End Our Dependence on Fossil Fuels: It is Killing Us in Every Way Imagineable

Dear Administrator Johnson and EPA staff:

It is the mandate of the American people to the administrators of the nation to declare a clear break from the use of fossils fuels.

The mentality and dependence of using fossil fuel must be broken. Fossil fuels must be declared as extinct, as the dinosaurs.

Administrators must recognize how counter productive dependence on fossil fuels is to producing new energy technologies.

The existence and progress of mankind hinges on a clear break from fossil fuels, and it must start with you Mr. Johnson, the EPA, and your staff.

A clear message must be sent to every industry and every business that the nation will no longer rely on fossil fuels.

If you don't take drastic steps to shift our dependence on fossil fuels we will suffer both economically and personally in the very near future.

I urge you to take immediate action and rule that carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants clearly "endanger the public’s security, health, welfare, and economic well being" and thus should be regulated and eliminated under the Clean Air Act, but more importantly you must declare that the nation cannot continue to exist with the use of fossil fuels period.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution and the use of fossil fuels is the primary cause of the energy crisis, the climate crisis, and health crisis we face today.

We're already seeing dramatic and dangerous climate effects today, and the climate crisis threatens the very livability of our planet for our children. We must reduce CO2 pollution now by eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels.

Rather than continue to rely on polluting fossil fuels, we can "Repower America" by developing new energy, and using existing energy sources that don't emit CO2.

We must make the switch to 100% clean electricity, and we must lead the world with the developing of a new energy technology. But first you must declare fossil fuels extinct. It is our mandate to you.

Submit your public comment to the EPA here:
http://www.repoweramerica.org/epa/

Hillary’s New Hurdle for Secretary of State: Our Constitution

Sen. Hillary Clinton on the Hill. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Hillary really wants to be Secretary of State, and she would be an excellent choice from the current selection of candidates.

After intense purposeful, scrutiny, and deliberations with President Bill Clinton’s counsel and the Podesta transition team.

Just when Bill Clinton, tells the Nation and the Obama folks, “I’ll do whatever they want,” to eliminate any barriers, and disclose any all of his dealings with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and stop any extra curricular activities with foreign dignitaries, and stop any benevolent activities that may be viewed as a conflict of interest, to rid any obstacles to Hillary’s nomination to Secretary of State, another hurdle arises.

Two hundred and thirty two years later our beloved Constitution and founding fathers have something to say about President Elect Obama’s pick for Secretary of State. Our founding fathers are speaking to us through the Emoluments Clause, of the Constitution. Al Kamen, of The Washington Posts writes,

“… specifically, Article One, Section Six, also known as the emoluments clause. ("Emoluments" means things like salaries.) It says that no member of Congress, during the term for which he was elected, shall be named to any office "the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during his term."

The aim of the constitution and founding fathers is to make sure that members of Congress do not reward themselves by providing for raises and then taking possession of those lucrative higher paying spots. The objective is avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest or shall we say greed.

But there is precedent, and Hillary has a possible fix, read the rest of the story here, at the Washington Post.

Obama Taps Intelligence Transition Team supporting WMD and Rendition Reports

Democracy Now
The War and Peace Report
website link
November 17, 2008
Reports the following story:

Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team

John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq. We speak with former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. (link)

Watch Video Stream of this aritcle

FOR DISCUSSION:

"Doesn't it make some sense for Obama to hire some guys who have actual
KNOWLEDGE of what has gone on for the past 8 years, rather than come in
clueless?

I mean... these guys are on the "transition" team, not being appointed to be
in charge of future operations." - Michael Martinson

BUT doesn't their past automatically bias their suggestions for transition?

"I'm not going to second-guess Obama or try to read his mind, but he seems
like a pretty sophisticated guy. If you had to cross a mine field,
wouldn't it be advantageous to have the person who had laid down the mines
be on your team, at least until you were safely across?" Abigail Marshall

Or are we being naive here? What are your thoughts?

President Elect Obama's letter of resignation from the US Senate

Copy or Print it as a momento for your records or click on the title of this post and jump to the originating source the Chicago Sun Times Lynn Sweet Article

The Best and the Brightest but Please no Retreads Mr. President Elect

The test balloon has been floated, and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State is being fleshed out in the public while the transition team thinks over who would be the best and the brightest as Secretary of State, while other cabinet posts are being vetted behind the scenes. The great benefit of such a leak is that it works to publicly vet highly public figures like Senator Clinton. But if more leaks of less notoriety follow then staffers and transition team members, the transition process, and the Podesta team is in danger of showing to be weak, suspect, and undisciplined.

Change was the platform that Senator Obama ran on for President. How can he epitomize change when in essence he is re-creating or creating a third Clinton Cabinet? One of President Elect Obama’s favorite saying by MLK is “The arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Obama’s MLK quote addendum can be, “The arch of change is long…” “…How long, not long…” in other words change won’t be much, if he continues down the same well travelled path. If he continues doing the same things over and over again can we expect a different result or do you think we will get the change he promised?

Speaking in the wisdom of others President Elect Obama and his transition team should consider these wise words:

We are most effective as a team when we compliment each other without
embarrassment and disagree without fear. - Unknown

What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis. - W. Edward Deming

Individual commitment to a group effort, that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. - Vince Lombardi

The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team. - Lewis B. Ergen

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. - Babe Ruth

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. - Henry Ford

Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity. - Vince Lombardi

It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you. Dwight D. Eisenhower

It’s easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that’s the
hard part. - Casey Stengel

Lincoln’s chutzpah in selecting “a team of rivals” was overstated he had to do a lot of convincing and endured countless hours agonizing and analyzing ways to prove his leadership, to his team of rivals. He had to undo distrust, disdain, and contempt, from discordant factions within his cabinet which he accomplished. The downside is that dissonance spilled over to his military leaders, and that almost became his undoing. It was evident with the lackluster insubordination he received from generals like McClellan. President Elect Obama absolutely can not waste time undoing the disparagement, nor does he have the time, treasury, or life to spare from hidden dissension from his cabinet or from commanders on the field as President Lincoln did.

“Why retread an old politician into a new role”

Selecting Hillary is a dam good player but she can easily be considered either a bad or bold choice. Offering Senator Clinton the post creates obvious and not so obvious deliberations. First when you get Hillary you get Bill whether you want him or not so the questions to ask is do I want Hillary enough to get Bill? Keeping Hillary’s interest as Secretary of State will be enough for her to succeed, but keeping Bill Clinton engaged beside Hillary is the other challenge. You just can’t emasculate a person like Bill Clinton and not expect any drama, no on the contrary Bill Clinton must have something to do. What can Bill do at the side of Hillary if she is Secretary of State?

Hillary has a lot of good qualities she is hawkish and can be megalomaniacal. She has ambition and allegiance. She is smart and skillful, but her baggage trails like Zsa-Zsa Gabor’s. The question the transition team needs to ask is: Are they willing to re-hash and re-live the public drama of the Clinton’s and risk ludicrous embarrassment? Will she be able to devote her interests truthfully and completely to President Obama, or will she divide them between hers, Bill’s, and President Obama?

Why fish in the same pond? Nixon was successful with Kissinger. Carter was successful with Brzezinski even though Brzezinski served as National Security Advisor. Clinton was successful with Albright. Why retread an old politician into a new role, when President Obama can have an assertive intellectual at his side to provide him with day-to-day advice and guidance on foreign policy decisions. How about Thomas Freidman for Secretary of State, he speaks and writes Arabic, and Hebrew. The point here is to think out of the box.

David Ignatius, of the Washington Post raised an even more cogent point, on MSNBC’s 1600 with David Gregory:

“Just to say one thing about this issue we are all talking about Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in my conversations with foreign leader’s people abroad who are watching this amazing election. The sense of excitement they have about this new President, about his ability through his personality. His amazing history – to turn a page – to show the world a different face of America is crucial. The one thing I think for Obama should be careful about is not dissipating that opportunity by having a superstar as the Secretary of State. The game in the world right now is Barack Obama. It’s Barack Obama who has the ability to meet with people – make things happen, and go through doors that wouldn’t exist but for him, and if he gives it – if he sub-contracts that to Hillary Clinton, I worry that the impact he could have might be lost.”

60 Minutes First Interview with President Elect Obama

Watch CBS Videos Online

The Iraq War Isn't Poetic - Remembering Our Veteran's

The Ballad of Private Ross
By Gordon Lee Fain,

Just a coin toss,
Heads it was someone else, tails it was Ross,
A volunteer
Who went to Iraq, was helping to clear

Mines to a pit,
Then heard a discharge, felt the metal hit
His legs and face,
The fragments finding every open place

Of flesh and bone;
And when he woke, he lay in bed alone,
Amazed to find
That he had one leg cut off and was blind.

The whole town made
Sam Ross a hero: bagpipes, a parade,
A home they set
On top of a hill, but he could not forget

Insistent dreams
Of floating, in which his whole body seems
In peaceful flight
To burst apart in searing flames of light.

So he began
To drink, and young men took him in a van
From his house, down
To every bar and strip club within town,

New friends, who gave
Him everything his loneliness could crave,
Although he paid
For all the pills they popped and girls they laid;

And then one day,
His brother's girlfriend thought she heard him say
Cocaine's on the phone,
And in his fear that she would make this known

He pounded her door,
Pushed his way in, shoved her aside, and swore
He'd get her back,
Grabbed his lighter and set fire to the shack

In a drunken daze;
And when the firemen came to fight the blaze,
He screamed out -Stop! -,
Took off and swung his false leg at a cop

We end this tale
Of Ross, who tried to hang himself in jail,
With you and me:
Why him? Why not the rest of us? It's we

Who made him pay
For our own failure, took his hope away
So he now knows
The recompense of arrogance; but those

Who sent him there,
And we who should the blame and burden share,
Can't comprehend,
Can't bring this futile combat to an end,

Watching in despair
As helicopters tumble from the air:
More coins to toss,
More mangled corpses, more like Private Ross.

Hope for Our Troops.org built him this log cabin home








"Seventeen times of trying to commit suicide, I think it’s time to give up,"

Mr. Ross said.

"Lots of them were screaming out cries for help, and nobody paid attention. But finally somebody has."
Re-published in it's entirety from the New York Times:

Read Deborah Sontag's New York Times front page story:
Injured in Iraq, a Soldier Is Shattered at Home


Vote your thoughts on WAR

A Veteran's Day Remembrance

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Randall Jarrell’s poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is simply powerful in its minimalism.

World War II started as long ago as sixty nine years ago, in 1939. Japan catapulted America into the war on December 7, 1941. Famously some may remember the infamous words of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as “A day that will live in infamy.” But to understand the poem one must understand what a “Ball Turret Gunner” is, and what he does, and this where the mastery of Randall’s words shine.

Now, to understand Jarrell, a Ball Turret Gunner in WWII was an enlisted person usually small of stature and build that could crawl into a gun turret in a fetal position, and usually hung upside down strapped to a two barrel fifty caliber machine gun. The only things that kept a gunner from the rest of the world was a thin round Plexiglas encasing and the straps that held him in his position.

Jarrell evokes powerfully that imagery of the fetal womb position with these words, “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State.” Realize it took me seventy two words in the last paragraph to explain what he did in ten, but what is even more significant is the use of the word “State.” State has many meanings as a noun. Jarrell uses it to identify the condition of the speaker, his feeling, his status as a person, and even the eventual “state” of his death.

The first sentence not only evokes the speaker’s essence but what has happened and will happen to the speaker of the poem. War is not something you play with and with the advent of Veteran’s Day; it is the youth of our nation that are brought to war and death’s door. Jarrell in ten words describes and shows how the speaker was thrust “from my mother’s sleep,” his youth, and into this war of the “State,” the war of our country.

“And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze,” is a verse that begs the question: “…wet fur froze” what is that? Here is the generational divide. The fur Jarrell writes about is the fur found on a bomber jackets collar.

“Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,” is the reference the writer placed to how high the plane he was in was flying, and how far from the “dream of life” he was. It alludes to the comfort of home and life as it was, “dreamy.”

“I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters” references to the sudden shock of the “flak” or fire of anti aircraft guns, and the fearful sight of the German Messerschmitt airplane fighters in the air seeking to attack his B-17 or B-24 bomber. The last sentence is self explanatory but evokes a gory bloody death, of blood splatters, and blood pooling in that Plexiglas dome: “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” These last words evoke the almost insignificance of life lost in a war.

God help our servicemen. If you enjoyed the pictures and want to know more about World War Two Airmen please visit:

Remembering World War Two Airmen

http://untoldvalor.blogspot.com/2007/08/ball-turret-gunners-breed-apart.html

WILFRED OWEN "Dulce et Decorum Est"

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for
your country "

...Is it Really?

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disapointed shells that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime -
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

1917