Lucha VaVoom

Last night was our annual pilgrimage to the Mayan theater in downtown LA for Lucha VaVoom. A high flying extravaganza of burlesque booze and luchadores. As always the evening was a thrills of more than one kind.

Highlights of the show are the ever popular Poubelle twins Fifi and Bibi, who in classic luchadore fasion lay beats down on men twice there size with high flying kicks and take downs. The burlesque queen Michelle L'amour who exposes most of her milky white skin much to roused hoots of the male audience. The extravagant rope walking antiques of Cassadora, a cross between a classic luchadore hero and Liberace. Not to mention the areal acrobatics of the WAU WAU sisters.

But as always the show heats up when the crowd favorites, the Crazy Chickens cluck there way on to the ring. Win or loose they steal the show.

It's definitely a unique experience well worth the price of admission.

Gains in Iraq on shakey ground

The Government Accountability Office on Monday released a report sharply criticizing Military commanders assessment on stability in Iraq.

The report acknowledges significant gains on the ground, representing 70% decline since June 2007, confirming many of the security improvements that first became apparent last fall are still holding, a number of the figures that have been used to show broader progress in Iraq are either misleading or simply incorrect, the report says.

Administration figures, according to the report, broadly overstate gains in some categories, including the readiness of the Iraqi Army, electricity production and how much money Iraq is spending on its reconstruction.

Going further the report states the security gains themselves rest in large part not on broad-scale advances in political and social reconciliation and a functioning Iraqi government, but on a few specific advances that remain fragile. The relatively calm period rests mostly on the American troop increase, a shaky cease-fire declared by militias loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and an American-led program to pay former insurgents to help keep the peace, the report says.

“Clearly there are substantial changes in the security situation on the ground,” said Nathan Freier, a retired Army officer who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2007 and is now a senior fellow in the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The administration prefers to focus on those improvements, Mr.
Freier said. But the accountability office report, which Mr. Freier
read on Monday, and his own observations in Iraq contain a different
message, he said.“Iraq remains a mixed bag and will continue to do so in perpetuity, to be quite honest,” he added.

California hand's free, cover up still continues

All you have to do is drive down California streets for an hour and you will be swearing at those morons driving with one hand and talking on there cellphone with the other. 90% of the time you are cut off you see a cellphone in the drives hand. This is going to change July 1st as the new cellphone laws come into effect. A FAQ about the new laws can be found here.
But the real story about cellphones and why this law was supported by much of the industry dates back almost a decade and is described at length here. Since 2000 the World Health Organization began pushing the precautionary principle and prudent avoidance principle in regards to cellphone usage in the wake of mounting evidence that cellphones drastically increase the risk of cancer.
More recent studies including a long-term Swedish Study and most recently a study by renowned neurosurgeon Dr Vini Khurana draw conclusive links as reported by FOX and ZDNet.
Use your hands free device and whenever possible place your phone at a distance. Limiting cellphone use is still the best course of action.
Dr Vini Khurana's conclusion is that cellphones could be more dangerous than smoking.

When the Levee breaks

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was an important even for many reasons. Many people were forced to flee to the cities of the Midwest in search of work, contributing to the "Great Migration" of African Americans in the first half of the 20th century. In 1929 Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie wrote and recorded the song English rock group Led Zeppelin would later rework and make famous in 1971 as the last song on there fourth album.
"I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan, gonna leave my baby,
and my happy home". The song focused mainly on when more than 13,000
residents in and near Greenville, Mississippi evacuated to a nearby, unaffected levee
for its shelter at high ground. The tumult that would have been caused
if this and other levees had broken was the song's underlying theme.
After Katrina and the governments failure to help it's own people brought the the fore front once again that the great Mississippi will not be held back. The army core of engineers rebuild the failed levees and assured us they could now stand up to a 100 year storm. 1,836 people lost there lives and the estimated $81.2 billion in damages made Katrina one of the deadliest and certainly the costliest natural disaster in US history.

A June 2007 report released by the American Society of Civil Engineers states that the failures of the federally built levees in New Orleans' were found to be primarily the result of system design flaws.^[119] The US Army Corps of Engineers who by federal mandate
is responsible for the conception, design and construction of the
region's flood-control system failed to pay sufficient attention to
public safety.

According to new modeling and field observations by a team from Louisiana State University, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet
(MRGO), a 200-meter (660 ft) wide canal designed to provide a shortcut
from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico, helped provide a funnel for the
storm surge, making it 20% higher and 100%-200% faster as it crashed
into the city. St. Bernard Parish, one of the more devastated areas,
lies just south of the MRGO. The Army Corps of Engineers
disputes this causality and maintains Katrina would have overwhelmed
the levees with or without the contributing effect of the MRGO.^[120]

On April 5, 2006,
months after independent investigators had demonstrated that levee
failures were not caused by natural forces beyond intended design
strength, Lieutenant General Carl Strock testified before the United
States Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water that "We have now
concluded we had problems with the design of the structure."^[121] He also testified that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not know of this mechanism of failure prior to August 29, 2005.
The claim of ignorance is refuted, however, by the National Science
Foundation investigators hired by the Army Corps of Engineers, who
point to a 1986 study by the Corps itself that such separations were
possible in the I-wall design.^[122]

Compared to Katrina the weather systems causing the current disaster are mild to say the least. Perhaps it's time to let this great river reclaim her wetlands. Wetlands are a vital part of how the planet purifies the water we pollute every day.

Clinton and Obama "Rock" Unity

"I know that he'll work for you. He'll fight for you, and he'll stand
up for you every single day in the White House," Clinton said, calling
Obama "a leader who invests in our future." Her statements today stand in sharp contrast to statements made not to long ago.
"My opponent says that he'll take on the special interests," she said.
"Well, he told people he stood up to the nuclear industry and passed a
bill against them. But he actually let the nuclear industry water down
his bill -- the bill never actually passed."
This is politics and big business. Is there any doubt this support was bought and payed for? Does the sum of $10 million buy support? You bet.
Once again many people in this nation are pinning there hopes on the lies of the wealthy. Obama could not even entertain the idea of paying $10 million to Hillary for her support if he took public finance. The math isn't that hard.

Gloucester Principal stands his ground

Despite local officials aggressive attempts to convince people there is nothing to see in Gloucester High School by calling into question the mental faculties of the schools principle.
"I honestly do not remember specifically using the word 'pact' in my
meeting with the Time magazine reporter, but I do specifically remember
telling [reporter Kathleen Kingsbury] that my understanding was that a
number of the pregnancies were intentional and that the students within
this group were friendly with each other," Sullivan wrote in the
Gloucester Daily Times.
"My sources had informed me that a significant number of the
pregnancies, especially among the younger students, were the result of
deliberate and intentional behavior," he wrote.
Something is going wrong here and instead of addressing the issue with open and honest dialog and investigation the Mayor tried to shut this down with an almost angry address to the press and people. Any time a government official is this agressive in a denial I am always suspicious.
Way to go Sullivan, stand your ground, don't be bullied. If more people take a queue from this guy we have a chance of reclaiming out country.

Airlines summer of hell

It's sucked to fly for a long time. Hidden fees and airline employee's who act like we should be grateful when they bump us because they have overbooked flights. It's going to be getting a lot worse. There used to be a time when companies believed that treating there customers well was the best way to get them back. But decades of mismanagement and government bail outs have shifted there focus to how best to take advantage of us.
50% of an airlines operating costs are fuel based, so with fuel prices reaching critical mass we're in for an even nastier time this summer. Do your self a favor and stay out of the skies. Let these companies implode, they started on this path long before our fuel crisis hit. If you don't have to fly don't. I am sick of paying through the nose to get treated like a criminal. I've started to take the train when I can. It's not fast or cheap but I don't feel like I might explode either.

Earlier this month, a woman was arrested on a JetBlue flight on charges of assaulting flight attendants during a cross-country trip. An autistic toddler and his mother getting kicked off an airplane. Delta will soon add a $25 or $50 fuel fees to its frequent flier SkyMiles.
Thursday marked the 20th attempted airfare increase of the year,
according to Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, versus the 23 total
attempts the airlines made last year.
"There is an increase in hostility, and it goes both ways," said Kate
Hanni, founder of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of
Rights. "I am, in both ways, seeing a rise in air rage and also a rise
in employee hostility toward the passenger."
Our government isn't about to step in, they are to inept to do anything anyway. If we want to better our situation we the people have to organize and do the job our government and big business refuses, doesn't want to or are incapable of doing, not just with the skies but with everything. This is a consumer based economy, and that means regardless of what lies you are told, the ultimate power is in the hands of the consumer base. We the people have the power to stop giving our money to people who treat us like shit, abuse there position and lie. Take back the skies, don't fly.

N. Korea's nuclear currency

Few would debate the great strides that have been made in regards to bringing North Korea back into the fold of the new world order. While very few details of the latest deal have been made public, it's clear that North Korea has made good on it's plan to trade it's nuclear ambitions for western aid.
North Korea has few natural resources, it's people are some of the most oppressed in the world. Strict military and information control has strangled the North Korean people into submission. While it's people have starved and suffered the international community has compounded the problem by isolating the country further.
Now as the leadership of the world cheers and American tax payers foot the bill N. Korea, after securing US compensation of 2.5 million hands over a 60 page accounting of it's nuclear program and demolishes a cooling tower plant that hasn't been operational for roughly 1 year. This facility was already off line, it's nothing more than a symbolic gesture that's costing American tax payers yet again.
While we hear more and more bad news about how screwed we are, our government plays games with our money. It was after all our own president that sparked the extended political battle with the N. Korean leadership. This is just another step on the road of bullshit that's being rammed down our throats. This problem should have been left to the Chinese to handle, this is there backyard not ours. It's time we stop raping our country to support the global community and start helping our own people who are the ones paying the bill. Our nations continued international games are being payed for with our blood sweat and tears. Remember who's children are dying in Iraq, certainly not Bushes. We need to focus on finishing our job in Iraq and Afghanistan so our troops can come home and stop playing politics around the world while our youngest and brightest go without a proper education or a decent medical system. It's time to fix our country and let the rest of the world deal with there own problems. You can't help others until you help yourself.
The message this sends to other countries is hold fast with your nuclear program and eventually the west will buy you out. That's a pretty stupid message to send.