Kids, Don't Try This At Home....

I'm been trying to write for at least 15 hours...but our internet service is getting knocked out by the weather! So, I'm back on and taking a chance!
I am sure you have heard by now about the reopening of the Bangkok Airports after the protest and occupation by hundreds of thousands of PAD (People Alliance for Democracy) supporters.

I am posting a video that was aired on Al Jazeera earlier this week which shows the peaceful nonviolent atmosphere of the demonstrations. The violence that occurred which resulted in the death of a few demonstrators was caused by goverment supporters who randomly lobbed a few grenades into the peaceful crowd.

The PAD was protesting the corrupt coalition goverment which has controlled Thailand in one way or another for quite a few years. The goverment was overturned 2 years ago by the army in a bloodless coup which ousted Prime Minister,Thaksin Shinawatra, banned him from Thai politics and sent him into exile.

His ally, Somchai Wongsawat, became the new Prime Minister. the Ruling parties have become very rich due to corruption which became the standard way of doing business in Thailand. There was an attempt to force them out of office earlier this year, using the claim against the prime minister, that his television cooking show was illegal.
The PPP and it's coalition parties have a popular base in the poverty stricken North where they use propaganda against the more wealthy urban south to create a class system...the country folks against the urban elite.

During the crisis, the Prime Minister stayed out of Bangkok and traveled in the North.
The Courts, at the urging of the very popular Thai king, ruled that the PPP and it's allied parties were guilty of electoral corruption and forced the Prime Minister to resign and barred them from political activity for the next 5 years.
A victory on paper, because of the innate flaws of the Thai parliamentary system and the parties will reform under another name and many of their deputies still control the Thai Parliament.

The world watched as the Thai people staged their non violent protest and paralysed the nations commerce. The western goverments stood back and instead of offering support made guarded statements regarding the dangers of mass protest.
The worlds news featured irate travelers railing against the idiots who wouldn't let them get to Phuket for their vacations. The Thais responded with their usual courtesy and put stranded travelers up in empty luxury hotels, free of charge.

There is an innate sense of courtesy in the Thai character. Good manners and graciousness are a hallmark of the national identity. Losing your temper and getting angry triggers a non aggressive wall of passive non compliance. You can get nowhere fast by yelling in Thailand, but a smile will open most doors and get you a good deal.

We have seen the biggest non violent demonstration in recent history succeed in Thailand. The demostrators may not have gotten all they wished for, but they know they have the approval of their king, the vocal support of the queen, the protection of the police and possibly the involvement of the army as an ally should this be neccessary.

The west sat silent watching, hoping that this would be a lessson unlearned by the public...in other words: It's okay for the Thais, but Kids, Don't Try This At Home!

That Special Christmas Gift

There is a perfect replica of the Eiffel Tower, 1/20th scale about 20 kilometers from here in the Village of Ayen in the Correze. The tower is situated on the property of the artist who built it in 1989, Jean-Paul Caudoux. He has a relatively unknown private museum, L'atelier de Vieux Metiers which has a collection of ancient machines and cars. It is a veritable Ali Baba's Cavern.

The Tower stands about 17 meters tall and weighs around 6 tons. Jean-Paul has it for sale in the internet and is asking around 30,000 Euros for it. He is in his late 60's and is interested in retiring. He hopes that if it is bought, it can remain where it is, but it can be disassembled into three sections which could be easily moved by heliocopter.

I would like to see it remain where it is, I bike to Ayen quite frequently and it is the site of one of my favorite boulangers. Not only is the bread wonderful, but they make a special pastry called le Delice de Noix. It's a little tart with a crust made with ground walnuts and filled with a walnut flavored pastry cream frosted with mocha...very addictive!
Ayen is a very historic little place on one of the hills of the Correze with a perfect Romanesque Church dating from the 13th century which in the late 19th century was taken apart stone by stone and reassembled because of a structural problem caused by earth movement. The original foundation of the church dates to a gallo roman structure.
One of my favorite and very challenging bike trips! The little village clinging to the side of the hill with the older Ayen-bas below in the valley. There are some pretty funky Correziene style red sandstone chateaux to discover. Visit Jean-Pauls museum beofre he closes up shop!

Our Weekly White Trash Moment

This weeks White Trash Moment on the brainpolice is brought to you by Televangelists. Benny Hinn is fucking trashy and of course on the "JUST DIE" list with the rest of these shitty hypocrites. Just look at all the wheelchairs on stage. I'm sure! Check out the :45 mark to see some of his "magic." I would love to get on that stage, roll around and barf for Jesus. They had to install gutters in the aisles to channel all the drool away. And it's recommended that you wear a pair of pampers when you hear him "preach." Just being in the presence of such magnificence will make you piss your pants.
Here is an adorable pamphlet mailed out by Benny Hinn Ministries. It asks for contributions to help purchase "DOVE ONE," Hinn's new $36 million Gulfstream! Are you fucking kidding?!? And for a gift of $1000 or more, your name will be inscribed in the cabin of the plane. You can't make this crazy shit up! Praise the Lord!

Torture and Abuse Cost American Lives

In an Op-Ed in today's Washington Post, a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006 sharply criticizes American torture techniques as ineffective and dangerous. "Torture and abuse costs American lives" he writes:

"I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. … It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans."

The writer, who used a pseudonym for the article, adds that when he switched his team’s techniques to a rapport-building method, they found enormous success. One detainee told the author, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.”

The writer also goes on to tell in his piece about his experiences writing about his feelings and his opinions. He wrote a book about his opinions and experiences and had to have it vetted by the Defense Department. He was surprised by how extreme the criticism he recieved was and alarmed by the censorship of entire sections of the book.
Evidently, the Pentagon doesn't want us to know how ineffectual it's torture techniques that it claims it doesn't use really are!

But we all knew this all along, now....didn't we?

VIVACE

Beneath the murky waters of the Detroit River, the future of hydro electric energy generation is taking a giant step into the future. The first experimental tests of a new system called VIVACE (Vortex induced vibrations for aquatic clean energy) are being conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan.

Michael Bernitsas, a professor of naval architecture at the University explained in The UK Telegraph that principle was based on the changes in water speed that are caused when a current flows past an obstruction. Eddies or vortices, formed in the water flow, can move objects up and down or left and right.

"This is a totally different method of extracting energy from water flow," said Mr. Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them at the speed they go, so they ride in each other's wake".

The new device which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.
As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is converted into electrical energy.

Basically, as the device exists now. A field, the hight of a two story house over a 1 km square, could power 100,000 homes. Just a few cyliners stacked in a short ladder, could produce the power for a lighthouse or a freighter.
The device can operate in currents as low as one kilometer/hr, which means that it could be employed in any moving body of water in the world.

This is just one of many new hydro, solar, geo and aeolian energy technologies bursting out of the gates, ready to be put into use. The sad question is, why has it taken so long for this new age to dawn?

Zappadan Draws Nigh

Just a friendly reminder that the Feast of Zappadan
is approaching. The High Holy Days are from the
4th to the 21st of December.
This is a nice picture of Frank and his parents.

Wanna buy some pencils?

Grace Jones

Last night on the News/Entertainment program on Canal+, Le Grand Journal, we were delighted to see a live performance by Grace Jones. Madame Jones is releasing her first album in quite a few years, Hurricane. She performed this piece called Williams Blood.
I first saw Grace Jones in the late 70's. A performer who goes way beyond any one dimension, she is a work of art. Every aspect is stylized and personalized in a way others could only try to imitate. It was interesting to see her son performing with the musicians, he cowrote and produced his mothers record. Somehow, Madame Jones has managed to become such an iconic, surreal persona that it was a great leap of imagination to accept that she had a 25 year old son.
This is a recent performance from German television.

War Of The Roses

It's been a while since I've tried to post regarding French Politics. So much happens, yet nothing really happens. Last year, there was a presidential election and of Nicolas Sarkozy won. The Socialist Party immediately responded by falling into total disarray for many reasons.
Part of Sarkozy's strategy was to reach out to disaffected members of the Socialist Party and bring them into his goverment. Bernard Kuchner became Minister of Foreign Affairs.
It was a strange defeat for the Socialists. In reality, Segolene Royale was a very popular candidate and if elected would have governed from a centrist position, continuing the legacy of Francois Mitterand, her mentor. In the end, she lost by 3 percent.
Many people felt she could have won if the Socialists could only have united behind her. Instead, there was a power struggle going on between the old and the new guard.
She was constantly sabotaged from with in.
Her relationship with Francois Hollande, the Party Secretary was deteriorating. They had lived together and had a few children together, but Francois felt cheated by his companions rising star and the charisma that he lacked...The Party Secretary normally would have been the presidential candidate, but Royale's popularity assured her the candidacy.
Hollande's term of Secretary of the Party is coming to an end, so ther was an election in the Socialist party for the new leader. There were 4 main candidates, Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille, Bertrand Delanoe, the Mayor of Paris, Benoit Hamon, the youngest and most far left and Segolene Royale.
Of the four, Segolene had the majority of supporters, but the old guard of the party, inspired by the machinations of Hollande were united against her. Delanoe dropped out of the race and told his supporters to support Aubry. There was the first round of voting and Segolene came out ahead of Hamon and Aubry...Hamon was the real loser and he told his supporters to vote for Aubry.
It seemed that Aubry really had a personal dislike for Segolene. It was historic, two women were competing for a position that had never been occupied by a woman before, but one represented a real chance to break with the image that the Socialists couldn't lead and the other was a last ditch attempt by the entrenched "elephants" of the Party to hold onto their power.
In the vote last week end, Aubry won by a disputed 40 some votes! France was experiencing it's own Miami sur le Seine! A real vote counting scandal with charges of tampering flying back and forth. Segolene still commanded almost half of the votes against a united front of her opponents.
Yesterday seemed to mark a truce as the two women met. The party will survive inspite of all the strife, but instead of relegating Royale to obscurity, the events have only set the stage for her star to shine even brighter. In her fight to change the Socialist party she has proven herself to be a canny politician and brawler and still remain a class act..

Astor Piazzolla

This is a performance from 1980 of Astor Piazzolla and his New Tango Quintet with his composition, Adios Nonino.
Piazzolla is called the father of Modern Tango. He revolutionized Argentinian music in the 60's by introducing new tempos and taking it to a higher level compositionally.
His preferred instument was the traditional bandoneon, the button accordion like instrument and he was the master.
I was lucky enough to see Piazzolla play in New York quite a few times in the early 1980's. It was always an emotional experience.
Piazzolla was born in New York City. His family immigrated from Italy to Lower Manhattan and then to Argentina, which has a huge Italian community. I know a few Argentinians and I am always amazed at their accent, to me, their Spanish sounds more like Italian.
Piazzolla's New York Lower Manhattan roots gave him the rythmic back ground to bring something completely different to the classic Tango. There is a rhythmic fluidity and the emphasis of the beat is different than the 1,2,3..4, 1,2,3..4 of the classic tango...in fact, it's totally different and I feel the difference might very well be the influence of living in Lower Manhattan and growing up listening to the Eastern European Klezmer music of the Lower East Side Jewish culture.

Schiff Was Right

This video sequence offers a compendium of appearances (covering the 2006-2007 period) by Euro Pacific Capital president Peter Schiff, who is a frequent -- and frequently disrespected -- talking head on cable news shows. What astonishes is not just the accuracy of his dour predictions about the economy but the sheer arrogance of every other person appearing on these programs.

I don't know who comes off as worse -- the supremely snotty Ben Stein, or the well-named Arthur Laffer. I just wonder how Ben Stein feels about the financial markets as an investment now.

This is an astonishing compilation of clips. It just keeps getting more outrageous as it goes along.
Every time Schiff says something sensible, the pundits surrounding him snort and howl. They treat him with undisguised contempt and hatred, as though he had just called for ending the laws against homicide or reducing the age of consent to three.

What did these "experts" hope to gain by attempting to conspire against reality?

(By the way, I am aware that Schiff was the economic adviser to Ron Paul. I still don't like Libertarians, and I'm sure that Schiff has an ideological angle. But when a guy proves that he can call the shot, then one must give him credit.)

Over the last few days, I have been pondering the real cost of the "bail outs" to date and after googling a bit, I think I have the actual cost and I would like to put it into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

Les Grues Cendree

Another nature post, this time I was out working in the cold this morning before I had to go to the dentist for a teeth cleaning session and I heard the noise of birds coming across the horizon. I had been wondering when I would see the migrating grey cranes, les grues cendree high in the sky on their winter migration.
Here in the Dordogne, we are under their main flight path. In years ealier, I had always heard the Grues in October and they seem to be quite late this year.
They fly pretty high in big groups in a rough V formation, wheeling across the sky, never logically straight, sometimes other groups join and make a huge V.....
I tried to take a number of pictures with my wifes camera and none of them worked, except for this one.
They spend the summer in Scandinavia and winter in Africa and will fly back over us in a few months.

Pied de Mouton

The rain stopped for a few hours today after a huge wind and rain storm last night. All of the leaves are off of the Marron d'Inde trees. I believe they are the basically what Ohioans call Buckeye trees. A few branches were blown down, but aside from that, no damage. There hasn't been any frost for a few weeks, but a lot of rain and fog.
I took advantage of the rare glimpse of sun to take the dog, JJ for a walk in the woods.
As I was walking in the woods, through the slick carpet of leaves, I gradually became aware, as the last lingering background noise of a jet in the stratosphere faded, that it was absolutely silent. It's never really noisy around here, except when there is farm machinery working away...but, today, the silence was absolute.
Amazingly enough, I suddenly was aware that the background hiss of tintinitus, the nerve damage in my ears that I have incurred from stranding in front of a bass guitar amplifier was actually gone.

The dog became interested in something and took off running across the valley. I could hear barking across the creek in the forest on the other side of the hill. I'm not sure what he was doing, I know better than to ask.

I started to look around and I was aware of all the new late fall mushrooms poking up through the leaf litter. This year was a lousy year for mushrooms. There were no cepes.
Well, I found one, but people who make money collecting cepes for restaurants all said it was a catastrophe. I found a few girolles throught the year and some small pied de moutons.
As I was poking around, a light creamy off white shape caught my eye...then another. I looked closer and realized that there were pied de mouton everywhere. They were the biggest I had ever seen! For some reason, the conditions were just right to make these mushrooms bloom in mass quantities and bigger than I had ever seen them before.
I had a plastic bag and by the time JJ returned with the stupid grin on his face when he has become a wild crazy dog, I had collected a kilo. I collected all I could carry!

Luckily, I had a camera and took the shot for this post. I tried to show the main characteristics. The color, the irregular shape and most important, the spore bearing spines under the cap. They do not have gills like most mushrooms or pores like a bolete or polypore. The Pied de Mouton, or Hydnum repandum grows in forest litter. I believe they grow in the Midwest of The United States and the North East and are commonly called Hedgehog Mushrooms.
They grow under leafy forest and in pine forests, but in my experience, the ones growing in pine forests have a slightly bitter taste.

They have a very good nutty, slightly sweet mushroom flavor and a very good texture.
They are one of the best edible mushrooms and cannot be mistaken for any other.
They will keep for a few days after picking, but if you have a lot, like I do today, you can freeze them for a few weeks. They go very good with eggs and can be used in almost every mushroom dish. I sauted some with chicken breast, then deglazed the pan with a little cream tonight.

I am going to go back and look again tomorrow, but I think it will frost tonight. If that happens, chances are, my good luck today was just that.....
My tintinitus seems to be back...

Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?

A few days ago, I published a post called Right Into The Damn Ditch, which quoted from an article in the Wall Street Journal. It was a pretty good indictment of how Detroit Auto Makers bissfully kept making bad decisions and resisted innovation in the face of reality and the glaring evidence that while they were losing their market, Asiatic Auto Makers were ascending.

I was made aware yesterday of another great article, from The Detroit Free Press by columnist, Mitch Albom. He says much of what I believe about the need to preserve the Detroit Auto Makers, but really criticizes the attitudes of the Southern Congressmen and Senators who use the proposed bailout as an opportunity to destroy unions and the hypocrisy they are guilty of. He mentions the Federal Aid and waivers granted to the Asiatic Manufacturers who set up shop in the South in the first place.
I feel the Southern Republican critics of a bail out of Detroit are exploiting the political gains they can make locally by making this a regional battle. Again, thinking on a small immediate politicallyy local level while letting the long term national welfare suffer.
It is an article well worth reading.
Meanwhile, to help us think about "bail outs" here's Tom Waits performing the song, Buddy Can You Spare A Dime . Written in 1931, by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg and Jay Gorney, it was the classic anthemn of the Depression. Tom Waits performs a gut wrenching interpretaion, much different than Bing Crosby's.

HOW TO CHANGE BY NOT CHANGING!

If Barack Obama does this one thing while he is president, then I will feel vindicated!
The bane of my existance is the time change we endure twice a year. I hate...yes, literally hate! having to "fall back". It affects my mood...I know I am physically affected by light and I love the sun.
When we change to winter time, I feel like I have one less hour a day of sunlight. That's why I was so heartened by this item in the times stating that Barack Obama is considering the elimination of Daylight Savings Time in order to conserve energy, but I know he's doing it just to make me happy!

Twice a year, a bunch of countries, including most of the United States, practice daylight saving time or DST, shifting one hour ahead in the spring and one hour back in the fall. While I go through the whole twice-a-year ritual of looking for clocks, I only vaguely understood the reason behind it. I knew it had to do with more sunlight during waking hours and I assumed it was to save energy.

Turns out, according to two academics on the NYT Op-Ed page, there is little scientific proof that this reduces energy consumption. It also turns out that this practice could be wasteful, a bit annoying, and a lot of people, including Obama, want to get rid of it.
A study in Indiana, a state that recently started DST, showed an overall increase of 1 percent in residential electricity use with occasional increases of 2 to 4 percent in late spring and early fall. So much for conserving energy.

While DST is great for reducing in-door lighting, the shift in time increases the demand for air conditioning during hot summer evenings and increased heating in early spring and late fall mornings. The energy suckers of heat and A/C could eliminate any savings from reduced lighting and, as the Indiana study showed, actually increase electricity consumption.

The hot state of Arizona seems to already know this and opted out of the whole time-shifting practice.

Special Holiday Cheer Offer!

The American Family Association, of Tupelo, Mississippi, is offering a lighted yard cross to help keep the Christ in Xmas.

Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can... with the "Original Christmas Cross" yard decoration.

Light up your front yard, porch, patio, driveway, business, organization or church this holiday season with a stunning Christmas cross.

This beautiful Christmas Cross is 5.5 feet tall, with 210 individual ultra bright lights.

If you act now, your $81.85 lawn cross comes with a copy of Mississippi Burning.

Please note that the Xmas lawn cross is drop shipped from another supplier, so

...if you wish to order other products at this time from the AFA Online Store, please make a seperate (sic) order.

Woody Allen 1962

This is a stand up routine by Woody Allen, his first appearance on the Jack Parr show on NBC in 1962. Painful...Painfully funny!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sarah Palin gives us all a great reason to give thanks as she gushes vapidly, proving she is great for filling one vacuum with another as turkeys are slaughtered in the background. No, this isn't a Saturday Night Live Sketch.
In fact, the governor should fire her writers! This lame joke has already been done, better! In fact much better!
Ladies and Gentlemen, the infamous WKRP TURKEY DROP!

Right Into The Damn Ditch!

Three private corporate jets touched down in Washington on Wednesday. Each jet carried the entourage and CEO of one of the big three automakers. The group was limousined in comfort to testify in front of Congress to justify why the auto industry shoul;d be bailed out by federal money.
The American Auto industry has been losing billions of dollars for years. The corporate heads want to use this opportunity to bust the unions and are scapegoating them instead of facing the blame. The rust started long ago at the top!
To talk of the impending catastrophe of the failure of detroit is redundant. The catastrophe has happened. It is happening and will only get worse if the "bail out" is allowed to proceed like the Wall Street Bail out...favoring the corporate infrastructure and with out over sight. Allowing the bail out of Detroit to be a matter between federal Agencies and the already proven profligate incompetency of the CEO's is just plain idiocy and only the powder to light the keg that will result in an even bigger disaster down the line.
One question, if the Corporate solution to their problems is to simply destroy the labor unions and create a labor force working for the peanut salaries they are drooling over,
then what will happen to the middle class who buys the vehicles that Detroit wants to keep pumping out? Just a thought.

Here's a great article from the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ingrassia that summarizes how and why the US auto industry fell to pieces. My favorite part was this telling excerpt:

In Detroit, amid worker alienation and the "blue-collar blues," Chevies, Fords and Plymouths rattled, rusted and rolled over -- and those were the good ones. The Ford Pinto's gas tank was prone to explode into flames when the car was hit from the rear, making the Pinto the poster product for corporate callousness. In 1978, after three Indiana girls burned to death when their Pinto got rear-ended, Ford became the first company to be indicted for reckless homicide. The company later was acquitted, but public opinion judged the Pinto guilty.

For all the Pinto's infamy, perhaps no car better captured America's decade-long haplessness than the pug-ugly AMC Gremlin, which debuted in 1970 and died -- mercifully -- in 1980. The Gremlin's shape, fittingly, was first sketched out by an American Motors designer on the back of a Northwest Airlines air-sickness bag. On Aug. 20, 1979, 18-year-old Brad Alty, fresh out of high school in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, was driving his Gremlin to work when the car broke down. He was two-and-a-half hours late to his first day on the job at a new motorcycle factory that Honda Motor was opening in central Ohio.

For the next few weeks, Mr. Alty and his 63 co-workers did little but sweep floors and paint them with yellow lines. Then they started building three to five motorcycles a day. And at the end of each day they would disassemble each bike, piece by piece, to evaluate the workmanship.

Click here to read the entire article.

30 Years On...

On November 18th, 1978, 921 people committed mass suicide or were murdered in the Guyana settlement of Californian Religious leader, Jim Jones.
The mass death occurred when Congressman Leo Ryan of the Bay Area went to visit Jonestown to investigate reports of child abuse and people being held against their will.
When he arrived, the ensuing paranoiac reaction triggered an apocalyptic response. The Congressman was murdered by Jones followers and Jones, fearing retribution, oredered his followers to kill themselves and their children.
This is where the phrase "drink the kool-aid" in referring to mind control arose. The poison was mixed in big cats of kool-aid which all drank.
There is a good history of the rise and descent into madness and the tragic events in the Washington Post with a photo gallery.
There was a ceremony in San Francisco commenorating the event held by relatives and some of the survivors of the Jonestown settlement.
Many Jonestown survivors and their families believe that the lessons of Jonestown are to remember and guard against demagogues who use religion as a cover for fraud, deception and imposing their own sometimes dangerous social and political beliefs on their naive and unsuspecting followers.

It was that theme that dominated Tuesday's memorial service at the mass grave in Oakland. In an emotional and highly charged address, the Rev. Amos Brown, bishop at San Francisco's Third Baptist Church and president of the San Francisco NAACP, warned the mourners to beware of religious leaders who claim to have all the answers and insinuate themselves into politics, as Jones did so effectively in San Francisco.

"Good religion elevates folk, it teaches people to think for themselves. Good religion isn't authoritarian. Good religion isn't bigoted," he said. "Open up your eyes, America. America isn't a theocracy, it's a democracy. . . . And that is the lesson we must learn from Jonestown."

Todays Sponsor

That's right folks! Todays sponsor of the Brainpolice is
THE HUCKABEE FAMILY!
I'd like to say a few words, here, these people obviously represent everything
that's fucked up with America. The only reason the poor pig in the middle made the
picture was that he was getting turned over for his bed sores, God bless him.
The whole family looks like they'd be a lot more comfortable in
overalls, a bib and velcro shoes.