Max Blumenthal Battles Joe Scarborough over "Conservatism"

This morning, on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," author and honorary Alaska blogger, Max Blumenthal, battled host Joe Scarborough over the difference between what Scarborough thinks is the legacy of recent American "conservatism," and what Blumenthal has uncovered to be what that "conservatism" has actually become, in terms of GOP power:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Iditarod Musher Vern Halter Wins His Mat-Su Assembly Seat with 1,049 Votes - Weird, Huh?

Mat-Su Mayor

• Talis Colberg - 9,001 votes

• John Leiner - 2,207 votes

Assembly District 3

• Ronald Arvin - 929 votes

• Michelle Church - 660 votes

Assembly District 6

• Jim Colver - 849 votes

• Jim Turner - 781 votes

• Robert Wells - 258 votes

Assembly District 7

• Vern Halter - 1,049 votes

• Doyle Holmes - 864 votes

Mat-Su School Board

Seat A

• Adam Boyd - 3,279 votes

• Jamey Duhamel - 1,191 votes

• Michael Dunleavy - 4,972 votes

• Neal Lacy - 1,092 votes

Seat B

• Robert Doyle - 4,159 votes

• James Tapley - 1,423 votes

• Sarah Welton - 4,898 votes

Seat E

• Dave Anderton - 2,513 votes

• Julie Collins - 3,291 votes

• Erick Cordero - 3,952 votes

I was four for seven.

Vern Halter was traded for Michelle Church. Although I preferred Robert Doyle to Sarah Welton, she will do fine. Mike Dunleavy is well qualified to be on the school board. My preferred candidate, Adam Boyd, was less interested in schools than is Dunleavy, even though the latter is universally distrusted by unions and not well liked by many teachers he has worked with in the past.

Comments at Mariano Gonzales' APU Grant Hall Installation

These comments speak for themselves. Progressive Alaska covered both the opening's announcement, and the opening itself, last week.

One visitor posted a comment, and directed people to a copy of the U.S. regulations for display of the American flag. The copy had sections highlighted in yellow. I disagree with the contentions made about the display violating those provisions.

Here are the photographs I took Monday afternoon:
The exhibit remains open to the public through October 25th.

The New Red-Letter Edition of the Bible

Yesterday both Gryph and AK Muckraker wrote about the project afoot at that awesome, evolutionary institution/web presence called "Conservapedia," to rewrite the "Unalterable Word of God," by, uh - changing what God wrote.

I've got about a dozen bibles, including my favorite, the King James Version. I've got one in Spanish, and a delightful rephrasing of the New Testament, by J.B. Phillips. I've got Thomas Jefferson's Bible, that is limited mostly to words spoken by Jesus. It is fairly short.

Another of my favorites was given to me by my Aunt Hazel when I graduated from High School. In the New Testament, the words spoken by Jesus are printed in red. It is called the Red Letter Edition of the Bible.

People all around the blogosphere are coming to the assistance of Conservapedia's efforts to eliminate liberal bias from the Good Book. Here are the early results from that trusty expert, General JC Christian, Patriot:

• "And Jesus spake, 'Become thou now fishers of adjustable rate mortgages'"

• "And Jesus rebuked the money changers for not colluding."

• "Noah commanded the dinosaurs to leave the ark, for they were kind of swarthy"

• "No greater love hath a man than that he gets drunk & endlessly mumbles about the 'socialist' in the White House"

• Change title of "Song of Solomon" to "Solomon's Toe Taps"

• "And Satan appeared to Eve in the shape of an ACORN"

• "Blessed are the warbloggers, for they shall eat cheetos."

• "And David remained king for he had not put his little king into a woman's mouth"

• "And Sampson slew the Philistines with a jawbone of a stegosaurus"

• "Jesus turned the water into napalm and laid waste to the Samaritans for what the Egyptians hath done"

• "Woe be unto the Nazareth Post, for we countethed 13 million people at the Sermon on the Mount."

• "Go thou now and bomb the shit out of the swarthy"

• "Jesus spake, 'I hope those foreign bastards don't translate my English into Greek.'

• "And the Holy Spirit spake unto Mary, 'Hast thou seen mine bald eagle etchings?'"

• "Suffer the little children so their detained parents will talk."

• "And then Adam deliverethed a bill unto Eve for his rib."

• "Collective punishment exciteth me. Had to drape a fleece over mine loins for months after the Great Flood."

• "And behold, Jesus spake, 'Take thine hands off mine fishes & loaves thou mooching motherfuckers'"

• "And Jesus shankethed the census taker with a shiv."

• God forced to marry Mary.

• Jesus turns water into Pabst Blue Ribbon.

• Jesus beats leper for non-payment of healing fees.

Great job, JC! Here's my effort. I've re-worded the beatitudes and some other utterances made by Jesus, imagining he had been unable to resist the temptations of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and Sarah Palin. Jesus' new words, as influenced by these prophets of profit, are in my NEW red-letter edition.

• Blessed are the WARmakers: for they shall be called the children of Erik Prince. [Matthew 5:9]
• 
  
• Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him to Homeland Security or Blackwater, should he be named Ibn or Mohammed or Hussein also. [Matthew 5:39]
• 
  
• I say unto you, Hate your enemies, fuck over them that curse you, do mayhem to them that hate you, and curse them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; [Matthew 5:44]
• 
  
• If any one of you is without sin within the last fifteen minutes, let him be the first to cast a stone at her. [John 8:7]
• 
  
• Do not judge, lest you too be judged, except when you want to judge without being judged. [Matthew 7:1 & 2.]
• 
  
• Blessed are the merciless: for they shall obtain Regnery and Murdoch book contracts and NewsMax book buys. [Matthew 5:7]
• 
  
• But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, Rush, your Father, will forgive your trespasses in exchange for 100 oxycontins, delivered in a brown paper bag, behind the nearest Wal Mart. [Matthew 6:15]
• 
  
• Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of generosity or cooperation; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.] Truly, I say unto you, it will be quite easy for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]
• 
  
• You CAN serve both God and Money. [Matthew 6:24.]
• 
  
• Render NEVER, therefore, unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto Jerry Prevo and selected televangelists the things that are God's. [Matthew 22:21]
• 
  
• Love your neighbor as best suits your personal interests of the moment .[Matthew 22:39]
• 
  
• So in everything, do to others as you would do if you knew nobody was looking at you. [Matthew 7:12.]
• 
  
• If you would be perfect, go, set up a telemarketing or sub-prime mortgage loan scam, and you will have treasure in heaven. [Matthew 19:21]
• 
  
• But when you give a feast, invite the people most likely to envy or help you in the future, and laugh at the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, except at outrageously high interest rates. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. [Luke 14:13&14.]

Hijacked!

As some readers are aware, Progressive Alaska and my gmail accounts were hijacked for a while this morning. A lot of friends - most of the people in my gmail directory - got requests for money, because I had "lost my wallet in London."

I didn't.

I'd love to be in London right now, but I'm sitting in my office in Anchorage.

Anyway, if anyone gets a message purporting to be from google stating that if you don't provide a lot of personal information - name, country of origin and account password - and then your gmail stops about 36 hours later (like mine did) - don't fall for it!

Special thanks from friends and colleagues who managed to either contact me, help get the word out, or who had suggestions.

Mercedes Sosa Passes

The great Argentine singer and protest artist, Mercedes Sosa passed away yesterday. Here is a tribute to this brave, inspirational woman:


Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me two beams of light, that when opened,
Can perfectly distinguish black from white
And in the sky above, her starry backdrop,
And from within the multitude
The one that I love.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me an ear that, in all of its width
Records— night and day—crickets and canaries,
Hammers and turbines and bricks and storms,
And the tender voice of my beloved.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me sound and the alphabet.
With them the words that I think and declare:
"Mother," "Friend," "Brother" and the light shining.
The route of the soul from which comes love.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me the ability to walk with my tired feet.
With them I have traversed cities and puddles
Valleys and deserts, mountains and plains.
And your house, your street and your patio.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me a heart, that causes my frame to shudder,
When I see the fruit of the human brain,
When I see good so far from bad,
When I see within the clarity of your eyes...

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain—
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone's song, which is my very song.

Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life

Falls Creek, Alaska in Autumn - by Dennis Zaki

Falls Creek, Alaska in Autumn from Dennis Zaki on Vimeo.

[The music is from Catch Me If You Can, composed by John Williams. One of my favorite Williams scores. It is in 7/8 time.]

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) With Her ACORN Act

Congresswoman Betty McCollum's House Resolution 3679 is gaining support in the House. McCollum's bill seeks to:

The ACORN Act is modeled after H.R. 3571 but respects the Constitution by requiring a corporation to be guilty of a felony before federal funds are cut off. The bill:

• • Prohibits a corporation with a felony conviction from receiving any federal contracts, grants, or funds in any form for five years after the conviction.
• • Prohibits federal employees or contractors from promoting corporate felons for five years.
• • Prohibits corporate felons or any applicable individual from contributing to a candidate for federal office, to a political party, or to a federal political action committee for five years.
• • Limits the corporation or any applicable individual to no more than $1 million annually for lobbying Congress or federal officials for a 5 year period.
• • Provides presidential waiver authority if federal contracts, grants, and other agreements with corporate felons are determined to be in the national interest.

Here's a radio interview she gave last week:


Here's Rep. Alan Grayson, commenting on the "Defund-ACORN Bill" that led to McCollum's actions:

Max Blumenthal's Seattle Town Hall Address

Max Blumenthal, who was hosted in Anchorage on September 26th and 27th by Alaska's progressive bloggers, gave a similar talk in Seattle's Town Hall, on September 24th. It got posted on YouTube this weekend:

Some Thoughts on Alison Weir - Part One

This coming week, our country's executive branch will be pushing for acceptance of a new nuclear non-proliferation initiative that refuses to accept the reality that one of the major players in the dynamics of nuclear proliferation is even a player in the discussion.

This coming week, our President's United Nations and State Department representatives will continue to push a meme that the recent UN Goldstone Report on last winter's Gaza Strip War is hopelessly flawed, and should be discounted because it equally condemns both sides in the tragic and unnecessary conflict.

This coming week, one of our country's most articulate critics of Israeli and American policies toward relentlessly shrinking Palestine and of our country's relationship with the expansionist Israeli state, will deliver three addresses in Anchorage:

• On Thursday October 8th, Alison Weir will address the Bartlett Club (Denny's on DeBarr) at noon.

• On Friday October 9th, she will address the Alaska World Affairs Council (Hilton Hotel) at noon, and will speak at the Wilda Marston Theater at the Loussac Library at 7:00 p.m.

Already, the local pro-Zionist expansion network is aiming to have her appearances canceled. Beginning Friday, I started receiving calls from friends who had been contacted with the claim that Weir is a "Holocaust Denier."

I've been aware of Weir's work at If Americans Knew, and her articles at Counterpunch and other web sites for years, and had read of this false accusation before. Saturday evening, Weir was on Shannyn Moore's KBYR radio call-in program. I called and asked Weir to address the accusation. She strongly iterated that the accusation is absurd, explaining her personal knowledge of just how awful the Nazi Third Reich's liquidation of six million European Jews, along with millions of other innocents was.

Weir is in Alaska to inform our under-informed populace about the importance of getting unbiased information about the history of the Israeli state and its relationship to its neighbors and to our foreign policy decisions.

My experience with her articles and talks available on YouTube is that she is very accurate. The attacks on her here, as at other places, are designed to take advantage of the lack of information most Americans have to balanced views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and upon guilt many Americans feel through decades of exposure to heavily propagandized media coverage of events involving the Israeli state, in combination with relentless reminders of the Holocaust.

Last summer, Weir was on Eddie Burke's KBYR call-in program. Burke treated her with far less professionalism than did Shannyn Moore this Saturday.

The subject of the bombing and torpedoing of the USS Liberty during the 1967 Six-Day War came up. Burke, a U.S. Navy veteran, was totally ill-informed.

Burke claims he likes me. But when I've tried to bring up the USS Liberty with him, he immediately tries to change the subject. I believe, like every surviving member of the ship's crew, that the Israelis intended to sink the ship, while knowing it was American. Why they wanted to do that is still a mystery.

But I refuse to overrule the gut instincts of over 100 American sailors and officers who saw their shipmates killed or maimed over the course of hours; saw one American flag after another raised up the mast, and then shot down; saw torpedo boats come close enough to pepper all the lifeboats with hundreds of holes; and saw anyone willing to man a machine gun blasted to Hell.

Every surviving American from that attack - for which the commanding officer quietly received the Congressional Medal of Honor - believes the attack was intentional. A foreign government says it wasn't. If one sides with our brave sailors against that foreign government, one is immediately labeled an anti-Semite.

Why?

Any reader who wants to so label me for writing this - go find a living member of the USS Liberty crew who sides with that foreign government's version of the attack, and I'll reconsider my view.

Until then, Eddie - you're betraying your shipmates.