No Broke

Is one broke if one has been robbed blind?

Michael Moore: America Is Not Broke:

"America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer 'bailout' of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'�tat, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true."

_______

Not a corporation in the U.S. that pays 35% in taxes. Imagine if they did. Why, we could support 4-5 more endless occupations of other countries.

ThinkProgress � If Banks Paid Their Full Taxes, We Could Rehire All 132,000 Teachers Laid Off During The Recession — Twice

_______

Yes.

Is it single-payer time yet? California rate hikes!

_______

Get a job, hippies.

Daily Kos: True Confessions of a Good-for-Nothing Freeloader

_______

Candidate for most obvious headline of the year.

Police: Drinking preceded Russian roulette death

_______
_____
___

Love, Love, Love

Don't mess with hackers.

How one man tracked down Anonymous-and paid a heavy price

_______

In the news of no-shite....

Daily Kos: A Foxer Finally Admits: They Just Make #*It Up!

Report: Wal-Mart actually kills jobs, creates taxpayer burdens | Raw Story

_______

Neat.

Experts determine age of book 'nobody can read'

_______



_______
_____
___

Garden of Eden

In news of 'no-fucking-shit':

Warren Buffett: I 'Should Be Paying A Lot More In Taxes'

_______

It is quite shocking how often he repeats right-wing lies.

FDR, Reagan, and Obama - NYTimes.com:

"But Obama buys the right-wing smear.

More and more, it’s becoming clear that progressives who had their hearts set on Obama were engaged in a huge act of self-delusion. Once you got past the soaring rhetoric you noticed, if you actually paid attention to what he said, that he largely accepted the conservative storyline, a view of the world, including a mythological history, that bears little resemblance to the facts.

And confronted with a situation utterly at odds with that storyline … he stayed with the myth."

_______

When Dems do good. Not sure how to react since 'Dems Doing Good' and 'Tigers in the Wild' are similar in their rarity.

Oregon Senator Wyden effectively kills Internet censorship bill | Raw Story:

"It's too early to say for sure, but Oregon Senator Ron Wyden could very well go down in the history books as the man who saved the Internet."

_______

Hemingway's book Garden of Eden is one of the top five most influential books of my life. Yes, this opens up a can of psychological worms, but the fact remains. This book is a huge one for me. I've read it a gazillion times.

Wine wrapped in newspaper....

I had no idea it was being turned into a film. Not sure how I feel about that, but it looks promising if they didn't gin up the story too much.

And Caterina Murino... good lord.

Hemingway's Garden of Eden - Movie Trailers - iTunes

_______
_____
___

Keep Your Socialism Off my Medicare!

An excellently sourced rant. Spot-on.

An open letter to conservatives | AmericanDad's Blog:

"If you're going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they're NOT synonymous!)

You can't cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you've decided you don't like his ideas.

_______

Get it?

Poll: ‘Anti-socialist’ Tea Party activists want government to create jobs | Raw Story:

"Tea Party sympathizers are against government 'socialism' except when it comes to their own jobs, a new poll has found.

Seventy percent of those who identify as Tea Partiers -- a platform that strongly decries government intervention in public life -- want an interventionist government to create jobs, and only about one in three believe Medicaid and Medicare are 'socialist' programs, according to a new Bloomberg poll."

_______

President. Black.

Libertarian Militiaman Who Urged 'Patriots' To Break Windows? He's On Government Disability | Crooks and Liars:

"So the Washington Post interviews this Tea Party leader and former militiaman, the one who urged people to break Democratic party office windows, as if he were just someone with another reasonable point of view that's not worth examining. It's the old 'he said, she said' that's just what we've come to expect from the corporate media.

They don't even mention that he's calling for an armed march on Washington for April 19 - a favorite of extremists because in addition to being the date of the first shots fired at Lexington in the Revolutionary War, it's also the anniversary of the last day of the government siege in Waco and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. No implied threat there, though! If you listen to the above radio interview, his stated position boils down to: Don't make me shoot you."

_______

Somebody found a little liberal Jesus in their heart.

Health-reform rally heckler says he's sorry and scared | The Columbus Dispatch:

"The man who berated and tossed dollar bills at a man with Parkinson's disease during a health care protest last week says he is remorseful and scared.

'I snapped. I absolutely snapped and I can't explain it any other way,' said Chris Reichert of Victorian Village, in a Dispatch interview.

In his first comments on an incident that went viral across the Internet and was repeatedly played on cable television news shows, Reichert said he is sorry about his confrontation with Robert A. Letcher, 60, of the North Side. Letcher, a former nuclear engineer who suffers from Parkinson's, was verbally attacked as he sat before anti-health care demonstrators in front of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy's district office last week.

'He's got every right to do what he did and some may say I did too, but what I did was shameful,' Reichert said. 'I haven't slept since that day.'

_______

Black. President.

Think Progress � Obama bumper sticker fuels violent political road rage in Tennessee.

_______

Hates Noir.

C-Span Caller Rails Against Black Callers (VIDEO) | TPM LiveWire:

"A caller to C-Span this morning, who identified himself as a Republican from North Carolina, accused the network of taking too many phone calls from black people.

'You have black folks calling in on the Republican line, independents. And you have so many of 'em I can't believe this is just an accident. If you keep on with the way you've been programming, you should change your name from C-Span to black-span,' he said. 'I know they have an opinion but I wish that they would be honest and call in on the right line.'"

_______

Pants on Fire O'Lielly.

Think Progress � Forgetting His Attacks On The Netroots, O’Reilly Says Media Are Using ‘Nuts’ To ‘Brand’ Tea Party As ‘Racists:

"O’Reilly’s effort to make a nuanced distinction is surprising, however, considering his past efforts to use cherry-picked user comments to label the netroots as “hatemongerers” like “the Ku Klux Klan” and “the Nazi Party.” In 2007, when JetBlue sponsored the YearlyKos convention, O’Reilly attacked the company, saying that “if the company was sponsoring a David Duke convention, we’d do the same story. Hate is hate, no matter where it comes from.” The two or three comments out from a forum in which hundreds of thousands of people participate were not representative of the site as a whole."

_______

I can't wait till I get the call to train with the elite, undercover Liberal plant brigade. Those darn Baggers/Conservatives just won't show their true colors.... we've got to make them, bygod!

OK.... just a straight up racist.

Bonus Quote of the Day -- Political Wire:

"'These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there. They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never seen any racial slurs.'

-- Dale Robertson, self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party, quoted by the Washington Times.

The only problem? The Washington Independent caught Robertson at a Tea Party rally last month holding a sign with a racial slur."

Sign:

‘N-Word’ Sign Dogs Would-Be Tea Party Leader � The Washington Independent

_______

Shocking.

Military is just one big socialist program anyway.

CREW, VoteVets File IRS, FTC Complaints Against Sean Hannity Charity Freedom Concerts

Hannity’s Freedom charity is ‘huge scam’: conservative blogger:

"Columnist and blogger Debbie Schlussel claimed on Friday that Hannity is profiting from a charity that raises money for severely injured US soldiers and the children of troops killed in action, and she described the Freedom Alliance as 'a huge scam.'

'Less than 20% -- and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively -- of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferret [sic] the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style,' Schlussel writes.

'And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show,' she continues, 'few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes.'"

_______

Republican Celebs. Always good for some crazy.

Fox's Doocy learns the hazards of not vetting guests | Media Matters for America

_______

In news of no-fucking-shit.

Fmr. NYT editor: Fox running ‘propaganda campaign’ against Obama:

"A former executive editor of the New York Times has charged the president of Fox News, Roger Ailes, with 'using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history.'

'Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II,' Howell Raines wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

'Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals,' Raines continued."

_______

Liberal/Commie/Treehugger.

Gashaw Tahir Fights Deforestation, Plants One Million Trees In Ethiopia:

"He gathered young people from his hometown -- only a few dozen at first -- but those young people recruited their friends and family until there were hundreds. On only two acres of land they planted thousands of seedlings. Now, Tahir owns 11,000 acres of Ethiopian land on which his group has planted one million trees.

'You see, one person can enroll other people,' Tahir says. 'Outreach to them for a vision. And he can lead, and other people follow and they can make a difference. You can do a lot. I planted over a million trees, hired over 450 young people, and made a difference in the ecology. That's what I have done. If one man can do this with collaboration, we can make a huge difference.'"

_______

If I come back, I'm going to be pissed if their are Teabaggers in that Universe too.

Robert Lanza, M.D.: Do You Only Live Once? Experiments Suggest Life Not One-Time Deal:

"Biocentrism extends this idea, suggesting that life is a flowering and adventure that transcends our ordinary linear way of thinking. Although our individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the 'me'' feeling is just energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn't go away at death. One of the surest principles of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. When we die, we do so not in the random billiard ball matrix but in the inescapable life matrix. Life has a non-linear dimensionality −- it's like a perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse."

_______
_____
___

Deadly Sins

WTF, seriously? If this happens in a another small town, we've got some serious issues in this country. Meaning, if a pattern develops.

Also.... Oh, Baucus. Is there any bit of conservative ideology that you won't suck off.

I like the '... Max Baucus and other Republican lawmakers...". Yeah, he might as well be Republican.

Reports: Mysterious, unregistered security firm policing Montana town:

"A mysterious, reportedly unregistered and almost entirely unknown private security firm by the name 'American Police Force' is causing a stir in a small Montana town for apparently impersonating local police.

According to a local media report, APF representatives were recently seen in the tiny town of Hardin, Montana, driving black SUV's with a peculiar logo and, inexplicably, 'City of Hardin Police Department' stamped on the door."
-----------

Hardin, home to about 3,400 people, is in the state’s poorest county. Its unoccupied, 460-bed prison cost $27 million to construct. The town made national headlines earlier this year when local officials pleaded to have Guantanamo Bay inmates sent to the jail.

Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus and other Republican lawmakers have stood in the way of moving Guantanamo inmates stateside, claiming they would present an increased security risk. The political calculation has led the White House to caution that its promise to close the controversial facility in January may not materialize on schedule.

_______



_______

What can I add....

GOP councilor would rather abolish police force than see it unionize

_______

In news of the 'no-shit'.

Generals: Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney are scaremongering - Josh Gerstein - POLITICO.com:

"About a dozen retired generals and admirals, trying to add momentum to President Barack Obama’s effort to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, are accusing former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz of scaremongering about the dangers of closing it.

“It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed,” retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, told POLITICO Tuesday."

_______

RS does some of the finest political journalism out there.

The Lie Machine : Rolling Stone

Conservatives were quick to insist that the near-riot — the first of many town-hall mobs that would dominate the headlines in August — was completely spontaneous. The protesters didn't show up "because of some organized group," Rick Scott, the head of Conservatives for Patients' Rights, told reporters. "They're mad about the stimulus bill, the bailout, the economy. Now they see that their health care is about to be taken over by the government."

In fact, Scott's own group had played an integral role in mobilizing the protesters. According to internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone, Conservatives for Patients' Rights had been working closely for weeks as a "coalition partner" with three other right-wing groups in a plot to unleash irate mobs at town-hall meetings just like Doggett's. Far from representing a spontaneous upwelling of populist rage, the protests were tightly orchestrated from the top down by corporate-funded front groups as well as top lobbyists for the health care industry. Call it the return of the Karl Rove playbook: The effort to mobilize the angriest fringe of the Republican base was guided by a conservative dream team that included the same GOP henchmen who Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004, smeared John McCain in 2000, wrote the script for Republican obstructionism on global warming, and harpooned the health care reform effort led by Hillary Clinton in 1993.

_______

Methodology may be iffy, but fun stats none-the-less.

American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins

_______
_____
___

American Idiots

Must read:

Bill Maher: New Rule: Smart President ≠ Smart Country:

Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.

.................
"And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. 'Inside the beltway' thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.

And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin."

_______

Even better:

Daily Kos: Idiot Nation

Ugh. I just have to highlight this again, as perfect example of Everything. Sarah Palin, determined to battle healthcare reform:

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

Seriously? I mean, come the flying monkey hell on. How is it that this hollow-headed dimwit doesn't get run out of town for statements like that? Obama's going to come murder her son?

The whole Republican party can absolutely make stuff up, no question about it, 100% lies, no factual basis whatsoever, outrageous, known false stuff about euthanasia and "death panels" and denying care to people that are no longer "productive", stuff that's right out of the most venomous propaganda playbooks around, weird-assed, depraved, paranoid stuff that would be perfectly at home in a Henry Ford tract about the secret methods of the evil Jews or the like -- and not a goddamned news outlet on the planet is making a story out of the fact that these supposed leaders of their party are gleefully lying through their teeth about all of it, or that the "teabaggers" carrying these selfsame lies into public meetings aren't just angry Americans with a different point of view, but people spreading known, 100%-goddamn-freaking-false-and-false-from-the-very-first-time-it-was-uttered bullshit, and intentionally doing it so loud that they hope nobody can possibly shout them down.

_______

No shit.

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform:

"The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems."

_______

Widening Gyre | TPM

We had a number of emails last night discussing how much of what we're hearing from the right now should be considered incitement. There are numerous instances of anti-reform advocates explicitly comparing President Obama's health care plan to the Holocaust, for instance -- jumping from the hideous and outrageous claim that reform means euthanasia and going from there. We get desensitized to this stuff. But it's worth taking a moment to give that a long think -- comparing the president's reform plan to the Holocaust.

Most significant here is not the right-wing liars and demagogues making this stuff up but the fact that they've convinced a significant number of their followers that this stuff is true. That's a very dangerous situation.

We should also keep in mind that the birther-mania, as comical as it is on one level, is all part of the same fabric with the Hitler and Holocaust comparisons, an aggressive process of denigration and dehumanization, dressed up around claims about paperwork and places of birth, but all escalating and churning the belief of a minority of Americans that President Obama is not a legitimate president but rather a usurper.

It's always important for us to remember what the last eight years have again taught us, which is that America has a very strong civic fabric, one that can withstand, absorb and conquer all manner of ugly behavior. It can take in stride a lot of angry rhetoric, townhall fisticuffs and more.

But as this escalates we should continually be stepping back and thinking retrospectively from the vantage point of the future about where this all seems to be heading.

_______

Working from the same playbook going on 40 years.

Op-Ed Columnist - The Town Hall Mob - NYTimes.com:

"Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites."

_______

Can you trust bing? - The Inquirer:

"IT SEEMS THAT Microsoft tinkers with its Bing search algorithms to push its own marketing.

According to PC World, if you tap in the phrase 'Why is Windows so expensive?' you get as a top link 'Why are Macs so expensive?'

The rest of the links on the first search page answer everything including the price of windows you can see through and little about the price of the Windows OS.

There are a few entries about why Windows hosting providers are so expensive, and one about fish! The five other links on page one are about the expensive price of Macs. The Windows client OS is not even mentioned.

If you do the same search at Google, you get a long list of links about whether the Windows OS is expensive.

_______

Yeah, Australia rocks.

Australian Sex Party gets all-clear:

"Sex and politics have officially come together, with the Australian Sex Party obtaining approval from the Australian Electoral Commission for registration as a political party."

_______
_____
___

Pork by any other name.....

How nice was it to have an actual President actually 'speak' last night. Barrack rocks.

The best part was when Richard Shelby scooted up to Obama when Obama was entering the hall. Shelby looked like he was apologizing in that special Republican way for the birth certificate gaffe and Obama graciously accepted the apology. Republicans in general last night upon Obama's entrance looked like a bunch of school girls trying to get in a hand shake.

Once you go Barrack....

Another reason Obama rocks:

"Dear President Obama": The President Reads 10 Letters a Day from the Public, With Policy Ramifications:

"Every day President Barack Obama is handed a special purple folder. The folder contains ten letters, and every day President Obama takes time to read them.

Are they from world leaders? From members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Members of the intelligence community?

No, these letters have been culled from the thousands the White House Correspondence Office receives each day from Americans who have taken the time to sit down and write to their president."

_______

Your liberal media... not so liberal.

File this under 'no-shit'.

'Self-censoring' journalists gave visual nod to GOP: study:

"Journalists, so concerned with being accused of having a liberal agenda, will at times overreact by self-censoring themselves, resulting in more favorable coverage of Republicans, a new analysis of television coverage finds.

A book by two Indiana University professors details their study of the three broadcast networks' -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- presidential campaign coverage from 1992 to 2004. According to the analysis, the coverage favored Republican candidates in each election.

'We don't think this is journalists conspiring to favor Republicans. We think they're just so beat up and tired of being accused of a liberal bias that they unknowingly give Republicans the benefit in coverage,' said Maria Elizabeth Grabe, an associate professor at IU, who along with Associate Professor Erik Bucy, wrote Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections. 'It's self-censorship that journalists might be imposing on themselves.'"

_______

Amen

Torture Commission Senate | Salon News:

"'We have this American government, which has an architecture and a shape and a system that drives it and constrains it and that keeps it honest,' he said. 'And what happened is that the Bush administration figured out a lot of ways to tunnel through the walls and sneak over the fences. So now we need to go back and say, 'We have got to plant those walls deeper so you can not tunnel under them.' We've got to spotlight how they did it,' Whitehouse explained. 'The ultimate goal in this is to protect and enhance American democracy.'"

_______

Republicans and Blue Dogs.... workin' on the important stuff.

House Reps Want To Ban Products That Beat Drug Tests:

"Hoping to ride on the tattered coattails of Alex Rodriguez, three members of Congress plan to introduce legislation to ban products intended to help a person beat a drug test. Republican Reps. Jean Schmidt (Ohio), Lee Terry (Nebraska) and Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel (N.Y.) make the argument, in a letter to colleagues, that if Rodriguez couldn't get away with using drugs, then neither should ordinary Americans."

_______

At least be prepared with something?!? Jeez.

"This bill is full of pork. Bacon is literally hanging off the side of it. Pork, pork, pork, PORK!!!"

"Name one piece of pork"

"Uhhhhhhh......."

Classic conservative noise. Sound and fury signifying nothing.

_______

Nice site

Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures

_______
_____
___

Hungry Like the Mountian Lion

Congratulations to one of the sweetest and most talented men on the planet. Well deserved.

I'll be looking at this honor a bit more in-depth in tomorrow's DBT WIR.

Oldham heads to hall of fame | TimesDaily.com | Florence, AL:

"Spooner Oldham has spent 50 years in the music business, and in April he will be recognized for his legendary career when he's inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."

_______

Jack Bauer! Jack Bauer! Jack Bauer!

Fantasy land they remain.

Brandon Friedman: Distraught Conservatives Retreating into the Realm of Fantasy:

"I'm not a psychologist, but this is really fascinating if you put it all together: It appears that distraught conservative pundits and bloggers are actually in the midst of collectively retreating into the world of fantasy as a psychological defense mechanism. Let's take a look at three recent exhibits that illustrate what I'm talking about."

_______

Speaking of Republicans... and redundant, redundant.

Feces-throwing monkey on the loose in Tampa Bay

_______

Good! The only Republican I'll be pulling for in aught 10.

Conservative group takes on Reid - Alex Isenstadt - Politico.com:

"A conservative organization is set to launch an all-out effort aimed at beating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010."

_______

Real America. Small town values. V-PILF land.

Too much sex.... Too much Jesus.

The Stranger | Slog | "A Pedophile's Paradise":

"This morning, 43 Alaskan Natives filed a lawsuit against the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), claiming a widespread conspiracy to dump pedophile priests in small Alaskan towns and shelter them from exposure."

_______

A block away from one of my old digs and right on my old mountain bike trail.

Mountain lion in Bennett Valley . Santa Rosa, CA:

"A mountain lion apparently is prowling the hills sandwiched between Santa Rosa’s Bennett Valley Golf Course and Annadel State Park, an area filled with dozens of homes.

The remains of a deer were found Friday near in a home’s backyard in the hillside neighborhood, which backs into open space."

_______

This is very cool.

_______
_____
___

ABC. Easy as 123

Keating 5.... Jackson 5 it ain't.

Take a little time on your lunch break today to learn how super-awesome, country first, ethical-tastic McSame is.

_______

It's 'fear' time! Feel the conservative election fear! An American Tradition.

McCain's Desperate Claim: Obama is Dangerous. Vote for Me If You Want to Live!:

"The McCain campaign is all set to roll out its message for the last 30 days of the campaign: 'We may not be good for your bank account, your mortgage, your health care, or your job security -- but none of that will matter if you are dead. John McCain: If You Want to Live.'

It's coming a little earlier than expected, but with an imploding economy and no solutions from the McCain camp other than yet another round of tax cuts, Team McCain is hitting the GOP's default key: Be Very Afraid!"

_______

Via PH.

When you're pissing off the movie reviewers, you've got a problem.

Guess who's not coming to dinner :: rogerebert.com :: News & comment:

"I do not like you, John McCain. My feeling has nothing to do with issues. It has to do with common courtesy. During the debate, you refused to look Barack Obama in the eye. Indeed, you refused to look at him at all. Even when the two of you shook hands at the start, you used your eyes only to locate his hand, and then gazed past him as you shook it.

Obama is my guy. If you are rude to him, you are rude to me. If you came to dinner at my house and refused to look at or speak with one of my guests, that would be bad manners and I would be offended. Same thing if I went to your house. During the debate, you were America's guest."

_______

Oh, gosh-darnit, fucking 1st Amendment, youbetcha.

Palin staff keep journalists locked inside press area to prevent them from writing ‘negative things.’

_______

Why is V-PILF so heavily involved with secessionist? Dare I say her views of America are 'radical'? Dare I say that her view of America is not the same as yours and mine?

Dare I say that this woman is fucking off her rocker?

_______

Wait... aren't humans mammals?

Half of mammals 'in decline', says extinction Red List:

"BARCELONA (AFP) - Half the world's mammals are declining in population and more than a third probably face extinction, said an update Monday of the 'Red List,' the most respected inventory of biodiversity."

_______

This is why jeebus created contract work.

Many workers do not respect their bosses:

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Almost half of U.S. workers do not respect their boss and only half believe they are competent, according to an online survey released on Friday."

_______

Heh. This one time at band camp......

Director files complaint about UC Davis band:

"On the band's fall retreat in 2007, four drunken band members were caught urinating in a dormitory elevator, and at band picnic day, four others took their uniform pants down and simulated the incident for a photographer. At outdoor rehearsals, male band members dropped their pants to get a laugh, while women sometimes stripped to their bras, he wrote, and one evening practice was disrupted when a bass drummer began performing lap dances."

_______
_____
___

Embarrassingly Superior to Me

Crazy! Newsie people talking the sense on the TV. Does. Not. Compute.

Republicans: Masters at twisting the connotations of good, decent words into something you have to whisper.

Give the Republicans a word such as 'ice-cream' and they'll turn it into pukeshittraitor cream.

They really are that good.

"'Doesn't elite mean 'good?' Is that not something we're looking for in a president anymore? ... I know elite is a bad word in politics. You want to go bowling and throw back a few beers. But the job you're applying for---if you get it and it goes well---they might carve your head into a mountain. If you don't actually think you're better than us, then what the fuck are you doing? ... [N]ot only do I want an elite president, I want someone who is embarrassingly superior to me.'
---Jon Stewart"

_______

New Freakin' Rule:

Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rules On Being An Elitist:

"Referring to voters who America has left behind economically as “bitter” isn’t an insult. In fact, it’s a compliment, acknowledging that they’re smart enough to understand what’s happening to them. The hopeful, now those are some idiots. So let’s separate the bitter – my people – from the idiots. If you think the Democrats are going to take away your Bible, you’re an idiot. If you think they’re going to take away your gun, you’re an armed idiot. And if you think they’re going to take away your gun and give it to a Mexican to kill your God, you’re Bill O’Reilly."

_______

Can Bob Schieffer's comment be the final word on the Made in China, manufactured bullshit flag pin issue. Please?

_______

Why a nation should never blindly support the military. You can support the frontline troops but never trust the leadership.

This NYT article is.... just.... BushCo has destroyed our military from every conceivable angle.

Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand - New York Times:

"A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said."

_______

Welcome to the no-freakin-shit club.

Pentagon institute calls Iraq war 'a major debacle' with outcome 'in doubt':

"WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has become 'a major debacle' and the outcome 'is in doubt' despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute."

_______

Won't pass, but at least it is another step in the right direction. Ron Paul backed it too!

Congressman introduces bill to decriminalize personal marijuana use:

"Congressman Barney Frank today introduced bi-partisan legislation aimed at removing federal restrictions on the individual use of marijuana. One bill would remove federal penalties for the personal use of marijuana, and the other – versions of which Frank has filed in several preceding sessions of Congress – would allow the medical use of marijuana in states that have chosen to make its use for medical purposes legal with a doctor’s recommendation. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) joined Frank as a cosponsor of the federal penalties bill. The cosponsors of the medical marijuana bill are Rep. Paul, along with Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and Sam Farr (D-CA)."

_______
_____
___

The Math Ain't Fuzzy, Baby Blue

Update: A little food for your soul.

Jason Isbell

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Add to My Profile | More Videos

________

So Hillary was the big winner last night?

Not really. There's no way she can overcome the math. All she can (and probably will) do is scorch the earth on her way out or try to steal the election.

Daily Kos: Delegates

So total for the night, thus far, is Clinton 185 and Obama 184. Not all votes are in, so things will change a bit. But at this point, we have a ridiculously tiny one-delegate lead for Clinton for the night, which could either produce her first delegate victory of the election, or be erased by the rest of the still-not-reported Texas caucuses.

Now according to both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, Obama entered the race with a 159 pledged delegate lead. So with some luck, Clinton ends the night about ... 158 157 delegates behind.

More problematic for Clinton, is that today's 370 delegates were about 38 percent of the just-shy of 1,000 remaining delegates before Tuesday's contests. That means we just had over 1/3rd of the remaining delegates allocated, with only marginal-to-none gains in the count for Clinton.

So Clinton is running out of states, and even her "big" victory Tuesday is proving little more than a pyrrhic victory.

_______

And she knows how to steal it because Rove et al have perfected this 'strategy':

The changing of the guards: Bay Minette, election night - Baldwin County NOW - A Gulf Coast Information Source for South Alabama:

"What were exactly the chain of events which continues to irk Democrats, Siegelman supporters, election analysts and the national press when the power of the highest office in Alabama shifted in the middle of the night from incumbent Don Siegelman to Bob Riley?

On the eve of the election, the Siegelman camp believed the governor had secured enough votes in Baldwin County to win the election, but evidently a “glitch,” according to probate court officials, caused Siegelman to lose 6,334 votes from his tally.

Riley, due to the “glitch,” barely edged out the Democratic governor, who was considered a threat by Republican officials.

The following morning a recount seemed reasonable and evident to the Siegelman campaign as two men laid claim to the governorship.

But, the recount was denied by then Attorney General William “Bill” Holcombe Pryor, who was appointed Feb. 20, 2004 - during a congressional recess - to the federal-bench, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush."

_______

No shite:

The Raw Story | Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher:

"High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

'As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,' Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday."

_______

Stupid.

Senator Tom Harkin: Marijuana Makes People Sell Their Children:

"a hilarious reply from Harkin, which noted many of pot's notorious doom scenarios: 'the small child whose parents are so addicted to illegal drugs that they sell everything including perhaps their own children to obtain a fix.' Harkin knows the routine: smoke up, eat gyro, play Legend of Zelda, sell children to pirates for more pot, repeat. The full, horrifying letter, after the jump."

_______

_____

Dead. Drunk. And Naked.

Hadn't had much sleep (not in a good way)... and kinda cranky this morning.

Busy day today but it won't stop me from knocking 'em all!

First, sucky ass Repuplicans and Dear Liar. This falls under the 'no-shite' label:

False statements preceded war - Yahoo! News:

"WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements 'were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.'"

_______

Next pansy ass Democrats. Digby wears them out:

Hullabaloo:

"Oh, and don't worry about congressional prerogatives. They'll rediscover them with a vengeance when there's a Democratic president. They'll investigate his or her every move, calling for special prosecutors and generally behaving like asses, at the smallest provocation by the press if it gives them a chance to pontificate grandly on Tim Russert about their own superiority. They don't have the guts to do it when the Republicans are institutionalizing torture or lying the nation into an illegal invasion of another country, because well, Republicans are mean. But they'll find plenty of things about which to get righteously indignant with the executive when its a Democrat. They'll be in hypervenitlating, bipartisan bliss with their Republican cohorts, elbowing each other to be first to the microphone denouncing the latest shocking presidential failure to dot 'i's and cross 't's.

The villagers love to get out the pitchforks ---- against Democrats. They aren't scared of them. It's good fun."

_______

Crazy ass christians. This is a hilarious clip from Bill Maher's show. Dan Savage rocks.

________

Last but not least, celebrities. This is so wrong but I'm going to do it anyway.....

Dead. Drunk. And Naked.

Heath Ledger found dead in New York:

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Heath Ledger, the gifted leading man acclaimed for his role as a gay cowboy in the film 'Brokeback Mountain,' was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Tuesday, possibly of a drug overdose, police said.

The Australian-born Ledger, 28, was found face down and naked at the foot of the bed by a housekeeper at his apartment in the SoHo neighborhood, police spokesman Paul Browne said."

_______
_____
___

Monkey Love Cost

I can't bring myself to blog about the ridiculousness that is the Iowa caucus. How snow birds from lilly white Iowa get to, essentially, pick the Dem and Rep nominee for the rest of the states (in theory) is baffling to me. My plan: All 50 primaries on one freakin' day.

Luckily, I stopped watching any sort of TV news a long time ago so I won't have to hear a bunch of talking heads with the vapors chirping about who is up and who is down. Their 'conventional wisdom' bores me to tears.

So, let's get a little crazy today. Sexy crazy. Sexy monkey crazy. Sexy monkey paying-for-it crazy.

Another somethin-somethin that should be legalized. I'm voting for whoever will back legalizing weed and prostitution.

Cost of coitus: Male monkeys pay for sex:

"On average, females had sex 1.5 times per hour.

But this rate jumped to 3.5 times per hour immediately after the female had been groomed by a male -- and her partner of choice was likely to be the hunky monkey that did the grooming.

Market forces also acted on the value of the transaction.

If there were several females in the area, the cost of buying sex would drop dramatically -- a male could 'buy' a female for just eight minutes of nit-picking.

But if there were no females around, he would have to groom for up to 16 minutes before sex was offered."

_______

Listed under 'no-shite'.

The egg head that did the study has a pretty good sense of humor, though. Check out the 2nd paragraph. You can never go wrong with a poot joke.

Cell phone users tie up traffic: study:

"CHICAGO (Reuters) - If you're late for work, a driver using a cell phone may be to blame. U.S. researchers said on Wednesday that people who use cell phones while behind the wheel impede the flow of traffic, clog highways and extend commute times.

'It's a bit like breaking wind in the elevator. Everyone suffers,' Peter Martin of the University of Utah's Traffic Lab said in a telephone interview."

______

Hmmmmm.

Caffeine Soap Wakes You Up In The Shower:

"Shower Shock is soap with caffeine in it. You rub it all over that sexy naked body of yours, and next thing you know, you're wide f'ing awake. Simple as that. Each 4 oz bar has approximately 12 200mg caffeine servings."

_______

OK, I can't resist. Must bash the Douchebag-in-chief for being such a heinous doubche bag.

Bonus payments frozen - Army Times:

"The Army has temporarily halted bonus payments for more than 20 enlistment, re-enlistment and service extension programs pending enactment of authorizing legislation.

President Bush, to the surprise of Congress and the Defense Department, vetoed the fiscal 2008 Defense Authorization Act on Dec. 29 after months bargaining with House and Senate leaders."

_______
_____
___

Cussin at Work is Cool!

Dude. Seriously. Hate to keep bagging on organized religion (not really) but these jokers just make it too damn easy.

It's times like these that I wished I believed in Hell.

Half Moon Bay charity boss accused of offering job seeker $500 for sex:

"(10-17) 13:43 PDT HALF MOON BAY - The director of a Half Moon Bay Catholic charity has been charged with a misdemeanor count of soliciting prostitution for allegedly offering a woman $500 to have sex with him after she asked him for help finding a job, prosecutors said."

Michael David Niece pleaded not guilty to the charge Tuesday in San Mateo County Superior Court through his attorney. Niece was not present in court, and an answering machine message at the Half Moon Bay home he shares with his wife indicated they were on a pilgrimage in Italy.

'Pilgrimage in Italy'? Ummmmmm, don't think you can call it a 'pilgrimage' when you're sitting on a beach in the Mediterranean sipping Limoncello.

Gotta love the organizations mission statement:

"We ground our work in a firm belief in the God-given dignity of every person and we take seriously the gospel mandate in Christian scripture to practice the works of mercy," says a statement on the Web site. "We are not a charity in the traditional sense, and the ministry is not just about giving handouts. It is about walking with our brothers and sisters in need, trying to live lives of 'active love' and taking personal responsibility in addressing struggles in life."

'Active love' = '$500 for booty'

_______

Alabama: Karl Rove's petri dish.

Daily Kos: DOJ Scandal Deepens, Siegelman Judge Exposed

Mark Fuller, an Alabama judge appointed by George Bush as been accused of pension fraud, misuse of his office, perjury, criminal conspiracy and obstruction of the FBI's background check for the Federal Judiciary. These charges were made well before Fuller was assigned to prosecute Don Siegelman, former Democratic governor of Alabama.

_______

Eff yeah. It would be good for blog moral if it weren't for all those stupid content filters.

The Raw Story | Swearing at work 'boosts team spirt, morale':

"Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers. Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers."

_______

She was holding the good piss.

Woman Jailed for 50 Days Over Cat Urine:

Cynthia Hunter spent almost two months in jail over a vial of cat urine."

_______
_____
___

The Angry Yoga

Here's an update on the Genarlow Wilson case I blogged about yesterday:

Judge: No 10-year sentence for teen sex :

"ATLANTA - A Georgia judge ordered the release Monday of a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.

I can't help but to think that, in this fucked-up universe we live in, Paris Hilton somehow helped Genarlow. Her early released certainly generated national attention to Genarlow's plight.

Maybe some serious class injustice is occasionally needed to point out where the real fuck-ups are.

The judge did make a fair observation in his ruling. Good on him.

'If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish ... justice being served in a fair and equal manner,' the judge wrote."

_______

Speaking of 'justice'....

Shrub has been packing the Justice Department with two bit lawyers from Pat Robertson's Regent "University". This is a 4th tier law school. These ' christian lawyers' are the very definition of hacks. These are the people entrusted with protecting the constitution; yours and my rights defined under that constitution.

So one would figure that if Shrub has so much confidence in these 4th tier, hardly-a-real-law-school graduates, hacktacular JD's, that he would employ them for his own legal defense, right? Put your money where your mouth is, right? Good for the goose, good for the gander, right?

Wrong.

The American Prospect:

SO HELP ME IVY. The Post reports that President Bush is beefing up his besieged White House legal team with some crack lawyers to defend the administration against a variety of congressional inquiries. As the Post's Peter Baker notes, all eight [of the newly-hired attorneys] received degrees from Ivy League schools or from West Point.

So, when it comes to policy-making over at the so-called Justice Department, a Regent University law degree, like the one held by Monica 'I may have crossed the line' Goodling and a battalion of other fundies, suffices. But when it comes to protecting the president's backside, apparently a divine legal degree is no substitute for an East Coast elite Ivy School pedigree."

_______

Stupid is as stupid does.

Gallup: Majority of Republicans doubt evolution

_______

I've practiced yoga and I agree with this pronouncement:

Yoga May Help Treat Depression, Anxiety Disorders:

"THURSDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- Yoga's postures, controlled breathing and meditation may work together to help ease brains plagued by anxiety or depression, a new study shows.

_______

I practice anger and I agree with this pronouncement:

Anger Fuels Better Decisions:

"The next time you are plagued with indecision and need a clear way out, it might help to get angry, according to a surprising new study.

Despite its reputation as an impetus to rash behavior, anger actually seems to help people make better choices—even aiding those who are usually very poor at thinking rationally. This could be because angry people base their decisions on the cues that 'really matter' rather than things that can be called irrelevant or a distraction."

If I ever open a bar I'll call it The Angry Yoga... or maybe The Angry Stretch.

_______
_____
____

You Can't Cherry-Pick Life

Must watch Special Comment by Olbermann last night. He guts, de-veins, fillets, and slow roasts Rice and the rest of the meat heads.

Special Comment: Secretary Rice, Get Your Facts Straight!:

"On the Sunday Morning Interview Show of Broken-Record on Fox, Dr. Rice spoke a paragraph, which if it had been included in a remedial history paper at the weakest high school in the nation, would've gotten the writer an "F" - maybe an expulsion."

"Get your facts straight."

"....you can't cherry-pick life...."

When will they learn not to use the bogus Hitler comparision? Don't they know Keith will kill them on it?

Olbermann Takes On … Everything, MSNBC News Anchor Is Ruffling Conservative Feathers:

'Countdown' was flying beneath the ratings radar for several years until last August when a speech by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent Olbermann into a fury.

'He said, essentially, that anyone who was critical of the war on terror, or the war in Iraq, or, indeed, of the administration's policies, was equivalent to those who appeased Hitler in the '30s,' he said. 'I'm not a big fan of being called a Nazi appeaser, or even a parallel to a Nazi appeaser. I took that personally.'"

_______

File this under 'no-shit'.

If Bush were CEO, he'd be fired, says business executive:

"Hellman concentrates on six acts of commission or omission by the president that would be grounds for firing of the president were he chief executive officer of a company: failing to be fiscally responsible; making poor strategic decisions; poorly executing those decisions; choosing poor personnel; poor research and development for the future; and, failure to adhere to the institution's charters and bylaws."

_______

Look, I'm down with the talk of 'Barkley as Governor of Alabama' as a novelty. He's great for a quote and is fun to watch on TV. But, come-on, if he gets elected (a black man elected Governor of Alabama? It may happen in my life-time, but I don't expect until I'm in the adult daiper part of my journey) he'll be another shitty Governor of the state per norm. The man didn't even graduate from Auburn which I can't decide if that goes in the plus column or not.

But, as I said, he's always good for a quote.

Charles Barkley: 'It's an easy call. We've got to get out of Iraq.':

"When asked about the war in Iraq, Barkley replied that the situation was simple, 'It's an easy call for me. We've got to get out of Iraq. [Saddam Hussein] is dead. That situation hasn't gotten better. So, anything that the Republicans say about the war in Iraq -- it's just bogus. I mean, it's a terrible situation. We've got a lot of innocent kids getting killed over there, and we're never going to be safe over there.'"

_______

Do Something!

FOX ATTACKS:

"Fox is not a credible news outlet and needs to be stopped. Foxattacks.com will give you the information and tools you need to hit fox where it hurts. The current video presents the erroneous and slanted stories Fox recently ran about Barack Obama. In response, Obama refused to appear on Fox. Watch the video, then follow Obama's lead and... Do Something."

_______

Umm, hello?! Rest of the U.S. The Western states have officially started the prossess of succeeding from the Union. See ya!

5 governors agree to work on climate

The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state agreed that they would develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals.

"In the absence of meaningful federal action, it is up to the states to take action to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat. "Western states are being particularly hard-hit by the effects of climate change."

_______

Oh, man... just.... heh.

Report: Family Ties Sharpton to Thurmond:

"NEW YORK — Geneaologists have found that civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, a newspaper reported Sunday."

_______

Jesus did this. Look away. Nothing to see here. No evolving going on here. Jesus loves me this I know...

Chimps make wood spears, kill smaller animals for food / Females described as problem-solvers in primate culture:

"Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning spears from sticks and using the handcrafted tools to hunt small mammals -- the first routine production of deadly weapons ever seen in nonhuman animals.

The multistep spearmaking practice, documented by researchers in Senegal who spent years gaining the chimpanzees' trust, adds credence to the idea that human forebears fashioned similar tools millions of years ago.

The landmark observation also supports the long-debated proposition that females -- the main makers and users of spears among the Senegalese chimps -- tend to be the innovators and creative problem-solvers in primate culture."

_______
_____
___

Colbert County Values

If you didn't catch the Colbert Report last night then you better have TiVO. And if you don't have TiVO then, what, are you living in Colbert County?

Stephen had the first segment of the Colbert Report in Colbert County last night. Very funny stuff especially when the reporter asked the lady who runs the Helen Keller museum if she wants to hear a Helen Keller joke? She tells him no so he changes his approach by stating that a historian once told him of a Helen Keller occurrance in which she fell down a well and screamed her hands off.

The vid is not up on Comedy Central but I'll let you know when it is.

_______

Don't likey San Francisco Values? Then you'll need to get rid of a few things....

San Francisco Values:

"Did you hear that O'Reilly invented the slur 'San Francisco values'? Yeah, he also thinks he invented sliced bread and fire.

But let's talk about 'San Francisco values', you know -- tolerance, entrepreneurship, and creativity.

Since O'Reilly boycotts everything he hates, I look forward to his boycott of all Bay Area-origin products. Same with every conservative who bashes San Francisco and the Bay Area. So no iPods or anything Apple. No HP computers. No Google. No Yahoo. No eBay. Those conservative bloggers using Blogspot, MovableType, or TypePad? Sorry. Those products are Bay Area-based.

Also no....... "

This list goes on and on and on and on.....

_______

Daily reminder that Republicans, though neutered, are still dicks who bare watching.

President Dick. Virginia, you've got a great one in Webb:

Bush, Webb in testy exchange over Senator-elect's soldier son:

"President Bush and U.S. Senator-elect Jim Webb got into a testy exchange over the status of Webb's soldier son, who is serving in Iraq, The Hill is reporting.

Emily Heil writes that at a White House private dinner just after the election featuring 'newly elected lawmakers,' Bush asked Webb 'how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.' According to a person who was present at the dinner, Webb replied to the President that he 'really wanted to see his son brought back home.'

'I didn't ask you that, I asked how he's doing,' Bush replied, according to The Hill's source."

2nd Republican Dick. And they're seriously considering this POS as their nominee in 08? Fuck him and his divorced horse. Unbelievable. Anyone who agrees with this fool needs to take their ass to Russia.

Gingrich raises alarm at event honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech

"MANCHESTER – Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a 'different set of rules' may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

_______

Paris may of had the idea but a Bay Area firm is building this cool looking building.

A wind-powered skyscraper in Paris:

"PARIS — Developers have selected a design by an award-winning American architect for a bold new building nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower — and powered partly by the wind."

Speaks for itself. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!:

Man Seeks Record for Arm Hair Length:

"Jon Sanford takes good care of his hair, washing it regularly and conditioning it occasionally. Now he might break a record for that hair — on his arms.

One particularly long strand measured 4.1 inches. If the measurement is ruled official by Guinness World Records, Sanford will have topped the previous record of 3.96 inches."

And in the 'no-shit' category:

Women talk three times as much as men, says study:

"It is something one half of the population has long suspected - and the other half always vocally denied. Women really do talk more than men.

In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day - 13,000 more than the average man."