Liar: McCain lies about oil rigs surviving hurricanes and other stories

McCain: Oil Rigs 'Very Successfully' Survived the Impact of Hurricanes

from Think Progress by Guest

Yesterday, Nancy Pfotenhauer, Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) senior policy adviser, claimed that she had been "misinformed" when she falsely stated that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita "did not spill a drop of oil." Today, McCain made another "misinformed" argument, claiming that oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico "have survived, very successfully, the impacts of hurricanes":

Q: I've been listening to your comments around renewable resources – solar, tide, and wind – you've talked a lot about that, but you keep peppering your comments with offshore drilling. But I'm not sure what you think the impact on our environment is based on that.

A: Keep the microphone. I'm aware that off the coast of Louisiana and Texas there are oil rigs, as we well know, and those rigs have survived, very successfully, the impacts of hurricanes – hurricane Katrina as far as Louisiana is concerned.

McCain is wrong. According to press reports, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita "tore through the Gulf of Mexico's offshore oil and gas fields, toppling production platforms, setting rigs adrift and rupturing pipelines." The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported that the hurricanes totally destroyed 113 offshore oil platforms.

The hurricanes cost Transocean, the largest offshore driller, "about $135 million in repairs, downtime and equipment upgrades" alone, and damage to offshore producers accounted for 77 percent of the oil industry's storm costs. One offshore rig, the Ocean Warwick, drifted 66 nautical miles before running aground.

Here are some photos of the success that McCain is touting:

– Pat Garofalo

Cross-posted in The Wonk Room.

Why ISPs' "Stand" Against Child Porn Is Actually Not a Stand Against Child Porn

from Slashdot by ScuttleMonkey

TechDirt has an insightful article on the recent push for ISPs to turn off Usenet access under the guise of fighting child pornography. Unfortunately, the "stand against child porn" isn't actually a stand at all, it seems more like ignoring the issue while trying to snag some headlines and good will. "Taking a stand against child porn wouldn't be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there's no review over the list to make sure that they're actually objectionable). Taking a stand against child porn would be hunting down those responsible for the child porn and making sure that they're dealt with appropriately... Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Target's Degree Deodorant Pricing Scheme Rewards Those Who Pay Attention [Bad Deals]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

Gavin wants to know what's up with Target's deodorant pricing.

Can you explain to me Target's bulk pricing on their Degree deodorant? As you can see in the attached picture - I could buy one deodorant for $1.82, or a two-pack for $3.89 from my local Target here in Chicago! Am I paying for the plastic they use to keep them together? Neither one is on sale, this is their regular pricing.

This is either Target trying to take advantage of people not paying a lot of attention and fairly assuming that two together will be cheaper than buying two individually, or just bad pricing!

People write us all the time about Target doing this with all sorts of products. We're pretty sure they're banking on you not paying attention.

How China's taking over Africa, and why we should be worried

from digg

With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way. The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.

Chinese Bar Owners Sign Pledge Not to Serve Blacks, Mongolians? [2008 Olympics]

from Deadspin by Clay Travis

The report originated in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and is, evidently, not a joke. I'm not an expert on the SCMP but it's evidently a reputable newspaper in Hong Kong. We've linked to the blog post discussing Miller's article because you have to subscribe to the newspaper to read some of their online articles. Including this one. Perhaps some of our overseas commenters can provide more information on the newspaper. Per Tom Miller of the SCMP:

Bar owners near the Workers' Stadium in central Beijing say they have been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges agreeing not to let black people enter their premises.
"Uniformed Public Security Bureau officers came into the bar recently and told me not to serve black people or Mongolians," said the co-owner of a western-style bar, who asked not to be named.

Several blogs have already picked up the story and are running with it. Denials, I'm sure, will be shortly forthcoming from Chinese Olympic officials and as of now this story is the lone evidence and accompanied by anonymous sources that have been criticized here. But, even still.

Ahh, China, you bastion of cultural freedom and equality you. May all your women be impregnanted by black and Mongolian men. Where are Genghis Khan and Shawn Kemp when you need them?

Report: Beijing bars told to ban black people during Olympics [Shanghaist]
Chinese multiculturalism=Epic fail [The Sporting Blog]
China set to host 1936 Olympic games [With Leather]

Umm, really? Update on SCMP story [Beijing Boyce]

How 'Stealth Ideology' Helped Bush Shred the Constitution

from The Existentialist Cowboy by Len Hart

In his short reign of terror, Bush accomplished what no terrorist could ever have accomplished by any means including those crimes called '911'. Bush will have left our Constitution in an ash heap. His tragic legacy can be summed up in three clauses: he destroyed the separation of powers and ruled by decree; he denied every citizen every right that is associated with being an 'American; he waged war upon a deliberate and treasonous fraud and is, thus, criminally responsible for the deaths of some 1.5 million innocent people! Bush infamously stated: 'The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" In his wake, it is not even that! It is ashes up in smoke, a fading memory.

Jack Cafferty: Viagra Is For A Medical Condition, Birth Control Is A “Lifest...

 

 

Sent to you by irie1972 via Google Reader:

 

 

Jack Cafferty: Viagra Is For A Medical Condition, Birth Control Is A "Lifestyle Choice"

via Crooks and Liars by Nicole Belle on 7/17/08

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

In discussion of McCain's painful fumbling over why health insurance covers Viagra but not birth control, The Situation Room panel of Wolf Blitzer, Gloria Borger, Stephen Hayes and Jack Cafferty debate the position between a rock and a hard place that McCain finds himself, eager to win over those feminist Clinton supporters but hesitant to speak out against that mainstay of the Republican platform: restricting women's reproductive freedom. 

Ignoring for the moment that CNN cannot bother to have a single pundit on for "balance" from the left against The Weekly Standard's Hayes and US News' Gloria Borger, it's Jack Cafferty who issues the befuddling "answer" to McCain's predictament: 

CAFFERTY: Well, you know, the answer is Viagra is used to treat a medical condition, erectile dysfunction. Birth control is a lifestyle choice. And that's why insurance companies don't reimburse for it unless pregnancy represents a danger for the woman. And then there's a gray area where you can do a negotiation.

Excuse me?   I know that most men don't have a huge well of knowledge on the workings of a woman's body (any more than I completely understand all of your equipment), but I think that in absence of knowledge, it might be smarter to avoid definite declarations like that.  Oral contraceptives are absolutely used to treat medical conditions: 

Although they are most commonly prescribed to prevent pregnancy, birth control pills are also used to treat a variety of menstrual disorders including amenorrhea (absence of menstruation), dysmenorrhea (abnormally painful menstruation) and hypermenorrhea (abnormally Menstruation is the periodic shedding of the lining of the uterus, causing bloody vaginal discharge.heavy menstrual bleeding). They may also be prescribed to treat a number of other conditions, including polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), hirsutism (abnormal hair growth) and endometriosis. In addition, birth control pills may be taken to regulate irregular menstrual cycles and to help in the transitional period prior to menopause.

In addition to preventing pregnancy and treating various medical conditions, birth control pills also offer women a number of significant health benefits, including a decreased risk of colorectal, ovarian and endometrial cancers.

And since when is the life of a woman to be considered a "gray area" for negotiation?  But there's no gray area about a man's desire to get it up, nor any consideration to the consequences of what happens when he can?   Jack, you disappoint me.

Transcripts below the fold:

BLITZER: Planned Parenthood is seizing on a stumble by John McCain when he was asked about insurance coverage for birth control and Viagra.

Let's talk about that with once again, our senior political analyst, Gloria Borger, Jack Cafferty and Stephen Hayes of "The Weekly Standard".

Here's the ad that Planned Parenthood is now running, guys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, PLANNED PARENTHOOD AD)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ever use birth control?

Then you'll want to hear this.

QUESTION: It's unfair. Health insurance companies cover Viagra, but not birth control.

Do you have an opinion on that?

MCCAIN: I don't know enough about it to give you an informed answer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Planned Parenthood Action Fund is responsible for the content of this ad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, so, Gloria, let me start with you.

What do you think? Is this going to be an effective ad, because Planned Parenthood is running it in several of these so-called swing states?

BORGER: I think what was clearly on John McCain's mind is that he didn't want to talk about Viagra and that's why you saw him in such agony during this. But, you know, McCain is trying to get those women voters that say that they're alienated from Obama, they were supporting Hillary Clinton. And, you know, this is not the way for him to get young women voters. He may have a lot of the Viagra voters, but he needs those young women if he's going to try and win the election (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: Steve, what do you think?

HAYES: Well, you know, you could see McCain just struggling to come up with any kind of an answer.

(LAUGHTER)

HAYES: I think he was probably thinking, jeez, on the one hand, I really need women voters. I don't want to say anything that will offend them. On the other hand, I'm essentially a conservative. I might make the point that maybe the federal government shouldn't be in the business of funding, you know, things for erectile dysfunction or birth control.

BORGER: Or — right.

BLITZER: Jack?

CAFFERTY: Well, you know, the answer is Viagra is used to treat a medical condition, erectile dysfunction. Birth control is a lifestyle choice. And that's why insurance companies don't reimburse for it unless pregnancy represents a danger for the woman. And then there's a gray area where you can do a negotiation.

But this is not going to help John McCain. It brings to mind his opposition to freedom of choice. He's a pro-life guy. You take a look at the Justices on the Supreme Court, you put McCain in office, you replay this ad from Planned Parenthood, you can figure out what kind of justices are going to be appointed if he's the next president.

BORGER: And, by the way, this whole thing was started by one of McCain's surrogates, Carly Fiorina, who pointed out this imbalance between insurance companies paying for Viagra and not paying for birth control. So I'm sure John McCain was kind of scratching his head.

BLITZER: All right. Let's have a — let's have a laugh.

 

 

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asshole alert - Trent Lott

Trent Lott lies about environmental impact of Katrina

from Crooks and Liars by SilentPatriot

  What else would you exp ect from a southern-Senator-turned-energy-lobbyist? Lott and his lobbying partner, former Louisiana Senator John Breaux, appeared on MSNBC today to make the joint case for drilling our way out of the energy crisis, and stressed that we need to start, like, yesterday. And if they have to lie in order to help their Big Oil clientele? So be it.

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

One point since we're both from the gulf area. We didn't have one drop of oil spilt when we had the biggest hurricane in recent history, Hurricane Katrina.

Oh, the Big Oil apologist lie that won't ever die.There were, in fact, at least 124 oil spills as a result of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. But just like how "the Chinese are drilling off Florida!!", some of these talking points are just too useful to discontinue.

On another important point, Lott and Breaux represent perhaps the most vivid example of what's wrong with the current culture in Washington. All too often, we see former lawmakers retire (or in some cases leave office before their terms are even finished) so that they can take cushy positions at prestigious firms lobbying their former colleagues on behalf of the interests who can afford the biggest sum.

I like Al Franken's common-sense proposal: Extend the one year waiting period to a lifetime ban. Such a policy could only have beneficial results.

FindLaw's Writ - Van Bergen: The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?

FindLaw's Writ - Van Bergen: The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?: "Presidential power must be unilateral, and unchecked.

But the most recent and blatant presidential intrusions on the law and Constitution supply the verse to that refrain. They not only claim unilateral executive power, but also supply the train of the President's thinking, the texture of his motivations, and the root of his intentions.

They make clear, for instance, that the phrase 'unitary executive' is a code word for a doctrine that favors nearly unlimited executive power. Bush has used the doctrine in his signing statements to quietly expand presidential authority.

In this column, I will consider the meaning of the unitary executive doctrine within a democratic government that respects the separation of powers. I will ask: Can our government remain true to its nature, yet also embrace this doctrine?"

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration: "Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law.

President Bush and the attorneys advising him may also anticipate that the signing statements will help him if and when the relevant laws are construed in court - for federal courts, depending on their views of executive power, may deem such statements relevant to their interpretation of a given law. After all, the law would not have passed had the President decided to veto it, so arguably, his view on what the law meant ought to (within reason) carry some weight for the court interpreting it. This is the argument, anyway.

Bush has quietly been using these statements to bolster presidential powers. It is a calculated, systematic scheme that has gone largely unnoticed (even though these statements are published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents) until recently, when President Bush's used a signing statement to attempt to nullify the recent, controversial McCain amendment regarding torture, which drew some media attention."

Unfathomed Dangers in PATRIOT Act Reauthorization - by Paul Craig Roberts

Unfathomed Dangers in PATRIOT Act Reauthorization - by Paul Craig Roberts: "A provision in the 'PATRIOT Act' creates a new federal police force with the power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true, as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.

Go to House Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads:

'There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.''"

ZNet - Bush's Spying

ZNet - Bush's Spying: "You don't have to be a constitutional scholar to know that Bush's legal justifications are weak. You merely have to consider the administration's duplicitous conduct. The Bush team has deliberately concealed this program, not only from the public and Congress, but, most damning of all, from the very agency that is responsible for executing the laws of this country: the Department of Justice (DOJ). It has been widely reported that even Bush appointees, such as former Assistant Attorney General James B. Comey, and possibly former Attorney General John Ashcroft, objected to the NSA's wide-ranging warrantless spying. After 20 years as a federal prosecutor, I am absolutely certain that the vast majority of career attorneys at DOJ and criminal prosecutors from U.S. Attorneys' Offices around the country, as well as federal law enforcement agents, would have refused to participate knowingly in this program. Bush and his coterie knew that their legal arguments were weak and intellectually dishonest, if not ludicrous, so rather than making their case honestly, even to their own people, they avoided dissent by acting in secret and affirmatively misleading the entire country. Using a tragically familiar modus operandi, Bush has carried out his unlawful spying scheme by acting not as a unitary executive (whatever that is), but as a solitary executive -- as if the President Knows Best."

Speed Up Your Torrent Downloads, Get a Seedbox | TorrentFreak

Speed Up Your Torrent Downloads, Get a Seedbox | TorrentFreak: "A seedbox is BitTorrent jargon for a dedicated high-speed server, used exclusively for torrent transfers. With a seedbox you’ll be able to download and upload faster than you ever imagined. Additionally, you can manage your torrents through a browser from anywhere, anytime."

Success Soul » Warren Buffett’s 7 Secrets for Living a Happy and Simple Life

Success Soul » Warren Buffett’s 7 Secrets for Living a Happy and Simple Life

The darker side of LOLcatrs

When The Laughing Stops - The Darker Side of LOLCats

from {tech}stink by admin

Call ATT President: Reach ATT Wireless Executive Customer Service

Call ATT President: Reach ATT Wireless Executive Customer Service
Here are the phone numbers to reach the AT&T Wireless Offices Of The President
Eastern States: 877-707-6220
Western States: 800-498-1912

Happy Endings: Two Out Of Three Of My iPhones Were Defective And The Third Won't Receive Calls

Happy Endings: Two Out Of Three Of My iPhones Were Defective And The Third Won't Receive Calls
Reader Michael is having a rough time with the iPhone. He says that two out of three of the iPhones purchased by his family were defective, and the third one wouldn't receive calls. Weirdly, this story has a happy ending, because Michael found some contact information on Consumerist that got his problem solved in 5 minutes.

Maureen Farrell: Top 10 'Conspiracy Theories' about George W. Bush

Maureen Farrell: Top 10 'Conspiracy Theories' about George W. Bush: "'It is incumbent upon journalists, I think, to distrust conspiracy theories. But the problem with the conspiracy theory of the machine that lifted George 'Dubya' Bush to high office is that it never lets you down. . . .'
-- Ed Vulliamy, the Observer, Aug. 24, 2003

'This is a government takeover and Bush and Cheney are running it.'
-- The Chattanoogan, Dec. 21, 2005"

7 Essential Cheat Sheets To Download | MakeUseOf.com

7 Essential Cheat Sheets To Download | MakeUseOf.com
Nice collection of very handy cheatsheets

OOOps

Walmart Pharmacy Error Causes Teen To Lapse Into Coma [Walmart]

from Consumerist by Jay Slatkin

Jessie Scott, an 18-year-old from Draper, Utah has been in a coma since the end of April because of a critical error which occurred at a Walmart pharmacy. His doctor prescribed Jessie 5mg of Oxycodone Hydrochoride in a liquid solution to help him with the severe pain of his strep throat, however, what he received from the pharmacy was a concentrated solution which was supposed to have been diluted before being dispensed to Jessie. Exactly how much medication did Jessie consume?

He consumed 1 teaspoon measured in a medicine cup which in its concentrated state contained 20 times the prescribed dose (100mg) and within hours, his organs began to fail and had to be placed on a ventilator.

The KSLTV article says,

Laurie Scott said, "This shouldn't have happened. It was needless. It was senseless and it's changed lives forever, not just Jessie, but there are other people who love him and his future."

Laurie trusted what she gave her son, what had been filled, was correct.

"I always ask questions. I've always medicated him his whole life. I'm the caregiver and it makes it extremely difficult," she said.

After 16 days in ICU, Jessie moved to intermediate care for another four days, then to HealthSouth for intensive therapy.

Wal-Mart Corporation issued the following statement to KSL News: "This is a very sad situation. Our thoughts are with this young man and his family."

There was a dramatic turn of events this weekend. For the first time, Jessie spoke, though the words are limited and intermittent. We will continue following his story in the weeks and months to come.

What makes this even more infuriating is that pharmacists receive extensive specialized training to prevent these exact types of situations. We are supposed to be able to trust that the medication the pharmacy prepares won't kill us, or worse. We are, however, shocked that Walmart seems to actually be acknowledging the error—they usually deny everything until the point of absurdity. Our thoughts are with the Scott family, we hope that Jessie gets better soon.

Teen in coma after wrong dose of medication [KSLTV] (Thanks to Seth!)

cryptogon.com » Archives » Contaminated U.S. Site Faces ‘Catastrophic’ Nuclear Leak

cryptogon.com » Archives » Contaminated U.S. Site Faces ‘Catastrophic’ Nuclear Leak

Via: New Scientist:

ONE of “the most contaminated places on Earth” will only get dirtier if the US government doesn’t get its act together - clean-up plans are already 19 years behind schedule and not due for completion until 2050.

More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford in Washington State. Most are over 50 years old. Already 67 of the tanks have failed, leaking almost 4 million litres of waste into the ground.

There are now “serious questions about the tanks’ long-term viability,” says a Government Accountability Office report, which strongly criticises the US Department of Energy for delaying an $8 billion programme to empty the tanks and treat the waste. The DoE says the clean-up is “technically challenging” and argues that it is making progress in such a way as to protect human health and the environment.

The DoE’s plan, however, is “faith-based”, says Robert Alvarez, an authority on Hanford at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. “The risk of catastrophic tank failure will sharply increase as each year goes by,” he says, “and one of the nation’s largest rivers, the Columbia, will be in jeopardy.”

President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States

cryptogon.com » Archives » Court Affirms: Bush Can Order Indefinite Military Detentions of Civilians in the United States

Via: New York Times:

President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

But a second, overlapping 5-to-4 majority of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ruled that Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., must be given an additional opportunity to challenge his detention in federal court there. An earlier court proceeding, in which the government had presented only a sworn statement from a defense intelligence official, was inadequate, the second majority ruled.

The decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which had maintained that a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks granted the president the power to detain people living in the United States.

The court effectively reversed a divided three-judge panel of its own members, which ruled last year that the government lacked the power to detain civilians legally in the United States as enemy combatants. That panel ordered the government either to charge Mr. Marri or to release him. The case is likely to reach the Supreme Court.

cryptogon.com » Archives » Court Affirms: Bush Can Order Indefinite Military Detentions of Civilians in the United States

cryptogon.com » Archives » Court Affirms: Bush Can Order Indefinite Military Detentions of Civilians in the United States

Via: New York Times:

President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

But a second, overlapping 5-to-4 majority of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ruled that Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., must be given an additional opportunity to challenge his detention in federal court there. An earlier court proceeding, in which the government had presented only a sworn statement from a defense intelligence official, was inadequate, the second majority ruled.

The decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which had maintained that a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks granted the president the power to detain people living in the United States.

The court effectively reversed a divided three-judge panel of its own members, which ruled last year that the government lacked the power to detain civilians legally in the United States as enemy combatants. That panel ordered the government either to charge Mr. Marri or to release him. The case is likely to reach the Supreme Court.

from Truthout - All Articles - The Real Legacy of the "Reagan Revolution"

The Real Legacy of the "Reagan Revolution"

from Truthout - All Articles

    McCain campaign co-chair Phil Gramm is right: We have "become a nation of whiners." But who is whining more than the bankers that former Sen. Gramm's financial deregulation legislation benefited? The very bankers who now expect a government bailout, such as those at UBS Investment Bank, where Gramm found lucrative employment.

read more

from Chicagoist - Funeral Home Mix-Up Swaps Two Elderly Women's Bodies

Funeral Home Mix-Up Swaps Two Elderly Women's Bodies

by Margaret Lyons

Mount Auburn Funeral Home in Stickney, Illinois, recently swapped two bodies due to mislabeling. When Lillian Grogan's family came to her wake, they were shocked to discover the wrong woman in her casket. "The family of Lillian Grogan said the stranger was wearing their grandmother's dress and favorite bracelet." Gah.

Grogran had already been buried in the other woman's grave, so her family had to have her exhumed. The identity of the other woman hasn't been released, but her family held a wake with the wrong body. [UPI, AP, Southtown Star]

From Think progress - Senator Coburn's holding up a lot of bills....

'A Fly In The Soup': Coburn's History Of Obstructing Medical Research

from Think Progress by Igor

On Monday, the Wonk Room reported on Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) stubborn insistence that the bipartisan President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief bill (PEPFAR) include a wasteful earmark mandating that "55 percent of the money go to treatment programs." Speaking on the Senate floor, Coburn suggested that his insistence on restoring the mandate saved the PEPFAR program:

Maybe treatment wouldn't have been eliminated but it would have taken a back seat… the commitment to treatment would have eroded over time and PEPFAR would have been like any other aid program.

But Coburn is no hero. Far from it. In his three years in the senate, Coburn has earned the reputation of "a fly in the soup," abusing the senate's hold privilege — a technique which allows senators to "object to bringing a bill or nomination to the floor for consideration" — to prevent "the Senate leadership" from bringing matters to a vote.

Remarkably, Coburn's obstructionism has even led "senate aides to now take legislation directly to Coburn's office" to ensure "he has no objections":

Senate aides on both sides of the aisle now take legislation directly to Coburn's office before moving forward to make sure he has no objections — whether he's on the relevant committee or not. If he does, they often swallow their pride and make the changes he's asking for.

Currently, "Coburn has holds on about 80 bills" which are "non-controversial, bipartisan bills that he just doesn't like." Here is a small sampling:

- Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act (S.911): The bill, named "in memory of Caroline Pryce Walker, daughter of Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-OH), who succumbed to neuroblastoma in 1999 at age nine," authorizes $30 million over five years, "to significantly increase federal investment into childhood cancer research."

- The ALS Registry Act of 2007 (S.1382): Creates a single nationwide patient registry for incidences of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, to improve ALS research, disease management and the development of standards of care.

- The Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act (S.1183): The bill coordinates and collaborates paralysis research, prevents research redundancies and hastens the discovery of better treatments and cures.

- Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act of 2008 (S.999): Amends the Public Health Service Act "to improve stroke prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation."

Coburn argues that his holds make legislation "better" and claims that he is "not hard to deal with if you talk with us, but if you won't talk with us, we are hard to deal with."

This week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to "deal with" Coburn's attention-seeking theatrics. According to the Crypt, Reid will "wrap most if not all of the bills held by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) into one large measure to be voted on by the Senate."

The "broad popularity of the bills means that there would likely be more than enough support for veto-proof passage."

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has often cited Congress' low approval rating and has suggested that it is failing Americans. Will he vote against Coburn's obstructionism?

Cross-posted in The Wonk Room.

From emptywheel - Bush's invocation of executive privilege in Cheney's involvement in Plame leak is ludicrous

Wilson Statement on Bush's Invocation of Executive Privilege to Protect Cheney

from Emptywheel by emptywheel

Joe Wilson sent the following response to Bush's invocation of executive privilege to hide Dick Cheney's involvement in ordering the Plame leak:

Today the president took the unprecedented step of asserting executive privilege to thwart congressional efforts to review Vice President Cheney's interview with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald concerning the betrayal of Valerie Wilson's covert CIA identity. We agree with Congressman Waxman that the position taken by the president is ludicrous.

The American people have a right to know what role the vice president played in the leak of Ms. Wilson's covert identity for political purposes. The fact that the Attorney General is recommending the assertion of executive privilege reveals that this Department of Justice is as beholden to the White House as that run by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Given the White House's continued efforts to cover up the truth and subvert legitimate congressional inquiries, our civil suit may be the only way the American people will learn the truth. We seek to hold those public officials responsible for this serious breach of national security accountable for their actions, and to ensure that future generations of public servants are not tempted to engage in similarly despicable behavior.

Here's an update on the status of their case with a link to support the suit.

Fresh Intelligence : Radar Online : Saudi Kids Learn the Darndest Things About Killing Jews and Gays

Fresh Intelligence : Radar Online : Saudi Kids Learn the Darndest Things About Killing Jews and Gays: "Saudi Arabia's making a big deal about how worldly and enlightened they are because they invited some scary Jews to their big multi-faith religious conference that starts today in Madrid. Saudi King Abdullah says he organized the anything goes faith-fest 'to promote tolerance, get rid of violence, and achieve peace and security for all peoples,' but you'd be better off wagering that the old guy (a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, by the way) is just doing it to make his petro-kingdom an even bigger player on the geopolitical scene than it already is.

The people at the Center for Religious Freedom are a little annoyed with all of the ridiculous, self-congratulatory garbage the Saudis are slinging about this charade, which is why they went to the Saudi Ministry of Education's website, translated the Saudi school textbooks available there, and released their findings the day before the Saudi's big event. Huge surprise—turns out the militant theocrats are actually pretty tolerant when it comes to killing Jews and gays and hating on anyone who doesn't share their puritanical form of Islam. What follows are excerpts from textbooks used by Saudi children during the 2007-2008 school year, which really illustrate the House of Saud's devotion to tolerance peace, and interfaith understanding. It'll also help explain why a Saudi conference is being held in Spain."

From Engadget - reviews of the Iphone battery life

iPhone 3G review supplemental: battery life and MobileMe tests

from Engadget by Ryan Block

Filed under: Cellphones

We spent most of the weekend putting the iPhone 3G's battery life (and to a lesser extent, MobileMe implementation) to the test, and we've got far more encouraging results to report back than we had on day one. Pretty much everything we've found thus far jibes with Apple's claims, if not exceeds them. (Our video results early on skewed low because we had mistakenly left on push and fetch data, which dropped the battery life by almost 25%. After re-testing, they're back up to spec.)

All tested with 3G on, WiFi on (not connected), Bluetooth off, no data fetching enabled (unless specified otherwise). Media tested with stock headphones, medium volume, and medium screen brightness, auto-brightness disabled.

• Music (continuous playback, large library, occasionally turning on screen): 31h 23m
• Video (continuous playback, no push/fetch data): 7h 5m
• Video (continuous playback, with push and 15 minute fetch data): 5h 24m
• Daily data use (browsing, email, and GPS / maps): ~6h 30m

Those numbers definitely are not bad, but if you're anything like us and you kill time on your phone reading feeds and checking email like a fiend, by 3 or 4pm you'll likely be wondering if you'll even make it home with any power left -- especially if you leave on the 3G. Just be warned, the kind of prolonged usage on the original iPhone you used to get away with probably isn't possible with the iPhone 3G. For some, this may be an issue, while others may never notice. Click on for more on our MobileMe testing and enterprise stuff.

Continue reading iPhone 3G review supplemental: battery life and MobileMe tests

Call your Senator to say no to bailing out Fannie Mae - see link read below....

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Contact Your Senator: Say No To Fannie Bailout: "Hats off Shelby and Bunning. The latter is threatening to Filibuster Paulson's proposed bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. See Paulson Crosses Rubicon Lands In 5th Dimension for Paulson's absurd proposal asking Congress for 'authority to buy unlimited stakes in and lend to the companies, aiming to stem a collapse in confidence'."

Other news:

Nice Article on staying productive and focused: How to Stay Focused: Vision Maintenance and the Minutiae Vacuum | PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement: "The Minutiae Vacuum

One of the most effective ways I've found to manage my time is to think about your work in terms of impact. By splitting your time up in between A, B and C tasks, it's easier to get a handle on what is most important and how much time you're spending spinning your wheels. A tasks are things that have a long term impact, 6 months to a year or more. B tasks are things that are important, but don't have as much of a long term impact. They might range between 1-6 months. Finally, C level tasks are things that need to be done on a daily or weekly basis, but don't have much of an impact outside of that time frame. So here's the break down:

A - 50% or more of your day.
B - 30% of the day.
C - 20% of the day."

Deceptive: Häagen-Dazs Drink Special Costs Twice As Much With "No Ice" Thanks To Handwritten Mouseprint: "Reader Joanne is wondering if the tiny handwritten mouseprint on the Haagen-Dazs drink special sign is purposefully misleading. She saw the special and ordered the drink, but when she asked for 'no ice' she was told that it would cost twice as much, and that this information was on the sign. Her boyfriend examined the sign (after she got her ice-packed drink) and sure enough, in tiny handwriting at the bottom of the sign was a note that said the drink cost twice as much with 'no ice.'"

Grocery Shrink Ray: Grocery Shrink Ray Hits White Rain Shampoo, But It's Still "33% More": "Reader Luke noticed that the grocery shrink ray mercilessly zapped his bottle of White Rain shampoo— but mysteriously left the '33% more' label untouched. 33% more than... what exactly?"

Yes, that's really Andy Dick!

The wacktor was arrested in California earlier today and PerezHilton.com has just obtained the police report.

Another reason for me to buy the iphone:

The Ultimate iPhone App: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

from TechCrunch by John Biggs

You want an iPhone app? We'll give you an iPhone app. Take a look at Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the iPhone which uses the accelerometer for game play. It should be available in September but we have some cool video over at CrunchGear

The Ultimate iPhone App: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

The Ultimate iPhone App: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: "You want an iPhone app? We’ll give you an iPhone app. Take a look at Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the iPhone which uses the accelerometer for game play. It should be available in September but we have some cool video over at CrunchGear."

Grocery Shrink Ray: Grocery Shrink Ray Hits White Rain Shampoo, But It's Still "33% More"

Grocery Shrink Ray: Grocery Shrink Ray Hits White Rain Shampoo, But It's Still "33% More": "Reader Luke noticed that the grocery shrink ray mercilessly zapped his bottle of White Rain shampoo— but mysteriously left the '33% more' label untouched. 33% more than... what exactly?"

Deceptive: Häagen-Dazs Drink Special Costs Twice As Much With "No Ice" Thanks To Handwritten Mouseprint

Deceptive: Häagen-Dazs Drink Special Costs Twice As Much With "No Ice" Thanks To Handwritten Mouseprint: "Reader Joanne is wondering if the tiny handwritten mouseprint on the Haagen-Dazs drink special sign is purposefully misleading. She saw the special and ordered the drink, but when she asked for 'no ice' she was told that it would cost twice as much, and that this information was on the sign. Her boyfriend examined the sign (after she got her ice-packed drink) and sure enough, in tiny handwriting at the bottom of the sign was a note that said the drink cost twice as much with 'no ice.'"

How to Stay Focused: Vision Maintenance and the Minutiae Vacuum | PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement

How to Stay Focused: Vision Maintenance and the Minutiae Vacuum | PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement: "The Minutiae Vacuum

One of the most effective ways I’ve found to manage my time is to think about your work in terms of impact. By splitting your time up in between A, B and C tasks, it’s easier to get a handle on what is most important and how much time you’re spending spinning your wheels. A tasks are things that have a long term impact, 6 months to a year or more. B tasks are things that are important, but don’t have as much of a long term impact. They might range between 1-6 months. Finally, C level tasks are things that need to be done on a daily or weekly basis, but don’t have much of an impact outside of that time frame. So here’s the break down:

A - 50% or more of your day.
B - 30% of the day.
C - 20% of the day."

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Contact Your Senator: Say No To Fannie Bailout

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Contact Your Senator: Say No To Fannie Bailout: "Hats off Shelby and Bunning. The latter is threatening to Filibuster Paulson's proposed bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. See Paulson Crosses Rubicon Lands In 5th Dimension for Paulson's absurd proposal asking Congress for 'authority to buy unlimited stakes in and lend to the companies, aiming to stem a collapse in confidence'."

ESPN - Report: NFL to review tape for evidence of on-field gang signs - NFL

ESPN - Report: NFL to review tape for evidence of on-field gang signs - NFL: "The NFL has hired experts to study game footage to determine whether players are displaying street-gang hand signals as part of their on-field celebrations, the Los Angeles Times reports.

'There have been some suspected things we've seen,' said Milt Ahlerich, the league's vice president of security, according to the Times' report. 'When we see it, we quietly jump on it immediately, directly with the team and the player or employee involved to cease and desist. Period.'"

FISA flowchart

Guide to FISA

from Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder

Brett Dobbs says: "I found this the most useful guide to explain what has gone on with FISA. With flowcharts!"

1. It Eliminates the requirement that there be probable cause that a foreign target is a suspect of any kind — terrorist, criminal, ore "foreign agent." They merely need be your French grandmother, as long as they are outside the United States and not a U.S. person, and if the government says wiretapping them is for the purpose of collecting "foreign intelligence information" (e.g., her Pommes Frites recipe)

2. It requires the cooperation of telecoms in these efforts

3. It eliminates of the need to specify a particular email address or phone number to be wiretapped

4. 1-3 together imply that certifications of wiretapping on individuals is not the issue. The point is to use telecom cooperation to target large collections of data on communications between U.S. Persons and foreigners. This implies data mining — where, for instance, because a foreign target has communications passing through a given domestic switch, any communications (domestic or international) passing through that switch are subject to collection, analysis, and storage. There are "minimization requirements" meant to ameliorate this, but it is unclear if they really help.

Understanding Recent Changes to FISA — A Visual Guide (Flowchart) (Ketchup and Caviar)

It's Impeachment Time

It's Impeachment Time

from AfterDowningStreet.org - Impeach Bush and Cheney Now! by davidswanson

All of your hard work in pressuring Congress is not for naught. After over two years of declaring impeachment "off the table" Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared it at least halfway on the table, and specifically for the offense of misleading the nation into an unnecessary war. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is likely to hold a preliminary hearing on the case for impeachment, with Congressman Dennis Kucinich presenting his arguments. But the clock is ticking. Please call Pelosi and Conyers and thank them for taking this step and ask them WHEN the hearing will happen.

Pelosi: (202) 225-0100
Conyers: (202) 225-5126

Then please contact YOUR representative as well and ask them to sign onto Kucinich's impeachment resolutions, sign onto Congressman Robert Wexler's letter to Conyers urging impeachment hearings, and most importantly: introduce their own resolution! In 1973 nearly 90 Congress Members introduced their own resolutions to impeach Nixon. Most of them were just a couple of sentences urging the commencement of impeachment hearings. A similar resolution was instrumental in removing Alberto Gonzales from office.

Capitol Hill Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

More information:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/bush

Email your Representative:
http://www.democrats.com/35-articles-of-impeachment

Boehner: No wildlife in the artic circle

Boehner falsely claims there's no 'wildlife' in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

from Think Progress by Matt

In a press conference today previewing a House Republican trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that's meant to promote drilling, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) doubted the existence of actual wildlife in the refuge. "We're going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I'm hoping to see some wildlife," said Boehner. "But I understand there's none there." Boehner repeated his skepticism during an interview on CNN, telling Wolf Blitzer, "I'll be looking for all that wildlife." Ironically, CNN paired Boehner's interview with b-roll of actual wildlife moving around the refuge. Watch it:

Popout

Boehner would likely be less skeptical if he just visited the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's website for the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which notes that it is "renowned for its wildlife" and is inhabited by 45 species of land and marine mammals, 36 species of fish and 180 species of birds. View photos of some of the wildlife here.

McCain and his rape jioke

Did you hear John McCain's Woman/Rape/Gorilla Joke?

from Crooks and Liars by John Amato

Do you think John McCain has a little problem with women? His Chelsea Clinton joke was as tasteless as it goes. And of course his answer about birth control and Viagra was classic.

But this 1986 joke during his Senate run is just off the wall.

I managed to dig up this gem from his 1986 race for US Senate, as quoted in the Tucson Citizen:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'

I find rape jokes are always a sign of class, don't you?

Pretty disgusting if you ask me. Here's the pdf.

(h/t Rum, Romanism and Rebellion)

if it looks like a bailout and smells like a bailout....

Folks, if this does not get you worked up, nothing will. Our government has basically ok'd another example of corporate socialism, yet we cannot get adequate foreclosure assistance for the millions of people that will lose their homes this year. Whenever you hear a republican douchbag espouse that our Government has no business assisting with social programs, etc, do me a favor and kick them in the nuts because this bail out is another egregious example of our Plutacracy, not Democracy, at work. Corporate socialism - helping the elite whenever they need it most at the expense of the working class.

Bush touts mortgage plans, offshore drilling - Jul. 15, 2008: "'I don't think it's a bailout,' said Bush, deflecting some criticism that the government should not rescue a private firm. 'The shareholders still own the company.'"

Bush touts mortgage plans, offshore drilling - Jul. 15, 2008

Bush touts mortgage plans, offshore drilling - Jul. 15, 2008: "'I don't think it's a bailout,' said Bush, deflecting some criticism that the government should not rescue a private firm. 'The shareholders still own the company.'"

POTUS embarasses himself again....

Energy Crisis: President Bush laughs as the nation chokes

from Crooks and Liars by SilentPatriot

In this short, two-minute clip from his press conference today on the sad state of the American economy, President Bush managed to embarrass himself (and thus the country) on at least three occasions. First he smirks and gives a smart ass answer when asked about $5 gasoline — not very funny considering he "hadn't heard" of $4 gas back in February. Second, he repeats the McCain campaign talking point "gaffe" about our economic woes being merely "psychological." Then, finally, he tops if off with what he calls his "brilliant statement" about "magic wands."

Customers furious in Day 2 of IndyMac fed takeover - Los Angeles Times

Customers furious in Day 2 of IndyMac fed takeover - Los Angeles Times: "By Andrea Chang and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
12:47 PM PDT, July 15, 2008
Los Angeles police were dispatched to IndyMac Bank branches in Encino and Northridge this morning when customers waiting to withdraw money became irate after several people tried to cut in line on the second day of the failed institution's federal takeover.

Police told customers to remain calm or face arrest as they tried to withdraw their money."

iphone trouble and a happy ending....

Two Out Of Three Of My iPhones Were Defective And The Third Won't Receive Calls [Happy Endings]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

Reader Michael is having a rough time with the iPhone. He says that two out of three of the iPhones purchased by his family were defective, and the third one wouldn't receive calls. Weirdly, this story has a happy ending, because Michael found some contact information on Consumerist that got his problem solved in 5 minutes.

Michael says:

On Saturday, July 12th, my father stood in line outside of the Apple retail store in Oklahoma City for approximately three hours. As soon as he made it inside the store, it did not take very long to purchase a Family Plan with three new 8GB iPhone 3Gs. The checkout process was fairly simple (although he did have to purchase gift cards because he couldn't use cash) and everyone treated him well.

However, when we got home and started to look at our new iPhones, mine froze shortly after opening it. After I reset it, it would not turn on. The next day I took it back to the Apple store, and it was soon determined I needed a new iPhone. However, during the activation process, something went wrong and my phone got my dad's phone number assigned to it. I was then told that I needed to go to an AT&T store (luckily there is one in the mall) to get a new sim card for my phone and put my old sim card in my dad's phone. I did this, and my phone started working.

However, the third iPhone (my sister's) had been showing a weak signal ever since it was opened. It often showed "No Signal" when it was right next to my iPhone with full bars. We took it back to the Apple store and they tried to fix it by doing various things, including restoring the software. This did nothing, and so it came to be that for the second time in as many hours one of our iPhones was being replaced. Luckily the new iPhone activation went smoothly and her new iPhone showed full bars.

We thought that we were finally done with all the problems, so we left the store. So far, of the three iPhones purchased on Saturday, one had died shortly after leaving the box and one had been defective. Only my dad's iPhone was the original one from Saturday. However, when we got home, we quickly discovered that although his iPhone could send and receive text messages and make calls, it could not receive calls.

All calls to my father's iPhone went straight to his old voice mailbox from the previous carrier. They did not ring through to the iPhone and they did not show up on his iPhone's voicemail. I then spent a long time trying to get a hold of AT&T support (not easy to do on a Sunday evening). I finally talked to a person, who after hearing about my problem decided it was an iPhone problem and forwarded my call to Apple iPhone support. After close to an hour and a half on hold, I was quickly given back to AT&T. However the Apple rep did make sure to stay on the line and explain the problem to the (different) AT&T rep. After doing several things to try and fix the problem, the AT&T rep said he thought it was a problem with the port request, and put another port request in. This was at about 9 p.m., and he said he thought it might go through by midnight. It is right now 1:45 a.m., and it still does not work.

Although I was treated very well throughout my experience by both Apple and AT&T, spending an entire day having to replace two out of three iPhones and have the third one not be able to receive calls was not a pleasant experience.

Here's the happy ending, a few hours after Michael emailed us, he emailed us again. He tried our contact information for AT&T's executive customer service and it worked!

Update: I called one of the numbers from this post and had my problem solved in less than five minutes. Thank you so much!

If you're having problems with your new iPhone and regular AT&T customer service isn't working for you, why not give these numbers a call?

(Photo: qshio )

Looks like Cindy Mccain will pull down around 2 mil from the InBev purchase of Bud

Oh, quit yer whining

from Brilliant at Breakfast by Jill

You, with your lost job and your house in foreclosure and that letter from the fuel oil company that tells you that your price cap is going to be 61% higher than last year's. You with your cancer that your insurance company will no longer pay for. Quit your whining already. Things aren't so bad. I mean, look at Cindy McCain. She's going to pull in upwards of a cool $2 million without so much as lifting an impeccably-manicured fingernail -- simply by virtue of owning a bunch of Anheuser-Busch stock as part of her family's beer distributorship:

Cindy McCain, together with dependent children, earned $50,001-$100,000 in dividend income for 2007 from Anheuser-Busch shares, according to a Financial Disclosure Report filing on the Center for Responsive Politics' Web site.

Anheuser-Busch paid $1.25 dividend in 2007 per share, according to company filings.

That indicates that Cindy McCain, together with dependents, owned between 40,000 and 80,000 shares -- figures which were calculated by Reuters.

At the offer price of $70 a share, those shares would be worth $2.8 million to $5.6 million.

I mean, hell -- that could be three or four whole months of shopping on the credit cards right there.

Cool concept for a future kitchen

Brandt Aion, the Kitchen of the Future

from Home Design, Furniture & Interior Design by Alex Ion

When thinking how the future will be, I don't include kitchen designs or kitchen utensils in the big picture, but now that I see the Brandt Aion, I think I should have. A result of Antoine Lebrun's work, the multi functional kitchen designed for Fagor Brandt is intended for small places and should go along with the lines and curves of our homes in just 10 years.

From what I see, the appliance is going to be a green space in your flat by using plants to improve the quality of life, filtering water and air. Lift the upper part and there's a cooking surface and a sink. Close it down and the system will start the dish washing process, using vegetable soap (which also provided by the plants).

I think the concept is great, but would you buy one right now if it would be available? - via CoolDesignIdeas

Post from: Interior Design, Home & House Design, Furniture

Headlines

EBay & PayPal Phishing Gone For Good On Gmail and Yahoo? [EBay]

from Consumerist by Chris Walters

If your email account is with Google or Yahoo, your days of seeing phishing emails from fake eBay or PayPal addresses should be over. Google announced last week that it's now using DomainKeys to verify messages really do come from paypal.com or ebay.com—if they don't, they never even make it to your In Box. This is possible because eBay and PayPal are now making sure "that all their email is signed with DomainKeys and DKIM." Since Yahoo! also uses DomainKeys and DKIM (they developed it, in fact), phishing attacks for Yahoo! Mail accounts should also disappear.

No amount of security will stop a bit of social engineering, but this is a great strike against phishing. Now if only banks would start embracing DomainKeys.

From Google's Gmail blog:

Now any email that claims to come from "paypal.com" or "ebay.com" (and their international versions) is authenticated by Gmail and — here comes the important part — rejected if it fails to verify as actually coming from PayPal or eBay. That's right: you won't even see the phishing message in your spam folder. Gmail just won't accept it at all. Conversely, if you get an message in Gmail where the "From" says "@paypal.com" or "@ebay.com," then you'll know it actually came from PayPal or eBay. It's email the way it should be.

eBay and PayPal have worked hard to ensure that all their email is signed with DomainKeys and DKIM. Armed with this information, Gmail can easily reject as a fake anything that doesn't authenticate. We've been testing this for a few weeks now and it's working so well that few people really noticed.

"Fighting phishing with eBay and PayPal" [Gmail Blog]
(Photo: Stryker W@SP)

Modern Psychiatry: Brought To You By Selfless Pharmaceutical Companies [Your Health]

from Consumerist by Carey

Psychiatry is nothing more than a well-funded front for big pharma, according to lawmakers investigating the field's premier organization, the American Psychiatric Association. Unlike psychologists, psychiatrists can write prescriptions, giving pharmaceutical companies a powerful incentive to lavishly subsidize both their lifestyle and profession.

Nearly a third of the Association's $62 million budget comes from big pharma, which also showers individual practitioners with lucrative 'consultation fees'. The problem isn't that the profession lacks adequate ethics guidelines or regulations, but that some psychiatrists simply ignore the rules.

As a group, psychiatrists earn less in base salary than any other specialists, according to a nationwide survey by the Medical Group Management Association. In 2007, median compensation for psychiatrists was $198,653, less than half of the $464,420 earned by diagnostic radiologists and barely more than the $190,547 earned by doctors practicing internal medicine.

But many psychiatrists supplement this income with consulting arrangements with drug makers, traveling the country to give dinner talks about drugs to other doctors for fees generally ranging from $750 to $3,500 per event, for instance.

While data on industry consulting arrangements are sparse, state officials in Vermont reported that in the 2007 fiscal year, drug makers gave more money to psychiatrists than to doctors in any other specialty. Eleven psychiatrists in the state received an average of $56,944 each. Data from Minnesota, among the few other states to collect such information, show a similar trend.

In both states, individual psychiatrists are not top earners, but consulting arrangements are so common that their total tops all others. The worry is that this money may subtly alter psychiatrists' choices of which drugs to prescribe.

An analysis of Minnesota data by The New York Times last year found that on average, psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs appear to have written three times as many prescriptions to children for the drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none. The drugs are not approved for most uses in children, who appear to be especially susceptible to the side effects, including rapid weight gain.

A psychiatrist's office is a "safe space," where it's ok to ask any question, including: "have you received any compensation from any drug company?"

Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry Ties [NYT]
(Photo: Getty)

The Post Office Will Pay Out Your Insurance Claim... If Their Employees Admits To Abuse [Usps]

from Consumerist by Carey

The post office won't pay Alauna's insurance claim for a damaged Hewlett-Packard laptop unless one of their employees admits to intentionally abusing her package.

Alauna paid $26 to insure the laptop on its cross-country visit to a virus-hunting friend. When the laptop arrived, a menacing broken hinge threatened to scratch the screen.

She writes:

The United States Postal Service is falling apart. About 7 months ago, my father gave me a brand new, HP Pavilion dv9700z series (Retailed at over a thousand bucks, but it was a gift, so I don't know exactly how much it cost him). In the 7 months that I've owned it, I got a nasty bug (virus) on it, and it no longer allowed me to log onto the internet. Either way, my best friend is an expert with computers and lives in LA, so I decided to send it to him to take a look at it.

By this being such a high line item, I wrapped it in bubble wrap, placed in a laptop case, and wrapped it AGAIN in a ton of bubble wrap before placing it in a post office issue box that the clerk told me, "most people send their laptops in THIS box)". I made sure to put at least $500.00 dollars worth of insurance on the shipment (just in case).

Silly me for believing this woman as approximately a week later, I got a call from my buddy in LA explaining that the hinge of the unit was broken and it was threatening to cause further damage to the computer. He explained that if I close the laptop, the screen may scratch and cause about 800 bucks worth of damage. So I'm irritated because this company screwed me over, and some idiot ignored the FRAGILE that was placed on the box, but I'm somewhat relieved that I got insurance on the purchase.

I send my LA buddy the insurance information along with the required receipt and figure the money would be distributed in a respectable amount of time. NOT! My buddy calls me later after he received the insurance information and explains that the post office clerk in LA tells him that "without a receipt, they probably won't honor your insurance claim)". Are you serious? They weren't saying such nonsense when they sucked 26 bucks out of my pockets for the original shipment and insurance. Either way, I'm stuck with a brand new computer damaged by USPS, and the unfortunate truth that I may not receive any restitution for their mistakes. To all who read this, NEVER use the USPS to ship anything of importance. I live in a rural area (Cleveland, MS) so this was my only option, but I refuse to use this awful place again.

She later sent us an update:

So we file a claim with the Post office in April, and today I find out that they are denying my claim unless someone at the POST OFFICE admits to causing the damage! Are you serious?

I officially hate the USPS and this is what I get for using snail mail.

P.S. I don't know whether to be mad at the post office for breaking the computer or HP for making crappy hardware as I have a Compaq X1000 that wont charge (crappy HP).

We always thought the point of insurance was to protect a package in the event something happens. It doesn't need to be an abuse. If an employee admits to abusing an uninsured package, would the Post Office refuse to reimburse the owner?

(Photo: Getty)

If you sign the back of your card you do not have to show ID!

Reader Refuses To Give Driver's License With Credit Card Purchase [Privacy]

from Consumerist by Ben Popken

Reader Brandon is obviously familiar with number 3 in the 10 Things You Might Not Know About Your Credit Card post, holding firm in the face of a retailer who wanted Brandon to give his driver's license when he bought something with a credit card:

Just wanted to let you know, armed with the Consumerist and a signed credit card, I thwarted the Best Buy minions who wanted to enter my driver's license information into their "fraud prevention database" in Virginia. When asked for ID, I pointed out the card was signed and that as a condition of their arrangement with Visa they could not demand identification. I demanded a manager who sided with me and processed the transaction without identification. Interestingly, I was not asked to sign at all (even the final receipt) which makes me less secure in Best Buy's transaction policy.

That's right. If your credit card is signed, retailers are not allowed to require any additional ID with your purchase. To do so is a violation of their contract with the credit card company. Violators can be reported by consumers to their credit card companies, and possibly have their accounts taken away.

With the high number of retail database breaches this year, do we really need to be giving these chumps any more of our personal information than we have to? I'd like to keep my digits out of the hands of the Russian hackers as long as possible, thanks.

(Photo: Getty)

KFC = food that tastes like Urine?

Police Officer Awarded $40,000 Over KFC's Urine-Tainted Food [Not Safe For Lunch]

from Consumerist by Jay Slatkin

A police officer and his family from Sydney, Nebraska have been awarded $40,000 from their lawsuit which alleged that a KFC/Taco Bell store had served them food contaminated with an employee's spit and urine in 2005. The lawsuit stated that fellow workers actually saw the employee taint the food and told management who failed to alert the family, according to the AP. Consequently, the officer's two sons became violently ill. His 4-year-old was hospitalized and treated for gastroenteritis and dehydration. Details, inside...

The article says,

A KFC spokesman, Rick Maynard, said KFC is committed to the highest levels of food safety.

"Our franchisee does not agree with the court's verdict, and they are looking at their legal options," Maynard said Monday.

The suit also alleged that Andrew, his wife and their children were victims of an employee scheme that targeted police officers.

"Employees maintained 'special servings' of food reserved for ... officers," the lawsuit said. "The 'special servings' had been urinated in or spit in by KFC/Taco Bell employees."

The employee accused of urinating and spitting in the Andrew family's food, Casey Diedrich, pleaded guilty last year to violating the Nebraska Pure Food Act and fined $100, according to court records. The prosecution was for the same incident described in the lawsuit.

A company spokesman said last year that Diedrich eventually was fired for missing work but not for any of the incidents the lawsuit cited.

What's even more shocking than the food contamination itself is that the management did nothing to prevent the family from consuming the tainted food. We can understand how the concept of CYA (cover your ass) may have been a factor, but when information has been brought to your attention that directly impacts the safety of your customers, as a restaurant manager, the only reasonable action is prevent anyone from consuming that food. Now, I'm starting to wonder about all the times that KFC has left me feeling nauseous—I better not.

Neb. cop, family win $40K over urine-tainted food [AP]
(Photo:Scott Ableman)

JLO is a douche

JLO HAS TOO MUCH MONEY

from What Would Tyler Durden Do?

The Mirror UK says that Jennifer Lopez, long known in Hollywood to be an insufferable pain in the ass with a misguided sense of entitlement and self worth, has reached a level of materialistic insanity unthinkable even for her.  The Mirror says...

The actress apparently insists on dressing her five-month-old twins in new designer gear every day.
We're told: "Jennifer was approached by a charity and asked to donate some dresses for a celebrity auction. She agreed and donated a gorgeous £5,000 frock.
"She also offered some of Max and Emme's clothes, telling organisers that she never lets them 'repeat' outfits.
"But the auction deals only in adult clothes. Jennifer told them it was a shame, as some items cost over 1,000 dollars each."

if karma were at all real, and not just a fantasy based on fairies and pixies and dancing candy canes, JLo would get smoosh'd by a comet today, or at the very least pinned to a tree by a car.  Fuck that uppity cunt.  She can afford new legs.

Headlines

Bush Angling to Help Fannie and Freddie

from Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

President Bush is still insisting that the U.S. economy is in generally good shape, even he asks Congress to support legislation to help Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while insisting in the same breath that he's not proposing a "bailout" for the ailing mortgage companies. Hmmm.

---

AP via Breitbart.com:

President Bush urged lawmakers on Tuesday to move quickly in putting into force legislation designed to help prop up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while declaring the nation's financial system to be "basically sound."

[...] Bush said the two troubled mortgage companies play a central role in the nation's housing-finance system and that government action to help them were not bailouts, since the two would remain shareholder-owned companies.

Read more

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

Obama: 'The Central Front in the War on Terror is Not Iraq'

from Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

Sen. Barack Obama made a key speech on Tuesday in Washington, in which he asserted his position on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, offered a 16-month troop withdrawal timetable and outlined his plans for combating terrorism if he is elected president in November.

---

AP via Google News:

In a major speech on Iran and national security, Obama said he would also secure nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue nations, achieve "true energy security," and rebuild the nation's international alliances.

The speech sets the stage for Obama's upcoming visit to Iraq and offers a high-profile explanation of his opposition to the war and his pledge to complete a U.S. troop pullout within 16 months of becoming president. It also gives him a forum for criticizing President Bush and his rival for the presidency, Republican John McCain.

"By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe," Obama said. "In fact—as should have been apparent to President Bush and Sen. McCain—the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was."

Obama said the Bush strategy that McCain supports has placed the burden for U.S. foreign policy on American military. National security policy should go well beyond Baghdad, he said, and involve allies around the world. He focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying that if the U.S. were attacked again, it likely would be from the same region where the Sept. 11 attacks were planned.

Read more

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

IMPEACHMENT RESOLUTION INTRODUCED IN HOUSE WITH READING BY CLERK TODAY

from AfterDowningStreet.org - Impeach Bush and Cheney Now! by davidswanson

Kucinich, the bill's author, will move to refer in his quest to get hearing before Committee on the Judiciary

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 8) -- A single Article of Impeachment of President Bush, which alleges that Mr. Bush sent the nation to war under the false pretenses, will be brought to the floor of the House this afternoon. Its sponsor, U.S. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), will rise to refer the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary. Kucinich has long been pressing for Impeachment hearings. He previously introduced 35 articles relating to President Bush and three articles relating to the Vice President.

read more

Ask Obama Questions on Larry King Tomorrow

from AfterDowningStreet.org - Impeach Bush and Cheney Now! by davidswanson

E-mail him a question at
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.lkl.html

Such as...
What WOULD constitute an impeachable offense?
After flipping on FISA why should anyone trust you?
What is a "non-combat" troop and when will you bring them home?
Etc.

read more

Who Knew Phil Gramm was a porn hound...

Phil Gramm is Gone, But His Porn Lives on By Max Blumenthal, Huffington Post Posted on July 15, 2008, Printed on July 15, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.huffingtonpost.com//91525/ Phil Gramm's recent disparaging of "a nation of whiners" complaining about a "mental recession" did more than offend the sensibilities of economically struggling Americans. His gaffe also served as a reminder that McCain had appointed one of the most reactionary, venal, and destructive political figures in recent times as his top econ man. By Sunday, the damage to the McCain campaign had grown so severe it announced that Gramm's role had been significantly reduced. Phil Gramm attempted to invest $15,000 in "Truck Stop Women." His money ultimately helped produce a film portraying Richard Nixon wandering nude around the White House. Gramm was an accident waiting to happen. Indeed, his gaffe represents little more than a scrap in the massive heap of wreckage he has left in his wake. Gramm's own presidential campaign in 1996 was among his most high-profile casualties. In order to win a whopping total of 8 delegates, the charisma-challenged Gramm had to spend $20 million, or about $1.5 million per delegate. This experience curiously translated into a job as one of McCain's key political advisors. But first, Gramm returned to the Senate, where he was lobbied intensely by one of his major campaign contributors, Enron. Enron enjoyed easy access to Gramm's office; the senator's wife served on Enron's board of directors and Ken Lay was his 1992 campaign co-chair. Gramm rewarded his financial angels in 2000, slipping the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" into a omnibus spending bill just as Congress headed off for summer vacation. His amendment instantly enabled the creation of a shadow banking system -- "weapons of financial destruction" in the words of Warren Buffet -- that directly contributed to the current mortgage foreclosure crisis. Millions of Americans have suffered as a result of Gramm's machinations. While the destruction Gramm has caused is felt across the country, little is known about the seedy business schemes that preceded his political career. Before Gramm joined the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed to call for the defunding of the NEA, before he attacked an opponent for taking money from a gay rights group, and before he was interviewed by the white supremacist Southern Partisan magazine, Gramm was an avidly active investor in soft-core pornography movies. Gramm's journey into porn began in 1973, when his brother-in-law, George Caton, rushed to tell him about an exciting low-budget soft-core production called "Truck Stop Women." A promo poster for the film boasted of its buxom stars: "No Rig Was Too Big For Them To Handle." Caton, who was in charge of fundraising for the production, asked Gramm to become an investor. To entice his brother-in-law, Caton showed him scenes of Playboy Playmate of the year Claudia Jennings displaying her bare essentials (she is naked throughout much of the film). These scenes "really got Phil titillated," Caton told journalist John Judis in 1995. Gramm enthusiastically cut Caton a check for $15,000. Because the film was oversold, however, Caton returned his brother-in-law's money, offering him an investment opportunity in an upcoming feature. The following year, Gramm sent Caton a check for $15,000, this time to finance the production of "Beauty Queens," a soft-core flick about pageant judges having sex with contestants. But at the last moment, the director of "Beauty Queens," Mark Lester, decided to shelve his production to make the sequel to his "Tricia's Wedding," a comedy starring the drag queen troupe, The Cockettes. Gramm contributed at least $7500 towards the sequel, a satire of the Nixon White House called "White House Madness" that featured the crazed president wandering around the White House in the nude. Gramm never saw that money again. Shot in ten days on a soundstage crudely modeled after the Oval Office, "White House Madness" tanked at the box office. Like the rest of Gramm's endeavors, his soft-core porn career was a complete disaster. Max Blumenthal is a Nation Institute Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow whose work regularly appears in the Nation. A winner of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Award, he is also a Research Fellow at Media Matters for America. © 2008 Huffington Post All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.huffingtonpost.com//91525/

Crooks and Liars » Hardball Panel Tries To Paint Obama As Elitist To Stifle McCain Criticism; Arugula Is The Equivalent Of A $750,000 Shopping Spree

Crooks and Liars » Hardball Panel Tries To Paint Obama As Elitist To Stifle McCain Criticism; Arugula Is The Equivalent Of A $750,000 Shopping Spree: "He and Margaret Carlson do their best to paint Barack Obama and John McCain with the same stripe saying that all senators are just out of touch with America. Margaret Carlson equates Cindy McCain’s unusually high credit card bills to Michelle Obama shopping for lettuce at Whole Foods. Really, Margaret? Do you really think shopping for arugula–that elitist leafy green, according to the media–is the same as Cindy McCain running up three-quarters of a million dollars in credit card debt? Why doesn’t he just eat a doughnut to prove he’s just like you and me?

That is just flat out obscene on its face. How pathetic to blur the lines between someone who does actually have a sliver spoon in their mouth, and someone who had to come up the hard way and who might have a clue of what it means to be poor, as Michelle Bernard points out. And I don’t think he has to eat doughnuts to prove it. But while we’re at it, Michelle Bernard, isn’t there some middle ground between “elegant” and “angry black man”? I mean, come on."

US bailout of mortgage giants: The politics of plutocracy

US bailout of mortgage giants: The politics of plutocracy: "Their Ponzi scheme structures have been undermined by the collapse in home prices and the virulent spread of foreclosures. Over the past nine months they have lost a combined $11 billion and their stock has fallen by as much as 80 percent—a decline that turned into a rout last week as their stock values were cut nearly in half.

Their debacle is the latest and to date most spectacular expression of the decay of American capitalism. It is another refutation of the myths promoted by the US ruling elite about the miraculous workings of the capitalist market—supposedly the pinnacle of human achievement.

At the same time, it exposes the cynicism behind the official mantra of “free enterprise.” When it comes to big capital, losses are socialized. Only profits remain private."

Anyone that thinks Americans are whiney ought to read this and choke on cock....

Charity Founded To Help People In Remote Areas Obtain Basic Medical Care Sets Up Shop In The United States [Heath Insurance]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

Getting your basic health care from a charity organization isn't just for people in remote areas anymore, according to 60 Minutes. Meet RAM — Remote Area Medical — a charity founded to bring basic health care: vision, dental, and mammograms, for example, to remote parts of the world. What remote areas are they working in now? Try Knoxville, Tenn.

So, who comes to RAM? The uninsured, yes, but the underinsured are in line as well. Like Marty Tankersley. He drove 200 miles to have a tooth pulled because he'd been in pain for weeks and couldn't afford to see the dentist. Marty has also had two heart attacks and no follow-up care, because it's just too expensive.

The Tankersleys live in Dalton, Ga., and fall into the underinsured category. Marty's a truck driver and has major medical insurance through his employer. But the deductible is $500, really unaffordable. And the dental insurance costs too much.

No one really knows how many Americans are underinsured like the Tankersleys.

"He's the lucky one he could drive the 200 miles. He's the lucky one who got to see people today and get hooked in. There are tens of hundreds of thousands of people like him," Isaacs [a volunteer and an internal medicine specialist at the University of Virginia] said.

U.S. Health Care Gets Boost From Charity [60 Minutes]

Carlos Marmol to the All Star Game?

An Obligatory Gripe With An All Star Selection

from Yardbarker: All Articles

I see that Carlos Marmol is replacing Kerry Wood on the NL All Star roster. Nothing says "I deserve to be an All-Star" like a 9.37 ERA over June and July

You have to love baseball fans....

 

 

Sent to you by irie1972 via Google Reader:

 

 

Oh This Is Good!

via dailystab.com by Kelly on 7/13/08

Beer - $5

Madonna Pictures - $10

Look on your face when A-Rod sees you making fun of him - Priceless

Here are some pics that were taken in Toronto during the third inning of this Saturdays (July 12, 2008) New York Yankees game vs the Toronto Blue Jays.

Looks like the guys in the crowd were having fun teasing Alex Rodriguez on all the Madonna drama that's been going on lately, that is until he actually turned around and looked them in the eye!

I LOVE IT!!!

ONTD

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say goodbye to an American institution....

Report: Anheuser-Busch agrees to InBev sale

from Chicago Sun-Times Business by FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Anheuser-Busch reportedly has agreed to be acquired by Belgian brewer InBev for $49.9 billion. The deal being reported by The Wall Street Journal would create the world's largest brewer and put the iconic American beer maker in the hands of the Belgian-based company behind Stella Artois and Beck's beers.

I hate the Cubs but this is nice...

Follow Up: Lilly and Lee Visit Boy in Hospital

from Chicagoist by Prescott Carlson

A quick addendum to yesterday's post about Dominic DiAngi, the boy who landed in the hospital after getting beaned by a foul ball off Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly's bat. Lilly as well as first baseman Derrek Lee visited the boy last night at Children's Memorial Hospital, where they stayed for 20 minutes and brought the kid a Cubs jersey. The Cubs have been in constant contact with DiAngi's family, and also sent him a baseball autographed by the entire team, a glove and jersey autographed by shortstop Ryan Theriot, and a bat signed by second baseman Mark DeRosa.

On the health front, the 7-year-old is out of the medically induced coma, has been removed from a breathing machine, taken off morphine, and is definitely on the mend. [S-T]

Proof on video - six figures gets you access to the Bush inner circle

Bush For Sale

from Crooks and Liars by Nicole Belle

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (excerpt courtesy of Bill W, full video available at Times Online)

Steve Benen: 

Fundraising for a presidential library has always been controversial, in part because, unlike contributions to U.S. political campaigns, donations to libraries can come from foreign sources, and are easier to conceal.

But this kind of corruption is striking, even by the Bush administration's standards.

The Sunday Times reports Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer and a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, was caught on tape offering access to key members of the Bush administration inner circle in exchange for "six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush's presidency."

In an undercover video, Payne is seen promising to arrange a meeting for an exiled leader of Krygystan with Dick Cheney or Condoleezza Rice. (Not President Bush because "he doesn't meet with a lot of former Presidents these days," Payne says. "I don't think he meets with hardly anyone.") All it will take for him to arrange this high-level meeting, says Payne, is "a couple hundred thousand dollars, or something like that."

Specifically, Payne tells a Kazakh politician he knew as Eric Dos that Payne would come up with "the exact budget," which would be "somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library." The contribution would "be a show of 'we're interested, we're your friends, we're still friends.'"

The TimesOnline piece makes no specific mention of the politician that Dos is representing, but both Benen and BooMan narrow it down to former Krygystan President Askar Akayev, and possibly a motive as well:

(T)he prospective client who is being asked to pony up $600,000 - $750,000 ($200,000-$250,000 of which will go to the Bush Library) is former President Askar Akayev, as he is the only exiled former president of Kyrgyzstan in existence. Akayev's human rights record is mixed. For the region, it was better than average, but in the years just prior to his ouster he began to restrict and harass political and media freedoms.

The Times of London sting operation is curious. The video shows a meeting between Stephen Payne, [who is a Bush pioneer, a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, and a Senior Advance Representative traveling internationally in advance of and with President Bush and Vice President Cheney], an unidentified representative of Askar Akayev, and an undercover reporter who is surreptitiously videotaping the conversation. It appears that the latter two gentleman colluded in setting up the sting and that part of the agreement was that the Times would not mention Akayev's name or country in print. What possible motivation would Akayev have to embarrass the Bush administration? Let's look at who Akayev blamed for his ouster:

The ousted Kyrgyzstan president, Askar Akayev, last night accused the US of being behind the "anti-constitutional coup" which forced him to flee the country last week, and said he wold only resign if given sufficient a guarantee of his personal safety.

 I believe we have what is known as payback time, ladies and gentlemen.

Asshole watch - Sean Hannity, an overpaid talking head who cannot admit the Reagonomics has failed, is a douchebag and thinks we whine too much

Sean Hannity on Americans: 'Maybe we do whine too much.'

from Crooks and Liars by John Amato

How unpatriotic is Sean Hannity? He joins in with McCain's major economic dude, Phil Gramm and believes we are a nation of Whiners.

 Download | Play  Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Hannity: But in all seriously here, we haven't had a recession—there is an economic slow down. I share your concern. Everybody I talk to is furious at 4.50 a gallon for gasoline, especially when they know we have more resources than the middle east, but I want to know. I want to ask you this. I've met people that grew up in tyranny. I knew people that grew up in the former Soviet Union for fear of speaking out against their government. Never had an opportunity to pursue their dreams…In this country, maybe we do, is there some truth to the fact, maybe we do whine too much. Maybe we don't to appreciate this gift we have of freedom. Maybe we don't take advantage of, maybe too many of us look to the government to solve every problem we have, Health care etc…

Gingrich: Sean, I have the deepest affection for you..that is the least Ronald Reagan like quote I've heard from you in your entire career.

WTF is he talking about? My God, Newt rebukes him in the the worst possible way for a Hannity type robot. Calling him the anti-Reagan. I guess when you make over five million dollars a year like Hannity does, no worries about health care for his family, paying for gas and the high cost of food really isn't a big deal to him and many rich conservatives. You know the new term is "economic slow down." We're not struggling, there's just a little bump in the road so suck it up people!@

Heather says:

Gingrich tells Hannity that government should listen to citizens when they're complaining, and admits the truth when he says that "If your customer comes in and complains to you it is not good to say to the customer quit whining because then they get to go to a new store". That "new store" is the Democratic Party and he knows it. Of course that was qualified later with remarks that small business without the aid of government and the private sector is the answer to all of our problems instead of government holding those people back with I would guess their nasty regulations on business so they don't kill all of us while making a profit which of course all Republicans hate.

The terminator is pissed at GW and hearts Carter....

Schwarzenegger Slams Bush Administration For Global Warming; Praises Carter For His Environmental Plan

from Crooks and Liars by Nicole Belle

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

We haven't mentioned it on the site, but air quality throughout the state of California is really bad right now.  There is a thick brown haze due to the enormous number of fires up and down the state, making it difficult for asthmatics like me to breathe easily, and it's been this way for weeks.  Naturally, the wildfires came up during the Governator's interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week and Ahnold took the opportunity to criticize two Republican administrations and praise Jimmy Carter for his foresight on developing an energy independence program and efficiently negated McCain's offshore drilling advocacy as a lot of hooey.

SCHWARZENEGGER: (I)t just really means basically this administration did not believe in global warming, or they did not believe that they should do anything about it since China is not doing anything about it and since India is not willing to do the same thing, so why should we do the same thing?

But that's not how we put a man on the moon. We did not say let everyone else do the same thing, then we will do it. We said we want to be the pioneers, we want to be out there in front. [snip]

Anyone that tells you that drilling, nuclear power, alternative fuels, fuel cells, solar, all of those things will bring down the price right now, I think is pulling wool over your eyes, because we know that all of those would take at least 10 years.

But that should not mean that we should not do those things, because here is the important thing. What's the biggest problem in America? It's not that we don't have any ideas. It's just that we are not consistent, that we have Jimmy Carter in the late '70s that came in with a great energy policy, talked about shale oil exploration, giving tax credits for people that were investing in windmills and in solar and all of those things.

Then President Reagan came in and scrapped the whole thing, because the oil price came down and says, "Well, this doesn't make any sense financially."

There were many countries all over the world that stayed with the program, that said, "We are going to continue," even thought the oil price comes down. In Germany with solar, for 30 years they've been working on that, and they're now number one in solar, number one.

I think that's what we need to do. We need to stay the course.

Full transcript below the fold

SCHWARZENEGGER: This is an extraordinary kind of a situation. We have never had 1,728 fires in one given time, because of the lightning and because of the — you know, that struck down on various different areas in California, and because of very dry weather, a lot of wind and tremendous heat.  All of this is kind of the perfect storm for those kinds of fires.

So we had fires up and down the state, and, of course, we're prepared to fight maybe 30-40 fires at any given time, which we have done in the past successfully, but not 1,700 fires.

That's why we have asked the federal government right away for help. We have gotten great cooperation from the federal government, but we have told them that this is not a temporary thing, that if you're not anymore for the sprint, we are now there for the marathon,because we see that fire season that used to be from the end of summer through fall now is an all year round fire season.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How much of that is due, do you think, to global warming, to climate change?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, it's very hard to say. I mean, one thing we know for sure, and that is we have had a drought for two years in a row now. We have a lack of water here in California, which is very important, why we need to redo our infrastructure and rebuild our water system again in California.

And I think that we just have to be aware of those changes. I'm sure, partially, that it has something to do with global warming, also, because we have just now broken a record.

I think that in modern history in California, we have never had this kind of size of fire and up and down, 725,000 acres of land has burned so far. This is the most ever.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And yet we read front page of the Washington Post this morning, President Bush's EPA is going to take no more actions this year during his presidency to stop global warming emissions.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, to be honest with you, if they would have done something this year, I would have thought it was bogus anyway.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, because you don't change global warming and you don't really have an effect by doing something six months before you leave office. I mean, that is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Doesn't every bit help?

SCHWARZENEGGER: No, it doesn't sound to me believable at all. The sincerity is not there. I think that the way they have done it is much better, because it just really means basically this administration did not believe in global warming, or they did not believe that they should do anything about it since China is not doing anything about it and since India is not willing to do the same thing, so why should we do the same thing?

But that's not how we put a man on the moon. We did not say let everyone else do the same thing, then we will do it. We said we want to be the pioneers, we want to be out there in front.

And we are out there in front when it comes to stem cell research. We're out there in front when it comes to high technology and biotechnology, with our university systems. I think we have a good opportunity to do the same thing, also, with fighting global warming.

And that's why I'm very happy that California is in the forefront on that. We are very aggressive. We have made a commitment to roll back our greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level. And because of it being the most important state in the union, we were able to reach out and to get a lot of partners to join us, and we have had many other states join us, even provinces of other countries like Canada and so on join us, and now we've made agreements with European countries.

We didn't wait for Washington. I just felt that the administration and the federal government have been terrific partners in a lot of things for us and we have worked together very well. But environmental issues was not one of them.

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Bush is out today. He's at the Department of Energy today, saying we have to be out in front on finding more energy resources here in the United States.

BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: One of the things we just went through is a briefing from Secretary Bodman and Secretary Kempthorne about the vast potential of crude oil reserves on offshore lands, as well as in Alaska, as well as in oil shale in the western part of our country.

END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHWARZENEGGER: I have no interest in offshore drilling off the state of California. People can do it wherever they want, and I think that that's what McCain made clear when he talked about it, that he would give the rights to the state. And he can give the rights to the states, but we in California say, "Thank you for giving us the rights, but, no, we have no interest in doing offshore drilling," because we want to protect our coasts.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And that's more important than bringing down the price of gas, bringing down the price of oil.

SCHWARZENEGGER: First of all, let me just make it clear. Anyone that tells you that drilling, nuclear power, alternative fuels, fuel cells, solar, all of those things will bring down the price right now, I think is pulling wool over your eyes, because we know that all of those would take at least 10 years.

But that should not mean that we should not do those things, because here is the important thing. What's the biggest problem in America? It's not that we don't have any ideas. It's just that we are not consistent, that we have Jimmy Carter in the late '70s that came in with a great energy policy, talked about shale oil exploration, giving tax credits for people that were investing in windmills and in solar and all of those things.

Then President Reagan came in and scrapped the whole thing, because the oil price came down and says, "Well, this doesn't make any sense financially."

There were many countries all over the world that stayed with the program, that said, "We are going to continue," even thought the oil price comes down. In Germany with solar, for 30 years they've been working on that, and they're now number one in solar, number one.

I think that's what we need to do. We need to stay the course. We've got to go and say, "Here's the plan. This is how we get energy independent."

We need to have renewables. We need to have nuclear power, we need to do the drilling, we need to do the alternative fuels. All of those kind of things, let's do research and all this, but let's never go off course, no matter who the administration is and what the oil price is.

Let's stay on course. That is the big problem in America.

Could conservatives be asking for more regulation in the capital markets?

Conservatives call for re-regulation of "free" market

from Scholars and Rogues by Brian Angliss

On Friday, EJ Dionne of the Washington Post noted something that I'd noticed earlier in the week, namely that conservatives who should be calling for less regulation and freer markets were in fact calling for the exact opposite. He quotes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as saying "a more robust framework for the prudential supervision of investment banks and other large securities dealers."

It floored me when I first read it, and even now it's worthy of one very special word:

Wow.

If Dionne is right, then the era of free-market everything is waning. And not a day too soon. Free market ideas, as opposed to fair market ideas, led to some meetings between myself and my former insurance company turned investment banker and purveyor of mostly-legal conflicts of interest, State Farm. Deregulation enabled the housing crisis and permitted the fraud that was Enron and the California energy crisis. Cutting capital gains taxes led directly to massive disparities in income growth, but those supposed entrepreneurs at the top didn't trickle their windfall profits down to job growth at the middle and lower income levels. And, of course, deregulation of media led to massive consolidation, short-term profit-driven cuts in correspondents and editorial staff, and the radically wrong idea that "the public interest is whatever the public is interested in."

Give Dionne's piece a read. When a free marketeer from the Hudson Institute calls for new regulations, well, either conservative free market ideology is about to be replaced, or the Ghost Busters containment unit is about to be turned off, Gozer released, and the Stay Puffed marshmallow man turned loose on New York.

Hollywood Chainsaw Blogger » Blog Archive » Gary Dell’Abate Denies Soldier Diss

Hollywood Chainsaw Blogger » Blog Archive » Gary Dell’Abate Denies Soldier Diss: "In a posting yesterday on the Stern Fan Network, Greenwich’s Gary “Baba Booey” Dell’Abate (I’m sure my RSS feed is a mess having to sort through that last name), says that he did not refuse an autograph to a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan."