January 18, 2010 archive

Monday Meta Madness

In part because we have some new Admins on board I’d like to discuss scheduling a bit.

I strongly believe in appointment blogging.  Just like TV I think people tune in at specific times to catch their favorite authors and chat.  Of course, like a DVR, the content is always there so you can interact at your convenience and carry on extended conversations.

Still, there’s nothing sadder than pounding your refresh button and finding nothing new.

At DocuDharma we have 14 regular Front Page posts per day.

At 9, 10, 11, and noon I do Front Page promotions from member content.  I generally pick them between 3 am and 8 am so if you want your subject featured in the morning it’s best to post your essay previous to midnight the day before you wish it to appear (especially if the subject is time sensitive).

At 6, 8, 10, and midnight buhdy does Front Page Promotions of member content.

So as a reader of this blog that’s what you can expect when you click in, along with whatever our members contribute whenever their muse smacks them upside the head.

After the Devastation, or Destruction and Deaths or War, or any Extreme Trauma………….

After some four decades of activism and advocacy by many, many doing much more then I was able to do especially prior to this technology becoming so widespread, but ignoring by the greater majorities, finally the issues of life, and experiences in living, are becoming better understood and more are paying the much needed and long overdue attention, especially related to the children.

Docudharma Times Monday January 18




Monday’s Headlines:

No room in the cemetery for Haiti dead

Kraft takeover bid of Cadbury leaves bitter taste in Britain

Intended to Rein in Lobbyists, Law Sends Them Underground

His health-care agenda at risk, Obama stumps in Massachusetts

Yanukovich fails to knock out Tymoshenko, Ukraine polls show

Can India find true liberation?

Wave of suicide bombers storms Kabul

Chemical Ali sentenced to hang for Halabja massacre

Islamic games cancelled in Arab-Iran row over Persian Gulf name

Chile, once Latin America’s economic model, now overtaken by Brazil

Republicans DO have brains – how they’re setting up Democrats for a massive kill in 2010

Back in Nov. 10, at OpenLeft, I wrote
 

Frankly, I believe that if the Republicans had any brains, they’d tell one or two of their members in the Senate to help break any filibuster attempt, so as to let the healthcare ‘reform’ become law ASAP. If the reform is as bad, overall, as some of us believe (even while simultaneously having some very good reform elements), then the Republicans could use this issue to rout the Democrats in 2010. But only if they ‘help’ the Democrats achieve their mandate-laden ‘reform’ legislation soon enough.  

Well, well, check out this HuffPo article by Lawrence O’Donnell Will Scott Brown Ruin Republicans’ (Secret) Plan to Pass Obamacare?

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning


Masque

(Click on image for larger view)

Another graphic inside…

Liberalism and Wall Street

Original article, by Barry Grey, via World Socialist Web Site:

In an op-ed piece published January 10 entitled “The Other Plot to Wreck America,” New York Times columnist Frank Rich denounces the criminal actions of Wall Street executives and the official cover-up of their operations. He correctly asserts that the havoc created by the bankers poses a threat to the American people “on a more devastating scale than any Al Qaeda attack.”

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Re: Happy Pony Joy Rainbows! And spies

Hey gang! Looks like ya found yourself another conspiracy. But sorry to burst your bubble the group was not always private. It started as a public group with links from my sig line. It only went private to protect people’s real life names.

All you have there is one comment by one member of the group. And it’s one comment had I seen I would have argued against also. Continue to fight that strawman all you want… but if you have any serious questions about the group ask away. You may find out that everything isn’t as it seems.



UPDATE
: Read the comments before you comment. I explain more there. Serious questions were answered.

UPDATE 2: This diary is directed at buhdy because he wrote the diary I’m responding to and a select few.. you know who you are. I’d advise anyone else go read something else, this stuff is messy and lame, which is why I want a truce.

Erick Erickson plays stupid

Crossposted at Daily Kos

What I do is called speaking truth to power.

What Erick Erickson of RedState.com does is called speaking lies for rich people.

    For a refresher, dkos blogger pinback found that RedState (was) trying to jam Coakley phone banks, and I questioned the legality of those actions yesterday. Erick Erickson, mature adult that he pretends to be, decided to respond. Bad move.

The not so very bright readers of Kos want to send Martha Coakley and me to jail.

Why us?

Well, I published the list of union organized phone banks for Coakley on Friday night.

Some genius who probably thinks Joe Stalin was just misunderstood now is convinced I must go to jail. WITH A POLL!!!!

I assume s/he (that covers everything including transgendered I hope) also wants to send Martha Coakley to jail. She did the same thing I did, but offered up even more details, including the phone numbers of the locations and email address of the contact person.

Idiots.

By the way, points off to the Koskidz for misspelling my name.

http://www.redstate.com/erick/…

Them’s fighting words.

More below the fold.

Pique the Geek 20100117: Carbonated Water

Carbonated water is incredibly common, and, in one form or another, just about everyone drinks it.  Sometimes it is enjoyed alone, but often it is mixed with flavoring ingredients.  Just about all soft drinks are flavored carbonated water, and in a sense beer, ale, champagne, and spumati are as well, except the traditional carbonation method for the alcoholic drinks is different from that of carbonated water.

Carbonated water with no other ingredients is usually called seltzer in the United States, whilst carbonated water with some added minerals is usually referred to as club soda.  Please join me in looking at the history of this material and its unlikely contribution to modern chemistry.

Pique the Geek 20100117: Carbonated Water

Carbonated water is incredibly common, and, in one form or another, just about everyone drinks it.  Sometimes it is enjoyed alone, but often it is mixed with flavoring ingredients.  Just about all soft drinks are flavored carbonated water, and in a sense beer, ale, champagne, and spumati are as well, except the traditional carbonation method for the alcoholic drinks is different from that of carbonated water.

Carbonated water with no other ingredients is usually called seltzer in the United States, whilst carbonated water with some added minerals is usually referred to as club soda.  Please join me in looking at the history of this material and its unlikely contribution to modern chemistry.

Paging TheMomCat, Greg Palast needs help – Updated 1x

just received this email from yuriy at gregpalast.com.  tmc, you can tell your colleague not to worry and thank you for your efforts!

Dear Sharon,

Thank you so much for your swift reply and offer of help. Thankfully

Democracy Now’s producer who left for Haiti is taking the medicine. We

can’t thank you enough.

All the very best,

Yuriy

———

i hope it is not a problem that i posted greg palast’s article in its

entirety (will gladly edit the post if desired).  themomcat who writes

at docudharma.com is in haiti with msf.  she has brought greg’s

request to the attention of an admin in PoP to see if he can help.

her comment is one of the last in the essay. (i linked to the essay but if i include the link it messes up the code in a way that i can’t sort out, so you will have to take my word for it.)

_______________________________________________

TheMomCat, if you are reading greg palast has a favor to ask.  don’t know if you can help him, but i will bold the section at the beginning and the one at the end so that you won’t have to read the whole thing if you don’t have time.  

also, i don’t know if i am violating copyright by posting this whole thing.  i am going to do it and then check the faq.  if i have to edit, i will gladly, but think it reads better in its entirety so will take a chance for the moment.  palast reveals much i was not aware of both re the current disaster and the history of haiti – and the obama/gate’s failure to send help immediately.  he is scathing with the contrast with bankrupt iceland.  we have sunk to such a despicable low.

The right testicle of Hell: History of a Haitian holocaust

Blackwater before drinking water

by Greg Palast

1/17/10

1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost

immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On

Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States

promised, “The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to

the quake-ravaged country within the next few days.” “In a few days,” Mr. Obama?

2. There’s no such thing as a ‘natural’ disaster. 200,000 Haitians have

been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF “austerity” plans.

3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine

to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, “My

sister, she’s under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?”

Should I tell her, “Obama will have Marines there in ‘a few days'”?

4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.

5. Obama’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “I don’t know how this

government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it

has.” We know Gates doesn’t know.

6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to

ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and

more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It’s all still there.

Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for

emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science

Monitor, “I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and

water and start evacuating people.” Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.

7. Send in the Marines. That’s America’s response. That’s what

we’re good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up

after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed – without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.

8. But don’t worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully

equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field,

deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three

tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water

purifying capability. They’re from Iceland.

9. Gates wouldn’t send in food and water because, he said, there was no

“structure … to provide security.” For Gates, appointed by Bush and

allowed to hang around by Obama, it’s security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.

10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on

the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of

Hispaniola. It’s treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican

Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan

Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson

reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the

beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.

11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure,

from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent – there are two

fire stations in the entire nation – and infrastructure so frail that

the nation was simply waiting for “nature” to finish it off?

Don’t blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That

dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship,

which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an

estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets – with the complicity

of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo

militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was

easily won: the Duvaliers’ death squads murdered as many as 60,000

opponents of the regime.)

12. What Papa and Baby didn’t run off with, the IMF finished off through

its “austerity” plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo

orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that

cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.

13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a

priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF’s austerity

diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW

Bush, deposed him.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was

George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected

President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby

Bush.

14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere,

worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold

colony known as New England. Haiti’s wealth was in black gold: slaves.

But then the slaves rebelled – and have been paying for it ever since.

From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to

reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their

slaves’ successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians,

France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.

15. Secretary Gates tells us, “There are just some certain facts of life

that affect how quickly you can do some of these things.” The Navy’s

hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!

16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her

other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure

medicines. That’s a fact of life too, Mr. President.

***

Through our journalism network, we are trying to get my friend’s

medicines to her father. If any reader does have someone getting into

or near Port-au-Prince, please contact [2] [email protected] immediately.

Urgently recommended reading – The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, the history of the successful slave uprising in Hispaniola by the brilliant CLR James.

SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “The Right Testicle of Hell:History of a Haitian Holocaust”, url: “http://www.gregpalast.com/the-right-testicle-of-hell-history-of-a-haitian-holocaust/” });

Article printed from Greg Palast: http://www.gregpalast.com

URL to article: http://www.gregpalast.com/the-…

URLs in this post:

1] Image:[2 [email protected]: mailto:[email protected]

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