REQUIRES A SECOND LOOK

   Reminded me of a Sci-fi thriller. Transformer vs Fish Cloud.

     It was an odd and solitary cloud. Please note-I was not the odd and solitary shopper at the big box parking lot to pause and snap a shot, there were others taking note as well. 

       At first glance we thought it was a stuffed animal put atop the ledge at the Vets Hall on Farmer's market Friday.

        No, he was the real deal and seems to wish I'd get out of the way so he can keep an eye on his companion, busy at the market. 

screwing our veterans

      More than 700 veterans, family members and former employees of a Halliburton subsidiary were kicked in the teeth by a federal judge who dismissed a major lawsuit against the defense contractor over burn pit operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

        The Vets alleged the burn pits caused them chronic and deadly respiratory diseases and cancer. 

        Patricia Kime of McClatchy news reports US District Court Judge Roger Titus wrote that the company, KBR, could not be held liable for a military decision. The judge said he didn't have jurisdiction to hold the Pentagon responsible. 

         The suit had tied together cases across the US and included 63 specific complaints and 44 national class action suits.

        KBR operated the burn pits running them near where troops lived and worked. Allegedly KBR burned stuff that should not have been put in the pits; paint, batteries, computers, fuel, plastic, medical waste. 

       Plaintiffs report a range of diseases resulting from exposure, including life threatening conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, neurological issues, cancer and constrictive bronchiolitis. 

       The judge said KBR was just following orders and that it was a military matter.  Victims and family members are furious. 

       It is pretty much par for the course. We put men and women in harms way, sometimes even greater jeopardy because of poor command decisions, and then we leave vets holding the bag. Combine that with the Inspector General's finding of wholesale fraud and waste in both wars-in the Billions, and you are left with corporations that made huge war profits, bonuses for executives and our loyal troops sick and dying and no one is held responsible. 

      It is important to recall that many of these war contracts were no bid deals, engineered by Dick Cheney for his Halliburton and KBR pals.

      It's a damned shame we don't better respect, honor and treat those who serve. It is a continuing stain in our history, but so too is war profiteering. Has been ever such. Another of many reasons war is indeed, hell.
      Maybe the Republican majority in Congress and the Republican president will come to the aid of the distressed vets of Iraq and Afghanistan. What's to stop them?   

     See you down the trail.   

     

THE BAG BAN & A LOOK INSIDE THE EMBASSY

  ...OF THE PEOPLE

BY THE PEOPLE...

     So now the people are debating plastic bags.  San Luis Obispo County, which pioneered no smoking in restaurants, 

is in the process of voting whether or not to ban plastic bags at all stores.

      The plastic bag lobby, hiding behind a so called health and environmental front group, has mounted an extensive campaign to keep the bags, arguing cloth or canvas bags are unhealthy.  Tell that to the Europeans who have used non plastic bags for centuries and whose experience has been invoked and weighed in the debate.  

     This is one of the healthiest, fittest, most natural and

organic pockets in the world, so many folks already travel 

with their own reusable bags.  Still the democratic process is at work, which means at least one law suit, and while it is 

not making national headlines, it is a good local fight. 

Stay tuned.

ANOTHER HOT ISSUE

      The US government will reduce the staff of the Iraq embassy by one half, leaving much of the $750 Million complex unused. The situation in country is bad enough the government can not justify the $6 Billion annual budget. Including contractors, the number of employees in the complex has risen to 16,000. The State Department and Pentagon have begun to acknowledge they may have over deployed.

     Link here to see a New York Times photo tour of the complex.

     HERE'S ONE THING YOU CAN DO WITH OLD STUFF

 Scene along Highway 41 between Morro Bay and Atascadero

DAY BOOK

California Succulents

See you down the trail.

THE IMPOSSIBLE

GOOD AND BAD
from root to branch

Do you find it difficult to hold opposites in your mind

at the same time?

Before you answer, here's a little ditty from

Lewis Carroll.

Alice is speaking with the queen

"There's no use trying," she said "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice." said the Queen. "When I was your

age I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many

as six impossible things before breakfast."

 Frame this in your own sense of possible.

Stanford University has offered a free online course that has

has attracted 58,000 students. That's four times the size

of the school's enrollment.

I find this exciting and perhaps even a dawning.

 Consider this from the New York Times

The class on artificial intelligence is one of three being offered by Stanford’s computer science department and will be taught by two leading AI experts, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig.

Thrun led an effort at Stanford to build a robotic car that drove 132 miles over unpaved roads in a California desert. Lately, he has spearheaded a Google project to develop self-driving cars, many of which have already been tested successfully on American roads.

Norvig is Google's director of research and a former NASA scientist. He has also written a widely read textbook on artificial intelligence.

The online students will not get grades or credit for participation, but they will be ranked in comparison to their online classmates.

Thurn explained that the course was part of an effort to increase the accessibility of once cost-prohibitive higher-education. “The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” he told the Times.

What amazing advances might emerge. What creative solutions could occur.

AND THEN

There is the Pentagon Budget process, another place that can't be reached or the embodiment of thinking the impossible not only before breakfast, but constantly.

McClatchy Newspapers reports it is practically impossible to get an accurate and thorough account of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 

 Impossible to know how much we are spending.  

One estimate puts it at $3.7 Trillion or as McClatchy reports "$12,000 per American."

As we suffer a budget and economic crisis we don't even possess the tools to understand how and where to cut where we should.

These wars are THE economic crisis.

I guess our President and Congressional leaders can't hold two opposing ideas in mind.

Nor do they seem to recall the words of the highest ranking US Military leader ever. 

He was also our Commander in Chief.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

— Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961 Presidential Farewell Address

See you down the trail.