Nov 05 2007
Crossposted from My Left Wing
I don’t know if you will be able to receive this message, this Blackberry I found when the State Police building blew up is about the only electronic device that still works.
It probably has GPS, so, be warned it will be far away from me once I destroy it after hitting send.
This November Surprise didn’t surprise me, nor did my subsequent arrest.
Nov 05 2007
I mean that as a sincere question. And I know that there are those who will view this as a “hit piece”, but so be it. She is the frontrunner, yet she has offered few details of her vision for this country. Or to that, even an overarching theme for her campaign as to why she wants to be President of the United States. I said many months ago that we need someone that not only wants to be the President but also has a campaign whose purpose and direction can be easily understood, discussed and supported. We do not need, nor can we afford a candidate that wants to be called the President more than they want to BE the President
So far, she has largely skated by without really saying or doing much – not even as much as she can in her current role as United States Senator. Sure, she has been a more than capable Senator and has done some pretty damn good things for NY. And yes, her voting record is largely progressive-ish, at least not much different from the other candidates when you take those “which candidate do I agree with most” tests.
Nov 05 2007
I’ve posted this over at dkos, and I call upon all ‘Dharmites who oppose torture to assist me with this please…just even copying and pasting my letter and sending it on…I’m beyond words…
—–
I need any Kossacks opposing torture to contact the editor of the Toronto Sun immediately demanding an explanation for this garbage I just read, enttitled:
“Torture? Sounds like a swimmingly good idea”
The contact information is as follows:
The editorial page editor is here:
I’ve posted a copy of my Letter to the Editor below the fold:
Here’s a disgusting taste of the article:
So now that we’ve established that the detainees in question aren’t even protected by the Geneva convention, and that they often have crucial information that can save lives, what about the idea of waterboarding as “torture”?
When asked about it during a recent CNN appearance, I suggested that “one man’s torture is another’s CIA-sponsored swim lesson.” In case anyone thought I was being facetious — I wasn’t.
Nov 05 2007
Today marks the 402 anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot that was the inspiration for the movie (and earlier graphic novel) “V for Vendetta.” I found this to be one of the most powerful movies I’ve seen in a long time because it speaks to the heart of what I think is going wrong in our culture today…the ascendency of fear as a driving force.
So today, lets remember the words of the character “V” in the movie that are so poignant for our times today:
Nov 05 2007
Offer expires…Offer good until…Product Sell-By…Born Date…
Timelines.
Markers denoting the beginning, ending (or ongoing) and significant dates pertaining to a series of events denoting a particular topic. Topics covered by timelines could be lives, political movements, catastrophes, the rise and fall of nations, evolutionary periods of biological or geological import, or — in the case of the George W. Bush Administration — any and all of the above.
Nov 05 2007
This is an Open Thread: No speaking in tongues or Parseltongue either.
USA
Plan for Nuclear Storage Is Slow to Form
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 – The Energy Department has not finished plans to consolidate storage of nuclear bomb fuel and other high-risk materials now spread among numerous sites, even though the department said in 2005 that it would do so within about a year, according to a Government Accountability Office report to be released Monday.
As a result, the department is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defend additional sites.
The G.A.O. had reported that the Energy Department was putting off making security improvements at some of the storage sites because the sites were due to be phased out. But the new report makes clear that the goal of shutting down some obsolete weapons and research centers, and simplifying the security job by centralizing “special nuclear material,” as bomb fuel is called, has yet to advance from concept to plan, let alone to finished project.
Nov 05 2007
 Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Nov 05 2007
The last month has not been a good one for the loose confederacy of interests usually filed under progressive causes. First, LGBT activists nearly devoured themselves over the proposed changes to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), in a struggle that challenged the commitment of ostensibly queer activists to the T part of the acronym and eventually resulted in public resignations from the nation’s most powerful LGBT lobby. Second, the Obama campaign’s ill-advised decision to launch a gospel tour with publicly outspoken anti-gay singers led to a series of campaign flubs, bitter exchanges, and an epic flameout on Daily Kos that really has to be read to be believed.
Though I don’t doubt the general commitment of everyone involved to the same umbrella set of goals, the fissures and lack of well-articulated overlap between interest groups has the potential – especially when lacking a strong central figure to act as leader – to turn nasty. That’s exactly what happened this past month, and I want to perform a brief autopsy to show where things went wrong, and whether it’s possible to avoid these kinds of explosions in the future. Spoiler alert: I really don’t think so.
Nov 05 2007
The last month has not been a good one for the loose confederacy of interests usually filed under progressive causes. First, LGBT activists nearly devoured themselves over the proposed changes to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), in a struggle that challenged the commitment of ostensibly queer activists to the T part of the acronym and eventually resulted in public resignations from the nation’s most powerful LGBT lobby. Second, the Obama campaign’s ill-advised decision to launch a gospel tour with publicly outspoken anti-gay singers led to a series of campaign flubs, bitter exchanges, and an epic flameout on Daily Kos that really has to be read to be believed.
Though I don’t doubt the general commitment of everyone involved to the same umbrella set of goals, the fissures and lack of well-articulated overlap between interest groups has the potential – especially when lacking a strong central figure to act as leader – to turn nasty. That’s exactly what happened this past month, and I want to perform a brief autopsy to show where things went wrong, and whether it’s possible to avoid these kinds of explosions in the future. Spoiler alert: I really don’t think so.
Nov 05 2007
From the 16th century to the dawn of the 20th, a special choir sang at the pontiff’s pleasure, grown men with the voices of angels and the range of female sopranos. There was a simple reason for their abilities: each had had his gonads surgically removed prior to achieving puberty.
I don’t know why, but the other day, while pondering the castrati (It., “castrated ones”), I started thinking about the 110th Congress. Could it be, I wondered, that we are witnessing the political equivalent of a choir of the ball-less pandering to the whims of a theological autocrat?
Naw, I thought, not our Dems – our guys are descended from the tradition of FDR and “The Buck Stops Here” Harry! We have a heritage of Massive Brass – New Deals and Great Societies that had to be shoved down the throats of backward-looking Republicans. There’s no way that folks of such stock could ever be compared to emasculated servants performing at the whim of a king, nor to the haunting voice of the very last castrati, the only one whose voice was ever recorded.
Or could they?
