Vatican Rescinds 'Blessed' Status Of World's Meek
'Screw The Meek,' Says Pope
VATICAN CITY—In a historic reversal of its nearly 2,000-year-old pro-meek stance, the Catholic Church announced Tuesday that it is permanently rescinding the traditional "blessed" status of the world's meek.
It's really, really bad out here and getting worse. Mr. President, stop giving money to bankers and help our desperate unemployed:
CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.
Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps.
With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income.
About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.
Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.
"It's the one thing I can count on every month — I know the children are going to have food," Ms. Bermudez, 42, said with the forced good cheer she mastered selling rows of new stucco homes.
Members of this straitened group range from displaced strivers like Ms. Bermudez to weathered men who sleep in shelters and barter cigarettes. Some draw on savings or sporadic under-the-table jobs. Some move in with relatives. Some get noncash help, like subsidized apartments. While some go without cash incomes only briefly before securing jobs or aid, others rely on food stamps alone for many months.
The surge in this precarious way of life has been so swift that few policy makers have noticed. But it attests to the growing role of food stamps within the safety net. One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children
Of course the party of Hoover says, 'let them starve'
Let's take a peek at what the fine writers at America's Shittiest Website™ predicted what would happen in 2009.
John Derbyshire:
The Karzai government will cut a power-sharing deal with the Taliban.
Pantload:
By the end of 2009, the biggest problem facing the U.S. economy will be rampant inflation.
Wrong.
Mark Hemingway:
K-Lo:
Jeb Bush will run for Senate.
Wishful thinking, and wrong.
Pantload:
The push for climate-change legislation will intensify as the Obama administration targets more dollars to "green jobs," even though 2009 will be the coldest in years and the "temporary halt" of global warming will enter its second decade.
Conclusion: people who suck ass at analyzing events in real time really, really shouldn't try to do it a year in advance.
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They tortured a man they knew to be innocent
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Loss of sea ice in Antarctica has led to steep declines in Adelie penguins, which are dependent upon sea ice as a feeding platform. Adelie numbers on one island have dropped from 9,000 to 1,600.
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Saving Mortgages Is Bad For Banks So Obama Should Quit Doing It
Of course. What else would you expect from Big Business stooge Peter Goodman? The Federal mortgage loan program that was aimed at saving the homes of people who'd been scammed by the banksters for the sake of quick dirty $$$ was never big enough, wasn't well sold by the Admin, and didn't cover anything like the number of victims it needed to cover to reverse what the banksters had done. So, naturally, it never should have been in the first place because it's counterproductive.
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"Born again" Christian Brit Hume is advising Tiger Woods to abandon his Buddhism and convert to Christianity. Brit Hume, on this morning's Fox News Sunday, said: "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of redemption and forgiveness offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger is, 'Tiger turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."
But maybe Hume is on to something. That redemption thing, that includes a public "I have sinned" moment and the embrace of Jesus as your new BFF, worked for Hume's Republican right wing soulmates like convicted felon and "Family" member, Chuck Colson and those Republicans responding to a "booty call" (Christian conservative man needs) such as Senator David Vitter, Newt Gingrich, and Governor (also a "Family" member) Mark Sanford. One wonders how Bill Kristol, a Jew, felt when Hume extolled the benefits of Christianity. It's interesting that Hume, whose conservative credo is based on personal responsibility, scoffs at the Buddhist faith which is all about personal responsibility without the get out of jail free card that Christianity offers. Hume's statement, on a nationally televised "news" show, that Christianity is superior to Buddhism, is just another example of the "Christian" religious parochialism (bigotry?) and cultural insensitivity which seems to be endemic to Fox News – America's Christian Newsroom. Praise the Lord.
Keep reading: http://www.newshounds.us/2010/01/03/brit_hume_proselytizes_on_fox_news_sunday.php#more
Update: Brit Hume bitch-slapped by Mormons: http://satiricalpolitical.com/2010/01/03/brit-hume-tiger-woods-christian-buddhist/
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What do you think of this painting? http://jonathanturley.org/2010/01/03/what-do-you-think-of-this-painting/#more-19002
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Scientists are seeking greater protection of dolphins as "non-human persons" in light of research showing that they are the second most intelligence species after humans. They specifically argue that the continued use of the animals for amusement is morally unacceptable. They might want to start with the Japanese, who cherish an annual massacre of dolphins as a cultural tradition (shown below). http://jonathanturley.org/2010/01/03/scientists-call-for-dolphins-to-be-given-non-human-person-status/
And be sure to watch "The Cove" and spread the word.
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World Nut Daily founder Joseph Farah just can't give up on his birther nonsense. You might also know Farah as the current Just For Men Olympics gold medalist (Mustache Division.) Farah gave up on dyeing his hair (but not the pornstache!) in late 2008, probably because Wikipedia kept describing him as a "noted homosexual."
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As you know, homophobic bigot, Rick Warren had suffered a major financial shortfall of almost a million dollars, so he he put out his call, and his flock of sheep answered with donations adding up to $2.4 million over one weekend. And he's bragging that most of these were small donations from many people, not the largesse of a few rich individuals, and calling it a "miracle".
It's a bit ironic that initially he'd said the shortfall was due to a poor economy and people having little to give. It's revolting that he would then proceed to put the bite on the financially stressed members of his congregation, and that they'd then dredge up more of their money to hand over to the Saddleback simpleton. It wasn't a miracle: a better word would be a fleecing.
Fun fact: not only are churches tax exempt, but did you know that ministers can write off housing expenses and utilities and more?
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A Shanghai dairy was shut down after its products were found to contain melamine, a substance blamed for sickening hundreds of thousands in 2008 in a scandal that prompted global worries about the quality of Chinese food products.
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Peru's mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter
Communities in Peru's Huancavelica region face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.
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It's a good thing Obama helped Joe keep that chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. It gives Lieberman added authority when he attacks Obama's leadership. Lieberman knows there are no repercussions for challenging Obama. In fact, it seems that the more he does it, the more power he has.
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Don't forget the naughts, because this decade, no matter what anyone on the right might say, was conservatism on trial. You want less taxes? You got less taxes. You want less regulation? You got less regulation. Open markets? Wide open. An illusuion of security in place of rights? Hey, presto. Think we should privatize war by handing unlimited power given to military contractors so they can kick butt and take names? Kiddo, we passed out boots and pencils by the thousands. Everything, everything, that ever showed up on a drooled-over right wing wish list got implemented -- with a side order of Freedom Fries.
They will try to disown it, and God knows if I was responsible for this mess I'd be disowning it, too. But the truth is that the conservatives got everything they wanted in the decade just past, everything that they've claimed for forty years would make America "great again". They didn't fart around with any "red dog Republicans." They rolled over their moderates and implemented a conservative dream.
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Citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, countries that are considered "state sponsors of terrorism," as well as those of "countries of interest" — including Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen — will face the special scrutiny, officials said.The obvious tell is the inclusion of Cuba. I have not seen a scintilla of evidence that the Cubans have had any involvement with al Qaeda.[1] The Cuban government is both atheist and communist, two groups that the radical Muslims of al Qaeda hate about as much as the radical Christians do.
The second tell is saying that "these are the people that we will check", which is more of a roadmap to al Qaeda of what passports any future terrorists should carry. The Taliban has fighters from China, Russia, Turkey and a number of Arab nations. There seems to be no shortage of second-generation immigrants in Britain who have become radicalized; the four men carried out the London bombing attacks on July 7, 2005 were all British citizens. And we have had our own homegrown terrorists: the Ft. Hood shooter, the shooting of two Army recruiters in Arkansas, the several mostly bumbling attempts and, of course, the bombing of the Murrah Building fifteen years ago.
Is the DBP going to start enhanced screening of people with British or American passports?
I didn't think so.
[1]From the Cuban point of view, the United States is arguably a state sponsor of terrorism.
The CDC reports that in 2005, 3,582 people drowned and another 710 died in boating accidents. Drowning kills nearly 30% of children under the age of five. The leading cause of accidental death of such young children is death by scalding. Supposedly more children die in swimming pools than are shot to death.
There were about 17,000 murders in 2007.
I mention the foregoing for a reason. We live with the fact that car crashes occur, that children die in horrible accidents and that people will seek to kill each other. Most of us live out our lives around the carnage.
Yet terrorism is different. Somehow, and in no small measure to the fear-mongering of the Right (especially the last vice-president, Dick the Torturer), the Federal government is supposed to prevent all terrorist plots from coming to fruition. This is the same government that the fear-mongers routinely deride as wholly incompetent, yet the same people who think the government is completely inept somehow expect the Feds to be omnipotent when it comes to stopping terrorism.
Americans need to grow up and get a grip. The Luftwaffe sent over wave after wave of bombers in 1940 in order to pound the British into submission, the British did not buckle. Yet al Qaeda sends one guy with exploding underwear (who only manages to burn off his own nuts) and the whole country goes into a tizzy.
Let us take a page from the British as they struggled to live through the Blitz:
We are in situation, now, where there is a group of nutjobs who are determined to carry out terroristic attacks against us. No matter how diligent our security is, they will, from time to time, succeed. We have to keep our heads about us.We have to grow up and stop basing our security protocols on crap that would barely cut it as a basic-cable movie plot. It is past insanity to take our cues from a goddamn television show, but that is what our last president and his administration did. We have to quit the fascination with the wholly-unlikely ticking time-bomb scenario. This isn't some damn third-rate technothriller.
We need to start acting like mature adults. We need to deal with security through measures that make sense and stop with the stupid security theater that the TSA and the cops are so fond of. And, most of all, we have to pour large doses of STFU down the throats of the partisan fearmongers.
Terrorism is a tactic. It is a fact of life in the age we live in. Let's get on with it, let's deal with it, and let's stop living in pants-wetting fear.
From Digby, evidence that the greed of the rich is bottomless:
Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg called the AIG Masters of the Universe's bluff (sort of):
A top executive at American International Group Inc (AIG.N) has resigned because of pay curbs imposed by the Obama Administration's pay czar, the insurer said on Wednesday.Anastasia Kelly, AIG's vice chairman for legal, human resources, corporate affairs and corporate communications, resigned effective Dec. 30 for "good reason" and is eligible for severance pay under the terms of the company's executive severance plan, the insurer said.
Kelly stands to be paid about $2.8 million in severance, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Kelly's resignation comes after Kenneth Feinberg, who is charged with monitoring pay levels at companies that received taxpayer funds, imposed pay caps for AIG's top executives.
Earlier this month, Feinberg set the compensation structures for the 26th through 100th highest-paid employees at four firms, including AIG, limiting most cash salaries to $500,000.
SNIP
Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University, said no AIG employee was irreplaceable.
"We have been duped into thinking that these AIG employees have some kind of secret code that no other employee could discover if they were hired to replace them and therefore they are able to basically hold the company ransom," Hurley said.
Well, except nobody was duped. Everyone knew that this was a scam and they all pretended to believe it because they want to protect the absurd pay incentives that benefit all the overpaid elites. Why, if this idea catches on people might wonder if any of these obscenely overcompensated executives are worth the disgusting, gluttonous pay they give each other. And then where will they be?But it is still a very good thing that Feinberg didn't capitulate to blackmail. Their threats to blow up the company by walking en masse should have been a national scandal. At least they didn't get away with that, even if the Democrats failed to properly frame it for political advantage.
On the flip side, Steve Benen has the results of a decade of repug economic policy:
Neil Irwin has a terrific report on the economic conditions of the '00s, and the ways in which they departed from every decade of the last seven.
It's a painful overview, as the chart helps demonstrate. "There has been zero net job creation since December 1999," the WaPo piece explained. "No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.
"Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.
"And the net worth of American households -- the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts -- has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s."
This was a disastrous decade that has lead "economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation's growth."
From a political perspective, it's worth emphasizing not only that Bush administration and GOP policymakers inherited a sweet deal at the start of the decade, but also that Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were able to implement just about every economic policy they found worthwhile in the ensuing years. Those policies failed spectacularly -- but the discredited agenda nevertheless remains the foundation of the Republican economic philosophy in the new decade.
Highlighting the chart, Andrew Sullivan suggested it's evidence as to "why conservatism needs to rethink its economic policies." But the startling fact remains that conservatives intend to do no such thing. Ask every Republican lawmaker on the Hill and they'll agree that the economic policies they embraced in the last decade are no different than those they intend to embrace in the new decade -- the only difference being their stated desire to see the government invest less in the coming years.
Every single study under the sun for the past 30 years has found the same: when federal government tax and spending policies favor the wealthy over the middle-class, the economy tanks. When federal government tax and spending policies restrain the super-rich and support the middle-class, the economy soars.
Repugs continue to repeat easily and repeatedly debunked lies about this for one reason: they think you're stupid.
Liberals continue to repeat the boring but factual truth about this for one reason: we know you're not stupid.
