I just had to share the good news.

Good news for vegetarians, we're not contributing to this cruelty!

" A new undercover investigation by The Humane Society of the United States reveals that sick and crippled dairy cows continue to be abused in the livestock industry, even in the wake of high-profile exposes that should have put auction managers and other animal-handling personnel on their best behavior."

" Details of the new undercover HSUS investigation include:

* downed cows repeatedly shocked in an attempt to get them to rise
* calves and cows with broken legs and laminitis
* a downed cow being dragged by a chain around one leg, pulled by a Bobcat tractor, with the animals' leg severely hyper-extended
* a calf being kicked repeatedly in the head
* a blind cow being shocked and struck and other cows with serious and grotesque eye injuries/diseases
* a downed cow forced to crawl on her front knees by workers who repeatedly shocked her"

Because It's Important

NC Congressman McHenry is a dick

Oh, I cannot make this stuff up. Yes, the American people have heard this. Their answer to our fuel crisis, the crisis at the pumps, is: Ride a bike.

I sent the Congressman an email:


Dear Mr. McHenry,

I would like to share with you my little human interest story.javascript:void(0)
Publish Post
I am originally from Cashiers, North Carolina and now live in Nevada City, CA. My wife and I rent a small apartment in town and walk to dinner, movies, coffee, the bank, etc. It's a wonderful life that we live.

I work in Grass Valley, CA, a mere 4 hilly miles away. Over a year ago I sold my pickup and commute by bicycle. Throughout the year I ride my bike to work. Riding my bike to work and on errands makes me very happy. It keeps me in shape, it keeps my weight down, it keeps my cholesterol down, my health costs down, my transportation costs down, it reduces local traffic and it is a great solution to my transportation dilemma.

It is very unfortunate that you view the bicycle as a 19th century solution to 21st century problem.

Sir, it is your kind of jaded disposition and lack of creativity and understanding that is degrading our country. And to think, you are one of our elected leaders who is supposed to be looking out for the greater good of the United States.
You really should be ashamed of yourself.

Think about it. How is the obesity problem in North Carolina? How about the poverty rate and it’s association with transportation costs? Air quality from pollution generated by automobiles?

I’ll be in North Carolina on Labor Day weekend and would be happy to take you on a leisurely ride to remind you how easy it is to ride a bike.

Thanks,

Hyland Fisher

So, what now?

Well, politics have slowed down a bit, Finx and I are less pissed at the administration since they keep shooting themselves in the collective foot. So,how about something interesting and personal?
It snowed yesterday. The first snow we've had all year, we've been in a drought. Since it was snowing I decided to arrive at work late and take the long way into work. After and hour and a half I arrived at work with frozen hands and a feeling of accomplishment. The bike did great on the roads, much better than the cars were doing.

A view of town just minutes before I started out on my exploratory ride.



Heading up Banner Mountain Trail, a road that goes by the gun club, starts as pavement and turns to gravel.

I set the bike down for a few minutes to take a look at the map and snap a few pictures. It didn't take long for the bike to get covered in snow.

This is one of the pictures I took. This is a pacific yew, a relatively rare tree in these parts.

I found some new, albeit short, sections of trail on the route.

As I was coming down a road into town all the cars had stopped. I rode past them and came across this cluster-fuck. So, I snapped a picture and road right through it as they struggled to straighten their hulks of metal. Feels good to be on the bike.

So Tired...

Well, here I am, back for a post-election post. For me, this blog has been like one of those things that you need when you're low and when you swing back high again, you seem to forget all about. So, this time I ain't feelin' too shabby politically but after a long hard weekend of work, I'm sure tired enough to feel at bit of the "lows". Why not use it to post right?

Anyway, it seems that with the stunning victory of the "left" the country has found a way to regain some semblance of sanity for the time being. Hopefully the din of yelping from the fundies has died down enough to let us all think straight again and not preoccupy ourselves with such pointless debates as: "Are frozen soon-to-be-thrown-out embryos able to get the proper abstinence-only sex ed if their 1 in 10,000 chance of actually becoming a fully formed human ever comes to pass?" Things like this are really not that pressing when the blood on the streets of Baghdad is still flowing freely.

It would seem to me that the Dems really have their work cut out with this win. They must do more than pass pretty sounding resolutions. They must fight back the callousness of the folks in Washington that no longer respect the reason of why they work there for us. They must battle the idea that having real hope is considered quaint or meaningless. I say this because ever since Barak Obama has stepped up to the plate I've heard nothing but shallow comments like: "He's a vessel that people pour whatever they want into." Come on people, he's a good man, and preaching promise shouldn't mean you're vapid. He has goals, yes. He is shrewd, yes. But he represents something almost lost to us like Kennedy did, hope. Flaws are present in all of us, that's why a person like him is relatable. His dreams may not be totally formed yet, but neither are most of ours in the real world.

We can get there together though. We can rest up after this last battle for a bit, but then we must come out strong. Ready to do the really hard work of dreaming big.

VOTE!

Well, my friends, this is it. In the mere two years since I started blogging to keep myself from a random killing spree, we have a true shot at redeeming ourselves here in the US of A. And make no mistake, when I say "this is it", I really mean it. Things must change. Our country can no longer bear the idiocy and incompetence that has oozed it's way into our body politic because of the knee-jerk voting habits of the ultra-religious (and hyper hypocritical) "base" of the right. Reasoned people are running for office this year. Good people that found that rising to the challenge of governance meant doing so out of the desire to see true change, not as an opportunity to become part of the Washington meat grinder that churns out a new corrupt lobbyist every time someone is leaving political office. No, there is no way to overstate this, things must change.

I will vote today, and in doing so, I bring with me a belief system just like many of the people I vehemently disagree with, but what I'd like to think is that my beliefs are second to my desire to see our government finally act out of the desire to help all of the people that reside here, not just the ones who look at life in the same way as I do. To me, the single issue voter is a loaded gun. A narrow-minded tactical weapon used to sway elections away from issues that will effect more than the people on their block. The "morality" based wedge-issue is their fuse, and what's been interesting in this election cycle is how little prominence the press has been giving them this year (aside from Iraq of course). I'm not saying I would wish to suppress the votes of the so-called "values voters", but what I would like is that if you belong to any group who chooses to demonize others for their behavior while ignoring the hypocrisies your leaders, I would prefer that these folks would stay home until such time as they have educated themselves on more than one issue dictated to them by their pastor by simply reading their states voting guide.

We have a right to vote. All of us do. It is our fundamental right and duty in this country. Don't let apathy or intimidation or any other such force imposed upon you deter you from what you need to do today. Most of all though, vote with a well informed conscience. It's your vote cast and yours alone. No one will know what you've said to the country in doing so, it's private. So say what you will to us today with a clear mind. As far as what you say, well, that's up to you. Good luck.

I'm still here

I'm pretty sure no one is reading this blog anymore, but if they are, just read the title. Most of the reason I've halted major operations on this site have to do with being physically unable to sustain the necessary amount of rage needed to write a really good and informed post. Politics, bahh! You see, in the intervening time, I've found it much more helpful to release my need to pursue truth and justice in the broader world we live in and focus on something much more pointed and urgent. I've become a capitalist. It's a wonderful thing. You should all try it some time.

Gone are the days when Mid East struggles boiled my blood and forced me into a mad tail chasing effort to eviscerated all who caused the world I once loved to tumble into chaos. No, now I just plan how much more I can get for the rental on my next job or how fat the business account is getting due to my rapid succession of 16 hours days. Yep, I'm sellin' out, I want the world to know, I've got to let it show!

Screaming "Money Fucking Rocks!" from every roof top in glamorous Sherman Oaks might mitigate some of the stress I've accumulated along with the rising pile of cash.... aaaahh crap. Who am I kidding here, I'm still broke. I'm just trying to believe some of my own hype right now so I don't freak out and run screaming from this little all consuming vortex of a business I've started.

Why do we encourage Americans to do this rather than vote? What is it about the fable of the American entrepreneur that seems to draw in millions more good hard working people rather than local city council elections? Why aren't I doing more to help the world rather than... well, making more money I can't seem to hold onto. The only reason I can come up with goes back to a daydream I had this morning.

Somehow, (either by Lotto or Gates Foundation grant) I had become unimaginably wealthy and imagined myself using every dime I had to buy CNN. Instantly, people such as Joe Scarborough and Nancy Grace were "put on notice", and I clearly let them know if they didn't start to practice real journalism, their heads were gonna roll. I was a tough boss and even though some hated me, they still respected what I was doing.

Then came the grand daddy of all fantasies. One day (as I believe truly happens) an administration official, someone of a Roveian stature, comes to visit me in my office. This official sits across from me and informs me that the president is unhappy with the recent left-leaning slant my network was taken. I sit and listen to a very long and veiled threat about regulations and tax breaks that will never come to pass if I play ball. It is at this point that I smile as I rise from my non-leather clad chair and inform him that everything he has just said has been tapped by a hidden camera crew and this meeting would lead this evenings news. Impeachments soon follow somehow.

I don't think the fantasy holds much water when it comes to the finer legal points or my ability to wrangle a couple billion dollars, but the point is still the same, money equals power. For now, this is the over ridding equation. So maybe this is why I've chosen the dizzyingly complex world of micro-finance, it's just one way to feel some pull in the world run by the shadow democracy of money. Too bad it'll keep me fixated on making more money instead of on the real matters of import. Weird thing is though, I'm enjoying it. CNN here I come!

Your vegan positive news article of the day:

A fisherman was recovering from surgery after he was speared in the chest and knocked into the Atlantic Ocean by a blue marlin during a fishing competition off Bermuda's coast.

Auto Lament

Last night at the Pharmacy while getting my EpiPen prescription (I hate bees!) the pharmacist told me not to leave the EpiPen in the glove box. I whimpered to him I don't have a car.
It's actually not true, I still have my vehicle but am selling it in about a month.
I think I sounded sad when I said I didn't have a car, but upon reflection, I think I am just in the mourning process of leaving the auto lifestyle. I think I have almost completed the grieving since I completely forgot I still have an auto.
I went outside in the 40 degree weather and had a great ride home.

Spring begins in less than a week...

It just continues to snow. We drove up the road about 10 miles on Sunday to ski. There was 3' on the ground, makes the cycling difficult.

Debtors Prison = Gitmo?

This is a long time coming I realize. I was just sharing with vuduvgn that I wasn't mad enough to post anything lately, then I read some blogs...

They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.

And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.

Read the whole thing to realize how totally effed up our country is right now. Just think about how many freedoms we've lost since Bush took office. Just list them one at a time. Then maybe you'll get really mad again, like me.

Bush hates fish and fat kids will rule the world

``The federal government has done absolutely nothing to help, and fishermen are angry,'' said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. ``It's almost like they created this Klamath situation to make them look competent on Katrina.''

The number of overweight children worldwide will increase significantly by the end of the decade, and scientists expect profound impacts on everything from public health care to economies, a study published Monday said.

Snow in Nevada City - Edit

We woke up to snow again in Nevada City. Not much, only about 3 or so inches, but still purdy.


Looking up Commercial St. from the office window.


Looking down Commercial St.


View over the next building to the trees beyond. Click for larger version.

Update: This is later on in the day.

From the office window

Biking as a Lenten practice

[Peter] Dula was ashen when he addressed us with his typed speech. His voice and his words conveyed the bitterness of the present-day situation in the Middle East, the Iraqi hatred for Americans, and his powerlessness to distinguish himself from the occupying military forces and contractors. He told us how he had recently been evacuated to Jordan after a rash of expatriate kidnappings, leaving behind new friends whose futures were unknown. Everything about Dula spoke to us of the horrors of seeing one's neighbors' children kidnapped, of walking with fear along a deserted street, of seeing churches exploding in the night.

By the end, our ethics class sat in stunned silence. The least we could hope for was some way to respond. Should we go to Iraq and do the same? Is it time to picket the White House? Write letters? What do we do? Dula's answer was clear and emphatic.

"Ride your bike."

He repeated this short phrase twice but the second time it sounded more like a plea than a suggestion. Then he walked from the lectern and left a befuddled crowd to ponder his words and, hopefully, to act upon them.

This Is What I Want...

In recent months, I've spent a great deal of time reading post after post, and article after article voicing dissent, anger and frustration about the myriad of mishandled issues of this administration. Most of the vigorous debate (and even the debate about the debate) has circled around the war. Some have suggested such debate is improper in a time such as this. So above all things, about this, let's be clear. It is in fact a right of the people to voice these criticisms without fear of retribution or harm. I believe the only way any democracy can function is to have these voices be heard and answered by the elected leadership.

Now, if said leaders are only willing to repeat falsehoods and offer nothing new to the exchange (such as the timeless "Stay the course" message of the recently released 35 page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq") then it is, in my opinion, the duty of the dissenters to offer the alternate strategy that the people require to make an informed choice.

My point is this. If all the folks in D.C. who have cold feet about the war that they voted for want to simply criticize, fine. But where's the alternate plan? While I think it is important to debate and investigate the justifications of our entering into this quagmire, it's not the end of the debate by any means. We need informed solutions, real alternatives. I am no longer willing to take the advice of four-star generals who are too politically fearful to publicly disagree with the civilian leaders who keep throwing their subordinates in harms way just to keep from looking like they screwed up from the outset.

So, this is what I'm asking for: Give us ("us" being whosoever dares disagree with the status quo) access to the on the ground military leadership. Let us talk with them. Let them give us what they see as options (considering they're there everyday). We need someone to do the heavy lifting now. To hear the good and the bad. We need to make informed decision based on fact and reality, not behind the scenes gripes and ass-covering. That's how we got here.

No one, and I mean on one, made a truly informed decision to take us into war. No one had the same access to materials and personnel to do so. Apart from the argument that this was done because of some nefarious pre-formed plan or whether everyone was just truly misinformed, it matters not. There were only a select group of ears that heard the unfiltered advice and counsel of those that were proved to be wrong. You can't tell me that if some good old fashioned dissent was thrown into the mix back then, that we'd be in the same place now.

No three people should ever decide to take us into war. We should all bear the terrible burden of that weight. It keeps us from from having motive to prove that the few were right or wrong. It keeps us focused on our goals. There can be no singular finger pointing when we are all equally informed.

I feel that this is the only way to get us out of this mess that we are very much in. It's time to share everything. It's time to put it all on the table. Let's finally have knowledge behind us when deciding to risk our lives and the lives of our fellow man.

He writes for Outside magazine, figures.

Wimp. Noble, but still a wimp.

West Coasters don't know what they are talking about.

These are fall colors.

IRS doesn't like God's involvement in politics

I read this today in the Sacramento Bee.
The Internal Revenue Service has warned the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, that it may be losing its tax exemption, citing a sermon by the Rev. George F. Regas, on Oct. 31, 2004...According to the story, he did not take sides or tell parishioners who to vote for, but he did criticize the war in Iraq, stating that Jesus would have called Bush's pre-emptive war "a failed doctrine," and that "Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster."

Finx, do you think this has any bearing on the Republican's Justice Sunday?

UPDATE (11/8/05 9:38 am PST) by FINX:

Well, if yer askin'. I'm not sure how this all gets decided, but I'd bet dollars to donuts someone's playing fast and loose with the rules yet again. For example, how is it that the James Dobsons of the world can claim to be "men of God" and yet cheat the American tax code by using their spiritual institutions to do the bidding of politicians? His Focus on the Family group was at one time part of a powerful far-right lobbying group called The Family Research Council (FRC). This relationship was troubling to folks in D.C. because the ties were a little too close for comfort, so the IRS applied pressure and the FRC severed it's "official" ties to Dobson's group in 1992 (by the way, this was the second time they had to do this). However, Dobson stayed on the board long after the official split and claimed the two organizations were "spiritually one".

So, it would seems that the rules are being selectively applied in this instance to send a message. Is that really any surpise to anyone in these days of the Christian-Right/Republican mafia tactics we see being employed day in and day out. Just ask Republican uber-lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon about the rules of the game:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

Awesome.

To me, the most appalling things about all of these people is that they act as though they own God. The "Family Research Council" is a corporation after all. One who's work is dedicated to such noble causes as the quest to eliminate hate crime legislation. God knows Jesus would be out there beating the shit of gay men every chance he could, right?

A Victory? - A Finx Rant

Well, hello again my friends. I feel like I should start by saying how sorry I am that I haven't kept up my end of the blogging bargain here at the Dispatch, but I think that I've come back just at the right time. As I'm sure you all know by now, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, has been indicted by a Federal grand jury on five separate counts and has subsequently resigned. Yahoo! It's Miller Time!... Or is it?

You see, this is the least possible damage the White House could sustain considering both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney have had their grubby little fingerprints discovered all over this whole affair. I mean, who's ever really heard about this "Scooter" fellow anyway? Well, maybe most of the people reading this, but certainly not millions of other Americans who've allowed far bigger crooks to be re-elected year after year. No, I'm afraid what has happened here is that the sloppiest of the criminals in this administration have been nabbed, but by no means the worst.

There is still hope given the open-endedness of Fitzgerald's investigation, but I fear unless Scooter rolls on some of the most powerful and vicious people in the world, this thing is a dead duck that lays solely on Libby's doorstep. The real crime of pre-war deception can only be found and prosecuted by the people via it's Congress. God and the blogosphere knows if these were the days of Clinton... well, you know where I'm going with that one, heads on pikes, etc. etc.

It would seem the Teflon Don's of the White House have gotten themselves pretty well insulated... for now. After all, there is this little nagging question of what might happen in '06. It seems a foregone conclusion that the Senate would get involved in some serious digging if the Democrats found their way into the majority position again. But they will truly have to fight for it because these Reds are a formidable foe. "Time to take the gloves off", as the minions of their torture squads say. It seems a good time to expose the real motives of these people. A time to really speak to the subtext of all of the political wrangling. What if something like this (link) ran as a campaign ad? Would people see it as too much? Leftist propaganda?

The only thing a could ask in responce is, why? Why is it too hard to imagine that these people really don't care about you? Just look at what they did to Joe and Valerie Wilson and tell me that they care. Look at how they knowingly lied to us and tell me that they really considered breaching your trust. They didn't. We mean nothing to these people. None of this is about us. It's about profit taking and exploitation. It's about saying and doing whatever it takes to keep from getting caught in their lies. Even if it means throwing your friend on a grenade.

Poor Scooter. Let's hope he does us all a service and returns the favor to his "friends".

Otherwise, it'll be up to the Democratic Congress in the winter of '06 to sort this all out. Sleep tight Karl. Sweet dreams Dick. Man this stuff gets me goin'!

Bike Commuting - Corporate Style

There was a good article in the Sacramento Bee last week about bike commuting and how companies support such activities.

Off to the Bay area for the weekend and Veloswap on Saturday. An orgy of bike parts and bike people, i'm psyched!