Astroworld

http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks ".... could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act. " — Time Magazine

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/%27Wikileaks.org%27_taken_off_line_in_many_areas_after_fire%2C_court_injunction

Wikinews report

February 18, 2008

The website WikiLeaks.org has been taken off line in many parts of the world. Wikileaks is a website dedicated to leaking documents that are "anonymous, untraceable, uncensorable."

Several factors have taken the site off line including DDoS attacks, which was followed by a fire which took out the main servers hosting the site in Sweden, and a restraining order on the domain name 'WikiLeaks.org' issued in the United States.

According to the website HongPong.com, Wikileaks experienced "a 500Mbps distributed denial of service attack" before the fire, but it is not known if the DDoS attack is connected to it.

After the attack, a fire was reported in the Uninterruptible Power Supply of the servers which host the site.

The third and final factor taking the site off line is a permanent injunction granted in the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, California to Bank Julius Baer, a Swiss Bank, which has caused the domain to be taken off line in the U.S..

Wikileaks previously published hundreds of documents obtained from a whistleblower of the Swiss Bank, "purportedly showing offshore tax evasion and money laundering by extremely wealthy and in some cases, politically sensitive, clients from the US, Europe, China and Peru."

According to a Wikileaks press release received by e-mail, the injunction issued by the court states, "Dynadot [Wikileaks host] shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court."

"The order was entirely written by Cayman Island's Bank Julius Baer lawyers and was accepted by judge White without amendment, or representations by Wikileaks or amicus. The case is over several Wikileaks articles, public commentary and documents dating prior to 2003. The documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.

The bank alleges the documents were disclosed to Wikileaks by offshore banking whistleblower and former Vice President the Cayman Island's operation, Rudolf Elmer. Unable to lawfully attack Wikileaks servers which are based in several countries, the order was served on Wikileaks's California registrar Dynadot ("the power company"). The order also enjoins every person who has heard about the order from from even linking to the documents," said Wikileaks in the release.

Despite the injunction, Wikileaks states that they will "keep on publishing, in-fact, given the level of suppression involved in this case, Wikileaks will step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices."

Despite the injunction, the site can still be accessed at http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Latin_America_And_Caribbean/Fidel_Castro.html?cxntnid=bn_2008-02-19_04_39_id510_e

Fidel Castro Resigns Cuban Presidency
By ANITA SNOW
Associated Press Writer

HAVANA — An ailing Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he was retiring and will not accept a new term when the new parliament meets Sunday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSISL254179

Musharraf's rivals win Pakistan election

ISLAMABAD, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's opponents won a big election victory on Tuesday after voters rejected his former ruling party, raising questions about the future of the U.S. ally who has ruled since 1999.

Counting was continuing with results still awaited from almost 100 seats, but no party was expected to win a majority in the 342-seat National Assembly.

The opposition parties of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appeared to have won enough to command a majority, according to unofficial results. But there is no certainty that they will work together.

More at the link...

OOps PAtC You eat me to it. Lots of CHANGE in the air this AM!

It's wild out there qop!!

that was meant to be "you Beat me to it!"

I knew that! :-D))) It is after all, the morning.

It is so wild out there right now. I am on my way to a meeting and can't get back to this until later, but I wanted to get a quick note up last night to tell everyone "be careful" today. Castro must be very very close to death.

Yeh, And the B family BFEE, has never forgiven or forgotten his ( Castro's) 1959 take-over & Nationalization of Uncle Herbie's sugar plantation.!
Ultimately it led to aspertame. (Rumsfeld/Serle)

And you Sally. Be well out there.

I love it. Both Pats rockin' this morning.

The complex outing of world, and natural events are on time with coming eclipse. Sally, you have talked this and so has Morgana. My question is, if this confluence of "outings" is streaming out now, just what will be outed after the eclipse? My head is swirling with potentialities right now. I'll bet the number 2 may key in to this as well. So, what does numerology say?

Had a dream about being in a room with the super delegates. It was very unpleasant, for each of them were more concerned with their own status and power than we the people. In the dream i became sick to my stomach -- something i rarely feel. It was potent, a harbinger of what may come.

Thanks for the heads up in your beautiful fashion Sally.
I have n.node and sun at 3&4 Gemini. Active imagination to wrap myself in my light cloak and keep my opinions to myself (me????).

Here's this, on OpEd News of all things, regarding this eclipse.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_c_l___pa_080218_virgo_lunar_eclipse_2c.htm

Complete with an explanation of the sabian symbols involved. I'm still absorbing the implications.

Sally, thank you so much for your articles! I love them all.

Ohhh me! I have Venus retrograde in my natal chart right where that Lunar eclipse is - at 2 degrees Virgo and I have an important exam coming up March 7 at 12:30 and I think Saturn is going to be flirting with that Venus too!

I just have to believe it is a GOOD thing and I will be successful!! I've worked extremely hard for the opportunity to take this state insurance exam!!

However, if I happen to fail it, which I won't, I can take it over so no big deal!!

Please forgive me for talking personal but methinks Venus is kind of personal even in it's detriment and ass-backwards!! heeee

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has scheduled pro forma sessions for Tuesday and Thursday “so that Bush cannot call Congress back into special session to take up the now-expired Protect America Act.” The Senate will take similar action.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0208/Democrats_set_pro_forma_sessions_to_avoid_special_session_on_FISA.html

Ha!! :-)

.........

All my best thoughts to you all in all you pursuits. May you be filled with serenity and clarity.

http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/trade-debate-heads-right-direction

Trade Debate Heads In The Right Direction

Over the last few weeks, we have seen Democratic presidential candidates move more forcefully toward a populist position on trade, articulating a "fair trade" vision that has been missing in many presidential election contests.

Last week, for instance, Barack Obama sounded downright John Edwardsian at a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, indicting NAFTA and promising to use the power of the presidency to make sure future trade deals are fair.

Now, today, we get this line from Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in the New York Times:

“I’m tired of being played for a patsy,” Mrs. Clinton said at the hall. “We have the largest market in the world. It’s time we said to the rest of the world, ‘If you want to have anything to do with our market, you have to play by our rules.’ ”
Clinton's point is particularly important. Even though every country and every company wants access to our market, we haven't been using that leverage in any way at all. That is, we have been granting access to our market without any conditions (better labor practices, better environmental practices, etc.) that might improve our own country and the world. A president who understands the stupidity of such a policy and who works to change would be a very real, and very serious change.

More at the link....

Here is a very interesting article on the Bush Presidency and the Eclipse series.

http://starsoverwashington.blogspot.com/2008/02/eclipse-series-of-bush-presidency.htm

PatC, the link doesn't seem to working.

Now a question, does anyone else have the feeling that Castro is already deceased? That this is what he wanted? That upon his death, he would leave instructions such as this? To say he was resigning? Perhaps, i'm just thinking about a man who lived according to his own plan.

And Laurie, good luck to you!

Ooooh, the last "l" was left off. Here you go karen.

http://starsoverwashington.blogspot.com/2008/02/eclipse-series-of-bush-presidency.html

From the Feb 11 issue of The American Conservative:

The Great Betrayal

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Offering more “straight talk” on the Sunday before the Florida primary, John McCain made an arresting prediction: “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars. I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

Ike promised to “go to Korea” and ended that war. Nixon pledged to end Vietnam with honor. McCain says we may be in Iraq a hundred years and warns, “there’s going to be other wars.” Take the man at his word.

Mimicking the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann,” McCain has joked about “Bomb, bomb, bomb—bomb, bomb Iran” and urged the expulsion of Russia from the G-8. He wants to expand NATO to bring in Georgia and the Ukraine. This could mean confrontation between Russia and the United States over whether South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be free of Georgia or ruled by Tbilisi, a matter of zero vital interest to this country.

Snip

On the two issues where Bush has been at his best, taxes and judges, McCain has sided against him. On the three issues that have ravaged the Bush presidency—the misbegotten war in Iraq, the failure to secure America’s borders, and the trade policy that has destroyed the dollar, de-industrialized the country, and left foreigners with $5 trillion to buy up America—McCain has sided with Bush.

Now McCain is running on a platform that says your jobs are not coming back, the illegals are not going home, but we are going to have more wars. If you don’t like it, vote for Hillary.

And this was to be the Year of Change.

http://amconmag.com/2008/2008_02_11/buchanan.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/19/lawlessness/index.html

The courts and Congress affirmatively conceal and protect lawbreaking

For someone who touts her experience over her opponent's inexperience,apparently Hillary's campaign committed a few faux pas. Here's an anatomy of a failed, or failing campaign:

http://real-us.news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080219/cm_huffpost/087353_200802191056

I posted this in the last thread so I think it kind of fell off the cliff at the end there.

Has anyone done any astrology on Kucinich to see what will happen to his Congressional seat?

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/096

[snip]
Many progressives lamented that the person who most articulated their values in the current presidential primary race was Dennis Kucinich (or John Edwards). But in large part due to media neglect of his campaign, he was never able to get enough exposure to gain traction. MSNBC even went to court to keep him out of a presidential debate.

Kucinich cut short his effort to raise fundamental issues of justice at the national level because trouble was brewing in Cleveland. In short, well-monied interests took advantage of Kucinich's presidential campaign to back a candidate to challenge Dennis in the March 4th Ohio primary. So Kucinich had to suddenly switch gears from running for president to battling to keep his Congressional seat, due to well-heeled opposition who don't cotton to Kucinich's calls for corporate and political accountability.

more...

Luna, i believe Sally addressed this awhile back. . .but something to the effect that Kucinich's influence will grow or become more potent in 2009. I may be mistaken, so Sally or Morgana will have to weigh in on this.

Pat C, the Great Betrayal -- well, maybe the continuation of the Great Betrayal. Or maybe the Big Lie Gets Bigger.

Sharon, I wish I could be as kind as you are to Bush. The only thing I can give him credit for is exposing so much of America's shadow energy that maybe this nation might eventually be able to face up to some of it, mature and grow. Hmm...

Kind of ironic, isn't it? That these eight years might actually awaken us to follow a much better path in the long run.

All Bush has done is bring the scum to the surface and put them in charge while scaring the begesus out of the citizenry, feeding the loons, and starting tragic wars.

Oh and spent all the money while putting his country in deep debt to the Middle East and China.

No big deal. I guess that's why they see no need to impeach him.

A New Lebanon War?

There are multiple signs that some military action by Israel against Hizbullah and Hamas will soon take place.

Two weeks ago Olmert traveled through European capitals to get international support for a big Gaza operation. The plan seems to be to put the problem into the hand of international troops after such an operation has finished. (Any volunteers?)

The Israeli Mossad assassinated Hizbullah's military planer Imad Mugniyah in Damascus last week, Hizbullah has pledged revenge.

On the 14th the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal visited Moscow for a few hours with Putin. On the 15th he was in Washington for a short meeting with Bush. In-between he dropped by in Berlin and Paris. None of the usual news agencies reported about these visits!

Yesterday Faisal warned Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/02/a-new-lebanon-w.html#more

Ooooh, here're some more deep dark secrets coming to light--but these are delightful:
http://tinyurl.com/yobmfz

A different kind of dee[p dark secrets...........

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1994-09-08/news/opiate-for-the-mrs

Opiate For the Mrs.
When laws are broken, somebody's got to be punished. In the case of Cindy McCain, that somebody is Tom Gosinski

Well, I've known about the drug problem with Cindy McCain a long time....I remember when this happened. That is why I keep saying....HOW IS THIS GUY A FRONT RUNNER? It tells you just how corrupt politics can be. (I am not saying that it is now corrupt, because it has always been corrupt....move along folks, nothing here to see....which is how it gets covered over).

Sally, I wondered the same thing about the boxes of JFK/Jack Ruby/Oswald papers....HOW did these things manage to stay buried? Hasn't this been one of the most examined cases in history?

The timing certainly is interesting.

Obama is projected to win in Wisconsin.

..........

I wonder if this will give Great Britain pause at including Shia Courts.

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2008/02/14/D8UQ2MU80_saudi_human_rights/index.html

Saudis to Execute a Woman for Witchcraft

Here's Ahhhhhhhhhhhnold at his wurst. I had to futz around with the controls on the video to get it to work, but no one I sent it to reported back that they had to do the same. I do hope it works for you. This is priceless.

http://tinyurl.com/36nbvh

http://www.sabiansymbols.typepad.com/

A Large White Cross and Guardian Angels: February's Lunar Eclipse

It certainly has been the most examined case in history Judi G. I Federal Attorney said they have always known those boxes were there and locked up and so have every Fed. attorney in the country for the last 44 years. They have taken a vote every year and voted to keep the boxes in the safe unexamined. He didn't say why they decided to release them this year. Odd.

Oh, I forgot, they will try to shoot down NASA' failed experiment and pray it doesn't come down on us.

New Yorker staff talk about the Hillary/Obama/McCain politics...video:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/02/11/080211_politicspanel

Sally, has there been any more released on it?

As a Gemini, I have felt the change of Mercury going direct. I am not happy with it, which is certainly a new thing for me. It is making me just feel a bit weaker physically....like the large waves I've been surfing have flattened out and I'm just kind of sitting on my board.

No there hasn't been anymore. The last I heard no one has been through all the boxes yet and don't know what all is there. I would so love to be able to go through those boxes, ah just a dream.

I'm not a Gemini, but this direct motion felt very odd to me and I felt the energy shift immediately, maybe it was because we were going into a Virgo/Pisces eclipse with a Pluto trine, still waters you know. I think there will be a lot of these feelings as we begin to all shift into a new consciousness and a higher vibration and you are right it will feel like riding waves.

I do think Obama will win the nomination, he has a destiny chart and it's all being set off. That doesn't mean he would be or will be good, but the strangest thing to me is the quiet. If there ever was a year for an independent voice to rise it would be this year and yet, no independents, no green party, no ever present socialists party, nothing all quiet. Everything seems so contrived to me this election. From the first announcement 18 months ago right on up to today. The candidates, the debates, the votes, just all contrived. I am trying to see what that is but cannot. I just know that it isn't at all what it seems to be. I guess there is nothing to do but lay down on that board Judi and stay flat. I think I will look for my own board to flatten out.

Neo. I was watching 60 Minutes the other night and they did a story on Denmark that has been named the happiest country in the world. The Danes have been stunned by this and have done a great deal of research on why the Danes are so happy. The final result was the Danish low expectation. Their expectations were so low that anything above that was wonderful. It makes sense, if one is "expecting" a bonus of $25,000 and only get $5,000 think how disappointing that would be, but if you didn't expect anything think how wonderful $5,000 would be to you.

That is the other thing George Bush has done for us. We have low expectations of our leaders after him. A journalists for the Financial Times stated that anyone we elected would do better than this administration with other leaders around the world because Bush had set the bar of expectations in the dirt and anyone could walk over it. We are just looking for a President that doesn't spit on the floor and can stand up straight when delivering a speech and string a few words together that can be understood.

We are not going to have a tip toe through the tulips here but we are ready for someone who can tell us it's possible, because George has shown us nothing but dead hopes and dreams on everything he has touched. So George did do that for us, lower our expectations to the point that almost anything or anyone looks good.

Wonderful insight, Sally, on "the quiet." I think that quiet is the marginalization of those independent voices over the last eight years (give or take 20 or 30), especially the progressive ones.

Looking forward at the nominating conventions, the Democrats being Aug. 25-28, the Repubs the week after, it appears that the Republicans have the better aspects. It also appears that, once again, Democrats are formally nominating either Obama or Clinton on a VOC moon (Wed., 8/27, from 6:13 MST to 8:51 MST). If the nominee can hold off completing the nomination till after 8:51 MST, the Democrats might have a shot at winning.

I hope this is not pointing to a brokered, divided convention. I've heard it said that the fix is in, but can someone tell me it's not in the planets, too?

"Everything seems so contrived to me this election. From the first announcement 18 months ago right on up to today."

Sally, along with what Gina said, I would add that all other candidates were given no oxygen. Biden, Dodd, and even Edwards...oh and Ron Paul. No oxygen.

Media monopolies and fixed voting machines are our greatest enemies.

Here's another perspective.

NewsScope for February 19, 2008

Obama’s Momentum

http://www.stariq.com/Main/Articles/P0008532.HTM

McCain's Holiday from History in Pakistan; Will any Old Military Dictator Do?;

Lies about Obama

http://www.juancole.com/

Atlantis made it into the atmosphere, and will land in several, minutes!

Down safe! I hope the shoot down of the satalite goes as well!

Thanks qop! I'm avoiding tv, but that one is so interesting.

.......

International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
By Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane

In CIA tape inquiry, ex-spymaster in the middle

The background of Porter Goss and Jose Rodriguez Jr., now central figures in the controversy over destroyed CIA tapes.

More at the link....

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=10216768

http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=992&thisview=item

Following Fidel

Millions of people saw GWB as the second coming, I did not, now millions see Obama as the hope and second coming, I do not. I do see him however as having a huge potential of becoming a great leader, but then again so did GWB and he muffed the opportunity.

I've been saying, to great criticism by fellow astrologers, that it would be Obama at the nomination. There certainly will be great pressure on him from the GOP and the DLC and a "swift-boating" if you will by both. What most astrologers have seemingly missed is the sea of collective change in the American people, the desperation for change and they have looked around for a new face anything that doesn't have the old faces attached, they found Obama and have made him the embodiment of all their hopes.

Believe me, even with the wins stacked up, the Democrats are going to have a hard time just letting go and leading this movement for change, they will be doing all they can to keep the status quo including the Clinton camp and it isn't going to be pretty.

A black man for heavens sake, the symbol of fear and mistrust to many of the older generations in this country. Oh yes, it will be a wild ride and a dangerous one for Obama But this is one of the breaks between the old and new in the world and it will not be easy, (Saturn/Uranus) he may not make it, he may not be able to rise to the occasion, but his rise will come one way or the other; Al Gore's rise came just not as President, but as something bigger and better and far more reaching.

In 2004 I wrote an article saying Hillary Clinton should run, her best aspects for a win was in 2004, that 2008 would be a struggle and she isn't done with this fight, Bill Clinton isn't done with this fight but the shift comes anyway and my hope is it won't be through violence. The desperation for change is powerful in this country and the youth, as in 1968 won't let go easily either.

If it gets really nasty with the Clinton's Al Gore will have to step in and perhaps he will become the default candidate, astrologically that potential is still out there.

Sally, my DH, an older and very disgusted Republican voted for Obama. When Obama took our State, my DH was walking around saying "Obama Rules!". It was pretty funny, and surprising. He despises Bush, and didn't think Hillary could win the election.

I still love Al Gore most of all.

I'm hoping with all my hope for the best to come out of this election....for everyone.

If Gore isn't a default candidate, he will work with Obama. Like I said in a couple of articles, this is a movement now. It isn't against Bush or Clinton, it's for change and against everything the people have hated about politics and Washington, Obama came along at the right place and the right time for this country to project and make him the embodiment of our change. God help him if he can't live up to that in some measure. Obama's base will turn like attack dingo dogs if the DLC AND GOP go after him with their old nasty tricks. Several old moderate Dems and Republicans are working with Obama to make him seem less a kid and more a seasoned leader.

Remember how many times we heard "if Kerry could find his 1968 voice he would win" and now, "if Hillary could find the voice of the woman she was in college, she would win" The young and the young in heart want change and they will have it just as they had it in the 60's and 70's.

By the way, if you haven't heard, we got lucky, the weather will prohibit the government from shooting down the spy satallite today.

That Fidel sure was a tough old crow wasn't he. This is such a huge development for Cubans everywhere..dare we imagine a people in this world achieving freedom? Of course gwpinhead, gray-faced with mental illness read his tattered and tired one-paragraph pap applied to every and all situations for the last 8 years about bringing the big birthday box of democracy with a snake inside to the Cubans.
Perhaps so long as either of the Castro brothers are alive we may not see much difference in policy.

Sally, pitch-perfect assessment of systematic
suffocating of every candidate chosen by our better instincts. The most upsetting was Kucinich's emergency return to Ohio to save his senate seat..evil has such unnatural strength throwing him on the ropes like a toy. I swear it's demonic.

The factor that determines the true character of Obama (or Clinton) again, will be the choice of VP..that will show us the truth of where both are actually coming from.
Should Obama be the nominee one would expect he'll be off-ed early on, making his choice of VP all the more a person of great importance.
I am so paranoid at this point we can only wonder if his VP choice would be a patsy or a mole. Would his suckering to Lieberman be any indication of a brokered VP? Total and complete mystery who he might choose, or she for that matter.

Anyone care to speculate on that one?

Obama makes me nervous....still.

You might want to take a look at the some of the articles in the Black Commentator. It’s sobering, at least to me.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=black+commentator+obama&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Somehow, as much of a wonderment as it may be, seeing Gore come in as a candidate seems a tad bit unnatural, as abberant as Bill Clinton greeting WH guests in a bonnet and apron.

There would be thunder in the skies, however if Gore comes in as a VP for Obama. That would get a much thirsted for pre drink of water in this election cesspool.

"pure drink of water"..

Here's the satellite link, those Russians and Chinese may get our secrets after all, the Keystone Kops are in charge.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23253805

They all make me nervous PatC, it doesn't matter, as I said this is a movement now and it's sweeping the country. It will be Obama whose neck is on the line every time he stumbles. I am going with my friend's hope that like Lincoln, it will be the people who change him once he is in office (if they let him make it) Cuba too is going to go through an upheaval with their youth. Like David Letterman said last night "Cuba can welcome Raoul W." He is old and dusty and stuck in the past just like his brother, it just isn't going to work for long.

McCain, Hillary and Obama could all end up being W. in disguise, McCain's disguise is thinly covered with his war for 100 years. Hillary has not exhibited a stellar character and she had more money than anyone and squandered it before the primary season was over, think of how W. has squandered our money, I'm not seeing fiscal responsibility in the Clinton camp at all. Obama with all his Leo and the ego that goes with it, could so easily stumble over that ego with arrogance and watch it slip away. I question the mental stability of anyone in politics.

If we had the perfect candidate and perfect president we will still have to go through the fire in this country, they cannot save us. We are being transformed by stronger powers than what we have on earth and WE have to decide what WE want to look like when that transformation is done and it isn't going to be easy for anyone in any country. No matter who people vote into office it's still a game of hope and trust. We have to get past putting our power into our government or a person in the government. All a president represents is someone to blame or cheer if things go right or wrong according to our individual and collective visions of what things should be, in the end, it's us, the people or whoever is left standing. That's the realistic assessment without sugar coating, I hope it's understood. It's also realistic to say the people have more strength to rise up and make this country strong than they realize.

Sally, we, who see ourselves as puny continue to ask lawmakers to get a spine when it would take but a 'click' in our perspective to see this as the alchemical process that it is.
It is US that is being courted by the repeated unbelievable parade of outrageous sexual deviants exposed daily, shadow armies with license to kill us, hollowing out of our fiscal strengths straight out from under us, a congress & senate that "suddenly" just in time for elections "look busy" as if the boss just walked in the room after a full 8 years of criminal ommissions.

What are we waiting for fuh crissakes?

We the people have definitely caught on. Dubya's now at 19% rating:
http://americanresearchgroup.com/economy/

Remember that 30% that stuck by him no matter what? Their numbers are thinning. Hahahahahahaha.

Sally, sometimes it astounds me that you and I will write something so similar....I just came here to read the comments, but I had written an email to friends in which I said some thing similar to what you posted above...

Part of this is about my feelings....and of course, you are looking at this as an astrologer, which I understand...I got so p.o'd at my astrologer teacher when he predicted GWB and the repubs...and said this would be for A LONG TIME...but I was dealing with my own feelings ....and last night was quite surprised that after watching the writers from the New Yorker do their political panel, I experienced intense upset. And then I realized.....it was the upset of a woman (wife, girlfriend) scorned, dumped, and left by her fickle husband for another 'love'.....

Hendrick Hertzeberger surprised me the most....I've always loved his political pieces...and there he is, clearly defining that he supported her originally, doesn't feel that she deserves the baggage she carries or that any of it is her fault, yet....he is in love with Obama...(and also was dissing Hillary's campaign people).

Then the woman named Beth talked about how Hillary was the class 'grind' and Obama the 'popular' student....

geez. That is EXACTLY how Gore and Bush were portrayed, albeit in diff. language. I was thinking about how people dissed Gore for his wooden demeanor, how they denigrated and made fun of him and continue to say he didn't 'stand up for democrats' in 2000 and just 'gave in'. Yet Gore went on to do something that made him a world reknown figure and Nobel Peace Prize winner....and gone is the wooden demeanor. What short memories politics makes. What a difference in the end results 8 years later.

So I had to grapple with all my feelings of having been abandoned continually by males. Perhaps THAT is why I don't trust Obama. However, it certainly looks at this point like Obama is the one who can defeat McCain. How weird....McCain. Ungodly....no wonder my feeling of unease with Mercury direct....it took me out of my fantasy.

Shy, I believe with every instinct with which I was born the earth herself will be the instrument who scrubs the mission of the u.s., china et al to turn every sentient life into a living desperate plea for rescue and mercy.
Thankfully humans have no intelligent knack of vision to prevent their own implosion.

The word for these times is Mercy.

It was true then, desperately truer now:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=H-XpUacV-TE

Oh, and by the way. Obama plans to develop new nuclear power plants nationwide, (finger snap) so I guess the suggestion of Gore is a laughable one.
Here's that bucket of poison we ordered.

Actually, Gore, from a Universal level was supposed to win and Bush and America stepped out of time a place, that's why Bush's second term has been to a great extent unraveling the first. With the Bush Sun on the US Sun we let our destiny be tied up with his, but it was never ours. I've said this many times but on Election 2000 Mercury was retrograde at 29 Libra/0 Scorpio indicating the step out of time and place. On Election 2008 Mercury is direct at the exact same place it was Retrograde in 2000, so what should have happened will happen. That's one reason I've thought Gore would somehow step back into the race, however it could just be a Democratic win and dealing with the mess created by Bush. Something was never right about his presidency and lots of us saw it from the beginning.

I don't feel terrified of an Obama presidency like I did Bush, I feel cautious, but I feel that way about them all and that relates to personal filters I have. "Hillary the class grind" is exactly right and I think she should be in a powerful position to hold Congress feet to the fire, they need that badly. Leo's are "sunny" and America has felt so in the dark for 8 years I think they are looking for the Sun. As a Scorpio, I know what Hillary feels when you know you are right and no one is listening. Obama is like the "kid" so many of works with, the one who thinks they know everything and they no nothing. I had my son tell me the other day (he's 28 with twin boys due any day) that he know all there was to know about people, he had it all figured out. All I could think was "come on twins." I think we kind of like to see the young know it alls fall a bit on their faces, it helps to season them for life ahead and makes us look a bit more wise in their eyes. I am afraid however that I'm no better than the class bully, because I look at this administration and I want them all to "get theirs" I don't like that quality in myself.

But the election season isn't quite over and if Obama is the candidate, the Rove wanna be's in the GOP will teach him a thing or two, they would do the same to Hillary because she doesn't know everything either. None of us do.

We need a Lincoln reconstruction plan, or an FDR WPA plan or a Kennedy Peace Corp plan to get ourselves jump started again. I've not heard an Obama plan yet to get people back on track except his collage loans tied to people working in the community.

Shy, you are so right about the 19 percent, dreams do come true. That has been my dream for his exit from our country's home.

PatB, I love the way you put that, it does only take a one degree of consciousness shift. I saw a program the other day about the power of the American (that's us) consummer and how it has stopped growth all over the world because we aren't buying their crap on the market. Made me so happy.

Yes Karen, Kucinich star is rising. His Jupiter is solar arcing to his Mid heaven and will then sextile his Mars, 2012 finds him being listened to a lot more. I doubt if he will ever be President but have some important post.

Lawd, Sally! ANOTHER set of twinners is it? And they've made it to full term! That is just too delightful. What in your family chart or yours or either of your children do you attibute these grandkids arriving in pairs?

You know congress and the senate are packed wall-to-wall with scorpios or scorpio themes.
Biden and Byrd are my personal favorites.

What is missing in Obama especially are three all-important factors: Warmth, Humor (creative humor)and straightforward intelligence that speaks to our common sense.
Neither he nor Hillary have those traits of genuineness.
The VP either way will decide for me whether this is the first election I stay home, don't vote and just pray.

You're definitely on to a real Starting Point for revolution and that is to stop buying and start trading with one another. Although I look at Craig's List (jeez what gold lies therein) and wonder how long it will take before 'they' shut them down. So we'll make giant local efforts out of garage sales and more flea markets.
Undermine the system whichever way we can thru going invisible every time 'they' attempt a clear reach into our personal lives. From bundling services (also outmoding our modest televisions unless we buy a Box), to banking, to microchipping elegibility for anything, to free movement, to turning us off at will...

We have to decide who needs 'em.
whatever

the "whatever" was accidental. This is not a whatever type sitcha-ashun.

Cap'n Sally, I thought this article provides some assurance that Obama is a thinking person. I hope you have a few minutes to read it:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/18/samantha_power/

It was comforting.

Back to basics: What kind of wax do y'all use for your surfboards? I need to sand mine down and wax it so I, too, can be prepared to ride the waves.

I was just looking at Obama delivering a speech live in Houston. Boy, it pays to be tall when those crowds start mobbing you. You could barely see his head above the crowd, but I tell you, he sure knows how to fire up the crowds. I wasn't even there, but I'm all excited! I feel like a teenager! How old am I? Don't say.
Yeah, I'm fired up amd ready to go!!!
Go Obama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, this will be my one and only outburst for today. Love that man. I swear he's contagious.

Shylurker, you're a hoot. I saw that piece about your surfboard, and why not? Will read your article when I get back, but right now, I'm too fired up, so I gotta go!

Pat B, I have Gemini on my 9th house cusp (grandkids fall there) Uranus is at 2 degrees of Gemini. Transiting Uranus is in a Trine to my Mercury (has been for a year) and progressed Mercury is in Aquarius (ruler of Uranus) My hope was to be Agatha Christie by this transit, looks like it's just twins I get. I should have written a book, maybe it would be published by now.

Whoops I forgot, I know he's smart Shy and certainly smarter than what we've had, it's the wisdom I'm looking for, with his Jupiter in Aquarius and the Scorpio Asc. (if we have the right time) I have no doubt it will come.

Sa-lly, anything in particular stopping you now? Experience shows themes like those have multiple not singular manifestations so the open road to authorship stands wide open with the guy in the the tophat checks his pocketwatch says, "well? aren't you coming?".

I do have a book that I wrote years ago Pat but it needs reworking. I could do that and try to get it out. Uranus is also in a trine to my Midheaven, so I have an exact grand trine with transiting Uranus as the final trine leg. I actually have been hopping for something more than twin grandchildren (although I am thrilled with all of them.) The next two weeks will be the last hit of Uranus to my Mid-heaven and Mercury, timing is everything you know, maybe I waited too long.

No time like the present. Jupiter after all rules publishing. Bet there's a supportive angle you missed. You could land an element/freshette of deeper understanding your old book's been waiting for.

JUST DO IT SALLY! The world would love your stories!

.........

Ex-Spymaster in the Middle
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022008A.shtml
Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, reporting for The New York Times, write, "It would become known inside the Central Intelligence Agency as 'the Italian job,' a snide movie reference to the bungling performance of an agency team that snatched a radical Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003 and flew him to Egypt - a case that led to criminal charges in Italy against 26 Americans."

NATO Troops Called to Kosovan Border
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022008B.shtml
Catherine Philp, writing for The Times UK, reports from Mitrovica, "Nato peacekeepers were forced into action for the first time since Kosovo declared independence after Serbs attacked and set fire to official checkpoints on the border with Serbia."

Oil Closes Above $100 Per Barrel
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022008C.shtml
Andrew Clark reports for The Guardian UK, "The price of crude oil closed at more than $100 per barrel for the first time last night following a steep rise prompted by jitters in the commodities market over a possible tightening of supply by countries in the Opec cartel."

Pat C,

The first thing I thought when I saw the story about the $100 price tag on a barrel of oil was that Bush's buddy Bandar is punishing the powers that be for freezing his assets here and exposing his threats to Blair in the UK. One must not mess with Bush's friends, especially the oily ones.

Last question, Sally where is your moon? Only if you don't find that intrusive.

OK, folks in Hawaii: Prepare to duck! (And it's not Dick "Dick" out hunting for birds--it's the US Navy gonna blast away at the satellite.)

http://tinyurl.com/33ozkn

How like THEM! They are sending a "heat seeking" missile out to hit a cool object~! Maybe Dead eye Dick could do it better!
So far the moon is beautiful!
Oh & over heard at the market this morning; one shopper to another...... Isn't it still in here today?" ( not quiet= lack of sound; but still= lack of motion) guess we're not the only ones becalmed on our surfboards............

Maybe it's the stillness of deep down weary exhaustion to the bone after the breakneck speed of the destruction of the Bush administration. Has there ever been a more prolonged and profound crime wave perpetrated on the planet than what's been committed in the last 8 years? Just thinking of the uphill battle to restore what's been broken is enough to make one cry in despair at times. All the work still to do just to get to the starting point again.

Right, lunaoscura! When I hear some tv talking head refer to Bush's "legacy", I think that it's like hearing an announcer refer to a serial killer's bloody trail as "his legacy."

Water on Mars? Wonder if they had surfboards there then, too?

http://tinyurl.com/2x3kv3

Democracy in action. It's a beautiful thing.

http://tinyurl.com/27zr7u

(Be sure to watch the video.)

We can't, lunaoscura. That's the thing. Expose, confront, undermine and sabotage where we can and let nature do the rest to take them down.

China'splan for the garroting of the Yangtze with all of it's legendary tonnage of silt and decaying matter will make for some interesting emergencies,...for openers. Already they are choking on their absolutely filthy air.
Greed never seems to cancel out any longterm vision. Good riddance ahead of time, China.

if it matters, correction: Greed cancels out longterm vision.

QOP, will you be viewing the eclipse tonight? I've never been able to see a lunar eclipse here, because the sky always clouds over, and it's the same tonight. Bummer.

Wonder if any AWs are following the case of Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama. Siegelman, a Democrat, "lost" the election for his second term after the ballots were recounted in one county by Republican operatives.

Thereafter, Bush's Justice Department brought charges of bribery again Siegelman. (The "bribery" was that Siegelman appointed a Republican to a hospital board after the Republican donated a large amount of money to the effort for an Alabama lottery--a cause that Siegelman favored.)

The man appointed had served on the same board two terms previously, appointed at least once by a Republican governor. Siegelman personally never received a donation--in fact, the person in question (whose name has slipped my mind) donated to and supported Siegelman's opponent.

The judge was asked to recuse himself because of public criticisms he had made of Gov. Siegelman. Siegelman was not allowed to post bond and be free pending his appeal, and he was sentenced to 7 years and sent to a federal prison in Louisiana.

Don Siegelman's birthday is February 24, 1946, Mobile, Alabama. I don't know time. He was jailed June 30, 2007.

Will be right back with a link--want to make sure it is correct.

Here are two links

>http://www.democrats.com/node/13904

>http://donsiegelman.org

And, of course, Googling brings up lots more links.

Forgot to say, the judge refused to recuse himself.

A Republican attorney, a woman, is a whistleblower in this case. She says that Karl Rove stated that Siegelman would be taken care of so that he would not be politically effective again.

Yes I will be able to watch the eclipse, it's clear as a bell tonight. I missed the last one!
But before that happens I have to go play farmer!
If I plant the tomatoe seeds tonight they should bear fruit by June!
Breaking news onKO! McCain had an affarir with a female lobbiest! Details unfolding.

My my McCain and a lobbyist sitting in a tree...ahem.

We have rain, I don't think we'll see the eclipse, but who knows, break in the clouds might surprise me!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?_r=4&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Interesting timing for the NYT and the McCain campaign, and she's a Telecom lobbiest.

Old Malfly, I've been following that case. Really awful and Rovian.

I don't know why there aren't more neocons in jail for the way they operate.

OOOOOh telecom! ANd she's a dead ringer for Cindy McCain!

Gorgeous eclipse from here. Coppery color, about one-third now.

Pat C,

I read that Siegelman, who is usually amazingly strong, has been pretty depressed lately. He has a wonderfully supportive family, but who wouldn't be depressed.

As I understand it, the Court--more than 6 months after sentencing--has yet to release a transcript of the trial so Siegelman's lawyers can file their appeal. And his birthday coming up is probably depressing him.

I looked at Siegelman's chart--interesting with all that Pisces--and knowing he has won every state-wide office in Alabama--a Dem in a Red state.

All I could tell was that this birthday solar return probably isn't too promising, but next year's looks much better. I'm going to send the man a birthday card and a book (something light but smart) from my used book library, which I'm still trying to trim down.

His address is posted on his support website.

Just came in from taking a look at the eclips. Moon was half covered however my feet were not and I couldn't stay out long. There is something spiritual about watching an eclipse. No wonder the ancients viewed them with fear and awe.

Sally, I haven't read the entire thread but I gather that congratulations are in order. If so, congratulations!! (((((Sally))))))

Here the moon is more than 1/2 covered. The color here is more peach & lavender gray. It is so clear that I guess there is no atmospheric coloring...where are you Teresa?

Here are some excellent links on the Rovian works that destroyed the career of Don Siegelman.

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2007/12/siegelman-speaks-ex-gov-calls-02.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/timeline_don_siegelman_1126.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Siegelman

Pat QoP, I am in Missouri. It is 15 degrees and mostly clear. The moon is almost completely covered now at 8:47 p.m.

I was thinking the same thing QOP. She could be a double for McCain's current wife.

Hi Sally
Re - I do have a book that I wrote years ago..

Geez Sally with Uranus to your Mc you have just gotta make a start
And in my (not so humble) opinion it has to have a Uranian quality to it
Some say Uranus is the astrologer's planet but I mean Uranian energy e.g. electricity, telecommunication, IT, the internet
So you gotta at least make a start by getting it out there as an e-book.
You can publish it free at lulu.com and when it's available on line advise all of us who admire your work of the specific URL for the book and we'll buy and download a copy.
A bit of advice keep it as brief as possible for the e-book version.
Say around 75 pages
I'm sure there's enough of your admirers out there who are web and IT savvy to help you.

In regards to e-books here's an interesting link.
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/unique-motivtil-tool-2975.html

On February 14th, Oprah Winfrey offered an e-book edition of financial guru Suze Orman’s “Women & Money” for free download from the Oprah.com web site. Within 33 hours over 1 million copies of the financial advice book had been downloaded. People want to get out of debt and we want to help them to do just that!” says Lauren Alexander, co-owner of MessageRocks.com.

I'm in MAine 44o N, and it is 22 degrees F here. Yes the moon completely covered now looks more coppery from the porch, guess I need to wash the windows!
It's magic! I think the tomatoes will turn out very well!

POQ, I've never heard that before, about tomatoes. But I have a bunch of seeds left over from last season when I went wild with the catalogs.

Going to rush out right now and spread them all. Will let you-all know what happens.

When I left work at 6:00 the moon was huge and gold and starting to be eclipsed. so beautiful so fat so huge with a shadow that I thought was fog at first and then I realized what i was seeing. Beautiful and moving. Incidently I had been working up a sweat at work finding new and better ways to serve people who are old and sick or just sick and who need help to stay at home. Broke through to see ways to allow big deductions that are legal and so helpful-that eclipse squaring my sun & n node in my second. Wonderfull expression of the energy.

They're saying over at DU that the nooze is reporting the Navy successfully shot down that satellite. No mention of "collateral" damage, etc.

Check out some photos of the eclipse from people in Democratic Underground. Scroll down all the way so you can see them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x7492990

My question about the navy shooting down the satelite is were there any witnesses? Because I'm not so sure that I believe anything they say anymore. Proof anyone?

They didn't shoot it down, conditions weren't right.? ( as of supper time) unless I am missing some news this evening?

QoP yup blew it to smithereens, now let's see where the pieces fall.

Here's a link

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23265613/from/RSS/

Here's another link

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/20/satellite.shootdown/index.html

Woot! Woot! Siegelman story to be on 60 Minutes Sunday. I hope they do it justice (pun intended).

http://tinyurl.com/2uzdj9

McCain's looooooong road

http://wonkette.com/358941/john-mccains-long-career-of-sleazy-lies-semi+affairs--total-corruption

Sally, I don't think Bush ever had a chance to be the 'great leader' because of how he first made his way into office. The negative karma he incurred by stealing the White House from Al Gore essentially sealed his fate from the get-go. He could never be anything but an illegitimate President because his entire presidency began with a lie: That he won the vote in Florida, when his brother Jeb and Katherine Harris stole it on his behalf. From that point on, his administration would require a series of increasingly more astounding lies (the "War on Terror", tax cuts to boost the economy, etc.) to draw everyone's attention away from the original lie.

What's so bad, he received a fresh start with 9/11, with higher support and approval ratings than perhaps any president in recent modern US history. Bush could have used it to truly end terrorism through a cooperative approach with the world, via the United Nations. He instead chose the unilateral path, offended would be allies and enemies alike with anti-diplomatic speeches, verbal gaffes and smug arrogance in his own ignorance, and proceeded to squander a golden opportunity, and with it the support of most of the nation, even those who were actually willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It is actually too bad really, that he couldn't rise above his own shadow and of those cast upon him by Cheney, the NeoCons, even his own dirty dealing father. We're all worse off for the mess of the past 7+ years of his regime.

Neo, hi...I posted on another thread that Bush has run every company whose board he sat on into the ground. Clearly, he had an agenda....or he is consistently incompetent either by idiocy or by plan. What a family.

I agree Neo, I was just giving him the benefit of the doubt. I give it to everyone. My father use to say a leopard doesn't change his spots and I would argue with him over that, I think everyone has the opportunity to make changes. I thought it might be possible for a Bush to get into office and be so proud of himself and so proud that he represented this country he would do the right things. Just my Pollyanna part of me struggling to speak over my Nancy Drew part.

I went out tonight to a lovely shower my son's office gave for he and his wife and their soon to arrive boys, came home and the satellite had been shot down, the one in the sky and the one on the ground (McCain) wow what a difference a few hours can make. McCain's chart is not badly aspected right now, however with stationary Mercury turning direct in a square to his natal Uranus, he was going to get some kind of bad news this week and it looks like he has. He will have to explain and re-explain his ties to his girlfriend's telecommunication lobby. This is going to sink him because the story is certainly not his affair. That's not what the NY Times is trying to tell us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/opinion/21collins.html?th&emc=th
Gail Collins has a pithy comment on the satellite shooting.
They must have announced on TV while I was out on the porch admiring the moon, ( or lack of moon)

Well, this is the front and center article on Salon.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/02/21/obama_muslims/

A new face for American diplomacy

Barack Obama is perceived by Muslims abroad like no other candidate. He would begin a presidency with tremendous potential to heal U.S. relations with much of the world.

By Hooman Majd

http://www.google.com/search?q=Vicki+Iseman++fisa&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

Vicki Iseman FISA

http://news.google.com/news?q=john+weaver&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&hl=en&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=4&ct=title

John Weaver/McCain

..................

http://wtop.com/?nid=213&sid=1349054

McCain Loan Raises FEC Questions

The government's top campaign finance regulator says John McCain can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Republican nominee needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November.

McCain's lawyer, Trevor Potter, said Wednesday evening that McCain has withdrawn from the system and that the FEC can't stop him. Potter said the campaign did not encumber the public funds in any way.

McCain, a longtime advocate of stricter limits on money in politics, was one of the few leading presidential candidates to seek FEC certification for public money during the primaries. The FEC determined that he was entitled to at least $5.8 million. But McCain did not obtain the money, and he notified the FEC earlier this month that he would bypass the system, freeing him from its spending limits.

But just as McCain was beginning to turn his attention to a likely Democratic opponent, Mason, a Republican appointee to the commission, essentially said, "Not so fast."

By accepting the public money, McCain would be limited to spending about $54 million for the primaries, a ceiling his campaign is near. That would significantly hinder his ability to finance his campaign between now and the Republican National Convention in September.

Wow, Sally! Twins again. Whew. I too am going to be welcoming another addition. Will not know whether it's a grandson or granddaughter for another month or so. Can't tell you the number of quiet moments of listening, hoping hear/see who might be re-entering. No concrete feelings, since i can't seem to get my wishful thinking for a sparkly girl out of the way. :) Do know that we will be welcoming another Virgo! Is that awesome or what? Little smarties.

Neo, i remember the feeling i had when Bush was placed. It was worse than the total dread i felt when Nixon was elected. When Reagan was elected, i began to know that the process was rigged. Little did i know how this would play out in the future. Yet, even then i knew we were heading deeper into an abyss.

Sally, we do invest our energies in wishful thinking. Yet, it seems to me that the WH is nothing more than a collective investment of a far darker energy than any of us here manifest. This mass of energy gained magnification through the church. It's been an ungodly influence. And, i'm hoping its ugly underbelly is exposed so that we might manifeset that which is compassionate, egalitarian, and life affirming.

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/217354/

Obama gives opponents plenty of ammunition - Gene Lyons

Obama wins another one - don't know why the Dems have made the awarding of these delegates so complex.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080221/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_delegates

Great articles PatC. The thing is it doesn't matter what went on with McCain and Iseman, did McCain use his office to help gain favorable votes for the telecoms (whom she represented)The people will just remember the smell of scandal around McCain. It might be the GOP Convention thrown into disarray

And in his press conference today.........you can barely hear his voice! Or Cindy's..the repoerters questions come through loud & clear/........

This is appropos of nothing in particular with this astro conversation, but if you want to see that not all of the military/medical people are bad people in this administration, watch this video of Dean Kamen talking about the robotic arm which he and his assembled team created for the soldiers who came home from M.E. missing limbs. Some numbers included....Judi
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/82

Pat C...the last paragraph in the Gene Lyons piece seems to lay it out pretty well, that is, having spent 16 years reviling the Clintons, and in particular Hillary, they are in :
So far, Obama’s strategy of playing upon the Washington media clique’s loathing for everything Clinton has succeeded. To the extent that Hillary Clinton is polarizing, however, it’s due to 16 years of deliberate character assassination, accusing her of everything, including drug smuggling and murder. The basic GOP method is to portray Democrats as fraudulent elitists who “Blame America First” and seek power by encouraging minorities to see themselves as victims. (The real victims, of course, being Rush Limbaugh listeners. ) Obama, alas, has given them plenty to work with. If he wins the nomination, will voters still recognize him come November ?

(one thing I have to say, one word about the GOP: "Machiavellian", in terms of his treatise The Prince, or 'realist' politics (kind of relates to our 'prince', the hereditary one in DC. Realist meaning....

Machiavelli's best known work is The Prince, in which he describes the arts by which a Prince (a ruler) can retain control of his realm. He focuses primarily on what he calls the principe nuovo or "new prince", under the assumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task since the people are accustomed to him. All a hereditary prince needs to do is carefully maintain the institutions that the people are used to; a new prince has a much more difficult task since he must stabilize his newfound power and build a structure that will endure. This task requires the Prince to be publicly above reproach but privately may require him to do things of an evil nature in order to achieve his goals.

Whoever the next President is they better get cracking on this issue right away.

http://www.topnews.in/global-warming-causes-massive-ice-loss-greenland-221459

Global warming causes massive ice loss in Greenland
Posted February 21st, 2008 by Mohit Joshi

Washington, Feb 21: Global WarmingA new NASA study has confirmed that the surface temperature of Greenland's massive ice sheet has been rising, stoked by warming air temperatures, and fueling loss of the island's ice at the surface and throughout the mass beneath.

Greenland's enormous ice sheet is home to enough ice to raise sea level by about 23 feet if the entire ice sheet were to melt into surrounding waters.

Though the loss of the whole ice sheet is unlikely, loss from Greenland's ice mass has already contributed in part to 20th century sea level rise of about two millimeters per year, and future melt has the potential to impact people and economies across the globe.

So, NASA scientists used state-of-the-art NASA satellite technologies to explore the behavior of the ice sheet, revealing a relationship between changes at the surface and below.

more...

shylurker, thanks so much for the heads up about 60 Minutes airing a story on Don Siegelman Sunday.

I just made a note on my calendar so I won't forget.

If you can get a copy of Mountain Astrologer
Feb/Mar 08 please do. Maurice Lavenant has done the best historically comprehensive take on the Pluto/cap cycle and what this implies for the future of the world. There is so much in this article you just have to read it.

Of interest on how this has manifested for this human being, my sun is 7aries. As soon as pluto entered capricorn in January, an oppressive, irrational manager was fired after 2 1/2 years of a joyless work situation he created. GONE! Just yesterday, another oppressive figure in my life was removed!
Don't get me wrong here, I have no future expectations of this theme holding up, but the last six weeks have liberated me TWICE. However, I have saturn & pluto in my 10th house, but they are well aspected except for a tense yod (sextile neptune) focusing on mercury in pisces in the 5th. My aries sun is in the 6th, mars in pisces in the 5th along with venus/pallas 27-29 aquarius in the 5th.

I've had astonishing good fortune in other areas in my life, but never from parents/authorities(so-called)in the most soul-destroying ways you can imagine. Hence, I FEEL it, unable to ignore it in the world, responding sometimes with an EXCESSIVE sense of responsibility. I've become my own authority. Good will is everything. Big story, curiousity saved my mind and especially my heart. But I take no 'advice' when it's full of ego and competition, always disappointing when looking for the person behind the mask.

I just hope that more is made of the connection between McCain and Iseman, Sally.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/when-change-not-enough-seven-steps-revolution

snip

The Times reported that McCain and Iseman attended a fundraising dinner in Miami, and then flew back to Washington on a Paxson Communications corporate jet. Paxson, which monitored McCain's committee closely, was an Iseman client.

McCain also wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission, trying to get the FCC to permit a TV company to control two stations in the same city. The issue was important to an Iseman client.

He also introduced legislation to give a tax boost for minority ownership of stations, another Iseman interest.

McCain was asked Thursday if he regretted flying on the Paxson plane or writing to the FCC.

The airplane ride was "an accepted practice," he said. "I have ridden on many airplanes, and since then, the rules have been changed. It (the change) was something I supported."

He said he wrote to the FCC because it had taken an unusually long time to rule on the TV station case.

"I said I am not telling you how to make a decision," he recalled the letter saying, "I'm just telling you that you should move forward and make a decision on this issue-and I believe that was appropriate."

More at the link....

...........

If he were a mere mortal like the other candidates, we would call this "pandering to the right."

Obama "Open" to Privatizing Public Education

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/20/105444/139

Barack Obama has a solid progressive legislative record, which is enough to make me think his occasional use of right-wing talking points when talking about domestic programs like social security and health-care is an electoral ploy. But then he comes out with this.

Senator Obama said this week that he is open to supporting private school vouchers if research shows they work.

"I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn," Mr. Obama, who has previously said he opposes vouchers, said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "We're losing several generations of kids, and something has to be done."

Education analysts said Mr. Obama's statement is the closest they have ever seen a Democratic presidential candidate come to embracing the idea of vouchers.

More at the link....

Woot! Woot! My favorite analyst has posted three articles on McCain now, in rapid succession. This latest involves McCain, his Cindy look-alike, and Conrad Black.

http://tinyurl.com/27zr7u

Do look at all three if you have the time.

Oh how I loved that video shy!!

.......

This comes from P Glass on Salon.

British govt tried to 'supress' draft that criticised Israel

21/02/2008 - 10:03:34 AM

The British government sought to suppress an early draft of its controversial Iraq weapons dossier amid fears that it would offend Israel, it was reported today.

The Guardian reported that when the draft was eventually released earlier this week under the Freedom of Information Act, the reference to Israel – suggesting it had flouted the will of the United Nations like Saddam Hussein – was removed.

In a witness statement to the Information Tribunal, seen by the paper, a senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) warned it was “inevitable” that Britain’s relations with Israel would suffer if it became public.

The FCO gave up its fight to withhold the draft, drawn up by the then head of press John Williams, after the Tribunal rejected its appeal against disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

http://www.eecho.ie/news/story/?trs=mheysnidqley

________________

David Kelly & the 'dodgy dossier', suicide ....or murder (2003)

July 22, 2003
On The Death Of David Kelly - Suicide? Or What?

U.K. Lawmakers Want Adviser Suicide Probe By Michael McDonough for the Associated Press.

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001546.php

Shy, McCain just contiues his cosying up to the devils....from his embrace of bush, just project outward or inward to all the rest of these links.

PatC, All Obama has to do is put a task force on countries with the most successful educational systems that really empower children and pay the best teachers!

Who knows what underlies his comments about considering vouchers, since he didn't elaborate at all what he meant or how far he might take that idea. We sure understand their purpose is to make schools moneymakers while infiltrating young minds in possibly unwholesome ways without guidelines, and doing away with the dept. of education altogether. Old news.

He does seem to have this indecisiveness in his chart between mercury/neptune& sun involved in a square pattern. Which could mean he could switch alliances in any direction/and or concentrates on time and energy wasting ventures. He understands structure but not how to fill those structures meaningfully in terms of their effect on the human beings that may have to live within those structures.

I suspect he was a kid that was seen but not heard nor had an admiring father figure to show him where he fits in the greater world.
He is impressed with attention, any kind of attention...get my gist? He'spsychologically too permeable and a man who doesn't know who he is, let alone who everybody else is. "Tell me who I am", says Obama.

Uh Oh!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/21/senators.emergency.landing/index.html
The military helicopter carrying Democratic Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska had to land in the mountains because of a snowstorm, said Elizabeth Alexander, a spokeswoman for Biden.

I agree with your assessment qop.

Have you all noticed all the earthquakes in the last few days?

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0309-35.htm

John McCain, Hypocrite

Deja Vu: Military Keynesianism (no, War is not good for the economy, no matter what they say).

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/335/

Which video, PatC? Ahhhhhhhnold Fly Trap or . . . ?

This is the place the link took me to, and check out the video

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/02/20/democracy-in-action/

Oh, if you have a moment, do go here right now. It'll change in a flash.

http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

THanks, PatC. Yeah, that one is quite moving, isn't it?

Do check out her article on McInsane, Iseman and Conrad Black. More importantly, read the "Comments," where they are finding all kinds of links to some of the creepiest of BushCo endeavors to keep electronic tabs on everyone at all times. Mind-blowing.

Big uh-oh. Headline is "Police Concerned about Order to Stop Screening" for weapons, etc., at Obama event. They're claiming the Secret Service told them to stop.
http://www.star-telegram.com/dallas_news/story/486413.html

I'll go take a look shy.

...........

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/02/21/qotd/

Quote of the day

I have no idea whether the affair story is true or not, and I don't care. What I do care about is John McCain -- and this has been well-documented -- is talking all the time about being a reformer and a maverick, and in fact, he has taken thousands of dollars from corporations, ridden on their corporate jets, and then turned around and tried to do favors for them and get projects approved. He has tons of lobbyists on his staff. This is a guy who is very close to the lobbyist community, a guy who has been documented again and again by taking contributions and then doing favors for it. This is not a guy who is a reformer. This is a guy who has been in Washington for 25 years and wants to give us four more years of the same, and I don't think we need that...

This goes all the way back to the Keating Five Scandal and the S & L scandals, where he took a hundred thousand donations, rode on corporate jets and then intervened on Charles Keating's behalf -- and again and again we see this...
This is not a guy who is a reformer. He talks about change, and he makes a big deal about not being like Bush when in fact he is Bush. He voted for Bush's tax cuts after saying he didn't, and has been responsible for a $6 trillion national debt that our children are going to have to pay. He thinks we ought to stay in Iraq for 100 years. He thought it was great that the president vetoed health care for our kids under 18. This is four more years of George Bush, and I don't think the American people are going to buy it.

-- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, discussing John McCain in an interview with "National Journal On Air."

McCain isn't going anywhere anyway. Why bother about him. He's finished.
I did take exception to that dirty story about his wife Cindy's addictions in '92 and how the guy who blew the story KEPT A DIARY at the age of 24-26 which he clearly kept for his later intention to blackmail the McCains for personal profit. Then again, he is a republican himself always with an eye to advantage through the weaknesses of others.
Big deal. Cindy made mistakes 15 years ago.
Who hasn't?

What's comical about all this is repugs can't find a decent man with a lantern in that desert. They're a bag of conflicting premises that were empty lures in the first place. Now they have to live with their own self-impoverishment. They got nuthin'.

Here's the link shy.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/02/21/iseman-and-mccain-enable-conrad-black-to-commit-fraud-with-canwest/

Did Iseman and McCain Enable Conrad Black to Commit Fraud with CanWest?

Thanks, PatC. It's all my browser's fault. (But you knew that.) *blush*

:-D))) Silly goose.

It was difficult to get to the correct link. Usually you can click on a title and get the direct link, but not on that one.

This should set the tone of the debate in TX tonight. Nothing like Hillary being on the ropes to bring her roaring back to life. She may very well eat Obama alive tonight. At least the debate promises to be lively.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080221/pl_nm/usa_politics_dc

Ha! Ha! Shy, how transparent is that! The Feds want any nut in the crowd free access to Obama and they weren't even smart about it!
Made the news the same day.

Reminds of how Musharaff wouldn't allow Bhutto a bulletproof vehicle or proper security protection. We know what happened next (and she ought to have known as well).

So many things are taking place simultaneously.

You have to wonder who inspired that attack on McCain, and who really benefits. It sure looks like the conservatives are rallying around him now, even Rush Limbaugh.

And what's with the Serbs? Those people are really dangerous, similar to the Nazis, and is yet another instance of the US encouraging and supporting citizenry in certain actions, while leaving them vulnerable to attack from the opposing forces. NATO is no match for the Serbian rabble.
Reminds me of when Bush Sr. encouraged the uprising of the Shia against Saddam in southern Iraq, and then pulled out, leaving them to be massacared by Saddam's forces, and the latest example being Benazir Bhutto, although she was partly responsible for putting herself in the line of fire.

Seems like a conflagration developing there in the Balkans, very reminiscent of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo. It is referred to as the bullet that started World War I.

- Ms. Mc Cain had a position of trust that she violated. It appears that her folks wealth got her out of trouble - plain and simple. I am tired of folks of privilege buying their way out! Aren't you? AC

oop SHe got picky critical & the audience booed! They were doing great 'till then.
..........

WOW. THEY WERE BOTH SPECTACULAR! JUST WOW!

Think of it, qualified people in government.

Oh my.

The most important aspects in a person's chart are the close aspects. The closer they are by degree the more of an impact they have on the personality. A really close aspect will govern a personality to the exclusivity of any additional aspects a planet makes, orbs in governing energy are vitally important. As an example a Moon in a one degree sextile to Uranus, a 4 degree trine to Pluto and
an exact opposition to Neptune. Even though that Moon is in close aspect to three planets, it will be the Moon/Neptune aspect that will have the most impact on the personality. That's why the closer the orb the more accurate one is in determining how a personality might react to situations. A tight orb is essential in delineating a chart, and the tighter the orb the more accurate one can be, this would also be the case in a transiting planet and making predictions.

Separating aspects as opposed to applying aspects are also a different energy, even with close orbs. One takes the faster moving planet to determine whether an aspect is separating or applying. As an example Sun at 6 degrees in a square to say Pluto at 3 degrees, that would be a separating square because the Sun is the faster moving planet and a personality does not use the energy the same way at all as if it were a 3 degree Sun and a 6 degree Pluto, that's an applying aspect.

A seperating aspect, even if close, indicates a soul that has had some harsh lessons in a past life and has learned from those lessons leaving them free to choose to use the energy in a more positive manner. With separating aspects it bears watching or questioning the person to ascertain how they are using that energy.

The closer the aspect in a person's chart, the tighter the orb the more they resonate to that energy.

I thought this might be helpful to those of you delineating charts of upcoming events and the persons involved in events.

Sally, that is very helpful. Thanks....

Thanks JudiG, I mispelled Separate I think but oh well. The debate was something, it's even more "something" when you listen to the pundits, they know how it's going to go. It is such a game. Wonder what happens to McCain, there is so much more to his story. Again, the pundits and journalists know what the "more" is and they aren't saying. You can tell by the way they act and ask their questions.

Thanks for the reminder Sally from one who oft favors the spit and luck approach.
In addition, perhaps attention to say, two planets which tie a tighter aspect thru midpoint. ie., venus and moon are 8 degrees apart, venus applying to sextile saturn while the moon separates, but the midpoint between venus and the moon makes an exact sextile to saturn. Does the separating aspect still apply in that case?
Another rediscovery for me are the Hellenistic signs in Antiscia which I'd completely forgotten about which explain so many inexplicable ties between odd ducks like pisces/libra aries/virgo gemini/cancer; the trick being a total of 30degrees say, 27 pisces tie with 3 libra.

Saw only cnn's debate hilights. I thought Hillary was more emotionally in touch on several points. Like the need to actually go to the town where proposed fencing is and ask people what is workable for them. Her healthcare points gave me more confidence in her competence to carry out something fair and workable, like she definitely does care greatly about people doing without. She was also able to let go and say she'd be fine no matter how things went and shake Obama's hand which was very nice.
Obama's measly $4,000/yr education benefit in exchange for national service is PATHETIC. That pays for only 20% of an average yearly tuition. Totally out of touch for a person given a free education himself.
He did not project warmth at all.

Time for sleep, shaking my head. Whichever.
Better than bush, anybody is better than bush.

You know NOBODY is asking them the 100$ question...........................
What will you do to curb the FOOD CORPS?
NO health plan is going to work unless they REGULATE the use of bad ingredients in our food!
Yesterday.I had a funny ( peculiar) incident!
My car is still out of commission.my friend went away for a few days to visit family; & she took me to the market to make sure I had what I needed.
I opened a fresh jar of Nescafe coffee yesterday morning, & it exploded the paper seal right up in the air. ( If canned green beans do that, you know you have botulism!)I called Nestle ( the killers of babies in 3rd world countries) and was reassured that it was, NOT the product, just that too much " AIR" got in in the sealing process, and it would be OK to use............... Isn't that why they "SEAL" food to keep the air out?
I called the market & one of the clerks who lives down my road stopped by with a fresh jar ( benefits of small town living,) at 8 :15 last night.
Time for some letter writing!

Good morning wonderful AWers. I really treasure you all.

Excerpts from a FT article, “McCain denies romantic ties with lobbyist” sort of sets the stage:

Snip

... the suggestion of unethical behavior could prove damaging to Mr McCain because of his self-styled reputation as a crusader against political corruption – an issue he has put at the heart of his 2008 presidential campaign.

Both Mr McCain and Barack Obama, the Democratic frontrunner, portray themselves as political reformers who would challenge special interests as president, raising the possibility that ethics and integrity could be key issues in November’s election.

Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Mr McCain, dismissed the New York Times report as a “false smear campaign” by a liberal newspaper intent on undermining the almost certain Republican presidential nominee. “This doesn’t meet the journalistic standards of a thirdrate tabloid,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America, highlighting the story’s heavy use of unnamed sources.

In late 1999, Mr McCain twice wrote letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Florida-based Paxson Communications, one of Ms Iseman’s clients, urging quick consideration of the company’s bid for a television station licence in Pittsburgh.

Paxson’s then-chief executive was a large contributor to Mr McCain’s presidential campaign and the senator used the company’s private jet at least four times.

The McCain campaign said it was not unusual for the senator, who was then chairman of the Senate commerce committee, to write letters prodding regulators into action and dismissed the notion that they represented special favours. The letters to the FCC and Mr McCain’s ties to Paxson were reported at the time but his close relationship with Ms Iseman was not disclosed.

More...

http://tinyurl.com/yu6ejy

qop, Hillary did briefly address the poisoned food and the toys. No mention of Monsanto though.

FCC under Bush

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/

PatC,
Yes I heard her mention of poisoned food & toys. That was under Foreign Policy, our relationship with China ( Bush enabled)

NO MENTION of our own homegrown poisoners!
Kraft, Conagra, Cargill, etc................
Not to mention the poison pills from BIG PHARMA!

And here is good news............
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3192781
Dennis Kucinich raises nearly $700,000 in six weeks in bid to keep seat in Congress

Anyone have the astrocartography info on Obama? That should be interesting to see. IIRC, Junya has an ominous line going through Iraq and on up into Pootie-Poot's territory. Yep.

yes the separating or applying aspects would still apply. Aspects to a single midpoint while it can be strong, is not as powerful as the aspect to planet, however it can add nuances to the application to the energy of the planet. Cosmobiology is another and complicated subject within astrology and has merit. Instead of however, taking a few aspects, you must delineate hundreds or midpoints. One cannot read just one midpoint to a planet and get the impact or how it might be applied to the specific energy, but it can bring in an understanding of the nuances of a personality.

I agree with you about the debate, I didn't find him to be warm at all, but I only found Hillary to warm up at the very end. I couldn't help but think how "regal" Leo's are, men or women, they always come across as the Queen or King condescending toward their loyal, but beloved subjects. For Scorpio's and/or Taurus the Leo manner is or can be quite irritating.

My father was a Leo and a very proud person, he was fair (from his perspective), ethical and balanced and always walked his talk. He could spot a liar and a phoney the length of a football field and became quite cold when in the presence of either. He was at his best when you were down, and people flocked to him for his strength and that energy one gets from the Sun. As his children, he was always sure what was "best" for you, and that was quite irritating, he always listened to your side and believed in talking things out, but it would end up being his way. How that happened I was never sure because there was no corporal punishment from him, he never yelled, he never grounded or threatened, it would just end up being his way. I would bet that Obama is getting tired of the phoniness of the campaign and that's where his coldness is coming from now. Leo's like to play, need to play to maintain balance and I expect he is getting cranky without it.

Speaking of cold, Sally, he seemed to have a cold, not feeling well.

What did you specifically want to know about Obama's astrocartography Shy? Is there a particular "line" you're interested in identifying?

You know one thing I thought last night at the debate, it's impossible for me not to like both candidates and not to feel irritated at times with both candidates. I do however just want it to be over and I am curious about McCain.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/22/america/21textdemdebate.php

Transcript: Democratic debate in Austin, Texas

I didn't notice that but you are probably right PatC, lord knows it's a grueling process. The last two standing should get a prize here just because they finished the gauntlet. I cannot imagine what would motivate someone to keep that kind of schedule, go that hard for so long. It's a killer. I couldn't do it and am surprised either of them could possibly still be on their feet.

I couldn't agree more! I've been thinking how inhuman it is to try to keep up with such a crushing schedule. It's not comprehensible tot me. I know politics wasn't always like this.

~~~~~~~~~

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/21/fear_fear_fear/index.html

Glenn Greenwald (from yesterday):

GOP's Fear Mongering Ad Lifted Straight from an Episode of 24

The House Republicans have produced a new dramatic ad (below) complaining about expiration of The Protect America Act and demanding immediate passage of the Cheney/Rockefeller Senate bill -- thus vesting in the government the power to spy on us with no warrants and vesting in the telecom industry license to break the law with no consequences -- as the only way for us to avoid imminent, violent death (h/t Kathryn Jean Lopez). The ad -- entitled "America at Risk" -- should immediately be mounted on a museum wall under a plaque that reads: "The Republican Party in the U.S., 2001-2008 (and counting)."

Impressively, the ad dramatically packs every component of GOP politics into one minute: There are dark, primitively omnipotent Arab Terrorists lurking darkly and menacingly, planning to slaughter you and your whole entire family right now. You have only a few seconds to live, literally or metaphorically. The clock on your life is counting down right now. You are in severe danger.

We want more unchecked government power. You better give it to us, or else the Terrorists will kill you all. Give up more power to us, do what we say, and you can lay your head down on your pillow at night without a care in the world, knowing that we love you and are keeping you Safe and Protected -- Keeping America Protected -- like a baby snugly embraced in the womb. You want that, don't you? We want to give it to you. The House Democrats want you dead.

More at the link....

If you'll look, Cap'n Sally, Junya's Pluto (w Merc) go straight throw Iraq, Turkey and on up to St. Petersburg:
http://www.dominantstar.com/1p_bushjr_acg.htm

Now, I'll go and see if I can find Obama's.

I watched the entire debate last night, and came away with some new insights on both candidates, and yes Obama is sick with a cold or flu. They mentioned it earlier when he gave his campaign speech in Houston.

Most of it was rehashing of the old issues, and they went into more detail about immigration, but there was something new, and it was the Cuba question. It is true that both candidates have a lot of similarities in their policies, but the big difference is the way they approach things, and this was very evident in the answers to what approach they would take towards the new leadership in Cuba. From Hillary's answer, it is clear that she would continue the Bush foreign policy, in the way that he deals with the Palestinian issue in the ME, dealing from a position of arrogance, whereas Obama would be willing to take the initiative of reaching out, and being more conciliatory. And as usual, Obama stayed on point with his questions, while Hillary wandered hither, thither, and yon, so that at the end I couldn't remember what the Q was, and if she had answered it. Then there is always that emotional question about the crisis in their lives, and of course Obama hasn't had any crises in public life, so he had to draw on his troubled adolescence. But with Hillary, it always alludes to the public humiliation she suffered at the hands of Bill in the Lewinsky affair, and then she revisited that question that the woman at the NH debate had posed to her - how do you do it? For a moment, I almost thought that she would have the same teary-eyed reaction again, but she managed to recover her composure and gave the same answer - it's the people of America that gets her out of bed every morning, etc. etc. The big disconnect here is why is she dragging this man who publicly huliliated her, around in her campaign? But as they say - politics makes strange bedfellows. I felt really sad yesterday, looking at Bill begging the people of Texas to vote for his wife because he realizes that this is the last hope she has of winning the nomination - the last shred of dignity that he left the WH with, is now gone.
What I saw in the debate last night, is that Hillary makes decisions based on her emotions(it's all that water in her chart), and for a President, it's not a desirable trait, because it clouds one's judgement. Obama on the other hand, is the voice of reason, and a cool head. I would much rather have a Commander In Chief, who arrives at decisions through reason, and the thought process, than one who employs maudlin sentimentality. I know this sounds harsh, but I am not considering personal issues here. I am thinking about what's good for the future of our country.
Finally, I think Hillary will have a difficult time winning in TX, but whoever wins, it will be by a slim margin.

PS Junya's Pluto also goes straight through Saudi Arabia, too, of course.

Maybe I'm bleary eyed from just waking up, but who's Junya?

I forgot one more thing - a high point of the debate last night was when Obama described Hillary's petty attacks on him as silly, and he declared it "silly season". Hahaha. That one drew a laugh from the audience. He urged her to concentrate on the more serious issues at hand, and on uplifting the campaigning process, instead of dragging each other down. Good for him.

To see what and when he would have problems there Shy, you would take a day (any day in question) and see if there are crossing lines to it that would activate that Pluto Mercury line. Just like transits, it's the crossing lines that activate the major lines.

43!
Obama has mars in Gem.-air, thought process...Hillary's is I believe in leo. SO that watery emotion would feed through fire!
Fire boils water ( until it's gone).........you could watch it happening last night.
Air ignites ( feeds) fire............... Mars in Gem. Leo sun!

hey are rerunning the debate on CNN, if you missed it.

http://www.progressive.org/mag_zinn0308

Election Madness
By Howard Zinn

[snip]
Let’s remember that even when there is a “better” candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.

The unprecedented policies of the New Deal—Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing—were not simply the result of FDR’s progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army—thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.

In 1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members.

Without a national crisis—economic destitution and rebellion—it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did.

Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.

They offer no radical change from the status quo.

They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.

They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.

None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.

So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.

more...

Turks invading Iraq

http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1009&thisview=item

Shy, nevermind. I get it. Junya = Jr. or George.

Feingold voted for Obama

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/273831

Sunday Feb 24 is Gov. Don Siegelman's birthday. That evening CBS 60 Minutes will be running a story on Siegelman's being railroaded.

Ha! The Universe is working........The UPS driver just dropped off a suprise box of Keurig coffee pods to me! Sent by my friend in CA who knew nothing about my close call with no coffee!
I feel so bad for the escort rider killed in CLinton's motorcade this AM. SHe has gone tothe hospital after her rally in Ft Worth to speak to the man's widow.
Is this a bad omen for her campaign?

(CBS) A Republican operative in Alabama says Karl Rove asked her to try to prove the state’s Democratic governor was unfaithful to his wife in an effort to thwart the highly successful politician’s re-election.

Rove’s attempt to smear Don Siegelman was part of a Republican campaign to ruin him that finally succeeded in imprisoning him, says the operative, Jill Simpson.

Simpson speaks to Scott Pelley in her first television interview, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday,

More at the link with video....

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/21/60minutes/main3859830.shtml

From Mark Crispin Miller:

http://cbs4denver.com/video/?id=39298@kcnc.dayport.com

County Clerks are going berserk in Colorado

They want to keep the DRE machines, which the SoS, Mike Coffman, has decertified, insisting that the state use op-scans instead. The clerks say that it's not the DRE's that are defective, but the tests used to appraise the DRE's; and some of them are even threatening to use the DRE's, decertified or not. They say they don't have time to buy the op-scans, don't know how to use them, blah blah blah.

The simplest course, if I may be so bold, would be to dump all those computerized machines, op-scans and DRE's alike, and just hand-count the paper ballots. And if the clerks refuse to do that, they should quit. I'm sure there are a lot of capable and civic-minded Coloradans who would thrilled to have those jobs.

MCM

Standing applauds and whistles for Howard Zinn's insights. He perceives that what we suspect is true, IS true about what these two have to offer (quasi status quo), until we as a people find ourselves in a heckuva lot of pain (more) cry out (act) in our own behalf to re-empower ourselves.
The pile of disastrous business left by the bush admin is perched to crash in on us, and so much is before us, not behind. We've had it up to here with those electeds (senate and congress especially) who PRETEND they're with us then spend the next 4-8 years plundering, pilphering, stealing and killing everything we cherish.

PatC, this is happening in my home state. It was Feingold and Pelosi who decided last March that it was "too late for Opti-scanners", too bad for us. They are the leaders, we are the lowly advocates...8 years of ommissions and distortions of what reality is calls for a bit of wrath on our part.
Paper ballots it is. Indeed, they can stick their cosmetic opti-scanners.

McCain is 'unelectable" HE"S SHORT!

Thanks, Cap'n Sally. Guess we won't be able to get an astrocartography chart on Obama because no one seems to know his time of birth (or at least no one on the internet that I found).

As for Junya and transits, I guess some cosmic trainwreck happened on that Pluto line through Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pootie-Poot's digs in 2001 and is still just sitting there, smoldering away.

http://phoenixwoman.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/yet-another-hole-blown-into-mccains-denial-attempt/

Yet Another Hole Blown Into McCain’s Denial Attempt

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman’s clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times’s story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. “No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC,” the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself.

More at the link...

patb, it's beyond my understanding why any honest clerk would want to continue to use those machines in any way.

PatC, in Boulder we've been ahead of the game for 4 years. We had giant paper ballots in '04. Um, the count just got misplaced until after the so-called election.

The word honesty has been turned inside out by a few who need reintroduction to the dictionary version.

Inspite of Hillary's claim of being the experienced candidate, and that she will be ready on day one, here's a classic example of her bad judgement trumping her so-called experience:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/us/politics/22clinton.html

Bill Moyers:
Revealing earmarks & the Senators that promote them! Washington State legislator. Norm Dix & PAtty Murrey.
http://www.insport.com/ ( don't buy from them)
selling polyester T shirts that melt & stick on the skin to OUR TROOPS!

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/

How does he know this? Is the fix in?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080222/pl_bloomberg/atroxlyknsu

Looks like it's going to be a long hot summer:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20080221/pl_cq_politics/politics2674126;_ylt=Ar_pJyxEA2iBc7mDxJitG9Eb.3QA

Diebold machines will be used in the Ohio Primaries, so I guess Governor Strickland may well be able to turn the tide in Hillary's favor.

Washington Post has put on line this AM McCain's original deposition admitting his phone calls, which he now denies.

Relevant portions of 2002 McCain Deposition Referencing Paxson (PDF) in pdf here:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/pdf/mccain_deposition_20080222.pdf?hpid=topnews

.................

Paxson Contradicts McCain Campaign

Broadcaster says he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before senator wrote controversial letters to FCC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202634.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/us/politics/23lobby.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

Drip, drip, drip, from today’s NYT:

Files and McCain Letter Show Effort to Keep Loophole

WASHINGTON — In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole.

More at the link....

Here's more, PatC. Apparently, McInsane also helped Sinclair increase its share of the broadcast market, too.
http://tinyurl.com/2npmo7

As noted in the comments section, could this whole attack of McInsane result in . . . Jebbers (shudder)?

Makes my skin crawl shy. But it's good that this is coming out.

Woot! Woot! Mukasey and McConnell now--finally--aware that operating outside of FISA is *gasp* ILLEGAL:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/23/mcconell/index.html

The New Invasion of Iraq

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022308Z.shtml

Patrick Cockburn, writing for The Independent UK, reports, "A new crisis has exploded in Iraq after Turkish troops, supported by attack planes and Cobra helicopters, yesterday launched a major ground offensive into Iraqi Kurdistan."

I don't know if this is all true or not, but if it is, and I have to tell you I am a "no nuke", it's really disturbing.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank02222008.html

The Nuclear Industry's Golden Child - That Obama Glow

By JOSHUA FRANK

There's more.

It's been a horrible second day for the senator, topped by this put up by The Washington Post tonight: "Broadcaster Lowell 'Bud' Paxson today contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson's behalf.
"Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson's quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station. Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, attended the meeting in McCain's office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. 'Was Vicki there? Probably,' Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post today. 'The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings.'
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003714703

And this gem. OY.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/179774.php

Pat C, re your Nuke Ind Golden Child article, this is what I posted earlier in this thread:

"Oh, and by the way. Obama plans to develop new nuclear power plants nationwide, (finger snap) so I guess the suggestion of Gore is a laughable one.
Here's that bucket of poison we ordered"

Obama's nuke love may be just the reason Gore might step in.

Since campaign promises are rarely kept let's hope the nuke one is in that category. I think it will be eventually dropped as an option since it is WE, THE PEOPLE who stopped the building of nuclear energy sites the first time around.

Lest we be forgetting that the things they WON'T, DON'T SAY is where the slime comes up from the basement.
We've worked too desperately hard to stop nuclear development to allow ANYTHING but development of green technologies.

Obama, how DARE he (pause to scream).

There is nothing that would be more beautiful than Gore coming in, yet, it's too tough to disregard the temporariness of the Inaugural chart. That would be unfortunate for Gore, unfortunate for us.

Here's Part I of Obama's "Plan". Energy begins on page 24 (lower left-hand side of page). No mention of nukes. Biofuels are highlighted. Why don't they just harvest all the kudzu in the Deep South and let farmers in the midwest grow food, fer cryin' out loud!
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

Now I'll go look at Part II and see if has anything more about energy.

We mustn't take our eye off the senate & congress ball either. Just because Pelosi (one example) is speaking from the same script she used in '06 and abandoned immediately after election, the drive for Progressives to push them out once they've betrayed us has to be focused like a sharp needle.

Identify/Eliminate.

Shy, I recall Obama fielding a DIRECT question about his intentions for nuclear development.
He SAID would "consider all technologies".
Vague as hades.

This is fun.........with a sharp edge!

http://www.236.com/blog/w/election08/message_to_ralph_nader_from_an_4373.php

Message to Ralph Nader from Anonymous

Ah yes patb, but he said he is a proponent of "clean, safe, nuclear energy". Grrrrrrrr. We can make a huge dent in energy use with solar homes and buildings and electric cars, and the technology is here, but buried. Urban gardens on roofs are another idea that is working and can be proved to be working.

I LOVE the message to Ralph Nader qop!

We may all be pulling our hair out by the end of this election year. I forsee a lot of problems. Madness and mayhem.

oops! Here's the link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080223/ap_on_el_ge/pollworker_problems

Nuclear energy, waste, and global warming.

http://www.nukefree.org/facts Be sure and watch the video at the bottom of the page.

http://www.sierraclub.org/nuclearwaste/

Here is Al Gore on nuclear energy.

http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/002012.html

Anyone wanting to build a nuclear power plant will be confronted with massive objection, especially since the world has become highly educated about global warming and the urgent need to find alternative sources of energy. Nuclear plants are relics and symbolic of the ignorance of the past.

A politician on the stump, running for office saying "I will consider all forms of technology" is being about as vague as possible in order not to alienate voters and the big corporations.

Nuclear energy is so 20th Century. It's pre-climate change awareness. There are some things that simply won't continue into the 21st in spite of Bush.

Barring concerns about danger of radiation, exposure, major meltdown etc. they just need TOO MUCH WATER TO RUN!
That will pull them up by the short hairs later if not sooner.
They're just boyz being boyz, excited about technology!
Much cheaper to do other forms of energy!

I read some stats coming from The Scotsman newspaper (or it might have been the Independent) about nuclear power plant water runoff. May this be the reason why polar caps are melting? It is some amazing and mindboggling amount of HEATED run off running into the oceans from all nuclear plants located on oceans.

Judi, if you could figure out where you read that I'd be eternally grateful.

One of the things about living in the San Francisco area is that so much 'new' stuff pops up here .... like a hotspring bubbling up new ideas. Which is, of course, why we are reviled so badly by the rest of the 'no change' people in the country.

One of the biggest 'news' right now is the opening (in Oct) of the rebuilt CA Academy of Sciences. It is part of the redo of the two structures (3 actually, including an Arboretum which was heavily damaged by a storm) which were damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. This one is just spectacular to see (especially from the tower of the new deYoung Museum across the way). For a virtual tour....http://www.calacademy.org/academy/building/

The A of S is a building which is so radical in concept (although certainly not the first) that it will make SF the center for 'Green' technology for decades. So I am not quite so depressed about change as perhaps people in other areas of the country, because this is already happening, the results of all of the Academy's experiments will aid all other areas of Green Growth by providing real time examples of what is possible.

I hope before I die (and maybe get planted for real), that I would be able to live in a home with a real producing roof garden on top of it. Sort of reminds me of our Prairie Grandmothers and great Grandmothers who lived in Nebraska and Kansas under sod roofs .....

Pat, I don't honestly know, as it was several months ago. But it most likely was either the Scotman or the Independent. Might search their sites....

Two one hundred sq miles of solar panels, one in the Nevada desert, one in the Northeast, can provide clean, inexpensive power to the entire country for the next hundred and something years.

Why do that when you can poison your environment and devastate all life forms in the same length of time? Besides, wars are so entertaining for the boyz.

patb....

because they can, because they make money, because they are stupid.

OK Pat C, I found a similar article, perhaps even the same one quoted in the other source I had read

http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/dec3/polution.htm

Judi, uh huh. Maybe the momentum of global warming with it's side-effects will have a great deal to say about the limits of this game.

If you can get Netflix, I highly highly recommend the film "Evil" a swedish film 2003, directed by Mikael Hafstrom will have you jumping up and down with it's skill and insight into how we all feel this helpless rage and how one youth dealt with the impossible (the way every one of us are).
I was so impressed with this film (saw it last night) I just have to share this one. The violence herein is necessary to the effective telling of the story.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/2/23/145919/436

Hillary Slams Obama Over Deceptive Ohio Mailers

In the USA, corporations are persons before the law: persons without soul or conscience; persons without loyalty to any nation, without loyalty to any laws, and without loyalty even to the home planet. Corporations are persons with loyalty only to their short-sighted profit.

Exactly Old Mayfly! That really needs to be changed.

Thank you Judi!

http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2008/2/8

Examining Clinton & Obama's Stances on the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Universal Healthcare, Privatizing Social Security and Nuclear Energy

Good Grief PatC, that is sure to kick Obama down a few rungs in Ohio and elsewhere. That is just diabolical. The next debate is when?

I saw that insulting education deal he offers to college hopefuls which assure NO education beyond community college, which is ALREADY available thru Pell Grants! Nothing but the gov't get National Service out of these kids. and instinctively wondered if the same shortsheeted generosity applies to his healthcare proposal.

Same short sheets patb. Grrrrrrr.

http://www.counterpunch.org/castro02232008.html
Like Rove, Castro is taking up journalism now that he has stepped down.
Guess he is still among the living!

That democracy Now sure is enlightening.
The commentor says Obama s being advised by right of center capitalists, to do the very thing on a "partial" basis that GWB tried to do with Social Security which are Private Accounts! Boon to Wall Street whose LOSSES would come from Social Security. In addition, he plans to increase Social Security Taxes by 20%!!!!!
Everything I've heard so far about his proposals give free rides to the gov't and the capitalists ON THE BACKS OF THE PUBLIC.

This is the best profiling I've heard yet about these two candidates.

Another thing. I wonder if he might mix grant eligibility with National Service as a condition to recipients.
Oh, yeah. As soon as the the chain of logic became too precisely close to nuclear power, he diverted speech to "Orate" about Cheney's backroom energy deals. Very interesting moment.

If this man is nominated it appears we may experience the biggest bait 'n' switch we didn't see coming.

Now I KNOW why he creeps me out.

Take a wonderful break and go traveling through the cosmos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Z5v_ZLs0o

(The deep bass chanting you'll hear is by Tibetan monks. Individual monks chant in chords, you know.)

Thank you so much shy. Blessings.

And now back to earth: lots of indictments for KBR employees in Iraq. Oh, Cap'n Sally, it is oozing and oozing.

http://tinyurl.com/248zcr

Shy, may an exploding bomb rain down flower petals...that hit the spot.
Thank You!

(by the way there's lots more space photos adjacent to that video..the monks, they are so wonderful to hear anytime, anywhere).

See these complete with stages of visualizations from allinthemind:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=F7_cYRAIdTs

No Shy, we're NOT coming back to earth. No way, no how.

more weirdness....great site you posted Pat C...TalkLeft.

Tavis Smiley is receiving threats from Obama supporters over his criticism of Obama for not attending his State of the Black Union event. Hillary is attending the Louisiana event and will be speaking there.http://www.talkleft.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202175.html
The Value of Newness

By David Ignatius
Sunday, February 24, 2008;
"When it comes to foreign policy, experience is a highly overrated asset." So says a former British foreign service officer named Jonathan Clarke, who has created a blog called Swoop ( http://theswoop.net) dedicated to undermining Washington's fondness for conventional wisdom.

What my friend Clarke means is that the set of issues and strategies that shaped the Cold War generation has passed. He's a product of that generation, having served at the sharp end of the spear for the British government in various Cold War hot spots. But that era is over. The intellectual matrix formed by the Soviet threat, and before that by Hitler's rise in Germany, needs to be reworked. There is a new set of problems and personalities -- and if America keeps trotting out the same cast of characters and policy papers, we will fail to make sense of where the world is moving.
more.......................
a veru thoughtful & upbeat article

Obama's people are scaring me Judi. Tough is good, but....

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=6246

BARACK & HILLARY--SINGLE PAYER, OR DOES EVERYBODY GET THEIR HEAD IN THE HEALTH-CARE TROUGH?

Simple Question Defines Complex Health Debate

Nander announced on Meet the Press at around 11:10 am est.

Oops, that should have been around 10:40.

Oops again!! Around 10:10. I had recorded the beginning of the show.

I pay the rent and groceries,etc by working for the government to cover people with our state's version of Medicaid.
As someone else said we already have a wonderful affordable universal health care system-Medicare.
In our state we have funds for paying for the expence of Medicare for low income/low resource individuals. We also cover the costs of medical care that are not covered by the Medicare.
This is simple. The problem is that health insurance is such a large part of the national economy and there will be a huge change required and those who have grown wealthy and powerful selling medical care are not going to donate their talent and treasure.

qop, from your link above I especially like this part, and I think it drives home the idea that long years of experience in an age where that experience is of the past era are sometimes not what is best.

[snip]
To prepare for the next stage of the U.S. presidential campaign, try this thought experiment: Imagine the television footage of Barack Obama's first trip abroad as president -- the crowds in the streets of Moscow, Cairo, Nairobi, Shanghai, Paris, Islamabad. Now try to imagine the first visit by President John McCain to those same cities. McCain is a great man, and he would be welcomed with respect, deference, perhaps a bit of fear. Obama would generate different and more intense reactions -- surprise and uncertainty, to be sure, but also idealism and hope. Now tell me which image would foster a stronger and safer America in the 21st century.

Obama has liabilities as a candidate, but his inexperience paradoxically may actually bolster one of his core arguments -- that he would give America a fresh start.

Yes, that's what John Edwards said. They aren't going to give up power, we have to take it from them.

We're not inventing the wheel here with health care, even thought to hear the debate you'd think we were spearheading the world into brave new territory never dared before!

What vanity!

Hypocrisy lunaoscura.

Here's some more.

Telephone Wiretaps Back on "For Now"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022408Z.shtml

Reuters reports: "The Bush administration said on Saturday US telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate 'for the time being' with spy agencies' wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance legislation."

OK, My Blue Cross Blue Shield, for as a small business/no employees/no dependants...........$20.00 per month ( 1980, 81).
Needed surgery 1982, ALL HOSPITAL BILLS PAID! 10 DAYS in a private Dr. owned hospital....... Surgeons bill was on me. Supreme, cutting edge service, medical care.
1990-Patron's business went bankrupt, co-pay offered/ it didn't work because the majority chose NJ HMO, & had to move. No health insurance - 2001.
As VISTA, had the Senate's own health ins. Terrific!
2004, turned 65, "mandated" medicare removed $66.00 of my SS income! Mainecare did a buy-in, & now pays the feds monthly ( $88.00 last year.)
I have only run up medical bills of approx $200. per year................
Medicare refused to pay $149... for pap smear & GYN exam! ( 2006)
Our local hospital sends 2, 4 page, advertising brochures annually..........OR has been closed down on several occasions because of "BUGS" flying insects................
My friend had knee replacement there; a tendon, snapped, she got staphe, spent 1 year in hospitals & nursing homes! ( added complication of needing gall bladder surgery) Now has a rod in her leg, can't bend her knee & has a 1" lift on that shoe!
A 61 year old man was dismissed, found frozen to death on the hospital grounds SEVERAL DAYS LATER! ( Jan. '08)
Now under scrutiny, surgeon for my friend's knee was dismissed. head orthopedic man, used my friends case at the deposition without her permission!
I spent 6 years trying to get the right dose of thyroid replacement meds. hampering my ability to accumulate more toward my retirement. I was a zombie! I got a sense that the Docters were not getting the correct info or a braod spectrum in their Medical Schools!
That's where the scrutinay need to begin, NOT with Joe Schmo working for the Papaer mill swho will be mandated to buy health insurance!\
I think our entire society needs to be stripped down & sent back to kindergarten!
With the exception of cetain "evolved people"!

Sorry for the typos.............it's the cat's fault. Up & down open the door..........
That hospital is "managed" of course! Under scrutiny is the hospital, whether they need to be closed down........
the dismissed surgeon was good according to my friend, the staphe was a result of mismanagement,!

So why is Barack Obama, a bipartisan accommodationist who promises to appoint Republicans to his cabinet and praises Ronald Reagan, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination? Why is Hillary Clinton, militant centrist of the DLC, running a close second?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20080130/cm_ucru/independentsgohome

Ted Rall on what has happened to liberal democrats, one which I am asking also. I guess we are dinos.

History was made yesterday, when Virgin Atlantic became the first airline to use bio-fuel on one of its planes, flying from Heathrow to Holland.

What has happened to liberal democrats? They were systematically denied us and snuffed one by one!

qop, I haven't had health care for 11 years. I pay retail and last year put in 70/hr weeks to keep the devils from garnishing my wages.
Aftermath of breaking my foot and getting on the hi-cost assembly line that had nothing to do whatsoever with addressing my actual needs.
I have a condition brought about by outrageous misdiagnosis that I have to live with.
I have NO respect for the medical profession.
Deaf, dumb, blind idiots..

I get my healthcare at the health food store.
Fortunately I don't have any need for medicines in my cabinet, even stay away from over-the-counter so called remedies.

It's a long story and won't bore anyone with it.

This Hillary vs Obama Larry Moe & Curley brat squabble has me so bored I can barely speak were it not such an amorphous alienating dangerous in it's vagueness sack of cud I'd just as soon let everyone ruminate because it offers nothing that stirs my heart or intellect in the most remote way. There's only this emptiness of meaning and sense our butts are up for grabs whoever they wish to have access to grabbing it so long as the gov'ts free sucking our lifeblood continues.

Obama and Hillary can go hang.

Dowd's ascerbic wit, and Rich's analysis from the Sunday NY Times. Hope the links work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24dowd.html?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24rich.html?hp

...and McCain is a human pile of rubble that could be bested by a Bathroom Monkey.

Bleary canvas of muddy colors running queasily together which would be better blank.

Now tell us how you really feel, patb!
( I feel the same way!)

I WANT one of these!
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=457882
Loremo: The 'Low Resistance Mobile'
At 150-miles-per-gallon, the Loremo wants to show how far a diesel can go.

Interesting reflection on political assassinations:

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161282262

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_bob_schu_080224_new_hampshire_vote_r.htm

NEW HAMPSHIRE Vote Recount Report!! - Optical Scan Machines Violate Federal Law

Of the 347, 905 total ballots processed during the recount 305,207 (87.7%) came from towns and cities that use machines to count the votes, and 42,619 (12.3%) came from towns that use People to count the votes.

New Hampshire's vote counting machines violate federal accuracy standards. New Hampshire's machines experienced an error rate approximately 163 times greater than the error rate allowed under federal Election Law.

The probability that an individual's vote was accurately counted during the Primary was much greater if his vote was counted by hand than by machine.

Crystal, if that's the case, maybe we should not put him in office and save his life.

Those are bad thoughts to be putting out, and responsible people should not be writing articles like that unless they are setting up a race riot or worse a race war.

You seem to be all over the place on blogs with some pretty aggressive posts. Maybe some nice buddhist chants would calm you.

Pat C, I'm afraid you must not have understood the article. I see nothing offensive in it, and I meant no offense to anyone. As a matter of fact, I thought it to be pretty informative. I guess we just don't see things the same way.

Methinks we need to recover traumatized areas of our brains brought about by the last 8 years.
This is madness. Chittering, trapped in isolation chemical dysphoric lunacy.

REMINDER THAT THE ROVE SEIGELMAN PIECE WILL BE ON TONIGHT ON CBS AT 7:00pm est. it's a must see.

I live in Alabama and my cable company blacked out the screen on the 60 minutes piece on Don
Seigelman. No pic, no sound - 60 minutes
came back on 5 minutes before the end of the Siegelman segment. Now they are running a continuous feed on bottom of screen saying that CBS N.Y. had the problem and it was not the problem of our local cable company? Funny it was only for the Siegelman piece! Anyone else miss this segment? Attempts to call our Cable Company resulted in the phone never being answered.

Dowd has become a character out of a cartoon strip, parroting herself endlessly (or parodying, as an alternative).....Frank Rich .... hit man in print.

My astrology teacher Stuart Walker said in 2000 that the GOP would be in control for a long time. He didn't say specifically in the presidency, but as you can see, the players are all playing their roles....and despite the fact that there are MORE dems than repugs....

They still keep losing. Think about THAT....

USSR, China, Alabama and KKKKKarl Rove....

Parts of 60 Minutes Broadcast Blocked in Alabama...

Huffington Post, NY - 4 minutes ago

Over the last few days, as word got out that the 60 Minutes show would air tonight, Karl Rove's associates began planting defamatory stories about ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/parts-of-60-minutesi_b_88218.html

Here is the google on the subject. Wow.

http://tinyurl.com/yuvrom

JudiGem, let us hope your astrology teacher's definition of "long time" is, oh, say, eight years. It seems like 20 already, so I figure by the time 2009 rolls around, it'll seem like 25 have passed since the Supremes handed us our prezzident.

PatC, the static, food fights, or whatever they are about Hillary vs. Obama over at DU are unbelievable. Either rank juveniles are posting them, or the zealotry of followers of the two candidates is shocking and deeply disturbing, or provocateurs are are out in full force. Prolly some combination of all of the above.

Meanwhile, we have a country to lose--again. And, while the food fights, static, hate fests, mud-slinging contests or whatever they are continue, the Repugs are just getting started:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/179930.php

Makes me want to holler, throw up both my hands.

Shy, I believe he meant...a LONG time. 50 years.

JudiGem, you must take that back! I'd really like to see the end of their twisted domination before I kick that ol' bucket.

I wish I could take it back! I am going to look on my computer for the article...hopefully I didn't throw it out in disgust...hey....I'm getting old, maybe my memory is wrong! There would be one good use for a bad memory.

Shy, couldn't find it....I'd bet I didn't want to 'see' it. It was too horrifying.

But one thing does make me wonder....since the US mars is going (or was during that time) retrograde for the first time in the history of the country, and won't go direct again for another 60 years...perhaps Stuart was looking at that aspect?

JudiGem, I gotta go to the positive side with this one. I just gotta. Maybe Cap'n Sally will provide some great insight, particularly in terms of the repetition of all that great energy of the '60s. Yeah, I can dig it.

Ditto on Shy's suggestion, Cap'n. And, since the focus of this article was on eclipses, and since the full moon eclipses (and i suspect the solar ones) relate to one another. . .what is the relationship to eclipses to come, say in 2012?

If, like Judi is indicating, the republicans have fotified their power, then it confirms (at least to me) that we the people will be forced to act. If so, do the coming eclipses delineate that kind of energy?

If you missed 60 Minutes last night, or if you were blacked out in Alabama because Bush's buddy owns the station, here is the link to the CBS video of the Siegelman story:

>http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

Well here we go......................
A tidy organic method for ridding your garden of pests!
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/02/24/bugs_0225.html?cxntnid=amn022508e
Crickets, caterpillars and grubs are high in protein and minerals and could be an important food source during droughts and other emergencies, scientists say.........................

PS. I've been thinking for a while that those gummy worms created for the delection of children had a sinister purpose!
Disaster capitalism at its most insidious!

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007057.html

Harper's Scott Horton does some truth-squading of Rove and his attorney on Siegelman, the subject of a 60 Minutes story tonight. Horton's post broadcast write up here.

Paul Kiel remarks on a Soviet style technical difficulty that prevented the segment from being aired in Alabama, where the local CBS affiliate simply went dark: "And there seems to be a fitting capstone to the piece's broadcast. At least one CBS affiliate in Alabama, Scott Horton and Larisa Alexandrovna report, went dark during the broadcast. Just went dark. The station claimed that there was a technical difficulty which lasted only for the segment on Siegelman ('NewsChannel 19 lost our program feed from CBS'). Boy, is that bad luck. But not to worry -- they got the problem worked out and rebroadcast the segment that night at 10. During the Oscars."

More links within text....

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

Who killed the electric car?

The documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJAlrYjGz8

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/paul-interview.html

Interview: Alexandra Paul On Electric Cars

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080224/sc_afp/norwayarcticenvironmentwarmingcrops

Biodiversity 'doomsday vault' comes to life in Arctic

by Pierre-Henry Deshayes Sun Feb 24, 1:25 PM ET

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway (AFP) - Aimed at providing mankind with a Noah's Ark of food in the event of a global catastrophe, an Arctic "doomsday vault" filled with samples of the world's most important seeds will be inaugurated here Tuesday.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Nobel Peace Prize winning environmentalist Wangari Matai will be among the personalities present at the inauguration of the vault, which has been carved into the permafrost of a remote Arctic mountain, just some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the North Pole.

The vault, made up of three spacious cold chambers each measuring 27 x 10 metres (89 x 33 feet), create a long trident-shaped tunnel bored into the sandstone and limestone.

It has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches of seeds from all known varieties of the planet's main food crops, making it possible to re-establish plants if they disappear from their natural environment or are obliterated by major disasters.

more...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E4D6173CF937A15751C0A9629C8B63

THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE INDEPENDENT; Relax, Nader Advises Alarmed Democrats, but the 2000 Math Counsels Otherwise

snip

"Voters leaving polling places in 2000 were asked by Voter News Service, a consortium of television networks and The Associated Press, how they would have voted if George W. Bush and Al Gore had been the only candidates on the ballot.

"Among Nader voters, 45 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Gore, 27 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Bush, and the rest said they would not have voted.

"In California, where Mr. Nader received 4 percent of the vote, 46 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Gore and only 14 percent said they would have gone for Mr. Bush.

"Because there is no reason to believe the breakdown was not similarly lopsided in other states, it is safe to assume that Mr. Nader cost Mr. Gore states that Mr. Bush narrowly won.

"In Florida, Mr. Nader received 97,488 votes, 1.6 percent of the total, and Mr. Bush carried the state by 537 votes. In New Hampshire, Mr. Nader won 22,198 votes, 3.9 percent of the total, and Mr. Bush carried the state by 7,211 votes. Had Mr. Gore won in either state, he would have become president."

Nader is financed by the repugs.
Now children, tonite we read the tale of "Billy Goats Gruff", "Oh, no, not AGAIN!"

His running is pointless save for siphoning votes from the dems. He knows this full well.

Wonder if Nader has any conscience about the hundreds of thousands who are now dead because of his presence in the 2000 election. Dispicable bottomdweller.

Well, patb, you answered the question I was going to post about who was behind Nader, so I won't. Do we have any proof?

Luna, sure hope no genetically engineered seeds are in that vault....this sure appeals to my old sci fi mentality.

I am afraid we are living out the (some say curse) Chinese proverb "may you live in interesting times."

JudiGem, not sure where to find this info now which was well publicised in 1999. Nader admitted accepting a huge package to finance his campaign that year. He made no secret of it when confronted about it as I recall.

1999, no wonder....I was petrified of the coming attractions I knew were taking place (that the rethugs/neos had put gwb in place). At least in my unconscious, I knew how seriously awful this was going to be....plus that was the year my daughter got married. So I probably wasn't looking much at Nader. And in those days, I thought he was one of the good guys...but this little bell which goes off in my head re who is not whom they appear to be (is that even correct English?) certainly has gone off now on Nader. And as for Obama, although to be correct, it may just be that it isn't Obama, as it is who is behind him. I've thought that since '04 about Obama, this isn't anything new for me about him.

I have found that the only writer who has ever expressed pretty much 100% of my thinking (or 'vibe') is Ted Rall. And he said the same thing.

Yes and yeah. Same here wondering how he shot straight to senatorship out of nowhere, seemingly.

We had no case of willies whatsoever about Dodd, Kucinich, Gravel, Biden now did we. They easily resonated with our sensibilities. We don't have to turn our heads sideways or upside-down for a clear picture.

JudiGem, I did find this one. Hope it helps.

http://www.knbc.com/politics/3534154/detail.html

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2008/02/siegelman-scandal-black-out.html

snip

Some of the Alabama blackouts are reported to have happened on Channel 19, which is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, owned by the Bass family of Texas. The others appeared to have happened on one Comcast channel.

Could this Bass family be the same family involved in George W. Bush's Harken energy scandal?

More at the link....

I can't verify with a link or anything..but I belonged to Deangroup@yahoo.com in 2004.
Someone sent me a looong e-mail about Nader, his funding by Repugs, his Princeton-Yale, S&B connection...............
I can't remember if I printed it out......but it's bookmarked on th obsolete Mac 2 computers & modems ago!
Is this one of the reasons for upgrading so frequently?

Look what John & Elizabeth Edwards are doing:

http://tinyurl.com/2dacs6

Yaaaaay!!

http://www.slate.com/id/2184696

Interesting article … personality test describes the 3 candidates (looks like they nailed it too). It’s impartial, doesn’t promote any candidate, just describes their personalities.

Astrologers???

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/romneyback.html

Breaking News: Mitt Romney to rejoin GOP race?

Josh Romney, one of former Gov. Mitt Romney's five sons, says it's "possible" his father may rejoin the race for the White House, as a vice presidential candidate or as the Republican Party's standard-bearer if the campaign of Sen. John McCain falters.

Interesting, PatC. And there certainly is the possibility that McCain will falter--as astrologers on this and other websites have noted that he will encounter a (possibly health) difficulty in late March or early April.

Since McCain's lobbyist connections have come to light (I won't say surfaced--because they have always been right out there) maybe Romney is reconsidering his "cut-my-losses" move and figures maybe he can throw a little more money into the ring and win after all.

Marta, thanks for the Slate link--it is pretty much how I see the candidates. However, I wonder if FDR wasn't more of a blend of the Artisan and the Idealist. FDR was for altruistic goals, though he was tricky (and a good thing, too!) in working toward them.

Cap'n Sally would make me stand in a corner for a long, long time if I said what I thought about this "Captain of Industry". Let us hope the House Committee sticks to its guns and hauls him before them--or issues a contempt if he won't come.

http://tinyurl.com/23wjjs

Ha!Ha!Ha! Romney. Now the repukes have TWO really weak candidates.

Old Mayfly, you're welcome ...!

Media Matters has an interesting comment on McCain and "the Clinton Rules" of media political coverage.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200802220015

Excerpt:

... While Democratic "scandals" have been treated as true if any individual element has turned out to be accurate, allegations against Republicans have been deemed false if any individual element turned out to be wrong -- or even questionable.
The clearest example of this is the 2004 controversy around Bush's National Guard service, or lack thereof... .

... not to change the subject, (ok, let's do!) but ... "New Evidence on RFK Assassination!"

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/news/13059

Hey Guys

Did anyone notice the fact that in November the progressed Moon for the July 4 chart (using the Sibly chart) is at Virgo 4: Black and White Children Playing Together... ?

Further, in November, this US chart has a progressed full moon, almost smack on this degree (just a few minutes off)... what I mean is that the 'karmic condition' (the degree before) the progressed full moon is Black and White Children Playing Together...

Pretty telling, eh??? Of course, this will relate to immigration and various other things, not just to Barack Obama... but I feel that this degree Moon coming up is making the Obama thing possible.

How amazing is his trajectory with all the perceived problems of religion, name, etc, etc? Amazing!!! What a turn around for America this is!

Love from DownUnder
Lynda

Thinking about 1939/1940 when the Republican party still was the party supporting the rich guys, but so much better in many ways than they are today. Back then the GOP was a sort of sea anchor preventing too quick movement forward. For example, FDR's move to pack the Supreme Court was a bad idea and was defeated.

However, though the Repubs have their place as a minority party, they are a total disaster as the majority party.

Anyhow, thinking about FDR and his realistic view of the Nazis, prior to Pearl Harbor, when Roosevelt supported Lend/Lease (contributing US warships to England in exchange for a lease on the Bahamas, etc.) the German ambassador visited the White House and complained to FDR that lend/lease violated America's status as a neutral nation.

Reportedly FDR responded with an innocent air, "Do you think so? What do you want to do about it?"

Siegelman Case on MSNBC Tonight

Dan Abrams Show - Former Siegelman Attorney and Former US Attorney Doug Jones, Republican Whistleblower Jill Simpson 9 pm EST 8 pm CST

Watching it!

Fun break!

Go here:

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

To change colors, left click.

Enjoy.