Sunday, April 24, 2011
He's the tax man, er, uh ... collector.
PAKISTAN'S TRANSGENDER TRIBE OF TAX COLLECTORS
From CNN:
In a move that speaks volumes about the lengths to which Pakistan is going to tackle tax evasion, Karachi officials are using Riffee - who like many people in South Asia works under a single name - and her team as enforcers with a difference. They are sent to the businesses or houses of debtors. The aim -- in this very conservative Muslim society -- to embarrass tax debtors into paying up.
Riffee -- like her tax-collector friends Sana and Kohan -- is physically a man, but prefers to be called and dress as a woman. Their job is quite simple: each morning they turn up to work and get a list of missed payments. One by one, they make house-calls, causing trouble at each debtor's home or office, trying to get them to pay up. It's not clear how effective this tactic is, but officials insist they would not do it if it did not work.
"Their appearance causes great embarrassment amongst the people," said Sajid Hussein Bhatti, the tax superintendent who gives Riffee her orders every morning.
More here.
A fitting tribute: A retrospective of Captain Beefheart by Greil Marcus
“GOD, PLEASE FUCK MY MIND FOR GOOD!” Captain Beefheart shouted at the end of Doc at the Radar Station, his second-to-last album. It was 1980, and it was a dare to whatever version of God might be present to receive it: his audience, maybe; music itself. Or it was a dare to time—the fifteen years since he’d made his first record, or the thirty years to come. Can you shut me up? Can you scramble my rhythm and my words until they’re a labyrinth I’ll never escape? I’ll do it first! [Much more... ]
[LINK: A retrospective of Captain Beefheart by Greil Marcus ]
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Law of Mother Earth
The Law of Mother Earth: Behind Bolivia's Historic Bill
Nick Buxton, YES! Magazine: "The 'Mother Earth' law under debate in Bolivia's legislature will almost certainly be approved, as it has already been agreed to by the majority governing party, Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS). The law draws deeply on indigenous concepts that view nature as a sacred home, the Pachamama (Mother Earth) on which we intimately depend. As the law states, 'Mother Earth is a living dynamic system made up of the undivided community of all living beings, who are all interconnected, interdependent and complementary, sharing a common destiny.' The law would give nature legal rights, specifically the rights to life and regeneration, biodiversity, water, clean air, balance, and restoration."
Read the Article
Nick Buxton, YES! Magazine: "The 'Mother Earth' law under debate in Bolivia's legislature will almost certainly be approved, as it has already been agreed to by the majority governing party, Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS). The law draws deeply on indigenous concepts that view nature as a sacred home, the Pachamama (Mother Earth) on which we intimately depend. As the law states, 'Mother Earth is a living dynamic system made up of the undivided community of all living beings, who are all interconnected, interdependent and complementary, sharing a common destiny.' The law would give nature legal rights, specifically the rights to life and regeneration, biodiversity, water, clean air, balance, and restoration."
Read the Article
Trig Trutherism
Trig Trutherism, the surprisingly resilient conspiracy theory that Sarah Palin is not actually the mother of 3-year-old Trig Palin, is experiencing a boomlet thanks to a new academic paper that endorses the concept. Long pursued by the blogger Andrew Sullivan and a significant segment of the Palin-hating left, Trig Trutherism holds that Trig's real mother is either Bristol Palin or some third party, and that Sarah Palin herself faked the pregnancy to avoid embarrassment for her daughter or for political gain or some combination of reasons.
[LINK: More at
Trig Trutherism: The definitive debunker ]
Stupid is as stupid does...
"Officers heard a gunshot, approached the vehicle, asked Mr. Jones if he was OK. He was, and they also observed he had a gun in his hand."-- Lt. Nick Loussia of the Southfield, Michigan Police Department describing the moments after Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones almost shot his foot off with his own .40 caliber handgun
[LINK:
]
]
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Michigan police downloading drivers' phone data without warrants?
For a few years now, the Michigan State Police has been using portable devices that allow them to secretly extract personal information from cell phones of drivers who have been pulled over. That in itself wouldn't be such a shocking revelation if the devices have been used only on cell phones of people suspected of a crime, but according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the police has used the devices to access data of people who were simply pulled over for minor infractions.
[ More... ]
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Doing nothing is a monk’s core business
Doing nothing A Buddhist phones the monastery and asks the monk “Can you come to do a blessing for my new house?” The monk replies “Sorry, I’m busy.”“What are you doing? Can I help?”“I’m doing nothing”, replied the monk, “Doing nothing is a monk’s core business and you can’t help me with that.”So the next day the Buddhist phones again, “Can you please come to my house for a blessing?”
“Sorry,” said the monk, “I’m busy.”“What are you doing?”“I’m doing nothing,” replied the monk.“But that was what you were doing yesterday!”, said the Buddhist.“Correct”, replied the monk, “I’m not finished yet!"
“Sorry,” said the monk, “I’m busy.”“What are you doing?”“I’m doing nothing,” replied the monk.“But that was what you were doing yesterday!”, said the Buddhist.“Correct”, replied the monk, “I’m not finished yet!"
[Lovingly borrowed from Rob Nelson ]
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Our Phony Budget Battles Are All Smoke and Mirrors | | AlterNet
Our Phony Budget Battles Are All Smoke and Mirrors
Both parties in Washington have supported and sustained massive ongoing deficits propping up a crippled, state-dependent capitalism.
Both parties in Washington have supported and sustained massive ongoing deficits propping up a crippled, state-dependent capitalism.
Weeks of highly publicized debates - some in Congress, more in the mass media - brought Republicans and Democrats to a budget deal. To maximize public attention, they threatened a possible government shutdown. Both parties said that large government deficits and accumulated debt were "serious problems." They agreed that solving them required only spending cuts, not revenue increases. In unison, they repeated, "we" must "learn to live within our means."
In fact, both sides never actually engaged the deficit and the debt. They limited themselves to purely cosmetic, symbol-laden cuts (Republicans) and refusals to cut (Democrats). Aiming at the 2012 election, both parties used the deficit and budget debates purely to impress their voters.
Basic numbers tell the true story. The current (Fiscal Year 2011) budget spends about $3.5 trillion while receiving $2.0 trillion in tax revenues. The difference of $1.5 trillion (the equivalent of $1,500 billion) is this year's deficit. The US Treasury must borrow that from whoever will lend to the US government. After much hot air, Republicans and Democrats reached a "historic compromise," namely a spending cut of $38 billion. That will reduce this year's deficit from $1,500 billion to $1,462 billion, an economically insignificant sum. The sound and fury of Washington's debates signified nothing was to be done about the actual deficit.
Harvesting our amygdalas? Or trying to make the world a better place?
The world has changed though, hasn't it? We have entered the Matrix, but it's not our body heat they want. They want the preference model encoded in our amygdala and a list of all the people that might influence that model tomorrow.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Contributing to the high cost of health care...
A survey published in the Archives of Internal Medicine offers a surprising finding: It turns out that the treatments doctors would pick for themselves are not always the treatments they would recommend to patients. Imagining themselves as patients, doctors often select treatments that carry a higher risk of death but fewer unpleasant side effects. Here's more on the new study, from Reuters:
Read the full story at Reuters."I don't think any patient would expect that. If they found out, they would raise a lot of questions," said Peter Ubel, at Duke University, who led the research.
"It has nothing to do with moral. It has everything to do with human nature. The doctors don't even know they are behaving this way."
In the survey, two sets of questions were sent to primary care physicians around the United States. One set asked about different types of hypothetical colon cancer surgery and another about a treatment for bird flu.
The doctors received either a survey that asked them to assume they were the patient, or one that asked them about their advice for patients.
Of 242 physicians who answered the colon cancer questionnaire, 38 percent went with the survey that carried a higher risk of death but fewer side effects for themselves. By contrast, only a quarter said they would recommend that treatment to their patients.
[Evidently doctors don't sue themselves for malpractice - or else they would insist on enduring all of the rule-out studies they order just to CYA (cover YOUR ass))
Obesity, Disparities in Care Help Drive U.S. Stillbirths: Studies
Obesity, Disparities in Care Help Drive U.S. Stillbirths: Studies
27,000 American women still experience this often preventable outcome each year, experts say
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) -- While the rate of stillbirths in the United States has dropped over the past few decades, this tragic outcome is still a reality for far too many couples, experts say.
As part of a series of studies published online April 14 in The Lancet, researchers report that a leading cause of stillbirth in the United States may be obesity, which can raise the risk for fetal loss.
Obese women are more likely to have diabetes and hypertension, and "these are two of the major causes of stillbirth," noted the lead author of one paper, Dr. Robert L. Goldenberg, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. "But for reasons that are not clear, above diabetes, above hypertension, obese women are still more likely to have a stillbirth [than thinner women]."
[LINK: Obesity, Disparities in Care Help Drive U.S. Stillbirths: Studies ]
But they don't pay American taxes?!?!
GE to Invest $1.2 Billion in Indonesia
General Electric announced that it will invest $1.2 billion in Indonesia to expand its business operations outside the island of Java. GE said the investment will go toward developing energy, infrastructure, health and transport on the island of Kalimantan.
the dumbest form of socialism ever
Prof. Lawrence Lessig and others have anguished over the fact that we have yet to correct this system, calling it, "the dumbest form of socialism ever produced by man: where we socialize the risk, but privatize the benefit."
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
The Coming Age of Corporate Paternalism
The Coming Age of Corporate Paternalism
In HBR and elsewhere, a number of authors have wrung their hands about the public legitimacy of business. To steal from Churchill's definition of democracy, business has become the least popular American institution, except for all the others.
We can best see where influence really lies with President Obama's new council on jobs and competitiveness. Its responsibility is the public imperative of our time, to promote employment in the aftermath of the Great Recession. How does this Democratic president expect the council to do this? By "investing in American businesses to encourage hiring, to educate and train our workers to compete globally."
[ :LINK: The Coming Age of Corporate Paternalism ]
Who has your back?!?
When you use the Internet, you entrust your online conversations, thoughts, experiences, locations, photos, and more to companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook. But what happens when the government asks these companies to hand over your private information? Please join me in urging Internet companies to stand up for their users when the government comes knocking. https://whohasyourback.eff.org
Thanks- Bill
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
Thanks- Bill
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
William Meloney VII
Voice: 270-215-4275
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Taking molecular biology to a new level...
Adventures in Extreme Science
From Crick and Watson through J. Craig Venter, we had all our eggs in one basket — molecular biology, gene mapping, whatever you want to call it. It failed. And now we're counting on this guy.
By Tom Junod
Eric Schadt
Douglas Adesko
Published in our April issue, on sale soon
There may be another scientist in the world as smart as Eric Schadt. After all, scientists are a pretty smart lot, even though you'd be surprised at how few want to change the world, and how many of them have the trudging souls of brilliant, dutiful clerks. There may even be another scientist in the world as popular, as in demand as Eric Schadt, even though Eric works hard at everything he does, including his popularity, and is engaged, at any given time, in at least ten collaborations with other top scientists, not to mention the production — just last year — of a profligate thirty-five scientific papers, not to mention the delivery, year in and year out, of about forty talks and presentations after receiving invitations to deliver two or three hundred. (You'd also be surprised by how social a lot of scientists are, and how many parties they go to.) But if you're looking for a scientist whose great popularity rests in tirelessly writing papers and delivering speeches whose implicit and sometimes explicit message to the most eminent minds in his field is that they're wrong, that they've failed, and that the best way for them to stop wasting their lives is to follow him in a scientific revolution that he admits might not even work: Well, then you'd probably have to narrow your search a little bit. It takes a pretty smart guy to tell the smartest people in the world that all their success, all their hard-won knowledge has led them to a dead end ... that the approach they've taken has been a little, um, simplistic. It takes Eric Schadt to say that — and then to make the damned sale.
[ LINK: Adventures in Extreme Science ]
R.I.P. Mr. Gil Robbins
Gil Robbins, Folk Singer With the Highwaymen, Dies at 80
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: April 9, 2011
Gil Robbins, a singer, guitarist and songwriter with the folk group the Highwaymen and a fixture on the folk-music scene, died on Tuesday at his home in Esteban Cantú, Mexico. He was 80.
China Detains Church Members Over Public Praying
China Detains Church Members Over Public Praying
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: April 10, 2011
BEIJING — The police detained dozens of members of an underground Protestant church on Sunday morning, after the congregation tried to pray in a public plaza in the north of the capital.
A parishioner was ordered into a van by a plainclothes police officer in Beijing on Sunday.
The police corralled scores of parishioners into buses and blocked church leaders from leaving their homes. Among those detained was a photographer from The New York Times, who was later released.
Last week the church, Shouwang, was evicted from the space it had been renting after the government pressured the landlord not to renew the lease. The congregation, one of the largest so-called house churches in China, has been seeking legal recognition from the authorities since 2006 without success.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Monday, April 04, 2011
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
When a Leader Prays
When a leader prays
"As I travel across the country folks often ask me what is it that I pray for. And like most of you, my prayers sometimes are general: Lord, give me the strength to meet the challenges of my office. Sometimes they're specific: Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance where there will be boys. Lord, have that skirt get longer as she travels to that dance.
But while I petition God for a whole range of things, there are a few common themes that do recur. The first category of prayer comes out of the urgency of the Old Testament prophets and the Gospel itself. I pray for my ability to help those who are struggling. Christian tradition teaches that one day the world will be turned right side up and everything will return as it should be. But until that day, we're called to work on behalf of a God that chose justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable."
Barack Obama
Prayer Breakfast speech
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Only in 'Merika...
It is obvious to the rest of the world that only in 'Merika ... moral-less, ethic-less, conscience-less, God forsaken (ask any member of the Westboro Baptist cult), wealthiest, most arrogant, most egotistical, seemingly least educated 'Merika that some people would have the depravity to call our current President of the United States, Barack Obama a ... racist. Only in 'Merika!
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Could get a...
[white paper #28]
by Martha Collins could get a credit card loan carcome and go without a never hadto think about a school work jobto open doors to buy a rent a niceplace yard park beside a walkin any store without a never had to dress to buy a dress shoes under-wear to understate or –play myself to make myself heard to get across a street a never mind point I neverhad to earn the right to climb my own if I should lose my key or all I own my open door world was all before me where to choose to and I
by Martha Collins could get a credit card loan carcome and go without a never hadto think about a school work jobto open doors to buy a rent a niceplace yard park beside a walkin any store without a never had to dress to buy a dress shoes under-wear to understate or –play myself to make myself heard to get across a street a never mind point I neverhad to earn the right to climb my own if I should lose my key or all I own my open door world was all before me where to choose to and I
[LINK: Martha Collins at Poets.org ]
Monday, March 21, 2011
Because, peace, peace is implicit in women.
"And I wondered, what message do you have for us Gen X’rs?”
“Ah yes, crossroads." Nodding briskly. "Well, in the West, you have education, and this is good. And you have technology. And this is good. But, you do not educate your people in values. Values of the heart. Compassion. This you must do."
"And you see, it does not matter whether you are Buddhist or Christian." he went on. "Compassion lives in heart, beyond religion. Even me, Buddhist, I can say, you do not need Buddhism, just the compassion of the heart." Call me cynical, but I just can't see The Pope being so flexible.
"Women know this," he went on. "Because, peace, peace is implicit in women. You put boys together, they make war. You put women together, they make peace. Women are the leaders of the future." He spoke of Jimmy Carter as a leader with feminine-based principles, and Benazir Bhutto as a "very aggressive woman, but good leader...very good leader." And he laughed. And laughed.
[ LINK: Whitehot Truth <= the Dalai Lama looked me in the eye and said... ] Our true and full self
Our true and full self
"What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing."
|
  |
When the radical preacher come to get me released...
Daniel Ellsberg, Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, David Swanson, Medea Benjamin, Mike Malloy and over a hundred others were arrested in front of the White House today to protest President Obama’s torture of Bradley Manning.
Picture: twolf1/Firedoglake
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Thank you Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Protect Our Nation: Say No To The New McCarthyism
Protect Our Nation: Say No To The New McCarthyism
 |
Rep. Peter King is holding misguided hearings that scapegoat American Muslims in the name of national security.
What Rep. King is doing will make us less safe, by focusing on people, not threats; by alienating communities that the FBI and local police say are one part of any smart counter terrorism strategy; and by playing into the propaganda of Al Qaeda that America is indeed at war with Islam.
This needs to stop. Fight fear. Stand united.
Ask our Members of Congress to ensure that our national security experts are heard, and that we uphold American values.
[LINK: Ask our Members of Congress to ensure... ]
[LINK: In depth article Representative King’s hearing on “Muslim Radicalization” misguided and counterproductive
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
It is easier...
It is easier to mislead a person away from what is right
than it is to convince them of what is right.
Some how we have become gullible puppets in
the theater of life.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
The House - Richard Wilbur
The House
by Richard Wilbur Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes
For a last look at that white house she knew
In sleep alone, and held no title to,
And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.What did she tell me of that house of hers?
White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;
A widow's walk above the bouldered shore;
Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.Is she now there, wherever there may be?
Only a foolish man would hope to find
That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.
Night after night, my love, I put to sea.
by Richard Wilbur Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes
For a last look at that white house she knew
In sleep alone, and held no title to,
And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.What did she tell me of that house of hers?
White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;
A widow's walk above the bouldered shore;
Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.Is she now there, wherever there may be?
Only a foolish man would hope to find
That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.
Night after night, my love, I put to sea.
[LINK: Poets.org Richard Wilbur ]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
