There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA. It is every American’s duty to read this message and pass it along to all of their friends and loved ones:

Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.

Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag. He also ends every sentence by saying, “WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.” Click here for video of Obama quietly mouthing the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE in his sleep.

A tape exists of Michelle Obama saying the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE at a conference on PATRIOTISM.

Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It’s upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.

There’s only one artist on Barack Obama’s iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama’s new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.

Barack Obama’s skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

Pass it on!

If any of you are considering a donation, but have yet to take the plunge, now is the time! She just needs enough to sponsor 6 more kids in order to reach her goal, but she leaves on Monday, so time is short.

Donations can be made via paypal to account name janainavmarques@gmail.com.

Click here if you’d like to view the original announcement and flyer.

Artomatic is a month-long multimedia arts event that draws together visual artists, musicians and performers and brings their work to the community for free. This year it is housed in a building near the intersection of M and 1st Streets, NE near the New York Ave Metro station. Check out the Artomatic website for directions, info and other goodies. And here is the website for Batala.

Hope to see you all there!

Erika

Dear friend,

I’m writing you to ask for support in realizing a dream opportunity for 30 low-income children this summer: the chance to participate in a 10-day art workshop. I’ve designed a unique program, Nature ReCreations, for children aged 6-12. This hands-on class will use materials found in nature, and transform materials normally destined to landfills into works of art. The idea is to reinforce that art is all around us, even in everyday objects.

I love teaching art and as you may know I am an after-school art teacher in four Montgomery County elementary schools (Bethesda, Somerset, Garrett Park and Burning Tree). My training through the Young Rembrandts program complements my ten years of experience as a graphic designer, film producer and craftswoman.

My husband, Pedro, will work for the summer in Montana for the State Department of Environmental Quality. I have decided to travel with him and offer this class to a community of disadvantaged kids in Missoula. This workshop will help me prepare a curriculum that I plan to develop further through a Masters Degree in Art Education, beginning in September.

To realize this plan I need to raise at least $3,000 to cover class materials and other expenses. The cost for each child is $100. With your help and the help of your friends, I hope to be able to offer this opportunity to this group of children in Missoula. Please take a look at the attached flyer and my Web site to learn more. Keep in mind, my deadline to confirm the space is June 13^th. Please pass this message along to friends.

$100 will support 1 child for the full 10-day workshop,
but any donation is welcome. Donate via Paypal* or check^

Thank you so much.

Yours truly,

Janaina Vieira-Marques
janainavmarques@gmail.com

*Donations can be made via paypal to account name janainavmarques@gmail.com

^Make checks payable to Janaina Vieira-Marques and send to:
5526 Greystone Street
Chevy Chase, MD 20815

“Operation Chaos“? What does he think this is, a civil war? Or, maybe he doesn’t think it’s a civil war, but wishes it was. Maybe he wishes America would fall into the chaotic abyss that is Iraq if he can’t have his Oxycontin-addled version of America. Check out this quote from his site:

“From Operation Chaos headquarters, I am commander Rush Limbaugh, here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. “

I think Rush Limbaugh is insane. I’m surprised he didn’t cap that off with “I love the smell of microphone in the morning.”

I think Rush Limbaugh needs a taste of his own medicine (and I don’t mean the medicine he so gleefully guzzled while ranting about the depravity of all other drug addicts in the world). I think “Operation Chaos” is just what his own life and talk show needs about now. Who knows: maybe a shaking up will help him recognize that he still has an addiction problem: it’s not drugs, which he’s supposedly kicked, it’s egomania. He’s the radical zealot of an eponymous movement, and he’s doing everything he can to foster divisiveness in a country that has unity as its basis.

How any one can seriously think he cares about this nation’s well being is beyond me. Hyper partisanship is horrible for this nation. Political movements should not be saddled with advocating violence. Provocateurs like Rush Limbaugh are bad for a healthy democracy.

Environmentalists initially found themselves in the odd position of cheering the Bush administration. “But then they read the fine print,” said a story in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Tucked deep into a 417-page ‘Notice of Proposed Rulemaking’ was language by the Transportation Department stating that more stringent limits on tailpipe emissions embraced by California and 17 other states are ‘an obstacle to the accomplishment’ of the new federal standards and are ‘expressly and impliedly preempted’ by federal law.”

In plain language, this means that California and the other states – which have faulted the administration for foot-dragging on reducing earth-warming emissions – are not allowed to set their own standards.

Obviously, this does not sit well with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) of California and his fellow governors. Under the Clean Air Act, California can adopt stricter standards by obtaining a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency. Other states then have the choice of following California’s lead.

Sixteen other states – Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, plus the District of Columbia – have adopted or announced their intention to adopt California’s regulations. A story in the Imperial Valley (Calif.) News stated that:

” ‘This fuel economy plan, while attractive on the surface, is a shameful and unlawful assault on California’s landmark vehicle emissions standards,’ Calif. Attorney General Jerry Brown said.”

It’s worth reading the whole thing. Governor’s are pissed.

So much for the conservative principle of state rights. Shocking, I know.

Regardless of how you feel about global warming, this is the Bush admin essentially usurping Congress’ power of legislation.

The proper way to impose this sort of restriction is to bring it up in Congress and see if the Commerce Clause is applicable, and, if so, vote on whether the restirction is necessary.

This manner of imposing restrictions is utterly unconstitutional.

You gotta give the admin one thing: they’re really good at what amounts to layers of doublespeak.

Issuing rules on Earth Day that seem to be slightly more aggressive on capping emissions than a bill passed by Congress, but that has subtle, buried language forbidding more stringent standards by states is positively Orwellian.

The pay-as-you-drive plan is easy to endorse because I NEVER drive anymore. I always take the metro to work and as much as possible to the bar, to band practice, to dinner. But I drove to work today and I will drive my car to Vienna, VA tonight after work to get voted into the Shenandoah Mountain Rescue Group (an organization I’ve been trying to join for months and a program which will train me to participate in wilderness rescue missions). I can’t help thinking about how this pay-as-you-drive plan will work if metro areas don’t have a vast, comprehensive and efficient infrastructure of public transportation to support it. I had to drive today b/c the only public transportation that goes to Vienna is a 2 hour bus ride from my work…in downtown DC! Can we make this work? Can we build the infrastructure and alternatives needed? Can we change people’s driving obsession? Will you change yours? What do you think? Will you pay to hit the open road?

Want to hit the open road? It’ll cost you

Josh Voorhees, Greenwire reporter

Carpool lanes should be turned into express tollways as the nation motors toward a “pay as you drive” system that will charge for every mile you travel, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said yesterday.

“In the near term, these express lanes are a temporary solution,” Peters told a Brookings Institution forum in Washington. “They are a way to get people acclimated to paying a fee to use a road at a particular time.”

Express lanes — also known as high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes — would replace existing carpool lanes or are added to existing highways. Drivers are given the option of either paying a variable fee based on traffic congestion to enter the lane or staying in the free lanes.

An aggressive congestion-pricing proposal for New York City failed earlier this month despite the backing of DOT and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I). The cordon-pricing plan would have required drivers entering a set congestion zone in Manhattan during peak hours to pay an $8 fee (Greenwire, April 8).

“With cordon pricing, there is no choice. If you want to enter at a certain time of day in a car, you have to pay,” said Steve Heminger, executive director for San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is currently overseeing congestion-pricing projects in the Bay Area. “With [express] lanes there is a choice. There are other lanes and other roads you can use.”

Because drivers still have options, express lanes “are certainly the path of lesser resistance” toward gaining public and political support, he added.

After the defeat of the New York City plan, DOT re-evaluated the political landscape and decided to offer more than half of the $354 million that would have been gone to New York to Los Angeles for an express lane project (Greenwire, April 28).

A handful of similar congestion-priced express lane projects are under way, with federal funding acting as an incentive.

“Environmental groups and academics say [congestion pricing plans] will work, but what we need to do with these early projects is show the public that they really will,” said Steve Marshall, a senior fellow at the Cascadia Project, a Seattle-based transportation think tank.

‘Power of the purse’

Heminger, who saw a partial cordon-pricing plan fail in Bay Area in the 1990s, agreed with Marshall.

“There is a bit of a chicken and the egg issue,” Heminger said. “In a capitalistic country anywhere in the world, the public is used to, and accepts the idea, you pay for goods and the price of those goods will rise when they become scarce. But for whatever reason, the public doesn’t see that for roads.”

That is where the federal funds enter the picture. In addition to the more than $213 million being offered to Los Angeles if its express-lane project is approved, DOT would award — assuming local approval — a total of nearly $500 million in grants to Seattle, Minneapolis, Miami and San Francisco for projects aimed at reducing gridlock.

“A relatively small amount of funding can go a long way,” Peters said.

Heminger said that even though federal cash failed to convince New York state legislators to support the cordon pricing plan, grants are having a larger impact elsewhere. “They are using the power of the purse to provide financial incentives for change,” he said. “I think it’s an encouraging direction.”

Despite his support for congestion pricing, however, Heminger, who was a member of the bipartisan federal commission that is calling for sweeping changes to how the nation funds transportation infrastructure, cautioned that congestion pricing is “not a national panacea.”

“Congestion pricing holds a lot of promise in fighting congestion and generating revenues in those corridors, but there are a lot of places in the country that are not congested,” he said. “The U.S. faces massive infrastructure backlog, and tolling is not going to take care of all of those needs.”

Opponents of congestion pricing schemes often argue that the tolls serve as a regressive tax that places an unfair burden on poor people who must spend a larger percentage of their income on travel. Even proponents of the plan have suggested financial reimbursements might be necessary to offset the heavy impact the tolls could have on low-income households (Greenwire, April 2).

End game

Express lanes are a simple solution that can start paying dividends almost immediately, Peters said. “This isn’t rocket science,” she said. “This is something we can do and do very quickly.”

Assuming congestion pricing clears political hurdles and wins public affection, the end game will likely be a pay-as-you-drive system that has drivers paying for every mile they travel, Peters said.

While she cautioned that such a plan was a long way away, she said such a system would likely rely on a combination of congestion-based rates for metropolitan areas and flat fees for the more rural parts of the country.

Peters said the American public would eventually embrace drastic changes to the national transportation system because they want commutes that are predictable and consistent.

“Americans,” she said, “will pay for convenience.”

An Inconvenient Truth Cartoon

In other news, my band the Ringers is playing at Orchards in Chambersburg, PA tonight. Delirium Tremens on tap! Here’s the address:

1580 Orchard Drive
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201

The ADS fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam, which is supposed to heat skin and to cause pain but no physical damage (New Scientist, 27 October 2001, p 26). Little information about its effects has been released, but details of tests in 2003 and 2004 were revealed after Edward Hammond, director of the US Sunshine Project – an organisation campaigning against the use of biological and non-lethal weapons – requested them under the Freedom of Information Act.

…

The experimenters banned glasses and contact lenses to prevent possible eye damage to the subjects, and in the second and third tests removed any metallic objects such as coins and keys to stop hot spots being created on the skin. They also checked the volunteers’ clothes for certain seams, buttons and zips which might also cause hot spots.

The ADS weapon’s beam causes pain within 2 to 3 seconds and it becomes intolerable after less than 5 seconds. People’s reflex responses to the pain is expected to force them to move out of the beam before their skin can be burnt.

Better hope you’re not in the middle of a huge unruly crowd when this happens. I wonder how long it is before your skin melts to your muscle; how long before your muscle melts to your bone? This sounds like a great idea to me!

I was hoping that this was just some crazy hoax or something, but it appears that it is not. Plenty of references in the Wikipedia article about this device. Here are some comments from that entry:

The ADS is currently being considered for deployment in the Iraq War. ADS has also been present at various public events in the United States. It is unclear if the government has sought any authorization to deploy the weapon at home or did so without public input.[5]

There is, however, some good news:

Given the wavelength of the beam (3.2 mm) people can use simple mesh shields to block the electromagnetic waves. As long as the holes in the mesh are less than a tenth of the wavelength, it will reflect the wave as though it were a solid object. The same concept is used in microwave ovens.

Microwaves are for ovens, not crowds of people.

On Saturday, April 5th, we will play from 5:30pm – 6:15pm outside the stadium near the parking lots and the tunnel that takes you to the stadium. We will be entertaining while YOU tailgate! Then we will hit the field…yes, the field!!!!…around 8:15 for the halftime show.

This day is also Eric’s birthday (31st, baby!!) so come on down for a day of celebrating Eric’s fabulousness, Batala, and soccer! I hear DC United games are pretty raucous so it should be a pretty awesome experience. There is even a post-game drum party in the parking lot.

Click here to find out more about the game, timing, directions (RFK is metro accessible), etc. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster and most online ticket sellers and range from $20-$50. DC United is playing the Toronto FC.

Hope to see many of you there! Batala hey!

-Erika