Saturday, October 17, 2009

Headlines - Saturday

Kudos to the dickless wonders that have managed to kill the famous Cottonwood wolf pack from Yellowstone. 

Please sign this petition to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, urging him to withdraw his flawed delisting rule that prematurely removed vital protections for wolves in the northern Rockies region before they're all dead:

https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1586&JServSessionIdr002=3buqq7fcf2.app217a

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There's a rep for that! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_IAN081P8I&feature=player_embedded

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"We don't have groceries," Bonds said. "We don't have any place to shop. There's no hospital. We don't have an emergency room. You're still having Katrina illnesses, Katrina deaths from the stress of it all. They're bringing back fast-food places, but we don't have clinics, we don't have schools. We don't have good water," she said. "I buy water."

"I wish I could just write a check. ... There's this whole thing about the Constitution and Congress ," the president said. "One of the interesting things you find out about being president is everybody will attack you for spending money, unless you're spending it on them." 

Fun fact: Obama writes check to Pakistan for $7.5 billion dollars. And there was no problem writing checks for the banks when they needed money for handing out bonuses.  

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Adam Storch, vice president in Goldman Sachs' Business Intelligence Group, is assuming the new position of managing executive of the SEC division!
 
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$400 a gallon
 
The Hill

The Pentagon pays an average of $400 to put a gallon of fuel into a combat vehicle or aircraft in Afghanistan. (holy shit!)

"It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome," Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense panel, said in an interview with The Hill. "When I heard that figure from the Defense Department, we started looking into it."

The Pentagon comptroller's office provided the fuel statistic to the committee staff when it was asked for a breakdown of why every 1,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan costs $1 billion. The Obama administration uses this estimate in calculating the cost of sending more troops to Afghanistan.

The $400 per gallon reflects what in Pentagon parlance is known as the "fully burdened cost of fuel."
Guess whose 'burden' it is. That's right - ours. No wonder those Repug senators didn't want rape victims to be able to take their rapists to court!

Maybe if they get somebody besides Halliburton to haul it we could get it down to $350. 

No cost analysis available yet as to the 'fully burdened' cost of officers' whiskey in Afghanistan. $400 a gallon's probably pretty close if they don't get the good stuff.
 
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Turner said he has learned to live with less, yet he still bemoans the decline in his net worth.

"To drop out of that league, that was hard to do," Turner said. "I've had the experience of being on top and riding the roller coaster down again, nearly to the bottom. You know, if you economize and don't buy new airplanes or long-range jets, or that sort of thing, you can get by on a billion or two."

What the world need now is New York Times profile of the woes of billionaires who used to be multi-billionaires.

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And I want a lear jet and a pony

Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants a minimum of 40,000 more troops (60,000 to 80,000 preferred) for Afghanistan. The problem is that nobody has figured out where all of those warm bodies will come from. 40,000 is for McChrystal's "medium risk of losing this fucking war" option.

The Marines can send 7,400 more. The Army can send 25,000 more. That's it and they are tapped out.

So what can be done? They can go back to 15-month tours, but that almost broke the Army in Iraq and the generals don't want to do that again.

Close the German bases and send everyone? Yank everyone out of South Korea and tell the North Koreans that any attack will be met with a nuclear response (Japan will just love the idea of radioactive fallout)?

Park all of the F-22s in the Arizona desert and send the people n those squadrons to Afghanistan? I think there are nine F-22 squadrons, give or take. I've no idea how many zoomies are in a squadron, but even if it is 500, that's only another 4,500 people and they'd need to go to the six-week "trigger-pulling" school.

Park all of the aircraft carriers? There are 3,000+ sailors in the ship's company of a CVN, but you'd still need enough to keep it maintained to some basic level and to provide for security and fire watches. The reactor spaces still need to be manned, so maybe you could reduce by half? That gives you 15,000, maybe more if you lay up the CVN's escorts. Then countries around the world start to freak out and alliances start to shift. And then you have to figure out where you are going to get the air support that was flying from the CVNs.

Gen. Westmoreland wanted another 250,000 troops in 1968 (over the 500,000+ already there) and that is what ultimately broke the back of the Vietnam War. McChrystal's desire for 80,000 more troops may very well do the same for the Afghan War. 
 
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Cancel your weekend 'leaving the house' plans!

Just filled with buckets and buckets of satire! "2011 Obama's Coup Fails is an action packed, satire-filled war game that takes place in the not-so-distant future. Right after the November 2010 election, to be precise. It has been said that America would never be destroyed by a foreign power. It does seem our biggest enemies are not from outside our borders. Could the scenario described above ever really happen? If current events keep transpiring as they are, then 2011 Obama's Coup may in fact become a dark chapter in American History." MORE »

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I suppose that compensation was also paid to hat-makers in the early 1960s or to buggy-whip makers 100 years ago.

F**k them. They've had no compunction at trying to manipulate the world oil market to maximize their cash flow. If the world develops that there is a lessened demand for oil and the price of oil drops and their cash flow dries up, then screw them.

Saudi Arabia has been selling crude for decades and they have had shiploads of cash to play with for decades. They have used the money to fund a massive welfare state and a religious theocracy. The last time I checked, over a quarter of all Saudi college graduates majored in "Islamic Studies", which may be nourishing for their souls, but that degree is as useful as a major in Underwater Basket-Weaving. They have done very little to build a national economy that is based on anything other than pumping dead dinosaur juice. The idea that we should pay them extra to do what they should have been doing since the 1970s, at the latest, is galling in the extreme.

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LeBron James wants to "dunk on" president Bush's ass

lebron-james

Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James is widely considered to be one of the best professional basketball players of all time, but in an interview in next month's Maxim magazine, he says his ideal opponent would be someone better known for clearing brush than shooting hoops. If given the opportunity to dunk on anyone in the world, LeBron says it would be George W. Bush's "ass":

[INTERVIEWER]: If there was one guy on the planet you could dunk on, who would it be? That teacher?

[JAMES]: If it doesn't have to be a basketball player, George W. Bush. I would dunk on his ass, break the rim, and shatter the glass.

FYI: Getting dunked on is considered an embarrassing insult in basketball terminology.

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Did the authors of a new Muslim conspiracy book steal documents from CAIR?
 
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An Obama White House means a super special 'war on Christ

Last year had its moments

Christmas seasons starts earlier every year, they say! At malls and stuff! They start selling Christmas things earlier every year! Ha ha ha it is the funniest trend. But what of its corollary, the War on Christmas, the wingnuts' seasonal proxy war to defend its precious nativism from the clutches of terrorists and House Democrats? It starts earlier every year, too, and is starting ultra-early this year, as we all know that this new "president" will try to pass legislation to abolish Christmas, its conifers, its temporary retail shacks, and the Christians themselves. Do you have any white grandmothers, and do they have AOL accounts? Because those inboxes are likely to have at least six or seven "FW: KENYNA COMMIE BAAMA 2 MURDER JEEBUS' PRESENTS DAY" sitting near the top of the tray, right now. MORE »

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Hey lobbyists! Big fire sale on votes at John Ensign's office!

Sex-having Sen. John Ensign hauled in a whopping $33k for himself and his Republican Party last quarter, down approximately $300,000 from the previous quarter, when he was still a virgin. This is great news for the corporates! Ensign's vote-selling fee is spiraling down down down to a farthing's worth: "Most of Ensign's contributions since news of the affair broke came from individual donors, although he did receive $1,000 from the BlueCross BlueShield Association in September, just as the Senate Finance Committee — on which he sits — was considering its health care bill." In a few months, John Ensign will be living in an Anacostia dumpster soliciting Dixie cups of urine and cigarette butts from Goldman Sachs in exchange for a vote against financial regulation. [Politico]

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Damn straight!

I saw this over at freeretardia, where obviously someone had a problem with it:

OBAMA: What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) Another way of putting it is when, you know, I'm busy and Nancy's busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess --- we don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way. (Applause.) Why don't you grab a mop, why don't you help clean up. (Applause.) You're not mopping fast enough. (Laughter.) That's a socialist mop. (Laughter and applause.)...
-- heh. From President Obama's remarks at some DNC thing in San Francisco yesterday.

 
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53 Republicans share gay sex fantasy

Only 53?

[Reprehensible twat] Steve King, R-Iowa, is once again leading the GOP in the same old dirty tricks.
You know how I know you're gay? When you're Rep. King, bringing in 52 fellow rethuglicans to sign a letter demanding the resignation of Kevin Jennings, the White House's "safe schools czar," after you've baselessly accused him of being "the poster-boy of NAMBLA."

Hmmm. I wonder what the new improved Repuglican Bible says about bearing false witness....

 
 

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