August 2009 archive

Aug 31 2009

Docudharma Times Monday August 31

Environmentalists Slow to Adjust in Climate Debate

Opponents Seize Initiative as Senate Bill Nears

By David A. Fahrenthold

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, August 31, 2009

ATHENS, Ohio — The oil lobby was sponsoring rallies with free lunches, free concerts and speeches warning that a climate-change bill could ravage the U.S. economy.

Professional “campaigners” hired by the coal industry were giving away T-shirts praising coal-fired power.

But when environmentalists showed up in this college town — closer than ever to congressional passage of a climate-change bill, in the middle of the green movement’s biggest political test in a generation — they provided . . . a sedate panel discussion.

An American Icon Arrives In India With a Rumble

Harley-Davidson Will Try to Crack Country’s Huge Market

By Rama Lakshmi

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, August 31, 2009

NEW DELHI, Aug. 30 — Twenty-five Harley-Davidsons rumbled through the heart of the rain-drenched Indian capital Sunday, aggressively announcing the arrival of the legendary U.S. company in one of the world’s largest motorcycle markets.

The American motorcycle’s long-awaited journey to India was enabled by what has come to be called the “mango-motorcycle swap” in 2007 trade negotiations, when the United States decided to allow Indian mangoes to be imported in return for the export of Harley-Davidsons.

As the engines settled into idle, onlookers milled around the black-jacketed bikers and their machines, which were set against the backdrop of India Gate, a magnificent, British-built arch commemorating Indian soldiers who died in World War I.

Aug 31 2009

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry IV

Art Link

Purple Chasm

Suspended

I was too afraid to release

the life I had, feeling like

I would surely plunge

into the abyss if I did.

Eventually I found

I had nothing to lose,

that maybe the abyss

was where I belonged

So I disentangled myself

from that former existence

and found that I was hanging

inches from solid ground

Ain’t that a bite in the ass.

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–October 31, 2005

Aug 31 2009

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Aug 31 2009

NBC “news” hires Jenna Bush as “correspondent”

NBC has just hired this person, who is expressing her opinion of the media for which she will now be working:

Yup, you got that right, it’s Jenna Bush, now a budding “Washington-based correspondent” for NBC “news”.  

Maybe they need someone to give a story on where you can best get blink-stinking-drunk in Washington D.C.:

I guess it’s GE’s attempt to curry favor with the Bush family, a family who allowed GE to add billions of dollars to its bottom line by declaring an endless, massive, completely illegal war back in 2003.    GE’s annual report said that the Iraq War was going to be worth several billion dollars to its bottom line.  And that was before the war really even got going!

So the favor is returned, and the spoiled little brat gets a plum gig with Daddy’s friends.

Aug 31 2009

A Third Party is the only way

It’s not that the information in this essay is wrong, because it isn’t wrong.  It’s that the information is provided in a “if you think it’s so easy, think again, so, you may as well quit thinking about it and support the Democratic Party” context.

Nobody thinks it will be easy.  Nobody believes that it will cure the ills facing our government overnight.  In fact, it probably won’t change a thing for a decade, maybe even two.

But, given the current situation of our government, a third political party is the only choice.

Aug 31 2009

Pique the Geek 20090830. The Things that we Eat: Non-Nutritive Sweeteners

Hello, folks.  Here is another installment regarding the things that we eat.  Remember, I am a trained expert in the field (I used to head one the few “Megalabs” for FDA) so I know of what I speak.  This time we will talk about non-nutritive sweeteners since we all use them from time to time, even if we do not know it.

I was going to talk about the drugs that Michael Jackson took before he died a short time ago, but the information is still dribbling out from the Coroner’s office, and I want the whole story before I add my opinion about it.  But be assured that I will weigh in when the story is out in the open.

Aug 31 2009

Considered Forthwith: Conference Committees

Welcome to the 20th installment of “Considered Forthwith.”

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week’s entry is a little different than usual. With Congress out of session until Sept. 8, there is not much going on in the standing committees. When they do get back, there will be a ton of work to get done, not the least of which will be a health care reform bill and a climate change bill. There are also 13 appropriations bills to handle. Everyone of these will certainly end up in a conference committee. This seems an opportune time to discuss that process.

Aug 31 2009

AARP Wants My Story

Came out of the closet and went to Eurotrib for this one

Well here it is.

Now let me state flat out who I am.  I am a 55 year old white American suburban father of three.  I had a private pilot license, was a Boy Scout, paid my taxes, worked hard and minded my own business holding mostly to the creed of live and let live.  I worked for a global company productively and contributed to three patents and two trade secret awards.  I used to be “normal”.  Please excuse my seemingly incoherent rage as I attempt to illustrate the profanity which currently passes here surrounding health care and the health care debate.  

Aug 30 2009

Freeing Peltier: Ben Carnes to Fast in Hopes of Meeting Obama

Since Obama was willing to have a beer with a professor and an officer of the law over racial issues, why then shouldn’t he meet with Ben Carnes to discuss freeing Leonard Peltier?


Source

As a result of Leonard Peltier’s recent PAROLE DENIAL, Sundance Chief Ben Carnes, a member of the Choctaw Nation, will go to Washington, D.C.to stand & Fast in front of the White House between September 5 – 12, 2009, in hopes of securing a meeting with President Obama.

I’ve been thinking about how and when Obama could pull it off, and use it as a distraction to pass the Public Option in Health Care.

Aug 30 2009

WWJD about Health Care? aka. Where are the Good Samaritans?

What would Jesus Do about Health Care?

Good Question.

Well it sounds, like he understood how Sick People need Doctors:

Mark 2:17 GWT

When Jesus heard that, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor; those who are sick do. I’ve come to call sinners, not people who think they have God’s approval.”

(emphasis added)

GOP Health Care Obstructionists, are you Listening???

The Pharisees, thought they were doing God’s work too.

Imagine their surprise when this upstart Carpenter, from the old neighborhood, dared to stand up to their blatant self-righteousness … and dish back to them some cold, hard truth …

Aug 30 2009

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Japan Democrats win landslide in historic election

By Linda Sieg and Chisa Fujioka, Reuters

2 hrs 56 mins ago

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese voters swept the opposition to a historic victory in an election on Sunday, ousting the ruling conservative party and handing the untested Democrats the job of breathing life into a struggling economy.

The win by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ended a half-century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and breaks a deadlock in parliament, ushering in a government that has promised to focus spending on consumers, cut wasteful budget outlays and reduce the power of bureaucrats.

“The people are angry with politics now and the ruling coalition. We felt a great sense of people wanting change for their livelihoods and we fought this election for a change in government,” said Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama, 62.

Aug 30 2009

Obama may not deploy Bush’s missile defense in Poland

Gazeta Wyborcza is reporting the Obama administration will not implement the Bush administration’s plan for a missile “shield” in Eastern Europe.  “The missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic are virtually certain to be abandoned“.

The Polish newspaper names Washington lobbyist Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance, as its source. “The signals that the generals in the Pentagon are sending are absolutely clear: as far as missile defence is concerned, the current US administration is searching for other solutions than the previously bases in Poland and the Czech Republic,” Ellison said.

“The administration has been sounding out for a couple of weeks now how the Congress will react when the plans for building the missile defence in Poland and the Czech Republic are dumped,” Ellison said a Congressional source has told him.

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