Tales from Uncle Mike

Democrats dismayed by Siegelman sentence The former governor of Alabama and the former CEO of HealthSouth were both sentenced to 6+ years in prison for their collusion in fraud and bribery. Since the governor is a Democrat and was previously exonerated in a Federal corporate fraud trial, some people are claiming the involvement of Karl Rove and his gang. Regardless of who was responsible, I am glad to see that we are getting serious about corruption. In addition to the expeditionary imperialism, blind nationalism and cultural malaise that has destroyed every empire on Earth, the most immediate threat to our liberty is the corruption that exists in the synergy between corporations and government. When a young couple gets in debt over their heads, they lose the freedom to make certain choices. It destroys many marriages, insidiously, by shackling people and forcing them into despair. Consumer lending has grown into a malicious, seductive Medusa, luring in the susceptible with promise...

A quick search on my favorite bittorrent site, Demonoid , reveals a whole bunch of well-seeded copies of Michael Moore's newest expose documentary " Sicko ". Quelle surprise! When I first heard that the Feds were threatening to seize all copies, due to Moore's visit to Cuba during the making of the film, and that Moore had 'secreted a copy away off-shore', I just knew the screener copy would be, oh, accidentally left lying around. Maybe in the mailbox of someone with a DVD drive in their home computer and a cable modem. Michael Moore is anything but stupid. He knows that he is more than a profit center for a film company. He realizes that the best way to both protect and promote his movie is to give it away to the public. Kind of like using the US Mail to safeguard something by sending it to yourself via China. Except in this case, he effectively emailed it to everyone in the world. This is just my theory, of course. He also realizes, like all new-mar...

We are not saving time. We are only changing it. We are shaping time, all the time, with technology and its effect on our perception. Before the first mechanical clock ticked its first 'tock', a second was only a concept. Everyone might agree that a second is roughly equivalent to a moment, but how long is that? As Einstein pointed out, a moment with a pretty girl does not seem nearly as long, relatively speaking of course, as a moment sitting on top of a hot oven. Songs about trains and cowboys, about ships and sailing, stories about long journeys, all resonate with a past in which time moved differently. Communication was not ubiquitous and immediate, and travel required an involvement with the land. Relationships formed more slowly and, if they prospered at all, strengthened by the necessity mandated by a smaller world. One cannot afford to burn too many bridges if one lives on an island. Our expectations of instantaneous gratification, immense global change and a society ...

Read about Dubya's recent breakdown here , in which he beats his chest and chants " I am the President!". Maybe someday we'll read that he had himself injected with amphetamines and kept suicide pills handy, too. Bunker mentality will do that to a guy. Rather than offer my own opinion about our Commander-Guy in Chief and his lack of tolerance for dissension, I will quote a former President, Theodore Roosevelt. “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country.” “To announce there must be no criticism of the President, and to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, it is morally treas onous to the American public.”