November 30, 2008 archive

Docudharma Times Sunday November 30

Never Accuse Hapazardly

As Peace Becomes Conflict    




Sunday’s Headlines:

Economic rescue could cost $8.5 trillion

Silver-Haired Shoplifters On the Rise In Japan

Bangkok chaos grows after grenade attack on opposition protesters

Cracks widen in Mugabe regime as soldiers riot over shortage of cash

More than 300 dead in Nigeria rioting

Iran executes IT expert who spied for Israel

Key clerics criticize new U.S.-Iraq security deal

Economic crisis top issue in Romanian elections

Swiss Vote on State-Supported Medical Heroin Program

No corking Uruguay’s emerging status as wine country

India Faces Reckoning as Terror Toll Eclipses 170



By SOMINI SENGUPTA and KEITH BRADSHER

Published: November 29, 2008


MUMBAI, India – Death still hung over Mumbai on Sunday, as the Indian government reckoned with troubling questions about its ability to respond to escalating terror attacks.

The morning after the standoff ended at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, the official death toll remained 172. But the police said they were still waiting for the final figures of dead bodies pulled from the wreckage from the hotel, a 105-year-old landmark. Funerals were scheduled to continue throughout Sunday, for the second day in a row.

As an investigation moved forward, there were questions about whether Indian authorities could have anticipated the attack and had better security in place, especially after a 2007 report to Parliament that the country’s shores were inadequately protected from infiltration by sea – which is how the attackers sneaked into Mumbai.

Citizen Journalists Provide Glimpses Into Attacks



By BRIAN STELTER and NOAM COHEN

Published: November 29, 2008


From his terrace on Colaba Causeway in south Mumbai, Arun Shanbhag saw the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel burn. He saw ambulances leave the Nariman House. And he recorded every move on the Internet.

Mr. Shanbhag, who lives in Boston but happened to be in Mumbai when the attacks began on Wednesday, described the gunfire on his Twitter feed – the “thud, thud, thud” of shotguns and the short bursts of automatic weapons – and uploaded photos to his personal blog.

Mr. Shanbhag, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, said he had not heard the term citizen journalism until Thursday, but now he knows that is exactly what he was doing. “I felt I had a responsibility to share my view with the outside world,” Mr. Shanbhag said in an e-mail message on Saturday morning.

 

USA

Joint Chiefs Chairman ‘Very Positive’ After Meeting With Obama



By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page A01


Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went unarmed into his first meeting with the new commander in chief — no aides, no PowerPoint presentation, no briefing books. Summoned nine days ago to President-elect Barack Obama’s Chicago transition office, Mullen showed up with just a pad, a pen and a desire to take the measure of his incoming boss.

There was little talk of exiting Iraq or beefing up the U.S. force in Afghanistan; the one-on-one, 45-minute conversation ranged from the personal to the philosophical. Mullen came away with what he wanted: a view of the next president as a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead.

Late Night Karaoke

So What Are You Waiting For?

Talk!

The Red Elvises – Boogie Woogie on the Beach

The Perils of Non-Impeachment

J*#@%s F&(#%+g C&$!@t!  From tomorrow’s NYT:

The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

snip

Public health officials and labor unions said the rule would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11…

The 40% Solution Bush Considers His Legacy

Something leaped from an internet page today, it was about Bush and his legacy, what he wants it to be or the grand delusion.

“I’d like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace;

I diary about Iraq off and on with disappointing results which seems to plague all of us who try to report what is happening there. Many people don’t believe the numbers as evidenced by comments on on another poster’s Iraq diary earlier this week. People actually believe the Surge has worked to the benefit of Iraqis and there is no genocide. For all of you who do not believe the numbers, remember, what you know of Iraq is filtered through the sociopathic delusions of George W. Bush. We don’t do body counts. Why would he mention dead and maimed Iraqis, the very fact we do not count tells you how trivial their lives are in the greater scheme of all things GWB.  George W. Bush has the deranged wish to be remembered for liberating Iraq from the grip of Saddam? Let him and all of us remember this …  

On Shooting Self In Thigh: My Country ‘Tis Of Thee

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Photobucket

Plexico Burress, Shakespearean Tragic Hero



OMFG. New York Football Giants star receiver Plexico Burress last night shot himself in the thigh with a handgun.  Will he play again this year?  Who knows?  He was released from the hospital today.  There are other questions though.  Like: WTF is he doing with a loaded pistol in a night club during the season?  And htf did he shoot himself in the thigh?  Isn’t that like totally embarrassing?  And is this the stupidest economic “accident” we’ve seen this year, a year of gigantic, incredibly stupid economic “accidents?”

So those of us in the “life as figure of speech” department were thinking about Plexico Burress this afternoon.  And we were thinking hard.

The big question for us is whether he’s a metaphor for the United States’s economy?  Or the war effort in Iraq?  Or the Bush Administration?  Or the War on TerrorTM?  Or something else that’s a gigantic f*ck up?

What kind of figure of speech is he anyway?  Is this an example of synecdoche? Is this an example of metonymy? Is it metaphor?  WTF is this anyway?  And, more important, what does it mean, if anything, to us?

The New York Times supplies the back story:

It was unclear what led to the gun’s discharge. There were no reports of any fights inside the club before the shooting. The police did not say whether any charges would be filed, but they noted that felony charges were possible if a person possesses a loaded, unlicensed handgun in a place other than his residence or business.

Under the league’s personal-conduct policy, violations of local gun laws can result in a player’s suspension…snip

It is the latest controversy involving Burress, who signed a five-year, $35 million contract with the Giants just before the season opener. He was suspended for 12 days, including a victory over Seattle, because he missed meetings without explanation.

Against San Francisco on Oct. 19, Burress shouted at Coach Tom Coughlin on the sideline after drawing an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty. The N.F.L. fined Burress $45,000 for verbally abusing the officials.

Coughlin held him out of the first quarter of the Oct. 26 game against the Steelers because he missed treatment on a neck and shoulder injury the day before.

The Times also reports that Burress, who is 31, has a 5-year $35 million contract.

I know that you, dear readers, are incredibly busy and perplexed by other, vital questions, but seriously now, have you ever heard of anything as ridiculous and expensive as this?

Then again, oops.  I guess so.  How about Michael Vick?

Oh, goddess supreme, preserve us in safety from the end of this Empire.

Pre-Emptive Self-Congratulatory Year-End Round-Up

Wow, is that enough hyphenation for one title? Probably not, but let’s not shove the porous boundaries of taste any more than we already have…but on the other hand, why not? It’s never stopped me before, and although there’s no real reason for this senseless recycling, I’m perfectly at peace with yet again Doing It Because I Can. See, for a multitude of reasons, I blogged a lot in 2008-more than ever before, and probably too much, even-whether it was for my personal blog or my band blog or my book blog. Yeah, that’s three (3) blogs, but like many other people, over the past decade I’ve discovered that the internet is a great place to indulge one’s vanity. And I am chock-full of that, man, so the past two years in particular have been basically dedicated to amusing myself-when I actually have time to do that-while the world burns.

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