September 2007 archive

Animation:  The Piano

An urgent plea was just sent to a colleague from the National Resources Defense Council:

Tell the Bush Administration to Protect Gray Wolves!

We must stop the Bush Administration’s plan to declare open season on the wolves of Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho. If this plan is approved, Wyoming and Idaho intend to begin exterminating hundreds of gray wolves — by aerial gunning and other cruel methods — while they’re still on the endangered species list.

Link.

The signatures on earlier NRDC petitions helped to delay the hunt.  Now, the Bush Administration had moved to release the hunters by changing the wolves’ ratio to the surrounding animal populations as a way to bypass their endangered species designation. 

More below the jump…

Oh yeah this is just great. Evidently there is some kind of “classified” program where US snipers in Iraq will put out objects like weapons and detonation cord in the street, and then shoot whoever picks it up.

Well Good God people, if I were an Iraqi father and I saw a weapon or blasting caps in the street where some kids would pick them up and get hurt, you are damn right I would go pick that stuff up to get rid of it…

Except in BushCo’s Iraq…you get your brains blown out for being a good citizen and looking after the neighborhood kids.

Where in the hell did my country go?

Some in the media are criticizing Hillary’s performance as displayed on the Sunday talk shows this past weekend. The primary criticism that I have heard is that she appeared on all five but made no news. In my mind, and I am sure in Hillary and her campaign’s, that makes for a successful day.

Recently I’ve been having a very productive discussion with a friend of mine who is quite a devout born again Christian.  He has been open to reading some things I have suggested, including Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation.”  My friend’s questions forced me to really think about and articulate my own personal life philosophy, one without any sort of god, but with definite moral codes.  My friend has been a strong supporter of the Iraq war and used to be a Bush supporter, but seems not to be anymore.  The fact he and I can have civil and productive exchanges says a lot about how our friendship has grown and trust and openness have developed.  I credit my friend to a large degree with this as he has been patient with my liberal rants many times and has been open to looking at things from a different angle. 

Below is some of our exchange.  I was hoping this would stimulate further conversation here.  I would love to hear your philosophy of life!

Original thinking or secondary research?

Many of the web blogs that I follow are of a type wherein their contributors excel in reading various media reports, the output of other sources, blogs, etc. Often it is a practice on such blogs for an author to transcribe large portions of another’s work and lace it together with fairly innocuous, segue remarks …usually, a sentence or two of little original content. While this may be a service to those who are unable to find original articles for themselves, the procedure adds little to original thinking.