Mike Searches

WE MUST CALL IT WHAT IT IS: EVIL

2011-06-21T11:15:00.001-07:00

Been reading a lot lately. One excellent book I have gotten a hold of is The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering The True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted.

A phenomenal book. Very quickly, I want to leave y'all with some thoughts pulled directly and shamelessly from Dr. Hendricks' book.

"...it is more important, it is our sacred prophetic duty, to
identify and call by name the policies, governmental officials, corporate
officers, events and developments, and greedy elites that are responsible for
the impoverishment of the people. Calling the demon by name is an integral
part of our vocation to treat the people's needs as holy. thus, we must
call by name every factor, condition, person, or persons that do not treat the
people's needs as holy. We must call the demon by its name:
evil.

We must call by name tax laws that favor the interests of the rich:
evil.

We must call by name corporate boards and executives who underpay their
workers while giving corporate executives annual salaries and bonuses so large
that it would take the average worker centuries of labor to earn as much"
evil.

We must call by name those who claim to hold the people's needs as holy but
in reality do not: evil.

We must call evil by name to remind the people that public officials are
supposed to be public servants, and remind public servants that it is the
welfare of the many that they are to serve, not the whims and wants of the
privileged few.

We must call the demon by name in our churches, call by name ministers'
crass materialism and their lack of prophetic engagement; must call by name
their collusion with forces that exploit and oppress those whom they are
supposed to serve.

We must call by name the perversion of Jesus' Gospel by prosperity
preachers who blame the people for their sickness and poverty, instead of
decrying the demonic mistreatment of the poor by those who hold only their own
needs as holy.

We must call evil by name when pensions are squandered, when
Americans are dispossessed of their livelihoods by greedy executives who export
American jobs to regions where they can better exploit workers'
desperation." (Bold mine) (Dr Obrey
Hendricks, Jr. The Politics of Jesus (Doubleday, 2006), pp
148,149

Dr. Hendricks goes on, I am somewhat pressed for time.

I will say this: The conservatives have done a great job in equating moral conservatism with political conservatism. The two have nothing in common.

If Political Conservatism had its way from the founding of the United States, the British would have never had to fight to keep the colonies. Breaking from Britain was a Liberal idea. The conservatives wanted to remain part of the crown.

If Political Conservatism had its way in the 1960's, Jim Crow would be alive and well. It was political conservatives that wanted to keep slavery and African-Amercians under the thumb of White America.

And now, it is Political Conservatism that wants to destroy bargaining rights in a number of states. It is political Conservatism that wants to repeal child labor laws in the State of Maine. It is Political Conservatism that seeks to deny children as well as adults in this nation a free education. It is political Conservatism that would have children go to bed hungry at night. It is Political Conservatism that seeks to deny equality to people based on their sexuality. It is Political Conservatism that seeks to destroy families of brown people that speak Spanish through the scapegoating of an entire class of people based on their ethnicity.

Make no mistake, Political Conservatism and Moral Conservatism are utterly antithetical, and they will never be reconciled.

I will leave you, Searchers with a quote from a Founding Father:

"As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those
who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled
to the protections of the civil government. I hope ever to see America among the
foremost of nations in examples of justice and liberality."-George Washington

Peace, Searchers, I'm sure looking forward to having my laptop back...

HIATUS WINDING DOWN

2011-06-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

Long time, Searchers. I've been off for a while dealing with things I won't go into detail about here. Greetings to a Searcher, Jason of Illinois.

Very quickly, as I'm taking care of other things at the moment, I wanted to touch base about two books I picked up from the Library the other day. One is by Deena Guzer, Divine Rebels American Christian Activists for Social Justice. The other is Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman. Both are phenomenal.

In Krugman's book, granted I am only a few pages in, he writes about the similarities between what he calls The Long Gilded Age, the period between 1870 and the 1920's. There is a table he inserts that appears on page 16 of the book, I will attempt to recreate it here:

Table 1. Share of High-income Groups in Total Income, Excluding Capital Gains

Highest-income 10% Highest -income 1%

Average for 1920's 43.6% 17.3%

2005 44.3% 17.4%

In the table and the writing explaining the table, he discusses the inequality of income and the resemblance between the Nation in the 1870's and today, albeit a few years ago. Since 2005, it has not gotten better, it has gotten worse. As a direct result of the abysmal economic policies of the Republican party, including Ronald Reagan, and his political offspring, George W. Bush.

The Republicans are tearing down our Nation, make no mistake. Another quote from his book that appears on page 11 of Conscience of a Liberal:

Ronald Reagan, more than anyone else, showed the way. His 1964 speech "A time for Choosing," which launched his political career, and the speeches he gave during his successful 1966 campaign for governor of California foreshadowed political strategies that would work for him and other movement conservatives for the next forty years. Latter-day hagiographers have portrayed Reagan as a paragon of high-minded conservative principles, but he was nothing of the sort. His early political successes were based on appeals to cultural and sexual anxieties playing on the fear of communism, and, above all, tacit exploitation of white backlash against the civil rights movement and its consequences. (Bold mine.)

One key message of this book, which many readers may find uncomfortable, is that race is at the heart of what has happened to the country I grew up in. The legacy of slavery, America's original sin, is the reason we're the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee health care to our citizens. (bold mine) White backlash against the civil rights movement is the reason America is the only advanced country where a major political party (the Republicans, this is inserted by me) wants to roll back the welfare state. Ronald Reagan began his 1980 campaign with a states' rights speech outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights workers were murdered; Newt Gingrich, (who by the way is running for President for the 2012 election, against President Obama, parenthetical commentary mine) was able to take over Congress entirely because of the great Southern flip, the switch of Southern whites from overwhelming support for Democrats to overwhelming support for Republicans.

Without a doubt, the Republican party is against American families, and against America herself.

Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan's dangerous plan to turn Medicare into a coupon or voucher program is but one of the many examples of the Republican nightmarish plans for our country. For those of you who don't know about his plan to destroy medicare, study up. Same for the plans by the now infamous Scott Walker, the current Governor of Wisconsin. He will be up for a recall vote one year after his term began. There are currently several Republican State Senators facing recall next month in Wisconsin.

The Republican party is not for America's families. They are attempting to haul us back to the time before the Great Depression, and they are trying to destroy the New Deal designed by FDR, as well as the middle class and the elderly, students, young families, American industry, the list goes on and on.

Listen, Searchers, get off your asses and get involved. It is time to take our country from the Right Wing of America that seeks to destroy it.

Peace-

By the way, I will write about a couple of comments I received a while back that come directly from the useless Flanagin rabble in the state of Arkansas. And, there is a circuit judge I will post about before long, also in Arkansas.

The table is kinda jacked up, I know, but figure it it. Better yet, go to your library or local bookstore and pick up a copy of Paul Krugman's book. I don't have the time to perfect the table right now, in the future I will work on it.

Till next time...
Where's my sitemeter?????? Must get that back on....

CLASS WARFARE? YOU BET YOUR ASS

2010-09-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

I have swung from the right to the left; if you have read this at all you know. There was a time I supported big business, I believed the Republican and right wing Christian nonsense about profit, Capitalism, (God's own economic way, don't ya know) and the ability for the poor to get rich, because of "trickle down" economics. However, I have come to my senses. I was watching CNN yesterday and a commercial came on railing against taxes for energy companies. "Madness!" "Crazy!" and other such adjectives hurled at me by blue collar actor portrayals...and people are buying this crap hook, line, and sinker. Here is a story from Newsweek, CEO's are lamenting their poor abused status as the victimized rich.

The Book of James states in chapter 5 v.4: "Look! The wages you have failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you." NIV.

Let me take it a step further: The companies in the United States are on a wholesale robbery spree against the workers. The CEO's are empowered, the workers are weak. Such is the legacy of Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. They are stealing from us, and screaming about taxes. Wake up, a country cannot be operative without revenue, and that revenue comes form taxes.

I am working toward reversing this trend, and it begins with education. It is high time to end the utter exploitation of the worker, the farmer, the average person in the U.S.

Let me be clear: The Richest in this country are never going to come off their money unless forced to by the people. There has been a massive redistribution of wealth-from the bottom up to the top. The economic policies of Saint Ronald have done nothing except grow the coffers of the already rich. Reaganomics have failed, George W. Bush is a failure, and Conservative are morally bankrupt.

Listen middle class and poor-you are in the financial straights today as a direct result of the Conservative and Republican economic policy. And yes, Bill Clinton is to blame also.

In a few days I am going to post some pics of a little town in Arkansas that has gone completely in the shitter as a direct result of Conservatives and the Republicans. Home after home after home has been abandoned and houses are falling apart, yet the people are embittered against the left, and they are voting Republican to get even with Wall Street. (thanks Thomas Frank for putting that into perspective for me.)

Stuffing Their Pockets

For CEOs, a lucrative recession.

One of the most startling things about the post-crisis landscape is how tone-deaf the wealthiest Americans remain to outrage over their Croesus-like pay packages. The award for complete obliviousness would have to go to Blackstone cofounder Stephen Schwarzman, who earlier this summer compared government attempts to raise taxes on financiers such as himself to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Silver medals should certainly be handed out to the many executives and corporate lawyers who were grousing last week about the new Dodd-Frank bill, which includes a rule requiring companies to disclose the difference in pay between their chief executive and their lowest-level workers. It would be a “logistical nightmare,” these titans of industry wailed, for firms to compile this information.

Well, maybe, but if you issue pay stubs, surely you can tally them up (and perhaps keep a few more workers on board to do just that). The real nightmare will be when the public sees the numbers, which will illuminate just how egregious the U.S. pay gap has become. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank based in Washington, the average S&P 500 CEO takes home 263 times what his cheapest laborer does. While CEO pay is indeed down from its pre-crisis highs in 2007, it’s still double what it was in the 1990s, and eight times the level in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, American workers are taking home less in real weekly wages than they did in the 1970s. So much for the idea that the financial crisis would somehow even things up by wiping out a good chunk of the paper wealth of the plutocrats. Indeed, stock prices have surged so much since last year that many CEOs, who receive a good chunk of their pay in equity, are wealthier than ever before.

Such facts are inevitably followed by the impossible-to-answer question, do they deserve it? While the corporate world has certainly gotten more complex over the last 50 years, it’s hard to make the case that CEOs themselves have gotten any smarter, or that investors are doing a better job of judging a CEO’s success. Compensation levels are all too often driven by short-term thinking. The CEOs of the 50 firms that laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers did—largely because cutting workers boosts short-term profits and appeals to Wall Street. Yet a growing body of academic research suggests that downsizing doesn’t always lead to increased profitability over the longer haul, or even lower costs. There are many reasons for this, ranging from the fact that companies going into layoff mode often lose their best workers to competitors, to the toll taken on R&D spending, which is what produces the revenue and growth potential of the future.

While one can argue the merits of layoffs on a company-by-company basis, what’s striking is that the executives who are the most willing to ax workers also seem to be the least likely to tighten their own belts. Management guru Peter Drucker once noted that after CEO-to-worker pay ratios went above 25–1, major moral questions started to be raised. It will be hard to make employees believe that “we’re all in this together” when it becomes clear in public documents that company leaders have largely insulated themselves from any financial risk.

The larger issue of growing inequity in the Western world is a tough one to tackle; the forces of globalization that have led to stagnating wages aren’t going to disappear. But executive pay could be made fairer and more transparent. For starters, corporate America might take a page out of the European playbook. In countries like Germany, which boasts many of the world’s most competitive and productive companies, worker representatives often sit on corporate boards, providing a check against bloated pay packages.

On the other hand, U.S. corporate boards are full of very rich people who have no incentive to complain about each others’ pay. That’s why politicians might consider getting rid of tax rules that let companies write off unlimited amounts of corporate compensation. And whatever arguments there might be about the complexity of the Dodd-Frank rules, the notion of publishing pay numbers is a good one. If nothing else, it could be the starting point of a conversation in which America’s business leaders explain, to their shareholders and to the wider public, exactly why they need so much money to get the job done.

Thanks Newsweek-peace

RIGHT WING CHRISTIANITY AND THEIR WAR MACHINE

2010-09-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

Gotta love Eric Prince, the sleaze behind Blackwater. It is amazing to see how the right distorts Christianity and how the Christians on the Right love to wage war. It's a growth industry, don't ya know, and Capitalism is God's own economy...Eric Prince is as anti-christ and unamerican as any Soviet era official...Pure Capitalism, the type the Christian Right wants to usher in, is as evil as Communism in its pure form...Check out Jeremy Scahill's excellent book "BLACKWATER." You won't regret it.

Thank you NYT again...

Blackwater won contracts with web of companies
Network let it obscure involvement from contracting officials and public

By James Risen and Mark Mazzetti

updated 9/4/2010 12:07:58 AM ET

WASHINGTON — Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released a chart that identified 31 affiliates of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. The network was disclosed as part of a committee’s investigation into government contracting. The investigation revealed the lengths to which Blackwater went to continue winning contracts after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007. That episode and other reports of abuses led to criminal and Congressional investigations, and cost the company its lucrative security contract with the State Department in Iraq.

The network of companies — which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens — allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities, said former Blackwater officials, who, like the government officials, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that it was worth “looking into why Blackwater would need to create the dozens of other names” and said he had requested that the Justice Department investigate whether Blackwater officers misled the government when using subsidiaries to solicit contracts.

The C.I.A.’s continuing relationship with the company, which recently was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security at agency bases in Afghanistan, has drawn harsh criticism from some members of Congress, who argue that the company’s tarnished record should preclude it from such work. At least two of the Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the agency, according to interviews with a half dozen former Blackwater officials.

A C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said that Xe’s current duties for the agency were to provide security for agency operatives. Contractors “do the tasks we ask them to do in strict accord with the law; they are supervised by C.I.A. staff officers; and they are held to the highest standards of conduct” he said. “As for Xe specifically, they help provide security in tough environments, an assignment at which their people have shown both skill and courage.”

Congress began to investigate the affiliated companies last year, after the shooting deaths of two Afghans by Blackwater security personnel working for a subsidiary named Paravant, which had obtained Pentagon contracts in Afghanistan. In a Senate hearing earlier this year, Army officials said that when they awarded the contract to Paravant for training of the Afghan Army, they had no idea that the business was part of Blackwater.
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While Congressional investigators have identified other Blackwater-linked businesses, it was not the focus of their inquiry to determine how much money from government contracts flowed through the web of corporations, especially money earmarked for clandestine programs. The former company officials say that Greystone did extensive work for the intelligence community, though they did not describe the nature of the activities. The firm was incorporated in Barbados for tax purposes, but had executives who worked at Blackwater’s headquarters in North Carolina.
The former company officials say that Erik Prince, the business’s founder, was eager to find ways to continue to handle secret work after the 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisour Square and set up a special office to handle classified work at his farm in Middleburg, Va.
Enrique Prado, a former top C.I.A. official who joined the contractor, worked closely with Mr. Prince to develop Blackwater’s clandestine abilities, according to several former officials. In an internal e-mail obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Prado claimed that he had created a Blackwater spy network that could be hired by the American government.

“We have a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations,” Mr. Prado wrote in the October 2007 message, in which he asked another Blackwater official whether the Drug Enforcement Administration might be interested in using the spy network. “These are all foreign nationals,” he added, “so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.”

It is not clear whether Mr. Prado’s secret spy service ever conducted any operations for the government. From 2004 to 2006, both Mr. Prado and Mr. Prince were involved in a C.I.A. program to hunt senior leaders of Al Qaeda that had been outsourced to Blackwater, though current and former American officials said that the assassination program did not carry out any operations. Company employees also loaded bombs and missiles onto Predator drones in Pakistan, work that was terminated last year by the C.I.A.

Both Mr. Prince and Mr. Prado declined to be interviewed for this article.

The company is facing a string of legal problems, including the indictment in April of five former Blackwater officials on weapons and obstruction charges, and civil suits stemming from the 2007 shootings in Iraq.

The business is up for sale by Mr. Prince, who colleagues say is embittered by the public criticism and scrutiny that Blackwater has faced. He has not been implicated in the criminal charges against his former subordinates, but he has recently moved his family to Abu Dhabi, where he hopes to focus on obtaining contracts from governments in Africa and the Middle East, according to colleagues and former company officials.

After awarding Blackwater the new security contract in June, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, publicly defended the decision, saying Blackwater had “cleaned up its act.”

But Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she could not understand why the intelligence community had been unwilling to cut ties to Blackwater. “I am continually and increasingly mystified by this relationship,” she said. “To engage with a company that is such a chronic, repeat offender, it’s reckless.”

It is unclear how much of Blackwater’s relationship with the C.I.A. will become public during the criminal proceedings in North Carolina because the Obama administration won a court order limiting the use of classified information. Among other things, company executives are accused of obtaining large numbers of AK-47s and M-4 automatic weapons, but arranging to make it appear as if they had been bought by the sheriff’s department in Camden County, N.C. Such purchases were legal only if made by law enforcement agencies.

But defense lawyers say they hope to argue that Blackwater had a classified contract with the C.I.A. and wanted at least some of the guns for weapons training for agency officers.

REPUBS AND CONSERVATIVES CANNOT HIDE THEIR RACISM

2010-08-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

This is a repost from the AP...just a thought, the Right wing, the right wing christians (small "c") and the republican in general expose themselves on a regular basis for their racism and hate of those without a Euro-Cauc heritage...Drunk Lindsay Graham and his bible thumping ridiculous beliefs are behind the yapping from the right regarding the repealing of the 14th Amendment...Citizenship Clause, Equal Protection Clause, and Due Process Clause would all be done away with...makes you wonder just how out of control the right is...answer? Very.

Keep on keeping on exposing these fuckers for exactly what they are...bear in mind haters, I used to vote right wing, then i woke the hell up and saw it for what it is..."Conservatism is a euphemism for social cowardice." Nothing else.

WASHINGTON — Leading Republicans are joining a push to reconsider the constitutional amendment that grants automatic citizenship to people born in the United States.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he supports holding hearings on the Constitutional right, although he emphasized that Washington's immigration focus should remain on border security.

His comments came as other Republicans in recent days have questioned or challenged birthright citizenship, embracing a cause that had largely been confined to the far right.

The senators include Arizona's John McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee; Arizona's Jon Kyl, the Republicans' second-ranking senator; Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham, a leading negotiator on immigration legislation.

"I'm not sure exactly what the drafters of the (14th) amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen," Sessions said.

Legal experts say repealing the citizenship right can be done only through constitutional amendment, which would require approval by two-thirds majorities in both chambers of Congress and by three-fourths of the states. Legislation to amend the right, introduced previously in the House of Representatives, has stalled.

The proposals are sure to appeal to conservative voters as immigration so far is playing a central role in November's elections. They also could carry risks by alienating Hispanic voters and alarming moderates who could view constitutional challenges as extreme. Hispanics have become the largest minority group in the United States, and many are highly driven by the illegal immigrant debate.

McConnell and McCain seemed to recognize the risk by offering guarded statements Tuesday.

McCain, who faces a conservative challenge in his re-election bid, said he supports reviewing citizenship rights. He emphasized, however, that amending the Constitution is a serious matter.

"I believe that the Constitution is a strong, complete and carefully crafted document that has successfully governed our nation for centuries and any proposal to amend the Constitution should receive extensive and thoughtful consideration," he said.

At a news conference, McConnell refused to endorse Graham's suggestion that citizenship rights be repealed for children of illegal immigrants. While refusing to take questions, he suggested instead that he would look narrowly into reports of businesses that help immigrants arrange to have babies in the United States in order to win their children U.S. citizenship.

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, granted citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States," including recently freed slaves.

Defenders of the amendment say altering it would weaken a fundamental American value while doing little to deter illegal immigration. They also say it would create bureaucratic hardships for parents giving birth.

Quoting a newspaper columnist, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Republicans were "either taking leave of their senses or their principles" in advocating repeal.

An estimated 10.8 million illegal immigrants were living in the U.S. as of January 2009, according to the Homeland Security Department. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that as of 2008, there were 3.8 million illegal immigrants in this country whose children are U.S. citizens.

Thanks AP...giving credit where it is due...and can someone tell me why the people of Alabama keep voting in that squirrely bastard Jeff Sessions? Please Alabama give yourself an anal/cranal-ectomy, and quit fucking up the country for the rest of us...Peace!

DRILL BABY DRILL! DRILL BABY DRILL! DRILL BABY DRILL! BOYCOTT BRITISH PETROLEUM

2010-05-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

(posted under ratfuckery, stupid shit, right wing...)

Yeah a big fucking hole in the heads of the like of Michael Steele, John McCain, (wow he sure was disappointing, huh? Talk about selling your soul to the devil), and the complete moron Sarah Palin...

Shut down British Petroleum, and hold your elected officials responsible. The reason this utter nightmare is taking place in the gulf is because the United States Government has allowed the petroleum companies that drill in US waters to NOT have the safety measures, safety measures that EXIST but are expensive to the poor oil companies), in place to protect the public and the natural world. Safety measures that exist in other countries, safety measures that work.

This is what happens when corporations are allowed to run amok. This is what happens when our elected officials are on the take. Period.

Today is Saturday. On Monday, hit your phone, grab your laptop, grab a sheet of paper and a pen and scream at your elected officials...

Oh yeah, what do you think is going to happen on the Redneck Riviera when that oil hits shore? Does America really think we can afford another disaster on the scale of Katrina? How about 3 or 4 Katrinas? While we will not see the Human casualties from this PREVENTABLE DISASTER, the environmental impact, and the financial impact of states like Mississippi with the grossly fat and stupid Haley Barbour, (Hey! Fat-ass Haley!!! you will NEVER be President you redneck moron), is going to be enormous...the fishing industry, shrimping, oysters, clams, seabirds...Good God, what a bunch of absolute fucking assholes...I will NOT USE BRITISH PETROLEUM UNTIL THEY RECTIFY THE DAMAGE THEY HAVE DONE...and Searchers, did you know the American taxpayer is footing the clean up bill? Yeah, BP doesn't have ships out in the gulf cleaning. Shut BP down. Please do the same...Peace-

Mike

Green energy is the future.

FORGIVENESS

2010-04-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

So I"ve been thinking...and this is what I have come up with:

Samuel Chris Flanagin, Dora Flanagin Hughes, Good Ole Patty Pat Pat Flanigan and Hank:

Chris: I forgive you for breaking into my home and attempting to murder my wife and me. You are an absolute utter douchebag, raised by an atrocious father. It's what you do. You are a hater and that's a hater's job-to hate. However Samuel, (I'm going to fax this to your offices, the paper and your buddy Tony Rogers,) if you're (catch the correct spelling and use of the word you're bud,) buddy Tony is going to run again for his seat, I am going to mail your mugshot all over your county with a short explanation of Tony Roger's character and his hiring of a utter criminal.

One more thought Samuel: Mrs. Searcher is not brain washed, she simply wants nothing to do with you, period. Shove your ego up your ass, Chris, you ain't no prize...but I forgive you for attempting to murder my wife and me.

Dora, you are dumb. Period. An example, the comment posted below is from an earlier posting and it is vintage Dora Hughes, a shining example of the school system in the state of arkansas, complete with misspellings, lies, with a heaping helping of insanity...this is my in laws? I mean, my God, EVERY computer has a spellcheck!!! Lord...

This worthlss, uneduated,PSYCHO came to our class reunion and was kicked out! Poor nice, pretty, once normal Kelli. we all know he brainwashed her as she was too cool to be with a 40 year old crazy whimp! She supports his lazy ass and we heard he has 5 or 6 kids he does not even support. Pretty Bad to get kicked out a mocked at a class runion. Notice how he downgrades successful people and identifies with otyher lunatic terrorist! We heard he was a bundy with a touch of Charlie- but they were even more educated than this wimp looser!

Okay. Mrs. Searcher has never been to a high school reunion, she was getting a Bachelor of Science in Psychology...btw, she's almost done with her SECOND B.S., in Biology...do you have a GED, Dora?? Well? 'Nough said...I forgive you Dora, you simply can't help yourself...here is an example of Mrs. Searchers comment on a recent posting:

"This is one of my favorite posts. It is the only place I have heard or read about these truths. You bring lucidity to other searchers."

This is an example of how someone who is not an uneducated dolt writes...but I forgive you Dora, you simply cannot help yourself, but you need serious medical care...and I believe you should check yourself into an inpatient clinic...you're sick, and I forgive you...

Patty Pat-You have no class. I forgive you, your hate and anger have eaten you up inside, and is shearing years from your life. I refuse to be like you, your sister, or your sons...I forgive you...

Hank you were raised by your father, and like chris...you just can't help yourself. I forgive you for saying you hope my son, your nephew, gets hit by a bus...you are a douchebag, but I forgive you...don't ever contact my family again, and you will have no problems, hank. I am bigger than you Hank, but I will not use that fact to harm you...I forgive you Hank.

Peace-
Mike

JON STEWART POUNDS FOX NEWS AND BERNIE GOLDBERG: "GO FUCK YOURSELVES"

2010-04-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

A lot like our family attitude toward Mrs. Searchers worthless relatives...

Can't believe people still pay attention to Fox News...scroll down till you hit the video, don't miss it-peace

"I know that I criticize you and Fox News a lot, but only because you're truly a terrible, cynical, disingenuous news organization."
-Jon Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

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http://www.thedailyshow.com/

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RELIGION IS RELIGION IS RELIGION

2010-04-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

This foolishness is no different than the nonsense from right wing christianity in the United States...

From the BBC:

Iranian Cleric Blames Qakes On Promiscuous Women

Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, an Iranian cleric says.

Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, the acting Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said women should stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves.

"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he explained.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Iran earthquakes in the last decade.

Mr Sediqi was delivering a televised sermon at the Tehran University campus mosque last Friday on the need for a "general repentance" by Iranians when he warned of a "prevalence of degeneracy".

"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes," he said.

'Disappoint God'

Correspondents say many young Iranians sometimes push the boundaries of how they can dress, showing hair under their headscarves or wearing tight-fitting clothes.

Mr Sediqi also described the violence following last year's disputed presidential election - the result of which prompted thousands of people to hold mass protests - as a "political earthquake".

"Now if a natural earthquake hits Tehran, no one will be able to confront such a calamity but God's power, only God's power. So lets not disappoint God."

More than 25,000 people died when a powerful earthquake hit the ancient city of Bam in 2003.

Seismologists have warned that the capital, Tehran, is situated on a large number of tectonic fault lines and could be hit by a devastating earthquake soon.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said many of Tehran's 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

There are plans to build a purpose built new capital near Qom.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire

Peace-
oh- happy 420

BILL MAHER NEW RULES APRIL 16, 2010

2010-04-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

Good show, Maher never fails to throw it out there-

HBO Friday nights

Peace

CHILD ABUSE: THE LEGACY

2010-04-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

Ah the legacy of life on Monticello Road...an article from the New York Times:

After Abuse, Changes in the Brain

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: February 23, 2009

For years, psychiatrists have known that children who are abused or neglected run a high risk of developing mental problems later in life, from anxiety and depression to substance abuse and suicide.

Epigenetic Regulation of the Glucocorticoid Receptor in Human Brain Associates With Childhood Abuse (Nature Neuroscience)The connection is not surprising, but it raises a crucial scientific question: Does the abuse cause biological changes that may increase the risk for these problems?

Over the past decade or so, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, led by Michael Meaney, have shown that affectionate mothering alters the expression of genes in animals, allowing them to dampen their physiological response to stress. These biological buffers are then passed on to the next generation: rodents and nonhuman primates biologically primed to handle stress tend to be more nurturing to their own offspring, Dr. Meaney and other researchers have found.

Now, for the first time, they have direct evidence that the same system is at work in humans. In a study of people who committed suicide published Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers in Montreal report that people who were abused or neglected as children showed genetic alterations that likely made them more biologically sensitive to stress.

The findings help clarify the biology behind the wounds of a difficult childhood and hint at what constitutes resilience in those able to shake off such wounds.

The study “extends the animal work on the regulation of stress to humans in a dramatic way,” Jaak Panksepp, an adjunct professor at Washington State University who was not involved in the research, wrote in an e-mail message.

He added that the study “suggests pathways that have promoted the psychic pain that makes life intolerable,” and continued, “It’s a wonderful example of how the study of animal models of emotional resilience can lead the way to understanding human vicissitudes.”

In the study, scientists at McGill and the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences compared the brains of 12 people who had committed suicide and who had had difficult childhoods with 12 people who had committed suicide and who had not suffered abuse or neglect as children.

The scientists determined the nature of the subjects’ upbringing by doing extensive interviews with next of kin, as well as investigating medical records. The brains are preserved at Douglas Hospital in Montreal as part of the Quebec Suicide Brain Bank, a program founded by McGill researchers to promote suicide studies that receives brain donations from around the province.

When people are under stress, the hormone cortisol circulates widely, putting the body on high alert. One way the brain reduces this physical anxiety is to make receptors on brain cells that help clear the cortisol, inhibiting the distress and protecting neurons from extended exposure to the hormone, which can be damaging.

The researchers found that the genes that code for these receptors were about 40 percent less active in people who had been abused as children than in those who had not. The scientists found the same striking differences between the abused group and the brains of 12 control subjects, who had not been abused and who died from causes other than suicide. “It is good evidence that the same systems are at work in humans that we have seen in other animals,” said Patrick McGowan, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Meaney’s lab at McGill and the lead author of the study.

His co-authors, along with Dr. Meaney, were Aya Sasaki, Ana C. D’Alessio, Sergiy Dymov, Benoît Labonté and Moshe Szyf, all of McGill, and Dr. Gustavo Turecki, a McGill researcher who leads the Brain Bank.

Because of individual differences in the genetic machinery that regulates stress response, experts say, many people manage their distress despite awful childhoods. Others may find solace in other people, which helps them regulate the inevitable pain of living a full life.

“The bottom line is that this is a terrific line of work, but there is a very long way to go either to understand the effects of early experience or the causes of mental disorders,” Dr. Steven Hyman, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard, wrote in an e-mail message.

Interesting stuff...peace

WRITE UP IN "THE NATION" BY MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL

2010-04-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

Black by Choice

Sister Citizen
By Melissa Harris-Lacewell
This article appeared in the May 3, 2010 edition of The Nation.

April 15, 2010

President Obama created a bit of a stir in early April when he completed his Census form. In response to the question about racial identity the president indicated he was "Black, African American or Negro." Despite having been born of a white mother and raised in part by white grandparents, Obama chose to identify himself solely as black even though the Census allows people to check multiple answers for racial identity.

This choice disappointed some who have fought to ensure that multiracial people have the right to indicate their complex racial heritage. It confused some who were surprised by his choice not to officially recognize his white heritage. It led to an odd flurry of obvious political stories confirming that Obama was, indeed, the first African-American president.

When Obama marked his Census form, he offered another lesson in what has been an intensive if unintentional seminar on the social construction of race. In just a few years, decades of multiple racial formations have been projected onto him at hyperspeed; it's a bit like watching those nature films that show the growth of an apple tree from a seed in just thirty seconds. When Hillary Clinton held a significant lead among black voters, media outlets regularly questioned if Obama was "black enough" to earn African-American electoral support. When the Rev. Jeremiah Wright dominated the news cycle, the question shifted to whether Obama was "too black" to garner white votes. By the final months of the campaign, Obama's opponents charged that he was a noncitizen, a Muslim and a terrorist. In less than two years a single body had been subjected to definitions ranging from insufficiently black, to far too black, to somehow foreign and frightening.

But Obama did more than disrupt standard definitions of blackness; he created a definitional crisis for whiteness. Imagine for a moment that a young American falls into a Rip Van Winkle sleep in 1960. He awakens suddenly in 2008 and learns that we are in the midst of a historic presidential election between a white and a black candidate. He learns that one candidate is a Democrat, a Harvard Law School graduate, a lecturer at the conservative University of Chicago Law School. He also discovers that this candidate is married to his first wife, and they have two children who attend an exclusive private school. His running mate is an Irish Catholic. The other candidate is a Republican. He was an average student who made his mark in the military. This candidate has been married twice, and his running mate is a woman whose teenage daughter is pregnant out of wedlock.

Now ask our recently awakened American to guess which candidate is white and which is black. Remember, his understanding of race and politics was frozen in 1960, when a significant number of blacks still identified themselves as Republican, an Ivy League education was a marker of whiteness and military service a common career path for young black men. Remember that he would expect marriage stability among whites and sexual immorality to mark black life. It's entirely possible that our Rip would guess that Obama was the white candidate and McCain the black one.

By displaying all these tropes of traditional whiteness, Obama's candidacy disrupted the very idea of whiteness. Suddenly whiteness was no longer about educational achievement, family stability or the command of spoken English. One might argue that the folksy interventions of Sarah Palin were a desperate attempt to reclaim and redefine whiteness as a gun-toting ordinariness that eschews traditional and elite markers of achievement.

Obama's whiteness in this sense is frightening and strange for those invested in believing that racial categories are stable, meaningful and essential. Those who yearn for a postracial America hoped Obama had transcended blackness, but the real threat he poses to the American racial order is that he disrupts whiteness, because whiteness has been the identity that defines citizenship, access to privilege and the power to define national history.

In 1998 Toni Morrison wrote that Bill Clinton was the first "black president" because he "displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas." Ten years later the man who truly became America's first black president displayed few of these tropes. Instead he was a scholarly, worldly, health food-eating man from Hawaii. In this sense, Obama was the white candidate in 2008, and a substantial portion of white voters preferred Obama's version of whiteness to that of McCain and Palin.

Which brings us back to Obama's Census choice. Despite his legitimate claims on whiteness, he chose to call himself black. As historian Nell Painter documents in her new book The History of White People, white identity was a heavily policed and protected border for most of American history. A person born to an African parent and a white parent could be legally enslaved in America until 1865. From 1877 until 1965 that person would have been subject to segregation in public accommodations, schools, housing and employment. In 1896 the Supreme Court established the doctrine of separate but equal in the case of Homer Plessy, a New Orleans Creole of color whose ancestry was only a small fraction African. President Obama's Census self-identification was a moment of solidarity with these black people and a recognition that the legal and historical realities of race are definitive, that he would have been subject to all the same legal restrictions had he been born at another time. So in April, Obama did as he has done repeatedly in his adult life: he embraced blackness, with all its disprivilege, tumultuous history and disquieting symbolism. He did not deny his white parentage, but he acknowledged that in America, for those who also have African heritage, having a white parent has never meant becoming white.

About Melissa Harris-Lacewell
Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, is completing her latest book, Sister Citizen: A Text for Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn't Enough.

You can catch Dr. Harris-Lacewell's analysis often on MSNBC...

Peace-

The Nation Online

MONTHS LATER...

2010-04-15T20:04:00.001-07:00

Hello Searchers and others...it's been awhile...be back soon...

Peace-

STUPIDITY IN ARKANSAS: YOUR NAME IS TONY ROGERS

2009-12-28T05:10:00.001-08:00

Had a fabulous conversation with the prosecutor in the Eureka Springs/Berryville Arkansas area. Tony Rogers. Real class act. He put a violent criminal on the public payroll, and when I called to ask him about his vetting process he became extremely agitated and ended the conversation with a threat to "investigate me."

I am working on a letter to Rogers that I will post, it should be fun. Holding elected officials accountable for their actions is one of my callings in life. Nothing like holding an arrogant prick accountable for their poor decisions, especially one that is in the position of prosecutor. It's kinda like throwing a cop or judge in jail.

North Central Arkansas, you deserve better than to be Nifong-ed any longer by the likes of Tony Rogers, a belligerent horses' ass that hires violent criminals, and refuses to be accountable. Why should he? He's entitled.

We'll see...
peace

IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS

2009-12-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

From the Physicians for Human Rights website:

December 14, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Congress Lifts Ban on Federal Funds for Needle Exchanges Aimed at AIDS Prevention

Media Contacts:
Jonathan Hutson
jhutson [at] phrusa [dot] org
Cell: +1-857-919-5130

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Washington, DC) — Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) commends Congress for ending the ban on federal funding of syringe exchange programs intended to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.

"For 22 years this ban has been an obstacle to effective and comprehensive services that address HIV and other health needs of injecting drug users in the US and around the world," said PHR CEO Frank Donaghue.

More than 20 years of research in the US and internationally show that needle exchange is an effective public health approach to reducing the transmission of HIV, viral hepatitis, and other blood-borne pathogens. Research has also shown that syringe exchange programs do not encourage drug use nor increase crime rates in communities that offer these services.

"This is a huge victory for HIV and viral hepatitis prevention and a sign of hope for human rights," said PHR Senior Global Health Policy Advocate Paola Barahona. "It's hard to believe that it took 22 years for policy to catch up with common sense. Syringe exchange programs help safeguard public health by encouraging drug users to access health systems. These programs have demonstrated positive impacts on the health of individuals, families and whole communities."

There are an estimated 16 million injection drug users (IDUs) worldwide — 3 million of whom live with HIV. Almost a third of new HIV infections outside of sub-Saharan Africa are attributed to injection drug use, yet as few as 8% of drug injectors have access to HIV prevention services of any kind. In the US, 16% of new cases are attributed to injection drug use.

"What many people do not realize is that the impact of the syringe exchange ban extends beyond our national borders," Barahona stated. "The ban has been applied to foreign assistance and has prohibited PEPFAR from funding this important intervention in resource-poor countries facing rapidly expanding injection-driven HIV epidemics, such as those in Vietnam and Eastern Europe. It is crucial that the Obama administration move swiftly to enact this legislation and amend PEPFAR guidance to allow funding of effective needle exchange services in countries around the world."

The bill will next go to President Obama to sign into legislation that will officially end the ban. PHR calls on President Obama and the administration to act swiftly to enact this legislation.

But the work doesn't end there.

"We need to make sure that this policy is implemented well and that these programs are properly supported in communities where they are needed across the country and around the world," concluded Barahona.

PHR's Harm Reduction Campaign advocates for the United States Government's adoption and implementation of health policies that are evidence-based, practical, rights-based and appropriate for injecting and other drug users.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) mobilizes the health professions to advance the health and dignity of all people by protecting human rights. As a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

IN LOVING MEMORY

2009-12-04T09:55:00.000-08:00

On December 2, 2009, my brother lost his little boy, Asa Lyn. He was 10 months old; he was born in January.

Our family is heartbroken over the loss of Asa, his beauty and joy will remain forever.

My greatest heartfelt condolences to Adrian, Patty, and Sammie Jo, Asa's twin sister. Much love, peace, and harmony to you and your family my brother, we love you.

Asa Lyn Cook-
January 2009-December 2009

THE VANCOUVER WASHINGTON POLICE DEPARTMENT

2009-11-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

Check out this invaluable link:

FLEX YOUR RIGHTS at flexyourrights.org

Use them, or get them taken away.

Peace-

INTERESTING ARTICLE FROM THE TELEGRAPH REGARDING ILLEGALITY OF IRAQ WAR IN 2001

2009-11-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, I supported George Bush et al regarding the war in Iraq. When I finally opened my eyes to the facts regarding WMD and the "war on terror," it was too late, we were mired ass deep and then some in Iraq.

what I find extraordinary is the fact that the Brits knew it was BS from the start, and did nothing. Now they have the blood of the dead in Iraq on their hands, and me and millions of others have the blood of kids and families on our hands...Oh to turn back the clock, right?
Peace-

From telegraph.co.uk:

By James Kirkup and Gordon RaynerPublished: 4:48PM GMT 24 Nov 2009

On its opening day of public hearings, Sir John Chilcot’s public inquiry into the invasion heard that British diplomats heard the “drumbeat” of war emanating from Washington even before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The inquiry into the war, which cost 179 lives, opened yesterday with a promise from Sir John, a former Whitehall mandarin, to "get to the heart of what happened" and "not shy away" from criticising anyone who made mistakes.

The first day of the inquiry in central London was attended by several relatives of service personnel killed in Iraq. Outside, a small number of protesters gathered, several with fake blood on their hands accusing Tony Blair, the former prime minister of war crimes.
Inside, the inquiry’s questioning focussed on British policy towards Iraq in 2001, the year George W Bush became US president.

Sir William Patey, head of Middle East policy at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the time, told the inquiry that he wrote a briefing paper on the options for Iraqi policy.
“We had at the end the regime-change option,” he said, “We dismissed that at the time as having no basis in law.”

Sir William said that the UK knew that some in the new US administration wanted to topple Saddam. "We were aware of the drum beats from Washington. Our policy was to stay away from that," he said.

The inquiry heard that in 2001, the settled view of the UK government was that attacking Iraq would have been illegal under international law.

Sir Peter Ricketts, then the political director at the FCO, told the inquiry: "We quite clearly distanced our self from regime change. It was clear that was something there would not be any legal base for."

The diplomats’ evidence will focus attention on the decisions that led Mr Blair to change Britain’s policy and support the military action that removed Saddam in 2003.

Sir Peter, who also chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee, said that only weeks after the September 11 attacks, US officials began to discuss “phase two of the war on terrorism,” shifting their attention from Afghanistan to Iraq.

“We heard people in Washington suggesting that there might be some link between Saddam and [Osama] Bin Laden.” he said. “We began to get that sort of voice early on.”
Officials suggested that it was the September 11 attacks and the events that followed had ultimately shifted the British view.

In 2001, Britain and the US were committed to a policy of containing Saddam, through economic sanctions, restricting his oil sales through the oil-for-food programme, and the imposition of no-fly zones in southern and northern Iraq.

The diplomats told the inquiry that the containment policy was failing in 2001, but it could have remained viable if the United Nations had agreed to new "smart sanctions" on Saddam and the return of UN weapons inspectors.

The September attacks changed that, Sir Peter said. "I think if 9/11 had not happened, we would have remained convinced that a strengthened sanctions regime, tightened, narrowed, was the right way to go and we would have continued to push to get weapons inspectors back in.”
Simon Webb, the former policy chief at the Ministry of Defence, told the inquiry that the September attacks increased Britain’s concerns about the possibility of terrorist groups obtained weapons of mass destruction from a regime like Saddam’s.

After the attacks, he said, “the focus didn’t shift to regime change, the focus shifted to
WMD. In order to order to deal with the WMD problem in Iraq, you would probably end up having to push Saddam out. That was the sequence of events. It wasn’t hopping straight to regime change.”

ANOTHER HURDLE JUMPED FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

2009-11-10T21:31:00.000-08:00

It seems the American Medical Association is getting on board and calling for a reclassification of marijuana. It remains on the list as a Schedule I drug, the same as heroin. So, courtesy of the LA Times, here is a tidbit, you can catch the whole article here.

Medical marijuana gets a boost from major doctors group

The American Medical Assn. changes its policy to promote clinical research and development of cannabis-based medicines and alternative delivery methods.

By John Hoeffel

November 11, 2009

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.

The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD.

In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

The decision by the organization's delegates at a meeting in Houston marks another step in the evolving view of marijuana, which an AMA report notes was once linked by the federal government to homicidal mania. Since California voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 1996, marijuana has moved steadily into the cultural mainstream spurred by the growing awareness that it can have beneficial effects for some chronically ill people.

This year, the Obama administration sped up that drift when it ordered federal narcotics agents not to arrest medical-marijuana users and providers who follow state laws. Polls show broadening support for marijuana legalization.

Thirteen states allow the use of medical marijuana, and about a dozen more have considered it this year.

It's nice to be on the West Coast...Total legalization, now.

Peace-
Mike

WELL "IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY..."

2009-11-09T08:11:00.000-08:00

This is a Mini-Documentary done by a Berliner...It is excellent.

Peace-
Mike

PROFOUND DVD EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH: "THE ANGRY EYE" WITH JANE ELLIOTT

2009-11-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

A week or so ago in my Communications class I had the pleasure of watching the short video, "The Angry Eye" with Jane Elliott.

Jane Elliot gained notoriety after Dr. King was shot in Memphis in 1968.

She began a blue eye/brown eye exercise that segregated her all white third grade class (according to Wikipedia she did not see a Black person until she was nineteen,) in tiny Riceville, Iowa into two groups: The Blue Eyes, the Superior Group, and The Brown Eyes, the Inferior Group. She had the "brownies" wear neck collars to further set them apart.

The response was stunning. The blue eyed kids were told the brownies were inferior because of their eye color, and as a result of their eye pigmentation they were unable to learn at the same level, they were unable to hold jobs, and the blue eyes should lower expectations for the brownies and then castigate them for not doing better, etc...

It didn't take long and the blue eyed kids were bossy, arrogant, and mean to the brown eyed kids, and the blue eyes actually began to do better academically, while the brownies suffered, and even brown-eyed kids that were excelling in class saw their grades and their confidence slip.

I watched a version of the exercise that was filmed on a college campus in the United States that involved young college students, and it blew my mind. The reaction from the white students was predictable yet unreal nonetheless...I believe this should be a required video in every school in the United States, it is that good, and it is that necessary.

The video that I posted is not from the vid I saw in class, however, it is just as poignant as the one I saw...we will be investing in these videos as time goes by, take the time to watch the video.

Some links:
Wiki
Jane Elliott website
IMDB -The Internet Movie Database

Peace-
Mike

ISLAM IN AMERICA: WHEN AMERICAN STUPIDITY SHINES BRIGHTLY

2009-11-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

I am working on securing a series of interviews from a local Imam. In light of the shooting in Texas at Fort Hood, I thought it would be in my best interest, my family's best interest, and the best interest of those I will interact with in the future to have a better understanding of Islam.

I read a write up about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter, on MSNBC, and it's rather disturbing.

It is not disturbing in the sense that most Americans, especially white Americans would think, you know the type Searchers: "That guys a Muslim...I betcha he's gots him some bombs and guns and I bet he's a-fixin to blow up (insert local shitbox .50 cent-draft-night-on-tuesdays bar here.) No, read the excerpt, the disturbing part is the local shit kickers giving a man shit who is trying to mind his own business and serve his Country at the same time.

"'Everyone else just sat down there and drunk their beer, and looked
at him, and giggled at him,' the woman said starting to cry. 'They
just would laugh at him when he walked down with his Muslim clothes...he was
mistreated. He was all alone. He went to his apartment there and was
all alone.'"

I know the type. I used to go to church with the worthless idiots, and Mrs. Searchers entire range of kinfolk in Arkansas are precisely this way. Redneck, and total pussies when it comes to individual confrontation. Like Mrs. Searchers brothers, Hank and Samuel Chris Flanagin, and the racist coward Pat Flanagin.

In addition to verbal harassment, Major Hasan also had to deal with rednecks vandalizing his vehicle.

What cracks me up about the worthless red necks is Major Hasan is educated; he is an Army Psychiatrist. That means he is a Doctor. MD. And the rednecks outside their crappy little apartment units probably have less than a GED, probably have less than a mouthful of teeth, and probably have the equivalent of a 9th grade education.

The only People I am prejudiced against and the only People I believe should be sent to re-education camps are Rednecks. No mercy, either change or be eradicated.

So, I am trying to secure at least one interview with the folks that run the local mosque. I'll keep ya posted. Peace,

Mike

Read the full article here

Thanks Washington Post and MSNBC

image credit

NEW JERSEY DEBATING MEDICAL MARIJAUNA

2009-10-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

Good news out of New Jersey, I was unaware of this until I got a tip from a Searcher in New Jersey. Thanks NJ, fight the good fight, the enlightened ones know that Marijuana is so much more benign than Alcohol which kills upward of 100,000 people a year, and that's without vehicle deaths...it is time to legalize Marijuana, as well as row crop hemp, forget about all of these timber companies raping and pillaging the US, especially here in the PacNorthwest. Here is the story:

N.J. medical marijuana bill advances
Friday, June 05, 2009
By Trish G. Graber
tgraber@sjnewsco.com

TRENTON Ð Jack O'Brien feels shooting pain in his hands and feet that can become so intense that it wakes him out of a sound sleep.

The Cumberland County resident said the excruciating pain, resulting from a birth defect that also left him without fingers or toes, travels along his nerves all the way to his head. He takes pain medications but worries they will damage his liver or kidneys. And he says prescribed drugs leave him with little ability to function normally.

O'Brien has found that the one thing that does provide relief, without the often demobilizing side effects of pain pills, is marijuana. But he says he rarely uses it because he fears being arrested.

"I'm not a pot-head, I'm not a partier," the 54-year-old Commercial Township resident said. "But I need to live a quality of life that's better than (just) laying on the couch."
O'Brien and other New Jersey residents suffering from serious medical conditions could soon have the legal ability to use marijuana for pain relief.

Legislators are considering a controversial measure that would make New Jersey the 14th state in the nation to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes.

The Senate has already passed the bill. The Assembly Health and Human Services Committee approved the legislation Thursday by a vote of 8 to 1, with two abstentions, after amending it to further limit access to marijuana.

The bill would give residents, with their treating doctor's recommendation, the ability to obtain a registration card from the Department of Health and Senior Services to use marijuana for medicinal purposes without the possibility of arrest, prosecution or penalties.

The drug could be obtained from one of at least six "alternative treatment centers," facilities that would be designated to grow and distribute the drug.

The initial version of the bill also allowed for state-registered users to grow up to six marijuana plants at home, but the Assembly committee amended the legislation Thursday to prohibit home-growing after hearing concerns from critics, who said it would make marijuana too widely available and vulnerable to abuse...

And that's the way the story ends, and we all know that last statement about availability and abuse is total bullshit, it's a throwback from the 1930's, and William Randolph Hearst's successful smear campaign that went with ridiculous propaganda films like "Reefer Madness" ("Tell Your Children" is the original, Reefer Madness is the re-issue title)

Peace-

Mike

OUTRAGE IN SAUDI ARABIA

2009-10-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

I read this on MSNBC, I'm currently unaware if other news outlets have it online...So it seems a Saudi Arabian female journalist, Rozana al-Yami, and a Saudi man, Mazan Abdul Jawad had a t.v. show on in Lebanon that dealt with sex and sexual issues. Evidently this is a major fuckup in Saudi Arabia, because a Saudi court has sentenced the woman to 60 whip lashes, and the man to 5 years in prison and 1,000 lashes.

What in the fuck are we doing dealing with these people? George Bush was surely bent over for these barbarian religious freaks, and even though 19 of the hijackers were Saudi, Bush invaded Afghanistan, and Iraq, completely ignoring the fact that Saudi Arabia teaches and trains terrorists.

Another argument for renewable energy sources, cut the Saudis out of our money pool, until they can get their ridiculous asses out of the 11th century.

Lest you think, Evangelical Righties, I have eased up on you, forget about it. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that if the Religious Right had their way, the Pat Robertsons, The Jerry Falwells the Pat and Chris Flanagins, the Sarah Palins, (you get the picture) they would run this country in the same fashion.

I have actually had people, religious people, in Arkansas (my dad in Illinois is no different and just as worthless) say that there should still be public whippings and executions for adultery and having sex before one is married. And this has been in the last decade. Make no mistake, I am out to eradicate the Religious Right in the United States, and Evangelical (pentecostal) religion, I know that these movements are no different than radical Islamic Caliphates. I am coming for you, Righties...

Below is an excerpt from the story and you can read the whole story here.

Saudi female journalist sentenced to 60 lashes
Program on Lebanese cable TV dealt with man's frank sex talk

via AP, through MSNBC

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A Saudi court on Saturday convicted a
female journalist for her involvement in a TV show, in which a Saudi man
publicly talked about sex, and sentenced her to 60 lashes.
Rozanna al-Yami is believed to be the first Saudi woman
journalist to be given such a punishment. The charges against her included
involvement in the preparation of the program and advertising the segment on the
Internet.

In the program, which aired in July on the Lebanese LBC
satellite channel, Mazen Abdul-Jawad appears to describe an
active sex life and shows sex toys that were blurred by the station. The same
court sentenced Abdul-Jawad earlier this month to five years in jail and 1,000
lashes.

We, as Americans, owe it to ourselves and our ideals to hammer down on the Saudi's and express our outrage by calling our Senators and Reps., as well as the White House and news outlets. While we are doing that, hammer down on the Religious Right in the US, because, as Chris Matthews said, there isn's anything closer in the US to radical Islam than the Religious Right. Conservadems are included in that blanket statement as far as I'm concerned...

Peace-
Mike

EXCELLENT COMMERCIAL FROM MEDIA MATTERS REGARDING THE FOX NEWS PROPAGANDA MACHINE

2009-10-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

Most of you know I watched Fox News for years before I became enlightened. I was watching the Ed Show and he aired a clip from the vid below. It's five minutes or so, and well worth the time. It is a very concise rundown of propaganda promoted on Fox since we elected President Obama:

Peace-

RELIGIOUS RIGHT MOST LIKE TALIBAN IN THE UNITED STATES: CHRIS MATTHEWS OF MSNBC

2009-10-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

I caught the video below on MSNBC, it's about 14 minutes long, but I found a 50 second clip on Huffington Post of the end of the segment with Ron Reagan and Frank Gaffney, they were discussing, of sorts, the situation in Afghanistan.

The focus of most has been on the insult Gaffney, a neocon, threw at Ron Reagan, the son of President Reagan and a radio host on Air America, you'll hear it at the end, Gaffney tells Reagan, "Your father would be ashamed of you."

Totally below the belt, and you have to expect that from a neocon, but the thing that really perked up my ears was Chris Matthews' comment at the end, I'll paraphrase it-the religious right are the closest thing we have to the Taliban in the United States, and I couldn't agree more. In parts of the U.S., the "religious right" doesn't necessarily mean those with Republican leanings. I know plenty of Democrats that are racist hatemongers.

Here's the brief write up from HuffPo:
Peace-

Right-wing neoconservative Frank Gaffney went on "Hardball" Thursday night to defend Dick Cheney but ended up just insulting his fellow guest.
After a long exchange with Air America host Ron Reagan on the war in Afghanistan, Gaffney gave up on arguing and went for a personal attack. "Your father would be ashamed of you," he told Reagan, whose father was the late president.

"Oh, Frank," Reagan replied, "you better watch your mouth about that, Frank.

And here's a brief write-up about Frank Gaffney from Steve Benen from the Washington Monthly:

Now, Gaffney probably knows he crossed a line of decency; in fact that probably why he said what he said. Gaffney's a right-wing nutjob whose job it is to say ridiculous things.

And that's really what matters here. Gaffney's insane rhetoric isn't the problem; the fact that he was invited onto national television (again) to share his insane rhetoric is the problem.

Gaffney probably isn't a household name, but inside the media establishment, he's a pretty well known figure, as evidenced by his joint appearance with Dick Cheney on Wednesday night. And when offered a major media platform, Gaffney takes full advantage.

In April, for example, Gaffney appeared on MSNBC to argue that whenever President Obama uses the word "respect" in foreign policy, the word is "code for those who adhere to Sharia that we will submit to Sharia." He wasn't kidding.

In June, Gaffney wrote a column insisting that President Obama might really be a Muslim. In March, Gaffney argued that "evidence" exists connecting Saddam Hussein to 9/11, the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Last September, Gaffney argued that Sarah Palin has learned foreign policy through "osmosis," by living in Alaska. (Bold is mine)

He's argued that U.S. forces really did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but the media covered it up. He's used made-up quotes and recommended "hanging" Democratic officials critical of the Bush administration's Iraq policy. He even believes there's "evidence" to support the "Birthers," and once recommended a military strike on Al Jazeera headquarters.

So why is it, exactly, that MSNBC's "Hardball" invited Gaffney on to talk about foreign policy? What is it the viewing public can learn from listening to his unhinged perspective?
To be sure, Gaffney is certainly entitled to believe obvious lunacy, but that doesn't mean he deserves a microphone or the opportunity to convince a national television audience that his lunacy is legitimate.

Honestly, is there nothing conservatives can say that would force them from polite company? Just how nutty must far-right activists be before they're no longer invited to share their ridiculous ideas?

The right wing is getting more and more in the outfield, if any "wing" should be closely observed it is the right. And do not forget: Right Wing does not necessarily mean Republican. I cannot stress that enough.
Peace-

ANOTHER DEFEAT FOR RIGHT WING STUPIDITY; ANOTHER VICTORY FOR MEDICAL MARIJAUNA PATIENTS

2009-10-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

Of course you know I am in favor of the legalization of Marijuana. Not ALL drugs right-wingers, so calm the hell down. I have been a medical MJ patient, and I believe people would benefit from the use of herb. My parents were Cutty Sark Scotch addicts (alcoholics) they never left home without it. Whether we were heading to South Carolina, or Wisconsin, or wherever, that damn green bottle with the yellow label came with. No wonder I have had problems with alcohol.

Another comment: My mother was an individual that could have used marijuana. For instance, if she would have just smoked a joint instead of drinking, maybe she would not have slammed my head against walls so often. Maybe she wouldn't have pulled my hair out in tufts. Maybe she wouldn't have beat me and my sister with sticks or belts or hairbrushes or shoes. Maybe she wouldn't have slapped me in my pre-adolescent face so often. And Daddy-o, you lazy bastard, maybe if you smoked a little weed you would have insisted ole Barbara gotten some psychological counseling. Surely after your wife violently attacked your daughter at the dinner table that night when she was in 7th grade (but truth be told it was just another incident in a long line of years of out of control behavior by our mother and father)....and what did you do Stanny? Sit and watch and plaintively whine, "Barbaraaa."

Yes, my parents should have smoked weed, but they were all about obeying the law, except, of course, when it came to beating up their children.

Legalize it, period.

From the Philly Inquirer, Josh Meyer, L.A. Times, author

U.S. eases prosecutions on medical marijuana

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration told federal authorities yesterday not to arrest or prosecute medical-marijuana users and suppliers, paving the way for some states to move forward with plans to create officially sanctioned dispensaries to provide the drug as relief for a series of maladies.

The move by the Justice Department ended months of uncertainty over how far the Obama White House planned to go in reversing the Bush administration's stance on the issue, which held that authorities should continue to enforce federal drug laws even in states with medical-marijuana laws on the books

In new guidelines circulated yesterday, the Justice Department told prosecutors and federal drug agents that they had more important things to do than to arrest people as long as they were obeying the laws of states that allow some use or sale of medical marijuana.

In new guidelines circulated yesterday, the Justice Department told prosecutors and federal drug agents that they had more important things to do than to arrest people as long as they were obeying the laws of states that allow some use or sale of medical marijuana.

The move clarifies what some critics had said was an ambiguous position of the Obama administration, especially in California, where authorities raided numerous clinics and made arrests over the years. Some of those raids followed Obama's inauguration in January, after, as a presidential candidate, he had pledged to stop them.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups welcomed the move as an important step toward a comprehensive national policy on medical marijuana because it will allow states to implement their own laws without fear of interference from the federal government.

In all, 13 states have some form of medical-marijuana laws. But some, like New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Michigan, have been reluctant to implement programs amid fears they would be struck down by courts or shut by authorities, said Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU's California-based Drug Law Reform Project.

In New Jersey, the state Senate approved a medical-marijuana bill in February, with bipartisan support. An amended version, tightened to address concerns that marijuana could become too readily available, awaits a floor vote in the state Assembly. If approved, it would return to the Senate for a second vote. Gov. Corzine has said he would sign the bill if the Legislature approves it.

Under the amended bill, the state would issue identification cards to patients diagnosed with a "debilitating medical condition." Those patients would be permitted to obtain marijuana from authorized nonprofit alternative-treatment centers, in person or via courier or delivery.
Roseanne Scotti, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey, which favors medical marijuana, said of yesterday's Justice Department move: "We're thrilled.. . . We think it bodes very well for the future of medical marijuana in New Jersey."

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the new guidelines were adopted, in part, because federal law enforcement agencies had limited resources and need them for more pressing priorities. One of those priorities is countering the spread of violent Mexican drug cartels, which use the vast profits from their marijuana sales in the United States to support other crimes, the guidelines say.

The new guidelines stress that authorities should go after those who improperly abuse or obtain medical marijuana or use clinics as a cover for drug dealing and other illegal activity.
In particular, the Justice memo urges authorities to pursue cases that involve violence, illegal use of firearms, sale of marijuana to minors, excessive financial gains, and ties to criminal enterprises.

The change in policy was criticized by many law enforcement advocates, and some conservative groups and members of Congress. (who gives a shit? that's my comment, not the author's)
Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the decision undermined the administration's get-tough plan to attack the Mexican cartels, which he said were fueling drug-related violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

One comment regarding Lamar Smith of Texas, in the Pacific Northwest, at least on the wet side of the mountains, all of our herb is local, it doesn't come from a Mexican cartel. We here in the PacNorth believe in local sustainability, supporting our local farmers, microbrewers, and small businesses, and smoking only the best around...

Peace-take care, HEALTH CARE FOR ALL NOW!
Mike

CHE

2009-10-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

REST IN PEACE DR. ERNESTO GUEVARA DE LA SERNA

2009-10-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

Today, some 42 years ago, Che was killed at the hands of the U.S. and Bolivian Governments. He remains an icon, a physician, a father, a brother, an author, and a revolutionary. Rest in peace, Doctor Guevara

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” Che Guevara

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CONGRATULATIONS PRESIDENT OBAMA

2009-10-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

Today Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Let Rio have the Olympics; we have the President with the Peace Prize.

Peace-

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WE MUST BECOME THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD

2009-10-02T03:07:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi 10.2.1869-1.30.1948

THE DEMON POSSESED BALWIN BROTHER (STEPHEN) APPEARED IN D.C.

2009-09-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

The right wing oughta loves this- 'God Bless The Great White Right'-and all of the (my dad should love this)imps, John Boehner, Eric Cantor (when is he going to come out of the closet????) Carrie Prejean at the "values voter summit" as though no one has values unless they're banging their choir director...or has fake boobs, or can bring a gun to a Presidential Meeting...you should be proud right wing: now we all know how you operate, and we should make sure we watch you closely...

Peace-

AND HERE'S A GOOD STORY-MAKE THE INSURANCE COMPANIES PAY UP

2009-09-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I DROPPED THE REST OF THE STORY, I'VE ADDED IT.

This is why health care reform is so desperately needed in the U.S. Please get in touch with your Congressperson for true and real reform...

The South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered an insurance company to pay $10 million for wrongly revoking the insurance policy of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. The court called the 2002 decision by the insurance company "reprehensible."

That appears to be the most an insurance company has ever been ordered to pay in a case involving the practice known as rescission, in which insurance companies retroactively cancel coverage for policyholders based on alleged misstatements - sometimes right after diagnoses of life-threatening diseases.

The ruling emerges from a conservative Southern state with one of the most pro-business climates in the country. And it comes as progressive Democrats on Capitol Hill are pressing for health care reforms, such as a public insurance option, that reflect wariness about the private insurance industry's motives.

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a lower court's verdict against Fortis Insurance, now known as Assurant. The trial jury had awarded the former college student, Jerome Mitchell, $15 million in punitive damages; the Supreme Court reduced that amount by $5 million.

Mitchell learned that he had HIV when, while heading to college, he donated blood. Fortis then rescinded his coverage, citing what turned out to be an erroneous note from a nurse in his medical records that indicated that he might have been diagnosed prior to his obtaining his insurance policy.

Before the cancellation of the policy, an underwriter working for Fortis wrote to a committee considering whether or not to rescind his policy: "Technically, we do not have the results of the HIV tests. This is the only entry in the medical records regarding HIV status. Is it sufficient?"

The underwriter's concerns were ignored and the rescission went forward.In the ruling, Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal wrote: "We find ample support in the record that Fortis' conduct was reprehensible ... Fortis demonstrated an indifference to Mitchell's life and a reckless disregard to his health and safety."

An investigation this summer by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and earlier ones by state regulators in California, New York and Connecticut, found that thousands of vulnerable and seriously ill policyholders have had their coverage canceled by many of the nation's largest insurance companies without any legal basis. The congressional committee found that three insurance companies alone made at least $300 million over five years from rescission. One of those three companies was Assurant.

In Febuary 2008, a private arbitration judge in Los Angeles ordered Health Net Inc. to pay more than $9 million to a breast cancer patient whose health insurance it revoked shortly after her diagnosis and while she was undergoing chemotherapy. The plaintiff in that case, Patsy Bates, a then-52-year-old grandmother and hair-salon owner, was unable to continue her chemotherapy for several months.

During the case, evidence emerged that Health Net had paid bonuses to employees to reward them based on the number of policyholders they had rescinded. The judge who awarded Bates the $9 million said in his decision: "It's difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health insurance that keeps the public well and alive."

William Shernoff, the attorney who represented Bates, said in an interview Wednesday that he was not unhappy that there was a new verdict larger than the one he won for Bates. "I am glad to see that the courts in other parts of the country are coming down hard on this reprehensible practice of dumping sick patients," he said. "It has been a practice going on decades, is widespread, and ruins lives."

Shernoff currently said he has more than 100 pending cases against California insurance companies on behalf of patients he alleges were wrongly rescinded. He said he has already settled about 90 similar cases over the last three years.

President Obama cited other cases of rescission in his recent speech before a joint session of Congress as a major reason that health reform is necessary.

Obama cited the case of a retired Texas nurse, Robin Beaton, who had her heath insurance canceled by her insurance company as she was about to undergo breast cancer surgery. As a result, Beaton had to delay her surgery for five months. In the interim, the size of the mass of her tumor had grown from 2 centimeters to 7 centimeters, greatly reducing her chances of survival.

A "woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne," the President asserted in his speech, "By the time she had insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more then doubled in size. This is heart breaking. It is wrong. And no one should be treated that way in the United States of America."

Obama wasn't exactly correct in his telling of Beaton's ordeal. Beaton's insurance was canceled because a doctor wrote that she potentially had a precancerous lesion on her face. Further investigation showed that she instead had acne. But even after her physicians pointed out the error, her insurance remained rescinded. Only with the help of her congressman, was she able to pressure her insurance company to pay for her breast cancer surgery--five months later. Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/insurance-company-must-pa_n_289841.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/insurance-company-must-pa_n_289841.html

Shut these bastards down...

Peace-

thanks to the HuffPo for the article.

I'M WITH RACHEL MADDOW-A PRO-PROMISCUITY ZEALOT. BEATS AMERICAN RIGHT WING CHRISTIANITY.

2009-09-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

disclaimer: a catholic organizaton called her that. not far from flanagins christianity.

FINALLY THE CHRISTIANS IN THE UNITED STATES ARE CALLED OUT

2009-09-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

It is about time. Check out Rachel Maddows show today.

Oh and by the way, American Christianity is utterly against Jesus' teaching. Not a big surprise. Fuck off American Right wing Christianity, it is no surprise that hate is espoused by your teachings, and by Pat Flanagins' "bible fund." Also, thanks Flanagins for giving me fodder, and trying to kill me.

Peace-and everybody cares...

fuck off pat flanagin and joe wilson...

come on with your punk ass, Pat, and Chris and hank yank yank and tasha, bring it.

COWARD SAMUEL CHRISTIAN FLANAGIN, PAT FLANAGINS' SON-COWARD

2009-09-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

PAT, HANK, AND CHRIS FLANAGINS' ARKANSAS: IT'S ALL ABOUT THE HATE

2009-09-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

PUNK

2009-09-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

Should include coward, deserter of children, adulterer...

THANK GOD WE'RE ABOUT TO HAVE A PUBLIC INSURANCE OPTION.

2009-09-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

OH AND BY THE WAY DEATH IS NOT AN OPTION, CUNT, THERE WILL BE NO GETTING OVER IT. PEACE-

RIP PATRICK SWAYZE 8.18.52-9.14.09

2009-09-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

BEING ATTACKED FOR BELIEFS-

2009-09-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

I'm down with that; it has happened before....And since my AIDS posting, I have received more hate mail than at any other time. It is not surprising that when I research where the hate is coming from I find it originates in Searcy, AR, Little Rock, AR, and Northeast and Northwest/NorthCentral Arkansas

After all, the KKK website originates from the Arkansas Section of the Bible Belt. Big Surprise.

Disclaimer: My inlaws espouse hate. I do not. They encourage hate speech such as when Samuel Christian Flanagin called me a Nigger, and violently attacked me and my wife in our home. His father, Patrick Henry Flanagin former State Representative, embraces his sons behavior. Ironically, their home state of Arkansas hosts the Ku Klux Klan in Harrison AR, according to the Klans' website: KU KLUX KLAN.

Welcome to the Bible Belt and Pat Flanagins' home state.

Get out while you can; come back when the good ole boys are shut down for ever.

Peace

INSPIRATION CONTINUED-LED ZEPPELIN: KASHMIR, SEATTLE JULY 1977

2009-09-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Peace and much love-

Mike

AND SOME GOOD NEWS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS

2009-09-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

I have a friend that has been recently diagnosed with HIV, so the disease has finally touched my life in a personal way. Hillary Clinton has said HIV has become manageable in the United States, but it remains a decimating disease in other parts of the world. It is also still stigmatized in the U.S., and I believe people have become lax about protecting themselves while having sex...these two factors, and others, are contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. among straight people at a rate far higher than most understand. So it's not just a gay disease. I'm looking toward the day when there is a cure for HIV and a vaccine to prevent it. And I have hope for you my friend :) Peace-

From the L.A. Times:

Antibodies found that prevent HIV from causing severe AIDS

Scientists were able to isolate two antibodies responsible for resistance to the disease in an African patient. The discovery could be key to the development of a vaccine.

By Thomas H. Maugh II

After nearly two decades of futile searching for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease.

They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production of one.

A team based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla reports today in the journal Science that they have isolated two so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block the action of many strains of HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.

Crucial to the discovery is the fact that the antibodies target a portion of HIV that researchers had not considered in their search for a vaccine. Moreover, the target is a relatively stable portion of the virus that does not participate in the extensive mutations that have made HIV able to escape from antiviral drugs and previous experimental vaccines.

"This is opening up a whole new area of science," said Dr. Seth F. Berkley, president and chief executive of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which funded and coordinated the research.At least 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, and at least 25 million have died from AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.

Two large trials of experimental vaccines have failed -- the most recent, in 2007, because the vaccine apparently made people more susceptible to infection.

To find the neutralizing antibodies, researchers collected blood samples from more than 1,800 people in Thailand, Australia and Africa who had been infected with HIV for at least three years without the infection proceeding to severe disease. Such individuals are most likely to produce antibodies that interfere with the replication of the virus.

Researchers at Monogram Biosciences in South San Francisco studied the samples most resistant to infection, then a team from Theraclone Sciences in Seattle isolated the antibodies responsible for the resistance.

They ultimately isolated two antibodies, called PG9 and PG16, from one African patient. The antibodies were able to block the activity of about three-quarters of the 162 separate strains of HIV they tested it against.

Immunologist Dennis Burton of Scripps and his colleagues then showed that the antibodies bind to regions of two proteins on the surface of the virus, called gp120 and gp41, that help the virus invade cells. These regions had never before been considered as targets for vaccines.

Researchers still have a long way to go to produce a vaccine, however.

The antibodies themselves could potentially be used as a treatment for infected patients who develop severe disease.But the long-term hope is to find molecules, either synthetic or natural, that can stimulate the body to produce the broadly neutralizing antibodies. Such molecules could potentially be the basis for a successful vaccine.

BACHMANN 'HEARING VOICES' OTHER THAN GOD'S, SAYS TOP DEMOCRAT

2009-09-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

By Chris Steller 9/2/09 1:38 PM, Of the Minnesota Independent

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s talk of stopping health care reform by fasting, praying and wrist-slitting has prompted not only lefty pundits but a top Democratic colleague to question what’s going on between her ears. Jim Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, remarked Tuesday: “I don’t think God’s talking to her anymore. I think she’s hearing other voices.”

Bachmann said in 2006 that she was running for Congress on God’s recommendation (video), and last month said she would run for president if she “felt that’s what the Lord was calling me to do.”

It wasn’t a one-off gag line for Oberstar, who earlier called Bachmann “a sweet woman” but had this advice for elderly health care reform advocates in Duluth who were planning to visit her: ”Tell her that there are voices other than God that are informing her.” [Via Tom Elko]

It wasn’t immediately clear whether one of those voices is that of Rep. Ron Paul, who has Bachmann’s ear on financial policy and will appear with her at a town hall in her district this month.

Oberstar’s comments are of the sort more commonly heard from cable TV yakkers like Ed Schultz, whose show featured her “psycho talk” two days in a row, and Dan Savage, who linked God-inspired politics to hate rhetoric of the worst sort:

"When you have a party that claims to speak for God or says God is on its side, the rhetoric heats up and the anger heats up, because it’s not just a battle about ideas and positions and what’s good for the country and bad for the country. It’s a battle about what God wants and what God doesn’t want. And it’s easier to demagogue about your enemies and to despise them and to dehumanize them in this really personal and vicious way. And the religious right is fomenting this kind of hatred in this country at our peril. I really do think that the Michele Bachmanns of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world are actively and consciously, or subconsciously, trying to get — I’m just going to say it — trying to get the president killed. This kind of rhetoric — this paranoid style on the religious right, from Birchers to birthers — doesn’t usually end well. And somebody’s got to put the brakes on it. Unfortunately in the Republican Party, there’s no adults left in the room. There are only the Michele Bachmanns and the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs running the show."

Thanks to The Minnesota Independent.

A bit of commentary: the Republican Party does not have a corner of Religious Stupidity, Mrs. Searcher's father Pat the deadbeat Flanagin (and S. Chris Flanagin of Thurman and Bishop law firm, violent criminal extraordinaire) has a "bible fund" and can't keep his dick in his pants. Oh yeah, he also was in office as a Democrat. Pat Flanagin and the ever nuts Dora F. Hughes, Mrs. Searcher's aunt were part of my inspiration to vote for Bush, and until we got out of the south for a length of time, I learned that liberal democrats have a different, a better and less hateful ideology than the Christian Conservative Arkansas Democrat and his sister that have contempt for the poor, supports violent crime and hates his daughter (and she her niece) while hiding behind religion as an excuse for their abhorrent behavior. Shout out to this Democrat that has the balls to say what everyone else is thinking-these right wing bible bangers are nuts, but I know plenty of Dems that are right wing bible thumping psychos, and it's time to push them all into the sea.

Peace

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AH YES, ARKANSAS-THE DUGGARS SUCK AND SO DOES THEIR RELIGION...

2009-09-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

● The Duggars: Also eco-terrorists are this Arkansas couple who today were reported to have birthed their 19th child. But unlike The Gosselins or Suleman, this family isn’t horrible (not yet anyway). They’re just deplorably clueless.

click on the link for thanks, and these evangelical pentecostals are horrible as well as deplorably clueless.

Peace

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CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT-AT THE CONFLUENCE OF THE COLUMBIA AND THE PACIFIC

2009-08-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

INSPIRATION CONTINUED: BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD; "FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH"

2009-08-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

Enjoy:

RACHEL MADDOW SHOW: 77% OF AMERICANS SUPPORT A PUBLIC OPTION HEALTH-CARE OPTION

2009-08-21T18:24:00.001-07:00

Chillin watching Rachel, she is on the game, and exposing the foolishness of the Consevadems as well as the right wing politicians and gun toting Conservative citizens and elected officials.

She played a clip from the Sarah Palin twin Michelle Bachmann, member of the Great White Right and pseudo-christian extraordinaire, and rabid anti-abortionist, and she declared she did not want the government telling her what to do with her body... but she's very content to tell other women what to do with their bodies, largely because she is "enlightened by God."

What a doofus, a prime example of Right wing Christianity, much like some people we know, the Flanagins, Dora F. Flanagin, and Chris Flanagin, Hank Flanagin, and the ever-compromised career politician-Pat Flanagin, Arkansas State Representative.

It is time for systemic change in America, health care for all...and remember these faces: compromised politicians and violent criminals: Pat Flanagin and Chris Flanagin...soon to be posted, Hank Flanagin, the brother in law that wants his 6 year old nephew killed by a bus, and Dora Flanagin Hughes, employee of the Arkansas Employment Security Office, (and she uses her computer to hack into Mrs. Searchers personal employment records, and mine as well.) It is time to expose hate for what it is: Hate, that is fueled by contempt by these well-off elitists that hate the poor and people with skin color other than Caucasian...this is reality and these people are haters.

REPRESENTATIVE BARNEY FRANK (D-MA) LAYS THE SMACK DOWN ON A DELUDED RIGHT WINGER

2009-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

A Right Wing woman with virtually no sense asks Rep. Frank a question regarding Obama in the context of Nazism and Adolph Hitler. People such as this woman are welcome to their speech, but the lack of education and research by most of the screaming right, the Great White Right is astounding.

This psycho woman with her psycho talk reminds me of Mrs. Searchers aunt, Dora Flanagin Hughes, (not to be confused with Dora Hughes the counselor to Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary, an accomplished woman with education.) No, this Dora Hughes is a bible banging, hate-filled right wing nut. She is the sister of the clown Pat Flanagin, the dipshit with the moustache pictured below. An uneducated classless adulteress in her own right, she believes people that see through her bullshit and stupidity are demon possessed. Life in the Bible Belt, go figure.

Peace, healthcare for all, and let's work for systemic change in the United States.
Onward!

Thanks to CNN, YouTube and HuffPo...

DAILY BEAST: FDA APPROVES FIRST LSD RESEARCH IN 40 YEARS; MARGE SIMPSON TRIPS ON ACID

2009-08-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Caught an article on the Daily Beast regarding LSD research. Apparently some say the drug helps with cluster headache relief. It will be interesting if it is proven that it can help with severe headaches, perhaps the research will lead to other breakthroughs, according to the article it may help with anxiety as well.

On a personal note, my mother suffered at length with terrible headaches that would cause vomiting, etc., and I used to suffer from migraines in the early '90's. It's interesting that after I got out of the crazy pentecostal/evangelical churches that the headaches stopped...check out the article, they have a gallery of pics that showcases famous people that have tripped in the past...Marge Simpson being one of them.

Peace-

NINE YEARS AND COUNTING!! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MRS. SEARCHER!

2009-08-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

You're a great Lady, smart, funny, accomplished, beautiful. Our boy and I couldn't ask for a better Momma and Bride-we love you!

NEWSFLASH! RIGHT WING IMPLODES! JESUS IS LAUGHING HIS ASS OFF!

2009-08-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

Fuck off right wing American Christianity, it's your movement that would still have Blacks enslaved, it is you that would stone people for who they love, it is you that would deny healthcare for my children and all Americans, it is you that has warped and distorted the teachings of Jesus, and it is you that hides behind your lame church doors and use religion as an excuse for bad behavior and hate.

SUPPORT SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND HATE.

Hater of the moment, but he's a constant hater, meet Pat Flanagin:

Pat Flanagin and his "Bible Fund." Here is the quisential Right wing "Christian" nut job: Pat Flanagin: kicked his oldest kid to the curb as an infant, sent his namesake Junior into exile in Northwest Arkansas, forced Junior to give up his kid for adoption, rejected and kicked his only daughter to the curb, and embraced his violent criminal son for his crimes against humanity. Oh yeah, while his wife and kids were living in Forrest City, AR, he was using state funds to bang his whore in Little Rock while the Legislature was in session. What a gem. Sure makes me want to serve Flanagins god...

Remember, Jesus was not a capitalist.

WRITE UP REGARDING RIGHT WING GOD LOVING LUNATICS AND HEALTH CARE

2009-08-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

The writer makes some good points regarding the right wing nutbags, and gets a good dig in on Sarah Palin. His wrting is dead on, so listen up you god fearing righties that hate people of color and don't want health care for everyone: Would Jesus deprive us of healthcare for all? Of course not you schmucks, furthermore, the right wing has devolved into nothing more than a Facsist movement. For those of you with Provincial thinking (I'm talking about you midsouth) who do not understand the difference between Fascsim and Socialism, look it up.

From the New York Daily News Mike Lupica, writer:

President Obama is the real target of health care protesters, not policy

The woman went to an airplane hangar in Belgrade, Mont., the other day, prepared to actually listen to President Obama talk about health care reform in America.
She has watched, the way the rest of us have watched, as the debate about health care has turned into a sideshow and in some cases even more of a freak show than Glenn Beck's. Now she wanted to see for herself, along with more than 1,000 others, if it would happen this way in Montana.

This is what she said about the event when it was over:
"Yes, there were a few protesters en route. But the Montanans who were excited to hear the President far outnumbered the fringe groups."
Then she said this about Obama: "He was smart, fair, funny."

So this wasn't an occasion when people with legitimate concerns and legitimate points to make were overwhelmed by the wing nuts and screamers who take their marching orders from right-wing radio and television and the Internet.

Those idiots come to these town hall meetings more to be seen than heard, and think creating chaos makes them great Americans.

Those people have been convinced by the current culture that we are dying to hear from them, and the louder the better. People who think that all they need to star in their own reality series is a couple of TV crews. But then this is Twitter America now, where no thought is supposed to go unspoken.

We hear that all of this is democracy in action. It's not. It's boom-box democracy, people thinking that if they somehow make enough noise on this subject, they can make Obama into a one-term President.

The most violent opposition isn't directed at his ideas about health care reform. It is directed at him. It is about him. They couldn't make enough of a majority to beat the Harvard-educated black guy out of the White House, so they will beat him on an issue where they see him as being most vulnerable.

In the process, they'll come after him on health care the way Kenneth Starr went after Bill Clinton on oral sex in the Oval Office.

With that kind of zealotry, screaming about government programs as if Medicare isn't one. It is why so many of them, all these wild-eyed red faces in the crowd, look completely certifiable, screaming about how Obama wants to kill Grandma, as if he's suddenly turned into Jack Kevorkian.

And by the way, if Sarah Palin is involved - Palin as uninformed as ever about these so-called "death panels" - the debate just got dumber, if that's possible. No kidding. If foreign policy was a brain-buster for Palin, something as truly complex as health care will make her feel as dizzy as if she just rolled down a hill.

So much of this comes from people who get all their information from right-wing media, or their cheerleading from political has-beens like Betsy McCaughey, people who don't see this as a fight for better and more inclusive health care, but who now see it as something grander and more noble, a fight to reclaim America from Obama.

They couldn't win the fight last November, when he laid out John McCain and Palin and a whole party with one election, so they try to do it now, with lies and rather amazing distortions. They want everybody to believe that if Obama gets his way, he'll eventually be in charge of insurance and doctors and whether you use CVS or Duane Reade. He's a Socialist selling socialized medicine. He'll kill Grandma. Come on. The notion that this is all honest dissent is just one more lie.

Even in Montana, the Swift Boaters who would line up against any health care plan endorsed by Barack Obama ran one television ad 115 times over a day and a half before the President arrived.

"Every time we are in sight of health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they've got," the President said outside Bozeman. "They use their influence and run their ads. They use their political allies to scare the American people."

He is right about that. But the special interests aren't fighting the reform, in a system that cries out for reform, as much as they are fighting him. They see their first real good opening and they go for it.

They don't just want to hijack this debate, they want to hijack his presidency. The rest of it, about your coverage and everything else, is just the cover story.

Peace-

BRITAIN REBUTS REPUBLICAN B.S. REGARDING HEALTH CARE

2009-08-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

FROM HUFF PO:
LONDON — Britain's health care service says it is sick of being lied about.
Pilloried by right-wing critics of President Barack Obama's health care plan, Britain's National Health Service, known here as the NHS, is fighting back.

"People have been saying some untruths in the States," a spokesman for Britain Department of Health said in a telephone interview. "There's been all these ridiculous claims made by the American health lobby about Obama's health care plan ... and they've used the NHS as an example. A lot of it has been untrue."

He spoke anonymously in line with department policy.

A particularly outlandish example of a U.S. editorial, printed in the Investor's Business Daily, claimed that renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who is disabled, "wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."
Hawking, who was born and lives in Britain, personally debunked the claim. "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told The Guardian newspaper. Investor's Business Daily has since corrected the editorial.

As the debate over how best to look after American patients rages on, Britain's socialized health care system has increasingly found itself being drawn into the argument. Critics of the Obama administration's plan to overhaul US health care say the president is seeking to model the U.S. system on that of Britain or Canada – places they paint as countries where patients linger for months on waiting lists and are forbidden from paying for their own medication.

A Republican National Committee ad said that in the U.K. "individuals lose their right to make their own health care choices." Another ad launched earlier this month by the anti-tax group Club for Growth claimed that government bureaucrats in Britain had calculated six months of life to be worth $22,750. "Under their socialized system, if your treatment costs more, you're out of luck," the ad says, as footage of an elderly man weeping at a woman's bedside alternate with clips of the Union Jack and Big Ben.

The online attacks on Britain's health care system have been paired with strident criticism from Republican lawmakers.

In an interview widely interpreted here as an attack on the U.K., Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa told a local radio station last week that "countries that have government-run health care" would not have given Sen. Edward Kennedy, who suffers from a brain tumor, the same standard of care as in the U.S. because he is too old. Another Republican, Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia, said that the U.K. and Canada "don't have the appreciation of life as we do in our society, evidently."

The criticism, widely covered in the U.K. media, has clearly stung Britain's left-leaning Labour government. The Department of Health took the unusual step of contacting The Associated Press and e-mailing it a three-page rebuttal to what it said were misconceptions about the NHS being bandied about in the U.S. media – each one followed with the words: "Not true."

At the top of the list was the idea that a patient in his late 70s would not be treated for a brain tumor because he was too old – a transparent reference to Grassley's comments about Kennedy.
And what of Republicans' claim that British patients are robbed of their medical choices? False again, the department said.

"Everyone who is cared for by the NHS in England has formal rights to make choices about the service that they receive," it said in its rebuttal.
Then followed a fact sheet comparing selected statistics such as health spending per capita, infant mortality, life expectancy, and more. Each one showed England outperforming its trans-Atlantic counterpart.

The British government offers health care for free at the point of need, a service pioneered by Labour in 1948. In the six decades since, its promise of universal medical care, from cradle to grave, is taken for granted by Britons to such an extent that politicians – even fiscal conservatives – are loath to attack it.

But the NHS faces significant challenges, not least a multibillion pound (dollar) deficit predicted to open up over the next five years. It has its critics too, particularly cancer patients who complain that the government refuses to cover costlier drugs, leaving those who need expensive treatments to pay for them out of pocket.

Nevertheless, many in the British press bristled at the criticism from America's right wing.
"How dare the Republicans bad-mouth our free health care system?" Guardian columnist Michele Hanson wrote Wednesday. "If I'd been born in the U.S., I'd probably be dead by now."

Good for them, it's about time people start refuting the right wing.

Peace-

WOULD JESUS LET CHILDREN STARVE? AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY THINKS SO

2009-07-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

Cynthia Davis,(R) State Rep from Missouri's 19th district. (what is with these bums? Kinda like Arkansas worthless Percy Malone or Pat the adulterer Flanagin) made an over the top comment about children receiving subsidized food programs because she thinks "hunger is a motivating factor." Watch the clip from The Colbert Report. This Cynthia Davis actually owns a Christian Book store, which brings me to this: Fuck off American Christianity, you are so far from Jesus' teachings, you may never be able to get back.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tip/Wag - Cynthia Davis & Fox News

http://www.colbertnation.com/

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jeff Goldblum

13 YEAR OLD GIRL STRIP SEARCHED IN SCHOOL WINS SUPREME COURT CASE

2009-06-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

I've been paying attention to this case involving Savana Redding, pictured above with her attorney Adam Wolf because I believe the "zero-tolerance" policy schools and the Police have adopted lead to the abuse of children and adults. Savana, when she was thirteen, was forced by school officials to strip to her underwear and shake out her panties because she was suspected of carrying two prescription Advil.

What the hell?!?

This Supreme Court (8 to 1, the only dissenter was Clarence Thomas, wtf?) ruling reinforces my belief. Whether the student is a girl or a boy, schools are dead wrong when they force frightened school kids into their underwear without parental consent, oversight, and complete control. Try this shit with my daughter or son.

It is time to end this policy that assumes the citizenry is guilty of a crime or to be held in suspicion because they just might commit a crime at any time!

The "Zero-Tolerance" policy especially gives licence to those in positions of authority to abuse the more vulnerable in our society, the poor, working families, minorities and children.

Congratulations to Savana Redding in her monumental victory.

Peace!
Read the rest of it on msnbc.com
image

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST-AGAIN

2009-06-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

So Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina has been fooling around with a woman from Argentina. His wife isn't Argentinian, I'm pretty sure she's South Carolinian...Perhaps he was using public funds to get to Argentina...It looks like the "Family Values" Party is imploding on itself, more power to it, I'm sick of conservatives, both democrat and republican, this is just another affirmation of my correct decision to turn my back on the conservative movement completely.

Another shooting star for the Repubs in 2012 has shot himself in his (or rather with his) dick. Who do we have left? Sarah Palin? Bobby Jindal? Mitt freaking Romey? Please don't offer up the doofus Haley Barbour from Mississippi. Or maybe that would be a good idea...a sacrificial lamb.

Peace, y'all Obama '12, Health Care now...

COMMON SENSE BEGINGING TO REAR ITS HEAD REGARDING INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY?

2009-06-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I am for the legalization of marijuana. The following is from the HuffPo, it is in regards to the UN's drug report that praises Portugal's switch from incarceration of addicts to treatment. It makes sense, then we can have room for real criminals like Chris Flanagin, (chris@thurmanbishop.com Thurman and Bishop, Arkansas Community Foundation.)

Make no mistake: I am for the complete outlawing of hard drugs such as Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, Alcohol. (I know we already tried that, so I can hang that one up. However, Alcohol is the TRUE gateway drug.) Marijuana is a "soft" drug, with little or no collateral consequence, unlike Alcohol, which kills upward of 100,000 Americans yearly, and that statistic does not include deaths by vehicles. So onward Searchers, it is time for the legalization of marijuana, and a sea change in our Hemp production policy...Peace, I think I'll go smoke! From HuffPo:

UN Backs Drug Decriminalization In World Drug Report

In an about face, the United Nations on Wednesday lavishly praised drug decriminalization in its annual report on the state of global drug policy. In previous years, the UN drug czar had expressed skepticism about Portugal's decriminalization, which removed criminal penalties in 2001 for personal drug possession and emphasized treatment over incarceration. The UN had suggested the policy was in violation of international drug treaties and would encourage "drug tourism."

But in its 2009 World Drug Report, the UN had little but kind words for Portugal's radical (by U.S. standards) approach. "These conditions keep drugs out of the hands of those who would avoid them under a system of full prohibition, while encouraging treatment, rather than incarceration, for users. Among those who would not welcome a summons from a police officer are tourists, and, as a result, Portugal's policy has reportedly not led to an increase in drug tourism," reads the report. "It also appears that a number of drug-related problems have decreased."

In its upbeat appraisal of Portugal's policy, the UN finds itself in agreement with Salon's Glenn Greenwald.

The report, released at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., also puts to rest concerns that decriminalization doesn't comply with international treaties, which prevent countries from legalizing drugs.

U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is scheduled to appear at the announcement of the report. (He has said "decriminalization" is not "in my vocabulary.")

"The International Narcotics Control Board was initially apprehensive when Portugal changed its law in 2001 (see their annual report for that year), but after a mission to Portugal in 2004, it "noted that the acquisition, possession and abuse of drugs had remained prohibited," and said "the practice of exempting small quantities of drugs from criminal prosecution is consistent with the international drug control treaties," reads a footnote to the report.

The UN report also dives head first into the debate over full drug legalization. Last year's World Drug Report ignored the issue entirely, save for a reference to Chinese opium policy in the 19th Century.

This year's report begins with a lengthy rebuttal of arguments in favor of legalization. "Why unleash a drug epidemic in the developing world for the sake of libertarian arguments made by a pro-drug lobby that has the luxury of access to drug treatment?" argues the report.
But the UN also makes a significant concession to backers of legalization, who have long argued that it is prohibition policies that lead to violence and the growth of shadowy, underground networks.

"In the Preface to the report," reads the press release accompanying the report, "[UN Office of Drugs and Crime Executive Director Antonio Maria] Costa explores the debate over repealing drug controls. He acknowledges that controls have generated an illicit black market of macro-economic proportions that uses violence and corruption."
Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and a retired undercover narcotics detective, objected to the report's classification of current policy as "control."

"The world's 'drug czar,' Antonio Maria Costa, would have you believe that the legalization movement is calling for the abolition of drug control," he said. "Quite the contrary, we are demanding that governments replace the failed policy of prohibition with a system that actually regulates and controls drugs, including their purity and prices, as well as who produces them and who they can be sold to. You can't have effective control under prohibition, as we should have learned from our failed experiment with alcohol in the U.S. between 1920 and 1933."

Again, it is time for the legalization of marijuana, but I do want you to pay close attention to the ridiculous statement by the U.S. "drug czar" :"decriminalization is not in my vocabulary." Maybe our "drug czar" needs to be shitcanned so he can go back to fifth-grade vocab class.

Peace!

ON DEADBEAT MOMS AND DADS, AND A LITTLE HISTORY PART 2

2009-06-22T07:35:00.000-07:00

I decided to post the third comment from "Anonymous" that appears after "On Deadbeat Moms and Dads..." because I wanted to discuss it briefly. Here is the comment:

"So why aren't you paying your child support if you love them so much? Do you think that clothes, food and the rest just fall from the sky? Do you think your excuses put food on their table? Although, truthfully they may be better off not knowing what a deadbeat their father is. What kind of man doesn't financially provide for his minor children? (that's a rhetorical question, by the way)"

And here is my rebuttal:

Anon's comment is typically American; it is one that ignores the body of the issues and focuses solely on one small aspect, and that aspect is always dollar-driven. Shortsighted, knee-jerk comments and actions are an unflattering trait we in the United States have developed over time, and they have led to debacles such as the Iraq War.

Your comment, "Anonymous" is the "drill baby drill" chant all over again.

"Anons" inability to look beyond today and look to the brighter future (thus the reason I am pursuing my University education) has become synonymous with American Culture today: Trade long term (future) stability for a quick profit today.

This mind set has driven our nation into deep economic trouble, just as the policies of the OCSE have driven families into deep economic trouble.

Couple the discriminatory policies of the OCSE with Conservatives, Democrat and Republican alike, that continue to allow the outsourcing of good manufacturing jobs, continue to slash money for education, and continue to slash social programs (while propping up our defense department) and you get economic hell for working families.

The Conservative Democrats and Republicans believe, as you probably do "Anon," that scrapping food programs for the poor children of our nation, or denying health care and education to millions of Americans is going to force poor working families into the middle class or beyond, so magically the world becomes an economic utopia for all.

That idea was bullshit when Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman sold it to us in 1981 and it remains bullshit to this day.

"Anon"- get the back story right next time, read my posts in their entirety, and realize abusive comments designed to denigrate me regarding support and visitation with my children create not only dysfunction in the children, they also strengthen my tenacity (and my desire) in the fight for equality in this horribly skewed, abusive "child support" system in place in the U.S. today.

Thanks for the comment, "Anon", don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Peace, Searchers, we do need a systemic change in America.

Oh Yeah-The face of a true "Deadbeat Dad" Arkansas State Representative Pat Flanagin:
image

ON DEADBEAT MOMS AND DADS, AND A LITTLE HISTORY

2009-06-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

Good Morning Searchers-
As I write this it is 10:11 pac time, "Tomb Raider" is on, and my littlest boy is munching on breakfast and drinking a glass of milk.

So let's discuss deadbeat parents. I posted a pic yesterday of a true deadbeat, Pat Flanagin, State Rep. from Forrest City.

I received a couple of comments,"Talk about calling the kettle black" and similar comments that don't really add to the discourse, they're just attack comments designed to hurt, rather than edify, or actually address the greater problems within the Child Support Industrial Complex.

Just to clarify: I AM going after the Office of Child Support Enforcement, and I will not stop. The system is designed to discriminate against the Non-Custodial Parent. From here on out, non-custodial parent will be referred to as NCP and custodial parent will be given the designate CP. The system is set up so tax dollars are used to prosecute and persecute a specific class of people which clearly violates the 14th Amendment to the constitution.

State and county governments are handing out millions of dollars in contracts to private firms, to harass and persecute parents. When the government privatizes anything, the people lose the ability to oversee the newly privatized program, and there becomes little, if any, accountability to the people whose money it is in the first place, the tax payer. Think Halliburton, KBR, (an American company currently killing troops in Iraq. A funny side note, KBR stands for Kellog, Brown, and Root, but the soldiers came up with something better: KBR, Kill, Bag, Replace. That is what privatization brings.)

Okay. On deadbeat parents. Indulge me as I define the meaning of a true deadbeat.

A true deadbeat is one that has the resources, i.e., the bank account, the education under his/her belt already, a good job that brings in a real paycheck, perhaps two good jobs, such as owning an insurance company and holding elected office, but hates his family, hates his wife and children so much that he simply refuses to pay support or support the children.

Let me repeat: A deadbeat dad is one that has the resources, yet hates his children so much that he simply refuses to pay support, or support his children in other ways. Just such an individual is pictured:

Pat Flanagin is a deadbeat, he had to be hauled into court on more than one occasion because his ex-wife, Mrs. Searcher's mother, had to file Motions for Contempt because as Mrs. has said, "getting child support from him was like pulling teeth." And here's the funnily (made up word) despicable part: Pat Flanagin was in elected office at the time, cashing Arkansas tax payer funded paychecks and still refused to pay child support. True Deadbeat. The OCSE refused to go after him, because they like the easy targets: the poor, and at the time they were busy going after my broke ass, an easy target.

Representative Flanagin is "deadbeat dad" personified. So when you read this Chris Flanagin, as well as my ex-wife...let's call her "Candy," ('cause you see "Candy" I don't use most names, such as childrens names because there are people out there like the Flanagins that would hurt my children if they thought they could get away with it, hell Pat Flanagin, Jr., would like my littlest son to get run over by a bus for fucks' sake) realize deadbeat dads have the resources; they simply hate their children.

(Understand, Candy, I do not have the resources or I would give my children the world. Newsflash assholes! That's why I'm in school!)

My own father was the same way, and remains a deadbeat to this day. He, like Flanagin, holds an advanced degree, my father earned the title "Doctor." I am confident he cannot name my children.

Now let us discuss History. My wife and I have been married for almost 9 years. I have two boys from the marriage with "Candy." Enough history for now. Let us move on to another type of deadbeat, the deadbeat Custodial parent, usually the mother, so let's call them "deadbeat moms."

Deadbeat moms hate their ex-husbands so much and love their children so little that they will use the children as leverage to punish the ex husband for all the perceived injustices they have suffered at the hands of the cruel ex-husband. Deadbeat moms put on a good show of love for their children but they will starve their children of the fathers' desperately needed love, affection, and direction. Back to History:

I did not abandon my children, I moved so my children and I, in the faithful future, may have a better life. I moved from the rural state of Arkansas which presented NO opportunity, to an urban area FOR opportunity. It is not my fault, Candy, that you could not then and cannot now cut the umbilical cord to your parents. It is also not my fault I have not seen the boys; it is yours. Read on:

Within weeks of relocating to Kansas City, I sent a great big box of goodies for my sons, "H" and "J" in Arkansas that contained clothes, toys, some books, a "beginner bible" for H, cookies, you know, a care package from their Daddy. I missed them. I don't remember if it was for their birthdays (they occur in the same month) or if it was for Christmas.

At any rate several weeks went by, I heard nothing. Then one day, the postman showed up with a box that looked familiar. It was the care package of presents for my sons.

The deadbeat Mom sent it back, unopened. She sent it back. Do you understand now, Searchers?

What kind of mother would send back presents to her children from the father of her children? I'll tell you. A deadbeat, one that wants to hurt the Father of her children even if it means hurting her children in the process and lying to them about their father.

Since then I have mailed H and J birthday cards, Christmas Cards, etc., and they have all come back. I have them in a file in my filing cabinet so one day, when H and J are older, I can say, "See? tried to contact you and send you things, but your mother was a fucking bitch."

Maybe not so harsh, but you get the idea, Searchers.

She refuses to supply her current address so I may contact my sons. She refuses to allow me to see them. She has poisoned my sons.

Currently, the way the Laws regarding child support enforcement are written, it behooves my family and me economically for me to pursue an education at the University, living on grants and student loans rather than work in a kitchen somewhere. You see? I am betting the future will be brighter for ALL of my children, (and I have five) if their Daddy has an education, because the conservatives, Democrat and Republican alike have shipped all of the good paying manufacturing jobs oversees. I am not going to kill myself in a kitchen for 10 dollars an hour when I can obtain an education and make 1000 times that. Hell, right now I'M on Medcaid and my family recieves food stamps to make ends meet while we successfully pursue our educations.

This is why I am attacking the Office of child Support Enforcement. It is not an office of "Enforcement" it is an office of "Extortion." I am going after the Office on both State and Federal levels, because I know the laws are written for a large part on the federal level, and the Feds use money as leverage against the States to acquiesce to their laws. I get it. But it does not let the likes of Percy Malone (pictured below) off the hook. I intend to be like my mother the attorney pitbull: I am not letting go.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement (from now on it's OCSE) focuses solely on money, they do not focus on the more important thing; involvement BY the NCP WITH the children. It is first class discrimination and it is all tax payer supported. It is today's version of the Jim Crow south.

Okay. So here's more history. I had two children with my first wife. Both grown. I have a very good relationship with their mother, a good relationship with my daughter, the relationship with my son is evolving, albeit slowly. They are both amazing people. Check it out, Candy, I have a good relationship with their mother. This tells me that you, Candy, are dead wrong. There is no kettle, the two don't compare.

It is apples to oranges, Pat Flanagin has money and plenty of it, he made that abundantly clear when Mrs. Searchers mother died. Pat had to steal the show, and because his sorry ass wasn't getting any attention, he sent an email to my wife telling her that when he dies, she aint gettin shit.

This is a true asshole. He craves attention so badly, and has such an infantile personality, completely needy and whiney, that within three days of Mrs. Searchers mothers' death, he was emailing Mrs. telling her how big of a piece of shit she is, how big of a piece of shit I am, he referred to his grandson as "offspring,"-the fucker doesn't even know his name.

He needs to be the center of attention so badly, this narcississtic dickhead, that he couldn't even afford Mrs. Searcher sufficient time to mourn the death of her mother before he was trying to steal the show. What a fuckstick. This is the personification of a true dead beat, and his name is Pat Flanagin. I will post excerpts from the shithead's emails at a later date.

I believe I have clearly defined deadbeats. They exist on both sides of the divorce decree. This is why we need an overhaul of the OCSE. We need equality in the system, even if it means yanking million dollar contracts from private corporations, and even if it means shitcanning some bureaucrats and putting them on unemployment. Fuck em. They have made their living from people's misery long enough.

Peace-

THE FACE OF A TRUE DEADBEAT: ARKANSAS' PAT FLANAGIN

2009-06-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Meet Pat Flanagin, deadbeat dad (pictured above) of Mrs. Searcher, and former Arkansas State Representative. This is the guy that spawned Chris Flanagin. This is also the guy that kicked his oldest son to the curb, (yes he has children by different women, which makes him, among other things, a total fucking hypocrite) sent his namesake, Jr., into exile, and abandoned his only daughter, all while defending, supporting, aiding and abetting his violent criminal son, pictured below daddy.

More on this dink as time goes by, believe me, there's plenty.
BTW, what's with the moustache?

IRANIANS HIT THE STREET BY THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS

2009-06-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

*UPDATE* I had a video posted from a protest in Iran from YouTube, I don't know what happened to it. If I can get it back, I'll repost it...Peace*

Good morning, Searchers, I woke up to MSNBC this morning, the lead story I caught was about the alleged election fraud in Iran.

People have been demonstrating against the totalitarian government since June 12, when the Presidential election was held.

Searchers, this is huge. As I heard a commentator say yesterday, it may not be like Tiananman Square, but certainly may be similar to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Some of you remember neither, but when I saw the people standing on the Wall shouting triumphantly, and hitting the wall with sledgehammers, it sent shivers down my spine.
Equally so with the lone Chinese man facing down the tanks.

These were people that were fed up with a regime that kept them down, and in the case of China, they had had it with the government "reforms" that destroyed their wage base, stripped them of jobs, and forced millions into abject poverty, so the Chinese gov't could switch to a capitalist economy. Read 'The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, it is a remarkable eye opener.

So the Iranaian people are protesting the outcome of the Presidential election. Let me put this in perspective: The Iranian Government hand counted millions of ballots, I read somewhere that the turnout was 65% of the population, here in the U.S., we're lucky to get 40% turnout, and after 3 hours of HAND COUNTING, the government declared the landslide victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinajad over his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

In the United States, it took a solid month, courtroom drama, and ultimately the Supreme Court to decide the election of 2000, that brought Bush into the White House. We all know how that turned out, perhaps we need the Iranian ultra smart state of the art ballot counting machine: the hand.

Seriously, I believe the Iranian election was hi-jacked by the Supreme Leader and the government. Ahmedinajad won by landslide numbers even in Mousavi's hometown where he polled in very high numbers. Mousavi is a reform candidate, and it appears the Iranian people want reform.

It is our duty as Americans to support their desire for an open, democratic government. That does not necessarily mean military intervention, so put away your guns and your ding-dongs, Americans, not everything has to be solved with force. The display of solidarity by the Iranians in the face of execution for demonstrating may be enough to topple the current regime, and if not totally topple, at least start putting chinks in the armour of the State. We can learn from this, and we need to revisit our own history and study again Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s manner of protest. Ditto with Ghandi.

It is time for a systemic change in the United States. It will come, albeit slowly, cause we are, after all, fat, dumb, and happy.

Peace-

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

2009-06-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

Another "Family Values" Republican nosedived into a shit hurricane when he admitted to an extra marital affair with a campaign staffer.

Nevada Senator John Ensign can hang up his hope for the Presidency in '12.

Senator Ensign has in the past been involved with Promise Keepers, the Evangelical Christian organization that focuses on Husbands not treating their Wives like crap. Well, I guess this one didn't take.

It is hypocrisy from the evangelical right. (Think Ted Haggard, Mark Foley.) I do not have a problem with politicians, even right-wing politicians committing adultery. I am far more realistic, I know it is going to happen.

Shoot, Mrs. Searchers dad was sleeping around on his wife while he was in elected office in Little Rock, while his wife and kids were alone in Forrest City. The problems lie with the attempt by the right wing and the conservadems to legislate their view of Biblical morality, and when they advance their agenda to govern what happens in my bedroom when they are clearly having trouble staying in their own bedrooms having sex with their respective spouses.

It was different with Clinton. It's different with Obama. We understand where they stand on families; they believe in them as an important structure of our society. They also recognize families look different than the right wing white nuclear family of the 1950's, something the Right Wing, including George Bush the frat boy, and Dick Cheney cling to.

Obama understands (and Clinton knew as well) that not everyone wants to live their life by the Christian Bible, hell the posts I've been writing about the lunatics in Arkansas are all bible bangin' bible quotin' church attendin' god fearin' gun totin' Good, Proud, White Christians, proud members of the "Great White Right."

Things happen in marriages. But the Family Values ticket the right wing keeps trying to ram down our throats for the past thirty years rings more and more hollow as the days go by. Try something else, boys, 'cause that dog don't hunt.

Peace

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NEWLY OBTAINED DOCUMENTS REVEAL "DEADBEAT DAD(S)" IN ARKANSAS STATE LEGISLATURE

2009-06-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

Searcher has obtained docs from a Circuit Clerk in the great State of Arkansas that will reveal child support payment issues (that is, lack of payment) while the Legislator in question was holding office.

Where are you Jonesboro Sun? Have you been burying more information about your elected officials at their behest?

I'll let you know more as I pore over the documents, and I will, of course, post them on the website.

Peace-

ARKANSAS' PERCY MALONE TOO BUSY FOR THE PEOPLE?

2009-06-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

My, my, Senator Percy Malone is busy these days, now doubt handling all kinds of pressing matters, from D.C. to Little Rock. I called his office, and spoke with the ever-pleasant Amy, and she assured me she would send Malone a text(?) message with my number. I'm sure he'll be right back with me. Perhaps I should have a Twitter account so he can "tweet" me...

Seriously, there are laws written that are creating massive crisis to families, and Percy Malone of Arkadelphia is dodging my phone calls. Little 'ol me. Makes me feel good.

Senator Malone, I am awaiting your call. I want you to address the remarks you made regarding adults (see post "Pushing For Equal Rights In America..." ) I am not going to go away, the issues facing real working families in the United States are not going to go away simply because you refuse to pick up your phone.

For you Mr. Malone, I will give a refresher course: Pay attention:

The Policies of the Office of Child Support Enforcement:

1. Contribute to increased alcohol abuse.
2. Contribute to increased drug abuse.
3. Lead to crushing debt for the poor.
4. Contribute to domestic violence.
5. Lead to dysfunction in children.
6. Put families at odds with each other.
7. Are fundamentally discriminatory against the Non-Custodial Parent
8. Discriminate against and target a specific socio-economic class of people, those in poverty, as well as the working poor in America.
9. Lead to a relinqueshing of rights by the Custodial Parent, with insufficient legal counsel provided to the Custodial Parent.
10.Violates Amendment 14 of the United States of America, specifically the "equal protection" clause.
11.Violate Articles 7, 8, and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Read up, Mr. Malone, and realize statements you make, such as "I don't much care about the adults" show your lack of concern for real families, and it shows that you do not take your position seriously, unless it is to fill your pockets(?) Then perhaps you take it seriously?

Peace, Searchers

*UPDATE-'ON HATE AND GENERATIONAL RACISM'

2009-06-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

I added a couple of things, not the least of which is the addition to the italics narrative regarding my wedding ring: the damage done to it as a result of the attack was irreparable.

The marriage, however, continues blissfully as Mrs. Searcher, our children, and I continue to push and improve our lives...

I am reposting Chris Flanagin's ( of Thurman and Bishop, Eureka Springs, AR also on the Arkansas Communtiy Foundation Carroll County board) mugshot again, and I will continue to do so, just so you don't forget the face of violent crime.

Peace-

WOULD THAT WE WEREN'T FAT, DUMB, AND HAPPY

2009-06-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

Americans have long been fat, dumb, and happy, and a generation ago we elected Reagan and focused for a generation on little else except strenghtening our grip on the world, and filling our bank accounts.

There was an election stolen from the American People in 2000, and there was little resistance from the people, largely, I believe because the "trains ran on time" and we, collectively, are fat dumb and happy.

The Bush Administration cut and pasted the Constitution during his regime and we, collectively, allowed him to do that. And now the Rednecks and Religious Right, (the great white right) of America are going to bitch and moan (falsely) that President Obama is going to "take away our guns?" Where were you when Bush was wire-tapping your phone? Where were you when Bush suspended Habeus Corpus? (I know, I know, "habby-us core-pus" look it up, redneck, it is extraordinarily important.)

Oh-I forgot, you had better things to do like watch NASCAR or guffaw at foolishness such as "Larry the Cable Guy."

The Field Negro breaks it down. An excerpt:

"Sometimes I wish [Americans] had the passion for this stuff like our friends in other countries. But it's hard to be a revolutionary when your stomach is always full, you have hot and cold running water, and a big screen television to watch your favorite basketball team is on the wall."

There are people in Iran that are rising up against tyrannical rule. We, as Americans, owe them our support, it may mean the difference between war or peace, and please, let's put away our collective penis, wash our hands, and try to stop our pissing constest with the rest of the world.

Peace, Searchers

Thanks, Field

ON HATE AND GENERATIONAL RACISM

2009-06-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

*Click on The pics for a near life size version of Chris Flanagin*

I've been trying to post this one for several days, since the psycho shot up the Holocaust Museum in D.C. The original post had started out discussing the man that was killed at the museum Stephen T. Johns.

The act by the white hater James von Brunn (not pictured, the story about the ridiculous person in the mug shot follows) that took the life of Stephen Tyron Johns at the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. disturbs me on several levels. And it touches me on a personal level.

I lived in Arkansas for years as you know by now. While in Arkansas I witnessed cross burnings; I walked by a half dozen police cars, a fire truck and a smoldering cross on the front lawn of one of the two black families in Pocahontas on my way to work one morning at Ramon’s Grocery Store. Coming from Chicago, I was horrified at the behavior and stupidity and the overall dumbfuckery I witnessed while living in the “Gem” (you silly Roy Ockert!) that is Arkansas.

I was in a brief relationship with someone once upon a time; her dad liked to go by the nickname “Skip.” I guess he didn’t like “Jerry”. He was extraordinarily racist, he never referred to African Americans as Blacks or African Americans, it was always “niggers.” He was a retired manager from a factory in Flint MI. I remember him saying, as my sons played on his kitchen floor “Oh sure, when I was at the plant you could get a nigger by himself and he’s alright to talk to, but you get a bunch of ‘em together, and it’s “mothafucka this and mothafucka that… they’re all a bunch of goddamn monkeys.”

He loved to tell a joke that went something like this: “So, Abraham Lincoln woke up Monday morning after being on a weekend drunk and said, ‘I did what?!?’” The punch line being if Lincoln hadn’t been wasted all weekend he would have never freed the slaves.

Not so funny. He was one of those that liked to fight also, and we almost came to blows on at least one occasion when I dared to speak against “Rednecks” because as he informed me one blisteringly hot Arkansas summer afternoon, “when you talk about rednecks you’re talking about me.” It is little wonder why I rejected him as well as his rhetoric.

Let me move on to another racist, this one not afraid to use violence. Unlike Skip, (who liked to intimidate his sons in law, but tried not to get into too many scrapes with them,) this one has proven more than once his propensity for violence.

He is around 30; his date of birth is on his mug shot at the top of the post. (I'll try to configure it bigger) This is why I believe this is not going away; the old racists’ virus of hate has infected another generation, and so on. I believe we will see more violence from the right, and when I refer to the right, I do not necessarily refer to someone that would vote for Sarah Palin, or even the type that runs around skinhead-like shouting pro-white power slogans.

The family of this particular violent racist is one that traditionally votes Democrat, in fact, his deadbeat father served 11 terms in the Arkansas legislature as a Democrat. A Conservadem, little more than a center-left republican.

Pictured below is Samuel C. Flanagin, of Eureka Springs, AR. (formerly Forrest City, AR) He broke into my home with an accomplice, Michael Clark of Forrest City and violently attacked my sleeping wife and me on August 26, 2000:

It was a bloody scene, blood was splattered on the wall behind my bed, it had sprayed on the carpeting, it ran down my chest, my stomach, and my legs.

I remember Flanagin screaming "You Motherfucker! You Motherfucker! You motherfucker!" as he hit me in the face and head and body (I had deep bruising that lasted for weeks) with an oak stick as thick and long as a man's forearm. Then he was on top of me, stomping on my head, screaming insanely. Blood was flying. His sandal left a black scrape mark on the wall three feet up behind my bed.

My brand-new wedding ring lovingly inscribed with Philippians 2:2, "...we be of one mind and purpose," was smashed flat on my finger; it took a pair of plyers to get it off. Clark stood behind Chris, laughing.

Mrs. was screaming at the top of her lungs at them, she was covering herself with the sheet sitting up; neither of us had clothes on. It was a hot late summer Arkansas night; we were newlyweds.

I'm going to stop the narrative there, but I'll add quickly: I called the police from the apartment manager's office, and took pictures, I was out of my mind with what had just transpired, but I managed to call Chris' sorry ass (I'm a whole lot tougher than him) and I remember screaming at him to bring his ass back and stand up like a man and not be a coward. He had a chance earlier in the year, in February, in front of his momma's house, but he truly is a coward.

I remember him screaming and cackling insanely, and screeching, "I really dented your mother fucking head! I really dented your motherfucking head!"
I also remember thinking "This is the voice of someone truly psychotic."

I called the police, and they picked us up, and we rode with them to Mrs'. mother's house where they were hiding with the lights turned off. They had hidden Clark's truck out back. Paul Turney of the Jonesboro P.D. as well as his Lieutenant arrested Chris and Clark, and they were charged with several felonies between them. I'll write about it more later, there's plenty.

Since that time, he has stolen property from Mrs. Searcher, threatened to have me arrested if we came to Arkansas to attend Mrs. Searchers mother’s funeral, and this unrepentant, violent criminal that goes to church and claims to be a Christian has referred to me in an email to his sister as a “nigger.” This is common for Chris. He is a classless racist, a violent, intellectually retarded narcissist, and an utter waste of carbon, water, and trace elements. The following is the excerpt from the actual email:

Everyone's always picking on poor nigger Mike, boo hoo. Your detachment from reality is amusing but sad.

Words don’t mean much, especially from an individual such as Flanagin. He does not display a tenable grasp on the English language. (BTW, he works for Thurman and Bishop; a law firm in Eureka Springs, AR, the link is included.)

But the history of violence and the ease in which it appears to come to him, his desire to lash out at people that disagree with him, those that he fears, and those that he recognizes are his intellectual and moral superiors, is very troubling. Resorting to bloody violence (Chris was facing almost 20 years in prison for his actions) his use of racial epithets, against those who oppose his idiocy is a massive red flag-to thinking people.

He has also justified his actions in the past using the fact that I have children from a previous marriage as cause. See? Truly psychotic.

Mrs. Searcher has related to me that on numerous occasions as she grew up in the town of Forrest City, she was forced to flee from her home, (on more than one occasion jumping out of her second floor bedroom window) and run for safety to the neighbors because Chris was on a rampage, looking for blood, trying to rip her bedroom door off, again.

I believe classmates of Chris Flanagin could say the same. Any of them out there? From UALR School of Law? Uof A Fayetteville? Forrest City High School?

His deadbeat father Patrick H. Flanagin was close buddies with Coolidge Conley, the Sheriff of St. Francis County, AR, that approved of the assault and maiming of an individual; Conley displayed his testicles in a jar on his desk. (Make no mistake the accused criminal was a complete shit, but his assault and maiming happened to him while he was accused, not tried and convicted. And if the person was convicted of the crime, the county Sheriff cutting his balls off is still fucking illegal.)

Getting back to Chris, his actions are of course, his perverted way of trying to “equalize” the difference between people like him and people like Mrs. Searcher and me. Oh-as I mentioned before he also has in his possession a chair and ottoman that he swindled from his sister, it was lovingly recovered in leather for her by her Mother shortly before she passed away, and he fucking stole it from her…See? A true shithead. Where does it stop?

His older brother, Pat “Hank” Flanagin, Jr., attacked his step brother violently while he was in the shower. Hank actually went so far as to write in an email to Mrs. Searcher “I hope [your son, name withheld] gets hit by the bus.”

Former Arkansas State Representative Pat Flanagin has also threatened me with violence on several occasions, in person, on the phone, and in emails.

He offered me a car and "several thousand dollars" if I would drop the charges against Chris. Of course, I made it clear he could cram his money and the car up his ass. And bless his heart, I would twist his old, watermelon sized liver, droopy ass laden self into a pretzel like The Zohan

*Update* I've had to remove part of the post due to font issues. I'm not sure if it's Blogger or what, there is a scheduled outage tonight, so maybe that has something to do wth it. I'll finish the post tomorrow after it is back up.

I also have documents on the way that will help with equality issues with the Office of Child Support Enforcement...Peace

Chris Flanagin Chris Flanagin Chris Flanagin S. Christian Flanagin

Arkansas Community Foundation Arkansas Community Foundation Thurman Bishop arkansas eureka springs arkansas chris flanagin matt bishop greg thurman tasha flanagin hank flanagin

thruman and bishop

CHECKING IN ON SUNDAY, BRIEFLY

2009-06-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the shooting in D.C., at the Holocaust Museum, and I've been working on a post that I may have to break in a few parts. Kinda like a mini-series. So, I wanted to say hey- Peace, Searchers.

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CONGRATULATIONS TO MRS SEARCHER!!!!! WE'RE SO PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!!!!

2009-06-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Searcher is the newest member of the Family to earn her Bachelor of Science, in Psychology!!!!!

Graduation was today-

Congratulations, Precious, and many blessings as you head toward your second B.S. degree, (already halfway completed) in Biology! Next step-Med School!!!!

Congratulations graduating from a real school:

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

In and around real States:

WASHINGTON/OREGON

In a real Arena! A mere 20,000 people showed up to see your achievement!!!! SEE ABOVE PICS!!! The Rose Garden, Portland's Premier Arena Venue, home of the TrailBlazers!!!

Your little man and I are so proud of you, AND YOUR NEAR PERFECT GRADE POINT AVERAGE!!!!!

To the doubters, the criminals, the wedding boycotters and haters that laughed at you, those that you have proven are your moral and intellectual inferior-

Fuck-oh hell you know what I'm going to say...

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS

2009-06-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Note: This is a long post, please take time to read it. In it I bring up the tragic case of Nataline Sarkisyan, the girl killed by insurance giant CIGNA, and I remind the recipients of the ridiculous Billy Tauzin (R, Louisiana), the fraud that went to work for PhRMA after he left congress. I am in the process of emailing it to my respective electeds in Washington as well as Arkansas. I am also snail mailing it. We have to make changes in our system, people are dying as a result of policies that our Lobby-Owned Congress refuse to change. Peace-

My Dear Elected Officials- Monday, June 8,

I am writing to request a full explanation regarding the "single payer" option being taken off the table in reference to health care reform.

As you are well aware, scare tactics abound when this subject is broached, as in the early 1990's when insurance lobbies spent upwards of 100 million dollars to kill health care reform when President Clinton first entered office.

I am confident you aware of at least one of the tactics used by Republicans, neocons, skinheads, and some Conservadems, the usual worn-out statement meant to scare people that goes something like this: your sick mother or grandmother will not be able to get treatment because of a government bureaucrat as a result of "socialized medicine." I have noticed some on the right beginning to use catch words such as “rationing of care” “long lines” “you may have to wait six months to see a dentist.” And other nonsense. There have been times I wished I could wait six months to see a dentist because as our current system is designed now, NEVER was how long I would have to wait to receive dental or medical treatment.

Let me remind you of W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Republican, of Louisiana proclaiming over and over again how he "loves his Mama, I love that woman" while on a "family values" crusade and then went to work for PhRMA at a reported salary of 2.5 million dollars a year after he left office. So much for all of the love for Mamas everywhere.

I am confident you are aware of the current for-profit health industry, in which insurance companies such as Aetna, Blue-Cross, and Kaiser Permanente, companies that make billions of dollars profiting from people's misery, have the ability to deny claims.

Perhaps you recall the infamous case of Nataline Sarkisyan, the 17 year old girl that died at the UCLA Medical Center on December 20, 2007 as a result of CIGNA denying her a liver transplant. Unfortunately, Nataline was one of approximately 20,000 American that are killed yearly, one could argue murdered, by the insurance companies they pay premiums to. Premiums that are paid by Americans for the express purpose of the insurance company paying up in the event of a claim being filed.

If you have seen the movie "Sicko," you will recall a scene in which a doctor is testifying before committee on Capitol Hill, and she recounts a particular case in which she had to deny a claim by a man that was dying because of the denial quotas she was expected to adhere to. She testified that had the man received the necessary care he paid for he would not have died. I do not understand why this woman was not immediately detained and charged with this man's death.

Please include an explanation of the lack of detention of this woman in your response. Be advised any references to any sort of immunity deal should be included, but as a taxpayer, I am uninterested in this. Had this scenario played out during a robbery anywhere else, the individual responsible would be imprisoned. In this case the CEO's of these companies are directly responsible, and they have blood of Americans on their hands. When health insurance companies take money for premiums from individuals and do not deliver, that is robbery. Furthermore, if that robbery results in an individual’s death, one could argue a murder occurred.

The current state of our health care system is in shambles. As you are well aware, the United States spends more money on health care than any other Western Nation, and we have less to show than most for our efforts.

I would like to include more statistics for you, but I am confident you already know the numbers.

Here is what I require from you, my dear elected officials: A full explanation of why my elected officials are bowing to the insurance companies by denying a single payer system for the American People. As members of my Congress, you are individuals that enjoy the benefits of health care funded by the American Peoples’ tax dollars. Armed with the knowledge that the paycheck you cash as a result of your elected position is drawn on my Treasury, I will need an explanation for the lack of Congressional regard for the American People, especially our children.

I will also require a detailed explanation as to why my government cannot negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for medication prices as is the practice in other countries. An explanation of the law as it is currently written is unnecessary. I am well aware of the legislation, what I require is detailed explanation of what you are doing to repeal this reckless legislation.

What must not be included in your detailed explanation is any defense of the current for-profit insurance nightmare that has been developed in the United States, which has been as successful as Milton Friedman's economic policies adopted by Ronald Reagan in 1981. We have learned that "trickle down" economics does not work, nor does our health care system. There is no reason to cling to either of these failed policies.

Let me reiterate: under no circumstances are you to defend the current system, it does not need to be defended, it needs to be dismantled completely and redone.

Even Margaret Thatcher, the Ronald Reagan counterpart that turned thousands of police officers and military against her own countrymen and women to break the labor unions, much like Reagan with the Air Traffic Controllers, said of the National Health Service "It is safe with us." Even Thatcher knew the U.K. National Health Service worked, and as one prominent Labour leader stated, "If they touched it there would have been revolution."

Perhaps that is what we need in the United States. Perhaps not, perhaps all we as constituents need to do is vote out politicians that live off the government dole, while they slash education, health, food programs, school lunch programs, while at the same time ensuring their own children and families are well cared for.

As a young man of 40, I have many years left, and while I am sinking myself into thousands of dollars of debt, (my wife as well) because of our abysmally planned higher education system, eventually I will be out of school armed with an education in Public Policy and Poli Sci from Washington State University, Vancouver. My wife will eventually be finished with her second Bachelor of Science, this one in Biology, from WSU Vancouver as well, her first a B.S. in Psychology from Portland State, and she will eventually be in and out of Medical School, with a mere $200,000 dollars in debt, and together we will work to ensure the current system in the United States is turned on it head.

An interesting side note, at this point in time, due to the failed policies of the past 30 years, we are considered poor enough to qualify for the State of Washington health care system. Thank you Washington. My primary care physician is a remarkable woman from India, where, when she trained there 15 years ago, related to me just today in conversation that India has programs that put women into Medical Schools for free. She also related to me the appalling amount of waste in the United States in relation to health care. You see, the Indians are interested in investing in their people; they approach government as government and not as a corporation that only thinks about the P&L Sheet. It is time to once again wake up and realize the U.S. government is not a business; it is a government, one that must invest in its people, not its lobbyists, and the CEO's of massive financial firms on Wall Street.

Ms. Patty Murray, Ms. Maria Cantwell, and Mr. Brian Baird, my wife, son and I are constituents in Washington State.
Mr. Mark Pryor and Ms. Blanche Lincoln, I have two children of voting age in your state, and two more that will soon be of voting age.
I am including some of our Republican elected officials in my request, so be assured I hold all Members of my Congress fully responsible for the paralysis on this and many other extraordinarily important issues.

Mid-terms are just around the corner, and 2012 will be here soon. As a former Conservative that voted Republican for 22 years, (for Heaven's sake I voted for Mike Huckabee of Arkansas; sorry about that, my wife proudly proclaims she did not) I have fully embraced the Democratic Party's principle of people over profit. Please do not disappoint me.

Thank you for your time, I realize you are in session, and I will be patient. However, please understand paralysis in D.C. is trying most Americans' patience. I will be following up with each of you, and I will post this letter and your responses on my blog, www.mikesearches.blogspot.com.

Sincerely,

It is time for systemic change in the United States.

REGARDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DISCRIMINATION-STILL WAITING ON PERCY MALONE, OF ARKANSAS

2009-06-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

I spoke with Senator Percy Malone's (D Arkadelphia) assistant a few days ago, she told me he was in D.C., no doubt standing up for an entire group of people he clearly discriminated against in the past. But I'm sure he has righted his ways, I'm confident he's had his "Road to Damascus" (or flight path to D.C.) experience. Probably not.

Mr. Malone, please come out from under your desk and address the comments you made to me, the comments I posted on my blog. I did notice that someone from Arkadelphia has been hitting my blog, specifically searching "percy malone." Could it be the elusive Percy Malone himself? We'll see, I will be around far longer than him, fighting for the rights of adults and children alike, and I will not relent.

The policies of the Office of Child Support Enforcement contribute to depression, abject poverty, despair, they harm children, they lead to dysfunction in children and families, they pit families against one another, and they lead to increased drug abuse, increased alcohol abuse, and domestic violence.

In addition, the laws as they are written violate Article 14 of the United States Constitution as well as a whole host of Articles from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United States on December 10, 1948. And for the Intellectually Incurious out there, those that never heard of The Declaration, the Chairperson of this historical and monumental Declaration was First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt.

I challenge you to prove me wrong Mr. Malone. Oh I forgot, you "don't much care about the adults," do you Percy? Did you ever stop to think "Senator" that the Government Check drawn on the Treasury you cash from your elected seat comes from the backs of tax paying adults? For some reason, I don't think you're much of a thinker...I am still awaiting your response to my email and my articles.

Peace-

Onward

SHELL OIL AGREES TO PAY MILLIONS TO RELATIVES OF MURDERED NIGERIAN WRITER

2009-06-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

I posted about this and I have stayed on top of it. (I'm a writer and activist that has had threats of violence made against me and my family and there has been one attempt on my life to date) 15.5 million will be paid to the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa in an out of court settlement. It is a victory, as people will be compensated for a loved one's death. However, it would have been far better had the trial resulted in a judgement against Royal Dutch Shell, as State/Corporate sponsored terrorism has been practiced by Western Corporations for hundreds of years. Ford Motors is a good example. Below are some excerpts, read the story in entirety here.

Nigeria victims hail $15.5 mln Shell payout

Victims of murder, torture and other abuses by Nigeria's former military government on Tuesday hailed a landmark out-of-court settlement with Royal Dutch Shell over its alleged complicity in the crimes.
Shell agreed on Monday in New York to pay out 15.5 million dollars (10.7 million euros) to relatives of Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and others executed in 1995 in what plaintiffs said was a campaign of repression backed by the oil giant.
The settlement brings to an end a long battle by the Nigerian victims and means that Shell avoids a potentially embarrassing court case while having to accept no actual wrongdoing.
Saro-Wiwa had led a non-violent campaign to protest environmental destruction and abuses against the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta before he was hanged along with other activists after his trial in a military court.

"We welcome the 15.5 million dollars compensation for the illegal killings of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other eight Ogoni leaders," Bariara Kpalap, spokesman for the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), told AFP.

But Kpalap insisted Shell must still address the issue of environmental pollution and change the way it does business in the oil-rich Niger Delta, where farmers and fishermen are being driven off.

Again, I am thankful for the family being compensated, but capitalism is not working, and American corporations are responsible for this reprehensible activity, and they must be confronted and the demons of the past, such as slavery and unbridled capitalism, must be exorcised for the United States to move forward.

Peace, Searchers...Onward!

image credit

CRAZIES AT FOX NEWS JUST DON'T GET IT: THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE ON THE PLANET BESIDES AMERICANS-MORE IDIOCY FROM "THE GREAT WHITE RIGHT"

2009-06-08T13:35:00.001-07:00

I still feel like an idiot for paying attention to Fox News for the years that I did. I am thankful I woke up and realized that Fox News is absolutely nothing more than a propaganda machine for the Christian Right, the Republicans, and the Right Wing terrorists like the guy that murdered a doctor in church last week.

Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly, Meghan Kelly, Kilmeade, Doocy's dumbass, and the ever dumber Gretchen Carlson are propagandists that routinely spew hate, racism and fear, and they encourage violence against people they disagree with.

It worries me that a large portion of Middle America watches this drivel. It tells me that a vast portion of the population of the United States simply haven't a clue. Watch Jon Stewart break it down, he gives a commentary of Barak Obama's speech in Cairo, Egypt, and the ridiculous response by the brainless at Fox. Enjoy-And boycott Fox News.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Looking for Comity in the Muslim World

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Economic Crisis

Peace Searchers-

"OH YOU DON'T NEED METH AND YOU DON'T NEED SPEED CAUSE EVERYTHING'S BETTER WITH A BAG OF WEED"

2009-06-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

This episode of the Family Guy came on in April, on the 20th, it was replayed on Fox tonight, in celebration of all things herbage. I had to post it, there is no sense in hiding who I am. As I become more and more involved in policy in the United States, I am not going to sell out as some have tried to entice me to do. (Patrick Henry Flanagin, (D) Forrest City, AR.)

Regarding the issues I hold dear, the issues that affect my family and thousands if not millions of others, passion is me and I am passion.

I am for the legalization Marijuana. Hard drugs must be focused on, drugs like Meth, Cocaine, Heroin and alcohol. Marijuana is simply not on the same level as these others, and Pot contributes to far less horror, tragedy, depression and death as oh, I don't know, a legal drug such as Alcohol.

100,000 die in the U.S. from Alcohol every year, and that DOES NOT include car wrecks.

The foolishness regarding the obsolete policies of the vilification of hemp and marijuana have to be addressed and cast aside. They simply do not measure up to the science. This is just another addition of things on my plate. Enjoy, Searchers, and remember:

"A bag of weed, a bag of weed, everything's better with a bag of weed!"

Oh, and I wanted to point out that the border of the vid is green Ha,Ha...

peace, Love y'all

*update* I changed the title of this post, cause I wanted to.

ON EDUCATION, HEALTH, AND SOULS, PART 2

2009-06-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I posted regarding frustrations due to the lack of progress on education, health and souls.

I have plenty to say, but little time right now to expound. Subsequently, I have decided to re-post Bill Maher's "New Rules" from May 29, 2009.

Please take 7 minutes out of your day, fix a Mojito, and watch the following clip. It is beyond time for change in the United States. Below the video I have posted a link to "On Education, Health and Souls Part 1." Peace, Searchers...

Actually, I think I'll just paste the previous post...much love!
ON EDUCATION, HEALTH AND SOULS, PART 1
Trying to put the anger aside that has motivated me on several of my previous posts, I am exploring how I feel about this country, and its people.

There is something to be said about the soul of a country when that country makes taking care of one another a priority.It seems to me that priorities of a nation reveals its true nature; its soul.What does it say about the US that children don't have health coverage and we twice elected a President that doesn't want health care for a certain group of children?

What would Jesus do?

What does it say about the US when young college students enter the workforce thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and older college students those that are in their late 20's, early 30's and beyond to have to start sinking themselves into massive debt at a later age?

And from the perspective of a student/worker with his wife still in school and struggling to make ends meet, to have to go begging for help, feeling demeaned, with all of the resources in the US, instead of that help and support already there as a basic right. I believe healthcare and education are basic rights.

And the United Nation agrees:
Article 25 of the United Nation Declaration of Human Rights:
1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control

And from Article 26:
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit

Why do I care what the UN has to think? Because the United States signed it.

A single woman in Arkansas shouldn't have to worry about losing her home, working two or three crappy jobs to support herself, all the while wanting to go school (in a state with almost no services, or sympathy) to improve herself any more than a father in Washington should have to worry about milk for his son, or tuition for his wife or himself. To have to choose between groceries and electricity or rent/house payment and education in the United States of America in 2008 is obscene.

Equally obscene is the tendency of some to label the woman in Arkansas, or the man in Washington as lazy, or dumb, or deserving.

What would Jesus do?

The right wing has done a great job in feeding the nation the idea that the poor are fully responsible for their plight.Ditto for the brainwashing that cutting social services and education is somehow going to magically force the poor into the middle class.

What does it say about a country when you look at a map of the states red/blue, states like Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, these states of the Bible Belt where Obama is getting hammered, yet McCain and Palin have proven themselves to be frauds and liars, and people are still supporting them.Even if it goes against their personal interests.Amazing.

We need people in office that have the interests of the people at heart. It is time to bring back our social programs, shore up our infrastructure, and provide education for all. The only way to remain strong as a nation is to invest in the people. Period.
We need a systemic change in the United States.

Peace-Mike

REGARDING "THE POST AMERICAN WORLD" BY FAREED ZAKARIA

2009-06-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

I have just completed his book, in which he discusses the up and coming nations, the "rise of the rest" as he calls it.

I found it to be an extremely easy read, Zakaria doesn't make you feel as though you need a degree in economics or poli sci to understand it.

I highly recommend it, every American should read it, it is that important. Americans need to realize that, as a nation, the United States shift in hegemony has to be addressed. Peace, Searchers!

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REMEMBERING THE DEAD TODAY AND THE LIVES THEY SAVED

2009-06-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Today is the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy. I'm 40 years old, so as I grew up in my home in Chicago, when my parents referred to "The War" it was World War 2, not Vietnam or Korea.

The invasion of Normandy was the largest sea assault of its time. A massive air assault took place just before the sea invasion began. According to Wikipedia, 160,000 troops landed that day on the Normandy beaches in France. The numbers are staggering, and although I have not been able to back up his claim, my father told me that the life expectancy of a soldier landing on those beaches was five minutes.

These troops fought and died to battle the hideous ideas of Fascism and Nazism. It was a just war, one of necessity as opposed to choice.

I visited Europe when I was in third grade, but I did not visit the cemetery at Normandy (the American Cemetery at Normandy is pictured.) Thousands upon thousands of Christian Crosses and Stars of David, (forgive my ignorance but I am unaware if there are any Crescents of Islam) stand eternally at attention, marking the graves of Americans that are interred in France, never to be returned to their home soil of the United States. Rarely did I see my dad choked with emotion, but upon seeing the row after row after row of graves, I believe for a time he actually was human.

Reflecting upon the war we are in right now, not the foolish "war on terror" but the real combat situation in Iraq, I have to ask...why?

So, on this anniversary of D-Day, I give a somber thanks to those that fought and died and those that were maimed both physically and mentally to make damn sure we could live in a vastly freer society than Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini envisioned.

Peace, Searchers...

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CHASING DOWN ARKANSAS LEGISLATORS

2009-06-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

I posted a few days ago regarding Percy Malone of Arkadelphia, AR. (pictured) I have attempted to obtain a statement from his office, and at the time of this posting I am waiting on a call from Senator Malone to discuss the email I sent him as well as the post from a few days ago. I'll post the discussion when it occurs, I'm not holding my breath, but I'm confident I will be able to catch up with him.

A sidebar-he looks congenial enough (albeit a little squirrly) in his picture but (I've used this analogy before) dealing with him reminded me of watching John McCain wander around the stage during the 2nd Presidential debate like a octogenarian looking for his lost Poodle.

I will say I spoke with his assistant today, Amy Johnson, and she was as polite and gracious as always. Perhaps some of her personality will rub off on Malone. Again, no breath holding here.

Not much else to say at this point, except for this: Change will come to the system of the OCSE as we know it today. The policies of the OCSE lead to the destruction of families, the policies pit families against one another, and the policies discriminate against a particular group of people, with taxpayer money. Clearly this is violation of the 14th amendment of the Constitution, as well as numerous Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Peace-

VIGILANTE JUSTICE IN PHILADELPHIA

2009-06-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

An 11 year old girl was brutally raped in Philly and the police distributed a photo of a "person of interest" to the girls neighbors asking for help in locating the person of interest, Jose Carrasquillo. The police put a $10,000 bounty on his head. The Field Negro breaks it down much more in depth.
So when Jose came walking down the street, a mob jumped his ass and beat him nearly to death. This is a problem.

The problem lies with several things, not the least of which is as follows:

Distributing photos of an individual that is a "person of interest," not a suspect, to people in the neighborhood where the crime occurred. Offering money to be paid immediately on the delivery of the "person of interest." I see the reasoning behind the distribution of pix, but I question the wisdom of the other. Read the article here, it's fucking nuts.

Mob mentality. I abhor anyone that commits violent crime against innocents be they children or adults. My wife and I are victims of violent crime, and I abhor that type of behavior. However, in the United States we have a system of laws that is meant to protect both the victim as well as the accused. Keep in mind Jose Carrasquillo had not been charged with the rape, he had not been tried for the rape, and he had not been convicted of the rape. This is what fucking pisses me off about mob mentality. Who the fuck are these people to attack an individual who could possibly be in the wrong place at the wrong time? This type of shit smacks of the type of mob mentality that took the life of young Emmit Till.

You remember Emmit Till, don't you? He was the 14 year old Black kid that whistled at a white woman in the Jim Crow South. They beat the child to death and gouged his eyes out. His body when recovered was displayed in an open casket at the demands of his mother so the entire world could see what these motherfuckers did to her baby.

Maybe Jose Carrasquillo did rape this little girl. If he did, hang the son of a bitch from the highest tree, AFTER a fair trial, fair conviction, and sentencing.

This also reminds me of an incident in Arkansas when another accused rapist was assaulted and castrated by local officials and the scumbag sheriff, who happened to be a friend of Mrs. Searchers father, (this asshole sheriff used to have drinks with him and kick it at their house for cookouts, etc.) displayed this guy's nuts in a jar on his desk. Sheriff Coolidge Conley of St. Francis county ended up dying in prison. A fitting end to a real piece of shit. Would that fate could occur to Mrs. Searcher's father as well.

This also reminds me of an incident that occurred on August 26, 2000, when Mrs. Searcher's brother broke into our home at 1:50 am and attempted to murder me. (Good job not running the story you fuckmooks at the Jonesboro Sun in Jonesboro, AR. Your paper aided and abetted in the promotion violent crime, and you hold at least some of the responsibility for the absolute abortion of justice in the case of The State of Arkansas v. Samuel C. Flanagin.)

I am against vigilante justice. However, in the case of the Flanagin's from Forrest City, AR, (all of them), I just may be a hypocrite. Or maybe not. It's okay, I subscribe to neither their warped version of christianity nor their insane view of reality.

Peace, Searchers

DRIVE FOR DEMOCRACY-TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE 20 YEARS LATER

2009-06-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

I will never forget when the oppressed in China rose up against their totalitarian government and were brutally crushed. Chinese students to this day do not learn about the uprising in their schools and references to "the June 4 incident" are forbidden from search engines such as Google. Screw you, Google, I know blogspot is google but what the fuck? Bowing to a communist government like China, and our government selling our country to China "so Americans can have a couple of extra lattes" (i will not plagiarize you Fareed Zakaria, I got that line from your fabulous book- "The Post American World") is the epitome of stupidity.

"When China's pro-democracy protesters gathered in Tiananmen Square
they built a makeshift Statue of Liberty, not an F-16"-Fareed Zakaria, "The Post American World"

So will someone please explain to me why in the hell we still have sanctions against the Island of Cuba? You know, I want to see Havana for god's sake, I want to sample the cuisine and I want to celebrate the vibrant Caribbean life of Cuba.

Why do we do business with China?

Peace, Searchers, and honor to the people that were massacred, imprisoned, and disappeared by their government. Perhaps the United States will wake up and stop acting so foolishly with this oppressive regime.

And to the brave man in the photo,(it is forever burned into my psyche) facing down the tanks, my utmost respect to you friend, may you have peace. To the best of my knowledge this man disappeared and his whereabouts are unknown. If I am incorrect in this information, post a comment with sources...

Mike

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BLOWN AWAY BY WORLD-WIDE INTEREST

2009-06-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

As time goes by and the world transitions from print to electronic media, I am so amazed by the countries that stop by this little blog every day. I love to check out other blogs from Spain to Lithuania, to Argentina, South Africa and beyond. I love this media, I am grateful for it, and as I am a young man, I look forward to years of commentary and reporting to you, world, via this medium. Click on the map and check out some of the places... Peace-

Mike

TERROR IN THE HEARTLAND,MURDER IN CHURCH UPDATE

2009-06-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

I left a message a couple of days ago with Liz from Planned Parenthood. She handles media requests. In light of the shooting in a church in Kansas of a doctor that provided abortions, I was curious as to how people involved with Planned Parenthood in my area were handling things, and if there was an uptick in threats, etc., from people here.

So it's been a couple of days since I contacted her, and she returned my call today.
I asked her how people were holding up and she indicated that support in Washington and Oregon remains strong, and they have in fact beefed up security at clinics, and I was under the impression that security, while always on their mind, was a renewed subject at the water cooler in the offices region-wide.

Liz indicated to me that they take security and threats against clinics and staff very seriously, and she made it clear that law enforcement on every level, Federal, State and Local have been extraordinarily helpful.

I asked Liz if there had been an escalation in threats since the attack last Sunday, unfortunately I failed to ask her if there has been an escalation in threats of violence since Obama's election, but if you read my Blog, Liz, feel free to comment and let me know! Regarding an uptick in threats here, she said aside from the usual protesters they encounter on a daily basis, there has not been a noticeable increase in Washington and Oregon, but she acknowledged that people here are generally more supportive of reproductive rights. She could not tell me if there has been an increase of threats of violence in other areas of the country. Be safe y'all...

I would like to drop this on you, Searchers: overall I do not like abortion. Like most pro-choice people, I do not like abortion. But the right wing and Fundamentalist Christians need to realize the fact that abortion is not going away. The right wing and American Christianity has these abortion blinders on and that is all they can see.

These dumbasses, (largely made up of what I like to call (with total sarcasm) the Great White Right), especially in the Bible racist Belt, vote on this one issue, and like true provincial thinkers focus on this while the schools are crumbling around them, hell, Mrs. Searcher's worthless pappy wasted tax payer money as a state rep for 11 terms, that's 22 years, and the schools in Forrest City, Arkansas at the time were some of the worst in the state.
Jobs are disappearing and Rural America is as broke and poor as ever, but the conservatives (and yes I mean you too, Conservadems, just cause you vote for Mark Pryor or Blanche Lincoln doesn't mean you're not voting Republican) want to vote their religion instead of common sense and decency. Not surprising, religion, especially fundamentalist christianity, evangelical, whatever the hell label you want to put on it, especially in the United States, is about dumbing people down, denying rights, education and health care, and discrimination and intolerance.

It is no wonder I switched sides. Peace, Searchers...

PUSHING FOR EQUAL RIGHTS IN AMERICA (HINT-THE GUY IN THE PICTURE ISN'T DOWN WITH THAT)

2009-06-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

I dedicated the latter part of last week, that is Thursday and Friday, to chasing down elected officials in Arkansas to try to establish who specifically legislates the Office of Child Support Enforcement. I believe I have it narrowed down to two individuals, Representative Greg Reep of Warren, AR and Senator Percy Malone (pictured) of Arkadelphia, AR. (When I write "Thursday and Friday," it implies I took a mere two days to research information. That is a simplification; I have been pursuing this information for months...)

I interrupted Rep. Reep's golf game, and we agreed to talk later. When I spoke with Reep, he came across as a thinker, he listened to my statements regarding the current crises facing families and asked that I supply him with information so he could research the issues.

When I reached Arkansas State Senator Percy Malone it was quite another story. With a voice and twang that would do Jim Nabors proud, (shout out to Sylacauga, Alabama) Mr. Malone rebuffed my statements with such eloquent remarks as, "When it comes to child support I don't much care about the adults," and "I don't have anything to do with what happens across the country," and then the ubiquitous pseudo-intellectual statement: "All I care about is the kids" which is nothing more than a bullshit statement, especially when it comes from the mouth of a politician, as it is meant to appeal to some heartstrings in voters, because who in their right mind would be against children? *collective gasp*

"What Arkansas State Senator Percy Malone fails to
realize is that children and adults are intricately intertwined and
interdependent. There is not a father on this planet that does not
want to interact with his children, neither is there a mother that doesn't crave the same."

For Mr. Malone to not be able to put the two together is quite remarkable, but as another Arkansas Senator,Mark Pryor, famously said: "You don't have to pass an I.Q. test to be in the Senate." Clearly.

Mr. Malone's failure to grasp the fact that policy in Arkansas can cause severe harm to a 6 year old child half a continent away speaks whole volumes about his lack of knowledge as it pertains to modern times. Mr. Malone, pick up a newspaper or plug in that clam-shell thingy, I think it's called a lap-top or sumthin...

When I suggested that the state discontinue the policy of making non-custodial parents reimburse the state when the custodial parent applies for certain types of aid, (and the state forces and coerces the custodial parent to sign away their rights to child support, without qualified legal council) his immediate, knee-jerk statement was "Oh they'll never change that," which reveals Senator Malone's deep fear of change in the status quo. This is exactly the type of person that should not be in office.

One of the problems with guys like Percy Malone, (and he's not alone, Mrs. Searcher's father has the same unenviable trait,) is they exist in a bubble due to their elected position. Most have seen prosperity for all of their lives, couple that with living in Arkansas, throw in a heaping dose of conservatism, with a lack of intellectual curiosity, and out pops people like Percy Malone. And Mrs. Searcher's pappy.

Another problem with guys like Percy Malone is they prominently display their religion on their state websites. In this case, Malone's website lists "Baptist" as his church affiliation, but when given the opportunity to discuss real issues such as policy that is resulting in the destruction of families, Mr. Malone makes statements that denigrate an entire group of people which directly contradicts the teachings of the central figure of the Baptist denomination, Jesus Christ.

I emailed Mr. Malone after our conversation, the body of which you can read at the end of this post. I intend to call Mr. Malone's office tomorrow, 06.04, to obtain a statement. I will publish the results of the call.

Lest there be any confusion, let me be clear: I intend to see reform come to child support enforcement. I believe the statutes as they are written violate the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as Articles 1,2, 3,6,7,21.2, and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Email to Percy Malone:

Mr. Malone- May 29, 2009

Thank you for your time Friday discussing crucially important child support issues. I regret that you were unable to articulate with any eloquence the rationale behind the reckless policies of the Office Child Support Enforcement. I do appreciate your stated concern regarding "the children" and your adamant declaration that you "don't much care about the adults." This is abundantly clear as you continue to support policies that contribute to the despair and destruction of families. Armed with your regrettable comments as well as the memory of our short phone conversation it comes as no surprise that you cannot comprehend a connection between adults and children. Apparently in the world of Percy Malone, children somehow appear without the help of adults, and when the benevolent Mr. Malone waves his magic wand all children are self-sufficient, because in Mr. Percy's world, children and adults have no connection. Brilliant.

As for your statement, "I don't have anything to do with what happens across the country," this gives me a glimpse into your lack of vision, lack of intellectual curiosity, as well as your provincial mindset. Your inability to connect dots in the simplest of pictures is remarkable.

I realize you got off on the wrong foot with me but I am confident we can move forward amicably while you still hold office. I look forward to frequent future conversations with you as the OCSE policies as currently written must be reviewed in the context of the age we live in today as opposed to maintaining the status quo. The review of these policies must only result in one thing: a sea change in the Office of Child Support Enforcement.

Sincerely,

Peace, Searchers

image credit: Arkansas State Assembly website.

SAMANTHA OROBATOR SENTENCED TO LIFE IN LAOTIAN PRISON

2009-06-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Such is the reality of the judicial system in a country such as Laos.

Samantha Orobator will not be facing a firing squad after all. There is work being done to bring here back to her home country, the United Kingdom. I wish her and her family well, even if she was a "mule" as some say, the underlying issues regarding drug use is more important than any sovereign nation's law, the United States included. Here is the write up, thanks to dailymail.co.uk.

A pregnant British woman has been convicted of heroin smuggling in Laos and sentenced to life in prison.
Samantha Orobator, 20, could now return to the UK within a week under a prisoner transfer agreement.
She avoided a mandatory death sentence by becoming pregnant during the ten months she spent in jail after being caught with 1.5lb of heroin at an airport in the capital, Vientiane.
Execution of pregnant prisoners is banned in Laos. Mystery surrounds how she was able to conceive. She was in a mixed-sex jail, but men and women are held separately.
A state-run newspaper in Laos claimed she impregnated herself by secretly obtaining sperm from another prisoner.
Orobator, from South London, is understood to be nearly 28 weeks pregnant after which she is not supposed to fly.
Her lawyers have advised her not to appeal against her sentence so she can fly to Britain as soon as possible.
Moves to bring her back will begin today.

Read the rest at the link above...Peace Searchers...

TRIAL TO BEGIN IN LAOS OF PREGNANT BRITON FACING FIRING SQUAD

2009-06-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

When I wrote about Samantha Orobator previously, I promised I would keep abreast of the situation. This is an absolutely nightmarish situation for the young lady as well as her family. I don't care about the law of any sovereign nation; most drug issues are social issues, not criminal. From CNN:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A pregnant British woman held on drug-smuggling charges in Laos will go on trial Wednesday, the British Foreign Office said, citing the government of the south-east Asian country.

Samantha Orobator, 20, was jailed last August at the airport in the Lao capital Vientiane and charged with carrying about half a kilogram of heroin. She is more than five months pregnant, and legal aid charity Reprieve -- which has worked on her case -- is urging that her case be resolved and she be allowed to return to England before she enters the third trimester of pregnancy on June 6.
Britain and Laos signed a prisoner transfer agreement last month, the British Foreign Office said but refused to disclose its details.
Orobator became pregnant in prison under circumstances which remain unclear.
She told her mother she was not raped in prison and that the father was not a Lao prison official, Jane Orobator said May 19 after visiting her daughter. Watch Jane Orobator describe learning about her daughter's arrest »
A newspaper run by the Lao government reported Tuesday that Orobator said she impregnated herself with the sperm of another prisoner being held in the same jail.
A Reprieve spokeswoman said the charity did not know if the newspaper report was true.

"We haven't seen her to confirm this, but are keen that this issue -- which is irrelevant to the case -- does not delay or affect the trial," Katherine O'Shea told CNN via e-mail. "Our first priority is the health of mother and baby, which means swift trial and return to the UK."
The British Foreign Office refused to comment on the newspaper report, saying it would not be able to talk about the case until the trial ends. Watch what's known about Samantha Orobator »
A spokeswoman said the British government did not know how long the trial would last. She declined to be named, in line with policy.

TERROR IN THE HEARTLAND,MURDER IN CHURCH, THIS IS NO TIME TO CUT MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING

2009-06-01T17:17:00.000-07:00

I have spent a lot of time in church. I grew up in the Catholic Church, I was confirmed, (John, in case you're wondering,) and after I left the Catholic Church at 15, I started attending again at age 20, but I got into Evangelical religion, specifically the charismatic/pentecostal movement... I became quite passionate about religion, and I began to minister in churches in Northeast Arkansas. I used to attend a church in a little town called Pocahontas, (true story) and I ministered occasionally on Wednesdays, and sometimes on Sunday nights. I also ministered in Walnut Ridge, AR, at Sister Becky's church, I guess that's where I "got my start." We had pieces of plywood covering the holes in the floor of this dilapidated shack owned by another preacher that charged an absolutely outrageous price for this dump, somewhere around $500 a month(extortion!).

So, I was thinking about the times that I have been on the platform, speaking, disseminating the knowledge that I had, the points that I had studied in the scriptures, points that I had spent agonizing hours of prayer and fasting to ensure I was tuned in...

The point is, at no time did I ever think my own life could have been in danger as a result of my personal beliefs. (Believe me, at the end of my preaching run, I was beginning to focus solely on reform in the church I attended and almost no one was interested in that.)

Again, at no time was I ever concerned about some whacko stepping into the church and open firing because of my personal beliefs, my politics, etc...hell I preached on January 15, 1991 the day my precious daughter was born, and the day the U.N. prepared the way for the invasion of Iraq the first time, which began just a few short hours later-shout out to my precious New Year Baby! I also had a key my pastor, Bro. Grey gave me, and I made it a habit to go to the church an hour or so before work to meditate and gather my thoughts for the day.

Which is why I find it so disturbing that this doctor, Dr. George Tiller was gunned down in church, where he served as a deacon, and as I understand it, his wife was in the choir at the time of his murder.

I have been involved with Fundamentalist Christianity for more than 20 years. I can say decisively, that although most will not admit it publicly, most will say this "baby killer" this "murderer" got exactly what he deserved.

This is not the first time a right wing terrorist invaded a church (remember Jim Adkisson, Knoxville TN? My family and I lived in Knoxville, he said he did it to kill liberals) and it will not be the last. We will see a trend. The "Christians" (in truth the "Anti-Christians") have gone nuts, and they celebrate killing in the name of God.

This is what concerns me most about the right wing and the Republican Party: they will kill if necessary, and they will do it in the name of God. Does anyone else see a connection between Islamic extremism and Right Wing, Republican extremism? I know you do.

The right wing and the Republican Party are completely responsible for this man's murder, this act of terror. They kill and hate and murder in the name of God, and they are too fucking lazy to get off their asses and approach the legal practice of abortion legally, and make changes to the law.

Let me reiterate and expand: The right wing, Fundamentalist Christianity, and the Republican Party are absolutely responsible for this man's murder.
It is time for systemic change in the United States.

Peace-

NEW RULES BILL MAHER 5.29.09 GREED

2009-05-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is the latest New Rules segment from Bill Maher's HBO show "Real Time with Bill Maher."

I'll try to post his "New Rules" segment from now on, in this clip he mentions the electrocution of American Soldiers due to shoddy electrical work, (I blogged about this) he mentions the dumping of patients on the streets on L.A. because of no insurance.

He relates the growing for-profit prison industry, the fact that we have more people in prison than China for God's sake, he talks about the food industry. Searchers, it is time to wake up and see where we have been heading for the past 30 years, since Reagan was elected and our nation embraced greed like a drunk with a five dollar whore. Enjoy, watch it and then watch it again, then watch it again, then subscribe to HBO if you don't have it already. It is time for systemic change in the United States...Peace