Who Killed the Electric Car? (Part 1 of 11)

This is definitely worth watching. The entire documentary is on YouTube. I'm posting Part 1 here. You can continue with Part 2 right here.

Friday cat blogging!

Harriet

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Olbermann on McCain

Thinking of voting Republican? Watch this.

O'Brien joke

Snark, snark:

Barack Obama said his differences with Hillary Clinton are, 'infinitesimal, tiny, minute, trivial and inconsequential.' That's what he said, yeah. When he heard this, President Bush said, 'That guy knows way too many words to be president.'

--Conan O'Brien

Today's CNN QuickVote

This is current reality:

Can you get by without a car?

Yes - 14%

No - 86%

And I'm afraid I had to vote "no".

MSNBC live vote

I know these online polls are not scientific but of the people who chose to answer this is a huge percentage who think Bush should be impeached:

Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?

Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial. 89%

No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors." 4.1%

No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching. 4.5%

I don't know. 2%

A little break

Hi, folks. I just need a little break from blogging. I'll be back soon!

Friday cat blogging!

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

RFK: November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968

Today is the day. It is the 40th anniversary of the death of Bobby Kennedy by assassination. Here's a little something from an article called My Bobby Kennedy and Yours by David Emblidge:

Robert Kennedy’s To Seek a Newer World reflects his growing discomfort with the way things were trending in America and abroad. It’s the roadmap Bobby would have taken, had he lived to win the presidency. He did not live, and there’s the pity, and yet he does.

Bobby was no saint. Occasionally ruthless, he even served for a time, at his nefarious father’s behest, as assistant counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy’s infamous anti-communist committee. Yet, Bobby had a capacity for growth, right in the public eye, as few politicians ever do. He investigated, pondered, analyzed, and changed course, drawing us onwards with him. Today, when the world seems, again, to be going to hell in a hand basket, with all of us complicit in the planet’s undoing, Bobby’s model is tonic.

It was the courage to confront the errors of our ways and the losses in our lives that humanized Bobby Kennedy. Victim though he was, he was also triumphant, for he embodied the tragic vision of Aeschylus: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Moving, now, toward the November election, and slouching toward our collective future, we all have regret and shame on our hands, and yet, as Bobby would have had us remember, we can change, and we must, and it can be for the better.

I have long valued that Aeschylus quote. It is deeply consoling. And today I need it. I have a challenge before me right now that I don't think I'm really at liberty to disclose. But, of your charity, will those of you who pray please pray for me.

Blessings on all!

What is WRONG with people?

This makes me want to cry:

A polar bear that swam more than 200 miles in near-freezing waters to reach Iceland was shot on arrival in case it posed a threat to humans.

The bear, thought to be the first to reach the country in at least 15 years, was killed after local police claimed it was a danger to humans, triggering an outcry from animal lovers. Police claimed it was not possible to sedate the bear.

The operation to kill the animal was captured on film.

The adult male, weighing 250kg, was presumed to have swum some 200 miles from Greenland, or from a distant chunk of Arctic ice, to Skagafjordur in northern Iceland.

"There was fog up in the hills and we took the decision to kill the bear before it could disappear into the fog," said the police spokesman Petur Bjornsson.

Iceland's environment minister, Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir, gave the green light for police to shoot the bear because the correct tranquiliser would have taken 24 hours to be flown in, the Icelandic news channel Visir.is reported.

Sveinbjarnardottir's account was disputed by the chief vet in the town of Blönduó, Egill Steingrímsson, who said he had the drugs necessary to immobilise the bear in the boot of his car. "If the narcotics gun would have been sent by plane, it would have arrived within an hour," he said. "They could keep tabs on the bear for that long."

That poor, poor animal who was so brave to have survived for so long at such a great cost and then to think he was finally safe. Horrible. Horrible.

CNN Quickvote of the day

Not surprising:

Do you believe the economy is:

Getting better - 19%

Getting worse - 81%

"The subject of your war"

Here's a brief quote from an article called "Princess Patricia and the Taliban" By Eric Walberg:

“We do not believe in counterinsurgency,” a senior French commander, clearly recalling Vietnam and Algeria, told Saunders. “If you find yourself needing to use counterinsurgency, it means the entire population has become the subject of your war, and you either will have to stay there forever or you have lost.”

Something to think about.

June is Adopt-a-Cat month

I found this out through an email from the American Humane Society. The Society puts forth the following very good reasons for sharing your home and your heart with a cat:

* Having a cat reduces your blood pressure and helps prevent heart disease
* Having a cat fights depression and loneliness
* Cats are entertaining to watch and fun to play with
* Cats provide companionship
* Cats will cuddle up with you on a cold evening
* Cats are independent and can be left alone while you’re at work
* A cat’s mere presence will ward off unwanted mice and pests
* Cats are comfortable in small spaces like apartments
* Cats are very clean; they bathe themselves!
* A cat’s purr is instantly calming and relaxing
* Cats are affectionate
* Just 15 minutes a day of playing with you will satisfy a cat
* Cats are easy to house train, especially adult cats, who are probably already house trained
* Cats bring a little bit of the wild into your house
* Indoor cats and spayed/neutered cats live long lives, providing up to 20 years of companionship
* Cats are cheaper to spay/neuter than dogs, especially big dogs
* Taking care of a cat can help teach a child responsibility and humane values
* Lots of cats need good homes; when you adopt one, you’re saving a life!

Here's some information from the Humane Society about the adoption process.

Another death in Iraq

This one is considered "non-combat". But it's still very much about the war. The person who died, Jason Dene, was Mia Farrow's nephew. Here's something his uncle wrote:

Because of the arrogant, corrupt lies of George W. Bush and his neo-con handlers my nephew is dead, and I am mad as hell...Jason Dene was not killed by enemy fire nor friendly fire but by Bush's brutal and cynical stop-loss program.

Because of Bush's abusive stop-loss policy, Jason had been sent into an unwanted third tour of duty. He was a father of three and could not afford to lose his pension. Some 'volunteer Army'.

During his three 15-month tours in Iraq, exposure to roadside bombs and other job-related injuries caused Jason to be hospitalized several times for concussion and internal bleeding and other injuries. Recently, Jason's condition was such that the Department of Defense flew him from Iraq to Dover Air Force Base for surgery. He was released from the hospital into the loving arms of the government who sent him directly back into Iraq. He was put on active duty while he was still on a liquid diet, unable to eat solid food because of a throat hemorrhage due to a botched surgery at a military hospital.

After his second tour Jason returned home with severe mental and physical issues. He was certainly in no condition to be pressed into a third tour. He wanted out of the army. But Jason was a victim of the liar's back-door draft...

He was still on a post surgical liquid diet and he was put on active duty? That is unconscionable. The military ought to be sued into oblivion. But, of course, they can't be. That's part of the fine print you agree to when you sign up.