Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Bill Moyers: The delusional is no longer marginal

Bill Moyers recently won Harvard Medical School's Global Environment Citizen Award. His speech in response to the award presentation was, in my opinion, particular well-written.

I'm posting a small sample here and will post the rest at the link at the end of this post.


"One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts."

also from the same speech

"Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, 'after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.'

"Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate."

See the rest of this speech at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1206-10.htm

Thanks for reading this!

Holdiay Gift Suggestion

You may have seen this but if you haven't - here it is.

ANNOUNCING THE NEW BUILT-IN ORDERLY ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE DEVICE, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BOOK!

It's a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use even a child can operate it. Just life its cover. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere--even sitting in an armchair by the fire--yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM.

Here's how it works: each BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. These pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence. By using both sides of each sheet, manufacturers are able to cut costs in half.

Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet. The book may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it. The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward and backward as you wish. Most come with an "index" feature, which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.

An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open the BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session--even if the BOOK has been closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers.

Portable, durable and affordable, the BOOK is the entertainment wave of the future, an many new titles are expected soon, due to the surge in popularity of its programming tool, the Portable Erasable-Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus...

-Thanks Mike

Incendiary Devices we use?

The US is not going to admit to using Napalm or any chemical weapons. The mainstream media isn't going to report it unless they have proof. I'm sure that embedded media have had to sign non-dislosure agreements that limit their reporting. So we can only go by the reports we get.

It took a lot of searching but I found that the US only signed off on a couple of the protocols of weapons control- retaining the right to use incendiary devices including phosporus.

"The United States must retain its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II."

That's from :
http://www.nawcwpns.navy.mil/~treaty/CCWC.html



and from :

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030810-napalm-iraq01.htm

comes this:

The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon against dug-in positions. They said napalm, which has a distinctive smell, was used because of its psychological effect on an enemy.

A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam war.

And from

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=5066&grp=21&cat=94

But Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility said: "John Pike, director of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "You can call it something other than napalm but it is still napalm.

"It has been reformulated in the sense that they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it. The US is the only country that has used napalm for a long time. I am not aware of any other country that uses it."

Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility, said: "It creates horrible wounds. Most of the world understands that napalm and incendiaries are a horrible, horrible weapon." He said the Pentagon's distinction was "Orwellian."

The weapon uses a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns. Last week the international news agency AFP reported the use of 'firebombs' in Iraq, believed to be naplam.