Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

2009 MAMI WATA DIASPORA VODOUN CALENDAR



Description:

Culturally relevant 2009 Calendar with captivating photos profiling the Mami Wata Vodoun tradition in Togo, West Africa and in America. Includes important dates highlighting significant events in African-American Ancestral history. Marcus Garvey, Malcolm-X, Langston Hughes, Kwanzaa etc.

lulu.com

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

New Membership Orientation for Baltimore UNIA-ACL (Toure-Tubman Division)

The orientation meeting will be held on October 25, 2008, 1:30 PM at the Enoch Pratt Library, 1303 Orleans St.
Phone; 410-396-0970

If you plan on joining have $34 ready for membership dues and joining fees.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Christians of Southern Nigeria?

I think the Associated Press ought to get some history lessons for their recent article on the emirs of Kano

Nigeria's emirates date back to the early 1800s, when a jihadi leader called Usman Dan Fodio grew disgusted with lax enforcement of Islamic principles across the north and set out with his followers from the city of Sokoto to establish a new order.

After conquering much of the region on horseback, Dan Fodio left behind the emirs. The emirs ruled and also acted as the supreme religious authorities in the regions -- a comparatively rare relationship in Africa, where monotheistic religions were usually imposed from outside.


Well lets see then. Who exactly is Don Fodio? Well this fellow happened to be a Sufi of the Qadiriyya order. That being from someplace outside Africa, namely Iran originating with Adb al-Qadir. That particular order is believed to have reached Africa via Spain and Morrocco (We've covered the religious conflicts in west Africa in other posts on Islam in Africa).

The point being that the AP is flat out wrong in its assertion that Islam was somehow indigenous to this area of Africa. Perhaps someone's wishful thinking on the subject.

Secondly:

In the mid-1800s British colonialists conquered the southern, Christian areas, forever weakening tribal structures there.


Excuse me? the "southern, Christian areas" ? I don't recall ever that any part of Africa apart from Ethiopia that could be described as "Christian" is it's original culture. Most definitely in West Africa and Nigeria in particular If you were not Hausa-Fulani practicing Islam, you were Yoruba or Igbo practicing Ifa or worshiping Chuckwu respectively (or other smaller religions). Southern Nigeria did not become "Christian" until the arrival of the European and even so, many people, regardless of religious "set" claims still see the Babalawo and Iya when they need advice.

Is it too hard to ask the AP to fact check their reports?

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Tap Dancing

Joe "The Plumber":

Wurzelbacher told Couric that he had always wanted to question a presidential candidate "and really corner them and get them to answer a question of -- for once instead of tap-dancing around it. And, unfortunately, I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance . . . almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr."


Hmmmmmmm...I'm going to reserve comment on that one.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

On Those Debates

My last blog entry on the debates lamented about the waste of time they have been since there really isn't a debate going on. Anyone with a clue would realize that the powers that be have defined who is acceptable and what topics are acceptable and what positions are acceptable. As Carter G. Woodson told us, once you know the circumference of a man's thinking you don't have to worry about him thinking outside that given area. I expect tonight's debate to be no different and apparently David Bollier agrees:

The truth is, no one can really learn much about the candidates or their ideas when the format has such rigid time limits on answers and predictable questions from mainstream news anchors. The moderators are constrained from asking tough follow-up questions, and the audience is forced to sit like zombies in a funeral parlor. Even with the so-called "town hall meeting" format, there is no genuine back-and-forth dialogue between candidates and citizens. Nor are there any direct candidate-to-candidate exchanges. Third-party candidates have been summarily excluded, so there are no disruptive questions that might expose the limited vision of the two major parties. (Ralph Nader was famously excluded from the 2000 presidential debates because his citizen support was deemed too insignificant to make a difference in the election.)



On a related note, on the black hand side, I'm trying to understand (not really but this is a rhetotical exercise) why apparently it is "unfair" for Republicans (or Democrats) to bring up Ayers who did in fact attempt an act of domestic terrorism, and is apparently "fond" of Obama, but it is 'fair" to bring up Farrakhan who has not, ever, attempt any act of violence against anyone or any institution? Yeah, we know the answer to that one.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

The Wasted "Debate"

So last night we had yet another waste of time that is the presidential "debates". This was such a waste of time for various reasons. Firstly there was no ground covered here that hasn't been covered before. So that made it a yawner.

Secondly, there is very little that separates the two "debators". Both of these men voted to hand over $700 billion to Wall Street types and no doubt both were involved in some way or another with the billion or so in pork that went along with it.

both men decided to again pledge their allegiance to the non-citizens and non-taxpayers of the State of Israel. Something that annoys me to no end.

both men talked junk about an imaginary attack on Israel by Iran. I say imaginary for a few reasons. Firstly, if one believes that the Palestinians and their issues are important to Iran and one knows full well that any nuclear attack on Israel would adversely affect Palestine (and a bunch of other nations) one can only come to the conclusion that a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran is simply not going to happen. In fact to go further than that it is highly unlikely for Iran to attack anyone else in the region either. People will point to the Iran-Iraq war as some kind of proof of Iran's hostile intentions. Dummies. iran and Iraq got into a war because the US had gotten involved with Iranian politics. Yes that was in the 70's when most of the young voters weren't even twinkles in the eyes of their parents and when older voters were being, well, American. Saddam was in the pocket of the US (CIA paid even) and Reagan broke a couple of laws getting arms to Iraq to fight that little proxy war. So history will show that Iran has been hostile to the US because the US has been meddling in its internal affairs.

So we have Obama and McCain talking about how Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon siting the instability that it would cause the region. Never mind that the number one issue destabilizing the region in the occupation of Palestinian land and real estate. Never mind that the reason that Iran is interested in a nuclear weapon is because of two things:

1) George Bush decided that he would give a speech in which he declared that Iran along with other nations were a part of an axis of evil. He then stated that it would be US policy to attack such nations on the whim of the POTUS. Mr. Bush then went ahead and invaded a sovereign nation which posed absolutely no threat to the US.

2) Israel has nuclear weapons. Israel has in fact made pre-emptive strikes against it's neighbors for "security reasons."

Given these items, why would Iran NOT want to have the nuclear deterrent? If a person who lives in another state from you declares that he can come to your house and break in at any time and then breaks into your neighbors house would you not do all in your power to dissuade that person from making good on their threat?

Lastly, we have the claim that Iran wants top wipe Israel from the map. A claim repeated by both candidates. However it is known, possibly by both candidates, that the actual quote from the president of Iran (lest I mangle the spelling of his name) was that he wanted to see the Zionist regime of Israel wiped off the map. Well I do too. the government of Israel with its racial and religiously bigoted apartheid government needs to go.

So here we have both candidates representing the "mainstream" parties both talking the same lies to the voting public, whom are apparently too dumbstruck by the celebrity face off that the presidential election has become to even question these things. Clearly if there was an entirely different policy towards the middle east like the ones proposed by Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia Mckinney and Ron Paul, we wouldn't be spending money on wars in the middle east. But then again, we wouldn't need to sell arms to parties in the middle east either.

Then we have the candidates smearing of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Never mind that Chavez has won his elections in elections that have been deemed more fair than that of the United States. Never mind that he has also lost in his bids to make changes to the Venezuelan constitution. Never mind that no matter what Hugo Chavez has said about Bush, he has never blocked the shipping or sales of oil to the United States. Never mind the fact that the US was involved with the attempted Coup which Condoleeza Rice went on to approve of. Never mind all that. Hugo Chavez is a dictator. Right. But dumb ass American voters are all too willing to excuse the blatant lies to even challenge these men.

Lastly we have the issue of Georgia. Both men talk about Russia and Putin as if he and the country were babies. We need to show him. We need to set him straight. Putin is a grown ass man. Russia is a sovereign nation with interests like any other. Who the hell is the US government or the POTUS to tell Putin or whomever else what they ought to be accepting and what kind of behavior their nations ought to be doing. Never mind the fact that it is known that people of South Ossetia have long been allied with Russia. Never mind the fact that Russian peacekeepers were assaulted by the Georgian army. Never mind the involvement of Israeli intelligence and the US government in the matter.

Obama talked about the sweeping "nationalism" of the Russians. So what? What, like there isn't sweeping nationalism in America? C'mon man, Every nation has sweeping nationalism! Duh!

Overall the debate clearly wasn't a debate. There was a whole lot of old policy positions being rehashed. A whole lot of allegiance to Israel and the like. I guess they did look presidential.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Bad Kenya

While I think John Corsi is full of shyt, it's not for the Kenyan government to attempt censorship via deportation. Frankly with the corruption issues in that country including the entirely messed up (to be kid friendly) election, the Kenyan authorities ought to think twice about deporting people who write books one doesn't care for. As I have stated many times, speech that does not immediately endanger an individual or individual (such as shouting fire in a crowded auditorium) must be protected at all time. Furthermore, the arbitrary use of regulations is simply another means for a government to act in an authoritarian manner and such behavior ought not be supported.

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Monday, October 06, 2008

On that IRS Provision about Non-Profit Politiking

Stanley Fish:

The story goes that when he was running for re-election to the Senate in 1954, Lyndon Johnson was opposed by a couple of non-profits that urged voters to reject him and his radical communist ideas. (And you thought things were crazy today.) In response, Johnson had new language inserted into the section of the IRS code, which defines a tax exempt entity. His addendum declared that an exempt organization “does not participate in or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

If I Were a Black Republican...

I'd be pretty pissed off right about now. Here we have the Democratic party, the party I've been taught to hate just about to put a black man in the oval office and the best my party could do is put Sarah "You betchya" Palin on the VP ticket ahead of black Republicans with far more qualifications.

I mean If I wasn't feeling like a token before, I'd really have to think about a party that would put an intellectual flyweight like Palin as an answer to college professor Obama rather than say JC Watts. How about that Michael Steele? Lt. Governor of a sizeable state, experience being no.2. I'd recommend the good doctor Rice, but she's irreparably damaged by the Bush administration. And if I could look past the negro thing for a moment, How about Bobby Jindal? First Indian VP.

I mean seriously folks, I would be pretty heated to know that this group I've attached myself to has clearly demonstrated that they prefer a marginal, wink happy white female over more qualified and more intelligent black or brown candidates. That says a lot.

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Meanwhile...

While Europeans and Americans throw large sums of money at crooks and banks. Haitians still die from the results of hurricanes.

People in poor countries die of malnutrition and treatable disease.

Bailout Watch

Right so the NY Times reports that the Federal Reserve is going to loan out $900 billion to banks. We have the $700 billion given by congress. 16 trillion bucks not including Fannie, Freddy or AIG. All over the world banks are falling out. Oil prices are falling. Oil is already down around 50 bucks from this year's high.

And these stock people are STILL trying to get the credit market back to where it was. Yo! Where it was was the problem. Too much borrowing against too little assets. Read Paul Craig Roberts:

The greatest mistake was made in 2004, the year that Reagan died. That year the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry M. Paulson Jr, was head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs. In the spring of 2004, the investment banks, led by Paulson, met with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this meeting with the New Deal regulatory agency tasked with regulating the US financial system, Paulson convinced the SEC Commissioners to exempt the investment banks from maintaining reserves to cover losses on investments. The exemption granted by the SEC allowed the investment banks to leverage financial instruments beyond any bounds of prudence.

In place of time-proven standards of prudence, computer models engineered by hot shots determined acceptable risk. As one result Bear Stearns, for example, pushed its leverage ratio to 33 to 1. For every one dollar in equity, the investment bank had $33 of debt!


So it is possible..possible that if there are say $100 billion in "assets" at risk, that these banks may be in for 33 times that or $3 trillion is bad debt. I'm pulling the asset number out of thin air, kinda like the fed guy did for the $700 billion. But you can see that this could get very expensive very fast and anyone suggesting that credit ought to return to the "way it was" is nuts.

Congress Must be Atheists?

So Michael Hudson wants to claim that the congress must be atheists for their recent behavior in regards to the bailout:

So the Christian parallel is broken. The moral in the above parable, Jesus explained (Matthew 18:35), was that “So likewise shall my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses,” that is, their debts. But Wall Street and Congress must be atheists, because the way that matters are working out today, only the wealthy are being forgiven their debts, not the poor. The big sinners are going free, their victims are being stripped of their assets.


Really. I seem to recall that both presidential candidates, whom have approved of the bailout claiming Jesus Christ as their savior. Hmm. I believe the current president, who also went to bat for this bailout makes the same claim.

In fact the vast majority of those in the US congress and Senate make claim to Christianity, Islam or Judaism. Far as I know, not a single atheist has been elected to national office as a "known" atheist, so how does Micheal get to make such an outrageous smear on atheists?