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shaw53 commented on the blog post US-Based Drones for the Sake of Drones
The DOJ’s recent hardline about arresting any WA State officials who actually try to implement our liberalized medical marijuana dispensary laws, (recently passed)is indicative of the relationship between the DEA’s need to cruise the skies looking for pot farms as as well as “heat signatures” from homes for evidence of grow-ops and all the “et ceteras.”
The increasing Homeland Security (and et ceteras) fly-overs meld nicely with this so-called law enforcement, hence the Obama hard line re pot…. liberalization.
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shaw53 commented on the blog post US-Based Drones for the Sake of Drones
Where we live in Bellingham, WA, over the past 10 years there has been increasing helicopter traffic from Border Patrol, Homeland Security and others. The local police will frequently put in a call to one of these choppers to “assist” in looking for a thief on the run or similar. They rarely accomplish anything except to nurture a relationship of a quasi-military bureacracy looking for activities to justify huge expenses and training with local police (who are also turning quasi-military with their SWAT crap)into some new creature from the black lagoon w/jackboots.
Drones cruising our skies locally will just be another collaborative enterprise in expensive futility whose main result will be to piss off the locals.
http://www.king5.com/news/local/Lynden-man-charged-with-blinding-Border-Patrol-pilots-with-flashlight-114303684.html -
shaw53 commented on the blog post Become an FDL Member and Kick Our A$$ If We Ever Act Like NPR
I’ve made the suggestion of a permanent swag shop for regular cash flow for FDL… don’t want to be like NPR? Let’s avoid those endless begging marathons of guilt-tripping.
Mrs. Shaw listens to NPR sometimes and there are now and then some great shows but the rightie spin and the namby-pamby butt-kissing sends me out of the room covering my ears. Classic suck-up to source.
FDL is where I find the uncomfortable questions allied with the actual links to the facts and I respect many contributors’ activism. As soon as an organization develops certain layers of bureaucracy, the rules and regs begin to dominate the creative, edgier attitudes.
So if Ms. Wheeler now and then uses her potty-mouth I love it!
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shaw53 commented on the blog post Make It Official: Join FDL
OK, well that was just too much to get a thank you from Ms. Hamsher herself… thanks, Jane…. made my day!
check out my wife Dale Gottlieb’s art @
http://www.dalegottlieb.com/work/Welcome_.htmlSon Blake Hudson @
http://blakehudson.com/Son Hill Hudson @
http://www.etsy.com/shop/GottliebGlass?ga_search_query=gottlieb+glass&ga_search_type=seller_usernamesAs some examples of items that might be sold through the FDL store to keep the cash coming…. locally made stuff.
Both my sons are glassblowers, flameworkers, sculptors… wife is designer, author/illustrator, painter.
I design and build small cider presses currently and am working at building up our urban farmette and working with other local venues like this:
http://www.caretakershouse.org/
I also am a good proofreader if such services are necessary.
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shaw53 commented on the blog post Announcing the Firedoglake Membership Program
No, it says, “What’s left of the real left.”
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shaw53 commented on the blog post Announcing the Firedoglake Membership Program
Hah! I just signed up for the benefactor gig and declined the swag….
This is a great idea and well-executed.
I am one happy Bellinghamster! Stoked to formally assist.
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shaw53 commented on the blog post Online Personas and Congress
This sounds right. Fiefdoms secretly expanding influence and power with the smokescreen of national security. It is inevitable that Big Brother will fragment into many “Little Brothers” as many MIC bureaucracies compete for who has the best spyware system…
Of course software companies will supply the crap fertilizing this extensive landscape. We citizens of course will be the recipients of the largesse that grows.
