illumined horizon

Everything I've read by Doug Thompson has been good. I don't agree with his view here, but I think he has a more valuable perspective than those who would just dismiss these theories without spending any time to seriously consider them. If you're convinced the man did 9/11 this article won't change your mind (it didn't change mine), but you may want to look at it anyway.

I heard Rabbi Michael Lerner on Alan Colmes show last night. He was talking about this group. I'm just becoming aquainted with Rabbi Lerner, I've been really impressed with him, and Rev. Wallis from what I've seen of both of them. Progressives and the spiritual community need more like these guys.

I'm sure this investigation will really help Chavez's reputation with Bush. He obviously seems to enjoy being a thorn in Dubya's side anyway.

I doubt we'll see Ann Coulter behind bars, but dreams can come true.

I don't understand why liberals and progressives don't stand up and call a spade a spade. As far as I can tell the only issue that conservatives are either ethical or moral on is abortion. Maybe some hardcore pro-choice feminists do not agree with me (and I'm pro-choice), but it is probably accurate that Jesus would not have been pro-choice. So one for the conservatives, zero for progressives.

But who advocates for the poor? Liberals or conservatives? Who advocates for disadvantaged and abused children? Who says we should not use prisons to deposit the folks that our school system and economic system fails? Who says that murdering people is not an appropriate message to send to teach that murdering people is wrong? Who says that health care is a right and not a privilege? Who says that education should be affordable and available up to PhD level?

The conservative claim of being the moral group in American society is a charade. Illuminating this charade to the voting public should be a priority for the left. The failure of the left to have already done this, means time is ticking on the potential of this issue for the elections in 2006 and beyond. Why this is not a no-brainer and instead has been a huge liability for the Democrats I certainly don't know. Carpe Diem! Progressives! It's time to take this issue from the hands of the right.

Why couldn't this be like Rep. Ney from Ohio? They've always got to mess with Cynthia.

I found this entry pretty bad, generally what I read about emo I think is pretty bad. Some of the all time greatest bands such as Current, Anasarca, Navio Forge, Bob Tilton, Constantine Sankathi, Shotmaker, Frail, Amber Inn, Elements of Need, Torches to Rome, Groundwork (Four Hundred Years was mentioned) are not listed, and too much indie rock and alternative rock (even Weezer!) is mentioned as emo. I personally think emo ended in the late 90s, but unfortunately it looks like it will go on (or at least stuff purporting to be emo), and a lot of stuff that is pretty much completely antithetical to the original movement will be classified and regarded as such.

Call me easily amused, but these Wikipedia entries are really putting me in stitches. I mean this stuff is the fringe of the fringe, yet it's documented by Wikipedia.

I think it would be tragic if the U.S. military went into Columbia. I'm no expert on Latin American politics, but Colombia has been in a civil war pretty much since the 1960s, and of course America would be intervening on the side of big business and the wealthy at the expense of the usual 'undesirables' who are standing in the way of globalization, oligarchy, and profiteering.

The guerrillas in Colombia have not been saints working for the dispossessed, but I do believe they would promote a more economically equitable system in Columbia if they were to takeover state power. Their record on human rights is troubling, but from what I have read the government and right-wing paramilitary groups have repeatedly violated human rights as well. In this type of conflict there is almost never a completely 'good guy' or a completely bad one. Of course if the U.S. does go in the military will spin it as 'democracy promotion' or some such; so the truth of the situation on the ground unfortunately, won't be capable of stopping the worst or potentially any inauspicious action.

CNN may have had a quasi-legitimate reason to cancel this, but still, something doesn't seem right.

This is a pretty atypical list, I think, but these are my picks:

1)Match Point
2)Brokeback Mountain
3)The New World
4)Walk the Line
5)The Constant Gardener
6)Munich
7)Pride and Prejudice
8)A History of Violence
9)Good Night, and Good Luck.
10)The Weather Man

In case anyone is wondering I did see some critically acclaimed films that I purposely left off, Crash and The Squid and the Whale come to mind. I liked them both but not as top ten material. I also really liked the movie Pretty Persuasion, but this movie was so unsung that I feared putting it on my top ten... Consider it choice # 11. I also liked Grizzly Man, Upside of Anger, and Shopgirl, so I guess I'll give them an honorable mention as well.

This may be harder to spin than the usual war criticism, I'm sure Rove and co. will do it anyway.

I've been having a lot of fun with Wikipedia since I looked up the black helicopter bit. For those not familiar with David Icke the entry on him is really worth reading. I don't think a normal non-internet encyclopedia covers these kind of topics. Wikipedia (they don't advertise on my blog) is really great this way, they cover the panoply of characters and ideas out there; nothing seems to be out of bounds for them.

The Charlie Sheen story made me wonder what in the hell the black helicopter theory actually is. I was aware there was a conspiracy theory pertaining to this and presumably some hardcore devotees of it somewhere out there, but I didn't really know what it was all about until I read Wikipedia. I think some alien abductees have actually reported seeing these things, but I guess they're supposed to be the weapon of choice for the NWO or some such.

I'm not sure how much more I'm going to do on the Charlie Sheen thing, at first I was just stunned to see it, and then I was actually pretty surprised about the media blackout. I think it did take some courage for him to stand up and I respect him for doing it. So far not much positive seems to have come out of it accept for Alex Jones and another guy from the 9/11 Truth Movement on that CNN show. Perhaps it's just the beginning of the official story becoming 'the magic planes theory', and then at least some sort of veil of secrecy will have been removed.

I would assume this is going on in the U.S. as well but I have seen no hard evidence of it.

A couple of scathing reviews of Bush's recent speech in Clevo.

On the left of the Democratic Party there seems to be quite a bit of talk and excitement about a Presidential run for Russ Feingold. His recent censure proposal has placed him squarely in the spotlight, and makes him stand out as presidential fodder for 2008. Feingold, though, I think really arouses the left only of the party and, indeed, the country as a whole. So instead of running Feingold or some one like him I think the Democrats need to run some one who appears centrist, but is progressive enough on enough issues that s/he really stands for the party's traditional platform and values as well.

I think in 2008 the best options for the Democrats are Al Gore, John Edwards (probably doesn't have the credentials but being from the South may help him), and Mark Warner (who is not very liberal but highly electable, I think). I also want to take a long hard look at Gen. Clark, Tom Daschle, and Bill Richardson, and the party should take them seriously as candidates as well. It would be nice for a change for the Democrats to run a strong liberal and see what happens, but a McGovern-esque turn of events would a terrible turnout in the 2008 race.

I think the time to run a liberal was Howard Dean in 2004 because Bush had successfully bullied the country into submission and what was needed was some one to stand up strongly to Bush's bullying. Now that Bush has so successfully sullied his own reputation and that of his party, I think even though he and the Republicans are much weaker than they were in 2004 it makes more sense for the Democrats to run a pragmatist rather than a pugilist. The American people will be looking, in 2008, for competency much more than some one presenting a strong alternative direction. I feel even though the country is on an abysmal path under Bush there may be some trepidation among the voters about going down a radically different path, so the voters will want some one to correct the course of the country without doing anything extreme or drastic.

CNN, the New York Post, and the Boston Herald have all done something on it. If this breaks into the news cycle it would be great to see some investigative journalism on some of the theories. Of course the mainstream media doesn't do investigative journalism so we should expect to see them kill the messenger and ridicule the topic as 'black helicopter crowd stuff' and nothing to give any credence to.

Precincts in Chicago 100% Republican? A conservative Texas Supreme Court Judge demanding a recount? Is this bizarro world? No, it's George W. Bush's America.

I've always liked Arianna Huffington, but this smacks of some one who is desperate and has no parameters as to what she'll do to promote her website.

The instant I heard about this I suspected it would be big. It seems dubious that Charlie Sheen's comments would be disregarded by mainstream media.

I’m not a sophisticated and astute enough observer of politics to understand the whole pundit/sticking to a predetermined set of talking points phenomenon. I think there are professional communicators advising politicos that this is the way to influence and convince people of a particular message or set of principles. Judging from the Republican successes since 2000 I’d have to say it’s a successful practice for the right. It seems, however, that this is not a healthy practice to engage in for an optimally functioning democracy.

Perhaps, it’s unrealistic to think that every American citizen is sophisticated enough about politics, to render this phenomenon obsolete. But it seems to me that what this practice foments is a reliance and/or dependence on talking heads, and a media elite for information at the expense of free critical inquiry and research of the individual (and moreover the citizenry at large). If progressives and the left can develop and implement a media strategy to foment critical inquiry rather than dependence on punditry and demagoguery (black box voting machines aside) there may be numerous left electoral victories in medium to near term future ahead.

I found this interview pretty surreal. For those who don't know Alex Jones is one of the most well-known conspiracy theorists and investigators of the New World Order/Freemasonry, etc. This is Charlie Sheen on his radio show and here's the write up; there's also been an additional write up.

This may be somewhat crass, but why can't we get this kind of rhetoric from the Democratic Party?

A University of Ottawa virologist says lethal bird flu is entirely man-made.

March 19 is the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. It is the third anniversary of an illegal unnecessary war that has sown destruction and death in the Middle East and for American troops and their families. Often times the United States of America is referred to (by politicians or clergy usually) as a peace loving nation, but this is not the image that has been projected by American actions to the rest of the world. It seems there are numerous stumbling blocks to building a more participatory American democracy, but this is the task ahead of the citizens of America if we are to truly be a peace loving nation. Many conservatives argue America is a republic and not a democracy, but those Americans who want their country to be a peace loving one, must also work for the democratization of the American republic. To not do so is to condone more Iraqs and Vietnams in the future.

Many ask what they can do to change the direction of the country, and many I would guess respond with hopelessness or confusion; but this is the type of question that can only be answered by oneself. What one is compelled to do in order to live with oneself is the answer.

This man says his son was framed for murder because he knew the truth about 9/11, Waco, and the Oklahoma City bombing. He was a shill for the New World Order he says.

These articles while not antithetical to each other present quite disparate perspectives on electoral politics in Latin America. Worth looking at I think, too, as the mainstream media has been presenting the goings on in Latin America as the fall of the continent into a communist oblivion.

I'm a big reader of conspiracies and conspiracy theories not because I believe any of them, but I think they are basically an alternative to the alternative media. When it seems there is no new place to go for news, information, enlightenment, etc (except for the repetition of the tired old news cycle), there's no equal to conspiracy sites, books, radio shows, and conspiracy related banter. One of the most impressive conspiracy videos I have seen is the Loose Change 2nd edition video. It posits some critical information in relation to the 9/11 catastrophe that's really eye opening and hair raising. Every American (and global citizen) should see the video and draw his or her own conclusion.

The best part of it for me was the tape of the firemen who were in the towers before they came down. They talk about explosions taking place inside the building. I forget if it's right before that or after they also show mainstream news coverage of witnesses talking about hearing explosions inside and in the vicinity of the towers. Folks who think that only conspiracy nuts will buy into this type of thing are, I think, really missing the point. Realistically a conspiracy can be developed about any event that has some degree of ambiguity surrounding the supposed facts of the event. So, in fact, it's the deniers of this type of theory and others like it who are the true nuts. One would have to be God (or at least all knowing) to actually completely debunk any conspiracy that is based firmly in loosely agreed upon phenomena. Conspiracies are the life's blood of any compelling historical mystery, and should be viewed by all as such.

Article here.

This article provides a good breakdown of the irrationality and unjustifiability of the Bush threats and saber rattling with Iran. It's above my pay grade to try and explain all this warmongering that Bush is always up to... Of course, there's the infamous quote about starting a war and using the political capital to get everything passed that Bush would like to see passed; but beyond that I guess it's just the military industrial complex as usual.

Some interesting comments from Rupert Murdoch recently... He sounds surprisingly progressive. I haven't seen a poll or study done, but one would have to think that it's the most technologically illiterate among us who tune into Fox Propaganda channel, so we probably have a few more years of their control over cable news to look forward to.

It's shameful that fifty-nine Democrats would support this.