April 26, 2010 archive

Apr 26 2010

Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Subs sent to seal leaks as US oil slick spreads

by Allen Johnson, AFP

2 hrs 48 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Robotic submarines are on Monday racing to stop oil from a sunken rig streaming into the Gulf of Mexico, as BP warned that sealing the seabed leaks could take three months if the operation fails.

The British energy giant — which leases the stricken Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible platform — is desperately trying to prevent a massive slick from growing and spreading to Louisiana’s ecologically fragile coast.

Satellite images on Sunday showed the slick had spread by 50 percent in a day to cover an area of 600 square miles (1,550 square kilometers), although officials said almost all the oil was just a thin veneer on the sea’s surface.

Drill Baby Drill.

Apr 26 2010

Afghanistan and Imperial Wars — How to Achieve Success with Failure

(now cross posted at DailyKos)

The ongoing war in Afghanistan-it can now be thought of as perpetual and unending is more important than a lot of people seem to think. It is not just a far-away semi-colonial war but part of an ongoing struggle for control of Central Asia and the Middle East by the imperial forces of NATO.

It has to be very clear than despite the fact that Europeans are somewhat reluctant partners in this enterprise they are, nevertheless partners and part of essential parts of the Empire. Europeans, like Americans, like their priviledged position in the world. They are a little less bloodthirsty than we are-it is a less essential part of their cultural life. In America violence is loved for its own sake. In Europe it is merely a sometimes necessary component of asserting interests. That’s the only realistic difference between Europe and the United States. The notion that Europeans are more “progressive” than Americans in foreign policy is just not true. Europeans sees the United States as the military arm of the Empire required to insure that world security is maintained particularly energy security. Europeans like the fact the United States provides them with security and are quite willing to accede to the brutality of the the American military in keeping the wogs in check-a brutality that they have far more knowledge of than the American people do. I generalize here because in Europe a large segment of the left is notably against militarism still unlike here.

Having said that the war itself shows us some interesting patterns. As reported in the NYT, the great show “battle” has not really had any real results. The article Violence Helps Taliban Undo Afghan Gains is worth reading but you and I both know what it says and probably knew even before the “battle” happened what the results would be as do all non-compromised journalists and observers of the situation. This and many other stories of the recent war in Afghanistan often buried on the back pages of the NYT tell a tale of woe almost unbelievable in its pathos.  

Apr 26 2010

Open Desert

Apr 26 2010

Third Party candidates for U.S. Senate in Ohio

You wouldn’t know it to read to blogs and major media sources, but there are non-Democrat and non-Republicans running to replace retiring U.S. senator George Voinovich in Ohio this year.  They are (as listed on www.USelections.com):



Eric Deaton (Independent) – An apparent teabagger, Deaton’s profile uses populist rhetoric to try to fool voters into thinking he’s not a hardcore Republican-turned-independent.  According to his web site’s positions page, Deaton opposes affirmative action, gun control laws, “government-run healthcare,” and other things supported by progressives and most Ohioans.  This one can be dismissed as being a disaffected GOPer who is a card-carrying member of the teabagger movement.

Eric LaMont Gregory (Independent) – A scientist by trade, Gregory is running on a platform of ending poverty, providing full employment, protecting Social Security, universal health care for people (free if over 62), and fair taxation, though his web site does not appear to have a solid positions page laying out more specific positions.  Chalk this one up for the “maybe” category.

Stephen Lahanas (Independent) – The only link USelections.com had for who it described simply as a businessman is his blog.  (He does offer some insightful political perspectives — among them an analysis of the two major parties, however, it’s obvious that Lahanas doesn’t even have a campaign web site to explain his positions.)  He expresses some food-for-thought opinions, but I’m not sure he’s even really running.

Adam Shaffer (Independent) – Described as an IT consultant, Shaffer appears to be running more to educate and involve people in the political process than for anything else.  He doesn’t seem to state any positions on the issues, and he probably won’t even get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.



Jeremy Swartz (Independent) – Described as a ” FEMA Disaster Specialist, Ex-Police Officer & ’06 State Rep. Candidate” on the USelections.com web site, the link to his campaign site appears to be dead.

Information gotten from here for the next round of candidates.)

Dan La Botz (Socialist Party) – Socialist and proud enough to say so, La Botz is running on a democratic socialist platform.

Dave Meyers (Independent) – His “About” page doesn’t state his positions other than telling readers he will represent our wishes.

William G. Pierce (Independent) – Former Republican who unsuccessfully challenged then-incumbent Mike DeWine in 2006 for U.S. Senate — from the right!  Forget him.

Michael Pryce (Independent) – A Ron Paul-esque Libertarian type, if his issues page is any indication of where he stands.  Another one to dismiss.

Those are the independent candidates vying for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Voinovich.  Of them all, Dan La Botz seems best suited to represent Ohioans in the Senate.

Apr 26 2010

Food Czar

Is S 510 rearing it’s ugly head again.

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.c…

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.c…

Building Seven in the news again.

http://www.thecorbettreport.com/

Arizona is going to be big news.

http://www.informationliberati…

Globalist Rag touts IMF oversight of US finance.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/289591…

Any excellent video about government sponsored false flag events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

And the story about Hawkings telling us all not to talk to the space aliens has made the lamestream news.  Wonder if that means Bluebeam has a green light.

Apr 26 2010

In Search of a Strong Progressive Response to Tea Parties

During the dark days of the Bush Administration, the collective mood on the Left could not have been more pessimistic and discouraged.  Believing ourselves to be utterly ignored and summarily discounted, our anger was palpable and copious.  I wonder why we on the Left didn’t form a series of spontaneous demonstrations, venting our frustration at a government we saw as illegitimate and destructive.  While it is true that protests were plentiful then, no self-proclaimed movement sprung up, one then dutifully covered exhaustively by the media.  That we did not resort to Teabagging tactics was itself a very good thing, but I think also that many of us placed complete faith in the mechanization of the system itself.  When things began to turn around at long last in 2006 and then, two years later when a compelling candidate articulated our desire for change, we believed that working tirelessly to secure his election was wholly sufficient.

Apr 26 2010

On This Day in History: April 26

Apr 26, 1954: Polio Vaccine Trials Begin

On this day in 1954, the Salk polio vaccine field trials, involving 1.8 million children, begin at the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia. Children in the United States, Canada and Finland participated in the trials, which used for the first time the now-standard double-blind method, whereby neither the patient nor attending doctor knew if the inoculation was the vaccine or a placebo. On April 12, 1955, researchers announced the vaccine was safe and effective and it quickly became a standard part of childhood immunizations in America. In the ensuing decades, polio vaccines would all but wipe out the highly contagious disease in the Western Hemisphere.

Woman dies in iron lung after outage

Photobucket

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A woman who spent nearly 60 years of her life in an iron lung after being diagnosed with polio as a child died Wednesday after a power failure shut down the machine that kept her breathing, her family said.

Dianne Odell, 61, had been confined to the 7-foot-long machine since she was stricken by polio at 3 years old.

snip

Odell was afflicted with “bulbo-spinal” polio three years before a polio vaccine was discovered and largely stopped the spread of the crippling childhood disease.

She spent her life in the iron lung, cared for by her parents and other family members. Though confined inside the 750-pound apparatus, Odell managed to get a high school diploma, take college courses and write a children’s book.

The iron lung that she used was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck. She lay on her back in the device with only her head exposed, and made eye contact with visitors using an angled mirror above her head. The lung worked by producing positive and negative pressure on the lungs that caused them to expand and contract so that she could breathe.

Apr 26 2010

Moksha: It Was Hid So Carefully

Chattering finch and water-fly

Are not merrier than I

Here among the flowers I lie

Laughing everlastingly

No: I may not tell the best

Surely, friends, I could have guessed

Death was but the good king’s jest

It was hid so carefully

— G.K. Chesterton

Apr 26 2010

Docudharma Times Monday April 26




Monday’s Headlines:

Oil rig spill off Louisiana could threaten coastline

Can You Hear Me Now?

USA

Schwab case shows pain of a bond market’s collapse on small investors

Voter anger fuels New Hampshire congressional candidates

Europe

Hungary’s prime minister elect hails landslide election victory

Polygamy and fraud claims fan burqa row

Middle East

US intervenes in Iraq election row as feared militia waits in wings

‘Suicide bomber’ targets British Ambassador to Yemen

Asia

Thailand Red Shirts go undercover

Indian Government to answer claims it tapped ministers’ phones

Africa

Rwanda crackdown: Human Rights Watch researcher denied visa

Latin America

Cuba’s ‘Ladies in White’ march blocked again

Apr 26 2010

Baraki Barak (Continued)

 Kolangar Logar Province

Two American soldiers (not yet identified by the Pentagon) died in Logar Province on Thursday, April 22, 2010, during an exchange of gunfire in an isolated family compound, on the road between Pul-e-Alam and the town of Baraki Barak.

Baraki Barak is the original homeplace of the Burki/Baraki/Ormuri, (historically also known as Barak, Baraki, Birki (of Baburnama), Barki, Braakee or Urmar), a Pushtun tribe now concentrated in Kaniguram. in South Waziristan, Pakistan.

Like other Pushtun tribes, the Burki (Barak, Baraki, Birki (of Baburnama), Barki, Braakee or Urmar) seek self-segregation from the outside world: thus the importance of Kaniguram as the historical focal point of the tribe and the continued effort to retain their native tongue (Urmar), which predates Pushtu.

The Barakis’ most celebrated chieftain was the warrior-poet Pir Roshan, who invented the Pushtu alphabet,  advocated universal education and equal rights for women, and led a rebellion against the Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1582.

This rebellion continued for about 100 years, until the grandsons and great-grandsons of Pir Roshan finally made peace with the grandsons and great-grandsons of Emperor Akbar.

………………………………………….

Three days after a couple of American soldiers were killed along with three Afghan civilians/insurgents/whatevers during one of General Stanley McChrystal’s signature midnight commando raids in Logar Province, “protestors” blocked the main road through the district capital of Pul-e-Alam, and burned 16 NATO fuel tankers.

afghan_protester_burn_nato_tankers_apr25_10

The local commander of the Afghan National Army, Brig. Gen. Ghulam Mustafa Mohseni, complained that NATO had declined to consult with local authorities before the midnight raid, and relied instead on the same kind of intel which has failed and failed and failed to track down Osama bin Laden in nearby Waziristan for nine long years.

Apr 26 2010

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning


Through a Glass, Darkly

(Click on image for larger view)

Redux…

Apr 26 2010

Fraudensheude means “No.”

Fraudensheude means “No, we are not all responsible.”

“Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease, but the very existence of a society.” Samuel Johnson

As the hearings and scandals progress, and the revelations and charges start to cut closer to the heart of the credit swindles, inevitably there will be a movement [led by Barack Obama] to say, “We are all responsible. Let’s allow bygones to be bygones, it was all a misunderstanding. Let’s move on to something new. Justice is not important, and cannot be done.”

There will be long accountings of how the problems arose, and how changes in the banking laws, broker deregulation, and the erosion of elite privileges compelled the Wall Street banks to take more and greater risks, to violate unspoken understandings about customer relationships, to take great risks, to bend the laws, to use money and influence to suborn perjury and the breaking of oaths, and to generally undermine the fabric of government.

There will be long analyses that suggest that trust has been lost, the trust that binds the social and financial interactions of people. And there will be an effort to regain that trust, to promise change and reform, and of course, justice.

As for justice they will say, but aren’t we all responsible? Didn’t we all believe the promise that ‘greed is good?’

No.

In contrast to schadenfreude, which means “taking delight in someone else’s misery,” Fraudensheude means, “No, we do not accept responsibility for your acts of fraud.”

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