I guess I always thought that at least the Medicine Bluffs would be safe from development. In fact, I just told someone today that it probably would be, since it is on an Army Base.

Source

A federal judge has blocked the U.S. Army from starting a construction project at Fort Sill in Oklahoma out of concern for the religious rights of the Comanche Nation.

The tribe says it wasn't consulted about the development of a training service center near the foot of Medicine Bluffs, a sacred site at Fort Sill. Work was scheduled to begin on Monday until Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti issued a temporary restraining order.

"The court finds that, given the nature of the interests which plaintiffs in this case seek to protect, irreparable harm will result if the construction project commences," DeGiusti wrote in the five-page order.

I was wrong.

Well before the written word or pictograph, before the alphabet or the printing press, even before media or mediums... there was fire.  The flame has been a passion of mankind's throughout history.  With it came the need for fuel.  

The closest I’ve come to trying to understand genocide, is to imagine the worst, most disgusting, evil, dehumanizing, anti-evolutionary, shameless, insatiable, vile, and incomprehensible thing imaginable – and try multiplying that by infinity.

Well in my last diary I blogged about my views for this supposed wonder car.. And overwhelmingly people agreed that more than likely it is not as they hint at..

However, It is not like we will have to wait forever to find out like the water car or other hypemobiles this one claims the curtains are coming off and all will be revealed today at 4 CST.. Hours away..

Now normally I would wait till after it is revealed to blog.. However, After getting caught up in political news I really hope this is actually true or atleast true enough to shatter the current thought process on cars..

The reason is our sellout friend Pelosi.. Who once again has decided the scary republicans are too strong to hold back and has handed them a HUGE victory in the name we are told by her fanbois and girls that if we do not the repubs will win big in November.. The question is now how can they NOT win when they will now be perceived as the "heroes" who will stop at nothing to reduce gas prices...

This bull must end and the only way we can truly end this crap fantasies of "100 years of oil if we DRILL DRILL DRILL!" is to have something hit the scene so hard it will be on even Fox News every hour...

Or at least I keep reminding myself.

I was at a party the other night, and a McCain supporter was holding forth on Iraq.

"Its about confronting evil," he says, "you should never retreat."

I considered this for a moment.  "You mean," I asked, "never ever?"

If you missed the PBS Bill Moyers Journal, this past friday night, or if not on your local PBS station, this is an Interview that should be seen, absorbed and discussed!

For Retired Army Colonel Andrew J. Bacevich, Conservative, lays out, very clearly, the wrong direction this country has set it's course on which is leading it towards destruction or a meaningless society as others fill the void of the real World Leadership!

Today two new offices opened in Virginia.  One is in Tappahannock and the other, The Middle Peninsula Office, is in Gloucester at the York River Crossing Shopping Mall.   The Gloucester office is a joint office for Obama, Warner and the 1st CD candidate Bill Day.  Bill was there to introduce himself and gave an inspiring talk.  He is running against Rob Wittman who was elected in a special election last December after the Death of Joan Davis.  Wittman's voting record for the short time he has been in congress is very bad. We hope to make this a big issue during the campaign. This is the first time an office for a presidential candidate has been opened in this region so history was indeed made today!  Obama's staff people were there today and made an impression on all there because of their organizational skills and enthusiasm.  They signed everyone up to participate in running the office, phoning, and canvassing.  More below the break.

 What do you think of when someone says "California"?
Beaches? Sunshine? Hollywood?

  How about the largest act of genocide in American history?

"The idea, strange as it may appear, never occurred to them (the Indians) that they were suffering for the great cause of civilization, which, in the natural course of things, must exterminate Indians."
 - Special Agent J. Ross Browne, Indian Affairs

Over 140 clergy sent a letter to presidential candidate Barack Obama urging him to return to the strong peace and social justice focus that helped him win the Democratic primaries.

First off I would like to state that this is my first ever diary on Daily Kos, ever since I began reading it daily since I heard about it on the Colbert Report, where I follow every word that drips out of that great prophets mouth. <-- Some good ammo for my opponent if I ever run for political office in the future. Ha.</p>

But I digress. Today I stumbled across some comments made by George Bush in regards to the Russian military action in Georgia on BBC.co.uk, and to say they seem hypocritical is an extreme understatement.

For obvious reasons, the relationship between Russia and the West is in the headlines again this weekend - see, for example, Jerome's excellent diary on the competing moral and political claims in the Caucasus or, if you're so inclined, the current front page of The New York Times.

The common history of Russia and the West is marked by a series of mutual misapprehensions, misunderstandings, and the careful cultivation, over centuries, both in that country and here of simple explanatory narratives that seek to explain the one to the other. Over the course of a thousand years, neither Russia nor the West have developed a relationship that would equally satisfy either.

Lou Dobbs could have warned the College of Cardinals about cheap Hispanic labor.  However, on this day in 1492, the College elected Roderigo Borja as Pope.  Obviously, the Italian boys were not so eager to have the job.  Their bribes were only half as much as Roderigo's, and Roderigo was willing to assimilate.  His mistresses were Italian, and he even adopted a more Italian pronunciation of his surname:  Borgia.  But his green card would have identified him as Pope Alexander VI.

WANTED: Extraterritorial location for indefinite detentions, torture of prisoners, and gigantic secret military installation.  Island preferred, remoteness a plus; must be cleared of troublesome natives and provide for completely restricted access.  Ideal landlord would consist of a compliant allied government willing to eat up the obvious bullshit that we're going to spew trying to explain the patently illegal actions we carry out on their territory.
Contact:  D. Vader, US Naval Observatory.  Seriously corrupt inquiries only.

Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where our old ally Great Britain will answer the above ad – by cravenly permitting the United States to reverse-colonize Her Majesty's empire on the island of Diego Garcia.  Upon (and in the waters near to) this speck of coral in the Indian Ocean, the British and Americans have established a base/prison/human rights deprivation facility that has played a larger role in the Global War of Terror than even Guantanamo Bay – a fact to which the Brits, at least, are finally growing wise.

In just over two weeks, Barack Obama will deliver his acceptance speech for the 2008 Democratic Party Presidential nomination to millions of viewers across the United States.  It has been a long and uplifting journey from his announcement in Springfield, Illinois on that cold and sunny February 2007 day, to his statement victory in Iowa on January 3rd, 2008, and finally to his official clinching of the delegate count on June 3rd, 2008.

This event will be truly history in the making, as the reality of the first black major-party candidate for President becomes official.  The journey from the 14th Amendment voting rights to the first black Presidential nominee has been filled with discrimination, intimidation, violence, and assassination, so the night of August 28, 2008 has sacrosanct qualities for all Americans, especially black Americans.

But what really does this moment in American history mean?

Yes it is Bush's fault. Not Cheney's - Bush's.

The entire eight year runoff Bush's Presidency was stamped with his personality.  Bush is an easily distracted, uncurious man who values personal relationships and loyalty above all else, and who believes that intuition is a more important deductive faculty than reason, at the complete expense of the latter.

As this administration bumbled its way from disaster to disaster, every scene that has been played out has been consistent with the man himself. Think back.

August 6, 2001 - "Bin Laden determined to strike America" goes ignored. And guess who happened to be on one of his many, many vacations at the time? George W. Bush.

More after the fold...

"I only regret that I have but one life to give my country." - Nathan Hale (Patriot)

One of the greatest sacrifices one can give for their country is to serve it in uniform. Despite right wing claims to the contrary; those of us on the left understand, respect and honor the service of every man and woman who has served in the armed forces. It is a deadly job. The risks of which far out weigh the pay. Indeed not only did most of the Iraq war proponents not serve, but most of their Democratic counterparts actually did!

Furthermore it's worth pointing out here at the start that Democratic Senators like Cleland (D-GA), Kerry (D-MA), Kerrey (D-NE), Robb (D-VA) and Hagel (R-NE) actually defended John McCain when he was smeared in 2000 by George W. Bush. Couple that with the parties votes on Veterans issues and there should be no question about whether or not the Democratic Party supports the troops.

Mother Jones got access to a Pentagon study done in 2002 on the lessons America could possibly learn from the great empires in history. This is a worthy question for a powerful nation like the United States to ask, particularly in terms of how America should behave towards the rest of the world. Should the United States stop being in denial that it acts like an empire? Should we stop the imperial actions and act as we believe we are, a benevolent power? Is there such a thing as a benevolent empire? At some point, someone will not like being dictated to by a distant power. We, the United States, for example, really didn't care for England dictating our affairs without representation of some kind. We kicked the English out.

At Mother Jones, Justin Elliott writes:

^{Don't Know Much About History}

In the summer of 2002, the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA) published an 85-page monograph called "Military Advantage in History." Unusual for an office that is headed by Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon's "futurist in chief," the study looks back to the past—way back. It examines four empires, or "pivotal hegemonic powers in history," to draw lessons about how the United States "should think about maintaining military advantage in the 21st century." Though unclassified, the study was held close to the vest; a stamp on the cover limits its dissemination without permission. Mother Jones obtained it only through a Freedom of Information Act request. Though the report is far from revelatory, it provides a window into a mindset that unselfconsciously envisions the United States as the successor to some of history's most powerful empires.

The study looks a little like a high school text book, devoting chapters to Alexander the Great, Imperial Rome, Genghis Khan, and Napoleonic France and citing texts by Sun Tzu, Livy, and Jared Diamond. It attempts to break down exactly how historic empires sustained their military might across continents and even centuries. The study posits that the historical examples offer "insights into what drives U.S. military advantage," as well as "where U.S. vulnerabilities may lie, and how the United States should think about maintaining its military advantage in the future." ...

Most striking is how the study conceives of the United States in imperial terms. "You'll see some neoconservatives at the beginning of the Bush administration crowing that 'we do have an empire, let's just come out of the closet and say we do,'" said Ivan Eland, the author of a book on America's "informal empire" and the director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute, on hearing a description of the study. "But the administration never did that because empire doesn't sell well with the public." After reviewing the study at Mother Jones' request, William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, said he was struck by its "arrogance and immorality." "The presumption that the United States should rule the world, sword at the ready, for the foreseeable future is an unacceptable basis for a just, even-handed foreign policy."

Elliott goes on to point out that it isn't just objectionable ideology to be found in the monograph, but factual inaccuracy as well. Given a chance to review the section on the transformation of the Roman Army over a period of 1000 years, Lee Brice of Western Illinois University, who is the president of the Society of Ancient Military Historians, described it as "so completely incorrect as to be useless."

The entire study, Brice said, is afflicted with "an intense, myopic habit of wanting to make the ancient world fit into modern stereotypes," something that might be expected in "much lower-undergraduate-level work."

It's become habitual over the past nearly eight years to tie such work to the machinations of the Cheney-Bush administration, but imperial thinking is no newcomer to American politics, nor the project of a single administration or two. In this case the idea for the study arose in 1999. Its five authors, employees of federal intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, wrote it for the Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center - a Department of Defense operation that their company has run since 1998. Elliott notes that the Carlyle Group announced in May that it will be taking over Booz Allen's government services operation.

Just as the transformation of the United States from great power to American Empire was not done on the watch of a single administration, it will not be dismantled by a single one. Just getting started on such a project will require a commitment to actually want to dismantle and the political clout to move in that direction.

Gargantuan forces - including a deeply instilled belief among most Americans that the U.S. has no empire - form a strong counterweight to any such moves. One of the strongest of those forces is the election-killing theme that any leaders who try to reduce the imperial footprint - though they do not describe it as such - are "weak on defense." Overcoming that obfuscation, then, has to be the first step.

+ + +

^{The Overnight News Digest is posted..}