The Press and Mass Hysteria: :::::How far will we descend?:::Watching Senator Clinton's transit and eclipse as the men sweep out the female interloper

click Hillary posing with the ambassador from Trunobulax, to enlarge...

If you follow the Democratic Presidential nomination, you may have seen the swell of articles in the 'papers, Websites/blogs/and news sites, predicting the demise of Hillary Clinton. All of a sudden, the press have descended like the pack of jackals they are (and God bless them BTW). Now her star is falling, and it's open season.

You may have noticed I love politics. . .and hardball, and if you're in the game you have to be able to pitch and hit the hardballs. Beginning with the withdrawal of Senator Joe Biden from the race (really, the only person I could wholeheartedly get behind), I have become extremely dejected. Today, the Drudge Report and other media outlets focused on Hillary's "emotional" statement yesterday: "Senator Hillary Clinton got emotional and had tears in her eyes as she spoke with voters about how hard it is to balance a busy campaign life and her passion for the country's future." Got emotional!? If she had been angry, of course, it would not have been characterized as emotional, but reported something like "Hillary Clinton gives spiritied response to heckler." On the Drudge report main page alone today, these articles all appeared. . .none of which portray Sen. Clinton or her campaign in a favorable light:

HILLARY UNLOADS: YOU'RE NO MARTIN LUTHER KING
HILLARY TEARS IN EYES...
'IT'S NOT EASY'
...VIDEO...
Rivals React...
VIDEO: BILL SAYS HE CAN'T MAKE HILLARY 'YOUNGER, TALLER, MALE'...
...Answers call from wife during speech: 'I love you!'
FLASH: RASMUSSEN South Carolina: Obama 42% Clinton 30%...
NEW HAMPSHIRE 2008...
DIXVILLE NOTCH: First votes counted; Clinton gets none...
WASH POST HILLARY VIDEO: 'FIRED UP AND READY TO BORE'...
VIDEO: 'Iron My Shirt!': Screaming Men Disrupt Clinton Event...
MAG: Clinton campaign faces a 'cash crunch'...
TALK OF HILLARY EXIT ENGULFS CAMPAIGN...
'She did not work this hard to get out after one state! All this talk is nonsense'...
Clinton Fires Back: Obama, Edwards Given 'Free Ride'...

Man, oh man, oh man, oh man. I have read Matt Drudge for years and am able to read him with a good filter. But this is just depressing. Everyone is unloading on Senator Clinton. Yeah, she may have "asked for it" (another allusion that used to be used to explain away rape), and that's life when you're the front runner. Well, she isn't the front runner anymore. And it feels like people are taking advantage of the situation. Now that she's down, it's time to give her a curb stomp. And yet today, her campaign, and perhaps the Senator herself have begun playing the race card: "HILLARY UNLOADS: YOU'RE NO MARTIN LUTHER KING." I thought ganging up on Hillary was depressing. But her campaign's apparent reaction is even more depressing. . .if it can be tracked backed to her strategists. I guess it probably can.

Today, in Dover, Francine Torge, a former John Edwards supporter, said while introducing Mrs. Clinton: “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually” passed the civil rights legislation. So now, the Senator's camp is playing the race card? This is even more depressing than the rest of the news! And to boot, they toss in the assassination card.

Quoting from the New York Times politics blog:

"Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have been in a running feud arising from her suggestion at Saturday’s debate that he was raising “false hope.”

"Mr. Obama responded that Mr. Kennedy did not decide going to the moon was a false hope and that Martin Luther King, Jr. did not see ending segregation as such.

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama’s rejoinder by Fox’s Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. “It took a president to get it done.”

"The Obama campaign declined to comment on either of those remarks."

This has become so disheartening that I have thought of abandoning politics here altogether, skipping the caucus, and maybe even not bothering to vote. That won't happen, but I am sitting here utterly dejected tonight. This has not been a good week. It's rare when I get the blues, but these past few days have trying. A co-worker committed suicide, and now it feels like the political party I have worked for since I doorbelled for Sen. George McGovern in Oregon in 1972 is also committing suicide.

I can live with whoever we finally nominate. I will work for and send money to whoever we nominate, but tonight, I'm not feeling the love; I'm not feeling the passion; what I am feeling is down down down. You may have correctly apprehended that I am a glass half-full person. Tonight I am down to the corners.

The corners is about as obscure a reference as you could possibly find. It isn't even Google-able. Let me explain. Hobos often collected old (capped) liquor bottles. If you hold a lighter to an empty bottle of vodka, gin, bourbon, etc., the residual liquor, say, half an ounce or so, will slowly collect in a corner at the bottom of the bottle. If you have enough bottles, you may even get a buzz. So far this campaign has transmogrified me from a relentless optimist of the glass half-full school to searching for corners.
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Drudge Report predicts Hillary exit, stage left

Senator Hillary Clinton: relegated to the shadows?

According to the Drudge Report, tomorrow's likely double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a collapse in national polls and a probable drastic fund-raising slowdown are pushing Hillary Clinton to pull out of the race.

"Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?! 'She can't take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada," laments one top campaign insider to the DRUDGE REPORT. "If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn't want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats."Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary "could soon be out." "Her money is going to dry up," Edwards confided, a top source said Monday morning.

"Key players in Clinton's inner circle are said to be split. James Carville is urging her to fight it out through at least February and Super Tuesday, where she has a shot at thwarting Barack Obama in a big state. "She did not work this hard to get out after one state! All this talk is nonsense," said one top adviser. But others close to the former first lady now see no possible road to victory, sources claim. "

Take it for what it's worth. Matt Drudge is often right on the money. On the other hand, he has also had headlines about the John Edward's love-child, and an unnamed Obama scandal, neither of which actually materialized. Neither of those two bogus stories were ever retracted or corrected.


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Please Please Me Video: One of the great early Beatles' tunes

And then Paul McCartney repspectably covered the old tune on a recent DVD:


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The India Traffic cam video

I have to thank Dean Ericksen's blog for posting this one. At first, it looked like, yeah, an Asian city's traffic cam. As I watched it twice, I realized, no, what this is is a schematic animation of my brain in action. This is exactly what it feels like--for better or worse--in my head.


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Huckabee & Obama take the Iowa contest

click the winners to enlarge

Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama took the Republican and Democratic caucus votes in Iowa on Wednesday, and in the Democratic race, left Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd on the sidelines, as they dropped out of the race. Mitt Romney is sweating. Hillary Clinton "the electable one" is really sweating. John Edwards feels OK. He survived another day. Rudy? McCain? Richardson? The rest of the pack? Hanging on by their fingernails, or mired in the back where they've always been...

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Political hero Joe Biden throws in the towel; hold your nose and stand behind Edwards or Obama

click to enlarge Senator Joe Biden

Senator Joe Biden was right. A campaign video:



Sadly, but unfortunately wisely, Senator Biden announced following the Iowa caucuses that he was abandoning his run for the Presidency. I had always hoped that Senators Edwards, Clinton, and Obama would decimate each other and that the populace would race to embrace Smilin' Joe in the breach. It became clear last night that was not going to happen, and the Senator decided to shut down his shoestring operation.

Senator Biden went his own way this time around, and often during the debates, the other candidates would admit "Joe is right," or "Joe Biden said it best," or "As Joe pointed out." The Senator brought great ideas and candor to the race, and he would have brought those same ideas and values to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Fortunately, we still have Joe to kick around. He is, after all, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (one of the most important committees in Congress).

Joe Biden's concession/withdrawal speech from YouTube:



Like Mario Cuomo of years past, this was a guy I really wanted to be my President. Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, I held my nose and mailed in the check or doorbelled for. . .I could get behind Joe. But that was not to be.
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Suicide, and getting through

I found out this morning, on returning to work after our blissfully long Christmas vacation, that a long-time co-worker had taken his life. He shot himself in his car.

I liked him. He was one person I could always trust when I asked design questions, and who would patiently walk me through (with some good-natured sighing about my ignorance) whatever question I posed. Even if he was working 18 hours a day, he would take the time to answer my questions and school me. He was intense, cranky, insistent, and smart as a whip (like all great designers). He's gone.

Between the time I was about 25 and 30, two friends, Jannah Hill and Peter Whitten, and my brother-in-law Colin Curran, took their own lives. I thought (no, hoped) those days were behind me (and there isn't much I wish to be already behind me). The death of my friend, reopens those old thoughts and regrets,. Could I have sensed something, or said anything if I had sensed something? Shouldn't I have known? Have I wasted my life doing what I am doing? Don't people who work side by side, in the end, have a sacred, really, a familial, responsibility for each other? Do we miss the signs, or do they carefully cover their tracks when they decide to leave this life?

When I was 17-20, I worked on a crisis hotline, and some calls came from people both toying with, and seriously contemplating, suicide. I know I changed at least one person's mind (or at least got them to cool off for a few days), and that when I checked a few years later, they were still among us. There were others where I never knew what finally happened. I don't think I had a gift or anything...just an overwhelming belief that you never know what tomorrow brings and that if you put off the moment, you just may see your way through. The death of my friend/co-worker brings that all back. . .I wonder if it isn't time to get back in?

In this country, thirty thousand people a year end their own lives. Last summer, we went to NYC where a lot of the family participated in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's "out of the darkness" walk, where thousand of people marched overnight to raise money (millions!) for research and prevention. This year's walk will be in NYC and Seattle (New York: June 7-8, 2008/Seattle: June 21-22, 2008.

Man, if you can pull even one person through to the next day, you never know! You don't know if he had planned this for years or if it was a bad moment, or if the turning point (and the way back) was just around the corner! Tomorrow, you could get it all back or turn the corner on the darkness.

I send my prayers and good vibrations to his family and friends that they can emerge from this whole, or mostly intact. And to Dream, "may the four winds blow you safely home."

I wrote this poem after my brother-in-law Colin took his life in 1983, and it kind of applies, still.


The Absence of Footprints

1.
We're not trilliums or daffodils
That spring back up
After a nap in the dirt.

2.
You told me you wanted
To make the crossing
Over to Cold Island
And I could never believe you.

It wasn't the karmic stain
That bothered me,
But the unfathomable fact
You didn't want to be here;
That all this wasn't enough.

All this is that.
And it wasn't enough.

3.
You stare into the ditch
You spent years unloading.

You are afraid to climb in
And stop,

To take something
That isn't working,
and make it not work forever.

4.
It's
so
quiet
you
hear
dust
motes
six
feet
up
bump
in
shafts
of
sunlight.
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Obama climbing...with one day to go to the Iowa caususes

click to enlarge Obama, Edwards, and Clinton

Barack Obama pulls in 32 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers, up from 28 percent in the Des Moines Register's late November poll, while Hillary Clinton, held steady at 25 percent and Ex-Senator John Edwards held at 24 percent. This leaves Hillary with a fair shot at coming in third. The poll reflects continued insanity and volatility in the contest, even now the year of campaigning In Iowa is over. One third of likely caucusgoers say they could be persuaded to choose someone else before Thursday evening!!!
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Alien Lore No.121: The Telepathic Aliens In Kent (England)

This is a fascinating story from Bufora (the British version of MUFON, the national UFO network located here in Seattle). Here are some of the most interesting "facts." To read the entire, baffling story, go here.

Judy Jaafar's findings in the Bromley, Kent, 24th August 2003 alien sighting and her interview and investigation:

• Judy Jaafar investigated the case initially in 2003, but even this year, BUFORA was contacted BUFORA by email, trying to tell her stories to other, perhaps more receptive ears.


• Two investigators were dispatched to research "what turned out to be some of the strangest testimony we have ever heard." One them ran a tape recorder, and the other took notes.


• Sarah is clearly and undoubtedly the dominant of the two personalities, but she defers to John the channeler of spirits, and latterly aliens, but deferring in a way that assures his compliance.


• Both Sarah and John say they have no knowledge of alien lore and have never read a book or magazine on the subject, nor seen any films.


• Linda can be a grey or take human form, and in both forms he can be visible or invisible. John is channele and a psychic, who is more "open" to greys since meeting Sarah. Sarah first saw greys in 1986 lying in her beach hut in Negril, Jamaica, sick wither a collapsed lung and fever. The greys arrived to help. According to Sara, the "Greys are supremely intelligent and give information to humans in all disciplines - science, medicine, arts etc. They are here to help, and in fact are the "godparents" to many planetary civilisations.

• "The greys NEVER abduct people, or do experiments on them. "They have no need to as they know humanity inside out. Human spirits can, however, meet them on the astral plane and this might be mistaken for abduction."


• The greys sustain themselves by ingesting a homeopathically refined liquid made from pure water and certain herbs. They drink this through their mouths and it is deposited in a reservoir which we would call a stomach. They have no other end to the digestive tract, no bowels, therefore excretion is impossible. They extract the "energy" from this liquid and use it up totally.


• They use "energy" also to procreate. There is no sexual union as such (so
  presumably no sexual organs).


• Any 3-4ft tall greys seen by othe people must be juveniles, as they are
  around 7ft tall when mature.


• Greys can choose to be reincarnated as humans, whereupon they take very
  cerebral jobs because they are so clever.


• They live for 200-300 years, and just stop energising in order to die. This is to make way for the younger generation.


• The greys come from the planet Sirius D, and Sirius A is their sun. There was no mention of Sirius B or C. One third of the planet surface is covered by fresh water, but no salty seas. The flora is green and lush, and the climate mild. No mention of fauna, or other humanoid species. There is no pollution and the inhabitants live in simple but sophisticated buildings, generally sort of "round".


• On the home planet, the greys use "energised" vehicles which Sarah calls "flying caravans". She showed us a sketch she'd drawn of one of these, and it did look for all the world like a flying box with windows and door.




• There are schools and recreational facilities. They're not much into sport but do enjoy swimming and boating. Mostly they prefer mental games like chess in order to relax. The family is everything, and the grays as a race are very gregarious and sociable, as evidenced by their partiality to communal jacuzzis. [Ed note: this is a little scary, knowing my love of hot tubs, and hot springs.]


• They have a senate of fifty individuals, just as a guide, since no-one ever does anything wrong, and the senate retires every so often to allow the younger individuals some experience.

• There is no illness or poverty or hardship.


• John perceives that there are other alien races out there, but the greys have never told him this. To "tune in" he just relaxes.


• The greys will not give any information about future developments because we need to find our own answers, but they can nudge us in the right direction from time to time.


• The greys do not have a concept of God. They are completely self-sufficient and at one with the universe, so have no need of such ideas.




• Telepathy, which is their preferred mode of contact, will become common amongst humans after our next developmental leap.


• Darwin's theory of evolution is wrong. [ed note: !!!]


• For distances of more than 300 million miles, the greys use an interstellar rocket. Sarah had a sketch of one, and it was blunt nosed, truncated and had three tail fins. It reminded me of Thunderbirds. It takes three months to get here from the home planet. They can, of course, just teleport if they wish, but as they're very "communal" they like to travel together in a physical way.


• On shorter trips they use a conventional flying saucer, and Sarah showed us her sketch of this also. When in our atmosphere, the greys travel in a miniature version of the above saucer.


• They never allow their craft to be seen, as they have very efficient cloaking technology. UFO sightings cannot be attributed to the greys, definitely.


• There have never been any crashed saucers from their civilisation - they're far too smart for that.


• They have no bases here on earth.


• The long, hot summer was caused by the energy from their massed craft in our atmosphere.


• To Dan Bright's (ufologyinuk) question about residual alien artifacts: the pyramids of Giza and meso-America are their legacy.


• To Joe's (ufologyinuk) question about the Mars probes: no information on that, but will ask. They do know, however, that Mars once supported an intelligent civilisation.


• To several questions about the mysterious "energy" the greys seem to use for everything, including their propulsion systems on their anachronistic rockets: "don't know".


• There are male and female genders amongst the greys, but it's hard to tell the difference.


• Anyone can in theory be able to see the greys, but only if you are imbued with truth, sincerity, love and lack of fear and ignorance.


• All especially talented people (several historical luminaries were mentioned) are influenced by the greys, or are actually greys themselves in human disguise.

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The absurdity of excesive air traveler scrutiny

The New York Times blog on air travel--Jet Lagged--had a great editorial (The Airport Security Follies), on December 28th, by Patrick Smith, a commercial pilot and the author of Salon's "ask the pilot." Read the full editorial here.

"Six years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, airport security remains a theater of the absurd. The changes put in place following the September 11th catastrophe have been drastic, and largely of two kinds: those
practical and effective, and those irrational, wasteful and pointless. The
first variety have taken place almost entirely behind the scenes. Explosives
scanning for checked luggage, for instance, was long overdue and is perhaps the most welcome addition.

"Unfortunately, at concourse checkpoints all across America, the madness of passenger screening continues in plain view. It began with pat-downs and the senseless confiscation of pointy objects. Then came the mandatory shoe removal, followed in the summer of 2006 by the prohibition of liquids and gels. We can only imagine what is next."
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Alien Lore No. 120 - Jack Brummet observing an alien autopsy at Area 51

click to enlarge

click here for more Alien Lore links on All This Is That.

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Happy New Year: We start 2008 out at the Yellow National Security Threal Level

It's not DefCon 5, but here is what the TSA expects you to do during a Yellow National Security Threal Level

- Develop a family emergency plan. Share it with family and friends, and practice the plan.
- Visit www.Ready.gov for help creating a plan.
- Create an “Emergency Supply Kit” for your household.
- Be informed. Visit www.Ready.gov or obtain a copy of “Preparing Makes Sense, Get Ready Now” by calling 1-800-BE-READY.
- Know how to shelter-in-place and how to turn off utilities (power, gas, and water) to your home. Examine volunteer opportunities in your community, such as Citizen Corps, Volunteers in Police Service, Neighborhood Watch or others, and donate your time.
- Consider completing an American Red Cross first aid or CPR course , or Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) course .
- Review stored disaster supplies and replace items that are outdated. Be alert to suspicious activity and report it to proper authorities.
- Ensure disaster supply kit is stocked and ready.
- Check telephone numbers in family emergency plan and update as necessary.
- Develop alternate routes to/from work or school and practice them.
- Continue to be alert for suspicious activity and report it to authorities.
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