June 2009 archive

Dystopia 11: Paje

I think it’s unfortunate that in this culture we have fallen so much into the habit of relying on refined, purified durative of plants, in highly concentrated form, both for recreational drugs and for medicine. And have formed the habit of thinking that this is somehow more scientific and effective, that botanical drugs are old-fashioned, unscientific, messy. In fact, they’re much safer, and sometimes the quality and effects are better.”

“But I think healing, like religious experience, is an innate potential of the body. It’s not something that comes in a drug. All a drug can do is give you a push in a certain direction, and I think that even there expectation plays a great role in that.”

“Why is it that the human brain and plants should have the same chemicals in them?”



Andrew Weil      

Scorecard; Wolves 10 Zillion, Sheep 0

There are two kinds of people in this world, people who divide people into two kinds of people and people who don’t. I don’t, except when I do, like now.

There are two kinds of people in this world, sheep and wolves.

Edward R. Murrow provides the relevant quote for today’s treatise…

“A nation of Sheep, begets a government of Wolves.

To which Anthony Quinns character in Lawrence of Arabia replies…

If Allah did not want them sheared, he would not have made them Sheep.

Today let us not speak of the Wolves in Sheeps clothing, that people would like to have a beer with and so put in charge of guarding the henhouse while the cat is away. The las eight years have been instructive enough for all but the most willfully ignorant and waifish naif about them, it thye would just look up from grazing on American Idol.

Instead it is my fondest wish that we discus their opposite, the yin to their velvet gloved Yang, the Sheep in Wolves clothing.

Yes, that is right, it is time once again to discuss the media.

JTP: “Why hasn’t he been strung up?”

Crossposted at daily kos

He’s baaaaaaaaaaacccckkkk.

and dumber and more dangerous than ever.


    Americans for Prosperity, one of the wingnut welfare outfits behind the Great Teabagging, held an event in Wausau, Wisconsin yesterday, keynoted by the man who best personifies the Teabagging movement.

   

    Referring to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., more than once, Wurzelbacher asked, “Why hasn’t he been strung up?”

firedoglake.com

    Murder. Sam Wurzlebacher is calling for murder.

Dark Soul -Chapter Five

Happy Saturday and welcome to the Dog’s serialization of the novel Dark Soul. This is a work in progress, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions, don’t be shy about offering them up.

If you have just started reading this, you can find chapters one through three at the following links:

Dark Soul – Chapter One

Dark Soul – Chapter Two

Dark Soul – Chapter Three

Dark Soul – Chapter Four

This serializartion is only available here at Docudharma!  

jacko, goldman sachs, & it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got cha CHING

It almost seems inevitable. That Michael Jackson’s doctor turns out to be a bit of a shadowy figure, another potential blood sucker in a world of vampires, all making promises of happiness while draining our lives away. The police spoke with the good doctor on Thursday, the day Mr. Jackson died. On Friday? The “authorities” couldn’t seem to locate the doctor for further interviews, but they did impound his car, still in Jackson’s driveway, searching it for possible links (code for drugs) to Jackson’s death.

In a seemingly unrelated story, Mike Taibbi reports on the economic terminator that is Goldman Sachs, which is analyzed in Magnifico’s most excellent diary.

One human being, Michael Jackson. One conglomerate of human beings formed into a single entity. What could possibly connect them?

cross-posted at Daily Kos

Iran: Fire Beneath The Ashes?

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It’s all but over. To virtually no one’s surprise, the Iran Government’s pervasive brutality has effectively silenced the demonstrations and the opposition against Iran’s stolen election.  Iran has begun to move off the front pages. And it appears that the government’s violence has forced the democracy movement off the streets and into a pained and fearful silence.  The media reports are a cause not for surprise but for sadness.

The New York Times sifts the ashes of the Iranian resistance:

The direct confrontation over Iran’s presidential election was effectively silenced Friday when the main opposition leader said he would seek permits for any future protests, an influential cleric suggested that leaders of the demonstrations could be executed, and the council responsible for validating the election repeated its declaration that there were no major irregularities.

Rather than address the underlying issues that led to the most sustained, unexpected challenge to the leadership since the 1979 revolution, the government pressed its effort to recast the entire conflict not as an internal dispute that brought millions of Iranians into the streets, but as one between Iran and outside agents from Europe, the United States and even Saudi Arabia.

It was a narrative that spoke both to the leadership’s belief that it had beaten back the popular outburst, and to the fragility of the calm. “There has been too much violence to forget about it,” said an expatriate Iranian analyst who is not being identified because he has relatives in Iran and is afraid of reprisals against them.

According to CNN, the the Iranian Government’s violence and threats of execution have stifled the demonstrations.  And the Government persists in its groundless claims that outsiders caused the demonstrations, and that demonstrators were responsible for the death of Neda Agha-Soltan:

Two weeks into turmoil, Iran’s leaders turned up the heat Friday as a high-ranking cleric warned protesters that they would be punished “firmly” and shown no mercy.  Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami says rioters in Iran will be “firmly” dealt with if they continue to protest.

“Rioters and those who mastermind the unrest must know the Iranian nation will not give in to pressure and accept the nullification of the election results,” said Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami during Friday prayers in Tehran, according to Iran’s state-run Press TV.

“I ask the Judiciary to firmly deal with these people and set an example for everyone,” Khatami said.

Khatami also blamed demonstrators for the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who emerged as a powerful symbol of opposition after her death a week ago was captured on a cell phone video. Khatami said the foreign media had used Neda for propaganda purposes.

Khatami’s assertions will go unchallenged for now.  Meanwhile, dozens of journalists who were trying to report the story and between 20 and 25 employees of a Mousavi organized newspaper remain in detention. Amnesty International noted that these were “at risk of torture in detention.”  Put simply, the democracy movement will now recede.  The demonstrations will cease.

Is there still fire beneath these ashes?  The BBC reported on Friday:

In the centre of Tehran there are many fewer security forces on the streets. A stadium where Basij militia – an arm of the Revolutionary Guard – were based is now being used for sport again.

But the power of the regime is not far from the surface. On the main avenues black cars with the words special police painted on them move steadily through the traffic, each one containing four or five men in camouflage uniforms.

It has been much quieter these last few days. One elderly witness said she felt it was the calm of the grave. …

When you ask Iranians about the way this might go, a phrase keeps cropping up. They say it might seem quiet to an outsider, but there is fire below the ashes.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

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“HE KEPT US SAFE”

THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN CHARACTER

THE “CRINGING WIMP” GENERATION

For years we hear little else, “But he kept us safe.”  The “but” refers to bankrupting the country, stealing elections, suspending Constitutional Rights, poisoning the air and water and turning the country over to racketeers from oil, drug, insurance and crooked financial services……….

Bounded By A World Of Dreams (open thread)

The Voice




Won’t you take me back to school

I need to learn the golden rule

Won’t you lay it on the line

I need to hear it just one more time

Oh won’t you tell me again

Can you feel it

Won’t you tell me again

Tonight

Each and every heart it seems

Is bounded by a world of dreams

Each and every rising sun

Is greeted by a lonely one

Oh won’t you tell me again

Can you feel it

Oh won’t you tell me again

Tonight

Cause out on the ocean of life my love

There’s so many storms we must rise above

Can you hear the spirit calling

As it’s carried across the waves

You’re already falling

It’s calling you back to face the music

And the song that is coming through

You’re already falling

The one that it’s calling you

Make a promise, take a vow

And trust your feelings, it’s easy now

Understand the voice within

And feel the changes already beginning

Oh won’t you tell me again

Can you feel it

Won’t you tell me again

Tonight

And how many words have I got to say

And how many times will it be this way

With your arms around the future

And your back up against the past

You’re already falling, its calling you

On to face the music

And the song that is coming through

You’re already falling

The one its calling is you

Each and every heart it seems

Is bounded by a world of dreams

Each and every rising sun

Is greeted by a lonely one

Won’t you tell me again

Can you feel it

Oh won’t you tell me again

Tonight

Docudharma Times Saturday June 27

“No matter how you doctor it

or tailor it,” said Representative

Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania, “it is a tax.”

Commenting On The

Climate Change Legislation




Saturday’s Headlines:

Judge orders Madoff to forfeit $170 billion

The city where parking leads to a head-on collision in Jerusalem

Leading demonstrators must be executed, Ayatollah Khatami demands

ID cards planned for India’s 1.1 billion

North Korean state media news available on Twitter

Vodka kills as many Russians as a war, says report in The Lancet

Erdogan criticizes Germany, France for blocking Turkey’s EU bid

Guinea-Bissau holds elections Sunday

House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change



By JOHN M. BRODER

Published: June 26, 2009


WASHINGTON – The House passed legislation on Friday intended to address global warming and transform the way the nation produces and uses energy.The vote was the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change. The legislation, which passed despite deep divisions among Democrats, could lead to profound changes in many sectors of the economy, including electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

The bill’s passage, by 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats voting against it, also established a marker for the United States when international negotiations on a new climate change treaty begin later this year.

Jailed Iran reformists ‘tortured to confess foreign plot’  

Amnesty reports apparent attempt to implicate defeated presidential candidate in conspiracy to overthrow regime

 Robert Tait

guardian.co.uk,


Jailed Iranian reformists are believed to have been tortured in an attempt to force them into TV “confessions” of a foreign-led plot against the Islamic regime.

According to Iranian websites, the “confessions” are aimed at implicating Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the defeated reformist candidates in this month’s presidential poll, in an alleged conspiracy.

Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, all Mousavi supporters, are reported to have undergone “intensive interrogation” sessions in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since being arrested in a mass round-up of opposition figures following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.

USA

White House Weighs Order on Detention

Officials: Move Would Reassert Power To Hold Terror Suspects Indefinitely

By Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn

ProPublica and Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, June 27, 2009


Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

Late Night Karaoke

C89.5

Distractions on Friday

As many of you know, I post distracting images on Fridays, not to confuse you, but more to amuse you.

Sometimes though, I get confused about perspective. Many of the people here had a much different perspective of the path we were hoping to be on & now have found that what we thought we saw, is not the reality we had hoped so much for.

So I`ll open with a little confusing perspective of California Dreaming.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

 2 DSCN7990

A “public option” in banking?

Reading Pluto’s piece on Chase, America’s soon-to-be most hated bank, and thought to myself “Johnny, now normally you have an economic and civil libertarian bent,but you also believe that when the market fails the gov’ steps in and vice versa.”  This got me thinking (the white russian helps), President Obama is pushing right now for that “public option” (yes, I know, Medicare for all, but so far that ain’t the deal we’re getting) for health care, maybe its time we look at one for banking?

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