May 2008 archive

May 06 2008

Pentagon Plans to Turn Baghdad’s Green Zone into Resort

This is how the Pentagon envisions the Green Zone of Baghdad after a $5 billion tourist and development scheme.

Tigris Woods

A plan by US military planners for the “Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club” in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq.

Picture: U.S. Army/AP

There’s nothing like playing a relaxing 18 holes of golf for U.S. generals and big oil executives after a tough day in oil-rich, occupied Iraq. Or as The Guardian describes it in Luxury hotels and golf: welcome to the Green Zone:

Picture… a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad’s International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers. Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage in a luxury hotel… Then, as twilight falls, a pre-prandial stroll, perhaps, amid the cool of the Tigris Riverfront Park, where the peace is broken only by the soulful cries of egrets fishing.

Unbelievable.

May 06 2008

A Baltimore Herald Update

As some of you may have observed I’ve been working out my proposal for the Baltimore Herald.

The part I’ve been working on with the Morning and Evening Editions is news gathering and story formatting.

Now the news gathering part has been a rip roaring success from my standpoint- 80 stories today!  And it is somewhat easier and less time consuming to visit frequently and harvest just a little bit at a time.

May 06 2008

Iran and Superclass

http://www.amazon.com/Supercla…

It came.  It’s painful.  Written by the enemy it reveals the mindset of the rich and super powerful, much like the movie “American Psycho” they are.

I am only on page 76 and fuming.  What is needed is a genetically specific ebola virus targeting all with an income above 2 million.

May 06 2008

Evening Edition

Africa 3, Asia 7, South America 1, News & Politics 5, Business 4, Science 5, Health 2, Sports 2, Blogline 2

Stories collected from 6 pm to 8 pm

So I think this proves for sure that the material is out there to do this.  This is 80 stories today.

May 06 2008

The republican war on voting rights

It’s long past time to talk about this whole “election integrity/voter fraud/voter ID/election fraud/ballot fraud” matter in a very different way. Consider the following hurdles that have not been overcome when talking about the need for wholesale election reform:

 

  • Talking about the hackability of voting machines doesn’t work because you can’t prove that they were, in fact, hacked in a manner that would show not just beyond-a-reasonable doubt but beyond-any-doubt-whatsoever (not fair, but true);
  • Talking about “voter ID”, actually, more like anti-voter laws isn’t working because, well, for starters, the SCOTUS just affirmed this, despite there being no documented case of this type of fraud occurring;
  • Talking about stolen elections hasn’t worked because either “it always happens anyway”, or the same “you can’t prove it” rebuttal;
  • Talking about the US Attorney firings or the redistricting or the stacking of the DOJ with partisan hacks is too complicated to put on a bumper sticker;
  • Talking about the thousands of anecdotes of vote machine flipping went nowhere either; and
  • Talking about exit poll discrepancies has led to the amazing argument that exit polls are not reliable, even though they are used pretty much everywhere else in the entire world as a measure of whether elections were fixed and they have never been as far off as they have so consistently been the past 8 years.

May 06 2008

Elitistism: The Beer Drinkers Guide To The White Hosue

The Birth of Elitistism

It’s taken over 200 years, but American politics is finally evolving into a mature process that reflects the inherent nature of her people. This experiment in Democracy has taken innumerable turns and tumbles over the years, most often relying on the dominant presence of an elite ruling class to steady the ship of state. Despite the egalitarian ring of our founding principles, a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people,” still seemed more obeisant to the privileged. But no more.

Brought to you by…

News Corpse

The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.

May 06 2008

The Serendipitous ‘Suicide’ of the D.C. Madame



“Death solves all problems – no man, no problem.”

-Joseph Stalin

You can add D.C. Madame Deborah Jeane Palfrey to that long list of marvelously convenient mysterious deaths, ‘accidents’ and ‘suicides’ that have for so long been a fixture of the hijacked by fascist American political system. The dead giveaway on the importance of Palfrey and the threat that she represents is that ordinarily such an incident would be flogged to death 24/7 on the corporate media machine given the sexual sleaze factor and the celebrity allure. Well that insipid blathering sow Nancy Grace spent about ten or fifteen minutes on it on Thursday and was then on to something ridiculous involving actor Rob Lowe, as much as I hate cable ‘news’ programs I tuned again the night after and she was talking about some kidnapped or murdered pregnant teenager, you know, the same local news that is trumped up and manufactured into a national crisis.

May 06 2008

Pony Party: Pupdate

That’s correct – this is an update about my pups. They’re both doing better – they finally have appetites. We’ve been giving them roasted chicken – that’s all they would eat. And they’ve been on a combination of medicines, including an antibiotic, phosphate chelator and a vitamin supplement (which is a lovely opaque, brownish-orange concoction). We’ve had tried to give them sub-cutaneous fluids, which are administered by poking the scruff of their necks with a needle. Not for the pickle household faint of heart. Now they’re eating carrots, pasta and other goodies. With a bit of luck, they’ll actually eat some dog food for a balanced diet, but we had to give them anything that they’d eat just so they could start putting on some weight, as they’re currently scrawny little things. This has been a long, arduous two weeks.

May 05 2008

Four at Four

  1. Over the weekend, The Observer reported Rainforest seeds revive lost paradise. The land around Samboja, Borneo resembled a “moonscape” when Dr. Willie Smits, an Indonesian forestry expert, first visited it six years ago. “The trees had been cut for timber, the land burnt, and in place of what should be some of the richest biodiversity on the planet were thousands of acres of grass.”

    But from this ruined landscape a fresh forest has been grown, teeming with insects, birds and animals, and cooled by the return of moist clouds and rain. It is a feat that has been hailed by scientists and offers hope for disappearing and ruined rainforests around the world. The secret was to use more than 1,300 species of local tree and a fertiliser made with cow urine…

    Smits raised money to buy 5,000 acres and six years ago set about planting seeds collected from more than 1,300 species of tree, more even than would have lived in the original forest. These were planted with a special ‘micro-biological agent’ made from sugar, excrement, food waste and sawdust – and cow urine.

    Planting finishes this year, but already Smits and his team from the Borneo Orang-utan Survival Foundation charity claim the forest is ‘mature’, with trees up to 35 metres high. Cloud cover has increased by 12 per cent, rainfall by a quarter, and temperatures have dropped 3-5C, helping people and wildlife to thrive, says Smits. Nine species of primate have also returned, including the threatened orang-utans. ‘If you walk there now, 116 bird species have found a place to live, there are more than 30 types of mammal, insects are there. The whole system is coming to life. I knew what I was trying to do, but the force of nature has totally surprised me.’

    Some more info is available at BOS’s Create Rainforest website.

Four at Four continues below the fold with stories about air pollution and bees, 66 deaths in U.S. immigration prisons, the U.S. military base in Ecuador, and fat cells.

May 05 2008

Through the Darkest of Nights: Testament XII

Every few days over the next several months I will be posting installments of a novel about life, death, war and politics in America since 9/11.  Through the Darkest of Nights is a story of hope, reflection, determination, and redemption.  It is a testament to the progressive values we all believe in, have always defended, and always will defend no matter how long this darkness lasts.  But most of all, it is a search for identity and meaning in an empty world.

Naked and alone we came into exile.  In her dark womb, we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.  Which of us has known his brother?  Which of us has looked into his father’s heart?  Which of us has not remained prison-pent?  Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?      ~Thomas Wolfe

All installments are available for reading here on Docudharma’s Series page, and also here on Docudharma’s Fiction Page, where refuge from politicians, blogging overload, and one BushCo outrage after another can always be found.

May 05 2008

Bushco’s Politics of Fear, Eternal War, Are Crippling America

A truly enlightening  article by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek, ‘The Post-American World.’ Chronicling the rise of the rest of the world and the demise of America… as it turned into an imperialist warmonger under Bush after 9/11.

It is a somewhat long, but easy read, so I am taking a few liberties with fair use…and cherry picking a bit to make my point. Zakaria’s emphasis is on the rise of the rest of the world, which other than the implications for Climate Crisis, lol, is very positive and eye opening. My cherry picking point is that by propagandizing the America people into a state of paralytic fear and emphasizing the absolute worst nature of America, destruction over construction…Bushco has has led our nation into grave danger. Not the danger of terrorist attack, but the very real danger of destroying ourselves by bankrupting America financially, morally, and intellectually. We are far down that slippery slope. By the time we can gain our footing and begin to climb back…the world will have passed us by. But other than as a crushing blow to our national pride… which is a HUGE part of how we got here in the first place…is that a bad thing?


Americans are glum at the moment. No, I mean really glum. In April, a new poll revealed that 81 percent of the American people believe that the country is on the “wrong track.” In the 25 years that pollsters have asked this question, last month’s response was by far the most negative. Other polls, asking similar questions, found levels of gloom that were even more alarming, often at 30- and 40-year highs.

Snip

May 05 2008

Gas Tax Scam (Dot COM)

Clinton’s and McSame McCain’s energy dumb and dumber song-and-dance act about a ‘gas tax holiday’ is not getting any support from independent people who actually understand energy issues and/or economics.    As per GasTaxScam DOT com, the merit of this idea is about the merit of setting out on a long voyage with an empty tank.

A secret and confidential letter from energy dumb and dumber provides some details:

We are top officials of the United States Senate Government who are interested in importation of oil into our country with funds that are presently trapped in the FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND dedicated to improving transportation. We wish to send this money to overseas accounts in the MIDDLE EAST but cannot due to restrictions in Congress Transportation Equity Act requiring that this money must be spent to build roads, bridges and high speed trains.

If you accept we will deliver to your a sum of 30 DOLLARS in the summer 2008 in form of a “GAS TAX HOLIDAY”.  You will then deliver this money to accounts of our friends in Middle East by taking it to your nearby gasoline station where they have information to forward the money.

Sure, this is a parody but parodies often hit the mark.  After all, does the ‘gas tax holiday’ concept have any more merit than that latest Nigerian oil scam or Dutch lottery winner e-mail that hit your inbox.  And, just as with those fraud emails, Hillary’s and McSame McCain’s energy dumb and energy dumber proposal merits filing in the spam folder.

Hopefully, the American public is developing the filters to filter such political spam into the ‘junk’ folder without wasting time and energy on them.

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