This is what the establishment looks like

all first?

aint' it a bitch

you just can't win; i'd like everybody to win

dana milbank is wrong and ugly

the carpenter woman is just a typical right wing hack, supposedly cute but stupid and partisan

Dana would have appeared more professional if he'd of offered to perform fellatio while passing $20 to Nico.

with Bushtard for 8 years" ?

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

Dem. Senators are cranky because they're being called out for screwing up health care reform
by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 6/28/2009 04:33:00 PM
The gist of this Washington Post article is that it's bad, very bad, for Democratic activists to fulfill Democratic promises on health care reform. Democratic Senators don't like being asked to keep promises:

"We are getting to the point if people aren't going to respond to the patience and openness of Senator Baucus, we should begin to make a different plan," said Andrew Stern, president of the 2 million-member SEIU.

Stern said his organization issued a release chastising Feinstein last week, because she should "put her foot on the gas, not the brake" on health reform.

"The gas pedal to go where?" Feinstein replied, explaining she has questions about how a broad expansion of health coverage will be paid for.

"I do not think this is helpful. It doesn't move me one whit," she said. "They are spending a lot of money on something that is not productive."

How dare any Democrat expect to influence Dianne Feinstein. She is a United States Senator, after all. I swear, so many of those Senators think they're in the House of Lords, forgetting they've actually been elected to solve problems. But, they're annoyed that people expect them to solve the problems upon which they and their colleagues (and their president) campaigned. It's lunacy.

Many Senators really do believe they're immune to public pressure. They'll listen to lobbyists, that's for sure. And, they fall for the allure of bipartisanship. Democratic Senators have a huge majority because the Republicans were total failures at solving the nation's problems. In 2006, there were 55 Republicans Senators. Today, there are 40. The political pendulum swang very quickly. Now, Democrats need to deliver.

And, I love this excerpt:

One Democratic strategist who is working full-time on health reform was apoplectic over what he called wasted time, energy and resources by the organizations.

The strategist, who asked for anonymity because he was criticizing colleagues, said: "These are friends of ours. I would much rather see a quiet call placed by [Obama chief of staff] Rahm Emanuel saying this isn't helpful. Instead, we try to decimate them?"

If they are siding with the insurance lobby, they're not our friends. And, why hasn't Rahm already placed "the quiet call"? If all it takes is a call from Rahm, then why do we need the Organizing for America health care campaign?

People in DC only want to play the inside game. But, in the Senate, it really feels like the inside game is controlled by the insurance industry. The city is a tangled web of competing and conflicting interests. It's all a game for the insiders. They really have no idea how what they're doing -- or not doing -- impacts the real world. That's why the "outside" game is so important. That's why the t.v. ads matter. That's why the health care rally on Thursday was so important. That's why the DNC is organizing a health care reform campaign. This can't be left to the insiders. They'll screw it up for sure.

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/dem-senators-are-cranky-because-theyr...

at Loundon

Health care is not a bowl of cherries

Or a carton of milk, or a loaf of bread.

Both George Will and Greg Mankiw basically argue that we don’t need a government role because we can trust the market to work — hey, we do it for groceries, right?

Um, economists have known for 45 years — ever since Kenneth Arrow’s seminal paper — that the standard competitive market model just doesn’t work for health care: adverse selection and moral hazard are so central to the enterprise that nobody, nobody expects free-market principles to be enough. To act all wide-eyed and innocent about these problems at this late date is either remarkably ignorant or simply disingenuous.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/health-care-is-not-a-bowl-of...

Today is a kind of Christolecount-mas for that video existing in the universe.

I mean maybe I'm over-loving it, but it completely had the feeling of the-emperor-is-puffy-fleshed-and-corrupt-and-really-should-get-some-clothes-on kind of moment...

I mean, if god had said to me this morning, "Christolecount? I am going to get Nico Pitney onto Howie Kurtz's dooshy show about the press, and I'm going to pit him against a mainstream journalist to debate a topic that touches on the state of establishment journalism. So tell me, christolecount, who would you like that mainstream journalist to be?"

I wouldn't have paused before looking up and saying, "Milbank. D., please, your superholiness."

Finally, this god, had he existed, surely would have grinned and replied, "Hmm... D. That's D for douchebag, right?" with a wink.

I'd have slapped my knee laughing, nodded, and told hom, "GOD I love you!"

Dana Milbank quits Olbermann over disputed Obama quote

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday August 5, 2008

Print This Email This

In a column that ran in the Washington Post last week, reporter Dana Milbank accused Barack Obama of "hubris" for having allegedly told a private gathering of members of the House of Representatives, "This is the moment ... that the world is waiting for. ... I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

Several Congressional aides quickly challenged Milbank's version of the quote, insisting that he had omitted a crucial transition and that Obama had really said, far more modestly, that the enthusiasm which has met him "is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol."

The gathering excluded reporters and was not recorded, so there has been no ready way of resolving the argument. It has now spilled over to involve MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, on whose program Milbank has been a frequent guest. Although Olbermann had not commented publicly on the dispute, he had seemingly been insisting behind the scenes that Milbank owes Obama some form of apology, leading to what is now an extremely public falling-out.

As Olbermann explained, first at Daily Kos and then on Monday's Countdown, Milbank "notified us today that after four years appearing with us, he had accepted another television offer. This saved your crack Countdown staff an increasingly difficult decision."

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

In Sam's clip Milbank talks about the Huffington Post. But in the video below Milbank refuses to read blogs. The picture is rather fuzzy. It was tape in a bar.

Battle for Iran shifts from the streets to the heart of power

Ayatollah Khamenei's support for President Ahmadinejad has led both moderates and hard-liners to start plotting against him

The power struggle inside Iran appears to be moving from the streets into the heart of the regime itself this weekend amid reports that Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani is plotting to undermine the power of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani's manoeuvres against Khamenei come as tensions between the speaker of the parliament, Ali Larijani, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also appeared to be coming to a head.

Mass demonstrations on the streets against the election results have been effectively crushed by a massive police and basiij militia presence that has seen several dozen deaths and the arrests of hundreds of supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. But the splits within Iran's political elite are deepening.

In the past few days, Larijani - who was fired by Ahmadinejad as chief negotiator on nuclear issues with the west - has announced his intention of setting up a parliamentary committee to examine the recent post-election violence in an "even-handed way". In response, Ahmadinejad supporters within the parliament have discussed the possibility of impeaching Larijani.

In a move with even greater potential significance, according to several reports Rafsanjani has been lobbying fellow members of the powerful 86-strong Assembly of Experts, which he chairs, to replace Khamenei as the supreme leader with a small committee of senior ayatollahs, of which Khamenei would be a member. If Rafsanjani were successful, the constitutional change would mean a profound shift in the balance of power within Iran's theocratic regime.

"Although Hashemi Rafsanjani is not a popular politician in Iran any more, he is the only hope that Iranians have ... for the annulment of the election," said an Iranian political analyst who asked not be named. "He is the only one who people think is able to stand against the supreme leader."

The membership of the Assembly of Experts, which has the power to appoint the supreme leader, is split between those supporting Rafsanjani and those who have gravitated around the highly influential ultra-hardline cleric Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, who is widely seen as both a supporter of Ahmadinejad and the president's religious mentor. Yazdi is also believed to have his own ambitions to succeed Khamenei as supreme leader. Like Ahmadinejad, he is fiercely opposed to the push by reformists for more democratic representation in Iran.

Yazdi is also understood to have a large following among both the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the basiij militia, both also sources of support for Ahmadinejad.

Rafsanjani has long been a proponent of weakening the power of the supreme leader. He is understood to be arguing in favour of replacing Khamenei with a leadership council of three or more senior clerics.

The splits in the Assembly of Experts - the least visible aspect of the present crisis - will be critically important to its eventual outcome. Even avowed conservatives are reported to have sided with Rafsanjani against Yazdi and his faction, suggesting that there are real limits to the power it has been exercising in the past few weeks.

More here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/28/iran-mahmoud-ahmadinejad

No Recovery in Sight
By BOB HERBERT

How do you put together a consumer economy that works when the consumers are out of work?

One of the great stories you’ll be hearing over the next couple of years will be about the large number of Americans who were forced out of work in this recession and remained unable to find gainful employment after the recession ended. We’re basically in denial about this.

There are now more than five unemployed workers for every job opening in the United States. The ranks of the poor are growing, welfare rolls are rising and young American men on a broad front are falling into an abyss of joblessness.

Some months ago, the Obama administration and various mainstream economists forecast a peak unemployment rate of roughly 8 percent this year. It has already reached 9.4 percent, and most analysts now expect it to hit 10 percent or higher. Economists are currently spreading the word that the recession may end sometime this year, but the unemployment rate will continue to climb. That’s not a recovery. That’s mumbo jumbo.

Why this rampant joblessness is not viewed as a crisis and approached with the sense of urgency and commitment that a crisis warrants, is beyond me. The Obama administration has committed a great deal of money to keep the economy from collapsing entirely, but that is not enough to cope with the scope of the jobless crisis.

There were roughly seven million people officially counted as unemployed in November 2007, a month before the recession began. Now there are about 14 million. If you add to these unemployed individuals those who are working part time but would like to work full time, and those who want jobs but have become discouraged and stopped looking, you get an underutilization rate that is truly alarming.

“By May 2009,” according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, “the total number of underutilized workers had increased dramatically from 15.63 million to 29.37 million — a rise of 13.7 million, or 88 percent. Nearly 30 million working-age individuals were underutilized in May 2009, the largest number in our nation’s history. The overall labor underutilization rate in May 2009 had risen to 18.2 percent, its highest value in 26 years.”

If it were true that the recession is approaching its end and that these startlingly high numbers were about to begin a steady and substantial decline, there would be much less reason for alarm. But while there is evidence the recession is easing, hardly anyone believes a big-time employment turnaround is in the offing.

Three-quarters of the workers let go over the past year were permanently displaced, as opposed to temporarily laid off. They won’t be going back to their jobs when economic conditions improve. And many of those who were permanently displaced were in fields like construction and manufacturing in which the odds of finding work, even after a recovery takes hold, are not good.

Another startling aspect of this economic downturn is the toll it has taken on men, especially young men. Men accounted for nearly 80 percent of the loss in employment in this recession. As the labor market center reported, “The unemployment rate for males in April 2009 was 10 percent, versus only 7.2 percent for women, the largest absolute and relative gender gap in unemployment rates in the post-World War II period.”

Workers under 30 have sustained nearly half the net job losses since November 2007.

This is not a recipe for a strong economic recovery once the recession officially ends, or for a healthy society. Young males, especially, are being clobbered at an age when, typically, they would be thinking about getting married, setting up new households and starting families. Moreover, work habits and experience developed in one’s 20s often establish the foundation for decades of employment and earnings.

We’ve seen what happens when you rely on debt and inflated assets to keep the economy afloat. The economy can’t be re-established on a sound basis without aggressive efforts to put people back to work in jobs with decent wages.

We also need to consider the suffering that is being endured by these high levels of joblessness, including the profound negative effect on the families of the unemployed. Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, warned about the consequences for children. “What does it mean,” he asked, “when kids are under stress because there is no money in the household, or people have to move more, or are combining households, or lose their health insurance? I believe this is going to leave a permanent scar on a generation of kids.”

The first step in dealing with a crisis is to recognize that it exists. This is not a problem that will evaporate when the gross domestic product finally begins to creep into positive territory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th...

And That's the Way It Is, June 28th, 2009; Not ABC Weak in Revision, CBS Fork the Nation, NBC Meat the Press or CNN Lost Edition
Daryl Hannah in Clan of the Cave Bear

"If I sit silently, I have sinned." Mohammed Mossadegh

And That's the Way It is, June 28th, 2009; Not ABC Weak in Revision, CBS Fork the Nation, NBC Meat the Press or CNN Lost Edition

By Richard Power

It is only human nature to rant at the car radio, and in frustration, cry out to the heavens, "if only I were king," but, of course, it might be more germane to wish, "If only I were a TV network news anchor."

It could go something like this --

And now for a summary news and commentary on this last week's major stories:

The lead story, of course, is the Climate Crisis, the global emergency that threatens every nation, every economy, every ecosystem and every species.

In a narrow victory in the US House of Representatives, the Markey-Waxman "American Clean Energy Security" (ACES) bill was sent on to the US Senate ("Hail Mary, full of grace...") Is it enough? "No." Will the final product be even weaker once the powdered wigs of the Senate get a hold of it? Certainly.

But at least we have moved on from the suicidal debate about whether the crisis is real to the only slightly less exasperating debate about what we should do and how much it is going to cost.

After the bill's passage Friday evening, Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore issued a statement: This comprehensive legislation will make meaningful reductions ... The next step is passage of this legislation by the Senate to help restore America's leadership ... We are at an extraordinary moment, with an historic opportunity to confront one of the world’s most serious challenges. Our actions now will be remembered by this generation and all those to follow – in our own nation and others around the world. Al Gore, 6-26-09

In related news, preeminent US climate scientist, NASA's James Hansen, who has been a Hero of the Evolution, took his principled leadership a step farther this week; he went to the coal fields of West Virginia and got himself arrested along with actress Darryl Hannah and other activists. (Understory, 6-24-09) More...

http://words-of-power.blogspot.com/2009/06/and-thats-way-it-is-june-28th...

Newsmax -


The White House does not appoint the inspector general of the ITC – Aranoff has that authority. Aranoff was appointed to the position by President Bush.

Overdraft Fees: A $17.5 Billion Dollar Industry
icon gravatar.comwww.economyincrisis.org/articles/show/3061
sent by PHred42 since 1 day 6 hours 17 minutes, published about 1 day 7 minutes
Consumers being weighted down by overdraft fees may soon have relief in the form of H.R. 1456, The Consumer Overdraft Protection Fair Practices Act. .... Introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the bill would provide consumers with protection against unfair banking practices that are designed to maximize the number of overdraft charges and gouge consumers. .... Overdrafting has turned into a multi-billion dollar enterprise for the baking sector, oftentimes by means that are unethical at best. According to The Center for Responsible Lending, overdraft charges generated $17.5 billion for banks in 2007, up 70 percent in 2004 when banks generated $10.3 billion.

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1022188

Pink slip would be Sanford’s fate in private sector
By NOELLE PHILLIPS and KRISTY EPPLEY RUPON - nophillips@thestate.com
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Take the Gov. Mark Sanford story out of politics and put it in the business world.

A Fortune 500 CEO lies about his whereabouts and then disappears without telling his executive vice president, board of directors or secretary where he is going. He turns off his phones. He’s gone for six days. When he comes home, it’s discovered he was overseas visiting a mistress.

What would happen?

Business management and ethics experts have a simple answer.

He would be fired, said Jim Balassone, executive-in-residence at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University where he teaches business ethics.

“If I were on the board, I would question, ‘Do we have the right CEO? Does he have the right priorities?’ ” Balassone said.

A company president’s extramarital affair might not impact a corporation’s bottom line, but it says a lot about his character. That, in turn, calls into question his leadership ability, Balassone said.

The CEO in that scenario probably would be fired because of the “tremendous image crisis,” said Richard Larrick, professor of management for Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. But it might be easier for a businessman to bounce back.

Such a move shows bad judgment, but not necessarily business incompetence, he said. “The corporate world is somewhat forgiving of that.”

Politicians, on the other hand, also have constitutional responsibilities, he said.

“I actually think businesses are more flexible,” Larrick said. “There’s no assumption in an organization that there’s some formal head that’s always available to make decisions.

“Government officials have this extra layer of responsibility and in some sense can fall farther.”

To be sure, affairs have brought down CEOs. More....

http://www.thestate.com/803/story/843245.html

bloggerati

I "heard" of a Charlie Parker and a Charlie Pride; One is Black & One is White. I do not know COUNTRY AT ALL. I thought White Charlie was the one that ended in the gutter.

I know my Father (and even a sister) listened to BOTH Charlie's. I did no such thing as EVER listen to Country.
If anyone cares to be a bit "linear" and explain where I went wrong -- terrific, BUT, please know, I even care less now. In the future, I just will let all your "country" Karma be -- although I do believe in the power of certain prayers (which, to me, is logical and is proven).

It's all good, all the time for some nuts.

>Submitted by CeeCee on Sat, 06/27/2009 - 3:09pm.
Sam's on...
Ring of Fire

Thanks CeeCee
I Just heard it on the rebroadcast in Chicago 820 AM WCPT

I've been busy and would have missed it, thanks.

Gay Pride Parade in Chicago;

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-090628-pride-parade-2009-pictures...

Submitted by maggiesboy on Fri, 06/26/2009 - 11:41pm.

What the Obama administration has to do is the governing equivalent of ....

Sometimes I think we all have the patience and attention span of fleas.

----------------
Well said mb

Speaking about myself: I am loosing patience with the congress (all republicans, and conservative democrats) more than with Prez Obama himself.
It's just that the last 28 years have been unbearable.
I guess long term permanent solutions take longer to put in place.
So yes we should have more patience.

Submitted by toniD on Sun, 06/28/2009 - 6:09pm.Overdraft Fees: A $17.5
-----------

ToniD, I recently lost my debit card. My bank charged 10.00 to replace it. I have no doubt , eventually, they are going to charge for each transaction. If I use my card as a credit card, the bank charges a 2.00 fee. If I use my card at another bank, that bank will charge a fee. Then, my bank will charge a fee for not using their machine. In other words, a 10.00 withdrawal can end up costing 4.00. I also think charging a fee for each check written is also going to be a reality.

Thank you for adding your name to our petition, calling for healthcare reform which includes a universally available public option, at StandwithDrDean.com

As we move forward, we will use all the skills and tools we have to leverage Congress and pass meaningful reform that makes sure that every American has the care they need.

The more people in our movement for change, the more effective we will be. Please ask your friends, co-workers, and family to join our campaign. Just send them a personal note from you and include this link: www.StandwithDrDean.com

Thank you for everything you do.

-Howard
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
http://StandwithDrDean.com

there is much to do. We should focus our aim well.

gonna try this new sig...

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

Cool.

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

that link to the chicagotribune crashed this old pc

This Weeks Le Show:
Harry Shearer plays his
recorded interview (mid-June)with
Jane Mayer "The Dark Side"

A 30 minute interview that starts
aprox 17 minutes onto the show.

at 10pm (Central)
11: E.T.
9: M.T.
8 pm (Pacific)

http://wbez.org/default.aspx

http://wbez.org/Programs.aspx?schedule=Sunday
http://www.harryshearer.com/news/le_show/

TV pitchman Billy Mays
found dead at home
Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman known for his boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean, has died. He was 50.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obit_billy_mays

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The Honduran army ousted and exiled leftist President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War. Angry Zelaya supporters took to the streets and set up barricades.

The dawn coup was strongly condemned by Zelaya's regional ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez -- who has long championed the left in Latin America. Chavez put his military on alert in case Honduran troops moved against his embassy or envoy there.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, the European Union and a string of other foreign governments also voiced backing for Zelaya, who was snatched by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, had upset the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

Pro-Zelaya protesters, some of them masked and wielding sticks, set up barricades in the center of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and sealed off road access to the presidential palace

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55R24E20090629

Minnesota Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that he would consider certifying the Senate election of Democrat Al Franken if federal courts don't act speedily should lawyers for Norm Coleman file an appeal.

On CNN's "State of the Union," Pawlenty said that he is awaiting a ruling "any day" from the Minnesota Supreme Court and that he would follow the court's guidance.

Asked whether he would certify the election if lawyers for Coleman file an appeal that could go to the U.S. Supreme Court, Pawlenty said that he would follow any injunction or stay. But he did appear to signal that there was some urgency to the situation and did want to see the issue, uncertain now for eight months, finally resolved.

"I'm prepared to sign it as soon as they give the green light," Pawlenty said of state court guidance. "A federal court could stay or put a limit on or stop the effect of the state court ruling. If they chose, if they do that, I would certainly follow their direction. But if that doesn't happen promptly or drags out for any period of time, then we need to move ahead with signing this, particularly if I'm ordered to do that by the state court."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pawlenty-may-certify-franken-if-batt...

By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 28, 2009; 3:57 PM

ROME -- The first-ever scientific tests on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul "seem to conclude" that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday.

Archaeologists recently unearthed and opened the white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, which for some 2,000 years has been believed by the faithful to be the tomb of St. Paul.

Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or second century.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul," Benedict said, announcing the findings at a service in the basilica to mark the end of the Vatican's Paoline year, in honor of the apostle.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR200906...

LOS ANGELES — Gale Storm, whose wholesome appearance and perky personality made her one of early television's biggest stars on "My Little Margie" and "The Gale Storm Show," has died at age 87.

Storm, who had been in failing health in recent years, died Saturday at a convalescent hospital in Danville, said her son, Peter Bonnell.

Before landing the starring role in "My Little Margie" in 1952, Storm starred in numerous B movies opposite such stars as Roy Rogers, Eddie Albert and Jackie Cooper. After her last TV series, "The Gale Storm Show," ended in 1960 she went on to a successful singing career while continuing to make occasional TV appearances.

Storm was a Texas high schooler named Josephine Owaissa Cottle when she entered a talent contest for a radio show called "Gateway to Hollywood" in 1940. She was brought to Los Angeles for the finals, where her wholesome vivacity won over the radio audience and she was awarded a movie contract. . . .

http://www.mercurynews.com/natbreakingnews/ci_12709123

...But he did appear to signal that there was some urgency to the situation and did want to see the issue, uncertain now for eight months, finally resolved.

uncertain ?.
Franken Won !
lets get on with it already!

Where's The Fire? And Brimstone?
Submitted by Crank Bait on Sat, 06/27/2009 - 3:34pm.

Submitted by Annette on Sat, 06/27/2009 - 3:12pm.
Hey yo Crank - I talked my way out of a ticket last night.
------
First guess: Speeding.
Second guess: Rolling through a stop.
Third guess: Got into a Christian Rock concert for free.
====
I was around Boliver - speeding 76 in a 65 and I guess they don't like it when you're driving in the left lane.
»

Dr. Swingline
Submitted by Crank Bait on Sat, 06/27/2009 - 3:45pm.

Submitted by Annette on Sat, 06/27/2009 - 3:12pm.
...My 11 year old fell at the pool yesterday and had to have 8 staples in her head at the ER...
------
First guess: Running on wet concrete.
Second guess: Walking on wet concrete.
Third guess: Engaging in "horseplay."

(I have never understood what constitutes horseplay? I only know that I was told not to do it.)

Your second guess was right on. That new Ramada Inn in Springfield has some schnazzy floors in the pool area that will make you fall right on your ass if you're barefoot. And even if you're not.
»

Annette,

When I was a pool rat (and one-meter springboard diver), some of the pools had "brushed" concrete finishes around them either to reduce the number of slip-and-falls on wet concrete or because the concrete finisher was an idiot.

After a couple of hours of in-and-out of the pool, human feet were raw meat but nobody broke a coccyx.

;) TEA CHEERS... ;)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/27/AR200906...

[excerpt]
Agencies Clash on Military's Border Role
At Issue: Which One Directs Troops in Anti-Drug Mission

Guardsmen from Utah extend a wall at the Arizona-Mexico border. A proposal to send 1,500 additional Guard troops to the border is under consideration. (2006 Photo By Khampha Bouaphanh -- Associated Press)

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 28, 2009

A proposal to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to counter drug trafficking has triggered a bureaucratic standoff between the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security over the military's role in domestic affairs, according to officials in both departments.

The debate has engaged a pair of powerful personalities, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in what their subordinates describe as a turf fight over which agency should direct the use of troops to assist in the fight against Mexican cartels and which one should pay for them.

At issue is a proposal to send 1,500 additional troops to the border to analyze intelligence and to provide air support and technical assistance to border agencies. The governors of Texas, Arizona, California and New Mexico began making the requests in January, drawing support from Napolitano but prompting objections from the Pentagon, where officials argue that it could lead to a permanent, expanded mission for the military.

President Obama has signaled that he is open to the idea, asking Congress for $250 million to deploy the National Guard while also saying he was "not interested in militarizing the border." In the war supplemental funding bill that Obama signed last week, lawmakers appropriated the money for other Justice and DHS border security but said the president could ask again when he reached a decision. The issue has been stalled before a National Security Council policy committee, after which it would go to Obama for a decision.

Neither Napolitano nor Gates has made the disagreement personal, although some of their aides have privately expressed exasperation at what one called an interagency "food fight."

[end excerpt]

Really.

Hunks of CIA history in this long New Yorker article by JANE MAYER. Panetta, who backed Sen. Leahy's 'truth commission' suggestion, is now stuck running intereference for Obama's decisions on the agents who tortured.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_mayer?curren...

[excerpt]

The record of outsiders taking over the C.I.A. is mixed. John McCone, a California shipping magnate who ran the agency in the Kennedy and Johnson years, is often cited as being among the most successful directors; having been trained as a mechanical engineer, he was skilled at assessing threats posed by both conventional and nuclear weapons. But other outsiders have been met with intense hostility. James Schlesinger was named C.I.A. director by President Richard Nixon after heading the Atomic Energy Commission. Given instructions to “get rid of the clowns,” Schlesinger dismissed or forced into retirement more than five hundred analysts and a thousand clandestine officers. He faced death threats, and his tenure lasted six months. In 1995, President Clinton appointed John Deutch, who had previously served at the Pentagon. Deutch tried to improve the oversight of clandestine operatives after evidence surfaced that an agent in Guatemala had covered up two murders. Deutch was reviled by many operatives, and he left the agency after eighteen months. Eventually, he was accused of mishandling classified documents and stripped of his security clearance. “You pick on the C.I.A. at your own peril,” Michael Waldman says.

Nevertheless, many critics believe that the agency must reckon with the legacy of the Bush era. In the past few years, irrefutable evidence has emerged that after 9/11 the agency lost its moral bearings. A confidential Red Cross report has come into public view, along with formerly classified government documents, leaving no doubt that the agency subjected scores of terror suspects to prolonged physical and psychological cruelty. Officers shackled prisoners for weeks in contorted positions; chained them to the ceiling wearing only diapers; exploited their phobias; propelled them head first into walls. At least three prisoners died.

Torture is a felony, and is sometimes treated as a capital crime. The Convention Against Torture, which America ratified in 1994, requires a government to prosecute all acts of torture; failure to do so is considered a breach of international law. The issue of torture assumed symbolic importance during the 2008 campaign, and when Obama took office many of his liberal supporters expected him to hold the perpetrators of abuse accountable. Democratic leaders in Congress pushed particularly hard for action. Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had investigated the military’s role in detention and interrogation abuse but was kept by his committee’s limited jurisdiction from investigating the C.I.A.; he urged the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, to open an inquiry, saying, “There needs to be an accounting of torture in this country.” ...

Panetta may not have scars from the past eight years, but he is surrounded by people who do. Some of his closest advisers have connections to the torture program. Panetta brought only one person with him to the agency: Jeremy Bash, the well-regarded former chief counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, who now serves as his chief of staff. Phil Trounstine, a California-based political consultant and analyst who has known Panetta for years, says of him, “Here’s a guy who has been very critical of the Bush world view, who has to enforce a new set of guidelines and policies by leading the same agency and the same people as in the past.”

[end excerpt]

That hurts. Not really though (you're so anaesthetized when they go in that you don't feel it); actually it HERSH, the sinister animal-hurting surgical supply magnate. When I had eighteen staples in my skull, my sister noticed that each staple featured the name "Hersh." They didn't hurt much coming out either, thanks to the loving touch of the true healer - the nurse. I'd've been grateful to've had my mom around, too, Annette. But I wasn't 11 anymore. May your eleven-year-old never completely lose sight of the sheer joy of horseplay.

;o

http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/king-kong-terrorists/

[excerpt]

It is this image of the all-pervasive and all-powerful Muslim terrorist that in turn feeds the discourse of the ‘war on terror’ and which provides securocrats and technocrats with both the practical and moral justification for the perpetuation of certain stereotypes about Islam and the Muslim identity.

This inflation of the powers and capabilities of Muslims in turn explains and justifies the inflation of expenditure that goes into sustaining the material economy of the discourse on the ‘war on terror’ as well. For as the perceived threat of ‘Islamic terror’ multiplies and is magnified, so are the methods used to contain the perceived threat as well.

It is therefore hardly surprising to note that accompanying the dissemination and sedimentation of the discourse of the ‘war on terror’ across Asia and Europe we have also seen the creation of an even bigger and potentially more destructive anti-terror security industry and state security apparatus.

In the Philippines, for instance, the discourse on the ‘war on terror’ has provided justification for joint military exercises between the armed forces of the Philippines and the United States, which under normal circumstances would have gone against the spirit of the post-Marcos 1986 Constitution of the country that specifically forbids any Philippine president from allowing or inviting foreign armed forces to operate in the country.

In the case of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia the same discourse has sustained and helped to create even more security institutions and anti-terrorism agencies, funded by local government sources as well as by foreign donors.
...

It is this super-human character that is imposed on the narrative device of the ‘Muslim terrorist’ that justifies the creation, expansion and perpetuation of the military-industrial complex in so many of the countries in Asia today....

The introduction of more and more anti-terror laws, norms and conventions across Southeast Asia has led to the expansion (both virtual and real) of a state security apparatus even bigger than the one that existed during the Cold War, and which now presents itself to the public in the form of new legislation that allows for even more phone-tapping, checks on the internet, routine interrogations, detentions without trial etc.

[end excerpt]

Khamenei has shown himself to be a NOTHING, just another pathetic squealing affront to humanity. Time to join Stalin, Amin, Taylor, Milosevic, etc. in the dustbin of history.

Holy Man says "kill them all". But wait, then who'd be left to lick your vice-tight human sphincter?

I am grinding my teeth and praying to a God I don't believe in that the Iranian people are able to overthrow these sick sick bastards who insist on having veto power over their "democracy".

This is about as jingoistic a post as you'll get out of me. Fuck 'em. Godspeed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.vodamusic.com/blog/

Guided By Voices:

Eyeline the driveway
Eye black the door
Sky all around me
Levels life from roof to floor

Trees and knees are lovely
Seek it, find the core
I have grown to life
Like all in silence
Wait for more

Everywhere with helicopter
Hard to follow/swallow
When I'm slow
Everywhere with helicopter
Sending off where lightning goes
(censor of the lightning ghosts)

I will try to fight them
I will let them nowhere to go
Try escape the pace
I'll say "God bless you"
Let me know

We know the answers
We fill us in
I do not diminish
Start to finish
Front to end

Everywhere with helicopter
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.vodamusic.com/blog/

Where the Sharp Partisan Differences Are on the Economy

June 26, 2009 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's not surprising that Democrats and Republicans differ sharply on what they consider to be the top economic concerns, but now Gallup, in a poll conducted June 23-24, has put some numbers to those issues that define where the divide is.
CQ Photo

Eighty-four percent or more of Republicans say the top economic worries are increasing the federal budget deficit, increasing federal income taxes and increases problems being faced by the states with their budgets. Eighty-nine percent or more of Democrats cite the top worries as rising unemployment, the increasing numbers of Americans without health care insurance and the increasing cost of health care.

For the top issues of concern to Democrats, there is a 25 point gap between them and Republicans on the health insurance coverage issue. The gap is only 9 points on unemployment and 7 points on health care costs.

For the top issues of concern to Republicans, there is a 24 point gap between them and Democrats on worries about increasing taxes, a 15 point difference on the deficit, but only a 5 point difference on concerns about state budgets.

Large majorities of Republicans, ranging from 78 percent to 82 percent, also cite as economic concerns the federal government's expanding role in ownership of private corporations and increasing regulation of business and industry. Those two issues provide the largest difference between the parties with gaps of 40 points and 38 points respectively.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/polltracker/2009/06/where-the-sharp-partisan...

Crank - it was a bumpy surface that was uncomfortable to walk on, but slippery when wet. Artsy, but even with shoes, I nearly bought it myself. And you were a diver? Yum ;-)
Hee, I just thought of the second way you could take that! I meant the first -

Ms._A - thanks for the well wishes. Seeing it traumatized me a bit - I keep thinking of horror movies and such. Unbroken skin is something we take for granted, and there are places where metal should not be present. In your honor, I took my iced tea maker to the hotel. It's so easy to make in hotels because of those lovely ice machines.

Ellwort - my daughter was the authoritative derisive voice among a band of unruly little league 10 year old boys who were playing a game of football in the pool when she fell, and after she came back, they all circled around her begging to see the staples. Like they were candy or something. Boys are so hilarious. :-)

have said, "OOOooo, let me see? Cool, stiches (staples)".
HaHaHa ;)

Betraying the Planet
By PAUL KRUGMAN

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.

Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there’s growing evidence that climate change is self-reinforcing — that, for example, rising temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events.

In other words, we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?

Well, sometimes even the most authoritative analyses get things wrong. And if dissenting opinion-makers and politicians based their dissent on hard work and hard thinking — if they had carefully studied the issue, consulted with experts and concluded that the overwhelming scientific consensus was misguided — they could at least claim to be acting responsibly.

But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.

Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday’s debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.” I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.

Yet Mr. Broun’s declaration was met with applause.

Given this contempt for hard science, I’m almost reluctant to mention the deniers’ dishonesty on matters economic. But in addition to rejecting climate science, the opponents of the climate bill made a point of misrepresenting the results of studies of the bill’s economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low.

Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?

Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.

Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.

Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rs...

Of hearing about these detainees.

1. Give them fair trials
2. Release the innocent
3. Treat the guilty as POWs released when the conflict is over.
4. Follow the Geneva

How To Destroy (Almost) Half the Planet for the Low, Low Price of Just 5% of Global GDP
by Nate Silver @ 2:10 AM

One of the more engaging critics of the Waxman-Markey ("cap-and-trade") bill that the House approved on Friday is Jim Manzi, whose work appears in a bunch of places like The National Review, and The American Scene. The economics of both climate change itself and policy efforts to mitigate it are murky, problematic areas and Manzi deserves credit for trying navigate the waters honestly -- it's nice to be engaged in a debate with a conservative who doesn't seem to think that Al Gore invented global warming.

ne of his Manzi's central points is that climate change just ain't all that damaging, economically speaking: it will reduce global GDP by "only" 5 percent one hundred years hence, he writes, even arguably pessimistic assumptions by the IPCC about both the magnitude of climate change and its economic impacts. There are a couple of economic points that can be raised against this, the most persuasive of which has to do with the possibility of "fat tail" events like warming of 10-20 degrees C, which appear unlikely based on present knowledge but which cannot entirely be ruled out, and which would effectively destroy the world economy if not civilization itself. There's also the question of what happens after 2110, because if we've reached that point by 2110, it means that things almost certainly will continue to get worse, not better.

Most of all, though, I wonder if GDP is really the right measure at all. This is not a qualitative objection against looking at things through an economic lens: it is, rather, a merely technical one.

The problem with GDP is this: it varies greatly across counties, by a factor of 800 or so on a per-capita basis between Burundi and Luxembourg, or nearly 2,000 if you count Zimbabwe, which effectively does not have an economy. A lot of countries contribute almost nothing to global GDP, even though they may have tens or hundreds of millions of people. You could literally wipe them from the globe and the impact on global GDP would be de minimis.

Why don't we try and do that, in fact? Let's see how much of the world we can destroy before getting to 5% of global GDP. The figures I'll use are IMF estimates of 2008 GDP, for all countries bit Zimbabwe where the IMF did not publish a 2008 estimate and I use 2007 instead.

Zimbabwe, indeed, is the first country on the chopping block, whose 11.7 million greedy bastards consume a whole 0.0196 percent of the world's output -- a global low of just $55 per person. After that, we get to destroy Burundi, The Congo (the larger of the two Congos -- the one that used to be called Zaire), Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Eretrea, Malawai ... do you really me to go through the whole list? You do? ... Malwai, Ethopia, Sierra Leone, Niger, Afghanistan (big problem solved there), Togo, Guinea, Uganda, Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Nepal, Myanmar, Rwanda, Mozambique, Timor-Leste, the Gambia -- we've only used 0.27 percent of GDP to this point, by the way -- Bangladesh (which has 162 million people), Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Lesotho, Ghana, Haiti, Tajikistan, Comoros, Cambodia, Laos, Benin, Kenya, Chad, The Soloman Islands and Kyrgyzistan. Next up is India, which, while growing, still consumes only 2 percent of world GDP. Then Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Mauritania, Pakistan (another problem solved), Senegal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Côte d'Ivoire, Zambia, Yemen, Cameroon, Djibouti, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Nigeria (another pretty big country -- we've now got only about 1.4 points of GDP left), Guyana, the Sudan, Bolivia (our first foray into South America), Moldova, Honduras, the Philippines, Sra Lanka, Mongolia, Bhutan and Egypt.

At this point, we've used up 4.4 points of GDP. Indonesia is next on the list of lowest per-capita GDPs. But unfortunately we can't quite fit them into the budget so we'll spare them, opting instead for Vanauatu, Tonga, Paragua, Morocco, Syria, Swaziland, Samoa, Guatemala, Georgia (the country -- not the place where they have Chik-Fil-A), the other Congo, and Iraq. Skipping China, we then get to Armenia, Jordan, Cape Verde, the Maldives -- and another big bunch of skips follows here since we're very low on budget -- Fiji and finally Namibia. Collectively, these countries consume 4.99997 percent of the world's GDP. There's absolutely no budget left for anyone else -- not even St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which would be a great band name, BTW.

So, we'll have to settle for just these 81 countries, which collectively have a mere 2,865,623,000 people, or about 43 percent of the world's population. More...

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/how-to-destroy-almost-half-planet...

Video

El-Gharani was treated with appalling brutality. After being tortured in Pakistani custody, he was sold to US forces, who flew him to a prison at Kandahar airport, where, he said, one particular soldier “would hold my penis, with scissors, and say he’d cut it off

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22926.htm

The Transition From Democracy To A Bnk-run Society

By Mike Whitney

The banks created the financial crisis, and now they are its biggest beneficiaries. They don't need to worry about risk, because Bernanke has assured them that they will be bailed out regardless of the cost.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22931.htm

:)

Time for Iron Man

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Monday, June 29, 2009

Every general studies the mistakes of the last war, and President Obama's style has been much influenced by the difficulties of Bill Clinton's presidency.

In particular, Obama has shied away from handing Congress his own plans on "stone tablets," a phrase much loved by senior adviser David Axelrod, and instead allowed it room to legislate.

The president has won a lot, including a decent stimulus bill and laws on children's health coverage, tobacco regulation and employment discrimination that, in less exciting times, would have been seen as landmarks. But the stimulus bill was neither as good nor as large as it might have been, and Obama is still dealing with the problems created by the legislative train wreck over his Guantanamo policies.

And then there's his centerpiece campaign to reform the health-care system.

Obama's initial approach of laying out principles and giving Congress latitude was the right response to Clinton's mistake of offering a detailed proposal, only to see it mocked and rejected. Yet two big problems confront health-care reform that only Obama's intervention can solve.

The first is the absence of substantial Republican support for comprehensive change. Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has done everything short of making ethanol a reimbursable prescription drug to win the heart of his good Republican friend from Iowa, Chuck Grassley.

I'm told that Grassley, under immense pressure from Republican colleagues not to deal at all, has informed Baucus that he cannot sign on to a bill if it is supported by only one other Republican, the sensible Olympia Snowe of Maine. Grassley needs more cover from more conservative colleagues.

This creates a terrible dynamic in which Baucus is pushed toward one concession after another. It's a setup for a sellout. And the compromise Baucus is likely to produce cannot be the final word.

Meanwhile, Democrats are divided among themselves on two central issues. The first is over how to pay for expanded coverage. During the presidential campaign, Obama stoutly opposed paying for new health-care proposals by taxing existing health-care benefits. The Democrats' allies in the unions are prepared to go to war if Obama backs off this pledge.

The unions argue plausibly that their members gave up wages in exchange for high-end health plans and that reform should not leave financially pressed middle class workers worse off.

But other liberals see taxing especially generous health care packages as a way of having the better-off assist the less privileged. Grassley, who endorsed this idea yesterday on ABC News's "This Week," is among conservatives who support this view. In addition, some liberals fear that if health care reform is paid for by more general tax increases, those levies will be unavailable later to control the deficit without slashing programs.

Then there is the issue of offering a government-run health plan as one alternative in a reformed insurance market.
More...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR200906...

The uprising In the Amazon is more urgent than Iran's - it will determine the future of the planet

By Johann Hari

While the world nervously watches the uprising in Iran, an even more important uprising has been passing unnoticed – yet its outcome will shape your fate, and mine

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22932.htm

Sorry, was off getting breakfast.

Whud ya have

http://worldstreams.org/past62.html

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Obama, Cigarettes and Marijuana with Noam Chomsky. Dr. Ken Hildebrandt, YouTube. May 17, 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Awt-0zbqLU

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

· American Power and the New Mandarins - 40th Anniversary Talk. Brecht Forum, Riverside Church, New York City. June 12, 2009.

http://www.booktv.org/Watch/10600/American+Power+and+the+New+Mandarins+4...

Raisin toast and coffee. I don't eat much anymore.

It's hard cooking for myself. I make too much and end up eating the same thing for 3-4 days.

That actually sounds pretty good toniD.... :)

Congress is in recess until July 6. If you have anything to say to your member of Congress, do it over the next week. When Senators and Representatives are here in DC, they are treated like royalty. People fawn over them. But, when they're back home, they're just retail politicians -- and they need your votes. So, for example, if you want the public option in health care reform, tell them this week. Call the local offices. Attend a town hall meeting if there is one. Show up at the Fourth of July parade. Almost nothing freaks out Capitol Hill staffers more than the boss coming back to Washington after a trip home with a report on what constituents are saying. It's one of the few things that can trump the high-powered lobbyists.

Today is the big gay party at the White House to celebrate Stonewall. LGBT "leaders" have been tripping over themselves to get invited. But, no worries. Everyone who is going is really going so they can tell the President that he really needs to address LGBT issues. Yes, that's why everyone is going. More on this later...

Let's get it started....

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/monday-morning-open-thread_29.html

That actually sounds pretty good toniD.... :)

:D

Government response This section requires expansion.

An Oklahoman boy during a dust storm, 1936

During President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first 100 days in 1933, governmental programs designed to conserve soil and restore the ecological balance of the nation were implemented. Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes established the Soil Erosion Service in August 1933 under Hugh Hammond Bennett. In 1935 it was reorganized and renamed the Soil Conservation Service. More recently it has been renamed the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).[15]

Additionally, the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) was created after more than six million pigs were slaughtered to stabilize prices. The pigs went to waste. The FSRC diverted agricultural commodities to relief organizations. Apples, beans, canned beef, flour and pork products were distributed through local relief channels. Cotton goods were later included, to clothe the needy.[16]

In 1935, the federal government formed a Drought Relief Service (DRS) to coordinate relief activities. The DRS bought cattle in counties which were designated emergency areas, for $14 to $20 a head. Animals unfit for human consumption - more than 50 percent at the beginning of the program - were destroyed. The remaining cattle were given to the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) to be used in food distribution to families nationwide. Although it was difficult for farmers to give up their herds, the cattle slaughter program helped many of them avoid bankruptcy. "The government cattle buying program was a God-send to many farmers, as they could not afford to keep their cattle, and the government paid a better price than they could obtain in local markets."[17]

President Roosevelt ordered that Civilian Conservation Corps to plant a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil itself in place. The administration also began to educate farmers on soil conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices.[18][19] In 1937, the federal government began an aggressive campaign to encourage Dust Bowlers to adopt planting and plowing methods that conserved the soil. The government paid the reluctant farmers a dollar an acre to practice one of the new methods. By 1938, the massive conservation effort had reduced the amount of blowing soil by 65 percent. Nevertheless, the land failed to yield a decent living. In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, rain finally came.

[edit]
Lasting Consequences

By the time the major drought concluded in the mid 1940s the demographics and political economy of the plains of the 100th meridian had fundamentally changed. The out migration of the 1930s and the demands of World War II employment outside the region of almost all the male and head-of-household migrating population in the war and in war related industries outside of the region, permanently removed from these great western plains, small scale single family farming agriculture, which had been the origin of the disaster in the first place.

The families who migrated experienced a permanent, quantum leap in their household incomes in the aftermath of the war in their new locations and settings as non-farm workers. This guaranteed that they had no desire to return to the harrowing poverty of their rural existence as it was, even before the great drought. Advances in agriculture, transportation and agri-business in the post war period further contributed to the collapse in demand for the small scale farming that had taken place in the region. In simple economic terms, the cost of returning these lands to useful agricultural production, given the need to protect the delicate soil environment of the region, would have produced wholesale farm product prices that were uncompetitive with prices for products produced elsewhere in the US.

It's the eating I'm having problems with. When you are used to cooking for a family, then just cooking for yourself, it's hard to make smaller amounts.

I enjoy when someone comes over to visit so I can cook.

Dominionism describes, in several distinct ways, a tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians, especially in the United States of America, to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action—aiming either at a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law. The use and application of this terminology is a matter of controversy.

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

I hate cooking for myself. Cooking and a good family mean is meant to be enjoyed by others. eh

Hope things are better for you.

Municipal Borrowers Defend Disclosure, May Give More Information on Swaps

State and local government officials borrowing in the $2.72 trillion municipal bond market defended the adequacy of disclosure to investors, adding they may provide more information about agreements such as interest-rate swaps.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aQoCN1AX7ISc

Housing Recovery in Peril as Obama Aid Fails to Get Financing Breakthrough

Driving through Riverside, California, Bruce Norris pointed to a half-dozen empty houses with “For Sale” signs stuck in untended lawns that he said investors might buy if banks would just extend some credit.

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

European Confidence Rises More Than Forecast, Lifted by Stimulus Measures

European confidence in the economic outlook rose more than economists forecast in June, adding to signs that record low interest rates and stimulus measures are helping to pull the region out of a recession.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aqxNq0ljoto4

Loyalist paramilitaries give up arms in N. Ireland

By Agence France-Presse

The main loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland announced Saturday they were decommissioning their weapons, a new milestone on the road to peace after decades of unrest.

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Red Hand Commandos (RHC) have reportedly killed around 1,000 people between them during several decades of unrest known as the Troubles.

“The dark days are now behind us and it is time to move on,” the UDA said in a statement. “There is no place for guns and violence in the new society we are building. It is time to work for a better future.”

The move was welcomed by political leaders in Northern Ireland, Britain and Ireland. Britain’s Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said it was a “historic day”.

[...]

Link

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

They Never Quit

by digby

I don't want to get into another generational spat today, but there seems to be a building meme that the people to blame for the economic problems are the undisciplined baby boomers, which is simplistic at best and truly devastating if it catches on. This is because it plays into the hands of the fiscal scolds who want desperately to drive a wedge between the generations so they can use this crisis to finally destroy social security.

Here's CNN yesterday:

ROMANS: Let's talk a bit about how the boomers could slow down a recovery. Could that be a factor?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think it's going to be a very real factor. We know that households in general have lost an enormous amount of wealth in this recession. Their housing value, their stock market portfolios got hit hard and they started with a lot of debt. We would expect everyone to save more to rebuild that wealth going forward but the boomers are closer to retirement and they're a big chunk of the population so we'd expect them to save more and have a bigger influence. They say that is less spending and I expect consumer spending will be sluggish going forward.

ROMANS: The two sort of factors here, we talk about blaming the boomers for this whole thing and there is the fact they rejected the frugality of their parents and really perfected the art of spending someone else's money then there is also just the big size of the cohorts that they say demographics, just this huge size and they start to slow down to retire, when they start to take their money out to live on. That has a huge impact for the rest of the country.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: It's a huge impact for the country. It's a huge impact for the world quite frankly. The United States has been the last retail market for a decade now. China, India, Europe, Japan you name it, they counted on selling goods into the United States. As we come out of this recession the whole world has to find a different way to do business. We are going to need export more to other countries and we are going to need to have spending by businesses instead of just households.

ROMANS: Let's talk about the baby boomers' health care and Social Security needs. This is big, too. The youngest boomers start turning I think they start turning 45 this year so you're talking about 15 or 20-year period where there will be more pressure on health care and Social Security?

HOLTZ-EAKIN: We've seen this coming for a long time. It is really vivid in the federal budget, past 2011 you see the Medicare lines ramp up, you see the Social Security spending ramp up. And to be quite frankly we are not in a position to pay those bills. There needs to be serious work on Medicare and that's part of the health care reform debate this year. It's obvious that we need to fix Social Security and we probably should do it quickly.

So, what we have is the idea that the boomers were a bunch of spendthrifts who gambled all their money thus causing the recession, but now they are going into retirement and are not going to be spending as much money so they are prolonging the recession. You can't win. And the youngest boomers who are turning 45 will be spending into the fund for the next 23 years or so are chopped liver whose contributions into the system count for nothing --- as do those who paid all that extra money in over the past 25 years so the government could put it in a "lockbox" for our retirement, which they promptly spent on wars and tax cuts for rich people.

More here:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

I love how the Post Shredded Wheat commercial plays up its old-school health benefits while very subtly mocking conservative values ...

Director's Cut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULzt2rZjT4Q

I dunno, I think it's funny...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.vodamusic.com/blog/

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters have “begun to use his disputed victory in this month’s election to toughen the nation’s stance internationally and to consolidate control internally.” The government declared its intention to prosecute some of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s advisers, arrested some Iranians who work at the British embassy, and broke up an “opposition gathering.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR200906...

ACORN

Today, OneWest is selling the home Irene Leary has lived in for 34 years right out from under her — and she isn’t the only one.

OneWest, Litton of Goldman Sachs, HomEq of Barclays, and American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc, are four big mortgage service companies that have refused to sign on to President Obama’s program to stop foreclosures. Together, these mortgage companies are responsible for the mortgages of 2 million American families.

Make no mistake — Irene and other homeowners will actually lose their homes today if we don’t act now.

Fill out the form below to instantly send letters to the CEOs of these companies asking them to sign on to “Making Home Affordable,” the president’s plan to stop the foreclosure epidemic.

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2749/t/4433/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=...

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

came out gangbusters on the problems that caused the economy to crash and what we are not doing to fix it. Spitzer is on talking about regulations and too big to fail.

So far I like his show. And it's fast moving.

In a new secret Justice Department memo, the Obama administration has “determined that detainees tried by military commissions in the U.S. can claim at least some constitutional rights, particularly protection against the use of statements taken through coercive interrogations.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623153856866179.html

With all due respect to the Washington Post, Ahmadinejad ain't got crap for power over international affairs. Never has.

This is straight Khamenei bullshit. Fuck that guy.

Seriously, fuck that guy. It is time for us to insist that our news agencies ascribe any words and actions of the puppet Ahmadinejad to Khamenei himself.

The protests pulled back the curtain. And to no one's surprise, the wizard of Iran was just a twisted old zealot. A ridiculous pathetic bastard who was left, with his pants around his ankles, threatening the lives of his own citizens when they questioned the legitimacy of his show elections.

'Senator' Franken? Could be 'any day' now, Pawlenty says

After eight long months of court battles, appeals, recounts and more appeals, Al Franken may about to be finally, officially certified as Minnesota's new U.S. Senator.

The state's Republican governor, Jim Pawlenty, told CNN on Sunday that he expects the state's Supreme Court will rule on a lawsuit filed by Sen. Norm Coleman "any day" now, and that decision could mean Franken's certification.

By the most recent, court-approved count, Franken won the election by 312 votes.

Sen. Norm Coleman -- still a senator on the technicality that Franken is not yet certified -- is widely believed to be planning an appeal to the U.S. Supeme Court

Here's more from The Hill:

Pawlenty said that he would follow any injunction or stay. But he did appear to signal that there was some urgency to the situation and did want to see the issue, uncertain now for eight months, finally resolved.

"I'm prepared to sign it as soon as they give the green light," Pawlenty said of state court guidance. "A federal court could stay or put a limit on or stop the effect of the state court ruling. If they chose, if they do that, I would certainly follow their direction. But if that doesn't happen promptly or drags out for any period of time, then we need to move ahead with signing this, particularly if I'm ordered to do that by the state court."

Senate Democrats control 59 votes and Franken's certification would give the party the 60 votes necessary to cut off debate on legislation, although on many of the most contentious policy issues pending in the Senate the party is showing significant internal splits.

Pawlenty, who is not running for re-election, said that if Franken is certified as a senator and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the state Supreme Court's decision, he "would certainly follow their direction."

"But if that doesn't happen promptly or drags out for any period of time, then we need to move ahead with signing this, particularly if I'm ordered to do that by the state court," he added, saying he will not "defy an order of the Minnesota Supreme Court. That would be a dereliction of my duty."

that I have been thinking about myself is that there isn't enough of Doctors policing themselves.

This would also reduce the amount of doctors that are constantly making mistakes and getting sued for it. That is what raised their insurance also.

It seems that in every profession their are people gaming the system and not enough penalties to reduce it.

And in the long run, we all pay for these mistakes and the gaming!

Supreme Court To Rule On Firefighters Case
The U.S. Supreme Court will be handing down its final rulings of the session today -- including a ruling in the New Haven firefighters case, for which conservatives have criticized Sonia Sotomayor. The case, which Sotomayor previously ruled on as part of a three-judge panel, involves the city of New Haven throwing out the results of a promotion test after members of minorities did not score as well.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/06/supreme_court_bidding_good...

we have penalties in the form of malpractice suits but what is missing is that perhaps a doctor should be banned from practicing for some amount of time when they are found guilty of malpractice. right now they have the ability to pass all the costs thru so there is no incentive to do it right.

Obama gives a pass to Democratic energy defectors
By Sam Youngman
Posted: 06/28/09 10:09 PM [ET]
President Obama said Sunday that he is sympathetic to the House Democrats who voted against his energy bill Friday, even though they nearly cost him his first major legislative defeat since coming into office.

In an interview Sunday with a handful of reporters, Obama said he understands that the 44 Democrats who joined Republicans in voting against the so-called "cap-and-trade" bill have reelection to worry about.

The transcript of the interview was provided by the White House.

The president, joined by Energy Secretary Steven Chu and White House coordinator of energy and climate policy Carol Browner, said "those 44 Democrats are sensitive to the immediate political climate of uncertainty around this issue."

"They've got to run every two years, and I completely understand that," Obama said.

The president acknowledged that the Republicans' talking points on the legislation, most notably that the House version of the bill will amount to a massive tax increase for most families, will "in some cases, have some short-term impact."

"So are there going to be naysayers? Absolutely," Obama said. "Are there going to be short-term instances where you can get political gain by scaring the bejeezus out of people and telling them that their electricity rates are going to go up a thousand percent and this is going to be a tax of $3,000 -- even though the studies that they cite the authors of say that these guys are just lying about these costs?"

Obama said that he thinks the House's action "is going to be a prod for the Senate to take action," but he expressed concern about some of the provisions the House included in its version. The provision that Obama noted was one that puts tariffs on imports from countries that don't have carbon restrictions.

"There are going to be a series of negotiations around this, and I am very mindful of wanting to make sure that there's a level playing field internationally," Obama said. "I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach."

As for whatever the Senate does pass, the president said "there's going to be a strong overlap, but not perfect overlap."

"The final legislation that emerges is probably not going to satisfy the Europeans or Greenpeace," Obama said.

When asked about the Senate's loaded schedule, Obama conceded that he has burdened the upper chamber with a full plate.

"How the Senate times all this stuff is going to be, obviously, up to Harry Reid and the leadership in the Senate," Obama said. "But with the House having taken the lead and set a benchmark, I think the Senate is going to recognize now is the time to act.

"It may be that the Senate decides to do health care before they do energy. We've still got financial regulation in place. And the air traffic control system on all this legislation, how we land all of it I think is going to require enormous hard work and a deft touch by legislative leaders. What we want to do is to simply encourage the Senate and the House to seize the day, seize the opportunity."

Obama, who called the legislation "an extraordinary first step," said he was convinced he "could not get the Senate to move aggressively until they saw how the politics aligned in the House."

"And I think now that you've seen somebody like a Rick Boucher of Virginia able to enter into very constructive negotiations with a Henry Waxman of California, that, I think, provides a blueprint for how the Senate can proceed," the president said.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-gives-a-pass-to-democratic-ene...

Congress Members Lost Big In Real Estate
Roll Call reports that members of Congress from both parties have lost a lot of money in the real estate crash. For example, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart said of a recent sale of a North Miami Beach condo: "We took a huge loss. We sold it for less than we owed."

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_153/news/36358-1.html

Peter Schiff Polling For Possible Senate Run Against Dodd
CQ reports that financial commentator Peter Schiff is conducting polls in Connecticut, to test support for a potential run as a Republican for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Chris Dodd in 2010. "We do think there's certainly room for the fiscally conservative, libertarian wing of the party to attract a lot of attention in the Northeast," said Schiff's brother Andrew.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2009/06/-schiff.html

the local conservative papers are full of biblical death and destruction which will be caused by the passage of this bill.

but from what i'm reading, at best we got a winning vote that we need to do something about greenhouse gases.

i'm all for saving the planet and all that but i don't understand why i should take it in the shorts with much higher energy bills while the chinese and the third world counter any reductions we make with their own increased pollution because they will do anything to maintain growth.

clearly one way to have a global impact is by restoring fair trade, but obama has taken that off the table.

Submitted by CranesAreFlying on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 4:31am.
Theocracy FAIL

Khamenei has shown himself to be a NOTHING, just another pathetic squealing affront to humanity. Time to join Stalin, Amin, Taylor, Milosevic, etc. in the dustbin of history.
-----

And where will we be? After all, since setting foot on this continent,our foreign policy has deprived untold millions of their lives. Khamenei is just the result of a criminal act perpetuated by the CIA in 1953. Taylor was one of our boys, and Milosevic, ha! We bombed Serbia for 79 days.

Karma is going to be a bitch!

I was licensed by the State of Illinois to sell Real Estate.
We had to go back to school every two years to keep that license.

I think that Doctors should have the same thing and if they had a malpractice suit against them, they should have to take a course in what mistake they were sued for.

DUI drivers have to take a course and a penalty to be able to drive again.

I blame the hospitals too. Especially in removing the wrong organ or limb. The hospital staff that are involved in helping in the operation should do a double check before they allow the doctor to operate.

My surgeon signed the knee that was to be operated on.

it just makes me furious when the goopers say its the lawyers and that if we could only put caps on lawsuits everything would be fine.

That energy bill is 1500+ pages. I wish someone could give us the high points and the negatives and the consequences pro and con so we can at least sound like we understand when we write or email or call the Senators in voting for or against this bill.

We are still fighting the idiots that don't believe in climate change.

and thats what i don't understand. thats a helluva lot of text and fine print.

i found a synopsis over at:

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/06/voices-a-common-persons-guide-to-...

Justices Rule for White Firefighters in Bias Case

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that white firefighters in
New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of
their race, reversing a decision that Sonia Sotomayor, a
Supreme Court nominee, endorsed as an appeals court judge.

==== surprise surprise ====

5-4 decision

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday.

Air Force tests missile in launch from Calif coast
The Associated Press
Posted: 06/29/2009 04:58:07 AM PDT
Updated: 06/29/2009 05:18:55 AM PDT

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.—The Air Force successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile Monday from the California coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away.

The ICBM was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara at 3:01 a.m. and carried three unarmed re-entry vehicles to their targets near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, said Lt. Raymond Geoffroy.

The missile, configured with a National Nuclear Security Administration Test Assembly, was launched under the direction of the 576th Flight Test Squadron, whose members installed tracking and command destruct systems on it to collect data and meet safety requirements.

"It's really something when you see a truly outstanding team come together," Col. David Buck, 30th Space Wing commander, said in a written statement. "I couldn't think of a better team to demonstrate the awesome capability of our ICBM fleet."

On clear mornings the missiles in such tests can be seen as far away as Los Angeles 140 miles away, but a foggy coast Monday made the missile difficult to see even in the immediate area, Geoffroy said.

The Air Force says the launch was an operational test to check the weapon system's reliability and accuracy, and the data will be used by United States Strategic Command planners and Department of Energy laboratories.

"These are dangerous times we're living in right now," Lt. Col. Lesa K. Toler, commander of the 576th, said in a statement. "It's extremely important our combatant commander has the capabilities he needs to perform the mission of fighting and winning our nation's wars."

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12712322

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Swiss banks are shutting the accounts of Americans as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service accelerates the hunt for tax dodgers.

UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, the country’s biggest banks, have told Americans to move their money into specially created units registered in the U.S., or lose their accounts. Smaller private banks such as Geneva-based Mirabaud & Cie. are closing all accounts held by U.S. taxpayers.

While the banks declined to say how many people are affected, more than 5 million Americans live abroad, including about 30,000 in Switzerland, according to estimates from American Citizens Abroad in Geneva. Swiss banks must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide services for those customers.

“My bank doesn’t want to do that, so we wouldn’t accept an investment account for a U.S. person,” said Pierre Mirabaud, chairman of Mirabaud & Cie. and the Swiss Bankers Association, during a lunch at the American International Club of Geneva.

SEC registration means clients don’t enjoy the protection of Swiss banking secrecy laws, which make it a crime for money managers to disclose the names of clients without their consent. Switzerland said in March it would cooperate with international tax evasion probes after Zurich-based UBS admitted helping U.S. clients avoid taxes.

The IRS has since increased pressure on Americans to disclose offshore accounts as it seeks to recoup an estimated $50 billion in unpaid taxes. The agency set a deadline of Sept. 23 for taxpayers to declare all foreign accounts or face possible criminal prosecution that could result in as much as 10 years in prison and $500,000 in penalties.

‘Typhoid Mary’

The U.S. has also proposed increasing reporting and oversight requirements for so-called qualified intermediaries -- foreign banks that withhold taxes on behalf of the IRS. That may increase the cost of compliance and the risk of violating U.S. laws, said Charles C. Adams, managing partner at the law firm Hogan & Hartson LLP in Geneva.

“American citizens are starting to feel like they’re Typhoid Mary,” said Adams who hosted a 2008 fundraiser for Barack Obama that featured actor George Clooney. “The Swiss simply don’t want American customers because it requires so much infrastructure and hassle that they don’t make any money.”

Sandra Dysli, an American who has lived in Geneva for 40 years, said Bank Zweiplus AG, the Zurich-based joint venture of Basel-based Bank Sarasin & Cie. and AIG Private Bank, and a Geneva branch of Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding AG refused to open investment accounts for her.

“I was told that I cannot legally be a client because I’m an American,” said Dysli, who retired from the United Nations in 2001. “I couldn’t get an investment account and had everything in cash.”

45-Day Notice More:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_8VwpO5m0WQ

How GE made billions from the bank bailout

GE has long straddled the fence between banking and commerce — allowing it to profit from the federal bank bailout without falling under banking regulations. But as the Obama administration seeks to tighten financial regulation, the world’s largest industrial company will have to make a choice.

General Electric, the world’s largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key rescue programs for banks.

At the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing other financial giants getting help from the government.

The company did not initially qualify for the program, under which the government sought to unfreeze credit markets by guaranteeing debt sold by banking firms. But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.

As a result, GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. Public records show that GE Capital, the company’s massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP. The government’s actions have been “powerful and helpful” to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged in December.

GE’s finance arm is not classified as a bank. Rather, it worked its way into the rescue program by owning two relatively small Utah banking institutions, illustrating how the loopholes in the U.S. regulatory system are manifest in the government’s historic intervention in the financial crisis.

The Obama administration now wants to close such loopholes as it works to overhaul the financial system. The plan would reaffirm and strengthen the wall between banking and commerce, forcing companies like GE to essentially choose one or the other.

“We’d like to regulate companies according to what they do, rather than what they call themselves or how they charter themselves,” said Andrew Williams, a Treasury spokesman.
More:

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/29/how-ge-made-billions-from-the-ban...

before sentencing

Graeme Wearden
guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 June 2009 15.26 BST

Crowds have begun gathering outside a New York court today ahead of Bernard Madoff's sentencing, where the convicted fraudster could be handed to up to 150 years in prison for his $65bn (£39.5bn) fraud.

The hearing in New York started at 10am local time (3pm BST), and before Madoff learns his fate, up to 11 victims told the court how they have been hurt by the sudden, unexpected loss of their savings.

Many of these victims have already demanded that Madoff should never be released. Assistant US attorney, Marc Litt, has backed that view, arguing that the "scope, duration and nature" of Madoff's activities mean the disgraced 71-year-old should receive the maximum sentence of 150 years, or failing that an effective life sentence.

continued...

Generation gap in US largest since 1960s, study shows
Young, old disagree on social values

By Hope Yen, Associated Press | June 29, 2009

WASHINGTON - American adults from young to old disagree increasingly today on social values, ranging from religion to relationships, creating the largest generation gap since divisions 40 years ago over Vietnam, civil rights, and women’s liberation.

A survey being released today by the Pew Research Center highlights a widening age divide after last November’s election, when 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Democrat Barack Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio.

Almost 8 in 10 people believe there is a major difference in the point of view of younger people and older people today, according to the independent public opinion research group. That is the highest spread since 1969, when about 74 percent reported major differences in an era of generational conflicts over the Vietnam War and civil and women’s rights. In contrast, just 60 percent in 1979 saw a generation gap.

Asked to identify where older and younger people differ most, 47 percent said social values and morality. People age 18 to 29 were more likely to report disagreements over lifestyle, views on family, relationships, and dating, while older people cited differences in a sense of entitlement. Those in the middle-age groups also often pointed to a difference in manners.

Religion is a far bigger part of the lives of older adults. About two-thirds of people 65 and older said religion is very important to them, compared with just over half of those 30 to 49 and 44 percent of people 18 to 29.

In addition, among adults 65 and older, one-third said religion has grown more important to them over the course of their lives, while 4 percent said it has become important, and 60 percent said it has stayed the same.

“Around the notion of morality and work ethic, the differences in point of view are pretty much felt across the board,’’ said Paul Taylor, director of the Pew Social and Demographic Trends Project. He cited a greater tolerance among younger people on cultural issues such as gay marriage and interracial relationships.

Still, he noted that the generation gap in 2009 seems to be more tepid in nature than it was in the 1960s, when younger people built a defiant counterculture in opposing the Vietnam War and demanding equal rights for women and minorities.

“Today, it’s more of a general outlook, a different point of view, a general set of moral values,’’ Taylor said.

Among the other findings:

# Getting old isn’t as bad as people believe in terms of health, but isn’t as good when it comes to lifestyle. While more than half of those under 65 think they will experience memory loss when they are older, only one-quarter of people 65 and older say they do so. Older people reported fewer instances than expected of problems such as serious illness, not being able to drive, being less sexually active, or depressed.

On the other hand, older adults end up having less leisure time than expected. While 87 percent of those under 65 think they will have more time for hobbies and other interests in older age, only 65 percent of older people report having it. Life at 65 and older also fell below expectations when it came to time with family, travel, having more financial security and less stress.

# Hispanics are more likely to report problems in old age. About 35 percent of Hispanics 65 and older say they have a serious illness, compared with 20 percent of whites and 22 percent of blacks in the same age group. More older Hispanics reported being depressed, lonely, or a burden to others than did whites and blacks. They also were less likely to do volunteer work or be involved in their communities.

# Younger people are more likely to embrace technology. About 75 percent of adults 18 to 30 went online daily, compared with 40 percent of those 65 to 74, and about 16 percent for people 75 and older. The age gap widened over cellphones and text messaging. About 6 percent of those 65 and older used a cellphone for most or all of their calls; 11 percent sent or received text messages. That is compared with 64 percent of adults under 30 for cellphone use and 87 percent for texting.

# Americans differ on when old age begins. On average, they say 68. People under age 30 believe it begins at 60, while those 65 and older push the threshold to 74. Of all those surveyed, most said they wanted to live to 89.

Pew interviewed 2,969 adults by cellphone or landline from Feb. 23 to March 23. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. Pew also used surveys by Gallup, CBS and The New York Times to identify trends since 1969.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/06/29/generation_gap_in_...

It seems I fit more with the younger generation in alot of what they asked in the poll.

Supreme Court bidding goodbye to Souter
Mon Jun 29, 5:39 am ET

WASHINGTON – It's Justice David Souter's last day on the Supreme Court and he'll be ruling on a case familiar to the woman nominated to replace him.

It's a reverse discrimination case filed by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. They argued they were discriminated against when the city tossed out the results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough on it.

Sonia Sotomayor, who has been nominated to take Souter's seat, was one of three appeals court judges who ruled that New Haven officials acted properly.

That's one of the cases the high court is dealing with Monday before justices begin their summer break.

Souter said he'd retire when the court rises for the summer recess. He was named to the court in 1990.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court/prin...

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran has said it has freed five local British embassy staff arrested on accusations of stoking post-election unrest, a move that further threatened tense ties with London and the West.

The announcement came as Iran’s top election body began a partial recount of the fiercely-disputed presidential election, after opposition demonstrators defiantly faced off against riot police in Tehran.

“Out of nine people arrested, five have been released,” foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said at a press conference.

Iran has repeatedly accused the West particularly Britain and the United States of “meddling” in the violent aftermath of the election, which triggered the biggest crisis since the Islamic revolution 30 years ago.

But even as the international community voices continuing alarm over the situation in Iran, Ghashghavi said Tehran has no plans to close embassies or downgrade diplomatic ties with foreign nations.

Iran has accused the embassy staff of playing a “considerable role” in the unrest that rocked the country after the landslide victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 vote.

Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie accused the British embassy of sending its staff to “escalate the riots,” the official IRNA news agency reported.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said London had protested strongly over the arrests, which he described as “harassment and intimidation” and dismissed as baseless the claims the embassy was behind the unrest.

EU nations also vowed to respond with a “strong and collective response”, Miliband told reporters at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Corfu.

But Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki — who has previously said Tehran was considering downgrading its ties with London after the two nations expelled diplomats — urged Britain and the EU not to take rash action. More :

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/29/iran-frees-five-british-embassy-s...

Time to End False Bipartisanship
by Katrina vanden Heuvel

This Congressional gridlock meme is perpetuating an illusion. It is only there to provide cover for Corporatist policy....

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

late last week subsided? I certainly hope so...

I like to think people on this side of the aisle know better. It's always disappointing to be reminded that noone is safe from the sickness.

I've been giving it thought all weekend, and though I was feeling magnanimous, I've since changed my mind. I am definitely not on the same side as the slighly right of center folks on this blog.

I can have civil discussion with anyone, but I have to say I am very offended; by dan's jingoism, and Fernando's implication that the leftys here are like terrorist supporters. I can't remember exactly how you put it, Fernando, and I can dig it up if I must, but you did go there, and after much contemplation of the matter, I still can't find a way to accomodate that kind of talk.

Submitted by Bob26003 on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 8:19am.