It's easy being green

Two new ventures and ideas.

Visit Greener Spaces. A new site that will highlight news, products, services and ideas that make a transition to green living painless. The goal: helping everyone reduce their carbon footprint. The time is now.

Along those lines, everyone should look into Green Irene.

Your LOCAL Green Irene is a trained and certified Eco-Consultant who will IMPLEMENT proven “green” solutions in your home NOW. Lead your family to a healthier, safer, more sustainable lifestyle and save money too by reducing your use of energy

Take a look around, sign up for a Green Home Makeover, purchase products that will green your life and save green in your wallet.

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Learn from history

Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President

I was wrong. I had been saying that it would be naïve to take too seriously presidential candidate Barack Obama's rhetoric regarding the need to escalate the war in Afghanistan. I kept thinking to myself that when he got briefed on the history of Afghanistan and the oft proven ability of Afghan "militants" to drive out foreign invaders-from Alexander the Great, to the Persians, the Mongolians, Indians, British, Russians-he would be sure to understand why they call mountainous Afghanistan the "graveyard of empires."

And surely he would be fully briefed on the stupidity and deceit that left 58,000 U.S. troops-not to mention 2 to 3 million Vietnamese-dead in Vietnam. John Kennedy became president the year Obama was born. One cannot expect toddler-to-teenager Barack to remember much about the war in Vietnam, and it was probably too early for that searing, controversial experience to have found its way into the history texts as he was growing up.

Bu alas, lessons of history are lost once again. What is the outcome? More death.

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A coup?

Nobel Laureate Krugman Slams Geithner Bailout Plan

Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman said in remarks published on Monday that the latest U.S. Treasury bailout program is nearly certain to fail, triggering a sense of personal despair.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday unveiled a plan aimed at persuading private investors to help rid banks up to $1 trillion in toxic assets that that are seen as a roadblock to economic recovery.

"This is more than disappointing," Krugman wrote in The New York Times. ""In fact it fills me with a sense of despair."

"The Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt," the Princeton University economist said, citing weekend reports outlining the plan.

"This isn't really about letting markets work. It's just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets," he added.

This adds to the merit of Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece called The Big Takeover

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

Krugman is correct: one-way bet!

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The White House Garden

Obamas Prepare to Plant White House Vegetable Garden

On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make the cut.

She's digging in the dirt?

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.

Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said laughing. “Now Grandma, my mom, I don’t know.” Her mother, she said, would probably sit back and say: “Isn’t that lovely. You missed a spot.”

Let's hope it has a prominent spot, prominent press and large size. I say bring back the solar panels Reagan took down.

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Banging the drum - a new regime

US Admits Downing Iranian Drone East of Baghdad Last Month

US forces attacked and shot down an Iranian drone last month just inside the Iraqi border. The drone was in Iraqi air space for over an hour before the attack, but was still less than 8 miles into Iraqi territory.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros declared that “this was not an accident on the part of the Iranians,” but the declaration appeared to conflict significantly with the Iraqi government, as a defense ministry spokesman insisted “it crossed 10 km into Iraq. It’s most likely that its entrance was a mistake.”

Thought the war drums would stop with a new President?

Wonder what would happen if Iran shot down one of our drones or captured one of the special ops in Iran?

War - a great way to get our minds off the economy.

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Thanks Helen

What are US Goals in Afghanistan?

President Barack Obama is making a big mistake in escalating U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan where he already has acknowledged he doesn't believe victory is possible.

We should ask: What are we doing there seven years after the 9/11 attacks by the al-Qaida network? Historically, the country has lacked a strong central government and has been governed by locally strong tribal leaders and warlords.

Al-Qaida was able to take advantage of this loose structure and turn Afghanistan into the plotting ground for the terrorists who struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York.

But what are our goals there in 2009?

While the U.S. is supposed to wind down its presence in Iraq in 19 months (rather than the 16 months promised by Obama on the campaign trail), the president has ordered a military buildup in Afghanistan to more than 50,000 troops, both from the U.S. and other NATO members.

He would leave 50,000 Americans in Iraq to cope with the resistance there. Such was the folly of President George W. Bush, who invaded Iraq after his hawkish neoconservative advisers told him we would triumph in a few weeks.

Careful Helen. W didn't like you. With articles like this OBushama may agree with his predecessor.

So what soes she want OBushama to learn?

Sooner or later American presidents should learn that people will always fight for their country against a foreign invader. And peace should be the only goal.

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Still in power...

Neocons strike back

The neoconservatives have demonstrated that their power in Washington remains strong as they have succeeded in keeping veteran diplomat Chas Freeman out of a top intelligence job.

Freeman dropped out of the running for chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which oversees preparation of intelligence estimates about threats to the United States, after an intense campaign spearheaded by neocons angered over Freeman’s criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

In effect, the neocons showed that their influence over the national news media, especially the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, combined with solid Republican support and some key Democratic backing, still lets them blackball potential government appointees who favor a more evenhanded approach toward the Middle East.

Not much has CHANGED - has it.

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Grow your own

The Party's Over

It's not coming back. The party's over. This isn't some temporary blip in the economy that a little belt-tightening will fix. One less latte and a smaller, "fuel efficient" SUV will not make this problem go away.

It would be nice to have all that money back from our Iraq misadventure. It would have been nice to have had eight years of competent federal leadership. But even so, the party had to end some time. It just came sooner than we expected. This is what the CEOs used to call a paradigm shift. Or, to borrow another corporate buzz-phrase, this is a perfect storm — too many people, too few finite resources (oil, water, coal), too little meaningful work, etc.

James Howard Kunstler, though he angers some with his dystopian forecasts, hammers this point home on his blog (www.kunstler.com). Because he has been right far more often than wrong in the past two decades, Kunstler is worth a listen (and his books, The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere, should be required reading). In a recent entry, he wrote, "Dear Mr. President, you are presiding over an epochal contraction, not a pause in the growth epic. Your assignment is to manage that contraction in a way that does not lead to world war, civil disorder or both. Among other things, contraction means that all the activities of everyday life need to be downscaled including standards of living, ranges of commerce, and levels of governance. 'Consumerism' is dead. Revolving credit is dead — at least at the scale that became normal the last thirty years. The wealth of several future generations has already been spent and there is no equity left there to re-finance."

Love the final paragraph...

If my town is any guide, don't wait for even well-meaning government officials to take the first step. Better yet, put some crops in the ground this year in your own backyard. It's the first step toward breaking the chain of dependency and helplessness.

The revolution is upon us. Join today - or at least when the snow melts and the weather warms so you can start planting.

Now if OBushama would turn the White House lawn into a garden - set the example for everyone.

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Banging the war-drum in the OBushama regime

Clinton Declares Iran a Threat

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashed out at the Iranian government today, declaring them a threat to the Middle East, Europe and Russia. Clinton also claimed that “it is clear that Iran intends to interfere with the internal affairs of all of these people.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed disappointment with the Obama Administration’s foreign policy today, saying that the new administration was pursuing the same “wrong path” as President Bush did.

Change? Hope? Where?

Maybe just greasing the skids for Israel ‘Seriously Considering’ Attacking Iran

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But I'm not comfortable

Mullen comfortable with Obama’s Iraq timetable

The top U.S. military official says he's comfortable with the president's decision on a troop pullout timetable from Iraq.

Sure he's happy because after 19 months we'll still be there - and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico (if Gates gets his way)...

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Kucinich Correct Again

Who wound that reporter up? I love her tone at the beginning - opposition and criticism from the democrats? She is shocked!
Hope she now understands after Kucinich's detailed and sane explanation.
Criticism - clearly her Word for the Day.

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