Monday, August 3, 2009

Diesel Reborn

Educate yourselves!!!!

By Dave Chameides, Contributor

Date Posted 10-24-2007

"You drive a what?"

"A diesel."

"A diesel?"

That's the response I usually get, along with a look of incredulity, when I tell friends that I drive a VW Golf TDI (turbodiesel direct injection).

It's not that they're accustomed to seeing diesels only at truck stops. It's that they expect me, an eco-conscious citizen bent on living a more sustainable lifestyle, to be driving something different. I then spend the next five minutes explaining that instead of driving a slow, loud, smoke-belching beast like they remember from the '70s, I drive a sleek, quiet speedster that runs on biodiesel and used vegetable oil and is as easy on my wallet as it is on the environment.

Yes, the diesel engine has come a long way from its bulky beginnings in the early 1900s. While its automotive
future faltered toward the end of the 20th century here in the U.S., it is presently experiencing a resurgence of sorts. Still the darling of the trucking industry the world over, the diesel engine's strength, reliability, efficiency and ability to run on alternative fuel, coupled with the EPA's new National Clean Diesel Campaign, has car buyers reconsidering diesels as their future mode of transportation.

So what's changed, you ask? Let's take a look.

Peanuts

Dr. Rudolph Diesel (1858-1913) unveiled his compression engine at the 1898 Exhibition Fair in Paris. There, amid the grandeur of the world's fair, the talk was not only of the engine's impressive 75-percent efficiency rating (compared to the steam engine's 12 percent and the gasoline engine's 25 percent), but of the fact that it ran on plain old peanut oil.

Unlike the gasoline engine, which runs on combustion (gas is pumped into the pistons and ignited by a spark), Diesel's engine ran on compression (air is compressed to the point where it becomes extremely hot, thereby igniting the fuel mixture when it is injected). The result was an engine that was stronger, simpler and more efficient.

Seems that besides being a genius, Diesel was a bit of a socialist as well. It was his hope that by fueling an engine with biomass (plant material, vegetation or agricultural waste), he could take the power away from big industry and put it back into the hands of the everyday farmer and small businessman. "The use of vegetable oils may seem insignificant today, but such oils may become in the course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time," he said in 1912.

Diesel decided to travel abroad and share his engine design (including its uses in submarines and naval ships) with the Queen's navy. Unfortunately, while crossing the English Channel, he disappeared over the side of the ferry and was never heard from again. Conspiracy theories abound as to who or what caused his disappearance.

After Dr. Diesel's demise, his engine continued to be used throughout Europe and slowly made its way to the U.S. Due to the large injection pumps of the time, however, they were extremely cumbersome and were primarily used in heavy industry and shipping.

In 1919, Clessie L. Cummins, a mechanic here in the States, purchased the rights to the diesel engine and began work on making it smaller and more stable for use in automobiles. Around the same time, the oil conglomerates, which were just beginning to take shape, introduced a byproduct of gasoline distillation that would successfully run a diesel engine and marketed it as "diesel fuel." The new fuel became the standard for compression engines, and biomass fuel faded to the back of the pack.

Cummins continued to work on improving the diesel engine to the point where it began to make an impact in the automotive market. In the late '20s and '30s he set land speed records, drove cross-country in a diesel-powered vehicle for $11.22, and established an endurance record of 13,535 miles at the Indianapolis Speedway, after which, it is presumed, he took a long and well-deserved nap. The diesel was beginning to come into its own, and today the Cummins engine is one of the more popular diesel engines in use around the world.

Jumping ahead to the 1970s, the oil embargoes gave diesel engines their next big boost here in the U.S. Starved for oil, car buyers began to look for more efficient alternatives, and diesel was there for them. GM became one of the first American car companies to make a diesel passenger vehicle, earning it more than 60 percent of the market. Unfortunately, most of the cars it sold had gas engines that had been converted to diesel, causing them to be loud, dirty and problematic. Having developed a bad name, diesel passenger cars quickly faded from the American landscape, and gasoline engines returned as the norm.

Diesel gets clean(er)

While the '70s hurt the diesel engine's reputation here in the U.S., they never faded from the European scene. Last year, more than half of the luxury vehicles sold in Europe were diesel-powered. Now, with fuel prices on the rise and efficiency gaining momentum in consumer car-buying decisions, the diesel is primed for a return to the U.S. But the vehicles we are about to see won't be like any of those that came before.

Thanks to the EPA's new National Clean Diesel Campaign, diesels have undergone significant changes. The new engines, dubbed "clean diesels," will be subject to the same emissions restrictions as gasoline engines (tier-two emissions standards) thus making the concept of the "dirty" diesel a thing of the past.

Clean diesel technology will be achieved in two ways. For starters, beginning in June 2006, all diesel fuel sold in this country could contain no more than 15 ppm (parts per million) sulfur, compared with upward of 500 ppm that it used to contain. In addition, as of January 2007, all new diesel cars and trucks sold in the U.S. are required to have technology in place to reduce the smog-causing nitrous oxide (NOx) and particulate matter that escapes their tailpipes. According to EPA figures, with these standards in effect, 2.6 million tons of NOx along with 110,000 pounds of particulate matter will be eradicated each year.

While the new diesels will be as clean as their gas cousins, they offer a great many other benefits as well.
Diesel fuel contains more energy than gasoline, which, in conjunction with the design and function of the engine, allows them to be much more efficient. The VW Lupo, a diesel-powered econocar sold in Europe, is rated at over 80 mpg. In 2000, two drivers took one on a 20,699-mile run and averaged 118 mpg at an average speed of 53.1 mph (Sure, they probably pulled out the seats to save weight, but hey, 118 mpg, right?).

On the sustainable front, diesels can be run on biodiesel and, with some modifications, used vegetable oil as well. This allows those of us who are interested in cleaning up our act to do something right now. And it's not just "greenies" doing this; the RallyVW team runs its cars exclusively on biodiesel. Earlier this year, an MIT study entitled "Vehicles and Fuels for 2020" found a diesel-electric hybrid to be on par with a hydrogen fuel cell-electric hybrid in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and total lifecycle energy use, which includes production, use and disposal (although it should be noted that pure electrics were not included in the study).

While the diesels of yesteryear were loud and sluggish, modern diesels are significantly quieter. (There's a reason why the TDI club sells license plate holders that read, "Yes, it's a diesel.") As for performance, they've come a long way in that department, too. Diesels have more low-end torque than an equivalent gasoline engine and many are turbocharged. Simply put, this allows you to jump off that starting line, or as VW touts, "It's what makes driving fun." Well, that and a really kickin' sound system.

In the coming years, expect to see new clean diesels from Audi, BMW, Honda, Mercedes, Nissan and VW, to name a few. Looking to the future, the possibility of diesel-electric hybrids, technology that is already in use in the mass-transit community, may offer even greater fuel-efficiency to the everyday driver.

So there you have it. Clean diesel technology, alternative fuel capability, accessibility and vroom. While the future of automotive transportation will hopefully be emissions-free, diesel is a great alternative that is here today, with even greater improvements on the way.

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. PELICAN BLOGS HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR ARE PELICAN BLOGS ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Sunday, August 2, 2009

John Walker Lindh--A Lens And A Mirror

Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 10:30


Reflect on the following and how it sounded in 2002 versus how it sounds now, so many exposed lies, torture sessions and needless innocent deaths later: JUAN GONZALEZ: When he returned to the United States in January 2002, John Walker Lindh was being held as a prisoner accused of conspiring to kill Americans. Newspapers around the world published photos of him naked, blindfolded and strapped to a gurney. On January 15, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced charges were being filed against him. JOHN ASHCROFT: In a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the United States is charging Walker with the following crimes: one, conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States of America overseas; two, providing material support and resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda; and three, engaging in prohibited transactions with the Taliban. If convicted of these charges, Walker could receive life imprisonment. AMY GOODMAN: At the time, John Walker Lindh was twenty years old. Days after Ashcroft's press conference, Lindh was allowed to briefly see his parents. His father Frank spoke to the media soon after. FRANK LINDH: John loves America. We love America. John did not do anything against America. John did not take up arms against America. He never meant to harm any American, and he never did harm any American. John is innocent of these charges. AMY GOODMAN: While John Walker Lindh was constantly being referred to as the American Taliban and as a traitor in the US media, the government's case against him largely fell apart. As part of a plea deal, the Bush administration eventually dropped all the terrorism-related charges and the charge that he had conspired to kill Americans. In exchange, John Walker Lindh pleaded guilty to serving in the Taliban army and carrying weapons. He was given a twenty-year sentence and agreed not to talk about what had happened for the duration of his sentence and agreed to drop any claims that he had been tortured by the US military. In the interview, we hear how Lindh came to convert to Islam, and then travel to Yemen to learn to speak classical Koranic Arabic: AMY GOODMAN: And when did he decide to convert to Islam? MARILYN WALKER: You know, in terms of when he decided, I'm not quite sure. The formal conversion was when he was sixteen. But he was inspired by a film, Spike Lee's film of Malcolm X, and the scene where the Hajj takes place. And he was really impressed with seeing these, you know, millions of people, all colors, all races, and that really moved him. JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Frank Lindh, your reaction when you heard he was converting to Islam and wanted to go to the Middle East to study? FRANK LINDH: Well, Juan, it sort of happened one thing at a time. He did convert, and Marilyn and I learned about it, actually, after the fact. But he went to a local mosque in Mill Valley, California and converted, went through this conversion ceremony, and then we found out later. John was raised Catholic. I'm a Catholic, Roman Catholic, so it was certainly different. But we always, I think, had a feeling that it was a good thing for John. We respect Islam and so forth, so we've always supported his pursuit of Islam. He's a very spiritual person. And so, he did-yes, he converted when he was sixteen. It was about a year later that he made his decision to go to the Middle East to study Arabic, to learn to speak Arabic. AMY GOODMAN: Why Yemen? FRANK LINDH: Well, Yemen is-John did his research, and he convinced us that Yemen is really the best place to go to learn classical Arabic, kind of without a lot of modern vernacular, the traditional Arabic of the Koran. He was convinced, and we believed-still do-that that was the best place to go to learn Arabic. And he did, in fact, become fluent in Arabic. He returned from Yemen when his visa expired, then returned, and went on to Pakistan to study and memorize the Koran: JUAN GONZALEZ: So then he returned to Yemen, and you thought he was still in Yemen. When did you discover that he had- FRANK LINDH: No, no, not exactly, Juan. He was in regular contact with us by email. He would go to internet cafes, and periodically he's write to me, to Marilyn, to his sister, and so forth. And then, in November of 2000, he asked me for my permission for him to go to Pakistan to study the Koran itself. There's a Koran memorization tradition in Pakistan. They have schools, these madrasas, that have specialized in that for several hundred years to memorize, literally, the Koran, and this is the goal of every educated Muslim. So I said, "Alright, you can go with my blessing, John." So, from Yemen, then he went to Pakistan and enrolled in a Koran memorization school in Pakistan. AMY GOODMAN: So he's in a madrasa in Pakistan-- FRANK LINDH: Beginning, yeah, in November 2000. AMY GOODMAN: So, this is before 9/11. FRANK LINDH: Oh, long before 9/11. President Clinton was still the president at that time. Where things went wrong was when Lindh made a decision without consulting his parents--a decision to get involved in the Afghan civil conflict, fighting in support of the Afghan government, which the US was supporting with hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid at the time, more than any other country: FRANK LINDH [cont]: And then, in the spring of 2001, he made a decision that he didn't actually share with us, to go into Afghanistan to try to help defend--what he thought was doing was defending civilians in Afghanistan who were under attack by the Northern Alliance warlords, who were backed not by the United States, but by the Russians and the Iranians, and they were, in fact, committing atrocities against civilians. So John told me and his mom, with emails, "I'm going up to the mountains for the summer." This was in late April of 2001. But what he didn't tell us, the full truth was he intended to go over the mountains and into Afghanistan and spend the summer there. JUAN GONZALEZ: And at that time, the new Bush administration was providing some degree of support for the Taliban, wasn't it? FRANK LINDH: Yeah, I think fair to say, Juan, more than "some degree." We were the largest single donor of money to the Afghan government. In the first few months of the Bush administration in early 2001, we contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban government. Our government did. And these were-this was all public. Secretary of State Colin Powell in April, around the same time John went, had a press conference and a public announcement about a grant of $46 million to the Taliban government. But that was just one of several grants that we made during that time. AMY GOODMAN: So John Walker Lindh went to fight alongside the US-backed Taliban forces against the army of the Northern Alliance, which was run by General Dostum, who has now become the chief secretary--chief security aide to President Hamid Karzai. But very-- FRANK LINDH: Well, that's a lot of-yes, but, I mean, I think we all agree that John didn't do the right thing. I mean, it was a mistake--I think a mistake for him to go and get involved in another country's civil war. I mean, if he had consulted with me, I would have said, "No, John. Stay away from that." But he did, yes. He didn't go and fight against America. He went and aligned himself with the side that we were, and had been, supporting in that civil war. They go on to play an excerpt from the documentary Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death which begins with the battle of Qala-e-Jangi in late November 2001 that John Walker Lindh survived, and they detail his harrowing experiences, which he thought would come to an end once he was finally released to American custody. AMY GOODMAN: .... I mean, you were so deeply relieved that he was in US military hands. Both Marilyn, you, and Frank thought, well, this is the beginning of the end or the beginning of the beginning, that you can get your son back. FRANK LINDH: Well, we did think he was in safe hands, or would be in safe hands, once he got into US custody. AMY GOODMAN: So, what happened? FRANK LINDH: Well, he was taken to southern Afghanistan to Camp Rhino. And instead of being treated humanely, as you would expect under the Geneva Convention-- AMY GOODMAN: He was shot. FRANK LINDH: He was already wounded. He had a bullet wound in his thigh, and he had shrapnel wounds in his legs. He was dehydrated. He suffered hyperthermia. He was very close to death in that media interview there. And instead of being treated humanely--it's a difficult subject for us, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--this is a document that came out in the discovery in John's case-ordered, "Take the gloves off." Juan referred to this. This was his order, direct order from the Secretary of Defense. And from that point forward, they severely abused John to the point that I would say constitutes torture. He was stripped naked in the winter. His bullet wound was left untreated. They put painful restraints, plastic restraints, around his wrists and his ankles, and he was tied to a gurney and placed naked in a metal--unheated metal shipping container in the desert and left there for two days and two nights shivering. His wounds were left-- AMY GOODMAN: Donald Rumsfeld- FRANK LINDH: His wounds were left untreated. AMY GOODMAN: Donald Rumsfeld's words? This is on his orders? FRANK LINDH: Yes, it's in a document that John's lawyers received from the government, and those are the words in the document: "Take the gloves off in your interrogation of John Walker Lindh." JUAN GONZALEZ: And other than that communication that you had from him through the Red Cross, Marilyn, did you get any other communication from him during this time? MARILYN WALKER: No, no. And we wrote letters. Frank had written a letter to him through the Red Cross. I had written a letter. And he never received them. The Red Cross was not allowed to see him during that time to deliver the letters. AMY GOODMAN: What? MARILYN WALKER: The Red Cross was not allowed to deliver the letters that we wrote. FRANK LINDH: We wrote letters saying, "John, we love you. We support you. We've hired a lawyer to help you. Please ask the authorities to allow us to visit you." And none of our letters were delivered to him. At this time, his parents had retained a top lawyer to represent him, but Lindh knew nothing about it: JUAN GONZALEZ: And the efforts of your lawyer on this side, in the United States, to reach the military or somehow or other get to him as a client, what happened there? FRANK LINDH: Well, this lawyer is heroic. He's a wonderful lawyer, James Brosnahan in San Francisco. As soon as John was picked up on the 1st of December, I went in on Monday morning, the 3rd of December. I had known him as a lawyer. I asked him to represent my son. He agreed to do it. And he immediately, on that day, on the 3rd of December, sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Powell; George Tenet, the director of CIA; several other government officials; and said, "I represent John Lindh. Please give me and his parents safe passage to come and visit with him." So the government knew as of December 3rd. Attorney General Ashcroft was in that letter, as well, that John was represented by James Brosnahan. AMY GOODMAN: And what happened? FRANK LINDH: Well, the government never told him. They held him for fifty-four days incommunicado, until he was brought back to Washington, DC area, northern Virginia. AMY GOODMAN: Questioning him? FRANK LINDH: Oh, yes, yes, questioning. After the torture, he was brought in and said, "If you'll talk to us, we'll stop torturing you." This is how the Bush, Cheney and the rest of the brave, brave chickenhawks in their Admihnistration "defended America" by trampling on our values and throwing away the chance to gain some real insight from an American who had been with the Taliban and could provide invaluable insight into their feelings, motivations and worldview. Worse still, Colin Powell, a supposed "man of honor", went along with them, willingly. There is much, much more to this interview, including Lindh's brief encounter with, and low opinion of bin Laden, whose terrorist activities he knew nothing of. But let me repeat the four points I made above: (1) Lindh was not guilty of any of the charges against him that were dropped. (2) Lindh had been denied counsel in Afghanistan, even though his parents had already retained counsel for him in California--who was simultaneously denied access to his client. (3) Lindh had been tortured and was about to testify about his torture when the government offered its deal, to prevent his testimony from becoming public. (4) Lindh took the deal because a fair trial was impossible, he faced certain conviction because of the state of national hysteria at the time, and the way he had been portrayed in the stenographic press. If Lindh's true story had been told at the time, if there were any interest in hearing the truth, about how wildly off the rails we had already gone, think how much tragedy, how much needless loss of life, how much bitter enmity might have been avoided. Think, too, that although our rhetoric has changed, we are still killing innocent civilians in order to teach the world that killing innocent civilians is wrong. Still waiting for change we can believe in. Still waiting for change we can actually see.

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John Walker Lindh--A Lens And A

Mirror | 3 comments

Sometimes it feels like slow motion suicide (4.00 / 1)

I guess to Bush, et al., he was a convenient tool and his life nothing more than collateral damage. The Corporate Media is one of the biggest villains in this sad affair, but the American people are ultimately responsible for their passive consumption of the propaganda. I'm afraid Lindh will be forever framed as a terrorist. Once the meme is implanted it seems virtually impossible to change. People are too lazy to seek the truth.

by: anothergreenbus @ Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 10:42:01 AM CDT

Among the more powerful posts on this web site. (0.00 / 0)

Did JWL know that US forces were engaged in war with the Taliban and still continue to bear arms for them?
I can't really countenance that. He already is guilty in my mind for taking up arms with the Taliban at any time; just like the neocons under Zbig and Rumsfeld.

But on the Richter Scale of perfidy and threat, JWL is about a zero compared to the 10 of the MIC and the neocon cabals that have declared war on 1789.

That is why he appears so sympathetic when juxtaposed with the neocons.
But he really isn't.

by: Paul Goodman @ Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 19:14:51 PM CDT

Well (4.00 / 2)

I'm not a fan of guns under any circumstances. But if you look at how he got there, which this interview explains fairly well, then it's hard to paint him as any worse than your average soldier who feels that he's defending innocents from a predatory enemy. And a great many soldiers are recruited on that belief.

As to what he knew about the US getting involved militarily and when, that's very hard to say, particularly because we ourselves were doing an awful lot to muddy up what we were doing. In fact, I still think it's fairly likely that we invaded in order to prevent the Taliban from making further concessions that would have made it difficult for us to justify invading. They had already agreed to turn over bin Laden to be tried by an Islamic court.
To me that seemed to have broken decisively with the position that he was a guest under their protection, and there was nothing more to be said. Once they had abandoned that position--which I understanding to be an extremely strong social norm--it really did seem like they would eventually strike a deal... if that was what we were after.

But, of course, we weren't.

And what did someone in the field like Lindh know of any of this? Very hard to say.

But my main point here is that we were so obsessed with vengeance that we didn't even stop to think what might be the smart thing to do, to think about isolating the threat we faced.

To this day, I believe that if we had put bin Laden on trial, and done it properly, with the families of all the Moslems killed in 9/11 given time to testify about their loved ones, that would have been the end of "Islamic terrorism" for a generation or two, if not forever, and that no child named "Osama" would be born for at least 40 years.

"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"

by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 19:33:36 PM CDT

Let The Sun Shine In......

Get to know that amorphous Lewin Group

August 2, 2009

ON TUESDAY the Globe carried two stories with comments about the healthcare legislation working itself through Congress. “Mass. medical leaders wary of healthcare overhaul’s cost’’ (Page A1) quotes CEOs of Tufts Medical Center, Partners HealthCare, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Caritas Christi Health Care, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Tufts Health Plan, Boston Scientific, and Genzyme. “Senate group closer to compromise on healthcare measure’’ (Page A4), an Associated Press story, makes reference to the Lewin Group, identified only as “a private health research firm.’’

Lewin is funded almost exclusively by United Health Group, the nation’s largest healthcare insurer, which recently reported $1.44 billion in quarterly earnings and has been repeatedly fined for overcharging millions of patients.

It is interesting to learn the positions of those who are profiting the most from the healthcare status quo. However, I’m sure that Globe readers are even more interested in hearing from people who are less interested in their own personal financial well-being and more interested in healthcare outcomes for all Americans.

Michael Mullaley

Hingham

© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Souter: We Should Be Worried.

We are worried, Justice Souter, and have been for quite sometime.

A democratic republic, let alone a healthy one, is impossible as long as there are large pockets of stupidity among the electorate.It is not only the right of every citizen but the responsibility of every citizen of voting age to educate themselves in the area of civics and government.

By Rex W. Huppke |Tribune reporter

August 2, 2009

In a rare public appearance Saturday, retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter decried a "dangerous state of civic knowledge" in America, warning that a lack of proper civics education poses a threat to judicial independence.

"We know from survey results that two-thirds of people in the United States cannot even name all three branches of the national government," Souter said at the opening assembly of the American Bar Association's annual meeting. "This is something to worry about."

A soft-spoken orator, Souter's passion for this subject pierced his austere delivery as he recounted a youth spent learning about government by sitting in on meetings in the rectangular Town Hall of Weare, N.H. Wistfully, he noted: "If anyone had put the question to one of my 9th-grade classmates or to me -- what are the three branches of government? -- none of us would have failed to answer."

Appointed as a Supreme Court justice in 1990 by President George Bush, Souter was expected to fall in line with the court's conservative wing. But he repeatedly voted along with the liberal justices, frustrating Republicans time and again.

His written opinions were rarely quotable or controversial, but he was respected by many as a careful and curious judge, a man known for a spartan lifestyle and an aversion to the trappings of technology.

After nearly two decades on the court, Souter stepped down in June. Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to replace him by President Barack Obama, and she awaits a confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate.

After retiring, Souter began working with the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society task force to bolster civics education in the state's public schools. Souter's primary contention in his speech was that a populace uneducated about government can't possibly respect the importance of an independent judiciary.

"We must revive the basic civic knowledge that once came naturally to a teenage boy in a small town," he said.

rhuppke@tribune.com

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Right wing Christian says Jesus hinted at name of Anti-Christ: Barack Obama

The biggest problem we face as a nation is not that this this kind of disinformation exists on the Internet. Rather our problem is that an alarmingly high number of Americans will believe it and, even worse, take it upon himself to do something about it.

July 31, 8:55 AM · Ron Moore - DC Special Interests Examiner

According to a report by Joe Kovacs on WorldNetDaily a video claims that Jesus hinted at the identity of the Anti-Christ. According to the report:

An American Christian has produced a brief film for YouTube that connects one statement by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke to President Barack Obama.

…on the video, the announcer notes, "If spoken by a Jewish rabbi today, influenced by the poetry of Isaiah, He (Jesus) would say these words in Hebrew ... 'I saw Satan as Baraq Ubamah.'"

"Gosh, was Jesus giving us a clue or was this just a freak coincidence?" thought the filmmaker at the time of his research.

Using the cloak of anonymity the accuser constructs an argument conflating three different languages until he discovers words that match the current Commander in Chief’s name.

His 4-minute video focuses on the direct quote: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." (Luke 10:18)

"When I started doing a little research, I found the Greek word for 'lightning' is 'astrape', and the Hebrew equivalent is 'Baraq,'" said YouTube contributor "ppsimmons," a self-described Christian with a theological education and many years in the ministry, who spoke to WND under condition of anonymity. "I thought that was fascinating."

As he continued looking into the rest of the words in the phrase, he focused on "heaven," and found that it can refer not just to God's dwelling place, but also "the heights" or "high places."

He then recalled Isaiah 14:14, where Lucifer, another name for Satan, is quoted as saying, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."

"I wondered what the word 'heights' is," said ppsimmons, "and I looked it up in the dictionary, and it's 'Bamah.'"

While the video’s creator says he is not ashamed of his claim he does not want his identity revealed. He is clearly a Fox News fan as he concludes the video with the statement “I report, you decide.” Bearing false witness is a serious offense as it qualified for the Ten Commandments so the accuser wants to make it clear that he’s just speculating and finds the word association striking.

"I want to emphasize I'm not ashamed of what I put there," he told WND. "I'm not proclaiming he is the antichrist, or that I'm some kind of a Hebrew expert, but the word associations are indisputable. The Hebrew word for lightning is 'Baraq' and the word for heights or high places is 'Bamah.'"

When WND asked if people should take the video seriously or with a grain of salt, its producer said, "I take the middle road. I don't take it with a grain of salt, but I don't use the Bible like a Ouija board either. It's not like a magical crystal ball. Clear prophecy is one thing. Making word associations is another. Just look at it. I wouldn't take it super serious and say that's the proof we need. It's a little weird."

The video and YouTube site contain the following disclaimer:

@@@ FOR THE NAYSAYERS @@@

BARAQ=lightning in Hebrew

BAMAH=the heights in Hebrew

Jesus said - I saw Satan fall as lightning (Baraq) from the heavens or heights (Bamah). IT is plain and simple. Probably just a coincidence - but? INDISPUTABLE as to the word associations. So - the film was created. Sorry if you are an obamamaniac or a bible ignoramous (sic), but there it is. Just an interesting word association. The film does NOT proclaim that BHO "IS" the AC

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Let The Sun Shine In......

GOP Family Values: Palins headed for divorce?

Palins deny report that they are headed for divorce court, but one never knows when it comes to Ms. Palin and her loosely valued relationship with the truth.

Not so much? AlaskaReport says that the Palins are getting divorced:

AlaskaReport has learned this morning that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage have confirmed the news.

A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage

and the stress from that led to Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska.

The Palins were noticeably not speaking to each other at last Sunday's resignation speech in Fairbanks.

Sarah ditched Todd (MSNBC) right after the speech and left without him. Sarah removed her wedding ring a couple of weeks ago.

The other shoe? [update] For the record: Sarah Palin denies the rumours. But keep in mind that she has denied other rumors that turned out to be true as well.

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Is The Progressive Party Over at MSNBC?

By Mark Karlin

As BuzzFlash noted yesterday, we have been pointing out -- among others -- for nearly 10 years the role of the few corporations who own our mass media, particularly television, in shaping public perceptions. At this moment, for instance, the television networks, in particular, have so aligned themselves with the for-profit healthcare sector that Americans think healthcare reform will hurt them, while agreeing with its specific details!

Yesterday, I wrote about how MSNBC put a partial muzzle on Keith Olbermann pointing out what a Jackass Bill O'Reilly is in order to ensure that FOX and Roger Ailes wouldn't attack GE's overall business, including its role in the defense industry and nuclear power plants.

The Political Carnival website wrote how Glenn Greewald had exposed one of the guest hosts for Olbermann (who has been off a bit lately) as a paid member of a corporate public relations firm, Richard Wolffe. As Greenwald observes:

Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, including corporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover. Yet MSNBC is putting him on as a guest-host and "political analyst" on one of its prime-time political shows. What makes that even more appalling is that, as Ana Marie Cox first noted, neither MSNBC nor Wolffe even disclose any of this.

This is a conflict so severe that it's incurable by disclosure: who wouldn't realize that you can't present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators? But the fact that they don't even bother to disclose that just serves to illustrate how non-existent is the line between corporate interests and "news reporting" in the United States.

And we're seeing more of the likes of Tom Tancredos show up on the MSNBC progressive programs, thus legitimizing the right wing fringe by giving them a forum. These placements, we are sure, is coming out of corporate, as well as the continued retention of openly racist Pat Buchanan.

After all, the New York Times article I referenced yesterday noted that a noticeable of GE stockholders were upset that MSNBC was carrying programming that was revealing information that could endanger entrenched wealth and corporations with the truth.

Glenn Greenwald reminds us that NBC and MSNBC hired so-called neutral "military analysts" who were actually employed by defense contractors and other corporations -- and didn't disclose the inherent conflict of interest.

Greenwald also notes:

There are many reasons why our establishment press exists to do little other than serve the interests of the political and financial establishment and to mindlessly amplify government claims. The virtual disapparance of the line between large corporate interests and journalism (as Richard Wolffe himself noted) is certainly one of the leading factors.

UPDATE: On Richard Wolffe's bio page at Public Strategies, Inc., the role he plays on MSNBC and NBC News is actually touted to the firm's corporate clients and potential clients:

In addition, Wolffe is an NBC political analyst. He provides political commentary on several MSNBC programs, Meet The Press, and TODAY.

They're basically telling their clients and prospective clients: if you hire us to control and disseminate your political messaging, you'll have someone working for you -- Richard Wolffe -- who has a regular platform on MSNBC and NBC News, where he's presented as an independent "political analyst." And this is how they describe what he does for the firm: "Wolffe provides high-level counsel and insight to our clients on how to manage their reputations in a complex public environment." How much more blatantly sleazy could that be?

BuzzFlash loves Rachel and Keith, and that is why we worry about what appears to be encroaching GE corporate intrusion.

BuzzFlash has always warned that our readers need to personally financially support sites such as BuzzFlash as insurance for democracy, because what may be the golden age of the brilliant Maddow and the acerbic and often eloquently derisive Oblermann may be short-lived. Already, it appears that their freedom has reached its limits.

From now on, it appears we are going to see more "corporate balance," which means the minority and fringe view will appear more in our beloved progressive television "beachhead." This, in turn, will legitimatize kook thinking, as we have seen with the TV media coverage of the "birthers."

The parents of the corporate parent company trump the truth -- and the growing audience for progressive television programming.

Too much success for the likes of Rachel and Keith in the end are not in GE's interests.

It happened to Edward R. Murrow a half-century ago; it is likely to happen again.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Saturday, August 1, 2009

GE Puts the Lid on Olbermann's Scathing Attacks on O'Reilly

Little Billy Can't Take As Good As He Gives.

By Mark Karlin

For nearly 10 years, BuzzFlash has asked its readers for financial support because it doesn't accept advertising.

Now Keith Olbermann knows why.

In a deal between the head of GE (the owner of MSNBC) and Murdoch's FOX News reported in The New York Times, it was agreed that Olbermann would back off his chronic lacerating caricatures of Bill O'Reilly (although it can still be expected that he will go after O'Reilly and FOX, but much less frequently).

In return, FOX and O'Reilly, in particular, will stop attacking the business dealings of GE. Are you getting the picture of how even MSNBC is affected by big corporate ownership?

A key indicator of what was threatening GE is buried in The New York Times article about the "peace agreement" (which amounts to a decrease in virulent exchanges between O'Reilly and Olbermann). Here are two points worthy of note to indicate that MSNBC talent may be kept on a shorter leash than progressive followers had hoped for:

The reconciliation — not acknowledged by the parties until now — showcased how a personal and commercial battle between two men could create real consequences for their parent corporations. A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April....

In late 2007, Mr. O’Reilly had a young producer, Jesse Watters, ambush Mr. Immelt and ask about G.E.’s business in Iran, which is legal, and which includes sales of energy and medical technology. G.E. says it no longer does business in Iran.

Mr. O’Reilly continued to pour pressure on its corporate leaders, even saying on one program last year that “If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt.” The resulting e-mail to G.E. from Mr. O’Reilly’s viewers was scathing.

Like most of the feuds between the right wing media echo chamber and progressive critics, the publicity surrounding O'Reilly-Olbermann slugfest helped the ratings of both programs.

But when FOX started to go after the business dealings of the parent company of MSNBC, GE, television ratings took a second place to corporate interests.

This is just another example of why BuzzFlash relies only on its readers for financially supporting its progressive news and commentary.

BuzzFlash developed a closed-circle media model for progressives: buy progressive premiums that help support a progressive economy, upstart new generation companies that heal the world, and celebrate progressive culture. In turn, net proceeds finance the news, commentary and advocacy of BuzzFlash. (We will be launching advocacy initiatives in the coming months that rely on grassroots involvement in social change, not petitions to Washington, D.C.)

BuzzFlash loves Keith Olbermann, but in the end he's an employee of GE, and MSNBC is dispensible to them. They'll milk the progressive wave as long as it doesn't really threaten the entrenched status quo. In the end, their primary interests as a corporation include going nuclear, literally. GE isn't going to let Keith or Rachel or Ed get in the way of that.

It's all just business to GE and Rupert Murdoch. GE isn't about to slice its own throat.

Just remember that.

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Sibel's Rogues Gallery

Does anyone actually still believe that there is any such thing as Democrati or Republican or Likud Party or other such "political parties?" (At least the Greens call themselves the same thing from country to country....and NO, I am not a member of any political party in any country, including the Green party) As my other said once or twice, 'the Nazis, Fascist and Communists were all political parties before they became enemies of human rights and liberty and

What about regions like Europe and North America, Central Asia, Indonesia, Sub Saharan Africa, Northern Africa, and others; nationalism? There really is not much to nationalism these days and hasn't been for a very long time, even though the citizens of regions and states can certainly be

whipped into frenzy of insanity with tactics like deception, especially when fear is used to accomplish the deception.

Another commonly recognized "sin" commonly used to deceive mankind, brings some major karma with it" --------- it's known as spiritual pride. It matters not, what form it takes; whether the pride is religious in nature or if it is pride connected with a so-called NEW AGE belief system.

Terrorism is nothing new. It is a tactic that been around since mankind decided to stop wandering and to sit down, build villages, city centers, and , of course, then, had something to protect.

(Of course there are always those who continue to wander and others who wander in more modern ways. Our Global Villages seem to continue to recognize the human need to wander. If we ever completely forget that wandering brings a special kind of wisdom to the wanderer, as well as to those who allow themselves to be taught, in someway, by the wanderer, our time left as a species is growing shorter, and is moving faster than we thought it would.

I do not particularly care who employs terrorism as a tactic nor what his or her cause is, no matter whether they are men and women in middle eastern garb or very expensive, tailored suits worn by westerners. I DONT CARE!! The use of terrorism is despicable beause being terrorized always brings out the worst in people. It matters not if the exrteme emotion of terror is caused by hijacked planes used as flying bombs in NYC or "shock and awe" over Bahgdad. The results are pretty much the same in all the ways that matter. The outcome is always the same and it is never, ever good for anyone involved in the tactic of terrorism and often not for people who are in no way involved with either the terrorized nor the terrorist....AKA, collateral damage.

Does anyone believe that there are, at the bottom or top of this giant ponzi scheme we call an international economy........ that there are those who are really true winners and/or losers and who are truly free?

(I had a friend who moved to Mexico not long after returning from his last tour of duty in Vietnam. He lived there with no television and a bare knowledge of Spanish, just outside a charming Mexican village. This was by choice. He just didn't want to know much anymore about anything. The less News the better. He lived in Mexico for about 25 -30 years, if I recall.

When he returned for his father's funeral, what amazed him most was how the wealthy had incarcerated themselves in gated-communities, buildings with security that would make NORAD envious and such. He was really quite amazed at a social phenomenon which had occurred gradually, over the years from the early eighties to the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, but for him it was as if had all happened over-night..

Does anyone believe they can begin to even comprehend the world in which the world-elite live?

Does anyone else ever feel like there is a class of people on this planet who are little known if known at all, who barely touch the general reality of the vast majority and yet seem to more-or-less control the reality of the masses? Seems to me that this split reality can be quite dangerous for everyone involved.

Of course, any time someone like me states the obvious, like the western caste system which certainly seems obvious to so many of the inhabitants of planet earth. we expect to be called the loony right or left, depending on which is needed, Commnnists and Fascist, Totalitarians and Authoritarians, Nazis, Chinese Communists or Maoists, Pinkos or, get this...... "Dirty, stinkin' Hippies"

(No, seriously, I actually heard peace activists called "dirty, stinkin' Hippies" by Brooks Brother types and other citizens of Wingnuttia at a peace rally on the National Mall in late September, 2005. I kid you not, there were people who seem to believe that the gray hairs and some of their grand children, some families which consist of Dad, Mom, daughter and son in a traditional form, as well as families not quite so traditional.).

That's not to say that I haven't seen some of the same looniness from the left as I have from the right.

Unfreakin'believable!

Rogues Gallery

Last year, Sibel came up with a brilliant idea to expose some of the criminal activity that she is forbidden to speak about: she published eighteen photos, titled "Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery," of people involved the operations that she has been trying to expose. One of those people is Anwar Yusuf Turani, the so-called 'President-in-exile' of East Turkistan (Xinjiang). This so-called 'government-in-exile' was 'established' on Capitol Hill in September, 2004, drawing a sharp rebuke from China.

Also featured in Sibel's Rogues Gallery was 'former' spook Graham Fuller, who was instrumental in the establishment of Turani's 'government-in-exile' of East Turkistan. Fuller has written extensively on Xinjiang, and his "Xinjiang Project" for Rand Corp is apparently the blueprint for Turani's government-in-exile. Sibel has openly stated her contempt for Mr. Fuller.

Sibel's Photos of Some Of Our 'Favorite' Scumbags

Sibel has broken the photos into three different groups.

The first group contains current and former Pentagon and State Department officials.

Richard Perle

Douglas Feith

Eric Edelman

Marc Grossman

Brent Scowcroft

Larry Franklin

The second group is current and former congressmen

Dennis Hastert - Ex-House Speaker (R-Il)
(Dickstein Shapiro)

Roy Blunt - ( R, Mo)

Dan Burton - (R - IN)

Tom Lantos - (D- CA)

Bob Livingston - ex-Speaker of the House (R-LA)
The Livingston Group

Stephen Solarz (D-NY)

The 3rd group includes people who all appear to work at think tanks - primarily WINEP, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Graham E. Fuller - RAND

David Makovsky - WINEP

Alan Makovsky - WINEP

Yusuf Turani (President-in-exile, East Turkistan (Xinjiang))

Professor Sabri Sayari (Institute of Turkish Studies, Georgetown, WINEP)

Mehmet Eymur (Former head Turkish counter-terrorism, MIT)

As you can see, there are a couple of 'Question Marks' instead of photos. I'm not sure why that is the case.

AND THIS AIN'T THE HALF OF IT!!!!!

Let The Sun Shine In......

Osama worked for the CIA?

The funny thing about this, if there is anything funny about it at all, is that there was a time, not all that long ago, when I would have by-passed this post much as I do the the one reporting that Michael Jackson is from the planet Bullshit in the Dogpiss galaxy and that all his kids are the first true, balanced Alien/earthlings to be born on planet earth, or some other total horse shit.

After the last 8 years or so, I've become much more open-minded about what is possible and what is not. Wonder how that happened. LOL

Sibel Edmonds Bombshell: Bin Laden worked for CIA up to 9/11

www.bradblog.com/?p=7332

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript). In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, "all the way until that day of September 11." These 'intimate relations' included using Bin Laden for 'operations' in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These 'operations' involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner "as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict," that is, fighting 'enemies' via proxies. As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from 'actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia') as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Independent Light

Monday, August 3, 2009

Diesel Reborn

Sunday, August 2, 2009

John Walker Lindh--A Lens And A Mirror

Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 10:30

Get to know that amorphous Lewin Group

Souter: We Should Be Worried.

We are worried, Justice Souter, and have been for quite sometime.

A democratic republic, let alone a healthy one, is impossible as long as there are large pockets of stupidity among the electorate.It is not only the right of every citizen but the responsibility of every citizen of voting age to educate themselves in the area of civics and government.

Right wing Christian says Jesus hinted at name of Anti-Christ: Barack Obama

GOP Family Values: Palins headed for divorce?

Is The Progressive Party Over at MSNBC?

Saturday, August 1, 2009

GE Puts the Lid on Olbermann's Scathing Attacks on O'Reilly

Sibel's Rogues Gallery

Osama worked for the CIA?

Sibel Edmonds Bombshell: Bin Laden worked for CIA up to 9/11

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