We just have pursuit of happiness
Happiest Nations Have Social Services, Healthy Environment, Good Schools & Health Care (U.S. Not On List)
The happiest nations in the world are almost nothing like the United States, according to the business website 24/7 Wall Street. Does the average person have financial security, government-backed health care, quality education, a healthy natural environment and a sane work-life balance? Those are the world's happy people, and you'll find them in economically stable social-welfare states such as Canada, Finland, Australia, Switzerland and Denmark. "The happiest people in the developed world get loads of social services without having to work too hard," says 24/7 Wall Street, which is named for the opposite of having a sane work-life balance. "Nations with long-term economic strength can also afford to support employment, education, and make health care widely available. The happiest countries seem to be places where there is a good balance of work and leisure time." The United States, obviously, does not make an appearance on this list of Wealthy, Happy Countries.
Why can't America have any happiness? Because the U.S. Declaration of Independence only allowed for the ineffectual pursuit of happiness, not the actual life quality of happiness. The richest 1% of Americans pursue happiness by taking everything from everybody else, while the average American pursues happiness by hating people in the same dire financial straits but with some superficial difference in skin color or religious background.
We can't think of a joke to end this. Truck Nutz? [24/7 Wall Street]
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Sarah Palin, in the only interview she's granted during her "One Nation" bus tour, claimed that the U.S. federal debt had grown more under Obama than "all those other presidents combined."
Watch her lie here.
If in 2008 someone had said that Obama's war policy would be more belligerent and costlier than another round of Bush's, nearly no one would have believed it. Bush started a preventive war in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands without any credible correlation to U.S. security, except perhaps a very negative one. He turned a hunt for bin Laden into an excuse to stumble around in Afghanistan at great cost without any clear idea of how the war and occupation were going to improve the situation there. He spent a trillion dollars, just in direct costs, and lost 4,000 American troops in these aggressive and endless wars.
Obama came along and promised to make it all better. But he hasn't.
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When Dominique Strauss-Kahn Met Michelle Obama...
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House Republicans are pushing back against Obama administration efforts to promote healthier lunches, saying the Agriculture Department should rewrite rules it issued in January meant to make school meals healthier. They say the new rules are too costly.
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Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) will launch his presidential campaign in New Hampshire today by declaring that President Obama "has failed America." Romney's speech is expected to highlight mostly economic themes.
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Since this allegedly happened to senior politicians, does this mean the US is prepared to bomb China in retaliation as the government suggested recently? Or was that just some random nut job talk that we've come to expect from Washington? Reuters
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"Just another five feet to the limo, Governor." "(Puff, wheeeeeeeze.) I don't think I can (huff) make it, Cory!"
... According to the Newark Star-Ledger, Christie landed in the state's $12.5 million helicopter just before the game began, buzzing over the trees in left field and distracting spectators. The GOP governor then got into a black sedan with tinted windows, which drove him about 100 yards to the baseball diamond.
You read that right. The fat fuck couldn't be bothered to waddle the 100 yards between the illicitly-appropriated chopper and the ball field.
http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2011/06/take-me-out-to-ballgame-in-style.html
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The revolving door lives another day. It does make one wonder about Gregg's defense of Wall Street in the past, though he's certainly not alone there. How is it possible to not see this as corruption?
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Ohio Republicans hate minimum wage so much, they intend to alter the state's constitution. Because minimum wage is just too much to pay someone for doing the worst of jobs.
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Andy Borowitz: How to Talk to Your Kids about Anthony Weiner's Penis
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Gee, this couldn't possibly have anything to do with sex-terrified freakazoids from the Vatican to Kansas refusing to fund education and condoms, could it? "An estimated 890,000 young adults from Nigeria and South Africa were infected with HIV in 2009, making it nearly 2500 infections every day, a new study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF} has said. According to the report released on Wednesday, young people aged 15-24 accounted for 41 per cent of the new infections among adults aged 15 or older. And a majority of these new infections occurred in 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria and South Africa accounting for one out of three of these new infections. The new report showed that globally young women made up more than 60 per cent of all young people living with HIV, a share which went up to 71 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa."
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'Media Whore' Sign Briefly Taped To Side of Palin's Rented Bus
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House Republicans "postponed a Wednesday vote on Rep. Dennis Kucinich's resolution to end U.S. involvement in the bombing of Libya because they were afraid it would pass." The House GOP will hold a meeting today to discuss the Demcratic congressman's resolution and may decide to bring it up in the future for a vote.
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Capitol Hill veterans are saying that President Obama's judicial and executive branch nominees will have to reach the Senate before summer recess if they are to have any chance of being confirmed. Nominees who aren't confirmed by then "likely will become tangled in election-year politics." Dozens of key posts remain vacant, and several nominees have pulled out because of the impasse.
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Firefighters in the city of Alameda, CA outside of San Francisco were forced to watch a man drown today due to a policy tied to recent budget cuts. First responders and more than 75 onlookers watched as the man committed suicide, drowning himself over the course of an hour in the San Francisco Bay. First responders were called to the scene. But according to interim Alameda Fire Chief Mike D'Orazi, his crews "did not have the training or cold-water gear to go into the water" because of 2009 budget cuts: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/01/233767/beccera-budget-cuts-firemen/
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GOP Can't Handle The Truth: Taxes Are Lower Under Obama Than Reagan
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Romney Wants Teen Girls To Know He Loves Those Mormon Vampire Books
When will middle-aged GOP Christian white working-class people embrace the billionaire Mormon elitist Mitt Romney? When teen-aged girls realize Mitt is "just like them," and not until! That's why Mittens went on the Today Show to let any teens who already dropped out of high school know that he loves "silly stuff" like the sexy abstinent vampires from the Twilight series of books and movies. Like all teen girls with goth tendencies — remember, Mitt spent his formative years in France, killing people in car crashes — Mitt loves to curl up under the comforter with his fellow Mormon Stephenie Meyer's soft-core stories about girls gettin' it on with guys even though nobody takes off their panties.
"I mean, I like the Twilight series. I thought it was fun," Romney said. "I don't like vampires personally, I don't know any, but you know my granddaughter was reading it and I thought, 'Well this looks like fun,' so I read that."
Yuck. What was Grandpa Mittens doing under his granddaughter's comforter at night? [CNN Political Ticker]
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Massachusetts does have a history of tornadoes, including the fourth-worst in recorded history. So this is not unheard of, but it's still unusual for the state to see such powerful tornadoes. This was the worst Massachusetts outbreak since 1953, when 94 people were killed. The last lethal tornado there was in 1995.
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President Obama held a meeting this morning at the White House to try and untangle the debt ceiling/budget hairball with the House Republican Caucus. One of the invited guests was Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA), who decided to boycott the meeting, claiming thus:
"I have respectfully declined the president's invitation to the White House today," Rep. Jeff Landry (La.) said in a statement. "I don't intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt."
With all due respect to Rep. Landry (not much), it's unhelpful to this nation for him to be completely closed-minded to any possible compromise or discussion of the issues. What is it exactly that he is afraid to know? Why would he choose to run away from a debate that concerns our national security?
Landry is, of course, a Tea Party freshman with high ideas about what he will do in his short tenure in Congress, and he seems to think he's going to dictate the terms of the hostage negotiations singlehandedly.
"Until the president produces a responsible deficit reduction plan, I'm not going to the White House to negotiate with myself. Our conference has put out for months where we would start the process," Landry continued.
To be clear, their conference has put out for months where they expect to start and end the process. They've been clear: Medicare must die or the debt ceiling stays where it is.
So what is this really about? Perhaps it's about the offshore drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico?
"For months, the Louisiana delegation has sent the president numerous requests to meet with him or his chief of staff concerning the de facto moratorium issued in the Gulf of Mexico, a de facto moratorium that has driven gas prices up and now threatens to derail economic recovery; the president hasn't even had the courtesy to write us a note back."
Oh, he haz a hurt. It wasn't enough that BP nearly destroyed the Gulf coast environment with their irresponsible approach to high-risk oil drilling. That mean guy in the White House didn't send a note back. So as a result, he will dig in his heels and pout?
Bottom line here? Landry is acting like a thuggish terrorist, holding the debt ceiling hostage over a courtesy note and Medicare.
I don't mean to sound picky, but I'm not sure if Rep. Landry fully appreciates the meaning of the word "respectfully." If the president of the United States invites a lawmaker to the White House for a policy discussion, and that lawmaker refuses to attend because he doesn't want to be "lectured" by a president whose policies he thinks have "failed," he's not being especially "respectful."
But putting niceties aside, Landry also seems confused about the rationale for his little tantrum. As the right-wing Louisianan sees it, Obama is responsible for "a huge burden of debt." I'm reminded of the recent analysis done by Chad Stone, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' chief economist, who posted this item showing the actual drivers of U.S. debt over a two-decade span.
Maybe Rep. Landry should look up the meaning of the word "respectful" in the dictionary before actually using it. He should also grow up and do what his constituents hired him to do. Represent.
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