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Que crise é essa?

Raul Marinho — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:03:06 +0000

Nestes momentos de crise, todo mundo está falando de 1929 e a grande depressão dos anos 1930. Mas parece que o paralelo mais adequado seja a crise de 1873, que começou com problemas no mercado hipotecário, e depois se alastrou para os bancos. Infelizmente, não encontrei (ainda) nenhum artigo decente em português sobre ela na web. Para os versados no idioma de Shakespeare, recomendo este artigo do professor de História do William & Mary College (EUA), Scott Reynolds Nelson.

(Estive no William & Mary no ano passado para o congresso anual do HBES-Human Behaviour and Evolution Society. Trata-se da segunda mais antiga universidade estadunidense [a 1a. é Harvard], e uma belíssima construção, na não menos bela Williamsburg [Virgínia], uma espécie de Ouro Preto dos gringos).

FRANK MARSALL DAVIS COMMUNIST AND MENTOR OF BARACK OBAMA

digitalartpress — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:56:13 +0000

Frank Marshall Davis: Who Am I?

"[A] Poet Named Frank Who Lived In A Dilapidated House In A Run-Down Section Of Waikiki. He Had Enjoyed Some Modest Notoriety Once, Was A Contemporary Of Richard Wright And Langston Hughes During His Years In Chicago…." (Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, 1995, p. 76)

"Frank,' You See, Was None Other Than Frank Marshall Davis - A Notorious Member Of The Communist Party…'" (Carter L. Clews, Op-Ed, "Identity Thrall," The Washington Times, 7/30/08)

Facts About Me and Barack

"Takara Has Written Extensively About A Nearly Forgotten Historical Figure, Frank Marshall Davis, A Black Poet, Newspaper Columnist And Labor Activist, Who Moved To The Islands In 1948. In The '70s, A By-Then-Elderly Davis Was A Friend Of Barack Obama's Grandfather And Would Proffer Advice To A Young Barry, As He Was Called Then." (John Heckathorn, "What The Heck?" Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 6/29/08)

What Barack Says About Me

Obama: "What had Frank called college? An advanced degree in compromise." (Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father, 1995, p. 97)

This from a Newsweek article by Jon Mecham;

"As he had grown older, Obama had struggled to see himself as a black man, though his experience was far from that of the typical African-American. Hawaii helped; there, his grandfather had introduced him to one of the most intriguing mentors of his youth, Frank Marshall Davis. Davis had been a leading black activist and writer of the 1930s and 1940s—a contemporary and friend of Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson. Davis grew up in Kansas, where he was nearly lynched by a group of schoolchildren at the age of 5. He took up a career as a journalist and poet with a strong voice for racial justice, working in Chicago before moving to Hawaii with his second wife, who was white. His political activism, especially his writings on civil-rights and labor issues, prompted a McCarthyite denunciation by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Davis was an eccentric but engaging figure by the time Obama met him in the 1970s. "I was intrigued by old Frank, with his books and whiskey breath and the hint of hard-earned knowledge behind the hooded eyes," wrote Obama. It was around this time that Obama started his own course of reading black literature—Wright, Hughes, Du Bois and Baldwin. "It was almost as if Obama had wandered into a museum," says Dr. Kathryn Takara, a Hawaii-based political scientist who first met Davis at the same time and is now writing a biography of the poet-activist. "It was an electrically charged intellectual atmosphere, with culture all around. There was always music and news, and the TV was never off. The house was full of books and records, old albums and old furniture. He had a porch that was almost on the sidewalk and you could sit out there and hear the jazz from the living room. People would walk up and he invited conversation. There was always something going on." It was Davis who delivered one of the most enduring lessons of Obama's teenage years. After his grandparents argued about a black panhandler who scared his grandmother, Obama visited the poet, shared some whiskey, and recounted the story. When Davis told him his grandmother was right to be scared, that "black people have a reason to hate," Obama realized how distant he was from his closest family. "The earth shook under my feet, ready to crack open at any moment," he wrote. "I stopped, trying to steady myself, and knew for the first time that I was utterly alone."

"The story of the rest of his life—a story that is, obviously, still unfolding—is how Obama, now necessarily self-sufficient and wary, always surrounded himself with those with whom he felt secure—though he knew, and knows, that any one of those people might eventually disappoint him. In Chicago he found his way to the Trinity United Church of Christ, and to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. When Wright's "God Damn America" clips emerged earlier this year, Obama's friend Jim Wallis sent him a note of condolence. Late one night, Wallis received an e-mail in reply, something like: "God has his purposes." "I was quite astounded," says Wallis, the left-leaning evangelical writer, activist and founder of Sojourners. "Here's a 46-year-old, which for me at 59 seems young, and he says something like that. This is not what politicians think and do. Politicians want always to be predictive and controlling."

"Obama's reply to Wallis reflected a kind of Lincoln-esque fatalism. It is a sad but inescapable fact of life that people—in Obama's case, people close to you—often fail you. Wright, obviously, was far from the first man to disappoint Obama.

"Dwight Hopkins, a professor of theology at the University of Chicago and a member of Trinity, believes that Obama was drawn to Wright as a father figure. If Trinity was the large, extended family Obama never had—"people are walking around talking, shaking hands, saying, 'How's your child?', 'How's the cancer?' " Hopkins says—then Wright was the paterfamilias."

"Much has been written about the "Africentrism" of Trinity: the African-American Last Supper that hangs in the church lobby and the kente cloth that drapes its altar. But Wright's ideas about Africa were more than decorative. Wright taught that African- Americans should be proud of their African heritage, of the stories of slavery and freedom handed down by their grandparents and great-grandparents. He also preached that people should feel a financial and social responsibility to their brothers and sisters in Africa, especially those without food and water, those with chronic or incurable disease, those without any education.

"There were other churches Obama could have joined when he moved to Chicago after law school. The Rev. James Meeks runs the Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, 10 blocks away from Trinity—another huge African-American church on the South Side where the Rev. Jesse Jackson has made frequent appearances. But no other Chicago church would have given Obama such a strong connection to Africa. "Here's what Meeks can't offer," says Wallis. "Barack has an African father and I'm speculating that the connection to Africa might have appealed to him."

"In an interview with NEWSWEEK's Lisa Miller, Obama characterized his relationship with Wright this way: "He was my pastor. And he was a friend." He disputes the characterization of "spiritual adviser": "I cannot recall a time where he and I sat down and talked about theology or we had long discussions about my faith. If I met with him, it was after church to have chicken with the family and we would have talked stories about the family. But he certainly strengthened my faith."

"How close were they, really? The Rev. Obery Hendricks, a good friend of Wright's, says the two men were not that intimate. "He wasn't buddies with him," says Hendricks, author of "The Politics of Jesus" and a professor at New York Theological Seminary. "[Wright] has some close people, and Obama wasn't one of them."

"The Rev. Stephen Gray is the conference minister of the Indiana-Kentucky conference for the United Church of Christ. In meetings with Wright when Obama was in the Senate, Gray twice recalls Wright's leaving the room to take a call on his cell phone from Obama. "All I can tell you is there was a big smile on Jeremiah's face as he ended those conversations," Gray remembers. " 'That was our senator,' he said. We asked him, 'What kind of a fellow is he?' 'Well, I trained him. He's a pretty good fella'."

"That anecdote foreshadowed the grandiosity that led to Wright's fall from grace with Obama during the presidential campaign, when the minister went to the National Press Club in the wake of the release of clips of controversial sermons. At the Washington luncheon, Wright treated the media to a racially charged stemwinder in which he defended some of his most controversial statements. Obama had tried to stand by Wright, initially refusing to repudiate him, but the National Press Club was too much.

"The origins of the clash are generational. "Their racial politics are very different," says Hendricks. "Barack, because of his experience, didn't have the same perspective, the same level of resentment as so many in Jeremiah's generation. And so Jeremiah comes from another era, closer to my own, when segregation was still the law of the land. He still carries that, his outrage at those injustices. Barack, of course, is sensitive to that, but he did not experience it."

"Wright's friends talk about how difficult things have been since Obama's repudiation. "One of the pains is—remember, Barack grew up without a father," Hendricks adds. "To jettison your pastor, it's like being abandoned all over again." But there is a lesson here for those who underestimate Obama. He tried to save Wright, standing by him until it became untenable. And when he struck, he struck, and the turbulent pastor was cast out.

"In his earlier days in Chicago politics and in the legislature in Springfield, some people thought Obama talked a bit too much about his Harvard Law degree. But Harvard is essential to understanding Obama. "From what he had learned about his dad, he was overidealistic, not practical, and that ended up in his not achieving anything effectively," says Jerry Kellman, Obama's community-organizing boss in Chicago. "Law school was a means to a kind of security. He spoke of it [his decision to apply to law school] in terms of what it meant in terms of him being effective."

"It was not just law school that Obama was interested in—it was Harvard Law School. "If he was going to go to law school, he was going to go to the best law school," says Kellman. "It was very utilitarian: 'If I'm going to do this, this is where I'm going to form the right relationships'." That he was matching his father—and, by winning the Law Review presidency, surpassing him—is in keeping with the arc of Obama's life. He knew what he wanted: political stardom, not highbrow legal celebrity. Shortly after the Law Review election, David Wilkins, one of his professors, told him that he would be happy to talk about which Supreme Court justice Obama would like to clerk for. "He said to me, 'Professor Wilkins, thank you, but I'm not very interested'," Wilkins remembers. "And he said something like, 'I'm going to use these 15 minutes of fame to get a book contract' … and then he said, 'I'm going to go back to Chicago, continue the work I was doing beforehand, and then I want to run for elected office'."

Time for the people to stand up to the marxist movement taking place in our country. This has been on slow burn since the sixties and now the activist from that time have moved into "respectable positions" in order to take the power away for our Constitution.

Obamagram: We've Been Palling Around with Bill Ayers

goneshiny — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:13:50 +0000

The following is an open letter from Charles Lewis of Coach House Capital proudly proclaiming his own Bill Ayers connections and putting the record straight regarding Barack Obama's.

Hello everyone,

My wife, Penny Sebring, and I have confessions to make. We've been "palling around" with that 1960's radical from Chicago – Bill Ayers – for years.

Think of it – Penny, my petite, demure, Peace Corps, Northwestern PhD, school-improvement expert, research professor at the University of Chicago, and Grinnell College trustee. And, me – 65 year-old, WASP, investment banker turned philanthropist, Amherst College and University of Chicago trustee, and would-be school reformer. Palling around with a terrorist!

Well, not exactly palling around – unless you use the McCain-Palin definition.

And, we aren't alone. It turns out that a large swath of the Chicago and Illinois establishments have been palling around with him, too.

CEO's, university presidents, Republicans, Democrats, foundation heads, public school leaders, wealthy philanthropists, and the Mayor – all palling around with Bill Ayers.

Penny has been deeply involved in the public school reform movement in Chicago for 20 years, and I have been, too, for several years. So has Bill Ayers. Since that work is central to McCain's latest attacks, I know first hand how distorted his claims are and want to tell you why.

Barack's principal "association" with Ayers was through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). In the 1990's, philanthropist Walter Annenberg's foundation gave $500 million to public school reform initiatives across the country. Most of this gift went to urban districts. Chicago's grant totaled $49.2 million. A temporary organization was created to receive and disperse those funds for the benefit of about 210 Chicago public schools; it existed from 1995 to 2001.

The truth is that Barack's highly-tangential connections to Ayers actually provide insights into Barack's "character" that are diametrically opposed to those insinuated by McCain-Palin. Over 15 years ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School, Barack was actually starting to pal around with the establishment – not a 1960's radical.

Anything but radical, Barack's volunteer leadership of CAC – this short-lived not-for-profit endeavor – is actually proof that:

Establishment leaders in Illinois recognized that Barack was an exceptional talent and embraced him as one of their own when he was only in his early 30's, Barack has had a commitment to public school reform in Illinois for a very long time, and He continued to work for the people of Chicago – in this and other cases, for free – after returning from law school.

When I first began writing Obamagrams almost 20 months ago, I started by telling you that I first met Barack over 5 years ago – at a meeting of the Chicago Public Education Fund. The Fund, in turn, was an outgrowth of the Annenberg Challenge. It was also about that time that I went to a totally unrelated gathering at Bill Ayer's house.

So, by McCain-Palin's circular reasoning, I've been palling around with Bill Ayers, too. More on that later.

The centerpiece of the McCain-Palin attempts to "Swift Boat" Barack is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge board. Take a look at that august board – hard to find any radicals here.

At its founding in 1995:

Barack Obama – founding Chairman and President of the CAC; civil rights attorney; lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School; already a member of the Board of Directors of the Joyce Foundation (3rd-largest foundation in Illinois); Harvard Law School, 1991; former President of the Harvard Law Review.

Patricia Graham – founding Vice Chairman of the CAC; President of the Spencer Foundation (5th largest foundation in Illinois); Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (first female dean at Harvard University).

Susan Crown – civic leader; member of one of Chicago's most prominent and wealthiest business and philanthropic families; her brother, Jim, now co-chairs Barack's Illinois Finance Committee and is Chair of the University of Chicago's Board of Trustees.

Stanley Ikenberry – President of the University of Illinois; member of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago (the leading business and civic organization in Chicago whose members include all of the CEO's of the area's largest corporations.) Handy Lindsey – Executive Director of the Field Foundation of Illinois (originally established by the Marshall Field family).

Ray Romero – Vice President and General Counsel of Ameritech.

Arnold Weber – President of the Civic Committee; former President of Northwestern University and the University of Colorado.

Wanda White – former Deputy Commissioner of Economic Development under Chicago Mayors Washington, Sawyer and Daley.

At the end of its existence in 2000:

Barack Obama – Chairman.

Patricia Graham – Vice Chairman.

Edward Bottum – former President and Vice Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank (one of the 10 largest banks in the U.S. at that time).

Victoria Chou – Dean of the College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Connie Evans – Founder and President of the Women's Self-Employment Project.

John McCarter – President and CEO of the Field Museum (one of the largest in Illinois).

Susan Noyes – former attorney at Sidley & Austin (one of Chicago's most prestigious law firms – Michelle and Barack met while working there); a member of the Eli Lilly family.

Jim Reynolds – Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Loop Capital Services; now on the Lyric Opera and University of Chicago Hospital boards, among others.

Nancy Searle – philanthropist; member of the wealthy G.D. Searle & Company (a major drug company) family (Donald Rumsfeld was once its CEO).

Scott Smith – President, CEO and Publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

Bill Ayers never sat on the Annenberg Challenge board.

The presidents of 3 of the 5 largest foundations in Illinois were instrumental in getting the Annenberg grant and forming the CAC board.

Adele Simmons – President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the largest in Illinois and the 9th largest in the U.S.; former President of Hampshire College; god-daughter of Adlai Stevenson.

Deborah Leff – President of the Joyce Foundation.

Patricia Graham (see above).

Penny and I, like Barack, believe that Ayers' acts 40 years ago were detestable. He has worked on school reform in Chicago for over 20 years.

Ayers was at the time of the CAC and is still a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago with a doctorate from Columbia University. He is a former Assistant Deputy Mayor for Education for the City of Chicago. He was even named Chicago Citizen of the Year in 1997 during the term of the Annenberg Challenge.

His father was socially conscious and a major figure in Chicago's business and civic community for three decades as Chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison (Chicago's largest utility); he was a Vice President of the Chicago School Board in the 1980's.

Ayers was one of 3 authors of the proposal to the Annenberg Foundation which sought the CAC grant. The other two were:

Anne Hallett – former Executive Director of the Wieboldt Foundation.

Warren Chapman – Senior Program Officer for Education at the Joyce Foundation; former Vice President and National Philanthropic Advisor, JP Morgan-Chase; and currently a Vice Chancellor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Here's where Penny's "association" starts. As part of the proposal, the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago (which she had co-founded) was named to evaluate the project, and she was one of the 2 people identified by name as representing CCSR.

CCSR has a national reputation for the high quality of the research it conducts on the performance of Chicago public schools. It is now part of the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute, which has become the focus of a vast amount of Penny's and my time and philanthropic resources.

John Ayers (Bill's brother), Victoria Chou (the CAC board member), and Anne Hallett (the CAC proposal co-author) served on CCSR's steering committee.

In August 2003, CCSR published a 251-page Final Technical Report on Annenberg (cover attached.) The report concluded "the Challenge had little impact on student outcomes." One of the primary reasons for this was that there were "too few resources for too many schools"

(less than $250,000 per school). There is little evidence that Annenberg "pushed for radicalism in schools" as the headline for an irresponsible op-ed in the Wall Street Journal had it. In fact, Mayor Daley took control of the Chicago public schools starting in1995, the same year the CAC started to distribute the Annenberg grant.

After the grant was received, Ayers and Chapman (from the Joyce

Foundation) served as co-chairs of the 23-member affiliated group, Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which represented a large cross section of organizations and made recommendations to the CAC board on how the money should be used.

After it appeared that the Annenberg grant would be received, Patricia Graham, the Spencer Foundation head and Harvard dean, was empowered to recruit Barack to serve as board chairman. He was already a member of the Joyce Foundation board and was recommended by Deborah Leff, the Joyce Foundation President, among others. Ayers had no involvement in the CAC board formation process.

Suffice it to say, the Annenberg effort was led and embraced by the Chicago – and Illinois – business, civic and philanthropic elite. It is patently absurd to suggest that the CAC board – or the manner in which it distributed the Annenberg grant – was radical in any way.

As the CAC was winding up its activities, it used $2 million of its grant to seed a successor organization – the Chicago Public Education Fund. Its Founding Chairman was Scott Smith of the Chicago Tribune who had also been a CAC board member; Penny is also a member of the equally prestigious Fund board.

Barack and I are both long-time members of the Fund's Leadership Council. As mentioned earlier, that is where I first met him – at a meeting of the Council in 2003.

My first "association" with Bill Ayers was about 5 years ago when he hosted in his home a going-away party for Tony Bryk, the University of Chicago professor with whom Penny partnered to found CCSR. All manner of Chicago school leaders were there, as I recall.

And, about 3 weeks ago, Penny returned to Ayer's house to pal around some more – this time celebrating the publication of a new book on school reform.

The point of all of this is simple.

Barack was asked to volunteer his time to lead a large group of Chicago notables in distributing a philanthropic grant to Chicago public schools. Bill Ayers was involved in that effort, along with dozens of others, including Penny. If that constitutes "palling around with a 1960's radical", all of us are guilty. Including me.

Barack's other "association" with Ayers was the Woods Funds of Chicago. This is a low-profile foundation which makes grants of less than $4 million annually. Its goal is to "increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities" in the Chicago area. One of its priorities is to support "community organizing." In fact, it funded some of Barack's work before he left for Harvard and before he became aboard member. Its 8-member board is currently chaired by a DePaul University professor. In 2001, Barack and Bill Ayres served on the board along with Cynthia Campbell, the President of the McCormick Theological Seminary and Eden Martin, a partner at Sidley & Austin and President of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club (the CEO-dominated organization I described earlier.) Once again, Barack was associating with Bill Ayers in the company of the Chicago establishment – and funding the very same "community organizing" that Sarah Palin has chosen to mock.

It seems like it is time, in the waning days of this campaign, for McCain-Palin to return to discussing serious issues – like the crisis in the credit markets – and drop its efforts to demean Barack – and derivatively Penny and me – in frivolous and distorted ways.

As I have said repeatedly, we need an Obama presidency because of his

3 main qualities – intellect, temperament and worldview. The editors of the New Yorker have said it better than I can (see attachment).

To resort to an overused metaphor, we are now on the one-yard line.

We must muster all of our remaining resources – intellectual, physical and financial – to get in to the end zone. I exhort you to help in any and every way you can. Only 21 days to go.

Please pass it on.

Chuck

Charles A. Lewis

Managing General Partner

Coach House Capital

Harvard Student Survey: Obama wins

harvardhooligans — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:33:59 +0000

[polldaddy poll=999589]

Harvard Class Notes

harvardhooligans — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:23:58 +0000

This video identifies a longstanding problem in the Harvard academic community.

From the Mouth of a Scholar

greenje — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:08:47 +0000

I was extremely priveledged to attend a lecture on Grand Valley State University's Pew campus by Stephen Greenblatt. If you don't know who he is, he has written "Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare" and is a pioneer of New Historicism.

I was really interested in this speaker coming to Grand Valley for a few reasons:

1)    I loved the Shakespeare festival speaker last year
2)    I am extremely interested in Stephen Greenblatt’s vast amount of work
3)    I am an ivy league addict—it is a dream of mine to attend Harvard, Yale or MIT
4)    It isn’t your typical Shakespeare topic
So I was very interested in Greenblatt’s work at Harvard and his new book. Going in to the lecture I was excited to hear about his latest endeavor revolving around the lost Shakespeare play.

At first, I was extremely confused while the speaker was giving some background information on cultural mobility. He was using words that I assume are from the Latin language. I was unable to keep up with what he was saying since he was moving so quickly through the background information. For about 15 or 20 minutes I struggled to keep up with his power point presentation.

However, as soon as he passed through the background information I was able to again understand and become interested in his lecture. I won’t go in to extreme detail of his speech but he was discussing the idea of the lost play of Shakespeare. He gave a little history on Cardenio, what is possibly a play by Shakespeare that was never published. He went over the general plot as well as how it was founded. If you are interested in becoming familiar with the background of Cardenio follow this link.

The next part of Stephen Greenblatt’s lecture is the part that I find most relatable to teaching. In discussing cultural mobility I think on of the most important issues that comes to light is interpretation and diversity. In the public schools for certain, and probably some private schools, classrooms are filled with children from different cultures, races and ethnicity. As Greenblatt points out, our diversity in the world leads to different stereotypes and different views of the world. We all see the world from separate eyes, but our culture, society and family shape how we view our surroundings.

By exploring how one story is interpreted in many languages and cultures, we as educators are better able to see that different interpretations cannot be wrong. When reading if one student believes ina different meaning than the rest of the class, are they wrong? I would say no. I think a lot of us would. But if we look at cultural mobility, maybe it is more important to explore less "popular" or less "accepted" ideas. Instead of telling our students that what the mainstream says is correct is right, let's let them tell us. We should listen and allow them to feel free to explore different thought. We should allow others to critique them and give student's the opportunites to defend their beliefs. We should not shut a student's idea down because it is new or different.

I think that this is the biggest concept that I took away from Greenblatt's lecture. I want to listen to my students but moreso, I want my students to explore a lot of different ideas and not only their own.

Feeling good in the credit crunch and bank bailout

Jo — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:20:50 +0000

Harvard on the credit crunch and bank bailout

Two weeks ago or so, Harvard staged a panel discussion on the "credit crunch" and the "bank bailout". SocialMediaToday have video which is longish (1:36) but worth watching.

Many people will not watch the video fearing they will not understand it or because they think, so what - I can't influence the politicians anyway.

First, the video is accessible.

Harvard professors are where they are because they are informed and communicate clearly. They are refreshingly clear about how the mess developed and what might be done about it. I found I developed a clear idea of the discussions I want to take place and the parts of the system I would be happy to see disappear.

Second, understanding leads to a sense of control.

When all is said and done, happy people exercise control. By understanding what can and cannot be done, we figure out where to act and then we act. Not understanding makes us feel anxious. Saying "I cannot influence politicians" is "learned helplessness". It makes us feel awful!

Happiness is taking part

I am certainly going to trot down to the pub to meet my local politician on his rounds and ask him clearly what he will be doing. I have a rough idea of the questions I will ask and I will watch the video again so I can summarize my ideas and keep it short. Nonetheless, I'd better be prepared to buy him a stiff whisky!

Once I start the conversation in the village in which I live, I am sure I will be educated further not only about what can and cannot be done, but also about other people's hopes and fears.

Thereafter I hope we move to a positive consideration of what are we going to do about the impending changes in our lives. I don't want just to hunker down and hold my breath. I want to be part of a conversation which looks at ways of taking the community to a better place for everyone - a place where we thrive in the increasingly competitive global knowledge economy. I'll let you know if I gain any insights.

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

More Thoughts on Obama

Ken — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:15:03 +0000

Barack Obama's campaign claims he has a genius level IQ. The problem I have with this is I can't find any truth to it. None.

I search and search and search. Nothing but blog talk and speculation. Nothing substantive.

At this point I'd be happy with his campaign releasing a few things.

That may be asking too much because if Obama's scores aren't high, then it's plausible, and likely, he got into Harvard because of Affirmative Action. Wouldn't that be a real kick in the ass?!

Maybe that's why he worked so hard for "Minority Rights".

I don't know, but being President of the Harvard Law Review is a pretty big deal and the Obama people aren't talking. No admissions test scores, no articles for peer review, nothing.

The only thing out there that gives us any indication of anything with regards to school is that he graduated from Columbia with a Political Science major, but without honors. That means his scores weren't high enough to get into Harvard without some help of some kind.

That donkey is getting ready to kick! Must have been AA. Or maybe it was his muslim friends as reported here in World Net Daily :

Obama had something else going for him. As I previously reported, this information came to light last week courtesy of a newly surfaced DVD that features an interview with Percy Sutton on the New York-based "Inside City Hall."

A Manhattan borough president for 12 years and the most powerful black politician in New York state, Sutton spoke knowingly with host Dominic Carter about the Obama candidacy.

"I was introduced to [Obama] by a friend," Sutton told the interviewer. Sutton named the friend as "Dr. Khalid al-Mansour." Sutton described al-Mansour as "the principle adviser to one of the world's richest men." The billionaire in question is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

Knowing that Sutton had friends at Harvard, al-Mansour asked Sutton to "please write a letter in support of [Obama] ... a young man that has applied to Harvard."

Sutton gladly did so. Unclear in the interview is whether Sutton intervened to get Obama in to Harvard, to get him elected president of the Law Review, or both.

Khalid al-Mansouris a piece of work. Although impressively well connected, the Texas-born attorney and black separatist has not met the paranoid racial fantasy unworthy of his energy.

His many books include titles like "The Destruction of Western Civilization as Seen Through Islam" and "Will the West Rule Forever?"

The only reason to downplay his role at Harvard is because there are some hidden issues the Obama people don't want found. Hummm, what could they be?

Even the New York Times had to concede, Obama "declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years."

During Obama's time at Harvard the school was going through a crisis involving protests fueled by the firebrand Derrick Bell. Maybe that's why Obama got in and maybe that's why Obama got the Law Review job. The school was trying to appear fair across the board to shut down the protests. There's really no other reason.

And just one more thing, it's normal and expected for the president of the HLR to clerk at the US Supreme Court. He didn't.

This can easily be put to rest by such a super-mega-mind such as Obama. Just release his grades from Columbia and Harvard, including writting examples. And how about the names of some roommates?

That's all. Pretty simple if you ask me. Otherwise, I smell a huge scandal in the future.

Boston

smondschein — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:22:45 +0000

I spent a weekend in Boston to find an old friend from bygone days in Beijing, which was really just a few months ago, but it's a whole world away now. [gallery]

We were drenched in rain, but people were interesting and conversations were good. Some friends are at Harvard now, and I felt submerged in the quintessential ivy bubble I thought only existed in movies (the look and feel, preppy and with real ivy).

I met a professional ballroom dancer who's managed millions and some guy who sounded like he walked straight off the ESPN channel -- everything he talked about felt like he was calling a sweet football play (he could make eating a bowl of noodle soup sound like an exciting move). He did hedge funds in New York for three years before moving to San Francisco to work in a biotech company. I think that was his big, interesting move, that great cultural leap into a place where everyone hated him for trying to recreate Manhattan on the West Coast.

It took him six months to realize he had to change himself first. It's what my mom said about people moving to the Caribbean, where she grew up: you knew someone was finally adapting when they stopped trying to change the island and started trying to change themselves.

OBAMA IS NOT BLACK

fubarmedia — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:33:22 +0000

I knew this from day 1. Have not posted on it because I thought it would finally sink in to the American public. Well, it hasn't. America is so naive, and duped by the retarded liberal moonbat media.

How often do I feel this way: "It's truly scary to read these people and see they completely fail to grasp the idea that the law consists of definitions, or else you can't enforce the law. How else do you think you determine if an applicant for a set-aside qualifies if you don't have a legal definition of what it takes to meet the set-aside criteria?" -Kenneth E. Lamb

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/08/update-on-barak-obamas-and-everybody.html

**I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE DON'T GET THIS. ESPECIALLY THE REAL BLACK AMERICANS WHO ARE VOTING FOR OBAMA BECAUSE THEY THINK HE TOO IS BLACK, AND CARES/WILL DO SOMETHING FOR BLACK AMERICANS.**

OBAMA IS NOT "BLACK", HE IS NOT "AFRICAN-AMERICAN." HE IS BIOLOGICALLY ARAB-KENYAN ON HIS FATHER'S SIDE AND CAUCASIAN ON HIS MOTHER'S SIDE. HE IS HALF WHITE-AMERICAN; HALF ARAB-KENYAN.

"Arabs do not intermarry with African Negroes in Kenya, or anywhere else in Africa. And neither do African Negroes intermarry with Arabs. Your ignorance of the realities of the African continent is appalling.

Which brings up the New York Times-created legend of Barack Obama's great grandmother. The "black" Obama "great-grandmother" trotted out by the NY Times is his "step" great grandparent. She is therefore not in his bloodline. It's a point the Times didn't dwell upon, just as they didn't bother to go to his father's relatives in the capital and show off their Arab characteristics and family photos.

This brings up another point about the senator’s father. Please note that the Times ran into a serious problem describing his father's relationship with a woman in Kenya that existed when he married "Barry's" mother in Hawaii. It turns out that Mr. Obama was already married to the Kenyan (who was not African Negro either.). That makes Senator Obama the product of a bigamous marriage. And we all know what that means as far as the legality of the marriage and the legitimacy of the marriage's offspring.

I had to laugh watching them wordsmith the relationship with the Kenyan woman as "unclear" and end up calling her his "consort."

And what is the definition of a "consort?" According to the dictionary, it is a spouse. Leave it to the NY Times to be so conflicted about telling the truth about Sen. Obama's situation, that they resort to using their own "unclear" description to paper over it.

But just now, in reading over this post, it just occurred to me: I mentioned that illegitimate births do not have a father's name on the birth certificate. Is that the reason why Sen. Obama refuses to make his birth certificate public . . because he knows there is no father's name listed on the certificate?"

"Obama’s image of himself is built on lies"

"I must pause very briefly to note usage of the word Negro in what follows: In all academic studies of race, the proper scientific word for the ethnic composition I discuss is Negro. For any who scream racist at its mention, I say take it up with the scientific community. It's not my word, it's theirs. I am using it in its proper scientific context.

Why is the fact that Mr. Obama is only 6.25% African Negro not reported?

Because to acknowledge it is to report this devastating truth about him: Mr. Obama is not legally African-American. It is impossible for him to be, in truth, America's first African-American president.

Federal law requires that to claim a minority status, you must be at least 1/8 of the descriptor, but for the sake of this article, I've converted it to a decimal fraction for easier comprehension. You must be at least 12.5% of the racial component you claim for minority status. Mr. Obama, claiming to be African-American, is half the legal threshold.

Again, to let it sink in: Mr. Obama is not legally African-American. It is impossible for him to be, in truth, America's first African-American president.

Yet claiming to be African-American is the soul and substance of his claim to fame. It is what he has used throughout his adult life to distinguish himself from other competitors. It is the ethnic identity he proclaims, and it is the ethnic identity he craves. Without it, he is just another mixed race Caucasian Arab with an African influence playing on his skin’s pigmentation.

But no matter what he craves, no matter what he has used to propel himself through life, no matter the racist presumption of seeing his skin and without question calling him black, the hard, cold, genetically inarguable reality remains: he is not an African-American.

Mr. Obama is 50% Caucasian, that from his mother. What those who want Mr. Obama to write history by becoming "America's first African-American president" ignore is that his father was ethnically Arabic, with only 1 relative ethnically African Negro - a maternal great-grandparent (Sen. Obama's great-great grandparent, thus the 6.25% ethnic contribution to the senator's ethnic composition.).

That means that Mr. Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side. He is 43.75% Arabic, and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side.

Put another way, his father could honestly claim African-American ethnic classification. He was the last generation able to do so.

Sen. Obama could honestly say, "My father was African-American." Racist presumptions led an Ivy League admissions committee, and lazy "newspapers of record" factcheckers, to presume that if his father is African-American, then Sen. Obama must be African-American also.

But it doesn't work that way. Racist presumptions coupled with sloppy vetting don't turn a lie into the truth.

Sen. Obama is one generation too far removed from the ethnic African Negro input to make the same claim as his father, Harvard's Admission's stamp of approval notwithstanding.

As you can see for yourself, Sen. Obama's African-American ethnic claim, when properly researched and documented, is a lie.

The question no one wants to answer - particularly Mr. Obama and his supporters, is, "Why do you think he has an Arabic name? Why does his father have an Arabic name? Why does every ancestor on his father's side have an Arabic name?"

The answer is obvious: They have Arabic names because his father's side of the family tree is Arabic.

Need proof? Research the Kenyan records for yourself. You will find that his father was officially classified as "Arab African" by the Kenyan government.

But in America's current political climate, that truth is heresy; that truth is "an inconvenient truth." It is the political equivalent in our time to what Galileo's scientific pronouncements were in his time: it is true, but nobody wants to know the truth because the lie is so much more comforting.

That is why detractors of this truth will do everything to denounce it, except submit to the discipline of actually researching it.

There's a reason for that: it proves he is not sufficiently Negro to earn classification under American law as an African-American.

For Sen. Obama, telling the truth means he will give up all the accolades about being the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, an accolade that relies on a sleight-of-hand in job titling that changed the name of the top job from Editor to President.

If stated in its absolute truth, Mr. Obama was the second person of color to run the Review. He was beat to the Review's top spot by a true African-American about 60 years before Mr. Obama showed up for classes.

Again, a very inconvenient truth.

That is devastating in itself. The further effect is that Mr. Obama would have to convince Americans still reeling from 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, that now is the time for America's first Arab-American president.

We all know what chance that has of succeeding.

Of course, that would only happen if Mr. Obama told the truth about his racial composition. To tell the truth means Mr. Obama will have to admit that which he has never been forced to admit before, even in the face of the massive lies of his autobiography: Mr. Obama's entire projection of who he is, and what he is, is a lie.

Mr. Obama would have to say to the world: "I am not what I've told you I am. I lied to you in my autobiography when I told you I am black. I lied to the Admission Committee at Harvard so I could get in. I lied to my constituents in Chicago so I could get elected to the State Senate. I lied to my constituents in Illinois so I could get elected to the US Senate. I lied to my supporters across America so I could be President.

"I have lied all during my life to play the race card, and use it, cynically, to advance myself by playing upon the racist presumption of Americans to accept, without question, that anyone of color is African-American. I lied to you, and you blindly accepted it, because of your own racist presumptions about color, and ethnic identity. I looked African-American, and your racist presumptions told you to believe it."

Even as you read this, the overwhelming majority of you will continue to believe it. Even as you know the truth, you will block the truth out of your mind, because you are bred to accept the racist presumption of color, and ethnic identity.

And so many of you reading this will create incredible mental gymnastics, telling yourself why the truth doesn't matter. You will lie to yourself because you want to believe the lie, and then curse the American body politic for being built on lies.

You will do this all while failing to tell yourself the truth that it is your lies, as much as any other lies, that are killing the body. You will commit the very action that you curse as the cause of America's demise, because you are jaded beyond recognizing in yourself the very same disease you so freely condemn in others.

Here is the truth about Mr. Obama's name, and his father's ancestors:

True Negro tribal members of western Kenya where his father was born have Christian names, not Arabic. His father's decision to name him with an Arabic name is a matter of his father establishing his ethnic identity in Africa - it is done deliberately to separate him from the African tribes. He may live among them, but he is not one of them. His father's message is that he is Arabic, not Negro.

Many will find these truths unsettling. I'm often asked, "But I thought his father was Kenyan. How could Mr. Obama not be African-American, how could his ethnic composition be so Arabic?"

The definitive clue to that answer is to look at his name, his father's name, and the names of all his ancestors on his father's side. They are all Arabic.

Researching his roots reveal that on his father's side, he is descended from Arab slave traders. They operated under an extended grant from Queen Victoria, who gave them the right to continue the slave trade in exchange for helping the British defeat the Madhi Army in southern Sudan and the Upper Nile region. Funny how circular is history; now the British again face the Madhi Army, albeit this time Shiite, not Sunni, as in nineteenth century Sudan.

But telling America's black community that while their ancestors were breaking the shackles of slavery, Mr. Obama's ancestors were placing those shackles upon their wrists would hardly play as an Oprah Winfrey best-seller.

Being the son of a poor Kenyan goat-herder plays much better than being the son of a highly placed Arab-African who operated at the top of the Kenyan government following his education at Columbia. You see, even the way he portrays his father is a lie.

We need to linger for a moment on Ms. Winfrey, and her support for Mr. Obama. A very serious problem arises with Ms. Winfrey because of her double-standards: Does everyone remember how she went ballistic when a person whose book she endorsed turned out to be dishonest about what he said about his life in his book?

Of course you do. She pulled the plug on him and forced him into a highly publicized "Mea Culpa" of near groveling for her forgiveness. She publicly humiliated him, and would actually twist-up into contorted faces, visibly hot with anger.

Why then does Ms. Winfrey operate with a double standard for Mr. Obama? She knows his so-called autobiography is replete with "composites" - an Orwellian word for fictional characters that never existed but in Mr. Obama's imagination, even though he addresses them in his autobiography as if they are real people. They aren't; they are lies.

So are his timelines, chopped up and rearranged for Mr. Obama's aggrandizement. And there are the complete lies about events he said specifically impacted his life - events that never occurred despite his writing that they did. They too are lies.

As I said, don’t take my word for it; read Mr. Cohen’s columns in the Washington Post for the details.

Why then does she not hold him to the same standards she held another author?

She doesn't say, but the possibility that the reason is race-based is fair to ask. What Mr. Obama did is far beyond what the other author did. Why then, public humiliation for one, but campaign whistle-stops for the other?

Ms. Winfrey needs to tell us why. Her integrity is on the line.

Mr. Obama has struggled all his life trying to prove that he is black enough to be called black.

The truth is that if Mr. Obama is elected, his primary ethnic composition is Caucasian, but of course, that carries no cachet.

So if we look at his next predominant ethnic component, Mr. Obama would be America's first Arab-American president. The truth is that his name says it all.

What amazes me more than anything else about Mr. Obama's heritage is the unwillingness of anyone in the journalism profession to want to know the truth. While all this is easily documentable, it is so radioactive that no one wants to be on the receiving end of the racist charges that will bombard whoever broaches the truth.

It is another example of how America's political system is further degenerating into fairy tales and lies. Torpedo boat attacks in Viet Nam, WMD's in Iraq, Sen. Obama is African-American; we shamelessly lie to ourselves to rationalize whatever we want to believe.

But I wrote this tonight because I'm tired of reading about "integrity" written by those who have none themselves. They know Mr. Obama's autobiography is filled with lies from start to finish, they know he lies about what his operatives do (the Apple advertisement knock-off against Hills immediately comes to mind), and for those who circulated my research, they know he is not legally black.

But for those longing for Camelot, for those who feel a good story trumps the truth, for those who are so jaded about others that they now live as those they profess to hate, for those who are terrorized by the racist attacks these truths bring, the integrity of Sen. Obama doesn't matter.

Because their own integrity doesn't matter to them either.

Why am I writing this? Maybe I just want a clear conscience, clear that the research I did didn’t get buried because the people who received it are afraid to tell the truth in the face of Sen. Obama’s frenzied celebrity status. I’ve been in the business since 1972 - 35 years - writing and researching for people like the NY Times, the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, The Jewish Information Network, so I know what it’s like on the newsroom floor right now. Nobody can dare speak against Sen. Obama without generating at least a flickering flame of doubt about his or her own sanity – not to mention the knee-jerk reaction that questioning him is indicative of some deep, dark, racist agenda spurring those questions on.

And truth? I ask as Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Who cares about truth? This is history; this is the first time ever in America – why let truth get in the way of chronicling history? (. . . I wrote facetiously.)

Maybe I just want to know that if he gets the presidency, he will get it honestly – if this is general knowledge, and he overcomes it. Maybe I’m just tired of presidents who lie to us; and in this case, I already know Mr. Obama will lie to us, just as he lied in his autobiography, and on so many other occasions documented by Mr. Cohen, by Michael Dobbs, the Washington Post’s factchecker, and so many others.

And maybe I’m tired of us lying to ourselves. Mr. Obama is what we’ve lied ourselves into believing he is.

Maybe by saying that I know he lied, and saying that we lied to ourselves, I will say after he is elected that nobody has any right to complain about him lying after he takes the oath of office, when everybody knew he lied about so many other things – when we lied to ourselves about so many other things, so very long before that.

PLEASE READ KENNETH E. LAMB'S BLOG: http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/

And you know, there's also the little matter of his supposed nose-job, too. Nose-job and hairplugs 08.

Obama's Family

fubarmedia — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:27:27 +0000

Very insightful article.

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77815

Bill Ayers (Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist Bomber, Communist Agitator and Mastermind) is Obama's papa, the one he never had. "Obama's" book Dreams of my Father, was quite possibly ghost-written BY Obama, according to analysis by Jack Cashill.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is Obama's beloved uncle (his words), who he "cannot disown."

Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist Bernadine Dorhn is Obama's replacement mother.

Obama's mom Stanley Ann Dunham (two muslim-marrying communist anthropologist) was Obama's mother. He, as a HARVARD-educated $$$ LAWYER, watched "helplessly" his mother struggling with her insurance as she died from crancer. (Apparently he was too busy getting a nose job and "organizing" a community)

Obama's maternal grandmother who lovingly raised him is thrown under the bus by Obama.

What is WRONG with this man?

The topic in the clip is Jeremiah Wright, hateful racist goddamming kkk america "pastor" and Obama's 20+ year support of (including tens of thousands of dollars in personal donations from Obama to Wright) and relationship with Wright and his "church." But somehow the snake Obama twists it around to throwing his white grandmother who has done so much for him, lovingly raising him, sending him to the best private school in Hawaii for example, under the bus. What a cowardly SNAKE.

I will update with more on Obama's "family," in a Hyde Park + Elite Muslim post.

The photo is of Bill Ayers, desecrating the US flag, in a 9/11 article in the NYT saying he regrets not doing enough, when asked about the domestic terrorist bombings of his group the Weather Underground.

Visiting the brother in Boston

Isaac Lane Koval — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:19:07 +0000

Over the weekend I visited my younger brother, Nathan, in Boston where he's a freshman at Emerson College. It's been awhile since I've been in Boston and it was a lot different than I remember it. After living in NYC for about a month now Boston seems so much more laid back. On Saturday Nathan and I went to Harvard to do a short photo shoot for my stock photography. While we were at Harvard it seemed like there were more tourists than actual college students.

Dinner and a Movie Night

harvardhooligans — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:00:52 +0000

Because Harvard students generally prefer to spend their evenings reading alone than having sex with a partner, Harvard’s College Events Board (CEB) attempted to galvanize the school’s dating scene by hosting "Dinner and a Movie Night" on Thursday. After years of girls complaining about guys never taking them on dates, CEB tried to prod us into having some fun in order to improve senior survey results.

The school offered “comp tickets” to Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and 15% discounts to Harvard Square’s plushest restaurants including Harvest and Upstairs on the Square (which nevertheless remained $80 beyond my college budget).

Being a thoughtful and loving guy, I tried to invite some girls to go with me. They claimed to have “too much reading to do” and so I decided to take Housewife instead.

Because I didn’t intend to splurge any money whatsoever on Housewife, I told him we’d skip the dinner part and go straight to the free movie part.

Housewife, who is Jewish, had spent the previous 24 hours fasting for Yom Kippur so he was even moodier than usual. But at least he looked more attractive after starving himself. Housewife had lost a good four pounds. But I’d rather have a happy Housewife than a skinny one, so I purchased him some popcorn.

He ate the whole damn $8 bag in less than 2.943 minutes. I got stuck with the kernel crap at the bottom.

The movie was even worse than the kernel crap. It’s about a skinny dude named Nick who is dumb enough to separately drive his own crappy yellow car into New York City. Nevertheless, he gets hit on by two chicks. One of them even does a striptease on the hood of his jalopy. Being the great guy that he is, Nick abandons this girl mid-striptease to die in a NY parking-lot.

When the credits rolled, Housewife and I felt lonelier than ever before. Thanks for such a fun night, CEB.

Mutu pendidikan menjunam, TNC hanya tahu mengampu PM

ajid — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:44:59 +0000

Mutu pendidikan negara menjunam teruk di mata dunia akibat pemerintah hanya mampu lantik Timbalan Naib Canselor yang hanya tahu mengampu Perdana Menteri dan pandai buat sajak sahaja.

Ketua Pembangkang, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim (KeADILan-Permatang Pauh) menegaskan implikasi tersebut adalah akibat kegagalan kerajaan Umno-BN yang masih mengamalkan pengurusan pendidikan secara tidak profesional.

"Sekarang ini negara kita berada dalam keadaan sangat lemah apabila kedudukan universiti kita juga berada di bawah paras 200 pada ranking kedudukan universiti dunia terbaik," katanya semasa membahaskan Belanjawan 2009 pada sidang dewan Rakyat semalam.

Tambahnya, kedudukan universiti di Beijing, Singapura malah di Chulalongkorn, Thailand juga kini telah mengatasi universiti-universiti di Malaysia.

"Hal ini adalah tidak lain kerana kerajaan melantik timbalan Naib Canselor yang pandai mengampu Perdana Menteri hanya dengan membuat sajak, bukan kerana kepakaran dan kemampuan mengurus tadbir bagi meningkatkan mutu institusi pendidikan tersebut," katanya lagi.

Pada masa yang sama, beliau turut menjawab soalan yang dibangkitkan oleh Salahudin Ayub (PAS-Kubang Kerian) yang menyatakan mengenai sikap yang diambil oleh kerajaan terhadap mahasiswa dan pensyarah di universiti.

"Kita lihat apabila Rasulullah berdoa supaya menyempurnakan adab itu dengan ilmu dan kemahiran, tetapi bagaimana hendak mencapai kesemua itu jika golongan cendekiawan dan pelajar ini dikongkong pembacaan, kenaikan pangkat disekat, - ini soal pendidikan anak-anak dihantar ke universiti yang berkualiti," ujarnya.

Jelasnya, sedangkan ia merupakan sikap yang mampu mengangkat falsafah uiversiti dengan kecekapan bagi menjana kecemerlangan rakyat.

"Tetapi tanpa semangat dan usaha yang bersungguh-sungguh bagaimana kesemua ini boleh dicapai?" katanya lagi.

Terdahulu, Salahudin menyatakan bahawa jika bangsa dan negara maju berbangga dengan universiti mereka, seperti Harvard, Tokyo, Oxford.

"Namun, bagaimana hendak meraih kecemerlangan sekiranya TNC, NC melayan pensyarah seperti guru tadika, melayan siswa seperti pelajar sekolah - ini secara tidak langsung menyekat perkembangan kreativiti mereka.

"Sudah masanya Auku, yang menghambat siswa tidak lagi disalahgunakan.

"Malah, pelajar di universiti kini tidak lagi diraikan, sebaliknya diugut, dan tidak hairanlah jika kita dengar ada maklumat yang menyatakan bahawa kerja TNC rampas laptop, kerja pensyarah rampas nota yang mana isi kandungannya pro pembangkang," tegasnya.

Ketua Umum KeADILan tersebut juga mengulangi beberapa kali mengenai tiada perbahasan yang boleh dibuat memandangkan fakta yang dikemukakan sekarang ini sudah tidak relevan.

++harakah

The Wisdom of Warren Buffett

ebmeyer6w — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:26:05 +0000

Some words of widsom from Warren Buffett via the Harvard Business Review. Well worth reading.

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/taylor/2008/10/wisdom_of_warren_buffet_on_imi.html.

in the streets I'm well known like the number man

Professor Coldheart — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:26:10 +0000

I went out drinking with coworkers on Friday - George, A.A., Z. and a handful of others. The notion of enjoying myself with the people I work with, especially outside the context of the office, still hasn't settled in my brain yet. We watched the Phillies knock one out against the Dodgers, then stuck around for a bit of the Sox game. A bearded guy played acoustic guitar during commercial breaks; George got his business card.

I needed a night of dancing to take the edge off the week, so I called an all-play at the Common Ground and a small crew answered: Mike P., Flannery and some friends of theirs. As it turned out, BC alumna Meghan W. and Marie C. also had a crew of their own present; a massive dance party quickly ensued. The BC kids were largely CCE vets, as well as one or two current CCE members. It's odd thinking of myself as some dimly known figure from the ancient days, which I am to anyone who cares. It's also odd that people born in 1986 can drink without legal hindrance, as some of those kids clearly were.

Saturday began the first in my series of constant rehearsals this week, as we all showed up at ImprovBoston to warble through some songs and run the show once. Don S., the show's typical director, poked his head in on several occasions to watch key songs and scenes. I spent about an hour afterward sifting through used clothes at the Garment District and the Davis Sq. Goodwill in search of a Halloween costume, with no luck. I may end up buying an old coat and a few cans of spray paint.

Jodi texted me an emergency request for carbs and Red Sox, so we rendezvoused at Joshua Tree. We eventually lost patience with the game night crowd - "Standing Room Townie," you might call it - and shifted to Orleans, where we caught up through the 9th inning with her friends Jeff and Armando. Jodi wolfed down most of a plate of chicken rigatoni, in preparation for her half-marathon on Sunday, but wouldn't finish her Guinness. She did not get to join the Clean Glass Club.

Did you know that the Hong Kong in Harvard Sq hosts more than just an unpredictable stand-up night on Sundays? That the upstairs turns into a trashy college-kid rave, complete with Top 40 songs, glow sticks and $4 Budweiser, on Saturday nights? Neither did I! What have I been doing all this time? I gave Jeff and Armando a ride there, then stuck around to dance with them and some of their friends for a bit. A shirtless guy in tuxedo pants waved an inflatable sledgehammer on stage while Harvard girls twirled neon bracelets and Limbo'd under pool noodles. At some point I lost patience and wandered back to my car.

I had been keeping myself up with the use of 5-Hour Energy Shots on Friday and Saturday night, since following beers with niacin megadoses can't be that bad for you. As a result, I started to crash pretty hard on Sunday afternoon, around hour five of the Gorefest dance rehearsal. Skipping breakfast probably didn't help. Or dinner the night before. Or eating that fudgy cupcake filled with peanut butter, but come on! Fudgy cupcake! Filled with peanut butter!

The entertaining conclusion: I missed the Davis Square stop on the subway ride home and had to turn around at Alewife and passed out for thirty brief minutes when I dragged my ass back to my apartment. Regaining consciousness, I somehow heated up a pizza in the oven without setting the building on fire and ate it, along with some garlic toast and cottage cheese, at a reasonable dinnertime hour. The nap and the dinner combined to give me a second wind around 11:30 PM, just about the time I wanted to go to bed.

I think I have some normal weekends on the calendar for November. Maybe later.

Legalizar la tortura, pero cuál

marioramosrios — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:47:51 +0000

¿Qué te dice el nombre de John Yoo? Puede que en principio nada, sin embargo es uno de los hombres más amenazados de los EEUU, tanto por terroristas como por los propios ciudadanos. Desde cualquier parte del planeta, a este abogado de 41 años, le llegan cartas amenazadoras a diario.
Imparte clases de Derecho Constitucional en la Escuela de Leyes de la Universidad de California, Berkeley. Sin embargo, es más conocido por sus memorias sobre la interpretación legal de la tortura que ha hecho para la administración Bush.
En una reciente entrevista para la revista Esquire, Yoo declaró que "era una trabajo que había que hacer". Bien es cierto que el argumento de sus textos es un tema delicado, y habría que preguntarse de qué material están hechos los políticos que exigen esta clase de documentos.
Entre sus interpretaciones, John Yoo, aprueba métodos como el "ahogamiento simulado". Se trata de una técnica en la que un individuo es tumbado boca arriba. Dispuesto así, se le comienza a
introducir agua por la nariz. Otro tipo de "ahogamiento simulado" consiste en envolver la cabeza del sujeto en un trapo y mojarlo.
Según cuenta en la entrevista a Esquire y en otras intervenciones -escasas por cierto-, los documentos no debieron salir a la luz nunca. Sin embargo, filtraciones aún por explicar, dieron como resultado que John Yoo, de origen coreano, se levantara un día de la cama preguntándose que sucedía en su universidad.
Desde entonces, las manifestaciones y protestas de los alumnos no han cesado. Constantemente se ha solicitado el despido y expulsión tanto del centro docente como del gremio de abogados.
No obstante, estos acontecimientos no suponen una novedad para el docente. Más daño han hecho los debates públicos a los que se ha tenido que enfretar en varias ocasiones como el de diciembre de 2005.
En esta ocasión el profesor de la Universidad de Notre Dame, Doug Cassel, preguntó a Yoo si para obtener una información de un hombre, ¿hay ley que prohíba que se le puedan aplastar los testículos a su hijo? Yoo replicó que "creo que depende de por qué el presidente cree que tiene que hacerlo".
Interrrogantes
Alan Dershowitz, profesor de Derecho en Harvard y uno de los mejores abogados de los EEUU, realiza análisis legales en los que busca aquellos vacíos , según dicen, para aprobar procesos de tortura. "No apoyo la tortura, pero si hay que torturar, entonces no hay más remedio que contar con la aprobación de los tribunales".
La cuestión principal de la que se apoyan los políticos es que, para garantizar la seguridad de los ciudadanos, hay que tomar ciertas medidas. Entre éstas se encuentra la propia reducción de la libertad y de los derechos fundamentales.
Todo este debate se genera tras el 11-S, que abrió la puerta a todo un compendio de hipótesis e interrogantes que buscan determinar los límites de todo lo que se puede hacer para impedir muertes de inocentes norteamericanos. Hoy día los escndalos se suceden, y a pesar de la Guerra de Irak, la mayoría de las miradas críticas se dijiren a Guantánamo. Más que nunca, vivimos en la era del terror.

'Black Silicon' Startup SiOnyx Could Revolutionize Solar, Imaging

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:00:29 +0000

You gotta admit "black silicon" has to be near the top of the most fun cleantech terms of the year. The material, which reportedly is between 100 and 500 times more sensitive to light than standard silicon, has been licensed by Massachusetts-based venture-backed startup SiOnyx from Harvard University. The New York Times and Xconomy have the story (Xconomy's is far more detailed and actually explains the tech) about the three year old startup, which is backed by $11 million from Polaris Ventures, Harris & Harris, and RedShift. Polaris investor and ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe sits on SiOnyx's board.

The black silicon technique works like this: shine a very powerful pulse of a laser on a piece of silicon in the presence of the gas sulfur hexafluoride and the result is a piece of silicon marked with tiny cones. Xconomy digs even deeper into the process and explains: "the laser pulses force unusually large numbers of dopant atoms into a thin layer of silicon on the surface of the cones," and the new structure requires less energy "to knock electrons into the conduction band." The result is the treated silicon can absorb twice as much visible light as regular silicon and unlike standard silicon is sensitive to invisible infrared light.

The bizarre (randomly found) process can lead to amazing results, and could potentially disrupt any industry that depends on the light sensitivity of silicon. That includes the solar industry, and imaging products like night vision, medical imaging and digital cameras. Solar cells could be made that are more sensitive to light and more efficient at producing electricity, though both stories clearly state that the solar application is far in the future. Much closer is an application in medical imaging, like using less powerful more efficient Xrays, and Metcalfe tells Xconomy that the startup has already negotiated a partnership with a company active in medical imaging.

Homage to Hulk Hooligan

harvardhooligans — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:39:51 +0000

At 6 pm Eastern Time, Hulk Hooligan nearly died in a tragic bike accident. Hulk decided to go on a 23-mile bike ride after noticing that his calf muscles were not quite as large as his thigh muscles. As a member of Harvard's rowing squadron, Hulk likes to spend every waking moment of his life making his muscles bigger. After three years of performing Herculean tasks and starving himself on lettuce-only dinners, Hulk now has veins the size of the mighty Mississippi.

Some of these veins carry blood to his face. When Hulk saw a car pulling out in front his 21-speed bicycle on Mass Ave, the blood ran from his face and his beautiful blue eyes got even bigger. Hulk bravely slammed on his front pedal break, which caused him to flip immediately over his handlebars. The left side of his magnificent face scraped against the street and the blood returned to his face, gushing out onto the sidewalk and nearby pedestrians. He gave a manly grunt of pain as bystanders rushed to the scene.

One civilian called an ambulance while Hulk insisted that it was just a scratch. He was then rushed to the hospital looking uglier than Two-Face at the end of The Dark Knight.

Six hours later, the doctor drove him back to the Palatial Penthouse Palace to the loving, nursing care of the other Hooligans. I got him chicken Caesar salad and a chocolate shake from b. good.

Thanks to my nursing efforts, Hulk has already begun his recovery and will soon be back on the water rowing for Harvard at the Head of the Charles. We wish him well in his great endeavor.

Harvard Essays

mbadhorse — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:34:18 +0000

Whacked it from PG, the dreaded ones with a separate post for each B-School...On your mark... get set...GO...

HARVARD

What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)

What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

Please respond to two of the following (400-word limit each):

What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?

Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization.

What area of the world are you most curious about and why?

What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?