...
I'm not sure this is the kind of attention MSNBC and Joe Scarborough were expecting to garner after Scarborough had his hissy fit. But, again, they're the ones who decided to turn a couple of tweets into a major battle.
...
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Morning Schmoe ...
Big dumbass crybaby:
Eating the messenger ...
I love octopus.
Cured and served in a salad would be fine with me.
Paul is not a normal octopus. He is a psychic one. He has managed to predict every Germany game correct through out this years tournament.
...
Cured and served in a salad would be fine with me.
Chutzpah ...
It was okay for George Bush to appoint a reckless asshole (John Bolton) during a congressional recess, yet heaven forbid a Dem does it.
The Republicans have blocked more of Obama's appointments than those of any President in recent history. If the GOP can't run the government, they're gonna make sure nobody else can either.
In April, President Obama nominated Dr. Donald Berwick to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Many Republicans in Congress have made it clear in recent weeks that they were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points.
But with the agency facing new responsibilities to protect seniors’ care under the Affordable Care Act, there’s no time to waste with Washington game-playing. That’s why tomorrow the President will use a recess appointment to put Dr. Berwick at the agency’s helm and provide strong leadership for the Medicare program without delay.
...
The Republicans have blocked more of Obama's appointments than those of any President in recent history. If the GOP can't run the government, they're gonna make sure nobody else can either.
Great thanks to Oliver Willis for the link.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Facing the Future as a Media Felon on the Gulf Coast
LA Progressive, links and photos:
The chilling money line is "the Coast Guard, under the direction of BP".
No shit. Go read the rest of this. BP is such a powerful entity in the Gulf (and Congress) that it thinks it can get away with anything, and it may be right.
The United States Coast Guard considers me a felon now, because I “willfully” want to obtain more photos like these to show you the utter devastation occurring in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, as a result of the BP oil catastrophe. If the Coast Guard has its way, all media, not just independent writers and photographers like myself and Jerry Moran, will be fined $40,000 and receive Class D felony convictions for providing the truth about oiled birds and dolphins, in addition to broken, filthy, unmanned boom material that is trapping oil in the marshlands and estuaries. We don’t have $40,000 to spare, and have had to scrape the bottoms of our checkbooks as is to hire boats to take us to the devastation the Coast Guard, under the direction of BP, does not want you to see.
The chilling money line is "the Coast Guard, under the direction of BP".
Working and reporting from American Gulf Coast is starting to remind me of working in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where photos and recordings must be hidden on secreted flash drives at border crossings, and where interrogation by drunken border patrols certainly follows if one does not provide a proper “explanation” for visits to certain regions. In 2007, I was accused of being a “spy” and held by the secret police in Goma, DRC, for having video of illicit “conservation” activities. Now the same sick feelings of fear, anger, and helplessness is stalking my mind as I try to plan for the next round in south Louisiana. Never in my lifetime could I imagine that a foreign company could dictate my ability to move freely and openly in American territorial waters (my em).
What’s next? Will media be totally shut down? Will we face assassinations like journalists do in Rwanda? I realize assassination is over-the-top, but when it crosses your mind, even for a moment, you know something is terribly wrong.
No shit. Go read the rest of this. BP is such a powerful entity in the Gulf (and Congress) that it thinks it can get away with anything, and it may be right.
Livin' the iLife
Apple aficionados will love Morford today.
Enjoy.
Sweet Jesus in minimalist design heaven, the iPad. No mouse, no extra cables, no mandatory hookups, no startup times, installation DVDs, RAM guides, accelerators, system folders, font drivers, extensions, launch daemons, Kerberos plug-ins, jpg helpers or compression schemes, no diphthong upslingers pongo hurling goober kerfuffling flipblasters.
Just a devastatingly simple, utterly gorgeous sheet of glass and aluminum that does almost everything your average computer user needs it to do, with a couple finger taps and a happy sigh, sans roughly 500 of the usual steps, clicks, guides, installations, file extensions and so on. It's understandable at a glance, intuitive as candy, enjoyable as a porn star in summertime. You know, just like the Mac has always been, except not really.
Enjoy.
And if you think ...
We have a problem now, just wait a while:
If Big Oil's previous commitments to the environment are any indication, let alone their safety record, this will almost certainly come back to bite us in the ass.
More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one – not industry, not government – is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.
...
If Big Oil's previous commitments to the environment are any indication, let alone their safety record, this will almost certainly come back to bite us in the ass.
Climate change ...
I tell ya, just anecdotally, in the last 6 months, we've had the worst blizzards in decades this winter and record shattering heat this week (I just love working on a hot car in 110 degree heat). Our storms last longer and are more intense, and tornadoes (though not many) make regular appearances where, when I was a kid, the suggestion of a tornado on Long Island would have men in white suits chasing you with a butterfly net.
While I probably know as much about climate science as the average politician and take the word of the experts (real scientists as opposed to conservative loudmouths), a lot of deniers believe the way to fix the problem is to kill the scientists.
As Philippe Cousteau said not long ago:
The way it looks to me, and I see no change of opinion coming anytime soon, the environment will always come in a distant second next to making a buck.
While I probably know as much about climate science as the average politician and take the word of the experts (real scientists as opposed to conservative loudmouths), a lot of deniers believe the way to fix the problem is to kill the scientists.
...
A sobering new report warns that oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.
...
As Philippe Cousteau said not long ago:
... So it’s not a question of can the oceans can take any more. The ocean can’t take any more. They couldn’t take any more fifty years ago. The question is, when are we going to stop?
...
The way it looks to me, and I see no change of opinion coming anytime soon, the environment will always come in a distant second next to making a buck.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
¡Cuba Sí!
The Hill
'Bout fuckin' time. The sanctions against Cuba haven't made sense for decades except to woo a bloc of (now) older voters in Florida.
Best of luck with this bill, Senators, and pick me up a '59 El Camino or a '57 Ranchero while yer down there.
A bipartisan pair of senators said Thursday they have the votes in the Senate to lift the longstanding U.S. ban on travel to Cuba.
Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) said they believe they have the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster and lift the travel ban to the communist-held nation south of Florida.
“It makes no sense to punish the American people by restricting their right to travel simply because our country is trying to punish the Cuban government,” Dorgan said in a statement.
"Decades of the same policy will get you the same result. We're hopefully about to change that and open up a new world for the people of Cuba," said Enzi.
'Bout fuckin' time. The sanctions against Cuba haven't made sense for decades except to woo a bloc of (now) older voters in Florida.
Best of luck with this bill, Senators, and pick me up a '59 El Camino or a '57 Ranchero while yer down there.
Who's winning in Afghanistan?
Hint: Not the U.S.
Antiwar Newswire
They know better. Threaten the Chinese today, expect a million troops tomorrow. No quarter, no rules of engagement, and soon no Taliban. Or much of anyone else. Think 'locusts' and 'wheat field'.
Clever, these Chinese. Smooth sailing for them while the U.S. and the West dashes its blood and treasure on the rocks.
Who's the fool?
Antiwar Newswire
As US fights, China spends billions to build a footprint in Afghanistan
As the U.S. and its NATO allies fight to stabilize Afghanistan, China has expanded its economic footprint with several high-profile investments and reconstruction projects. In 2007, it became the country's largest foreign investor when it won a $3.5 billion contract to develop copper mines at Aynak, southeast of Kabul.
For China, the reward is not only expanded trade and access to natural resources, it's also security for its western flank, the vast Xinjiang region that is home to a separatist movement of minority Uighurs, said Liu Xuecheng of the China Institute of International Studies, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's think tank.
Afghanistan is "well aware that the U.S. is likely to only be a temporary ally so it's looking for a longer-term partner in the region. China would be an obvious choice," said security analyst Christian Le Miere, editor of Jane's Intelligence Review.
China has also benefited by focusing its investments on Afghanistan's relatively safer north, while much of the U.S.-funded effort is in the more violent south and east regions. The Taliban is not known to have made threats against Chinese involved in Afghanistan.
They know better. Threaten the Chinese today, expect a million troops tomorrow. No quarter, no rules of engagement, and soon no Taliban. Or much of anyone else. Think 'locusts' and 'wheat field'.
"The Afghan people prefer this gift from China. The Chinese side has done streets, roads and clinics in Afghanistan," Karimi said. "They didn't bring their troops here."
Liu, the Beijing think tank analyst, said he doubted China would ever send troops. "The war is not China's war," he said. "... But economically and socially, we can try to help."
For Afghans such as Akbar the merchant, China is an example to be emulated.
Clever, these Chinese. Smooth sailing for them while the U.S. and the West dashes its blood and treasure on the rocks.
Who's the fool?
What is this "work"?
I know my productivity has been down:
Hey, everybody's got their priorities. Heh ...
BERLIN - Told they couldn't watch the World Cup on the job, Italian autoworkers went on strike - conveniently, a half-hour before game time. German companies set up office viewing areas to keep employees from defecting on game days.
...
One study suggests the German economy, Europe's largest, loses more than $8 billion in productivity, about 0.27 percent of gross domestic product, during the monthlong tournament. Surveys in Britain predict output losses there of $1.5 billion to $2.3 billion.
...
Hey, everybody's got their priorities. Heh ...
Dark Age ...
I said, somewhat in jest, in my last post that we are at the dawn of a Dark Age. D-cap sees it too:
We couldn't get to the Moon if we wanted to anymore. We're breeding a race of morons and mystics who believe America is still a great nation just because Hannity, or Beck, or Lintball, told them so. We believe only what we want to hear and anyone who speaks fact or reality is labeled a traitor, a socialist, a communist, or a fascist. We're more interested in some stupid 'reality' show (How much time have so-called 'news' organizations spent on the latest Bachelorette dustup, Lebron James, or Kobayashi?) than we are in how we got into this mess and how to fix it.
When news and entertainment inhabit the same wide, gray area, when mysticism is put on the same level as science fact, when a good chunk of the nation believes we should coddle the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor, and when we look for scapegoats to pin our problems on instead of looking in the mirror, we can consider ourselves finished as a great nation.
...
What these very well paid talking heads (who probably couldn't tell a florence flask from Florence Henderson) failed to bring up during their lament on the state of American ingenuity is that our lack of innovation, creativity and scientific leadership is a deeply endemic problem that cannot be fixed by a bunch of suggestions or changes in policy. Our plunge in to the abyss of stagnancy has been years in the making. And this drop off the cliff is constantly being reinforced by long-term neglect to our education system, the rise and loud voice of evangelical religious dogma (which generally hates science), an obsessive fixation on money, a youth culture which values fame above everything else and the media's need to sell soap as opposed to selling development.
...
We couldn't get to the Moon if we wanted to anymore. We're breeding a race of morons and mystics who believe America is still a great nation just because Hannity, or Beck, or Lintball, told them so. We believe only what we want to hear and anyone who speaks fact or reality is labeled a traitor, a socialist, a communist, or a fascist. We're more interested in some stupid 'reality' show (How much time have so-called 'news' organizations spent on the latest Bachelorette dustup, Lebron James, or Kobayashi?) than we are in how we got into this mess and how to fix it.
When news and entertainment inhabit the same wide, gray area, when mysticism is put on the same level as science fact, when a good chunk of the nation believes we should coddle the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor, and when we look for scapegoats to pin our problems on instead of looking in the mirror, we can consider ourselves finished as a great nation.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Headline of the Day
More than one-quarter don’t know who US gained independence from
Swell. The Dead End Quarter, self-proclaimed "patriots" to a man, strikes again. I guess it doesn't really matter if they know even a smidgen of our history as long as their ideology is, er, right.
Yeesh.
Clean up. Die. Hurry!
Business Insider, links and videos:
Fat chance. There are plenty of peasants who can die early in the service of BP's bottom line.
Are you sure that you want to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? In a previous article we documented a number of the health dangers from this oil spill that many scientists are warning us of, and now it has been reported on CNN that the vast majority of those who worked to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska are now dead. Yes, you read that correctly. Almost all of them are dead.
In fact, the expert that CNN had on said that the life expectancy for those who worked to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill is only about 51 years. Considering the fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now many times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, are you sure you want to volunteer to be on a cleanup crew down there? After all, the American Dream is not to make big bucks for a few months helping BP clean up their mess and then drop dead 20 or 30 years early.
Perhaps BP CEO Tony Heyward and other high ranking BP executives could roll up their sleeves and go down there and start cleaning up all of that toxic sludge.
It's their mess, so let them clean it.
Fat chance. There are plenty of peasants who can die early in the service of BP's bottom line.
Quote of the Day
From a good rant on the Supremes by Mark Karlin:
Being a GOP senator who denounces Supreme Court "judicial activism" is like being a vegetarian who owns a slaughterhouse.
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
Afghanistan: Deal With Taliban Reportedly in Works
They would help government locate Al Qaeda; in exchange government would destroy all art, jail all women and burn down all schools.
Democratic Party Field-Testing Mid-Term Election Slogans
Best so far:
1. It could have been a lot worse.
2. Standing up to the GOP, except for those who aren’t.
3. Not crazy about the war, but....
4. BP: totally not our fault.
5. Sweeping financial reform, sort of.
New Research: Jesus May Not Have Died on Cross
Christians will be advised what changes, if any, to expect.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)