Bill O'Reilly's Seminar On Stage Directions

Thanks to the CollegeHumor website.

JFK Assassination: You Can't Handle The Truth, Part II

In a previous post, the possibility was raised that John F. Kennedy's assassination might have been prompted by concerns within the government about possible mental instability brought on by Kennedy's prescription drug abuse.

Feeding into that possibility is the claim by CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton that he found evidence Kennedy experimented with LSD during his affair with Mary Pinchot Meyer, ex-wife of another CIA official, Cord Meyer.

Ms. Meyer said she obtained the LSD from Dr. Timothy Leary, the era's most well-known counterculture guru.

Mary Meyer was found dead October 12, 1964 as a result of two close-range gunshot wounds, one to the back of the head and one to the heart. The murder remains unsolved. Biographer C. David Heymann reports that when he asked ex-husband Cord Meyer in a February 2001 interview who had killed his former wife, he replied: "The same sons of bitches that killed John F. Kennedy."

Clean, Cheap, Unlimited Energy: Why You Can't Have It

Imagine an energy source that is unlimited, clean, safe, and available now. An energy source that is so scalable, it can be used to power anything from an 18-wheel truck to a city the size of New York. An energy source for which all the science and most of the engineering has already been done. An energy source so clean that it has a zero carbon and nuclear footprint. An energy source so safe, you could put an infant care center next door to it. An energy source that can be retrofitted to every fossil fired or nuclear fired power plant on the planet. An energy source for which you'd pay a tiny fraction of what you pay today for electricity. A technology which the United States could export and earn trillions of dollars in foreign exchange credits.

Sound like a fairy tale? It's not. It's been available since October 2006, but the Bush Administration killed it because it needed the insignificant amount of money required to fund it's final engineering development for the Iraq War. What's worse, its inventor and project leader died in 2007.

Dr. Robert Bussard, the inventor of what's called the Polywell Farnsworth-fusor, was one of those rare individuals able to bridge the gap between theoretical physics and practical engineering. While at NASA, he developed a nuclear propulsion system that could have taken us at a fraction of current costs in a single-stage rocket from the surface of the Earth to the surface of Mars in two weeks and back again, instead of the months and billions required for multi-stage chemical rockets. It would have reduced our moon landings to day trips. That project was killed as a result of internecine warfare at NASA. NASA's big ticket contractors correctly saw the end of their costlier, less effective systems in that developed by Dr. Bussard and successfully lobbied to kill it. While still at NASA, Dr. Bussard also designed an interstellar ramjet that could propel a vessel to the stars. That, too, still sits somewhere on a forgotten NASA shelf.

When the Navy decided it needed a smaller, safer power plant for its nuclear fleet, it hired Dr. Bussard to make it happen. He succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, coming up with the now scrapped fusion reactor that could have changed human society and history and saved the planet.

There are three obstacles that need to be surmounted before this technology can benefit us. The first are scientifically illiterate Washington politicians in Congress and the White House who seldom make wise decisions on anything more complex than bridges to nowhere. Next are the web of university and private research organizations that benefit from the non-performing but enormously lucrative big ticket programs administered by the Department of Energy. Finally, there are the private energy companies whose fossil fuel and nuclear products will be rendered obsolete by this new technology.

Taken together, these obstacles may well be insurmountable. It may take a private actor like a Warren Buffet or a Bill Gates to provide the roughly $200 million required to fund a demonstration project. Make no mistake, however. If this is funded in the private sector, whoever steps up to the plate will become not only a social icon but the planet's first trillionaire.

For a good explanation of Dr. Bussard's technology, see the WikiPedia article on the Polywell Farnsworth-fusor (also known as Electrostatic Confinement Fusion).

Before he died, Dr. Bussard gave a talk to Google employees about his new fusion technology:



Listen also to this earlier interview.

Dr. Bussard's original website: http://www.emc2fusion.org.

The Truth About The Surge: Iraq Is A Failed State

Freelance reporter Nir Rosen was invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Wednesday, April 2, 2008. Mr. Rosen is a highly respected journalist who has reported extensively on Iraq as both an embedded reporter and independently. His written statement, submitted to the Committee before he testified, is available here.

Some of his more telling comments:

Today Iraq does not exist. It has no government. It is like Somalia, different fiefdoms controlled by warlords and their militias.

[...]

Now thanks to the Americans the Sunnis, formerly on the run, are once again confident, and control their own territory. The Mahdi Army is consolidating its forces, ridding itself of unruly elements and waiting for the inevitable reduction in American troops. Iraqi
Security Forces will also be able to once again operate with impunity when there are less Americans present. Both sides are getting ready to resume fighting.

[...]

Iraq remains an extremely unstable and failed state, with many years of bloodshed left before an equilibrium is attained. There is no reconciliation occurring between the two warring communities, and Shiites will not allow the territorial gains they made to be chipped away by Sunnis returning to their homes, or Sunni militias being empowered.

[...]

Most embedded journalists, just like embedded politicians and embedded members of think tanks on Washington’s K Street or Massachusetts Avenue, lack language skills and time on the ground in Iraq—and since they are white, they cannot travel around Baghdad without attracting attention and getting kidnapped or killed. They know nothing about Iraq except what they gain through second- or third-hand knowledge, too often provided by equally disconnected members of the US military. Recently we have seen positive articles about events in Iraq published by so called experts such as Anthony Cordesmen, Michael O’Hanlon, Kenneth Pollock, Fred Kagan and even former members of the Coalition Provisional Council such as Dan Senor. These men speak no Arabic and cannot get around without their babysitters from the American military. But it seems that the more they get wrong, these and other propagandists for the war, such as Thomas Friedman, manage to maintain their credibility.

According to his WikiPedia entry:

Nir Rosen (born 1977 in New York City) is a journalist and a chronicler of the Iraq War. Rosen writes on current and international affairs.

Rosen is best known for his writings on the rise of violence in Iraq following the 2003 invasion, which form the basis of his first book, In the Belly of the Green Bird (2006). He spent more than two years in Iraq reporting on the Coalition occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of postwar Iraqi religious and political movements, inter-ethnic and sectarian relations, and the Iraqi civil war.

He regularly contributes to leading periodicals, such as Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine, the Boston Review, and Harper's. He contributed to the footage of Iraq in Charles Ferguson's documentary No End In Sight and was also interviewed for the film.

Nir Rosen is a fellow at the New York University Center on Law and Security, and a former fellow of the New America Foundation. In September 2007, he was the C.V. Starr Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.

Results Of The November 2008 National Elections

This is a duplicate of a comment on the Huffington Post

The decline of Sen. Obama's quest for the Presidency and the likelihood of a Clinton nomination is a die that was cast the moment the Clinton campaign made the decision on the kitchen sink strategy before the Ohio/Texas primaries.

My sense is that Sen. Clinton will go into the Democratic convention with the tide on her side and will successfully convince enough superdelegates to get on board to secure the nomination. John McCain will defeat Sen. Clinton with what I predict as 60% of the popular vote to her 36-38%, depending on the level of activity of the Nader candidacy.

The only question the November election will decide is the fate of the current Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The Senate is up for grabs with perhaps the Democrats maintaining a smaller majority in the House, but only if Sen. Clinton doesn't actively campaign for Democratic candidates.

Democrats might manage a comeback in 2012, but only if there is a major restructuring of the party to include a purge of its conservative DLC component, a rethinking of Democratic goals and ideals, and a more electable candidate than in this election cycle.

I'm bookmarking this post so that on November 5th I can rub everyone's nose in it.

This Space Reserved For A Statement By Senator John McCain Which Is Neither Delusional Nor An Outright Lie

Foreign political donations: was the Senator against them before he was for them, or vice versa? Related question: which member of the Senator's entourage will be going to jail for violating U.S. election law by accepting foreign donations?

Senator McCain as well as members of his staff adamantly denied there was anything remotely political about his trip to Europe and the Middle East this week. Shortly later, Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's campaign spokeswoman and former dirty tricks operative in the 2006 Senate campaign, said that Congress will be reimbursed for the political portions of the trip.

As part of his "non-political" trip, Senator McCain will attend a fundraising event hosted by British investment banker Lord Jacob Rothschild. Attendees are required to fork over between $1,000 and $2,300 for the honor. Oddly enought, $2,300 is the maximum legal donation a candidate can accept from an individual in the Presidential primary.

As is our policy, we are still awaiting a statement from Senator McCain which is neither delusional nor an outright lie. Extra points may be awarded for believability. Judges' decisions are final.

Presidential Interviews: Barack Obama Answers Several Charges Leveled Against Him And His Supporters

ANNOUNCER: Now our own Wendy Terwilliger grills Presidential candidate Barack Obama on new charges that have surfaced from the Clinton and McCain campaigns. Wendy?

WENDY: Thank you, Charles. Senator Obama, it has been charged that as many as several million of your supporters have had sex with a partner other than their spouse. Do you support such behavior by still accepting their support?

OBAMA: Thank you for that question, Wendy, and thank you for having me here today. As my Reverend, Jeremiah Wright, has said, hate the sin but love the sinner. I would have to say that, while I have nothing personally against fornicators, I do denounce and reject their actions.

WENDY: But you still accept their support? Doesn't that sound hypocritical?

OBAMA: Well, when you put it like that, Wendy, I do both reject and denounce their support. Absolutely.

WENDY: Senator, charges have also surfaced that additional millions of your supporters have lied to their employer about their health in order to get at least one fraudulent paid sick day. Do you support this kind of lying and fraud?

OBAMA: Of course not, Wendy. Lying and fraud are serious matters and no one should engage in such activity.

WENDY: And do you denounce and reject support from those people, as well?

OBAMA: Yes. Yes I do. I both denounce and reject support from liars and frauds.

WENDY: I hate to hammer you on these points, Senator, but it has also been reported that many millions of your supporters have driven vehicles, on the highway, after having imbibed alcoholic beverages, thus putting at risk millions of America's tiny babies. Do you denounce and reject these people as well?

OBAMA: I denounce and reject support from anyone who has ever had a drink and then driven. Absolutely.

WENDY: Thank you for appearing today, Senator. According to our instant polling it appears that after all your denunciations are totaled, there remains only one person who you have not denounced and rejected, an Independent voter in Maine who has never been in a town.

OBAMA: I denounce and reject him, as well.

Great Moments Of The Rich And Famous: Presidents Collection

President Taft's Claim to Fame

Life, The Exploding Universe, And The Meaning Of Reality

If you have a lot of time on your hands, and you think about it really hard, for as much sense as it makes, the universe could just as well be constructed of chicken soup. It would obey the same laws of physics but would taste better than dark matter or the flames from a dying star.

I'm going to the kitchen to see if there's more of that wine left.

This Space Reserved For A Statement By Senator John McCain Which Is Neither Delusional Nor An Outright Lie

Today, Senator John McCain announced he wanted to rule over Hell.

Speaking before a crowd in Atlanta, Georgia, the Senator identified the location of Hell -- Washington, D.C. -- but avoided making the logical inference that this made McCain endorser George W. Bush the current King of Hell.

McCain, who up to now has been but a lowly Prince of Hell (U.S. Senator), also avoided commenting on the curious "Hot Dog Endorsement" by current King of Hell, Texas dandee George W. Bush, in his quest for overlordship of the infernal regions. McCain and the King reportedly shared hot dogs before announcing the King's endorsement.

Also not answered, the significance of the hot dog. Some have opined that it referred to Sen. McCain's status within the inner depths of the Republican Party as the "Hot Dog" candidate. Others have wondered if there wasn't some secret party ritual involved, similar to those perpetrated in the infamous Skull 'n Bones initiation the current King of Hell endured when pledging that secret society at Yale University back in his drinking and/or snorting days.

As is our policy, we are still awaiting a statement from Senator McCain which is neither delusional nor an outright lie.

---

Late-breaking afterthought: Wonder if Senator McCain's discovery of the location of Hell and his vow to pursue Osama bin Laden to the Gates of Hell means he will begin his pursuit in Chevy Chase, Maryland?

Great Movie Ideas From Real Life, Part 1

Title: "Honey, I Shrunk the Lead"
Stars: Bill, Hil

Synopsis: Campaign managers tell startled Bill every time he speaks, Hil's voter backing shrinks. Bill mistakenly thinks this mean Hil's voters are actually, physically shrinking. Hilarity ensues. Bill finally confesses to Hil he doesn't really know what the Hil he's doing.

Roll credits.

"Requiem For A Lightweight" In Which I Share Deep Thots About The Life And Times Of The Late Bill Buckley, Noted TV Huckster

Bill Buckley made only two mistakes in life:

1. Creating the Conservative Movement.
2. Letting the riffraff in.

Bill Buckley never met a contrarian he didn't copy, figuring out early in life how to make money promoting other peoples' bad ideas.

If Washington, D.C. is where good ideas go to die, Bill's magazine, the Weekly Standard, was where bad ideas went to be fruitful and multiply.

Although Bill was of the right, he was never right, a proud tradition carried on by his acolytes in what are today sarcastically called "think tanks."

Do "progressives" need their own Bill Buckley? It's a little like asking if liberals need their own Joe McCarthy.

Buckley hitched his wagon to the stars of billionaires with extreme right wing ideologies, ideologies that just happened to advance their own economic interests. That's really all one needs to know about Bill Buckley. All the rest, including his own circuitous rants, are mere window-dressing.

Bill's epitaph:

Here Lies William F. Buckley, Jr.
Again, and again, and again.

This Space Reserved For A Statement By Senator John McCain Which Is Neither Delusional Nor An Outright Lie

Aboard the Straight Talk Express, candidate McCain struggles with his inner dumbass...

You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was.

Amazingly, this actually qualifies as "a statement which is neither delusional nor an outright lie." It's why Senator McCain is fast becoming the darling of the right. Maybe.

Thanks to "The Caucus," a blog on the website of the dreaded New York Times and to Cristina Page writing at the Huffington Post.

This Space Reserved For A Statement By Senator John McCain Which Is Neither Delusional Nor An Outright Lie

Still waiting...

Thanks to Brave New Films

Let Freedom Ring

Courtesy of Juan Cole and YouTube.

Wish There Was An Alternative To The Giggling Morons Passing Themselves Off As "Newspeople" On Cable And Network -- Oh Wait, There Is...

At least, they're trying a different approach. It's called TheRealNews.

Here's their intro:

You Have To Live With The Nostalgia You Have, Not The Nostalgia You Want: Going Tits Up In The Global War Economy

We Can't Make It Here Anymore - by James Mcmurtry

Courtesy of YouTube.

One American Voter's Principled Stand On Election 2008

To all candidates for national office in 2008:

Fuck pro life and pro choice.

Fuck gay marriage debates.

Fuck family values.

Fuck The Global War on Terror.

Fuck Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fuck Creationism and Flag Burning.

Fuck debates on religion.

Fuck gun control and the 2nd Amendment crap.

Fuck who's the most macho on foreign policy.

Fuck what an asshole your opponent is.

Fuck knee-jerk praise for our screw-the-pooch troops.

Fuck waving the bloody 9/11 flag.

In short, Mr. or Mrs. Candidate, if you try to ride your way into office on your favorite hot-button hobby-horse, you just galloped into my no-vote zone.

If that means I don't vote for anyone, then fuck our so-called Democracy.

I'm so ticked off at the classless hypocrites that run for Congress and the Presidency that I'd seriously consider dropping my spineless registration as an Independent and registering as a member of the Anarcho/Syndicalist, Athiest, Islamic-Jihad, Communist Party, if there was one and if I could find a local chapter and there weren't any dues and I didn't have to go to meetings.

On the other hand, maybe I can be bought.

Make an offer, jerkwads.

My name is <REDACTED> and I approved this post.

Is Mitt Romney The Devil's Manchurian Candidate: Rememberance Of Things Past

Should a practicing Mormon be excluded from high political office because of his religious beliefs?

Frankly, the question had never occurred to me before I read a recent article on the Huffington Post.

Mark Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA School of Public Affairs, in a recent rendering on the Huffington Post, spotlighted an excoriation of a Fr. Richard John Neuhaus for his article regarding Mitt Romney and Mormonism at the First Things website. First Things is a website and organization headed by Fr. Neuhaus and is generally credited with being fairly right-wing in the political sense, not the KFC sense.

Mr. Kleiman, one of the good Friar's many nemeses, headlined his brief contribution, "As JFK spins in his grave ..." a backhanded reference to the anti-Catholicism that JFK overcame in his successful bid for the Presidency in 1960 and, by inference, equating the religious bigotry JFK overcame with Fr. Neuhaus's reservations regarding Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's religious affiliation with the Mormon Church.

My immediate reaction was that, although Fr. Neuhaus may be many things, even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while. Apart from that, it prompted a few memories.

I've known a few Mormons, even spent a year in Salt Lake City, capitol of the faith. Those I've known impressed me as, if tending toward rigidity and naivete, admirable in their devotion to high moral values in everyday dealings.

Side note: in the service I once had a young Mormon sailor working for me. He was industrious, devoted, and patriotic. When he left he called me aside and spent 30 minutes telling me what a bastard I was for my coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, beer-swilling, and womanizing ways, all behaviors I'd thought up to then were required of a healthy, active duty sailor. I'm still thankful I didn't advise him that I'd spent the better part of the past year shielding him and his fellow strikers from a sexual predator who was our mutual superior, a warrant officer whom I'd first crossed paths with during a stint in a criminal investigations unit. Better he didn't know, better I didn't puncture his comfortable innocence. I'm still a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, beer-swilling reprobate, by the way, but passage of time, hair and tooth loss have cut down on the womanizing considerably.

And it's also true, that as a beneficiary of a gentle but insistent proselytizing by Mormon missionaries at one point, I confess that I found many of their beliefs -- there is no kind way to put it -- pretty loony. I still take strong exception to their demonization of Black Africans and African-Americans, even though more recent "revelations" to church leaders prompt the claim that the Mormon scriptures on this particular topic don't actually mean what they say.

True that many ex-Mormons decry Mormonism as a vicious cult, embodying the worst aspects of Scientology and televangelism and worse.

Despite all that, and after reading the rants on both sides of the argument, I find myself not really giving a damn what Mitt Romney's personal religious beliefs are. Like most hypocrites running for elective office, what's important is their degree of hypocrisy and self-delusion regarding their archaic and destructive political beliefs.

Romney isn't responsible for the religious system he was born into. But like all the rest of us, he is responsible for his intentions toward the rest of us.

Didn't get around to the "Devil's Manchurian Candidate" issue, did I. So it goes.

Winning Hearts And Minds - Teh Surge Strikes Back

News from the front...Teh surge:

...and the aftermath

Thanks to Treasure of Baghdad.