Just a tad over 6,000 years, for the freakazoids. Move over, Lucy. A 4-foot - tall female nicknamed Ardi, who lived 4.4 million years ago in Africa, has replaced you as the earliest best known ancestor of the human species. Ardi's nearly complete skeleton is 1 million years older than Lucy's, pushing back the point when hominids - pre-human primates - are known to have split from the evolutionary line that led to chimpanzees and gorillas, an international team of scientists announced Thursday.
Last night Fox News continued its disregard for the facts in an attempt to smear the Administration's efforts to win the Olympics for the United States. In the past, hosting the Olympics has been a source of pride and unity for the country, but once again Fox News' Glenn Beck program has shown that nothing is worthy of respect if it can be used as part of a partisan attack to boost ratings.
RHETORIC: BECK SAID VANCOUVER LOST $1 BILLION WHEN IT "HAD THE OLYMPICS." Glenn Beck said, "Vancouver lost, how much was it? they lost a billion dollars when they had the Olympics." [Transcript, Glenn Beck Show, 9/29/09]
REALITY: VANCOUVER'S OLYMPICS WILL NOT TAKE PLACE UNTIL 2010. Vancouver will host the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games from February 12 – 28, 2010 and March 12-21, 2010, [...]For even more Fox lies, check out the latest "Truth-O-Meter" feature from Politifact that debunks a false claim about a White House staffer that continues to be repeated by Glenn Beck and others on the network.
More of this please. It's almost too bad that the only arrow in their quiver is boring old facts, but, unlike us, the WH has to maintain dignity and decorum. At least they used the term 'Fox lies'. About flipping time.
Note to Jesse Lee, the blog poster: Responding to Crazy Becky's lies, not to mention the rest of those lyin' wingtard sacks o' crap, is a full time gig. Congrats on the job security!
This is an idea that was proposed by the Russians years ago and then was not accepted. What has changed, you might ask?
Two things. First, Iran's new enrichment facility became public, which increased pressure on Iran to come to the negotiating table.
Second, there is now an American administration which does not deal with other nations as though the world community was a junior high school cafeteria and they were the cool kids. The days of senior American politically appointed diplomats spouting a childish line of: "They know what they have to do before we will talk to them" are over.
It may all fall apart, still, but at least people are talking.
Gov. Rick Perry's shake-up of the Texas Forensic Science Commission came two days before it was to hear from the author of a scathing report in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. That Friday session has been postponed indefinitely in the wake of Perry's new appointments. Story here.
I mean, if you are Rick Perry, why the hell not just do this? I mean, after all, the guy who was the HMFIC of the Tillman cover-up is now running the show in Afghanistan and playing political games in the media with the President, and no one seems to give a shit. So why not just do whatever you want? No one is going to make a stink about this except for some DFHer's, and then the villagers can just point at them and wonder aloud if this will be a good time for Obama to have another Sister Souljah moment with the pinko commies.
And if they do even mention this, the very next thing out of the mouths of our media elites will be… Ricky Ray Rector.
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Wall Street's Latest Trick
As you probably know by now (you have been paying attention, haven't you?), banks are required to retain a certain amount of capital on their books. The capital is there to keep them solvent even if their assets lose value, so the amount they're required to have depends on how risky their assets are. If they have, say, a bunch of crummy C-rated securities on their books, they have to maintain a full load of capital to back them up. But A-rated securities are less likely to lose value, so for those they only have to maintain 50% of the normal capital levels. And for AAA securities, they can get by with only 20% or less. After all, AAA securities are pretty unlikely to lose value. Right? http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/09/wall-streets-latest-trick
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Before Glenn Beck came along, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had been unsuccessful in converting other Christian fundamentalists to Mormonism. But with Beck, the Church now has its greatest apostle to the Gentiles since Brigham Young.
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"America is sick of you, Republican Party. You are a LIE FACTORY - that's all you ever do."
Alan Grayson isn't giving any ground, nor should he: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtra54pbcNw&feature=player_embedded
Grayson is awesome in this clip. He looks like an extra from The Sopranos, but he's smart as a whip, and he will not sit down and he will not shut up or be cowed by the likes of Michael Steele and Eric Cantor and the rest of the Republican fainting couchers. The Republicans ARE a lie factory, and their hypocrisy is positively jaw dropping. This is a party that has embraced the "birthers" and other crazies; a party whose own representatives have perpetuated the myth set forth by their Designated Idiot, Sarah Palin, that the government is going to exterminate old people...and now they've got their panties in a twist because a Democratic Congressman FINALLY has the balls to call them on their bullshit?
This should be a lesson to ALL Washington Democrats: When you actually challenge these bullies, they crumple like a Yugo.
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Nancy Pelosi would like to drag the Alan Grayson thing out for another hot sec, if that's cool with you
Nancy Pelosi wakes up every day and picks something to make worse. Today it is the ostentatiously minor "Alan Grayson Affair," in which Floridian Congressman Alan Grayson went sooo crazy at some Orlando Kinko's and came back with sassy hyperbolic poster-boards. Anyway, so Nancy Pelosi could have easily been like, "Alan: just mumble some bad-faith apology on Rachel Maddow or whatever and we will reimburse you for the Kinko's purchases." It being Nancy Pelosi, she of course did the opposite.
It's like, why should Alan Grayson apologize when other people—SUBTEXT: Republicans!—also have things to apologize for? How is that even democracy??
"If anybody's going apologize, everybody should apologize," Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference. "We are holding Democrats to a higher standard than their own members."
Oh and the Democrats want to socialize apologies now too.
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Benjamin Franklin's ugly great-great-great-great-granddaughter
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National Review writer wants to eliminate women's suffrage, Civil Rights Act
Frothy British Tory and leisurely National Review writer John "Salad Days" Derbyshire, most famous for being a pervert and excoriating students at Virginia Tech for not properly defending themselves against that gunman, has a new book coming out, just like every other asshole. Within this anger-pamphlet is a section called, "The Case Against Female Suffrage." Radio host and aged goblin carcass Alan Colmes recently asked Derbyshire to explain this section. Why does he hate nice ladies so much? Any other historic civil rights achievements he wants to dial back? etc. MORE »
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Wow. Lindsey Graham takes a jab at Glenn Beck: "Only in America can you make that much money crying."
Yesterday at the Washington Ideas Forum sponsored by the Atlantic, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sharply criticized "talk radio, MoveOn.org, the 24-hour news cycle" for the polarization in politics. He then specifically mentioned Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck:
Can you imagine writing the Constitution — you know, O'Reilly says Ben Franklin's giving in on something. Can you imagine having to do that in this environment? [Graham said]
Without missing a beat, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg next asked for Graham's thoughts on Glenn Beck.
"Only in America can you make that much money crying," Graham said.
Graham also claimed that Beck is "not aligned with any party as far as I can tell. He's aligned with cynicism. And there's always been a market for cynicism."
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People who live in glass whorehouses ought not to throw stones. CREW has filed an ethics complaint against David Vitter in Louisiana. They are going after his law license because he publicly confessed to a crime when he came clean about paying whores to dress his sick, perverted ass in diapers and discipline him. "By repeatedly committing the crime of soliciting for prostitution, Sen. Vitter violated the rules of professional conduct for lawyers and should be investigated and disciplined for his misconduct," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said in a statement. As CREW openly admits, it was prompted to file the complaint after what it saw as a hypocritical attack by Vitter against community organizer ACORN, several of whose members were recently caught on tape giving advice to a couple pretending to be a pimp and prostitute.
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Sketchy private security force becoming sketchier by the minute
TPM has been all over that story about the terrifying private security company that secretly bought a fancy public jail from a Montana town, so as to convert it into a War Facility. The head of the company is such a dirty criminal that the best title anyone can give him is "California-based grifter." And here, TPM has created a slideshow of screen shots from the American Police Force's website, which doesn't seem to work as well as it used to. The whole thing is hilarious. Lots of special-ops services, with guns! Try to remember the stupidest creep from your middle school class — he probably works here now. TPM
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Gee, ya think?
From the NYT:
"Senator's Aid to Mistress's Husband Raises Ethics Flags
Experts say that Senator John Ensign may have violated ethics
laws by helping an aide get work after having an affair with
his wife, BUT they're not really sure and are studying the entire subject
and re-examining what exactly "ethics" are, literally, in the whole literal
authentic sense, for clarity's sake and purpose." (sort of)
Really? Did we really need to pull in "experts" to examine this and make a determination?
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Republicon morals and values
Newsmax's military coup fantasy against the President was brought to you, in part, by the Republican National Committee.
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US military commanders hate America!
Retired generals and admirals say that Dick and Liz Cheney are a couple of assholes.
Trigger–happy psycho Dick Cheney and his harpy daughter Liz are scaremongering about the dangers of closing Guantanamo, say people who actually had the courage to serve.
"It's up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they're doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed," said retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army's Court of Criminal Appeals.
"We take a setback every time somebody, whether it's the vice president or his daughter comes out and says the things that they say," said retired Gen. David Maddox, a former Army commander-in-chief for Europe. "We have to get out there again and just keep pounding."
Hopefully in this case the general means actual physical, redmeatthudding asskicking pounding.
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Senate Committee for Sale
Pffft! I can't keep this up. It's fun for a while, but eventually you're laughing too hard to keep going. Yeah, there are a lot of thoughtful Senators who take their oath to the Constitution seriously, who believe that they have to work in the best interests of the people. But there are also a lot of whores who'll vote whichever way they're paid to. The best interests of the people be damned. Being a Senator is a pretty sweet gig, after all. The pay is good and you only have to run for reelection once every six years. In between, there's fundraising, but some have that all figured out. You can nickel and dime yourself to death with small donors and community organizations or you can go for the big score and save yourself a lot of time.We can see this in the Democrats who voted against a public option on the Senate Finance Committee this week. The most liberal amendment offered by Chuck Schumer was defeated 15-8, with five Democrats defecting to vote against it. Of those five, all have received funding from the health industry - to the tune of $19,219,860. That's a lot of fundraising dinners these guys get to skip.
So do you think the normal federal employee gets this type of health care? I bet not. If we don't get healthcare insurance reform (with a STRONG public option) for the average American, can we at least give the politicians an insurance voucher so they can participate in an individual benefit market since it works so well?
And boy, I'd love to see what type of insurance McCain could purchase on his own even with a voucher considering his pre-existing conditions.
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Their opposition is reflexive
Merit, validity of argument, the will and needs of the American people...none of that matters to the republican minority. They oppose healthcare reform because it is a Democratic policy and they therefore oppose it and will continue to do so, even if the Democrats gave them every single thing they claim that they want. Mitch McConnell has not only admitted as much, he is boastful about his role in condemning to death 122 Americans every single day. Mitch McConnell and his obstructionists are fifteen times more effective at killing Americans every single year, year in and year out, than the terrorists who attacked us eight years ago were one time.
The Senate Republican leader made clear on Wednesday that his party, despite all its griping over the public health insurance option, abortion-funding or health care for illegal immigrants, is simply and flatly opposed to the "core" of the Democratic health care reform proposal.Satisfying every Republican demand short of scrapping the entire project, said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), would still not capture GOP support.
"Senator Kyl and some of the others have talked about some of the things that are happening in committee," McConnell told reporters, referring to Senate Finance Committee Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona.
"But the core point is this: At the end of the day, if the government plan is either in the bill or out of the bill, whether they will be able to argue successfully or not whether tax funds are gonna be provided for abortion, whether or not they will be able to argue at the end that dollars for health care for illegals is in or out, what we do know is what the core of the bill is going to look like. We know that for sure," he said.
And the bottom line, said McConnell, is that Republicans don't like the bill at all.
Can someone explain to me why some Democrats insist on negotiating with the republican minority in congress when they are, for all intents and purposes, the most lethal domestic terrorist organization this country has ever seen, and has a long track record of whipping up political violence in this country. I thought we, as a nation, refused to negotiate with terrorists and that we prosecuted enemies of the state. And if these banal cowards don't qualify, how much further do they need to go? How many Americans do they need to kill in a year before they are recognized for what they truly are?
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A judge cited national security concerns in ruling Wednesday that the CIA does not have to release hundreds of documents related to the destruction of videotapes of Sept. 11 detainee interrogations that used harsh methods.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he believed he had an obligation to let the CIA director decide what should be released when it pertains to methods used to make uncooperative detainees divulge information.
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/judge-says-cia-can-cover-up-destruction-of-interrogation-tapes/
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When enough time has passed that we can look back at the Guantanamo era without shrinking, we will realize collectively that the only prayer the republic had of surviving was a small cadre of JAG officers who stood firm for the Constitution at the expense of their own careers. One of those officers who deserves to have a statue erected in his honor is Air Force Major David Frakt, the attorney for former detainee Mohammed Jawad who was arrested at age 12 and held at Guantanamo for over 7 years. Frakt has advocated tirelessly for his client, sending multiple memos to Defense Department and military leaders asking them to account for what a military judge called "abusive conduct and cruel and inhuman treatment" of his client. Jawad, who was arrested when he says he was 12 years old for allegedly tossing a grenade at U.S. military, was moved from cell to cell 112 times during a 14-day period to disrupt his sleep patterns, according to military documents. Frakt said he believes the treatment constituted torture, violated the Geneva Convention, war crime laws and Defense Department regulations. "Why has no one--no one has been held remotely accountable for this," Frakt said in an interview with Raw Story. "This is a mandatory investigation. It's not optional, you can't just sweep it under the rug...but they did as far as I can tell."
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National Parks threatened by climate change Some of this nation's most spectacular natural treasures, our national parks, are at risk of disappearing or being irreversibly altered by climate change as glaciers melt, trees die, habitats are altered and animal species leave or die out. The report from the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council says that the most important action needed to protect parks is to reduce the emission of heat-trapping gases, mostly from burning fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline. It also calls on the federal government to take other steps - such as expanding parks and creating wildlife migration corridors.
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It's like I slapped my own family in the face
The government has finished its prosecution of a third Marine for an incident in which four unarmed, surrendered Iraqi prisoners were murdered in Fallujah in 2004. After two others were acquitted, Sgt Jermaine Nelson, who had confessed six different times to executing one of the prisoners, was convicted – of dereliction of duty, in a plea agreement in which the government dropped the murder charge. He will be reduced in rank to lance corporal, serve no time and not be dishonorably discharged. His lawyer said he got such a good deal because he was so cooperative with investigators, although he had refused to give evidence against his sergeant last year (the gov did not go after any of the three for contempt of court in their pact not to testify against each other). (My posts on that trial here and here.)
Said Nelson, "I gave in to the peer pressure and now I have to live with it for the rest of my life... I let down the Marine Corps, which is my family. It's like I slapped my own family in the face." Adding, "Oh, and it's also like I shot that one Iraqi guy in the face." I may have made up that last part.
He went on, "If the Marine Corps will allow me to stay in, I'd love to stay in."
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