tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post6478881617016712074..comments2024-03-28T16:08:29.578-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: The Mapping of the Terror TrainsKaren Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-90633188829039786662014-07-13T12:34:01.304-04:002014-07-13T12:34:01.304-04:00Maureen's column "Isn't It Rich?"...Maureen's column "Isn't It Rich?" is one of her best to come along. The Clinton saga of how money corrupts is clearly played out in the media but even our liberal readers excuse them and are willing to support their mission to gain a foothold in government affairs. Karen your usual forthright comment was on the mark.<br />I wonder where Chelsea's husband fits into all this? Of course living in a ten million dollar condo answers that question.<br />I forgive Maureen her often less than great columns for writing this one and so well.<br />Buyer beware. Pearlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-16344305768562449802014-07-13T12:09:37.475-04:002014-07-13T12:09:37.475-04:00@ annenigma
"The relationship between the go...@ annenigma<br /><br />"The relationship between the government and the media is like a marriage; it is a dysfunctional marriage to be sure, but we stay together for the kids."<br /><br />In order to seduce them by “soft paternalism," "choice architecture," or “nudges.” In other words the government's way of tricking us into doing what it wants.<br /><br />Obamacare’s "nudge" style (more like a shove) policy, because “free markets,” in which citizens are now forced to give substantial percentages of their incomes, using the tax code, to a government-protected private sector monopoly - health insurance companies - is the very essence of Nudge Theory.<br /><br />After all, pay the health insurance companies, or pay the IRS, we have a choice.Denis Nevillenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-87603570329223286272014-07-12T23:09:44.662-04:002014-07-12T23:09:44.662-04:00Off topic, but this quote by New York Time's P...Off topic, but this quote by New York Time's Pentagon correspondent Thom Shanker is a real kicker. It explains NYT stenography perfectly. <br /><br />"The government really needs to get its message out to the American people, and it knows that the best way to do that is by using the American news media," said Shanker. "The relationship between the government and the media is like a marriage; it is a dysfunctional marriage to be sure, but we stay together for the kids."<br /><br />http://time.com/2976711/obama-press-surveillance/annenigmanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-55841247714458251642014-07-12T15:00:10.580-04:002014-07-12T15:00:10.580-04:00My submission for Quote of the Day:
"Today’s...My submission for Quote of the Day:<br /><br />"Today’s grand illusion is of an information age when, in truth, we live in a media age in which incessant corporate propaganda is insidious, contagious, effective and liberal."<br /><br />From 'On Israel, Ukraine, and Truth, The Return of George Orwell and Big Brother's War' by journalist John Pilger<br /><br />http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/11/on-israel-ukraine-and-truth/<br />annenigmanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-2254367167780349702014-07-11T17:58:55.288-04:002014-07-11T17:58:55.288-04:00I see BNSF oil trains frequently when driving on t...I see BNSF oil trains frequently when driving on the interstate near my home and also when hiking on a local trail. <br /><br />I’ve also seen trains hauling those 737 airplane fuselages made in Kansas similar to the ones dropped into that Montana river, which further adds to the lack of confidence in our national rail system.<br /><br />Always wonder which kind of oil - non-flammable heavy crude or volatile light crude - is in those tank cars.<br /><br />Kansas City Southern recently announced it will develop a terminal for heavy Canadian crude oil in Port Arthur, Texas. There will initially be several trains daily from western Canada and they will travel on those tracks.<br /><br />Looking at the Oil Train Blast Zone map, I see that I live not that far from the US DOT Potential Impact Zone in Case of Oil Train Fire. When hiking, I am smack in the middle of the US DOT Evacuation Zone for Oil Train Derailments. At several spots along the trail, I always feel a bit of trepidation, all those black tanker cars rolling by at such great speed are a bit sinister looking, feeling a sense of dread that if they were to suddenly derail I wouldn’t have a chance – I’d either be squashed like a bug or burned alive.<br /><br />So far the sight of those multiple oil black tank cars on the tracks seems not to be freaking people out locally.<br /><br />My grandfather was a steam locomotive engineer for the Milwaukee Railroad (now BNSF) in North Dakota and Montana. So I have an interest in railroading in my blood. Occasionally, I will read trains.com., especially Fred Frailey’s blog about railroading. <br /><br />Frailey’s opposite view on the “Terror Trains,”<br /><br />“Does anyone feel, as I do, that railroads have lost the message on crude oil by rail to the know-nothings and their best friends, the politicians?<br /><br />http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2014/05/19/the-know-nothings-are-in-charge.aspx<br /><br />Know-nothings???<br /><br />"You always think of something you could have done that you didn't do, but were you unreasonable in how you ran your business up to that point? I think not in this case. I think we were following industry practice." - Edward Burkhardt, CEO of rail company in Lac-Mégantic explosion, responding to a question about whether he feels any guilt about the incident.Denis Nevillenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-77744877794092177122014-07-11T15:31:10.290-04:002014-07-11T15:31:10.290-04:00While we may not have the large populations here i...While we may not have the large populations here in northwestern Montana, we have beauty, clean clear rivers, and pristine forests. Unfortunately, that's exactly where the railroad barons built their tracks as they steamrolled over the countryside. The oil trains also run along the southern boundary of Glacier National Park and abut scenic rivers wherever they go. If he were still alive, Norman MacLean would be writing A Railroad Runs Through It. <br /><br />It's heartbreaking to think that Montana passed a state constitutional amendment back in the Gilded Age to limit campaign donations after the railroad, copper, and other robber barons bought the state legislature. But the US Supreme Court decided in their infinite wisdom that Citizens United superseded it and declared it unconstitutional. Imagine - we the people actually outlawed political corruption and SCOTUS undid a century of good law based on lessons learned in favor of protecting corruption in the name of corporate Free Speech. Makes me want to scream!!! Now we have their legacy of railroads and oil threatening us in other ways. <br /><br />Since I moved back to Montana, I've seen the hundred-car oil trains running right through downtown Whitefish, Montana, a resort community with lakes and mountains within its city limits. Currently, but temporarily, I'm a full o.513 miles from the oil trains, according to Google maps distance calculator. Or at least when I'm home and not downtown which is right directly adjacent to the tracks carrying the oil trains. When I move this fall to a more permanent location 10 miles away, I'll be a full 1.134 miles from them. How much are we supposed to trust in this measly half mile radius? What genius came up with that distance? <br /><br />The BNSF railroad has been fighting in court to keep their oil train schedule a secret (for security reasons of course as if no one could see or hear them coming), but they recently lost and now have to also help the communities develop a disaster plan. We're supposed to take comfort that we will get to plan for our disasters now instead of just trying to prevent them! Wow, I feel safer already.<br /><br />One could almost support the pipeline so we wouldn't have oil trains passing through our towns and cities and along our wilderness areas, but it just dumps the problem elsewhere, plus we know we'll end up with both anyway. And the Supreme Court will defend them until their undying day because the Court did what God herself could not do - performed the miracle of vivifying a corporate person into existence. They don't call themselves Supreme for no reason. <br /><br />My Court is an awesome Court.annenigmanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-25234163609972723282014-07-11T15:29:21.524-04:002014-07-11T15:29:21.524-04:00I checked the ForestEthics map yesterday via the l...I checked the ForestEthics map yesterday via the link to DeSmogBlog in Karen’s sidebar. I also reside about half a mile outside the yellow Potential Impact Zone. So I’m good. Drill baby drill, let it roll baby roll. <br /><br />In a recent “Daily Show” segment, John Stewart lampooned the illogic of politicians who clamor for bottomless funding for endless wars versus Terror® out of one side of their mouths while simultaneously proclaiming ardently that America is too broke to fund programs of “entitlement and dependency” like medical treatment for veterans injured in said endless wars. <br /><br />He quipped “Putting aside the questionable contention* that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have kept us safe here at home, you do know terrorism isn’t the only thing Americans would like to be protected from.” <br /> <br />Unfortunately, as the News Journal article linked to in today’s Sardonicky post indicates, deals are being cut to keep the American people in the dark about the danger that these terror trains pose to their communities. <br /><br /><b>“The politician-bribing plutocrats pocket the change and never go to prison. And the public pays the price.”</b><br /><br />That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?<br /><br />------------------------------------------<br /><br />*The <a href="%E2%80%9D" rel="nofollow">statistical insanity</a> of the Global War on Terror demonstrates it to be, on its face, an enormous blunder, fraud, or some combination of the two. <br /><br />Martin Luther King, Jr. put it lightly when he said “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” He might have replaced the phrase “spiritual doom” with “total fuckdom.”stranger in a strange landnoreply@blogger.com