Hopenhagen

.

back on your wheels yet?

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

MMRules

highly recommended!

"this machine kills fascists"

that would be a cool screen saver too!

Did you get a chance to see the new New Yorker pictorial POTRAITS OF POWER BY Platon? avedon esq style up in your face 8 x 10"s

is how somebody described it, and I guess I deserve that.

MsA didn't say the "meat murder" thing anywhere I can find. I either conflated several of her posts as she suggested or someone else said that (but if so I can't find it). Then I kept misconstruing other important things she said (and it's not because they weren't mainly clear)--the "bitch" thing for instance. OK, I know she usually takes way more than her share of shit from certain folks and she's been here taking it a long time--thus the "attitude." Yes, that makes perfect sense now.

I jumped on taozen and her for things that weren't any big deal.

Apparently I can still write my way out of a paper bag but reading/thinking, not so much. (Meaning worse than before.)

So I'm sorry.

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

MMRules

Glory..
Sorry,is a good word.. :)

Sometimes,it's easy to get worked up here..
So much bad news, I quess..

Elton John - Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

http://hypem.com/#/track/917494/Elton+John+-+Sorry+Seems+To+Be+The+Harde...

**

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

MMRules

In case someone missed it, a visit to the Yesteryear of Corruption where the sociopaths practiced their wheeling and dealing with the Taliban. Clearly the only reason the Oligarchs won't tolerate the Taliban now is the Taliban's resistance to turning their country over for development by Western mining/drilling Corporations. Raping women, no problem. Refusing the pipeline, big problem. Those who won't let the Transnationals rape their country, the Transnationals will make sure those people are hunted down.

Anyway, jump into the WayBack Machine--

http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html

[excerpt]

A Creeping Collapse in Credibility at the White House:
From ENRON Entanglements to UNOCAL Bringing the Taliban to Texas and Controlling Afghanistan
By Tom Turnipseed

The Bush Administration's entanglement with ENRON is beginning to unravel as it finally admits that Enron executives entered the White House six times last year to secretly plan the Administration's energy policy with Vice-President Cheney before the collapse of the Texas-based energy giant. Meanwhile, even more trouble for our former-Texas-oil-man-turned-President is brewing with reports that unveil UNOCAL, another big energy company, for being in bed with the Taliban, along with the U.S. government in a major, continuing effort to construct pipelines through Afghanistan from the petroleum-rich Caspian Basin in Central Asia. Beneath their burkas, UNOCAL is being exposed for giving the five star treatment to Taliban Mullahs in the Lone Star State in 1997. The "evil-ones" were also invited to meet with U.S. government officials in Washington, D.C.

According to a December 17, 1997 article in the British paper, The Telegraph, headlined, "Oil barons court Taliban in Texas," the Taliban was about to sign a "£2 billion contract with an American oil company to build a pipeline across the war-torn country. ... The Islamic warriors appear to have been persuaded to close the deal, not through delicate negotiation but by old-fashioned Texan hospitality. ... Dressed in traditional salwar khameez,Afghan waistcoats and loose, black turbans, the high-ranking delegation was given VIP treatment during the four-day stay."

At the same time, U.S. government documents reveal that the Taliban were harboring Osama bin Laden as their "guest" since June 1996. By then, bin Laden had: been expelled by Sudan in early 1996 in response to US insistence and the threat of UN sanctions; publicly declared war against the U.S. on or about August 23, 1996; pronounced the bombings in Riyadh and at Khobar in Saudi Arabia killing 19 US servicemen as 'praiseworthy terrorism', promising that other attacks would follow in November 1996 and further admitted carrying out attacks on U.S. military personnel in Somalia in 1993 and Yemen in 1992, declaring that "we used to hunt them down in Mogadishu"; stated in an interview broadcast in February 1997 that "if someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters." Evidence was also developing which linked bin Laden to: the 1995 bombing of a U.S. military barracks in Riyadh which killed five; Ramzi Yuosef, who led the 1993 World Trade Center attacks; and a 1994 assassination plot against President Clinton in the Philippines.

Back in Houston, the Taliban was learning how the "other half lives," and according to The Telegraph, "stayed in a five-star hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus." The Taliban representatives "...were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller, a vice-president of Unocal, they marveled at his swimming pool, views of the golf course and six bathrooms." Mr. Miller, said he hoped that UNOCAL had clinched the deal.

Dick Cheney was then CEO of Haliburton Corporation, a pipeline services vendor based in Texas. Gushed Cheney in 1998, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian. It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight. The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is." Would Cheney bargain with the harborers of U.S. troop killers if that's where the business was?

The Telegraph reported that Unocal had promised to start building the pipeline and paying the Taliban immediately, with the added inducements and a donation of £500,000 to the University of Nebraska for courses in Afghanistan to train 400 teachers, electricians, carpenters and pipefitters.

The Telegraph also reported, "The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract." In a paper prepared by Neamatollah Nojumi, at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Nojumi wrote in August 1997 that Madeline Albright sat in a "full-dress CIA briefing" on the Caspian region. CIA agents then accompanied "some well-trained petroleum engineers" to the region. Albright concluded that shaping the region's policies was "one of the most exciting things that we can do."

It's also exciting to the Bush Administration. According to the authors of Bin Laden, the Hidden Truth, one of the FBI's leading counter terrorism agents, John O'Neill, resigned last year in protest over the Bush Administration's alleged obstruction of his investigation into bin Laden. (A similar complaint has been filed on behalf of another unidentified FBI Agent by the conservative Judicial Watch public interest group.) Supposedly the Bush Administration had been meeting since January 2001 with the Taliban, and was also reluctant to offend Saudi Arabians who O'Neill had linked to bin Laden. Mr. O'Neill, after leaving the FBI, assumed the position of security director at the World Trade Center, where he was killed in the 911 attacks.

As America's New War now begins focusing on other "rogue nations," UNOCAL's stars have magically aligned. About two months after the Houston parties, UNOCAL executive John Maresca addressed the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and urged support for establishment of an investor-friendly climate in Afghanistan, "... we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company." Meaning that UNOCAL's ability to construct the Afghan pipeline was a cause worthy of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Maresca's prayers have been answered with the Taliban's replacement. As reported in Le Monde, the new Afghan government's head, Hamid Karzai, formerly served as a UNOCAL consultant. Only nine days after Karzai's ascension, President Bush nominated another UNOCAL consultant and former Taliban defender, Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan.

When UNOCAL makes big bucks from the pipeline they should donate 50% of all pretax profits to the 911 Fund. And they should also cut a very special check to the widow of FBI Agent O'Neill.

Tom Turnipseed is a civil rights lawyer in South Carolina. Visit Tom's website at www.turnipseed.net

[end excerpt]

I hope your work day is coming to an end soon and you can get to do some stuff for yourself. Money pressures, political pressures are making it hard for me to get any creative projects going.. I ran out to move a big harp down five flights for my friend . The friend got so violently stomach sick that he could hardly give me directions. I hope it isn't a Swine Flu thing. some people start off that way so I have heard. I appreciate your "sorry"
todo bien

Submitted by Ms_Anthrope on Fri, 12/04/2009 - 4:14pm.
A fantastic Gentleman gave FOR TRUTH'S SAKE the man's name which I could not remember to CRANK BAIT & CHUBBY BUBBA since as YOU they kept saying I was wrong!
-----------
You are not wrong.

You are an illiterate moron.
-----------------------------------------------
Submitted by Ms_Anthrope on Fri, 12/04/2009 - 4:46pm.
YOU MADE THE MISREPRESENTATON, NOT I.

Now you are trying to "delude" the issue.
-----------
A sentient being can be deluded. An issue cannot be deluded. Consult a dictionary or continue to write like a combination of Jethro Bodine and Norm Crosby. Your choice.

Better yet, just mimic the writing that you see in every English language newspaper, book and periodical on the planet. Examples of functional syntax are not difficult to find.

See Dick. See Dick run. Run, Dick, run!

Submitted by Fernando on Fri, 12/04/2009 - 6:30am.
Have you heard anything about contractors using drones?

That's messed up if it's true. Contractors aren't supposed to have kill authority. Their role before Bush was purely in a support role. This is a huge problem. As you know, they operate beyond the courts.

...

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

Hi, Fernando.

Don't know about that, but how can the CIA have a 'authority' to press remote HELLFIRE/PREDATOR buttons from Langley that kill people overseas? That must be illegal!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21intel.html?_r=1

"The extent of Blackwater’s business dealings with the C.I.A. has largely been hidden...."

"corrected"

settle down now tiger.

- I know this isn't funny. But damn

Karma can suck.

Thank You. I was late in reading this page, and if still holds true, of what you said, then I am good & PEACE ... for I know we do have things in common.

heh - I wonder if ms a has a set of golf clubs.....

is on the phone with Uncle Mike

Asalamalakum. :)

Hi cent! No, not yet... and I'm feeling blue from the sudden lack of practice...Maybe by January...? We'll see...I'm going to need this knee in the future...going back is a difficult decision I'll have to make sometime soon...I've only heard of one girl being paralyzed from a derby wreck. But lesser injuries are prolific...

You were paralyzed,too ? ?
Oh my,not good..

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

MMRules

Now you are trying to "delude" the issue.
-----------
A sentient being can be deluded. An issue cannot be deluded. Consult a dictionary or continue to write like a combination of Jethro Bodine and Norm Crosby. Your choice.

The Oxford Desk Dictionary: American Edition (I now use for folks here have harassed me for NOT SPEAKING American - although I am.)
delude: deceive; mislead
- thus I confirmed and then wrote.

Tell me where, CB, I can find what you speak of & INSULT me over? I do appreciate all WISDOM gained.

However Crank Bait, you are acting as a bully twit and showing your stupid-side. BTW I am very good "naturally" handling a bully since kindergarten. You don't scare me.
;) Boo.

knee injuries suck, and will nag you until you let them mend completely...being on the disabled list sux too...hope you are healed up and rolling again soon...

Get that knee better quick.
You'll be o.k. it just takes
a little longer to heal.
I swear that I get like a little scare-dee
kat lately - I just have a hard time
thinking that I don't want to fall.
It weird - I've never thought that way
EVER. I'm sure it has to do with what
I'm going thru 2 (physically.)

When doing your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to this address: A Recovering American Soldier c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington , D.C. 20307-5001. Think of how many cards these wonderful people who have sacrificed so much would get. PLEASE RE-POST!!!

I did not know your knee was so serious. Be Well ASAP, but slow enough in healing whilst making a very difficut decision - "To Go Back or Not To Go Back - that is the question"?
:):(

Submitted by Ms_Anthrope on Fri, 12/04/2009 - 11:35pm.
delude: deceive; mislead
- thus I confirmed and then wrote.
--------
I said you are an illiterate moron. Thanks for the confirmation.

It is impossible to delude, deceive or mislead an issue. An issue is not a sentient being.

It is, however, possible to read a dictionary and delude, deceive and mislead yourself into thinking that you know what the fuck you are doing.

Holiday Season and All.. :)

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

MMRules

What happened to your knee? Are you okay?

toniD's Ya Think?

I'm just asking.

And who put the ram in the ramalamadingdong?

AFTER MONK! I will be back.
;)

maggiesboy - who?

She hurt her knee doing roller derby..

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

MMRules

Thank You Randy N.
;):(

Monk,Monk..
A good show so far.. :)

Too many commercials,though..What's new ?

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

MMRules

Did you ever consider that?

No, I didn't think so.

are so compelled to watch a man with so many psychological tics is a question for our resident psych expert but she's obviously consumed by her complete works of Frazier.

It's been so long since I watched TV I forget the bit part and show Monk was on before he was Monk.

a cabbie...right?

I am embarrassed I actually know that...

I'll admit that I think his name is Tony Shaloub if it helps.

I watched Wings and I remember thinking he'd never make it on his own show.

Now you know why I don't watch TV anymore.

Read every word of this article, and could find no flaws but for a the squeamish sense the impetus is of a sort that is an undesireable backlash against women's social and sexual independence and privacy and gay rights. That said, it is worth a read. Who knew?

Anybody yet see the video discussed here?

P.S. Now I have to wonder who put up the backing for that major motion picture about Kinsey a few years ago. The Rockefeller Foundation et al?

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/Kinsey%20Syndrome.pdf

It's the last show and then no more Monk.

Need some down time from politics.

I saw that the girl in Italy was found guilty with no real proof she did it. No DNA, nothing. Circumstantial. That's sad because I never thought she did it.

What a horrid world we live in.

toniD's Ya Think?

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

MMRules

Be nice,Crank..
Submitted by MMRules on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 12:01am.
--------
You be nice to Ms_Narcissus. When she gets in my way I'm gonna kick her, face first, into the spring.

remember Taxi?

A lot of talent came through that show...

Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsh, Andy Kaufman, Carol Kane, Toni Danza, and who can forget Christopher LLoyd as Jim Ignatowski.....

to you too,Crank !

Ba Humbug..

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

MMRules

Ya Thinkers will know there's a channel ID coming when you here this or this?

I'm toast

g'nite!

PrezO gives a great preChristmas gift to the speculators: He makes a speech committing the USA to 'war' in Afganistan and the market bounces up.

And they were so worried NOBODY was gonna go shopping this season. The potential shoppers SO need some cheering up to get them out and spending, consuming. And then -- PRESTO! -- the 'news' includes cheery announcements that "UNEXPECTED" good employment figures are reported and "UNEXPECTED" reductions in swine flu infections are recorded (even though authorities oficially stopped recording them weeks ago?)! So, go shopping, Americans! You may not lose your job and you may not pick up swine flu in the holiday crowds! So "unexpected"! Isn't the media great? So quick to get the "unexpected" messages out!

Tom Brokaw Unhurt In Fatal Car Crash (VIDEO)

NBC News' Tom Brokaw and his wife were unharmed in a fatal three-vehicle crash in New York on Friday. The network released the following statement:

Tom and Meredith Brokaw, at around 1 p.m. today, were in a three vehicle accident on the Bruckner Expressway. The Brokaws were in the far left lane when they noticed a spool of cable bouncing along the far right lane. Just then, a green SUV in the right lane came up fast and tried to avoid the cable. The driver lost control of her vehicle and slid into the middle lane, forcing a mail truck into the Brokaw lane of traffic.

As the mail truck careened into the Brokaw lane, Tom hit the brakes hard and skidded along the median. When the mail truck catapulted the median the Brokaw vehicle slid into it. Neither Tom nor Meredith were injured but tragically the driver of the SUV was thrown from her vehicle and killed. Tom and Meredith are greatly saddened by this loss of life.

MYFOXNY.com reports:

The postal truck crashed into a dividing barrier. The woman driving the SUV was thrown from her vehicle as it flipped over several times. She landed on the tracks under the Willis Avenue Bridge and was killed, officials said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/04/tom-brokaw-crash_n_380881.html

toniD's Ya Think?

need to do a son and dad show.

not the best place on the planet to leave your ghost...poor woman.

This should put them to rest...

"Apparently conservative Democrats are a lot like Republicans in many more ways than we knew:

Hanes ended her employment with Baucus in the spring of this year."

That should knock him down a peg or two...probably won't though...

"this machine kills fascists"

Tell me exactly where that FACT is, or where I can find about that information or STFU.

I proved you wrong regarding The Computer issue {but you wouldn’t believe me} & a gentleman spoke The Truth – proving YOU WERE WRONG – and I was CORRECT.
I no longer believe you, regardless, unless you prove what you speak as "truth".

YOU SAID to find in a dictionary ...
I did, in "The OXFORD Desk Dictionary - American Edition"

:(

Now, I must go downstairs for a few to see if I have a fire or not.

Monk(Tony S.)wanted to end it..
He wanted to go out on a High Note,so to speak..

And,he wants to do some plays and other things..

I saw him interviewed recently on a show..I can't remember what show though..

I guess he was getting abit burned out on doing the same character..Actors.. :)

I sure am going to miss that show though..There isn't much on TV worth watching..
Now there is even less.. :(

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

MMRules

Please

The math doesn't work for the students who honor me with their presence in the community college classes I teach.

Please make that shit go away.

Mmmmm

quote is "well-known" enough to not have to be cited in a research paper..because that's what the 2009 MLA formatting books says...

Here's the quote from Marshall McLuhan:

“We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish.”

I can't find from any of my resources where this quote originated...not even http://www.bookwormsearch.com so I don't think it's from one of his books. So I have to use and indirect source in the works cited and in-text cite (qtd. in blah blah).

Or, if this is a well-known quote I can forget this hoo ha because it's been a pain in the ass trying to find the original source.

Remember Phil Hartman. Poor old fool. His wife Brynn was the third wife. She was his dream girl. Finally, he had the kind of woman a man desires when flaunting the big bucks. A woman's whose only gift to the world is her beauty and narcissism.

Brynn Hartman was the typical trophy wife. The educational background is usually minimal. To give the impression of class, the name is usually changed. It is also safe to say, that these kind of women are often nuts. Brynn's real name was Vicki.

Modeling, stripping, waitressing or acting, may not pay the bills here. Therefore, these women need to find a wealthy man. They will sleep with all kinds of rich cads until they land the fool. Brynn was a swimsuit model who wanted to be an actor. Like so many in the modeling industry, she was also a drug addict. She resented her husband's success. High on cocaine and Zoloft she killed him. Then she killed herself.

Tiger's wife was a swimsuit model.

Michaele Salahi's (Obama Crasher) real name Michele Holt.

I'm just sayin!

didn't expect to see you here and figured you were snoozing or I'd have emailed ya on this...

Hmmm? I mean how do you know if a quote is well-known, let alone find the original source? Some online quote place used to tell where the quote is from, can't think of it now...Even if a person just said it at an event or something...

Toni, just a (legal) hit in derby and I landed on the outside of my knee...It happened 5 days before our first scrimmage and I couldn't play. Had to be the jam timer instead, next to my other team mate who was keeping score because her leg is broken....Since then two more players have been injured. That's 4 out of 26...The Danger Factor vs the REALLY FUCKING FUN FACTOR is weighing on my mind...So I hear ya on that, smcgee43.

I see a lot of stuff going on here that I don't want to get involved in...I don't feel so irate at Crank or the blog in general at the moment because I'm focused on these four finals I have to do and I will be nice in order to make a paper as good as I can get it...with the help of the available resources on this blog.. :)

do I have to go find a source explaining who Seth is and cite that?

From a excellent boot..

http://hypem.com/#/track/971647/Peter+Gabriel-Mercy+Street

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

MMRules

MM

This will get my brain moving...

Maybe my writing guru's went to bed...

Have you ever heard that Marshall McLuhan quote?

Unless it was in a music blog,sports page or here..
I doubt I've seen it..
Yes,I'm shallower than I seem.. ;)

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

MMRules

:)

well I can find it all over the internet, just not a good solid way to tell if it's worth citing or not. I'll just cut it out of the paper, I see now it is a MAX 3 pages not a minimum and I'm running out of room anyway...

Back to the books...thanks for the tune.

I'm gonna have to save me pennies and buy the last year or two on DVD,when it comes out..
I didn't see alot of them..
I keep forgetting Fri's at 9pm..I don't know why..

It was a good last show..Too bad it's gone..

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

MMRules

Good luck on your papers.. :)

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

MMRules

Just wrote a Thing on your Blog.

All y'all other lovely people:
What MONK are you talkin' 'bout? Is that the guy who wrote How to Talk American: http://tinyurl.com/James-M-Crotty

Your joking,right ?
Just a good TV shoe.. :)
One of the few..

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

MMRules

Wot's that?

OK - possibly transvestite footwear? Otherwise: Huh?

Crotty's book is brilliant. Check it out.

Now I'm going to plunge into bad dreams about "TV shoes." And probably wake treebu up with my fitful screaming.

Thanks.

Ha Ha! Josh Marshall shared this:

Here's a fun story to end the week with.

And some wingnut radio hosts bought it hook, line, sinker

Hilarious!

"this machine kills fascists"

Well, 60th Street, I think the fact that it never becvame a scandal PROVES he is NOT a Democrat. It appears only Dems must pay for indiscretions....

Why not just net 'em and feed the hungry? Or make fertilizer? Or something/anything that doesn't involve PESTICIDES?

http://www.weather.com/multimedia/videoplayer.html?clip=15938&from=news_...

"Amanda Knox stood in a silent court room to hear the verdict, head bowed.

But as the judge read out the jury's decision she turned and buried her face in her lawyers chest and started to sob uncontrollably." Dominic Hughes

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

Happy successful studies, too!

I will extend "Hope" to Tom Turkey [and turns aside to say sotto voce] even though he doesn't know Disneyland offers little "Hope".

Letter in the San Franciso Chronicle:

[excerpt]

The peace president?
I was disappointed to learn that The Chronicle apparently equates violence with toughness ("President takes tougher stance," Dec. 2) in coverage of Afghanistan.

I believe true toughness would be standing up for peace, halting the incredible momentum of warmongers in Washington and committing to the hard work of nonviolent conflict resolution.

While the president might be taking a tougher stance in escalating the use of violence, he has wimped out on the real responsibility of being a peace president.

Shame on President Obama for sending more violence to Afghanistan, and shame on The Chronicle for equating more violence with toughness and fortitude.

JUSTIN HORNER

Oakland

[end excerpt]

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/04/EDDJ1AUEVE.D...

TV shoe?
new
Submitted by ellwort on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 3:03am.
Wot's that?

*******

"A really big shoe"..Like what a Ed Sullivan impersonator would say.. :)

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

MMRules

[excerpt]

Relatively few of Monet's canvases from the 1860s have survived. Throughout the decade, and during the 1870s as well, he suffered from extreme financial hardship and frequently destroyed his own paintings rather than have them seized by creditors. A striking example of his early style is the Terrace at the Seaside, Sainte-Adresse (1866).

[end excerpt]

http://www.answers.com/topic/claude-monet

Coast to Coast AM..Tonight - 10 pm - 2 am PT..

Ian Punnett welcomes award-winning investigative reporter Russ Baker, who will discuss shocking disclosures about various Bush family elders, as well as startling evidence that sheds new light on the JFK assassination and Watergate.

During the first hour, former State Department counter terrorism special agent Fred Burton will talk about the Fort Hood shootings.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/

**

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

MMRules

Tiger jokes..

Elin found out he’s not a Tiger, he’s a Cheetah.

Tiger just hates it when he drives, and then his balls hit a tree.

Tiger said the fault of the accident was his Escalade. It’s typical of a golfer—always blame the caddy.

Tiger Woods has been dropped by Gilette after admitting this incident was his closest shave ever.

What do baby seals and Tiger Woods have in common? Both were clubbed by a Scandinavian.

On Deck:

This morning, Saturday, December 5th,
'This is Hell!' broadcasts a four-hour live, unedited and
completely uninterrupted show beginning at 9 AM (central)
on WNUR 89.3 FM Chicago, streaming live at http://www.wnur.org
and podcast in our Archives.

Our guests this morning will be:

• Rahul
  Mahajan is the author of 2003's "Full Spectrum
  Dominance: US Power in Iraq and Beyond" (Seven
  Stories Press) and 2002's "The New Crusade: America's
  War on Terrorism," (Monthly
  Review Press). Rahul serves on the Administrative Committee
  of anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice, the
  Board of Directors of Peace Action and the Advisory Board
  of Occupation Watch. In 2002 he ran as the Green Party candidate
  for governor of Texas. Rahul reported from Fallujah during
  the bloody April 2004 siege.
  This will be Rahul's first appearance on This is Hell! since
  October 13, 2001
• investigative journalist Greg
  Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers
  "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" and "Armed
  Madhouse." Greg's new DVD is called, "Palast Investigates:
  From 8-Mile to the Amazon," which focuses on the trail
  of the financial marauders. The DVD is a compilation three
  Palast reports on BBC Newsnight, none of which have been
  broadcast on American television.
  All of Greg's books and videos can be purchased through
  his web site. Just click above on his name.
  We'll be talking with Greg about his recent report, "World
  Trade Organization Risks Financial 'China Syndrome'"
  among other things.
  This is Hell! was the first US radio program to ever feature
  an interview with Greg, way back in December 16, 2000.
  Greg once said of your bitter blind broke gap-toothed host
  of This is Hell!, "Chuck should be syndicated. He has
  the greatest guests. I do endless interviews on C-SPAN,
  and it's so much fun on Chuck's show. It's like a vacation.
  But he also does heavy stuff, so I feel like I'm getting
  more information than with the other outlets."
• Zoltan Grossman is a faculty member in Geography
  and Native American Studies at The Evergreen State College
  at Olympia, Washington's Evergreen State College. Zoltan's
  studies and teaching have focused on many areas including
  military interventions and the US military bases network.
  He wrote the essay, "A
  Century of US Military Interventions: From Wounded Knee
  to Iraq," for Carolyn Baker's 2006 collection, "US
  History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't
  Tell You" (iUniverse).
  This week, he posted the article, "Afghanistan:
  The Roach Motel of Empires,"
• Matthieu
  Aikins is an international freelance journalist
  and photographer who has reported from Afghanistan, Iran,
  and Pakistan for Harper's Magazine, Canada's National Post
  and the Toronto Globe & Mail. For his reporting in 2008,
  Matthieu was the winner of the Canadian Association of Journalists
  Award in the Community Newspaper category, and the Atlantic
  Journalism Award for Enterprise Reporting. Matthieu's article
  in this month's Harpers' is entitled, "The
  master of Spin Boldak: Undercover with Afghanistan's
  drug-trafficking border police."
• Peter Keleman is Columbia University's Arthur D.
  Storke Memorial Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
  at the Earth Institute's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
  Peter is also the Senior Scientist at the Woods
  Hole Oceanographic Institution, the world's largest
  private, nonprofit ocean research, engineering and education
  organization. This week, his article, "What
  East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change,"
  was posted at Popular Mechanics web site.

Our irregular correspondents this morning will be Dan
'The Auto Man' Litchfield; Drew Colglazier will
give us his inaugural sports report; and Jeff
Dorchen will deliver a Moment of Truth.
Podcasters! Shortly after this morning's live over-the-air
boradcast you can hear the podcast by clicking here
or here.

http://live.wnur.org:8080/live.wmv 128kbs mediaplayer
http://live.wnur.org:8092/listen.pls 128k mp3
http://live.wnur.org:8094/listen.pls 32kbs mp3

Thanks!

I love you guys! I am so glad you are all still there. I have been busy with trying to get a biz started, (alternative energy), I'm taking courses and tests and moving with Ellwort to New Haven. We did a reverse empty nest. We took an apartment in town and I turned my house over to my two kids and their significant others. They will pay the mortgage, with some help and we get to live like teenagers in an apartment. It's fun and exciting and time consuming. I miss you and I know Ellwort keeps up here, so I don't feel so absent. Keep up the great work!
Tree

probably my favorite
political radio show (that still is on )
Nothing Tops The Majority Report, and The
Sam Seder Show.

I've been listening since the late '90's
Very in depth and long full lenght interviews,
unlike the M$M.

I now live about 30 miles west of the station,
so the reception is iffy. The web stream is about
30 seconds behind the live broadcast.

.
.
.
_ _ _
brr

1083 | brl vod | WTF

Senate Takes Aim At Insurance Company Executive Pay

WASHINGTON — Democratic senators are taking aim at insurance executives' pay as they jockey for advantage in a rare weekend session to debate President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

Republicans are showcasing the bill's cuts to Medicare, seeking to undermine support for the legislation among seniors and others as partisan debate rages over the sweeping remake of one-sixth of the nation's economy.

Both sides were bracing for more grueling and unpredictable debates and negotiations Saturday, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., racing the clock to complete action on the 2,000-plus page bill by Christmas.

The nearly $1 trillion legislation would provide insurance coverage to more than 30 million more people over the next decade with a new requirement for nearly everyone to purchase insurance. New insurance purchasing marketplaces would be set up, lower-income people would get subsidies, the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor would be expanded and unpopular insurance company practices such as yanking coverage when someone gets sick would be banned.

The biggest problem for Reid: getting agreement among his own Democrats on the divisive issues of abortion and a government insurance plan to compete against the private market.

He needs all 60 members of his caucus to agree, but several moderates are balking.

"Abortion and public option are really the major obstacles at this point," said the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Talks to find common ground on those issues are happening behind the scenes, but coloring the public action. Democratic leaders were giving the spotlight Saturday to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. – a key moderate with a difficult re-election next year – to propose an amendment that would limit insurance industry executives' tax deductible salaries to the same amount the U.S. president makes – currently $400,000.

It also gives Lincoln something to brag about as her poll numbers sag back home.

Lincoln is among a few senators whose votes are uncertain but necessary for Reid. She reiterated her opposition Thursday to the government-run insurance plan in the bill, and despite numerous talks among liberals and moderates to find a compromise, Lincoln said she hadn't seen anything she could support yet.

Republicans again devoted their Saturday radio address to criticizing the legislation over a topic debated earlier – preventive care for women. That became an issue after a government advisory panel recommended against regular mammograms for women in their 40s. One of the votes the Senate cast this week was to safeguard coverage of mammograms. more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/05/senate-takes-aim-at-insur_n_381...

toniD's Ya Think?

Roy Sekoff Talks To Ed Show's Ed Schultz About The Latest Example Of Why We Need a Public Option

Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage in 2010 as the company seeks to meet profit expectations. The move , HuffPost Editor Roy Sekoff argues, is the perfect example of why a public option needs to be included in the Senate health care reform bill. Sekoff appeared on The Ed Show Wednesday with Ed Schultz:

"This is what happens when you make the health and well-being of the American people a bottom line business and as you said, it's why we need a public option. And we need a strong public option and we need a public option that starts on day one, not 2014."

Supporters of the public option argue that a government program would not be driven by profits and prone to moves like the one Aetna plans to make.

Sekoff pointed out that Aetna is based in Connecticut, the home state of Sen. Joe Lieberman, a major opponent of the public option. "The crinkling of the money speaks a little louder in the ears of Joe Lieberman, and Blanche Lincoln and [Ben] Nelson," Sekoff said. "This is the problem. The influence of special interest money, Ed. It's redolent on this issue. The stink of it is powerful."

WATCH: at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-tv/roy-sekoff-talks-to-ed-sh_b_381021...

toniD's Ya Think?

Heh! The Reps stepped in it this time....

Vitter, Coburn Public Option Bluff Called By Democrats (VIDEO)

Democrats took on a pair of Republican senators Friday, signing on to an amendment that would make lawmakers join the public option.

On Thursday, thinking Democratic senators would balk at the idea, Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) introduced the gimmick health-care amendment.

"It's called leadership," Coburn said. "If it's good enough for everybody else, we ought to be leading by example."

But Democrats called their bluff, and the Republicans wouldn't allow it. When Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) tried to become a co-sponsor of the amendment, he got the cold shoulder.

"They've not said yes to allow me to be a co-sponsor," Brown told The Hill on Thursday. "I've called their office four times. I'm proud of the public option, I think it would be great and we ought to join it and show the country how good it is. I think my interest may be more genuine than theirs, but I'd like to work with them if they'll let me. If they just want to score partisan points, I still want to work with them."

So Brown, joined by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), and Al Franken (D-Minn.), forced his way onto the amendment with a unanimous consent vote.

Watch Franken:

and Dodd:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/04/vitter-coburn-public-opti_n_380...

toniD's Ya Think?

Ensign Probe Heats Up: Senate Panel Reportedly Subpoenaing For Documents

A Senate probe of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) is heating up, according to a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun.

"Sources confirm that the Senate panel has begun issuing subpoenas for documents, including to key players in the case involving U.S. Sen. John Ensign's scandal. The committee appears to be trying to connect the dots between Doug Hampton's post-Ensign tenure and what role the senator played in getting him jobs that allowed the former chief-of-staff to contact the Senate office and what those contacts involved," Jon Ralston told Political Wire.

Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign's mistress, went on ABC's "Nightline" in November and said he believed Ensign abused his power during the affair. Hampton said he was "crystal clear" that a payment from Ensign's parents was actually a severance, which might violate campaign finance rules.

Hampton's wife Cindy was a campaign treasurer for two committees connected to Senator Ensign. Doug Hampton served as a top aide on Ensign's Senate staff. After leaving his post with Ensign, Hampton quickly landed jobs with companies associated with the senator. He worked briefly for a consulting firm founded by Ensign's closest adviser, Mike Slanker. His biggest client was a Las Vegas-based airline whose executives have contributed generously to Ensign over the years.

When Hampton sought help to stop the affair, he reached out to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who lives with Ensign in a house on C Street in Washington associated with a secretive Christian group. After an emotional meeting with Coburn, Hampton says he was encouraged to forgive his old friend. Ensign wrote a letter to Cindy calling off the affair, but immediately afterward phoned her and told her to ignore the note. (He moved out of the C Street home in November.)

"[The people at C Street] think the consequences don't apply," Hampton told "Nightline." "This is about preserving John, preserving the Republican party, this is about preserving C Street. These men care about themselves and their own political careers, period."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/04/ensign-probe-heats-up-sen_n_380...

toniD's Ya Think?

Violence should not be equated with toughness
Submitted by nora on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 4:16am.
Letter in the San Franciso Chronicle:
...see date & time for rest of e-letter & link...

MONK says it all...Capt Leland {;)} said it PERFECTLY to PD authority in NY, when he called OurCity "Frisco"...
First it is San Francisco and NEVER called "Frisco"...

"It's A Jungle Out There..."

Send a message to Congress asking your representative to cosponsor the Global Conservation Act.

Our planet is facing a biodiversity crisis. Each day, more than 80,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed. Thirty percent of the world’s coral reefs are already lost. As these ecosystems disappear, so does the wildlife that calls them home.

As few as 3,200 tigers may remain in the wild in Asia. In Africa, poachers follow logging roads into African forests to kill hundreds of great apes each year. All seven species of marine turtle are endangered or threatened with extinction in oceans around the world.

You can help protect these and other species by urging your representative to cosponsor the Global Conservation Act.

The richest abundance of the world’s plant and animal species are found in developing countries, which often lack the financial and human resources to protect their biological heritage. The U.S. needs to lead other developed nations in providing the strategies and funding that can dramatically expand successful conservation programs and slow the destruction of nature.

The Global Conservation Act would create an international conservation strategy for the U.S. government and provide the resources needed to turn the tide on the biodiversity crisis. The bill, which will soon be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, would make U.S. efforts to conserve global biodiversity more efficient, help to coordinate those efforts across the federal government, and provide the ramped up funding needed to meet this growing challenge.

Ask your representative to become a cosponsor of the Global Conservation Act today!

Protecting biodiversity also protects the natural resources that our communities and economies depend on. Some of the world’s most important fish stocks could be jeopardized if coral reefs continue to disappear, and scientists warn that we will never stop climate change unless we address tropical deforestation.

Regardless of where we live, we count on natural systems to provide us with clean water, clean air, food, shelter, medicines and other social benefits. Failure to protect ecosystems worldwide risks dire consequences for all of us.

Tell Congress that the time to act is now. Send a message urging your representative to cosponsor the Global Conservation Act and support U.S. efforts to tackle the biodiversity crisis.

By making your voice heard, you can help to save threatened species and protect our world’s last remaining wild places.

Thank you for your support!

http://www.worldwildlife.org/home.html

they know how good their insurance is,
thats why they don't want us to have it.
when I speak of "they" I mean the Blue Ball
Dem & re-pub-lic-kannots.

hope u r feeling good - it's cold out there
today - burr
gonna go see Stephanie Miller tonight in
OakBrook

Now that is some kickass "feminine" rhetoric...:)

I never get tired of pumpkin pie!! :))

"this machine kills fascists"

Work calls so I'm off in a bit.

This change of weather is killing me but I'll make it with my pain meds.

Have a great day all!

Later

toniD's Ya Think?

You could market those to shy people.

This Is Important Guys..

**

CommonCause.org & CREDO Action..

Sen. Feinstein, it's time you got your priorities straight. Stop trying to ram through far-reaching legislation that would lead to major cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

With our country experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Senate should be working to expand health care programs and aid to those suffering from the recession, instead of pulling the rug out from under them.

Please Read & Sign.. Thank you !

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/difi_socialsecurity_medicare/?rc=fb_...

**

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

MMRules

: )
Been a while for me - making citations - isn't there a way to say 'attributed too' when you don't know the exact source?

The medium is the message
http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10226

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

Review: Reinventing Collapse by Dmitry Orlov
by Amanda Kovattana
Published Apr 19 2008 by Energy Bulletin,
Archived Apr 19 2008
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/42910
""
And there was the revealing insight about each country's self-image regarding defense. That the Russians were all about being undefeated while the Americans were all about victory, leading both to overextend themselves in the weapons department. Both can say they won, because the SU did indeed remain undefeated by the US and the US gets to cry "victory" every time it bombs somebody back into the stone age.

While these cultural details make the book a fascinating read just for his pragmatic sociopolitical perspective, Orlov's main goal is to get Americans to understand what it will mean to live without an economy, when cash is virtually useless and most people won't be getting any income anyway because they'll be out of a job. Peak oil gurus already talk about how economic growth will be curtailed by decreasing supplies of energy, but Orlov takes it one step further by adding currency collapse and the collapse of the known economic system into an unknown bartering system. The reader cannot escape his picture of inevitable collapse as he takes pains to explain that the usual channels of activism, politics and private enterprise, if we use them to attempt to mitigate the collapse, will only make things worse because these systems are ideologically driven and incapable of putting into practice what is needed to happen to ensure survival.

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

By Muriel Kane
Friday, December 4th, 2009 -- 11:07 pm

Share on Facebook Stumble This!
Saudi prince al-Waleed bin Talal has been described by Forbes as the worlds fifth richest man. He is known for his financial ties to the Bush family and the Carlyle Group and for owning a fair-sized stake in Disney and in Citigroup.

These connections were not enough to keep al-Waleed out of trouble, however, when he suggested immediately after September 11 that US policies might have contributed to the attack. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani refusedd to accept a $10 million disaster relief contribution from the prince -- and Fox News applauded Giuliani for his stance.

Since then, al-Waleed has formed multiple connections with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the owner of Fox News. In September 2005, he acquired 5.46% of voting shares in News Corp., and just a few months later, when Fox ran coverage of riots in Paris under the banner "Muslim riots," he allegedly phoned Murdoch and had him change the heading to "civil riots."

Now the partnership is growing even closer, with News Corp. acquiring a 10% stake in al-Waleed's media conglomerate, Rotana, along with an option for another 10%. Rotana, which already broadcasts Fox programming in the Middle East, is involved in producing films, television, recordings, and magazines, and it is thought that Murdoch is hoping to get a toehold in the growing Arab market through the deal.

Glenn Beck on the air in Saudi Arabia? Probably not anytime soon. But it remains to be seen what really will come of the partnership.

con't

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/murdochs-news-corp-cements-ties-saudi-prince...

TN mayor blames ‘Muslim’ Obama for Peanuts Christmas pre-empt

Friday, December 4th, 2009 -- 2:31 pm

Share on Facebook Stumble This!
The mayor of Arlington, Tennessee, believes he knows exactly why President Barack Obama chose last Tuesday night to announce his Afghanistan troop surge: It was a nefarious plot by the "Muslim" president to pre-empt that night's broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

con't

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/mayor-muslim-obama-peanuts/

Source: AFP
27 minutes ago · ROME

ROME — Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the centre of Rome against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Saturday after an Internet call for a "No Berlusconi Day."

Most of them wore scarves, T-shirts or sweaters in various shades of violet after the group of bloggers who organised the protest chose it as the only colour not used by political parties.

The organisers claimed to have attracted 350,000 supporters from a wide spectrum of society, backed by mainly left-wing opposition parties.

Banners carried by the marchers calling on Berlusconi to quit referred to the prime minister's various legal problems, including suspicions of corruption and tax fraud.

"We want Berlusconi to resign because we do not feel that he represents us," one of the organisers, Emmanuele de Pascale, 28, told AFP.

Participants ranged from film director Nanni Moretti, who condemned Berlusconi's domination of Italian television, to ecologists opposed to a planned bridge across the Straits of Messina and immigrant defence groups.

The demonstration came a day after a Mafia hitman testified at a trial in Turin that his boss alleged Berlusconi had aided organised crime.

Berlusconi has vehemently denied ties to the Mafia.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i3HX...

Wait a week, and if they do you like they did me, they'll screw up and return the package instead of deliver it. You might see why people don't want any public health care plan.

I get there to send it back on it's way, there is a line out the door. The moment I get inside the building, all but one of the persons taking packages go take a break. No one replaces them. The remaining attendant decides she needed to work even slower than she was before her fellow postmen went on break.

I finally get to the counter and the guy who took the package originally and shipped it for me, accepts that the error was his in the surliest manner possible.

The public health care plan will fail because of experiences like that. Best not count on it. There is a reason people don't trust government to work. Willful incompetence.

EXCERPT:

Conservatives are very cynical, and the elected ones (being disproportionately double-high authoritarians) are quite often staggering hypocrites. The thing is, they get to a point where they assume everyone else thinks like them too. It's probably a psychological rationalization mechanism for immoral behaviour. It's ok to be self-serving and double dealing because everyone else is too. That sort of thing.

The trick here is to recognize these tendencies in conservatives and find ways to make them into weaknesses. Too often over the past number of years, you find liberals lamenting the "circular firing squad" while grudgingly admiring the lock-step conservative façade and wishing to emulate it. No. No. No

con't

http://www.openleft.com/diary/16337/exploiting-conservative-character-fl...

of a few.

1. Long lines are to be expected at Christmas in busy offices. Aren't you glad this never happens at you local bank?

2. Give me your ZIP and I'll try to find out how short staffed they are. Ask gbasin, they lost two clerks in their small office and they are not being replaced, at least for now.

3. Maybe someone from your company, who has never made a mistake, (I'd like to know what the mistake was btw) will be so kind to go to your Post Office and teach perfection so that you will never be inconvenienced.

Fuck it that we get it right over a billion times a day. Let's grind the whole operation to a halt so we can find out what caused your package to come back.

75% of our employees are veterans. Why do you hate the troops?

Glad your bank never screwed up or your credit card company or your utility company.

Go talk to the PM or Mgr of that station and find out the whole story before you go off like a FOX newscaster on steroids.

Merry Fucking Christmas to you too!

one of my favorite sayings of the season...

thinking about the post office, i was involved in a service business many years ago. in the production area we had a pie chart hanging on the wall. it had three pieces labeled "good", "cheap", "fast" and the caption was "Pick any two".

Shoulda knowed a expert would get all the "fuck you" ducks in a row faster than me. :)

in "guy" type family-owned businesses where there are tools n' shit. You work in a corporate setting or especially if you don't have a penis (i.e, in what used to be called [and still could be, up until very recently at least] "pink collar" positions) you will never be allowed to have a sign like that. No servant is allowed to talk that way--not even as a joke.

I used to hang out at a local independent PC maker. The store did $10 million a year in business making custom PC's for businesses and individuals (they built all my PC's). Anyway they lived and died by timely deliveries, buying memory back in those days was exactly like trading commodities literally making time money to them.

Their name for FED-Ex?

Fed Up

Their name for UPS

Fucked Up

USPS overall does a pretty good job but we're are sadly misconceived as the one branch of government you can easily kick around and are staffed with a bunch of jerk-offs counting down the days to their cushy civil service retirement.

In reality we get no tax dollars except for a few and that's to pay for free matter for the blind. Go ahead and fucking slam us for delivering mail to the blind! I would think to qualify as being "the government" we would have to be entirely supported by tax dollars but then I'm just fucking jerk-off counting down the days to my cushy civil service retirement.

Stuff that in your fucking HoHoHo!

;-)

Baucus Denies 'Affair' With Ex-Aide
and bla bla bla
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=9258755
==
mb 'thanks for your hard work' I try and always say. Being in those lines have been vehicles for transcendent moments for me in the past. A random mix of people, all sharing a common purpose. It doesn't matter what the purpose is, just that it is shared.
===============================

Comcast Promises To Preserve The ‘Integrity’ Of NBC News, Readies For The ‘O’Reilly-Olbermann Wars’
http://thinkprogress.org/?tag=Media

I think what comcast is interested in, is blurring the line between being a pipeline and being a co. that makes what is in the pipe.

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

I'm not arguing about funding or personnel shortages or any of that.

1) The people that worked there clearly didn't care about customer service.

2) For whatever reason, none of them personal, the experience was horrible. I always use Fed-ex. I never have those problems at Fed-ex. EVER.

People like me don't care how it's funded or what type of quasi gov agency it is. All I know is comparing the two agencies, Fed-ex wins hands down.

I'm not criticizing you. I WANT to be supportive but can't because it wouldn't be honest. I'm saying people will look at those experiences and say they don't want a public health care plan based on those crappy experiences.

At Fed-ex, if I have a problem like that, there's a manager I can bitch at and the problem will be fixed. Not so at the post office. I still want to be supportive of the post office. If my health were on the line and had no other option but public assistance, I would appreciate any help.

I'm not saying a public option is a bad idea. It's a requirement. I'm saying that experiences like the one I just had justify some of the negativity towards government involvement in health care.

And there are a million deliveries to my house from the USPS. Few of them come from Fed-ex and UPS or DHL.

USPS is a valuable service on a daily basis. I'm not saying the agency has no value. In fact, my mail man is my friend Justin's old man.

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 2:40pm.
...but then I'm just fucking jerk-off counting down the days to my cushy civil service retirement.
--------
I'll take "How To Enrage maggiesboy" for $100, Alex.

(By the way, Ms_Anthrope says postal employees suck.)

Lines are pretty rare in my office but when they happen I do everything I can to make them laugh. Examples

1. A woman will come up with 4 packages to mail. I'll tell her because of the line she will have to mail them one at a time and go to the end of the line each time.

2. If a long line is static, when I eventually get to the last person I say, "Break time, be back in 20 minutes".

..stuff like that makes the job like being a 3rd rate standup comic but it seems to work.

Perfect example on Thursday, the 3rd, we only rec'd half our usual stack of Social Security checks. (Actually we get them 1 or 2 days in advance just to make sure they are there on time.) Man were a lot of people pissed. These had to be the one's living check to check. Some stood out in the lobby hollerin' "fuckin' Post Office lazy SOB's can't even deliver Social Security checks" ... and worse.

I've never had this problem in the 3 years I've been there and my clerk who has been there 12 has never seen anything of this magnitude. Sure every month there are a few who don't get their checks but it's like 1%.

We didn't find out until Friday when the rest arrived, the Treasury screwed up and got them out late. FYI the Treasury is a government agency paid for with tax dollars I believe.

I've been working on my Cougar. The battery acid rotted the metal out from under it's cage so I'm working on repairing it.

I've cut out a piece of steel which took a while to fashion just right. It's going under the battery bracket so it's not in sight and I'm just going to rivet a metal sheet over it.

I just came in from huffing all of the paint fumes painting it with a potent primer.

ma head's a bit oxygen deprived...

to give people any hope that government involvement in health care will result in anything good.

Of course none of these arguments make any real sense. The doctors wouldn't be run by the government. They would continue to be paid by private insurance agencies.

I'm just saying to the uninitiated, I see where they would be concerned.

ixnay on the otnay eliveringday ocialsay eckschay on imetay...

And you don't really have to trumpet it that you're not "the gov't" either.

Timely delivery of those is another one of the big arguments for public option/single payer (not that it matters much now).

For all you know, somebody's lurking and you could have a Fox News team down there first thing Monday. ;)

Loose lips...

cool and 40s here - rain to snow

Mark Reilley - WOrking NY - 2 - 5 PM Saturdays on wwrl: the question is: what would you do to put americans back to work? Caller: end all these wars!!! Hooray!!!!

That FedEx argument is funny.

First off, I wouldn't say that customer service in the private sector is worth any hype anymore, and I'm talking about the customer service people that are actually here in the states. Outsourced customer service is not even worth talking about.

Second, the Fed Ex or UPS option might be great for someone making more than middle class wages, but for people living hand to mouth, below the poverty level or basically just able to pay their bills and that's about it, the post office is a helluva public option and a lot more convenient, esp. for shipping smaller items and, of course, letters. You'll also find us blue collar slobs a much more patient lot when it comes to customer service and/or waiting in lines.

Third, if you want stellar customer-is-always-right, yes-sir/ma'am-right-away-sir/ma'am customer service, that comes at a cost. Do you think the U.S. can justify silver platter customer service on the taxpayers' dime in this economy? Should they in any economy?

Lastly, how often does the USPS actually fuck up your shipment? In my experience, for the price, they do just fine. UPS and FedEx both screw things up, as well, and their customer service people aren't exactly shining my shoes when I call to complain or find out what happened to my shit. And, hey, they use the USPS too when they need to save cash.

The public option isn't and shouldn't be, at least at this point, an option for the over $100K+ talent. It should be the option for those who have no where else to go for whatever reason, especially, cost.

"this machine kills fascists"

Playing on BRR as I read 60t's post

You Can't Always Get What You Want.

;-)

Another thing to remember is the USPS has to deliver to every address everyday, the competition doesn't. Some places they don't serve because they don't have to.

OK, I did this to myself but I refuse to turn my weekend into a busman's holiday. (Oh shit I hope that can o' worms doesn't open up again)

Crank, make it go away!

Forgot about this, saw it yesterday...didn;t see it posted here:

It's "the license plate sported by Morgan Stanley Vice-Chairman Rob Kindler."

"this machine kills fascists"

is about face to face customer service and the government setting rates.

Tell me again how that isn't exactly what the health care debate is about.

And 60th, sick people who can't afford private insurance still need to be treated with empathy and urgency and competence. They deserve customer service that doesn't make them feel worse.

PLEASE READ & IF U CAN SEND A X-MAS CARD :)

When doing your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to this address: A Recovering American Soldier c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington , D.C. 20307-5001. Think of how many cards these wonderful people who have sacrificed so much would get. PLEASE RE-POST!!!

Have a great night everyone. blog ya later on! xoxo

I'm not talking about the contracted services either. By far you get excellent care and customer service.

If you want to slam our Customer Service Fernando go right ahead but first call 1-800-ASK-USPS and state your complaint and see how it's handled. Technically we're the largest company in the country. Yes we have PO's in places where there isn't a McDonalds.

If at your local branch you asked to see the Mgr or PM and were denied, be sure to state that when you call. We have a massive internal customer service system. When you call and create a case it shows up the next day at the office(s) in question and has to be addressed immediately. The response is monitored at the District level to assure compliance.

If you believe government health care would be provided universally by rude h/c workers you are either naive or being purposely obtuse. I spent my military carrier working in a hospital. I should be so lucky to be able to get the care we provided to our military personnel and their dependents.

Best be talking to michele about projection syndrome cuz you got a double dose dooder.

..and I'm willing to wager you fucked up your own package because you've yet to explain why it was returned to you and/or what the clerk did to cause the problem.

RE: Crank Bait on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 3:01pm.
(By the way, Ms_Anthrope says postal employees suck.)
;)

Listen

Mike Papantonio & David Bender

In Chi-town:
92.5, 92.7, 99.9FM

Of course, Fernando, but that works both ways, too.

For example, how many impatient and selfish people do you think post office workers have to put up with even when things are running smoothly?

Or how many people take out their frustrations, emotional quandries and innumerable life issues on the post office worker?

Or, how about the person that takes calls on their cell while at the counter, or worse, their bluetooth earpiece?

I guarantee you the average postal worker has to put up with more unempathetic idiots in their day than the average person has to in theirs.

"this machine kills fascists"

but I'm better now
Submitted by Fernando on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 3:11pm.

*******

Oh,I get it now..

Why Fernando is doing the Pulic Option/USPS crazy talk.. ;)

**

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

MMRules

Submitted by Jmach1JP on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 6:13pm.

Thanks for the reminder jmach PAP is saying what I am thinking.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. - John 16:33

A truly pompous ass will stamp his face with such nonsense.

MMR - btw, my patch worked out beautiful on my Cougar. Paint nor oxygen did not deter the results. But get ready for some football. UT / Nebraska on in 1 hr. All eyes on Florida / Alabama now.

re: Ring Of Fire now streaming
new
Submitted by Jmach1JP on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 6:13pm.

Bama's looking pretty tough right now..

Hook em Horns ! :)

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

MMRules

(heckuva job, Howie!)

"this machine kills fascists"

You can only read me.

If this was an encrypted message...which it is...it COULD mean.....supplies short...if UR coming to the island, bring Herb. We are so missing Herb.

(bathe before coming. hot water tank out.)

What a game.

Ya big cry baby!

April Ryan

This reporter appears to have lost her mind. Did you hear the exchange between her and Robin Gibbs? It not the first time April has asked a stupid question. Remember when she asked this gem during a Bush press conference? "Mr. President, as the nation is at odds over war, with many organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus pushing for continued diplomacy through the U.N., how is your faith guiding you? And what should you tell America -- well, what should America do, collectively, as you instructed before 9/11? Should it be "pray?" Because you're saying, let's continue the war on terror."

There are some that are saying Gibbs was out of line. Perhaps even racist. I say that is absolutely ridiculous! Sounds like the right-wing to me.

How to spot a pompous ass
Submitted by Fernando on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 6:36pm.
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. - John 16:33

A truly pompous ass will stamp his face with such nonsense.
----------
Mr. Self-Righteous from the cult of Neon Jesus should paint the following on his forehead for the post-game festivities:

Matthew 27:46 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Florida hasn't played any serious teams this season. He's been over hyped.

Should Texas lose, TCU Horned Frogs could be in the Rose Bowl.

That's a real mind trip.

I see the crazy in the world has come to the blog.

I was listening to Ring of Fire on the way home and Bender was interviewing a man running for office and he said that the people have to take to the streets in huge masses. I agree.

toniD's Ya Think?

;)
ellwort on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 2:46am.

All y'all other lovely people:
What MONK are you talkin' 'bout?
{TeeHee the only OTHER MONK I know of is T. Monk {the kewl JazzDude}

doesn't wake up soon it could be a long night,Fernando..

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

MMRules

Maybe it's because of what Aetna did?

Snowe Rejoins Dems At Public Option Negotiating Table

In a breakthough in Senate negotiations around a public health insurance option, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) sat down with centrist conservative Democrats for the first time Saturday since the bipartisan Gang of Six broke up shortly after returning from the August recess.

Since then, Snowe, the most likely Republican to cross the aisle on health care reform, has been meeting individually with Democrats, but had yet to rejoin negotiations in a formal way.

Snowe, emerging from a meeting on the first floor of the Capitol, Saturday afternoon, told a few reporters hovering outside the room that she had been approached earlier that morning about attending.

She said that no agreement had yet been reached, but that the group was considering "another option," aside from those already under discussion. An agreement had been reached that it would not be publicly discussed, she said, until more details were worked out. Earlier Saturday, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) also mentioned the new option being kicked around but said he couldn't discuss it.

Kerry said that Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) was one of the leading intellectual fathers of this new approach, an assertion Snowe confirmed, adding that Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) were also closely involved.

Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colorado), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) also attended the meeting.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) was not at the meeting and has vowed to filibuster any bill that has any version of a public option. If Lieberman holds to his threat, Democrats would need Snowe to break a GOP-Lieberman filibuster.

Snowe said she was still pushing her "trigger" proposal and met yesterday with Kerry to discuss it. Kerry, she said, has long been open to such a plan. Under her trigger, the public option would only be available in states where private insurance is deemed unaffordable to a certain percentage of residents. Advocates of the public option say a trigger is as good as no public option at all, because it will be gamed by insurance companies so that it never "triggers."
Story continues below

Snowe said Kerry's been in discussions with her about her proposal for months. "[She and Kerry] have, even prior to this, [had discussions] on the Finance Committee about the possibility of a trigger and how it would work and so on," she said.

As the conservative meeting was breaking up, a separate meeting on the Hill began, where liberal Democrats met to discuss their own strategy around the public option.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was also in the Capitol Saturday, but didn't attend either meeting.

"I've talked to a lot of senators and encouraged the good work that's gone on," she said as she left the building and was met by a driving snow. "I know that lots of very positive conversations are underway with lots of members of the Senate and that's just what needs to happen."

President Obama plans to address the Senate caucus on Sunday afternoon, a meeting she said she planned to attend, as well.

HuffPost asked what she thought Obama would tell his party.

"Pass health care," she said.

UPDATE: Conservative Arkansas Democrats Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor joined the liberals on the second floor of the Capitol following the centrist meeting earlier. Snowe didn't join, but said she'd continue talking.

Following the meeting, Pryor declined to get too specific, but did say that a leading proposal involves increasing the ability of the Office of Personnel Management -- which oversees the federal employee health plans -- to negotiate on behalf of individuals and small businesses. Pryor told a HuffPost and an AP reporter that it was unclear how exactly it would be set up, but that it would take the place of the public option managed by the Health and Human Services Secretary.

Lincoln, also interviewed after the meeting, said that the OPM plan would not need additional seed money and would be similar to a proposal she introduced earlier this year called the SHOP Act. She said that she continues to oppose a "government-run plan," but that this proposal would meet the twin goals of keeping down costs and increasing competition. Snowe and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are cosponsors of the SHOP Act.

The Lincoln proposal appears to be the alternative option that the conservatives and centrists discussed at the earlier meeting. Snowe had said the proposal was both old and new and Lincoln's measure answers that riddle.

It does little, however, to answer liberals' demands for a nationwide public option. Pryor said, however, that the progressive senators they met with were willing to continue discussions and cautioned that it would be several days before a deal was reached.

They plan to meet again Sunday evening after Obama departs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/05/snowe-rejoins-dems-at-pub_n_381...

toniD's Ya Think?

Do you think you..

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 12:44am.

Ya Thinkers will know there's a channel ID coming when you here this or this?

I'm toast
g'nite!

Nice :)

Any instruments made on your plane are like your outer senses, constructed to perceive camouflage patterns. The instruments of the scientists, and the outer senses themselves, are camouflage patterns and cannot, and never will, dissect themselves."

Session 37
Page 295
The Early Sessions, Book 1

the half yet. Patience MMR.

but it's not even
new
Submitted by Fernando on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 9:26pm.
the half yet. Patience MMR.

*******

Nebraska's Steroids start kickin in.. ;)

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

MMRules

Gallup: 73 Percent Of Public Worried Afghan War Escalation Will Hurt Domestic Priorities

Gallup:

Some opponents of escalating the United States' involvement in Afghanistan are questioning the increasing costs to the U.S. of the war effort. And many Americans share this concern, at least to some degree. The poll finds 73% saying they are worried about the war's costs making it more difficult for the U.S. to address domestic problems, including 32% who are very worried.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124565/Americans-Split-Whether-Goals-Afghanis...

toniD's Ya Think?

The nation’s biggest bank lobby sent Democratic leaders a letter Friday lashing out at credit unions for seeking to expand their lending authority to improve the economy.
In a lengthy letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), the American Bankers Association (ABA) urged lawmakers not to increase the amount of money credit unions may lend.
ABA and 56 state and regional bank lobbying associations said lawmakers should “oppose this unnecessary expansion of lending authority.”

The bank lobby’s effort comes after Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) urged Pelosi and House leaders to raise the business lending cap for credit union members from 12.25 percent to 25 percent.
Kanjorski argued an increase would lead credit unions to lend more to small businesses and create as many as 100,000 jobs. Kanjorski personally appealed for the change with President Barack Obama on Air Force One as the president visited Allentown, Pa.

The bank lobbies said the change “will only increase the risk exposure of credit unions” and “result in credit unions straying further from their traditional mission of serving customers, particularly those of modest means.”

.....

Credit union lobbying groups immediately shot back, saying banks have failed to increase lending to small business attempting to weather the bleak economy.
“I continue to find it interesting that the ABA and the cabal of state banking organizations continue to focus on credit unions while the (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) continues to take over a record number of banks,” said Dan Berger, executive vice president at the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU). “Like my grandfather used to say … those in glass houses.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/70685-banks-lash-out-at-credit-unions-...

toniD's Ya Think?

Bush Family Secrets

Date: 12-05-09

Host: Ian Punnett

Guests: Russ Baker, Fred Burton

Ian Punnett welcomes award-winning investigative reporter Russ Baker, who will discuss shocking disclosures about various Bush family elders, as well as startling evidence that sheds new light on the JFK assassination and Watergate.

During the first hour, former State Department counter terrorism special agent Fred Burton will talk about the Fort Hood shootings.

Website(s):

# russbaker.com

# stratfor.com

# whowhatwhy.com

# familyofsecrets.com

Book(s):
# Family of Secrets
# Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/12/05

Even God need threats.

Geithner Calls for Tightening Derivatives Loopholes

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for tightening loopholes in U.S. legislation to regulate the $605 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market.

“For this to really work, for us to bring this market out of the dark, to try to make sure we have protections in place against manipulation and fraud, we can’t allow these exceptions to undermine those basic protections,” Geithner said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing today.

Airlines, energy companies and other end-users that rely on derivatives to protect their businesses against swings in oil and commodities prices would be exempt from most new requirements in House of Representatives bills designed to rein in more speculative trading in the loosely regulated derivatives market. The House legislation is slated for votes next week.

Legislation proposed by Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, offers fewer exceptions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axRyBKJcNRlY&pos=2

toniD's Ya Think?

(Defense Sec. Robert) Gates: No good intel on Osama bin Laden in years

Source: Associated Press

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States has not had good intelligence on the whereabouts of terrorist Osama bin Laden in years.

Gates made the comment in an interview to be aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Asked whether he could confirm recent reports that bin Laden had been seen recently in Afghanistan, Gates said "no." Media reports late this week mentioned accounts of unconfirmed bin Laden sightings in recent weeks.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/05/national/w16...

toniD's Ya Think?

President Obama to Capitol Hill to Push for Health Care Bill Updated at 4:24 PM

Source: ABC News

President Obama plans to go to Capitol Hill on Sunday to bolster Democratic support for health care reform legislation as the debate on the bill reaches a critical point.

In a rare weekend session, senators debated the president's health care overhaul bill Saturday as the Democrats' self-imposed deadline to pass health care legislation by the end of this year approaches.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid opened the Saturday session arguing Americans don't get weekends off from losing their health insurance.

"The American people don't get weekends off from this injustice," Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. "Bankruptcy doesn't keep bankers' hours. They don't go away just because it's Sunday or Saturday. The pain is still there and so our work continues this weekend. It will continue until we give this nation's citizens a health insurance system that works for them."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-hill-sunday-push-health-c...

toniD's Ya Think?

Just start a rumor he's boinking someone semi-famous and the paparazzi will find him in 2 or 3 hours.

TARP funds in play for jobs program
OBAMA LIKELY TO BACK DEAL
Lawmakers crafting a bill to tap bailout money

By David Cho and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 5, 2009

During a speech about the economy next week, President Obama is likely to endorse using some of the government's $700 billion financial bailout for a new jobs-creation program, the White House said Friday.

"The president thinks we should and must do everything in our power to create an environment for job growth and job creation," press secretary Robert Gibbs said. When asked whether Obama will talk on Tuesday about the use of bailout funds, Gibbs said, "I think that's likely."

About $139 billion of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, remains unallocated. Banks have paid another $10 billion in interest and dividends to the Treasury Department and returned about $71 billion in aid, Treasury reported last month. This week, Bank of America announced it would repay another $45 billion.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has advocated against spending unallocated TARP funds to demonstrate the administration's commitment to deficit reduction. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other top Democrats have been crafting a bill that would tap the bailout program to create jobs. Geithner said this week that lower-than-expected losses on the program and "very substantial" repayments from once shaky banks will make it possible to accomplish both goals.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR200912...

toniD's Ya Think?

Feds seize
more Georgia banks
Also seized by the FDIC on Friday were three Georgia banks: Buckhead Community Bank, based in Atlanta, with $874 million in assets and $838 million in deposits; First Security National Bank, based in Norcross, Ga., with $128 million in assets and $123 million in deposits; and Tattnall Bank, of Reidsville, Ga., with assets of $49.6 million and deposits of $47.3 million.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091205/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bank_closures

toniD's Ya Think?

We did just about everything to loss that game..
Especially,that last drive..
Thank Goodness we have a very good kicker..

I'm worried about us against Bama..
We haven't looked good winning any of these big games,this year..
I hope I'm wrong.. :)

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

MMRules

The rise and fall of MySpace

By Matthew Garrahan

Published: December 4 2009 15:26 | Last updated: December 4 2009 15:26

Rupert MurdochIn summer 2005, having spent the best part of four decades ­building a newspaper, film and television empire, Rupert Murdoch decided that the time had come to get serious about the internet. As founder and chairman of News Corporation, one of the world’s biggest and most powerful media conglomerates, Murdoch controls an eclectic portfolio of businesses ranging from The Sun newspaper to the movie studio 20th Century Fox. Yet with young people “watching less television and reading fewer newspapers”, as he observed that summer, News Corp desperately needed a bigger presence online.

The way in, it was decided after much deliberation among the News Corp top brass, was to buy Intermix, a Los Angeles-based company whose main asset was MySpace, a website that had been adding an astonishing 70,000 new users every day. MySpace was firmly at the forefront of Web 2.0, the label at that time applied to a new level of software functionality that helped internet users to interact directly with one another. As an online social network, MySpace offered a new kind of shared experience, ­connecting millions of users via interests in music, film and popular culture.

To say MySpace was a hot property back in 2005 is something of an understatement. Its rapidly expanding tribe of users had attracted the attention of other potential buyers. Viacom, for one, a rival media conglomerate that owns companies such as Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central, was eyeing it as a vehicle to revive its flagging MTV channel, a similarly youth-oriented brand.

But Murdoch got there first and the resulting $580m deal transformed his image at a stroke. The curmudgeonly media baron, whose achievements included breaking the Fleet Street printing unions and launching the conservative Fox News cable channel, had re-invented himself as a 21st-century internet hipster. It took Wall Street a few months to appreciate the magnitude of the deal but the purchase slowly began to imbue News Corp with an almost priceless commodity it had lacked: cool.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/fd9ffd9c-dee5-11de-adff-00144feab49a.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Just start a rumor he's boinking someone semi-famous and the paparazzi will find him in 2 or 3 hours.

hahahahahahahahaha
hilarious!

David Bowie - Suffragette City

http://hypem.com/#/track/972268/David+Bowie+-+Suffragette+City

**

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane

http://hypem.com/#/track/959697/David+Bowie-Aladdin+Sane

**

David Bowie - Watch That Man

http://hypem.com/#/track/959695/David+Bowie-Watch+That+Man

**

David Bowie - Panic In Detroit

http://hypem.com/#/track/959702/David+Bowie-Panic+In+Detroit

**

Remember to support the artists.. :)

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

MMRules

in real time less than 20 miles from here up at Tahoe. I'd really love to see him but $80.00 per ticket! The show is being billed as, "Wilson's Greatest Hits". My favorite Wilson tune most likely will not be included tonight. The brilliant "Surf's Up", from Smile around the Pet Sounds era, 1967. A lot of psychedelic imagery, with and ending refrain that inspired the bridge in Lennon and McCartney's "A Day In The Life"...

but I thought that last 3 could be a 2.

john 16:32
32"Behold, (AX)an hour is coming, and has already come, for (AY)you to be scattered, each to (AZ)his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet (BA)I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
==
Like, the season is ending, he's the quarter back, his buddies are all going their own ways...
But now that I think of it, wasn't that was him on the sidelines praying?
And I guess the evidence is that the prayers worked, right?
:P
==edit
or was that the Flordia qb w/ the face paint and the texas qb that was praying?
~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

on Coast to Coast. I'm looking forward to the interview.

I read part of his Family of Secrets. So far, just about the Nixon years and it is fascinating reading. (No wonder Nixon acted paranoid. When the Bush gang gave Nixon backing to become a "populist" candidate for Congress, did he know at the time the full meaning of it down the road? It wasn't like he was "one of them"; he was really just the hired help.)

Although Alex Jones is the involved:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8sivd_russ-bakerinstudio-family-of-sec...

The smile tour came through here- heard it was fabulous.

check this out!

Does this mean anyone would be able to buy into the pool you guys have and keep their costs down that way? What are the perscription benefits of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program?

"this machine kills fascists"

It's open season right now, and haven't read all of the new information for the 2010 Benefits Program. There's a number of plans to choose from, but in the one I'm in now I pay less than $5.00 a month for my perscriptions.

By January we may know if a new El Nino weather system is occurring...May end California's three-year drought....

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/05/MNKL1AV9NK.D...

The War Enabling Politics of Norman Solomon and “P”DA

...
That record of endorsement makes Solomon and his ideological bedfellows enablers without peer. Let us recall that many of these enablers heaped abuse on a genuine antiwar candidate, Ralph Nader, refused to invite him to speak at anti-war rallies and made sure that his words did not appear in the “liberal” press like The Nation. These days the bumper stickers that proclaim “Don’t Blame Me; I voted for Ralph,” should be flying off the shelves.

In fact it goes beyond that. The enablers like Solomon and Medea Benjamin and Katrina vanden Heuvel owe the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan an apology, for their backing of Obama makes them complicit in the war and killing that will soon intensify. They worked to get Obama elected rather than to build a new political movement, which is necessary to end the depredations of US Empire and which will never be organized if anti-warriors keep following the Dems. In fact the enablers of war consistently frustrate the building of such a movement. It is time to recognize that the Democrat Party is one of the two parties of Empire, and one of its functions is to contain the antiwar movement at which it does splendidly, not least by permitting an impotent “progressive” wing to keep keep hope alive. (Solomon and his buddies should simply stop offering their opinions and go to work with the Red Cross in Afghanistan to relieve some of the suffering they helped to cause.)

Some of the Democrat liberals are saying that somehow they got Obama wrong — and they will not do that sort of thing again. There is only one problem with that. They will do it again.
...

I'll save that link.

But I don't.

Last June, C.I.A. director Leon Panetta met in a closed session with the House and Senate intelligence committees to brief them on a covert-action program, which the agency had long concealed from Congress. Panetta explained that he had learned of the existence of the operation only the day before and had promptly shut it down. The reason, C.I.A. spokesman Paul Gimigliano now explains: “It hadn’t taken any terrorists off the street.” During the meeting, according to two attendees, Panetta named both Erik Prince and Blackwater as key participants in the program. (When asked to verify this account, Gimigliano notes that “Director Panetta treats as confidential discussions with Congress that take place behind closed doors.”) Soon thereafter, Prince says, he began fielding inquisitive calls from people he characterizes as far outside the circle of trust.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/blackwater-201001?cu...

...and I was hoping you'd say that. Does this mean the people allowed into this would become part of the giant pool(s) of government employees?

I'm not buying this hook, line and sinker, yet, but it looks like a pretty good solution to me.

And it would mean that there was teeth behind Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, Dodd and Mikulsky calling Coburn and Vitter's bluff today.

And would also explain the reemergence of Snowe in the talks.

This seems like kind of a bodyslam to the Republicans, no? They've been running their mouths an awful lot about the people having the same choices as members of Congress. Even the teabaggers say that. I wonder if Republicans are going to have a hard time opposing it now that VItter and Coburn have stepped on their dicks!

I just hope the Dems don't try and attach a trigger onto it!

Shit! I probably just jinxed it!

"this machine kills fascists"

whowhatwhy.com

if it has legs. No triggers, No Bullshit!

From March!

Obama team looks to federal employee health program as a model

"The Obama administration is looking closely at the federal government's health insurance program as it undertakes nationwide health care reform, a senior adviser to the president said on Monday.

The president's team has been working with the Office of Personnel Management, which administers federal benefits, Neera Tanden, counselor for health reform in the Health and Human Services Department secretary's office, told participants of the OPM-sponsored Federal Employees Health Benefits Carrier Conference in Washington. "There are a lot of ideas that we think work very well," she said."

Wow! Ace in the hole?

"this machine kills fascists"

Buy some extra catboxes so you'll have enough during the big rain storms acomin' this next week....

Meow!

I hope your knee is on the mend, you might even be getting some snow down your way...

with Republican co-sponsors...

Pharma Deal To Be Tested On Senate Floor

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised to allow a vote on re-importing prescription drugs from Canada as an amendment to the health care reform bill, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) told reporters on Saturday.

Snowe pledged to back it on the floor and do what she could to bring other Republicans along, she told reporters Saturday."

Looks like things are about to get freaky!

"this machine kills fascists"

Grandpa Prescott Bush being a Nazi Sympathizer ?

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

MMRules

Nixon knew nothing about Watergate..

Re-writing history on Coast 2 Coast now..

I call bullshit..

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

MMRules

Somehow makes me think of Rodney Dangerfield.

Can you see it at all?

You mean dental?

In that case, I hope there's brains behind it too.

(Sorry.)

High: 30 °F
Low: 20 °F

Free Democracy

MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS | HOLLYWOOD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1VTcJfL7RE&feature

**

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

MMRules

Washington Post

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- All 3,000 cadets remained standing in the auditorium, shoulders straight, chins high, hands clasped behind their backs. They had just listened to President Obama declare his plans for the Afghanistan war, an announcement that affected nobody more than them, and yet their bodies remained still and their faces remained stoic.

Only after the speech ended and the country turned away did the West Point cadets offer interpretations of their own: Here was a plan laid out by their commander in chief, and it was their job to follow it. But their emotions ranged from elation to concern, and Obama's decision to deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan has consumed their thoughts and dominated their conversations in the days since the speech.

Eric Bernau, in his final year at West Point, had reached out from the third row to shake Obama's hand, and he returned to his room on the first floor of the Ike Barracks eager to post photographs of the event on Facebook. He wanted to call family and friends and tell them about "the whole honor of being in that room with the president at such a key moment in history," he said. Only when he checked the messages on his cellphone did he realize his friends wanted to talk to him about something else entirely.

There were about 20 text messages waiting, some entirely in capital letters and others peppered with anxious exclamation marks.

"What does this mean for you?" one friend said.

"Will you have to go?" another wondered. "Are you nervous?"

"I came here to West Point for four years because I have one singular goal of serving this country while we're at war," Bernau explained, again and again. "If you're involved in sports, you don't want to spend all your time practicing and then never play in the game. It's the same thing for us. I always expected to go to war. I want to go. I'm honored to go."

Bernau had applied to West Point -- and nowhere else -- five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks precisely because he hoped to be counted on when it mattered most. He was the first in his family to join the military, leaving behind a worried mother with roots as a religious pacifist and a miffed group of friends who later bragged about their light schedules at the University of Wisconsin. But Bernau was captivated by the purposefulness of the Army and the cohesiveness of the West Point cadets. Once a high school class clown, he absorbed the seriousness of the country's oldest military academy: the gray uniforms, gray skies and gray stone buildings; the morning roll call at 6:50 and the lunchtime count at noon, all with a military band providing a drum roll in the background.

When it came time earlier this year for Bernau to select a military branch, he asked to be assigned to infantry, with a creed demanding courage at the "heart of the fight." He liked physical sports -- camping, hiking and mixed martial arts -- that he thought would translate well into fighting an enemy on the ground. He also believed that the most noble leaders earned respect by operating "at the tip of the spear," he said.

Long before Obama spent months deliberating the future of the Afghanistan war and brought his decisions to West Point, Bernau had contemplated -- and made peace with -- the potential consequences of the president's path. He was surrounded by the effects of war every day. It was the combat boots and military fatigues worn for Spirit Day each Thursday. It was the boxing classes and self-defense training required of each cadet. It was the alumni who returned to visit between tours in Iraq, some telling gruesome stories and others not saying much at all. It was the public announcements that preceded lunch in the mess hall when another West Point alum was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, bringing the total to 73. It was, as much as anything, the unblemished white headstones in Section 34 of the West Point graveyard, where so many of those 73 had been buried that there were plans to expand the cemetery and overtake an adjacent parking lot and coffee shop.

"You can't spend a day at West Point without being reminded what we're here for," Bernau said. "Everything builds toward that service."

Said Col. Mike Meese, chairman of West Point's social studies department: "There has been an incredible intensity here ever since 9/11. The cadets have a strong belief that this is the defining struggle of their lifetime. Every one of them elected to come here because they want to be a part of it."

Not long after the speech, Meese received a call from his son, Brian, in his second year at West Point, who watched Obama from the second-to-back row with a solemn face. Brian had spoken with his friends on the walk back from the auditorium to their barracks, and none of them could stop obsessing over one number Obama had highlighted in his speech: 18 months. The deployment of 30,000 additional troops was something they had expected -- it was the future for which they had prepared. But why had Obama so forcefully emphasized that he would begin a drawdown of troops in 18 months? What if the war was over by the time they graduated?

Brian Meese, the latest aspiring officer in a family with three generations of service, had prepared to fight in a war ever since he was 12. He had accompanied his father to almost a dozen military funerals, and each one strengthened his resolve. At West Point, he studied Arabic instead of Spanish, judging it more practical for a soldier destined for the Middle East.

"Now I might not get to go," Brian told his father over the phone this week, his voice betraying disappointment.

"I think you will still have your chance," his father said. "All of the evil in the world is not going to be defeated by the summer of 2011."

"You're taking care of Iraq. You're taking care of Afghanistan," Brian told his father. "What's going to be left for me?"

Many cadets had the same concern. Jon Schleef, a third-year cadet who had served in Afghanistan before enrolling at West Point, stayed awake in his room after listening to Obama and thought about friends still at war. "For me, it made me miss it," Schleef said. "It's such a privilege, being over there with a close-knit group of people. And now the president comes here to give us these orders, and there's a real clarity about our mission. I want to go back."

Arron Conley, class president, tried to answer more than 50 messages left on his computer and cellphone in the hours after Obama's speech. When he told old acquaintances that a likely deployment to Afghanistan struck him as good news, they acted as if he were speaking a foreign language. His mother had adamantly opposed his decision to leave junior college in California for the military, and now some of her old resentments had returned. Friends expressed concerns for his safety. A former classmate wanted to know whether there was any chance Conley could still avoid deployment.

"Some people are never going to get it, because the idea of somebody actually wanting to go to war just doesn't make sense to them," Conley said. "But look, this is what I do. This is who I am."

Eventually, Conley gave up explaining and returned to his routine: following an incremental series of orders that will lead to his deployment into war. After the speech, he turned out the light in his room at 11:30 p.m., woke up the next morning before 6, made his bed, shaved, dressed in his uniform, polished his shoes and shined the bathroom sink. He left his room just before 7 to join his regiment and stand in formation for the morning count. The cadets stood outside their barracks, shoulders straight and chins high, reporting for duty, one day closer to carrying out the president's plan.

Yesterday I attended a book presentation and signing for George Carlin's posthumous autobiography's release. His daughter Kelly, a stunningly hot MILF, did the honors.
She told us many interesting things about him. For one, he was not really an atheist as much as he was an agnostic. When I flipped through the book I noticed that on its final page he refers ambiguously to a sort of rebirth at the end of life and the "the One," which was rather surprising to me.
I asked her if he ever mentioned the presidential election of 1972 (McGovern V. Nixon), which he cited as the last election during which he voted. As she looked at me with a solemn expression she told me that it basically broke him as a man, and he tried to maintain his faith in people although it was extremely difficult. She also said that he probably died emotionally and physically of a broken heart. Although she tries to remain positive about the future, when he died a piece of her optimism went with him.
Anyway, putting aside the melancholy, it's an interesting book. I recommend it to you.

"SLEEP TIGHT, BATSHIT."
-Bill Maher to 9/11 nut
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Burr it's cold here in IL. (Northern)

A man without a country

"this machine kills fascists"

Now on my blog: Last Words
new
Submitted by M the a-c on Sun, 12/06/2009 - 11:45am.

SNL Salahi Skit Spoofs Party Crashing Couple, Secret Service (VIDEO)

SNL opened last night with a sketch mocking the White House party crashers (aka Tareq and Michaele Salahi), the Secret Service, and Vice President Joe Biden. Obama (Fred Armsien) was just trying to give his Afghanistan speech when the crashers appeared on stage, taking pictures and goofing around. Soon the Secret Service got in on the fun, despite knowledge they weren't supposed to be there. And, of course, Joe Biden followed.

There were reports that the Salahis were set to appear in person, but they were no where to be seen last night.

Video at link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/05/salahis-on-snl-washington_n_381...

toniD's Ya Think?

mire -

Sorry it took so long to respond but I can only do so much when doing the show live. Takes a lot of attention to detail and I'm deficit in the attention department

so now i've gotta figure out how to pipe in that internet radio thing through my house

You can do it wirelessly through your PC but you'll have to buy one piece of hardware that will "beam" the signal throughout your house and one software app to talk to the "beaming machine".

Or...just get a big PC sound system to hook to your computer and crank it up! ;-)

Or..since you have a laptop, just get some decent little speaker so connect to it and take the laptop and speakers from room to room.

right now i have a very delicate set up - a balance of power among the various gadgets and connections and wires coming out of this armoire that functions as tv stand, wireless router, phone adapters for vonage, digital speakers used to be for ipod and laptop but now they have to work for the tv as well when the tv functions as computer screen

Hmmm, doesn't sound like you need more hardware to hassle with. I'd go with the laptop/speaker model. Speakers are affordable so you might just want to get another pair or two and put in the rooms where you might be listening.

spent more than a week setting up the vonage adapter

My Vonage modem got zapped but it only knocked out the main number. I called tech support and they showed me how to move over to the alternate line. Only thing with this is I don't have Caller ID anymore.

i know i'll have to do it before tonight if i wanna catch the yathink or i'll be stuck using the laptop with its weak speaker

You can't connect your laptop to your existing speakers? If not get some cheapy earbuds/phones.

does anyone know why my wireless mouse insists on only working on the floor

Is the surface you want to use a solid color or clear? You just need some kind of mouse pad or anything with some patter to it so you mouse can read the fact it's being moved. The grain in the wood floor is why that surface works.

which brings me to the next subject

when is this awful cold spell gonna end?
i just hate the cold

When it's over. Now let me ask you, Why is there air?

gee, i thought we were talking brr, how did i end up here? maybe i had too much coffee and my mind is flipping around

got brr mixed up with brrrrr... get it? ahahah

mire gets silly with the chilly!

»

I sent an email to everyone on the mailing lists for BlueRootsRadio and Ya Think? there would be a live show today at 8 a.m. EST.

You can count on it being there next week. The talk part may not start till 9 to make it not silly early for the PST pack.

The evening show will continue. Maybe we'll do an hour in the a.m. and and hour in the p.m. to make the podcast still be two hours.

i didn't expect such a detailed point by point response

now ii'll have to plow through it

vonage: solved
l
yathink and internet piping: solved (i will use my laptop, the sound came loud and clear on this morning try

the cold: solved, i'll just wait a couple of days and we'll be back in the seventies (but now that all the plants are inside i am not gonna move them back any time soon - too bad for them if they need more light and rain, sheez, almost as demanding as your dogs, mb)

have a good sunday ya'll, got stuff to do around here

How's everybody?

http://www.linktv.org/programs/dalai
This is really an important discussion on Ethics and the Media in our country, Dali Lama, Katrina Vandenhauvel, Amy Gooman, Susan Saranden...

Ethics and the World Crisis: A Dialogue with the Dalai Lama | Link TV
www.linktv.org

Highlights of an extraordinary ethics conference, featuring the Dalai Lama in conversation with the nation's leading activists.

ht for FOX pic: watertiger

"this machine kills fascists"

Philippines government imposes martial law to quell ‘rebellion’

By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, December 5th, 2009 -- 10:43 am

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The Philippines on Saturday announced the imposition of martial law in a southern province to quell a rebellion by a powerful clan accused of being behind the massacre of 57 people.

President Gloria Arroyo placed Maguindanao province under military control late on Friday in an effort to contain heavily-armed militias belonging to the provincial governor and other members of his Muslim clan, authorities said.

"There's a rebellion in the area," Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera said. "It was practically an overthrow of government."

Arroyo's controversial move is the first time martial law has been declared in the Philippines since the reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had the whole of the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981.

con't

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/philippines-government-imposes-martial-law-q...

Alleged new public option compromise proposal looks good on this front, too...

Abortion Coverage for Women Enrolled in Federal Employees Health Benefits Program

"The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill provides funding for the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program, the network of insurance plans that covers more than eight million federal employees, their dependents, and retirees.

* Knowing that the American majority opposes making abortion illegal, anti-choice members of Congress work to make obtaining an abortion more difficult and more dangerous. Singling out abortion for exclusion from health-care plans that cover other reproductive-health services is harmful to women's health and discriminates against women in public service."

choice, that's all anyone's ever asked...it's all about choice...

"this machine kills fascists"

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sun, 12/06/2009 - 11:57am.
...You just need some kind of mouse pad or anything with some patter to it so you mouse can read the fact it's being moved...
-----------
Patter? Moved? Maybe you could find a recording of an auctioneer reading the libretto of Die Fledermaus?

No, wait. Never mind.

Die Fledermaus is a leftover idea from a Bat Boy joke I was working on.

I'm still waiting to read a reference to "a defensive tackle named Suh."

It's only a matter of time.

Obama Rallies Senate Democrats On Health Care

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is trying to rally Senate Democrats to stand together on his broad health care overhaul amid signs of progress Sunday on the divisive issue of whether the government can compete with private industry in selling insurance.

Obama planned to appear at an afternoon Senate Democratic caucus meeting in response to appeals from a number of lawmakers eager for him to step in and help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., finish the job.

"The president is going to come in and urge us to bring this ball across the line, to finish this, as he should. This is an historic opportunity," said Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, viewed Obama's closed-door visit with Democrats differently.

"I regret that the president is going to continue what has been a partisan approach to health care reform," Cornyn said. "Obviously, the president and Senate Democrats have made a decision to do it their way without accepting input from Republicans."

Obama and Reid must unite liberals and moderates in the 60-member caucus, even as moderates balk over abortion and the option of government-run health insurance. Sixty is the precise number needed to overcome Republican stalling tactics in the 100-member Senate, so Reid doesn't have a vote to spare.

"I think if we don't deliver, we've got a problem," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., when asked on a Sunday talk show about the political consquences for Democrats should they fail to produce a bill with congressional midterm elections next year.

Moderate and liberal lawmakers met throughout the day Saturday to try to find a compromise on the government insurance plan that they could all support and that could also potentially attract Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, the one Republican to vote for the Democrats' health overhaul bill in committee.
Story continues below

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the second-ranking Senate GOP leader, said that right now his party remained united against the Democratic bill, which he complained would "get the government very deeply involved into health care at an enormous expense."

A new idea being discussed was national nonprofit insurance plans that would be administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the popular Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., a key centrist, was enthusiastic about the idea, which she's proposed in different forms in the past. "I think it bodes well for being able to do what we want to do, which is to create greater choice and options in the marketplace," she said.

Liberals were cool to the proposal, holding out for a fully government-run plan.

"I'm willing to talk to anybody about anything but they haven't sold it yet," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. "We have compromised enough on the public option."

Someone will have to give. But despite the apparent divide, lawmakers and White House officials sounded increasingly optimistic.

"It's going really well. They're having a lot of really productive meetings," Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, told reporters in the Capitol Saturday. "It's about where it should be at this point in the legislative process."

While negotiations continued behind the scenes, the Senate was expected to vote Sunday on a Lincoln-sponsored amendment to limit the tax deductions insurance companies take for what they pay their top executives. Lawmakers also were debating a measure to limit plaintiff lawyers' fees in medical malpractice cases, a politically fraught issue that pits Republicans against Democrats.

Reid called the unusual weekend sessions as he races to finish the sweeping bill by Christmas. The House already passed its version last month. The nearly $1 trillion, 10-year legislation would provide coverage to more than 30 million more people over the next decade with a new requirement for nearly everyone to purchase insurance. There would be new marketplaces where people could shop for and compare insurance plans, and lower-income people would get subsidies to help them afford coverage. The federal-state Medicaid program for the poor would grow, and there would be a ban on unpopular insurance company practices such as pulling coverage when someone gets sick.

Durbin and Cornyn spoke on "Fox News Sunday," while Feinstein and Kyl were on CNN's "State of the Union."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/senate-votes-to-cut-medic_n_381...

toniD's Ya Think?

/zombie_reagan_raised_from_grave

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/zombie_reagan_raised_from_grave

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

Having had daily interactions with the Postal Service in the last 6 months, I have nothing but praise for what they do. I am offended every time I hear the con whackadoodles invoke the USPS in the health care debate.

why didn't i think of it? you may well be right, didn't have the time to test it yet - i'll let you know how it works out

now i have to get ready for this potluck - i hate potlucks, don't ya? i mean wouldn't you rather go to a party where you don't have to do anything? what's the point of going to a party otherwise (all fun no work, right?)

nah, just kidding, i love potlucks, especially italian ones, such a variety of delicious foods, one better than the next, we all know what it is (no asking "what's that?") and everything is like my mother used to make

later people, will be back just in time for another "episode" of yathink yakkity yak

goody

this below in small print

(now, mb is very smart but cb is even smarter in a smart ass kinda way)

I'm multi-tasking in my apartment today.

toniD's Ya Think?

THE CHILDREN! What about THE CHILDREN!!!

Illinois prison likely to house detainees

"CHICAGO -- Despite opposition from congressional Republicans, the Obama administration is signaling that a state prison in rural Thomson, Ill., will probably become the new home for scores of terrorism suspects now housed at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

If all goes well, administration sources involved in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison anticipate a handover of the Thomson facility by late winter."

"this machine kills fascists"

mire,

Given the choice between being a smart-ass or a dumb-ass, it's a no-brainer for the dumb-asses.

the american student convicted in italy - - now the americen m$m seems to be screaming the conviction was unjust and I even heard a so-called reporter on one channel say "all of Italy should be ashamed of itself." Gees, what if that were a capital crime in Italy? Italy doesn't have the death penalty (mire, check me if i'm wrong...)
The family will use the legal system to appeal, and even the family of the murdered girl (who was English), said," it's not really a cause to celebrate." Light years ahead...

Submitted by Fernando on Sun, 12/06/2009 - 11:49am

MMR - sorry I missed your comment until this morning. After the game I had to go get the 400 carat diamond I created extracted out of it's compression chamber in my lower colon. That game was TENSE.

*******

Ain't Football Great ? :)

Defense and that kicker saved our ass..

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

MMRules