June 13, 2009 archive

Stand By / Bodhisattva

Saturday speed blogging… reading… after almost finishing up with my morning chores and getting the old man out the door to a gig, I sat down to see if I could catch up with whatever I’ve missed the last few days. Not counting the “disputed” Iran vote, Palin vs Letterman, and countless other (often pointless) headline grabbers.

Cant take it. Hit a wall.

Please go read  Worthington, who is close to sainthood, if you ask me.

Meanwhile, you can follow my crumbs.

Also last night or today, read DD’s best… Winter Rabbit, Robyn, NightProwlKitty, and everybody else, as much as I can. 🙂

You guys need to see this

Youtube’s limited run of the film ‘Home’ is ending this weekend.  

Do yourself a favor and take the time to watch (preferably full screen).  

Your understanding of our world, and our place in it, will never be the same.

Update: if you are having trouble viewing the embedded video, go here (h/t Lady Libertine).

Home Project

New York’s Circus McGurkus

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Dr. Seuss had it right about the New York Senate in If I Ran The Circus.

The plot summary of Dr. Seuss’s classic story:

Behind Mr. Sneelock’s ramshackle store, there’s an empty lot. Little Morris McGurk is convinced that if he could just clear out the rusty cans, the dead tree, and the old cars, nothing would prevent him from using the lot for the amazing, world-beating, Circus McGurkus. The more elaborate Morris’ dreams about the circus become, the more they depend on the sleepy-looking and innocent Sneelock, who stands outside his ramshackle store sucking on a pipe, oblivious to the fate that awaits him in the depths of Morris’s imagination. He doesn’t yet know that he’ll have to dispense 500 gallons of lemonade, be lassoed by a Wily Walloo, wrestle a Grizzly-Ghastly, and ski down a slope dotted with giant cacti. But if his performance is up to McGurkian expectations, then “Why, ladies and gentlemen, youngsters and oldsters, your heads will quite likely spin right off your shouldsters!”

Kucinich 1, Corporate Boss 0.

Dark Soul- Chapter Three

Happy Saturday and welcome the chapter three of “Dark Soul”. This is a serialization of a novel the Dog has written. There is a big difference between writing political commentary and writing fiction. Both have their own learning curve and the intent of posting this is to get some feed back, if anyone has any.

If you are coming to this series for the first time, you can find the previous chapters at these links:

Dark Soul – Chapter One

Dark Soul – Chapter Two

This novel is only being posted here at Docudharma.  

On The Costs Of Care, Or, You Don’t Want Every Item On This Menu

I don’t know if you’ve been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.

For reasons that we won’t go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities…and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the “menu” of services (the facility’s term) that can be purchased at this particular location.

If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future…or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself…this conversation will surely matter.

damn. “they” strike again.

Humans are amazing. It’s not just that we never ever seem to learn from past mistakes, but that we, in our chosen collectives; ie religious/ ethnic racial political blocs, exempt ourselves from our respective contributions to the epic failures of this first decade in this new century.

I fear, the truth is that the fault, dear Democrats/progressives/liberals, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves . . . if we are underlings.

cross-posted at Daily Kos

Docudharma Times Saturday June 13

“We’ve got a lot of rebuilding

to do … The good news is – and it’s hard for some

to see it now – that out of this chaos

is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast,

like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house

– he’s lost his entire house –

there’s going to be a fantastic house.

And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.

” (Laughter) -President Bush, touring hurricane damage,

Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005




Saturay’s Headlines:

Judgment day: broke California faces shutdown at Arnie Schwarzenegger ‘s hand

Japan’s Generation XX

Leading Muslim cleric killed in suicide bomb attack in Lahore

Latvia cuts pensions, salaries to avoid bankruptcy

Spanish Civil War bodies exhumed

In Mosul, Iraqi army not ready to take over from U.S. forces

How close is Iran to a bomb?

A Mexican Cartel’s Swift and Grisly Climb

Iran Election In Dispute as 2 Candidates Claim Victory

Ahmadinejad Official Leader, But Mousavi Alleges Fraud

By Thomas Erdbrink

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, June 13, 2009


TEHRAN, June 13 — A pivotal presidential election in Iran ended in confusion and confrontation early Saturday as both sides claimed victory and plainclothes officers fired tear gas to disperse a cheering crowd outside the campaign headquarters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

With votes still being counted in many cities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was leading by a 2-1 ratio in early returns, according to Iranian Interior Ministry officials. But Mousavi’s supporters dismissed those numbers, saying the ministry was effectively under Ahmadinejad’s control.

North Korea says it will ‘weaponize’ its plutonium



Associated Press

11:55 PM PDT, June 12, 2009


SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea vowed on Saturday to embark on a uranium enrichment program and “weaponize” all the plutonium in its possession as it rejected the new U.N. sanctions meant to punish the communist nation for its recent nuclear test.

North Korea also said it would not abandon its nuclear programs, saying it was an inevitable decision to defend itself from what it says is a hostile U.S. policy and its nuclear threat against the North.

The North will take “resolute military action” if the United States or its allies try to impose any “blockade” on it, the ministry said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The ministry did not elaborate if the blockade refers to an attempt to stop its ships or impose sanctions.

North Korea describes its nuclear program as a deterrent against possible U.S. attacks. Washington says it has no intention of attacking and has expressed fear that North Korea is trying to sell its nuclear technology to other nations.

USA

Permanence Eludes Some Katrina Victims

Many Still Live in Trailers, Rentals

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, June 13, 2009


GULFPORT, Miss. — James Johnson can look across a grassy field here and see acres of empty pastel “Mississippi cottages,” each house an architect’s vision of how government can provide safe, low-cost and permanent housing to families made homeless by Hurricane Katrina nearly four years ago.

At 74, Johnson would like nothing better than to move one of the nearly 700 vacant cottages onto his land, where he now lives in a temporary trailer provided by the government. The cottages — with picturesque white fences and wide front porches — are designed to be set on a permanent foundation and can withstand winds of 150 mph.

Johnson’s daughter helped him apply for a cottage, but the request to the state has gone nowhere.

Late Night Karaoke

For Are Fearless Leaders

Obama, John Rawls, and a Defense of the Unreasonable

Cross-posted from ProgressiveHistorians

 If you want to understand President Obama’s soul, read his books.  But if you want to understand his beliefs, read John Rawls.  The Harvard academic, who died in 2002, was the most important philosopher of liberalism in the twentieth century, mostly because, in so many ways, Rawls’ ideas describe the world we live in.  That has never been more true than today, when our President has, consciously or unconsciously, exalted Rawlsian ideas to the position of the greatest possible good.

Care to hear more about this explanatory model that is so central to Obama’s thought, whether he acknowledges the influence or not?  Read on.

Random Japan

TOUGH TIMES  

The average annual income in Japan slid ¥106,000 in 2007 from a year earlier, to ¥5.562 million, according to a survey by the labor ministry. An increasing number of workers taking retirement was supposedly the main culprit.

A poll conducted by Nippon Keidanren revealed that summer bonuses at Japan’s top companies will be down about 20 percent this year, to an average of Â¥754,000-the biggest drop ever recorded.

A Nomura Securities survey revealed that 78 percent of investors would vote against executive pay bonuses at annual shareholders’ meetings this year.

The National Police Agency reported that the number of purse snatching cases declined from 52,919 in 2002 to 19,145 last year. However, there has been a 13.9 percent increase in such crimes in the first quarter of 2009, probably because of the recession.

Disgraced Livedoor founder Takafumi Horie and his cohorts have been ordered to repay Â¥7.62 billion in damages to shareholders who lost money on manipulated share prices. “Just hang on a minute while I hit an ATM…”

Breaking: SC Republican calls Michelle Obama’s ancestors “Apes”

Ok.  I WAS going to write on the Penguins hockey win.  Congrats Penguins!

But, we now get breaking news that in South Carolina, a former Republican official made a comment on Facebook calling Michelle Obama’s ancestors “Apes” after a gorilla escaped from the Columbia Zoo.

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