That image, courtesy of the Defense Department, is just a reminder of what’s happening on the other side of the world as we count the caucus votes in Iowa.
January 2008 archive
Jan 04 2008
Pony Party… TITASS
Thanks for stopping in….
Hang out and chit chat for awhile… and when you’re done
check out some of the excellent offerings on our recent and rec’d list.
O & Please don’t rec the pony party, another will trot up in a few hours.(^.^)
Well what do YOU think it’s about?
Jan 03 2008
Four at Four
Some news and open thread.
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The violence going on in Kenya is too horrible for words. After the presidential election, the opposition supporters accused the ruling party of stealing the vote. The Los Angeles Times surmises the Kenyan election thusly:
President Mwai Kibaki’s electoral victory, seen by the opposition as fraudulent, triggered days of ugly tribal violence from western Kenya to the coast. Mobs of opposition supporters have attacked Kibaki’s fellow Kikuyus, burned houses, looted shops, hacked people’s heads off or slashed them with machetes. Tribal fighting has raged around Eldoret and in some slum areas of Nairobi, the capital.
Yesterday, The Guardian reported that the European Union observers condemned the Kenyan election and called for investigation. “European Union observers issued a damning report on Kenya’s presidential poll yesterday, saying it had ‘fallen short of key international and regional standards for democratic elections’ and calling for a swift, independent investigation of the results. President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the election on Sunday evening, despite trailing opposition leader Raila Odinga in all the opinion polls and early counts after Thursday’s ballot.
While Kenya is not Rwanda, I believe the ethnically motivated killings are genocide. One of the more horrific accounts of violence comes from the town of Kiambaa. According to The Guardian, over the New Year, 50 children were murdered as they sough sanctuary in a church. The children and their mothers, a total of about 200 Kikuyus, “were sheltering from outbursts of ethnic violence”. Where Kalenjin youths armed with bows and arrows and machetes killed the men and then attacked the women and children. After they fled to the church, “mattresses soaked with paraffin were pushed through the windows and used to block the door. Matches were thrown in.” As the church burned, the Kikuyu women and children fled only to be killed by the waiting Kalenjin youth.
Today, BBC News reports President Kibaki ‘open to opposition talks’.
President Mwai Kibaki has broken his silence over the unrest gripping Kenya by making a televised appeal for calm. Mr Kibaki said that once the violence ended he would be prepared to speak to the opposition, who claim he was wrongly credited with election victory.
Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako has called for an independent investigation into the 27 December poll result.
More than 300 people have been killed and some 70,000 displaced since Sunday amid claims that the vote was rigged.”
Four at Four continues below the fold with stories about $200/barrel oil, drilling for oil in the last of the polar bears’ range, California suing the EPA, and the undecided Iowa Democratic caucus goers. Please follow the link and comment or something…
Jan 03 2008
The Road To Nowhere
Louisiana’s frustrating Road Home program continues to give the shaft to people who’ve worked all their lives and owned their homes, to lose them in New Orleans’ flooding and during Katrina and Rita. They’re being treated as common criminals complete with mug shots and fingerprinting when all they want is to rebuild their homes.
And New Orleans’ depleted health care system has been dealt another blow from BushCo-supported disaster capitalism.
So these stories need to get national attention, because they’re about things that could strangle the comeback of a beautiful, historic city.
Jan 03 2008
Why This Serving Soldier’s Family Supports John Edwards
At this point I believe that any one of the possibilities that the Democrats have for a nominee would not leave us in Iraq if they became our next President. Because the existing bipartisanship still has our soldiers as solidly in Iraq as they were last year at this time I still don’t claim to be Democrat and instead lay claim to being an Independent now. Bipartisanship has brought me lots and lots of tears and heartache and night terrors and lost sleep last year over military service that provided no safety for any of us on American soil and may have in actuality inspired and impassioned further acts of terrorism.
So while John Edwards has an Out Of Iraq plan very similar to the other Democratic candidates, he sports one thing that sets him apart for me and that is this portion of his Iraq plans.
Clarify the Lack of Legal Foundation for the War
The 2002 authorization did not give President Bush the power to use U.S. troops to police a civil war. Edwards believes that Congress should make it clear that President Bush exceeded his authority long ago. The president now needs to end the war and ask Congress for new authority to manage the withdrawal of the U.S. military presence and to help Iraq achieve stability.
Now we can all speculate all day long about how and why President Bush has used our troops to police a civil war he created but I’d like to stay with the facts and just acknowledge that he is and he did. And he did so without any oversight from anyone other than Laura for a hell of a long time. Now he does so with as precious little oversight as he can manage to dodge, finagle, threaten, beg, borrow and steal. And that shouldn’t ever happen to us ever again, I know it should never ever happen to our soldiers and their families ever again. It’s time for people to be accountable. After people are once again accountable for their actions I think I might be able to start making some nice.
Jan 03 2008
do me a fucking favor…
… and stop worrying about who’s voting for whom in Iowa.
and who gives one shit about Nancy Pelosi and what she thinks. or why she does what she does.
you know what to worry about? who you’re voting for. your vote. and that you stop allowing the mainstream media (MSM) from agitating you into thinking that somehow Iowa will define the presidential race. or that new hampshire will.
vote. write in. do what ever you can to stop the power of those few telling the rest of us what the future will be.
Jan 03 2008
Betrayed the cause. Betrayed the community. Betrayed friends.
Cross posted from sanchopress.com
http://sanchopress.com/frontPa…
Over the last week YOU have aired our differences on DD. YOU have done so in a subtle and sneaky way. YOU chose this format. Because I fired YOU is why you have attacked me for a week and wrote diaries that conatined completly false and misleading information.
I said nothing over this last week of your lies, deceptions and attacks. Now you are taking MY ideas and vision and trying to get the community to help you build a site based on my thoughts and ideas. I can not stay quiet any more and the community NEEDS to know the truth.
NLOB, about a month ago you came to me when you read my essays intended to help the troops and veterans. You said they were excellent essays and you offered free services to design a web site. You said you were doing so because you could see I truly had good intentions and you wanted to be a part of it. You originally envisioned the site as strictly a military site.
I had a different vision, ideas, plans, concept, site layout, color scheme, a site in the format of a newspaper, all left & military sites in one place with humor and entertainment. Something unique and completely different on the web. MY vision was to unite the citizens of the left with the troops/military. MY vision became sanchopress.com .
I in fact, offered you a contract for a portion of the business and future proceeds of sanchopress.com which you did not want. You did not want to have to answer to anyone. This allowed you to attempt to control the direction of the project. How foolish of me. You truly do get what you pay for.
Ten days into the project we had a difference of opinion and I let you go. You had worked on the site for about ten days completely with my direction which you sometimes followed and often didn’t.
NLOB, after I let you go, the first time I held my tongue was when you posted two essays that COMPLETELY misrepresented the truth about your role in sanchopress.com, who originated the ideas, concepts, thoughts, format, layout, color scheme and more. EVERYTHING IDEA AND CONCEPT FOR SANCHOPRESS WAS MINE. We were never 50/50. You were supposed to program my ideas, concepts and visions, that was it.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
PROGRESSIVES—-IF YOU BELIEVE NLOB HAS SUPPORTED THE CAUSE, THE COMMUNITY AND ME, YOU SHOULD READ THE LINKS. READ ALL AND YOU DECIDE IF HE BETRAYED THE CAUSE, BETRAYED THE COMMUNITY AND BETRAYED ME.
NLOB, I advised you that MY GOAL AND VISION IS TO UNITE THE CITIZENS OF THE LEFT WITH THE TROOPS/MILITARY. IT WAS AND IS MY PRIMARY GOAL ON SANCHOPRESS.COM . Also, to have a one stop shop of all left blogs, military blogs, charitable organizations websites and more in a newspaper format. I wanted an entertainment section that was enjoyable and humorous and fun. The Troops/veterans are in dire need of help. They are on the fence regarding their history of voting republican.
Troops/veterans are beginning to see the right for what they truly are. Helping the troops/veterans would be doing the correct thing that the left is known for, helping those in need. We could also possibly pull them off the fence. The 2.5 million members of the military, their families and the immense numbers of vets and this total surely comes to at least 10 million possibly pulled over to the democrats. A wonderful WIN/WIN situation with immense potential to help the lives of OUR MEN AND WOMEN OF THE MILITARY AND THE VETERANS. As a veteran I speak to many troops and vets and know how appalling their circumstances are.
The first comment you made on your newest essay is below.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
*[new] the overall goal (4.00 / 2)
for this project will be to have a home page that gathers many liberal sources into one readable, enjoyable, package.
SOUND FAMILIAR?!?!?! SOUND Quite similiar to the ideas I proposed for sanchopress.com?
NLOB, you were the programmer on MY website. That was your primary role. You TRIED to do what I directed (sometimes).
After your false essays, for the second time I again said nothing when you attempted to bait me into disagreements on DD with your SIX argumentative comments (inappropriate) on one of my essays.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
I stayed quiet a third time when you made an attempt to defame me with a comment on another one of my essays.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
On that attacking comment you were told by Buhdy himself;
Let it go buddy (4.00 / 1)
If you guys want to feud, take it to e-mail.
Please.
and your response to Buhdy was
Fine (2.50 / 2)
best of luck to the both of you
may you both prosper off of my efforts
Jan 03 2008
Conyers Calls for Special Counsel, Pelosi Remains Clueless
Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is demanding a special counsel with a “full investigative mandate” in the CIA destroyed tapes case, according to a press release.
Pelosi:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has also issued a statement regarding Mukasey’s announcement, describing it as “a reflection of the seriousness of these charges.” Pelosi expresses concerns similar to those of Conyers, saying that the White House “now has the burden of proving the investigation is truly independent and has appropriate reporting provisions and sufficient scope to uncover the truth.”
bolding mine
Yes Nancy, they have the burden of investigating themselves….that ALWAYS works out so well. Glad to see you are sharpening your spork in preparation for another gunfight with Bushco over their rampant criminality! This is like a bad movie.
How exactly do you expect them to fulfill “the burden of proving the investigation is truly independent”??? By actually finding that Bush authorized the CIA to use torture and then approved them covering it up by destroying evidence? Seriously?
You really expect the same guys who bought off and then pardoned Scooter Libby when Fitz got close to uncovering the Plame Treason to let that happen?
Jan 03 2008
Pony Party…. Welcome!!
Thanks for stopping in….
Hang out and chit chat for awhile… and when you’re done
check out some of the excellent offerings on our recent and rec’d list.
O & Please don’t rec the pony party, another will trot up in a few hours.(^.^)
It occured to me this morning that I’ve seen some new ‘faces’ around…
and that we’ve probably grown some since I joined in mid-September.
So I went on a search and found that the last user to join in 2007 was…
::da-da-duh-da::
Jan 03 2008
Pony Party, senseless
This is the kind of crap that really makes me wonder if saving the world for the benefit of these youngins is really worth it…
from Yahoo!News…
A former home of poet Robert Frost has been vandalized, with intruders destroying dozens of items and setting fire to furniture in what police say was an underage-drinking party….
..Wicker furniture and dressers were smashed and thrown into a fireplace and burned, apparently to provide heat in the unheated building, he said.Empty beer bottles and cans, plastic cups, and cellophane apparently used to hold marijuana were also found, according to Hodsden. The vandals vomited in the living room and discharged two fire extinguishers inside the building
Jan 03 2008
Docudharma Times Thursday January 3
This is an Open Thread: You can caucus here pain free
Kenya Topples Into Post-Election Chaos
KIAMBAA, Kenya – Daniel Kibigo said he was there, hiding in the burned cornfields nearby, as the mob gleefully stuffed mattresses in front of the church’s doors and set them on fire.
He watched women try to claw their way out of the church windows as if they were drowning as the building burned all the way down, with up to 50 people inside.“We couldn’t do anything; there were too many,” he said of the crowd that descended on the church in the paroxysm of ethnic violence that has gripped Kenya since its deeply flawed elections last week.