September 18, 2010 archive

BP and CEOs Fight the Laws



Kendrick Meek; Blast BP and Corporate Irresponsibility

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

Whispers whirled around the White House, on The Hill, within the Department of Justice, and finally filtered down to the streets.  In truth, talk could be heard on the avenues, where average Americans roam, long before declarations came from above.   Should BP CEO Tony Hayward Go to Prison?  The public wonders.  What would the Obama Administration do.  Countless clamored; with full knowledge that President Bush’s DOJ Killed a Criminal Probe Into BP.  It was believed that the potential indictments threatened the most senior officials.  More recently, words of warrants have become a distinct possibility.  Criminal charges are being considered against BP in regards to the Gulf oil rig tragedy.

Sales Ethics and the Democratic Campaign ’10

This is a diary which attempts to pose a question in sales ethics to those who struggle to GOTV in November’s elections.

(crossposted at Orange and Firedoglake)

And Mankind Aborted Love and Gave Birth to God….

It started so simply, I think therefore I am, with simple self-awareness. The things that preceded that moment are still there; I hunger, I thirst, I lust, I tire, I hurt, I enjoy. Our infancy of basic need-survival was awoken to the subtle idea of more at some point.

I cannot fathom that it was simply borne of fear, this feeling, a desire to explain the inexplicable. The human psyche is wired so that whatever its external conditions are, that is “normal” for that psyche. A child born in poverty that has known nothing else does not know its poor. A woman who goes blind, just accepts blindness as part of her life, without the addition of what came later to humanity.

No. It had to be a more subtle moment. Perhaps a moment as simple as the brush of a fingertip along a lover’s lips as they slept, or the trembling goosebumps from a soft tease of the fine hairs at the nape of a precious neck. Something that awoke our realization of our magic. Something that whispered a bigger connection. The wonder of the dew on an unfurling leaf in the spring, sunsets, soft breezes, the murmur of a newborn baby. Something woke us up to the amazing fact, that not only do we exist, but the power within us was something more, a synergy created as more than the product of our basic needs.

It existed nowhere but inside of us, and we called it “Love.”  Self-awareness, the awareness of others, the awareness of the magic of Love was all within us, growing like the glorious seed of MORE, and it was us. Something growing amazingly inside of us.

Jefferson’s house: foreclosed

PART ONE: THE KITCHEN

     All ideology fails at some logical declension. Conservative ideology fails immediately, on every tenet. All ideologies rightly belong being argued in academia. Conservative ideology belongs deep in a little used musty library kept by an obscure, wan, nose-picking curator. I would not want to destroy it; after all, it is just a bad idea. The act of trying to destroy such a wicked thought is antithetical because it thrives on nihilism. Thus is explains the power derived by right-wing commentary from left wing derision.

      Democratic partisans have not learned that simple reciprocal formula. Maybe, they are the ones who are not so smart. So, I wonder, are Democratic partisans just morons or do they have an emotional, self-destructive need to bloviate. Even a short, reasoned treatise to correct the record sullied by Republicans seems like vanity.

     Eric Alterman, Matthew Yglesis, Matt Taibbi, Kevin Drum, and many others; not to drop names but to separate names from what is pejoratively referred to as the Main Stream Media (MSM). The debt of gratitude that their readers often express is that they are dependable sources of information, separate from the mundane narratives that hold no value or depth. Some readers have quoted them to set their choice of reading material as being apart from the mundane and shallow narrative.

Open Spooky

Photobucket

Bloggers Behaving Badly: Rayne at FireDogLake.com, Part Deux

And the attacks on the left by the so-called left just keep on happening.  Rayne is at it again, this time using analysis of the failure of Howard Dean’s organizational methods as cover for once again insulting the left.

Right off the bat, Rayne dismisses the left as being “poorly informed” about how and why the Democrat Party victories of 2006 and 2008 have gone once again to the very likely prospect of huge losses in 2010.

For the last several weeks there’s been an increasing number of posts which bash all manner of Democrats, from the president to the party itself and plead for alternatives. The anger driving this bashing is understandable since the country’s economy has floundered and promises made and values shared haven’t been kept under a Democratic president with a Democratic majority in Congress.

The anger also stems from disillusionment; after the great double-emotional high of the first person of color and Democrat winning the White House in 2008, there was the expectation that winning could continue, sustained in terms of legislative initiatives.

But unfortunately, much of this anger is poorly informed. There’s backstory which explains in part why we are here today.  . . .

I find it difficult to believe that, as someone who regularly posts on a blog that goes out of its way to inform its readers about what the far right in the Democrat Party does on a daily basis, Rayne would think the left is “poorly informed” about how and why we’ve gone from victory over the GOP to facing a repeat of ’94.

Docudharma Times Saturday September 18




Saturday’s Headlines:

Toyota reaches settlement with families after fatal crash

Prime time for moongazers

USA

Wide G.O.P. Field Tests the Waters for 2012 Contest

Capitol Hill reaction to poverty figures sidetracked by political concerns

Europe

Row with Merkel leaves Sarkozy more isolated than ever

Why Russia wants ‘Enemy No. 1’ Akhmed Zakayev back

Middle East

Special Ops and the ‘End of Combat’ in Iraq

Yom Kippur fasting day beginning; Israel grinds to a halt

Asia

Candidates kidnapped on eve of Afghan elections

Eviction game hits a nerve in China

Africa

Violence spirals out of control in east DRC

Latin America

First bore hole for rescue reaches Chile miners

Racing Games

Late Night Karaoke

The Economics of Ecology

The summer of 2002 was a drought year in the Klamath Basin.

An estimated 70,000 salmon died that year after the Bush administration “ignored its own federal biologists and divert more water from the Klamath River for farm irrigation”. According to documents, the decision was made because the farmers generally voted Republican. The Bush Administration then went on to order that water continue to be diverted for another eight years.

Only 24,000 fall chinook spawned naturally in the Klamath in 2004, followed by 27,000 last year.

The analysis from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identified low water flows as a prime culprit in a major salmon kill on the Klamath River in 2002.

Because it takes several years for salmon to reach peak reproducing age, the effects of this huge fish-kill only started in 2005 when the National Marine Fisheries Service abbreviated the commercial salmon season. It cut the income of west coast fishermen “by 50 percent”.

California and Oregon indian tribes, that have depended on salmon fishing for thousands of years, also had their fishing quotas cut back by as much as half.

It’s easy to look at this example as an exception based on petty politics, but that would require you to overlook five centuries of political and economic policy.

Random Japan

CRAZY TRAINING

Ten-year-old Japanese guitar prodigy Yuto Miyazawa made such an impression on his idol Ozzy Osbourne that the rock’n’roll relic took him along on his 2010 Ozzfest tour.

A 26-year-old bassist from Kanagawa was arrested for breaking into a musician’s home and stealing five double basses and some other stuff worth ¥53 million.

For the first time in Japan LPGA Tour history, twin sisters played a round together when Keiko and Noriko Kubo, both 23, shared the same grouping at the Nitori Ladies tournament in Hokkaido. Unsurprisingly, the twins shot identical 2-over-par 74s in the first round.

A Mainichi Shimbun report revealed that officials at the Tokyo Detention Center execution venue are only made aware of impending executions when the center calls them and asks, “Are you free tomorrow?”

The Azabu Police Station in Roppongi revealed that credit-card scams targeting foreigners have been running rampant in the area over the past year.

Eikichi Sokokurai, originally known as Enhetubuxin, became the first Chinese wrestler to reach sumo’s makuuchi division. The 26-year-old from Inner Mongolia “spent his childhood living in a yurt and tending farm animals.”

In Matsuyama, an apparently jilted psycho stabbed his ex-girlfriend and her mom before stabbing himself in a fit of rage. He and his ex survived the ordeal, but the mother was not so lucky.

A court in Bali sentenced a 31-year-old construction worker to 20 years behind bars for killing a Japanese woman, robbing her, then having sex with her dead body. “The defendant committed a crime forbidden by all religions,” said the judge. Ya think?

Original v. Cover — #43 in a Series

Theme Pictures, Images and Photos

The calendar reminds us that only four days of summer remain and that the autumnal equinox will soon be upon us, ushering in a new season, one of stunning, but all too often ephemeral beauty. Children have returned to school, football season (for better or worse) is again upon us, the slow march to the World Series will soon begin, leaves await raking and the days will become ever more fleeting. Daylight, so recently abundant, will become an ever more precious commodity during the months ahead. Cooler nights portend the promise of a better night’s sleep as hopes for a lengthy Indian summer spring anew.  

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