January 2008 archive

Jan 03 2008

Muse in the Morning

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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…

Jan 03 2008

Building an Alternative News Source

Well it was an interesting evening piecing together the bare bones of an alternative news source.  First I found a host that uses wind and solar power to run their servers, then picked out a domain with a little help from the people on Kos. The registration took a little longer than usual simply because it was a Holiday.  I was emailed my confirmation letter with all of my passwords and login information.

If you are signing up with a host for the first time be sure to save your confirmation emails and print them out, you may need them in the future.  Then read all of the helpful information about how their system works.  Most will have an online file manager, script installation system, database management, email system, and a few other tools in their control panels.  

Jan 03 2008

Booman is dead right.

I choose that as my headline advisedly because last I heard Booman thought I was an ass clown and I am.  I’m a member of his site and I could have and could be contributing much more.

I”ve also stolen many good ideas from him about how to run a site and build community.

Still my suck up skills are insufficient to the depth of my depravity and I expect no thanks from this-

Perhaps because his wife is such an avid reader of blogs, Edwards’ campaign tapped right into our zeitgeist. He came out with our insight front and center. You want Edwards’ message? Here it is: ‘Fuck David Broder, fuck Joe Klein, fuck Chris Matthews, fuck FOX News, fuck Tim Russert, fuck Mitch McConnell, fuck Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Defense. We don’t need them. They won’t negotiate in good faith. They’re stacking the deck against us. And we can beat them by telling the truth and getting organized.’ That’s Edwards’ message, and that is the message we have internalized both through our successes and our failures.

What’s funny is that Obama is saying many of the same things, in his own way. The policy differences between Edwards and Obama are minimal. But Obama’s tone deaf to the blogosphere. And, as a result, the blogosphere didn’t trust him. Take Armando:

…we do not criticize Obama’s political style on aesthetic grounds; we criticize his style because we think it will not work to actually EFFECT CHANGE. We believe that despite his being touted as the change candidate, his political style is the one LEAST likely to achieve progressive policy change.

His ‘style’ will be ineffective. Why did so many of us conclude this? It’s because we have watched Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi try to negotiate with the Republicans (in the minority, the majority, no matter) and it does not work. We have watched the Dems talk tough and then back down time and time again. We’re done with conciliation and we don’t believe bipartisanship is possible without first crushing the Republican Party down to a stump.

This totally encapsulates my argument on tactics of us against the Villagers.

Bravo Boo.

Jan 03 2008

Trees Quit – Sink Clinton, Edwards, and Obama CO2 Plans

More unfortunate climate change news for us and the candidates – this time from the boreal forests. The Guardian and others are reporting on a new study that finds trees are absorbing less CO2 as the world warms.

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

The results may partly explain recent studies suggesting that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. If higher temperatures mean less carbon is soaked up by plants and microbes, global warming will accelerate.

Worldwide, only tropical rainforests are larger then boreal or northern forests. They cover Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia.  

Jan 03 2008

Who Owns Your Candidate?

Jan 03 2008

Kucinich: Vote for Yourself

Originally posted here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

For those of you who read me, for the past week or so I’ve been changed the sign-off on my postings a bit:  Where I used to have Choose Peace, I’ve gone to Vote your conscience, choose peace.  You’ll see what I mean at the end of this diary should you have not noticed (I don’t suspect many will care one way or the other).

Jan 03 2008

Mexican Farmers Protest, But Nobody’s Listening

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Harvesting Corn In Mexico By Hand

Dozens of Mexican farmers blocked a lane of the border bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso for 36 hours to protest the removal of Mexico’s last tariffs on US and Canadian farm goods.  The protest ended today.

Activists lifted a blockade at the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday, ending a 36-hour protest against the removal of Mexico’s last tariffs on U.S. and Canadian farm goods.

Mexico abolished its last protective tariffs on basic crops like corn, beans and sugar on Tuesday, under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Mexican farmers have complained they won’t be able to compete with U.S. farmers who can sell cheaper products because they receive government subsidies.

Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church has warned that the changes could spark an exodus to the U.S.

“It is clear that many farmers will have a difficult time competing in the domestic market, and that could cause a large number of farmers to leave their farms,” the archdiocese said in a statement issued on New Year’s Day.

source

More across the Rio Pequeno.

Jan 03 2008

To Be Free

No matter where we live or what language we speak, we are all vulnerable human beings trying to survive in a world of uncertainty and danger.  From the first breath we take in this world to the last, we don’t know what the next moment will bring.  For too many of us, the only certainty is more fear, more suffering, and more despair.  

Humanity has been sailing stormy waters these past seven years.  Many of us have been sailing them alone, through dark nights, with no hope of better days ahead.  Because our governments exploit our differences in order to expand their power, we tend to forget that we all have the same human needs and aspirations, no matter where we live.  We all long to be loved, to be respected, to be heard, to be free.  But the corrupt governments of this world have little if any respect for human rights, and are ignoring our appeals for peace and justice.

It’s time to reach out to one another, across all borders, and empower ourselves before our governments destroy this world and all of our futures.  It’s time for democracy activists of all lands to unite on progressive blogs, to support each other, and sail these stormy seas together instead of sinking alone . . .      

Jan 03 2008

New Years Resolution For 08: IMPEACH!

Rose Parade 08 in Pasadena

had a dose of reality this year with the help of the White Rose Coalition and LANIC (Los Angeles National Impeachment Center) protesting to call for the impeachment of Cheney and Bush.

Video by Voice of Americans 2008

NEED ONE SAY MORE!!  

Jan 03 2008

Pony Party: The Caught Baseball

Once there was a boy who lived in the Hudson Valley. He was 10 years old and his name was Drake Brady. He was the biggest New York Strikes fan. He knew everyone’s name on the team and even had season tickets every year. Drake loved every game he went to. Except one thing and one thing only – he never caught a baseball. This might not seem like a big deal to you, but it was to Drake. Every time his mom would ask did you catch a baseball, of course Drake would say no not today in an angry voice.

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Jan 03 2008

CT vs. CW

Let me start by saying that this is a poorly thought out and presented blog post. Also that on one of the subjects in the title I am woefully under informed. This will mainly be a ramble to get some thoughts out there and to clarify my thinking and hopefully spark some discussion that will inform us all. With those caveats, I shall now plunge into the abyss of Conspiracy Theory versus Conventional Wisdom!

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Jan 02 2008

Important If True

“Important If True” is an irregularly-scheduled Mojo Swap Meet wherein the diarist cobbles together a collection of seemingly random thoughts, no single one of which, taken by itself, may be worthy of attention, but which, when presented en masse in a veritable mélange, a pastiche, as it were, of cerebral offal, might thus put to rest any niggling doubts that you may have had about whether the effort would be worth it. Or, to paraphrase someone, you should waste no time in reading this . . .

- but definitely spread the mojo around in the comments! Thanks for reading!

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