Friday, September 25, 2009

Time-Travelling Ghost Writer: Bill Ayers

Some people keep saying that "Dreams of My Father", Obama's first book, was ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.

That book was published July 17, 1995.

Obama met Ayers at a party in the Fall of 1995.

It's a 403 page book, which would take at least half a year to write.

You KNOW what that means ...

Ayers is not merely a ghostwriter, but a TIME-TRAVELLING ghost writer: the most frightening kind!!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Beck’s home town says NO to his hate speech.

Mount Vernon, Washington State, childhood home of HATEtriot Glenn Beck, has a mayor who thought he’d get some good press by giving Beck the Key to the City.

What he got was a City Council that voted 7-0 to say no, they don’t want anything to do with hate talk:
“Mount Vernon City Council is in no way sponsoring the Mayor’s event on Sept. 26, 2009, and is not connected to the Glenn Beck event in any manner.”

--- "Mount Vernon council shies away from Beck honor", AP
This is great news!

Mount Vernon is a nice, all-American small town. Its main industries are agriculture, with a sideline as a bedroom community and a very nice brewery-pub, the Skagit River Brewery. The annual Tulip Festival is a lot of fun, but you have to go early in the day because it's also very popular.

When I heard Mount Vernon was going to give an award to Hate Talker Glenn Beck, I was disappointed and considered boycotting the town, but thanks to the Town Council, I now feel OBLIGED to go. Thanks folks!
Beck and the mayor are still getting together at a private function, where the press is excluded and there are no ticket available for anyone else. They're just wimps, afraid of what We The People might say if we were allowed in.

Cheers!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

We're Number 37 !!! Sing Along !!!

Why be glum, when you can sing along?

Sing Along!

"We're Number 37"

Come one, Come all
Down to the hall
We're gonna make noise
We're gonna bust balls
We're gonna disrupt
We're gonna jump in the fray
I got a list of all the things that We're supposed to say
We're gonna get real rowdy
Have a barrel of fun
But We're the USA so by the way be sure to bring a gun
And buddy

We're Number 37!
We're the USA
We're Number 37!
And We're so proud to say
We got old people crying at the pharmacy
Pay your deductible
This aint the land of the f-f-f-free Grandma
We're Number 37!
We're the USA

People of the town come on down
And if you got a crazy rumor you can spread it around
I kind of like my insurance and I like my health
The other 47 million can go treat themselves
To some prayer in chapel
Fold your hands and pray
Because we are a Christian nation and that is the Christian way
And brother

We're Number 37!
We're the USA
The big Number 37!
And We're so proud to say
We're #1 one in tanks
We're #1 in planes
We're #1 in war with #2 for brains
We're Number 37!
We're the USA

I drew a Hitler mustache on the president
Yea! Ain't that neat
My brother had a hernia operation last year
And now he's living out on the street

We're Number 37!
We're the USA
The big Number 37!
And we want to keep it that way
Be sure to bring the kids
All of the boys and girls
Because the #1 health care system in the world.

Is in France???

We're Number 37!
We're the USA
We're Number 37!
And we got something to say
We pay more for less
40% in fact
Lets bite some fingers off
Shout at the handicapped
Cause buddy
We're Number 37!
We're the USA

We're Number 37!
We're the USA
We're Number 37!
We're the USA!!!

© Paul Hipp 2009
http://www.paulhipp.com

Monday, September 21, 2009

Hankerin' for an Alternative to Paper Towels?

Check out my marvelous new invention!

But first, a little background. I had a hankering for a challenge, something to really test my manhood, so I went to the Change the World Wednesday Challenge and read "Can You go for a solid week without using one paper towel?"

"No sweat heh-heh!" I smiled to myself, "I don't like those girly paper towels anyway!" I have never been fooled by The Brawny Man; whenever I scrub up some substance spilled in an excess of gravity, I use rags from old T-shirts ripped and shredded by the flexing of my powerful torso. Otherwise, there are only few, very specialized cooking uses for which The Lovely Wife (a.k.a. She Who Must Be Obeyed) mysteriously prefers paper towels (and what woman has no mysteries?), so to avoid needless conflict, I resolved to stay away from that particular cuisine for the week. Already I am Master Chief of the Challenge, and it has hardly begun!

Next morning, I got up as usual at Five-Oh-God-It's-Early and trotted off to the gym with The Lovely Wife for an hour of "spinning" (... pedaling madly on a stationary bike while a cheerful coach urges you on. The coaches are skilled at talking me into far more than I would achieve on my own, most likely because when my brain runs out of oxygen, it believes the coach when she says, "Ok, just a little bit more!")

A problem arose when I stopped in the locker room to "wash my hands" and, naturally, after soaping and rinsing just as they taught me in the Kiss Army, reached for a paper towel. Whoa, Dude! Minimizing environmental impact ran smack dab into public hygiene in the era of MRSA and Swine Flu! What to do?

There was no electric hand-dryer alternative. If no-one else was around, I would have simulated one by waving my hands in the air, but one of the Big Rules in the Men's Room is Never Do Anything To Call Attention To Yourself! (Rumor has it things are different in the Ladies' Room; some say they even talk to each other! Br-r-r-r-r-! There are, indeed, some things Man was not Meant to Know!)

Then I noticed my sweat towel. Hrm!, I reasoned, If it is good enough for sweat, why not good enough for drying my hands? The soap had already killed all the germs, so clearly the manliest thing to do is to use manly exercise equipment to totally eliminate the residual dampness on my hands (humble as it may be, even a sweat towel is exercise equipment.)

Soon thereafter, as I pedaled away and brain oxygen level hit new lows, I had a brilliant revelation: instead of relying on paper towels, why not be Independent and carry around personal hygienic drying-clothes? Terrycloth is too bulky, but plain cotton or muslin would do and could be folded to fit neatly into a pocket. Printed in a pleasing variety of colors, it could be useful for in a variety of situations, starting with the drying of hands, but extending to covering of mouth and nose during a sneeze, or wearing as headgear over that place where the testosterone is chasing away my hair, or even covering the entire lower face in a public health emergency or stagecoach robbery.

I have always had a hankering to be the Master Chief of any such crisis. Don't YOU? Well, you can! for if you ACT NOW, you can satisfy your Hankering to be the Chief of ANY crisis with my patented "HankeringChief" brand cloth squares!

P.S. They can cut down on your paper towel use too!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Happy Constitution Day, Alexander Micklejohn

Publishing a monthly newsletter for the WSBA World Peace Through Law Section has, as a great side-benefit, the requirement that I learn about new and interesting subject every four weeks.

Today is Constitution Day and, by coincedence, doing the newsletter made me research Alexander Meiklejohn, who turns out to have been a champion of our First Amendment!
Each newsletter highlights a presentation by the Section along with relevant quotes and links. Since this time we're hosting a presentation by Professor and Attorney Ann Fagan Ginger of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, naturally I thought, "Hunh, who is this Meiklejohn? Did he or she say anything quoteworthy?"
In more than forty years of writing, Meiklejohn championed our First Amendment rights as necessary to protecting the very possibility of free self-government.
“Freedoms secured by the First Amendment – speech, press, religion, petition, and assembly - are absolutely indispensable for the preservation of a free society in which government is based upon the consent of an informed citizenry…”
”Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government”

I often find free speech uncomfortable, in particular when it's reichwing liars frightening old people with Death Panels and illegal aliens. However Meiklejohn's argument against Holmes' "Clear and Present Danger" standard is pretty interesting.

And in the internet era, it's proving to be much better to let clods and liars say anything they want, and the drown them with the facts. On today, Constitution Day, let us call for more heckling and less "Free Speech Zones"!


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Jesus was a Jewish Communist

Just look at what he said:
  • "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. (Matthew 19:21)
  • "Sell your possessions and give that money to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys" (Luke 12:33)
Just look at what he did!
  • Jesus never charged for curing the sick!
  • The only time Jesus got angry at another human being was when he whipped the moneychangers!
Look what his original followers did!
  • "They began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need." (Acts 2:45)
  • "There was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need" (Acts 4:34-35)
  • "For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack—that there may be equality. As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.” (2 Corinthians 8:13-15)

Now, I'm not gonna offer an opinion as to any of the above is a good idea, but don't you find it shocking that a network of TAX-EXEMPT organizations throughout of USA should be preaching such SOCIALISM!!!


UPDATED: The photo above is only a simulation of the actual Jesus, taken from my Roman Catholic Seminary:

---------
Also: I have to work in Luke 6:24 : "But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort."

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Free the Mulch!

Living in an apartment complex, I enjoy picking up the leaves that fall on the public patio and tossing them into the complex's planters. This cover the naked soil under the complex's plants, does all the benefits of mulching, such as returning nutrients to the soil and reducing moisture evaporating from the soil. This also reduces, however slightly, the need to clean the walks.

Unfortunately, the complex's contractors keeping "cleaning up" the mulch, carefully restoring the naked soil and tossing the leaves into our wastestream.

We need a way to re-orient the vision of the ideal public planter to include the normal mulching effect of fallen leaves.

Any thoughts?

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Heckling and Jekylling

Heckling is good. We need more of it.

Our leaders should regularly go before the legislature and the people, and have to take whatever questions are thrown their way, without the help of a press agent or an earpiece. "Question Period" in the Canadian House of Commons works fine, and it helps inform the public; maybe we should try it!

Now, to make it work, the guy on stage must get equal time to reply to the audience as well. Half the time the audience can shout, half the time the public official gets to reply. What could be more fair?

I urge this after having first gotten angry at Joe "the Mouth" Wilson shouting "You Lie!" during the President's joint address to Congress. It was a rudeness never before seen in Congress; previously Congresses have applauded and boo'd but never before had a guest speaker been heckled like that.
Some Wilson fans point out that once a pro-slavery member of Congress beat up another one with a stick, and Dick Cheney loved to use the F-word. I'm really not sure what kind of idiot could possibly think that those are points in their favor.
But after reading a fine article by Denny Westneat, I've rethought things. We need more of noisy dialogue, not less, because when you have facts and reason on your side, you need fear no heckling; you just have to be willing and able to hit back, hard and fast.

Teabaggers want it all their way; when they were in power, they wouldn't let liberals even hold hearings. The contemptible swine who ran the Republican Congresses were too cowardly to allow the other side a chance. I'm not saying we should forgive that; we definitely should not forget it.

But we should have faith that taking the high road works. Let the jackals howl at the lion; Obama can handle them, as he did Wilson, with a cheerful sneer. Let them shake their verbal fists in impotent fury; we can then dispatch them with equal passion, and logic and reason besides.

Representative Barney Frank showed how it's done:

Meanspirited, stupid heckling like Wilson and his teabagging buddies practice, show We The People that they are mere jackals; they lost in November for a reason and we WANT to let them remind us what that reason is.
In Robert Lewis Stephenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", the kindly Dr. Jekyll invented a potion to let out all his negative energy;it turned him into the ruthless, angry and murderous Mr. Hyde. We need the Republican Jekylls to keep heckling, let it out, show the world who and what they are: quivering bundles of rage, lacking facts or reason.
Of course, there are limits. For example, urging unstable people to commit acts of violence is too far, and that's a line that some reichwingers have crossed. However, you'll notice that their leaders shy away, edging up to the line and hoping some of their followers will cross it, but not wanting to put themselves at risk. Like Dick Cheney, they have "other priorities".

But, Timothy McVeigh-wannabes aside, let's have more heckling. Don't let the HATEtriots pretend to be kindly Dr. Jekyll. Let them express their inner Hyde, and have faith in the good sense and good hearts of the vast majority of our fellow citizens.



(With apologies to the delightfully chaotic magpies Heckle & Jeckyll)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Fall Planting Plans

This summer was our best container gardening season ever!

Of course, it's only our second season, and the first in which we tried to use as much space as we could. Kudos to the Centennial Apartments team that ok'd our experiment in the common area; we could not have done it without them! I hope the results paid off for them as it did for us.

Now Change the World Wednesday reminds us that it's time to start planning for our Winter crops. Everything we can plant for ourselves, or share with our neighbors, is just a little more food grown organically, locally and with pride!

For us, in our peculiar container garden, it's time to let the tomatoes gradually end their cycle and bury a few for starts next year. The spuds I think we can leave in the group a couple more months; Belltown has very mild winters and we might be able to have New Potatoes for Christmas!


Up in our rooftop Seattle Urban Agriculture experiment (which is not a private garden; all the food goes to the Cherry Street Food Bank) we're still growing a second round of greens, chiefly lettuces. We just put in a couple rows of chard and kale which should grow well into the winter.

Otherwise, I think it's time to look for rutabagas, turnips and garlic. Roots should continue to grow, albeit slowly, throughout the winter. Last winter, we started in November; they fell over in our unusual December blizzard, but once the snow melted they'd popped up again and grew to great size. They were incredibly little work for a very nice return!

What I may be learning from this is that farming cycles in the middle of a city may be different from those in rural areas. While we may never be as productive as rural farms, our microclimate is more closely modified to fit human needs and therefore our food plants may grow over a longer period of time. This may offset somewhat the restrictions in light from tall buildings.
(Let's try not to think about all the mineral enhancement to the soil from city particulates ;-)