Recovery Act Update

Well, it turns out that the recovery act has started to work, namely by avoiding catastrophe and making it 'merely bad.' The media have not stopped talking about it in the last few days and it is certainly good news for all of us.

Obama still warns—and justly so—that the recession is still not over and we may still be months away from that day.

Meanwhile, in the audio below, NPR gives an account of how the recovery act works and how it targets communities in dire need of a financial boost.

Pasuritë e politikanëve shqiptarë

Ja tek janë më poshtë. Fitimet, shitjet, blerjet dhe interesat e fituar gjatë vitit të kaluar. Në rastin e Sali Berishës, edhe humbje.

Sali Berisha + Shkëlzen dhe Argita Berisha

Ilir Meta

Jozefina Topalli

Lulzim Basha

Me sa duket, gjithë klasa politike po dyndet drejt bregdetit. Në rastin e Salës, familja u shkon nga pas, madje me xhepat më plot.

Këtu përmblidhen disa politikanë më tepër.

Rezultatet zyrtare të 28 qershorit

Gazeta Shekulli boton njoftimin e KQZ-së se rezultatet zyrtare të numërimit të votave sapo kanë dalë. Numërimi, pra, ka përfunduar një muaj pas zgjedhjeve. Kreu i KQZ-së, Ristani, pranoi se numërimi kishte «çaluar».

Në një tjetër artikull jepen shifra që tregojnë se PD-ja fitoi në sajë të koalicionit të saj, por humbi si parti kundër PS-së, e cila mori 10,000 vota më tepër.

PS-ja reagoi menjëherë duke thënë se nuk do ta njihte rezultatin e zgjedhjeve. Ajo e vlerësoi atë si «të deformuar dhe pa standarde» madje sulmoi dhe KQZ-në duke e quajtur atë të shndërruar në një «repart sulmi ndaj të drejtës legjitime dhe kushtetuese të barazisë së votës».

The Plague Is Here

Really. I speak the truth.

Not the bubonic... it's the pneumonic, but still....

Sarkozy Shortcomings

I forgot the source. But then again, I am not claiming this as mine or benefitting from it.

Archbishop v. Facebook

Apparently, Facebook and MySpace are not good tools for forming friendships. Instead, they demean friendship between people because Facebook friendships are merely transient ones. Moreover, if these friendships are lost, people are likely to become despondent and turn to suicide.

Sounds like a bunch of phooey. Much like a certain pope during the early advent of railroads, who called them 'chemins d'enfer.'

Racism in America

It's still alive and well.

You'd think a half-black president would serve to educate the ignorant masses, but instead of quelling the fire, it has fed it.

Why Healthcare Bills Are Hard to Pass

This blog post illustrates why healthcare always has titanic hurdles to overcome and why it might even fail in the final vote this time around.

Is money the only force that drives policies in Washington?

Reforming Prisoners Through Dance

This first video of Filipino prisoners dancing Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous' has made the internet rounds lately as a tribute to the late singer. What I discovered, though, was that this was not the only song. They had done many others before and this person has them all on YouTube. One of my favorites comes after 'Dangerous.'

This begs one question: would this ever happen in a U.S. prison? I'm skeptical.

150 vjet fotografi shqiptare

Ky shkrim në blogun kolektiviza përmbledh historinë e fotografisë në Shqipëri në disa paragrafë.

Është më shumë se ç'kanë bërë të tjerë dhe shumë më tepër nga ç'dinë shumica e njerëzve.

End of an Era

The New York Times reports today that times are a-changin'... specifically, that the feud between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly is to come to an end.

I would be a liar if I said I didn't cry a little inside about this. I'm a whore for a little O'Reilly-bashing....

Religion in Albania

I am writing this post in English so that non-Albanian-speakers can understand it, too. It is important to educate the greatest number of people about this, however inconsequential it may appear.

There is finally a separate page discussing the issue of religion in albania on Wikipedia. I am particularly glad about this because, for the first time, it addresses the issue of secular Albanians and claims what I think are the most realistic assessments about religious belief today in Albania. Still today, many individuals, organizations, and countries cite a census from the 1930s in saying that Albania is 70% Muslim, 20% Orthodox, and 10% Catholic. Although I do not question these numbers for the time in which they were taken, and for the times that preceded it, I have to say that much has changed in Albania since then. Years under a 'Communist' régime alone—quotation marks necessary, since it wasn't Communist in the proper sense—created mixed families and eradicated religion from the life of many families in Albania.

Today, it is no longer valid and is perhaps completely unfair to the majority of the Albanian population to claim those same numbers for religious belief in Albania. They may have been true at one point, and they may be somewhat true as far as one's traditional family religion goes, but when individual belief is in question, everybody had better be wary and consider atheist and agnostic Albanians as a sizable community.