Snidely Lip-Trash

The response over my previous post on Glenn Beck’s propensity to not only stretch the truth, but actually ignore facts has prompted m to do a quick follow-up.

I am by no means saying that Glenn Beck only tells lies.  Let’s face facts, if all he did was lie, his credibility would require him to find a different career.  There should always be granules of truth with any commentator, irregardless of their political affiliations.  These posts are meant to point out that there are times when Glenn Beck steps over the edge of making facts fit his opinion and just talks out of his ass without any research, fact-checking, or using any of the tools even a half-assed blogger would have at their disposal.

To show I’m willing to play fair, here are a few things Beck has said that are, if not completely true, closer than we as Liberals would usually give him credit for.

On February 16 of this year (2010) Beck made the following statement:  “When Social Security started, age expectancy for the average man was 58. It was 62 for women.  Wait a minute, when did benefits come in? At 65.”

Not that far from the truth at all.  In 1935, when FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, the average life expectancy for a man was 60 and for a woman, it was 64.  So Beck was only a couple of years off.  Not really the truth, but not really a lie either.

More recently, on June 3, Beck had this to say about Arizona’s new immigration law.  “Sixty-four percent of Americans support the Arizona immigration law. Yet we’re going to — we’re actually — our government is going down there to fight them. Eric Holder is fighting them in court. They’re becoming more and more brazen each and every day.”

This is actually true – other than the fact Eric Holder doesn’t actually have to go to Arizona to fight the law.  Beck is quoting a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll from early May that found 64% of Americans were either somewhat or strongly supportive of the law.

Other polls, while not as high as the WSJ/NBC poll also found that a majority of Americans were for the law.  However, it is my opinion that this is just a knee-jerk reaction by Americans who are by nature xenophobic.  For the most part, Americans have always been like this.  Look how we treated Native Americans, Blacks, Chinese, Irish, Japanese and now Hispanics and Muslims.  I think it’s part of our national DNA and we need to do more to educate rather than judge.  Like I said, this is my opinion and others may differ.

But enough with those little granules of truth, you came here for the meat and potatoes of Beck style prevarication.

On July 31, 2009, Beck was talking about the Cash for Clunkers program when he said:

“When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a federal computer system and it is property of the United States government.  Any and all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign.”

Beck is actually saying the price for visiting the Cash for Clunkers web site is handing your computer and files to the government.  To debunk this, I went directly to Snopes.com.

Claim: Consumers who visit the “Cash for Clunkers” web site must agree that their computers become U.S. government property.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2009]

DO NOT GO ON CARS.GOV, a disclaimer says by using the site your computer and all of it’s files are then property of the government. This means they can look at your computer anytime and if you use a program like Skype they can eaves drop on any call you make. It is like having the government sitting by your side as you use it.

WARNING – DO NOT LOG ON TO CARS.GOV

If you log on to cars.gov and accept the privacy terms, the government now has the right to take all the information on your computer. That will include all your personal information, bank records, transactions, web site log ins, EVERYTHING ON YOUR COMPUTER.

I am not saying the government will take your personal information. I am telling you that accepting the terms will allow them to.

Is this what our government is coming to?

Origins: CARS.gov is the web site for the U.S. government’s Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), a program more commonly referred to as “Cash for Clunkers” which provides consumers with $3,500 or $4,500 discounts for their trade-ins when they purchase or lease new vehicles.

In late July 2009, a rumor began spreading (promulgated widely by FOX News’ Glenn Beck) that the terms and conditions on the CARS.gov web site specified that by using the site, consumers explicitly agreed that their computers would be considered U.S. government property. This false rumor was based on someone’s mistaken application to the general public of a “Privacy Act & Security Statement” linked from the CARS.gov web site (the wording of which has since been changed).

Prior to 3 August 2009, the CARS.gov web site did include a privacy statement declaring that:
This application provides access to the DOT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a federal computer system and it is property of the United States Government. Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DOT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign.
However, the statement in question was actually tied to the “Submit Transaction” function on the Dealer Support portion of the web site and related only to a login page for entry to the Enterprise Services Center (ESC) web site at esc.gov, which is used by automobile dealers (not consumers) who have been authorized and registered to participate in the CARS program. That statement did not apply to consumers who might use the site to obtain benefits from the CARS program; it was something consumers would never encounter in the ordinary use of the web site, and it was not something they had to agree to in order to claim benefits from the CARS program.

Although Beck did mention that the statement was something dealers would encounter, he and his co-discussionist in that segment, FOX News anchor Kimberly Guilfoyle, also misleadingly implied that it applied to consumers, telling the audience “I recommend that you do not try this at home” and “People shouldn’t go on [the CARS.gov site] right now,” and asserting that clicking on the web site would give the government complete access to consumers’ home computers (despite proffering no evidence that the web site was even capable of such a function).

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), even consumers who may have inadvertently stumbled across the notice and mistakenly clicked on it were not in danger of having the “government take all the information on their computers”:

Clicking “continue” on a poorly worded Terms of Service on a government site will not give the government the ability to “tap into your system … any time they want.” The seizure of the personal and private information stored on your computer through a one-sided click-through terms of service is not “conscionable” as lawyers say, and would not be enforceable even if the cars.gov website was capable of doing it, which we seriously doubt. Moreover, the law has long forbidden the government from requiring you to give up unrelated constitutional rights as a condition of receiving discretionary government benefits like participation in the Cars for Clunkers program.
As of 3 August 2009, the wording of the Privacy Act & Security Statement presented to dealers who submit transactions through the CARS.gov web site was changed to the following:

This notice is provided pursuant to the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 USC § 552a: This information is solicited under the authority of Public Law 111-32, 123 Stat. 1859. Furnishing the information is voluntary, but failure to provide all or part of the information may result in disapproval of your request for a credit on this purchase or lease transaction under the Cars Program. The principal purposes for collecting the information are to determine if purchase or lease transactions are eligible for credits under the CARS Program, to ensure proper disposal of trade-in vehicles, to prevent, identify and penalize fraud in connection with the Program, and to update an existing government database of Vehicle Identification Numbers. If you complete the optional survey, the survey information will be used to report to Congress on the Program. Other routine uses are published in the Federal Register at 65 F.R. 19476 (April 11, 2000), available at: www.dot.gov/privacy

Yeah, I know it’s a mouthful.

On January 22, 2009, Beck was up in arms because when Obama had to re-do the oath of office, he didn’t put his hand on a Bible.  Beck said:

“I checked. We have never had a president sworn into office without a Bible.”

Alright, that’s actually two lies.  But before I get into the proof, allow me to mention that the United States Constitution says: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

This means it doesn’t matter if there was a Bible there or not, but I digress, this is about Becks two lies.

Lie #1:  He claims he checked, however, if he checked, he would have discovered that …

Lie #2:  Theodore Roosevelt did not use a Bible when taking the oath in 1901, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on a Roman Catholic missal on Air Force One, and John Quincy Adams swore on a book of Constitutional Law.

So I have to wonder what Glenn Beck checked.  Maybe he was just looking for lint in his navel.

How about a lie of omission or covering up?  On June 28 of this year, Beck posted a link to a White Supremacists to favorites on his Twitter account (see image) however, once his link to MalevoFreedom became public, he deleted all of his favorites in an attempt to cover it up.

Okay, so maybe it’s not an outright lie, but by deleting his favorites, it gave him plausible deniability if he is ever asked about it again – except for all those pesky screen captures of his Twitter favorites.

Back in September of 2009, Beck went on the air and claimed that the new Dollar coins were minted without “In God We Trust” imprinted on them and claimed that it was this type of Godlessness that was to blame for America’s problems.

Once again, all it would take was a little research to avoid this blatant mistake, but that would have ruined Beck’s point.  Once again, we turn to Snopes: where they responded to the following email:

Since the 1950′s, “In God We Trust” has been our National Motto, and has been inscribed on the front of all coins and the back of all paper currency.

This new coin came out this month. The U.S. Mint hopes the redesigned $1 coin will win acceptance with consumers.

It does not have “In God We Trust” on it.  Here’s another way of phasing God out of America.

U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins.  You guessed it, “IN GOD WE TRUST” IS GONE!!!

Who originally put ‘In God We Trust’ onto our currency?   My bet is that it was one of the Presidents on these coins.  All our U.S. Government has done is Dishonor them, and disgust me!!!   If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!

DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE!    Together we can force them out of circulation.

Uh, okay.

The problem with this email – and Glenn Beck’s false assertion about the same – is that “In God We Trust” is still on the new coins.  Here is an illustration that shows what these idiots failed to check followed by Snopes’ rebuttal of the rumor.

Origins: In 2007 the U.S. Mint began the release of a series of coins similar in concept to the 50 State Quarters Program launched in 1999. This new series, the Presidential $1 Coin Program, features dollar coins identical in size, color, and composition to the earlier Sacagawea dollar, each one bearing the likeness of a former U.S. President on the obverse (front) and a representation of the Statue of Liberty on the reverse (back). The Presidential $1 coins will be released in series of four per year (in order corresponding to the presidents’ terms of office) beginning in February 2007.

Just as the first Presidential $1 coins rolling out of the Mint in early 2007, e-mails began to circulate spreading the erroneous assertion that the new dollar coins did not include the phrase “In God We Trust” in their design. In fact, the Presidential dollars neither omitted the phrase “In God We Trust” nor demonstrated a plot to “phase God out of America.” As specified by Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, in order to allow for “larger and more dramatic artwork” on the coins’ faces, the new Presidential $1 coins incorporated a few design features not found on other current U.S. coinage, one of which is that elements typically displayed on either the obverse or reverse of U.S. coins — the year of minting, the mint mark, the motto from the Great Seal of the United States (“E Pluribus Unum”), and the current national motto of the United States (“In God We Trust”) — were instead included as edge-incused inscriptions. That is, all of these elements appeared on the edges of the new dollar coins rather than on their fronts or backs.

The related claim that positioning “In God We Trust” on the edge of the coin means that the motto will quickly be worn away is an unlikely one, since the overwhelming majority of the dollar coins have ended up sitting in bank vaults or in the hands of collectors rather than being put into general circulation and thus experience very little wear.

(Small quantities of the George Washington and John Adams presidential dollars were discovered to be missing their edge inscriptions shortly after the initial release of those coins, but those examples were the result of minting errors and were not reflective of the new dollars’ intended standard appearance. The stamping of the faces and the adding of the edge inscriptions are separate steps in the minting process and involve the use of different machinery.)

One traditional feature that has been left off the new dollar coins is the appearance of the word “Liberty.” The U.S. Mint explained the change by noting that “each coin represents this important value by depicting the Statue of Liberty on the reverse”:

With the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, Congress reversed its previous specifications and instructed the U.S. Mint to move the “In God We Trust” motto from the edge to the front or back of the presidential $1 coins “as soon as is practicable.” Beginning with the first Presidential $1 coin issued in 2009 (which bore the likeness of the ninth U.S. President, William Henry Harrison), the motto was repositioned to the bottom left-hand portion of the obverse.

Finally, I would like to close, not with a Beck lie, but evidence that Beck is simply not a nice person.

Back when Beck was a shock Jock in Arizona, he got into a feud with a former friend, Bruce Kelly, who was also a disc jockey.  Let’s let Salon.com finish the story:

“Glenn Beck was the king of dirty tricks,” says Guy Zapoleon, KZZP’s program director. “It may seem mild in retrospect, but at the time that wedding prank was nasty and over the line. Beck was always desperate for ratings and attention.”

The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” for Halloween — a recurring motif in Beck’s life and career — Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. “A couple days after Kelly’s wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, ‘We hear you had a miscarriage,’ ” remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. “When Terry said, ‘Yes,’ Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can’t do anything right — about he can’t even have a baby.”

“It was low class,” says Miller, now president of Open Stream Broadcasting. “There are certain places you just don’t go.”

Classy, Glenn.  Real classy.

I immediately mentioned that Beck had claimed that the new health care bill included insurance for dogs.  My “friend” said Beck never made that claim, so I decided to do some research.

On November 12, 2009, Beck said the following on his radio show:

“Do you know in the health care bill, we’re now offering insurance for dogs?  Do I need to say any more?”

“If you are somebody who is like, ‘Well, I just, I’m struggling and we’re barely making ends meet,’ I’m not paying for your dog cardiologist!  Not gonna do it. I’m sorry, the dog goes nighty-night.”

Now, I want everyone to go through the bill and show me where we’re offering insurance for dogs.  It’s not there.  Never was.  Glenn Beck was lying his ass off.

But I can’t stop there.  As long as I was doing research, I had to keep digging.

Just a couple of months ago, Beck started talking about “anchor babies” and how something needed to be changed to keep babies who are born in this country from being granted automatic citizenship.  On June 10, he said the following on his Fox TV show:

“Why do we have automatic citizenship upon birth?  Do you know? We’re the only country in the world that has it. Why?”

Uh, Glenn, did you think no one would check the facts?  By the way, it is called “jus soli”, which is Latin for “law of ground”.  Below is a list of other countries that offer automatic citizenship upon birth.

• American Samoa (birth in American Samoa renders American Samoan and U.S. nationalities, but no birthright to U.S. citizenship)
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Argentina
• Azerbaijan
• Barbados
• Belize
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Canada
• Chile (children of transient foreigners or of foreign diplomats on assignment in Chile only upon request)
• Colombia
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• El Salvador
• Fiji
• Grenada
• Guatemala
• Guyana
• Honduras
• Jamaica
• Lesotho
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Pakistan
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic
• Saint Christopher and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
• Uruguay
• Venezuela

So Glenn, that’s 36 additional countries that offer jus soli.  Can you feel the heat emanating  from your pants yet?

On the July 22, 2009 episode of his Fox show, Beck – who was still railing against health care legislation – made this claim:

“I mean, we’ve got czars now.  Czars like John Holdren, who has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.”

Before I refute his claim, I must go off on a tangent and say this about “czars”.  People have been complaining about Obama having all these “Czars”.  I wonder how many of the complainers realize that Obama has a total of 33 Czars and George W. Bush had 45.  Now back to Beck’s claim about John Holdren.

In response to Beck – and others claim – John Holdren’s office issued this response:

The quotations used to suggest that Dr. Holdren supports coercive approaches to limiting population growth were taken from a 1977 college textbook on environmental science and policy, of which he was the third author.  The quoted material was from a section of the book that described different possible approaches to limiting population growth and then concluded that the authors’ own preference was to employ the noncoercive approaches before the environmental and social impacts of overpopulation led desperate societies to employ coercive ones.  Dr. Holdren has never been an advocate of compulsory abortions or other repressive means of population limitation.

His office also released a statement from Annie and Paul Ehrlich, the co-authors of the textbook:

“We have been shocked at the serious mis-characterization of our views and those of John Holdren in blog posts based on misreadings of our jointly-authored 1000-page 1977 textbook, ECOSCIENCE.  We were not then,  never have been, and are not now ‘advocates’ of the Draconian measures for population limitation described — but not recommended — in the book’s 60-plus small-type pages cataloging the full spectrum of population policies that, at the time, had either been tried in some country or analyzed by some commentator.”

More recently, on June 28, while hyping his recent rally at the Lincoln Memorial, Beck claimed:

“The government is trying to now close the Lincoln Memorial for any kind of large gatherings.  This may be the last large gathering ever to assemble at the Lincoln Memorial. Historic, historic.”

“They (critics) have gone on to say that this is a slap in the face of Abraham Lincoln.  Okay. So, I don’t have a right — I don’t have a right to speak my mind and this — I told you, the reason why 8-28 is — one reason why it’s historic is because it may be the last time anyone is allowed to hold a rally at 8-28, and they will — they will couch that in, it’s too sacred of a spot.”

This bit of “information” must have come straight from Beck’s ass, because there is absolutely no truth in it at all.

Margie Ortiz, a National Park Service spokeswoman had this to say about Beck’s assertions:

“There is absolutely no attempt by the government to restrict gatherings at the Lincoln Memorial or at any of our sites.  There is zero basis for his claim.”

The National Park Service issues about 3,000 permits a year for Lafayette Park, the White House sidewalks, as well as other park sites in the Capital area, including the Lincoln Memorial. About 60 percent of them are for ‘First Amendment Activity’.”

“Major rehabilitation work on the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and grounds will begin next month, and could continue for two years, but National Park Service officials said that work will not prevent the use of the facilities for gatherings, though the size of a gathering would be considered when weighing applications during the construction period. So far, though, that has not been an issue.”

“The Lincoln Memorial stands as a symbol of freedom.  The Memorial is an American icon that attracts millions of visitors a year who seek inspiration and hope. Why would the National Park Service close the Lincoln for any kind of large gathering?  Wouldn’t this be contradictory to everything the Memorial stands for?”

“Those wishing to hold an event at the Lincoln Memorial need to obtain a permit, and there are some rules, regulations and fees spelled out on the permit website.”

“Some national events — such as the Lighting of the National Christmas Tree in the northern half of the Ellipse — carry priority status, but otherwise, applications for demonstrations and special events are done in order of receipt … on a first-come, first-serve basis.   We remain content neutral to whatever ‘message’ the permit applicant brings with them.”

I have to wonder if the people who work around Beck have to wear especially long wading boots to slosh through all the bull shit he leaves in his wake.

By the way, if any Beck fans out there are dying to hear more lies, just ask.  I’ll be glad to list a few more.

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There are several ways to make sure you’re entered.

Rep. Michele Bachmann

This is a message for all the people out there who used to get their news from Uncle Walter.  Perhaps some of you watched Tom Brokaw.  But with the advent of the 24-Hour News cycle (gee, thanks Teddy Turner), many of you ended up either going with CNN or Fox News.  I want to speak to the ones who tend to get the majority of their news from the Fox News Channel.

Do you really feel comfortable being force fed fear and political position by a foreigner?  Should anyone be listening to a crazed Aussie with a self-juiced ego?  And no, I’m not talking about Mel Gibson.

There are a lot of people who are telling you things that actually go against the grain of conservative politicians of the the past, and this is my list of the Top 10 so-called Republicans that you need to stop listening to.

1. I have to start with Karl Rove.  The man has been at it for quite some time now and he still thinks people will believe his revisionist history if he just keeps “catapultin’ the propaganda.”
2. Perhaps the biggest CRAZY on the list deserves her slot at number two.  Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District Representative, Michele Bachmann.
3. Do I really need to say it?  Glenn Beck.
4. The original Caribou Barbie: Sarah Palin.
5. People who are still listening to Rush Limbaugh need to wake up and smell reality.
6. By the way, who in their right (or even correct) mind would want advice from a failed plumber?  Why does Joe Wurzelbacher keep showing up on the radar?
7. Dick “Shooter” Cheney.  Some people are a sucker for the older failures.
8. Mike Pence.  This Hoosier said a walk through a Baghdad market was just like strolling through an Indiana Market.  Well, Mike – I’ve been to several Indiana Markets and not once have I needed to wear body armor and be escorted by heavily armed marines and Blackhawk helicopters.  Although I was once followed by someone as I walked through one of the Souder Family businesses.  I think they thought the guy with long hair was a criminal.
9. Sean Hannity.  I’d say more, but it might add to his magniloquent self appreciation.
10. And just because I don’t trust the old bastard, GOP Senate Leader, Mitch McConnell.

A plainclothes Maryland state trooper confronts Anthony Graber with his weapon drawn

To begin, here is the gist of the story as reported by Time.com.

Anthony Graber, a Maryland Air National Guard staff sergeant, faces up to 16 years in prison. His crime? He videotaped his March encounter with a state trooper who pulled him over for speeding on a motorcycle. Then Graber put the video — which could put the officer in a bad light — up on YouTube.

Anthony Raduka

After my vacation, it has taken me some time to get back into the swing of blogging.  I was without internet access for over a week, and to be honest, I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would.  However, I am coming back with some strange shit.

On Monday, April 19, 2010, Australian Anthony Raduka managed to capture video of strange flying balls of light.

Jessica Craven of the Geelong Advertiser reported:

Amazing footage captured by a Highton businessman shows mystery balls of light zigzagging across Corio Bay, prompting speculation it was UFOs.

Businessman Anthony Raduka filmed the footage from the deck of his Highton home about midnight on Monday.

The footage shows balls of light flying over Corio Bay at great speed, dipping as low as street level before zigzagging back up through the sky.

The balls change color and shape during the 20 mins of footage recorded.

Mr. Raduka said the light was too fast to be an aircraft and it traveled in irregular directions.

What are your thoughts on this story? Tell us using the feedback form below

“We have watched fighter jets from our deck when the airshow is on and these lights were going ten times quicker,” he said.

“It could be a UFO, I don’t know what they are. All of the things we thought of didn’t explain the fact it changed color or that it was going so fast.”

Mr. Raduka said he had never seen anything like it in his life.

“We just stood there for about half an hour, trying to work out what it could be,” he said.

“They go over rooftops so they are too low to be an aircraft.”

Below is a little over 7 minutes of the video Raduka shot.

During our vacation, we stayed in Madeira Beach, Florida where similar video was shot last November.

March was a little on the toasty side – compared to all the data compiled since 1880.  The month of March this year was the warmest the month has ever been.

The average land and ocean surface temperature for the month was 56.3° Fahrenheit.  That’s a full 1.39° higher than the average for the month over the course of the 20th century.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that warmer-than-normal conditions were especially notable in northern Africa, South Asia, Tibet, Delhi, India and Canada.  While warm Marches may not seem that strange in Africa and Southern Asia, Canada isn’t exactly used to it.

It should also be noted that Arctic sea ice normally reaches its peak during the third month of the year, however this year was 4.1% below the 1979-2000 average expanse.

Oh well, I’m sure this is all part of a vast left wing conspiracy to drive polluters out of business.  That’s not really true, it’s actually a vast right wing conspiracy to make Georgia and Alabama the go-to locations for future Spring Breaks.  (gee, do you think people who are almost smarter than Sarah Palin will know that last line was sarcasm?)

I’ll explain in a bit. This is my first post on FDGM in months. I think the last post I made was a condensed historical critique of Hal “Dummy” Mumme, the former coach of the NMSU Aggies Football team, which as far as I know, nobody has bothered to read, except a select number of instructors within the history department at NMSU. I don’t care if any of you read it, I got an “A” on it so you can suck it if you are too lazy to read a 33 page paper. Anyway, I need to get started on my main point, heroism, heroes, courage, etc… WTF is it, really?

So, I work for a particular housing department for a particular school. This means I have a boss that makes some decisions from time to time. One of these decisions is to continue with an annual week long program that started last year called “Project Hero” which has the purpose of honoring the troops who have served past and present.

Here is the problem I have. I am pretty much forced to participate in this program as it is required per my job. Why is it a problem? I do not think there is any heroic about military service or war. Not that there has never been heroism in war, there have been many heroic soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors, who have proved beyond a doubt that they put their lives at great risk for their fellow comrades, but these cases had nothing to do with protecting the USA. People put their lives at risk every day simply for the sake of others, and it has nothing to do with patriotism, god, country, etc. etc. etc.  I guess I should get to the main point of this paragraph.  The decades long rumor that the troops protect our freedom is a big fat fucking lie.

The only threat to our freedom has been the US Government, since they are responsible for the laws that restrict our freedom. Looking at the history of our government, and the history of social struggle in the USA, it can be concluded that not one single civil rights movement has been supported by the military. How many troops died for women’s suffrage? How many died for labor rights? How many have died to end segregation? How many troops have dies for GLBT rights? The answer is ZERO. It was ordinary people who put their lives and health on the line to ensure the few freedoms we have today, lest the ones that are currently being ruined. Not for one second should you continue to believe that the Civil War was about freeing the slaves, if you think about it long enough, the emancipation proclamation was the biggest PR stunt in early US history. Lincoln was completely on the fence when it came to abolition of slavery, but why else would he declare the slaves to be free? Of course, to win the Civil War and keep the union intact so all that great agriculture can be used in northern industry.

War is always about resources, no matter which side you may be on.

Getting back to “Project Hero”, one of the plans is to have some military vehicles present. I guess to impress the kids and further militarize them in addition to the G.I. Joe’s and Battlefield (Insert version here) video games. What is it about killing people that is acceptable for kids? We condemn gang violence but we praise military violence. It makes me sick to think that the MARINES bring tanks to their “Toy’s for Tot’s” events. Yeah, toys for underprivileged children in the USA that will end up having no choice but to join the military, and bombs and bullets for children in the Middle East. Hooray! Anyway, back to what I was originally talking about.

Project Hero is a delusion that further distorts the vision of people in the USA. It says to everyone, “Hey, let’s thank the troops who went to the Middle East, destroyed two countries, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, most of which were just defending their own country, all because our own intelligence services was a big fucking joke!” (The source of the 9/11 attacks could be debated for days, but not today!) “Whoohooo, this “War on Terrorism” is worth the ridiculous national debt, economic collapse, thousands upon thousands of casualties, and we sure do feel safer knowing that we’re keeping those bastard terrorists busy on their turf!” Give me a fucking break! We have become the most delusional and uneducated country in the world. We base support of politicians according to the letter by their name on the ballot. We get most of our knowledge of Islamic culture from the mainstream media. The teabaggers can’t spell worth a shit! Did I mention we spend more on WAR than we do on education? We are all seriously fucked because being patriotic and nationalistic is more important than understanding and peace.

A soldiers death is a pointless death.

I’ll tell you what I do support. I support war resisters. I support those who resist the unethical, illegal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. I support giving the best possible mental and physical health to the troops who have been fooled into giving up that mental and physical health for corporations and government greed.  The troops are not heroes, they are pawns, tools of the government painted in the colors of heroes, which is determined by the region of the world we are currently bombing.

So, in a nutshell, I do not support the troops, I do not support war, I do not support the military, I do not support the military recruiting in schools, I am not patriotic, I do not stand for the national anthem, because it is all bullshit. The United States of America is the current world empire and a disgusting one.

So, the question remains, what do YOU support?

The bas-relief of Stone Mountain. (from l to r: Jefferson Davis riding Blackjack, Gen. Robert E. Lee astride Traveller, and Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson atop Little Sorrel.)

On March 31, the Rouse family set off from Fort Wayne about 9:00pm, heading south.   By 7:00am on April Fools Day, we were eating breakfast just north of Atlanta, GA.  The first stop on our trip was just outside of Atlanta.

Stone Mountain, GA is home of good coffee, friendly people, and the largest bas-relief stone carving in the world.  Even larger than the Mount Rushmore bas-relief, the carving was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1916.

The side of the mountain, which at the time was owned by the Venable family, the heirs of Charles S. Venable who was aide-de-camp of Gen. Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War, was deeded to the UDC in 1916 and they were given 12 years to complete the project.

The UDC commissioned sculptor, Gutzon Borglum to do the carving and he worked on the project until 1923, when he abandoned the project.  Borglum would go on to complete Mount Rushmore.  At that point, sculptor Augustus Lukeman was hired to complete the project.  He too had abandoned the job five years later.

It wasn’t until 1964, after the Georgia State Legislature approved the purchase of the mountain in 1963 for the sum of $1, 125,000, that Walker Hancock started the third and final phase of the project.  The carving was considered complete on March 3, 1972.

The first time Sheri and I visited Stone Mountain was on the return trip from our honeymoon in 1997.  Just a year earlier, a Swiss-built cable car skylift had been completed and we were able to visit the top of the mountain.

When we returned yesterday, we discovered that a lot of new attractions had been added in the 13 years since our previous visit.  Below are a few photos from our visit.

My seven year old, Harrison decided he wanted to try the sky-hike, a series of challenges where you cross ropes, thin boards and swinging cross-beams. You have a choice of how high up you want. Harrison, to his acrophobic father's dismay, choice the highest. Wow, me, on a thin rope four stories off the ground.

Harrison took this photo of Sheri, McCartney and me as we waited for the skylift to the top of the mountain.

The city of Atlanta is visible to the naked eye from the top of the Stone Mountain. As the crow flies, Atlanta is 13 miles from the mountain top. Of course, that's the city limits, these buildings are a few miles farther away.

Dustin, admiring the vista.

One of the cable cars approaching the docking station at the summit.

Harrison standing in a pair of rock pools atop the mountain.

There are a lot of carvings in the mountain top from much earlier visitors.

A close-up of the above photo. The carving says, "MCC D. WAGNER JULY 4 1912 MD BALTIMORE"

If I can find access, I’ll try to update each day.  Until then …

On the Program:

• President Obama to unveil plan to expand offshore oil & natural gas drilling along the East Coast.
• Sen. Lugar says his new climate and energy plan is a practical way to reduce emissions and dependence on foreign oil.
• Colorado Senate gives OK to fuel switching bill.
• British lawmakers say climate scientists at the University of East Anglia never manipulated climate data on global warming.
• The list of 110 nations backing the Copenhagen Accord is out.
• The largest oil industry trade group is suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its newly approved biomass-based diesel mandates.
• Rhode Island PUC rules against wind farm off of Block Island.