happy chanukah

..cough up some goodies.

Way to go Santa douche!

...that's part of the George Will line, glory...

"this machine kills fascists"

re-post =

I really feel sad 4 them - ..........not
new
Submitted by smcgee43 on Fri, 12/11/2009 - 11:10pm.

Jeebus
Submitted by 60th Street on Fri, 12/11/2009 - 9:01pm.

Let's ask mrs. C.

OMG! Sarah! Don't spoon the Santa!!!

maggiesboy :) for letting us know about a new thread.

working right now.

Meanwhile I am writing you another lil' mail about nothing much.

----
OK.Finally now we got Brubeck.

he ain't gonna vote for no Dem - no more

Starting at the bottom of the hour.

Got a request from an Aussie label to play one of their bands and I liked the song so they'll be in there. Check out their bio, they're kinda, no really dirty but in a good kinda way.

Bio Here

And other shit...

Did you read the link in the original blog post about the supposedly phoney homeless charity people (Andrew Cuomo says)? None of the people actually working the table claimed to know anything about the scam (what the higher-ups did with their cut instead of helping people)--and maybe they didn't. (The web site of that org is still down.)

But we have to get something together that will have a chance (that is if this Supreme case doesn't go wrong).

Cenk on todays Financial Reform Bill
4:29

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

It should have said "and I agree."

it means bad...b/c "getting something together" in enough states (even in the ones where there were enough progressives)...that's not enough time.

Right?/wrong?

(Also...I am not saying it about the few really good/progressive congress-critters that are dems--but that's not my sitch anyhow, here in VA. But, nah, I wouldn't run from Dennis, for example, just because he might decide to keep a D after his name. That would be silly.)

Then maybe I will understand better.

they are doing a radio play of Wonderful Life...

Let me look see if there's another 12 o'clock station.

---
hahaha Nope, fake Jimmy Stewart is running under Malloy. Uncanny...

----
All is normal now, including starting back at the beginning and not in the middle, if anyone is paying attention and confused (besides me).

http://player.play.it/player/player.html?v=4.1.25&id=86&onestat=kptk-am

---
But from what I heard from the middle... :)

And thanks for the new thread.

People are more disgusted with Tiger Woods than they are with Michael Vick. I don't get it.

how one treats their partner is more sensitive a matter than how you might treat your pet.

Unless of course your pet is your partner, which is outside of the legal framework....

How do you get/stay in:*

1. Give money. Then give some more money. Then after that, give some more. (One advantage to having serious recurringly mestastizing cancer [for example] is that they ["they" often being people much more well-off than you]EVENTUALLY might leave you alone about that.)

2. Do NOT say ANYTHING about bisexuality.

* Disclaimer: This might reflect a geographically narrow, dated or jaundiced view. Don't care. Really don't. Rebuttals will be forthcoming, I'm sure, if applicable.

to rip another woman to shreds and/or vice-versa, for human entertainment and financial gain.

So I think that may be the difference nora is pointing out that she doesn't understand.

"WHO'S got it figured out?
left, right
left, right got it figured out"

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

This country, are we still Puritans?
Submitted by nora on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 12:17am.
People are more disgusted with Tiger Woods than they are with Michael Vick

_______

It seems like I heard many more people damn Michael Vick at the time they were releasing him from prison than when he was going in.
During time the dog killings were revealed: "Who cares? They're animals.." Me: "Uhh... animals he held underwater in his pool as they struggled to get away from him, psycho." "Whatever. Just animals. Let him go."
Then when he was released from prison the general consensus (not from me, but other people) "NO TEAM SHOULD TAKE HIM! He should SUFFER FOREVER." Where were those people a few years ago?

As for Tiger Woods, the man has suffered enough with those ugly girlfriends.

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

I'd expect that nora
new
Submitted by Fernando on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 12:26am.
how one treats their partner is more sensitive a matter than how you might treat your pet.

Unless of course your pet is your partner, which is outside of the legal framework....

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

What couples do with/in their marriage CONTRACT is their private affair; I'd rather NOT know about it. If they live up to personal agreements like fidelity or don't live up to them, that's their business; I'd rather NOT know about it. As long as no one is being abused or coerced or is seeking help from society or is doing bad stuff, I want to respect their privacy and their ability to work things out in the space privacy provides them.

I agree, M the a-c on. Michael Vick's actions were in the enjoyment-of-torturing-psycho department at least or in the egoistic/sociopathic department of a lawlessness that says "laws don't apply to me". Creepy. Intolerable.

And yet Woods must take a year sabbatical. And yet Vick comes out of a sabbatical-like jail time to more and more million$ to be placed like a hero before the nation's children, proving it doesn't matter what one does in the realm of torture, it's okay, here's more money.

I do not understand.

P.S. The Puritans were weird. When I use the word "Puritan", it means not only 'uptight' and 'prudish about human sexuality' but also 'sick', 'sadistic', 'inhumane' and 'psycho' because, remember the witch trials -- the Puritans were inquisitors who mentally and physically TORTURED people right here on the North American continent. Puritanism embodies all that.

New Humane Society of the US project:

Online action to urge President Obama to help advance the humane treatment of animals by appointing an Animal Protection Liaison in the White House.

Sign the petition »
http://action.humanesociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HSUS_HSLF_Anima...

Superb article on the late Gary Webb, reporter who exposed the CIA drug scam. Like a eulogy.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/120909.html

[excerpt]

I told the L.A. Times reporter that American history owed a great debt to Gary Webb because he had forced out important facts about Reagan-era crimes. But I added that the L.A. Times would be hard-pressed to write an honest obituary because the newspaper had not published a single word on the contents of the CIA inspector general’s final report, which had largely vindicated Webb.

To my disappointment but not my surprise, I was correct. The L.A. Times ran a mean-spirited obituary that made no mention of either my defense of Webb, nor the CIA’s admissions in 1998. The Times obituary was republished in other newspapers, including the Washington Post.

In effect, Webb’s suicide had enabled senior editors at the Big Three newspapers to breathe a little easier, since one of the few people who understood the true and ugly story of not only the Reagan administration’s protection of the contra-cocaine trafficking but the U.S. media’s complicity in the cover-up was now silenced.

To this day, none of the journalists or media critics who participated in the destruction of Gary Webb has been punished for their actions. None has faced the sort of humiliation that Webb had to endure. Instead, the death of Gary Webb and the circumstances surrounding it have remained one of the U.S. news media’s dirty little secrets.

In recognition of that continuing injustice, I believe it’s fitting on the fifth anniversary of Webb’s death to remind the American people of what Webb’s work helped expose.

[end excerpt]

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

We need another Gary Webb to get the facts on the full nature of the Afghan poppy crop and why it coincides with US presence in Afghanistan....

http://airamerica.com/news/12-10-2009/us-fudging-casualty-numbers-afghan...

[excerpt]

On Monday, the anonymous blogger Security Crank noticed something interesting: all the U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan seemingly kill exactly 30 people every time. How can that be?

Security Crank documented no less than 12 occasions in which news reports, relying on field commanders' estimates, noted that exactly 30 suspected Taliban were killed in airstrikes and, occasionally, artillery attacks. He said:

But the much more important point remains: how could we possibly have any idea how the war is going, here or anywhere else, when the bad guys seem only to die in groups of 30? The sheer ubiquity of that number in fatality and casualty counts is astounding, to the point where I don’t even pay attention to a story anymore when they use that magic number 30. It is an indicator either of ignorance or deliberate spin… but no matter the case, whenever you see the number 30 used in reference to the Taliban, you should probably close the tab and move onto something else, because you just won’t get a good sense of what happened there.

So, why is it always 30? Do thirty casualties seem like enough to justify a military attack, or few enough to not attract too much attention to an incident?

Another blogger, Joshua Foust of the Central Asia blog Registan, seemingly stumbled upon the answer. In a tweet, he noted:

In 2003, an air strike killing 30 civilians could be launched w/o issues. 31 dead civilians and Rummy had to approve.

Foust then linked to an LA Times article from last July by Nicholas Goldberg that documented what field commanders were told.

In a grisly calculus known as the "collateral damage estimate," U.S. military commanders and lawyers often work together in advance of a military strike, using very specific, Pentagon-imposed protocols to determine whether the good that will come of it outweighs the cost.

We don't know much about how it works, but in 2007, Marc Garlasco, the Pentagon's former chief of high-value targeting, offered a glimpse when he told Salon magazine that in 2003, "the magic number was 30." That meant that if an attack was anticipated to kill more than 30 civilians, it needed the explicit approval of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or President George W. Bush. If the expected civilian death toll was less than 30, the strike could be OKd by the legal and military commanders on the ground.

In other words, the Pentagon determined that 30 casualties, even if they were civilian, were too few to matter politically or to attract the attention of the press for more than a few words. If commanders expected more civilian casualties than that, political leaders had to sign off on the attack in advance to make sure they were prepared for the PR fall-out.

That PR calculus of how many deaths matter to the average American has apparently carried over from the Bush Administration to the Obama Adminstration, at least insofar as ground commanders are concerned. But the American people deserve the truth about how many Afghans--civilian and otherwise--are being killed by our forces. Just because senior officials at the Pentagon think that killing 30 people doesn't warrant their attention doesn't mean they're right.

[end excerpt]

This call to regroup comes from Citizens for Legitimate Government:

http://www.legitgov.org/comment/rec_report_111209.html

[excerpt]

...

Obama diverted the legitimate anger and energy for real change and scuttled it under the fraudulent tent of the Democratic Party. He led millions to the cliff; they are now falling off in droves. Those who've not quite gotten to the edge screech and yell: "Wait! Give him time!" Those who gave warning from the outset are not busy casting nets. We welcome the demise of the Democratic Party.

...

Only a working-class majority can overcome the power elite and end the wars. Only a working-class party can change the socio-political and economic conditions. Only a majority party can deliver to itself health care coverage. Only a majority party can save the environment. Only a majority party and order can put production on a rational basis for their own benefit and not the benefit of a tiny minority.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Obama. He has finally dashed and destroyed the false hopes in the Democratic Party and the political system as it stands. Obama was the false prophet of change. Now let the real change begin.

[end excerpt]

Destroying union members health benefits packages with a tax sounds anti-union to me. Cadillac taxes should apply to those who drive all those Lexus cars....

Here's some coverage on the push to stop it...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8851592

[excerpt]

Unions pressure Democrats on health insurance tax
...December 10 2009
ERICA WERNER

WASHINGTON -- Union leaders, among the most passionate backers of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, pressed Democratic senators Thursday to drop a tax on high-value insurance plans to pay for remaking the nation's system.

As the Senate entered its 11th straight day of debate on the sweeping legislation, members of several labor unions denounced the proposed tax on so-called "Cadillac plans," arguing it wouldn't just hit CEOs but also middle-class Americans who did without salary increases to negotiate better health benefits.

"I support health care reform but I can't afford this tax," Valerie Castle Stanley, an AT&T call center worker and member of the Communications Workers of America, said at a news conference outside the Capitol. "For families like mine that are on a budget, the results will be devastating."

At issue is a proposed 40 percent excise tax on insurance companies, keyed to premiums paid on health care plans costing more than $8,500 annually for individuals and $23,000 for families. The tax would raise some $150 billion over 10 years to help pay for the Democrats' nearly $1 trillion health care bill. The legislation, which appears to be edging closer to passage, would revamp the U.S. health care system with new requirements on individuals and employers designed to extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans.

The threshold for insurance plans that would be taxed had been adjusted higher in response to union members' concerns, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a leader of those efforts, has said there could be further changes. But labor organizations including the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association are urging the Senate to drop the tax entirely and take the approach embraced by the House, which would raise income taxes on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples making more than $1 million.

Union leaders have brought hundreds of members to the Capitol this week to lobby lawmakers.

"We should tax the millionaires, not teachers and bus drivers," said Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who spoke at Thursday's news conference, has authored an amendment with Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, to strip out the insurance plan tax, but doesn't yet have agreement from Senate leaders to offer it. A number of Senate Democrats and White House officials support the insurance plan tax because they believe it would help hold down health care costs by providing an incentive for companies and workers to spend less on health care packages.

[end excerpt]

Bring the body before the court? A videotape will suffice? I don't get it? Can anyone parse this one?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR200912...

[excerpt]

Defense Dept. faulted for not taping detainee

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 11, 2009

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Defense Department was in contempt of court for failing to videotape the testimony of a Guantanamo Bay detainee who is challenging his detention in court.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler had ordered the government to videotape Mohammed Al-Adahi, 47, when he testified June 23 via a secure video link from the prison in Cuba to her courtroom in Washington. Like scores of detainees, Adahi is contesting his confinement through federal lawsuits under the centuries-old legal doctrine of habeas corpus.

In August, after hearing Adahi's testimony and the government's evidence, the judge ordered Adahi's release, ruling that the government failed to show that the man's brief stint at an al-Qaeda training camp and two encounters with Osama bin Laden justified confinement. The government is appealing her decision, and Adahi remains at the prison.

In Thursday's order, Kessler expressed frustration that the government did not videotape Adahi's testimony. She wanted the government to tape his appearance and make it public after a classification review so the "public would have an opportunity to observe as much of the testimony as possible," the judge wrote

"There is intense national and international interest in the conduct of these proceedings," she wrote, adding that "a picture is truly worth 1,000 words, and the full import of [Adahi's] testimony cannot be gained from the cold, dry transcript alone."

The government conceded that it had made a mistake in not taping the testimony and blamed the error on miscommunication, according to court papers.

Kessler wrote that she had no evidence the Defense Department intentionally failed to tape the testimony. She ordered the government to submit a report explaining what measures it has taken to prevent future mistakes. She also wrote that a transcript of Adahi's testimony would be posted on the court's Web site. The judge could pursue further sanctions if another such error occurs.

[end excerpt]

ONE--

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mercenaries-cia-expanded-role-contractors-...

[excerpt]

Mercenaries? CIA Says Expanded Role for Contractors Legitimate
Blackwater, Other Firms Said to Be "Hired Guns" in Iraq, Afghanistan -- Combat Role Would Be Against U.S. Law
By MATTHEW COLE, RICHARD ESPOSITO and BRIAN ROSS
Dec. 11, 2009

The CIA and the military special forces have quietly expanded the role of private contractors, including Blackwater, to include their involvement in raids and secret paramilitary operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, four current and former U.S. military and intelligence officers tell ABC News.

The CIA and the Pentagon have quietly expanded the role ofprivate contractors, including Blackwater, to include their inclusion in combat and paramilitary operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, current and former U.S. Army and intelligence officers tell ABCNews.com.

American law specifically prohibits the use of private soldiers or mercenaries in combat, according to Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

"The United States Congress has never approved the use of private contractors for combat operations," Turley told ABC News in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

[end excerpt]

And TWO--

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/us/politics/11blackwater.html?ref=glob...

[excerpt]

Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret C.I.A. Raids
By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 10, 2009

WASHINGTON — Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press

In 2007, an Iraqi traffic police officer inspected a destroyed car in a square in Baghdad, where Blackwater guards killed 17 people in an incident that stirred outrage among Iraqis.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called “snatch and grab” operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Separately, former Blackwater employees said they helped provide security on some C.I.A. flights transporting detainees in the years after the 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

The secret missions illuminate a far deeper relationship between the spy agency and the private security company than government officials had acknowledged. Blackwater’s partnership with the C.I.A. has been enormously profitable for the North Carolina-based company, and became even closer after several top agency officials joined Blackwater.

“It became a very brotherly relationship,” said one former top C.I.A. officer. “There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency.”

George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, would not comment on Blackwater’s ties to the agency. But he said the C.I.A. employs contractors to “enhance the skills of our own work force, just as American law permits.”

“Contractors give you flexibility in shaping and managing your talent mix — especially in the short term — but the accountability’s still yours,” he said.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Blackwater, said Thursday that it was never under contract to participate in clandestine raids with the C.I.A. or with Special Operations personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else.

Blackwater’s role in the secret operations raises concerns about the extent to which private security companies, hired for defensive guard duty, have joined in offensive military and intelligence operations.

Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said in an interview that “the use of contractors in intelligence and paramilitary operations is a scandal waiting to be examined.” While he declined to comment on specific operations, Mr. Holt said that the use of contractors in such operations “got way out of hand.” He added, “It’s been very troubling to a lot of people.”

Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, has come under intense criticism for what Iraqis have described as reckless conduct by its security guards, and the company lost its lucrative State Department contract to provide diplomatic security for the United States Embassy in Baghdad earlier this year after a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Blackwater’s ties to the C.I.A. have emerged in recent months, beginning with disclosures in The New York Times that the agency had hired the company as part of a program to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda and to assist in the C.I.A.’s Predator drone program in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, recently initiated an internal review examining all Blackwater contracts with the agency to ensure that the company was performing no missions that were “operational in nature,” according to one government official.

...

[end excerpt]

you have been a busy, busy gal
on the blog.

This is a MUST listen to...
You may not think what goes on in Illinois' youth prisons affects you. Think again. Thousands of teenagers from all across the state cycle in and out of Illinois' eight juvenile prisons each year. What happens to them inside goes back with them to their communities. Taxpayers are footing the more-than-$100 million budget for these places. We want to be able to see for ourselves how they're run and bring that information to you. But Governor Pat Quinn says no.

http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=38706

This is another MUST listen to, I had NO idea these
existed.

In remote places along the southwest border of the US, the consequences of recent immigration crackdown are changing the face of imprisonment in this part of America. There, public-private prisons are being built to hold immigrants both legal and illegal.

These prisons are publicly owned by local governments, privately operated by corporations, publicly financed by tax-exempt bonds, and located in depressed communities, says journalist Tom Barry, who reported on a new trend in dealing with immigrants in a recent issue of the Boston Review.
The immigrants held at these prisons are dubbed "criminal aliens" by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Barry tells Fresh Air host Terry Gross that following 9/11, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Protection Agencys have teamed with local police to target immigrants — legal and illegal — who have criminal records for deportation.
Tom Barry covers border security and immigration issues as the Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for International Policy. He has written several books, including The Great Divide and Zapata's Revenge.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121248709

The Good Graces - Pretty New Song

http://hypem.com/#/track/978773/The+Good+Graces+-+Pretty+New+Song

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

MMRules

Swampcandy - Positive Drinkin'

http://hypem.com/#/track/978685/Swampcandy+-+Positive+Drinkin+

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

MMRules

* As a result of IDA’s work as a founding member of the Save Japan Dolphins Coalition and the stunning success of the film The Cove, there has been no dolphin slaughter this year in Taiji, Japan.

http://www.idausa.org/

At his NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 'lecture', President Obushama told us all something to the effect that wars are inevitable acts of us nasty humans and always have been. In other words, he revealed his Obushama Worldview. Is it based on fact?

Well, I just loved Thom Hartmann's retort Friday as part of a response to one of his callers.

So first, the speech, then an article about Obushama's War Worldview. Then I'll try to recreate Hartmann's comeback.

Text of the speech given at the Nobel Prize event:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B92KK20091210?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=...

[excerpt]

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

These questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease -- the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

[end excerpt]
--------------------

The article by Michael Muskal:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2009/12/obama-nobel-prize-just-war...

[excerpt]

In just over 35 minutes, President Obama laid out his very personal vision of how the world works and his very public vision of foreign affairs that includes fighting just wars to win a just peace.

The president used his Nobel Peace Prize lecture as a forum to explain the Obama doctrine of foreign policy, one flexible enough to allow him to escalate the war in Afghanistan while calling for greater global cooperation in fighting poverty, global warming and advocating human rights around the world. It was part political science lesson, part sermon and part pure politics, designed to answer domestic and international critics.

...Obama is not rejecting realism and idealism so much as he is trying to bridge them, taking what the former community organizer sees as the best of each argument and combining it into his own doctrine. That leads him to embrace an old historical and religious idea: that mankind is inherently violent, so there is a need to define what is a just war.

“War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man,” Obama argued. “At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease -- the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

“And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a ‘just war’ emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence,” he said.

...

[end excerpt]

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

Now Thom Hartmann jumped right in to say that this evident promotion of the idea that the totality of "humankind" is inherently warring is not only reactionary philosophically, but also is disproven scientifically. He pointed out that anthropologists discovered that most indigenous peoples were obsserved to be non-warring, "original leisure" lifestyles of the hunter-gatherer.

[I would add that the warrior class was usually male, yes?, so that would leave out more than half of "humankind" which does NOT avidly pursue warring behavior -- females and children! The numbers of active women warriors and war-mongers seem to be a new phenomenon. That Obushama failed to acknowledge women and children as part of humankind I think is a troubling blindspot for such a celebrated intellect as his! In addition, Mahatma Gandhi once said that if people were not gentle-at-heart they could not survive day-to-day, there would not be the cooperation that makes communities possible. And let us not forget, Gandhi was never granted a Nobel Peace Prize, so what is that prize worth anyway?]

The upshot being that humankind at large is not warring. IMO, that leaves only those humans plotting, fomenting, financing, profiteering, and ensnaring others to fight for them -- and we know exactly who those war-profiteers and war-mongers are among us even today. Bush and Cheney and friends showed us just how it is done!

Obushama, if knowledgeable, is only using knowledge to fashion a pro-war mumbo-jumbo to prop up Militarist Imperialist Adventures securing more lands, like Afganistan, and resources, like Afghanistan's, for the Miners/Drillers and other profiteers of the Oligarchy.

And it really is Obushama gobbletygook: What is this "since the dawn" OF TIME/HISTORY men have killed each other stuff? Is Obushama trying to give the impression that he has God-like OMNISCIENCE, that he is all-seeing, or something? What is that tripe? Was he THERE? Is his word "proof"? EGAD. (And as for 'history', I have read that even the Egyptians' "wars" appear to have been for purposes of controlling the People through fear/common purpose, consolidating wealth and propping up the royals and aristocracy, but not for any defensive or 'just' purpose whatsoever. Can it be that the most we can expect from the war-profiteering Oligarchy in seven thousand years is the adjective 'just' before the word 'war'???)

It looks like, before the world, the Nobel Prize winning President has stuck his shoe in poo quite obviously. How can THAT be 'smart'?

BLM investigates the shooting deaths of six mustangs

Bureau of Land Management officials in Cedarville are investigating the shooting deaths of six wild mustangs.

Carcasses of the animals were found on Dec. 5 along the Nevada-California border in Washoe County, according to ABC affiliate KOLO-TV. The horses are thought to have been deceased for a couple of weeks.

Wild horses are federally protected, but the animals have been targets many times before. The shootings come amid controversy surrounding a federal plan to round up thousands of wild mustangs in Nevada.

In Defense of Animals, a California-based animal-protection agency, has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block the government from conducting helicopter-assisted roundups. The group maintains that the plan violates the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971.

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=1336218

The Route 66 Swingers club members in Amarillo are scared for their life under threats made by members of fundies from Amarillo Repent. - JobsAnger

"Christians" can't stand it when others won't be just like them. They have to judge them, it's a sin which makes the Christians feel even worse.

You're scaring them for their physical life. They're not scared for their afterlife.

Please note the fur wearing "Christian" standing in the back of the photo showing ass hole members of Amarillo Repent.

Great news about the Dolphins,

terrible about the Wild Horses..

I've seen those Wild Horses in the middle of Nowhere's Nevada..

They are awesome to see,especially if your a city boy like me..
Why can't they just leave them alone..
And,help them when they can..
Some People.. :(

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

MMRules

Buy canapes and strawberries for serving to the insurance and pharma corporation execs who visit the President at the White House? Sheesh. I wonder how many push-overs are sending money to this?

Got this email dated Dec. 8:

[quote]

Friend --

As we head into the final stretch on health reform, big insurance company lobbyists and their partisan allies hope that their relentless attacks and millions of dollars can intimidate us into accepting the status quo.

So I have a message for them, from all of us: Not this time. We have come too far. We will not turn back. We will not back down.

But do not doubt -- the opponents of reform will not rest. So I need you, the members of Organizing for America, to fight alongside me.

We must continue to build out our campaign -- to spread the facts on the air and on the ground, and to bring in more volunteers and train them to join the fight. I urgently need your help to keep Organizing for America's 50-state movement for reform going strong.

Please donate $5 or whatever you can afford today:

[snip where there was a link]

Let's win this together,

President Barack Obama

[unquote]

President Obama Is Wrong About Afghanistan And We Need To Tell Him So

Today even members of the Noble Peace Prize committee were stunned to
hear President Obama preaching war at the award of his prize medal.
The fact is that we need to be winding down our ruinous occupational
excursion there, not getting in deeper. And the most appalling thing
is the way the hardcore neocons are chortling over their new "war
president".
They tell us our military force in Afghanistan is fighting terror.
The exact opposite is true. Ten percent of every dollar we pour into
that country goes to bribe the Taliban not to shoot at us . . .
today. And when they talk about building up the Afghan army, what
they don't tell you is how many recruits are in fact terrorists in
for the free training. Yes, that's right, in essence the U.S. Army is
running the terrorist training camps for the terrorists.

Fax Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1022.php

The page above will send your instant fax to President Obama and all
your members of Congress, for no charge to yourself, unlike all the
right wing "activist" operations that charge twenty-five dollars or
more for doing the same thing.

http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1022.php

I wonder if those Amarillo Repent Douchebags are
really from next-door Claude,Texas not Amarillo..

Dirt Claude's for brains,get it ?

I got nothing..
Time for more coffee.. :)

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

MMRules

File this under "Putting all your eggs in one basket" - Bloomberg

Indians await certain failure.

I have not had that opportunity - I would love
to see that site. Yes I agree with you - why do
we have to fuck with Mother Nature? The whole
idea of "The Circle of Life" has been really
fucked up by us, the humans. It's a very SAD
situation what we have done to Mother Earth.
When nature gets in the way - just roll on over
it ... or kill it.

Peeping Toms and Peeping Tomasinas. Ick.

R U making Breakfast this morning??

repent living in Amarillo is what they should do. Unless you are a cave dweller, you have no business living in that desert.

not for another hour. Today isn't a tamale day though. It's a Fiber One day :(

She is the wife of the guy whose show I am on and she writes books about horses and is very active about the safety of wild horses.

We see them all the time here as we live adjacent to the BLM. The last time I saw a bunch there were about 13 on a neighbors lawn just hanging out and relaxing. It was beautiful.

Executives balk at the idea of capping pay at $500,000 in firms that haven’t repaid the government. The Indian settlement will come to $1,500 to $2,500 for most of the beneficiaries. A few with larger tracts that generate lots of revenue will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The US government owed plenty to the Indians. Their problem was that they were too small to matter. - Bloomberg

link for 60th and others interested in the kind of photography that has painterly qualities and status

this is a photoshow of an italian photographer - mauro davoli - who has been at the center of the controversy about plagiarism of photography by painters and of painting by photographers in today's digital formats

http://www.maurodavoli.com/

photos that look like paintings

The Pen
Submitted by smcgee43 on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 7:17am.

President Obama Is Wrong About Afghanistan And We Need To Tell Him So

Fax Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1022.php

*******
And,my little comment to the powers that be..
For what it's worth..

Haven't You Folks Ever Read A History Book About Military Interventions in Afghanistan ?

It's Not A Pretty Picture..

Using Our Common Sense Here,Can Save Alot Of Afghan Peoples and American Soldiers Lives..
Or,Do We Really Need A Gas Pipeline That Badly ?
Aren't There Only About 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan ?

**

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

MMRules

If they were upset about man coming from apes, wait till they find out we really came from the amoeba. - NS

Amarillo Repents is just a gang of zombies.

MMRules - I don't think u understand the whole process
of a country that wants it all. Geez, come on - lol
(kidding)

sandy, look up Terri Farlely on facebook
Submitted by mhappenow on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 7:42am.

Do We Really Need A Gas Pipeline That Badly ?
new
Submitted by smcgee43 on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 7:54am.
MMRules - I don't think u understand the whole process
of a country that wants it all. Geez, come on - lol
(kidding)

*******

Then I grew up !

Err..Well,Sort of.. ;)

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

MMRules

Indians lose again - go figure....
Submitted by Fernando on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 7:46am.

The public option is dead, killed by a handful of senators from small states who are mostly bought off by Big Insurance and Big Pharma or intimidated by these industries' deep pockets and power to run political ads against them. Some might say it's no great loss at this point because the Senate bill Harry Reid came up with contained a public option available only to 4 million people, which would have been far too small to exert any competitive pressure on private insurers anyway.

To provide political cover to senators who want to tell their constituents that the intent behind a robust public option lives on, the emerging Senate bill makes Medicare available to younger folk (age 55), and lets people who aren't covered by their employers buy in to a system that's similar to the plan that federal employees now have, where the federal government's Office of Personnel Management selects from among private insurers.

But we still end up with a system that's based on private insurers that have no incentive whatsoever to control their costs or the costs of pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. If you think the federal employee benefit plan is an answer to this, think again. Its premiums increased nearly 9 percent this year. And if you think an expanded Medicare is the answer, you're smoking medical marijuana. The Senate bill allows an independent commission to hold back Medicare costs only if Medicare spending is rising faster than total health spending. So if health spending is soaring because private insurers have no incentive to control it, we're all out of luck. Medicare explodes as well.

A system based on private insurers won't control costs because private insurers barely compete against each other. According to data from the American Medical Association, only a handful of insurers dominate most states. In 9 states, 2 insurance companies control 85 percent or more of the market. In Arkansas, home to Senator Blanche Lincoln, who doesn't dare cross Big Insurance, the Blue Cross plan controls almost 70 percent of the market; most of the rest is United Healthcare. These data, by the way, are from 2005 and 2006. Since then, private insurers have been consolidating like mad across the country. At this rate by 2014, when the new health bill kicks in and 30 million more Americans buy health insurance, Big Insurance will be really Big.

In light of all this, you'd think the insurance industry would be subject to the antitrust laws, so the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission could prevent it from combining into one or two national behemoths that suck every health dollar out of our pockets (as well as the pockets of companies paying part of the cost of their employees' health insurance). But no. Remarkably, the Senate bill still keeps Big Insurance safe from competition by preserving its privileged exemption from the antitrust laws.

From the start, opponents of the public option have wanted to portray it as big government preying upon the market, and private insurers as the embodiment of the market. But it's just the reverse. Private insurers are exempt from competition. As a result, they are becoming ever more powerful. And it's not just their economic power that's worrying. It's also their political power, as we've learned over the last ten months. Economic and political power is a potent combination. Without some mechanism forcing private insurers to compete, we're going to end up with a national health care system that's controlled by a handful of very large corporations accountable neither to American voters nor to the market

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/how-a-few-private-health_b_38...

Indians lose again - go figure....
Submitted by Fernando on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 7:46am.

*******

Been on a Board for American Indian Land Management or
something like that,like forever..

Heck of a job there,McCrazy.. Not !

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

MMRules

Condoms save the planet. - DailyBeast

operation.

This time foot surgery. I need an operation on both feet for different reasons. The left foot has a floating second toe that has climbed over the big toe making it hard to wear shoes.

The right foot has a bad bunion and a hammer toe.

I will start with the left foot first. The right foot surgery will prevent me from driving. Here's the reason this has happened:

"How Does RA Affect the Foot and Ankle?

When joints become inflamed due to RA, the synovium thickens and produces an excess of joint fluid. This overabundance of fluid, along with inflammatory chemicals released by the immune system, cause swelling and damage to the joint’s cartilage and bones.

Foot problems caused by RA most commonly occur in the forefoot (the ball of the foot, near the toes), although RA can also affect other areas of the foot and ankle. The most common signs and symptoms of RA-related foot problems—in addition to the abnormal appearance of deformities—are pain, swelling, joint stiffness, and difficulty walking.

Deformities and conditions associated with RA may include:

Rheumatoid nodules (lumps)—these cause pain when they rub against shoes or, if they appear on the bottom of the foot, pain when walking

* Dislocated toes
* Hammertoes
* Bunions
* Heel pain
* Achilles tendon pain
* Flatfoot
* Ankle pain

It never seems to stop!

toniD's Ya Think?

Endless greed.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/257/story/80552.html

[excerpt]

GAO: Coal industry filling eastern Kentucky hollows with debris

By Bill Estep | Lexington Herald-Leader
Coal companies got approval to fill hundreds of hollows in Eastern Kentucky during the last decade, according to a new federal report.

Such fills, called hollow or valley fills, often bury stream areas.

Regulators gave coal companies permission to put up to 2.15 billion cubic yards of spoil — rock and dirt left over from mining operations — into 1,488 fills in Eastern Kentucky between 2000 and mid-2008, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report issued this week.

Nearly all those were hollow fills, which one official explained are smaller and located higher in the watershed than valley fills, the report said.

The report also covered West Virginia, where coal companies got approval to build nearly 500 fills to dispose of 2.7 billion cubic yards of spoil.

Coal companies do not build all the fills for which they get permits. The report did not count how many of the fills companies actually created.

Opponents of surface mining said the report offers further evidence that mining has caused widespread environmental damage in the two states.

"I think it adds weight to the argument that the scope of the surface mining that has taken place and is taking place is truly massive," said Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club's environmental quality program. "That is a huge amount of rock and dirt."

Tierra Curry, a Knott County native who is now a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said there have been conservative estimates that 2,000 stream miles in Appalachia have been buried under hollow fills and valley fills. Mining also removes mature forests from large areas, she said.

"It is time to say enough is enough and end surface coal mining in Appalachia," Curry said.

[end excerpt]

OUR SOLUTIONS

Modernize the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)

Modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act will increase transparency, accountability and stability in the financial system by ensuring banks and mortgage companies provide responsible, quality lending and financial services in American communities. Over 80% of the high-cost subprime loans made between 2004-2007 were made by institutions NOT regulated by CRA. Those loans that have performed the best were loans made by institutions regulated by CRA. We need to update the law to ensure all lenders are covered by the law in order to curb subprime predatory lending and prevent a future crises.

Too Big to Fail

In the US today, three banks hold almost 34% of the nation’s deposits, four banks issue 50% of the country’s mortgages and the five largest credit card lenders control 74% of the market. These companies have a stranglehold on our wallets. And as we’ve seen, when they make bad decisions, they can take the whole economy down with them.

New laws should be put in place that minimize the risk of the “too big to fail” problem. No single institution should be in control of such a large part of the market. Instead, we should encourage a vibrant, diverse, stable banking system, made up of thousands of small and medium size banks. Strong competition policies and antitrust laws will encourage financial institutions to invest in productive activity, instead of investing in changing the rules of the game or manipulating the market.

Consumer Financial Protection Agency

The Obama Administration has called for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) that will make protecting consumers a priority over protecting the interests of the banks. Seven different government agencies had the power to stop the reckless risk-taking that wrecked our economy, but they didn’t use it. Lax oversight helped spawn the disastrous mortgage products and practices that triggered the current crisis. What’s more there is virtually no regulatory authority over firms that have pushed bad mortgages, payday loans and other products that are overly complicated, or are simply rip-offs. The CFPA will bring the focus we need to clean up destructive and unfair financial practices, restore the integrity of our financial system, and prevent another disaster in the future.

Democratizing the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve was established in 1913 and put outside of the reach of Congress and the President. The thought was that removing the Fed from politics, would position it to be more independent and serve the needs of the nation and the economy as a whole. But instead of independence, the Fed is largely under the control of the financial industry and left wholly unaccountable. District Reserve Bank Presidents are elected by nomination from the banks and several come from the financial industry regulated by the Fed. The Federal Reserve has enormous responsibilities to set our national monetary policy and regulate the financial industry, the Federal Reserve however seems to answer only to the banks. There is no reason for the banks to be given a special role in the determination of the country’s monetary policy, choosing the terms of their own regulation or the ability to choose their own regulator.

Federal Reserve officials should be appointed by the President and directly accountable to Congress and the community, not the financial industry. Congress should immediately overhaul the structure of the Federal Reserve and demand that a restructured Federal Reserve serve the entire economy, not just the bottom line of Wall Street.

Modernize Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) was enacted in 1975. The law’s success speaks to the power of transparency. HMDA requires lenders to disclose to regulators AND the American people where loans were made and to whom banks were denying loans to. The data showed that banks were denying people credit based on where they lived, even if they were well qualified for the loan. The fact that the data was available to the public made it hard for the banks to deny charges of unfair lending. This resulted in millions of qualified Americans being able to become homeowners and banks learning that there was money to be made in communities previously denied loans.

Unfortunately, HMDA has not kept up with the changing face of lending. What was originally an issue of ensuring loans were being made to qualified applicants is now an issue of ensuring QUALITY loans are made to borrowers. HMDA can be strengthened by making banks disclose the interest rate, fees, and other terms of the loans made.

http://www.showdowninamerica.org/oursolution.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUR20091...

[excerpt]

Underming the American People's Right to Privacy: The Secret State's Surveillance Machine
Following the Money Trail: Telecoms and ISPs

by Tom Burghardt

...

And when the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) posted thousands of pages of documents "detailing behind-the-scenes negotiations between government agencies and Congress about providing immunity for telecoms involved in illegal government surveillance" last month, they lifted the lid on what should be a major scandal, not that corporate media paid the least attention.

A lid that Obama's "change" regime hopes to slam back down as expeditiously as possible.

Hoping to forestall public suspicions of how things actually work in Washington, the administration has declared that "it will continue to block the release of additional documents, including communications within the Executive Branch and records reflecting the identities of telecoms involved in lobbying for immunity," according to EFF's Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl.

No small matter, considering that should a court ever find avaricious telecoms and ISPs liable for violating the rights of their customers, fines could mount into the billions. Even in today's climate of corporate bailouts and "too big to fail" cash gifts to executive suite fraudsters, damages, both in monetary terms and adverse publicity, would hardly be chump change.

...

Which begs the question: "How often are Internet communications being monitored, and what kind of orders are required in order to do so."

...

Deciding to "follow the money," Soghoian hoped "to determine how often Internet firms were disclosing their customers' private information to the government." As often as possible as it turns out....

[end excerpt]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It's been the year of the gun in Tennessee. In a flurry of legislative action, handgun owners won the right to take their weapons onto sports fields and playgrounds and, at least briefly, into bars.
(Playgrounds? Sports fields? Why? I can see major problems with this!!!)

A change in leadership at the state Capitol helped open the doors to the gun-related bills and put Tennessee at the forefront of a largely unnoticed trend: In much of the country, it is getting easier to carry guns.

A nationwide review by The Associated Press found that over the last two years, 24 states, mostly in the South and West, have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions.

Among other things, legislatures have allowed firearms to be carried in cars, made it illegal to ask job candidates whether they own a gun, and expanded agreements that make permits to carry handguns in one state valid in another.

The trend is attributed in large part to a push by the National Rifle Association. The NRA, which for years has blocked attempts in Washington to tighten firearms laws, has ramped up its efforts at the state level to chip away at gun restrictions.

"This is all a coordinated approach to respect that human, God-given right of self defense by law-abiding Americans," says Chris W. Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist. "We'll rest when all 50 states allow and respect the right of law-abiding people to defend themselves from criminal attack."

Among the recent gun-friendly laws:

_ Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and Utah have made it illegal for businesses to bar their employees from storing guns in cars parked on company lots.
Story continues below

_ Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia have made some or all handgun permit information confidential.

_ Montana, Arizona and Kansas have allowed handgun permits to be issued to people who have had their felony convictions expunged or their full civil rights restored.

_ Tennessee and Montana have passed laws that exempt weapons made and owned in-state from federal restrictions. Tennessee is the home to Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, the maker of a .50-caliber shoulder-fired rifle that the company says can shoot bullets up to five miles and is banned in California.

The AP compiled the data on new laws from groups ranging from the Legal Community Against Violence, which advocates gun control, to the NRA.

Public attitudes toward gun control have shifted strongly over the past 50 years, according to Gallup polling. In 1959, 60 percent of respondents said they favored a ban on handguns except for "police and other authorized persons." By last year, Gallup's most recent crime survey found 69 percent opposed such a ban.

The NRA boasts that almost all states grant handgun permits to people with clean criminal and psychological records. In 1987, only 10 states did. Only Wisconsin, Illinois and the District of Columbia now prohibit carrying concealed handguns entirely.

"The NRA has a stranglehold on a lot of state legislatures," said Kristin Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group in Washington. "They basically have convinced lawmakers they can cost them their seats, even though there's no real evidence to back that up."

Tennessee's new laws came after the Republican takeover of the General Assembly this year, but most other states that loosened restrictions didn't experience major partisan shifts. Most of the states where the new laws were enacted have large rural populations, where support for gun rights tends to cross party lines.

While some states have tightened gun laws during the same period, the list of new restrictive laws is much shorter. In 2009 alone, more than three times as many laws were passed to make it easier on gun owners.

New Jersey's 2009 law limiting people to one handgun purchase per month is the most notable of the more restrictive laws. Other examples this year include Maryland's ban on concealed weapons on public transit and Maine's vote to give public universities and colleges the power to regulate firearms on campus.

The most contentious of Tennessee's new gun laws was one allowing handguns in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. It took effect in July after lawmakers overrode a veto by the governor. Last month, a Nashville judge struck down the law as unconstitutionally vague, but supporters have vowed to pass it again.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/12/nra-quietly-winning-loose_n_389...

toniD's Ya Think?

DC Armory Wants Group To Pay $77,000 To Host Free Medical Clinic

A non-profit group that provides free medical treatment to those in need is running into fees and regulations that could derail its plans to treat thousands at a temporary clinic in Washington, D.C. next month.

The Washington Convention And Sports Authority, a quasi-public group overseen by a board mostly appointed by D.C.'s mayor, wants to charge the non-profit group Remote Area Medical $77,000 to use the D.C. Armory for three days in January 2010. RAM, which typically treats thousands of uninsured and under-insured patients at temporary free clinics nationwide, says it cannot afford to pay that large a fee for the space. The Washington Post reports:

Founder Stan Brock said RAM has never been asked by other site operators to pay anything approaching that fee. The cost is "prohibitively high" and still climbing, Brock said in a telephone interview this week from Knoxville, Tenn., where RAM is headquartered. "We just don't know what the bottom line is going to be. There are things that just keep coming up."

But costs aren't the only obstacle that could keep RAM out of D.C. City health officials, who say they're concerned with patients' "continuing care" after the clinic, may require RAM to submit a Certificate Of Need, detailing why there's a need for RAM's services. A review of the certificate could take up to 90 days.

RAM's plan to host the clinic next month might be viewed as a political move by some. Thousands would presumably turnout for care and the image of Americans lined up for treatment in the nation's capital could be a potent one used by lawmakers at what stands to be the height of the health care debate.

While Washington, D.C.'s rate of insured residents places the district among the top-five states with the most insured residents (90.2 percent had some form of health insurance in 2008), the greater metropolitan area surrounding D.C. includes counties where nearly 1 in 5 are uninsured.

Victor Keane, the chief executive for a non-profit group that runs clinics for Washington, D.C. told the Washington Post that a temporary clinic creates "a hoopla event...that doesn't solve more systematic problems."

This year RAM has hosted events in Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah, Virginia, and Los Angeles. NBC Nightly News reported on the massive turnout at RAM's temporary clinic in Los Angeles this past August.
WATCH: at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/12/washington-dc-armory-want_n_389...

toniD's Ya Think?

[MARTIN ESPADA as CESAR CHAVEZ]: I'm not very different from anyone else who has ever tried to accomplish something with his life. My motivation comes from watching what my mother and father went through when I was growing up; from what we experienced as migrant farm workers in California. It grew from anger and rage — emotions I felt 40 years ago when people of my color were denied the right to see a movie or eat at a restaurant in many parts of California. It grew from the frustration and humiliation I felt as a boy who couldn't understand how the growers could abuse and exploit farm workers when there were so many of us and so few of them.

I began to realize what other minority people had discovered: That the only answer-the only hope-was in organizing.

Like the other immigrant groups, the day will come when we win the economic and political rewards which are in keeping with our numbers in society. The day will come when the politicians do the right thing by our people out of political necessity and not out of charity or idealism. That day may not come this year. That day may not come during this decade. But it will come.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12112009/watch2.html

Link at bottom...

[excerpt]

American Jews Eye Obama's 'Anti-Israel' Appointees

By Natasha Mozgovaya

12-11-9

Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.

In the case of Obama's government in particular, every criticism against Israel made by a potential government appointee has become a catalyst for debate about whether appointing "another leftist" offers proof that Obama does not truly support Israel.

A few months ago, boisterous protests by the American Jewish community helped foil the appointment of Chaz Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council, citing his "anti-Israel leaning."

The next attempt to appoint an intelligence aide, in this case, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, also resulted in vast criticism over his not having a pro-Israel record.

American Zionists are urging Obama to cancel Hagel's appointment because of what they call a long and problematic record of hostility toward Israel.

The president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton A. Klein, described Hagel's nomination as such: "Any American who is concerned about Iran's drive to obtain nuclear weapons, maintaining the Israeli-U.S. relationship and supporting Israel in its legitimate fight to protect her citizens from terrorism should oppose this appointment."

Republican Jews have also protested Hagel's appointment, citing an incident in 2004 when Hagel refused to sign a letter calling on then-president George Bush to speak about Iran's nuclear program at the G8 summit that year.

In August of 2006, Hagel refused to sign a letter requesting the UN declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

In a speech at the conference of self-declared "pro-peace, pro-Israel" lobby J Street, Hagel spoke about his views on the issue of Israel and the Middle East.

"The United States' support for Israel need not be - nor should it be - an either-or proposition that dictates our relationships with our Arab allies and friends. The U.S. has a long and special relationship with Israel, but it must not come at the expense of our Arab relationships," Hagel said.

The latest round of heated debate has been over the nomination of Hannah Rosenthal to head the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism in the Obama administration.

Rosenthal, who is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, served as a Health Department regional director under the Clinton administration, and held positions in different left-leaning Jewish organizations. Between 2000 and 2005, Rosenthal was the head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; she was also the executive director of the Chicago Foundation for Women. In recent years, she has served on the advisory board of the J Street lobby.

The president of Americans for Peace Now lauded Obama's appointment of Rosenthal. Even Anti-Defamation League chairman Abraham Foxman came out in support of Rosenthal's appointment.

"This appointment signals the continued seriousness of America?s resolve to fight anti-Semitism," Foxman said in a statement.

Shortly after the announcement of Rosenthal's nomination, conservative Jewish web sites began to attack her, some of them declaring that Obama appointed an anti-Israeli to fight anti-Semitism.

Rumors brewed that she had accused Israel of systemically strengthening anti-Semitism. Bloggers argued that her appointment would cause Jews and Israelis to cast doubt on Obama and his relationship with Israel. In one of her articles, Rosenthal criticized conservative voices in the Jewish community who she accused of taking over the discourse regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"It's a scary time, with people losing the ability to differentiate between a Jew, any Jew, and what's going on in Israel," Rosenthal said. In an interview with the new online Jewish magazine, Tablet, Rosenthal said that she loves Israel.

"I have lived in Israel. I go back and visit every chance I can. I consider it part of my heart. And because I love it so much, I want to see it safe and secure and free and democratic and living safely," Rosenthal said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1132797.html

[end excerpt]

Cancer survivor Jane Hamsher today called on the Susan G. Komen for the Cure cancer foundation to dump Hadassah Lieberman, the wife of the Senator, as the group’s global ambassador, citing her former lobbying for insurance companies and her husband’s hostility to key planks of health care reform.

But it’s not happening, says Foundation spokesperson Pamela Stevens. “We value her work as global ambassador and have every intention of keeping her in this capacity,” Stevens told me, repeatedly refusing to address the substance of the case against her.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/11/sign-letter-to-susan-b-komen...

From the Plum Line:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/economy/happy-hour-roundup-126/

toniD's Ya Think?

http://hypem.com/#/track/979057/Leena+-+Universe+Can+Wait

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

MMRules

Naked Bird Dancing: No Feathers, No Problem (VIDEO)

Birds of a feather flock together, which may explain why Oscar flies solo.

The plucky -- and plucked -- cockatoo beat the odds to survive a beak and feather disease. She was only given six months to live. That was 13 years ago.

Oscar escaped a crack house (literally) and now lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL. A bit of an internet celebrity, she's been written up in Dlisted (twice) and The Sun.

WATCH:

toniD's Ya Think?

http://www.progressive.org/wx121009.html

[excerpt]

Obama broke no new philosophical ground with his discussion of “just war” theory. In fact, he was remarkably jaded in his outlook. “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes,” he said. “There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

But nations that go to war always manage to find moral justifications for them. And even when the cause may be morally justified, it does not follow that the war itself is just.

...

Sounding like Rudyard Kipling, he said, “We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will.” (At West Point, he called it our “special burden.”)

Propagating the myth of the benign empire won’t convince anyone who has been caught in its claws.

Obama also showed a ridiculous double standard when it came to Israel and Iran. After making reference to Iran and the Middle East, he said: “Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.”

Israel has about 200 nuclear weapons, and the United States stood idly by as they acquired them.

[end excerpt]

Palin To Speak At Fundraiser For Canadian Hospital

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has made no secret of her opinion on Canadian public health care. But she's scheduled to speak at a fundraiser for a hospital and cancer center in Canada.

ThinkProgress points out that St. Peter's Hospital is public, performs abortions, and offers end-of-life decision support.

Organizers hope to sell 1,000 tickets at $200 a plate, but raise more via photos with Palin.

When approached recently by a Canadian comedian pretending to be a conservative, Palin gave her opinion on Canadian health care:

"Keep the faith" Palin said, "because common sense conservatism can be plugged in there in Canada too. In fact, Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/palin-to-speak-at-fundrai_n_388...

toniD's Ya Think?

Senate Democrats are already lowering expectations for the final health care bill, insisting that there will more efforts at reform to come.

In a conference call with reporters on Friday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) both stressed that they will continue to try to tinker with changes to the health care insurance and delivery system and the pharmaceutical industry, even after legislation passes.

"This is fairly clearly the beginning and not the end of health care reform," said Whitehouse. "There is going to be an awful lot of oversight of the big programs, which is necessary. We have got to change the delivery system so it provides better health care to Americans with less... And the ongoing nature of this continuing effort to make the American health care system one we can be really proud of is one that will allow plenty of time for people to continue to advocate for their views. It is not as if, if you don't get your voice heard in this particular episode, or if you don't win the program or position that you wanted in this particular episode, you have to walk away for ever. This is going to be continuing."

Whitehouse is right in a narrow sense. Additional health care related legislation will be considered once -- or if -- the current round of massive reform becomes law. But his remarks seem aimed at diffusing anger (largely from the progressive community) over the concessions granted during the current process of reform. Both senators, for instance, said they are personally discouraged by the deal cut by the Obama White House to limit the government's ability to negotiate prescription drug prices in exchange for help from Big Pharma in passing reform. But Stabenow, for one, suggested that she was willing to swallow that disappointment in hopes of future action.

"All of us in the caucus are united to make sure that, even if there are things that we need to come back and work on later -- such as has been done with every other major reform that has ever passed -- we can't let anything get in the way of the larger goal," said the Michigan Democrat. "I'm hopeful we can do more on the prescription drug front. But if we can't I'm sure Sheldon and I will be back again."

Whitehouse and Stabenow didn't spend the entire call, hosted by the group Families USA, attempting to mitigate potential dissatisfaction. They also emphasized that various components of the reform effort are hugely important steps forward. And, in particular, they lauded the last-minute decision by leadership to expand Medicare coverage to those as young as 55.

"For a lot of Americans it will be viewed as more reliable, certain and secure," said Whitehouse. "It has lower administrative costs so you are by definition getting more medical payment per dollar you put in. And ultimately the subsidy that the bill provides for low-income folks can travel with them into this Medicare program... I think people are pretty optimistic that this will be a very credible alternative for those in the age group."

"For a lot of people in that age group the coming of age to qualify for Medicare is [like] finally entering safe harbor after years of stormy seas," he concluded. "And for people to be able to make that turn earlier, even as a relatively comparable price point, would still be a big plus."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/dems-say-theyll-pursue-he_n_388...

toniD's Ya Think?

Amen...

When in January--early on?

That's a tough question to answer, but this gives you a pretty good answer:

The White House, aided by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is working hard to crush an amendment being pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to allow for the reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, Senate sources tell the Huffington Post.
As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a "hold" on Dorgan's amendment...

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is a lead co-sponsor of Dorgan's amendment. She said she's confident that, as of now, they have the votes they need. "I think that's why we're not having this vote," she said, smiling.

Carper represents the home state of AstraZeneca and has raked in a whopping $200,000 from the drug industry over his career. And Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D) and Bob Menendez (D) - both from New Jersey, the home of many drug companies - have joined with him. Those two combined have received roughly $800,000 from the pharmaceutical industry. And, of course, they are help the Obama administration shit all over President Obama's explicit promise to champion drug importation legislation.

How corrupt are some Democrats, you ask?

Corrupt enough to work against legislation their party for years promised to champion, their president promised to support, many of their own members support, most industrialized countries already have on their books and that the Senate has the votes to pass.

Corrupt enough to effectively insist that while it's somehow perfectly safe to import lead-painted toys from China and disease-carrying vegetables from Mexico, it's somehow unsafe to allow Americans to purchase drugs imported from FDA-certified factories in industrialized countries - even though drug firms themselves are allowed to do this (and do it all the time).*

Corrupt enough, indeed, to try to block a progressive amendment that key Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe says that - if passed - would make her more likely to vote for the underlying health care reform bill.

That's how corrupt.

* This is a really important point that everyone seems to forget: Drug companies already produce a lot of the medicines they sell Americans in other countries. In other words, many of the medicines you consume right now are already made abroad. The drug companies do this for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is lower manufacturing/labor/environmental compliance costs in countries like China and exorbitant tax subsidies in countries like Ireland. Current law, however, only allows the drug companies themselves to import medicines from other countries - it does not allow individuals or (more importantly) wholesalers and pharmacists to do the same thing.

Con't..

http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=11986515535#/note.php?note_id=19679...

**

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

**

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

MMRules

I'll know Monday. The good news is it's outpatient surgery, which means I go home that day with a bandaged foot and a special shoe. And in about 3 weeks I'll be able to put a shoe on.

Since it's my left foot, I'll still be able to drive so I can still work after the first few days.

I'm looking at the bright side, that I will be able to walk better again.

toniD's Ya Think?

Getting a new wheel ?

I hope you heal real fast and you feel better real soon,too.. :)

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

MMRules

Yes that's better when you are at least going in for a surgery where a good outcome is almost certain. (I assume from what you said it's this way.)

(And will you be under a local anesthetic only so you can keep an eye out that nobody fucks up?)

and she is still moving around at 93.It takes a while for the work to "kick" in. always hopeful for your outcome.

It's been a problem for awhile but I put it off because of the major problem with my knees.

The docs are going to completely rebuild me!!!

I'm a poster child for needed health care reform! Something I never bargained for when I was younger. That's why I say, you never know what will happen. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best!

toniD's Ya Think?

The term SNOWDROPPER is a 1920’s phrase referring to deeply disturbed individuals who have a penchant for
stealing woman’s panties off clotheslines.

----

Somehow I think Dick Cheney & c have set the bar for
"deeply disturbed" quite a bit higher than that. I'm pretty sure that in the 20s you could find worse as well...

"Woman's panties." (Is this the essentialist concept "woman" as seen up until the early twentieth century? I wasn't aware that those had panties, much less a clothesline to hang them on.)

The President is simultaneously selling War for Peace and protecting the Earth from Climate Change through steps to alter human behavior.

War is one of the most polluting, destructive, and resource and energy guzzling human behaviors on Earth, Mr. President.

Wouldn't a great place to start dealing with Global Warming be to ban Wars altogether?

Just asking.

That's the spirit!

Good Luck!

I've been going to him for awhile and trust him. He's got a good rep.

toniD's Ya Think?

Artie Shaw w/ Helen Forrest...? mb, your musical depth is astounding...

Prez Obushama wins a Forked Tongue Award this week.

His escalation in Afghanistan will slow any solution to "global warming".

The following is an article on the way war adds to the problem and prevents its possible solution....

http://priceofoil.org/climateofwar/

[excerpt]

A Climate of War
On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, a new report from Oil Change International, entitled A Climate of War (pdf) quantifies both the greenhouse gas emissions of the Iraq War and the opportunity costs involved in fighting war rather than climate change. Here are some facts on the war and warming:

1.Projected total US spending on the Iraq war could cover all of the global investments in renewable power generation that are needed between now and 2030 in order to halt current warming trends.2.The war is responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) since March 2003. To put this in perspective, CO2 released by the war to date equals the emissions from putting 25 million more cars on the road in the US this year.
3.Emissions from the Iraq War to date are nearly two and a half times greater than what would be avoided between 2009 and 2016 were California to implement the auto emission regulations it has proposed, but that the Bush Administration has struck down. Finally, if the war was ranked as a country in terms of annual emissions, it would emit more CO2 each year than 139 of the world’s nations do. Falling between New Zealand and Cuba, the war each year emits more than 60% of all countries on the planet.4.Just the $600 billion that Congress has allocated for military operations in Iraq to date could have built over 9000 wind farms (at 50 MW capacity each), with the overall capacity to meet a quarter of the country’s current electricity demand. If 25% of our power came from wind, rather than coal, it would reduce US GHG emissions by over 1 billion metric tons of CO2 per year – equivalent to approximately 1/6 of the country’s total CO2 emissions in 2006.
5.In 2006, the US spent more on the war in Iraq than the whole world spent on investment in renewable energy.
6.US presidential candidate Barack Obama has committed to spending“$150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of green energy technology and infrastructure.” The US spends nearly that much on the war in Iraq in just 10 months.
In presenting these calculations, we are not suggesting that greenhouse gas emissions are the most important impact of the war, nor the major reason to oppose it. We are not arguing that a more energy-efficient military would be more effective or justified in its actions, nor suggesting that there aren’t many things besides clean energy on which the US could choose to spend its money.

Rather, in a process comparable to estimating the true cost of the war in dollar terms, we are simply examining an aspect of the war’s impact that has been ignored.

The emissions associated with the war in Iraq are literally unreported. Military emissions abroad are not captured in the national greenhouse gas inventories that all industrialized nations, including the United States, report under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

It’s a loophole big enough to drive a tank through.

Estimates of emissions stem from fuel-intensive combat, oil well fires and increased gas flaring, the boom in cement consumption due to reconstruction efforts and security needs, and heavy use of explosives and chemicals that contribute to global warming.

These emissions estimates are very conservative. Throughout our research we have erred on the side of caution, and have simply omitted areas where reliable numbers were not readily available (e.g., military consumption of halons or other greenhouse gas intensive chemicals, and the use of bunker fuels for the transportation of troops and equipment to Iraq). We are confident that ongoing research will reveal more emissions (the full version of this report is forthcoming).

[end excerpt]

..for me to play it. Now I realize that's a subjective statement but I'm stickin' to it.

tD - Glad it's going to be outpatient as the hospital is quickly becoming the worst place to go to get well. ;-)

Maybe a solution would be go organic.

No answer to solve the pollution:

http://www.grassrootsnetroots.org/articles/article_19804.cfm

Eddie Griffith (Former Black Panther, prisoner of conscience; now Bible-school teacher, child-rights activist.)

Unfortunately they lost the phone line prematurely, but it was very good--what there was of it.

Apparently he's been on before, but I didn't hear.

Photo heavy show description here, with lots of taser-info links.

http://www.thejefffariasshow.com/?p=2083

Same info, fewer photos/embedded YouTubes:

http://jefffarias.podbean.com/2009/12/10/the-jefff-farias-show-december-...

Podcast here:

http://media10.podbean.com/pb/6ce7f9c8e363e779615c4336bb2bd98b/4b23bfbb/...

via pourmecoffee

"this machine kills fascists"

You mean besides liberal blogs, right? ;)

"this machine kills fascists"

You are on your way to becoming rebuilt and shiny new!

Sunny and about 31°F here this morning.

          __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

Papantonio: GOP Purity Test Echoes Berlin in 1933

posted on December 11, 2009 18:00

.
.
.
_ _ _
brr

I think part of this problem comes from the Corporate invention -- Consumer Culture. We consumers were sold on the notion that the optimal life was one wherein we each had our own everything -- from washer/dryer to car to home entertainment center....That Americans should do everything individually as a first choice, even if it were more cost- and time-efficient to take public transportation or send one's laundry out, or more fun to use time and money to learn to play music or make art instead of endlessly investing in gadgets and recordings....I think that is what has taken a good idea like being personally responsible and personally prepared for life and twisting it into something dysfunctional.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5369.shtml

[excerpt]

The self-sufficiency fetish
By Kéllia Ramares
Online Journal Associate Editor

Dec 11, 2009, 00:23

“No man is an island, entire of itself . . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” --John Donne, Meditation XVII

Self-sufficiency, a.k.a. self-reliance or rugged individualism, is one of the great fetishes of American culture. To the self-sufficiency fetishists, being able to take care of oneself and pay one’s own way is the opposite side of the coin of freedom. Sacrifice self-sufficiency and you have sacrificed freedom, they claim. Not to be able or willing to take care of yourself is to be an infant, whether your caretaker is a blood relative, a spouse, a paid caretaker or “Uncle Sam.”

The debate over health insurance reform has brought out the self-sufficiency fetishists in full force. They post comments all over the Internet decrying the idea of “socialized medicine.” They do not believe that health care is a human right but a “personal responsibility.” They are against any the government role in health care because people should take care of themselves. They see taxation to help other people to get health care as “confiscation” of their hard-earned money. (Strangely enough, they never see the ever-increasing premiums charged by private health insurance companies for ever-skimpier policies as “confiscation”).

[end excerpt]

Are you making/helping to make these puppets/costumes? I like that pig a lot.

"the worst place to go to get well"
Submitted by 60th Street on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 11:21am.

You mean besides liberal blogs, right? ;)

---
at least you "have your fun."

http://www.grassrootsnetroots.org/articles/article_19778.cfm

[excerpt]

Burn a Tree to Save the Planet? The Crazy Logic Behind Biomass
By Joshua Frank
AlterNet, Dec 8, 2009
Straight to the Source

Fire up your chainsaw and cut down a tree. Not so you can decorate it for the Christmas holiday; so you can set it on fire to help combat global warming. That's right, burn a tree to save the planet. That's the notion behind biomass, the new (yet ancient) technology of burning wood to produce energy.

It might seem crazy that anyone would even consider the incineration of wood and its byproducts to be a green substitute for toxic fuels such as coal. Yet that's exactly what is happening all over the country, and it has many environmentalists scratching their heads in disbelief.

Wood waste, such as forest trimmings and other agricultural debris, is being used in numerous power plants across the country with the impression that it is a renewable, green resource.

"People get easily confused by biomass because it is always lumped in with other green technologies," said environmental activist and filmmaker Jeff Gibbs, who co-produced Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." "Burning our trees in the name of renewable energy to produce power is about as Machiavellian as it gets."

NASA's James Hansen says that the burning of coal is the single largest contributor to anthropogenic global warming, so any alternative fuel source must decrease the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere if we are to put the breaks on climate change. Biomass, despite its label as a renewable energy source, does not solve the problem because burning trees actually emits a large amount of CO2.

Proponents counter that biomass only releases as much CO2 as the trees absorb while growing in nature. So as long as replacement trees are grown at the same rate they are burned in incinerators, biomass will always be carbon neutral.

[end excerpt]

Have a great afternoon.

Later

toniD's Ya Think?

thank you for showing us that.

Decided I'd give them another chance to change my mind. I got there. Same line out the door. Literally about 20 people holding packages. It was 10:15. Nobody was behind the counter. My package only weighed 14.5lbs but I still didn't want to hold the box for an hour. My original complaint was not a one time occurrence. It's a chronic problem.

I turned around, put the package in my trunk, drove 1 mile closer to my house and went to Fed-ex. Nobody in line. Two waiting to help take my shipping. $13.40 later, the Alternator was back on it's way to Summit Racing on a return. The cost may even be less than at the Post Office.

If you are shipping for xmas, and can wait for ground, I recommend Fed-ex. The cost is the same or better, it's faster, and you can track your package more easily. USPS is for postage like Christmas cards.

Merry Solstice
Submitted by Fernando on Fri, 12/11/2009 - 11:54pm.
=================================
Privacy issue in the Woods' case, imo
Submitted by nora on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 2:46am.

==having a specialty helps.

[forgot to press post again...]

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

I was just doing my typical queries and ended up in some internal severer from NASA. The directory was full of amazing shots from all kinds of places on Earth, in space and on other planets. It got hard to tell what planet many of the pictures were from. All of them were dazzling. I could have posted all night and not run out of pictures.

check it out: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/fap/image/

Right on...

"What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye

button by http://www.playlist.com/

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

Rachel Pocaro

$10 an hour with 2 kids? IRS pounces

Rachel Porcaro knows she's hardly rich. When you're a single mom making 10 bucks an hour, you don't need government experts to tell you how broke you are.

But that's what happened. The government not only told Porcaro she was poor. They said she was too poor to make it in Seattle.

It all started a year ago, when Porcaro, a 32-year-old mom with two boys, was summoned to the Seattle office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She had been flagged for an audit.

She couldn't believe it. She made $18,992 the previous year cutting hair at Supercuts. A few hundred of that she spent to have her taxes prepared by H&R Block.

"I asked the IRS lady straight upfront — 'I don't have anything, why are you auditing me?' " Porcaro recalled. "I said, 'Why me, when I don't own a home, a business, a car?' "

The answer stunned both Porcaro and the private tax specialist her dad had gotten to help her.

"They showed us a spreadsheet of incomes in the Seattle area," says Dante Driver, an accountant at Seattle's G.A. Michael and Co. "The auditor said, 'You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in Seattle."

"They thought she must have unreported income. That she was hiding something. Basically they were auditing her for not making enough money."

Seriously? An estimated 60,000 people in Seattle live below the poverty line — meaning they make $11,000 or less for an individual or $22,000 for a family of four. Does the IRS red-flag them for scrutiny, simply because they're poor?

I asked the local office of the IRS. They said they couldn't comment for privacy reasons.

"We can't give you any kind of broad interview because your request is associated with the case of an individual taxpayer," IRS Media Relations said in a statement.

So I'll just tell you Rachel's story.

She had a yearlong odyssey into the maw of the IRS. After being told she couldn't survive in Seattle on so little, she was notified her returns for both 2006 and 2007 had been found "deficient." She owed the government more than $16,000 — almost an entire year's pay.

She couldn't pay it. Her dad, Rob, has run a local painting business, Porcaro Power Painting, for 30 years. He asked his accountant, Driver, for help.

Rachel's returns weren't all that complicated. At issue, though, was that she and her two sons, ages 10 and 8, were all living at her parents' house in Rainier Beach (she pays $400 a month rent). So the IRS concluded she wasn't providing for her children and therefore couldn't claim them as dependents.

She stood to lose what is called earned income tax credit, a refund targeted to help low-income workers. You qualify only if you're working, as Rachel has been.

Driver quickly determined the IRS was wrong in how it was interpreting the tax laws. He sent in the necessary code citations and hoped that would be the end of it.

Instead, the IRS responded by launching an audit of Rachel's parents.

con't

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2010435946_danny06.h...

REPUBLICANS! AND YOU'RE THINKING OF NOT VOTING IN 2010?

EXCERPT:

Why did this happen? The IRS won’t say, but Congress has been fighting for years about the earned income tax credit for the working poor.

Republicans have called the credits “backdoor welfare” and tried to cancel them. When they controlled Congress, they ordered the IRS to ramp up audits of people who claim the credit.

In 2006, credit recipients such as Rachel were more than twice as likely to get audited as the rest of the 140 million individual tax filers.

con't

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/12/11/irs-targets-single-moth...

I've heard that somewhere before.
Where have i heard that ????????
Oh yeah - M.C. Hammer "It's hammer
toe time"
That's it ! lol

toniD - you r a strong gal - it'll be
alright - u know if u need anything -
just give out a holler.

Am I reading this correctly?

EXCERPT:

These are tumultuous times for golf after Friday’s announcement by its No. 1 player that he is taking time out following two weeks of allegations of extramarital affairs. Woods and his wife, Elin, have been married five years and have a 2-year-old daughter and a 10-month-old son.

“There was an aura, and that wall, if you like, has been split slightly,” said Montgomerie, Europe’s 2010 Ryder Cup captain. “There are cracks, and I feel that it gives us more opportunity of winning these big events now.”

con't

http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/news?slug=ap-woods-reaction&prov=ap&typ...

We are a blog family here...your comments seem to be meant to antagonize. Are you mad at Chris for some reason? It is like going to a family dinner and saying something like, "the company you work for is evil". Even though it may be true why say that?

I hope you get my point....is the prize worth the price?

by Hanna Rosin

At Casa del Padre, the celebration of consumer culture is quite visible, along with a sense of boundless opportunity. The people in the church, for instance, tend to have very expensive cell phones—never the free ones that come with a calling plan, nor the sort that can be bought cheaply at a convenience store. “They start wanting what’s considered the best and the most technologically advanced in this country,” Lin says. Garay’s church, it seems to me, teaches them that they deserve these things, so they go about getting them, with few resources and infinite adaptability. Before the crash, one group of young men got a $12,000 loan to start a landscaping company; another man bought a $270,000 house. One of the church’s Bible-study leaders, who’d grown up in a remote village in Mexico with an abusive, alcoholic father, had become a very successful contractor by the height of the boom, managing 30 men on multiple jobs and winning contracts to paint luxury subdivisions in the exurbs.

The tenets of the prosperity gospel, and the practical advice that pastors often give their parishioners, help immigrants learn “not just how to survive but how to thrive; not just live paycheck to paycheck but handle money—manage complicated payrolls, invest in equipment,” Lin told me. Along the way, they become assimilated. “While they’re trying to be closer to God, instead they become American,” he says, from their optimism and entrepreneurialism to the very nature of their dreams.

con't

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/rosin-prosperity-gospel/3

How do I put this w/o stepping on toes? ...

The PO is not evil. Based on Fernando's experience he thinks (wrongly based on my experience, for the most part) that they are inefficient and lacking in customer-service skills. That's not the same thing.

This is important because I can argue that when you see evil you need to call it out even if it effects group harmony, but that isn't the case here. It is not even a case of a lot of our tax dollars going there, as Chris has already explained, so there's not that excuse.

Also, it was what 60th was trying to get at last week, I think, much more gracefully than I could. "Empathy and respect go both ways...Us blue-collar Joes are more patient about lines" etc. There is a certain kind of customer that thinks that if you appear to them to be fucking up, you are evil, even if the consequences of even a real fuck up are not actually that great. Failure to serve you is not evil. Yet I've had a co-worker, for instance, be called "you horrible girl," just because she didn't have what the customer wanted at that moment. (That is just one fairly mild example of what can happen in such jobs.)

Now if you work for child protective services or something, that's another matter. If you fuck something up either by accident or because you have a bad attitude, that's a real problem. But that's why those people are paid more (although not nearly as much more as they should be).

So that's where I would ask the question "is the prize worth the price?"

I would ask not only about the community on this blog, but about a society in which class antagonisms can easily be exacerbated (and in some cases may need to be).

And Fernando, you have been being so nice for the past couple days. What's up?

well said happe

What I value so much is that I can think my deep thoughts and now, in this era of my life, I have a place where I can express them. And, like my [dysfunctional]family, the response is usually silence, just kidding..., no really.
==
good 1 enda re irs
and that site is amazing fernando
me, getting ready for a 2 show day.

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

No ambiguity there... ;)

glory
==
there's a new Bank of america tv add playing here and I'm pretty sure the background music is from Lennon's 'Mind Games.'

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

Submitted by nora on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 9:10am.
...And it really is Obushama gobbletygook: What is this "since the dawn" OF TIME/HISTORY men have killed each other stuff? Is Obushama trying to give the impression that he has God-like OMNISCIENCE, that he is all-seeing, or something? What is that tripe? Was he THERE? Is his word "proof"? EGAD. (And as for 'history', I have read that even the Egyptians' "wars" appear to have been for purposes of controlling the People through fear/common purpose, consolidating wealth and propping up the royals and aristocracy, but not for any defensive or 'just' purpose whatsoever...
---------------
The overwhelming historical account of humans killing humans should be sufficient proof that nora is butt deep in a non sequitur.

Then, butchering logic further, nora cites unjust Egyptian wars as evidence that no just war can exist. She misconstrues that Obama's reference to human bloodshed is confined to just wars then leaps to unjust Egyptian wars as proof of his fallacy.

nora's understanding of the concept of just war is nonexistent. All factions in every war claim to have a just cause. It is possible for some factions to be correct. The rest are not.

When one human is assaulted by a second human, the first human has a just cause for mounting a defense meeting or exceeding the violence of the attack. Even when the assault is revenge or retribution for a past transgression, no human can reasonably be expected to place his/her own head into the noose. Self-preservation is innate whether just or not.

If the Egyptians cited by nora unjustly predicated their wars, it does not follow that their opponents defended themselves unjustly. The opposite is more likely to be true. An unjust war waged by Egyptians can be a just war waged by their opponents.

Obama, or anyone, uses the rhetorical construction "since the dawn of time" to imply "since the first historical evidence." Anyone who is willing to support nora's conclusion that the historical record does not indicate that humans kill humans justly and unjustly, bring it on. Only a congenital navel-gazer would posit such foolishness.

Among nora's absurd conclusions is this recent pile of crap delivered via sidelong implication: Ralph Nader lost elections. Abraham Lincoln lost elections. Therefore Nader is like Lincoln.

Her bizarre dimestore logic also proves that everyone who lost elections is like both Lincoln and Nader. Similarly, any male is like Lincoln and Nader. Anyone who has or had a mother is like Lincoln and Nader. Any biped that walks upright is like Lincoln and Nader.

I do not believe in the concept of "evil" as a stand-alone entity. Even if I did, I would believe that the Earth devoid of humans would also be devoid of evil.

Apparently by attacking Obama's rhetorical phrasing, nora can confidently imply that humans were warm and fuzzy until some point in time after which they became killers.

It sounds exactly like the fable of Eden.

You have to keep your sh*t in something while you are working on it.

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

[a re-edit by me of]
"History of oil - a just war" by Robert Newman -- google vid

"History of oil - by Robert Newman
===
more audio of the video

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

bloggers....

why?

(It's a rhetorical question.)

Navel-gazing is omphaloskepsis. A navel-gazer is an omphaloskeptic.

In modern parlance it is used as a criticism of excessive self-absorption. You never know when it might come in handy.

Crank, it is kind of like insulting people...

Just because you can, and might feel justified in doing so, does not mean you must. It also does not preclude one from finding more humane, constructive, or dare I say "progressive" means of responding....

A bouncer stomps to death a drunken patron he out weighs by 150 pounds because the man punched him in the face. Was the bouncer justified in his response? Maybe. Does that make him any less of a murderer? No.

It's going to look so not-worthy following what it's following.

In his attempt to look cool- he becomes the streotypical fool.

You know, I could just smack the piss out of him!

Submitted by nightbird on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 2:54pm.
happy season
-----

And to you, likewise, Nightbird.

Is instant-runoff voting something else that was talked about ad nauseaum (right click doesn't work here; enjoy while it lasts) back in the day?

Because I think we should be talking about that more.

(With regard, most recently, to edna's concerns.)

-----

Well anyway here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

---
I asked because I thought she had put up a thing about it, but now I remember it was a thing where there was beer wine or water and two of those were Gore and Nader in 2000. A study that said it proved Nader helped Gore? Something like that. I was confused...as per usual.

What's Going On?
Submitted by jbenet on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 1:03pm.

Right on...

"What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye

button by http://www.playlist.com/

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

When he first got the rnc job?
I see he's trying to put himself in a box he does not fit in.

Re dickiPedia. Org
A wiki of dicks

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

"It never rains in southern California"

It pours... man, it pours.

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

I'm not trying to upset anyone. I'm trying to help save people time. I have no problem with the post office and Chris is my GOOD friend. I would never antagonize him.

If he takes that personally, I apologize.

This may be a familiar place but it's about the politics. There is a place for government, like delivering the mail. There is a place for private investments and capitalism. Shipping seems to be a good example and I'm trying to highlight it.

Not everything is a personal matter you know. This really is about how society functions, what works well and what doesn't. We have a raging debate going on about health care you know.

There is more to this story but I don't have the time. I really wish this weren't personal for anyone. It's not about that.

Among nora's absurd conclusions is this recent pile of crap delivered via sidelong implication: Ralph Nader lost elections. Abraham Lincoln lost elections. Therefore Nader is like Lincoln.
====
Right. Who tried to make this point? For what its worth, the Republican Party was third party that was fortunate enough to fill the void when the Whigs went dead. Perhaps a progressive social democratic party will be ready step in when the modern Democratic Party goes under.

Nader is not corrupt, two faced politician, like Lincoln was.

http://www.fairvote.org/what-is-irv

Good to know.

I'm assuming the alternator would fit in the medium sized flat rate box. That would be $10.35 anywhere in the country up to 70lbs. .70 extra if you want tracking.

Oh, you could have gone to USPS.com done the whole transaction online, including printing your label with postage and saved another 5 or 10%, I forget, and then the tracking is free. You could have handed it off to your carrier and avoided the trauma of facing another government worker, even tho we are not Federal employees.

Of course you would have had to have the box, which can be ordered and delivered to your door....for free.

We may suck but we often suck for free.

...and what's up with those fucking Forever stamps anyway?

Last year we delivered over 200 Billion letters and magazines and just under 900 million packages servicing every address in the country.

Not Even a Peanut

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

A friend down the coast here in California called Wednesday to say that her mother, 95, had fallen, cracked her ribs, got a cough and told her daughters, “That’s it. I’m checking out.” She’s given up eating. I remembered all the arguments I’d had down the years with the old lady – a perennial optimist about Democrats when it came to assessing the likelihood that Carter or Clinton or Obama would ever actually serve up the progressive banquets they’d pledged on the campaign trail.

“Tell your mother that at least she won’t have to put up with me saying ‘I told you so, about Obama.’” Her daughter gave a deep, sad sigh. She too has been a loyal liberal Democrat all her life and now, she said, Obama’s breaking her heart. So many high hopes, and there’s a man accepting the Peace Prize with one hand, while signing deployment orders with the other, sending 30,000 more young soldiers to Afghanistan.

Imagine having one’s foot on the lip of the great abyss, dimly hearing the radio in the kitchen playing snatches of the appalling drivel served up by Obama in Oslo. “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans.”

Obama was in peak form as self-righteous blowhard, proclaiming that “America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.”

As his words hang in the air, captives of the Empire are being kidnapped and rendered to Bagram and other dungeons and tortured, all the while with no legal standing as “enemy combatants”. Stand naked in a cold cell, waiting for the next beating from your interrogators and listen to Obama being piped through the PA at max volume, right after ‘Born in the USA’ (sorry, Birthers): “We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place… So let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn12112009.html

but at least they are not Union Busting Assholes who care only about the bottom line....

There is more to "success" than the almighty dollar.

well, as it turns out, the dollar may not be so "almighty" after all...and for the same reason...greed.

I would never want a private company delivering my mail.

I hate the thought of private schools even. That's not where I'm going with this. Your business model is built around the mission critical need for citizens to receive their mail.

None of that overhead is carried by Fed-ex. My package was 12x12x12 and last time I shipped a box that size (it was a water pump weighing 17lbs) it cost more than $15 and was also in a 12x12x12 box.

I'm trying to draw a distinction between our daily critical needs and occasional desired requirements and the role of government.

And btw. The guy at Fex-ex and I talked about health care and the mail system in Canada (he's a Canadian). He told me he never waited for a doctor. He waits longer here under our privatized (CRITICAL DAILY NEED) system.

Are you starting to see the meme? Private companies hold people hostage when we need them most.

Private companies are willing to satisfy you more completely and competitively in a niche where we have wants, not needs.

There is still more to this story. Remember when I told of the story of Home Depot and my Cousin in Mexico? Mexico is a socialist country. The market place is highly monopolized. I believe our two party system is trying to put us in the same place. The big box stores are winning too quickly. The socialist country is too incompetent and corrupt to function properly. My cousin was rescued from thugs that bought out the police by Home Depot.

Can you imagine the desperation of needing the company you work for that much? Can you imagine American's in that condition?

We need a strong competent government AND aggressively competitive companies. Monopolies have to go. That's especially true in the insurance arena.

What would happen if USPS were suddenly privatized or funding was cut and it vanished? The price of mailing packages and letters would increase by leaps and bounds, as the only regulation would be the free market, which usually means the freedom to rob.

Submitted by cent on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 3:50pm.
...It also does not preclude one from finding more humane, constructive, or dare I say "progressive" means of responding...A bouncer stomps to death a drunken patron he out weighs by 150 pounds because the man punched him in the face. Was the bouncer justified in his response?...
--------
cent,

I'm picking on the weak and defenseless, is that it? Are you advising me or insulting nora?

Ninety-nine percent of the time I respond the "progressive" way; not at all. And if exposing falsehoods is not constructive, then what the fuck are you and your bullshit detector doing here every day?

When someone other than me has the balls and integrity to call the loon a loon, I'll shut up. I will be more than content if someone, anyone, says something rather than everyone saying nothing. She will never learn to play chess if everyone allows her to move the pieces anywhere she chooses.

In the meantime, I never recommend this blog to anyone because chickenshits like you refuse to challenge a fruitbat who makes this place read like the shift notes in a psych ward. I have watched more than once as nora based an entire tirade on her ignorance of bedrock principles of physics. What did cent have to say about it? Nothing. Crickets. It's like it never happened. Perhaps you were being humane?

So go ahead, cent. Pat her on the back on rare occasions when she writes something vaguely sane, then pretend it doesn't matter while she spins tale after tale from the Twilight Zone. Chivalry isn't dead, it's blind.

You and taozen and Sunny Jim and a few others are so dedicated to worshipping at the altar of social dissent, you never meet an establishment basher you don't like. The most egregious foolishness is unimportant so long as you detect a liberal dose of anti-establishment attitude.

Not me. I'm not a slave to an ideological brotherhood. I don't belong to a club. I'm not so desperate for team members that I'll ignore insanity. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

Consider yourself fortunate that I scroll past most of her crap and exercise restraint with the mind-numbing natterings that slip through the cracks. I could be matching her post for post, exposing the lunacy in excruciating detail and making it all but impossible for readers to stare at their shoes and pretend that her precipitate fulminations are harmless.

sigh...vaguery strikes again...

no, crank...that is not it...so I will ignore the rest of your post...

I was trying to use your propensity for insult as an analogy to support nora's point that we over reacted a little.

You stated, basically, in your response to her that it is the offended's (sp?) right to overreact to an attack...I was simply stating that although it may be justified, it is not necessarily moral, especially if the attacking party is much much weaker, and the response so much greater than the initial attack. With power comes the expectation, if not the responsibility, of restraint.

Obama, Afghanistan and the 2012 Elections

The Politics of Cynicism

By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO

Machiavelli would be proud of President Obama. This administration has revealed itself as highly cynical, dedicated to winning re-election at the expense of rational debate on Afghanistan, or the serious consideration of public opposition to war. Machiavelli was famous, among other things, for his pioneering of a belief in amoral politics - the commitment to gaining power at the expense of standing for any larger principals or for the promotion of the public good. Obama has behaved similarly, as a close review of his pro-war rhetoric and actions demonstrate.

Much of Obama’s West Point speech consisted of incoherent, Orwellian doublethink. Obama celebrated the “legitimate government [that] was elected by the Afghan people,” while patronizing the government as being “hampered by corruption.” He promised that the U.S. has “no interest in occupying [Afghanistan],” while escalating an unpopular counterinsurgency that most Afghans feel will directly harm them. Obama explained that “America seeks an end to this war and suffering” and “has no interest in fighting an endless war,” yet sent 48,000 troops to continue a violent, destabilizing counterinsurgency campaign with no concrete end in sight.

Progressive journalists and scholars level many criticisms at the Obama plan. Critics seize on the administration’s own damning estimate that just 100 al Qaeda are currently operating in Afghanistan, and question the seeming ridiculousness of sending 100,000 troops to defeat such a small target. Critics also draw attention to the imminent humanitarian consequences of the escalation. As a social movement, the Taliban operates on many levels throughout the Pashtun Helmand province, and there is realistically no way to separate it from the people of the region’s people by engaging in “surgical,” “precision” bombing. Civilians will inevitably bear the brunt of the punishment from U.S. bombings, as has happened with the predator drone strikes on “terrorist targets” in Pakistan.
http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio12092009.html

IRS Targets Single Mother Because of Her Low Income
Submitted by edna ellen poe on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 1:05pm.
=======
That is sick stuff. But at least the IRS was being honest and forthright about issues of class. Now we can fight back. I lived in Seattle in the early 1990s working a low-paying job at a progressive non-profit. Luckily I only had myself to support, and that was a struggle. Do you notice that most of the supposed progressive cities--like Seattle and San Francisco--have such high housing costs that that working class people are forced to go elsewhere. Yuppie playgrounds.

Chickenshit? You wanna go, asshole...lets talk about your need to viciously attack women crank...Alice, Glory, Nora....Leah is a little out of your league though isn't she...

You married Crank? No? Women's issues? Wife beater maybe?

Fuck you asshole...

...is on acid.

What I really want to know is whether Sarah Palin's family arrived in Alaska on a Triceratops or flew in on a Pterodactyl Airways?

As for the IRS, they surely expended more in resources than they could ever recoup from Rachel even if she had been cheating (but I'm sure she wasnt').

Or is that just wishful thinking?

As for the IRS, they surely expended more in resources than they could ever recoup from Rachel even if she had been cheating (but I'm sure she wasnt').
=====
Expending resources to go after the less wealthy is apparently nothing new for the IRS. What most shocked me about the story was the frankness that the IRS representative showed towards Rachel. She did not make enough money to live in Seattle (so she'd best move elsewhere).

I didn't realize that the Seattle IRS article was on the Huffington Post. Anyway, after I have read it a few times, I see that the "Seattle is too expensive" remark was intended as proof by the IRS that Rachel was not supporting her two children. Therefore she was claiming non-existent exemptions, or the like.

May I say I HATE FedEx. My printer went bad so I ordered a new one on line, a deal on Thanksgiving day. Fed Ex was to deliver it. They tried 3 times and 3 times I wasn't home when they got around to delivering it at 6 PM at night. I was working. I called after the first time and the girl I got in Cust. Svc said that there was an order to return to sender if it was undeliverable. I told them just to leave it outside my door. She had to send a message because that delivery outlet was closed on Monday. Twice more they trued to deliver it and finally left it at the Apartment office.

I had it delivered so I wouldn't have to pick it up and carry it too far.

Had it come by USPS, they have keys to the building and could bring it right to my door and leave it there if I wasn't home!

Now I am waiting for a USB cable because the one they delivered with the printer was only 3 feet long. Seems they tried to deliver it yesterday when I was at the doctor's office, so now I am waiting for this delivery.

I hate Fed Ex!!!!

toniD's Ya Think?

Poor Women Turned Away From Free Cancer Screenings

ALBANY, N.Y. — As the economy falters and more people go without health insurance, low-income women in at least 20 states are being turned away or put on long waiting lists for free cancer screenings, according to the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network.

In the unofficial survey of programs for July 2008 through April 2009, the organization found that state budget strains are forcing some programs to reject people who would otherwise qualify for free mammograms and Pap smears. Just how many are turned away isn't known; in some cases, the women are screened through other programs or referred to different providers.

"I cried and I panicked," said Erin LaBarge, 47. This would have been her third straight year receiving a free mammogram through the screening program in St. Lawrence County. But the Norwood, N.Y., resident was told she couldn't get her free mammogram this year because there isn't enough money and she's not old enough.

New York used to screen women of all ages, but this year the budget crunch has forced them to focus on those considered at highest risk and exclude women under 50.

"It's a scary thought. It really is," said LaBarge, who fears she's at a higher risk because her grandmother died of breast cancer.

The Cancer Society doesn't have an estimate for what percentage of breast cancer diagnoses come from mammogram screenings, but says women have a 98 percent survival rate when breast cancer is caught early, during stage I. That shrinks to about 84 percent during stages II and III, and just 27 percent at stage IV – when cancer has reached its most advanced point.

"I already know there are women who are dying whose lives we could have saved with mammography and other detections," said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the society.

In New York, the Cancer Society says providers in Manhattan, Brooklyn and western Queens, and in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties project they'll perform nearly 15,000 fewer free mammograms for the fiscal year ending April 2010, compared with the previous year.

The Cancer Society has no way to count how many women are being turned away, and many providers don't keep track of how many are denied screening, or whether those women find another alternative. The cost of screening varies, but the average mammogram is about $100, while a Pap screen can range between $75 and $200, according to the society.

Project Renewal Van Scan, which gives mammograms around New York City, usually targets 6,000 women a year but has cut back to 3,100 this year, director Mary Solomon said.

Each state handles free screenings differently. Some use state funds to supplement federal funding, while others get private assistance from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation and other groups.

At least 14 states cut budgets for free cancer screenings this year: Colorado, Montana, Illinois, Alabama, Minnesota, Connecticut, South Carolina, Utah, Missouri, Washington, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Arkansas.

Some states that have cut their budgets have found ways to maintain services; some states that haven't reduced their budgets still find themselves having to turn women away because they don't have enough funding.

"This is rationing of health care by offering (screenings) only in the first half of the fiscal year, or by cutting back on those programs," Brawley said. "It's rationing that is leading to people dying."
more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/12/poor-women-turned-away-fr_n_389...

toniD's Ya Think?

Obama Blasts Banks For Opposing Financial Reform (VIDEO)

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama singled out financial institutions for causing much of the economic tailspin and criticized their opposition to tighter federal oversight of their industry.

While applauding House passage Friday of overhaul legislation and urging quick Senate action, Obama expressed frustration with banks that were helped by a taxpayer bailout and now are "fighting tooth and nail with their lobbyists" against new government controls.

In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said the economy is only now beginning to recover from the "irresponsibility" of Wall Street institutions that "gambled on risky loans and complex financial products" in pursuit of short-term profits and big bonuses with little regard for long-term consequences.

"It was, as some have put it, risk management without the management," he said.

The president also told CBS' "60 Minutes" that "the people on Wall Street still don't get it. ... They're still puzzled why it is that people are mad at the banks. Well, let's see. You guys are drawing down $10, $20 million bonuses after America went through the worst economic year ... in decades and you guys caused the problem," Obama said in an excerpt released in advance of Sunday night's broadcast of his interview.

Videos at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/12/obama-knocks-reckless-wal_n_389...

toniD's Ya Think?

cent always appreciate your posts
Mb you are doing great work here I assume you give the same verve at your other job.
nora I see that you go out to the perimiter and bringback what you find. I value you for that.
Crank (the nic is crank after all ) ... need I say more? I value your blog friendship.

I'm tired, here at the theater, touch screen typing, The phrase go with the flow comes to mind. F that. I want the flow to go around me. Ups, show about to start, later.

:)

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

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_ _ _
-...   .-.   .-.

.--   -   ..-.

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5536

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

MMRules

Submitted by cent on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 7:40pm.
Chickenshit? You wanna go, asshole...lets talk about your need to viciously attack women crank...Alice, Glory, Nora....Leah is a little out of your league though isn't she...
You married Crank? No? Women's issues? Wife beater maybe?
Fuck you asshole...
--------
Charming. There's nothing like a heavy coating of machismo to give a guy that special Neanderthal sheen. I bet you're the bell of the Troglodyte ball.

We could talk about my need to viciously attack women if it wasn't a figment of your imagination intended to get under my skin.

If you think that exposing foolishness is a vicious attack, I'm wondering why you waste your time hurling threats and foul insults? You have never seen vicious from me. You have only seen measured.

Vicious is what you attempt to do, poorly I might add, by firing ad hominem blanks. Wife beater? Really? I hope that isn't your A game. If it is, you've shot your juvenile wad in the first volley. What's next, "Yo momma" insults?

The Tough Guy talk you spew is laughably inane. How does it feel to have your manly anger dismissed as laughably inane, cent? The more you seethe, the harder I laugh. The poster known as Nobody specialized in Tough Guy rhetoric. You ain't breakin' new ground. Here's a clever idea: Call me a wife beater again. Surely it will do the trick the second time around.

I have tangled with damned near every male who has participated on this blog but, more importantly, it's not clear to me why you believe that one gender or another has an inherent advantage in a text based dialogue? Could it be that your chauvinism is rearing its ugly provincial head? Don't worry ladies, ol' cent knows you're weak and stupid and you need a man like him to wield the keyboard when that vicious Bait comes around. Bait is, after all, a man. No woman could possibly stand a chance engaging him in discussion, right cent?

For the record (the record that you find difficult to retain), I have openly disagreed with Leah. You might note that she A.) does not spam the blog with dozens of long cut-and-pasted posts and B.) does not write speculative gibberish. In fact, she tends to take her interests to an Open Mic.

In other words, tough guy, most of the time I don't have a reason to publicly disagree with Leah. Nor do I have a reason to publicly disagree with Cat Chew. Or toniD. Or Catsea. Or a number of other women. Perhaps you should start keeping score instead of pulling it out of your ass?

As for Alice, I grew weary of ignoring the elephant in the room. Alice exhibits no restraint when accusing a large number of us of having various shortcomings, moral and otherwise. Alice does not have any compunction about repeating the accusations every day of every month of every year. She passes sweeping judgements and posts them as easily as she takes a breath.

When I and others tried to engage Alice in a discussion about anarchy, she retreated into "I know what I know and you don't know what I know" and then she continued to snipe from the sidelines as if sniping would magically cause us to know what she knows. It's great work if you can find it. It taught me that discussing anything of importance to Alice with Alice was a fool's game unless you plan to agree with her down the line.

Eventually I decided that it was foolish to continue to protect her from my differing viewpoint regarding feral cats. Why should I protect her from my opinion? She cut my moral integrity, along with others, to shreds every day without giving it a second thought. For years I had been granting her a courtesy that she never extended to me or to anyone else.

I presented my argument and supporting information to Alice without resorting to Neanderthal chest thumping. The chest thumping came from the peanut gallery. A few idiots believed that Alice was entitled to disagree with everyone every day but Bait had no right to disagree with Alice on that day.

In conclusion, cent, go piss for distance with someone who thinks it counts for something. It's your milieu. Don't flatter yourself into thinking you can defeat me in a civil discussion. You ain't got the chops nor the temperament. Your anger is easy to manipulate.

When nora disgorges another remarkable non sequitur, I will specifically ask you if you agree or disagree with her illogical nonsense. If you attempt to hide behind skirts the next time around, I'm gonna smoke you out.

Could it be in the genes...or is he just another guy with mommy issues who needs to take his rage out on women?

You got the "tilted" part right anyway Crank....

Civil debate? is that what you called your last post to me Crank...?

I have been reading you spew visceral hatred at people on this blog for two years and justifying it as instruction...and you call me a Trog?...You are a fraud Crank...

I tried to be polite with you, but you chose assholery, so that is what you will receive...

again...go fuck youself...

It's just a dumb rhetorical tactic for you say "it's a figment of cent's imagination" and all your other macho shithead banter dressed up as cynical intellectualism about him supposedly being a macho shithead. I don't think you are even fooling yourself that it's anything else.

If he were saying anything I didn't believe, if I thought he was implicitly belittling me or any of the others to get over on you, I would call him on it because I don't get used that way. I assume the others would do the same. You hear anybody speaking up to call him wrong?

I tell you another thing cent and I both know. Even though your need to dominate and bully happens to intersect with your women issues, its about the power more than anything, which means anyone is fair game in the end. You just proved that with your invective, and you can't talk to him like that without having to step to me. You gonna call me a macho shithead now?

It's not about that with him any more than it's about that with me. It's about standing together against a bully--you. The gender stuff--that's yours.