short notes:<br> will brady's ruminations: 2004/08/08

short notes:
will brady's ruminations

2004-08-14

PIG DINNER

"Fast Food" it couldn't be | But these mammoth hamburgers are sold, no doubt as a gimmick menu item for the unsuspecting, gastronomically brave, or for those considering suicide by cholresterol |
I did recall seeing a blog that featured this place, but don't have any idea who or where that was | Someone else [Steve] sent the images to me | Enjoy or shudder in revulsion, whatever may be your wont |

¶ 12:09 0 comments

E-MAIL PROBLEMS

Cleartel and e-mail problems | Well, the "wbrady@rondak.org" e-mail addy still does not work | I spoke with a Cleartel tech support operative who was evasive about Cleartel having difficulties last week ...can't imagine why they can't be straightforward about this |
My solution is to start changing the addy on all my pages at rondak to the gmail one | That way at least I can ge some mail again |

¶ 09:31 0 comments

FLIGHT OF FANCY

Someday, after I'm wealthy I have plans on spending portions of my good fortune | Here's a few directions I'm planning to take:
   • Off the top, paying off all my current debt; that one was easy |
   • Get the addition to our house, plus the studio I'e wanted to put up, designed and built |
   • Establishing three separate trust funds;

• # 1 - To endow an inpatient psychiatric facility with an Advocacy Chair and Program ~ there would be strings attached; I select the candidates and do the actual hiring, training and administrative oversight, even though, on the payroll records, the staff are "employees" of the facility

• # 2 - Establish a Special Needs trust for deserving clients, including purchase of residenial dwellings, factoring in transportation needs, and personal care services

• # 3 - Develop an enterprise start-up mini-grant fund to provide seed money for up to three years for applicants to pursue self-employment initatives; factor in technical support and fiscal planning assistance

   • Acquire property for open space preservation; light recreational and/or hunting use
   • Underwrite the cost of expansion of public library services, internet use training to the general populace
   • Establish a scholarhsip fund for deserving indviduals who wish to pursue career paths in agriculture, forestry, sustainable resource development, land and wildlife management and education
   • Set Bruce up in some creative business endeavor again

   • Oh, and squirreling away a fistful of dollars to develop a personal land trust, retreat and painting studio
     Somewhere in the mix there are one two six individuals who I would do what I could to get them specialized care and services as warranted
     And a huge pot of money set aside for personal travel, well, money for travel for two, cuz I expect Bruce is going to want to come on a number of those trips
     All that said, I don't plan on immediately quitting my job, and may sit on disclosure long enough to talk it all over with my attorney and a couple of high-powered accountants |

[afterthought] Or ...I could become completely dissolute, dive into a hedonistic lifestyle and spend everything in less than three years...

¶ 00:59 0 comments

2004-08-13

WEBSITES

Too late to discuss, but
don't want to miss them altogether |

• CAT 1234 | Cat pictures, leopards, housecats, lion, cheetah ...and other fauna discovered by the site maintainers
• Lilek's.com | The sample page linked here is from Grandma's Camera"
• Chain D.L.K. | techno music

¶ 04:10 0 comments

ENVIRONMENT || MANIFESTOS

Earth Charter | The Earth Charter Manifesto begins:

We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations. For the full text...

Earth Charter USA comprises people from all walks of life who embrace the values in the Earth Charter and who seek to make these values a blueprint for a sustainable way of life in this country. An Earth Charter USA Network advances the Charter in cooperation with the Secretariat which is based at The Center for Respect of Life and Environment, an affiliate of The Humane Society of the U.S., in Washington, DC. Earth Charter USA relies on this network of Earth Charter Facilitators to introduce the Earth Charter to their communities. These individuals also represent key sectors of society including: business, religious and spiritual groups, the academic community, citizen's groups, labor groups, professional associations, the media, and many others.
Earth Charter will be coordinating a serices of conference Earth Charter Summits in October 2004

SOURCE Learned about Earth Charter from the Florida-based Weekly Planet, and from this article in particular |

¶ 03:51 0 comments

LOCAL SCENE

The Shad Shack was a working commerical fishing operation until the 1970s and based along the Connecticut River, which was fished along with Long Island Sound and various river tributaries |
The building in the picture was where the fish caught were brought to be weighed, cleaned, cut, iced and packed. A conveyor belt was used to haul the ice-packed crates up to the highway for transport to one of several Fulton Street fishmarkets in New York City | the image on the right is but one of several packing labels for

competing shops, a number of them indicating the fish was "packed exclusively for..."
The rusted shell of the conveyor belt remains on the property as a large sculptural element | While the structure is quite visible from the river, and although it is literally only 12 feet away from a major state road the structure remains otherwise quite invisible | In the 1980s it was sold and converted into a river cottage for recreational purposes. The above photo is from that period. Resold in the middle 1990s, it remained dormant until this year, and now seems to be getting revitalized.

¶ 03:21 0 comments

NO COMMENT

another bushism |

¶ 03:18 0 comments

CORPORATE CRIMINALS

Halliburton deux |
I suppose one can never have too much of a good thing... Halliburton's PR flak, Ms. Wendy Hall gripes that "only in an election year" would negative press come up about Halliburton | How rude of the media | The same thing happend with the soon to be indicted John Rowland | Here are some excerpts:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new Pentagon audit has lambasted Halliburton's accounting for billions of dollars of work in Iraq, as a Sunday deadline neared to withhold a major slice of payments to the Texas-based firm.
     Halliburton's accounting system has been disputed by Pentagon auditors for the past 18 months but the company has so far avoided any withheld payments for work done in Iraq by its unit Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR).
     Halliburton said it could weather any such action by in turn withholding payments due to subcontractors, and it disputed the latest audit.
      The auditors have also recommended the company provide detailed cost or pricing data for any bills over $100,000.
      News of the latest audit first emerged in a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday that said Halliburton had inadequately accounted for more than $1.8 billion of work in Iraq, representing 43 percent of the money that its subsidiary has billed so far for feeding and housing troops.
      Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the company strongly disagreed with the audit and believed the issue would ultimately be resolved in the company's favor.
     She said the Pentagon auditors had no authority to determine the adequacy of its estimating systems and she also disputed audit findings that Halliburton did not have a system to properly negotiate final prices.

For the full story...

Cheney pix credit from the internet

¶ 03:00 0 comments

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

AIDS / Al Qadea Link? | Humor me a moment, but don't lose sight of the fact that I'm not normally a conspiracy theory kind of guy | It was listening to the BBC on the shortwave that got me thinking that way, honest | Anyway, here goes |
Back in 1979 I was living in a little village in the mountains, population maybe 600 | We had a library with mostly free-will trades of gothic novels, adventure novels, novels for kids, and science fiction stuff | Not a whole heck of a lot else | One day, I strode in the the librarian had this plainly letered, yellow cover paperpack under the desk and pulled it out for me | "Thought you might find this interesting," she said. "Donated by somebody from the Air Base" | I shrugged, but she knew my tastes | This fell in the crypto-paranoid social-science fiction department | Took a few glances | Germ warfare experiments starting at the biowarfare reseach center in Maryland's Eastern Shore | Inoculated "volunteers" from prisons and conscientious objecter pools [conscripted "during the last war"] had themselves injected with the virus so scientists could sit back and watch | Another Tuskeegee Experiment situation, or so it seemed | "An incurable form of syphillis" | Fictional, I was told | So I had to take it |

What followed was maybe 170 pages of don't-put-that-book-down thriller | Moving the "volunteers" from Marlyand to a former Nike missle silo in Utah [loacle for another real quasi-top-secret germ warfare research site] the inmate guinea pigs are encouraged to engage in research,themselves, to find the cure for this thing, since none was known at the time the experiment began |

     The story's protagonist - and principal record keeper, guides his readers through descriptions of disease symptoms including sarcomas, increased susceptibility to all manner of illnesses, dementia and, eventually death | The underground bunker, from where all are forbidden to leave gradually becomes a disease laden nuthouse |
     There is a love story here too, though bittersweet | Seems one of the nurses falls for one of the confined and they eventually consummate their relationship | Just as the nurse is about to be quarantined into the bunker herself, she doesn't return from her life outside, and she escapes |
     The latter chapters of the book become incrasingly hallucinatory in writing style yet still some key points are clear | Among them is that, although permanantly confined, the bunker is well equipped with all manner of media reception and subscriptions to publications from around the world | The inmates and their keepers grimly track the spread of the new disease around the planet, making conjectures [confirmed, per the story line, but prior to the actual known AIDS time lines] about in what populations the disease would spread, along which well, known travel routes, and where they'd find it surfacing first | Chilling!
     Now, you may ask, what does this have to do with Al Qadea and bin Laden? | Well, it's the spread of a virus, of sorts - though one more tailored to infect that living organism Gaia | Begun at different times and locales, with the Al Qadea strain, but perhaps originated from the same dark geniuses | You know, crypto, military characters |
     The Al Qaeda strain released in Afghanistan while the Russkies were still Cold War adversaries | And, like it's AIDS comparison, still with no known cure | Maybe the book that goes with this latter disease has an answer, maybe not | The other book didn't |

Image source: all from random Google Image searches | Images probably copyrighted | regarding the book: No I no longer have it; it got lost among many sundry moves | Would be interested in hearing if anyone else has stumbled across it, however | There's also Charlie Wilson's War, a history of the covert operations in Afghanistan that helped in the creation and development of Al Qaeda | Regarding other conspiracies that have been documented check out Chemtrail Central

¶ 02:59 0 comments

2004-08-12

ENVIRONMENT

Teflon, it seems ~ sticks | The [USA] Environmental Protection Agency last month charged that Dupont has been concealing evidence about some chemicals used in the production of the ubiquitous plastic surfacing product |
The chemical in question, perflourooctanoic acid [aka PFOA or C-8]has been showing up in samples of human blood as well as public water supplies | Tested in rats, in a study done in India, and published by the National Library of Medicine, researchers found that "From the present data, it is concluded that PFOA is a true liver cancer promoter that may not require extensive initial DNA damage for its promoting activity..."
So where does this put Dupont? | In a quandry, to say the least | Long riding smooth on a fairly positive environmental record [considering what the company markets in ~ chemicals] documents released in an Freedom of Information [FOI] request indicate that Dupont compnay attorneys, back in at least the year 2000, were fussing over whether to just settle with local communities rather than get involved in litigation against them | Apparently, Dupont knew as far back as 1984 that PFOA was tracable | At any rate, one lawsuit is alread in the works, in Ohio,

where Teflon is produced, and in China, [a huge potential market] they've seen Teflon coated products taken off the shelves |
     And where does that leave me? | In a quandry as well | I've long believed people should make informed decisions about what they include in their daily living habits | And people are just too damned casual about not making logical connects between what they do and how it affects them | Certainly, Dupont has some culpability, especially insofar as to what and for how long they knew about any unwanted negative effects from their products [and in the making of them]
     So too, the consumers have some responsibility as well | After all, let's be real here folks, you wouldn't eat plastic normally | Yo've got to realize that the stuff scraped off the fry pan has to be going somewhere! Me? I cook with a cast iron skillet, never did like the coated aluminum stuff | They last a long time, sure they may rust, but I'm already anemic, so a little iron won't hurt me |
     Go after Dupont if you need to... if tracable birth defects, or clearly attributed cognitive defects, can be found, for instance | But don't be going after 'em if your suddenly feel so traumatized that only a fat cash settlement with cure you | That's fraud, too |

¶ 08:51 0 comments

2004-08-11

DRUG WARS

Medical marijuana is bad but forced pharmeceutical drugging of kids is good? | Oh I get so confused | Perhaps because Dubya and Tom Ridge get mega-dollars from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis AG, AstraZeneca PLC, GlaxoSmithKline, and Eli Lilly, there's some connection here | In contrast, I doubt that the erstwhile growers of Mendocino County's [and probably Hawa'ii's] largest cash crop are forking over their dollars to fund these guys |
     I've been meaning to do something on the move from the Bush Administration to first "assess" kids in public schools for "mental illness" [is a similar move going on with applicants to Phillips Exeter Academy? to name but one] and so this entry is way overdue |
     Really, it isn't all that much different than the stunts that Dr. Fred Goodwin [formerly with the NIMH] tried to do with the much ballyhooed Violence Initative | This race-centered project was later criticized as a thinly disguised attempt at diagnosing African American youth as prone to mental illness and violence |
     Only, this time, it's not just kids in trouble, nor is the mere diagnosis of someone with a psychiatric disorder the complete problem |
     No, this go-round, the drug companies seem so intent on pushing their product, that they are less concerned about public safety and welfare | Targeting the poor, [who would have difficulty protesting when doped up to the max] these new initiatives effectively endorse the "...widespread misuse of psychotropic drugs in ...state mental health system[s], ...correctional system[s], and Juvenile welfare system[s]..." around the nation [USA].
     In a lawsuit filed recently in Pennsylvania, Dr. Stefan Kruszewski pointed out the indiscriminate misuse of psychotropic drugs in ...institutionalized people is "unsupported by clinical studies or any viable evidence to support their recommended use." The drugs whose use he disputes include Neurontin, Paxil, Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel, Topamax, Trileptal and Zyprexa.
     Already Risperdal and Zyprexa are known to assist in someone "converting" to diabetes and, [where I work at least] some licensed clinicans freely speak [in front of the rest of us who work with them, but certainly off the record] about Neurontin as "virtually worthless." | So, the circumstantial evidence mounts that with Dubya, Inc's tacit support, the push to drug his opposition and future generations is one more deceitful ~and deplorable~ practice |
     Oh for a breath of fresh air!

for more info on rights of psychiatric patients: Law Project for Psych Rights | Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law | MindFreedom | National Empowerment Center

¶ 23:46 0 comments

WIND GENERATION

Windmills have long been relable energy producing tools | Now, in California, they may become even more so | Thanks to the dubious fleecing of that state by the big brains from ENRON, the state's electricity management board has agreed to endorse electrical generation via windmills to the tune of 92.2 million dollars
The website Use Green Power reports:

" With a post-energy crisis state law ordering utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from "renewable" sources by 2017, state officials say the Tehachapi area has the potential to grow from 600 megawatts of wind power to as much as 4,500, with another 400 megawatts in Los Angeles County."

It's been estimated that after all the wind generatos are built in the area, they coul dproduce enough electricity to power 100,000 to 200,000 homes | The biggest downside would be looking at the non-polluting generator farms |

¶ 23:30 0 comments

CORPORATE CRIMINALS

Halliburton in the news again | One story from the Wall Street Journal [the first of the two], another [the second] from the Associated Press | Though, frankly, it reads very close to one published in last Thursday's New York Times, albeit with a more negative spint toward the plantiffs [former Halliburton Employees] than the defendants [Halliburton and Mr Cheney] |

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pentagon auditors have concluded that Halliburton Co. failed to adequately account for more than $1.8 billion of work in Iraq and Kuwait, the Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday, citing a Pentagon report.
     The amount represents 43 percent of the $4.18 billion that Houston-based Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit has billed the Pentagon to feed and house troops in the region, the newspaper said.
     It said the findings in the 60-page Pentagon audit report, dated Aug. 4 but not publicly released are likely to increase pressure on the U.S. government to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars of payments to Halliburton.
     According to the newspaper Halliburton has until Sunday, after two prior extensions, to provide Army officials with all necessary cost information for its logistical work in Iraq and other locales.
     This could lead to the withholding of as much as $600 million of payments, though KBR officials are confident the Army will again extend the deadline, and the Army is considering doing so, it said.
     Halliburton shares closed on Tuesday at $29.83 on the New York Stock Exchange.

There's More...

DALLAS (AP) - Four former employees claim that Halliburton Co. engaged in systematic accounting fraud, according to a filing in a class-action lawsuit against the oilfield-services giant.
     The fraud allegedly occurred from 1998, when Vice President Dick Cheney ran Halliburton, to 2001. Cheney, who left Halliburton in August 2000, was not named as a defendant in the filing.
     The former finance employees say that Halliburton divisions routinely inflated their results by overstating amounts due from customers and understating money owed to vendors.
     The four employees charged that Halliburton and its top executives "intentionally engaged in serial accounting fraud."
     The filing claims that in late 2001 Halliburton executives misled investors about the company's liability to pay asbestos-related claims. The executives did not disclose for 10 weeks that the company had been ordered to pay a $130 million verdict in Texas - when the case did become public knowledge, Halliburton shares fell 42 percent in one day.
     Houston-based Halliburton inherited many of the asbestos claims through a 1998 acquisition of rival Dresser Industries, one of Cheney's main accomplishments as chairman and CEO.
     Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said the verdict wasn't disclosed sooner because the company it would be reversed on appeal and that insurance would cover the claims anyway.
     Hall also rejected the allegations that Halliburton systematically overstated billings and understated costs. She said the company had a toll-free hotline for employees to report concerns about business practices, but that there were no records of any complaints matching those in the court filing.

There's more...
Who to believe? | better get a score card |

¶ 22:22 0 comments

2004-08-10

NETIQUETTE

A cyber Emily Post has brought to us in one place a clean, concise book [and e-book, incidentally] that everyone can have on hand |
Virginia Shea has [together with her students and a host of advisors] compiled what can from now on be a guideline for civil discourse while online | As with Guy Kawasaki, who wrote the book's Foreword, set this one right next to Strunk + White | And if you don't want the print version, then go and bookmark this amongst your favorites |

Thanks to: Londa, who posted this on one of the discussion groups I frequent |

¶ 08:20 0 comments

PACK RAT TENDENCIES

It ought to be my shame but, like many others, I've gone and rented a storage bin to keep the "stuff" I've accumulated over the years | And I've started emplying out the attic and spare room [my old "office", now hidden underneath things] And much of what's in the storage bin is books | Though I'm partial to books with illustrations and photographs, the subject matter and content of those books vary widely | The "shame" part is keeping books where I can't get at them |
Mind you, I store other things there as well | Couches, camping equipment, finished canvases that I haven't room to store at home [to be honest, I would get bored if surrounded only by my own work], an assortment of tools [drill press, bandsaw, etc] that I hope to use again some day | So it's not a waste of space I suppose |
It's not like I've gone overboard and rented a storage condo | I'm just trying to save valuable stuff without getting excessive | How does that make me any

different than the hundreds of others who rent spaces where I do? | They can't all be pack rats, eh? | I mean, I don't even have the book | At least, in storing things in a large rent-a-shed, I do it neatly |
Actually, not everybody would agree | Laura Billings wrote recently that, in her opinion, the best place for storage is the dumpster | I know my partner Bruce might agree with this | If so, maybe he can hire me Clutterboy to help haul everything away |

pix credit: Tom Anderson, aka Clutterboy got a write up in the Los Altos [CA] Town Crier in 2003 |

¶ 08:11 0 comments

2004-08-09

WEBSURFING

While Rondak's pix files were down,
I came across these sites |

• Lewis Carroll's Scrapbook |
• All Day Permanent Red | Bloggery of a humanities post-academic working in software development and living in San Francisco |
• BBC Prozac report stating that so many Brits are on this drug that it's showing up in the water supply |
• morehouse.org | A hacker's paradise | A conspiracy theorist's dream | Here's an older version: morehouse.org 4.0 |

¶ 09:56 0 comments

2004-08-08

WEBPAGE PROBLEMS

Cleartel: Day 2 is still, apparently, down, today | Only now when I call I get a pre-recorded message indicating the office is closed until Monday | SO... my images are still not coming up | Anyway, as today is as pleasant weatherwise... [see yesterday's entry on this]
On top of that, some brush needs clearing to make a new archery target range, I have a bushel of fresh peaches to put up, and people are coming over for dinner tonight | Things ta do that are pre-internet distractions |

Thanks for your patience ~ Will

¶ 11:49 0 comments

LOCAL SCENE || MUSIC

Restaurant Pix Credit: Lorenzo Cacace

Lorenzo Cacace is a consummate casual host | And his establishment, LaVita Gustosa, a pleasant fare for hosting | Last night, I went for music and was treated to some hard-edged

enthusiastic jams from a put-together group of Connecticut lads who call themselves Naked Lunch | the first set of images are members of the band; Ken, Tano (the drummer), Chris, and Jim | Should have gotten their last names and some way to contact them but after a couple of

brews and a smooth brandy toast... |
Good thing I was only a half mile from home | The second group of images; mostly people there to be entertained but some of whom took part as well | It was a rowdy raucus bunch | Enjoyed it throughly |
Some other things about the establishment include the fact that they host surprisingly top quality open mike night contenders on Thursday evenings, and they are WIFI friendly; so bring your laptop if you are so inclined | La Vita is in East Haddam, CT, just across the swinging bridge and opposite the Goodspeed Opera House [until 2008, when GOH moves to Middletown]

[8-8-04] PIX UPDATE: Cleartel continues to have problems with access | Sometimes it works other times it doesn't | The pix got uploaed about an hour ago, then the site went down again |

¶ 04:05 0 comments