Rush on Monday: Pirates=Acorn

and maybe I'm first?
Maybe my luck is changing.
Hi Sederville, Happy Easter

It reminds him of nuts.

Lots of Minuteman, um,Minuteboy nuts?

Sorry, that was bad.

Chubby Bubba: "Did, you, by happen to beand, are you cleaning your gun?"
--------
Rajah,

Usually the typo jokes are all nudge, nudge, wink, wink: I pretend to not understand and you pretend to be insulted.

But this time I don't have a fucking clue what you intended to say.

>>Did, you, by happen to beand, are you cleaning your gun?

this is what happens when edits go bad...half a dozen superfluous words obscure the meanings of 2 or 3 words that have any meaning...
*************************

by the way...how DARE you sir!!!

LOS ANGELES — A federal program designed to help poor families buy affordable homes has actually been lining the pockets of investors and contractors.

A Los Angeles Times investigation found that the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Dollar Homes program has rarely achieved its stated intent to help struggling families put down roots.

The program was mandated by Congress in 1998 and has little oversight, the newspaper said.

The program allows local governments to buy homes for $1 to fix and resell them at a discount to poor families.

More than 2,300 homes have been sold through the program nationally.

Of the 326 sold in California, 62 homes were bought by the city of San Bernardino. The city doesn't track what happens to the homes after they're sold, but the Times investigation found that at least 43 were sold to contractors and investors, and often resold for three times the original sales price.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,514704,00.html

Pakistan militants torch NATO supplies

According to police, some 60 miscreants stormed the truck terminals early on Sunday. They first threw Molotov cocktails at vehicles parked there and later fired rockets at them. Eyewitnesses also said that the cocktails started off huge blazes at both points.

The Sunday incident marks the latest in a spate of Taliban strikes on trucks carrying supplies for foreign forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

This is while the bulk of supplies and equipment required by NATO and US-led forces battling Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan passes through conflict-plagued Khyber Agency in northwest Pakistan.

Northwest Pakistan has degenerated into a safe haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled Afghanistan following the 2001 US-led invasion of the country. The insurgents have crossed border into Pakistan and regrouped to launch attacks on foreign troops across the border.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=91202&sectionid=351020401

UPDATE: Thai military launches crackdown on protesters, at least 49 injured

BANGKOK (AFP) – Thai soldiers fired tear gas early Monday to disperse anti-government protesters blocking a road in Bangkok, where a state of emergency is in force, injuring at least 49 people, officials said.

The army targeted demonstrators at a major intersection, although they had not yet launched an operation against the main group of thousands of demonstrators outside the main government offices in the capital.

It came a day after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva issued an emergency decree for Bangkok and surrounding areas to curb growing protests against his four-month-old government.

"The soldiers have begun the operation to disperse the protesters at Din Daeng intersection," army spokesman Colonel Sunsern Kaewkumnerd told AFP.

"We will start with soft measures and proceed to harder ones. We will avoid loss of life as instructed by the government."

He later confirmed that troops used tear gas.

"Soldiers have fired tear gas to disperse them. More than 400 soldiers are involved in the operation," Sunsern said.

"The operation is still under way. Protesters tried to crash a car into the soldiers," he added, although this could not be independently be confirmed.

Sunsern estimated there were around 300 protesters at the site. An AFP photographer at the scene and another army official said there were only about 100 protesters there.

The protesters were angry and showed a shirt covered with blood which they said belonged to one of their injured colleagues.

Emergency services said at least 49 people were injured, two of them critically, during the crackdown.

"The number of wounded rose to 49. I can confirm that there are no reports of deaths yet," Chatree Charoencheewakul, head of the national emergency emergency medical service, told AFP.

The so-called "Red-Shirts," supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, stormed a conference venue in the resort of Pattaya on Saturday, forcing the cancellation of a key summit of Asian leaders.

This video was broadcast by Al Jazeera English, April 12, 2009.

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

“Albert's Shuffle” by Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stills

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Session
In late 2004 Al Kooper released this statement:
“ To the best of my knowledge, based on an unnamed source, the new head of SONY/BMG shut down the 5.1 SACD department and let everyone go. A year and a half ago I remixed Super Session and Child Is Father To The Man for them in 5.1 SACD. They both came out incredible and so I mastered them with Bob Ludwig.Now it seems they will languish on the shelves under the current administration of SONY/BMG.,........Typical, in soooo many ways." [3]

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

Submitted by toniD on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 11:07pm.
"...I can confirm that there are no reports of deaths yet," Chatree Charoencheewakul...told AFP.
----------
Sure. That's easy for Chatree Charoencheewakul to say.

Conficker work slams University of Utah
Infection chomps down on over 700 computers, spreads to three hospitals.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10217683-83.html

Newly Unemployed CNBC Star Dylan Ratigan Joins Class Struggle

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/newly_unemployed_cnbc_...

Submitted by jbenet on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 11:14pm.
“Albert's Shuffle” by Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stills
----------
Thanks, jbenet. I'm a sucker for that stuff.

So the Kennedys are gifting the Obamas a dog. There's no law that says the Obamas can only have one dog. (Dogs are a lot happier when they have another dog to pal around with, too! Having a dog shouldn't just be people entertainment or something. It's about opening one's narrow human perspective to another creature's experience, too. It's swell seeing a couple dogs enjoy being dogs.)

Go to a shelter and get a second dog anyway, why not? It was Obama's 'before the election' choice. Must he throw that under the bus too, like his promise to restore habeus corpus was thrown under the bus?

So now scenarios are popping into my skeptical head. How was the new dog named 'BO'? -- was it the result of a 'focus group'? Easy to remember for the public that Barack Obama's dog has his initials for a name? Why is BO's fur both black and white? Is BO supposed to symbolize something?

I think I'll give BO middle name: BO 'Habeus Corpus' Obama.

It's been a long day!

Later

oh mire. That's not formal enough. He needs a few more syllables like:

BO 'Habeus Corpus Clean Coal' Obama. Damn dog's gonna need a legal team.

Submitted by nora on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 11:31pm.
So now scenarios are popping into my skeptical head.
---------
Good for you. I'd hate for the presidential dog scandal to go unstudied.

- to Lilith.

Good Evening everyone, its a good night here in Sederville.

This Just In:
------------

N.J. Officer Allegedly Performed Sex Acts On Cows

Previously Charged With Sexual Assault On 3 Girls

MOORESTOWN (CBS 3) ―

More charges have been filed against a Burlington County police officer who was recently charged with sexually assaulting three girls.

Authorities announced Moorestown Officer Robert Melia Jr., 38, has been charged with four counts of animal cruelty after allegedly engaging in sex acts with cows between June and December of 2006.

Melia and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis were previously charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of criminal sexual contact with three girls in his Pemberton home from 2003 until 2006.

Melia is being held on $510,000 bail.

http://cbs3.com/local/officer.robert.melia.2.706410.html

I caught a segment of CNN this week. I believe it was Friday, but I'm not sure. A woman named Martha Burk was being interviewed. I've tried to find a video clip or the text of her appearance. But it looks like CNN chose not to post any further information. So I'm paraphrasing here. Ms. Burk is the Chair of the National Council on Women's Organizations. She was talking about the Masters Golf Tournament. Little did I know that she had been protesting the Augusta National Golf Club- were the Masters are held- since 2003. Apparently this club does not permit women to be members.

During her first protest, she tried to get the heads of the Fortune 500 corporations to resign. They did not. This year however, she alluded that numerous CEO's, including those who received bailouts, would probably be attending. She said that these guys usually spend millions.

Ms Burk also expressed her disappointment in Tiger Woods. She said that Woods had not been helpful in the area of diversity. These private golf clubs remain exclusively white. No surprises there.

It would be lovely if Sam would interview her. The media is certainly not going to reveal the Bankers that were in attendance.

Submitted by Harbinger on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 11:54pm.
-----

This is a picture of Officer Child Molesting, Cow Poking Pervert, and his Sweetheart accomplice.

http://www.kyw1060.com/pages/2000676.php?

Yeah, Obama made a donation to the local animal shelter/pound. Was that to cover the cost of destroying and disposing of the shelter dog he didn't adopt?

Rush claims the Somali pirate saga shows how both Obama and Clinton are "inept" in handling "3 a.m. phone call"

Published Thu, Apr 9, 2009

http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/2009/04/09#0022

derr...

"this is el rushbo. today the most divisive muslim president in u.s. history, trying to reverse his unpopularity, listened to the challenge that el rushbo made last thursday..."

[EL ECHO CHAMBER]

RUSH ADVISES OBAMA ON THE PIRACY CRISIS

and an el excremento dittohead agrees

Cow Poking Pervert: "cows have big boobies (heh-heh-heh)"

Somehow it doesn't seem as unnatural coming from you ono...

How's your farmer friend, eh?

Here in 10 minutes Alex Jones rebutts charges that he arouses crazies' violent behavior.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-M4Y7BwXzg&feature=related

looks like a known issue of a flickering screen...I have one month left on the standard one year warranty...looks like the wiring in the hinges is sketchy...I hope they will just replace it without a huge hassle...probably asking a lot...

Wifey home safe and sound, cent?

she needed it after spending the whole weekend alone with her crazy ass family...

There is a good reason she goes up there without me...It keeps me of america's most wanted... :)

Hi Chubbs...Missed you..I hope your heart is healing somehow and you're feeling ok...I can't imagine what you're going through losing your mom...Somehow it seems like it's different to lose a dad...Maybe not..I don't know...

First off, I fixed the pirate link from the last thread.

Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates for those that missed it.

I read a very good analysis of the corporostate we all occupy here in the U.S. It is at once obvious, frightening, true and hopeful. Here's a small bit:

...

So how is it that we Americans came to live in such a parallel universe? How is it that we prefer such things as Facebook (don't get me wrong, I'm on Facebook too), and riding around the suburbs with an iPod plugged into our brain looking for fried chicken in a Styrofoam box? Why prefer these expensive earth destroying things over love and laughter with real people, and making real human music together with other human beings -- lifting our voices together, dancing and enjoying the world that was given to us? Absolutely for free.

And the answer is this: We suffer under a mass national hallucination. Americans, regardless of income or social position, now live in a culture entirely perceived inside a self-referential media hologram of a nation and world that does not exist. Our national reality is staged and held together by media, chiefly movie and television images. We live in a "theater state."

In our theater state, we know the world through media productions which are edited and shaped to instruct us on how to look and behave and view the outside world. As in all staged productions and illusions, everyone we see is an actor. There are the television actors portraying what supposedly represents reality. Non-actors in Congress perform in front of the cameras, as the American empire's cultural machinery weaves and spins out our cultural mythology.

Cultural myth production is an enormous industry in America. It is very similar to the national projects of pyramid-building in Egypt, or cathedral-building in medieval Europe. And in our obsession with violence and punishment, two characteristics of a consensual police state reality, we are certainly similar to prison camp building in Stalinist Russia. Actually, we're pretty good in that department too. Consider that one fourth of all the incarcerated people on earth are in U.S. prisons. U.S. citizens imprisoned by their own government.

Good guys and bad guys at the chariot races

In any case, the media culture's production of martyrs, good guys and bad guys, fallen heroes and concept outlaws, is not just big corporate business. It is the armature of our cultural behavior. It tells us who to fear (Middle Eastern terrorists, Mr. Chavez in Venezuela, and foreign made pharmaceuticals), who to scorn (again the same candidates, along with Brittney Spears for her lousy child rearing skills). Our daily news is the modern version of Roman coliseum shows. Elections are personality combat, chariot races, not examinations of solutions being offered. None are offered.

What are being offered are monkey models. Man as a social animal necessarily mimics the behavior he sees around him, whether it be by real people or moving images of people. This eye-to-brain to mimicry connection does not care. Consequently, we know how to act and what the things around us are because television and media tell us. Television is the software, the operating instructions for our society. Thus, social realism for us is a television commercial for the American lifestyle: what's new to wear, what to eat, who's cool (Obama), what and whom to fear (that perennial evil booger, Castro) or who to admire (Bill Gates, pure American genius at work). This societal media software tells us what music our digitized corporate complex is selling, but you never see images of ordinary families sitting around in the evenings making music together, or creating songs of their own based upon their own lives and from their own hearts. Because that music cannot be bought and sold, and is not profitable. I think about that when the children and their parents sing and dance on the sand in front of my shack in Central America. We Americans are not offered that choice.

...

Escape from the Zombie Food Court
Please take the time to read all of it. And pass it along as needed.

Of course, if you've read any of Chomsky's critiques of Western (and esp. U.S.) media, you know much of this illusion is manufactured.

Be sure to watch Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
Required viewing for everyone everywhere.

FilthyRich out...

Sounds like a defective ribbon cable....

Laptops are temperamental pains in the ass sometimes...

HAHA.. I hear ya...Funny that's what we call it after a trip anywhere too..decompressing...When we first moved here we had these glass jugs out front of our house, and when someone would leave our house after a visit we'd go out and do the hillbilly jug blowing dance... :) We like being alone up here mostly...and not going out of town...

I just woke up long enough to turn off my computer. too tired to say much of anything.

good night
*************************

"The Once and Future Rajah of Bhong."

Do you think if I took my dell apart and replaced the motherboard that it would be easy enough to take apart any brand? Like if I can do one I can do any? I would print out the directions of course, but if they send me the part do you think I (and P) could do it? Or is this part harder than a mother board maybe? I sure don't want to send it away to anywhere...

...

Solitude...:) There's nothing like it.

We both grew up in ny, and the only thing we have ever been sure of in all our time together is leaving was the best thing we ever did....cities are nice places to be "from" if you get my meaning.

Now, if we want to howl naked at the fucking moon at 3am, there is no one to complain.

Peace and quiet. Good for the soul and the sanity.

How's roller derby going...everytime I read you posting about that, Jim Croce's Roller Derby Queen starts in my head and I can't help but smile.

Suicide Girls on skates. :)

if it is still under warranty make them fix it....

Also, it depends on whether its the monitor or just the cable. Taking a lcd screen out of it's frame and then making that frame snap back together correctly without damaging it can be tricky....If you managed to get all the way through replacing a mother board it shouldn't be too much trouble for you though...

-Taking a lcd screen out of it's frame and then making that frame snap back together correctly without damaging it can be tricky-

Yeah you're right..if they will do it I should let them...

*

Derby you say? Only the fucking funnest thing I've ever done in my life!! I started reading the rulebook tonight...learned alot about what I was watching a few weeks ago...I feel like I can be trusted to not break the rules I've agreed to...I'm not sure about other players tho...there were a lot of women in the penalty box during the bout...I couldn't even tell what they were doing to get there, but they don't blow the whistle for minor infractions...I'll send you my blog I do if you want...I'm doing the team website too and not too talented at html...so it's ok, but not as good as the other teams...Started looking at some derby sites tonight and now I know who the top teams are as of April...

I let my father in law come see practice the other night.. I think older people like him remember derby as it was and so since there are so many elderly people here in this county (the most of all CA counties), could work to our benefit...

Part of our original league moved away from the sports arena we skate at...they became skater owned and operated..we who remained are a non-profit team...weird shit man..I miss my friend I joined with...

(bet you're so glad you asked.. hee.. :)

The only time I went out topless when we first moved here, the census taker walked up the driveway... :)

Whoa..thanks FiltyRich...

I played roller and ice hockey growing up and I can tell you there is nothing more satisfying than a hard clean body check....You keep your guard up though... don't trust anybody to follow the rules....to many meanies and psychos out there...

I agree about the old folks, especially if tickets are cheap. To bad about the league breaking up. All the really dedicated skaters probably went pro.

I am excited for you. Have a blast. Send me the link for your team site and post pics and your results here too. We will rout for you from the blog....

he's disingenuous

he could be a brilliant writer

so i told him...

i fucking hate you!
stop pretending you're a hayseed
& write the great aussie novel
you wanker

http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/leadjammer/2009/04/live_text_coverage_9_...

new rules, everyone, new rules

(there's something for everyone)

but this one group of girls were determined to not skate for this arena...The flyer that was put up when we joined said - Join Our Team - so I sorta knew we'd be skating for this arena's league...There is some rule about skating for WFTDA that the league be 70% skater owned and operated..again I don't know..it SEEMS good to be skater owned and operated..but we're so far out from competing now..we are practicing for one year...it's only been a couple months...It seems to me if we split any funds 70/30 with the house that makes us 70% skater owned...?

Roller and Ice hockey...Hmm..cool.. I never knew anyone who played both, just ice, and now roller because there's a league at the arena...one of the library kids is on roller their hockey teams...

You must have played roller in quad skates, yes? Now they use inlines..but those are not legal in roller derby...

here's another:

http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/leadjammer/2009/04/live_text_coverage_3_...

hahaha yep...with poly urethane wheels and those big old rubber stoppers on the toe. We didn't have to wear cages back then either. I've got a few scars to remember those days, nothing serious. Just enough to make me smile now and again when I catch a glimpse in the mirror........

Roller hockey by me was played out doors on black top softball fields the city parks. There are still leagues every where in NY. Ice hockey was later. More serious and expensive.

What a blast...some of the best times of my life....

:)

Would you join an adult league of either of those now?

Mon Apr 13 2009

Nadya Suleman, the US single mother of 14 children including recently-born octuplets, has four production companies bidding to create a TV reality show out of her day-to-day chaos, Us magazine reported.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/800664/octo-mum-has-tv-show-dea...

entitled a croc ate my baby

CROCK!!

where!?
where!?

An elusive four-metre crocodile has been shot dead by wildlife officers after it spooked a popular holiday spot in WA's northwest for almost a week.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/800579/elusive-croc-shot-dead-in-was...

Madonna's adopted son has an Aussie accent and is an AFL convert, thanks to his former Australian nanny. (he's also from mali and tried to circumsise his stepmother)

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/800556/madonna-son-has-aussie-a...

'Easter miracle'
Backpacker awakes from seven-month coma
Mon Apr 13 2009

The family of a backpacker who awoke from a seven-month coma has credited Australian nun Mary MacKillop with his miracle recovery.

Irish wanker David Keohane was the victim of a vicious street bashing in Coogee last August which left him with serious brain injuries and needing facial reconstructive surgery.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/800642/irish-backpacker-wakes-up-after-...

Research has found that teenagers who drink even small amounts of alcohol have a significantly higher risk of engaging in alcohol abuse or risky sexual behaviour as a young adult.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/800548/small-amounts-of-alcohol-risky-...

*yawn*

Knees and back can't take the pounding.

Strictly coaching material now...

Very cool site Alice. Nice avatar too...You gonna get all Tatted up?

You have GOT to post some pics of you in uniform. :)

Stop scaring me! ;)

*

Those are my legs and new skateson my blog, not the team's page...the black and white one...Which reminds me I wanted to tell Crank what my coach said the other night...(unless I already did tell him..? Not sure)...But it was the best straight line ..."All the girls in knee pads, over here!"...

I can't remember if I told that one already...tomorrow will be five weeks with a dull headache in the same spot in my head...I've forgotten three (maybe four now) things that I would NEVER forget in the past month...I'm going to a doctor as soon as I find one this week...

I'd be pissed if someone cheated and say, broke my neck...

That memory shit is probably just be you gettin old... ;)

I was checking out some of your teammates...hotties...

Tell Jodi she is awesome and definitely has the right attitude..."Be who you Are and say how you feel, because those who matter, dont mind and those who mind, dont matter..." Yeah, I'm sure you two will get along famously.

Oh, shit 3:30....if I fall asleep right now, I will get maybe 4 hours...

Gotta go. It's been sweet....alyce. :)

nite nite, cent...

...mostly not from hockey either.

I have been rude to my body over the years...Now it is my body's turn to get even....

Roller derby doesn't seem that bad Alyce. You are all moving in the same direction...It's when you are skating at each other at full speed when the bad shit happens. ;)

All.

Man Says Iverson's Bodyguard Hit Him
Police: Men Robbing 7-Eleven Stores
Pictured Rocks Picked For New Quarter
New Threat To Mail Carriers: Turkeys
Mich. Governor Loses NCAA Game Wager

PHOENIX — Battered by the recession and the deepest and most widespread budget deficits in several decades, a large majority of states are slicing into their social safety nets — often crippling preventive efforts that officials say would save money over time.
Multimedia

President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package is helping to alleviate some of the pain, providing large amounts of money to pay for education and unemployment insurance, bolster food stamp programs and expand tax credits for low earners. But the money will offset only 40 percent of the losses in state revenues, and programs for vulnerable groups have been cut in at least 34 states, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a private research group in Washington.

More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/us/12deficit.html

but I need more tea...
bah humbug
...and to see if anyone is here...
I am just not amused about "tea baggers" save for IT IS OUR SIGN/MANTRA -- NOT CREEPS rethugs!
RECLAIM TEA BAGS, DEMS & GRNS :D

they are the first to go.
What are we going to do about the rich??

where the heck is everybody?

om mani padme hum

G'Morning Michele..
Hope you & your clan are doing well..

I'm just watching Monk..

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

I just heard about the last 20 seconds..
Maybe he's filling in all week ?

It sounded like Peter B.but,it might just have been Bill Press..Not sure..

Does anyone know ? Thanks.. :)

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

The committee overseeing federal banking-bailout programs is investigating the lending practices of institutions that received public funds, following a rash of complaints about increases in interest rates and fees.

Since the Troubled Asset Relief Program was launched last October, banks bolstered by capital infusions have boosted charges on a wide range of routine transactions, hiked rates on credit cards and continued making loans criticized as predatory by consumer advocates. The TARP funds are intended to open lending spigots and make it easier for people to borrow money.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958015246312123.html

om mani padme hum

gotta go....salt mines, then pt....

I'm probably gonna miss the show today too. boooooooo!

Enjoy the Monday, as best you can.

I leave my proxy to who ever posts next....provided they abstain from every vote...

Abstinence or Obstinance...heh...seems to be my mantra lately...

Can abstinence even be used as a noun for abstain? Crank, what do you think...it doesn't look right... :)

spring break this week so i fixed some breakfast using leftover easter ham and hollandaise.

Health Check: President Obama & US Health Reforms
12 Apr 09

Health reforms in the US. How will President Obama help the 45 million people without health insurance and reform the health system so everyone has access to affordable health care?

[sorry, i can't rant as passionately as sandy, so you'll have to listen yourself]

Download Episode
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/healthc/healthc_2009041...

i'd imagine fox's take would be...

WELFARE QUEENS RUIN HEALTH CARE

they're rorting the system to buy lattes and drugs

MY TAKE: STOP THE FARCE

organize yourselves into militia's (liberal progressive militia's) and shoot everyone at fox, wall street, the board of directors on insurance companies, dlc democrats, dittoheads, etc

just outright full-blown revolution

trust me...

the carnage will be cathartic

do you have health insurance?
is it affordable?
adequate?

How's Everybody?

ono, I have medicare and am in the process of looking for the medigap insurance. It's not cheap.

I had Workers with disability insurance for a time. Which is medicaid but I had to buy into it. When I turned 65, that insurance ended so I am trying to find a medigap insurance that the Doctors will accept. Not all doctors accept all insurances.

And it's 36 . With a strong northeast wind that is whistling through the windows.

Get ready edna, it's coming your way!

(don't get wonky and yes i know it's expensive)

the question is...

are you coping?

y/n

The story takes place in Oceana, one of three superpowers that is always at war with either Eastasia or Eurasia.

The description of the Ministry of Truth was very scary. Essentially it is responsible for storing all information and knowledge, and subsequently can modify any of it to suit its own purpose.

For example, Oceana can switch alliances with one of the other two superpowers, and all of historical information would be changed.

//It was rather more of a shock to him when he discovered from some chance remark that she did not remember that Oceania, four years ago, had been at war with Eastasia and at peace with Eurasia. It was true that she regarded the whole war as a sham: but apparently she had not even noticed that the name of the enemy had changed. ‘I thought we’d always been at war with Eurasia,’ she said vaguely. It frightened him a little.//

FROM:
http://www.scifi-review.net/1984-by-george-orwell.html

meanwhile, the 800lb gorilla in the room goes golfing...

YOUR BAILOUT MONEY AT WORK!
Submitted by edna ellen poe on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 10:24am.
http://www.samsedershow.com/node/4641#comment-325743

"now watch this drive"

Confrontation looming between U.S. and Israel
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Apr 13, 2009, 00:17

(WMR) -- According to senior State Department sources, a major confrontation is looming between the United States and Israel over policies ranging from Palestine to Iran.

The new Likud/Yisrael Beiteinu government of Israel is pushing an agenda that runs counter to longstanding U.S. policies in the Middle East. Yisrael Beiteinu party Chairman Avigdor Lieberman, the new Israeli foreign minister, is seen by one State Department source as an “Eastern European fascist who practices racism.”

State Department sources are now convinced that what has been called the “Israel Lobby” in Washington will soon morph into an even more problematic “Likud/Lieberman Lobby” that will push a pro-war and pro-settler policy within the Congress and the Barack Obama administration. This new and more aggressive lobby will particularly use its control over Representatives Steve Israel (D-NY) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), as well as Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), to ensure that Israel’s new policies are conveyed to and acted upon by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama senior policy adviser David Axelrod.

However, there are several potential breaking points between the Obama administration and the new Israeli government, according to State Department sources. One will be U.S. interaction with Hamas, the duly elected government of Palestine. The term of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has elapsed and actual legitimate power in Palestine belongs to Hamas. This political fact means that the United States has no choice but to talk directly to Hamas.

con't

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4581.shtml

Still looking for a medigap. I have someone coming over wednesday.

naive interviewer: "why not have something that everyone pays into & then everyone can take the care when they need it?"

expert interviewee: "well the insurers don't like that"

hmmm...

so the insurers don't like that

ok, so next on fox:

does obama have a secret harem and does he want to steal your wife to add to his collection

Chinese sofas, the latest poison

by John Aravosis (DC) on 4/13/2009 10:01:00 AM
Just another day of poisonous products coming from the world's largest dictatorship. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
The international journal Allergy has confirmed what thousands of British and mainland European citizens have known for more than a year: new leather sofas imported from China are a hotbed of allergens.

Dimethyl fumarate, in the form of a fine, white crystalline powder, was found in sachets embedded in the furniture sourced to China. It is believed the body heat generated from sitting on a contaminated couch causes a toxic vapour to seep out....

About 200,000 of the suspect couches have been imported by 15 furniture retailers in Britain alone and compensation for victims, some of whom required hospital treatment, could be in the tens of millions of dollars.
Chinese products are everywhere in the US. And all of them are likely made using some kind of chemicals somewhere along the way.

Chinese goods make up a huge percentage of the products in our stores. I remember a few years back, I decided to survey the holiday products (Christmas and Easter) in the local drugstores. By my unofficial count, 90% of the products were made in China. They're everywhere. So all of this poison is a problem. But, their products are cheap. That's why the businesses are stocking them - Chinese products save us money. If we shift away to other products, it means inflation, and ultimately, less money in our pockets. Then again, it means not having to worry about poisoning our pets and our children and our house guests.

It's an interesting question as to whether the rash of poison products coming from China in any way shows that capitalism beats communism. Granted, we've had our own doozy of a meltdown, where our own system of checks and balances clearly didn't fix things before they went too far. But wasn't our failure really the same as China's? Under the Republicans, didn't we too have an economy that was without checks and balances due to an out of touch, overly strong central government that was only interested in profit, and helping its friends? That did everything for business, and nothing for the consumer?

At least we were able to change governments. What can China do to rescue itself?

http://www.smh.com.au/national/new-sofas-to-blame-for-rash-of-allergies-...

unbelievable

if the market really was free, you wouldn't have this problem

unfortunately, it's a cartel

Airport under attack as congressman visits Somalia, journalist says
Posted: 10:22 AM ET
(CNN) — The airport in Mogadishu, Somalia came under attack Monday as a member of the U.S. Congress visited the city, a journalist in Somalia reported.

The sound of mortar rounds and gunfire echoed around a community near the airport not long after U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, D-New Jersey, concluded a news conference with Somalia’s prime minister, Omar Abdirashid, the journalist said.

It was not immediately clear whether Payne was near the airport when it came under attack.

Payne’s spokeswoman, Kerry McKenney, said she and others in Payne’s Washington office would be asking the State Department for news on Payne’s status.

Payne, who chairs a House of Representatives subcommittee on Africa, left the United States for a trip to Djibouti on April 9. He was hoping to spend between four to five hours in Mogadishu at the conclusion of the trip to meet with both Somalia’s prime minister and members of the African Union, McKenney said.

The African Union is an organization promoting greater integration and cooperation between different African countries.

http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/13/airport-under-attack-as-congress...

CNBC traitors too - unemployment is good for business...

Thanks to that bailout money, I'm sure there are Queens in this crowd.

yes, the list is long

Shareholders spoke and McDonald's listened

by Chris in Paris on 4/13/2009 03:27:00 AM
This is the way the system should work. Well done by the shareholders for forcing the issue and equally well done by McDonald's for listening and taking action.
McDonald's, the largest fast-food chain the world and the largest buyer of potatoes in the United States, is under pressure from shareholders to do something about pesticide use on the potatoes it buys. To avoid a shareholder resolution on the subject, McDonald's has agreed to "survey its U.S. suppliers to compile a list of best practices in pesticide reduction and recommend those best practices to its global suppliers," according to Reuters.

Potatoes have been on or near the list of the Environmental Working Group's dirty dozen foods with the most pesticide residue for years. That means, according to a government analysis, that after a typical person buys a typical potato and prepares it in a typical way, it's among the fruits and vegetables most likely to be laced with pesticides. (The government regulates pesticide residue, so any chemical left on food is deemed to pose no health risk; that said, pesticides are designed to kill something -- a bug, worm, fungus, or weed -- and most people don't like the idea of taking each meal with a little drop of poison.)
It's not always easy supporting producers who make efforts to do the right thing. Organic foods do taste better but the price can often be much too high to afford on a daily basis. Our local grocery store has been floating more and more organic products ranging from ready-made meals, saucisson (dried sausage), cheese, fruits, veggies and wine. Overall the prices are fairly competitive, which helps a lot and makes it an easier choice for everyone to support.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/17/mcdonald-s-aims-for-a-lo...

I guess I understand what this means, (quarry like prey, not quarry like rock-gettin' place, right?) but I've never heard of it before.

I Googled it in several variations and it wasn't there. The close I could find is the Comedy Quarry club in Jersey.

Where does it come from? Or did cent make it up?

The price of oil has fallen sharply after the International Energy Agency predicted that the global recession would cut demand for crude this year.

The IEA said on Friday that world oil demand would fall by 2.4 million barrels a day to 83.4 million barrels.

US light crude fell by $2.88 to $49.36 a barrel. London Brent oil was down by $2.44 at $51.62.

Since hitting a record high of more than $147 a barrel in July last year, oil prices have slumped.

'Demand destruction'

The Paris-based IEA said its forecast of lower oil demand was influenced by "a growing consensus that economic and oil demand recovery will be deferred to 2010".

It also noted that developed countries' oil inventories had risen in February to 61.6 days of forward cover, the highest since 1993.

Victor Shum, an analyst in Singapore with the Pervin & Gertz consultancy, said the IEA's lower forecast represented "very serious demand destruction".

"The macroeconomics don't look good at all for this year," he added.

The price of oil dropped below $40 a barrel at the end of 2008 before recovering slightly, but remains nearly $100 below peak levels.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7996533.stm

Simon Johnson says yes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/business/2009/04/090409_oligarch.shtml

[but audio linkie no workie]

so exhibit A:

Investigations: maybe usury will be addessed
Submitted by mhappenow on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 9:12am.

The committee overseeing federal banking-bailout programs is investigating the lending practices of institutions that received public funds, following a rash of complaints about increases in interest rates and fees.

Since the Troubled Asset Relief Program was launched last October, banks bolstered by capital infusions have boosted charges on a wide range of routine transactions, hiked rates on credit cards and continued making loans criticized as predatory by consumer advocates. The TARP funds are intended to open lending spigots and make it easier for people to borrow money.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958015246312123.html

I think maybe cent meant query. As in question.

US govt tells GM to prepare for bankruptcy filing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The US Treasury Department has told General Motors to make all necessary preparations for a possible bankruptcy filing by June 1, even though the troubled automaker insists it can restructure its business on its own, The New York Times reported.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090413/ts_afp/usautoeconomycompanygmbankru...

Con media frustrated that their anti-Obama stories aren't working

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So pity the right-wing media, especially Fox News. Their frustration in not being able to control the storyline on Obama's presidency is giving them fits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/obama-should-be-ashamed-o_b_...

Will Israel attack?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anything short of a categorical, even vociferous U.S. refusal of an Israeli attack could have horrific consequences.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/136295/will_israel_attack_mixed_messages_...

Israeli Prez on Iranian Prez:
'We'll Strike Him'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel's new government continued its saber-rattling with Iran today, threatening to strike the country if President Obama's diplomatic overtures fail.

http://www.newser.com/story/56009/israeli-prez-on-iranian-prez-well-stri...

Rising circulation, at
papers sold by homeless

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newspapers produced and sold by homeless people in dozens of American cities are flourishing even as the deepening recession endangers conventional newspapers. At many of them, circulation is growing, along with the sales forces dispatched to sell the papers to passers-by.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/business/media/13street.html?_r=1&ref=...

Rick Warren
explains cancellation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pastor Rick Warren abruptly canceled an appearance on ABC’s "This Week" in which he would have had the opportunity to clarify his denial last week that he had ever endorsed California’s anti-gay-marriage ballot measure, when in fact he had done so on videotape.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21157.html

THE US committee overseeing federal banking-bailout programmes is investigating the lending practices of institutions that received public funds, following a rash of complaints about increases in interest rates and fees.

Since the Troubled Asset Relief Program was launched in October, banks bolstered by capital infusions have boosted charges on a wide range of routine transactions, hiked rates on credit cards and continued making loans criticised as predatory by consumer advocates.

The TARP funds are intended to open lending spigots and make it easier for people to borrow money.

Last week, for example, Bank of America told some customers that interest rates on their credit cards will nearly double to about 14 per cent. The bank, which got $US45 billion ($62.6 billion) in capital from the US Government, also is imposing fees of least $US10 on a wide range of credit-card transactions.

Citigroup, another recipient of government cash, is trying to entice customers to borrow at high rates.

“You could get $US5000 today,” Citigroup's consumer-finance unit wrote in fliers mailed to customers. The ads don't disclose that the loans often carry annual interest rates of 30 per cent.

The interest rates “compare competitively to similar offers in the market” and vary depending on the creditworthiness of borrowers, a Citigroup spokesman said. Citigroup has received $US50 billion in capital from taxpayers, and the US government will soon own as much as 36 per cent of the company's common stock.

“To continue to offer competitive products and services and responsibly lend in this current environment, we must adjust our pricing,”said a Bank of America spokeswoman about the company's new fees and interest rates.

The US Government's ownership stakes in hundreds of banks, as well as political ire stoked by lucrative pay and perks, are raising the spectre of new regulation on basic banking practices. First-quarter results due starting this week will be scrutinised for signs of how much taxpayer-funded capital is being funnelled into loans.

Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, the body named by US Congress to oversee the federal bailout, said the panel is working on a report examining instances of potentially inappropriate lending by banks that got taxpayer capital. “The people who are subsidising the activities of the banks through their tax dollars are the same people who are furnishing the high profits through consumer lending,” Ms Warren said. “In a sense, we're asking taxpayers to pay twice.”

More here:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25326845-363...

‘Surgical’ Bankruptcy Possible for G.M.

By MICHELINE MAYNARD and MICHAEL J. de la MERCED
The Treasury Department is said to be directing General Motors to prepare for a bankruptcy filing by a June 1 deadline, if it becomes necessary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/business/13gm.html?th&emc=th

China Slows Purchases of U.S. and Other Bonds
By KEITH BRADSHER
Reversing its role as the world’s fastest-growing buyer of U.S. Treasuries and other foreign bonds, the Chinese government sold bonds heavily this winter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/business/global/13yuan.html?th&emc=th

Another shit - ass day here in Chicago (weather wise)
Otherwise another day in paradise.
Work - work - work. Blah- blah- blah
Had some weird dreams last night/ early a.m.

Hope ya all r doing well today :)

391 Percent Payday Loan
It seems like just a little loan, a few hundred dollars in advance of payday. But at an interest rate of $15 per $100, that little loan gets big in a hurry. And if another loan is needed — which sometimes happens, since the last payday loan took so much pay — total costs can soon exceed the amount borrowed in the first place.

Payday loans — advances that are to be repaid on payday — are so burdensome and so pernicious that in 2006 Congress effectively banned them for military families. Given all the problems workers face right now, Congress should extend this protection to everybody. Unfortunately, some members are pushing an ersatz reform that would allow payday operators to charge what amounts to an annual percentage rate of 391 percent.

Luis Gutierrez, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, argues that the bill would improve the payday rates in the 35 states with only minimal controls over payday loans. His bill is supported by many people in the lending industry, many Republicans and some consumers.

This regressive bill is even backed by some members of Congress who should know how these loans prey on needy people. New York bans payday loans. But New York’s Gregory Meeks argued in a hearing on the bill that it would provide “options” for people who, in earlier times, “would come back without a limb” if they failed to repay loan sharks on the street.

Others have argued that without these miniloans, people would bounce checks, incurring average costs of $27 or more per overdraft. The overdraft fees that some banks charge are scandalous and deserve more Congressional scrutiny. That does not mean an industry that makes $50 billion a year in loans should be touted as an alternative.

A better option is already in place in some states and for the military — keeping short-term or small loans under a 36 percent annual interest rate, which is high enough. Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California, assessed the Guttierez bill correctly when she said: “We’ve got to resist any attempt to make it look as if we are cracking down, when in fact we are opening the door to more abuse.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13mon2.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&...

I saw this on TV this AM and what a cute picture that is. Obama was trying to get the little red head going so she'd win something.

He truly loves kids. You can see it in their response to him.

Tea Parties Forever
By PAUL KRUGMAN
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.

Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.

Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.

One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.

But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?

Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff — but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.

Speaking of Mr. Limbaugh: the most impressive thing about his role right now is the fealty he is able to demand from the rest of the right. The abject apologies he has extracted from Republican politicians who briefly dared to criticize him have been right out of Stalinist show trials. But while it’s new to have a talk-radio host in that role, ferocious party discipline has been the norm since the 1990s, when Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, became known as “The Hammer” in part because of the way he took political retribution on opponents.

Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution — he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre — also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.

Last but not least: it turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.

But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000 — actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists — that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.

So what’s the implication of the fact that Republicans are refusing to grow up, the fact that they are still behaving the same way they did when history seemed to be on their side? I’d say that it’s good for Democrats, at least in the short run — but it’s bad for the country.

For now, the Obama administration gains a substantial advantage from the fact that it has no credible opposition, especially on economic policy, where the Republicans seem particularly clueless.

But as I said, the G.O.P. remains one of America’s great parties, and events could still put that party back in power. We can only hope that Republicans have moved on by the time that happens.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html?th=&emc=th&page...

When to Retire a Justice
By PAUL D. CARRINGTON
Durham, N.C.

HAVING long observed as well as experienced aging, I question the wisdom and virtue of people in their 70s who continue to exercise great power over others. I have been teaching law only part time for eight years, since I turned 70. But Supreme Court justices, who have more influence on our society than almost anybody, often cling to their offices until they die, even though, as veteran federal judges, they are entitled to retire at full pay.

You may have heard that justices and other federal judges enjoy “life tenure” — something that is easy to believe when the average age of the Supreme Court justices is 69. However, Article III of the Constitution says only that federal judges, both of the Supreme Court and of lower courts, can retain their offices as long as they maintain “good behavior.”

This seems to imply that the justices have a duty to retire when they are no longer fit to work full time. That duty is a rule in some countries: Britain, for instance, forces judges to retire at 70.

It is said that Supreme Court justices used to direct a junior colleague to notify a dotty justice that it was time to resign. But as the influence of the court expanded in the second half of the 20th century, that practice seemed to disappear. Some justices, even those seriously unfit, have held on to their awesome power and status long beyond what was reasonable. William Rehnquist, who continued to work on cases in 2005 even as he was dying of cancer, is the most recent example. The celebrated Thurgood Marshall, who was 82 when he retired in 1991, was another.

One reason justices are able to cling to power is that they have made their jobs relatively easy. For more than 80 years, they have been empowered to choose the cases they decide, and to leave many matters to lower courts without close oversight. When Congress largely eliminated the automatic right to a Supreme Court hearing as part of the Judiciary Act of 1925, it was assured that the court would continue to decide about 300 cases every year. That promise was soon forgotten. The justices are now down to about 75 cases a year. And the vital task of selecting those few cases is substantially delegated to young law clerks who also help write the justices’ opinions.

What can we do about justices who cling to power that they are no longer completely fit to exercise? District and court of appeals judges are subject to Circuit Judicial Councils, which look into citizens’ grievances against their conduct (though not their specific rulings).

Councils may then investigate and conduct hearings in confidence, and then perhaps order that at least temporarily no further cases be assigned to the judge whose conduct is in question. A council may censure a judge either privately or by a public pronouncement, or request his retirement. If a judge rejects a council’s advice, it could issue a statement to be considered by the House of Representatives that might initiate an impeachment proceeding.

Congress could establish a very similar process to apply to the justices. I am one of the veteran observers of the court who have joined in urging Congress and the Department of Justice to consider doing so.

This is not to suggest that any of our current Supreme Court justices should be addressed by such a discipline committee. But the mere existence of such a process would serve to remind our mortal justices that they have a right to serve during good behavior, not for life.

Paul D. Carrington is a professor at Duke University Law School.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13carrington.html?th=&emc=th&p...

Submitted by cent on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 9:22am.
Abstinence or Obstinance...heh...seems to be my mantra lately...
Can abstinence even be used as a noun for abstain?
-------
So long as you keep pumping obstinance iron you can use words any way you want.
--------------------------------------------
//comedian's quarry//
Submitted by gloryoski on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 11:10am.
I guess I understand what this means, (quarry like prey, not quarry like rock-gettin' place, right?) but I've never heard of it before...Where does it come from? Or did cent make it up?
-------
I have read enough cent to state that he is perfectly capable of painting a word picture without stealing it from someone else.

That's not to say that there aren't people who steal stuff because it sounds good (traces toe in dust innocently).

[The last sentence is a very-inside joke because I stole the toe tracing narrative from someone else.]

We've Got to Leave This Bankrupt Culture Behind

By Frank Rich, The New York Times. Posted April 13, 2009.

"I am pronouncing the depression over!" declared CNBC's irrepressible Jim Cramer on April 2. The next day the unemployment rate, already at the highest level in 25 years, jumped yet again, but Cramer wasn't thinking about the 663,000 jobs that disappeared in March. He was thinking about the market. Mad money. Fast money. Big money. The Dow, after all, has rallied in the weeks since Timothy Geithner announced his bank bailout 2.0. Par-tay! On Wednesday, Cramer rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, in celebration of the 1,000th broadcast of his nightly stock-tip jamboree.

Given Cramer's track record on those tips, there's no reason to believe he's right this time. But for the sake of argument, let's say he is. (And let's hope he is.) The question then arises: What, if anything, have we learned from this decade's man-made economic disaster? It wasn't just trillions of dollars of wealth that went poof in the bubble. Certain American values also crumbled and vanished. Making quick killings by reckless gambling in the markets - rather than by investing long-term in new products, innovations, technologies or services that might grow and benefit America and the world - became the holy grail in the upper echelons of finance.

This was not an exact replay of the preceding dot-com bubble. As a veteran of the tech gold rush recently observed to me, in Silicon Valley "the money comes later" and "the thing you make comes first, however whimsical, silly, microscopic, recondite it may be." On Wall Street over the past decade, the money usually came first, last and in between. There was no "thing" being made at all unless you count the slicing and dicing of debt into financial "products," the incomprehensible derivatives that helped bring down the economy, costing some five million Americans their jobs (so far) and countless more their 401(k)'s.

More here:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/136304/we%27ve_got_to_leave_this_bankr...

-Shareholders spoke and
Submitted by toniD on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 11:10am.-

Thanks for posting this, toni...I'm stunned that they're even agreeing to "..McDonald's has agreed to "survey its U.S. suppliers to compile a list of best practices in pesticide reduction and recommend those best practices to its global suppliers,"....

So many people eat that stuff it could make a big change in health and attitude of the people who consume it if they actually went to less or no pesticides...Nice thought, hope they decide to change...(after the big 'survey')...

Mel Gibson's wife files for divorce in LA

53 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Court records show Mel Gibson's wife has filed for divorce after 28 years of marriage...
----------
They had better to go for an annulment instead. Annulments are the Church's work-around for divorce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annulment_(Catholic_Church)

I can imagine myself citing this page often enough to get myself pummelled by an angry mob of weasels.

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

Criminalize Organic Farms???

BILLS: HR 875 and S 425

More
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXNJNjYBvw

So O'Reilly likes the smell of his own farts?

Scientists find 'pleasure nerves'
Scientists say they understand more about how the body responds to pleasurable touch.

A team, including scientists from the Unilever company, have identified a class of nerve fibres in the skin which specifically send pleasure messages.

And people had to be stroked at a certain speed - 4-5cm per second - to activate the pleasure sensation.

They say the study, published in Nature Neuroscience, could help understand how touch sustains human relationships.

“ There are some mechanisms in place that are associated with behaviour and reward which are there to ensure relationships continue ”
Professor Francis McGlone
For many years, scientists have been trying to understand the mechanisms behind how the body experiences pain, and the nerves involved in conveying those messages to the brain.

This is because people can suffer a great deal.

Neuropathy, where the peripheral nervous system is damaged, can be very painful and sometimes the messaging system goes wrong a people feel pain even when there is no cause.

Hairy skin

But the researchers involved in this work were looking to understand the opposite sensation - pleasure.

This research, which also involved experts at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and at the University of North Carolina, recorded nerve responses in 20 people.

They then tested how people responded to having their forearm skin stroked at a range of different speeds.

They identified "C-tactile" nerve fibres as those stimulated when people said a touch had been pleasant.

If the stroke was faster or slower than the optimum speed, the touch was not pleasurable and the nerve fibres were not activated.

The scientists also discovered that the C-tactile nerve fibres are only present on hairy skin, and are not found on the hand.

Professor Francis McGlone, now based at Unilever after an academic career where he carried out research into nerve response, says this is likely to be a deliberate "design".

"We believe this could be Mother Nature's way of ensuring that mixed messages are not sent to the brain when it is in use as a functional tool."

He said the speed at which people found arm-stroking pleasurable was the same as that which a mother uses to comfort a baby, or couples use to show affection.

Professor McGlone said it was part of the evolutionary mechanism that sustained relationships between adults, or with children.

"Our primary impulse as humans is procreation, but there are some mechanisms in place that are associated with behaviour and reward which are there to ensure relationships continue."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7992299.stm

© BBC MMIX

it made my day!!!

NOW HE CAN LOOK FOR THAT TROPHY WIFE!

LOS ANGELES – Court records show Mel Gibson's wife has filed for divorce after 28 years of marriage.

Robyn Gibson filed the petition in Los Angeles, citing irreconcilable differences.

The petition doesn't give any details about the split. Robyn Gibson is seeking jewelry and some other property, and has suggested joint custody for their 9-year-old son.

The records show the couple were married in June 1980.

They issued a joint statement Monday, saying they have "always strived to maintain the privacy and integrity of our family and will continue to do so."

Gibson is one of Hollywood's biggest names, with a pair of Oscar wins for best picture and director for "Braveheart."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090413/ap_on_en_mo/people_mel_gibson_2

Jindal gets book deal. It's with Regnery and slated to be out in 2010, with the help of a ghostwriter. - Politico

Submitted by nora on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 11:31pm.
...So now scenarios are popping into my skeptical head. How was the new dog named 'BO'? -- was it the result of a 'focus group'? Easy to remember for the public that Barack Obama's dog has his initials for a name? Why is BO's fur both black and white? Is BO supposed to symbolize something?
---------------------
There seems to be a general agreement among people across the political spectrum that American news journalism wastes a lot of ink on the presidential dog, Lindsay Lohan, etc. which collectively shoves more useful and needed information off the page.

Some people claim that gossip journalism is an intentional opiate of the masses executed as part of a master plan.

And then there are people who criticize the absurdity of the resources wasted on nonsense like the presidential dog but then engage wholeheartedly in exactly the same nonsense by, in fact, extending it into several new, unexplored, mind-bogglingly inconsequential areas of discussion.

Oh, well. Everybody needs a hobby or an obsessive preoccupation and I guess that unbridled criticism of any flotsam or jetsam is one of them.

(If anyone needs me, I'll be over here with the satirists.)

They're kinda like gay people and the raisins in raisin bran that way. (Drags toe sheepishly, esp. since I am mainly going against that grain at the moment. Is bran a grain? I guess so.)

Drunken fruit. Good idea.

Gephardt: Health care reform should be ‘incremental.’
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO) is urging the White House to defer the goal of expanding access to health insurance “until it enacts cost-saving reforms in health care delivery.” But during the 2004 presidential campaign, Gephardt, who now lobbies for PhRMA, among other corporate interests, promised that if he were elected president, he would “immediately” ensure that “everyone who works will have health coverage.” In fact, the former House Majority Leader argued that “access to quality health care is the moral issue of our time” and portrayed himself — in a rather dramatic fight with Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) — as the only candidate who could address the health care crisis:

– “Howard Dean and the other candidates may think leaving tens of millions of Americans uninsured is acceptable. … I think they’re wrong.” [NYT, 01/03/2004]

– “It is immoral to have people without health insurance,” he said, speaking to about 70 people on the lawn of a Manchester home. “This issue is in my heart. It’s in my head. It’s in my soul. I will not rest until I get the people health insurance.” [Chicago Tribune, 07/22/2003]

The Wonk Room has more here.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/04/13/gephardt-incremental/

there's more plastic than plankton in the world's ocean...

the size of the garbage pile out there where everything flows together is three times the size of Texas...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102964819

Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, author of Flotsametrics and the Floating World, charts currents by tracking merchandise lost at sea — from sneakers to rubber duckies.

Submitted by gloryoski on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 3:12pm.
...Drags toe sheepishly...
------
You stole that, didn't you!

Nouriel Roubini notes that the Treasury Department’s stress tests for the banks “are meaningless as actual data are already running worse than the worst case scenario.”

LINK

FT finds that “the unit that all but destroyed AIG has failed to sign up for the overhaul of the global derivatives market…that has been signed by more than 2,000 market participants.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cb2ddafc-278c-11de-9b77-00144feabdc0.html

“Reconciliation is not a weapon that should be deployed immediately,” the NYT argues. “A bipartisan agreement would be nice, but what the country needs right now is effective health care reform.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/opinion/12sun1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Top Obama Officials To Testify Next Week On Behalf Of Clean Energy Legislation
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chair of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, announced that top Obama officials will testify next week on the immediate need for clean energy legislation. Speaking at an event on building a clean energy economy hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rep. Markey said that Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will testify in hearings on the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, beginning on Tuesday, April 21.

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told attendees that “significant harm to human well-being is already occurring” from global warming — including agricultural impacts from monsoon changes in China, greater floods “on practically every continent,” increased drought and soil drying, increased wildfires, worse air pollution and heat stress, and timber losses from Alaska to Colorado due to pest explosion — and “worse is yet to come.”

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/04/13/obama-green-testimony/

The MIT event is being webcast live.

http://amps-web.mit.edu/public/amps/webcast/clean-energy-economy-13apr20...

VIDEO games don't have to be violent to trigger an emotional response. It turns out that driving games can activate more brain regions involved in emotional processing than shoot 'em ups. - NS

Conservatives Strangely Silent After Obama’s Effective Pirate Crisis Management
Commenting briefly on the resolution of Somali pirate-hostage episode over the weekend, President Obama expressed relief at the rescue of Captain Richard Philips by a Navy SEAL team, noting that “his safety has been our principal concern” throughout the crisis. Obama also stated that “we are resolved to halt the rise of piracy in that region.”

Conservatives had clearly been gearing up to exploit the situation as an argument about Obama’s “weakness” in the face of provocation. Upon the news of the hijacking last week, National Review’s Andy McCarthy tauntingly asked “what our new commander-in-chief proposes to do about it.”

Writing in the Weekly Standard, Seth Cropsey kept things nice and predictable by advocating “taking the fight to the pirates,” i.e. an overly militaristic response, and wondering whether the president had the guts to follow through.

Drawing a tenuous parallel between piracy and legal threats against Bush administration officials for war crimes, the Wall Street Journal fret-itorialized “if the U.S. government won’t protect American citizens from the legal anarchy of postmodern Europe, how can we expect it to protect American sailors from the premodern anarchy of Somalia”?

As it was, President Obama — while clearly mindful of the larger implications of piracy for U.S. interests — made the life of the American hostage, and not the maintenance of perceptions of American strength, the immediate objective of the operation. With the captain’s life in apparent jeopardy, deadly force was authorized and used effectively, and the situation was brought to a satisfactory conclusion with a welcome lack of bluster that would have been unimaginable under the previous administration. After having cued up their outrage for Obama’s expected failure, conservatives are now strangely silent in the face of his actual success.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that even the smartest, most effective response can have troubling unintended outcomes. Earlier today, Somali insurgents fired mortars toward New Jersey Congressman Donald Payne’s plane as it took off from the Somali capital Mogadishu. Payne, who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, had met with the Somali president and prime minister to discuss “piracy, security and cooperation between Somalia and the United States.” It’s unclear whether the mortar attack was intended specifically as a response to the shooting of the pirates, but it does bring home the fact that in Somalia, as in Afghanistan, security threats are generated by a lack of governance, a larger and more complex problem that cannot simply be solved by resolute shows of force, regardless of how such shows get conservative tails wagging. As Somali government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdoon told the Christian Science Monitor, concerned nations “send ships but we need stability on land.”

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/04/13/conservatives-strangely-sil...

Making a Good Health Care Plan Great For Maine

Steve Benen linked over the weekend to a Bangor Daily News account of an Olympia Snowe health care forum in which the Senator sounded very open to potentially far-reaching reforms:

“We have a totally dysfunctional system now,” she said. While like most Republicans she would prefer to see the private sector collaborate on an effective change, a government-run health care system may be the only way to get the job done, she said.

Ezra Klein observes that Snowe is a little bit lacking in the coherence department:

Snowe’s position is a bit of an odd one: She holds that we may require a single-payer system but probably should have a public insurance option. The next step, she says, is to fix the market. And Snowe argues that it’s not clear that you can do that with a public insurance option. She’s raised the possibility that the public plan is actually too easy on private insurers. It’s a government plan, she says, and every lobby and advocacy group will exert pressure for it to cover every ill, ailment, and treatment. As such, the plan will quickly prove a better deal for the sick than the well, and it will end up being the equivalent of a “bad bank” for health risks. The private insurance market will simply skim off the healthy. In other words, the public plan wouldn’t compete with the private market so much as subtly subsidize it.

I would say that the main thing in this sort of situation is to stop thinking about the big issues, and start thinking about little ones. How can you structure a health care program so as to be very beneficial to the state of Maine? It’s not genuinely the case that inadequate levels of subsidies to sparsely populated rural states are an important failing of the current American health care system. But with the two “most likely to swing” Republicans coming from Maine, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee coming from Montana, and the head of the Senate Budget Committee coming from North Dakota this is probably the shortest route between the status quo and major reform. The major question becomes whether or not significant, broad changes like a meaningful public option can be structured in such a way as to be appealing to these constituencies. Maine’s a weird state, maybe it needs blueberry subsidies or provisions that take into account the special needs of states with large seasonal swings in population.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/making_a_good_health_...

Official: Obama to allow travel, money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba

JENNIFER LOVEN
AP News

Apr 13, 2009 14:04 EST

President Barack Obama is allowing Americans to make unlimited trips and money transfers to family in Cuba and easing other restrictions Monday to usher in a new era of openness toward the island nation ruled by communists for 50 years.

The formal announcement was being made at the White House Monday afternoon, during presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs' daily briefing with reporters, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity before the announcement.

With the changes, Obama aims to lessen Cubans' dependence on the Castro regime, hoping that will lead them to demand progress on political freedoms, the official said. About 1.5 million Americans have relatives on the island nation that turned to communist rule in 1959 when Fidel Castro seized control.

Obama had promised to take these steps as a presidential candidate. It has been known for over a week that he would announce them ahead of his attendance this weekend at a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

"There are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban Americans," Obama said in a campaign speech last May in Miami, the heart of the U.S. Cuban-American community. "It's time to let Cuban Americans see their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers. It's time to let Cuban American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime."

Other steps taken Monday include expanding the things allowed in gift parcels being sent to Cuba, such as clothes, personal hygiene items, seeds, fishing gear and other personal necessities.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/04/obama_to_allow_travel_mone...

Beware the Google
Responding to the flap over President Obama's visit, Arizona State U. prez says the school doesn't award honorary degrees to elected officials still in office -- except it did in 2002.

--David Kurtz

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/asu-no-sitting-politician-get...

Lying Liars!

Those Were The Days
Neil Cavuto claims Fox News is covering teabaggers in same fair and balanced way it covered the Million Man March in 1995 -- except Fox News didn't exist yet in 1995.

--David Kurtz

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/13/foxs-cavuto-claims-networ_n_186...

Bet this will be on Keith's show tonight!

Wonders Never Cease
Krugman: Republican hypocrisy on military v. stimulus spending is "wonderful" to watch.

--David Kurtz

"What's so wonderful is watching Republican congressmen saying, "But this will cost jobs!" The very same Republican congressmen who were denouncing the stimulus, saying government spending never creates jobs, but cutting defense spending costs jobs. It's wonderful.

Watch this at link

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/krugman-republican-hypocrisy-...

Obama To Give 'Major Speech' On The Economy Tomorrow
(Editor's Note: This statement was provided by the White House on April 13, 2009.)

Tomorrow: President Barack Obama to Give Major Speech on the Economy at Georgetown University

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will deliver a major speech on the economy Tuesday, April 14th, at Georgetown University. The speech will take place at 11:30 AM EDT in Gaston Hall.

The President will discuss how each step his administration has taken to confront this economic crisis fits within his broader vision of how we move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity. He'll also talk about the significant work that remains to be done to get the economy moving forward once again.

WHAT: President Obama to Deliver Major Economic Speech at Georgetown University

WHEN: Tuesday, April 14th at 11:30 AM EDT

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/04/obama_to_give_major_speech...

before?

does seem nicer without me in here.

Hi Toni...Crank...Mire...et al.....

hope you all had a wonderful holiday with family and friends.

I notice that a few people posting in here have been accused of being me. ???????

They are not me.

Oh...and Ono also accused me of being War Dog. That was truly insulting. Meanest thing that psycho, crystal meth head freak ever said about me.

See you all down the road.

Resume speed.

MSNBC Developing a Weekend Politics Show for NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd

by Felix Gillette
April 13, 2009 | 12:23 p.m
Get ready for more of the "Goateed Guru."

According to multiple network sources, MSNBC is in the process of developing a weekend political show to be moderated by Chuck Todd, the network’s political director and chief White House correspondent.

Last year, in the wake of Tim Russert’s death, network executives seriously considered Mr. Todd to take over the moderating duties on Meet the Press.

http://www.observer.com/2009/media/msnbc-developing-weekend-politics-sho...

--Looking over the threads, I must admit that this place
Submitted by Regnad Kcin on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 3:54pm.

does seem nicer without me in here.--

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector-general assigned to oversee the deployment of TARP funds, will begin to investigate more forcefully whether banks manipulated their books to receive more government assistance. Barofsky told the Financial Times, "I hope we don't find a single bank that's cooked their books to try to get money but I don't think that's going to be the case." At a congressional hearing earlier this month, Barofsky said that his office was involved in up to a dozen investigations into potential wrongdoing. He told the Financial Times that the system for deploying bailout funds was easily manipulated. "Indictments can serve as great deterrents," he said. (Financial Times)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/163c85c4-2789-11de-9b77-00144feabdc0.html

More lies
Submitted by toniD on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 3:45pm.
...except Fox News didn't exist yet in 1995.
---------
Everyone seems to agree that the lies are not particularly upsetting. We all know that there are lies in the mix and always have been.

What bothers many Americans is the current trend to tell lies that are poorly constructed and certain to be uncovered in a matter of hours.

It is the misuse of short-term publicity and the insult to our intelligence that pisses us off.

If the Watergate burglary were to happen today, there wouldn't be any burglary. CREEP would simply publicize a bunch of lies made out of whole cloth.

The most recent election fraud scheme in Kentucky points up a larger problem in the county's economic distress, the AP reports. Some attribute the rise in public corruption with the county's 14.3 percent unemployment rate and a culture in which officials will seek funds at any cost. In late March, eight Clay County officials were charged with rigging an election, and acting as political bosses to appoint friends to election positions and bribe citizens to vote in their favor. A 60 year-old disabled coal miner told the AP that "politics in Clay County have been crookeder than a barrel of fish hooks." (AP)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gs2WHoM41pW8pDFh-0KIrD...

Republicans: Government (Defense) Spending Responsible For Thousands Of Jobs
By Brian Beutler - April 13, 2009, 3:48PM
Last week, we reported that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) had experienced an epiphany about the stimulative effects of government spending...when that spending is on weapons.

Over the weekend, Paul Krugman took a shot at Congressional Republicans who fit the Chambliss profile--i.e. the subset of Republicans who voted against the stimulus but are now coming forward to claim that a (fictional) reduction in defense spending will cost jobs.

Since only three of Capitol Hill's 219 Republicans--Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Susan Collins (R-ME)--voted for the stimulus bill, it's possible that many scores of them will ultimately fall afoul of this contradiction.

Until then, though, we've poked around a bit, and come up with the names of a few Republicans that have already fallen in to The Chambliss Hypocrisy.

Read more:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/republicans-government-defens...

US Guantanamo guard converts to Islam

As the US government moves to shutdown its detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, stories are emerging of the way it affected those inside.

Former inmates have talked about the deprivation and pressures they faced.

But Terry Holdbrooks was on the other side. He was a US soldier and he says he saw something in the behaviour of the inmates that changed him. He tells his story to Al Jazeera in his own words.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/200941312911615541.ht...

I disagree...
Submitted by Alice on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 3:58pm.
--Looking over the threads, I must admit that this place
Submitted by Regnad Kcin on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 3:54pm.

does seem nicer without me in here.--

-----

Sorry I said people were you that weren't you.

Looking over the threads, I must admit that this place
does seem nicer without me in here.
Submitted by Regnad Kcin on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 3:56pm.
---------
Lost In Space robot: "Regnad! Regnad!"

(Sorry. I've wanted to use that joke for months and then the sumbitch Kcin bailed on me.)

Kcin---You're wrong. Everyone else got nicer and I got meaner. And it's all your fault.

http://remixwizard.mixmatchmusic.com/wizardgallery/wizard/145

* Noam Chomsky on the Global Economic Crisis, Healthcare, US Foreign Policy and Resistance to American Empire *

Part II of our conversation with MIT professor and author Noam Chomsky on the global economic crisis, healthcare, the media, US foreign policy, the expanding wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, resistance to American empire, and more.

"As far as policy is concerned, unless [Obama] is under a lot of pressure from activist sectors, he's not going to go beyond what he's presented himself as in actual policy statements or cabinet choices and so on: a centrist Democrat [who's] going to basically continue Bush's polices, maybe in a more modulated way," says Chomsky.

Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/13/noam_chomsky_on_the_global_economi...

http://akamat.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/centraal-station-antwerpen-gaat-u...

Centraal Station Antwerpen gaat uit zijn dak!

April 12, 2009 in Cool People, Cool Shit

A video of almost 200 people taking over Antwerpen’s Centraal Station in Belgium and doing a carefully choreographed dance to the Do Re Mi song (aka Maria’s Dance aka Maria’s Song) from “Sound of Music”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090413_israels_racist_in_chief/

...
Lieberman, a former nightclub bouncer who was a member of the Kach Party, has the personal and political habits of the Islamic goons he opposes. He was found guilty in 2001 of beating a 12-year-old boy and fined by an Israeli court. He is being investigated for multimillion-dollar fraud and money laundering and is rumored to have close ties with the Russian mafia. He lives, in defiance of international law, in the Jewish settlement of Nokdim on occupied Palestinian land.
...

Rendell And Schwarzenegger Tell Obama To Take Lead On Infrastructure
Govs. Ed Rendell (D-PA) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) have sent a memo to President Obama, urging him to take an active role in legislation to improve national infrastructure, rather than leave it to Congressional appropriators. "If your administration is to have a substantive impact on this key legislation," the memo says, "you must take the lead in setting forth a new national vision for infrastructure policy, as well [as] articulating goals and program specifics for this once-a-decade legislative vehicle."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-governors13-2...

Poll: Taxpayers Plan To Be Frugal With Refund Checks
A new AP/GfK poll finds that 54% of those who will receive tax refunds plan to use the money to pay bills such as credit cards, housing and utilities, compared to 35% who said that a year ago. And although 38% say they plan to spend at least part of it on themselves, here it again appears to be on basic needs for many people, with 17% saying they'll spend money on food and clothing.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/04/ap_poll_taxpayers_more_fru...

I can't believe I saved the Lost In Space backwards robot joke all of these months, waiting patiently for an opportunity to develop it and weave it into the conversation, and now I've thrown it away in ill-considered haste.

Nmad uoy, Regnad Kcin!

of another palsey attack as a year or so ago.

Hope it goes her way.

Moore Mulls Another Bid in Alabama
Roy Moore, a conservative activist known for his former role as Alabama's "Ten Commandments" judge, says he is very "inclined" to join the 2010 race for the state's open governor's seat, CQ Politics reports.

Moore had been an elected chief justice of the state Supreme Court. But he was ousted from the post by a state court panel in 2003, after he ignored a federal court ruling ordering the removal of a granite momunent to the biblical Ten Commandments that he had installed in the state Supreme Court building two years earlier.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2009/04/ex-judge-moore-mulls-anoth...

"So long as you keep pumping obstinance iron you can use words any way you want."

"I have read enough cent to state that he is perfectly capable of painting a word picture without stealing it from someone else."

Praise from Caesar, indeed...You can have your red crayon back now... :)

***

Glory...Comedian's Quarry...I don't know if I made it up or heard it somewhere, flip a coin...I meant it as a take off of "Hunter's Quarry", some times what you are hunting isn't always what you catch...you have to make due. Comedians don't get to choose their audiences but they are still expected to make them laugh...Best to leave the "blonde" jokes home at a NOW Rally...Failure to do so could land you in the Pit. :)

I hope he doesn't listen to the "activist" idiots that listen to Bill Press and Mr. Ed. Frightening, listening to all these main stream Dems call in urging a war on Somalia.
Caesar got started fighting pirates.

Republicans Fighting Wave of Retirements
Stuart Rothenberg: "The last time more Democrats than Republicans retired was in 1998, when 17 Democrats and 16 Republicans did not seek re-election... Over the past five elections, 106 Republican House Members have not sought re- election, while only 49 Democrats have walked away from their seats -- a significant difference."

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/rothenberg/

For the 2010 cycle, check CQ's excellent Members in Transition chart.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=40

LOL.

(OK, not ROFLMFAO. I'm not gonna front but you know. Sometimes it's better to play your cards, tiles whatevs rather than be stuck with them in the end. After all, we only have a few more years.)

cent: :...Best to leave the "blonde" jokes home at a NOW Rally...Failure to do so could land you in the Pit."
---------
If you only knew how many conspiracy jokes I've stifled...

Morales in hunger strike vow

Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, has vowed to continue his hunger strike until opposition politicians pass an electoral bill approving a new constitution and elections.

Morales stopped eating on Thursday in protest against opposition efforts to block the election bill in Bolivia's congress.

He has slept for several nights on a mattress on the floor of Bolivia's presidential palace surrounded by banners and supporters chewing coca leaves to ward off hunger.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/2009413145056605916.h...

(Bernie or Dennis might)

Whaddaya mean, cent, like the hairy armpit?

I don't think there are mosh pits at NOW rallies.

----

And I can say that cuz they're my peeps (as in nearly identical and joined at the hips).

(Although really that's not a NOW joke, and it's dated.)

Submitted by gloryoski on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 4:28pm.
Whaddaya mean, cent, like the hairy armpit?
I don't think there are mosh pits at NOW rallies.
---------
I would like it entered into the record that I had nothing to do with the hairy feminist armpit joke and would have counselled against it had I been asked.

duly noted.

Excellent point gd...It wouldn't be our first time...

...don't forget about Jefferson and the Barbary War....

We have been fighting African Pirates since day one...it began our extra-continental expansions, and our role as policemen of the world....

If we started up again in Africa, we would be there for 100 years...

Pit as in "Quarry"....as in place to dig....

Any of this ring a bell? Hello...is this thing on....?

Oh, forget it.....

What rule is that again crank?

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

I think of quarries as having water because of "Breaking Away," and some other media I can't remember--although come to think of it the one on the Flinstones did not. I don't think of "pits" as having water. Unless they're cenotes, but those are mainly for young virgins and...(stifle, stifle).

Jindal for Senate?
According to the New York magazine reporter John Heilemann, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) could challenge Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) in 2010.

Heilemann on the Chris Matthews Show: "I was down in New Orleans last week, and I heard a great rumor that Bobby Jindal, who we were just talking about as a potential presidential candidate for the Republican Party, is thinking about giving up the governorship and running for Senate... Against Vitter, or for Vitter's seat if Vitter doesn't run. He's got a terrible budget situation down there, he's thrown himself into a Republican primary up in Baton Rouge that he's going to apparently get creamed in. And I think what's interesting about it is that it tells you that he's got the message that 2012 isn't his year."

However, according to the New Orleans Times Picayune, Jindal's office is denying the rumors.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-7/123951441123...

Battery manufacturing plant could bring 2,000 jobs to Kentucky

FRANKFORT — Gov. Steve Beshear announced Monday that Kentucky will be the site of a car battery manufacturing and headquarters facility that could bring an investment of more than $600 million and create nearly 2,000 jobs.

The National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries has chosen a 1,551 acre site near Glendale in Hardin County as the site for a lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant. However, the project is dependent upon the Alliance receiving an unspecified amount of federal funding.
http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2009/04/13/battery-manufacturing-p...

(“We think the country needs a stimulus,” McConnell said on NBC’s “Today” show. But he also said that he believes most people do not believe it will be accomplished through projects like “fixing up the mall.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Says Rivals Favor Spending Over Tax Cuts)

A Flood of Issue Ads
Politico: "Television viewers are being deluged by so-called issue ads paid for by corporations, unions, advocacy groups and individuals who have spent a whopping $270 million just since Obama took the oath of office... It's an unprecedented clip, experts say, a breakneck pace that could yield more than $1 billion in issue ad buys before the end of the year."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21134.html

hmmm...sounds like a bargain to me....(I've a feeling this is going to end badly.)

I'll be the next one on you tube getting reamed by a hot headed feminist.... :)

We're waiting for you to come back. When you are ready.:)

At Les Stanford Chevrolet Cadillac in Dearborn, they're fed up with criticism of Detroit automakers and the UAW by Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby.

So they've put the Republican to work -- selling their cars.

The dealership is running TV and radio ads that feature clips of Shelby making anti-Detroit Three comments.

"We're wasting our time trying to keep them alive," he is shown saying in one ad.

Co-owner Paul Stanford strikes back, asking: "I wonder if the good senator would tell us how much Japanese car companies who make cars in his state gave to his campaign?"

http://www.freep.com/article/20090413/COL27/904130340/?imw=Y&GID=TjbCZ0e...

The number of U.S. businesses and individuals declaring bankruptcy is rising with a vengeance amid the recession, despite a three-year-old federal law that made it much tougher for Americans to escape their debts, an Associated Press analysis found.

"There's no end in sight," said bankruptcy lawyer Bryan Elliott of Hickory, N.C., who is working seven days a week and scheduling prospective clients a month in advance. "To be doing this well and having this much business, it is depressing. It's not a laugh-a-minute job."

Nearly 1.2 million debtors filed for bankruptcy in the past 12 months, according to federal court records collected and analyzed by the AP. Last month, 130,831 sought bankruptcy protection — an increase of 46 percent over March 2008 and 81 percent over the same month in 2007.

Bob Lawless, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, said bankruptcies could reach 1.5 million this year and level off at 1.6 million next year — around the same time economists expect an economic recovery to begin.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/13/national/a13...

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/4645

Bankruptcies Surge Despite Law Meant To Curb Them

The number of U.S. businesses and individuals declaring bankruptcy is rising with a vengeance amid the recession, despite a three-year-old federal law that made it much tougher for Americans to escape their debts, an Associated Press analysis found.

"There's no end in sight," said bankruptcy lawyer Bryan Elliott of Hickory, N.C., who is working seven days a week and scheduling prospective clients a month in advance. "To be doing this well and having this much business, it is depressing. It's not a laugh-a-minute job."

Nearly 1.2 million debtors filed for bankruptcy in the past 12 months, according to federal court records collected and analyzed by the AP. Last month, 130,831 sought bankruptcy protection — an increase of 46 percent over March 2008 and 81 percent over the same month in 2007.

Bob Lawless, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, said bankruptcies could reach 1.5 million this year and level off at 1.6 million next year — around the same time economists expect an economic recovery to begin.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/13/national/a13...

http://www.seattlepi.com/scorecard/mlbnews.asp?articleID=258052

/|\)0( Blessings

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