Sunday, December 15, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Atheists, Listen to the Pope
[Francis wrote in a papal statement, “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system…. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”
When the Pope washes the feet of convicts while calling for greater efforts to lift up the world’s poor, he makes it possible to establish meaningful partnerships with other moral communities, secular and religious. Of course, when Francis speaks about the “idolatry of money” and “growing income inequality,” you know, the things Jesus spoke about, you can set your watch in waiting for someone on the Right to accuse him of being a Marxist. Hello, Rush Limbaugh.
Atheists like to talk about building a better world, one that is absent of religiosity in the public square, but where is the atheist movement, as defined by the some 2,000 atheist groups and organizations in the U.S., when it comes to dealing with our third-world levels of poverty? Not only is the atheist movement absent on this issue, it is spending thousands of dollars on billboards that make atheists look like assholes, at the same time Catholicism is looking hip again. The Pope has changed the perception of the Church in the minds of millions while the atheist movement has been sucked into the Right’s fictitious “war on christmas.”]
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
When the Pope washes the feet of convicts while calling for greater efforts to lift up the world’s poor, he makes it possible to establish meaningful partnerships with other moral communities, secular and religious. Of course, when Francis speaks about the “idolatry of money” and “growing income inequality,” you know, the things Jesus spoke about, you can set your watch in waiting for someone on the Right to accuse him of being a Marxist. Hello, Rush Limbaugh.
Atheists like to talk about building a better world, one that is absent of religiosity in the public square, but where is the atheist movement, as defined by the some 2,000 atheist groups and organizations in the U.S., when it comes to dealing with our third-world levels of poverty? Not only is the atheist movement absent on this issue, it is spending thousands of dollars on billboards that make atheists look like assholes, at the same time Catholicism is looking hip again. The Pope has changed the perception of the Church in the minds of millions while the atheist movement has been sucked into the Right’s fictitious “war on christmas.”]
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Friday, December 13, 2013
Jesus a Man of Colour?
[As light-hearted evidence that Jesus was black, it adds that he "called everybody 'brother', liked Gospel, and couldn't get a fair trial".]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3958241.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3958241.stm
James Bond: A Limp Drunk?
{The doctors' report in the festive edition of the British Medical Journal concluded: "Although we appreciate the societal pressures to consume alcohol when working with international terrorists and high stakes gamblers, we would advise [James] Bond to be referred for further assessment of his alcohol intake."
Patrick Davies, a consultant in paediatric intensive care at Nottingham University Hospitals, told the BBC: "You wouldn't want this person defusing a nuclear bomb.
"He's a very glamorous person, he gets all the girls and that's totally incompatible with the lifestyle of an alcoholic, which he is."
He said Bond would be classified in the "top whack" of problem drinkers and would be at high risk of liver damage, an early death and impotence.
"So he might be practising safe sex after all," said Dr Davies.}
Take me to the Festivus Pole
[A "Festivus" pole made of 16 beer cans took its place next to a "freedom from religion" banner Wednesday in the rotunda of the Florida Capitol.
Chaz Stevens, who assembled the marker and got Department of Management Servicespermission to add it to holiday symbols on the Capitol's first floor, said he made the seven-hour drive from his Deerfield Beach home in response to the placement of a Nativity scene last week. A 10-foot menorah was also displayed during Hannukah.
"It's just ridiculous," Stevens said of the displays.
Pam Olsen, president of the Florida Prayer Network, greeted Stevens as she arrived for her usual Wednesday prayer session at the Capitol. Her organization placed the manger scene across the rotunda last week.
“Thank you for exercising your freedom of speech and you're welcome, in your Capitol and mine," she told him.
The bare aluminum Festivus pole gained fame in a 1997 episode of the "Seinfeld" TV show, in which the characters devise the pseudo-holiday "for the rest of us" as a reaction to commercialization of Christmas.
Rather than get involved in legal action over church-state separation, DMS has declared the rotunda a public forum where any expression of belief is welcome. After the Nativity and menorah displays went up, the Freedom From Religion Foundation placed a large sign in the rotunda marking "the Winter Solstice and honoring the Bill of Rights.
Reporter Bill Cotterell can be reached at bcotterell@thefloridacurrent.com.]
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Artists United Against Apartheid - Sun City (Official Video)
Sun City (MTV: Pop Up Video).
Yes, my nieces, back in the time of dinosaurs--the 1980's--there existed a TV network called MTV, standing for Music Television, and it actually played music, not just shows about drunk hillobillies and pregnant teenagers sbbing because immature boyfriends predictably cannit handle committed life with a waoman much less playing their part as creator of a tiny, needy human being.
No, nieces, then we knew peoplecould organize to redress wrongs, to make things right, to make thw world a better place, to....oh screw it, MTV doesn't even play music any more.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Can You Believe?
President Obama let George W. Bush fly with him and have pictures taken. Guess Barry O. needed to pump up his ratings with a popular ex-President onboard.
Bah, Humbug!
Face it, the modern American Christmas of orgiastic spending and Black Friday riots simply sucks the big one.
Take away Food Network dishes you'll never make much less sit down to the Norman Rockwell family table; take away the browsing for gifts you'll never afford for yourself much less your family, unless you live as part of the 1% spitting down on me from your Park Av, NYC, terraces and then fuck you; take away extended unemployment benefits THREE days after Christmas, damn youse Republican'ts; take away my family where my youngest sister actively hates me and her sons, worse still, ignore me; take away my friends who would always stay around and they gone; geld is weg, madel es weg, alles es weg, o du lieber Augustin; take away Sea Pines Rehab hospital which my insurance copany won't let me return to because I've made too damn much progress even though can't dress myself much less walk; take away rhe mark I meant to leave on the world 'cause--ha, ha, ho, ho--after struggling to walk for 33 years after a broken neck ain't left nuthin' but piss and shit stains in Orlando; take away the Christians who only make it to church on Christmas Eve and ostentatiously give a dollar to a homeless dude--fuck you, Norman Rockwell--take away that Christmas flick with Ji-Ji-Jimmy Stewart 'cause, dude, you did waste your life, well except that hottie wife while I'll never get a kiss much less much of a life; take away all that and all you gots left is What Would Jesus Buy?
So to make my Scrooge Ass Self happy, I'm a gonna post rock Christmas songs--the sicker the better--to make myself feel better.
So there!
Take away Food Network dishes you'll never make much less sit down to the Norman Rockwell family table; take away the browsing for gifts you'll never afford for yourself much less your family, unless you live as part of the 1% spitting down on me from your Park Av, NYC, terraces and then fuck you; take away extended unemployment benefits THREE days after Christmas, damn youse Republican'ts; take away my family where my youngest sister actively hates me and her sons, worse still, ignore me; take away my friends who would always stay around and they gone; geld is weg, madel es weg, alles es weg, o du lieber Augustin; take away Sea Pines Rehab hospital which my insurance copany won't let me return to because I've made too damn much progress even though can't dress myself much less walk; take away rhe mark I meant to leave on the world 'cause--ha, ha, ho, ho--after struggling to walk for 33 years after a broken neck ain't left nuthin' but piss and shit stains in Orlando; take away the Christians who only make it to church on Christmas Eve and ostentatiously give a dollar to a homeless dude--fuck you, Norman Rockwell--take away that Christmas flick with Ji-Ji-Jimmy Stewart 'cause, dude, you did waste your life, well except that hottie wife while I'll never get a kiss much less much of a life; take away all that and all you gots left is What Would Jesus Buy?
So to make my Scrooge Ass Self happy, I'm a gonna post rock Christmas songs--the sicker the better--to make myself feel better.
So there!
Steve Stockman, God's Judgment on TX and Gift to Comedians and Twitter
[Or, as Tim Murphy sums him up, he's "almost certainly the only member of Congress to have been caught with 30 mg of valium hidden in a cellophane wrapper in his underwear. He's defended militia groups; accused an attorney general of 'premeditated murder'; appeared on a Holocaust-denying radio program; waged a one-man war against Alfred Kinsey; compared his constituents—favorably—to Branch Davidians; and traveled to Denmark to protest climate change while wearing a red blindfold. The man who bested his 2012 opponent by 44 points isn't the most ballyhooed of incoming lawmakers. He's just the nuttiest."]
http://prospect.org/article/daily-meme-you-are-foxhole
http://prospect.org/article/daily-meme-you-are-foxhole
OMFG!, TV Listings Edition
The only thing more horrifying than seeing a listing for a Home Alone 4 on TV came from a listing for
Larry the Cable Guy's Hula-Palooza Christmas Luau!
The Horror1 The Absolute Horror!
Dolphins Improbable Comeback
While abhoring cliches, maybe adversity can bring a locker room together?
Still offensive line stinks, but as 50 year fan a 1 and done playoff run will make me happy as expected worse from season. Dolphins let left tackle go and tried to force fit Johnathan Martin to that side when I had seen him just rag dolled on right side--in between Jaguars games NFL forced me to watch in Orlando--another fine move by Jeff Ireland, witness trade for Bryant McKinnie..
Found disturbing allegation someone on Dolphins staff wanted Martin toughened up as reminded me of them bringing Kevin Gogan in to toughen up and bring some nasty to Dolphins O Line. Didn't work.
Did Mike Golic vs. Gogan fight occur during that time? Mr Golic entertains greatly on M and M, even if he always play bullies Greenie.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Trillions Unaccounted for From Military Budgets
Well, consider me unsurprised that TRILLIONS of American dollars have poured into the rathole of military budgets and gone unaccounted for or just plain missing, all covered up by bookkeepers commiting felonious frauds--well, felonies if Congress would make these acts felonies chargeable under the law as they do for civilians.
This allows writing of more contracts, dumping more actual American dollars into the abyss, giving defense companies ginormous profits with which they can pay lobbyists to pay that very same Congress while their leaders offer shrill warnings about TERROR so we rubes will keep paying while teabaggers try to cut public welfare programs.
We can't afford keeping granny from eating catfood but can pay for planes the Air Force neither wants nor needs.
This legalized fraud poses more of a threat to the security of America than some terror fantasy.
Makes me proud to live in America, my country of greed.
[At the DFAS offices that handle accounting for the Army, Navy, Air Force and other defense agencies, fudging the accounts with false entries is standard operating procedure, Reuters has found. And plugging isn't confined to DFAS (pronounced DEE-fass). Former military service officials say record-keeping at the operational level throughout the services is rife with made-up numbers to cover lost or missing information.
A review of multiple reports from oversight agencies in recent years shows that the Pentagon also has systematically ignored warnings about its accounting practices. "These types of adjustments, made without supporting documentation … can mask much larger problems in the original accounting data," the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in a December 2011 report.
Plugs also are symptomatic of one very large problem: the Pentagon's chronic failure to keep track of its money - how much it has, how much it pays out and how much is wasted or stolen.
This is the second installment in a series in which Reuters delves into the Defense Department's inability to account for itself. The first article examined how the Pentagon's record-keeping dysfunction results in widespread pay errors that inflict financial hardship on soldiers and sap morale. This account is based on interviews with scores of current and former Defense Department officials, as well as Reuters analyses of Pentagon logistics practices, bookkeeping methods, court cases and reports by federal agencies.
As the use of plugs indicates, pay errors are only a small part of the sums that annually disappear into the vast bureaucracy that manages more than half of all annual government outlays approved by Congress. The Defense Department's 2012 budget totaled $565.8 billion, more than the annual defense budgets of the 10 next largest military spenders combined, including Russia and China. How much of that money is spent as intended is impossible to determine.
In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn't need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn't known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies.
The consequences aren't only financial; bad bookkeeping can affect the nation's defense. In one example of many, the Army lost track of $5.8 billion of supplies between 2003 and 2011 as it shuffled equipment between reserve and regular units. Affected units "may experience equipment shortages that could hinder their ability to train soldiers and respond to emergencies," the Pentagon inspector general said in a September 2012 report.] emphasis added
This allows writing of more contracts, dumping more actual American dollars into the abyss, giving defense companies ginormous profits with which they can pay lobbyists to pay that very same Congress while their leaders offer shrill warnings about TERROR so we rubes will keep paying while teabaggers try to cut public welfare programs.
We can't afford keeping granny from eating catfood but can pay for planes the Air Force neither wants nor needs.
This legalized fraud poses more of a threat to the security of America than some terror fantasy.
Makes me proud to live in America, my country of greed.
[At the DFAS offices that handle accounting for the Army, Navy, Air Force and other defense agencies, fudging the accounts with false entries is standard operating procedure, Reuters has found. And plugging isn't confined to DFAS (pronounced DEE-fass). Former military service officials say record-keeping at the operational level throughout the services is rife with made-up numbers to cover lost or missing information.
A review of multiple reports from oversight agencies in recent years shows that the Pentagon also has systematically ignored warnings about its accounting practices. "These types of adjustments, made without supporting documentation … can mask much larger problems in the original accounting data," the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in a December 2011 report.
Plugs also are symptomatic of one very large problem: the Pentagon's chronic failure to keep track of its money - how much it has, how much it pays out and how much is wasted or stolen.
This is the second installment in a series in which Reuters delves into the Defense Department's inability to account for itself. The first article examined how the Pentagon's record-keeping dysfunction results in widespread pay errors that inflict financial hardship on soldiers and sap morale. This account is based on interviews with scores of current and former Defense Department officials, as well as Reuters analyses of Pentagon logistics practices, bookkeeping methods, court cases and reports by federal agencies.
As the use of plugs indicates, pay errors are only a small part of the sums that annually disappear into the vast bureaucracy that manages more than half of all annual government outlays approved by Congress. The Defense Department's 2012 budget totaled $565.8 billion, more than the annual defense budgets of the 10 next largest military spenders combined, including Russia and China. How much of that money is spent as intended is impossible to determine.
In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn't need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn't known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies.
The consequences aren't only financial; bad bookkeeping can affect the nation's defense. In one example of many, the Army lost track of $5.8 billion of supplies between 2003 and 2011 as it shuffled equipment between reserve and regular units. Affected units "may experience equipment shortages that could hinder their ability to train soldiers and respond to emergencies," the Pentagon inspector general said in a September 2012 report.] emphasis added
Monday, December 2, 2013
Governor 48.9%, Rick "Capetbagger" Scott
From time to time, my humble efforts focused on exposing the venal and corrupt practices of that sick Dick, Governor Rick Scott.
Never one to deny being bested, herein find link to fairly complete list of Governor Dick's lies and calumnies and greedy misdeeds: http://seminoledemocrats.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-stupid-state-series.html.
Numbers 16 and 18 particularly amuse me, since the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have conspired to put me in a wheelchair after fighting for 33 years to stay out of one and now own 3.
Kind of funny in an ironic way.
Nevertheless, y;alL FUBS (Full Bodied Folk) still better watch what you say.
Never one to deny being bested, herein find link to fairly complete list of Governor Dick's lies and calumnies and greedy misdeeds: http://seminoledemocrats.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-stupid-state-series.html.
Numbers 16 and 18 particularly amuse me, since the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have conspired to put me in a wheelchair after fighting for 33 years to stay out of one and now own 3.
Kind of funny in an ironic way.
Nevertheless, y;alL FUBS (Full Bodied Folk) still better watch what you say.
Stupid Crook News
If you curse at a judge during a bond hearing, the price goes up.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Woman-Curses-at-Miami-Dade-Judge-Over-Bond-Amount-234130911.html
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Woman-Curses-at-Miami-Dade-Judge-Over-Bond-Amount-234130911.html
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