"We were reading about Bush's experience in the National Guard, and that's where I got the idea to have my son bail out of the flight and hide in a cozy, dark place."
PTTEP Australasia, the company that promised that its offshore oil drilling rig in the Timor Sea was constructed with state of the art technology that made an oil spill nearly impossible, has now stood by for two months, unable to stop a leak that has coated the Timor Sea with a massive toxic coating. Dolphins, penguins and sea birds have been filmed swimming through the oil slick. Indonesian fishermen are reporting huge losses of income.
And now, the third attempt to fix the leak has failed. PTTEP Australasia won't be able to even begin a fourth try until four days from now. Back in late August, Australian Senator Rachel Siewert predicted that the oil spill could last eight weeks. That mark has now been exceeded. When will it end? Ten weeks? Twelve? Twenty?
How can anyone watch this environmental disaster and still promote expanded offshore drilling along the shores of the United States of America?
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Sarah Palin Joins LinkedIn
Is Sarah Palin really looking for work? Or did she post her resume on LinkedIn just out of boredom? Sarah Palin has joined LinkedIn. And guess what? She's interested in "job inquiries." The former Alaska governor has posted her resume on the professional social-networking web site LinkedIn. The service boasts over 45 million users who connect and refer colleagues. Instead of using the Facebook term "friends," LinkedIn users have "connections." Palin had over 500 connections as of Saturday evening. The URL for Palin's LinkedIn profile uses "/governorpalin" despite the fact that Palin resigned from her job as Alaska's governor in July 2009. The University of Idaho is the sole education entry on Palin's LinkedIn profile. She does not list the four other institutions she attended before earning her degree.
A new internal Congressional Research Service report says there are an unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama - and that the Secret Service is insufficiently funded and staffed to deal with them.
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Because of the actions of two Republican senators, every day this month 7,000 jobless workers have lost their unemployment insurance (UI) coverage. Each day these two Republicans continue to stand in the way of Senate passage of a UI extension, 7,000 more workers will run out of benefits.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has tried twice to bring the UI measure to a vote on the Senate floor. First Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), then Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked action.
Orrin Hatch after voting against health care reform: "American families are very smart and very astute. They realize there is no free lunch, especially in Washington.
Except of course his own free lunches, salary, health care and other perks that you and I have been paying for since 1977.
God how I loathe him.
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"This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me. This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative. Therefore, this is about the future of America and what kind of country we're going to have." - der vulgar Pigboy, whining because his buy-out team dropped him
"Of course, what Limbaugh is really saying is that it's all about him and he takes no responsibility for his racist-laced comments of the last many years. For Limbaugh, it's all the fault of the media. It's all the fault of liberals. Yawn. Only an egotist of the proportions of a Limbaugh would dare say that his rejection by the NFL is really about the future of the United States, but any day that Limbaugh fails is a good day for the United States of America." - Mario Piperni Link
Poor Pigboy - that's twice now he's been rejected by the NFL for being a racist pig.
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"Here's what wrong with the "hate crimes" bill: It endangers freedom of religion and speech. Everywhere in the world "hate crimes" laws have gone into effect, they have quickly been used to harass, intimidate, silence and punish people of faith." - American Handjob Association press release Link
Hey Dumbass, you just said the "people of faith" are doing all the hate crimes. Why don't you ignorant, superstitious nutbags knock it off? You don't have to hate everyone the Bible says you must hate.
"Preach anti-gay sermons and go to jail. This lie...can be easily debunked. A group of liberal pastors should announce that they're going to mount the pulpit in a particular church at particular time and preach a series of vile, hateful sermons - one right after the other - attacking all races and ethnicities. They won't be arrested, of course, because it's not a crime to be a vile, hateful religious bigot now and it won't be a crime after sexual orientation is added to the federal hate crimes law." - Dan Savage, Link
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Krugman: The banks are not alright
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Commies, corporations, environment and biostitutes
Sometimes, commentary isn't necessary (or even possible).
The Vancouver Sun
A Metro Vancouver man who circumcised his four-year-old son at home with a razor blade and used blood coagulant meant for horses has been found guilty of negligence causing bodily harm.
[...]
DJW [the father] became interested in circumcision after reading THE books of Richard Hoskins, who advocates circumcision and claims there are Biblical answers to "all of the problems in society, including the number of abortions and homosexuals, and the national debt," judge wrote.
...DJW heard a radio show on circumcision, transcribed it and decided to circumcise himself. On the Internet, he found "horrible pictures of what could go wrong," which is "inconsistent with his frequently expressed opinion that circumcision is an obvious and simple procedure," the judge noted.
In late 2004 or early 2005, DJW circumcised himself, using a razor, Band-Aids, peroxide, a roll of gauze and a clear plastic ring that he believed would act as an anaesthetic.
After he cut himself, the bleeding wouldn't stop. DJW then called his mother to tell her he was a heretic and would never go back to her church. She told him to call 911 and hung up. He then called 911 and went to the emergency room of a hospital and was sutured. In 2006, DJW began asking doctors about the circumcision of DJ [DJW's 4-year-old son]. A few doctors advised against circumcising a four-year-old boy and refused to help DJW.
One doctor that agreed to do it was too expensive, charging $2,000 to $5,000. DJW decided to do it himself. He bought a blood coagulant used for horses because it was cheaper than a $30 coagulant for people. He told DJ that circumcision might hurt a bit but not for long. DJW told his son the procedure would grant him "extra special protection from God" and allow him to eat Passover lamb, ice cream and pick all the movies he wanted for a week. He also said told DJ it would be difficult to stay together as a family if DJ didn't agree to be circumcised.
DJW then gave DJ a teacup of homemade honey wine with eight to 12 percent alcohol. DJW then became stressed before performing the circumcision, so he left his son at home with his wife and went to Canadian Tire and Home Depot to "look at hardware and relax." When he came home, he laid DJ on clean garbage bags on the kitchen floor and put a towel or diaper under him, then cut the foreskin, sometimes with a sawing motion.
DJ shuddered and cried, and DJW's hand slipped. He told DJ to be still for a second cut. He used paper towels and a veterinary blood coagulant meant for horses, and the bleeding decreased. DJ then had to go to Children's Hospital.
A "beehive coating" of ash was removed from his penis and he was properly circumcised by Dr. Afshar.
In court, Afshar called into question DJW's procedure. Among numerous problems: The blades DJW used were neither sharp nor sterile. He said a kitchen cutting board under the boy's penis could have been covered with bacteria from food. And he said the veterinary coagulant was inappropriate and could have led to bleeding, infection and necrosis. Afshar testified that BC law doesn't ban people who have no medical training from performing circumcisions.
The man testified in court that, after the boy consented to the circumcision, he fed him some mead — a biblical beverage made from honey — lay him on the kitchen floor, stretched his penis across a cutting board and cut off part of the foreskin.
When asked in court whether the man used ice to ease the boy's pain, he replied, "Where would the Israelites have found ice?"
By requiring insurers to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, healthcare reform will make it more difficult for insurers to control their costs, or "bend the cost curve," by avoiding sick people.
So, they'll cover them, but they'll just deny more and more of them those expensive treatments.
Keep reading: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/014506.php
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This is absolutely amazing, watching Karl Rove pretend to be so upset about the Obama administration "demeaning… the White House" and "engaging in its own version of the media enemies list," by criticizing Fox News, the network on which he's speaking. (Why is Terry McAuliffe there? To lose another Virginia election?) We all remember how George Bush, when he would give his one interview every seven years, would always speak to PBS or The Guardian, and not just Fox News. Karl Rove is FURIOUS! YouTube
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Americablog: FOX News' Glenn Beck, who has previously talked about poisoning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been on a tear lately about all the "communists" he thinks are working in the highest levels of the Obama administration, and in the major media (Beck even found a "communist building" in downtown NYC - seriously, Beck uncovered that Rockefeller Center has secret communist drawings all over it - Keith Olbermann has a great segment on the commie building). One such "communist" who Beck thinks he's uncovered is White House communications director Anita Dunn. (I was on CNN yesterday talking about Beck's queer fixation with Dunn.)
Well, today America's favorite sociopath had a super duper double secret "anonymous" parent on to complain about a graduation speech that Ms. Dunn gave a while back. The thing is, when you look at the alleged parent, who was speaking from FOX's Washington, DC bureau, he sure looks an awful lot like FOX's own Chris Wallace. Check out the screen capture above from the TV. I posted a normal photo of Wallace to the left, and one in which I scrunched his head to the right (since the anonymous parent looks like they scrunched the video of his head, to further disguise him). Is it just me, or are those trademark ears and helmet-head hair just a little too similar to Chris Wallace's?
Then again, it could have just been Devo.
It seems Newsweek's richard Wolffe found a Chris Wallace connection to FOX's smear campaign as well. This would be bad news for Wallace, as he always tries to portray himself as a "real" journalist, even though he works for a GOP political operation. If Wallace is indeed tied to this smear, it will cement him as part and parcel of the FOX Republican political machine. Wolffe and Olbermann discuss it here.
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ENSIGN'S PARENTS GIVING MONEY TO MISTRESSES AGAIN: Looks like Nevada's two biggest money people, John Ensign's mommy and daddy, are yet again dipping into their retirements for their son's protection: "Mike and Sharon Ensign, who made waves in July after admitting to giving $96,000 to Ensign's mistress and her family, each gave the maximum $4,800 in contributions to Reid's campaign committee in the September, the Senate Majority Leader's campaign disclosed in its third quarter fundraising report." So how long have John Ensign and Harry Reid been sleeping together? CQ
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Greenwald looks at "why they hate us" and puts lie to the response that it's our freedoms which bother them:
...
Note, too, the vast gap between how Americans perceive of their actions (mere "aberrations") and how so much of the rest of the world perceives of it, especially those in the targeted regions. So much of this disparity is explained by a basic lack of empathy: imagine if every American spent just a day contemplating how they'd react if some foreign army from a Muslim nation invaded and bombed the U.S., occupied the country for the next several years with 60,000 soldiers, killed tens of thousands of citizens here, set up secret prisons where they disappeared Americans for years without charges or even contact with the outside world, imposed sanctions that blockaded food and medicine and killed countless children, invaded and ransacked our homes at will, abducted Americans and shipped them halfway around the world to island-prisons, instituted a worldwide torture regime, armed their allies for attacks on other Western nations, and threatened still other invasions.
...
And to top it off, we give the foreign tourists who do want to visit our beautiful country a hard time in the name of "keeping us safer".
We've become an international bully, especially with regard to Muslim nations. A good segment of our population looks at them as subhuman or animals, their lives worth nothing and that was perpetuated by the Bush administration. If President Obama doesn't change attitudes soon (he's made a good start) we're going to lose a lot more tourist dollars and make more enemies in the Muslim world.
We've lost too much already, respect, credibility, and money in the name of "homeland security" and fear mongering. Locking innocents up without charge, torturing them, and murdering them, along with occupying their countries is not the way to "win hearts and minds". All it does is dig us into a deeper hole. If we really want to keep our country safe, we have to stop threatening people with violence and occupation and we have to stop turning friends into adversaries. It's time to start "walking the walk" instead of lecturing others with a heavy air of hypocrisy as we do what we please.
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From the shit you can't make up file:
Dr. Daniel E. Fass, another chairman of the event who lives surrounded by financiers in Greenwich, Conn., said: "The investment community feels very put-upon. They feel there is no reason why they shouldn't earn $1 million to $200 million a year, and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown."
Those poor babies.
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Why would hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam risk his $1.5 billion fortune for $20 million in illegal gains? said Peter Cohan in DailyFinance. He probably didn't; it's more likely that Rajaratnam—arrested for insider trading—and his $3.7 billion fund, Galleon, earned most of their 20 percent annual returns through cheating, with the help of Rajaratnam's co-defendants from Intel, IBM, McKinsey, and New Castle Partners
What's notable about this case, said Gwen Robinson in the Financial Times, is the government's "unprecedented—and extensive—use of wiretaps and other gum-shoe methods," as if investors were "mobsters." Embarrassed by the Bernie Madoff fraud, securities investigators are pulling out all the stops to show "they mean business."
Predictably, the Wall Street Journal is upset about the prosecution:
The U.S. attorney's implication is that Wall Street ought to watch out because prosecutors are now treating hedge funds like the mafia. This will play well politically given the public's anti-Wall Street mood, yet probable cause to justify the wiretaps seems to have been provided thanks to the oldest method in law enforcement—a so far unidentified informant who once worked at Galleon.
If super-geniuses like Raj Rajaratnam go Galt and stop their insider trading for fear of being imprisoned, imagine what will happen to the economy.
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Joe Bageant: Raising up Dead Horses
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Husband joins Army so cancer-stricken wife can get health care: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/19/man-joins-army-health/
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Conservative health care attack group hires industry lobbyist to coordinate strategy on killing health care reform: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/19/cpr-mcmanus-healthreform/
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A US scientist was arrested for trying to sell important secrets to someone he thought was an Israeli intelligence guy, but was actually just an American intelligence guy about to arrest him. CNN
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It's not just Republican senators who oppose an amendment allowing defense contractor employees to sue over rape in US courts.
It's also the Pentagon itself.
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/pentagon-opposed-measure-rape-victims/
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Reverend Al Sharpton is preparing to file a defamation lawsuit against repulsive turd Rush Limbaugh for his op-ed in the Whore St Journal Saturday, in which Limpball said Sharpton "played a leading role" in the NYC riots during the 90s.
"The liberals kept me from owning a bunch of black people! I'll show them!" the bloated bigot foamed in the conservatard paper.
"'Racism' is too often their sledgehammer," Limbaugh wrote. "And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us… It was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests. These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society."
