March 25, 2008 archive

Docudharma Times Tuesday March 25



Maybe, someday

Saved by zero

I’ll be more together

stretched by fewer

Thoughts that leave me

Tuesday’s Headlines: Genetic Testing Gets Personal:  Detroit mayor and aide charged with felonies: Army launches assault in Comoros: Who pays the price of platinum?: New Pakistani prime minister frees judges: Just like America, China is building a multi-ethnic empire in the west: Neil Aspinall, the ‘fifth Beatle’, dies aged 66: Berlusconi boosted by pessimism of young: Fatah and Hamas dismiss Yemen agreement on Palestinian unity: US Navy confirms Suez canal shooting:  Mexico leftists deadlocked in vote dispute

Bush Given Iraq War Plan With a Steady Troop Level

WASHINGTON – Troop levels in Iraq would remain nearly the same through 2008 as at any time during five years of war, under plans presented to President Bush on Monday by the senior American commander and the top American diplomat in Iraq, senior administration and military officials said.

Mr. Bush announced no final decision on future troop levels after the video briefing by the commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the diplomat, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. The briefing took place on the day when the 4,000th American military death of the war was reported and just after the invasion’s fifth anniversary.

Fierce clashes break out in Basra

Heavy fighting has erupted in Iraq’s southern city of Basra amid a major pre-dawn offensive by Iraqi security forces against rival Shia militias.

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki is in Basra overseeing the operation, a day after he vowed to “re-impose law” in the oil-rich city, the UK military said.

Eyewitnesses speak of plumes of smoke, explosions, tanks and artillery.

The British military, which returned control of Basra to the Iraqis in December, said it was not involved.

A spokesman for UK forces, now based only at Basra airport, said the operation was being directed entirely by Iraqi troops and that Mr Maliki was overseeing it from a military base at an undisclosed location in the city.

The most Tone Deaf Human in the world continues to be Wrong.

The person that we Americans are forced to admit, under our breath, is actually the President of the United States of America, once again opened his ignorant mouth regarding a matter of such importance that even his myriad screw ups somehow pale in comparison to his latest complete mis-interpretation of reality.

President Bush pledged Monday to ensure “an outcome that will merit the sacrifice” of those who have died in Iraq, offering both sympathy and resolve as the U.S. death toll in the five-year war hit 4,000.

“One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, ‘Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve because they laid the foundation for peace for generations to come,’ ” Bush said at the State Department after a two-hour briefing on U.S. diplomatic strategy around the world. “I vow so long as I am president to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.”

Let us, you and I, check the first basic words in the simpletons paragraph.  

Merit the Sacrifice.  

There are no words that I could possibly write here that would merit the stupidity of telling someone that their loved ones died, or were sacrificed in the name of the Republican Party of Greed’s “War for Oil.”

Basra Breaking?

A few days ago we get this:

U.S. Wants British ‘Surge’ In S. Iraq: Paper

And why, because:

It quoted an unnamed senior U.S .military source saying: “Three big militias are currently engaged in a particularly bloody battle in southern Iraq.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
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…

Worm Ranching!

So I have pasture acres and hay acres that need to have their soils improved.  Turning the soil with amendments over via a harrow device would help in the short term, but turning the soil over can kill beneficial insects and critters and expose the soil to wind and water erosion.  No till drilling will work to place new seed in amongst the existing foliage, but how do I improve the soil without turning it over?

A Berkley graduate came up with the answer, worms.  Of course this answer is what was used by many generations past to turn their undesirable soil into productive farmlands.  In fact New York State’s entire worm population is not indigenous to New York, they were brought here by farmers and fishermen in years past.  Why no worms?  The glaciers forced them out of the area. (for those Creationists reading this: God corralled the worms and sent them to Ireland where St. Patrick thought they were little snakes)

Feeling Vaginadequate

I’m not usually one to jump all over the news story of the day, much less the sex scandal of the day…evidenced by the fact that it’s been a full 2 weeks since the story broke…

And I have to admit, I haven’t followed the Eliot Spitzer story very closely.  Until just a couple of days ago, I’d have to say I didn’t really much care who the governor had sex with, for how much money, over which state lines, etc.  

I probably still wouldn’t care, if I hadn’t recently been clued in to the fact that Ashley Dupre, the woman who had said sex, took said money, and crossed said state lines, has a ‘magic vagina’, which has been called the prettiest vagina in New York.  And, no, the link isn’t to a picture of her vagina, nor have I seen any.  However, this picture attempts to show us the various ‘features’ which could, possibly, make a vagina worth $5000. a night.  Yep, that’s just a rental.  You don’t even get to keep it.  

The Stars Hollow Gazette

It’s hard to know how to really direct my anger at this moment because the media is failing on so many levels.

Where is the outrage that says- Timmeh?  So do you agree with the position of the Catholic Church on birth control?  Why didn’t you walk out of the pews then?  Timmeh?  Do all blacks look alike to you?  Then why only ask Colin Polwell and Barack Obama about Harry Belefonte?

You couldn’t possibly be a racist any more than John McCain could misspeak about Foreign Policy or prostitute himself for the endorsement of a preacher who calls your church a “Great Whore”.  No more than a “maverick” who wrote campaign finance reform could commit a felony by violating his own law because laws are for the little people not great fat respected Village Idiots like you.

No more than this “maverick” fighter pilot senile old gas bag of a lying panderer could have sold out to any of the lobbyists who run his campaign because he has the “guts” to stand up to Boeing and offshore another 20,000 jobs and stand tall in Iraq and condemn another 4,000 American soldiers to death so he can bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran and involve us in yet another war WE WILL LOSE!

I am disgusted.

A must-read article on theWar On Iraq-An Iraqi Perspective

This diary is written in response to Pam In Calif’s comment to my comment to BarbinMD’s front page article, over at the Big Orange, George Bush’s Foundation of Peace.

Raed Jarrar (Iraq Consultant to the American Friends Service Committee. He blogs at Raed in the Middle.) wrote an article today titled “The Iraqi Civil War Bush and the Media Don’t Tell You About” which presents an Iraqi’s perspective on the civil war in Iraq that I have never heard before. Raed is one of the few bloggers that our beloved Riverbend (MIA since 10-22-07-I wish we’d hear from her) links to on her site. (I like that Alternet.org titles their section on Iraq “War on Iraq” as compared to the usual “War in Iraq.”)

For my take on Raed’s article, hop in a barrel and follow me over the f-a-a-a-alls

New York City meet up on Thursday (Mar 27)

We’re working on it! looks like srkp23 and I will meet at 8ish. we haven’t picked a location yet, but i’m hoping it will be mid town.

Anybody up for a small DD meetup??????????

I’ll update this as I get more information.

 

No End In Sight (photo essay)

Cross posted at SilencedMajorityPortal

Today, one day after newspapers announced a grim milestone of 4000 U.S. deaths in Iraq, a protest occured in front of Senator Norm Coleman’s office in St Paul, Minnesota.  But this photo essay isn’t just about today’s protest. It’s about 5 years of the U.S. government funding killing and calling it freedom.

Shortly after the war began, 5 years ago, we couldn’t imagine that the public would let this war continue for so long.

Back then, we could write all of the U.S. deaths on one sign (note the modified “bus stop” sign).


Load more