Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Headlines - Tuesday

h/t Jake:

PETA's "Animal Record" report for 2008, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, shows that the animal rights group killed 95 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year.  During all of 2008, PETA found adoptive homes for just seven pets. Seven out of the 2,216 they took in. http://www.petakillsanimals.com/

We're all familiar with the problem of too many homeless pets, but PETA takes in about $31 million every year. That's around $2.6 million a month. Or $615,000 every week. With that kind of money, don't you think they should be finding the odd stray kitten a home, instead of devoting so much of their income to hassling old ladies in fur coats?  

 
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Prank: Senator Max Baucus' Vote For Public Option For Sale On eBay

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Today's long read is Meet the Hazards, an essay that breaks down the bank bailouts issue in an easily understood way.
 
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h/t Dick
 
Raise your hands if you're surprised by this: Between 2002 and 2008, while al-Qaeda regrouped, only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid actually made it to the Pakistani military - the rest was diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India while Chimpy McStagger was president.

"We don't have a mechanism for tracking the money after we have given it to them," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Wright said in a telephone interview.

WELL WHY THE BLEEP NOT?

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As Marx predicted, so it has come to pass. Unrestricted capitalism is the snake that eventually eats itself after it has finished off everything else. Don't believe it? Here's an example.

As it began, so it ended. The Triumph of the Will. The Will to Greed. Having stripped the company, they dumped it on desperate employees afraid of losing their jobs, dumped it with crippling debt at a 100% profit.

This is Big Business in America. And it wants us to be proud.

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If there was music in her soul, it was Toby Keith singing 'How Do You Like Me Now?'. And it was so loud, a fellow teabagger couldn't stand it.

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McDonald's To Open A Restaurant Inside The Louvre - or, as it's known to American tourists, "Can we just look at the Mona Lisa and get outta here?" 

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Craz-e-burger: the Midwestern treat 

The 'Craz-E Burger' comes topped with bacon, cheese and a buttered Krispy Kreme donut for a bun.

1,500-calorie 'Craz-E Burger': beef patty, bacon and cheese on Krispy Kreme donut

Meanwhile, nearly 1 billion are starving worldwide.

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Hosing the poor

People who live on the margins of the economy often cannot get bank accounts. They can get pre-paid debit cards, which are like gift cards, in a way. In a way, though, they are not, because the banks and the other financial ghouls who sell those cards have added a host of fees which add up to millions and millions of dollars.

Millions of dollars, all harvested from people who are least able to afford it. The financial vampires have figured out ways to add dozens of different fees to those cards, all designed to strip cash from the working poor.

Bastards, all of them.
 
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Boy, this woman is just itching to go to jail.

Birther Queen and alleged lawyer Orly Taitz continues to push her luck and ratchet up her conflict with Judge Clay Land, who in dismissing one of her birther lawsuits had also issued an order to show cause why Taitz should not be held in violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (the rule against frivolous lawsuits and pleadings) and be subject to a $10,000 fine.  Taitz has fired back with a motion for Judge Land to recuse himself from the proceedings due to his allegedly pervasive bias, his "blitzkrieg like rulings" and, best of all, his ex parte meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder.  The evidence for this meeting is Holder's alleged presence  in a coffee shop across the street from the federal court house in Columbus Georgia on the day of a hearing in the case.  Taitz "backs up" the allegation of the improper meeting with an affidavit by a witness named Robert Douglas who claims to have seen Holder there, describing him as of man "with a trim upper lip mustache, not large of stature, and general olive complexion."   

Eric Holder is 6'3" -- I don't think that fits with in anyone's definition of  "not large of stature."  If you're going to be batshit crazy and file false affidavits with the court, you might at least do the minimal homework involved in keeping the document at least facially credible. 

I am guessing that the Judge is not going to be amused by this.

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Chris Hedges - Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia

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The world's worst-kept secret

What you are about to learn is a secret - a secret that the United States and four other nations, the makers of hydrogen weapons, have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect.

The secret is in the coupling mechanism that enables an ordinary fission bomb - the kind that destroyed Hiroshima - to trigger the far deadlier energy of hydrogen fusion.

The physical pressure and heat generated by x- and gamma radiation, moving outward from the trigger at the speed of light, bounces against the weapon's inner wall and is reflected with enormous force into the sides of a carrot-shaped "pencil" which contains the fusion fuel.

Keep reading: http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2009/10/worlds-worst-kept-secret.html

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After experiencing genital breeze, tea party leader pledges war against "zebra" Obama

Lynn Dartez
Chair, New Iberia Tea Party

Dear Mr. Dartez,

It's a terrible shame so many patriots soften their language when they write about Barack Obama. Too often, they coddle him by addressing him as "Hussein," "BO," or "America's Hitler" when they could be using a stronger racially-based slur like you do here (scroll down):

Our country is suffering greatly since the Zebra and his cronies have stolen America.
Of course, it may be that you're just angrier because of the horrible sin that is being committed against you now:
I will not go down without a fight. I can feel a genital breeze blowing now.
Lord, I hate being blown with a genital breeze. It cools the crotchal area, driving one's little soldier to hunker down in the warmth of his hairy spidey hole, and thus invoking even more laughter and ridicule from our wives than normal.

I suspect you're right about the Obamunists generating this wicked wind, and I understand your zeal to destroy them:
Be warned Zebra Be Warned. We are coming when you least expect it and God is leading the charge as we march to his voice.

My sword stands ready and I stand tall just awaiting the call. For many have gone before us and died keeping our country safe. We will not give up to you Zebra. I will be there that day you are taking out and dealt with all of your cronies beside you.

Here my words Zebra for God is on our side. Jesus is the light upon our feet. Onward to Victory I shall march. God's Victory is sound for I know my destiny when I die. I fear not death, but God's wrath up you I do see Zebra.

For All Our great America Christian Patriots shall soon see the evil purged from our land. The Lake of fire that you will receive as Judgment for your crimes for eternity. Your father the devil will be on your side burning with you Zebra.

So all I have to say now is prance around the stage while you can. For soon your world will crumble down around you.
Until then, I suggest we put our private johnsons in thermoses.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

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On Afghanistan And Iran

Let's be clear about what the right wing will be doing over the remainder of the year: they'll be telling us that Obama is wasting time on health care and spending our tax dollars on things here at home, when he should be spending his time bombing the crap out of Iran. There should be no mystery about that. And there should be no surprise from the White House that this will be the line of attack from the "just say no" crowd" heading into 2010. The GOP and the screamer base of the party needs another war to unify and focus their ragtag collection of extremists heading into 2010, and the president needs to be ready and combat this.

George Will gives a peak of this in his column today, but I don't think he's signaling what others think, who believe that he's taking the standard GOP line of blaming Obama in advance for failure. Will has already come out for leaving Iraq now, and for cutting to the chase and not making a nation-building commitment to Afghanistan. So what Will is really quibbling with today is that Obama has already enunciated what appeared to be his Afghanistan policy back in March, and yet he now wants to revisit it when the losses start piling up. I agree that Team Obama should have come into office knowing what they wanted to do in the region given the characters he had in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and shouldn't now be telling General McChrystal to cool his jets while the strategy is being developed. What Will is advocating is for Obama to make a decision to run counter-terrorism in the region by remote control, drone, and Special Forces, and ditch any notion or commitment to nation building. And I agree.

But let's also be clear that our soldiers are dying in Afghanistan right now because of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's wet-dream pursuit of Saddam's head, and their dereliction of duty in abandoning the Afghanistan mission before Al Qaeda and the Taliban were defeated. Having said that, and as is typical with everything Bush has touched in his life, Obama has inherited Bush's mess and must deal with it.

As for Iran, talking is good, but the right wing will blast him for doing so because the "just say no" crowd of screamers in this country needs a war with Iran heading into 2010. There is no doubt that Iran has lied in the past and will lie in the future about its nuclear program, just like the Bush administration lied and botched things up in the region. But before Obama and Hillary start talking directly with Iran, they need to ask pointed questions not of Iran, but of China and Russia to find out if they are part of the solution, or should be outed as part of the problem. And it would help if Team Obama pointed out that the same folks who ignored health care, Iran, and Afghanistan for eight years now want to blame Democrats for the mess they in fact left him.

Unless of course that approach runs afoul of the "let's not look backward" mantra, in which case Obama has no one to blame but himself for a replay of the health care debacle.

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The bible has a well-known liberal bias - and Conservapedia has a new project
 
The far right wing has long rested their authority on Biblical truth — how can you possibly question them if they speak for God, after all? There is one little problem, however.

The Bible is suffused with liberal bias. A lot of the Old Testament isn't bad, but the New Testament, when Jesus makes the scene, suddenly takes a turn into commie-land, with it's talk of helping the poor and camels and needles and so forth. Jesus was obviously misquoted all over the place.

So what to do? When your claim of godly authority rests on your interpretation of God's holy word, but God's holy words contradict your desired ends, you're in a bit of a pickle. There is a solution, though: rewrite the Bible and change the liberal bits! For this reason some of the deranged editors at Conservapædia have launched The Conservative Bible Project, which will purge the wimpy stuff and return it to it's authentic roots, as a book that could have been written by a dumb-as-a-stick American Republican NRA member who wants to kill communists and A-rabs.

Keep reading: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/conservapdia_has_a_new_project.php

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Occupying Afghanistan Does Nothing But Make America LESS Safe

Didn't we already have a so-called troop "surge" in Afghanistan? Well
it obviously didn't work. Because now General Stanley McChrystal,
whose last appointment was head of Dick Cheney's secret international
assassination ring, is back pressuring President Obama to double down
again on this strategically insane bet. The policy was doomed from
the beginning, as we all knew, has done nothing but exacerbate hatred
of America, and the more troops we send the more terrorists there
will be who want nothing but revenge for the military occupation of
their own country.

And for what? To prop up the patently fraudulent Karzai regime, that
just stole an election with massive wholesale vote rigging. If our
goal was to bring American style democracy to a remote and backward
conglomeration of tribal warlords, considering our own electronically
rigged elections, perhaps that is exactly what we have done. We are
on the wrong side. We need to get out and cut our losses, NOW. HR2404
calls for an exit strategy. HR3699 prohibits funding for increasing
our military force in Afghanistan.

Out Of Afghanistan Action Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1007.php

If you were against the war(s) when Commander Codpiece was in charge, you gotta be against them now too.......

869 soldiers killed in Afghanistan, 4,348 in Iraq.

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Is it asking too much to tell Beijing to go Cheney themselves? Whether or not you like the Dalai Lama, it's none of China's business whether or not a US president meets with him. They're the first country to go ballistic when anyone drops a hint about their internal policy so it would be nice is someone forcefully shoved back when they attempt to dictate who the US meets. Heck, it would be nice to see Obama push back against anyone other than the "left of the left" who brought him to Washington. This will be the first time since 1991 that a US president has failed to meet the Dalai Lama while he visited Washington.

In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks.

So Bush started the appeasement process by traveling to Beijing for the Olympics and Obama continues. Following Bush policies - whether with Wall Street or now with China - is now starting to look like a trend.

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There's an emerging trend in business these days, which involves leaving the Chamber of Commerce because of its archaic policy on climate change. Today, Apple quit.

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This is good news: Germany's most popular women's magazine is banning professional models from its pages and replacing them with images of "real life" women instead.

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The torture tapes - looks like we might one day see Rumsfeld's handiwork.

And speaking of his handiwork, a story about 'disposable people.' 

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From Blue Girl: Senator Al Franken is proving his mettle as a United States Senator and leaving no doubt that he is absolutely cut out for the job and is doing it for the right reasons and the right people - the American people, not corporations.

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Bad news for St. Louis sports enthusiasts: A certain man wants to buy your awful football team, the Rams, and he's known for being disagreeable! It is fat weird person Rush Limbaugh, from the radio. As you may recall, Rush was briefly involved in professional football before. ESPN hired him in 2003 to join its weekly pregame show panel. He did this for a full one (1) episode, during which he just said a bunch of racist stuff before quitting. NBC Sports

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Racist Florida doctor guy is now among top conservative anti-reform voices

Buried somewhere in the middle of the thick "Republicans + E-mail = Racist Anti-Obama Stuff" file is the July case of Dr. David McKalip, the Florida neurosurgeon caught circulating this objectively racist witch doctor image of Barack Obama. McKalip was a major "Tea Party E-mail List Guy" and an active player in the American Medical Association, but after being so racist he announced he would keep a lower profile in the anti-reform movement — even though "the image has nothing to do with my feelings or thoughts on any race or culture." How's that working out for him? Oh, he's just traveling the country to speak at rallies and meet with Republican congressmen. MORE »

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Going Rogue: an American laughingstock

Late-night comics have fun with Caribou Barbie's new book -

"Sarah Palin's 400-page memoir is going to be released on November 17th, and it's called 'Going Rogue: An American Life.' And critics say that it starts out okay, it gets really exciting and then confusing, and then the last 100 pages are blank." -- Jimmy Fallon

"The book costs $24.99, but it has a $5,000 jacket." -- Jimmy Fallon

"People in Alaska are looking forward to Sarah Palin's memoir. They're already calling it 'The Book to Nowhere.'" -- David Letterman

"'Are You There Russia? It's Me, Dipshit'" --
Bill Maher

"Sarah Palin's new autobiography doesn't come out until November, but it is already No. 1 on Amazon. And if you go to the website, it says, 'People who bought this book also bought no other books in their entire life.'" -- Jimmy Fallon

"It's a big, huge book. But when you go into the store, you can use that big book to step up so you can reach a better book." -- David Letterman

"But the book has got a lot of beautiful pictures of Russia that she took from her front porch." -- David Letterman

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Glenn Beck is such an asshat even our allies in England are taking their money elsewhere:

"We have withdrawn all Waitrose advertising from the Fox News channel with immediate effect and for all future TV advertising campaigns."

Heh.

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Why I am against the death penalty - volume 294,830

The governor of Ohio on Monday granted a reprieve to two men facing execution, as his state re-examines lethal injection procedures in the wake of a botched attempt to put another inmate to death.

The announcement comes after the state tried for two hours to execute condemned murderer Rommel Broom on September 15, but executioners were unable to find a vein to administer the lethal injection, despite 18 attempts to insert a needle.

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/ohio-halts-two-executions-after-botched-lethal-injection/

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There's affirmative action, then there's affirmative action.  Sonya's no silent Clarence.  "A recast Supreme Court kicked off its new season Monday, with novice Justice Sonia Sotomayor immediately taking center stage. In just an hour, the court's newest justice asked more questions than Justice Clarence ("Who has pubic hair on my coke?") Thomas has asked over the course of several years. Sotomayor's aggressive role in a Fifth Amendment case, in turn, underscored how she could put her own stamp on a court whose 2009-2010 docket is still taking shape."

 

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