November 2009 archive

Twenty Thousand Years of Memory 20091127

I mentioned the memory thing.  That is the strangest, other than living for so long, thing.  Those of us who have been given the gift hold memories, or at least fragments of them, from our predecessors.

I have not been specific about how this gift is transferred, but suffice it to say that it is nothing like a “bite on the neck” that does it.  I requires hours of extremely intimate contact, some, but not all of it, sexual.

DISTRACTIONS

I`ll start this weeks “Distraction” with tonight`s  sunset.

It seems appropriate for Black Friday, something I know most of you never bought into.

The rest of the images are from this past week.

They are from my house, on my street, & where I work.

I hope these are distraction enough to take your worries away, if only momentarily.

You may always cheat a little & look at them a little longer than momentarily.

I hope you all have something in your life you are thankful for.

TONIGHT`S MALIBU SUNSET

(8 image composite)

2X4 MERGED

 

Spill O’Reilly

(Cross-posted from The Free Speech Zone)

The Week in Health and Fitness

Welcome to this weeks review of important Health, Fitness and Nutrition news. I have been posting the links to articles about health, fitness and nutrition, along with healthy recipes in ek hornbeck’s daily news round up. Since life is now making greater demands on my time both on and off line, I thought a weekly separate essay at the end of the week would be a good idea. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile.

I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

Now that the big food day is over, I’ll add healthy recipes at the end of the essay.

Be Healthy. Be Safe  

Ireland’s public sector strike day: Crocodile tears won’t stem the tide

Original article, by Séamus Loughlin, via Socialist Appeal (UK):

Ireland: Well over 250,000 Irish workers in the public sector were on strike on the 24th of this month. There would have been many more, but the unions guaranteed emergency cover including flood relief in the west, the midlands and the Shannon area and in Cork City. It’s a feature of every major strike, not just here, but throughout the world, that the well fed representatives of the bourgeois and particularly the mean spirited and greedy petty bourgeois attempt to criticise and attack the worker’s movement. These fine gentlemen and ladies are always the first to reach for the box of tissues as they weep crocodile tears about the poor and the vulnerable who they claim (wringing their hands in woe) are being let down by the strikers. The fact that the government have been slashing and burning public services for the last year and attacking the vulnerable seems conveniently to have been forgotten.

Iraq War Inquiry, Day Four

This Inquiry is confirming, though already done but not all by the spoken words of the participants, what went on especially behind the closed doors and placing it with what’s already been into the public realm. No hiding in todays world, especially when the little notes come forward like a puzzles small pieces! It’s easier to keep silent if nobodies asking any questions, but there are to many involved that when questions are asked, recorded into record and on film, it’s the little parts of the answers that ring out.

Like it was really interesting the other day to find out that Iraq was forth on the Brits list of worry, Libya was first, and who’s the United States new good buddy now, why Libya, as made so by the cheney/bush duo!! Then yesterday in the immediate hours of 9/11, while no one knew where the bush was, and the rest should have been really worried about the people of this Country, they represented, and monitoring the devastation that occurred coordinating with others as to the needs etc., Condi was already saying it was al Qaeda {she must have paid attention? to the Clinton people? and read the Intel reports?, maybe} but also started wondering if Saddam had anything to do with these hijackings and devestating plane crashes! She would have also known that the Intel had him as not a friend or allie  of bin Laden nor al Qaeda!  

Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

Now with World and U.S. News.  42 Story Final.

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Dubai debt scare rattles world markets

AFP

1 hr 20 mins ago

NEW YORK (AFP) – US stock markets tumbled on Friday as fears of debt defaults bred fresh concern for the world economy, while Europe shares recovered slightly from Dubai’s shock request to suspend major loan repayments.

Investors had “headed for the exit door” after the Dubai government’s investment vehicle Dubai World sought to suspend debt payments for six months, IG Markets analyst Ben Potter said.

The price of oil slumped to a seven-week low point close to 72 dollars and the dollar struck a 14-year low against the yen.

Obama: Accomplished leader or corporate shill?

The wandering eye of media-based attention over at Orange seems to have opened its focus upon the accomplishments (or lack thereof) of President Barack Obama.  Whereas some on this blog would trumpet 90 accomplishments of President Obama which the media fail to report (*media* being a plural noun), others would emphasize Obama’s failure to elicit change on the big-ticket items.  Whatever this diary is, it’s not an attempt to substitute the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down for sober evaluation.  You’ll have to read it to find out its thrilling conclusion.

(originally written for the wandering eyes over at Orange)

Top Ten Reasons: NOT to Trust Wall Street

also posted on dkos

Wall Street is sick. And its illness is Unchecked Greed. … The bug is call OPM.

Their fever has risen so dangerously high, that the Wizards of Wall Street, the Captains of Industry, for the most part see your assets as their “playing chips”.

Your Money, is their Bread and Butter.

Exploiting and Levering OPM (Other People’s Money) is the key to their  Extreme Wealth.

This contagion on Wall Street has reached such a point, that one of those “Captains of Industry” has been speaking out against it.  He has been working to “right the ship” of speculative, reckless investing, using our OPM, as the collateral.

Jack C. Bogle, founder and CEO of the Vanguard Group, is one of those “old school” investors — you know, that we should beinvesting in a better future“, NOT just a “better bank account“.

Jack has listed the symptoms of this wide spread illness — NOW if only we could find some “Doctors” wise enough to quarantine the Damage …

The Damage unregulated greed has done … before they try to “go for broke” AGAIN …

 

Open Sea

Photobucket

Black Friday: a pale, shallow and thoroughly corrupted imitation

“The holidays bring people together,” echoed Amanda Kindler, a 17-year-old from Dix Hills, who made two new friends while on line for two hours. “We’re bonding.”

1 of 4 Afghan Combat Troops Went AWOL or Quit

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) recently released figures that show 1 out of 4 Afghan combat troops went AWOL or quit in the year ending in September. Desertion rates are so high and retention rates so low that Gen. McChrystal’s plans to build up the Afghan National Army (ANA) to replace American troops for Afghan security will not work, if the trends continue, because the ANA can get barely enough recruits to replace the losses. Making matters even worse, the loss rate is accelerating while the growth of the ANA is slowing. Moreover, A U.S. GAO report showed the ANA has a 19% absenteeism rate, leaving just 26,000 troops available for combat.

To fight this growing problem the DoD changed accounting procedures in September 2008. Formerly, only troops that were trained and assigned to a unit were counted. Now everyone, including green recruits, is included in the overall strength figures.

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