BreakRoomLive.com Lives

Stumbled in.

i was here dohhhhhhhhhh

Scores killed as Gaza school hit
Israeli strikes have killed at least 40 people who took refuge inside a UN school in the Gaza Strip, medics have said.

The strike on Tuesday hit a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, in the northern town of Jabaliya.

Medical sources at two Gaza hospitals said two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from the Israeli attacks.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009169564177230.ht...

Japan seeks ban on whale protesters

Sea Shepherd activists have frequently clashed with whalers in the waters off Antarctica [GALLO/GETTY]

Japan's foreign ministry has said it plans to ask Australia and possibly New Zealand and Chile to ban an anti-whaling ship from using their ports to refuel.

Japan has accused the conservation group Sea Shepherd and the crew of its ship, the Steve Irwin, of acting "like pirates" in their efforts to stop Japan's annual whale hunt in Antarctic waters.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/01/2009169445814449....

"Terrorist" is out of fashion, so I guess we're going retro now-- real retro-- to describe annoying people.

"To Captain Morgan..."

Should be a good work break if you can make the time.

In spite of Bush, not a good idea playing one against the other at this point.

Obama on his silence over Gaza violence: 'one president at a time'
Agence France-Presse

President-elect Barack Obama Monday expressed concern about the Gaza crisis but stressed he would not interfere in "delicate negotiations" by the outgoing US administration.

Asked about whether Israel's offensive against Hamas was distracting him from his economic agenda, Obama told reporters "obviously, international affairs are of deep concern."

"I strongly believe that a president or president-elect or his team should be able to do more than one thing at a time. With the situation in Gaza, I've been getting briefed every day," he said.

Obama has faced criticism for his silence on the Middle East violence, especially in the Arab world and European press. It adds to the huge challenges awaiting him when he succeeds President George W. Bush on January 20.

But the president-elect stressed: "I will continue to insist that when it comes to foreign affairs, it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time, because there are delicate negotiations taking place right now and we can't have two voices coming out of the United States when you have so much at stake."

Israel has rejected worldwide calls for a ceasefire as the Palestinian death toll from its 10-day offensive in the Gaza Strip against the militant group Hamas tops 550.

Obama did not elaborate on the negotiations he mentioned. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has canceled a planned trip to China this week to deal with the crisis.

According to the Palestinians, Arab states are pushing for a UN Security Council resolution aimed at securing an immediate end to the "Israeli aggression" in Gaza.

Earlier Monday, Bush said he understood Israel's desire to defend itself, adding any Gaza ceasefire must ensure Hamas militants cannot fire rockets on Israeli towns.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_on_Israels_Gaza_assault_one_0105.htm...

wee gentle activists organizations ...
AGAIN...as before...GRRR/:( (w/tears)
I know the CRAP they are pulling on folks...be aware and read again Art of ......... ;)
:|
"edited..."

(and St. Paul) Ms_Anthrope, or is there something else?

January 06, 2009
Prominent Austin Activist Admits He Infiltrated RNC Protest Groups as FBI Informant
An Austin-based activist named Brandon Darby has revealed he worked as an FBI informant in the eighteen months leading up to the Republican National Convention. Darby has admitted to wearing recording devices at planning meetings and wearing a transmitter embedded in his belt during the convention. He is expected to testify on behalf of the government later this month in the trial of two Texas activists who were arrested at the RNC on charges of making and possessing Molotov cocktails.

We turn now to a story out of Austin, Texas that has shocked social justice activists nationwide. A prominent Austin-based activist named Brandon Darby has revealed he worked as an FBI informant in the eighteen months leading up to the Republican National Convention. Darby has admitted to wearing recording devices at planning meetings and wearing a transmitter embedded in his belt during the convention. He is expected to testify on behalf of the government later this month in the trial of two Texas activists who were arrested at the RNC on charges of making and possessing Molotov cocktails.

In a statement, a group of Austin-based activists called the Austin Informant Working Group condemned Darby. The group says: “[T]he emerging truth about Darby’s malicious involvement in our communities is heart-breaking and utterly ground-shattering to those of us who were closest to him.” The statement goes on to raise suspicions Darby may have gone beyond spying on the accused activists but in fact encouraged and provoked them into breaking the law.

But in an open letter to the activist community, Darby maintained he only acted to prevent violent actions by a small group that, he says, would have undermined the cause of social justice. Darby writes: “I strongly stand behind my choices in this matter… [W]hen people act out of anger and hatred, and then claim that their actions were part of a movement or somehow tied into the struggle for social justice only after being caught, it’s damaging to the efforts of those who do give of themselves to better this world. The majority of the activists who went to St. Paul did so with pure intentions and simply wanted to express their disagreements with the Republican Party. It’s unfortunate that some used the group as cover for intentions that the rest of the group did not agree with or knew nothing about… I made the choice to have my identity revealed and was well aware of the consequences for doing so. I know that the temptation to silence or ignore the voice of someone who you strongly disagree with can be overwhelming in matters such as this one… I have confidence that there will be a few people interested in discussion and in better understanding views different from their own, especially from one of their own. My sincere hope is that the entire matter results in better understanding for everyone.”

Darby has been involved in several activist groups. He is best known as a founder of the New Orleans-based group Common Ground Relief, which he helped start after Hurricane Katrina.

Atheist bus campaign spreads the word of no God nationwide
Donations totalling more than £140,000 to fund adverts on 600 buses across UK as well as in London tube stations

Anyone who has spent a chilly half-hour waiting for a double-decker may already have doubted the existence of a deity. But for those who need further proof, a nationwide advertising campaign aimed at persuading more people to "come out" as atheists was launched today with the backing of some of Britain's most famous non-believers.

The principal slogan – "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" – can already be seen on four London bus routes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/atheist-bus-campaign-nationw...

unless of course you are protesting in front of a honey baked ham store.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&as_q=honey+baked+ham+terr...

I "thought" I had learned......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xos2MnVxe-c

Submitted by Ms_Anthrope on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 1:33pm.

ANIMALS & HUMANS

AND BRAD PITT is putting millions into re-eco-building.
BLESSINGS To Those Who Care and have been caring...

Are you talking about New Orleans
Submitted by gloryoski on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 1:28pm.
(and St. Paul) Ms_Anthrope, or is there something else?

»
;)

Heavy fighting in Gaza City as Israel opposes truce calls

GAZA CITY (AFP) – The heaviest fighting of Israel's war on Hamas raged in Gaza's main city early on Tuesday as the Israeli government fended off appeals to stop the death toll from mounting further.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy led new calls to halt the conflict which doctors say has left at least 555 Palestinians dead. But Israeli ministers insisted the offensive aimed at halting militant rocket attacks will go on.

With helicopters firing heavy machine guns from above, Israeli tanks shot shells into the dense Shejaiya district of eastern Gaza City, residents said. Flares lit up the night skies as explosions rocked the neighbourhood.

Israeli jets also bombed the abandoned Hamas security service complex in the centre of the city, leaving it ablaze.

Hamas said its fighters unleashed missiles on seven tanks in Shejaiya and killed 10 Israeli soldiers. Arabic news channels Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera said three or four Israeli soldiers were killed and about 30 wounded.

The Israeli military confirmed there had been heavy fighting but made no comment on casualties.

At least 13 children were among 60 bodies taken to Gaza hospitals on Monday after air and tank assaults across the territory, medics said.

Almost 100 children are among the dead since Israel began a wave of air raids on December 27, Gaza's emergency services said. More than 2,700 people have been wounded. The International Red Cross said people were dying because ambulances could not get to them.

But as Israel intensified "Operation Cast Lead," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rejected European calls for an immediate ceasefire.

"We are fighting with terror and we are not reaching an agreement with terror," she declared after meeting an EU ministerial delegation led by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

"When Israel is being targeted, Israel is going to retaliate," Livni said.

The French president arrived later to reinforce the ceasefire campaign .

After a meeting in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmud Abbas, Sarkozy said he would tell Israeli leaders that "the violence must halt."

In Jerusalem, he said: "We, Europe, want a ceasefire as soon as possible. Time is working against peace. The weapons must be silenced and there must be a temporary humanitarian truce."

The French president called the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel "irresponsible and unforgivable," sparking a retort from the Islamists that he was "totally biased" toward Israel.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for an immediate ceasefire after telephone talks with Abbas earlier on Monday, the Kremlin said.

Abbas went to the UN Security Council in New York to bolster a new campaign by Arab nations to get a resolution passed condemning Israel's operation.

But US President George W. Bush said any Gaza truce must ensure Hamas militants can no longer fire rockets at Israeli towns.

"I understand Israel's desire to protect itself and that the situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas," he said.

Israeli warplanes carried out more than 40 air strikes on Monday. The military said they hit a mosque "where arms were being stored" as well as houses and tunnels that they said were used as arms caches.

Naval ships off the coast also bombarded targets to help the ground offensive launched on Saturday night, and artillery hit the Bureij refugee camp where three people were killed.

A couple and their five children were killed by one navy shell, medics said. Three children were killed by a tank shell in the Gaza City suburbs and two were killed in Shati by a naval strike, they said.

Israel says dozens of Hamas fighters have been killed and one Israeli soldier has been confirmed dead and 55 wounded since Saturday.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the war will go on. "We have hit Hamas hard, but we have not yet reached all the goals that we have set for ourselves and the operation continues," he told a parliamentary committee.

Three civilians and one soldier have been killed by rockets fired from Gaza over the past 10 days. More than 30 rocket and missile attacks were reported on Monday. One hit a kindergarten which was closed because of the crisis.

Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since seizing power in the densely populated Mediterranean coastal strip in June 2007, remained defiant.

"Victory is coming," the movement's senior leader in Gaza, Mahmud Zahar, said in a television address.

"They (Israel) have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine," he said. "They have legitimised the destruction of their synagogues and their schools by hitting our mosques and our schools."

Israel faces intense international pressure to ease the suffering of the 1.5 million Gaza population, which has no power or water supplies and endures a daily struggle to get food.

Eighty truckloads of food and fuel were allowed to cross into Gaza after long delays on Monday while aid agencies organised transportation on the Gaza side.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090105/ts_afp/mideastconflictgaza_09010523...

Well, usually we are a little behind the curve these days. Besides, other than the arms industry, factory farming is about all we have left-- or at least all were willing to subsize. Can't forget also a lot of them ham haters are Arabs.

but found some english humor for fernando

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q55CbxeyJbg

Nigeria bikers' vegetable helmets

Motorcyclists in Nigeria have been wearing dried pumpkin shells on their heads to dodge new laws forcing them to wear helmets, authorities have said.

Officials in the northern city of Kano said they had stopped several people with "improvised helmets", following this month's introduction of the law.

Road safety officials said calabash-wearers would be prosecuted.

Thousands of motorbikes have been impounded around the country and drivers have staged protests.

Calabashes are dried pumpkin shells more commonly used to carry liquid.

Kano Federal Road Safety Commission commander Yusuf Garba told the BBC they were taking a hard line with people found using the improvised helmets.

"We are impounding their bikes and want to take them to court so they can explain why they think wearing a calabash is good enough for their safety," he said.

Fifty motorbikes had been seized so far in Kano city alone, he added.
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

22 yr old Oscar Grant....he was lying face down on the ground and all the by standers watched it and took film with phones...at the Fruitvale station..."The man was saying don't taze me, I have a four yr old kid...."

Eighty votes mean more than a busted nation.

Obama said Tuesday the deficit appears on track to hit $1 trillion soon. Speaking to reporters after meeting with top economic aides, Obama said: "Potentially we've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8202195

LOL LOL MAO LOL LOL

:|

Sam Seder (I)

1. "Assy McGee" .... Douche / ... (2 episodes, 2008)

she was way fab in Spanglish too.

No, but thanks.
We just accept violence now against all but the ruling class. Because, I'm a football fanatic, I'm still pissed at the response to the Palacio Burris debacle. You have a guy accidentally shoot himself-- possibly ending his career-- and Bloomberg promptly comes out and basically tells potential jurors we need to "send a strong message here." But, after the Sean Bell verdict, Bloomberg says to the rightfully outraged public: 'get over it.'

Just like his father, President George W. Bush will return to Texas when he leaves office.

Federal money would pay for a gate near the Bushes' home, says Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm.

And just like his father, he wants a gate to be installed along a public street to limit access to his neighborhood.

Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm confirmed Monday that the younger Bush is seeking to have a gate placed somewhere along the entrance to streets leading to his future Preston Hollow address.

The plan, which requires approval by the Dallas City Council, isn't expected to encounter much opposition at City Hall, and the Bushes' neighbors seem to be on board.

...

The primary reason for the gate is security, of course. But neighbors are also concerned that the Bushes will attract crowds of innocent, if annoying, sightseers to the once quiet and exclusive cul-de-sac of Daria Place, as well as to the equally tony dead-end street that leads to it, Daria Drive.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-bu...

Another iteration of Seder V. Maron.

Very cooool. Definitely better than the alternative surprise....

Rock On brothers.....

{teehee so very sad hahaha} around 2:45AM I ended up being directed thru a Peter B. Collins "Listen Live" site to go to a Monterey channel - AND, FINALLY, *POOF* IT JUST WORKED ... I have no logic - only that My Computer has moods, like me {teehee}, and is HAUNTED, since now MY COMPUTER IS WORKING, and is "say'n yes". YIPPIE -- and have sound, yet thru Monterey...eek.
;)

Congressman Rahm Emanuel... has served in the Israel Defense Forces and even speaks a little Hebrew. ..

When Bill Clinton began his campaign for presidency, he appointed Rahm Emanuel to direct the campaign's finance committee. But Emanuel left when the Gulf War broke out, in order to volunteer in the IDF.

He served in one of Israel's northern bases until the war ended, and upon his return to the US became Clinton's advisor in the White House for almost eight years.

Republican excitement over the prospect of Jeb Bush running for U.S. Senate has given way to increasing speculation that the former governor will stay out of the race.

Bush declined to comment for this article but was expected to make an announcement perhaps as early as this week.

Even with his father on national TV Sunday touting Bush as a terrific potential future senator or president, friends say family considerations could outweigh the pull of public service.

Bush may conclude after completing his methodical review process that there are other ways he can help rebuild the GOP besides a Senate career that would take a toll on his consulting business and be difficult for his family.

"I know it's a big struggle for him,'' said former state Republican chairman Al Cardenas, who believes Bush is still undecided. "As his friend I think maybe he's better off where he is. As a Republican who loves his party so much, I know we need him."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/state/article959079.ece

We don't need him!, We can do without him nicely!

Woman who 'burned husband's penis' faces murder charge

An Australian woman has been charged with murder after allegedly setting her husband's genitals on fire because she thought he was having an affair.

Boord quoted Narayan as allegedly saying: "I just wanted to burn his penis so it belongs to me and no one else ... I didn't mean this to happen."

Her husband jumped out of bed and knocked over the bottle of alcohol, causing the fire to spread and resulting in A$1m (£482,000) of damage to their townhouse and an adjacent property, the Adelaide Advertiser reported.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/genitals-fire-husband-austra...

Can't Make Car Payment? Just Give it Back (Hyundai offer if job is lost)

Korean automaker Hyundai says it has "got your back" and has launched a new promotion that will allow consumers to break contracts and return recently purchased cars if they lose their jobs or incomes.

The Hyundai Assurance program, which lets you "return your vehicle and walk away from your loan obligation," up to $7,500, is the first such promotion of its kind, but comes amid a slew of new campaigns aimed at inducing Americans to buy cars during the worst recession in a generation.

The auto industry has taken a particularly hard hit in recent months, but few of the innovative attempts to get buyers into dealerships -- including GM's and Toyota's zero percent financing and GM's offer to lock in gas prices at $1.99 -- have yet to work, according to Jack Nerad, a market analyst at Kelley Blue Book.

"None of these promotions are working that well," Nerad said. "Everyone would like consumer confidence to be higher and sales to be higher. The companies are trying all kinds of incentives but also throwing their hands up and saying, 'It doesn't matter how much we offer, nothing seems to work.'"

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=6580891&page=1

Venezuela's Chavez shuts off free oil program for U.S.

CARACAS — Venezuela's state oil company is suspending a much-promoted program that provided free heating oil to hundreds of thousands of poor people throughout the U.S., the company announced Monday

Venezuela is halting the program at least temporarily because the sharp drop in oil prices is forcing the country to reduce government spending, the firm said in a statement from Citizens Energy Corp., a Boston-based nonprofit that's managed the program in the U.S.

Chavez instituted the low-income heating oil assistance program in 2005 through the help of Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former congressman and a son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy heads Citizens Energy.

Kennedy remained hopeful on Monday that the Chavez government would reinstitute the program.

He called on people to write Chavez "to tell him the stories you have told me of the difference the generous donation of heating oil has made to so many of our fellow Americans."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/59027.html

I know a few like that disappearing fry magician. Very nice.

My machine is pretty constant Ms_Anthrope but I rarely have a crazy maker near it to get it all discombopulated.

Israelis, sipping Pepsi, watch bombardment of Gaza town

Avi Pilchick took a long swig of Pepsi and propped a foot on the plastic patio chair he'd carried up the hillside to watch the fighting. "They are doing good," Pilchick, 20, said of Israeli forces battling Palestinian militants in Gaza, "but they can do more."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Anti-Stimulus Crowd: The Fear of Success

By Dean Baker

At least some Republicans are starting to muster an anti-stimulus drive, claiming that President-elect Obama's package will not help the economy. Their drive is centered on what they claim is a careful rereading of the history of the New Deal. According to their account, President Roosevelt's policies actually lengthened the Great Depression.

In their story, we would have been better off if we just left the market to adjust by itself. New Deal programs that directly employed people, or in other ways supported living standards, created an uncertain investment climate. They claim that this uncertainty slowed the process of market adjustment that was necessary for returning to high levels of employment.

The Wagner Act, which created the legal framework for the union organizing drives of the era, stands out as being especially pernicious in their story. The Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the 40-hour workweek and established the first national minimum wage, also gets singled out for criticism. In this new reading of history, what most people consider the great successes of the New Deal simply worsened the Great Depression.

In reality, any careful reading showed that the New Deal polices substantially ameliorated the effects of the Great Depression for tens of millions of people. The major economic failing of the New Deal was that President Roosevelt was not prepared to push the policies as far as necessary to fully lift the economy out of the Great Depression.

Roosevelt was too worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd that he confronted. He remained concerned about balancing the budget when the proper goal of fiscal policy should have been large deficits to stimulate the economy. Roosevelt's polices substantially reduced the unemployment rate from the 25 percent peak when he first took office, but they did not get the unemployment rate back into single-digits.

It took the enormous public spending associated with World War II to fully lift the economy out of the depression. The lesson that economists take away from this experience is that we should be prepared to run very large deficits in order to give the economy a sufficient boost to generate self-sustaining growth.

However, from the standpoint of Republicans, the more ominous lesson of the New Deal policies is that it left the Democrats firmly in power for more than 20 years. The Republicans did not regain the White House until 1952, twenty years after President Roosevelt was first elected.

Imagine how terrifying the prospect of 20 years of Democratic presidencies must be to the current generation of Republican leaders. This would mean that they would not retake the White House until 2028, just twenty years before the Social Security trust fund is first projected to face a short fall.

In 2028, Newt Gingrich will be 85 years old, Mitt Romney will be 81, Mike Huckabee will be 73, and Senator McCain will be 98. Even Sarah Palin will be a less-than-youthful 64. In short, if President-elect Obama is allowed to carry through with his stimulus package and the rest of his ambitious domestic agenda, most of the current leadership of the Republican Party can expect to spend the rest of their political careers in the political wilderness, far removed from the centers of power.

For this reason, Republicans can be expected to adopt a strategy aimed at delaying and diluting the stimulus. We can expect their leaders to find every conceivable argument to slow down the spending that the economy desperately needs right now to prevent further job loss. While some of their concerns may be legitimate - we should all support efforts to restrain wasteful pork barrel spending and rein in corruption - these concerns should not be the basis for obstructing stimulus. The public should be careful to distinguish legitimate concerns from simple delaying tactics.

In short, we should realize that the main concern of some of those opposed to stimulus may not be that it will fail, but rather that it will succeed. Most of us don't have the same set of concerns.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Vil%2B2FczkIpbkip...

...

CBS morning anchor calls
Coulter 'goofy' and 'sophomoric'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Coulter appeared on CBS's The Early Show where she told anchor Harry Smith that he was her favorite for having her on this morning after The Today Show had canceled her.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/05/ann-coulters-today-show-a_n_155...

Porsche buys Volkswagen

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
German luxury sportscar maker Porsche has taken over Volkswagen, the biggest European car manufacturer, after purchasing more than 50 percent of VW shares, Porsche said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090106/bs_afp/germanyautocompanytakeoverpo...

interesting concept in and of itself. Not new in the sociopathic repetoire, but usually used with "because" rather than "so" and with whole people rather than parts.

With ritual genital mutilation/manipulation being a possible exception/precursor. And kind of also various types of plastic surgery.

The Hill

Complicit much?

to goofy.

Goofy.

can't stand the chat thing. Goes too fast with inane comments!

I like the blog much better.

I should be writing.

I guess I'll find out later.

Ukraine: Russia cut gas
to Europe by two-thirds

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ukraine's gas company Naftogaz said Tuesday that Russia cut natural gas supplies to Europe by about two-thirds, raising the stakes in a spiraling dispute between the two neighbors that bodes ill for European consumers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_re_eu/eu_ukraine_russia_gas;_y...

Crystal, china maker
Waterford Wedgwood collapses

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the maker of classic china and crystal, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday after attempts to restructure the struggling business or find a buyer failed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_britain_waterford_wedgwood;_ylt=Au626xKN7J...

Seems appropriate. Very very dark and cloudy here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax0bMJ2SfNI

& Marc you just have an oral fixation.
;)

is taking up too much of my time

asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta, from CNN, to be Surgeon General per CNN

I have always appreciated Waterford Crystal, even when I was "knee-high to a grasshopper". .... ahhhhh
[i have a wee sacred sample }... sniff
:(

{...this says much (whatever one thinks) that this happened...}

Maron and the instant coffee. If I had to do my show from a breakroom, I guess I'd be trying to self-medicate, too....

Wash out those passages with a NETI POT, Maron!

(How much lower can it get? The Hall, The Loading Dock, The Curb? You guys are really good sports alright! It's all in one's attitude of personal dignity; they can take away alot, they can make us each pay $65,000 in Bushworld theftdebt, but they can't take away our personal dignity! RIGHT ON, guys! I'll incorporate you in my psychic structure as a resource for STRENGTH in tough times!)

the screen...both browsers...

Jeb Bush rules out U.S. Senate bid
Posted: 03:56 PM ET
(CNN) — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ruled out a 2010 bid for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, saying in a written statement that “while the opportunity to serve my state and country during these turbulent and dynamic times is compelling, now is not the right time to return to elected office.”

Jeb Bush, the brother of President George W. Bush and son of former President George H.W. Bush, was elected governor of Florida in 1998 and 2002. He was considered a leading contender for the seat being vacated in two years by retiring GOP Sen. Mel Martinez.

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/06/jeb-bush-rules-out-us-senate-bid...

And Coleman is suing, so hold on in MN.

Ambulances struck by Israelis, drivers say
Posted: 03:06 PM ET
By Karl Penhaul
CNN
RAFAH, Egypt (CNN) — At least five ambulances in Gaza have been hit by the Israeli military since hostilities began more than a week ago, an ambulance driver and a spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent said Tuesday.

The latest strike on an ambulance, marked with the Red Crescent symbol, occurred Tuesday morning, Red Crescent driver Marwan Aburaida said, speaking to CNN at the Egyptian border crossing at Rafah, where he had brought Palestinian wounded for treatment in Egypt.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said he was not aware of these incidents.

Aburaida said five Red Crescent ambulances had been hit by the Israeli military, some in airstrikes, in the past 11 days. CNN was not able to immediately independently verify any of the allegations.

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/06/ambulances-struck-by-israelis-dr...

DMN

The Amero/Ron Paultards can go back to sleep.

Syrian president: Israel withdrawal from Gaza first step toward peace
Posted: 01:47 PM ET
DAMASCUS, Syria (CNN) — Hamas is ready to agree to peace if the Israeli army will stop military operations and withdraw from Gaza, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad told CNN Tuesday.
“They are ready (to make a deal),” Al-Assad told CNN’s Cal Perry in an exclusive interview. “They were ready, they are ready. Today, the factors have changed so the requirement will change at the same time. We cannot talk about the same condition, like what happened a few years ago. Otherwise, we’ll keep moving from a cease-fire to another conflict to another breaking of this cease-fire and so on. The more blood you have, the more difficult to talk about peace will be.”
Al-Assad met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier Tuesday. Sarkozy appealed to Al-Assad for help in bringing about a halt to the conflict in the Middle East — an Israeli incursion into Gaza following eight days of Israeli airstrikes. Palestinians point to the action as evidence of Israeli aggression; Israel maintains it was defending itself from repeated rockets fired into the southern part of the country by Hamas militants in Gaza.

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/06/syrian-president-israel-withdraw...

Venezuela expels Israeli ambassador
Posted: 04:06 PM ET
(CNN) — Venezuela has expelled the Israeli ambassador, the Venezuelan foreign minister said in a statement read Tuesday on state television by the anchor.

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/06/venezuela-expels-israeli-ambassa...

here's news...

Milky Way spins faster, has more mass than thought: astronomers

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Milky Way, the Earth's home galaxy, is spinning much faster and has a mass 50 percent larger than previously believed, raising the probability of a collision with another galaxy, according to a report out Monday.

A team of international astronomers, with the aid of ten telescopes spread out between Hawaii, the Caribbean and the northeastern United States, determined that the Milky Way is rotating at a speed of 161,000 kilometers (100,000 miles) per hour faster than previously thought.

That increase in speed increases the Milky Way's mass by 50 percent, said Mark Reid, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in research presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting this week in Long Beach, California.

"No longer will we think of the Milky Way as the little sister of the Andromeda Galaxy," Reid said in a statement.

The larger mass however also means that it has a greater gravitational pull, which increases the likelihood of collisions with the Andromeda galaxy or smaller nearby galaxies, Reid said.

The earth's solar system is located some 28,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way.

At that distance, the new measurements show that the galaxy is rotating at a speed of 965,600 kilometers (600,000 miles) per hour, compared to previous estimates of 804,672 kilometers (500,000 miles) per hour, the astronomers said.

The new observations from the network of radio telescopes is "producing highly-accurate direct measurements of distances and motions," said Karl Menten of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, a member of the team.

"These measurements use the traditional surveyor's method of triangulation and do not depend on any assumptions based on other properties, such as brightness," Menten said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090105/ts_afp/usastronomy_090105234256

Wealth of U.S. millionaires down 30 percent: survey

Reuters - Tue Jan 6, 12:07 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American millionaires have seen their assets shrink by 30 percent during the economic crisis, a report said on Tuesday, with only 36 percent of them pleased with the performance of their financial advisers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090106/us_nm/us_financial_usa_wealth;_ylt=A...

*****

German mogul kills self over financial meltdown

AP - 12 minutes ago

BERLIN - German billionaire Adolf Merckle threw himself in front of a train after his business empire, which included interests ranging from VW cars to pharmaceuticals to cement, ran into trouble in the global financial crisis, his family said Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_germany_obit_merckle;...

Being sworn in by the Dick is an abomination.

Milky Way spins faster, has more mass than thought?

So you postulate that time is constant then? I just don't know about that. The world isn't flat and I'm thinking time isn't either.

US court orders Enron fraudster Jeffrey Skilling to be resentenced

A US appeals court has upheld the conviction of the Enron fraudster Jeffrey Skilling but has granted the energy company's former chief executive a chance to secure a reduction in his 24-year prison sentence.

A panel of three judges sitting in New Orleans ruled that the original trial judge, Sim Lake, used flawed guidelines in sending Skilling to jail until 2030 – a penalty which was among the harshest ever levied on a white-collar criminal.

The decision is likely to be viewed with mixed feelings by Skilling, whose lawyers had argued vigorously that the court should overturn all 19 counts of fraud, conspiracy and insider trading on which he was convicted by a Houston jury in May 2006.

Skilling, 55, is widely viewed as the brains behind one of America's most notorious cases of corporate corruption. The collapse of Enron, once a high-flying energy trading company, caused an ­estimated 21,000 job losses and left thousands of people without pensions, healthcare or savings.

In a 105-page opinion, the appeals court ordered Skilling to be re-sentenced – a process which could involve him emerging from his low-security prison cell in Colorado to hear fresh courtroom pleading by his lawyers.

But there appears to be little hope left for the former multi-millionaire to clear his name. Skilling had argued that jury selection was flawed and that his trial should not have been held in Houston – a city which, his lawyers said, was alive with "venomous emotion" towards the company nicknamed "the crooked E".

More than 18 people have been convicted of fraud related to the collapse of Enron. But those imprisoned took hope when an appeals court threw out guilty verdicts on three Merrill Lynch bankers accused of helping the company to inflate profits.

Much of the debate over the safety of Enron-related convictions has turned around the meaning of the legal term of "honest services". Defence lawyers have argued that many of those convicted did not personally gain but were, instead, trying to keep the company afloat – albeit through flawed means.

Skilling was originally tried alongside Enron's chairman, Ken Lay. But Lay died from a heart attack before he was due to be sentenced.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/06/jeffrey-skilling-enron-fr...

I don't postulate anything! I just report!

Talk to the astronomers!

Picture a DNA coil.

Picture yourself in that coil and you are moving upwards in
the spiral.

Now comes word that we are moving even faster than always thought.

No wonder our time seems like it is moving fast.

It is!

Sorry
Submitted by toniD on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 3:22pm.
can't stand the chat thing. Goes too fast with inane comments!

I like the blog much better.
------
Well...that cinches it. You scroll past my posts.

On a related-and-yet-not-related note, I tried to watch the video mentioned in:

Submitted by toniD on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 3:10pm.

I couldn't stay with it for more than a couple of minutes.

A Three Stooges rerun has more to offer than any diatribe excreting from cash-grubbing Coulter.

Pelosi’s power move leaves House Republicans fuming
John Aravosis (DC) · 1/06/2009 03:40:00 PM ET · Link
Make a comment · reddit · FARK · Digg It! · Stumble It! · facebook

Joe is off dealing with a very nasty cold that has been going around, but he asked me to post about this. He says this is big. The article in the The Hill doesn't really explain what the rule changes do. Pelosi has a fact sheet that explains a lot more, though it's still confusing as hell (not that she could explain it any better, the House rules are very confusing to outsiders). In a nutshell, Pelosi is reforming the "motion to recommit" that Republicans in the House often use to kill popular bills at the last minute. Now they won't be able to kill the bill as easily, though they can amend it, which is what they supposedly wanted all along. Pelosi gets points for getting tough and reforming the House in a way to ensure better that it can gets thing done. This is a very good thing.

http://www.americablog.com/2009/01/pelosis-power-move-leaves-house.html

Just like the Bush Mass Murder Spree in Iraq, the Israelis cannot control their Blood Lust against the Palestinians.

They have no intention of seeking a peaceful resolution. They are proving themselves to be out of control, in complete Blood Lust Frenzy and intent upon genocide.

High Tech Blood Lust is no different than that kind where the Frenzied Killer smears his body with his victims' blood. The Isaelis are proving themselves incapable of making any decisions outside the perimeter of state-mandated/funded terrorism and genocide.

Like the USA (when it refuses to prosecute its war criminals), Israel is officially choosing to be a WAR CRIMINAL STATE.

About BREAK ROOM LIVE

http://airamerica.com/breakroomlive/about

BREAK ROOM LIVE is the first of its kind; a daily, live online political talk and comedy show. At 3pm Eastern every weekday, Marc Maron and Sam Seder take a seat in the Air America break room to discuss the hot topics of the day, with live guests, comedy sketches, and recurring segments, all streaming live at BreakRoomLive.com. In addition to the daily live broadcast, visitors will be able to view the show on demand, subscribe to vodcasts and podcasts of the show, and chat live, 24/7, with fellow fans and the hosts.

BreakRoomLive.com will also be home to exclusive on-demand video content from Marc and Sam. Along with a fully interactive blog, Marc and Sam will provide BreakRoomLive.com with interviews, political discussions, and irreverent comedy that can’t be seen anywhere else.

“Based upon the fact that no one has developed a model for what we’re doing, we’re confident that people will consider this a success,” said Sam Seder. “I see our show as PornTube meets MSNBC meets Twitter meets PopFly meets Yodio meets SplashCast meets Zillow meets TradeSports meets Meets.com.”

Marc Maron added, “I’m excited that Sam and I will be able to take risks in a new format, and whether we succeed or fail, it will be available online forever.”

Marc and Sam have known each other for 20 years. They’re not quite friends but they’re able to work together. For the right price.

*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

I don't trust the Astronomers as much as I trust you...

I have never known you to be fast in commenting.

"Honey, I just don't trust those goddamn astronomers! I think they're up to something! Somebody should check those suckers out!"

Ambulances struck by
Submitted by toniD on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 4:13pm.
-----
The first thought that popped into my head is a headline I'd like to see:

Ambulance Rear-Ended By Attorney

like the last Surgeon General tried to.

But Crank
Submitted by toniD on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 4:37pm.
I have never known you to be fast in commenting.
----
I'll post a snappy retort later.

No one else experienced the misaligned breakroom page? It was fine this morning and off when the show started and off center now...the chat side is only half showing on the left of the screen....

E=mc²?

Hey Nando, ever read Faster Than The Speed of Light?

I'm no physicist, but that book blew me away....The concept of the Variable Speed of Light changes everything.

http://www.cafes.net/ditch/motm1.htm

If not...I encourage you to please do so.

Otherwise nobody's gonna want to buy mine. Couldn't get replacement parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JYiylIluQQ

Incidentally,why wouldn't she smell like the poodles at least as much as like "the cats?" Or like "the bottle?" Damned SWAG classes make me wonder about this stuff. Wasn't as much of a prob. in 1982...

by Edward Kritzler

In his new book, Ed Kritzler unlocks an unknown chapter in Jewish history—the Iberian Jews who escaped the fires of the Inquisition in the 17th century and conspired with Holland and England to seize a New World colony. Read an excerpt here.
Growing up in Long Island in the 1950s, the only thing I knew about my European relatives was they had lived in shtetls, studied Torah, and wound up in crematoriums. Perhaps because it was a dead world and I was living in the golden age of suburbia when all was new and possible, I found my heroes in the tales of the pioneers, in the writings of Jack London and Howard Pyle, and in cowboy movies. Tarzan and Robinson Crusoe were favorites and accompanying Lewis & Clark a dream. The New World was my world. I majored in Latin American history and when I learned about the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews, I knew if I lived then and got kicked out of Spain, I would have headed for the New World. I always thought, as a Jew, I would have been alone.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-21/the-jewish-pir...

Outrageous Partisanship

Somehow Nancy Pelosi elected Speaker instead of that nicely tanned Mr. Boehner.

-Attaturk 13:58

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2009_01_04_archive.html#3042430995054493327

Like you, when I went to the page earlier today nothing was out of alignment. The stars were on target for the four horsemen to be all in their places with bright scary faces.

-Have you ever been here?
Submitted by Regnad Kcin on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 4:49pm.-

but I know that the influence of entangled quark state interactions over space race over 10,000 times faster than the speed of light.

Alice, the comment space slid off my screen too, so that's not what makes you special.

a-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYrD-MrQFc

*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulcanelli

The number symbolizes truth (33)
This number has the meaning that good will always triumph over evil.
Lag Ba'omer is a minor Jewish holiday which falls on the 33rd day of the Omer
Jesus's age when he was crucified in 33 A.D., according to many, though not verified historically.
In the religion of Islam the Muslims believe that the dwellers of Heaven will be existing eternally in a state of being age 33.

Restore the Senate’s Treaty Power
By JOHN R. BOLTON and JOHN YOO

THE Constitution’s Treaty Clause has long been seen, rightly, as a bulwark against presidential inclinations to lock the United States into unwise foreign commitments. The clause will likely be tested by Barack Obama’s administration, as the new president and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, led by the legal academics in whose circles they have long traveled, contemplate binding down American power and interests in a dense web of treaties and international bureaucracies.

Like past presidents, Mr. Obama will likely be tempted to avoid the requirement that treaties must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate. The usual methods around this constitutional constraint are executive agreements or a majority vote in the House and Senate to pass a treaty as a simple law (known as a Congressional-executive agreement).

Executive agreements have an acknowledged but limited place in our foreign affairs. Congressional-executive agreements are far more troubling. They have evoked scathing attacks by constitutional experts and have been strongly resisted in the Senate, at least so far.

The framers of the Constitution designed the treaty process with a bias against “entangling alliances,” as Thomas Jefferson described them in his first inaugural address. They designated the Senate as the body responsible to protect the interests of the states from being bargained away by the president in deals with foreign nations. The framers required a supermajority to ensure that treaties would reflect a broad consensus and careful, mature decision-making.

America needs to maintain its sovereignty and autonomy, not to subordinate its policies, foreign or domestic, to international control. On a broad variety of issues — many of which sound more like domestic rather than foreign policy — the re-emergence of the benignly labeled “global governance” movement is well under way in the Obama transition.

Candidate Obama promised to “re-engage” and “work constructively within” the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Will the new president pass a new Kyoto climate accord through Congress by sidestepping the constitutional requirement to persuade two-thirds of the Senate?

Draconian restrictions on energy use would follow. A majority of the Congress would be much easier for Mr. Obama to get than a supermajority of the Senate. A scholar at the Brookings Institution has already proposed that a new president overcome objections to this environmentalists’ holy grail by evading the Treaty Clause.

President George W. Bush resisted many efforts at global governance. But his administration still sometimes fell into the temptation to flout the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority in the Senate.

In 2002, the administration considered submitting the Treaty of Moscow, a nuclear arms reduction agreement, for majority approval of Congress. Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who was then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, privately made clear that he would vigorously oppose such an attempt to evade the Senate’s constitutional prerogatives. The administration agreed to submit the agreement as a treaty, and the Moscow agreement cleared the Senate.

We hope the new vice president will not reverse his commitment to the Senate’s constitutional authority. But an administration determined to tie one hand behind America’s back might use Congressional-executive agreements to push the nation all too easily into quixotic and impractical global governance regimes.

President Bill Clinton signed Kyoto, but the Senate in effect rejected it. He also signed the Rome Treaty of 1998 that established an International Criminal Court, which would subject American soldiers and officials to unaccountable international prosecutors and judges for alleged war crimes (including, potentially, the undefined crime of “aggression”). Mr. Clinton did not even send this agreement to the Senate. Mr. Bush “unsigned” it. Mr. Obama might re-sign it and seek approval by only a majority of both houses of Congress.

Other international regimes might restrict America’s freedom of action to defend itself. In 1999, the Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would have undermined America’s ability to verify the reliability and effectiveness of its nuclear deterrent. Mr. Obama has said he supports ratification. The historical precedents are that major arms control agreements must receive the approval of two-thirds of the Senate.

President Bush, like President Clinton, did not sign a global agreement that would ban antipersonnel land mines, on the grounds that they are a key component of the American defense of South Korea. But his administration has pressed for ratification of the treaty on the law of the sea, which would subject disputes over the free passage of American naval vessels to the jurisdiction of an international maritime court — which the Senate has so far refused to ratify.

If Mr. Obama were to submit either of these agreements for approval by a simple majority of the House and Senate, his actions would pose a serious challenge to American principles of law and democratic governance. Global governance schemes delegate power to independent international organizations to make and enforce laws that would apply domestically, by international bureaucrats who are unaccountable to Congress, the president, American public opinion or the democratic process.

It is true that some multinational economic agreements, like Bretton Woods, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the North American Free Trade Agreement, went into effect after approval by majorities of Congress rather than two-thirds of the Senate. But international agreements that go beyond the rules of international trade and finance — that involve significant national-security commitments, or that purport to delegate lawmaking and enforcement functions to international organizations, or that could fundamentally alter the American constitutional system of individual rights — should receive the intense scrutiny of the treaty process, regardless of their policy merits.

By insisting on the proper constitutional process for treaty-making, Republicans can join Mr. Obama in advancing a bipartisan foreign policy. They can also help strike the proper balance between the legislative and executive branches that so many have called for in recent years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05bolton.html?_r=3&pagewanted=...

...If so. How.

Odd.. but cute... :)

want to limit Executive Authority?

"but I know that the influence of entangled quark state interactions over space race over 10,000 times faster than the speed of light."

hahaha...do you now, for certain?....well, I guess that makes the hadron collider obsolete.... /snark.

Showoff :)

Alchemy in modern times

In 1980, Glenn Seaborg transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. His experimental technique, using nuclear physics, was able to remove protons and neutrons from the bismuth atoms. Seaborg's technique would have been far too expensive to enable routine manufacturing of gold, but his work is the closest to the mythical Philosopher's Stone of the ancient Alchemists. Alchemy is very much alive today. [9]

Running Late (was to start at 5 EST)

Jane Hamsher on MSNBC: The Trouble With Harry
By David Neiwert Tuesday Jan 06, 2009 5:30am

Video at link

Our old pal Jane Hamsher was "Muckraker of the Day" on David Shuster's MSNBC program yesterday, talking about Harry Reid and how he's managed to bollox the Blagejovich-Roland Burris situation. Apparently she's managed to upset the Village applecart a bit with her critique. Good on her.

http://crooksandliars.com/node/25032

Economic meltdown "outcomes"

Submitted by toniD on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 4:21pm.

German mogul kills self over financial meltdown

AP - 12 minutes ago

BERLIN - German billionaire Adolf Merckle threw himself in front of a train after his business empire, which included interests ranging from VW cars to pharmaceuticals to cement, ran into trouble in the global financial crisis, his family said Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_germany_obit_merckle;...

» ==============================

Just saying, these reports always seem to give a clear cause and effect, but should we take them at face value?
Could there be more to this? I'm in question mode because I've been reading that Tarpley book on 'synthetic terror'. Here's an example of another death that had a subtext!:

[excerpt]

In Germany, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder was the chief of the trusteeship Agency (Treuhandanstalt), which in 1991 was the largest corporation in the world. In the communist German Democratic Republic [GDR], all industry was the property of the state, and when the GDR collapsed in 1989, this property
was transferred to the Trusteeship Agency. Rohwedder, as the head of this entity, preferred to keep the vast state property of the GDR as a state sector during the transition, trying to maintain the existing levels of employment and production so as to facilitate the absorption of the East German regions into unified Germany. Anglo-American financiers, however, wanted all the GDR state property to be put on the auction block at once, so that it could be sold off at bargain basement prices from which Wall Street and the City of London had everything to gain. When Rohwedder proved reluctant to accept this policy, he was assassinated around Easter 1991, just after the first Gulf War, by elements claiming to be the Baader-Meinhof group, also known as the Red Army Faction [a group under the control of NATO intelligence]. Rohwedder's successor immediately began selling off GDR state property the way the Anglo-Americans wanted.

[end excerpt]
[from Webster Griffin Tarpley's "9/11 Synthetic Terror", Chapter II]
===============================

I'm not saying there is any connection whatsoever between this recent 'suicide' and the above assassination. The excerpt is shared only as an example of how something can happen to an individual, and the death is so odd and suprising in itself that the public does not look to understand the actual lead-up to the death and who in the tidy world of enterprise and 'realpolitick' might benefit. It's hard taking anything at face value in media shorthand when becoming aware of this stuff...

The History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

By VICTORIA BUCH

I arrived in Israel 40 years ago. It took me many years to understand that the very existence of my country, as it is today, is based on an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The project started many years ago. Its seed can be traced to the basic fallacy of the Zionist movement, which set out to establish a Jewish-national state in a location already inhabited by another nation. Under these conditions, one has, at most, a moral right to strive for a bi-national state; establishing a national state implies, more or less by definition, ethnic cleansing of the previous inhabitants.

Albert Einstein grasped this fallacy a long time ago. A short time after WWI "Einstein complained that the Zionists were not doing enough to reach agreement with the Palestinian Arabs…He favored a binational solution in Palestine and warned Chaim Weizmann against `Prussian style` nationalism"
From "The Pity of It All", a book by Amos Elon on German Jews.)

But such warnings passed un-heeded by the Zionist movement. So here we are, nearly a century later, with a Jewish national state dominated by militaristic and militant nationalists, who diligently pursue colonization and "judaization" of the land under Israeli control, on both sides of the Green Line (1967 border). The project has been pursued continuously and relentlessly under the different Israeli governments, recently under the cover of bogus "negotiations" with President Abbas. Most of the Israeli institutions participate in it. Young Israelis, generation after generation, join the army to provide the military cover. The young folks have been brain-washed to honestly believe that the army pursues Israel's "fight for existence". However it seems evident to the author of this article, as to many others, that the survival of the Jewish community in this country depends on establishing viable mechanisms of coexistence with the Palestinians. Thus, under the slogan of "fight for existence", the State of Israel is pursuing an essentially suicidal project.
http://www.counterpunch.org/buch01062009.html

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.

When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.

The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. Gupta later spoke with Tom Daschle, Obama's White House health czar and nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, and other advisers to the president-elect.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2009/01/06/obama_wants_journa...

Cool.
Submitted by Alice on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 5:15pm.
Alchemy in modern times ...

;|

Nobody bought the line of bull in the ad you placed about me a while back, or did you decide to rescind it?

Peter Byrne did a series of investigative articles in the alternative newspaper press that exposed Feinstein's complete lack of ethics and total propensity for criminal greed! (Unfortunately, The Nation magazine reneged on an agreement to reprint Byrne's findings, but still the stories are available on Peter Byrne's website.)

Be illuminated:

http://www.peterbyrne.info/feinstein_files/index.htm

sure they could fix it, real easy. If I were them I'd use a relative div tag to position it wherever they want it.

But that's just me. there are literally dozens of ways to fix it.

...

Panetta's a Democrat and she is a Dino....

http://www.ringtalk.com/dmpc/SheehanSoapbox01042009.mp3

they reported that Biden and Obama talked to and appologized to Dinae Finestein and she is now on board with Panetta.

Darruk, darruk cloudy day.

the ad...

never posted it.

think i was waiting for your permission

or just suggesting ad copy?

been a while, had to thimk for a while to figure out what you were refering to.

too bad me and Bgurl can't just adopt you.

Never thought you were even thinking about posting. :)

Thanks for the props.

is....could Fulcanelli and Hagbard Celine be one and the same?

How did the Nazi chapters in "The Morning Of The Magicians" get so weirdly intertwined with
RAW's "Illuminati Trilogy?"

If you have read both you will get a feel of what I'm talking about although you probably don't understand it either.

this clip from Larry suspenders was perfect! just because Gupta looks sincere doesn't mean he is going to work for the people. Obama should watch this clip and respond accordingly.

"In addition to bombs and missiles that have killed an ever increasing number of Palestinian civilians, Israel has dropped millions of flyers on the occupied, besieged Gaza Strip.

"EI decided to call the number provided..."

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10114.shtml

By: Laura Flanders Tuesday January 6, 2009 3:30 pm

Living far from Gaza, with journalists banned by Israel from entering the Strip, it's hard to know exactly what life is like for residents, but it's not impossible to get a sense.

Take Tuesday's news from one newspaper, the New York Times. The morning paper featured a picture of two Palestinian women who'd taken refuge in a United Nations school when their neighborhoods came under attack. By 1 p.m., the same newspaper's website was reporting that Israel's military had just struck near a United Nations school, killing thirty among the hundreds who'd sought refuge.

Reuters reported that two shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel inside and outside. Medical sources at two hospitals said the dead were either people taking shelter in the school or local residents. 30 were dead, 55 were injured. Three hospital officials at the hospital where some of the wounded were taken said at least 42 people were killed and that the number included women and kids.

The Israeli Army has repeatedly emphasized that its operation is not aimed at Gaza’s residents and that they're only going after Hamas. But do some math: the Gaza Strip -- home to 1.5 million people -- is 25 miles long and between 4 and 7.5 miles wide. That's roughly six times the size of Manhattan, or one tenth of Rhode Island. It's known to be one of the most densely populated places on the planet.

Before the ground invasion began, the Israeli authorities estimated they'd hit over 1,000 targets in their bombing campaign. Can you imagine 1,000 hits on a refugee camp six times the size of Manhattan not causing civilian casualties?

"Children are hungry cold, without electricity and running water, and above all, they're terrified, " Maxwell Galord, United Nations Humanitarian affairs coordinator said at a Jerusalem press conference. "That is by any measure a humanitarian crisis."

Punishing the many to target a few is unquestionably collective punishment. When individuals, not governments do it, don't we call them terrorists?
http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ISMkJ79Ielw/SVvq_HgoyZI/AAAAAAAACqs/n8f4gx49oq...

Wonder where it is...

for those that care, BTW Fine"whore" was married to a wonderful DEM, then he died ... then she, in office eventually married a DEFENSE CONTRACTOR -- however, that was in another Realm, during another TIME...
Things Change ... ... in this 1984 Society.
:):(

Biden and Obama talked to and appologized to.....

"Just chill, Diane, they got nothing. Calm down! Besides, we're closing Gitmo..."

The End of White America?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/end-of-whiteness

The result is a racial pride that dares not speak its name, and that defines itself through cultural cues instead—a suspicion of intellectual elites and city dwellers, a preference for folksiness and plainness of speech (whether real or feigned), and the association of a working-class white minority with “the real America.” (In the Scots-Irish belt that runs from Arkansas up through West Virginia, the most common ethnic label offered to census takers is “American.”) Arguably, this white identity politics helped swing the 2000 and 2004 elections, serving as the powerful counterpunch to urban white liberals, and the McCain-Palin campaign relied on it almost to the point of absurdity (as when a McCain surrogate dismissed Northern Virginia as somehow not part of “the real Virginia”) as a bulwark against the threatening multiculturalism of Barack Obama. Their strategy failed, of course, but it’s possible to imagine white identity politics growing more potent and more forthright in its racial identifications in the future, as “the real America” becomes an ever-smaller portion of, well, the real America, and as the soon-to-be white minority’s sense of being besieged and disdained by a multicultural majority grows apace

Coleman Makes It Official: I'm Going To Court
Norm Coleman declared Tuesday that, as expected, he's filing an election contest to dispute the result of the Senate election. "Something greater than expediency is at stake here," Coleman said.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/coleman_im_going...

>>"Something greater than expediency is at stake here," Coleman said.

I wonder if that `something' is either Coleman's ego or the GOP's partisan obstructionism?
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Thanks for the Charger news. I knew they had someone from Kent State, because I always hear the university name when they give the lineup. I've never looked-up though when they give the lineup. My ears instinctively perk up when I hear Kent State: For historic reasons, and also, because when I was still a young man, I lived with a small nympho with big tits that went there-- Jehovah Witness.
Miss the boobs; not the Watchtower.

Gates amazing find (from 2003):
One of the most intriguing players on the Chargers’ roster is rookie tight end Antonio Gates from Kent State. Gates made the roster despite not even playing football in college. Instead, he was an honorable mention All-America basketball player who averaged 20.6 points and 7.7 rebounds as a senior in 2002. The last time he played football was in high school,
http://www.chargers.com/news/headlines/news-106239960020668.htm

A question of mine...for a rather long time, I might add...
new
Submitted by Regnad Kcin on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 7:01pm.
[[[... is....could Fulcanelli and Hagbard Celine be one and the same?

How did the Nazi chapters in "The Morning Of The Magicians" get so weirdly intertwined with
RAW's "Illuminati Trilogy?"

If you have read both you will get a feel of what I'm talking about although you probably don't understand it either. ]]]

»

I have some here, more elsewhere, but will not be able to read til this eve, and usually I do not speak much of another "labyrinth"...another "tri...." another whatever.(yawn)

... I still have to go to Costco, and I haven't even "laid my head down to sleep" yet (yawn)... but still watching C-SPAN & the Oh SO IMPORTANT U.N. Security Council.
(but *poof* it's gone & have to ready to *fly*... ;)
*poof* BBL

I think Gupta was right in his discussion. Moore is good but he over shoots his message with "fact manipulation". I live in the numbers world and know how dangerous that is.

Passenger forced to cover Arabic T-shirt receives $330,000 compensation
January 6, 2009

An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded US$240,000 (A$337,000) in compensation, campaigners said Monday.

Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York's JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.

"The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling," said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.

Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: "We will not be silent."

He was told other passengers felt uncomfortable because an Arabic-inscribed T-shirt in an airport was like "wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, `I am a robber,'" the ACLU said.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/passenger-forced-to-cover-arabic-tshirt-rec...

Where is Raed?

In his blog, Salam discusses the war, his friends, disappearances of people under the government of Saddam Hussein, and his work as a translator for journalist Peter Maass. Pax's site is titled after Pax's friend Raed Jarrar, who was working on his master's degree in Jordan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salam_Pax

Gupta and Moore
new
Submitted by mhappenow on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 6:13pm

--------------------------------------

Thanks for this Mhappennow.

Looks like Sanjay Gupta will be a gatekeeper for the profiteering healthcare industry (making profits on preventive care and on the sick and on denying millions entry into doctors' offices and hospitals). If Gupta's performance in this Larry King appearance is considered, we can expect Gupta to present that same unchanging facial expression Surgeon General when he tells Americans our healthcare system will be repaired WITH THE HELP OF THE CORPORATE SECTOR.

How bizarre to watch Gupta claim to be in agreement with Michael Moore while attempting to destroy Michael Moore's credibility. Disgusting.

(And Gupta's wierd 'understanding' facial expression -- like a mirror-practiced bedside manner expression while looking unwaveringly into a camera lens -- just gave methe creeps. These Corporatists are so twisted.)

Nice Touch
Franken campaign rolls out new (repeatedly used) title for Norm Coleman: "former Senator Coleman".

--Josh Marshall

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/frankens_lawyer_...

they were mostly in agreement..he was a little slimey and moore was a bit over the top

Sen. Feinstein: Obama Called Me To Smooth the Waters Over Panetta Pick
Incoming Senate intel chair Dianne Feinstein tells TPM that Obama and Biden called her after the fact to discuss the Leon Panetta CIA pick.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/feinstein_on_pan...

Alas, I Think She's Right
The Politico is reporting that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), last seen getting bristly over Leon Panetta's appointment to run the CIA, says the Senate Democratic leadership was wrong not to seat Roland Burris.

Says Feinstein: "I can't imagine the secretary of state countermanding a gubernatorial appointment," Feinstein said. "The question, really, is one in my view of law. And that is, does the governor have the power to make the appointment? And the answer is yes. Is the governor discredited? And the answer is yes. Does that affect his appointment power? And the answer is no until certain things happen."

Let me first recite the catechism: Blagojevich is a joke, an embarrassment. And I think accepting the appointment from Blagojevich reflects poorly on Burris's judgment (though not in any fatal, ominous way, just a bad choice).

But Blagojevich is the governor of the Illinois. And the Governor appoints senators to vacant seats. He hasn't been convicted of anything, which is no mere technicality. And I don't think anyone has seriously claimed that this appointment is tainted by corruption.

If there was a real belief that Burris's appointment had been bought, then I think more aggressive and expansive refusal would be justified. But as I said, I don't think anyone is really suggesting that. So as awkward and untoward as the whole thing may be, I really question the wisdom and possibly also the legality of not swearing him in. Rules are rules.

I could be persuaded otherwise. And I'm not losing much sleep over Burris's plight. But rules are rules. And I'm not sure what's being accomplished with this spectacle.

--Josh Marshall

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/01/alas_i_think_shes_righ...

Monday, January 05, 2009
Please, Donate to Gaza
I sent some money from my bank directly to Gaza, and it seems like it worked!

Please, please, consider sending some donations to Gaza (via the United Nations) to this bank account:

Arab Bank PLC

UNRWA

USD Current account: 100191-4-510

Routing Numbe (swift code): ARABPS22600

El-Rimal Branch

Omar El-Mukhtar St, Gaza, Palestine

Another option is to send a tax-deductible donation to Friends of UNRWA, and they'll send the money to Gaza on your behalf.

Posted By Raed Jarrar at 9:22 PM
# Comments and Forum Section: CLOSED!
I Won :)
TSA Officials And JetBlue Pay $240,000 To Settle Discrimination Charges

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

When are all of my neighbors going to turn off their Christmas lights?

Never happen.

Actually I haven't seen another one of those from him since then.

On his best behavior during the twenty-some month election season?

Now somebody like him needs to start screaming. I still couldn't relax even without a good brain apparently because of the pillows I've been sleeping on--who knew?

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-middle-east-or-africa-blog/

Vote for Informed Comment--2008 Weblog Awards

I've been busy with other things, but should ask my readers to vote for Informed Comment for the 2008 Weblog Awards. Voting open through Friday. (There is heavy traffic, so please be patient).
http://www.juancole.com/

Korean television has video of a Palestinian girl confronting Israeli soldiers over their firing (rubber bullets?) at demonstrating Palestinian children and youth.
She is being identified by my facebook friends as Huwaida Arraf, a Detroiter married to Adam Shapiro, a University of Michigan Poli Sci graduate, and a founder of International Solidarity Movement, a nonviolent activist organization.

Reid: Dems must be ‘very careful’ about overreaching
By Bob Cusack and J. Taylor Rushing
Posted: 01/06/09 03:51 PM [ET]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that Democrats have to be “very, very careful” about overreaching.

In an interview with The Hill, Reid argued that it is essential for President-elect Obama and congressional Democrats to work closely with Republicans in the new Congress. He added that 2009 is very different than 1993, the last time Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House.

Back then, Reid said, Democrats had controlled the House for decades, while this time around, a recent stint in the minority will result in their being more committed to bipartisanship.

The Democratic leader also defended Leon Panetta, Obama’s reported selection to head the CIA.

While stating that the Obama administration could have communicated with lawmakers about his pick, Reid said, “There is nothing wrong with Leon Panetta.”

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) have expressed concerns with Panetta’s experience to head the agency, but Reid noted that Obama’s choice has extensive experience in government.

He added that he has made calls to his colleagues to rally support for Panetta’s nomination.

Reid, entering his second term as majority leader, will be busy during the 111th Congress. With a Democrat in the White House and strengthened Democratic majorities in Congress, expectations for the next two years are high. And, as he is working to move a slew of bills to President-elect Obama’s desk, Reid will be raising millions of dollars for what he expects to be a challenging reelection race in 2010.

Republicans successfully targeted then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) in 2004, and Democrats fell short last year in their bid to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). It is unclear which Republican will face Reid next year, but the 69-year-old Silver State legislator knows that the GOP is gunning for him.

Reid, a former boxer and U.S. Capitol Police officer who grew up in poverty in Searchlight, Nev., is comfortable in his own skin.

He acknowledges that he can be impulsive. Reid has called President Bush a “loser” and a “liar” and labeled former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan “a political hack.”

During the intense months before the 2008 elections, Reid regularly sniped at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

But on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Reid expressed some regret. He said he called McCain a day after the election.

Reid said, “We came to Washington together in 1982. We've been together in the House and we came to the Senate together. And we talked about the campaign. We had both said things about each other that probably we shouldn’t have, but we did. He’s my friend. He said, ‘Harry, I, I want to come back to the Senate. We want to do some good things. I want to work with you.' ”

In his book, The Good Fight, Reid writes that his off-the-cuff remarks have “not always necessarily served me well, but it is who I am. I can be no one else.”

After expressing frustration with the strong GOP minority in the 110th Congress, Reid is clearly excited about how much Democrats can accomplish in 2009 and beyond.

Reid stated that the future will be much brighter than Bush's tenure, writing in his memoir, “January 2009, the twenty-first century truly begins.”

The full interview with Sen. Reid will appear in Wednesday’s print edition of The Hill.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/reid-dems-must-be-very-careful-about...

Was that Leah...? Very fun to watch.. :) Ha!

... please remember I am, also, sleep-typing w/o remembering to put on reading glsses... put now I have to *fly* to the mythic land of COSTCO. ugh. yawn.
;) *poof*

When are all of my neighbors going to turn off their Christmas lights?

Seems like someone needs to start a 'War on Christmas?'

Minnesota Canvassing Board Member Fires Back At The Journal
By Eric Kleefeld - January 6, 2009, 6:35PM
Yesterday, the Wall St. Journal published an editorial lambasting the Minnesota recount with arguments ranging from distortions to omissions to outright falsehoods. Now someone is firing back: Ramsey County (St. Paul) Judge Edward Cleary, an appointee of Jesse Ventura, who served on the state canvassing board that oversaw the count.

Cleary has written a letter to the Journal, saying that he's been a subscriber for over 30 years -- and he's really angry about this editorial. Cleary particularly objected to the description of the board as "meek" pawns of Democratic Sec. of State Mark Ritchie:

Our members (two Supreme Court Justices, two District Court Judges, and Secretary of State Ritchie) came from all political backgrounds, openly expressed our opinions at the meetings, and can hardly be accurately described as "meek", unless you mean "meek" by New York in-your-face standards.
Finally, Cleary called out the Journal on the real source of their anger about the recount:

One can only assume, based on the tone of the editorial, the numerous inaccuracies, and the over-the-top slam at Al Franken ("tainted and undeserving?") that had Norm Coleman come out on top in this recount, the members of the Board would have been praised as "strong-willed, intelligent, and perceptive."

We won't hold our breath waiting for that editorial to appear.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/minnesota_canvas...

Report: Al-Qaida No. 2 blames Obama for Gaza fight
Buzz Up Send
Email IM Share

Egypt – Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader lashed out at President-elect Barack Obama in a new audio message Tuesday, accusing him of not doing anything to stop Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to an intelligence monitoring center.

The recording purportedly by Ayman al-Zawahiri was al-Qaida's first comments on the Gaza crisis since Israel launched its offensive against the Islamic militants of Hamas on Dec. 27.

In the comments, which were posted on a militant Web site and obtained by the SITE Monitoring Service, al-Zawahiri described Israel's actions in Gaza as a "crusade against Islam and Muslims" and called it "Obama's gift to Israel" before he takes office later this month.

Who posted that Al Franken / Rolling Stones video?
new
Submitted by Alice on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 8:33pm.
Was that Leah...? Very fun to watch.. :) Ha!

And then Sam and Marc showed some of it on their show.

No way. I be screwing up all the celebrations and economic stimulus.

But the holiday lacks comedy. It should be funnier. Hey Ms_Anthrope, do you know of any funny druids?

Cool name for a holiday group too. The Holiday Druids. Now if we could just get someone who knows how to play the guitar. hmmmm....

Tough enough to sucker punch Burris, but unwilling to raise a glove to Mcconnell. And now he's apologizing for his ring side cat-calls. Fuck him.

Jesus Christ, and now an ad for Israel!

There is an ad to help Isreal on. I can't believe it!
800 # and all.

It says "Please stand with Isreal against terrorism". And they show injured children being put in an ambulance.

Sorry, but it didn't sell me!!!

From this it appears Al Qaida is not an independent terrorist group. Somebody with money and an agenda is behind it. Now that agenda is to make Dems look bad. SO transparent. I mean, when did al Qaida EVER make a verbal attack on Bush and/or Cheney by name?

it's on but I'm reading the blog. So I missed it. Spooky.

(08-2008) California Newspaper Publishers Association has awarded Byrne for Investigative / Enterprise Reporting on Dianne Feinstein’s Iraq Conflict.

http://www.peterbyrne.info/index.htm

Bush Rewards Iraq War Loyalists Blair, Howard, And Uribe With His Departing Medals Of Freedom»
Yesterday, White House Press Secretary announced that “President Bush will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, and former Prime Ministers Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and John Howard of Australia.” Perino noted that the three leaders have been strong allies of Bush foreign policy:

The President is honoring these leaders for their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad. All three leaders have been staunch allies of the United States, particularly in combating terrorism. And their efforts to bring hope and freedom to people around the globe have made their nations, America and the world community a safer and more secure world.

Watch it: at link

Support for the Iraq war has become a good predictor of whether one will receive the president’s highest honor. Past recipients include neoconservative godfather Norm Podhoretz (2003), L. Paul Bremer (2004), Gen. Tommy Franks (2004), Gen. Richard Myers (2005), George Tenet (2004), and Gen. Peter Pace (2008)

Given this standard, there are no better recipients than Howard and Blair. Howard joined Bush’s Coalition of the Willing and kept a large number of Australian troops in Iraq until his defeat last year (largely due to his support of the Iraq war). In September 2007, he stated, “We have no closer alliance with any country in the world than we have with the United States.”

Similarly, Blair, derided in Britain as “Bush’s poodle,” had been Bush’s strongest Western ally and pushed the invasion of Iraq. “We’re not making it worse, they (terrorists) are making it worse,” he said, offering no regrets for supporting the war. Recently, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.

Uribe also joined Bush in contributing forces to the Coalition of the Willing.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/06/bush-medal-blair/

Because John Howard of Australia is staying there.

Just heard Olbermann say on MSNBC

Former Republican congressman Bob Barr states, “In 1996, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, I wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, better known by its shorthand acronym, DOMA, than its legal title.” But now, he says, “I have come to agree with [Obama] that the law should be repealed.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-barr5-2009jan05,0,1...

Yea, I saw it while I was bitching about Harry Deeds. I was so pissed I dialed the # forgetting I'm at home on dial up. I wanted to tie up their line and fuck with them:
'Is this the # to give money to Hamas freedom fighters, etc.,'
Now, I don't have the #.

Toyota will be “suspending production at all 12 of its Japan plants for 11 days over February and March,” an “unprecedented” suspension for the top automaker. Data released yesterday also showed that the auto industry “capped off 2008 with its worst sales in 16 years as Americans continued to steer clear of dealerships in December.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_11383125?nclick_check=1

Egypt Proposes Cease-Fire; Israel Attacks Gaza School
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak presented a cease-fire proposal Tuesday that would buy time to negotiate a long-term agreement. Israel continued its offensive in Gaza, meanwhile, shelling a United Nations school. At least 30 people, children among them, were killed by the attack, which Israel said was aimed at militants.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090106_egypt_proposes_ceas...

By Robert Fisk

Editor’s note: This article was originally printed in The Independent.

Do I hear the braying of the UN donkey in Gaza? On his Middle East tour, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, may well be mentioning that well-known Eeyore figure on the East River, always so willing to send its peacekeepers on Mission Impossible. The Palestinians have been trying to internationalise their conflict with the Israelis ever since Yasser Arafat pleaded for UN forces to protect the Palestinians after the failure of the Oslo agreement.

Always the Israelis have refused. The very odd observer force which the EU installed in Hebron after Baruch Golstein had massacred Palestinians at the mosque – its patrols regularly interrupted by the Jewish settlers of this very odd city – simply faded away. And the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has been throwing tents and food and school classes at the slums of Palestinian refugee camps for generations. Can it be that yet another Israeli failure in Gaza will change the dynamics of “peacekeeping” in the Middle East, that at last the ghost of Arafat will watch the “internationalisation” of the Israeli-Palestinian war?

The cliché, in both senses of the word – both the tired phrase and the matrix for any future UN force – is, of course, UNIFIL, the so-called United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. It arrived in southern Lebanon in 1978 after Israel’s hopeless “Operation Litani”, which was supposed to “destroy” the Palestinian guerrilla forces north of the Israeli border. The UN mandate insisted that the Israelis retreat to their international frontier – which they refused to do – eventually leaving the UN with an Israeli occupation force to the south of them and Palestinian units with bases inside the UN force and to the north of them.

When Israel staged another hopeless invasion in 1982 – like its unrealistic Hamas operation in Gaza as well as the 1978 Lebanon invasion, it was supposed to “destroy” their Palestinian enemies – the UN found itself operating entirely within an Israeli occupation zone, even allowing Israel’s intelligence officers to travel through UN checkpoints to arrest or assassinate members of the latest Lebanese militia to oppose the occupation in the south.

Only when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, 22 years after the UN’s first arrival, did the peacekeeping force – now largely from poorer African and Asian countries – operate independently, albeit with Hizbollah now installed in their midst. The 2006 Israeli-Hizbollah war ended with a larger UN force in southern Lebanon, this time commanded by Nato generals who patrolled an area free of Hizbollah weapons – but only because Hizballah’s newer long-range rockets could be fired from north of the UN’s area of operations.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090106_bring_in_the_peacekeepers/

Saw that, thinking of replacing my Matrix with a Highlander after I get my tax refund. Hoping for a super deal. Hoping I still have a job by then. After my Matrix, I can't imagine ever buying anything but Toyota.

>>It says "Please stand with Isreal against terrorism". And they show injured children being put in an ambulance.

I did not see that ad...I presume it ended with Israeli troops bombing the ambulance?
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Both are murderous thugs spilling the blood of helpless children to further their political ends...

A plague a' both your houses!

It was an Israeli ambulance with an Israeli child. No mention of the Palestinian civilians they bombed! Kind of touchy for me because James, my grandson, is half Palestinian.

They are both to blame. It's the people that are suffering.
I said that when all this started. But I also blame Bushco for not controling this sooner.

In the weeks before Israel attacked Hamas, senior Israeli officials calculated that they had bought themselves time for a prolonged demolition job in Gaza. Only two factors, they reasoned, could stop the clock. The first would be a shell dropping on a civilian mass shelter, a repetition of the bombing of the UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, in 1996, when more than 100 lost their lives. The second would be the international outrage which grew from it. Yesterday the horror of Qana was revisited on Gaza. Three shells exploded outside a United Nations school in Jabalya refugee camp, where more than 300 Palestinians had sought refuge. Over 40 died and 55 were injured. It was waiting to happen. The question is whether the international community will now call time on Israel's offensive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/07/jabalya-bombing-gaza...

Janis

Murkowski Would Crush Palin
A new KTUU poll in Alaska shows Gov. Sarah Palin (R) would have a tough fight if she decides to challenge Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in a primary battle for U.S. Senate.

Murkowski clobbered Palin in the survey, 57% to 33%.

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=9622031

PPP Poll: Cuomo Stronger Than Kennedy
The latest Public Policy Polling survey finds that both Andrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy would both lead possible U.S. Senate faceoffs in 2010 against Rep. Peter King (R-NY), although there's a wide disparity in the margins.

Cuomo would beat King, 48% to 29%, while Kennedy would barely edge him, 46% to 44%.

Of course, this assumes King would be the Republican nominee and not a stronger candidate such as Rudy Giuliani.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NY_106.pdf

Where Will They Sit?
ABC News speculates about the seating arrangements for the new U.S. Senators sworn in today.

However, most interesting is a Senate seating chart from the last Congress. If you click on a desk, "you see that since the beginning of the 20th Century it has been tradition for senators to sign the inside drawer of the desk. Click on desk 24 and you see the signature of Senator Barack Obama and also Senator Bill Bradley. Click on desk 83 and you see that Senator Ted Kennedy sits at the desk used by his brother Senator John F. Kennedy."

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/special/Desks/chambermap.cfm

Political Generation Gap
USA Today: "Barack Obama, one of the youngest presidents ever to take the oath of office when he's inaugurated Jan. 20, will be working with the nation's oldest Congress. The average age will be 57 in the House and 63 in the Senate, according to the chambers' historical offices. In each case, it's the highest on record."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-05-new-congress_N.htm?lo...

Coulter: Drudge got NBC to rebook me
David Edwards and Muriel Kane

"Drudge gets results," controversial conservative pundit Ann Coulter opined on her website after she was rescheduled for Wednesday's NBC's Today show, after being bumped Tuesday.

Ann Coulter has a new book, Guilty, that continues her successful pattern of taking potshots at liberals. According to the Drudge Report, Coulter's hyper-partisanship was what got her cut from a planned appearance this week on NBC, although the network claimed they were merely overbooked.

According to Politico's Michael Calderone, Coulter will be "appearing during both the 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. hours" on Wednesday's Today show broadcast.

"So in the end, NBC will probably get more viewers and Coulter will sell more books—or at least further convince those in her camp that the MSM isn’t on her side," Calderon writes. "Either way, it should be entertaining."

Coulter did, however, appear on CBS on Tuesday.

In a teaser for the interview, host Harry Smith suggested, ""Ann Coulter is in the studio this morning. She has a brand new book ... and in it, she says that I am certifiably insane. Perhaps I am, for having her on the program this morning."

Coulter mocks Smith in the book for having asked Ted Kennedy if Barack Obama faces a greater risk of assassination because he is African-American. "Kennedy may be a drunken slob," Coulter writes, "but unlike CBS news anchors, he is not certifiably insane."

"Here's what's serious about this," Smith told Coulter, pointing to the 1984 assassination of liberal talk show host Alan Berg and the Oklahoma City bombing. "I have looked hate in the eye. I know there are people in this country who would be interested in the death of not only Barack Obama but any president."

In response, Coulter reaffirmed her claim that presidential assassins have all been leftists or apolitical and that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are at far greater risk of assassination than Barack Obama. She told Smith that the crimes he cited were merely "anecdotal" and that statistics support her position.

"I wouldn't have mentioned that all these presidents assassins were anarchists, communists, liberals -- they were some form of, basically, Obama's base -- other than the fact that everyone keeps talking about Obama being at some unique risk," Colter stated. "So maybe we can stop talking about the 'threat' of right-wing violence in a country that is teeming with left-wing violence."

In its own online writeup of the Coulter appearance, CBS barely mentions the actual interview, aside from noting that Smith accused Coulter at one point of being a whiner. Instead, it fawns over the "conservative firebrand," quoting her description of her book as being "about the rewards and praise you get for being a victim and the way liberals use victimhood and they oppress others," and ending with a link to the book's Random House catalog entry.

What Smith actually said to Coulter was, "You talk about victims and victimhood in America. On the other hand, the more I listened to your complaints, the more I kept thinking you're the whiner. You're the one who's claiming victimhood here. You're the victim of this great left-wing conspiracy."

"I'm not, but there are real victims," Coulter replied. "You have George Bush, the most persecuted ... president, I think, since Richard Nixon. You have Joe McCarthy. You have Robert Bork. You have Tom DeLay."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Coulter_Presidential_assassins_are_Obamas_...

for this song, but here's "Mistra Know It All" both regular and chipmunk style.

Chipmunk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgifca5Oo-w

Regular Stevie (check the threads!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgnGhjoQ0lg&feature=related

The People of Gaza elected Hamas On January 25, 2006...

Over time we always reach an Outcome...

Today we see the Outcome of that vote....

Well, maybe next time Hamas' efforts to destroy Israel will end on a better note...

But don't bet on it...!

have a 'stache? (Not that....)

It's a Stressful Day—Have
You Tried Shouting?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today is the most stressful day of the year, as back-to-work blues meet the cold weather and economic gloom, the Telegraph reports.

http://www.newser.com/story/47075/its-a-stressful-day-have-you-tried-sho...

Gaza Conflict Plays Out On Twitter
And Facebook

Palestinians and Israelis are telling their stories with text messages and social media tools.

• School In Gaza Hit
• Gaza Conflict Explained
• Two Bloggers Connect

*

Al-Jazeera's
http://twitter.com/ajgaza

Israel's consulate in New York City
http://twitter.com/israelconsulate

by you? Or where?

... since 1984. I bought my current one in 2001.

Toyota sent me a letter a month or two ago stating that I could get a $4,000 trade-in for my 2001 Corolla for a new one. I'd consider it, if I was ready to buy.
============================================
Toyota ....
Submitted by ghettodefender on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 9:17pm.
Saw that, thinking of replacing my Matrix with a Highlander after I get my tax refund. Hoping for a super deal. Hoping I still have a job by then. After my Matrix, I can't imagine ever buying anything but Toyota.

»

Anyone too young to recall that pharmaceutical drugs were banned from "civilian" advertisements will be confused by this rant.

I am the son of a physician. I was exposed to "brand" named drugs and their "chemical" names beginning at an early age due to the various publications that entered our household via the U.S. Postal Service.

Years later, the "brand" named drugs were differentiated from "generic" names instead of "chemical" names. The difference between a "chemical" name and a "generic" name is semantic although the differences between a chemical name and a generic name can be skewed to the advantages of the manufacturers.

The semantic difference came to be due to legislation which is complex and not worth going into here. Suffice to say that the differences between my youthful years and later years is that chemical drug names became known as generic drug names, and that advertisements for prescription drugs ceased to be confined to the domain of physician's periodicals and began to be spread across the public advertising spectrum.

My rant could go on for thousands of words about a number of phoolish pharmaceutical actions but I restrict this one to brand names which are, not coincidentally, spread liberally across the public advertising spectrum.

When I was in college, my wife-to-be was prescribed Placidyl for her painful menstrual cramps. Placidyl was my introduction to the subliminal intent behind brand named drugs. (This is where being a word geek comes in handy. If you don't see the subliminal message behind a hypnotic sedative named "Placidyl", then you need not read further.)

Many of the brand named drugs have obvious messages behind the choices of their brand-named names. The less obvious drug name choices tend to use soft consonants instead of hard consonants; like Valium for instance. We will never see a brand named drug Dikdirt or Clitbak, for two instances. Very few drug names have hard g's in them. You will never see the drug Grokitol.

When the consumer of the drug is not the target of the advertising, the drug name tends to float into an important-sounding area that has a less obvious purpose.

Aricept is a drug currently touted for potential Alzheimer's victims. Aricept does not imply anything to me as a whole word...although "concept" comes readily to mind preceded by an all-encompassing prefix. The chemical name is Donepezil...and any advertising geek knows that the first syllable of a marketable drug for a progressive condition should never be "done".

I could rant endlessly about drug names. I'm not certain why Darvon was named Darvon? I'm not certain why Tuinal was named Tuinal aside from the presence of two barbiturates. Both of these drugs came into existence before the mass-marketing option came into existence.

I am certain that the naming universe changed when the rules for the advertisement world changed.

In a perfect world, the initial brand name of a new drug would be exactly the same as the eventual generic name of a drug...which would be a language construct based on the drug's chemical composition.

How difficult would this legislation be? It would be no more difficult than requiring the naming a tricycle as a three-wheeled vehicle, the single forward wheel being pedal driven in front of two trailing wheels, with the operator's seat located between the single forward wheel and the trailing two wheels, designed to be ridden by a child.

If I was writing the legislation, I would require that the first three or four or five syllables of the chemical description would be required to be used as the first three or four or five syllables of the drug name.

Why is this rant of any importance? It has importance because every aspect of the U.S.'s fucked-up health industry's machinations need to be identified and revamped.

I also believe that many new health care designations need to be implemented, ergo Tonsorialist...but that's another rant yet to be written.

No me apuntes con eso, Miz Cleo.

for me. Finding out that supports labor parties in America really makes me happy too. I drive a Jeep Liberty Diesel, and I bought it on Independence day 2005 when I saw what George was doing. Few (5000) were made that would take Bio Diesel. It's not for everyone but I love it.

I took it up to Matacanes within 3 months of buying it so I know what she'll do.

we don't even have time to learn the stupid cutesy names. And people can afford the meds they (maybe actually) need.

RU 486 (are you for 86ing that baby?
Sonata...for sleep

Ambien...for sleep

Dixafloppin ...for erectile disfunction

it goes on and on

actually a step-grandson, but I helped to raise him. My step-daughter was an unmarried mom. I was around him til he was 15. They lived with me and her father until we divorced. She moved on her own but I was at her apartment or they were at mine. We are very close. He's even been on this blog.

Toyota ....
Submitted by ghettodefender on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 9:17pm.
...After my Matrix, I can't imagine ever buying anything but Toyota.
--------
I know where you can get a Hillman Minx cheap.

I want you as my stepmom in my next life.

He's 16 now and tall and handsome. He was twelve when he first blogged here. Of course he's very progressive.

Submitted by mhappenow on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 10:30pm.
Dixafloppin ...for erectile disfunction
-----
I'm holding out for Wantsmorinol prescribed to icy women.

(I might need NT-Refractory to keep up.)

Brings up the Nature v Nurture arguments, don't it.

>>Coulter replied. "You have George Bush, the most persecuted ... president, I think, since Richard Nixon.

Funny she doesn't remember the 8 Clinton years...

but, still...I think most of us would have rather PROSECUTED Bush than merely `persecuting' him as Coulter suggests.
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Gupta Avoids Appointment Muck, Seeks Solid Ground

>>Gupta Avoids Appointment Muck, Seeks Solid Ground

which brings up the obvious question: Which is a better pharmaceutical brand name -- Guntaprylinide or Guptanol?
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

getting to Universal Health care? Where is he on single payer? I read he's not a huge advocate.

Rajah,

Quiksandium is prescribed when Guptanol proves ineffective.

Dyanfyndium is prescribed when you no longer care.

No shelter

Submitted by ghettodefender on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 9:37pm.

In the weeks before Israel attacked Hamas, senior Israeli officials calculated that they had bought themselves time for a prolonged demolition job in Gaza. Only two factors, they reasoned, could stop the clock. The first would be a shell dropping on a civilian mass shelter... The second would be the international outrage which grew from it....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/07/jabalya-bombing-gaza...

=========================================

That first sentence showing the Israelis "calculated" a "prolonged demolition job" is chilling, indicating they're willingness to kill thousands one at a time and only a media-grabbing mass 'kill' would mess up their plans!

These people (because individuals are responsible for this insane Militarism and decisions to use it in acts of aggression) are REPREHENSIBLE. When will they be tried for war crimes?

Reid pushing Rolland Burris out into the rain using the Capitol police -- just plain RUDE. No matter what position Reid has on Burris' appointment, has Reid no human decency or politeness in him that he thinks it's acceptable to push a senior out in a winter rain storm?!

I especially liked Hartmann's comment today: Something to the affect that Reid used the Capitol police on Burris, but NEVER used them on KKKarl Rove, Harriet Myers, et al. Go figure.

Ron Asheton, original guitarist for the Stooges found dead at home.

I know this is trivial compared to the horrendous nightmare we are living in, but the Stooges were one of my favorite bands to thrash about and release to.

Toni d, good luck on the knee. We'll all be thinking of you.

>>Reid used the Capitol police on Burris, but NEVER used them on KKKarl Rove, Harriet Myers, et al.

I look at it this way, if a democrat attacks a republican it is looked at as partisan. But, when a democrat is attacked, it is bipartisan.

oh, and if a republican were to attack a Democrat it is seen as business as usual.

Such beautiful symmetry!
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Women banned from Baghdad shrine

Iraqi authorities have closed a major shrine in Baghdad's Kadhimiya area to women amid security concerns as a Shia religious ceremony reaches its climax.

Ashura is among the holiest days for Shia Muslims, but women will be barred from the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine.

At least 35 people were killed there by a male suicide bomber on Sunday. Early reports said the bomber was a woman.

Correspondents describe the ban as an extraordinary step, driven by deep concerns over security.

The security forces in Iraq lack female members, allowing women to go unsearched and thus able to penetrate security cordons, says the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Baghdad.

Heavy security is also in place in the city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, where shrines to relatives of the Prophet Muhammad are housed.

Hundred of thousands of Iraqi and foreign pilgrims have streamed into Karbala for the religious event.

An estimated two million pilgrims are being watched over by nearly 30,000 members of the security forces there.

Some Shia pilgrims will flagellate themselves with chains or knives in memory of the Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who fell at the battle of Karbala 14 centuries ago.
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Where does that come from? Could belonging to an authoritarian religion have anything to do with it. Why can't he make any powerful decisions from his position of power? Sheesh.

why does Israel need to STEAL Palestinian land and commit genocide against the indigenous people? Isn't all that money enough?

The Israelis are using those 'Hamas' rockets' as JUSTIFICATION for this aggressive pounding of the Gaza civilian population. Yet, similar to the Bush WMD claims, I haven't seen any corroboration that the Israeli claims are true, no reporters interviewing Hamas in the act of announcing its responsibility, no consideration that this could be a false-flag/provocateur act of terrorism originating with the Isrealis themselves (Afterall, Israel has their Mossad, one of the world's most astute secret organizations capable of sophisticated terrorist acts).

Just asking: Why are these scenarios as explained by the High Tech Militarist Israel so instantaneously accepted as factual?

Are these claims of rocket attacks verified by a third party like the U.N. or something? Is there a way to doublecheck and verify Israel's claims that they have been attacked by whom they say they have been attacked?

The U.S. gives Israel $700,000 MILLION a day or something outrageous -- so why should we not get the proper facts about all this? It's not too much to ask.

Since Israel won't let reporters into Gaza, one must ask, ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE SOMETHING? Are they trying to kill off the Palestinians they will then blame as being responsible -- trying them in the press without Justice posthumously?

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/010609b.html

Last month, trying to change the emerging historical consensus about a failed presidency, the White House published two lengthy reports, “Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the Administration of George W. Bush,” and “100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record.”

One of the surprising claims that stood out among the combined 90 pages of so-called accomplishments was the White House’s glowing assessment of Bush’s record on veterans’ issues. Bush claims he “provided unprecedented resources for veterans” over the past eight years and provided “the highest level of support for veterans in American history.”

and I am listening to Peter B... ;) YIPPIE!
I never got to store YET since Danu was giving her warning bark when I was getting ready to leave (hours ago).
Last time she barked like that there was a scary man trying to break in the back door, whilst peering through my door and back kitchen side window. My back fence had been broken in certain places, due to intense winds, but still he had to tresspass.
I thought someone perhaps had gently knocked on side door since I still saw movement.
I now, after many years, have an itsy bitsy "wild kitty" to me, since I only seemed mostly to get male strays 2 plus years and usually MUCH OLDER, and on deaths door.
This poor little "wild" kitty does have eye problems which I will be calling the Vet, this day.
Ahhhhh so sweet, so cut.

just doesn't look right.... ;)

The President intends to appoint the following individuals to be Members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council:

Daniel Silva, of the District of Columbia, for a five-year term beginning 01/16/09. - CNN

Israel halts campaign for 3 hours to let in aid

GAZA CITY, Gaza – Israel ordered a pause in its Gaza offensive for three hours Wednesday to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and the country's leaders debated whether to accept an international cease-fire plan or expand the assault against Hamas.

With criticism rising of the operation's spiraling civilian death toll and Gazans increasingly suffering the effects of nonstop airstrikes and shelling, Israel's military said opened "humanitarian corridors" to allow aid supplies to reach Palestinians.

Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said the "recess in offensive operations" was aimed at allowing in supplies and fuel and would last from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m local time (6 a.m. to 9 a.m. EST). He said similar lulls in the coming days would be considered.

However, Lerner said that even during the pause "for every attack against the army, there will be a response."

As Israel's leadership met in the morning in Tel Aviv, sounds of heavy gunfire and thick plumes of smoke engulfed the Zeitoun neighborhood east of Gaza City. Israel said it struck 40 Hamas targets during the hours of darkness. Gaza health officials said new strikes Wednesday morning killed eight people.

Outrage over an Israeli strike Tuesday near a U.N. school that killed 39 people continued, with the U.N. agency responsible for the building demanding an "impartial investigation" into the attack.

About 300 of the more than 670 Palestinians killed so far are civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. figures. Of those killed, at least 130 are children age 16 and under, says the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which tracks casualties.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinian...

when will hamas stopping using the palestinians as human shields?

when will hamas stop using the basements of mosques as weapon caches?

Steny Hoyer Wants Pro-Israel Resolution
by BooMan
Tue Jan 6th, 2009 at 11:17:08 PM EST

This is so predictable, but it nevertheless is dispiriting, disheartening, discouraging, and plain dishonorable.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Top Democrats are planning to introduce a non-binding congressional resolution supporting Israel's goal in its Gaza Strip operation.
U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the U.S. House of Representatives majority leader, told JTA he was looking at such a resolution, which is being drafted in the office of Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"Certainly it would not demand a cease-fire," Hoyer said. "It would speak to the conditions that would justify a cease-fire. A cease-fire is not a just cease-fire when it's just Israel" holding fire.

The best thing to do in a situation like this is to refrain from empty non-binding resolutions of any type. In this case, there is no other reason to do a resolution than to try to identify the 'enemies of Israel' and mark them for punishment. Many members will feel pressured to support Israel even though they object to what they are doing. Since there is nothing to be gained by opposing the resolution and much to be lost, it is assured that the vote tally will be nothing less than a distortion of the true opinion of the Congress.

This, then, creates the false impression that there us near unanimity of support for whatever it is that Israel wants to do. And let me be frank about this...sending such a message does more to put Americans at risk than it does it protect Israelis.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/1/6/23178/68453

Bush pushed the elections in Palestine. Hamas, at that time were feeding and helping the people of Palestine so the Palestinians voted Hamas in.

There should never have been an election. At that time Abbas and Israel were working on a peace treaty between Palestine and Israel. Bush insisted on the "democratic" elections for that area, because they worked so well (sarcasm) in Iraq. But it backfired and Hamas was voted in and now we have the mess.

c-span has Patrick McHenry on. Turned that sucker off fast!
That little weasel!

General Motors Says It May Not Need Additional Government Funds to Survive
General Motors Corp. has enough government loans to cover the worst-case scenario it described last month and says it won’t need more if the economy holds up.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=adjAfaUdbWbU&refer=n...

Fed Revives Discussion of Inflation Target to Counter Risk of Price Slide
Federal Reserve officials revived the prospect of setting an explicit target for inflation to counter the risk that the worst economic slump in the postwar era will trigger a broad decline in prices.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aAj2_a3QOknM&refer=n...

****MSNBC Breaking News
Israel conditionally welcomes proposal from France and Egypt to end Gaza fighting.

U.S. Companies Cut 693,000 Jobs in December, More Than Estimated, ADP Says Companies in the U.S. eliminated an estimated 693,000 jobs in December, the most since records began in 2001, a private report based on payroll data showed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=ai_6NYX8u5P4&refer=e...

Private-sector jobs fell 693,000 in December - much worse than expected - says payroll-processing firm ADP. More soon. - CNN

Government officials and Jewish leaders are concerned the conflict in Gaza may spill over into violence in Europe, with attacks reported against Jews and synagogues in France, Sweden and Britain.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_europe_gaza_jews_attacked;_ylt=Ar7CwI2fBS_...

Seniors voted for Republican
policies -- now, they're paying the price

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The recession is hitting older Americans -- the age group who most likely voted for Bush and Republican policies -- harder, forcing many to cut back on contributions to retirement accounts and extras like entertainment and restaurant meals, AARP officials said on Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_go_co/senate_burris

India's Bollywood bids Bush
goodbye with a parting shot

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barely two weeks before George W. Bush leaves the White House, Bollywood is ready with a farewell present -- a film that takes pot shots at the outgoing U.S. president.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090107/lf_nm_life/us_india_film_bush;_ylt=A...

Bush starts packing to
leave White House

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The White House said Tuesday that President Bush, never one to procrastinate, has started the process of packing his belongings for when he leaves the White House later this month.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/bush-starts-packing-to-leave-white-h...

State unemployment
claim systems overwhelmed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Electronic unemployment filing systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days amid an unprecedented crush of thousands of newly jobless Americans seeking benefits, and other states were adjusting their systems to avoid being next.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_re_us/unemployment_glitches;_y...

Hope all is well..

Be it snow,cold or Breakrooms.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

We got more last night and are expecting more today.

Glad I got all my errands done on Monday.

Hope you're doing well also.

warm your heart with some cozy videos from mire's library

finally got around to posting the Xmas videos from the grandkids' visit to New Orleans. Yes, you'll see the summer attires, it was warm.

http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j211/mira2gusto/

It's colder today (my estimate says around 45-50) but sunny. We had plenty rains and thunderstorms the last couple of days that brought the temperatures down.

Good morning all! looking forward to the breakroom show to liven up this cold humpday

lot of the snow here melted, big piles left though and the rest is slick and slippery.

some flat roof collapses when the roof drains are plugged.

wonderful to be snug and dry indoors.

It 34 degrees and cloudy in my part of Sederville.

Top Ten 2008 and Career Recipients of Pro-Israel PAC Funds

HOUSE: 2008 CYCLE
Hoyer, Steny (D-MD) $58,000

House: Career
Hoyer, Steny (D-MD) $197,275

Like the BooMan said..."This is so predictable, but it nevertheless is dispiriting, disheartening, discouraging, and plain dishonorable."

Lets see if any of these(.pdf) people vote no....

gorguss grandykids Mire!

I kinda guessed on the snow thang,Toni.. ;)
But,it was a easy guess unfortunately..Keep warm ! :)

Cool,Mire..Some more cute pics & vids..Thanks.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

On the contrary...!!!

It is from mistakes like Hamas that people learn...

You want war...????

The Put the Terrorists in charge...

Terrorists = War

Just ask Bin Laden...

Israel’s slaughter of innocent Palestinians is morally outrageous
By Joseph Levine
Online Journal Guest Writer

Jan 6, 2009, 00:28

Israel’s current assault on Gaza has sparked controversy in the mainstream press. But for all their differences, critics and supporters share a fundamental assumption: that Israel, as a Western industrial democracy, accepts the Enlightenment idea of the absolute value of individual human lives, and recognizes the inalienable rights that stem from it. Against this background, Israeli officials are seen as facing a tragic dilemma: how to confront threatening forces who do not share these values -- Islamic extremists -- without sacrificing their own moral standards.

Thus, supporters of the action in Gaza ask how else but with deadly military force can Israel protect its citizens from rocket attacks, while the critics insist that the bombing, with its high human costs, is anyway a poor means of ensuring Israel’s security.

The critics, of course, are correct. But in their tacit endorsement of the “clash-of-cultures” frame, they let Israel off the moral hook. The current assault is not governed by a painful recognition of conflicting demands of human rights; rather it is animated by profound racism, tribalism, and the ancient doctrine of collective guilt.

Con't

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4199.shtml

By the time I post and copy & paste my "L's",
more folks pop in..
Why couldn't my "Z" stop working ?
I tell ya life isn't fair sometimes..O'well..Shite happens,then we move on.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Steny Hoyer Wants Pro-Israel Resolution
Submitted by cent on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 10:15am.
--------

Stinky Hoyer, Harry Reid, and Pelosi, I can't stand them.

I thought were going to use 1s. :)

Submitted by MMRules on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 10:23am.
----

I hope all is peaceful this morning in your part of Sederville.

Senate Dems plan to accept Roland Burris in Illinois Senate Seat.

I figured this would happen. Nothing wrong with Burris.
Good man and will be good for Illinois and the country.

yawn! research this AM, some more motorsickle tweaking, i may be able to actually get Bgurls stang out of the shop since some of the back lane snow is running into the street.

we've been keeping the street drains unclogged. i see the neighbor whose house they're in front of out there too this year.

sitting here wondering what Vancouver city council is gonna do for the olympics in 2010...

I just wish the States would get their shit together and stop playing stupid little games and sending un-certified/under-certified Senators to DC. I mean, do they want to be part of the Union or not?

I don't blame Reid for being a dick about it. We don't have time for this crap.

Just too tacky.. ;)
Plus,I can't whine as much if I use the 1s..

I'm saving up for a Mac unless a "got to have Guitar", comes my way.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

not to mention is one more dem vote in the Senate for the important upcoming votes

cute vids! Nice to have and look at when they are gone.

Pictures and vids mean alot to grandparents. Especially when they live far away from you. Keeps you a part of their lives even when you can't be around them.

Perfect ! ! :)

1o1 !!

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Fine here.. 54* Part1y c1oudy..
(Don't hate me for being warm) ;)

Wou1d 1ike to throw my 1aptop in the snow somewheres,though !

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

maybe something having to do with political theatre? Also the way it's pronounced, somehow it's hard to get all tv people to pronounce it the same way. Is this a difficult name for americans to pronounce?

and about Aaron Burr, I've been told that my ex husband's family are descendants, i found it interesting. So my grandkids, those sweet things have some of his dna? just something to ponder about on a cold humpday. I must say I can almost see some the feistiness in louisa's posturings

if that was Kent Jones just now on Stephanie's show..
Doing the Bustard spokesperson thing..
Sounded abit 1ike Lawton Sma11s,toned down a smudge..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Who wou1d have thunk it ?

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

sometimes i put them on a loop while i do things around the house, in lieu of the tv droning with their depressing and silly talk

Since no one on new thread mentioned it..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

irritates me to no end

Something seriously wrong with that man.

sohbet sitesi üzerinden sohbet ve aşk odalarında sohbet edilebilir