Aug 02 2008
Nothing special to say this morning. so maybe a little Honky Tonk fun for breakfast might be a good idea?
Here’s couple of old Jerry Jeff specials to prime the pump with.
Why don’t the rest of you add your favorites to liven’ up the place? 😉
Aug 02 2008
Whoever scheduled Gordon Brown’s recent visit to Israel is surely out of a job. Brown’s dreary, etiolated performance – appropriate for a political corpse – was rendered even flatter by its proximity to Barack Obama’s headline-hogging whirlwind tour of Europe and the Middle East. Despite the differences in style, however, both politicians took to the podium in Israel with a similar message: one of support for the latter’s rejectionist expansionism.
Aug 02 2008
The NGO network in Afghanistan (Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief – ACBAR) reports that the number of civilian casualties caused by all sides has “surged” and that insecurity has spread to previously stable areas.
The number of insurgent attacks for each of the months of May (463), June (569) and July is greater than the number of such attacks in any other months since the end of major hostilities following the international intervention in 2001…
July was reportedly the worst month for Afghan civilians in the past six years, with 260 civilian casualties recorded…
Now, due primarily to a stepped up air operations, Afghanistan, “the good war” is turning bad.
Aug 02 2008
Look At How
Well The Economy
Is Doing.
So Well That
51,000 Jobs Disappeared
Anthrax Suspect’s Death Is Dark End for a Family Man
By SARAH ABRUZZESE and ERIC LIPTON
Published: August 2, 2008
FREDERICK, Md. – Bruce E. Ivins arrived last month for a group counseling session at a psychiatric center here in his hometown with a startling announcement: Facing the prospect of murder charges, he had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun as he contemplated killing his co-workers at the nearby Army research laboratory.
“He was going to go out in a blaze of glory, that he was going to take everybody out with him,” said a social worker in a transcript of a hearing at which she sought a restraining order against Dr. Ivins after his threats.The ranting represented the final stages of psychological decline by Dr. Ivins that ended when he took his life this week, as it became clear that he was a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
IOC meets amid Beijing concerns
Olympic organisers are meeting in China six days before the Beijing Games, amid ongoing concerns about air pollution, internet restrictions and doping.
The BBC
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge arrived in Beijing amid a row over internet access for foreign journalists.Lingering concerns about air quality are also hampering final preparations.
The IOC has also stripped the US 4x400m men’s relay team of gold at the Sydney Games in 2000 after a doping admission.
Sprinter Antonio Pettigrew admitted in June that he used banned substances between 1997 and 2003.
USA
Mounting job losses point to more economic troubles
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – Employers shed jobs in July for the seventh consecutive month and the national unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. The losses weren’t of the size that signals recession, but analysts think that continued sluggish economic growth lies ahead.The nation’s employers trimmed 51,000 jobs from nonfarm payrolls during the month of July and more than 463,000 jobs cumulatively this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The jobless rate bumped up two-tenths of a percentage point during the month, from 5.5 percent, leaving more Americans without jobs.
Aug 02 2008
BORED OF EDUCATION
Three more academics from Yokohama City University’s medical school, including a professor in charge of postgraduate degree screenings, admitted receiving cash gifts from students for granting them doctorates. In May, the committee announced that 16 professors and associate professors admitted receiving nearly Â¥6 million from postgraduate students.Motoharu Seiki, who heads the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Medical Science, apologized “from the bottom of our hearts for having brought about trouble and anxiety,” after it was revealed that researchers lied about getting approval of an ethics review board and conducted studies without donors’ consent.
A document released by Japan’s education ministry says students should be taught that there are differing opinions with South Korea over the uninhabited Sea of Japan islets called Takeshima-or “Dokdo” by the South Koreans-but that they are, indeed, part of Japan’s territory.
A primary school teacher was arrested for repeatedly peeping up a high school girl’s skirt at a train station in Oita Prefecture. Local police received a report that a man was coming to the station in the mornings to look up the 15-year-old’s skirt on her way to school.
ROLLING BACK THE CLOCK
The Hato Bus Co. will mark the 60th anniversary of its guided excursions by offering a half-day tour of Tokyo in March 2009 for just ¥250-the same price the company charged when it started the service back in March 1949.Malaysia-based discount airline AirAsia Berhad plans to fly to Japan from as early as March 2009, with fares costing half as much as major carriers.
A Chuo-ku-based real estate broker announced in its most recent report that vacancies in Tokyo’s five central wards-Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya-have increased for five consecutive months.
Eleven rare photographs taken in the center of Hiroshima within weeks of the US atomic bombing on August 6, 1945, were put on display at the city’s peace park. The photos were found in the home of Yoshihiro Nakamae, whose father took the images in September or October 1945.
The iconic mechanical clown Cui-daore Taro was put to rest on the final day of operation of Cui-daore, the Osaka restaurant that had used the drumming doll as its emblem since 1950.
Aug 02 2008
You can’t pour anything into a vessel that’s already full, so there’s all sorts of fancy words to talk about emptying it first and cleaning it out, purification, purging, catharsis, all that. Psychological terms, spiritual terms.
I remember once hearing about a spiritual practice that purified a person, emptied them of all the negative feelings and thoughts and attachments, and I remarked “but then there would be nothing left!” Yeah, scary thought. Nothing.
New moon tonight, and emptiness is on my mind. Empty of thoughts and decisions and opinions. Empty of expectations and desires and demands. The moon waxes and the moon wanes, eternal cycles of emptiness and fullness.
Fear can fill the human spirit during times of great change and makes action into panic stricken yelling and dashing about, “save me!” “Save me!” “Somebody DO something!”
Elton John – “Grey Seal,” 1974 (courtesy of Regdwight23 from YouTube)
Aug 02 2008
Alone among the developed nations of the West, the US still glorifies war and the “warrior.” This serves as an object lesson to the rest of the world about what happens when a nation obtains the means to wage war at will anywhere around the globe without also maturing into the wisdom to abhor the idea of war. I have come to believe that the love and glorification of war is something that a nation outgrows, and the US has a very long way to go before it is mature enough to turn its back on war. Indeed, I doubt that there can ever again be conditions dire enough to pull the US kicking and screaming out of its warlike childhood.
Join me below the fold, won’t you?
Aug 02 2008
All three “public” Bushes called into Rush Limbaugh’s show today, reports the LA Times to congratulate him for 20 years of spewing rightwing noise across America’s airwaves. Just reading the provided transcript is enough to transform weaker stomachs into queasy, vomit catapults.
Here’s some lowlights:
W: Hello!
RUSH: Oh, jeez. The president?
W: Rush Limbaugh?
RUSH: Yes, sir, Mr. President.
W: President George W. Bush calling to congratulate you on 20 years of important and excellent broadcasting.
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir. You’ve stunned me! (laughing) I’m shocked. But thank you so much.
W: That’s hard to do.
RUSH: (laughing) I know, it is.
W: I’m here with a room full of admirers. There are two others that would like to speak to you and congratulate you, people who consider you … friends and really appreciate the contribution you’ve made.
Update below the fold…
Aug 01 2008
Alok Jha of The Guardian reports on a Cheap way to ‘split water’ that could lead to an abundant clean fuel. “Daniel Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed a catalyst made from cobalt and phosphorus that can split water at room temperature, a technique he describes in the journal Science.”
The technique, which mimics the way photosynthesis works in plants, also provides a highly efficient way to store energy, potentially paving the way to making solar power more economically viable.
Hydrogen is a clean, energy-rich fuel that many experts believe could become important as nations attempt to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The gas can be produced by splitting water but current techniques are expensive, use harsh chemicals and need carefully controlled environments in which to operate.
Over at Dailky Kos, Litho gives more details in Solar Energy: MIT announces major breakthrough.
Huricanes can actually be beneficial. From the Great Beyond at Nature, Hurricane keeps dead zone small. “The huge ‘dead zone’ of oxygen-poor water in the Gulf of Mexico failed to reach record size this year.” Because, “Hurricane Dolly stirred the dead zone like a big pot of soup, aerating water that would otherwise have been oxygenless. Thus by the time scientists finished measuring it, the zone was smaller than predicted. It should shrink further in the fall, with cooler weather, fewer algae and more storms mixing the waters.”
More evidence of self-repair from the Earth’s natural systems?
Four at Four continues with a couple stories about climate change, trolls on the net, and a troll running for the president.
Aug 01 2008
I have been writing for months on the deaths of farmwokers in California from the heat.
United Farm Workers Calls for Manslaughter Charges Against Company in Death of 17 Year Old
How many Farmworkers must die before someone cares??
Please Tell Fallen Farm Worker’s Family We Care
“How much is the life of a farm worker worth? Is it less than the life of any other human being?”
Another farm worker died from the heat today. 5 in the last three months.
Come around after the fold for the sad news.
Aug 01 2008
`When _I_ use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’
`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master – – that’s all.’
(From Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass)
Yeah, this is a diary about abrupt climate change. Crossposted at Big Orange.
Aug 01 2008
Warning: This post is racist. It contains stereotypes and generalizations about a certain racial group, in order to try to depict and describe my view of the world as it is. But I certainly do not believe nor wish to imply that all members of that racial group conform to the generalizations contained herein, as I hope I make clear below.
America has never really been America. That is to say the vision of America spelled out in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence has never come into actual being. An America of equal opportunity, freedom, and justice for all.
There has always been Two Americas! At the highest potential it has ever reached, there have been three Americas. The third being the Middle Class, now an endangered species. America has never REALLY practically been about the ideals that were espoused in our founding documents. Coming out of and rebelling against a monarchal system made it necessary to spell out some stark differences between what America was under the British Monarchy and what it aspired to be. The Founders needed to lay out their ideals, in reaction to the tyrannical reality they inhabited, some goals of what they thought an ideal society would be. Being intelligent men, they knew that merely signing a piece of paper with these goals written upon them would not transform instantly into the realization of those goals.
They were obviously counting on future generations to realize those ideals.
Like…us.
America was FOUNDED as Two Americas. The rich white male “Christians” (Christians must be put in quotes, since several of the Founders, most notably the author of the Declaration, Jefferson, had rejected conventional Christianity in favor of The Enlightenment, which explains the, btw, explains the inclusion of the radical concepts of equality and justice for all.) ……………….and everybody else.
Rich white male Christians founded America and rich white male Christians have ruled it ever since. Not surprisingly given human nature, rich white male Christians have used the power of their elevated position as the sole class of citizens allowed to hold power by other rich white male Christians to benefit, protect, and permanently ensconce the rich white male Christian power structure. When non-rich, non-white, non-male, non-Christian persons or people have attempted to gain power or wealth, rich white male Christians have seen this as an attack on them and reacted accordingly…and often quite violently.
This is not a thing of the past, despite the fact that white Americans seem to think so.
BILL O’REILLY: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I……
Yes, Bill, the far left DOES want to break down the rich white male Christian power structure. Why? Because we BELIEVE in these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (AND women!) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.….
That is the America I believe in, that is the America I wish to build, the future I wish to build.