Oct 28 2007
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She finished her flakes, did the dishes, and poured the rest of the coffee into her Teenage Mutant Ninja travel cup. She went to the wall safe and loaded up her belt and her bag and her boots with the tools of her trade. Since their surveillance of Tan’s henchmen was over, she was headed downtown to HQ to fill out paper work and wait for her next assignment. At least it was warm. She grabbed her shades and her car keys and headed out the plastic front door.
Oct 28 2007
‘ya hang around some of the less savory places I do on occasion and you’re bound to bump into this sweet-smelling bad actor named, Trichloroethylene, or TCE. You might recall that this bad actor had a lead in the book and movie “A Civil Action”, about contaminated wells in Woburn, MA. Well, if you do bump into this character in a dark alley, grab your kidneys and liver and get outa town. Or maybe not…
TCE lingers like a bad houseguest, especially if handled carelessly. It accumulates in soil and can persist for years in groundwater. In a report last year, the National Research Council found that TCE was a potential cause of kidney cancer; it’s also associated with liver problems, autoimmune disease and impaired neurological function.
Enter King Midas–usually known as Michael Wong–with his miracle gold nanoparticles dusted with palladium. According to The Smithsonian Magazine in a piece by William Booth of the Washington Post, Mr. Wong has discovered somewhat of a cure that even he doesn’t fully understand.
And just what is it? “We don’t know!” says Wong. “We don’t understand the chemistry. But we don’t understand it in a good way,” meaning he believes that his team will figure it out soon. “Our catalyst is doing something really goofy.”
No expensive endless inefficient pump and treat? That’s just positively goofy.
Oct 28 2007
I headed off to the “staging area,” which was Judkins Park, in a quiet area of town mostly populated by minorities. Participants organized with their respective groups, mostly “usual suspects” (ie. committed and brave and patriotic in the best sense of caring truly about humanity) BUT with a notable lack of community participation. If 60% or more oppose the war nationally, and 90% or so here in Seattle before it even started, where were the rest?
Why was it that I counted ONE BUS (belonging to “Pastors for Peace,” who travel to Cuba, Mexico, Central America – though not necessarily in the bus) but on the way home I counted MORE THAN NINETY busses of University of Washington football fans? I know that football is immensely popular in the fall and tailgate parties are a tradition, along with Jack’o’Lanterns but what about our country? Our future?
The rally was intended to go from Judkins Park down (or up) Jackson Street to Occidental Square, which may not mean anything to someone who doesn’t live in Seattle. To me though, it is a traditional labor march route, much as the one from Place de Nation to Place de Republique has been in Paris, via the site of the storming of the Bastille. In both cases, the routes are now off to the side of the zones of commerce, and the populist marches for justice no longer seem to strike fear in the hearts of the bourgeoise. In both instances, the media appears to be aligned with the increasingly more right-leaning government, contrary to what the far right says.
It seem, like Tom Hayden warns, that the antiwar movement was discouraged from developing after 9/11, through the use of fear. Once it developed, a huge PR campaign has been forged on the right, to try to marginalize protesters as “goofy.” Indeed, I did a “search” for antiwar at MySpace and found military spouses who wanted protesters to impale themselves on the sticks of their protest signs. Pressed further, some of them still appeared to believe the 9/11-Saddam link or that civil warring factions were intending to somehow head through the skies to attack rural America.
More pictures below- ek
Oct 28 2007
The UN just published their 2007 Global Environment Outlook.
In a phrase, it is “beyond depressing.” All 567 pages, or so, which I only uncritically and rapidly previewed. I already know it. So does everyone else. Let’s face it: Population size has surpassed Earth’s carrying capacity several times over. The atmosphere, oceans, rivers, and lands are all collapsing. Rising demand meets failing supplies. In the best of all possible scenarios, millions if not billions must die. Perhaps we will all die. Problem solved. In the meantime, population growth drives extraction and economic growth. Economic growth drives consumption, as well as our politics. Globalization simply accelerates the process. The oil is collapsing, so we start wars over the commodity that is killing us most. What can we do about it?
Oct 28 2007
Yahoo News Opinion
William F. Buckley
IMPEACH BUSH?
Fri Oct 26, 7:57 PM ET
| …
What stands out this time around is that there are no serious people urging impeachment. By “serious” is here intended, men and women of sobriety who weigh conscientiously what constitutes impeachable presidential behavior. Mr. Bush is swimming in very low political tides. Although he beat down with ease the outrageous and insulting charges of Rep. Pete Stark of California, it is striking that a member of Congress felt free to indulge in that level of public obloquy. There was enough of that for Bush in the election of 2006, which was interpreted, reasonably, as a repudiation of his leadership. If ours were a form of government patterned after that of the Europeans, Bush would probably have been replaced as leader of his party. But the majority of the American people still think of him as a man of good will and very stout heart who is pursuing his duties as he sees them, a man, moreover, of conspicuous incorruptibility. Let the people pronounce on his stewardship in November 2008. |
Well if you ever needed to have it spelled out for you there it is.
We are not serious people.
We are not “men and women of sobriety who weigh conscientiously what constitutes impeachable presidential behavior.”
And just so you know what “serious” is?
Lying about a blow job.
Oct 28 2007
Several hundred people turned out for an anti-war rally in Minneapolis at the intersection of Lake and Hiawatha streets. I found out about this rally after reading Bikemom’s diary here on Docudharma.
Nearly all of the participants at the rally expressed concern that Bush is planning a war with Iran. I compared the tally for the Kyl-Lieberman Bill that declares part of Iran’s army a terrorist group to the vote for the Iraq war authorization. The votes were 76-22 and 77-23 for Iran and Iraq bills, respectively. We haven’t made any ground since the killing began. The last photo shows the US flag flying upside down which is a sign of distress. Indeed it is…..
More pictures below- ek
Oct 28 2007
In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. If the road between two villages is impassable, the peasant says, “There should be a law about parish roads.” If a park-keeper takes advantage of the want of spirit in those who follow him with servile obedience and insults one of them, the insulted man says, “There should be a law to enjoin more politeness upon the park-keepers.” If there is stagnation in agriculture or commerce, the husbandman, cattle-breeder, or corn- speculator argues, “It is protective legislation which we require.” Down to the old clothesman there is not one who does not demand a law to protect his own little trade. If the employer lowers wages or increases the hours of labor, the politician in embryo explains, “We must have a law to put all that to rights.” In short, a law everywhere and for everything! A law about fashions, a law about mad dogs, a law about virtue, a law to put a stop to all the vices and all the evils which result from human indolence and cowardice.
~Peter Kropotkin, “Law and Authority”
Oct 28 2007
As touched on in today’s Four at Four, there are two very different stories coming from Iraq in today’s (October 27) U.S. papers. I think these two different stories, one from Baghdad and one from Ramadi, help explain a lot to why the United States’ occupation in Iraq continues, why the U.S. Congress remains divided on what to do, and why the issue of the Iraq occupation may be slowly fading as the primary issue in the 2008 elections.
Oct 28 2007
Hey, somebody else started it with blow jobs in pony party. Anyway, children shouldn’t be on computers on Saturdays looking at pony parties, they should be out breaking their arms and legs in fun childhood games like Red Rover or break some other bone at the skate park or in some sport designed to teach sportsmanship and team work. Although I love sports myself, I always wondered how blood spurting everywhere or a bone sticking out was supposed to make somebody feel bonded to the team.
Oct 27 2007
I thought I’d do a second installment about news from around some of the smaller blogs – with a special focus on those by people of color.
I have to say that the story that gripped me the most is one from The Latin Americanist that I’ve already blogged about here. That’s the one about Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa telling the US that they can keep their military base in Ecuador if he can build one in Miami. Gotta love a guy that can not only reframe the whole “US Empire” thing, but also do it snarkalishously.
Oct 27 2007
TPM Muckraker wasn’t interested in my hot news tip, so you get the goods.
Keeping it all in the family:
Jeb and George W. Bush have been good for the brothers Agwunobi.
