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Monday, June 30, 2008

Essay #77: In The Middle Are The Sheeple

          The Paretto Principle states that “For many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”, which is valid in many realms. Versions include “Twenty percent of any group do 80% of the work”, and “Twenty percent of customers (or sales force) produce 80% of business activity.”
          However, in modern times, the numbers have shifted.

* *          * *          * *          * *

          The American Revolution of 1775 to 1783 was not a popular war. The active revolutionary colonists on one side were about 25% of the population; the Tories on the other side wanted King George to prevail. The sheeple in the middle tried to avoid engagement with either side: they had crops to raise and kine to tend and commodities were scarce and whale oil for their lamps cost too darn much. They would rather just be left alone.

          In politics, one side is progressive, which means to work for the betterment of all. On the other side are the regressives and the repressives. Each side is roughly one quarter, and the fifty percent in the middle are the sheeple.
          The sheeple do whatever they are told to do, by advertising or by community pressure, and generally have a tough life, one with too much work to do and never enough time.

          The warmongers are on one side. Warmongers start wars because that is their reason for existence. On the other side are the peacemakers; their work is to stop wars. The sheeple in the middle take the brunt of military carnage, including cannon-fodder funerals in the heartland and in the barrio.

          The top fourth of taxpayers own 90% of everything. The bottom quarter – non-taxpayers all – own nothing. The Middle Class 40% below the Wealthy Class are losing net worth, working harder and are paid with a shrunken dollar, while their benefits disappear like mountaintops in West Virginia.

          Religious fanatics are on one side, and individuals who value Reason are on the other. The sheeple in the middle live in a soap opera of their own making.

          Dogmatists are on one side, those who believe in and obey some magical system. But the situation is worsened because they also require that everybody obey their brand of subservience. The other side are free spirits, exercising Free Will, high on the Maslow Pyramid, acting for the good of all, based in their basic trust of the goodness in themselves (if not of the opposing dogmatists).
          The sheeple in the middle careen from false solution to false solution, hoping for rest or respite, and seldom see marvelous happenings as their future. They struggle to survive, never having the sense that they are ‘over the hump’, and end their lives having missed out on just about everything.

* *          * *          * *          * *

          The progressives are too nice for their own good, thinking that if they just try a little harder, they can tip the balance of the Class War in favor of a better life. But the sheeple are in the middle, a mass of unconscious prey to the machinations of the regressive side.
          The sheeple surrender control to whoever makes them afraid, which is the regressive side – the fascists, the fundamentalists, the racists, the fearmongers of all stripes, and their propaganda networks bombarding young and old 24/7 with hate, fear, and sleaze.
          The regressives know well and use the moves of Machiavelli, the tactics of Hitler and Goebbels, and the recent strategies of Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Karl ‘T*rdblossom’ Rove.

          The future of America, and the World, will be determined by whether the sheeple are blinded by fear for fear’s sake, or whether some new paradigm can be instilled in the culture, wherein the meek sheeple actually find a backbone and stand up to the machinery designed to make them afraid.

          Whoever is making you afraid, for whatever purpose or agenda, the fact that they want to make you afraid, that they work hard to make you afraid, should instead make you angry.
          Very angry.

* *          * *          * *          * *

          The Paretto Principle has its uses, but does not apply to grand scheme-y things such as the Perpetual Class War, nor the Battle Between Good and Evil.

          The Principle of Two Quarters is officially stated thus:
“In any conflict, the side that is for progress is about 25% of the population; the side that opposes progress is about 25% of the population; and in the middle are the sheeple.”

Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

June Quotations

"Nothing lives long, only the earth and mountains."
== White Antelope, chief of the Cheyenne

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
== Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25)

"The best relationship is one where your love for each other exceeds your need for each other."
== Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

"The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard."
== Sen. Paul Wellstone [1944-2002] of Minnesota

"Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."
== Colette [1873-1954]

"If you want something, hold out an empty hand. If you want a poem, find a blank page."
== beat poet Philip Whalen [1923-2002]

"[T]he accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence ... So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it."
== Calvin Coolidge [1872-1933]

"In America, to look a couple of years younger than you actually are is not only an achievement for which you are to be congratulated, it is patriotic."
== Cynthia Propper Seton

"I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it."
== Marilyn Monroe [1926-62]

"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."
== Socrates [469 B.C.E.–399 B.C.E.]

"Adventure is worthwhile in itself."
== Amelia Earhart [1897-1937]

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."
== T.S. Eliot [1888-1965]

"When you're going thru hell, keep going."
== Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
== William Feather

"You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough."
== boxer Joe Louis [1914-81]

"The energy of the mind is the essence of life."
== Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]

"In the modern U.S. of A., grease is a condiment."
== G.E. Nordell

"Hedge funds are the sophisticated way to lose money, as opposed to the more mundane way[s]."
== Robert Hurley, of Stoddard Management

{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}

Friday, June 06, 2008

Essay #76: “How To Survive The Coming Depression”

The economic situation in the United States is so bad right now that even the Democratic Party (i.e. President Barack Obama) may not be able to pull us out from under the $12 trillion National Debt run up by the Reagan-Bush and by the Bush 43 administrations.

None of us, nor all of us working together, can prevent dire consequnces from their tripling of the price of gas/petrol at the pump, by increasing the price of crude oil by 400% per barrel, nor from the impact of fuel prices on food and other necessities.

But there are steps that an Individual can take that will ease the inevitable economic pain, and perhaps soften the long-term effect on your children and grandchildren.

* *          * *          * *          * *

1) Start now! – The longer that you wait, the stronger the negative impact on you and on your family.

2) Get out of the Virtual Economy – Pay off your credit cards. Park all but three of them, carrying for emergencies the three charging the least interest.

3) Spend only in the Cash Economy – If you don’t have the cash, then don’t buy (whatever).

4) Explore the Barter Economy – See whether you have some skill or asset that can be traded, or even sold face-to-face for cash.

5) Investments – If you own any stocks or mutual funds, grad¬ually sell off the higher-risk (non-equity) holdings and purchase gold and silver: the metal itself, not any futures products (too risky).

6) Debt – Make double payments on the mortgage on your home. If you have any mortgaged investment property, sell it for what you can get, and use the proceeds to pay down your home mortgage.

7) Transportation – Make double payments on your automobile/s, and give up plans to buy a new vehicle until the current one wears out, or you have the cash to make such a purchase.

8) Emergency Planning – Get ready for spot shortages in elec¬tricity, oil & gas (petrol, heating oil, natural gas). Stock up on supplies like we did for the Y2K fiasco.

9) Balance? – If you have any cash left over (each month), pay off debt and-or stock your pantry.

10) Hug your children. Leave generous tips. Hug your children. Let the other driver go first. Hug your family. Watch the sunset (or sunrise) with someone that you love.

11) And be not afraid.

Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Thursday, June 05, 2008

June News Factoids

A report came out May 2 that the No Child Left Behind program has NOT improved reading scores in any state, with many states losing ground.

In the past 12 months ... corn is up 70%, sugar is up 72%, and the all-important price of crude oil is up by an astounding 102%.
== Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. (Money & Markets Newsletter, May 2008)

"[Our] Army is starting to unravel. Our Air Force is starting to come apart. The Navy is the smallest since pre-World War Two."
== Gen. Barry McCaffrey [USArmy retired] in Senate testimony, April 2008

Godzilla has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Several economists have pointed out on Air America/NovaM radio shows that the pump price of gas/petrol is NOT going down. So plan accordingly.

The Pope recently issued a list of new official sins, which include road rage, genetic engineeering, and excessive wealth. But he forgot one: Having more than 15 items in the Express Checkout lane.

On a recent road trip, it soon became obvious that long-distance truckers are taking steps in reaction to the rise in price of diesel fuel, now close to $5 a gallon. Word got out that most trucks are designed for best fuel efficiency at 65 MPH -- so that is the speed of most big-rig trucks on the Interstate. Only a few truckers were at or above the speed limit, but the ones I saw seemed to be connected to oil drilling and refining. Most passenger vehicles are keeping to 70 MPH, politely maneuvering around the slower trucks, with maybe 10% of drivers going faster, the folks that were in a hurry (or self-important).

The drop in King salmon 'yields' from California's Sacramento River from 2002 to 2008 is estimated at 92%.
== Time Magazine



So far this year, these new pages have been added or split off or started on my bookstore websites:

pages about movie people
Woody Allen
Agent 007 James Bond
Sergei M. Eisenstein
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Pierre Melville
cowboy star Tom Mix
Satyajit Ray
King Vidor

pages about American authors & artists
William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Arthur Miller
Georgia O'Keeffe
Eugene O'Neill
Robert Louis Stevenson
Gore Vidal
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

plus topic pages for
Simultaneous Bilingual Film Production
Beatnik Film Festival
Culver City Online Film Festival
Hispanic-American Cinema
Cinema Pioneers
Current Directors & Actors
Roadside Americana

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

May Quotations

"Supply-side economics is a bogus system."
== Ravi Batra

"Machiavelli described ways to destroy your enemy, and those ways are very effective. Unfortunately, the context is that everyone is your enemy, so that it is okay (and necessary) to destroy all."
== G.E. Nordell

"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives."
== James Joyce [1882-1941]

"When anyone in the media cites 'buzz' as their basis, the rest of the sentence has been manufactured."
== G.E. Nordell

"Nothing kinder than strangers. Nothing stranger than kindness."
== Sara Paretsky

“Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.”
== Eugene O'Neill [1888-1953]

"Need a job? Ask a Republican."
== G.E. Nordell

"All truly great art is optimistic. The individual artist is happy in his creative work. The fact that practically all great art is tragic does not in any way change the above thesis."
== Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]

"I’ve been married three times, so I’ve had lots of supervision."
== Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]

“In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs.”
== François Truffaut [1932-84]

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it."
== Andrew Carnegie [1835-1919]

"No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honor, it has no word to keep."
== Carl Jung [1875-1961]

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
== poet John Donne [1572-1631]

"Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value."
== Arthur Miller [1915-2005]

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
== Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”
== actor James Dean [1931-55]

"I'd rather tangle with a burglar than a television executive any day."
== ex-cop/author Joseph Wambaugh

"I go on working for the same reason [that] a hen goes on laying eggs."
== H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]

"Be civil to all; serviceable to many: familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none."
== Benjamin Franklin [1706-90] (in "Poor Richard's Almanack")

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
== Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]

"Courage is the main quality of the Warrior Mind."
== Ravi Batra

"I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas."
== Jean-Luc Godard

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
== Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right."
== Woody Allen

"Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means."
== Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.
== Edna Ferber [1885-1968]

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
== Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"You've got to give up being a little son of a bitch.".
== Harry Margolis

A FEW FROM George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."

"Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done."

"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."

"I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor."

"Liberty means responsibility. That's why most men dread it."

{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Design for George W. Bush Presidential Library


On March 30th, the quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church, meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, voted 844 to 20 to reject the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Darn. Here I went and designed a building to house the Bush Administration documents that have not been classified Über-Secret for a hundred years.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

May News Factoids

Arctic ice in September 2007 was 23 percent less than the previous record low. == AP News

Super Tuesday voting on February 5th added up to 8.3 million Republicans who voted in those states vs. 14.6 Democrats.

For every 10,000 manuscripts submitted for children's books, only three are published. == Home Testing Institute

The two-term Clinton administration added 521 species to the federal Endangered Species List; Bush 41 added 231 species in one term; the Bush 43 administration has added only 59 species to the list in its seven years. == Time Magazine

Chrysler Corp. has a new program to shut down small dealerships across America. Each existing dealership now must pay half a million dollars UP FRONT for the privilege of remaining an official Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep etc. dealer for the next five years. Family dealerships in small towns are charged the same as dealers in urban markets, no negotiation or options.

WAR WITH IRAQ & IRAN:
U.S. troops are paying $3.50 a gallon for gas or deisel in Baghdad.

"2007 was the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq." == Scott Ritter

ENERGY:
Ten years ago, kerosene heating oil in Vermont was 75 cents a gallon; today the price is $4.50 a gallon. Figuring on a typical 200-gallon tank, a refill went from $150 for the winter season to $900 for the season.

Five years ago, oil was $26 per barrel; oil went above $117 per barrel on 21 April 2008.

ECONOMICS:
The price of rice has doubled worldwide in the last four months.
== AP Radio News
The price of wheat flour has tripled in two years. == AP Radio News

If you make $28,000 a year, then you are in the top 50% of taxpayers; $55,000 puts you in the top 25%; and $92,000 puts you in the top 10%, the so-called 'super-rich'. {data from 2007} — Said another way, 90% of American taxpayers make below $95,000 per year.

U.S. home prices plunged by a record 8.4 percent in November 2007, marking two years of slowing returns.

"Construction spending fell again in February as home building tumbled for a record 24th straight month."
== U.S. Commerce Department, on 31 March 2008

Housing sales dropped in March to the lowest level in 16 years, and the bottom has not yet been reached. == AP Radio News

"Combined market value of independent, publicly-traded U.S. newspaper publishers has fallen by 42 percent in the past three years." == Eric Alterman (in The Nation, February 2008)

U.S. job cuts in December were greater than jobs created (while 150,000 net jobs are needed to keep even with the monthly population increase). == AP Radio News

BLOCKING TELEMARKETERS: Cell phone numbers were released this week to the telemarketing industry, and it will now be open season on all cell phone users – AND you will be charged for the call.

The solution is to call the National DO NOT CALL Registry [est. October 2003] at 1-888-382-1222 from your cell phone; it takes about a minute.

Telemarketers must obey these new Registry list restrictions starting on June First.

You can list all the phone numbers at your household or business concern online at http://www.DoNotCall.gov

Friday, May 02, 2008

An Open Letter To Barack Obama

Take the gloves off.
You are fighting FOR the American people, not with them.

You are the only candidate for President who represents We The People. We were sold a load of crap in 2000, and the election was stolen in 2004.
We want our country back.

Billary sold out to the Corporatist Party – Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch, The Family, et al – long ago and Hillary thinks that she is entitled to dominion over the American people.
Not true, no way, no how.

John McCain is an unstable tyrant and a warmonger, and the saddest thing about this political season is that McCain is the best that the remnants of the Republican Party could come up with. (The key personality on the G.O.P. ticket will be the V.P. choice. If McCain wins the Oval Office through American stupidity or Corporatist chicanery, he will not serve his full term and the new President will be -- Lieberman? Romney? O.M.G. !!)

We The People demand restoration of Constitutional Democracy in these United States, we demand a return to the Rule of Law (not even George W. Bush is above the law), and we demand Freedom (from economic slavery), Justice (over corruption and cronyism), and Liberty (without tyranny by a self-declared 'unitary executive').

We The People demand that this country be restored to its former glory as the economic engine of the Free World, not the planet's greatest debtor nation. We demand that this country be restored as the beacon of democratic government and freedom and liberty for all peoples, rather than a bad example of imperial oppression. We demand that this country restore itself as the shining example of a free and prosperous and peaceful nation, as we were decades back, and that we hold all individuals and nationa accountable to the same high standard.

We The People want you, Barack Obama, to lead us. Like the Founding Fathers, We The People must "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" to restore the Constitution in America, and we ask that you take the gloves off and lead us in this battle for the soul of the United States of America.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

April Quotations

“The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery.”
~~ Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]

"Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes."
~~ Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956]

"Hell, if I'd jumped on all the dames [that] I'm supposed to have jumped on, I'd have had no time to go fishing."
~~ Clark Gable [1901-60]

"Love is the greatest refreshment in life."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]

"By any common-sense definition, we are in a recession."
~~ capitalist Warren Buffett, in March 2008

"An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."
~~ Jack Welch

"The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual. Which side are you on?"
~~ G.E. Nordell

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809]

"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil."
~~ Thomas Mann [1875-1955]

"I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do."
~~ Edward Hale

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-97]

"Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective."
~~ Hercule Poirot, as written by Agatha Christie [1890-1976]

"War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]

"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."
~~ Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945]

"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"Fiction is founded on fact – but is rather superior to it."
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976]

“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.”
~~ Upton Sinclair [1878-1968]

"I'd rather be dead than afraid."
~~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr,, on 4 April 1968 (the day of his assassination)

A FEW FROM William Faulkner [1897-1962]

"It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work."

"The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it."

"A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream."

"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible."

{previous quotations are posted
at the Working Minds website}

Sunday, March 30, 2008

March News Factoids

The entire flap about what Barack Obama should have done about retired pastor Rev. Wright's speech last December was manufactured by John McCain's campaign. The posting to YouTube was tracked to a McCain staffer, and what they left out was that Wright was quoting a white man, a guest commentator on the Fox Noise Network.

The German press (only) reports that just days after Dick Cheney's visit to the Middle East, the official propaganda arm of the government of Saudi Arabia has published plans for how their citizens should prepare for possible nuclear war in a neighboring country.

Rumors abound among U.S. Navy & Air Force personnel (per emails to family) that the attack on Iran is planned for Sunday April 6th.

The race for the White House is between three distinct parties, the Democrats and the Republicans and the Corporatists: Hillary Clinton is owned by the Corporatist Party, and the G.O.P.'s John Mccain is a warmonger. Barack Obama is the only gentleman of the three.

In March, a huge chunk of ice the size of Connecticut broke away from the Wilkins Ice Shelf on Antarctic Peninsula near South Americaa.

THE ECONOMY
Home equity has fallen below an average 50% for the first time since 1945. ==A.P. Radio News

Employers slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most in five years. Job losses suffered in January were worse than the government first reported; employers cut 22,000 jobs, versus 17,000. == A.P. News

Mortgage foreclosures hit an all-time high in the last quarter of 2007. == Mortgage Bankers Assn.

The U.S. lost 225,000 jobs in February 2008 per the monthly government Household Survey.

Dubya's fiscal 2009 budget cut medical help for 9/11 first reponders by 77%.

Gas reached $4.08 & 9/10 in March in Needles, CA.

U.S. banks made out like the bandits that they are from the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown. The Federal Reserve Bank in March essentially purchased up to $200 billion of worthless (junk) bonds from the crooked mortgage-lending banks with our tax dollars 'to prevent economic collapse' – and the banks still have the foreclosed real estate!

Friday, March 28, 2008

WM Essay #75: “P.N.A.C., Fascism & Bush”

The United States of America is on the cusp of a Constitutional crisis. Americans do not want this, but impeachment is the only (peaceful) means to prevent P.N.A.C. and the Bush bullies from declaring themselves a totalitarian government. If things do not go well, i.e. Constitutional protection for all Americans is further destroyed, then the likely result will be armed conflict in the streets of America, complete disruption of the American lifestyle, the collapse of commerce here and around the world, and perhaps a modern Dark Age.

• The price of gas/petrol won’t matter, because there won’t be any on the market.
• Extinction of the polar bear and destruction of natural habitat won’t matter, because humans will be in danger of extinction.
• The Middle East will erupt into a continental bloodbath.
• China will roll across Russia like Rommel did across the African deserts.
• Food safety inside America will not matter because there won’t be enough food produced within our borders to prevent the starvation of millions.
• The engine of the U.S. economy will implode, making the Weimar Republic’s inflation look like a raid on a piggy bank.

The sections that follow move briefly thru the history of P.N.A.C., the construction of U.S. concentration camps, the intentional destruction of rights in America, to the recently-decreed takeover strategy (with documentation), and a few predictions.

Note also that I may become a target of the fascists for the simple act of standing in the First Amendment context of Freedom of Speech and passing these comments on to others; and you may be targeted by the Bush brownshirts (per the decrees below) because you clicked on this page.

* *          * *          * *          * *

PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
{ reference material at Wikipedia }
P.N.A.C was created in 1997, along with a "Statement of Principles" document dated June 1997, which defines an “imperial agenda of U.S. military expansionism”. Expectations in other documents about a ‘New Pearl Harbor’ event were satisfied by the attack on September 11, 2001, and are being touted as being fulfilled on an even larger scale ‘very soon’.
Important officials of P.N.A.C. include: co-founder & chairman William Kristol, most visible as a propagandist at Fox News; co-founder Robert Kagan, who lives in Belgium with his wife, Bush’s ambassador to N.A.T.O.; director Bruce P. Jackson, who was a weapons division vice president at Lockheed-Martin; and director Randy Scheunemann, who has been a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Trent Lott, to Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld (on Iraq), and to G.O.P. presidential candidate John McCain.
Signatories to the Statement of Principles in 1997 include convicted liar Elliott Abrams; evangelical politico Gary Bauer; gambling addict William J. Bennett; First Brother Jeb Bush of Florida; traitor Dick Cheney; State Dept. lawyer Eliot A. Cohen; neo-conservative couple Midge Decter & editor-author Norman Podhoretz {in-laws of Elliott Abrams}; Fox News pundit Steve Forbes; current U.N. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad; traitor & convicted liar ‘Scooter’ Libby; Dan Quayle; fired War Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld; D.C. lobbyist Vin Weber; and Paul Wolfowitz, deposed for nepotism at the World Bank.
Others involved in P.N.A,C. include confessed traitor Richard L. Armitage; former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton; columnist Charles Krauthammer; defense lobbyist Richard Perle; and current World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick.

These creeps, and other scum such as the Federalist Society, are secretly running the government of the United States. George Bush is not a member of P.N.A.C.; he is merely their obedient puppet.

* *          * *          * *          * *

MARTIAL LAW
Posse comitatus is a principle of common law going back centuries, with laws designed to prevent the government from using its military against its own people. The USA PATRIOT Act of October 2001 includes many exceptions to the posse comitatus restrictions of federal law (1878 & since). Section 104 of the PATRIOT Act authorizes the emergency use of the military in ‘case of attack with a weapon of mass destruction’.
{ Center for Defense Information article of August 2002 }

As reported in WMail Issue #57 (March 2006), the Kellogg-Brown-Root spinoff from Halliburton got another no-bid government contract, with maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, to build concentration camps in the United States.
{ Halliburton press release of January 2005 }
(Actually, this author is not likely to be on any Threat List maintained by the fascisti, but these concentration camps will hold a lot of people, roundups are likely to be indiscriinate, and lots of just plain folk will be detained without cause – even you and me.)

President Dubya has tried several times to get authorization to use the Army to quarantine large geographic areas in the event of an epidemic of avian bird flu (or similar excuse). The plan usually states that Federal troops would prevent entrance or exit to the quarantined area by anyone. { CNN report of October 2005 }

The Military Commissions Act of November 2006 provides that aliens declared an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ have no right to appeal their detention per habeas corpus {Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution). The War Department, the Justice Department, the lower courts and the Supreme Court are tossing this football back and forth, with the ultimate goal being a decision whether the right of habeas corpus applies to aliens or citizens or both or neither ‘during an emergency’.
Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2007 that the right of habeas corpus is not part of the Constitution. Sadly, he may be right. { reference material at Wikipedia }

George Bush is now prepared to declare himself Dictator of the United States. His Emergency Presidential Directive 51 {N.S.P.D.-51 and H.S.P.D.-20}, dated 9 May 2007, states that the President can assume control of all three branches of government in the event of a ‘catastrophic emergency’ (defined as anything the President decides) anywhere in the world, and that all federal, state and local agencies are required to ‘cooperate’ with every edict from the President-slash-Dictator.
{ text of N.S.P.D.-51 on the White House website }

The most recent dangerous document from Dubya basically cancels the Fifth Amendment provisions for due process. The title of the quietly-posted 17 July 2007 document is Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq; its effect is that the President gives himself the power to sieze anyone that he decides is a threat, or that is suspected of being a future threat, and anyone that might conspire with others to be a threat, and to seize all property and freeze all assets of such persons, and that there is no recourse in law: no habeas corpus, no judicial review, and no one will even know when or where or why such a person is detained. (The detainees will likely be in a Halliburton-built concentration camp, but of course, the locations are very secret.)
{ text on the White House website }

* *          * *          * *          * *

PREDICTIONS
Paul Craig Roberts, lifelong conservative Republican and former Asst. Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, surprised many by writing an op-ed piece last summer entitled “Impeach Now: Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy”. His central premise is the warning that after going to all the trouble of illegal wire-tapping of Americans, of building up the Blackwater & Triple Canopy mercenary armies, of inventing powers of the ‘unitary executive’ – that the P.N.A.C. folks will NOT hand over such powers to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (or to any other Democratic winner of a legitimate election). Therefore, Constitutional rule will be cancelled before the November 2008 national election – UNLESS the Bush gang is removed by impeachment.
{ text of the article by Paul Craig Roberts }

In July, radio host Randi Rhodes interviewed a consultant to the C.I.A. and other agencies who stated that the United States has so few active military, or even National Guard, that the declaration of martial law can not be enforced. I was relieved for a while, and then I realized that all Der Führer has to do is order conscription of 18- to 25-year-olds into the military; or maybe not: without posse comitatus manpower to enforce such a draft, this may prove difficult. (There remain Blackwater’s goons.)

Unfortunately, the bottom line is the super-tough question: Is Bush a genius posing as an idiot, or an idiot posing as a genius?
Cheney is a psychopath, and Bush is psychotic, so there is no telling what they will do, even if, or especially if, the exercise of their false authority cannot work. The fascists of P.N.A.C. want chaos and anarchy, the collapse of the rule of law, and a fearful and compliant population.
They took us into Iraq, plans abound for the attack on Iran, this country is bankrupt, and the U.S. Constitution has been shredded – plans that work are not Bush’s strong suit.
Congress has already issued subpoenas for Harriet Meiers, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and others; failure to appear will result in votes for ‘inherent contempt of Congress’, which will put them in jail. The impeachment of Rove and Gonzales and Bush and Cheney and Rice will lead to a critical confrontation between the three branches of government.
The year 2008 is certain to be a long and hot campaign year.

Impeachment or dictatorship: Choose.

Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Three-Party Presidential Race

Going into the final primary elections of 2008, there are three opposing contenders. Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama versus John McCain.

McCain has lousy political beliefs and is a hothead, but he seems never to have wavered from his loyalty to America. Obama is a political descendent of Abe Lincoln, and he has the ability to manage the country even during crises such as a Civil War (which is entirely possible if he does get elected).

The most dangerous candidate is Hillary Clinton, who has sold out already to the Corporatist Party.

She has met with and made deals with Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife, and the corporations are funding her campaign (while Obama & McCain hustle for donations from The People).

The D.N.C. and chairman Howard Dean try to be fair, avoiding Hillary's on-going attempts at coercion & manipulation.

If Barack wins the nomination, he will beat McCain and things will get contentious, but move toward the progressive. If Hillary wins the nomination, the battle will shift toward Revolution (since she is a Corporatist), the Class War will intensify, and the Clinton Depression will wreak havoc around the world.

We The People will suffer worse times if Hillary is the stealth candidate for the Corporatist Party on the November ballot.

http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html

Saturday, March 08, 2008

We The People

The first three words of the U.S. Constitution are "We the People".

The folks who constitute themselves as The People are about 25% of Americans. The gangsters who seek to destroy constitutional rights are the dastardly opposing 25% -- the traditional Mafia, the PNAC Mafia, the neo-fascist corporatists, warmongers, all those who believe that they are above or outside the law.

The 50% in the middle have no idea what is going on. (These are the Sheeple.)

The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual, and the Oligarchy has no scruples.

The only protection for the Rights of Man is We The People. Our rights exist when we defend them, our rights exist when we enforce them, our rights exist because we give them to others.

Rights exist only when they apply to everyone, and the only rights that exist are rights that apply to everyone equally.

The Oligarchy is the enemy of We The People.

Join the General Strike on Labor Day 2008 to show them our Power.
http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Call For General Strike

The way that events are progressing (or not progressing) in America suggest that the present P.N.A.C.-Fascist government will likely prevent democratic elections in November.

With or without invokation of martial law, We The People need to send a very strong message to the other side in the Perpetual Class War, strong enough that they cannot ignore the message.

Everyone who still honors the U.S. Constitution is charged with speaking into existence a General Strike on Labor Day (Monday 1 September 2008) in the United States.

1) Enroll everybody that you know who cares about Freedom. Persons outside the U.S. are invited to participate, as an expression of Solidarity. Pass on the link to this Call For General Strike: http://datelinechamesa.blogspot.com/2008/03/call-for-general-strike.html

2) Simply do not leave your residence for the entire 24 hours (local time). Also, make no purchases online or by phone. Stay off your cell phone.

3) No violence is required; in fact, no violence is even possible during this protest.

MEANWHILE ...

a) Pass the text of this blog-page by email to lots of people.

b) Post the text of this blog-page to all your social-networking & bookmarking sites.

March Quotations

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
~~ Paul Valéry

"There are two things to aim at in life: First, to get what you want, and then to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."
~~ Logan Pearsall Smith

"You can have that done one of two ways – fast or good."
~~ old saying

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."
~~ Samuel Johnson [1709-84]

"Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it."
~~ Harold S. Hulbert

"The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."
~~ Lord Acton [1834-1902]

"Faith which does not doubt is dead faith."
~~ Miguel de Unamuno [1864-1936]

"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
~~ Clarence Darrow [1857-1938]

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
~~ Steven Weinberg

"I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering."
~~ Robert Frost [1874-1963]

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
~~ Edward R. Murrow [1908-65]

"Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them."
~~ François de La Rochefoucauld [1613-80]

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809]

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
~~ Anne Lamott

"It does not require many words to speak the truth."
~~ Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce [1840-1904]

"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them."
~~ Dave Barry

"Lower your voice and strengthen your argument."
~~ Lebanese proverb

"An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it."
~~ Don Marquis [1878-1937]

"It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one."
~~ Honoré de Balzac [1799-1850]

"I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."
~~ Pietro Aretino [1492-1556]

"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought."
~~ Graham Greene [1904-91]

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826

"Loneliness ... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man."
~~ Thomas Wolfe [1900-38]

"The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?"
~~ cellist Pablo Casals [1876-1973]

"There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth."
~~ Chinese proverb

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success."
~~ Albert Schweitzer [1875-1965]

"What you do is of little significance; but it is very important that you do it."
~~ Mohandas K. Gandhi [1869-1948]

"Patience is also a form of action."
~~ sculptor Auguste Rodin [1840-1917]

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
~~ Will Rogers [1879-1935]

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
~~ Charles Darwin [1809-82]

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}

February News factoids

Crude oil has gone up to a record $103 per barrel, and the dollar sank to record low against the euro.
== AP Radio News

The U.S. defense budget in 2000 was $300 billion, and the request for 2009 is $700 billion.
== as calculated by Congressman John Spratt (Dem-SC).

Americans spent nearly $45 billion on their pets in 2007 (while the U.S. Department of Education annual budget is less than $70 billion).

According to Time Magazine, Nicole Kidman is set to star in a movie about Valerie Plame Wilson.

Wholesale prices in the U.S. went up 7% over the last 12 months (while Social Security stipends went up 2%).

Matthew Rothschild has written a chilling article in The Progressive about the card-carrying Infragard folks who operate outside the law in the United States. Infragard was established in 1996 under the F.B.I., had grown to 1700 members in November 2001, and currently claims nearly 24,000 members.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308

OPINIONATION
"The United States is over the economic cliff and in freefall. One symptom is that even the Mafia has cash-flow problems."
== G.E. Nordell

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Obama's Security

Several Dallas, Texas police officers have publicly registered their outrage at being ordered to halt inspections for weapons at the entrances for Barack Obama's speech last night at Reunion Arena. The order was given by Federal officials in charge of security for the event, and was delivered a full hour before the speech began. Thousands of citizens then entered the building without being searched with electronic hand-wands, period. {per U.P.I.}

Scared yet?

Here is the potential scenario. The present fascist U.S. government allows death and destruction to strike a presidential candidate (pick one); the urban population across America is incited to riot, as occured after the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; based on that manufactured 'emergency', Mister Bush declares himself dictator {'Unitary Executive') per Presidential Directive 51.

That document, "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive {N.S.P.D.-51 and H.S.P.D.-20}", was posted on the White House website on 9 May 2007, and is still there.
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

Sunday, February 10, 2008

February Quotations

"In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"You can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts."
~~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan [1927-2003]

“As long as men are not free – in their lives and their opinions, their speech and knowledge – that long will the American Revolution not be finished.”
~~ Robert F. Kennedy [1925-68], at Queens College in New York City (15 June 1965)

"In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles."
~~ David Ben-Gurion [1886-1973]

"There's no difference between one's killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It's exactly the same thing."
~~ Golda Meir [1898-1978]

"If {the U.S. Marines in Lebanon} have been put there to fight, there are far too few. If they've been put there to be killed, there are far too many."
~~ U.S. Senator Ernest Hollings (1983)

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness."
~~ Ludwig Wittgenstein [1889-1951]

"Intellect does not attain its full force until it attacks power."
~~ Madame de Stael [1766-1817]

"Consciousness is a disease."
~~ Miguel de Unamuno [1864-1936]

"Intellectual passion drives out sensuality."
~~ Leonardo Da Vinci [1452-1519]

"Our dignity is not in what we do but what we understand. The whole world is doing things."
~~ George Santayana [1863-1952]

"Only in show business could a guy with a C-minus average be considered an intellectual."
~~ Mort Sahl

"There are some things [that] only intellectuals are crazy enough to believe."
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]

"What luck for rulers that men do not think."
~~ Adolf Hitler

"In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or exist in extreme boredom. Make no mistake, all intellectuals are deviants in the U.S."
~~ William S. Burroughs [1914-97]

"It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection."
~~ Antonio Tabucchi

"If this is a recession in the general economy, then it is a depression in the black community."
~~ Kevin Alexander Gray (2007)

"Let's get to work!"
~~ John Edwards (campaign withdrawal speech, 30 January 2008)

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
~~ Walter Bagehot [1826-77] (in 1853)

"Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"In the human heart, new passions are forever being born. The overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another."
~~ Francois de la Rochefoucauld [1613-80]

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way [that] you carry it."
~~ Lena Horne

"You don't get to be the best because you're the oldest, you get to be the oldest because you're the best."
~~ Bushmill's Whiskey ad

"Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough."
~~ George Washington Carver [1864-1943]

"The Democratic Party's biggest problem is we can't count, and the Republicans can."
~~ John Edwards campaign advisor David 'Mudcat' Saunders

"It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions [that] they attack."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]

"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you."
~~ Western saying

"To be young, really young, takes a long time."
~~ Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]

"Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."
~~ Wm. Shakespeare

"Old men start wars, young men fight them. And everyone in the middle gets killed. War is natural. Peace is an accident. We're animals."
~~ Sylvester Stallone (thesis of "Rambo" [2008], cut from the film)

"The only country which any man has a right to love is one where there is balanced judgment, justice founded on wisdom, a free spirit, and a temperate mind."
~~ Judge Learned Hand [1872-1961]

"There is not one Republican today who can be trusted."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"The worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated."
~~ Pericles [495–429 B.C.E.]

{previous quotations are posted
at the Working Minds website}

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Fiscal Idiocy

• During George W. Bush's State of the Union Address last month, he proposed money for an Urban Pell Grant program for poor kids. He also proposed a sleight-of-hand tax cut for the Wealthy Class.

Dividing the $300 million amount proposed for the 15 million poor kids in America by the body count gives them $20 each toward their high school & college educations. {Whoop-te-do!}

Coincidentally, there are also around 15 million millionaires in the U.S., and dividing the $4.3 trillion amount proposed for the group by that body count gives each and every one of the millionaires $287,000 each – free money for the Wealthy Class, taken out of your pocket. [For more details, see muckraker Greg Palast's blogsite.}

• The emergency economic stimulous package is too late and too small. The current plan (still being fine-tuned in Congress) would have $100 billion sent out this Summer as rebates, which is $600 for most taxpayers.

• Last week, Dubya foisted his final budget on the American people, saying that there are major savings. However, the cold-hearted cuts to social programs like Medicare are over-ridden by huge increases in transfer payments to the Oligarchy. The deficit spending in this budget will be borne by the next President (whoever it is), and is twice the deficit of last year. This $410 billion deficit factors out as $1,400 per each and every resident man, woman & child in America =or= $4,100 for each taxpayer.

• Bush's bogus bribe of the American taxpayer gives each one $600 to spend this Summer AND the payback is $4,100 plus interest.

That being the deal, and the willingness of the sheeple to ask for more fiscal damage to be paid off by our grandchildren – well, maybe Bush isn't the fiscal idiot, the American taxpayer/voter is.

• When 'Dutch' Reagan took office, the National Debt was a mere $930 billion, which he and Bush 41 quadrupled (an increase of 300%). Clinton, during his first term, slowed the increase to 25%, and in his second term produced a balanced budget and a budget surplus. Bush 43 immediately squandered that surplus and has since *doubled* the horrible number of January 2001, and will leave office with a National Debt over $10 trillion, maybe more.

Dividing that amount by taxpayers gives a portion of $100,00 each; dividing by the population gives a portion of $35,000 for each and every man woman & child in America. (A minimum wage two-income family of five owes $175,000 to the future, and thus are effectively indentured servants.)

• But We The People do not have to pay this Republican National Debt. We did not ask for it, we did not benefit from it – the transfer of wealth from the Middle Class to the Oligarchy was and is a scam, done by stealth and under false pretenses.

So let We The People from this time use the term Republican National Debt in all discussions of fiscal matters. That way each Republican taxpayer owes $200,000 and the Democrats & independents can get busy rebuilding the damage done to the Constitution, to the economy, to America's reputation abroad, and to a government that used to work.

The Republicans and their P.N.A.C. storm troops ran up the $9 trillion debt accrued since 1981, so, hey, the Republicans get to pay that debt off.

Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Dubya's Accomplishments

•   Number one worst head of state since Ivan the Terrible.

•   Racked up more debt than any other person in history. The United States is set up to be the first nation to go bankrupt.

•   Aided and abetted Rove, Cheney, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Libby in terrorism, fraud, treason, war-profiteering, and murder. High crimes? You betcha!

•   Corruption of each and every department and bureau and agency in the federal government – even the judiciary.

•   Gave Texas a bad name.

•   Shoved millions of middle-class Americans across the line into official poverty, from which there is no exit. More millions of Americans were uprooted in the Katrina Diaspora, from which there is no return. Millions more Americans are being swept aside by the Banking Cartel, who gladly foreclose on mortgages written under false pretenses.

•   The once-almighty dollar has lost one-third of its value during Bush's term in office.

•   The true unemployment rate in America is 12%.

Monday, January 28, 2008

January News Factoids

THE ECONOMY: U.S. home prices fell in October for the tenth consecutive month, posting their largest monthly drop to date. The record 6.7 percent drop in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index also marked the 23rd consecutive month prices either grew more slowly or declined. The previous record decline was 6.3 percent, recorded in April 1991. — Associated Press

U.S. housing construction dropped by 25% in 2007, the largest drop in 27 years.

U.S. inflation is at a 17-year high. — AP Radio News January 2008

* *          * *          * *          * *

Faux News: Oil did NOT go to $100 a barrel as reported on 1/2/2008. There was one (1) trade at that price, by a lone day-trader for a thousand barrels (the minimum). Period. He/she lost about $600 on the resale, but it may have been worth it, given how the Media Cartel ran with the factoid.

* *          * *          * *          * *

STOCKS: The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 306 points Thursday January 17, cancelling all gains of 2007 (down to the level of a year ago), then fell another 129 points on Friday January 18 to $12,030.29. The S&P 500 index fell $16.06 (1.20%) to $1,317.19, while the Nasdaq composite index dropped $17.07 (0.73%) to $2,329.83.

Stock markets worldwide plummeted Monday January 21 (while the US stock exchanges were closed for the M.L.K. holiday), and again the next day.

The Federal Reserve Bank reduced interest rates by three-quarters of a base point early on January 22. The stock market opened with the Dow down another 400 points (below the highs of 2000). Although the Dow rebounded, the close was below 12,000 points – the lowest in 16 months.

Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Thursday, January 24, 2008

January Quotations

"Genius is the ability to avoid work by doing it right the first time."
~~ old saying

"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do."
~~ B.F. Skinner

"Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius."
~~ William Blake [1757–1827]

"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, [then] we would be so simple [that] we couldn't."
~~ Lyall Watson

"Most people would sooner die than think. In fact, they do."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]

"Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air."
~~ Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
~~ Jonathan Swift [1667–1745]

"The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth."
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1749-1832]

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”
~~ Gore Vidal

"Some superior minds are unrecognized because there is no standard by which to weigh them."
~~ Joseph Joubert

"A genius is one who can do anything except make a living."
~~ Joey Adams

"There's nothing as stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the thing that he is educated in."
~~ Will Rogers [1879-1935]

"Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never."
~~ Samuel T. Coleridge [1772-1834]

"The only thing that makes a man able to get along in this world is his brain. A man doesn't have the claws of a bear, nor the strength of a bull. He doesn't have the nose of a wolf, nor the wings of a hawk, but he has a brain. You're going to get along in this world as long as you use it."
~~ Louis L'Amour [1908-88] [in 'Down The Long Hills']

"People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote – a very different thing."
~~ Walter H. Judd

"Life is hard, but it's wonderful."
~~ François Truffaut [1932-84] (in "Small Change", 1976)

"In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality ... sooner or later a false belief bumps up against the solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
~~ George Orwell

"People on a jet have only been on a trip; people on a train have been on a journey."
~~ Ray Bradbury

"I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said."
~~ former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan

"Every animal knows more than you do."
~~ Nez Perce proverb

"Give Light and the people will find their own way."
~~ masthead motto of the Rocky Mountain News [est. 1859] of Denver, Colorado

"[Marijuana] is safer than aspirin, which kills thousands every year."
~~ William S. Eidelman, MD

"Tragedy arises when you are in the presence of a man who has missed accomplishing his joy."
~~ Arthur Miller [1915-2005] (in 1950)

"Man must shape his tools lest they shape him."
~~ Arthur Miller [1915-2005]

{previous quotations are posted
at the Working Minds website}

Monday, January 21, 2008

WM ESSAY #74 "FINE TUNING"

Years ago I went to a couple seasons of the L.A. Philharmonic Symphony in Los Angeles. I liked Mozart and Mahler, and being in such a metropolitan location provided the chance to see and hear oddities like Morton Subotnik conducting his own work. Venues that I went to most often were the outdoor Hollywood Bowl and Downtown's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I also bought a season's seats at the Ahmanson Theatre, and attended stage plays there, which I remember included Lillian Hellman's "Little Foxes" with Liz Taylor, who was then still an actress.

What never made sense to me was the concert facade, women dressing up in their minks and other pirate swag, males in tuxedos with brocade cummerbunds, standing along the lobby walls sipping white wine and snubbing the proletariat.

(One of the reasons that I feel very much at home in New Mexico is that still-dark jeans are okay just about everywhere, with or without cowboy boots & hat. The arty Taos & Santa Fe folk do have pretensions, but even Gov. Richardson is mostly seen in Dockers-type pants.)

This essay was triggered when I was reminded recently of watching the orchestra setting themselves up for concerts as the patrons found their seats. The orchestra members mostly carried their instruments on-stage with them, except for the drums, pianos & tubas – the larger hardware. One of the last to appear was the Concert Master, who by tradition is the First Violin. At some point a handful of minutes before concert time, the Concert Master gets the musicians' attention and sometimes with the piano people but always with the string section, the other musicians set their instruments to perfectly match the Concert Master's pre-tuned violin A-string.

Now this does not matter to a hairs-breadth, some hundredth of a tone. The principle is that the entire orchestra is aligned with X, who happens to be the Concert Master.

* *          * *          * *          * *
And what has this to do with philosophy?

Easy. The question arises about what each member of Mankind is tuned to, as individual and also as small and large groups, and even as societies.

First off, we are not all tuned to the same X, and not all are even tuned to the same realm (such as the music analogy); some are tuned to analogous color settings or height or width or time or power measurements. Thus, all the mad conflicts in the world.

And then so many are basically fighting over what is right to be tuned to. "I decide." "No, we decide." "No way, we have always ..." The result is madness.

* *          * *          * *          * *
Here is how to straighten the mess and make things work: The Universe is existential. In its entirety. The Universe exists, and that is all that need be said.

The best access to the existential Universe is by objective Reason, which itself is existential. Subjectivity does not give existential, only objectivity gives existential access. If it exists, then it *IS* true. The description generated by some people may be kinda-sorta close, might be off just a mite, but the Power from accessing the existential Universe thru Reason is greater in accordance with the accuracy of the description. Sorta close gives medium Power, pretty close gives plenty of Power to Make A Difference, and very, very close gives major Power. (How you know your existential description is accurate is by the amount of Power that it delivers.)

Religionists who describe the Universe (and how to deal with it) thru 5000-year-out-of-date or thousand-year worn-out barbarian paradigms or hundred-year-old Marxist theories derive less Power than they need to survive, so they revert to Force. The Taliban & Wasabi factions of Islam, the Baptist Taliban, the Red Chinese, military dictatorships in Second- and Third-World countries – all want to take over everybody else, to make their Belief the Supreme Belief, and would take over Antarctica and Space too, if they could live there.

Any belief system that offers a Way to follow to some Someday Good Life (not in this Life) for the uneducated, terrorized and exploited masses is only as good as the extent to which the given rules match the existential Universe.

Death and destruction as a career field? Hypocrisy as one's Gross National Product? Disinformation as one's Purpose In Life? Despoliation of the Planet, bequeathing poison and sickness to the next generation, and the next? Ignorance and superstition as a Value? All such activity is counter to what the existential Universe requires. All such destructive systems also destroy Power.

Wolves catch rabbits for food, not for pleasure. Seasonal floods bring nutrients to the soil. Rain and snow bring life-giving moisture to members of the biosphere. Vermin and bacteria do their job cleaning up the mess. Rocks bounce off a cliff and gather below to form a dam where beaver and trout can thrive. Bees pollinate the plants, unaware of their central importance in The Scheme of Things.

Nature works just fine without Belief. The mechanism that is earth's Holy Biosphere chugs along in diurnal and seasonal cycles, and cycles too vast for Man to measure.

Belief is unnecessary for living in the World. Tuning one's concerns to the cycles of Nature, tuning into the existential What's So of the local Universe removes the pull to conflict, the artificial war of My Belief versus all other beliefs.

The What's So is merely What's So – without Belief.

* *          * *          * *          * *
If Mankind is an orchestra, or a series of orchestral organizations, then most of them are tuned to worlds and concepts that do not exist. No country has ever operated inside a Capitalist {see Essay #40 on Paleo-Capitalism} Economy and yet billions of dollars are stolen and re-stolen in the name of Capitalism. The cry for War justifies acts of terror and genocide. Big business colludes to capture slaves to replace paid labor – and the slaves see no option but to agree to their own subjugation. Propaganda hammers into the culture the belief that profits trump Human Rights, the profits supersede the niceties of ecological integrity, and the masses nod their heads and wonder why their lives suck. War-profiteers and slave owners stack their treasure in secret vaults and live inside armored limos and community walls strung with concertina wire.

Belief gives them this.

Mankind is out of tune, out of rhythm, they cannot read the score on the (metaphorical) music stand, and instead fight to the death over sitting in the most prestigious chair. The conductor is wholly absent, or drunk with False Power and scheming for more. The (metaphorical) symphony hall is a dangerous place to be for everyone. Not much music gets produced.

But outside that Symphony Hall of Belief, where the existential Universe is available to be tuned into, there may be only a low din from inside the edifice of Belief. And as one moves away from the cacophony that is Belief and Superstition, the Working Mind can be present to the song of the bird, to the chitter of long-eared rodents, to the buzz of the industrious bee, to the burble of water across river rocks, to the plop of a trout who leapt for (and caught) the fly.

In tune with the existential Universe, one can see the white flash of the tail of a deer, one can stare into the open face of the fox or wolf, one can smell the jasmine and the rose, one can smell far-off newly-cut alfalfa, one can see the entire neighborhood by the light of the moon.

* *          * *          * *          * *
Your Life is given by what you are tuned into, by what you aspire to, by where your attention is directed, by the actions given by your Commitments.

What exactly are you, The Reader, tuned to? What are you in step with, who and what do you follow?

And why do all the choices given by Belief lead to dis-harmony and fear and pain?

Shake your Beliefs off and see the world without the false protection that they provide. Tune in to the existential Universe, hear the Music, and learn to Dance.

Harmony and serenity and peace are available by tuning in to Harmony and Serenity and Peace.

Copyright 2008 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Monday, December 31, 2007

Year-End Quotations

"When humor can be made to alternate with melancholy, one has a success, but when the same things are funny and melancholic at the same time, it's just wonderful."
~~ François Truffaut [1932-84]

"Also, there is no R in team."
~~ G.E.Nordell

"Great as the provocation has been in dealing with the foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify ... the use of torture or inhumane conduct ... on the part of the American Army."
~~ Theodore Roosevelt, 1902

"There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil."
~~ Walter Lippmann [1889-1974]

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn – and [to] change."
~~ Carl Rogers [1902-1987]

"The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton. We have to ask ourselves 'What is going on here?'."
~~ Al Gore, Jr.

"George W. Bush isn't the President, he just plays one on television."
~~ G.E.Nordell

"The health of society depends upon the quality of the information [that] it receives."
~~ Walter Lippmann [1889-1974]

"Reality is not negotiable."
~~ G.E.Nordell

"Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror ... States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."
~~ George W. Bush ("State of The Union", 29 January 2002)

"Religious beliefs, no matter the culture, seldom depend on logic and rationality and often bring out the worst in people."
~~ mystery author team Aimee & David Thurlo

"The emperor has no clue."
~~ radio talk show host Randi Rhodes

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it."
~~ Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962]

"[Art] only exists as an exercise of individual taste and freedom."
~~ Jane Smiley

"John Edwards is the candidate that corporate America is most afraid of."
~~ radio talk show host Thom Hartmann

"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
~~ Burton Hills

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."
~~ George Washington [1732-1799]

"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else."
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-1865]

"Thousands have lived without love, not one without water."
~~ W.H. Auden [1907-1973]

"Corrupt political thought creates and is furthered by sloppy language."
~~ Peter C. Baker

“Politics has always been a mud fight – better that citizens jump in the trough than lose interest.”
~~ James Ponlewozik, in Time Magazine

DUCUNT VOLENTUM FATA, NOLENTUM TRAHUNT: "Fate leads those who are willing; the unwilling it drags."
~~ Seneca the Younger [4 BCE-65 CE]

"The thing is to be madly, madly in love all the time."
~~ Ray Bradbury

"Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood."
~~ Mahatma Gandhi [1869-1948]

"Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it."
~~ William Penn [1644-1718]

"I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way."
~~ Carl Sandburg [1878-1967]

"The only real hell is on earth, and usually undeserved."
~~ Dick Francis (in "To The Hilt")

"Behind every successful woman ... is a substantial amount of coffee."
~~ Stephanie Pero

"[The theater] should challenge us with questions. Not answers, but questions."
~~ Gordon Davidson

"Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse."
~~ Miguel de Cervantes [1547-1616]

"All truth passes thru three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident."
~~ Schopenhauer [1788-1860]

"Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible."
~~ Marcel Proust [1871-1922]

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world."
~~ Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]

"Everything in this world is an opportunity for pain and failure."
~~ Jackie Hoffman

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]

"Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never do less."
~~ Robert E. Lee [1807-1870]

"Nothing gives life more zest than running for your life."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-1988]

{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}

Year-End News Factoids

China's environmental damage subtracts from their Gross Domestic Product an amount equal to China's over-hyped economic growth.
— Mother Jones Magazine, Jan-Feb 2008

"Deforestation accounts for 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, a rate higher than the global transportation sector's [emissions], pegged at 14 percent."
— Jacques Leslie (Mother Jones Magazine, Jan-Feb 2008)

In April 2001, a gigantic dust storm formed in Mongolia that left 50,000 metric tons of yellow dust across the U.S.A., and dropped even more from Kamchatka to Japan to the Canary islands off the African coast.
—Mother Jones Magazine, Jan-Feb 2008

Particulates from Asia now make up half of California's annual average pollution limit.
— Mother Jones Magazine, Jan-Feb 2008

"China burns more coal than virtually all the world's developed nations combined."
— Mother Jones Magazine, Jan-Feb 2008

"Taxation above 19% shrinks government and taxation below 19% makes government grow."
— Jonathan Rauch (Atlantic Monthly, June 2006)

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Connect The Pakistani Dots

Benazir Bhutto stated on 6 November 2007 in an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera English that Omar Saeed Sheikh is 'the man who killed Osama bin Laden'.

Pakistan's current dictator Musharraf released Bhutto & other political detainees just hours prior to the arrival of a U.S. diplomatic team headed by John Negroponte.

John Negroponte (fomenter of 'death squads' around the world) visited with civilian & military leaders in Islamabad, Pakistan on 16-18 November 2007.

Bhutto filed nomination papers on 24 November 2007 for the parliamentary election that is scheduled for January 2008.

Three 'unidentified gunmen' attacked Pakistan People's Party offices in Baluchistan Province, killing three workers.

Benazir Bhutto was killed in a hail of bullets on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi; the assassin then set off explosives that killed him and 21 others.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

December News Factoids

The U.S. National Debt increases at a million dollars a minute.
— AP Radio News

Permafrost in Mongolia has thinned to 3-6 feet during the past seven years and will be entirely melted in 20 years if global warming is not curbed.
— AP Radio News

"If you count the cost of healthcare as a tax, Americans are the highest-taxed country in the world."
— caller Brian on the Bill Press radio show

68% more homes are going into foreclosure than last year.
— AP Radio News

Single-family home construction is the lowest in 16 years.
— AP Radio News

"In the US, annual trash from gift wrap and shopping bags is four million tons."
— AP Radio News

The Palo Verde Nuclear Plant in Arizona has just been given a Category 4 safety rating, the last level before being shut down.
— KPHX Radio News 20 December 2007

The Lakota Nation indigenous people have unilaterally withdrawn from all 33 treaties with the U.S. government.
— AP Radio News

"There are 63 lobbyists for every Congressman."
— U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont (2006)

New Mexico has the fourth highest hunger rate in the U.S.

"95% of Fortune 500 companies pay less than 5% in taxes."
— David Sirota (2006)

"Estimated average credit-card debt per U.S. card-holding household is $9,312."
— Time Magazine

"The amount by which America's total spending exceeded their earnings was $41.6 billion."
— Harper's Index, April 2006

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

"Lions For Lambs" Movie Review

"Lions For Lambs" [M.G.M./U.A. Nov 2007]
Co-produced by Paula Wagner, Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tom Cruise & Robert Redford; directed by and starring Robert Redford; script by Matthew Michael Carnahan; also starring Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, Peter Berg, Michael Peña, Derek Luke & Andrew Garfield

An interesting project, intended as a political statement rather than a box-office smash. The three intercut storylines begin with a college professor (Redford) confronting an exceptional student who is coasting thru college (and thru his life); two of his former students who enlisted in the U.S. Army are gung-ho members of a botched helicopter assault in the freezing mountains of Afghanistan; and a veteran TV journalist (Streep) is spoon-fed a news story about that same assault operation by an ex-Army U.S. Senator (Cruise).

The film has made little money, and the showing I went to had only four people in the audience; the old gentleman behind me stated when it was over that "I'm more worried now than when I came in here" – precisely the movie's purpose.

video/DVD not yet available

Monday, December 17, 2007

Choosing A President

Not Hillary. She is a bully, recently trying to bully Obama. We need her to bully the Senate instead. Also, she is the Democrat making the most mistakes during the campaigning.

Gore already has the perfect job, he loves what he is doing, and we need him to do it.

Edwards has been quietly endorsed by Pat Robertson: How's that for a broad coalition?

Kucinich is great, but not for President.

So my favorite team for the Democratic ticket is EDWARDS - KUCINICH.

But then Chris Dodd is setting up an Official Filibuster, and that just might alter matters greatly.

So a bumper sticker for EDWARDS - DODD sounds worthy too.

Two weeks till actual voting! Can't wait!

Friday, December 07, 2007

Take A Look At Net Jobs Added

The New York Times is reporting (based on government data) that "Employers Added 94,000 Jobs in November".

So, of course the Republican propaganda machine is bragging about this supposed marvelous accomplishment.

The best estimate I can find of the number of undocumented immigrants is around 50,000 crossing the border each month.

THEREFORE: The increase in jobs of 94,000 minus the illegal immigrants (and not counting legal immigrants) gives NET job openings of 44,000 for the month of November.

ADDED December 31st: Found out on Air America Radio that the U.S. of A. needs 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with growth in the population (new workers plus immigration). So the falsity of the 'government report' about November is that the NET-NET of new jobs is thus 100,000 fewer jobs than needed – which keeps employment low and the work force scrambling for a living.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

December Quotations

"Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long."
~~ Ogden Nash [1902-71]

"Church is a place where gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive."
~~ Joseph Campbell [1904-87]

"Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
~~ Winston Churchill [1874-1965]

"I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty."
~~ Woodrow Wilson [1856-1924]
(inscribed on a plaque inside the base of the Statue of Liberty)

"If the only prayer you say in your life is 'thank you' that would suffice."
~~ Meister Eckhart [c. 1260-c. 1328]

"Democracy is not something [that] you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something [that] you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles."
~~ Abbie Hoffman [1936-89]

"Long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little."
~~ Helen Keller [1880-1968]

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away."
~~ Philip K. Dick [1941-82]

"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
~~ Bill Vaughn

"Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage."
~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower [1890-1969]

"The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!"
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]

"I think, therefore I am annoyed."
~~ Darby Conley (draws the "Get Fuzzy" comic strip)

"Lobbying is the world's second-oldest profession."
~~ radio talk show host Bill Press

"The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended."
~~ Fredrick Bastiat [1801-50]

"Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of tentative agreements..."
~~ Dave Barry

"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taken one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is."
~~ Chuck Reid

"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."
~~ Albert Schweitzer [1875-1965]

"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten."
~~ American psychologist B.F. Skinner [1904-90]

"Nothing is worth doing unless it has the potential to f*** up your whole life."
~~ Richard Ford

"Murder is always a mistake – one should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900] (in "The Picture of Dorian Gray")

"A company is known by the people it keeps."
~~ Will Rogers [1879-1935]

"The United States seems destined to plague us with all manner of evil in the name of liberty."
~~ Simón Bolívar [1783-1830]

"Give the public something better and the public will buy."
~~ Walter P. Chrysler [1875-1940]

“Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.”
~~ William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

"In California, the subdivider, like the poor, is always with us."
~~ Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933]

"Whatever you do, you'll regret it."
~~ Allan Mcleod Gray [1905-75]

{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

November News Factoids

Air America Radio Network outlets in Phoenix, Arizona (shut-down) & Madison, Wisconsin (threatened) were rescued this year by listeners & local business people.

Back in October 2006, radio station K.X.E.B. 910-AM in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas market was bought by Catholic Global Radio Network, who replaced the Air America format. In August 2006, the Air America outlet in Sacramento, California was suddenly 'flipped' to ESPN Sports format. In October 2007, Clear Channel's Air America outlet K.O.K.E. 1600-AM in Austin, Texas was suddenly 'flipped' to sports talk "to avoid a San Diego situation". Despite weeks of massive protests in San Diego, Clear Channel's lucrative K.L.S.D. 1360-AM Air America outlet was 'flipped' to sports talk in November.

As-of November 2007, there are NO progressive/Air America outlets in all of Texas, no outlets in Georgia, Montana & Utah, Ohio & Indiana & Iowa, and in Hawaii despite the fact that Air America programming beats right-wing propoganda programming in every market where they compete – or maybe their success is the reason for getting shut down.

* *          * *          * *          * *

WORLD POPULATION: It took from pre-history to 1800 for the planetary population to reach 1 billion; the planetary population reached 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, and 6 billion in 1999. Projections suggest that Earth's population will reach 7 billion around 2012.

* *          * *          * *          * *

There have been just under 300 Taser deaths in the last six years.

"Corporate America contributes 7 percent of the nation's total tax burden, compared with 50 percent after World War II."
— Mother Jones Magazine, Nov-Dec 2007

"Bob Novak is a compulsive liar."
— former Ambassador Joe Wilson (November 2007)

"Al Gore and Michael Moore are engaged."
— West Texas right-wing radio idiot (22 November 2007)

In 1998, a Federal Reserve study found that the richest 20% in America owned 96% of all stocks.

Before Bush 43 (October 2000) one U.S. dollar equaled 1.21 euros; today, one U.S. dollar equals 0.67 euros – a loss of 45 percent.

The Outdoor Advertising Cartel

U.S. outdoor advertising gross revenue for 2006 {per OAAA} was $6.81 billion

The top three companies control 54.2 percent of the U.S. market.

FIRST PLACE: Clear Channel Communications of Phoenix, Arizona
$1.341 billion in revenue for 2006 = 19.7% of the U.S. market (also #1 worldwide)

SECOND: C.B.S. Outdoor of Phoenix, Arizona
$1.23 billion in revenue for 2006 = 18% of the U.S. market

THIRD: Lamar Advertising Company of Baton Rouge, Louisiana
$1.120 billion in revenue for 2006 = 16.5% of the U.S. market

FOURTH: Van Wagner Communications of New York City [re-formed 1997]

FIFTH: JCDecaux Group [est. 1964] of Paris, France
also second place worldwide (after Clear Channel)