November 2007 archive

Docudharma Times Sunday Nov.25

This an Open Thread: So open it already

Headlines for Sunday November 25th.: As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts: U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War: Losing ground in Alaska: U.S. Scales Back Political Goals for Iraqi Unity

USA

As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts

By PATRICK HEALY

Published: November 25, 2007

As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq: acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there, and highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy.

Advisers to Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama say that the candidates have watched security conditions improve after the troop escalation in Iraq and concluded that it would be folly not to acknowledge those gains.

Welcome to the US. Now, Bend Over and Grab Your Ankles…




The ridiculously weak US dollar is supposed to provide at least a few advantages to the poor Americans who are stuck with them. For example, we should expect more international tourism, increased consummerism, and a boost to hotels and restaurants. But that’s not happening. Foreign tourists are shunning the United States because they are appalled by the way they are treated trying to enter this country.

British tourists turn their backs on America

Fewer Britons are visiting the United States than in the year 2000, despite an exchange rate that makes holidays much better value than they were then. This week, when the pound rose to $2.07, its highest level against the dollar for 26 years, the US Office of Travel and Tourism Industries released figures that confirm how badly tourism from Britain has been suffering since the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the measures enacted in response to them.

Now why is that? (As if you couldn’t guess.)

I know there is nothing I enjoy more than a surprise rectal exam upon arriving at my vacation destination. How about you?

With the collapse of the dollar making everything in the US cheap beyond belief, you’d think that the tourists would be clammoring to stay and play. This should have been a record year for the US travel industry, in line with a rapid rise in global tourism and our peso-like currency.

Discover America Partnership (DAP), an umbrella body of leading figures in the US tourism industry, is working to cut waiting times at airport arrivals, streamline customs controls and offer a friendlier welcome in an attempt to attract more holidaymakers.

Unfortunately, it estimates that since 2001 international visitors to Boston have fallen by 25 per cent, to Miami by 33 per cent, to Chicago by 21 per cent and to Los Angeles by 29 per cent.

For starters, our visitors (with their tourist cash) are now required to have prints taken of all 10 fingers. But that is only for starters. Wait… You can’t believe how seriously we demean them…

A spokesman for the Discover America Partnership said: “Ten-finger scan technology will improve security and streamline the entry process. However, deployment of the technology may be misconstrued as unwelcoming and intrusive, further discouraging inbound overseas travel.”

Ya think? Find out how grossed out US visitors really are, below.


Iglesia ………………………..Episode 12

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(You can read last Tuesday’s episode here or click on the tag for all the episodes!)

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“Oh, you really shouldn’t have said that,” the gravelly, familiar voice behind the blinding light said, “you really should have pretended you didn’t see Ralph’s face. I thought we taught you better than that.”

“Oh Holy Shit.”

The light swung away from his eyes…..and onto his partners, which were wide with shock, as he supposed, were his own. He had to crane his neck to see his partner, who seemed much cooler and more collected than he felt, but that was part of their training too. But his eyes gave him away. Remember to control your eyes next time, he thought to himself. Unbidden, Robert Redford’s voice came into his head and said, “yeah……next time.

 

Moon Rise? ….feh!


via videosift.com

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have successfully performed the world’s first high-definition image taking of an Earth-rise* by the lunar explorer “KAGUYA” (SELENE,) which was injected into a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km on October 18, 2007 (Japan Standard Time. Following times and dates are all JST.)

Kucinich, Peace on Earth, December 15 and more! w/poll

Dennis was in Sandwich, NH to campaing at two shops, including mingling and admiring the crafts at said shops:

It started with coffee and conversation and ended with a gathering of locals to hear about what Rep. Dennis Kucinich would accomplish if he’s elected president.

Kucinich impresses at Sandwich stop

Corporate Media Follies: The New York Times and Ron Silver

Since Judith Miller was let loose to wander and watch the aspens turn, Sheryl Gay Stolberg has become the New York Times’s official Bush Administration sycophant. In an embarrassing front page article, she lets us know that Bush will spend his last year in office doing the warm fuzzies.

As President Bush looks toward his final year in office, with Democrats controlling Congress and his major domestic initiatives dead on Capitol Hill, he is shifting his agenda to what aides call “kitchen table issues” – small ideas that affect ordinary people’s lives and do not take an act of Congress to put in place.

Over the past few months, Mr. Bush has sounded more like the national Mr. Fix-It than the man who began his second term with a sweeping domestic policy agenda of overhauling Social Security, remaking the tax code and revamping immigration law.

Isn’t that sweet? She tells us it’s kind of like what President Clinton did, omitting the part about President Clinton actually getting things done. She says Bush went to Maryland to announce protections for a couple of types of fish, he asked lenders to help homeowners refinance, he gave the FDA new powers to recall foods, and he had the military open more air space, to enable faster domestic air travel. What a guy!

With a Mideast peace conference planned for the coming week and a war in Iraq to prosecute, Mr. Bush is, of course, deeply engaged in the most pressing foreign policy matters of the day.

That’s nice. Because his refusal to engage in any Mideast peace process, upon first taking office, is part of the reason the violence and land-grabs exploded, in the last several years, while both sides elected their most extreme governments ever. And then there’s that pesky war. Good thing the man’s still on top of things! But, still, he has this domestic agenda, as an attempt to make nicey-nice with the public!

Stolberg then blithers for several paragraphs, quoting Republicans talking about Bush remaining relevant, sprinting to the finish, and being aggressive. There’s also another comparison to the way President Clinton used smaller initiatives to help people.

“People in Washington laughed when Mr. Clinton would talk about car seats or school uniforms,” said John Podesta, Mr. Clinton’s former chief of staff. “But I don’t think the public laughed.”

Nor does the public appear to be laughing at Mr. Bush.

You have to love that last sentence. No, people aren’t laughing at Bush; they’re too busy loathing him. You see, President Clinton pursued smaller issues because he cared about people, not because he was trying to distract people from a disastrous war, war crimes, domestic spying, the complete politicization of government, a flagging economy, and every other level of presidential failure possible.

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Pony Party: Whateverness

I have a serious catalog and magazine addiction. I love looking at the catalogs and consistently, with a few exceptions, never actually buy anything form them. I just like to contemplate a life in which things match, the home is designed with clean lines, everybody dresses with that annoying casual style that is actually really, really expensive. I am not convinced I want that life, it is just fun to wonder.

Thus I subscribe to Vanity fair as a sort of exercise in anthropology. Vanity Fair really likes rich people and dissecting the lives of rich people and talking to rich people about the stuff they own, why they own it, and what else they want to own.

Full Moon on the Rise!

Watch out all you freaks and mutants…the moon is full, I just saw it on the horizon, big, orange, and gorgeous!

Keep your eyes on the horizon as it comes to the west-So get outside for a few minutes,

grab a glass of wine, beer, joint, the camera or what have you and go check it out….

Weekend News Digest

1 Doom and gloom plays out on Broadway

By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Writer

Sat Nov 24, 9:02 AM ET

NEW YORK – It’s a worst-case scenario that became a reality. As the Broadway stagehands strike enters its third week Saturday, there doesn’t seem to be any way out of the thorny, seemingly intractable dispute that has shut down more than two dozen plays and musicals since Nov. 10.

Losses because of canceled performances are in the millions and climbing each day – a disaster not only for producers and theater owners, but for everyone employed in the theater and for those whose businesses depend on curtains going up.

Both sides are hanging tough and have not talked for almost a week. The standoff has meant dark theaters during the Thanksgiving holiday, usually one of the year’s best weeks for business.

What An Iranian Conservative Hawk Might Say

Matt Yglesias deliver some great snark with a point, taking on the voice of an Iranian Richard Perle:

[I]t's not clear that a policy of appeasement would be wise. True, we've seen rational leadership even from vicious dictators like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, but the contemporary United States is led by religious fanatics, which introduces a new element into the equation. What's more, the USA is the only country on earth to have ever actually deployed nuclear weapons. Indeed, current political elites are so war-crazed and bloodthirsty that they not only engineered the 2003 attack on Iraq — a country that tried to appease the Americans by eliminating its nuclear program and allowing IAEA inspectors to certify that it had done so — but they continue to deny regretting it to this day. And that includes not only radicals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but so-called “moderates” like Hillary Clinton as well.

Well played by Matt.

Space Filler: You

Just to kill some time before going to work (7 day weeks gets real old, real fast) where the word “you” comes from.

In the 1600’s the letter “y” was a abbreviation for the sound “th”.  We’ve all seen the sign saying, “Ye Olde Tavern.”  Ye is pronounced The.  In reading the writings of Newton you see him use this extensively.  He wrote, “…ye and yat“, for the and that.

Now we come to my theory–I’ve never seen this anywhere else–but, I’m sure that some historian has said this before.  In writing “thou” in the olden days they would write you.  This was adopted and adapted by the general populace as “you”.  The change in pronunciation was from the profound influence of the French language on English.  

And that is why, to this day, many groups will not use the word “you”.  It’s not really true English.

Iraq Moratorium 3: The People Speak

11/16/07 (Berkeley, CA) – The third Friday of every month I have been attending a war protest on the streets of Berkeley, CA. The majority of the protesters are members of the Grey Panthers and/or are from Strawberry Creek Lodge,  a nearby retirement community.  The rest are random people who heard about this through word of mouth, IraqMoratorium.org or some other organization.  For two hours we stand on four corners of a busy street.  All the cars honk when they drive by and when they are stopped at the light some people hand out slips of paper with the date and time of the next event. Pedestrians are also given flyers about taking action to end the war.

The most recent IM Day, I brought my video camera and took some footage. First you will hear a song and then there are some interview clips speaking out against the war.  Listen to the voices of our elders. These are the real deal DFHs, many protested Vietnam and wars before that.  I’m so glad they agreed to be on camera. You may catch a glimpse of Docudharma’s own dharmasyd – who I met after the first IM Day.   She is one of the organizers of this monthly action.    

Disclaimer:  This is the first time I have ever edited a video and put it on YouTube.  I was in a hurry to put it together so the quality may suck but the spirit and sincerity of The People still shines through (I hope).   If I can figure out the sound editing I will do another version with all the extra footage I have.  

Here are some photos from the first IM Day (9/21/07).

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