If the toxic radiation released routinely from nuclear reactors and every other stop along the nuclear fuel chain were the color and texture of oil, or smelled like natural gas, no one would ever again confuse nuclear power with clean energy.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

~ Mark Twain

The art of art... is simplicity.

~ Walt Whitman

Each moment of the year has its own beauty... a picture which was never seen before and which shall never be seen again.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You should know by the kindness of a dog the way a human should be.

~ Don Van Vliet

92% of Americans say they want full disclosure of campaign contributions

Wealth concentration in too few hands while the general populace is saddled with too much debt to buy the goods and services produced by the corporations, in whom the wealthiest hold 81 percent of the stock, is a replay of the conditions leading to the crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.

The U.S. ranks 27th—nearly last—among developed countries when it comes to investments in education, health care and other vital social needs.

The sunrise, of course, doesn't care if we watch it or not. It will keep on being beautiful, even if no one bothers to look at it.

~ Gene Amole

Koch Industries is responsible for over 300 oil spills in the U.S. and has leaked 3 million gallons of crude oil into fisheries and drinking waters.

"...And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land...," - Mark Twain

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

~ Marcus Aurelius Antonius

“The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ~ Ghandi

We The People - Aren't Ready

Nobody's going to read this post it doesn't have a hot topic gotcha lead line. It's not sexy and yet I feel the need to make this observation. The people not only of this country but the entire world aren't ready. This has nothing to do with education, time or opportunity but it has a lot to do with humanity, evolution, civility, logic, practicality and common sense.

The people just aren't ready. They are by and large still greedy, lusting for power consumed with self interest and exploitation as if that will bring satisfaction. It won't, it doesn't, and it hasn't, but until we all understand that we are going to have to suffer the fools who are obsessed with it and those that haven't comprehended for themselves what and why we are here for, and how that will bring about the world we all pray for.

We still have a lot of evolving to do as individuals and societies - a helluva a lot of evolving. If anyone thinks this is mankind at the uppermost reaches of his being laugh at yourself because of your conceit. In gods image please...not yet we aren't...not by a long shot.

How many train wreaks do we have to witness individually or globally to understand that fulfillment does not come through ruthlessness.

The struggles around the world and in the halls of governance are focused on the immediate gain of those who ruthlessly play the game, have a loud voice and have taken a seat at the table. They need to wake up and take those chairs at that table and turn them around. Drilling down on each other while facing off with each other until there are only a few ruthless power brokers left is so completely counter productive and narrow sighted. It gains them and everyone else nothing but annihilation and elimination. Whats going on and real success will come when they turn their attention outward. The choice is a Hitler world or a Mother Theressa world.

By and large the people aren't even ready to talk to each other - meaningfully. There is plenty of talk but it isn't meaningful.

The people just aren't ready. They exalt ignorance as some sort of creed that smart people are evil, that philosophers are dreamers, that art is for fools or investing and that a gun is an equalizer and way out. Weapons a tool of destruction are a path to destruction.

Mankind isn't ready to understand that and it doesn't even have a plan a vision for utopia. Yet utopia is easy beyond easy. Once we take a paradigm shift to a we society instead of a me society and help each other and actually care about each other we'll throw off the shackles of grid lock politics and govern from a human pragmatic center.

We do not have to be weighed down by arrogance, selfishness and the cowboy romanticism of the "rugged individual" going it alone. Its a stupid ideology that pits neighbor against neighbor as we ravage our resources and each other. The world is no longer big enough to accommodate that conceit.

Can you imagine a world where our national interest weren't defined by power and control for profit. What if we made a real commitment to feed the poor, heal the sick and provide for the disenfranchised a world in which the HAVES actually help the have nots and SHARE their wealth?

Can you imagine impoverished nations actually opening their borders and letting us take the food and education directly to the people? Can you imagine a society, nation and world that commits its resources to helping those in need with not just the bare essentials but uplifting them culturally, providing them the tools to better manage their lives, and philosophically with sustainability and spreading a feeling of well being?

The bottom line is there is more than enough to go around. Once we start thinking about being our brothers keeper and making that who we are, and helping those that need a leg up we won't be so quick to tear down our forests to make a buck.

What good is a buck when a whole legion of people on the outside looking in are forced to take up violence to feed their children.

We the people just aren't ready. We aren't ready to cooperate, live together, understand each other or help one another. We're ready to steal from one another, to cheat one another to kill one another, to lie to one another, to beat one another, to torture one another, to make sick one another, to exploit one another, to hate one another. But the opposite of all that is what we need and We the people just aren't ready to collectively give up our self defeating ways.

It's considered naive, idealistic but I tell you it is the only way we are going to succeed as a planet and the only way to co-exist. Those that would excel at ruthlessness must be met and confronted and out numbered. But they won't be if its considered futile, unfashionable or unrealistic or profitable, or advantageous to saddle up to the ruthless. Yet history is littered with examples of the ruthless falling when confronted by the peaceful masses. It is the courage and ethics of the individual that are at play here and those ethics and courage of convictions should be what is celebrated but the people aren't ready.

We are still enamored with ruthless.

The resources we spend on making and creating war are astronomical. Once for a quick second we talked about a peace dividend. We need that to come back into the conversation. Violence is inherent in our culture animals hunt man kills. But the people aren't ready to overcome that because they are acting purely on self interest. As if its somehow not understood that every action has a reaction and that the choices that we make in our individual lives impact everything.

From what we throw out to what we recycle, to what we buy to how we live right down to what we say every individual action, thought and deed impacts the whole of humanity. But the people aren't ready to accept that fact.

The fact that their words have power their media has power, their thoughts have power and that we are all responsible for our global survival in what we do, say, and live and that each one of us is a shareholder, and that no action thought or deed exists in a vacuum. It all impacts the end result of survival or annihilation of our very species.

But the people aren't ready to see and understand we all have that great of an individual power and that we are on a finite planet that has plenty to go around if we all cooperate, share and help one another.

The people think or have been taught their actions don't matter, someone will clean up after their mess, and THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. Well no one gets away with anything.

Self interest leads down a road where everyone squabbles over the last remaining resources.

At the end of the day its the road to ruin. Self interest does not have an invisible hand to guide it. But if we changed our priorities to helping one another in every way which was needed the benefits to our global well being, individual well being, discourse and health would be overwhelming. And we would have a market sector that brimmed with opportunity, and innovation bursting at the seams.

Our intellect projected outward instead of selfishly limited to "whats in it for me" would simply bring utopia.

There's employment opportunity in helping educate the poor, feed the hungry, cure the sick and protect and cultivate our environment. And the return on that investment would be threefold. Are we really that lazy that the only thing we can think to do with trees is to cut them down? Are we really that lazy and stupid to think that the only thing we can do with the ocean is fill it with garbage and over-fish it to death? Are we really that lazy to think the only thing we can do with a mountain is to blow it up? How is that governing, smart, practical or having even a hint of common sense?

Its the exact opposite and we are going in the wrong direction unless extinction and annihilation is our goal. People turn to crime as a last resort bravado and all no one wants to pick up a gun there's no glory or honor in it and you know it the minute you pick one up.

But there is a heck of a lot of honor in a barn raising.

We do not have to look far for examples but by and large the people just aren't ready. Enough of us haven't reached that necessary level to understand that money and power and control through money and enforcement can't fulfill that empty hole inside our collective and individual beings or give us the purpose we all crave.

The powers that be are wasting your time and my time with their stupid profit wars, consolidation and monopoly.

At the end of it all they'll wind up with a stinking, polluted, nuked out cesspool of a planet.

There is another way but the people aren't ready yet. They can't see the planet from their toes. If we all stood up and changed direction and started really caring about each other instead of only about ourselves well that's a world worth living on.


And a world worth returning to.
______________________________________
Paul Burke - Author-Journey Home

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.

~ Groucho Marx

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them.

~ Phil Pastoret

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.

~ Groucho Marx (my man pots and pans)

If there's a book you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

~ Toni Morrison - got it Toni :)

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.

~ Mortimer J. Adler

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.

~ Will Rogers

“If music be the food of life, play on.” ~ Shakespeare

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

—Juvenal

Do we keep the Bush Tax Cuts for the Richest 2%? Or do we end them for good, and invest in the Other 98% of us instead?

Republicans = Bullshit

Republicans are full of shit - ban earmarks already - big full of shit talkers. Where's your jobs bill Boehner - you mean you haven't worked on one yet? What the hell have you been doing up there besides going to the tanning salon? Tax cuts for billionaires do not work, have not ever worked and continue not to work or we wouldn't be in this recession because they have been getting them since REGAN.

The big decades long behind the door scheme is to starve the government of tax dollars to make it smaller and ineffective when it comes to oversight and the rule of law. A government with already historically low tax rates, a government in charge of oversight for a three hundred million strong market sector, a government in charge of oversight on a huge continent that spans two of our planets biggest oceans from sea to shining sea. The richest 2% want to starve it of capital so it can't do its job and they can get away with murder...literally.

What a great idea starve the cop on the beat. Now who would think of that? A bunch of would be criminals that's who.

The end result of this decades long experiment to starve the government to make it smaller is that government ends up being a better investment than tax breaks for billionaires.

Billionaires hoard the money in foreign banks. Our Government could have/would have invested and will invest those tax dollars back into our economy across a wide sector including defense, infrastructure, research and development and education. All of those capital investments pay REAL DIVIDENDS back to our Country which is who we pledge allegiance to - right?

Republicans are full of shit and represent thieves who would take our tax dollars to their off shore accounts and hold the dollars there forever.

Dollars are useless unless circulating.

That these billionaires and millionaires do not feel a loyalty even to the military that protects their interest overseas and the police and fire departments at home is criminal and Un-American.

Do you realize its the Democrats and LIBERALS who advocated for the GI Bill and increased benefits for our young boys and girls in the service?

The Republicans and Bush CUT benefits for our veterans and yet started two wars. Happy Veterans Day - right...?

The Republicans talk a good game but they are completely full of shit and its written all over their wormy faces.

You're looking the other way if you voted republican because liberals with their open minds, generosity, live and let live mentality and welcoming attitude scare you to death. As if your mom taught you not to share, not to look out for your younger brother and to not help old ladies across the street. The republicans actions not words repudiate all of that. But it is their actions that count and count large as in large bills going overseas. They sneer back through the television screen all the way to the bank. A foreign bank in another country.

Why would a segment of the population continually vote against their own self interest unless they have been fooled by words and images to align themselves and trust the very same people that are RIPPING THEM OFF.

The republicans are whores for the wealthy and proud of it.

Unless you are worth a hundred million dollars voting for them is just plain stupid. They do not represent God, they do not represent Jesus, they do not represent mother earth, regular folks, they do not represent blue collar workers, country music or nascar. They represent money, money, money and as much of it as they can get their hands on.



That's not governing that's stealing. But because they look like you and put on the affects that are near and dear to you like religiosity, proselytizing and flag waving you ignore the fact that they just want your vote and then kick you to the curb immediately after the election.

Republicans represent 2% of the our so called citizens who do NOT need our tax dollars but get them anyway.

It's a real waste of money. They gobble up all our resources for themselves, hide the money in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Caymans and do NOT reinvest that money into the USA.

They leave their mess of pollution from their industries and cancer derived from their products for the poor and middle class wage earners to clean up and deal with. These people the wealthiest among us the richest 2% who rape our land and legal system deserve to be hung for treason.

At the very least they need to pony up like the rest of us and pay the same tax rate that the rest of us pay. That's right middle America you pay a higher tax rate than Richie Rich.

Tax breaks for billionaires that's all that you get when you vote republican. Pat yourself on the back for voting with the 2% who don't give a damn about you or what your Mother taught you.

The end result of starving the government to make it smaller is that government ends up being a better investment than tax breaks for billionaires. Billionaires hoard the money in foreign banks while our Government could have/would have invested those tax dollars back into our economy across a wide sector.

Here’s a post-election fact that might have escaped you: 80% of the state ballot measures for land conservation passed, including in Maine, Oregon, Rhode Island and Iowa

Know thy ideal, and live to that. For, each soul must give account for its own self.

Edgar Cayce Reading 2803-2

Fun has a sacred dimension.

~ Adriana Diaz

Our resolve to change things for the better (sustainable) must match their resolve for greed, a quick buck and power.

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.

~ Siddharthe Gautama

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

- Marcel Proust

With 100% of Precincts Reporting, We Are Projecting Corporate Money as the Winner

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

~ Herodotus

I have this theory that it is the dream of most educated people to own/work in a bookstore.

~ Megan Coughlin

After all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done.

~ Unknown

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

Rachel Carson

If you want to be happy, be.

~ Leo Tolstoy

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

~ Andy Warhol

Until we get better media, we will not get better politics

Voters in swing congressional districts overwhelmingly reject privatizing Social Security and raising the Social Security retirement age, they oppose tax cuts for the top 2 percent who make more than $250,000 a year

Protecting the environment is a bedrock American value....

Big Oil and Dirty Coal spent $70 million on energy-related attack ads this election cycle and put $20 million directly into the pockets of their allies running for Congress....that's the story

Election Results and What You Can Do

Here are TEN things YOU need to do - TODAY.
_________________________________________________

1. Commit to Taking Down FOX News. So long as FOX News has any credibility within the Beltway, it will be a pipeline for malicious material that will poison our political culture. Join our friends at Color of Change: http://colorofchange.org/turnofffox/sticker/tof.html?&credo.

2.Tell the Senate to pass the DISCLOSE Act during the lame duck session. We were able to defeat the Texas Oil Initiative, Prop 23 in California, in part because we knew who the enemy was — having disclosure of corporate contributions brings the enemy out in the open for us to take on and fight. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House and came within a single vote of passing the Senate. One vote. You can join this fight by taking action with Public Citizen at http://www.citizen.org/disclose-act-action.

3. Keep fighting to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This issue will get resolved during the lame duck session. Take action at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bushtaxcuts/index2.html?r=6072&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

4. Sign up for the fight for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision by declaring that corporations do not have the legal rights of humans. This may take years, if not decades, but we should start now. Please join Free Speech for People: http://freespeechforpeople.org/

5. Tell the FCC to use its existing authority to establish and defend net neutrality. Our friends at Free Press are leading this charge: http://act2.freepress.net/sign/put_up/.

6. Demand that the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service investigate the political organizations set up by Karl Rove to launder millions of dollars in secret cash to change the outcome of elections. Act now at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/investigate_crossroads/index2.html?r=6442&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

7. Defend the EPA from castration by pro-coal interests in Congress. The EPA accomplished almost nothing during the Clinton years because the Gingrich-led Congress used the budget process to prohibit the agency from doing its work. This battle has already started. The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign is a great way to join this fight: http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/

8. Convince the Obama administration to stop appealing progressive court rulings on matters like the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the state secrets defense against torture and wiretapping. Urge the Department of Justice to change its approach at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_appealing/index2.html?r=6443&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx.

9. Urge Democratic senators to do away with lifetime tenure for committee chairs and open up all chair positions to majority vote elections. This will go a long way towards more progressive legislation. Take action with us at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/end_seniority_system/?r=6444&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

10. Demand that the Department of Justice enforce the provisions of the national voter registration law that require state governments to offer to register all voters at departments of public welfare and motor vehicles. Many state governments simply ignore these requirements and this is a cheaper and more inclusive way of registering voters than the campaigns of the now dead ACORN. Urge Attorney General Eric Holder to expand voter registration: http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/enforce_motor_voter/?r=6445&id=12212-683909-S.Q5.Vx

By a considerable 22 percent margin, battleground voters believe the Environmental Protection Agency should regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.

By a huge 41 percent margin, voters believe “we need to hold corporations accountable for their pollution,” rejecting the argument that “we should not impose new regulations that will hurt businesses.”

We lost too many friends in Congress last night. That means our efforts to move to a clean energy future will be much more challenging - I'm up to it how about YOU?

Don't watch the election on ABC! They've lined up known liar and race-baiter Andrew Breitbart to do Election Night commentary. Remember him? He got African American USDA employee Shirley Sherrod fired with his highly edited video appearing to show her giving a racist speech—when the full video showed the opposite. Viewers depend on news for facts—Breitbart lies. Watch anyone but ABC on Election Night!

It's game time. You've committed to vote -- now's the time to follow through.

Find your polling place here, and bring three friends along when you go:

http://ping.fm/E0Vlq

Say NO to the Party of No and deliver the message that's NO WAY to run a Country.

Vote Democratic Across the Board

I usually advocate for voting for the best person - ignore the 'd' or 'r' after the candidates name. Vote for the best resume whether its the green party, libertarian, democratic or republican. But after two years of petulant, ridiculous, childish, stupid, republican behavior saying 'no' to practically everything, across the board regardless of merit or reason I can not take that approach this election cycle.

Blatant obstructionism while families were losing their homes and in the midst of a national crisis by the republicans is inexcusable and boarders on treason.

I will not split my vote this year. It's a straight democratic vote for me across the board. We need to hand the President a clear majority and deliver a message that we want the parties to pull together for the good of the Country. If in two more years of a full proof majority the democratic party can't govern then let the chips fall where they may.

But I can not sit by for another round of No votes based on nothing other than obstructionism, hoping the President fails, and praying the economy doesn't get better just to gain personal, individual and corporate power.

That may be what career politicians want but its not what I want.

Vote Democratic across the board and give our President a real chance to unleash the green energy economy. Boehner, McConnell had a chance to help shape legislation. They opted to stall and shaft all Americans in a go for broke attempt at power while hard working middle class families were kicked out of their homes.

It's disgusting and beneath contempt. Apparently the party of no does not have the dignity or maturity to put the Country first. Just because they are old white guys doesn't mean they get what's good for America is good for all Americans.

I'm asking that we the people do not reward that type of behavior. How are we going to change Washington D.C. if that's the type of behavior we reward?

Say NO to the Party of No and deliver the message that's NO WAY to run a Country.

The Top 5 Reasons To Vote Tuesday 11/02/2010

Keep Your Government Hands Off My Corporate Overlords! (Ken, Washington)

"...much of the wealth at the top derives from environmentally ruinous activities...depleting the oceans of life, mountain-top removal mining, or selling people cigarettes and other carcinogens...," Juan Cole