Bad News For Israel's Dopers, Flotilla Warfare, Colorado Tea Party and Moose-Turd Pie

Colbert King
Benjamin Sarlin
Ilene Prusher



Before I begin today, I want to report some serious news: that marijauna sources in Israel are drying up, causing some serious Jonesing among that nation's potheads: "If you are one of a significant proportion of Israelis that regularly flouts the law to use marijuana, you may be experiencing attacks of nerves, sleepless nights, mood swings and a general lack of get up and go. Why? Reasons for this year's grass shortage are several: A slew of successful drugs busts by the police and border guard; cooperation between Egyptian cartels trying to boost profits; a dearth of growers; low rainfall. Conspiracy theorists even claim a secret government program to combat apathy and stir the nation's fighting spirit... Whatever the reason, the cost of getting high in Israel has never been higher." Pray that it will never happen here... I just realized, that if the Palestinians in Gaza wish to boost their economy, they should start asking the next crop of humanitarian flotillas for some hydroponic equipment...

Sellers' market: How Israel's marijuana prices have rocketed

Grass:
Pre-drought price: NIS 150 for 50 grams
Today: NIS 35 per gram

Hashish:
Pre-drought: NIS 200 for 10 grams
Today: NIS 500 for 10 grams

Hydro (hydroponic marijuana):
Pre-drought: NIS 45 per gram
Today: NIS 110 per gram

Chares (high-grade Indian hashish):
Pre-drought: NIS 450 for 10 grams
Today: NIS 800 for 10 grams

the new face of warfare...

The use of video cameras during the commando raid on the Gaza flotilla, and the ability to broadcast those images during real time has directly resulted in the easing of the land border crossings into Gaza. It has made the Muslim world giddy at finding a cheap, non-violent way to wage warfare, and several other flotillas are now in the planning stage, while Lebanon and Iran have immediately reacted by sending ships that should arrive this weekend. The Israelis are freaked out, have vowed not another ship will enter their space or get through the naval blockade, and have recalled up retired frogmen to fight the good fight. They are especially worried what may happen come August, and the month of Ramadan. There is even a group of German Jews who are planning on sending aid, but it's unclear if they will jump on the flotilla bandwagon or simply fly it in cargo planes... And the Israeli defense minister is cynically saying that opening up the borders into Gaza weakens Israel's position in trying to get back Gilad Shalit, who is still being held prisoner by Hamas, as if he was a previous bargaining chip...

There is also discontent between the Palestinian Authority, who rule in the West Bank, and Hamas, who rule in Gaza and is the reason for the blockades in the first place. There will be bickering as long as their social views are so far between. The PA is trying to build a successful economic infrastructure in the West Bank that will seamlessly continue once they become a state. Hamas hasn't had an opportunity to create anything for the Palestinian people in Gaza, and probably would be voted out if an election were allowed to be held. Weirdly enough, it is Fatah who just canceled elections that were to be held in the West Bank next month. These creaky, old leaders are even afraid of losing to some independent candidate, since Hamas declared it isn't participating, and blaming Israel on this lack of courage. Dudes, let some younger people with a better vision take over, elect a few women who aren't the wacko equivalent of a Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann or Sharron Angle to counter all of that musty testosterone...

Although Mahmoud Abbas has asked for the US to pressure Israel to end the blockade last Thursday, hoping that he showed he had some cojones still working, all Hamas has to do is make a public statement renouncing their previous violent ways and their intention to work alongside the Jewish state for the sake of the people of Gaza, and suddenly, they can become heroes and the blockade will end. But will Hamas give up their ego and inability to listen to reason? I doubt it. Once any group of people have some power, they will create an infinite amount of excuses to hold onto it, or as a modern Sufi saying goes: If God wants to destroy an ant, he gives it wings... if these ants want to create a home for their people, some ants will have to give up their wings...


go fish...

The propaganda that Afghanistan is suddenly sitting on a King's Ransom in mineral wealth is paying off. Delegations from companies in India, Russia, China, and Japan have been flocking to Kabul. I haven't seen any reports if the giant Bin Laden Construction has tendered any contracts, since they did such a good job with the caves at  Tora Bora. You could say there is some kind of prior relationship between the two... It will be interesting to see how many other fish will bite, and how this new found wealth will be extracted, how it will change the landscape beginning just when the American forces are being called back to the US...

get mah boots and ten-teabagger hat...

A recent Rasmussen Reports declared that our fine state of Colorado has the most amount of Tea Party activists, and I believe it. From the Huffington Post, who never answers my e-mail requests and won't include my blog in their list of Colorado blogs on their webpage: "According to a series of surveys from Rasmussen Reports, Colorado has a greater percentage of voters who consider themselves members of the "Tea Party" movement than any other state. 33% of likely voters surveyed in Colorado in April claimed to be a part of the right-wing movement. That's two points higher than Alabama and Kentucky, where Senate candidate Rand Paul recently shocked the Republican establishment by riding Tea Party support to landslide victory in the GOP primaries. In Colorado, Tea Party-backed candidates have overcome poor name recognition and lackluster fundraising to turn Republican Senate and gubernatorial primaries into competitive races." To be honest, maybe one of our Republican candidates could be called tea party material, a cut from the flow-through bag. The others are just conservatives who would like to court the vote. Jane Norton, a former Lieutenant Governor, is appalled that she isn't considered conservative enough for them, and the front runner, Scott McInnis, has refused to attend any debates arranged by the tea party: "While the Norton, Buck and Maes campaigns confirmed and replied with emails and phone calls, there wan’t a peep out of the McInnis campaign. On June 1st, when Chris Davis was sent to hand-​​deliver yet another invitation to McInnis’ Denver office, he was told by a McInnis campaign that, “The Constitutionalist Today is pretty strongly with Dan Maes.”


We absolutely proceeded with the debates; did McInnis think our event would be contingent upon the confirmation of his appearance? This will stand as one more example of McInnis failing to appear, and an empty chair on stage will speak volumes to Fox News, the Associated Press, the Gazette, Colorado news stations and, of course, the voters. We also have inside knowledge that McInnis had nothing on his calendar for the date in question at the time he received our first invitation; another event has since appeared on his calendar for that date.


On June 14th we finally received our first official correspondence from the McInnis campaign. The letter, sent on behalf of McInnis, informed us of a scheduling conflict that would prevent him from attending the debate and offered to send a surrogate instead. (If anyone is aware of any official communication that predates this letter, please send along the information.)" So, it might be that we have a lot of right-wing rebels without candidates, eventually canceling them out as an elective force.

Here in Colorado Springs, the tea party even has its own newspaper, the Constitutionalist Today. On the aggregate site, blognetnews, the sites are pretty about evenly mixed in a 50/50 ratio. All of the conservative ones have been blogging since before the tea party phenomena. I captured this list today, the red ones are the uptight ones:

The Drunkablog
Not My Tribe
The Daily Blogster
Mark Hillman
Rocky Mountain Right
Notes From a Grumpy Old Man
SquareState.net
ColoradoPols.com
2008 Democratic Convention Watch
Haley's Comment
Steam Powered Opinions
Wash Park Prophet
Nature Blog
Peoples Press Collective
bestdestiny
Bob's Blog
Eryn Gable
udallvschaffer
Colorado Confederatarian
5280 Magazine
Liberal and Loving It

Although I have only met tea party activists at the rallies in the park or at tables in front of the library, I rarely have met any of them socially. Our local newspaper, The Gazette, has a stated Libertarian bent, mostly expressed in its opinion pages, and is losing subscribers daily. Right wing extremists talk a lot about the right way to govern but always mess it up when they get elected, they're house of cards fall apart at the first stress test. Our local government is chock full of Libertarian and extremist conservatives, and has let the infrastructure go to ruin, the roads are full of potholes, the police helicopters were sold, a lot of the police force and government workers have been laid off, businesses are leaving, and they are thinking of selling the municipal hospital and privatizing most governmental services. As one Huffington Post reader put it: "Colorado Springs. Home of "Focus on the Family", etc. Which is turning into a third world country because the city government and the budget have been basically eliminated by the conservatives down there. No parks (which are turning into unkept landscapes with trash), no museums, no street lights, no money to fix roads, minimal to nonexistent buses, no schools, minimal police and fire emergency services, minimal civil government, etc. etc. Yep! That's America's future folks. A libertarian Tea Party dream come true. Think about it when the time comes to vote this fall  - laresistance 4 hours ago (12:30 PM)"


The kindest thing I can say about living here is the water tastes really good. Of course, Colorado has the largest amount of toxic mine sites, and heavy metals like uranium may have leached into the water table along with traces of prescription drugs and methamphetamines, a problem that affects most of American cities' water supply. I drink about eight glasses of water per day, haven't noticed too many side effects... it's good, though.

Which reminds me, have you heard the Utah Phillips joke of moose turd pie?:

Years ago I worked on a crew laying tracks for the railroad. There was no assigned cook, the cook was the last person who complained about the previous meal. Once when I was the cook I went into the woods to look for berries to make a pie, but instead I found a big old moose turd. I took it into the cook shed and made a moose turd pie for desert knowing that somebody would complain and I wouldn't have to cook any more. After dinner I brought out a large pie and all the guys eagerly waited for a piece. The biggest, strongest, meanest guy on the crew pushed his way to the front so he could get his first. He sat down, got a forkfull, and hollered,
" HEY! THIS IS MOOSE TURD PIE!!! It's good though...

There is the possibility that the mixture of so many Army and Air Force personnel with evangelical Christians and Texas good-old boys and Left-coast hippies all stomping through the forests, skiing down the hills, rafting down the rivers of this fair state while imbibing in medical marijuana, have created a new breed of tea-sipping eco-warriors, who are more interested in preserving the freedoms and beauty of Nature, the sentiment so aptly expressed by the late Utah Phillips:

"The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses."


"You are about to be told one more time that you are America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don't ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They're going to strip mine your soul. They're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist." "The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. Freedom is something you're born with, and then one day someone tries to deny it. The extent to which you resist is the extent to which you are free."