Exhibit A: Jesse Ventura kicks bazoo!

Exhibit B: RJones2818 kicks bazoo!

Exhibit C: Bazoos are kicked!

For Cindy in Oslo tonight

O Mighty Queen of Heaven,

Frigg, Mother of Baldr,

Whose painful loss you bear with dignity

And many tears when none are there to see,

Who knows all and is silent,

I do beseech Thee now

On behalf of my friend Cindy

Who bides tonight where the sky-lights play

In the lands of the ancient Gods

Hear now the voice of the Winnili-kin

Of one who bears the Thunderer’s name

Descendant of the Odal lands of Insubria

Who knows yet the tale of the Langobards!

Hear now the Valkyrie Randgríðr

Whose name I have earned the right to bear!

I do beseech Thee, Mother of a lost Son

To hear the heartfelt need of my friend

Who too has lost a son

To cruelty and injustice

Mighty Asynga, Ur-Wife,

Hear the loss of my dear friend

And of us all

And weave Ye from it victory

And a return to a just peace!

Mighty Wife of Odin

Mother of long lost Baldr

Keeper of the Keys, I trow

That a mead I shall brew to thank Thee

Of finest honey and vanilla and ginger

For paying heed to my voice tonight

And granting sweet victory to my dear friend

As fearless and indomitable as any Valkyrie herself

The honorable Cindy Sheehan!

H/T to Big Yellow, as always, for the video.

“Make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.”

Oh really?

Our armies have been looking like Hitler’s for quite a while now, and I’m starting to feel more and more inclined to do something violent about it by the day. What do you suggest that I should do about that, President Obama? Light a stick of patchouli and meditate? Have a nice cup of tea? Put on some plinking new age harps and look at the calm blue ocean? GO SHOPPING, maybe?

Maybe you’ll get all nervy like John Conyers did in the “Not Really An Impeachment Hearing” and tell me to sit down and shut up because “you’ve got this”? Oh yeah. Conyers really got a lot done THAT day, didn’t he?

Torture. Uninvestigated “suicides”, abductions, executions and murders carried out by Cheney’s death squads. Blocked investigations and coverups. Intimidation of Congress when outright bribery doesn’t work. Corruption. Theft of billions of dollars. No accountability for the war crimes of your predecessor.

My great-uncle – an American warrior, loyal to the bone, a slayer of right wing racist fascists, the man who had to endure the Nazis releasing the dogs on him and other prisoners of war in a concentration camp – is rolling in his grave.

You call this a democracy? I call it a totalitarian regime. Why the fuck are you protecting John Yoo, the man who architected this sick echo of the Nazi past as implemented by AMERICAN troops? How DARE you protect the likes of him, of Rove, of Cheney, of Bush, and pretend to us that this is somehow still a democracy?

Warrantless wiretapping implemented here and overseas. Corporate monopolies running rampant. War profiteers looting our treasury while our people suffer from hunger and cold, losing their jobs, their homes, and their health.

The American people are angry, President Obama. If you don’t listen now, you’re going to have to listen later.

There’s evil a lot closer to home than you would like to have to face. I got to see it up close and personal on 9/11/01, and guess what? I don’t think 19 guys with box cutters were the ones responsible. The fact that the US government stonewalls those inquiries and refuses to answer so many of the remaining questions about 9/11/01 is one of the reasons why.

I suggest you start by knocking on Cheney’s door. There are some people at the Hague who need to see him. He doesn’t need any more rope – there’s plenty. If the American people – assisted by people all over the world who have suffered and who CONTINUE to suffer at the hands of that monster – end up having to carry that rope to his door, Mr. President, it will be because YOU DIDN’T DO YOUR JOB.

Owwwwwwwie, this has GOTTA hurt. ;-7

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s antitrust chief said Tuesday that U.S. senators who pressed her to approve Oracle Corp.’s takeover of Sun Microsystems Inc. should stop interfering in Europe’s affairs and prioritize U.S. health care reform.

Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, is holding up the $7.4 billion deal over worries that it would give Oracle too much control over the database software market.

A group of 59 U.S. senators wrote to her last month, asking her to speed up approval for a deal that, if it fails, could cost thousands of American jobs.

Kroes slammed the senators for “interfering in someone else’s decisions rather than taking the most important decision that you have control over: improving health care.”

“Is this really more important than fixing your own health care system?” she asked in a speech, adding that the senators needed to get their priorities straight.

Oh, and she’s not just right about that.

European regulators have a Jan. 27 deadline to decide whether to approve the takeover or block it. They say they are concerned that Oracle will gain control of open source database company MySQL, which they claim will increasingly pose a threat to Oracle’s own proprietary database software.

The EU commission says it is concerned that Oracle could refuse to license MySQL to some companies or for some uses in order to favor its own software – which could limit customer choice and ultimately hike prices. Sun paid $1 billion for MySQL last year.

That’s right, geeks and geekettes and little geeklings. MySQL, one of the most powerful pieces of open source software out there, software upon which literally hundreds of thousands of websites and small businesses depend, could GO AWAY FOREVER out of this deal.

But the 59 corporate sellouts who claim to be worried about “thousands of jobs” haven’t worried about THAT, have they?

And what stands between those small businesses and this latest threatened rape of the middle class by corporate America? Not our own “democratic” (*coughBULLSHIT!cough*) government. Certainly not the corporations themselves.

A handful of folks in Europe are the ones who have to do this corporate trust-busting dirty laundry for us. AGAIN. AGAIN!

Nice, eh?

“The holidays bring people together,” echoed Amanda Kindler, a 17-year-old from Dix Hills, who made two new friends while on line for two hours. “We’re bonding.”

Cointelpro creeps and stalker exes do insist on coming back like a bad smell. Whether their job is to destabilize a group or to harass an individual, they share certain goals – to turn individuals against a group, and vice versa. To isolate victims with the clever use of psychology and information warfare. To cut someone out of the herd and run them down in every psychological manner possible.

It’s difficult to fight against this type of psychological warfare at first because it is based on the erosion of trust. One of the first reactions is naturally to overcompensate with a lack of trust. This is when they start calling you “paranoid”. A refusal to put up with very real psychological abuse which is hidden from the rest of the group by opportunism, circumstance and contrivance creates anger and insecurity, which the creeps then focus upon at the group level.

Over the years I have discovered that the best way to deal with hidden and not-so-hidden harassment from these directions IS directly, and without drawing anything or anyone else into the confrontation beyond the lies that the attacker has decided to incorporate. It is certain, as in carved-in-stone kind of certain, that the one aspect of this type of psyop which cannot be hidden is the attack itself. Info-warriors are always good for a thousand words, but their actions (or lack thereof!) NEVER lie.

A simple focus on the way you are being poorly treated by THIS INDIVIDUAL – backhanded compliments, rudeness, blatant lies, concern trolling – completely invalidates their agenda. Never draw others into it except to clearly show where the person’s credibility is in question. It’s tempting to make statements about other people or groups, but it’s important to realize that no matter how much your attacker is trying to speak for those people or those groups – and hopefully force your negative reaction to include them, IT’S NOT ABOUT THEM – it’s ONLY about you and your attacker.

Simple, clear, direct statements to the attacker should be your only response going forward:

YOU are lying to me. YOU are insulting me. I sent a very straightforward and comprehensive answer in good faith to this question the last time you asked it, which YOU completely ignored. YOU are pretending to ask me for help, but you have never once offered any help yourself, or you have devalued anything I’ve done for you in good faith in the past. YOU have gossiped about me. YOU have spread lies and rumors about me. YOU have treated me with a lack of honor and respect.

Not necessarily the group you pretend to represent. Not necessarily the people you pretend to speak for. YOU, yourself, and whatever sock puppets you’re using.

Nothing says “Fuck off, cointelpro stalking scumbag” like this.

By focusing on the extremely poor way the individual is treating you, it completely destroys whatever other false reality they are trying to create.

For example: an attacker can, via a sockpuppet email account, claim to be the CEO of Muckety Muck Corporation and state that he’s had a big come-to-Jesus session with the movers and shakers of Anti-War Group X as he presents his second thinly disguised delivery of condescending schadenfreude at your lack of steady employment, but whose word do you really have for any of that?

It is a waste of time to try to deconstruct these statements unless they can be immediately proven to be lies. What ultimately determines the credibility of a person’s information in the immediate is HOW THEY ARE TREATING YOU. If this IS an attack, then depend upon it – the attack will be part of the equation. Certainly misunderstandings happen, but if a pattern of repetitive problem behavior eventually emerges, dealing directly with it is a response that is reasonable, understandable, and extremely defensible if the resulting drama is somehow brought to the attention of a wider group.

An individual can’t really do anything about groups that have been infiltrated at high levels and/or turned, except move on and continue to act in a manner which gives the lie to what’s being said. People are easy to manipulate, especially these days – and today’s psyop jackasses have raised that manipulation to an art form. However, the one thing you CAN do in your defense is make it very, very clear to these twisted creeps that you are 100% out of the shit-taking business.

Since what they are in is 100% in the shit-GIVING business, this is a bit like firing them. It can be quite cathartic on that level alone. ;-7

When I was five, and my sister four, we were taken to see “A Christmas Carol”, which was playing at Radio City Music Hall. My sister came away from this experience absolutely petrified of the Ghost of Christmas Future. She had recurring nightmares about skeletal hands and hooded figures emerging from our closet.

I was not frightened of such things in my youth, and calmly explained to her that since the closet in the room we shared was closer to my bed, the Ghost of Christmas Future would probably try to get me first; whereupon in doughty eldest-sister-with-ADD fashion I promised to kick it’s bony ass. This did not, however, stop the nightmares. We hung a Charlie Brown laundry bag from the doorknob of the closet to ward off the fearsome spectre, but this did not assuage my sister.

My mother came upon me logically trying to explain to my sister that the Ghost of Christmas Future wasn’t real and that she was being stupid for being afraid of it. Mom didn’t like this attitude much and so I was asked what I was afraid of. I was a very pragmatic child who feared no imaginary beasties, and so my reply was burglars. I was then asked what I would do if a burglar broke into the house, and answered that I would very calmly and rationally explain to the burglar that what they were doing was bad, naughty and wrong, and for them to please stop and go away. Surely the power of my precocious and towering five year old intellect would reach the most hardened criminal and cause them to see the error of their ways!

Children are wise in that they haven’t learned their wisdom through pain. They don’t lie until they learn to do so, they are born with an innate sense of right and wrong; they don’t operate from a place of fear or hatred by nature. These things are taught, and adults do not have this luxury. I am still afraid of burglars, but I am now a 47 year old woman. I own a gun and numerous sharp and pointy objects. I know how to use them all and would not hesitate to do so to defend me and mine. It would not be my first choice, but it is a choice. I would much rather deliver the five-year-old-version of me’s lecture on the burglar’s morally reprehensible behavior, but when you’re dealing with someone who is beyond reason – someone whose eyes are alight with the lust to do harm, it matters not whether they are driven by an addiction to heroin or an addiction to governmental power. They’re getting ready to do you in and take what all you’ve got. You’d best act now and lecture later, or you won’t get an opportunity in future to lecture at all.

I have spent a lifetime learning to control my temper. The really sad part of that is that the sheer level of my success can be determined by how very few people have actually seen me in a state of beserker rage. I’ve done a very good job. I find myself wondering if I’ve done too good a job.

We blog and blog, we preach to our choirs, and what actually gets done about the problems we address? I’ve lobbied Congress directly. I’ve marched in the peace marches. I’ve spent money that could have been used for food or car repairs on getting down to DC. I’ve spent time that could have been used to get my house all kinds of shiny magazine-ready on the peace movement. I am a patient woman who values peace, but I am really starting to chafe at the lack of viable change that I am seeing. Indeed, I see actions that move us three steps back for every deceitful article or pundit that comes forward and says we’re moving one step ahead.

I find myself wondering why I’m having a childish, naive argument with the burglar when more properly I should be tearing the gun out of his hand by any means necessary and putting him out of our collective misery.

When does the effort to resolve things in a peaceable manner become arrant cowardice? How long must we stand idly by while our fellow hard working and law abiding citizens are robbed, cheated, lied to; while they lose their homes and jobs by the thousands; while they face death by spreadsheet and death by corporate irresponsibility? A slick media and marketing machine works day and night to grind down the people’s knowledge of these horrors and turns them into not much more than domesticated animals waiting for the fleecing – or the slaughter. Our supposed governmental representatives blithely raise ignoring the will of their constituencies to an art form, while blatantly and openly continuing to accept payments from corporate interests. Journalists and IT workers and financial whistleblowers and biological scientists with integrity are thrown into the same unmarked grave as any tell-all sex workers who have serviced the corrupt organized criminals who are still running our nation and indeed entire parts of our world. Our military and innocent Middle Eastern people alike sacrificed by the thousands over almost a decade now on the bloody altar of a twisted military/industrial complex demon which makes the Ghost of Christmas Future look like a fucking boy scout.

This demon, unlike the one my sister feared, is all too real. My fellow citizens are not stupid to fear this demon, and I would be stupid to try to continue to have a rational conversation with it.

Five years old or forty seven years old, I still want to kick it’s ass.

Go ahead. Tell me why I shouldn’t.

Ahem.

Excuse me.

While I cannot be entirely sure whether the current collection of bylines (and photo) are being intentionally funny or not, I would like to assure you that my boobs are not the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

However, I will grant you that smashing my boobs in a machine that tries to turn them into pringles every year in an effort to detect cancer seems painful and counterproductive – unless one is part of the boob-mashing industry which somehow manages to convince it’s victims to not only suck up this nasty treatment but also to PAY for it… I will admit that to that degree this barbaric process does, perhaps, bear some remote similarity to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

One wonders whether Lady Liberty’s copper assets would meet a fate like this should some military/industrial complex savage decide that it would be profitable and necessary, in an Ayn Randian sort of way, to turn her front into pringles. It is bad enough that the huddled masses yearn to breathe free on the best of days. Frankly if it were me being menaced by some jackass with a pringle machine in the name of freedom, I’d find a new home for the torch.

Prior to this particular last few decades, this barbaric treatment of women did not occur, yet not as many women died from breast cancer because there were also other stupid things we weren’t doing, like using depleted uranium ammunition in our wars and allowing corporations to destroy our environment with radioactive and toxic waste.

Doctor it hurts when I do this. Don’t DO this. I am not in a hurry to turn my boobs into pringles again any time soon. There’s gotta be a better way. Pringle-smashing ain’t natural, it ain’t fun, and it doesn’t catch cancer any damn bit faster than a FREE, daily self examination.

Never again the pringle times. Troops home now. ;-7

They waterboarded this guy 183 times and he now says he masterminded the whole thing.

Yeah right, and I’m the freakin’ Queen of England on alternate Tuesdays.

Never mind that he’s also testified that he was in place A when they have proof that he was in place B at the same time.

Apparently, I am very much not alone in my thoughts on who was REALLY responsible for 9/11. Final tally after they shut the comments down – 250 people agreed!

This is a repeat post, which will appear here every Veteran’s Day.

My grandfather was active duty in the Army for all of 3 days during WWII (after his training, of course). He was an artilleryman at the Battle of the Bulge. After 3 days of firing the big guns at the Bulge he was given a medical discharge as he had completely lost his hearing. He came back and worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yards as a tank mechanic.

My uncle served in the Navy in the 50’s before returning to work as a DoD contractor for Sperry, later Unisys, where he joined my father, eventually becoming the company’s manager in charge of all DoD contracts.

My dad, an electrical engineer, was on the original design team for the E2-C AWACS radar at Sperry in 1959. Most of his career was spent developing and testing radars and weapons guidance systems. Many of the battleships, destroyers and carriers out there have been worked on by my father. He was also involved in the development and maintenance of Polaris, Trident and Terrier missile systems while at Sperry/Unisys in Great Neck and Ronkonkoma, and later at Harris PRD/GSSD in Syosset.

My husband enlisted in the Marines at age 17 in 1974. He likes to say he joined as a rebellious act to piss off his parents. They just shook their heads wisely and laughed at him… his father was in the Army and served in Egypt during WWII as an intelligence translator. His mother was in the WAVES and then later joined the Navy, eventually rising to the rank of Lt. Commander, she was one of the Navy’s first female officers. Yes, I call my mother in law “ma’am”. ;-7 Anyway, they both became peace activists in the 1960s.

I served in the USAF from 2/86 to 12/91. I was at Ramstein for most of that. I had a front row seat for the fall of the Berlin Wall and voluntarily extended my tour twice for a year – once to serve in Operations Proven Force/Desert Storm and Provide Comfort/Desert Shield.

However I’ve saved the most interesting story for last.