asking the Mayor what right he has to even be on the platform

Green Party candidate Reverend Billy Talen was at the mayoral debate last night. He hadn't been invited to participate as a candidate, since our fake-democratic system only gives full recognition office seekers who have attracted serious money from corporate interests expecting payoffs - or very serious money from themselves in the case of one of the two politicos running this fall.

Our current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, the super rich guy, had been barred from seeking a third term by two city-wide referendums, but he managed to do a cynical end run around them by manipulating a vote by the members of the City Council (very "interested" parties themselves) which we were told took precedence over the popular will. Almost like how spending $10,000 a minute on your mayoral campaign gives a candidate precedence over mere mortals.

When Bloomberg began to speak Talen interrupted him, shouting, "What are you doing here? We voted for term limits!" [video here]

More from Billy himself here.

[image from Rev. Billy's campaign site]

"Coloso" is more than a condemnation of war; it's an allegory of French imperialism, and as such it also condemns every previous or succeeding imperial crusade, regardless of the real or professed idealism of their apologists

NOTE: Obama had been president for less than twelve full days before nominations for the Nobel closed on February 1.

War is not peace.

I looked at my mail today while I waited for my browser to load, and there I read a note from a friend in Buenos Aires who knows me very well. He was effectively warning me that I should sit down before looking at today's news. Once securely seated, I went to my news page where I saw the announcement, "President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize". I thought it was a joke. Totally.

What peace? He's adopted every one of Bush's wars, extended some, and if you look closely, he's not even talking about ending them.

It's an insult to those who have received the honor in the past, many of whom risked their lives for peace and who did not ride around in armored cars while commanding the greatest arsenal of weapons in the history of the human race - and using them.

It's like giving the mayor's son a Ph.D soon after he's started his freshman year, because he's said he's somewhat interested in reading. He's been tossing everyone's books into a dumpster since he arrived, but maybe the sheepskin will turn things around. Disgusting.

ADDENDUM: On his own site, candidate for mayor Reverend Billy Talen writes eloquently of the Obama peace prize: "So - it has come to this. War has finally captured Peace. ".

Predator drones will be released tonight destroying the word we always depended on. The flying bomb will go out over the villages, sailing over the sleeping children and prayers and friends stopping for a laugh. The bombs will float and hesitate and change direction from computers in Florida and Missouri and the soldiers at the computers will know that Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And so they will be consumers of a war that is now being marketed as a product named Peace.

[image of "Coloso" (painted by Goya or by one of his friends and pupils) from redstateelectric]

Anti-war protesters demonstrate in Times Square October 7, 2001 in New York City. Thousands of marchers participated in the rally on the same day that the US and Britain commenced air strikes against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. [Huffington Post caption]

It could have gone much differently.

I was in the streets eight years ago today, but with a characteristic mid-western idealism continually renewed without any justification, I didn't believe we were actually going to war. It was just so stupid and wrong, so eighteenth century.

Today some of us mourn the eight years (and still counting) of the wars without end begun by George W. Bush and embraced by Barack Hussein Obama.

They are all Obama's wars.

Woodrow Wilson's war, announced as the "war to end all wars", lasted 19 months. Our participation in the Second World War lasted a little over three years and eight months. Our current series of insane, counter-intuitive, self-destructive, illegitimate, racist, imperial, immoral, and finally perpetually self-propagating wars, waged under the rubric, "Operation Enduring Freedom", have been programmed from the very beginning to go on forever.

[image, otherwise uncredited, from Huffington Post]