March 14, 2009 archive

Did you ever read something that you found yourself musing over (smilingly), even the next day?

Such has been the case with me since yesterday.  

You know the French are well known for their “strikes” – and when they strike, they strike.  When their government does something they don’t like, they just strike and shut down the transportation, the electricity, you name it —  they virtually cripple a city with their strikes – and they get HEARD!

Well, now with the economic conditions being what they are and people being laid off, or “sacked” from work, they have developed a strategy for dealing with the CEO’s, who only want to give them “crumbs” as severances.

New strategy coming up!

Seven Years Of Writing About State Killing (with Action Update!)

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

To be completely honest, when I began, I never expected that over the course of the next seven years I would write more than 200 essays about ending state killing in America.  But today I noticed– I usually miss the date– that March 18, 2009, is the seventh Anniversary of my starting a listserv about ending the death penalty.  And I see that I’ve written more than 200 essays about the topic.

When I started the listserv I described it like this:

The views and opinions of an experienced criminal defense lawyer who is also a buddhist. About pending executions, legal developments, the media, the abolition movement, contemplation, prayer, and engaged, nonviolent activism. Sent sporadically. Only for those who value all lives and are opposed to the death penalty. Not for debate.

Please make the jump.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

Now with U.S. News

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 G-20 pledge sustained action on financial crisis

By JANE WARDELL, AP Business Writer

23 mins ago

HORSHAM, England – Finance officials from rich and developing countries pledged to boost the role of the International Monetary Fund and make a “sustained effort” to restore global growth after a key conference that sought to bridge deep divisions on how to tackle the financial crisis.

The key priority must be restoring frozen bank lending through cash infusions and dealing with the shaky assets souring bank’s balance sheets, the gathered finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 countries said in a statement at the end of talks in southern England.

The statement did not back a U.S. push for concrete, coordinated efforts for governments to spend more money to boost their economies. It acknowledged the importance of the stimulus efforts already in place, and called for stronger financial regulation.

Republicanism: The Cult of Selfishness

As we look around on this fine spring day, we see every structure and pillar of America in what amounts to a giant pile of rubble.

The financial structure, the political structure, the moral structure.

The Republicans succeeded in destroying it all. Let it NEVER be forgotten that it was the years of unfettered Republican Rule that brought us here, that destroyed America to this extent. NEVER.

When we remember 9/11 and the pile of rubble that resulted from it, both real and metaphorical, let us remember in the same mental breath the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6th: bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US. And George Bush’s reply to it. “Ok, you have covered your ass.” He was you see, on vacation.

Typical. In fact…..definitional.

He was on vacation and didn’t want to be bothered. Selfishness. He responded AS IF the people who worked frantically to get the memo in front of him weren’t doing it to actually protect the country, but to cover their own ass. He assumed that they were being….Selfish.

Because that is the only frame of reference that his kind of Republicanism (the kind that has destroyed the country) has. Selfishness.

They are Selfish. They think only of them self. It is the position that they proceed from. It is all they have known their entire life. It IS their only frame of reference. It is the lens through which they see the world.

Every action they take and every thought that they have is rooted in selfishness. Thus, every action that anyone else ever takes HAS TO be rooted in selfishness. Because every action they take is, and they are literally incapable of seeing any other motivation. They are selfish. All of their friends are selfish. And so they see every other human being through that lens.

When Rush wants the president, and thus the country, and thus everyone in the country to fail. That is selfish. So when they see Obama trying to fix the problems that they caused through their selfishness, all they can see it as is the Democrats being selfish. If the Democrats are trying to fix the country, they are OBVIOUSLY doing it to increase their own political power….



Why else would they do it???

They ask. Because the very concept of someone trying to fix the country to, ya know…….actually fix the country! is alien to them. Literally inconceivable. They can NOT conceive of any body anywhere doing something because it is the right thing to do. Because it would help someone else. Because it would make things better for someone other than them.

The Bill For the Iraq Invasion And Occupation Is Due

Phyllis Bennis is a Senior Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, and the author of Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power,  and Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer.

In an interview with Real News CEO Paul Jay, Bennis talks about the impact of US presence and the eventual departure from Iraq, and notes that although at some point US Troops will have to be withdrawn from Iraq and Iraqis are going to have a right to determine their own future, after years of occupation and the destruction and damage inflicted on Iraq and the country’s peoples the US owes reparations and more, but this can only be acted on after military occupation is ended.



Real News – March 13, 2009

Don’t cut and run, but get out of Iraq now


By most estimates, more than a million Iraqis have been killed as a direct consequence of the invasion and occupation, and many millions have been displaced and become refugees.

Is there any amount of reparation that can make up for what has been done to Iraqis? Has anyone thought to ask Iraqis that question? Would reparations equaling the more than a trillion dollars spent to kill them and destroy their country be enough?

The Bill For the Iraq Invasion And Occupation Is Due

Crossposted from Antemedius

Phyllis Bennis is a Senior Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, and the author of Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power,  and Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer.

In an interview with Real News CEO Paul Jay, Bennis talks about the impact of US presence and the eventual departure from Iraq, and notes that although at some point US Troops will have to be withdrawn from Iraq and Iraqis are going to have a right to determine their own future, after years of occupation and the destruction and damage inflicted on Iraq and the country’s peoples the US owes reparations and more, but this can only be acted on after military occupation is ended.



Real News – March 13, 2009

Don’t cut and run, but get out of Iraq now


By most estimates, more than a million Iraqis have been killed as a direct consequence of the invasion and occupation, and many millions have been displaced and become refugees.

Is there any amount of reparation that can make up for what has been done to Iraqis? Has anyone thought to ask Iraqis that question? Would reparations equaling the more than a trillion dollars spent to kill them and destroy their country be enough?

Barack O’Bama {for st. patty’s day}

There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama {this is the YouTube video, no embed available}

 

Docudharma Times Saturday March 14

Gov. Mark Sanford (Scrooge) South Carolina

Decides That Helping The People

Of South Carolina Is Wrong  

Then Compares U.S. To Zimbabwe




Saturday’s Headlines:

Tired of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own

Scramble for Pakistan political settlement

Maldives aims to become first carbon-neutral country

Read all about it: the Kenyan crime blockbuster you can’t buy in Kenya

Doctors Without Borders exit Darfur

How to protest at work the French way – take the boss hostage

German boy seized after threatening to blow up school on Hitler’s birthday

Israeli town copes with return of near daily rockets

Evangelicals key to El Salvador elections

Obama’s New Tack: Blaming Bush

President Points to ‘Inherited’ Economy

By Scott Wilson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, March 14, 2009; Page A0


In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

It hasn’t taken long for the recriminations to return — or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome “inheritance” of its predecessor.

Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems “inherited” from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The “deepening economic crisis” that the president described six days after taking office became “a big mess” in remarks this month to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio.

Robert Fisk’s World: The West should feel shame over its collusion with torturers

I want to know why those complicit in Almalki’s ordeal are not tried in court

Saturday, 14 March 2009

I invited Abdullah Almalki to breakfast in Ottawa but he only took coffee. And while I wolfed down my all-English breakfast in the Chateau Laurier Hotel (beloved of Churchill and Karsh of Ottawa fame), he sipped gingerly at his cup with much on his mind. Snooped on by the Canadian secret service and then tortured in Syria while the Canadian authorities did nothing for him – save supplying his perverted torturers with questions – he had much to think about. A carbon copy of Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who had his penis cut up while the Brits sent questions to his perverted Moroccan torturers.

In Abdullah Almalki’s case, he wasn’t renditioned. He simply flew into Damascus to see his Syrian family, got banged up in the city’s secret police headquarters and was then beaten into submission, not much different from an even more famous case – that of Maher Arar, who was a Canadian citizen and got renditioned to Damascus by the Americans while the US authorities sent questions to his perverted Syrian torturers. Arar has received apologies from US senators – though not from the war hero George Bush (battle honours: the skies over Texas during the Vietnam conflict) — and compensation from the Canadian government.

 

USA

Plan to cut mortgage interest deduction stirs opposition

Obama’s proposed budget would reduce the tax break for households earning more than $250,000. Some see the plan as targeting real-estate rich states like California and New York.

By Peter Y. Hong

March 14, 2009


The Obama administration’s budget threatens to cut a benefit many Americans view as practically a right — the mortgage interest tax deduction — and powerful real estate interests are fighting back.

The move would affect only households earning $250,000 or more, but opponents say it could prolong the housing crisis by slowing already torpid home sales and deal another blow to home values ravaged by the market crash.

“Even though the intended impact is on the top 2% of households, the unintended consequence will be a reduction in home values for homeowners across the country,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Assn. of Realtors.

The Realtors group contends that the loss of the tax break will lead high-income home-buyers to spend less on homes, which would eventually drive down prices at the high end. And if mansions cost less, modest bungalows will ultimately see their values fall as well, Yun contends.

Late Night Karaoke

 Gypsy Queen

Friday Distractions

Tonight, I`ll try & distract you with the color yellow, cause it`s mellow.

These shots are taken in different arenaz,

So I`ll start with a “Bunch Of Bananaz”.

All images are linked to more, from each individual one`s set.

If distraction is what you need, you`ll find it there, I`ll bet.

 BUNCH OF BANANAZ

Call To Action: April 4th March on Wall Street!

Crossposted at Free Speech Zone

What will the police do?

Will they protect Wall St.?

Or will they be sympathetic to us?

Only one way to find out.

Wall St sign Pictures, Images and Photos

April 4th it’s on motherfuckers!

(See below the fold for details!)

Random Japan

 Signs of the times

The producer of popular NHK cooking show Kyo no Ryori announced that the portions prepared on the program would be reduced from four persons to two. “Apart from the decline in the number of people per household,” he said, “we wanted to express a stance toward not wasting food.”

It was revealed that, thanks to “a lack of typical winter weather patterns,” ski resorts around the country are suffering from a shortage of snow.

In anticipation of a “surge” in suicides caused by the deepening recession, the National Police Agency plans to release monthly statistics on people killing themselves.

It was reported that Tokyo daycare centers have been experiencing an unprecedented surge in applications thanks to the recession forcing more mothers to enter the workforce.

The health and welfare ministry said that a record number of Japanese people died last year, but that the number of births increased compared to 2007.

Tourism officials announced that the number of visitors from Hong Kong spiked 27 percent last year.

The Osaka government said it needs ¥1.37 trillion to avoid going “near bankrupt” by 2018.

Load more