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06 February 2010

 

Where are the Comments?
For the past few years now, we have been hosting our Comments for MatrixMasters.com with Haloscan.com. They crashed and disappeared. However, they claimed that for a small fee the comments could be transferred to Echo at js-kit.com (whoever that is).

Unfortunately, the Echo conversion simply doesn't work, and their alleged backup of the comments didn't happen either. So unless a miracle happens, the past 10 years of your comments are gone forever.

Eventually I'll get a Comments feature working some other way and start over with them. But to be honest, I'm a little discouraged about the whole thing, and I'm not in a mood to begin working on rebuilding the comments on 16 blogs right now.

posted by Lorenzo 2:09 PM

 

The Drugging of America

The fifth tributary that helped to create our deluge of disaster is both a cause and an effect of America's social breakdown. This is the numbing of Americans with psychotropic drugs. In 2006, Americans, who make up approximately 6 percent of the world's population, consumed 66 percent of the world's supply of antidepressants. In 2002, more than 13 percent of Americans were taking Prozac alone. Prozac is one of thirty available antidepressants. Anti-anxiety drugs, such as Zoloft, are so widely prescribed that in the year 2005, the $3.1 billion sales of Zoloft exceeded the sales for Tide detergent.

Many of these drugs, which are also called "cosmetic drugs" or "life-enhancing drugs," are diagnosed for loneliness, sadness, life transitions, or concentration on task performance. They have been "normalized" through extensive direct-to-consumer advertising and marketing to doctors who are financially rewarded for recommending them to colleagues. Regulations that once restrained the widespread promotion and sales of these powerful drugs have been relaxed to the point of near nonexistence. The United States is the only Western nation that permits direct-to-consumer drug advertising. We are also the only nation without price controls on drugs. Psychiatric drugs are so ubiquitous that the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in America, and antidepressants are their most profitable products.

[COMMENT by Lorenzo: Virtually all of those drugs could be replaced by one you grow yourself, cannabis. And that is why it's "illegal", because it will take away from the profits of the corporations who are bribing Congress and the White House to do their bidding.]

posted by Lorenzo 1:36 PM

05 February 2010

 

One of our planet's more interesting places

posted by Lorenzo 12:46 PM

 

Big Brother and Google, A New Partnership
(Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld, February 4, 2010)
Apparently, Google's "Do no harm" motto is no more, because by interconnecting with NSA we now have the world's largest electronic spy organization reading your Gmail and seeing where you've been surfing. I simply don't believe Google's claim that privacy will be protected.

"Google and N.S.A. are entering into a secret agreement that could impact the privacy of millions of users of Google's products and services around the world," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based policy group." . . . Privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the National Security Agency (NSA) asking for details on the agency's purported partnership with Google Inc. on cybersecurity issues. ... In a separate action that was also taken today, EPIC filed a lawsuit against the NSA and the National Security Council, seeking more information on the NSA's authority over the security of U.S. computer networks. ... EPIC's FOIA request relating to Google was filed after a story in the Washington Post about an impending partnership between Google and the NSA on cybersecurity issues. ... The Post reported that the NSA and Google are in the process of finalizing an agreement under which the NSA will help Google better defend itself against cyberattacks.

[ALSO see: Why Google is working in cahoots with America's spooks.]
The NSA's recent history has been inglorious: warrantless wiretapping scandal still continues, as well as allegations that it monitored internet use by customers of America's biggest telecoms company, AT&T. ... the Washington Post story says that "the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information"

posted by Lorenzo 7:54 AM

02 February 2010

 

Are you paying attention? We're being robbed!
(Robert Reich, Alternet, 02 February 2010)
The notorious Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) began with a virtual blank check from Congress. Treasury officials then secretly decided which companies were to receive hundreds of billions of dollars. Why these particular entities were chosen and not others remains a mystery. For months, the Treasury didn't even disclose the identities of the major banks that giant insurer AIG repaid with its bailout money – 100 cents on each dollar AIG owed them. . . . The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, has gone far beyond its traditional role of setting short-term interest rates. It has bought up massive amounts of debt – mortgage debt, Treasury bills, and debt instruments emanating several public agencies, many of them supporting a wide range of private entities. No one outside the Fed knows the ultimate beneficiaries of all this government backing, the criteria used by the Fed for making these commitments, or even how much debt the Fed is buying.

[CLICK THE LINK ABOVE FOR MORE ANALYSIS]

posted by Lorenzo 1:50 PM

01 February 2010

 

Just When I'd Almost Given Up All Hope

Air Force Academy Gives Pagans, Druids and Wiccans Place To Worship
(DAN ELLIOTT, Huffington Post, 02/01/10)
The Air Force Academy has set aside an outdoor worship area for Pagans, Wiccans, Druids and other Earth-centered believers, school officials said Monday. ... A double circle of stones atop a hill on the campus near Colorado Springs has been designated for the group, which previously met indoors. ... "Being with nature and connecting with it is kind of the whole point," said Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, who sponsors the group and describes himself as a Pagan. "It will dramatically improve that atmosphere, the mindset and the actual connection." ... The stones were moved to the hilltop last year because erosion threatened to make them unstable in their previous location near the visitors center. Crews arranged them in two concentric circles because they thought it would be a pleasant place for cadets to relax, Longcrier said. ... When Longcrier and academy chaplains were looking for an outdoor worship space, they discovered one already existed in the form of the circles. ... Lt. Col. William Ziegler, one of the academy's chaplains, said designating the space is part of the school's effort to foster religious tolerance and to defend the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. ... "It's about our commitment as airmen to protect freedom and defend freedom. To me this is a freedom thing," he said. ... The school also has worship facilities for Protestant and Catholic Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists.

posted by Lorenzo 5:51 PM

30 January 2010

 

Daniel Ellsberg ... American Hero
This movie will be coming out soon. Whether or not you know or care anything about the American war in Viet Nam, this story will still inspire you to learn more about what else you haven't been taught in the public school system.

posted by Lorenzo 12:03 PM

29 January 2010

 

My lifeline to sanity
Although I don't get The Daily Show on TV, I watch it on Hulu. And I have to admit that if it wasn't for Jon Stewart I think I'd give up hope. He is most definitely the Walter Cronkite of this age.

posted by Lorenzo 9:10 PM

 

How insignificant we really are

posted by Lorenzo 3:26 PM

25 January 2010

 

The Obama "Brand"
You know, that sad part to me is that I even though I have never met him, I feel as if I would really like Barack Obama. But he has been such a disappointment to me, ever since his first big reversal on FISA in the summer of 2008, that I can no longer support him ... mainly because I no longer believe him. What a great president he could be if only he did what he said he was going to do. ... The link above will take you to the full article, but the following first paragraph says it all:

Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, armies of corporate lobbyists grease the palms of our elected officials, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia, and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, this product is duping us into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.

posted by Lorenzo 7:30 PM

14 January 2010

 

Why there is a War on "Drugs"
"War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair.... waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact."
--George Orwell, 1984

posted by Lorenzo 11:58 AM

04 January 2010

 

The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology

posted by Lorenzo 10:00 PM

02 January 2010

 

posted by Lorenzo 12:22 PM

16 December 2009

 

Our Hope Is With The Young .... BRAVO!

posted by Lorenzo 11:21 AM

11 December 2009

 

Obama Far Outdoes Bush in Escalating War -- The Numbers Will Surprise You

As the US continues to collapse, the technocrats have already moved on to the next country to rape and pillage. The economic elite don’t have a home country, to them the entire globe is theirs, and the majority of the US can collapse into poverty for all they care, and that’s exactly what they want to happen.

The US working class is the biggest threat to them and they want us eliminated.

As the IMF would say, there has been a structural adjustment program in place, and the US working class is obsolete.

When you understand this, you can understand how the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are wars against the US public. Wars that weaken and drain the US working class of vital resources and social safety nets.

[CLICK the link above for this entire story.]

posted by Lorenzo 9:45 AM

10 December 2009

 

Obama Lied To Me, And I'm Mad As Hell About It

For some time now I've been astounded that no major writer was pointing out how seriously different the Obama Administration is from the Obama Campaign. For one, I feel that he lied to me, and it may be the final nail in my coffin of trusting ANY politician again.

The link above will take you to MATT TAIBBI's Dec 09, 2009 Rolling Stone article, and I highly recommend that you read it. Here are the concluding lines:

"The investment community feels very put-upon," Fass explained. "They feel there is no reason why they shouldn't earn $1 million to $200 million a year, and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown." ... Which makes sense. Shit, who could blame the investment community for the meltdown? What kind of assholes are we to put any of this on them? ... This is the kind of person who is working for the Obama administration, which makes it unsurprising that we're getting no real reform of the finance industry. There's no other way to say it: Barack Obama, a once-in-a-generation political talent whose graceful conquest of America's racial dragons en route to the White House inspired the entire world, has for some reason allowed his presidency to be hijacked by sniveling, low-rent shitheads. Instead of reining in Wall Street, Obama has allowed himself to be seduced by it, leaving even his erstwhile campaign adviser, ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker, concerned about a "moral hazard" creeping over his administration. ... "The obvious danger is that with the passage of time, risk-taking will be encouraged and efforts at prudential restraint will be resisted," Volcker told Congress in September, expressing concerns about all the regulatory loopholes in Frank's bill. "Ultimately, the possibility of further crises — even greater crises — will increase." ... What's most troubling is that we don't know if Obama has changed, or if the influence of Wall Street is simply a fundamental and ineradicable element of our electoral system. What we do know is that Barack Obama pulled a bait-and-switch on us. If it were any other politician, we wouldn't be surprised. Maybe it's our fault, for thinking he was different.

Labels: A

posted by Lorenzo 5:38 PM

03 December 2009

 

Hightower: What Is Obama Getting Us into in Afghanistan?


Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money. I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader. -Jim Hightower

[CLICK the link above for the full essay.]

posted by Lorenzo 7:16 PM

02 December 2009

 

Time for a little hard truth
Brzezinski Calls Anti-Corruption Crusade In Afghanistan Hypocritical

"Who are we to seriously be preaching [such] a crusade?" he asked. "We have a financial sector that is voraciously greedy and exploitative, to put it mildly. We have a Congress which is not immune to special interests. And we have an electoral system that is based largely on private donations which precipitate expectations of rewards. The notion of us going to the Afghans and preaching purity is comical... I think we should just quit that stuff."

posted by Lorenzo 1:44 PM

01 December 2009

 

Obama Ignores (or doesn't understand) History

Obama escalates the War on Afghanistan
Condems Thousands of Americans to Die

posted by Lorenzo 8:08 AM

26 November 2009

 

Has Obama Already Blown It?
(Jeff Cohen, AlterNet,November 26, 2009)
With Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that delivered power to Nixon and the GOP. . . . There's another frightening parallel: Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who accomplished perhaps his single biggest legislative "triumph" -- NAFTA -- thanks to an alliance with Republicans that overcame strong Democratic and grassroots opposition. . . . How did Clinton win his majority in Congress? With the votes of almost 80 percent of GOP senators and nearly 70 percent of House Republicans. Democrats in the House voted against NAFTA by more than 3 to 2, with fierce opponents including the Democratic majority leader and majority whip. . . . To get a majority today in Congress on Afghanistan, the Obama White House is apparently bent on a strategy replicating the tragic farce that Clinton pulled off: Ignore the informed doubts of your own party while making common cause with extremist Republicans who never accepted your presidency in the first place. . . . Today, it's crucial to ask where Obama is heading. From the stimulus to healthcare, he's shown a Clinton-like willingness to roll over progressives in Congress on his way to corrupt legislation and frantic efforts to compromise for the votes of corporate Democrats or "moderate" Republicans. Meanwhile, the incredible shrinking "public option" has become a sick joke. ... Maybe it will take a White House/GOP alliance over Afghanistan to wake up the base of liberal groups (like MoveOn) to take a closer and more critical look at President Obama's policies.

[CLICK the link above for the full essay.]

ALSO SEE: White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show

posted by Lorenzo 10:48 AM