Posts
Very sweet.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
They Lost Their Lives For Oil
There's evidence now that oil executives were telling Bush two years before the Iraq War that he needed to get rid of Saddam Hussein in order to stabilize U.S. oil prices.
Read an excerpt of the article "Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves" here.
It says, "That April 2001 report, 'Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,' was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
"In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves.
"'Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East,' the report said."
Read an excerpt of the article "Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves" here.
It says, "That April 2001 report, 'Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,' was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
"In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves.
"'Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East,' the report said."
Do Not Go Gently
to see this movie: Land of the Lost. Ok, most of you would never consider seeing a Will Ferrell movie. Just in case you agree to go because someone else wants to, don't! Don't Go Gently To That Movie! However, remembering the Sleestaks and seeing their lizardy zombie selves back in scary action was cool for a nano second. And remembering Chaca and that I was attracted to the little cave man was interesting too but only for a nano second. The rest was tortuous. I should have been paying taxes or pulling out my fingernails; it would've been more fun.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Today I Discovered a Hero.
I recently read about an amazing young man named Aaron Cohen. Maybe you've already heard about him, but I hadn't. I found him on this art site that had photos of Darfur. It is called Exhibit Darfur
Read the bio below about this guy. He's amazing.
Aaron Cohen is a human rights activist who draws his inspiration from the "Jubilee," the ancient law of debt forgiveness and slave liberation. Cohen has sought to establish a modern-day Jubilee movement to free slaves around the world.
Media stories have lauded his work implementing a contemporary Jubilee observance and have called Cohen a "Slave Hunter" for his efforts finding the victims of human trafficking and retrieving thousands from slavery. Cohen was awarded a Commendation from the County of Los Angeles for his efforts combating human trafficking, retrieving victims in Darfur, in California, and sub-contracting on government assignments overseas. On these international missions to Myanmar Burma and to war-torn Iraq-- Cohen worked undercover as a "john," and assessed the phenomenon of slavery from the inside. He was recently named by the World War II Memorial Foundation, the Immortal Chaplains, as the recipient of the 2008 Prize for Humanity. The award is given to "those who risk all to protect others of different faith or ethnic origin", and he was honored with a US Congressional Certificate of Merit for his service in 2008.
Aaron Cohen remains active in human rights missions in Sudan, Iraq, and Burma and is now building partners for upcoming missions this dry season to southern Darfur. "We're happy with the advocacy work the Darfur movement is accomplishing." Cohen said, "and now we have to help those men, women, and children on the ground who are sold into slavery, who are being persecuted, starved to death, or killed. If we work together we can save lives." Activists interested in supporting the humanitarian field work in Sudan this winter can contact Aaron Cohen directly at the email: abolishslavery@gmail.com. Winter missions to Darfur, Sudan will be funded through the Millionkids campaign.
Read the bio below about this guy. He's amazing.
Aaron Cohen is a human rights activist who draws his inspiration from the "Jubilee," the ancient law of debt forgiveness and slave liberation. Cohen has sought to establish a modern-day Jubilee movement to free slaves around the world.
Media stories have lauded his work implementing a contemporary Jubilee observance and have called Cohen a "Slave Hunter" for his efforts finding the victims of human trafficking and retrieving thousands from slavery. Cohen was awarded a Commendation from the County of Los Angeles for his efforts combating human trafficking, retrieving victims in Darfur, in California, and sub-contracting on government assignments overseas. On these international missions to Myanmar Burma and to war-torn Iraq-- Cohen worked undercover as a "john," and assessed the phenomenon of slavery from the inside. He was recently named by the World War II Memorial Foundation, the Immortal Chaplains, as the recipient of the 2008 Prize for Humanity. The award is given to "those who risk all to protect others of different faith or ethnic origin", and he was honored with a US Congressional Certificate of Merit for his service in 2008.
Aaron Cohen remains active in human rights missions in Sudan, Iraq, and Burma and is now building partners for upcoming missions this dry season to southern Darfur. "We're happy with the advocacy work the Darfur movement is accomplishing." Cohen said, "and now we have to help those men, women, and children on the ground who are sold into slavery, who are being persecuted, starved to death, or killed. If we work together we can save lives." Activists interested in supporting the humanitarian field work in Sudan this winter can contact Aaron Cohen directly at the email: abolishslavery@gmail.com. Winter missions to Darfur, Sudan will be funded through the Millionkids campaign.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
How Dysfunction Helps the GOP
Here's an interesting blog article in today's Wall Street Journal (A11) that reminds us how GOP politics twists the facts to always keep their buddy billionaires reaping big rewards while hurting the American people and keeping government dysfunctional.
How is it, I want to know, that with such a mandate from the people, the Democrats still bow to GOP bully tactics when Republicans have been so dismal, such failures at running government? Why do they listen especially in regards to healthcare reform?
Read the whole article here.
I'm excerpting parts. The author is Wall Street Journal's Thomas Frank and his email is: thomas@wsj.com
"Remember the $400 hammer? How 'bout that $600 toilet seat?" asks a Conservatives for Patients' Rights TV commercial criticizing President Barack Obama's health-care plan. "Seems when Congress gets involved, things just cost more."
"As it happens, I do remember the incident of the $436 hammer, the one that made headlines back in 1984. And while it may "seem" in hazy retrospect as though it showed how "things just cost more" once those silly liberals in Congress get started, what the hammer episode actually illustrated was a very different sort of ripoff. The institution that paid so very much for that hammer was President Ronald Reagan's Pentagon. A private-sector contractor was the party that was pleased to take the Pentagon's money. And it was a liberal Democrat in the House of Representatives, also known as "Congress," who publicized the pricey hardware to the skies.
---
"We heard this bizarre reasoning during last year's campaign season. "Unless you're pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately," Gov. Sarah Palin declared last October, when the federal government had been answering to her fellow Republican for nearly eight years, "I don't think that it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds."
---
"I've always thought that P.J. O'Rourke was only half joking when he wrote, years ago, that "Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it." Conservatives grasp the grand strategic sweep of politics better than liberals, and consequently they have always seemed to understand that what they do when they're in charge can help to reinforce the myths that put them there.
---
"This is the perverse incentive that is slowly remaking the GOP into the Snafu Party. And in those commercials and those proclamations we should also discern a warning: That even if Democrats manage to set up a solid health-care program, conservatives will do their best, once they have regained power, to drop it down the same chute they did the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Maybe they will appoint a tobacco lobbyist to run the thing. Maybe they will starve it for funds. Or antagonize its work force. And as it collapses they will hand themselves their greatest propaganda victory of all. They will survey the ruins and chide, "You didn't really think government could work, did you?"
How is it, I want to know, that with such a mandate from the people, the Democrats still bow to GOP bully tactics when Republicans have been so dismal, such failures at running government? Why do they listen especially in regards to healthcare reform?
Read the whole article here.
I'm excerpting parts. The author is Wall Street Journal's Thomas Frank and his email is: thomas@wsj.com
"Remember the $400 hammer? How 'bout that $600 toilet seat?" asks a Conservatives for Patients' Rights TV commercial criticizing President Barack Obama's health-care plan. "Seems when Congress gets involved, things just cost more."
"As it happens, I do remember the incident of the $436 hammer, the one that made headlines back in 1984. And while it may "seem" in hazy retrospect as though it showed how "things just cost more" once those silly liberals in Congress get started, what the hammer episode actually illustrated was a very different sort of ripoff. The institution that paid so very much for that hammer was President Ronald Reagan's Pentagon. A private-sector contractor was the party that was pleased to take the Pentagon's money. And it was a liberal Democrat in the House of Representatives, also known as "Congress," who publicized the pricey hardware to the skies.
---
"We heard this bizarre reasoning during last year's campaign season. "Unless you're pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately," Gov. Sarah Palin declared last October, when the federal government had been answering to her fellow Republican for nearly eight years, "I don't think that it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds."
---
"I've always thought that P.J. O'Rourke was only half joking when he wrote, years ago, that "Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it." Conservatives grasp the grand strategic sweep of politics better than liberals, and consequently they have always seemed to understand that what they do when they're in charge can help to reinforce the myths that put them there.
---
"This is the perverse incentive that is slowly remaking the GOP into the Snafu Party. And in those commercials and those proclamations we should also discern a warning: That even if Democrats manage to set up a solid health-care program, conservatives will do their best, once they have regained power, to drop it down the same chute they did the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Maybe they will appoint a tobacco lobbyist to run the thing. Maybe they will starve it for funds. Or antagonize its work force. And as it collapses they will hand themselves their greatest propaganda victory of all. They will survey the ruins and chide, "You didn't really think government could work, did you?"
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Burials
The UTNE Reader has an interesting article about composting bodies for burial that includes a deep freeze and a lot of shaking to shatter the frozen body into a million little pieces!
It uses The Walrus Magazine, an independent press that Utne awarded a prize to in 2009, as the source of the article.
The Walrus is interesting, too. Check that out if you have time.
Here is the bulk of the article.
"The Walrus reports on a new technique that may, it seems, be the greenest of them all. The process, called promession, sounds like a kind of high-tech version of composting (one that avoids all the arduous turning and, uh, odor-releasing of the down-home method). It was developed by Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, who is planning to open the world’s first promatorium in Jönköping, Sweden, sometime next year. James Glave (for The Walrus) explains:
"'Think of the operation as a kind of corpse disassembly line. The dearly departed are first supercooled in liquid nitrogen to about minus 196°C, then shattered into very small pieces on a vibration table. “We wanted to make the body unrecognizable without using any kind of an instrument that you would see in a kitchen or garage,” [Wiigh-Mäsak] explains.'
"Next a vacuum is used to evaporate moisture while a metal separator, traditionally used by the food processing industry to remove stray foreign objects from meat products, shuffles aside fillings, crowns, titanium hips, and so on. (You can put that sandwich down now.) Finally, the vaguely pink crumbs are deposited in a large box made of corn or potato starch.
"Surviving family members bury the box in shallow topsoil and plant a tree or shrub on top. With the exception of perhaps a few broken remnants of plastic pacemaker, in a matter of months nothing is left but memories and some lush greenery."
And, yesterday, I had a conversation with my Iranian friend about burials there. Did you know that they only use coffins to carry the dead to the burial site. Once there, they lift the body from the box with a sheet and lower it into the hole using the ends of the sheet. The body is turned toward Mecca and the face is exposed from the sheet (and slapped, checking one last time for any sign of life). Then, a rock is placed over the head and the hole is filled with dirt. No wonder the middle east has so much oil!
By the way, may the lovely Neda rest in peace. To me, her death was a symbol of all the unnecessary deaths from unnecessary wars and from necessary ones. No matter the argument(s) between nations or leaders or between citizens and authority, shooting a gun at another person is always one beautiful soul killing another.
Here is a tribute to her that includes footage of her death. May this horrible act help us wake up to the reality of gun violence...especially when states use it on their own people.
It uses The Walrus Magazine, an independent press that Utne awarded a prize to in 2009, as the source of the article.
The Walrus is interesting, too. Check that out if you have time.
Here is the bulk of the article.
"The Walrus reports on a new technique that may, it seems, be the greenest of them all. The process, called promession, sounds like a kind of high-tech version of composting (one that avoids all the arduous turning and, uh, odor-releasing of the down-home method). It was developed by Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak, who is planning to open the world’s first promatorium in Jönköping, Sweden, sometime next year. James Glave (for The Walrus) explains:
"'Think of the operation as a kind of corpse disassembly line. The dearly departed are first supercooled in liquid nitrogen to about minus 196°C, then shattered into very small pieces on a vibration table. “We wanted to make the body unrecognizable without using any kind of an instrument that you would see in a kitchen or garage,” [Wiigh-Mäsak] explains.'
"Next a vacuum is used to evaporate moisture while a metal separator, traditionally used by the food processing industry to remove stray foreign objects from meat products, shuffles aside fillings, crowns, titanium hips, and so on. (You can put that sandwich down now.) Finally, the vaguely pink crumbs are deposited in a large box made of corn or potato starch.
"Surviving family members bury the box in shallow topsoil and plant a tree or shrub on top. With the exception of perhaps a few broken remnants of plastic pacemaker, in a matter of months nothing is left but memories and some lush greenery."
And, yesterday, I had a conversation with my Iranian friend about burials there. Did you know that they only use coffins to carry the dead to the burial site. Once there, they lift the body from the box with a sheet and lower it into the hole using the ends of the sheet. The body is turned toward Mecca and the face is exposed from the sheet (and slapped, checking one last time for any sign of life). Then, a rock is placed over the head and the hole is filled with dirt. No wonder the middle east has so much oil!
By the way, may the lovely Neda rest in peace. To me, her death was a symbol of all the unnecessary deaths from unnecessary wars and from necessary ones. No matter the argument(s) between nations or leaders or between citizens and authority, shooting a gun at another person is always one beautiful soul killing another.
Here is a tribute to her that includes footage of her death. May this horrible act help us wake up to the reality of gun violence...especially when states use it on their own people.
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