Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

OIL AND COAL isn’t the only energy reserves we have tied up in our wild areas, mountain tops and just off our ocean shores, ya know. There’s alternative energies in there too!

The coming winter is going to be a difficult one, especially for those living in the colder areas of the country.* But Your Montag has a bold proposal to help people heat their homes with cheap, independent, domestic, green, alternative energy:

There’s more than 400 cord of firewood in this bad boy alone! [Image from here]

Now, I’m not saying we should start logging the national forests immediately. I’m just saying we should give the president the authority to do so if it should become absolutely necessary.

*Screw you people who live where it’s warm year round, at least we don’t have to import our drinking water!

SAME SHIT, different day:

Torture “is basically subject to perception,” CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”
[Washington Post: CIA Played Larger Role In Advising Pentagon]

In before—

—No, wait. Paolaccio was in before all.

Whose perception are we talking about here?

If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say, “if the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong,” pertains to the perception of the folks back home. That is, if the detainee dies, the public might perceive that he had been tortured. Of course, if the detainee lives, the pundits can argue he wasn’t.

[Via: IOZ]

WAIT, what?

A white elephant is a valuable possession which the owner cannot dispose of, but whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) exceeds its supposed usefulness. The term derives from the sacred white elephants kept by traditional Southeast Asian monarchs… To possess a white elephant was regarded … as a sign that the monarch was ruling with justice and the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity. The tradition derives from tales in the scriptures which associate a white elephant with the birth of Buddha, as his mother was reputed to have dreamed of a white elephant presenting her with a lotus flower, a symbol of wisdom and purity, on the eve of giving birth. Because the animals were considered sacred and laws protected them from labor, receiving a gift of a white elephant from a monarch was both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because the animal was sacred and a sign of the monarch’s favour, and a curse because the animal had to be kept and could not be put to practical use to offset the cost of maintaining it.
[Wikipedia: White elephant]

Yours with a “special contribution” of at least $35

So, is The Party the just monarch providing peace and prosperity? Or are they the elephant itself? Who must be maintained though it can be put to no practical use, and whose cost exceeds its supposed usefulness. Or is this nod to sacred Buddhism some kind of appeal to that certain strain of hardcore Christians who enthusiastically support Israel in hopes of bringing about the rapture? I’m not sending in my $35 until they’re giving out Red Heifers.

TODAY’S CIVICS LESSON comes from a Portland Press Herald article about something called “people’s veto” where people can collect signatures to have a ballot initiative to veto a law passed by the state. The idea of which threatens the ability of our republican form of government to rule.

This is why our republican form of government is superior to so-called ‘direct democracy’ an expert says:

…politicians have more time and resources to carefully study issues than the voters do, and lawmakers develop “a more informed position” on issues as a result.
[Portland Press Herald: Power to the people]

Heh. Well, even if so, “a more informed position” can be “more informed” by a lot of different things. Least of which, it seems in a lot of cases, is the “Will of the People.”

Continue reading for a not-very-well-thought-out I-don’t-know-what-it-is… (more…)