The Feast of the Hostage Taker

What Krugman says... again. Expect another epic cave. But, hey, what do the dirty fucking hippies know anyway, right?

Held Hostage Over the Debt Ceiling - NYTimes.com:

"But the president can’t call the extortionists’ bluff unless he’s willing to confront them, and accept the associated risks.

According to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, Mr. Obama has told Democrats not to draw any “line in the sand” in debt negotiations. Well, count me among those who find this strategy completely baffling. At some point — and sooner rather than later — the president has to draw a line. Otherwise, he might as well move out of the White House, and hand the keys over to the Tea Party."

Daily Kos: Krugman gets this right:

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Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Charges Against the N.S.A.’s Thomas Drake : The New Yorker:

"When President Barack Obama took office, in 2009, he championed the cause of government transparency, and spoke admiringly of whistle-blowers, whom he described as “often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.” But the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness. Including the Drake case, it has been using the Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national-security leaks—more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined. The Drake case is one of two that Obama’s Justice Department has carried over from the Bush years.

Gabriel Schoenfeld, a conservative political scientist at the Hudson Institute, who, in his book “Necessary Secrets” (2010), argues for more stringent protection of classified information, says, “Ironically, Obama has presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history—even more so than Nixon.”"

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Looky! Someone is feeling all mavericky again. Good effort, St. McCain, but your legacy from hence forth will be known as Palinized. And please tell your daughter to stop calling people 'honey'. She's a 20-something from Arizona, not a 50-something waitress from Tupelo.

McCain: Torture did not lead to bin Laden | The Raw Story

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Don't tell me what to never do.

Dr. Mardy Grothe: 'Neverisms': 11 Things You Should Never Do, Never Say, Never Forget (PHOTOS)

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Nowhere Else to Go

The 'having nowhere else to go' battered wife syndrome Democratic mentality will doom us. If we keep electing the same useless assholes over and over again, well....

Labor movement could kick-start a ‘popular revolt’ in the U.S., Nader claims�:

"In an extended interview with Middle East news network Al Jazeera, consumer advocate and repeat U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader suggested that President Barack Obama is not supporting the labor movement because “they have nowhere else to go” except for Democrats.

“If he doesn’t stand up for those millions of workers, we might as well call him a president in a corporate prison called the White House,” Nader said, likening Obama’s “playing” of labor unions to the stretching of an elastic band."

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Amen.

Daily Kos: House Progressives reflect on being in the minority:

"'The sum and substance of our political strategy can't be waiting for them to fuck up.'"

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AMERICAblog News: Foolish consistency: the hobgoblin of little minds:

"These are just two more examples of many messages that the Dems might use to good result if they could just maintain more discipline than a herd of cats.

But recall what Ralph Waldo Emerson said: 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.'

In our current political climate, the quote applies to both parties, but for different reasons. Republicans maintain the foolish consistency -- or better, the fraudulent one -- that they favor small government, low taxes and free enterprise. But the only reason the GOPers succeed in this delusion is because most Dems maintain a foolishly consistent faith in bipartisanship and a similar unwillingness to play hardball. And finally, the mainstream media contributes its own foolish consistency to the train wreck this nation has become: it enables the little minds of both parties by fawning over and identifying with the establishment even as it fails utterly to pursue its principle mission: to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

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Starts at the top.

"America's True Crisis: Zero Vision, Zero Leadership":

"Jim Hightower is right. But, he fails to see that the lack of leadership starts at the White House and inhabits the entire Democratic Party. I do not expect leadership from republicans. The republican idea of leadership is to fuck up the nation in some weird idea that making the rich richer without producing anything of value will benefit all, when instead it harms all."

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Daniel Ellsberg arrested at protest for Bradley Manning:

"Manning 'is being selectively prosecuted, pure and simple,' said Zeese.

Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame and retired US colonel Ann Wrightwere among 30 activists detained amid the peaceful demonstration at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia, according to the group."

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Bully

Candidate Obama promised to protect and support whistle-blowers. President Obama's actions reveal otherwise.

The Abuse of Private Manning - NYTimes.com:

"Philip Crowley, a State Department spokesman, committed the classic mistake of a Washington mouthpiece by telling the truth about Private Manning to a small group (including a blogger): that the military’s treatment of Private Manning was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He resigned on Sunday.

Far more troubling is why President Obama, who has forcefully denounced prisoner abuse, is condoning this treatment. Last week, at a news conference, he said the Pentagon had assured him that the terms of the private’s confinement “are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.” He said he could not go into details, but details are precisely what is needed to explain and correct an abuse that should never have begun."

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Actors, musicians demand end to inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning | The Raw Story

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WTF.

AMERICAblog Gay: Judge asks why Obama admin. seeking unusually tough charges against GetEqual DADT protesters, invokes MLK:

"What happened next was surprising to those in the Courtroom. Judge Facciola got up out of his chair, while pacing, gave a speech about the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. He intimated that there were trumped up charges back in the 50s and 60s, too. And, he evoked the Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham case, Martin Luther King's 'letters from the Birmingham jail' and how civil rights protesters were often brought to court to face stricter charges. The judge clearly linked the protest over Don't Ask, Don't Tell to those earlier civil rights protests."

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If you see this guy at an ass-kicking contest, best run away.

One-Legged Wrestler Wins NCAA Title | ThePostGame

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The perfect response to a bully. Democrats should be forced to watch this until they get it.

Casey Heynes | Bully Video | SportsGrid

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Dream house.

Historic hideway / 1913 home highlighted by quiet location, lower-level speakeasy

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All on the Tit

All on the tit and we are forced to supply the milk.

A Reagan Republican Makes A Case Against The War -- And His Own Party:

"Why, then, have so few other prominent Republicans broken away from the party heterodoxy to publicly oppose the war, like Roberts has?

'They're all on the tit somewhere, aren't they?' Roberts said. 'They all need to be accepted. They're getting grants or they're getting employment. They're getting something and they have to support the line. They're just not independent. I don't know why they can't see the whole thing is a ruse.'"

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Torturing our own on our own soil. Sick.

Daily Kos: Bradley Manning Now "Catatonic"; Obama ENOUGH!

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Heckuva job.

Jerry Cope: NASA Data Strengthens Reports of Toxic Rain on the Gulf Coast From BP Spill

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Hilarious.

Charlie Sheen is not filial - GlobalTimes

Sheen goes on television and boasts that he has two girlfriends, who both sleep in the same bedroom. Is he too poor to set up his wives and mistresses in different houses?

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No, It Is Not Right

There is absolutely no reason to support Barrack Obama or the Democrats. None. Zero. They are exactly the same as Republicans.

If we can't win the tax fight (we can, but Obama and Dems refuses to actually fight) then the next two years will be all about passing crazy-fucking Republican bills (kinda like the past two years).

Democrats poised to cave on tax cuts, extend temporarily for rich | Raw Story

If we switched teams for this argument, the Republicans would win either side because the Dems are completely subservient to their every demand.

And Obama loves him some torture, too.

Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe | Mother Jones

Obama must go.

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Daily Kos: I am a pragmatist, but there is a limit to compromise.:

"Sam Johnson was a Populist at heart, even twenty years after the Populist party was dead and buried. And Johnson and a handful of men in the statehouse knew that they fought losing battle after losing battle, eating beans on their paltry salaries while other legislators ate steak and drank whiskey on the dime of lobbyists.

One time a frustrated compatriot of Johnson's half-jokingly asked why the Hell they didn't just surrender. And Sam Johnson responded that the things worth fighting for are worth fighting for in their own right. Win or lose.

That was 100 years ago. And I wonder now, as I look to my own party, where the Sam E. Johnsons are. Where are the men who will stand up and say, 'No, it's not right that the burden of sacrifice should fall to those least able to bear it while those who enjoy the greatest privilege sacrifice so little.'"

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Nothing I could write could ever match this brutal take-down.

Bob Cesca: Why Exactly Is President Obama Acting Like George McFly?:

"More often than not, I've attempted to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt, both in terms of policy and politics. That's not to say I've embraced every idea -- I most certainly haven't. But even when I've vocally disagreed with a policy position, I've attempted to see the wisdom and pragmatism behind the president's choices.

But this week I have no blessed clue what the hell he's up to. I've tried to look at this from every angle and each one leads me back to weak, weak, weak.

He's following rules that no longer exist, pandering to voter attitudes that will have zero consequence in terms of both his approval numbers and his reelection chances. He's completely off the rails -- well beyond any notion of post-partisanship. In fact, if his intention has been to 'change the way Washington does business,' he's currently and epically failing because I simply can't believe that the new and improved way is this way."

---------

"You'd never know it, though, because whenever a Democrat -- say, Bernie Sanders or Anthony Weiner or the outgoing Alan Grayson, for example -- steps up and forcefully tells the truth, they're assaulted by political hipsters who harrumph and bitch about 'both sides' acting insane and shrill and why can't we all just be nice! You know, nice like the glorious olden days when there weren't witch hunts or duels or beatings or civil wars. Meanwhile, the Republicans line up in lockstep on television and repeat the same lines over and over and over. The media repeats and validates during Sunday morning 'smackdown' often featuring John McCain. The Democrats concede. And the Republicans win the debate -- usually by grinding it into the ground with nonstop crazy and by filibustering everything."

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Obama's FCC:

FCC’s ‘Net neutrality’ plan would permit super-tiers, network traffic throttling | Raw Story

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Not Gonna Doit

Suck or suckier.

The Truth About Obama's Record | Mother Jones:

"Here's the good news: this record of progressive accomplishment officially makes Obama the most successful domestic Democratic president of the last 40 years. And here's the bad news: this shoddy collection of centrist, watered down, corporatist sellout legislation was all it took to make Obama the most successful domestic Democratic president of the last 40 years. Take your pick."

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Keep on punching the hippies and kissing NeoCon ass. We aren't as 'fucking retarded' as asshole Rahm might think.

The last line of the blurb nails it.

Blaming the blogosphere for Democratic Failures | Crooks and Liars

Here's the thing. What matters is whether policy works. It does not matter if what Obama did was more left wing than anything that's been done in a while (though in absolute terms I would argue it mostly wasn't left wing, the health care plan, for example, was essentially a Republican plan from the 90s), what matters is if it was left wing enough (big enough stimulus, smart enough health care plan) to improve people's lives enough that they noticed.

It wasn't, and that's all that matters. Policies such as the stimulus were not done well enough, and everyone from Nobel prize winners with good predictive records like Stiglitz and and Krugman, down to nobodies like me, predicted it at the time. The President hired the wrong people to give him advice, didn't even do as much as many of them wanted, and now we all pay the price.

Sometimes half doesn't work. Half-assed rarely does. All Obama's half assed "left wing" policies have done is discredit the left for another generation. Combined with the ability of the media, Republicans and hysterical Tea Baggers unable to use a dictionary to define him as a "socialist" this means that Obama's policies are seen as left wing, and left wing policies are seen to have failed.

I don't want Obama doing anything I agree with, because he will screw it up and discredit it. In this respect he is like Bush. He is poison because he is incompetent at policy.

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If the Senate Dems don't bust up the filibuster, and if Obama doesn't find a nut sack that allows him to cause serious pain to those Dems who want to prevent change, then game over. NeoCons own the country part and parcel.

So, in short, game over.

House Democrats Rip Senate Colleagues: Their Lethargy Is Going To Cost Us Seats In 2010:

"A trio of progressive House members took direct aim at their colleagues in the Senate on Saturday, declaring that the upper chamber 'sucks,' has a 'toxic effect' on the legislative process, and would cost House Democrats seats in the 2010 election."

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Not gonna do it.

Rep. Nadler: Investigate torture or face road to ‘tyranny’ | Raw Story

"If you don’t prosecute, or if you don’t investigate, then what you’re saying is government can do anything," Nadler argued. "And that’s a formula for tyranny. So I think it’s very important." As for looking forward and not backwards? "By that standard you’d never prosecute any crime."

White House officials and some analysts fear that a drawn-out investigation, which would be virulently fought by Republicans, would drain the capacity of Democrats to advance their domestic agenda.

Nadler argues that to sustain a democracy, it's vitally important to hold lawmakers accountable for their crimes – even more so than with private citizens. "People who break the law, ought to be held accountable," he said, "especially if they’re in government, because they have more power."

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They use to be my alternative to Wal-Mart. No longer. Will not step foot in another Target.

I called and told them so, too. If you feel the same, call. Select 'Store Experience'. Stay on the line until you talk to someone.

Think Progress � Target Donates $150K To Group Supporting Candidate Who Wants To Cut Waiters’ Minimum Wage

Target Store Merchandise : Contact Us : Help : Target: "1-800-440-0680."

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The response to the wing-nut email is priceless

Daily Kos: the email i will probably regret sending--edited with thanks and some responses

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Uncivil War

Can't wait to see what kind of mental gymnastics the fine assholes as FAUX News come up with to explain away the 'not being swarthy and Muslim' part of this group of Conservative Christian Domestic Terrorists.

Militia members charged with police-killing plot - Yahoo! News:

"WASHINGTON – Nine suspects tied to a Christian militia in the Midwest are charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then attack a funeral in the hopes of killing more law enforcement personnel, federal prosecutors said Monday."

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A Marine has a message for these Christian Conservative Domestic Terrorists.

Newsvine - An article I wish I would never have to write - To those calling for a civil war, this Marine wants you to stop, and think...:

"Secondly, Regardless of your political ideology, you've earned the right as US Citizens to say your piece - no matter how wrong it may be. That is your right, and I will give my life to protect it.

But this government of ours is a democracy. We vote for our representatives, and they vote in our interests. Sometimes, the votes don't go our way. That's life, better luck next time. Exhaust your legislative options, and then focus on gaining the required votes and/or seats to achieve your desired legislative vote next election time. That's the way things work.

But the SECOND you start committing acts of violence and vandalism, then you've usurped that Constitution. You in a way have assaulted it. And then you and I (I being every servicemember who has sworn to defend said Constitution) will have a MAJOR PROBLEM."

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Whatever they (Republicans) are blaming others of doing, they (Republicans) are the ones actually 'doing'.

It really is quite simple.

Janine R. Wedel: Shadow Elite: March to War -- The Neocon Playbook, Straight from the Soviet Bloc

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Prepared to be more shocked.

Daily Kos: Is Future Shock And Grief At The Heart Of The Tea Party?:

"Let’s take a look at who the Tea Party members are. It is true they are overwhelmingly white, but they are also overwhelmingly male, and have attended college. They also tend to be from more rural parts of the nation and skew older. Basically, you can describe them as the conservative wing of the Baby Boomers.

All this leads me to wonder, is the Tea Party Movement a Future Shock reaction? For those who don’t know, Future Shock is the idea of Alvin Toffler. He came up with this idea in 1970, and it states that as the pace of change accelerates folks become unable to absorb more change and become 'future shocked'. Toffler predicts that people who become future shocked will act out in bizarre ways; they will be unable to assimilate new information and will, in general, try to retreat from the massive pace of change.

This sounds surprisingly like the actions of the Tea Party members, doesn’t it? For the conservative Baby Boomers this pace of change, a black president, a seeming repudiation of the Republican Party’s war and economic policies, coupled with the economic melt-down and the continuing deterioration of the assumption that white men will run this nation is too much for folks who grew up in a time when change ran slower."

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The Twilight of the Elites - 10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years - TIME:

"In the past decade, nearly every pillar institution in American society — whether it's General Motors, Congress, Wall Street, Major League Baseball, the Catholic Church or the mainstream media — has revealed itself to be corrupt, incompetent or both. And at the root of these failures are the people who run these institutions, the bright and industrious minds who occupy the commanding heights of our meritocratic order. In exchange for their power, status and remuneration, they are supposed to make sure everything operates smoothly. But after a cascade of scandals and catastrophes, that implicit social contract lies in ruins, replaced by mass skepticism, contempt and disillusionment."

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Amen. I've always thought this was one of our more awful local practices.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: End Local Judicial Elections:

"WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is endorsing an end to the election of judges at the state and local levels."

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Daniel Firger: Why We Need a New Bull Moose Movement

A century ago, Roosevelt explained the need for his third-party candidacy:

The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly what should be said on the vital issues of the day.

These words ring truer today than they have in quite some time. Trillions of taxpayer dollars are propping up a financial sector bloated with profits; but Congress, looking ahead to the midterm elections, is too paralyzed to act decisively and help relieve ordinary Americans suffering through the recession. To make matters worse, the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United overturned a century's worth of campaign finance law, giving corporations more influence in elections than they've had since Teddy Roosevelt delivered his Bull Moose speech in Milwaukee.

During Roosevelt's presidency, a conservative Supreme Court comprised of railroad lawyers consistently blocked dozens of progressive federal and state legislative proposals. The pro-corporate Supreme Court appointments of Roosevelt's successor, President Taft, who filled six vacancies, did nothing to temper progressive outrage. True to form, Roosevelt jumped into the fray, decrying the Supreme Court's out-sized role as a barrier to social justice. In his Progressive Party convention speech, Roosevelt declared:

The American people, and not the courts, are to determine their own fundamental
policies. . . . The stick-in-the-bark legalism, the legalism that subordinates equity to technicalities, should be recognized as a potent enemy of justice.

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I lived in this neighborhood for a short period of time, pre-transformation. Place doesn't even look the same.

How we roll:

Hayes Valley: A Former Freeway Turns into a Farm - Look - GOOD:

"The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake left many of San Francisco's urban freeways structurally unsound. (Back then, there were many, carving up the core of the city.) But the flipside was a boon: The teardown of broad segments of elevated road has led to the revitalization—the reinvention, really—of neighborhoods like Hayes Valley. It has also given the city chunks of unused space, including the stretch between Laguna, Octavia, Oak, and Fell Streets, where ramps to the old Central Freeway haven't led anywhere in years."

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FAUX is trying to sign a deal for this to replace 24.... but, for real this time.

Fake TV Game Show 'Tortures' Man, Shocks France : NPR:

"The hostess and a chanting audience urged the players — who had levers in front of them — to send jolts of electricity into the man in the box when he gave an incorrect answer.

Even when the player screamed out in pain for them to stop, 80 percent of the contestants kept zapping him. In reality, the man in the electric chair was an actor who wasn't really being shocked — but the players and the audience did not know that.

The documentary makers say reality television relies increasingly on violent, humiliating and cruel acts to boost ratings. They say they simply wanted to see if we would go so far as to kill someone for entertainment."

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Book Claims CIA LSD Experiment Made French Town Crazy - ABC News

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Again, The Onion writes a piece of satire which quickly turns into the reality of the situation.

Pope Forgives Molested Children | The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

"VATICAN CITY—Calling forgiveness 'one of the highest virtues taught to us by Jesus,' Pope John Paul II issued a papal decree Monday absolving priest-molested children of all sin."

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This is an excellent video on how fucking stupid bottled water is.

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Waterboarding. Now for Kids!

Eradicate? Yes. Because your twisted Christian beliefs are some of the most hateful on the planet.

Christians claim hate crimes law an effort to ‘eradicate’ their beliefs

And the irony flies so far over their heads all they see is a contrail.

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This kind of Jesus-Torture is good beliefs? Why would we ever want to vaccinate the disease of the Bush years from our collected blood?

Because I promise you.... This isn't the first child that's been waterboarded by an American.

Done in your name and done in my name.

Soldier reportedly ‘waterboards’ daughter for failing to recite alphabet | Raw Story:

"A 27-year-old Washington state soldier allegedly admitted Sunday to having held his daughter's head in a bowl of water because she couldn't recite the alphabet.

British newspapers labeled the technique 'waterboarding,'"

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Loyalty DNA? Kill switch? Haven't these people watched or read ANY science fiction?

And I wonder where the Christian outrage is on this one. Seems to be pretty godlike creating immortal beings.

And it'll probably run on Windows. A 9 year old Chinese child will be able to write code to flip the loyalty DNA. Promise.

Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included | Danger Room | Wired.com:

"Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells."

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Yup. Big buzz coming from this article.

Steve Clemons: Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama Presidency

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She reads better than she sounds, but she nailed this one. Too bad her dad is one of the 65+ year old nut jobs.

Meghan McCain Calls Out Tea Party For Racism, On 'The View' (VIDEO):

"McCain: Congressman Tancredo went on TV and he was the first opening speaker and he said, 'People who could not even spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House whose name is Barack Hussein Obama.' And then he went on to say that people at the convention should have to pass literacy tests in order to be able to vote in this country, which is the same thing that happened in the 50's to prevent African Americans from voting. It's innate racism and I think it's why young people are turned off by this movement. And I'm sorry, but revolutions start with young people, not with 65-year-old people talking about literacy tests and people who can't say the word 'vote' in English."

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It'll be legal on the west side soon.

When 70 Percent Support Marijuana Legalization, Starbucks Gets The Message | NEWS JUNKIE POST:

A remarkable scenario played out in the American media recently, and beyond the import of the story itself is the quantum shift in public perception that it illustrates.

A pro-cannabis group based in Colorado called for a nationwide boycott of coffee giant Starbucks after activists spotted a Starbucks logo on the website of a virulently extremist anti-drug organization. After intense negative publicity ensued, Starbucks actually felt moved to issue a denial."

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Bay Area is ground zero for California effort to legalize pot - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

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Neat

David Hume Kennerly: A Forty Year Photographic Retrospective:

"David Hume Kennerly A Forty Year Photographic Retrospective, 1970-2010 opens this Sunday at the Frank Pictures Gallery, in Santa Monica's Bergamot Station.

'When I look at all those places and all those people in these photographs, it's hard to believe I did that,' David Kennerly says. 'I never get over that feeling.'"

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You gotta roll with it.

How to Survive a 35,000-Foot Fall - Plane Crash Survival Guide - Popular Mechanics:

"You’re 6 miles up. You’re alone. You’re falling.

Things are bad. But now’s the time to focus on the good news. (Yes, it goes beyond surviving the destruction of your aircraft.) Although gravity is against you, another force is working in your favor: time. Believe it or not, you’re better off up here than if you’d slipped from the balcony of your high-rise hotel room after one too many drinks last night.

Or at least you will be. Oxygen is scarce at these heights. By now, hypoxia is starting to set in. You’ll be unconscious soon, and you’ll cannonball at least a mile before waking up again. When that happens, remember what you are about to read. The ground, after all, is your next destination."

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Cool.

Mars Pictures: NASA's Most Extraordinary Images EVER (PHOTOS)

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This has been around a while. I just came across it. It buoys my burnout a bit.

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DBT Week in Review - 10/23/09

Patterson Hood/DBT

"Patterson Hood and Friends - 'In the Air Tonight'

Performed by Patterson Hood, Jay Gonzalez, Shonna Tucker, Brad Morgan & John Neff

Recorded at Smith's Olde Bar (5/1/09) for 500 Songs For Kids which supports the Songs For Kids Foundation, www.songsforkidsfoundation.org. Songs for Kids brings musicians to children's hospitals.

Please consider making a donation today!"

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Patterson Hood: Driving Solo : NPR

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that evening sun

THAT EVENING SUN is an amazing film that Patterson contributed original music for.

The film, THAT EVENING SUN has been winning film festivals the world over. It was written and directed by Scott Teems, stars Hal Holbrook (Academy Award nominee for Into ...The Wild) and is co-produced and co-starring Ray McKinnon and Walton Goggins (The Accountant, Crystal, Randy and the Mob). It has won about 8 festivals so far and is about to receive some wider release.

Patterson wrote and performed a brand new song called 'Depression Era' especially for it. He also performs a version of Jimmie Rodgers Blue Yodel #3 (I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down) which inspired the title. The film is based on a short story by William Gay."

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Jason Isbell

Jason and the 400 Unit will be back on the road soon. I'll be seeing them in the beautiful Great American Music Hall. Looking forward to the show.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Shows

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Jason recently performed for the first time on Muscle Shoals to Music Row.

The acoustic version of 'Try' is amazing.

Muscle Shoals to Music Row Live!

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Thanks to Elliot McPherson from the Dexateens for turning me on to Vulture Whale from Birmingham, AL.

Vulture Whale | Birmingham, Alabama

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Our girl Maddy is writing for her college's paper.

Check out some of her excellent work!

Vita Ordinario

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Music

Beth D (Lurleen) interviews CCR! Nice job, Beth!!

Jackson Free Press: Jackson, Mississippi - Music - Bad Moon Rises … Again:

"Creedence Clearwater Revisited formed in 1995. Tell me about that process.
A very good friend of mine, a great guitar player in Los Angeles, turned me on to Steve Gunner, who is our multi-instrumentalist, and then the guy that used to work for a company that I'd had a bass string endorsement with turned me on to his buddy John Tristao. I guess we'd auditioned five or six guys by the time we got around to John, and when we got to him, we just knew that he was the guy who we thought we could put the whole thing together with because he could really sing, and he could sing these songs especially well. There was no weakness. He could own them."

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Hell yeah!

Music Stars Demand Records On Bush Administration's Use Of Music For Torture:

'We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice,' read a statement from REM, 'to now learn that some of our friends' music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge, is horrific. It's anti-American, period.'

Added the hip-hop band The Roots: 'When we found out that music was being used as part of the torture going on at Guantanamo, shackling and beating people -- we were angry. Just as we wouldn't be caught dead allowing Dick Cheney to use our music for his campaigns, you can be damn sure, we wouldn't allow him to use it to torture other human beings. Congress needs to shut Guantanamo down.'"

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Hilarious.

The Superficial - Lil Wayne gets year in prison for gun charges:

"You know, just once I'd like to see a rapper get busted for something original besides the stereotypical gun charges. I understand it's part of their record contract to do time, but would it hurt to spice things up a bit? Maybe ride a tiger to Starbucks. Or, shit, fire white babies out of a cannon, I don't care. Just show me some zazz!"

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Rock ain't rock without the fuck ups.

SFGate: Daily Dish : Wolfmother Star Slams Industry Drug Plans:

"Wolfmother frontman Andrew Stockdale has criticized music industry bosses over plans to withhold pay from artists who are addicted to drugs - insisting the scheme will never work.

A coalition of record label chiefs, led by Marc Marot, former head of Island Records, want to place a legal clause in artists' contracts denying them wages if they are unable to perform due to substance abuse or self harm."

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Surgery Left Phil Collins Unable To Play The Drums:

"HAMBURG — Phil Collins is drumming no more, for now.

The former singer and drummer for Genesis told a German newspaper that since he had surgery in April to repair a dislocated vertebra in his neck, he doesn't have feeling in his fingers and isn't able to pick up his sticks."

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They were still together?

A-ha announces break up | EW.com:

"A-ha is oh-ver. According to the BBC, the 25-year-old Norwegian pop group, famous for “Take On Me,” is splitting up just months after scoring a top ten album on the UK charts. The reason for the break up: The trio are quoted as saying they wanted to pursue “other meaningful aspects of life, be it humanitarian work, politics, or whatever else.”"

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Enter the weekend with some James McMurtry:

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Whitey Strikes Back

A rare moment of Republican truth.

Racist as fuck, but she opened her mouth and some truth slipped out, so kudos Jenkins.

Rep. Jenkins: GOP looking for "great white hope" - Yahoo! News:

"TOPEKA, Kan. – U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins told a recent gathering in northeast Kansas that the Republican Party is looking for a 'great white hope' to help stop the political agenda of the Democratic party and President Barack Obama."

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Fit for Animals.

Op-Ed Columnist - Health Care Fit for Animals - NYTimes.com:

"He flew in corporate jets to industry meetings to plan how to block health reform, he says. He rode in limousines to confabs to concoct messaging to scare the public about reform. But in his heart, he began to have doubts as the business model for insurance evolved in recent years from spreading risk to dumping the risky.

Then in 2007 Mr. Potter attended a premiere of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s excoriating film about the American health care system. Mr. Potter was taking notes so that he could prepare a propaganda counterblast — but he found himself agreeing with a great deal of the film.

A month later, Mr. Potter was back home in Tennessee, visiting his parents, and dropped in on a three-day charity program at a county fairgrounds to provide medical care for patients who could not afford doctors. Long lines of people were waiting in the rain, and patients were being examined and treated in public in stalls intended for livestock."

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Thank god.

My people are multiplying.

Polls show atheists on the rise in America:

"DAVIE, Florida — When South Florida atheists held their first meeting, they were just five friends, having a beer at a bar.

Four years later, they’ve moved to a bigger place — still a bar — to hold their weekly meet-and-greets. Membership is up to almost 500, Darwin Day is in the planning stages and bumper stickers are on sale.

“There is no God, but ice-cream is great,” reads one. “What schools need is a moment of science,” reads another."

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No back to your normally scheduled Republican lying.

Think Progress � Townsend Admits CIA Documents Don’t Back Up Cheney’s Claims About Torture:

"Strikingly, they provide little evidence for Cheney’s claims that the “enhanced interrogation” program run by the CIA provided valuable information. In fact, throughout both documents, many passages — though several are incomplete and circumstantial, actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations."

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Interesting read.

New Theory Questions Why We Sleep - Yahoo! News:

"The purpose of sleep remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science. Although we spend roughly one-third of life asleep, researchers still do not know why.

While sleep is often thought to have evolved to play an unknown but vital role inside the body, a new theory now suggests it actually developed as a method to better deal with the outside world."

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Wild Fields of Crunch Berries

No you two assholes, it's not the actual picture, it's the goddamn content of the picture. It's the act that the pictures portray not the physical existence of the picture.

Why don't you focus on holding accountable the people who allowed the content of the pictures to occur?

By hiding the pictures, you're not doing away with the actual content.

These two douchebags will do anything for camera time.

Graham, Lieberman threaten Senate shut down over abuse photo bill:

"In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-C.T.) threatened to shut down the Senate by blocking any further legislation unless their bill preventing the release of any further detainee abuse photos is passed.

Both men said they fear more disclosure would trigger heightened violence against Americans overseas"

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FAUX News: Promoting domestic terrorism fair and balancey-like.

O'Reilly and Fox News will have more right-wing vigilantism to explain | Media Matters for America:

"If Fox News is going to continue to traffic in hateful rhetoric, then folks at Fox News, as well as their apologists in the GOP Noise Machine, are going to have to come up with better talking points to spin away the atmosphere of vigilantism fomented by their words and actions."

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Someone snapped WAY too far into a Slim Jim.

I blame this guy.

3 missing, 20 hurt in NC Slim Jim plant collapse - Los Angeles Times

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'A' for effort... dude.

Man accused of trying to smuggle pot on surfboard:

"The Border Patrol said a man has been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle 24 pounds of marijuana ashore on his surfboard off the San Diego County coast. The man was spotted Sunday morning about 200 yards off Imperial Beach, near the Mexican border."

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Another 'A' for effort and an homage to 'Jerome'. Those who know, know.

The Mommy Files : Where the wild crunch berries grow:

"Guess what? The multicolored balls in Cap'N Crunch's Crunch Berries aren't real berries.

If you have ever purchased this cereal for your family, you probably already know this but that's not the case with San Diego woman Janine Sugawara.

Sugawara bought the cereal for four years believing crunch berries were a real fruit, according to the blog Lowering the Bar. When she learned the purple, teal, and green berries were actually cereal balls flavored with strawberry concentrate, she cried fraud and sued the manufacturer."

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Cookie Monsters

Your Conservative Domestic Terrorists.... and the person who killed Tiller is also a pretty bad person, too.

FAUX must purchase a lot of detergent to wash all of the blood of its hands.

O'Reilly's campaign against murdered doctor | Salon News:

"This is where O'Reilly's campaign against George Tiller becomes dangerous. While he never advocated anything violent or illegal, the Fox bully repeatedly portrayed the doctor as a murderer on the loose, allowed to do whatever he wanted by corrupt and decadent authorities. 'Also, it looks like Dr. Tiller, who some call Tiller the Baby Killer, is spending a large amount of money in order to get Mr. Morrison elected. That opens up all kinds of questions,' said O'Reilly on Nov. 6, 2006, in one of many suggestions that Tiller was improperly influencing the election."

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God forbid we allow health care to be run by a bunch of government bureaucrats.... that we elect... and, you know, can hold accountable at the ballot box.

Thank jeebus for the free market.

Aventis to pay $95 million to settle fraud charge:

"Pharmaceutical giant Aventis must pay more than 95 million dollars in an out-of-court settlement, after overcharging US and local health agencies for medications destined for indigent patients, federal prosecutors said Thursday."

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Know your evil-fuck health care scalawags.

VIDEO REPORT: Who Is Rick Scott And What Type Of Health Care System Is He Advocating?:

"Rick Scott is not only known for his efforts to build the “McDonald’s” of the health care industry, but his company was also forced to pay a $1.7 billion fraud settlement, the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, for systematically stealing from taxpayers.

ThinkProgress has compiled a video report detailing who Rick Scott is, and what type of health care system he is defending. Watch it:"

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Cookies. Yes, cookies.

Famous Amos has more success extracting information than torture does.

The E&P Pub: No Torture Needed -- Cookies Did the Job:

"Fascinating piece coming in tomorrow's TIME magazine. Reporter Bobby Ghosh writes, “The most successful interrogation of an al-Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or ‘walling’ and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies.”"

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Book cooking.

Drug Czar's Pot-Potency Claims Go Up In Smoke:

"A newly released report about marijuana potency undermines previous claims by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) that the drug's potency has hit record highs.

In May, the media ran wild with stories of highly potent pot sweeping the nation, as the ONDCP announced that their testing showed average marijuana potency had topped 10 percent THC-level for the first time ever. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana.

'According to the latest data on marijuana samples analyzed to date, the average amount of THC in seized samples has reached a new high of 10.1 percent,' reads the announcement by Gil Kerlikowske, the Drug Czar.

But the full report is now available and it shows that the 10-percent bar is only crossed by throwing hash into the equation. Without hash, the average potency was 8.52 percent. The average potency of hash was 20.76 percent."

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Pictures and video. So brutal. You have been forewarned.

Israel Lancho, Spanish Bullfighter Gored (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

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Fili-Busta-Clear-Skies

Rosalita... Chiquita... whatever.

What's the over/under before the first Republican utters 'wetback'.

I say a week.

I hear the weather is nice in FarLeftistan this time of year.

Huckabee: "Maria" Sotomayor Comes From "The Far Left"

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Up or down vote! Up or down vote! Unless it's a Democrat.

IOKIYAAR (It's OK if you are a Republican).

Look at all of the hypocrisy! Loads of video.

Democracy or Hypocrisy | Media Matters Action Network:

"In 2005, many Republican Senators went so far as to claim the filibuster of judicial nominees was unconstitutional. Now four years later, President Obama's has appointed Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Will Senate Republicans remain consistent in their position or commit one of the most blatant acts of hypocrisy in the 220-year history of the United States Senate?"

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Of course you'll see this all over the librul media on the TV.

Daily Kos: Eat your words, republican hypocrites:

"As Christy Hardin Smith so aptly points out, the foaming at the mouthers are already starting with their weak sauce hissy fit about Judge Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

And frankly, there are so many ways to push back against this – refuting their asinine talking points, pointing out their racist behavior, smacking down their 'analysis' of her prior opinions....but in reality, there is one way to short circuit all of this in a very simple and easily understandable way:

Why was there such an uproar in 2005 over a potential filibuster of Bush’s JUDICIAL NOMINEES but it is suddenly ok to filibuster a more qualified nominee now?"

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Doesn't work. Doesn't work. Doesn't work. Doesn't work.

Former military interrogator says torture cost hundreds ‘if not thousands’ of American lives

A 14-year military interrogator has undercut one of the key arguments posited by Vice President Dick Cheney in favor of the Bush Administration’s torture techniques and alleged that the use of torture has cost “hundreds if not thousands” of American lives.

The interrogator, who uses the name “Matthew Alexander,” says he oversaw more than 1,000 interrogations, conducting more than 300 in Iraq personally. His statements are captured in a new video by Brave New Films (below).

“Torture does not save lives,” Alexander said in his interview. “And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse….literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.”

Moreover, Alexander avers that many — as many as 90 percent — of those captured in Iraq said they joined the fight against the United States because of the torture conducted at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

“At the prison where I conducted interrogations,” Alexander said, “we heard day in and day out, foreign fighters who had been captured state that the number one reason that they had come to fight in Iraq was because of torture and abuse, what had happened at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.”

“Cheney,’ said Alexander, ‘fundamentally misunderstands the way America is viewed around the world,” a reporter who reviewed the video wrote Tuesday. “The American principles of freedom and democracy are cherished in the Muslim world and the idea, at least, of America is still a seductive one. But it is the behavior of the Bush administration at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons around the globe that undercuts that image, allowing Al Qaeda to make the argument that America isn’t what it stands for.”

“One of Al Qaeda’s goals, it’s not just to attack the United States, it’s to prove that we’re hypocrites, that we don’t live up to American principles,” Alexander said. “So when we use torture and abuse, we’re playing directly into one of their stated goals.

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Clear skies, bitches!

No ideas. Only words.

Luntz is an evil, for hire fuck.

Frank Luntz: It doesn’t matter what Obama’s health care plan says, we’ll still call it ‘government takeover.’

In an interview with the New York Times, GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz — who recently penned a health care messaging memo instructing Republicans to attack President Obama’s health reform efforts by criticizing the deficiencies in foreign health care systems — concedes that Republicans will label Obama’s reform effort a “government takeover” of health care, regardless of the actual proposal:

Is it a correct description of the president’s plans for reform?
We don’t know what he is proposing. We want to avoid “a Washington takeover.”

But that’s not at issue. What the Democrats want is for everyone to be able to choose between their old, private health-insurance plan and an all-new, public health-insurance option.
I’m not a policy person. I’m a language person.

Indeed, “rather than challenging the tenets of American reform proposals, Luntz establishes a straw man argument against a non-existent health plan.” As Democratic strategist Paul Begala observes in a recent retort to the Luntz memo, “Because they know they cannot win the argument honestly, Republicans are resorting to mendacity.”

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And to follow up on yesterday's post regarding the high cost of being poor.....

America's poor are its most generous givers | McClatchy

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Orange Threat of Beer Bongs

There's no argument too asinine that conservative's won't attempt to justify this crap.

If it is 'just like a beer bong at frat parties', then why are we using it against 'terrorist' in order to extract information? Where is the 'fear' element? That I'll pass out and wake up with penises drawn on my forehead?

Douchebag conservatives.

Comparing waterboarding to beer funnels:

"Doug Powers, a columnist for World Net Daily, must have had a really rough college experience.

In his Monday morning weekly update, Powers jumped on the water-board soapbox and leveled an argument in favor of torturing prisoners. Tugging on the coattails of the recent 'Mancow' waterboarding media fiasco, he comes out with this gem:

A video that shows 'Mancow' Muller doing something that, if there were beer instead of water in that pitcher, happens every weekend at frat parties, can be viewed here.

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Speaking of douchebag conservatives.....

King Douche Newt doth protest way too fucking much:

PostPartisan - Gingrich's Deranged Ethics Advice:

"it’s amazing that Gingrich -- the only House speaker in history to be disciplined for ethics violations -- had the gall to make that claim. Does he think no one remembers?

Let’s review. Gingrich was reprimanded by the House and had to pay a $300,000 penalty for improperly using tax-deductible money for partisan political gain and for submitting false information to the ethics subcommittee investigating his conduct. An investigation by the House Ethics Committee concluded that Gingrich’s conduct represented 'intentional or…reckless' disregard of House rules and that there was “reason to believe” that Gingrich knew he was providing false information.

'The violation does not represent only a single instance of reckless conduct,' a report by an investigative subcommittee concluded. 'Rather, over a number of years and in a number of situations, Mr. Gingrich showed a disregard and lack of respect for the standards of conduct that applied to his activities.'

To be clear, the ethics case against Gingrich was no partisan witch hunt. The investigative subcommittee that determined he had violated ethics rules was headed by Florida Republican Porter Goss. The vote to reprimand him and impose the penalty was 395 to 28."

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Uh, yeah, I'd like to see the FCC try to enter my home.

This needs to be fixed.

FCC’s Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts | Threat Level | Wired.com

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I can't tell you how many times I've made this argument to my conservative friends who work for corporations that suck billions from the federal teat yet love to bitch about some 'welfare-queen' anecdote a friend of a friend told them.

I'm met with the usually slack-jawed blank stare 99% of the time.

The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More - washingtonpost.com:

"You have to be rich to be poor.

That's what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don't understand.
This Story

Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain.

So we'll explain it here. Consider this a primer on the economics of poverty."

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The kids are NOT alright. Though maybe not much different that other generations. Just more media savvy.

Top Six Ways To Kill Piper: Middle School Girls Make Instructional Cartoon About How To Kill Classmate (VIDEO):

"A Pierce County mother says she's horrified by a cartoon video - posted online - that showed several ways to kill her sixth grade daughter. The cartoon was made off school grounds by some of her daughter's classmates, girls aged 11 and 12. Titled 'Top Six Ways to Kill Piper,' it includes depictions of girls shooting her, making her commit suicide, poisoning her and even pushing her off a cliff."

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This would explain a lot.

Cocaine test prompts Red Bull removal in Germany

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Hot for Tonka

"I'll kill all of the Jews... once I finish this Super-Size bag of Doritos... and take a nap... oh, and I've got to finish the 28th level of whatever hip video games the kids play these days... but after that those Jews better *yawn*.... mmmm Charleston Jew.... gotta make a run to the Kwik-E-Mart for some candy".

"Ji-haaaa-ha-ha-ha.... Ren and Stimpy are some funny-ass infidels".

Pick your offense: 1. Joking about terrorizing Jewish people. 2. Stereotyping pot smokers.

There's always an option at AAW!

NYC terror ‘mastermind’ tells judge he’s a pothead

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They were against slavery before they were for it.... wait... they're pro-slavery?

RNC Hits Obama For Criticizing Slavery | Media Matters Action Network

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What kind of fucked-up reality show world do we live in when conservatives can't put 2 and 2 together but rather must actually experience something before then determine the correct answer?

They'll only concede that Global Warming is real when they are hanging onto log treading in a vast, vast ocean.

Torture as entertainment? The end must be near.

Conservative radio hosts gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture

Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn't torture.

It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly -- "Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop," according to NBC Chicago.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South told his audience before he was waterboarded on air. "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

Mancow was set on a 7-foot long table with his legs elevated and his feet tied.

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

The upshot? "It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow told listeners. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"Absolutely. I mean that's drowning," he added later. "It is the feeling of drowning."

"If I knew it was gonna be this bad, I would not have done it," he said.

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Must read for all Democrats going on the TV.

Democrats: if you're going on TV, learn how to "debate!":

"But the key is what chumley said--it is entertainment, and they are shameless. So grant them no respect, offer them no quarter and smile while doing it."

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Pwned.

Milk is a gateway drug to bourbon

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The incredible shrinking party.

National Journal Magazine - For GOP, A Southern Exposure

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I blogged about Maria a few months back. I can't image doing this when I'm 97.... and if I am, brace yourself for post after post detailing my body functions.

Maria Amelia Lopez: "World's Oldest Blogger," 97, Dies In Spain:

"A Spanish great-grandmother who billed herself as the 'world's oldest blogger' and who gained a global following on the Internet, died today at the age of 97, local officials and reports said.

Maria Amelia Lopez, who was introduced to the world of blogging by one of her grandchildren, used a mix of humour and nostalgia to recall life during the long dictatorship of Francisco Franco and give her take on modern life.

'Today it's my birthday and my grandson, who is very stingy, gave me a blog,' she wrote on her first post on amis95.blogspot.com on December 23, 2006."

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To hell with a Tonka!

Toddler buys earthmover in online auction:

"WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A New Zealand mom made some online bids on toys before napping. Then her 3-year-old daughter took over and bought a bigger plaything than expected — a huge earth-moving digger for a cool $12,300."

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Hmm. Well then.

Letourneau hosts `Hot for Teacher' night at bar

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Angela's Asses

It became 'anti-American' because the Republicans said so. Simple, see.

Ex-CIA agent: When did questioning the CIA become anti-American?

Since Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi suggested that the CIA misled her in 2002 concerning its use of waterboarding, the Republican Party has been attempting to paint her claims as outrageous.

Former CIA special agent and radio host Jack Rice finds the Republicans’ outrage unconvincing. He told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Tuesday, “What’s extraordinary here is the idea that if you would ever question the CIA, now all of a sudden somehow it’s anti-American.”

“What’s extraordinary to me is that I’ve seen the Republicans do this over and over,” Rice explained. “They will wrap something in the flag … and they will put a little lapel pin on it that says ‘national security.’ And if you ask a question about it, somehow you’re anti-American. And that’s what they’ve been trying to do to Nancy Pelosi for about six years.”

Rice has no illusions about the CIA’s vulnerability to pressure during the Bush administration. “Anybody who believes that an administration can’t push the Agency to do something is really missing the point,” he told Olbermann. “The fact that they can push the Agency and say, ‘This is what I’m looking for’ … will drive them to do certain things that may or may not be true — and that’s a big part of the problem that we’re facing right now.”

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Amen to that.

Top Powell aide says Congress is most ’spineless’ he’s seen in 65 years

The former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell — who of late has been supportive of more liberal positions — launched a stunning broadside against the Democratic-controlled Congress Wednesday, asserting that it’s been “spineless” when it comes to oversight and the most feckless he’s seen in 65 years.

Former Powell aide Col. Lawrence Wilkerson said he agrees with Democrats who say the CIA isn’t known for telling the truth. But he also launched a salvo at Congress for its alleged failure to investigate abuses of power.

“We could have less feckless leadership in the Congress in terms of oversight,” Wilkerson said. “And I’m not just talking about the Select Committees in the House and the Senate for Intelligence. I’m talking about the leadership in the Congress.

“This has been the most feckless Congress ever since 2000 that I’ve seen in my 65 years,” Wilkerson added. “I just don’t think there’s leadership over there. It’s spineless, it lacks courage, lacks political will.

He continued: “I shudder for the fact that we’ve got to face these economic and financial challenges we’ve got to face — Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and other things — and we don’t have a Congress that has any leadership.”

Wilkerson also told CNN’s Kiran Chetry that the CIA regularly didn’t tell the whole truth in briefings. “The leadership of the CIA does not have a stellar record about telling the full and unequivocal truth about its covert operations,” he said.

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JTC!

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I'm a big fan of McCourt's books. Frank's brother Michael is a legendary bartender in San Francisco.

My trivia night team at the Bitter End in SF was named 'Angela's Asses'. Ah, good times.

Get well, Frank.

'Angela's Ashes' author Frank McCourt has melanoma:

"A publicist for Frank McCourt confirms the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'Angela's Ashes' has cancer.

Scribner spokesman Brian Belfiglio (bel-FIG'-lee-oh) says the 78-year-old writer is being treated for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer."

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Good stuff.

Rules for Time Travelers | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

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Hurts So Good

But, but, but the CIA doesn't ever pass false information. Wah!

It is all Pelosi's fault! Wah!

And one more 'Wah' for good measure.

Another Lawmaker Points To An Error In CIA Briefings Doc | TPMMuckraker:

"Here's yet more evidence -- as if it were needed -- that that CIA briefing document that Republicans are trying to hang around Nancy Pelosi's neck is hardly a reliable source of information.

Rep. David Obey, who chairs the appropriations committee, just sent the following letter to CIA director Leon Panetta:"

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But, but, but.....

Wah!

“It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress.”

Doesn't mean they don't do it. It is just not 'policy' or 'practice'. Whew, glad that's cleared up.

CIA Won’t Say Whether Panetta Disputes Pelosi Claim She Was Lied To | The Plum Line

A spokesperson for the CIA is declining to clarify whether CIA director Leon Panetta is disputing Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the agency lied to her about the use of torture.

It has, of course, been widely reported that Panetta smacked back hard against Pelosi’s claim in that note he sent to CIA employees last week. But as Politico’s Josh Gerstein pointed out yesterday, a close reading of Panetta’s note shows clearly that he did not directly dispute Pelosi’s allegations.

The crux of Gerstein’s argument is that Panetta said: “It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress.” That’s a statement of current policy and intent, not a rebuttal of Pelosi’s claims. And the part of Panetta’s statement that does address what was said in briefings is too vague to be conclusive.

So I asked a CIA spokesperson whether it was the CIA’s position that Pelosi was not lied to, as she has claimed. The spokesperson declined to elaborate, instead saying that Panetta’s note would have to speak for itself.

To be clear, this doesn’t prove one way or the other whether Pelosi was in fact lied to. She very well may have been told of the use of torture. Still, it’s sobering to think that while it’s been widely reported that Panetta disputes Pelosi’s allegations, this may not be at all true and may never have happened at all.

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Shrum does a pretty good job here.

Giuliani: ‘Of course’ the CIA has given ‘incorrect information’

“It just happens to be the truth,” Shrum said of his charges against the CIA. “Every once in a while, the truth ought to be uttered.”

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani chimed in at that point to say indignantly, “The general calumny of the CIA is outrageous. The CIA is a dedicated organization of patriotic people who are working their backs off to protect us.”

“Have they ever lied, Mr. Mayor?” Shrum asked.

“These people have dedicated their lives,” Giuliani replied.

“This is drivel,” Shrum retorted. “This is the kind of stuff you tried to run for president on and it didn’t go anywhere. Have they ever lied?”

“It’s absolutely outrageous that you accused them in general terms of being liars or systemically lying,” Giuliani responded. “Of course they’ve made mistakes.. Of course they’ve given incorrect information. Intelligence is a very difficult …”

At that point, the discussion largely broke down into cross-talk. However, Scarborough concluded the segment by backing up Giuliani in his assertions that the CIA does not lie. “The proof is in the pudding,” Scarborough stated. “The evidence is the United States of America has not been attacked since September 11, 2001.”

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Cafferty. One of only a handful of 'news' people worth watching on TV.

Commentary: Prosecute sins of Bush-Cheney era - CNN.com

The Bush presidency is thankfully over...but the damage he and Dick Cheney did continues to press on the nerve of the American people like an impacted wisdom tooth. And until the questions surrounding arguably the most arrogant and perhaps most corrupt administration in our history are addressed, the pain won't go away.

From Nancy ("Impeachment is off the table") Pelosi to President Barack ("I want to look forward, not backward") Obama, the country is being poorly served by their Democratic government. And on this subject President Obama is dead wrong.

George W. Bush and his accomplices damaged this country like it's never been damaged before. And it's not just the phony war in Iraq or the torture memos that justified waterboarding. It's millions of missing emails and the constant use of executive privilege and signing statements.

It's the secretive meetings with Enron and other energy executives and the wholesale firing of federal prosecutors. It's trying to get the president's personal attorney seated on the Supreme Court and that despicable Alberto Gonzales sitting in front of congressional investigators whining, "I don't remember, I

It's the domestic eavesdropping in violation of the FISA Court, the rendition prisons, and the lying. It's looking the other way while the City of New Orleans drowned and its people were left to fend for themselves.

It's the violations of the Geneva Conventions, the soiling of our international reputation and the shredding of the U.S. Constitution. It's the handing over of $700 billion to the Wall Street fat cats last fall, no questions asked. Where is that money? What was it used for?

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Gay.

We're talking a very well heeled community here, overall.

Olbermann butchers RNC chairman on same-sex marriage:

"“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans in Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

But Olbermann pointed out that weddings are a boon for small businesses — and studies have estimated that same-sex marriage legalization will create thousands of new jobs.

“Mr. Steele, in this country, weddings are a $70 billion a year industry,” Olbermann remarked. “B, billion, as in Bridezilla. Seventy billion. Most of it spread among local florists, local photographers, local hotels, local restaurants, local bridal stores.

“Admittedly,” he added tongue-in-cheek, “the number of wedding gowns ordered when two men get married is zero, but think of two women, with two gowns and two sets of bridesmaids.”

“There is a reason that conservatives in California opposed [Proposition 8 banning the legalization of same-sex marriage],” he added. “Last year before the rights of same-sex couples were repealed, UCLA calculated that just in California the wedding business was going to explode by $684 million over three years."

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Cooley made a comment in the past regarding....

And I paraphrase...."Not being able to smoke in a bar in North Carolina is like taking public transportation in Detroit.... Get it?"

North Carolina smoking ban ends era in US tobacco heartland:

"North Carolina's governor signed a statewide indoor smoking ban into law Tuesday, signaling the end of an era in the United States' leading tobacco-producing state."

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Yep, they'll do that.

Omaha man blames casino drinks, drugs for big debt

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The Body

'The Body" should be on the TV 24/7.

Here, Ventura dominates Hassleback on the Hell that is The View.

This is how you totally destroy Republican bullshit on torture.

Hassleback: "I understand that question".... She deserves a cookie.... fucking idiot.

Stay classy, Elisabeth.

Ventura on The View: If waterboarding is fine, why don’t cops do it?

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, making a guest appearance on ABC’s The View, gave co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck a lesson or two about the torture technique known as waterboarding.

Ventura, who underwent a barrage of torture techniques at the military Survival, Evade, Resist and Escape (SERE) school, confirmed for Hasselbeck that waterboarding is torture and not just an “enhanced interrogation technique.”

“If waterboarding is okay, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects to learn what they know?” he asked to a chorus of applause.

“That’s an interesting question,” Hasselbeck said. “I understand that question.”

“If waterboarding is okay, why didn’t we waterboard [Timothy] McVeigh and [Terry] Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved? What’s your answer to that?” he asked. “We only seem to waterboard Muslims.”

“That’s an extremist statement,” said Hasselbeck.”

“Aha!” cheered Ventura. “Have we waterboarded anybody else? Name me someone else we’ve waterboarded.”

She could not, instead shifting focus to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who has been criticized by Republicans for a seeming contradiction in disclosing what she knew about then-President Bush’s torture program, and when.

“They want her out because she lied?” asked Ventura. “Why didn’t they ask for Bush and Cheney to go out when they lied about why we went into Iraq.”

Better yet, watch it:

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Grand Old (Very) Party of Church Ladies.

GOP Losses Span Nearly All Demographic Groups:

"The decline and fall of the Republican Party in recent years has been so widespread that the party has lost support among nearly every major demographic subgroup of likely voters across the country, according to a new Gallup poll.

The party lost support among a broad swath of Americans, from conservative to liberal, low-income to high-income, married to unmarried, and elderly to young.

The only subgroup in which the party saw a slight increase in support from 2001 to 2009 was frequent churchgoers."

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Methinks thou (Republicans) doth Pelosi too much.

My only issue is that Pelosi doesn't have the balls to stick to her guns.

The CIA lies. That's what they do. That's the very nature of their existence.

President's use the CIA to lie.

The CIA deserves to be attacked. Republicans can clutch their pearls till the cows come home. Fuck 'em.

I still can't wrap my head around the "Pelosi new about the torture thus it is all her fault and not the fault of Cheney/Bush who created the torture program". ???

Hopefully America has moved on from buying such loads of crap.

GOP's Torture Tricks Backfire - The Daily Beast:

"There's no sign that Pelosi or anyone else is backing off the truth-commission idea. And, indeed, by suggesting that Pelosi could be a target of an investigation, conservatives have helped cleanse the idea of the odor of victor's justice. The question of CIA briefings of congressional leaders would, after all, be a legitimate subject of inquiry. And it's very possible that, done rigorously, Pelosi and other Democrats, such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), could wind up getting a black eye or two. But however bad an investigation might make the members of Congress who were supposed to be preventing illegal conduct look, the people actually doing the misdeeds are going to look even worse. Today, the congressional Republicans look extremely clever. But in a few months' time, we'll look back on this as yet another example of a conservative tactical victory that winds up backfiring. After all, selecting Sarah Palin looked brilliant for a week or two. And the anathematization of Obama's stimulus proposal seemed like an unexpected coup until it wound up pushing Arlen Specter into the arms of the Democrats. Gamesmanship, in short, can only get you so far. But conservatives sure are good at it."

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The largest fraud perpetrated in any state of the Union.

An innocent man will be sent back to jail.

Siegelman Judge Committed Fraud on the Court:

"Mark Fuller, the federal judge who oversaw the Don Siegelman trial, committed fraud on the court by failing to disclose his bias against the former Alabama governor. That means the judgment against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy should be vacated, says an attorney who has conducted extensive research on Fuller's legal and business activities.

'The evidence is clear to me that Judge Fuller failed to disclose his bias in the Siegelman case and committed fraud on the court,' said Paul Benton Weeks, an attorney in Springfield, Missouri. 'It is an example of what the Supreme Court has called an 'inexcusable' failure of a judge to remove himself from a case.'"

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Speaking of shitty judges....

Nobody could have predicted... except all of us who did.

Bush’s legacy: Chief Justice ‘more hard-line’ than Scalia:

"As President Barack Obama prepares to make his first appointment to the Supreme Court, the influence of Chief Justice John Roberts is coming under increased scrutiny.

In an article for the New Yorker, legal analyst and former assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Toobin describes Roberts as “the Supreme Court’s stealth hard-liner” and finds reason for dismay.

According to Toobin, despite Roberts’ disarming intelligence, charm, and wit, his actions on the bench have been those of a “doctrinaire conservative.”

“The first Democratic nominee to the Court in fifteen years will confront what is now, increasingly, John Roberts’s Court,” Toobin writes. “The majority of the Court is moving right as the rest of the country — or, at least, the rest of the federal government — is moving left. … Roberts’s service on the Court, which is, of course, likely to continue for decades, offers an enduring and faithful reflection of the Bush Presidency.”

Toobin explains that although Roberts sees himself as a strict constructionist and a “judicial restraint” conservative, “according to Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, ‘The Chief Justice talks the talk of moderation while walking the walk of extreme conservatism.’"

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Heh-heh.

Not a simple shot-gun here, folks.

Good luck young men of tomorrow.

Obama: Dating My Daughters Will Be "An Issue":

"Were you surprised at how quickly your family became part of the cultural iconography?

You know, the nice thing is that, partly because of temperament, partly because of Michelle's unbelievable parenting skills, I've just got some happy, normal kids. And all that stuff that's going on around them, they just kind of miss. We have not seen any effects, any fishbowl effects, yet on them. Now, I worry about them when they're teenagers where, you know, you're already embarrassed about your parents and even more embarrassed on TV all the time. And dating I think will be an issue because I have men with guns surrounding them at all times [laughter], which I'm perfectly happy with, but they may feel differently about it."

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The Group Mile High Club.

New Zealand Launches Hookup Airways | Autopia | Wired.com:

New Zealand Launches Hookup Airways

Love is in the air — Air New Zealand, that is. The Kiwi carrier has launched Matchmaking Flight to bring lonely travelers together. After all, what better way to get to know The One than sharing a 13-hour flight on your first date?

If you aren’t up for a blind date, you can try meeting that special someone on the airline’s Matchmaking Flight website, a social networking where passenger can meet and interact in the safety of cyberspace before meeting at the terminal. That could keep you from getting matched with that sketchy guy in Seat 35B who keeps mentioning the mile-high club."

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