A lord asked Takuan, a Zen Teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others.
Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:
Not twice this day
Inch time foot gem.
This day will not come again.
Each minute is worth a priceless gem.
On the eve of an important Senate committee meeting to consider the legislation, Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has asked lawmakers in two letters not to approve the bulk of legislation that would increase the agency’s authority, double its budget and sharply increase its dwindling staff.
Ms. Nord opposes provisions that would increase the maximum penalties for safety violations and make it easier for the government to make public reports of faulty products, protect industry whistle-blowers and prosecute executives of companies that willfully violate laws.
The Zogby International survey shows 52 percent of Americans would support a strike on Iran, while 53 percent expect President Bush to launch such an attack before the end of his second term. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is voters' No. 1 choice to deal with Iran, with 21 percent saying they would like to see her take on Tehran from the White House. Republican Rudy Giuliani was voters' second choice, with 15 percent.
Just 29 percent of Americans think the US should not attack Iran, with one in five people unsure about military action. Of those who would support a strike, 28 percent believe military action should wait until the next president is in office, while 23 percent want to see Bush let lose US missiles against Iran.
Updated below:
Not being the front runner in the Democratic nomination race seems to have put a little starch into Senator Chris Dodd's demeanor. He seems a lot more eager and ready of late to take a lead in standing up for what is right. Angered by Mukasey's Senate testimony last week in which the former federal judge and prosecutor floated a legal "theory" that the President of the United States could, indeed, stand above constitutional statutes, Dodd declared on Monday:
"That is about as basic as it gets," Dodd said. "You must obey the law. Everyone must."
Senator Dodd, along with a considerable number of other legal and political observers were also upset when Mukasey dodged questions last week about whether or not so-called "waterboarding" was, in fact, torture. After dancing around giving a straight answer for a while, he wound up making the strange statement that he wasn't quite sure what was meant by the term "waterboarding".
Dodd's is also rejecting any "do-overs" on these key issues. He is rejecting any mulligans for a nominee who refuses to call torture by its proper name. Dodd's firm position is forcing the hand of some like Dianne Feinstein of California and Carl Levin of Michigan who were warning they might vote against Mukasey if he doesn't properly clarify his views. I agree with Dodd that you should be held to your first answer and not be allowed to "test" the limits of what you can get away with during the questioning.
Let's hope Dodd's leadership on these issues carry over in the immunity for telecoms and other serious constitutional issues.
Update: Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake informs us that HRC is on board in rejecting Mukasey as well. Good for her.
When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.
"Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer.
"Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best."
At these words Banzan became enlightened.
Go read the whole thing if have some time. It is worth the time.…It’s time to tell the truth. And the truth is the system in Washington is corrupt. It is rigged by the powerful special interests to benefit they very few at the expense of the many. And as a result, the American people have lost faith in our broken system in Washington, and believe it no longer works for ordinary Americans. They’re right.
As I look across the political landscape of both parties today – what I see are politicians too afraid to tell the truth – good people caught in a bad system that overwhelms their good intentions and requires them to chase millions of dollars in campaign contributions in order to perpetuate their careers and continue their climb to higher office….
If protecting the current established structure in Washington is in your interest, then I am not your candidate. I ran for president four years ago – yes, in part out of personal ambition – but also with a deep desire to stand for working people like my father and mother – who no matter how hard things were for our family, always worked even harder to make things better for us.
But the more Elizabeth and I campaigned this year, the more we talked to the American people, the more we met people just like my father, and hard working people like James Lowe. James is a decent and honest man who had to live for 50 years with no voice in the richest country in the world because he didn’t have health care. The more people like him that I met, the more I realized something much bigger was stirring in the American people. And it has stirred in each of us for far too long….
This is our time now. It falls to us[ ] to redeem our democracy, reclaim our government and relight the promise of America for our children.
Let us blaze a new path together, grounded in the values from which America was forged, still reaching toward the greatness of our ideals. We can do it. We can cast aside the bankrupt ways of Washington and replace them with the timeless values of the American people. We can liberate our government from the shackles of corporate money that bind it to corporate will, and restore the voices of our people to its halls….
While I am open for arguments for and against Universal Health Care the least the opponents can do is get their facts straight. Rudy the Warmonger demonstrates he won't avoid a lie to make his point.
The Washington Post notes today that Rudy Giuliani will be running a new radio ad in New Hampshire starting today:
In the radio spot, Giuliani mentions his battle with prostate cancer and notes that his chances of surviving the disease in America were 82 percent, while in England his chances would have been 44 percent.
"You and I should be making the decisions about what kind of health care we get with our doctors, not with a government bureaucrat," Giuliani says in the ad.
Guess what? Giuliani is lying. As you can see from the chart on the right, Britain and the United States have virtually identical mortality rates from prostate cancer. The only reason the U.S. has a higher survival rate is because we diagnose way more prostate cancer than Britain in the first place. In other words, the difference probably isn't that we're any better at prostate cancer surgery than the Brits, but that we aggressively screen for even mild cases of prostate cancer that probably are not worth treating as they are not life threatening.I don't know if anyone's noticed, but George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone's running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Subtly, but relentlessly, the public psyche is being prepared to deny Junior ever existed. And it could work. For many different reasons, most Americans want nothing more than to forget George W. Bush was ever president. So, we see a very odd subliminal narrative taking shape in which the blame for the nation's failures of the last seven years is being shifted to Clinton (and the "do-nothing" Democratic congress) as if the Codpiece hasn't been running things since 2000. (Not that the radical wingnuts haven't always blamed the Clenis for everything, but the disappearing of Bush is a new element.)
I certainly don't blame the Republicans for trying to do it. It makes sense, since their boy is an epic failure and the original Clinton is still very present in people's minds. It will be quite a trick to pull off, but I can see the press already helping them do it. (Naturally.)
[snip]Scientists have discovered a new and highly effective weapon against deadly superbugs like the MRSA sweeping through Britain's dirty hospital wards – green French muck.
The dramatic antibiotic success of agricur, a clay made from ancient volcanic ash found near the Massif Central, marks it out as a potential rival to penicillin, the wonder drug of the 20th century. In experiments, the clay killed up to 99 per cent of superbug colonies within 24 hours. Control samples of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) grew 45-fold in the same period.
The clay has a similar effect on other deadly bacteria tested, including salmonella, E. coli, and a flesh-eating disease called buruli, a relative of leprosy which disfigures children across central and western Africa. It has been classed as "an emerging public health threat" by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Maybe my little friend was trying to kill me when she made me mud pies! Seriously beside Kaopectate you can by (at least in Europe) a product called Smecta which is great for upset stomach.Clay has long been used as a health treatment in spas, but that is because it holds heat longer than water, and draws toxins out of the skin. Clay is also sometimes eaten as a folk remedy for nausea. "It's fascinating," said Dr Haydel, a microbiologist. "Here we are bridging geology, microbiology, cell biology. A year ago, I'd look at the clay and say, 'Well, that's dirt.'"
The effectiveness of the French green clays, which are mostly made of minerals called smectite and illite, was first demonstrated by Line Brunet de Courssou, a French doctor fighting buruli at clinics in Ivory Coast and Guinea.
WASHINGTON—The U.S. spent at least $38 million to give Iraq's government a computerized accounting system—and no one noticed when it was not working for a month, a report said Wednesday.It just gets more disgusting and absurd. Just shoot me!
Keichu, the great Zen teacher of the Meiji era, was the head of Tofuku, a cathedral in Kyoto. One day the governor of Kyoto called upon him for the first time.
His attendant presented the card of the governor, which read: Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto.
"I have no business with such a fellow," said Keichu to his attendant. "Tell him to get out of here."
The attendant carried the card back with apologies. "That was my error," said the governor, and with a pencil he scratched out the words Governor of Kyoto. "Ask your teacher again."
"Oh, is that Kitagaki?" exclaimed the teacher when he saw the card. "I want to see that fellow."
The only possible "Urgent Operational Need" for this ordnance is to attack Iran as far as I can see. If you can see another "Urgent Need" for these bombs I will be happy to listen. I keep telling myself that no one could be stupid enough to open another front in the Middle East against a much more capable opponent and then I remember who is in charge.Tucked inside the White House's $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is preparing for military action against Iran.
The item: $88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP.
The MOP is the the military's largest conventional bomb, a super "bunker-buster" capable of destroying hardened targets deep underground. The one-line explanation for the request said it is in response to "an urgent operational need from theater commanders."
I haven't commented on this except on a couple of other blogs but I am going to wade in here. Yesterday, CNN's star pignoramus Glenn Beck said, on his radio program:
I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.
Today, USA Today got a reaction:
A spokesman for Beck expressed surprise that bloggers are seizing on this quotation as an example of incivility. "To most rational people, unfortunately still means unfortunately," Chris Balfe, the show's producer, tells On Deadline through a spokesman.
So three quarters of a million Americans have been forced to evacuate their homes and a thousand or more homes have gone up in smoke and Glenn Beck along with his staff doesn't see anything wrong with accusing these Southern Californians fleeing wildfires of, "hating America". They apparently don't think accusing these people of "hating America" is actually germane. The fact that Glenn added "unfortunate" to the fact that these people who "hate America" were losing their homes makes everything hunky-dory. The lack of sensitivity and compassion is unbelievable.
Of course there is still no reaction from CNN. It is really not surprising seeing that Beck was an classless idiot when they hired him and this kind of crap is what they evidently hired him for. You keep hoping for some kind of class from a major network and global presence like CNN but you continually are disappointed.
Off topic: I would be remiss here if I didn't give CNN some credit for keeping Christine Amanpour on staff and congratulating her on her investiture today as Commander in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, "for services to journalism." She was presented the recognition today by Her Majesty the Queen in London.
…For this is where we are in the United States, nearing the end of the Year of Our Lord 2007: the truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited guest who makes conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is the enemy; truth is to be destroyed. To attempt to speak the truth on any subject of importance requires a deep reserve of determination, for to speak the truth requires that one first sweep away an infinite number of rationalizations, false alternatives, and numerous other failures of logic and the most rudimentary forms of thought — as well as the endless lies. On that single occasion in a thousand or a million when a person overcomes these barriers and speaks the truth, he or she discovers an additional, terrible truth: almost no one wants to hear it. This is how we live today: lies are the staple of our diet. Without them, we would die, certainly in psychological terms.People will tell you that we still have all the accouterments of a participative democracy. There is still the Constitution, still voting, still the rule of law, still multi-party rule. They won't admit that even though all the trappings are here there are no guts and fervor behind them. There is no outrage when they are violated, no riots when our rights are trampled, no impeachments when our elected servants stray from the straight and narrow. We all know that Bush and Cheney have violated the public trust multiple times and we also know that they have broken the law multiple times but they are still the leaders of the most powerful country on earth. How sad for us and the world.
Bush is trying to cut this program's budget as well. The Energy Department is expecting energy costs to be very much higher this winter.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 30 million low-income American households who will need help paying heating bills this winter from a U.S. government program will be left in the cold because of a lack of funding for the program.
The poor, already digging deep to pay for expensive gasoline, also will face much higher heating fuel costs, especially if oil prices stay near record levels.
Consumer groups and state energy officials have sounded the alarm, saying a federal program to help poor families pay heating bills will have nowhere near the money needed to cover those expected to seek assistance.
The government's Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, only has enough funding to cover 16 percent of the 38 million poor households eligible for the program.
The Energy Department forecasts that household expenses for all heating fuels will rise this winter from last year, with costs for heating oil up 22 percent, propane up 16 percent, natural gas up 10 percent and residential electric bills up 4 percent.The entire annual budget for this very important Federal assistance program is the equivalent of about a week in Iraq. It's called budget priorities.
President Bush will ask Congress for another $46 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finance other national security needs, The Associated Press has learned....Notice that they don't mention American wounded and disabled and that they are stating a number for Iraqi casualties that flies in the face of more informed estimates. While the request for another bucket of money for Iraq is bad enough just consider the politics and deceit involved in the timing of the request. In the wild possibility that you don't think Bush/Cheney and the Republicans play politics with the money that they keep telling us is the lifeline for our troops try this on for size:
To date, Congress has already provided more than $455 billion for the Iraq war, with stepped-up military operations running about $12 billion a month. The war has claimed the lives of more than 3,830 members of the U.S. military and more than 73,000 Iraqi civilians.
The delays in submitting the remaining war funding request were in part due to unease among congressional Republicans about receiving it during the veto override battle involving a popular bill reauthorizing a children's health insurance program.Yeah, yeah, yeah, they need the money or our troops will be in harm's way and Goddess forbid run out of bullets. That is, unless it's not politically expedient to ask for the money to "save our troops," when it might endanger the refusal to help 10 million American children. What bastards!
When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time.
At last one moonlit night she was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail, and at that moment Chiyono was set free!
In commemoration, she wrote a poem:
In this way and that I tried to save the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about
to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!
Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: "What do you seek?"
"Enlightenment," replied Daiju.
"You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?" Baso asked.
Daiju inquired: "Where is my treasure house?"
Baso answered: "What you are asking is your treasure house."
Daiju was enlightened! Ever after he urged his friends: "Open your own treasure house and use those treasures."
http://action.chrisdodd.com/...
The Military Commissions Act. Warrantless wiretapping. Shredding of Habeas Corpus. Torture. Extraordinary Rendition. Secret Prisons.
No more.
I have decided to place a "hold" on the latest FISA bill that would have included amnesty for telecommunications companies that enabled the President's assault on the Constitution by illegaly[sic]providing personal information on their customers without judicial authorization.
I said that I would do everything I could to stop this bill from passing, and I have.
It's about delivering results -- and as I've said before, the FIRST thing I will do after being sworn into office is restore the Constitution. But we shouldn't have to wait until then to prevent the further erosion of our country's most treasured document. That's why I am stopping this bill today.
Click on the link above to thank Senator Dodd for responding to your call.
I've mentioned a little about this but it’s getting worse here in Georgia and in many other parts of the Southeast. I am expecting to see severe emergency rules here very soon:
Did you notice that they are using "untreated" water to rinse and cool the chickens? That is not to good.Exceptional drought, the worst of North Carolina’s classifications, has been declared in 56 of the state’s 100 counties. About 3.25 million people in the state are dealing with mandatory water restrictions, and another 1.5 million are under voluntary restrictions.
The heart of the state is the hardest hit. Greensboro rainfall for the year is 14 inches below normal. Lake James, on the Catawba River, is down 9 feet.
With its water reservoir running out, Siler City demanded a 50 percent reduction in water use by residents and businesses. Two chicken plants in the city, which use up to 800,000 gallons of water each day, told officials they couldn’t operate on 50 percent of that level.
Chatham County came to the rescue, allowing each of the chicken plants to pull 200,000 gallons of untreated water from the county’s nearby reservoir. They use it to clean machinery and to chill and rinse the birds. The plants use trucks to get that water across the county, but at least they don’t have to shut down.
Carol Couch, the director of Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division, is expected this week to send a letter to Gov. Sonny Perdue outlining options, including severe restrictions on commercial and industrial users in the Atlanta area.
Annual rainfall is 16 inches below normal in Peachtree City. Lake Lanier, the water source for more than 3 million people, is down 11 feet. It has dropped 2 feet since Sept. 1.
A defensive President Bush insisted that he was still relevant this morning in a news conference dominated by his bitter complaints about the Democratic Congress.Bush's approval rating is now at 24% in one national poll and everything he touches has turned to shit and the pigs are eating it. He can claim nothing but failure as a legacy and he still believes he is engaged and relevant. I guess when you are the most powerful person in the world you can get really, really good drugs. That is the only explanation.
Asked how he found himself vetoing a children's health insurance bill that had passed Congress with bipartisan support, Bush insisted that using a veto is "one way to ensure I am relevant."
When a reporter followed up and asked Bush if he felt he was losing leverage and relevance, Bush replied: "I've never felt more engaged and more capable of getting the American people to realize there's a lot of unfinished business."
Which, let's be blunt, is hard to believe.
After Bankei had passed away, a blind man who lived near the master's temple told a friend:
"Since I am blind, I cannot watch a person's face, so I must judge his character by the sound of his voice. Ordinarily when I hear someone congratulate another upon his happiness or success, I also hear a secret tone of envy. When condolence is expressed for the misfortune of another, I hear pleasure and satisfaction, as if the one condoling was really glad there was something left to gain in his own world.
"In all my experience, however, Bankei's voice was always sincere. Whenever he expressed happiness, I heard nothing but happiness, and whenever he expressed sorrow, sorrow was all I heard."
Provided he makes and wins an argument about Buddhism with those who live there, any wondering monk can remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, he has to move on.
In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother monks were dwelling together. The elder one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.
A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, properly challenging them to a debate about the sublime teachings. The elder brother, tired that day from much studying, told the younger one to take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in silence," he cautioned.
So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.
Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."
"Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.
"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come from one realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.
"Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.
I understand you won the debate."
"Won nothing. I'm going to beat him up.""Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.
"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, suggesting that between us we only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"
The richest one percent of Americans earned a postwar record of 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent a year earlier, reflecting a widening income disparity among different classes in the nation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing new Internal Revenue Service data.There was something about the end of 1920s that kind of bodes ill for our continued prosperity even if it is going down. We'll just have to wait and see what happens but there are signs that the wolves are circling.
The data showed that the fortunes of the bottom 50 percent of Americans are worsening, with that group earning 12.8 percent of all income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent the year before, the paper said.
It said that while the IRS data goes back only to 1986, academic research suggests that the last time wealthy Americans had such a high percentage of the national income pie was in the 1920s.
Gore and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
They were chosen to share the $1.5 million prize from a field of 181 candidates.
“Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control,” the citation said of rising temperatures that could bring more droughts, floods, rising seas.
“He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted,” the committee said of Gore.
“The IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming,” it said.
This is a much deserved recognition as Al Gore has dedicated much of his life to informing the world that the planet faces a serious threat from global warming and it is not an exaggeration to say we face a mega-disaster if something doesn't begin to change with respect to our stewardship of our only home.
Gore released the following statement :
I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis–a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.
My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.
CNN’s running poll on whether Gore deserves the Peace Prize was running about 58 percent in favor. You might want to visit.
We in America can be extremely proud today that one of its most distinguished and respected statesmen, and a Progressive Democratic, won the Nobel Peace Prize. I want to add my Congratulations to Al Gore to the scores of others from around the Internet and the world. I am interested to see the response from the wingnut world and global warming deniers. It will be fascinating to see what tactics and arguments they will take to diminish this signal honor.ConAgra Foods Inc. is refusing to recall Banquet-brand and other potpies tied to a national salmonella outbreak, rejecting direct pleas by Oregon and Minnesota health officials.
The state officials say the company needs to recall all of its potpies because the source of the salmonella has not been identified. Doing anything less, they say, allows potentially dangerous food to remain on the market and confuses consumers.
The company says a recall is unnecessary. It contends that contamination is limited to its poultry potpies. Risks can be eliminated, the company says, by instructing consumers to cook the pies thoroughly enough to kill salmonella bacteria.
The dispute highlights a long-standing limitation in America's system for safeguarding the food supply: State officials who most frequently unearth the cause of foodborne illness have no regulatory authority over food makers. Federal officials can ask companies to recall food, but that process can take days or weeks.
This is another example of big agribusiness putting their profit ahead your good health and even your life. I think a tit for tat is in order here and that using their example you should make your health a priority over ConAgra's profits. If they refuse to voluntarily withdraw potentially dangerous products from the market and leave all of the downside risk to you I think you should consider all of their myriad products risky and potentially dangerous to your health. As a public service and thanks to Wikipedia we have an extensive list of their products which might be prudent to avoid. Don't forget the Peter Pan peanut butter incident just a few months ago.
Here is the list. Don't fail to take note of how many places in your food life this obviously irresponsible company touches...Scary isn't it.
This nightmare can't be over any too soon.Although the Environmental Protection Agency joined in a legal settlement this week to force the largest power-plant pollution cleanup in U.S. history, the Bush administration signaled in the agreement that it has no intention of taking enforcement actions against the utility for the same kind of Clean Air Act violations in the future.
The language of the settlement indicates that the administration has not wavered in its distaste for a Clinton-era policy of using the law to force power plants to upgrade their pollution controls whenever they significantly update or expand a plant. That marks a significant victory for the power industry, which has strenuously opposed the “New Source Review,” saying that it penalizes them for efficiency improvements that ultimately benefit consumers and the environment.
“That is something that we fought to get in the settlement that was very important to us,” said American Electric Power spokesman Pat D. Hemlepp, whose company settled with the EPA and other groups on Tuesday. “There are a lot of things we can do . . . to improve the efficiency of our plants.”
Buried in paragraph 133 of the consent decree, in which the utility agreed to install $4.6 billion in pollution-control measures at 16 existing plants and pay $75 million in penalties, is a section that assures AEP that the government will not pursue any action stemming from the “modification” of these plants between now and Dec. 31, 2018. The EPA has inserted similar language in other settlements.
The shrieking, atavistic ritual of personal destruction the right roars into every few weeks is something different than politics. It is beyond politics. It was done to Scott Beauchamp, a soldier serving in Iraq. It was done to college students from the University of California, at Santa Cruz. Currently, it is being done to a child and his family. And think of those targets: College students, soldiers, children. It can be done to absolutely anyone.
This is not politics. This is, in symbolism and emotion, a violent group ritual. It is savages tearing at the body of a captured enemy. It is the group reminding itself that the Other is always disingenuous, always evil, always lying, always pitiful and pathetic and grotesque. It is a bonding experience -- the collaborative nature of these hateful orgies proves that much -- in which the enemy is exposed as base and vile and then ripped apart by the community. In that way, it sustains itself, each attack preemptively justifying the next vicious assault, justifying the whole hateful edifice on which their politics rest.
Like I said this pretty much sums up the situation. The whole thing is making me physically ill.
Suiwo, the disciple of Hakuin, was a good teacher. During one summer seclusion period, a pupil came to him from a southern island of Japan.
Suiwo gave him the problem: "Hear the sound of one hand."
The pupil remained three years but could not pass this test. One night he came in tears to Suiwo. "I must return south in shame and embarrassment," he said, "for I cannot solve my problem."
"Wait one week more and meditate constantly," advised Suiwo. Still no enlightenment came to the pupil. "Try for another week," said Suiwo. The pupil obeyed, but in vain.
"Still another week." Yet this was of no avail. In despair the student begged to be released, but Suiwo requested another meditation of five days. They were without result. Then he said: "Meditate for three days longer, then if you fail to attain enlightenment, you had better kill yourself."
On the second day the pupil was enlightened.
This is not acceptable. If you are available to make some phone calls Christy has all the numbers posted.…the Senate bill (Committee draft) does contain immunity/amnesty for the telecom companies…Including retroactive immunity for anything they’ve done wrong in cooperating in illegal domestic spying for the past six years.
President Bush said Wednesday that he will not sign a new eavesdropping bill if it does not grant retroactive immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies that helped conduct electronic surveillance without court orders.I say fine. Let him veto the legislation he is insisting is desperately needed to keep the nation's virgins safe from being despoiled by hordes of brown terrorists who are, right this very second , poised on their camels and itching to ride through your neighborhood.
That's right the fact is there are no poor people in America that cannot afford health insurance for their children...it's all a progressive fiction promulgated by the damn dirty hippies. If you are a child in Amercia and don't have health insurance it is just because your parents have behavior problems. If you get sick and die kids, blame your parents for bad choices.
A more basic point is made very robustly by Kathy Shaidle: Advanced western democracies have delivered the most prosperous societies in human history. There simply are no longer genuinely "poor" people in sufficient numbers. As Miss Shaidle points out, if you're poor today, it's almost always for behavioral reasons - behavior which the state chooses not to discourage but to reward. Nonetheless, progressive types persist in deluding themselves that there are vast masses of the "needy" out there that only the government can rescue.
Well, so much for that source!A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
“Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,” said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE’s methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.
The precise source of the leak remains unknown.
A farmer requested a Tendai priest to recite sutras for his wife, who had died. After the recitation was over the farmer asked: "Do you think my wife will gain merit from this?"
"Not only your wife, but all sentient beings will benefit from the recitation of sutras," answered the priest.
"If you say all sentient beings will benefit," said the farmer, "my wife may be very weak and others will take advantage of her, getting the benefit she should have. So please recite sutras just for her."
The priest explained that it was the desire of a Buddhist to offer blessings and wish merit for every living being.
"That is a fine teaching," concluded the farmer, "but please make one exception. I have a neighbor who is rough and mean to me. Just exclude him from all those sentient beings."
An e-mail from a federal inspector confirms the U.S. Department of Agriculture knew that millions of frozen hamburger patties could be contaminated with E. coli in early September but waited 18 days before concluding Topps Meat Co. should issue a recall, a lawyer for a teen sickened by the beef said Thursday.What is not very funny is that on just Monday the US Agriculture department said the U.S. meat is the "safest in the world". Hello, I know we may not be reading the right papers or watching the foreign TV stations but I sure don't hear about the British or French or anybody else recalling nearly 22 million pounds of beef on a regular basis.
The recall came Sept. 25, and was soon expanded to comprise 21.7 million pounds of hamburger produced by Elizabeth-based Topps, the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history.
The Florida teen was hospitalized with kidney failure in August and the meat her family bought was tested by the USDA.
"I think the American meat supply is the safest in the world," Raymond said in an interview on CBS's "The Early Show." "A recall like this does show that we are on the job, we are doing our inspections, our investigation, and we respond when we find problems to make sure that supply is safe."The thing is, in most other countries you go to your local butcher and he provides you with the cut of meat you want. If you want 'mince' or ground meat then he grinds it right there from cuts of meat that he has cut off a primal cut or even a whole animal. You just don't see the large industrial meat processors that make frozen burgers or frozen anything in the quantities we see here in the U.S. It is all these industrial processors that are putting the contaminated beef and chicken on the market and who the USDA is protecting.
In anticipation of the veto, William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.[snip]
Most conservatives are more careful than Mr. Kristol. They try to preserve the appearance that they really do care about those less fortunate than themselves. But the truth is that they aren’t bothered by the fact that almost nine million children in America lack health insurance. They don’t think it’s a problem.
“I mean, people have access to health care in America,” said Mr. Bush in July. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.The former governor of Texas Ann Richards once said of GW's father..."born on third base and thinks he hit a triple". It applies equally well to Bush Junior. His estimated wealth is somewhere around $20 million ( and it will mushroom when he is out of office) and he never earned any of it. He has health insurance for life that is paid for by you and me. He imbodies the modern conservative philosophy of " I have mine therefore you can fuck off." perfectly.
By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.
What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservatism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.
When Eshun, the Zen nun, was past sixty and about to leave this world, she asked some monks to pile up wood in the yard.
Seating herself firmly in the center of the funeral pyre, she had it set fire around the edges.
"O nun!" shouted one monk, "is it hot in there?"
"Such a matter would concern only a stupid person like yourself," answered Eshun.
The flames arose, and she passed away.
The latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the share of corporate-sector income going to wages is down to its lowest share in over 25 years….The latest CBO [Congressional Budget Office] figures show that almost 60 percent of capital income goes to the top 1 percent in the U.S. income distribution.Everyone in America is losing ground, especially the poor. There are a lot of things that would help but corporate taxes are a start as well a little more progressive tax system. Probably the biggest single issue is a national health care single payer system that will take the for profit insurance companies out of the game.
GENEVA - The toll of people in Iraq infected with cholera has risen to 3,315, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The number of confirmed infections compares with 2,758 cases reported Sunday by the U.N. health agency. The death toll of 14 has been unchanged in recent days, WHO said.
The outbreak first detected Aug. 14 in Kirkuk in northern Iraq has now spread to half of the country's 18 provinces.
The White House sought as little attention as possible, with the president wielding his veto behind closed doors without any fanfare or news coverage.Apparently there is a very good chance that this veto will be overridden. His usually reliable Republican lap dogs are staring at a very clear and massive election year backlash. Makes sense that this time Bush decided to do his dirty work behind closed doors. I wonder if he washed his hands after the job?
ABC News/WaPo. 9/27-30. All adults. MoE 3% (No trend lines)
There's a proposal to increase federal spending on children's health insurance by 35 billion dollars over the next five years. It would be funded by an increase in cigarette taxes. Supporters say this would provide insurance for millions of low-income children who are currently uninsured. Opponents say this goes too far in covering children in families that can afford health insurance on their own. Do you support or oppose this increased funding for this program?
Support 72
Oppose 25
Unsure 3
I think if I was going to tell nearly three quarters of America to screw off I might be tempted to hide behind closed doors too.
Soyen Shaku, the first Zen teacher to come to America, said: "My heart burns like fire but my eyes are as cold as dead ashes." He made the following rules which he practiced every day of his life.
In the morning before dressing, light incense and meditate.
Retire at a regular hour. Partake of food at regular intervals. Eat with moderation and never to the point of satisfaction.
Receive a guest with the same attitude you have when alone. When alone, maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests.
Watch what you say, and whatever you say, practice it.
When an opportunity comes do not let it pass by, yet always think twice before acting.
Do not regret the past. Look to the future.
Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child.
Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.
According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL'-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.[snip]
Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment.
Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve.
The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain, where it continues the damage, "basically feeding on the brain cells," Beach said.
