March 2011 archive

Under The Radar: More Outrageous and Insulting

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Some folks are determined to not only demonstrate that they are hypocrites but are hell bent to take this country back to the 1800’s. From abortion to GLBT to guns, the backward spiral continues

TAKE ACTION: Another DADT discharge? Sailor needs your help asap

Robin McGehee of GetEQUAL and I just sent out the following joint action alert to our email lists. This servicemember, Derek Morado, is having his DADT discharge hearing tomorrow, Thursday March 31. It’s absurd that the Pentagon is proceeding with DADT discharges even after the President signed the repeal legislation. But here we are.

GetEqual and AMERICAblog will be providing Derek a list of everyone who signs our petition on his behalf, he’ll then take those names into the hearing with him.

Indiana GOP Rep Says Women Will Pretend To Be Raped To Get Free Abortions

   TURNER: With all do respect to Rep. Riecken, I understand what she’s trying to do. But as you know that when the federal health care bill was going through Congress there was a lot of discussion whether this would allow for abortion coverage and of course we were all told it would not. And the bill, my house bill 1210, would prevent that for any insurance company to provide abortion coverage under federal health care bill. This [amendment] would open that window and I would ask you to oppose this amendment.

   I just want you to think about this, in my view, giant loophole that could be created where someone who could – now i want to be careful, I don’t want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest – but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they’ve been raped or there’s incest.

Chris Smith’s African Abortion Adventure

Most members of Congress spent last week’s recess back in their districts, talking to their constituents and getting a sense of what Americans want their elected officials to be doing back in Washington. But Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, had other plans: He spent part of the break on a taxpayer-funded trip to Kenya, where he slammed the country’s new constitution for allowing abortions in cases when the health of the mother is at risk.

snip

Smith wasn’t just meeting with Kenyan politicians and activists during his time in East Africa-he was actively politicking. On March 21, Smith spoke at an event on the new constitution sponsored by the Kenya Christian Professional Forum in Limuru, a town about 35 miles outside Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. A staffer for the US-based group Center for Reproductive Rights, which recently opened an office in Nairobi, took notes during the speech. In it, the congressman reportedly called for “a world free of abortion.” Smith also accused “pro-abortion NGOs” of having “hijacked” the maternal mortality issue in order to legalize the killing of the unborn, CRR says.

Jan Brewer Signs Controversial Abortion Bill Into Law

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into law a controversial bill that makes the state the first in the nation to outlaw abortions performed on the basis of the race or gender of the fetus.

Opening Day

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Ah Spring, that time of year when a young man’s (and many young women’s too) fancy turns to thoughts of…

Baseball.

It’s the perfect time of year.  Your team has never lost a game and even if you know in your heart of hearts that your star pitcher (Santana and Maine and pray for rain) is out for the entire season and you have an entirely new management team so this is probably going to be yet another of what the polite call “rebuilding” years where you cheat and watch the fast forward version because it’s slightly less painful and a bit more efficient of your time, you have a chance at the Pennant.

Since my team is the Mets they have a history of quick starts and Opening Day victories and the Marlins are just not that good, so it’s entirely possible that Saturday I’ll be able to brag about a share of the NL East lead for the last time this season.  They’re pitching Pelfrey who is the best they got.

“I am watching my local sports franchise engage in an even more pointless than usual sporting competition.” says Atrios, but that’s just what makes it so timeless.

Your enjoyment of it depends on your level of concentration and it’s easy to get distracted especially if your team is doing poorly.  It you are paying attention each pitch is like a forward pass and each hit like an interception.  It is a game you play to win no matter how long it takes, there is no end without a victor, no tying in Baseball.

A Season is a long, long time.  One hundred sixty two games.  Nobody’s had a perfect one yet, so you can’t sweat the small stuff and let a little slump throw you into a big one.

Opening Day Matchups-

“I’m from America, and I’m here to help you.”

Ronald Reagan once claimed that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

But of course that senile stooge for Big Money got it wrong. The nine most terrifying words in any language are…

“I’m from America, and I’m here to help you.”

Soldier2

My update of the Reagan Doctrine (insofar as that senile stooge ever had a “doctrine,” or even an idea, except stooging for Big Money) occurred to me when Baghdad was selected as the worst city in the world on the Mercer 2010 Quality of Life Survey.

After seven years of beneficent American occupation!

And Baghdad had to beat out some real humdingers among messed up cities to win that prize!

More messed up than Khartoum?

SUDAN/

You betcha!

Baghdad copy

This was reminiscent of some recent headlines from Afghanistan, selected by Save the Children as the worst place in the world to be born. The worst place to be a mother! The worst place to be a child!

afghan_children_poor

After nine long years of American “assistance!”

And now it’s Libya’s turn to hear those terrifying words…

“I’m from America, and I’m here to help you.”

And isn’t it just too fucking perfect that Obama can send that message from everybody’s favorite guided missile destroyer… the USS Barry!

ss-110331-libya-07_ss_full

The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launches a Tomahawk cruise missile from the ship’s bow in the Mediterranean Sea on March 29. Barry is currently supporting Joint Task Force (JTF) Odyssey Dawn as part of the international response to the unrest in Libya.

Six In The Morning

Libya rebels flee eastward by the hundreds

Kadafi’s forces appear poised to take Port Brega after pushing the opposition fighters out of Ras Lanuf, another oil refinery city.

By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

March 31, 2011


Reporting from Port Brega, Libya- Dispirited rebel fighters continued their headlong retreat across eastern Libya on Wednesday, surrendering a strategic oil city they captured just three days earlier and fleeing eastward by the hundreds.

Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi appeared poised late in the day to seize a second oil refinery city, Port Brega, as rebels in gun trucks near the city turned and fled at the sound of exploding rockets and artillery. Kadafi’s men had pushed rebels out of Ras Lanuf, site of a petrochemical complex and port, on Wednesday morning.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

… he who has independent ideas is hated by the mass[es].

–Shang Yang



Drips

Accountability?

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

We’ll see.

BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Manslaughter Charges Review

By Justin Blum and Alison Fitzgerald, Bloomberg News

Mar 29, 2011 6:03 AM ET

Halliburton recommended BP use 21 centralizers that help ensure cement is evenly distributed in the well and seals it. BP had only six centralizers on Deepwater Horizon, according to internal e-mails released by investigators. BP officials decided to go ahead rather than wait for the additional 15.

They also decided to skip a test that would determine if the cement was stable, according to testimony at Coast Guard hearings. Then, on April 20, BP and Transocean managers on the rig misread the results of another test to determine whether the well’s cement seal was strong enough to hold the oil and natural gas beneath the ocean floor, according to the president’s commission.

In the end, the companies went ahead and removed the drilling mud from the well, which took 2,600 pounds of weight from atop the oil and gas reservoir. Within hours, natural gas reached the Deepwater Horizon and touched off the catastrophic explosion.



Authorities are examining actions by BP managers who worked both on the rig and onshore to determine whether they should be charged in connection with the workers’ deaths, according to the people. Prosecutors have been looking at charges of involuntary manslaughter or seaman’s manslaughter, which carries a more serious penalty of up to 10 years.



Charging individuals would be significant to environmental- safety cases because it might change behavior, said Jane Barrett, a law professor at the University of Maryland.

“They typically don’t prosecute employees of large corporations,” said Barrett, who spent 20 years prosecuting environmental crimes at the federal and state levels. “You’ve got to prosecute the individuals in order to maximize, and not lose, the deterrent effect.”

(h/t Chris in Paris @ Americablog)

Late Night Karaoke

“Worst Case” Gets Infinitely Worse at Fukushima

The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press conference in Vienna.

Nuclear experts call these reactions “localized criticality,” which will increase radiation and hamper the ability to shut down the plant. The reactions consist of a burst of heat, radiation and sometimes an “ethereal blue flash,” according to the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory web site.

Uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions!

Just like an atomic bomb, only smaller!

And what could happen if the meltdown continues, and all the plutonium in Reactor #3 melts into a blob that’s bigger than critical mass?

Atomic-Bomb

 

Gha!



Brain has three layers of working memory

from firefly-dreaming 30.3.11

Essays Featured Wednesday the 30th of March:

It’s Ghost Town at Late Night Karaoke, mishima DJs

TheMomCat most kindly gives us a repeat performance of her Health & Fitness News.

Todays recipes focus on Frittatas

originally posted Saturday at The Stars Hollow Gazette

In Youffraita‘s  Wednesday Open Thoughts  Hoss & the Leprechauns will have you grinning.

How to Grow Vegetables with Little Water from patric juillet shares tricks for making container gardening easier.

Gha!

From RiaD‘s how-to-gardening series Get Growing: Onions & Leeks.

Afternoon music from Timbuk3: The 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time!

Tonight #93

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Our regular featured content-

ek and mishima both have the day off.

And these articles-

The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is an Open Thread

Given the Rusty treatment: Banned from FDL

Cross-posted from progressive-independence.org.

Earlier today I posted a diary at FDL in what was a continuation of an argument on morality in politics.  A few minutes ago I responded to a comment in another thread only to find that the comment in question was hidden pending moderator approval, a sure sign that I’ve been banned.  And just as was done to Rusty1776, my entire account has been designated as spam and my entries hidden from view.

That this happened is not even remotely surprising.  The right-wing gatekeepers who run FDL do not like talk of morality in politics, as it has the effect of exposing them for the amoral, power-driven shills for the corporate-owned Democrat Party they truly are.  What else can you expect from a blog run by ex-Daily Kos goons?  The difference between the two web sites is that at least Kos lets you know up front that his is a site of, by, and for only Democrats and that anti-Democrat discussion – as well as challenges to the party and its hacks – will not be tolerated.

Lest you think I’m angry about this, I’m not.  What the trolls assume is that there is nowhere else to go.  They’re deluding themselves if they think this.  Just check out the column of links to the left of this entry for proof.  I’m just letting you know what happened in case anyone has any questions about why I was removed from FDL, and that in light of their being exposed as a right-wing blog that silences dissent from the party line, I’ve taken the liberty of removing the link I had in the left-hand column.  If you want to read stuff from FireDogLake, I’m happy to invite people to cross-post from there.  I simply do not feel that the site is worthy of being promoted on a blog that is of, by, and for the left.

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