Breaking! Jesus has been sighted at several shopping malls.  Here is one report:

 Crucifixes sold in the US are being made in Chinese sweatshops
At the Junxingye factory in China, the mostly-young women—including several 15 and 16-year-olds—making crucifixes are forced to work 14 to 15 ½ hours a day, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 or 11:30 p.m., seven days a week.  There are also frequent 18 and 19-hour shifts ending at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.  Before shipments of crucifixes must leave for the U.S., there are even mandatory, all-night 22 ½ to 25-hour shifts from 8:00 a.m. straight through to 6:30 or 9:00 a.m. the following morning.  Workers are routinely at the factory over 100 hours a week, including being forced to work 51 hours of overtime, which exceeds China’s legal limit by 514 percent.  Young women go for months on end without a single day off.   After being forced to work a 19-hour shift, one worker cried out, "Jesus, take pity on me!  I’m going to die of exhaustion."

It’s Halloween Week once more.  Time for the candied apples, mulled cider, Jack-O-Lanterns and costumes.  Time to hear the Fundies complain about all the "Witchcraft" connected with kids having fun.  Time to watch a scary movie.  Since this is a political blog, I thought I should combine Horror movies and Politics.  Actually the past 7 years or so have been truly terrifying, scary and horrific.  So which horror of the past 7 years scared you the most?

This time it was a government contractor – that specializes in ....intelligence and security.

I just received another one of those "Dear former service member" letters today stating that my personally identifiable information including Name, Social Security Number, Birth Date, and/or limited health information in the form of codes might have been compromised.   This is my second time in this past year (last time was in the fall - the missing VA laptop).

It happened 38 year ago – July 20, 1969. It was one of those moments in time where you remember exactly where you were when it happened.  I myself was 11 years old at the time, living with my family in a trailer park in Boulder, Colorado. I remember the broadcast starting early in the afternoon and lasting until late at night, with a few breaks off and on in between.  My family watched it mostly on CBS with Walter Cronkite on our crummy old black & white TVs with rabbit ears. You could also watch it with David Brinkley on NBC or Frank Reynolds on ABC.  There was nothing else on.  

It started with the long, slow, agonizing descent of the Lunar Earth Module (LEM) onto the surface of the Moon - "The Eagle has landed".  Then, after what seemed like hours of technical analysis, the astronauts opened the hatch, and Neil Armstrong got out and went down the ladder putting his left foot on the moon - "One small step for a man, One giant leap for mankind". See  Apollo 11 videos from NASA

Go out and buy something – you’ll feel better.  Your penis size is too small.  65% of Americans are overweight – join Jenny Craig – they have a special this month.  The South Beach Diet. The Fat Smash Diet.  The Atkins Diet.  All you can eat for $9.99 at Red Lobster.  The Star says that Lindsay Lohan is in rehab again – can you believe it?  A house down the street is for sale – 6 bedrooms only $600,000.  Try Starbucks latest Orange Crème Frappuccino with an Espresso Brownie.  What’s wrong with you? Try Viagra. Ask your doctor about Zoloft.  Consider a Hybrid SUV – a good choice for the environment.  Go to the big Sale at Home Depot - 5 bottles of Wildflower-scented-Windex for the price of 3.  Certainly you have some catalogues to go through – Lands End, J. Jill, Appleseeds, Sharper Image, Sundance, Coldwater Creek, The Company Store, Ballards Designs, Ross& Simons, Gaiam Harmony.

The Pentagon has placed new restrictions on lower-ranking officers and enlisted personnel being able to testify before Congress.

From an editorial page in the Army Times:  

Earlier this month on Capitol Hill, a Pentagon lawyer halted a classified briefing on arguably the most important mission in the war in Iraq — training Iraqi security forces — by invoking a new Defense Department policy banning testimony or briefings by troops in paygrades below O-6 unless their testimony is "deemed appropriate" by senior officials.

Will the Military ever figure it out?

How is it, that the Greatest Military The World Has Ever Known, with the biggest defense budget, the most deadly weapons, the most highly advanced Army, the most technologically dazzling Aircraft and Air Force, the largest and most powerful Navy fleet, with at least  700 foreign bases around the world ...  Just how is it that this military is losing?  OK, the word "losing" may be too inflammatory for some; let’s just say "not winning".  The One Remaining Superpower is "not winning" against a few small groups of rag-tag religious fanatics who have no Navy, no Air force and few technologically sophisticated weapons to speak of.  Just what the hell is the Pentagon’s problem?

Did I  read this correctly?   I mean, I know it’s hard these days to find people to go to Iraq but........damn.

Under the contract, GLS will provide foreign-language interpretation and translation services to the United States Army and other U.S. government agencies supporting OIF, including embedded Iraqi translators who will operate with U.S. forces. GLS will employ up to 6,000 locally-hired translators and up to 1,000 United States citizens with security clearances who are native speakers of languages spoken in Iraq. Full contract performance will begin in March 2007.

$4.645 BILLION dollars for about 7,000 translators?  

I missed Cheers and Jeers this morning, so I thought I would make this into a short diary.

   
Picture of newly hatched Whooping Crane from USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

On Tuesday, 19 December, after a 76 day, 1,234-mile trip journey, 17 Whooping Crane chicks (approximately 6 months old) arrived at the Halpata Tastanaki Preserve in Florida, with the guidance of three ultralight planes.  The chicks are trained to follow the ultralights, which are piloted by humans dressed in whooping crane costumes. The costumes are used to keep the chicks from imprinting (or becoming attached) to people.

It was 40 years ago in 1966, that Simon and Garfunkel released the song "7 o'clock News/Silent Night."   The musical duo gently sang the Christmas song "Silent Night" while the evening news broadcast in the background.

The 7 o'clock news in the song is kind of like a time capsule of what was happening in 1966.   Those days of civil rights marches, and campus protests, patchouli and birkenstocks, crash pads and hitchhiking.  And of course, the Vietnam War. It’s hard to believe that was 40 years ago (damn, I’m getting old).   Of course, things have changed a lot since then.   Since we are now approaching Christmas, I though I would update the newscast in the song using news of recent times.

Supplies Needed:  rubber gloves, all-purpose disinfectant, air freshener, buckets, sponges, broom, mop, garbage bags, coffee (extra strong), Excedrin, throat lozenges, eye drops, Kleenex (or crying towels for Republicans).

Most of the things at the beginning of this list were on Nancy Pelosi's "drain the swamp" list; It is always best to start with the easy things first, so let's begin...

The scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat and it demands an urgent global response. Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don't act, the overall risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5 percent of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20 percent of GDP or more.

They want us to be scared. To be TERRORIZED.   Their goal is to spread panic, fear, chaos, and confusion.  They want us to be constantly thinking of them and their cause, and to change our way of life because of it.  They want our lives to become miserable, like frightened little mice, scurrying around, worrying about how to protect ourselves from them.  They want our country to become divided, forget its own principals, lose its soul, and to no longer have any respect in the world.

So why then GW, are we giving them what they want?

No, I am not Dood or Carnacki or Bob Johnson.  This is not a report from Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert.   This is from an Official White House Press Release.

In 1999 the Clinton administration declassified approximately 5,800 documents (many found at the National Security Archives), in order to provide evidence to support the prosecution of General Pinochet, but they also provided evidence of the CIA and Nixon administration's involvement with the overthrow.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people." -   Henry Kissinger

"Oh war is the common cry, Pick up your swords and fight.
The sky is filled with good and bad that mortals never know.
Oh, the night is long; the beads of time pass slow,
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.
The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath"

"If you are a true Christian who loves God with your whole heart and hates sin with your whole heart, then you are increasingly dismayed at the increasing godlessness in American society.  As Christians, we realize that the real problems of the world can only be solved with reference to Biblical principles" - from God's Law in the Modern World