New year...same old shit

Been out of touch for awhile during the move of my life from a 4000 foot industrial building (work) and a 700 square foot house to a 16 1/2 acre ranch. There's a lot to do here that's been keeping me from blogging not the least being a buggy 28.8 kb dialup internet connection.
My basic production capabilities are up and running in the 600 foot shop that is present on the property and a bigger shop is in the works. Meanwhile the remainder of the shop properties are outside under tarps, which have been getting put to the test during an extremely wet December.
9" of rain so far in an area that only averages 15-18" per year.
Pictured is a small garage on the road that leads down to the house and a wonderful oak forest.

Obama
In the past,I've expressed some doubt here on the blog about the kind of "change" we could look forward to in an Obama administration and it looks like they were justified.
First his choice for the pastor to lead the invocation at the inaugural. He says that both sides need to learn to talk and compromise but if he didn't have his head up his ass, he would have noticed by now that the righties have no intention of talking or compromising. Why would they? They declared war on us years ago and won't stop...........ever.
Gaza
Obama's silence in the matter of the Gaza invasion by Israel is stunning.
There can only be one President at a time?
Right now it looks like we have NO president.
The killing of civilians, men, women and children.
The collective punishment of an entire group for the actions of a few,
using weapons and equipment provided by us is a crime and Obama's silence condones it.
Joe Mowrey's statement in his recent essay
"We're all criminals now"
sums it up nicely.....
The so-called Left in the United States decries each successive atrocity either committed or supported by our government. Israel assaults Gaza using our money and weapons, so we sign petitions calling for an end to the violence. We engage in a flurry of political activism every four years and vote in sham elections which only legitimize the actions of the ruling elite. What we should do instead is boycott these fraudulent elections and engage in direct action in order to facilitate a popular uprising against the existing structure of our government. We need a nonviolent social revolution to create a new political paradigm. Under the current system, the perpetuation of empire is institutionally preordained. We are permitted to reshuffle the cards and deal a new hand now and then, but always from the same stacked deck.

The situation in Palestine, along with many of the violent conflicts in the world, is nothing more than a symptom of the disease that is U.S. Empire. Gaza is just one more bloody scene in an ongoing imperial nightmare of death and destruction. If we want to stop the senseless killing taking place in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and so many the other places, we must stand up and say no. Not just to the acts themselves, but to the fetid imperialist jugernaut which exports and cultivates them. Until we disrupt this cycle of corporate power mongering and violent militarism by refusing to participate in it, we have only ourselves to blame for the deaths of the innocent men, women and children who are the targets of our bombs. The blood is on your hands and mine. We are all war criminals now.