July 25, 2009 archive

Dark Soul Chapter Eight

Happy Saturday and welcome to the Dog’s serialization of the novel Dark Soul. Sorry this is so late this week, the network at the Dog House was down. This is a work in progress, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions, don’t be shy about offering them up.

If you have just started reading this, you can find the previous chapters at the following links:

Dark Soul – Chapter One

Dark Soul – Chapter Two

Dark Soul – Chapter Three

Dark Soul – Chapter Four

Dark Soul – Chapter Five

Dark Soul – Chapter Six

Dark Soul Chapter Seven

This serialization is only available here at Docudharma!  

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Iraqi Kurds end voting as feud with Baghdad looms

By Tim Cocks and Shamal Aqrawi, Reuters

1 hr 33 mins ago

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi Kurds ended voting on Saturday in elections expected to keep President Masoud Barzani in power in Kurdistan and unlikely to allay voters’ worries about corruption or end a feud with Baghdad over land and oil.

Polls closed at 12:00 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) after voting was extended one hour in the largely autonomous region. Ballots will be counted in Baghdad, the official tally expected to take at least 2-3 days.

The people of the relatively peaceful northern enclave elected their president directly this time, unlike in 2005 polls that voted only for parliament. Former guerrilla leader Barzani looks certain to defeat his five competitors.

Stock market “rally” is bogus, volume in market “fictitious”

This guy needs to keep his mouth shut when discussing politics, but when he’s talking about the thing of which he is an expert, equities trading, you can tell he knows what he’s talking about.

He’s obviously not a liberal, but he’s not happy with the current situation in the stock market.  He says a huge percentage of the volume in the stock market during this “rally” is due to computerized trading where the profits aren’t even made with the old fashioned “buy low and sell higher” thing, but because these computerized trading systems can generate money through liquidity rebates on a per-trade basis.   So these computers just trade like crazy, and they don’t trade for any reason.  They just trade.  He says the right now the direction of the market is to buy, so all the transactions are “buy”.  But he says when an event happens (and it’s not “if” but most certainly “when”) that will drive the market the other way, there will be nobody there to buy.  

The man is basically predicting a huge market crash, due to the system being effectively broken.  

He, in a classic sort of Republican way, is saying that he’s good enough that he’s okay, it doesn’t really concern him because he’s a pro and can work around it.   Maybe he’s right, but if so, why is he on the television talking about it?  Why doesn’t he just game it to his advantage?  Obviously he’s concerned, knowing that when the market goes the other way, it’s gonna plummet through the floor.  

Good times.

I’m so glad Obama is President and fixing everything!

Bill Maher: New Rule “Not everything in America has to make a profit”

   And you wonder why they fear socialism.

   

    “But Bill, the profit motive is what sustains Capitalism. Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species but we don’t try to fuck everything!”.

~snip~

   “The problem with President Obama’s health care plan is not socialism, it is capitalism.”

~snip~

   “It’s not just medicine, prisons used to be a non profit thing.”

~snip~

   “It is not a coincidence that we outsourced running prisons to private coporations and then the number of prisoners skyrocketed.”

~snip~

   “And my final example of the profit motive screwing something up that used to be good when it was non-profit . . . TV NEWS!

   I heard all the news anchors this week talk about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkites day, and I thought, ‘Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it.’ ”

   Class warfare.

   In order to make a super profit we rape the earth and enslave our fellow human beings. Can you think of ANYTHING that is Big Business that doen’t do one or the other?

   We need to PUSH BACK, YELL LOUDER, whatever it takes.

   We need to March on Washington this summer for health care if they are going to vacation while main street burns. We need to march for health care, for war crimes accountability, to audit the Fed, for many reasons.

   The status quo is not just untenable, it is KILLING US.

   We need to march for justice.

   And I will lead the way, if you will follow me.

   So, who’s coming with me?

It’s About Police Exceptionalism

I think it’s time, once again, to talk about police abuse, the violation of citizens’ rights by police officers, and their being held to a different, lower standard of conduct than other citizens.  I think that’s the core of the Henry Louis Gates arrest. And I think the commentaries that focus on the illegal arrest of Dr. Gates just as examples of racism and/or classism to the exclusion of the societal role of out-of-control police are missing the boat.  Of course, the poor, people of color, immigrants, the disenfranchised, the powerless are the usual objects of police abuse.  But the primary, ugly problem that needs to be confronted is that the police are unrestrained and repeatedly commit illegal acts with impunity.

This old post from April, 2006 makes my point far better than yet another re-hashing of the illegal arrest of Dr. Gates in his own home by Cambridge Police.  And it even goes a long way toward explaining why the offending officer has been invited to a beer at the White House rather than a deposition in a federal civil rights case in which he is the named defendant.

I am now going to take my anger out for a walk.

Dr. David McKalip: Right Wing Fiend of the Week

Why is it that every freak in America tends to gravitate to the state of Florida, the diseased penis of America? The latest example of the deranged assholes that are attracted to this goddamned state is one Dr. David McKalip who is now bathing in the tub of shit that is his ten minutes of fame for being outed as the provider of a racist picture of Barack Obama which is the one on display above. Seems that his email was intercepted and leaked to TPM Muckraker and the Orange Satan. When reached for comment by the dastardly librul media McKalip invoked the standard defense of “I am not a racist” which is right up there with Limbaugh’s “bone in the nose” or any of the rest of the cant spewed by these sort of diseased vermin. I would bet the rent that he is one of the deranged “birthers” too.

It Still Sucks

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The president sucks. I mean, he really sucks.

The last president sucked too. The next president is almost guaranteed to suck, since all presidents either suck, have sucked or will suck. Some presidents have even been sucked. Sucking is what presidents do.

The Congress sucks. They really suck. They won’t impeach him. It sucks. They won’t arrest him. That sucks too.

Nancy sucks. I don’t know why anyone would let her, but she does…

The attorney general sucks. Did suck. And will suck.

It all sucks. I mean everything sucks. All of it. It all sucks.

The war sucks. The other war sucks. The last war sucked. The next war sucks even more. Sucking is what wars do.

I mean it. It all sucks.

Now the economy sucks, too. The last economy sucked. The next economy will probably suck too. The economy has always sucked. Sucking is what the economy does.

Even girlfriends suck. All my girlfriends have all sucked. And they probably thought I sucked too. But then most boyfriends probably suck, usually.

My job sucks. probably because I don’t have one. But even the last one sucked. They all sucked. Your job probably sucks too. Or did suck. Or will suck. Sucks, huh?

Decimation Nation (pt 2 fiction-post-N1H1)

Its been a while. Remember when I wrote “The Thirteenth” shortly after the vaccine plague?

The Spring came and went dully, and the Summer has been odd. I usually love Summer, was looking forward to losing myself in the mindless meditation of the Lake’s waters. I thought it would help heal my horror and loss. The weather has been unusually cool, too cool to really be in the water. I shouldn’t complain, for truly it has been perfect in ways. Cool nights, warm days, without being too hot. Perfect growing weather. But a lot of the seeds I saved didn’t germinate, and I have nowhere near enough food stored to survive a Michigan winter.

Its more than that, its more than the stores being all closed now, its more than the few vestiges of normalcy leaching away these past months. I can’t handle being alone anymore. I just can’t.

I need to find you. I need you like air to breathe.



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Service Dogs for Vets

Sen. Franken’s Service Dog for Vets Bill Passes Senate

The Senate passed Sen. Al Franken’s first piece of legislation, a bill aimed at providing service dogs to more disabled veterans.

The Service Dogs for Veterans Act would create a pilot program within the Veterans Administration. The VA would partner with non-profit groups which train service dogs.

The bill was incorporated into the Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2010 and passed as part of the larger bill…………

Docudharma Times Saturday July 25




Saturday’s Headlines:

Obama Shifts Tone on Gates After Mulling Scale of Debate

Killing of Border Patrol agent prompts multiagency manhunt

Orthodox Jews take to streets in Jerusalem to save their simple life

Iran’s supreme leader orders sacking of vice-president

The big lie of Afghanistan

The South Korean DVD that the North loves to watch

‘Silvio’s sex life: why Italians don’t care’

Dark history still haunts Bayreuth Festival

Foreigners flee as violence reignites in South African townships

In Brazil, judge holds city accountable for stray bullets

Liberal and Conservative Democrats Feud Over Bill



By Perry Bacon Jr., Paul Kane and Ben Pershing

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, July 25, 2009


House Democrats feuded openly over health care Friday before shaking hands on a deal that guaranteed only that they would keep negotiating, wrapping up a week in which consensus on a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health-care system seemed to diminish by the day.

White House aides announced a week ago that President Obama was ready to “take the baton” for his biggest domestic campaign initiative, and indeed Obama campaigned for his proposals nearly nonstop this week, including taking an hour to make his case directly to the American public on prime-time television.

A Modest English Club Prepares Off the Beaten Path



By BILLY WITZ

Published: July 24, 2009


VENTURA, Calif. – More than 80,000 fans, among them Charlize Theron, Kevin Garnett and Will Ferrell, filled the Rose Bowl on Tuesday night, drawn by the star-studded lineups and the lion-like coaches of Chelsea and Inter Milan. It was one way to prepare for the coming European soccer season.

Another took place an hour’s drive west.

The Burnley Football Club readied itself for its first season in the English Premier League by playing a fourth-division American club on an artificial turf field covered by the lines for the Buena High School football team. The crowd was announced at 3,300. No celebrities were discernable, although Burnley’s manager, Owen Coyle, does bear a resemblance to George Clooney.

In a little more than a month, Burnley and Chelsea will play each other in London, and on Tuesday night they were separated by 67 miles. In reality, they exist in separate universes. They may, on occasion, share the same space but not the same air.

A message from Turkana-

Tomorrow (TODAY!ek), Saturday July 25, demonstrations will be held in over 105 cities, from six continents, to protest the Iranian government’s brutal crackdown, in the aftermath of the recent election. This is a cause that should unite us all, including our Republican lurkers. It is not about lobbying various governments, and it is not about lobbying our own government. It is a statement by people for the people of Iran. Click this link, to find out where and when demonstrations will be held.

From the official website:

Nobel Peace Laureates, prominent Iranian poets & artists, and many others support the global day of action: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, Sean Penn, Dariush, Jody Williams, Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Simin Behbahani, and Ismael Khoii. Dariush to Perform at DC Rally!

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

And the press release:

Human rights activists are organizing a coordinated Global Day of Action on July 25, 2009 to demand respect for the human rights of the Iranian people and to demonstrate worldwide solidarity with the civil rights movement in Iran. Major human rights organizations have sponsored the event.

Around the world, people will gather in solidarity with the Iranian people following over a month of intensified state repression against citizens peacefully demonstrating for their rights. Many have been killed in the streets, many hundreds have been beaten and injured, and at least 2,000 are thought to have been detained.

The Global Day of Action is a not affiliated with any partisan political agenda, and is aimed at securing the internationally recognized rights of the Iranian people.

The organizers believe that while political questions facing Iran can only be resolved by the Iranian people themselves, the violent repression of their internationally guaranteed human rights are of concern to people all around the world.

The global day of action is organized around the following core demands:

  • That member states and civil society organizations of the international community give sustained attention to the Iranian people’s human rights as a matter of international concern, and that the UN should immediately initiate an investigation into grave and systematic human rights violations in Iran, including the fate of prisoners and disappeared persons, unlawful killings, and torture and other ill-treatment;
  • An end to state-sponsored violence, accountability for crimes committed and no recourse to the death penalty;
  • The immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience, including politicians, journalists, students, and civil society activists; and
  • Freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of expression (including freedom of the press) as guaranteed by the Iranian constitution and Iran’s obligations under international covenants that it has signed.

Who are the volunteers coordinating this action?

United4Iran is a non-partisan collaborative of individuals and human rights organizations. United4Iran does not promote any political agenda; our only aim is to support the people of Iran in their struggle for democracy and freedom.

We came together to organize a Global Day of Action on July 25th so the citizens of the world can stand together for:

  • Civil and human rights for the people of Iran;
  • Stopping the abuse of power-the imprisonment, torture and killing?.
  • Solidarity with the Iranian people.

To our Iranian brothers and sisters: We have heard your voices, and you are not alone.

Follow the updates on Twitter.

Download rally toolkits.

Download press toolkits and media guides.

Download posters, flyers, logos, and banners.

But most importantly, if you will be near any of the cities where demonstrations will take place, show up, and let your voice be heard!

On Respect, Or, How To Avoid Mispronounciation

For today’s story, we will travel far afield from the typical domains of politics or science or law that have so often provoked our thinking into an often overlooked area of human relations:

To which gender do you belong?

It’s a simple question, or so common sense would tell us-either you’re male, or you’re female.

As it turns out, things aren’t quite so simple, and in today’s conversation we’ll consider this issue in a larger way. By the time we’re done, not only will we learn a thing or two about sex and gender and sexuality, we’ll also learn how to offer a community of people a level of respect that they often find difficult to obtain.

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