The Pope Smokes Jokes — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

In this YouTube video, Donovan sings Poke at the Pope.

(First, a quick apology to all my Catholic friends, neighbors, and very close familyesque relations, and to the wider Catholic world: I am a jokester and here I go joking. I am sorry; and I apologize for the frequently bigoted behavior of non-Catholics. Here in this country, it has long been considered “politically incorrect” to ridicule any religion except Catholicism. [Islam joined that unfortunate listing somewhere along the timeline.] In Photojournalism Class in J School* back in the 1970s, the professor said if we couldn’t think of anything to photograph, we could always shoot “kids, dogs, chimps, and nuns,” because, no matter what they do, they look funny, cute, or interesting. People ridicule the Catholic religious practices and conventions. I am very sorry that happens. It is extremely unfair.)

* Journalism School

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Two weeks ago, John Brennan – the CIA Nazi who helps President Obama Murder children and suppress the Left – reported to the President’s office:

“Mr. President, I’ve done exactly as you instructed: We at the CIA have Tortured “witnesses” into implicating the Kangaroo Court defendants in your Guantanamo Show Trials starting next month; we’ve had our cowards kill thousands of children with Coward Drones, claiming that they were in the way; we’ve rigged Elections, overthrown Elected Governments, and Assassinated journalists, candidates, and activists; but now comes the sequester: Automatic spending cuts (and the billions of dollars we’ve got in petty cash are slated for something else). These cuts are about to kick in. As a result, we can no longer afford to pay our highest paid agent. As of March 1, we’ll have to lay off the Pope.”

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When Pope John Paul I died in 1978, he had only been Pope for 33 days. Up in Heaven, it’d only been seven weeks since the last giant party; the Papal reception party hall had hardly even cooled off from Pope Paul’s shindig; so God decided to put JP1 in suspended animation, or cold storage(?) [I'm not sure what they call it up there]: He put off John Paul’s reception, and John Paul’s Resurrection, until the locals were ready for another big bash. The occasion arose just seven years later, when activist attorney William Kunstler passed away. God got out JP1 and reconstituted him right there in front of the Pearly Gates, standing beside William Kunstler. St. Peter greeted them “Have we got a party for you!”

He led them into the Papal reception hall, and what a hoot it was! Pope John Paul was the guest of honor. As they walked in, St. Peter saw some of his old hang-out buddies “Hi, Matt, Mark; what’s up?” St. Mark piped up cheerfully “Hey, Pete, how ya hangin’?” St. Peter immediately lost his smile. Mark apologetically stifled his chuckle: “Oh, sorry. Too soon?” Well, Peter cheered up and partying burst out. When it finally wound down, hours later, St. Peter rejoined the two new arrivals, saying “Now I’ll show you two to your new homes.”

They started walking down the main road, paved with gold – I don’t know if it were yellow bricks or not. First they came to John Paul’s new place. It was kind of a monk’s cell, very austere. One window. What you might call an efficiency apartment. “Welcome home!” St. Peter said, shaking his hand with enthusiasm. “This is pretty cool,” said the Pope. “Hey, do you mind if I keep hanging out with you and Bill?” “No” said Peter, “come on along.”

As they continued down the main path, they saw bigger and bigger buildings, practically castles: This must have been the section that they’d heard about in the Bible, the one with “many mansions.” They turned down a long walkway-driveway, also paved in gold. It led to a magnificent mansion, majestic fountains out front, with live (or reincarnated?) swans swimming peacefully in the waters. When Peter showed them into the 40-room mansion, servants offered them all manner of refreshments and comforts. St. Peter shook the attorney’s hand and announced “William Kunstler, welcome to your new home!”

Kunstler said “Thanks” and the two Popes – the first one and the last one – took their walk away from the mansion together. Then, John Paul said to Peter “Now, I’m not complaining or anything … but how come I just got a little cell, and he’s got a giant castle with constant celebration?” “Well,” said St. Peter, “you’ve got to understand: There are lots of Popes around here; Mr. Kunstler is our first lawyer!”

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The Pope Smokes Dope was a 1972 album by Yippie activist writer and entertainer David Peel and his group The Lower East Side, who performed with John and Yoko Ono Lennon. It criticized the CIA, and it was banned in all countries except the United States and Canada, says Wiki.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_Smokes_Dope  and     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lower_East_Side_Band    The Pope of Greenwich Village was a movie.   The Pope’s nose.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%27s_nose

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The last of the Beatle Popes? Most people don’t realize this, but ever since the Beatles came onto the scene, ALL of the Popes have been named after the Beatles. The Beatles under that name started in 1960, but even in 1958 when they were the Quarrymen, they apparently had fans in the Vatican:

In 1958, the College of Cardinals named Pope John XXIII after John Lennon. Five years later they named Pope Paul V after Paul McCartney. George and Ringo were undeniably cool, but let’s face it: Lennon and McCartney were the real core of the Beatles. (You didn’t see Queen Elizabeth knighting George or Ringo, did you?) So, in 1978, the Cardinals in Rome named two new Popes John Paul.

Everybody thought the next one after that would be Pope George, or Pope Richard, or perhaps Pope George Ringo – to cover both of them at once. And very few people realize that Pope Benedict XVI is also one of the Beatle Popes. Don’t you get it?! Before they got too famous … the Beatles performed in Germany … ! … in Germany … ! …  Now do you get it? … The Beatles … in Germany … And what did the Beatles do in Germany? (You know the answer to that one!) … Drugs! … What drugs? … Sixteen Bennies!

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The obvious replacement for Pope Benedict XVI is Pope Theodorus II, the Coptic Pope. He’s only been in for four months since his election after the death of Pope Shenouda III, but face facts: He is the only Pope in the world with any experience at all.

But it’s more likely that they’ll promote from within. So, it should be one of the Nuns being suppressed by Pope Benedict, right?   http://ncronline.org/news/women-religious/benedicts-resignation-what-unsaid-sisters-case-looms-large But they probably won’t do that either. So I nominate Father Daniel Berrigan.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan   And Father Jon Sobrino.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sobrino

Let the election be between those two. It should be somebody like that.

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The following poem consists mainly of quotes from my childhood Sunday School teacher, Mr. Elsdon, at Boulevard Bible Church in New Port Richey, Florida, in 1970. (You’re supposed to figure that out from my performance in the video, but just so that there’s no ambiguity:) The thing said about the Pope comes from him, not me.

SOMEDAY SCHOOL-Norman B-Deviations from the Norm

“I’m your Sunday School teacher, Mr. Elsdon.
I got NO affection for the Pope.
I’m spellin’ Elsdon ‘E-LSD-O-N’
I am just a big dope!”

Once, there was a man who was made out o’ saltine crackers,
Grape Kool-Ade coursin’ through his veins.
Once, there was a man who was made out o’ saltine crackers,
Grape Kool-Ade coursin’ through his veins.

Today will you dine with me?
O, Christian, no question, no cancellation!
Truly were great poets translators of the KJV!
Ooh! What a trans-l-ation!

“There is sompthin’ in Genesis
That I want you to read. See:
Some say it’s a typo,
An’ Moses in fact parted a ‘Reed Sea’

“Really, instead
Of a sea blood-red.
Why, it’s a greater miracle than I thought, indeed!
All of Pharaoh’s foot soldiers drowned in a sea of reeds!”

Go to the MD: M.D. 20-20!
Tell of a 20-20 vision!
Mad Dog (Mogen David) tastes like blood,
Gives 50-50 vision.

Grape Kool-Ade don’t taste like grapes,
Don’t taste like wine.
Tastes like grape
Tootsie (Rock’n')Roll Pop coating:

Toot-sie Pop music!
Wine!
Toot-sie Pop music!
Stale saltine!

Jesus was a man who was made out of saltine crackers,
Grape Kool-Ade coursin’ through his veins.
Jesus was a man who was made out o’ saltine crackers,
Grape Kool-Ade coursin’ through his veins.

It may sound strange;
It may sound odd;
I am into the eating
Of the god!

(p)(c)2008 Norman Schulerud Bie, Jr. All rights reserved. (p)1991 Norman B, part of “Deviations from the Norm.” First broadcast in 1989 on WMNF 88.5 FM Tampa Community Radio.

Dedicated to Ray Elsdon of Boulevard Bible Church. His quotes are in quotation marks above.

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Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, said he was retiring for health reasons. It happened right after the scandal that ended with him pardoning his butler. Maybe the butler revealed something embarrassing. It happened after years of shocking revelations about decades of child sex abuse within the Church. He ran the Inquisition for the Roman Catholic Church. The Inquisition was a terrible idea, and already outdated and Fascistic when it began, more than 500 years ago. Ratzinger at least once attempted to sanction a Priest for child sex abuse, but was stopped by Pope John Paul II, whom everybody loved. So, under orders from his superior, Ratzinger did not do what he knew was right.

He’s been called the “Nazi Pope,” because he belonged to Hitler Youth. He was drafted into it at the age of 14. He had no choice in that. Like Ukrainian John Demjanjuk, who, if he was a German or Soviet prison guard, will have been drafted. Drafted.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

Did Obama Mouthpiece Threaten to Torture and Murder Bob Woodward’s Family for Exposing BO’s Budget Deal Lies? – by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

http://thehill.com/video/administration/285423-woodward-claims-white-house-threatened-him

President Barack Obama’s attack dog Gene Sperling threatened iconic journalist Bob Woodward, saying that Woodward would “regret” reporting the truth: That slashing would-be life-saving benefits for children, African Americans, and other poor and vulnerable people was President Obama’s idea, although Obama’s lies purport otherwise. Here’s Right-wing Propaganda from ABC, casting doubt on Woodward. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/02/journalist-bob-woodward-clashes-with-white-house-over-sequester-report/

The Media Research Center analyzed some of the Propaganda. http://www.mrc.org/biasalerts/nbc-allows-16-seconds-white-house-battle-bob-woodward-avoids-using-word-threat

And listen to this recording of Mark Levin’s analysis of the case. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/02/28/mark_levin_on_wh_threat_to_woodward_obama_is_not_a_nice_guy.html

In other lies, President Obama claims that he is allowed to order Murders if he feels like it, or if Neo-Nazis in the CIA want it: The official Obama line is that the CIA is infallible like the Pope.

President Obama has attacked the press worse than any President since the 1700s. His thugs destroyed the world famous Occupy Wall Street Library. I suspect it was Obama people that burned Africa’s irreplaceable relics at the ancient Timbuktu Library. The Obama Administration gave an award to the world’s most prolific book burners, calling their methods the finest in recycling. http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2011/11/16/bookburning-usa-obamas-traitor-troops-trash-ows-library-as-his-epa-awards-book-burners-for-outstanding-recycling/

Lanny Davis, formerly with the Clinton White House, also said the the Obama White House threatened him and his paper, the Washington Times, over his reporting. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/28/white-house-denies-staffer-threatened-watergate-journalist-woodward/

A New York Times reporter revealed that President Obama and Mitt Romney (Obama’s 2012 Presidential Election Fraud co-conspirator) shook them down, and demanded and received Bribes from the Times, the Washington Post, and Bloomberg News. The Bribe is that the Times, the Post, Bloomberg, and many other media outlets Bribe Obama (and his partner Romney) by letting them censor news stories. It seems that Woodward (legendary for bringing down Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal) (played by Robert Redford) violated the Bribery agreement his paper had with President Obama by not giving the President final say over what the newspaper publishes about him. http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2012/07/21/ny-times-bribes-obama-and-romney-after-campaigns-demand-it/

When you violate an agreement with the world’s most prolific, remorseless, and bloodthirsty Mass Murdering hitman, you’re treading on thin ice. Obama claims “We don’t Torture,” but he belies that by refusing to investigate or prosecute Torture. President Obama and his Murderous henchman John Brennan have Murdered lots of defenseless children with Coward Drones already this year. It was brave what you did. Our prayers are with you, Bob.

Boeing Ignores Our FDL Advice, but Airbus Takes it: Drops Burning Battery Like a Hot Potato — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

(As if predicting our current predicament, here are Paul McCartney and Wings performing  Magneto and Titanium Man in 1976 in Seattle.)

http://youtu.be/wQhVRWYxRt4

Airbus did not officially credit bloggers at FireDogLake.com with influencing its decision to stop using Lithium Ion batteries, but let the record show that we demanded it of Boeing, which as of now insists that it will keep flying its 787s with the dangerous fiery batteries, even though no cooling system has yet been invented to prevent them from bursting into flames. Is this any way to run an airline?

Here’s Crane-Station’s article of January 28, 2013, nineteen days ago, demanding the change. It was an enlightening discussion. I’ve reprinted many of the Comments below. We’re still waiting for Boeing to do the right thing…    http://my.firedoglake.com/cranestation/2013/01/28/boeing-787-dreamliner-grounding-and-updates-and-opinions/

…but at least, according to Bloomberg Friday afternoon, Airbus has come through.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-15/airbus-to-use-standard-battery-for-a350-to-avoid-lithium.html

I recommend reading Crane-Station’s full article and all the Comments to get a good understanding of the ethical reasons for this switch. I give highlights below. Comments adding important insights came from Synoia, Ohio Barbarian, cmaukonen, Edward Teller, JohnJ, C-S herself [of course], and others. I specifically suggested that the industry switch back to its previous battery, the one that doesn’t burn. That is exactly what Airbus has now done.

Boeing, on the other hand, is taking a different approach: Boeing has decided to keep the burning batteries, but to encase the batteries in titanium or steel, to vent any toxic gases released during the burn. So, if the passengers die due to Boeing’s fiery batteries, it will not be from the gases being blown into their faces, but from crash, fire, explosion, lack of oxygen, fright, et cetera. I stress: No cooling system for the batteries exists. If Boeing makes good on its threat to continue using them, they will probably continue to burst into flames.

What does one call a move like that? Unwise? Ill-advised? Stupid? Insane? Murderous? The last one. That’s what it is. Selling tickets for a ride on a plane with a burning battery is certainly Premeditated Murder. Here’s Bloomberg‘s report from yesterday afternoon about Boeing’s decision to keep burning.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-17/boeing-may-offer-interim-787-fix-soon-seattle-times-says-1-.html

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Crane-Station:  …  This is by no means the first of the list of problems for the 787 Dreamliner. In 2009, regarding multiple production delays, the following problems were reported: “Out of screws”/“Drink cart didn’t have enough room for Sprite”/“Fired the guy who knew how to make the engines” (note: There is always some bit of truth in satire)/“Seats weren’t that comfortable”/“Lost keys to room that has all the wings”/“Had to start over from scratch when someone noticed that all the stenciling read “Boring 787″/”Safety inspectors were able to see the strings”

In a more recent Onion article titled, American Voices, what do you think (about the Dreamliner), random statements include: “What a piece of shit.”  …

normanb:  Lithium batteries burn, they catch on fire. Neil Young tried to have designers build him an economically running (though very expensive to custom-build) hybrid with a new sophisticated Lithium battery. It burned.

One flaw to using Lithium that I notice is that the batteries apparently need to have their own cooling systems, which are not yet designed, and when they are ‘perfected,’ they will greatly compromise the potential energy available to Lithium-powered devices.

To reiterate the obvious, they should fix the problem before they proceed.

C-S:  …  Lithium is a metal, highly reactive and flammable, right? So, what business does it have doing on an airplane, while the passengers are stripping butt-ass naked, going through full-body x-rays, having their bottled shampoo and water stolen, while the real bomb materials are either a) right there on the plane or b) run, in the luggage like shit through a goose in a conveyor belt to the belly of the plane?

I mean for real. Why in the actual fuck am I standing in O’Hare without a belt, with buttcrack pants, while the lithium batteries are already on the goddamn airplane?  …

Me: … I do pay attention to enormous deception in the Lithium industry: Lots of places get called “the Saudi Arabia of Lithium”: Bolivia, Afghanistan, Texas, Chile…

Calling them new Saudi Arabias says to capitalists “Let’s exploit poor people in those locations by having them do the back-hurting work of surface-mining Lithium” which can be done anyplace in the world where people can be made to work insane hours in the hot sun for little pay.

But I don’t think Lithium is a long-term answer at all. We need to either move on to the next battery type, or go back to the previous kind, the kind that didn’t burn.

cmaukonen: Pretty much what you get when you let “Bean Counters” design an aircraft. Or anything else for that matter. Ah capitalism…you gotta love it…or NOT.

Synoia: Who designed the batteries? Who wrote the test plan for the batteries? Who approved the test plan for the batteries? Who was responsible for Quality Assurance of the test plan? Who executed the battery test plan? Who wrote up the results? Who approved production of the batteries from the test results?

Nothing get this far in a complex engineering project without multiple review by many people with many senior “recommendations to proceed” and many “recommended fixes” and whole databases of engineering flaws and fixes during the design process. Where’s this documentation, Boeing?

Especially the email of “concerns” glossed over or suppressed by the politically “astute” rising in the the Boeing management chain (those on the fast track). Let’s see all the doc. (The shareholders should demand it, so should Boeing’s customers). If they don’t produce it, the lawyers will have to “use discovery to find it.”

normanb (to Synoia): Ah, Quality Control. Perhaps that can shed some light on safety concerns. I was once a QC Inspector. I inspected catheters that were be inserted permanently into patients’ hearts.

I wore a magnifying loop in my eye, and took one hundred catheters out of many thousands produced, and I cut them in half, to get a good look at the inside. Out of those one hundred, if and when I found as many as 15 which had “scratched seats” – that is, if it seemed that there could be leakage at the point where the tiny pieces touched – then, I had to flag that lot of 15,000 catheters as questionable.

The next morning, my boss would come in and re-examine the catheters which I had considered questionable. He would then say that they were alright.

Synoia: Let’s discuss Lithium: The stuff that’s in all portable devices and sails through “airport security”. here’s an experiment (please note the caveats after the experiment):

1. Take a drill and drill a hole (very slowly) though a Lithium Battery (somewhere very dry). Heat is not your friend here.

2. Leave the battery in the “somewhere very dry” (if you are not aflame at this point).

3. Fill a bucket with water and put in in a clear place outdoors.

4. Pick up the battery with (very dry) tongs. Put it on a (very dry) spade.

5. Toss the battery into the bucket in (3) with the spade.

6. Run away, then turn and watch.

And remember folks, there are hundreds of these batteries on every flight, made by the lowest bidder to the highest of standards) and have passed through the portals of those “protecting our safety”. Please let me know if you plan to do (1) anywhere near me (I live in SoCal). I’d like to be in Texas before you start. Or Europe.

Lithium is a highly reactive light metal. Lithium, like all light metals loves oxygen. So much that it will steal the oxygen out of water, leaving the hydrogen (sob, divorced from its oxygen) to escape into the air, where the hydrogen will be very eager to be married again (immediately) with oxygen.

Lithium is so aggressive at extracting oxygen out of water that it can even provide the heat (exothermically) to get the released hydrogen and surrounding oxygen above its flashpoint, where the hydrogen and oxygen can have their own (exothermic) party. aka: Flaming ball of fire. Which is why the planes are grounded.

Synoia (to normanb): That worked so well in the US Auto industry that they made it a profit center (spare part & repairs). That did not end well (Japanese car invasion).

Crane-Station (to Synoia): Thank you, Synoia. These are all concrete, reasonable questions that should be explained in an understandable, concise way, without fluff, glossing, missing information and lingo. I am also beginning to wonder about the HazMat angle. What sorts of toxic substances, if any, are in these batteries? Until all of this information is known maybe we should return to the drawing board.
…  Okay, yes, I see your point. Basically, a type of explosive, under the right conditions. An explosive. While I strip my belt, shoes, jacket, and possessions onto a bogus conveyor belt…it is the very airplane itself that has the dangerous stuff on it….those lithium batteries.

Crane-Station (to normanb): Interesting. I worked for a catheter company for 9 years. They were made in Indiana. And that is where I learned just how crucial QC can be. It can be the difference between life and death, and that is not over dramatic in the least.

normanb (to C-S): “Life and death” is why I found it so disturbing that every lot I flagged – and the other Inspectors too – every one was just passed quickly on. Once they got one returned from the company that bought them. The boss that passed them got mad.

It was in Florida. The company was South African-owned, and this was back in the Slavery/Apartheid era. A noisy, smelly back room was filled with machines where poor African Americans made catheters and rubber bottle-stoppers. I had to wear a protective mask and fill in for one of the laborers on a machine during their half-hour unpaid lunch break.

But the hardest part of the job was sunset. Folding the flag. Now, for religious and ethical reasons, I had stopped saluting the flag back in junior high school. But in a work context, I could go ahead and carefully, respectfully fold up the American flag in the proper prescribed way, just like we were taught in Boy Scouts. Then, I had to do the same for the Slavery flag.

I wanted to throw it down and stomp on it. I didn’t.

Edward Teller: Three of our country’s most advanced aircraft – the 787, the F-22 and the F-35 are all having problems that point more toward the concept of how a complicated system is supposed to fit together and actually work than toward single problems. The F-22 oxygen problem for pilots, various F-35 problems, and the 787 lithium battery fiasco show an industry at odds with practical reality.

Synoia: One has to understand batteries (stored energy) and explosions. An explosion is a sudden (very fast) release of stored energy (typically thousands of joules (kj) in less than a second). One watt is one joule per second. A battery is a store of energy. When working under design condition it releases energy (chemical energy) converted to electricity slowly (less than 5 watts/minute) A battery that can deliver 5 watts per minute for 3 hours stores about 1 kj of energy.

When shorted out the battery can deliver the 1 kj of energy very quickly, so quickly that it can heat the battery to a temperature where the lithium can reach flashpoint with the oxygen in the surrounding air. The electrical discharge is thus a fuse for the resulting chemical reaction with the light metal (which wants to donate electron to oxygen, which aggressively wants the elections) to make a metal oxide. Metals freely give up electrons which is why they are good conductors of electricity.

Burning a metal (Metal + Oxygen -> Metal oxide) results in a very hot (fast) fire. Very hot fast fires start other fires very quickly, especially in a plastic interior (such as an airplane). A lithium battery burning is potentially an explosion, and is a very hot fire. The degree of heat (or explosion) depends on how easily the oxygen from the air can react with the metal in the battery.

We are lucky. The 787 fires are relatively slow burning. I do wonder about the mechanical stability (creep and fatigue) from vibration and landing effects on 787 battery construction from the flights (and this would have been tested in a good test regime).

I’d refer you to unexpected effects from metals by flight in the unhappy tale of the De Havilland Comet I.

Ohio Barbarian: Synoia gave a real good explanation. I’ll just add one thing. If you have a cellphone or other mobile device, you have a device powered by a lithium battery, albeit a very small one. Many wristwatches also are powered by lithium batteries. Use that device long enough and you will feel some heat. That’s from the chemical reaction in the battery. But those batteries are tiny, and incapable of generating enough heat to catch the component chemicals on fire.

The batteries on Boeing’s jets are huge in comparison, and thus generate much, much more heat. This was a known problem during the design process, but, as I understand it, the FAA simply accepted Boeing’s assertions that the batteries were safe and would not catch fire. They didn’t run their own, independent tests. Certainly no way to regulate a railroad, or an airline. Oh, yeah, regulation and Big Gubmint bad, private enterprise good.

C-S: NTSB issues sixth update on JAL Boeing 787 battery fire investigation. January 29.

WASHINGTON – The National Transportation Safety Board today released the sixth update on its investigation into the Jan. 7 fire aboard a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 at Logan International Airport in Boston. The examination of the damaged battery continues. The work has transitioned from macroscopic to microscopic examinations and into chemical and elemental analysis of the areas of internal short circuiting and thermal damage.

JohnJ: Reminder: You most likely have one of those lithium bombs in your pocket. It is common in cell phones and MP3 players.

I would also not be too quick to blame the batteries; the charging circuits and voltage regulators used in the discharge are what we call switchers. The switching power supply is a spectacular invention. It is the reason that your electronics chargers are so tiny and run so cool. BUT… they can be very very finicky. A failure in these circuits can cause a perfectly fine lithium battery to fail in the same way.

In my early work prototyping switchers, I used to call it rocket science because when it failed, all you have is tiny burnt pieces spread over a large area to guess what caused the failure. I would add one turn of wire onto the coil and all the parts would literally blow off the circuit board and burn a hole into the board itself. Build the next one without the extra turn and it would run for years.

A top-of-the-head-guess would give a failed charger or regulator a 50-50 chance of causing a battery to fail as well.

Emancipation — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

(This is written by Western Massachusetts activist Terry Franklin.)

Prohibition is ending. One can feel it in the air. The elections in Colorado and Washington show that “the cork is starting to move.” In the metaphor from the ending of our earlier Prohibition of alcohol, the champagne bottle’s cork is slowly but steadily getting ready to pop. Soon we will be looking back at our current policies with the same level of disbelief, as we do with the witch hunts of the Middle Ages.

This breath of fresh air, so long in coming, gives hope that our society can rise above the desire for scapegoats, the need for politicians who pander to our most hateful instincts, and our urge to use force and violence against those we disagree with — for that is what we authorize when we make something a matter of criminal law. Richard Nixon’s “War on Drugs,” which began as a thinly-veiled assault on political adversaries, has now resulted in over 30,000,000 arrests for marijuana, over 40,000,000 arrests if you include all “controlled substances.” At any given time, as many black men are — largely for marijuana — under the control of the Criminal Justice Industry — prison, parole, and probation — as were slaves at the time of the Civil War.

Our federal government is in the same position vis-a-vis the states as it was with the Fugitive Slave Act. Colorado, Washington, and the 18 medical marijuana states are in direct confrontation with the Feds over fundamental principles of Liberty.

How repressive will the Feds be in this? What is Mr. Obama planning to do? His record last year was terrible, an acquiescence in policies designed to create enormous human misery. But he is faced with a unique opportunity to change his ways. It’s a new day, and the leadership role on this issue is sitting there, open for his use.

The most hopeful thing he could do, would be to expend some political capital, and work with Congress to bring a complete end to Prohibition. Short of that however, there is one thing he can do today with a stroke of his pen. Mr. Obama can issue pardons to those in federal prison, and to those previously convicted whose lives have been so negatively impacted by their criminal record.

It is true that his clemency powers cover only the federal system, while many of this War’s victims suffer at the state level. Here too though, his leadership can be effective, setting an example for governors, encouraging them to follow the right path. On January 1st, 1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. January 1st, this year, marked the sesquicentennial. What finer tribute, and show of decency could there be, than to act now?

Free the drug prisoners, Mr. President.

Obama Starting War with Russia, amid End-Time Prophecy and Poetry, as New Pearl Harbor Looms — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

(This article will in part look at end-time prophecies associated with 12/21/12, and how they can be seen to relate to the current world situation. I’ll look at prophecies that are either often cited, or may have already come true: Mayan, Biblical, I Ching-Psychedelic, Crystal- or Silicone-based lifeforms, Nostradamas, and the Norse Eddas.)

The US and NATO are amassing troops and Patriot Missiles along Turkey’s border with Syria. The US keeps claiming without evidence that Syria and Iran may have (or may get) Weapons of Mass Destruction, the implication being that we should therefore kill them. Iran borders Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey Pakistan and the former Soviet Union (Turkmenistan). Russia supplies Iran and Syria.

This war pits the US, Al Qaeda, Germany, Turkey, and the Netherlands against Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Russia. Iraq just beat us in a war. With Russia’s and Iran’s help, they can obviously do it again. The weakest, most technologically backward  country in the world, Afghanistan just beat us in a war. Now, Obama wants to start one with Russia, even though he knows we can’t possibly keep up the supply lines. But it would raise the price of Oil, which is presumably what he’s trying for.

http://rt.com/politics/nato-russia-syria-turkey-missile-defense-527/

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/16/278429/nato-missiles-in-turkey-provocative/

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/07/276743/nato-edging-toward-syria-intervention/

And amid all this warmongering, the US has its 5th Fleet docked in Bahrain’s harbor, while Genocides, Slavery, Torture, and other unspeakable horrors are carried out by Bahrain’s ODS (Obama Death Squad). All of those US ships parked in one place. Loaded up with weapons and personnel and Nuclear Power Plants and bombs. If Russia nukes our Navy in the Bahrain harbor (which would be at least as reasonable as going to war against the US without such an attack), then Russia will have an even bigger share of the international Oil market than they already have. And they’re about number one now, depending on who’s counting.

If Russia Nuked a Nuclear Powered ship in the harbor, the resultant explosion and its complications would likely take Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and possibly Kuwait and Iraq, out of the world Oil market, because theirs would be blown up, burned, spilled, lost, and wasted. And Russia would be the last big super power standing.

Okay, enough fun, let’s get to work on those prophecies.

Nostradamas

Nostradamas didn’t say anything about 2012, and a fraudulent claim had him predicting 9/11 leading to World War III.  http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/nostradamus-2012-predictions.htm  However, Nostradamas did name a specific date in at least one prophecy (or quatrain), and that was the date of Cassini, the Plutonium-loaded Nuclear Powered spaceship that was propelled hurtling toward Earth at amazing speeds, to use our planet’s gravity for a slingshot effect.

Not long before the Cassini fly-by, a Russian Plutonium-loaded Nuclear Powered spacecraft broke up over Australia and crashed in the Bolivian desert. Cassini could have crashed to Earth killing lots of people – the US Government estimated that in a worst-case scenario, no more than 100,000 people would be killed. As Nostradamas wrote:

“In the seventh month of 1999/The great King of Horror comes from the sky,/To resuscitate  the great king Angolmua/And before and after Mars will be to rule happily.” So, the Horror came from the sky, but it didn’t spill and kill. An ominous precursor?  http://www.flybynews.com/archives/alerts/nostra.htm

Mayan Calendar

The Mayan Calendar ends at Winter Solstice this year, though some people say it doesn’t. Usually, when a calendar ends, we just get another calendar that picks up where that one left off. Whoever made the Mayan Calendar may have thought that there would be plenty of time to get the next one done. But they knew of lots of astronomical events, and didn’t chart any more of them after this Friday 12/21/12 at 6:12 am EST. That’s 11:12 Greenwich Mean Time. It’s at 3:12 am West Coast time.

Strategic Nuclear Logic

Russia may Nuke our 5th Fleet, noting President Obama’s violent insanity. It would be considered self-defense. Let’s face it: As crazy wacko as Obama is – claiming that he’s allowed to kill any children he wants, and it doesn’t matter, and nobody can stop him – we’re obviously in grave danger from him at all times. He could decide to Nuke Russia. He could attack the moon. But more likely, he’ll turn the weapons on us. So, with such a violently insane man in the White House, starting a war with Russia already, some of these Nuclear prophecies could come through.

Psychedelic I Ching

Psychonaut explorer brothers Terrence and Dennis McKenna used I Ching Book of Changes methods to forecast the end time. Karl Jung respected I Ching. If you understand this, please think about it on your own time. This site says that they found 12/21/12 through I Ching without knowing about the Mayan prophecy. Another online article I saw had the McKennas placing the end date on this coming Sunday, the 22nd. Wikipedia says that at first, Terrence McKenna published part of his material without a date, and then, after someone else had popularized the date, McKenna took up that date and ran with it.  http://timewave.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/terrence-mckenna-timewave-zero-2012/

Terrence McKenna was really into DMT, dimethyl tryptamine, the “spirit molecule” as he called it. It’s in an herbal preparation called Jurema (pronounced approximately “Dreamer”). The Supreme Court has twice ruled that such short-acting tryptamine drugs are Legal religious sacraments. But the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) does whatever it wants, including suppressing religions. I’m going to smoke Jurema that day anyway. What have I got to lose? It’s our last day on Earth anyway, right? What’re they going to do? Lock me up for an hour or something?

Carbon-based lifeforms will become either Silicone-based or Crystals

I’ve been told that this theory comes from mystic Caroline Myss, who spoke about it in the mid-1980s. Whoever it comes from originally, it’s popular, I’ve heard it a lot. It goes like this: We Carbon-based lifeforms (including all lifeforms on this planet) will progress to being Crystal- or Silicon-based lifeforms. That would be kind of hard to handle. It’s hard for me to think about it, but it’s gotten unbelievably popular. Dig this:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry#Silicon_biochemistry and http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/astrobio/feat_questions/silicon_life.cfm

Norse Eddas‘ end-time prophecy Ragnarok (Götterdämmerung)

This one already came true, to the extent that prophecy – understood to be vague, ambiguous, hard to interpret – can be judged correct. It forecasts what seems like everything being wiped out in a Nuclear Holocaust. That part didn’t happen yet, but the other part: NATO bombing of Sirte or Surt, Libya, where Black Africans were burnt to death and to a crisp. The town was destroyed. Obama had hired Al Qaeda Mercenaries who destroyed many cities and towns, and conducted Genocides against Blacks and Sufis in Libya, and who later killed our Ambassador there].

The prophecy called for a Fire Giant named Surt to rise in the South in the end time. This happened in 2012. Nobody cared. But they will. Surt’s name refers to blackness and to burnt-to-a-crispness (not in a good way). So, the crystaline Silicone, the Nuclear nightmare, and the psychonauts’ expectations could all happen at 6:12 am EST Friday morning; and the Norse prophecy, the Nostradamas prophecy, and the Mayan Calendar already came true, or are certainly turning right now.

President Obama seems to be doing his part to push for the Nuclear Holocaust part to happen. 6:12 am EST matches 666 from Revelation, the Number of the Beast.

The Bible’s Book of Revelation

The last book of the Christian Bible has end-time or era-changing prophecies. It might be seen to support the Nuclear nightmare scenario. It gives the Bible cyclic structure, since the Tree of Life is mentioned on the first page of Genesis, and the Trees of Life are right there on the last page of Revelation. The book is also called the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine. It predicts that Israel will again be a nation after not being one for a long time. It predicts that repressive Governments will try to control everything we buy or sell, through a mark in the hand or forehead – which might be a credit card, a chip implant [as they already do on dogs], or an identifying tattoo.

It predicts that the power far to the North of Israel will attack it in the end times. People have long thought that this referred to Russia, but it doesn’t match up to another very important part of the prophecy. The Beast of Revelation that we are all to fear, is not Russia, according to Christian forecaster Hal Lindsey in the 1970s in The Late Great Planet Earth. Lindsey was sure that it refers to the Government of Europe, which he sees as a step to Revelation‘s prediction of world Government.

The Beast of Revelation has a symbolic number of heads. It has 12 heads and ten crowns. There are now ten crowned heads in Europe.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchies_in_Europe

Close enough. It’s ending. Smoke your Jurema, if you can. Yopo is even better. Read Revelation. Pray. I love you, friends: sisters and brothers.

(I’ll add another poem later. This is from my unpublished Rock Epic, the chapter Rats. De facto copyright in 1978. First performed on the radio [WMNF 88.5 FM Tampa Community Radio] in January 1987. First performed onstage in 1988 in 3 Birds Bookstore, Ybor City, Tampa, Florida.)

Rats

‘Twas  the night before Rapture, ~~ and all through the Protectorate,

Pot patients were still being captured. ~~ Man, it makes me want to expectorate.

Mamá in her Gurdjieff and I in my est ~~ Knew not left from right, up from down, East from West.

‘Twas the night before waR, and all through the nation, ~~ People were scurrying to Civil Defense station,

For they feared on world warlord would soon opt to blast one, ~~ And they knew that this next waR now would be the last one.

Shockings were hanged in the trenches with caution. ~~ The kids wanted presents, so PayRents, they bought some,

‘Cause gifts, like TV, music, sports, and parades, ~~ Can circumvent thinking and further charades,

So celebrate son, soldiers should be hurrayed, ~~ For they’re planning to win where they’re planning to raid,

But the best-laid plans, both Rodent’s and Man’s ~~ Might not get laid before Babylon’s paid,

So if you missed hearing angels’ voices in choral, ~~ Remember you wouldn’t if you’d been much more moral.

We all fall for the ball call because we’re so vIral, ~~ Caught fox-holed in box hold in out in downward spiral,

Weave come to the time friends when H-bomb helLfire’ll

Shower, devour us, deflower us, last-hour us, ~~ Kill planet and plants and at last overpower us.

He spoke not a word, being straight was his work. ~~ He fired all the rockets, then turned to the jerk

Who was playing, his finger inside of his nose, ~~ And beginning to nod, and his temper arose;

And he said “Don’t you see how we’ve wilted the world? ~~ My son will not grow up, nor your little girl.

The wasted weren’t wanting waR’s worst to unfurl.

Child Murderer-in-Chief Announces Hateful Cuts, Issues Veiled Warning Threat to First Graders — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

Today it’s not just me: Glenn Greenwald and George Monbiot both called President Obama a Child Murderer. Obama has killed 9 times as many children with Drones as the Sandy Hook shooter did, and has shown NO remorse. In fact, he laughs and jokes about killing children with Coward Drones.

With his ha-ha funny Coward Drones, President Obama has Murdered at least 178 children. We must as a country find some way to turn him over the the International Criminal Court in the Hague for prosecution. If we don’t, we are helping him Murder more children.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/19/newtown-drones-children-deaths

Today President Obama announced Hateful slashes to benefits slated for the very poorest and most vulnerable people in our country: This is so that the richer half of the country won’t have to pay the automatic tax increase that he himself signed into law, but now calls “The Fiscal Cliff.” Make no mistake about it: These cuts do constitute a monumental Hate Crime, and they are sure to kill lots of children. President Obama seems to be letting his apparent Hatred of children get in the way of his governing.  http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2012/12/14/obamas-forces-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-killing-baby-with-poison-gas-the-presidents-hateful-policies-against-children/

In Hateful anti-child Propaganda [reminiscent of 1984's newspeak], President Obama calls the richer half of the country “the Middle Class.” He calls the emergency life support system that’s keeping poor children alive “entitlements,” with its negative connotation, calculated to make the listener feel that those lazy poor kids are not entitled to anything. Let ‘em wither!

When people are in such dire straits that they need Government assistance just to stay alive, those who are turning off the feeding tubes know they’re killing some of their victims. President Obama knows that further squeezing the poorest of the poor at this critical juncture will kill children. So, I guess he’ll get another big laugh.

If he has studied history and economics, he knows that cutting aid to the very poor is likely to cripple our faltering economy, and to ramp up our current Recession into a devastating decades-long Depression.

Let me mention the obvious: Money and influence from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other corporate interests control our politicians to a large extent. I think of it as Bribery.

Obama had his spokesperson Jake “the Snake” Carney say that the President supports Oil billionaire Dianne Feinstein’s fake Assault Weapons ban, with 900 exceptions in it. Of course, if Obama and Feinstein were actually serious about limiting gun violence, they would be trying to prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for supplying weapons to Drug Cartels in Mexico that were then used to Murder cops in this country. Instead they’re Covering Up Operation Fast and Furious.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder#Operation_Fast_and_Furious

And in a most troubling development, the President (and other politicians hoping to sweep this shooting under the rug) are pointing at mental health and autism, as if to say: “We don’t have insufficient Gun Control laws in this country, we have insufficient Autism Control laws!” This veiled threat means that he won’t speak out forcefully for banning handguns and Assault Weapons.

It means that school children in this country may soon be as traumatized as President Obama’s victims in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia, wondering if they’ll be next, if their classroom will win this month’s “Lottery.” I say Obama should not let Congress break for holidays until our children are safe and Assault Weapons and handguns are banned.

Watch this whole fascinating report. Jake the Snake delivers Obama’s veiled threat beginning at about the 6-minute mark of the video.  http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/12/2012121972717242949.html

Handguns and Assault Weapons are made for Murdering people. They have no legitimate purpose. It is possible that a person buying a gun will use it to protect himself, but it is 100 times more likely that he will Murder with it. The gun seller knows that, and he knows that the buyer is 300 times more likely to kill himself with the gun than to protect himself with it, no matter what he says is the purpose of his purchase.

So, the Obama Administration is not trying to limit gun violence against children. Here’s how you can tell. Australia had a school massacre problem. They ended it by confiscating the offending guns. That’s all it took. Immediately the massacres stopped completely. There hasn’t been another one since then; and that’s 16 years. Australia had lots of gun nuts too, just like we do. But they handled it. With a little less Hatred of children, we could get this done right away.  http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/18/new_town_to_newtown_how_96

We’re Cowards in America, When We Operate a Coward Drone — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

(We’re Cowards in America, When We Operate a) Coward Drone   by Norman B

We’re cowards in America, when we operate a Coward Drone.

Every bully is a coward, who, remotely powered, can kill kids while sitting home;

But our cowardly War Crimes on TV to thE whole world are shown.

That’s right, we’re cowards in America, when we operate a Coward Drone.

We didn’t want ouR kids to know we’s cowards. Too late! OuR shit gits known,

‘Cause the kids git to see ouR cowardice every time a Drone gets flown;

Because we’re cowards in America, when we operate a Coward Drone.

We’re lily-livered candyass fraidy-cats, we got a yellow streak to the bone.

‘Robot Cowards Draw Octobor’ is ouR favorite palindrome.

““ No, no, no, no: The ‘Americans’ who killed those kids are traitors to the entire human race:

““ President Obama & the abominable disgusting cowardly pilots we’re all ashamed of killed those kids -

““ – Wasn’t US. Wasn’t US.

“““ And where were you then? In the U.S? In the U.S.?

“““ Then, yes, it was. Yes it was.

O, we’re cowards in America, when we operate a Coward Drone.

Every bully is a coward, who, remotely powered, can kill kids while sitting home;

But our cowardly War Crimes on TV to thE whole world are shown.

That’s right, we’re cowards in America, when we operate a Coward Drone.

We didn’t want ouR kids to know we’s cowards. Too late! Our cover’s blown,

‘Cause yella is the color of chicken shit: Our true color’s flown;

Because we’re cowards in America, when we operate a Coward Drone.

We’re lily-livered candyass fraidy-cats, we got a yellow streak to the bone.

‘Robot Cowards Draw Octobor’ is ouR favorite palindrome.

(P)(C)2012 Norman Schulerud Bie, Jr. All rights reserved.

The above video is not part of the poem being presented in the text. It was written, recorded, and videotaped much earlier. But the two poems cover related subjects. It’s too bad so little has changed during the 8-year interim between the two. The poetry and singing are me. The music performance, selection, arrangement, and recording are by Rob Connelly, aka Irish Moss. The videotaping, directing, and editing are by my partner Rachel Neulander of YouTube Channel medicinesocks. Full lyrics and dates for Horse Man by Norman B (“Deviations from the Norm”) can be viewed here:  http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2010/05/10/exclusive-video-karzais-chemical-warfare-against-us-citizens/

Obama’s Forces Launch Chemical Weapon Attack Killing Baby with Poison Gas: The President’s Hateful Policies Against Children — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

President Obama and others keep telling us that there’s an emergency in Syria because the Dictator might have or might get a Chemical Weapon – Poison Gas. But President Obama is already using that Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) against helpless unarmed children in Bahrain.

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton sent Bahrain’s bloody Fascist Khalifa regime yet more Poisonous Gas after this child was killed, lots more, apparently approving of what you just saw. The Gas killings continue in Bahrain. They’re killing Slaves and they’re killing Shi’a with Poison Gas; and they’re killing Slave children and Shi’a children too. Why does Obama support the Khalifas’ Genocidal behavior in Bahrain? Because he parks the US 5th Fleet in Bahrain’s harbor.  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/syria-bahrain-a-tale-of-two-uprisings-one-fabricated-the-other-forgotten/

The US Navy’s 5th Fleet, docked in Bahrain, is famed the world over for its cowardice. In the first place, they work for Obama, and a bully is always a coward. For eleven years, they’ve been carrying out the most cowardly operation in history: The United States, the world’s strongest and most Militarily advanced country, has waged more than a decade of War against Afghanistan, the weakest and most backward country on Earth. Still, Afghanistan kicked the shit out of us, and we will leave there in shame.

And the men and women of the US 5th Fleet are in Bahrain, apparently trembling in their boots, while mass Atrocities go on a few feet away: Gassings; Torture; Doctors, Nurses, Professors, and Journalists rounded up and disappeared; Genocides against multiple ethnic groups. And the US cowards just sit there, instead of helping out the defenseless.

Mass Murders in US schools, beginning with Columbine, take place only when our nation is at War. Twenty-seven days before Columbine, President Clinton began his merciless bombing of Yugoslavia. Propaganda told us that we must wage War there, or else War would start without us, or something like that: They told us we needed War. I bought it, didn’t you? We fell for it.

All the kids heard that. All the kids then knew that the President of the United States, the father figure of our nation, supported killing people indiscriminately, to make his point. The President is our top role model, so kids started taking up guns and acting it out. They will obviously continue to do so with increasing frequency and intensity until one of three things happens: Either until some other role model does something different, or until we stop Warring, or until we stop supplying killers with assault weapons. Obama has made it abundantly clear many times that he wants to make sure that the violently insane still can get machine guns. And it looks like he doesn’t want to stop having War either.

And President Obama has taken this madness far to the Right of any Democrat or Republican in modern history. Certainly no world leader since Hitler has acted as Hatefully toward children as Obama has.

Indeed, no world leader including Hitler has so publicly claimed that he is allowed to Murder children, and that he is allowed to then pardon himself for their Murders. (Self-pardoning is illegitimate in every case everywhere in the world.) (Even if a lying politician says it isn’t.) Here are some of the babies that Obama’s cowardly forces in Bahrain have Murdered using Poison Gas:  http://www.crookedbough.com/?p=14659 and http://bahraincoordinatingcommittee.org/tag/infant-deaths-from-tear-gas/ and http://bonjourplanetearth.blogspot.com/2012/03/another-bahraini-infant-killed-by-tear.html

Let’s look at some of the recent Psychological Warfare that our Government has run against its own people:

(1) There was the Gulf War under Bush 1 back in 1991, when the US refused to negotiate; (2) the Yugoslavia War; (3) then it got noticeably worse with Bush 2, 9/11, and the Iraq War, “If you’re not with us you’re with the Terrorists,” “Wanted Dead or Alive,” and that old standard stand-by “Weapons of Mass Destruction;” then Obama claimed that he was going to prevent Genocide in Libya – it was a lie – he instead hired Al Qaeda Mercenaries who Murdered the President of the country then carried out Genocide against the Black Africans of Libya and against the Sufis of Libya, then the Al Qaeda group he brought in killed our Ambassador; then Obama said Iran has Weapons of Mass Destruction; now he says Syria has them. (The Obama-Al Qaeda Genocides against Blacks and Sufis in Libya killed some children, and left others without parents.)   http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2012/07/08/us-backed-al-qaida-manned-oil-dictatorship-genociding-torturing-black-libyans-obama-ny-times-say-rigged-election-was-cool/ and   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19380083

But the worst Psychological Warfare ever deployed against the people of this country was when Barack Obama claimed that he is allowed to order Murders and that’s Legal and OK. That move spread violent insanity throughout the country. It is the President’s responsibility to act like a sane adult. Instead, after our Ambassador was killed in Libya, Obama spewed his deadly Propaganda on the Daily Show – and this may have influenced yesterday’s shootings – saying “I wasn’t confused about the fact that we’re gonna hunt down whoever did it and bring him to justice.” Even Bloomberg’s Mark Miller said that Obama sending Drones back in to Libya in reaction to the Ambassador’s Assassination would be cruel and crazy. Still, Obama did it.

That’s how violently insane and irresponsible our President is: With people like yesterday’s shooter Adam Lanza listening, Obama insisted that, instead of doing something sane, he, our country’s top father figure and main role model, thought hunting down humans was the example he wanted to give people the world over. He, Obama, the man who is allowed to commit Murder any time he wants to, against anybody, anywhere in the world – that he, our President, wants to hunt somebody down, and wants to teach our citizens that hunting people down and killing people is OK, and that it is acceptable behavior.

Adam Lanza killed a lot of kids yesterday, but not nearly as many as Barack Obama did. Now let’s look at some of Obama’s Hateful policies against children.

Late in 2009, Obama’s first year in office, he claimed that he was allowed to order Assassinations, and ordered one against a Somali who had allegedly been involved with an Embassy bombing more than a decade earlier, when he was a child. Obama ordered an Assassination team to Murder him and they did. Since then, they have killed several other Somalis accused of the exact same crime. A few months later, Somali children were trying to stop foreign occupying powers from looting their continent’s mineral wealth. These children were doing what was right for their people, but our Propaganda called them “Pirates.”

Then President Obama started calling them “Pirates.” The shipping companies didn’t know what to do. Obama ordered the children shot dead. The Propaganda called them “Pirates,” the President called them “Pirates,” and if they’re Pirates, it’s OK to Murder them, right? Then came the starvation times: Muslim occupiers were in Somalia’s capital. The US wouldn’t allow food into Mogadishu until the Muslim army left, so thousands of children starved to death. And of course, of all countries in the world, only Obama’s United States and his puppet Somalia agree that it is alright to treat children like that.  http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/children-s-rights/convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child

Haiti got hit by an earthquake, and only Cuba came to help, then Obama rushed in an occupation force. He promised a billion dollars. (He was lying: The US actually sent no money: Zero!) Our Military blocked Cuba from helping. People had to wait weeks for relief. Obama brought in Nepalese soldiers from the Indus valley, where Cholera has been prevalent since ancient times.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20024400

Cholera had never been in Haiti before, but now, thanks to Obama, it has killed thousands in Haiti, including lots of kids. Obama (and the Clintons) may someday be charged with Genocide for their actions and inactions in Somalia, Haiti, and Bahrain. They, like Bush and Cheney, may someday be wary of traveling to certain countries or certain states, for fear of arrest.

Obama claims that he is allowed to order Assassinations, and that he is allowed to kill people with Coward Drones, operated by disgraceful cowardly Murderers in the United States, who pose a grave risk to our National Security by their very presence. After killing a Journalist with a Coward Drone in Yemen, the next week, Obama sent another Coward Drone to Murder the man’s 16-year-old son. Guantánamo held too many children, and all of them there were Tortured. Obama said he would close it, but he was lying.  http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes/index.html

Obama’s sanctions on Iran and Syria are almost surely killing children now, and his War is killing lots of children in Syria, and the one in Iran will too, if he gets away with it. More than two million children throughout the Middle East are now refugees who are fleeing Obama’s wanton destruction, his Wars of choice. In Syria, Obama’s Al Qaeda Mercenaries are carrying out Genocides against the world’s oldest Christian community, and against Shiites, especially Alawites.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20691206 and http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Dec-11/198100-bombings-in-syria-alawite-village-leave-125-victims-ngo.ashx#axzz2F5xoTmkX and http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2012/08/19/obamas-al-qaeda-lite-mercenary-terrorists-conducting-genocide-against-worlds-oldest-christian-community/

Obama started Civil Wars in both Mexico and Pakistan, those Wars kill children, parents, and others. Here’s a story of a child suffering from Obama’s Drug War in Mexico.  http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/11/28/mexican_cartels_violently_beat_and_kill_female_mayor  According to Medea Benjamin, when Obama Murders with Coward Drones in Pakistan, if his victim has the first growth of hair on his young face, then Obama officially considers him a Terrorist. (Before Obama’s time, the US considered people innocent until proven guilty.)   http://www.linktv.org/programs/medea-benjamin-drone-warfare

And the President had his own Trayvon Martin at the Democratic Convention in Charlotte this year: Police chased a youth then shot him dead there the night before it started. Obama didn’t speak up, and of course the cop got away with it.  http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2012/09/04/survivors-of-south-africas-34-slave-massacre-leaving-jail-ordered-back-to-work-by-their-owner-more-slaves-shot-democrats-party-on/

But President Obama’s work that kills the most children is his blocking of progress in climate negotiations, which he did again at this year’s climate conference that just ended in Qatar, near Bahrain. Oil, Fracking, Coal, Natural Gas, they’re all causing massive Global Warming, which will kill lots of kids. But it could be stopped right away, by growing Hemp which has the highest biomass of any plant, and is the world’s richest source of Ethanol and Biodiesel: Both clean fuels that cause no Global Warming. President Obama today indicated that he may not continue to arrest users where Marijuana is Legal, but he has said similar things before, which all turned out to be lies. If we started growing Hemp on a massive scale today, within a few months our country would be energy independent, and emitting no net Greenhouse Gases.   http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2010/11/11/breakthrough-swedish-hemp-energy-study-corroborates-hemp-emperor-herer/

So, the Fossil Fuels (Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas) compete with Marijuana. They add billions of tons of CO2 to the air, but Marijuana-based fuels can’t add any, because they hold no fossilized Carbon, only that which the living plant recently absorbed from the atmosphere. And it wouldn’t even take changing a law to get Medical Marijuana Legal: President Obama can do it with the stroke of his pen, an Executive Order. If President Obama doesn’t immediately order Medical Marijuana Legal, lots of people will lose the ability to walk because of Multiple Sclerosis, and some will die from it this year, just like last year and the year before.

And what do you tell your child who lies dying in the hospital from Skin Cancer, because s/he can’t get Rick Simpson Oil (RSO)? (Videos show that RSO destroys Skin Cancer cells and heals the skin, but President Obama is blocking it from even being tested in the United States, because it is made from Marijuana.) Well, here’s what you tell your kid then: “Our President won’t let you have the medicine you need to live: We don’t know if it’s because he’s superstitious about a plant, or if it’s because somebody gave him a lot of money to keep it away from you, or if he just Hates kids.”  http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-shooting-response-2012-12

The Invention that Could Eat Us, and the Invention that Could Save Us — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

(That was Jerry Lacroix and Edgar Winter, knowing 41 years ago we were on the brink, and screaming about it. Now, are you going to do something about it or not?!)

I’ve always liked inventions. I’ve been close to some great and terrible ones. My cousin-in-law Tom Carver invented the first Nuclear-Powered device, the Atomic Clock (which did not require splitting any atoms). His clock, built in 1952, is still running. His “Peaceful Atom,” though, did lead to Nuclear Power plants … Yankee Rowe … Three Mile Island … Chernobyl …. Fuk U Shima. And I helped inventor Tom Burney work on a high-speed skyscraper fire escape that could have saved hundreds of lives in the twin towers on 9/11, if it had been implemented; but don’t read about it now.  http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2012/09/12/tom-burneys-high-speed-skyscraper-fire-escape-could-have-saved-hundreds-of-lives-on-september-11-2001/

Huey Long, still variously revered and reviled all these 77 years after his Assassination, famously asked: If money is the problem, then why don’t we just print up a bunch of it for everybody and distribute it? Well, you know what they do to people who ask things like that.

Money is an invention. And now we are told that everything we care about must downsized because there is not enough money. Poor people must be sacrificed because there is not enough money. But most people in this country are poor. In an Election, the Poor would win by a landslide. An interesting pie chart a few days ago here at FireDogLake.com showed that 54% of the US population is Poor, while just 30% are in the Middle Class. Another 15% make up the Upper Middle Class, and that just leaves The 1%, the “Super Rich,” as Ralph Nader calls them.

So, a much more appropriate term for the “Middle” Class would be the “Well Off.” Indeed, most of them are quite wealthy compared to most of the Poor. Like in 1929, the large bankers have called back their markers, and, just like in 1929, it’s causing an economic collapse. Because we are emotionally tied to this invention, this mental construct: Money. But if we are willing to abandon our current version of money, we can have a different invention that doesn’t eat us.

So, to belabor the obvious, it is stupid and foolish to use an invention that eats the user. As long as the devouring is avoidable, avoid it. It’s stupid and foolish, and wrong. And insane – suicidal. Kind of reminds you of our climate predicament, doesn’t it?

Have you been keeping up? The world Climate Summit is happening in Oil-rich/filthy-rich Qatar, which has the highest Greenhouse Gas emissions per person of any country on the planet. A poet there was just sentenced to life in prison for insulting the Prime Minister. That’s where Al Jazeera news comes from.

There were 19 named Atlantic Ocean Hurricanes and Tropical Storms this year. Having that many has happened in only 5 years in history: 1933, 2005, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Lately, each year, too late in the season, a giant storm heads for New York and New England (way too far North).

Superstorm Sandy that just hit New York City was the largest hurricane in history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records#Largest_in_diameter Today the Philippines was hit by the most Southerly typhoon in history. Typhoon Bopha has killed at least 272 people there so far.

2011 was the world’s highest year ever for CO2 emissions – but this year (2012) is expected to top it. Superstorms of new character on paths previously thought bizarre are indeed being caused by Global Warming, as was forecast by the climate models decades ago.

Yesterday, scientists at the Climate Summit announced that we are on track to raise our global temperature six degrees Celsius – that’s 11 degrees Fahrenheit. Anthropomorphic Global Warming is caused by emissions of a few specific chemicals; and clean alternatives already exist to ALL of those emission sources.

Human-inflicted Global Warming is caused by emissions of Carbon Soot, and six specific Greenhouse Gases, along with Freons and related chemicals that originated in the DuPont labs.

President Obama is the main stumbling block to progress and accord at the Climate Summit: He says that the US has already met its goals. So the other high-emissions countries now say that they too will do nothing to change course, having already met their goals. Barack Obama, by the way, condemned the Kyoto Accords long ago, long before he was President.

Our current President ran against John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008, then took up Sarah Palin’s call to “Drill Baby Drill” – but on steroids – attacking our country’s and our continent’s actual physical structural integrity with onshore and offshore drilling (and not using the world’s safest or cleanest drilling equipment[!]). He called for “Clean” Coal and for poisoning drinking water with Fracking in his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination.

Obama said, in the Presidential Debate, that unlike Mitt Romney, he would never block a dirty Coal plant from operating. Back in 2009, in his first week in office, Obama appeared on a television commercial for Clean Coal, which doesn’t even exist. And everybody knew he was lying when he said it, because a week earlier, the Coen brothers had widely aired a commercial informing the American public that there is no such thing as Clean Coal.

And the current announced US strategy is to continue burning it and other Fossil Fuels like Natural Gas: The Obama plan calls for increasing Oil exploration and drilling steadily every year until 2030, and to then begin to slack off. If they do that, then we shall surely die.

Day before yesterday, a snowflake slowly spiraled close by my eye, and I could see its crystal details. Today I was walking around barefoot and in short sleeves. December in Massachusetts. A Doonesbury cartoon showed out-of-state volunteers driving into Massachusetts during a blizzard last winter, to work for Elizabeth Warren. A nice image, but there were no blizzards in Massachusetts last winter. Not here. There was one on Halloween, and that was it. It snowed a little light snow a couple of days ago; but no blizzard.

A couple of years ago, when billionaire philanthropist Sir Richard Branson offered a $25 million cash prize in his Virgin Earth Challenge, to the inventor who can remove Greenhouse Gases from our atmosphere, I was filled with hope. During the competition, the US Government’s propaganda organ PBS aired a Koch-brother-sponsored climate fraud miniseries recommending that the Oil companies’ motto of “All Of The Above” energy be adopted by our country and the world, and that this Oil company scam will solve our climate problem.

On-air talent for the Koch fake climate show included Van Jones and other denizens of the Obama Administration. On the first show, they had Richard Branson. The announcer pressured him to agree that the All Of The Above strategy would solve our Global Warming crisis. In the politest way he possibly could say it, Branson told him ‘Nice try.’ The competition continues.

Some people are desperate, and grasping at straws. Let’s go for Hybrid, dirty and clean at the same time! Pollution trading. Solar Panels and Wind Farms that secretly emit the worst Greenhouse Gases known. Foolishly fouling food and forests and farms for fuel, that’s the bullshit Biomass and Biofuel frauds. Giving Biomass and Biofuel and Ethanol a bad name. (There are elsewhere excellent examples of Biomass and Biofuel and Ethanol usage, but not in that movement.) And every step of the way: Middlemen padding the bill with their hands in the till. It’s no wonder people are disgusted and discouraged and desperate.

Here’s a list of desperate attempts, and I’ll shoot each one down, if necessary.  http://thelistcafe.com/top-10-mega-projects-to-reverse-global-warming  10. Polluting the ocean and ocean bottom by dumping a bunch of iron in it. 9. Carbon capture and storage depends on burning more Fossil Fuels and trying to pull some of the emissions back. 8. Wrapping Greenland in blankets made from Oil products. 7. Moving cold water that is deep in the ocean up to the surface.

6. Kill most of the cows because they fart too much. (Here, the article spreads disinformation by purporting that livestock cause 65% of Nitrous Oxide pollution. In fact, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, soil management [nitrogen fertilizers] cause 68% of the Nitrous Oxide emissions, while manure management causes only 6%. But we do need to manage the poo and burn its Methane emissions for energy.) 5. Atmospheric sulfate infusion: Pollute the atmosphere in a way that somewhat mimics volcanoes’ blocking-out-the-Sun effect. 4. Artificial trees, because real trees were such a failure. 3. Green bombs: Drop trees from airplanes. 2. Dump sea water into the desert. 1. Sun-reflecting shields in outer space. By the way, Nitric Acid is prevalent in rocket fuel, and its manufacture is also one of the leading causes of Nitrous Oxide pollution.

The Virgin Earth Challenge link tells about each of its eleven finalists: The competition is still going on, but no great breakthrough has emerged there yet. (They’re not accepting any more entries.) Three (1-3) of the eleven finalists are dealing in Biochar solutions. Biochar by itself can indeed remove some Carbon from the atmosphere. Whoever succeeds will likely use Biochar, but not by itself. The Biochar method involves working charred wood or other charred biomass into the soil. It requires energy/fuel to char the wood. These three models slowly improve the picture, if done on a massive scale.

One finalist (4) uses bio-energy with Carbon capture and storage, which includes burning more Fossil Fuels. Another five (5-9) use direct air capture, and bury captured Carbon deep in the Earth, but most of it is re-emitted, according even to its proponents. One finalist (10) wants to massively pollute the atmosphere to control the weather. And one (11) advocates grassland restoration – whoever does solve it will certainly do this, and much more too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Earth_Challenge

They’re saying that it’s going to get so hot, and we’re in so much trouble, and we’re going to be so dead. And so, it looks like we’re in dire straits. But not to me. I mean, I can see the danger, of course. But I can also see a way out, an actual solution. Now, this is going to be hard for some of you to take. If it makes it easier for you to handle, go ahead and assume that what follows is hypothetical, or phantasy, or Performance Art, or as just an exercise in philosophy; because I’m not going to give you the full scientific details now. But try to treat it in your mind as if it’s real.

Because it is real. There is a breakthrough invention. I’m here in Amherst, Massachusetts, a hub of climate science research. And I’m here to tell you that a system which quickly stops and reverses Global Warming has been invented, it’s coming to fruition now. It extracts Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere. It has been tested and works well. It can extract all of the post-industrial Carbon Dioxide. Bill McKibben’s 350.org is ambitious, compared to what you hear from naysayers and doomsday prophets. But 350 parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in our air is way too much. And right now, we’re at about 400 ppm.

But if we deploy this invention, we can be back at our pre-industrial natural balance of 280 parts per million in about 15 months. Maybe it would be safer to take twice as long, if we weren’t so close to catastrophe already. But with this, we can re-install the polar icecaps in two years. The glaciers will take longer. It will greatly alleviate worldwide drought, because all that extra CO2 that’s warming our planet causes water to evaporate. And the Water Vapor is actually doing more of a job on us now than the CO2, GL0Warm-speaking.

However, when the new system pulls all the Carbon out, that Water Vapor is coming down! With this new invention, we will no longer need to burn Fossil Fuels, because one of its main byproducts is clean fuel. And the more CO2 we “mine” from the atmosphere, the cheaper that clean fuel will get. Conversely, the more Oil is drilled, the less remains in the Earth, and the price goes up. Very soon, we who have the clean fuel will be able to make so much fuel, that we can economically ‘force’ everyone else to switch to cheap clean fuel. They won’t be able to afford to do otherwise.

The Oil companies are going down! I know my readers don’t own Oil stocks, but people who do are going to lose out. People telling you that there’s a 30-year lag if we stop now just don’t know about the invention: Once the CO2 is no longer there, it will no longer have its effect. Its Greenhouse Effect, that is.

There are some other very interesting byproducts from this completely non-polluting system: Nutritious food, and trillions of tons of building materials. Many people are telling you that the manufacturing jobs “are not coming back.” But they don’t know about this invention. Trillions of tons of building materials are worth quadrillions of real dollars in today’s money. And not even one quadrillion dollars even exists on Earth, yet! If the real reason we can’t have clean water or health and safety regulations is because there “isn’t enough money,” well then, here it comes, enough money.

Some of the finest byproducts we’ll get are democracy, freedom, equality, and repayment of the Climate Debt, at least in part. The invention is great, but it takes lots of people to work it. Thousands. Well, if we’re going to remove all of the CO2, then, in fact, millions of people will have to work at it. Do we have an unemployment problem in this country and the world? Not anymore, not if we don’t want to. Under this system, anybody who wants work, or wants to save the planet, can join.

NORAD Ignorant of High-Speed Drones in Denver/New Obama Policy: Killing Marijuana Possession Suspects from the Air – by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

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http://youtu.be/1AEQgEFqE40