I. Lewis Scooter Libby has been convicted of outing CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. That leads to Karl Rove, which leads to Dick Cheney, which leads to George W. Bush, which leads back to Dick Cheney which leads to the Iraq War.

In the meantime Bush is trying to cut $26 Billion from Medicaid, $159 million to Substance Abuse Treatment, $143 million to rural health care programs and that’s just the beginning.

And you’ve all heard about the abuse our wounded veterans have been going through at the Walter Reed Hospital due to unsanitary conditions.

He keeps asking for money for the war but wants to break the back of the American people.

He’s not a uniter; George W. Bush is a crook and a killer and a liar.

I’d tell you more but I have to go right now but you’ll be sure I’ll be back.

George Bush is like a Hagfish inside of a whale to our country. The Hagfish eats all the internal organs until the whale dies.

Peace, peace, peace now.

In Iqalit, Nunavit Territory, Simon Nattaq fell through the thinning Arctic ice due to rising Arctic temperatures.

Global warming? He thinks so. He lost both feet but managed to survive. He says, “Today I am here because the creator allowed it.”

According to an article in The Boston Globe, “the Arctic is the region of the globe hardest hit by rising temperatures.”

There is a report released February 2nd by a UN sponsored group of scientists that indicate “the Arctic’s late-summer sea ice will disappear almost entirely in the second half of this century.”

The Earth is changing. Are we the geological force moving the planet into global warming, which does not mean that all places will get warmer; it could trigger colder temperatures in areas that were warm. There is a giant current (one of many) called the Conveyer belt in the ocean which, if too much ice melts and drops fresh water into the ocean, could stop and reverse direction and, almost overnight, climates could change dramatically all over the Earth.

I studied this stuff in the late 60′s, early 70′s using a text by Odum and a great ecology teacher whose name has slipped out of my mind used to take us out to the Hudson River in slightly upper New York State, near Red Hook. He’d help us collect samples of small wildlife and study the ecosphere to show us how small changes can have major effects. This was while I was a student at Bard College. What freaks me out is that all the things he talked about as coming probabilities are starting to take place now.

I don’t know why people get all upset over second hand cigarette smoke when we walk around with giant exhaust pipes spewing trash out into the atmosphere. Which would you rather suck on — a cigarette or an exhaust pipe?

Just imagine, for a second, glueing all the exhaust pipes of every car and truck in the world together into one giant pipe. Think about it. How big would that pipe be?

Right now, that pipe is pushing carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and other compounds into our fragile but powerful atmosphere.

When cars were first invented, no one thought about the magnitude of millions of vehicles running all over the world. It was a new concept then. We just take it for granted now.

I’m only 61 years old and I’ve seen major changes in our entire environment.

Have you ever read about Passenger Pigeons? They flew and nested in giant flocks in North America. Some flocks were over a mile wide and 150 miles long. That’s like the distance between Boston and the White Mountains in New Hampshire. It takes over three hours to make that trip by (ahem) automobile. Anyway, those birds would all land at once in some area and the trees would bend with the weight of them.

Humans would set up Gatling guns and bring other types of weapons out and slaughter the birds. I mean, the ground would be piled high with dead birds.

They’re extinct now. Not a one of them survives.

Just think of how many there were and twist your mind around the fact that they’re all gone.

We can change the world.

The Weston Priory is a monastery in Weston, Vermont and the Brothers there are wonderful. My wife and I just spent a few days, not staying at the priory itself, but at an inn, the Weston Inn (a beautiful friendly place) and went to the priory for Eucharist and prayer.

Nowadays, it seems as if the “in” phrase is “What would Jesus do?”

According to the Brothers, they ask, “What did Jesus do?”

You can find the answer if you look hard enough. I’m not really one of those extremely religious freaks but I think the above is truly the question.

Not really far from the above subject, of all the 21 richest nations in the world, the United States and Great Britain ranked last on child welfare. The Netherlands, followed by Sweden, Denmark, and Finland were at the top of the ratings.

Now, far from what we were just talking about, a squid which was 39 feet long was just pulled out of the Antarctic waters. It died, natch. If you made calimari rings out of the squid, they would be the size of tractor tires.

Dinner anyone?

This type of squid is called the Colassal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) and descend to 6,500 feet in the ocean. I wonder how many are left.

800 gorillas, 6,000,000,000 humans.

Countdown to destruction.

At the Walter Reed Army Medical Center the soldiers who have served honourably in an intolerable war that should never have taken place are housed in dingy rat and roach infested quarters while they wait months and months, stretching into over a year for some, to find out their fate.

Will they be sent back? Are they fit to be sent back? Why should they be punished for our country’s inability to provide troops for what has now turned into a civil war.

The U.S. has de-stabilized the Mid-East, sent our good men and women to die, suffer, be wounded phsically and mentally and then, denied livable quarters and, even though disabled, denied disability payments.

A brain-injured corporal was told that his damage pre-existed his head wound and was denied disability. His wife had to call a House of Representative staff member to get him a 50% disability. Why should this happen?

I quote “this is the first time this country has fought a war for so long with an all-volunteer force since the Revolution.”–Major General George W. Weightman.

Meanwhile, Great Britain is pulling out. They are pulling their 7,100 soldiers while crazy George W. is sending a “surge” of over 20,000 of ours into the meat grinder that his regime has created.

Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts says, “No matter how the White House tries to spin it, the British government has decided to split with President Bush and begin to move their troops out of Iraq. This should be a wake-up call to the administration.”

Unfortunately, our president and his men are not asleep; they’re dumb and dumberer. The damage to our country will take generations to clear up.

God help us. Please George, Dick, and Condoleeza — quit before it’s too late. Or is it already too late?

You know it’s a damn shame that Punk George doesn’t want to give the same kind of support to our vets once they’ve been damaged by this war that never should have happened.

Recently Marine Private Jonathon Schulze, 25, of Stewart, Minn., the recipient of two Purple Hearts for his service, attempted to check into a psychiatric unit in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He was suffering from extreme PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) brought about by the horrors he experienced while serving near Fallujah in 2004. He tried to check in on January 11th with bags packed and they turned him away, placing him 26th on a waiting list. He told intake counselors that he felt like killing himself more than once. Desparate, he called again on Jan. 12th and they still did nothing.

He hung himself four days later.

They don’t put you through bureaucratic bullshit when they send you to the war zone.

Why doesn’t George W. go over there, don a uniform, and fight.

Before this war began I wrote an editorial for the Spare Change News in Cambridge Mass saying that if George wants a fight so badly, he should get in a ring with Saddam Hussein. I also said that it would be cheaper and less lives lost, maybe none, if we went into Iraq and rebuilt all the damage we did during the first Gulf War, new hospitals, new schools, a new water infrastructure, etc.

But no, George and his puppet-master Dick Cheney and Donald Duck Rumsfeld wanted a war and they didn’t care who died as long as it wasn’t them.

We’re going to be paying the price for this war for a long time to come.

My condolences to all the parents of the brave men and women who had to go over there.

Believe me, Private Schulze wasn’t the only suicide because of VA neglect. Marine Corporal Jeffrey Lucey of Belchertown, Mass was another victim of this fiasco brought about by our incompent leaders.

George W., Dick Cheney, Donald Duck Rumsfeld and others should be arrested and tried for war crimes in a just world.

There are more terrorists now than ever because of this war. If you feel safer now, you’re asleep.

On another subject, the Doomsday Clock, created in 1947 to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear (can you pronounce that word yet George) weapons, advanced the clock to five minutes before midnight. The last time they moved the clock was 2002.

“We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age,” was the statement by the clock’s board of directors. North Korea, Iran, even the United States new love affair with “bunker buster” nuclear bombs and the existing 26,000 American and Russian weapons keep the clock ticking.

How many nuclear weapons does it take to destroy a world? We’ve got ‘em, they’ve got ‘em and one day, some asshole’s gonna start using them again.

The threat of Global Warming, which is not an illusion folks, also helped to move the Doomsday Clock to five minutes before midnight. By midnight, I don’t mean it’s time for a snooze either, my friends.

The closest to midnight the clock has ever come was two minutes to in 1953, right after the United States and the Soviet Union started testing hydrogen bombs. The farthest it was was in 1991, when the “Cold War” appeared to come to a close.

And, on a much lighter note, while Bo Diddley was recently performing his work at the Reggatabar Jazz fest a week ago from Feb 15th, here in the Boston area, this photographer got right up in his face and started flashing away. Bo Diddley said, and I paraphrase, Hey, Don’t come in my kitchen and eat my chicken without asking me if you can have a piece. Where’s my money for all these pictures you’re taking without my permission? he asked.

Then some dope in the audience threw three dollars at Bo and his band. Bo picked up the money and counted one, two, three and then turned and counted his band members, one, two, three, four, five — and threw the guy some bad eyes.

Bo Diddley is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and is copied by many musicians. But, artists are usually phenomenally underpaid. Oh, there’s a few really really rich ones, but most artists die poor, depressed and unknown.

When a good artist makes it, at least respect him. I wonder what those clowns that dissed him in the audience add to the world?

I received the Bo Diddley info from the Boston Phoenix courtesy Katie Johnston Chase. Thanks.

Mission Accomplished, heh heh.

I just started reading Thomas de Quincy’s Confessions of an Opium Eater; I was lucky enough to get an original version published in 1950.

I’ve read excerpts of his Confessions but I never had the entire version. As a former heroin addict for over three decades, I’m quite interested in his version.

I’ve written a 36 chapter book called Tales of the Troll. It concerns addiction and ecology and some of the old Gods are in it and some new.

The heroes are heroin addicts and angels. My other book, not counting numerous poetry books is a book of essays on addiction complicated with other major mental illness. It’s a miracle I made it out alive.

If I drank the way I used heroin I wouldn’t be alive today.

Yes, I do get published. You can do a search engine on Yahoo or Google for Marc D. Goldfinger and see a smattering of my work.

Sara Gran, the author of Dope, a noir thriller put out by Penguin, says “Marc D. Goldfinger beats the hell out of most writers working today.” I was happy to be validated. I’m 61 years old. The closer you get to the edge, wherever the personal edge is, the less time one has to say what they have to say.

So say it now.