March 10, 2010 archive

Wednesday Morning Science Supplement

Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Science

1 Curious whales give boost to Mexican fishermen

by Sophie Nicholson, AFP

Wed Mar 10, 1:20 am ET

SAN IGNACIO, Mexico (AFP) – When the massive, barnacle-spotted head of a Pacific gray whale slid alongside Pachico Mayoral’s wooden boat, he nervously reached out to touch it.

Like other fishermen, he usually beat his boat with a stick to try to frighten the giant mammals away, but for once he hesitated.

“The whale insisted, going from one side of the boat to the other, and at one point I was curious and, very gently, I stroked the whale’s face. And nothing happened. It stayed calm,” Mayoral said, driving a boat of tourists across the San Ignacio lagoon some 40 years later.

Quiet Storms

Four score and twenty betrayals ago, when Barack Obama was posturing as a transformational leader, when he was promising government of the people, by the people, and for the people, he spoke of the core values progressives have always believed in as the solution to America’s problems . . .  

That spirit of looking out for one another, that core value that says I am my brothers keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, that spirit is most evident during times of great hardship, but that spirit can’t just be restricted to moments of great catastrophe.  Because as I stand here and look out at the thousands of folks who have gathered here today, I know that there’s some folks who are going through their own quiet storms.

Hurricane Ike had just hit the gulf coast of Texas, Wall Street was about to implode, the foundations of the economy were crumbling, Americans everywhere were losing their jobs, their homes, their last remnants of trust in the government . . .

All across America there are quiet storms taking place.  There are lives of quiet desperation. People who need just a little bit of help.  Now, Americans are a self-reliant people, we’re an independent people.  We don’t like asking somebody else to do what we can do ourselves, but you know what we understand is that every once in awhile, somebody’s going to get knocked down.

Every once in awhile . . .

Yes, and every once in awhile, the sun comes up.  Then, every once in awhile, it goes down again.  

Low income Americans get knocked down every day, middle class Americans get knocked down every day, seniors on fixed incomes get knocked down every day.  Republicans knocked them down for 30 years, and now Barack Obama and that gang of corporate enforcers that used to be the Democratic Party are doing it.  A punch in the face is a punch in the face.  Analyze that, Beltway Republicrats.  When Americans are flat on their back all the time, they don’t give a damn whether the fist that knocked them down was a Republican fist or a Democratic fist.  A corporate fist is a corporate fist.  Whistle past that graveyard, Obamabots.  Have an “ideologue” diary contest, fill that wreck list of yours with “ideologue” ravings and let’s all see who can clap the loudest.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning


Wings 7

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Dva…

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning


Wings 5

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Another…

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

The REAL, dastardly fixers behind the Coffee Party

I thought that an answer I posted to in a diary I started, called Coffee Party Hits 100,000 members, deserved it’s own diary. IMO, over-consumption of blogs actually prevents action. Also, most of the most important activism (such as peace activism) never seems to accomplish much of anything. So, even when action is attempted (in preference to endless arguments and opinionating on blogs), the actions tend to be a complete FAIL – except in the spiritual sense.

There needs to be more thinking about what I have called democratic efficiency (small ‘d’ democratic; nothing to do with the Democratic Party, per se). To that end, I am posting my tongue-in-cheek theory, hoping to expose superficial thinking which would obscure the sorts of analyses, research, and (frankly) democratic experimentation that we should be eagerly pursuing.

It’s not Conspiracy; It’s Collusion

“Remember the Maine!”

That was the slogan used by William Randolph Hearst and The New York Journal to stoke American public opinion into war with Spain after the U.S.S. Maine sunk in Cuban waters in 1898.  However, Hearst started in the publishing business in 1887, when he took over the San Francisco Examiner.

William Randolph Hearst bought the failing New York Journal in 1896.  His sensational journalism style, now called “yellow journalism”, drove the failing paper to prominence.  While there is no historical evidence of collusion between the government and the Journal to get public support for the war, and, in fact, the government wanted no part of going to war with Spain, there is plenty of evidence that there was collusion later.  After spending time in the House of Representatives from 1903-1907, Hearst started several new papers in various cities with the help of the Democratic National Party in the 1920’s.

The story of William Randolph Hearst is now history, but, history has a way of repeating itself.  You see, Hearst saw profit in the Cuban revolt that occurred in 1895 and had been selling papers for years sensationalizing the Ten Years War in Cuba.

War meant selling papers and that meant profit.

For Your Consideration: War Crimes Continued

Anybody remember this?

Monday, April 14, 2008 Obama would ask his AG to “immediately review” potential of crimes in Bush White House

Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to “immediately review the information that’s already there” and determine if an inquiry is warranted — but he also tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun as “a partisan witch hunt.” However, he said that equation changes if there was willful criminality, because “nobody is above the law.”

The question was inspired by a recent report by ABC News, confirmed by the Associated Press, that high-level officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell, John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, met in the White House and discussed the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques on terrorism suspects.

Or this

Turley: Obama ‘owns’ Bush ‘war crimes’ if he looks the other way

David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Raw Story

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

President George W. Bush’s offhand acknowledgement in an interview Sunday with Fox’s Brit Hume that he personally authorized the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed may create thorny legal and moral problems for incoming President Barack Obama.

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Monday, “We now have President Bush speaking quite candidly that he was in the loop, we have Dick Cheney who almost bragged about it. The question for Barack Obama is whether he wants to own part of this by looking the other way.”

Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, “We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn’t mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation’s going to be to move forward.”

All most bragged about it? How about admitted it. Not only did the media “yawn”, so did the Obama and the Justice Department

Overnight Caption Contest

Civility and reason to you, friends!

Oh man I just had the most horrible dream!  You see I went to this diary, wherein I was told, join, join, join them, and you can change it.  Learn the joys of coffee… then I went to this facebook page…..

Then I found myself somehow whisked to this town.  It was a strange town where people wore these strange clothes, like it was the 1800’s, but underneath the 19th century duds and bow ties and hats they all had on instead of a button downed white shirt and blouse, an Obama T-Shirt.

No sooner had I appeared, than a man with a vacant grin approached me.

"Civility and reason to you, friend!", said he.

“Uh, civility and reason to you!” I replied, my eyes widening at this odd greeting.

“Coffee hour approaches,” the man went on, as if in the same vein.  “What will you have?  Mocha?  Latte?  Frappucino?  Maybe a triple espresso cappucino?”

Well, I was getting a bit wigged out at the cognitive dissonance, you understand.  Little alarm bells were going off in my head, but I couldn’t place it.  “Uh, maybe some decaf?” I evaded, hoping to buy time.

"Isn’t Obama the best president evah?" The man prompted me.

“Uh, yeah, he’s great,” I answered, trying not to sweat too much.  The man nodded and walked on, seeingly forgetting he had offered me coffee.  “Coffee hour approaches,” the man mumbled, apparently to himself.  “It is the will of Obama.”

“Hey!” I shouted at the man.  He turned.  “Aren’t you supposed to be a grass roots organization?”

“Yes,” the man smiled.  “Civility and reason, and accountability, and equal justice for all.  All together in the grassroots.  Obama knows all, he sees all.  You will see.  Are you not of the body“?  Suddenly the man’s expression changed.  From vacant and pleasant to suspicious and demanding.

“Yeah, I’m of the body, dude.  Whatever you say!” I smiled back weakly, then ran.

Dallas Office Shooting Gets Very Personal 20100309

Hello, all.  This is sort of an irregular blog for me.  Except about myself, I rarely talk about other family members to protect their privacy.  However, this has been on national news, so their privacy is not very protected already.

Everyone is familiar with violence, at least on the news.  This piece affects me personally, and even though I watched some of the news feed in real time, it was after the medics had already left with the victims.

Timmy G’s two billowing puffies.

The New Yorker and The Atlantic are running twin puff pieces on how – they hate to admit it but – Timmy G saved the economy.

The New Yawker sezzie poohs:

Economists are still debating what it was that ended the financial crisis and turned the economy around. It is inarguable, though, that Geithner’s stabilization plan has proved more effective than many observers expected, this one included.

Whereas the Atlantians suggest that our fabled civilization was not destroyed by the gods for excess greed and corruption, ’cause Timmeh held back the thunderbolts with hizown chest:

Yet when the history books are written, Geithner will be recognized as Barack Obama’s key lieutenant in the struggle to right the economy and fix the finance system. Economically, Geithner’s plan has worked better and more cheaply than anyone could have imagined a year ago.

The twin, virtually interchangeable pieces appearing at the same time and having extremely similar, if not identical overall angles is prolly just a coincidence, as opposed to a controlled marketing campaign, don’tcha think?

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know they can relax.  Everything’s hunky dory now and Tim G is an elfin sizzle chest whose athleticism “inspires an adolescent awe in male colleagues.”

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