11 Baseball Legends Who Were Legendary Assholes | Cracked.com

11 Baseball Legends Who Were Legendary Assholes | Cracked.com
Here's number 10:

#10.

Charles Comiskey:

Comiskey is best known for being the former owner of the Chicago White Sox, and for their field which was named after him, before it was changed to U.S. Cellular Field in honor of Ulysses Stanton Cellular.

However, back in the day, he was best known for being a miserably cheap bastard. It stands to reason that if you own a professional sports team, you have a shitload of money, and if you spend that money to buy a sports team, something that is utterly frivolous, it stands to reason that to cheap out on running that team makes you quite the douchebag. It's just logic.

Charlie Comiskey was one such douchebag, paying his players substandard wages in a time before free agency, when they had no choice but to accept them. He promised one of his pitchers a $10,000 dollar bonus if he won thirty games in a season, but benched him right before he could reach that mark, preferring to save the money at the risk of losing some games. Also he wouldn't pay for his player's laundry. To reiterate, he bought a professional sports team, built them a stadium, then decided he'd rather they look like hobos than pay for laundry.

Of course, his stinginess ended up leading to the Black Sox Scandal, in which his team threw the World Series for cash. Cash, that one can presume went toward not smelling like shit.

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Mr. Mortgage: Record Foreclosures Sweep CA in July - Breaking News

from IamFacingForeclosure.com (news)

``July was another record month for foreclosures in the state of CA with all hell breaking lose and banks taking back roughly 26,500 homes for $12.5 billion. 'Record-breaking' is not a good thing in the foreclosure universe. This 25% increase breaks all records ever posted and all foreclosure estimates. July was another record month for foreclosures in the state of CA with all hell breaking lose and banks taking back roughly 26,500 homes for $12.5 billion. 'Record-breaking' is not a good thing in the foreclosure universe. This 25% increase breaks all records ever posted and all foreclosure estimates. July was another record month for foreclosures in the state of CA with all hell breaking lose and banks taking back roughly 26,500 homes for $12.5 billion. 'Record-breaking' is not a good thing in the foreclosure universe. This 25% increase breaks all records ever posted and all foreclosure estimates.''

Beijing 2008: Are You Ready for McCommunism?

from Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

Naomi Klein points out that while repression in China is nothing new, Police State 2.0 has nothing to do with Communist ideological purity and everything to do with creating "the ultimate consumer cocoon for Visa cards, Adidas sneakers, China Mobile cell phones, McDonald's happy meals, Tsingtao beer, and UPS delivery—to name just a few of the official Olympic sponsors. But the hottest new market of all is the surveillance itself ... an entirely for-profit affair that is the latest frontier for the global Disaster Capitalism Complex."

MO Republican Indicted, Charged With Sexual Assault Of 14 Yr Old Girl

from Crooks and Liars by Logan Murphy

STLtoday:

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year's Legislative session ended.

The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee. The girl's mother and Muschany -– who is married and has two children — were romantically involved, the woman said.

A Cole County grand jury returned an indictment today charging Muschany with the Class C felony of "deviate sexual assault." The indictment identifies the victim only by initials. It says that on May 17, Muschany "had deviate sexual intercourse" with the girl, "knowing that he did so without" her consent.

The document also alleges that the mother "did admit that the incident did take place, including her witnessing same." Read on…

After so many Republican sex crimes and scandals, you just have to scratch your head and wonder how one party could attract so many deviant hypocrites. Ready for the money shot? Muschany co-sponsored a bill in 2006 that toughened sex offender laws.

Fox News keeps lying - 4 other Presidents were not Christians....

Best Exit Poll: What TV News Do You Watch?

from Pensito Review by Trish

FOX is still lying about Obama *

A fascinating new poll shows a very high correlation between which television news channels you watch and who you support for president.

87% of Fox News viewers say they are likely to vote for John McCain

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Fox News viewers say they are likely to vote for John McCain, while those who watch CNN and MSNBC plan to support Barack Obama in November by more than two to one.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of CNN voters plan to vote for the Democratic candidate versus 26% who intend to go for the Republican. Similarly, MSNBC watchers plan to vote for Obama over McCain 63% to 30%.

Only nine percent of those who watch Fox News say they will vote for Obama…

While McCain is regarded favorably by 88% of Fox News viewers, only 43% of CNN viewers and 38% of those who watch MSNBC agree. But just 14% of Fox viewers have a favorable opinion of Obama, as opposed to 70% of CNN watchers and 72% of those watching MSNBC.

How voters rate the importance of issues is also reflected in the cable news programming they prefer. For 36% of Fox viewers, national security is the most important issue in the campaign, followed by 32% who say economic issues are number one. By contrast, those who watch CNN rate economic issues over national security 56% to 13%, and MSNBC viewers agree 50% to 12%.

No word on how those of us who watch no television news (except ABC's This Week on Sunday morning) vote but it's small wonder so few FOX viewers are favorable toward Obama. As NewsHounds pointed out, the broadcaster is still pounding home the lie that Obama is not a Christian.

* At least four presidents — John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft — were Unitarians. Abraham Lincoln was unaffiliated with any faith, and was not thought to have accepted Christ as divine.

Here's a good reason to not watch the Olympics....read the rest at the link below

The Beijing Olympics: Another Vulgar Celebration of Greed and 'Corporatist' Values

from The Existentialist Cowboy by Len Hart

Not since 1936 has a police state hosted an Olympics amid such international hype. Still espousing 'communism', the Beijing regime that brought you the Massacre at Tiananmen Square is easily bought off, at least temporarily, by makers of sneakers and other shameless exploiters of labor and humanity. The world has not seen extravagance on this scale since another tyrant --Adolph Hitler --tried to exploit the Olympics to put a smiley face on Nazism.

This [People's Republic of China] is a dictatorship we aid every day – through our government, corporations, and choices at the tillOver the next three weeks, we will watch a slick propaganda parade of Chinese "sporting heroes". But we will not see China's true heroes in the glittering stadiums of Beijing – because they are in prison, or they have "disappeared." If you are indiscreet enough to ask after them, you will be instantly smeared as "anti-Chinese".But what are these critics saying? Liu Shaokun is a young teacher in Sichuan Province. He watched his pupils die in the earthquake because their school was built using cheap substandard materials, by corrupt officials who pocketed the change. He took photographs to prove it and posted them on the internet. So he has been seized and indefinitely imprisoned without trial. Is he anti-Chinese?Chen Guangcheng is a blind self-taught lawyer who exposed the government's policy of forcibly sterilising disabled Chinese women. So he has been jailed for four years. Is he anti-Chinese? Jiang Yanyong is a doctor who exposed the government's attempt to cover up the SARS outbreak, saving tens of thousands of Chinese lives. So he is under indefinite house arrest after a lengthy "re-education". Is he anti-Chinese? --Johann Hari: Don't let the Games blind us to the plight of China's workers

various

Krugman: Republicans have become the party of stupid

from Crooks and Liars by John Amato

[found at Shirt-a-day.]

Thank you, Paul.

Watching Kudlow scramble and sound like a lunatic on his show Thursday because the economy is tanking is a sad but true example of Republicans playing stupid.

Gingrich raises the specter of another government shutdown

from Crooks and Liars by Steve Benen

  In the 1990s, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich helped orchestrate a government shutdown, which helped make him something of a national villain. Soon after, Gingrich forced a second shutdown, and was blamed for that, too.

A few years later, Gingrich was forced from his post and resigned, but he continues to linger in DC, and has managed to convince his former colleagues that his advice has merit.

And as of this week, the former Speaker is talking openly about yet another government shutdown. (thanks to R.S. for the tip)

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) predicted Wednesday during the fourth day of Republican protests at the Capitol that Democrats would lose a potential government shutdown fight over offshore oil drilling.

The offshore drilling ban expires Sept. 30, and some conservatives have urged President Bush to threaten to veto any bill that extends it, including a routine stopgap spending bill keeping the government open.

"Are they really prepared to close the government in order to stop drilling?" Gingrich asked of Democrats. "I think the public would think they're insane…. I don't see how the Democrats could possibly sustain a suicidal strategy like that."

And I really don't see how the Republicans could listen to such a nut.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said a shutdown would backfire on Republicans.

"The Republicans haven't had much luck with shutdowns in recent years, and I can't imagine that this would be any different," he said. "The American people want to see progress, they want to see comity, they want to see bipartisanship. They want to see some action, not shutdowns. I can't imagine they would fare any better this time."

Let me get this straight. Newt Gingrich, who was ousted because he was so ineffective in shaping the congressional Republicans' strategy 10 years ago, wants to see congressional Republicans shut down the government a few months before an election, because Speaker Pelosi knows that expanded coastal drilling wouldn't help consumers or improve our nation's energy policy, and is prepared to wait until there's a new president before negotiating a new national policy.

I'll tell you what, House Republicans, take Newt's advice. I dare you.

Vista's Security Rendered Completely Useless by New Exploit

from cryptogon.com by Kevin

Put a fork in it. Via: NeoWin: This week at the Black Hat Security Conference two security researchers will discuss their findings which could completely bring Windows Vista to its knees. Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. have discovered a technique that can be used to bypass all memory protection [...]

New Offshore Drilling Won't Lower the Price of Gas

from Political Affairs Magazine

Energy policy and high gas prices has dominated the public debate over the past few weeks as both presidential candidates have tussled back and forth on the issue.

A Dino Named Sue: The Most Complete T. Rex Ever Found

from mental_floss Blog by Stacy Conradt

If you've only got one afternoon in Chicago, which museum should you attend? After mulling over the possibilities and consulting my Magic 8-ball, I decided to hit up the Field Museum. It was a great choice, largely because I got to meet this old gal, who happens to be one of the most controversial set of bones in existence.

The Discovery

The dino named Sue was almost not found. After the crew on the dig found a few Edmontosaurus bones, they were pretty much ready to call it quits. But then their truck got a flat tire. While waiting on the tire to be fixed, Sue Hendrickson thought she would bide her time by checking out some cliffs that they were unable to get to before. After finding some small pieces of bone, she looked up to see where they had fallen from. Sticking out of the cliff were some much larger bones that looked to be well preserved. (Photo from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research)

The O Factor: Oprah Gives Obama an Extra Million

from mental_floss Blog by Diana Wolf

Votes, that is. It's clear that a plug from the daytime diva can turn a book into a best seller (Anna Karenina & Love in the Time of Cholera increased 100% immediately after their selection into Oprah's Book Club). And she can turn any movie into a blockbuster. But academics are now asking if she can help decide the presidency?

Two Additional United States Aircraft Carriers Are Heading to the Gulf

from cryptogon.com by Kevin

Right off the bat: Take it or leave it. I wasn't going to post this because it's almost like a "Fool me once / fool me twice" kind of thing every few months. I believe that there are always two carrier groups operating in and around the Persian Gulf. So, if this means that four will be [...]

Fox news would rather talk about John Edwards then the Russian/Georgian war...

Fox News Host Refuses To Talk About Russia-Georgia War, Insists On Covering Edwards' Affair

from Think Progress by Satyam

Yesterday, Russia launched a major military offensive against Georgia, which Georgia has called "a state of war." Nearly two thousand people have died and the conflict risks sparking a wider war. Also yesterday, former senator John Edwards admitted to having an extramarital affair in 2006.

Fox News has decided which story is worthy of more coverage. Today, host Gregg Jarrett interviewed PBS's Bonnie Erbe. "We have these huge stories going on like the one you're reporting in Georgia," Erbe noted when asked about Edwards. Jarrett, however, completely ignored Erbe's comment on Georgia and continued to talk about Edwards, offering praise for the National Enquirer:

JARRETT: You know, his excuse for lying is absolutely stunning. He claims he denied the affair because the reporting by the National Enquirer was "99 percent wrong." Well, so far, they've been about 100 percent right.

Throughout the segment, Jarrett refused to talk about anything except for Edwards's affair:

ERBE: The American public have told pollsters, this political season they want substance. Both these candidates have expressed support for allowing Georgia into NATO. … We could have been on the verge of nuclear war. Those are the kinds of the things that the American public wants to see discussed.

JARRETT: Right. You know, but getting back to Edwards, during the Monica Lewinsky affair, Edwards absolutely ripped into Bill Clinton.

Erbe called the Edwards story "water cooler talk," noting again that Edwards's affair is "not the stuff the American public wants to hear about in this election cycle." Again, Jarrett wholly ignored her, responding with more Edwards talk:

JARRETT: Well it's amazing, he thought could get away with it, and if he had become the Democratic nominee, my goodness.

Apple does good...

Apple: We Don't Have A Battery For Your 30GB iPod, So Take This 80GB iPod For Free Instead [Above And Beyond]

from Consumerist by Carey

Apple couldn't repair Adrienne's 30GB iPod before she planned to leave for a cross-country trip, so they decided to give her a brand new 80GB iPod. And since it was a new iPod, they also waived the $70 repair fee.

She writes:

I show up on Friday, surrounded by people with iPhone issues (dude, I'd totally be on that bandwagon if they hadn't contracted with AT&T, but that's another story). My personal Genius said yep, you need a new battery and OF COURSE they were completely out of stock. I state, somewhat irately (the first Genius wasn't really that nice and blamed me for not checking on the stock on Wednesday), that it needed to be done, please call the King of Prussia store - anywhere from here to Delaware - and get me the part and an appointment. He stated that he didn't have time to help me and grabbed the man who eventually become my Apple Store savior - Dan in the black shirt.

Thank god for black shirt Dan. After hearing my sob story about the stresses of moving across the country (I know - I'm moving to freaking paradise, finally going to grad school, and getting a dog… my life is soooooo tough), he called KOP (who OF COURSE also didn't have the part). Sensing that I had completely given up hope (literally, head down on my Fat City Reprise purse, completely dejected, and wondering how many times I'd hear Miley Cyrus on shuffle all on my Nano), Dan vowed to figure something out. I expected, I guess, that maybe they would forward my info to the Apple Store in Boulder and hook me up or maybe let me purchase a replacement 30GB (since they no longer sell them) for the price of the repair.

I was offered neither of those options. I saw the Holy Grail of ridiculously amazing customer service.

Since there were no 30GB iPods in stock (OF COURSE!!!), I was going to be given a brand spanking new 80GB iPod for the price of the repair. Holy shit. Insane - I don't even have enough music to fill that. I looked at Dan and tried to not cry, which freaked him out I think, because he got that "Oh Christ, please don't freak out" look on his face. I assured him that I was thrilled, just because shit like this doesn't ever happen to me and I had been super-stressed out. He then made it better by telling me that it would be easier if they charged me nothing. NOTHING.

Because Apple cares about their customers, I got an 80GB iPod for free.

Great work, Apple!

Steve Jobs Knows Customer Service [Randomn3ss]
(Photo: Getty)

So it was another viral marketing ploy?

Montauk Monster was Viral Marketing For Splinterheads Movie?

from /Film by orfilms@gmail.com (slashfilm.com)

Due to a number of reader requests and the unprecedented success of this viral marketing campaign (if true!), Slashfilm will finally address The Montauk Monster. When a foul, suspiciously beaked creature allegedly washed ashore a beach near Montauk, Long Island last month, the above photo captivated the world's cubicle inhabitants thanks to the diligently crazed, beloved reportage of Gawker. Was "Monty" a dead dog evidently done in by Paulie Walnuts? A harmless water rat/Satan? Colbert theorized it was John McCain. Others said it was a discarded lovechild of John Edwards. CNN introduced the meme to parents, who brought it up at dinner. As crippled imaginations ran wild, some speculated that it was viral marketing for Cloverfield 2 or Adult Swim. Warmer, Internets.

According to MontaukMonster.com and seconded by Gotham News and Gawker, the creature might be a viral marketing prop for an indie film about carnies entitled Splinterheads starring Lea Thompson, Rachel Taylor (Transformers) and Christopher McDonald (above photo, Fanboys, Dutch). On the director's photo blog, Sersen Park, there is an implied shoutout underneath the monster's pic to Rachel Goldberg—evidently the sister of the film's producer Darren Goldberg—who originally "discovered" the monster and went to the press. A few days ago, the above photo was posted on the film's official website with the words, "We have the Montauk Monster" but this has since been removed. The page is cached here.

If true, it's puzzling that Splinterheads' filmmakers haven't taken a more aggressive approach to linking the film and the monster pic sensation, especially this late in the game. But if this was indeed a guerilla publicity stunt/hoax for a $1 million movie, JJ Abrams has to be impressed.

Discuss: If you're following the case of the Montauk Monster, what have you heard? Do you think it's a viral marketing stunt or simply a dead raccoon exploited for Internet hits and the filler of talking heads? Using the actors above, is the monster six degrees of Kevin Bacon?

McCain passes on answering immigration reform survey

Obama campaign responds to immigration reform survey while McCain campaign remains silent

from Scholars and Rogues by E Rocha

The deadline has come and gone for the US presidential candidates to respond to a questionnaire put together by The Sanctuary, a web base grassroots community of pro-migrant, human rights, and civil-rights bloggers and online activists dedicated to the enactment of meaningful immigration reform.

We have had our fair share of critics who questioned us and asked who did we we think we were to make such a lofty demand and who did we represent and why should we expect the presidential candidates to answer our questions.

But make no mistake on the impact online activism has on politics in general. As Marisa Treviño noted, in light of the $20 million the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign are spending to outreach Latino/a voters, "the questionnaire was a bargain."

It is obvious that the Obama campaign understands this because his campaign has fulfilled their promise and filled out the questionnaire. However, the McCain campaign, aside from the Spanish-language ads, and his trip to Mexico and South America, has yet to fill out our questionnaire.

Taking notice of our frustrations about the campaigns "tip-toeing" and "lip service" on immigration are CNN, XM Radio's P.O.T.U.S. '08, and Huffington Post.

The Sanctuary recently distributed a call for presidential candidates Obama and McCain to answer what the organization called a "comprehensive survey on Latino issues." Since both candidates have been courting the Latino vote, the Sanctuary editors wrote in a press release, we wanted open and honest information about their positions. "We were tired of seeing the candidates tip-toe around the issues and merely pay lip service. So we created this questionnaire posing specific policy questions for the candidates to answer," said Sanctuary editor Edmundo Rocha.

During the week, Sanctuary spokesperson and CrossLeft.org founder, Kety Esquivel was interviewed on XM Radio's P.O.T.U.S. '08 and on CNN to discuss the questionnaire, the response from the Obama campaign, and the lack of response from McCain campaign.

There is no doubt that the Netroots phenomenon is still in its infancy. However, it is obvious the Netroots is not limited to general electoral politics; it also incorporates other issues that influence this country. In other words, I and the other founding members of "The Sanctuary" are part of a complex Internet community called the Netroots where the function is really not the sum of the parts but much bigger.

The video of Kety on CNN's American Morning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMwOj-aMe74

various

You, too, can be a mindless, rewarded McCain campaign troll

from Crooks and Liars by Steve Benen

   Ideally, a presidential campaign would inspire supporters to defend the candidate's ideas, promote his/her agenda, and advance his/her policies.

But the McCain campaign has already been suffering from an "enthusiasm gap," so it appears his supporters need a little incentive to say nice things about the presumptive Republican nominee.

On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor's screen name. The site offers sample comments ("John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .") and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" and "other" categories. Just cut and paste. […]

People who sign up for McCain's program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain's webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

Crooks & Liars, by the way, is on the list of targeted sites. 

It appears McCain hasn't actually earned actual grassroots support, but he's certainly willing to buy it, and catapult the propaganda online.

The WaPo noted why these tactics might sound familiar: "[D]issidents alleged earlier this year that the Chinese government has paid Chinese citizens token sums for each favorable comment about government policies they post in chat rooms and on blogs."

Yes, let's pause to appreciate the ways in which the McCain campaign has borrowed the tactics of an authoritarian communist regime.

In some ways, I'm a little surprised conservatives aren't more insulted by this. The McCain campaign assumes a) his supporters need prize incentives to say nice things about him; and b) these same supporters aren't quite smart enough to come up with their own ideas, and need to copy and paste pre-approved comments that the campaign has come up with for them.

D-Day's take was spot-on:

This is just an evolution of the Bush Administration paying Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher to carry water for their policies. It's wingnut welfare at the micro-level. And it's kind of sad that you can't find a conservative who is legitimately excited enough about John McCain to promote him online for free. I think the accurate response to any McCain supporter at this point is "how many buttons did you just win for that comment?"

Matt Ortega also had a great line: "Commanding an army of spammers on the internet: now that's leadership you can believe in."

Edwards Admits Affair

from Pensito Review by Jon Ponder

ABC News:

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby's birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.

A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child.

Tokyo Architecture - a set on Flickr

Tokyo Architecture - a set on Flickr

Some very cool architecture from Tokyo....

Kucinich Fights for Iraq Against U.S. Oil Companies | War on Iraq | AlterNet

Kucinich Fights for Iraq Against U.S. Oil Companies | War on Iraq | AlterNet

The Oil for Iraq Liberation bill, introduced by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, will prevent U.S. based oil companies from development of and investment in petroleum resources of Iraq.

"Recently we have seen evidence of a concerted effort to pressure the Iraqi government into privatizing Iraqi oil fields against the will of its citizens. We have also heard that certain high level architects of the Iraq war stand to gain financially. This bill will ensure that the Iraqi oil money stays out of the hands of U.S. oil companies who would otherwise benefit from the US attack on and occupation of Iraq."

Despite intense U.S. pressure, Iraqi legislators Sunday failed to reach an agreement to solve an increasingly bitter dispute over the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, Leila Fadel and Sahar Issa write for McClatchy.

Kirkuk sits on Iraq's northern oil fields and also on a fault line between the Sunni Muslim Kurds who dominate most of northern Iraq and the Sunni Arabs who occupy the center of the country.

The parliament's inability to resolve the dispute over the city mirrors Iraqi political leaders' inability to make progress on other fronts, including constitutional amendments and the passage of a law governing the distribution of the country's oil revenues, despite the recent improvements in security.

Iraq is inviting bids from contractors to drill seven new oil wells and complete work on four natural gas wells.

The Oil Ministry says contractors have until Sept 15 to submit bids to drill in the East Baghdad oil field.

Today's statement says bids to complete four gas wells in the Akkas gas field in western Iraq will be accepted until September 30, the UAE's The National reports.

UAE-based Dana Gas and its partner and shareholder Crescent Petroleum announced on 29 July that a 462mn cu. ft. site has been allocated for its planned Kurdistan Gas City.

However, the success of the project, which will cost $3bn to build and generate planned foreign investment of over $40bn, like other Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) energy initiatives, will likely depend on the resolution of the dispute over what powers the federal Ministry of Oil wields in regions such as the KRG, the Tehran Times said.

The UK/Dutch Shell Group hopes to sign short-term technical service agreements in Iraq shortly, in addition to a gas deal, but has failed to give a definitive timeline for either.

"In Iraq, subject to the security situation, we are keen to make progress," says Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive officer at Shell, writes Perry Williams for the Middle East Business Intelligence.

Iraq's daily oil production is at its highest level since the March 2003 U.S. invasion, in large part thanks to improved security, according to a Pentagon audit.

"Iraqi oil production set new records this quarter, with output reaching 2.43 million barrels per day, the highest quarterly average since the invasion," Stuart Bowen, the Defense Department's inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, wrote in his 18th quarterly report to Congress on the expenditure of $50 billion in U.S. economic aid. Production fell to 1.3 million barrels a day during 2003, Bloomberg's Tony Capaccio reported.

Paris, Tire Gauges, and Illegal Contributions: McCain's Bad Week | PEEK | AlterNet

Paris, Tire Gauges, and Illegal Contributions: McCain's Bad Week | PEEK | AlterNet

I think Chris Bowers is absolutely right -- Paris Hilton's response to John McCain's celebrity ad has turned the tide of this race to a certain extent. Actually it occurred at a confluence of events: Obama calling McCain and his minions "proud to be ignorant" about car maintenance and fuel efficiency; Obama running a response ad to McCain's O.M. Original Maverick (ya hear?) ad:

And then Paris pops up with a piece of video offering an objectively more substantive energy plan than McCain ever has. As Bowers says:

Hilton's response is now the top story on Google News, and apparently the McCain campaign is receiving so many media requests about it, that they had to post a response on their website. They have gotten into a spat with Paris Hilton, which there is basically no way to win. Hilton has nothing to lose, and the back and forth just highlights the frivolic idiocy of McCain's recent attacks.

She's also squeezed him to an extent. Hilton basically endorsed a compromise proposal (I can't believe I wrote that sentence) of limited drilling as a bridge to a green energy future. That's not true; the meager take from coastal drilling is not nearly enough to build that bridge. But in the political context, both candidates are actually agreeing with this, as it's laid out in the bipartisan "Gang of Ten" plan on energy in the Senate. It's a true compromise, and it includes eliminating tax breaks for oil companies and funneling that money into alternative energy research. That central plank of the Democratic Party agenda (it was part of 6 for '06) polls extremely well, in the 70% range. But McCain has already gone on the record against the Gang of 10 compromise:

A spokesman for Sen. McCain said that while he "applauds the bipartisan effort," he wouldn't support the proposal because "he cannot and will not support legislation that raises taxes."

Which opens up a huge gap for Obama to exploit, when everybody figures out that making oil companies rich(er) is McCain's only objective.

What's more, Obama's mockery on the tire gauge nonsense has forced McCain up against a wall on that score:

Predictably, Obama hit back calling McCain's mockery "ignorant," arguing his plans were being misrepresented and saying that experts backed his call over tire pressure. Equally predictably, McCain's camp hit back.

The surprise came during a telephone town hall meeting McCain held on Tuesday with voters in Pennsylvania.

"Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don't disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it," McCain said.

The dispute now rests on a lie that the tire pressure tip is Obama's entire energy plan, which has been dismissed as foolishness in just the right way ("it's like these guys are proud to be ignorant").

Finally, there's an extremely damaging A1 story in the Washington Post this morning that is the result of Obama's recent ads mentioning the $2 million McCain has collected from the oil companies since his change of heart on drilling. There's a throughline between the focus on lobbyists and oil companies and bundlers and donations and this story:

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lounge in Fullerton.

But the man who gathered checks from them is no stranger to McCain -- he shuttled the Republican on his private plane and held a fundraising event for the candidate at his house in Delray Beach, Fla.

Harry Sargeant III, a former naval officer and the owner of an oil-trading company that recently inked defense contracts potentially worth more than $1 billion, is the archetype of a modern presidential money man. The law forbids high-level supporters from writing huge checks, but with help from friends in the Middle East and the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit -- who now serves as a consultant to his company -- Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 for three presidential candidates from a collection of ordinary people, several of whom professed little interest in the outcome of the election [...]

Earlier this week, McCain drew questions about more than $60,000 in donations that were made this year to the Republican National Committee and his campaign by an office manager with the Hess oil company and her husband, an Amtrak track foreman. In that case, the couple said they used their own money.

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.

Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.

There's at the very least the impression of straw donations here, an appearance of impropriety. I know that McCain is not in control of his own campaign, but all the connections to Big Oil and shady lobbyists and curious donations ought to take its toll (though I think the media will be consumed with Paris today).

The tenor of this race, aided by events, has changed. McCain is on the defensive.

The Only Thing Worse Than '06 Mortgages: '07 Ones

The Only Thing Worse Than '06 Mortgages: '07 Ones
Man, remember those mortgages made in 2006? That was some bad juju. Whooee. But if you thought those were bad, wait till you get a load of the mortgages made in 2007. As the graph shows, people are defaulting on them at an even higher rate than the '06 ones. How could this be? By 2007 the bubble was popping and lenders could all see that they needed to stop giving making loans to underqualified borrowers, right? That was exactly the problem: "Mortgage originators who profited handsomely from the housing boom "realized the game was completely over" and pushed mortgages out the door," reports WSJ.

Think Progress » McCain Blogger Lies, Insinuates Obama Has Recieved More Money From Big Oil Than McCain

Think Progress » McCain Blogger Lies, Insinuates Obama Has Recieved More Money From Big Oil Than McCain

In a post titled “Exxon Obama,” official McCain blogger Michael Goldfarb insists Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) “made a mistake” when he said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is the favored candidate of the oil companies. Goldfarb cites a report by the Center for Responsive Politics to claim that Exxon, Chevron, and BP employees have given more to Obama than McCain. Goldfarb triumphantly declares, “Big Oil’s candidate is…Barack Obama.”

However, Goldfarb selectively edits out three sentences from that same report, which emphasize that oil companies overall have given three times more money to McCain than Obama:

McCain leads the money race with nearly every other top giver in the oil and gas industry, though — Koch Industries, Valero, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, the list goes on. (You can see detail on all these companies in the spreadsheet linked below.) McCain also has a big edge with Hess Corp. — $91,000 to Obama’s $8,000 — which has gotten some attention. And, overall, McCain’s campaign has gotten three times more money from the industry than Obama’s has — $1.3 million compared to about $394,000.

The report shows that, since McCain’s reversal in favor of offshore oil drilling, oil industry contributions to his campaign have skyrocketed — creating the perception that he is outsourcing his energy policies to the oil companies:

The report concludes, “Comparing Obama’s and McCain’s financial ties to the oil industry, there’s no question that McCain has benefited more from the industry’s contributions.” That said, since his false claim was contained in a blog post, Goldfarb probably “knew the charge was bogus.”

Slashdot | 8 People Buy "I Am Rich" iPhone App For $1,000

Slashdot | 8 People Buy "I Am Rich" iPhone App For $1,000

"In the first 24 hours that it was available, eight people bought a completely useless iPhone app for $1,000 a pop. This app does nothing except alert onlookers that you have a lot of money. The developer priced it at $999.99, which is the most you can charge on Apple's store. Apple has since yanked the app (without explanation as usual), while the inventive programmer walked away with $5,600."

cryptogon.com » Archives » RUSSIAN ARMOR SENT INTO GEORGIA

cryptogon.com » Archives » RUSSIAN ARMOR SENT INTO GEORGIA

Via: Telegraph:

Russia sent troops and dozens of tanks into the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia today, throwing the two former Soviet neighbours into a sudden yet undeclared state of war.

In the most serious regional crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 50 tanks – and possibly many more – rumbled through the Roki tunnel, which cuts through the Caucasus mountains separating South Ossetia from the Russian province of North Ossetia.

“One hundred and fifty Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles have entered South Ossetia,” President Saakashvili of Georgia told reporters in Tbilisi. “This is a clear intrusion on another country’s territory. We have Russian tanks on our territory, jets on our territory in broad daylight.”

Mr Saakashvili added that Georgian forces had downed two Russian jet fighters over Georgian territory.

Anti-War Website Operator Threatened By Armed Thugs | AfterDowningStreet.org

Anti-War Website Operator Threatened By Armed Thugs | AfterDowningStreet.org

The operator of a leading alternative news and strongly anti-war website has become the target of nefarious thugs apparently in the employ of the U.S. government who have continually harassed him and ordered him to shut down his website.

Tom Feeley, owner and editor of InformationClearingHouse.info, has endured public harassment, home invasions, death threats and threats to his family simply for running a website.

Counterpunch writer Mike Whitney has circulated an e mail describing what happened to Feeley in an attempt to draw attention to the matter.

Whitney writes that earlier this week Feeley’s wife was startled to suddenly discover three well dressed men standing in her kitchen who told her that Tom must “Stop what he is doing on the Internet, NOW!”

To emphasize the point, the thug pulled back his jacket to reveal a gun while barking out the warning.

Tom’s wife was hysterical and refuses to go back to the house. She contacted the FBI but was told there was nothing they could do.

According to Whitney, “The well-dressed man told Tom’s wife that he knew where her son lived, what line of work he was in, and how many children he had.”

Subsequently, two men in a parked car a block from Tom’s mother’s house were spotted using laptops and sped off when they were approached by Tom’s son.

A similar incident had happened four years previously, when Feeley was approached by a stranger in the parking lot of Long’s Drug store in Southern California, after being forced to remain in his car by an accomplice who blocked him from opening the car door. The man told him, “You need to stop what you are doing on the web”.

Tom said the man was overweight and had his shirt untucked. Tom was taken aback, but (after collecting himself said) “What the fuck? Who do you think you are telling me what I can do?”

The man answered, “Tom, I’m just giving you some good advice. You should take my advice, Tom.”

I’ll tell you this about Tom Feeley; he is no bullshitter,” writes Whitney, “He is the “real deal” and completely committed to exposing the mob that is presently running our country. He does not understand why, (as he says) “They are reaching down SO far to get someone who just runs web site”. But, the truth is, they are. Someone wants him to “shut up” and they apparently have the muscle to do it. He knows he is in danger.”

Feeley is ditching his cellphone and maintaining a low profile but to his credit, refuses to cave in to the threats and will continue to publish his website.

Drawing attention to Feeley’s situation is of paramount importance to ensure his protection and also to combat head on attempts to create a chilling atmosphere and intimidate journalists and website publishers.

Chicagoist: Long and Winding Road

Chicagoist: Long and Winding Road

Paul McCartney is celebrating his 66th birthday by taking a road trip on Route 66. Which is how he wound up in Springfield this weekend, posing for a picture with a group of Cardinals fans at a gas station. [WBBM, Mirror, Daily Mail]

cryptogon.com » Archives » Secret EU Security Draft Proposes Sharing Vast Amounts of Intelligence and Information on Europeans with the U.S. to Form “

cryptogon.com » Archives » Secret EU Security Draft Proposes Sharing Vast Amounts of Intelligence and Information on Europeans with the U.S. to Form “Euro-Atlantic Area of Cooperation�

Via: Guardian:

Europe should consider sharing vast amounts of intelligence and information on its citizens with the US to establish a “Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation” to combat terrorism, according to a high-level confidential report on future security.

The 27 members of the EU should also pool intelligence on terrorism, develop joint video-surveillance and unmanned drone aircraft, start networks of anti-terrorism centres, and boost the role and powers of an intelligence-coordinating body in Brussels, said senior officials.

The 53-page report drafted by the Future Group of interior and justice ministers from six EU member states - Germany, France, Sweden, Portugal, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic -argues Europe will need to integrate much of its policing, intelligence-gathering, and policy-making if it is to tackle terrorism, organised crime, and legal and illegal immigration.

The report, seen by the Guardian, was submitted to EU governments last month following 18 months of work. The group, which also includes senior officials from the European Commission, was established by Germany last year and charged with drafting a blueprint for security and justice policy over the next five years.

Baroness Scotland, the UK attorney general, had observer status with the group to assess the implications for Britain, whose legal system, unlike continental Europe, is based on the common law.

The group’s controversial proposals are certain to trigger major disputes, not least its calls for Europe to create an expeditionary corps of armed gendarmerie for paramilitary intervention overseas.

The report said the EU would fail to beat terrorism unless it developed a full partnership with Washington, a process currently pushing ahead in fits and starts.

“The EU should make up its mind with regard to the political objective of achieving a Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation with the United States in the field of freedom, security and justice,” it said.

Such a pact, which should be finalised by 2014 at the latest, would entail the transfer of vast volumes of information on European citizens and travellers to the US authorities. Negotiations have long been under way to agree such a pact, but have been bedevilled by divergences in privacy law and data protection regimes.

The US is already demanding that EU countries sign up for a battery of security measures on transatlantic flights and the supply of personal information on passengers if they are to enjoy visa-free travel to the US. Under one such accord struck in March between Washington and Berlin, the Germans are to make DNA and biometric information on travellers available.

The European Commission and the US homeland security department are also trying to iron out discrepancies in privacy laws to allow the wholesale exchange of data. The aim is to reach a binding international agreement this year or next.

Last month the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to MEPs pressing Brussels to reject US pressure because the US is “a country that, in privacy terms, is all but lawless … US privacy laws are weak. They offer little protection to citizens and virtually none to non-citizens.”

While urging a comprehensive transatlantic electronic pact, the Future Group focuses mainly on boosting police cooperation and integration between EU states, policies which would reinforce the powers of European agencies and institutions bearing acronyms such as Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, and Sitcen and perhaps see new agencies established to deal with security and intelligence operations.

Several member states, not least Britain, will have deep qualms about the proposals, with the British likely to balk at automatic pooling of national intelligence.

Anti-terrorist campaigns can only be effective if “maximum information flow between [EU] member states is guaranteed,” the report said. “Relevant security-related information should be available to all security authorities in the member states.” It said “networks of anti-terrorist centres” was a possible solution.

While cooperation between national police forces in the EU was advancing, the report conceded that the sharing of espionage and intelligence material was a “considerable challenge” as it clashed with the “principle of confidentiality” that is the basis for successful exchanges.

The report calls for a bigger role for “Sitcen” in coordinating intelligence sharing. Sitcen, or the Joint Situation Centre, is a shadowy intelligence body based in Brussels which started as a foreign policy tool supplying analysis on international crises to Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, but which now focuses on counter-terrorism and internal security policy.

cryptogon.com » Archives » Jobless Claims Rose to Their Highest Level in Six Years

cryptogon.com » Archives » Jobless Claims Rose to Their Highest Level in Six Years

ia: Bloomberg:

The number of Americans filing first- time claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week to the highest level in six years, signaling the labor market continues to weaken.

Initial jobless claims increased by 7,000 to 455,000 in the week ended Aug. 2, the most since March 2002, from 448,000 the prior week. The number of continuing claims increased to a four- year high.

Companies are reducing staff as demand slows and raw- material costs surge. Rising unemployment adds to concerns that consumer spending will falter in coming months after the effects of the government’s tax rebate checks wane.

“The labor market is slackening,” said Michael Gregory, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. “The underlying trend for jobs has got recession written all over it.”

US exporting record amount of oil | AfterDowningStreet.org

US exporting record amount of oil | AfterDowningStreet.org

Wow I thought we needed more oil? From after downing street...

WASHINGTON, July 3 (Reuters) - While the U.S. oil industry wants access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

"We can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country," President Bush told reporters this week. "We have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home."

"As a nation, we can have more control over our energy destiny by supplying more of the oil and natural gas we'll be consuming from resources here at home," Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a letter last week to U.S. lawmakers.

But environmentalists and other opponents to expanding drilling areas could seize on the record exports to argue Congress should not open more acres if U.S. refineries are churning crude oil into petroleum products that are sent out of the American market.

"It doesn't look good to say: 'We need more oil.' But then export the refined products that you're getting. It doesn't seem to be consistent," said Jim Presswood, energy lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But many energy experts say oil and petroleum products are traded globally, and it may make economic sense to export gasoline refined along the U.S. Gulf Coast to Latin America and import European-refined gasoline to U.S. East Coast markets.

"The fact is that the (United States) participates in global markets for both crude and refined products, and there are any number of variables that impact supply and prices in those markets," said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association.

The White House said it was against requiring U.S. oil products to stay at home.

"Forbidding exports of U.S. petroleum reduces the incentive for domestic suppliers to produce, and could potentially lead to higher prices if U.S. production or refining declined," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

The 1.6 million barrels a day in record petroleum exports represented 9 percent of total U.S. refining capacity of 17.6 million barrels a day.

However, with refiners operating at 85 percent of capacity during the January-April period, the shipments represented a much a larger share of total U.S. oil products produced.

The exports were also equal to half the 3.2 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products the United States imported each day over the 4-month period.

The biggest share of U.S. oil products exported went to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore and Brazil.

U.S. consumers are paying record prices for gasoline and diesel fuel, which the Bush administration blames in part on tight supplies.

While the administration argues that more supplies would help to bring down prices, U.S exports of diesel fuel in April averaged 387,000 barrels per day, up almost seven-fold from 59,000 barrels a day in the same month a year earlier.

U.S. gasoline shipments in April averaged 202,000 barrels a day, the most for the month since 1945, when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II. Gasoline exports in April 2007 were almost half at 116,000 barrels per day.

Residual fuel exports in April were 377,000 barrels per day, the fourth highest level for any month, and up 10 percent from 344,000 barrels per day a year earlier.

John Felmy, the chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, said a portion of the oil products exported, especially diesel, was fuel that did not meet U.S. clean air requirements and therefore could not be sold in America. "You may have some that you're not able to use," he said.

Also, while U.S. gasoline demand is down due to high prices and a weak American economy, there is "strong economic growth outside the United States" where fuel is often subsidized and demand is high, said John Cook, director of EIA's Petroleum Division.

However, both the EIA and API admitted they did not know why daily U.S. gasoline exports to Canada skyrocketed to 41,000 barrels in January-April this year from 9,000 barrels in 2007.

The EIA said more U.S. diesel is going to Latin American to fuel power plants because of a shortage of natural gas in the region, and China has switched to diesel from coal to run some of its generating facilities in order to reduce smog ahead of the summer Olympics next month in Beijing. (Editing by Christian Wiessner)

t r u t h o u t | The Schwarzenegger Contradiction

t r u t h o u t | The Schwarzenegger Contradiction

Wow Governor Terminator is a real cocksucker. From Truthout:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger must live in a parallel universe devoid of logic, rationality, critical thinking and accountability, based on his latest contradictory actions at the State Capitol.

The same governor who is working relentlessly to pass a budget-busting $9.3 billion water bond, with absolutely no sense of irony, yesterday issued an executive order slashing the salaries of 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour, and immediately laying off 20,000 temporary workers until California passes a budget.

"Today I am exercising my executive authority to avoid a full-blown crisis and keep our state moving forward," Governor Schwarzenegger said. "This is not an action I take lightly, but we do not have a budget, and as governor, I have a responsibility to make sure our state has enough money to pay its bills."

Schwarzenegger, the worst ever governor for fish and wildlife in California history, is apparently one of the most ruthless in the way he treats the state's workers, including Department of Fish and Game (DFG) staff. An S.S. officer's son who became a body builder and then a Hollywood "action hero," Schwarzenegger apparently wants to run California like a totalitarian state. Agency staff are routinely bullied and those who disagree with his disastrous environmental policies are pressured into resigning.

On Schwarzenegger's watch, Central Valley king salmon have collapsed to the lowest recorded population level due to the governor's zeal in increasing water exports to his buddies in corporate agribusiness. The same increase in water exports is also the key factor in the collapse of three pelagic species - the delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad - as documented by a team of federal and state scientists.

The same governor who is slashing state workers' salaries, last week spoke at a Capitol rally touting the "benefits" of a $9.3 billion "compromise" water bond sponsored by him and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The proposal, opposed by a coalition of fishing groups, Indian Tribes, conservation organizations and Delta residents, includes two new dams and a peripheral canal. The bond would build the infrastructure to export even more water out of the Delta, further imperiling collapsing salmon and other fish populations.

I ask Schwarzenegger how he can cut salaries and jobs, due to a budget shortfall of $15.2 billion, while he is campaigning for a proposal that would indebt the state for another $9.3 billion? Is Schwarzenegger out of his mind?

The corporate media, who haven't yet gotten tired of the novelty of having an "action hero" actor as the governor, portray Schwarzenegger as the "green governor," since they are deceived by his detestable grandstanding about "global warming" and "ocean protection." Meanwhile, he presides over the destruction of the largest estuary on the West Coast and California and Oregon salmon fisheries.

Schwarzenegger's bizarre vision of "ocean protection" means allowing corporate water polluters and agribusiness to routinely violate environmental laws, while his administration removes sustainable recreational and commercial fishermen from the water by creating massive "no fishing" zones.

Apparently, Schwarzenegger has the same compassion and consideration for state workers that he has for commercial fishermen, charter boat captains, fishing guides and people employed in the fishing industry, who are being devastated economically by the salmon fishing closures.

"I understand that this will affect people at a time when they are already struggling and so I want to apologize to all the state employees for having to do that," said Schwarzenegger. "When I sign this order thousands of pink slips will start going out across the state. And I'm also canceling all overtime, except for public safety and 24-hour medical care and I'm ordering also a hiring freeze. And, effective for the August payroll, tens of thousands of state employees will be paid the federal minimum wage until a budget is passed and then, of course, they will get reimbursed their salaries."

If there were ever a governor that really needed to be recalled, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger. His legacy to date includes the Prospect Island fish kill, the closure of ocean and Central Valley river salmon fisheries, the collapse of the California Delta food chain, the gutting of the California DFG and repeated breaking of federal and state environmental laws. What will it take to get the people to rise up and get him removed from office as was done to Gov. Gray Davis?

NOT A GOOD DAY FOR CHICAGO COPS...

Chicago cop suspended for screaming at Starbucks, demanding free coffee, flashing her badge and gun

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

The headline says it all, doesn't it?

A Chicago Police officer has been suspended and ordered into counseling after she was found guilty of demanding free Starbucks coffee from five different stores on the North Side from 2001 to 2004, sometimes flashing her badge, displaying her gun and screaming at employees.

Officer Barbara Nevers of the Belmont police district was suspended for more than 15 months, according to records the Chicago Police Board released today.

Cop demands free coffee, but not at this Starbucks (via Starbucks Gossip)

Cops Fired, Punished

from Chicagoist by Margaret Lyons

The Chicago police board released records today that cover officers who've been suspended or fired. In the report:

• Officer Barbara Nevers, who allegedly said "I don't pay for coffee, I am an officer, I get coffee for free," at a Starbucks. She's been suspended for three months and ordered to undergo counseling after a series of similar incidents.
  
• Sergeant Nicholas M. Ortega, who was fired after being found guilty of entering a bar in uniform, giving an "unauthorized person" a ride in his squad car, and having sex with a woman "in or near" his office.
  
• Officer Joseph Battaglia , who was suspended after he apparently told a restaurant employee "that he had confiscated 'weed' and asked if they wanted some."

Free coffee, sex in the office, and "weed." Way to take the fun out of everything, police board. [WBBM, Trib]

various headlines

Almost Half of Indiana's Mortgage Brokers See Licenses Yanked

from IamFacingForeclosure.com (news)

"More than 40 percent of mortgage brokers in Indiana no longer have a license to do business in the state, after Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita said Tuesday that his office had revoked licenses for 393 of the state's 950 mortgage brokerages for failure to comply with a new state law."

Texas Executes Mexican For Killings

from Drudge Retort by califchris

The state of Texas defied an international court and executed Mexican citizen Jose Ernesto Medellin Tuesday for the rape and murder of two Houston teens in 1993 Houston gang rape-murders of two teenage girls.

Clinton Doesn't Rule Out Floor Nomination

from Drudge Retort by taxman

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told a gathering of supporters last week that she's looking for a strategy for her delegates to have their voices heard and respected at the Democratic National Convention -- and did not rule out the possibility of having her name placed into nomination at the convention alongside Sen. Barack Obama's.

Print Photos at Walgreens Straight From Picasa!

from geeksugar - Geek is chic. by geeksugar

File Walgreens under Awesome twice today; first, today's their Free Film Developing Day, and now it's been announced that Walgreens is a print provider for Picasa!

That's right, print directly from your Picasa albums to Walgreens — which was already my preferred photo printer because you can pick them up from a store right after you order them online, no shipping costs or waiting incurred.

And don't forget to adjust your settings in Content Control to allow visitors to order prints of your photos, so your family can feel the Walgreens love, too!

Worthless, $1000 "I Am Rich" iPhone App Disappears (AAPL) (Dan Frommer/Silicon Alley Insider)

from Techmeme

Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Worthless, $1000 "I Am Rich" iPhone App Disappears (AAPL)  —  The $1000, zero-utility "I Am Rich" app for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch has been removed from the iTunes App Store.  —  It no longer appears in searches, and a tipster tells us that it's no longer visible …

Simplicity Is Best: Why Materialism Is Only Going To Screw Up Your Life [Materialism]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

Over at the US News & World Report Alpha Consumer blog there's an interview with Tim Kasser, author of The High Price of Materialism, about why and how materialism will not make you happy. In fact, it very well might make you sad.

Here's why:

We propose four psychological needs. The first is safety/security, which is the need to feel like you'll survive, like you are not in danger, like you will have enough food and water and shelter to make it another day. The second is competence or efficacy, which is the need to feel like you are skillful and able to do the things that you set out to do: I need to feel like a good psychologist, you might need to feel like a good journalist, etc. The third is connection or relatedness, which concerns having close, intimate relationships with other people. The fourth need is for freedom or autonomy, which is feeling like you do what you do because you choose it and want to do it rather than feeling compelled or forced to do it.

As I lay out in my book, The High Price of Materialism, people who put a strong focus on materialism in their lives tend to have poor satisfaction of each of these four needs. In part this is because of their development, but it also is because materialism creates a lifestyle that does a poor job of satisfying these needs. That is, a materialistic lifestyle tends to perpetuate feelings of insecurity, to lead people to hinge their competence on pretty fleeting, external sources, to damage relationships, and to distract people from the more fun, more meaningful, and freer ways of living life.

"Fakeproof" e-passport is cloned in minutes

from Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder

The Times Online reports that those microchipped passports the UK gov't boasted would be impossible to fake "can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports."

3,000 blank passports were stolen last week, but the Home Office said there was nothing to worry about, because they couldn't be forged.

In the tests, a computer researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and implanted digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. The altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports.

"Fakeproof" e-passport is cloned in minutes (Times Online)

The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat

from Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder

I've read a lot of stories about antibiotic-resistant infections, but this New Yorker piece by Jerome Groopman called "Superbugs" stands out.

Frederick Ausubel, a bacterial geneticist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, is searching for drugs to combat bacterial virulence, using tiny animals like worms, which have intestinal cells that are similar to those in humans, and which are susceptible to lethal microbial infection. The worm that Ausubel is studying, Caenorhabditis elegans, is one and a half millimetres in length. "You are probably going to have to screen millions of compounds and you can't screen millions of infected mice," Ausubel said. "So our approach was to find an alternative host that could be infected with human pathogens which was small enough and cheap enough to be used in drug screens. What's remarkable is that many common human pathogens, including Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas, will cause intestinal infection and kill the worms. So now you can look for a compound that cures it, that prevents the pathogen from killing the host." Ausubel first screened some six thousand compounds by hand and found eight, none of them traditional antibiotics, that may protect the worms. He is also attempting, among other potential solutions, to find a compound that would block what is called "quorum sensing," in which bacteria release small molecules to communicate with one another and signal when a critical mass is present. Once this quorum is reached, the bacteria turn on their virulence genes. "Bacteria don't want to alert their host that they are there by immediately producing virulence factors which the host would recognize," triggering the immune system, Ausubel explained. "When they reach a certain quorum, there are too many of them for the host to do anything about it." Bonnie Bassler, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, has recently shown that it is through quorum sensing that cholera bacteria are able to accumulate in the intestines and release toxins that can be fatal; Pseudomonas is also known to switch on its virulence genes in response to signals from quorum sensing.

Superbugs: The new generation of resistant infections is almost impossible to treat (New Yorker)

Pen Zen: Bring Clarity to Writing | ThinkSimpleNow.com

Pen Zen: Bring Clarity to Writing | ThinkSimpleNow.com

Have you ever read an email from someone that was too wordy, lacked focus, and left you confused? How can we learn from reading such emails to improve our own communication? How do we compose emails and writings that others will actually want to read?

The ability to write clearly is crucial to getting your message across no matter what you’re writing, whether it’s an email, a blog post, a magazine article, or a letter to a friend. Clear and concise writing is vital to having your words read and understood.

The whole purpose of most writing is to inform readers of something or to persuade people to do something. The more clear and concise your language, the easier your message will be understood, and the more likely your readers will respond to that message.

Before you can write clearly, you have to be able to think clearly. A big reason many writers don’t see desired success in conveying their message is that they were not focused on a clear message. Good writing usually stems directly from clear thinking.

In this post, we’ll first look at some common obstacles to clear thinking and writing, then offer some suggestions to develop the mental state for clear writing, and finally give some specific writing tips that, if implemented, will immediately add that magic touch of clarity to your writing.

Internet Censorship is On it's Way. The i-Patriot Act - Young Famous and Fashionable

Internet Censorship is On it's Way. The i-Patriot Act - Young Famous and Fashionable
Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.

via: Infowars

Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.

Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.

During a group panel segment titled “2018: Life on the Net”, Lessig stated:

There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.

The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.

Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”.

Watch Lessig reveal the details at 4.30 into the following video:

Lessig is the founder of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. He is founding board member of Creative Commons and is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the Software Freedom Law Center. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. These are clearly not the ravings of some paranoid cyber geek.
The Patriot Act, as well as its lesser known follow up the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as USA Patriot Act II, have been universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. They have stripped back basic rights and handed what have been described by even the most moderate critics as “dictatorial control” over to the president and the federal government.

Many believed that the legislation was a response to the attacks of 9/11, but the reality was that the Patriot Act was prepared way in advance of 9/11 and it sat dormant, awaiting an event to justify its implementation.

In the days after the attacks it was passed in the House by a majority of 357 to 66. It passed the Senate by 98 to 1. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was even allowed to read the legislation.

Now we discover that exactly the same freedom restricting legislation has already been prepared for the cyber world.

An i-9/11, as described by Lawrence Lessig, would provide the perfect pretext to implement such restrictions in one swift motion, as well as provide the justification for relegating and eliminating specific content and information on the web.

Such an event could come in the form of a major viral attack, the hacking of a major city’s security or transport systems, or some other vital systems, or a combination of all of these things. Considering the amount of unanswered questions regarding 9/11 and all the indications that it was a covert false flag operation, it isn’t hard to imagine such an event being played out in the cyber world.

However, regardless of any i-9/11 or i-Patriot Act, there is already a coordinated effort to stem the reach and influence of the internet.

We have tirelessly warned of this general movement to restrict, censor, control and eventually completely shut down the internet as we know it, thereby killing the last real vestige of free speech in the world today and eliminating the greatest communication and information tool ever conceived.

Our governments have reams of legislation penned to put clamps on the web as we know it. Legislation such as the PRO-IP Act of 2007: H.R. 4279, that would create an IP czar at the Department of Justice and the Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007: S. 522, which would create an entire ‘Intellectual Property Enforcement Network’. These are just two examples.

In addition, we have already seen how the major corporate websites and social networks are decentralizing and coming together to implement overarching identification, verification and access systems that have been described by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as “the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.”

Some of these major tech companies have already joined efforts in projects such as the Information Card Foundation, which has proposed the creation of a system of internet ID cards that will be required for internet access. Of course, such a system would give those involved the ability to track and control user activity much more effectively. This is just one example.

In addition, as we reported yesterday, major transportation hubs like St. Pancras International, as well as libraries, big businesses, hospitals and other public outlets that offer wi-fi Internet, are blacklisting alternative news websites and making them completely inaccessible to their users.

These precedents are merely the first indication of what is planned for the Internet over the next 5-10 years, with the traditional web becoming little more than a vast spy database that catalogues people’s every activity and bombards them with commercials, while those who comply with centralized control and regulation of content will be free to enjoy the new super-fast Internet 2.

We must speak out about this rampant move to implement strict control mechanisms on the web NOW before it is too late, before the spine of the free internet is broken and its body essentially becomes paralyzed beyond repair.

Related: Get Outraged And Get Active About Internet Censorship

Vitamin C Shows Promise as Cancer Treatment | LiveScience

Vitamin C Shows Promise as Cancer Treatment | LiveScience

(HealthDay News) -- New research with mice suggests that intravenous doses of vitamin C could one day reduce the size of cancerous tumors in people.

The findings are preliminary and still must be confirmed in humans. And even if the treatment works, it's not a cure but would likely be used in combination with other drugs, the researchers said.

Still, the research does show an unexpected use for vitamin C, which has previously been thought of as a nutrient, not a drug, said study co-author Dr. Mark Levine, chief of the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Molecular and Clinical Nutrition Section.

"There's potential promise that [vitamin C] is part of the armamentarium for treating some cancers," he said. "Which ones? We've got to do more and find out."

Political Punch

Political Punch

Obama Pushes Back on GOP Tire Pressure Attack: "It's Like These Guys Take Pride in Being Ignorant"

At a town hall meeting in Berea , Ohio, today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, pushed back against the GOP attack on his advice to a voter last week that having a tuned up car and fully inflated tires would help save energy.

"Let me make a point about efficiency, because my Republican opponents - they don’t like to talk about efficiency," Obama said.

"You know the other day I was in a town hall meeting and I laid out my plans for investing $15 billion a year in energy efficient cars and a new electricity grid and somebody said, 'well, what can I do? what can individuals do?' Obama recalled.

"So I told them something simple," Obama said. "I said, 'You know what? You can inflate your tires to the proper levels and that if everybody in America inflated their tires to the proper level, we would actually probably save more oil than all the oil we'd get from John McCain drilling right below his feet there, or wherever he was going to drill.'"

(Note: that's not accurate, as we fact-checked last week. But the larger point about energy savings is correct.)

"So now the Republicans are going around - this is the kind of thing they do. I don't understand it! They’re going around, they're sending like little tire gauges, making fun of this idea as if this is 'Barack Obama's energy plan.'

"Now two points, one, they know they're lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they're making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.

"You know, they think it is funny that they are making fun of something that is actually true. They need to do their homework. Because this is serious business. Instead of running ads about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears they should go talk to some energy experts and actually make a difference."

-- Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller

Think Progress » Exclusive: Auto Makers Deflate McCain’s Ignorant Hot Air On Value Of Proper Tire Inflation

Think Progress » Exclusive: Auto Makers Deflate McCain’s Ignorant Hot Air On Value Of Proper Tire Inflation

In a series of public events today, John McCain has ramped up his disingenuous attack on the impact proper tire inflation can have in saving energy. At a rally in South Dakota, a hyper McCain yelled to the crowd: “My opponent doesn’t want to drill. He doesn’t want nuclear power. He wants you to inflate your tires.” Earlier in the day, he said: “We’re not going to achieve energy independence by inflating our tires.”

Watch a compilation:

Of course, Obama has never suggested that proper tire pressure would “achieve energy independence.” McCain’s insincere demagoguing of this issue overlooks a crucial and important fact – ensuring proper tire pressure is a better and more immediate response than oil drilling to the nation’s pain at the pump.

In a post on the Wonk Room, Charles Territo, the director of communications for the Auto Alliance (which represents Chrysler, Ford, and GM, among others), notes some facts McCain should keep in mind:

• The Department of Energy estimates that 1.2 billion gallons of fuel were wasted in 2005 as a result of driving on under-inflated tires.

• Fuel efficiency is reduced by 1% for every 3 PSI that tires are under-inflated.

• Proper tire inflation can save the equivalent of about 1 tank of gas per year.

• Proper tire inflation also reduces CO2 emissions.

• Experts estimate that 25% of automobiles are running on tires with lower than recommended pressure, because people don’t know how to check their tires or don’t realize that tires naturally lose air over time.

Territo notes that the Auto Alliance sponsored tire pressure checks for members of Congress and their staff last week. “Surprisingly, we found that most drivers had tires between 5 and 7 pounds under inflated — some had tires under-inflated by as much as 20 pounds,” he writes. “This significantly reduced their vehicle’s fuel economy.” If conservatives truly want to take immediate action on energy, they can stop wasting time on political stunts and start checking their tires.

Digg It!

UpdateAt his South Dakota rally, McCain yelled: “When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them [Congress] go on vacation!” Brad Johnson documents McCain’s record of absenteeism on some important votes.

UpdateSen. Barack Obama responds: "Now two points, one, they know they're lying about what my energy plan is, but the other thing is they're making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

UpdateSen. McCain said tonight, "Obama a couple of days ago said that we ought to all inflate our tires, and I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it."

» 20 Years Of Madden Covers

» 20 Years Of Madden Covers
JOHN MADDEN FOOTBALL - 1990

This was also the cover for “John Madden’s Kool-Aid Man Impersonation” video game (which wasn’t nearly as popular.)

CrunchGear » Archive » Man builds Batman’s Tumbler in his garage

CrunchGear » Archive » Man builds Batman’s Tumbler in his garage

A man by the name of Bob Dullam has created a complete replica of the Tumbler from The Dark Knight. The guy built the entire thing in his garage for the cool sum of $50-70,000. So, a handy guy with money. Rare as hen’s teeth.

Red Nose Studio

Red Nose Studio
- check out the amazing art at this website

Former network engineer sues Apple over its IT sweatshop

Former network engineer sues Apple over its IT sweatshop: "David Walsh, a network engineer at Apple for over a decade, claims that the company—known for obsessively over-worked engineers—has been routinely requiring overtime hours but not paying for them. According to his lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, Apple has created a variety of job titles for years designed to classify IT workers as exempt from federal overtime pay and other rights assigned by federal and California law."

You Think Oil's Going Down? Think Again - TheStreet.com

You Think Oil's Going Down? Think Again - TheStreet.com: "Consider some statistics.

Americans now use twice as much oil as Saudi Arabia produces every day, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development account for two-thirds of the world's daily oil consumption -- with the US leading this elite pack by a wide margin -- but the real growth in demand is happening in the developing world. In the 1990s, oil use grew by 35% in non-OECD countries, vs. 11% in the developed world, according to the EIA."

Home Run Derby » The Worst Seats in the House

Home Run Derby » The Worst Seats in the House

A couple weeks ago, the Indy Star released some pics of some of the sightlines in the Indianapolis Colts’ new home, the Lucas Oil Stadium.

About 200 of them aren’t that great … and not because they’re a quarter-mile from the field - you try to see around those pillars right there. The Colts have said that they won’t sell those seats, which begs the question, why bother putting the seats there in the first place.

Obstructed view seats have become rarer thanks to new-fangled stadia without support beams. But there’s still some really bad seats around Major League Baseball. Let’s take a look at some of the worst seats in baseball.

Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs
When the stadium is the oldest in the National League, you’re gonna have some seats that modern architecture would be ashamed of. Especially when there’s something like 60 pillars holding up the upper deck and the roof.

You know the saying “Good Seats are still available at Wrigley Field?” These are the seats they’re talking about. I’ve had one of these seats before. I didn’t sit there - there were better seats in standing room. No wonder 10-year old kids drink beer at Wrigley.

Drew Westen: Why Voters Say they Don't Really Know Barack Obama (and Why They Don't Really Know Much about John McCain, Either)

Drew Westen: Why Voters Say they Don't Really Know Barack Obama (and Why They Don't Really Know Much about John McCain, Either)

When a campaign has to ask why it is having trouble getting its message out, the campaign is usually the problem. Obama has a voice, and he has the microphone to say anything he wants anytime he wants to say it. But as his opponent "distracts" the media--and hence the public--daily with a relentless drumbeat about what's wrong with Obama--that he isn't strong, that he isn't American, that he isn't patriotic, that he doesn't have the judgment or experience to be president, that he didn't have the balls to serve in the military, that he eats arugula, that he is the most liberal member of the United States Senate, that he isn't "one of us"--what story has Barack Obama told that could possibly catch the public attention? That he has a slightly amended plan for dealing with the energy crisis? And what story is his campaign telling about why voters should worry as much about John McCain as they are beginning to worry about Barack Obama?

McCain has made abundantly clear since infesting his campaign with Rove protégées a few weeks ago that he intends to run a relentlessly negative campaign. For many of us, it was a relief this week to see Obama starting to run an occasional offense this week, instead of running a prevent defense with too few players on the field. What is not as clear is what the Obama campaign learned from the relentlessly negative campaign Hillary Clinton ran against him in the last half of the primary season. They clearly remember that he won. But what is not so clear is whether his campaign took away anything from the fact that he lost two-thirds of the primaries after Hillary turned to her slash-and-burn strategy and that many voters came away with an uneasy feeling about him.

His campaign needs to understand why that happened, because it's the same thing that happened to Al Gore and John Kerry. It's about narratives.

Oil giants report massive profits

Oil giants report massive profits: "Exxon and other oil companies have rewarded their CEOs with multi-billion dollar payouts. Last year Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson cashed in $16.1 million in stock options in addition to his $1.75 million salary. He also received a $3.36 million bonus. Conoco Chairman James Mulva received $31.3 million last year.

The failure of the oil monopolies to redirect any significant portion of their vast resources to research into new energy sources in the face of the dwindling supply of fossil fuels and the danger posed by global warming refutes claims that the capitalist market can be relied on to rationally distribute resources. This is further underscored by the activities of speculators, including giant hedge funds, which have racked up huge profits from oil commodity speculation while returning no value to society."

Secret Plan To Kill Internet By 2012 Leaked? | AfterDowningStreet.org

Secret Plan To Kill Internet By 2012 Leaked? | AfterDowningStreet.org

Secret Plan To Kill Internet By 2012 Leaked?
Some question if report that pay-per-view system to be introduced is a hoax, but wider march to regulate the web is documented
Paul Joseph Watson | Prison Planet

ISP’s have resolved to restrict the Internet to a TV-like subscription model where users will be forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites by 2012, while others will be blocked, according to a leaked report. Despite some people dismissing the story as a hoax, the wider plan to kill the traditional Internet and replace it with a regulated and controlled Internet 2 is manifestly provable.

"Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP’s all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These ‘other’ sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet," warns a report that has spread like wildfire across the web over the last few days.

The article, which is accompanied by a You Tube clip, states that Time Magazine writer "Dylan Pattyn" has confirmed the information and is about to release a story - and that the move to effectively shut down the web could come as soon as 2010.

Watch the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t89WwcsOj9U&eurl=http://www.infowars.com/...

People have raised questions about the report’s accuracy because the claims are not backed by another source, only the "promise" that a Time Magazine report is set to confirm the rumor. Until such a report emerges many have reserved judgment or outright dismissed the story as a hoax.

What is documented, as the story underscores, is the fact that TELUS’ wireless web package allows only restricted pay-per-view access to a selection of corporate and news websites. This is the model that the post-2012 Internet would be based on. (http://www.telusmobility.com/on/wweb/wirelesswebsites.shtml)

People have noted that the authors of the video seem to be more concerned about getting people to subscribe to their You Tube account than fighting for net neutrality by prominently featuring an attractive woman who isn’t shy about showing her cleavage. The vast majority of the other You Tube videos hosted on the same account consist of bizarre avante-garde satire skits on behalf of the same people featured in the Internet freedom clip. This has prompted many to suspect that the Internet story is merely a stunt to draw attention to the group.

Whether the report is accurate or merely a crude hoax, there is a very real agenda to restrict, regulate and suffocate the free use of the Internet and we have been documenting its progression for years.

The first steps in a move to charge for every e-mail sent have already been taken. Under the pretext of eliminating spam, Bill Gates and other industry chieftains have proposed Internet users buy credit stamps which denote how many e mails they will be able to send. This of course is the death knell for political newsletters and mailing lists. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/05/spam.charge.ap/)

The New York Times reported that "America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely."

The first wave will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported in 2006 that, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets–corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers–would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out." (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/030206endofinternet.ht...)

Over the past few years, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:

• Time magazine reported last year that researchers funded by the federal government want to shut down the Internet and start over, citing the fact that at the moment there are loopholes in the system whereby users cannot be tracked and traced all the time. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/130407internet.htm)

  The projects echo moves we have previously reported on to clamp down on Internet neutrality (http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=352) and even to designate a new form of the internet known as Internet
  (http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=internet%2B2&domains=pr...)

• In a display of bi-partisanship, there have recently been calls for all out mandatory ISP snooping on all US citizens by both Democrats and Republicans alike. (http://news.com.com/Congress%20may%20consider%20mandatory%20ISP%20snoopi...)
• The White House’s own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/070906terroristrecrui...)
• The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror. (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Raw_obtains_CENTCOM_email_to_bloggers_...)
• In a speech last October, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." His solution is "intelligence fusion centers," staffed by Homeland Security personnel which will go into operation next year. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/October2006/171006Web.htm)
• The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress. Criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year could be the punishment for non-compliance. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/180107bloggers.htm)
• A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/291106shutdown.htm)
• A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/201206illegaltolink.ht...)
• The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2006/261006targetsbloggers.h...)
• The EU data retention bill, passed last year after much controversy and with implementation tabled for late 2007, obliges telephone operators and Internet service providers to store information on who called who and who emailed who for at least six months. Under this law, investigators in any EU country, and most bizarrely even in the US, can access EU citizens’ data on phone calls, SMS messages, emails and instant messaging services. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2006/150506information.htm)
• The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license. (http://infowars.net/articles/October2006/171006Internet.htm)
• The US government is also funding research into social networking sites and how to gather and store personal data published on them, according to the New Scientist magazine. "At the same time, US lawmakers are attempting to force the social networking sites themselves to control the amount and kind of information that people, particularly children, can put on the sites." (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/030706networksnooping.htm)

The development of a new form of Internet with new regulations is also designed to create an online caste system whereby the old Internet hubs would be allowed to break down and die, forcing people to use the new taxable, censored and regulated world wide web.

Make no mistake, the Internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. Both American and European moves mimic stories we hear every week out of state controlled Communist China, where the Internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

The Internet is freedom’s best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate their populations under tyranny by eliminating the right to protest and educate others by the forum of the free world wide web.

cryptogon.com » Archives » Morgan Stanley Freezing Home-Equity Credit Withdrawals

cryptogon.com » Archives » Morgan Stanley Freezing Home-Equity Credit Withdrawals

Via: Bloomberg:

Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest U.S. securities firm, told thousands of clients this week that they won’t be allowed to withdraw money on their home-equity credit lines, said a person familiar with the situation.

Most of the clients had properties that have lost value, according to the person, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. The New York-based investment bank will review home-equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, monthly from now on, the person said yesterday.

Wall Street firms including Morgan Stanley are ratcheting back on risks after the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and ensuing credit contraction saddled banks and brokerages with almost $500 billion of writedowns and losses. Consumers fell behind on home-equity credit lines at the fastest pace in two decades in the first quarter, the American Bankers Association reported last month.

“Morgan Stanley periodically reassesses client property values and risk profiles,” said Christine Pollak, a Morgan Stanley spokeswoman in Purchase, New York. “A segment of clients was recently notified of a change in the status of their home- equity line of credit, or HELOC, due to a change in the value of their property and/or their credit profile.”

cryptogon.com » Archives » Lessig: There Is Going To Be An i-9/11 And An i-Patriot Act

cryptogon.com » Archives » Lessig: There Is Going To Be An i-9/11 And An i-Patriot Act

Via Infowars:

Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.

Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.

Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.

During a group panel segment titled “2018: Life on the Net”, Lessig stated:

There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.

The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.

Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”.

t r u t h o u t | America Out of Economic Ammunition

t r u t h o u t | America Out of Economic Ammunition
The last time an American president took the reins of an economy as stalled as this one was in 1981. But Ronald Reagan changed the rules of the game and created what we in France would call a "break" with the past. For example, he increased military spending by 40 percent in five years. It's difficult to imagine John McCain - and even less so Barack Obama - following that route. All the more so as problems of colossal budgetary impact loom on the horizon, such as financing health care and retirement costs. In reality, the next president of the United States will have no major economic weapon available. If growth resumes, that's not very serious. In the opposite event, the whole world will suffer as a result of this American impotence.

t r u t h o u t | The Food Crisis and Global Institutions

t r u t h o u t | The Food Crisis and Global Institutions
The food crisis reflects a breakdown in our global food system that threatens to worsen poverty, hunger, climate change, and insecurity. Global institutions and governments are responding, yet their answers are vastly inadequate. For decades, trade and investment liberalization have undermined human rights and the environment. The food crisis should help us to understand that now it is time for a new vision of global cooperation, one that is democratic and accountable to people and the planet.

various.....

Grocery Shrink Ray Hits Folgers, Makes More Cups From Less Coffee? [Grocery Shrink Ray]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

Here's a fun little mystery for you guys. How can taking away 4 oz of coffee produce more cups of coffee? We've been thinking about it ever since Blueprint for Financial Prosperity sent us this photo the other day, and we just can't figure it out. Could it be magic? Some strange new property of the Grocery Shrink Ray?

AT&T Lies About 3G Coverage, Buys You Off With $250 Credit [3G Coverage]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

Reader Corey checked the 3G coverage map before buying a new iPhone, only to find out that the map was wrong. The story has something of a happy ending, however, because Corey says he's pleased with the $250 service credit AT&T offered.

Updated: Reach Verizon Landline Executive Customer Service [Phone Numbers]

from Consumerist by Ben Popken

Call 1-800-483-7988 and press 3 to reach the Verizon Customer Advocates for landlines and DSL. Other valid executive customer service contact information:

Ms Beverly Walker - (804) 772-6461
Ms Cassandra Flippin (212) 321-8465
Mr Curtis Owens - curtis.x.owens@verizon.com

Mark D. Reddick
Executive Customer Relations
140 West St.
Manhattan, NY 10007
Mark.D.Reddick@verizon.com
212-321-8457 (office)
212-321-1047 (fax)

1-800-321-8700

Target "Lied To Me, Yelled At Me," And "Treated Me Like Crap" [Returns And Exchanges]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

More wedding/baby registry pain from Target, a reader calling herself Consumer in MD, has started a blog called "Target is the Devil," with the aim of convincing other consumers not to register their weddings and baby showers with Target after they ripped her off to the tune of $75.01. She tried to return a gift from the registry (with a gift receipt), and Target told her that according to their records the current clearance price is what the person actually paid for the gift. It turned out that this wasn't the case, and when she brought the actual customer receipt back to Target they refused to refund her the additional money.

Lowe's Driver Caught With Hand In The Hooker Jar [Videos]

from Consumerist by Ben Popken

Sick of prostitutes and their customers infesting their communities, Oklahomans are videobusting them and posting the results on YouTube. This one catches a Lowe's delivery driver picking up a hooker in a residential neighborhood and retiring to the back of his truck for a playdate. It's the work of a one man citizen journalism campaign by Brian Bates, who's been at it in OK since 1996. It seems in the 12 year he's been at it, he hasn't run out of material.

WHITE HOUSE ORDERED FORGED LINK TO AL-QAEDA AND 9/11

Ron Suskind: White House ordered forgery to link al-Qaeda/Saddam to 9/11 attacks

from Crooks and Liars by John Amato

Ron Suskind has a new book coming out called: "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism"

 It has some explosive information about the White House's plan to forge documents to persuade the American public that we should attack Iraq. This is incredible stuff. Suskind appeared on the TODAY show and gave his first interview about it…He says it's "one of the great lies in modern political history."

Friday Night Lights

from Chicagoist by Benjy Lipsman

When Wrigley Field joined the 20th century and added lights to the stadium in 1988, part of the team's agreement with the city banned night games on Fridays or Saturdays. Now the Cubs want that ban lifted.

The Cubs and the city originally agreed to 18 night games per season at the Friendly Confines. Later amendments have increased that total to 30, but the weekend ban remains in place.

The Cubs claim that their desire for playing a few weekend games under the stars is to give players more rest before playing following late flights back to town. And we guess we understand that—a flight arriving in the wee hours of the morning followed by a 1:20 start the next day doesn't leave much time for sleep.

On the other hand, can you imagine the craziness of Wrigleyville if there were a game going on in addition to the typical weekend madness? There's nowhere enough parking (will lots gouge fans for $100?) and even in Wrigleyville there aren't enough bars to accommodate that size of a crowd. Chances of having weekend night games are even less likely than the Cubs winning a World Series.

Photo by The New No. 2

Chile Opts for Electric Cars, United States Drags Knuckles Through Dark Ages

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

read more

Union slams EPA chief for ignoring staff on global warming

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

By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson stunned his staff last month when he publicly opposed their proposals for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, four union officials representing EPA staff working on global warming policies said in a letter provided to McClatchy Monday.

The letter alleges that Johnson subverted the work of EPA staff and damaged the agency's reputation for "sound science and policy." The EPA needs public respect and support in order to implement the nation's environmental laws, it said.

Several Democratic senators recently have called for Johnson to resign, charging that he disregarded science and the law and may have misled them when he testified on Capitol Hill. Congressional committees are investigating whether the EPA's decisions have been made in accord with the conclusions of its staff and whether the White House interfered with some of the agency's work.

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Too Ignorant to Know You're Giving Your Life to Oil Companies? Perfect! And the Army Will Give You a GED.

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

Army to grow its own high school grads
Pilot program to help young people get GEDs
By Gina Cavallaro, Army Times

Faced with a shrinking pool of eligible young recruits, the Army is getting into the business of granting diplomas at its own homegrown high school.

In a pilot program scheduled to begin Monday at Fort Jackson, S.C., qualifying high school dropouts will start a four-week curriculum at the new Army Preparatory School to earn a general equivalency diploma.

The plan was to start classes of 60 students each on four consecutive Mondays. As of Friday, only two students were enrolled for the first week, but 36 were expected to arrive for the second week's class.

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GOP won't let go of its new tire-gauge toy

from Crooks and Liars by Steve Benen

Atrios asked yesterday, "Does anyone understand why Obama suggesting that people keep their tires properly inflated is some sort of hilarious gaffe?"

I've been trying to figure out the same thing for days. As the Obama campaign kicked off "energy week" with a new contrast ad and a policy speech in Michigan, Time's Mark Halperin reports, "McCain supporters in Michigan will distribute tire gauges at Obama's energy speech in Lansing. The RNC will also deliver gauges reading 'Obama's energy plan' to Washington newsrooms."

It looks like far-right blogs have received their copies of the Republican script, too. RedState.org's Erick Erickson is on message: "Inflating your tires and getting a regular tune-up sounds more like Obama's plan for ego maintenance than it does for helping American families." Ed Morrissey added, "…Obama refers to 'big oil' and the need to reduce our use of oil by 35% over the next twenty years. How do we get there? Keep inflating those tires, folks."

We are, quite obviously, in the midst of a very aggressive roll-out here. John McCain criticized the notion of well-inflated tires on Friday, and Newt Gingrich described Obama's remarks as "loony toons" during a Fox News interview. Over the weekend, McCain said, "It seems to me the only thing [Obama] wants us to do is inflate tires" to improve gas mileage.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, still auditioning for the role of VP, even took to using a tire gauge as a prop.

"Barack Obama stood up at a speech recently and said that one of the things that is really important from energy policy from his standpoint is to check the pressure in our tires, so here's a tire gauge and you can go out in the parking lot here and check your tires. Now, that's an interesting thing — we want you to have good pressure in your tires, you know, it will very mildly add to your fuel efficiency — but checking the air pressure in your tires is not an energy policy for the United States of America," Pawlenty said.

ABC News' The Note added that tire gauges may get the Republican Party's message "back on the road."

There's something deeply wrong with these people.

J

headlines

White House Fabricated Iraq Intelligence, Book Alleges

from Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

According to Ron Suskind, former Wall Street Journal reporter and best-selling Bush critic, the White House ordered the CIA to fabricate evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida and knew before the invasion that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The White House denies the allegations, published in Suskind's new book, "The Way of the World."

---

Politico:

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in "The Way of the World," to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery - adamantly denied by the White House - was designed to portray a false link between Hussein's regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official "that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion."

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House Conservatives Boo Veterans Organizations

from digg

Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Chet Edwards (D-TX) denounced the tactic. When he read statements from veterans groups urging Congress not to meddle with the legislation, House conservatives booed.

Rich People Flock to Inner City, Poor Move to Suburbs

from digg

Chicago is gradually coming to resemble a traditional European city--Vienna or Paris in the nineteenth century, or, for that matter, Paris today. The poor and the newcomers are living on the outskirts. The people who live near the center--some of them black or Hispanic but most of them white--are those who can afford to do so.

'A surprisingly immature politician'

from Crooks and Liars by Steve Benen

  John McCain has always seemed to revel in the sycophantic adulation he's enjoyed among the media elite, so it's kind of fascinating to see McCain's one-time media fans realize that he's not the man they thought he was.

The first, and probably most notable, was Time's Joe Klein, who conceded last week that he was wrong to believe McCain is an "honorable man." Soon after, writing on the inanity of McCain's attacks against Barack Obama, Klein's headline read, "The Scum Also Rises."

It looks like Newsweek's Jonathan Alter has joined the club, noting with noticeable regret that he "misread McCain."

In the middle of John McCain's dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, the announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: "Is He Ready to Lead?" An equally good question is whether McCain is ready to lead. For a man who will turn 72 this month, he's a surprisingly immature politician — erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice. The youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that one GOP strategist labeled "juvenile," another termed "childish" and McCain's own mother called "stupid." The Obama campaign's new mantra is that McCain is "an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign." Lame is more like it. And out of sync with the real guy. […]

McCain is patently insincere when his heart's not in it, like a little boy who eats his peas when his parents tell him to but remains transparently unhappy about the experience. It's not clear how committed McCain himself is to this latest assault on Obama. Does he genuinely believe that Obama is an out-of-control egomaniac who thinks he's Moses? McCain no doubt comforts himself that the ad making that argument — an argument that is beneath a major-party candidate for president — was not part of a big media buy but just chum thrown to the media piranhas via the Drudge Report. […]

On the night of the 2000 South Carolina primary, I was in his hotel suite and watched Cindy weeping over what Rove and his goons did. Her husband was plenty mad, too. Now he's got Rove's protege, Steve Schmidt, running his campaign.

Alter concludes that McCain "mortgaged his precious personal honor." I think that absolutely true, but I still get the sense that even newly-critical McCain detractors are still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. At least a little.

Alter's piece is a very good one, so I'm reluctant to criticize it, but his column still argues that McCain is being fundamentally led astray by Republican hatchetmen giving him bad advice.

McCain, Alter argues, is waging a negative and dishonest campaign, but this is "out of sync with the real guy." McCain may be on the attack, but his "heart's not in it." He's foolishly taking the advice of "knuckleheads." It's that darn Steven Schmidt who deserves most of the blame.

I even realize why Alter wants to think McCain is only partially responsible for his ugly turn — if media figures respected and admired McCain, and sang his praises for the last decade, and all the while McCain was really just a shameless Republican hack, playing the media for fools, it's hard to accept. If, however, McCain is really a great guy underneath, but has been corrupted by a dishonorable and pathetic Republican machine, then there's some comfort in knowing that reporters hadn't misjudged his character all along.

But I'm quite certain they did. McCain was playing a role, and the media bought it. Kevin explained quite well the other day why this it's-not-McCain's-fault argument misses the mark.

Apparently he's just a straight talking guy who woke up one morning and found himself mysteriously under the sway of a vile cabal of political hit men and unable to do anything about it.

Enough's enough. McCain hired Steve Schmidt, he approves the strategy, and he signs off on the ads. If his campaign is mired in sleaze, it's not happening despite McCain, it's happening because of McCain. Stop making excuses for him.

Quite right. McCain hired Rove's operation for a reason: he really wants to be president, and doesn't much care how he gets there.

It's nice, I suppose, to examine all of this and think McCain is just the latest good guy to go bad, but I think this is fundamentally flawed. John McCain simply is not a man of strong character.

FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials

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

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK, NY DAILY NEWS

WASHINGTON - In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.

After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.

"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.

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cryptogon.com » Archives » Hundreds of Banks Will Fail, Roubini Tells Barron’s

cryptogon.com » Archives » Hundreds of Banks Will Fail, Roubini Tells Barron’s

Roubini knows his shit.....

Nothing new here, but Roubini’s message is worth repeating.

Via: Reuters:

The United States is in the second inning of a recession that will last for at least 18 months and help kill off hundreds of banks, influential economist and New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini told Barron’s in Sunday’s edition.

Taxpayers will pay a big price for helping bail out the rest of the financial services industry as well, Roubini said — at least $1 trillion and more likely $2 trillion.

The banks will become insolvent because of mounting losses as a result of the housing bust and because they have only written down their subprime loans so far, he said. Still in front of them are their consumer-credit losses, for which they lack the reserves, Barron’s reported.

He also said there are hundreds of millions of dollars outstanding in home-equity loans that could be worth zero, too.

U.S. consumers, meanwhile, are “shopped out” and saving less, while the Federal Reserve’s performance in handling the crisis has been poor, Roubini said, because it failed to see that the problem extended beyond subprime mortgage debt.

Now, Roubini told Barron’s, the government is overregulating, bailing out troubled participants and intervening in every market.

Assholes: republicans attempt to derail a Bill helping veterans by attaching an a requirement to allow drilling in the ANWR - and blaming the Dems if it does not go through!

This is the party of Bush, Cheney, and McCain - who clearly is against helping Veterans - contrary to what his ads may say -

Republicans Playing More Games On House Floor

from Crooks and Liars by Nicole Belle

Popout

Oh those silly Republicans, trying to show how seriously they take their job to represent their oil lobbyist buddies constituents by repeating the shenanigans of Friday.  We've got Roy Blunt castigating the 110th Congress for not passing an appropriations bill, and yet here Congress is, trying to get a veterans' appropriations bill passed and there goes the Republicans, playing games.

The Republicans' unsuccessful attempt to derail the veterans bill comes after President Bush threatened to veto the legislation over excessive spending on veterans and our troops and after Senate Republicans blocked the National Defense Authorization Act in the Senate over the same issue. The House did pass the FY 2009 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, H.R. 6599 despite the Republican obstruction. This bill provides another much-needed funding increase for veterans' care (11 percent more than last year and $2.9 billion more than the President's request) - building on last year's largest ever increase in the 77-year history of the Veterans' Administration. All of the major veterans groups endorse the measure.

As Chairman Edwards explained, Veterans' organizations also called for its swift passage: "we urge that no impediments are put in its way and that its passage can come quickly and smoothly. The issues in this bill …are not controversial, and they have broad bipartisan support. Attaching non-germane issues to the veterans funding bill that serve to delay or block passage would truly be wrong." [VFW, 7/25/08] Nonetheless, Republicans attempted to derail the bill by attaching drilling provisions that would destroy some of the nations most pristine areas forever in exchange for savings of only pennies per gallon more than 15 years from now, according to President Bush's own Energy Department. The provisions, however, would provide billions of dollars in profits for the oil industry.

Josh Nelson breaks down exactly how far $2,228,995 goes with some members of Congress.  

I don't know how long it will last, but there's a YouTube up of their shenanigans on Friday.

Obama Predicted to Pick Evan Bayh This Week

from Pensito Review by Trish

Bil Browning is making me very happy with his prediction that Obama will pick Evan Bayh as his running mate, and will do it this week.

Choosing Bayh sends a great message to Clinton diehards that they are welcome aboard

Browning gives a number of reasons for the timing and the pick, including getting it out before the Olympics start Friday, Obama's travel plans to Indiana, the fact that the domain name, "obamabayh08.com" has been registered, and a special invitation from the Obama campaign for an appearance by the candidate on Wednesday.

I have been hoping Obama would go with Bayh since I saw him defending Hillary Clinton a few months ago on the Sunday shows. He's very well-spoken, and picking him sends a great message to those Clinton diehards out there that they are welcome aboard. Being a former governor is a plus as well.

Would you be happy with this choice? Or were you hoping for someone else, and if so, why? I'd really like to hear from you.

Insider Buying: Mel Karmazin of SIRIUS (SIRI)

from 24/7 Wall St. by 24/7 Wall St.

Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI), has added to his position of company stock. In a show of force to show that he doesn't want further share erosion or that he believes shares are undervalued, Mel Karmazin made direct market stock purchases today.

McCain Camp Gets Big Checks from Big Oil Execs

from Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

It's not particularly surprising that oil executives at the Hess Corporation got a little excited when John McCain changed his position on offshore drilling back in June, but as Talking Points Memo reported Monday, the Hess brass apparently demonstrated their gratitude (cue cash register sound effects here) by writing some big checks to the McCain campaign.

---

Talking Points Memo:

Ten senior Hess Corporation executives and/or members of the Hess family each gave $28,500 to the joint RNC-McCain fundraising committee, just days after McCain reversed himself to favor offshore drilling, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Nine of these contributions, seven from Hess executives and two from members of the Hess family, came on the same day, June 24th, the records show. The total collected in the wake of McCain's reversal for the fund, called McCain Victory 2008, from Hess execs and family is $285,000.

We were alerted to the contributions by Campaign Money Watch, a non-partisan group that tracks campaign contributions. The contributions were given a quick mention deep in a report the group issued late last week, but with no names or other details provided. The Hess contributions are clearly newsworthy on their own.

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Rumor: iPhone 3G ramping production, iPhone nano coming soon

from Apple Section - Ars Technica by cjade@arstechnica.com (Charles Jade)

10 million iPhones per quarter, plus an iPhone nano for the holidays means Christmas could come early for Apple. Unfortunately, some of that will end up not coming true, at least this year.

Read More...

Public Sector Salaries In Illinois

from Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis by Michael Shedlock

Let's take a look at some public sector salaries in Illinois, primarily Chicago and Cook County, but in comparison to the Governor's office.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting Top cop's pay tops the charts.

They may be the bosses, but Mayor Daley, Gov. Blagojevich and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger are not the top wage earners in their respective governments, according to a Chicago Sun-Times survey of public payrolls.

It turns out that a registered nurse working the night shift at a state Department of Human Services facility for the developmentally disabled made $201,000 last year -- $35,000 more than the governor. And Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis makes nearly $90,000 a year more than his boss, the mayor, while Stroger's [Cook County Board President's] special assistant Laura Lechowicz-Felicione pulls in $2,700 more than her boss.

Stephanie Marshall, the retiring president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, also out-earned the governor by more than $95,000.

The nurse, Loreatha Coleman, who works at the state-run Howe Developmental Center in Tinley Park, earns a base salary of about $64,000. But a 10 percent night differential and lots of overtime more than tripled her pay, a DHS spokeswoman said.

Also, dozens of doctors working for the state and county made more than their chief executives. (The Sun-Times didn't count them here in order to better compare administrative salaries, but they are included in an online searchable list of 145,000 city, state and county employees at www.suntimes.com.)

What they make

• Jody P. Weis Chicago -- superintendent of police $309,996
• Stephanie Marshall Illinois -- president, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy $241,559
• Jon B. Bauman Illinois -- chief operating officer, Teachers' Retirement System $221,405
• Johnny C. Brown Cook County -- chief operating officer, Stroger Hospital $220,737
• Richard M. Daley Chicago -- mayor $216,210
• William R. Atwood Illinois -- director, Board of Investments $206,350
• Loreatha A. Coleman Illinois -- registered nurse, Department of Human Services $201,008
• Stephen A. Martin Jr Cook County -- chief operating officer, Department of Public Health $195,906
• Judith M. Erwin Illinois -- executive director, Board of Higher Education $191,100
• Nuria I. Fernandez Chicago -- commissioner of aviation (resigned) $190,764
• Stephen W. Robinson Illinois -- medical administrator, Department of Human Services $187,623
• Richard A. Devine Cook County -- state's attorney $185,731
• Raymond E. Orozco Chicago -- director, Office of Emergency Management & Communications $189,360

That is a partial list. The article has more. Is it any wonder states and cities are strapped for cash?

more headlines

UIUC Professor Helps Feds Track, Crack Diploma Mill

from Chicagoist by Marcus Gilmer

With the assistance of George Gollin, professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Fermilab physicist, helped state and federal officials track and bust a ring accused of issuing phony diplomas worldwide. The investigation, appropriately called Operation Gold Seal, listed almost 10,000 people who had purchased the fake diplomas generated by Dixie and Steven Randock Sr. The couple used a combination of fake institutions (St. Regis University) and unsuspecting existing ones (Chicago Technical School) on their diplomas. The scam was international with buyers based in over 130 countries, some with U.S. government addresses, and reports that government officials in Liberia were bribed. Overall, the scam netted over $7 million for the couple, who were based out of Spokane, Washington.

Degrees were issued in oncology, dentistry and engineering, to name a few. Gollin originally started investigating the pair when he got annoyed with the spam mail constantly filling his email inbox. The feds had started a separate investigation but used Gollin's info to supplement their investigation. "We had this huge data pool out there which is this intricate criminal enterprise, and he was able to make some sense out of it and connect the dots," said Washington state assistant attorney general Jack Zurlini. Gollin added, "There are degrees in areas where you really don't want the practitioner to be incompetent because it would be dangerous." Yeah, no kidding. This even extended to the government. Per the Trib:

It is a crime for federal employees to gain advantage in hiring and promotion by using phony degrees, said Thomas Rice, a senior assistant U.S. attorney in Spokane, whose office prosecuted the case.

In the St. Regis case, degrees may have been sold to people with e-mail addresses from NASA, the military, the Social Security Administration and the National Endowment for the Humanities, according to the list. All might potentially face federal charges, Rice said.

In one case, "We had to recuse ourselves because a deputy United States marshal obtained a degree and allegedly attempted to use it to get a promotion in this district, and he was prosecuted for that in this district," he said. Well, that makes us feel better.

Photo of George Gollin from his webpage

Prescription Data Used to Assess Consumers

from Truthout - All Articles

    Records aid insurers but prompt privacy concerns.

    Health and life insurance companies have access to a powerful new tool for evaluating whether to cover individual consumers: a health 'credit report' drawn from databases containing prescription drug records on more than 200 million Americans.

    Collecting and analyzing personal health information in commercial databases is a fledgling industry, but one poised to take off as the nation enters the age of electronic medical records.

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Ridiculous $550,000 crystal Earth-pustule watch (want)

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

I am such a watch overdrive sucker that I'm even jonesing for this monster, the Colosso, which features what Watchismo calls a "crystal pustule filled with a dimensional earth rotating for local or GMT time." A mere $550,000 (€3,21). On Top of the World with the Hysek COLOSSO

j

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Here is a list of some of McCain's flip flops...........read the rest at the link above.

DAMMIT..Tell Me The Truth! UPDATED!

by StuHunter

Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 09:07:17 PM PDT

Over the weekend, Senator McCain said, "this election is about trust and trusting people's word and, unfortunately, apparently on several items, Senator Obama's word cannot be trusted."

Ummmm..Johnny baby...are ya sitting down? Here's a few of your own words that lead all of us to distrust you overwhelmingly, every day! You're an embarrassment to yourself, McSame! This is the age of the "Internet(s)" and "the" Youtube using Bushian malaprops. We've got you on record, McFlip/Flop! Facts are just silly things that get in your way...ehhh, McSame?

Many, many, many thanks to one of my true media heroes and ever-present mentor..Keith Olbermann!

• StuHunter's diary :: ::
• 
  

Gentlemen and Gentleladies...start your engines:

Signing of the GI Bill: Now enthusiastically for it... after it passed. Previously attacked the Webb Bill. Didn't even bother to vote on it.
http://bravenewfilms.org/...

headlines

Scrub a dub dub: JohnMcCain.com removes McCain calling himself "The One" from website

from Crooks and Liars by John Amato

  It looks like John McCain's people are at it again. They just released an attack ad against Obama trying to make him the anti-Christ and calling Obama: The One. As they did with their "Celebrity" attack ad scrubbing on their website—it seems that they have scrubbed away John McCain saying that he is in fact: The One.

John McCain's Experience Sets Him Apart In The Presidential Field

John McCain: "The difference between me and Mayor Giuliani and Governor Romney [is that] I fought against the failed Rumsfeld-Casey strategy and advocated for the policy that is succeeding. I'm the one that did that. I'm the only one. And I said it in the summer of 2003, and I said it and I predicted that that strategy would fail because it was a terribly flawed strategy and I advocated the one that is succeeding now. That's based [on my] military experience from service for many years on the Armed Services Committee as well as in the military." (WKXL Concord, 9/4/07)

This is the first time I've seen the blogger "mithridates"

I decided to see if there are any references on McCain's site to himself as "the one", and lo and behold there's one page, but it's been deleted. Google has the cache though.

If it was no big deal to McCain—why the scrub? I may have to start a new category called McCain scrubbing.

UPDATE:  (Nicole) Wow. McCain really does think he's the One.  

Thursday, McCain called Debra Bartoshevich, the Racine County resident who lost her delegate seat at the Democratic National Convention for endorsing McCain instead of Obama, a "person of great courage" for endorsing him.

"Perhaps your reward will be in heaven - not here on Earth," McCain told Bartoshevich as he addressed the Civic Centre crowd.

So he thinks God is tallying up the delegate count and will reward those who vote for him?

After rape victim used cell phone to call for help, KBR bans use of personal phones in Iraq.

from Think Progress by Ali

This weekend, defense contracting giant KBR announced it would ban the use of personal cell phones by its employees in Iraq, citing no specific reason. Though KBR has not indicated the ban is related to the numerous allegations of rape by female KBR employees by their male coworkers, the ban could endanger future victims. Jamie Leigh Jones, the first victim to come forward publicly, explained that after she was gang-raped by coworkers and held in a shipping container for days, "she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas."

Bush Rebuffs GOP's 'Boston Tea Party,' Won't Request Special Session For Oil Drilling Stunt

from Think Progress by Think Progress

House conservatives have been engaging in political stunts to demand a vote on oil drilling. Last Friday, they stormed the floor after Congress adjourned "to attack Democrats for leaving town without doing something to lower gas prices." Today, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) brought to the floor a "large garish photo" of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) with the words, "I am trying to save the planet" written beneath it. (Watch some of Friday's shenanigans here.)

These conservatives are desperately trying to convince the American public that this crude political stunt is actually important. To do so, they are casting the protest as historic, akin to what happened at the founding of the nation:

– "Today is the 2008 version of the Boston Tea Party." [Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), 8/1/08]

– "Without your help we won't be able to do anything…like the founders of this country we're going directly to the American people." [Rep. Tim Price (R-GA), 8/4/08]

– "Tell your congressman- we don't want you back home. We want you in Washington. This could be America's greatest hour. Insist that we come back to vote." [Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL), 8/4/08]

– "As a part of their history-making efforts to continue the fight to lower gas prices, House Republicans held a press conference just a few moments ago to demand that Speaker Pelosi allow a vote on the American Energy Act." [Blog of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), 8/4/08]

But even the White House refuses to endorse this political theater. Last Friday, Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Mike Pence (R-IN) asked the White House to "convene an immediate energy special session of Congress." The Hill reports today that administration officials have rejected this request, deciding to sit out the so-called 2008 Boston Tea Party:

The White House has rejected calls from House Republicans that it convene a special session of Congress on energy, saying it wouldn't make a difference.

"We don't have plans to call Congress into session — it won't make a difference if Democratic leaders are unwilling to bring up a bill for an up-down vote," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

The conservative stunt is a waste of time. As even the White House has admitted, there is no "short-term" solution to high gas prices. Both the Energy Information Administration — and McCain's own economic adviser — have stated that expanding offshore drilling "would not have a significant impact" on oil prices.

Customer Identities [Worst Company In America]

from Consumerist by Meg Marco

The FBI has announced that a former Countrywide employee and his accomplice were arrested on charges related to "illegal access of computers containing personal information," and "illegal sale of the data." A criminal complaint filed last Friday alleges that one of the men, Rene L. Rebollo Jr., a senior financial analyst for Countrywide Home Loan's subprime mortgage division (who was let go in July), had been harvesting data from Countrywide's computers for the past two years — downloading and storing the information on personal flash drives.

Rebollo would then sell these "leads" to another man,Wahid Siddiqi, for $500 per batch. The FBI says that Mr. Rebollo admitted that he profited approximately $50,000 to $70,000 from selling the data, which included the Social Security numbers of as many as 2 million mortgage applicants.

Romney: 'McCain Doesn't Ask For Any Tax Reduction For Oil Companies'

from Think Progress by Ali

For the first time, six of the giant oil companies — including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Total — made more than $50 billion in combined profits in a single quarter last quarter, with ExxonMobil breaking the record for the highest corporate profits ever, at more than $11 billion.

Today, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney appeared on CNN's American Morning to discuss an ad by Barack Obama that argues John McCain would give $4 billion in tax breaks to Big Oil. Romney declared the charge "dishonest" and "below the belt." He claimed that McCain "doesn't ask for any tax reduction for oil companies." Watch it:

Popout

There is nothing dishonest about pointing out the fact that McCain's plan to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent would give nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to the six largest oil companies. Ensuring that corporations pay dramatically fewer taxes is an integral part of McCain's regressive tax plan that skews its benefits heavily toward the wealthy and offers little for the poor and middle class.

This Wonk Room analysis demonstrates the massive benefits for oil companies in McCain's tax plan:

Just since McCain's embrace of offshore drilling in June, donations to his campaign from the oil and gas industry have skyrocketed. He has received $881,450 in the last 6 weeks alone.

The McCain campaign may claim to "stand up" to the oil industry, but McCain's own plans are the stuff of Big Oil's dreams.

j

some headlines

Roy Blunt Throws Down The Gauntlet; Says Democrats Must Allow Off Shore Drilling Or Repubs Will Shut Down Congress

from Crooks and Liars by Nicole Belle

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

What a complete and utter tool.  On C-Span's Newsmakers show this weekend, Roy Blunt blames Nancy Pelosi for how little the 110th Congress has accomplished.  Now I have my issues with Pelosi's priorities and leadership, but let's call a tool a tool.  The reason that so little has been passed is that the Republicans have been playing these stupid partisan games (and Blunt, John Ashcroft's and Tom DeLay's personally groomed protege, knows exactly how to do it) and basically fighting every bit of legislation that comes along.   Can you say obstructionism, Roy? (.pdf) I knew that you could.

And then to prove that the Republicans are serious about being as difficult as possible, Blunt admits that the Republicans have every intent to shut down Congress after the summer recess unless the Democrats allow for off-shore drilling rights. But it's the Democrats' fault.   I can't believe how dishonest this guy is…and of course, since he's being interviewed by a Washington Times journalist, no actual facts will be proffered.  

We've discussed the fallacy of the off-shore drilling doing anything to help our energy crisis…a perfect example of the Shock Doctrine being pushed upon us.  Yes, our gas is expensive, relatively speaking, for us (but compared to Europe, still a bargain).  No actual increase in supply would happen for at least 5-10 years, no guarantee that resource would go to offset Americans' costs (rather than going on the global market to the highest bidder) and the disaster waiting to happen of oil spills in sensitive ecological areas makes it a smart choice for the Democrats to take a stand.  The only benefits go to oil companies and I'd say they're doing fine right now. 

So it's up to the Democrats (hear me, Pelosi?) to get in front of this and make sure the American people know that Blunt & Co. want to shut down the government to put more money in the bank accounts of oil companies.   That's all that needs to be said. 

Former FBI Official: After 9/11, White House Told FBI To Blame Anthrax Attacks On Al Qaeda

from Think Progress by Satyam

Last week, Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who researched anthrax and was expected to be charged in connection with the 2001 attacks, reportedly committed suicide. As Glenn Greenwald has noted, President Bush and his administration initially attempted to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq.

The New York Daily News has a new twist in the administration's attempt to peg the anthrax attacks to its own bellicose aims. Immediately after 9/11, the Daily News reports, "White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda," according to a former FBI official:

After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.

"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.

Existentialist bug fan Franz Kafka apparently ... [Existentialist Porn]

from Fleshbot by Dashiell Bennett

Existentialist bug fan Franz Kafka apparently left behind a rather sizable collection of hardcore porn stories that "academics have pretended did not exist," because they don't want to sully the reputation of a sad, depressive whose sole preoccupation was the pain and futility of modern life. Not surprisingly, the smut is described as "dark" and "unpleasant" ... perhaps even Kafkaesque! (timesonline.co.uk)

Blunt Defends Exxon's Record Profits: Stop Complaining That An 'American Company Made Money'

from Think Progress by Amanda

Yesterday, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) appeared on a C-SPAN Newsmakers roundtable and defended Exxon Mobil's recent record-setting quarterly profit of $11.7 billion. Blunt tried to minimize the wealth and influence of Exxon, then went on to blast the company's critics, saying they should be overjoyed that an "American company made money":

[T]hey're the 14th biggest oil company in the world, and the only U.S. company in the top 20. So in all likelihood, the 13 companies bigger than them made a whole more money than that, and that all went somewhere besides the United States. That went to Saudi Arabia, that went to Russia. […]

We can complain all we want to about American stockholders and American company made money. That's what our friends want to do — the Democrats.

Watch it:

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It's not clear where Blunt is getting his numbers to downplay Exxon's over-sized influence. According to Petroleum Intelligence Weekly's 2007 ranking of the world's 50 largest oil companies, Exxon ranked third. It beat out state-owned companies such as CNPC (China) and Gazprom (Russia). In Fortune's 2008 list of America's top corporations, Exxon ranked second overall and first among petroleum refiners.

It's astonishing that Blunt could claim, with a straight face, that Exxon's massive profits are good for America. Sure, the company's stockholders are getting rich. But most Americans continue to pay skyrocketing gas prices. Exxon is certainly not giving back to the American public either. ABC recently reported that the company has invested just 1 percent of its profits on alternative energy sources.

Even more appalling than Exxon's record profits, however, is the fact that conservatives feel the need to boost the company with massive tax breaks. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), whom Blunt supports, has a plan to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. It would give nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to the six largest oil companies.

House conservatives boo veterans organizations who urge a clean military funding bill.

from Think Progress by Ali

On Friday, the House considered a bill providing needed funding to veterans and military organizations. House conservatives tried to attach an offshore oil drilling amendment to the bill, threatening its passage. Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Chet Edwards (D-TX) denounced the tactic. When he read statements from veterans groups urging Congress not to meddle with the legislation, House conservatives booed. Watch it:

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Despite the Republicans' stunts, the House passed the bill.