Everywhere?

Apparently not.

Caught on Camera: 10 Shockingly Violent Police Assaults on Occupy Protesters

Probably 97 percent of police act professionally toward protesters. But the other 3 percent are armed and dangerous, and know that they're unlikely to be held accountable.

Frank Luntz's Infamous Right Wing Propaganda Playbook

Here it is in all of its disingenuous glory: http://www.politicususa.com/en/14-secret-gop-words

What do the occupiers want?

The corporate media, which can only be trusted to provide the finest propaganda money can buy, keeps telling us that the occupiers have never told us what they want.  That is an outright lie.  Herein is the truth.

The Demands are a work in progress, so this is a dynamic situation.  I have captured a snapshot on 27 Oct 2011.  See
Occupy Wall Street - Official Demands
for the current state of the Demands list.

Official Voting Page

OCCUPY WALL STREET LIST OF PROPOSED DEMANDS PASSED FOR INCLUSION, AS OF 27 OCT. 2011

LIST OF PROPOSED "DEMANDS" FOR CONGRESS

1. CONGRESS PASS HR 1489 ("RETURN TO PRUDENT BANKING ACT" http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-1489 ). THIS REINSTATES MANY PROVISIONS OF THE GLASS-STEAGALL ACT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act --- Wiki entry summary: The repeal of provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between investment banking which issued securities and commercial banks which accepted deposits. The deregulation also removed conflict of interest prohibitions between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. Most economists believe this repeal directly contributed to the severity of the Financial crisis of 2007–2011 by allowing Wall Street investment banking firms to gamble with their depositors' money that was held in commercial banks owned or created by the investment firms. Here's detail on repeal in 1999 and how it happened:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act#Repeal .   
   
   
2. USE CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY AND OVERSIGHT TO ENSURE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL AGENCIES FULLY INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis in the following notable cases: (insert list of the most clear cut criminal actions). There is a pretty broad consensus that there is a clear group of people who got away with millions / billions illegally and haven't been brought to justice. Boy would this be long overdue and cathartic for millions of Americans. It would also be a shot across the bow for the financial industry. If you watch the solidly researched and awared winning documentary film "Inside Job" that was narrated by Matt Damon (pretty brave Matt!) and do other research, it wouldn't take long to develop the list.  
   
   
3. CONGRESS ENACT LEGISLATION TO PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY BY REVERSING THE EFFECTS OF THE CITIZENS UNITED SUPREME COURT DECISION which essentially said corporations can spend as much as they want on elections. The result is that corporations can pretty much buy elections. Corporations should be highly limited in ability to contribute to political campaigns no matter what the election and no matter what the form of media. This legislation should also RE-ESTABLISH THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES IN THE U.S. SO THAT POLITICAL CANDIDATES ARE GIVEN EQUAL TIME FOR FREE AT REASONABLE INTERVALS IN DAILY PROGRAMMING DURING CAMPAIGN SEASON. The same should extend to other media.
   
   
4. CONGRESS PASS THE BUFFETT RULE ON FAIR TAXATION SO THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE & CLOSE CORPORATE TAX LOOP HOLES AND ENACT A PROHIBITION ON HIDING FUNDS OFF SHORE. No more GE paying zero or negative taxes. Pass the Buffet Rule on fair taxation so the rich pay their fair share. (If we have a really had a good negotiating position and have the place surrounded, we could actually dial up taxes on millionaires, billionaires and corporations even higher...back to what they once were in the 50's and 60's.
   
   
5. CONGRESS COMPLETELY REVAMP THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION and staff it at all levels with proven professionals who get the job done protecting the integrity of the marketplace so citizens and investors are both protected. This agency needs a large staff and needs to be well-funded. It's currently has a joke of a budget and is run by Wall St. insiders who often leave for high ticket cushy jobs with the corporations they were just regulating. Hmmm.  
   
   
6. CONGRESS PASS SPECIFIC AND EFFECTIVE LAWS LIMITING THE INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS AND ELIMINATING THE PRACTICE OF LOBBYISTS WRITING LEGISLATION THAT ENDS UP ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS.  
   
   
7. CONGRESS PASSING "Revolving Door Legislation" LEGISLATION ELIMINATING THE ABILITY OF FORMER GOVERNMENT REGULATORS GOING TO WORK FOR CORPORATIONS THAT THEY ONCE REGULATED. So, you don't get to work at the FDA for five years playing softball with Pfizer and then go to work for Pfizer making $195,000 a year. While they're at it, Congress should pass specific and effective laws to enforce strict judicial standards of conduct in matters concerning conflicts of interest. So long as judges are culled from the ranks of corporate attorneys the 1% will retain control.  
   
   
8. ELIMINATE "PERSONHOOD" LEGAL STATUS FOR CORPORATIONS. The film "The Corporation" has a great section on how corporations won "personhood status".http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SuUzmqBewg . Fast-forward to 2:20. It'll blow your mind. The 14th amendment was supposed to give equal rights to African Americans. It said you "can't deprive a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law". Corporation lawyers wanted corporations to have more power so they basically said "corporations are people." Amazingly, between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases brought before the court under the 14th amendment. 288 of these brought by corporations and only 19 by African Americans. 600,000 people were killed to get rights for people and then judges applied those rights to capital and property while stripping them from people. It's time to set this straight.  

COMPLETE LIST OF OCCUPY WALL STREET PROPOSALS

1. Eliminate Corporate Rights as Persons          

Revise the interpretation of the famous 1886 case where the U.S. Supreme Court supposedly ruled that corporations are "persons" having the same rights as human beings based on the 14th Amendment, which was intended to protect the rights of former slaves. As most lawyers know, the Supreme Court made no such decision. In the case in question - Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the court itself never rules on personhood. A court reporter by the name of J.C. Bancroft Davis (a former railroad president) snuck that "ruling" into the books.

What most people don't know is that after the above-mentioned 1886 decision, artificial persons were held to have exactly the same legal rights as we natural folk. (Not to mention the clear advantages corporations enjoy: they can be in several places at once, for instance, and at least in theory they're immortal.) Up until the New Deal, many laws regulating corporations were struck down under the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment--in fact, that clause was invoked far more often on behalf of corporations than former slaves. Although the doctrine of personhood has been weakened since, even now lawyers argue that an attempt to sue a corporation for lying is an unconstitutional infringement on its First Amendment right to free speech. ( Nike v. Kasky.)  

Ammendment Dated September 30, 2011 for reasons of consolidation

- Require Corporations to have Labour representatives on their boards of directors.  Has been added to this Demand

Click Here to learn more about Why Corporations have been Granted Human Rights

2. Repeal of the Patriot Act              

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." — Fourth Amendment to the Constitution

Forty-five days after 9/11, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act without reading it. This new law was supposed to protect you from terrorism, but it has really left you unprotected against lawless federal agents. The Patriot Act contains numerous violations of the Fourth Amendment. It gives federal agents vast new powers that have been abused to investigate innocent Americans.

3. Forced Acquisition of the Federal Reserve for $1Billion USD by the US Congress             

No Congress, no President has been strong enough to stand up to the foreign-controlled Federal Reserve Bank. Yet there is a catch - one that President Kennedy recognized before he was slain - the original deal in 1913 creating the Federal Reserve Bank had a simple backout clause. The investors loaned the United States Government $1 billion. And the backout clause allows the United States to buy out the system for that $1 billion. If the Federal Reserve Bank were demolished and the Congress of the United States took control of the currency, as required in the Constitution, the National Debt would virtually end overnight, and the need for more taxes and even the income tax, itself. Thomas Jefferson was concise in his early warning to the American nation, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Article I, Section 8, Clause 5, of the United States Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof and of any foreign coins. But that is not the case. The United States government has no power to issue money, control the flow of money, or to even distribute it - that belongs to a private corporation registered in the State of Delaware - the Federal Reserve Bank.

Recently ammendments to consolidate in this demand

- Outlaw Flash Trading is now included in this Demand

- Provide a real democratic system for US Elections and US Policy is now included in this Demand

Learn More about How Congress has the Right to Take control over the Federal Reserve Here:  How to Gain Control over the Federal Reserve

4. Restructure Campaign Finance Legislation

Proposal One: Ban corporate donations to political campaigns while limiting individual campaign donations to $100.

Background:Corporations in the U.S. exercise an inordinate amount of influence over the government. The amount of corporate money in elections makes it virtually impossible for people want to serve the public’s interests to be viable candidates. Lowering the individual maximum donation to $100 ensures that the rich won\'t simply buy elections. This demand is offered in order to eliminate the rich’s dominance of elections and subsequent effect on public and foreign policy. America has never had a popular democracy. It began as a country controlled by a handful of white land-owning men. Throughout its history, gains were made in achieving some level of democracy to American citizens. The age of rule by an elite 1% (a tiny minority) can be forced to an end soon.The majority of the American population sees the U.S. as a reasonably fair country and as a popular democracy. This demand challenges that assertion. America is a corporate democracy and it will be eye-opening to many people to witness how undemocratically big business and their political flunkies will fight to deny popular democracy even though those are the values that the elites have professed for so long. This demand forces them to put up or shut up on their fucking principles. The public will support restructuring of campaign finance as the tiny minority has recently collapsed the economy, wasted resources, and destroyed millions of lives in it pursuit of its wars for its own narrow interest. In the past they have been able to point to relatively high wages, a relatively high standard of living, and increasing growth (regardless of the reason) as reasons to uphold the status quo, but these conditions are deteriorating and people are again searching for a remedy. Taking away the tiny majority’s ability to buy every election will usher in popular democracy and with that new policies that may affect all issues and grievances moving forward.span>p>
more donations to a single person that is seeking or has a position in congress that exceeds $5,000 (five thousand) dollars within the time period of 1 (one) year. And no donations exceeding $25,000 (twenty-five thousand) to a single group, PAC, or super PAC within the time span of 18 (eighteen) months. Also, when a donation is made the persons employer must be listed. And if 25% (twenty-five) of all employees of the stated company donate to the same person or group then the company will stand to be investigated as to whether it is giving its employees the money andp>

All members of all governments, Federal, state or local, must remain free of influence from outside factors.  Lobbyists must remain at arm's length and not be allowed in any way to provide free meals, trips or gifts of any kind to any politician.  All contact must be in written form to prevent influence peddling.

5. Real Health Care Reform Real Health Care Reform         

Click Here to Vote to Include in Demands

Make Healthcare affordable and availablt to all without a "Mandate".  Nearly all other countries on this planet have a system that works.  Access to adequate health care is a human right not a privelage.  (Accepting additional proposals)

6.  End the War on Drugs          

The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet, and the U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska. Try to imagine the Drug Enforcement Administration erecting razor wire barricades around two states to control crime and you’ll get the picture.

According to the U.S. Dept of Justice, the number of offenders under age 18 imprisoned for drug offenses increased twelvefold from 1985 to 1997. The group most affected by this propensity for incarceration is African-Americans. From 1985 to 1997, the percentage of African-American young people put in prison increased from 53 to 62 percent.

Today, 89 percent of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46 percent have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants, which usually involve no-knock entries into private homes.

7. Education Reform 

Redraft education financing legislation.  Lower educational expenses for students instead of raising tuition costs.  Pull money form the "WAR" system to refund education and continuing education. Forgive Student Loan Dept or restructure the Student Loan System so that students are not punished for self improvement and made into corporate slaves upon educating themselves.  Standardized testing does not account for stereotype effect or cultural differences in learning styles in elementry schools.  Reform education to make it either free or affordable to all.  Reappropriation of tax to focus on educations subsidies.

Currently Accepting proposals for actual plan

8. National Repeal of Capital Punishment 

Currently Accepting proposals for actual plan

9.  End Gender Discrimination - Equal Pay

Judge Antone Scailia has stated, and the Supreme Court has reinforced on numerous occasions, that women, by the virtue of the fact that the founding fathers did not specifically use the terms woman, women or female in the Constitution, are not recognized as having the same rights as men.  In a statement last year in Oregon, Judge Scailia specifically addressed this issue and stated that if the founding fathers wanted it, they would have included women in the Constitution.  We want equal rights to men, including equal pay, equal benefits and equal standing under all laws and in all courtrooms where it has been proven in study after study, women are regularly denied their rights.  This does not have to be an issue that requires a Constitutional Amendment, this can and should be ruled on immediately by SCOTUS and deemed to be the law of the land which may not be revoked or overturned by order of the court.  Further, there must be an Amendment to the Constitution insuring these rights and all states must also include these rights in state constitutions.  This is to include equal rights regarding domestic partnership for Homosexual, gar or transgender individuals.

10.  Office of the Citizen

Who will Guard The Guardians -  Corruption begins at the local level.  The FBI and the DOJ refuse to investigate matters of local corruption when it is their sworn duty of the Federal government.  State and local governments work hand in hand thwarting any investigations of corruption, and do not investigate.  Courts must be investigated for the evidence of local corruption, including drug dealing, protection of criminals, etc. It has been shown that 60% of police readily falsify police reports at the behest of higher ups. Repeated calls, filings in writing, and personal visits produce no investigation, even when evidence is given to them.  Where there have been investigations, it almost always produces a guilty verdict, but those investigations are few and far between and usually limited to situations where those peddling their influence did not share with others in slush funds.  Most of the time it is the public who gathers the evidence leading to prosecution, not the FBI or DOJ.  We want complete investigations of all allegations of corruption, including those allegations at local and state level.  No citizen should be placed in the dangerous situation of having to investigate crimes and collect evidence.  That is the job of the government and one it does not do.  The office of the citizen must be fully funded before funds may be allocated for any department supporting  war, engaging in war or spying, either internally or externally.

11.  The United States Must Comply With International Human Rights Law

U.S. Ratification of the Rome Statute and Membership in the International Criminal Court. Restructuring the Judicial System.  Human rights should be the right of everyone, inside and outside our borders.  When the US knowingly engages in, or allows others to engage in torture, that is a violation of everyone's human rights, not just the target.  We want prosecutions for torture, not only of government officials, but those who commit this heinous crime on others within the US.   This would also include bringing all current troops back from over seas where they are fighting wars for corporate profits and interests that the citizens of the United States have not voted to be involved in.

12.  Rights of victims must take precedent in courts. 

Courts in the US not only allow, but expect that human rights will be violated in certain types of cases.  Mental torture is the tool of many sleazy attorneys who intimidate both victims and witnesses. This must end now and the rights of the victim upheld.   We want all Bar Associations investigated and the hold they have on judicial nominees removed.  All judges should hold bench for limited terms and must be subject to ongoing judicial review and all hearings involving judicial reviews must be held in public to insure that human rights as well as Constitutional rights have not violated.  Judicial immunity must be removed, or at best, limited.  Victim blaming  must be limited and strictly investigated before it can be used as a defense.  Rape kits must be provided at no cost to victims claiming rape and any police officer who does not photograph all crime scenes shall be deemed incompetent to act as an officer of the law and shall be removed from duty without possibility of reinstatement in any police department in the country.  Falsified police reports shall also result in immediate removal and barring from any future law enforcement position.  All court rooms must insure that all proceedings are videotaped and that video tapes of all proceedings are given to all plaintiffs, their attorneys, all defendants and their attorneys within at the end of each hearing and without delay and prior to leaving the courtroom.  Videotapes of the judges, to include their desk tops and computer screens, must also be made available.  

5.Restitution for previous wrongdoing by courts and police.

Restitution by the US government of property of victims of violence seized by the courts must be made at 100% of value on the date victimization first occurred plus a fine of not less than `100% of that value be imposed on both the court ordering the property removal and the person who benefited from that removal.  All courts must furnish the cases and this restitution is retroactive for the lifetime of the court.  Courts are given no more than 5 business days to produce all files.   Any file not produced or shown to have been tampered with will result in immediate removal from office or employment of any person who had direct contact with that file. 

13.  Prosecutions of the guilty

We want indictments and prosecutions of all crimes committed by banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies.  We want a clear message sent to the entire financial industry, this will no longer be tolerated.  All financial industry executives who had even the remotest of connection to the collapse of our system, must be prosecuted.  

Those who are or have been involved in torture, whithersoever dispersed around the globe, weather personally or directing it's use,  must be prosecuted for their crimes.

Unofficial Proposed Demands

14. Environmental Responsibility Reform

Click Here to Vote to Include in Demands

Provide incentives for local farming instead of incentives that benefit corporate seed and food produces. 

Tax corporations based on "true cost" of international trade forcing them to account for the impact of abuse of absolute and comparative advantages.  This would include the dependency on foreign oil and the enviro-economic cost of  comparative advantage and international trade. 

Hold  corporations that take operations overseas accountable for their actions there. If there is a U.S. law that they are violating overseas (e.g. human rights, or environmental regulations), either shut them down or fine them very very heavily.   We must set an example for the rest of the world. 

Revoke Patents issued on "life" Do not permit the future patenting of l"life"

(open to additional statements)  

15. Repeal Rex84 and H.R. 645 and the procedures to establish Martial Law in the Country

Click Here to Vote to Include

The mechanism for declaring martial law could be quickly implemented and carried out under REX.  The Cheney/Bush administration has a plan which would accommodate the detention of large numbers of American citizens during times of emergency. The plan is called REX 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984. Through Rex-84 an undisclosed number of concentration camps were set in operation throughout the United States, for internment of dissidents and others potentially harmful to the state.  The Rex 84 Program was originally established on the reasoning that if a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA.  Existence of the Rex 84 plan was first revealed during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987, and subsequently reported by the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987” These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general’s signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached.

Note: This demand is in the development process and has had this link placed here so that it might have opportunity to meet Quorum

16.Create a Board of Officers to Manage the Demands

Click Here to Vote to Include

Create a board of officials to monitor the importance of all demands, with experts who are knowledgeable on the proposed policies and necessary amendments.

Note: This demand is in the development process and has had this link placed here so that it might have opportunity to meet Quorum

17.  Re-investigate The  Attacks of September 11th 2001 with full media coverage and disclosure

More and more evidence is being released to the public surrounding the suspicious circumstances surrounding 911. This measure would be included in the list of demands to show that the original investigation was significantly flawed.  Demand investigation into the source of secret funding for CIA occupation programs since WWII, the cover up of the trillions of dollars that aided in the collapse of the Soviet Union and may have ultimately instigated the 911 attacks as well as their cover-up. 

Read more on this here

Voting Access to all Demands For Inclusion Into the Formal Document may be done HERE.

http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstree...l-demands-2009

Occupy Wall Street Working Group publishes The99PercentDeclaration

An OWS Working Group Committed to Elect a National General Assembly. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the99declaration/

The full text of the declaration is at https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

The following declaration was released by the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street last Wednesday, 5 October. I decided to publish it here to preserve it in the public record. I find that this declaration speaks for me as if I had been there to help create it.


What follows is the first official, collective statement of the protesters in Zuccotti Park:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

• They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
  
• They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
  
• They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
  
• They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
  
• They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
  
• They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
  
• They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
  
• They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
  
• They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
  
• They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
  
• They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
  
• They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
  
• They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
  
• They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
  
• They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
  
• They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
  
• They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
  
• They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
  
• They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
  
• They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
  
• They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
  
• They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
  
• They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.
  

To the people of the world, We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

‘72 Mustang Uses Water for fuel

Interesting news from Steve Schappert of the facebook BIOS Watercar group:

Steve Schappert & Steve Melycher (Steve Squared) of the BIOS Organization in Brookfield will be driving a ’72 Mustang cross country with a hydrogen generator that produces hydrogen on demand that has tripled gas mileage in similar vehicles. They will be meeting with other Hydrogen experts along the way and asking them to share some knowledge to see if we can all figure out how to make a car run completely on water. Schappert posted this concept on FaceBook, and was contacted by Alexandra Bruce, one of the founding members of YO MTV Raps about making a movie, music video and book about the concept, with him as the lead character. The Title is “BIOS WaterCar” This road trip, documentary will be like introducing Al Gore to the Blues Brothers, mixing entertainment with education. The team has been recruiting sponsors for their grass roots project to help the world transition from an oil based economy. Families have agreed to host them during their journey, mechanics have volunteered their services to get the car running well enough to make the journey and friends and sponsors have been sending money for expenses.They hope to reach $10,000 in the next week before they begin the journey.


After creating the concept Schappert researched many available hydrogen systems and found what he considered to be the best in class, one unit that produces nearly 3 times as much hydrogen per minute as any other competitor. The manufacturer mentioned getting 30% more horsepower, a cleaner engine, lower emissions and significant fuel savings. The manufacturer also mentioned actual cases of a ’69 Camaro going from 10-32 mpg and a ’97 Oldsmobile going from 20-67 mpg. Schappert then contacted the owner and asked him to donate his most powerful unit for the movie. “It all sounds great”, said Schappert, but I’m not going to buy it, I want you to donate it for my project. I will drive 9000 miles across North America with a camera man in the passenger seat and if the unit works great, I will sell them for you and if it does’nt I will post the results on youtube and you will most likely go out of business.” I give the owner a lot of credit, because he donated the unit knowing the upside and downside. We have installed the unit and will begin our journey today June 14th . For more information go to http://BIOSWaterCar.com/


(Picture on website press release: Peter Jam of Beirut Lebanon, one of 19 bands that performed at the installation ceremony and music video for the BIOS WaterCar)

Masala Chai Spice blend - UPDATED

UPDATED.  OK.  I got tired of measuring the spices for each pot of tea.  My experiments led me to this recipe which makes a bit more than a half cup (~6 fl. oz.) of spice blend.  Add about 1/2 to 2/3 teaspoons of this blend to 3 tsp. of black tea and steep for 10 minutes in boiling water in a prewarmed teapot for 24 fl. oz. of tea.  Note that spice ratios have been tweaked from Sunday's recipe.  I've been tweaking.

1. 9 tsp. cardamom
2. 5 tsp. cinnamon
3. 5 tsp. ginger
4. 4 tsp. allspice
5. 2 tsp. nutmeg
6. 2 tsp. cloves
7. 2 tsp. coriander

Optional:  Add 1/16 tsp. of vanilla extract to each 24 oz of Masala Chai.  This can't be added to the blend for obvious reasons.

Enjoy.

I'm also working on a Vindaloo Spice blend.  I plan to make it Indian hot.  I love capsaicin.

-Silly Git

A Recipe for Masala Chai (tea)

This is a recipe for Masala Chai (tea). In Hindi, masala means spice and chai means tea so we are talking spice tea here.  While I am very fond of Stash's Chai teas, I am a loose tea person. Teabags are filled with tea fannings or tea leaves that have been milled into tiny pieces which loose their aromatic components vary quickly. This is particularly noticeable in teas with delicate flavors such as Darjeeling and Dragon Well. That is a tragedy with Darjeeling since the highly volatile components along with the muscatel flavor component are what makes Darjeeling teas so satisfying. This led me to make my own Masala Chai to vary the spice flavors thus avoiding the consistent flavor of the commercial Chai teas and lastly, to avoid teabags.

I use an FTGFOP1 (Finest, Tippy, Golden, Flowery, Orange Pekoe) Assam tea for my black tea based Masala Chai. Assam teas are very robust and full bodied so they balance the spice flavors better than a more delicate and complex flavored tea such as Darjeeling. Irish Breakfast tea is a blend of Assam and Keemun teas and is intended to be fullbodied to hold up well to milk and sugar. Adding spice to it is just the next step. I haven't yet tried Keemun but I plan to. I will also try using Irish Breakfast as a tea base. The Assam base is working well.

For a masala chai based on green tea, to get those catechins to fight the free radicals, I'd use something like a Chinese Sencha which has a more robust flavor characteristic, highly vegetal, than many of the other Chinese green teas and would better balance the spices. I suspect that one would use less spices with the green tea than one would use with the black tea. I haven't tried this but I suspect 60 to 80 percent of the spices used for a black tea would be best for a green tea.

My teapot holds 3 cups (24 fl. ox.) of water, so you can scale the recipe accordingly for your teapots and serving sizes. This is a single spice chai. Adjust according to what you like.  These measurements are approximate.  Only be anal if you want to reproduce the results exactly.

1. 3 tsp.  Assam loose tea
2. 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
3. 1/8 tsp. ground ginger
4. 1/8 tsp. ground allspice
5. 1/12 tsp. ground cardomom
6. 1/16 tsp. ground coriander
7. 1/16 tsp. ground nutmeg
8. 1/16 tsp. ground cloves

Other spices I'd like to try added one at a time are:

• licorice
• star anise
• ground aniseseed

Steep for at least 10 minutes in initially boiling water.  If desired, add milk, cream, or half and half to taste and sugar to taste.

WARNING: Milk prevents your body from absorbing the antioxidants present in the tea.  The sugar does not.  I sometimes use agave nectar to slightly sweeten my masala chai but I normally drink it without milk and sugar.

The spices used are all Ayurvedic spices with well documented therapeutic benefits.  While masala chai is not considered to be 'medicine,' it is considered to be a beneficial 'health' drink.  If you add licorice, do some research on the safe daily dosage.  Licorice is good for you provided you do not eat too much.  It causes retention of potassium so if you are taking an ACE inhibitor I'd eat even less.

If you want this to taste more like Stash's chais, increase the cardomom to 1/8 teaspoon.  Yummy.  Enjoy playing with the spice quantities and try just sprinkling the spices in to get varying flavors each time for that variation is a good thing outlook.

Bursting some Delusions of the Self-Servatives.

Objectivists, Tea Party Protesters, the Religious Wrong (Christofascists), and Neocons (fascists) are all Self-Servatives that refuse to acknowledge that they have responsibilities to other people in society by virtue of being a member of society. They claim to be self contained and not responsible for anyone else because they neither ask for or take anything from others in society. They do not grok that calling the fire department when their house catches fire is taking. Calling the police is taking. Using public roads and bridges is taking. This article explores various aspects of their delusions about not being a sharing member of society and not recognizing their duties to that society.

The self-servatives say "The people in Massachusetts are opposed to Health Care Reform."

The people in MA voted the way they did exactly because the Senate's bill was exactly like what MA has. Everyone in MA now must buy insurance from insurance companies and they all have $3000 deductibles per person. So you get to pay insurance premiums for what used to be called major medical AND you get to pay for your doctor and pharmaceuticals yourself. I have type 1 diabetes and I would not fill up that deductible in a year without being hospitalized. The people in MA are very unhappy with the HCR as proposed by the corporatists in DC. It's exactly like what they have and what they have blows chunks. I talked to my friends in MA to ask them what was going on because I surmised that I could not trust the BS from the corporate propaganda dispensers that call themselves a news media.



They also say "Socialism is bad and doesn't work. Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt."

The proper way to fix medicare and social security is to stop stealing from its revenue stream to pay for other things. The Congress have been stealing from social security to pay for things like SDI and MX missiles forever. Daniel Moynihan was bitching about stealing from social security in 1972. The practice never stopped and it got expanded to stealing from medicare under Reagan. Reagan reduced 'taxes' by reducing income tax rates a bit and then raising Medicare and Social Security deductions which are not considered a 'tax' even though they are. If you were actually paying attention instead of listening to the neocon bullshit you would have noticed that the amount deducted from your paycheck actually went up, not down. When you consider how State and local taxes went up after Reagan's cuts, the typical middle class person's total tax burden increased significantly during the 1980s in spite of the neocon rhetoric about 'tax cuts'. Only the very wealthy benefited from tax cuts as the Capital Gains tax cut was an actual tax reduction which does not usually help the middle class very much if at all.


The self-servatives say "Health Care is not a Right. It's not listed in the Constitution as a right."

They read the bill of rights and can't find health care and so it's not a right. This is a reading comprehension problem. The bill of rights clearly states that is is not an exclusive list of rights, it only lists the ones that might not be obvious and that there is a large number of inalienable rights that are not listed (such as privacy, which the wrong wing is hell bent on doing away with.).

In the preamble of the constitution it clearly states that one of the responsibilities of the federal government is to promote the general welfare. If having forty-five thousand citizens die every year because they do not have a means to obtain health care is promoting the general welfare, then I am a horseshoe crab.

I wonder why we wrote into the Iraq constitution that health care is a right. We are paying for Iraq to have socialized health care. WE pay so that they can have something we don't even provide for ourselves.

Why did WE pay to build nice new hospitals all over Iraq? Could it be that Cheney wanted to give lots of money to Halliburton and KBR at taxpayer expense? Could this all really be about corporate welfare? We throw bailout money at banks and their executives give themselves billions in bonuses. Now we throw God knows how much at the insurance cartel.

The insurance cartel is a parasite. They exist only to bleed money from the revenue stream into their own pockets. With insurance cartels operating at a 20 to 40% cut of the health care revenue stream, THEY ARE THE MAJOR COST IN THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM. And yet they do not provide any service that contributes to health care. They are money pipes and reservoirs which leak heavily. They should be replaced with a system that doesn't leak. It's our money they are taking for providing nothing but grief.

If you are serious about reducing costs, you'd kick those bandits to the curb. They increase costs at the service providers by forcing them to have to hire people just to interface with insurance companies and then argue with them when they refuse to approve a procedure to be done. Since I have diabetes I have much more experience with the insurance cartel weasels. They provide no health care and only make providing health care more difficult. The quicker we replace them with a single payer system, the better off we'll be.

Throughout the world, the highest singly payer overhead is around %3.5. I think that was Spain, but I could be wrong. Medicare currently operates at 1.5% overhead so there is no reason to expect that Medicare for All would run any higher than a 2% overhead. Gee, thats one tenth the overhead of the lowest overhead insurance company. In the single payer system, the stockholders receive health care, not dividends.

I have no idea why the wrong wing fights so hard to protect unnecessary middlemen. It's voting against your own best interests. They don't want to provide help to people that can't work, but they'll throw billions at companies that provide no useful service. The insurance cartel is in the 'we make money without doing anything useful to anyone' business. Once upon a time what they do would have been called a protection racket. I'm rather annoyed that misinformed ideologues want to keep the racketeers in business.


Wrong wing self-servatives are always saying "I got mine, screw everybody else" and "I take care of myself, I shouldn't have to support a bunch of losers who can't take care of themselves." and they say "I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps."

This is because they are defective socially. They live with the absurd notion that no one needs anyone else. They can get by without the help of anyone. They isolate themselves and refuse to learn anything from anyone else. They live on their virtual island denying the fact that they actually depend on society.

Anti-social twatwaffles*.

Back when we were hunter-gatherers, these clowns would have been ejected from the tribe to starve. Tribe members that refused to share were a huge liability. Hunter-gatherer tribes were a highly integrated (socialized) survival collective. Every tribe member depended on every other tribe member. Humans are a highly social species that are normally highly interconnected. Since the antisocial members were ejected to starve on their own, antisocial genetics were weeded out. This has broken down in our broken current society. The anti-social are no longer being ejected to starve. They benefit from society while loudly proclaiming that they do not. They are delusional and tiresome.

You can take the individual out of the collective but you can't take the need for the collective out of the individual.

Many do not realize that humans from 20 thousand years ago are virtually identical to ourselves in every way but size (we've been getting larger over time). Our needs dictated by genetics are the same. The social collective need is hard coded in our DNA. The greedy selfish pricks were always ejected from the tribe to die by themselves. This caused genes with social skills to be passed on to future generations while selfish genes were pruned out of the gene pool. Apparently the genes causing selfishness is is a mutation which keeps coming back into the gene pool and since we no longer eject them to die, we are overrun by self-servatives.

That's one of my theories to explain their anomalous behavior. Our collective has developed our technology well beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined. Even with greedy self-servatives fucking things up and pretending they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. They didn't pull themselves up. They were standing on the shoulders of their ancestors. As we all are.

They expect us to believe that their parents taught them nothing. They never attended school or read a book. No other human ever taught them anything.

We still rely on each other. You aren't born with knowledge of computer systems pre-existing in your head. You read books written by others and were taught by others and yet you don't need anyone else? I'm not sure how that works. Your job exists only because your company needs specialists that can perform your specialized job function. All those other humans at your place of work are the reason your job exists. You are dependent on a very large number of people. Do you grow your own food? Do you build your own transportation system?

• George Washington Bridge - socialism
• Subways - socialism
• Military - socialism
• Public Schools - socialism
• Public Libraries - socialism
• Interstate Highways - socialism
• Fire and Police services - socialism
• Every road, bridge, water and sewer system - all socialism

Our lives would be so much improved if we did away with socialism. Everyone that wants to cross the Hudson should hire their own contractors to build their own bridge.

I have to pay to install pipes to carry your shit, but you are unwilling to pay to provide health care. How about you take care of your own shit. You don't need anyone else.

There is nothing in the constitution about bridges, roads, and sewers either but we aren't stupid enough to dream up asinine reasons to prevent those from being built.

I love the Tea Party Protesters. They drive on public roads to go stand on public sidewalks and in public parks or at public libraries so that they can protest socialism. The irony is so thick it's choking me. If cluelessness is a virtue, they are mightily virtuous.


Then they say "Aren't we a little more advanced then hunter-gatherers?"

Only technologically.

Socially, physiologically, and psychologically we are identical. Human behavior within their own collectives has not changed. Our collectives have gotten larger because technology allows for much larger tribe sizes.

Don't fool yourself into thinking you are any smarter then the hunter gatherers. They just hadn't invented written language, Laplace transforms, semiconductors, and nuclear weapons yet and these are all the result of our interdependence which allows for specialized skill sets. The hunter gatherers also utilized specialization. The most skilled at crafting Clovis points did nothing else. The most skilled at hunting did nothing else.

The notion of being self sufficient, self contained, and pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps is a fairy tale. It's a line of BS the corporate overlords feed to the gullible masses.  Why?  It's called divide and conquer.  As individuals we are powerless.

The playing field has never been level. Bill Gates' parents gave him 20 million to start Microsoft. My parents couldn't give me 20 million. You couldn't even get venture capital for a company like Microsoft then. I tried to get VC to start a UPS company in 1982. Couldn't get any because no one believed the product would sell. We had a great business plan. Four or five years later someone with family money started APC, then VC money rolled in for them.

The playing field is far from level.

* twatwaffle n.

An elitist that is totally unaware of their own faults and limitations but is highly critical of others.

On the terms 'fascism,' 'fascist' and Silly's usage of them.

I specialize in writing about stories that our corporate propaganda machinery, that pretends to be a news media, are ignoring. Ignoring stories is the most subtle form of propaganda. These stories include, but are not limited to, election integrity, censorship, illegal spying on citizens, war crimes of the US government, war protests, health care issues that are being suppressed such as the overwhelming popularity of a single payer solution, corporate misbehavior, and Israel's genocide against Palestinians.

I am very strongly anti-fascist. They are my primary target. They are destroying this planet with their blatant disregard for balance while pursuing their eternal quest for profit maximization which benefits only a tiny percentage of the total populace.

The first amendment protects my right to criticize anyone, even the fascists. I've criticized China for their behavior in Tibet. I've criticized Iran for murdering their own citizens. I've criticized Israel for their genocide in Gaza, and I've criticized the US for our genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will continue to do so regardless of many times I'm accused of being any number of nasty things. Fascists always deploy brown-shirts to shout down criticism. It's just another thing that confirms the diagnosis of fascism. If they don't like being called fascists then they should stop behaving like fascists.

I don't use fascist as an insult. I have a degree in political science as well as engineering and I use fascist as a label to specify a particular governmental/economic system in which the government and corporations cooperate closely and the populace is indoctrinated with strong nationalism. This is Mussolini's own definition of Fascism. I consider him an expert on the subject.

From Wikipedia: Benito Mussolini
"Mussolini was among the founders of Italian Fascism, which included elements of nationalism, corporatism, national syndicalism, expansionism, social progress and anti-communism in combination with censorship of subversives and state propaganda."

Note that subversives includes any and all critics.

Sounds like the US and Israel to me except the US deleted social progress from the agenda. If it walks like a fascist and talks like a fascist I'm very likely going to call it a fascist.

"How to Save Health Care Reform" In 4 Minutes

My friend Lee Stranahan has put together a wonderful video which describes what we need to be doing right now in order to get the kind of Health Care reform that we need. This not quite four minutes of video will tell you everything you need to know.


The insurance lobby does not want true reform. They only care that their profits be protected. Your actual health is an externality in their economic model. Lee has more to say about the insurance lobby's real priorities.