Jan 03 2008
… and stop worrying about who’s voting for whom in Iowa.
and who gives one shit about Nancy Pelosi and what she thinks. or why she does what she does.
you know what to worry about? who you’re voting for. your vote. and that you stop allowing the mainstream media (MSM) from agitating you into thinking that somehow Iowa will define the presidential race. or that new hampshire will.
vote. write in. do what ever you can to stop the power of those few telling the rest of us what the future will be.
Jan 03 2008
Cross posted from sanchopress.com
http://sanchopress.com/frontPa…
Over the last week YOU have aired our differences on DD. YOU have done so in a subtle and sneaky way. YOU chose this format. Because I fired YOU is why you have attacked me for a week and wrote diaries that conatined completly false and misleading information.
I said nothing over this last week of your lies, deceptions and attacks. Now you are taking MY ideas and vision and trying to get the community to help you build a site based on my thoughts and ideas. I can not stay quiet any more and the community NEEDS to know the truth.
NLOB, about a month ago you came to me when you read my essays intended to help the troops and veterans. You said they were excellent essays and you offered free services to design a web site. You said you were doing so because you could see I truly had good intentions and you wanted to be a part of it. You originally envisioned the site as strictly a military site.
I had a different vision, ideas, plans, concept, site layout, color scheme, a site in the format of a newspaper, all left & military sites in one place with humor and entertainment. Something unique and completely different on the web. MY vision was to unite the citizens of the left with the troops/military. MY vision became sanchopress.com .
I in fact, offered you a contract for a portion of the business and future proceeds of sanchopress.com which you did not want. You did not want to have to answer to anyone. This allowed you to attempt to control the direction of the project. How foolish of me. You truly do get what you pay for.
Ten days into the project we had a difference of opinion and I let you go. You had worked on the site for about ten days completely with my direction which you sometimes followed and often didn’t.
NLOB, after I let you go, the first time I held my tongue was when you posted two essays that COMPLETELY misrepresented the truth about your role in sanchopress.com, who originated the ideas, concepts, thoughts, format, layout, color scheme and more. EVERYTHING IDEA AND CONCEPT FOR SANCHOPRESS WAS MINE. We were never 50/50. You were supposed to program my ideas, concepts and visions, that was it.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
PROGRESSIVES—-IF YOU BELIEVE NLOB HAS SUPPORTED THE CAUSE, THE COMMUNITY AND ME, YOU SHOULD READ THE LINKS. READ ALL AND YOU DECIDE IF HE BETRAYED THE CAUSE, BETRAYED THE COMMUNITY AND BETRAYED ME.
NLOB, I advised you that MY GOAL AND VISION IS TO UNITE THE CITIZENS OF THE LEFT WITH THE TROOPS/MILITARY. IT WAS AND IS MY PRIMARY GOAL ON SANCHOPRESS.COM . Also, to have a one stop shop of all left blogs, military blogs, charitable organizations websites and more in a newspaper format. I wanted an entertainment section that was enjoyable and humorous and fun. The Troops/veterans are in dire need of help. They are on the fence regarding their history of voting republican.
Troops/veterans are beginning to see the right for what they truly are. Helping the troops/veterans would be doing the correct thing that the left is known for, helping those in need. We could also possibly pull them off the fence. The 2.5 million members of the military, their families and the immense numbers of vets and this total surely comes to at least 10 million possibly pulled over to the democrats. A wonderful WIN/WIN situation with immense potential to help the lives of OUR MEN AND WOMEN OF THE MILITARY AND THE VETERANS. As a veteran I speak to many troops and vets and know how appalling their circumstances are.
The first comment you made on your newest essay is below.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
*[new] the overall goal (4.00 / 2)
for this project will be to have a home page that gathers many liberal sources into one readable, enjoyable, package.
SOUND FAMILIAR?!?!?! SOUND Quite similiar to the ideas I proposed for sanchopress.com?
NLOB, you were the programmer on MY website. That was your primary role. You TRIED to do what I directed (sometimes).
After your false essays, for the second time I again said nothing when you attempted to bait me into disagreements on DD with your SIX argumentative comments (inappropriate) on one of my essays.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
I stayed quiet a third time when you made an attempt to defame me with a comment on another one of my essays.
https://www.docudharma.com/show…
On that attacking comment you were told by Buhdy himself;
Let it go buddy (4.00 / 1)
If you guys want to feud, take it to e-mail.
Please.
and your response to Buhdy was
Fine (2.50 / 2)
best of luck to the both of you
may you both prosper off of my efforts
The same type comment you made to me in an open forum (inappropriate & done several times) on sanchopress.com indicating you were quitting over an issue about copyright infringement of an article from the AP that I posted on sancho.press which I should not have done and I now know this (that night without my approval you did more work after resigning?).
Instead of using email or telephone you decided to try to make me look bad in an open forum on sanchopress.com over this copyright infringement. Was this a coincidence that this came immediately after I emailed you indicating I was not happy with your work?
Because you chose that open forum, I chose to put my foot down and told you it was my problem as owner of the domain and payer of the server. It was inappropriate to berate the owner in an open forum. I suspect it was because you wanted to get back at me for emailing you about my unhappiness with your work. Your response was
Then your on your own
.
Similiar to the one you made to Buhdy and I noted above. You told others you had to do this to stand up to me or I wouldn’t respect you. Your feelings and reasoning made you betray the cause and stop helping troops and veterans who are in a terrible situation.
You subsequently returned during that night without my asking or authorizing and did work contrary to my prior stated desires. On DD you have quit in anger and spite and ego and then returned.
I chose to let you go due to your failure to follow my instructions. Very similar (by your admission) to what happened with you and the Cindy Sheehan camp and also the John Kerry campaign. Apparently, you have difficulty with many in the cause.
One time when I commented about your past issues working with others within the cause, you listed seven prior business relationships that ended poorly and for each one you blamed the management and other members of the cause. I guess I am now number eight.
I tried every possible management, business & professional mode to work with you. You refused to be directed, follow instructions, cooperate or carry out my vision. You refused to recognize my position as owner of the domain and payer of the server. You clearly do not want anyone to tell you what to do even regarding their vision, ideas, concepts and thoughts.
After I let you go, out of spite, you deleted all the programming for the links to many sites supporting the cause. Links to military sites. Links explaining my vision to the members. Links to DD and many more progressive sites. You removed the logo that you had given to me. All betraying the cause. All because you were angry and hurt. YOU took priority over the cause and helping wounded troops with PTSD, TBI, mental health problems, divorce, spousal abuse, child abuse, homelessness, inadequate medical care, GWS and are committing suicide at the rate of 18 per day. How selfish, self absorbed, egomaniacal and narcissistic
When we were establishing sanchopress.com with all my content, ideas, format, layout, color scheme, EVERYTHING THAT WERE MY IDEAS AND VISION and we were choosing a server, you recommended soapblox instead of the wind and solar powered server I preferred. You said the wind and solar powered server was too difficult for you to work with even though I wanted it. YOU recommended we use soapblox. I purchased the domain and setup soablox as my server (as you recommended) and paid both.
Now in this essay you are bragging about using the wind and solar powered server. Because the server was too difficult when it was MY site you didn’t want to use it. Now you are using it to look good with the community and design a site almost identical to the one with MY IDEAS, called sanchopress.com. https://www.docudharma.com/show…
After your angry outburst mentioned above, then you decided to return to work with me without even talking to me. Overnite you performed work before we had even spoke about continuing to work together. In fact, the work you did was even contrary to my prior instructions. The next day you received my email asking “what are you doing” and stating that I didn’t like what you had done. You emailed me and told me to stop micromanaging and stop emailing so much. That is when I called you and said it was not going to work.
I terminated you by phone (appropriate method) and simply said, I didn’t think things were going to work out because you didn’t like my management style.
I released you from your duties at sancho.press. You had a tirade and hung up the phone on me. Immediately after, I called you three times and each time you picked up and just hung up.
I truly wished to end things amicably, maturely and like men, so I called a fourth time. You chose to pick up the fourth time, you answered long enough to attack me, make false accusations, excuses and hang up on me again.
I was going to leave it at that. You have chosen to make DD and DKos a forum to vent your hurt ego and betray the cause and the community and me. Now you are proposing to design a site nearly identical to sanchopress.com. You are even asking the community for help with those areas you are unable to do yourself. It is beneath low and slimy and sleazy.
NLOB, I attempted to work with you. I told you that you would become a paid Master Web Designer of sanchopress.com as soon as we made money. I advised you this because you had been working for free for 10 days. I sent you an email trying to pump you up and told you to keep your spirits up as you were getting frustrated with what you could not do that I was asking. You were having difficulty with soapblox. In that email, I told you that you would be paid as soon as sanchopress.com made money. I said in essence you would be a Vice President of sanchopress.com and paid before I was to be paid anything. Although, a made it clear that I was investigating the possibility of having a website audit carried out by a professional team. You can learn more here.
My PRIMARY goal was ALWAYS to unite citizens of the left with the troops/veterans who are in such a horrendous situation and it will ALWAYS be my PRIMARY goal. I had been attempting it with essays on blogs for several months before my idea for sanchopress.com and anyone who wants to check my essays here on DD and on Dkos (TKK) can verify this.
As I advised you, my business plan was to pay the front pagers and graphic designer in addition to you and anyone else who made a primary contribution to sanchopress.com.
I bought you professional business cards and other items used in the course of a normal business. Sanchopress.com is a normal business setup and since a site such as sanchopress.com (like DD and Dkos) will have income from paid advertisements when it is successful, my plan is to handle it like a corporation with paid employees. That is NOT betraying the cause or making money the priority. It is simply making a logical plan for future income, corporate structure and employee compensation.
I feel your work was mediocre and you were temperamental and uncooperative. I chose to part ways in a professional manner. You have chosen to attack, take credit for things not due you and to take the time of many within the cause because of a bruised ego.
I have a new web designer now. I spent quite some time watching video after video online about what to expect from my web designer, and I finally found a good one to hire. Unfortunately, she will not be able to start full time work on sanchopress.com immediately, as she has a REAL WEB DESIGNER BUSINESS with 87 clients around the world. I don’t believe she will steal ideas, visions, concepts, intellectual content or betray the cause. BTW, she looked at your work and said what you did in about 80hrs, she could have done in 8-10hrs.
In one of your essays you listed not emailing web designers too much as a “rule” for owners of web sites. That the owner should consolidate all into one and send it to the web designer. You said this about me even knowing my TBI (like many vets) and memory issues necessitate my immediately emailing my ideas so not to lose these thoughts.
My new web designer stated as all professional and paid designers do, “you can not email me too much, it is best way to get as much information as possible to properly carry out your vision, I will consolidate them together and weed out duplication”.
There are many different reasons a person who is supposedly a talented web designer does it for free. I have heard of web designers who work for free that are NOT because they are altruistic or want to help the cause. Sometimes web designers do it for free because they are unable to work with ANYONE. It could be that they have less talent than they say they have. Some have no choice but to work for free and only do it for their ego. Could it be that they want to appear to be helping the cause?
Because of anger, you not only attack me but you take MY ideas and propose to use some of them on your new site. You are even soliciting members of the community to help. SHAMELESS. Attempting to involve others in the community to participate in your EVIL, VINDICTIVE and COVERT plan is a true betrayal of the cause and the community.
YOU betray the cause out of anger and spite. YOU betray the cause because of a hurt ego. YOU betray the cause because of personal reasons. Sometimes you quit and run away from projects helping the cause (another betrayal) and this time you were terminated and you just can’t handle that.
This essay is a word to the wise for the community. I am a professional business person, with a unique idea and concept with which I wanted to spread any future income received by sanchopress.com to the web designer, the front pagers, a graphic designer and others while IN STEP WITH THE CAUSE. I want to use my 20+ years of successful marketing/sales/management skills to help our troops, veterans, the left, the nation.
Any claim I have made here can be backed up.
I am being attacked, antagonized and having MY VISION, IDEAS AND CONCEPTS proposed to the community by a little, little man who is not inventive enough or intelligent enough to come up with his own unique ideas and concepts, so he has to take others.
Buhdy, I am sorry. I could not keep quiet any more. I took the high road prior to this final issue. I was the bigger man for as long as I could be. I acted with dignity and professionalism. Sorry, but airing our issues in a public forum was bad enough but taking my ideas, concepts, visions, can not be tolerated and ALL the community needs to know.
Jan 03 2008
Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is demanding a special counsel with a “full investigative mandate” in the CIA destroyed tapes case, according to a press release.
Pelosi:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has also issued a statement regarding Mukasey’s announcement, describing it as “a reflection of the seriousness of these charges.” Pelosi expresses concerns similar to those of Conyers, saying that the White House “now has the burden of proving the investigation is truly independent and has appropriate reporting provisions and sufficient scope to uncover the truth.”
bolding mine
Yes Nancy, they have the burden of investigating themselves….that ALWAYS works out so well. Glad to see you are sharpening your spork in preparation for another gunfight with Bushco over their rampant criminality! This is like a bad movie.
How exactly do you expect them to fulfill “the burden of proving the investigation is truly independent”??? By actually finding that Bush authorized the CIA to use torture and then approved them covering it up by destroying evidence? Seriously?
You really expect the same guys who bought off and then pardoned Scooter Libby when Fitz got close to uncovering the Plame Treason to let that happen?
Speaker Pelosi are you REALLY going to just sit by for another entire year, no matter WHAT Bushco does? Is it THAT threatening to your position of power to just call for full and complete investigations, to DEMAND that investigations are taken out of the hands of the most corrupted Justice Department in the history of our country? To INSIST on a Special Counsel, even THA is too much for you?
Conyers again:
“The Justice Department’s record over the past seven years of sweeping the administration’s misconduct under the rug has left the American public with little confidence in the Administration’s ability to investigate itself,” adds Conyers. “Nothing less than a special counsel with a full investigative mandate will meet the tests of independence, transparency and completeness.”
Well said, John. Now if only we had a Speaker who would fight back we might be able to make some progress towards uncovering and < gasp! > prosecuting the criminals in the WH who have authorized torture….and now will investigate themselves, gosh, I wonder what their conclusion will be?
Heck, if there is even a semblance of an independent honest investigation…we might end up having have to try…..and then pardon …MORE low level functionaries so justice can be fruther obstructed!
I ask again….what will it take? What will make you wake up Speaker Pelosi? What possible circumstance needs to occur before our Speaker of the House actually moves strongly to hold a spying, torturing, war mongering President and Vice President accountable? Obstruction of Justice? Got that. Perjury from the Attorney General before Congress? Got that. Destruction of evidence that was withheld from the 9/11 Commision? Got that. Bunches of Representatives calling desperately for Impeachment investigations? Got that. Massive publis support for Impeachment? Got that.
Fuck Politics, Nancy. We are fighting for our Republic and The Rule of Law and the Constitution here…this is not about maneuvering for advantage…this is as serious as it gets. Unleash the hounds and go after these guys, no one has ever deserved it more.
What WILL it take, Speaker Pelosi? What will it take to see justice done?
.
UPDATE: As I “go to press” I find this…
Pelosi called for an international investigation into the Dec. 27 assassination of Bhutto
Insult to injury.
Jan 03 2008
Thanks for stopping in….
Hang out and chit chat for awhile… and when you’re done
check out some of the excellent offerings on our recent and rec’d list.
O & Please don’t rec the pony party, another will trot up in a few hours.(^.^)
It occured to me this morning that I’ve seen some new ‘faces’ around…
and that we’ve probably grown some since I joined in mid-September.
So I went on a search and found that the last user to join in 2007 was…
::da-da-duh-da::
… User #1111 at 4:18pmEST Wilderness wench
.
(well I bet her confirmation e-mail was at 4:20 🙂
I’d like to extend a Warm Welcome to all the …
{{{{{{New Dharmenizens}}}}}}
I’m happy you’ve found your way here!
I urge & encourage, no…. implore & entreat you to open up, join in one of the many conversations going on…
(^.^)We’d like to get to know you!
Please ask questions, jump in anywhere if you don’t understand… Pony Parties & News on the Front Page are always open threads… many people stop by these without commenting- this is a Great Place to put questions! Everyone is very friendly & helpful & will be happy to answer you.
We blog here in what I call 3/4 time… I sometimes re-visit the same essay for 3-4 days having long, extended conversations.
So…. know that your question WILL be seen, just maybe not immediately …
(for immediate help see ‘contact us’)
And this leads us to…. be sure to check in your ‘Recent Replies’ (right side of page under ‘menu’ is ‘your comments’ then hit the ‘recent replies’ tab) with regularity! Sometimes you will get a reply to a comment you made yesterday or the day before.
While you are on Your Page be sure to look over ‘Profile’. This is where you can set your preferences… I’m not sure about comment preferences (see ek hornbeck or On The Bus) but under Display Prefs you can set ‘# of recent comments’ and ‘recent essays diaries’ to 50 each and never have to leave the front page (^.^)
These are my favorite features at docudharma… I’m hoping others will share theirs… and help answer questions…
::anyone?…?… c’mon y’all… help me out! What do YOU like best about docudharma? What keeps you coming back?::
Welcome New Members! I’m glad you’re Here!!!
come out, come out, wherever you are…
(^.^)
Jan 03 2008
This is the kind of crap that really makes me wonder if saving the world for the benefit of these youngins is really worth it…
from Yahoo!News…
A former home of poet Robert Frost has been vandalized, with intruders destroying dozens of items and setting fire to furniture in what police say was an underage-drinking party….
..Wicker furniture and dressers were smashed and thrown into a fireplace and burned, apparently to provide heat in the unheated building, he said.Empty beer bottles and cans, plastic cups, and cellophane apparently used to hold marijuana were also found, according to Hodsden. The vandals vomited in the living room and discharged two fire extinguishers inside the building
And..some of Frost’s own words…
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper.”
ON LOOKING UP BY CHANCE AT THE CONSTELLATIONS
You’ll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn’t reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night
What Fifty Said
When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.Now when I am old my teachers are the young.
What can’t be molded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I got to school to youth to learn the future.
Jan 03 2008
This is an Open Thread: You can caucus here pain free
Kenya Topples Into Post-Election Chaos
KIAMBAA, Kenya – Daniel Kibigo said he was there, hiding in the burned cornfields nearby, as the mob gleefully stuffed mattresses in front of the church’s doors and set them on fire.
He watched women try to claw their way out of the church windows as if they were drowning as the building burned all the way down, with up to 50 people inside.“We couldn’t do anything; there were too many,” he said of the crowd that descended on the church in the paroxysm of ethnic violence that has gripped Kenya since its deeply flawed elections last week.
USA
Justice Dept. Sets Criminal Inquiry Into C.I.A. Tapes
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Wednesday that the Justice Department had elevated its inquiry into the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency interrogation videotapes to a formal criminal investigation headed by a career federal prosecutor.
The announcement is the first indication that investigators have concluded on a preliminary basis that C.I.A. officers, possibly along with other government officials, may have committed criminal acts in their handling of the tapes, which recorded the interrogations in 2002 of two operatives with Al Qaeda and were destroyed in 2005.
Last Pitches Before the First Vote
Candidates Await Iowa’s Judgment
DES MOINES, Jan. 2 — The presidential candidates made their final appeals to voters Wednesday in the earliest-starting and most expensive campaign in Iowa history, fanning out across the state in search of a victory and crucial momentum headed into a front-loaded primary season.
With the competitions in both parties still too close to call, the leading candidates raced between colleges and small towns to make their last pitches, well aware that the contests would be decided by the lavish turnout operations they spent millions of dollars and much of the past year building.
In Iowa, it doesn’t pay to spend big
Candidates have set records in hopes of winning the first presidential contest, but those with the most money don’t necessarily win the state caucuses.
DES MOINES — Money can’t buy love — and it might not necessarily decide the Iowa caucuses.White House hopefuls have poured tens of millions of dollars into the contest here, setting new spending records in hopes of launching their candidacies with a breakthrough victory tonight. But history shows that the candidate who spends the most in Iowa doesn’t always walk away the winner.
The exact amount that candidates have spent this year in Iowa — and years past — is not known. The Federal Election Commission doesn’t require state breakdowns, and most campaigns treat such details as secret. Still, some conclusions can be drawn by reviewing advertising budgets and overall campaign spending leading up to the Iowa caucuses, the nation’s first presidential nominating contests.
Middle East
Israeli anger over Gaza crossing
Israel has criticised Egypt’s decision to allow 2,150 Palestinian pilgrims who had been stranded in the country to cross back into the Gaza Strip.The pilgrims, including senior Hamas members, were returning from Mecca.
Egypt originally denied them permission to travel through its main border crossing with Gaza at Rafah, insisting they use an Israeli-run post instead.
Israeli officials expressed concern that some of the group could be trying to smuggle money to Hamas.
The pilgrims had been stuck in Egypt for five days before it was decided to allow them directly into Gaza through Rafah, bypassing Israel.
Iran’s Ayatollah: No smear campaigning
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Wednesday for clean campaigning during March parliament elections, urging candidates and their supporters to abstain from smearing rivals’ reputations.“Discrediting and damaging the reputation of individuals in the press, Internet web sites and other means is not correct at all, and is not advisable,” Khamenei said on state television. “I strongly request and insist that the sympathizers only propagate and support their favorite candidates and seriously avoid such damaging methods.”
Europe
‘Flashman’ author Fraser dies
LONDON (AFP) – George MacDonald Fraser, who wrote the best-selling Flashman series of adventure stories about a colonial-era British Army officer, has died aged 82, British media said Wednesday.The novelist, a former newspaper journalist who fought during World War II in Burma (now Myanmar) and India, had been suffering from cancer, they added, quoting his publisher.
Fraser, who despite his Scottish name was born in Carlisle, on the English side of the border, was once described by the author Kingsley Amis as a “marvellous reporter and a first-rate historical novelist”
Italy denies being Spain’s poor relation
John Hooper in Rome
Thursday January 3, 2008
The GuardianOne paper has called it the “Mediterranean derby”. But no one can agree on the scoreline. And both sides claim the other is cheating.
It began last month when the EU’s statistical office, Eurostat, spread mingled delight and dismay through southern Europe with figures suggesting Spaniards were now wealthier than Italians. The Brussels statisticians concluded that in 2006, allowing for price differences, Italy’s gross domestic product per head had slipped behind that of Spain.
Spaniards hailed Eurostat’s figures as marking a fundamental shift in the balance of power and influence in Mediterranean Europe. Italians, who have traditionally viewed their Latin cousins as poor relations, were stunned by the news.
Latin America
Hopes of Colombian hostage release fade amid row over child
· Boy of kidnapped woman may be in care, says Uribe
· Credibility of government and Farc hang on DNA test
Sibylla Brodzinsky in Medellín
Thursday January 3, 2008
The GuardianHopes of Colombian hostage release fade amid row over child Colombia’s protracted hostage crisis took a new twist yesterday when it emerged that the youngest captive held by leftwing rebels – a three-year-old boy born to a female hostage and an unknown guerrilla – could have been secretly spirited away to foster care in Bogotá.
Colombians gripped by the tale of Emmanuel, whose mother was a vice-presidential candidate when she was kidnapped in 2002, were on tenterhooks yesterday as they awaited the results of a DNA test on a boy in the capital who, the government said, might be the hostage-child.
Asia
Malaysia’s health minister quits over sex video scandal
an MacKinnon, South-east Asia correspondent
Thursday January 3, 2008
The GuardianMalaysia’s health minister quit his post yesterday after a sex scandal in which he featured in two pornographic videos where he was shown with a woman he described as a “personal friend”.
Chua Soi Lek, 61, stepped down a day after conceding that he was the man shown indulging in various sexual acts in the DVDs which were widely circulated in the minister’s home state of Johor.
Chua, a former doctor who is married with three children, had initially refused to resign after saying he had apologised to the Malaysian prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, and his family who had accepted his remorse.
Scotland Yard’s history of assisting Pakistan in times of national crisis
By Omar Waraich in Islamabad
Published: 03 January 2008The dispatch of Scotland Yard investigators to Pakistan marks the third occasion that British policing expertise has been sought to investigate a high-profile assassination in the country.
The first such inquiry was conducted in the wake of the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister, in 1951.
A second British team arrived in Karachi a decade ago to investigate the murder of the then prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s estranged younger brother and political rival, Murtaza. Ms Bhutto’s administration enlisted the services of former Scotland Yard detectives and Home Office forensic experts.
In September 1996, Murtaza Bhutto and seven others were gunned down by policemen outside the family mansion. The killing triggered riots in parts of Sindh province, and led to the imprisonment of Benazir’s husband Asif Zardari – now co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party.
Africa
A chilling tour of the Kenyan church that became the scene of mass murder
By Steve Bloomfield in Eldoret
Published: 03 January 2008Tears streamed down the cheeks of 18-year-old Sheila Kai as she described the moment before the Kenya Assemblies of God Pentecostal church in Kiambaa was burnt to the ground.
“They told us to get inside the church or they would kill us,” she whispered, describing a gang of more than 200 men. “Then they closed the door.”
All possible escape routes were then locked shut with metal chains. Mattresses were placed around the outside of the building, then doused with paraffin and set alight. “People were praying, calling for God, screaming,” Ms Kai said.
She was one of the lucky ones, dragged to safety through a window as the church collapsed. But dozens were killed; the youngest just three days old.
Jan 03 2008
 Muse in the Morning |
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
An Opened Mind XIX:
If I had planned the timing better, this might have appeared on or before December 25.
Art Link A Glint in the Eye
|
I know you have talent. What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent. I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook. 🙂
Let your talent bloom. You can share it here. Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.
Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making? And be excellent to one another!
Jan 03 2008
Well it was an interesting evening piecing together the bare bones of an alternative news source. First I found a host that uses wind and solar power to run their servers, then picked out a domain with a little help from the people on Kos. The registration took a little longer than usual simply because it was a Holiday. I was emailed my confirmation letter with all of my passwords and login information.
If you are signing up with a host for the first time be sure to save your confirmation emails and print them out, you may need them in the future. Then read all of the helpful information about how their system works. Most will have an online file manager, script installation system, database management, email system, and a few other tools in their control panels. If the database management software utilizes Microsoft Access, you may want to keep away from it or you’ll be looking for numerous errors in Microsoft Access causing you issues before you even get to start.
Since I am not setting up a typical blog I skipped the script installation for now and looked instead for a one-off template. Something I could play with and tweak to meet my needs. I found a great one online and began customizing it. Once the home page was filled with content I uploaded it along with the associated files, with this template there was a folder of images and a CSS* script. The CSS script controls the look of the pages involved in the news pages. There is an advantage to having all of your pages in a folder controlled by one script in that you don’t have to manually adjust each page when it is time to change the look of your site.
So now it is at a stopping point until I can figure out the subcategories and recruit some more sources…this means you. If you’d like your blog’s headlines included in the mix of progressive news being served up please let me know. Just add your blog’s URL in the comments and I’ll include it in one of the sections.
* CSS – Cascading Style Sheets (refers to the appearance of the scripting on the page)
Jan 03 2008
I choose that as my headline advisedly because last I heard Booman thought I was an ass clown and I am. I’m a member of his site and I could have and could be contributing much more.
I”ve also stolen many good ideas from him about how to run a site and build community.
Still my suck up skills are insufficient to the depth of my depravity and I expect no thanks from this-
| Perhaps because his wife is such an avid reader of blogs, Edwards’ campaign tapped right into our zeitgeist. He came out with our insight front and center. You want Edwards’ message? Here it is: ‘Fuck David Broder, fuck Joe Klein, fuck Chris Matthews, fuck FOX News, fuck Tim Russert, fuck Mitch McConnell, fuck Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Defense. We don’t need them. They won’t negotiate in good faith. They’re stacking the deck against us. And we can beat them by telling the truth and getting organized.’ That’s Edwards’ message, and that is the message we have internalized both through our successes and our failures.
What’s funny is that Obama is saying many of the same things, in his own way. The policy differences between Edwards and Obama are minimal. But Obama’s tone deaf to the blogosphere. And, as a result, the blogosphere didn’t trust him. Take Armando:
His ‘style’ will be ineffective. Why did so many of us conclude this? It’s because we have watched Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi try to negotiate with the Republicans (in the minority, the majority, no matter) and it does not work. We have watched the Dems talk tough and then back down time and time again. We’re done with conciliation and we don’t believe bipartisanship is possible without first crushing the Republican Party down to a stump. |
This totally encapsulates my argument on tactics of us against the Villagers.
Jan 03 2008
More unfortunate climate change news for us and the candidates – this time from the boreal forests. The Guardian and others are reporting on a new study that finds trees are absorbing less CO2 as the world warms.
The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.
The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.
The results may partly explain recent studies suggesting that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. If higher temperatures mean less carbon is soaked up by plants and microbes, global warming will accelerate.
Worldwide, only tropical rainforests are larger then boreal or northern forests. They cover Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia.
Any minor change in their ability to use CO2 could have serious climate impact across the entire earth. Previously there was some optimism that a greening in the northern forests would help reduce CO2, but instead it could lead to increased warming.
The research study, Net carbon dioxide losses of northern ecosystems in response to autumn warming is being published today by the science journal Nature and was conducted by a team of Canadian, Chinese, and European researchers.
As the story about the study, New research suggests longer autumns inhibit carbon uptake in forests in the Canadian Press notes, “theories suggesting warmer springs and summers will reduce carbon dioxide through greater growing activity are probably too optimistic.” The reason being is autumn temperatures are warming faster than spring temperatures. So, combined with hours of daylight growing shorter as the winter approaches, trees absorption of CO2 slows down “while carbon emissions increase as busy soil microbes feast on a fresh crop of fallen leaves.” So warmer autumns null out warm springs.
As The Guardian story explains this is a “surprise rethink” and “the research could partly explain results by the Global Carbon Project, which confirmed that the rise in CO2 levels in the atmosphere is accelerating.” The increase is partially due to increased CO2 emissions from China and other nations, but research suggests “weakening carbon sinks were also to blame.”
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The use of forest carbon sinks is advocated by each of the three of Democratic frontrunners – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. Each plan to use trees in some way to help remove the carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.
This is what Senator Hillary Clinton says:
I want to focus on international attention to solve the problem of global deforestation. We’re losing our forests dramatically. They play such an important role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and we need to figure out how to have a win-win strategy for that.
This is John Edwards‘ plan:
Create GreenCorps: Idealistic young Americans can help fight climate change by conducting volunteer energy audits, weatherizing homes, installing home solar panels, and training neighborhood groups to do the same. Volunteers will also plant carbon sinks – such as fast-growing forests that store carbon – on urban, conservation and federal lands. Edwards will create a GreenCorps within AmeriCorps to create opportunities for them to serve.
And Senator Barack Obama idea is this:
Confront Deforestation and Promote Carbon Sequestration: Obama will develop domestic incentives that reward forest owners, farmers, and ranchers when they plant trees, restore grasslands, or undertake farming practices that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
But this new study suggests with northern forests lessening ability to absorb CO2, then plans that are based on trees – especially northern trees – may need to be rethought.
According to John Miller, a University of Colorado Climate scientist who the Guardian article quotes as commenting on the study, 50 percent of all of the CO2 we produce is being removed already by the oceans and land ecosystems. “Unfortunately,” he writes, “we have no guarantee that the 50% discount will continue, and if it disappears we will feel the full climatic brunt of our unrelenting emission of CO2 from fossil fuels.”
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the earth has been sequestering carbon away, lessening the brunt of our carbon lifestyle, but we keeping more CO2 into the atmosphere than the earth’s systems can mitigate. So part of our rethinking about how to address global warming, I think we and our presidential candidates will need to include ways to significantly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. If we don’t, the earth is indicating its forests won’t be able to keep helping.
Jan 03 2008
