Never Again to Anyone

Hell1

Novo

NEU

Kelefa Sanneh, Staff Writer at The New Yorker and former music critic at The Times details just how much love for MJ there is by telling the story of Manu Dibango, the musician from whom MJ stole music for his song, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” Despite the theft, Dibango extolls nothing but praise and respect for MJ.

Rihanna, on the other hand….

Links..

http://microphonememoryemotion.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/mj-stole-mama-se...

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

Check out this amazing video of Neil Young playing just a few days ago. The man is so old and yet, so agile! Sir Paul comes out to sing with him. What do you think about the differences between the two of them? There are so many of such great contrast it’s not even funny. To make a list would be too much. Paul’s dance moves are very uninspired. But Neil? Holy shit!

http://microphonememoryemotion.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/neil-youngfierce...

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

can ... ...
That above saying was what I was taught, whilst then still laughing...
"...attitude thus iz mine..." ATT...
;)

good pick Sam.

Naomi says it well doesn't she?

if i'm still blogging at midnight, you'll know i wussed out again, and did not meet my friend at roxy's to see her girlfriends amazing hilarious tastelessful burlesque show.

Annathropicanana and Alice would enjoy it methinks,
some kinky kittens. if your ever in buffalo.

i'm just a little unsure of how to walk through the door of a lesbian bar and look natural.

and my frank-n-furter costume is still in re-hab.

http://www.myspace.com/thestripteasers

"I'm better now, I'm O.K."

Racism and Friedmanism go hand in hand:
"Meanwhile, here in Israel, this same ideology Milton Friedman's ideas about how the government isn't the solution but rather always the problem are flourishing."

Should We Let California Go Bankrupt?
"As Milton Friedman observed in the mid-1990s, you can’t have porous borders and a welfare state. The incentives are all wrong."
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/02/should_we_let_californi...

http://hypem.com/track/412118/Petra+Haden+-+Thriller+Michael+Jackson+cov...

Submitted by Rich Phittswell on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 10:34pm.
...i'm just a little unsure of how to walk through the door of a lesbian bar and look natural...
-------
Always order a Fuzzy Nipple.

Saddam's motives revealed in interview documents

Updated at 6:14am on 3 July 2009

The FBI has issued documents which show Saddam Hussein let the world believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he did not want to reveal lraq's weakness to Iran.

The documents contain the transcripts of Saddam Hussein's questioning in 2004, after his arrest by US troops.

The BBC reports Saddam Hussein said he refused to allow UN weapons inspectors into Iraq to stop Iran knowing how weak it had become.

The former Iraqi leader was interviewed after his capture nine months after the US-led invasion of Iraq.

He was later tried by an Iraqi special tribunal, found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged in December 2006.

The documents recount interviews between February - June 2004 in a detention cell at Baghdad International Airport.

The BBC reports the former leader appeared to view Iran as the biggest threat to Iraq, which was why he said he kept UN inspectors out in the late 1990s, even though he had already got rid of all his weapons of mass destruction.

He said he preferred to risk American anger than to let Iran know how weak Iraq had become.

"I'm madder now, I'm O.K."

The Case of the Shrinking Sheep
New York Times - Kenneth Chang - ‎2 hours ago‎
On a remote Scottish island, the sheep are shrinking, and the cause appears to be the warming of winter...
--------
Never dry your wool in a hot climate.

i knew you'd know the secret knock, Senor Bait.

whats in that anyways?
does it have grenadeine?

flaming fuzzy nipples all around!

I just don't want to seem too eager.

"I'm better now, I'm O.K."

;)
luv the music 2

The nature of navel fluff
http://www.ncbirofl.com/2009/07/nature-of-navel-fluff.html

July 03, 2009 By Nicola Nasser

[...]Netanyahu demanded that the "Palestinian population," and not the Palestinian people -- who live "in Judea and Samaria," and not in the Israeli - occupied Palestinian territory, where there is an "Israeli presence," and not an Israeli military occupation -- should first agree to a "public, binding and unequivocal" recognition that Israel is "the nation state of the Jewish people" worldwide, and not the nation state of the Israelis. His demand was an arrogant precondition ridiculed by Gideon Levy in Haaretz on June 15 as an "excessive demand that Palestinians recognize the Jewish state by one who has failed to recognize the Palestinians as a people," sarcastically welcomed the next day by Ma'ariv's chief political columnist, Ben Caspit, who wrote: "Welcome, Mr. Prime Minister, to the 20th century. The problem is that we're already in the 21st." Moreover, such a precondition "is almost humiliating and it is unlikely to be met," by the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to Avi Issacharoff, writing in Haaretz on June 17.

Israeli analyst M.J. Rosenberg wrote on June 19: Acceptance of Israel as a "Jewish state" is a non-starter at this point. And Netanyahu knows it. If that is a precondition for negotiations, there will be no negotiations. But without any definition of borders and with Netanyahu committed to expanding settlements in the West Bank, how can anyone seriously expect Palestinians to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state?" Aaron David Miller, a former senior U.S. negotiator in the Mideast, said Netanyahu's speech "was less about pursuing Arab-Israeli peace and much more about pursuing the U.S.-Israeli relationship."
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/21858

I feel ya sammer....

Genocide sux....for everyone involved....

for everyone.

;)

Chris Engen was a fairly new actor on the soap opera "The Young & The Restless". His character was Adam and he was the son of Victor Newman. Apparently, the writers decided to turn his heterosexual character into a homosexual. It would require him to kiss a man. Engen refused. The producers would not back down. Chris Engen has left the soap. Perez Hilton has dubbed him a homophobic. But is he?

http://perezhilton.com/2009-05-21-soap-star-quits-because-of-gay-kiss

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

I was unaware of this one. January 9, 2009

Blair Underwood

Blair Underwood fired after refusing bi-sexual role

Agent afraid role could ruin actors image in black community. Despite fans petitioning on line, ABC has unofficially decided to cancel “Dirty Sexy Money” according to co-star Blair Underwood.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re not doing any more shows,” says the actor, who played Simon Elder on the series. “ABC officially doesn’t want to use the C-word—canceled—but we’re not on the schedule. I would pretty much say we’re canceled.” Hollywood agents are buzzing that the show was pulled from the schedule after Underwood refused for his character to play a bi-sexual role.

con't:
http://johnjohnsaidit.com/blair-underwood-fired-after-refusing-bi-sexual...

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

Before you decide if these two men are indeed homophobic, may I remind you that some male actors will not star with a woman over a certain age. Furthermore, Sean Connery (age 79) and Clint Eastwood (age 80)are still considered sex symbols. However, for women, it ends around 40.

Link

Excerpt:
Oh sure, Democrats have their sex scandals, but they're not nearly as interesting. Most Democrats busted
in sex scandals aren't the same type of overbearing moral scolds as your average GOP politician.
Plus, Democratic sex scandals tend to be of the more vanilla nature.

The GOP's deviants have brought a wealth of oddball debaucheries to the table, from failed bathroom-stall hookups
to slimy messages sent to underage congressional pages to rumored S&M diaper fantasies. So let's review the past
20 years of Republican sex scandals and rate each one on a scale of 1 to 10 based on factors such as hypocrisy,
legal liability, the damage inflicted upon the perpetrators' careers and overall comedy.

**
They listed Clarence "Slappy" Thomas, Bob Packwood, Gingrich, perv Mark Foley, diaper-boy David Vitter,
Larry "Wide-stance" Craig, and Mark Sanford, but there were so many others.

Remember Bob Livingston?

He was going to be Speaker (after Gingrich got caught) but Larry Flynt claimed he had a tape of Livingston
getting whipped by his dominatrix and he promised to release the tape if Livingston didn't resign.

ha ha

Flynt was bluffing, but Livingston didn't know that.

Plus, I remember some impeachment House Managers brought their hookers to the proceedings.

www.bartcop.com

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

female homosexual {the Isle of Lesbo? is not accepting the term Lesian except that it is "their" name} ... anyway in the SF community and Oakland/Berkely Hills community, were my close friends live so me {= straight} & female Homosexual... we both will go with you into a female Lez place or just me & U cuz I am NOT afraid. However Lez's can be just as raunchy as bars with Men -- giggle.
;)
men & women young & old ... use similar pick-up "LINES". HaHaHa
;)

;)

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

...wrote. snicker I just luv Annathropicanana. {makes me laugh - I need a drink giggle}

it took like four years,
Submitted by Rich Phittswell on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 10:34pm.
if i'm still blogging at midnight, you'll know i wussed out again, and did not meet my friend at roxy's to see her girlfriends amazing hilarious tastelessful burlesque show.

Annathropicanana and Alice would enjoy it methinks,
some kinky kittens. if your ever in buffalo.

i'm just a little unsure of how to walk through the door of a lesbian bar and look natural.

I look to the day when: "...and my frank-n-furter costume is still in re-hab". hahaha

...wrote. snicker I just luv Annathropicanana. {makes me laugh - I need a drink giggle}

it took like four years,
Submitted by Rich Phittswell on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 10:34pm.
if i'm still blogging at midnight, you'll know i wussed out again, and did not meet my friend at roxy's to see her girlfriends amazing hilarious tastelessful burlesque show.

Annathropicanana and Alice would enjoy it methinks,
some kinky kittens. if your ever in buffalo.

i'm just a little unsure of how to walk through the door of a lesbian bar and look natural.

I look to the day when: "...and my frank-n-furter costume is still in re-hab". hahaha

Independence day is always a big deal here. Everyone gets together in many parties. I got these to share with my friends and keep the Iranian Election protests on our tongues. I've sent about 20 of them out to people who have shared their address with me. My friends are consuming these things like crazy and in 30 hours about 40 of them are already gone. I didn't even know that they cared.

They are being grabbed folks and given to loved ones who are both Republican and Democrats. They won't last long.

If you want one, send your address to fernando37v at gmail dot com

How you feeling ?
Ok I hope..
Dumb statement but,remember to do what your Doctor tells you to do.. :)

**
I sent you a email for the wristband..
Thank you..

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5slU0rC9Q0
A performance of the song 'Defying Gravity' from the award-winning Broadway musical 'Wicked' at the 2004 Tony Awards.
==
this is at the end of act one and the audience here in Tempe really cheers.
Just what about 50 people backstage plus the large cast and a few million in equipment can bring you. Plus that magic thing.
wow
: )
[and we're sold out - or close to it - for all four weeks]

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN CHARACTER

THE "CRINGING WIMP" GENERATION

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER

For years we hear little else, "But he kept us safe." The "but" refers to bankrupting the country, stealing elections, suspending Constitutional Rights, poisoning the air and water and turning the country over to racketeers from oil, drug, insurance and crooked financial services.

We lost our free press in a propaganda blitz coordinated illegally with tax dollars and endless "organizations" that all track down to war profiteers, big polluters or financial scamsters working with our former government as full partners in crime.

Never has any American generation, and we have had some real doozies, the isolationist "pro-Nazi" and lynch mob group of the 20s and 30s whose kids grew up to fight WW2, failed so miserably at being American. This one danced with the devil in the name of "family values" while killing hundreds of thousands, mostly innocent, torturing prisoners of war and raping and pillaging both domestically and abroad.

Protests were banned, censorship was enforced, albeit "informally" and the entire federal government became part of a criminal conspiracy, from the Supreme Court and White House downward, subverting laws, prosecuting and jailing, not only "enemies" but protesting veterans and their families. There were 2000 such cases against vets.

Nothing was investigated. Why would 9/11 be covered up if there wasn't some reason? Our military and intelligence community is filled with people who have gone public about 9/11. Few questions were answered and it was just too convenient, falling right into the middle of a plan we now know for certain was designed to create a reason to invade Iraq. Only cowards refuse to demand answers.

Con't..

http://www.veteranstoday.com/article7547.html

What Bush did to a once-great nation..

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

sent u my address.

Tanks..... :)

;) plus the music kewl

Yea! ;)

Submitted by MMRules on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 12:08am.
Rating GOP Sex Scandals
--------

Lows down dirty scoundrel

Stone advertising the goods

There is one of those disgusting perverts that remains extremely powerful in the Republican Party, MM. His name is rarely mentioned, though he is a very sought after operative. I'm speaking about Roger Stone. He is the protege of the closeted Ray Cohn- who was a protege of the equally closeted- J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover introduced Cohn to Joseph McCarthy, and the rest is one, sick history. Stone is the one that worked tirelessly on bringing Spitzer down. Apparently, he also threatened Spitzer's father. He also formed those fake Florida demonstrations to stop the recount in 2000, never mind his crowing about Bill Clinton "having a problem with his zipper".

Stone is also the same man who had to leave the Dole Campaign in disgrace. Why? Stone is a bisexual, swinger. He and his wife Nadia were placing ads in various swinger magazines. No fat people please! He's partial to the leather S&M party variety. He was exposed very loudly in the Enquirer. The MSM covered it ever so slightly. Surprise, surprise!

Check out more of his dirty dealings at Wikipedia.

Also check out this old article:

SEX FLAP HITS GOPER
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1996/09/13/1996-09-13_sex_flap_...

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

DON"T FORGET ABOUT THIS GUY!
Submitted by edna ellen poe on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 1:35am.
Submitted by MMRules on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 12:08am.
Rating GOP Sex Scandals
*******

Yes Edna,I remember that scum bucket..

The M$M must have been paid off,unfortunately..
What's new ?

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

since I already iz the choir. ;)Also when e-mail I wish to give a "greeting" ...just cuz u r kewl. I ate a (sp)"quisa dea"(sp) now don't laugh cuz I cannot spell .. i am laughing at me as it is. eye-roll 2 me. I thought I had a non" hot "salsa", to then have it soooo hot...my tongue is still "burnt". I thought of you laughing at my "Mexican" food, attempt...
I still have Irish "bland" eatting, which works for my taste buds. mwah haha.
You are probably asleep * thus Sleep Well ;) xxoo

OOOooo Alice a White Rabbit Tat on the MATRIX. When I sea/see it I think of you. {BTW how iz your mate? ...I hope all Fares Well.}

teehee ;) now i have to catch up with your writing, cuz I wanted to respond to.

DON"T FORGET ABOUT THIS GUY!
Submitted by edna ellen poe on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 1:35am.
Submitted by MMRules on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 12:08am.
Rating GOP Sex Scandals

OK, Iran was mean to us in 1979-1980.

But Reagan/Bush partnered up with those radical terrorists and made them a secret illegal deal
to hold the helpless American hostages longer than those radical terrorists wanted to hold them so
"I'll never deal with terrorists" Reagan could get the White House awat from lawful Jimmy Carter.

Once Reagan/Bush got in power, they gave or sold poison gas to Saddam to murder Iranians.

Reagan/Bush backed Saddam the Aggressor when he invaded Iran.
Why was America in the business of helping the aggressor?

So Iraq and Iran fought to a million-dead-men draw during the eighties.
In the early nineties, Saddam asked Bush for permission to invade Kuwait then-president Bush said yes.
But as soon as Saddam invaded, Bush harrumped, "This aggression will not stand."

Why did Poppy Bush give Saddam permission to invade Kuwait?
Because he was known as "Bush the Wimp" and he wanted to get rid of that label.

Con't..

http://www.bartcop.com/bush-bastards.htm

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

Goodnight to All.

:)

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

;)

I love this time of year.

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

home from work
Went out in the backyard, (last night was just like this) sit down put feet up and the temp of the air envelops the body. Something happens to the bodies muscles. You relax on a deep level. The body I think knows there is no possibility of getting cold. The aches and pains are still there but the comfyness is idyllic.

http://www.wunderground.com/US/AZ/Phoenix.html
=
Phoenix, Arizona
Add to My Favorites - iCal Feed RSS Feed
Local Time: 11:47 PM MST on July 02, 2009 (GMT -07) — Set My Timezone Lat/Lon: 33.5° N 112.1° W (Google Map)
Current Conditions

36th St and Camelback, Phoenix, Arizona (PWS)
Updated: 16 sec ago
Scattered Clouds
86.5 °F
Scattered Clouds
Humidity: 49%
Dew Point: 65 °F
Wind: Calm
Wind Gust: 0.0 mph
=

Do you worry that youre not liked
How long till you break
Youre happy cause you smile
But how much can you fake
An ordinary boy an ordinary name
But ordinarys just not good enough today

Alone Im thinking
Why is superman dead
Is it in my head
Well just laugh instead
You worry about the weather and
Whether or not you should hate

Are you worried about your faith
Kneel down and obey
Youre happy youre in love
You need someone to hate
An ordinary girl an ordinary waist
But ordinarys just not good enough today
Doesnt anybody ever know that the worlds a subway

Our Lady Peace › Superman’s Dead
~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

I'd love one Fernando.

Thanks!

PS Where in the world is Chubby Bubba?

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

You know I've been wondering the same thing..

I'll email him..Hopefully,I'll get a response tommorrow..

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

Republicans fail to see the humor in a comedian elected to Congress, but they have no trouble supplying the late night comics with material.

- Laugh Lines

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

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

"well they're not scared of you, they scared of what you represent to um. "

“Easy Rider” by Freedom

thanks fernando
~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

*

http://www.artsetfree.com/

"We wanted to see straight through from the other side. It worked."

http://www.surgicaltechnologists.net/blog/20-scary-old-school-surgical-t...

http://www.openculture.com/2009/07/100_lectures_from_the_worlds_top_scie...

....the growing effort by the administration to frame the health care debate with personal stories of struggle....

The Obama White House and Democratic Party are making a major new push to rally support for a health care overhaul, going up on air with a television advertisement declaring that "It's Time" for reform.

The spot builds off of the growing effort by the administration to frame the health care debate with personal stories of struggle. In the ad, a woman describes the medical challenges faced by her four-year-old son. A man says he was losing his health insurance along with his job, and another man reveals that his "father-in-law walks with a limp because he didn't have health care."

The Democratic National Committee is officially putting out the ad, but the coordination with the White House is obvious. The administration and its campaign arm -- Organizing for America -- have made a major push in recent weeks to shift the focus of the debate over health care onto the people who personify the need for reform. This included launching a site, "Health Care Stories for America," a site that allows people to look up individual stories of suffering from within their community. The soon-to-be-released ad, obtained by the Huffington Post, directs viewers to Organizing for America's main health care website.
...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/02/obama-dnc-launch-ad-campa_n_224...

I’ve wondered often why people who go to “town meetings” held by campaigning politicians rarely ask fundamental questions.

Here is one that should have been asked of presidential candidate Barack Obama: “If you get to the White House, will you appoint to top positions Americans who have a track record of making the right decisions in their respective fields?”

“Of course, I will,” Obama would have undoubtedly replied.

Of course, he did not when it came to the collapse of the corrupt Wall Street casinos and the bailout of these gamblers by the American people. Obama chose the very Wall Streeters and Wall Street servants who were involved in, condoned, or profited from the speculative binges that led to the biggest government bailout scheme in world history. The President’s explanation is that he wants experienced people who know how Wall Street works. Yeah, right! In reality, he wanted political cover.

Something very important is missing when even people who are part of the ruling establishment are ignored, marginalized, or ridiculed even though their detailed, public warnings prove to be all too accurate.

Consider billionaire, Ross Perot. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Ross, as everyone calls him, was right on General Motors, right on NAFTA trade, and right on the federal deficits.

In 1984, he joined the Board of Directors of GM after selling his successful company, EDS, to the auto giant. He could scarcely believe how stodgy, bureaucratic, and insensitive GM executives were in running the company. He tried to shake up the boys at the top to meet the fast-growing competition from Asia and Europe.

The GM brass couldn’t stand Ross “at large” probing up and down the company, so in 1986 they bought out his shares in return for him leaving the Board.

Two years later, reflecting on his experience at GM with a reporter from Fortune, Perot called the “General Motors system a blanket of fog that keeps people from doing what they know needs to be done.”

Warming up, Perot continued: “One day I made a speech to some senior executives. I said, ‘Okay, guys, I’m going to give you the whole code on what’s wrong. You don’t like your customers. You don’t like your dealers. You don’t like the people who make your cars. You don’t like your stockholders. And, to a large extent, you don’t like one another. For this company to win, we’re going to have to love our customers. We’re going to have to stop fretting about dealers who make too much money and hope they make $1 billion a year though us. The guys on the factory floor are the salt of the earth—not mad-dog, rabid, burn-the-plant-down radicals. And all this sniping at one another—the financial guys vs. the cars guys—is terribly destructive.’”

GM didn’t listen to Ross. Now, after a long, relentless slide, GM is bankrupt, abandoning their workers, two thousand of their dealers, and their customers’ grievances. Moreover, GM is into the U.S. taxpayer for over $70 billion.

Perot devoted much of his 1993 published book Save Your Job, Save Our Country to NAFTA and trade. Looking back, he was right most of the time. NAFTA cost more U.S. jobs than it created, generated a huge U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, and mainly benefited the “36 businessmen who own Mexico’s 39 largest conglomerates or over half of Mexico’s Gross National Product.”

The border-located maquiladora factories have high worker turnover and squeeze the laborers in often unsafe conditions for little pay.

Here is how Perot described the scene behind the boasting of Washington, DC, and corporations about the large increase in trade after NAFTA:

“Most of the goods produced in the maquiladoras are shipped into the U.S. market. Consequently, most of the so-called trade between the U.S. and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily U.S. companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished or semi-finished goods back over the border into the U.S.”

A good deal of the U.S. auto industry went south after NAFTA, leaving workers and communities stranded in Michigan and other states. Bankrupt Chrysler is planning to move a modern, award-winning engine plant in Wisconsin to Mexico after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.

On Perot’s nationally-televised deficit warnings (with charts), what more need be said? Even he did not envision what would pile up after his clarion calls. The burden on the next generation and the tax dollars diverted from our country’s needs to pay the interest on these trillions of dollars of debt were pointed out again and again nearly twenty years ago by the Texas entrepreneur. He even has a website (perotcharts.com) updating the red ink.

In Bush’s and Obama’s Washington, there is no room for Perot to gain visibility and recognition.

It is one thing for the Washington politicians to ignore prescient progressive commentators, like William Grieder, who have been prophetically right on. It is quite another escape from reality to turn their backs on leaders within the business establishment itself.

There are many like Perot who must be watching the day’s news and saying “we told you so, but you didn’t listen then and you are not listening now.”

- 30 -

http://www.cfr.org/publication/16188/

http://www.chris-spangle.com/2008/06/19/obamas-adviser-list-shows-little...

But it's Republicans who are prone to preaching about other people's intimate lives

By Gene Lyons

July 2, 2009 | With respect to Gov. Mark Sanford, it's probably always a mistake for a Puritan to visit Latin America. A handsome cardiologist's son, he married money, went into real estate, then politics. Like many South Carolina aristocrats, he's an Episcopalian. However, like most Southern Republicans, Sanford talked like a biblical fundamentalist: piously condemning others' sexual sins and boasting about his own righteousness.

Such simple-minded certitudes often fail to survive exposure to the wider world. One dark-eyed temptress and it all comes undone.

You'd think the man had never heard a country song.

GOP hypocrisy regarding the "culture war" that Newt Gingrich declared against Democrats a couple or three marriages ago is getting to be a very old story. It's hard keeping track of the virtual parade of naughty congressmen, philandering GOP mayors and governors, polymorphously perverse right-wing preachers and Republican senators variously soliciting undercover cops, patronizing prostitutes and sleeping with the help.

Con't - Salon

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

Invisible Ralph....
Submitted by Alice on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 5:08am
*******

Ya got a link for this ? :)

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

Climate vote threatens Dems' careers
By: Patrick O'Connor
July 3, 2009 05:53 AM EST

ALTON, Va. – Rep. Tom Perriello relishes an energy fight with Republicans – even here in the rural southside.

The freshman lawmaker understands the potential consequences that he and other vulnerable Democrats face for backing a sweeping climate-change bill, and rather than ducking the issue, he’s embracing what may have been the toughest vote of his young political career.

“There’s got to be something more important than getting re-elected,” Perriello said in an interview with POLITICO. “If I lose my seat, and that’s the worst that happens, I could live with that.”

But the 34-year-old believes Democrats will win this fight.

“This is a gift,” Perriello said of the vote. “For the first time in a generation, we have the chance to redefine our energy economy…This is a great moment for us.”

It’s unclear whether voters in this part of Virginia, where tobacco farms are shrinking, textile mills have shut down and unemployment remains well above the national average, will embrace Perriello’s optimism about green jobs and cap and trade. Like many Democrats from Republican-leaning districts, Perriello is back home this week defending what may be a game-changing vote with consequences for 2010.

Perriello is one of the top targets in a national barrage of attack ads by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has paid for rare off-year television ad campaign against Perriello and launched radio ads and automated phone calls against a handful of his fellow Democrats.

But Republican confidence may be a little premature.

“This is an issue that is very dependent on the overall state of the economy,” said Larry Sabato, who runs The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, in an e-mail. “If the economy continues to be bad through 2010, then voters are more likely to give credence to the GOP charges.”

However, “if the economy improves,” Sabato continued, “voters won’t find the attacks credible. Really, how is anybody – even a professional economist – to know exactly what the effect of this bill will be? It’s so entangled with the rest of the economy.”

Indeed, the legislation doesn’t even have a direct impact on the barometer most Americans use to gauge the cost of energy – the price of gasoline.

“What’s going to increase the price of energy more?” asks E. Linwood Wright, an economic development consultant with the city of Danville, Va., in Perriello’s district. “The things in this bill? Or crude oil going back to $150-a-barrel?”

In the meantime, the fight will be about jobs, jobs, jobs.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=3EBD9506-18FE-70B2-A8AFD6E0E...

Smells like deflation

The grim jobs number wasn’t the only scary thing in today’s BLS report. Here’s the rate of wage change over the past three months, expressed as an annual rate:

Bear in mind that inflation usually runs below the rate of wage change, thanks to productivity growth. So we’re really heading into Japanese-style deflation territory.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/smells-like-deflation/

Visitors to the Sears Tower's new glass balconies all seem to agree: The first step is the hardest.

The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building's 103rd floor Skydeck. Their transparent walls, floor and ceiling leave visitors with the impression they're floating over the city.

"It's like walking on ice," said Margaret Kemp, of Bishop, Calif., who said her heart was still pounding even after stepping away from the balcony. "That first step you take — 'am I going down?'"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/us_sears_tower_ledge;_ylt=Ai958HvhiztL...

The paradox of American evangelicals is that they are Christian on the one hand and political conservatives on the other with utterly opposing views of redemption. - Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Mark Sanford's liberal use of religious rhetoric in confessing his affair prompts Gustav Niebuhr to observe that whether Sanford is pandering or actually penitent, he is very much in the tradition of Southern politicians caught in scandal. Bill Clinton, David Vitter, and John Edwards all applied an ample dose of "God-talk," which connects with Southern constituents, he notes in the Washington Post. Conversely, you didn't hear any, if memory serves, mention of the supreme being in the mouth of Eliot Spitzer or Jim McGreevey as they stepped down.

Meanwhile Rabbi Shmuley Boteach observes in the New York Times the irony that it was not the Christian but the Jewish view of righteousness that Sanford invoked to cushion his fall, in which “individual choice” is key. He sees conservative Christians as in a bind: While Christians believe everyone’s a sinner but can still be saved by Jesus, conservatives are ferocious believers in personal accountability. “A savior may get him into heaven. But only personal accountability will keep him in the statehouse.”

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/god-and-mark-sanford/

http://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/esteri/chicago-grattacielo/1.h...

more pictures of the thrilling sky view

You might enjoy these pictures of Chicago's Lakefront.

When I was younger, we'd always go to the lakefront beaches in the summer. My brother also had a boat he kept in a Chicago Lakefront harbor near the museums. It's a beautiful lake.

http://www.odysseyphoto.com/results.asp?TxtKeys1=Chicago+and+Lake+Michig...

We also have the Chicago River and there are many bridges that span the river and there's a river walk with shops and restaurants.

We have 33 beaches here:

http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/resources/beaches/

Obama knows how to fight the war on terror but he is just beginning to learn about the economy. Obama can learn, he has shown us that. But how long will it take for him to understand that he can not stop this economic slide until he gives up his big government ideas?

"I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world."

George W. Bush

You have to feel sorry for people who are directly affected by Obama's wrong headed approach to the economy. But sometimes, when dealing with folks that are hard-headed you have to stop progress to prove to them that their ideas don't work. We are in that kind of downward learning spiral right now. Obama will either be replaceed with someone who understands capitalism or he will see the light and save himself and the country as the same time.

"I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world."

George W. Bush

Plant disease hits eastern
US veggies early, hard
Late blight -- the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s -- occurs sporadically in the Northeast, but this year's outbreak is more severe for two reasons: infected plants have been widely distributed by big-box retail stores and rainy weather has hastened the spores' airborne spread.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090703/ap_on_bi_ge/us_farm_scene_late_bligh...

Iranian cleric: British Embassy
staff to be tried
A top Iranian cleric said Friday that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential election.

LINK

Fifth blast hits Canada
gas pipeline: police
A gas leak at a pipeline owned by EnCana in Canada's western British Columbia province was caused by a blast that police said Thursday is the fifth act of sabotage in the region since October 2008.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090702/wl_canada_afp/canadaoilgaspipelineb...

O.K., Thursday’s jobs report settles it. We’re going to need a bigger stimulus. But does the president know that?

Let’s do the math.

Since the recession began, the U.S. economy has lost 6 ½ million jobs — and as that grim employment report confirmed, it’s continuing to lose jobs at a rapid pace. Once you take into account the 100,000-plus new jobs that we need each month just to keep up with a growing population, we’re about 8 ½ million jobs in the hole.

And the deeper the hole gets, the harder it will be to dig ourselves out. The job figures weren’t the only bad news in Thursday’s report, which also showed wages stalling and possibly on the verge of outright decline. That’s a recipe for a descent into Japanese-style deflation, which is very difficult to reverse. Lost decade, anyone?

Wait — there’s more bad news: the fiscal crisis of the states. Unlike the federal government, states are required to run balanced budgets. And faced with a sharp drop in revenue, most states are preparing savage budget cuts, many of them at the expense of the most vulnerable. Aside from directly creating a great deal of misery, these cuts will depress the economy even further.

So what do we have to counter this scary prospect? We have the Obama stimulus plan, which aims to create 3 ½ million jobs by late next year. That’s much better than nothing, but it’s not remotely enough. And there doesn’t seem to be much else going on. Do you remember the administration’s plan to sharply reduce the rate of foreclosures, or its plan to get the banks lending again by taking toxic assets off their balance sheets? Neither do I.

All of this is depressingly familiar to anyone who has studied economic policy in the 1930s. Once again a Democratic president has pushed through job-creation policies that will mitigate the slump but aren’t aggressive enough to produce a full recovery. Once again much of the stimulus at the federal level is being undone by budget retrenchment at the state and local level.

So have we failed to learn from history, and are we, therefore, doomed to repeat it? Not necessarily — but it’s up to the president and his economic team to ensure that things are different this time. President Obama and his officials need to ramp up their efforts, starting with a plan to make the stimulus bigger.

Just to be clear, I’m well aware of how difficult it will be to get such a plan enacted.

There won’t be any cooperation from Republican leaders, who have settled on a strategy of total opposition, unconstrained by facts or logic. Indeed, these leaders responded to the latest job numbers by proclaiming the failure of the Obama economic plan. That’s ludicrous, of course. The administration warned from the beginning that it would be several quarters before the plan had any major positive effects. But that didn’t stop the chairman of the Republican Study Committee from issuing a statement demanding: “Where are the jobs?”

It’s also not clear whether the administration will get much help from Senate “centrists,” who partially eviscerated the original stimulus plan by demanding cuts in aid to state and local governments — aid that, as we’re now seeing, was desperately needed. I’d like to think that some of these centrists are feeling remorse, but if they are, I haven’t seen any evidence to that effect.

And as an economist, I’d add that many members of my profession are playing a distinctly unhelpful role.

It has been a rude shock to see so many economists with good reputations recycling old fallacies — like the claim that any rise in government spending automatically displaces an equal amount of private spending, even when there is mass unemployment — and lending their names to grossly exaggerated claims about the evils of short-run budget deficits. (Right now the risks associated with additional debt are much less than the risks associated with failing to give the economy adequate support.)

Also, as in the 1930s, the opponents of action are peddling scare stories about inflation even as deflation looms.

So getting another round of stimulus will be difficult. But it’s essential.

Obama administration economists understand the stakes. Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Christina Romer, the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, published an article on the “lessons of 1937” — the year that F.D.R. gave in to the deficit and inflation hawks, with disastrous consequences both for the economy and for his political agenda.

What I don’t know is whether the administration has faced up to the inadequacy of what it has done so far.

So here’s my message to the president: You need to get both your economic team and your political people working on additional stimulus, now. Because if you don’t, you’ll soon be facing your own personal 1937.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th...

The feeling I am getting from people in the southern part of Perriello's district is one of "none of the above".

While I do not see him having much trouble in the northern part of his district near the Charlottesville area, Franklin County folks and those further south, to my eye, appear to be fed up with both parties and are beginning to lean independent and/or libertarian. Several candidates have already emerged to fill that role.

It is my feeling this growing "none of the above" meme will split the republican vote and the Democrats will benefit...

JMHO FWIW.

everyone.....

Been busy (whats new?)

Have not really heard anything about Iran, yet
I haven't really been on the "Internets."
Anyone know anything -

Also has anyone heard about one of our guy's getting
abducted by the Taliban on Tuesday????
My heart sank when I heard that, oh what that poor
boy is going to go through :(

Shut Up, Mark Sanford

Mark Sanford continues to read aloud from his Hello Kitty diary about his love affair with an Argentine woman.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=232258&title=shut-...

Takes to task the media on what he calls "Obitutainment".

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=232257&title=rippy...

He really puts down Chuck Todd. And Matt Lauer.

KPHX rising from the ashes like a Phoenix?

Just when you thought it was all over at KPHX (1480AM) in Phoenix, word comes that it could very well return to the airwaves on July 6. This, according to the Phoenix New Times.

Maybe.

Kathleed Osborn, who claims to be the senior account executive with "Phoenix Progressive Radio", sent out an email announcement and media kit to prospective advertising clients and some in the media heralding the return of liberal talk to the Phoenix airwaves.

KPHX's lineup will look something like this:

Bill Press 3-6A
Stephanie Miller 6-9A
Thom Hartman 9A-12P
Randi Rhodes 12-3P
Mike Newcomb 3-6P
Mike Malloy 6-9P
Ed Shultz 9P-Midnight

Now, Stephan Lemons at the New Times is still a little skeptical. But apparently, the venture will be without Sheldon and Anita Drobny. It will be spearheaded by station owner Jose Molina, who will flip the format from adult standards. Readers here will recall that the defunct Nova M Radio moved thier programming to another station, KNUV (1190AM) at the beginning of the year. Nova M burned out in a glorious ball of flames a mere few months later.

So, come July 6 (or even before - or after), we shall find out whether KPHX will once again be Phoenix's progressive talker. Stay tuned.

http://ltradio.blogspot.com/2009/06/kphx-rising-from-ashes-like-phoenix....

Rolling Stone expose: Goldman Sachs behind every market crash since 1920s

Goldman Sachs has played a crucial role in creating every market bubble since the 1920s -- and has profited from not only the bubbles, but from the crash that followed as well, says a new expose in Rolling Stone magazine.

An article in the July 9-23 issue of the magazine, written by Matt Taibbi, lists five asset bubbles that the 140-year-old investment bank helped create -- and one that Taibbi asserts the firm is currently working to make happen.

The five bubbles the article says Goldman was central to creating are the Wall Street stock bubble in the 1920s, which led to the Great Depression; the tech-stock bubble of the late 1990s, which ended in the 2001 recession; the housing bubble of the past decade, which resulted in the current economic crisis; the oil price run-up last summer, when oil shot up to $140 a barrel, likely helping tilt the entire world into recession; and what Taibbi describes as "rigging the bailout," when Goldman Sachs' well-placed alumni inside the U.S. government engineered last fall's bank bailout in such a way that the company profited massively.

Taibbi writes that Goldman Sachs has traditionally been a late arrival to market bubbles, getting in once others have started the trend, but, once in, the company quickly ramps up the bubble, predicts its bursting, and then hedges its bets so as to make money from the bubble crash.

The article, which is not yet officially available online, adds one more bubble to the list: the "global warming bubble," or specifically, the proposed cap-and-trade legislation that would allow companies to trade pollution credits on an open market.

Taibbi's argument suggests the Wall Street bank may well want to turn climate change policy into yet another Wall Street casino game.

Because emissions caps will continually be reduced, Taibbi argues, pollution credits will constantly be growing in value, and Goldman Sachs wants in on the ground floor.

Taibbi writes: "The plan is (1) to get in on the ground floor of paradigm-shifting legislation, (2) make sure that they're the profit-making slice of that paradigm and (3) make sure the slice is -- a big slice. Goldman started pushing hard for cap-and-trade long ago, but things really ramped up last year when the firm spent $3.5 million to lobby climate issues."

On his blog, Taibbi has begun a discussion of the public reaction to his article. Some commenters have suggested that Taibbi's understanding of high finance is limited, accusing him of misreading Goldman Sachs' actions.

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/rolling-stone-expose-goldman-sachs-behi...

I don't see Jeff Farias in that line-up??

Friday, July 03, 2009
Mousavi Said Calling for General Strike;
Hard Liners Call for his Arrest

In what may be a major development, it is being alleged that Iranian opposition leader Mir Hosain Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard are calling for a general strike next week. Such a strike would be harder for the regime to forestall than crowds coming into the streets, and whether it has a big effect or not would be a way of measuring the support for the reformists in the country.

Predictably, hard liners in the Iranian parliament are calling for Mousavi to be arrested. As it is, seven members of what the regime calls "anti-government groups" from Tehran and Qazvin were arrested yesterday.

Not satisfied with having held an Egyptian-style election, some Iranian politicians apparently want to adopt the Burmese model. How do you say "Myanmar" in Persian?

http://www.juancole.com/

Senator supports Honduras coup as US suspends some aid

The United States suspended some aid programs to Honduras on Thursday following last Sunday’s military coup which removed President Jose Manuel Zelaya and sent him into exile. However, one United States senator believes that the US ought to be supporting the coup and applauding Zelaya’s ouster.

The United National General Assembly has condemned the coup, as have most world leaders, and the Organization of American States passed a resolution on Wednesday calling for Zelaya to be reinstated. The Obama administration supports those resolutions, describing the expulsion of Zelaya as “unconstitutional and illegal” and calling for his “unconditional return.”

However, one Republican Senator, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, insists that the coup leaders acted properly and legally and that “Zelaya’s open defiance of democratic norms has set Honduras on a path toward violence, instability, and tyranny.”

DeMint calls Zelaya a “Chavez-style dictator” and an “illegitimate leader” and is demanding that President Obama “turn away from despots” and “give the United States’ full-throated support to the people of any country who are fighting for the same values we cherish and defend in America.”

DeMint may simply be seizing on an opportunity to criticize the Obama administration as being soft on an ally of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, but there may be more to his support for the Honduran coup.

A diarist at Daily Kos pointed out on Thursday that the conservative religious group known as “the Family,” with which DeMint has been associated, supported the military dictatorship in Honduras in the 1980’s, when the general who dominated that nation’s government was working closely with US Ambassador John Negroponte to turn Honduras into a base for Contra operations.

More recently, Ricardo Maduro, who served as president of Honduras until he lost to Zelaya in 2005, spoke at a Family prayer breakfast during the time of his presidency.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/02/senator-supports-honduras-coup-as...

whoaaa, who'd have thunk it?

thanks toni, really interesting and attractive

(and sorry it took me so long to respond: running like crazy, nothing unusual - went to the gym and came back home for a quick shower, out the door again - i have an appointment to look at another house... in the heat...)

Very interesting... www.juancole.com

Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and a mass murderer. But to have him so shoddily and self-interestedly debriefed and then lynched by the Mahdi Army was a great disservice to history. It is the sort of thing we came to expect from the Bush administration, which oversaw the destruction of the entire twentieth-century historical record for Iraq, as well as crushing and destroying under tanks and helicopters entire libraries of ancient Iraqi civilization, a crime I have dubbed "cliocide."

I agree with Professor Cole's quote ^^^^^^^

house hunting sucks...
butt in the end is well worth
all the work. :)

Sea Ice At Lowest Level In 800 Years Near Greenland

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — New research, which reconstructs the extent of ice in the sea between Greenland and Svalbard from the 13th century to the present indicates that there has never been so little sea ice as there is now. The research results from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, are published in the scientific journal, Climate Dynamics.

Link

"Fears that Mr. Zelaya had been plotting to undermine the Constitution and extend his tenure were among the driving forces behind his expulsion from the country at the hands of the military over the weekend."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/world/americas/02honduras.html

Bloomberg is changing the term limits here in NY, and we're not even going to be allowed to vote on it.

ALL WE CAN DO IS TO VOTE BLOOMBERG OUT

Rogue trader sends oil to year-high on $10m gamble

PVM Oil Futures, a London-based division of the world’s biggest broker of over-the-counter derivatives, has lost almost $10 million (£6 million) after falling foul of a rogue trader.

The unauthorised trades in the early hours of Tuesday morning are reported to have been brokered by Steve Perkins, a senior, long-standing trader in futures on the Brent oil contract. He is understood to have been suspended from his post.

A spokesman for PVM Oil refused to confirm the identity of the trader and said the company had launched an investigation and continued to operate normally.

The rogue trades are widely believed to have caused global crude oil prices to spike to their highest level in more than eight months – a leap that traders and analysts had struggled to explain.

Oil breached $73 a barrel during Asian trade on Tuesday, up by more than $1.50 a barrel in under half an hour at around 2am.

More than 16 million barrels of Brent crude oil traded in just over half an hour, according to Reuters exchange data, an unprecedented amount for a market that typically trades less than one million barrels before Europe opens.

The volume of crude traded during Asian trading was almost double the current daily output of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter.

It is not known whether the dealing was deliberate or a mistake but PVM said that it had alerted regulators at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the City watchdog, and the ICE oil exchange, the marketplace for Brent.

ICE declined to comment beyond saying its surveillance team would investigate any unusual trading patterns. The FSA refused to comment.

PVM, which operates from offices in London's West End, confirmed that it had discovered that it was sitting on "substantial volumes" of unauthorised oil futures contracts.

It said: "PVM Oil Futures Ltd can confirm that it was the victim of unauthorised trading on Tuesday, June 30.

"As a result of a series of unauthorised trades, substantial volumes of futures contracts were held by PVM. When this was discovered, the positions were closed in an orderly fashion. PVM suffered a loss totalling a little under $10 million," PVM said.

PVM Oil Associates reported net profit of $5.88 million in the year ending July 31, 2008, according to statements seen by Bloomberg. PVM Oil Futures recorded a net profit of about $1 million in the same period. More:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_...

New evidence suggests Cheney tried to steer media coverage of CIA outing

The Washington Post's R. Jeffrey Smith reports, with more from AP following.

A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department. In the filing, the officials argue that the substance of what Cheney told special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in 2004 must remain secret.

No such agreement was reached between Fitzgerald and Cheney at the time of their chat, according to a 2008 Fitzgerald letter to lawmakers. But the Bush administration rejected requests by Congress and a nonprofit group for access to two FBI accounts of the conversation, saying the material was exempt from disclosure under subpoena or the Freedom of Information Act.

The Obama administration has since agreed that the material should not be disclosed. A Justice Department lawyer at one point last month argued that vice presidents and other White House officials will decline to be interviewed in the future if they know their remarks might "get on 'The Daily Show' " or be used as fodder for political enemies.

Cheney discussed media inquiries into Plame leak

Court filing shows that Cheney discussed media inquiries into leak of CIA operative's identity

NEDRA PICKLER
AP News

Jul 03, 2009 00:04 EST

Vice President Dick Cheney talked with top White House officials about how to respond to reporters' inquiries into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative, according to a court filing.

Cheney told the FBI about his recollection of discussions with his former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and other White House officials on the media's questions. But the Obama administration is fighting in court to keep the substance of what Cheney revealed to the FBI from the public.

The FBI interviewed Cheney in 2004 as it was investigating the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters the year before. Her name was revealed after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The leak touched off a lengthy inquiry that led to Libby being convicted on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters. Libby told the FBI it was possible that Cheney ordered him to reveal Plame's identity to the media.

The liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit last year seeking records related to Cheney's FBI interview.

In a court filing Wednesday, Acting Assistant Attorney General David Barron argued that parts of Cheney's interview should be kept secret because they involve confidential deliberations among White House officials. Barron said their disclosure could limit frank and open discussion about matters of national importance in the White House in the future.

He said Cheney's recollection of discussions with Libby, the White House communications director and chief of staff about media inquiries into the Plame leak were among those portions that should be protected. He also included Cheney's discussions with the CIA director about Wilson's trip and his role in resolving disputes about declassifying "certain information" in that category.

Barron's filing was first reported Thursday on The Washington Post's Web site.

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/cheney-had-larger-role-in-outing-plame/

Los Angeles police under scrutiny in Jackson death
By LINDA DEUTSCH and THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writers Linda Deutsch And Thomas Watkins, Associated Press Writers Thu Jul 2, 7:43 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – The investigation of Michael Jackson's death is widening as questions intensify about the drugs he took, the doctors who provided them and the actions of police.

Why didn't police seal the mansion where he had been living? Why didn't they get immediate search warrants? Why did they tow away a doctor's car right after the death but not declare the home a crime scene? And why was Jackson's sister Janet allowed to move possessions out of the mansion two days after the death, before police searched it?

Los Angeles police say proper procedures were followed based on the circumstances officers encountered when they were called to the home at 12:21 p.m. on June 25. A doctor was attending to Jackson and stayed with him when he was placed in an ambulance at 1:07 p.m. There was no sign of foul play.

Others say police should have assumed it was possible a crime occurred and taken precautions to ensure the scene was not disrupted so evidence wasn't lost or tainted.

"If I was the chief detective on the case, I would have said, 'We don't know what's going on. We should seal the scene,'" said defense attorney Harland Braun, who has represented celebrities including Robert Blake, Roseanne and Gary Busey. "You always have to think of the worst-case scenario and you have to think fast. I would have sealed the scene just because it was Michael Jackson."

Whether the Jackson probe turns into a criminal investigation hinges on what evidence emerges involving the drugs. Charges could be brought if authorities determine Jackson had been overly prescribed medications, if he had been given drugs inappropriate for his medical needs, or if doctors knowingly prescribed Jackson medications under an assumed name.

It's still not known what caused Jackson's death at age 50. The pop star went into cardiac arrest in his bedroom and his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, performed CPR while an ambulance was called, according to Murray's lawyers. Murray has spoken to police and authorities say he is not a suspect, though his actions have come under scrutiny because his own lawyers acknowledge it may have taken up to a half-hour for an ambulance to be summoned.

An autopsy was conducted but results are not expected for several weeks. The Jackson family had a second autopsy performed and those results also are pending.

On Wednesday, The Associated Press learned Los Angeles police asked the Drug Enforcement Administration to assist in the investigation.

DEA agents participated in the investigation of the 2007 overdose death of Anna Nicole Smith at a Florida hotel. California Attorney General Jerry Brown charged her former boyfriend and two of her doctors in March with conspiring to provide Smith with prescription drugs. Brown said they broke the law because Smith was a "known addict." They deny the charges.

The DEA also probed whether painkillers found in actor Heath Ledger's system after his death last year were obtained illegally. Federal prosecutors did not charge anyone. More...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090702/ap_on_en_mu/us_michael_jackson_inves...

Quantum Encrypted Information Sent Over An Eight Node, Mesh Network

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2009) — Researchers from across Europe have united to build the largest quantum key distribution network ever built. The efforts of 41 research and industrial organisations were realised as secure, quantum encrypted information was sent over an eight node, mesh network.

With an average link length of 20 to 30 kilometres, and the longest link being 83 kilometres, the researchers from organisations such as the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology (formerly Austrian Research Centers), id Quantique, Toshiba Research in the UK, Université de Genève, the University of Vienna, CNRS, Thales, LMU Munich, Siemens, and many more have broken all previous records and taken another huge stride towards practical implementation of secure, quantum-encrypted communication networks.

A new journal paper illustrates the operation of the network and gives an initial estimate for transmission capacity (the maximum amount of keys that can be exchanged on a quantum key distribution, QKD, network).

Undertaken in late 2008, using the company internal glass fibre ring of Siemens and 4 of its dependencies across Vienna plus a repeater station, near St. Pölten in Lower Austria, the QKD demonstration involved secure telephone communication and video-conference as well as a rerouting experiment which demonstrated the functionality of the SEcure COmmunication network based on Quantum Cryptography (SECOQC).

One of the first practical applications to emerge from advances in the sometimes baffling study of quantum mechanics, quantum cryptography has become a soon-to-be reached benchmark in secure communications.

Quantum mechanics describes the fundamental nature of matter at the atomic level and offers very intriguing, often counter-intuitive, explanations to help us understand the building blocks that construct the world around us. Quantum cryptography uses the quantum mechanical behaviour of photons, the fundamental particles of light, to enable highly secure transmission of data beyond that achievable by classical methods.

The photons themselves are used to distribute cryptographic key to access encrypted information, such as a highly sensitive transaction file that, say, a bank wishes to keep completely confidential, which can be sent along practical communication lines, made of fibre optics. Quantum indeterminacy, the quantum mechanics dictum which states that measuring an unknown quantum state will change it, means that the information cannot be accessed by a third party without corrupting it beyond recovery and therefore making the act of hacking futile.

The researchers write, "In our paper we have put forward, for the first time, a systematic design that allows unrestricted scalability and interoperability of QKD technologies."

Link

Even the NSA won't be able to hack these streams. Until, of course, they are decrypted and forwarded across the end user networks...

A WAN guy can only do so much.

Submitted by toniD on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 11:03am.
Rogue trader sends oil to year-high on $10m gamble
---------
It's amazing what dan can do with an Internet connection and an ergonomic chair.

Banks own the US government

There are smart ways to raise money and regulate the market, but Wall Street is working to kill any meaningful financial reform

Last month, when the US Congress failed to pass a bankruptcy reform measure that would have allowed home mortgages to be modified in bankruptcy, senator Dick Durbin succinctly commented: "The banks own the place." That seems pretty clear.

After all, it was the banks' greed that fed the housing bubble with loony loans that were guaranteed to go bad. Of course the finance guys also made a fortune guaranteeing the loans that were guaranteed to go bad (ie AIG), and when everything went bust, the taxpayers got handed the bill. The cost of the bailout will certainly be in the hundreds of billions, if not more than $1tn when it is all over.

More importantly, we are looking at the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. The cumulative lost output over the years 2008-2012 will almost certainly exceed $5tn. That comes to more than $60,000 for an average family of four. This is the price that we are paying for the bankers' greed, coupled with incredible incompetence and/or corruption from our regulators.

Under these circumstances, it would be reasonable to think that the bankers would be keeping a low profile for a while. That's not the way it works in Washington. The banks are aggressively pushing their case in Congress and Obama administration. Not only are we not going to see bankruptcy reform, but any financial reform package that gets through Congress will probably contain enough loopholes that it will be almost useless.

In this political environment, the poor might get empathy, but Wall Street gets money, and lots of it. Even when the issue is global warming Wall Street has its hand out. The fees on trading carbon permits could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars in coming decades. A simple carbon tax would have been far more efficient, but efficiency is not the most important value when it comes to making Wall Street richer.

This is why it was so encouraging to see congressman Peter DeFazio's proposal to tax trades in oil options and futures. DeFazio proposed a tax of 0.02% on trades in oil futures and options as a way to make up a shortfall in the federal government's highway trust fund. This tax could raise billions of dollars each year in revenue and make speculation in the oil market a more dangerous affair.

More...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jun/30/congress-...

Hagan Comes Out In Support Of Public Option
By Brian Beutler - July 3, 2009, 9:05AM

As I reported yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unveiled its plan for a public health insurance option after a weeks-long delay, and leaders announced that it had the support of every Democrat on the panel...including Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC).

Last night, Hagan made it official in a joint statement with committee members. "My colleagues and I on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have been working on a plan to reform the health care system in this country," Hagan said. "We have crafted a plan that will stabilize health care costs and includes a Community Health Insurance Option, which I support."

This clears the path for the legislation to be moved out of committee. Until now, her objections to the public option were blocking it. That raised the ire of liberal groups like MoveOn, which targeted her directly. Now, everyone's friends again. "MoveOn commends Senator Hagan for deciding to support the health care reform bill that the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee released today, which includes a national public health insurance option," MoveOn Executive Director Justin Ruben said in a statement.

A public health insurance option will lower the cost of insurance and medical care for everyone, and put an end to many of the predatory practices of private insurers. This measure is the heart of health care reform and is supported by MoveOn's five million members as well as the majority of the American people. With the support of legislators like Senator Hagan, we can come closer to our goal of making quality health insurance accessible and affordable for everyone.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/hagan-comes-out-in-support-of...

US Missiles Kill 17 In Pakistan

Anonymous intelligence officials tell the AP that drones fired missiles at a Pakistani Taliban "training facility" near the Afghan border, killing 17 and wounding 27.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/07/officials_17_die_in_us_mis...

sounds like Co-op, no?

States set to ring in Independence Day sans budget

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS – 7 hours ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Several states are facing the prospect of government shutdowns and program cuts as they enter the first weekend of the fiscal year and July Fourth holiday without a budget in place.

"This downturn, even more so than previous downturns, really is affecting every state right now," said Brian Sigritz, a staff associate with the National Association of State Budget Officers.

The Washington-based organization says 42 states wrestled with budget deficits this spring, the most since it began tracking budgets 30 years ago.

States weathered similar problems in the recessions of the early 1980s, 1990s and earlier this decade. The confluence of so many problems hammering the economy at once make the present situation seem dire.

"Numerous things look worse than some past recessions," said Bert Waisanen, a fiscal analyst with the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures. "The housing market is worse. Industrial production is worse. Wages are nearly worse."

The sputtering economy has created an across-the-board drop in tax collections. Taxes ranging from sales to personal income to property are all down, Sigritz said.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency and ordered state offices closed three days a month to save money as state officials began paying bills with IOUS on Thursday.

Deep budget cuts have already forced California school districts to cancel summer school programs, moves that have affected — among others — elementary and middle school students in Los Angeles, which has the country's second largest district.

School officials in North Carolina, Oregon, Florida and other states have also cut or limited summer classes.

North Carolina's budget crunch apparently wasn't bad enough to persuade lawmakers to work through the holiday weekend.

House and Senate negotiators said Thursday they will go home rather than iron out differences in taxes and spending, despite Gov. Beverly Perdue's stern advice to finish the budget.

Pennsylvania schools still don't know how much state money they'll receive and may have to reopen their budgets to add or subtract spending. The state's budget year began Wednesday with no sign of a deal between lawmakers and Gov. Ed Rendell.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and lawmakers are stymied over a proposal to allow casino-style gambling to raise money. As a result, the state started its budget year with a one-week temporary budget.

That interim spending plan was already putting a strain on some social service groups.

The state food pantry agency has only $163,000 available to spend on produce this week, regardless of how much more they could purchase. The group spends $400,000 a week at the height of Ohio's harvest.

"This budget impasse is impacting real Ohioans," said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks. "People for the first time in their lives are now finding themselves standing in the food line because they've lost their jobs, their incomes aren't stretching."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jogF9o4RR0FfLgsx-T8yQA...

What's wrong with the world mama?
People living like aint got no mamas
I think the whole worlds addicted to the drama
Only attracted to the things that bring you trauma
Overseas yeah we tryin to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin
In the USA the big CIA the Bloodz and the Crips and the KKK
But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And if you hatin you're bound to get irate
Yeah madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
You gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all

People killing people dying
Children hurtin you hear them crying
Can you practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father Father Father help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me got me questioning
Where is the love?(where is the lovex3)(the love2x)

...

http://www.lyrics007.com/Black%20Eyed%20Peas%20Lyrics/Where%20Is%20The%2...

Post 'Salon' Story Prompts WH Ethics Rules Reminder

By Michael D. Shear
White House counsel Greg Craig reminded administration staffers this afternoon that they operate under strict ethical guidelines, in the wake of reports that The Washington Post had solicited Obama officials for off the record "salons" with corporate sponsorship.

The memo from Craig to White House officials said White House officials are required to seek approval before attending events sponsored by a non-government entity.

"As we have advised in a previous memo (see attached), federal ethics rules restricting the acceptance of gifts govern your ability to accept free admission to events put on by a non-governmental sponsor," Craig wrote.

"Many of you are invited to attend such banquets, conferences and cocktail receptions. In an effort to streamline the process by which you receive approval to accept such free invitations from the White House Counsel's Office, we have created an online submission form. Our hope is that this will make it easier for you to submit such requests and will enable us to serve you better," he said.

In the e-mail, Craig says that requests for such events must be made 72 hours before the event, and will be responded to by e-mail.

The 9-page policy on gifts attached to Craig's e-mail lists in detail the administration's dos and don'ts when accepting gifts. Included are sections on "Gifts based on a personal relationship," "Invitations to Events," and "Social invitations from persons other than prohibited sources."

The Post had reportedly invited Obama officials to intimate dinners at the home of Post publisher Katherine Weymouth, which would be sponsored at a cost of $25,000 each.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/07/02/post_salon_story_prompts_...

F.D.I.C. to Issue Rules for Private Equity Deals
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation plans to issue new rules that could make it slightly easier for private equity firms to buy failed banks, according to people familiar with the agency’s deliberations.

Under a directive to be issued on Thursday, the agency is expected to demand that investment firms like the Carlyle Group or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts provide follow-up support to the banks they acquire if the banks get into more trouble and need additional capital.

The new rules represent a difficult balancing act for the F.D.I.C, which is responsible for protecting depositors from losses.

On the one hand, government officials have been eager to recruit private investors and stretch out the limited money that Congress has approved for bailing out troubled financial institutions. On the other hand, bank regulators remain leery about letting comparatively high-risk investor groups take control of banks with billions of dollars in government-guaranteed deposits.

The F.D.I.C., which is responsible for insuring bank deposits, is eager to find buyers for insolvent banks and minimize the cost to taxpayers. The agency has seized 45 failing banks this year, and more than 60 since last fall.

Private equity firms can tap into huge pools of capital and they have been yearning to buy banks at bargain prices.

Federal regulators have allowed private equity investors to buy a handful of failing banks, notably the BankUnited Financial Corporation in Florida and IndyMac Bancorp in California.

But the approvals have been made slowly, and on a case-by-case basis. Agency officials said the rules to be adopted on Thursday amounted to a clarification of their policy rather than a drastic change.

Indeed, industry executives said on Wednesday evening that they were not sure if the new rules amounted to an easing or a tightening of longstanding restrictions that have kept most private equity investors out of the banking industry.

Among the rules under discussion, according to industry executives and government officials, are higher capital requirements for private equity investors than for traditional banks. The agency will also demand that private equity firms document their sources of strength, a reference to their ability to provide follow-up financing.

For investors that own several banks, the agency would require cross guarantees in which a strong bank owned by an investment group could be enlisted to shore up the capital of a weaker bank owned by the same group.

Last but not least, the agency plans to include rules against flipping, to prohibit people from buying a bank and reselling it a few months later. Under the new rules, private equity firms would have to retain their investment in a bank for at least 18 months and possibly two years.

H. Rodgin Cohen, a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell who represents some private equity firms, said he was not sure whether the new rules would speed up or slow down their investment in banks.

“It’s always good to have an element of certainty,” Mr. Cohen said. “The question is whether this will put up barriers that are so discouraging economically that it will actually restrict private equity firms. We won’t know until the details are out.”

Regardless of the details, the new rules are not expected to change the main regulatory obstacle for private equity firms buying banks. That obstacle is the Federal Reserve, which requires that institutions holding more than 24.9 percent of a bank’s voting shares be subject to regulation as bank holding companies.

Except for a handful of private equity firms that specialize in banks, most firms are loath to fall under those regulations.

To get around those restrictions, private equity firms have teamed up to form “club” deals in which no individual firm exceeds the Fed’s threshold for control. But that arrangement is often unwieldy and cumbersome, because none of the investment firms is supposed to be in “control.”

“The F.D.I.C. does not control what happens,” said Joshua Siegel, managing principal at StoneCastle Partners, a private equity firm in New York. “The Fed is in charge.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/business/02equity.html?pagewanted=prin...

Sanford's Book Deal Falls Through
Gov. Mark Sanford's (R-SC) book publisher, Sentinel, has released him from his contract. Sanford had been set to write a book on fiscal conservatism, entitled Within Our Means, to be released in March 2010. However, the deal fell through after Sanford got in trouble for disappearing to Argentina to visit his mistress, and he and publisher have agreed to part ways.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/02/sanford-book-deal-falls-...

He needs to READ a book on Personal Conservatism!

Malia will be 11 on the 4th of July and is having 11 grils over to Camp David for her party.

per MSNBC

Happy Birthday Malia

Sanford's Book Deal Falls
Submitted by toniD on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 12:02pm.
-----
Suggested next Sanford book title:

Nooky Rookie

Harry Reid's Son Takes Big Step Toward Bid for Nevada Governor

A 2010 campaign for governor of Nevada seems a near-certainty for Rory Reid, an elected official in the county that includes Las Vegas -- and son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

While the younger Reid has not announced his bid for the seat held by trouble-plagued Republican Jim Gibbons, he has hired a campaign manager with an eye-catching resume: David Chase Cohen, who worked on Barack Obama's presidential campaign as deputy national director of voter contact and then manager of general election direct mail in 16 "battleground" states.

Still, Reid, who currently serves as a Clark County commissioner, says he is in no rush to make things official. "I'm leaning toward running, but it's still too premature for me to make an announcement," he told CQ Politics in a phone interview on Wednesday. "People out here want to enjoy their summers right now, not hear from politicians."

Cohen, also contacted by phone, said, "We're in the process of feeling out a timeline for both when to announce and when to jump into campaigning. Right now, we're mostly just traveling, talking to voters and figuring what issues are on the front line."

Cohen gives Reid's campaign one degree of separation from presidential victor Obama, who carried Nevada, typically a partisan swing state, by a robust margin of 12 percentage points over Republican John McCain.

But Reid also is benefiting from his own connection to the other leading combatant in the fight for the 2008 Democratic White House nomination: Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a senator from New York and now Obama's secretary of State.

more:

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2009/07/harry-reids-son-takes-big-...

In Political Ads, Christian Left Mounts Sermonic Campaigns

By STEPHANIE SIMON

Randy Brinson, a conservative political consultant in Alabama, has been fielding anxious calls for weeks from business interests across the South.

Their concern is massive ad blitz on Christian and country-music stations across 10 states. The ads, funded by a left-leaning coalition, urge support for congressional legislation to curb greenhouse-gas emissions -- by framing the issue as an urgent matter of Biblical morality.

"As our seas rise, crops wither and rivers run dry, God's creation cries out for relief," begins one ad, narrated by an evangelical megachurch pastor. Another opens with a reference to the Gospel of John, slams energy interests for fighting the bill, and concludes: "Please join the faithful in speaking out against the powerful."

Dr. Brinson tells his clients they are right to be worried. Such an aggressive political campaign by the religious left is unexpected, he says, and could prove powerful. "This is the first time I've seen a moderate group of evangelicals come together and do a coordinated campaign," said Dr. Brinson. He is warning clients: "You're going to hear a lot more of this."

Emboldened by what they see as a kindred spirit in the White House, progressive and liberal Christians are stepping up their political activism in a big way.

WSJ

Even the Falwell set are beginning to reject the meme of faith based ecology as "Gaia worship" and are showing signs of going green...

The idea that Christian fundies can have a progressive movement is a good lesson for people to focus on policy instead of personality, politician or party.

"I'd love for Obama to come out one day and say, 'Jesus told me to fix health care.'" - Bill Maher

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/03/iran-uprising-blogging-fr_n_225...

12:42 PM ET -- New UN watchdog: no hard evidence Iran seeking nukes. Some provocative comments from the new IAEA chief: "The incoming head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said Friday he did not see any hard evidence that Iran was trying to gain the ability to develop nuclear weapons. 'I don't see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this,' Yukiya Amano told Reuters in his first direct comment on Iran's nuclear program since his election, when asked whether he believed Iran was seeking a nuclear weapons capability."

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5623GU20090703

12:11 PM ET -- EU summons all Iranian ambassadors in coordinated protest. Tensions are definitely rising.

The EU decided today to summon all Iranian ambassadors in capitals across Europe in a co-ordinated protest over the detention of UK embassy staff. The move came after a senior cleric said some of the staff accused of inciting protests following last month's disputed presidential election would be put on trial.

The head of Iran's guardian council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said the detained staff members had "made confessions" in connection with the unrest.

The surprise move by the council, Iran's top legislative body, will cause relations between London and Tehran to deteriorate further after tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions last week.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/03/iranian-british-embassy-empl...

America’s two-headed dog: layoffs and cuts to social programs

In Greek mythology, Orthrus is a nasty two-headed dog that is captured and tamed by Oedipus, the dude who killed his father and nailed his mother. That gives you a basic understanding of the unhealthy mindset of Orthrus, the dog that could only be tamed by an incestuous murderer.

America is now wrestling with its own real-life Orthrus in the shape of mass layoffs and simultaneous cuts to social welfare programs. It seems like common sense that the government should increase social spending when people are losing their jobs, but Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats don’t see it that way.

Americans lost 467,000 more jobs in June, and the unemployment rate jumped up to 9.5 percent. The New York Times interviewed labor secretary Hilda Solis about why the unemployment rate is already much higher despite President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan. Solis explained that “much of the stimulus money was moving slowly, with construction projects in particular requiring time-consuming government permits.”

In the meantime, unemployed Americans will need some kind of safety net to support them through this economic depression. Unfortunately, the opposite is happening in many states where the government is cutting social programs. Arizona, which faced a $1.6 billion budget gap this year, has been among the hardest hit, according to NPR. “Funding was trimmed for food banks, community health centers and home health care for the elderly. Monthly payments for foster care parents were reduced, and more than 1,100 children with chronic or disabling conditions were dropped from the state Children’s Rehabilitative Services program.”

Article

A President Breaks Hearts in Appalachia

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Friday, July 3, 2009

Mountaintop removal coal mining is the worst environmental tragedy in American history. When will the Obama administration finally stop this Appalachian apocalypse?

If ever an issue deserved President Obama's promise of change, this is it. Mining syndicates are detonating 2,500 tons of explosives each day -- the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb weekly -- to blow up Appalachia's mountains and extract sub-surface coal seams. They have demolished 500 mountains -- encompassing about a million acres -- buried hundreds of valley streams under tons of rubble, poisoned and uprooted countless communities, and caused widespread contamination to the region's air and water. On this continent, only Appalachia's rich woodlands survived the Pleistocene ice ages that turned the rest of North America into a treeless tundra. King Coal is now accomplishing what the glaciers could not -- obliterating the hemisphere's oldest, most biologically dense and diverse forests. Highly mechanized processes allow giant machines to flatten in months mountains older than the Himalayas -- while employing fewer workers for far less time than other types of mining. The coal industry's promise to restore the desolate wastelands is a cruel joke, and the industry's fallback position, that the flattened landscapes will provide space for economic development, is the weak punchline. America adores its Adirondacks and reveres the Rockies, while the Appalachian Mountains -- with their impoverished and alienated population -- are dismantled by coal moguls who dominate state politics and have little to prevent them from blasting the physical landscape to smithereens.

Obama promised science-based policies that would save what remains of Appalachia, but last month senior administration officials finally weighed in with a mixture of strong words and weak action that broke hearts across the region. The modest measures federal bureaucrats promised amount to little more than a tepid pledge of better enforcement of existing laws.

[...]

WaPo

Some purport the risk of destruction of wilderness by use of coal is worth it to get off foreign oil. I disagree.

"Clean coal" is just a short term solution and will consume too many financial and environmental resources, further damage the ecosystem, and delay the inevitable development of renewable energy technologies.

We need to focus on solar, wind, ocean power, geo thermal, and other renewable energy technologies as alternatives to coal and oil. It is where we will eventually end up anyway. Now is the time to start.

We should be phasing coal out. Not ramping it up... JMNSHO.

The MJNBC (MichaelJacksonNBC) reports breaking news

The republican party has died but lives on. In a back room of the parties rented mansion, large quantities of of the drug NOapoxyillin (NO) have been found. The memorial service next tuesday will go on and it is reported that the drug NO should only be administered by a physician because NO can cause sleep apnia and heart failure.

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EulbFT1IAw

.

We have a Health Insurance System now.

Health Insurance System needs to be replaced by a Health Care System! (Heard a called put it this way on the Ed Schultz show.)

And it must be a Comprehensive Health Care System.

Rationing (in the form of
Refused coverage and
Refused claims)
makes the
Richest
Richer.

And who is calling the shots? The
Representatives of the
Richest because the
Representatives of the People are now the
Representatives of the Richest.

Anything short of Comprehensive Single Payer just works against us.

Is this the last big occurence in this saga?:

Rahm Emanuel says Obama open to public option withdrawal if alternative found....

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/emanuel-obama-open-to-alterna...

Two Mexican Midget Wrestlers Killed by Fake Prostitutes
Friday, July 03, 2009

Print ShareThisMEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities say two professional wrestlers found dead in a low-rent hotel in the capital may have been drugged to death by female robbers.

Autopsies are being performed on the two midget wrestlers, one of whom went by the name "La Parkita" — or "Little Death" — and wore a skeleton costume in the ring. The other was known as "Espectrito Jr."

Authorities say two women were seen leaving the men's hotel room before the bodies were discovered.

Prosecutor Miguel Angel Mancera said Wednesday that gangs of female robbers are experienced at using drugs to knock men out and rob them, but they may have used too strong a dose.

That may have been because of the wrestlers' small stature, although larger men have also died in similar crimes.

"There is no UN in Israel"...?

Wasn't it the UN that founded Israel to begin with? WTF?

The Defamation of Cynthia McKinney and the Violation of Her Civil Rights

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ray-hanania/the-defamation-of-cynthia_b_22...

is in my home town, Glendale, not LA.

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

For a group of paleontologists, a tour of the Creation Museum seemed like a great tongue-in-cheek way to cap off a serious conference.

But while there were a few laughs and some clowning for the camera, most left more offended than amused by the frightening way in which evolution -- and their life's work -- was attacked.

"It's sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn't it?" said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley.

"Like Sunday school with statues... this is a special brand of religion here. I don't think even most mainstream Christians would believe in this interpretation of Earth's history."
...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090630/ts_alt_afp/scienceusreligionevoluti...

leave my herman miller aeron out of this please.

(does this chair make my ass look fat?)

Card issuers beating new law
Rates, fees raised before deadline

By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post
Updated: 07/02/2009 09:46:51 PM CDT

WASHINGTON — Credit card companies are raising interest rates and fees seven months before new rules go into effect that will limit their ability do so, much to the irritation of Congress and consumer advocates.

Chase, for instance, will raise the minimum payment required of some of its customers from 2 percent to 5 percent of the statement balance starting in August. Chase and Discover have increased the maximum fee charged for transferring a balance to the card to 5 percent of the amount, up from 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively. Bank of America last month raised the transaction fee for balance transfers and cash advances from 3 percent to 4 percent. Card issuers including Bank of America and Citi also continue to cut limits and hike up rates, which they have been doing with more frequency since January.

"This is a common practice and will continue to be common, because issuers can do these things for really no reason until February," said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com, which tracks the industry. "It's what I call the credit card trifecta — lower limits, higher rates, higher minimum payments."

The flurry of activity, which the banks say is necessary to shore up their revenue losses, has irked members of Congress, who passed a new credit card law that was signed by President Barack Obama in May. The law, among other things, would prevent card companies from raising rates on existing balances unless the borrower was at least 60 days late and would require the original rate to be restored if payments are received on time for six months. The law would also require banks to get customers' permission before allowing them to go over their limits, for which they would have to pay a fee.

On Wednesday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., once again requested that the Federal Reserve invoke its emergency powers to place a limit on interest rate hikes.

"This is what many of us feared about a law that didn't take effect right away," Schumer said. "It was never going to take this long for the credit card companies to get ready for the new reforms. Instead, issuers are using the delay in the effective date to wring more dollars out of their customers. It is against the spirit of the law, and it is just plain wrong."

http://www.twincities.com/business/ci_12745336

And congress knew this would happen but they did not care.

hows the show going james? will you travel with it if its a traveling show?

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/4980

On the healthcare topic, another Ed Schultz caller with so much emotion in his voice said, "President Obama, we voted for you. We're counting on you."

Schultz is 'staying on topic' with healthcare. Even going to so far as to say that if Obama fails us on this, he will reconsider his support of Obama.

acts as a stabilizer for the California state economy. But NOW (I add, under Schwarzenegger) the state government is acting as a DESTABILIZER, said a UC analyst on the radio news.

(that's TickyTackyNBC)

They've got some empty space to fill and they're filling it up with empty space.
“Little Boxes” by Malvina (Pete Seeger?)
~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

wicked
new
Submitted by dan on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 2:48pm.
==
thanks for asking.
No, I've tried over the years to get in the road show crew club but not been accepted.
Wicked is currently a touring road (and Broadway) show.
http://www.wickedthemusical.com/

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

God is My Doorman: Mark Sanford for Non-Christians

Hemingway said that the problem with Henry Miller was that he got laid in the afternoon once and thought he invented it. Governor Mark Sanford got laid in Argentina two weeks ago and the way he continues to go on about it, you'd think he cracked cold fusion. The man won't shut up. If Henry Miller talked about his sex life as much as Governor Mark Sanford talks about his sex life, people would have started thinking he was some kind of perv.

...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/god-is-my-doorman-mark-sa_b_22...

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/4980#comment-351076

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

THURSDAY JULY 2, 2009 11:03 EDT
Salon Radio: Charlie Savage on Obama's civil liberties record

(updated w/transcript)

Back in February, The New York Times' Charlie Savage -- who won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing Bush's use of signing statements to break the law -- wrote an article reporting that, after a first-week Executive Order from Obama banning torture, "the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda," which is "prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies." About Savage's February article, I wrote:

While believing that Savage's article is of great value in sounding the right alarm bells, I think that he paints a slightly more pessimistic picture on the civil liberties front than is warranted by the evidence thus far (though only slightly).

In retrospect, Savage was right and I was wrong about that: his February article was far more prescient than premature.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/07/02/savage/index.htm...

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