Drone Memo

Obama and drones...The paper states that the U.S. would be able to kill a U.S. citizen overseas when "an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government" determines the target is an imminent threat, when capture would be infeasible and when the operation is "conducted consistent with applicable law of war principles."

The white paper suggests that such decisions would not be subject to judicial review and outlines a broad definition of what constitutes “imminent” threat.

Single Winter Thoughts

 

Clear winter morning

A single snowflake floats by

Brilliant dot of light

 

Sunlight shining in

Greeting and caressing one

Warms the lonely soul

 

God's love surrounds me

Embracing and forgiving 

Freeing sin's captive

 

Health Care Unconstitutional...

"This is now a full-blown Constitutional Crisis."

For a short summation of what happened and the complete decision of the Florida court on behalf of twenty-six states see:

Health Care Unconstitutional: Obama Sedition? by Karl Denninger on The Market Ticker.

Cabbagegate?

Check out the following links for some bizarre real happenings as the power/money grabbing attitude, which not long ago focused on making it big in the market, now turns inward:

ChileChews in Southwest USA

VegetableFarming in Georgia

LESSON: How is globalization acting out in your neck of the woods?

Amazing Grace

Dave and I watched this movie today. Quite amazing. It could motivate you to never eat sugar again in remembrance of those that died during the development of the sugar industry.

Watch it.

Globalization: Good vs. Bad

"At first glance, of course, one might think that globalization is a good thing: each country or people liberated to exchange the fruits of their labor on the world's markets; each culture free to learn from all the others; more buying and selling, higher standards of living, and modernity; less poverty and backwardness. In practice, however, much of globalization tends to promote an extremely selective, and often quite destructive and unjust, distribution of power and wealth. It supports certain cultures and communities and eliminates others. Its successes tend to be measured by the simplest and least humane of economic measures -- more economic activity, more 'wealth' understood purely as purchasing power -- while its crushing human and ecological effects are ignored. Above all, globalization's transformations of the way people work, live, and raise families are not democratically chosen but created and managed by political and economic elites."

"To get a sense of globalization's dark side, consider and example of the international production of energy involving Enron in the Indian state of Maharastra. Enron contracted to build power plants there, and Maharastra agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in return. Because the resulting facilities produced electricity that was between two and seven times more expensive than previously existing Indian plants, a new state government attempted to break the disastrous agreement. Pressure was applied by the U.S. ambassador (who soon retired from government service to become an Enron director), and soon a new contract was signed that was even more expensive. Millions of dollars of bribes to local officials secured the contract, threats from U.S. and other global institutions solidified Enron's position, and Enron made billions in profits. An already poverty-stricken area of a third world country became poorer, but economic activity measured as the exchange of funds increased. National boundaries, and to some extent national sovereignty, were diminished. Some people did quite well out of the deal, but many more suffered."

"Another harmful impact of globalization arises when subsistence farming is replaced by huge plantations growing a single export corp, and peasants who used to support themselves on the land move to already overcrowded cities with high unemployment. In such cases, people who had been living a reasonably secure existence, with access to land and food, get turned into consumers who must pay for everything they need. Economic activity increases, more money circulates, but the loss of access to their own fields, forests, or coastlines is not registered as a monetary loss, and because the ensuing poverty involves more cash flow, it can be seen as a 'better life.'"

Quotation taken from: A Greener Faith, by Roger S. Gottlieb

Consumerism, An Addiction

Two weeks ago hubby and I heard Roger S. Gottlieb, Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), speak on religious environmentalism. The following is a quote from his book, A Greener Faith, Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet.

"Consumerism, we should be clear, is not simply about buying a lot, though it certainly includes that. All through history people have wanted their basic needs met, and that small group with extra cash on hand made a point of getting a good deal more than that. The shape taken by consumerism in the modern world, however, involves not just the multiplication of what you get, but the endless expansion of what you want. Consumerism teaches that the central goal of human existence is the satisfaction of an ever growing, ever changing array of personal desires. To be a consumer, in this sense, is always to be wanting something else: the newest, fastest, largest (or smallest), best, prettiest, or most impressive. If the superlatives in these categories are restricted to the truly wealthy, the goal will be to get the best knock-offs one can afford. In this sense, consumerism is a quasi-addictive pattern, made up of unending cycles of the stimulation of desire - the satisfaction of desire (buying) - and the stimulation of new desires. Like any other addiction, we feel a rush of craving, a brief moment of contentment, the inevitable letdown - and then a new craving."

What does a life free from addiction look like? What is that freedom?

"Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.'"

John 8: 34-35