August 12, 2010 archive

Constructive Criticism

Simulposted at Daily Kos,  and soon to be at Antemedius, maybe!

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Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for all you have accomplished in your time in office. I sincerely appreciate all of the many ways you are different than George Bush. Your wife and children are beautiful and vivacious and a pleasure to watch and in Michelle’s case, listen to. And by the way, that tie really brings out the color of your eyes, and the salt and pepper hair thing is looking pretty darn good on you!

Thank you for protecting us from Canadian health care and those that would close the pentagon. I am heartened to see that you are keeping your elbow tucked in when you elevate for the three-pointer. Bo looks like he is growing up nicely and you must be feeding him well, you can see it in the sheen on his coat.

Back to the Future in Iraq


Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Babakir Zebari, US Lieutenant General Michael Barbero, and unidentified Blackwater bodyguard-zombie-cannibal

Iraq’s Top General Says US Army Must Remain Until 2020

“If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020.”

Ready for what?

King Kong

But Reuters military analyst Adil al-Azawi actually answered that question.

“The statement of Lieutenant General Babakir Zebari is professional and has a high degree of credibility,” said Azawi, a former army colonel. “The Iraqi army does not have even 20 percent of the arms of the armies of neighboring countries.”

For example, Iraq has ordered 140 Abrams tanks but got its first shipment of 11 just recently.

So apparently the the ultimate outcome of US intervention in Iraq after ten more years will be replacing Saddam’s rust-bucket army and Soviet-era tanks with a state-of-the art miltary establishment capable of defending itself or attacking neighboring countries…

…like Kuwait, and that brings us back to our future of endless idiocy and senseless wars.

 

Obama Admin Gives BP Oily Reacharound

Unfortunately for the Obamapologists, they have no way to pin this scandal on Congress or the three-headed monster of Bush-Palin-Nader. Here is Obama, the chief executive of this republic, allowing BP to dictate the rule of law to citizens of our country.

We all knew Obama would let BP escape responsibility, all they had to do was wait out the news cycles until the media found a new shiny thing. Then Obama would let BP give the country an oily reacharound until the situation in the gulf climaxed and public interest went limp.

Now BP dictates the law to Obama, and Obama lets them, because he is totally complicit in this ecological doomsday:

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw….

Linda Hooper-Bui, Louisiana State University Department of Entomology Associate Professor, writes in The Scientist, “My PhD student’s ant samples were taken away by a US Fish and Wildlife officer at a publicly accessible state Wildlife Management Area because our project hadn’t been approved by Incident Command.

What is the Incident Command? Hooper-Bui continues, “[It’s] also called the Deepwater Horizon Response Unified Command – which is a joint program of BP and federal agencies, such as the Coast Guard…”

She shares another similar experience, “Where our research trip was halted after driving more than 150 miles to a study site. On the way to our sampling sites in Grand Isle, LA, [we] were turned away by a sheriff’s deputy blocking the road who said that he was told to allow no one who wasn’t associated with BP or NRDA.” The NRDA (National Resource Damage Assessment) process “is overseen by state, tribal and federal science agencies and is partially funded by BP.”

There you go, Obama is just limp against BP and their corporate interest, not believing he can change something as basic as corporate accountability.

Instead he is doing something Dick Cheney and George W Bush never even dreamed of, he put rule of law and public land under direct corporate control.

I await the Obamapoligists full-throated rebuttal of this oily reacharound by BP by the Obama administration.

Profound Open Thread

One thing to keep in mind when on some big unnamed blogs:

Never argue with an idiot…

People watching may not be able

to tell the difference.

News at Noon

From Reuters

GM posts largest quarterly profit since 2004

By David Bailey and Kevin Krolicki

August 12, 2010

(Reuters) – General Motors Co posted its biggest quarterly profit in six years on Thursday, a day ahead of an expected IPO filing that will clear the way for the U.S. government to relinquish its majority stake in the top U.S. automaker.

GM reported second-quarter net earnings of $1.3 billion, compared with $865 million in the first quarter.

The second-quarter profit was the largest since 2004, when the U.S. auto market was still booming with annual sales of near 17 million vehicles and GM’s brands accounted for more than one in four purchases of new cars and trucks.

Gibbs the Mugger

So who is this Robert Gibbs, this Obama appointee who hates progressives (many to choose from there I know), this hippie puncher who is incensed that We The People would, you know, complain about being sold out on every serious progressive promise made by Obama during his 2008 snow-job of an election campaign?

I spent the first month after the 2008 election in shock over Rham-the-Blue-Shit, Geithner-the-bankster, and Summers-the-misogynistic-apologist-for-corporate-criminals.  Robert Gibbs wasn’t particularly noticed; I just assumed Obama would appoint, for his spokesperson at least, someone who would at least have some sympathy for the people (like me) who maxed out campaign donations, worked for his election, and celebrated long into the night when “we” succeeded.  

I never dreamed that he’d made as the voice of his “progressive” Administration one of the sorriest of the Clintonian Blue Shits, a progress hater who’d turn the nation over to the criminal banksters and thieving Cayman-Island-sheltered corporatists–and one who was instrumental in the elimination of the 2004 Presidential candidacy of Howard Dean.

Docudharma Times Thursday August 12




Thursday’s Headlines:

Chinese Hospitals Are Battlegrounds of Discontent>

Program joins Palestinians and Israelis as interns in the District

USA

Debts Rise, and Go Unpaid, as Bust Erodes Home Equity

Blagojevich jurors suggest they may be deadlocked

Europe

Russians fear worst as fires reach Chernobyl fallout zone

Vatican rejects resignations of Irish bishops over child sex abuse scandal

Middle East

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani ‘confesses’ to murder on Iran state TV

US ‘on target’ to withdraw troops from Iraq despite military misgivings

Asia

Sri Lanka’s civil war inquiry is ‘eyewash’, say Tamils

Pakistan floods cause ‘huge losses’ to crops

Africa

Uganda LRA rebels ‘forcing civilians to join them’

Kigali grenade attack follow Kagame’s Rwanda election win

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

As the summer vacation ends, a new series of poems begins.  All these were written since I joined the community of bloggers in 2005 and first appeared at Cheers and Jeers.  The art work is a mixture of old and a bit newer.

An Opened Mind I


Inner Vision

Clarity

My optical sense

has deteriorated

grown cloudy and dim

as I have aged

but what I perceive

through my moral

and ethical lenses

has become crystal

crisp and clear

It is not difficult

to join me here

and see what I see

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–January 3, 2006

Late Night Karaoke

Hi. UPDATED w/Photos. Cool ones. Really.

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                                                 = Update:  See little photo gallery below =

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 This won’t be much of an essay.  For that I apologize in advance.  I just want to say, “Hello,” yet again.  I’ve actually been around here, off and on, for a while.  Check out my user ID number.  You’ll see that I’ve been around for a couple of years.

 I live in the Deep South, am an attorney, progressive and don’t suffer fools very well.  If you’ll allow me to sound like an utter kiss-up, that’s one of the reasons I seem to always gravitate back to this spot — so few (none, really . . . not that I know of) idiots.  

 It’s this site’s founder’s edict (a righteous and proper one at that) that we not insult The Orange.  I have no desire to insult The Orange.  In fact, I find about 75% of Orange posters to be just aces.  Great folks.  Lots of smarts and insight.  But the Big Wigs of The Orange (with a few notable exceptions), well, if you can’t say something good about someone . . .

 I’m also something of an Asiaphile.  Particularly Japan.  I wouldn’t shun a trip to Scandinavia or Spain, though.  Here’s my just-for-fun website, LetsJapan.Wordpress.Com.  Several of you already know about it, about me.  I’m thinking many of you don’t.  Please, visit.  Check out the Galleries, the (non-fiction) Stories, the Front Page posts (going back to May of last year).  

             

             Friends.  Kyoto.  May 30, 2010.

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 So, I’m back here after a hiatus.  I’m done with Orange.  Email me if you wish and I’ll go into the gory details.  I hope you’ll welcome me back as a prodigal blogger.  

 Oh, and Robert Gibbs is a tool.

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Update.  Since I have y’all’s attention for a little while longer, I thought it’d behoove me to share a few more photos with you.  In May (about 2 and 1/2 months ago) I took/lead/guided a group of MBA students from a nearby university through Japan, well, Tokyo, Kyoto, into Osaka for a ballgame, Nara…  A few more photos from that trip (the one above was taken in Kyoto on our last full day there), making their premier here at Docudharma.  Enjoy.

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           Harajuku, Tokyo.  May 2010.

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           On the Yamanote Line, Tokyo.  May 2010.

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           Shinagawa Station, Tokyo.  May 2010.

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           End of the Day.  Salaryman.  Tokyo.  May 2010.

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           DaiKichi Yakitori. Settling-up the Bill. Kyoto.  May 2010.

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 For (lots) more photos from Japan (and India and China), please visit my just-for-fun site/blog:   LetsJapan.Wordpress.Com, and my photos-only page, PhotoHai.Wordpress.Com.  And, of course, feel free to share the links.  Over at LetsJapan.Wordpress.Com there’s all kinds of eclectica on Japan — front page essays, non-fiction stories, etc.

 All the best and, again, I hope you enjoy.

 

Game On.

Okay then.

Gibbs re-affirms today that this WH is at war with The Left.  He didn’t ‘misspeak’, it wasn’t a faux pas or a moment of frustration. The man is a professional wordsmith, message-crafter and spin master. He meant it, every word. No apologies, no remorse, no walking it back. No shame.

I get it. I get the message loud and clear.

“I don’t think [liberal voters won’t show up],” he said, “because I think what’s at stake in November is too important to do that.”

Oh really?

Watch. my. dust.

Greenpeace Will Investigate Oil Spill

MIAMI – Environmental watchdog Greenpeace on Wednesday announced the launch of a three-month expedition on which researchers will analyze the impact of the massive BP oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.

A Greenpeace ship sets sail Thursday from Saint Petersburg, Florida, and will tour the southern tip of Florida and its Keys before heading northward to the area of the failed oil well.

“From the very start, the full scope of the Gulf oil disaster has been obscured by BP and even our own government,” said John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director.

“The largest accidental oil spill in history and the unprecedented use of chemical dispersants will impact Gulf marine life for years to come, and independent research is critical to ensure that BP is not allowed to hide what they have done or walk away from their responsibilities,” he argued.

The ship MY Arctic Sunrise will “host independent scientists who will be researching the impacts of oil and chemical dispersants on Gulf ecosystems and marine life,” Hocevar said.

Scientists will look at the ecosystem as a whole from plankton on the surface to coral reefs and other life as well as the gulf floor.

BP is setting up a 20 billion-dollar fund to compensate those hurt by the disaster, in which 4.1 million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico before BP last week fully capped the ruptured underground well.

AFP

http://www.google.com/hostedne…

This will be worth keeping a sharp eye on over the next 6 months. I’ve seen the Greenpeace toxics/ research teams at work–they know what they’re doing, and put a real effort into finding out the truth of a situation.  

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