September 2008 archive

Amy Goodman reported from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul), site of the Republican National Convention, September 1, 2008, Labor Day:

Armed groups of police in the Twin Cities have raided more than a half-a-dozen locations since Friday night in a series of preemptive raids before the Republican convention. The coordinated searches were led by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher but conducted in coordination with federal agencies….

Minnesota Public Radio is reporting that the FBI is at least one of the “federal agencies” acting in concert with the Minneapolis/St. Paul police departments. A professor at the University of Minnesota has snapped a photo of FBI presence at one of the raids. Many of these police gestapo actions involved two dozen or more riot police entering private homes with guns drawn, handcuffing the residents, and rifling through the house to search computers, and political literature.

Original article, by John Andrews, via dissidentvoice.org:

Anyone reading these words already knows our political systems are broken beyond repair. They already know that trying to patch them up by changing one political party for another every few years merely conforms to Einstein’s definition of insanity: ‘Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ The great man also said something else worth reapeating: ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.’

A world of one dominant power is an imperial world … to maintain its dominance that one dominant power must interfere with the affairs of those outside the boundaries of the metropole. It is an intrinsically imperial project, whether proudly so or, as in our case, it is an imperial project that must be pursued while paying lip service to self-determination and democratic expression.

A world of one dominance power is a world, therefore, of war.

But a multi-polar world is not necessarily a world of peace. It can be, under a balance of power, but there is no necessity that it shall be.

So today, it is casting the Beauty Platform for a Multi-Polar world at Peace. A lot of weight for one shiny and three tarnished copper coins to carry … I hope they do not get deformed under the stress, like the pennies that “those mischievous kids” used to put on the railroad tracks.

We Got Docudharma Horoscopes!

Yeah, I figure if all these other folks can go on and on about horoscopes, why can’t I?  I’m as psychic as the next guy!  And I know this because I’m psychic!

So here are your Docudharma  horoscopes, courtesy of Madame NPK.

Aires

Only the second day after the new moon, time of purification and emptiness, and you’re already raring to go fill everything up in a heartbeat!  Well, impetuous Aires, go right ahead, no one is going to stop you as they’re all too worn out eating at barbeques and otherwise engaged in Labor Day activities.  You’ll be the one to steal the march on everyone else and by the end of the day, if anyone tries to stop you, you’ll be gone like a cool breeze.

Taurus

Sure you are stubborn, why wouldn’t you be?  Isn’t the Earth herself awfully stubborn, hanging around as long as she has?  Consider it a virtue, I say.  Use this day to catch up on your sybaritic pleasures, long sensuous bath, a glass of wine, loving your lover or, if you are single, wooing a new lover with your not inconsiderable charms.  You’ll need this break because the week ahead will be chock full of adventure!

1. The NY Times reports that the Storm strikes land west of New Orleans. “Hurricane Gustav made landfall along the Louisiana coast late Monday morning, and with the center of the storm striking 70 miles southwest of New Orleans, officials were optimistic that the city would be spared destruction on the scale of Hurricane Katrina three years ago.”

   Gustav has been downgraded from a category 3 to category 2, “because its winds had slowed to 110 miles an hour from 115 m.p.h., according to the National Weather Service. Officials at the Army Corps of Engineers said that New Orleans’ levee system was being severely tested, but they did not think that the hurricane would cause water to flow over its walls.”

   There is Six inches of flooding reported in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans according to The Times-Picayune.

   As much as six inches of flooding has been reported in the Upper 9th Ward from water splashing over the western side of the Industrial Canal floodwall, said Jerry Sneed, New Orleans director of homeland security and emergency preparedness.

   Army Corps of Engineers officials said the spillage does not pose a major threat.

   Water is overtopping for several hundred yards on the Upper Ninth Ward side of the Industrial Canal on both sides of the Claiborne Avenue bridge…

   “We’re confident in the stability of that wall,” which was fortified after Hurricane Katrina, said Karen Durham-Aguilera, director of Task Force Hope for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Officials are out in force at the scene. The overflow areas appear to be greatest on the river side of Claiborne.

Four at Four continues with the U.S. hand over to the Iraqis in Anbar, U.S. lagging in the world bicycle boom, pollution from Asia impact on the U.S., and the melting of Greenland’s icesheet.

John McCain is focusing on the wrong disaster.

The Category 3 that’s about to hit isn’t off the Gulf Coast, and it isn’t named Gustav.

It’s seated in the Gulfstream IV next to him, and it’s named Sarah.