August 2, 2010 archive

ebt

Thadius Lindahl

case # 1B27J13

SS # 550-33-5081

To Status Report Group

I was recently sent a letter stating that my benefits were cut due to a change on my response form. The confusion seems to be about contributions from a web site, when I contacted a worker regarding this he asked me to clarify the situation re the amount of donations.

The donations I receive are voluntary. They come from the web sites readers and fluctuate from month to month. They cannot be predicted, and have been falling steadily as the economy has worsened. It is quite possible they will dry up completely in the near future as the web site is also losing readers, and thus contributors.

Last month there were no contributions, and so that is what I listed on the response form in question. So far this month there have been no contributions as well.

I hope that clears up the confusion and I am eager to resolve this issue.

DREAM Now Letters: Tania Unzueta

The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service.  With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Tania Unzueta and I’m undocumented.

I have lived in Chicago since I was 10 years old. I came with my mother to join my father, who had found a stable job and a promise to legalize his status. Eventually our tourist visas ran out, and my family became undocumented.

Open Castle

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Afghan War Logs: what did we learn?

The subject title is the one from a Guardian report one of the participants in the Wikileaks document dump and explanations of.

In this first blockquote, and if in the U.S., think of all that you’ve read or especially heard since the three outlets, the Guardian where this comes from being one, helped bring out what the online Wikileaks had obtained and posted simultaneously.


One disappointed paper deliberately provided the Taliban with a to-do list: it drew their attention to specific Wikileaks documents they might inspect in order to take reprisals. The low point was perhaps reached by Channel 4 News, which respectfully quoted a “spokesman” for the bearded murderers, as he uttered promises of revenge on alleged informants. It felt like PR for the Taliban.

“Accentuating the Positive” in Iraq

When gunmen ambushed Iraqi security checkpoints in a large Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad last Thursday, terrorized residents said the attack reminded them of the worst days of the war. The United States military said it was unaware of any gunfighting.

On Sunday, when The Associated Press reported that July was the worst month for Iraqi casualties in more than two years, the United States military denied it. Yes, Iraqis are still dying, the American command said, but in strikingly fewer numbers than Iraqi government ministries have told the news media.

As American forces exit Iraq, with only 50,000 to remain by the end of this month and all to be withdrawn in a year, the American military command is accentuating the positive.

 

News at Noon

From Reuters

BP chief Dudley to visit Russia

By Tom Bergin

August 2, 2010

(Reuters) – BP Plc Chief Executive-designate Bob Dudley will fly to Moscow this week to meet government officials and partners in the oil company’s Russian venture — his first visit since fleeing the country in 2008.

The visit comes as the oil giant prepares to plug its blown out Gulf of Mexico well for good on Monday.

When he left Russia in 2008, Dudley said he had been forced out under a campaign of harassment by billionaire partners in the TNK-BP joint venture of which he was CEO.

Related Stories

BP to set aside $100 million for unemployed rig workers

Singapore ex-BP employees seek to set aside search order

How We Will Fix This: Undoing Citizens United Part 3

cross-posted from Sum of Change

This is our last round of videos from the Netroots Nation panel, Undoing Citizens United: A Comprehensive Plan to Prevent Corporations from Buying Elections (here is part 1, and part 2). Today, we are going to focus mostly on how to move forward. But first, some inspiration from Congresswoman Donna Edwards:

What’s Your Favourite …?

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Gleaning: Bringing in the Sheaves

With so many people still out of work and depending upon unemployment benefits, I thought I might briefly explore one particularly ancient safety net program.  Republicans believe that welfare in any form swells the deficit and creates a system of entitlement, but I disagree.  Pointing back to the Bible, as I so often do, I’d like to discuss the particulars and modern day application of a very ancient custom.  Those who are up in arms about the very thought of welfare might benefit from a different means of framing the issue.

Don’t Forget To Remember


Samadhi and the God-laugh of creation

         I found myself one night sitting back with my eyes closed and witnessing what I could never truly describe but what I can best suggest as the dynamic, uncreated, convulsing, primordial energy of the universe; the fiery, orgiastic rippling cauldron of molten prima materia, cascading about within me, and then pouring out into the world as form; and it was upon opening my eyes that I recognized what I had never conceived as plausible- that I was carrying within myself this living, undulating, cosmic clay which I was projecting out and thus manufacturing the world; which is to say, I knew then that …I was God, and that we are all God, effortlessly producing a world yet without a clue of how we are doing it. I was making everything that night. The whole thing. That is, I was making the world, but not the I who the world thought I was, not even the nobody who I was, but the I which lives before the me in all of us; the original self, casting out the glowing, red, swirling energy of creation, out of the core, out of the mind of God, out into the realm of form, figure, and content.

         And let me tell you I was laughing. I was laughing a laugh I had never laughed before in my life. I was laughing God’s laugh- the God-laugh which has never known care, nor worry, nor entrapment; the God-laugh which sprays out the universe from the immanent, infinite, incomprehensible bliss of formless consciousness; the great, emancipating God-laugh of hilarious nonexpectation, disbelief, and ambitionless wonder at the impossibility and unavoidable realization that I, God, was creating the miracle of creation.

The Broken Window Fallacy

Docudharma Times Monday August 2




Monday’s Headlines:

A Benchmark of Progress, Electrical Grid Fails Iraqis

Five millennia on, Iceman of Bolzano gives up DNA secrets

USA

BP aims to plug gulf oil well for good with two-pronged ‘kill’ shot

Arizona was once tolerant of illegal immigrants. What happened?

Europe

Girl risks death by lying between rail tracks as train speeds over her

Greek truckers drop seven-day strike, handing victory to Athens’ reforms

Middle East

Twenty years on, shockwaves of Kuwait invasion are still felt in Middle East

Rockets hit Israeli resort of Eilat and Jordan’s Aqaba

Asia

Pakistan floods death toll rises to 1,100

Chairman Mao’s grandson becomes Chinese army general

Africa

Vote on constitution set to challenge Kenya’s ‘poisoned’ tribal politics

Thousands flee Congo clashes, security worsens

Latin America

Many Haitians still homeless more than six months after quake

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