Merry Christmas

Thanks for all you do.

hope the stars will realign for you; we love ya

Merry Christmas Sam.

Merry Christmas Sam.

Just A Hunch
Submitted by Crank Bait on Thu, 12/24/2009 - 7:34pm.
Submitted by gloryoski on Thu, 12/24/2009 - 6:37pm.
Isn't actually having served a DISqualification for right-wing talk?
------
I suppose there is a Ted Kaczynski for every Timothy McVeigh but I tend to think that being schooled in the art of homicide gives some people a head start.

====
Do you know how pissed off I am at you right now?

I was laying down, on the floor, as you tend to do when your bed is sideways in the kitchen. Then, I thought you had written "there's a little Ted Kaczynski in every Timothy McVeigh," which, OK, doesn't make any sense but...

I got up just to write "Oh...I thought that was Gore Vidal." (Which also explains the subject line.)

But you had fucking spoiled everything by having written something entirely different than I thought.

So MERRY FUCKING XMAS TO YOU. I really fucking mean it.

And try to be more cooperative next time.

"I was LYING on the floor."

Merry Xmas Sam (heheheh). :}

I've been out of my mind in bliss for the last few days on a successfull start and drive of my Cougar. Problems that have hexed me for weeks mystically disappeared as my friend Taylor watched over my shoulder and the pieces just came together.

She may need a new dress, but right now, mechanically perfect.

Friends have been coming over and I've been having each put some decorations on the tree. I'm out of decorations now.

Then today, after wrapping all of the gifts, I found something I've not seen in decades. There's a present under the tree for me.

and see how long I last.

If it's watchable and scary, somebody might have to sing me to sleep later.

Merry Christmas,
Fernando
Glory
Toni
Bibi
Cent
jbenet
Jmach1JP
Cat Chew
Crank
Sandy
Dan
MaggiesBoy
60th
Edna
Alice
SJ
Mire
Ms_A
Nora
SuperRu ?

And,All Ya's.. :-)

*Anyone I forgot,I'm sorry..

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

MMRules

We are having a very white Christmas here.

It's about 59% here in SAN..

Down right chilly ! ;-)

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

MMRules

geez, nobody told me they renamed marijuana butt sex island....

no white christmas here, its in the 40's, although the weather reports on the vector west of here sound pretty nasty.

Have a good day tomorrow regardless of your beliefs. If you're not into the holiday thing at least it's a TGIF day. For me it's the usual, dress up the dogs like flying monkeys and sacrifice a fruitcake on the back porch.

At least for me now the worst part of Christmas is over which is the annual wrapping of the presents. It's like a 3 Stooges movie on acid when I get around presents, tape, wrapping paper and scissors. Not a pretty site.

♫♪♫♪

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34588071/ns/entertainment-music/

James Gurley, Joplin band guitarist, dies at 69
Musician hailed as innovator of psychedelic sound out of San Francisco

LOS ANGELES - James Gurley, the innovative guitarist who helped shape psychedelic rock's multilayered, sometimes thundering sounds as a member of Big Brother and the Holding Company, the band that propelled Janis Joplin to fame, has died of a heart attack. He was 69.

Gurley was pronounced dead Sunday at a Palm Springs hospital, two days before his 70th birthday, the band announced on its Web site...

evening gang!

no snow here, was a beaut of a day.

tree up, decorating to follow. new upright freezer wrestled into the basement and wired in.

nog and brandy soon.

Woman assails pope at Christmas mass
AFP - ‎37 minutes ago‎
-----------
Maybe she was wassailing the Pope?

(This is an obscure reference. If you recognize it, you have a lot of useless information in your head.)

She's like the Iraqi journo that slung the shoe.

or how they gets those dogs to bark on key.

Know Your Meme: "Weird Al" Yankovic Helps Explain Auto Tune

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

you can...

DO NOT OPEN THAT DOOR!!!

(She's going to, but I feel morally compelled to try to prevent it. Thank you in advance for your assistance.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpVLGZ4vcKM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPeVIuRjUi4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH9vYiqDX5o

...
Let's, together, make the world a place of love and joy and not a place of fear and anger. This day of John's passing has become more and more important for so many people around the world as the day to remember his message of Peace and Love and to do what each of us can to work on healing this planet we cherish.

Let's: Think Peace, Act Peace, and Spread Peace. John worked for it all his life.
He said, "there's no problem, only solutions." Remember, we are all together.
We can do it, we must. I love you!

Yoko Ono Lennon
8 December 2007

For My Fellow Geezers
Submitted by Crank Bait on Thu, 12/24/2009 - 10:07pm.

James Gurley, Joplin band guitarist, dies at 69

*******

with Big Brother & The Holding Co.without Janice in 1969(?) at The Santa Monica Civic..Joplin had already left the band..They opened for Spirit..7th maybe 5th row center..
Spirit was great..BB&HC were good too but,just not the same without Janice..
Pass the joint,man.. ;)

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

MMRules

http://hypem.com/#/track/978464/Spirit+-+Fresh+Garbage

**
Spirit - Love Has Found A Way

http://hypem.com/#/track/852195/Spirit++Love+Has+Found+A+Way

**
Spirit - Why Can't I Be Free

http://hypem.com/#/track/852196/Spirit-Why+Can%27t+I+Be+Free

**

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

MMRules

beauty stuff ladies, thanks )

Happy Ho-Ho-Ho blog...
Submitted by maggiesboy on Thu, 12/24/2009 - 9:48pm.

Happy holidays, man.
to think that I disliked you before I listened to your radio segments..
Yeah, you seem as if you're a dude I would like in real life, so it's all Kool & the Gang.

"You look so tired, unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't,
They don't speak for us"
-Radiohead.
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Ladle it!

Yuletide Cheer to ALL and Peace on Earth already!

[hiccup!]

Heard a great reading of Dickens' A Christmas Carol by Jonathan Winters tonight. MOST enjoyable!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4225458

Sorry to get political, but I'm not impressed:

[excerpt]

From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: A historic moment

Friend --

Although it's Christmas Eve, I wanted to share some exciting news: The Senate just passed a historic health reform bill.

In all the back and forth, it's easy to lose sight of what this incredible breakthrough really means. But consider this: This Christmas, there are millions of Americans without health insurance who risk losing everything if they get sick.

There are mothers and fathers who wonder how they'll provide for their children because an illness has wiped out their savings. There are small business owners who worry that they'll have to lay off a long-time employee because the cost of insurance is rapidly rising.

If we finish the job, all this can change. We will have beaten back the special interests who have for so long perpetuated the status quo. We will have enacted the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important health reform since Medicare in the 1960s.

In Decembers to come, millions more will have access to affordable coverage. Parents will have the security and stability of knowing their insurance can't be revoked at a moment's notice. And the skyrocketing costs plaguing our small businesses will be brought under control.

When you make calls, write letters, organize, this is the change you're making -- a better life for your family and for men and women in every state.

There is still more to do before I can sign reform into law -- a last round of negotiations and final votes in the Senate and the House -- and I'm counting on your help every step of the way. But for now, I hope that as you celebrate this holiday season, you remember that the work you are doing is making our union more perfect, one step at a time. For that, I am grateful to you.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays,

President Barack Obama

P.S. -- Organizing for America supporters are signing a note of appreciation to all the senators who have worked so hard to make this possible. I hope you'll join them:

http://my.barackobama.com/SenateLetter

[end]
==================

Did he really write "beaten back the special interests"?

Made me choke on my EggfreeNog.

Will we still be at this juncture this time NEXT year???

Outstanding article from Consortiumnews:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/111109a.html

[excerpt]

Editor’s Note: Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern was invited to give a series of talks about torture in the Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia area from Nov. 12 to 16 – and his inviters, the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture, suggested that he write an op-ed on the topic for The Seattle Times, the city’s sole surviving daily newspaper.

However, The Seattle Times turned down the article, which was also meant to advertise that McGovern would be speaking about torture in the Pacific Northwest. So, we are publishing the article below:

“We’re going to talk about the policy of torture,” the radio producer said when she called me five years ago. “And you’ll have ten minutes to defend your side.”

“There’s another side?” I asked.

“Of course,” she answered, and the other person will also have ten minutes.”

My protest that torture is not a “policy,” but rather a crime, made no impact.

It was then that I began to understand in a more tangible way what the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal meant in referring to “the accumulated evil” that flows inevitably from what it termed the “supreme international crime” — a war of aggression.

History, including recent history, has shown torture to be one of those accumulated evils.

...

[end excerpt]

Click on all of them while your there..Thanks.. :)

**

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

MMRules

Super link, MMRules!

[excerpt]

...

To be sure, there are many provisions of the Senate bill that are worthwhile, worth passing — I’ll get to that — but these mostly ad hoc features are carrying, fronting for a deeply flawed, underlying structure of a bill that utterly fails to reform what’s wrong with America’s inhumane, corrupt health care system.

America’s private, for-profit health insurance and delivery systems have failed. Their so-called "markets" are not competitive, and that can’t be fixed with puny exchanges that may or may not be created by skeptical — or recalcitrant — states. The insurance and hospital sectors are highly concentrated, dominated by market power that allows providers and insurers to overcharge Americans by 50 to 100 percent more than other nations pay for equal or better care and universal coverage.

So you would think any genuine reform effort would use the power of the federal government to bust up or at least confront the oligopolies and use its leverage to counter the industry’s market power, rationing-by-price and price fixing. But the Senate bill protects the industries, shields them from competition and expressly precludes national public entities from demanding better prices on the public’s behalf.

With government collusion, the private actors created a system of inhumane rationing that denies insurance to nearly 50 million and hawks fraudulent coverage to tens of millions more. The failure of the insurance system leads directly to the most egregious rationing of actual health care of any industrialized nation. Only in America is a private system allowed to bankrupt and deny care to millions, causing tens of thousands to die every year.

Con't..

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/20052

[end excerpt]

i'm snugged up with a good read, Bgurl is watching xmas specials on the tv.

we've moved on to chai tea and christmas cake.

love ya all, stay warm, take a break and enjoy the holiday )

That was the very first thing
that popped into my eggnoggin.

Grog bless us every one!

Side One..Tell ‘em what they wanna hear
I’ve been in favor of the public option. I think the more choice, the more competition we have, the better.

Side Two..Inject some plausible alternative a.k.a. The Setup
On the other hand, I think that the exchange itself, the system that we’re setting up that forces insurance companies to essentially bid for three million or four million or five million people’s business, that in and of itself is going to have a disciplining effect.

Side Three..Feign commiseration that Side One is not really viable so just be happy and listen to my brilliant rhetoric. (Above all don’t talk back as any disagreement at this point is not civil you DFH.
Would I like one of those options to be the public option? Yes. Do I think that it makes sense, as some have argued, that, without the public option, we dump all these other extraordinary reforms and we say to the 30 million people who don’t have coverage, “You know, sorry. We didn’t get exactly what we wanted”? I don’t think that makes sense.

"Aw shucks," he said rubbing his toe in the dirt.

Thanks, it's always good to hear you are liked. We all need to do that a lot more often.....me especially.

I've also learned to appreciate your wry cutting-edge commentary, thanks,

----
Oh no no no nora. You're not gettin' me to look at that email today...

Say it ain't so Joe..

And,check your blood pressure or somethang ! :)

**

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

MMRules

SO COULD ANYONE!!!

..sorry rest of blog, everyone is allowed one favorite.

..check your email for a titillating holiday gift.

I am officially "Worst Gift Giver".

When will I learn just to give my daughter money?

news..." (smarmy bastard)

WE ALREADY KNOW YOUR "EXCITING NEWS" RAT BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE'VE BEEN MORE INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS THAN YOU HAVE (AT LEAST TO THE GOOD!!!) FUCKSTICK!!!!!

That's it. First sentence is as far as I'm going. I assume you all understand why...

I'm so proud!!!

That was the best Xmas present EVER!!!!

Now I'm going back to blip before my mood gets fucked over again.

As Toni would say,Ya Think ?

I'm sure I'm not the first one to wonder if
they have be taking lessons from Our Secret Service.. ;)

**

That's a joke NSA Folks.. :)

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

MMRules

Your welcome Nora.. :)

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

MMRules

James Gurley, Joplin band guitarist, dies at 69
Musician hailed as innovator of psychedelic sound out of San Francisco

THX MMRules: MMRules on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 12:45am

"Maybe she was wassailing the Pope?"
Submitted by Cat Chew on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 5:05am.
That was the very first thing
that popped into my eggnoggin.
--------
You and I agreed a long time ago that our separate consciousnesses were built from the same parts bin.

You have my sincere condolences.

But you knew that.

http://christmas.vg/here-we-come-a-wassailing-1125/

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

MMRules

Good Morning & Merry Christmas to you too.. :)

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

MMRules

You go girl! I hope Santa brought you some new red sweat shirts.

Fuck the Nazi Pope and fuck all his followers.

da bloggerbuds sam at al.

sunny and cold here in NOLA

hanging out with my german sister, who arrived last night from Frankfurt. She's driving me nuts already and it's only day one....

we spent pretty much all morning - and not done yet - trying to set up her laptop so that she can connect to my wi-fi, having problems and trying to solve them in German language there's an added layer of going nuts over technical difficulties..... and certainly not the way i was planning to spend this festive morning

but hey, when and if we finally succeed maybe i can use her skype connection to call up some skypers ;)

hope you all having a great holiday!

we're gonna start cooking lunch momentarily, as soon as we can set aside our laptops :)

this is the plan, not specifically christmasy, but delicious enough and easy to make

ossobuco

;D

oh my god, that looks & smells soooo
delicious.
Hang in there girlfriend - deep breath,
in & out - in & out. lol

Anyone going to the movies today??? I'm interested
in seeing that Sherlock Holmes film. I am a
big fan of Robert Downey Jr Looks like a goodie
to me.

Love ya all! xoxoxo

Happiness is Masking Tape.
new
Submitted by Ms_Anthrope on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 11:56am.

;D

A Merry Xmas to the chick that tackled the Nazi Pope.

Sinead O'Connor Wants Pope To Resign Due To 'Contemptible Silence' Over Child Abuse
December 12th, 2009 9:05am EST

In a letter published in British newspaper the Independent, she writes, "I demand the Pope stand down for his contemptible silence on the matter and his acts of non-co-operation with the enquiry. Popes have had no problem voicing their opinions when we wanted contraception or divorce. No problem criticising The Da Vinci Code. No problem criticising Naomi Campbell for wearing a bejeweled cross. Yet when it comes to the evils done by paedophiles dressed as priests they are silent. It is grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented. They stand for nothing now but evil."
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2009/12/12/sinead_o_connor_wants...

The Nato mission in Afghanistan has confirmed that a man featured in a new Taliban video is a missing American soldier.

The footage, released on Friday, showed US soldier Bowe Bergdahl in good health some five months after he was taken prisoner in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province.

An airborne infantryman, Bergdahl gives his rank, birth date, unit and mother's maiden name before beginning a lengthy verbal attack on the US conduct of the war in Afghanistan and its relations with Muslims.

.........Bergdahl, who was serving with a unit based in Fort Richardson, Alaska, was 23 when he vanished just five months after arriving in Afghanistan.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/20091225132017844588.html

re: ghettodefender on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 12:00

between kids houses. Thought you might like some Bing 'n Bowie

fresh coffee!

good morning gang!

My husband used to love ossobuco!

Hope all had a great Christmas Eve.

I'm home now and all the ice has melted. It's in the low 40s now and they are issuing flood warnings because it rained all night. This evening the temp is supposed to drop and we're to get snow all night and tomorrow.

Weird, weird weather. Lots of rain through this past spring, summer and fall, and now rain, ice, and snow. And other places in the world are in drought!

toniD's Ya Think?

re: maggiesboy on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 12:22pm.

I hope you all are having a lovely day. I'm a bit sluggish this Christmas afternoon. If I could get away with it, I would not visit the family. But I can't do that. Duty calls.

Anyhoo, may I say again, Merry Christmas Sederville, & mazel tov, Sam Seder.

We are having a little hiatus in the celebrating. We are all focused on Iris who is a very happy little girl today.

May there be no news today!

fresh trapped not too far from here. Nice big fella's. Old man Scrooge would love to be over heah!

Love your family!

"As a lobster grows, it sheds its shell, increasing in weight by 25% each time, and a lobster will shed its shell 24 times the first year.

A lobster that has lost a claw is called a “cull”. It will regenerate the lost claw. A lobster with no claws is called a “bullet”.

A lobster is approximately 7 years old before it is legal to harvest, and it will weigh about 1 pound.

A lobster takes 18 to 24 months to develop from time of impregnation to the hatching of the egg.

A lobster will commonly store food by burying it on the bottom of the ocean and defending the area much like a dog.

A lobster will catch fish, other crustaceans, and mollusks for their food.

An older lobster only molts every four or five years.

A lobster is the size of a mosquito when it leave the female lobster’s body.

A lobster’s age is approximately his/her weight multiplied by 4, plus 3 years.

When a lobster sheds its shell, it is called molting. The female is impregnated after it has molted."

Submitted by Noodles Jefferson on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 1:35pm.
...The female is impregnated after it has molted.
--------
That's been my experience.
---------------------------------
molt:

v., molt·ed, molt·ing, molts.

v.intr.
To shed periodically part or all of a coat or an outer covering...

merry whatchmacallit and woot a rooness!

we gave all the gift money to charities this year except i gave Bgurl a custom box of superb chocolates and i got many pairs of new wool sox!

now that’s more like it eh?

..hope it catches on. ;-)

Just got off the phone with my mum....she said.. "Well, since we don't exchange gifts anymore I bought gifts for the "poor families at church..."

This is my first Christmas EVER with no obligations, no gift exchange with anyone, no place to go have a meal and "visit"...

So we decided to come to Pacific Grove and this tree out back of our room said HELLO to Pierce...explained to him about partner trees, and birth partner trees...No tree has talked to P since High Heart...he got all emotional about it...I guess it feels nice when trees speak to you...I don't know..

All I know is that I can FINALLY feel the spirit of xmas now that I've opted-out of it fully...it's taken 15 years to get everyone to leave us out of the hoopla...

When I used to lived around the corner from here, I always walked past this lodge and wished I could stay here...Now I am...and it's sunny and cool and we get to use my friend's hot tub later...

It's with a content, de-chilled, xmas heart that finally I say Happy Christmas to everyone on the Blog and mean it in a new way...it's nice to be cut-off and able to recreate this day for myself now...

Below is a link to a television news article which includes a typo-ridden transcript as well as the video.

Local river and lake fishing guides, once confined to hauling paying customers to hungry fish, are sometimes hired by eco-tourists wanting to see bald eagles (take THAT, redneck mothers!). Please note that one of the featured guides is named Justin Case (take THAT, humorless mothers!).

http://ozarksfirst.com/content/fulltext/?cid=219112

Eagles a Big Attraction in NW Arkansas
-------------------------------------
The following comments are my own, related to but not a part of the link above.

For at least two decades a local state park has offered organized and scheduled Bald Eagle Watch hikes in the winter.

The state park operates a trout farm. The trout are released into the spring-fed stream for fly-fishing enthusiasts. The abundance of trout and their naturally-occurring carcasses also supplies over-wintering eagles with plenty of food. (Disney fans should be advised that beasts of prey, when given a choice between an already-deceased meal and a kicking-and-screaming meal, will choose an already-deceased meal every time. Human carnivores and non-human carnivores are more alike than not.)

In more recent years, some eagles have chosen to stay in these parts year-round. Their nests are known to the naturalists at the park and are easy to spot because you could park an RV on them, assuming that you could drive an RV up a conspicuous tree near or at the top of the steep hills lining the stream which, so far, you can't.

Bald eagles, both over-wintering pairs and permanent residents, have become commonplace throughout the local area and can often be seen perched patiently near large poultry houses waiting for the daily removal of dead birds. Think of it as corporate-farming/wildlife symbiosis, because it is. Tyson's slaves don't have to torch the pyre when there is a line awaiting Chicken McNuggets at the carrion drive-thru.

Two years ago I surprised a bald eagle who was gathering up road kill when I crested the hill on a rural highway. The eagle had a wing span of forty feet and he or she weighed three-hundred pounds, more or less. Both of us excreted something unidentifiable (fowl in one case and foul in both) to mark the occasion.

A similar encounter happened with a turkey buzzard many years ago. It, too, had a wing span of forty feet and he or she weighed three-hundred pounds, more or less, but its launch was not so swift as the eagle's. The sky was blackened by wings. If not for the aero stream over my windshield, both of us would have had a very bad day.

I know what the guide in the provided link heard (Justin Case, just in case you didn't catch his name the first time around) when the bald eagle cruised ten feet over his head.

Last summer I spotted a red-tailed hawk that was perched on a dead dogwood tree thirty feet away. I was outdoors and peering around the corner of my house.

The day before, by sheer chance, I had seen the hawk through my bathroom window. He (or she?) had dropped down from the same perch in the same dogwood tree to catch a snake in the leaves of the forest floor. After adjusting the payload for flight, the hawk launched with snake in hand (talon?) and flew very low and very close past my view through the window and barely skirting the corner of the house.

During the second occurance when I was outdoors, the hawk either caught nothing or caught a hapless beast too small for me to see in its grip. The hawk launched on the same path as it had with the snake and flew within two feet of my bug eyes and slack jaw while it traced an arc around the corner of the house.

The whoosh coming from its flight was magnificent.

Mag-fucking-nificent. Icarus, it wasn't your fault.

http://video.yahoo.com/network/100000089?v=5017561&l=100022574

Barenaked Ladies-Brian Wilson

lyrics

Best album of the decade: Smile
: )

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

It's like that Three Stooges episode where Moe is floating away...

"I floated til I couldn't see the ground.
Somebody help me"

What made you think of that song today, JB?

I like my christmas shaken not stirred...

Posted by: Mel at December 24, 2004 11:56 PM

Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel My god this song is gay.

Posted by: Mel at December 24, 2004 11:57 PM

female Santa in a mini skirt!

http://dts.ystoretools.com/1092/images/200x200/sanfavhel.gif

Posted by: Sunshine Jim at December 25, 2004 12:00 AM

I'm beginning to drink a lot it's christmas...

Posted by: Mel at December 25, 2004 12:01 AM

Merry Christmas Gang!

(still three hours to go here)

Posted by: Sunshine Jim at December 25, 2004 12:02 AM

Nice, Sunshine, but the girl is too thin.

Posted by: English Opium Eater at December 25, 2004 12:02 AM

Should crack open my bottle of wine....

Posted by: English Opium Eater at December 25, 200412:03 AM

Christmas Wrapping, mp3

Father Christmas, mp3

28 gauge gun for xmas... mp3

on a holiday...so ya got that going for you.... ;)

"A journey of a thousand miles began with a single keyword."--Lao Bait

From Bait's List Of Things You Never Hear: "It's time to put the tampon in the microwave."

"Dead man's curve" is the least known maxim in mathematics.

The most common holiday cheer is "Rah, rah, sis-boom-bah, go-o-o-o Christ child!"

I was in the garage listening to the radio and one thing led to another...

"Lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did
Well I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did.
So I'm lying here, just staring at the ceiling tiles.
and I'm thinking about what to think about.
Just listening and relistening to Smiley Smile,
and I'm wondering if this is some kind of create drought
because I am"

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

"barks" Merry Yule Season Too.

AND I'M GLAD!

Passenger tried to blow up plane, U.S. official says

The suspect in the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight is Nigerian, the official says. The White House considers the incident an act of terrorism.

Reporting from Washington - A Nigerian passenger attempted to ignite an incendiary device aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Friday as the plane began its approach for landing, a U.S. anti-terrorism official said.

The suspected would-be bomber suffered burns as the result of his attempt and two other passengers reported minor injuries, but the plane was able to land safely, according to the anti-terrorism official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

FBI agents were investigating the incident on the suspicion that it was an attempted act of terrorism, the official said.

"He was trying to ignite some kind of incendiary device," the anti-terrorism official said. "He lit himself on fire and he's suffered some burns."

The official did not reveal the nature of the device and said it was too early to say how potent or sophisticated it was. The passenger has been identified as a Nigerian who began traveling from Nigeria and caught the Delta flight in Amsterdam, the official said.

President Obama was briefed on the incident during his Hawaii vacation. A White House official said the administration believed it to be an act of terrorism.

The administration issued a statement that Obama had conferred with White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan and National Security Council Acting Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and instructed that "all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel."

The president was said to be monitoring the situation and receiving regular updates.

The timing and description of the incident recalled the attempted attack on a Paris-to-Miami flight eight years ago by " shoe bomber" Richard Reid, a British Al Qaeda operative who was convicted in U.S. federal court of trying to blow up the American Airlines flight.

Soon after takeoff from Paris on Dec. 22, 2001, Reid tried to ignite explosives that had been packed into his high-top gym shoes in an attempt to blow a hole in the plane and bring it down. A flight attendant and passenger subdued Reid and foiled the attack, which spread fear around the world just three months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Reid was one of several bombers whom Al Qaeda trained in its Afghan camps to commit attacks aboard planes carrying concealed explosives.

In August 2006, British police working with U.S. and Pakistani intelligence broke up a plot in which Al Qaeda trained Britons in Pakistan to assemble sophisticated, liquid-based bombs that would have been smuggled aboard planes in energy drinks and other containers.

The investigation revealed that the ingenious technology in that plot was developed in Pakistan by Abu Ubaida al Masri, Al Qaeda's operations chief at the time. It would have involved teams of two or three attackers smuggling aboard the explosives and separate ignition devices to blow up seven planes bound for North America.

If the Nigerian arrested Friday attempted a terrorist bombing, as suspected, the FBI would be focused on trying to determine if he acted alone or had training from Al Qaeda or another network. There will be great interest also in the nature and destructive capacity of the explosive device involved and how it got past airport security screeners.

Nigerians have not figured in many cases involving Al Qaeda, but the rise of violent Islamic extremism in that country, and in sub-Saharan Africa overall, concerns Western anti-terrorism officials.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-detroit-airline26-200...

They are saying on CNN that he may have received
info or the explosive from Yemen.

toniD's Ya Think?

Both of your xnas/whatchamacallit ways and days sound wonderful...Happy for you both.

..I just posted the longest running show ever with over 60 songs. Lots of blues in this installment for no particular reason...might have something to do with the station name....Ya Think?

List of artists available at the website.

Running Time: 4:27

which seems like about 300 years ago now. One last Merry Merry to EVERYONE.

I believe this is only the second one not wished in anger...;)

Christmas rains bring drought relief for Australian farmers (most rain in 9 years)

RAIN began falling across much of NSW this morning, delivering drought-stricken farmers a Christmas Day reprieve.
----------------

The arrival today of a low pressure system associated with cyclone Laurence is expected to bring rain to the NSW southern districts, the ACT and the south coast, with most of the downpour expected in the northern and central inland NSW.

“We're likely to see some very decent falls in Upper Western, Central West Slopes and Plains and Central Tablelands with rain in excess of 100mm,” Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jake Phillips told The Australian today.

“The rain will remain a feature over the next couple of days with the development of heavy rain later today and through to tomorrow,” he said.

Rains overnight also brought relief in Victoria, where 100 Department of Sustainability and Environment firefighters were to be sent home to spend Christmas with their families after 16-18mm of rain fell. The rain allowed authorities to officially declare the six fires, near Cann River in East Gippsland, contained.

The system has already dumped torrential rain on Central Australia, turning Uluru into a waterfall as it heads east. The weather bureau says the system could bring the heaviest rain falls in a decade to NSW towns including Nyngan, Coonamble and Bourke.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/rains-bring-drought-relief-f...

toniD's Ya Think?

I have a question for you if you don't mind.

Anybody else with experience as a seller can also chime in and it will be appreciated.

Right now I still don't know what's happening but the probability that I will either sell or rent out my house in the next couple years is fairly high. It needs new paint all over inside and this is the time to do it. I don't have much furniture left and the wall to wall is crap, especially downstairs, and will have to be taken out. But I don't want to have to do it (paint) again if the selling/renting it is at the end of that span of time instead of the beginning if I can possibly help it.

So my question...

As long as you use those dull neutral colors you are supposed to use, is it a real no-no to use semi-gloss not just in the kitchen and bathroom but everywhere? It really is so much better when your a lazy klutz--especially when you are talking while or off-white or beige. And if it's a matter of renters, I am thinking they will be lazy klutzes too, or so it will probably seem to me.

Illinois police protect atheist sign

Source: UPI

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Dec. 24 (UPI) -- A conservative candidate for Illinois comptroller was ordered out of the state Capitol for trying to remove a sign placed by an atheist group, officials said.

William J. Kelly calls the sign, placed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, "hate speech," saying it mocks the views of believers, CBS2Chicago.com reported. He announced Tuesday he was going to try to remove it and made his attempt Wednesday, only to be detained by police.

The foundation has placed similar signs in several state capitol buildings. It was on display in the Illinois Capitol last year

The group's message reads: "At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/12/24/Illinois-police-protect-atheis...

toniD's Ya Think?

* Plague upon the atheists?
* Barren wombs for all atheist women?
* Death to all atheists?

Forever and ever amen.

When you are going to sell, use the good paint. There is a paint between flat and semi-gloss that is easier to wash down.

You don't have to use white or off white or Realtor beige, you can use other neutral colors that will go well with most anything.

Watch or look up on line HGTV. They have some good advice about updating your home, to sell, on the cheap. Designed to Sell is a good show for ideas.

"Once the color is selected the finish type of the wall paint selection should be decided upon. The three finishes most commonly used for interior walls are flat, eggshell and satin.

Other finishes such as semi-gloss and gloss finishes are more commonly used for wood trim since they reflect more light and can make a room feel smaller when used as an overall wall color. However some homeowners like to use a semi-gloss wall paint in a room that gets wet or steamy like a bathroom or laundry room.

Flat paint cannot easily be washed. If flat paint is washed some of the paint may come off or it may leave the washed area more shiny looking that the surrounding area.

Eggshell and satin finish paint can be washed with warm soapy water to remove dirt and grease without washing the paint off. However, if the walls are more likely to need a touch up, flat paint is able to be touched up without worrying about the paint flashing. Eggshell and satin paint touch ups become obvious as the paint looks a little shinier where it has been touched up, and light reflects off of the touch up differently than the rest of the wall.

Each finish type of wall paint offers a different level of gloss or reflection. Flat offers no gloss to the finish while eggshell and satin offer some sheen but easier maintenance."

http://www.superpages.com/supertips/wall-paint.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Ceramic Wall Paint Introduction

No this paint is not paint you use on ceramics, it is a ceramic based paint used in the home. Ceramic Paint is a newer alternative paint product that provides both Low VOC, high durability and in the case of this product, Ceramic Coat by O'Leary Paint, it also comes with antimicrobial protection. The results are a paint that is healthy, able to withstand scrubbing without loss of its rich flat finish, and also prevents mold, mildew and bacteria from growing.

Now where would you want a paint like this? Well, I just used it extensively throughout a new home I just built and in almost every room. But if you're not painting your entire home, then a perfect place to use a ceramic based paint like this would be in the nursery, bathroom, kitchen or dining room.

more here:

http://homerepair.about.com/od/interiorhomerepair/ss/ceramic_paint.htm

toniD's Ya Think?

Plane incident update
by John Aravosis (DC) on 12/25/2009 10:12:00 PM
Well, the news is shifting, and now it's not entirely clear if the suspect was a lone wolf, rather than having ties to Al Qaeda. And it's not clear what kind of incendiary device he really had. Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic just re-tweeted the following update:

RT @NYCAviation "CNN passenger interview: Heard pop like champagne cork, moments later saw flames shooting out of suspect's crotch."

What was your first clue?

Ambinder just Tweeted the following - it better not be true that we're relying on Nigerian security to protect our lives when we fly Northwest:

So -- seems like the guy was screened in Lagos, arrived in AMS and didn't go through 2nd customs screening there like he would have in the US.

http://www.americablog.com/2009/12/plane-incident-update.html

toniD's Ya Think?

On the eve of the Senate vote, Representative Louise Slaughter, chair of the House Rules Committee, became the latest progressive to join a growing faction of liberals who have called for Congress to the kill health-care reform bill—and the first prominent legislator to do so. “The Senate health care bill is not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago,” Slaughter wrote in an op-ed published yesterday on CNN.com. “A conference report is unlikely to sufficiently bridge the gap between these two very different bills. It’s time that we draw the line of this weak bill and ask the Senate to go back to the drawing board.”

In her takedown of the Senate bill, Slaughter cited the legislation’s exclusion of a public option, restrictions on abortion, and the failure to repeal the anti-trust exemption for health insurance companies as some of her key reasons for turning against the reform effort. But though many of her liberal colleagues on the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) share such concerns, there’s no sign yet that the House liberals have a mass defection on their hands. CPC co-chair Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee issued a statement today emphasizing their desire to support a “meaningful conference process” that would address their main problems with the legislation. The conference “needs to be strong and needs to include much of what the House bill included,” Woolsey told me this afternoon. “Just giving up on the process that won’t work for me.”

Slaughter’s defection does suggest that the netroots’ “kill the bill” movement is making some inroads with mainstream progressives. But though Woolsey didn’t openly criticize Slaughter’s revolt against the bill, her remarks yesterday—along with a similar statement from CPC co-chair Raul Grijalva—suggest that a mass revolt by House Progressives seems unlikely, at least for now. And though leaders like AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the Senate bill “inadequate,” most major progressive groups refrained from airing their concerns, shifting their focus to the conference negotiations.

At this stage, “the bill is too big to fail for Democrats,” as Richard Kirsch of Health Care for America Now! told The Daily Beast. Yes, Senate moderates are already insisting that the bill will remain much the same, and it’s unclear how far the Democratic leadership will go to respond to the liberals’ demand if the threat of mass defections isn’t credible. But for the time being, most House progressives will try to ramp up the pressure from within.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/talkin-bout-revolution-0

toniD's Ya Think?

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Named Financial Times Person Of The Year

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has been named Person of the Year by the Financial Times. The investment bank "not only navigated the 2008 global financial crisis better than others on Wall Street," the paper writes, "but is set to make record profits, and pay up to $23BN in bonuses to its 31,700 staff."

But while the FT may agree that Blankfein is doing "God's work," others view the bank as indicative of exactly what is wrong with Wall Street. Indeed, Blankfein himself apologized last month for Goldman Sachs' role in the financial crisis. And Goldman Sachs's trading practices are currently under investigation by the federal government.

In response to the FT's decision to honor Blankfein, noted bank analyst Christopher Whalen has canceled his subscription to the paper. "Mr. Blankfein and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs, in my view, have done more to damage the reputations of global financial professionals than any other organization in 2009, yet you applaud them," he wrote in a letter to the paper. "Not only is your suggestion ridiculous and repugnant, but it illustrates to me the fact that the FT is part of the problem in global finance, not as one would hope and expect, part of the solution."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/25/goldman-sachs-ceo-lloyd-b_n_403...

toniD's Ya Think?

Peace of The Season To You, Your Family, and All My Blog Brethren and Sisteren [isn't that a big-ass tank that holds water?]

I ordered a pancake 2nite...16" in diameter. What recession?

GOD BLESS US EVERYONE!!! [except Joe Lieberman. He's on his own, yo.]

(miraculum ‘object of wonder') Taking the dogs out to piss I saw three shooting stars before dawn, moving west to east at 4:30 a.m. within 10 seconds of each other. But what was weird was that a fourth, (meteor?), was moving really slow and bright, as if to say,"Come gather around me children", in it's best Woody Guthrie impersonation, hallelujah!
Being a Buddhist and living in the desert I was overjoyed to witness the cosmic interdependence of the moment and saw as a reflection of the true nature of ones own mind. A magical display soon gone... Hey, peace on earth and ...
Merry Christmas to all !!!
The day ended with lots of of family, lots of good food and drink.
Peace, Peace & Peace

"It is always the newest members who fail to understand how the Senate has worked for more than two centuries. We need to get back to that sense of civility once again - Reid

Reid is a putz. I have a curse on him still.

Roxy Music - Avalon

http://hypem.com/#/track/961348/Roxy+Music+-+Avalon

**

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

MMRules

pollution like this to yet another community and environmental/watershed system only compounds this COAL CRIME! Why is there still no EPA regulatory code for COAL ASH?! Could it have something to do with the FACT that Obama's biggest contributors have been the deadly waste-producing coal and nuclear corporations? What ghouls, making PROFITS for all concerned (including politicians) while creating hell on Earth...

http://www.truthout.org/122509Wilson

[excerpt]

Anniversary of TVA Coal Ash Spill as Forgotten as the Disaster Itself
by: Glynn Wilson, t r u t h o u t | Report

...

One year later, on the first anniversary of the second worst environmental disaster in American history, while the people in Tennessee are hiring lawyers and suing TVA and reading story after story in the local newspapers about their plight while the cleanup continues, the poor people of Perry County, Alabama, where TVA found a place to dump the toxic ash, are not singing Christmas carols. They are locked in their homes with their air conditioners running even in winter, trying to stay out of the gaseous fumes from the landfill where the coal ash is piling up on top of household garbage by the freight train load.

There's not a newspaper or a TV station anywhere around telling their story, and most of them are so poor and living in such a remote, rural area that they can't even turn to the Internet, either to voice their concerns and get organized or find out what's going on to help them, if there is anything. They are not hearing much out of their local government officials or the congressman elected to represent them either, so they are living in the dark with a nagging fear for the future.

North of the landfill, other residents with nowhere to go to escape the gaseous smell from the liquid waste being dumped from the landfill into a nearby lagoon, are hooked up to oxygen tanks and wondering where in the world the birds have gone.

There's not even an organized environmental group to help them within a hundred miles, so their cause has fallen to John Wathen, the Hurricane Creekkeeper in Tuscaloosa to the north, who has been making the trip down periodically to monitor the water and document what is clearly an environmental justice situation with major ecological and sociological implications.

"TVA officials want you to believe the 1.1-billion-gallon coal ash spill at their Kingston plant was due to an 'act of God,'" Wathen says. ‚"And now Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr. calls receiving the toxic ash a 'godsend.'"

County commissioners and even the congressman from the district who wants to be Alabama's first black governor, Artur Davis, have done nothing to represent the poor people who are living with the coal ash in their air and water. In fact, they have said the money being pumped into the county coffers from landfill tipping fees is providing much-needed revenue to one of the poorest counties in the country.

...

The disaster that ruined the Emory River was 100 percent manmade, the result of a lax regulatory structure where the waste from coal-fired power plants was not managed at all. TVA, Southern Company and other power companies have been piling the ash up for years alongside rivers and streams, even getting rid of some of it by encouraging farmers to dump it on their land.

That practice has all but stopped now, however. When the makeshift retaining wall failed in Kingston, sending out a mountain of ash to fill up a six-mile stretch of one of the most pristine rivers in the Southeastern US like a giant volcanic lava flow, it was a wakeup call to federal regulators. Although to date, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has taken no steps to classify coal ash in any regulated category.

According to environmental lawyer David Ludder, who has filed documents indicating an intent to sue the Arrowhead Landfill in Perry County if something is not done to contain the air and water pollution from impacting the health of nearby residents, there is a problem with regulating coal ash as hazardous waste.

If the EPA were to declare tomorrow that the waste should be disposed of in a hazardous waste landfill, that could stop the shipments from the Tennessee and potentially halt the massive cleanup itself. So Ludder believes the EPA will at some point classify the ash as solid waste, "due to the widespread impact of the cost."

[end excerpt]

What is worse -- monoculture agribusiness now outsourced OR Florida-style bigtime real estate development? Same old progression of development and putting profits first, it seems.

[excerpt]

Maui Pineapple harvests final crop
By Gary T. Kubota

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 24, 2009

Battered by foreign competition and a sputtering economy, the last major pineapple producer in Hawaii completed its final harvest after 97 years in the agricultural business.
Maui Land & Pineapple Co. Inc. harvested its last crop yesterday in the fields at Haliimaile, marking the end of an era that once had pineapple as a major employer in the state.

"It's kind of heartbreaking," said Harold Gouveia, 62, an equipment mechanic who has worked at the company for 32 years.

"For me, the company was the grass roots for everything. ... My father worked here for more than 40 years. My dad said if it wasn't for Maui Pine, we wouldn't be where we are today."

Some 285 employees are expected to be laid off officially by Dec. 31, while 133 employees will be transferred to partner companies, the firm said earlier this year.
The firm's board chairman, Warren Haruki, said the company was working with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to make the transition as smooth as possible.
"We appreciate and acknowledge the commitment of these hard-working employees," Haruki said.

The firm said yesterday it is working with a group of former and current Maui Pineapple Co. employees who intend to form a new company to continue pineapple farming on Maui.
Under the tentative plan, the firm said, the new pineapple company would continue growing, packing and selling Maui Gold fresh pineapple.

"The new company's primary focus would be on servicing the Hawaii market," the firm said. "Although we are hopeful, discussions are ongoing and definitive agreements have not been finalized."

Maui Pineapple, which once employed more than 1,000 people, halted canning in 2007, refocusing on its fresh-fruit operations and building a new $20 million fresh-fruit packing facility.

But it continued to lose money, including $12.6 million for the first nine months of 2009.

The firm said since 2002, it has lost $115 million in its agricultural operations.

Dole and Del Monte, once major pineapple producers in Hawaii, have shifted their pineapple canning operations to foreign countries such as the Philippines, where labor is cheaper.

Dole has cut back its operations to some 2,700 acres of pineapple land in Wahiawa, and Del Monte shut down the last of its fresh produce operation on Oahu in 2008.
Maui Pineapple planted its first fruit in 1912 in West Maui.
The Cameron family, descendants of missionaries to Hawaii, bought controlling interest in Maui Pineapple Co. in 1969 from Alexander & Baldwin Inc. and changed the name to Maui Land & Pineapple Co.

Company President Colin Cameron expanded the firm's operations and founded the Kapalua Resort and Kapalua Land Co.

...

Dole and Del Monte, once major pineapple producers in Hawaii, have shifted their pineapple canning operations to foreign countries such as the Philippines, where labor is cheaper.

Dole has cut back its operations to some 2,700 acres of pineapple land in Wahiawa, and Del Monte shut down the last of its fresh produce operation on Oahu in 2008.

Maui Pineapple planted its first fruit in 1912 in West Maui.

...

[end excerpt]

Now, could former President of Vice Dick Cheney have known right from the start that contractors saved the USA government nary a penny? Could the scammery of Halliburton et al be considered theft and CONTRARY TO NATIONAL SECURITY and thereby treasonous?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR200912...

[excerpt]

Pentagon sees big savings in replacing contractors with federal employees

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 2009

The Defense Department estimates it will save an average of $44,000 a year for every contractor it replaces with full-time federal personnel to perform critical defense jobs, according to the House-Senate conference report on the fiscal 2010 defense appropriation bill.

The measure, which passed Congress on Saturday, contains $5 billion to hire replacements for contractors currently performing what have been termed "inherently government functions" both at home and abroad. Those functions include a wide range of activities, from supervising other contractors who provide guard services at forward operating bases, to providing oversight of aid projects overseas.

The Bush administration widely expanded the use of contractors following the invasion of Iraq. At the time, officials argued that the Pentagon and other agencies had to staff up quickly; the war was seen as a limited operation that would end quickly, without the need to either increase the size of the military or the ranks of civilian employees.

The aim was also to save money, but last year Congress reported that contract employees were each costing the government an average of $250,000 annually, an amount far in excess of what federal employees or military personnel were paid.

[end excerpt]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8426067.stm

[excerpt]

By Bethany Bell
BBC News, the West Bank

According to the Christian tradition, shepherds were the first to visit the infant Christ.

These days, about 12,000 families still rely on herding in the West Bank.

The United Nations is warning that their livelihood is under threat, because of drought and Israeli restrictions on their movements.

To build a new well is not allowed - there are wells here but they are small and the water is not enough

Mohammed Abu Ali
Shepherd
A flock of sheep and some scrawny goats huddle in a rough stone enclosure on a barren hillside south of Hebron.

They belong to Mohammed Abu Ali and his wife Fatima, and their family.

They live in a cave next to the sheep pen.

Fatima says the animals are all they have.

"They give us a rough time but they are good when we are desperate for money," she said. "They have to be well looked after, they have to be vaccinated - but at the end of the day, they support our life."

Mohammed says his ancestors have herded here for centuries.

But now times are hard. There's been a drought for several years.

If it rains, the rocky hillsides will be green. But now it is dry and bare with very little for the animals to eat.

There has been a drought in the region for several years
Mohammed and his family live in an area of the West Bank that is under total Israeli control.

...

[end excerpt]

i read that where the pineapple business is almost dead in hawaii. its hard to believe that labor is their biggest cost and that it needs to be slave labor to make it affordable.

the one thing you know is that with writeoffs, accounting rules, and tax laws you can never believe a financial statement (like maybe they lost 170 million because they overpaid the board?). the one thing that is certain is that they can make a much quicker buck for themselves thru real estate development than they can by honest hard work.

for giggles check out the sweetheart deal that a certain paper company got on land in the florida panhandle over the past 100 years.

nice song to start the day

(snatched it at crooks and liars via youtube)

http://crooksandliars.com/

been in the senate too long - we need to elect more of these newest members

he's targeting al franken here, who is guilty of not kowtowing to his fellow senators no matter how wile they may be

Sen. Dodd Clutches His Pearls, Thinks 'Comity' Is A Higher Moral Value Than Fighting For What's Right.
By Susie Madrak Friday Dec 25, 2009 11:00am

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/sen-dodd-clutches-his-pearls-thin...

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Wednesday ripped the Senate's "newest members" for the lack of comity in the upper chamber.

In a floor speech Wednesday night, Dodd said there is "nothing wrong" with partisanship, but added he has "been deeply disturbed by some of the [healthcare] debate I have heard, usually from newer members, usually those who have been here one, two, three years, who do not have an appreciation of what this chamber means and how we work together."

Dodd did not name names, and spokesmen for the Connecticut senator did not respond to requests for comment.

[...] During his speech on Wednesday, Dodd repeatedly revisited his disappointment with the newest members of the Senate: "It is always the newest members who fail to understand how the Senate has worked for more than two centuries. We need to get back to that sense of civility once again ... Even though we have had very strong disagreements, I never once in my life in this chamber ever questioned the patriotic intentions of any member ... the idea you challenge another's patriotism, honesty, their integrity, does a great disservice to this institution, in my view."

i was not a great fan of his in the radio days but certainly like what he's doing in the senate - we need more like him

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/73417-franken-shows-glimpses-of-sharp...

After quiet first months, Franken's sharp tongue emerges in Senate

http://crooksandliars.com/amybdean/political-lessons-health-care-debate

But regardless of what we make of the final agreement, the real lesson from the health care debate is a political one: Unless we change how we do politics, we will never get what we want from Washington.

I wonder if HGTV has a YouTube channel. I will look.

Recession Alters Migration Patterns in U.S.

By MARK WHITEHOUSE

The recession has had a profound effect on migration patterns in the U.S., reversing the flow of people to former housing-boom states such as Florida and Nevada, the latest data from the Census Bureau show.

In the year ending July 1, 2009, Florida -- once the top draw for Americans in search of work and warmer climes -- lost more than 31,000 residents to other states, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday. Nevada lost nearly 4,000. The numbers are small compared with the states' populations, but they reflect a significant change in direction: In the year ending July 2006, Florida and Nevada attracted net inflows 141,448 and 41,640 people, respectively.

"The recession coupled with the mortgage meltdown stopped the dominant migration story of the last decade in its tracks," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The real question is when the Sunbelt states are going to be able to come back. These new numbers suggest no end in sight."

The census data provide the starkest illustration yet of a shift that began after the peak of the housing boom in 2006. Each year, the movement of people from states in the Northeast and Midwest such as New York, New Jersey and Michigan to job-producing states in the Sunbelt and West has lost momentum as house prices have fallen and jobs have disappeared.

The exception amid the Sunbelt states is Texas, which has managed to avoid much of the housing malaise and unemployment that have plagued other states. In the year ending July 2009, Texas gained 143,423 more residents from other states than it lost, making it the nation's biggest draw for the fourth year in a row.

With no income tax and relatively inexpensive housing, Texas has attracted both entrepreneurs and large corporations. The bank Comerica Inc. moved its headquarters from Detroit to Dallas in late 2007, and BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion opened its U.S. headquarters in Texas soon thereafter. Surging energy prices in early 2008 helped the state's oil industry, and the state's large medical centers have provided stable employment. more...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126161850282503693.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Tidings of Comfort
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Indulge me while I tell you a story — a near-future version of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” It begins with sad news: young Timothy Cratchit, a k a Tiny Tim, is sick. And his treatment will cost far more than his parents can pay out of pocket.

Fortunately, our story is set in 2014, and the Cratchits have health insurance. Not from their employer: Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t do employee benefits. And just a few years earlier they wouldn’t have been able to buy insurance on their own because Tiny Tim has a pre-existing condition, and, anyway, the premiums would have been out of their reach.

But reform legislation enacted in 2010 banned insurance discrimination on the basis of medical history and also created a system of subsidies to help families pay for coverage. Even so, insurance doesn’t come cheap — but the Cratchits do have it, and they’re grateful. God bless us, everyone.

O.K., that was fiction, but there will be millions of real stories like that in the years to come. Imperfect as it is, the legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday and will probably, in a slightly modified version, soon become law will make America a much better country.

So why are so many people complaining? There are three main groups of critics.

First, there’s the crazy right, the tea party and death panel people — a lunatic fringe that is no longer a fringe but has moved into the heart of the Republican Party. In the past, there was a general understanding, a sort of implicit clause in the rules of American politics, that major parties would at least pretend to distance themselves from irrational extremists. But those rules are no longer operative. No, Virginia, at this point there is no sanity clause.

A second strand of opposition comes from what I think of as the Bah Humbug caucus: fiscal scolds who routinely issue sententious warnings about rising debt. By rights, this caucus should find much to like in the Senate health bill, which the Congressional Budget Office says would reduce the deficit, and which — in the judgment of leading health economists — does far more to control costs than anyone has attempted in the past.

But, with few exceptions, the fiscal scolds have had nothing good to say about the bill. And in the process they have revealed that their alleged concern about deficits is, well, humbug. As Slate’s Daniel Gross says, what really motivates them is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is receiving social insurance.”

Finally, there has been opposition from some progressives who are unhappy with the bill’s limitations. Some would settle for nothing less than a full, Medicare-type, single-payer system. Others had their hearts set on the creation of a public option to compete with private insurers. And there are complaints that the subsidies are inadequate, that many families will still have trouble paying for medical care.

Unlike the tea partiers and the humbuggers, disappointed progressives have valid complaints. But those complaints don’t add up to a reason to reject the bill. Yes, it’s a hackneyed phrase, but politics is the art of the possible.

The truth is that there isn’t a Congressional majority in favor of anything like single-payer. There is a narrow majority in favor of a plan with a moderately strong public option. The House has passed such a plan. But given the way the Senate rules work, it takes 60 votes to do almost anything. And that fact, combined with total Republican opposition, has placed sharp limits on what can be enacted.

If progressives want more, they’ll have to make changing those Senate rules a priority. They’ll also have to work long term on electing a more progressive Congress. But, meanwhile, the bill the Senate has just passed, with a few tweaks — I’d especially like to move the start date up from 2014, if that’s at all possible — is more or less what the Democratic leadership can get.

And for all its flaws and limitations, it’s a great achievement. It will provide real, concrete help to tens of millions of Americans and greater security to everyone. And it establishes the principle — even if it falls somewhat short in practice — that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.

Many people deserve credit for this moment. What really made it possible was the remarkable emergence of universal health care as a core principle during the Democratic primaries of 2007-2008 — an emergence that, in turn, owed a lot to progressive activism. (For what it’s worth, the reform that’s being passed is closer to Hillary Clinton’s plan than to President Obama’s). This made health reform a must-win for the next president. And it’s actually happening.

So progressives shouldn’t stop complaining, but they should congratulate themselves on what is, in the end, a big win for them — and for America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&pagewanted...

toniD's Ya Think?

After reading this chilling are, I ask 'What is the driving force behind this clearly institutionalized racism?' The only answer I can come up with is -- Exploitation.

And it looks like an exploitation by two profit centers, perhaps?: 1/ the Elite's 'illicit' drug business (including money laundering and investments by Banksters) and 2/ the prison industry ripping off public monies. Am I close?

Meanwhile, lives are destroyed, and the nation continues to sink in ever-growing disgrace.

This is the chilling article--

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/12/the-omaha-two-victimized-by-cointelpro...

[excerpt]

The “Omaha Two”: Victimized by COINTELPRO Injustice
by Stephen Lendman / December 24th, 2009

...

In the 1980s, Nebraska Chief Supreme Court Justice Norman Krivosha commissioned a study of the state’s judicial fairness that concluded it was equitable with one exception: race. People of color were more likely to be arrested, indicted, convicted, and given longer sentences than whites, including the death penalty for capital offenses. It’s no surprise that Nebraska’s 3% black population comprises over 40% of its inmates, and the same disparity holds nationally.

Blacks make up around 12.4% of the population, but almost half of those incarcerated. Around 50% of them are for non-violent offenses, and about half of those are drug related. In 2000, Human Rights Watch reported that in one-third of the states, 75% of all drug related offenders were black. In Illinois, it was 89%. Shockingly, with less than 5% of the world’s population, America has almost one-fourth of its prisoners, by far the largest total at around 2.4 million, growing at about 1,000 per week, mostly affecting blacks and Hispanics.

It’s no wonder that we Langa and Poindexter couldn’t reopen their case despite later FBI documents (released in 1978) showing police and the Bureau collaborated to suppress exculpatory evidence to convict two innocent men. Jack Swanson, the chief detective in charge of the investigation, told the BBC why:

“I think we did the right thing at the time because the Black Panther Party… completely disappeared from Omaha after we got the two main players.” In other words, neutralize the leadership and the organization dies.

Yet former Nebraska Governor Frank Morrison (1961-1967, who with Thomas Kenney represented Poindexter as a public defender) believed the men: “were convicted for their rhetoric, not for any crime they committed…. The only thing these fellas did was try to combat all the racial discrimination of the time the wrong way…. They weren’t convicted of murder.”

It was for their activism and prominence to stifle dissent, keep them imprisoned to assure it, and continue a long tradition of defiling due process and judicial fairness for people of color, the poor, and disadvantaged in a democracy for the privileged alone, as virulent under Obama as earlier.

[end excerpt]

Americans Prefer Democratic Policies
A new CNN/Opinion Research survey indicates that a majority of Americans believe that the Democratic party's policy proposals are good for the country, 51% to 46%.

In contrast, a majority of Americans think Republican policies will move the country in the wrong direction, 53% to 42%.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/24/cnn-poll-more-americans-...

toniD's Ya Think?

This challenge about county government's display of Christmas symbols indicates what? Either take them down, or allow ALL religions equal display space year round?

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091222/ARTICLES/912229972?Title=C...

(Interesting! People don't seem to want an old man telling them how to and what to believe in any more!)

A Gallup poll of Americans' attitudes towards religion released on Christmas Eve found significant recent increases in those responding either that they have no religious preference, that religion is not very important in their lives, or that they believe religion "is largely old-fashioned or out of date."

Only 78% of Americans now identify as Christian, while 22% describe their religious preference as either "other" or "none."

Most of these changes have occurred since 2000 and represent the first significant shift since a sharp decline in religious adherence during the 1970s. Over the last nine years, the number with no religious preference has grown from a level of around 8% to 13%. The number for whom religion is not very important has climbed from just over 10% to 19%. And the number who believe religion is out of date and has no answers for today's problems has jumped from slightly more than 20% to 29%.

These changes do not appear to have affected the majority of Americans who still consider religion "very important" in their own lives. That figure remains at 56% -- roughly the same as for the last 35 years -- while 57% still say religion has answers to most of the world's problems.

The biggest difference is that in the late 1990s, up to 68% of Americans thought religion had answers to the world's problems -- even though only about 60% said religion was personally very important to them. It seems as though over the last ten years a significant number may have gone from believing that religion is a positive factor in the world, even if they're not particularly religious themselves, to seeing religion in a far more skeptical or even negative light.

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/29-americans-religion-out-date/

toniD's Ya Think?

Krugman....heh, nicely done...

"So progressives shouldn’t stop complaining..." agreed...not until Brunhilde has finished her aria...

The more pressure exerted on the Conferees...the better deal we will get.

KEEP SHOUTING!!!!

and keep your fingers crossed for Seder's continuing connectivity.
http://www.samsedershow.com/comment/reply/5564

day after win!

fresh coffee and a clean kitchen bliss!

the small stuff is underated.

Krugman reminds me:
The Year in Crazy, Part One by Tom Tomorrow

Guess who took this award:
Salon.com's Crazy of the Year!
I bet you got it right.