New Theme
Updated the look and feel a bit, hope it makes it a bit easier to get around and read the posts. Tell me what you think.
At Least I Am Not The Only One
I have never liked Bush (I know *gasp*), but it seems the rest of the country (or at least most of them) has caught up with me. SEE PEOPLE, all that screaming was not just hot air. Its so good that the rest of you have finally seen the light. Seems the latest CBS news poll has Bush’s approval rating at 34 (!!!) percent. A new all time low. Dick’s is at 18 DOWN from 23 (HA HA HA).
Read the full poll here, and the full Katrina poll here. (both PDF)
Really its his own fault. After years of telling people that the Arabs are out to get us, he has convinced all the red necks (and a good amount of the rest) that every Arab is a bad Arab. The rabid dog of bigotry is now biting the hand that feeds it. The truth is the UAE company that wants to buy the ports will most likely do just as good a job as anyone else at running them. But Bush Co. have stoked the fires of hatred and mistrust too well. And now its gonna get him impeached.
Follow my logic on this one, he is gonna piss off enough voters that the backlash is going to extend to the midterm elections, the Democrats could get enough votes to take back the senate, and if all goes as planned the house as well, then its a hop skip and a jump to Dick forced to step down after getting charged with leaking secret CIA agent names, with the half the “brains” (the other being Rove) out of the way
Bush fucks up so bad he goes down hard. We should all start office pools to see what it will be that gets him in the most trouble, my guess it will be some simple cover up of some sex he had with a secretary…ohhh wait that was Bill. No my real money is on starting an illegal war, illegal torture, destroying the environment, bankrupting the nation to give tax cuts to the rich, his slash and burn tactics for higher education and “no child left behind”, illegal domestic spy program…you know take your pick.
From here.
The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.
Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they’re opposed to the agreement.
CBS News senior White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that now it turns out the Coast Guard had concerns about the ports deal, a disclosure that is no doubt troubling to a president who assured Americans there was no security risk from the deal.
The troubling results for the Bush administration come amid reminders about the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina and negative assessments of how the government and the president have handled it for six months.
In a separate poll, two out of three Americans said they do not think President Bush has responded adequately to the needs of Katrina victims. Only 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is responding to those needs, a drop of 12 points from last September’s poll, taken just two weeks after the storm made landfall.
Mr. Bush’s overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job the president is doing.For the first time in this poll, most Americans say the president does not care much about people like themselves. Fifty-one percent now think he doesn’t care, compared to 47 percent last fall.
Just 30 percent approve of how Mr. Bush is handling the Iraq war, another all-time low.
By two to one, the poll finds Americans think U.S. efforts to bring stability to Iraq are going badly – the worst assessment yet of progress in Iraq.
Even on fighting terrorism, which has long been a strong suit for Mr. Bush, his ratings dropped lower than ever. Half of Americans say they disapprove of how he’s handling the war on terror, while 43 percent approve.
In a bright spot for the administration, most Americans appeared to have heard enough about Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident.
More then three in four said it was understandable that the accident had occurred and two-thirds said the media had spent too much time covering the story.
Still, the incident appears to have made the public’s already negative view of Cheney a more so. Just 18 percent said they had a favorable view of the vice president, down from 23 percent in January.
Americans were evenly split on whether or not Cheney’s explanation of why there was a delay in reporting the accident was satisfactory.
Monday Confessional
So it’s Monday again, time to let the whole world know what I have been up to. I am up to being very poor lately. While this is not so bad, as I have lots of people who love me and plenty to eat and a warm place to sleep at night, being poor is never really that good. My hours at work have been cut back to 20 a week, the gas station is hiring and it looks more and more appealing every day. On the plus side I get plenty of time to do things like art, reading, and working on my personal projects. To bad none of them pay the bills. I have been trying to get a little business repairing computers and designing websites going. We will see how that turns out. Other than that things are going well, I am happy most of the time.
I have been worrying more and more about global climate change as of late. It seems like an odd thing to worry about, but really I don’t believe that I am compulsive about it. I sort of think that people in Europe might have felt this way during World War 2. They knew the Germans were coming, however they didn’t know when they would get there or what they would do when they arrived. Their fear was not irrational, Germany was on the war path, and no one would have told them that they were being silly or Chicken Little.
In positive news I might be giving my car to my mother soon in exchange for her car and 2000 dollars. While this is yet one more thing I can not afford right now, it will be better as my mother’s car gets much better gas mileage than mine does and is in better shape. I got that car simply to do a year of AmeriCorps and only paid 1500 dollars for it. A pretty good deal really. I am tired a lot as of late. I need to sleep more; perhaps going to bed earlier would be a good option. A nice relaxing week is what I need; I am not sure it’s what I will get. Pretty busy at work, trying to squeeze all the work I used to do in an 8 hour day into a 4 hour one. Well that’s about it for me, I know you are all gasping with delight at how exciting my life is right now. Try to realize that its not how much money you make, or where you work, but how you feel about your life that counts.
Electronic Voting Does Not Equal Good Voting
Why in an age of super computers and space ships we cant seem to get a simple thing like voting is beyond me. Seems that a guy in California found out that Diebold was going to use voting machines that were not certified so he took the documents that prove it and showed them to the world. You are saying to yourself “what a hero, he should be lauded for his bravery!” Right? Well think again, he is being charged with theft and going to get the shaft. What the fuck people. We are in bad shape if our elections are no longer free, fair and open.
from here.
A word processor accused of stealing damaging documents about electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold Election Systems was arraigned Tuesday on three felony counts.
Stephen Heller was charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with felony access to computer data, commercial burglary and receiving stolen property. He pleaded not guilty.
It’s a devastating allegation for a whistle-blower,” said Blair Berk, Heller’s attorney. “Certainly, someone who saw those documents could have reasonably believed that thousands of voters were going to be potentially disenfranchised in upcoming elections.”
The charges arise from Heller’s alleged disclosure two years ago of legal papers from the Los Angeles office of international law firm Jones Day, which represented Diebold at the time. Heller was under contract as a word processor at Jones Day.
The documents included legal memos from one Jones Day attorney to another regarding allegations by activists that Diebold had used uncertified voting systems in Alameda County elections beginning in 2002.
In the memos, a Jones Day attorney opined that using uncertified voting systems violated California election law and that if Diebold had employed an uncertified system, Alameda County could sue the company for breaching its $12.7-million contract.
The documents also revealed that Diebold’s attorneys were exploring whether the California secretary of state had the authority to investigate the company for alleged election law violations.
The Oakland Tribune published the legal memos on its website in April 2004. By then, the issue of whether Diebold used uncertified systems was already receiving widespread attention, because many of its systems failed during the March 2004 primary. As a result, poll workers had to turn away some early voters in San Diego County, and Alameda County voters had to use paper ballots.
A subsequent report by the secretary of state’s office found that Diebold had marketed and sold its systems before gaining federal qualification and had installed uncertified software on election machines in 17 counties.
The company’s AccuVote-TSx model was banned in May 2004, but Diebold machines were conditionally recertified by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson last week for use in 17 counties for this year’s elections.
McPherson ordered Diebold to make long-term programming changes and submit the modifications to a federal panel for recertification.
The conditional recertification follows a turbulent history for Diebold’s electronic voting systems.
In November 2004, the company settled a civil lawsuit brought by two activists and later joined by the state attorney general after he dropped his criminal investigation of the company.
Diebold paid $2.6 million to settle the suit, which alleged that the company had sold its touch-screen voting systems to Alameda County through misrepresentations about their security and certification.
One of the activists, Jim March, said he was the person who actually turned over the allegedly stolen documents to the Oakland Tribune and the state attorney general’s and secretary of state’s offices.
Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, refused to call Heller a “whistle-blower.”
“We call him a defendant,” she said. “He’s accused of breaking the law…. If we feel that the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt in our minds that a crime has been committed, it’s our job as a criminal prosecutor to file a case.”
Although state law protects whistle-blowers from retaliation by their employers, they can still be criminally prosecuted, said Tom Devine, legal director at the Washington, D.C.-based Government Accountability Project.
“It’s very rare that it’s successful,” he said. “It’s a tactic where the primary goal may be to scare other would-be whistle-blowers rather than a realistic attempt to obtain a conviction.”
Heller’s preliminary hearing date will be set at a trial conference April 24.
If convicted on all three counts, he could face up to three years and eight months in state prison, Gibbons said.
Time To Get Our Shit Together
Are you ever having a wonderful day, maybe you are viewing a vivid red sunset, and suddenly you think to yourself “that sunset is red because of air pollution.” Or maybe you have nightmares about the extinction of the human species due to global climate change. Do you worry about what will happen to the polar bears when the ice is gone? Do you fret about the end of farming due to dust bowl like conditions in the Midwest? Maybe I am the only one. But I shouldn’t be. Everyone should be worried about this stuff. The whole world should be putting down the guns and bombs and spending all its time on fixing this problem.
But we aren’t. We are heading head long into the biggest challenge our species has faced since global nuclear war. Never has the whole lot of us been in more danger. Simply put none of the cool things we have ever wanted to see are going to happen if we can’t get past this hurdle. We will never colonize space, never cure cancer, never figure out the big bang, never travel to new star systems, and never create artificial intelligence. Instead we will slowly battle for survival as the earth develops a fatal fever.
We buy our SUV’s, start our wars, burn coal, gas, and oil for power, killing ourselves with convenience. We wont use solar energy because then we would have to have less energy hogging homes, we wont use wind power because we want our ocean views, we wont drive the hybrid because it isn’t “cool” looking enough. When the aliens find our ruins in a million years will they conclude that we convenienced ourselves to death? Will future generations live like every bad road warrior movie, because we couldn’t be bothered? Will our grandchildren inherit a world gone absolutely mad?
Imagine a world where global warming runs wild. The middle of North America, the bread basket of the world, is now a desert. Greenland has melted and the seas have risen up to ravish most of the coastal cities. New Deli, New York, Boston, all uninhabitable. Temperature regulating ocean currents shut down due to salinity changes in the ocean, and northern Europe becomes an artic wasteland, while at the same time many other parts of the world turn into desert wastes. Most of the large land mammals die off, large portions of the ocean are barren wastelands. People die left and right due to lack of food. Wars are wagged over the scant amount of fresh water resources, and large refuge populations wander the wastes seeking shelter any place they can. Hurricane season is all year now. The southern United States is an endless wasteland of broken homes and demolished cities. The Sahara expands to swallow most of Africa, while the interior of Asia dries to a brittle crisp. The Canadian Shield and Siberia become some of the few habitable regions left in the world. And on and on and on.
The problem is not enough people are doing enough. We simply are not ready for this. We can not put aside our petty life styles to think about the big picture here. Humans can go the way of the dinosaur. One day an ant or cockroach could crawl up onto the top of an abandoned building and survey a world devoid of human being. It chills me to the core.
Every action we take should be filtered though an “is this good for the species” filter. Every purchase you make, every trip you take, every piece of food you eat, everything should be looked at from a larger view point. Or else we are dead. No more wars, no more freedom to choose an SUV, no more lax environmental laws. It all has to change and change soon or we are screwed. Not just the poor, or the foreigners, all of us. We are all trapped on this little blue ball, and frankly we are in for a ruff ride ahead of us. Wake up people, its time to get our shit together.
Our New Minimum Wage Overlords
So this guy, went to a Taco Bell/KFC and its all done with tuch screens. Soon you will need a masters degree to get even the simplest of jobs. This could spell the end of the mcjob.
Its Almost Official
So a lot of people have said that Iraq is really a civil war, well its all but official now. With the recent attack on the golden dome, and the reprisal on dozens of rival holy sites, you can pretty much assume that the shit has hit the fan. These are not the kind of people that take the destruction of their holy sites laying down, you blow up mine, I blow up yours, then you blow up another one of mine because I blew up yours, so you blow up two of mine and one of my politicians…and on and on and on.
This is not good, we have our hands in the hornets nest, and we are going to continue to get stung until we do something about it. Are young men and women are going to continue to be killed unless we do something soon, and this means we need new leaders. New leaders that have the skills and brains to figure out the problems of this new world, the old “blow it up, steal all the money, hide it all” technique is not going to work.
The day after a bomb on a Baghdad street killed 23 people, another bomb in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra destroyed the golden dome of one of the Al Askari Mosque, one of the holiest Shiite shrines in Iraq. The Associated Press reports that although no one was killed in the blast, the destruction of the mosque’s dome sparked demonstrations and calls for revenge.
“This criminal act aims at igniting civil strife,” said Mahmoud al-Samarie, a 28-year-old builder. “We demand an investigation so that the criminals who did this be punished. If the government fails to do so, then we will take arm and chase the people behind this attack.”
Tens of thousands of furious protesters have staged demonstrations across Iraq after a bomb explosion badly damaged one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.
Dozens of Sunni mosques are reported to have been targeted and six Sunnis killed in revenge attacks after a gang blew up the famous al-Askari shrine in Samarra during a dawn raid Wednesday — destroying the shrine’s famous golden dome.
It was the third major attack against Shiite targets this week and is certain to enflame tensions between the majority Shiite and minority Sunni populations in the war-torn country.
Iraqi national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told Al-Arabiya television the attack was an attempt “to pull Iraq toward civil war.”
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiite Muslims, appealed for calm and called for a week of mourning.
Meanwhile, angry protests erupted in Shiite parts of Baghdad and in cities throughout the Shiite heartland to the south.
Residents of the holy city of Najaf closed their shops and gathered in the city’s 1920 Revolution Square to vent their anger.
The shrine is one of two tombs in Samarra, just north of Baghdad, for revered Shiite imams and attracts pilgrims from around the world.
Suspicion
No group claimed responsibility for the shrine attack, but suspicion has fallen on Sunni extremist groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Iraqi television said several people had been arrested in connection with the bombing.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari urged all Iraqis to condemn the attack and urged both Muslim and Christian leaders abroad “to redouble their efforts to help the Iraqi government stop these saboteurs.”
The bombing came a day after at least 22 people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a market in a Shiite neighbourhood of southern Baghdad.
The day before, 12 died in a suicide attack on a bus in the capital’s heavily Shiite district of Kazimiyah.
The al-Askari shrine is one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites. A mausoleum contains the remains of the 10th and 11th imams — reputed to be direct descendants of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Imam Ali al-Hadi died in 868 AD and his son, Hassan al-Askari, died in 874 AD.
The shrine’s famous golden dome was completed in 1905.
Before:
After:
Monday Confessional
I noticed that I hardly ever post anything personal on these pages. I will attempt to post a little weekly wrap-up each Monday and see how long I can keep it up.
So here is what has been happening to me lately. I have been trying to find another job, my current job has cut my hours back a bit and I need some spending cash. I have been trying to do a little freelance web design/ computer repair/computer teaching work. But alas it has not been going well. Other than my lack of funds, things are going really well.
I have been working on a new project, that will debut sometime in the middle of the march, and I think its going to be really awesome. Just to give you a taste, it will involve ice cream, Goggle maps api, and lots of pictures. I am buzzing with excitement.
My car needs a tune up, I am going to drive it back to Ohio to trade it in to my local “mother” dealership. Meaning that she is going to give me a great deal on a newish Honda for my piece of shit old Pontiac. She is too good to me. She also promised to start reading my blog more, so if you can see this mom, I love ya. Thats about it for things I want to share with the internet right now.
My life is pretty normal, I have been trying to get a new system for the members of the Sietch so they can manage their profiles easier. Might use some sort of PHP based content system like Drupal. Ohh yea one last thing, the cat that I am watching for this lady, had a turd stuck to its ass this morning. Got right up on the bed with me and started head butting me, I awoke to the lovely smell of shit, scant inches from my mouth. Sweet.
Keep it real.
Shane
Climate Change
I have said it before, and I am going to say it again, global warming is not a gradual process. My theory is that it only appears gradual because we are in the first steps of an exponential growth pattern. Global warming mechanisms tend to “feed” off each other, melting sea ice means more darker water exposed so more heat is absorbed leading to more ice melting, CO released from permafrost due to global warming means more CO in the air leading to more warming, plants suck up CO when they have too much they pump out less water, less water means less water vapor to reflect sun light, less water in the air means more in the rivers and streams which leads to sea level rise, you get the idea… these are but a few of the MANY feedback loops that could throw us into a downward spiral of global warming, and now it seems there is another feedback loop starting. The Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than we thought, much faster.
The amount of ice flowing into the sea from large glaciers in southern Greenland has almost doubled in the past 10 years, possibly requiring scientists to increase estimates of how much the world’s oceans could rise under the influence of global warming, according to a study being published Friday in the journal Science.
The authors said there is evidence the rise in flows would soon spread to glaciers farther north on the vast island, whose ice sheet is nearly 2 miles thick in places and holds enough water to raise global sea levels 20 feet or more should it all flow into the ocean.
The study, which compared satellite measurements of the ice in 1996, 2000 and 2005, was performed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and the University of Kansas.
“When you have this widespread behavior of the glaciers, where they all speed up, it’s clearly a climate signal,” Eric Rignot, the study’s author, said in an interview. “The fact that this has been going on now over 10 years in southern Greenland suggests this is not a short-lived phenomenon.”
More here.
The study is the first to examine the rate of change in glaciers to establish how much ice is being lost from Greenland.
The Greenland Ice Sheet – a mass of glacial ice and snow covering 1.9 million sq km – is twice the size of France and Germany put together.
It could raise the global sea level by 7m if it melted entirely.
In the past 20 years, air temperature in southeast Greenland has risen by 3C.
Eric Rignot, of the California Institute of Technology, said Greenland could be contributing as much as 0.5mm to the global sea-level rise each year.
Details of the study were also published yesterday in the journal .
Last September, American experts warned if trends continued, the summertime Arctic Ocean could be ice-free by the end of the century.
A recent British report warned that melting ice could increase sea levels by 12m unless temperatures stabilised.
And here.
GREENLAND’S glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed, the result of a warming trend that renders obsolete predictions of how quickly the Earth’s oceans will rise over the next century.
The new information, from satellite imagery, gives fresh urgency to worries about the role of human activity in global warming. The Greenland data is mirrored by findings from Bolivia to the Himalayas, scientists said, noting that sea-level rise threatens widespread flooding and severe storm damage in low-lying areas worldwide.
New Abu Ghraib Pictures
This is a video that contains most of the new pictures. Warning strong content. Can things get much worse?
Download Here
RSS XML Feed
