December 26, 2009 archive

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

This Saturday’s Edition is being brought to you by TMC, so ek hornbeck can sleep late on his GrandDad’s red leather couch at his family’s Lake House for the Holiday. Buhdy, E.K., NPK, Mishima, OTB & All you DharmaDarlings, Happy Holiday to you and your families.

               

The Top News Story

Asia marks tsunami’s fifth anniversary with prayer

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PATONG, Thailand (Reuters) – Thousands of candles lit up Thailand’s Patong beach, thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marched and people held vigils as Asia marked the fifth anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Saturday.

Hundreds of lanterns floated into the sky at Patong in one of many events across the region in memory of one of history’s worst natural disasters when towering waves crashed ashore with little warning, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries.

“We came here to remember those who died,” said Sainamphueng Kachan, 32, who lost 20 friends in the tsunami and was among the tourists, mourners and tsunami survivors gathered in bustling Patong to light candles dug into holes in the beach.

In Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, about 100 people took part in a prayer ceremony close to a fishing boat that landed on the rooftop of a two-storey house after being swept miles inland.

Indonesia was the worst hit with more than 166,000 dead and missing. Massive reconstruction aid in Banda Aceh has rebuilt a new city on top of the ruins but survivors are only now putting memories of the disaster behind them.

I have a personal interest is the anniversary of this disaster since I spent 5 months there.

This Week In Health and Fitness

Welcome to this week’s Health and Fitness.

This following article is because I love you guys and because I know you have loved ones.

Hands-Only CPR Easy and Effective

Bystanders who witness the sudden collapse of an adult should call 911 and then provide high-quality chest compressions by pushing hard and fast in the middle of the victim’s chest, with minimal interruptions. Studies of real emergencies that have occurred in homes, at work or in public locations, show that these two steps, called Hands-Only™ CPR, can be equally or even more effective than conventional CPR.

As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.

Musings For The New Year

On my journey through life I have come to believe that there are only three things humans have any modicum of control over. I use the mnemonic AIR to remember them.

Attention

Intention

and

Reaction/response.*

What we pay attention to is under our control. What our intention is is under our control. And how we react or respond to things outside of our control…is under our control.

And of course, when two or more people have the same intention, are paying attention to the same thing, and are controlling their reactions or responses, that just makes The Actions that comes from those three things more powerful.

So, within the context of politics and blogging….what are your intentions for the new year? What are your intentions? What will you be paying attention to? And how will you respond to both the defeats and the victories of the coming, brand new, year?

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Or to put it more prosaically, what are the goals for The Left, Docudharma and yourself as a blogger that you are envisioning for the next year?

Please share your thoughts, so that the rest of us can join with you….and vice versa!

Original v. Cover — #5 of a Series

marvin gaye - whats going on Pictures, Images and Photos

As the first decade of the new millennium draws to a close, identifying that one song which captures the greatest challenges now threatening our nation was an exceedingly difficult task.  Two of the most daunting issues before us, and ultimately the rest of the world, are warfare and the environment.  I could not find a song that captured both. So this week’s selection will address the former; next week’s the latter.

The United States is arguably the primary aggressor in the world today, maintaining a “defense” budget that, by some accounts, exceeds that of the rest of the world combined.  Our country is currently embroiled in two major military actions on the opposite side of the globe, presumably to “keep us safe.”  

To the extent that the official accounts of 9/11 are valid, the 19 hijackers came from the following countries:  15 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from the United Arab Emirates, 1 from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon.  The United States immediately identified Usama bin Laden as the mastermind of these attacks, although to this day, even though bin Laden is included on the list of 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, the FBI website makes absolutely no mention of his being wanted in connection with the events of 9/11, as can be seen here.  

Obama: 3/5 of a President

While we were all shopping and arguing over whether or not fruitcake is fit for human consumption, Obama decided to go to bat and fight for someone.   Who was he fighting for?   The torturers of the Bush administration, that’s who.   Oh, and anyone else in the United States government who wants to torture and violate the human rights of others.

As Chris Floyd reports, The United States is now legally free to torture whomever it wants, thanks to the Supreme Court of the land, and the political power weilded by Barrack Hussein Obama.

It happened earlier this week, in a discreet ruling that attracted almost no notice and took little time. In fact, our most august defenders of the Constitution did not have to exert themselves in the slightest to eviscerate not merely 220 years of Constitutional jurisprudence but also centuries of agonizing effort to lift civilization a few inches out of the blood-soaked mire that is our common human legacy. They just had to write a single sentence.

Here’s how the bad deal went down. After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.”  They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever — save whatever modicum of process the government arbitrarily deigns to grant them from time to time, with its ever-shifting tribunals and show trials.

And people wonder what this “hatred” is towards Obama.   “I didn’t get my pony?” they ask?   Ha.  They have no idea.   I hate Obama for the same reasons I hate Bush.  Why?  Because Obama IS Bush.   His administration is one and the same as the Bush administration, and I mean that quite literally when it comes to justice, human rights, and the wars.    ALL THE SAME PEOPLE are running the show, and we know that Bush’s Justice Department is a bunch of corrupt, human rights-violating  flunkies recruited from the ranks of the “religious right”.    And they are still in office, fighting for their hatreds

Now Obama is not just passively letting these people continue the Bush/Cheney yearas, he is going out of his way to enable  them.  

He is putting his name to the most egregious violations of human rights in this nation’s history.  

What’s really pathological is that he is shitting on the very system that freed African American people, of which he is a gene-carrying member.  

More from antiwar.com:


US: Guantanamo Prisoners Not ‘Persons’

by William Fisher,

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal Monday to review a lower court’s dismissal of a case brought by four British former Guantanamo prisoners against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the detainees’ lawyers charged Tuesday that the country’s highest court evidently believes that “torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use.”

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., had ruled that government officials were immune from suit because at that time it was unclear whether abusing prisoners at Guantanamo was illegal.

Channeling their predecessors in the George W. Bush administration, Obama Justice Department lawyers argued in this case that there is no constitutional right not to be tortured or otherwise abused in a U.S. prison abroad.

Ironically, the first African American president is promoting a policy frighteningly familiar to the Dred Scott decision of yesteryear:


“Another set of claims are dismissed because Guantanamo detainees are not ‘persons’ within the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – an argument that was too close to Dred Scott v. Sanford for one of the judges on the court of appeals to swallow,” he added.

The Dred Scott case was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857. It ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants – whether or not they were slaves – were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.

Thanks, Obama.   Next time someone calls you an “Uncle Tom” I simply won’t cringe.  I might even nod.   I might even say “hell yeah.”

Open Boxes

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The $45.05 Gift Card

I know it says $50 dollar Mastercard Gift Card but that’s after the $4.95 “activation” fee.  Wouldn’t that feed alot of Biafrans, I mean just think about that globally, times 6.7 or so billion.   Ah, but they have to “build the infrastructure” you say.  Well one company is “ramping up”.

http://www.idstronghold.com/?g…

Anyway, was it good for you?

Could the Brit Iraq War Inquiry be Expanding?

But probably not here in the states, for we’re a Nation of Arrogance and Apathy, but Fear and what we call our Politics rules our critical thoughts and common sense and especially fear of bringing possible extreme criminal leaders, and their support groups, to justice!

The Chilcot Iraq War Inquiry is on a break for the holidays. Holidays of celebrating the birth of the ‘prince of peace’ from one religious ideology as well as other celebrations from this worlds other religious ideologies, all of these based on a number of religious themes and teachings but one stands out that isn’t followed ‘tolerance’ of each other and even outside of religions the racial and religious makeup of others.

Docudharma Times Saturday December 26




Saturday’s Headlines:

Iranian student protester Neda Soltan is Times Person of the Year

Ancient whale sucked mud for food

Civilian, military planners have different views on new approach to Afghanistan

A wing and a prayer as Audubon members set out on annual survey

The tsunami’s widowers search for love

China redirects trillions of gallons of water to arid north

How Gaza became a rich canvas for Palestinian art

New buildings emerge from the rubble a year after war

Eurotunnel claims it was not to blame for Eurostar crisis in Channel Tunnel

Serbia’s top court confirms maximum sentences for Milosevic aides

Along U.S.-Mexico Border, a Torrent of Illicit Cash

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Random Japan

HEADLINES OF THE YEAR

1. Paranoid Hospitals Turning away Those with Fever, or with a Foreign Friend

2. Escargot Invades Osaka High-rise

3. Cop Rapped for Letting off Aliens

4. Photograph of Crab Eggs Ends 60-year Dispute

5. New Photo Book Opens Door on the Beauty and Style of the Homeless

6. Cops Collar Giant Salamander Spotted on Kyoto Stroll

7. Self-styled God of Ancient Japan Collared for Extorting Owner of Squat

8. More People Irked by Sound of Kids at Play

9. “Homeless” Poet Chooses Asahi over Noodles

10. Injured Sea Turtle to Get Prosthetic Flippers

Christmas in 2050

An establishment is built on money.  Businesses run on profit.  What happens when you combine the establishment of government with business interests?  Both must continue to find more and more money.  Where do they do that?  From the citizenry.

Over the years, we’ve seen businesses and corporations continue to enlarge until some are too big to fail.  If they are about to fail, the government simply gives them our tax dollars.

We are required to have car insurance if we wish to drive.  We are required to pay taxes, regardless of what it is, once a government tells us we must.

We will be required to buy health insurance, regardless if we can afford it.

Wages have stagnated.

The Middle Class has been destroyed.

President Obama has just raised our national debt limit to over $12 Trillion dollars.

Corporations are seeing more and more court cases go in their favor, and if they don’t, they simply keep the case in constant appeal, or, refuse to pay.

This is not 2050, but, 2009.

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