EMPIRE of DIRT (click Cash cover of "Hurt")

Don't Blame Dwight Howard

2011-12-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

Now in the winter of our NBA discontent and idyllic Orlando weather, let us not blame the wrong people for the possible trade of Mr. Dwight Howard's basketball contract.

Let us blame the right people: the referees.

For if absolute power corrupts absolutely, these Satan sired spawns of the Devil, insane with their perception of their own power, have proven themselves destined for the penultimate circle of the Inferno along with illiterate editors wielding red pens like Vorpal swords, sports columnists and commentators, baseball umpires, and bloggers--all boils on body politic and commonweal.

So in this Christmas season of giving, let us hope they all get what they deserve, with nought but coal stuffed stockings and...

All Orlando Magic fans saw the unrelenting evil crusade of the referees last year, starting with their unprecedented delay of game calls on Mr. Howard during his free throws, calling technical fouls on our guy for merely saying, "Oh, man," and adding to their perfidy, calling several "T"s later rescinded by league officials with some shred of decency left in their hardened hearts.

In the playoffs last year, we saw "Zsa Zsa" Pachulia give performances worthy of all 3 Gabor sisters combined, with him flopping like flounders to get techs plus committing acts of violence worthy of Leatherface, the referees all but bringing a chainsaw for him to carve up Dwight.

It got so bad previously lethargic in that series Jason Richardson had to step up, confront an assailant of Howard, and then serve an unwarranted 1 game suspension.

As seen on Christmas night, the carnage continues with people pounding on Dwight, Perkins even taking a swing, and no ejections, at least from what Sports Center showed.

So let us not blame:
-Dwight Howard,who came to us in Orlando as an 18 year old boy who signed 1 contract extension and now wishes to ply his trade elsewhere under his constitutionally protected rights.
=Nor Otis Smith for trading Courtney Lee for the corrupted corpse of Vince Carter's career.
=Or the DeVos billionaire family who pick pocketed Orange County hotel taxes to build their basketball palace but also have paid out among the highest surcharge totals to the league for 1 of the highest payrolls in the Association.
-Or blame the aforementioned J. Richardson who in the series against the Hawks couldn't find the offensive paint with a compass, map, and GPS.
-Or the woeful three point shooting, so bad one wondered it they could have shot the ball in the ocean while standing knee deep in the surf.
-We won't even blame bandwagon carousel fans, arriving as late as start of second half, especially those with courtside seats who ought to get there at shoot around and harangue the refs, asking if anyone will ever get called for fouling Mr. Howard.
=Nor even give Stan Van more than bit of grief for failing for years to construct any semblance of an offense other than dump it into the post to Dwight and have the rest chuck up 3 pointers like poor folk spending grocery money on lotto tickets, knowing it ain't gonna work but praying to get lucky anyway. {Stan, set some screens underneath for D 12 so he can get to his spot without carrying Perkins on his back!)

No, let us blame the refs: miserable, miscreant, misbegotten demons in striped shirts like Steve Javie, tax cheat, as they all cashed in first class tickets and pocketed the difference without claiming it as income on tax returns. Javie just got off because his jury hated the Internal Revenue Service more than referees.

Long time Magic fans have seen this before; if Mr. O' Neal got in Magic pin stripes the calls he later did in Laker purple, we might have had a couple trophies in O'town already.

With twin blessings of birth in Milwaukee in 1958 and Magic fan since conception, 2 All Star centers have left my teams.

1 left with a championship ring.

So we must think and speak clearly; since the Emancipation proclamation ended slavery in the United States, the owners can no more trade Dwight Howard than they can strip him of other constitutional rights.

They can trade his basketball contract, but the man himself remains free to walk away if he wishes.

If we trade the contract to Minnesota for a bag of balls, he can retire and leave. After his contract expires, he has freedom to play where he wishes.

Right thinking Magic fans will wish him well and cheer for whomever mans the paint for us: Mark Acres, Greg Kite, Rony Seikally, Shawn Kemp, and any other "bums" that come along.

So let us place blame squarely where it lies: on the referees and Der Sternfuhrer (David Stern) for allowing this mockery, this wretched tragedy of officiating to continue.

And Dwight, you got to admit, we in Orlando have better weather than Toronto and Denver, if you like warmth and oxygen to breathe.

Plus, we have no state nor city income taxes for you to pay. Not too shabby if you think about it.

Merry Chrisma-Hanna-Kwanza to all.

Put Away the Pepper Spray; It Is Christmas Day

2011-12-25T08:16:00.000-08:00

http://susiemadrak.com/2011/12/24/hey-unto-you-a-child-is-born/#more-11500

Hard Drive Crash

2011-11-25T12:41:00.000-08:00

Down until not. Questions and comments to my other site, dandoesn'tcarewhatanyonethinks.com.
Obama rules!

RepubliKKKans suck!

Have a nice day.

From God's Book to Teabaggers' Ears: Pay your taxes!

2011-11-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

"This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing."

Romans 13:6

Rick Perry: Drunk or stoned?

2011-11-05T10:42:00.001-07:00

Found at Talking Points Memeo.

Nuclear Power Concerns

2011-11-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

No human endeavours get made perfectly. Proper engineering can minimize risks but never really eliminate them. Man made disasters happen through combination of human error, faulty equipment, and poor planning.

Disasters caused by forces of nature happen seemingly at random and engineers can plan for them but never actually divine all the details nor the upper limits of destructive forces.

Disasters with nuclear plants have the capability of rendering large swathes of our planet uninhabitable and inflect wind borne radiation upon the whole globe with resulting loss of human life, with children at greater risk.

Do we as a human race really need an iPhone upgrade every year?

[The recent events in Japan remind us that while the likelihood of a nuclear power plant accident is low, its potential consequences are grave. And an accident like Fukushima could happen here. An equipment malfunction, fire, human error, natural disaster or terrorist attack could—separately or in combination—lead to a nuclear crisis.

The U.S. will continue to obtain a significant portion of its electricity from nuclear power for many years to come, regardless of how rapidly energy efficiency measures and other sources of electricity are deployed.

Given this reality, the United States must take concrete steps now to address serious shortcomings in nuclear plant safety and security that have been evident for years. No technology can be made perfectly safe, but the United States can and must do more to guard against accidents as well as the threat of terrorist attacks on reactors and spent fuel pools.

The report outlines and explains 23 specific recommendations, listed below:....

Require reactor owners to develop and test emergency procedures for situations when no AC or DC power is available for an extended period.]

This first area of critical concern clearly concerns me, with an address with 2 nuclear power plants within about 120 miles, one right on the Gulf of Mexico and other smack dab on the Atlantic.

Hurricanes can bring down power grids for weeks.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/ucs-nuclear-safety-recommendations.html

NBA Lockout Hurting Businesses

2011-11-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

[ORANGE COUNTY, Fla — The Orlando Magic was supposed to be hosting the Charlotte Bobcats at 7 p.m. for the first game of the NBA season Wednesday night.

Instead, streets of downtown Orlando were empty as the NBA lockout continued. As a result, Orlando businesses said they are enduring financial hardships.

Opening day of the NBA season last year had restaurants and bars packed full of "Blue and White Ignite" faithful.

But it's day 125 of the labor dispute between the players and the owners.]
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/nba-lockout-still-strong-magics-opening-night/nFTMY/

Movie Trailer: "Killing Bono"

2011-11-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

From Davis Frum's Pen to God's Ears: Teabagger crazies may kill RepubliKKKan party

2011-11-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Of course, that would amount to a good thing for these mouthbreathing idiots to come back to reason, common sense, and fact based reality.

[...Meanwhile tea party Republicans have bounced from Sarah Palin to Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to (now) Herman Cain, transfixing the media every time they lose faith in one messiah and search for another.

Yet sooner or later, the tea party Republicans must converge on a single choice. When they do, they will present the non-tea party Republicans with a troubling menu of possibilities.

For non-tea party Republicans, this second outcome opens all kinds of ugly, ominous possibilities. If candidate Romney loses, tea party Republicans will claim that the GOP lost because it failed to nominate a "true conservative." That claim may fly in the face of political math (how would a more extreme candidate win more votes?), but it will pack a lot of emotional punch. Intense partisans are always ready to believe that the way to win is to be more intense and more partisan...

For three years, Republican activists have lived in a fantasy world in which fringe characters like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain somehow "speak for the common sense of the common people." It seems incredible that anybody could believe such a thing. It seems crazy that anyone would actually need a presidential election to disabuse them of such notions. But as Benjamin Franklin said: "Experience is a hard teacher, but fools will have no other."] http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/31/opinion/frum-republican-tea-party-scenarios/

Too Much to Ask?: Clean water and and a toilet

2011-11-02T20:57:00.000-07:00

Not really all that much to long for yet 2.5 BILLION people on OUR Earth lack these most basic necessities.

[By the time you finish reading this paragraph, one more child will have died from something that's been preventable for over a century. Nearly 40 percent of the world's population is still unable to secure a safe glass of water or access a basic toilet. While we continue to rally around the goal of ensuring safe water and sanitation for all, the real question we are left asking ourselves: how do we truly confront this in a way that results in realizing our vision within our lifetime?

Even today, as solutions are known and available, lack of access to safe water and sanitation continues to claim more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-damon/clean-water-_b_1064394.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=110211&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Son House: "Death Letter" (There is nothing new under the blues...)

2011-11-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

There is nothing new under the blues but it all good, amen.

Occupy Oakland General Strike

2011-11-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

[By LISA LEFF
The Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. — Workers and students are among the hundreds of people gathering at Oakland's city hall plaza for an anti-Wall Street rally.

Protesters spilled into the street Wednesday morning, disrupting the downtown commute. So far, the crowds have been peaceful and the police presence light. Protesters are gearing up for a day of demonstrations and marches in the city, and across the country.

Oakland's "general strike" is protesting financial institutions blamed for high unemployment and the foreclosure crisis. Protesters also are striking against local school closures, waning union benefits and cuts to social services.

The city is allowing its employees to take personal time to participate in the strike. City Administrator Deanna Santana says 5 percent of city workers are taking the day off.
Copyright The Associated Press]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/general/oakland-prepares-to-be-occupy-movement-epicenter/nFSdp/

Map of Wall Street Protest Arrests

2011-11-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protest-map

H. L. Mencken: My patron saint

2011-11-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it."
H. L. Mencken
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1297.html

Department of Call Me Unsurprised, Part 2: Fukushima released twice as much radiationas thought

2011-11-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Of course, US corporate media cannot report an earthquake damaged the plant, causing it to spew radiation before the tsunami hit. The CA Diablo Canyon sits on a fault line.

Even the World health Organization minimizes the risk from radiation released in a nuclear accidents, using 3 pages of a report to write all humans receive some ionizing radiation from various natural sources but that exposure probably doesn't kill people.

Then on page 4 we find "long term effects from radiation exposure," such minor things like elevated numbers of humans with thyroid cancer, especially children.

Sheesh, I feel better already.

[The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have released twice as much radiation into the atmosphere as previously estimated, according to a study that contradicts official explanations of the accident.

In a report published online by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, experts from Europe and the US estimated that the quantity of the radioactive isotope caesium-137 released at the height of the crisis was equivalent to 42% of that from Chernobyl.

Significantly, the report says the plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, may have started releasing radiation between being hit by a magnitude-9 earthquake on 11 March and the arrival of a tsunami about 45 minutes later.

"This early onset of emissions is interesting and may indicate some structural damage to the reactor units during the earthquake," the report said.

The operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power, and the Japanese government maintain that the facility withstood the quake but was damaged by waves that breached its protective seawall.] emphasis added
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/28/fukushima-released-double-radioactive-material

Department of Call Me Unsurprised, Part 1: Rick Parry's tax plan favors the rich

2011-11-01T12:12:00.000-07:00

[Gov. Rick Perry’s proposal for an opt-in flat tax would primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans, according to a new analysis from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research organization. Compared with current tax policy, the plan would most likely reduce federal tax revenue by $570 billion, or about 15 percent...

Because no one would be forced to use the alternate system, Mr. Perry has said, no one would have to pay higher taxes (at least initially; presumably if a family’s income changes a few years after entering the plan, it may no longer be advantageous). Even so, the greatest beneficiaries of the flat-tax option — that is, the households that would be most likely to switch to this system — are far and away the highest earners:]
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/rich-get-biggest-break-in-perry-tax-plan-study-finds/?partner=rss&emc=rss&wpisrc=nl_wonk

Pete Townsend Calls iTunes "Digital Vampires"

2011-11-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

[The Associated Press

LONDON — The Who's Pete Townshend on Monday branded Apple Inc.'s iTunes a "digital vampire" that profits from music without supporting the artists who create it.

Townshend said that faced with the Internet's demolition of established copyright protections, iTunes should offer some of the services to artists that record labels and music publishers used to provide. These include employing talents scouts, giving space to allow bands to stream their music and paying smaller artists directly rather than through a third party aggregator.

The guitarist was delivering the first John Peel Lecture, named in honor of the influential British radio broadcaster who died in 2004.

Townshend asked if there was any reason iTunes "can't provide some aspect of these services to the artists whose work it bleeds like a digital vampire" to make money.

ITunes declined to respond to Townshend's comments.

Apple's service is the market leader among legal download services, accounting for about three-quarters of music downloads.

Townshend said consumers, as well as the industry, needed to change their attitude to digital music.

"It would be better if music lovers treated music like food, and paid for every helping, rather than only when it suited them," he said.

"Why can't music lovers just pay for music rather than steal it?" he said.
Copyright The Associated Press]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/top-news/pete-townshend-brands-itunes-a-digital-vampire/nFRfn/

Anonymous Hacks Mexican Drug Cartels

2011-11-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

[A video address published online in Spanish and English by a self-described member of Anonymous Veracruz, Mexico, accuses Los Zetas, one of the most powerful drug cartels in the country, of kidnapping an unnamed male Anonymous member and holding him hostage.

The video address, published in early October, was apparently made using a text-to-speech program, features footage of a person in a Guy Fawkes mask and threatens that the hacktivist group will release identifying information about the cartel’s businesses and associates if the supposedly kidnapped person isn’t set free or if he is in any way harmed.]
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/anonymous-takes-on-mexican-drug-cartel-los-zetas.php

"Risky Grain Elevator Jobs"

2011-11-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

[By JOHN HANNA
The Associated Press

ATCHISON, Kan. — The men killed in a grain elevator explosion in Kansas included an Iraq war veteran, an avid collector of model John Deere tractors who hoped to farm and a soon-to-be husband looking forward to a wedding only three weeks away.

Four of the six were younger than 25, something unsurprising in a business that experts say involves a lot of physical labor and tends to be a young man's game.

The work there also tends to be dangerous. Farmers take their grain to elevators to be stored, and sometimes processed, before it is marketed or sold. Fine, highly combustible grain particles flow through the buildings as corn and other grain are moved. A spark from equipment or perhaps a cigarette can ignite the dust, sending a pressure wave that detonates the rest of the floating dust in the facility.

Relatives gathered Monday outside the Bartlett Grain Co. elevator in Atchison, about 50 miles northwest of Kansas City. They turned the company's sign outside the elevator into a memorial for the dead, with photos, flowers and a gray sweatshirt honoring one with his name written in marker and the question, "Why!"]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/agriculture/young-drawn-to-hard-dangerous-jobs-at-elevators/nFRt2/

"I Want My NBA Back!"

2011-11-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

From the mouths of 7 year olds:

Butthole Surfers: "Pepper"

2011-10-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

"Some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain that is pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain."

Lil Johnson: "Press My Button"

2011-10-31T20:32:00.001-07:00

The Band: "Rag Mama Rag"

2011-10-31T20:26:00.000-07:00

There is nothing new under the blues:

Transplants: "California Babylon"

2011-10-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

Transplants: "Tall Cans in the Air"

2011-10-31T19:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

Transplants: "DJ, DJ"

2011-10-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

"You want to drop me you gotta kill me that's the only way I'm gonna stop."

Rancid: "Ruby Soho"

2011-10-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

Free the Plastic Man!

2011-10-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

http://empireofdirt77.blogspot.com/2011/10/real-live-plastic-man.html

[The Associated Press

SARASOTA, Fla. — Lego man is going to stay in police custody for three months.

Lego man, a 100-pound, 8-foot-tall sculpture, didn't do anything wrong except wash up on a Florida beach. Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight says his office will hold the fiberglass sculpture for 90 days just like all other lost and found property.

During that time, authorities will try to determine who the owner is.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune (http://bit.ly/uExBYk) reported that the local tourism bureau had hoped to use the Lego man to promote the area, but the sheriff says it needs to remain in police custody a little longer.]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/top-news/lego-man-to-stay-in-police-custody-in-florida/nFPrC/

Michelle Bachman Halloween Card

2011-10-31T06:44:00.001-07:00

http://wonkette.com/455352/michele-bachmann-sends-creepy-spam-promising-to-fleece-supporters#more-455352

I Want Charley Weis' Head on a Pike

2011-10-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

At midfield. In the Swamp. Right in the center of the Gator logo.

Where did he get his reputation as an offensive genius from? From riding Bill Bellichek's and Brady's coat tails.

Great Al Davis' ghost, with a QB coming back from an ankle injury, why on earth would you try to run a spread offense with no one to block/protect John Brantley from certain doom?

Whereof did the papers in preseason report Florida would use an I formation and eschew the spread? The one time yesterday Brantley did take a snap under center, he bobbled it and Gators lost a yard on 3rd and 1.

Even the pre-game announcers as well as Weiss forgot they have Michael Gilleslie at running back on the roster, all he does--gaining 5-7 yards per carry up the middle.

The FL defense got gashed by a running attack led by a fullback through the hole.

Would it amount to too much for Buddha Weis to learn by observation?

>On what planet does a coach stay in the press box at half time to draw up his opening offensive drive?

Why, did the press buffet look too good to pass by at the half?

Yes, that worked well, Charley; they made adjustments and you did not.

Of course, rationally we cannot blame Chucky for left tackle Xavier Nixon playing his way into un-drafted free agent status, giving up4 or 6 sacks.

Wait, yes, I do blame Chunky; even I, punt return team in high school, have seen enough football in my 53 years to know if it ain't working, give the kid some help with a tight end or back to block.

Yelling "Look Out!" while getting hurdled like a turnstile does NOT protect your quarterback.

And Gators on defense, you gots to play 60 minutes in a game not 55 unless you want to emulate the Denver Dolphins.

Miami Dolphins you say? Did not look like that last Sunday.

Charley, wave your world championship rings at the opponent next time. That'll do as well as your predictable game plan, you execrable cretin.

[The author, Daniel Allen Cubs Gators Dolphins Fan Hill, would like to apologize to anyone who looks in any way, shape or form like Charles Weis. As one who walks with a non-standard gait subsequent to spinal injury, it does not often fall to me to criticize humans for physical traits. Taste my oaken cane of indignation if you make fun of me and spit out your teeth like chicklets, damn youse.

Nevertheless, still waiting to see Chuck Weis's offensive genius displayed as university of Florida offensive coordinator.]

Of course, we cannot blame Big Belly, some say, trying to run his system with Pope Urban's players. Bull hockey, Dad, dude failed at Notre Dame, failed as offensive coordinator in pros after, a colossal failure of Brobdingnagian proportions.

How did such a huge, literally and figuratively, failure get a reputation as a genius?

I'd say fry the fat bastard except for it would take the electric power of the whole Eastern seaboard.

When do pitchers and catchers report?

KKKonservative Dictionary

2011-10-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

Your guide to translating right wing double think and rise of the Decepticons: http://prospect.org/article/right-word.

One handy resource for people wondering what on earth when these RepubliKKKan culture warriors mean when they speak.

"I do not think think that word means what [they] think."

[Independents: Voters you try not to scare with what you actually think.

Mandate: Our side winning an election by one vote.

Market-Based Solution: The solution to everything. Details to follow. See Privatization, Tax Cut.]

Princess Bride: How to Fight Fair.

Zombie Michelle Bachman

2011-10-30T01:19:00.000-07:00

Quite an improvement.

Happy Halloween.

From Earth Bound Misfit, reading NY Daily News so you don't have to.

Constitution of the United States, First Amendment

2011-10-29T10:26:00.000-07:00

"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am1

One World, from Tahrir Square to Wall Street to Oakland

2011-10-29T10:12:00.000-07:00

[Demonstrators marched on Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, in a protest against the continuing military rule of their country and the perpetual state of emergency their government has maintained since 1958.

But there was another item on their agenda today: the recent violence in Oakland, California.

In the photos below, taken by Egyptian journalist Mohammed Maree and published on Twitter, demonstrators hold up signs showing solidarity with “Occupy Oakland,” urging President Barack Obama to intervene on behalf of the people...]

"Which Side Are You On?"

2011-10-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

Copied from notes for second song: "In the mountains of Kentucky in 1931, the coal miners of Harlan County went on strike. Officers hired by the mining company roamed the countryside hunting for the union leaders. The independent coal miners fought back gallantly against the hired company deputies and blood was spilled on both sides. "Which Side Are You On," was written by Florence Reece, the wife of Sam Reece, a union leader who had escaped into the Kentucky mountains for safety. Class warfare continues in the United States and in most nations throughout the world. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Millard Lampell of the Almanac Singers made this song famous in 1941."

"How Can You Sleep at Night?"

2011-10-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to A-Merry-Ca, soldier, in which past decades have seen increasing adoption of military tactics by civilian police: use of overwhelming force, automatic weapons, and shock and awe inherent in use of flash bang grenades againssst peaceful protesters.

Note to Occupy Orlando, now you now how it feels to live without a home in the City Mean.

Blind Melon: "Change"

2011-10-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

Regularly Scheduled Outrage Resumes Tomorrow; Scott Olsen in stable condition

2011-10-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

[Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who suffered serious head injuries after being hit by a projectile fired by police during the Occupy Oakland protests, has woken up and is lucid as he awaits surgery, hospital officials and family members have said.

Olsen, a 24-year-old former US Marine, was struck in the head during anti-Wall Street protests on Tuesday night. He has been upgraded from critical to fair condition.

Olsen "responded with a very large smile" to a visit from his parents, Highland General hospital spokesman Warren Lyons said. "He's able to understand what's going on. He's able to write and hear but has a little difficulty with his speech," Lyons said.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/27/occupy-oakland-scott-olsen-surgery?CMP=twt_fd

[OAKLAND -- Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, stood calmly in front of a police line as tear gas canisters that officers shot into the Occupy Oakland protest Tuesday night whizzed past his head.

"He was standing perfectly still, provoking no one," said Raleigh Latham, an Oakland filmmaker shooting footage of the confrontation between police and hundreds of protesters at 14th Street and Broadway. "If something didn't hit him directly in the face, then it went off close to his head and knocked him down."

The something was a projectile that apparently came from police lines, fractured Olsen's skull and put him in Highland General Hospital. Doctors upgraded his condition Thursday from critical to fair, and said they expect him to make a full recovery.]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/27/BAD61LN3LM.DTL

Marine Says Oakland Used Crowd Control Methods That Are Prohibited In War Zones

2011-10-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

Marine Says Oakland Used Crowd Control Methods That Are Prohibited In War Zones:

'via Blog this'

Yay! Chuck Moved to Friday on NBC

2011-10-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, my life revolves around sports, sports on television, and my favorite show, often shows with strong female characters like Yvonne Strahovsky playing Sarah the smoking hot spy who loves the nebbish Chuck.

Or like Amanda Blake, Ms. Kitty--the black and white comely, luminous Ms. Kitty, voluptuous and ravishing in her off the shoulder dresses and bustles on her designer gowns, not so much the painted, high collared, often colorless character from the Technicolor episodes--firing a shot gun barrel through the roof and saying the next barrel is for you, buddy.

Trade As One: Responsible Christmas shopping

2011-10-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

[Consider this: just one average fair trade purchase this advent season by every churchgoer in America would lift one million families out of extreme poverty for one whole year.

Simply by diverting a small portion of our spending from the shopping mall to fair trade, we have a wonderful opportunity to proclaim good news to the poor.

No extra giving. No unnecessary spending. No pity purchasing. Just buying things we were going to buy anyway.

How cool is that?]

See the USA on $4.50 a Day: Living on food stamps in A-Merry-Ca

2011-10-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

Wonder how Rachel Ray could live on $4.50 per day. Obviously from RepubliKKKan crazytown, 450 pennies a day amounts to a king's ransom for these useless, non-productive dregs of society.

Tax cuts for billionaires but pinga for the poor.

Let them eat filet I can ear John Boehner say.

[By: Lauren Markoe and Josef Kuhn
Posted: Friday, October 28, 2011 7:12 am
Section: Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious leaders and members of Congress this week are getting a firsthand taste of what it’s like to eat on $4.50 a day as part of the “Food Stamp Challenge.”In the challenge, participants try to live for a week on the average amount received by people who use food stamps, now known as the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP).

“We do need to put ourselves sometimes in other people’s shoes so we can really feel what they have to go through every day,” said Donna Christensen, a Democrat who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a nonvoting delegate.

The Food Stamp Challenge is part of Fighting Poverty with Faith, an annual interfaith initiative endorsed by 50 national religious organizations.

This year is a particularly critical one for the cause, faith leaders said, because Congress is considering significant cuts to the more than $64 billion program.

On Thursday (Oct. 27), religious and political leaders teamed up with current SNAP recipients to shop at a Safeway grocery store near Capitol Hill.

One of them was the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, president of the National Council of Churches and a former adviser to the White House’s Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Several decades ago, unable to find a job after leaving a seminary program, Chemberlin signed up for food stamps. But she had forgotten what it was like to shop on such a tight budget.

“No soda, no magazines, no coffee,” said Chemberlin as she pushed her cart by each item. She tried not to look at the donuts, croissants and Doritos.

“Absolutely no specialty items,” she said.

Chemberlin shopped with Vernell Livingston, 72, a local resident whose only sources of income are Social Security payments and SNAP.

At one point, Chemberlin suggested some $6.99 beef patties to Livingston, who shook her head and said, “No, no, no, no.” She selected less expensive ground turkey instead, which she planned to eat with cheese on 99-cent wheat bread for dinner.

At another point, Livingston put a $1.29 can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup in her cart, and then opted for a generic chicken noodle soup for 89 cents.

Livingston’s three small bags of groceries totaled $29.93, just under the average SNAP allotment of $31.50 per week.

Although SNAP is called a “nutritional assistance” program, good nutrition may be unattainable for many of those receiving benefits.

Chemberlin said she wished Livingston could have bought more fruits and vegetables, “because it’s clear she’s very oriented toward eating healthily, but we had to choose between fruits and vegetables and protein.”

“The health risks are terrible, when you look at sugar, sodium and fats in the foods you must buy on $4.50 a day,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who once received food stamps as a single mother.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington, D.C., said one in four families in the nation’s capital are on SNAP.

Since the beginning of the recession, she noted, the number of those on SNAP nationally rose from 27 million to 44 million, and nearly half are children.

Eight members of Congress, all Democrats, have agreed to take the Food Stamp Challenge.]
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/faith-political-leaders-find-out-how-far-food-stamps-go-cms-18751

When Penis Pumps Get Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Penis Pumps.

2011-10-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

Or, when you outlaw penis pumps, you can pry mine from my cold, dead...

Hold on; stay in control, not even the Mad Satirist can go there, male that he be.

[A former judge in Oklahoma has lost his pension after he was convicted of indecent exposure for using a penis pump under his robes during trials.

Donald Thompson, formerly a judge in Creek County, Oklahoma, was found guilty in 2006 of four felony counts for using the penis pump, and wound up serving 20 months in prison.

On Tuesday the state Supreme Court upheld a ruling that stripped Thompson of his $7,789 a month in pension benefits in 2006. Thompson had asked for his full benefits to be restored from his over 20 years on the bench.

The court unanimously upheld the initial ruling, by the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees, which determined that Thompson had violated his oath of office after he was convicted.

“The uncontested facts revealed multiple felonies committed while Mr. Thompson presided over jury trials, and the offended parties included court personnel,” wrote Justice James Winchester in the opinion, according to the Oklahoman. “Court reporters observed the felonious exposure of Mr. Thompson’s private parts, and testified to the fact during the criminal trial. That trial resulted in conviction of felonies. Those felonies violated Mr. Thompson’s oath of office.”]
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/former_ok_judge_loses_pension_after_using_penis_pu.php?ref=fpc

Mahogany Rush: "Guit War" (No animals were harmed recording this song.)

2011-10-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

Totally copied from youtube comments but too lazy to get my vinyl copy of the album out of storage closet: [per album liner notes: "All the effects except voice were made with a Fender Stratocaster and Super-Reverb amp. No other devices, instruments, or sound effects record or tape were used."]

Did Someone Ask for More Rush?: Mahogany Rush, that is

2011-10-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

"Child of a Novelty"

A Real Live Plastic Man

2011-10-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

[SIESTA KEY - It's a publicity stunt, but whose stunt is it?

Washed ashore on Siesta Key Beach Tuesday morning was an 8-foot-tall Lego man, his shirt emblazoned with an enigmatic and grammatically challenged message: "NO REAL THAN YOU ARE."

Jeff Hindman was walking the beach and first saw the 100-pound figure in the pre-dawn light. Thinking it was marine life, washed ashore overnight and left in the gentle ankle-deep surf, Hindman got closer and discovered the statue was made of fiberglass, like a boat hull.

He took a photo, then dragged the Lego man out of the water and stood it up.]
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20111025/WIRE/111029721/2416/NEWS%3FTitle=UPDATE-Giant-Lego-man-washes-up-on-Siesta-Key-beach

It's the Rich Wots Gets the Gravy: Income of top 1% doubled over last 30 years

2011-10-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

[WASHINGTON — The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt.

In addition, the report said, government policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, doing less to reduce the concentration of income.

“The equalizing effect of federal taxes was smaller” in 2007 than in 1979, as “the composition of federal revenues shifted away from progressive income taxes to less-progressive payroll taxes,” the budget office said.] emphasis added
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/us/politics/top-earners-doubled-share-of-nations-income-cbo-says.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1319641488-3pOnJcOvUHZD00Px9vXLgg

Sojourners 40th Anniversary

2011-10-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Forty years working for peace and justice.

Occupy Forever

2011-10-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

[The global revolution that keeps making the headlines looks like it's just getting started.

Let me clarify something at the outset: I don't like it. It's human nature to resist profound upheaval, particularly when it's international. Change of this magnitude - even positive change - can be scary.

But dramatic change, and the growing desire for it, is now the defining characteristic of our era because we find ourselves living in an age where our government - both sides - seems increasingly incapable of governing well, where our faceless corporations have been ruled 'people' by our Supreme Court, where those same corporations seem to have more power than elected officials, where social inequality is off the charts and where special interests apparently hold more sway than the voting public.

Our democratic institutions look increasingly bought and paid for, or merely unresponsive when they're not paralyzed.

President Barack Obama was elected with a historic mandate to reform our political culture and has already scored some historic victories but his mandate has been constrained by one half of a contemptuous Congress and by the deliberate misuse of the Senate filibuster.

Observe how Obama's unremarkable plans to cut spending in defense and entitlement programs - coupled with modest tax increases on the rich - have been stonewalled by Republicans, who have clearly demonstrated they would rather damage our international credit rating that concede an inch on taxes for the richest one percent.

What's that if not an admission of how deeply unequal our society has become?]
http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/occupy-wall-street-is-just-getting-started-132520793.html

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/occupy-wall-street-is-just-getting-started-132520793.html#ixzz1bpUrJElR

OM-Ever Lovin'-G: Pat Robertson says RepubliKKKans too extreme

2011-10-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

Wait, did lots of psychic experiments in 70's so did I read that aright?

Pat Robertson, he of God punished Florida with hurricanes because Orlando allowed flags on light poles for Gay Days, thinks the rabid RepubliKKKan base gone too far to the dark side of American politics.

Really.

Wait before allowing my brain to explode, found this at Raw Story so better cross check in case someone at Raw also has psychedelic flashbacks.

Great Jumping Jehosaphat's Ghost, Business Insider reports this also.

Others agree with me the current stable of RepubliKKKan presidential candidates have become certainly politically and quite possibly clinically insane. Nevertheless, never ever did anyone dream Pat would agree with that.

[Pat Robertson provided a statement Monday afternoon that some may consider a “pot meets kettle” moment.

On the latest installment of The 700 Club, the televangelist the televangelist admitted that even he believes many in the Republican Party have shifted too far to the right.

“I believe it was Lyndon Johnson that said, ‘Don’t these people realize if they push me over to an extreme position I’ll lose the election?’” Robertson said. “Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off of this stuff. They’re forcing their leaders, the frontrunners, into positions that will mean they lose the general election.”

He added: “You appeal to the narrow base and they’ll applaud the daylights out of what you’re saying and then you hit the general election and they say ‘no way’ and then the Democrat, whoever it is, is going to just play these statements to the hilt. They’ve got to stop this! It’s just so counterproductive!”

It is telling that Robertson, a man renowned for his myriad of controversial comments, believes that the party he supports needs to scale back on its fervor. These comments are significant because Robertson was a co-founder of the Christian Coalition, which became the most powerful faction of the Republican Party in the 80s and 90s.]
links in original http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/18/pat-robertson-obama-is-inciting-people-to-revolt/

[We have officially entered into Bizarro world.
Pat Robertson, host of 'The 700 Club' and the man who once agreed with Jerry Falwell that 9/11 was "the fault of the abortionists, the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians," and that Katrina was God's punishment for America's abortion policy, thinks the GOP base has become too extreme.
Here's what Robertson had to say on 'The 700 Club' following a discussion about Herman Cain's ever-changing abortion views:

"I believe it was Lyndon Johnson that said, ‘Don’t these people realize if they push me over to an extreme position I’ll lose the election? And I’m the one who will be supporting what they want but they’re going to make it so I can’t win.’ Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off of this stuff. They’re forcing their leaders, the frontrunners, into positions that will mean they lose the general election. Now whether this did it to Cain I don’t know, but nevertheless, you appeal to the narrow base and they’ll applaud the daylights out of what you’re saying and then you hit the general election and they say ‘no way’ and then the Democrat, whoever it is, is going to just play these statements to the hilt. They’ve got to stop this! It’s just so counterproductive!"

Indeed

It is amazing to watch the GOP standard-bearers contend with the Frankenstein the have courted over the last few election cycles with their focus on social conservatism as the core of their party.]
http://www.businessinsider.com/pat-robertson-herman-cain-rick-perry-extreme-2011-10

Oh Great : US drone fleet infected with computer virus

2011-10-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

When the U.S. fleet of surveillance and attack drones was infected by a virus, the Air Force’s cybersecurity specialists found out from the media -- two weeks after the incident began.

Which is more disturbing: The lax security or the CYA response?

On Friday, Wired broke the story that “a computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.”

The virus had been detected two weeks earlier at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, which handles the majority of U.S. drone missions around the world. There are no indications the virus has compromised the system – either by damaging information or transmitting it to an outsider. However, it has proved very difficult to eradicate from the system’s computers.

It is likely the virus was introduced to the system via a disc or removable drive. Because of the danger these media pose, their use is highly restricted in much of the military. As Wired wrote:

"But the base at Creech was one of the exceptions, until the virus hit. Predator and Reaper crews use removable hard drives to load map updates and transport mission videos from one computer to another. The virus is believed to have spread through these removable drives. Drone units at other Air Force bases worldwide have now been ordered to stop their use.

I’d love to know what the protocol was for handling, storing and dis-infecting these drives. Then again, maybe I’m happier not knowing."]
http://blogs.cio.com/security/16554/virus-attack-drones-symptom-militarys-bigger-cyber-security-problems?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2011-10-21

http://www.kansas.com/2011/10/16/2064196/drones-friendly-fire-killings.html

Wikileaks Goes Broke

2011-10-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

[Computerworld - Whistleblower Web site Wikileaks today announced that it has temporarily suspended operations due to financial constraints.

In a brief note posted on its site, Wikileaks blamed an "unlawful financial blockade" by several U.S. financial services companies for its situation. It also urged supporters to donate to its cause.

"We are forced to temporarily suspend publishing whilst we secure our economic survival," Wikileaks said in the post. "We cannot allow giant U.S. finance companies to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket. Our battles are costly. We need your support to fight back."

Wikileaks claims that it has been the target of "aggressive retaliation" from several groups for publishing tens of thousands of classified U.S. State Department cables starting last November.]
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221145/Wikileaks_suspends_operations_cites_lack_of_funds?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2011-10-24

Warrant? ICE Don't Need No Stinking Warrent

2011-10-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

USA! USA! USA!

[On the night of October 20, 2010, Angel Enrique and Jesus Antonio were in bed in their small, two-bedroom apartment in the Clairmont complex in Nashville. The doors and windows were all shut and locked. Suddenly there was a loud banging at the door and voices shouting "Police!" and "Policia!" When no one answered, the agents tried to force the door open. Scared, Jesus hid in a closet. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began hitting objects against the bedroom windows, trying to break in. Without a search warrant and without consent, the ICE agents eventually knocked in the front door and shattered a window, shouting racial slurs and storming into the bedrooms, holding guns to their heads. When asked if they had a warrant, one agent reportedly said, "We don't need a warrant, we're ICE," and, gesturing to his genitals, "the warrant is coming out of my balls."

The Fourth Amendment strictly prohibits warrantless intrusions into private homes and the Constitution's protections apply to both citizens and non-citizens alike. In the absence of a judicially authorized warrant, there must be voluntary and knowing consent; ICE officers forcing themselves into someone's home does not constitute consent.

The ACLU and ACLU of Tennessee this week filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of fifteen residents of the apartment complex who were subjected to this large-scale, warrantless raid by ICE agents and Metro Nashville police officers.]
http://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/we-dont-need-warrant-were-

Major Crisis: Pubs closing in Ireland

2011-10-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

You know a recession has gotten really bad when bars and pubs close. Scary.

[One in eight bars Irish bars in the Republic of Ireland have closed in the past six years.

The drastic recession, emigration and a huge crackdown on drunk driving are said to be the main reasons why.

Over 1,000 pubs have now closed in that time period with massive loss of jobs.

And the carnage is expected to contine with more pubs closing as even stricter drink driving laws are introduced.

Figures obtained by the Irish Independent show the country had 8,617 pubs in 2005, at the very height of the Celtic Tiger.

Now the number has fallen by 1,108 to just 7,509 this month.]
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-pubs-in-crisis-as-one-in-eight-have-now-closed-down--132429918.html

Kick Off Next

2011-10-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

Update: Inconceivable!

Oh but of course did actually conceive the Awlphins would lose before game even started.

Nevertheless, even my abysmally low expectations fell far short of the depth to which my professional American football team has sunk.

The Miami Broncos barely beat the Dead Mullet with a historic collapse by the rotting Flippers and by a field goal in overtime.

I could not watch the OT, having already conceived of another appalling, agonizing loss and averted my gaze.

Clank!

That sound you just heard came from another football bouncing off the hands of another Malodorous Mackerel "receiver."

Great Lombardi's ghost, has the World Series game tonight ended or can one still see Albert Pujols taking batting practice? 3 bleeping homers on Saturday. Bleep him. Plunk him in the butt every time he gets to the plate.

Sheesh, 'tain't rocket science.

Weird day in American football; Denver seems playing a home game in Miami, and Tampa Bay has home game in London.

For the Dolphins, my hopes stay high and expectations low.

For explanation, see embedded in Herald story quoted below video of Dolphin receiver, Brandon Marshall, tackled by rotation of the earth. Great Jumpin; Jehosaphats Ghost.

[They dropped passes — including Brandon Marshall’s fifth dropped touchdown of the season. They missed wide receivers that were open for first downs and touchdowns. They threw interceptions that went 100 yards for scores in the other direction.

They fell out of bounds, apparently tackled by gravity, when all that was before them was an open field and an apparent touchdown in the offing.]

Norma and Gordon Make Me Puke

2011-10-22T05:58:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, the notion of a marriage of a genetic female and male lasting for tens of decades seems really sweet to me. My own parents made 50 years before Moms passed and know at least of half a dozen couples still happily married after over 2 decades.

From rest of my reckoning, do know more pairs of humans trying to get by together and doing well as most do by mostly getting along, sometimes wanting to drive an iron spike through the other's eye, other times sticking metaphorical ice pick through own ear to avoid the other's incessant chatter about their mother without reply interjecting, "Give it a break.. My mom never got me a pony either."

Minding my misbegotten, misshapen, malcontent miscreant manner, really can only try to hope for that last category of accommodation, where if you don't slit your partner's throat at night you can wake with a faded conscience and try to become a good person and partner for that next day.

Say what you will, my sight's set high.

Ain't that all we can hope with one partner through combination of genetic roulette played by the universe and risk factors dying early and 't'other gets a little nest egg to enjoy after proper mourning?

The natural order of things.

[For one Iowa couple, true love lasted until the very end.

Married 72 years, Norma, 90, and Gordon Yeager, 94, died in the hospital holding hands last week, one hour apart.

The couple was hospitalized after a car accident just outside of Marshalltown, Iowa. They were given a shared room in the ICU where they held hands in adjacent beds.

At 3:38 pm last Wednesday, Gordon's breathing stopped. Though he was no longer alive, his heart monitor continued to register a beat.

The nurse told Gordon and Norma's son, Dennis Yeager, that the monitor was beeping "because they're holding hands, and [Norma's heart beat] is going through them," Dennis recalled in an interview with Des Moines' KCCI news station. "Her heart was beating through him."

Norma died at 4:38 pm, exactly one hour later.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/long-married-couple_n_1020085.html?ref=mostpopular

Paul Allen: Owner of Portland Trailblazers and Enemy to NBA Fans

2011-10-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

See, the arrogance of rich capitalists knows no bounds.

Paul Allen cares not a whit for basketball fans, either of his own team in Portland and certainly not me in Orlando, pining to see Dwight Howard play for 1 more season with the Magic, wearing my black Magic hat and vintage Horace Grant blue road jersey.

Billionaire Paul Allen and his hired goon, David Stern--der Sternfuhrer--care not one iota for the millions of dollars we in Orlando, and tourist taxes paid for by visitors from all over the world, poured into building the Pyramid Scheme Arena for a rich ass worth 5 BILLION dollars, care not a bit for fans all over the world wearing NBA jerseys.

Damn youse, Paul Allen, damn youse to hell!

[But everything said about Garnett goes double, triple, or one hundred fold, for Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen. And, wouldn't you know it, Allen emerged on Thursday as the latest villain of the ongoing NBA lockout charade.

Hunter said in a news conference that Allen was tasked with telling the players union that the owners would refuse to negotiate if the players would not agree to a 50/50 revenue split. Hunter said he responded by asking whether they could table that issue to return to a discussion of system issues, and Allen only responded with silence. Shortly thereafter, talks broke down.

Allen is Garnett on steroids.

You want stubborn? Allen rode his pipe dream of running a cable company all the way to the ground, losing billions of dollars and eventually declaring bankruptcy.

You want off his rocker? He's currently being sued by his own ex-military bodyguards for allegations of illegal activity, his helicopter recently crashed during an excursion to Antarctica and, oh yeah, he's gone through two general managers and a vice president of basketball operations since the 2010 NBA Draft. He passes his time, including on Thursday morning, exchanging tweets about what rock song the Seattle Seahawks, his NFL franchise, should play at practice. Carroll plays along, of course, because he, like every Allen employee, knows his job depends on it.

You want "uninformed" on the state of the negotiations? Allen deputized team president Larry Miller to attend Board of Governors meetings and labor negotiations on his behalf. He put exactly the same amount of blood, sweat and tears into the possibility of a labor agreement as Garnett: none.

You want emotional? Allen recently wrote an autiobiography that included many unflattering stories about, and a recounting of decades-old grudges towards, his Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, one of the world's greatest philanthropists. The book led to a falling out between the two men, who had been friends since high school, with Allen admitting during a television interview that Gates had stopped talking to him.

And, of course, there's the money issue. All you need to know about that is that Allen has a private island for sale, owns multiple yachts (one of which cost $200 million to make, nearly as much money as Garnett has earned during his NBA career), and has a helipad on the roof of the Rose Garden, Portland's home arena. Forbes pegged his net worth at $13.2 billion on a recent list of the 400 richest Americans, a figure that made him worth more than the next two richest NBA owners on the list, combined.

Why, you might be asking, would the owners pick Allen, of all people, to deliver the hard-line message to the union that ultimately led to the disintegration of talks and all sorts of harsh accusations on Thursday?

Because he's so rich that he's immune to the criticism, as capable of buying silence and peace of mind for himself as anyone on the planet. A man who has been cleanly divorced from the common man for decades. A man who claims to have lost a billion dollars on the Blazers in his two decades of ownership and therefore couldn't care less about the fallout that results from a nuclear explosion in the middle of labor talks.] emphasis added
http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22748484/32841752?utm_source=bleacherreport.com&utm_medium=referral

Difference Between Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

Nuff said.

Need to Eat Humble Pie and Boogie Woogie Once in a While

2011-10-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

Pronounce that Boo-GEE Woo-GEE!

I don't need no doctor and his big black bag of pills.

Speaking of Idiots: Cain blames Abel , sez unemployed responsible for the Great Recession

2011-10-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

Found at Huffington Post

President Cheney's Real Legacy: Any idiot believes they can become President of A-Merry-Ca

2011-10-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Gosh, gonna have to sharpen my Vorpal Sword of truth to write as well as this dude, Cahor O'Doherty, column quoted in full.

[George W Bush, in between bouts of clearing scrub in Texas, must be wondering what his legacy will be. I think I have the answer.

Thanks to his presidency, and the utterly lost decade he presided over, America has now reached the point where anyone - anyone - thinks they'd make a fine president.

How else to explain the clown car of 2012 Republican presidential contenders currently running? These are not world class political operatives by any yard stick - most of them are not even sophisticated enough to head up a suburban Rotary Club - but they'll probably be the last to know.

Why? Because, thanks to the Bush years - where bombast replaced brains and soundbites replaced strategy - people like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain can now look in their mirrors and see what no one else does: competence.

Call it the real Bush legacy.

There was a time in American politics when no millionaire politician would have dreamed of blaming the unemployed for their misfortune. There was a time when an audience would have booed hearing that sentiment expressed, rather than cheered.

But last night the mean minded smallness of right wing ideological extremism was on full display at the Republican debate in Las Vegas. It was a vision for the future so narrow you can sum it up in three words: I've got mine.

America used to be much better than this. We used to praise ordinary workers, not insult them for lack of industry. We used to want them to succeed, not remove every social net that helped to raise them up in the first placed.

We used to care about the country as well as ourselves.] emphasis added

Great Mencken's Ghost!: George Will wrote something sane?

2011-10-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

Of course, even a semi sane column from George Will contains his required daily intake of idiocy.

Taking bold items below: First, Supreme Philosopher Will writes that mankind acts as rational economic calculating, creatures while simultaneously insinuating altruism provides no positive incentive to suffer a short term loss for gain of generations of NBA players to come.

Second bold item, Will restates his premise which either he has already disproved OR indeed wrote because Will in his soul can conceive of no possible economic rational for altruism. Either he writes lacking logic and so a mere fool, OR George has no compassion for humans in his soul and thus a pathological liar to himself and his readers.

Let's do the cocktail napkin math for last bold Will passage: 22 teams losing on average a bit than $20 million a piece, a sizable sum surely but as recent divorce papers in owners' of LA Dodgers show, losses can include multi million salaries for owners, plus millions in more amenities, that add to what they claim as losses.

Plus, owners use accounting trick--invented By Bill, Veeck--As In Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck, blessed be his name for inventing modern professional sports thereby--whereby owners' depreciate the salaries paid to players just as they would depreciate a factory if indeed plutocrats still built factories in A-Merry-Ca.

Then comes the case of impoverished banker, Robert Sarver, who overpaid for for the Phoenix Suns and now whines to members of the NBA Players Union that his Suns highly leveraged purchase did not turn out the cash cow he'd hoped, as recounted in second block quote and bolded.

Next bold passage about Sarver highlights how, in general, the top 1% of capitalists have grown accustomed to getting paid handsomely for failure and indeed only see paying for mistakes as the lot of the hoi polloi foreclosed upon after getting beguiled into fraudulent mortgages.

George Will: [The dispute, which has already caused cancellation of the preseason and the first two weeks of the regular season at a cost of perhaps $500 million, illustrates an agreeable truth: Man is an economic animal, rationally maximizing income, except when he isn’t. Many of the players are prepared to lose substantial income by prolonging negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement.

They are doing so to win concessions that will primarily benefit players much younger than Garnett. Fans accuse the players of avarice, but the longer the impasse persists, and the larger the losses, the more altruism will explain this.

David Stern, NBA commissioner since 1984, says 22 of 30 teams lost money last year, and their cumulative $450 million losses exceeded the profits of the other eight.]
http://cjonline.com/opinion/2011-10-18/george-will-negotiations-part-game

We, as written below, the downtrodden and crestfallen fans like those of us in Orlando who paid to build this basketball palace for billionaire dick, Dick DeVoss, fans who Der Sternfuhrer threatened with losing our franchise for failing to build Pyramid Scheme Arena and now stand ready to lose our franchise player's last season and the bloody All Star game--we deserve answers

For shame, David Stern. For shame, forgetting every NBA wearing jersey youth in the world stand as investors in NBA!

At long last, Der Sternfuhrer, have you no shame?

[We deserve answers. When Robert Sarver sits across from a collection of players and says that he hasn't gotten the return he wanted on the Suns, and that's why he and his buddies are demanding massive concessions before he'll sign their paychecks, the fans left in the cold deserve answers. Those fans built U.S. Airways Center in the '90s and paid for its renovation just before Sarver took over. They ought to hear directly from Sarver's mouth why they are being deprived the product their investment in the arena guaranteed. Season ticket holders deserve the opportunity to ask Sarver why bringing the mid-level exception home to his wife in a designer handbag is more important than providing the product they have already paid for.

Sarver bought the Suns for a then-record $400 million in 2004. The market was about to peak, and Sarver -- a banker -- was rolling in dough. When the housing market and economy crashed, Sarver's investment didn't look so great. He bought high, and would be forced to pay for his mistake.

Except that he's refusing to pay for his mistake. He didn't pay for the mistakes his bank, Western Alliance, made: he took $140 million in taxpayer bailout funds in 2008. Now, a year after signing Hakim Warrick, Channing Frye and Josh Childress to a combined $15 million a year, a year after trading for Hedo Turkoglu's awful contract and months after being forced to flip that for more bad contracts, Sarver is refusing to pay for his mistakes. He wants the players to bear the burden. Sarver will certainly take the fans' money, just as his bank took its customers' money. But he's sure as Hades not going to take responsibility for what happened to it.

Sarver is dead weight. As Adrian Wojnarowski wrote on Tuesday, he brings no value to the NBA. None. People bitch about Eddy Curry, but Eddy Curry isn't holding the league hostage. You want to blame Eddy Curry for the lockout? Robert Sarver is Eddy Curry, a man who spoiled the trust of those who paid him and does absolutely nothing to improve the game. People joke about NBA players who buy Maybachs they don't need, jewelry instead of bonds. Let me tell you this: no player in NBA history has squandered as much money as Robert Sarver has just on the Suns since he bought in.]
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2011/10/4/2468098/nba-lockout-2011-owners-david-stern-robert-sarver-the-hook

Damn, just read and reread that last paragraph: poetry in prose and devastating logic.

Occupy Orlando should flash mob at the Pyramid Scheme Arena.

Give us OUR NBA!!!!

[Once again, Phoenix Suns owners Robert Sarver was the most vocal proponent of the owner’s case, and he befuddled players by insisting that his wife had asked him to bring back the middle level exception in a designer bag. He’s been a strong advocate for a hard salary cap, and a source said that Sarver told the players in the room that he hadn’t been able to get the return on buying the Suns that he had hoped.] emphasis added for no apparent reason except to heap more scorn on poor mouth baby whining banker, Sarver. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ys-nba_labor_meeting_093011

Fight Breast Cancer

2011-10-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

Full disclosure, my extended brunch ususaly includes yogurt, and my preference lies towards Dannon Fruit on the Bottom. If you feel so inclined, please purchase, consume freely and enter code at link below for 10 cent contribution per cup.

Looks like that adds up.

Tastes great too!
http://www.cupsofhope.com/

PS: For any Dannon ad executive, with no profession, I have no professional ethics and would gladly get paid to flog your products

Indeed, flog any products so long as they don't cause cancer, blindness, death, rectal bleeding, insomnia, hubris, drunken pride, depletion of Tuna fisheries, global warming , or bad karma in general.

Please Forgive Me, Lord; but the Rise of the Machine in Public Education Makes Me Angry.

2011-10-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

"You know I try to keep my politics from judging people, to refrain from profanity until my youngest niece, Elise, turns 18, and try to write satire instead of sarcasm. Heck, I even try to avoid first AND third person posting constructs."

Umm-hmm.

"Hate to bag on people, too. Your Dad made everyone so all have spark of humanity. Really try not to hate."

Umm-hmm.

"You know me as a curmudgeon, loving humanity but people really piss me off, especially when Your relentless Samaritans want to help."

Umm-hmm.

"Nevertheless, I really hate JEB! Bush, gutting the intangibles tax in FL, his sanctimonious pursuit of education reform which benefits his corporate cronies, pretty much his whole dang family save for his idiot ex-figurehead brother.

Why do You continue to suffer on earth the continued pestilence of President Dick Cheney breathing Your air?

Just asking."

You know We cannot discuss other people.

"Surely. Even so, You have to admit robbing money from public schools to put high school youth in a class rooms using computers with no teachers in the room amounts to a crime against the commonweal.?"

You know I am all about the children.

"Sure, but can't You call down fire and brimstone on the people I see as sinners?"

Do others see you as a sinner?

"Undoubtedly"

But we ain't talking about your daddy. Do not fall back on facile excuses.

"Yes, find it hard to move beyond the rage at how things be to writing without profanity, sarcasm, and hard to find irony all the time."

Keep writing. You use this as free therapy.

"My Medicare Advantage has a counselling component."

And you avoid it why?

"Just trying to work things out with You, Supreme Dude. Can't You promise me a better world?"

No promises.

Only possibility and responsibility.

"Not sure I like those choices."

What else you got?.

Update for Why Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Why Occupy Wall Street.

Found this link to Securities and Exchange Commission form 8-K filed by the Hewlett Packard Corp. detailing the compensation for the failed and essentially fired Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker.

For years, this humble ant working with high hopes to knock over that rubber tree felt scared of writing satire.

From whence would inspiration and material spring?

Dang, dudes, it leaps off the printed newspaper page, TV and 'net news, so much so some times the tide of outrage threatens to drown my sense of humour and love of the British language.

To paraphrase the bard, Bruce (Local Hero), sometimes find it hard to tell my satire from my desperation.

Yet you almost have to chuckle at the idiocy and irony implicit in RepubliKKKans defending Apotheker, the schlub, cretinous cancer of the commonweal, this morally bankrupt businessman, poltroon and punk, protecting his stock options with preferential tax treatment of capital gains.

In addition to a severance payment of $7.2 MILLION and stock options paid under the contract between Leo and H-P, we find several goodies worh more MILLIONS, including this gem: "In addition, the Separation Agreement provides Mr. Apotheker will receive the following benefits not specifically provided for under the Employment Agreement:

An annual bonus of $2.4 million under the Hewlett-Packard Company 2005 Pay-for-Results Plan (the “PfR Plan”), reflecting his nearly 11 months of service with HP, payable at the time that payouts are made to other executives of HP for the fiscal year ending October 31, 2011..."
empasis added.

Hey, the guy showed up for work for some time for 11 months, so let's give him a boatload of bucks that we don't even HAVE TO PAY HIM!

Where do I get a deal like that?

Surely do not begrudge any human their dollars but strongly suspect he feels no qualms about cash for failure and feels entitled to opulent wealth as blessed by Tea Party Jesus.

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to become anthropologists.

2011-10-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

Idiot occupier of the office of governor of my Florida, Governor 48.9%, declared universities should dispense with useless degrees like anthropology.

Of course since anthropology concerns humans, human relations, and thus ethics, Medicare cheating scumbag 48.9% wants students to learn to have no moral compass other than his right wing greed driven Gospel denying crony capitalism.

Golly, Rick, you give teabagging a bad name.

[My eternal thanks go to Florida Governor Rick Scott, without whom I would never have known that the 0.8% of Florida state university system graduates who major in anthropology1 comprise the major obstacle to state advancements in STEM. I always thought it had something to do with declining state support for higher ed, low requirements for science lab courses in high school, the large numbers of students who think they can be doctors without being ready to pass calculus or organic chem, the specific degree bottlenecks of individual campuses, the growth of non-liberal-arts professional programs, the worship of college athletics, and other factors. I now see the light: it’s anthropology.

In response to the governor, my colleague Brent Weisman (the chair of USF’s Anthropology department) and others are engaging in a set of scurrilous attacks on our good governor. Weisman and others have the gall to point out that the four fields of anthropology include such subjects as linguistics and medicine, that anthropology graduates work in a broad variety of jobs, and that Florida’s anthropologists have won millions in grants from federal science agencies.]
http://shermandorn.com/wordpress/?p=3955

University of South FL anthropology students respond to Governor Montgomery Burns.

This is Anthropology on Prezi

I'm No Artie Kumbalek, but I Told You So

2011-10-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

[I'm Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain'a? So listen, as right-wing cracker-jackanape jackboots goose-step toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I've decided it would be more patriotic of me to forgo whipping out a bombastic blowhard essay in these lean economic times and instead patronize an Americanly small business whose customer service cannot be cheaply outsourced to some godforsaken outpost outside the Lower 48, you betcha.

So I'm off to the Uptowner tavern/charm school majestically crammed onto the corner of wistfully hysteric Humboldt Boulevard and the fabled Center Street. Tag along if you like, but you cover the first round. Let's get going...

Art: Hey gents. What do you hear, what do you know.

Julius: I hear that the Republicans are now all of a sudden against any tax cuts if the cuts are for the mom-and-pop regular Joes struggling to maintain a pot to pee in, instead of for the fat cat uber-rich assholes who bankroll the campaigns of congressional Tea Party types to destroy truth, justice and the American way.

Herbie: They all got a big boner over this idea of an “ownership society,” which means Congress Republicans and their donor pals own all the money and all the power, and the rest of us baboons own a one-way ticket to Palooka-focking-ville...]
http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/articles.sec-15-1-art-for-arts-sake.html

RAW VIDEO: Mom Arrested After Getting On School Bus

2011-10-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

RAW VIDEO: Mom Arrested After Getting On School Bus

Why Occupy Wall Street?

2011-10-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

"Well, a young man ain't got nothing in the world these days," quote from "Young Man Blues," written by Pete Townsend.

This quote turns out as factually true at this particular point in our economic history.

You really have to look at the plethora of presented graphs to get a picture how modern American pirate capitalism has taken money from the middle class and given it to the top 1% of Americans. Although numbing in number, the numbers prove modern corporate capitalism has gone beyond piracy, for pirates at least had a code to live by, to scorched earth raping of every economic resource in our land.

What remains so special about this moving money to top tier of elites continues as their hubris in feeling themselves entitled by divine right to live like kings while unemployment runs rampant in the US of A, ignoring the fact preferential tax treatment of investments and capital gains and tax code loopholes combine to put more money in their pockets rather than their moral superiority.

These people who serve on corporate boards form a seamless web of interlocking corporations and capital interests, what C. Wright Mills called, The Power Elite. Besides the egregious example of failed Bank of America executives receiving 11 MILLION DOLLARS for stinking at their jobs, we have the egregious example of a failure of an executive, Leo Apotheker, getting 23 MILLION DOLLARS as a going away present after screwing up his stewardship of the company. He had less than a year leading Hewlett Packard.

Or take the case of former CA US Senate candidate, Meg Whitman, the stingiest billionaire alive, who oversaw a 54% loss in value of Ebay: "But Whitman's early success was not matched later on, when the maturing company faced weakness in its core business and new types of competitive threats. Two actions in particular — the purchase of Skype, the Internet phone service, and a foray into China that ended in defeat — turned out to be major mistakes that helped crush eBay’s stock price and even led to some quarterly losses. From a historic high on December 29, 2004, until March 31, 2008, the day Whitman retired from the company, eBay shares dropped by 54 percent. Over the same period, the Nasdaq technology index, which includes eBay, finished up 4.6 percent.

Even the best CEOs make bad acquisitions. What’s notable about Whitman’s career at eBay, however, is how her record cleaves into two neat parts: She did well during the company's go-go growth stage, but much less well as the company became large and mature. The state of California, of course, is likely more analogous to the latter than the former." emphasis added
http://www.baycitizen.org/meg-whitman/story/ebays-lost-years/

Ebay overvalued Skype by 900 MILLION Dollars, "In October, eBay announced it would take a $900 million write-down in the value of telecommunications division Skype. That charge, for what accountants call impairment, essentially acknowledged that eBay executives drastically overvalued the $2.6 billion Skype acquisition, completed in October 2005."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22782796/ns/business-us_business/t/ebay-ceo-meg-whitman-retire/#.TphlMJuImU8

She made 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS off Ebay for costing the company half th value: "Hell, Meg even has a Borat son named Griffin, who’s been accused of rape, racism, and violence — and just like a Kazakh oligarch, Meg Whitman bought her son’s way into Princeton by “donating” $30 million just when Griff was applying to school there. That $30 million so graciously donated to Princeton — which, you know, when all’s said and done, no one in American needed that $30 million like the desperate Slumdog Millionaires of Princeton — and that $30 million went to constructing a brand new 500-student dormitory at Princeton named after Whitman. See, she kinda had to do that because he had already been booted out of two expensive prep schools as a kid. You know, what would Meg have done with a son like that if she hadn’t soaked eBay of $1.3 billion?" emphasis added, http://exiledonline.com/meg-whitman-stingiest-billionaire-in-america-or-top-8-reasons-why-borat-would-vote-for-meg-whitman/

Great Adam Smith's ghost, when did the invisble hand of the markeet change to include a fist on the scale rather than just a thumb so abject failure gets rewarded handsomely?

Middle class people know this.

Even though they may not know the numbers of the charts, they know the numbers of so many adult children moving in with their parents, the number of empty and foreclosed upon homes on their block, in the record numbers of children going hungry or undernourished.

Those numbers explain why Occupy Wall Street has become Occupy Everywhere.

You gotta love synchronicity coming with rerun of Big Valley 1966 episode, "The Midas Man." From IMDB: "Audra falls for a shrewd financier who has come to the Valley to capitalize on a drought that has left most of the ranchers in need of loans.When he is about to foreclose and seize the land used as collateral,the ranchers blame the Barkley's-Audra offers herself as a "sacrifice" to hold off the financier. Written by Anonymous"

You see, this has all happened before; history shows us examples of investment bubble after bubble after failure and fraud, from the housing bubble to the internet boom and bust to the savings and loan crisis back through recorded human history.

Absent governemnt regulation like Glass Steagall Act, we will hae burst bubbles one after another.

The United States of America ought to once more regulate financial industries.

Occupy Wall Street: "I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler."

2011-10-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall Street Wins: Bloomberg backs down

2011-10-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

[...Protesters last night surrounded Cipriani restaurant in Manhattan as the Mayor was at dinner in an effort to hand him a petition with 310,000 signatures supporting their right to remain in Zuccotti Park.

Their anger was triggered by the Mayor's endorsement of a planned clean-up of the 'unsanitary' Occupy Wall Street encampment which was postponed at the last minute today.

The city's deputy mayor made the announcement after protesters, who viewed the clean-up as an 'eviction notice', streamed into the plaza this morning.]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048754/Occupy-Wall-Street-Bloomberg-backs-dawn-eviction.html

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048754/Occupy-Wall-Street-Bloomberg-backs-dawn-eviction.html#ixzz1amJIhlhr

A Fire Inside: "Soap Box Derby"

2011-10-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

A Fire Inside: "God Called in Sick Today"

2011-10-13T06:09:00.001-07:00

A Fire Inside: "Morningstar"

2011-10-13T06:04:00.001-07:00

Important Viking Town Found

2011-10-13T05:42:00.000-07:00

[A tiny County Louth village has been confirmed as home to one of the most important Viking sites in the world.

Carbon testing on trenches at a ‘virgin’ site in Annagassan have revealed that the small rural community once housed a Viking winter base, one of only two in Ireland.

The other went on to become Dublin but the Annagassan site, 50 miles north of the capital, was believed to be the stuff of mythology and folklore until now.]
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Major-Viking-site-discovery-described-as-mind-blowing-131442918.html

Koch Brothers: Traitors to their country

2011-10-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

[...Charles, 75, and David, 71, each worth about $20 billion, are prominent financial backers of groups that believe that excessive regulation is sapping the competitiveness of American business. They inherited their anti-government leanings from their father.
Abolishing Social Security.

Fred was an early adviser to the founder of the anti- communist John Birch Society, which fought against the civil rights movement and the United Nations. Charles and David have supported the Tea Party, a loosely organized group that aims to shrink the size of government and cut federal spending.

These are long-standing tenets for the Kochs. In 1980, David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket, pledging to abolish Social Security, the Federal Reserve System, welfare, minimum wage laws and federal agencies -- including the Department of Energy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency...

A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/koch-brothers-flout-law-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html

The Reformed Broker Explains Why We Hate Bank Fraudsters

2011-10-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

Because they get paid millions of dollars for failing.

FOR FREAKIN' FAILING!

Great Adam Smith's ghost, the free market should operate to reward success, not those who fail ignominiously. Will add more to this manana once outrage subsides.

[Elevenmilliondollars? What the hell world are you inhabiting? Eleven million dollars for two departing executives because things didn't work out? I'm sorry, but were these two executives of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez-level importance for your organization? Is that why there are severance deals like this in place? Or are you just completely psychotic?

It's not that this isn't your prerogative as a private company - it is. But seriously, numbers like these at a time when you're instituting added fees on customer accounts just sound farcical, almost like you're making these payments to get a reaction out people.

You look completely ridiculous with news like this at a time when thousands of people are massing in every major city in the country to make the case that you don't deserve to exist.]
http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2011/10/09/this-is-why-they-hate-you-and-want-you-to-die/

http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/11/news/economy/unemployment_benefits/index.htm

http://blogs.computerworld.com/19023/leo_apotheker_gets_23m_handshake_how_much

Torture is as American as Cherry Pie

2011-10-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

Torture makes me proud to live as an American, a citizen in a country where my fellows have gone mad cheering for most barbaric tortures of fellow humans in vain hope of stopping "THEM" from killing "US."

Got news, folks, we all gonna die.

In the end it doesn't matter where or how but only why.

At my time, I want to hold the Constitution high.

Human rights for all!

[...Gareth Porter, an American investigative journalist who writes on US foreign and military policy, told Al Jazeera that, for years, international troops routinely handed detainees over to Afghan intelligence and security forces specifically to be interrogated harshly.

Pointing to a report he had published earlier this year, Porter said this practice went back to 2005 and 2006 when US and Canadian forces were conducting large-scale sweeps.

"They were picking up hundreds of young Afghans without really knowing who they were and trying to interrogate them to get information from them, but not very successfully," he said.

"What they did was to turn to the Afghan intelligence service and have them interrogated by the Afghans..."

Some detainees interviewed for the report described being hung by the wrists from the wall or ceiling. Others gave accounts of being beaten, especially with rubber hoses, electric cables or wires or wooden sticks, on the soles of the feet, the report said.

Electric shock, stress positions including forced standing, removal of toenails and threats of sexual abuse were among other forms of torture that detainees reported, it added.]
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/10/20111010184857567176.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rap_Brown

Jefferson Airplane: "Somebody to Love"

2011-10-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

Jefferson Airplane: "Volunteers of America"

2011-10-10T20:03:00.001-07:00

Galaxy Farthest Away

2011-10-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

[That pale red dot in the middle of the Hubble image {below} is what astronomers say is the furthest and earliest galaxy ever seen in the Universe. This is the deepest infrared image taken of the Universe. Based on the object’s colour, astronomers believe that its light has taken 13.2 billion years to reach us. The current known age of the Universe is 13.7 billion years.

“These observations provide us with our best insights yet into the likely nature of the earlier generation of primeval objects that we are yet to find,” said Rychard Bouwens of Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Spectroscopic confirmation that this is indeed the most distant galaxy ever seen is expected to come from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, which is planned for launch later this decade.

The dim object, called UDFj-39546284, is likely to be a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the Big Bang, only four percent of the Universe’s current age. It is tiny. Over one hundred such mini-galaxies would be needed to make up our own galaxy, the Milky Way.]
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/10/hubbles-image-of-oldest-galaxy-in-the-observable-universe-.html#more

WTF?: Inmates Staffing Fire Stations

2011-10-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

Remember when we thought satire difficult to come by? Me neither.

[ST MARYS, Ga. — Camden County officials are considering a money-saving program that would put inmates in fire stations.

The Florida Times-Union reports (http://bit.ly/nZbutT) that the program would put two inmates in each of three existing firehouses in the south Georgia county.

Officials say the inmates would respond to all emergencies — including residential fires — alongside traditional firefighters.

The inmates would have no guard, but would be monitored by a surveillance system and by the traditional firefighters, who would undergo training to guard the inmates. Authorities say one traditional firefighter with correctional training can supervise up to three inmates.

Authorities say the inmate firefighter program could save the county more than $500,000 a year by some estimates. Inmates charged with crimes such as drug offenses and thefts would be eligible.]
http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/georgia/inmates-could-staff-fire-stations-in-ga-county/nD89K/

Unpaid Interns of the World Unite!

2011-10-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

[Famous high street businesses, including Topshop and the recruitment specialist Reed, are being named and shamed by an internet campaign targeting the rise of unpaid and very low paid internships that, it is claimed, is undermining the link between pay and work.

Topshop, the star performer in Sir Philip Green's £2.7bn Arcadia retail empire, is exposed for paying graduates on month-long work experience secondments just £3.50 a day plus limited travel expenses.

Urban Outfitters, the American clothier with stores in a dozen cities around the UK, has been attacked for advertising a nine-month unpaid internship in their merchandising department for people who are "hardworking, organised [and] able to multi-task".

And Reed, one of the country's largest job agencies, has been nicknamed "Greedy Reed" for having advertised 46 unpaid internships within its company, variously described as "intern receptionist", "intern executive assistant" and "secretarial admin internship". The adverts were recently taken down after the company was reminded by the campaign of the obligations of the national minimum wage legislation introduced in 1999. There is no legal definition of an "intern", and the law says that anybody who qualifies as a worker must be paid at least £6.08 an hour if aged 21.

These big corporations, and others, are featuring on the web pages of Graduate Fog, a site dedicated to the travails of young people emerging into the jobs market during what the Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King said last week might be the country's worst ever economic crisis. The site says unpaid labour is the "big issue" facing people in their late teens and early 20s and the problem may get worse before it gets better.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oct/09/young-unpaid-angry-interns-campaign-for-wage

Occupy TV

2011-10-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall St gets own Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/occupytv.

Sorry, Gil Scott Heron, in this case we will televise the revolution, sans commercials.

Turn on, Tune in, Invent I Pad

2011-10-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/05/notes100511.DTL

[Days before Apple founder Steve Jobs died, the New York Times ran an op-ed proclaiming that "You Love Your iPhone. Literally." Our infatuation with our iPhones is not mere addiction, but genuine love, the piece asserted, because brain scans proved it. There's no doubt that Jobs' computers were the first of their kind to engender such widespread and ardent passion. So why did 45 neuroscientists write an angry letter to the Times disputing the science behind the contention?

The paradoxes of love have perhaps never been clearer than in our relationships with Apple products — the warm, fleshy desire we feel for such cold, hard, glassy objects. But Jobs knew how to inspire material lust. He knew that consumers want something that not only sparkles and awes, but also feels accessible, easy to use, an object with which we want to merge and to feel one and the same.

Not coincidentally, that's how people describe the experience of taking psychedelic drugs. It feels profoundly artificial yet deeply real, both high-tech and earthy-crunchy, human and mystically divine — in a word, transcendent. Jobs had this experience. He said that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he'd ever done. "He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand," John Markoff reported for the Times.

As attested by the nearly spiritual devotion so many consumers have to Jobs' creations, the former Apple chief (and indeed many other top technology pioneers) appeared to have found enduring inspiration in LSD. Research shows that the psychedelic experience is, in fact, long lasting: a new study published last week found that people who took magic mushrooms (psilocybin) had long-term personality changes, becoming more open, more curious, more intellectually engaged and more creative. These personality shifts persisted more than a year after taking the drugs.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on,_tune_in,_drop_out

The Nightwtchman, Occupy LA: "Worldwide Rebel Song"

2011-10-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall Street Signs

2011-10-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/676456/some_of_our_favorite_signs_from_the_occupy_wall_street_rally/

The Kinks: "Waterloo Sunset"

2011-10-09T09:43:00.001-07:00

The Kinks: "Strangers"

2011-10-09T09:39:00.001-07:00

Cubs Curse: Well That Explains It

2011-10-09T09:21:00.001-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Democrat Shuffle

2011-10-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Found at Zaius Nation

Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth: "If things need doing, be about them."

2011-10-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

[BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, once described by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South, died Wednesday at age 89.

Shuttlesworth, who had been in declining health, died at Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham, hospital spokeswoman Jennifer Dodd said.

A major leader in the civil rights movement, Shuttlesworth was beaten, bombed and set upon by fire hoses for his public stances against segregation in Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s.]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/site/newspaper/news/sc-nw-shuttlesworth-1006-20111006,0,1384310.story

"I Will Pick No More of Your Bitter Fruit."

2011-10-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

In another endless series of examples showing how ideology trumps reality for "modern" RepubliKKKans, the new draconian anti-immigrant law in AL has driven farm workers out of the state and, this threatens ruin to farmers, who watch their tomatoes wither on the vine.

Of course absent of any logic or facts, teabagging fools will blame the Kenyan Muslim socialist occupier of the White House for the consequences of RepubliKKKan's insanity when produce prices predictably rise..

Also predictable, migrant workers sreaming to FL to work, support their families, and buy stuff which will help the economy in FL.

Never thought I'd say it, but thanks GA and AL.

[STEELE, Ala. -- A sponsor of Alabama's tough new immigration law told desperate tomato farmers Monday that he won't change the law, even though they told him that their crops are rotting in the field and they are at risk of losing their farms.

Republican state Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale met with about 50 growers, workers, brokers and business people Monday at a tomato packing shed on Chandler Mountain in northeast Alabama. They complained that the new law, which went into effect Thursday, scared off many of their migrant workers at harvest time.

"The tomatoes are rotting on the vine, and there is very little we can do," said Chad Smith, who farms tomatoes with his uncle, father and brother...

"There won't be no next growing season," farmer Wayne Smith said.

"Does America know how much this is going to affect them? They'll find out when they go to the grocery store. Prices on produce will double," he said.] emphasis added
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/10/04/business-us-alabama-immigration-law_8715848.html

[Tougher immigration laws in Alabama and Georgia may be forcing more illegal immigrants into Florida. Farmers in Alabama say their migrant pickers have been abandonoing the state, since the new immigration law went into effect last week.

That may be just one effect of the new law. Farmers are also saying you can expect higher produce prices at your grocery stores.

Georgia, which passed it's tougher immigration measure last year, is already experiencing the drawbacks. Parts of Alabama and Georgia are harvesting tomatoes right now and many farmers say they don't have enough workers to pick the crops. They're having to hire legal workers, if they can find any to work. Since legal workers cost more than the illegal immigrants, you can expect prices to go up.

"This is the biggest mess personally we think we have ever seen in the life of our farm" says local tomato farmer John Alpin.]
http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/131117688.html

Afghans Protest US Occupation

2011-10-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

10 years of war in Afghanistan should teach policy makers he US cannot win in any military sense; all the bullets and bombs and drones will no defeat an idea for after all the Taliban comprise a religious ideal with an armed guerrilla movement attached.

[Hundreds of Afghans have marched through the capital, Kabul, on the eve of the 10-year anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, condemning the US as occupiers and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops.

About 300 men and women gathered early in the morning on Thursday with placards and banners accusing the US of "massacring" civilians while denouncing President Hamid Karzai as a puppet subservient to Washington.

"Occupation - atrocities - brutality," read one sign held aloft by two women.]
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/10/201110610856316105.html

Yankees Lose! Yankees Lose! Yankees Lose!

2011-10-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Insert mocking A-ROD chant here. Know should not mock the man, but as a Cubs fan, what do I havve left for the post season?

[NEW YORK — The Detroit Tigers survived a tense trip back to Bronx, with Jose Valverde and the bullpen holding on time and time again to beat the New York Yankees 3-2 Thursday night to win the deciding Game 5 of their AL playoff series.

Don Kelly and Delmon Young hit consecutive home runs in the first inning, then the Tigers spent the rest of a tense game trying to preserve their lead...

Valverde pitched the ninth for his second save of the series, remaining perfect in 51 chances this year. After Valverde struck out Alex Rodriguez to end it, the Tigers' closer crouched and pumped both arms as his teammates ran out to celebrate.] emphasis added
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/tigers-defeat-yankees-fister-mlb-alds_n_999421.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=100711&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Sojourners: War No More

2011-10-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

https://secure3.convio.net/sojo/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=421&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr004=vgt7up35za.app334b

The 1% Replies, Proud of Perfidy

2011-10-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

[Someone at the Board of Trade is getting cheeky with the Occupy Chicago protests. This photo was taken by someone at the protests. It shows offices at the Board of Trade Building eight stories up with "We Are The 1%" taped to the windows. If only someone could hurl rocks that high.]
http://chicagoist.com/2011/10/05/board_of_trade_has_a_message_for_oc.php

The Whole World Watches

2011-10-06T15:22:00.001-07:00

NYPD Violence To Non-violent Protesters

2011-10-06T14:55:00.001-07:00

Occupy Orlando October 15

2011-10-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

Occupation begins…

October 15th 2011 4:00 PM

Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce

75 South Ivanhoe Blvd, Orlando, Florida 32804

Thank you Orlando!

http://occupyorlando.tumblr.com/post/11103207714/we-the-american-people-are-peacefully-assembling

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyOrlandoFL?ref=ts&sk=wall