July 14, 2008 archive

Jul 14 2008

Four at Four, at Five

Special guest host?  Nah, It’s just me.

Special edition?  You bet.  We’re in Central time now, folks.

Welcome to the Four at Four, at Five (Four Central).

  • In a move that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi termed “a hoax,” President Bush lifted the White House’s ban on offshore drilling.

    “Today, I’ve taken every step within my power to allow offshore exploration,” Bush told reporters. “This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress.”

    Congress too has a ban on offshore drilling and while it expires on September 30, it could be renewed. Plus, federal officials say it would take years for any oil to be produced in those areas, together making Bush’s move largely symbolic.

    “Now the ball is squarely in Congress’ court,” Bush said after signing a memorandum reversing a presidential ban that was instituted by his father, then-President George Bush, almost two decades ago. “The time for action is now.”

  • Nearly 200 Taliban insurgents stormed a NATO base in Pakistan, executing a “well-planned, surprise attack” that left nine US soldiers dead and wounded 15.

    The insurgents, who were repulsed, came so close that some of their corpses were lying around the base afterwards, Tamim Nuristani, the former governor of the region said after talking to officials in the district. A Western official requesting anonymity also confirmed that the Taliban did breach part of the base.

    …

    American and NATO military officials said the attack reflected the Taliban’s resurgence from new bases in neighboring Pakistan and underscored the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, where war casualties have jumped this year.

  • The Belgium-based InBev has successfully purchased Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion, or $70 per share.

    InBev moved gently from the start, meeting with Anheuser Chief Executive August Busch IV in June 2 in Tampa to discuss a possible combination. It followed with an unsolicited offer on June 11 that included several concessions to soothe any pain for Anheuser-Busch.

    Among the concessions in the initial $65 per share bid, InBev offered Anheuser seats on the combined company’s board; promised to keep Anheuser’s St. Louis, Missouri, home as the North American headquarters; and have the merged company’s name reflect the heritage of the more than 150-year-old U.S. brewer.

    InBev also said it would keep Anheuser’s U.S. breweries open. The Belgian-based company kept all of those promises in the final agreement to buy Anheuser for $70 per share, creating the world’s largest brewer which would be named Anheuser-Busch InBev.

    No word yet as to whether InBev, which makes Stella Artois and Beck’s beers, will teach the Americans how to make actual beer in their breweries.

  • Nine British women, six British men, and six Greek men face charges after an oral sex competition in Greece last weekend.

    The women, who came to the popular resort on holiday, had been paid to take part in the competition, which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet, police said.

    The men were charged with encouraging obscene behavior.

    The women were charged with prostitution, as they were paid for their participation in the activities.

Jul 14 2008

The Real Issue is Not the New Yorker

(cross posted at dailykos)

The real issue is not the New Yorker and what its editors and artists consider satire. I wish it were. But look at the News Headlines for the last weeks. Which Candidate has been in the news? Which Candidate has made a “flub” more often? Which candidate has had a member of his “team” or a famous supporter make a flub. Which candidate has been labeled as having an erosion in his support?

Do you see where I am going?

Jul 14 2008

“Madness: A Bipolar Life:

by Marya Hornbacher is the shattering sort of memoir about which I’ve a   personal rule of not starting to read before bedtime. Because I won’t want to put it down until it’s finished.

When we first meet Marya, she’s lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood, having severed an artery while cutting herself. This is what draws us into the living hell of her condition–rapid-cycling Bipolar I, the worst form of the disease.

Jul 14 2008

Obama CAN’T save you….Remedial Politics

In fact he has rather explicitly asked that YOU save HIM.

When he asks for citizens to become involved in the political process, in his campaign, that is what he is asking you for.

Here is how our government works, and ….surprise!…. Obama knows this. Politicians are individual human beings, (surprise again!) individual human beings, even Obama, are not gods. We, each and every one of us, including Obama, are subject to temptation, failure of will in the face of adversity, and yes, corruption. Not dirty back room money under the table corruption, but corruption as a process, over time, that saps integrity and will.

Washington DC and the strange dances of culture, pressure, and politics there are literally MADE to corrupt. To put it cutely, they have a whole street there (named K) that exists for one reason, to corrupt public servants. There is the culture of the Senate, (need I say more Harry Reid?) there is the culture of The Villagers, the cocktail party culture…..and then their are the real bad guys! Photobucket

And then there are your ‘friends,’ who just need a little favor, just need you to bend your principles a little bit just this once, to help them out. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Relentless and pervasive and designed to push every button of human weakness. This pressure has ‘corrupted’ nearly every politician that has gone to DC. This pressure is exactly why things are as they are, in our government that is allegedly by, for and of The People….but instead exists to serve the aims of the Powers That Be. The Powers That Be use that power to corrupt the system to serve their ends. Not yours, not mine.

And it works.

Obama’s FISA vote was as a result of these pressures. Who knows which one got to him…but one did.

That is why he needs YOU to save him.

Jul 14 2008

The Law Of Rule, or Who Rules The Law?

This morning Marc Ash, Executive Director of Truthout.org, posted an open letter to Barack Obama. You can read the full letter at the Truthout site, but here is what I consider the salient parts of it.

Dear Senator Obama

Monday, 14 July 2008

by Marc Ash, t r u t h o u t

   Dear Senator Obama, I just slogged through a lecture by The New York Times about how it is the “far left” that is most offended by your vote to ratify retroactive immunity for the US telecommunications companies that provided aid and comfort to George W. Bush’s illegal program of domestic spying. Further, The Times implied, “mainstream Democrats” take a more mature and pragmatic view. The piece seemed to read like public relations material. But that’s silly – it was news, of course.

   In fairness, the political center moves around more than a set of goalposts on the White House lawn. So, the relevancy of the Times’s argument has a limited shelf life regardless. The real issue is twofold.

   Trust and the Law

   Let’s assume the time has come to limit the scope of your campaign signs to the word “Change.” The tag line “… we can believe in” has outlived its credibility. You may indeed change some things, but there won’t be much to believe in. It will pretty much be on a case-by-case basis from this point forward. The difference is trust. Before you had it, now you don’t.

   The problem is that what was at stake in the FISA legislation vote was more than a political ideal; it was the rule of law. You ratified an unconstitutional and egregious degradation of the Fourth Amendment. That won’t go away easily. The United States’s Constitution is not merely the security blanket for “civil liberties groups.” It is the birthright of all Americans. It is our national treasure.

   The thing that jumps out at me when I review the reader comments posted at the bottom of our article pages is the mounting outrage at what can only be described as lawlessness in our nation’s capitol. There is a growing consensus that the consent of the governed is lacking. That may not sound like a big thing, but I assure you it is. The alternative to the rule of law is the law of rule.

   The current commander in chief has established a function of monarchy in the oval office. Would you choose to undo that, or assume it? If the decision to ratify FISA was not your own inspiration, then at whose behest did you do so? And what next will they want? These are deep questions.

Jul 14 2008

Obama CAN’T Save You! …Remedial Politics

In fact he has rather explicitly asked that YOU save HIM.

Here is how our government works, and ….surprise!…. Obama knows this. Politicians are individual human beings, (surprise again!) individual human beings, even Obama, are not gods. We, each and every one of us, including Obama, are subject to temptation, failure of will in the face of adversity, and yes, corruption. Not dirty back room money under the table corruption, but corruption as a process, over time, that saps integrity and will.

Washington DC ad the strange dances of culture, pressure, and politics there are literally MADE to corrupt. To put it cutely, they have a whole street there (named K) that exists for one reason, to corrupt public servants. there is the culture of the Senate, (need I say more Harry Reid?) there is the culture of The Villagers, the cocktail party culture, and then their are the real bad guys! Photobucket

And then there are your ‘friends,’ who just need a little favor, just need you to bend your principles a little bit just this once, to help them out. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Relentless and pervasive and designed to push every button of human weakness. This pressure has ‘corrupted’ nearly every politician that has gone to DC. This pressure is exactly why things are as they are, in our government that is allegedly by, for and of The People….but instead exists to serve the aims of the Powers That Be. The Powers That Be use that power to corrupt the system to serve their ends. Not yours, not mine.

And it works.

Obama’s FISA vote was as a result of these pressures. Who knows which one got to him…but one did.

Jul 14 2008

Pony Party

Majestic Monday

Jul 14 2008

What’s Goin’ On? Is there really a War on?

The Iraq War, for it or against it, justified or unjustified, has not been reported fairly. On this point, everyone agrees.  That the good news has not been shown is just as true as that the bad news has not been shown.  The truth about just what has been reported is in question here.

The ACLU recently reported the extent to which the Pentagon has tightly controlled the flow of information that is available to the American Public.  There are no photos of caskets, no battle field footage that hasn’t been re-run thousands of times, no images of dead people.  Read that last one again… no photos, videos or even realistic reporting about DEAD people.  It’s almost as if the war has been sanitized to the point that even the “official” casualty lists do not sound real.  What’s goin’ on?

With all due respect to both sides of the debate, the American people have not ever yet truly participated in the experience of the war.  We haven’t seen dead soldiers return in flag draped coffins and we haven’t been able to mourn them or truly honor their sacrifice.  We haven’t seen the extent of the human casualties both civilian and military, enemy and ally to truly appreciate the horror of what has been accomplished.  We’ve only seen the scrubbed version of the war, the sanitized version that the Pentagon has gone to great lengths and considerable expense to present to us.

   “At every step of the way, the Bush administration and Defense Department have gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “Our democracy depends on an informed public and that is why it is so important that the American people see these documents. These documents will help to fill the information void around the issue of civilian casualties in Iraq and will lead to a more complete understanding of the prosecution of the war.”

When the real sights and sounds, horror and bloodshed of the reality in Iraq finally become known, will history treat our government harshly or will it be regarded as a necessary component of modern war?  Did the military truly learn the lesson of Vietnam in that the bloodshed, violence, and mayhem of war be hidden from the citizenry at all cost?  We’re there, we’re not leaving, and we the people are ignorant of the true cost in blood and sacrifice.

Yes, we do not hear the good news, but neither do we hear the bad. I fear that the war WILL go on forever, as long as the official Pentagon version of the events in Iraq is all we hear.  I fear that the citizens of this country will not be stirred to truly rise up against it, because we’ve been anesthetized to it’s horror.  I fear that the horrible reality of war has been transformed into glorious conquest in a cruel attempt to justify it’s fearful cost.

Jul 14 2008

Sarko’s Mad Fever Dream of a “Mediterranean Union” (with POLL!)

Crossposted at The Crusty Polemicist.

I wish  French President Sarkozy all the luck in the world building a “Mediterranean Union”  — like the European Union, but encompassing the countries of the Mediterranean basin. His idea has three fundamental problems, things that are differences from the situation that prevailed at the founding of the EU:

1. with the EU, all the founding countries had pretty much come to the conclusion that war was no way to get things done. They were all prepared to turn their backs on making war and get on with the much harder work of making peace. With countries like Syria, Libya,  Israel, and Serbia in the Mediterranean Union  mix, there are way too many countries that still think war is a great way to solve problems.

Jul 14 2008

Docudharma Times Monday July 14



The Deciders

To Do List:

Reward Unsound Lending

Practices

Off Shore Oil Wells

He So Good

At Failure and Destruction




Monday’s Headlines:

Offshore Drilling Backed as Remedy for Oil Prices

China tries to ease Olympic worries about tainted food

Pyongyang rejects blame for shooting of tourist

No painkillers, no visitors and no way out: Mugabe’s hospital ward for MDC activists

Sudan to ICC: Darfur violence may increase if you indict President Bashir

Sadr’s militia may live to fight again  

86 indicted on terrorism charges in Turkey

Battle of the beaches: Italy’s vanishing coastline

Stella firm buys Budweiser brewer  

Cuba revives its private farms

Sudanese president charged with genocide

CNN

Pakistan militants focus on Afghanistan

Jihadist groups are increasingly attacking U.S., NATO forces in Afghanistan

Associated Press

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan – In early June, about 300 fighters from jihadist groups came together for a secret gathering here, in the same city that serves as headquarters to the Pakistani army.

The groups were launched long ago with the army’s clandestine support to fight against India in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. But at the meeting, they agreed to resolve their differences and commit more fighters to another front instead: Afghanistan.

Pakistan marble helps Taliban stay in business





By Pir Zubair Shah and Jane Perlez

Published: July 14, 2008

ZIARAT, Pakistan: The mountain of white marble shines with such brilliance in the sun it looks like snow. For four years, the quarry beneath it lay dormant, its riches captive to tribal squabbles and government ineptitude in this corner of Pakistan’s tribal areas.

But in April, the Taliban appeared and imposed a firm hand. They settled the feud between the tribes, demanded a fat fee upfront and a tax on every truck that ferried the valuable treasure from the quarry. Since then, Mir Zaman, a contractor from the Masaud subtribe, which was picked by the Taliban to run the quarry, has watched contentedly as his trucks roll out of the quarry with colossal boulders bound for refining in nearby towns.

USA

Treasury Acts to Save Mortgage Giants  



By STEPHEN LABATON

Published: July 14, 2008

WASHINGTON – Alarmed by the sharply eroding confidence in the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, the Bush administration on Sunday asked Congress to approve a sweeping rescue package that would give officials the power to inject billions of federal dollars into the beleaguered companies through investments and loans.

In a separate announcement, the Federal Reserve said it would make one of its short-term lending programs available to the two companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Fed said that it had made its decision “to promote the availability of home mortgage credit during a period of stress in financial markets.”

Jul 14 2008

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

If there is a “We” and we want the world to be a better place, then one would think we would want to join in common cause, which requires finding common ground.  That last thing is not so easy.

State of the Onion XXVIII

The techniques I have used to create the eggs (the graphics) evolved over time, leading to the 3D look-and-feel exemplified by today’s art.  The poem is what it is.  It was written one day after my 58th birthday.

Ah, but I was so much older then.  I’m younger than that now.  I wish.

This series is almost over.  There are only two more poems after this one, for now, but one doesn’t know how many more acts there are to this story.  Time takes its toll.

Art Link

Cracks in the Shell

On Aging

The urge to expend all energy

to protect the container is strong

but what good does it do

to protect the body

if the spirit dies

Time demands its payment

Youth cannot be defended

by surrendering

to the needs of the flesh

The vessel slowly deteriorates

worn down joints

creak with every motion

muscles are too stiff

bones become brittle

but the contents

the mind/soul

can be bright and vital

growing fresher

with each new thought

with each opinion challenged

with each dip in the fountain

of knowledge

I will be forever young

if I continue to bathe

in the River of New

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–April 4, 2006

Jul 14 2008

The Stars Hollow Gazette

HarlequinWell I must say… as fatigued as I am by my exertions on your behalf, I’m reluctant to subject any Front Page worthy essay to exposure to your ridicule at this point.

Exertion is a concept describing the use of physical or perceived energy.

It normally connotates a strenuous or costly effort related to physical, philosophical actions and work.

Pick on me instead.

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