July 2008 archive

Jul 15 2008

Midnight Thought on the Next American Revolution

Now in the Midnight Oil … also up at Agent Orange, so tipping and rec’ing that diary might help get the word out in a small way.

What do you do when you are a Congressional candidate … your Presidential candidate is campaigning on the basis of Potemkin Energy policies like drilling for an extra 100,000 barrels of oil a day starting a decade from now (when a Saudi announcement of an extra 500,000 barrels later this year did not move prices by any discernable amount) … and a gas tax holiday …

… especially when in the last contentious Ohio State highway funding fight, you as the Republican voted for Governor Taft’s gas tax hike, and your Democratic opponent voted against it?

Simple: you lie.

Well, of course, this is a Republican candidate for Congress we are talking about here … you don’t lie yourself, you have an “independent group” with a name like Freedom’s Watch lie for you.

Jul 15 2008

just a few things . . .

here’s a link to a handy little site: the bank implode-0-meter

i wonder, when we find ourselves in times like these, just who is running the world? and how stupid does one need to be to qualify for the leaders of the world club.

do you ever, secretly and on occasion, watch those reality TV shows. like the real housewives of beverly hills or the real housewives of nyc?

Jul 15 2008

Bush: Cowardly Appeaser (*this* is McCain’s new hero?!)

Note: Cross-posted at orange.

In today’s Abbreviated Pundit Roundup over at orange, my attention was called to Michael Barone’s jingoistic, bullshit fluff piece on “the surge” in the creepy-ass, Pro-Republican Moonie Times.  What neither Barone, nor McCain, nor Bush, nor Hannity, nor Limbaugh, nor Lindsey Graham, nor Lieberman, nor McConnell, et mal mention is Bush’s program to bribe insurgents to stop killing U.S. Troops.

Bottom line:  paying former “insurgents” to switch sides and stop killing our troops is, it seems, working.  I am troubled by the amnesty given to many (dozens, hundreds, thousands?) who were just a year or two ago killing Americans, or damn-sure trying to.  However, if it ends up saving American Soldiers’ and Marines’ lives, and getting us the hell out of Iraq, then I suppose it’s the lessor of Bush-initiated evils.

Keep going . . .

Jul 15 2008

Mitakuye Oyasin – All My Relations

Contemplating the upcoming trip to Austin has me thinking about the Native Americans and how I have always drawn such inspiration from them.  They make frequent appearances in my art both for their beauty and for their symbolic power.  They mean many things to me but to boil it down I would say they represent the natural human, living in harmony with the environment, and, more regrettably, man’s inhumanity to man.

indian-dakota-oasis-in-the-bad-lands

Jul 15 2008

An occupation by any other name

An editorial from socialistworker.org subheaded For supporters drawn to his pledge to withdraw from Iraq, Barack Obama’s latest talk about “refining” his position has left them feeling betrayed.  Here’s the link: http://socialistworker.org/200…

Jul 15 2008

Docudharma Times Tuesday July 15



We Always Look

For

That Which

Isn’t There




Tuesday’s Headlines:

Bush officials’ ‘lack of recall’ thwarted Tillman, Lynch probes

Mercenaries join Mugabe’s ruthless terror campaign

For Darfur, a step toward justice?

Grave mistake to attack Iran, warns Syria

Police: Iraq suicide bombers kill 28 army recruits  

Georgia leader Mikhail Saakashvili: Russia is a menace to peace

‘Dangerously thin’ climbers face ban

Foreign Office urges caution as Kashmir tries to lure back tourists

Japan fishermen go on national strike

Brazil bucks global economic downturn

Indonesia regrets E Timor wrongs

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has expressed “remorse” for wrongs committed during East Timor’s vote for independence in 1999.

The BBC

He made the statement as he received the final report of their two countries’ Truth and Friendship Commission in the resort of Bali.

The report details systematic crimes against humanity – and lays much of the blame at the door of Indonesia’s army.

But the leaders of both countries say they are interested in moving on.

About 1,000 people are believed to have been murdered, and many others tortured, raped and displaced during 1999.

Neither country has expressed interest in prosecuting individuals on the basis of the report – though correspondents say it could strengthen such demands from campaigners.

The commission was boycotted by the United Nations, which has already blamed Indonesia and demanded that those responsible face justice.

Scramble Led to Rescue Plan on Mortgages



By STEPHEN LABATON

Published: July 15, 2008

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration hastily arranged the dramatic Sunday evening rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after Wall Street executives and foreign central bankers told Washington that any further erosion of confidence could have a cascading effect around the world, officials said on Monday.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and other top officials were warned, after Fannie and Freddie lost nearly half their stock market value on Friday morning, that any more turmoil threatened to reduce the value of trillions of dollars of the companies’ debt and other obligations, which are held by thousands of domestic and foreign banks, pension funds, mutual funds and other investors, government officials said.

USA

Judge allows testimony by Guantanamo detainees

Alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others can testify in the military trial of Osama bin Laden’s driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

July 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden’s former driver can use testimony by alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and some other detained Al Qaeda operatives in his upcoming military trial at Guantanamo Bay because it might help exonerate him, a military judge said Monday.

Defense lawyers said at a hearing that they wanted to call Mohammed and seven other prospective witnesses in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the first detainee at the U.S. naval base in Cuba to be scheduled for trial. If the proceedings begin next week as planned, it will be the first time the U.S. has held a military tribunal since World War II.

Jul 15 2008

52 Dead in Afghanistan Wedding Procession – Bombed by US

Several days ago, on 6 July, an early morning wedding procession in eastern Afghanistan’s Nargarhar Region was crossing through a pass in a ridge separating two valleys when they were bombed by American planes. It was to have been a big double wedding between two families, with each family exchanging a bride and a groom. One family lived in the valley on one side of the mountain and the other family was from the valley on the opposite side.

What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.

BBC News

Jul 15 2008

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion XXIX

The graphic linked to below was created when I was experimenting with creating the “feel” of digital texture.  This one is wax.

Sometimes the poems express thoughts that plead for discussion.  Rarely does that discussion actually take place.  This is one of those.  In a performance it comes right before the closing words, which are immediately followed by a Q & A opportunity for spontaneous communication.

Art Link

Scratching at the Surface

Wishes and Horses

I wish someone

anyone

could tell me

would tell me

why people

behave as they do

with disdain toward

in disregard of

so sadistically

to people like me

What have

we done

to engender

such disrespect

to evoke

such contempt

to earn

your hatred

Whatsoever it was

we are willing

to work together

with you

to repair

the rift

to seal

the breach

to integrate

our existences

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–February 1, 2006

Jul 15 2008

Sign Me Up – a poem

been all over and it looks the same just another excuse for buildings

said I been all over and it looks the same

ice cream stands and brand new cars

attorneys at law and Jehovah’s Witnesses

how many churches do they need

yeah how many churches do they need

well sign me up for the

ChurchofLatterDayPentecostalReformistEpiscopalianPostJesuitSacrificialCommunionoftheNew TestamentRevisionists

and I’ll be covered when I go

but for now i got Crowley in a cup

and the moon is pulling

the moon it pulls

hop into the inbetween

again again again

hop into the inbetween

aren’t you overdue?

the flags they flew at 6000 feet

the flags they flew at dawn

your shirt is here in place of you

your boots

your hat

and gloves

Jul 15 2008

No comments updated

Update: Reload your Ajax folks, using Shift Control R, because I was dead in the damn water for half an hour.

I can hardly expect you to respond, but as far as I can determine comments are turned off at this point across the whole blog.

I can only assume that this is part of pacified’s Soapblox maintainence.

I hope the situation is resolved soon, but I’ve already run around in circles with my hair on fire so there’s not a lot more I can do.

At least I won’t have to listen to your whining- NO COMMENTS DUH!

Jul 15 2008

The Stars Hollow Gazette

You see…

Glenn Greenwald is just too radical and left wing for respectable bloggers to support-

All of this highlights the central political dilemma in the U.S.

The Bush-led Republican Party, marching in virtual lockstep, has been the author of the radicalism, extremism and lawlessness of the last seven years, presiding over an endlessly expanding Surveillance State and accompanying war-making machine, and the dismantling of numerous core Constitutional principles.

While numerous individual elected Democrats have opposed many of these measures, the Democratic Party’s leadership, and the Party collectively, has done nothing to stop it and much to support and enable all of it.

As the 2006 election and these subsequent events conclusively demonstrate, mindlessly supporting and electing more Democrats for its own sake doesn’t solve or even mitigate anything.

But it’s also true that actions which result in handing Republicans control over any branches of the Government — including supporting third-party candidates or abstaining from the process altogether — makes matters worse still.

Nobody who finds the above-documented events objectionable can rationally embrace a course of action that directly or indirectly empowers those who are the prime forces behind these events: namely, the mainstream GOP in its current incarnation.

All of that, in turn, leads to this pressing question: what is the best course for those who want to battle against these civil-liberties-destroying, rule-of-law-trampling, war-making policies that the GOP leadership pushes and the Democratic Party leadership supports, enables, and/or passively accepts?

In a two-party system where blind support for either party will do nothing but perpetuate these policies, how can they be undermined?

Jul 15 2008

UPDATED Canadian teen’s gitmo interrogation film released

Graphic photo at end depicts the wounds Khadr was denied treatment for while he was being interrogated.

Mandated by a high court ruling, the defense lawyers representing Omar Khadr have been given and will release 7 1/2 hours of videotaped interrogation tomorrow. Khadr was arrested at 15 and held in Gitmo, where he remains today.

While Khadr’s supporters have claimed for years he was tortured in custody, his lawyers say the latest revelations have finally caught the attention of a Canadian public that’s growing less willing to sacrifice human rights in the name of national security.

It seems that Canadians are sick of their government participating in America’s illegal torture/detention practices, and their courts agree.

Load more