Fur Free

The old bottle and the sea

For some reason this bottle has been on my mind for the last couple of days. I photographed it while we were camping on the Caribbean last November.

It was a lovely glass home for the several creatures clinging to its neck. The clouds drifting over the sea are from the edge of a hurricane that was passing by not too far south.

The NYT doth protest too little

The New York Times posted a rehash of Bush's crimes today and pulled their punches, as usual. Bush commits treason and they note that he has a "central flaw". They should be calling for Bush's resignation and impeachment. But this is the paper that withheld information regarding Bush's police state spy program for a year. That makes them part of the "Trust Gap", not valued members of the free press protecting truth and freedom which are supposed to be "the American way".

The Trust Gap / Editorial
Published February 12, 2006 by the New York Times

We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less.

This has been a central flaw of Mr. Bush's presidency for a long time. But last week produced a flood of evidence that vividly drove home the point. archived at CommonDreams.org

The article briefly covers DOMESTIC SPYING - PRISON CAMPS and THE WAR IN IRAQ but fails to mention that during the KATRINA DISASTER Bush preferred to go golfing rather than tend to the business at hand. And another thing that belongs on the short list is the fact that his administration committed an act of TREASON by leaking the identity of a CIA undercover operative to the press. That's pretty fucking noteworthy. The United States government takes betrayal very seriously, especially in a time of war. We execute traitors. Bush, on the other hand, just keeps going.

But we all know why the Times didn't bring up the "T" word. They CO-OPERATED with Bush Co.. They were the leakies. They published the fact that Valerie Plame was a deep cover CIA operative. I always marvel at the irony. She was risking her life working undercover in the Middle East gathering critical information for the United States about who has weapons of mass destruction and what they are planning to do with them and Bush outs her, destroying the entire network she was associated with and puts many operatives lives in danger. If other agents were killed because of it, we'll never know because, after all, it's secret. Why would the President of the United States do such a thing?

I'm not impressed with the Time's show of "getting tough" on Bush at this late date. They are part of the whole, stinking mess.

Global warming, polar bears and Republicans

Here's a quiz:
What do polar bears, hurricane victims, and global warming have in common?

Answer:
They are all being ignored by the Republicans.

Polar Bears are starving to death because global warming is destroying their habitat. They are another species that may become extinct because of it.

The Republicans prefer to either deny the situation or bullshit about it. Other than giving lip service to change, they are completely unwilling to submit to the regulations of the Kyoto Protocol designed to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. One of the first things Bush did he when became president was withdraw the United States from the Kyoto Protocol. As always, he is motivated by greed, guided by ignorance and full of hubris. But the Republicans can't bully, bribe, blackmail, baffle or buy off the weather. Instead they are trying to muzzle scientists that speak up about global warming. Bush should be muzzled. Whenever his lips are moving, he's lying.

"It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," said NASA's chief climate scientist James Hansen of the Bush administration's effort to silence him after the speech he gave last month. "One threat was relayed to me that there would be 'dire consequences — not specified,'" if he spoke up, he told ABC News. Hansen stressed that if we don't act now, "earth will become a different planet."

Bird AS pixel

bird n.
Ancient resident of earth. Descendant of the beast-footed dinosaur.

AS n. Abbr. AS or a/s, air speed
The speed, especially of an aircraft, relative to the air.

pixel n.
Basic unit of composition for an image on a television screen, computer monitor, or similar display.

Peanut weed

A magpie is out in the very cold bird park this morning stashing peanuts under the weeds. That's one more reason why not clear away the fall die off. I don't know if it's the same bird every day but every morning there's one magpie who comes first and comes alone. He usually doesn't hide the peanuts. Usually he struggles to carry off two or three in his beak or he grabs one, drops it, grabs another, drops it, grabs another, drops it. Pretty soon he has a little pile of peanuts at his feet and he goes around and around picking up and dropping each one. Hiding them is an advanced strategy. Sorry I couldn't get a photo. He's gone at the moment and the pigeons have arrived. They always case the joint from Dick's roof for a while before descending into yard.

Well, gotta go. We're going skiing for a few hours this morning. It's another blue bird day here in Nevada.