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billyc commented on the blog post Why It Would Be Great if Congress Was Forced to Buy Their Own Health Insurance at Full Cost
In addition, Congress critters should take a pay cut, seeing as how they’ll only be in session 126 days this year.
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billyc commented on the diary post Over Easy: Environment Links by Crane-Station.
Thanks C-S for the links. Since I live in the Southwest I particularly appreciated your bark beetle link. I don’t know if you’ve read it but let me recommend a book about climate change in the Southwest – A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest by William deBuys. It’s an [...]
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billyc commented on the diary post Hugo Chavez Dies – His love for ‘lowly’ poor people made him great, in my eyes by metamars.
When Hugo’s death was announced by the cable news networks many of the commenters felt compelled to describe Venezuela and Mr. Chavez as a “sword in the side of the US.” Not! Rather the US was a sword in the side of Venezuela! Did Mr. Chavez ever attempt a coup in the US? Rest in [...]
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billyc commented on the diary post Obama’s Right-Hand-Man Offers Social Insurance Program Cuts, Again. by TomThumb.
Ms. Hamsher and most of the pups here at FDL have been correct in their assessment that Obama has wanted to cut Social Security since he came to office in 2009. And the rubes still think the “guvmint” is coming for their guns – they’re coming for their SS checks! Take a hard look Barry [...]
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billyc commented on the blog post White House Wants Everyone to Know Obama Supports Cutting Social Security Benefits
Barry, please cut social security – I just love eating dog food!
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billyc commented on the diary post Pull Up a Chair by dakine01.
I remember listening to the Lone Ranger, Tarzan, and The Shadow on a radio the size of a small refrigerator. Our first tv was the size of that radio, with a screen about the size of today’s iPad. In our school we rec’d copies of My Weekly Reader, which always devoted a section to showing [...]
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billyc commented on the blog post Playing The Odds
A picture of the first day of school in 2013?
Are we fuct?
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billyc commented on the diary post Reid folds on Filibuster – 2 more years of Nothing passing by Rational.
And the media will continue that useless meme of the Senate being the world’s greatest deliberative body when, in fact, it has become the world’s most dysfunctional legislative body. Shortly after the opening day ceremonies of the 113th Congress Chuck Todd showed us the Congressional calendar for 2013 – Congress is scheduled to be in [...]
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billyc commented on the blog post A Future World Where Drones Engage in Wholesale Surveillance & Dominate US Airspace
Kudos to Kevin G for another of his thought provoking posts! And I appreciate the comments it has elicited.
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billyc commented on the blog post A Future World Where Drones Engage in Wholesale Surveillance & Dominate US Airspace
If you’ve seen the devolution of police departments from the 60s to the present you can see how militarized our police have become. You could be correct in your line of thinking concerning local gov’t. Have you noticed how quickly supposed financially strapped states and municipalities have come up with funds for having armed guards in their schools at the behest of the NRA? Public school districts can’t afford to pay their teachers, have dropped art and music courses, can barely maintain aging school infrastructure, yet the funds now exist for armed guards. So if the DoD is selling drones at bargain basement rates even some of the smallest communities will soon be acquiring them.
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billyc commented on the blog post A Future World Where Drones Engage in Wholesale Surveillance & Dominate US Airspace
I know what you mean. I have been haunted for years by the lyric from Leonard Cohen’s song The Future: “I have seen the future, baby/ And it is murder”
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billyc commented on the blog post A Future World Where Drones Engage in Wholesale Surveillance & Dominate US Airspace
Are those the new Apple assembly centers – bringing jobs home to America?
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billyc commented on the blog post A Future World Where Drones Engage in Wholesale Surveillance & Dominate US Airspace
At the conclusion of most of our modern wars war surplus becomes available to the general public. Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t some of the aging Predators from the Iraq War are already being sold, and licensed, to state and local law enforcement agencies? When the Vietnam War ended the U.S. Army had the world’s largest helicopter fleet which they began to sell to a variety of civilian agencies: fire departments, police, hospitals, news agencies, etc. I’ll never forget when I first heard the sound of a helicopter hovering over my hippie neighborhood in the 70s.
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billyc commented on the blog post A Future World Where Drones Engage in Wholesale Surveillance & Dominate US Airspace
Also, it won’t be long before some of our intrepid citizens construct Neighborhood Surveillance Drones in their garages using off the shelf parts and open source plans and add to the glut of drones. The evening news will become lively when they begin reporting drone mishaps, shoot outs, and the need to regulate the ownership and use of private drones.
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billyc commented on the blog post A Future World Where Drones Engage in Wholesale Surveillance & Dominate US Airspace
How soon will it be before we hear about local law enforcement agencies arming their fleets of surveillance drones, which they have begun to acquire? You can just imagine the Barney Fifes in Sheriff “Crazy” Joe Arpaio’s office.
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billyc commented on the blog post Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Paid $5 Million By Military Contractor L-3
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t George Tenet serve on the L-3 board after he was summarily fired by Bush in 2004? In 2008, along with Cysco, L-3 sold facial biometric identification software to the Chinese prior to the Olympics – in violation, if not in word but intent, of a 1989 law that forbade the selling of technology to a gov’t responsible for repressing its citizens. Naomi Klein did a fine piece, which appeared in Rolling Stone in Aug., 2008, on our complicity in helping the Chinese develop an Orwellian scheme to photograph every Chinese citizen – that’s where I learned of Tenet’s involvement with L-3 and the Chinese gov’t.
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billyc commented on the diary post Pull Up a Chair by dakine01.
Several years ago I began scanning some of the old black & white photos of various family members and then printing them on HP photographic paper. After printing them I would place them in custom (read: hand made) frames and send them as Christmas gifts. Folks seemed to love’em. My current project is printing a [...]
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billyc commented on the blog post Ohio, Ohio, Ohio
It appears from my perspective that the two presidential campaigns are really vying to see who will become the President of Ohio. Since I don’t live in Ohio my vote no longer means what it once did, if ever.
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billyc commented on the blog post FDL Book Salon Welcomes Sophia McClennen, Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy
Thanks to both Sophia & Remy!! I hope we’ll be seeing you soon, Sophia, on the Colbert Report!
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billyc commented on the blog post FDL Book Salon Welcomes Sophia McClennen, Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy
Sophia, I think it would be a hoot to see you interviewed by Colbert in one of his upcoming shows. Would you be up for such an appearance? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least when one considers the quality of his stable of writers and their influence on him.
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