October 2007 archive

Oct 20 2007

Doing it for Ourselves, 1.5: Homebrew

Given the political climate lately, with talk of Bush never leaving office and declaring WWIII, I’ve been thinking about shifting the gears of this series towards basic disaster planning and survival techniques. These days, my Bushista survival kit includes beer and wine. Many years ago I made beer and wine at home. The beer was pretty good, but that blueberry elderberry batch, 20 gallons of the stuff….. shivers. It still gives me shivers, because it was so hideously bad!

Down below I’ll provide the basic required equipment, materials and instructions for homebrewing beer, plus lots and lots of links from more expert sources than myself. Clink Clink!! I’ll write one about winemaking in coming weeks.

Oct 20 2007

Drums of War: Iranian Negotiator Quits: Hawks Take Control

TPM puts Kurd threats to repel Turkish intrusions by force way up high. Vladimir Putin warned the US not to attack Iran just days ago.

Iran today appointed a key ally of Iranian President Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new nuclear negotiator just days before a crucial meeting with the EU.

An Iranian spokesman, “Gholam Hossein Elham, said a deputy foreign minister, Saeed Jalili, would replace Mr Larijani in time for a meeting on Tuesday with the European Union’s foreign policy head Javier Solana.”

Mr. Jalili, unlike his predecessor Ali Larijani, is a hard-liner. His appointment by the man who really holds control of Iran’s nuclear project, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggests an end to compromise….

Oct 20 2007

H.E.M. Bush and the Collaboration Congress

A Tragedy

Narrator: “In the blessed days of His Evangelical Majesty was heard the cry.

In the distance, a clamor….

The Loyal Servants of the Collaboration Congress, presided over by His Faithful Lady, Nancy Pelosi, who prays for H.E.M Bush on every day.”

In chorus, her retinue enters from the Right:

Collaboration Congress: “Woe! Woe, and woe! For in our Land prevails that which displeases His Evangelical Majesty. The relics of an age past, the contemptuous and despised Constitution and Bill of Rights, we come to bury thee this day! O Lord Cheney, faithful and tireless help to our Heavenly Prince, hear us!”

crossposted at the Orange Place Where There Be Hillarites

Oct 20 2007

House 2008: How many seats will we gain?

reposted from dailyKos, with changes

This is the first in a series estimating how many House seats we will gain in the 2008 election.  For those who like to cut to the chase, my best guess is a net gain of 6 seats.  There is less than a 5% chance that we lose seats, and about a 7% chance that we gain more than 10.

Details below the fold

Oct 20 2007

Pony Party: Seattle Edition

The obvious thing to do for today to to bore the crap out of y’all with pictures. If I was creative, or deep, or reflective, I might provide insight. Nah. Seattle was cool… My husband almost had a meltdown carrying my purse so I could take pictures.

Oct 20 2007

Docudharma Times Saturday Oct. 20

This is an Open Thread. So start Yakking.



USA

Sheriff’s Fight With Paper Flares Up Again

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: October 20, 2007


A long-running dispute between a weekly newspaper in Phoenix and law enforcement officials took a series of sharp turns over the last two days, including the arrest of the newspaper owners, followed by the dismissal of charges against them and an investigation into their paper.


For years, prosecutors in Maricopa County weighed whether to take the rare step of charging the leaders of the paper, The Phoenix New Times, with a crime for publishing an article with the home address of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County. This week, that conflict abruptly escalated.


On Thursday, the newspaper accused the authorities of abuses of power in their investigation into The New Times, reporting that a prosecutor had obtained a subpoena for the Internet browsing records on thousands of its readers.

Oct 20 2007

Gore responds to the UK Judge’s Ruling. Plaintiff Dimmock’s denialist connections exposed

Crossposting this Daily Kos diary (Tiny URL: tinyurl.com/2vojen ) with minimal changes.

I am writing to report a response from Kalee Kreider (VP Al Gore’s communications director and environmental advisor) to a pair of Washington Post articles on British High Court judge Michael Burton’s ruling concerning Gore’s movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.

Please find the response here: An Inconvenient Truth: Team Gore responds, which links to the preceding posts at the Post which Kalee was responding to.

Oct 20 2007

NYTimes Disses Dems

And rightly so:

With Democrats Like These …
 

Every now and then, we are tempted to double-check that the Democrats actually won control of Congress last year. It was particularly hard to tell this week. Democratic leaders were cowed, once again, by propaganda from the White House and failed, once again, to modernize the law on electronic spying in a way that permits robust intelligence gathering on terrorists without undermining the Constitution.

. . . There were bright spots in the week. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon managed to attach an amendment requiring a warrant to eavesdrop on American citizens abroad. That merely requires the government to show why it believes the American is in league with terrorists, but Mr. Bush threatened to veto the bill over that issue.

Senator Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat, said he would put a personal hold on the compromise cooked up by Senator Rockefeller and the White House.

Otherwise, it was a very frustrating week in Washington. It was bad enough having a one-party government when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took over, and still the one-party system continues.

Oct 20 2007

Some Harry Potter Trivia

J.K. Rowling outs Hogwarts character
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer
1 hour, 38 minutes ago

NEW YORK – Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.

…

“Dumbledore is gay,” the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. “Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, adding that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.”

Oct 20 2007

Asian News For The Week of Oct. 15

Here’s this weeks news from Asia

Oct 20 2007

Chess Problems

Here are four chess positions.  All are white to move, mate in two.  Some are kind of cute, so look close!

(All positions created using Apronus online chess editor.)

Oct 20 2007

Resist

Yesterday was Today is Iraq War Moratorium Day. It is a day of national individualized action observed the third Friday of every month. Take the pledge.

It’s hard for me to believe that it’s already been four weeks since the first Iraq War Moratorium Day. The time flew by for me. And perhaps for some of you.

Unfortunately, since then, time has just came to a halt, real and metaphorical, for more victims–civilian and military–of the continued occupation of Iraq and their loved ones .

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