The Dark Knight: David Letterman Dares to Spoil Summer With Impromptu 'Dark Knight' Review
HERE'S A REVIEW COURTESY OF DAVID LETTERMAN...WATCH OUT FOR SPOILERS...
We're seeing The Dark Knight next week like everybody else, but since David Letterman has already wrecked everything for us, the hell with it: SPOILER ALERT. Like, seriously. The screenshots that some douchebag smuggled out of a press screening and pollenated our inbox with this morning aren't going to shatter the Earth, but they'll warrant crossing at least two items off your list of "Twists I Can't Wait to Totally Ruin By Seeing Them Before the Movie."
That's about all we can say, really, without leaving it up to the spoilerphiles among you to decide for yourselves: Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart, after the jump.
John McCain's been coming up with some wacky-assed stuff lately. One would wonder if his advanced age is causing his fuzzy-headedness, but then one would be reminded that his advanced age is off limits, and cannot be noted, alluded to, or used as an explanation for confusion or seeming dementia. Sorry, I meant, misstatements.
Fabulous post at Texas blog BurntOrange, to help Phil Gramm understand what real life is like for us whiners.
Melody Townsel begins with the quote from Gramm.
"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline," said the former Texas senator. "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession."
Gramm also said the media was responsible for fostering unnecessary anxiety over the state of the economy. "Misery sells newspapers," he said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."
Or then again, maybe it is. Townsel elucidates it on down for Gramm.
See, Phil, while you were on the stump, not-so-quietly losing your mind, I was on about my fifth hour of work. I sat my alarm for 4 a.m. so I could get five hours of freelance writing and editing in before my eight-year-old crawled out of bed…
Townsel: "Errand time now, Phil. I fill up the car. That runs $58 this week, when it used to come in right at $30. Not that I'm whining, big guy."…I hand the kid a sandwich (by the way, Phil — the price of a loaf of bread is now up about 50%, did you know that?). Then I bust out a cheap craft kit to keep her close and busy and begin my next chore of the day: making call after call begging the Texas Insurance Risk Pool to accept the pages of pages of documentation I've already submitted as proof that I really can't get a standard commercial insurance policy and I, therefore, really, really need them to sell me a $7,500-deductible, $469/month policy.
See, Phil, I'm uninsured now…[W]hen my old insurer…informed me that my premium was going up to the point where it was rivaling my mortgage, it was time for me to pack up my whiny ass and look for greener pastures.
Greener pastures that, when it comes to health insurance, apparently no longer exist in America…
Errand time now, Phil. I fill up the car. That runs $58 this week, when it used to come in right at $30. Not that I'm whining, big guy. Then we head to the grocery store to pick up a few staples at the grocery store (milk, $5.79/gallon; grapes, $7.24 for 1 1/2 pounds; $4.99 for a pint of blueberries; $2.39 for a dozen eggs)…
We head home so I can get started on another four-hour project for a client…
Why the need for an additional 20 hours of work per week? The small stuff, Phil. The stuff you and Wendy don't sweat. Gas prices. Food prices. Utility bills. The vast crops of legalese sounding, alphabet-soup fees and surcharges that are suddenly appearing on every single bill I get so every vendor in the marketplace can pass on increasing gas and commodity prices to us "whiners" in a way that's harder for us to figure out. But not, sadly, any easier to pay.
There's lots more, and you should read it all, but suffice it to say that it doesn't appear the Gramms, architects of the Enron Loophole, live on the same planet as the rest of us whiners.
Troy King, Alabama's Attorney General as well as the chairman of John McCain's Alabama Leadership Team* was reportedly caught by his wife in their bed with — naturally — another man:
King, a conservative Republican Christian who has called homosexuality the 'downfall of society,' has been caught with his pants down—literally—in a gay sex scandal. King was reportedly nabbed having sex with a male assistant by his wife, Paige King, in the couple's own bed.
cryptogon.com » Archives » IndyMac Bank Seized by Federal Regulators; Second Largest Bank Failure in U.S. History: "The federal government took control of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank on Friday in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Citing a massive run on deposits, regulators shut its main branch three hours early, leaving customers stunned and upset. One woman leaned on the locked doors, pleading with an employee inside: “Please, please, I want to take out a portion.” All she could do was read a two-page notice taped to the door."
In case you needed to know why America's image abroad is in the toilet, look no further than ridiculous quotes like this from our Disgrace-in-Chief.
The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.
Whether you're a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, is there any doubt left that this guy is an utter clown? I meant that rhetorically, of course.
The Raw Story | McCain slips: 'Get those offshore reserves exploited': "'I'll do everything in my power to get those offshore reserves exploited ... um, er, explored, discovered and um...' McCain said, drawing some knowing chuckles from the largely Republican audience."
Along with maintaining the hypervigilance necessary to avoid having one's gaffes caught on camera and replayed endlessly on YouTube, politicians face a vast array of image-maintenance challenges these days. John McCain encountered a PR problem of the lower-tech variety on Friday, in the form of two newspaper articles focusing on details from his private life that could be gleaned from plain ol' public records.
The first, from The New York Times, deals with a potential legal issue regarding McCain's American citizenship based on the location of his birth as well as the laws in place at the time. The second, from the Los Angeles Times, looks at the timing of and fallout from the early stages of relationship with his current wife, Cindy, which apparently overlapped with the last months of his marriage to his first wife, Carol—contradicting McCain's account of those events in his 2002 memoir. Grist for the gossip mill, perhaps, but these stories touch on two key issues that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will have to grapple with during the run-up to the November election in order to appease his conservative base: immigration and family values.
Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges warns in an L.A. Times Op-Ed that "If the sweeping surveillance law signed by President Bush on Thursday—giving the U.S. government nearly unchecked authority to eavesdrop on the phone calls and e-mails of innocent Americans—is allowed to stand, we will have eroded one of the most important bulwarks to a free press and an open society."
iFail 3G: Inside the iPhone launch failure with videos » VentureBeat: "Regular readers may know my proclivity towards Apple products. Hell, some might call me a “fanboy.” That makes what I’m about to tell you very troublesome. Ladies and gentleman, today Apple (possibly by way of AT&T) failed. Badly."
IndyMac Bank, the largest independent mortgage provider (a title formerly held by Countrywide until it failed into the arms of Bank of America), was seized Friday by federal regulators. The bank held about $32 billion in assets, although its anyone's guess what those might be worth these days. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp will run the bank, promising to have it open for business on Monday. The Journal says the cost of the bank failure will be between $4 billion and $8 billion.
Weirdly, the same finger prints that were found on the corpse of Countrywide are all over this collapse of a large mortgage bank. That's right. Meet the founder of Indymac, Angelo Mozilo. Back in Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide, and David Loeb, a founder of Countrywide, founded Indymac. Mozilo left in 2000. Someone please tell us there's not a third huge home lender founded by the toxic duo.
Crisis Deepens as Big Bank Fails [Wall Street Journal]
Filed under: Bad news
The incredibly rapid fall of discount clothier Steve and Barry's continues.McCain's broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship - Los Angeles Times: "Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.
Until McCain filed for divorce, the Reagans and their inner circle assumed he was happily married, and they were stunned to learn otherwise, according to several close aides.
'Everybody was upset with him,' recalled Nancy Reynolds, a top aide to the former president who introduced him to McCain."
OPEC warns against military conflict with Iran - International Herald Tribune: "VIENNA: The head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries warned Thursday that oil prices would see an 'unlimited' increase in the case of a military conflict involving Iran, because the group's members would be unable to make up the lost production."
He ought to stay retired - ESPN - Favre seeks unconditional release from Packers, sources say - NFL: "HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Three days after a conference call with Packers team officials in which quarterback Brett Favre emphatically expressed his desire to play in 2008, Favre on Friday formally asked by letter for his unconditional contractual release, sources close to Favre and the team said."
During the last two days, the McCain campaign has gone into damage control over top economic adviser Phil Gramm's belief that America has "become a nation of whiners" and is only "in a mental recession." McCain tried to disavow the remarks by saying that "Phil Gramm does not speak for me." But McCain's distancing doesn't change the fact that Gramm is considered his "econ brain." McCain thinks so highly of Gramm that he was even the chairman of his failed 1996 presidential bid.
As it turns out, this is not the first time that Gramm, a self-styled "foot soldier of the Reagan revolution," has advocated controversial views on the economy. In the past, he has criticized public works projects, the existence of a minimum wage, and the federal welfare program. Here are some highlights from McCain's "econ brain," as compiled by the Houston Chronicle [2/20/95]:
- "Until we are on a pay-as-you-go budget, until we have stopped inflation, I do not intend to support any public works project in the United States." — Gramm, 10/9/75
- "Minimum wage laws tend to cut the bottom rung off the economic ladder. The plain truth is there should be no minimum wage law in this great land of free enterprise." — Gramm, 5/17/89
"We're the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat." — Gramm, 9/6/81
In addition, Gramm is an advocate of the flat tax and wants to cut taxes on capital gains. [Concord Monitor, 9/26/96] As the Wonk Room has noted, such capital gains cuts would mostly benefit millionaires. Joe Conason writes on Salon that Gramm's deregulation policies "helped spur the mortage crisis."
But it is not only on the economy that Gramm is out of touch. During a 1984 Senate debate, he criticized his opponent's stance on gay rights by saying, "I do not want homosexuals teaching my third-grade boy." [Houston Chronicle, 2/20/95] He also reveled in the defeat of Hillary Clinton's health care bill by saying that it would pass only over his "cold, dead, political body." He then called it "deader than Elvis."
This is all from a man that John McCain said has a "rare intellect that grasps complex issues and explains them to others in plain language [Washington Times, 2/27/95]."
Last night on Fox News's Special Report, the "All-Star panel" discussed top McCain adviser Phill Gramm's recent controversial remarks that regarding the economy, the U.S. has become a "nation of whiners" and the U.S. is merely in a "mental recession."
"All-Star" and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes wholeheartedly endorsed Gramm's assessment, saying he was giving "straight talk" and that "America has become a nation of whiners." But Barnes took Gramm one step further, acknowledging the economy is "weak," but that Americans are "whining all the way through it":
BARNES: He wasn't wrong to say that. You know what this was? This was straight talk that McCain always says he's giving it, and this is exactly what Phil Gramm did. He gave straight talk…They claim about how bad the economy is–and it's weak, no question about that. …They're whining all the way through it.
Watch it:
Sadly, Barnes wasn't the first Fox News personality to defend Gramm's comments yesterday. And this isn't the first time Barnes has shown a complete lack of understanding of the world outside his high society.
During Fox News's Democratic primary coverage earlier this year, Barnes described "working class" voters as a euphemism because "it's kind of mean to say 'lower class.' It's as simple as that." He explained that the "lower class" are people of low "social class."
The simple fact is that Americans are hurting, not whining.
After hearing about John McCain's ridiculous criticism of Social Security — you know, the fact that it still functions the way it has for, oh, 75 years — CNBC's Jim Cramer can't help but laugh at the "disorganized" John McCain and his complete lack of knowledge about all things economic.
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"I gotta tell you: McCain is the most disorganized, lack of any knowledge whatsoever about economics."
Cramer makes another salient point when he mentions that McCain is in favor of private accounts (well, he does depending on which day you ask him) and that millions of Americans would have lost their shirts if they had been investing their money during this economic climate.
"The fact of the matter is the whole banking system is falling apart. If you had money in the stock market…Republicans want you to invest it yourself…you would have lost a fortune. Is that what we really want? A bailout of another bailout or another bailout?"
You know a legislative compromise is one-sided when the AP headline announcing its passage reads "Senate Bows to Bush." Democratic advocates of the new FISA bill, passed by the Senate on Wednesday, are still trying to explain what they got in exchange for rolling back a few civil liberties and burying some of the president's abuses. When they figure it out, someone, somewhere will surely be listening.
Barack Obama took Keith Olbermann's advice and was one of a minority of senators who voted to strip telecom immunity, but ultimately voted for the bill.
AP via Google:
Bowing to President Bush's demands, the Senate approved and sent the White House a bill Wednesday to overhaul bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.
The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and heated debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling over surveillance rules and the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The House passed the same bill last month, and Bush said he would sign it soon.
In an interview with the Washington Times today, former senator Phil Gramm, who is Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) "econ brain," blamed the state of the economy on "the conviction of many Americans that economic conditions are the worst in two or three decades." "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," said Gramm.
Gramm decried the "constant whining" of the American people when it comes to the economy because he believes "we've never been more dominant":
"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.
"We've never been more dominant; we've never had more natural advantages than we have today," he said. "We have benefited greatly" from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.
Despite McCain's recent claim that we are in a recession, he has previously echoed Gramm's diagnosis of the economy. In April, McCain said that "a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological." Watch it:
At the same time he was blaming the state of the economy on the economic anxiety of the American people, Gramm also blamed the media. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day," said Gramm.
Blaming the economy on the media is a common McCain campaign strategy. In June, McCain econ adviser Kevin Hassett claimed that the press wants to "convince everyone that the economy is in recession" in order to hurt McCain. Informal McCain adviser Karl Rove argued in February that the economy "stinks" because of the media.
More than two and a half years after the disclosure of President's Bush's domestic eavesdropping program set off a furious national debate, the Senate gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to broadening the government's spy powers and providing legal immunity for the phone companies that took part in the wiretapping program.
The plan, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, marked one of Mr. Bush's most hard-won legislative victories in a Democratic-led Congress where he has had little success of late. Both houses, controlled by Democrats, approved what amounted to the biggest restructuring of federal surveillance law in 30 years, giving the government more latitude to eavesdrop on targets abroad and at home who are suspected of links to terrorism.
The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday. His reversal last month angered many of his most ardent supporters, who organized an unsuccessful drive to get him to reverse his position once again. And it came to symbolize what civil liberties advocates saw as "capitulation" by Democratic leaders to political pressure from the White House in an election year.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill.
IT IS A DARK DAY FOR AMERICA BUT MOST AMERICAN'S DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THIS BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO DUMB.....
L.F. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, "instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday" to honor the late senator Jesse Helms, "as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley." In a string of e-mail messages with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately. Here is Eason's reasoning for his decision to retire:
This is in no way a political decision. I simply do not feel it is appropriate to honor a person whose epitaph of government service was to have voted against or blocked every civil rights issue that came before the US Congress. His doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice cost North Carolina and our Nation much that we may never regain.
A women from the group ADAPT asked John McCain at his recent Town Hall meeting for his support of the Community Choice Act, a bi-partisan bill sponsored by Harkin and Specter. ADAPT is very active in getting their message out and raising awareness of treating people with disabilities with dignity and respect. The Community Choice Act allows people who require significant caregiving the choice of staying in the community instead of being forced by Medicaid and Medicare restrictions into nursing homes and other institutions.
Obama supports it. It looks like a good piece of legislation.
Q: Will you sign on to join the Community Choice Act?
McCain: I will not because I don't think that it's the right kind of legislation. I'm proud to have been one of the many people who was involved in the original Americans for Disabilities Act. Now we will continue to update it and upgrade and improve it as needed. Community Choice Act is not a piece of legislation that I support…
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Here's some background about the protest.
The office of Senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain was occupied by the disability-rights organization ADAPT this afternoon. The protesters-the vast majority of which had disabilities-were seeking a meeting with McCain to ask for his support for the Community Choice Act. The legislation reforms Medicaid payments by allowing those with disabilities to use their benefits for community-based care instead of nursing homes. Approximately forty ADAPT activists participated in the protest.
McCain never says why he's against it in his answer. He holds up the ADA as an example of legislation that he does support, but that goes to issues of accessibility and accommodation, not care. The ADA has nothing to do with providing long term care of disabled people. And he had to be aware of the legislation, as the ADAPT people had a protest at his office just a couple of months ago.
Heather says:
His pretty blunt answer is no and that he supported the Americans With Disabilities Act. From press reports, a number of wheelchair-bound participants left the meeting after McCain made his statement. I guess not everyone has a Sugar Momma like Cindy to take care of them and doesn't have to worry about ending up in a nursing home like John does.
Someone in John McCain's campaign needs to tell him that he's not funny and that making crude jokes about killing innocent people is not presidential and inappropriate.
Most of you have heard of McCain's Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran gaffe, and now the GOP presidential hopeful has made another crude joke about killing Iranians and again, its wholly inappropriate. The title of this AP story is "Wife Pokes McCain In The Back"
PITTSBURGH — Cindy McCain's jab to her husband's back came a second too late Tuesday to keep him from making a wisecrack about the health impact of Iran's main import from the United States: cigarettes.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked about an Associated Press report that $158 million in cigarettes have been shipped to Iran during George W. Bush's presidency despite restrictions on U.S. exports to that country.
"Maybe that's a way of killing them," McCain told reporters, smiling as he waited for a cheesesteak sandwich at the Primanti Brothers restaurant. His wife, sitting next to him at the counter, poked his back without looking up. Read on…
How about, "McCain Makes Another Crude Joke About Killing Iranians?" Just kill 'em all, right, Senator? You can tell this guy can't wait to have his finger on the buttons, can't you? Had Barack Obama made this comment the corporate media would run with it, wall to wall for weeks.
Yesterday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would like to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Today, however, the Bush administration rejected the timetable. In an April 24, 2007 interview with Charlie Rose, however, President said he would remove troops if asked by Iraq, but he predicted that Maliki would not ask for a withdrawal:
ROSE: But if he said get out now, we don’t want you anymore–
BUSH: I don’t see how we could stay. It is his country.
ROSE: But if he said that, it would lead to the catastrophe that you have suggested.
BUSH: That’s why he’s not going to say it.
ROSE: You don’t think he’ll say it?
BUSH: I don’t. No, I don’t.
“[W]e’re looking at conditions, not calendars here,” State Department spokeperson Gonzalo Gallegos said today.
Pensito Review » McCain’s Latest Joke: Maybe Cigarettes Would Kill Iranians: "Oops, he did it again. John McCain just can’t seem to get the distinction between objecting to the policies of Iran’s rulers and expressing a desire to kill all Iranians, even the pierre ordinaire folk."
Senator Feingold took to the Senate floor today and, with the help of Sen. Arlen Specter, challenged his colleagues to wrap their minds around what granting retroactive telecom immunity would mean for the rule of law, and wondered how they could be voting on such a thing when 70 members don't even have access to the evidence of alleged impropriety.
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"This is an amazingly inappropriate use of legislative interference, a push by this administration, and Senators should take a real hard look at whether they want to be associated with such an attack on the rule of law."
Glenn Greenwald has more:
Once passed by the Senate, the FISA bill will then immediately be sent by the Democratic Congress to an eagerly awaiting and immensely pleased President Bush, who will sign it into law, thereby putting a permanent and happy end to the scandal that began when — in December, 2005 — he was caught spying on the communications of American citizens in violation of the law. The only real remaining questions are (a) whether Bush will host Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller at a festive, bipartisan White House signing ceremony to celebrate the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law, and (b) whether Bush, when he signs the bill into law, will append a signing statement decreeing that even its minimal restraints on presidential spying are invalid.
Extended version of Senator Feingold's remarks below the fold:
Check out the new full page Blue America ad placed in the Washington Post today. Thank you all so much for donating to our Blue America/FISA fund so we're able to get our message out far and wide. We believe in the Constitution and so should you! We also bought ads to run against Barrow and to support Regina Thomas in the upcoming GA-12 primary on July 15th. I'll write about that later. When Bush got together with Congress to grant retroactive immunity, that was just unacceptable to many of us.
Donate here to help elect better Democratic candidates to represent our values. Blue America has had great success so far. And you know, a major reason that Blue America exists is to push a progressive message into districts where it's never heard regardless if we win or lose a seat. We still win by getting that message out into the atmosphere.
Almost 6,000 people have donated so far and we have run TV, radio, and newspaper ads in Chris Carney's Pennsylvania district, newspaper ads and patch-thru calls explaining to Steny Hoyer's constituents (and colleagues) his odious role in this massive betrayal of Democracy. …we are running the following full page ad in the Washington Post and the day after we will explain our efforts to hold John Barrow (GA-12) accountable for his outrageously anti-American votes
Keep making your calls because the vote is coming tommorrow.
UPDATE: Here's Blue America's Andrew Rice:
"Congress must remain vigilant in order to protect Americans from another terrorist attack. However, the bill that is before Congress this week bargains away the privacy of law-abiding American citizens while protecting the companies that allegedly participated in the President's illegal wiretapping program. The Senate should stick to the narrow fix it set out to accomplish by making it clear that the government does not have to obtain a warrant to listen to foreign-to-foreign communications. Instead, this bill allows a significant expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act so that government can eavesdrop on the international communications of innocent American citizens. Since losing my brother on 9/11, I have vowed to improve America's anti-terrorism capability without sacrificing the freedoms that so many Americans have died to protect."
— Andrew Rice, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, OK
(You can see the full page ad under the fold.)
Two men were sentenced to two years probation today for raping a 14-year-old girl. Tony Pacheco (left), 17 at the time of the 2006 crime, and Angel Alverio (right), then 18, pleaded guilty yesterday to one count each of aggravated battery and criminal sexual abuse. The were sentenced to 24 months probation and both have to register as sex offenders for 10 years.
From an NBC 5 story from August, 2006:
After Alverio and Pacheco allegedly made contact with the victim through MySpace...they arranged a July 24 meeting. They then drove her to a house in the 4800 block of West Walton, the home of a 15-year-old boy, [assistant state's attorney John] Henning said.
At the boy's home, they "drank alcohol and played video games," Henning said. Chicago Police Officer JoAnn Taylor said the group consumed "a large amount of alcohol."
The girl "became ill, and that is when she was sexually assaulted multiple times by the offenders," Taylor said.
After the drinking, the girl passed out. When she awoke, Pacheco allegedly was having sex with her, according to Henning. She passed out again and woke up to find the 15-year-old having sex with her. After losing consciousness a third time, the girl awoke to find Alverio attempting to receive oral sex from her, Henning said.
The next thing she knew, the 14-year-old woke up in an alley about two miles away at 3253 W. North, where a passerby found her around 3 p.m., Taylor said. The girl was treated at Norwegian American Hospital and released.
The then-15-year-old also pleaded guilty. [S-T]
The pufferfish toxin guy from last week turns out to be nuttier than a squirrel on spring break. Edward F. Bachner IV had been stockpiling tetrodotoxin and weapons, and had tried to hire a contract killer to murder his wife back in 2005. The FBI investigated the attempts then, but no charges were ever filed. Bachner also had a $5 million life insurance policy on his wife that included a special terrorism rider.
This week, though, police discovered even more tetrodotoxin, a bank account containing $183,000 that Bachner's wife didn't know about, and a stash of weapons.
During searches of the couple's home that began with a June 30 raid, authorities found two passports—one of them expired—phony Central Intelligence Agency credentials and weapons that included a Glock 9 mm pistol, five garrotes and 50 knives, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark Karner.
The search also uncovered "a precursor to the poison Ricin and books on how to poison people, make gun silencers and hand-to-hand combat." Thorough!
Police say 19 of the 64 vials of neurotoxin Bachner already accumulated are unaccounted for. [Trib, AP, Daily Herald]In 2005, George W. Bush hosted a town-hall meeting in Denver, at which three law-abiding, ticket-holding Americans were removed from a public event because officials didn't like the bumper sticker on their car.
Three years later, John McCain hosted a town-hall meeting in Denver, and a law-abiding American was removed from a public event because officials didn't like her homemade sign.
The woman who was ticketed for her innocuous sign, Carol Kreck, a 61-year-old librarian, asks a reasonable question: why would a Republican campaign find a "McCain=Bush" sign so offensive?
t r u t h o u t | Oaxaca's Government Land Grab: "In villages across Oaxaca, where land has been owned communally for centuries, paramilitary groups are doing their bloody part to change the scene.
Oaxaca and Chicago - On April 30, in the small village of Santo Domingo Ixcatlan, in Oaxaca, Mexico, a group of armed men from the paramilitary group the 'White Guards' pulled over the car of carpenter Gustavo Castaneda Hernandez, a villager and vocal opponent of the sale of Santo Domingo's communal land. The group, led by Freddy Eucario Morales Arias, the ex-mayor of Santo Domingo, rapidly blocked off the entrance and exit to the road with pickup trucks. The men began beating Hernandez, still trapped in his vehicle. They then set the car on fire. Hernandez was burned alive."
Q: How long will my baby be with Barack himself?Maaahahaha. Via Coudal.
A: You may choose from three interaction types: a kiss, a hug, or giving hope. For a kiss or a hug, Barack spends roughly two minutes with a baby. Giving hope usually takes about twice that long.
You may have seen the ads on the site in the last week, but a new group of activists under the banner of Health Care Now is launching a $40 Million campaign today at the National Press Club with the single minded focus of getting comprehensive health care legislation passed by 2009. Huffington Post:
The work of Health Care For America Now was first made public late last week. But the group, with Elizabeth Edwards as a figurehead, offered expanded insight into the details of its campaign during a meeting on Monday. In addition to spending $40 million — $1.5 million of which will be put behind an initial ad buy (national TV, print, and online) — the group will be sending organizers to 52 cities, blasting out emails to 5 million households, airing spots on MSNBC and CNN and submitting op-eds to major papers (officials hinted at the New York Times piece to come).
In addition, the campaign is going to take advantage of Moveon.org's massive data files to reach out to like-minded supporters and officials promised to work in Democratic and Republican districts alike.
"We'll have an organizer in the district of every Blue Dog Democrat," said HCAN campaign manager Richard Kirsch of the conservative Democrats.
Uprising in Florida: Meet Doug Tudor
DWT contacted Doug Tudor, a twenty year naval veteran who has decided to challenge (Florida Republican Congressman Adam) Putnam is his central Florida bastion east of Tampa. Formerly a strong Democratic district, dispirited Democrats didn't even bother running a candidate in 2006. Tudor is shaking up politics in Polk County, not by trying to echo Republican talking points but by presenting a clear and powerful alternative, the alternative Americans want to hear. Predictably, the cowardly Democratic Establishment, which prefers Republican-lite candidates, is trying to ignore his grassroots race. Tudor, who traveled to Iraq over 30 times, has been endorsed by Democracy for America. His politics are strongly progressive across the board. He wants to end the war in Iraq. He defends a woman's right to choice. He would never support inequality for any Americans and he supports the equal rights for gay men and women. He knows Bush will never end the war and in his campaign speeches he calls on Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Florida Senator Bill Nelson to end the war. I had a feeling he might have something to say about warrantless wiretapping and retroactive immunity. He did:
"On five occasions during my Navy career, I raised my hand and affirmed 'to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.' Members of Congress take a similar oath. I believe that those members who voted in favor of HR 6304 did so in violation of their oath of office. I would have voted against this bill."
More and better Democrats…more and better. You can help our efforts by donating to Blue America.
Just How Ignorant Are American Voters?
Image modified from Tony Rogers.
Bob Edwards Radio.com explores Rick Shenkman's new book, "Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter":
–Only 2 in 5 voters can name the three branches of the federal government.
–Only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on a map.
–Only 1 in 5 know that there are 100 federal senators.
And the most chilling…
–Nearly half (49%) of Americans think the President has the authority to suspend the Constitution.
CapeCodTimes.com - Teen charged with shoving senior off dock: "FALMOUTH – A 14-year-old boy was arrested yesterday after he pushed a senior citizen off a dock because he "thought it would be funny," police said.
The North Falmouth teen – whose name was not released because he is a juvenile – was at Megansett Beach when the 2:20 p.m. incident occurred. Police said the boy ran up behind the 71-year-old victim, who was fishing off the dock with his grandson, and pushed him off the dock and into the ocean."
The Spitzer Bump: How The Former Governor's Socks-On Predilections Gave New Music Media A Pushs - Media on The Huffington Post: "If 'Amie Street' doesn't quite ring a bell, then try Ashley Alexandra Dupre — aka 'Kristen,' the 22-year-old call girl who entertained client Eliot Spitzer in room 871 of the Washington Mayflower. She happened to have been a struggling recording artist with two songs on Amie Street Music, an online music site where price and popularity go hand in hand — literally. Every single starts off free, with prices only rising if warranted by user feedback and popularity — to a maximum of 98 cents. That provides a simple — and cheap — way to differentiate between artists on the basis of quality, at a price low enough to make for a low-risk listen.
That low-risk listen is what attracted thousands of people to Ashley Duprรฉ's songs on Amie Street after the Spitzer scandal broke — resulting in at least 500,000 listens and a small fortune for Duprรฉ. It also netted a tidy sum for AmieStreet, which gets a 30% cut."
From Congressman Dennis Kucinich
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 8) -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) sent the following letter today to his colleagues in Congress:
July 8, 2008
WHEN THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF LIES TO GO TO WAR, HE MUST BE IMPEACHED
A SINGLE ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT WILL BE BROUGHT TO THE FLOOR ON THURSDAY; PLEASE CO-SPONSOR
Dear Colleague,
During the Fourth of July holiday a WWII veteran stood ram-rod straight in his crisp dress uniform and saluted our flag as it passed in a parade. His silent reverential stance was a powerful reminder of the love of country that is reflected in our veterans of all generations and all services.
It is also a powerful reminder of the responsibilities of the President of the Untied States in his capacity as Commander in Chief.
By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.0708 11
When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.
But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney's office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC's original draft testimony removed.
By BBC
Click for video.
At least 20 people have been killed in a missile strike by coalition forces in Afghan's eastern Nangarhar province.
Local people say that the group was a wedding party and that most of the dead were women and children.
But the US has denied this, saying those killed were militants involved in previous mortar attacks on a Nato base. Meanwhile Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation into a missile attack by US helicopters on Friday in which 15 people died.
The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says the issue of civilian casualties is hugely sensitive in Afghanistan.
In the past, Mr Karzai has said that no civilian casualty is acceptable.
Map showing Nangarhar province
The latest claim puts yet more pressure on the Afghan authorities and international forces to avoid civilian casualties, our correspondent adds.
Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)
John McCain spoke in Colorado trying to sell his economic plan on Monday, and further proof that he truly is McSame, he used the same cite as Bush did eighteen months ago.
In addition to small business, the other bright spot in our economy are our exports, which are estimated to be growing at over 7%. I'll expand markets for our goods and services. 25% of all the jobs in this country are linked to world trade. In five states alone-Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and believe it or not, Colorado - over 5 million jobs depend on open markets. My opponent believes America would be better off by refusing opportunities to sell in growing foreign markets. But protectionism not only puts a hidden tax on almost everything you buy, but it undermines American competitiveness and cost jobs. 95% of the world's consumers live outside of the United States. Our future prosperity depends on opening more of these markets, not closing them. Five years ago, the outdoor footware company Crocs was started by a couple of entrepreneurs with a great idea, ingenuity and drive. This former small business now employs 600 people in Colorado alone and sells over 50% of its products in 90 countries around the world. Building barriers to Crocs or any American company's access to foreign markets will have a devastating effect on our economy and jobs and the prosperity of American families.
Crocs (which are probably what your children are wearing right this moment) seem to be a perennial favorite when GOP presidential candidates come to Colorado and need to call out a Great American Company[..]
Once again, they either have incompetent fact-checkers, or they're lazy, or they're just plain lying.
Truth be told: Crocs weren't invented by "a couple of entreprenuers" in Colorado, let alone by Duke Hansen.They weren't even invented in America. They were invented in that Great Frozen Socialist Paradise to the north. You read that right: ugly neon-hued foam shoes are another diabolical innovation for which we can Blame Canada.
The company that invented them was subsequently bought by Hansen and two other aforementioned Colorado entrepreneurs, who added the cute name and the marketing gloss. But the shoes are still made abroad — in Quebec, where the employees come pre-equipped with their own health insurance. Or at least, they were until recently: in April, the company announced that 270 jobs at the Quebec City plant would be moved to a new plant in Mexico. Rumors abound that the entire Canadian operation may soon close, and all manufacturing will move south.
In other words: it's another Great American Business that does most of its business elsewhere. Six hundred US jobs is a fine thing — but it would be many, many more if they were actually made here, too. [..]
In other words: it's a Great American Business that's run by Republicans, who are evidently getting everything their generous donations to the GOP paid for: presidential puffery, low taxes — and a tanking economy that's left fewer and fewer families in a position to pay $35 for a pair of kids' shoes.
Yup, those facts sure do have a liberal bias.
At the Colorado appearance where he stressed his economic program, John McCain got a question about a vet that he didn't seem too happy about.
Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)
The questioner, apparently a veteran, asks McCain about his voting against expansion of healthcare benefits to veterans for the years 2004-2007, years in which we have Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adding exponentially to the VA rolls. McCain testily reminds him that he has been endorsed by "all the organizations" and then launches into an explanation of his resistance to the Webb GI Bill that provided educational assistance to veterans. Wrong bill, Gramps.
When the questioner reiterates that his question went to healthcare–not educational–benefits, McSame reiterate that all the veterans' groups love him and blew him off. Temper, temper.
McCain: I've received every organization in America, their awards…[questioner says something-inaudible] Now, sir, I don't…I don't know what you're referring to nor do…[questioner continuing-inaudible] Sir, I'm responding to your question and then I will let you speak again, if you'd like, but you oughta…the way we try to conduct these is let people finish and then I will go back to [audience applause] to you…I'll go right back. So I don't know what bill you're referring to or what you're referring to and I'll be glad to have you refer to it. But the reason why I have a perfect voting record from organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and all the other veterans' service organization is because of my support of them, but if you can go ahead and respond if you want to. Go ahead. Give him the microphone back.
Q: I'll respond by saying this: that you do not have a perfect voting record by the DAV and the VFW. That's where these votes are recorded. And the votes were proposals…they were proposals by your colleagues in the Senate to increase healthcare funding of the VA in 2003, 4, 5 and 6, for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and you voted against those proposals. I can give the specific Senate votes, the numbers of those Senate votes, right now.
McCain: Well, I thank you and I'll be glad to examine what your version of my record is. But, again, I've been endorsed in every election by all of the veterans' organizations that do that. I've been supported by them and I've received their highest awards from all of those organizations, so I guess they don't know something you know. So I thank you very much and I will continue to be proud of my support for the veterans of this country and proud of their support.
Transcript of full exchange below the fold:
Q: Senator, veterans and all Americans admire your service in Vietnam. We admire the fact that you're the Straight Talk Express, but we know that you voted against…well, actually, you didn't vote on the new GI Bill and you spoke out against it. We understand you have a difference on that, but we don't…we haven't heard an explanation of why you voted against your colleagues' proposals to increase healthcare funding in 2004, 5, 6 and 7, when we had troops coming back from two wars.
McCain: Well, let me say first of all, sir, on the issue of the GI Bill, I have great respect for Sen. Webb and I appreciate his efforts and his service to our country. The issue was we need to increase our educational benefits for our veterans. And we were dedicated to that proposition. The problem that some of us had, who were career military people, was that there were studies that showed that we didn't have incentives to for people become career military people. I think those who have served understand the importance of the Non-Commissioned Officer and incentives for people to stay in. So we argued for an ability of veterans after… of active-duty service personnel after they've been in for a period of time, they could transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and/or family members. We felt that was one, appropriate, so a career military person doesn't have to worry about providing educational benefits in that way and also an incentive to stay in. Well, we reached an agreement. In case you missed it, we reached an agreement and we passed the legislation and we will now not only have the increased educational benefits but we will also have incentives for people to become career military people and be able to transfer those benefits. Now, I'm disappointed that it only went back to 2001. Senator…and I was disappointed that Senator Webb didn't support making it permanent. Senator Graham and I and other veterans will be looking to trying to extend that to all veterans, not just 2001. I hope you'll urge Sen. Webb and others to agree with that. Uh, my friend, I…all I can say is I don't know what you're pointing to but I received every award from every major veterans' organization in America. I've received every organization in America, their awards…[questioner says something-inaudible] Now, sir, I don't…I don't know what you're referring to nor do…[questioner continuing-inaudible] Sir, I'm responding to your question and then I will let you speak again, if you'd like, but you oughta…the way we try to conduct these is let people finish and then I will go back to [audience applause] to you…I'll go right back. So I don't know what bill you're referring to or what you're referring to and I'll be glad to have you refer to it. But the reason why I have a perfect voting record from organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and all the other veterans' service organization is because of my support of them, but if you can go ahead and respond if you want to. Go ahead. Give him the microphone back.
Q: I'll respond by saying this: that you do not have a perfect voting record by the DAV and the VFW. That's where these votes are recorded. And the votes were proposals…they were proposals by your colleagues in the Senate to increase healthcare funding of the VA in 2003, 4, 5 and 6, for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and you voted against those proposals. I can give the specific Senate votes, the numbers of those Senate votes, right now.
McCain: Well, I thank you and I'll be glad to examine what your version of my record is. But, again, I've been endorsed in every election by all of the veterans' organizations that do that. I've been supported by them and I've received their highest awards from all of those organizations, so I guess they don't know something you know. So I thank you very much and I will continue to be proud of my support for the veterans of this country and proud of their support.
From the Miami Herald:
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The U.S. government is blocking the American Civil Liberties Union from paying attorneys representing suspected terrorists held here, insisting that the ACLU must first receive a license from the U.S. Treasury Department before making the payments.
ACLU director Anthony Romero on Tuesday accused the Bush administration of "obstruction of justice" by delaying approval of the license, which the government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers' services are foreign terrorists.
"Now the government is stonewalling again by not allowing Americans' private dollars to be paid to American lawyers to defend civil liberties,'' Romero said.
It seems as though the only people left in the Bush administration are certifiable lunatics and knuckle draggers. The unthinkable is always possible with these people, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that they would sink to using such barbaric tactics to keep the public in line.
This clip, which is not directly linked to this story, is safe for work, although you might find yourself yelling at your monitor while watching it. (the related content starts at around 3:00 in) The video, made by an electronic ID bracelet manufacturer, shows how they will work to effectively disable the dirty, scary brown people in mid-air without compromising the structural integrity of the plane or harming innocent bystanders — and I'm sure they're just as effective on anti-American liberals and dirty f*$king hippies as well. Would you allow yourself or your family to be fitted with one of these devices when you fly? Me either. More from Daily Kos:
Every feel like livestock when you fly? DHS is exploring a new technology (warning, Moonie Times link) which, if it makes to airlines, will guarantee I will never fly again:
A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers.
This bracelet would:
• take the place of an airline boarding pass
• contain personal information about the traveler
• be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
• shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes Read on…
The Spitzer Bump: How The Former Governor's Socks-On Predilections Gave New Music Media A Pushs - Media on The Huffington Post: "If 'Amie Street' doesn't quite ring a bell, then try Ashley Alexandra Dupre — aka 'Kristen,' the 22-year-old call girl who entertained client Eliot Spitzer in room 871 of the Washington Mayflower. She happened to have been a struggling recording artist with two songs on Amie Street Music, an online music site where price and popularity go hand in hand — literally. Every single starts off free, with prices only rising if warranted by user feedback and popularity — to a maximum of 98 cents. That provides a simple — and cheap — way to differentiate between artists on the basis of quality, at a price low enough to make for a low-risk listen.
That low-risk listen is what attracted thousands of people to Ashley Duprรฉ's songs on Amie Street after the Spitzer scandal broke — resulting in at least 500,000 listens and a small fortune for Duprรฉ. It also netted a tidy sum for AmieStreet, which gets a 30% cut."
CapeCodTimes.com - Teen charged with shoving senior off dock: "FALMOUTH – A 14-year-old boy was arrested yesterday after he pushed a senior citizen off a dock because he “thought it would be funny,” police said.
The North Falmouth teen – whose name was not released because he is a juvenile – was at Megansett Beach when the 2:20 p.m. incident occurred. Police said the boy ran up behind the 71-year-old victim, who was fishing off the dock with his grandson, and pushed him off the dock and into the ocean."
Best Week Ever » Blog Archive » 50 Animals Squashed Against Glass
Some of these are hilarious - this one was one of my favs:
Newborn abandoned on North Side cried for hours before being found, officials say -- chicagotribune.com: "The 5-pound baby's body temperature was about 86 degrees at the hospital. If he had been left outside for two or three more hours he might have lost too much body heat to survive, said Dr. Richard Feldman, chairman of Illinois Masonic's Department of Emergency Medicine.
'The baby is doing very, very well,' Feldman said, and doctors are hopeful he will make a full recovery. Doctors estimate the baby was born less than a day before he was found."
Family Film Guide for the Week Beginning July 6, 2008 - Yankee Pot Roast: "Ferris Bueller’s Year on Parole
Everyone’s favorite troublemaking charmer is back in this long-awaited sequel to John Hughes’s 1986 classic. Bueller’s luck has turned, as the new century finds him mostly bald, forty pounds heavier, and working odd jobs for cash in Chicago’s quirky Ukrainian Village neighborhood. After spending six months in the can for trying to bribe a police officer with a stolen crate of pierogies, Bueller (Paul Giamatti) struggles to stay on the straight and narrow, which is no easy feat since his longtime girlfriend and lady of the night Sloane (Hillary Swank) has just learned she has full-blown tuberculosis. Todd Solondz directs.
Rated R for graphic masturbation; crack smoking; blood-spitting; and frequent audience-directed monologues that turn increasingly angry, vulgar, and frightening."
Alderman's father admits role in fake ID operation -- chicagotribune.com: "The father of a Chicago alderman faces prison and deportation to Mexico after pleading guilty Tuesday to taking part in a conspiracy to sell fake identification documents in the Little Village neighborhood.
Elias Munoz, 63, owned the photo business that prosecutors say was at the local center of a ring that made millions of dollars selling fraudulent IDs.
Munoz, the father of Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd), admitted to U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer that he knew photos taken at his shop were used for bogus driver's licenses, Social Security cards and resident alien cards."
CTA to attack bus-bunching with GPS, mobile supervisors -- chicagotribune.com: "The CTA hopes to reduce delays next month by getting bus supervisors out of their booths and into hybrid vehicles equipped with global positioning system phones and computers to more quickly untangle the head-scratching phenomenon where buses stack up along the same route."
A report says the FCC's new video franchising rules—designed to make it easy for AT&T and Verizon to deploy their video services—hurt community TV and don't lower cable costs. Funny... AT&T and Verizon said that more competition would lead to lower cable prices.
NakedShorts: FoHF investors face (more) tax issues: "Sort-of translated from the original bureau-beancountingese, the ruling prohibits funds of hedge funds from claiming management and incentive fees on Schedule E, along with other partnership income or losses. Instead, the fees must be reported on Schedule A, where they are subject to two per cent and three per cent hurdles; some taxpayers will consequently lose all or some of the benefit of the deductions, depending on their income level and total deductions."
Mygallons: BBB Says MyGallons.com "Omitted Fact" In Advertising, Has No Contract To Process Transactions: "The BBB says its concerned about gasoline-hedging company MyGallons.com and its ability to live up to the advertising claims on its website. A spokesperson for the BBB tells us that the biggest 'red flag' they've discovered is that MyGallons claimed (in their press release) to have partnered with US Bank. However, when the BBB called US Bank to confirm this, they found out that it wasn't true. US Bank had discussed the opportunity with MyGallons, but had declined. According to the BBB, despite the fact that they have no contractual agreements in place to process transactions, MyGallons is still signing up new customers."
Baseball Auction Swings And Misses | News | Animal
An early harvard vs Yale poster with all black teams is being auctioned off...
Baseball Auction Swings And Misses | News | Animal
An early harvard vs Yale poster with all black teams is being auctioned off...
Type in the words you want and the site will pull the words from other songs and mash them together. So far the word "I" is from Chris Isaac's "Wicked Game". It does have its limitations, though. So far it cannot find "dyke" or "jedi." Nobody's perfect.
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/Src/sing/sing.asp
Segway CTO Leaves for Apple as Product Design VP - O'Reilly Radar: "Segway CTO Leaves for Apple as Product Design VP
Phil Torrone noticed today on the Segway Chat forums that 'Doug Field, the chief technology officer at Segway who heads their entire engineering team (and has since Day 1), is leaving Segway to become a VP of product design at Apple.' The announcement continues:
Doug has been the driving force in making the Segway what it is today and will be sorely missed at the company. However, with every change comes good and bad. So while it's bad the rich history and experience of Doug is leaving, it's good in that perhaps the team will get a fresh perspective into possible engineering solutions for future versions of the Segway (or Segway-like applications). And hey, what can be better than a gig at Apple? These days, in the design and engineering world, not much!! We wish Doug all the luck in moving on!!"
Is Pornography Addictive?: "Psychologists debate whether people can have an addiction to pornography.
By Martin F. Downs
WebMD Feature
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD, MD
In November 2004, a panel of experts testified before a Senate subcommittee that a product which millions of Americans consume is dangerously addictive. They were talking about pornography."
Toyota is a well known brand when we speak about cars, and is best known for its top-selling cars like the Prius and Corolla, but did you knew that Toyota also makes homes ? Until now I didn't know that, and they've been in the business of making homes for over 20 years! Right now Toyota is looking to apply its eco friendly image and technical know-how to help boost sales of its small and little-known prefabricated-housing division. The Toyota Homes unit accounts for only 0.5% of the company's $262 billion in annual sales, and Toyota would like to beef that up a little bit.
Toyota's aspirations as a home builder are also gaining new importance with the planned launch by 2010 of its plug-in vehicles, gas-electric hybrid cars with powerful lithium-ion batteries that drivers will need to recharge at home. The car maker is testing an electricity-monitoring system in its homes that would charge the vehicle during off-peak hours to keep utility bills low, while the car's battery can serve as an electrical backup, powering the home during blackouts. According to the Wall Street Journal, Toyota Homes are built from six or more modules in under 45 days. They have a conservative home model called the Smart Stage that sells for $200k. It's about a 1000 sf, two-story home. There's also a more expensive, custom-built 2600 sf home that sells for around $800k. Toyota Homes are strong and guaranteed for about 60 years, which is twice the average lifespan of a home in Japan. Find more about Toyota homes on their website. - Via
Post from: Interior Design, Home & House Design, Furniture
Toyota is a well known brand when we speak about cars, and is best known for its top-selling cars like the Prius and Corolla, but did you knew that Toyota also makes homes ? Until now I didn't know that, and they've been in the business of making homes for over 20 years! Right now Toyota is looking to apply its eco friendly image and technical know-how to help boost sales of its small and little-known prefabricated-housing division. The Toyota Homes unit accounts for only 0.5% of the company's $262 billion in annual sales, and Toyota would like to beef that up a little bit.
Toyota's aspirations as a home builder are also gaining new importance with the planned launch by 2010 of its plug-in vehicles, gas-electric hybrid cars with powerful lithium-ion batteries that drivers will need to recharge at home. The car maker is testing an electricity-monitoring system in its homes that would charge the vehicle during off-peak hours to keep utility bills low, while the car's battery can serve as an electrical backup, powering the home during blackouts. According to the Wall Street Journal, Toyota Homes are built from six or more modules in under 45 days. They have a conservative home model called the Smart Stage that sells for $200k. It's about a 1000 sf, two-story home. There's also a more expensive, custom-built 2600 sf home that sells for around $800k. Toyota Homes are strong and guaranteed for about 60 years, which is twice the average lifespan of a home in Japan. Find more about Toyota homes on their website. - Via
Post from: Interior Design, Home & House Design, Furniture
Here are 18 working Bank of America executive/employee email addresses. A Consumerist reader launched a EECB (executive email carpet bomb) that got his overdraft fees refunded; these were the ones that didn't bounce back, plus some more we found recently.
ken.d.lewis@bankofamerica.com, colleen.haggerty@bankofamerica.com, nicole.nastacie@bankofamerica.com, britney.w.sheehan@bankofamerica.com, nicole.nastacie@bankofamerica.com, joe.price@bankofamerica.com, keith.banks@bankofamerica.com, michael.jones@bankofamerica.com, liam.e.mcgee@bankofamerica.com, brian.t.moynihan@bankofamerica.com, jeffrey.r.carney@bankofamerica.com, amy.brinkley@bankofamerica.com, steele.alphin@bankofamerica.com, liam.e.mcgee@bankofamerica.com, bradford.r.dinsmore@bankofamerica.com, michelle.shepherd@bankofamerica.com, diane.morais@bankofamerica.com, maryellen.baker@bankofamerica.com
We have received numerous requests lately for company-specific email lists. At present, we have very few, but that number can be increased if you send in the results of your successful EECBs. Don't be so lazy, here's all the info you need to build your own EECB.
(Photo: Payton Chung)
By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor in Hokkaido, Japan, Telegraph
Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda.
The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food.
Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the "blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner".
The dinner consisted of 18 dishes in eight courses including caviar, smoked salmon, Kyoto beef and a "G8 fantasy dessert".
Howard Stern comics bombed, no joke
Wednesday, July 2nd 2008, 7:48 PM
Howard Stern pals Gary Dell'Abate and Artie Lange came under fire after performing a comedy show in Afghanistan.
Howard Stern nearly lost his closest cohorts in Afghanistan this week.
Stern's Sirius radio show producer Gary Dell'Abate, show regular Artie Lange and comedians Nick DiPaolo, Jim Florentine and Dave Attell had just finished a comedy show for troops in Kandahar when the base came under attack.
"Everything was going fine until the end," a friend of the comics, who heard from them by cell phone, tells us. "They were all done with their sets, and they were headed in a car convoy to a meet-and-greet elsewhere, but they only made it about 20 yards.
"The military base they were on came under mortar fire, and the convoy was turned around."
Troops led the comics into a secure bunker, where they all waited for a very unfunny 35 minutes as the shelling continued.
Eventually it stopped, and the comedians, all uninjured, went on to continue the USO/Armed Forces Entertainment tour at other undisclosed locations in the Persian Gulf. Tony Burton, Dell'Abate's rep, confirmed the incident but couldn't comment.
Before they left for Afghanistan, callers like lawyer Dominic Barbara phoned in to the Stern show and wondered if the comics, especially those like Dell'Abate, who has children, should be risking their lives.
But Dell'Abate seemed most concerned about the 22-hour flight to the country, saying he'd never flown longer than seven hours.
Lange seemed most worried about what material they could use, given the Army's orders not to make jokes involving President Bush, sex, race, religion, drugs or drinking.
Any safety fears he may have had surely disappeared when he heard how desperate the troops are for entertainment. In fact, when the soldiers heard they were getting a show, they were ecstatic, according to the Stern fan site Marksfriggin.com.
So far, Scarlett Johansson, Robin Williams, Kid Rock, Toby Keith, Morgan Freeman, Jessica Simpson, Kelli Pickler and bands O.A.R. and Five for Fighting have been among the few courageous enough to go to the war zones to bring soldiers a bit of cheer.
But Stern himself may have had the last word on the tour when he joked, "Why is Gary going, anyway? He's not even funny."
No worries: Dell'Abate is serving as the tour's emcee.
News: News and Events: LiU in English: www.liu.se: "Intuition, or tacit knowledge, is difficult to measure, so it is often denigrated. A dissertation in education research shows that there is a neurobiological explanation for how experience-based knowledge is created."
News: News and Events: LiU in English: www.liu.se: "Intuition, or tacit knowledge, is difficult to measure, so it is often denigrated. A dissertation in education research shows that there is a neurobiological explanation for how experience-based knowledge is created."
23 months after we first posted her story, Angela Weigold writes in with the latest update about a Prius salesmen who left multiple harassing phone messages daily, calling Anela a "whore" and put her phone number on online escort websites.
In March of 2007 our civil suit attorney contacted Dan Wolf. Dan Wolf owns Toyota of Naperville and other dealerships in the chicagoland area. Dan Wolf immediately fired Mr. James V Gentile in March 2007.... Toyota of Naperville has been served in November of 2007. Mr. James V Gentile aka Jim was hard to serve. Finally April of 2008 he got his papers...
Update on the criminal case... The states attorney has counted 19 blocked phone calls going to my cell phone from his home phone and his cell phone! Starting December 2005 and ending April 2006. Some how the jerk is having his attorney ( James Moore office of Rockford,IL) to pull off getting the case continued. The latest stunt they pulled was this... Court date in April was continued to June 12th because his attorney told the states attorney that he will take the plea. I was happy and I thought maybe there is some good in this man. But no, I get a call from the states attorney on June 12th to come down to the court house to testify! I could not believe it! So I went down to the court house and met with the States Attorney only to be told it will be continued due to the judge assigned to the case is on Vacation! The next court date is set for August 7th, but I am not going to count on it!
To the dealerships out in the Chicagoland area, if you have him as an employee, watch out, he maybe doing this to your customers! To the public, if he is your salesman, please beware of what kind of person he is!
The wheels of consumer justice grind slowly, and they grind exceedingly small.*
Read previous updates to this thread here.
(Photo: Beth and Christian)
* with hat tip to Friedrich von Logau(with hat tip to Friedrich von Logau
Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)
I admit I get a slight case of schadenfreude in watching the mainstream media get forced to come around to what we in the liberal blogosphere have been saying all along: the Bush administration will be looked at as the worst ever. As we come mercifully to the final months of the Bush presidency, The McLaughlin Group asks its panel (made up of one "liberal" - Eleanor Clift and three conservatives - Monica Crowley, Mort Zuckerman and Michelle Bernard, naturally) just how toxic the legacy of Bush & Cheney will be. Try as they might to spin it to a more positive bend, none of the conservatives can truly deny McLaughlin's list.
McLaughlin: Let me…let me go ahead with this exit question and you can fill it in with your own point now. Exit question: Is it too soon to conclude the following about the Bush/Cheney legacy? One: They destroyed the GOP Congressional majority. Two: Tanked the value of the dollar. Three: Created unprecedented red ink in the federal budget. Four: Drew us into a quagmire in Iraq. Five: Left us with a recession and inflation. Six: Then skedaddled out of town. The question is, is it too soon to conclude that the foregoing constitutes the Bush/Cheney legacy? Zuckerman.
Zuckerman: Well, I think you probably have weighted the case just slightly, John.
Actually, there's so much more he could have added, Mort, as Eleanor Clift points out:
Clift: Well, the notion that the terrorist threat would have been worse if he had not acted the way he did does not excuse a war of choice in Iraq that was then needlessly and poorly managed. And also you left off the list 'shredded the US Constitution'. I thought your list was pretty good [laughter] and that's why President Bush has a 29% approval rating. He deserves it!
Big kudos to Clift as well for challenging Monica Crowley's mindless "we're winning in Iraq" meme. The clueless award goes not to Zuckerman for his equally mindless "at least we haven't had another terrorist attack" either, but to Michelle Bernard, who seeks to give credit to Bush for bringing our collective attention to education and women's rights, especially in the Middle East. Say what? I guess the fact that the conversation is about how lacking the Bush policies are in those areas doesn't negate that we're at least talking about them.
Transcripts below the fold:
McLaughlin: Is George W. Bush quote unquote radioactive?
[video]
Rep. Tom Davis: The President's the face of the party, he's absolutely radioactive at this point…
McLaughlin: Bush radioactive. For the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Davis is frustrated and very gloomy.
[video]
Davis: We're seen as an appendage to President Bush and between an unpopular war, you take a look at the gas prices, the housing costs and everything, we are being tied to that.
McLaughlin: In the House of Representatives, three seats held special elections this year. In the last six months, Democrats have picked up three long time Republican seats. The GOP on March 8th lost an Illinois seat to a Democrat. Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert had occupied the seat for 22 years. Hastert resigned in November. In May, Republicans lost a Louisiana House seat that has been in Republican hands also for 22 years, since 1986, and most recently, Republicans lost a Mississippi special election. That seat had also been held by Republicans for 14 years. Question: how toxic is the Bush legacy for all 173 Republican House members up for re-election and 23 of the 49 Senate Republicans? Uh, Monica Crowley.
Crowley: Here's what Republicans have to do going into November. Number one, pray. Number two, if the President offers to come to your district and campaign for you…
McLaughlin: Run for your life.
Crowley: …opt for the cardboard cutout of President Bush, rather than the actual guy. And you also have to run…they have to get back to conservative principles. They have to talk about reducing the size of government, lower taxes, fighting the War on Terror, continuing that on the offense, talking about a national energy strategy, in a very real, tangible way, because gas prices are dominating the conversation. And also talk about the need to appoint conservative judges.
[crosstalk]
McLaughlin: Let me…let me go ahead with this exit question and you can fill it in with your own point now. Exit question: Is it too soon to conclude the following about the Bush/Cheney legacy? One: They destroyed the GOP Congressional majority. Two: Tanked the value of the dollar. Three: Created unprecedented red ink in the federal budget. Four: Drew us into a quagmire in Iraq. Five: Left us with a recession and inflation. Six: Then skedaddled out of town. The question is, is it too soon to conclude that the foregoing constitutes the Bush/Cheney legacy? Zuckerman.
Zuckerman: Well, I think you probably have weighted the case just slightly, John. Now I don't know why I think that. [laughter]
McLaughlin: What are the redeeming features?
Zuckerman: Well, I mean, the one that you have to imagine, okay, is that…
McLaughlin: Imagine? Then it doesn't exist.
Zuckerman: No, excuse me. That the terrorist threat is something that might have been a lot worse had he not been as forceful as he was. And the thing that I think astonishes everybody about this administration is not that their policies [sic], but how incompetent they were in administering their policies.
Clift: Well, the notion that the terrorist threat would have been worse if he had not acted the way he did does not excuse a war of choice in Iraq that was then needlessly and poorly managed. And also you left off the list 'shredded the US Constitution'. I thought your list was pretty good [laughter] and that's why President Bush has a 29% approval rating. He deserves it!
McLaughlin: Treat it as the abridged version. The executive summary.
Clift: You have to.
Zuckerman: He has a higher disapproval rating than Richard Nixon did in the last week of his presidency.
McLaughlin: Truman was the lowest though…I believe.
Clift: Well, by two points, he was at 27, I think, which at that time…
McLaughlin: That's a lower figure…
Clift: Well, he has time.
Crowley: Okay, so that was a pretty loaded question, John, and I do think it's too soon to pass judgment on the Bush/Cheney legacy. They still have a couple of more months in office, anything could happen. But on Mort's point, this is…
McLaughlin: You talking about Israel?
Crowley: …this is, well, a number of things could happen. The economy could improve, and by the way, we're winning the war in Iraq now…
[crosstalk]
…which even left-wing media that opposed the war-the Associated Press and so on-now admits we're winning in Iraq. There are a lot of…
Clift: Could you describe what winning is? Winning, what does that mean?
Crowley: The violence is down dramatically, Eleanor. There's political reconciliation happening like mad in Iraq. That doesn't mean it's not reversible, but…
Clift: And all those refugees is winning?
Crowley: …progress is in the right direction. And I will say, in terms of the Bush/Cheney legacy, there is some time to go and it's too early to pass judgment.
Bernard: Here is something positive, that I hope we'd all agree on about the Bush/Cheney legacy. Despite all the negatives that you just listed, which are probably correct, the Bush…President Bush brought education to the forefront of our national discussion. For the first time in a very long time, people are talking about what happens in our K-12 system, and how we prepare the future for a 21st century workforce.
Clift: But they're hating No Child Left Behind.
Bernard: But we are having the discussion. We have never had this discussion before, it is a national discussion, it's an important one to have, regardless of how you feel about No Child Left Behind, and also to President Bush's credit, for the first time in I think a very long time, we are actually talking about women's rights as human rights in the Middle East. We have had these discussions with Saudi Arabia, with Egypt, with Pakistan, with Iraq, and even in Iran, and I credit the administration for doing that.
McLaughlin: I think those are redemptive features. I also think Mort's point is quite helpful, helpful to redeem, and that is we haven't had a terrorist attack of the kind of significance that brought us to our knees with September the 11th.
Don't forget to vote for Jermaine Dye for the final pick on the American League All-Star roster. Ex-White Sox players Aaron Rowand and Carlos Lee are in the mix for the National League's final spot too.
If you were one of the millions who hit the road this long weekend, you know that rising gas prices can do a number on your wallet, leaving you with less cash to throw down for an icy, cold beer.
So instead of just forking over your last twenty at the first gas station you see, plot out your fuel-ups for next time with Gasbuddy on Google Maps. The GasBuddy add-on will help you find the nearest and cheapest gas to your location, helping you save a few pennies in the process.
Just add-on the GasBuddy extension to your Google Map and enter your zip code. It's all downhill from there.
This week US Marines censored an award winning photojournalist – continuing the efforts to make certain we do not see the real results of our actions in Iraq. Zoriah was embedded with a Marine unit documenting the reasons so many soldiers are suffering from PTSD. He was only a block away when another Marine unit was caught up in a suicide bombing in Anbar province:
My hands still shake and my heart pounds despite my fatigue. A combination of depression, fear, and adrenaline makes my thoughts race with the realization that a simple decision was the only thing that seperated me from a body count that grows daily. I look at the images I took on the 26th of June, and realize they do nothing to capture the emotion of being an eyewitness to the aftermath of the Al-Qaeda suicide attack in Karmah/Garma… the smell… the sound of screams and crying.
Zoriah and his unit arrived on the scene shortly after the bombing and he witnessed and photographed the aftermath – including the corpses of 3 US Marines. His photos met all standards set by the agreement embeds sign with the military but he was told to remove the images from his blog. He refused – and he is now being sent out of Iraq.
I truly labored with the decision to post these images and I still do. But in my heart of hearts I know that people need to see and feel the reality of this horrible situation. How can things change if all that comes out of Iraq are sanitized, white-washed images of war designed for mainstream media outlets who focus on making money, not on the quality and truth in what they report?
To the families of the Marines, the interpreters, the Iraqi police, and the civilians killed in the attack: you have my deepest condolences. These men were attending a city council meeting and working together to better their community. Something terrible happened to them when they were in the midst of doing a good thing.
Zoriah's photographs are graphic – but this is the reality we have created with our war and occupation of the people of Iraq. If we do not see even this small glimpse of the reality of Iraq, how can we, as citizens, understand the actions our government is taking in our names? As he wrote immediately after the bombing:
I want you to observe and comprehend what others live through on a daily basis — to see what the Iraqi civilians and foreign soldiers see. I want people who follow my photography to understand that although I am able to bring images of war to the world in a form of art, what actually goes on here is horror. My message is not that war yields great photography. My message is: War yields human misery and suffering.
Photo credit © Zoriah/www.zoriah.com : blog use permitted
By Pam Miles
I have firm confirmation that Nancy Pelosi is urging the Judiciary committee NOT to go forward with contempt against Rove.
Congressman John Conyers and the Judiciary staff are battling for it but this has become an infight among dems.
Time to burn up the phone lines.
800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803 toll free to congressional switchboard
PLEASE CALL. House Judiciary Committee:
Here are the direct phone #'s of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.
They're all democrats, and they're all congressmen:
All their phone numbers begin with 202, next three digits are 225. I will list only the last four digits, to save time:
John Conyers, Michigan - 1-202-225-5126
Howard Berman, California - 4695
Rick Boucher, Virginia - 3861
Jerrold Nadler, New York - 5635
Bobby Scott, Virginia - 8351
Melvin Watt, North Carolina - 1510
Zoe Lofgren, California - 3072
Sheila Jackson, Texas - 3816
On his outstanding Prodigal Son CD, North Carolina folk and blugrass legend Mike Cross presents us with a high-stepping little ditty called "Bill is in His Grave." Bill, it turns out, was a scoundrel of the first order, and he'd been recently deceased.
The narrator is asked to say a few words at the funeral, a task that proves daunting for a man who'd rather not speak ill of the dead.
He finally manages this:
If Heaven is pleased when sinners cease to sin
If the Devil is pleased when another soul comes in
If the Earth is pleased to be rid of a knave
Then everybody's happy 'cause Bill is in his grave.
This chorus sprang immediately to mind when I heard this past Friday that another scoundrel, former Senator Jesse Helms - a Tar Heel like both Mike Cross and myself - had departed the world that he worked so hard to corrupt. I hope Cross, who's truly one of America's legendary musical treasures, won't mind my invocation of his song on this occasion. Like the narrator, I was raised to either speak well of people or say nothing at all, and that edict goes double when the subject is freshly dead.
On the other hand, I was also taught to live my life in accordance with particular moral principles and to honor the truth above all other things. Perhaps you have, by now, sensed a certain tension in my writing - this is why.
So let me speak plainly and be judged by the fairness of my eulogy, such as it is. I will not gravedance, but I will note that in recent days a lot of raging morons have had all kinds of praise for the late Sen. Helms, that bastion of conservative principles, that stalwart defender of tradition, that foundational champion of the Republican ascendancy, and so on. Hell no, I'm not linking to any of it - if you have a taste for horseshit go get your own shovel.
There are some facts about the Senator's life and career, though, and we should not allow the protocols of death or the shameless pandering of Helms' equally corrupt fellow travelers distract us from them. Take this bit, for instance:
As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)
How about this one:
"The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)
Rick Perlstein has more, and so does Pam Spaulding. Jesse never repented, by the way.
One of his most famous moments, of course, occurred during his re-election campaign against one such uppity Negro, Harvey Gantt. Much has been made of George Bush the Elder's infamous Willie Horton/revolving prison door ad in the 1988 campaign, but it paled in comparison to Jesse's "hands" spot.
Jesse Helms was an ignorant, bile-spewing hatemonger who left a greasy film on everything he touched. Yes Virginia, there are evil people in the world. There are those who make society a worse place simply by living in it, and when they manage to acquire power they can inflict damage on a scale so great that it may take generations to clean up.
As wonderful as it is that Jesse Helms will no longer be wreaking havoc on our culture, the sad fact is that there's little time or cause to celebrate because his legacy lives on. He taught others that prejudice and hate are acceptable motivations for governance and his anti-intellectual progeny are ever manufacturing new and more appalling tools for the oppression of the innocent.
Fine - let's all take a moment to toast the death of an evil human being - truly the world is a better place without Jesse Helms. But make it quick because we have to get back to work. Jesse's mess isn't going to clean itself up.
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's verbal attacks on reporters, general managers, players, fans, and blow-up dolls are somewhat disturbing, if not highly entertaining for those of us who don't have to deal with them directly. But did you know you too can be eviscerated by Ozzie if you type with the appropriate amount of bile?
Guillen has made his e-mail public, so White Sox fans far and wide can tell him how spectacular a job he's doing, or just anonymously insult him without imminent threat of physical retaliation. Chicago Tribune writer Rick Morrissey decided to test the account to see if Guillen really did check it. The writer fired away numerous semi-anonymous, timid, annoying messages to Guillen to see if he'd bite. None of them did — until Morrissey sent this one that "ripped" Guillen for this car dealership ad:
Ozzie:
I just saw your car dealership ad with Piniella. You should stick to managing. 77-year-old Jack McKeon can rap better than you.
Rick
Surprisingly, this irked Guillen enough that he felt compelled to write back:
You have to be stupid. Get a life, loser. I hope you have no kids. They have to be like you.
This back-and-forth went on for another few emails until Morrissey finally achieved his goal. He later fessed up to Ozzie about his experiment, who took it surprisingly well. Guillen said the ground rules for emailing him are easy to follow. Complain about the lineup. Question his judgment. Tell him how much better the Cubs are this season. But...:
"But when they say things about my family or 'Go pick coffee beans back in your country,' I get mad. I say, In my country, we don't have coffee, but we got a lot of oil."
You know the rules. You've been warned.
Guillen really does answer his email [Chicago Tribune]
PINEHURST, N.C. A former Army medic made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war has died of an apparent overdose, police said.
Joseph Patrick Dwyer died last week at a hospital in Pinehurst, according to the Boles Funeral Home. He was 31. The photograph, taken in March 2003, showed Dwyer running to a makeshift military hospital while cradling the boy. The photo appeared in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts worldwide, making Dwyer became a symbol of heroism.His mother said the military could have done more to help with post-traumatic stress. "He just couldn't get over the war," Maureen Dwyer said. "He just couldn't do it. Just wasn't Joseph. Joseph never came home." Read on…
For Dwyer, much like the Marlboro Marine and the thousands of other nameless, faceless Iraq veterans who served in those hellish conditions, coming home was a nightmare. PTSD and horrific suicide rates have plagued our vets, while the Bush Administration can't begin to handle the staggering numbers and provide them with the mental and physical care they need. I guess these guys just need to suck it up and deal, right?
Foreclosed-on voters using old addresses could snag election | AfterDowningStreet.org: "By Robert Vitale, COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Punch cards in Florida left the 2000 presidential election in limbo. Ohio's voting-machine shortage became a source of continuing controversy in 2004.
If there's Election Day disorder brewing for 2008, it might well be rooted in the nation's mortgage-foreclosure crisis. In Columbus, across Ohio and in other key presidential battlegrounds, more people losing their homes means more registered to vote from addresses where they no longer live.
Although federal law ensures that most still will be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4, Ohio voters with outdated addresses risk pre-election challenges and trips from polling place to polling place. They're also more likely to cast provisional ballots that might not be counted.
'It's a real issue,' said Daniel Tokaji, an Ohio State University law professor who wonders whether foreclosures might explain the increasing percentages of provisional votes cast between 2004 and Ohio's latest election, the presidential primary in March."
CEO of Firm That Signed Controversial Iraq Oil Deal Longtime Bush, Cheney Adviser | AfterDowningStreet.org: "Ray Hunt, the Texas oil man who landed a controversial oil production deal with Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, has enjoyed close political and business ties with Vice President Dick Cheney dating back a decade – and to the Bush family since the 1970s."
When every other remedy is repressed, quashed or made illegal, guerrilla tactics are all we have left! Thomas Jefferson said that guerrilla tactics are justified in cases of tyranny. We have a 'right', Jefferson said, to 'abolish' a government that has become, like that of Bush, tyrannical. The revolutionary spirit of Jefferson was with those who protested Bush at Monticello! The spirit of Jefferson is 'anti-Bush'."The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."--H. L. MenckenBush has been more successful at suppressing dissent at home and than he has been at fighting real 'terrorists' abroad. Armed with an Orwellian 'Patriot Act', Bush need only 'deem' you a 'terrorist' and you can be incarcerated in a hell-hole in violation of every principle put forward by real statesmen like Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. Bluntly -- you are living under the absolute rule of a tyrant! Thomas Jefferson would have supported efforts to remove Bush and would most certainly be called 'radical' or 'liberal' or even 'conspiracy theorist' if he were alive today.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness" --Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of IndependenceChe Guevara said essentially the same thing in his classic treatise on guerrilla warfare.
"When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken." --Che Guevara, Chapter I: General Principles of Guerrilla WarfareChe might have been prescient. Certainly --the 'forces of oppression' maintain themselves in power 'against established law'. In fact, Bush has personally ordered the illegal and treasonous dismantling of 'established' Constitutional law, which he dismissed with a smirk: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper"! Bush broke the law, subverted the law, ordered the law changed to suit him, and re-written the law --on the fly --with signing statements. He has ordered his attorneys to render opinions that tell him what he wants to hear, i.e, that the crimes he's already committed are made legal after he had already committed them. Many of those broken laws are found in the supreme law of the land --the Constitution.
"When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular."--David Hume, Of the First Principles of GovernmentBush has taken to new heights nefarious efforts to shut up his opposition. Due to right wing policies and media consolidation throughout the regimes of Reagan and Bush Sr, the media is but a right wing echo chamber. No one can, therefore, reasonably deny a voice to folk for whom Thomas Jefferson's Monticello is symbolic of free speech and a revolution in support of it! Bush may have been within the letter of the law to quash 'free speech' at Monticello, but to do so on Jefferson's soil, is a poke in the eye! The downside for Bush is that it tips his hand. It betrays his anti-Jefferson mindset, his anti-Democratic, dictatorial, fascist bent. It was Mr. Bumble in Dicken's David Copperfield who said "If that is the law, sir, then the law is a ass!" I'm with Jefferson, Che, Hume, and Mr. Bumble. I say RIGHT ON to the protesters! What passes for law under Bush is --indeed --'a ass'! I denounce the war criminal Bush for having soiled the ground Jefferson walked on. I accuse Bush of war crimes, high treason, graft, and other capital crimes as stated succinctly in US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 --significantly the very portion that Bush has worked so assiduously to rewrite but only after he had already earned himself a death penalty upon conviction.
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cryptogon.com » Archives » Teachers Get Guidance On How to Relay the Lessons of Sept. 11: "From the beginning, there was purpose behind forced schooling, purpose which had nothing to do with what parents, kids, or communities wanted. Instead, this grand purpose was forged out of what a highly centralized corporate economy and system of finance bent on internationalizing itself was thought to need; that, and what a strong, centralized political state needed, too. School was looked upon from the first decade of the twentieth century as a branch of industry and a tool of governance."
Story and photos are at Boston Indymedia, and apparently nowhere else. If we'd protested Bush that day only miles away on the road and not inside the event, nobody would have heard about our protest either.
Over at the National Review on Saturday, Kathryn Jean Lopez suggested a novel future for George W. Bush after he completes his disastrous tenure in the White House. The most unpopular President in modern times, Lopez insists, would "make an awesome high-school government teacher." But leaving aside for the moment his obvious aversion to academic study and the English language (as well as the U.S. Constitution), Bush has already made up his mind about his "post-service service." Upon leaving office, President Bush has said he plans to "replenish the ol' coffers."
Ignoring the inconvenient truth that many Republicans don't want the radioactive George Bush at their own national convention in Minneapolis, the NRO's Lopez would foist him instead on America's school children:
"A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn't George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn't it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How's that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he's a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share."
Unfortunately for Lopez, President Bush has already decided that he will cash in, and not give back, when his days in the Oval Office are done.
In a series of interviews which appeared in Robert Draper's 2007 book Dead Certain, Bush confirmed that the banality - and venality - that defined his presidency will characterize his post-presidency as well:
First, Mr. Bush said, "I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers." With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, "I don't know what my dad gets - it's more than 50-75″ thousand dollars a speech, and "Clinton's making a lot of money."
Then he said, "We'll have a nice place in Dallas," where he will be running what he called "a fantastic Freedom Institute" promoting democracy around the world. But he added, "I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch."
Some former presidents grow in status - and the people's esteem - only after they leave the White House. Jimmy Carter's failed term was redeemed in part by his charitable works and efforts for world peace. Bill Clinton's foundation and campaigns to battle AIDS, disease and natural disasters have made him perhaps the last globally respected American president. Even Richard Nixon's partial resurrection earned him elder statesman status.
But not President Bush. Already a small man, he will only decrease in stature as leaves the stage in Washington to "replenish the ol' coffers" and, apparently, just hang out. As Dubya put it last year, "Sixty-two is really young and yet I'll be through with my presidency."
When that time comes, Kathryn Jean Lopez has concluded, George W. Bush should bring the lessons of his failed presidency to school children. (Who knows - waterboarding kids for talking in class might even be legal in Texas.) But assuming she's not joking, in one sense she's surely right about his role in educating future generations. If nothing else, he would serve as a horrible example.
We'll get to the All-Star lineups in a moment. First, who's stoked at the thought of hockey outside on New Years Day? The Tribune reports that the Black Hawks and Red Wings will face off at Wrigley Field in the follow-up to this year's amazing Penguins-Sabres matchup in Buffalo. It's yet another coup for the Hawks as they quickly climb back to respectability. Club President John McDonough lobbied NHL commissioner Gary Bettman for the game almost from the moment he signed on with the Hawks.
It's a perfect storm moment: two of the NHL's "Original Six" teams — one of them the defending Stanley Cup champions — facing each other in one of most hallowed venues in professional sports while Pat Foley calls the game on WGN radio. It's like a dream come true.
What Every American Needs to Know (and Do) About FISA Before Tuesday, July 8th from Tim Ferriss on Vimeo.
All the Oil News That's Fit to Print (Attn: The New York Times)
By Nick Turse, TomDispatch
On June 19th, the New York Times broke the story in an article headlined "Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back: Rare No-Bid Contracts, A Foothold for Western Companies Seeking Future Rewards." Finally, after a long five years-plus, there was proof that the occupation of Iraq really did have something or other to do with oil. Quoting unnamed Iraqi Oil Ministry bureaucrats, oil company officials, and an anonymous American diplomat, Andrew Kramer of the Times wrote: "Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP… along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields."
A old gem from "Nightline" calling out John McCain's hypocrisy when it comes to positioning himself as a corruption-fighter.
I believe there have been times where I have probably been influenced because the big donor had - buys access to my office, and we know that access is influence. And honestly, that taints us all. It taints me.
