Like one of those Japanese soldiers on one of those South Pacific Islands

Do The Rich get treated like this as they fly around in their private jets?

New TSA rules--

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091226/ap_on_bi_ge/airline_security

With wit and insight.

Now the Freedom from Religion Foundation is in the fray...with "Yes, Virginia, there is no God" Santa ads....

http://www.ffrf.org/news/2009/seattlebus.php

This guy Knight's a funnier comedian than Sam.

Sunday, December 27, 2009; 1:03 PM

NEW YORK -- Percy Sutton, the pioneering civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X before launching successful careers as a political power broker and media mogul, has died. He was 89.

Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for Gov. David Paterson, confirmed that Sutton died Saturday. She did not know the cause. His daughter, Cheryl Sutton, declined to comment Saturday when reached by phone at her New York City home.

The son of a slave, Percy Sutton became a fixture on 125th Street in Harlem after moving to New York City following his service with the famed Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. His Harlem law office, founded in 1953, represented Malcolm X and the slain activist's family for decades.

The consummate politician, Sutton served in the New York State Assembly before taking over as Manhattan borough president in 1966, becoming the highest-ranking black elected official in the state.

Sutton also mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate and mayor of New York, and served as political mentor for the Rev. Jesse Jackson's two presidential races.

Jackson recalled Sutton talking about electing a black president as early as 1972. Sutton was influential in getting his 1984 campaign going, he said.

con't

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/27/AR200912...

Wilhelm 1

re Chubby Bubba, Where Are You?
Submitted by Crank Bait on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 1:48pm.

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

Taitz wants meeting with AUSAs to bring birther case to D.C.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Dentist-attorney Orly Taitz, one of the leaders of the “birther” movement that insists President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore cannot be president of the United States, has written two Assistant U.S. Attorneys to request that a dismissed civil case in California be transferred to court in D.C.

According to Taitz’s Web site, she e-mailed two Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Roger West and David DeJute, on Wednesday to schedule “a short phone meet and conference” request that her case be transferred to D.C.

Taitz filed the motion on Thursday, which is scheduled to be heard on Jan. 25 in court in the Central District of California.

http://justiceleague00.blogspot.com/2009/12/taitz-wants-meeting-with-aus...

great snowman picture edna. if only al gore hadn't wussed out.

Thanks for fixing the link 4 the
Iran pic.s.

Man, these things are bad. California consumers complain that as soon as the "Smart Meters" are installed, their electricity bills become inflated to two and three times old charges.

Also, the "Smart Meter" retains information that ranks as privacy -- when you wake up and go to sleep, when your alarm system is on, when you use appliances and run hot water -- seemingly, when you're at home or not, awake or not. When the data is "BROADCAST" to the utility provider, is there any assurance it cannot be intercepted or monitored by a predator?

The "Smart Meter" and "Smart Grid" don't look so smart anymore.

To the Smart Meter marketers and the energy monopolies like Pacific Gas & Electric this is just a mere Public Relations problemo:

http://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/690-pgae-smart-meter-problem-a-pr-ni...

Plot thickens with concerns about radio frequency (RF) health impacts which the Smart Grid people and PG&E have refused to publicly study--

http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-light/post/smart/

And it's amazing that, despite the fact that consumers must pay for the new meters and the techno change in infrastructure, consumers have NO ability to check the accuracy or working order of the technology--

http://www.piac.asn.au/publications/pubs/09.09.30%20Joint%20sub%20Smart%...

And talk about RUDE. Many consumers have cut back on energy usage to an all time low (so much so that profits from electricity have gone down). Enter the Smart Grid which at this point of low consumption; and now the Smart Grid insstalling utilities claim they need to teach consumers conservation and proper usage based on time of day and restructure rates to teach consumers the hard way to pay more if the new rules are broken. How convenient to make people who are already conserving pay premium because they have met conservation goals prior to the installation of the Smart Meter; meanwhile, those who never conserved, will have their rates adjusted according to high consumption. Sounds like Smart Meters can be an effective tool for gouging consumers whether they conserve or not, and that the for-profit utilities have no interest in reducing overall energy consumption if that means reduction in profits. The best case scenario here is that those who control the grid want to be able to sell less energy at higher cost to consumers.

Health Care Changes Wouldn’t Have Big Effect for Many
By REED ABELSON

Now that the Senate has caught up with the House by passing a sweeping health care bill, lawmakers are on the verge of extending coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance.

But what about the roughly 160 million workers and their dependents who already have health insurance through an employer? For many people, the result of the long, angry health care debate in Washington may be little more than more of the same.

As President Obama once promised, “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.”

That may be true even if you don’t like your health plan. And no one seems to agree on whether the legislation will do much to reduce workers’ continually rising out-of-pocket costs.

True, there is an important advantage for the working insured: more peace of mind for people who are worried about being laid off or would like to change jobs.

There are still many gaps to bridge between the House and Senate bills. But even before the House-Senate negotiations begin in January, both bills offer this assurance: If you lose your job or move to one that does not provide benefits, there should be better alternatives when shopping for your own coverage.

And both the House and Senate bills share the same basic goal of placing new rules on insurers so that even someone with a pre-existing medical condition, or a few years to go before qualifying for Medicare, should have a much easier time finding a relatively affordable policy.

The legislation should give most working people “the guarantee of security if their circumstances change,” said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group that has studied the House and Senate bills.

Of course, with more security will come more obligation. Congress seems likely to impose an individual mandate that will require people to be insured or face a financial penalty.

The other proposed changes for employer-provided coverage seem aimed mainly at workers whose benefits are either very generous or exceedingly skimpy.

On the generous end, about a fifth of employers now offer health plans that could be affected by a new 40 percent excise tax in the Senate bill on so-called Cadillac policies, according to an estimate by Mercer, a benefits consulting firm. That tax, to be imposed on annual premiums that exceeded $23,000 for family coverage, would go into effect in 2013. For example, if an insurer, or a self-insured employer, offers a plan costing $25,000, it must pay a 40 percent tax on the $2,000 that is above the threshold, or $800.

If the excise tax survives the House-Senate negotiations, it is hard to predict how employers will respond. But almost two-thirds of the employers Mercer recently surveyed said they were likely to reduce employee benefits rather than pay the tax.

“They’re going to work hard to find a way to keep the cost of their plans below the threshold,” said Beth Umland, Mercer’s director of health and benefits research.

She predicts that many of those companies will rely on what she described as “the tried-and-true method” — passing along more of the costs to employees, in the form of higher deductibles and co-payments, in order to reduce overall premiums.

The public policy goal of the tax, in theory, is to have everyone spend less on medical care, even if it means using it less.

“We know people will use less care under such plans,” said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan group.

What is not so clear, Mr. Ginsburg said, is whether people will make — or be able to make — rational choices between treatments that are not particularly effective and treatments that may help them from becoming sicker later.

Congress also seems intent on establishing some minimum insurance standards so people with coverage could not end up with large piles of unpaid medical bills anyway. Both the House and Senate bills contain measures meant to eliminate lifetime maximum limits on coverage, for example.

But that might end up affecting relatively few people. Many plans limit how much they will pay out over a lifetime, but the ceilings are generally so high that the vast majority of people never hit them, according to a new study that used existing coverage for workers in California to compare the House and Senate proposals.

The “impact of this change will be minimal on most employers, but would be quite meaningful for the small number of employees who meet the limits,” according to the study, conducted by policy analysts from the University of California, Berkeley, the benefits consultant Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Congress is also considering annual limits on out-of-pocket medical costs. The House seems to think $5,000 is as much as somebody should pay in medical bills, while the Senate has picked a figure closer to $6,000.

Under the Senate proposal, the new limits would not apply to self-insured employers — big companies that provide their own insurance and have enough employees to effectively spread the risk of paying any large claims.

Congress is also considering other minimum standards for insurance, like setting a baseline level of coverage for plans.

Still unclear is whether any of the new standards — the lifetime caps, the out-of-pocket maximums, the minimum coverage standards — would apply to employer-based policies.

Because most big companies already offer plans that would meet the minimum standards being set, their workers would probably be unaffected by the new rules in any case.

But it is a different story for small businesses. Much of the legislation is aimed at making it easier for them to provide affordable coverage by trying to make changes to the insurance market.

People working for small businesses — an estimated 40 percent of the private labor force — could see their coverage affected. And if their employer decided to use one of the new insurance exchanges, workers might have a much broader choice of plans than they do now.

The premiums a small-business employee are charged could also change, especially if that company’s work force is particularly young and healthy. Those people could wind up paying more, Mr. Ginsburg said, because the legislation tries to spread the risk of covering employees with expensive medical conditions by setting new rules over how insurers can determine premiums.

The real unknown, of course, is whether any final legislation will accelerate the rise in premiums or slow it. At least one impartial analysis, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, concluded that the legislation was not going to have much of an effect on the cost of premiums either way.

There are plenty of doomsayers who argue that the cost of expanding coverage to millions of people, many of whom will need help to pay their premiums, is going to be borne by everyone else. But there are others, including Mr. Obama, who argue that the legislation will make health insurance more affordable than it would be otherwise. “If we don’t pass it,” he recently said during a television interview, “here’s the guarantee — your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/health/policy/25employer.html?_r=1&src...

toniD's Ya Think?

http://wcbstv.com/wireapnewsny/Indian.tribes.buy.2.1392548.html

ready for the new week...

http://wcbstv.com/local/nypd.dwi.test.2.1392440.html

----------
Police have been getting away with DWI for years and this new process might finally get this stopped!

of course not, nora - neither do the people who enact(ed) legislation like the Patriot Act (which they didn't even bother to read). I'm thinking of body cavity search and just flying naked (just wear a coat - then I'll have to take that off, right???)

what a f*cking Assh*le

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/12/27/2009-12-27_charlie_sheen_al...
-------

2 and half men. I guess Charlie is the half man the show is based on>

http://wcbstv.com/wireapnewsny/New.York.scientists.2.1392684.html

----------
This info is already known. Autism is now one in seventy according to recent reports.

http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/120/article_6309.asp

I am amazed that the religion of peace has this crap going on. This internal sectarian violence is not America's doing. This is is a cultural problem.

I don't want Sharia law ever in this country

--------And the guy with the mach 10 last week in NYC was set up by the police? I don't think so because Al Sharpton would have exposed it by now.

Nation reporter unmasks extraordinary rendition-like subfields run by ICE
by Lets Breakthrough

Sat Dec 26, 2009 at 04:16:14 AM PST

Nation reporter unmasks extraordinary rendition-like subfields run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A couple months ago, Jacqueline Stevens, a reporter for the Nation, went on a road trip with Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen, born in North Carolina, who had been kidnapped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), stripped of his rightful identity documents, rendered stateless, and deported to Mexico, to re-locate the government offices that had temporarily held him.

Using google maps, they punched in 140 Centrewest Court, an address that appeared on a number of the documents issued to Lyttle by ICE in Cary, North Carolina. But when they arrived, Stevens was surprised that the government site was an unmarked building, no sign, no flag, with 15 equally unmarked vans next to an Oxford University Press production plant and a few gated communities.

Wondering how many other clandestine locations existed like this across the country, upon returning to Berkeley, Stevens picked up the phone and began a rigorous investigation of "America's Secret ICE Castles," the findings of which will appear in the January 4th edition of the Nation. First off, she read through, a recent report by Dora Shriro,"Immigration Detention Overview and Recommendations," and discovered that there were 186 "subfields" which were used to primarily hold people for up to 12-16 hours for 84% of all book-ins. But because these secret sites are below the legal radar, it's hard to say how long people are actually held and under what conditions.

When Stevens called ICE to request a list of the 186 subfields, she was initially told by Temple Black, an ICE public affairs officer, that these locations were "not releasable" and that the list was "law enforcement sensitive." However, Mr. Black had a family emergency, and put Stevens in touch with another ICE official, who released a partial list, which she then shared with immigrant rights advocates in major human and civil rights organizations, whose reactions ranged from astonishment to total outrage.

Alison Parker, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch, who wrote a comprehensive report on ICE transit policies, "Locked Up, Far Away," for example, had not even heard of the subfield offices and believed that the failure of the U.S. to disclose these locations is a violation of the UN's Convenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which we are a signatory. A senior attorney at a civil rights organization, on the other hand angrily proclaimed, "You cannot have secret detention! The public has the right to know where detention is happening."

Such lack of transparency frighteningly resonates with extraordinary rendition, and undermines the core principles of a functioning democracy. Unmarked networks make it near impossible for family and lawyers to track down and access detainees, ultimately stripping immigrants of due process rights afforded to "all persons" under the constitution. Because these sites are off the grid, and therefore, out of mind, there's no oversight or standards in place, and detainees are often subjected to the inhumane whims of ICE agents who act in ways that are unconscionable and unlawful. As Stevens rightly observed, "it's also not surprising that if you're putting people in a warehouse, the occupants become inventory. Inventory does not need showers, beds, drinking water, soap, toothbrushes, sanitary napkins, mail, attorneys or legal information, and can withstand the constant blast of cold air."

According to Ahilan Arulanantham, Director of Immigrant Rights for the ACLU of Southern California, the Los Angeles subfield office called B-18 is a barely converted storage space. "You actually walk down the sidewalk and into an underground parking lot. Then you turn right, open a big door and voilà, you're in a detention center...It's not clear to me how anyone would find it. What this breeds, not surprisingly, is a whole host of problems concerning access to phones, relatives and counsel," he explained.

While the President Obama may have released a memorandum in January requiring transparency for the heads of all executive departments and agencies, including DHS and ICE, the reality is it's not happening. Instead we have agents, like Tommy Kilbride, an ICE detention and removal officer and star of A&E's reality show Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force, operating out of a hidden office in a hip building in Chelsea Market alongside Rachel Ray and the Food Network, sporting a jacket that says POLICE, while rounding up criminal aliens, thereby glamorizing secret operations as the trappings of pop culture.

If indeed "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants," as Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, I say let the sun shine on these ICE castles, so we can restore fairness in America. A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/26/819301/-Nation-reporter-unm...

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by jbenet on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 2:11pm.
Wilhelm 1
--------
That's not the Wilhelm, you humor-inflicted bastard!

That's the sound a guy makes just after he has seen a mouse run up inside his pants leg.

Submitted by jbenet on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 2:11pm.
Wilhelm 1
-------
After further study, the Wilhelm is heard in a number of guises including your supergoofy example.

However, the original Wilhelm is to its imitations as Chick Corea is to Keyboard Cat.

2 files. The show ran 2hrs 40mins.

http://inventors.about.com/od/qrstartinventors/a/orgone.htm

=======
http://www.wilhelmreichmuseum.org/cottages.html

he is my maine man when it comes to therapy

He's a real gem ladies.

*1990 Sheen accidently shot then girlfriend Kelly Preston(now married to John Travolta) in the arm.

* In December 1996 Charlie Sheen was arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman at his home. The woman claimed she was pushed to the floor and knocked out.

* Feb. 1997 Charlie Sheen was charged with battery against his ex-girlfriend Brittany Ashland.

*In April 2006

Excerpt from the Smoking Gun

APRIL 21--In a searing court attack on Charlie Sheen, actress Denise Richards alleges that her estranged husband is unstable, violent, addicted to gambling and prostitutes, and visits pornographic web sites featuring young men and girls who appear underage. In a remarkable sworn declaration (a copy of which you'll find below) filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, Richards also charges that Sheen, 40, assaulted her and threatened her life during a December 30 incident at the actress's Los Angeles home. Richards claims that an enraged Sheen--who was over for a visit with the couple's two children--told her she was "fucking with the wrong guy" and called her a series of vulgar names in front of the children. The actor, Richards said, then shoved her to the ground and screamed, "I hope you f--king die, bitch." As Richards, 35, tells it, Sheen was angry because she had told her divorce attorney about discovering details of Sheen's porn-surfing practices. Richards's declaration, filed in support of her request for a restraining order against Sheen, contends that Sheen "belonged" to "disturbing" sites "which promoted very young girls, who looked underage to me with pigtails, braces, and no pubic hair performing oral sex with each other." Other sites visited by Sheen, Richards alleges, involved "gay pornography also involving very young men who also did not look like adults." Richards claims that she also discovered that Sheen "belonged to several sex search type sites" on which he "looked for women to have sex with." His online profile, Richards adds, included a photo of "his erect penis." The Richards evisceration also portrays Sheen as a lousy father who urged her to abort their first child. And, when she was about to give birth to their second child via a C-section, Sheen's attention was "diverted to his pager for the results of his betting." To illustrate Sheen's volcanic temper and abusive language, Richards's court filing includes transcripts of six phone messages he allegedly left her last April, while she was pregnant with the couple's second daughter. In one call, Sheen says, "You're a coward and a liar and a fucking nigger alright so fuck you." In a second message, Sheen appears to make a reference to Richards's female attorney when he complains about "two pregnant cunts...plotting against the rest of us."

Sources of info:

http://movieactors.com/actors/charliesheen.htm

http://www.hollywoodteenmovies.com/CHARLIE%20SHEEN.html

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0421061sheen1.html

Media Advisory

The 2009 P.U.-Litzer Awards

12/22/09

For 17 years our colleagues Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have worked with FAIR to present the P.U.-Litzers, a year-end review of some of the stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.

Starting this year, FAIR has the somewhat dubious honor of reviewing the nominees and selecting the winners. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So, without further ado, we present the 2009 P.U.-Litzers.

--The Remembering Reagan Award
WINNER: Joe Klein, Time

Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09), not altogether impressed by Obama's announcement of a troop escalation in Afghanistan, wrote that a president "must lead the charge--passionately and, yes, with a touch of anger."

He described the better way to do this:

Ronald Reagan would have done it differently. He would have told a story. It might not have been a true story, but it would have had resonance. He might have found, or created, a grieving spouse--a young investment banker whose wife had died in the World Trade Center--who enlisted immediately after the attacks...and then gave his life, heroically, defending a school for girls in Kandahar. Reagan would have inspired tears, outrage, passion, a rush to recruiting centers across the nation.

Ah, Reagan--now there was a president who could inspire people to fight and die based on lies.

--The Cheney 2012 Award
WINNER: Jon Meacham, Newsweek

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham declared (12/7/09) that Dick Cheney running for president in 2012 would be "good for the Republicans and good for the country." He explained that "Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people.... A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way."

While the 2008 election might have seemed a sufficient judgment of the Bush years, it's worth pointing out that at beginning of the year (1/19/09), Meacham was adamantly opposed to re-hashing Cheney's record, calling it "the rough equivalent of pornography--briefly engaging, perhaps, but utterly predictable and finally repetitive." The difference? That was in response to the idea that Cheney should be held accountable for lawbreaking. Apparently a few months later, the same record is grounds for a White House run.

--The Them Not Us Award
WINNER: Martin Fackler, New York Times

The New York Times (11/21/09) describes the severe problems with Japan's elite media--a horror show where "reporters from major news media outlets are stationed inside government offices and enjoy close, constant access to officials. The system has long been criticized as antidemocratic by both foreign and Japanese analysts, who charge that it has produced a relatively spineless press that feels more accountable to its official sources than to the public. In their apparent reluctance to criticize the government, the critics say, the news media fail to serve as an effective check on authority."

The mind reels.

--Thin-Skinned Pundits Award
WINNER: Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cilizza got into trouble when, in an episode of their "Mouthpiece Theater" web video series, they suggested brands of beer that would be appropriate for various politicians. What would Hillary Clinton drink? Apparently something called "Mad Bitch." The video, unsurprisingly, was roundly criticized, and was pulled from the Post site. So what lesson was learned? Milbank complained (8/6/09) that "it's a brutal world out there in the blogosphere.... I'm often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn't be."

Yes, the problem with calling someone a "bitch" is the "ferocity" of your critics.

--The Sheer O'Reillyness Award
WINNER: Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel--TWICE!

1) Asked by a Canadian viewer, "Has anyone noticed that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?," Fox's O'Reilly (7/27/09) responded: "Well, that's to be expected, Peter, because we have 10 times as many people as you do. That translates to 10 times as many accidents, crimes, down the line."

2) Drumming up fear of Democrats' tax plans: "Nancy Pelosi and her far-left crew want to raise the top federal tax rate to 45 percent. That's not capitalism. That's Fidel Castro stuff, confiscating wages that people honestly earn."

Perhaps Castro was president of the United States in 1982-86, when the top rate was 50 percent. Or maybe all of the 1970s, when it was 70 percent. Or from 1950-63, when it was 91 percent.

con't

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3984

Of my pride and joy about a block from the house for my mom and posted them here. This is personal and not political, but I'm trying to not focus on politics.

It works best in Internet Explorer.

Nice pictures,concept & a great model.. :)

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

MMRules

A good game..
Abit worried about McNabb's Hammy though..

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

MMRules

She's taking a road trip with a friend tomorrow to Breckenridge Colorado to go snow boarding and I'm a mess worried about her.

Just make sure she has a small thing of Pepper Spray,on her key chain..
It won't stop skiing injuries but,it will sure keep the wolves at bay.. ;)

*That's human wolves,Ms_A.. ;)

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

MMRules

this kid growing up thing is very difficult....

She resembles my daughter!

http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h21/mykukla/Fam%20Photos/?action=view&...

toniD's Ya Think?

Conservative columnist David Brooks expressed support Sunday for a system of health care otherwise demonized in the press by the right wing. "I wouldn't mind a single-payer. Frankly I prefer a single-payer to what we have now," Brooks told ABC's Jake Tapper.

Brooks' support for single-payer comes late in the health care reform debate.

He was asked about single-payer on July 29th but deflected the question, writing, "I'm not that thrilled with the insurance companies." He also wrote, "There is no way something that big and complex and dynamic can be run out of Washington."

Brooks said he can't support the health reform passed by both houses of Congress. "I oppose it," he said. "It's a close call for me." He has consistently charged that health care cost controls are not enough to support the Democrats' bill.

Also appearing on ABC, liberal economist Paul Krugman argued, "There's a whole list of things that we think might control costs. This is going to be in the legislation, its something that's going to be tried. This is the first serious attempt that we've made to control health care costs and by doing that it actually proves something that people like me, advocates of universal coverage, have been saying... The only way to control costs is as part of a package that also covers the uninsured."

Brooks insisted, "I don't oppose it because I want to step on the necks of the poor."

This video is from ABC's This Week, broadcast Dec. 27, 2009.♠

Video at link

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/david-brooks-prefers-single-payer/

toniD's Ya Think?

I thought that too when you first posted that picture.

That's an amazing picture in a magical place. Put a horn on that horse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8PiSUJtHMA

You and your 3D images.

Rep. Peter King thinks the Obama administration's failure to have either the president himself or one of his officials give a press conference on the attempted Delta airline bombing is somehow the same as Bush not showing up in New Orleans right away after Katrina. I guess King wasn't satisfied that Rep. Pete Hoekstra was the only one going out there making a fool of himself immediately politicizing this thing.

Sorry pal but President Obama not rushing out to do a press conference about this attempted bombing that they probably don't even have a lot of answers on yet is not even remotely the same thing as Bush completely ignoring Hurricane Katrina and what was going on in New Orleans to the point where his aides finally had to put together footage on a DVD days later and get him to watch it for him to even have any idea what was happening down there. Unbelievable. And CNN's Drew Griffin was more than happy to help King along with this history revisionism.

For a reminder of how Bush reacted to Hurricane Katrina, here's a timeline put together by Think Progress.

Griffin also pointed out right after King got off the air with him that Janet Napolitano was going to be on State of the Union on CNN Sunday morning. I guess that's not soon enough to suit King and of course Griffin didn't bring that up while he still had him on the air either.

The Political Carnival pointed out another problem with King's hackery here--Pete King's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Memory:

Just now on CNN, Petey said that the ObamAdministration banned the word "terrorism", which is, of course, why Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab managed to smuggle explosives on board a jetliner.

Lose a word, gain a terrorist. See the logic?

Me neither.

No, Obama never eliminated the word "terrorism" from the government lexicon. It was the phrase "war on terror", one of the stupidest phrases ever concocted by any administration ever. That's why this administration is using different words. President Obama, rightfully, wouldn't want any association whatsoever with BushCoSpeak.

See? Some there is some change we can believe in.

So hey, Bogus Petey, check this out. It may jog your "memory".

Continue reading...

Full transcript via CNN below the fold.

GRIFFIN: Let's turn to politics now, because two of these stories are beginning to collide. The White House is calling this an attempted act of terrorism but the president is on vacation. Some lawmakers say they want answers from the commander-in-chief, not just press releases.

One of the critics is joining us now, Congressman Peter King, Republican from New York, the ranking minority member on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Congressman, you know what you're talking about when you're talking about security issues. Why is it important for us to see or hear from the administration?

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK (via telephone): Drew, this came close to being one of the greatest tragedies in the history of our country. If we had lost much 300 people on Christmas Day, this would have been remembered forevermore as the Christmas Day massacre. We avoided by luck and because of a number of very courageous passengers.

This was an assault on the United State and it is important at a time like this that the president of the United States or someone in the administration with stature step forward, whether it would be the vice president or the secretary of homeland security. But basically, there is no face of the administration on this issue.

And me, I just think of health care and global warming and some of the other issues where there's always somebody from the administration out there talking. And I'm not saying to grandstand it, I'm saying to be out there and just be a calm and reassuring voice for the country and for the world.

Whether it was President Bush or President Clinton or President Reagan, at times like this, the country looks for a leader. And I just feel that this administration is much more comfortable in talking about issues other than terrorism.

GRIFFIN: Congressman, we've heard from Ed Henry, who got a response from the administration, saying, you know, this just not is -- not the president's style. He'd rather let the investigators do the investigating and tell this story.

You seem to say it goes beyond just a terror investigation here.

KING: Yes, it does. Let me make it clear, from what I know, I agree with what the administration is doing as far as their policies, as far increasing the security, and as far as doing all they can to find out who was behind it and know what the facts are.

I'm saying, now, there's more to being a president and more to being an administration than just getting -- just having the technical work done. It's important to reassure the country, to show leadership, to show -- you know, to give a sense of confidence to the country. This is an attack on the country. And as commander-in-chief, I believe the president should be there or the secretary of homeland security or his homeland security adviser in the White House. And again, just to -- as a sign of strength for the country, especially, since in virtually every other issue, there's almost a race to the microphone.

GRIFFIN: I can almost hear the critics coming after you, saying you're trying to turn this into a political issue. But let me read what you wrote earlier today. You said, "They," meaning, the administration, "don't feel as comfortable talking about terror as they do global warming and health care." You are almost saying -- if I'm reading this correctly -- that this is a deliberate political move by the administration not to talk about terror.

KING: Yes. I -- first of all, they started off the first several months of the Obama administration refusing to use the word terrorism. Janet Napolitano said it would no longer be in the vocabulary of the Department of Homeland Security because they thought that it connoted fear. And Secretary Clinton is saying that the policy of the administration was not to talk about terrorism. Even when the president gave his speech at West Point about the troops going to Afghanistan, he didn't use the word terrorism. He spoke of extremism.

So, no, I don't think they are comfortable. And having said, let me make it clear, I think they are doing the right thing as far as their policies. Since this attack occurred, the FBI and, as far as I can tell, Homeland Security and all the agencies of the United States government are doing the right job.

But the president above all, who is a great communicator, should realize what President Reagan always did. The country looks for a voice of strength and reassurance, especially with the president being in Hawaii at a time like this.

Listen, think of all the criticism President Bush took because it took him several days to get down to New Orleans after Katrina. So, people do look for leadership in their president.

GRIFFIN: All right. Congressman King -- Representative Peter King out of New York, we'll see if they take up your advice. Thank you, sir, for joining us tonight.

KING: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

GRIFFIN: You bet

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/peter-king-compares-obama-no....

mb, etc: Try back-tweeting her! I did it after the very first appeal. I'm pretty sure she herself won't see, but at least it will not definitely go to a bot.

@Barbara_Boxer. Received your fundraising appeal so here's something unsolicited for you. I'm with KO: "No public option, no sale, etc."
10:54 PM Dec 20th from web

@Barbara_Boxer Understand ur under tremendous pressure from admin, etc, but w/ mandate/w/o PO, u need to kill it. WTP won't stand 4 it.
10:57 PM Dec 20th from web

conferee, but the mails are still coming. Fuck her. Yell at her for what she did do.

Enjoyed that. Had not ever seen the Timmy vid. Blipped it but did no h/t to you or Grit b/c I felt it would make me seem so out of the loop cuz it's already a month old. (Please forgive...? :})

I will have to try that with all of 'em.

I just found it & watched it yesterday,myself..

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

MMRules

@Barbara_Boxer rec'd your email requesting $$. If you don't mind will just give to ins. co. & cut out the middle-person

Perhaps I Was Rash
Submitted by Crank Bait on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 5:08pm.
==
This one?

[Clark Wilhelm Griswold]

or this one?

[Col. Wilhelm Klink]

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

sure a cutie. Is it a recent photo? Is that your grandson? All the beings in that picture are very purty, humans and horses.

PONZI INVESTIGATION
Feds probing many ties of banker Allen Stanford and U.S. Congress
BY MICHAEL SALLAH AND ROB BARRY
msallah@MiamiHerald.com

Just hours after federal agents charged banker Allen Stanford with fleecing investors of $7 billion, the disgraced financier received a message from one of Congress' most powerful members, Pete Sessions.

``I love you and believe in you,'' said the e-mail sent on Feb. 17. ``If you want my ear/voice -- e-mail,'' it said, signed ``Pete.''

The message from the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee represents one of the many ties between members of Congress and the indicted banker that have caught the attention of federal agents.

The Justice Department is investigating millions of dollars Stanford and his staff contributed to lawmakers over the past decade to determine if the banker received special favors from politicians while building his spectacular offshore bank in Antigua, The Miami Herald has learned.

Agents are examining campaign dollars, as well as lavish Caribbean trips funded by Stanford for politicians and their spouses, feting them with lobster dinners and caviar.

The money Stanford gave Sessions and other lawmakers was stolen from his clients while he carried out what prosecutors now say was one of the nation's largest Ponzi schemes.

Sessions, 54, a longtime House member from Dallas who met with Stanford during two trips to the Caribbean, did not respond to interview requests.
...
His press secretary, Emily Davis, said she was unable to comment on the e-mail sent at 11:31 a.m. on the day Stanford was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ``I haven't seen it, so I can't verify its authenticity at this time,'' she said.

But the message found on Stanford's computer servers and the contributions he made to Sessions and other lawmakers -- totaling $2.3 million -- are now part of the government's inquiry.

Records show Stanford also doled out $5 million on lobbying since 2001, setting up his own Washington firm last year with expensive furnishings and artwork -- the money plundered from his customers' accounts.

==(Reuters)
The newspaper said the Justice Department investigation aimed to determine whether the banker received special favors from politicians while he was operating his alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme centered on fraudulent certificates of deposit issued by his offshore bank in Antigua and Barbuda.
...
It said Stanford, who has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a trial set for January 2011, also spent $5 million on lobbying since 2001. It said he successfully lobbied in 2001 to kill a bill that would have exposed the flow of millions into his secretive offshore bank on the Caribbean island of Antigua.

The following year he helped block legislation that would have led to more government scrutiny of his now disgraced Antigua bank, the Miami Herald said.

Stanford, 59, has been in custody since June 19, when he was indicted on 21 criminal charges related to his alleged fraud. His global banking and securities business was shut down in February when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges that he and others had committed fraud.

==

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

but I was expecting a look into the engine compartment of a Cougar.

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

And my daughter. She's always loved horses and any animals. She takes in unwanted pets and finds a new home for them.

The little guy is Brandon and he is eight now. Justin is the older one and he'll be twelve in January. They both are adorable and good kids. As good as kids can be.

toniD's Ya Think?

Is the most common means of measuring the value of an old salary in "today's dollars" the Consumer Price Index? That's what I always seemed to hear about by osmosis from NPR etc.

I am looking at a site that shows you by several different measures, but there is close to 20,000 in variation between the highest and lowest estimate.

I was trying to figure out what my mom made in today's dollars at her highest salary, in 1995, right before she went of disability--just to see how much, if any, subsidy she would get under the Senate bill. If the cut-off is 60K, precision would matter, as she would be hovering pretty close to one side or the other of that borderline.

This the site.

http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/

Indians buy back land
new
Submitted by taozen on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 3:21pm.

http://wcbstv.com/wireapnewsny/Indian.tribes.buy.2.1392548.html

Iwas thinking that same thing - about toniD's
grandson, the little dude in the baseball cap

Nation reporter unmasks
Submitted by toniD on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 3:47pm.
Nation reporter unmasks extraordinary rendition-like subfields run by ICE
by Lets Breakthrough

Sat Dec 26, 2009 at 04:16:14 AM PST

Nation reporter unmasks extraordinary rendition-like subfields run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A couple months ago, Jacqueline Stevens, a reporter for the Nation, went on a road trip with Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen, born in North Carolina, who had been kidnapped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), stripped of his rightful identity documents, rendered stateless, and deported to Mexico, to re-locate the government offices that had temporarily held him.

Using google maps, they punched in 140 Centrewest Court, an address that appeared on a number of the documents issued to Lyttle by ICE in Cary, North Carolina. But when they arrived, Stevens was surprised that the government site was an unmarked building, no sign, no flag, with 15 equally unmarked vans next to an Oxford University Press production plant and a few gated communities.
...
================================

Read that again: They kidnapped a U.S. citizen and stripped this citizen of his "rightful identity documents" and rendered him "stateless".

This is horrific.

By now 'Rendition' has a bad enough name as it is itself the psychological torture that goes hand-in-hand with physical torture. But still, we must remember, 'rendition' is a Bushworld Euphemism for DISAPPEARING PEOPLE!

And DISAPPEARING people cannot be proved to be anything other than a FASCISTIC, totalitarian method to destroy the opposition. 'Rendition' is not a bureaucratic technique, nor a cost-savings technique, nor anything else that it might be whitewashed with. Rendition/DisappearingPeople is TYRANNY against human beings who have universal rights, no matter who they are, no matter what they are accused of doing. Indeed, DISAPPEARING PEOPLE is a crime worse than the crime of being an undocumented immigrant!

The program explained above attempts to get a pass by claiming to subject "immigrants only" to this horrific treatment -- most convenient after so much media time has been devoted to Xenophobic Bigots' raging about "illegals". Meanwhile, this dredging-style method can still be used to round up and DISAPPEAR anyone, undocumented immigrant or not. This is a perfect program for DISAPPEARING anyone they please.

THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

Thank Heaven for this Nation reporter! What a hero!

the movie "Wall Street"?

Ew.

what would happen if the coins came in a new denomination.

Say the Amero or whatever, and it came in copper, was the size of a penny and was worth $20.

Inflation would have a real foe, and the Fed wouldn't matter because they only print bills.

Avatar: The Making of the Bootleg

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

Maybe because one side is squeezing out and destroying the other in order to confiscate REAL ESTATE.

U.N. leader speaks out about continued blockade against Gaza and failure to rebuild after Israeli attacks a year ago...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8431652.stm

This is such Bullshit !

**

The Associated Press

Saturday, Dec. 26, 2009 | 6:04 p.m.

Wild-horse advocates are criticizing federal land managers' plans to begin a major mustang roundup in Nevada on private land, saying it's a deliberate attempt to prevent them from monitoring it.

Activists on Saturday said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's plans run contrary to the agency's pledge to make such gathers transparent and to allow advocates to monitor them.

The two-month roundup set to start Monday in the Calico Mountains Complex is one of the most contentious in U.S. history and one of the largest in Nevada in recent years.

A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request to block the roundup, saying opponents failed to demonstrate that removal of the 2,500 or so horses would violate federal law.

"To start this immense roundup ... on private land where members of the public are forbidden to attend is a brilliant, insidious move on the part of the BLM to hide the suffering and death that they are about to inflict on our mustangs," said activist Eylse Gardner of Novato, Calif.

Con't..

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/dec/26/feds-face-new-criticism-over...

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

MMRules

By Brad Friedman

From Saturday's Houston Chronicle [emphasis added]...

Police are searching for a man they suspect is responsible for fatally shooting a convenience store owner during a robbery in Liberty County Friday night.

Officers were called about 10:10 p.m. to the Ridgewood Grocery store in the 4300 block of North Main near Texas 146 after a customer found the store's owner in a pool of blood behind the counter, said Liberty Police Department spokesman Hugh Bishop.

From surveillance video, investigators learned that the store's owner, 50-year-old Naushad Virani, was fatally shot in the head during a robbery.

The suspect was identified by police as Stevie R. Walder Jr., 31, who also goes by “Bubba.”

*He has many tattoos, including a skull on the left side of his neck, a Nazi SS symbol on the right side of his neck and tear drop under his right eye.

He is known to drive a green Chevy truck with Texas plate AB1-7183. He also drives a 1998 dark green Dodge pickup with an extended cab, Texas plate 92L-RW3, and has a Republican Party sticker on the back window.

Con't..

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7606

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

MMRules

The Mining Industrialists -- NOT good....

[excerpt]

"...One-third of America’s public lands, plus what is offshore, belongs to the people. We own them. But the oil, gas, uranium and the gold and silver industries control them. They take our resources for nothing or five bucks an acre. A Canadian gold company discovered $9 billion worth of our gold in Nevada in public lands over a decade ago. They got ownership of it for $30,000 under the 1872 Mining Act. The Department of the Interior had to sell them the projected acreage over the mine for five bucks an acre. We grow up corporate, even in the Ivy League universities. The public owns the airwaves, along with trillions of dollars of government research and development, along with the pension funds that the corporations control. The corporations don’t care who owns anything, as long as they control it. All this money that Wall Street played around with, they didn’t own most of it. It was other people’s money. It was pension funds, mutual funds, but they controlled it. So what they [the new movement] did in this book was they educated people. They got hundreds of people around TV station buildings, two, three hours before the early evening news, and they had signs saying ‘PAY RENT,’ because the television stations use our airwaves free and have since radio started. We’re the landlords. They are the tenants, but they decide who says what and who doesn’t on radio and TV, and they don’t pay rent to the Federal Communications Commission.”

from--
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/naders_utopia_the_world_according_t...

[another excerpt]

“What would the framers of the Constitution say about the state of our country today?” Nader asks. “Well, they would say that the important parts of the Constitution are a dead letter. They are being ignored. Look at the equal protections clause between corporations as entities and real human beings. The declaration-of-war clause is dead. The one thing the framers never anticipated was that a branch of government—judicial, executive or legislative—would ever give up its power willingly to another branch. They didn’t anticipate Congress abdicating its power to the executive branch. And it’s getting worse and worse.”

“Appropriation power is supposed to start in the House,” Nader says. “Who’s kidding who? It starts in the Office of Management and Budget. So as a result they didn’t give us any revenue. No American can challenge this in a court of law, because they would not have any standing to sue. The case would be thrown out. And members of Congress don’t have standing to sue over this violation of the Constitution, of their own authority. The only one who may have standing to sue is the attorney general, and the attorney general is not going to sue the president. So that’s a very serious situation. We’re getting a de facto destruction of the separation of powers. Madison and others did not want anybody but Congress to deliberate and take our country to war. They were adamant about this. In The New York Times, after Obama’s [Dec. 1] speech, they had on the jump page a little paragraph that said President Obama will expand the war into Pakistan, if he can work with a weak and dysfunctional Pakistan government. Hello? Who gave him authority to do that? Is he going to the Air Force Academy in a year to talk about the war in Pakistan? We have accepted, as a people, that the president can go anywhere in the world, with any troops, at any time, under any pretext. Period.”

[end excerpt]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page3/naders_utopia_the_world_according_t...

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

I'm so glad Hedges did this interview of Nader. I finally understand what the intended point of Nader's novel is! Super!

The Mining Industrialists (miners/drillers) destroy and thieve and their work and products are a danger to civilization and humankind.

When I wrote about this in a blog a while back, I didn't know the movie AVATAR would come along and give a bigscreen lesson in it.

Since rendition victims are kidnapped and disappear without a trace until the AUTHORITIES decide whether there will be a "booking" and paper trail and a call to a lawyer or family member -- what proof do we have that there are not numerous victims who are PERMANENTLY disappeared??? Afterall, Halliburton et al need lots of so-called contract slaves, and we read women and children are sold into slavery everyday. Where is the proof ALL those entering the rendition process are ever processed through the system? Where is the proof? WE CAN'T KNOW whenever sick systems like rendition are involved. We can't know if some never made it out alive.

This is so horrible.

It is one more vile thing heaped on an already high heap of vile activities our government officials claim is "government". This isn't government! This is the corruption of government by The Most Corrupt of The Corrupt.

Government must be wrested from The Corrupt. We must RESCUE our government from the Cruel and the Insane.

Now I wonder too...

In the last Great Depression, Hollywood cooked up some pretty incredible diversions....

Old 1934 movie "Fashions"--Big musical number with hardly-clad gals in platinum wigs and gorgeous ostrich plumes--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II2h-d78QHo&NR=1

It's no use voting or caring about politics as long as both parties are bought and sold by lobbies.

The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)

But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.

It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.

It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.

It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: right now housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade. And for those who bought in the decade’s middle years — when all the serious people ridiculed warnings that housing prices made no sense, that we were in the middle of a gigantic bubble — well, I feel your pain. Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.

Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like “Dow 36,000” predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.

So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success. Funny how that happened.

For as the decade began, there was an overwhelming sense of economic triumphalism in America’s business and political establishments, a belief that we — more than anyone else in the world — knew what we were doing.

Let me quote from a speech that Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary (and now the Obama administration’s top economist), gave in 1999. “If you ask why the American financial system succeeds,” he said, “at least my reading of the history would be that there is no innovation more important than that of generally accepted accounting principles: it means that every investor gets to see information presented on a comparable basis; that there is discipline on company managements in the way they report and monitor their activities.” And he went on to declare that there is “an ongoing process that really is what makes our capital market work and work as stably as it does.”

So here’s what Mr. Summers — and, to be fair, just about everyone in a policy-making position at the time — believed in 1999: America has honest corporate accounting; this lets investors make good decisions, and also forces management to behave responsibly; and the result is a stable, well-functioning financial system.

What percentage of all this turned out to be true? Zero.

What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.

Even as the dot-com bubble deflated, credulous bankers and investors began inflating a new bubble in housing. Even after famous, admired companies like Enron and WorldCom were revealed to have been Potemkin corporations with facades built out of creative accounting, analysts and investors believed banks’ claims about their own financial strength and bought into the hype about investments they didn’t understand. Even after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers’ expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.

Then there are the politicians. Even now, it’s hard to get Democrats, President Obama included, to deliver a full-throated critique of the practices that got us into the mess we’re in. And as for the Republicans: now that their policies of tax cuts and deregulation have led us into an economic quagmire, their prescription for recovery is — tax cuts and deregulation.

So let’s bid a not at all fond farewell to the Big Zero — the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing. Will the next decade be better? Stay tuned. Oh, and happy New Year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rs...

toniD's Ya Think?

How the filibuster increases cynicism: An interview with Andy Stern

Andy Stern is president of the Service Employees International Union.

You've recently begun talking about the problem of the Senate when you talk about the problems facing health-care reform. A lot of people in the debate seem to have made a similar move. Why?

I think its fair to say that at least the democrats have been campaigning with a dream of having 60 for a very long time. And the American people gave them a gift, and basically they're squandering it. Any organization needs to decide how it wants to hold itself accountable. But to me there's a question of what are the expectations amongst Democrats in terms of governing? What's the social contract?

On the night of the vote, you could see Sen. Dodd and Lieberman having a pleasant conversation behind the speaker. You're saying that in a Senate with clearer social pressures, Lieberman couldn't have walked back in and been greeted warmly after threatening to doom his party's top priority.

Democrats have failed to create a normative set of behaviors. They rely on rules when they should really act like a party. The fact that they have to change the rules because they cant act collectively is sad. Everyone gets to be the general when they feel their will or their issue or their point of view trumps everyone else's.

Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, everybody held up their vote for the purpose of gaining personal leverage. Now, appropriately, Harry Reid has to say this is the nature of legislation. But I never thought the nature was making compromises on rules rather than substance. This was 'I'll use the rule of 60 to gain substantive advantage.' The idea was not that democrats get 60 so everyone can be king or queen for a day. Everyone has been empowered. Why shouldn't Kent Conrad say that he won't raise the debt ceiling unless he gets his commission? It's the culture we've created. When we reward inappropriate behavior, we breed more inappropriate behavior.

The emphasis on social pressures rather than structural incentives is interesting, though. These senators who have both the temperament and the credibility to make threats have enormous leverage over some of the largest bills we've ever passed. It's hard to imagine the social pressures that could compete with that kind of power.

Do senators not appreciate how odd this looks to America? That with 60 votes, we can't have a debate? As obstructionist as the Republicans are, there is no such thing as a Republican filibuster. If there is a filibuster, it means Democrats are filibustering themselves.

What would you do about it?

I would try and change the rules. Close the door and push a reset button. I'd look at chairmanships and rules. If I had an executive board and a set of rules that any one of my members could veto anything, how much power would I have? What can Harry Reid do? If the junior senators are silent and they adapt to this culture, it fuels it.

I think some find it weird that this conversation is paired with arguably the largest legislative achievement in 40 years or so. But watching all this happen, as you say, amidst 60 votes, has been something of a wake-up call. "We need 60 votes" was sort of the last excuse. If you need more than 60 votes, well, you're never going to get that. Effective governance can't be predicated on drawing double aces and then getting two more on the flop.

I think that the changes the country needs to be competitive in the 21st century are different than they were when we were the superpower at every level. The emergence of a global economy and of China and India are raising different questions, and the Senates rules, traditions, and customs -- glorious and historical as they might be -- do not seem suited to the problems my son will have to deal with. It's a profound question about rules. What was so sad was that Democrats had an opportunity here to model effective government, to show they can govern by having full and fair debate and taking votes.

One element of this that doesn't get enough attention, in my view, is the impact it has on the American people. It makes perfect sense for the 60th Senator to increase his leverage by sniping at the bill, but that leaves people with the impression that it's not a good bill, not that Nebraska wants more Medicaid money. Similarly, the last-minute deals you need, and the endless delay that leaves the legislation stuck in an ugly and polarizing legislative process, ends up making people think the product is a lot worse and more radical than it actually is.

I agree. It also masks the complete obstructionist nature of the Republicans. All you hear is about the Democrats fighting with each other. They're negotiating with Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson and the Blue Dogs, and here are the Republicans with no intention of solving any problems, and Democrats can't even set up that contrast because how can you blame the Republicans if the Democrats cant act together?

That leaves people with the storyline that you were saying. The process becomes so debilitating that it overtakes the substance, and the Democrats are allowing the Republicans to skate free. The Republicans become a sideshow when they should be front and center. It not only means we can't get things done, but it means the things we are getting done are not seen through a good lens. People see things in terms of effectiveness. The Democrats are playing exactly into people's most cynical beliefs -- it looks like they're making deals for themselves at the expense of the country and the Republicans are lucky because they get to stand on the sidelines and point.

That's an interesting point. It doesn't look so bad for even the most moderate Republicans to oppose the bill if the more conservative Democrats need to be bought off to support it.

Right. But is it really possible that on every bill before the U.S. Congress there's not a single Republican willing to agree on anything?<

One thing you occasionally hear is that this is just how the Senate works. These traditions are old and hallowed and have worked a long time. But in the market, that answer doesn't really work. If an institution ceases functioning, it gets overtaken by younger, nimbler competitors. Government doesn't work that way, of course, but a lot of people -- including a lot of senators -- think that, as much as possible, it should. But then they turn and present these archaic and ineffective processes as a virtue.

This is what happens when institutions have toxic cultures. they eat themselves alive. It's like a virus. In the market, they would have had to adjust, or they would've gone out of business.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/how_the_filibuster_i...

toniD's Ya Think?

War on Wall Street as Congress Warms to Turn Clock Back to Glass-Steagall
A one-page proposal gaining traction in Congress could turn back the clock on Wall Street 10 years, forcing the breakup of banks, including Citigroup Inc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aeQNTmo2vHpo

-----

Economy in U.S. Poised for Growth Surge as Most Accurate Economist Sees It

The U.S. economy next year will turn in its best performance since 2004 as spending perks up and companies increase investment and hiring, says Dean Maki, the most-accurate forecaster in a Bloomberg News survey.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aLD8QCLF917s

------

Mortgage Rate Anxieties Mean Fannie-Freddie Are in Limbo as Fed Pulls Back
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the linchpins of the American housing market, continue to bedevil the U.S. financial system.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aq5LX25jdSZ4

toniD's Ya Think?

US steps up anti-terror campaign in Yemen: report
Sun Dec 27, 10:40 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against the Al-Qaeda terror network in Yemen, The New York Times reported.

Citing an unnamed former top CIA official, the newspaper said that a year ago the Central Intelligence Agency sent many field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country.

At the same time, some of the most secretive special operations commandos have begun training Yemeni security forces in counterterrorism tactics, the report said.

The Pentagon will be spending more than 70 million dollars over the next 18 months, and using teams of special forces, to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces, more than doubling previous military aid levels, the paper noted.

Yemen became the focus of US attention after a Nigerian man, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day, confessed to training with an Al-Qaeda bombmaker in Yemen, security officials told the US media. Related article: Al-Qaeda in focus

The country has long been a refuge for jihadists, in part because Yemen?s government welcomed returning Islamist fighters who had fought in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the report pointed out.

But Al-Qaeda militants have made much more focused efforts to build a base in Yemen in recent years, drawing recruits from throughout the region and mounting more frequent attacks on foreign embassies and other targets, according to The Times.

The White House is seeking to nurture enduring ties with the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and prod him to combat the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the paper said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091228/pl_afp/usattacksyemenciamilitary/pr...

toniD's Ya Think?

Seniors worry about Medicare Advantage cuts
By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer Matt Sedensky, Associated Press Writer Mon Dec 28, 3:10 am ET

MIAMI – Insurers constantly caution seniors that their Medicare Advantage perks such as hearing aids, dental payments and even gym memberships will fizzle if Democrats get their way and cut government subsidies for them.

But tens of billions of Medicare dollars funneled through insurers also pay for extras that never reach beneficiaries: multimillion-dollar salaries, executive retreats in Hawaii, Scotland and Cancun, and massive expenditures on marketing to lure more customers to the privately administered Advantage plans that serve as an alternative to government-provided Medicare.

The government-subsidized benefits that seniors on Advantage plans receive — often at premiums lower than Medicare premiums — are real, and are legitimately in danger in some cases if Democrats succeed in their health care overhaul.

Medicare Advantage subsidies are on the chopping block to pay for the overhaul. Though there are marked differences between House and Senate versions, both bills would lower payments to private Medicare Advantage plans, which on average cost the government 14 percent more than traditional Medicare.

The harshest critics of the Advantage program say patients are exchanging hassle-free coverage for a plan with cheap perks that may ultimately deny them necessary treatment.

"They're giving special benefits that are valuable," said Mary Johnson, policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan, 1.2-million-member group. "But what people don't understand are the trade-offs."

Though AARP — which lends its name to a Medicare Advantage plan — and other senior advocacy groups support the Advantage cuts, it is likely that at least some seniors will see their premiums rise, benefits cut or plans close.

"I get too upset over it," said 71-year-old Charlotte Casey of Miramar, Fla., who is on an Advantage plan through Coventry Health Care. "The seniors are going to get the worst of it."

Casey first enrolled in a Humana plan, but she dropped it over problems with its prescription drug coverage. She plans to switch from her current plan, too, because her primary care doctor will no longer be covered and she'd have to travel farther for nonemergency hospital services. She has had to fight for payment sometimes, but overall she says it is the best fit for her because she doesn't need a costly MediGap plan to cover what traditional Medicare would not.

"Regular Medicare is the best one, but you have to pay for a supplement," she said. "With this, sometimes you want something and they don't want to give it to you."

Despite the belief that Advantage plans offer broad savings for seniors, a Government Accountability Office report last year found wide differences depending on the plan, including home health service costs that could be up to 84 percent more than traditional Medicare.

A half-million Advantage enrollees were in plans with no co-pay for hospital stays. But a roughly equal number were in plans with high hospital co-pays and no limits on out-of-pocket inpatient expenses, potentially costing patients thousands more.

The disparity was greatest for some of the sickest seniors, those who return to the hospital within 60 days of discharge, the GAO found. Under traditional Medicare, those patients would not pay any deductible. Under many Advantage plans, the deductibles can be steep.

Many of the perks offered by Advantage plans are relatively cheap. Vision coverage cost insurers $3.37 a person each month, on average, according to 2007 filings with the government. Hearing coverage cost less than a dollar.

"The little stuff, the nickle-and-dime stuff, it's good," said John Arline, who was faced with a huge bill for his 84-year-old grandfather Mervyn Urquhart earlier this year. "But people don't need coverage for the nickle-and-dime stuff."

Urquhart, though suffering from Alzheimer's disease, is a reasonably healthy engineering retiree living in Wheatley Heights, N.Y. After treatment for a stomach virus and deep vein thrombosis in January, he was so weak from time in a hospital bed that doctors agreed he needed rehabilitation and physical and occupational therapy.

His Advantage plan turned him down, even though Medicare covers such treatment. Arline and other relatives footed the roughly $12,000 bill for rehab. With it, Urquhart is now able to walk, to feed himself and to live a fairly normal life.

"They violated this patient's rights," Arline said. "They did that because it was cheaper."

Insurers participating in the Advantage program responded to inquiries by Senate Democrats that led to a report this month providing some fuel in their fight against the subsidies. The companies reported, on average, spending more than 15 percent of premium revenues on profits, marketing and corporate expenses, nearly 10 times the rate of traditional Medicare. more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_medic...

toniD's Ya Think?

Iran Police Gun Down Protesters, Protesters Fight Back

HONOLULU - The Obama administration on Sunday strongly condemned the Iranian government's crackdown on protesters, offering its support to civilians "seeking to exercise their universal rights."

National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer on Sunday denounced Tehran's "unjust suppression of civilians" in a crackdown that has killed at least five people, including a nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

"Governing through fear and violence is never just," Hammer said.

Hammer quoted President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, saying "it is telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation."

Witnesses and opposition Web sites said Iranian security forces fired on stone-throwing protesters in the center of Iran's capital Sunday.

The protests began with thousands of opposition supporters chanting "Death to the dictator," a reference to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as they marched in defiance of official warnings of a harsh crackdown on any demonstrations coinciding with Shiite Islam's most important observance, Ashoura. The observance commemorates the seventh-century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints.

Security forces tried but failed to disperse protesters on a central Tehran street with tear gas, baton charges and warning shots. They then opened fire on protesters, said witnesses and the Rah-e-Sabz Web site.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/27/iran-protestors-beat-poli_n_404...

toniD's Ya Think?

here's Rep. Pete King...."

What a way to start the day.

Work today and at least tomorrow.

later : )

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

try this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_medic...

Dean Baker on Washington Journal span 1

I fixed it now.

toniD's Ya Think?

House Democrats May Give Up Public Health Care Option (VIDEO)

(AP) WASHINGTON — Two House Democrats who favor a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, acknowledged Sunday it might have to be sacrificed as negotiators work out a final agreement with the Senate.

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and one who had appealed to President Barack Obama not to yield on the public plan, set out conditions for yielding himself.

Asked during rounds on the Sunday news shows whether he could vote for a final bill that does not embrace a public plan, Clyburn said: "Yes, sir, I can."

Clyburn added: "We want a public option to do basically three things: Create more choice for insurers, create more competition for insurance companies, and to contain costs. So if we can come up with a process by which these three things can be done, then I'm all for it. Whether or not we label it a public option or not is of no consequence."

While insisting "it's not dead," Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said he recognizes realities in the Senate, where Democrats had to scrape up every vote from their side even to pass a bill without a government plan to compete in the private insurance marketplace.

"Before the House was to give up the public option, we would want to be persuaded that there are other mechanisms in whatever bill comes out that will keep down premiums," said Van Hollen, appearing to sketch out a bottom line without a government plan necessarily included. "We've got to make sure that the final product is affordable."

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., underscored the divisions Democrats will need to bridge when negotiators from the House and Senate meet next month to reconcile the two bills. He said there will need to be more give on the House side than the Senate, which took weeks to find the 60 votes needed for passage.

"If we are going to have a final law, it will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version," Menendez asserted.
Story continues below

The Senate's Christmas Eve achievement brought the nation closer than it's been for generations to a new order in health insurance, one that would eventually require nearly all Americans to get coverage, help many pay for it and restrict onerous insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing sickness.

But nothing will change for anyone until the House and Senate can settle on common legislation, pass it and send it to Obama to sign.

The high stakes have both parties hoping they can find a few converts from the other side. Nearly every Republican in Congress has opposed the measures.

"If some of the Republicans would come forward with suggestions – offer a vote or two, or three or four – to take away the need to have every last one of the 60 Democrats, you'd have a much better bill in accordance with the tradition of the Congress, especially the Senate, on bipartisanship," said Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, himself a party switcher.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina voiced similar hope, to opposite ends – "a few Democrats to stand up in the House that maybe didn't before and help us stop this thing."

DeMint, Van Hollen, Menendez and Specter spoke on "Fox News Sunday." Clyburn was on CBS' "Face the Nation" and CNN's "State of the Union."

Watch James Clyburn on "Face The Nation":

Watch CBS News Videos Online

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/27/house-democrats-may-give_n_4043...

toniD's Ya Think?

British medical scientists have demonstrated a revolutionary new operation that can effectively 'cure' persistent high blood pressure and takes under an hour to carry out. - SifyNews

Researchers from Sao Paulo in Brazil have announced that in a group of fifteen insulin-requiring, newly-diagnosed patients with type 1 diabetes, stem cell therapy has preserved beta cell function and eliminated the need for insulin for up to 35 months so far. - DiabetesHeath

Gee, I wonder why all of the innovation for the cures of chronic disease is coming from countries that don't have for profit health care?

Obama’s Foreign-Policy Team Bests Economy Stars: Albert Hunt

Commentary by Albert R. Hunt

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- A year ago, the expectation was that President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team would be a smooth- functioning machine, and the outlook was for turbulence in the national-security arena.

Timothy Geithner, the Treasury-secretary designate, and Lawrence Summers, chosen to head the White House National Economic Council, were unusually able veterans of Washington and financial crises. They were joined by a star-studded cast of economic advisers starting with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, perhaps the most respected financial figure in the world, and prominent academic economists.

By contrast, the national-security advisers featured Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who Obama upset to win the nomination and was still surrounded by aides who thought the wrong person won; Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover from President George W. Bush’s administration, and national- security adviser and former North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander Jim Jones, who barely knew his new boss.

Twelve months later, this conventional wisdom has turned upside down. The foreign-policy team, despite a few glitches, wins high marks and is beset by less rivalry and rancor than most any administration in memory. The vaunted economic team is faulted for poor coordination, drawing even the president’s ire, and an inability to convey an overarching policy.

Deficit vs. Jobs

Two recent anecdotes illustrate this problem. On Dec. 2, as Obama prepared to give a major economic speech at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 8 (and a day after his Afghanistan speech at West Point) he met with policy makers. He heard a familiar reprise of the previous several meetings with budget director Peter Orszag arguing for more emphasis on reducing the deficit and Council of Economic Advisers chief Christina Romer leading the contingent espousing a greater short-term stress on jobs.

The president, by his standards, exploded. “Why are we having this meeting again, the same discussion,” participants quoted him as saying.

Several administration insiders, prominent outside Democratic economic advisers and a few Congressional heavyweights, all worry this is symptomatic of a process that isn’t working well. Summers, they argue, is brilliant on policy and ill-suited for a high-level staff job, which is what the head of the National Economic Council is.

“If you came up with 10 words to describe Larry, coordination and collaboration would not be two,” says one person requesting anonymity who has worked with Summers extensively and admires his intellectual force.
more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=av2Wtqnf1X7E

toniD's Ya Think?

Disruption. And if they are not dealt with, we will get the same ole results! Nothing!

Senate Democrats to W.H.: Drop cap-and-trade

Bruised by the health care debate and worried about what 2010 will bring, moderate Senate Democrats are urging the White House to give up now on any effort to pass a cap-and-trade bill next year.

“I am communicating that in every way I know how,” says Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of at least half a dozen Democrats who've told the White House or their own leaders that it's time to jettison the centerpiece of their party's plan to curb global warming.

The creation of an economy-wide market for greenhouse gas emissions is as the heart of the climate bill that cleared the House earlier this year. But with the health care fight still raging and the economy still hurting, moderate Democrats have little appetite for another sweeping initiative — especially another one likely to pass with little or no Republican support.

“We need to deal with the phenomena of global warming, but I think it’s very difficult in the kind of economic circumstances we have right now,” said Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who called passage of any economy-wide cap and trade “unlikely.”

At a meeting about health care last month, moderates pushed to table climate legislation in favor of a jobs bill that would be an easier sell during the 2010 elections, according to Senate Democratic aides.

“I’d just as soon see that set aside until we work through the economy,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). ?“What we don’t want to do is have anything get in the way of working to resolve the problems with the economy.”

“Climate change in an election year has very poor prospects,” added Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). “I’ve told that to the leadership.”

At least some in the Democratic leadership appear to be listening.

Asked about cap-and-trade last week, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said: “At this point I’d like to see a complete bill but we have to be realistic."

Moderate House Democrats who voted in favor of the cap-and-trade bill just before the July 4th recess came under fire back home, and Republicans have vowed to make the issue a key line of attack during next year’s elections.

Some Democrats would prefer to deny them that target.

“I’d prefer to do energy, because I think you could get a really broad consensus on a lot of energy legislation,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) ?

But supporters of the climate bill say that cap-and-trade is an inextricable part of any energy package for next year.
More on page 2...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30984_Page2.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Gaza damage 'not being addressed'

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said more must be done to repair damage done in the Gaza Strip by Israeli military action one year ago.

Mr Ban said Gazans were being denied "basic human rights" and urged Israel to end its "unacceptable and counterproductive blockade".

He said Israeli well-being depended on conditions improving in the enclave.

Rallies are being held across Gaza to mark a year since the conflict, in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed.

In comments posted on the UN's website, Mr Ban said he was "deeply concerned that neither the issues that led to this conflict nor its worrying aftermath are being addressed".

He said that while levels of violence had been low in the past year, there was still no durable ceasefire after Operation Cast Lead and Gazans were "denied basic human rights".

"The quality and quantity of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza is insufficient, broader economic and reconstruction activity is paralysed," said Mr Ban.

'Hopelessness'

Under Israel's blockade of Gaza, only basic humanitarian supplies are allowed in, meaning Gazans have not been able to obtain materials to repair damaged homes, buildings and infrastructure.

The UN Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) in Gaza told the BBC that public health was suffering as a result of inadequate and unsanitary water supplies, and there had been a rise in infant mortality. more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8431652.stm

toniD's Ya Think?

ebook results for dennis montgomery nevada

Dennis Montgomery (775) 851-4148 12720 Buckthorn Ln, Reno, NV 89511 Map
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Feds probe banker Allen Stanford's ties to Congress

Source: Miami Herald

Just hours after federal agents charged banker Allen Stanford with fleecing investors of $7 billion, the disgraced financier received a message from one of Congress' most powerful members, Pete Sessions.

``I love you and believe in you,'' said the e-mail sent on Feb. 17. ``If you want my ear/voice -- e-mail,'' it said, signed ``Pete.''

The message from the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee represents one of the many ties between members of Congress and the indicted banker that have caught the attention of federal agents.

The money Stanford gave Sessions and other lawmakers was stolen from his clients while he carried out what prosecutors now say was one of the nation's largest Ponzi schemes.

Sessions, 54, a longtime House member from Dallas who met with Stanford during two trips to the Caribbean, did not respond to interview requests.

http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/1399470.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by Fernando on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 9:26am.

I am pleased to see this post. My whole life I have been concerned with this problem. My Father, a Doctor and a (rep) knew this was going on in American medicine but he also wanted the stock market to be his ticket to an opulent and decadent lfe style.(compared to most people). My Dad said that the profit motive was pushing the greatest advances in medicine. He wasn't all bad and in fact my father was more of a country Doctor who started from a point of natural medicine with his pediatric practice... When he came up the food supply wasn't so toxic and the Dow chemicals weren't in the water system and there was no Autism and food allegies weren't so common. he believed in exercise and compassionate living. . Things really went south about the time Kennedy was shot. When the Bush/cheney crashing of the world economy became apparent and he saw how he was being jerked by insurance he finally admitted everything was out of control. "Docky' his nic name started to speak up against this greed in medical industry He was also about 90 when this happened and he said he was to tired to fight. his generation of doctor's were asleep at the wheel in the 60's and 70's enjoying the fruits of their labors. I operated intuitively and when the computer age came along and when science could prove many modalities like Traditional Chinese medicine it became hard for big business/medicine to obsfucate the truth.American medicine is the greediest on the planet. The computer educated patients at a level equal with the average Doctor.. The People have been out FOXED by the corporate machine. Nora's Posts are often centering in on this problem. When the people realize that preventive medicine and environmental cleaning will bring down the cost of care we might start acting like the French or the UK,AU and Canada. I say that the Military Industrial Complex is the medical industrial complex and that is not going to be an easy fight. In the mean time educate the masses,keep this discussion going.There are plenty of real,compassionate healers,and In fact the new young Doctor's coming up are hip to the scene.THE HEALTH CARE BATTLE THIS YEAR IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF WE THE PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP.

China may surpass Germany as world's biggest exporter

Source: China Central TV

Despite the sluggish demand from overseas, China will probably surpass Germany as the world's largest exporter in 2009, said the Ministry of Commerce.

"It's very likely that China will take over Germany this year as the world's biggest exporter and that the share of China's exports in world exports will rise to nine percent this year from 8.86 percent last year," he predicted.

According to the World Trade Organization, during the first half of 2009, China had, for the first time in the past seven years, edged narrowly ahead of Germany in exports. China and Germany exported goods worth $521.7 and $521.6 billion respectively during the January to June period.

Economists predicted such momentum will be sustained during the second half of 2009 and the years ahead.

http://english.cctv.com/20091228/101923.shtml

toniD's Ya Think?

You’re not still thinking about Afghanistan are you? The U.S. may be sending more troops and treasure there, but the real action is in other failed and failing states such as Somalia and Yemen, which has gotten visits from David Petraeus, Joe Lieberman and some of the CIA’s finest in recent months.

Here are a few questions raised by The New York Times article linked below:

1. What’s the point of sending a hundred thousand troops to Afghanistan if the terrorists can just work out of their vacation caves in Yemen?

2. Why do we have to spend billions on Afghanistan if we can suppress terror in Yemen for a lousy $70 million? That’s public radio money. We can find that in the White House couch.

3. Before we go raising another proxy army, can we at least try not to bomb people and prop up their abusive dictators? —PZS

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/the_other_wars_on_terror_200...

Houses in East Jerusalem! this is a provacation and is a reason why israel has a bad reputation. i am late for work you guys figure that out . much love !

China has plenty of Prada and an economy to match, but don’t think Beijing has gone soft on “stability preservation.” A speech published by state media shortly after a prominent dissident was thrown in the can encourages security forces to “Strike hard against hostile forces at home and abroad.”

The exact meaning of that phrase and the accompanying speech is a matter for soothsayers and China scholars, of which there has never been a shortage. What is known is that Big Red is as sensitive as ever to rumblings in the provinces of Xinjian and Tibet, as well as other “hostile forces stirring up chaos and sabotage.” —PZS

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/were_here_were_severe_get_us...

Thank you for posting that. If it had been posted before, I missed it.

Nothing new, so to speak but a very catchy tune.

Pennsylvania Walmart Sued for Videotaping Employees, Customers in Bathroom
A Pennsylvania Walmart Supercenter videotaped employees and customers in a unisex bathroom, several former and current Walmart employees alleged in a lawsuit filed this week.
Seven former and current employees from the Tire and Lube department at the Walmart in Easton, Pa., filed a lawsuit in county court against the Arkansas-based corporation and four local managers Dec. 21.
Several employees discovered an "off-the-shelf" video camera in a store bathroom March 31, 2008, according to the court filing. The unisex bathroom, which also served as a changing room, was used by employees and customers. Customers and employees were not notifed of the surveillance, according to the court filing.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart-sued-secret-bathroom-surveillance...

Fernando she's a beauty - love the dress,
Submitted by jbenet on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 11:54pm.
but I was expecting a look into the engine compartment...
-----------------------
(jbenet--Consider the cheap shot above to be an escalation and expansion of our Wilhelm sound bite war.)

http://www.cowboyway.com/Clips/FillYourHands.wav

NABLUS, West Bank – Israeli troops blasted their way into the homes of three wanted Palestinians on Saturday, killing each in a hail of bullets and straining an uneasy security arrangement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel's military said the three, affiliated with a violent offshoot of Abbas' Fatah movement, were targeted for killing an Israeli settler in a roadside ambush earlier in the week and had turned down a chance to surrender.

In the Gaza Strip, three young men approaching Israel's southern border were killed by shots from an Israeli helicopter gunship. Saturday's deaths made it one of the deadliest days in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Israel waged war on Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers a year ago.

www.yahoonews.com

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Some 125 pilot whales died in New Zealand after stranding on beaches over the weekend — but vacationers and conservation workers managed to coax 43 others back out to sea.

Rescuers monitored the survivors as they swam away from Colville Beach on North Island's Coromandel peninsula, and by Monday morning they were reported well out to sea.

Department of Conservation workers and hundreds of volunteers helped re-float the 43 whales at high tide. The volunteers covered the stranded mammals in sheets and kept them wet through the day.

"Some 63 pilot whales stranded ... but it looks pretty good, we've got 43 live ones," Department of Conservation ranger Steve Bolten said as the pod swam out to sea.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_re_as/as_new_zealand_whales

TEHRAN, Iran – The body of the nephew of Iran's opposition leader — slain in the deadliest day of anti-government protests in months — disappeared from a hospital Monday, and security forces detained at least seven prominent activists, opposition reports said.

Iranian state television reported that eight people had died in the street violence Sunday, but independent confirmation of the casualty toll was virtually impossible because of curbs on media coverage. Tehran residents say restrictions on Internet access were intensified, and Iranians were unable to see opposition Web sites. Cell phone and text messaging services were sporadic.

Reza Mousavi said Monday that the body of his brother, Ali Mousavi, was taken overnight from a Tehran hospital and that nobody had accepted "responsibility" for removing the corpse. Authorities were possibly seeking to deter mourners from organizing more protests around the funeral.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran

Rep. Keith Ellison: Public Option Still Possible If We Get Loud

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said Thursday on Twitter that the fight for the public option was still on. Ellison tweeted: "Don't Quit on #PO. Still very possible if we get loud now."

From the Hill:

Ellison's words match the sentiments of several House Democrats who in recent days have said they would fight hard to keep provisions from their bill in the final proposal after it emerges from conference committee.
But Democratic senators have firmly held that their bill will take precedence over the House's when the two are merged.
House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday said the Senate's bill is so fundamentally flawed that the effort should be scrapped and lawmakers should go back to the drawing board. Slaughter's comments echo Republican calls to kill the bill.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/144803/rep._keith_ellison%3A_public_o...

We had high winds and snow last night. I had to use a blow dryer to get in the car.

Greed Fernando
Submitted by taozen on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 10:51am.

War Vet: I Served 40 Months in Iraq, After Which I Didn't Want to Go Back Home

Since Iraq, I might go several days without sleep. It's hard to function like that. When I do sleep, I often wake up after a bad dream and all I want to do is put on my gear, grab my weapon and hurt someone. On nights like that I can never fall back asleep.

I was in Iraq for almost 40 months straight, so long that all of my neighbors at home moved away. I came home with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a traumatic brain injury (TBI). What follows are some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head since my return. But it’s hard to focus. TBI can do that to a person.

http://www.alternet.org/world/144746/war_vet%3A_i_served_40_months_in_ir...

thats an interesting site. i don't have enough background on it to say but their approach seems to make sense. its interesting to see the variation based on which approach.

i tried the same starting point over several years expecting it to peak in the late 90's early 2000's with the dot com bubble but didn't see that.

I Volunteered For Obama in 2008, But His Support of Landmines Is the Last Straw -
Obama's cruel and pointless refusal to ban child-killing landmines was my personal breaking point against the candidate I worked hard to elect.
When friends of mine learn that I have broken my deal with Barack Obama, and no longer support the "light of the world" (as one English friend calls him), they passionately rally around his presidency, almost pleading with me to give him more time, to keep the faith, and asking, moreover: what choice do we have?
A calling to account is not the same as "a lazy cry of betrayal." There's nothing lazy about it: since day one of the inauguration, many of us have been shocked to see Obama going into reverse on his campaign pledges faster than Lewis Hamilton in an F1 car.
The president may have failed to protect low- and middle-income Americans from the Wall Street predators who created our financial mess -- indeed, they are his closest advisers.

http://www.alternet.org/world/144743/i_volunteered_for_obama_in_2008%2C_...

that greed would fly airplanes into buildings.

Muslims must not pay price for Europe’s identity crisis
By Ramzy Baroud
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Dec 28, 2009, 00:06

It seems that the targeting of Muslims and Islam has become a kind of national theater in France. Unlike theater, however, the disturbing trend can, and will turn ugly -- in fact to a degree it already has -- if the French government doesn’t get a grip on reality. The world, including France, is a complex, multifaceted and fascinatingly diverse place; it cannot be co-opted to fit national specificities determined by a group of irritable far right racists with a distorted interpretation of themselves and others.

Unfortunately, France is not alone; it merely highlights the most obvious manifestation of growing anti-Muslim sentiments throughout Europe. Unearthing the reasons behind the disturbing phenomena is hardly an easy task, for it arguably requires a greater examination of the political, economic and social woes of European states than it does of the ‘shortcomings’ of Islam.

Islam is a great religion in many respects; it has endured for over 1,400 years. Its membership is never confined by skin color, culture, political ideology or geographic boundaries. Its views of antiquity, on equality, women rights and peace are considered progressive even by today’s standards.

The detractors of Islam fail to see all this. If Islam is dissected politically or ‘academically,’ the investigation is done for the sake of destroying its repute, and discrediting or humiliating its followers.

con't

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5405.shtml

Iran Roiled, Crowds Burn Banks, Police Station;
Chanting against Theocrat Khamenei;
But No Revolutionary Alternative Yet

The BBC is reporting that clashes are continuing into Monday morning between protesters and the regime security forces in Tehran and perhaps other cities, marking the first decisive failure of the basij paramilitary to control the streets by early morning of the day of a big demonstration. The number of protesters allegedly killed by security men rose to 9, with dozens wounded and 300 persons allegedly arrested.

www.juancole.com

"

If Only We Could Just Get Back To Work

I'm not even sure who the 'we' in this refers to, but either way it's pretty clear our ruling class is populated with idiots.

"Jobless claims were actually even better than some down here [on Wall Street] thought," cashin said. But he cautioned that political conflict such as the ongoing health-care debate is constituting a form of class warfare -- which could hinder America's return to economic health.

"It's bubbling up again, all this 'Wall Street versis Main Street' stuff...If we could get back to work again instead of pointing fingers, things in this country would go a lot better."

Worth every penny the Swiss taxpayers paid to bail them (UBS) out I'm sure. We chipped in a few billion through the AIG bailout, too.

-Atrios 10:47

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34585752

toniD's Ya Think?

Odds of Airborne Terror
Nate Silver notes that from October 1999 through September 2009 there has been one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 airplane departures.

Furthermore, "the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning."

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terror.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Why Obama Stays Silent

Marc Ambinder notes that by not making a public statement on the terrorist plane attack on Christmas, President Obama is trying a "tough and novel approach" in dealing with such incidents.

Here's the strategy: "Let the authorities do their work. Don't presume; don't panic the country; don't chest-thump, prejudge, interfere, politicize (in an international sense), don't give Al Qaeda (or whomever) a symbolic victory; resist the urge to open the old playbook and run a familiar play."

"In a sense, he is projecting his calm on the American people, just as his advisers are convinced that the Bush Administration projected their panic and anger on the self-same public eight years ago."

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/why_obamas_golfing.php

toniD's Ya Think?

Tea Partiers To Republicans: You Better Call For Full Repeal of Reform, Or Else

It’s now becoming clear that this could be a major issue for Republicans in 2010: the Tea Party movement, as well as high-profile conservatives, are going to demand that candidates call for a full repeal of the Dem healthcare reform bill, presuming it passes.

Multiple figures on the right are beginning to make this demand explicit.

In an interview with me just now, Max Pappas, the Vice President for Public Policy of Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, said that if the bill passes, politicians should call for a full repeal.

“This has an unusual ability to be repealed, and the public is on that side.” he said. “The Republicans are going to have to prove that they are worthy of their votes.”

He emphasized that all the different parts of the bill fit together, and that Congress would need to try to repeal the whole thing.

This could put GOP candidates in a bind. We first reported that the Dem game plan in 2010 is to put politicians on the spot on this question, but Mitch McConnell this Sunday declined to go that far when Jake Tapper asked him if Republican candidates would call for full repeal. “There’s no question that this bill, if it were to become law, and frankly even if it doesn’t become law, will be a big, if not central issue not only in the 2010 election, but in the 2012 election,” he said.

That’s not good enough for right wing activists. Erick Erickson of redstate.org criticized McConnell for dodging the question. “Politicians should actually say ‘yes’ when they mean ‘yes’ and ‘no’ when they mean ‘no,’ instead of dancing around the issue,” he wrote.

Newt Gingrich threw down the same gauntlet on “Meet the Press” yesterday when he said, “I suspect that every Republican in 2010 and 2012 will run on an absolute pledge to repeal this bill.”

By insisting on ideological purity and making a bet that the bill will be universally unpopular, conservatives are leaving Republican candidates with no room for flexibility.

This one isn’t going away.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/uncategorized/tea-partiers-to-republic...

toniD's Ya Think?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8431649.stm

"The Mousavi family had said earlier that Seyed Ali's body had been taken without their permission from the hospital where it was being held.
Opposition sources said the body had been taken by government agents in order to prevent his funeral becoming a rallying point for more protests."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8432297.stm

ON AMERICAN SOIL.... This paragraph, about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab following his failed terrorist attempt about Northwest Airlines Flight 253, seems rather innocuous, because it is rather innocuous.

A Justice Department official said Abdulmutallab was released Sunday from a Michigan hospital where he was treated for burns suffered in the failed bombing. He was in a federal prison in Milan, Mich., according to the Associated Press. He is scheduled to appear in federal court in Michigan on Jan. 8.

As far as I can tell, these bland details do not seem to have caused any meaningful stir whatsoever. Nor should they. But I think we can all imagine the various right-wing hysterics that could come up right about now.

A terrorist tried to blow up an airplane and murder hundreds of Americans ... and we're keeping him on American soil? Won't that make Michigan a magnet for al Qaeda? How can the Obama administration let this security risk exist in a Michigan community? Where's Pete Hoekstra and John Boehner when Michiganders need them?

And Abdulmutallab is going to appear in an American criminal court? What if he uses the platform to spew hateful propaganda? To a borrow a line from Rep. John Shadegg (R) of Arizona, won't the court proceedings encourage al Qaeda members to kidnap the mayor's daughter, the court clerk's kids, and the jailer's siblings?

All of this is, of course, quite foolish, and deliberately so. Abdulmutallab is, by all appearances, a two-bit thug. His presence in a federal prison, and later in a federal criminal court, is not cause for panic. It's simply the justice system at work -- we've done this before; we'll do this again. It's best not to freak out.

But the larger point has broader applicability. Bringing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to a federal court need not terrify Americans, nor should Khalid Sheik Mohammed's proceedings. Putting Abdulmutallab behind bars on American soil does not undermine our national security, and nor would any of the detainees at Gitmo.

If federal plans for Abdulmutallab are not causing right-wing apoplexy, neither should any of the other administration plans regarding due process and detainee transfers.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_12/021659.php

toniD's Ya Think?

STANFORD AND SESSIONS, SITTING IN A TREE.... Sir Allen Stanford is widely recognized as one of the decade's more notorious criminals. The scandal-plagued banker, after all, was allegedly responsible for one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in recent history.

Hoping to cultivate power, influence, and credibility, Stanford also had a habit -- before his arrest -- of making close connections with politicians in Washington. The efforts included generous campaign contributions and lavish Caribbean trips. Stanford's investments paid off in 2001, when he used his connections to help kill legislation intended to crack down on offshore tax havens -- a step Stanford had to take to keep secret his corrupt scheme run through an offshore bank in Antigua.

With that in mind, federal investigators are interested in knowing if members of Congress did special favors for the alleged Ponzi scheme operator. One lawmaker in particular is likely to receive a fair amount of scrutiny.

Just hours after federal agents charged banker Allen Stanford with fleecing investors of $7 billion, the disgraced financier received a message from one of Congress' most powerful members, Pete Sessions.

"I love you and believe in you,'' said the e-mail sent on Feb. 17. "If you want my ear/voice -- e-mail,'' it said, signed "Pete.''

Pete Sessions is, of course, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the man chiefly responsible for orchestrating the GOP strategy for the 2010 midterm elections. (He's also the same lawmaker who said earlier this year he'd like to see Republicans emulate the Taliban.)

Keep in mind, Sessions reached out to Stanford after Stanford was busted by the Securities and Exchange Commission for running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Most sane politicians distance themselves from apparent criminals, but this year, the head of the NRCC reached out to an apparent criminal to tell him he loves him.

Sessions and Stanford reportedly bonded during a couple of trips to the Caribbean. Asked for comment about his Feb. 17 email, the far-right Republican chose not to respond.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_12/021656.php

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by smcgee43 on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 11:41am.
I Volunteered For Obama in 2008...
==
Me too. But really, when I would find an thoughtful conservative to talk to, I would begin with "Obama isn't my first choice either" and then talk about Cheney or whatever would resonate.

My thought now is that we have come some distance. Remember how far was it from Bush to Kucinich? I don't know if now we are half way there yet or not. Wherever there is.
==
Yes those Wilhelm bites were cheap. What do you expect for the Sunday after Christmas? When I listened to your original post examples cb, those high pitched pale imitations were, I thought, in the reporters bit. As I've mulled over your original description of the Wilhelm scream, I have disconnected memories of that scream with more meat to it. There's gotta be examples of the original out there somewhere.

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

Submitted by edna ellen poe on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 11:46am.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5405.shtml

The Muslim world is at war with it's self. There is way too much sectarian violence. France suffered though a summer of riots.In NY there are laws about wearing masks in public. The oil rich Muslim countries Like Saudia Arabia are very bad to the regular citizens. Why do the Muslims leave their countries to come to Europe? It is said they want a better education but those countries have the money to educate the civilians.The shiites and the Suni have been at war with each other for 1,000 years over the correct interpretation of the Koran. The author wants to shift the blame to Europe and America. If Muslims follow American laws not Sharia laws they are welcome here. The stoning to death of women who dare to be different has been posted here many times. Most recently an American Muslim teenager wanted to change her religion .She said that her father wouldn't allow it and she sought protection from the authorities. In that case It was decided to wait another year until she was 18 and free to do what she wants.-----
I will tell you of my family situation with my sister's conversion to Islam.Nico is 60 years old and was a Montesouri teacher.She went through a personality change that could be compared to Scientology. She wears a full covered Black dress and veil even in the states. She wont act without her husband or her Immans permission. She went through a major personality change and has given up here autonomy.Nico won't discuss the War between the two branches. her Husband refuses to meet me. My mother is a Margret Mead Type who told Nico's husband that her religion was taking care of animals. My Mom was a well known dog breader of labs and Shepards and Ms-A and
the other Animal Rights people on this blog would really like her I am sure. After one meeting with my Mom the Husband has refused to meet any other family members. My mate is Jewish and I tend towards a Hindhu Eastern perspective. The Husband Wants my sister's Inheritance. My sister is acting child like and is very naive about politics. Nico was very current and anti war in the sixties. I see and feel wierdness from her and her black husband. They were hired to start a school in Dubaii and when that economy crashed The Black husband was not able to get any work and even my sister said it was a racist thing that made them leave to Cairo. Cairo was as hip as Paris Until the 60's when the Backlash against all things western took hold. The Egyptian Muslim extremists have slaughtered 200,000 Coptic Christians since that time. America and the CIA as agents for the OIL MIC people are certainly GREEDY and looking out to monopolize and control oil monies. Blame cheney and the Bush family for that.When any religion takes away the autonomy of the members I want to run. The Iranian problem was caused by our CIA/OIL MIC in 1953 . I am not saying that America/UK is not the cause of alot of trouble
and our Karma is bad in that regard,but I know we still offer something that the Muslim countries want . Freedom to be different is one . . My advisor and Chinese Doctor says that violence is rampant in Muslim world. Dr Zhang understands why I am concerned. By saying this about the current state of the Muslim world doesn't mean that Israel and the wacko Chrsitians are
any better.. Most people are being manipulated by the Governments and religions that want to control the evolution of humanity to benefit themselves. I am very wary of relgions and governments and America was supposed to have dealt with that in the Constitution. Anger and mistrust will get us nowhere.Humanity is the some total of it's parts. I want the traditions and cultures to continue to blend until we are all coffee colored and we see no difference in any ethnicity or spiritual perspective . It is time to evolve into world citizens and stop being seperate and Nationalistic past any sense of balance. To fix the Global warming and medical/money issues the non sectarian humanistic approach seems obvious.

We take a look at Yemen, the latest target of US-backed military strikes against suspected al-Qaeda sites. ABC News reports that President Obama directly ordered two cruise missile attacks in Yemen last week. According to the New York Times, the United States gave Yemeni forces military hardware and intelligence to carry out the attack. We speak with Yemen expert, Towson University Professor Charles Schmitz. [includes rush transcript]

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/23/report_obama_ordered_us_military_...

"The main target of the attacks, al-Qaeda member Qasim al Rim, was not among those killed, but a local Yemeni official said Sunday that over two-thirds of the dead were civilians, including twenty-three children and seventeen women."

re Submitted by toniD on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 1:22pm.
The Washington Monthly
Political Animal by Steve Benen

"Abdulmutallab is, by all appearances, a two-bit thug."

For me, this kind of vilification misses a much deeper point. This young man is probably more normal than not. The fact is that the distance between normal and aberrant is much closer than people want to recognize. Ask the CIA and The Symbionese Liberation Army. [were the Symbionese ever liberated? Just asking][my point is, how do you tell? This week, "by all appearances," he's "a two-bit thug." Why wasn't it so obvious last week?]

A friend just jetted in from Christmas in Colorado and when I asked how the flight went, she said that the airport inspectors wouldn't let her take a box of hand made chocolates on the flight.
==
-best comment at the link-
"right-wing apoplexy"
Let's replace this phrase with "Republican Feargasm".
Posted by: spudvol on December 28, 2009 at 12:46 PM
==
-and this one too-
And it is old friend DeMint that has been holding up the position of head of TSA, so no one is at the helm of that important branch of government. DeMint is afraid that Obama's nomination might let the workers unionize. We must get our priorities right people. Better to have the country attacked than to let a worker join a union.
Posted by: JS on December 28, 2009 at 2:30 PM |

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

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5568

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

Submitted by jbenet on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 1:47pm.
...I have disconnected memories of that scream with more meat to it. There's gotta be examples of the original out there somewhere.
--------
Before I posted the link to the audio of the article about the Wilhelm from NPR's On The Media (repeated below for your reading and listening pleasure but devoid of the transcript for some unknown reason),

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/12/25/07

I tried to find a stand-alone audio of the Wilhelm. I was surprised to find not THE Wilhelm but several versions of A Wilhelm. The article from On The Media is centered on the original Wilhelm and implies (if not emphatically states) that there is only one, true, long-known and frequently heard Wilhelm to which "the Wilhelm" applies.

Certainly a professional in the sound industry can discern the real McCoy from the imitations and it is my impression (from the NPR article) that slipping the bona fide Wilhelm into a movie has become an inside joke in the Foley community.

Maybe not? Maybe slipping any similarly corny version of the Wilhelm into a movie is sufficient to meet the demands of the inside joke?

It doesn't pass my smell test, though, because movie characters often utter a death knell yell, sometimes with their open mouths clearly pictured in horrific alarm and sometimes when their mouths are not pictured at all. My guess is that the challenge for the inside jokers is to insert the genuine Wilhelm whenever possible, not a cheap (or cheaper) imitation.

Apocalypse Now - had some good screams in it.

just found this

src - movies.tvguide.com
Question: Someone told me that there's this one scream that gets used in tons of movies, but he couldn't tell me anything specific. Is this true, or was he pulling my leg? - Nicole

FlickChick: It's true and it even has a name: It's the Wilhelm Scream. The Wilhelm Scream was first recorded for a 1951 Warner Bros. movie called Distant Drums, for a scene in which a guy gets his arm ripped off by an alligator. But it got its name, bestowed by alert sound engineer Ben Burtt, then a LucasFilm employee, from the character who lets out the recycled yelp in 1953's The Charge at Feather River. Until Burtt found the old stock scream recording while researching existing sound effects for a little sci-fi movie he was working on, it was only used in Warner movies.

But after Burtt put it in Star Wars (1977), word got around the sound-engineer and tech-head community - sometimes encouraged by geek film directors like Joe Dante, Quentin Tarantino and Peter Jackson - and people began slipping it into all kinds of movies. At last count, sharp-eared movie buffs had identified the Wilhelm Scream in more than 100 movies, ranging from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Toy Story (1995) and Planet of the Apes (2001) to Dante's Hollywood Boulevard (1976), Jackson's King Kong (2005), and Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), and Death Proof (2007).

Now you may be wondering, who screamed that immortal scream? The answer appears to be that it was actor-singer Sheb Wooley, probably best known for the novelty hit Purple People Eater. Wooley, who died in 2003, was one of four actors who both appeared in Distant Drums and recorded additional sound bites for the film. (Burtt also dug up that tidbit.)

A 2005 London Times article quotes Wooley's widow, Linda Dotson, saying, "He always used to joke about how he was so great about screaming and dying in films. I did know that his scream had been in some films, the older Westerns, but I did not know about Star Wars and all. He would have gotten such a kick out of this. He would say, 'I may be old but I'm still in the movies.'"

So what makes the Wilhelm Scream so special? Beats me. It's just a sort of strangled "Owwwwwww" - listen http://www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/wilhelm/wilhelmtk4.html for yourself.
~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Hearing and seeing the Wilhelm in rapid succession took me from a giggle to a chuckle to continuous laughter. The video is a wonderful compilation.

I'll be disappointed if you do not toss the Wilhelm 4 into a blog discussion whenever appropriate. If a guy has the rimshot and the Wilhelm in his arsenal, he can reply to damn near anything.

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

Matt Taibbi

I’m always afraid to write about David Brooks, because I worry that my attitude toward this guy is colored by certain strong feelings I have about his appearance — he just looks like a professional groveler/ass-kisser, and every time I see him in public I have to fight off visions of him home at night in his Versace jammies, feverishly jacking off with one hand while caressing in the other an official invitation to, say, a White House event, or a Harvard Club luncheon.

Brooks is the kind of character who has thrived everywhere he’s lived throughout human history; it’s incredibly easy to imagine the nebbishy, hairy-kneed Gaius Domitus Brooksius strolling through Rome and swelling with pride over his new appointment to the post of Senior Licker of the Caligulan butt crack.

A week ago or so a friend pointed out Brooks’s recent toadyist masterpiece, Obama’s Christian Realism, but I didn’t read it until today, not wanting to get upset over the weekend. It’s a pretty awesome piece of apologia, one whose seeming purpose is to hang a cloak of nobility on Obama’s escalation of the Afghan war ...

What’s most disgusting about Brooks is that he has it backwards. “Cynicism” is invading a country for the sorts of reasons that have guided the United States in most of their interventionist actions since World War II. There is a American kid in Afghanistan who is going to die tomorrow because Rahm Emanuel doesn’t want his boss to have to answer toughness questions from somebody like Brian Williams in a 2012 electoral debate. And I’m the cynic here?

Brooks is a perfect example of the kind of spineless Beltway geek we always see beating the war drum at times like these. It’s because nebbish[...]y little dorks like Brooks and Paul Wolfowitz and David Frum got their books dumped in high school that we end up dropping daisy cutters on Afghan shepherds and shipping working-class American kids halfway around the world to get their nuts blown off.

That sounds like a simplistic explanation, but anyone who doesn’t have a keen ear for the pencil-pusher’s eternal quest for macho cred is going to have a hard time understanding Washington politics. Brooks’s columns have always been the easiest way to take the pulse of that particular dynamic, and it sure seems now that bureaucratic momentum for intervention and more intervention is re-inflating the chests of these Beltway generals.

Anyway, I almost can’t wait to see where this goes. Is the world ready for “Barack Obama, Christian Warrior?”

by Roy Edroso of alicublog

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, about the rightblogger rampage over the failed crotch-bombing. Janet Napolitano may be my least favorite cabinet member after Tim Geithner, but her anodyne ass-covering statements were perfectly appropriate for what it is becoming hard to remember was a non-explosion. The conservative response has been to willfully misread her statements, then demand her resignation based on their own misinterpretation.

Their long-term strategy is not yet discernible, but I hope they go for a NEVER FORGET 12/25 angle, and next year start yelling at people who insist on making merry during the anniversary of America's worst terrorist non-attack.

Do they never cease pissing their pants?

Submitted by dr on Tue, 12/29/2009 - 3:02am.
...it’s incredibly easy to imagine the nebbishy, hairy-kneed Gaius Domitus Brooksius strolling through Rome and swelling with pride over his new appointment to the post of Senior Licker of the Caligulan butt crack...
---------
Passages like the one above caused me to recheck the attribution. Sometimes I can't tell Taibbi's words from dr's without a program.