April 15, 2008 archive

Docudharma Times Tuesday April 15

Got styrofoam boxes

for the ozone layer

Got a man of the people,

says keep hope alive

Got fuel to burn,

got roads to drive.

Tuesday’s Headlines: Retailing Chains Caught in a Wave of Bankruptcies: Delta, Northwest Agree to Merger: Zimbabwe braced for strike action: 19 children die in Uganda school fire: Berlusconi sweeps back to power as left concedes defeat in Italian elections: Stalin’s space monkeys: Iraqi troops free British journalist: Devising Survival at Factory in Iraq: Beijing bans construction projects to improve air quality during the Olympics: Tibetan monks resist ‘education’ campaign, say rights groups: Mexico opposition barricades Congress

Biofuel: the burning question

The production of biofuel is devastating huge swathes of the world’s environment. So why on earth is the Government forcing us to use more of it?

From today, all petrol and diesel sold on forecourts must contain at least 2.5 per cent biofuel. The Government insists its flagship environmental policy will make Britain’s 33 million vehicles greener. But a formidable coalition of campaigners is warning that, far from helping to reverse climate change, the UK’s biofuel revolution will speed up global warming and the loss of vital habitat worldwide.

Amid growing evidence that massive investment in biofuels by developed countries is helping to cause a food crisis for the world’s poor, the ecological cost of the push to produce billions of litres of petrol and diesel from plant sources will be highlighted today with protests across the country and growing political pressure to impose guarantees that the new technology reduces carbon emissions.

They Stole My Vagina, and How I Found It

At the risk of getting screamed at and having the Polizi drag me to Gitmo in defense of their twisted fucking culture, here comes my homage to my vagina for V-Day.

Cross-posted from GentillyGirl :

Muse in the Morning

Art Link
Obstacles

Friends Along the Way

I started out on this

 road all alone

   Fear and Pain

      my only companions

         I wondered if

           I would lose myself

             The road seemed dark

               and fraught with peril

                 ’til I found I had

                   Friends along the way

                       As the road wound

                         through hard terrain

                           I sometimes doubted

                             my ability to go on

                               But I fought back

                                 the Fear

                                   and worked through

                                     the Pain

                                       with the help of my

                                         Friends along the way

                                           As time passed by

                                         the road ascended

                                     Obstacles less frequent

                                  but harder to pass

                               And at times

                             I needed the

                           places of refuge

                         respite and care

                       offered to me by

                     Friends along the way

                 I’ve come to the crest

               of the mountain

             I’ve climbed

           As I look down below

         I see all of the

       barriers crossed

     the challenges I met

   and the lessons I learned

 I will never forget those

Friends along the way

 What lies over

   the top of the road

     There is no

       way of knowing

         But deep in my heart

           From the depths

             of my soul

               I know that I’ll have

                 The company of my

                   Friends from along the way

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–July, 1994

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

The Stars Hollow Gazette

I’m bitter.

What drives me nuts is that they think we’re stupid.

Too stupid to see what vacuous gas bags they are.

Too stupid to remember what they said.

So stupid that we’ll continue to buy their crap and vote for them.

They’re wrong.

Everyone gets the same TV and we can see them strut and preen and lie all day and you know what?

We hate them.

I don’t know why any of them thinks I haven’t spit in their coffee.

Because I have.

just testing

Peter and I came back from Ortega one Friday night at the end of March to find a message from R.J. on the machine, asking me to call him on his line at home. My roommate tossed his jacket on the bed and, with a perceptive nod, took off for Alex’s room to begin the all-night idiocy we’d been anticipating for days. I sat down on the bed and dialed the number that, until I’d moved out, had been mine all through high school, when Nadia and I would talk until 3 a.m. while R.J. was trying to sleep.  He answered the phone after three rings, sounding relaxed.

Ethanol-Biodiesel-No water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Is it real or is it not.

“May Day! May Day! May Day!”

MAKE MAYDAY A “NO PEACE, NO WORK HOLIDAY”!

The following was written by Jack Heyman a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks


Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

A Progressive Novel

I turned forty-one last year.  I am fairly certain, in biological terms, I’m on the downhill slope of life.  But I still feel magic in the world.

As I get older, I’ve come to understand that magic is different for all people.  We all have to find our own sources.  You know it when you see it come into your life.  It is the moment you spend totally immersed in nature.  Or perhaps, when you saw the one you love stand somewhere up the aisle.  Saw your child born.  The sources are different and many.  You know them.  You have felt them.

I have been a writer since I was a young lad.  It was always a source of magic for me.  I did not realize what it meant to be a writer for many, many years.  Did not know I even belonged to that particular limb on the evolutionary tree.  But from earliest memory, it has given me joy to put thoughts on paper (or now, as the world has turned – to transmit thoughts to the realm of electronic data).  I published hand-drawn newspapers.  Wrote silly stories.  Dealt with life through poetry.  Was a second-rate journalist for short periods of time.  Found the joy of writing for political blogs.  And finally came to write a novel.

Get This Through Your Heads

So, Bush last week admitted complicity in his administration’s policy of torturing people. Earlier, the Associated Press revealed that Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, and George Tenet were also complicit. Donald Rumsfeld was implicated as far back as July of 2005, and Alberto Gonzales’s already known complicity didn’t prevent him from being confirmed as this nation’s chief law enforcement officer, even earlier in 2005. Just over a month ago, Bush ignored the advice of “43 retired generals and admirals and 18 national security experts, including former secretaries of state and national security advisers,” and vetoed a bill that would have forbade the U.S. from engaging in torture, and Republican nominee-to-be John McCain supported his doing so. None of this is a surprise. At the risk of being cynical, none of it really matters, except for the historical record, because no one who is in the position of being able to do anything about it seems so inclined.

We are a nation that tortures people. The White House decides what forms of torture can be used, and Congress, which hasn’t overridden Bush’s veto, played its part by giving Bush tacit approval to continue doing so. And no leading Democrats mention that maybe violating international and moral laws ought to disqualify those responsible from holding public office. No leading Democrats ever supported impeaching the torturers. No leading Democrats talk about possible war crimes implications. No leading Democrats talk about holding the torturers legally accountable, once they leave office. Of course, no one will be surprised if Bush blanket pardons everyone, before he leaves office, and only impeachments would negate his ability to thus immunize them from prosecution. But Jack Balkin says the 2006 Military Commissions Act “effectively insulated government officials from liability for many of the violations of the War Crimes Act they might have committed during the period prior to 2006,” so it’s probably a moot point, anyway. And Marty Lederman is skeptical of the idea of a Department of Justice prosecuting people whose behavior was given legal clearance by a previous Department of Justice, so it’s probably a moot point, anyway- twice over.

We are a nation that tortures people. The outrage over last week’s revelations reveal that people still don’t understand that fact. We are a nation that tortures people. Outrage over further revelations of that fact will similarly reveal that people still won’t understand that fact. We are a nation that tortures people. It is no longer about this criminal administration or any criminal individuals working within it, we are a nation that tortures people. It’s now institutional. To address that fact, to do anything about it, will require levels of outrage far exceeding the outrage directed at one administration or the criminals working within it. We are a nation that tortures people. Until our ostensible progressive leaders, until we, as a nation, decide to do something about that fact, it will simply be a part of who we are. We are a nation that tortures people. The people responsible for that fact get away with it because no one and nothing will stop them from getting away with it. We are a nation that tortures people.

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