February 26, 2008 archive

I found this video over at AfterDowningStreet.com. I was looking for something  but found this video instead.  It’s originally from The Onion, I wanted to share it with you all.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a good laugh!  Sorry, but I’m going to make this short, my family just started attacking me…I must go play, but I’ll be around to hang out a bit.  How’s every body doin’?

1. The Guardian reports The United Nations is unable to meet food aid needs. The United Nations warned “that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices… With annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries. The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs… WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a ‘perfect storm‘ of factors: a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.”

2. The AP reports that Wholesale prices jumped in January. “The Labor Department said Tuesday that wholesale inflation jumped by 1 percent in January, more than double the increase that analysts had been expecting. Meanwhile, the New York-based Conference Board reported that its confidence index fell to 75.0 in February, down from a revised January reading of 87.3. The drop was far below the 83 reading that analysts had forecast and put the index at its lowest level since February 2003, a period that reflected anxiety in the leadup to the Iraq war. A third report Tuesday showed that home prices, measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, dropped by 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the steepest drop in the 20-year history of the index… The January inflation surge left wholesale prices rising by 7.5 percent over the past 12 months, the fastest pace in more than 26 years.“

3. The Washington Post reports that South Africa is to resume elephant culling. “South Africa will lift a 13-year-old ban on using professional hunters to reduce burgeoning elephant populations, officials announced Monday, despite opposition from animal rights activists who call such killings barbaric and unnecessary… Across the [southern African] region there are an estimated 270,000 elephants, more than 120,000 of them in neighboring Botswana. Conservation officials in several African countries have struggled for years to strike a balance between the beloved animals, which have helped fuel a lucrative tourism boom, and other forms of wildlife whose habitats they devastate. In addition, elephants roaming beyond game parks sometimes trample villagers’ crops.” The moratorium will officially end May 1.

4. According to the Los Angeles Times, Water cuts are slicing into avocado groves.

   Deep in the green avocado groves, the winter quiet is shattered by the whine of chain saws. Workers wielding machetes slash leafy branches from the trees and spray-paint the tall stumps white to protect the bark from sunburn in the forced hibernation to come.

   Here, in the heart of the nation’s avocado industry, growers are beheading their avocado trees.

   Less than two months after a mandatory 30% cutback in agricultural water deliveries, some Southern California growers have begun “stumping” hundreds of healthy, well-nurtured avocado trees, putting them out of production for the next one to three years to leave more water for the rest of their trees.

Beneath the fold may lie the oldest urban site in the Americas… The find in Peru is older than the Great Pyramid of Giza

There is no doubt that blogs are the most egalitarian form of mass communication ever to come down the pike. The only thing even close to comparable was when printing presses became practical and cheap enough for one person to own and operate. And we know what happened then…

The work of Tom Paine and his fellow pamphleteers can easily be said to have changed the world. By distributing revolutionary thoughts and ideas to a country full of rebellious souls starved for them. Starved for change…starved for a change from monarchy and despotism. Starved for a new kind of freedom.  

You Dharmaniacs, crazy mutant rebellious renegade bloggers that you are, have put us over the top in raising funds by chipping in and ponying up to keep this small, humble and almost possibly vital outpost of the resistance movement “on the air” and broadcasting at 50,000 pixels of power, sending our subversive message of peace, love, humanity, justice, fun and a new way of life for the planet across all borders, around the world and via satellite to the farthest and barest nether regions of outer space so that all sentient beings can (eventually?)hear our voices, YOUR voices and rally round and join in as we attempt to change the world one brilliant essay at a time, so…I thought I would write one really, really long sentence to both celebrate and thank you all at the same time…..so I did….and this is it….and….great big thanks to all who donated, and to all who participate in making this, if nothing else, one of the most unique (sure you could substitute any number of words there: anomalous, best, exceptional, extraordinary, far out, incomparable, inimitable, matchless, most, nonpareil, novel, only, peerless, primo, rare, singular, something else, special, standout, strange, uncommon, unequalled, unexampled, unimaginable, unmatched, unparagoned, unparalleled, unprecedented, unreal, unrivaled, utmost, weird, if you went to an online thesaurus and typed in unique, just to make the single sentence even ridiculously longer….but that would be cheating) blogs in the known Blogosphere, thanks again!

Grab yerself a pony!

George W. Bush has a clear conscience. Clear as a vacuum. Clear as in there’s nothing there. Last week, Dan Froomkin had this interesting tidbit:

President Bush doesn’t have second thoughts. It’s just not his style.

Though at times he’s been forced to admit problems during his presidency, he never suggests that he should have taken a different approach.

And so he remains largely at peace with himself — even in the face of a genocide that continues years after he called it by that name.

It might fairly be said that Bush doesn’t have many first thoughts, but it’s comforting to know that not having done anything to stop a little genocide doesn’t bother him. Then again, we know that Bush converses directly with God, so he obviously believes he has cover. You may recall Bush’s 2004 answer, when asked if he sought his father’s advice, before invading Iraq:

“You know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to,” Bush said.

And there was the report in the Independent about a Bush interview with the BBC:

In the programme Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, which starts on Monday, the former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath says Mr Bush told him and Mahmoud Abbas, former prime minister and now Palestinian President: “I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,’ and I did.”

And “now again”, Mr Bush is quoted as telling the two, “I feel God’s words coming to me: ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.’ And by God, I’m gonna do it.”

Mr Abbas remembers how the US President told him he had a “moral and religious obligation” to act. The White House has refused to comment on what it terms a private conversation. But the BBC account is anything but implausible, given how throughout his presidency Mr Bush, a born-again Christian, has never hidden the importance of his faith.

Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people talking to what they perceive to be God. But there is a problem when they act on what they believe to be God’s direct word. There’s a word for people who think they hear voices. There’s a diagnosis. And when they’re in the position of being able to start wars, there is literally nothing more dangerous.

Today the ‘Doomsday Vault’ will open….full article at Yahoo!Green

Aimed at providing mankind with a Noah’s Ark of food in the event of a global catastrophe, an Arctic “doomsday vault” filled with samples of the world’s most important seeds will be inaugurated here Tuesday….

…[The Svalbard Global Seed Vault] has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches of seeds from all known varieties of the planet’s main food crops, making it possible to re-establish plants if they disappear from their natural environment or are obliterated by major disasters.

There are other seed banks throughout the world, but since other sites in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines have suffered damage by war or natural disaster, efforts to consolidate the diverse samples from around the world have been increased.  The new site is located in Norway, and is buried in permafrost a mere 620 miles from the North Pole.

Countries contributing samples for storage in the ‘Doomsday Vault’ will retain ownership of their contributions.  

This is an Open Thread:

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking

And racing around to come up behind you again

Tuesday’s Headlines: Finding Political Strength in the Power of Words: US concert diplomacy in N Korea: The Last Supper – now how about a nice game of chess?: Putin’s legacy is a massacre, say the mothers of Beslan: Gazans form human chain in protest against Israeli blockade: Animal rights outrage over plan to cull South Africa’s elephants: Nigeria election verdict expected: Mexico police detain 4 bomb suspects: Plaza in Peru may be the America’s oldest urban site

US moves to expand its role in Pakistan

Intelligence centers, aid package planned

WASHINGTON – US officials are quietly planning to expand their presence in and around the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan by creating special coordination centers on the Afghan side of the border where US, Afghan, and Pakistani officials can share intelligence about Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, according to State Department and Pentagon officials.

The Bush administration is also seeking to expand its influence in the tribal areas through a new economic support initiative that would initially focus on school and road construction projects. Officials recently asked Congress for $453 million to launch the effort – a higher request for economic support funds than for any country except Afghanistan.

The expansion of US efforts in the tribal areas – made possible, in part, by rising Pakistani anger at a string of suicide attacks by militants from the region – also includes the deployment of about 30 US counterinsurgency trainers to teach an elite Pakistani force to fight Al Qaeda and indigenous extremists.

Obama shows that dismissing slimy right-wing attacks is not difficult

Glenn Geenwald, Salon.com

Monday February 25, 2008 10:08 EST

…

“A party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor they needed, or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans’ benefits that these troops need when they come home, or are undermining our Constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary? “That is a debate I am very happy to have. We’ll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism.”  (Barack Obama, emphasis Greenwald’s -ek)

…

Most Democrats have yet to learn that lesson. Obama’s response here strongly suggests that he has. Although there is still a significant chance that Democrats will ultimately give the President most if not all of what he wants on the FISA bill, perhaps their ongoing refusal to capitulate quickly even in the face of all-out GOP fear-mongering — along with Obama’s refusal to do the same with regard to these patriotism attacks — will demonstrate that (regardless of their “real beliefs” on war and surveillance) such capitulation is not only unnecessary but completely contrary to their own political interests.

Remember that this particular controversy has happened once already- zenbowl was doing Breaking! at dK on 10/4/07.

Maybe I was the only one who noticed.

This round of events was touched off by Nedra Pickler’s horrible piece of trash on the Associated Press wire, Obama may face grilling on patriotism, which I drew to your attention to Saturday in Weekend News Digest (story #8) when it was 4 hours old.  See how plugged in you are?