April 2008 archive

As Youffratia said in the tip jar of I’m mad as hell

” Oh, hell, it’s been a rough week…”

And so it has. Pfiore and others seem to be echoing the sentiment after watching the Doug Feith Video, so let’s make it official.

The cosmic weather report this week has been for sun spots around Uranus….iow, this week has burned my ass. You know what else burns my ass?

Flames about three feet high.

IOW. No. I am NOT going to list all of the things that have burned my ass this week, that would just incinerate my gluteas maximi all over again. Suffice it to say that they have been sufficient to burn my buns. I have felt like at least two of the Seven Dwarves, Cranky and Grumpy. What’s that you say? Cranky wasn’t one of the Seven Dwarves?

Hmmm.

Fuck You.

I honor of the fact that a couple of days from now will be the anniversary of the first Docudharma Official Policy Statement….. What’s that you say? It hasn’t been a year? See above.

Or as I said in Ask A Kossak on Sunday, but wish to readdress from just the media to every mother’s son or daughter above the rank of sergeant in charge of this sorry ass pisshole masquerading as reality, to wit: …………..the godammed mothraforking shitehead icehole media, what WILL we do with these seemingly genetically engineered dufilicious morans??? I needed to vent, maybe you do too? If so have at it in the comments. Go ahead and scream, curse, throw things, and of course YELL LOUDER

I’ve been on the net for such a long time that I feel like the next generation is passing me by.  Other than blogging, I haven’t adapted to the Web 2.0 social networking paradigm – it seems designed for the younger crowd. I don’t go to MySpace or have any Friendsters.  And I’ve noticed but never used the Social bookmarking sites like Digg, reddit and StumbleUpon.  Occasionally, one of our pages gets into these systems and I see a few clicks from reddit and other sites in our logs.  A few weeks ago one of pinche tejano’s essays President Bush Relegated to Sippy Cup brought a flood of StumbleUpon’ers – more visitors on one day than we have ever seen.   That really made me take notice, so I signed up for an account at StumbleUpon.   In just a day or two I was completely hooked on it.        It’s fun to take a break for 5 minutes and spin through a few dozen sites.  

Imagine not 4,000+ Americans dead, but 150,000 American fatalities in the last five years.

Thirty or more American deaths on the average day, week in and week out, with no end in sight.

Would that be enough to arouse the citizenry, to demand an end to the killing and bloodshed?

You’d think so.  But the answer is no.

The 4,000 US fatalities in Iraq pale beside the 150,000 Americans killed by firearms in this country over a five-year period.

Wednesday, the first anniversary of the massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech, the media paid a little bit of attention to memorials and observances around the country.

But there is no real outcry and no concerted national effort to end firearms violence, even though 32 — the number of people killed by gunfire at Virginia Tech — is also the number of gun homicides recorded on an average day in the United States.

That’s because many gun-toting Americans seem to think we have a constitutional right to kill each other with firearms, or at least to be free of any sensible restraints that might limit or prevent gun violence.

In a 7-2 decision today the US Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s method of execution by lethal injection.  This will permit Kentucky to resume executions. And, worse, it will end the unofficial moratorium in the 35 other states that use lethal injections in their executions.

The decision is here.  It’s long. And it is not uplifting.

Justice Stevens concurred but wrote that he now believes capital punishment itself is unconstitutional.  It’s about time.  Only Justices Ginsberg and Souter dissented.  There were seven votes to permit the killing to continue.

This is awful news for the hundreds of prisoners facing execution on death rows across America.

This isn’t much of an essay.  I’m disgusted.  I feel gullible to have believed that the death penalty would be abolished by the Supreme Court because of the means the state uses to exterminate its prisoners. This, at best, seemed to me to be a nice flanking attack, but hardly one we could expect to end a barbaric practice that was created by legislative action and has been practiced since before the Constitution itself.  

At the very most, those who battle against this barbarism and fight for abolition have been given a slight breather, a chance to catch their breath.  The battle now resumes.  Again.  Every death penalty case has to be fought and fought hard.  Every state where abolition can be won in the legislature needs to be organized.  Every organization that funds anti death penalty litigation and organizing needs to receive your funds.  We all need to add our voices to the call to abolish the death penalty in all cases.

I’d like to think that the 7 months we’ve had of de facto moratorium have taught us one important thing.  We can live without the death penalty.

1. Here are some examples of what its like to work in Iraq. The Associated Press reports AP photographer freed by US military after 2 years. “The U.S. military released Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein on Wednesday after holding him for more than two years without filing formal charges… The U.S. military had accused Hussein of links to insurgents, but did not file specific charges.”

   In New York, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, said the group was “thrilled” by Hussein’s release.

   “He now joins a growing list of journalists detained in conflict zones by the U.S. military for prolonged periods and eventually released without any charges or crimes ever substantiated against them,” said Simon. “This deplorable practice should be of concern to all journalists. It basically allows the U.S. military to remove journalists from the field, lock them up and never be compelled to say why.“

   BBC News reports on an Indonesian Worker ‘tricked into going to Iraq’. “Darmianti binti Jaba Saleh… was having her medical check-up prior to being placed as a domestic worker in the Kurdish north of Iraq. The only problem was that she had not been told she was going to Iraq at all… When she found out where she was, she said, she felt completely deceived… Darmianti said the agency she worked for refused her permission to leave Iraq unless she paid US$2,500… But after three months in Arbil, she escaped with the help of an international aid organisation and has now brought her former agent to court in Jakarta.”

   The Guardian reports Iraqi commanders recalled after failed Basra mission. “The Baghdad government today recalled the top military and police commanders in the southern city of Basra, after a botched offensive against Shia militias. Iraqi officials said Lieutenant General Mohan al-Furaiji and police Major General Abdul-Jalil Khalaf would be given senior staff positions in Baghdad as a “reward for their successful mission against the criminals in Basra“. That just drips with sarcasm.

   So, it’s probably no wonder that once again, Secretary of Torture Condoleezza Rice has Warned diplomats of possible mandatory service in Iraq, according to the Washington Post. “The State Department has warned U.S. diplomats that they may be required to serve in Iraq next year if there are insufficient volunteers to fill job openings there… The possibility of “directed assignments” was first raised last fall, when State projected a shortfall of about 50 volunteers for positions at the Baghdad embassy and other locations in Iraq in 2008. Although those jobs eventually were filled without compulsory postings, the possibility of being forced to serve in a war zone caused deep unease at State.”

Coming up very soon, Oregon Senate candidate and current House Speaker will be live blogging over at the EENR Blog! This will be our second live blog at EENR, and we’re happy to be able to interact with Democratic candidates this way. It gives us all an opportunity to get to know the candidates better and it’s an opportunity for the candidates to hear the concerns of progressive activists from across the country. So come on over and join us in asking OR-Sen candidate Merkley questions!

What do you know about the Oregon Senate race? If you’re stumped, please follow me below the fold to learn about the race and the candidacy of Jeff Merkley.  

I mostly stay out of the great I/P debate, because I am a nation-state kind of guy. While I see cultural mandates for land based on history and tradition, I view the premises of nation-states being the key to stability in any region. Be it the Middle East, Africa or South Asia.

But when another nation-state, especially a former leader of that nation-state, comes out and says one of our national tragedies was of great benefit to them, I begin to wonder where their allegiance really lies. These are not the kind of statements allies make.

From Haaretz:

Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel

By Haaretz Service and Reuters

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/s…

   The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.

   “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.”

Every candidate, and American, should demand that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu apologize for his statements. How dare he dance on the corpses ashes of 9/11 to score cheap political points. How can he possibly cheer lead on this issue, one of the great tragedies in American history.

If Hugo Chavez had said this, we would be rolling tanks into Caracas by sundown. I hold the leaders of Israel to a high standard, which makes this even a lower blow.

Demand Netanyahu apologize, and demand your candidate denounce such rhetoric.