Coming out of Albany, New York via an election campaign for a judge on the Albany County Surrogate Court where Democrats are resorting to guilt by association charges to supplant a sitting judge, Cathryn M. Doyle.

Public service is what business failures do for penance -- and to lay the ground-work for future success. Perhaps the biggest American myth is the legend of "free enterprise." American commerce and industry have always relied on government support to give them an advantage, starting with the charters and land grants handed out by European royals.

The object for the financial class is to get their “cut” of the taxes our public corporations collect. They have a need to intercept the flow of currency from the public purse to the public treasury and out again. That’s the “trickle” they’re concerned about. The preferred point at which this capture of taxes occurs is called “dividends on bonds.” The bonded debt is the financial gravy train and the engineer of this train is the Federal Reserve.

Why does our Treasury issue currency to the Federal Reserve Banks to distribute to their cronies and then borrow it back at interest to pay for necessary public services and obligations?

To maintain their historical privilege, our wanna-be rulers have devised a system in which

public cost + private benefit = transfer of wealth from the many to the few.

Their primary tool is the law. The expropriation of public assets occurs under the cover of law. We the people consent to be governed in exchange for having our assets managed (by our agents) for the general welfare. That is the social contract. Individual rights are to be balanced by social obligations.

But what if the social obligations aren't carried out. What recourse do we have, other than to dismiss our agents? Can the transfer of wealth to the few be reversed? Can the actions of suborned agents be undone? The parable of the unjust steward in the Bible suggests not.

Sometimes events move so fast that they leave even predictions in the dust, or at least our interest in them. That seems to be what happened to an insightful article on hurricanes that was published by Miller-McCune in their May 3, 2010 edition. The significance of hurricane hunters' visits to the back-waters' of the Alabama/Florida Gulf coasts has been totally overshadowed by the possible effects of oil gushing into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and fouling the beaches, marshes and bayous we normally expect to buffer us from the effect of hurricanes.
However, that's OK with me. I'm not that interested in whether hurricanes can be predicted far in advance, anyway. And the insurance industry, I suspect, doesn't care much for reliable information either. At least, that's what I take away from some of the data buried in Jim Morrison's report.

His opening sets the stage nicely:

About twenty-five years ago, the environmental engineers working for Gainesville Regional Utilities' Kanapaha Wastewater Treatment Plant in Alachua County, Florida, made a serendipitous discovery while monitoring the plant effluent being injected into the drinking water aquifer. Some fifteen hundred feet underground, the water, which had been "treated" to drinking water standards by the plant, to comply with state regulations, had, according to the data they compiled, undergone what they referred to as "polishing." Something was consuming the allowable contaminants in drinking water as it traveled through the porous limestone. In other words, there was biological activity going on in the dark where no living things, presumably, exist.

Since then biota have not only been discovered living around the volcanic vents deep in the Pacific Ocean, but microbes have actually been put to work in what is called bioremediation. A story in Miller-McCune provides the particulars.

Waste is what irresponsible men create; what people who refuse to clean up after themselves leave behind.

Dirt is what Mother Nature provides to sustain life on earth. If we waste it, man's ability to sustain himself is jeopardized.

Major media outlets are reporting on a follow-up finding by a group of physicians that the participants and supporters of enhanced interrogation techniques (aka torture) practiced on detainees were both unethical and potentially prosecutable as war criminals. But, nobody's saying by whom. The Physicians for Human Rights report recommends:

Morning Feature: Schoolchildren Teach Organic Farming to Troops
by TheFatLadySings [Subscribe]

Wed Jun 02, 2010 at 04:07:03 AM PDT

In May of 2010, a group of northern New Mexico middle school students helped to train the 2nd 45th Agricultural Development Team of the Oklahoma National Guard techniques of organic permaculture farming. The youngsters showed troops how to milk goats, clean eggs and care for bees in preparation for their deployment to Afghanistan in September, 2010. The three week training was coordinated by the Pojoaque, NM-based Permaculture Institute.

The Oklahoma 2nd 45th Agricultural Development Team is a battalion of guards formed to assist Afghanistan to rebuild the small farm infrastructure indigenous to that country prior to the Soviet invasion and subsequent simultaneous rise of poppy farming and the Taliban. Leaders of the 2-45 settled upon Northern New Mexico because of its many similarities to Afghanistan. The arid climate, elevation, clan-based cultures, small sustenance farms and use of acequias (or irrigation ditches) seemed to make mountainous Rio Arriba the perfect location for a hands on workshop.

The well-mannered person adheres to the proposition that "if you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all." As a result, Republicans, and Senator Judd Gregg in particular, have gotten the benefit of Democrats' forbearance, even as they denigrate their "opponents" every chance they get. Moreover, ignoring their rudeness does nothing to tamp down an aggressive stance. Rather, given an inch, the intentionally anti-social will go for a mile or the whole globe. Perhaps, like other addicts, the abusive person has a bad habit and requires an intervention to make it stop.

At least, Gregg's escalation of his antagonism towards socialism into what he now calls "pandering populism" needs to be called out. His own words are rather damming:

Now we have this huge populist movement here and I'm trying to think, what is the rationale here other than just rampant pandering populism? A vote occurred in the Budget Committee last week, which I happen to be Ranking Member of, that crystallized the situation for me. Senator Sanders from Vermont, who I consider a friend and I enjoy immensely, a great guy with a great sense of humor, but we disagree on a lot of things as he runs as a socialist and I run as a conservative. Senator Sanders offered an amendment which said that the government has the right to break up large corporations.

Democracy for America, now that Governor Howard Dean is no longer promoting citizen participation in governing at the Democratic National Committee, is getting into gear for the 2010 elections by hiring regional directors and energizing the membership with house parties and teleconferences with the man, himself. Today's the day in the Seacoast region of New Hampshire and State Representative Marcia Moody of Newmarket is hosting a get-together for Rockingham/Strafford folk.

When I first posted diaries about the Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (CANWFZ) here and here they were duds, as most everyone hopes the weapons in various arsenals turn out to be.

Nevertheless, there was a glimmer of sanity in the fact that Egypt, down on the African continent, was signaling an interest in seeing the CANWFZ extended down the peninsula to include it and Israel and Iran along the way.

Bush/Cheney were not enthusiastic.

Now there is some movement. The BBC reports:

Could the Middle East become a nuclear-free zone?

By Barbara Plett

BBC News, New York

Western concerns about Iran's nuclear programme have so far dominated the latest UN conference on the treaty aimed at stopping the spread and stockpiling of nuclear weapons.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?

Commonly referred to as the "Miranda warning," the real intent of this statement, to alert the agents of law enforcement to their obligations to respect the rights of individuals with whom the come in contact, is frequently perverted by the agents' preference for a coercive, rather than respectful stance. That is, it not only comes out as a warning that silence is not appreciated and will harden the interrogator's heart, but also as a promise that, regardless of the evidence, the suspect is already on his way to court.

Political subdivisions are corporations, artificial entities that carry out public functions--i.e. public corporations. We create them to spread/share risks and responsibilities and protect individuals from personal liability. In exchange for that protection, the powers of our public corporations are strictly limited and the members may only perform the tasks that have been authorized.

Private corporations are just as artificial. However, while they offer the same protection from liability and risk to the participants, instead of being strictly limited, private corporations have been allowed to act with the freedom to act which the natural person enjoys--i.e. to do anything as long as it causes no obvious and intentional injury to another person. (Destroying other artificial person is, however, permitted--i.e. the private corporation enjoys more license than the natural person who may only destroy in active self-defense or defense of another natural person).

So, in brief, we have allowed monsters to be made --monsters that are virtually immortal (unlike all natural persons) and virtually inviolate from control or restriction even after they have been proved to cause significant injury to man and nature (fines of money are not significant when the payer is otherwise immortal, infallible and immune).

The York Center for Wildlife on Cape Neddick, Maine is always looking for monetary and volunteer support.

For twenty-three years, our wildlife rehabilitation facility, its staff and volunteers have provided medical care, safe sanctuary and humane treatment for sick, injured and orphaned wildlife until they can be released back into the wild. The Center for Wildlife is a private, non-profit organization whose mission is to rehabilitate and provide sanctuary for sick and injured wild animals, and to promote respect for wildlife and the environment.

And, for some reason, although the stewardship of our natural resources would seem to be a preeminent responsibility of the body politic, the CFW gets not a cent of public support. Which, of course, means that much time and effort has to be devoted to begging.

The requests are pretty specific. In addition to money, which is how the electric company, for example, expects to be paid, there's a whole list of other ways people can help.

Foods

Acorns

Mixed Wild Birdseed

Black Oil Sunflower Seed

Dry Cat and Dog Food (kibble)

Earthworms

The core problem is that private corporations are not properly regulated. Instead of being treated similar to a public corporations (cities, towns, states) and strictly limited as to their obligations and functions, private corporations have enjoyed the prerequisites of the private individual or natural person, with none of the prohibitions against causing injury to another person.

All corporations, private and public, are artificial persons and need to be treated as such. Moreover, since private corporations are not indispensable, as are public ones, the failure to satisfy their charters and meet their obligations to society, which gives them life, so to speak, should be met with dissolution. In other words, capital punishment is in order for capitalistic organizations. It is the only form of meaningful restraint. Otherwise, if an artificial person can simply shed debts and obligations and reform itself, then the artificial person, in addition to being eminently more powerful than a natural person and less restricted than a public corporation, is effectively rendered immortal. Why would we want that–-a man-made, all-powerful monster?

Not an original observation, but accurate, I think. As I’ve said before, the conservatives’ saving grace and our good fortune is their sloth. Sloth keeps them from acting as they instinctively want. Laziness is the only internal check on their irrational response. (”Let sleeping dogs lie”)

The reason conservatives are dangerous is because they are instinct-driven, creatures of habit. That makes them both unreliable and, oddly enough, predictable. They are unreliable reporters of reality, because they do not see things as they are. They are predictable in that their instinctive responses are fixed. And the lies they tell are always the same or predictable variants.

Sometimes their stories are simply repetitions of stories they’ve heard, so the content of the recitation may well be accurate. That’s why it’s important that everything be checked. Of course, since what can be remembered in whole is likely to be little more than a snippet of conversation, the accuracy factor is likely to be minuscule. We ought not to expect too much. As they say, even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day.

In the last few weeks, the shadow economy has become a hot topic. As recently as two days before tax day it was possible to note that the one authority on the shadow economy (also known as "the underground economy" or "the black market") in the United States, Edgar Feige had been surfaced in the Sacramento Bee. Since then, Google coughs up over two thousand references to the shadow economy in the news. Prominent in the list are references in speeches by President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid and Senator Dodd in connection with proposed regulatory reform of the financial system. Big banks and speculators trading in the shadows are the new denizens of the shadow economy. But, that's not whom Feige and a few European researchers were focused on. From their perspective, which I share, the shadow economy being undocumented and unregulated provides evidence that most economic analysis is flawed because of what it leaves out.

Integrity was obviously on President Obama's mind as he prepared to meet with leaders of the United States Senate in connection with preparations for another nomination to the Supreme Court. His statement follows:

Obama's Remarks on the Supreme Court

By Barack Obama

10:43 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: All right, everybody. We are here to talk about the Supreme Court. Obviously, we have lost one of -- the services of one of the finest Supreme Court Justices that we've seen. Justice Stevens announced that he will be retiring at the end of this term. Those are going to be some tough shoes to fill. This is somebody who operated with extraordinary integrity and fidelity to the law.

But I'm confident that we can come up with a nominee who will gain the confidence of the Senate and the confidence of the country, and the confidence of individuals who look to the Court to provide evenhanded justice to all Americans.

Last time, when I nominated Sonia Sotomayor, I have to say that all the individuals who are sitting here -- Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Jeff Sessions and Patrick Leahy -- worked very cooperatively on what I considered to be a smooth, civil, thoughtful nomination process and confirmation process. And I very much thank particularly the Ranking Member and the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for running a smooth process.