Bay St. Louis, MS: still forgotten

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday June 05, 2006 · 7:46 PM PDT

2006/06/05 · 19:46

Hurricane Katrina's toll in Mississippi:

Estimated dollar amount of damage: $125 billion
Identified dead statewide: 231
Unidentified dead: 5
Missing: 67
Houses in South Mississippi destroyed: 65,380
Mississippi insurance claims filed (Katrina and Rita): 383,700
Claims paid (as of Nov. 21 2005): $5 billion
Insurance claims filed in South Mississippi: 141,000
Claims paid in South Mississippi: $1.3 billion
Red Cross money spent in South Mississippi as of Nov. 30 2005: $185 million

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday February 03, 2006 · 10:47 AM PST

2006/02/03 · 10:47

I had a brief exchange with John Gorenfeld the other day, and he mentioned his new article for AlterNet about the "teen rehab industry" and its financial ties to the GOP. He was apparently "having the damndest time getting anyone to pay attention to the fact that GOP pols help export kids to gulags for profit. Literally."

As a teen at Tranquility Bay, you can't call home and are escorted between rooms by Jamaican "chaperones." Talk out of turn and your punishment might be that a trio of guards wrestles you to the ground. "They start twisting and pulling your limbs, grinding your ankles," a student told the British newspaper The Guardian. Not knowing when you'll go home, you might take cold showers and watch "emotional growth" videos. The promise is that you will return a respectful, happy teen. But many WWASPS alumni who've banded together at online survivor websites like Tranquility Bay Fight and Fornits say their lives haven't been saved, they've been devastated.

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday January 18, 2006 · 10:36 AM PST

2006/01/18 · 10:36

The Dayton Daily rag had an article yesterday about the Little Miami State & National Scenic River, one of Ohio's natural treasures. In Warren County (just south of Dayton & Montgomery County), a developer has proposed a "planned community" of 2400 homes and a state official has cried foul, as the developer's plans encroach upon the federally-protected river itself.

Up until next Thursday, there is still time to contact the Warren County Commission and express an opinion on preserving one of Ohio's few remaining wild places.

Fixing RON: the difference between a battleaxe and a scalpel.

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 09, 2005 · 4:43 PM PST

2005/11/09 · 16:43

Lots of people are deeply disappointed here on DKos about RON's failure. Blame is being assigned to the Ohio Democratic party for not openly supporting the ballot measures (or certain Democratic officials for opposing them), to SoS Ken Blackwell (R) for tampering with the election to position himself for next year's gubernatorial race, to Diebold for the new electronic voting equipment, to the out-of-state group Ohio First, etc. etc. ad nauseam. In fact, blame is being assigned everywhere but where it belongs: the issues themselves.

Any criticism of the ballot initiatives as poorly written gets derided as a "right wing talking point," but just because the right wing points something out doesn't automatically make it untrue.

Now that you think I'm a troll, read more to see why I'm not. Read More

Iranian eye in the sky

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday October 27, 2005 · 8:13 PM PDT

2005/10/27 · 20:13

Fresh on the heels of Iran's hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and Israeli president Ariel Sharon's response that Iran should be expelled from the UN comes a reminder that Iran is interested in more than just nuclear technology. Read More

State Dept confirms Halliburton deaths in Iraq

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday October 25, 2005 · 7:49 PM PDT

2005/10/25 · 19:49

The 2000-troop milestone in Iraq today was accompanied by confirmation of Halliburton "civilian contractor" deaths. Specifically, Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root division. Read More

Faith-based foreign policy

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 10, 2005 · 8:21 AM PDT

2005/10/10 · 08:21

Behind all the hullaballoo over Bush's Supreme Court picks, Concerned Women for America, Beverly LaHaye's partisan religious activist group with no discernible prior interest or experience in other countries, has quietly become a taxpayer-funded NGO (via Condi's State Department) working on sex trafficking in Mexico:

CWA Awarded Anti-Trafficking Grant 9/29/2005

Washington, D.C. - Concerned Women for America (CWA) received a $200,000 State Department grant on Tuesday to work with five Mexican organizations to combat sex trafficking. The specific project is the second phase of CWA's Bridge Project, a week-long training session for Mexican leaders that took place in April.

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 21, 2005 · 11:08 PM PDT

2005/08/21 · 23:08

Recently, two pilots for ABX (better known as Airborne Express) were investigated by the FBI and placed on the TSA's federal terrorism roster known as the "selectee list." No charges against them were filed.

This action was as a result of suspicion that they -- get this -- mailed feces to company executives and signed them up for fake magazine subscriptions. How on Earth does that kind of stupid juvenile prank qualify as terrorism, you may ask. According to the Dayton Daily News, "sending biohazardous material through the mail is a federal crime under domestic terrorism statutes, FBI spokesman Michael Brooks said."

The pilots were apparently cleared of suspicion a few days later. However, there is some mystery concerning how they got on the TSA's list in the first place.

Ann Coulter, Free Speech and Religion

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday July 01, 2005 · 3:31 PM PDT

2005/07/01 · 15:31

In a recent commentary entitled "Thou shalt not commit religion" on WorldNutDaily, blonde bloviator Ann Coulter wastes bandwidth listing an unrelated series of things loosely defined as "speech that has been funded in whole or in part by taxpayers" which she apparently finds offensive, then wraps it up with a brief diatribe about the Supreme Court's rulings on governmental displays of the Ten Commandments.

Her vaguely-presented thesis can only be inferred throughout much of the piece, as it is mostly a simple bulleted list of examples apparently selected for little more than shock value. Granted, I personally find some of them to be in extremely poor taste (or at least pointless) myself, but that's not the issue. I readily grant that she has the right to say whatever she pleases, but being a media commentator of some influence, I don't think it's too much to expect her to at least make a coherent argument.

Then again, it is Ann Coulter.

More below the fold. Read More

What does Rep. Hoyer have against the 22nd Amendment?

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday June 14, 2005 · 11:46 PM PDT

2005/06/14 · 23:46

This is not exactly recent news, but I searched and didn't find anything about it here. I blogged it, but my site has pretty low traffic and this should probably be seen by a wider audience.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) introduced a bill to repeal the 22^nd Amendment to the Constitution (which limits presidents to two terms) on Feb. 17, 2005. Cosponsors of the resolution are Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Rep. F. James Sensebrenner (R-WI), Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN) and Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ).

The text of the resolution is as follows:

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution. (Introduced in House)

HJ 24 IH
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. J. RES. 24

Continued below the fold. Read More

Peak Farming

OhioLen

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday May 16, 2005 · 2:18 PM PDT

2005/05/16 · 14:18

The Peak Farming issue encompasses population density, ecology and conservation of natural resources and more. This issue tends to fly under our collective radar, but could conceivably be one of the biggest challenges we ever face.

There is a popular misconception in this country that America is the world's breadbasket. The occasional news images of American grain and food aid being delivered to the needy around the world (most recently for the tsunami relief effort) tend to reinforce that idea; how many of us buy into the conceit that "America feeds the world?" I know I did, but no longer. In November 2004, the United States became a Net food importer for the first time in half a century.

Much more below the fold. Read More

RSS

Bay St. Louis, MS: still forgotten

Bush donor exports kids to Jamaican torture camp

ACTION ALERT: "Wild & Scenic" protected river threatened by exurban sprawl

Fixing RON: the difference between a battleaxe and a scalpel.

Iranian eye in the sky

State Dept confirms Halliburton deaths in Iraq

Faith-based foreign policy

ABX pilots cleared of terrorism suspicion, questions remain

Ann Coulter, Free Speech and Religion

What does Rep. Hoyer have against the 22nd Amendment?

Peak Farming