Monday, May 17, 2010

Headlines - Monday May 16

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Religion is a load of bullshit.
 
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h/t Dick
 
A perfect trifecta! 3 for 3. Not one of those three corporations will ever be held financially responsible for the destruction their individual and collective irresponsibility and carelessness has wrought.  And all three will continue with business as usual, posting record profits quarter after quarter.
 
Reason number 316 why capitalism really sucks: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Business/story?id=2942429&page=1
 
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Central Bangok declared 'live fire zone.'
More than 160 killed in clashes with JEM rebels in Darfur.
Coalition forces in Afghanistan are subjected to more than 40 attacks each day in March: double the rate of a year ago.
A US drone strike on Saturday killed at least 13 people in Pakistan's tribal region. 
 
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Ten people responsible for the current financial crisis. You can probably guess who's number one.
 
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Obama to ask for $205 million to give Israel for a rocket defense system as part of a $3.15 BILLION aid package.
 
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                                               World Atlas Update
 
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This Week In (tax free) Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Kentucky: Pastor Jody Dewain Lusk faces life in prison over new federal charges of raping a 13 year-old girl. Lusk began serving 20 years in prison last month after being convicted of six counts of child rape by the state.
Virginia
: Pastor Jeremy Duffer sentenced to 17 years in prison for molesting two girls.
California: Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby pleads guilty to murdering an 8 year-old girl.
New York: Pastor Phillip Joubert to be indicted on two charges of raping an underage female. He faces 25 years in prison.
Pennsylvania: Catholic Youth Organization basketball coach Michael Kman arrested for offering bribes to league referees.
New York: Rabbi Baruch Lebovits accused of molesting man on trial for a similar crime. Lebovits was convicted of child molestation earlier this year.
Delaware: Monsignor George J. Mazzotta accused of child molestation.
Bahamas: Pastor David McCartney charged with conspiring with an immigration fraud ring.
Minnesota: Pastor Jeffrey Mobley sentenced to a month in jail and ten years of probation for groping and sending sexually explicit text messages to a female minor.
Uganda: Pastor Victor Ocloo sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling $50,000 meant for a group home for people with AIDS.
California: Rancho Bernardo Presbyterian Church sued for allowing a known sexual predator to remain as the church's youth choir teacher.
Colombia: Father Luis Enrique Duque captured after three years on the lam following his 2007 conviction for child molestation.

This Week's Winner
Ohio: Organizers of the website Bishop Accountability are demanding that the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland reveal the names of 73 priests accused of child molestation. According to the group, that diocese has the "worst record in the nation" for shielding the identities of priests. In 2004 Bishop Anthony Pilla admitted that 118 priests in the diocese have been accused of sexual offenses. Only 45 of those priests have ever been named.

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Yet another beef recall. 53,000 lbs. of the stuff.

Fun fact: there's been no one leading USDA's food safety & inspection service since December 2008. The Republicons have been holding up the nominee process. Call your senators and tell them to grow up and get someone into that position post haste. 

Note to Dick: I've never heard of tens of thousands of pounds of Boca Burgers being recalled.

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Obama dispatches ragtag team of scientists to rescue us from Gulf oil spill -- before it's too late!

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GOP - A party adrift

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Dana Milbank believes Republicans are becoming unglued.

Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point.

That was the day, as is now well known, that Sen. Robert Bennett, who took the conservative position 84 percent of the time over his career, was deemed not conservative enough by fellow Utah Republicans and booted out of the primary.

Less well known, but equally ominous, is what happened that same day, 2,500 miles east in Maine. There, the state Republican Party chucked its platform — a sensible New England mix of free-market economics and conservation — and adopted a manifesto of insanity: abolishing the Federal Reserve, calling global warming a "myth," sealing the border, and, as a final plank, fighting "efforts to create a one world government."

Milbank is not exaggerating when he refers to the "crackup of the Republican Party".  Eight years of George W. Bush, the election of an African-American president and back to back massive wins by Democrats in Congress have all given rise to a Republican party teetering on the brink of madness.  It has left them with an identity crisis they seem ill equipped to handle.

Enter Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, teabaggers and a host of crackpots to fill in the void in leadership. Combine this with politicians all too ready to sell their souls for the approval of empty-headed fools professing to understand conservatism.  End result?  A truly screwed-up political party lacking vision and integrity.

A pathetic spectacle from any angle you look at it.

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Not a solution

BP has succeeded in capturing "some" oil and gas by inserting a mile-long tube into the main Gulf of Mexico leak, but would not say if it was a significant percentage of the gusher or just a dribble.

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Of course they knew ...


Ask yourselves: is it possible for mortgage originators, ratings agencies, underwriters, insurers and supervising agencies NOT to have known that the system of housing finance had become infested with fraud? Every statistical indicator of fraudulent practice – growth and profitability – suggests otherwise. Every examination of the record so far suggests otherwise. The very language in use: "liars' loans," "ninja loans," "neutron loans," and "toxic waste," tells you that people knew. I have also heard the expression, "IBG,YBG;" the meaning of that bit of code was: "I'll be gone, you'll be gone.".
But nobody wanted to derail the gravy train. They should all be in jail, not because they're rich but because they're criminals.
 
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Show them you know what they stand for...
 
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Oh what up 'blessed father' you gonna rape s'more kids?
 
They're not ours ...
 
So, the Vatican came up with a novel excuse to insulate themselves from lawsuits relating to the priest sex scandal:
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Monday will make its most detailed defense yet against claims that it is liable for U.S. bishops who allowed priests to molest children, saying bishops are not its employees and that a 1962 Vatican document did not require them to keep quiet, The Associated Press has learned.

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Al Gore is fat
 
Krugman: How Will They Spin This?

So, via Joe Romn, the NASA-GISS data show that the past 12 months were the hottest 12-month period on record. Here's my plot of the temperature anomaly — the difference, in hundredths of a degree centigrade, from the average over 1951-80:

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miss usa 846am

This ought to make the wingnut heads explode.

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The people of Gaza just can't win.

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Brit Hume shrugs off oil gusher - "Where is the oil?"

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Southern culture on the skids

Alabama Agriculture Commissioner candidate makes awesome, terrifying campaign ad.

Dale Peterson's gonna come pump you full of birdshot you damned pansy communist.
 
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Look at it this way: you've got another year to save for that European vacation. "Britain's two busiest airports are to close shortly as a volcanic ash cloud drifts further south, threatening major disruption to many thousands of people. A no-fly zone imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority will shut Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports from 0100 BST until at least 0700 BST. Flights will also be grounded in parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Restrictions will be lifted in northern England, allowing Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds Bradford airports to re-open. Prestwick Airport will also no longer be within the no-fly zone from 0100 BST, although a spokeswoman said it would not be receiving any flights for another 12 hours."
 
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Arrest Condi
 
War Criminal Henry Kissinger continues to elude justice for mendacious recommendations to illegally bomb civilian populations in Southeast Asia, killing hundreds of thousands of non-combatants.

But he's an amateur compared to the demonic female who called George W. Bush "my husband."

The whole brilliant, horrifying post is long but well worth your time, and ends with a list of things you can do to stop Condi Rice from profiting from torture even more than she already has.