January 5, 2009 archive

In the beginning was the Void…and Uncertainty.

So there either was or was not.  Thus the Void was not void.  There was a bit.

It was a very small bang.

The first bit, together with Uncertainty, generated more bits.  SpaceTime erupted, a boil on the butt of perfect emptiness.  The Rainbow computer that is our universe existed.  Or exists.  Or will exist.  Or will have existed.

Tense often doesn’t matter that much in SpaceTime.

Thus were the bones of the the universe laid down, the warp threads of the Tapestry of Life.  This was the Way it was done, in as much as the Way can be described…which is not at all, of course.

The Greataway leapt into existence.

1. From the Washington Post comes news of Obama’s idea of economic stimulus. “Obama officials are advocating that Congress direct about $300 billion of the stimulus package, or about 40 percent, toward tax breaks.”

2. Meanwhile, the CS Monitor reports Obama is likely to retool Bush’s faith-based initiative. “Tackling the church-state issue head on, the Obama transition team has engaged a large advisory committee – involving people with differing perspectives on the most contentious issues – to help it design a government-neighborhood partnership.” That darn Constitution.

3. Another sign of no progress from Iraq. A Female suicide bomber kills 38 in Baghdad reports the LA Times. During a Shiite pilgrimage, a woman “detonated her explosives at a crowded checkpoint, killing as many as 38 people and wounding 72”. And as always: “it was one of the capital’s worst attacks in months”. It always is one of the worst.

   Oh and the NY Times reports the new, built by slave-labor, U.S. embassy opens in Baghdad.

4. What would the waning days of the Bush administration be without last minute regulation changes to destroy the environment? The Washington Post reports the Policy will allow paving roads on U.S. Forest Service land. The change will “make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.”

Empire is in the last throes. Dick Cheney taught us just because something is in the ‘last throes’ doesn’t mean something dies right away. Empire won’t morph into Democritown anytime soon. But there is no doubt the future is arriving quickly and the hoped-for happy-ever-after of humanity has nothing to do with trade, commerce, business, markets or money. It all comes down to you.

Original article, an editorial subtitled The Greek socialist newspaper Workers’ Left looks in this editorial at the roots of the revolt that began with the killing of a teenage student by police in Athens–and what the protests mean for the future, via socialistworker.org:

THE WAVE of struggle that has burst out after the police murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos has been justly characterized as a social rebellion by youth in Greece.

So, George H. W. thinks Jeb Should Be President.

Enough I Say.

One Is All The World Can Take.  

Israeli troops and Hamas fighters clash in Gaza City



Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 January 2009 07.20 GMT

Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants fought gun battles in the streets of Gaza City for the first time this morning,with Israeli troops going house to house searching for Hamas fighters.

The fighting came as Israeli tanks and troops seized control of large parts of the Gaza Strip, dividing the territory and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes as the death toll mounted under relentless artillery and gunfire.

Some of the heaviest fighting was reported to be east of Gaza City, in the Zeitoun district, where three Palestinian children were killed by an Israeli tank shell. Several others were wounded, according to Palestinian medical officials.

In Eastern Europe, Lives Languish in Mental Facilities

MEMO FROM PRAVDA

By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER

Published: January 4, 2009

PRAVDA, Bulgaria – The name of this isolated spot in the lush Danube plains means justice or, in Russian, truth.

But little of either seems to have penetrated the home for men with mental disabilities and illnesses here, a bleak establishment reached most easily by a bone-jarring, six-hour ride from Sofia, the capital.

In the Communist era, this is where authorities hid the mentally ill from public view. Today, the Pravda Social Care Home for Men with Mental Disorders, a small complex of scrappy, two-story buildings, is still a favored destination for city folk to send away relatives with a mental illness or disability – and not worry about hearing from them again, employees and residents here say.

USA

Senate Appointee in Illinois Vows to Fight On



By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA and MONICA DAVEY

Published: January 4, 2009

CHICAGO – In a raucous sendoff at a church on this city’s South Side, Roland W. Burris, the contested appointee for the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, vowing on Sunday night to cordially but aggressively fight efforts to block him from joining the chamber when he arrives in Washington this week.

Senate leaders have said they intend to prevent the seating of Mr. Burris, given his appointment last week by this state’s embattled governor, Rod R. Blagojevich. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said on Sunday that the Senate had the legal right to bar Mr. Burris from the new session, which begins Tuesday.

As Senate leaders continued to weigh their options over what they say is an appointment tainted by Mr. Blagojevich, a two-term Democrat who was charged last month in part with trying to sell the Senate seat, Mr. Burris’s allies here stood firmly behind him.

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The Bangles – walk like an Egyptian