachy, and then bores you with math.
And you can still buy offensive t-shirts that I make here:
http://punkpatriot.etsy.com
August 6, 2009
Erik Prince, Blackwater CEO, allegedly MURDERED WITNESSES helping with Federal Investigation
from Care2.com
Two former employees of Blackwater - the notorious military mercenary corporation, now known as XE - have filed sworn statements in federal court making shocking allegations.
One of the most explosive allegations is that Erik Prince, founder and former CEO of Blackwater, murdered or facilitated the murder of people who were cooperating in a federal investigation of the company.
Read Jeremy Scahill's article that broke this story in The Nation.
These allegations are too disturbing to ignore. In addition to murder, these sworn statements allege:
* Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating emails, documents and videos;
* Blackwater management threatened potential whistleblowers with violence and death;
* Blackwater smuggled illegal and unlawful weapons into Iraq - sometimes in then CEO Prince's private planes, sometimes in dogfood bags, using Blackwater's canine division as cover for this crime; and
* CEO Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe."
The Iraqi government banned Blackwater from Iraq in January of this year, due to its violence toward Iraqis and repeated criminal acts. Yet the U.S. State Department still has other contracts with this company.
Two former employees of Blackwater - the notorious military mercenary corporation, now known as XE - have filed sworn statements in federal court making shocking allegations.
One of the most explosive allegations is that Erik Prince, founder and former CEO of Blackwater, murdered or facilitated the murder of people who were cooperating in a federal investigation of the company.
These allegations are too disturbing to ignore. In addition to murder, these sworn statements allege:
* Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating emails, documents and videos;
* Blackwater management threatened potential whistleblowers with violence and death;
* Blackwater smuggled illegal and unlawful weapons into Iraq - sometimes in then CEO Prince's private planes, sometimes in dogfood bags, using Blackwater's canine division as cover for this crime; and
* CEO Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe."
The Iraqi government banned Blackwater from Iraq in January of this year, due to its violence toward Iraqis and repeated criminal acts. Yet the U.S. State Department still has other contracts with this company.
July 28, 2009
July 23, 2009
Punk Patriot * This week in News 7/16/9 - 7/23/9
Read the dumb shit I write:
punkpatriot.blogspot.com
Buy the dumb shit I make:
punkpatriot.etsy.com
Is the GOP racist?: VP of the Young Republicans, Audra Shay, fucks up real bad on Facebook
Wall Street: Goldman Sachs exceeds earnings expectations
More Wall Street: Morgan Stanley's "new" financial product
Greenwashing Beer: German Beer Brewers claim to have made Beer "good for the environment"
Corporate Douche-Baggery: Exxon sabotages their own wells and pollutes like a mother fucker
Nominal Things Obama is doing to make things suck slightly less: Obama wants to get rid of the Terror Alert Color Coded System
Wal*Mart: Wal*Mart supports employer mandate because they would gain an edge on the competition
July 21, 2009
July 18th Healthcare Rally in Portland, ME
League of Young Voters, SEIU, UVAW, Maine People's Alliance, and other organizers held a rally and march in Portland Maine on July 18th in support of health care reform.
Hundreds of people from all across the state were in attendance, in what was described by the press as the largest rally yet on the issue of healthcare.
July 20, 2009
CIA Torture option," Put him in a cell filled with cadavers..."
From RawStory
Two of the key designers of the Bush administration’s torture program ended up in a “tug of war” with their superiors about how far to go when coercing information out of suspects, says a new article in the Washington Post.
The article, published Sunday, provides graphic descriptions of some of the techniques contemplated when the torture program was just beginning, in the months after 9/11. Faced with the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, the Al Qaeda operative who had become the CIA’s first “star witness” in the “war on terror,” the CIA contemplated some disturbing options:
Put him in a cell filled with cadavers, was one suggestion, according to a former U.S. official with knowledge of the brainstorming sessions. Surround him with naked women, was another. Jolt him with electric shocks to the teeth, was a third.
[ of course, this begs the question... where did they plan on getting the cadavers from?-PunkPatriot ]
Full Article here:
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/19/report-interrogators-threatened-to-quit-over-waterboarding/
July 16, 2009
Fmr Health Insurance worker: "Private Health Insurance KILLS PEOPLE"
From TruthDig
Read the rest of this outstanding article.
Wendell Potter is the health insurance industry’s worst nightmare. He’s a whistle-blower. Potter, the former chief spokesperson for insurance giant CIGNA, recently testified before Congress, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”
Potter was deeply involved in CIGNA and industrywide strategies for maintaining their profitable grip on U.S. health care. He told me: “The thing they fear most is a single-payer plan. They fear even the public insurance option being proposed; they’ll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead down the slippery slope toward socialism ... putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. They’ve used those talking points for years, and they’ve always worked.”
In 2007, CIGNA denied a California teenager, Nataline Sarkisyan, coverage for a liver transplant. Her family went to the media. The California Nurses Association joined in. Under mounting pressure, CIGNA finally granted coverage for the procedure. But it was too late. Two hours later, Nataline died.
Read the rest of this outstanding article.
July 15, 2009
July 14, 2009
Century of Self- Happiness Machines
This should be required viewing.
A history of Public Relations, or as it's inventor, Edward Bernaise called it at the time "Propaganda."
July 13, 2009
Anti-War Jesus Freaks Disrupt Military Training Excersizes
Full Story
The quartet of Christians plan to hide in the 30,000 square kilometres of the Shoalwater Bay military training area near Rockhampton to disrupt joint exercises by the Australian and US armies, navies and air forces, involving about 24,000 troops.
[...]
In the early hours of this morning, the group, calling themselves the Bonhoeffer Four, stole onto the base, knowing that the exercise cannot go ahead while they are loose. They are aligned with a larger Christian group, the Martin Luther King Junior House Church, which is loosely connected with the wider Peace Convergence protest.
The group's namesake, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a great German theologian who was hanged in 1945 for supporting a plot to assassinate Hitler. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd identified Bonhoeffer as his inspiration in a major essay in The Monthly in 2006.
"Our faith is calling us to this," Mr Moyle said. "We have committed our lives to taking seriously Jesus' call not just to be peace lovers but peace makers, and to love our enemies."
He said he didn't know how many groups would try to hide. They had to signal that they were there, with balloons and beacons, which made it harder, but their hiding spot is the size of Belgium.
[...]
"The military are doing invasion training. They have built a model city inside the base with a mosque in the middle, which the Australians are defending against the Americans," he said.
[more at link]
The quartet of Christians plan to hide in the 30,000 square kilometres of the Shoalwater Bay military training area near Rockhampton to disrupt joint exercises by the Australian and US armies, navies and air forces, involving about 24,000 troops.
[...]
In the early hours of this morning, the group, calling themselves the Bonhoeffer Four, stole onto the base, knowing that the exercise cannot go ahead while they are loose. They are aligned with a larger Christian group, the Martin Luther King Junior House Church, which is loosely connected with the wider Peace Convergence protest.
The group's namesake, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a great German theologian who was hanged in 1945 for supporting a plot to assassinate Hitler. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd identified Bonhoeffer as his inspiration in a major essay in The Monthly in 2006.
"Our faith is calling us to this," Mr Moyle said. "We have committed our lives to taking seriously Jesus' call not just to be peace lovers but peace makers, and to love our enemies."
He said he didn't know how many groups would try to hide. They had to signal that they were there, with balloons and beacons, which made it harder, but their hiding spot is the size of Belgium.
[...]
"The military are doing invasion training. They have built a model city inside the base with a mosque in the middle, which the Australians are defending against the Americans," he said.
[more at link]
July 11, 2009
Etsy: The Saving Grace of Capitalism SALE! ONLY $5
WEAR IT WITH PRIDE!
Small is the new "too big to fail."
Handmade goods by real people are the shit, and you know it.
This particular version is slanted silver text on fuscia (or pink, I guess) background. You can have any color combo you want if you just email me at
punkpatriot411 [at] gmail [dot] com
BUY THIS SHIRT!
!!! SPECIAL SALE!!!
Only $5! Cheap!
July 10, 2009
LET'S GET OFFENSIVE- Abu Grahib American Flag T-Shirt Now for sale over at the Etsy shop!
Are you the badass who's got the balls to wear this shirt to a 4th of July party?
Think this shirt is offensive? Dude-- TORTURE is offensive.
We're America, and like it or not, we tortured people.
As a matter of policy, we tortured. No matter how many times politicians say we didn't, we did, and we did it on purpose.
Red, White and Blue Acrylic on Grey. Men's medium. Also available in other sizes and on other background colors. Email me at punkpatriot411[at]gmail[dot]com to make a custom order.
Ah yes, America and Torture, they go together like Apple Pie and Cyanide.
Click the image to go to the store, or head to punkpatriot.etsy.com
July 9, 2009
Punk Patriot * The Sarah Haskins Song
Sarah Haskins hosts Target Women on Current.com, a show that offers tongue-in-cheek analysis of advertising psychology.
June 30, 2009
June 29, 2009
June 22, 2009
June 19, 2009
June 15, 2009
I am Afraid and Therefore Unquestioningly Obedient
Vaclav Havel is a wise man. In an extended interview, released as the book "Disturbing the Peace" he made this observation about the reason most people behave submissively in the face of oppression.
You can purchase this wisdom in T-Shirt form for only TEN BUCKS at Etsy.com, your source for handmade stuff by real people.
June 12, 2009
Kucinich Grills Bank Of America CEO, Ken Lewis
Former Bank of America CEO, Ken Lewis, testified June 11, 2009 to congress about the BOAs merger with Merrill Lynch. During the hearing Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, challenged Lewis to be more forthcoming about his dealings with the Federal Reserve during the merger. Specifically Kucinich cited emails from Fed officials saying Lewis had asked government officials to provide a letter saying that they had in fact ordered Lewis to merge with the struggling financial firm, Merrill Lynch, because Lewis feared lawsuits from company shareholders if the merger led to company losses. Lewis said he did not recall asking for such a letter. After the hearing Kucinich told reporters that Lewis testimony could put the former CEO in legal jeopardy.
June 11, 2009
Punk Patriot * Jesus Gave Me A Wet Willy
Remember: if you don't buy the T-shirt, it's like it never happened!
http://punkpatriot.etsy.com
Check out more videos at the Blog:
PunkPatriot.Blogspot.Com
I'm taking a break from serious political talking for a bit.
Suck it.
June 9, 2009
June 3, 2009
Buy Things!
I have just opened an Etsy shop over at Etsy.com!!
As you know, nothing really happens in life, unless you buy the T-Shirt.
I have just the remedy-- T-shirts!
The first three I have listed are as follows, and more are on the way:
As you know, nothing really happens in life, unless you buy the T-Shirt.
I have just the remedy-- T-shirts!
The first three I have listed are as follows, and more are on the way:
May 28, 2009
May 27, 2009
Kucinich on The Ed Show
Kucinich on The Ed Show: discusses torture photos and legislation to create national policy stating that the maintenance of steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping is vital to our national economic security and our national defense.
May 23, 2009
May 22, 2009
New Boss same as The Old Boss?
Obama proposed a new system of Indefinite Preventive Detention yesterday in his National Security speech that is stunning in its illegality.
Obama is proposing we keep people locked up not for the crimes they have committed and we prove they committed in a court of law, but on the chance that they might commit crimes in the future. There will be no trial, for no crime exists to be charged. There is only the nebulous threat of "future acts" to justify depriving people of their liberty potentially indefinitely.
Is this justice? Leave a comment.
May 21, 2009
Pew Poll Notes Rise In Independent Voters
From All Things Considered May 21, 2009
For the past two years, centrism has dominated Americans' political views. That's the conclusion of the latest survey, released Thursday, from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Pew President Andy Kohut says the number of people reporting that they are political independents reached a 70-year high, but there was little movement regarding people's values. That's even though President Obama's election marked a watershed moment for the United States.
"Even though it was a big Democratic win and the Republicans are in free-fall, there's no sign of an ideological shift," Kohut tells NPR's Melissa Block. "Values are pretty much the same. It's not like the mid-'90s, when we were showing the public becoming more conservative, or the beginning of this decade, showing the public was more partisan. Public remains pretty much where it was two years ago on very basic values."
Of the independents surveyed, more described themselves as "leaning" Democratic than Republican (17 percent vs. 12 percent.) But in surveys conducted this year, 33 percent of independents described their views as conservative, up from 28 percent in 2007 and 26 percent in 2005, according to Pew.
More after the jump
For the past two years, centrism has dominated Americans' political views. That's the conclusion of the latest survey, released Thursday, from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Pew President Andy Kohut says the number of people reporting that they are political independents reached a 70-year high, but there was little movement regarding people's values. That's even though President Obama's election marked a watershed moment for the United States.
"Even though it was a big Democratic win and the Republicans are in free-fall, there's no sign of an ideological shift," Kohut tells NPR's Melissa Block. "Values are pretty much the same. It's not like the mid-'90s, when we were showing the public becoming more conservative, or the beginning of this decade, showing the public was more partisan. Public remains pretty much where it was two years ago on very basic values."
Of the independents surveyed, more described themselves as "leaning" Democratic than Republican (17 percent vs. 12 percent.) But in surveys conducted this year, 33 percent of independents described their views as conservative, up from 28 percent in 2007 and 26 percent in 2005, according to Pew.
More after the jump
May 20, 2009
May 14, 2009
May 4, 2009
PELOSI DEMANDS $94.2 BILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT FOR THE WAR
House Democrats seek $94.2 billion in emergency funds
From Current.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives will seek passage in coming weeks of $94.2 billion in emergency money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other programs, including $2 billion more to prepare for an influenza pandemic.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, outlining the legislation for reporters, also said the legislation would include $2.2 billion to fund some C-17 airplanes for the Pentagon. But it will not address future purchases of a refueling tanker airplane sought by the Air Force.
Obey said $80 million to close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, would not be included in the bill because no details were provided by the administration on how that move would be carried out.
Last month, President Barack Obama asked Congress to give him $83.4 billion more to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is hoping to use the money to begin phasing out combat operations in Iraq while building up U.S. forces in Afghanistan where al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are gaining strength.
The Pentagon wants the U.S. Congress to approve the money promptly, before a congressional recess that is scheduled to start at the end of May.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE NEED TO SUPPORT CINDY SHEEHAN.
We have until 2010 to raise $2 million dollars. WE CAN DO IT!
Click here and DONATE to her campaign today!
$5, $10, $23, $230, $2300, whatever you can afford! It will all go to good use!
The more money we can raise, the more accountable congress will be!
April 29, 2009
SWINE FLU! OMG!
Do you have swine flu yet?
Has anybody else but me noticed or realized that this fancy "Swine Flu" is just a new strain of the same goddamn fucking flu that we get every goddamn fucking year?
They're just calling it a different name... Seriously! WTF is the big deal? It's the fucking FLU!
From MedicalEcology.com:
What's the next big news item they're going to try to scare us with?
Rhinovirus? HOLY SHIT! THE COMMON COLD HAS REACHED PANDEMIC LEVELS! SOME PEOPLE with auto-immune defficincies, previous poor health or chronic illness, and/or no access to clean drinking water MIGHT DIE FROM THIS DISEASE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!
AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAUGH!!!
UPDATE!
I just saw on the news that there are two reported cases of "swine flu" in Maine now. They're both in Kennebunk.
Guess what-- you're probably going to get the flu. You'll be sick for a couple days, and it will suck, and then you'll get over it.
Unless you're super old, or have existing auto-immune issues, you're not going to die. It's just the fucking FLU.
Has anybody else but me noticed or realized that this fancy "Swine Flu" is just a new strain of the same goddamn fucking flu that we get every goddamn fucking year?
They're just calling it a different name... Seriously! WTF is the big deal? It's the fucking FLU!
From MedicalEcology.com:
People have suffered from influenza for thousands of years. Viruses identical or closely related to the human form of the infection can be isolated from ducks, turkeys, swine, horses, and many other species of warm-blooded vertebrates, as well. It is hypothesized that humans probably acquired influenza when domestication of animals first began. The development of agriculture and the establishment of permanent settlements provided sufficient numbers of potential hosts to create an epidemic.
What's the next big news item they're going to try to scare us with?
Rhinovirus? HOLY SHIT! THE COMMON COLD HAS REACHED PANDEMIC LEVELS! SOME PEOPLE with auto-immune defficincies, previous poor health or chronic illness, and/or no access to clean drinking water MIGHT DIE FROM THIS DISEASE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!
AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAUGH!!!
UPDATE!
I just saw on the news that there are two reported cases of "swine flu" in Maine now. They're both in Kennebunk.
Guess what-- you're probably going to get the flu. You'll be sick for a couple days, and it will suck, and then you'll get over it.
Unless you're super old, or have existing auto-immune issues, you're not going to die. It's just the fucking FLU.
April 1, 2009
March 24, 2009
Obama: Get FISA RIGHT!
So my friends over at "Get FISA RIGHT!" sent me this:
Sure thing Jon!
How to vote:
Just find the Community Matters thing and click on the green thumb to vote that issue up. There are lots of great issues being asked about on this website, including one close to my heart, universal single payer health care.
"http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/page/Ask+the+President
We're at +132, only about 20 or so votes out of the top 10
Democrats.com's special prosecutor question is hanging tough in 3rd, despite a lot of negative votes
>http://www.democrats.com/ask-president-obama-to-appoint-a-special-prosecutor
Get FISA Right is also on the list at the #p2 ("progressives 2.0") wiki at http://p2pt0.wetpaint.com/page/Ask+the+President along with other a bunch of other good ideas. You can vote for as many as you want, no login required.
Obama's press conference is at 8 PM tonight. So please help get the word out!
jon"
Sure thing Jon!
How to vote:
Just find the Community Matters thing and click on the green thumb to vote that issue up. There are lots of great issues being asked about on this website, including one close to my heart, universal single payer health care.
March 14, 2009
Did the Daily Show rip me off?
Here is a parody news article I wrote back in June of 2008. [link]
I sent the copy from this article into the Daily Show at their internship application email address.
Then on October 8th, 2008, this segment aired:
eerily similar are they not?
what do you think?
I sent the copy from this article into the Daily Show at their internship application email address.
Then on October 8th, 2008, this segment aired:
eerily similar are they not?
what do you think?
February 23, 2009
Everything is AMAZING, and nobody is happy...
I'm a bit of a Luddite (he said on his internet blog), so this hit a soft spot with me.
Obama tries to kill Bush e-mail retrieval
By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.
Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush's eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama's Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration's bid to get the lawsuits dismissed.
During its first term, the Bush White House failed to install electronic record-keeping for e-mail when it switched to a new system, resulting in millions of messages that could not be found.
The Bush White House discovered the problem in 2005 and rejected a proposed solution.
Recently, the Bush White House said it had located 14 million e-mails that were misplaced and that the White House had restored hundreds of thousands of other e-mails from computer backup tapes.
The steps the White House took are inadequate, one of the two groups, the National Security Archive, told a federal judge in court papers filed Friday.
"We do not know how many more e-mails could be restored but have not been, because defendants have not looked," the National Security Archive said in the court papers.
"The new administration seems no more eager than the last" to deal with the issue, said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the other group that sued the EOP.
The Executive Office of the President includes the president's immediate staff and many White House offices and agencies.
Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government.
The Justice Department "apparently never got the message" from Obama, Blanton said.
The department defends the government when it is sued.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.
Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush's eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama's Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration's bid to get the lawsuits dismissed.
During its first term, the Bush White House failed to install electronic record-keeping for e-mail when it switched to a new system, resulting in millions of messages that could not be found.
The Bush White House discovered the problem in 2005 and rejected a proposed solution.
Recently, the Bush White House said it had located 14 million e-mails that were misplaced and that the White House had restored hundreds of thousands of other e-mails from computer backup tapes.
The steps the White House took are inadequate, one of the two groups, the National Security Archive, told a federal judge in court papers filed Friday.
"We do not know how many more e-mails could be restored but have not been, because defendants have not looked," the National Security Archive said in the court papers.
"The new administration seems no more eager than the last" to deal with the issue, said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the other group that sued the EOP.
The Executive Office of the President includes the president's immediate staff and many White House offices and agencies.
Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government.
The Justice Department "apparently never got the message" from Obama, Blanton said.
The department defends the government when it is sued.
February 22, 2009
February 20, 2009
February 15, 2009
Obama's campaign promise to bomb Pakistan? Check!
Well this is cheerful... The New York Times reports that the US is firing missiles in Pakistan, keeping true to Obama's promise that we would "take action within Pakistan's borders, even without their permission."
"Missile attacks in Pakistan by remotely piloted aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency have generally been aimed at foreign Qaeda fighters and Taliban guerrillas from Afghanistan, who take shelter in Pakistan between raids into their country to fight American and NATO soldiers."
[...]
"During his visit, Mr. Holbrooke heard a litany of complaints about drone strikes, some of which have inadvertently killed civilians, making it harder for the country’s shaky government to win support for its own military operations against the Taliban."
[...]
"“As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” Ms. Feinstein said during a hearing. The drone attacks, especially in the last six months, have increased anti-American sentiment in Pakistan to very high levels, and Ms. Feinstein’s statement is likely to further inflame the protests over them. Her statement was prominently covered by the Pakistani press on Saturday."
[...]
"In 2008, the American drones carried out more than 30 missile attacks against Qaeda and Taliban targets in the tribal areas, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. Two missile attacks just days after Mr. Obama was inaugurated indicated that his administration, at least for now, planned to continue the policy of the Bush administration."
Way to go guys. You really learned from the Bush Administration how to win the hearts and minds of the people we bomb...
"Missile attacks in Pakistan by remotely piloted aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency have generally been aimed at foreign Qaeda fighters and Taliban guerrillas from Afghanistan, who take shelter in Pakistan between raids into their country to fight American and NATO soldiers."
[...]
"During his visit, Mr. Holbrooke heard a litany of complaints about drone strikes, some of which have inadvertently killed civilians, making it harder for the country’s shaky government to win support for its own military operations against the Taliban."
[...]
"“As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” Ms. Feinstein said during a hearing. The drone attacks, especially in the last six months, have increased anti-American sentiment in Pakistan to very high levels, and Ms. Feinstein’s statement is likely to further inflame the protests over them. Her statement was prominently covered by the Pakistani press on Saturday."
[...]
"In 2008, the American drones carried out more than 30 missile attacks against Qaeda and Taliban targets in the tribal areas, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. Two missile attacks just days after Mr. Obama was inaugurated indicated that his administration, at least for now, planned to continue the policy of the Bush administration."
Way to go guys. You really learned from the Bush Administration how to win the hearts and minds of the people we bomb...
February 11, 2009
Congressman Explains Hijacking of the US Economy by the Federal Reserve & Treasury
“On Thursday Sept 15, 2008 at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 Billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two... Money was being removed electronically. The treasury tried to help with $150 Billion... But could not stem the tide...It was an electronic run on the banks...The treasury intervened but had they not closed down the accounts they estimated that by 2 PM that afternoon. Within 3 hours. $5.5 Trillion would have been withdrawn and collapsed and within 24 hours the world economy....
Somebody threw us in the middle of the Atlantic without a life raft and we're trying to figure out which shore is the closest to swim to...
Don't Let them get away with it!
Right now the Bush administration are slinking off into the night, and the Democratic party leadership hasn't been willing to hold them accountable for the past TWO YEARS.
It's time to tell Nancy Pelosi who's boss! The American People!
Donate to CindyForCongress.org
All donations will go to Cindy Sheehan's 2010 campaign.
Download your copy of the posters here
It's time to tell Nancy Pelosi who's boss! The American People!
Donate to CindyForCongress.org
All donations will go to Cindy Sheehan's 2010 campaign.
Download your copy of the posters here
February 6, 2009
February 2, 2009
Obama to continue with Bush's illegal kidnapping aka "Extreme Rendition"
The Chicago Tribune has the full article.
Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism—aside from Predator missile strikes—for taking suspected terrorists off the street.
The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.
The European Parliament condemned renditions as an "illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a subsidiary of Boeing Corp., which is accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.
But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.
The decision underscores the fact that the battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is far from over and that even if the U.S. is shutting down the prisons, it is not done taking prisoners.
"Obviously you need to preserve some tools, you still have to go after the bad guys," said an Obama administration official
[...]
"One provision in one of Obama's orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."
Obama's decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human-rights groups. Leaders of such organizations said that reflects a sense, even among advocates, that the United States and other nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.
"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured."
In his executive order on lawful interrogations, Obama created a task force to re-examine renditions to make sure that they "do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture" or otherwise circumvent human-rights laws and treaties.
Well, it would seem the more things change, the more they stay the same...
Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism—aside from Predator missile strikes—for taking suspected terrorists off the street.
The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.
The European Parliament condemned renditions as an "illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a subsidiary of Boeing Corp., which is accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.
But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.
The decision underscores the fact that the battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is far from over and that even if the U.S. is shutting down the prisons, it is not done taking prisoners.
"Obviously you need to preserve some tools, you still have to go after the bad guys," said an Obama administration official
[...]
"One provision in one of Obama's orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."
Obama's decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human-rights groups. Leaders of such organizations said that reflects a sense, even among advocates, that the United States and other nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.
"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured."
In his executive order on lawful interrogations, Obama created a task force to re-examine renditions to make sure that they "do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture" or otherwise circumvent human-rights laws and treaties.
Well, it would seem the more things change, the more they stay the same...
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