Sunday, December 04, 2011

"Good Night, Moon"

The Moon for Sunday, December 04, 2011

(At Midnight, US Central time, as viewed from the Northern Hemisphere)

Waxing Gibbous

Illuminated Fraction: 75.6% of Full

2.9 days since first quarter

9.8 day old moon

Children are neglected by The West. I can't imagine a childhood without books.


Nearly four million British children do not own a book, says survey (click title to entry - thank you)


...This survey was based on a smaller number of children, around 8,000 in total. The report also reveals that boys are more likely to be without books than girls, and children eligible for free school meals - a measure of poverty - are more likely to not own a book than their richer peers.

The findings show that children who own books are more likely to enjoy reading, read more books and read more frequently and for longer. They are also more likely to perform better at school and to have visited a library or bookshop.

Just 7.6% of pupils who have books of their own are reading below the expected level, compared to 19% of those that do not own books, the report found. Researchers also concluded that 75% of children who read nine or more books a month read above the level expected of them, compared with 28.6% of those who read no books in a month....

For those familiar with this concept of illustrating the demographics of a country, it is easy to discern there are approximately 7 million children in the United Kingdom between the ages of zero to fourteen years old.  That would mean more than half of the children don't own a book.  And the worst of it is that Cameron was attempting to close libraries for austerity measures.  Children are the still yet another tragedy of Wall Street.

I've always viewed anger as lack of esteem and/or insulted by life.

"There is not in nature, a thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly, as doth intemperate anger."

John Webster 

Very little is known about the life of John Webster. He was the son of a London carriage maker, John Webster, who was a member of the Merchant Taylors' Company before being made free in 1571. His father married on November 4, 1577, to Elizabeth Coates. It is assumed that John Webster was born soon after, but since the parish records were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, no accurate date exists. It is possible that John Webster attended the respected Merchant Taylors’ School, but there is no evidence to the same. There is a record of a John Webster entered at Middle Temple, one of the Inns of Court, in 1598, but it is not certain that he was John Webster, the playwright. It is, however, likely, considering Webster's connections with Templars Sir Thomas Overbury, John Marston and John Ford, as well as his knowledge of law as evidenced later by his plays. Yet whoever this Webster was, he was never called to the bar….

Muppets are brainwashing children. Interesting.

 
Man against Muppet: The commentators took issue with the fact that the villain worked in the oil industry.

Evidently, Tex Richman the oil tycoon is less a stereotype and more a political directive to children.

Maybe he should have been called John Bonehead, the Louisiana Shrimper.  No, no, Louisiana Shrimpers don't have shrimp beds anymore.

What gives FOX News the right to diagnose children with a psychiatric disorder?  Brainwashing?  What world does Murdoch's media moguls live in, certainly not mine.  The petroleum industry is a huge polluter and people in it are extremely wealthy. 

I think the oil industry, oily beaches, destroyed ecosystems and filthy water from fracking happens to be the truth.  If they have a lousy image they did it to themselves.  Children are supposed to be propagandized to "make believe" these industries appear to be benign and wonderful? 

Dear God, children, familes and friends of at least 11 human beings died on the "Deepwater Horizon."  Not only that, but, petroleum industry contractors are poverty level income even though they are independent business people.  Most of their income is to service the industry, not to the quality of life of the family or children.  That was a stark reality when the oil rupture occurred in Louisiana; the petroleum service industry was screaming the power company would be coming to turn off their lights.  That is not an industry that cares about people, so much as exploits them.

If Murdoch's commentators are trying to make saints out of sinners, they need to think again.

Perhaps the  Beverly Hillbillies should be censored.  Wasn't it Old Jed that ran across "Black Gold, Texas Tea."

I think the Muppets have the right to present any topic they want and if it is stereotypical in composition then so be it.  I propose parents discuss what their children are watching.

The Ballad Of Jed Clampett - Lester Flatt ,Earl Scruggs (1962)

The author of "The Peter Principle" written in 1968. "Doing More with Less" is an idiotic concept.

"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."

Laurence J. Peter

The Peter Principle made us laugh, (click title to entry - thank you) but it also made us aware of the importance of simple competence—and of how elusive it could be. When people do their jobs well, Dr. Peter argued, society can't leave well enough alone. We ask for more and more until we ask too much. Then these individuals—promoted to positions in which they are doomed to fail—start using a bag of tricks to mask their incompetence. They distract us from their crummy work with giant desks, replace action with incomprehensible acronyms, blame others for failure, cheat to create the illusion of progress.

Pakistan is good at retreat, but, poor in resolve to peace and stability.

The West has to realize there is no resolve to tensions with Pakistan.  Pakistan has no will to carry out any initiative to end its internal conflict.  In some ways it is similar to Iran in that it views its nuclear capacity as necessary to guard their people from a region where major nuclear powers exist.

Pakistan never stops to realize its nuclear weapons are why the Taliban and al Qaeda seek instability within the country.  It would be best for the people of Pakistan to end the power struggle with other countries and concentrate all the governments efforts on human rights and quality of life.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai (AFP, Patrik Stollarz)

Karzai accuses Pakistan of stalling talks with Taliban (click title to entry - thank you)
BONN — Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistan, which is boycotting Monday's international conference on Afghanistan, of undermining all negotiations with the Taliban.

"Up until now, they have sadly refused to back efforts for negotiations with the Taliban," Karzai told Der Spiegel weekly in comments reported Sunday.

The Bonn meeting seeks to chart a course for Afghanistan after NATO's 2014 withdrawal, but Pakistan's boycott has dealt a blow to already fragile hopes for a roadmap.

Pakistan is considered vital to any prospect of stability in the war-ravaged country a decade after US-led forces ousted the Taliban, who had offered safe haven to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

But Islamabad pulled out after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in cross-border NATO air strikes a week ago, though sources close to the German foreign ministry say Pakistan officials would be kept informed of progress at the conference....

The Buddist faith has been in existance far longer than Christianity. Peace and comfort are the entitlements they seek.

Anger is like a chariot careening wildly.
He who curbs his anger is the true charioteer.
Others merely hold the reins.

Buddha



Buddha's teachings remain refreshing and relevant: Dalai Lama (click title to entry - thank you)

New Delhi, November 27, 2011
UPDATED 22:24 IST
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Sunday advocated a return to Gautam Buddha's teachings of non-violence and belief in the oneness of humanity, contending that many of the world's problems and conflicts arise because man has left those basic tenets behind.
He said, as the world increasingly grows interdependent and is beset by conflicts, Buddha's philosophies will only grow more relevant.
"Many of our world's problems and conflicts arise because we have lost sight of the basic humanity that binds us all together as a human family," the Dalai Lama said in a message to the Global Buddist Congregation that opened in New Delhi on Sunday.
"Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment in Bodh Gaya about 2600 years ago, yet I believe his teachings remain refreshing and relevant today," he said.
The Dalai Lama will himself attend the four-day conference on Wednesday and will lead an all-faith prayer meet….

Does Israel believe it has to intimidate the diaspora to put pressure on the USA or is it a larger army it seeks?

I sincerely believe there is an apology in order.  I know many Jewish friends and their devotion to their faith is unshakable.  I don't understand the ridicule at all.  It seems like some kind of power play rather than invitation.  There is an element of hate in the ridicule.

...The advert that caused the most anger shows a young Israeli woman sitting near a candle she has lit for Israeli memorial day and watching the ceremonies via her computer. Her partner, assumed to be an American Jew, thinks the candle and music are for a romantic evening. The announcer says: “They will always remain Israelis. But their partners will not always understand what this means.”

The ads struck a nerve, given the American-Jewish annoyance over the common Israeli attitude that the most meaningful way of being Jewish is to live in Israel.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a prominent American-Jewish columnist for the Atlantic magazine, wrote: “I don’t think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads.”

“I understand the impulse behind them – Israel wants as many of its citizens as possible to live in Israel. But the way it is expressed, in wholly negative terms, is somewhat appalling.

“These government ads also suggest it is impossible for Jews to remain Jewish in America.”...

I often believe the media is more a Roman Colosseum, than reporting or better than average journalism.

"How much more greivous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."

Marcus Aurelias

Marcus Aurelius (click title to entry - thank you) was one of the best men of heathen antiquity. Apropos of the Antonines the judicious Montesquieu says that, if we set aside for a moment the contemplation of the Christian verities, we can not read the life of this emperor without a softening feeling of emotion. Niebuhr calls him the noblest character of his time, and M. Martha, the historian of the Roman moralists, says that in Marcus Aurelius "the philosophy of Heathendom grows less proud, draws nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the Unknown God.” On the other hand, the warm eulogies which many writers have heaped on Marcus Aurelius as a ruler and as a man seem excessive and overdrawn. It is true that the most marked trait in his character was his devotion to philosophy and letters, but it was a curse to mankind that "he was a Stoic first and then a ruler". His dilettanteism rendered him utterly unfitted for the practical affairs of a large empire in a time of stress. He was more concerned with realizing in his own life (to say the truth, a stainless one) the Stoic ideal of perfection, than he was with the pressing duties of his office….

Just to relish the moment, many people, christians, don't know that monotheism started to take hold during the Roman Empire, but, not in Italy.  Rome was proving to be a poor fortress and the 'new' empire would move east to Constantinople or the Byzantine Empire.  Rome actually had a great deal of turbulence or a long time while the land east proved easier to protect from invasion.

Marcus Aurelias was one of the first Roman Emperors to seek a different diety.  Philosophy was more important to him.  His rule was far less vibrant than his predecessors, but, then Rome was hooked on adrenalin.

Anger? Really? Despair, but, not anger. It is difficult to be angry at ice. Isn't anger out of context here?

Anger turns to joy as icebreaker shows up off ice-encased Nome (click title to entry - thank you)

Patience, dedication and resolve (click title to entry - thank you)

Kenny with children treated at the Kenny Institute. Polio was also called infantile paralysis because a disproportionate number of those affected were children.
Photo courtesy of Margaret Opdahl Ernest


Greatness takes many forms.  Before there was a vaccination for polio, Elizabeth Kenny opened her own clinic/hospitals for the treatment of it.  Great people undertand the dedication that is love and the dismissal of anger.  Love is found to be a strength and a potion all its own. 

"He who angers you conquers you." by Kenny

Identiry theft takes on a new meaning.

What is going on in Ohio?  All of a sudden there are runaway carnivors and now this?  A cattle ranch full of murdered men?  Strange.  Very Odd.

Victim Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon.

...Davis was wounded.(click title to entry - thank you)  Two others -- David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Va., and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon -- are dead. Investigators suspect a third dead man, Ralph Geiger, of Akron, also is linked to the Craigslist case. His body was found in Noble County on Nov. 25. He was identified on Saturday.

The three men killed were shot in the head. Their bodies were buried in shallow graves, authorities said. Kern's body was found near the vacant Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, while the others were found in Noble County, not far from where Davis was shot.

Richard Beasley, 52, of Akron, and a 16-year-old boy from Stow are accused in the slayings. The teenager has been charged with attempted murder and complicity to attempted murder in the shooting of Davis. He also was charged with aggravated murder and complicity to aggravated murder in the death of Pauley.

The Plain Dealer will withhold the teen's name until he is charged as an adult....

I don't recall Jesus Christ being angry except when he evicted the money changers from the temple.

"You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness."

James 1:19-20

It's Sunday Night


Paul Mc Cartney - Angry - 1968



Whoa!

What the hell gives the right
To tell me what to do with my life?
Especially when you made a mess
Of every chance you had of success.
Look at you,
Just look at you,
I said, I'm angry just looking at you.

Well, I'm sick and tired of sitting back
And listening to all of your clap-trap. (clap-trap)
If you could get me take the rap, I guarantee
You'd leave me with a backslap. (backslap)
Push me to the left, push me to the right,
Try to take me out of the way.
Even if you knock me off the edge of the world,
You're still gonna hear me say:

What the hell gives you the right
To tell me what to do with my life?
Especially when you made a mess
Of every chance you have of success.
Look at you,
Oh, look at you,
I said, I'm angry just looking at you.

Shouting down again, mahama, shouting down again.
Shouting down again, mahama, shouting down again.

Ow!
Oh!

Oh-oh!
Oh, oh, now, hah, hah, hah!
Hubbah, shout it out! Shout it out!

I can't begin to tell you all the reasons
Why you're making me crazy. (crazy)
I've got so many answers, like you're stupid,
Like you're crooked, like you're lazy. (lazy)
Hit me with your left, hit me with your right,
Hit me from the top to the toe.
Even when you chew me up and spit me out,
I'm still gonna want to know.

What the hell gives the right
To tell me what to do with my life?
Especially when you made a mess
Of every chance you had of success.
Look at you,
Look at you,
I said, I'm angry just looking at you.

Looking, shouting, look out!

Shouting down again, mahama, shouting down again.
Shouting down again, mahama, shouting down again.

Whoa!

Can't you hear me telling you?
Come on, babe, shout it down! Shout it down!

Shout it down!
Shout it down!
Shout it down!
Shout it down! Oo-ee, baby, oo-ee, baby.
Shout it down!
Shout it down!
Shout it down!

What the hell gives you the right?

Weinstein is a german language jewish name. Whatever made him believe he was immune from hatred?

And immune from hatred in all places, Pakistan!  I hardly call the kidnapping of an aged aid worker the act of citizens of a sovereign nation.

Islamabad --
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri says the group is holding an American aid expert kidnapped three months ago in Pakistan.
Al-Zawahri said in a video message Thursday that Warren Weinstein would be released if the United States stopped air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The video was posted on militant websites. Weinstein was abducted by armed men from his house in the eastern city of Lahore on Aug. 13....

Al Qaeda is demanding the end of USA air strikes in Pakistan>?  Not the President of Paksitan, but, Al-Zawahri with complete immunity is demanding the end of air strikes within Pakistan or else? 

Pakistan has absolutely no knowledge of where al Qaeda is operating from or where to find and apprehend Zawahri?  That is not a sovereign nation when international criminals sit in seats of power within the borders of a country.

Mr. Weinstein needs to be returned to his family, by Pakistan, without the free world meeting any demands.  Pakistan is responsible for this attack of violence and criminality of a man with nothing but peaceful intentions and the USA is suppose to stop what exactly?  Air strikes?  The same air strikes al Qaeda is demanding to end? 

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Battered by Pakistani military operations and U.S. drone strikes, the once-formidable Pakistani Taliban has splintered into more than 100 smaller factions, weakened and is running short of cash, according to security officials, analysts and tribesmen from the insurgent heartland.

The group, allied with al-Qaida and based in the northwest close to the Afghan border, has been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan over the last 4 1/2 years. Known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, or TTP, the Taliban want to oust the U.S.-backed government and install a hard-line Islamist regime. They also have international ambitions and trained the Pakistani-American who tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City's Times Square in 2010....


 

I am happy the USA could assist in dispersing the civil war within Pakistan.  Is there still a question as to whom is going to actually govern?  By some chance, some remote chance is the ISI finally unified?  Why allow uranium into a country with such significant instability.  Documented instability.  Makes no sense.

Pakistan wants equal access to Australian uranium (click here)

by Jeremy Thompson
Obama says Pakistan troop deaths "regrettable" (link below)
Updated December 05, 2011 11:29:49
Pakistan has repeated its calls for access to Australian uranium in the wake of the ALP conference decision to approve the sale of the material to its neighbour and nuclear rival India.
Pakistan's high commissioner to Australia, Abdul Malik Abdullah, says if Australia is willing to export uranium to India then it should sell it to Pakistan as well....

Australia has the correct approach.  Pakistan is too unstable to consider them a responsible nuclear power. 
 

...Obama told President Asif Ali Zardari that the soldiers' deaths were "regrettable" and accidental, according to a White House statement.

The comments stopped short of a formal apology but were aimed at soothing Pakistani fury over the November 26 incident....

...Pakistan said the attack was unprovoked, with officials calling it an act of blatant aggression - an accusation the United States has rejected....

Link:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/04/us-pakistan-usa-obama-idUSTRE7B30KM20111204

Any death is tragic and there are plenty in the region caused by violence.  In this case it would appear as though there was actually a war going on.  The tensions between the USA and Pakistan is what killed them, not an alliance.  The USA is well out of it.  I am sure China and Pakistan will live happily ever after.

Herman Cain suspends his campaign, blames the media



Funny, I thought it was a zipper problem and not a media problem.  In the case of the former Governor Spitzer the Mann Act was invoked.  I am sure Ginger White and all the other ladies would be happy to cooperate in any investigation.

What is this suspension stuff?  Does (Mc)Cain actually believe he can do as John McCain did in 2008?  I don't think so.

No Candyman in the White House.

The Right Wing uses excuse rather than morality to conduct their political agenda.



When everything does go their way, it is always the media that is at fault.  What I fault the media for is giving validity to unqualified and violence candidates and leaders that put us into Iraq with no way out.  That is what I hold the media responsible for, not allowing 'the bending' of the rules to seduce the pubic into voting against themselves.