Howard Dean is First!

 Charlie Grapski is First in our Hearts tonight, too!!

At that point, Grapski said, Jernigan asked Grapski to go outside. Once out there, the conversation continued.

“When I asked him about him inquiring about my checking account at the bank, he said, ‘Well, the bank didn’t have to give me that information.’”

>

Which leads me to ask:

Is Charlie on some Homeland Security list which allows for JOHN LAW ?

?  Is that what jernigan implies (the Bank is already in possession of a letter from Homeland Security) when he says:

Well, the bank didn’t have to give me that information.’”

HQ, we need a bat for Charlie, STAT!  Please!

Anybody  else on board with this?  He needs the best attorney in America.  Jesus, this has to go national tho I suspect horrors like this are common these days under this fcsm.

MoveOn also could put this out on their list.

Listener, what can I send to Keith?

Lighting candles is not gonna be enuf.     

Why is Homeland (IN)security involved in this?  Is he being labeled as an enemy combatant?

5.

Why is

> I didn't say it IS.  It was speculation. 

I do not think 911 was a right wing plot, either. 

Off to eat.

Is Charlie on some Homeland Security list which allows for JOHN LAW

to gain unbound access to Charlies account.?

later

Susan, thank you for the link to Chief Seattle. 

Who's listening to the native wisdom besides so few of us who seem to have been born that way?

It's 11:59:59

Gore Please. Now!

Anyone else besides me seriously considering finding a new country?   Costa Rica has a much higher literacy rate than the U.S.  But then, many countries these days do.

What in the world is JOHN LAW?

seashell....Keith who?  Olbermann?

Let's be sure to thank the Editor of the High Springs Herald~!!!

 Just sent this to Ronald Dupont, Jr., the editor of the High Springs Herald:

rdupont@highspringsherald.com


Dear Mr. Dupont,

Please accept my heartfelt thanks for interviewing Charlie Grapski in jail, telling his story, and for letting him know that his friends are worried about him. I have contacted my legislators about this situation, Sen. Pat Leahy, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Peter Welch, and linked them to your article.

Many of us wish deeply that Charlie would leave Alachua, because his pearls are being cast before swine there. We also know he has a deep sense of right and wrong and will not lightly back down. I hope it won't be the death of him.

A friend of mine received a traumatic brain injury when she slipped in her kitchen and banged her head on the counter as she fell. She lives alone, but got to an E.R., where they x-rayed her and sent her home telling her it was just a concussion. A week later she was still having dizzy spells and went to her regular doctor. After a series of medical missteps (this is still a new science in many ways), a month later she finally learned from a specialist that she had a brain injury and that it would have been best for her recovery if she had had an MRI right away, with treatment beginning swiftly. So it seems to me unconscionable that Charlie has not had proper (or even minimal!) medical treatment.

He did nothing worth being beaten or even handcuffed for. What on earth is going on down there? Thank you for caring to bring this to the public eye.

Can you tell me how someone can contribute to the funds Charlie can use at the jail? What address or phone number needs to be contacted, and by what process are we allowed to do this? If you know of a fund already set up for this purpose, please point me.

Many thanks. I have been following this story for over a year and am utterly astounded and dismayed that it continues.

Gratefully,

 

seashell...everybody move to Vermont!

We already have Deans and Leahy!

Plenty of leadership here. 

If needed we could secede and, hey, we border Canada. 

I think you all would do better sending email to Joe Little, the lawyer who's been helping charlie

Little@law.ufl.edu

Thanks, Monica!!!

What need be said to his lawyer?  What would be helpful?  Do you mean letters expressing our outrage and support, or what? 

This part got cut off...   ...    

Do you mean letters expressing our outrage and support, or what?
 

I had planned on responding to something on the previous, but have now decided I will speak of nothing but Charlie's plight until DFA puts up a thread and bat for him.

I guess it's a filibuster. 

What do we want?

A bat for Charlie!

When do we want it?

Now! 

Is Joe Little a good lawyer?  Is he working pro bono?

Listener,yes, Keith.  I want to send him a synopsis of Charlies's story. 

Agree, Sitka.

A bat for Charlie!

The story being put out by the corrupt sheriff's office is looking more and more like the fraud we suspected it was.

 A BAT FOR CHARLIE

Well done, Sitka!!

I am also calling for a bat for Charlie over at www.howardempowered.com.

It's Demetrius' birthday, but you know Renee and Demetrius would come through if asked. 

I am also calling for a bat for Charlie

over at www.howardempowered.com.

It's Demetrius' birthday, but you know

Renee and Demetrius would come through if asked.
 


WE NEED A BAT FOR CHARLIE, HQ!!!

Joe Little has been in Gainesville for a long time.  He was on the City Commission and Mayor and is a law professor at UF.  I'm not sure whether he has an active practice, but he was helping Charlie prepare his briefs.  He'd probably be able to tell you what needs to be done.

I found his phone number on the web, so it's not a secret

352 372 5955
352 392-2211-work

seashell,  send this link to Keith

http://www.highspringsherald.com/articles/2007/08/16/news/news04.txt 

and ask him to contact

High Springs Herald editor Ronald Dupont, Jr.!

I'm not sure the current crew knows how to do a bat.  And, it's Friday night.

Hi, I just sent Joe Little this note, with copies of

my messages to Leahy,  Sanders, Welch & Editor Dupont. 

Dear Attorney Little,

Many thanks to you for being Charlie's lawyer help despite

a situation that grows more and more absurd each season.

Below are copies of the letters I sent this evening to

my legislators and to Editor Ronald Dupont of the High Springs Herald.

If you can tell me how best to help Charlie,

I can carry the word to many bloggers who would like to help.

Please tell Charlie I wish he would move to Vermont

where his pearls could be truly appreciated!

Sincerely,

 

I think you all would do better sending email to Joe Little, the lawyer who's been helping charlie

Little@law.ufl.edu

Dr. Mr. Little,

I have been informed that you are, or have been, helping Charles Grapski with his legal difficulties resulting from his exposing corruption in the Alachula Sheriff's Dept. While he is neither a friend nor acquaintance of mine, I have read many of his dissertations on democracy and am convinced he is an honest champion of bringing about good government.

I also believe that the charges currently against him are not only trumped up, but that he was goaded and entrapped. I have read that he is suffering from possibly serious injuries while in custody and is not eating.

Please help him as soon as, and in any ways that you can. And know that many people across the nation are following his plight with diligent concern as news of it comes out.  And please let me know if there is anything you think I can and should do to help him in this matter.

Thank you....

seashell...Renee gave me this link for you:

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/23141.html 

Good letter, Sitka!!   ♥

As always, I could use a proofreader.

OK, I just sent Keith both links with a short note.

BAT  BAT  BAT! 

For future reference, Sitka, Charlie's nemesis is the City of Alachua.  All of the cities in the County use the County Jail facilities which are in Gainesville, where the courthouse is, as well.  The Sheriff of Alachua County is in charge of the jail.  Sadie Darnell, the sheriff (an elected position) used to be in the Gainesville Police Dept.  How good she is at managing the jail, I don't know, but Charlie says he trusts her.  It wouldn't do for her to show favoritism because that would just antagonize the staff.

The spouse once spent ten days in the jail after his second run-in with University Police who didn't want to be told what to do.  He represented himself in front of a judge who was brought in from three counties away because all the local judges recused themselves because of their ties to UF.  His argument that the UF police had failed to respond to his requests for parking regulations to be enforced was not persuasive enough to keep him from being sentenced to ten days for kicking an illegally parked van on a lawn.  Thereafter, when he called the UF police, they responded more positively though sometimes he had to call the chief.  The chief was under the Vice President for Administration who didn't want parking regulations enforced against football fans.  They studied the problem and eventually came up with a co-ordinated program that included buses from outlying shopping centers.   Having grown up down the street from Yankee Stadium, I found it hard to understand why football fans needed to jam up the neighborhoods and the University grounds so nobody else could get around while they sat in the stands and screamed.  It took years, but it finally got worked out. 

I finally gave up on Gainesville and moved to Georgia in 1993 and the spouse commuted for ten years.  I knew I was in a bad way when I started feeling nostalgic for the Bronx. 

I'm not sure the current crew knows how to do a bat.  And, it's Friday night. 

They's better learn to do something fast or when they get back on Monday they'll find a riot on their hands. 

For future reference, Sitka, Charlie's nemesis is the City of Alachua.  All of the cities in the County use the County Jail facilities which are in Gainesville, where the courthouse is, as well.  The Sheriff of Alachua County is in charge of the jail.

Hopefully Mr. Little got the message. 

Renee at www.howardemmpowered.com

is not opposed to putting up a bat over there!!

but has a few questions.

Please consider going over and saying what you think. 

From Renee:

The only place we've been told that donations can be sent is here:
Donations to the Grapski Defense can be sent to PO Box 190, Alachua, FL 32616.
Email: chicoverde at cox dot net.
Is that for bail, or for a lawyer, or what?
I know that a few people have expressed an interest in donating to a fund that Charlie could use in the commisary.
So I *really* don't know what is meant by wanting a bat. What words would accompany it? Where would people be sending money?
If there *is* a bat here, people are going to be asking questions, and I don't know the answers.
Renee in Ohio | Homepage | 08.17.07 - 8:15 pm

 

Good God, Somebody help Charlie!

What is DFA all about if we let one of our own suffer for standing up to corruption.

Yes.  A Bat.  A Bat and more.

Can't they at least get him his eyeglasses back??!

BAT! BAT! BAT! 

I just emailed Tara and Sheri about a bat.  Might help.

The new thread at

http://howardempowered.blogspot.com/

is all about Charlie! 

My e-mail:

Dear Mr. Little,

I have known Charlie for nearly four years and
consider him to be my friend.  I am afraid for
Charlie's physical and mental well being in
confinement by those who wish him ill.

You know Charlie's history with the Alachua
government, so I won't repeat it here.  But please,
please do all you can to get Charlie out of jail.  He
needs medical treatment as soon as possible.

Charlie has many concerned friends like me.  We are
frustrated and angry.  We are scared for Charlie.  If
this can happen to him in Alachua, it can happen to
any of us in America.

Thank you for your efforts on his behalf.

 Gainsville Sun articles about Charlie...

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=search01&sNum=0&resultCount=15&source=0&keywords=grapski&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 

Good letter, donna!  ♥

Good activism here this evening.  Good letters from Sitka (who knew you could do more than create one-liners and good music /  Who?), donna, and Listener

Free Charlie!  (or at least bail him out;)

BTW when is Moyers on? 

The Party of hate and bigotry:

~~~~~Edwards, D-N.C., was railing against the right-wing media -- including Fox News and Rush Limbaugh -- when he reminded a crowd in Burlington, Iowa, that his wife stood up to Coulter in a public spat earlier this summer.

"We know these people. We know their game plan. They're going to attack us personally," Edwards said. "They attacked Elizabeth personally, because she stood up to that she-devil Ann Coulter. … I should not have name-called. But the truth is -- forget the names -- people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language."

~~~~~~~

Glad to see someone is saying it out loud for everyone else to hear it.

Ayn Rand - Mike Wallace Interview 1959 Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5poUSQ4L8pY&mode=related&search=

Ayn Rand - Donahue Interview Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRDgIXn2IWs&mode=related&search=

"Most men here (America)) are repressors ... they hide their feelings."

"a tyranny"

"for a good relationship

there should be no victims - no sacrifices"

~Ayn Rand - Donahue Interview Part 2

She makes an  interesting point on:

 "how we subsidize the ungifted

and not the gifted,

who carry the weight for all of us"

 Part 3

On religion or god: 

"I don't approve of religion"

"I wouldn't stop them legally"

"We are  not called upon to can't know or prove a negative"

• By MANOHLA DARGIS

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the environment, blah, blah, blah, melting ice caps. To judge from all the gas-guzzlers still fouling the air and the plastic bottles clogging the dumps, it appears that the news that we are killing ourselves and the world with our greed and garbage hasn’t sunk in. That’s one reason “The 11th Hour,” an unnerving, surprisingly affecting documentary about our environmental calamity, is such essential viewing. It may not change your life, but it may inspire you to recycle that old slogan-button your folks pinned on their dashikis back in the day: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Effectively blunt, this sequence provoked a colleague to invoke the name of the avant-garde giant Stan Brakhage, but the truer visual and structural model here is a film like “Koyaanisqatsi,” with its streaming global landscapes. The difference is that the images in “The 11th Hour” are pointedly horrifying, not reassuring, pacific or aestheticized.

That can make it tough to watch, which the directors clearly know. They whip through the pictures and the interviews fast — at times a little too fast — and keep the information flowing as quickly as the visuals. This swift, steady pace means that you receive a lot of bad news from a lot of different sources. The ecologist Brock Dolman explains, “When we started feeding off the fossil fuel cycle, we began living with a death-based cycle.” From there the topic nimbly jumps to climate change, national security (courtesy the former director of the C.I.A., R. James Woolsey), Katrina, asthma and the stunning news from the oceanographer and author Sylvia Earle that “we’ve lost 90 percent of most of the big fish in the sea.”

Yes, it’s bad, but it’s not over yet. Many of those same sober talking heads also argue with equal passion that we can save ourselves, along with the sky above us and the earth below. The capacity for human beings to fight, to rise to the occasion, as Mr. Woolsey notes, invoking America’s rapid, albeit delayed jump into World War II, gives hope where none might seem possible.

It is our astonishing capacity for hope that distinguishes “The 11th Hour” and that speaks so powerfully, in part because it is this all-too-human quality that may finally force us to fight the good fight against the damage we have done and continue to do. As the saying goes, keep hope alive — and if you’re holding this review in your hands, don’t forget to recycle the paper.

“The 11th Hour” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It has freakily scary environmental images.

THE 11TH HOUR

Opens today in New York and Los Angeles.

Are you spamming me, Phil?

"how we subsidize the ungifted

and not the gifted,

who carry the weight for all of us"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Who has been more "GIFTED" than George? Who does *less* for any of us?

DuPont and Rockefeller carry no water for me, nor chop any wood. Her "gifted" take care of themselves. Period. They are like Wal-Marts: promising jobs and tax revenues, then dumping their workers on states' already overburdened welfare systems. . . .

Puddle, I think Bushies are the anti-Objectivists

Hi everyone! Thankful and Subway are here. Thankful is writing an apparently long post next to me....

Howdy ~ Subway and I arrived at Jessica's a little bit ago

Ayn Rand was interviewed by Mike Wallace!?

Had a nice afternoon - I called Reed as I breezed into Bellows Falls, he asked where I was, I said at the intersection w/ the Sunoco and Shell stations, he said - oh right behind the red pickup? LOL, he was at the store in the Shell station. We went down to the bus station to pick up Subway (I was late and figured he'd been waiting long enough) but the bus was running later... We went to the Farmer's Market across the street and hung out a while, then returned to the station to ask about the bus. Just then Denise called from CA to say there was a post on HEP saying Subway missed the first bus by 10 minutes and would be on the next bus. Reed went to do stuff, I went to the store and ate dinner, then waited for the bus a bit. Sweetie that he is, Reed returned to greet Subway and send us on our way to Jessica's - and here we are!

Reed - you have a message about timing tomorrow ♥'s atcha

Remember this article from LA Beat about Charlie?  Called The Dirty South....and it truly is some areas.   In many in fact.  Good article....the blog needs to read it.

 http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3881&IssueNum=157

"...creating capitalists with government help.  Which is the worst of all economic phenomenon"

~Ayn Rand

This what the pResent Administration has done IMHO 

pre-emptive invasion of an anti Gore post by Daniel, paine

the Al Capone President, sure Capone was a "businessman"

♥ puddle ♥ ::waving:: & {{{hugs}}}

hmmm, I see talk about 'gifted' ~ a subject close to my heart - wish I could catch up on what's up.

have fun deaniacs

Gifted - does not IMO mean *successful* businessmen

Gifted IMO as Rand uses it is a rationally agreed definition.

What is your definition of the term gifted, Puddle?

those that "carry the weight" are at the bottom ... by definition

Phil Specht

>

wrong.  weight is lifted with strength.

Here is a post that pulls together some of the Grapski stuff...even the cartoon Jake Fuller did about him  which was not bad at all.  More insulting to Clovis Watson.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/714

Also this one.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/432

the ungifted Rand IMO refers to at one point that I heard

were retarded people.  she said spending millions on their behalf for a limited return is the way America goes.  She said that those with better gifts could yield better results for society.  She mentioned - education $ going to educating those who are not er, retarded.

those that "carry the weight" are at the bottom

>

you do not believe that, Phil.

can you get someone touched by The Gift

to break silence?

speaking you betray the peace

once broken, only given again to be whole

by turning to leave

empty handed ...  (a condition all poor share)

share gifts

for no one has else

The Fountainhead - Howard Roark Speech (Ayn Rand)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4&mode=related&search=

Paine,Gifted has many definitions, it all depends on who you ask... most hikes in education spending is for special ed. - not a bad thing, all need services and education. Gifted ed. is a whole different animal, little funding (even when mandated), little real differentiation in curriculum except in a few districts, some states are better than others... all need services and education. the key IMO is that all children need challenge ~ how else can one learn to work, learn to learn...

The Band did the musical version.

One more Happy Birthday to Demetrius!

This song will touch your very soul or you are dead. No video -- just audio. Can't find a version with a bandoneon -- my Yo You Ma CD has a bandoneon in the arrangement.

Astor Piazzolla - Cafe 1930 played by a guitarist and a violinist.

Long - about 7 minutes - but you can listen in background.

:~)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxX_mpSoj...

3706

http://www.lyricsforall.com/display/lyric/1027/75997/band/the+weight/

Catch a cannon ball now, t'take me down the line
My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time.
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one.
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone.

Take a load off Annie, take a load for free;
Take a load off Annie, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me.

dammit Wowser :-(

70. Phil ♥

"share gifts

for no one has else"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

there is nothing more important than giving

Kindness is free!

Oooh, Subway is playing for us. Jessica's hubby too. Nice :-D

57.
Hi Thankful,
What a pleasure to be with a few fellow Deaniacs this afternoon. Good timing on the phone call. Wish I had more time this weekend to enjoy the mini-DemFest but I'll squeeze in what time I can. I actually was able to get more done this evening (with my stuff to do) after you left for Jessica's...a few more pieces of the puzzle put together...changing laws requires much work.

I am furious about what has happened to Charlie. I contacted the DNC (hey Howard, Charlie is a Deaniac...he got involved) and asked what they could do. My heart goes out to you Charlie.

 72.

most hikes in education spending is for special ed. /  not a bad thing /  Gifted ed. is a whole different animal, little funding (even when mandated

.. most hikes in education spending is for special ed

<

I heard her say that disproportionate tax$ are spent to improve the learning of less gifted individuals, when the rational (better) path would disproportionally improve the learning of those who could in all reality benefit themselves and society.

...not a bad thing

>

maybe -> that is an altruist point of view (just for the sake of  argument ) 

Gifted ed. is a whole different animal, little funding (even when mandated

Which highlights what Ayn said

~:   better gifts could yield better results for society

75.Annilow>Acoustic guitar in that fashion is the best IMO sure mixes well with the violin(?)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Give til it hurts.

when i was in school, gifted meant above average: i.e., 110+ iq. i was in that group, but at the same time i was from a poor family with a singe mother running the household. at 12, i already got the point that there was a god reference in the "gifted" proposal and hated the whole branding for that fact. no god made me or made me the way i am. i am me and that's it. nothing more. why can't it be that easy???

84.
Give til it hurts

==============

The rewards may surprise you

Oh, I see - violin.  Wow, and the composition(?) changes (Δ

had we given Iraq 439 billion dollars worth of gifts would they be our enemy?

gift, gifted, giving, gifts

not a bad idea, paine

yours? 

when i was in school, gifted meant above average:

>

I think Rand would expand that definition to include the great masses.

just paintin' here, Phil.

i think it was monica who awhile back made a retort on gifting. if i remember right, there was a response requirement attached to any gift. an obligation. think of any social setting where this is not true.

So, like aah... who's campin' in Vermont tonight?  I gotta relate that if the temp and humidity is as good as I think, campin' sounds good.

giving doesn't equal gifts...

btw, charlie's abuse could come to any of us at any time. this is how it has always been and i'm surprised that most here don't get that.

Do you know the difference between a “Schlameal and a Schlamazel”?

The Schlameal is the is the one who spills the soup and the schlamazel is the guy who has the soup spilled on him.

Please put this to memory as it will serve you well as you face lifes trials and tribulations.

Dad

how safe we(?) are...

Paine -

~disproportionate tax $
but for the sake of argument, different kind of service is needed, sometimes one on one...

~altruist
lol, from one to another, maybe

~better gifts could yield better results for society (Rand)
well yes, no doubt. Gifted ed. is of the utmost importance and gets little support, but it does generate bumper stickers (My kid beat up your honor student.) Many gifted people end up not 'yielding' much for society at all - they're often never challenged to have to work and learn - they get bored silly - some drop out of school, become the trouble makers/gang leaders/whacko criminals, have a high suicide rate... not the picture of the stereo-type (oh they're so smart they can do anything and will "succeed" no matter what.) enough negative :-)

IMO, addressing the need of challenge for all children could yield better results for society. Gifted people aren't better than anyone else, but they do deserve to be able to have something to learn and not have to sit down in Kindergarden for letter book 'B' when they're reading and writing.

I'd weigh in on the gifted discussion but it's too late...headed to the mini DemFest in the morning...but having a gifted son (IQ 130+), taking him out of the public school system by grade 4 and paying for private school (road crew wages mind you but w/ scholarships) and the reasons why we did...a many faceted discussion.
Bottom line...gifted kids are special needs kids

zzzville...nite all.

I would like to direct all my fellow DFAer's attention to the campaign that I am co-managing. What I want everyone here to do is look at our campaign website and let me know what you think.

This is a county legislature race and I think we have a pretty spectacular website.

Make sure you check out the video and the audio featured on the site.

www.tednixon.com

92. Well, it's 56 degrees and raining, so everyone is camping indoors here tonight. :-)

"don't hitchhike through Oklahoma with hair like that, man", might have been the advice I ever got mprov, lol

I think we all get that, mprov.  I said something earlier in the day about him and the police frequenting the same intersection.  It sounds like what policemen do as members of some communities.  They get their piece of flesh, which I don't agree with.  Particularly in Charlies case.  But, like I said, *I don't know* the facts.

www.tednixon.com

85 - howdy mprov. Districts define arbitrarily. Many programs around my area 10-15 years ago were 130. Our district never said a specific number and used a matrix of tests and characteristics to qualify kids, the test results they really wanted to see were higher than surrounding schools. Pretty much, differentiation is needed by 130's.

And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"
Whoa-oh-oh

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

~FFIVE MAN ELECTRICAL BAND

Thomas Janowski
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a HOWARDLY effort Thomas, very good

where i grew they used the 110 marker because that is generally considered the top average marker. most of the kids in the "gifted" program appeared to me to be well above the marker. i never saw group scores, and they wouldn't even tell us our individual scores, so there's no empirical evidence to offer.

56 degrees and raining, so everyone is camping indoors here tonight. :-)

>

Ooh, with a fire in the hearth;)  Sould be good weather following?

We red-shirted our son and kept him home an extra year, the opposite of advancing him a grade (paid off with a four year full ride scholarship)

just saying

play is important too

100. Night Reed. I'd like to weigh in more on teh subject too, spent years on committees and the state org. Also, hear ya on the switching schools. Even in our district, which had a really strong program, we still ended up doing alternative schools at various times. See you tomorrow :-)

play is actually everything, phil. what do we imagine einstein was doing while a customs official???

Phil Specht

>

there you go.  Like Rand, it is the individual

109. And a good move :-) There's no one answer, as parents we have to do what fits our kid at the time. I also never pushed my kids one way or the other. Kid1 decided to graduate from HS early so I supported her. Kid2 went to the state math/science academy out of 8th grade, skipping 9th, and decided to do college in 3 years too. Kid3 decided to do a 4/4 program. Works for them, works for me :-)

100/110. we had no money for private schools even if they existed? the gifted programs in my schools were a waste of time. i learned to ignore them by the 10th grade. same for my brother. her was an air force academy grad. both of us with MA's.

the gifted programs felt more like "poke the smart kid" than anything useful. all of the classes were boring and taught rote memorization without a method. and when i made it to the university, i found out what i didn't know and had to quickly make up for the difference.

[...]

And the sign said anybody caught trespassin' would be shot on sight
So I jumped on the fence and-a yelled at the house, "Hey! What gives you
the
right?"
"To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in"
"If God was here he'd tell you to your face, Man, you're some kinda sinner"

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

Now, hey you, mister, can't you read?
You've got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can't even watch, no you can't eat
You ain't supposed to be here
The sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside
Ugh!

[Lead Guitar]

And the sign said, "Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray"
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn't have a
penny to pay
So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me. I'm alive and doin' fine."
Wooo!

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Sign
Sign, sign

The End of the World
by Archibald MacLeish

Quite unexpectedly as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe
And Ralph the Lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb —
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off.

And there, there overhead, there, there, hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness, the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing — nothing at all.

And Murray, the owner of the Utah mine, is infamous for routinely opposing safety regulations. "Anything that will cost Bob Murray any extra money, he will find reason to find fault with it," said Phil Smith, communications director of the United Mine Workers, which doesn't represent the workers in Utah.

Murray also knows how to buy influence. He is a big-time donor to the Republican Party, personally donating over $115,000 to Republican candidate over the past three election cycles and another $724,500 to the GOP over 10 years through political action committees connected to his businesses. He brandished that clout in 2003, threatening the job of MSHA district manager Tim Thompson, who ordered him to shut down one of his Ohio operations. "I will have your jobs," he said. And in fact, Thompson was transferred to another office and retired in 2006.

So perhaps it's not surprising that federal regulators signed off on the "retreat mining" at Crandall, which one expert termed "damned dangerous" in an area known for its instability.

Journey's End

In western lands beneath the Sun
The flowers may rise in Spring,
The trees may bud, the waters run,
The merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night,
And swaying branches bear
The Elven-stars as jewels white
Amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell.

JRR Tolkien

my older son was in a middle school TAG (talented and gifted) camp and took the archeological section just when Indiana Jones first came out and my most memorable afternoon was when "Indy" talked me into letting him rappel over a cliff to an "Indian cave"

luckily we dropped the 100 foot rope and noticed that it was dangling 20 feet off the ground before he went over the edge

so we decided to go down to the stream and catch trout instead

Reed

make sure you teach your son to "match the hatch", he won't get that anywhere else

nite all

Frownland
Originally appeared on Trout Mask Replica

My smile is stuck
I cannot go back to your Frownland
My spirit's made up of the ocean
And the sky 'n' the sun 'n' the moon
'n' all my eyes can see
I cannot go back to your land of gloom
Where black jagged shadows
Remind me of the coming of your doom
I want my own land
Take my hand and come with me
It's not too late for you
It's not too late for me
To find my homeland
Where a man can stand by another man
Without an ego flying
With no man lying
'n' no one dying by an earthly hand
Let the devils burn and the beggar learn
'n' the little girls that live in those old worlds
Take my kind hand
My smile is stuck
I cannot go back to your Frownland
I cannot go back to your Frownland
(1969)

above by capt. beefheart.

Just came upon this from a post.

How fitting this is with what is happening to Charlie and our rights further being trampled on, especially after last weeks hand over of additional unchecked powers by this Democratic Congress.

This is a short clip of pieces of Mr. Gores speech on last years Martin Luther King Holiday about the over reaching powers.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/18197

:-) needed to switch computers...

114. mprov - IMO, many/most programs are indeed useless, althhough I think/hope getting some better. 100/110 is way too low a cutoff for a separate program, again imo. 3 standard deviations from the norm for sure has other needs.

Phil - Iowa has some good programs and at least decent awareness. OH, VA, a few others too. It's been a few years since I was really up to date on the topic but it was 13/14 states w/ 'magnet' HS programs (btw, HS is way too late, programs should start as early as possible. Like any other issue, there are different schools of thoughts and powers that be.

Change of Heart coverage on Olb blows my mind.

I admire your coverage. This is the Friday night news Dump, so no one will read this, ( except for the Constiution-loving Patriots here),  but Bravo Olb, for covering this story.

There is a mind body soul connection.  It is worth asking the question, what if one of those components is bionic, or cyborgian?

Olb is asking if C's  bionic, and thus less-than-human heart, makes him less empathetic, or, well, fully-human in a conscience-sense?

Olb frames this in terms of C's actions involving Ir*q. 

What ,I ask, are the consequences of this disconnect between life and conscience regarding IR*AN?

Forget about Iraq. C wants to attack Iran. That's nothing short of bat-shit, crazy insane.

 Does Lynn notice the difference--the lack of conscience?

A guy, a regular guy interviewed for the piece,  who has a partial mechanical heart, admits that he has fewer touchy-feeley feelings, even for his own grand children.

It just proves on a spiritual level that heart is the seat of the soul. 

John Nichols from The Nation had the courage to report on this 

both houses of congress should hold hearings ...on the wrong doing of this President.

Al Gore said that.  Why was it not *newsworthy* when he said this?

124. LOL - oops, forgot to login as me :-)

This is the Friday night news Dump, so no one will read this

Except the NS*, FB*, C*A 

http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=BOX&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no

http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=cxx&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no

If there was any way i could do something for Charlie in person i'd be down there in person already... even tho it was unwise to put oneself in that kind of physical danger over a copy of a police report.

I'm just glad the press is involved, and he is in the hands of the county, now instead of the city, of Alachua. His attorney needs to be the decider of the next move here.

Charlie's medical treatment is now the responsibility of the county or state. Charlie should rethink, which may not be really possible at this point, refusing to eat. The county is not the same bunch as the city. His attorney and local friends need to make a visit to him, someone he trusts, to make this clear to him.

In this situation the Sheriff may have to be very careful that Charlie not be further injured, even by himself.

I know, i know... the folks here saying that all Southerners are evil are wrong. The ones that are are pretty bad, but let's not forget that really bad things have happened in 'enlightened' places like NYC, Newark, and Los Angeles.

126. If they ignore, then it must have happened.

But too, Congress ignores, as they also did on his clear understanding of Bush's war. As also he brought up on the Patriot Act, and look who all voted for that...including the ReAuthorization he was talking about.

Sad.

need to power down.

be well.

if you promise
i'll be true
if you pledge
only the truth
i'll follow you

long lines of lies
precede our endeavor
the work of many
shows us our never

why don't we just concede
there's never a truth
why don't we just go ahead
and admit, we're in over our heads
we can't reach perfect

(more verses to come if i can think of them...)

Before anybody lectures me on how Charlie has 'rights' to walk right in and get that report...

The City manager is way out of control. Remember that even the records office there had a mysterious fire just at the point of those same records coming under court querry.
Charlie has 'cost' this steriod enhanced egotist proportedly more than a six figure future government dole. The comrades of this person are likely to 'earn' all the perks they have enjoyed at the expense of the public trough that Clovis has dealt out to them.

One has to give an unfriendly wounded animal extra space, is what i'm sayin'.

Motor needs to ilde - to sleep.

I'd forgotten about that fire, Deaniac.

That's a scary bunch of folks down there. 

Thoughts and all to Charlie.

Nite Paine, Linda ♥

Nothing about 'Gr*pski on dailykos, the blog that really gets public att*ntion, which may be good for us, that we have a lesser nat'l corp media profile.

But maybe not so good for Charlie.

139. yep, double edged sword. Catch 22.

139. yep, double edged sword. Catch 22.

... not surprisingly i've had a batch of 'viral' problems that keep knocking my PC completely out.

Anyhoo, what Charlie needs is his elected representatives contacted, even if Republican, by FL citizens. The FBI are really the one's that have the clout to gather evidence of police abuse in this situation. I have my doubts that the Florida authorities have survived brother bushies terms with integrity.

Anyhoo, i stand ready to help if possible, but i'm not gonna be the brunt of these criminals. I walk this line often enough. One has to be very careful.

... was that two anyhoos in one post?
Man i'm loosin' it.

Gotta do some rest, bug x'ing this box in the a.m.
Who bets i find .mil amd .gov little critters again?

Love ya'll, mean it!

oh, this

http://news.aol.com/entertainment/story/...


'Daily Show' to Air Reports From Iraq
By FRAZIER MOORE,AP
Posted: 2007-08-17 20:14:53
NEW YORK (AP) - "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," whose phony news coverage has long included phony "remotes" from war-torn Iraq , will be reporting from Iraq for real next week.

Giving its green screen a temporary rest, the Comedy Central series will air "Operation Silent Thunder: `The Daily Show' in Iraq," several onsite dispatches filed by Senior War Correspondent Rob Riggle.

Riggle will provide what the network calls "in-depth coverage and insights from the front lines." Scheduled to be back in New York this weekend, he begins his reports as soon as Monday. ("The Daily Show" airs Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m. EDT.)

While in Iraq, Riggle performed for U.S. troops with fellow comedians Horatio Sanz, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer as part of an entertainment tour titled "Operation Feel the Heat."

Besides "The Daily Show," Riggle's credits include "Saturday Night Live," "The Office" and "Arrested Development." A major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, he served in Liberia, Kosovo and Afghanistan .

On the Net:

http://www.comedycentral.com

####

I wonder if The pResidential Press Secreliar Tony Snowjob will thrash this brave soldier before 'abandoning the troops' and re-entering the public sector?

nite

Deaniac, I've run into that virus problem a couple times, bites, eh?

Yer spot on w/ Charlie.

Night Deaniac :-) Sweet ones.

Nite everyone

♥'s to all

Kindness is free! Do it!

Good morning, BFA!

A bat for Charlie seems to be very much in order.

***********
Let's all hear it for activists in Puerto Rico.

===============
Recruiting For Iraq War Undercut in Puerto Rico
By Paul Lewis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 18, 2007; A01

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The political activists, brown envelopes tucked under their arms, staked out the high school gates just after sunrise. When students emerged from the graffiti-scorched streets of the Rio Piedra neighborhood here and began streaming toward their school, the pro-independence advocates ripped open the envelopes and began handing the teens fliers emblazoned with the slogan: "Our youth should not go to war."

At the bottom of the leaflet was a tear sheet that students could sign and later hand to teachers, to request that students' personal contact information not be released to the U.S. Defense Department or to anyone involved in military recruiting.

The scene outside the Ramon Vila Mayo high school unfolded at schools throughout Puerto Rico this week as the academic year opened. On this island with a long tradition of military service, pro-independence advocates are tapping the territory's growing anti-Iraq war sentiment to revitalize their cause. As a result, 57 percent of Puerto Rico's 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders, or their parents, have signed forms over the past year withholding contact information from the Pentagon -- effectively barring U.S. recruiters from reaching out to an estimated 65,000 high school students.

"If the death of a Puerto Rican soldier is tragic, it's more tragic if that soldier has no say in that war," said Juan Dalmau, secretary general of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP). His efforts are saving the island's children from becoming "colonial cannon meat," he said.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, all schools receiving U.S. federal funding must provide their students' names, addresses and phone numbers to the military unless the child or parents sign an opt-out form. Puerto Rico received $1.88 billion in U.S. education funds this year. For five years, PIP has issued opt-out forms to about 120,000 students in Puerto Rico and encouraged them to sign -- and independista activists expect this year to mark their most successful effort yet.

Such actions come as other antiwar groups on the island are seeking to undercut military recruiting, as well. For example, the Coalition of Citizens Against Militarism, an association of pacifist groups, plans to visit about 70 schools on the island in the coming days, meaning that many students will receive two, or even three, opt-out forms by the end of August.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Troo dis ...

==================
Green Zone Blinders
By Jonathan Finer
Saturday, August 18, 2007; A13

Late last month the Brookings Institution's Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, just back from a quick trip to Baghdad, proclaimed in the New York Times that "we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq." In June, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, fresh from his latest whirlwind tour of the war zone, described in the Wall Street Journal a "dramatic reversal" in the security situation in restive Anbar province. As Washington anticipates a September report assessing the troop surge, there is good reason to be skeptical of such snapshot accounts.

A dizzying number of dignitaries have passed through Baghdad for high-level briefings. The Hill newspaper reported this month that 76 U.S. senators have traveled to Iraq during the war, 38 in the past 12 months. Most never left the Green Zone or other well-protected enclaves. Few, if any, changed the views they held before arriving.

Reporters based in Baghdad rarely pay much attention to these visits, often skipping the news conferences that conclude most visiting delegations' itineraries. Since leaving Iraq last year, I've been surprised by the impact these choreographed tours have had on domestic discourse about the war. First come opinion pieces full of bold pronouncements of "what I saw" at the front. Next, the recent returnees appear on late-night cable programs or the Sunday talk . Those with opposing views respond, and soon the echo chamber is drowning out whatever's really happening.

This practice ought to have been (finally) discredited by Sen. John McCain's trip to Baghdad in the spring, after which he all but declared that Freedom had marched alongside him as he strolled through a marketplace, chatting with shopkeepers. That McCain had been trailed by an armada of armored vehicles and Black Hawk helicopters was only later reported by "60 Minutes."

The most frustrating such visit during my time in Iraq was that of radio host Laura Ingraham, who rarely, if ever, spent a moment outside the protection of U.S. forces or a night outside a military base.

[...]
It goes without saying that everyone can, and in this country should, have an opinion about the war, no matter how much time the person has spent in Iraq, if any. But having left a year ago, I've stopped pretending to those who ask that I have a keen sense of what it's like on the ground today. Similarly, those who pass quickly through the war zone should stop ascribing their epiphanies to what are largely ceremonial visits.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

What is truth ... especially as one cannot believe all that one reads.

====================
White House Wiki Watch
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, August 17, 2007; 12:56 PM

WikiScanner, the most spectacular new invention on the Internet, allows you to see who has made changes to Wikipedia, the popular Web encyclopedia that anyone can edit -- and that includes White House staffers.

Wired News has been keeping a running tally on some of the more amusing and outrageous discoveries. (Someone at Exxon cleaning up the entry on the Valdez oil spill; someone at Halliburton editing the entry on war crimes, etc.) There have been so many edits by congressional staffers that the topic gets its own page on Wikipedia.

So what about the White House? Well, this WikiScanner results page is a list of Wikipedia edits by people who appear to use White House (eop.gov) servers.

(If you can't get through, try going directly to Wikipedia for a list of edits by these IP addresses: 63.161.169.64, 63.161.169.65, 63.161.169.66, 63.161.169.67, and 63.161.169.68.)

I don't know for certain if these edits were made by White House staffers. Many have vanished in time, overwritten by other changes made by the Wikipedia community. And I only had a chance to do a cursory examination this morning. But here's some of what I found. (Post anything you find in the comment section at the bottom of the page; I'll publish more on Monday.)

In May 2005 someone added to the main entry on President Bush: "His favorite sandwhich is peanut butter and jelly." (Which is true, though spelled wrong.)

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Juan Cole's ME tour d'horizon ..

=============
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Maliki Seeks Sunni Support in Tikrit
4 Party Coalition slammed as Elitist Expatriates

[...]
http://www.juancole.com/2007/08/maliki-s...

This was the subject of the last thread, but here is the transcript.

==============
Published on Friday, August 17, 2007 by Bill Moyers Journal
The Rove Legacy
by Bill Moyers
What struck me about my fellow Texan, Karl Rove, is that he knew how to win elections as if they were divine interventions. You may think God summoned Billy Graham to Florida on the eve of the 2000 election to endorse George W. Bush just in the nick of time, but if it did happen that way, the good lord was speaking in a Texas accent.

Karl Rove figured out a long time ago that the way to take an intellectually incurious draft-averse naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas, was to sell him as God’s anointed in a state where preachers and televangelists outnumber even oil derricks and jack rabbits. Using church pews as precincts Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat — a battering ram, aimed at the devil’s minions, especially at gay people.

It’s so easy, as Karl knew, to scapegoat people you outnumber, and if God is love, as rumor has it, Rove knew that, in politics, you better bet on fear and loathing. Never mind that in stroking the basest bigotry of true believers you coarsen both politics and religion.

[...]
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007...

No wonder the RW Iran-Contra group ... most in top spots within putzCO ... are so frantic to overturn Chavez.

Those who speak most ostentatiously about democracy and religion are true practitioners of neither.

================
Published on Friday, August 17, 2007 by The Guardian/UK
The Old Iran-Contra Death Squad Gang
Is Desperate to Discredit Chavez
by John Pilger

I walked with Roberto Navarrete into the national stadium in Santiago, Chile. With the southern winter’s wind skating down from the Andes, it was empty and ghostly. Little had changed, he said: the chicken wire, the broken seats, the tunnel to the changing rooms from which the screams echoed. We stopped at a large number 28. “This is where I was, facing the scoreboard. This is where I was called to be tortured.”

Thousands of “the detained and the disappeared” were imprisoned in the stadium following the Washington-backed coup by General Pinochet against the democracy of Salvador Allende on September 11 1973. For the majority people of Latin America, the abandonados, the infamy and historical lesson of the first “9/11″ have never been forgotten. “In the Allende years, we had a hope the human spirit would triumph,” said Roberto. “But in Latin America those believing they are born to rule behave with such brutality to defend their rights, their property, their hold over society that they approach true fascism. People who are well-dressed, whose houses are full of food, bang pots in the streets in protest as though they don’t have anything. This is what we had in Chile 36 years ago. This is what we see in Venezuela today. It is as if Chávez is Allende. It is so evocative for me.”

In making my film The War on Democracy, I sought the help of Chileans like Roberto and his family, and Sara de Witt, who courageously returned with me to the torture chambers at Villa Grimaldi, which she somehow survived. Together with other Latin Americans who knew the tyrannies, they bear witness to the pattern and meaning of the propaganda and lies now aimed at undermining another epic bid to renew both democracy and freedom on the continent.

The disinformation that helped destroy Allende and give rise to Pinochet’s horrors worked the same in Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had the temerity to implement modest, popular reforms. In both countries, the CIA funded the leading opposition media, although they need not have bothered. In Nicaragua, the fake martyrdom of La Prensa became a cause for North America’s leading liberal journalists, who seriously debated whether a poverty-stricken country of 3 million peasants posed a “threat” to the United States. Ronald Reagan agreed and declared a state of emergency to combat the monster at the gates. In Britain, whose Thatcher government “absolutely endorsed” US policy, the standard censorship by omission applied. In examining 500 articles that dealt with Nicaragua in the early 1980s, the historian Mark Curtis found an almost universal suppression of the achievements of the Sandinista government - “remarkable by any standards” - in favour of the falsehood of “the threat of a communist takeover”.

The similarities in the campaign against the phenomenal rise of popular democratic movements today are striking. Aimed principally at Venezuela, especially Chávez, the virulence of the attacks suggests that something exciting is taking place; and it is. Thousands of poor Venezuelans are seeing a doctor for the first time in their lives, having their children immunised and drinking clean water. New universities have opened their doors to the poor, breaking the privilege of competitive institutions effectively controlled by a “middle class” in a country where there is no middle. In barrio La Línea, Beatrice Balazo told me her children were the first generation of the poor to attend a full day’s school. “I have seen their confidence blossom like flowers,” she said. One night in barrio La Vega, in a bare room beneath a single lightbulb, I watched Mavis Mendez, aged 94, learn to write her own name for the first time.

[...]
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007...

Well, I for one am not at all reassured ... and most especially not reassured by those who believe that cutting interest rates is the way to go.

The problem is in the system itself.

===================
We're not out of the woods
Nils Pratley
Saturday August 18, 2007
Guardian

Is that it then? Crisis over, hedge funds happy again, and normal service restored in stock markets? Don't count on it just yet.

Alan Greenspan, the last chairman of the US Federal Reserve, was famously Delphic but the new boy, Ben Bernanke, completely baffled Wall Street yesterday.

At first sight, the cut in the Fed's discount, or penalty, lending rate looked like a "get out of jail free" card for hedge funds and banks who have eaten too many junk mortgages. The Dow Jones soared 300 points at the opening bell.

Then the realisation dawned that the Fed's statement was warning that something worse than a soggy home loan may lie around the corner. "Tighter credit conditions and increased uncertainty have the potential to restrain economic growth going forward ... the downside risks to growth have increased appreciably," said the Fed.

The word "appreciably" was a killer. Translated out of central banker-speak, the statement means: there is a risk of the US heading towards recession.

That is a complete turnaround in the Fed's thinking since last month. Then, the need to keep a lid on inflation was top of the agenda. Yesterday it was not mentioned; there were bigger worries.

Greenspan would have cut the main interest rate. Bernanke did not, which seemed to be a deliberate effort to tell Wall Street to clear up its own mortgage mess.

So Bernanke delivered weak medicine yesterday. Any Fed chairman had to do something because the money markets were close to freezing. Banks had in effect stopped lending to each other, and it had become almost impossible for anybody, even a credit-worthy borrower, to get a mortgage in the US.

But a cut in the discount rate is merely a little lubrication for the system. It gives the banks confidence again, but it does not make those junk mortgages any less of a problem.

[...]
http://business.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,...

It is the most vulnerable for whom I hope that putz burns for eternity. Having deliberately unleashed the dogs of war and created the situation for civil disorder to continue apace, putz is fully responsible for all of these casualties.

He may not acknowledge that the buck stops with him. But even Rove cannot control the cosmos and karma does indeed have a way of catching up.

As this sect with blood on its own hands has recently witnessed.

======================
'They won't stop until we are all wiped out.' Among the Yezidi, a people in mourning
Michael Howard is the first British newspaper journalist to travel to Yezidi territory since some 350 people were killed in bomb attacks on Tuesday
Michael Howard in Lalish, northern Iraq
Saturday August 18, 2007
Guardian

Behind a curtain in a corner of the intensive care unit in Dohuk's emergency hospital, six-year-old Ferhad lay motionless on a bed yesterday, his head shrouded in bandages. He did not stir as his older brother, Amin, leant across and wiped his body with a flannel.

"I am afraid he is a hopeless case," said Abdullah Ibrahim, the chief trauma surgeon, holding up an x-ray. "A large piece of shrapnel has destroyed his brain. All we can do now is provide a quiet place for him to die."

After this week's suicide attacks on Yezidi Kurds in the Sinjar district west of Mosul, Dr Ibrahim has been on duty for 36 hours. The hospital received more than 100 victims. He has faced, he said, some of the most horrific injuries he has encountered as a doctor. And as he made his rounds, it was clear just how many women and children had been caught by the deadliest atrocity in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"We used to be 17 million people, and now we are just 1.7 million," said a Yezidi father as Dr Ibrahim checked the notes of his seven-year-old son. The boy had got off "relatively lightly"... with cuts to his face and a broken femur. "They hit us because we are true Kurds," the father said, "and they won't stop until we are all wiped out." His wife lay in the next bed. She would pull through, said Dr Ibrahim, but she had lost the child she was bearing. "Will they add my lost baby to the death toll?" she asked.

Aside from the physical damage it wrought, the coordinated bombing attack by suspected al-Qaida operatives revived fears among the Yezidi community, one of the region's oldest ethno-religious groups, of annihilation at the hands of their religious enemies - in this case, Sunni extremists. Along with other religious minorities in Iraq who initially rejoiced at the toppling of the Ba'athist regime, Yezidi Kurds say the subsequent chaos and political paralysis has left them as vulnerable as before.

"The attack came as no surprise to us," Prince Tahseen Sayid Ali, the temporal leader of the Yezidis, told the Guardian in his headquarters in Sheikhan, about 40 miles north-east of Mosul. Last April, the community came under the international spotlight when a Yezidi girl married a Muslim boy and was reported to have converted to Islam. She was promptly stoned to death by a mob in her hometown of Bazan. The murder was caught on a mobile phone camera and distributed on the internet.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33059...

They should name a hurricane after putz. Everywhere he acts, disaster follows.

======================
Medical crisis in Iraq as doctors and nurses flee
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 18 August 2007

The humanitarian disaster in Iraq is being compounded by a mass exodus of their medical staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. A report by Oxfam International shows the lack of doctors and nurses is fracturing a health system on the brink of collapse.

The research revealed that many hospitals, and medical teaching facilities in Baghdad have lost up to 80 per cent of their teaching staff. The dossier says Iraq is suffering from an appalling and largely hidden humanitarian crisis, away from the daily bombings, with millions of people in desperate need of help.

Medical staff received a large pay rise in the aftermath of the war with average salaries rising from as little as $25 (£12.50) a month to $ 300. But the lack of security and the ever-present threat of kidnappings and bomb attacks have persuaded an increasing number to seek safety abroad.

The children, as is the case in most conflicts, are among the worst-affected. Child malnutrition rates already as high as 19 per cent before the US led invasion, are now 28 per cent. More than 11 per cent of babies are born underweight, a rate tripled since the war.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/midd...

Yet another disaster foisted upon the world by the putzCO neocons, Clueless Condi notable among them, and AIPAC's RW.

==================
Robert Fisk: Looking back at Lebanon
The conflict in Lebanon ended a year ago this week. Robert Fisk reflects on the human misery and destruction inflicted on the country – and on how lucky he is to be alive after more than 30 years of reporting from some of the most dangerous places in the world. Photography by Paolo Pellegrin
Published: 18 August 2007

I don't think war is addictive – for some, perhaps, but not for me. I was asked about this by a journalist in Beirut the other day and I responded in my usual, tired way. War is about history. Anyone who finds conflict addictive is sick. Yes, I agree with Winston Churchill who once said that there is nothing so satisfying as to be shot at without effect. A good dinner after a bad day is much to be enjoyed. But I hate wars.

I was thinking this over as I pawed through Double Blind, from which these photographs are taken. Its terrible, rage-filled, blood-spattered pages are an awful memory to me of last year's war in Lebanon. It began on my birthday – my 60th birthday – when a dear friend called me up and told me what a terrible birthday I was going to have and I asked why and she told me that two Israeli soldiers had been captured by the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and I asked Abed, my driver, to head south, because I knew that the Israelis would bomb across Lebanon. And I was right.

But sitting on my balcony, looking at these dreadful, brilliant pictures today, I am reminded of a journey back from Europe not many months after that war. I had been

launching the French and Dutch editions of my book on the Middle East and had spent many hours in the boulevards of Paris and along the canals of Amsterdam. I had watched young couples – happy, safe – secure in so far as anyone can be in George Bush's crazed world – walking with their children and laughing, and asked myself if I could have lived a happier life.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/artic...

In the immortal words of DU's EarlG, the political affiliations of these selfsame politicians are *R-naturally.*

====================
Alaskan politicians investigated for 'taking favours from oil companies'
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 18 August 2007

Alaska's permafrost is melting faster than anywhere else on earth, but a political meltdown now threatens its Republican leaders with the state's entire Congressional delegation under investigation for corruption. Even Senator Ted Stevens, 83 years of age and 39 years in office, is being investigated for favours he allegedly received from an oil company, in the form of a luxurious extension to his Alaskan home.

Now that Congress is in recess, "Uncle Ted", as he is known, is back in town, flatly denying any wrongdoing. Last month, the FBI searched Senator Stevens's house for clues to his friendship with a businessman already convicted of bribing local politicians.

His son, Ben, is also accused of accepting bribes when he was serving as president of the State Senate. However, neither Uncle Ted nor his son have been charged to date.

The corruption allegations are as crass as they get, with oil industry lobbyists accused of passing out envelopes stuffed with cash on the very floor of the state legislature.

Alaska's US senators then allegedly funnelled government money back to the companies, and the lobbyists who were doling out the favours.

Alaska's economy is based on making vast amounts of money from government-owned lands. The politicians control access to these lands and anyone keen to make a buck first makes a beeline to Juneau, the state capital, or to Alaska's representatives in Washington DC.

Last year the FBI began investigating bribes paid by an oil company called Veco and raided the offices of six state legislators. They are trying to establish whether the politicians are taking bribes from Veco and other associated companies in return for government contracts.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/amer...

Unfortunately, this former Montanan remembers what happened to the Seventh Cavalry.

Where is Charles in MT, btw?

Boxes are literally leaping to get my attention. My blog interlude is now over. Have good ones.

==================
Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Seventh cavalry comes riding over the hill
Sorrell: watch out for the US elections; Shabby behaviour at Arcelor Mittal Though there are bound to be bankruptcies and big losses, the collateral damage may ultimately prove quite limited
Published: 18 August 2007

The Federal Reserve's action in cutting the discount rate and removing the tightening bias which had previously governed short-term interest rates in the US more generally is tantamount to the arrival of the seventh cavalry. This is just the sort of response the markets were looking for and they celebrated in jubilant fashion. Some at least of the losses of recent days were clawed back.

But was the Fed right to have come riding to the rescue in this way, or might it not have been better to let the market carnage do its job in punishing those who have been mispricing risk with such abandon? The problem with bailing markets out is that it creates what insurers call "moral hazard". Practitioners are encouraged to believe that there are no penalties for bad lending and they act accordingly by quickly forgetting the lessons of each successive crisis.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/c...

I was listening to ÅAR on the way home from dancing.  Apparently, late this afternoon, the BH or Transportation Dept released info to the effect that Mexican trucks can now use any highway they please here in the U.S....after being inspected and deemed as safe as U.S. trucks.  Yeah, right.

Leaked late Friday afternoon.

Not good,  folks.  Can't find anything on  google about this.

Hold down the fort, Judy.  I'm off to bed as it's 2AM. 

Good morning, everybody

There's a feeling of fall in the air.  We've actually never taken the wool blanket off our bed this summer.  And the field has now been hayed twice.  I guess it grows better when it's not so hot.

Well, not quite off to bed.

Let's see what the fascts do with this?

******************* 

In Unprecedented Order, FISA Court Requires Bush Administration to Respond to ACLU's Request That Secret Court Orders Be Released to the Public (8/17/2007)


Government Must Respond by August 31

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org


WASHINGTON - In an unprecedented order, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has required the U.S. government to respond to a request it received last week by the American Civil Liberties Union for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. According to the FISC's order, the ACLU's request "warrants further briefing," and the government must respond to it by August 31. The court has said that any reply by the ACLU must be filed by September 14.

"Disclosure of these court orders and legal papers is essential to the ongoing debate about government surveillance," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "We desperately need greater transparency and public scrutiny.We're extremely encouraged by today's development because it means that, at long last, the government will be required to defend its contention that the orders should not be released."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1608732
 

This would be very funny if our Constitution weren't in shreds and these two are letting it happen.  And Reid is blackface.

ACLU Targeting Pelosi/Reid
by: Matt Stoller
Thu Aug 16, 2007 at 21:29:31 PM EDT

The ACLU is planning to run this ad in the hometown papers of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Ånd now sweet dreams. 

157.

Yes, well, everybody dies.  The only people whose existence continues indefinitely are those who live on in someone's memory.  Robert Fisk obviously enjoys his memories.  I'm not sure he's aware that he's keeping people alive.  too bad he's chosen to forget one because her loss is painful for him. 

Pelosi has two major problems:

1)  The possibility that promoting impeachment will be seen as self-serving.  You just know Republicans are going to charge she's doing it because she wants to be President, even if that happening is highly unlikely.  Bush/Cheney would have to die simulatenously.

2)  As a member of the Intelligence Committee and the gang of eight, Pelosi has been sworn to secrecy about the spying activities.  Even to admit that she's not been totally informed is to break the pledge not to reveal what goes on.  

We may think that Bush Two has abused the powers he's been given, but there's no proof to release her from her commitment.  After all, it is possible that the abuse is the result of an overzealous effort to "protect" the nation and that there was no intention to derive personal or partisan benefit from the spy program.  Not to mention that some of it was probably started under Clinton.  Super computers don't just appear on the scene magically.

Did the public know that the internets were being set up when they were developed by super computers on eight or so college campuses in IT research labs?  i don't think so.  How did they escape into the public realm?  People, students mainly, started playing around with them.  There were obviously insufficient controls to keep them "secure."

Now they've set up parallel information transmitting and collecting networks which are probably in constant danger of being redirected into the public realm on purpose or by accident.  I mean, you can't have military plans racing along the same light stream as stock quotes, can you?  I think it's interesting that electrons travelling along copper wire create a magnet signal that can be analysed by adjacent equipment without physically interfering with the wire, but optical signals travelling along a glass fiber don't leak.  So, the transmission is not only faster but more "secure" and that means the spy agencies can't get it surreptitiously.  Since it's this security which makes it attractive to commercial and financial users around the globe, the revelation that the system has been intercepted by the CIA and NSA is likely to jeopardize the trust that's necessary for commercial and financial transactions to be completed, especially if the people who are doing the spying already have a reputation of being unreliable and using government assets (military force) to promote industrial and commercial interests.

It used to be that a man's word could be trusted and deals could be completed with a handshake.  Perhaps as a consequence of the entrance of new players into the market, the level of trust has really declined.  And it's not just OUR fault.  To a certain extent, trust and honor were always defined by cultural boundaries and it was considered fair to cheat people who weren't part of the culture.  Americans want to get rid of that kind of corruption, but I suspect that putting everyone under electronic supervision is not the way to do it. 

All passengers freed from hijacked Turkish plane -TV

ANTALYA, Turkey (Reuters) - All passengers were released from a Turkish plane which was hijacked earlier on Saturday, leaving only crew members on board with the hijackers, private broadcaster NTV reported. 

The airline had said earlier four passengers and two crew members were left on the plane after most passengers had escaped or been released. The plane was hijacked as it headed to Istanbul from Northern Cyprus. 

1)  The possibility that promoting impeachment will be seen as self-serving.  You just know Republicans are going to charge she's doing it because she wants to be President, even if that happening is highly unlikely.  Bush/Cheney would have to die simulatenously.

2)  As a member of the Intelligence Committee and the gang of eight, Pelosi has been sworn to secrecy about the spying activities.  Even to admit that she's not been totally informed is to break the pledge not to reveal what goes on.  

I don't buy that for one moment Monica. Pelosi has a higher duty to the nation that she serves. Only the right-wing sickos would raise a stink over this--Bush and Cheney release classified data with no compunction if it serves their interests

Dear Democrat,

The so-called Republican "Presidential Election Reform Act" proposed for California's June 3, 2008 Primary is like a bad movie sequel and must be defeated!

"Florida, Part Deux" is simply another GOP power grab, expanding on what Republicans did to Al Gore, and to our nation, in 2000 -- only this time, it's happening right in our own backyard.

The Republicans, led by Bush, Cheney and Rove, know that they've done so much damage to this country that the only way they can "win" the White House is by changing the rules. So they are proposing to break up California's 55 Electoral Votes as a way to supersede the popular vote in our state.

It would be ridiculous for California, the biggest Blue State, to change its Electoral College allocation formula, while the rest of the country, including huge red states like Texas, still has "winner take all."

As Senators Boxer and Feinstein said, "If we want to change the way we elect the president, we should go to a direct national popular vote -- where it would be guaranteed that the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in all 50 states will win the presidency. This power grab, orchestrated by the Republicans, is another cynical move to keep the Presidency in Republican control."

The CDP is putting together a campaign to defeat this scheme.

Here's what you need to do:

A. Forward this message to your family, friends and e-mail lists.

B. Educate people so no one is tricked into signing this initiative.

C. Contribute now to stop this attempt to steal the White House again. The Party must get the word out to voters about the truth behind this so-called Republican "reform." We need the resources for that statewide effort.

D. Discuss this issue at your local political meetings.

E. Join the fight to make sure California's 55 Electoral Votes are cast for our next Democratic President. Click here to sign up and we will keep you informed, especially when this initiative hits the street.

Sincerely,



Senator Art Torres (Ret.)
Chairman, California Democratic Party

168.

Nobody's selling anything. 

monica, 1st time i "saw" the internet was in 1985 in my brother's kitchen on, by today's standards, a joke of a laptop, plugged into the telephone line. at the time, my brother was an officer writing satelite telemetry software at space command.

as i understand it, the net was developed based on the naval tactical data system which was an rf based data flow system. this system began in the late 50's/early 60's. i was using it as early as 1975. the system on board my ship was the size of a studio apartment.

the computers have been under development this whole time. langely, i've heard, has a warehouse full of crays. probably even better equipment now.

trust is key.

I wasn't going to inflict this on my DFA group, but it was "rescued" on KOS, so it might be worth while.  LOL

I spotted a new "star" this morning (communications satellite, or domestic spying)?

"we have six "active" sleeper cells and a bird ready for launch to track them, are you Democrats going to stop us?" or some other line of bullsh*it like that 

The Senate can deal with issues like that in Executive Session as a Committee as a Whole when necessary. That is the question of if the President's Intelligence head is telling the truth and Rockefeller goes along.

Oversight is extremely important now that they have the green light to spy.

Stassi on steroids is the logical combination of high speed computers and internet.

171.

Yes, that was about the time that our daughter came home from Princeton for the summer and wrote up a protocol for the UF computer system on how to access the internet.  A summer job.  LOL 

Too bad Bush/Cheney can't be trusted.  It's going to have a negative impact on our economy.

 It's going to have a negative impact on our economy.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

normal business dealings have time sensitive price information and product development discussions that are as important as state secrets; what foreign traders will want to do domestic business here?

domestic spying; the new Smoot-Hawley Tariff

Talk about time-sensitive.  Our electrician was telling me the other day that he checks the price of copper on the web every day to decide how much wire to buy for his projects.  He seemed really pleased to get a check for his work on the spot--and not having to "eat" the extra hour delay caused by the electric company not showing up when scheduled, since I volunteered to add it to the total.

"Just in time" is great, when everyone co-operates. 

A Privacy Amendment to the Constitution is in order.

There's a diary on KOS about new ID requirements at various federal agencies.

It prompted the thought that perhaps we should respond with the charge that if the standards being propounded for the employees and contractors of these agencies were applied to Bush Two, he wouldn't pass muster.

Also, the predicate on which these back-ground checks are based--that past behavior is predictive of future behavior--really conflicts with the supposed commitment to the efficacy of conversion and salvation.  Which might lead one to suspect that the purpose of cataloguing a person's misdeads is to have something to hold over their heads as blackmail--broadening the net of association by guilt. 

179.  ABSOLUTELY!  Unfortunately.

"Just in time" is great, when everyone co-operates. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

that has some aspects of recession proofing the economy at least from downturns caused by excessive inventory, of course all junk from China could be considered excess inventory even if it gets to WalMart "just in time"

storms headed in so I'm headed out

the Democratic response to demands for a National ID (which then gives probable cause to the demand to show your papers) should be walk in voting on Election Day.

there is nothing Republicans fear more than the idea of working people who have been too busy to bother with voter registration and voting; to walk into the polling place and cast a vote

if we all have to pay a price we need to have a reward

Michigan jumping up in the primaries to January 15th could have big implications for a Gore candidacy.  He leads among announced candidates in the recent poll Linda cited, and could immediately vault to the fore in this blue union state.  The trump card would be Detroit and the black vote, which must be riven between Clinton, Obama and Gore at this point.

168.

Nobody's selling anything. 

You may not be selling anything, but you're stretching pretty far to defend Pelosi's inaction

I don't consider providing another perspective to be a defense.

184.

Tom, the Michigan Poll results were:


Gore 36 percent

Clinton 32 percent

Obama 16 percent

Edwards 8 percent


http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...

NEW THREAD

66.

Imn2Paine


Weight is lifted by the will. Physical strength has nothing to do with it.

88.

Phil Specht


What America has given King George and his family for selfish pleasure....

8/17/07
Current Total: 3,720
Wounded 8/8/07 to 8/15/07: 130
Wounded Total (to 8/15/07):27,409

...with not even a thank you in return.
-----

about gifts
Each person has their own special gift along the beauty path
regardless of their intelligence or their physical aptitude.

The tragedy is that 3,720 gifts under the Christmas tree were stolen before they were even opened.

Kenny Loggins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzEzK7Y45...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6kbEl8Mm...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRu-eAdZ0...

Let's bring them home!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t0K9uyLE...