"The hacking scandal currently shaking Rupert Murdoch’s empire will surprise only those who have willfully blinded themselves to that empire’s pernicious influence on journalism in the English-speaking world. Too many of us have winked in amusement at the salaciousness without considering the larger corruption of journalism and politics promulgated by Murdoch Culture on both sides of the Atlantic."
"The Americans are moving on to the semifinals after one of the most riveting games in the history of the Women's World Cup — beating Brazil 5-3 on penalty kicks after a 2-2 tie.
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.
"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.
"Scientists at the CERN research center say their 'Big Bang' project is going beyond all expectations and the first proof of the existence of dimensions beyond the known four could emerge next year."
_______
Not sure why there's resistance to this, and yes, the private sector could roll wit it.
"BUDAPEST — The managing director of the company whose reservoir unleashed a lethal torrent of red sludge on three villages last week has been arrested, the Hungarian prime minister announced before Parliament on Monday."
________
This does not make for a pretty street fight.
The people who like to be nude are usually the people who should not go nude.
But an admission from the federal government that it hasn't been testing Gulf seafood for toxic heavy metals, and news that fishermen are being forced to sign waivers making them liable for toxins in their catch, suggest not everyone is convinced of the safety of Gulf seafood.
Louisiana fishermen's activist Kindra Arnesen says dock owners are asking fishermen to sign waivers that put the full responsibility for toxins found in the catch on the fishermen themselves."
_______
Nothing to see here, folks. I guess BP will spin this as the fish are now easier to catch.
"WASHINGTON — While Americans are bitterly debating the proposed building of a mosque near New York's ground zero, Muslims have been praying for years less than 80 feet from where another hijacked jetliner struck."
Pentagon officials say that no one in the military or the families of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has ever protested.
The redistribution of wealth in this country has been going on for some time now. The problem is that the wealth is being sucked to the top, thus eliminating the middle class. And let's face it, there's nothing more pain-in-the-ass for rich fuckers than the middle class.
Stupid basis for our Democracy (NeoFeudalism: Coming Soon!)
"The gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle- and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past three decades, according to a June 25 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
New data show that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it's been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever."
_______
Obama and Arn's 'Race to the Top' is as big a piece of crap as 'No Child Left Behind'.
Just like its predecessor, RTTT's goal is to eliminate public education thus privatizing all education as charter schools.
It takes a Fake Democrat to enact the NeoCons agenda.
"But reading the popular press, and listening to the chatter from Washington, I have just found out that we are not part of the movement to ‘reform’ schools.
You see we did not do all the stuff that the new ‘reformers’ think is vital to improve our schools. We did not fire the staff, eliminate tenure, or go to pay based on test scores. We did not become a charter school. We did not take away control from a locally elected school board and give it to a mayor. We did not bring in a bunch of two-year short-term teachers.
Nope, we did not do any of these things. Because we knew they would not work."
Keep pissing off the base, Obama/Rahm but don't cry like little bitches when we stay the fuck home.
“If the teachers sit on their hands this fall, it would be a disaster for Obama and the Democrats,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who has studied the teachers’ unions."
"ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve while promising to protect critical migratory bird and caribou habitat.
"A 47-year-old man's friends set his prosthetic leg on fire after he lost a drinking bet, causing him to suffer severe burns to his buttocks and lower back. Dona Ana County sheriff's deputies found the man naked on the side of U.S. Route 70 with his prosthetic leg in flames. Deputies learned that the man and his friends were drinking Monday and bet that whoever drank the least would be set on fire."
The man told investigators that at six beers, he drank the least, and agreed to let his friends set him on fire.
I just removed myself from a 'family' email list after blasting the fuck out of everyone on the list for sending racist, anti-Obama, Teabagger propaganda.
Feels. So. Good. I'll make my own damn family, thank you. Fuck 'blood'.
"'Or would he be looking at what you guys do for a living and realizing that the true wealth lies in the dissemination of information? And my theory would be, if Robin Hood was alive today, he would be looking at the monopolization of media as the greatest enemy.'"
_______
The silly shell games NeoCons play. Wake me up when military spending appears on his ButtCut silliness list.
"It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.
Demagogues scream at people that their government is illegitimate, that their country has been 'taken away,' that their elected officials are 'traitors' and that their freedom is at risk. They have a right to free speech, which I will always defend. But they shouldn't be surprised if some listeners take them literally."
_______
Not too sure about irreversible, but ass whuppins have occurred. Just wish that would show up in what passes as 'news media'.
"Good on ‘em. Let’s be clear; the unpaid internship effectively excludes a wide socioeconomic swath from gaining useful experience and making effective connections in business, government, and NGOs. For example, it was utterly impossible for me to even consider an unpaid internship as an undergraduate; paying the bills was difficult even with loans and full time work. Lots of young people lack significant parental support, and require minimum payment to have any hope of making ends meet. Moreover, even for those with support the “payment” for unpaid internships (connections, experience, and recommendations) often has no lasting effect on the intern’s job prospects. If you’ve ever wondered why DC NGOs and journalistic organizations are dominated by Ivy Leaguers, it ain’t just because they’re smart."
Grayson nails it. Bipartisanship is for suckers. Compromise creates shitty bills. The American public overwhelmingly elected Democrats to implement their ideas. Those ideas shouldn't have to be tainted by any type of 'compromise'.
"Grayson: 'I think that the Democrats have been fooled now for months, by this, this fantasy of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is a concept that's become a Weapon of Mass Distraction to keep us from actually doing what we need to do, to give people in this country universal health care, to give them affordable health care, and to give them comprehensive health care, because a lot of people find they get all the health care they need as long as they don't need any. And that has to end, that's not what America is entitled to, and that's not the kind of America most people want to see, but instead we get bogged down in these nuscances. I don't remember hearing a lot about bipartisanship when we were talking about tax cuts to the rich.'"
________
I'm damn near certain that if I played a game of 'got your nose' with Reid, he'd really fucking believe that I had his nose. Then he'd whine that he couldn't do anything until he had his nose back.
"WASHINGTON - The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service, according to government officials and reports, raising new questions about the 144-year-old agency’s overall mission."
"WASHINGTON — Even when executions are not carried out, the death penalty costs US states hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depleting budgets in the midst of economic crisis, a study released Tuesday found.
'It is doubtful in today's economic climate that any legislature would introduce the death penalty if faced with the reality that each execution would cost taxpayers 25 million dollars, or that the state might spend more than 100 million dollars over several years and produce few or no executions,' argued Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the report's author.
'Surely there are more pressing needs deserving funding,' he wrote, noting that execution was rated among the least effective crime deterrents."
_______
One of the starkest images I've seen regarding how badly we are trashing the place.
"Republican filibuster? Democrats have 60 votes. There is no Republican filibuster, just a Democratic one. The problem is Reid's inability to keep his caucus together. His office can't even be honest about Reid's leadership failures. Fucking liars.
I'll take a Chuck Schumer-run Senate with 57 Democrats (bye bye Reid, Lieberman, and Lincoln) than a Harry Reid-run one with 75 Democrats."
_______
Jackass.
(Classis racist denial-nondenial: I'm not racists, I just don't think races should mix. Piles of black friends, woot!)
"NEW ORLEANS – A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
'I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way,' Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. 'I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.'"
"Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for 'evidence' that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.
There is no need to get bogged down in this phony debate, which itself constitutes an abuse of the fair-mindedness of the rest of the media. One glance at Fox's Web site or five minutes' random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant. The lefty documentary Outfoxed spent a lot of time mustering evidence that Fox managers order reporters to take the Republican side. But after 13 years under Roger Ailes, Fox employees skew news right as instinctively as fish swim."
If health insurance companies ran the mail service, you wouldn't know what it would cost to mail a package, because nobody involved would be able to tell you, even if you spent the better part of a week on the phone with them. You would know what it cost you one only after you received the bill for mailing it. This bill would come one month later, but additional charges would be added a month after that, more additions would come two months later, the total would be revised again in four months, and would be adjusted again after six months. If you want to complain, knock yourself out, but chances are you won't even remember what it was you mailed back in the summer of 2008 or whenever-that-was.
_______
In their haste, the ACORN Kabuki Theatre Troop (aka The GOP) might have gone and effed up their donor train.
So fucking stupid as are all of the Democrats who voted for this stupid fucking bill.
But if it defunds some 'defense' contractors, then well done boys and girls. Well done.
"Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately -- but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to 'any organization' that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops."
_______
Well, of course they do. Telecoms won't be able to rape consumers which means less money in the GOP's pocket.
"Kirk Cameron, best known for his role in the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains, now spends much of his time advocating for far-right Christian evangelical causes.
In a video posted recently to YouTube, Cameron lays out a plan to subvert 'Darwin Day' on November 22, 2009 -- a date marking the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Charles Darwin's 'Origin of Species.' Cameron says that he and like-minded activists plan to deliver 50,000 copies of an altered version of Darwin's book to students at dozens of U.S. universities."
"Margaret, I haven’t laughed so hard since Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin. A few thousand white folks called in sick to work last week so they could parade around the nation’s capital on Saturday and Fox News declares a revolution is underway. My goodness. I don’t know which is more sad – the fact that they couldn’t spell half the words written on their illegible signs or that they all left their white hoods at home. Bring the hippies back. Their protests were much more entertaining.
After a preview screening last week (at which I did a Q&A session with Michael), he came over to my home for a late night bite. Over lasagna, he told me about an incident that occurred while he was filming that exemplifies how the economic crisis cannot be looked at through a left vs right prism.
It happened while he and his crew were shooting the climax of the movie, where Michael decides to mark Wall Street as a crime scene, putting up yellow police tape around some of the financial district's towers of power.
While unfurling the tape in front of a "too big to fail" bank, he became aware of a group of New York's finest approaching him. Moore has a long history of dealing with policemen and security guards trying to shut him down, but in this case he knew he was, however temporarily, defacing private property. And his shooting schedule didn't leave room for a detour to the local jail. So, as the lead officer came closer, Moore tried to deflect him, saying: "Just doing a little comedy here, officer. I'll be gone in a minute, and will clean up before I go."
The officer looked at him for a moment, then leaned in: "Take all the time you need." He nodded to the bank and said, "These guys wiped out a lot of our Police Pension Funds." The officer turned and slowly headed back to his squad car. Moore wanted to put the moment in his film, but realized it could cost the cop his job, and decided to leave it out. "When they've lost the police," he told me, "you know they're in trouble."
_______
White colonizers. Golf course cut from a jungle inhabited by unruly monkeys.
Nothing racists about Roy Blunt, folks. Just your run of the mill policy disagreements.
Congressman Blunt then went on to tell an anecdote which suggested that life in Washington, for GOP members today, is comparable to the lot of imperial British agents in India who had to contend with monkeys running amok on a golf course that the colonial occupiers had carved out of the verdant Indian jungle. There was a problem, the Missouri Representative explained; monkeys would come out of the jungle, grab golf balls, and throw them about. Amidst swelling laughter from his audience Roy Blunt narrated,
"I could go into great and long detail about how many things they did to try and eliminate the 'monkey problem.' But they never got it done, so finally this golf course and this golf course only, they passed a rule and the rule was - you have to play the ball where the monkey throws it. [audience laughter swells] And that is the rule in Washington all the time."
It seemed like a direct window into the psyche of the revanchist wing of the GOP; politics is a golf game and unruly Democrat "monkeys" have swarmed out of the jungle to disrupt the play. Since it is impractical to "eliminate" the monkeys, accommodations will have to be made. Republicans will now "play the ball where the monkey throws it."
_______
I may be frustrated over some policy inaction with Obama, but it is always good to be reminded that elections do have consequences and because the right guy was elected, good things like this happen.
Only a commitment, though. Much work to be done to ensure Net Neutrality.
"The fight for Net Neutrality took a big step forward on Monday with the chair of the Federal Communications Commission announcing plans to expand the rules to protect a free and open Internet.
In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Julius Genachowski said the FCC must be a 'smart cop on the beat” preserving Net Neutrality against increased efforts by providers to block services and applications over both wired and wireless connections."
Sometimes you stumble upon something on the web that makes the world all seem perfectly right.
I had one of those stumbles yesterday when I was introduced to Margaret and Helen.
You really must read the 'About' section of their blog. Here's a snippet:
"My name is Helen Philpot. I am 82 years old. My grandson taught me how to do this so that I could “blog” with my best friend Margaret Schmechtman who I met in college almost 60 years ago. I have three children with my husband Harold. Margaret has three dogs with her husband Howard. I live in Texas and Margaret lives in Maine."
If only I were 40 years older.....
Take some time today to read as many posts as you can from these extraordinary ladies.
"Margaret, I am here to tell you that Dick Cheney is a bitch – a big one too. I mean I thought that Sarah Palin was a bitch, but even she can’t hold a candle to this guy. Have you been listening to him recently?
I would say that it takes some pretty big balls to go on national television again and again to justify torture, but Dick was too much of a wimp to serve his country in the military so I’m pretty sure there ain’t much hanging between his legs. But being a bitch myself, I can assure you that you don’t need balls to be a bitch. You just need to not give a damn what other people think of you… and Dick doesn’t even care what his family and friends think about him much less the rest of us.
I have to admit that I am more than a little perplexed by Dick’s rise to power. He flunked out of Yale – something even George W. Bush didn’t do – and has at least two DWI’s on his record – one more than Georgie Boy. So basically from 2001 to 2009 we had two dry-drunk idiots running the country. But only one of them has had the good sense to shut the hell up since leaving office."
_______
Speaking of 'The Bitch' and his boy....
Shocking. They passed the buck. Just like they did with everything else.
"Last night on Fox News, Vice President Cheney admitted that the Bush administration deliberately decided to pass the buck on GM and let President Obama deal with the problem. Cheney admitted that he thought the “right outcome was going to be bankruptcy,” but that President Bush didn’t want to “be the one who pulled the plug.” Instead, the Bush administration put together a costly auto bailout to stem the tide until President Obama took office:"
_______
One doesn't 'show' empathy. One either has empathy or not.
If you 'work hard' to 'show empathy' then you are not a naturally empathetic person and, thusly, are faking a human trait in order to garner favor with others.
The 2nd part of the statement is so apparently ridiculous that it doesn't warrant comment.
"WASHINGTON — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said Wednesday that his fellow Republicans need to work harder to show 'empathy' if they want to emerge from the political doldrums.
Daniels also called those on the left of the political spectrum 'the meanest people in politics.'"
_______
This is going to be great! Apparently the hyper-activity in the trailer below isn't apparent in the movie. The movie's tone and pace hold true to the book... I hope... and according to Esquire:
Uh oh. Wignuts are going to have to eat yet another shit sandwich. I hope they enjoyed the 'Obama doesn't have the balls to save the Somali Pirate's Captain captive' shit sub they got to snack upon this week.
It's like Sacha Cohen is doing a another movie where he poses as a Republican operative and creates these AstroTurf 'events' and names them the 'Tea Bag Movement' and all of the Republican followers think it the best idea evah.
"Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats."
_______
Your wingnut Supreme Court. 'We don't need no stinkin' Bill of Rights'.
"The evening was devoted to the Bill of Rights, but Justice Thomas did not embrace the document, and he proposed a couple of alternatives.
‘Today there is much focus on our rights,' Justice Thomas said. 'Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.'
'I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances,' he said. 'Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?'
How is this man allowed to serve on our Supreme Court when he seems to have no idea what is contained in the Constitution? He does not 'embrace' the Bill of Rights?
Clarence, here's a radical idea that may not have occurred to you yet: Look at the fucking Constitution, you dipshit. It sure as hell contains a Bill of Rights, but does not contain any sort of Bill of Obligations or Bill of Responsibilities.
There should not be 'equal time' for 'our' Bill of Obligations or Bill of Responsibilities because they do not exist in the Constitution. The founders wisely set forth a Bill of Rights to protect the freedoms of society."
"Bad news for those fearful of 'creeping socialism' in the United States -- only 53 percent of Americans now believe capitalism is the better system, according to a new poll Thursday.
Fully 20 percent in the Rasmussen Reports survey said that socialism was their preferred economic system -- a startling number that suggests growing disaffection as the 'land of the free' fights its worst recession in decades.
Republican critics fret that President Barack Obama's big-spending recovery policies amount to an un-American 'creeping socialism,' but Rasmussen said its findings pointed to suspicion of business and government elites alike.
It noted that in another survey last month, two out of three Americans said that big government and big business often collude to undermine the interests of consumers and investors."
"But in California, pot is such a booming growth industry that lawmakers are being asked to consider its potential as a salve to the state's financial woes. Betty Yee, chairman of the California State Board of Equalization, endorsed a bill in February to regulate the estimated $14 billion marijuana market, citing the state's budget problems. California currently collects $18 million in sales taxes from marijuana dispensaries, and Yee said a regulated pot trade would bring in $1.3 billion.
'I think the tide is starting to turn in terms of marijuana being part of the mainstream,' she said. 'The pieces seem to be falling into place.'"
_______
Padma posing nude (well, kinda. the artsy fartsy variety)! This almost... almost makes believe in a 'god'.... and 'she' is a good 'god'.
"By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Tue May 13, 1:31 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's wave of superdelegate endorsements puts him within reach of the Democratic presidential nomination by the end of the primary season on June 3 — even if he loses half of the remaining six contests."
Really? Can one lose 'half' of something? Wouldn't that be a 'split'?! These effing traditional news media folks are worthless. This contest has been over for months but the traditional media's corporate overlords need something to sell in their out-dated news rags and infotainment shows on the TV.
_______
How much longer is this douchebag in office? This is a sacrifice?
"In a new interview with the Politico today, President Bush says that he has given up golf because of the Iraq war, to show “solidarity” with U.S. troops and their families. He added that “playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal”:"
"Oh Snorg chick. T-shirt temptress. Your siren song is oft the focus of my day dreams. Could it be the short-shorts? Or is it you snaggled smile that sets my heart a flutter. (Call me!)
(I'm spending WAY too much time on MySpace)"
According to Alec at OOTD her name is 'Alice' and she is kind of a big deal.
She's a Braves fan *sigh* but also an Auburn football fan (boo). Alas, the smile would make me forgive a thousand Auburn sins.
"WTB: Do you consider yourself a sports fan? Are you a fan of a particular team or player?
Alice:I am definitely a sports fan! I am a HUGE Andruw Jones fan. I love the braves, always have, and I have always loved Andruw. He’s one of my top 5 favorite people that I don’t actually know. And of course I am an Auburn football fan as well."
