Tag: welcome

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Bienvenidos!  This is a blog welcome mat.  Welcome to a wonderful, corner of the Leftblogosfero that you might not have encountered before.  Especially if you are leaving the Orange Giant and looking for a new place to hang out.  And, of course, welcome to the Writers Port Alliance!

If, like me, you miss the free-for-all (one with some basic, human rules of respect and decency for others) of the old group blogs, and if you’re looking for a new “home” for your pajama clad (or unclad or formally attired) self, you’ve found the right place for joining once again in the unrestrained, unsegmented joy of reading and writing in the Leftblogosfero.

A blog free-for-all.  That’s what I was looking for when I originally came here.  The fun of a crowd of participants.  The excitement of learning others’ views.  A free-for-all.  A “place” where everyone and everything got mixed together and you could pick and choose at your leisure.  It’s a noun (a phrase?) I haven’t used in decades.  In fact, it’s been so long, that I wanted to check its connotation:  

Definition of FREE-FOR-ALL:

a competition, dispute, or fight open to all comers and usually with no rules : brawl; also : a chaotic situation resembling a free-for-all especially in lacking rules or structure (the press conference deteriorated into a free-for-all) …

Synonyms: affray (chiefly British), broil, donnybrook, fracas, fray, free-for-all, melee (also mêlée), rough-and-tumble, row, ruckus, ruction

Antonyms: order, orderliness

Ooops.  Free-for-all.  Well, so maybe it was the wrong word after all.  I don’t think of this blog as a fight or a donnybrook.  Truth be told, donnybrook is one of those words I know, but it isn’t in my primary vocabulary.  And when it comes to my brothers and sisters in the typing class, we all know and dread what can happen when the basic rules of human decency are breached.  So it’s not about creating chaos, or biting off other combatants’ ears, it’s about freedom and excitement that group blogging is so very good at.

There are eight blogs in the Writers Port Alliance.  You can find their links at the top of the page.  Two of these (The Dream Antilles and Ignoring Asia) are solo acts; the others, group blogs with varying points of view and characteristics.  They are much smaller than the mega-blog, which means that they are slower to gather comments, and that essays are available for longer before they are disappeared and pushed off the page.  Items printed in one space might fit in all or some or none of the others, and the members and writers cross-post freely.

Welcome!  As a favorite band says, “Just poke around.”

originated at The Dream Antilles

Chief Justice Roberts cracks wise:

“Congress and the executive (branch) are uniquely positioned to make principled distinctions …”

Bwaa haa ha!  Principled distinctions?  As in “universally applicable discriminations?”  As in “Iraq = Al Qaeda?”  As in “Whoops, we killed a million people and shattered the cradle of civilization?”  As in “torturing innocent humans to secure false confessions to justify brazenly fallacious war-mongering = self-defense?”   As in “lobbing Hellfires from predator drones to kill women and children = winning hearts and minds?”  As in “extrajudicial assassination by fiat = due process?”

Okay, let’s let him finish:

“Congress and the executive (branch) are uniquely positioned to make principled distinctions between activities that will further terrorist conduct and undermine United States foreign policy, and those that will not,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “A foreign terrorist organization introduced to the structures of the international legal system might use the information to threaten, manipulate and disrupt.  This possibility is real, not remote.”

OMG!  Don’t let terrorists near the law!  They might use it!  “To threaten, manipulate, and disrupt [U.S. foreign policy]”  You see, U.S. foreign policy is, by definition, above the law.  And the legal use of the law by terrorists threatens the orderly use of the legal, universally principled, discriminative distinctions of law U.S. foreign policy.

The law is what we say it is, because we determine who can use it.   And even if you are not a terrorist, even if you are exercising your constitutional rights to free speech and association, we plan to intimidate you with lengthy prison sentences for exercising those rights.  Wow!  Talk about principled distinctions!

The vote was 6-3, Stevens concurring.  So, I guess Elena Kagan will, in fact, be the perfect replacement for Stevens, because 9/11 changed everything.

If I were president, I’d declare the Supreme Court a terrorist organization for providing legal assistance to U.S. war crimes.

Howdy Folks! It seems like there are a lot of new faces on the board, which is of course wonderful! So it seems like a good time to restate a few things and give folks a chance to ask any questions they may have, as well as perhaps clear up any misconceptions of what we are all about.

The most important thing about Docudharma is this: We are a community blog, we are what the community makes us, and the community is what individual posters make it. In other words, this blog is EXACTLY what YOU make it into. The more you participate, the more YOU decide what Docudharma is. We welcome wholeheartedly each of you contributing just as much as you want, and shaping the community into what you want it to be.

There are admins here to settle conflicts etc., but we have very few rules,  we try to keep as light a touch as is possible, and that has meant that there are very few conflicts!

Our ethos?

Art shamelessly stolen from Ink In Our Veins

Another motto we like: Don’t start no shit, and there wont BE no shit!