December 28, 2008 archive

Research Project: Was Santa Suit Slayer a Republican?

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Bruce Pardo – Domestic Terrorist

I am currently writing a piece on the horrific killing spree of the heinously pre-meditated and viciously merciless Christmas Eve rampage of one angry white male loser named Bruce Pardo. This man is a domestic terrorist with a number of traits that would strongly suggest that he is one of the aggrieved types who is attracted to the dittohead neo-Nazi brigades.

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Euro currency turns 10; seen fulfilling promise

By MATT MOORE and GEORGE FREY, AP Business Writers

4 mins ago

FRANKFURT, Germany – Ten years ago, Europe launched its grand experiment with a shared currency – and watched it plunge in value before recovering.

But as the anniversary approaches of the Jan. 1, 1999, arrival of the euro, economists say the new currency is finally fulfilling its promise as a way to lower borrowing costs, ease trade and tourism, boost growth and strengthen the European community.

And doing it amid a global financial crisis that, for the moment, underlines the safety in numbers that comes from joining one, big currency.

Why Bush and Cheney Should Get a Fair Trial

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Why should they get a fair trial?  Why should there be a special prosecutor who investigates thoroughly the torture of human beings that has been going on in our name?

One reason is because so many have not gotten a fair trial, both here in the USA and abroad.

HSR LA to Las Vegas

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

I’ve been following with interest the discussion of California to Las Vegas HSR at the California HSR blog.

To catch up with the state of play, before the passage of CA-Prop 1A, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Confusion), who hails from Nevada, supports a maglev line from Las Vegas to Anaheim, and there was an article in the Las Vegas Sun indicating that Gov. Schwarzenegger and Gov. Gibbons had talked up the maglev:

Near the bottom of a news release detailing Gov. Jim Gibbons’ meeting last month with President-elect Barack Obama was the announcement that Gibbons and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to move ahead with the high-speed train project.

“Arnold and I agreed to jointly work together on the project,” said Gibbons, who is planning to travel to Sacramento to talk with Schwarzenegger about it.

Also before the passage of CA-Prop 1A was the DesertXpress proposal to build a private Rapid Passenger Rail system to capture part of the stream of cars heading up the I-15 from LA to Las Vegas. The proposed system starts at Victorville.

Victorville? Why Victorville? If you’d care to follow along, and consider how CA-Prop 1A changes the whole picture, join me after the fold.

Café Discovery: Context, 1963

I was in ninth grade at Lake Oswego Junior High for the first half of 1963 and a sophomore at Lake Oswego High at the end of it.  

And music ranged from the Beatles at the beginning of the year…to the Beatles at the end of the year.  The meaningful music was in between.

I pulled the news from 1963 out of wiki, every fifth story, chosen in order to hit my birthday.  I’ve added some content and some memories and followed a few threads forward.

I found it an interesting study.  I hope you do, too.

La La La La La, We Are NOT Amused

Via RawStory…

“It was an assault,” she said. “And the president laughed it off, he wasn’t hurt, he’s very quick as you know he’s a natural athlete and ducked it, but on the other hand it was an assault.”

This video is from Fox’s Fox News Sunday, broadcast Dec. 28, 2008.

Washington Times-PTSD-Treatments

While we’ll take Any In Depth Reports about what already should have been common knowledge on Post Traumatic Stress I do have just a couple of minor irritations with an otherwise Stellar Report on the Treatments for PTSD in the Washington Times edition today. let me get them out of the way.

The report, called VA grapples with veterans’ mental traumas, is a six page writeup of which one Audrey Hudson deserves alot of credit for reporting and apparently has done a few others this year as the previous link would show.

It starts out with the following:

Dennis Prager Woos The Wife He Doesn’t Have.

“My, your marital obligation looks lovely tonight and in the light of these florescent tubes (candles are for sissies) may I tell you that I treasure your choice to submit to the duties of your vows MORE today than on the day you signed your name to a contract dooming you to a life of faking it for sake of my self-image!”

Sunday music retrospective: 1963, Part II

The year in smorgasbord II



The Ronettes:  Be My Baby

Peru: In Search Of Arguedas

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

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Jose Maria Aguedas (1911-1969) (photo by Jose Gushiken)

I have to begin with Mariategui, the street in Cuzco, Peru, and then the man.

We decided to take a cab to find Don Francisco’s new house in Cuzco, Peru.  He is a Q’ero Shaman.  We wanted to do a shamanic ceremony with him and his wife and eat lunch with them.  We wanted to visit him at his home as he had visited us at ours in the US.  He gave us the address.  He gave us his cell number.  He gave us a land mark. We ended up calling him on the cell phone to say, “We’re parked at the church.  We don’t know where you are.”  He walked down the hill and found us.  Pointing, he said, that street is Mariategui.  That’s where the bus goes into Centro.  That’s where you have to walk.  That’s where the house is.

Did he know who Mariategui was?  Probably not.  I forgot to ask him.  I am quite certain that he never read him.

Please join me in Peru.

Paying to Play And Paying The Price

Crossposted from ePluribus Media to here and to DailyKos.

The Daily News has obtained an exclusive photo of President George W. Bush shaking hands with Isaac Toussie‘s father;1 the photo had been taken earlier this year. According to Daily News political correspondent Celeste Katz, it was not immediately clear whether the photo was snapped before or after Toussie’s father made his April contribution of $28,500 to the Republican National Convention.

The timing of the picture — both the appearance of it now, as well as whether it was taken before or after the hefty contribution — could significantly add to the potential controversies that the Bush Administration and the Republican party have to worry about, particularly with regard to Bush’s legacy.

Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP

The Bush-Toussie picture was first published exclusively on the New York Daily News; the Bush-Abramoff photo was found on Tennesseefree.com and was apparently originally posted on MSNBC.msn.com

           

 

Change I can believe in

I wonder if any of you can remember your life in politics before 2000? Before we were loaded with one outrage after another to the point that it became difficult to keep up?

I remember Monica and impeachment (ha-ha) and the “vast right-wing-conspiracy.” But things get more fuzzy when I try to think about what issues were on the table, or which ones were off the table and we were trying to get them on.

The reason I’m going down this memory lane is that I’m doing my best to try to imagine a world without Bushco. And its hard to get there. I feel like I’ve been fighting them with almost everything I’ve got for so long that I can’t imagine a world where that isn’t a centering theme. But its about to happen.

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