RIng of Fire right now

Love you Sam
thanks over and over
http://www.playlist.com/search/tracks/When%20The%20Music%27s%20Over

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

did you see Stossel on 20/20 last night do a horror piece on european socialist medicine and the worst stories out of it?...no mention of the horror stories from our very own health plans which we pay for!!!

Melina
www.RIPCoco.com
www.BrilliantatBreakfast.blogspot.com
www.meetup.com/chickens1

Trainee Obama is in for a rough 30 days. The blue dogs prevented Obama from ramming health though congress. Now congress must come home and answer to the people before the vote. The CBO exposed the financial foolishness of the program.

The economy sucks, unemployment is raging, congress has been spending money like a drunk sailor, the housing market is still flat, the timing for this couldn't be worse. The best way to teach conservatism is the allow the liberals to drag out one of their careless ideas into the light of day and then give the folks time and space to examine the idea and ask the tough questions. Trainee Obama sure doesn't have the answers.

Now we get to see the best part of our system. The folks are going to pass judgment on this liberal scheme then send congress back to D.C.

"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

I get a small bottle of HOT picante sauce

drink/chew the whole thing.
http://www.pacefoods.com/
=
I ask healing for Sam Seder...

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Sheet, Sammy :)

sorry you're sick...summer colds suck...take care of it.

Gotta get your immune system ready for n1h1 in the fall....

Submitted by jbenet on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 3:48pm.
I get a small bottle of HOT picante sauce

drink/chew the whole thing.
--------
(Pay no attention to the screams from the bathroom.)

And,get some rest this weekend..

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

www.marcmaronrules.blogspot.com/

was fantastic; with rachel and Taibbi and Mick Ware...and Rachel said that she took what Obama said to mean that he would ram health care through if these goons couldnt get it together...Im unsure, but we have seen him seem to mess around and then suddenly act.
I dont think he was kidding that he is gonna do this. Its a matter of the health insurance co and pharma lobby....I think the health insurance companies should be taken down...they are the dirtiest scums around!...and I come from the home of the insurance biz, CT.
Look, we have a kids health insurance mandated by the state, so its outsourced to huge corporations, blue cross just bailed....Aetna took over. A huge corporation creates an arm to basically ride the doctors and pay the least possible...so NO DR's TAKE THE INSURANCE in this area!
there are a few huge clinics that do such a turnover that $15 per patient visit is low but OK...but no other Dr or specialist in this area takes it.
We still pay for it!...you have to be so poor as to be on the street to be eligible for the medicaid version.
It is good for hospitalization, but not for anything else.

Melina
www.RIPCoco.com
www.BrilliantatBreakfast.blogspot.com
www.meetup.com/chickens1

British Foreign Secretary: Clinton threatened to cut-off intelligence-sharing if torture evidence is disclosed

Glenn Greenwald

I've written several times before about the amazing quest of Binyam Mohamed -- a British resident released from Guantanamo in February, 2009 after seven years in captivity -- to compel public disclosure of information in the possession of the British Government proving he was tortured while in U.S. custody. At the center of Mohamed's efforts lie the claims of high British government officials that the Obama administration has repeatedly threatened to cut off intelligence-sharing programs with the U.K. if the British High Court discloses information which British intelligence officials learned from the CIA about how Mohamed was tortured. New statements from the British Foreign Secretary yesterday -- claiming that Hillary Clinton personally re-iterated those threats in a May meeting -- highlight how extreme is this joint American/British effort to cover-up proof of Mohamed's torture.

In August 2008, the British High Court ruled in Mohamed's favor, concluding in a 75-page ruling (.pdf) that there was credible evidence in Britain's possession that Mohamed was brutally tortured and was therefore entitled to disclosure of that evidence under long-standing principles of British common law, international law (as established by the Nuremberg Trials and the war crimes trials of Yugoslav leaders, among others), and Britain's treaty obligations (under the Convention Against Torture). But as part of that ruling, the Court redacted from its public decision seven paragraphs which detailed the facts of Mohamed's torture -- facts which British intelligence agents learned from the CIA -- based on the British Government's representations that both the Bush and Obama administrations had threatened to cut off intelligence-sharing with Britain if those facts were disclosed, even as part of a court proceeding.

Con't..

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/30/mohamed/index.html?sou...

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

www.marcmaronrules.blogspot.com/

Liberals ideas are fine in theory. But they don't often pan out in reality. We are about to examine one of the cornerstone liberal ideas. Heath care as a right! One that the government must provide at little or no charge. Well fine, let's see what the dems put on the table.

Up till now, trainee Obama has played everything very conservatively. He has wisely followed the trail laid down by George Bush and therefore not made many mistakes. But now he is tempted to leave the conservative path and wander into the swamp of liberalism. Let's see if this trainee can swim. The water is cold, deep, and murky.

What do you think? Will Obama have the balls to raise taxes in a recession and at the same time run the risk of fucking up the health care system? This is the trainee's first real test as president. Let's just see if he gets cold feet!

"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

I used to suggest Zincam swabs but there is some question about it causing you to lose your sense of smell...
so I would stay away....
H1N1 may be what you have...its a wicked bad flu with fever, tho up here they are seeing it without fever too....Will's friend had it and it involved an upper respiratory part and a body aches part...and a fever for him. They wouldn't let Will back in school till he got tested.
They were just testing for the group of viruses rather than an exact test...but he didn't have it!!
I dont know what to think of the vaccine! He has hardly been sick except for his usual body aches...but he is now 15 and 6'2", and has grown so quickly that I'm sure thats part of it.

At least you still have the AAR health insurance! for the moment.
I wish they would give you guys a show...you're so much better than anyone on this wreck of a station!

Melina
www.RIPCoco.com
www.BrilliantatBreakfast.blogspot.com
www.meetup.com/chickens1

The insane amount that I am paying for insurance for us to the government for real coverage! Medicare works and if they let people pay into it, it wold solve alot of potential problems...
Whoever this Mullet character is...troll...I expect that he has no idea what hes talking about. However, anyone who could think that things were going well when Obama took over is delusional.

Melina
www.RIPCoco.com
www.BrilliantatBreakfast.blogspot.com
www.meetup.com/chickens1

tie-ranny!!! LOLLLZ!

"this machine kills fascists"

Submitted by cent on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 3:57pm.
Gotta get your immune system ready for n1h1 in the fall....
-------
I'm in the age group that might have been there, might have done that decades ago.

It's funny and macabre that staying home sick from school and watching daytime television in 1959 might prevent some misery in 2009.

And by the way, the only thing worse than being sick was daytime television in 1959.

He's the same old War puppy The Troll..

He keeps getting banned but,keeps coming back..

He has a Big OCD for Spamming/Trolling here..

If we had single payer Health coverage,I'm sure he could get help for his sickness..

Maybe not..
If you can't figure out that your a Uninformed Asshole,
when you are a Uninformed Asshole..
You'll probably just continue being a Uniformed Asshole for the remainder of your days..Etc..

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

www.marcmaronrules.blogspot.com/

...because I'm still riled up

..nothing sucks worse than a summer cold/flu.

To date, Soap Opera Addiction has no known cure...

Flu strains come and go...General Hospital is for ever....

and "the church of the savvy "
If Chuck Todd won't speak his liberal truths...
Remember when he was caught last year?
He's a hack. And like all the widespread accessible media, tows the corporate line.

And this is why sam doesn't have a show.
The truth is feared because it can't be controlled.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

I made it before the end of the show! It's so great to hear Ur voice again SAM! We need more!
Janice Brown

Chuck Todd used to carry the water for the Bush WhiteHouse. Media lemar. Now he pretends to be fair and balanced. Not quite!
Janice Brown

Oh, how I've missed the good ol' days Maggiesboy, MM, Alice...Ahhhh!
Janice Brown

Submitted by cent on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 4:43pm.
Flu strains come and go...General Hospital is for ever....
------
I did some fact-checking which I should have done before I posted.

General Hospital debuted in 1963. As The World Turns debuted in 1956 and Guiding Light debuted (on television) in 1952.

When you are an ill kid staying home from school, all soap operas look alike.

Janice Brown

Great interview!

Sam's Ring of Fire guest Jay Rosen has got a model for referencing why the media "journalists" defer to the right and frame the news from the right's playbook...

http://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/2288049557

related:

http://uscmediareligion.org/?theScoop&scID=185

As a child I always thought they prtrayed adults as nincompoops.

For me staying home from school meant watching game shows! Even then, the stupidest things about game shows were the adults.

This early TV prepared me a lot for what I'd find out in life.

"this machine kills fascists"

See U next SEDER fix! LOL!
Janice Brown

Good to read ya..
It's been a while..
I hope your doing well..

How's the music thing doing ?
I hope that's going well too..

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

www.marcmaronrules.blogspot.com/

I was just looking at your pic on myspace the other day and wondering how you are - happy trails! :)

TOTALLY sucks about Sam Seder...he reminds me of an abused wife in certain ways...this weird relationship with AAR...

Submitted by jbrownboogie on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 4:55pm.
Oh, how I've missed the good ol' days...
-----
With the exception, I assume, of the icky Bush presidency part?

GSE (grapefruit seed extract) is a natural substance, when mixed in water/juice per instructions) can work to clear up germs and virus in the system. When I know I'm going to be near someone sick or in a crowd, or feel something coming on, I drink that and the germs just can't take hold! This is a hearty testimonial.

It's worth a try!

I forgot the show is 3 hours!!! Hey everybody!!!!
Janice Brown

I've been listening to the show in a semi horizontal position away from the computer.

Really good to see you again!

Alice U are always so dead on about SAM! They just slap him around and he keeps getting back up--just like Cool Hand Luke! The music is going great! I'm working on a new CD and a tour!!!! Yeah, I just might be coming to a town near you! Yikes!

Janice Brown

Erupting Volcano Anak Krakatau
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090713.html
Explanation: A volcano on Krakatoa is still erupting. Perhaps most famous for the powerfully explosive eruption in 1883 that killed tens of thousands of people, ash from a violent eruption might also have temporarily altered Earth's climate as long as 1500 years ago. In 1927, eruptions caused smaller Anak Krakatau to rise from the sea, and the emerging volcanic island continues to grow at an average rate of 2 cm per day. The latest eruption of Anak Krakatau started in 2008 April and continues today. In this picture, Anak Krakatau is seen erupting from Rakata, the main island of the Krakatoai group. High above, stars including the Big Dipper are clearly apparent.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

all of us SAM SEDER fans are just waiting, like POWs to the mainstream media, for SAM to rise again, like the PHOENIX!

Janice Brown

Submitted by 60th Street on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 5:01pm.
...For me staying home from school meant watching game shows!...
--------
My memory might be faulty. I think that most of the day was soaps and noon news and somebody cooking food in the local studio. There was only one game show to break the snoozefest which might have been Concentration (1958)?

I don't know when game shows became more prevalent on daytime TV? Maybe 1965 or so?

I love U all. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE U SAM! Thanks for the treat! I'll be back guys. MuuuuuuuuaH!
Janice Brown

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 5:11pm.
I've been listening to the show in a semi horizontal position away from the computer...
--------
[Insert your own USPS joke here.]

Hope this hasn't been posted before..
**
by Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said.

Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive.

At stake, he argued, is the very survival of American democracy.

“A truly free and independent press is the red beating heart of democracy and freedom,” Rather said in an interview yesterday afternoon. “This is not something just for journalists to be concerned about, and the loss of jobs and the loss of newspapers, and the diminution of the American press’ traditional role of being the watchdog on power. This is something every citizen should be concerned about.”

Con't..

http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/135834

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

www.marcmaronrules.blogspot.com/

That's fucked up,Crank..

But,funny.. :)

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

www.marcmaronrules.blogspot.com/

someone is telling them to hold off somehow! Is it by not getting the assignments for a story, is it by risks of lost advertising contracts, it is by folks not granting interviews? There are lots of ways that could slow down science reporting that don't originate with the reporter.

Marc is interviewing Chris Mooney, but he should realize that the Industrialists/Corporatists don't want The People to know what the cutting edge science-industrial developments are because they have social/moral/health dangers that are not acknowledged and addressed in a regulatory fashion. Do they want folks to know that there is a very disturbing story behind the profit-motivated sexy advertising and marketing hype?

There are:

o untested/poorly tested vaccines and pharmaceuticals
o genetic manipulation of food plants and animals without regulation or adequate safety testing
o nano-technology that can interrupt cell function and respiration (similar to asbestos' damaging effects)
o microwave technology dangers and weaponry applications
o eugenics moving forward in the form of genome technology and fertility research and applications
o modern medical research paid for by and tested on the lower classes of the general population and the completed technological advances availability restricted according to class structure (based on wealth)
o continued nuclear technology side effects like waste and detrimental human exposure
o germ and chemical warfare technology that continues under guises of all sorts
o security technology of the Big Brother scenario, including RFID chips and other surveillance developments
o automation, robotics and remote-control technology that reduces the need for skilled workforce, like drones replacing pilots

There is a process that is followed now where the R&D is done with minimum public awareness (and minimum public scrutiny) that is then followed by the Big Sell where the public is promised via P.R. and ads that this latest "discovery" is a panacea. That's been the formula applied again and again. This is not sensible science. It is just profit-motivated R&D and marketing.

I think Marc's guest has missed the real story behind minimal science reporting. And does he acknowledge there are still plenty of biomed stories which appear and tout the cure around the corner, etc., but those are investment marketing hype for publicity and pumping public expectations? These are now our only peeks into science development in this society. (Trade secrets come first; product supremacy is the goal.)

Plus, they don't want too many scientists out there knowing and developing new techniques that are outside the Establishment. Least of all do they want a growing class of socially-conscious scientists with separate ideas about how science should or shouldn't be developed/utilized? I think not. The Industrialists want only enough scientists to have a controllable group; independent scientists are not desired by the corporatist power structure, imo.

Your mail has been permanently forwarded to Walla Walla Washington.

..now that's funny.

Super show today!

:) bravo

.
  brr  

1 August 2009 -------- August reminder --------

To: Participants in the Million Letters for Health Care Campaign

Important: please do not forward. Instead, inform and invite others by going to http://www.medicareforall.org/invite.php
This is your August reminder to print and send your letter to help get improved Medicare for All: non-profit single-payer national health insurance via U.S. House Resolution 676.

We suggest that you personalize your letter with a hand-written note.

==== SUGGESTION: select one of these to write ====

August 2009

Single-payer financing of health care will allow the U.S. to recover businesses, recover jobs, improve health and save lives.

The U.S. is dead last in minimizing deaths due to preventable diseases. The U.S. was a poor 15th out of 19 countries; now the U.S. is 19th out of 19!

We need to have truly 100% and automatic health care coverage for all. People need access to our health care.

I want my physician to spend more of his time on me and his other patients and less on the complexities of dealing with health insurance companies and too many government programs.

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

STEPS TO PRINT AND SEND YOUR LETTER

http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/Print_Your_Letter#printsteps

The last step links to "extras": additional actions to consider.

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS

http://www.medicareforall.org/invite.php

VISUALIZE SUCCESS TO HELP MAKE IT HAPPEN

http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/Vision

Thanks very much for participating.

Sent by Bob Haiducek on behalf of all those working on the Million Letters for Health Care Campaign

Having had this experience, I can tell you that journalists, editors at the local level are also members of the Church of the Savvy: When a grassroots group or individual approaches a local media source with a non-Establishment-sanctioned position on a local issue and appears before their editorial board or does an op-ed, one can expect their attitude to be in solidarity with the politicians they endorse and/or an accepted viewpoint of 'the way it is'. Even twenty years ago it was not easy to find editors, let alone reporters, willing to buck the system and pressure their publisher/paper to look deeper into an issue than the reigning Establishment approves of.

Submitted by SEDER on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 3:33pm.

wish Maron were on

AAR's current program-- whatever it is they're playing now at 3:45 PST-- sounds like rambling college radio

"Music is real. Everything else is tricks, and games and bullshit."
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

to private entities (Privatization) and have the California tax payers lease them back.

Schwarzenegger is a postmodern fascist privatizer.

This is how you can pay me back for the crack Crank ;-)
Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 6:37pm.
--------
You can't fool me. I know a cleverly constructed conspiracy to sell stamps when I see one.

And another thing; those Forever stamps? I'm here to tell ya that they don't last forever. I've bought 'em at least twice. What's the deal with that?

Are those the stamps with NO monetary value printed on them?

They make me nervous.

"this machine kills fascists"

The small print says Forever as long as you don't use them

All kidding aside, we all know a personal letter scares the hell out of any elected official. I'm working on 4 right now and no, I don't get a company discount.

Actually now is a great time to mail stuff. There ain't shit goin' through our "tubes" right now. Bulk mail is getting first class service. Definitely order stuff through Amazon (groceries, clothes,etc). You'll probably get it in two days with Free Super Saver Shipping.

The ONLY stamp now with no monetary value now is the Forever stamp. It says "Forever" on the stamp and there is no monetary value because that is the only stamp we will ever sell again that does not have the price on it.

Sit down this is big.

It's actually cheaper for us to sell you Forever stamps because it costs more to print and sell the "make up" stamps (1's or 2's). The only "gotcha" is you have to buy Forevers in books of 20. "Oh man!" you cry, "that's tyranny!". Not really because it probably costs you 1 stamp to start your car and 5 or 6 to drive to the Post Office to get one to mail your letter. Buck up, bite the bullet and buy a book. You can even order them online and have them delivered FREE...I think. You can definitely do that if you ask for a Stamps By Mail envelope from your carrier or clerk.

Look this is my fuckin' weekend and I hate busman's holidays so change the subject. OkeeDokee?

{{blog}}

???

Should I be hating it, too?

You know I don't like to hate.

has anyone told ghettodefender?

"this machine kills fascists"

I guess I'm going to be the one to disagree with Rosen's analysis. There is nothing savvy about the corporate media. So I won't dignify their incompetence and greed by calling them such. No indeed. In fact, their actions are very transparent. Simply put, they are the Wall Street Media. Corporate sycophants, if you will, whose interest is the welfare of big business and the wealthy. There is nothing intelligent or shrewd about the way they do business. They are brazenly foolish in their $2000.00 suits. To get involve with the intricacies of how this bunch operates- is like preachers arguing over Ephesians and Romans. It's a waste of time, and I don't give a phuck. I just want them removed from our airwaves.

May I quote the following?

"If a newsman writes that America is doing a find job overseas, he becomes the darling of the bureaucrats; he finds it easy to get space on free junkets. If he is critical , he generally is labeled as "irresponsible," or sometimes officials imply that he is un-American."

Nation Of Sheep 1961

Chuck Todd should stick to math.

busman's holiday: leisure time spent doing the same thing as one does during working hours.

====

a special thanks to mb for splaining the forever stamp (see how it all makes sense now)

The Video Climate change “skeptic” Anthony Watts Doesn't Want You to See

Climate change “skeptic” Anthony Watts tried to use YouTube’s copyright rules to suppress this video by Peter Sinclair.

Free Democracy

..my other job is passing out free definitions. ;-)

busman? as in busdriver?

is it a married peoples' thing, then?

A busman drives around all week...then he has to come home to his nuclear family and drive them around all weekend?

I've been like that ever since I became self employed. The only reason weekends exist at all for me is because they exist for other people.

"this machine kills fascists"

I believe it has a British origin but I leave that to the blog lexicographer.

maggiesboy,

You are one of a few people on this blog who cannot convince me that you don't know when I'm kidding.

Nice try, though. And a brilliant double-reverse on your part, using me as a foil to launch into a Forever stamp pitch and then BLAMING me for dragging you back to work.

A guy can't help but feel pride when he's been flimflammed by the best.

I can't vouch for the veracity of the following, so believe either version at your own risk.
--------
...There are a few different theories on the origin of the phrase "busman's holiday". The version most commonly accepted hearkens back to the horse-driven omnibuses of 19th Century England. The drivers of these omnibuses often grew very attached to their particular team of horses pulling their carriage through town. During their days off, many of these omnibus drivers would disguise themselves as regular passengers in order to keep a critical eye on the relief drivers and the horses. It is said that the phrase "busman's holiday" arose from this practice of bus drivers spending their downtime riding the buses.

Another theory also has a few supporters in the etymology world. The term "busman's holiday" could have nothing to do with professional bus drivers after all. During the same time period as the horse-drawn omnibuses, teams of pickpockets worked the streets of London. One team member would distract the victim by engaging in conversation, while his or her partner picked the victim's wallet. The slang term for the chattier of the two pickpockets was buzzman or buzman. It is thought by some etymologists that a "buzman's holiday" would be no holiday at all, since criminals rarely take a break from criminal activity. Eventually the term would be changed to the more acceptable "busman's holiday," complete with a plausible alternative origin....

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-busmans-holiday.htm

..oh yeah, there was that one time. ;-)

As for that other stuff, I'm forever Grasshopper Straight Man to you. I like living in the minors with the occasional call to The Show. Keeps me from getting bored....or cocky. ;-)

A man approached a female clerk in the department store:

"Excuse me," he said, "but do you have notions?"

"I do," she replied, "but I try to suppress them until 5:00."

"Oh, no," stammered the embarrassed shopper. "You misunderstood. I need to know if you keep stationery."

"Just until the very end," she replied, "Then I just go wild."

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/41991

[excerpt]

CREW SUES ARMY FOR REFUSING TO DISCLOSE RECORDS OF GUIDANCE DISCOURAGING PTSD DIAGNOSIS

Jul 2009 // Washington, D.C. - Today, CREW filed a lawsuit against the Army, CREW v. Dep't of the Army, challenging the Army's failure to produce records in response to CREW's FOIA request seeking documentation of Army guidance that discourages diagnoses of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Veterans Affairs has issued similar guidance that CREW also is seeking to document through a FOIA request that is also the subject of pending litigation.

[end excerpt]

"Can you direct me to the condoms aisle?"

I caught some of the show because it's on delay here in Chicago area. Repeat tomorrow on WCPT.

http://www.chicagoprogressivetalk.com/

Sam asked good questions of Wendell. I'm going to re-listen again tomorrow. Sometimes it's hard to listen well when you are driving and have to make a stop on the way home.

toniD's Ya Think?

My definition is so much better and it applies in a contemporary setting!

"this machine kills fascists"

Halliburton shareholders sue to ‘punish’ company directors

To settle charges that its agents bribed Nigerian officials in order to obtain billions of dollars in contracts in the country, Halliburton Co. and KBR agreed in February to pay a combined total of $579 million to the U.S. government.

And if that did not sting the company coffers enough, a group of shareholders is now suing the company in Harris County District Court, seeking to “punish” officials who allowed such lax standards that millions of dollars could be spirited away to Nigerian bureaucrats, incurring massive fines and harming shareholders’ profits.

“According to the lawsuit, ‘the defendants caused Halliburton to maintain internal controls that were so deficient that Halliburton insiders were able to divert millions of dollars of company funds to pay illegal bribes to various foreign officials in direct violation of the [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]. Defendant’s failure in this regard has caused substantial damage to Halliburton,’” Houston Press reports.

Nearly $150 million of the $180 million given was later discovered in a Swiss bank account.

The suit adds that for bribing officials between 1994 and 2004, damages should reflect “an amount necessary to punish defendants and to make an example of defendants to the community.” It was filed by the Central Laborer’s Pension Fund, which represents almost 7,00 retired workers.

“The fund was the owner and holder of Halliburton common stock,” continued Houston Press. “It claims that as a result of the fines, which were paid to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission, Halliburton recorded a $303 million loss due to discontinued operations in the fourth quarter of 2008, or rather, a loss of 34-cents a share.”

“KBR’s subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root LLC pleaded guilty in a Houston federal court [in February] to criminal charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” thus incurring the deluge of massive fines, noted Market Watch.

All Africa News added:

Last September, former KBR chief executive Albert “Jack” Stanley pleaded guilty to conspiring in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain $6 billion in engineering and construction contracts for a liquefied natural gas plant.

Stanley acknowledged in his plea that a four-company joint venture that included KBR paid about $182 million to consulting companies that then paid bribes to several Nigerian government officials.

Under federal law, it is illegal for U.S. companies to pay bribes to win foreign business. The investigation, under the US Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act, focused on KBR’s involvement in the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Nigeria from 1996 onwards. At the time it was Africa’s largest ever industrial investment project.

The recent settlement for its alleged Nigerian bribery is not the first time Halliburton has been involved in shady foreign dealings, as activist group Halliburton Watch illustrates:

The Pentagon admitted that a $7 billion no-bid contract to extinguish oil fires in Iraq was awarded to Halliburton after a “political appointee” from the Bush administration recommended the company for the job. Government policy forbids politicians or their appointees from taking a role in awarding contracts to private corporations. But Vice President Cheney ignored this basic principle when his political appointees were directly involved in awarding a $7 billion contract to Halliburton to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is investigating the legality of Halliburton’s business dealings in Iran, an enemy of the United States. Halliburton sells goods and services to Iranian companies through its Cayman Islands subsidiary. The sales appear to have violated the U.S. trade embargo against trading with Iran. The OFAC referred the case to the Department of Justice, which is conducting a criminal investigation.

The Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice issued a subpoena to a former employee of Halliburton’s KBR unit to determine whether the company criminally overcharged for gasoline imported into Iraq. KBR, along with its Kuwaiti subcontractor Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co., allegedly overcharged the government by $61 million, but Democrats in Congress say the overcharges were closer to $167 million. KBR charged the government $2.64 per gallon of gasoline while competitors were importing gasoline for less than half that price.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/01/halliburton-shareholders-sue-to-p...

toniD's Ya Think?

Naomi Klein with another interesting insight--

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/141656/naomi_klein%3A_let%27s_put_an_e...

[excerpt]

So what was Sarah Palin telling us about capitalism-as-usual before she was so rudely interrupted by the meltdown? Let's first recall that before she came along, the U.S. public, at long last, was starting to come to grips with the urgency of the climate crisis, with the fact that our economic activity is at war with the planet, that radical change is needed immediately. We were actually having that conversation: Polar bears were on the cover of Newsweek magazine. And then in walked Sarah Palin. The core of her message was this: Those environmentalists, those liberals, those do-gooders are all wrong. You don't have to change anything. You don't have to rethink anything. Keep driving your gas-guzzling car, keep going to Wal-Mart and shop all you want. The reason for that is a magical place called Alaska. Just come up here and take all you want. "Americans," she said at the Republican National Convention, "we need to produce more of our own oil and gas. Take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska, we've got lots of both."

And the crowd at the convention responded by chanting and chanting: "Drill, baby, drill."

Watching that scene on television, with that weird creepy mixture of sex and oil and jingoism, I remember thinking: "Wow, the RNC has turned into a rally in favor of screwing Planet Earth." Literally.

But what Palin was saying is what is built into the very DNA of capitalism: the idea that the world has no limits. She was saying that there is no such thing as consequences, or real-world deficits. Because there will always be another frontier, another Alaska, another bubble. Just move on and discover it. Tomorrow will never come.

This is the most comforting and dangerous lie that there is: the lie that perpetual, unending growth is possible on our finite planet. And we have to remember that this message was incredibly popular in those first two weeks, before Lehman collapsed. Despite Bush's record, Palin and McCain were pulling ahead. And if it weren't for the financial crisis, and for the fact that Obama started connecting with working class voters by putting deregulation and trickle-down economics on trial, they might have actually won.

[end excerpt]

but, just for fun...Todd and Sarah Palin to Divorce: Affairs on Both Sides

I'm starting to feel bad for her.....should I?

"this machine kills fascists"

Take back KBR bonuses, senators urge Pentagon

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two Democratic senators called on the Pentagon to take back more than $83 million in bonuses paid to military contractor KBR after a Defense Department report criticized its electrical work on U.S. bases overseas.

"I want them to tell us on what basis can they possibly continue to justify having paid $83 million of the taxpayers' money for shoddy work that resulted in risk to our soldiers," Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota told reporters Friday.

Dorgan said he and Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania are pressing Defense Department officials to reclaim $83.4 million in bonus payments it awarded KBR for its work in Iraq.

Based on the findings of a report issued Monday by the Defense Department's inspector general on the electrocution deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq, Casey said the Pentagon should fine KBR and "make it hurt and make it count."

"These are just absolutely stunning conclusions about failures by KBR as well as failures by our government," Casey said.

The Houston,Texas-based military contractor defended its performance, saying Friday that Dorgan and Casey "are wrong in their assertion that we have been derelict in our duties to protect the troops."

"The safety and security of all employees and those the company serves remains KBR's top priority," KBR spokeswoman Sarah Engdahl said in a statement.
Don't Miss

* Claims against contractor dismissed in soldier's death
* Pentagon: Multiple failures led to Iraq electrocution

The Pentagon report concluded that the death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a decorated Green Beret from Pennsylvania, stemmed from failures both by the U.S. military and by KBR. The company did not properly ground and inspect electrical equipment, the report found, while Maseth's commanders failed to ensure renovations to the building where he was quartered had been properly done and the Army did not set electrical standards for jobs or contractors.

Maseth was electrocuted in a shower in his Baghdad quarters -- a former palace of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein -- in January 2008. KBR has said the palace was not properly grounded by contractors when it was built.

The Pentagon report concluded that KBR failed to ground a water pump at the building, and the company did not report improperly grounded equipment during routine maintenance.

Maseth's family is suing the company.

Two lawsuits against KBR in the death of another soldier were dismissed earlier this week, and Engdahl said KBR "maintains that its investigation has produced no evidence linking KBR to Staff Sgt. Maseth's death."

Dorgan said the inspector general's report found KBR's work throughout Iraq was of poor quality, with more than 53,000 sites in need of upgrades or repair as of March.

"The question for us is, when will there be accountability -- accountability that requires contractors to measure up?" he said. "And how do we get that from both the Pentagon and contractors?"

Maseth's mother, Cheryl Harris, said wiring problems are a problem for U.S. troops in Afghanistan as well.

"I do know firsthand that our troops are continuing to be shocked -- even in showers in Afghanistan," said Harris, who joined the senators at a news conference Friday. "I still have contact with a lot of soldiers on the ground over there."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/31/military.electrocutions/index.htm...

toniD's Ya Think?

..bet she'll have something to say.

Link to Show

maggiesboy,

Be advised that I am ever-vigilant for a uniquely funny Disgruntled Postal Worker joke.

The cliche is so trite, so banal, and so unfair and offensive to folks in the mail business, it is a particular challenge to find a joke with "disgruntled postal worker" in it that will make you laugh.

I'm searching for an ethnic joke that will make edna ellen poe giggle, too. (They say it can't be done. If I find it, it will probably be about the Irish.)

A successful "It's all Greek to me" joke for toniD would be particularly satisfying but I think that I have already poisoned that well. When she sees the word "Greek" in one of my posts, she assumes that it is surrounded by "It's all" and "to me."

Here's the opener for the one I'm working on for nora:

A neo-fascist, a Scientologist and a Ben And Jerry's franchise owner walk into a bar...

...and then some!

Small Beer, Big Hangover

"this machine kills fascists"

anything to do with each other."

Four-pager covers a lot.

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5073#comment-358032

How Eating Steak, Cake and Butter Can Make You Live Longer

By Janet Paskin, Ode. Posted July 27, 2009.

For more than three decades, we've been told that fatty foods are deadly. But new research suggests that fat can be good for you.

[excerpt]

Increasingly, researchers and nutrition experts are starting to come around. "I have been in this business for 35 years and I have never been one of those who maintain that fat is bad," says Daan Kromhout, a professor of public health at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "We don’t even know whether the two things -- fat and [being] overweight -- have anything to do with each other. The fat issue is much more complicated than it was once thought to be." Moreover, Kromhout says, stating only the amount of fat in a food product is misleading, since "you have to specify what type of fat is included -- saturated, unsaturated, trans-fat -- because if you don’t, people will just cut down on all fats, the good ones included."

[end excerpt]

Rove admits being ‘conduit’ for voter fraud allegations

In a just-released interview conducted earlier this month with the New York Times and the Washington Post, former White House adviser Karl Rove appeared to be attempting to portray his involvement in the December 2006 firing of several US Attorneys as merely “peripheral” and not tied to any particular agenda.

The Times even headlined its story, “Rove Says His Role in Prosecutor Firings Was Small.”

However, all three of the US Attorney firings in which Rove has now admitted playing some role are linked by the common theme of allegations of voter fraud and by connections to a GOP front group known as the American Center for Voting Rights, which was formed in early 2005 to press the voter fraud issue. This suggests that Rove’s relationship to those three firings may not be as casual as he now claims.
The David Iglesias firing

“Yes, I was a recipient of complaints, and I passed them on to the counsel’s office to be passed onto Justice,” Rove told the Post, in reference to voter fraud complains which he had received from New Mexico. Rove further noted that the complaints “had the sound of authenticity to me. If what I’m told is accurate, it’s really troublesome.”

According to the Post, the complaints which Rove described himself as having merely passed on to the office of White House Counsel Harriet Miers began in 2005, when “then-Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), his chief of staff, Steve Bell, and GOP lawyers in the state lobbied aggressively to oust the prosecutor.”

However, testimony and analysis from the spring and summer of 2007, when the US Attorney scandal was first breaking, indicate a far deeper involvement on Rove’s part than merely transmitting the complaints of others. That June, for example, Rep. John Conyers wrote:

“The evidence gathered so far also shows significant White House involvement — including by Mr. Rove — in the decision to dismiss David Iglesias as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico. We have learned from the testimony of the Attorney General and Mr. Sampson that Mr. Rove directly complained to the Attorney General about concerns that prosecutors were not aggressively pursuing voter fraud cases in districts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. One of these districts was that of Mr. Iglesias, who was added after that complaint to the list of U.S. Attorneys to be replaced.”
The role of Patrick Rogers

What may be a point of even greater interest, however, is that among those “GOP lawyers” mentioned so casually by the Post was “a well-connected Republican lawyer in Albuquerque” named Patrick Rogers. Rogers had invited Iglesias to a lunch meeting some weeks before the 2006 elections at which he raised the issue of voter fraud — as he had been doing periodically since 2004.

“I had a bad feeling about that lunch,” Iglesias told the Los Angeles Times the following spring, saying that he had replied to Rogers by saying that he had reviewed over a hundred complaints on the voter fraud issue without finding any that justified criminal charges.

“Unbeknownst to Iglesias,” the LATimes added, “a few months before that lunch, Rogers and another Republican attorney from New Mexico, Mickey Barnett, had complained about Iglesias at the Justice Department in Washington. The session was arranged with the assistance of the department’s then-White House liaison, Monica M. Goodling, and an aide to White House political strategist Karl Rove, according to e-mails released recently by congressional investigators. One of those they met with was Matthew Friedrich, a senior counselor to Gonzales. Friedrich would meet again with Rogers and Barnett in New Mexico, where, he told congressional investigators, the pair complained about Iglesias. They made it clear ‘that they did not want him to be the U.S. attorney.’”

More...

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/31/rove-admits-being-conduit-for-vot...

toniD's Ya Think?

Disgusting. Equally. Rove who snaps. And those yesmen/women who hop to his snaps.

Three big news stories and no comments?

Halliburton, KBR and Rove?

toniD's Ya Think?

Obama: Recession will pass, thanks to stimulus

President Barack Obama said on Saturday that new economic data indicated a huge stimulus package approved in February had helped “put the brakes” on a deep recession and offers hope for the future.

Obama, speaking in his weekly radio address, referred to figures released Friday that showed a narrower-than-expected 1.0 percent decline in GDP in the second quarter.

“The report showed that in the first few months of this year, the recession we faced when I took office was even deeper than anyone thought at the time. It told us how close we were to the edge,” Obama said.

“But it also revealed that in the last few months, the economy has done measurably better than expected. And many economists suggest that part of this progress is directly attributable” to the 787 billion dollar economic stimulus package known as the Recovery Act, he said.

“This and the other difficult but important steps that we have taken over the last six months have helped put the brakes on this recession,” he said.

The Recovery Act included help for homeowners in danger of foreclosure to pay their mortgages; measures to unfreeze credit markets; extensions of unemployment benefits; tax cuts for middle-income Americans; and “investments that are putting people back to work rebuilding and renovating roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals.

“Now, I realize that none of this is much comfort for Americans who are still out of work or struggling to make ends meet,” Obama said, noting that unemployment figures out next week are likely to remain bleak.

However economic growth precedes job growth, he said, and the Friday report “is an important sign that we’re headed in the right direction.

More with video

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/01/obama-crisis-will-pass/

toniD's Ya Think?

..I know this doesn't count.

They're all big stories that came out on the weekend. This isn't the usual Friday night dump kinda stuff. What the heck is going on?

Palin Denies Divorce Rumor
An attorney for former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin "has denied a report that she and her husband are planning to divorce," CBS News reports.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/01/politics/main5204228.shtml

The Web site Alaskareport.com, citing "multiple sources," claimed today that the couple was planning to divorce.

"The Palins were noticeably not speaking to each other at last Sunday's resignation speech in Fairbanks. Sarah ditched Todd right after the speech and left without him. Sarah removed her wedding ring a couple of weeks ago."

Update: A Palin spokeswoman also denied the rumors on her Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=111060718434

toniD's Ya Think?

Sunday Breakfast Menu, Aug. 2
By Ashley Southall

For the first Sunday in weeks, health care will be a side dish to a larger entree — the American economy.

The Obama administration’s Cabinet members and advisers will fan out on nearly all of the Sunday morning shows to discuss the economy and what economic indicators released this past week, such as consumer confidence, home sales and the gross domestic product, are telling us about the present and future of the economy.

On ABC, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan are both guests on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

Mr. Stephanopoulos said on his blog that he intends to ask Mr. Geithner where he sees the economy headed and when he believes unemployment might slow down. Mr. Stephanopoulos also said he’d ask Mr. Greenspan whether he thinks President Obama’s policies will get the country out of the recession.

On “Face the Nation,” CBS anchor Bob Schieffer will host Larry Summers, the White House’s top economic adviser. The two will discuss whether or not the recession is waning.

Mr. Summers does a double take, appearing again for the first half-hour of NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He and host David Gregory will discuss whether the country has begun to recover from the financial crisis, if the stimulus plan is working, and where the government’s plans have had the best results.

Other guests—including former Representative Harold Ford, Jr., now president of the Democratic Leadership Council, and former Representative J.C. Watts also appear on “Meet the Press” to discuss health care and the “beer summit.”

Christina Romer, the president’s chief economic forecaster will show up on CNN’s “State of the Union with John King,” along with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to talk about the economy and health care.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will appear on C-Span’s “Newsmakers” to discuss the recent house vote to supply $2 billion to the administration’s “Cash for Clunkers” program. The used car rebate program sold out in its first week. Mr. LaHood will also talk about other transportation stimulus projects.

Representative Charles Rangel, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, will appear on “Fox News Sunday,” along with Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who has emerged as a vocal critic of President Obama’s plans to overhaul health care. Host Chris Wallace will talk to the two about health bills moving through Congress.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/sunday-breakfast-menu-aug-...

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by toniD on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 9:08pm.
Halliburton shareholders sue to ‘punish’ company directors
--------
On the one hand, it would be nice if shareholders actually joined together to show some muscle in the corporations represented by their shares. Shareholder proposals nearly always go down in overwhelming defeat.

On the other hand, if corporate operatives engineer big profits by bribing national officials (or while paying themselves absurdly large compensations), the shareholders will be vewy, vewy quiet.

Thus, shareholder power is a double-edged sword. If the corporate movers-and-shakers fuck up big time, then shareholders could (and should) be all over them like a cheap Versace knockoff.

I doubt that shareholders who cloak themselves in Verace with their share profits will care whose ox got gored.

...Obama rehiring David Iglesias was a none too subtle fuck you to GWB and threat aimed directly at Rove's fat fucking forehead.

He just did it again this week

"this machine kills fascists"

The Senate is scheduled to go on recess next week and not return to the Capitol until after Labor Day. But for the six senators attempting to develop a bipartisan health care reform bill, summer vacation won’t be work free.

“We’ve agreed to a full set of negotiations next week. We have people working all through this weekend. We have agreed to meetings through the August break,” Sen. Kent Conrad, D-Nd., told Jon Karl and me on ABC News’ “Top Line” as he laid out the path forward on health care.

“My anticipation is that we will produce a package in September -- in the first part of September, the first half of September, and if we don’t we’ll have to go in a different direction,” he added.

Four of the five House and Senate committees will have approved their versions of health care reform legislation prior to the scheduled congressional recess in August. The Senate Finance Committee is the one committee which will not vote on a bill prior to the break in an effort to keep both Republicans and Democrats at the table in the hopes of emerging with a bipartisan bill at the end of the process.

This week’s legislative developments, which significantly slowed down health care reform efforts, has not caused Sen. Conrad to alter his prediction that Democrats do not have enough votes to pass a bill.

“I don’t think there’s any question in the Senate that you need Republican votes. You know , If you do the math if you do a vote count it’s really quite clear you need Republicans to join us in order to pass a package,” said Conrad before drilling down into some Senate math.

“There aren’t 60 Democrats who are here and voting,” he said. “As you know we have to colleagues who’ve been very ill and so if they’re not available -- and remember when you get into health care it’s not just one vote. It’s vote after vote after vote after vote. So, you’re down to 58. Then you’ve got a number of Democrats who’ve made quite clear if the package were negotiated only among Democrats that they would not support a public option or a package that had a public option as part of it. That takes you down to 55 votes,” he added.

View the entire interview with Sen. Conrad here: at link

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/key-senators-plan-health-care-m...

toniD's Ya Think?

http://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/2009/07/articles/food-policy-regulation...

[excerpt]

H.R. 2749 Killed (For Now) On Floor of U.S. Congress
Posted on July 29, 2009 by Dan Flynn
Dingell came up six or seven votes short today, and failed to get food safety reform legislation passed through Congress.

Dingell, the once powerful Michigan Democrat who lost his chairmanship of the Energy & Commerce Committee before the start of the 111th Congress, fell just short of getting the necessary two-thirds majority vote to suspend the rules and adopt H.R. 2749 as amended.

The House voted 280 in favor and 150 against suspending the rules and passing H.R. 2749. Twenty-three Democrats voted with 127 Republicans to deny Dingell the two-thirds majority vote required under the rules. Fifty Republicans voted for the bill that Dingell had carefully crafted with help with Texas GOP Rep. Joe Barton.

While the proponents of the food safety legislation dominated the floor debate that stretched into a second hour, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R- Ohio, compared the late number of rewrites of the food safety legislation filed with the House Clerk as repeating the bad behavior on the part of the Majority that was used to get the stimulus bill passed. "Did anyone read this bill?" Boehner asked.

"What our Minority Leader said is true," Barton said, " but it is not, as Paul Harvey use to say, the rest of the story. Those different bills have been introduced as a result of changes I’ve asked for."

Barton seemed to be pleading with his Republican colleagues by saying : "In this bill, in this case…we have had an open bipartisan process."

House Agriculture Committee members acknowledged Dingell had consulted them and make changes in the bill, such as exempting feed grains and livestock; but they complained it was outside the regular process.

[end excerpt]

================================
"Exempting feed grains and livestock"? Considering meat recalls and Mad Cow Disease, one would think those would be foremost in a Food Safety bill.

The health care overhaul effort may be sputtering in key Senate and House committees, but White House senior adviser David Axelrod told House Democrats today to focus how far Congress has already come — and on the potential for a “historic” breakthrough after the August recess to pass badly needed fixes to the health care system.

After a two-hour meeting with the House Democratic caucus, Axelrod played down the fights in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where the conservative Blue Dogs have forced changes to the bill and some liberal Democrats think their leaders have given away too much. Instead, he said the White House and congressional Democrats will be able to deliver the same message over the recess — uniting over the need to end insurance practices such as denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and limiting how much they’ll pay to cover serious illnesses.

“We’re very close to doing something historic that will give stability and security to people who have health insurance now as well as people who don’t,” Axelrod said. “And we need to go out and make an aggressive case over August. And we just talked that through.”

“I think that there is a spirit of unanimity about getting something done that will help the American people, and I’m confident that we’re going to do that,” Axelrod said.

Although some members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus warned yesterday that they’ll vote against a House bill that significantly weakens the proposed government-run health plan to compete with private insurers, some House Democrats said Axelrod — who spoke along with Nancy-Ann DeParle, who heads the White House Office of Health Reform — didn’t have to spend much time addressing those concerns today.

Instead, “I think more people were asking, ‘what’s the president going to do to help us on this bill,’ because he’s got a bigger megaphone than all of us,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. That’s a significant concern too, given that opponents of the effort have promised to spend the August recess warning of all kinds of dangers supposedly in the bill. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, for example, railed yesterday against the “health czar” who would supposedly make health care decisions and warned that the Democrats are “likely to have a long, hot summer.”

Naturally, Axelrod promised that Obama will campaign constantly for the passage of the bill.

“He’ll be out,” Axelrod said after the meeting. “But each of these individual members are also going to be out, and we’re all going to be, I think, making the same case, which is that if you don’t have insurance today, the benefit of the plan is obvious, but if you do, there’s enormous security embedded in these plans so that you don’t get thrown off of your insurance if you get sick, so that you don’t get deprived of insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, so that you have a cap on your out-of-pocket expenses and no cap on what the insurance companies will pay if you become seriously ill. These are things that are long overdue.”

And if the White House message gurus are on their toes, they’re already working on rebuttals Obama and House Democrats can use if people at the town hall meetings start asking about that “health czar.”

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/balance_of_power/2009/07/axelrod-rallies-hou...

toniD's Ya Think?

Three-Quarters of Americans Believe Obama Was U.S.-Born

Despite the birthers' best efforts, Americans believe by 77 percent to 11 percent that President Obama was, in fact, born in the U.S., according to a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll conducted July 27-30. Twelve percent were not sure.

The group of biggest doubters were Republicans who agreed that Obama was U.S.-born by a lesser 42 percent to 28 percent with 30 percent not sure. Independents acknowledged Obama's native birth by 83 percent and Democrats by 93 percent.

Regionally, the part of the country with the most doubts was the South where 47 percent said Obama was native-born while 23 percent said he was not and 30 percent were unsure. Americans in all other regions said Obama was native-born by 87 percent or more.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/polltracker/2009/07/threequarters-of-america...

toniD's Ya Think?

Kirk, Giannoulias kick off Illinois Senate campaigns. Video
By
Lynn Sweet
on July 31, 2009 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are videos from FoxNews Chicago from the kick-offs of the campaigns of 2010 Illinois Senate hopefuls, Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Gianoulias.

Videos at link

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/07/kirk_giannoulias_kick_off_illi.h...

toniD's Ya Think?

I can't keep up! ;-)

..I believe your course of steroids has turned you into Super Blogger!!! ;-)

Just took a break to wash dishes and get a bowl of ice cream.

toniD's Ya Think?

Shannyn just said

"When war is for profit, Peace is cheap"

toniD's Ya Think?

Shannyn is really getting her stride. I'll be glad when Palin is a minor or non-existent story so she can talk about other issues like she is now on health care.

The Right-Wing Op-Ed Insurgency

Liberal bias? A Daily Beast investigation crunches the numbers and shows how conservative think tanks have quietly achieved domination over the opinion pages of America’s biggest papers.

For all the noise about liberal bias in newsrooms, you’d think the country’s big three papers had contracted George Soros, Ralph Nader, and Gloria Steinem as their exclusive opinionators.

But a Daily Beast review of the archives of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post tells a much different story: Conservative think tanks are pummeling their liberal peers in the race for the most prominent placement on op-ed pages. During the past year, 77 percent of pieces authored by think-tank affiliates came from conservative outfits, 18 percent came from centrist groups, and a tiny 5 percent came from the left wing.

With The Wall Street Journal carrying a heavier load of think-tank contributions than the Times and Post combined, conservative wonks are given a significant leg-up, according Alex Jones, former Times media reporter and current head of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

“There are more conservative think tanks, first of all,” Jones said, “and they are very aggressive and very effective. The Wall Street Journal op-ed page has been extremely accommodating. That’s the character and nature of the page.”

Which think tank takes up the most opinion-page real estate?

The American Enterprise Institute crushes the competition, liberal and conservative, in racking up bylines, scoring 99 of the total 217 pieces published by major think tanks from the third week of July 2008 to July 21, 2009, as shown by a review of the archives of the Times, Post, and Journal.

Of course, you’re four times as likely to find an AEI piece in the right-leaning pages of the Journal than in the more liberal pages of the Times and Post put together. In fact, 79 AEI-bylined op-eds appeared in the Journal during the period surveyed. Considering that the Journal publishes only six days a week, that’s one AEI appearance every four days. Bush hawks like John Yoo, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, who nest at the D.C. institute and are frequent contributors, help pad the stats. A recent offering from Yoo, the former Bush Justice Department official: “ Why We Endorsed Warrantless Wiretaps." Last month, Bolton, Bush’s former representative at the United Nations, floated this thought balloon in the Journal: “ What Would Happen if Israel Strikes Iran?”

But it’s important to note that the AEI crowd is not completely confined to the Journal. They also find themselves in the opinion section of the Washington Post more times—16 during the last year—than any other think tank.

“It’s been something AEI has been really pleased about,” AEI President Arthur Brooks told The Daily Beast. Brooks said he thought the AEI’s reputation helped secure so many pieces: “Everybody knows the AEI guys write really good op-eds.”

Stressing that he likes scholars to speak to audiences that aren’t completely like-minded, Brooks nevertheless recognizes the special relationship between the Journal and his institute. “The Journal is certainly a big target,” he said. “We love it.” More...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-01/the-right-wing...

toniD's Ya Think?

Odd, almost religious, choice of words. Which is fine.

The shake-up in Bank of America Corp.'s boardroom, apparently orchestrated by the hand of government regulators, continued Friday evening, when the bank announced that three more of its directors have resigned.

Friday's departures mean that half of the 18 directors elected for 2009-10 have left without explanation. The government's role in orchestrating the leadership changes at the Charlotte, N.C., company, has become evident, however.

Though the government has been expanding its authority over most of the banking industry, its grip has been especially tight on Bank of America. The holds $45 billion in government loans — more than any bank but Citigroup Inc. The directors have been under fire for allegedly rubber-stamping the wishes of Bank of America's executives, a laxity that helped lead to the current financial crisis.

In June, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke told a congressional panel that the Fed asked the bank to "look at top management and make changes to its board" after negotiations over the $50 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch late last year.

In May, regulators instructed Bank of America and other banks that "failed" the stress tests to "review their existing management and Board in order to assure that the leadership of the firm has sufficient expertise and ability to manage the risks presented by the current economic environment."

The bank said in a regulatory filing, made after 5 p.m. on Friday, that each director's decision to resign "was not a result of any disagreement with the Corporation or its management." Bank spokesman Scott Silvestri declined to comment beyond the three-sentence filing, except to say that the bank expects to add more directors before the end of the year.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/256/story/72893.html

toniD's Ya Think?

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by nora on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 9:08pm.
Naomi Klein with another interesting insight--

"Let's Put an End to Sarah Palin-Style Capitalism"

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

Yes I agree. Capitalism as we know it should not be saved.

It needs a complete overhaul.

If the rape and pillage of the planet is restarted,
the planet and the human race, and most animals will
die off sooner that later.

An end to this survival of the fittest mindset is greatly needed, and now we have a brief window in time where
if we do not make radical changes, we all are doomed imo.

This is Fucking Awesome!
Submitted by 60th Street on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 9:19pm.
==
"Threatened white elites try to mask their own anxieties by patronizingly adopting working-class whites as their pet political surrogates — Joe the Plumber, New Haven firemen, a Cambridge police officer. Call it Village People populism.
"

link from that page
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/world/europe/01oleary.html
you can scan that link just to get the context for this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfIY24BErBE

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

link would stop after a few sentences.
==
that book I was reading on 2012...
Cheney did it. Well, still have some pages left, he didn't do the big it but it dovetailed nicely into
"
The Houston,Texas-based military contractor defended its performance, saying Friday that Dorgan and Casey "are wrong in their assertion that we have been derelict in our duties to protect the troops."
"
How can they be derelict in something when they never planed to do it.

bastards

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

this clusterfrick called healthcare reform is just a distraction to take our minds off the real problems with the economy, the goal being to buy time and hope that the stimulus hail mary works?

be a nice way to give Rove a Three Stooges Curly slap or something. I don't get why that's not happening.

speaking on the economy.

a "Stimulus Package"

WASHINGTON – Al Franken has immersed himself in the health care debate. He's had a chance to question Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. He's signed on as a co-sponsor of a half dozen bills.

Weeks into his late-starting Senate career, the former comedian and self-professed lover of policy is focusing on a few issues and the daily details of his new profession. Forget the old celebrity stuff.

There was nothing flashy about the Minnesota Democrat's first victory. The Service Dog Veterans Act, which Franken introduced with Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., will set up a pilot program with Department of Veterans Affairs to pair service dogs with wounded veterans.

"He sought me out and I was happy to work with him," Isakson said. "He'd done his homework. He was very informed. It was obvious he was trying to hit the ground running."

Isakson said he came away impressed.

"All of us know in the Senate your reputation is the sum of all the days you serve, not just one event, but he appears to be trying very hard."

Franken's swearing-in July 7 marked the end of an eight-month political and legal struggle since the November race against GOP incumbent Norm Coleman. After a protracted recount, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of the former "Saturday Night Live" performer, giving Senate Democrats enough votes to thwart possible Republican filibusters.

He is serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, throwing him right into the middle of the Sotomayor nomination and the health care overhaul.

During the Sotomayor hearings, Franken said he was able to get Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the committee's top Republican, to acknowledge there are conservative "activist judges" as well as liberal ones.

"I thought that was a victory," Franken said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Every conservative would say I want someone who's not a judicial activist and won't make law from the bench but that's exactly what Justice Thomas is doing. So I was proud of that."

Democrats have appreciated Franken's ability to get up to speed quickly on the issues.

"He really understands the sort of workings of government and how policy is developed and the effect it has," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. "This is not some passing fancy of his. This is something he's been intellectualizing on and studying for many, many years."

Harkin said Franken has been a "quick study" on health care and was doing what he could to build consensus.

While Franken generally has tried to keep a low profile, he has picked his spot.

At a lunch with Democrats on Thursday, Franken had what spokeswoman Jess McIntosh described as "a lively discussion" with T. Boone Pickens, the energy entrepreneur and key backer of the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads that targeted Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

If you listen to Franken, there's plenty of other things he can be doing besides talking.

"I've got a lot of work to do," he told the AP. "I've got to get up to speed very, very quickly, so I'm focused on that."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/ap_on_go_co/us_franken_at_work

toniD's Ya Think?

It's late and I'm tired.

toniD's Ya Think?

what's german for blow-job?
Submitted by jbenet on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 10:50pm.
------
Der schwanzenlippenshmacken.

Cats claw extract,olive leaf and oregano to you G.S.E. and kill every invader. G.S.E was always recommended esp for yeasts and fungal issues.

Or maybe "Der mercedesbenzenbyer."

As much as I would like for it to be "Achtongue!", I doubt that it is.

capitalism
Submitted by Jmach1JP on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 10:42pm.
Submitted by nora on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 9:08pm.
Naomi Klein with another interesting insight--

"Let's Put an End to Sarah Palin-Style Capitalism"

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

Yes I agree. Capitalism as we know it should not be saved.

It needs a complete overhaul.

If the rape and pillage of the planet is restarted,
the planet and the human race, and most animals will
die off sooner that later.

...

====================
Hi, Jmach1JP.

Naomi Klein's piece does not go in the direction of saying "Dominionist" cult but it could have. Palin and pals believe they have Dominion over creation, that Dominion over Nature is their purpose (and unbridled capitalism at their disposal is a means) -- 'God gave it to us in our covenant' sort of stuff. It is not the first time the Christianist types have rationalized pillage via privileged status. Looks like Free Market or whatever they want to call their next version of Capitalist Exploitation is just the latest form of a Conquistador mindset.

http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_12971462

[excerpt]

Biologic drugs protected 12 years by House panel bill
By Catherine Larkin and Nicole Gaouette

Bloomberg News

Posted: 07/31/2009 09:26:58 PM PDT
Updated: 07/31/2009 09:26:59 PM PDT

So-called "biologic drugs" would get 12 years of protection from competing medicines under a provision passed by a U.S. House panel in legislation to overhaul the nation's $2.5 trillion health care system.

The Energy and Commerce Committee, in a 47-11 vote Friday, followed the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's move July 13 to reject the Obama administration's call to limit exclusivity to seven years for drugs derived from living cells. Both chambers must agree to final language in their overhaul measures and reconcile the differences.

Biologic drugs cost Americans $60 billion a year, as much as $200,000 for some single medicines, and current U.S. laws don't allow for cheaper, generic copies after patents expire. Lawmakers and President Barack Obama say generic competition for these medicines — made from living cells to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic diseases — would save billions of dollars over the next decade.

"This amendment sets forth a straightforward, scientific process for approval," said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, who sponsored the bill. A 12-year window will promote competition, lower prices and assure "that patients are given safe and effective treatments. Those are more than worthy goals."

Eshoo recognizes that California is home to biotechnology giants Amgen, of Thousand Oaks, and Roche's Genentech unit, of South San Francisco. The biologics proposal was
backed by 26 of 36 Democrats on the panel and 21 of 23 Republicans. It passed over the opposition of Rep. Henry Waxman, the committee chairman and a Los Angeles Democrat.

Exclusivity refers to the length of time a brand-name product can be sold before a competing lower-cost generic, or an improved product that relies on the brand-name data, is marketed after approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Most conventional pills made from chemical synthesis get five years of exclusivity under a 1984 U.S. law.

"Adoption of this amendment is exactly the wrong way to increase competition and reduce prices," Waxman said. A "lengthy" exclusivity period creates "open-ended monopolies" that squash competition, he said.

"We're guaranteeing higher drug costs in the future," Waxman said. "We need real competition to bring down the cost of the fastest-growing segment of our nation's drug bill."

Exclusivity is separate from patent protection, which varies depending on how long it takes a medicine to be developed. Generics must wait for exclusivity to end and for patents to expire or be ruled invalid before the medicines can enter the market.

Generic-drug makers call their products "biogenerics." They say that delaying copies for a minimum of 12 years will limit demand and reduce potential savings.

[end excerpt]

spitzenderswallenzig

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

quiz

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11099319/ns/business-us_business/

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Sam I hope you're feeling better soon! Could be worse if you already got the new Sebelius-mandated-required Swine Floo Vaccine!

STOP MANDATORY VACCINATIONS FOR H1N1
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
What You Can Do to Prevent Forced Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccinations. Demand Your Right to Self-Shield! Add your comments in too!
Protection From Compulsory Vaccination, Drugging - Your Right to Self-Shield!
SIGN NOW!

We're back from BTV Staycation with a new
SUNDAY TALK SHOW LINEUP!
http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5074
Brick TeeVee Trade Deadline Disasters!

Hola Sederville!

so heres what ive been up to this week.

www.infringebuffalo.org

talk about a lot of art.
mebbe too much for one week.

i got to run the light show one night.
thats a good time. a lot more fun than running sound, which is really tricky when you know the bartenders.

is that mandatory vax fer real?
frightening.

so hellooooo nobody.

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

Threatened white elites try to mask their own anxieties by patronizingly adopting working-class whites as their pet political surrogates — Joe the Plumber, New Haven firemen, a Cambridge police officer. Call it Village People populism.

Metallica goes good with Thunderstorms ....

WASHINGTON – The remains of the first American lost in the Persian Gulf War have been found in Iraq, the military said Sunday, after struggling for nearly two decades with the question of whether he was dead or alive.

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has positively identified the remains of Captain Michael "Scott" Speicher, whose disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his jet was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the 1991 war.

The top Navy officer said the discovery illustrates the military's commitment to bring its troops home.

"Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be," said Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations. "We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us."

The Pentagon initially declared Speicher killed, but uncertainty — and the lack of remains — led officials over the years to change his official status a number of times to "missing in action" and later "missing-captured."

After years, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq finally gave investigators the chance to search inside Iraq. And it led to a number of leads, including what some believed were the initials "MSS" scratched into the wall of an Iraqi prison.

The search also led investigators to excavate a potential grave site in Baghdad in 2005, track down Iraqis said to have information about Speicher and make numerous other inquiries in what officials say has been an exhaustive search.

Officials said Sunday that they got new information from an Iraqi citizen in early July, leading Marines stationed in Anbar province to a location in the desert which was believed to be the crash site of Speicher's jet.

The Iraqi said he knew of two other Iraqis who recalled an American jet crashing and the remains of the pilot being buried in the desert.

"One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried," the Pentagon said in a statement.

He was positively identified through a jawbone found at the site and dental records, said Read Adm. Frank Thorp.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_gulf_war_missin...

toniD's Ya Think?

On Deck:
Hearts Of Space 1 Hr.
"Slow music for fast times"

http://www.wdcb.org/
Listen:
(Dial-Up)
(56kbs)
http://www.wdcb.org/NewMedStreams.php

What’s Not to Like?

Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I'm just a regular guy and definitely deserve less.

I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition."

I like the absence of catastrophic insurance today. It meant that my health-insurance plan (one of the better ones, by the way) only covered about 75 percent of the cost of my cutting-edge treatment. That's as it should be—face cancer and shell out huge amounts of money at the same time. Nice.

I like the "lifetime limits" that many policies have today. Missed the fine print on that one, did you? It means that after you exceed a certain amount of reimbursement, you don't get anything more from the insurance company. That's fair.

Speaking of fair, it seems fair to me that cost-cutting bureaucrats at the insurance companies—not doctors—decide what's reimbursable. After all, the insurance companies know best.

Yes, the insurance company status quo rocks. I learned recently about something called the "loading fees" of insurance companies. That's how much of every health-care dollar gets spent by insurance companies on things other than the medical care—paperwork, marketing, profits, etc. According to a University of Minnesota study, up to 47 percent of all the money going into the health-insurance system is consumed in "loading fees." Even good insurance companies spend close to 30 percent on nonmedical stuff. Sweet.

The good news is that the $8,000 a year per family that Americans pay for their employer-based health insurance is heading up! According to the Council of Economic Advisers, it will hit $25,000 per family by 2025. The sourpusses who want health-care reform say that's "unsustainable." Au contraire.

And how could the supporters of these reform bills believe in anything as stupid as a "public option"? Do they really believe that the health-insurance cartel deserves a little competition to keep them honest? Back in the day, they had a word for competition. A bad word. They called it capitalism. FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, CNN versus PBS—just because it's government-backed doesn't mean you can't compete against it. If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete. More...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/209817

toniD's Ya Think?

Will Discuss Beer Diplomacy. (Cutting Edge Radio)

http://www.keephopealiveradio.com/listen.html

Health-Care Reform and the “Culture Wars”

Friday, Politico.com editor Fred Barbash posed this question to “Arena” contributors: “Does the ongoing debate about healthcare reform reflect a :"kind of culture war” that can be traced to a “fundamental difference in world views?”

Barbash then pointed to a thought-provoking piece by Bill Bishop, titled “Health Debate Runs Along Familiar Lines” which was published on Politico.com in March. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=CD297E8F-18FE-70B2-A88265416...

Bishop, who is the co-author of “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart,” argues that “The health care discussion reveals that the country is still divided along lines drawn more than 100 years ago. . . divisions in the country were never about specific issues . . .. They were about ways of looking at this world (and the next), and those century-old differences are now shaping the health care discussion.”

Bishop frames the age-old religious debate this way: “Do you get to heaven by your good works, by what you do for your brothers and sisters on Earth? Or do you find salvation by your individual relationship with God? Does the world get better through public acts or private ones?

“When Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said recently that ‘this health care issue s D-Day for freedom in America’ he was talking from one side of this division. President Barack Obama says, ‘I am my brother’s keeper.’ That’s the view from the other bank.

“This isn’t a policy issue or a disagreement about strategy,” Bishop adds. “It is a fundamental difference in worldview. It’s a division in what people expect out of life, and it’s been part of this country for more than 100 years.”

He points out that “Religious historian Martin Marty described the late 19th-century split between what he called private and public Protestants. Private Protestants promoted individual salvation and personal morality.

By contrast, Bishop exatplains that “Public Protestants saw riots by workers [fighting for unions] as a failure of society. Pubic Protestants promoted the minimum wage and the 8-hour days . . . Public Protestants believed that either the needs of people would be met, or the kingdom of God [on earth] would never arrive. ‘Either society confronted social injustice or society would fall,’ wrote one prominent public Protestant. ‘It is either a revival of social religion or the deluge.’”

There were “two types of Christianity” alive in the country, Bishop adds, “Congregationalist minister Josiah Strong wrote in 1913. ‘Their difference is one of spirit, aim, point of view, comprehensiveness. The one is individualist; the other is social.’”

In my response http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Maggie_Mahar_642F5006-E55B-4901-8D36-... I tried to connect the dots between Private vs. Public Protestants and today’s progressives and conservatives.

Regular readers may not find many surprises in my comment on healthcare reform, but I suspect many would enjoy Bishop Paul Moore’s spectacular analysis (which I quote in the second paragraph of my comment), explaining where former president George W. Bush fits in the Private vs. Public Protestant debate.

http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/07/healthcare-reform-and-the-culture-...

toniD's Ya Think?

Health reform made simple

Kudos to the Times for a story that, for once, emphasizes the remarkable unity of vision health reformers are showing, rather than the squabbles that are an inevitable part of passing major legislation.

The essence is really quite simple: regulation of insurers, so that they can’t cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance.

Everything else is about making that core work. Individual mandates are a way to prevent gaming of the system by people who don’t sign up until they’re sick; employer mandates a way to hold down the on-budget costs by preventing a rush by employers to drop insurance; the public option a way to create effective competition and hold costs down further.

But what it means for the individual will be that insurers can’t reject you, and if your income is relatively low, the government will help pay your premiums.

That’s it. Any commentator who whines that he just doesn’t understand it is basically saying that he doesn’t want to understand it.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/health-reform-made-simple/

toniD's Ya Think?

Prolonged Aid to Unemployed Is Running Out
By ERIK ECKHOLM

Over the coming months, as many as 1.5 million jobless Americans will exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits, ending what for some has been a last bulwark against foreclosures and destitution.

Because of emergency extensions already enacted by Congress, laid-off workers in nearly half the states can collect benefits for up to 79 weeks, the longest period since the unemployment insurance program was created in the 1930s. But unemployment in this recession has proved to be especially tenacious, and a wave of job-seekers is using up even this prolonged aid.

Tens of thousands of workers have already used up their benefits, and the numbers are expected to soar in the months to come, reaching half a million by the end of September and 1.5 million by the end of the year, according to new projections by the National Employment Law Project, a private research group.

Unemployment insurance is now a lifeline for nine million Americans, with payments averaging just over $300 per week, varying by state and work history. While many recipients find new jobs before exhausting their benefits, large numbers in the current recession have been unable to find work for a year or more.

Calls are rising for Congress to pass yet another extension this fall, possibly adding 13 more weeks of coverage in states with especially high unemployment. As of June, the national unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, reaching 15.2 percent in Michigan. Even if the recession begins to ease, economists say, jobs will remain scarce for some time to come.

“If more help is not on the way, by September a huge wave of workers will start running out of their critical extended benefits, and many will have nothing left to get by on even as work keeps getting harder to find,” said Maurice Emsellem, a policy director of the employment law project.

For many desperate job seekers, any extension will seem a blessing. Pamela C. Lampley of Dillon, S.C., said she sat outside the post office last month and cried because “it was the first Wednesday in quite some time that I’ve gone to the mailbox and left without an unemployment check.” The jobless rate in her state is 12.1 percent.

Ms. Lampley, 40, who is married with three children, lost her job as a human resources officer in January 2008 and had been receiving $351 a week, which covered the groceries and gas. Even so, she and her husband, who still has work as a machinist, were sinking into debt. Now, still poorer, she feels devastated because they cannot buy their son a laptop to take to college and she cannot give her 9-year-old son money for the movies.

In Ohio, where unemployment is 11.1 percent, Cathy Nixon, 39, a mother of four teenagers from Lorain, has been out of work for much of the time since June 2007, and her benefits — $313 a week — run out in September. Ms. Nixon is already fighting foreclosure and said she feared that when the benefits end, “we’ll be homeless.” She was unable to afford summer camp and baseball activities for her children, despite scrimping on basics.

Raymond Crouse of Columbus operated heavy construction machinery but has found no work since 2007. Mr. Crouse is 72 and receives Social Security but said that was not enough to live on. The $190 a month he has received in unemployment benefits enabled him and his wife to hang on to the house they bought 15 years ago, he said. But with the benefits ending next month, he fears that they will not keep up.

In ordinary times, employers pay into a state insurance fund, and workers who lose jobs draw benefits for up to 26 weeks. During recessions, Congress has often paid for extended coverage for an extra 13 or even 20 weeks.

In 2008, as the recession deepened, Congress provided 33 extra weeks of benefits. Earlier this year, President Obama’s stimulus plan offered an additional 20 weeks in states where unemployment surpassed 8 percent, if they adopted new federally recommended rules governing these extra weeks. (South Carolina did not make the changes, and benefits there are running out more quickly.)

Currently, people can draw benefits for up to 79 weeks in 24 states and from 46 weeks to 72 weeks in others. More...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/02unemploy.html?_r=1&pagewanted=pri...

toniD's Ya Think?

and the greed of the free market, so it's time that companies start paying their share of what they've created.

toniD's Ya Think?

What Do Poll Numbers Really Mean for Obama?

By Dan Balz
There are several new polls out over the last 24 hours that show more problems for President Obama. The trend lines are consistent: declining support for his health care plan, rising worries about the deficit and slippage in his approval ratings. But what if the polls are wrong?

Not wrong in the sense that they have incorrectly charted a downward slope for the president after six months in office, but wrong in the sense that they don't entirely capture the dynamic of this moment in the Obama presidency.

I raise that question after spending Wednesday night in Towson, Md., observing a focus group conducted by pollster Peter Hart for the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hart assembled 12 independent voters -- seven who supported Obama last November, four who backed John McCain and one who had voted for Ralph Nader. The two-hour session was eye-opening for Hart and a group of journalists.

The most arresting moment came when Hart asked everyone to recall how they felt on election night when they knew Obama had been elected president. It was as if the room was transported back to Chicago's Grant Park for the celebration of Obama's victory.

Jeanne Chambers, a nurse who voted for Obama, recalled, "I was very happy because I had voted for him and I think he presented a major sense of optimism and I think the whole country felt that way."

Other Obama voters around the table expressed similar feelings. "My first thought was there's real hope for this country in terms of regaining our stature and straightening out the financial problems," said Louis Moriconi, a graphic designer.

The McCain voters said they too had been caught up in the excitement over Obama's election. "I pledged all my hope for him," said Jennifer Pennington, an account manager for a technical firm. "I didn't vote for him but I was caught up in that excitement and I cried. I have friends who are African American and I was caught up in their happiness and I just hoped he did well."

Marsha Welder, an account manager at a security firm who voted for McCain, recalled her initial disappointment that her candidate did not win, but then said, "Back that night, I was thinking how proud I was of the country." She spoke glowingly of the support Obama had gotten from younger voters. "This is how it should be," she said.

Based on the polls, what Hart and the others watching the group discussion on Wednesday night anticipated was that, from that high of election night, these 12 independent voters would, almost uniformly, speak of their disenchantment with Obama and their concerns about his leadership.

There was certainly some of that expressed during the evening. The most powerful reservation voiced by those at the table was a sense that Obama is moving too quickly on too many fronts. "Slow down," said Alex Chambers, a teacher.

But Obama has made a powerful, personal connection with these voters. They are not tired of him nor have they given up on his leadership. That was very clear at the end of the two-hour discussion.

Given all the country's problems and the difficulties Obama has encountered, the group's closing comments were almost as striking as the recollections of election night. They were almost universally hopeful that Obama can and will succeed.

"I still feel positive," said Tom Stranger, an accountant.

If you could tell the president one thing, Hart asked them, what would it be?

"Stay strong," said Raymond Fernandez, a movie theater manager and McCain voter.

"Don't give up. We haven't," said Scott Wood, who has been unemployed since last winter.

"Keep that cup half full," Welder said. "Be optimistic."

"We do believe that things will get better," Jeanne Chambers said.

There were certainly cautionary notes for Obama from these voters, as the polls are pointing to now. These voters still aren't persuaded that he is as strong as he needs to be in dealing with the world's problems. That was revealed when Hart asked them to find one word to describe what Obama's backbone is made of.

His most enthusiastic backers see strength. "Metal," said Remi Brooke, a rental agent. "Steel," said Moriconi. But almost everyone else used less complimentary terms. "Plastic," said Dave Sawyer, a forklift driver. Another said bamboo, another said wood, still another said aluminum foil. Fernandez said "sand." Why? "He's not seasoned yet."

Asked what they hope he has learned in his first six months, Pennington said, "I hope he's learned there are a lot of implications to the money he's spending.

Stranger said, "I hope he has learned that everything does not work at the speed of light." More...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/07/30/what_do_poll_numbers_real...

Kinda like it is here!

toniD's Ya Think?

on Pete Seeger this morning. He's 90 years old.

Was one of the black listed during the 50's McCarthy fiasco for being a communist. He was a member of the communist party for a short time.

His music has endured and he is a big name in folk music.

And he's still using the same banjo he's had all these years.

toniD's Ya Think?

nice to see Krugman optimistic and crediting the process! And, taking a shot at the public and naysayers.

Looks like Chicago thugs got to him!

Michelle Malkin on This Week?? HA Ha!

"this machine kills fascists"

* The act of characterizing something in an inaccurate or misleading way
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mischaracterization

* mischaracterize - To characterize falsely or mistakenly
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mischaracterize

It's the exact opposite of what they did for Bush. Whereas he was driving the country into the ground, they reported him as a strong willed visionary.

It's exactly like they reported on ROF yesterday in the Media Matters segment. The savvy insiders "know" what's really going on despite reality not backing them up.

I hope Dan Rather's proposal gains traction fast. All this false reporting is leading to a crisis that can only end in tragedy.

A Case Study of Information, Expression, and Action

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue1/nah.html

'Gun Nut' Busted at Base

"As reported by Saturday's NY Post, 'A Long Island mother of three -- armed to the teeth with an assault rifle and shotgun -- was arrested for scouting out and taking pictures of an Air National Guard base.'Her arsenal included an XM-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and 500 rounds of ammunition."

via this Kos Diary

Follow the link in the Kos diary to her MySpace page!

CU-ckooo!

"this machine kills fascists"

ding ding ding.

consider the ap article that says:

Analysis: Obama must regain momentum after Gates

The success of President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda — from health care and climate change to education — could depend on how quickly he recovers from the sharp drop in support among white voters after criticizing a white policeman's arrest of a black Harvard scholar.

=====

i would argue that the only people that would believe this don't want obama to succeed and that this is a made up story that plays to the base.

Health care legislation:

No rest for Democrats during recess as they must face tough questions from constituents

A new poll by the Pew Research Center documented both the high level of voter interest and growing reservations about the legislation. Nearly a third of those surveyed said the health care debate was the most important news story they were following -- far more than the 19 percent who cited the economy.

But more Americans oppose than favor the proposals before Congress, 44 percent to 38 percent, the poll found. Opinions break sharply along partisan lines. But among independent voters, the trends are not encouraging for Obama: Independents who said they have heard a lot about the bills in Congress oppose them by 70 percent to 27 percent, Pew found.

"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

We all fall into two distinct groups that I will now call individualists and socialists. Individualists say grab your bootstraps and socialists say take my shoes, I have another pair.

I don't think the ridiculousness of Hurricane Beergate was lost on the American people. If the media turned the polls on themselves, I am sure people would happily put them in their place.

"this machine kills fascists"

Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore helped define the difference between Public and Private Protestants (and illuminated where today’s conservatives fit in the scheme of things) only five weeks before his death from brain and lung cancer, when Religion in the News reports, “the 83 year-old retired bishop of New York willed himself into the pulpit at St. John the Divine Cathedral in Manhattan one last time. From that familiar platform, he ripped into President Bush’s plan to invade Iraq. ‘It appears to me that we have two types of religion here, Moore pronounced. ‘One is a solitary Texas politician who says, ‘I talk with Jesus and I’m right.’ The other involves millions of people of all faiths who disagree.’”

A Daily Beast investigation crunches the numbers and shows how conservative think tanks have quietly achieved domination over the opinion pages of America’s biggest papers.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-01/the-right-wing...

When can we start calling Republicans antisocialists?

"this machine kills fascists"

Well that's not exactly how it is. The socialist wants to give shoes away alright, but he wants the capitalists to give him the money to buy shoes. From each according to his ability, of course the capitalist must provide full employment at 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

on the details...hence the individualism...maybe...

----
Submitted by toniD on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 8:02am.
Jonathan Alter
What’s Not to Like?
----

Oh my! Jonathan Alter has finally found his balls.

neat.

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- When the U.S. government made stimulus funds available to develop batteries for hybrid and all-electric vehicles, eight states waged a bidding war to lure manufacturers such as EnerSys and Exide Technologies and get a piece of the $2 billion pot.

A Texas lawmaker introduced a bill that would set aside as much as $1 billion of rainy-day funds to sweeten the state’s bid. Kansas and Missouri offered mostly tax breaks. Kentucky won in April with a $210 million package that included free land.

While Kentucky officials hailed the victory as an economic boon that will create jobs, critics of corporate subsidies said the competition demonstrates the dark side of the $787 billion stimulus program. Cash-strapped states may worsen their budget shortfalls by making pledges they can’t afford, while shifting money from public services and long-term investments.

“The economic war among states is very much a zero-sum game, with Peter robbing Paul,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a Washington-based center that tracks economic-development deals.

States face a combined shortfall of at least $200 billion over the next three years, according to the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Even as their deficits widened, states handed out about $60 billion in incentives -- from tax breaks to loans and land grants -- in the past year to attract businesses, LeRoy estimated. The amount has soared 20 percent since 1995, he said.

Diverting Revenue

The competition among states is hurting the U.S. economy by diverting revenue away from investments such as education, and undermining unfettered competition among businesses, said Art Rolnick, research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

By using public funds to favor specific businesses, states may raise taxes on other firms to offset lost revenue, which impairs the overall economy, said Rolnick, who co-wrote a paper on the states’ business incentives in 1994.

“Sure, it looks like job creation from a parochial perspective,” Rolnick said. “From a national perspective, it’s counterproductive and not good public policy.”

Elizabeth Oxhorn, a White House spokeswoman, said she isn’t aware of any case in which states are directly using stimulus dollars to lure businesses. Any applications that would use funds in such a way would be rejected, she said. Competition among states “ensures that the taxpayers see the very best use of their money,” she added. more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aBUt41aeqxMk

toniD's Ya Think?

Pelosi Blasts McConnell for Echoing `Immoral' Insurers on Health-Care Plan House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of parroting falsehoods about the Democrats’ health-care plans fed by an “immoral” insurance industry bent on protecting its “exorbitant profits.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aKDKTdbp8FjE

toniD's Ya Think?

Michelle Malkin a voice on ABC.

The others are putting her in her place and she doesn't even know it. She keeps parroting the talking points of the looney right!

toniD's Ya Think?

you look for the illustrator and then look for their work online and you can find way cool stuff..

For instance: Grace Livingston Hill books have cool cover art...I like em anyway

http://www.ladybluestocking.com/GLH/GLH%20index.html

The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

*

http://www.alldaycoffee.net/hmo.php

Insurance Coverage Generator

To Play: hit 'straight' to find your condition and your coverage. Hit 'scrambled' to vary the results.

ALBERT R. HUNT
Inconsistency Is U.S. Politics’ Only Constant
“A foolish consistency,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “is the hobgoblin of little minds.” If so, American politics is full of wise people.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=anfDZtqK6ctw

toniD's Ya Think?

Bernanke May Have to Sacrifice Lending Powers or Risk Losing Independence
The financial-overhaul plan before Congress leaves the Federal Reserve in the business of lending to everyone from General Electric Co. to investors in student loans. That makes it harder for Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to keep Congress from second-guessing what he does.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=atdHeCJ1_K0U

toniD's Ya Think?

provide employment? Or, does the capitalist need people to make money?

The answer is obvious, moreover, the more people a capitalist needs, the more they complicate the distribution of wealth generated by the product or service.

WaDo, your mental (and moral) handicap begins at the inception of the system you defend. You can't proclaim the capitalist as a benevolent provider of employment without acknowledging the employed as a benevolent provider of their skills.

If the innovator recedes into greed and selfishness by proclaiming themselves as superior to a growing workforce and entitled to a much greater share of wealth, then they are adopting an antisocial stance first, thus necessitating socialism.

Capitalists that succumb to selfishness and greed bring socialism upon themselves.

"this machine kills fascists"

http://www.cubasource.org/pdf/lexingtoninstitute_engagement_usacuba.pdf

The Key to the Battery-Powered House
Scientists have created a small-scale prototype battery that could store enough energy to power a house for most of the day. Is this small disk the key to cost-effective solar-powered homes?
By Randy Wright

Without a way to store their power, no number of solar panels will free a home from the electrical grid. Researchers at Utah-based Ceramatec have developed a new battery that can be scaled up to store 20 kilowatt-hours—enough to power an average home for most of a day. An easy sell for solar users, but it could also allow the grid-bound to stockpile energy during less expensive off-peak hours.

The new battery runs on sodium-sulfur—a composition that typically operates at greater than 600 F. “Sodium-sulfur is more energetic than lead-acid, so if you can somehow get it to a lower temperature, it would be valuable for residential use, Ralph Brodd, an independent energy conversion consultant, says.

Ceramatec’s new battery runs at less than 200 F. The secret is a thin ceramic membrane that is sandwiched between the sodium and sulfur. Only positive sodium ions can pass through, leaving electrons to create a useful electrical current. Ceramatec says that batteries will be ready for market testing in 2011, and will sell for about $2000.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/4326258.ht...

toniD's Ya Think?

you say you want something...you get less than that..you defend the system that gives you nothing...you accept too little for too long....

..but I'd still give you my shoes you dumb fuck.

anything about politics...it's not easy to do...

Maybe it's even more simple..we disagree...

Now it's up to us to continue despising each other...or not...

I think we know what the correct action is....but it's not an easy choice..

...you can make the exact same argument about third party movements...

"this machine kills fascists"

other-wises you're alright with me...

Why The FCC Wants To Smash Open The iPhone
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/01/AR200908...

Like Google Voice, Skype helps consumers bypass the carriers. The carriers don't like that because it erodes their core business and turns them into dumb pipes.

But dumb pipes are what we need. They are good for consumers and good for competition because they allow any application and any device, within reason, to flower on the wireless Internet. So if you look at the questions the FCC is asking, it wants to know why the Google Voice app was rejected and whether AT&T (the carrier) had anything to do with that rejection:

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

...

Shannyn Moore says Palin's divorce off limits

50% of U.S. marriages end in divorce. So if the Palins divorce they are in the near majority. The real thing is that this alleged legal action is diverting attention from the real moral lapses that are not only immoral but illegal.

My email and voice mail are full of questions regarding the bloggosphere’s reporting that the Palins will divorce.

This is one story where I will say: leave the Palins alone.

Over half of American marriages end in divorce. Mine did. It was difficult without the national attention. I have no idea if the Palins are going through this or not, but think they should have privacy to figure out what’s best for their family. I am tempted to revel in Schadenfreude given the hypocritical nature of the “family values” pageant winner, but I wouldn’t wish divorce on my worst enemy; it’s painful.

What about the manipulation of justice accusations?! Divorce is legal. Manipulation of the justice system is clearly illegal…yet, Meg was mute. Gryphen writes about Sherry Johnston. (Mother of Levi Johnston charged with drug dealing):

“As some of you may know Sherry’s court date was moved from yesterday to August 19. The reason for this is that until just now the prosecutors REFUSED to make any kind of a deal, because of pressure they were receiving from the Governor. For some reason Palin was pushing for Sherry to receive the maximum sentence….

I cannot talk about what kind of deal Sherry may get, but the prosecution has become much more reasonable now that Sean Parnell is our Governor.”

http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/

toniD's Ya Think?

Abraham Lincoln* said that for he was a keeper of his brothers and sisters. If there is no one to man the factory no goods can be produced.

America's captains of capitalism know this but they also know they can exploit people in foreign lands to get cheap labor. So what if they are shitting all over their fellow cititzens? Like the Wall St investment advisor once said, "..sometimes patriotism has to take a back seat."

*..and in Texas they say they need to teach more Jesus and less Lincoln in the schools. Let's call these peeps CINOs.

last night because a patron who reads Seth and Abraham books thought it was quite ahead of its time...

I agree. It was.

You can go ahead an BE RIGHT.

Ok..I give up...YOU ARE RIGHT-AND MORE IMPORTANTLY I AM WRONG.

OK?

Can we move on...?

There is this wonderful site called 3d fantasy design. I think you'll love it. Trust me, you'll be there all day. Here is the link:

http://fantasyartdesign.com/

Also, the picture I posted was called "Place of Memories". here is link to that page:

http://fantasyartdesign.com/free-wallpapers/digital-art.php?best=1&i_i=1...

Apparently, the artist do not mind if you use their art on your site, as long as you give props.

Iranian state television is reporting that border police have arrested three American tourists who allegedly strayed into Iranian territory in a poorly marked mountainous border zone between Iraq and Iran.
""
Hey, darling, lets go backpacking in north west Iraq. I hear it's really great this time of year.
???

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Oooh...
*eyebrows up*

Thanks Miss e.

-and what's with...
Submitted by jbenet on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:52am.

Iranian state television is reporting that border police have arrested three American tourists who allegedly strayed into Iranian territory in a poorly marked mountainous border zone between Iraq and Iran.-

What's with any of it all?

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) - Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn drove quietly out of the Japanese automaker's soon-to-open headquarters Sunday in the first public viewing of its new zero-emission vehicle.

It was the first time the external design was shown of Nissan Motor Co.'s environmentally friendly electric automobile, set to go on sale in Japan, the U.S. and Europe next year. The blue hatchback had a sporty design and a recharging opening in the front.

Designer Shiro Nakamura said the vehicle was designed to avoid a stereotypical futuristic design.

"This is not a niche car," he said. "We didn't make it unusual looking. It had to be a real car."

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090802/D99QK6HG0.html

toniD's Ya Think?

You should see what happens to people who happen to dwell into the borderline of Area 51...

I'm going back to sleep..what a bullshit day already... Fuck this..

The Key to the Battery-Powered House
toniD on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:38am.
==
battery predictions never pan out - wish they did -
==
I really really wish they did ...like maybe the earth is a big battery...
My hopes reveal personal vulnerability, which I cover with sarcasm, oh well.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

nobody on that panel took her seriously at all.

Re: Gates: "Look, you're supposed to respect the police... and [Gates] clearly hindered and obstructed what the police were trying to do."

Malkin also talked about the disrupting of health care townhalls by teabaggers, which, of course, is being choreographed by astroturf orgs. I'll be interested what she has to say about respecting cops when they are dragging banshee teabaggers out of the forums.

"this machine kills fascists"

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's former reformist President Mohammad Khatami has criticized the country's first trial of activists and protesters following the disputed presidential election as a sham.

The trial of more than 100 people that started Saturday includes some of the most prominent politicians in the pro-reform movement, including Khatami's former vice president.

A report posted late Saturday on Khatami's Web site quoted him as saying the "show" trial will further damage public confidence in the ruling Islamic establishment. He said he hopes the trial "will not lead to ignorance of the real crimes."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGSJEAPs_r2T2wxsL5G3t4...

toniD's Ya Think?

"Nissan will begin selling the first Leaf cars in the United States and Japan in the latter half of next year, adding more models in rapid succession."

Exciting!!

"this machine kills fascists"

Nissan rolls out electric car at new headquarters
Submitted by toniD on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:54am.

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) - Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn drove ...in the first public viewing of its new zero-emission vehicle.
==
what are the batteries made out of?

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Dont give up
cause you have friends
Dont give up
Youre not the only one
Dont give up
No reason to be ashamed
Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up now
Were proud of who you are
Dont give up
You know its never been easy
Dont give up
cause I believe theres the a place
Theres a place where we belong

Home › P › Peter Gabriel › Don’t Give Up (8:13)

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

60th Street on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 12:07pm.
==
:)
that pic reminds me of
mystery science theater 2000

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

RE: Alice on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:44am.

Also re: S. Plath
Sadly Wonderful Writer
/|\)0(

A, I feel is just expressing a larger hurt/frustration. Let it go today please.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

...not political parties, and really not about religion as I'm barely agnostic on a good day.

IOW it's

Come on people now
Smile on your brother (and sister)
Try to love one another right now

-or-

Hey, I got mine, go get your own! And when I don't have mine anymore I will not come to you for help because I gots my bootstraps to keep me warm.

..think before you rush to judgement and remember before we can be anything else, we first have to be good human beings.

Earlier this week one of my best sources claimed to have explosive new information for me.

It took all week for us to finally get together, but last night we finally sat down for an amazing conversation. And what I heard made my jaw drop.

According to my source Sarah is finished with Todd and has decided to end their marriage.

She has purchased land in Montana (I wonder whose donations paid for that?), and may be considering moving herself and the children as far away from Alaska as she can get.

Do you remember all of that talk about her missing wedding ring during the three part going away picnics? Well it turns out that ring now sleeps with the fishes. Apparently in a fit of anger Sarah stripped the ring from her finger and tossed it into a lake. (No I did not think to ask WHICH lake so I cannot confirm if it is Lake Lucille, on which her house is located, or some other lake. I apologize for not getting clarification, but I was a little tired last night and so was my source.)

So it appears that the reason Palin has been so quiet, and has given her tweeting fingers a rest, is NOT because of any master plan, or carefully orchestrated new direction, but simply the result of the emotional stress that prevents her from communicating with her fan base or making any public appearances.

I would assume that this stress is also the reason that Sarah has suffered such a dramatic drop in weight and would also explain the hair loss that Jessica Steele referred to in the New York Times (and which she quickly tried to take back after she received a scolding from the Palin camp.)

Okay so that is the biggest news that I have uncovered this week. But that is not all.

I also learned that there was an incident back in the summer of 2008, before the McCain campaign officially tapped Sarah, where Todd Palin pulled a gun on Levi in a heated exchange concerning his relationship with Bristol. This news will be hitting the local papers here in town next week. Stay tuned.

And while I am on the topic of Levi I will also let you know that he did a very interesting Vanity Fair interview in which he divulged a lot of heretofore unknown information. I did not get too many of the juicy details, but my understanding is that Levi was without his handler (Tank Jones) and let some fairly explosive tidbits out. The article will be published in the October edition.

Oh and that rumor about Bristol being pregnant? She is not.

But the rumor of Sarah shopping around the idea of doing a radio show IS true. And according to my source NO station has given the idea a pass. I still cannot imagine Sarah Palin sitting down and talking for three hours without her listeners heads exploding but apparently there are radio executives who do not share my reservations.

Now my final bit of information is about Sherry Johnston.

As some of you may know Sherry's court date was moved from yesterday to August 19. The reason for this is that until just now the prosecutors REFUSED to make any kind of a deal, because of pressure they were receiving from the Governor. For some reason Palin was pushing for Sherry to receive the maximum sentence. It must be that charitable Christian heart of hers we keep hearing so much about.

I cannot talk about what kind of deal Sherry may get, but the prosecution has become much more reasonable now that Sean Parnell is our Governor.

Now nothing written above should be considered a rumor. My source is very good and I trust that the information is accurate and will be confirmed by other news sources in the weeks to come.

As for the babygate story I DID hear some new information about that last night as well. However what I learned has still not been confirmed by an eyewitness so I do not feel comfortable putting it out on the internet. But my sources are still working on it, and the information is becoming more accessible.

As before remember that comments which contain guesses as to the identity of my sources, or which contain and talk of incest or rape, will be rejected. Beyond that I encourage you talk about this new information and make of it what you will.

Namaste

Update: Here is an interesting link that one of my friends just sent about something Norah O'Donnell witnessed.

After swearing in the new governor, Palin made a quick exit with daughter Piper and son Trigg in tow. She jumped in a Chevy Silverado twin cab driven by her security detail.

Todd Palin followed just seconds behind, and was left struggling to avoid a phalanx of cameras. The problem: His family had already left.

I anticipate much more of this kind of confirmation filtering in as the day goes on.

Update2: The Alaska Report weighs in.

Update3: Meg Stapletongue has issued forth a little venom concerning this story via Facebook.

You may also notice that Meg carefully avoided talking about the Todd/Levi gun incident and the Sherry Johnston prosecution interference stories. It is much easier for Sarah to hide a broken relationship and land deal than it is to refute a pending news story and a potential press release.

By the by I am going to wear the title of "so-called journalist" with pride. Because that is the nicest thing Meg has ever said about me.

"Look see? No ring. I am as free as a bird! Let's see how Todd likes making a living without hanging onto my coattails!"

Update3: I just talked to my source again and learned the following.

Sarah and Todd will not be making their break up official for some time.

There is too much money to be made to throw a monkey wrench into things now.

Money seems to be the motivating factor in many of Sarah's recent decisions (Levi hit the nail on the head with that one.)

However Todd is currently sleeping on the couch and, though they are still occupying the same house, the temperature is below freezing, if you get my drift.

And another thing just learned is that Sarah wants to leave the state, but Todd has no intentions of leaving. You know I almost feel sorry for Todd in this case because I had the same issue with MY ex-wife. (Hey maybe he and I can have a beer sometime and talk about our bitchy exes. I imagine he will win in that comparison.)

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2009/08/exclusive-sarah-and-todd-...

"I was elected to defend, build and perfect socialism, not destroy it,"

HAVANA (AP) - Raul Castro announced Saturday that Cuba will cut spending on education and health care, potentially weakening the building blocks of its communist system in a bid to revive a floundering economy.

The former defense minister who took over the presidency last year called state spending "simply unsustainable" and said the cash-strapped government would reorganize rural schools and scrutinize its free health care system in search of ways to save money.

But he vowed that the island will not see fundamental change even after he and his older brother and predecessor Fidel Castro are gone.

"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

Just as Castro did in Cuba, let's give trainee Obama the room to build his health care system. There is no better way to flush the bullshit out of our system than to put these ideas to the test. Then we can sit back and see how they work out, and how the economy works out. The Dems have both houses of congress, the White House and 60 votes. So this is the perfect time to assign credit or blame. It don't get better than this!

"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

Palin's people deny rumors of her divorce

Sarah and Todd Palin aren't getting a divorce.

That's the word from the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin herself, via a note on her Facebook page written by Meg Stapleton, Palin's spokesperson:

Yet again, some so-called journalists have decided to make up a story. There is no truth to the recent “story” (and story is the correct term for this type of fiction) that the Palins are divorcing. The Palins remain married, committed to each other and their family, and have not purchased land in Montana (last week it was reported to be Long Island).

Less than one week ago, Governor Palin asked the media to “quit making things up.” We appreciate that the more professional journalists decided to question this story before repeating.

con't

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/palins-people-deny-rumors-of-her-divorc...

Seriously funny

Have a great day bloggies!

"this machine kills fascists"

Link Here

it wouldn't surprise me one bit if a member of the palin camp planted that story. it serves two purposes:

- it keeps her puss in the headlines.

- it gives her material to support her "you guys and gals keep making stuff up" meme.

remember her objective is to control the story line.

Macrocosm - Microcosm

We all came to this space & point due to:

for me I have followed and loved Marc Maron since The '80s. I was in S. CA.

I followed Al Franken (heard on David Letterman) and Marc Maron (heard on Conan O'Brian) when both started speaking about AAR. Then once listening to AAR, from first broadcast day IN CA, is when I learned of Sam Seder and Janeane and EVERY HOST, back then, especially to like Marc' & Sam's Show and their humour & wit DEALING WITH THE ISSUES.

This is to say > "I Have The Right To Be Here"!
So what are you asking of me to "stiffle"?

regarding the following:
Ms_A
Submitted by jbenet on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 12:39pm.
A, I feel is just expressing a larger hurt/frustration. Let it go today please.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Interview with Janeane
new
Submitted by 60th Street on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 1:17pm.

*******
That's cool.. :)
A good read..

Oops..

See ya ! :)

**
Oh..And,I think Dan's right about Palin..
She's nothing but Spin..

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

www.marcmaronrules.blogspot.com/

MY BELIEF>>>
Submitted by Ms_Anthrope on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 1:18pm.
==
don't let it go -

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Explain Why, with a possible debate.

Newport Folk Festival!

very cool link MB! thanks!

If the innovator recedes into greed and selfishness by proclaiming themselves as superior to a growing workforce and entitled to a much greater share of wealth, then they are adopting an antisocial stance first, thus necessitating socialism.
===================
Perhaps a question is "Does 'if' always apply?"

Guy Clark still holdin' up having survived that LA Freeway...

Ms_Anthrope on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 1:38pm.
==
I am speaking generally here, not referring to any specific blog post. When I mention 'personal offense' I am not implying that any particular blogger has taken personal offense or that they are reacting to any particular post.
: )[that is unless you want me to...] : )
It's my experience that "a blog" does not work as a personal communication device. When I take personal offense at a given post I try and remember that there is no way the poster knows me so intimately that they can offend me at the deep level I am feeling the offense.

Just addressing the idea that - "a blog" does not work as a personal communication device- I have an example.

A few years ago I was working the Rockets Christmas Spectacular show and dada and catherine told me they knew one of the child actors. After about two weeks and posts back and forth, we figured out they were talking about the ny show while I was in phx with the road show.

[at this point I start going in circles... trying to express a fine point and in my experience, I do not see that the medium is capable of this kind of communication...]

From an all earth sign [except for mars which is in Scorpio]

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

live, and like a hit from my young decades as a musician.

superb jams and lyrics. Newport RI folk festival

thanks again MB! current tune about the katrina disaster

By Linn Washington Jr.

During 1981, Philadelphia, Pa police proudly announced making arrests in four separate hi-profile homicides including the murders of two policemen.

However, investigations later revealed that police and prosecutors engaged in serious misconduct in each of those murder cases.

Two of those arrested in 1981 spent twenty-years in prison before newly discovered evidence exposed flawed confessions obtained by police. Another man spent 1,375-days on death row before his release, an ordeal that one judge described as a “Kafkaesque nightmare” due to illegal conduct mainly by police. A jury acquitted the teen arrested for one of the 1981 police killings citing lack of evidence.

Ironically, the one 1981 homicide arrest generating the most attention internationally is the one arrest authorities in Philadelphia declare contains not a single instance of impropriety by either police or prosecutors.

This is the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal – convicted of fatally shooting a Philadelphia policeman in December 1981.

The conviction of death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal is filled with serious violations of fundamental civil rights. Freedom from discrimination is a civil right, yet discriminatory actions by police, prosecutors and judges mare all aspects of the Abu-Jamal case.

The case against Abu-Jamal, cobbled from circumstantial evidence, constitutes a festering sore on America’s justice system. Those demanding Abu-Jamal’s execution cavalierly ignore inconclusive forensics, tainted eyewitness testimony and a specious confession.

Violations comprising the injustice of Abu-Jamal’s conviction include the kinds of structural deficiencies that drive exonerations and official investigations nationwide: police fabricating evidence, multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of defense counsel plus judicial wrongdoing.

One of the most egregious violations is the public pronouncement by the judge presiding at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial that he was going to help prosecutors “fry the Nigger.”

That odious admission by Judge Albert Sabo oozing lack of impartiality and racial bigotry clearly violated Abu-Jamal’s constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial.

An essential pillar in a constitutionally fair trial, experts agree, is having an “impartial judge” who does not act as “either an assisting prosecutor or a thirteenth juror.”[..]
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/01/18613622.php

love it!

what a neat sunday treat!

great piano player on arlos' crew

Up Next: Joan Baez (4:15 p.m. ET)

http://www.npr.org/music/newportfolk/index2.html

I missed Neko Case.

oh well at least I heard
Runaway Train (Eliza Gilkyson)

on this weeks'

  BRR  

... working on something for "other places"
also in background...end of D & D & beginning of The Matrix
;)

what a great tune for Joan to start with, wonderful gittar pickin!

as sweet as ever, always admired the power in her singing voice.

That is, his 'supposed' birthday.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/politics/v-print/story/72794.html
[excerpt]

Here's the truth: 'Birther' claims are just plain nuts
Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: July 31, 2009 05:26:33 PM

WASHINGTON — The false allegation that President Barack Obama was born in another country is more than a fact-free hit job.

Marked by accusations and backstabbing, it's the story of how a small but intense movement called "birthers" rose from a handful of people prone to seeing conspiracies, aided by the Internet, magnified without evidence by eager radio and cable TV hosts, and eventually ratified by a small group of Republican politicians working to keep the story alive on the floors of Congress and the campaign trails of the Midwest.

It's a powerful story about what experts call political paranoia over a new face in a time of anxiety and rapid change — the sort of viral message that can take hold among a sliver of the populace that's ready to believe that the new president is a fraud, and just as ready to angrily dismiss anyone who disagrees as part of the conspiracy.

"He is NOT an American citizen," yelled a woman at a town hall meeting in Delaware, angrily confronting a congressman. "I don't want this flag to change. I want my country back."

When Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., responded that Obama is a citizen, she and others in the room jeered him.

"It's a fascinating phenomenon," said Jerrold Post, director of the political psychology program at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and author of a recent book entitled, "Political Paranoia."

[end excerpt]

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

Submitted by Mullet on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 1:03pm.
...There is no better way to flush the bullshit out of our system than to put these ideas to the test...
---------
Tested and failed:

Trickle down economic theory. Check.
Pax Americana world domination by PNAC creedo. Check.
Unregulated markets. Check.
Religion-driven policy decisions. Check
Discard habeas corpus principle in law. Check.
Trillions spent to defend oil-rich regions. Check.
Executive power grab absent legislation. Check.
Violate national and international law. Check.
Elect incurious president. Check.
Privatize military duties. Check.

(The above is only the beginning of the list.)

what fun to play along

what a beaut of a song,i've always loved it!

how interesting,first time i've ever had that happen.

Cardinal Air Sun Sign and Rising on Cusp - on Leo side in this Solar Age.....now.
Sister Sun in Virgo...

Between you & I, i think it boils down to Astrology, yet most would never be able to even want to understand.
It would be interesting to use as a test case.
;)
I, personally, do not understand that there were any problems ... so I really do not understand much of the problem or even IF there is a problem - also "Why" aka HUH?
:D

i'm just trying to pave the way for the age of Aquarius.

keeping love alive in the hearts of everyone concerned

A beautiful & heartwarming performance

the Negative side which is easily to fall into The Time of The Mercinary and The Liar and Etrangement.
{Most do not want 2 sea.}

Obama will work with Congress to extend unemployment benefits.

Oh Noes! Michelle Malkin's worst fears from this morning coming true!

Who wants to get a job with all that delischiouuzzz government cheese being put before them!??!

"this machine kills fascists"

spelling........ > SORRY <

Maggie Mahar
Submitted by toniD on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 8:08am.
Health-Care Reform and the “Culture Wars”

Friday, Politico.com editor Fred Barbash posed this question to “Arena” contributors: “Does the ongoing debate about healthcare reform reflect a :"kind of culture war” that can be traced to a “fundamental difference in world views?”

Barbash then pointed to a thought-provoking piece by Bill Bishop, titled “Health Debate Runs Along Familiar Lines” which was published on Politico.com in March. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=CD297E8F-18FE-70B2-A88265416...
======================
Labor is the superior to capital
Submitted by maggiesboy on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:48am.
Abraham Lincoln* said that for he was a keeper of his brothers and sisters. If there is no one to man the factory no goods can be produced.

America's captains of capitalism know this but they also know they can exploit people in foreign lands to get cheap labor. So what if they are shitting all over their fellow cititzens? Like the Wall St investment advisor once said, "..sometimes patriotism has to take a back seat."
========================

Bishop, who is the co-author of “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart,” argues that “The health care discussion reveals that the country is still divided along lines drawn more than 100 years ago. . . divisions in the country were never about specific issues . . .. They were about ways of looking at this world (and the next), and those century-old differences are now shaping the health care discussion.”

Bishop frames the age-old religious debate this way: “Do you get to heaven by your good works, by what you do for your brothers and sisters on Earth? Or do you find salvation by your individual relationship with God? Does the world get better through public acts or private ones?

“When Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said recently that ‘this health care issue s D-Day for freedom in America’ he was talking from one side of this division. President Barack Obama says, ‘I am my brother’s keeper.’ That’s the view from the other bank.

“This isn’t a policy issue or a disagreement about strategy,” Bishop adds. “It is a fundamental difference in worldview. It’s a division in what people expect out of life, and it’s been part of this country for more than 100 years.”

He points out that “Religious historian Martin Marty described the late 19th-century split between what he called private and public Protestants. Private Protestants promoted individual salvation and personal morality.

By contrast, Bishop exatplains that “Public Protestants saw riots by workers [fighting for unions] as a failure of society. Pubic Protestants promoted the minimum wage and the 8-hour days . . . Public Protestants believed that either the needs of people would be met, or the kingdom of God [on earth] would never arrive. ‘Either society confronted social injustice or society would fall,’ wrote one prominent public Protestant. ‘It is either a revival of social religion or the deluge.’”

There were “two types of Christianity” alive in the country, Bishop adds, “Congregationalist minister Josiah Strong wrote in 1913. ‘Their difference is one of spirit, aim, point of view, comprehensiveness. The one is individualist; the other is social.’”

In my response http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Maggie_Mahar_642F5006-E55B-4901-8D36-... I tried to connect the dots between Private vs. Public Protestants and today’s progressives and conservatives.

Regular readers may not find many surprises in my comment on healthcare reform, but I suspect many would enjoy Bishop Paul Moore’s spectacular analysis (which I quote in the second paragraph of my comment), explaining where former president George W. Bush fits in the Private vs. Public Protestant debate.

http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/07/healthcare-reform-and-the-culture-...
=========================

Boy great stuff here is so thought-provoking.

Comments/conversations like this always get me to ask myself: Is something new transpiring in our world or is it just a new form of the same thing?

Usually the answer seems to be THERE IS CONTINUITY HERE. But it always looks like the key word that is rarely used is EXPLOITATION. Behind even this religious view that only one's individual relationship with the Almighty is the key to Heaven, one must ask, what is that relationship based on? How well the individual exploits in God's name (and lives wealthily at the same time)?

and get better sam

http://www.npr.org/music/widgets/liveconcerts/livechat.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111396860
==
Neko Case: Newport Folk Festival 2009

Listen Now: Neko Case At Newport Folk

[1 hr 1 min 0 sec]add|download

re

Sunshine Jim on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 6:23pm.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

for the Neko link.

I've liked her music for many years,
hearing songs on the radio.
But only a year ago did I purchase a cd
and listen all the way thru.
Then I went back and bought as many pevious
cd's that I had missed. :)

Submitted by toniD on Sat, 08/01/2009 - 10:25pm.
The Right-Wing Op-Ed Insurgency
Liberal bias? A Daily Beast investigation crunches the numbers and shows how conservative think tanks have quietly achieved domination over the opinion pages of America’s biggest papers
-------------

Now we know why the newspapers are going out of business. No one wants to read that right-wing bull-shite!

some superb pickin and singing here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111335072

DISCHARGE PETITIONS

After a bill has been introduced and referred to committee for thirty legislative days or more, any Member may file a motion (under clause 2 of rule XV) with the Clerk of the House to discharge the committee from further consideration of the bill. A member may also file a motion to discharge the Rules Committee of a special rule, pending before that committee for at least seven legislative days, providing for the consideration of that bill.

Discharge petitions may cover only a single introduced measure, not multiple bills. If the Member is successful in convincing a majority of the total membership of the House (218 Members) to sign a discharge petition, the motion to discharge is placed on the Calendar of Motions to Discharge Committees and becomes eligible for consideration on the second or fourth Monday of the month after a seven legislative day layover (except during the last six days of any session when the layover is waived). The discharge motion is debatable for 20 minutes, one-half of the time for the proponents and one-half of the time for the opponents. If the motion to discharge a bill is adopted, it is then in order to move that the House immediately consider the bill itself; if the motion to discharge a rule is adopted, the House turns immediately to consideration of the rule.

_________
Note: Under a Rules change in the 103rd Congress, signatures on a discharge petition must be made available to the public on a daily basis by the Clerk. The names of new signatories are printed in the Congressional Record on the last legislative day of each week.

http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/discharge_pet.htm

Discharge petition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

A discharge petition is a means of bringing a bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration without a report from a Committee and usually without cooperation of the leadership. Discharge petitions are most often associated with the U.S. House of Representatives, though many state legislatures have similar procedures. They are used when the chair of a committee refuses to place a bill or resolution on the Committee's agenda; by never reporting a bill, the matter will never leave the committee and the full House will not be able to consider it. A successful petition "discharges" the committee from further consideration of a bill or resolution and brings it directly to the floor. The discharge petition, and the threat of one, gives more power to individual members of the House and usurps a small amount of power from the leadership and committee chairs. The modern discharge petition requires the signature of an absolute majority of House members (218 members).

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

Maybe we could push a few of the Reps to jump on this if there is any problem in any House committee that we want to bring a vote to the House Floor.
And guess where I heard about this?

toniD's Ya Think?

?

Both the House and the Senate have created an expedited process for Congressional review of executive branch regulations (often used against "midnight regulations"), providing an especially quick timetable for consideration of a joint resolution to overturn a particular regulation. As part of this process, Senators may use a "discharge petition" to discharge a Senate committee from consideration of the disapproval resolution. While using the same term as the House process, its use in the United States Senate has few similarities to the House process described above and is limited only to disapproval resolutions created under the conditions of this congressional review process

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

toniD's Ya Think?

Ring Of Fire Replay

Air America Media

or http://aarlive.voxcdn.com/live.m3u

or in chicagoland 820am, 92.5, 92.7, & 99.9fm
WCPT On-Line

or
podcast:

Page:
http://airamerica.com/node/109222
.
file download / save:
http://airamerica.com/ondemand/play/109222.mp3
19831 KB, 1:52:41, 24kbs
.

I was watching Legally Blond 2. She used that discharge bill to pass Brewser's bill for no testing on animals for cosmetics and beauty products and I looked it up.

toniD's Ya Think?

PASADENA, Calif. – PBS chief Paula Kerger (KUR'-gur) says budget numbers tell the tale of how public TV is faring under the Obama administration, compared to that of former President George W. Bush.

Kerger said that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's $430 million budget for this year was left intact by President Barack Obama, in contrast to the Bush administration's repeated bids to reduce or eliminate the federal subsidy. Kerger says Congress countered Bush's actions.

The president and CEO of PBS told the Television Critics Association on Sunday, "I guess that says something," adding that she's hoping for $450 million next year.

Federal money makes up about 15 percent of public broadcasting's funding, with other sources including corporations and viewers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/ap_on_en_tv/us_pbs_funding

toniD's Ya Think?

Must be fate tD, must be fate. Let's call Rep. Weiner, bet he'd do it. Personally I'd like to see a renegade Freshman Rep do it just to shake up the good ol' boys club.

Energy and Commerce successfully voted it out on Friday night.

The floor is the next stop and since there is no filibuster, there isn't endless debate.

Weiner is going to introduce a single payer amendment on the floor, too, so that Progressives get the chance to voice their preference for that system and so we can see which Democrats vote against it.

"this machine kills fascists"

that claims to cure diarrhea. The lady announcer said..."diarrhea ALWAYS strikes at the VERY worst time!"

Now, the ad didn't tell me so I am left to ask...just exactly when is the very best time for diarrhea to strike?

I wanted to see if the Senate had that same rule and it does, so I was thinking Of Baucus' committee. Maybe Al Franken can use the rule.

toniD's Ya Think?

The Del McCoury Band: Newport Folk Festival 2009:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111478765

but the opposition can load up alot of amendments to the bill that they have to vote for and that can slow it down.

toniD's Ya Think?

"..just exactly when is the very best time for diarrhea to strike?"

just when you've made some rude, insulting asshole kiss your ass!

Budget Reconciliation and Health Care

I agree with Jonathan Zasloff about this. People saying things about how you “can’t” do certain things through the reconciliation process are being somewhat disingenuous. Joe Biden, Harry Reid, and 49 others Senators can do pretty much whatever they like. Even if there is some problem with the rulings of the parliamentarian, they can appoint a new parliamentarian who’ll offer better rulings. They could appoint me. They could abolish the office of parliamentarian. They could follow Caligula and appoint a favored horse to be parliamentarian.

The issue with this last proposal isn’t that they couldn’t do it, it’s that they shouldn’t do it and you’d never find 50 votes plus the VP to do it. But a majority of Senators “can” do pretty much whatever it likes. The Senate is an independent branch of government that makes, interprets, and enforces its own rules. There’s nothing stopping a determined majority from doing anything. If procedural objections to a reconciliation-track health care bill can’t be surmounted, that’s because the votes aren’t there to do it not because “the rules” are preventing it from happening.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/08/budget-reconciliation...

toniD's Ya Think?

from 3 different committees...next step is House Leadership meets to combine the 3 and produce one bill... then it will go to the floor...

Orly Taitz has obtained a document she purports to be a copy of Obama's Kenyan (Republic of Kenya) birth certificate and has filed a new motion in U.S. Disctict court AND to force Hillary Clinton, herself, to authenticate it.

eesh! so, in the end all she can even come up with is a copy?

It looks like she's trying to claim this is a re-recording of Obama's original birth record made after Kenya declared independence and declared itself a Republic. The dates are wrong, of course. See David Waldman's diary on it.

Lol!

"this machine kills fascists"

America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (Introduced in House)

Here's the bill so far...

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3200:

toniD's Ya Think?

That paper looks pretty new to me to be 48 years old. And in Kenya that many years ago, I don't think they were sophisticated enough with paperwork and storage.

I don't know! It's just too convenient.

toniD's Ya Think?

WASHINGTON — With Republicans mobilizing against the proposed health care overhaul, President Obama, Congressional Democrats and leading advocacy groups are laying the groundwork for an August offensive against the insurance industry as part of a coordinated campaign to sell the public on the need for reform.

The effort will feature town-hall-style meetings by lawmakers and the president, including a swing through Western states by Mr. Obama, grass-roots lobbying efforts and a blitz of expensive television advertising. It is intended to drive home the message that revamping the health care system will protect consumers by ending unpopular insurance industry practices, like refusing patients with pre-existing conditions.

“I think what we want to communicate is that this is going to give people who have insurance a degree of security and stability, the protection that they don’t have today against the sort of mercurial judgments of insurance bureaucrats,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, adding, “Our job is to help folks understand how this will help them.”

Revamping health care is the president’s top legislative priority, and people on all sides of the debate agree that August, when lawmakers leave Washington to take the pulse of constituents, will be crucial to shaping public opinion. With Republicans making headway by casting the legislation as a costly government takeover, Democrats have decided they must answer the question on the minds of those now insured: “What’s in it for me?”

That has led to a campaign of increasingly harsh rhetoric against the insurance industry, which says it favors an overhaul but is working to defeat Mr. Obama’s call for a government-run insurance plan to compete against the private sector. On Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, promised a “drumbeat across America” to counter what she termed a “shock and awe, carpet-bombing by the health insurance industry to perpetuate the status quo.”

The tough talk, however, has risks. The industry trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, is urging members to confront Democrats at public meetings, and the rising tensions could make it difficult for the president to keep insurers at the negotiating table.

The drumbeat will begin Monday, when Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, travels to Hartford to talk about what the White House now calls “health insurance reform.” Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, who disclosed Friday that he has prostate cancer and pointedly reminded Americans that he was fortunate to have health coverage, will be among several Democratic lawmakers present.

Also Monday, Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, will appear with doctors, nurses and administrators at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver to discuss “how insurance company procedures are burdening our physicians, nurses and patients,” a spokeswoman said. Throughout the recess, Democratic lawmakers will hold similar events, coordinated with advertising by allied groups.

“We understand the future of health reform could hinge on how the conversation with the American people goes in the next six weeks,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and assistant to the speaker, who is coordinating the House effort.

Republicans understand that and will also be campaigning hard. More...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/health/policy/03healthcare.html?_r=1&p...

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by 60th Street on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 5:37pm.
...Who wants to get a job with all that delischiouuzzz government cheese being put before them!??!
--------
Following is an oddity from my past. I wish I could be more specific but my friend is deceased, so I have no way to refresh my memory with details.

My friend, Mark, was hired by a Polish guy from Chicago to run a butter-cutting operation under contract to the U.S. government. Mark's resume included a Peace Corps stint in the Marshall Islands organizing a copra coop on a remote atoll.

The butter-cutting operation had four employees at most when contract pressure was heavy. The contracts were short-term. The operation had one employee, Mark, at the least when under no contract or under a light volume contract. Mark's duty was to make certain that the butter-cutting-packaging machine, built in 1948, and the small and nearly-as-ancient forklift were always at the ready.

Apparently many such contract operations existed throughout the nation. Some where capable of very high capacity. Some, like Mark's, had one ancient machine and 24 hours in a day to factor-in down time for cleaning and repairs.

The jobs went out for bid. Big contract companies would not bid on tiny contracts or regionally-based contracts. Small contract companies could only bid on a piece of the excess of giant orders due to their inability to deliver the volume of cut butter over the time allotted.

All of the bidding for Mark's operation was done by the Polish owner in Chicago.

All of the hiring was done by Mark although he was unable to pay much more than minimum wage due to the tight contract margins and the tight Polish guy in Chicago. (I eagerly await toniD's comments.)

So Mark hired guys who were recently released from jail...any jail in the Kansas City area...which runs the gamut from the county clink to the Fed pen. And winos. Mark hired lots and lots of winos. Mark knew to cruise the K.C. soup kitchens when time was of the essence.

"Why?" you might ask. The answer is because multiple contract bids were in the works all of the time and the lead time on needing manpower was usually zip. Two or four or eight contracts might be won without any prior expectation that even one contract would come through. The guys (they were always guys) who were never hired by anyone because they were fresh out of the slammer or winos had little choice. Some of them HAD to take a job offer as a condition of parole. They were Mark's employee pool.

Mark, incidentally, was five-foot-five and a quiet Irish guy with a hollow leg that he constantly tried to fill with beer, a Jesuit prep-school education, a college degree in something-or-other (psychology, I think) and a book-reading habit.

The butter-cutting operation was in a network of formerly mined caves. The cave network was (is) enormous. Avenues run one direction (A, B, C...) and Streets run perpendicular (1, 2, 3...). Semi-tractor-trailers whiz around underground searching for any of dozens of companies. I recall that one of them was a major K.C. area beer distributor. I remember a complex of underground tennis courts. Square footage is not a problem.

The advantages of cave-housed enterprises are many. The freezers and coolers are giant cave-rooms hosed with insulation and closed by giant overhead doors. The offices are simply elaborate cubicles. The temperature is always 55 degrees F. High winds, hail, snow, ice and tornados are not a problem after entering the caves. Train spur tracks are strategically located outside as are huge and well-lighted semi-truck parking lots. Outside security booths provide directions and maps. (You are here on the earth...and you want to be here, under the earth.)

Mark cut government butter for several years. The government's standard blocks were somewhere in the 50 lb. range. I don't remember the standard for cut-and-packaged butter. It might have been one pound. I remember that the allowed loss of product during cutting was tight and that the water which was used to keep the cutting machine clear of butter build-up could only (officially) add to the packaged weight slightly. The dimples you see as you melt a pat of butter are water.

The government inspectors were primarily focused on testing the butter for water content because it was the only method for the contractor to make up for lost weight during cutting: A pound is a pound...but what's in it?

Mark had two main problems as manager. 1.) He had to deal with a constantly changing workforce comprised of people who had no choice but to work for him and who were not in the mood to be ordered-around by "The Man". 2.) He had to constantly add water to the butter when the Feds weren't testing because the 1948 butter-cutting machine was incapable of meeting the lost-weight parameters of the contracts. Mark considered a Good Day to be a day when he found the bronze bushing that fell out of the machine (are you paying attention, Sunshine Jim?).

And here's the weirdest thing I remember. Most of the butter cut by Mark was shipped to the Mideast on contracts created by the U.S. agency in control (I don't remember which agency). Mark's cave cooler was always stocked with uncut butter. Apparently the Feds kept all of the contractors supplied with more butter than they needed so that they would always have it on hand to begin a new cutting contract.

So it boiled down to this. Dairy industry prices were being artificially propped-up by the U.S. government (on the face of it, I have no reason to believe that the program was inherently a bad thing because a steady supply of cheap food for Americans and everyone else seems like a good idea). The butter not retailed to schlubs like you and me was purchased by the U.S. government and stored until the U.S. government agency could figure out how to sell or distribute it without further deflating the retail price of butter.

The commodities program was a happenin' thing during Mark's butter-cutting career (early 1980's) so a portion of the butter (and cheese and powdered milk, etc.) could also be distributed under American welfare programs.

I have no idea how the commodities program works today. In the late 1960's I worked throughout one weekend to help move commodities from a location where the U.S. government had lost its lease to a newly-leased location. I know what the food products were back then because I boxed them up one at a time, but I don't know (referencing 60th's comment about Government Cheese) if "commodities" for welfare recipients exist today?

Are all welfare foodstuffs supplied through a supermarket that processes a "food stamp" debit card presented by the consumer? I don't know. I should know and I should have researched the answers before I started this spiel.

So sue me. I know better than to rant without the facts in my pocket.

I know that the subsidy (artificially propped-up prices) still exists for dairy producers, among other agri-producer subsidy programs. They all are, in fact, social programs. They are intended to ensure a stable food supply (and, not surprisingly, to garner votes). They reduce the capitalistic risk from an area of production deemed too important to allow the vagaries of capitalism to run free...

...kinda like health care. No: Exactly like health care. If food ain't health care, War Dog is a Liberal commie.

War Dog has kept thousands of dollars in his pocket after years of checking-out food at the grocery store. His lifestyle couldn't be any more enmeshed in socialism if he were ministering to AIDS patients in Havana.

If the U.S. social program reduced some of its costs by selling U.S. government butter to the Saudis, I'm all for it. It may be one of the only instances in which the Saudis helped to finance War Dog's high-fat diet.

All of this to say: Social programs are complex animals. Anyone who reduces them to "Socialism!" is an idiot. I know some third-generation dairy farmers who A.) oppose "Socialism!" and B.) are hard-core Republicans and C.) would Buck-knife War Dog's testicles out of his scrotum for a Mountain Oyster fry fest if he told them that he supported the elimination of dairy subsidies.

Sarah Palin's lawyer says he'll serve an Alaska blogger with libel papers unless he retracts a story that Sarah and Todd are "splittsville," the Huffington Post reports. Thomas Van Flein threatened "Gryphen," author of The Immoral Minority blog, with the summons at a kindergarten where he works. "Threatening to serve legal papers to an educator in a room full of five year olds?" said Gryphen. "Now that is malicious."

Gryphen defended his story, saying he trusted his source "and simply reported what I had been told." In a letter, Van Flein attacked Gryphen's "fabrications," including the ex-governor "buying property in Montana, throwing away her ring, Todd 'pulling a gun,'" and "the couple not speaking at the Governor's Picnic in Fairbanks." He added that he wants Gryphen's retraction posted by 3pm AST.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/02/palin-lawyer-threatens-to_n_249...

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by toniD on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 9:50pm.
...Todd 'pulling a gun,'...
------
Lisa Loopner: "You made my day!"

Here:

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5076#comment-358242

toniD's Ya Think?

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