January 25, 2008 archive

New Straw Poll to Vote for Dennis Kucinich: “Tsunami Tuesday”

Dear Dharmaniacs,

I hope this will ease a bit of the pain and disillusionment surrounding Kucinich’s sad, yet wise, drop-out from Presidential contention.  He certainly fought hard, but the quivering corporatists refused to give him a chance to speak his message.

Many, many people who have heard some of his message have said, “I agree with what he says, and I would vote for him if he had a chance.”  They go on to say that since he does NOT have a chance, they feel they should vote for someone who has.  They feel they  should vote for Blabbidy Blah – one of the corporate preselected “acceptable” contestants.  The media has effectively perfomed its corporate-assigned job. This is Circular Disfunctionality!  Self-Fulfilling Prophecy!  Destructive and Disastrous Democraticropolitis!      

So, to ease our frustration a little and to make a statement, I’m sending a copy of a letter I received from Independent Primary.com.  Go vote on “Tsunami Tuesday.”  I hope my hyper links work.  If not, just go to Independent Primary and figure out where to click.

I, for one, will continue to work to restore our democracy through FDR New Deal principles.  Thanks.

Dear Sydney,

Today, January 24, 2008, Dennis Kucinich announced he is dropping out of the Presidential Race.

We want your voice as an independent-minded American to be heard.

So we’re going to give you another vote in the IndependentPrimary.Com “Tsunami Tuesday” vote.

You can go now to click here and cast a new vote for your choice.

Sincerely,

Jim Mangia & Linda Curtis

IndependentPrimary.Com

PS. I know Dennis personally, and I want to extend my congratulations on a hard fought Presidential Campaign. Given his courageous stands for democracy, I think he’d want everyone to cast a ballot…

IndependentPrimary.Com and have your voice heard.

Four at Four

  1. The New York Times reports Democrats test messages in early nationwide ads.

    A coast-to-coast onslaught of presidential campaign advertisements began rolling out this week, with Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton already spending millions on commercials in Feb. 5 nominating states on a scale more reminiscent of a general election…

    By choosing to spend several million dollars each on commercials that will run simultaneously in more than a dozen states over the next 10 days – and, in Mr. Obama’s case, on CNN and MSNBC as well – Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are being driven by the tight nature of the race thus far and by the bunching of Democratic nominating contests in 22 states on Feb. 5…

    Even the cable networks said they were caught off guard by the decision of Mr. Obama’s campaign to take to the air nationally nearly 10 months before the November election, instead of just focusing on local advertising in states holding contests on Feb. 5.

    By comparison, Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, did not buy advertising time on CNN until that spring, when his nomination was assured and he began focusing on November. He did not buy time on MSNBC until after the nominating convention that summer.

    And while Clinton and Obama commericials are reaching viewers, the NY Times reports that “John Edwards accused his Democratic rivals of bringing ‘New York and Chicago politics to South Carolina’ on Friday, and told voters on the day before the primary here that he is the only candidate who will represent their interests in the White House… The Edwards campaign released a new television ad on Friday, with the title ‘Grown Up’, using footage from the Democratic debate on Monday when Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama fired back at each other and Mr. Edwards intervened, calling it ‘squabbling’.”

  2. The Washington Post reports Guam braces for peaceful military incursion. “The Pentagon has chosen Guam, a quirkily American place that marries the beauty of Bali with the banality of Kmart, as the prime location in the western Pacific for projecting U.S. military muscle… [and] set to become a rapid-response platform for problems ranging from pirates to terrorists to tsunamis, as well as a highly visible reminder to China that the United States is nearby and watching. To that end, U.S. Marines by the thousands and U.S. tax dollars by the billions ($13 billion at last count) are to be dispatched to Guam over the next six years, along with a major-league military kit that includes Trident submarines, a ballistic missile task force, Navy Special Operations forces and Air Force F-22 fighter jets. Nuclear-powered attack submarines and B-2 stealth bombers have already arrived, and preparations are being made to accommodate aircraft carriers.”

  3. The Guardian reports that bad news that
    Amazon deforestation increases sharply
    . Amazon rainforest deforestation has “risen sharply. Government satellite images show that at least 1,280 sq miles (3,235 sq kilometers) of rainforest were lost between August and December last year, mainly because of soy planting and cattle ranching. Environment ministry officials believe the true figure could be as high as 2,700 sq miles (7,000 sq kilometers)… The Brazilian Amazon has been decimated by a combination of loggers, farmers and ranchers over the last 40 years. Environmentalists say as much as 20% of the rainforest has already been destroyed, mostly since the 70s. A further 40% could be lost by 2050 if that trend is not reversed, they estimate.”

    Generous US subsidies for biofuel crops are a big factor behind the sudden deforestation. Thousands of US farmers have switched from soya to maize to produce ethanol, which has increased the world soya price and encouraged Brazilian farmers to clear forests for soya farms… 40% of the Amazon could be lost by 2050 if the trends continue.”

  4. According to Spiegel, there is A new look into the center of the earth. “For years, scientists have known that continents float around on the Earth’s surface like ice bergs on the ocean. But what happens deep beneath our feet? A new theory envisions graveyards for continents and a life cycle not unlike the weather.”

    Maruyama Shigenori, a Japanese geophysicist, “is stirring things up with a new fascinating theory on the lifecycle of the Earth’s crust… Maruyama is convinced that he understands what happens deep below our feet… According to Maruyama, the key ingredient for the chemistry of the Earth’s interior is the same one that determines the weather on the surface: water. The sunken ocean plates have old seawater locked in their mineral structure — only a few parts per thousand, but enough to drastically change the characteristics of the rock.”

The Phelps Phund — Turning Back Hate and Fostering Progress

On January 22, 2008, Australian actor Heath Ledger died. On that very same day, the fanatical Westboro Baptist Church posted a news release chock-full of their hate-filled vitriol that announced their intention to picket the funeral.

The cult-like hate group, which claims that it is their love for all that inspires their actions (to save the souls of homosexuals), appears to have enormous resources.  They often fly on short notice to picket funerals of homosexuals, trangendered people and — most recently — they have even added soldiers to their list of targets. They claim that events like 9/11, Hurrican Katrina and all the major catastrophes and wars impacting the US today are God’s punishment to the nation.1

It’s time to use their own fervor against them.

Killing the internet for profit

http://subvertandprofit.com/

What can I say about stuff like this.  It’s Friday and surely time to get an eighteen pack on the ride home.  A hearty Seig Heil Illuminati salute, get your globalization grease out to you all because BOHICA.

For those with less than my razor sharp perceptions of Satanically influenced social policies and norms I will elaborate later in the comments.

The New Depression Officially Arrives!

Photobucket

Perhaps some of our financial boffins can help me out here…have all of our repressions recessions since the great depression followed in the wake of a long stretch of Republican rule? As I understand it, it takes a while for the economy to react to whatever the latest voodoo mumbo-jumbo the ruling class Republicans have invented to get richer on the backs of the poor and middle class to kick in and really screw us ….after putting the sand in the Vaseline. Is that correct? It IS possible that I am a little, shall we say biased, when it comes to our fiends from across the aisle.

Many fine blogistians have commented on how the zeitgeist is feeling very 1929ish these days. And I think it is safe to say that we can blame the latest round of tax-cuts that even some RICH people say are grossly unfair, the de-regulation and wink, wink, nudge, nudge Robber Baron approach to corporate greed profits, revving up the war machine to give the MIC, and the loansharks we borrow from to pay the MIC, our collective credit card, and the general anti-bonhomie of “I got mine fuck you jack” atmosphere of any long period of Republican “government” looting the economy, for the current, disturbing rash of foreclosures, inflation, and general financial panic.

Bring NOLA To The Debates–Pass It On!

Times Picayune columnist Chris Rose recently has an interesting idea. He tells in this column how he attempted to book a lot of Oxford, Mississippi’s 650 hotel rooms for the night of the presidential debate to be held there. And found that they’d already been booked. So here’s another idea:

Sharing Music

I don’t think I could express how much music means to me and what has influenced my perceptions and taste, but I’ve been really happy to see a resurgence of meaningful good music and I wanted to at least try and say something about it.

For christmas this year I got my mom’s record collection, and the amount and range of great albums she had started me thinking about the effect of collectively being influenced by music.  I don’t know many people who dislike music, and most are at least affected by it emotionally in some way.  So it has to do something right?

Gulf Coast Slideshow!!

Or… What I did on my winter vacation

Who’s makin’ the popcorn?


Pony Party, Phone it in Friday

the game i had auto-published last night had an annoying soundtrack i couldnt turn off, so i had to delete that party and start again verrrry early in the morning……so this party is more ‘phoned-in’ than the usual friday offering….

i suspect this is a choking hazard….

Pony Party, Phone it in Friday

Hosted by Daily Free Games

40 Years – Remembering Tet 1968

In August of 1967 General William Westmoreland claimed to have hurt the enemy so badly that “their major efforts” were limited to the periphery of South Vietnam.

“We have reached an important point when the end becomes to come into view,”  General Westmoreland said in his speech to the National Press Club in Washington on November 21, 1967. “We are making progress…it (success) lies within our grasp, the enemy’s hopes are bankrupt.”

Meanwhile –

General Vo Nguyen Giap explained how and why the Hanoi leders had enticed the American forces to the borders of the South in an extended two-part article published in Quan Doi Nhan Dan (The Army of the People) published in September 1967. Giap cited the fighting along the DMZ and in the Central Highlands as principal examples of Hanoi’s strategy at work.

Quoted from A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan

The Offensive began on the eve of the lunar new year, 30 January 1968. In it’s early hours Westmoreland still contended that the Tet attacks were a diversion and that the real objective was Khe Sanh.

Docudharma Times Friday January 25

This is an Open Thread: Who’s behind the door?

Friday’s Headlines: E.P.A. Chief Defends His Decision on California: Egypt moves to seal Gaza border: Pakistani army in onslaught against Taliban chief linked to Bhutto killing: US troops will be gone within 10 years, says Iraqi minister: Berlusconi eyes return to power in Italy

U.S. Asking Iraq for Wide Rights on War

WASHINGTON – With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.

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