Can You Forget What happened to the folks in Nawlins, and along the Gulf Coast; following Hurricane Katrina ? Neither can we, because some of them are family..

check this out, and Please take a Moment Today and ACT -Click This Link to Tell President Obama to Stop the Evictions scheduled to begin on Saturday May 30, 2009.

I Think since Mr. Obama and Mrs. Obama claim to be interested in helping where there is a genuine emergency, maybe they can take a moment and check out what’s happening to these folks who are still suffering from their predecesors promises of restoration.

So Today on F^cked UP Friday we’re askin the First Family, Do Ya Have enough Bedding for the Rest of the folks who are about to become homeless, due to your lack of attention, Mr and Mrs Obama ?

Hurricane Katrina Part 3- post Katrina Mississippi

We’re Gonna Keep our Attention Focused on This Issue this weekend and report basically on this because we know there is a real mess and somebody’s gotta fix this right now,, not later NOW.

“I need the trailer. I ain’t got nowhere to go if they take the trailer…This storm broke me. I need some help. And I got a long way to go.”

Ernest Hammond, 70, on pending FEMA trailer evictions

Dear KIN Folk,

FEMA is at it again and we need your help.

The agency has announced that on May 30, 2009, it will act to evict thousands of residents from FEMA trailers in the Gulf States in spite of the fact that these residents have had limited support and lots of barriers in their efforts to find permanent housing.

Please act now to stop this travesty.

Mr. Ernest Hammond is a case in point. Hammond, a 70 year old, former New Orleans homeowner, could not get financial help from Louisiana’s Road Home program for his triplex since the housing structure was ineligible for a grant. To help himself, Mr. Hammond has collected almost $10,000 in aluminum cans but that won’t even begin to cover the costs to rebuild his home in the 7^th Ward. His FEMA trailer is keeping him off the street while he struggles to return home.

Mr. Hammond is one of thousands of families living in FEMA trailers because they are either caught in a web of deeply flawed, bureaucratic home repair grant programs, a victim of all too rampant contractor fraud or simply priced out of a rising rental markets where affordable housing is being demolished or gentrified.

No one chooses to live in a FEMA trailer, but it is better than no home at all. Evicting residents without providing access to safe, permanent housing will only lead to homelessness and further destabilize families.

Thursday, May 28th is a National Day of Action organized by the US Human Rights Network to turn this around. Together, we helped keep survivors off the streets. Please take a minute to click and send an email or make a call to let the Administration know that evictions are a bad idea.

Tell President Obama and Congress to extend the May 30^th FEMA trailer program deadline!

Say NO to FEMA’s decision to forcibly evict residents from trailers!

Tell President Obama and FEMA that they must stop FEMA’s plan to forcefully evict Gulf Region residents from temporary trailers.

The Facts:

• Nearly 5,000 FEMA trailers continue to provide housing to residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina
  • 2,800 FEMA trailers in Louisiana, with 1, 000 trailers located in Orleans Parish, LA
  • 2,000 FEMA trailers in Mississippi
• Most FEMA trailer occupants are elderly and/or disabled persons in desperate need of effective support and case management services to stabilize their housing and wellbeing.
• FEMA trailer occupants are displaced homeowners and renters still struggling to rebuild their homes or secure affordable housing after Katrina and Rita.

Human Rights Begins at Home!

The United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement is a human rights policy that, for several years, has guided our government in providing temporary and permanent homes for people in foreign countries displaced by earthquakes, typhoons, and flooding. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only recently announced that the U.S. will apply the UN’s standards to assist displaced persons in Pakistan.

Please act now to stop this travesty.

Hurricane Katrina displaced over a million people, many of whom have yet to fully recover as a result of governmental actions that are contrary to the UN’s standards and human rights treaties ratified in the US. Gulf Region residents, both renters and homeowners, have worked tirelessly to access safe, permanent housing, and should have the support that our government provides to foreign countries under the Guiding Principles.

Abrupt removal of residents from their only source of shelter is unacceptable!

Hold our elected leaders to their promise of Gulf Region recovery, and demand equal protection under the same human rights policy that the U.S. government applies to displaced persons in other countries.

Tell FEMA to provide an extension to all homeowners and renters living in FEMA trailers to allow them sufficient time to repair their homes and/or find alternative housing.

Additional time would allow:

• Louisiana homeowners to appeal denials of Road Home grants, or go to a Road Home closing.
• Mississippi homeowners to be matched with available Katrina cottages that sit idle.
• Renters more time to obtain rental assistance or other permanent affordable housing.

Demand Action Now!

Call the Obama Administration and FEMA to demand action now! Tell our government not to carry forward yesterday’s short-sighted policies and to apply the same human rights standards to displaced persons in the Gulf States. Demand a stop to the FEMA trailer deadline and the guarantee of safe, permanent housing in the Gulf Region.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan (202) 708-0417

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (202) 282-8000; (202) 282-8495

FEMA Administrator Fugate (202) 646-2500

Thank you for making a difference and please forward this note to others. Our voices matter.

In Solidarity,

The KIN Team

REFERENCES

WE know you wonder where our Guestbook is Housed, so we decided to put it back on the site again, remotely. be nice and show some spice..

Sign and Show Ya Love,

Techno DJ’n has reached a new height with the use of Old Hard Drives – as turntables. Yeah..

Check this out -

HDDJ: Turning an old hard disk drive into a rotary input device

By nvillar on music

A couple of years ago we built a fun system that would allow DJs to mix music tracks in interesting ways. Our design called for an input device that would allow the DJ to quickly seek through a track and find a specific playback position, and we wanted to be able to do this by spinning a rotary control with a flick of the wrist – much like turntable DJs can spin the record back and forth to do the same.

We found that we had only limited choices for building our device: we first tried to use rotary encoders, but it is not easy to find a cheap encoder that spins smoothly and freely. Another alternative was to buy some audio equipment (like turntables) that spin well and feel good to use – but this seemed both expensive and wasteful for our purposes.

Then, while looking for inspiration amongst assorted junk in the lab, we came upon a broken hard disk drive with its case open. We admired the quality of the bearings in the motor that drives the disk plates, enjoyed the fact that even a soft flick would get it spinning for a long time, and wondered whether we could sample an output from it when it was spun by hand, in much the same way that an electric motor, when turned, acts as a dynamo and outputs a voltage.

The answer is yes – and it’s a very simple process to turn a hard disk into a rotary input device that has some unique properties. All you’ll need is an old hard disk drive, a few op amps, resistors and a programmable microcontroller of some kind.

In this Instructable we’ll show the basic principles behind this hack, then provide the schematics and firmware for the HDDJ device (shown below) that we used in our project, and which includes a few extra buttons, lights and a motorized slider for good measure.

By: nvillar

Now if ya love Reggae Music Say F O R W A R D D D D D D D D !!!!

This is Ras Muhammad, the hottest new Reggae Sensation From Indonesia

WE know many folks seem to believe that Reggae can only originate from Jamaica, but that’s been proven to be old news. This is the News today children – Check out the Future of Reggae,

Moving’s to the East (Ras Muhammad) – Leaving Babylon

Asianrockers with a Full African Flava.

Nuff RASPECT Ras Muhamad – Hold Up HIM Bloodstained Truth, EVER

Indonesia’s democracy is only a decade old and the political parties are mostly indistinguishable on policy – but eleven years after the fall of the Suharto Dictatorship where all dissent was squashed – new voices are emerging, trying to influence debate.

One such voice is Ras Muhamad, a young reggae singer.

He was chosen by Rolling Stone magazine Indonesia as Best New Reggae Artist in 2008.

The same year his song Musik Reggae Ini (This Reggae Music) was nominated for an AMI Award – Indonesia’s answer to the Grammys.

His songs are about money, corruption and political leadership.

Ahead of July’s presidential election, and following April’s parliamentary poll, his subject matter resonates with his young and excitable audience.

Reggae music is always the voice of the people Ras Muhamad

His new album, The Next Chapter, is – he says – a reference to the potential of the upcoming election, and warns the youth of Indonesia not to place too much hope in political parties.

“A lot of politicians here only reach out to people when it’s election time and when election time is over they just disappear and then we don’t hear about them any more,” he tells me.

Instead he believes people have to help themselves: “You can shape your own destiny by your struggle, by your works and bring about a lot of changes.”

Ras has certainly shaped his own destiny.

He was born in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, but moved with his parents to US in the early 1990s before returning home four years ago.

He first began performing reggae as a teenager living in the Queens borough of New York, and while still in high school formed his first band.

He describes his type of reggae as “dancehall” reggae – a style that combines reggae and hip-hop.

He has become a musical ambassador of sorts for reggae in South East Asia – on his latest album he worked with musicians from Senegal, Kenya and Norway.

But his idols are still Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, performers who were unafraid to let politics influence their music.

He says he chose reggae because it suits his voice and style, but also because it can convey a message too.

“Reggae music is always the voice of the people. Whatever is happening, I feel like I have to sing about it,” he explains.

“The basis and foundation of reggae is always about unity, and one of the role models in reggae is [former Ethiopian Emperor] Haile Selassie and I always look up to him and also the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno.”

Sukarno declared Indonesia’s independence from colonial rule and became a leading figure of the Non Aligned Movement.

New generation

So does Ras see himself with a future in politics?

“I never think of myself as a political musician, but the society we are living in in Indonesia, we have a lot of conflicts,” he says.

“That’s why I want to convey that we have to care for each other and also respect each other, not just slogans and that type of thing.”

I hope they can be a stronger generation…the people are the leaders and we can bring about change Ras Muhamad

Ras believes the music industry still looks down on reggae, but he believes it has the potential to bring about change, at least in attitudes if not politics.

His song Crisis decries the lack of care and love in society, and calls for the gap between the rich and the poor to be narrowed.

More than half Indonesia’s work force earn less than $2 a day while a tiny but visible elite at the top are multi-millionaires.

“It seems like the richest of the rich, they just look after themselves and they never reach out to the poor, they never help the underprivileged,” he says.

He says however that the onus is on both groups to try to change things.

“The rich can’t stay by themselves they have to reach out, and the poor, they can’t just say, ‘I’m poor, ok and well that’s it, can’t do anything about it’, you know.”

He hopes that his music will reach out to a new generation of leaders in both politics and civil society who have the potential to change Indonesia and make it a fairer, more open society.

“I hope they can be a stronger generation and don’t depend too much on political leaders,” he says.

Reggae and Sesame Street, two of my favorite things together

I caught this video on LOL Factory blog and had to share it, because it’s just so cute. you know you want to replay it, so turn those speakers up and lets REGGAE MON !!!