(just let me say... participate!!! - promoted by pfiore8)
...just let me say this one more thing... start having political cocktail parties and start getting people thinking about our situation and perhaps this will also enlarge their world view
pfiore8
Have we started a list yet of all of the things that have to
be undone beginning next January????
masslass
To answer masslass, well yes, now we have.
Pull up a barstool, grab a cold one of your choice, and let's have a Political Cocktail Party...
From an essay last week entitled "The Revolution Started Yesterday. Well YOU Started It! Political Cocktail Party," I asked all of you enlightened Dharmites to discuss in the comments of that essay the things you feel could and should be addressed beginning Right Now in order to begin the undoing of all of the twisted and underhanded things that have been visited upon our country and the world by our "Current Criminal Administration".
The response was even better than I had hoped for, and I would like to thank you all so much for taking the time to get involved in more than just talking or typing about what we need to do, but to begin actually doing something about the issues we identify.
Under the Topic of Action, we even created a new tag called Issues Project so everyone that wanted to get involved by writing essays that address this issue can be easily found by others here that are interested in these issues.
The Miami Herald reports that Newcomers are assimilating quickly in U.S. "A wide-ranging and provocative new study of immigrants' integration into U.S. society has concluded that newcomers today are assimilating more quickly than their predecessors did 100 years ago -- with Cubans, Vietnamese and Filipinos among those leading the way."
Jacob L. Vigdor, a Duke University economist, authored the study which was published by the Manhattan Institute, a right wing think tank. The study found that new immigrants become part of the American society "remarkably well." "Today's immigrants are making faster progress. As a result, even as immigration has skyrocketed, assimilation has remained stable, Vigdor concluded. 'This is something unprecedented in the United States,' he said."
Only "Mexicans -- by far the most numerous nationality -- lag significantly behind other big immigrant groups, possibly because a lack of legal status keeps many Mexican immigrants from advancing." The Washington Post adds "A major reason" why the assimilation of Mexican immigrants lags behind others is a "high percentage of Mexican immigrants who are in the country illegally... 'If you're in the country illegally, a lot of the avenues of assimilation are cut off to you,' he said. 'There are lot of jobs you can't get, and you can't become a citizen.'"
Vigdor noted: "In general, the longer an immigrant lives in the United States, the more characteristics of native citizens he or she tends to take on... however, that the speed with which new arrivals take on native-born traits has increased since the 1990s. As a result, even though the foreign population doubled during that period, the newcomers did not drive down the overall assimilation index of the foreign-born population. Instead, it held relatively steady from 1990 to 2006."
The New York Times reports Defense War Secretary Robert Gates wants weapons useful in current conflicts. "Gates issued a clear warning to the military and its industrial partners on Tuesday that expensive, new conventional weapons must prove their value to current conflicts, marked by insurgency and terrorism, if they hope for a place in future budgets." In addition, Gates indicated "the Army and Marine Corps would continue to carry the brunt of the nation's combat effort. The Air Force and Navy, he said, would be cast as 'America's main strategic deterrent' against potential adversaries such as Iran, North Korea and China."
He acknowledged that given troop commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, "it is true that we would be hard-pressed to launch a major conventional ground operation elsewhere in the world at this time."
"The risk of overextending the Army is real," Mr. Gates said. "But I believe the risk is far greater - to that institution, as well as to our country - if we were to fail in Iraq. That is the war we are in. That is the war we must win."
Four at Four continues with the oil pander of Congress and the real betrayal of America.
RUSSERT: We get flooded with e-mails, Senator McCain making a mistake on Shia versus Sunni, making mistake about the first Persian Gulf War and the second vis-a-vis oil. His own relationship with Pastor Hagee and why isn't that talked about and reported on the way Reverend Wright's relationship with Senator Obama is talked about. But all that in time. I mean, it is only May. This has been going on for some time but it will be a long, long campaign. And when Senator McCain is back in the media's light, he'll receive the same scrutiny.
OK, I am struggling a bit and need y'alls help/feedback! As I have said, I think it is vitally important to start concentrating on the media, to bring whatever influence we in the blogosphere can to bear on this essential tool for public oversight.
The issue is highlighted right now by the fine, fine work Greenwald and others are doing on the military analyst scandal. (Which, like all things dirty about this administration, seems to have Karl's fingerprints on it.)
The first struggle, a name for the overall campaign. Something not overly confrontational to their fragile egos...such as Eat The Media!!! but still exciting. I like Free The Press!
But am open to other suggestions. What say you all?
Next...resources. Do any of you fine people want to volunteer to put together a media contact list for the major cable news shows and news directors? If you can come up with a neato format, all the better, but if someone just puts a list together, some other kind soul could volunteer to put it in a handy dandy format. Ideally we would like to end up with a box we can put on the side panel like the contact Congress box. Alternatively, if you know of a good existing list, please link!
On to the Maddow Movement and some serendipitous surfing! >>>>
AP reports that charges have been dropped against the alleged "Twentieth Hijacker", Mohammed al-Qahtani:
The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks, his U.S. military defense lawyer said Monday.
Mohammed al-Qahtani was one of six men charged by the military in February with murder and war crimes for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks. Authorities say al-Qahtani missed out on taking part in the attacks because he was denied entry to the U.S. by an immigration agent.
But in reviewing the case, the convening authority for military commissions, Susan Crawford, decided to dismiss the charges against al-Qahtani and proceed with the arraignment for the other five, said Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, the Saudi's military lawyer.
The charges were dropped without prejudice, meaning that they could be reinstated. al-Qahtani was to face the death penalty, along with five others, in trials before Military Commissions at Guantanamo.
Why were the charges dropped? Because al-Qahtani had been tortured. Of course, Crawford did not say. And his lawyer couldn't comment yet.
Officials previously said al-Qahtani had been subjected to a harsh interrogation authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. /snip
U.S. authorities have acknowledged that Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding by CIA interrogators and that al-Qahtani was treated harshly at Guantanamo.
Al-Qahtani last fall recanted a confession he said he made after he was tortured and humiliated at Guantanamo.
The alleged torture, which he detailed in a written statement, included being beaten, restrained for long periods in uncomfortable positions, threatened with dogs, exposed to loud music and freezing temperatures and stripped nude in front of female personnel.
Our Goal Posts Are As Solid As The Mud They Are Set In.
Death toll rises in China quake The most powerful earthquake to hit China in 30 years has killed at least 10,000 people in south-western Sichuan province, with thousands more trapped. Chinese state media said that 10,000 people were thought to remain buried in one town alone near the epicentre of the earthquake in Wenchuan county.
A team of 1,300 troops and medics has now reached Wenchuan, which was largely cut off by the quake.
But rescue efforts are being hampered by heavy rain and badly damaged roads.
Premier Wen Jiabao - a trained geologist - had urged rescuers to clear roads into the worst-hit areas as fast as possible.
'No Hope' for Children Buried in Earthquake DUJIANGYAN, China - The children who were considered fortunate escaped with a broken bone or a severed limb. The others, hundreds of them, were carried out to be buried, and their remaining classmates lay crushed beneath the rubble of the schoolhouse.
"There's no hope for them," said Lu Zhiqing, 58, as she watched uniformed rescue workers trudge through mud and rain toward the mound of bricks and concrete that had once been a school. "There's no way anyone's still alive in there."
Little remained of the original structure of the school. No standing beams, no fragments of walls. The rubble lay low against the wet earth. Dozens of people gathered around in the schoolyard, clawing at the debris, kicking it, screaming at it. Soldiers kept others from entering.
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Lately it's become apparent to some of us that if one desires to see one's diary reach the rec list, one's chances are greatly improved if the title includes a hint of conversion to Obamaism, a pillorying of Hillary, or the old stand-by, BREAKING!!! Now, by nature, historioranters don't get to shout "breaking" all that often, but since you all seem to have abandoned Mike Gravel, and have said everything that could possibly be said about Barrackemiah and/or Billary, I'm left with little choice but to pander like Senator Clinton at a Great Silent Majority rally.
So join me, if you will, just outside the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we'll be scanning the skies, on the lookout for a school-bus-sized piece of space junk that NASA tells us (well, told us - the subject of this story broke literally and figuratively between 1973 and 1979) could crash/land almost anywhere on Earth. Perhaps in our observations, we'll even get a glimpse of that rarest of celestial phenomena: A presidential candidate with a viable, workable, ambitious space policy.
A few days ago I accepted the mission to go undercover behind enemy lines in order to report back on the activities of the opposition. I have now safely returned and am ready to brief you all as thoroughly as possible. The specific activities that were undertaken included a trip to the heart of the Bible Belt, holding conversations with members of the 26% crowd and attendance at a "mega church" to scope out the organizational activities.
What all this really means is that I paid a visit to my family in Dallas, Texas this weekend. As most of you know by now, they are fundamentalist, right-wing, kool-aid drinking christians; the group that STILL says they view GW favorably.
Kathy Kelly has more than paid her dues in the movement for peace through non-violence, putting herself in harm's way and risking her freedom.
She is the latest endorser of the Iraq Moratorium, a growing grassroots initiative which will be observed on Friday, May 16, as it is on the third Friday of each month. (She explains her endorsement below.)
The co-coordinator of Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Kelly helped initiate Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end UN/US sanctions against Iraq in 1996. For bringing "medicine and toys" to Iraq in open violation of the UN/US sanctions, she and other campaign members were fined $20,000, which they've refused to pay.
Voices in the Wilderness organized 70 delegations to visit Iraq in the period between 1996 and the beginning of the "Operation Shock and Awe" warfare (March 2003). Kelly has been to Iraq 24 times since January 1996. In October 2002, she joined Iraq Peace Team members in Baghdad where she and the team maintained a presence throughout the bombardment and invasion. Kelly left Iraq on April 19, 2003 and has returned three times, most recently in May of 2006 when she traveled to northern Iraq.
Along with three other Voices activists, Kathy was in Beirut, Lebanon during the final days of the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006. (Photo at right.) They subsequently reported from southern Lebanon following a ceasefire.
In the spring of 2004, she served three months at Pekin federal prison for crossing the line as part of an ongoing effort to close an army military combat training school at Fort Benning, GA. In 1988 she was sentenced to one year in prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites. Kelly served nine months of the sentence in Lexington KY maximum security prison.
She is currently organizing Witness Against War 2008,a nonviolent walk for peace from Chicago to the site of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
The world thinks of microfinance as a tool to lift its poorest from grinding poverty. But in an age of pricey fuel and shrinking credit, the entrepreneurial movement that began in Bangladesh is taking off in the richest country of all.
Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus opened 11 branches of his Grameen Bank in New York City this spring, more than 30 years after he revolutionised foreign aid by delivering the first microloan to a group of rural Asian villagers.
If Yunus is the father of microfinance, his US offspring already are maturing quite nicely. The spectre of recession, combined with a diverse array of lending models, is sparking a new demand in America for small loans and business counselling...
Almost anyone can send a few dollars to Asia that can feed a family for weeks, thanks to Kiva and other groups that turn ordinary Americans into microlenders. But sending a few thousand dollars to a rural Pennsylvania craftsman is more difficult.
Micro Business Development Corporation, led by Denver lender Kersten Hostetter, has created thousands of jobs and boosted the local economy by more than $15m. Still, Hostetter is so keen for more investment that she has written a unique job ad seeking a celebrity spokesman for US microfinance.
"We're the bridge between poverty alleviation and economic development, the guardians of the middle class," Hostetter said. "We didn't brand ourselves initially because there wasn't a need for it."
This will probably sound elitist. I think microloans are great, but using them to protect the American middle class, I think, is alarming. Just how far has the U.S. fallen? Micro-finance is about ending poverty. This is more evidence there are "two Americas" and parts of the U.S. are becoming more like some of the world's poorest countries.
Four at Four continues with the spread of nuclear power, mixed environmental news, and locust swarms.
At 2:28 pm local time a major M 7.9 earthquake struck China near the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province. 9000 people are feared dead according to Chinese news reports , but USGS analysis shows that 200,000 people were exposed to violent to extreme shaking that could cause heavy damage in well built structures and very heavy damage in vulnerable structures.
The city of Chengdu, in the Sichuan basin with about 5 million inhabitants, 55 miles east of the rupture, was spared from heavy damage because the earthquake rupture propagated from the southeast to the northwest sparing the cities in the basin. However, towns near the fault rupture well to the northeast of the epicenter were hit hard even though they were as far from the epicenter as Chengdu. In an earthquake like this the distance from the epicenter may be a misleading indicator of potential damage.
We are just leaving the horrific scene at the Juyuan Middle School outside the city of Dujiangyan. Hundreds of parents are still standing in the rain as the army works to find children trapped in the rubble. One parent told us she could hear her son calling. A scene of utter desperation. Back a couple hundred feet was an area where rescuers -- peoples armed police -- were bringing bodies that had been retrieved. Families were rushing over to see whether the child was theirs. Under tents are families burning incense and candles and paper money next to the shrouded bodies of their loved ones. A terrible, terrible scene.
-- Andrea Hsu
For those that may have family or friends in or near Chengdu, from a comment on an NPR blog:
Chengdu:
Please check with Consulate General of American in Chengdu.
Phone: (28) 8558-3992
Fax: (28) 8554-6229
Emergency: 1370-800-1422
Email: ConsularChengdu@state.gov
Emergencies
The ACS Unit provides emergency assistance to American citizens in distress: when an American is destitute, arrested, separated from minor children, or sick. In an emergency, the Consulate Duty Officer can be reached at any time by calling 1370-800-1422.
Dial 01186 before you dial those numbers if you dial from USA.
We are in power and thus we know what we are doing, because those in power are there because they know what they are doing, and that's us...even though those in power obviously don't know what they are doing because things are so fucked up....but those in power can't even think that...because then they might have to examine the fact that things are fucked up because THEY are the ones in power.
In fact those in power cannot even admit that things are fucked up.... because then they might have to ask why things are fucked up, and deep down inside them is that nagging voice that if listened to would tell them that it could just be that they are the ones fucking things up. And hey, it's a dog eat dog world out there and self-doubt or examination might lead to some form of weakness, like the self-esteem lowering questioning of your own infallibility ....like admitting that it is you who are fucking things up ...and need to change. Or get gone.
That is not an iceberg, ok it is an iceberg, but we won't hit it, ok we have hit it, but the ship is unsinkable, ok that was a iceberg and we did hit, but we won't sink, ok that was an iceberg and we did hit it and the ship is sinking. Damn. We were sure we were infallible...until the ship sank, until we failed and killed a bunch of people. Too bad we didn't listen to all those doubts and doubters, instead of steaming on, but it is too late now.
This Titanically bad metaphor comes to a crashing end though, when the Captain and crew muscle the civilians off of the lifeboats and start piloting a new ship the next day, shrugging off their mistakes in the name and service of the self confidence needed for their critical task....piloting ships around icebergs. The critical question of whether they are qualified never even arises, they have ships to steer, dammit! Now all you stupid people get off the bridge so we can do our job!
The Titanic Adventure Slide!
Oh well, now that the ship has sunk the important thing is... to find someone else to blame so we don't have to admit fault or failure. If worst comes to worst we will blame "the media," (as Tweety recently did) and hope the stupid people out there don't make the connection in their minds that we are admitting responsibility
The stab-in-the-back legend (German: Dolchstosslegende (help·info), literally "Dagger stab legend") refers to a social myth and persecution-propaganda theory popular in Germany in the period after World War I through World War II. It attributed Germany's defeat to a number of domestic factors instead of failed militarist geostrategy. Most notably, the theory proclaimed that the public had failed to respond to its "patriotic calling" at the most crucial of times and some had even intentionally "sabotaged the war effort."
The legend echoed the epic poem Nibelungenlied in which the dragon-slaying hero Siegfried is stabbed in the back by Hagen von Tronje. Der Dolchstoss is cited as an important factor in Adolf Hitler's later rise to power, as the Nazi Party grew its original political base largely from embittered World War I veterans, and those who were sympathetic to the Dolchstosslegende interpretation of Germany's then-recent history. - Wikipedia
For those of you unfamiliar with this blood libel the melody goes kinda like this-
We were winning our war of aggression until those Jewsdirty fucking hippies meddling kids stabbed us in the back.
What makes it blood libel is the implication that people who were against the war and saw the utimate futility of it "sacrificed" the blood of our brave soldiers for nothing as if to have "sacrificed" it to a real God like Mars or Mammon were any better.
Once you put your money in the pot boys, it's gone. I could so kick your ass at poker.
It's hardly surprising that the American Theo-Corporatist Party is resurrecting this meme and their Presidential nominee is endorsing it-
So this off topic from my Pentagon dump, but is a pretty wild story in of itself. It seems in a cost cutting measure, US soldiers are being cremated at a facility meant for pets.
As pet owners ourselves, we understand the need for a more dignified alternative when a beloved pet passes away.
If this wasn't screwed up enough, Bush and the Pentagon viewing our soldiers as pets, they also sent friends and families to the pet crematorium for services!
First, breaking news this morning. There has been a 7.8 earthquake in China that has left four schoolchildren and one adult dead:
Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for "all-out" efforts to rescue victims of an earthquake measuring 7.8 that has hit south-western China.
The quake struck 92km (57 miles) north-west of Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, at 1428 (0628 GMT).
The children were killed, and more than 100 others injured, when primary school buildings collapsed in the Chongqing area, a large municipality near Sichuan province, Xinhua added.
Another person is reported to have died when a water tower collapsed in the city of Mianyang, in Santai County.
The Bangkok Post gives further details of the magnitude of the quake:
Government and local officials said the quake struck at 2:28pm local time (1:28pm in Thailand) in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province. It was felt in cities hundreds of kilometres away, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, in addition to Bangkok.
"Major tremors" were felt by residents of cities closer to the epicentre, including Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, and nearby Chongqing, the official news agency Xinhua said.
News Organizations Are Reporting Between 3,000 and 5,000 Dead in One County
'Hundreds buried' by China quake Almost 900 students are buried after an earthquake measuring 7.8 caused a building to collapse in south-western China, state media reports. President Hu Jintao urged "all-out" efforts to rescue victims of the quake, which hit 92km (57 miles) from Chengdu, Sichuan's provincial capital.
Premier Wen Jiabao is travelling to the area and troops are being sent to help with disaster relief efforts.
Officials have confirmed 107 deaths in the area but the figure could rise.
Cries for help
There are harrowing reports from the scene of the collapse in Dujiangyan city - about 100km (60 miles) from the epicentre in Wenchuan county.
U.S. spying is up, but not prosecutions As more Americans are watched, fewer cases are made. The trend concerns civil liberties groups as well as some lawmakers and legal experts. WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court -- one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing -- has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously.
The trends, visible in new government data and a private analysis of Justice Department records, are worrisome to civil liberties groups and some legal scholars. They say it is further evidence that the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it.
The emphasis on spy programs also is starting to give pause to some members of Congress who fear the government is investing too much in anti-terrorism programs at the expense of traditional crime-fighting. Other lawmakers are raising questions about how well the FBI is performing its counter-terrorism mission.
Support disaster relief in Myanmar (Burma)Through the UN
Jacob L. Vigdor, a Duke University economist, authored the study which was published by the Manhattan Institute, a right wing think tank. The study found that new immigrants become part of the American society "remarkably well." "Today's immigrants are making faster progress. As a result, even as immigration has skyrocketed, assimilation has remained stable, Vigdor concluded. 'This is something unprecedented in the United States,' he said."
