Monday, December 14, 2009

NASTY TOAD LIEBERMANN VOWS TO DESTROY HEALTH CARE BILL

So it comes down to this: Joe Lieberman got his widdle feelings hurt, and so Joe will do anything to get back at the mean liberals who hurt his feelings - even if it means hundreds of thousands of people have to die without health care.

Doesn't that make him a sociopath? And doesn't that make the Democrats co-conspirators?

WATCH:



Read full story.....

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THE PRIORITIES OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA


Clearly the MSM has their priorities out of whack. Here is how they rank the news:

Number One Story: Tiger Woods and his philandering ways

Number Two Story: Sarah Palin is back in Alaska

Number Three Story: Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon

Number Four: Israel may nuke Iran

Number Five: The United States may help Israel thus causing us to be involved in yet another war

Now those are the top five stories. Is there something I am missing here or is there really something wrong with the way the news is prioritized? Note that the Afghanistan war is not even mentioned. I listened for a whole day and never heard the subject broached. Sorry, but I think this is fucked up.

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THINGS WE COULD LEARN FROM THE IRISH PARLIAMENT

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Here's my annual "bah, humbug!" post.


Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am not bashing the Christmas holiday itself. I am what you might call a “non-believer”, but I really have no problem with celebrating what is supposed to be a purely Christian holiday. I have said before that if I were a Christian, I would probably be a tad annoyed at what the holiday has become as well. And that is what I am really annoyed about.

Pressure. That is really what this holiday has become. There’s pressure to find the perfect gift, to bake the perfect pie and cookies, to have the perfect Christmas with your perfect family. Why? Because corporate America wants to sell you stuff. And not just ANY stuff. A lot of stuff and most of it expensive.

I remember when Christmas commercials were a lot about kids toys and maybe a commercial for an electric razor thrown in for good measure. (“Even our name says Merry Christmas!”)

What are the predominant Christmas commericials these days? From what I see, they are for luxury automobiles and a lot of very fancy and expensive looking jewelry. How many people really go out and buy luxury cars for themselves and their spouses at Christmas? And this is at a time when it is estimated that one in 8 kids in America is getting support from food stamps. Where unemployment is running in the double digits. Luxury cars for Christmas? I guess the well off will buy their gifts no matter what else is going on around them, and that this advertising is aimed at them. People without jobs or getting assistance from food stamps aren’t going to have much purchasing power, so the advertisers seem to have acknowledged that fact and just about abandoned the lower and part of the middle class altogether.

The Christmas ads that really burn me are the ones for jewelry. I really dislike ostentatious displays anyway, and big, fat diamonds are about the best way to show that. Talk about a totally worthless expenditure of money to support an industry that has a corner on the market. That aside, I am really annoyed by the implication that buying someone a really bright, shiney bauble is the ultimate in romance. All these people in these commercials are young and beautiful, and they act like they came out of a romance novel. Tell me, what guy in his right mind would go out in the middle of the forest and wrap a living tree in lights, just so he can spring a diamond necklace on his girlfriend? And that assumes that he has a REALLY long extension cord or lugged a car battery out there as well. I think that these ads are really targeting the lazy bum who really isn’t normally too keen on keeping his wife’s or girlfriend’s feelings close to his heart and sees that buying jewelry would be a nice, easy (albeit expensive) way to immeidiately get back in his wife’s or girlfriend’s good graces. The women in these commercials always, without fail, are just awestruck and have this look on their faces that they would do absolutely anything for this guy who just bought her this piece of junk.

My favorite holiday, I think, is Thanksgiving. It hasn’t been completely taken over by crass commercialism. This is mostly because there aren’t any gifts involved. If there were, you can bet that Corporate America would immedialely jump in there. Christmas should be like Thanksgiving, with maybe a few gifts but witbout any pressure. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Emphasize the “merry” and “little.” Celebrate family. And your religion, if that is part of it for you. But do not pressure yourself into living up to some ridiculous ideal concocted by Madison Avenue to sell you an every increasing array of very expensive crap that you probably can’t afford.

Cross-posted from Barking Rabbits.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Blame the victim-Republicans never learn

Subprime lending was a significant factor in our present economic crisis. There was money to be made by securitizing loans and from both ends on loan originations and there is plenty of blame to go around.

Both political parties are guilty as well as the FED.Certainly greed also figures in, from the folks on the finance end to the buyers to the rating agencies. There was a bubble and a frenzy to make $ with people thinking home prices would never come down.

What continues to frustrate me are Republican efforts to put an ideological spin on the matter and put the lions share of the blame on liberals and minorities. This just isn't true but their spin persists.

The most prevalent tale is blaming the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act. If you listen to Michele Bachman it goes something like this:

The CRA forced the banks to make subprime loans to minorities and levied heavy fines if they weren't willing to make those bad loans. The bankers didn't want to do it but were afraid of racism charges from ACORN so that's what caused the Subprime Crisis.

The only problem is, none of what they say is true. The CRA was set up to prevent redlining,the process of not making loans to qualified people who lived in poorer neighborhoods. Theory was, if the institution is willing to take their deposits and savings it should be willing to provide the proper services that are provided in more affluent areas. By definition the intent was for the loans to go to qualified people.

The CRA only applies to depository institutions so excludes mortage brokers and investment banks from its purview. It has NO ability to levy fines, all it can do is offer a poor CRA compliance report which would possibly affect a bank if it was being sold or merged.

About 20% of subprime loans came from CRA institutions. These had a significantly lower default and foreclosure rate. According to a FED audit 6% of high priced loans to low income areas were CRA institutions, indicating those areas were not targeted by covered banks. Only a single CRA institution was among the top 25 Subprime dealers.

The next big lie is that Bush and John McCain were leading a charge to regulate FNMA and FMAC in 2004 but the Democrats stopped it. Generally it's Barney Frank leading the charge plus the Democrats voting as a bloc and filibustering.

Ok, your first clue should be-Bush and McCain ? Neither man is particularly sound in economics,and seeing how all but a handful of economists were still cheerleading at that point it's really hard to credit those two with being prescient about the economy.

Nevertheless there was a bill S.190 which was sponsored by Chuck Hagel and later co-sponsored by McCain. It was indeed dealing with regulation, specifically dealing with accounting fraud which had plagued a number of housing agencies, among them FNMA and FMAC. It was to take them out of HUD's oversight and establish a new regulating agency for the five institutions. The bill was introduced in January of 2005 to the House Banking Committee. The bill was then forwarded on to the desk of Rick Santorum in July of 2005 following a party line vote with 11 Republicans in favor and 9 Democrats opposed. Simple majority is all that's needed in committee.

There it died a quiet death. There was no filibuster, it was never sent to the Senate. Also, if the Republicans would look at the timeline they would understand they had 55-44 control of the Senate during this period so Santorum could easily have submitted S.190 .

Why did it die ? Who knows ? Probably cause it was a bad bill. It called for FNMA/FMAC to sell the loans held in their own portfolio, thus tossing even more toxic assets into the financial market. It also raised the Jumbo loan limits for the Agencies from 417K to 500-something.
But it was NOT blocked by Democrats, and it was not intended to regulate subprime loans but rather internal auditing procedures.

I would explain it to our two friends in the picture above but they just enjoyed listening to Glen Beck explain these things much better than I can.

THE NECESSARY LITTLE THINGS.....

The HYPNOTOAD is now in my Microsoft dictionary. No more red lines, no more interruptions, no more error messages. Just the HYPNOTOAD! ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD!!

MEET THE HARMONICA MAN

From time to time I come across a story that is just too good to pass up, a story not of death and politics, but of the kinder more gentle worlds around us. This is one of the stories, and I thank my friend Jill for sending it to me. Watch:

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Friday, December 11, 2009

HAIL ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD!!




MadMikesAmerica supports the HYPNOTOAD! ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD! My God what is happening??

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BOMB SNIFFING "RINGO" SAVES MARINES IN AFGHANISTAN


Reporting from Forward Operating Base Geronimo, Afghanistan -- It's a rare day when a Marine gladly depends on a dogface.

But in the Marines' efforts to remove the threat of roadside bombs buried by insurgents, one of their best weapons is the keen nose of a 3-year-old black Labrador named Ringo.

Ringo is credited with finding 10 improvised explosive devices in the last six months while on route-clearance patrol with Combined Anti-Armor Team 2 of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Ringo sniffs the ground for the presence of explosives. When he finds something suspicious, he sits down near the spot, allowing Marine technicians to dig carefully to uncover the buried bombs, which remain the top killer of U.S. troops.

On two recent occasions, Ringo's nose falsely detected hits. But the Marines are quick to forgive him. On another patrol, he found explosives that proved to be the first in a chain of bombs. Without that initial discovery, the other bombs might have gone undetected, his two-legged buddies said.

There are other bomb-sniffing dogs accompanying Marines in the onetime Taliban stronghold of Helmand province, but Ringo has found more bombs than any of his canine colleagues.

Ringo's handler, Lance Cpl. William Childs, 21, of Santa Cruz, will soon return to Camp Pendleton, his deployment finished. Ringo is also scheduled to be brought back home, where he will be assigned a new handler.

Both will then redeploy to Afghanistan as part of the troop increase announced by President Obama.

Calm and friendly, Ringo is like any other Lab: He likes head pats and chin scratches.

But unlike others of his breed, when he goes roaming off-leash, it's with a determined intent to find trouble.

And when he points out an explosive device, his big reward is playtime with his favorite chew toy -- and the gratitude of an entire team of best friends.

Tip o' the hat to Vigil

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THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL









This is Nancy's Rosie, a Florida dog who is not accustomed to the cold!

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Critters' Day: An Important Warning about an Imaginary Animal...

I just wanted to warn you all about a species of toad, it has bizarre powers that I'll go into in a minute. It's about 20 pounds in weight, tan to orange and brown in colorati-
-ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD! ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD! ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD! ...

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Not with a BANG but *whimper*...

The 'public option' in HCR dies as the Speaker allows it to pass through her hands and we as a country will grow further into national debt over bad health care costs. This is heartbreaking from a Democratic President and Democratic House / Senate. It dampens one's resolve to Hope... at least with these politicians... not a pair of balls or ovaries in the whole effing crowd of them!
Read on with a drink in your hand....


In keeping with Gwen's post [as opposed to writing another on the same subject] here is an interesting observation that adds a bit of perspective to the Senate’s decision to compromise by dropping the public option: The new CNN poll’s internals show that the public option is more popular than the Senate health care proposal by a whopping 17 point difference.

The poll finds that only 36% favor the Senate proposal, versus 61% who oppose it.

By contrast, the poll finds that 53% favor the public option, versus 46% who oppose it.

Thirty-six percent for the Senate bill. Fifty-three percent for the public option.

It would be hard to find a clearer expression of how badly the need for a super-majority in the Senate is perverting democracy.

One other interesting tidbit: The spread between Dems and Republicans has tightened dramatically. Only 40% say the country is better off with Dems running Congress, versus 39% who pick Republicans. And Americans trust Dems over Republicans to make major changes to the health care system by only three points, 43%-41%.

Unless I’m missing something, that means the percentage of Americans who favor the public option is significantly higher than the percentage who trust Dems to handle health care or want Dems running Congress.

[Further elucidation / update to the disposition of HCR in the media - public:]


sigh.....

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I just love this fellow...

Love him love him love him... and dare I say... cracker proud of him!  (Oh! isn't that a beaut?)  Chris Matthews, on the other hand, gets on my nerves more and more....

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Wednesday, December 09, 2009

SENATOR HATCH: ANYONE WHO WANTS SINGLE PAYER IS BRAINLESS


Utah's pompous Right wing idealogue, Senator Orrin Hatch, on an MSNBC interview just a few minutes ago said that those who believe single payer health care is effective are brainless. He went on to say that we just need to "look" at the countries that have it. Well, clearly this quackenbush hasn't done his homework. Those many, many countries with single payer are miles ahead of the United States when it comes to health care and you can access it without going bankrupt. Clearly he is uninformed. It is no wonder that America was so despised when the Republicans were in charge. After all Orrin Hatch, a United States Senator, just declared dozens of world governments and their millions of citizens who love their single payer health care "brainless." Now who is really brainless in this scenario?

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Sometimes Dead is Better Then The Rest

During the current climate of unrelenting dissatisfaction with politicians in this day and time a few voters took it upon themselves to cast votes for a dead candidate over thirteen live ones. Politicians in America are are indeed a group in which there is little trust to be found as we are finding out in the United States Senate these days. In Birmingham, Alabama where they had a mayoral race to replace indicted mayor Larry Langford "There were 14 names on the ballot, but Ernie Dunn died last week of what were believed to be natural causes. The ballots already were printed when Dunn died. He still received 13 votes." (Tuscaloosa News, Wednesday, December 9, 2009)
Maybe we should consider some of our better politicians from the past and run them for office for the upcoming 2010 elections. Just a thought.

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Tuesday, December 08, 2009

China turns to Madison Avenue for an image makeover -- latimes.com

Its official, we are royally mega-screwed. Our new lords and masters have turned to Madison Avenue to convince us that buying toxic crap that kills our pets, children, and ourselves is fun, easy, and a benefit to all mankind. Of course such a conclusion will be backed up by all the business channel sycophants and Tom Friedman who will no doubt gleefully use such material in his new book espousing glorious globalization/free trade/flat earth capitalism.

I'd have a drink but I have to go to work in a couple of hours. Check out the links:

China turns to Madison Avenue for an image makeover -- latimes.com

Reporting from Beijing - Plagued by recalls of toxic toys, poison pet food and other products, and facing rising trade barriers for its exports, China is taking a page from the American corporate playbook. It has hired a Madison Avenue ad agency to help burnish its image.

In what is believed to be Beijing's first global ad campaign, a television commercial now airing on CNN in the U.S., Asia and Europe portrays satisfied consumers enjoying Chinese-made goods. It also touts the notion that China's manufacturing prowess benefits nations around the globe.

The 30-second spot using Western actors is set against a soft-rock melody and shows the ubiquitous "Made in China" label on a series of products -- with a twist. A jogger laces up running shoes whose tag reads "Made in China with American sports technology." A refrigerator is stamped with "Made in China with European styling." Two teenage girls dance at a bus stop listening to MP3 players labeled "Made in China with software from Silicon Valley." And a model vamps for the camera in a slinky dress that's "Made in China with French designers."

A voice-over in American-accented English ends the ad by saying, "When it says 'Made in China,' it really means 'Made in China, made with the world.' " Not a single Chinese face or factory appears.

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SUICIDE OR MURDER AT GITMO??


The US military has long maintained that the deaths of three detainees at Guantanamo Bay in one night in 2006 were suicides, but to the authors of an exhaustive report on the incident, it looks like anything but.

One question that the authors of a report (PDF) from the Seton Hall University Law School have is just how -- and why -- three people who hanged themselves would have managed to stuff rags down their throats before they died. Another question is why neither the guards on duty nor the paramedics who showed up were interviewed; or, for that matter, why the paramedics who showed up didn't even ask the guards what had happened.

On the night of June 9, 2006, three detainees at Guantanamo's Camp Delta were found hanged in their cells. The US military initially described their deaths as "asymmetrical warfare" against the United States, before finally declaring that the deaths were suicides that the inmates coordinated among themselves.

The Seton Hall report questions virtually every major element of the Pentagon's story, and suggests a cover-up of the events of that night. But, lacking a clear picture of what happened, the report has nothing to offer as to what it was that was covered up.

The report's description of the military investigation into the matter suggests a less-than-exhaustive review:

The investigation ... leaves many unanswered questions. Three years later it is still unclear how such coordinated conduct could have occurred, much less how heavily supervised detainees could have been dead for more than two hours before they were discovered. Both the time and exact manner of the deaths remain uncertain, and the presence of rags stuffed in the detainees‘ throats is unexplained. Negligence of the guards seems to have been ruled out by the absence of any disciplinary action by any military personnel. Although some of the guards were formally warned that their original statements were suspected to be false or that they were suspected of failing to follow direct orders, no guard was ultimately charged with either making a false statement or being derelict in his duty....

There is no explanation of how each of the detainees, much less all three, could have done the following: braided a noose by tearing up his sheets and/or clothing, made a mannequin of himself so it would appear to the guards he was asleep in his cell, hung sheets to block vision into the cell—a violation of Standard Operating Procedures, tied his feet together, tied his hands together, hung the noose from the metal mesh of the cell wall and/or ceiling, climbed up on to the sink, put the noose around his neck and released his weight to result in death by strangulation, hanged until dead and hung for at least two hours completely unnoticed by guards.

The report notes that three detainees were on the cell block together for less than three days prior to their deaths, making some sort of suicide pact between them unlikely. It also notes that the guards were ordered not to give sworn statements about what happened that night; that the investigation was unable to determine which guards were on duty that night; and neither the prison and tower guards nor the paramedics on the scene were interviewed for the investigation.

"The investigations were themselves contrary, not only to best practices for investigations of serious matters, but also failed to conform to minimum standards in several ways," the report states.

"It's inconceivable that three prisoners could do this without anyone noticing it," said Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux, in a Huffington Post interview with constitutional scholar Scott Horton. "We would have assumed that investigators would have run simulations or contacted experts. The [Naval Criminal Investigation Service] investigation did not address this question, or if it did it was discussed in the portion of the report that has been redacted."

Denbeaux stated:

The most innocent explanation I can come up with that comports with all the facts is that this is Gitmo meets The Lord of the Flies and the Stanford Prison Experiment: no one really cares about the rules. Even in that reading, the NCIS investigation is a cover-up of a gross dereliction of duty for which nobody was disciplined, leading to the deaths of three men.

Read the complete Seton Hall School of Law report here (PDF). Read the interview with Denbeaux here.

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