Santorum… *facepalm*

So, Santorum doesn’t believe in an America where the Bill of Rights and the Constitution mean anything. Well DUH! That much should have been obvious already, but at least now we have video evidence! If he gets the NOM Please don’t vote for him, I beg you!!  http://thedailywh.at/2012/02/26/santorum-santorum-says-of-the-day-3/

 

Got this off the Daily What.

 

Also, to all of you who follow me, i’m sorry for the silence, it has been crazy busy the bast couple weeks, but things should, hopefully, slow down now.

Iran

Well, I got a new laptop recently, it was my Valentine’s Day present, and because of that I have been super distracted with other things, like Deviant Art, and I have been putting this blog on the back burner. Anyway, I’m putting together that entry about “cleaning supplies” I said I was going to write a while back. But for now I want to do a quick update about Iran.

Apparently this picture represents Iran's Missile range.

What the fuck is up with Iran?! I’m not sure if we should chalk them up to all talk and no show, or if we should just “take care of the problem”. Then I have to wonder, what is the problem? I don’t fully understand why no one wants Iran to go nuclear, would that really effect us? Have they had bad intentions from the beginning? Or are they really just interested in nuclear power, and space exploration? Everyone else gets to go nuclear, we are the only ones who have ever use a Nuke on another country, why do we assume everyone else has the worst possible intentions?

No you guys over in the U.S. aren’t really feeling any effects from this whole Iran situation, I know, I know, your gas is almost four dollars a gallon, but that has nothing to do with Iran, the US isn’t even in the top ten countries who gets crude from Iran, so that’s all on the oil companies, anytime anything happens anywhere, even if it doesn’t effect oil production at all, they raise the gas prices. Here though, in Italy, gas is outrageous! It’s NINE US dollars a Gallon! YES, Nine dollars! Italy get’s a lot of crude from Iran, so the price per litter in the past month has jumped from 1.59 to 1.89 a litter.  So, yeah I wish gas was four dollars a gallon! That’s cheap as hell! Alright, so another thing you guys don’t have to think about is refugees. During the Arab Spring a lot of people from the Middle East and Africa came to Italy to escape the violence. The same thing has started to happen again, in small numbers, but  that, in itself is a sign that the Syrian and Iranian people are worried that something is going to happen, and that is worrisome to me.

I guess right now I don’t have a whole lot to say about the Iran situation, but I have a lot of questions that no one is able to answer, but there is one thing that is in the back of everyone’s mind and that is War with Iran. People have been saying it for years, and it’s looking more and more likely by the day, and if a war happens I don’t  want to be over here for it. The different outcomes people come up with is frightening, at best. I just hope that if shit hits the fan someone will get US out. But for now, I guess we wait.

Bradley Manning Nom. For 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

Bradley Manning

That’s right, Bradley Manning was nominated again this year for the Nobel Peace Prize, and oddly enough I feel proud about it, let me explain a little bit because frankly it makes no sense at all, I am, after all a Navy wife and I have an enormous about of pride for our men and women in uniform, so it would be safe to assume that I would consider Manning a trader, criminal, a villan. But I don’t, I view him as a whistleblower, a patriot, an advocate for peace and truth, a political prisoner.

However, I didn’t always feel this way. When the story first broke about Bradly Manning my inital reaction was “what a scum bag piece of shit, he deserves life in prison for betraying his country”. But back then, all I knew is what they were saying on the TV about how he leaked classified information and because of that information hundreds, maybe thousands of American’s were going to die from it! The news talked about how this information could cause another 9/11!  Because, you know, no one can just say “terrorist attack” they have to say “another 9/11″ to really scare the shit outta people!

Anyway, the more and more I heard about Manning the more and more I became interested, now, up to this point I had never visited Wikileaks, but this story about Manning peaked my interest, the news keep referring to these videos and thousands of cables, I had to to see for myself, so I watched the video of our service men killing innocent civilians and I was mortified!  I knew that civilian casualties was nothing new, after all, in every official statement they pretty much tell us, “meh accidents happen” But this was no accident, in the video that was released, it was blatant, and cruel, and disgusting and it became immediately clear that the government has been lying to us about the “war effort” for years. In fact, we have been lying to everyone since day number one. But what happened to the whistle blower? Immediate incarceration, and solitary confinement. What?! I thought the Military had “whistle blower protection” That’s what they say on the AFN all the time, and by all the time I mean daily!  The thing that really pisses me off about the whole situation is there have been MANY exposed crimes, pictures of US solders humiliating and torturing prisoners, Marines Pissing on dead bodies, Pictures of our soldiers Mocking our own dead, Pictures of our soldiers holding up dead Afghan’s, or Iraqis as if they just bagged a 6 point buck! Despicable soldiers is what I like to call them, but what happens to those despicable Soldiers? Not a damn thing usually they just get  yelled at, maybe discharged, but they get to go home at night, they get to continue living without facing any sort of consequences for their war crimes, they get to continue about their business as if nothing ever happened. It saddens me, and It makes me ashamed to be an American sometimes. Sometimes because of these despicable soldiers and the fact that our Military, and our Government does nothing about them makes me ashamed to be a proud Navy Wife, sometimes when i’m out, I don’t want want to mention what my husband does because of these despicable soldiers! Even though I am ridiculously proud of him, I will neglect to mention he works for the Navy because I don’t want to deal with the flack I get from others because of these despicable soldiers.

Hell, when my husband was coming home from his second deployment, I went to the Safeway in Port Townsend to pick up some Camo Welcome Home balloons, and some plan blue and yellow balloons (navy colors ya know).  The man working in the floral department asked why I was getting the balloons, so I told him my husband was coming home, purposefully trying to avoid the “Navy Deployment” part, because I have received flack from people before, and I was in Port Townsend. I grew up in PT and I know those people are not very receptive to the Military, even though the town would exist if it wasn’t for the Navy, but that’s a whole notha’ story.  So, he kept asking questions so I told him, “Well, my husband is in the Navy, and he was out on a deployment for the past 7 months” “oh, where was he” he asked me, and I told him it was what they called a “pleasure cruse” and they just hit ports over in Aisa, no biggie really. Then once he filled all of my balloons he got this little smirk on his face and had the Gaul to say “well, I don’t support warmongers and baby killers, the Navy has no business in Asia” Excuse ME balloon man?! I gave him the most stern look I could muster and I said to him , “The fuck did you just say to me?!” He started to talk again, and I just interrupted him and said “You listen balloon man, I haven’t seen my husband in seven months, have you ever gone that long with out seeing someone you love? With little to know communication? Have you EVER had to sacrifice ANYTHING in your entire, pathetic, balloon peddling life?”  He looked at me shocked, because at this moment I was on a tangent, and I was being very loud and making quite the scene in Safeway, people were staring, I didn’t notice and I didn’t give a shit! So I continued by saying. “This is my fucking husband, my family and my friends you are insulting, by calling them warmongers and baby killers, how fucking dare you! You show some goddamn respect and keep those mother fucking balloons for yourself, because I am not buying another thing in god damn grocery store!” I was so pissed I was almost crying, and I was shaking, I

I typed Douche Balloon into Google and a picture of Snooki came up! HA!

could have strangled this balloon peddling douche at that moment. BUT as soon as I was done yelling at this asshole I heard clapping and cheering behind me, 30 or people erupted in applause in support of what I had just said, in support of my husband, in support of me sticking up for the troops, because they too supported them! Needless to say I was overwhelmed, and I had no idea that everyone in the store that night had heard the whole damn thing! The balloon douche was stunned and didn’t say anything. I looked at the Balloon Douche as if to say, “any other smart ass comments?” with my eyes, and I just left, I wanted out of there, and on my way back to the car I was becoming more pissed off because my husband was coming home tomorrow and I didn’t have any balloons! I was halfway across the parking lot when I heard a voice say, “hey wait” it was the balloon douche, he had my balloons, he apologized and gave me my balloons, and ran back into the store, no words were exchanged,  I was speechless finally, and humbled standing in the middle of the Safeway parking lot with my balloons. I wanted to say thank you, but I was still so pissed i almost wanted to leave the balloons as a ridiculous act of defiance, Like a “Fuck You Balloon douche!, I don’t even want these stupid balloons!” But I kept them. You know, I wonder now if he came out and apologized because he genuinely felt bad, or was it because the other patrons of the Safeway that night called him an asshole after I left.. I’ll never know. hmm..  Anyway, that was one hell of a tangent! But the point I was getting at is, I felt like I won a little battle of my own that night so I had a little glimmer of pride in myself on the drive back home, but the whole situation pissed me off for a week anyway! I was just fuming at this guys ignorance, so from that day I decided to just avoid telling people that my husband is Navy for fear of this situation repeating itself.  I’m not a fan of stress and if I can avoid it I will.

OK SO Anyway, back to the original topic. What should have happened to these despicable soldiers is the US should have owned up to the crimes and made efforts for punish all who were involved in the crimes, all the way to the top! Fix the problem, don’t punish those who expose the problem. By our governments lack of disciplinary action it causes people to have assbackwards opinions like Mr. Balloon Douche from Safeway, and it says to the world that WE are allowed to to whatever the hell we want, that we have no one controlling us, We don’t have to follow UN regulations, but god damn it if YOU break those regulations WE will be on your ass like white on rice!  Yeah good image America.

So I guess what I am getting at is without Bradley Manning we wouldn’t know about US War crimes, something that I firmly believe we should know about. But, without the knowledge of said crimes I wouldn’t have to constantly defend my husbands honor to Balloon Douches everywhere, and for a while I was torn because of that reason, but over the past year I have gotten over that selfishness and decided that having to stick up for my husbands honor isn’t a bad thing, it’s only a minor inconvenience, and a small sacrifice to make for truth, and much, much smaller than the sacrifice Manning made for the truth and honor of his country.  In my opinion he is not a trader, he is not an enemy of the state. He is a whistle blower, he exposed U.S. War crimes, and his actions should be applauded. As for the Peace Prize, sure why not! If someone can get the Nobel Piece Prize for NOT DOING ANYTHING, then surely exposing war crimes and being the spark that ignited the fires of the Arab Spring and the OWS movements deserves NPP.

 

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The reasons for the Peace Prize Nomination.

http://joyb.blogspot.com/2012/02/bradley-manning-nobel-peace-prize.html

The Information Age Has Forever Changed

No SOPA, but this is still a real possibility

Just a few weeks ago we were all celebrating the demise of SOPA and Protect-IP. It was a pretty great day, we all thought our internet was safe again, at least for the time being. But, and this is a big but, the past couple weeks have shown that SOPA and Protect-IP being postponed has absolutely no barring on blocking websites, banning/deleting web sites, and censoring the content of social media. Just with in the past couple weeks Twitter and Google have announced they will being censoring content. Three torrent sites have been closed down, and 300+ web sites were closed down in the United States right before the super bowl because they may have had some copyrighted sports footage, or information on the site. So apparently bills like SOPA and Protect-IP are completely useless, the government already has all the power they need to shut down and censor web content.

So why now? If the government has always had this power why are they just now beginning to exercise that power? Well I will tell you what my theory is, I‘ve touched on this theory a tad in previous blog entries, I believe it’s because of social movements like the Arab Spring, and our very own Occupy Wall Street. If you remember back when the Arab revolution first started the governments of the countries involved implemented a media blackout, they didn’t want the outside world to know what was going on and they tried their hardest to keep all information of a social/political revolution under wraps. But they forgot one thing, Social Media. People all across the Middle East took to Facebook, twitter, and blog sites like Tumbler, WordPress, and blogger to get their stories heard, their videos watched, and their pictures seen by the outside world and it worked! People took notice and the Arab Spring spread like wildfire, but that didn’t stop certain governments from trying to cover it up, The Egyptian, Libyan, Saudi Arabian and Syrian governments came under fire when they started blocking websites like Twitter and Facebook in an attempt to stop the flow of information coming out of their countries. But we, the United States said it was not right, it was anti-democracy to censor and stop the flow of information. We called them all ruthless dictators, and scolded these governments publicly on national television. We, along with NATO, even went as far as to conduct air strikes over Libya, all in the name of democracy and freedom! Sure enough the information from demonstrators began to flow freely once again, corrupt government officials resigned, or were killed and the first steps towards democracy in the Middle East had been taken. Now I know that lately the whole uprising has started up again, and there is some serious anger and unrest about how these countries are still being run, but of course this is happening, transitioning into an entirely new government is a long complicated process, just take a quick look back at united States history and you can see how long of an uphill battle it really is. Anyway, all of this happened because the citizens of those countries involved were sick of the bullshit and the only way we knew what was going on was because of Social Media.

Now this brings me to my country, the good Ol’ USA, the country that stood up for democracy, and internet freedom for Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Iran, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Ect. We supported the demonstrators, we want them to be free and democratic countries, we even celebrated right along side them when the dictators fell one by one! We took their victories and claimed them as a small victory for our nation as well. But an unexpected side effect happened in the wake of the Arab Spring. Occupy Wall Street. The beginnings of OWS has a very similar story to the Arab Spring, there was a massive American media blackout, not a single mainstream news outlet in the United States covered the beginnings of OWS, it wasn’t until people, again, took to Social Media that the word got out, we all found out and OWS spread across the world! Now, every city has it’s own Occupy movement, it would seem the Arab Spring was the gasoline American’s needed to get the flame in their hearts to ignite, it was the moment that all of us said, “hey, wait, you guys are trying to be like us, but we have a lot of problems, how does the rest of the world not know this? The world NEEDS to know this!” Thus the Occupy Movement was born, and in full swing. OWS is still going strong, not that you would know by watching the news, they hardly ever mention it, unless some violence erupts somewhere, then they are all over it. But hopefully you know as well as I do that violence is not what OWS is about, anyway, once the occupy movement started gaining real momentum, and more and more videos of police violence started to surface on Youtube and spread all over facebook it became real clear that the United States had some real problems. The government tried and tried to censor as much as they could, but by the time they started it was already too late, the world was, and is aware of our problems, everyone is now aware that The United States is not nearly as free and democratic as everyone once believed. This is a problem for our Government, more an more information is being exposed about U.S. hypocrisy and corruption daily, it makes the U.S. look bad, and it blows our entire fisade of being the freest nation on Earth! Our government needed to find a way to put an end to it, to silence the truth, so finally, big brother decided to use it’s power of censorship that it has been given through laws like the Patriot Act, and ACTA, but they wanted more control more censorship, so under the guise of piracy SOPA and Protect-IP were born, but unfortunately for the U.S. government we are all already aware of the damage bills like this could cause and we fought back, our minds have been opened and it’s going to be hard as hell to close them back up again, but they sure are trying to. By closing down information sharing websites, censoring blogs and social media, they are effectively taking away our voice to the outside world. American’s are being silenced and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it anymore. Furthermore The imprisonment, and torture of whistleblowers, and the threat of lifetime imprisonment to future whistleblowers is preventing the truth from reaching the citizens of the United States, and the world. Threats of this nature are only brought about for one reason, to keep the truth under wraps, to keep us silent, it also allows criminals and murders to continue to get away with unspeakable crimes with no punishment.

A censored, government regulated internet is happening right at this very moment, whether we want it to, or not, and I believe 100% that it is because we, as a people, voiced our anger and frustration, and we as a people exposed the those who claim to fight the very injustices they cause. I guess all I can really say at this point is, at least they aren’t trying to lie about it anymore.

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A few Articles from RT.

http://rt.com/usa/news/quiroa-superbowl-copyright-stream-471/

http://rt.com/usa/news/google-starts-censoring-blogs-375/

http://rt.com/usa/news/megaupload-data-site-government-279

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The Daily What everyone should read this blog.

http://thedailywh.at/2012/02/05/btjunkie-bites-the-dust-of-the-day/

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/twitter-censorship-policy-global-outrage_n_1238188.html

Misspoke? What Mitt Was Really Trying to Say!

This is just a quick entry, I am currently working on other, longer, entries.

So I just watched this video,((http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46250772/#46250772 )) about Mitt Romney saying he doesn’t care about the poor, and now, of course he is saying he misspoke.  Well I happen to know what he was really trying to say. He was trying to say this, “Kill, Kill, kill, kill, kill the poor” ((http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpa7wEAz7I))  But poor Mitt, he doesn’t have as good a singing voice a Jello Biafra.