Monday, August 23, 2010

Constitutional Rites

   I find it astounding, though not surprising, that the same voices raised over and over decrying the destruction of our constitution are now the loudest in the choir calling for it's utter dissolution. First Amendment: that means If I say something you disagree with and you decide to change the station you are denying my First Amendment Rights. On the other hand if you decide to build a church somewhere I don't like I should be able to stop you from building it because the First Amendment only applies to religions we approve of. There were Catholic priests butt****ing  little boys all over America but I never heard any suggestions that we tear down all Catholic Churches near schools! And speaking of First Amendment, how about that WikiLeaks guy? Off With His Head!!!! His leaks may, I repeat MAY, have endangered some poor Iraqui or Afghanan informer. Now the fact that George and Dick and their cronies started an illegal war that resulted directly in the deaths of 4,500 American Troops and well over half a million innocent civilians, that is not open for discussion. Some poor sap lies to Congress about using steroids and it's off to prison with him..  Meanwhile, in Iraq, Billions of our dollars and hundreds of our lives continue to be lost and nobody is held accountable. The War is over? There are more American troops and civilian mercenaries in Iraq now than there were in 2005! I'm so tired and disgusted I won't go into the 14th, 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments that the Republican Party is also ready to flush down the crapper, Republican members of the current Congress have submitted 42 Amendments to the Constitution they profess to love so much. FORTY-TWO proposed Amendments in EIGHTEEN MONTHS. They love the Constitution so much they want to write a new one every week I guess.  I just want to know what happened to my Grampa's Republican Party? I think the problem is the Tea Party: add "T" to  Republican and you get a Republican't, all full of things we CAN'T do. We CAN'T reform healthcare, we CAN'T regulate Wall Street and the Banksters, we CAN'T do comprehensive Immigration Reform, we CAN'T regulate offshore drilling, we CAN'T  control global warming, we CAN'T tax the Rich: Well, I believe what has made us a great Nation is our CAN Do attitude. We CAN display tolerance in all aspects of life, religious, sexual and political, we CAN break Big Oil's stranglehold on our future, we CAN regulate our financial markets so ALL AMERICANS benefit, we CAN be once again the "Shining City on the Hill", the finest example of Freedom and Liberty and Justice for All in the World. We CAN DO all these things but will we? All I can say is what I said in 2000-If we really want Justice and Liberty it is within our grasp, we can grab it or we can flush it. I've got mine, I'm old and ready to die, you really cannot harm me so to some extent I just don't care. Come November 2nd you have important choices to make, you can choose among candidates and vote  or you can choose not to vote, either way we will get just what we deserve.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Canoe Kit?


well, here's the start from Missoula!

Friday, July 30, 2010

They Got Wood Big Enough for a 50' Dugout Canoe, I'm just sayin'

OK, So here are pics!

I Got Wood ! !

Well, just got back from Superior Hardwoods of Missoula with my Beautiful sticks of OLD REDWOOD. WOW, what great sticks they are at 27 feet, with only a few checks. I should have plenty of clean full length strips with shorter strips left over for a small canoe/kayak or I'm thinking a SurfYak! So, we are off to kalispell after dark, we have 35-45MPH winds today so I'll wait. Here's first pics anyway!

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Intelligence Culture Growth?

Yes it's an oxymoron when applied to the new branch of Government. The Bush administration created the largest growth in government  both in size and in self delegated power that has taken place since the nation was created. And now, Republicants want us to believe if we elect them they will give us "smaller government". Didn't Bush Sr. say the same thing? and Reagan? I won't even defend Clinton, but at least he says he's a big spending Democrat. They say they will grow the economy but the only thing they always increase is the Debt.These latest reports on the new Intelligence Industrial Complex are further confirmation of this. Wake up sheople.

Next week’s news: Sarah Palin edition | Need to Know | PBS

Next week’s news: Sarah Palin edition | Need to Know | PBS This is freakin highlarryous!!! this guy is worth a regular read.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Bye Bye, Charlie...

It looks like the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna will soon be extinct. Drill, Baby, Drill.

come on Max!

Could this be true? I hear Max that you think Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Paine are all idiots and we need a new American Monarchy. All of these founding fathers thought there should be a 100% inheritance tax for good reason-to avoid the amassing of intergenerational wealth that would threaten our Democracy. They were great Prophets weren't they. We need the Bush tax cuts eliminated and the estate tax restored. You and I know this will affect maybe 1 or 2 people in Montana and none of them can be called "family" farms or business. The wealthy have plenty of time to give their wealth to their children. My wife's father is in a rest home w/ alzhiemers, he is a 95 year old WWll veteran. Medicare took 50% of the $60,000 proceeds from the sale of the farm and all the rest of his liquid assets. That means that this "family farmer" pays a greater inheritance tax than this Fortune 500 guy who just died with an estate valued at $9Billion. Now, tell me this is the Great American Dream. Max, either you need to figure out who it is you as a Democrat are supposed to support and if you insist on representing the Corporations and the wealthy then join the Republicant party and give us Democrats a chance to elect a populist, progressive candidate.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

This will be a journal of sorts of my own Voyage of Discovery as I venture down the Rivers that were the greyhound bus ticket home for a tired and disheveled group of surveyors that was the Lewis and Clark Expedition. A more accurate description would probably be an Inventory of treasures and resources the Great White Father intended conning the current owner/occupier out of. History has shown the effects were pretty much what L&C predicted though the scale I believe would have disgusted even them. By the time they were on the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers heading home most of the East had given them up for dead. They were indeed a hungry, bedraggled lot who, reading between the lines, only survived and made it home by stealing dogs, horses and boats,  and begging food and succor from nearly every native they met. Were it not for the compassion of the Nez Perce’ Indians they all surely would have died. They cobbled together an amazing collection of craft on their return journey but I’m not quite that adventurous. I’ll be building a modified Adirondack Guide Boat using recycled wood for my journey starting from plans I purchased from Sandy Point Boat Works.  I should qualify that, there is a Russian Maple in my Ex’s back yard that suffered some ice storm damage last year and has a number of dead branches that are naturally crooked and large enough to carve the stem pieces out of, so there will be just a tiny bit of new wood. I want to incorporate a vertical axis wind turbine and solar panel into the boat to power computer gear and cameras and will install an electric trolling motor just cuz after all, Times Have Changed! Part of my purpose is to show how small your carbon footprint can be and still enjoy a full life. Oh well, photos to follow----http://sandypointboatworks.com/

Ready! Fire! Aim!

I cannot believe americuns believed the Republicans were so much better on Defense. First of all they are for the most part a bunch of draft dodging cowardly chicken hawks whose main weapons are fear and ignorance, and in the second place they keep shooting their own damn foot to smithereens week after week! First ReRun tells the wall street/bankster meeting he's speaking to that the whole thing is "us V them" them being us poor working saps. Now he turns around following Old man Burns' lead and sues the fire department because those lazy ner do well volunteer firefighters didn't work hard enough to save his trees and shrubs in his new Development. I guess he was really counting on them to hide behind. 63 million ain't enough for this jerk, all you sheople need to kick in so's denny doesn't lose any money. this is typical of Republicant approach all over. get out and vote folks!! twice if you can, and give $ to PROGRESSIVE POPULIST candidates.

the heat stupification of Amerika

Well folks, Maybe it's just the heat but there seems to be so many morons out there issuing cretinous, mephitic piles of illogic one hardly knows where to begin. I had the unfortunate experience of being stuck in a waiting room and forced to watch two episodes of the hit new game show "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" The show was interrupted by a commercial for our "New Air National Guard" in which a Blue clad soldier peers at a group of (probably) Apache or Comanchero Indians as the voiceover says "Defending Americans is nothing new" whereby the scene fades to a group of barefoot, robe wearing "terrorists" with black bags over their heads being guarded by a couple of M16 bearing camo-clad soldiers and narrator says "Just the way we do it... Join the NEW Air National Guard!" Now, mind you I can tell who the "Americans" are but who's the guy in Blue? I think it worth mentioning Faux News's Rick Brainfart's comment that " Most of these illegal workers aren't Mexicans anyway, they are JUST INDIANS"(emphasis mine) He has hit on something I have tried to point out, unsuccessfully, for years: Most of the migrant farm workers are indeed indians, many members of Indian Nations whose members have lived on both sides of our Johnny-Come-Lately border for at least the last 11.000 years. Like the chickenhawk's assumed Taliban strategy most of them are content simply waiting us out. They know full well that in spite of all the noise as the Republican't party makes there will soon be some sort of amnesty. The presence of these millions of workers helps hold down the cost of labor and are of great help destroying the Unions. Were anybody serious about stopping "illegal immigration" they would make hiring an undocumented worker an expensive, jail time mandatory offense and then enforce the law. Within one year illegal aliens would be as rare as a Republican't with a conscience. BUT I DIGRESS.....
As I was saying about being "smarter than a fifth grader"; It's obvious that most of us don't happen to be smarter, on the contrary, this program is the best illustration yet that, as P.T. Barnum said, "Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people." It IS educational to see the difference in the way the Republican'ts react to this situation contrasted with the Democratic approach. For Democrats this is another example of why we need to increase the amount of education available to EVERYBODY by way of PELL grants, assistance to local schools, encouraging more people to become teachers, rewarding schools that do well and finding out what's gone wrong in schools that don't do well and spending whatever we need to correct these problems. The Republican't response-STUPIDIZE THE TEXTBOOKS .
That's right, if your kids are smarter than you, you should show them young whippersnappers whats what by destroying the educational system that made them that way, before your grandkids REALLY show you up. Well, my kid is smarter than I am and I think that is a GOOD thing. (education is hereditary...My daughter swears I get smarter every time she gives birth!) I think most Americans want their children's lives to be better than their's was.
Now, while we are on that issue: The Tea Party crowd, bless their confused lil' hearts, keep saying they want to take America back to better times and it's easy to understand why. I remember back in the 50s and 60s: Dad went off to work, Mom stayed home and "kept house", Junior was in Little League and Sis was on the Pep Squad and took 2nd in the Young Miss Optimist competition. Dad was a Teamster, he came home tired and dirty but 40 hours/week earned enough to pay the mortgage, water and power and property taxes(always too Gol Durned High!), phone bill and such sundries. Weekends the whole family went up to the vacation cabin at the Lake and did some waterskiing with Dad's new boat that he paid for by working overtime every chance he got last winter. Bought a NEW car every 2.7 years, gave the kids an allowance to supplement Junior's paper route and Sis's babysitting, Man I'm telling you life was good. Now, I won't get into Civil Rights or women's issues or environmental issues, we had some things to fix, but life was good. If only we had payed more attention to Ike's famous words of warning. His boogeyman was The Military Industrial Complex. And it has us by the throat.
Tea Party members are fond of calling for a "return" to constitutional government. Let me draw your attention to the first 15 words of that esteemed document-"We the People, in order to form a more perfect UNION". That's right folks, a UNION. That is what GOVERNMENT is; a union of people who band together to do what they are unable to do individually. The purpose of that UNION that we established was not to protect itself from itself, it was to protect US from the ARISTOCRATS and CORPORATIONS who would seek to take advantage of US. At that time the King was not a big problem to free citizens, had not been since the signing of The Magna Carta. The biggest threat to colonist's well being was The British East India Company and other powerful CORPORATE interests. Let's correct some "common wisdom" right from the git go; Washington, Adams, Franklin, Hancock, Jefferson, Paine, every one of these and many other of our Founding Fathers were wary of Aristocracy and Imperial rule and in their many communications and published works called for a 100% inheritance Tax. The amassing of wealth and power into the hands of the few would create a new tyranny that the Constitution was written to protect US from. True, the Constitution as written set rich white men as the dominant class, but they put the mechanisms in place for us, the poor, women, persons of color and social misfits of every stripe to modify that grand instrument so as to wrest our future from their control. Up until now the Constitution and the Courts have only been used to protect the rights of the people. The Republican't Court has decided BP is people too. Exxon/Mobile is his second cousin, I guess. If you really want to understand these issues Hartman's Screwed is a wonderfully informative explanation of our Founding Fathers' motivations and desires when founding our great Democratic Republic.(for you Republicant's-not too many big words!) What our Founding Fathers really worried about was the accumulation of vast inter-generational wealth that spawned a new crop of Aristocrats and Corporate Oligarchs. This is why for the first half of our country's history a Corporation could not outlive it's founder. You can give your children as much as you want while you are alive so it is only fair when you die the society that enabled you to build your own little empire should get it's tribute. By adopting this policy more money ends up being circulated rather than simply used to fatten a bank account. OK, now it's time to talk about taxes and debt and deficits. Remember those prosperous 50s and 60s when so many of our parents moved out of the depression and into a THRIVING middle class? The top income tax rate was 91%. Most working Dads bitched and moaned about how high taxes were but all things considered everybody thought things were pretty fair. There was a substantial estate tax and capital gains were taxed over 30%. In spite of or because of this horrible government robbery rich people re-invested their money in the business or established charitable foundations rather than give it to Uncle Sam.
Remember that "Union" part of that pre-amble to our Constitution? Well, part of belonging to a Union is paying dues. Dues are what enable a Union to do all the things it does to make the situations of working men and women better.Taxes are what enables Government to do all the things it does to make all our lives better. Provide for the general welfare of the Nation. And like dues, taxes are pro-rated according to how much you earn. The rich get and stay rich because of all the things we the people do AS A GOVERNMENT to establish and protect a fair marketplace. When we don't have enough tax revenue to cover our bills we sell Treasury Notes to International Bankers(I know, this is a really dumbed down version of how this works but I think we went into the reason above, didn't we?) These are just in essence IOUs and the TOTAL of all of them out there is our National Debt. The amount of our cost of government and interest on our Debt under Republicant rule is always more than our Revenue and the difference is called our Deficit. After Democrats run things more than 4 years the reverse becomes the norm, revenue exceeds the cost of government and interest on the Debt and the resulting Surplus is then used to retire our National Debt. We all know what happens when you pay off your credit card; they raise your limit, lower your interest and even give you a free trip to Disneyland to entice you to use it more. When we pay off our National Debt it attracts investment and development all over the globe and EVERYBODY does better... Republicants on the other hand want to exempt EVERYBODY from the "Death Tax" and make the Bush tax cuts permanent. So, say Bill Gates and George Soros and William Buffet die next month-they will not pay a dime, every penny goes to their already spoiled rotten heirs. And those tax cuts, the "Trickle Down" economics theory, well it's 5 years down the road and how many jobs did they create? You say we lost 8 million! What happened? As Thom Hartmen says, the only thing that you get from "Trickle Down" economics is a bunch of Peons!
I know a bunch of you are going to start going on about redistributing wealth so let's dispense with that. Yes I advocate redistribution from top to bottom but let's not fool ourselves, redistribution has BEEN taking place on a grand scale, from the middle to the top until there is NO middle left. 17 trillion dollars has moved from the little "Treasuries" that are your 401k's, Roth IRAs, home equity, hell, even your wage to the richest 5,000 people in America. Real wages have not gone up since Reagan was elected. We all work more hours for less money and if the Republicants have their way they will continue to rob the Social Security Trust Fund and make sure you keep it up till you are 75.
Even then they want to pay you less because they simply CAN"T afford to pay SS taxes on anything over a hundred thousand! I mean after all that .000005% of their net worth would just CRIPPLE their retirement plans.
Now, here we sit at a crossroads and I am so glad Republicant leaders have been so cooperative and exposed their loyalties and plans for the working class families in America. Denny said it clearly at a town hall just the other day:It's "Us" vs Them. He was speaking at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. One after another the Republicants have jumped to BP's defense. Poor BP. We sure don't want them to pay too much tax. Remember what I said earlier about paying close attention as things are poppin' all over and sometimes it's hard to put the parts together. Well, it's just coming out how BP arranged the release of the Libyan terrorist bomber who is still dying from cancer 18 months later at his seaside resort. Yeah, poor BP. See, if you make more than 1/2 million a year then by all means vote Republicant. But if you don't, and if you ever hope that your children might, then it is more important than at any time in the last 75 years that you not only vote for Democratic candidates but that, even if you have never given to a politician in your life, give what you can, $2, $5, $500, or even just some of your time. Talk to your neighbors and friends, take some classes, educate yourself and others, if we do not go that extra mile in this election it may be too late for our Democracy to survive. Through bait & switch tactics Republicants have handed control of our courts to activist judges who will have no qualms about having every aspect of the "Patriot Act" enforced in full and our great nation reverting to a Facist Oilagharchy where we are all minimum wage slaves living in fenced compounds and work camps. It was not Dems who enacted all this BS and MOST of them will never repeal it but if we don't start electing a new breed of leaders now it will only get worse. So remember: Vote Democratic, Vote Early and Vote Often, twice if you get a chance! When those corporate lackeys come asking you to give them a chance to screw us up and over, again, tell them "NO YOU CAN'T"




Monday, July 19, 2010