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October 10, 2006

16 Tons, And What Do You Get?

[BREAK] BCP logo Today, we meet to sell highways to corporate interests. Instead of the fear of virtual toll stations on the Internet, there will be actual toll booths collecting dollars for share holders (who might get cut rate Easy Passes?) While a decade from now, with much luck - and more than a dollop of irony - you may still be pledging allegiance to the flag, you'll be paying for EVERYTHING on a single page bill to a conglomerate composed of Halliburton and, if they are lucky, a few other large political donor corporations. Gas, electric an telephone charges will be but a small portion of your monthly bill. The "National Corporate Conglomeration" will run a subsidiary for-profit corporation for the military, a subsidiary for-profit corporation for the environment, a subsidiary for-profit corporation for the National (FBI) and Local (NYPD) policing, a subsidiary for-profit corporation for the Fire Department, a subsidiary for-profit corporation for blood donor/seller centers, a subsidiary for-profit corporation for sanitation, a subsidiary for-profit corporation for adoption and foster care and a subsidiary for-profit corporation for motor vehicle affairs, etc., etc. and etc. (props to Yul.) Of course, a for-profit military will need to, as such armies have throughout world history, make conquests of countries that can pay a mighty tribute or aid in insuring the power/defense of the mother country/corp, or both. All other corporate-government agencies will need to produce no red ink on their ledgers, and all will be below the great and powerful military corp., probably named The Halliburton Marauders. There will be no more NAFTA, CAFTA or other free trade agreements. The All Earth rules, that disallow unions, minimum wages or other unpatriotic attempts to hinder corporate profits have been outlawed, making trade agreement superfluous. We'll probably still hold elections, but power and duties will have evolved in keeping with the new, and constantly changing/improving reality that morphs on corporate demand. The famous Wall Street bronze Bull has become a religious icon of the fast growing Church of Hedonistic Pleasures (CHP), where membership is dependent on your listing in Forbes. CHP generous offer to take over all education in the US has been gladly accepted by the Clinton/Bush administration, with both Chelsea Clinton and Jenna Bush gushing about all the modern, instantaneous DNA readers on lease from CHP, so that the children will learn how to use.the machines to make any and all purchases. Your corporate credit status is immediately viewed by merchants, and deductions for purchases are made without any financial instruments (cash) ever changing hands. Of course, employers use the same DNA scan to find your age, health history, genetic proclivities, school records (which now really are "permanent records") and all other personal info, prior to hiring anyone. (The "security" uses of such invasive technology raised many questions at the inception. In a stroke of genius, the uber-Corp declared that all activities that might cause a future employer concern, like protest marching, unacceptable speech and complaining about the great and powerful uber-Corp. as being illegal and punishable by a life sentence of working in one of the toxic areas of the planet wherein much of the poisonous, but necessary, goods/chemicals/petroleum plants are located. As the average human lasts but 3-5 years in the soupy environment, this quickly keeps the population of free speech troublemakers to a minimum. Our Presidency will mimic the British Royal Family. She/he will appear at ship launchings, supermarket openings and will ring the quaint old bell at Wall Street, on the 4th of July and Corporate Appreciation Day! The UN will be a place where similarly factotums will meet to discuss the recommendations from the 5 member uber-Corps as to where the next Olympics, World's Fair or uber-Corp board meeting will take place. They will send there views back to the mega luxurious space station Xanadu, where the uber-Corporate board members and the 400 or so trillionaires live a life of unheard of luxury, far from the earth bound, cancer ridden serfs on the depleted planet below. (They believe this is a charitable arrangement, as they'd rather avoid any jealousy that might arise when the starving masses see that, in the hidden class war, winning really was everything.) And to think, it all began when Halliburton began hiring mercenaries in Iraq and corporate toll booths popped up on the Jersey Turnpike! ===== [/BREAK]
Fiscal Advisers Due to Weigh In on Selling New Jersey Turnpike - New York Times By RICHARD G. JONES Published: October 10, 2006 TRENTON, Oct. 9 — For months, Gov. Jon S. Corzine — slipping now and then into the skin of the investment banker that he once was — has talked about finding new ways to generate billions of dollars to help close New Jersey’s growing budget deficits. Next week, state officials may begin to take their first steps using some strategies from Mr. Corzine’s Wall Street past to help shape New Jersey’s financial future. On Monday, a financial consulting company is expected to deliver several recommendations about whether New Jersey should sell off or lease some of the state’s assets, including the New Jersey Turnpike. More Here

January 24, 2007

NY Times Emerges As Innocent
After Trip Down The Memory Hole!

[BREAK] BCP logo
NY Times: Where all the news that fits (our wished for image) we print!
Okay, in our gut we all know that "nostalgia" is just our way of looking at the past through some user-friendly form of Alzheimer's. We tend to forget the bad, exaggerate the good and, in the end, find ourselves to be either the hero/ine of that chapter, or, at the very least, an innocent bystander in anything that reflects badly on the participants. But a news organization, at least one that claims to have any standards at all (you're off the hook on this, Fox News, NY Post etc.?), must remember relevant facts that must be emphasized in any editorializing, even if such facts cast a harsh light on that same news outlet. Well, the standards for newspapers keeps getting lowered.
In the wake of 9/11, Mr. Bush had a second chance to rally the nation — and the world — only to squander it on a pointless, catastrophic war in Iraq.
When the icon of national news in the US, even after giving a grudgingly half-hearted apology for its HUGE part in granting uncritical and factually flawed justification for our attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq, can now point to Bush's Baghdad Blunder with scorn, yet leave it's own role unspoken, we MUST take time for a reality check. I, along with hundreds of thousands of others, marched in NYC on February 15, 2003 . . . a month prior to Bush launching us on his Iraq blunder.
We ALL knew that, had we depended on the verbiage in the NY Times alone, we would have never crowded 1st, 2nd and 3rd Avenue in NYC that cold day. We would have been home, waiting for our courageous leader to launch an attack on Osama's buddy, on the holder of tons and tons of WMD. And we would have been willing to shed much of our kids' blood in order to prevent Saddam from launching a fleet of lethal gas/chemical/biological agent bearing drones that would cross the vast ocean and kill hundreds of thousands of us. Yep, that's what a faithful NY Times reader would have done . . . had (s)he only garnered info from the gray lady of US media. Fortunately, those marching had a less parochial view. They had access to the leading media from around the world. And, many had been granted the tools of critical thought by their teachers - long before No Child Left Behind took critical thought off the table. So, despite the war drums beating from 42nd street, the world saw the largest display of disenchantment with government (US/UK) policy ever! And the Times yawned, and pointedly ignored the whole thing. In fact, readers of the Times, back then, would have little trouble catching the inference that those against the Iraq madness were ill-informed dupes who were committing a treason based on ignorance, or worse. Now, years after it refused to acknowledge those dissenters, it has suddenly jumped into the group shot of those that said "NO!" And, after years of the Times being a pamphlet composed of the slogans of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, the Times now writes as if it were a Bush critic from day 1! Nostalgia sure is a soothing balm. I'm now going to remember the days in High School, when I was a lady killing machine. (If you think you remember me as a skinny, pimple-faced, rather shy guy, you are so not in that same "as you wished it were" memory hole as I, and the editors at the Times.) JB =====
The State of the Union - New York Times Editorial The State of the Union Published: January 24, 2007 The White House spin ahead of George W. Bush’s seventh State of the Union address was that the president would make a bipartisan call to revive his domestic agenda with “bold and innovative concepts.” The problem with that was obvious last night — in six years, Mr. Bush has shown no interest in bipartisanship, and his domestic agenda was set years ago, with huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans and crippling debt for the country.
More Here

January 27, 2007

"Democracy" in the US is still on life support!

[BREAK] BCP logo Here in New York, where we like to think of our city/state as the leader of the modern world, we can't get what should be just a clone of one of the simplest computer systems on the planet [think ATM for voting] in place due to political bargaining for "favored" corporations, and the admitted collusion between "independent" testing/auditing firms and voting device corporations. Here's an excerpt from this morning's NY Times:
According to the documents, a federal auditor found last July that Ciber, the nation’s largest tester of voting machine software, did not follow its own quality-control procedures or conduct all the proper tests. The documents indicate that in many cases, the lab simply used tests suggested by the voting machine manufacturers, rather than running standardized checks of its own. The auditor also criticized the lab for “acceding too quickly” to requests by the voting machine companies to modify the tests. Voting machine experts have long been concerned about possible conflicts of interest in the testing, and some say the problems with Ciber have raised questions about the security and reliability of some of the machines now in use.
Let's remember, much blood and treasure was spent in gaining independence from the rule of the mighty few. And since, much blood and treasure was expended in attempts to keep this fragile system called "democracy" alive. We all know of the shenanigans performed by ALL the political parties in past elections. And we've seen how that practice was refined by the Republicans since the 2000 judicial/electoral coup. If we allow the corporations to continue to fiddle with our votes, and don't demand a recount friendly type of system, all is lost. A receipt should be printed for each voter, simply certifying that the citizen has voted. (I'd also like to see a small tax credit, say $20, granted when said citizen includes a copy of that receipt with their tax return. And/or a sticker/pin given, to help embarrass/remind others to vote that day.) Then, a paper copy of the actual votes (like your ATM receipt that lists your actions at the machine), without any identifiers as to the voter's identification, is given to the voter. The voter checks the printed copy for accuracy, folds it on the dotted lines, and puts it into the slot on top of a sealed box. Those paper ballots remain available for any ordered recount. Or, we can allow our democracy to fester some more, and die a horrible death due to citizen apathy. The choice is ours! JB ===== [/BREAK]
New York Won’t Replace Voting Machines by the Fall - New York Times By CHRISTOPHER DREW Published: January 27, 2007 New York officials have given up on replacing the state’s aging voting machines by the fall elections, and some would like to put off buying new electronic voting systems until after the 2008 presidential election, state officials said yesterday. New York is the last state to update its machines, and the latest delay comes amid growing questions about the work of a laboratory that was hired to help test the machines being offered by five bidders.
More here

June 2, 2008

My "Dream Ticket!"

With all the talk of a [NEVER HAPPEN] "Dream Ticket", I figured I'd make an entry.
(Of course, having taken over a year off, I might be the only one read this?)


President: Barack Obama
Vice-President: Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary of State: Joe Biden
Secretary of the Treasury: Charles B. Rangel (with Paul Krugman as Chief of Staff?)
Secretary of Defense: James Webb
Attorney General: John Edwards
Secretary of the Interior: Bill Richardson
Secretary of Agriculture: Tom Harkin (Chair Agriculture Committee
Secretary of Commerce: Henry Waxman Member (House Commerce Committee , and Chair Oversight & Gov Reform
Secretary of Labor: Ted Kennedy - if Ted not interested - Dennis J. Kucinich [or a Robert Reich redux]
Secretary of Health & Human Services: Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Housing & Development: Chris Dodd
Secretary of Transportation: Daniel K. Inouye
Secretary of Energy: Al Gore
Secretary of Education: Russ Feingold
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Chuck Hagel
Secretary of Homeland Security: Gary Hart

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