Padd Solutions

I've been ridiculously busy with school and work for the past few months, but I've found something that I definitely think is worth listening to. A couple of former radio jockeys were laid off from their station in Washington, and they have since decided to turn to podcasting in order to burn up all the extra time of unemployment.

Through candid banter and thorough inebriation this duo manage to produce something more valuable and genuine then most radio I hear on the air waves.

Check them out at funemploymentradio.com.

I agree with the pundits who say that Scott Roeder is not a terrorist. Scott Roeder is a tool that was craftily used by radical anti-abortion groups to accidentally satisfy their thirst for revenge.

Bill O'Reilly and others can describe George Tiller as a murderer. They can describe his actions as running some kind of modern death camp, but what they pretend to be informative reporting is actually calculated to incite emotional outrage.

This rhetoric doesn't serve to inform the public on the types of abortion procedures that are in use in America, it seeks to divide individuals by pretending to hunt for evil. What avenues of recourse do you have when facing ultimate evil? To what depth of human despair do you reach to find a tactic for dealing with what you believe to be pure evil? What is Dr. Tiller? If murdering innocent children is not evil, then what is?

I've been debating what the first topic covered on this site should be, and I had narrowed it down to four things:

1) The Pirate Bay trial
2) What is this blog/site going to be used for?
3) What the hell does Nuclear Subterfuge mean?
4) Tea Bag parties

Now, I've decided to save the Pirate Bay article for another day. If you can't wait, go ahead and read about it on their own blog, and since the appeals process is likely to last another two years I have plenty of time to get back to it.

Ideas two and three can both be realistically covered in the same post, and they're both things I wanted to mention in the about section of the site. So, that too is something best left to the future.

And finally, Tea Bag parties! It's easy fodder and not likely to remain relevant much longer, so I might as well write at least a sentence about the right-wing's recently rediscovered sense of urgency in regards to fiscal matters.

Pretty much every point I could make is probably covered more eloquently elsewhere, but hey, it's my body and I do what I want.

I work for an environmental organization that lobbies the government on public health issues. Our main tactic is to recruit and train professional canvassers that deliver our message door-to-door to the people of our communities. Our canvassers collect signatures, donations, and letters written out to politicians. To put simply, I'm very much mired in the concept of grassroots organization.

[I'm reluctant to mention the organization specifically. Though the information is freely available elsewhere, since my employer hasn't exactly endorsed this site I don't want to risk saying something unrepresentative of the organization and have it falsely attributed to them. So please forgive me if I'm less then completely thorough with the details.]

The most important thing I've noticed about this...tea...bag...party (other than the unfortunate euphemism usually associated with the term) is how much "coverage" the main stream media has given these protests. In particular the coverage by Fox news. Don't get me wrong, if we could get that kind of coverage for some of our campaigns, it'd be pretty powerful support and bring a lot of attention to some issues that, quite frankly, deserve more attention than all this tax business. But when the news becomes advertising, a line isn't just crossed, it's erased.

Besides coverage being overtly biased, which wouldn't bother me as much if everyone just admitted it, everyone seems to be infatuated with how "historic" these protests were. But protests have been occurring for years on tax day, usually outside of post offices, protesting the usage of public money militarily. [digression - if this source, is to be believed, 54 cents of every dollar is spent on future and past war endeavors]

I don't want to go on for too much longer, but an honest question, just what's so historic about the tea bag protests? It's certainly not the most pervasive protest ever conducted. What about the Iraq war protests (of which, depending who you believe, an estimated 36 million people world-round took part in), and it's coverage? Now I haven't gone back to look at footage of coverage of that protest, but I doubt it was covered quite the same way.

When the 4th estate stops taking it's position in public discourse seriously, I'm looking at you MSNBC, it becomes harder for me too. I'm just as turned off by the coverage by the 'left' as well. Yes, we all get it when Keith Olbermann quips on how hard it is to speak clearly while tea bagging. But what do all those jokes tell you about the validity of the ideas behind the protests, good ideas or not? Not. A. God. Damn. Thing.

This topic just got stale.

We don't have news in this country anymore, it's all reality television.

In case you all are dying to get in contact with me:

Michael's Email

What is Nuclear Subterfuge?
[Nuclear Subterfuge is a blog currently written by one person (Michael), and mainly serves as a place to post my writings.]

No, I mean what is Nuclear Subterfuge supposed to mean?
[Oh, well you should be more clear in my sub-conscience projections of your questions.]

nu⋅cle⋅ar–adjective

1.	pertaining to or involving atomic weapons: nuclear war.

2.	operated or powered by atomic energy: a nuclear submarine.

3.	(of a nation or group of nations) having atomic weapons.

4.	of, pertaining to, or forming a nucleus.

5.	of, pertaining to, or like the nuclear family: nuclear bonds.

sub⋅ter⋅fuge–noun

an artifice or expedient used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, hide something, etc.

[We're all familiar enough with the phrase "The Big Lie" to understand what it means. The most recent example we remember probably being the Bushian WMD mantra. However, the big lie isn't directly related to Nuclear Subterfuge the phrase, even through it fits the idea of lying about WMD's to start a war really well.

While the phrase Nuclear Subterfuge isn't supposed to be meaningless, it's not very specific either. I suppose if I have to provide a clean cut definition it'd be the tag line of this blog: Using Catastrophe to make a stealthy get-away.]