Holy crap! Are you scared enough yet??

The following is a "real" AP headline from Thursday, 7/2/09

"NKorea fires missiles; launch toward US feared"

Are you scared shitless yet?

What I'd like to know is who the hell is the Associated Press working for or owned by? Secret arms industry supporters? The Pentagon? The right wing of our one-winged "two party system"? Are one of these feeding AP the headlines they should print?

"Let's keep the natives scared shitless!" seems to be the Modus operandi of the United States in the 21st Century. Maybe the citizen rabble won't notice their country is falling apart far more rapidly and effectively under their own government and its special interest backers than any rag tag band of terrorists could ever accomplish it.

Maybe we won't mind being forced from our homes, losing our jobs and the ensuing financial straits and/or bankruptcies if we get sick; or the erosion of the value of our savings and retirements.

And maybe we'll forgive those skyrocketing food costs the government tells us have actually declined in '09! (more bullshit, have you noticed those shrinking package contents?).

Maybe we'll continue to praise and pray for the King of Pop, comforted by knowing, as we do, our government continues our war on terrorism, keeping us safe from those heathen Taliban and rogue nations like North Korea, Venezuela, etc. who apparently have us scared to fucking death.

Adventures in Las Cruces. My "alean research" there; preataurus dynosaurs; why it's harder to lie in desert towns, & a life altering alien warning?

WHEN: Earlier this week on the last Monday of June

WHERE: Interstate 10, heading west in Las Cruces, NM

WHY: Because I spotted this extremely rare 20th Century Preataurus just off the freeway. From an earlier period in the age of dinosaurs, it was towing a 21st Century Coca Cola dispensing device.

WHAT: I took the next available exit. (So, okay, it was the exit I was gonna take anyway -- so rap my knuckles with a 12 inch ruler!)

HOW: Am I supposed to know? Call it serendipity, whatever. I was on my way to the High Desert Brewing Company to continue my ongoing research of the various levels of consciousness. I have no idea how these things happen (or why), but I suppose, to some degree, one could say my study began early this day with this discovery, hence,

Taking the Avenida de Mesilla exit, I found this Preataurus wasn't alone. It was one of a small flock of them (see below) migrating westward apparently (if an Arizona license plate is any clue). Hungered, they must have spotted this Cracker Barrel Old Country Store they were parked outside of from the interstate and decided to stop to re-energize for their remaining flight home.




After recording images of these very rare, but beautiful birds, Mrs. Dada and I resumed our journey.


The one thing I really love about the desert and desert towns are the vistas which make it harder to lie. That is, if a husband calls home to say he's working late, he won't be home for dinner, the Mrs. can go outside and look across town to see if his car is in fact in the the office parking lot or, if not, maybe at a bar or some sleezy motel that rents rooms by the hour. You can't do that in many places, like Portland, Oregon, because all the damn trees get in the way.

It was a short drive to The Institute of Alean Consciousness Research. It's a small lab subtly located inside the High Desert Brewing Company. This is where I conduct my ongoing research recording levels of consciousness changes resulting from consumption of different ales.

Just as scientists discovered there is much information revealed about the Earth from studying geologic time periods as revealed in the strata of rocks, I have come to suspect there is much to be learned about changes in consciousness as revealed in the strata of bocks (and other good ales -- note, Budweisers, Coors and Millers do not work -- I said good ales!).

This day I decided to analyze the effects of consciousness by tracking my consumption of India PaleoAlean beers and comparing that to the strata left inside the empty pint glasses.

Some of the Alean consciousness levels, as indicated
by the India paleoalean strata left in this empty
pint of ale from top to bottom include:

Neoalean
Pre-neo-prozacian
MesoMcArches
Precamry
Mesoalean
Paleoalean

Note: Subdivision consciousness stages not identified

I had hoped to delineate some of the characteristic consciousness patterns from these stages, but with the recent insight into a possible electro-magnetic Earth altering CME event (coronal mass ejection) sometime within the next week (7-9 July) by an anonymous Australian scientist's interpretation of alien symbols appearing in one of England's most enigmatic crop circles of this summer thus far, there are more urgent matters that need tending.

Besides, rather than release results of my alean consciousness studies prematurely, I'd prefer to return to The Institute for further research first.

Quote of the Week, on Michael Jackson, boy-man "genius" as freakish metaphor for the state of the nation?

It's fascinating to follow the coverage of Michael Jackson's death, but especially the lavish tributes to his "genius" and general wonderfulness. He was, in fact, a monster, and an apt reflection of America's extreme collective cultural confusion. He was a distillation of the lies America tells itself. He was infantile, grandiose, horrifying, and probably dangerous. His "accomplishments" as a grown man amounted to little more than a half dozen popular songs. The arc of his life may have been tragic, but it was a tragedy of his own making. His sudden end brings to mind a remark Gore Vidal made upon hearing about the death of Truman Capote: "Good career move."

Today's quote of the week (which seems to have disappeared from his website overnight) was taken from James Howard Kunstler's blog site, Clusterfuck Nation. I found Kunstler's take on Michael Jackson's death refreshing; to read of Jackson as national icon portrayed in a light other than "the most looming, dominant figure in 20th century pop music." (in the words of USC associate professor Josh Kun, pop-music expert.)

I have chosen to post this because often the person we eulogize with accolades of hyperbole in death is irreconcilable with that person in life.

Reading, seeing, hearing Jackson's media praises have had me flashing back to the overly gentle and kind memories of Richard Nixon, who in death was dizzyingly transformed into one of our truly dominant presidential figures of the 20th Century.

Of course, Michael Jackson was far bigger than Nixon. Or was he?

If you enjoyed Kunstler's quote, he furthers his analogy of Jackson as metaphor for the sorry state of the nation in this week's "The Man in the Mirror" blog. However, if you find Kunstler's quote of the week disturbing, you should eschew his blog. It will likely really piss you off!

Today's Dada confession (no. 37)

Why I never married, much less dated, a tennis player:

I wonder how many decisions the average person makes in a day? (Or, dying for a hamburger!)

Recent news in the local El Paso Times has me reflecting on how many times a day we face choices, weigh alternatives, then make a decision? From little things we opt to just do on the spur of the moment that we need or want to do, to bigger things like whether to go to the store this afternoon, "or is it something I can put off until tomorrow?" I'd be curious how many each day. Hundreds? Maybe even thousands?

Most decisions are innocuous. Sometimes fortuitous. And once in awhile horrendously tragic. A case in point on just how tragic some decisions can turn out is illustrated by a couple of examples of decisions made that, at the moment, seemed harmless enough.

I. Take for example 15 year old Alejandro Raymundo Perez of El Paso. For whatever reason, he lives here in the U.S. with his sister. He just finished his freshman year of high school. With school out for the summer, he decided to visit his mother. She lives just over the border in Juarez, Mexico.

And so, Wednesday, as Alejandro was standing on a Juarez street corner with his cousin, he was gunned down. With wounds to his torso and head, he died almost instantly. His companion died shortly after arriving at a Juarez hospital. For what reason, we don't know. Maybe for no reason. For this is Juarez where the very social fabric of society is being shredded by an ongoing drug war that has emboldened organized gangs and petty thugs to believe they rule the day. Apparently they do, for the last 18 months of ongoing mayhem has seen 2,300 murders in that city. Most all of them unsolved.

Alejandro's decision to visit his mother may have been a bad one. Or maybe it was a subsequent choice he made to go looking for his cousin, or one that followed that took them to the corner of Emilio Carranza and Gabino Barrera streets shortly before a car passed with armed occupants. Whatever it was, somebody made a bad decision. The results are non-negotiable. The shooters remain at large. But that's just the latest example of a sequence of decisions leading to the ultimate one that got a couple of kids killed this past Wednesday evening . Other El Paso youths who Alejandro joined this week preceded him, also as a result of bad decisions no one could have foreseen the consequences of.

II. On June 13th, 11 year old Priscilla Ibarra Alfaro, who was a seventh grader at an El Paso middle school, made the decision to go with her cousin, to walk to a Juarez hamburger stand. She never made it. In what I call "dying for a hamburger," Priscilla was gunned going for a burger she never got.

III. Someone in the Lozoya family decided they would attend a family gathering in Juarez on May 16th. It turned out to be a tragic decision, for 15 year old Tania Lozoya who accompanied them was struck in the neck by an errant bullet. Tania died, ending what was otherwise intended to be a happy get together among relatives.

IV. On May 30th, a Mexican gunman fired 31 rounds from an assault rifle. Sadly -- or perhaps happily for the gunman -- he hit someone. It was 17 year old Edgar Guzman Ortega. Ortega had attended a local El Paso area high school until deciding last fall to return to Caseta, a suburb of war-torn Juarez. While Ortega's decision to return to Mexico wasn't his last, it was undoubtedly one of his worst.

These are just a couple examples of El Pasoans who have died in the crossfires of the seemingly endless Juarez drug war. They are the children of El Paso. And while I've simplified what brought them to these moments as bad decisions they or their families made, that is only half of it, for their were the decisions to pull the triggers on weapons of death that found these children as well.

And perhaps even more significant is the invisible line drawn on maps that separates the communities of Juarez and El Paso. Communities that are really inseparable. No lines drawn on maps by cartographers, or demarcations decided by nations as the result of compromises arrived at or agreed upon by politicians can alter the fact El Pasoans' family members are being endangered, killed, because they tend to do what families do -- despite invisible borders -- gravitate toward the company of loved ones. But those desires between relatives are proving, more and more lately, to be deadly.

Sadly, that's how decisions we make turn out sometimes. Very tragic.

Winning the hearts and minds of Afghanis, even if we have to blow those damn organs outta 'em first to do it!.

An old Old Glory

(...or, as also known in rural parts of America: 'fishing with dynamite.')

Well, it's that time of year again. As the Fourth of July approaches in many parts of the country gunshot-like sounds will be heard, explosion-like flashes will be seen. Fireworks stands will spring up like weeds, sprout, bloom, wither and die all within a week or two.

It's all part of the nation's latent love of pyromania manifesting in one night of pyrotechnics that will leave the landscape littered in spent munitions and/or on fire.

From a love of firecrackers and Roman candles instilled in youngsters domestically, to bunker busters and explosive tipped missiles launched from drones and B-1 bombers overseas as an integral part of American governmental diplomacy, we just love to blow up shit.

The exciting thought, however, is this: While our covetous lusting for explosives is confined to one day each year in the country legally, illegally in other parts, in Afghanistan the dawn of every new day is a potential Fourth of July!

Or in the words of one Afghani survivor displaying corpses and body parts on the bed of a truck after an American B-1 bomber attack in May that killed an alleged 140 Afghani civilians in or around a mosque:

"These are women and children's bodies. Look at this. You need to know what's happening to us, " he said.

Or, as another Afghani added, "Our village was involved in the struggle against the Russians, but they did nothing to us like this. The people hate the government, they hate the Americans, they hate the Taliban, they hate life," he said.

Ah, The Fourth -- a holiday seeped deeply in tradition of our nation's fiery birth, now being shared in the middle east with our allies. What a wonderful way to show our children the meaning of our country's very first holiday -- to go forth and blow up shit. If illegal in your community, share the meaning of our nation's first holiday with your children by going forth and blowing up shit anyway.

While such pleasure may be in violation of local ordinances, when the kids grow up, they can celebrate the Fourth year 'round anywhere in the world -- in violation of international law! -- by blowing up places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, wherever. It's an American tradition.

It's almost July. Go FOURTH everyone! "Share the love!"

Today's two-bit word: FREEDOM. ("Oh, gag me with a spoon!")

...or, to paraphrase former president George Bush, "Those freedoms of blind patriots have got to be somewhere.

"Nope. No freedoms over there.

"Maybe under here."

**************

From a letter to the editor in today's El Paso Times, written by a blind patriot in desperate need of a seeing eye dog, I almost lost my breakfast this morning.

Entitled "Old Glory," he struts before us all,

"The very first time that I saw her, I told myself I'm in love with her. She takes my breath away whenever I see her. I get goose bumps whenever I think of her.

"She turns heads, she is so beautiful. I admire her so much because she stands for all that's good.

"I love the way she moves so freely, and yet she's so strong. The colors that she wears will never go out of style. I made a promise to protect her with my life.

"That's the way I feel about Old Glory whenever I see her flying freely above our free skies. "

Well, my very first reaction to this was, "Oh puke!"

Sadly, this kind of blind patriotism is not *free*. It is extremely expensive and, as we are learning, very dangerous and oppressive. As a result, it's costing all Americans dearly now. I'd cite a few examples, but maybe later. After I'm recovered, I'd be glad to!

Reminder from the book E.T. 101, and at the risk of being overly redundant:: "They are all dysfunctional." (Note: "they" being all Earth cultures.) "Once a culture has decided which dysfunctional aspects it wishes to represent, it raises a flag to declare its position, packages its preferred brand of dysfunctionality for consumption at home and abroad, and passes it off as a national heritage to be proud of and protected at all costs." (Or, put more succinctly, "Oh puke!")

The 62nd anniversary of flying "sauces."

June 24th, 2009 - Today is the 62nd anniversary of the birth of the term "flying saucers." It's based on a pilot's sighting while flying near Mt. Rainier, WA, in 1947; of his spotting unidentified flying objects he described as "saucers."

As a kid, I found this extremely exciting. I never for an instant envisioned "flying tea cups" could fly, so asymmetrical in shape were they with those awkward un-dynamic friction causing handles protruding as they do.

But saucers were obviously a viable lighter than air flying craft shape. But what I really never imagined was that 62 years later, in the 21st Century, they would still remain a mystery (along with the JFK assassination, Bush "election" in 2000 and the US anthrax attacks in late 2001).

Something I thought would by now have been long ago identified and solved, still remains an enigma more clouded in mystery than ever. I'm sure governments' interventions and disinformation, not just locally, but globally, have done much to conceal anything approaching truth. As a result, I no longer care. I have lost interest in resolution of this conundrum and have now contented myself to go to my grave unenlightened.

That's okay, for as I've said, I really no longer give a damn, preferring instead to accept as good as any, Terrence McKenna's UFO sighting and explanation thereof.

So, on this anniversary of the "discovery of flying saucers" 60 years ago today, what has replaced my curiosity with them? That would be crop circles and their seemingly uninterpretable messages delivered but yet undecipherable by us. (Assuming there IS a message.)

Work of the O'Reilly brothers after a 'boy's night out' at McMulligan's Pub and Fish?

One need only study this annual enigma in the crop fields of England to wonder if someone or something is trying to tell us something; what it is we're not yet getting. While I no longer believe the majority of these intricately beautiful constructs that appear overnight each year around this time are the manifestation of a few pub drunks reluctant to go home with a few valuable hours of darkness still remaining, I am at a loss to explain them. But I am with no shortage of theories.

Again, disappointingly, I don't expect to be of this Earth when an explanation for crop circles is arrived at. If known, truth is not readily surrendered by those who have it to those who don't. Yet I will continue to muse over these puzzling creations until, or unless, governments and their disinformation efforts once more eviscerate yet another mystery (or, as in this case, a pearl of wisdom from something outside and beyond us?).

Quote of the Day, no. 37-D

Quote of the Day (comes from Dr. Dawn, advocate for national single payer health insurance):

"There are two things you should NEVER watch being made: Sausage and the law."

I need to buy a gun. Not to harm anyone. Just in case I need to shoot back.

Dada's first garden harvests: two bite sized potatoes and a
smallish green (turned red) mushy (not crispy, firm) pepper.

Following the trend of many Americans who are expecting the economy to collapse into the depths of total despair with the resultant irretrievable former *lives-as-we-knew-them* (for at least a few months if not forever), I decided to take up gardening. Just as California has always been the nation's trend setter, we might want to watch 'em as an indicator of what the rest of us might expect as the the former "Golden State" sinks into the abyss of economic budgetary hell.

And knowing my Wal-Mart supercenter might let me down as a continued reliable source of minimal nutritional subsistence, I put my ear to the ground to 'see' what other Americans were doing. Apparently, from the unsettling sounds I heard, they're really 'digging the Earth' unlike anytime during my current lifespan.

So wearying of reading of others successes -- stuff like them devouring their first sweet delicious home grown tomatoes unlike you can get in any grocery store, I decided, "I'll raise a garden too!"

I can now report the first results of my efforts. They're pictured above in the altered, former, "NO GUNS ALLOWED" symbol that displayed a pistol I took the liberty to replace with my bite sized potatoes and 'mooshy' midget supposed-to-be-green red pepper. (Note the dime giving some idea of the scale of my first harvested.)

It was this reminder--of my dismal gardening skills-- that I have decided, if I am to survive in the brave new grocery-storeless world, it might require owning a handgun. Mind you, I'm not into guns. Don't own one and don't intend anyone any harm. But if caught raiding someone's garden in the dark of night and am fired upon by a hyper-protective green thumber who wants to kill me me over a couple of tomatoes and a zucchini, I'll have no alternative but to return fire.

Hence, if anyone would like to recommend a nice smallish semi-automatic pistola that can be comfortably tucked into a front pocket or waistbamd of some cargo shorts for nighttime garden harvesting, I'm open to suggestions.

After all, the survival instinct is one of our strongest right?

Happy Father's Day, Pops!

"Dada's dad." One of the greatest men I've ever known. I don't remember when I painted this
but I'm pretty sure it was sometime after my dad passed in 1980. My mother didn't like this
capture of him in oils because, "He never dressed like that!" she would say scoldingly. But
I chose the coveralls of a post turn-of-the -nineteenth-century farm boy which he had been.
It was how I imagined my father dressed long, long before I ever knew him. In time, my Mom
came to admire this image of Dad. That was just a couple of years before she joined him.
~~~~~~~~

"In zoos, when one of the gorillas dies, if the others don't see the body being carried away there be will raucous unease and unsettling screams from his surviving companions indefinitely," Mrs. Dada related from an NPR story she was listening to out on the patio while replanting a pot of basil.

I found that interesting, being as how I was inside the house recalling my father, his life, my life with him, and ultimately his passing.

Dad made it to 85 and I'm thankful it was only the last couple of months of his life he had to spend in the care of others as the victim of Alzheimer's. I didn't get to see him those last months and I was glad. Better to remember him before all that.

And then there was the funeral.

I flew to Oregon for his last rites. Unlike the zoo apes, I was pretty much of the same mind there, i.e., I didn't want or need to see my father in a casket beneath the cover of the undertaker's makeup before they carried him out. Hence, I declined to go up and view the body as others felt compelled to do.

But it was during the funeral service with the open casket center stage in the chapel, I suddenly became aware of what I was seeing while Dad was lying there. Drifting away from the final words of the priest's eulogy, there was no way to avoid it, for it had captured my total attention.

Focusing on what I was seeing, I realized what I was staring at, just above the casket's edge, was the tip of my father's nose! As subtlly as I could, I slid a little lower in my pew.

Perhaps it was the inadvertent glimpse of his nose and the realization of what I had just seen that saved me from months of raucous unease and the unsettling screams that would surely have followed the loss of a wonderful dad, still dearly missed after all these years.

Happy Father's Day, Pops!

Marking time...

Pen & ink from Dada's pugilist year, 1985, or just a couple minutes ago?

I like about as many anniversaries as I don't. They mark fond memories as well as some really bad ones. Yesterday was an anniversary date. It was the day of Dada's ("Daily," originally) Dally's first blog published here four years ago.

It was on the eve of Juneteenth when I recalled a brief appearance by Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton in my first blog. He appeared to me while driving, adorned in his early Party regalia -- a shotgun and a belt of shells for it across his chest. He looked like he'd just come off his shift doing community work in the black neighborhoods of the San Francisan East Bay. I took to heart his brief message to me.

We've all covered a lot of miles since then and it's been quite a ride. I had no idea in June, 2005 that I'd still be blogging four years later. So Editor Sam and I took yesterday off. We passed it in quiet retrospection, spending some of the pleasant afternoon out on the patio with Mrs. Dada. Dinner was a simple repast of beer and burritos. Too many burritos.

The original point of Dada's was to chronicle events in the midst of the current mass extinction in which we are presently so deeply immersed. I apologize that most of my blogs have focused on politics but, besides contributing a great deal to the future that will undoubtedly be darker because of politics and their affect on the quality and state of life on Earth, politics have significant unavoidable impacts on each of us personally. Sometimes amusingly, other times infuriatingly. Mostly the latter.

I chose the name Dada based on one of my favorite art movements. Dadaism was founded around the time of the first world war. It's movement was a nihilistic reaction that challenged the world's cultural and aesthetic values, and manifested in an art that was nonsense based, full of travesty and absurd incongruities. It was brief lived, flaming out a short seven years after its founding. I regret I haven't been able to better live up to my namesake herein by being more amusing or infuriating as many of the scenes unfolding on the world stage are watched by us with incredulity.

And so, while mass extinctions can take exceedingly long periods of time, geologically they are but a blip on the timeline of cosmic history, much as Dada's has been on a much, much smaller scale. At least that's what four years seemed like to me, yesterday, on the patio with my second editor, Sam. Yet, nonsense, travesties and incongruities continue to flourish.

They shoot horses don't they?

Gymnast Shawn Johnson Put To Sleep After Breaking Leg

Awaiting the latest unemployment figures...

....Meanwhile, an early preview (courtesy of the Eugene Register Guard) shows Oregon's unemployment figures have climbed to 12.4% (14.2% if you count "discouraged workers" -- those that have given up looking).

“I suppose there is an outside chance, but I’m hopeful we won’t be number one,” said Oregon labor economist, Art Ayre, referring to his state's chances of overtaking Michigan's honor of being 'first with the worst' U.S. unemployment figures.

Meanwhile, just south of the Beaver State border, California's budget meltdown continues unresolved with Democrats and Republicans in a cat fight to claw their state's way out of the huge economic hole threatening to gobble up The Golden State.

With the state sliding ever deeper into the abyss, California's Senate President Pro Tem, Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), has offered to cut his annual $133,639 salary by 5% -- in empathy with those unemployed and discouraged workers who have lost their livelihoods -- by saying, "We have to demonstrate we will share the sacrifice, share the pain as well."

Meanwhile, internationally, an article reveals, Russia challenges U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency, while just down the road the autumn promises to be anything but dull with the Federal Reserve needing to "borrow up to $3.25 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30".

Where will they get it? Well, China has agreed to pony up $200 billion for T-Bills, the rest of the world another $300 billion, leaving over a $2 trillion shortfall. Where will that come from? From investors lured to T-Bills by adjusting interest rates higher thus slowing or killing any shoots of economic recovery now sprouting.

It appears we have a government in gross denial of reality. A government that bails out failed banks, car companies, continues its support of a societal bankrupting health care industry, while continuing to carry on three losing wars! According to psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. there are five steps in dealing with denial. In the United States, when it comes to current economic conditions, I believe there are seven. You can probably guess the two steps Dada has taken the liberty to add to her list below:

• 1. Denial,
  
• 2. Anger,
  
• 3. Bargaining,
  
• 4. Kool-Aid, gallons and gallons with lots of extra sugar,
• 5. Depression, (that's a psychological term, the economic term of the same name is verboten in U.S. media)
  
• 6. BAND AIDs^® (tons and tons of BAND AIDs^®),
• 7. Acceptance, if you haven't drowned yourself in Kool-Aid or bled to death from hemorrhaging your *American Dream* by now
  

Life in Whacko World!

I guess I must have successfully escaped reality and landed in a loony bin. Case in point:

2009 prices of commodities I use, tax on property we own:

• the price of gum (I used to chew occasionally until last week): UP 16%
• our estimated 2009 property taxes: UP 11.15%
  
• Cheezits, veggie dogs (and other "meats"): Prices -- steady! -- package weights or actual product have dropped 20-25%.
• Water bills (in Eugene, OR, anyway): UP 24%
  
• Gasoline (from the government's Energy Information Administration: UP 54% (since Jan. 1, 2009)
• etc., etc.

OK, so it was out of much curiosity that I anxiously flipped to page four of today's USA Weekend magazine in our Sunday paper to learn of the "3 safe places for your money" that would earn me a decent rate of return on my swindling savings.

The first thing I noted was it's author -- Sharon Epperson. I remember Epperson from when I watched CNBC faithfully during those internet bubble years of irrational exuberance. She was another "pretty face" ala Maria Bartiromo, analyzing markets for us with their most distractive, attractive presences.

But I digress. Cut to Epperson's article in today's mag rag where I read with incredulity, "Even a 2% rate of return will beat inflation these days," she assured us all.

I have one question: Where in the fuck does Sharon Epperson and whoever she's working for come up with a 2% CD rate of return beating the inflation rate in this country? A visit to the United States Department of Labor's Consumer Price Index through the end of April 2009 shows me why I'm obviously speaking here from inside the looney bin, to wit:

Thru April, 2009, the inflation rate for all urban consumers for the previous 3 months was an annualized rate of 2.5%. But that did not include the cost of food and energy which, according to the BLS, declined 1.7% and 8.5% respectively meaning, if you add those two items back into the index, a 2.0%/yr. CD makes you feel like you discovered gold in Sutter's Creek! (See the above price in gas this year --up just 54%!)

So what's my point? Well, my experience doesn't match reality obviously. That leads me to one conclusion: I'm apparently fucking crazy! (Either that, or my CD's enriching me daily, just when I was feeling more and more impoverished. "Okay, have you finished ironing the kinks out of my "straight" jacket? Take me back to my rubber room.)

Image of the day (No. 37) - it's all so over our heads!

photo courtesy of National Geographic

There hasn't been a new cloud classified and added to the International Cloud Atlas in over fifty years. This unusual cloud, named "asperatus" was photographed over New Zealand's South Island and may be the newest entry to that atlas in the last half century.

Dada ponders the cause of this asperatus:

• really, really weird atmospherics
• climate change, global warming
• Russian test of their scalar weather control weapon over NZ
• Or........?

I wonder if anyone seeing this, this day, prayed for the first time in their lives?

Cindy Sheehan visited George W. Bush's neighborhood today to remind him he's a mass murderer, but...

...her reception could have been the same in any of Bush's many neighborhoods:

Marla Kilday, who lives near Bush said, "I think this is inappropriate. The man has given his eight years in office and we just want the neighborhood to be peaceful and quiet."

"Charlotte and Chuck Herman of Dallas turned out to support Bush, holding a sign that read 'Bush saved you cowards.' "

"We think he made a great president and we want him to retire in peace," Charlotte Herman added.

One thirteen year old beginning his archetypal American Rockwellesque summer vacation selling pink lemonade and chocolate chip cookies in the neighborhood said after watching a half hour confrontation between pro-Bush and Sheehan supporters, " I think this is crazy. I didn't think it would end up like this."

Neither did most of us.

(Attribution: Anna M. Tinsley's article original @ The Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

Three reasons why my newspaper subscription to the El Paso Times is skating on thin water:

1. Yesterday letter to the editor:

Parking tickets for church goers

Walking out of church, we witnessed the strangest sight -- a group of policemen were writing tickets and placing them on cars of parishioners who were attending church.

Apparently, the cars were illegally parked. There was enough space to get through, but I guess the policemen felt that churchgoers should be taugh a lesson in parking.

Are the red light camers not bringing in enough income for the city?

Don't cops have enough of a bad reputation right now? Talk about doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Whatever happened to "...Protect and Serve." Joe Rodriguez, West El Paso

Dada - As we learned under the Bush administration (now being continued through the Obama administration) we are no longer a nation of laws, but privilege instead. Kudos to Joe Rodriguez for reminding us here.

2. Today letter to the editor:

Voting bill would ensure fair process

(regarding a photo ID to vote)

Anyone need any more proof? Our leaders can't win on integrity or ethics, so they block the way in which we should be able to vote. The Democrats know they are not qualified to win legally, or by intelligence, so they block a bill that would make voting fair.

They want to keep it so illegals can vote over and over again without showing proof that they are eligible to vote.

That way they can win, whereas if it were done right, and only eligible voters were able to vote, they would never win.

I hope everyone with an ounce of intelligence remembers this and votes they out of office next time around. DeLos Bates (from my side of town ~ gulp!)

Free speech is a wonderful thing, but it can also be embarrassing.

3. Michelle Malkin (before her death in January 2008, Molly Ivins twice a week columns were cut to one -- to allow Malkin to "rebalance opinion.")

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not sure if I'm showing my age here or not, but it seems to me there was some pride as a younger person when I received my very first credit card. It said some bank judged me worthy of extended credit. That's before banks and CC companies began willingly cramming those cards down (or up) any available bodily orifice with space available.

Well, in a kind of "things have come full circle," i.e., the U.S. as creditor, will not allow debtor banks to repay on their debts until given permission. Amusingly, our federal government didn't just jump at a $68 billion repayment installment (as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program began last October) offered up by 10 banks. They first had to give those banks permission to repay $68 billion (which our government did Tuesday).

We are being told by experts the payment "shows some stability has returned to the system," but before we get all jiggly joyous, please note the article also says by ponying up some token breadcrumbs owed the government, it also frees these banks "from restrictions on executive compensation that they say are making it hard to keep their top-performing executives"!!

"Holy shit, Batman!" Thanks American taxpayers. It would appear things are getting right back on the old status quo track to "normal." The one that landed us in this ditch to begin with.

Anything can happen at HDBC -- and usually does.

"We think we are conscious, but we aren't. We are asleep, hypnotized, sleep-walking -- the metaphors vary, but they all mean that we can't see outside our conditioned reality-tunnel. When we begin to awaken, we perceive that the world is nothing at all like the myths and superstitions our society has imposed on us." Robert Anton Wilson interpreting George Gurdjieff's take on reality from his book, Beezlbub's Tales to His Grandson.

Illustration: "The Evening" by Sergei Chernenko, or as Dada likes to think of it, "Anything can
happen (even in the afternoon!) when with friends at the High Desert Brewing Company."

Last Saturday, at the High Desert Brewing Company (HDBC) in Las Cruces, Mrs. Dada and I sat at our usual table scanning the pages of the latest edition of Grass Roots Press with its progenitors, "Tom and Brenda." Having noted India Pale Ales were back on the menu (they were out of stock last visit), the afternoon's success was already assured.

Our waitress approached to take our order. "We'll have three 3 pints of IPA and an iced tea," we told her.

Noticing the Grass Roots Press with which we were all so engrossed, she said, "Oh, that's a great newspaper!"

Before containing my glee at her appreciation I blurted, "Well, this is it's publisher!" nodding toward "Tom." Obviously very pleased to be in his presence, to meet him, she returned the volley with, "Well, that's me in the photo on its front page!" Our glances all scurried back to the front page, to the photo.

"Oh, so you must be Cassandra then?" the fastest among us said after rereading the photo's caption. "Yep, that's me!" she confirmed.

The photo was of our waitress doing volunteer work at a community garden in a small El Paso desert suburb of Chaparral, just over the border in New Mexico. She was helping teenagers hired by the Youth Conservation Corps of New Mexico paint a mural on one of their garden's out buildings.

During the course of our HDBC visit, we learned Cassandra is one of those renaissance people of the 21st Century. Under employed, if one's definition of fully employed is a 40+ hour/week full time job. But with a BFA in art and masters in history she is plenty busy with at least three jobs as a part-time waitress, museum employee and social outreach worker in a small out-of-way community garden. (But this is a story for another blog, another time.)

I was struck, however, with how much in common Cassandra has with our friends "Tom and Brenda," i.e., all multi-talented without full-time jobs. Called under employed by the system (now destroying the lives of formerly full-time employed workers), Tom, Brenda and Cassandra are very busily occupied earning successful livings with varied endeavors tapping into their rich diversity of talents and knowledge. I feel privileged to be among such people. They may better survive the future rigors demanded of us all in the New World now unfolding.

So, what has this to do with anything? Well, if things go as planned, the new week is scheduled to kick off with another rendezvous at HDBC tomorrow afternoon. And I don't think it's just the great India Pale Ales they serve up there, but suspect instead the High Desert is a vortex that may engulf anyone at anytime who enters therein with serendipity, with synchronicity. As prelude to tomorrow, I have this afternoon already experienced a synchronicity - hint of what may follow tomorrow? *

Synchronicities like ours last Saturday with Cassandra and Grass Roots Press are not uncommon. We have had many wonderful moments over the years at HDBC. As far as "blogger" moments, tomorrow we are to meet again with a ball of light whom we met for the first time at High Desert last October.

And there have been a great number of rendezvous with "Tom and Brenda," many of which they have shared with us, like when we, along with Border Explorer and her husband, met for the first time (as Los Tres Bloggeros) with eProf2 and his lovely wife, visiting from Arizona in January.

But speaking to a ball of light yesterday, he hinted at living a life of enchantment in recent months. This only served to strengthen my anticipation for tomorrow with he, "Tom and Brenda" and the Dada's at HDBC.

*************

* Dada note: As I was reading a book this afternoon on ancient man entitled Supernatural and his development to include the use of symbols and their later employment by shamans, thoughts of this blog began distracting me.

Anticipating another visit to HDBC tomorrow, "I must relate last Saturday's HDBC synchronicity about our waitress!" I thought. Especially in light of a ball of light's recent serendipitous period within which he's now immersed.

Casting aside my book, I picked up one by Robert Anton Wilson. I knew it might be a good source for synchronicities, but checking its index, I was overwhelmed with the number of pages containing references to them. As I was about to relocate a bookmark placed therein from some many years ago to the index page referencing synchronicity, I thought better of it. "Better just check what my bookmark was there marking first," I thought.

What I read there left me more than slightly stunned and in much anticipation of tomorrow:

"But language and civilization are functions of the symbolizing or semantic faculty, which also produced that other great mystery: shamanism...!" which is precisely where I had left off in the book I had been reading. There was no need to look further for an example of synchronicity. I had just experienced one!

Busted!

As Mrs. Dada busied herself wrapping a graduation
present, my Editor Sam thought no one might notice
if he helped himself to the startled graduation bear!

[Editor's note: No animals were harmed during the
photographing of this horrific event. (Damn it!)]

El Paso cited for deception!

In a parallel Universe just one over from our own?....

(Illustration by Dada)

"Hell, everyone in Arizona knows Yuma is the sunniest place in the nation," said Matthew Madden, upset resident of Phoenix (which holds the title of the country's "most uncomfortable city" according to The National Climatic Data Center).

When asked of El Paso's nickname as "The Sun City," Yuma resident Teresa Mondragon said angrily, "El Paso's claim to that moniker is totally ridiculous."

Actually, Mondragon may have a point. A recent study by the Department of the Energy shows El Paso has done nothing to earn or maintain its claim from the plentiful sunshine that heaps tons of free solar energy upon that city nearly 200 days of every year.

Learning its nickname as "The Sun City" has been labeled by the Department of Interior as one of the grossest examples of misleading names in the nation, El Paso has been told its claim to that title is being revoked July 22nd.

"The fourth sunniest city in the nation simply calling itself The Sun City, naming its annual post season collegiate football game 'The (Brut) Sun Bowl' and its local public transit bus service, 'Sun Metro' is not enough to warrant its continued use of the name," one official said. "There is little evidence to demonstrate El Paso has done anything more to validate its claim."

One city representative, speaking on condition of anonymity said, "Honestly, the nickname is a sham. El Paso has no interest in pursuing its future in the sun!"

"'The Sun City' should go to some other community more deserving" she went on to say, adding, "someplace like tiny Taos, NM where their local radio station, KTAO, generates a staggering 100,000 watts of purely green electricity from its solar panels, enabling it to boast its broadcast area as the largest of any solar-powered station in the country. Taos also hosts an annual solar powered music event known as the Taos Solar Music Festival. Someplace like that, or some other city actually working with the sun to affect a more positive future will be able to rightfully stake its claim as the real Sun City once El Paso's title is revoked."

While El Paso prides itself in one of its biggest industries, Ft. Bliss, which is undergoing huge expansion with the addition of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division, one local resident was quick to say, "Rather than laze around under the nickname 'Sun City' that El Paso has done nothing to nurture, the sooner we surrender that title to someplace else really promoting the sun and its endless supply of free/cheap energy, the quicker we can adopt an appropriate nickname more accurately reflecting what El Paso as border city is all about."

"Maybe something like 'Tank Town,' he suggested.

(Dada had difficulty deciding whether the protrusion on the right side of the speaker's face was some kind of oral growth or just his cheek housing his tongue.)

Watching the sunrise over Portland. "No, wait, that's not the sun!"

Watching the sunrise over Portland. "No, wait! That's not the sun. What the fuck is
that?" or, anticipating the future on the edge of our seats! (It's gonna be a nail biter!)

Tuesday evening I watched a two hour ABC presentation on Global Warming in the 21st Century. The prognosis wasn't good. Eager to sample other impressions taken from that show, I mentioned it to the woman behind the checkout counter at the grocery store today.

"I didn't watch it," she said, adding, "I don't believe it." She concluded with, "I don't think anything's changing."

Considering my retort for a second, I smiled and said, "Well, I certainly hope you're right."

"What do you think?" she asked. I simply said, "I guess I'm glad I'm as old as I am -- just in case that program is right. I would hate to have that future to look forward to."

She poohed, poohed me. She seemed to think everything would be just fine.

But it reminded me of the underlying premise of Dada's Dally. As much as I am distracted here by minor outrages of day to day politics and its resulting wars with their little sideshow torturings and slaughters of innocents, or economic miseries resulting from inequalities, exploitations or indifference to the impoverished masses, etc., there's a greater underlying dynamic at work here that may ultimately affect us all in ways yet unimagined. That's because we're in the middle of a mass extinction and, if I remember correctly, last night's show said one third of all species could vanish. (That seems conservative to me at the moment, because I think we've already extinguished that many in my lifetime.)

As with most programs thrashing amongst the flotsam of such doom and gloom, however, the obligatory 'ray of hope' for a better world was offered up at the end of the program. That is, after 80% or more of us perish getting to it. ("Oh gee, get my hopes up!")

Having forgotten the name of the ABC presentation, I just did a Google search for it. The number two hit was from a website entitled, "Business and Media Institute, Advancing the Culture of Free Enterprise in America." As if that didn't clue me, its headline did: "ABC Turns to Doomsday Propaganda to Push Global Warming Solutions. Network spends two hours predicting future, promoting Obama and left-wing climate ideas or mankind doomed to new 'dark ages.' "

Maybe that explains my grocery checker's optimism. She listens to different radio than I. Yet, despite extreme weariness from the endless line of shoppers with carts full of groceries complaining about the soaring prices of everything, she sees this as just a continuation of the past into the future. While I, on the other hand, am dreading the future but hopeful that Nature, which mankind often considers himself outside of or beyond, will eventually work it all out for the best of all of us, even if it means our eradication.

That's where I place my frightening hope. Oh, and by the way, the name of the ABC program was “Earth 2100,” not that any of us has to worry that far into the future.

We knew it would come to this; it was only a matter of time!

Conservatives Warn Quick Sex Change Only Barrier Between Gays, Marriage

At last -- there cometh the change we kenneth believe in!

Loose ends (no. 37)

EL PASO/JUAREZ:

It was an especially violent weekend for the ongoing Juarez drug war, gang wars, and general anarchy:

Friday: 11 murders
Saturday: 12 murders
Sunday: 4 murders (Sunday being the official day of "rest")

(Dada note: On this evening's news, the weekend Juarez death toll has been revised upward to 30.)

Total murders in Juarez for May - more than 100; year to date; more than 580
Meanwhile, Juarez's sister city, El Paso, has recorded 4 homicides since January 1. (But there have been 10 El Paso bank robberies!)

TEXAS

As a letter to the editor pointed out in The Times this morning, it's ironic that Texas governor Rick Perry signed into law a bill mandating all public school children pledge their allegiance to the flag each morning. Yeh, that pledge that includes the words, "one nation, under God, indivisible...."

Just to clear up any doubt, that's the same Rick Perry who hinted Texas might want to consider seceding from that indivisible union at a Texas Tea Party this April.

Oh, yeh, and that's the same governor Perry who also rejected federal stimulus money of $565 million for those jobless and homeless Texans in March. (Later over-ridden in revised form by both the Texas Senate and Hosue.)

But to complete the irony, Texas decided to allocate eleven million federal dollars stimulus money to reconstruct the governor's mansion which was torched by an arsonist in 2008.

Dada thinks the federal government may want to beat the Texas secessionists to the punch by purging the Union of a huge pain in the ass.

JUNE AND THE BEGINNING OF "THE SUMMER FROM HELL."

I'd just like to note GM's bankruptcy, and the federal government pledging to pump $30 billion more into GM (in addition to the $20 billion already cast to the wind). In a comment on Dada's, Fran (of "Ramblings" blog fame) notes, aside from the obvious pouring of federal taxpayer's moneys down the rathole:

• 21,000 union workers will be unemployed.

• Close 12 to 20 factories

• Forty percent of the company’s 6,000 dealers will close (2,400 dealers).

That's a whole lot of family wage jobs and health care benefits going away.

I suspect GM is going to bailout of their bailout- meaning we never see that $50 billion again.

Too bad, all those unemployed workers are going to need benefits & social/support services.

Thanks Fran. And, as Dennis Kucinich urged of the White House, Americans should not be subsidizing GM's growth overseas on the backs displaced US workers: “We must not allow GM to use US taxpayer dollars to close plants in America in order to open markets for products made in China and other countries.”

But why the hell should we listen to Kucinich? After all, as (the late, accoladed mediaman) Tim Russert so proudly gleaned from a Shirley MacLaine book, Kucinich may have seen a UFO! Holy SHIT! (Implication: He's a fuckin' nutcase, right?)

Meanwhile, Detroit folks are saddened and very anxious at the news of GM's bankruptcy. And why shouldn't they be? With yet another economic axe to fall as a result of today's GM news, one need only read Michael Moore's reminder that 47% of the houses in his hometown of Flint, MI are vacant. Ah, math reminder, that's nearly every other house, less in some neighborhoods, more than half in others!

But Moore goes on to chide the administration, to NOT pull GM and the past, i.e., Old World, into the New World of the 21st Century by "building 'cars' that may have been fun to drive, but are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature."

Moore instead pleads with our government to look to the future by converting closing auto plants into manufacturing things this country will need for its future! Things like the nation's first bullet trains, trains like Japan has now had for 45 years. (Dada can't imagine making a day trip to Albuquerque from El Paso in under two hours each way, not to mention the thousands of workers that would be put to work, not just locally but nationwide, in building such a network!)

Moore's nine suggestions are in his article, here, entitled "Goodbye GM".

But this is America, and as I have described our government, most specifically, our congress as a huge house of whores, Fred over on "Fred On Everything" painted it even more colorfully: "Congress, 535 commoditized temple monkeys pawing through the ruins of America in search of bribes. The bicameral whorehouse on Capitol Hill works like a vending machine. You put coins in the slot, select your law, and the desired legislation slides out." (Although Dada might have put it a tad more bluntly, i.e., you cram $bucks up their asses and out of their mouths spew future laws!)

Of course, suggestions such as Kucinich's and Moore's on how best to deal with the GM issue are exercises in futility. They will be ignored because our government no longer leads, it follows. And that, sadly, is usually in whatever direction it catches the scent of money.

Meanwhile, California is making drastic budget cuts that will affect millions of its residents in various and unpleasant ways. "As California goes, so goes the nation."

This is extremely sad for our future, but what leaves many of us anticipating "The Summer From Hell," which I suspect may be the prelude to an even worse autumn, winter, and, hopefully not, 2010.

Today's special: De-boned & rolled turkey

What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups? A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with remunerative corporate directorships, outrageous speaking fees, and a lucrative book contract. If he is young when he assumes office, like Bill Clinton and Obama, it means a long life of luxurious leisure. (An excerpt from a Paul Craig Roberts article on Information Clearing House.)

I know Obama is disappointing more of us with each passing
week, but if we just lower our expectations a little and ........
"...think of them as restaurant waitresses, eager to please their
customers, the powers that be. And imagine world citizens, to
include Americans, as the menu items. Object: - please their
customers and make big tips by being good servers." ~Dada

Bush does Toronto.

Friday, George Bush was in Toronto. He shared a stage with former president and fellow brotherhood member, Bill Clinton. While I couldn't be there with my Canadian brothers and sisters, I was with them in spirit.

Meanwhile, inside, Bush "joked that his mother, Barbara Bush, told him Clinton has been spending so much time with his own father, former U.S. president George H.W. Bush, that he is 'like a son to her.' So brother, it's good to see you," he said to Clinton.

Let's face it, modern U.S. presidents are beginning to resemble what one might expect as the result of familial inbreeding, i.e., they're all of the same, but not the brightest, cut of cloth.

Bush reminded us all that "Freedom is transformative. "Freedom brings hope and freedom brings peace."* (No, I shit you not. He really said that! ~Dada)

(* Quotes courtesy of CBS News, photo from TD Bank Financial Group/Reuters via Ramblings' blog and Dada's Painter VI)

E-mail to husband in Iraq: "How'd it go at work today? OK?" Soldier: "Yeh, I had to rape a young boy to get his father to 'talk.' Love you, honey."

As the result of an extremely controversial verdict, I am very upset at the news that former U.S. soldier, Steven Green, 24, of Midland, Texas has been sentenced to life in prison. And it's only because he shot and killed a teenage girl's mother, her father and her six year old sister, before raping her (he was the third G.I. to do so) and when finished (out of some perverse gratitude or deep guilt, I suppose), he shot the girl in the face and set her body on fire.

Why am I so outraged over Green's sentence, just as all good Americans should be? Because Steven Green was just part of the wrong kind of unit. If only he had been assigned duty as one of our Bush administration approved soldier prison guard torture interrogators where (as we are slowly learning -- no wonder Obama doesn't want us and the world to see it, to know it!) -- rape and murder are just part of America's extreme questioning techniques.

Many good citizens know and condone this and it seems extremely unfair Steven Green will be spending the rest of his life behind bars when he could still be walking around *free* as a person who has honorably served his nation had he only committed rape and murder in the line of his assigned duty -- interrogation.

Memorial Day as I remember "My Army Bean Girl"

Autumn of 1964, Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana, and the nation is what? -- guess! -- making god-damned war on some little country on the other side of the Earth (like always).

During the three and a half weeks spent in training at Ft. Ben, I developed a crush on a fellow army trainee. We never met and I never knew her name. Assigned to different training companies, the only thing we shared were occasional meals in a mess hall feeding hundreds. Once of twice our glances collided in the hallways outside our classrooms. Those were the high points of my stay at Fort Ben.

Several years later I remembered her in a poem. While obviously no poet, I sometime later shared it with an old friend who confirmed this with his response, "Nice ditty." But what my effort lacked in talent was made up for by the feelings that inspired it.

This is the focus of my Memorial Day, 2009. Hopefully, my army bean girl went on to have a great life and is today sharing this day with her children and their children.

My Army Bean Girl (a tribute "ditty")

Someone, somewhere, will evenutally die from this credit card reform bill.

Obama after signing a credit card reform bill in the rose garden,
Friday, May 22, 2009, surrounded by a bi-partisan group of whores
from that "house" on the hill, the largest legal bordello in the nation,
our congress. (Official White House photo by Chuck Kennedy)

"With this bill, we're putting in place some common-sense reforms designed to protect consumers..." (Obama)

Wait, WAIT! Since Obama neglected to mention or celebrate the other part of the bill, let me take the opportunity to put words in his mouth and finish his little ceremonial speech for him.

"Oh, and by the way, with this bill people will be allowed to carry hand guns -- concealed on their person or in their picnic baskets and beer coolers -- into our National Parks." (Dada)

***************

QED - whores serving their special interest pimps. (Gee, maybe the NRA wasted $10 million campaigning against the election of Obama? They seem to have a friend in the White House.)

From forging steel to forging checks in one easy leap, or why evolution isn't always upward.

A new Sands Hotel and Casino giving renewed hope to displaced
Bethlehem Steel workers who can now retrain to regain their
dignity with futures as Black Jack dealers, waiters and busboys .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh lord how I loved this story! As no better metaphor for the direction in which the nation has evolved, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, home of one of "the most powerful symbols of American industrial might and manufacturing leadership," Bethlehem Steel, is soon to rise from the ashes of that company's 2001 bankruptcy.


Illustrative of its resiliency and it's ability to adjust to the shifting sands of time, Bethlehem, PA will now be home to the shifting "Sands" of gambling, which will build a hotel and casino on the very grounds of former Bethlehem Steel.


But to go from one steel industry to another one takes a lot of irony. Whoops, that second one is spelled with an "a" much as our former nation of steel has become a nation of steal.

Recession reminder: Use caution when microwaving your baby!

For the second time this week our local newspaper has published the The Associated Press Economic Stress Index. It's beginning to stress me out. The AP Stress Index is a map of the U.S. showing those areas of the nation suffering from the greatest levels of stress based on such things as unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies.

Because of the extreme mental anxiety now affecting nearly six times as many counties as was being experienced just last September (some with unemployment exceeding 25%!), I thought it might be wise to remind us all to take precautions when microwaving babies, incidences of which are certain to rise so long as the economy continues to sink.

People residing in such "hot pockets" as Merced and Imperial Counties, CA, Wilcox County, AL, Oscoda County, MI. (see map for more) may want to pay particular attention when zapping young ones in the Amana.

Here then is that reminder of baby microwaving safety as published here last September:

Twenty seconds at power level six?

How many of you have put something in the microwave for a minute or so to heat and gone about some other business only to realize several minutes later the microwave is still running? And when you check it to see, it still has 7 minutes, 37 seconds to go! I do this occasionally, the result of inattentiveness when entering my heating time.

Sadly, twenty-eight year old China Arnold has just learned such carelessness will cause her to spend the rest of her life in prison without chance of parole.

The fact that Arnold admitted during her trial she had been drinking and arguing with her boyfriend about whether or not he was the father of her one year old daughter, Paris Talley, did little to save Arnold for the death of that daughter. You see, Paris was killed by over microwaving.

China claims she is innocent. Maybe she is. Knowing, as I suspect many of us do, how easy it is to enter a wrong time, maybe China Arnold, distracted by drinking and fighting with her boyfriend, mis-entered the time she intended to zap little Paris by punching in 20 minutes instead of 20 seconds?

Pursuing the American Dream, or "Duck You Sucker!"

The following is a letter to the editor in yesterday's (5/17/09) El Paso Times. It appears its author, Leno Puentes, is a graduate of the George W. Bush school of unity, not division. To quote:

"Growing up I had big dreams.

"Become a U.S. citizen, decent job, good family, pretty wife .. well, I've accomplished most.

"Now, as an older gentleman (Dada's emphasis), I have one dream.

"I hope someday I'll be the only human left, along with one Democrat, Osama Bin Laden and Fidel Castro."

"I have only two bullets, how would I use them?

"I'd shoot the Democrat twice."

(Dada thanks heaven Dada's an independent!)

This is the nation's largest legal whorehouse. (And it's not in Nevada.)

Pictured above: The United States Congress, comprised of two houses, the Senate and the House of ("our") Representatives. Combined, they comprise the largest legal whorehouse in the nation under one lavish roof.

Most everyone who works inside is considered "honorable" by corporate America (including the media), mostly because corporate America pimps for the many hookers who work out of these houses. (Example to follow.)

Who are the Johns of these whores? We are! Honest, hard working Americans trying to just scrape by who pay and pay to get screwed over and over again by the whores residing inside this bordello. And as we pay for their "tricks" with taxes extracted from our incomes, we are blindly being robbed behind our backs by these hookers and their pimps stealing our jobs, homes, retirements and health for we who we are paying for just "a little love."

Result? Our whores get their rewards, not from their Johns, er, constituents they're supposedly serving. They get their rewards for "jobs" well done from their pimps who rake in huge sums of money from their hooker's tricks.

CAUTION: Graphic prostitution photographs follow!

It's difficult to find sympathy for people losing their homes to foreclosures who voted republican in the last election. I don't know why, but from these two houses of "professionals," republicans seem to be the far better at creating misery, perhaps because of their total lack of compassion for their constituents.

While the democrats now have a considerable majority in the senate, to those Americans who voted for them thinking bills like the one recently that would have saved many, many thousands of Americans from foreclosure, I can only say, "it's difficult to find sympathy for people losing their homes who voted democratic in the last election." (Redundancy, I know.)

Below is a list of those democratic senators who "laid down" as their bankster pimps wished at the expense of many Americans who will lose their homes as a result. (Their contributions, kick-backs, rewards, whatever from their pimps shown in parentheses.)

Whores who voted against their party and struggling homeowners:

Senator Max Baucas, democrat, Montana
($3.5 million)

Senator Tim Johnson, democrat, South Dakota
($2.5 million)


Senator Mary Landrieu, democrat, LA ($2 million)








Senator Jon Tester, democrat, Montana
($1/2 a million - he's got lots of room for improvement!)

Senator Blanche Lincoln, democrat, Arkansas ($1.3 million)











Senator Arlan Specter, Republican/Democrat, PA. (This guy can go either way, which probably explains his $4.5 million "bonuses"!)



Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat, Nebraska
($1.4 million)










*NOTE: Pimp payouts to these democratic senators courtesy of Paul Craig Roberts' "Who Rules America?"

Breaking bread on truce night among enemies who really love one another.

Desiree Fairooz and Medea Benjamin welcoming guests at last Saturday's
annual White House Correpondent's Dinner. Make no mistake about it,
Medea and Desiree have more balls than 98% of the rest of the nation.
(Video courtesy of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!")

I enjoyed watching the video of Wanda Sykes toasting/roasting attendees at last Saturday's Annual White House Correspondent's Dinner. That's the yearly dinner affair where conservative, middle of the road democrats and right wing extremist republicans take off the gloves for one night -- as only real political allies pretending to hate each other's guts the other 364 days of the year can do -- as they share a black tie dinner with a few good laughs at the expense of each other's ideologies (as entertainment no doubt for us, the country's rabble). I'll admit, I was amused. (It keeps the nation's mobs distracted, don't you know?)

This year's humor was served up by comedian Sykes, the evening's featured guest. Afterward, I found it amusing that MSNBC commentator, Keith Olbermann, thought that Sykes, "regrettably, a well seasoned pro went well beyond the line" in expressing her wish the kidneys of hot air bag Rush Limbaugh would fail. It was simply her response to mutinous Limbaugh's wish Obama's administration, hence, the nation, fail miserably.

But most amusing to me, however, was how Keith Olbermann dispensed his morality on the evening after breaking bread and sharing laughs this night with an international war criminal -- former secretary of state, Don Rumsfeld. In this country, irony knows no bounds obviously.