OK, now I get it.

The reason the energo-fascists and science deniers don’t care about global warming is:

Global Warming plays into their plan.

If the Arctic continues to melt, even becoming ice free within 35 years, that opens up massive oil and natural gas fields for exploitation. Energy companies are already preparing for drilling projects.

Climate balance inhibited the greedy drive for more energy. How long will they postpone the inevitable crash? A decade, a few years, not at all?

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I really need to write about theoconspiracy. I’m hanging on to that one more day. One more day. I’ll use two tidbits to lead in.

Today, I just want to offer the fake Weekly Radio Address, in which “George W. Bush” hopes Congress will give him the tools he needs, and he mentions the tools he already has–veto, signing statements, ignore, and make believe. I admit that I still miss That’s My Bush, but this makes me feel a tiny bit better.

And, I want to offer one article that is worth reading thoroughly, including the comments: “Will Bush Provoke a Constitutional Crisis?” This is part of the ongoing thinking ALL of us need to do about the STILL CREEPING FASCISM. The comments (OK, most of the comments) reassure me that we really are aware and active enough as a people to see and prevent the worst of what is possible. What has to happen before the Congress calls these criminals on what they are doing? Will they try to use ignore and make believe to deal with Congress when called?

Hold the executive branch accountable. That’s all I’m asking. No pardons.

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Come on. Have you been shopping in the past week? Did you at least Buy Local? I did. I bought books at King’s English–great place to spend a day and a dollar.

If you must buy gifts this season, I have a couple of my favorite gifts and online stores to recommend.

• Flying Spaghetti Monster emblem from Evolve Fish. Nothing says, “I am in a world of my own” like the noodly appendage on your car. I keep buying emblems for my car and end up giving them away to people who deserve them at least as much as I do. I sure wish my so-called church had chosen to put on a Flying Spaghetti Monster Holiday Pageant rather than a completely predictable display of religion that so few of the children will be able to relate to in any way.

• Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times from AK Press. Why not give a practical guide to low-input gardening? I was given this book recently. It addresses gardening in a way that someone like me, not used to gardening beyond tomatoes and chili peppers, can wrap myself around low-tech, low water food production in the space I have. The book is published by New Society Publishers and Mother Earth News, but I suggest buying it from AK Press because I like them.

• 2007 Peace Calendar from Syracuse Cultural Workers. For several years I have given the peace calendar as a gift to my most peaceful friends. The images are striking. Printed by union labor. You can buy a Teacher’s Guide. All around useful gift. They have a lot of great posters and cards, but I end up opting for this calendar every year.

Better yet, make a gift with your own hands or give the gift of time (give a lesson, cook a meal). I love gifts. I wouldn’t suggest that people NOT give gifts as tokens of their love and care. I am suggesting that it’s possible to give a great gift with both personal and global meaning (or lack thereof in the case of the Flying Spaghetti Monster).

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It was difficult to decide today whether to write about Donald Rumsfeld’s personal responsibility for torture at Abu Ghraib or the link between omega-3 fatty acids and violence. I’m going with the fish.

Studies at the National Institutes of Health and at prisons in the US, UK, and the Netherlands indicate that prisoners given nutritional supplements of fish oil show fewer violent tendencies. The clinical trial of 80 people in the US follows an earlier, smaller study that showed a reduction by one third of anger, hostility, and irritability. So, prisons are doing their own experiments and finding a reduction in violent incidents.

It’s just predictable biochemistry. Your brain is (60%) fat and it needs fats from outside your body to function. Chips, cookies, and ice cream all have fats, but they tend to be omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils. Those don’t help.  Your synapses

contain even higher concentrations of essential fatty acids - being made of about 60% of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA. . . . Omega-3 DHA is very long and highly flexible. When it is incorporated into the nerve cell membrane it helps make the membrane itself elastic and fluid so that signals pass through it efficiently.

Without efficient transmission you get suicidal, angry, and impulsive. Sound like anyone you know?

Apparently, omega-3s have helped children and criminals. Maybe it is the emphasis on foods like pretzels and chicken tenders that makes the Bush administration so violent. Let’s experiment on them. Let’s give them multivitamins and fish oil to see if it prevents any violent, criminal behavior. You know where they are.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

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If you are tempted to go out shopping tomorrow, don’t. The day after Thanksgiving is, of course, international Buy Nothing Day. The movement isn’t just about one particular day (the busiest retail shopping day of the year), but about changing lifestyles, consuming less.

There will be a great Whirl-Mart event in New York City. See the great videos of Whirl-Marts past.

Don’t forget to pick up your gift exemption vouchers, Zenta cards, and Buy Nothing Carols for a Buy Nothing Holiday season.

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