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The Missing Movie, Martial Law America.

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Years ago I watched a movie on TV, in black and white, as that was the only kind my folks had at the time. But the movie made a lasting impression on me. It may have been written for today, but the setting was the 60’s, men dressed in black suits white shirts, very sinister.

The plot when like this:

  • There is Martial Law in the United States of America. As a result of some form of terrorism.
  • The period of Martial Law was coming to an end
  • The current President’s eight year term is about to expire
  • the Martial Law’s constraint on freedoms has managed to create an underground ‘Resistance’ movement.
  • the government has secretly arrested an army general who is suspected of being part of this movement
  • he is suspected of leaking, or attempting to leak information that the President will use Secret Service agents to blow up several power plants in the Southwest United States in an effort to maintain the continuation of Martial Law. And to halt the next election, and extend his ‘leadership’
  • The President plans to blame the ‘Terrorist’ for the bombing
  • the terrorist knows of the generals arrest, and while they know that he is not part of the movement, they free him, and discover the plot
  • the ‘Resistance’ groups defend the power plants from being destroyed

From that point I don’t remember more of the story.

The important point is this. I have never seen or heard about this movie EVER!

I vaguely remember that the general was played by Robert Duval, a very young Duval.

This movie is scary, placed into the context of today’s events, that if I put on my tin hat. It would make a great conspiracy to believe this movie is missing because it has become a Republican blueprint for the future. And hence it has disappeared from the film vaults of Hollywood.

On the other hand, it could have been just another ‘B’ movie actors would just a likely be ashamed to be associated with. But it’s absents is disturbing, considering all the trash that is still around. A story with this much political meat in it would likely find an audience.

If you know this film, post a comment, and let me know.

More meaning from the homeland.

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The ongoing discussion of politics I’ve been having with my brother in Kansas has lead to a disturbing rebuke, I’ll quote:

I have only one real question for this guy……What personal freedoms does he not have today, that he had 20 years ago. Has his personal income been affected, or has his personal life been affected in anyway. He quite apparently is not a very good father, and husband, if he has this much time on his hands to spew stuff all over the internet. He ought to spend some time with his family, and enjoy the freedom that he has, because of the actions of the American Government, past and present.

How have you personally been affected by Bush,……did he shit in your coffee one day or something…..He has not affected you personally in any way. And in a few years he will be gone, and if a Republican is elected, then you will have someone else to blame for your problems.

Nothing has changed around her for me ….I am making more money, my wife is making more money than me, now. Gas has gone up, but that is probably for the good. Maybe everyone will be more aware of what they drive. The cost of housing is about the same. Stocks are a little unsettled, but that is the trend, just before they become bullish again.

The air is still clean, and the so called global warming hoax is over. Life is what you make of it……Unless your thing is being totally negative, and running around thinking that the sky is falling. And like many people, blaming other people for your problems, because after all, it couldn’t be my fault. WHO ME, I CAN’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY ACTIONS. That would intrude on my civil liberties. BULL SHIT.

This is disturbing on so many levels I can not count them all. It’s a complete head-in-sand (hate that phrase) attitude. And I only hope that the ‘global warming hoax’ jab, was only a joke. But it’s a frightful thing to see anyone shirk their civic duties, especially your own brother. But I guess this is what a lot of folks are doing, Foxhole Politics: Keep your head down, and hope that you don’t get your head blown off, wait for events to pass.

Very sad.

Feedback from the (central) Homeland

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I read this article this morning from someone in my home state, Kansas, Surrender is not an Option and it gave me hope that some people in the Red state of Kansas had the temerity to speak their minds. Mind you when I sent it to my right-wing, republican propaganda spouting brother from the same state, I got a notable angry email from him condemning not the content, but the big words, and the belief it was written by some snot nosed east coast fag. I love it when the rebuttal for a article provokes a name calling reaction. It just elevates that discussion to such lofty airs, and restores my faith in the Kansas education system.

Anger levels: High

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I have not been blogging much this week, waiting for all the criminals like Rove, Delay and the rest of the Bush staffers and republican crooks who are destroying the U.S.A. to be arrested.

My anger is so great that I can only hope that the courts will finally rid us of these sewer rats. But I don’t hold out much hope, even as they fall, these criminals will take down the Supreme Court with them.

It maybe time to talk about a New American Revolution! Liberty may have to be renewed with the blood of the American Patriots.

Of Zero’s and Ones, a journey

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I have worked in the IT world for over 25 years, and while I’m not really trained as a ‘Computer Scientist’ I classify myself as one. So when I got the opportunity to tutor Java to a first year computer science class at UCC (in Cork) I more or less jumped at the chance. I am not a great Java programmer, in fact I am only just a beginner in Java, but my career has put many languages in my tool belt, COBOL, RPGII, FORTRAN IV, BASIC, Pascal, Ada and C. So Java just became another language I’d learn along the way. And I had no problem keeping a page ahead of the class. But what I learned, and I usually learn a lot along the way, was this issue with Turing. The in-computability issue actually. And it’s been under my skin for ages.

I actually think that Turing is laughing his ass off about this, as it’s really a logic issue. Or rather a Logical Fallacy of Bifurcation issue. It’s a known logic problem, and is best illustrated with a joke. “Answer Yes or No! Are you still kicking your dog?” See, any answer is wrong if you can only answer yes or now. This is a problem inherent with computer binary decision making. It’s either Zero (0) or One (1), true or false. So if you have a computer look at color, and ask “Is it blue or Red” and what is presented is ‘Green’ the compute can not resolve it.

So MY years in IT could therefor be summed up as trying to convince computers to stop listening to Turing, and to explore the world in between Zero and One. . Because the world is a gray area, hence I have, over time, more or less drifted into the database areas of IT. As from there comes the gray matter of IT, Information.

One other computer science aspect I encountered from the professor of the class, was his delight for recursion. And I have to admit that through the years I have never used recursion in any of my development. This professor produced the prettiest Java recursion solution for the old CompSc problem, The Towers of Hanoi. Now I was impressed, recursion was a neat way to solve that problem. But then I put on my IT hat and looked at how that problem appears in the real world. And guess what? It only works when the Tower’s a at the starting point. That seems to be the problem with recursion, it has to start and end in known, and knowable states. Almost the exact problem as the Turing one, it has to know where 0 is, to get to 1. Hence the reason I have never used it in the IT world, or have never seen anyone else use it in production computing systems.

In the IT world there is almost never a situation where you can know where the start and end of a program must operate. Business and engineering is operating in the Analog world, the world in between 0 and 1. Bringing to the fore, the problems concerning Turing and recursion. This is probably a factor almost every computer program operating in the world must solve, hacking around the analog world. A vast attempt to abstract the zeros and ones into the world in between. It’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to understand why computers crash. A confrontation with the analog reality wall.

This is probably why I get obsessive about politics. It’s that same fallacy, your either a Nazi Republican pig, or a Commie Left wing Democrat!. Or to get elected, you have to be a Democrat, or a republican. And then have to adopt the ‘platform’ of the party, even if this is not who, or what you as a candidate truly wish to be, or represent.

It’s that old Analog world, full of grey issues, and gray solutions. And the current political situation in the U.S. cannot be solved with zeros and ones anymore than a computer can. It must process the gray in between world, it must solve the in between problems.

ID and the “Miracle Occurs” Funny

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With regards to the current ID or Intelligent Design arguments, I have often remembered this funny graphic.

And it completely represents why ID should not be allowed to pass as Science, because it’s not. And politicians who promote this are only demonstrating their own ignorance, or they are counting on some bogus religious support for the next election. Think about it, becoming the leader of people of such ignorance. What a high goal politicians are striving for these days.

Another good article, about a good book

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Sounds like there is a new book I’ll have to read Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy as the review at Crooked Timber made it sound great.

So why hasn’t the Republican party been punished by voters for its radicalism? As I understand it, Hacker and Pierson’s explanation has three main components. First, information. Voters are often poorly informed about politics, and are vulnerable to “tailored disinformation,” which distorts public perceptions. Second, institutions. The Republican Party has been able to use its dominance of Senate, House and Presidency to set the agenda and to sideline opposition. Finally, networks. “New Power Brokers” like Tom DeLay have been able to assemble networks that bring together politicians, think-tankers, funders and lobbyists, creating a coherent agenda across separate institutions, rewarding and protecting loyalists while brutally punishing those who go off-message.

These things, I too, have commented on here, here, and here and here.

True meanings, Freedom and Liberty

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I picked these definitions off a Google search:

Liberty

autonomy: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence
freedom of choice; “liberty of opinion”; “liberty of worship”; “liberty–perfect liberty–to think or feel or do just as one pleases”; “at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes”
personal freedom from servitude or confinement or oppression

Freedom
the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints
exemption: immunity from an obligation or duty 


And then I found the Wikipedia definition. And the interesting thing I found was that the Wiki actually had a different definition for freedom. It’s interesting to note that there are Political versions of the word Freedom. Types, if you will, and this means to me that Freedom can be interpreted to mean different things. Twisted to represent an aspect other than an equal to the word Liberty.

I remember back to the American Revolution, and they were not fighting for freedom, but for liberty.

…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness!

Give me Liberty, or give me death!

The current republican corrupters of the constitution have bent this term freedom to mean something other than Liberty. And there is the true spin on their version of “Freedom”. It has become more like the;

  • Freedom of a prison cell (for those who oppose them),
  • Freedom of the poor (be as poor as you wish to be),
  • Freedom from uniform application of the Law (for politicians and corporations),
  • Freedom from competition (if you are an incumbent republican congressman or corporation),
  • Freedom from the truth (the truth only confuses the public).

I’m sure you get the point.

Give me Liberty!

Is anyone going to ring the Liberty bell?

Another deconstruction (and a superior one) can be found < A href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg14.html">here

Another Cloudy day

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Do you ever get a feeling of impending doom?

Maybe it’s just another gloomy day, and not Rita.

But there may be more at work than the weather. Change is in the wind. And I’m not speaking about the weather. Even if there is Global Warming. Or that the Politics are heating up. Or war, or maybe it’s just a combination of these things. Somethings not right with the world today.

More later….

Maybe I need another Coffee.

Branson and The Oil Cartels

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Putting on my tin hat again. Look to this story.

Richard Branson wants to build his own oil refinery This is all well and good. But the tin hat part will appear when he truly attempts to build one.

Watch this story to see how many roadblocks and obstacles appear to prevent anyone from building any new oil refineries.

Bush and his Oil Cartel buddies will throw everything they have into preventing any outsider from entering the business, including any politicians they own.

Impeach Bush and his Oil Cartel Buddies.

First update: First reaction Opec discussing extra oil output

Another Update: Note that this call is for the existing oil companies build new refineries, and in the U.S.A. Bush pushes for new oil refineries

Civil War

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The current talk about Iraq appears to be civil war, and how to prevent it. In reality you cannot prevent of a Civil war, you can only provide a when it will happen. Every democracy has had to have a Civil war. It is almost a requirement, whenever a passionate desire to control one’s own fate using the tool of government overcomes the ability to argue the points coherently is breached, then civil war will result. The flash point is subject matter. In many of the western democracies the passion is over an Ideal, a principal formed in the popular thoughts of the population. In iraq the subject is religion, a subject swimming in passion. There will be a civil war, can’t be stopped, therefore the goal goal will have to be, when it will be allowed to happen.

The most probable course of action will have to be providing an accommodating framework for all current parties to form a point of intersection. A meeting place where a basic common grown can be formed. In Iraq, this common ground will be a very small place. And it will not look western, in any, way, shape, or function. The attempt to ‘push’ western shaped organizations into a islamic world will not work. Unless a common foundation, comfortable to all participants, can be built, democratic organizations can not be built.

This has been the misguided adventure of the Neo-Cons. Their belief that the western foundations, the western common ground, is the same as an Islamic one, and can be easily overlaid onto a Islamic one. It is misguided, build a foundation, then let the organizations build on solid ground. The Muslin community must be allowed to build it for themselves. In some perceptions, the ‘terrorist’ in Iraq are no different than the Minutemen of the American Revolution. The British at that time called them ‘terrorist’ also.

And NO, it will not look like, nor act like a western democracy. And shouldn’t, It’s their country. Not, the one that the Neo-Cons would have and control. After all, the Neo-cons are only attempting to provide the illusion of democracy, hence the support of the Egyptian ‘Democracy’ which was fundamentally the same one that existed under Hussein in Iraq. The only difference was Hussein did not take direction from the Neo-cons. At least not recently, after all they put him into power in the first place. Put like Mary Shelly’s monster, it got out of control.

It’s about the Oil! and the power that oil provides, Energy, Economic and Political.

Impeach Bush and his Neo-Con masters.

(Funny didn’t he seem like a puppet on a string accepting responsibility during his speech)

Looks like this will be happening sooner than later. Undeclared Civil War In Iraq

The Assault on Federalism

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Katrina, may have been a natural disaster, but it was a predictable one. And I’m not talking about the death, destruction and economic. It is a disaster for the Republican agenda, and again I’m not talking about the current administration and the current crop of politicians either.

The Republican agenda has been the systematic destruction of the federalist, centralist government of the United States of America otherwise known as the U.S.A. The disaster has been exposing this agenda too early. Well before the planned execution of the victim, the Federal Government. This might sound a little too far into the arena of the tin hat brigade. But the fundamental has been to push control of the government back into the state house. States Rights!

A world where the Federal government only has the power to regulate interstate commerce, and provide for the common defense, and very little else. The civil war, which was fought over this goal (not over slavery) failed in this pursuit and is only now coming to fruition in the form of an internally crippled, bureaucratically corrupt, and functionally inept federalist structure.

The fundamental goal of the Republicans was to demonstrate to the world that a Federal government was flawed. The failure of FEMA while appearing to be a failure of the government was in fact a victory for the Republicans. A further proof that the Federalist system does not work.

The disaster for the Republicans has been that it has happened when they are in power. If the the plan was to work, it was necessary to be the responsibility of the Democrats. Or any other person or party other than the Republicans. Katrina came too early, caused too much destruction.

But part of the demonstration, was to show that Republican controlled states like Florida, could manage, while a Democratically dominated ones like Louisiana could not.

They are likely to succeed in any case, as the Republicans are still in control of the Mass Media. Controlled as they are by big business. There is little information being disseminated that provides the true ‘Big Picture’. And what there is, it deliberately spun into a muddle to be interpreted as needed and to generally confuse the general population.

Another tenet of the Federalist government was a free and independent reporting of the news, another target of the Republicans. A goal mostly accomplished, with perhaps the oversight of the internet. A goal still firmly in their sites. With goals of censorship of the Internet content being then next element on their agenda.

And with all this, do you think Science has been excluded, far from it. It falls into the same category as truth, as the truth from their perspective is something to be managed and subject to interpretation. Redefinition, refinement to provide a more productive result.

But back to the disaster, the trouble with all this talk about decentralizations, is this, it’s not the President’s Job to redefine the government from a Federalist to a State Republic. The President is elected to uphold the constitution, including the three branches of the government, all of which the Republicans do NOT currently control. And hence is an Impeachable offense under the constitution. And exposing this Republican Goal is not a Republican Goal.

Impeach Bush , and impeach the republican goal!