Headlines - Saturday September 4

Happy Unemployment Day weekend, America!

 

The hot topic on Google News tonight is "Unemployment." Something about Labor Day Weekend and 9.6% official joblessness, we guess. The last 40 years or so haven't been so hot, for America. But at least we had good music — hard times used to be especially good for popular and folk song! READ MORE »

 

 

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So Bush is golfing for the children of dead or disabled Americans he sent off to war. How compassionately conservative of him.

 

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It's bad enough that we got stuck with the bill for rescuing our own financial criminals, like the Giant Vampire Squid, and now some arguably corrupt foreign turdlet wants us to fix his folly for him?

 

The United States is being asked to fund another bank bailout. This one however is in Kabul. This might not sit well with Americans who continue to watch billions spent in Iraq and Afghanistan as states shutdown critical programs.

 

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Obama: "Oil Rigs Today Don't Generally Cause Spills".

 

Fun fact: Mariner Energy has been involved in a string of at least 13 offshore accidents since 2006 in Gulf of Mexico waters -- including a blowout and four fires -- that were investigated by the Minerals Management Service (now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement). Possible violations were reported in at least seven of the reported accidents and Mariner has paid at least two separate civil penalties related to accidents, records show.

 

The day the explosion, Mariner had been participating in a public rally demanding more drilling. Why? Because it's so doggone safe, of course! There's nothing quite like corporate organized public fury.

The fire is a setback for the oil industry, which has been arguing that drilling in the Gulf is safe and that the BP explosion was a rare event. It came only 24 hours after companies including Mariner had staged a rally in Houston against a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf. About 5,000 employees had been bussed in for the rally.

Barbara Dianne Hagood, a spokesman for Mariner Energy, told the Financial Times on Wednesday: "I have been in the oil and gas industry for 40 years, and this [the Obama] administration is trying to break us. The moratorium they imposed is going to be a financial disaster for the Gulf coast, Gulf coast employees and Gulf coast residents."

The good news for the environment is that is sounds like there will not be an oil leak since they were not yet drilling

 

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Wisco: If corporations are people, they're very stupid people.

 

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Glenn Beck rally goers: Do we look racist?

 

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They have gotten away with too much for too long, now they are uncontrolable, and they will remain uncontrolable until all support and protection is cut off. "Jewish settlers across the West Bank have vowed to begin construction in more than 60 locations, posing a direct challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he returned home from Thursday's first round of direct peace talks in Washington. ... Settler spokesman Naftali Bennet said construction would begin immediately in settlements across the West Bank, a direct violation of the freeze that Netanyahu imposed in November. That freeze expires on Sept. 26, but Bennet said settlers had been moved to action after to a spate of shootings at settler vehicles this week."

 

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War Porn. Literally. "A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the purchase of child pornography online turned up more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department--including some with the highest available security clearance--who  used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But the Pentagon only investigated a comparative handful of the cases, Defense Department records show. ... The cases turned up during a 2006 ICE inquiry, called Project Flicker, which targeted overseas processing of child-porn payments. As part of the probe, ICE investigators gained access to the names and credit card information of more than 5,000 Americans who had subscribed to web sites offering images of child pornography. Many of those individuals provided military e-mail addresses or physical addresses with Army or fleet zip codes when they purchased the subscriptions."

 

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Fox news - taking down America one lie at a time

This John Cole rant needs to be heard.

Just got back from getting my haircut. I go to a barbershop where it is mostly old-timers, and I'm not exaggerating when I state that I am routinely the only person this side of 70 in the waiting room, and it goes without saying they are all white. There was a long line today of about 5 men, so I got to hear all sorts of things about the country I did not know.

One gentleman went on an extended rant about the economy and the country. Did you know that "If Obama had his way we would all be on welfare, and who knows who would pay for it when that happens? This country is just getting worse and worse every day. Things are so lopsided now with Obama taking over everything." And on and on and on he went, and I just sat there and bit my lip.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and when he said "You can't even pray anymore. Christians get stopped from praying, but Muslims get to pray," I lost it.

"When was the last time someone stopped you from praying," I asked.

He seemed startled- "Me, never. But they…"

I cut him off- "And when was the last time anyone stopped anyone you know from praying?"

"Well, I don't personally know of anyone…"

"So who exactly is stopping people from praying?"

And then he went on a rant about saying the Declaration of Independence at the Jefferson "monument." I just rolled my eyes and kept to myself.

I made a vow, though. In the interest of politeness, I've ignored this stuff in public before. I figure I will do my ranting online. But not any more. Any time I am confronted with this nonsense in the future, I am aggressively and publicly challenging these idiots. I can't take it any more. The damage Rupert Murdoch and those like him have done to this country needs to be countered.

Let me say it again…bin Laden would kill to have the ability to inflict as much harm on the U.S. as Fox News does on a daily basis.

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There is a wonderful program in place at a bible camp in Massachusetts: the children get phone calls…from God. He tells the kids to proselytize for him, to be just like Jesus, and if they're really, really good, that he'll swoop in some day on his magic sleigh and harvest their souls to bring to heaven with him (OK, that last bit is an extrapolation). I like this plan, though. It sets the kids up with concrete expectations that will be shattered later, and then there's always the wonderful day when Mommy and Daddy explain that that really wasn't God, it was just Pastor Greg pretending to be the voice of God, just like he does every Sunday.

This program is so good that it has won Atheist Ireland's really, truly True Believer™ of the month award.

 

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Restoring Truthiness: http://www.colbertrally.com/

 

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It's going to take a few 9-figure lawsuits before it finally stops. Make no mistake: trial lawyers are the only thing standing between you and this.

 

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Dems demand GOP list cuts to cover tax cuts for the rich fuckers they really serve "Democrats pounced Friday on a top Republican's suggestion he knew of plenty of spending to cut in order to pay for the extension of high-end tax cuts. ... If Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) thinks he can identify $700 billion in cuts to offset the costs of extending Bush tax cuts, Democrats said, he should specify where. ... "If veterans are going to have to give up their benefits to pay for the Republican leadership's tax breaks for the richest 2 percent of Americans, then they deserve to know that immediately," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spokesman Ryan Rudominer said. ... The Democratic attack reflects the larger gambit over taxes both parties believe they face in the fall's elections. Republicans think running on an extension of all the tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year barring congressional action, makes for good politics. Democrats, by contrast, believe running against the high-end tax breaks - and against the kind of steep cuts that Ryan's plan would involve - are just as good a message. "

 

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Mercede Johnston finally addresses this major Dancing with the Stars thing, and it's basically the best and most journalistic blog post ever. 

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Poor Obama has nowhere to celebrate 9/11 this year :(

We all know that 9/11 is the best holiday ever. It's like Christmas and the Fourth of July and Halloween combined! Dick Cheney is alive right now just because he willed himself to see another 9/11. But according to Politico, who have labeled the situation "awkward," like a 19-year-old coed, Barack Obama has nowhere to go this year. The site in Pennsylvania where that one plane ran into the ground? Michelle and Laura Bush are going to be there, so that 9/11 place is for girls. Eww! 9/11 cooties! Obama can't go to the Pentagon, because he went there last year, and everyone knows that that one isn't important enough to visit twice. As for the World Trade Center site, well, umm, there will be anti-mosk protesters there. READ MORE »

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After getting caught killing a bunch of civilians, Blackwater formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government contracts, The New York Times reported Friday.

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