Array-ne 6.15pm 7.64 miles in 54 mins 52 secondsWeek to date mileage 12 milesMonth to date mileage 57Average weekly rate 30.3 milesAverage monthly rate 132Year to date 1254Lifetime 10847Another visit to the west Suffolk Athletics track. Basically it feels like I have been kicked in the balls and there is a slight pull when I run.I ran the session hoping it might pass but it didn’t and was in the mind as I ran.I also finally got one of those Garmin Forerunner 205 devices but apart from wearing it haven’t really been able to think much about it as my focus is on the possible injury.
link
Reminds me of how the UFT puts out a report on high stakes testing and does nothing about it.By joining with the non-critical New Action instead of trying to build a real opposition, reformers like Halabi make a choice to accept crumbs from the union leadership rather then help build a true movement for change.Leo Casey ReduxSpeaking of Casey’s election as HS VP (which he coveted in 2002 when he was passed over)Ed Notes reported in the Fall 2002 edition (the first 16 page tabloid we printed):(NOTE: How New Action leader Mike Shulman was screwed back then but seems to have figured out how to worm his way into UFT officialdom - the ole If you cant beat em ploy.)Fall 2002New HS VP leads to sighs of relief in UFT High SchoolsFrank Volpicella’s promotion from Brooklyn HS district rep to the Academic HS VP, despite the sham election at the Sept. If a popular election was held in the high schools, Eterno would win by a significant margin.In the last UFT election in the spring of 2001 HS teachers voted for the NA/PAC slate by a 54% margin. Thus, retired teachers and paras and elementary teachers and Junior High Schools teachers and guidance counselors, etc., etc., get to vote for the academic HS Veep and Unity gets to keep a monopoly on the Adcom. Well the next time she does, tell her that James Eterno also really won the election for HS Veep.Running a union and maintaining control is simple:When the opposition gets close to winning or actually wins, just change the rules.Report from the AFT 2002 Convention: Anti-War Resolution Defeated Leo Casey of the United Federation of Teachers countered: If ever there was a just war, this war is just.Reported by EIA’s Mike AntonucciA group of delegates led by the contingent from the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York attempted to substitute its anti-war Resolution 46 for the moderately pro-war Resolution 49 submitted by the AFT Executive Council.
link
-ne
By Mark Green In hindsight, we can see why incumbent parties have been blamed and creamed in federal elections, like Republicans in 1974 after Watergate and Democrats in 1994 after the failure of health care. Looking ahead, with 13 months to go, a perfect storm is gathering force that will likely decimate Republican strength in federal and state races. There is no one earthquake producing a political tsunami but rather four separate seismic events that together—short of another terrorist attack or a new war against Iran—will alter the electoral terrain of America. Iraq: Consider the numbers: when asked who can best end the Iraq war, only 5 percent of Americans in a recent poll said President Bush; consistent majorities of 70 percent want the war to end soon and 60 percent believe Bush misled us into this conflict. Claims of progress may momentarily quell public anger over this monumental blunder—say, General Petraeus’s putting a happy face on the war. But such optimism is now as convincing as General Westmoreland’s expecting light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam or Baghdad Bob’s denying American troops were anywhere near the Baghdad airport while those troops were seizing it. What exactly can GOP candidates say next fall in the face of no WMD, no link between Saddam and 9/11, no ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, no flowers for liberators, 5 million refugees both out of and within Iraq, Administration approval of torture, over 30,000 American dead and wounded as well as over 100,000 Iraqis killed — not to mention an increase in terrorism world-wide? Give us more time for a war that’s lasted longer than World War II? None of this worked in 2006 and will be even less pervasive in 2008. As Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) recently acknowledged after a Senate vote on the war, the public knows this is Bush’s and the Republican’s war and will reward or punish candidates accordingly. Economy: Most economic forecasters are predicting a one in two chance of a recession due to the foreclosure crisis leading to a credit crisis. Nor can Republican candidates convincingly cite Bush’s eight-year record if ‘08 goes flat. Average monthly job creation and economic growth under Clinton was 237,000 and 3.6 percent; under Bush, it’s 53,000 and 2.6 percent. Even if there’s no recession but merely a slowdown, incumbent parties historically still lose seats and the White House if economic growth falls below 3 percent in the election year, as now seems inevitable. At the same time, this Administration’s record on spending and deficits—turning a projected .6 trillion surplus into trillion in deficits—is dividing its own business base, according to Wall Street Journal last week. Now when asked which party would better maintain prosperity, it’s Democrats by 54-34 percent according to Gallup. And for the first time in several generations, the economic debate may include not only growth but also distribution. Static median income over the Bush years combined with winner-take-all increases in wealth by the top 1 percent have not gone unnoticed. A Pew Poll in 1988 found that by 71 to 25 percent, Americans thought themselves haves rather than have nots; by 2001, it was 48 to 48 percent. Any such data or arguments provoke Republicans to shout, class warfare. But this is blaming the mirror for the image. Can conservatives explain how ExxonMobil’s Lee Raymond earned more per hour in 2005 than his average employee earned per year? Intolerance: The GOP claiming to the party of Lincoln is a pretense long beyond its expiration date. During the Cold War, Republicans could successfully run against Reds and Blacks. Yet with the decline of Communism and the Southern Strategy, GOP strategists have instead turned to targeting terrorists, immigrants and gays. Hence all those terror alerts and anti-gay referenda in 2004, and strident anti-immigrant rhetoric in 2007. But can the GOP rely simply on white men to win, blowing off racial and other minorities in a country increasingly minority? Bush’s small gain in the black vote from 8% in 2000 to 11% in 2004, including a pivotal 16% in Ohio, helped cement his narrow victory. The recent refusal of leading Republican presidential candidates to attend key black, Latino and gay debates prodded former vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp to complain, We sound like we dont want immigration; we sound like we dont want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do
link
-ne
Update: Now it turns out Musharaff KNEW!Bhutto Says She Warned of Plotting Days Before AttackI heard SECURITY was LAX!And I laugh as the MSM tv news starts blaming… ta-da… Al-CIA-Duh!Even though Bhutto’s own people KNOW it was the I.S.I.!!!!GOVERNMENTS are the ones CARRYING OUT TERROR ATTACKS, folks!Bomb Attack Kills Scores in Pakistan as Bhutto Returns by CARLOTTA GALL and SALMAN MASOODKARACHI, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 19 — Two bombs exploded Thursday just seconds apart and feet from a truck carrying the returning opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, narrowly missing her but killing scores of people and bloodying her triumphal homecoming after eight years in exile.According to reports on local news stations late Friday morning, 134 people had been killed and about 400 wounded.Ms. Bhutto, who had spent eight hours on the open roof of the truck waving to supporters, had climbed inside the armored vehicle 10 minutes before the blasts occurred just before midnight, said Rehman Malik, her security adviser and close associate.She was immediately taken to Bilawal House, her home in Karachi. The parade through the city had been scheduled to end several miles away at the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.Ms. Bhutto’s arrival at 2 p.m. had drawn huge crowds, perhaps 200,000 or more, who danced on top of buses and surged forward as she inched her way for hours through her home city.The strong outpouring provided an emotional homecoming for Ms. Bhutto and political vindication of sorts for a woman twice turned out of office as prime minister, after being accused of corruption and mismanagement.It also demonstrated that she remained a potent political force in Pakistan, even after her long absence, and marked what supporters and opponents alike agreed was a new political chapter for the nation.The violence that quickly followed showed it to be a treacherous one as well.The explosions, caught on camera, gave off brilliant white flashes and set two cars ablaze. Survivors stumbled over bodies and debris in a haze of smoke. It was not immediately clear if the explosions were caused by suicide bombers, and there were no claims of responsibility.“I can only say that I saw heaps of bodies lying over there,” said her adviser, Mr. Malik. He was standing at the front of the truck and was knocked down by the force of the blast, he said. His hair was burned.“The damage could have been much worse had we not taken our own security arrangements,” he added.The government had promised before Ms. Bhutto’s arrival to provide security. It had also asked her to delay returning. But Ms. Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party had fielded 2,000 of its own workers to form rings around their returning leader, guarding her with their numbers and preventing any vehicles or people from approaching. [And CUI BONO, readers?]Before the explosions sundered the celebration, thousands of supporters and workers from her party had lined Ms. Bhutto’s route, waving banners and surging forward for a glimpse of the opposition leader. Many danced in the road.Ms. Bhutto waved as music pumped out from loudspeakers. The crowd was overwhelmingly working class. Many young men said they were unemployed, but had traveled hundreds of miles, paying their own way, and camping out overnight on the road to the airport to await her arrival.In the crowd, Raja Munir Ahmed, 42, a real estate agent, said he had come from Mirpur in the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir. “It was a journey of 1,500 kilometers, and all along we saw buses and cars carrying Peoples Party flags,” he said. “People want change. People want to get rid of inflation and unemployment.”Then he shouted, “Long live Bhutto!” and disappeared into the crowd.Such supporters were among the majority of those killed and wounded. But about 20 were also police and law enforcement officials, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said. Eight police vans were flanking the truck at the time and the explosions occurred on the left and right sides of the road, he said.He denied that it was a security lapse, saying that the crowds and length of the route made it difficult to ensure security. [So how come no one gets to Musharaff, huh?]Earlier, Ms. Bhutto was clearly emotional as she took her first steps on Pakistani soil, having lived the last eight years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai. She left Pakistan to escape corruption charges she contends were politically motivated.She climbed down a metal staircase to reach the tarmac, and paused on the bottom step and prayed as friends held a Koran aloft. As an aide embraced her, Ms. Bhutto wiped tears from her eyes.“The most important step — to be back on Pakistani soil,” she said, as cameramen swarmed around her.On the plane from Dubai, supporters broke into repeated cheers and chanting of “Prime Minister Benazir,” standing in the aisles and delaying the flight for nearly an hour. Ms. Bhutto walked through the cabin to greet supporters and the news media.“Very excited, very happy, very proud, a tremendous sense of responsibility as there are so many people at the airport,” she said when asked how she felt.In words that later seemed prescient, she spoke strongly about terrorism and the need to save Pakistan from extremism. “The time has come for democracy,” she said. “If we want to save Pakistan, we have to have democracy.”She has been outspoken against militants and Al Qaeda and repeated the same comments as she flew in. “The terrorists are trying to take over my country and we have to stop them,” she said.Ms. Bhutto had made clear repeatedly that she was returning to Pakistan to lead her party in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January. If she can win a change in the law, she will run for prime minister for a third time, something now legally barred.“The people are telling me the bread-and-butter issues are the most important,” she said. “They are saying that poverty has increased, the gulf between the rich and poor has increased. They say that people want change. They want a government that listens to them, will respect them, and will address the people’s issues.”Senior members of the party traveling with Ms. Bhutto said the turnout made it clear the people wanted change after eight years of military rule.“It is unprecedented,” said Aftar Rana, a senior party member from Punjab Province, looking down at the crowd. “I think we will sweep the elections. People have come from everywhere.”The opposition leader’s return was made possible after months of back-channel negotiations with Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, over a way for the two leaders to share power as Pakistan makes a transition from a military government.Ms. Bhutto’s party did not join other opposition parties this month in boycotting presidential elections by the national and provincial assemblies. The move allowed General Musharraf to successfully engineer his re-election, though he still faces legal challenges in the Supreme Court over his eligibility.For his part, General Musharraf issued an amnesty for Ms. Bhutto and others accused of corruption in recent years, and he agreed to resign his post as chief of the army staff and serve his next term as a civilian.But the bombing upon Ms. Bhutto’s arrival made it clear that, deal or no deal, the country’s politics remained exceedingly tense, and dangerous. The explosions now seem certain to add fresh venom to relations between the Pakistan Peoples Party and the government.General Musharraf, according to a statement released by state media, condemned the attack “in the strongest possible words,” calling it “a conspiracy against democracy.[And a casus belli for EMERGENCY RULE, eh, General?]The Bush administration, which has backed General Musharraf, noted his condemnation of the attack, as the State Department issued a statement saying, “Those responsible seek only to foster fear and limit freedom.”Nonetheless, Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who did not make the return to Pakistan with his wife, immediately pointed a finger at the government and said the Pakistan Peoples Party would have to rethink its understanding with the government.He said the government felt threatened by the power of Ms. Bhutto and suggested that the intelligence agencies were behind the blasts.“I blame the government,” he said in an interview with Geo, an independent television news channel, from his home in Dubai. “The intelligence agencies are spreading terrorism,” he said. “Those who are sitting in the government feel threatened by us.”Ms. Bhutto earlier said in the interview atop the truck that she was concerned about her security and that she had told General Musharraf that she suspected people in his administration and the security forces of supporting the militants and terrorism.“This is not the same Pakistan it was in 1996 when my government was overthrown,” she said. “The militants have risen in power. But I know who these people are, I know the forces behind them, and I have written to General Musharraf about this. And I’ve told him there are certain people I suspect in the administration and security.“Unless there is some thought given to that, this is what emboldens the militants,” she said. “They’ve got some covert support from sympathizers within the system.”And it is all the U.S. fault, too!Awwww, you go to far you say, reader?Well, READ THIS editorial:The Return of Benazir Bhutto New York Times October 19, 2007It
link
(more…)
DVDAbout the AuthorBritt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a movie and television review blog where you can find more reviews just like this one.