Yes, I like The Kinks, the way they get along reminds me of my own family. But with talent. And who doesn't understand lyrics that says things like
I'm on a low budget I'm not cheap, you understand I'm just a cut price person in a low budget land Excuse my shoes they don't quite fit They're a special offer and they hurt me a bit Even my trousers are giving me pain They were reduced in a sale so I shouldn't complain They squeeze me so tight so I can't take no more They're size 28 but I take 34
snip
I'm shopping at Woolworth and low discount stores I'm dropping my standards so that I can buy more Quality costs, but quality wastes, So I'm giving up all of my expensive tastes. Caviar and champagne are definite nos, I'm acquiring a taste for brown ale and cod roes
Duffy was on the KFOG morning show the other day and she rocked. No monitors or band and it was awesome. Amy Winehouse has some competition in the throaty voice category. Here's Duffy's official music video. By way of YouTube. Of course.
Well, I guess it's pretty clear why Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown) is leaving CSI. Heroin? Ecstasy? Cocaine? Asleep in your car at 5 in the morning? What the heck has been happening in his life to go off the deep end like that?
What went up, must come down. It's a race to the bottom except the bottom is nowhere in sight. Ownership society is code for indentured servitude. As Tennessee Ernie Ford so eloquently sang
You haul Sixteen Tons, whadaya get? Another older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store
According to Bush, the dumbest president we've ever had, the economic downturn is Congress' fault. No mention of the tax cuts to people who didn't need them. No mention of how corporations have outsourced good paying jobs and left behind Wal-Mart wages. No mention of the trillion dollar surplus the nation used to have before his wild spending sprees. No mention of his objection to helping homeowners to keep their homes. No mention of his failed mission to find Osama been Forgotten and its follow-up, let's screw both the American and the Iraqi people under the guise of protecting us from nonexistent WMDs. No mention of his objection to raising fuel efficiency. He doesn't want to open the Strategic Oil Reserve because he doesn't think that will lower the price of gas and besides we might need it in case of a terror attack that's he's hoping will occur sometime before the next election, but he is willing to consider cutting the 18 cent gas tax. Like that's going to make a difference. Everything is Congress' fault. His solution is to encourage oil production in the US and to build more refineries. Oh goody, more money for his buddies. I guess we know whose side he's on. And it isn't the average American citizen.
Cuba commutes death sentences to 30 years to life. How civilized of them. Maybe we could grow up and join civilization too.
The Senate is debating how to make the skies safer and less congested. With the economy tanking and airlines going out of business the congestion will take care of itself. Safety could be increased by regular inspections, better training, higher standards for mechanical work and accurate scheduling.
How bad is our economy? South American cocaine traffickers are sending their product to the European Union instead of to America. We just don't seem to have as much disposable income. The war on drugs has nothing to do with it, but the war on the middle class does. It shouldn't be long before other commodities follow suit.
I had the pleasure of seeing Calexico in a private concert at Bimbo's 365 and they were wonderful. A multicultural band with members from Germany and the southwestern USA who perform a wide variety of music.
If the situation had been reversed, Sean Bell would have received the death penalty. Oops, he already did. The cops had no identification; fifty bullets flew in the darkness, 31 of which were fired by the same officer; the victims had no weapons and the cops still aren't at fault. Okey dokey.
Compared to most other big cities, New York police officers rarely fatally shoot anyone.
Unfortunately, every time this happens, the next officer killed in the line of duty receives even less sympathy and more than one person will hope it is one of those who is guilty to everyone but the judge and those who believe that a badge and a gun are the ultimate authority.
I remember when I was taking the test for LAPD and my dad said they wouldn't take me because I wasn't violent enough. I didn't understand then, but I definitely understand now.
Yup, he's black. Wesley Snipes has been sentenced to three years for tax evasion while 60,000 federal contractors owe almost $8 billion in back taxes and nobody is bothering them and then we pay them for the next job. Three years for misdemeanors of the white collar kind but Republicans and their pet companies regularly get away with campaign finance or taxpayer fraud. What kind of BS is that? Oh, the judge wants to make him an example. If it was anywhere besides the United States this would be unflipping believable.
John Mellencamp has a way with words. This may be from 1993 but he could be singing about today.
They call me Junior I live here on the street I earn two hundred dollars a week I'd like to say "Hey, thanks a lot" I know I'm missin' something But I don't know what it is That I don't got
I sit here watchin' The people down below I try to imagine The places they may go I don't know I stay home a lot I know I'm missin' something But I don't know what it is That I don't got
CHORUS: I see the world through the TV Guide What a safe place for me to run What a small little man I am I'm afraid of everything From golden rules to airplanes What a small little man I am
They call me Junior I'm caught up in this hell Sometimes I feel better But I never do feel well. Jesus must have one hell of a plan for me I know I'm missin' something But I don't know what it is That I don't got
And if I have anything to say About judgement day There'll be a crown in heaven For those who live this way Anyway You know exactly who you are
CHORUS: I see the world through the TV Guide What a safe place for me to run What a small little man I am I'm afraid of everything From the golden rule to airplanes What a small little man I am
They call me Junior I live here on the street I earn two hundred dollars a week I'd like to say "Hey man, thanks a lot" My name is Junior
CHORUS: I see the world through the TV Guide What a safe place for me to run What a small little man I am I'm afraid of everything From the golden rule to airplanes What a small little man I am
My sixth post was about these four high school kids who beat a team from MIT that was funded by ExxonMobil and other donors in a NASA sponsored underwater robot championship and were then screwed by the system because their parents had brought them over illegally when they were really young. Wired did a follow-up and I'm happy to find that people had contributed $90K towards helping these talented young men continue to contribute to society. And they have made the most of their opportunity, may we have more like them.
I couldn't be prouder if they were my own. Well done and may they continue to make an impact on society.
Gas is $4 a gallon in San Jose and I can't afford to fill up my car. In 1987 I owned a Honda Civc CRX that got 44 mpg in the city and almost 50 mpg on the highway. I drove that car into the ground and when I got my next Civic in 2001 it got 34 mpg in the city and 38 mpg on the highway. The car I have now is from 1994 and only gets 18 mpg no matter where I drive it, so it sits a lot. Why is 31 mpg in 2015 considered to be such a great thing by the federal government that they feel that they can sneakily try to eliminate California's more stringent rules? Cars should be getting over 50 mpg by that time because it already takes seven hours of work at minimum wage (leaving twenty three hours a week from your part time job at Wal-Mart to pay the rent, utilities and food) to fill up a fifteen gallon gas tank. Since gas is likely to be $5 a gallon by the end of the summer the only conclusion I can draw is that the profits of the automobile and oil companies are more important than breathing clean air or the welfare of the lowly citizen.
I made Emeril's Chicken Sauce Piquante last night. It was easy and it rocked. Good eats.
The Brandywine and Green Zebras have flowering buds but the Early Girls, Ace and Jetsetter varieties seem to be lagging. I love heirloom tomatoes. The grape tomatoes are just starting to peek their leaves above ground. I still need to get a Purple Cherokee and some type of green beans into the ground to go along with the early cabbage and serrano peppers. Whatever I grow I don't have to buy.
The sky is falling. On homeowners. And she who voted for the draconian bankruptcy bill has just noticed. Over 47 thousand foreclosures in California in the first quarter of the year with no end in sight. Wheee! Fun times ahead.
No wonder they're known as the fly over states. It's too dangerous to drive through them.
So Robert Gates doesn't believe the Air Fore is doing enough to help the war effort. He says he wants more drones. It's nice to know that with all that expensive training the pilots are reduced to the equivalent of playing video games. What he really wants are more bodies to stop bullets and IEDs because he's running out of criminals and gang members and as he says, the outcome is still in doubt.
"In my view we can do and we should do more to meet the needs of men and women fighting in the current conflicts while their outcome may still be in doubt," he said. "My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield."
No wonder a Navy officer would rather take a less than honorable discharge than to go into a battle zone they aren't ready for. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the disconnect continues. After watching 60 Minutes last night it is glaringly obvious that the longer we are at war, the more coordinated and dangerous the enemy becomes. And as is typical of the never right wing commenters, they believe the story of the Green Berets is either: propaganda because it is two years old and we're in an election year; Laura Logan is smarmy and condescending (news people aren't supposed to be warm and caring, that's what Oprah is for); or that it's all lies. As if closing your eyes and covering your ears will change the fact that the Taliban are learning how to coordinate attacks and are willing to sacrifice hundreds at a time to rid the country of intruders. If we had found Osama been Forgotten seven years ago we wouldn't be in this mess. Seven years and we're back at the starting point. Minus a few hundred troops and the original objective is nowhere in sight.
Who didn't see this coming? Relief agencies and charities are being overwhelmed by the increasing amount of people who need their services.
“It started increasing, and it just became overwhelming,” said Maxwell Amsong, a professionally trained chef who oversees food services at the nonprofit Christian mission, which served about 16,000 clients last month, a 23 percent rise over March 2007.
The story is retold over and over: 40 percent more clients for the Salvation Army in Panama City, Fla.; 20 percent more for Urban Ministries of Raleigh, N.C.; almost 200 percent more for the Community Ministries Food Pantry in Boise, Idaho.
It’s a double whammy. At the same time that the sagging economy is producing more mouths for relief agencies to feed, it is also drying up donations to help feed them.
Muslims want to adopt Mecca time instead of Greenwich Mean Time because they think Mecca is the center of the earth. I guess Miller time is out of the question.
Some people are plainly delusional. The Iraq war has had no effect on our economic woes? Is he serious? I'm all for finding and punishing Osama been Forgotten but we aren't doing that. We are wasting lives and precious resources in our foolish pursuit of whatever this week's excuse for being there is and we have had to borrow billions to do it. Generations after us will be paying for the economic policies of the last eight years and we continue to run up the bill. Bailing out corporations is okay but helping the average American worker isn't. What is okay is to lower their hourly wage to levels that won't sustain a middle class. And the more money you try to save (if you're saving any), the more businesses will go out of business and even more people will be unemployed.
But they do look out for the welfare of the rich. The rich don't feel guilty about being rich, they feel guilty about being seen as rich. Of course their lavish lifestyles prevent them from hiding their largesse but I'm sure they'll find some way to justify it. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is an apt description of the direction we are headed.
Remember when doctors were rich? Heck, remember when you could get into see your doctor when you needed them? Doctor shortages are in our future. Our near future.
Let me step on the third rail. It's supposed to be do unto others as you would have them to unto you, not do unto others as has been done to you. I admit it, I'm baffled. Why do people think that Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians is justified? Has it occurred to anybody that the Palestinians are responding the same way that the Jews did during World War II? It's okay to fight back against an immoral oppressor if you're Jewish.
After invading Poland in 1939, Nazi Germany set up ghettos nationwide to isolate the country's Jews and facilitate the "Final Solution" -- half of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust were Polish.
At its height, more than 450,000 were crammed into the walled Warsaw ghetto.
About 100,000 died inside from starvation, disease and in summary executions. Most of the rest were sent to Treblinka in mass deportations which began in 1942.
In the ghetto, a handful of Jewish paramilitary groups, mostly made up of young people -- Edelman was just 20 -- coalesced into a poorly-armed force of around 1,000.
The banner of one group was a blue Star of David on a white background, which caused Nazi ire when it was hoisted during the revolt. It became the flag of Israel.
The Gaza Strip has 1.48 million inhabitants and one of the highest population densities in the world. Since the election of the Hamas government in January 2006, drastic restrictions have been imposed on the movement of people and goods in and out of the Strip. The restrictions were significantly tightened when an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was captured by three Palestinian factions in June 2006, and again in June 2007, when Hamas took control of the Gaza strip.
Further sanctions were imposed following Israel’s decision to declare Gaza a "hostile entity" in September 2007, and reductions in fuel and electricity supplies were implemented in September 2007 and January 2008.
Gaza is almost completely dependent on Israel for supplies of both fuel and electricity, and it is over 80 per cent dependent on food aid. The impact of sanctions, adding to the lack of funding and the lack of coordination between Palestinian bodies, has resulted in critical shortages of food, medicines and building materials for humanitarian and industrial projects. In addition, virtually no industrial and agricultural exports have been allowed out of the Gaza Strip since June 2007. Israel's blockade has dramatically increased the poverty rate in Gaza, the effects of which are most acutely felt by children who constitute 56 per cent of the population of Gaza.
What the heck is the difference? Herding people into contained areas and depriving them of food, fuel and medical care is barbaric no matter who perpetrates it. I find it impossible to support Israel when they show a lack of compassion and forget the sacrifices that made them possible, but are willing to have another nation's people be disenfranchised and looking for revenge. I remember leaving the theater after seeing Schindler's List (not a date movie) and getting into my car and thinking "why do people continue to treat each other badly in the name of religion?"
No matter how many times people protest, institutionalized racism still exists in this country. Thank goodness my brothers and I were military brats and exposed to people and opportunities that today's young blacks will never have. I have a Master's degree as does one of my brothers, but it hasn't really helped us to get ahead. If you talk to any member of my family on the phone it is impossible to tell that we are black until you meet us and that still doesn't stop people from treating us as if we are mentally impaired. The best part is that those same people think we don't notice. We do. We just don't feel like fighting certain battles day in and day out because we may win the battle but we won't win the war and we get to start all over again the very next day or with the very next person. Such is life.
It's hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you are barefoot, but that doesn't stop racists from blaming people who haven't had a chance to improve their lives since the moment they were born. I expect stupid comments from people who are entrenched in their beliefs that it is always the person's fault no matter what the circumstances, what I didn't expect was to find it running rampant through the SF Bay area.
California is in the process of destroying its public school system with numerous cutbacks and quotas. People think that teachers are overpaid and then wonder why the quality of education is so bad. Good teachers can make money doing something else, so unless it is a calling they aren't going to go into a bad neighborhood where the schools are decrepit, the textbooks are so old that the last President mentioned is Reagan, science is nonexistent and the kids are already stressed from having no food and little to look forward to. If life tells you that you aren't as good as someone with privilege, unless you have authority issues and the knowledge to know when to use it to your advantage instead of being killed, you won't know not to believe the propaganda that blacks are still only worth three fifths of those outside the ghetto.
In a month I will be 52 and of one thing I am quite sure, racism has been increasing in this country under the guise of personal responsibility since the eighties. While Paris Hilton and Britney Spears can have problems that would put most blacks in jail for life, they have money and privilege that enables them to avoid most of the serious consequences for their actions. People may disapprove but they are still welcome in polite company. Let the average black person try some of those stunts and see what happens.
The late seventies were a time of hope and promise in this country, but those dreams have been squashed under the weight of reality. The reality that no matter how hard you try, people will still discriminate against those of lesser means and opportunity. It's easy to look down on people from the top of the mountain and say that if they would just try harder they can reach the mountain top, but it isn't so easy to climb up it if you don't have the tools.
Serena, Venus, Tiger, Kareem and Michael Jordan had talent and opportunity, a rare combination in anyone, which gave them a chance to make a better life for themselves and their families. If I lived in the ghetto I would want to play sports instead of pay attention in school because it looks like that would be my only way out of poverty. Thanks to an illegal and immoral war, joining the military is not an option since all the positions that would enable you to have job skills after you get out have been given to private contractors. There isn't much use for repairing the guidance control systems on missiles (which is what I did) or driving a tank through a neighborhood looking for IEDs.
Hope is in short supply when you don't know where your next meal is coming from and you can' play outside because you might catch a stray bullet. As the federal and state governments cut back on services to the poor, these problems will only get worse. Schools will become more segregated as more parents with privilege send their kids to private schools and the quality of education will continue to diminish. If everybody else is using a computer to learn but your school district can't afford them, the world will continue to move away from you and despair will be your constant companion. Catching up won't be an option since libraries are closing, health care is being eliminated and food costs continue to spiral upward.
It isn't the fault of the children that they were born into lesser circumstances and punishing them even more will not help the situation. There are two Americas and one of them isn't very pretty. Blaming those who haven't had a chance since they drew their first breath won't help the situation but education will. Perhaps if we invested in their education instead of killing people half a world away it might make a difference.
It's what we are, not much has changed. Except it's worse now.
I'll be glad when this farce of an election is over. Then everybody will start looking forward to the next election because THAT one will make things better.
It's official. We are a barbaric nation, not civilized at all. Not only are we a nation that tortures, but we treat our animals with more respect than we do humans. The three drug cocktail used in lethal injections continues to be approved. The Supreme Court, by a 7-2 margin, is allowing a practice that is illegal in most states when putting your animal to sleep. But what can you expect from a court whose sole purpose is to rubber stamp as many atrocities recommended by the Bush administration as possible. We have no right to comment on the human rights abuses committed by China or anywhere else.
Downtrodden automakers — Ford and General Motors — were especially dogged in securing a tax break that would let them collect alternative minimum tax credits, also known as the A.M.T., that would otherwise be out of reach because they did not pay enough taxes in recent years to claim a rebate.
But it was okay to try and eliminate seniors from "the supposed to save the economy tax rebate" who had paid into the system all their lives and are now collecting Social Security. And what about the homeowners themselves? Will they get help? If the Republicans have their way, no.
My how times have changed. Imagine if John Kennedy had made as much of a fuss over the Pope. Newspapers and pundits would be going crazy with conspiracy theories and the mixing of religion with government.
The crew without a clue are so proud of themselves. Bush admitted to authorizing torture and contravening the Constitution and isn't worried about being impeached or brought to justice because the ends justify the means.
The Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer editorial board writes: "That the top officials in the White House were sitting around debating how many times someone should be waterboarded is disgusting, but not surprising. They have held themselves about all laws and legal standards. They have repeatedly claimed that any action performed during the course of our so-called war on terror -- no matter how illegal or barbaric -- is legally and morally justifiable.
"But even as they claim immunity from the legal and moral standards of the civilized world, the reality is that no one in the Bush administration stands above the law. Sooner or later, they must be held accountable.
Yeah, like that's going to happen. And to think all those people were hung at Nuremberg and in Japan for committing those same crimes. Congress is more concerned with people's personal lives and providing corporate welfare than their job of providing checks and balances. It's good to be the king.
Foreclosures were up again last month with no end in sight and the mentally challenged commenters at ABC News are at it again. The housing crisis is all Clinton's fault because he encouraged housing loans to minorities and low income people. I guess if you aren't rich and melanin impaired you are supposed to live in the ghetto or a tent and be grateful to your betters. Heaven forbid that offshoring, downsizing, manufacturing plants closing and predatory lending should have any part of the blame. There is no compassion available for the people whose home values are dropping like a stone and even though they did everything right, are losing their homes because they can't make up the difference between the bank loan and the current value. No bailouts for borrowers but lenders must be protected at all costs. To the taxpayer. All those right wing Christians are really interested in helping their fellow man. Not.
Nope, one of their solutions is to encourage people to stay married. No matter what. Yes, one must put up with an abusive or cheating spouse in order to reduce the financial drain on U.S. taxpayers by enrolling in a government program to strengthen marriage. Or at least that's the idea. Not improving education or encouraging job growth, but forcing people to stay in a bad marriage for the sake of the taxpayer. It's supposedly a legitimate concern of government, policymakers and legislators. Maybe they'll let all those black men out of jail and give them jobs so they can support their families. Not.
They can harass and prosecute Wesley Snipes (Three years and a 5 million dollar fine for a misdemeanors? Obviously he's a black male.) for tax evasion but they can't prosecute Dick Morris or better yet, the former Treasurer of the United States, Catalina Villalpondo. You might recognize her name from some of the currency that was printed under the first President Bush.
Five thousand teenagers a year die in automobile accidents and driver's ed is being eliminated in school. Another case of being pennywise and pound foolish. No need to learn the rules and be held to high standard when you can just wait and get your license at eighteen with no training. Then they can be like the people who come here from overseas and just point their car in the direction they want to go and let the chips fall where they may. If they don't take physics they will have no concept whatsoever that they aren't driving a mobile living room. Yesterday this girl was all over the road, using both lanes while she texted. She spent more time looking at her phone than she did looking ahead and she never looked to the side or used her rear view mirror. Entering college is important but driving poorly can kill you. Or worse, some innocent person.
Oh, the humanity! Or lack thereof. Baby Boomers have been approaching this point for over 65 years and the system isn't prepared for them. Why am I not surprised?
As more of us become seniors, there will be fewer medical services available and fewer providers who are trained and willing to treat patients for a hugely discounted reimbursement rate. Meanwhile, individual costs for services continue to increase and heaven forbid that you need a prescription. Nothing like being sick, having insurance and your portion of the bill is more than you make in a month. What's the point? To prune the system of those who can no long contribute?
Private insurers began offering Tier 4 plans in response to employers who were looking for ways to keep costs down, said Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents most of the nation’s health insurers. When people who need Tier 4 drugs pay more for them, other subscribers in the plan pay less for their coverage.
But the new system sticks seriously ill people with huge bills, said James Robinson, a health economist at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is very unfortunate social policy,” Dr. Robinson said. “The more the sick person pays, the less the healthy person pays.”
Traditionally, the idea of insurance was to spread the costs of paying for the sick.
“This is an erosion of the traditional concept of insurance,” Mr. Mendelson said. “Those beneficiaries who bear the burden of illness are also bearing the burden of cost.”
snip
Julie Bass, who lives near Orlando, Fla., has metastatic breast cancer, lives on Social Security disability payments, and because she is disabled, is covered by insurance through a Medicare H.M.O. Ms. Bass, 52, said she had no alternatives to her H.M.O. She said she could not afford a regular Medicare plan, which has co-payments of 20 percent for such things as emergency care, outpatient surgery and scans. That left her with a choice of two Medicare H.M.O’s that operate in her region. But of the two H.M.O’s, her doctors accept only Wellcare.
Now, she said, one drug her doctor may prescribe to control her cancer is Tykerb. But her insurer, Wellcare, classifies it as Tier 4, and she knows she cannot afford it.
Wellcare declined to say what Tykerb might cost, but its list price according to a standard source, Red Book, is $3,480 for 150 tablets, which may last a patient 21 days. Wellcare requires patients to pay a third of the cost of its Tier 4 drugs.
So why have insurance if it doesn't help you when you are down and out or on the way out? If everybody quit paying their premiums, the insurance companies would go out of business eventually and the system would have to change. While I understand about the costs of research and development, pharmaceutical companies should have to lower their prices so the average person could afford their prescriptions or is it only the rich that deserve adequate health care in this country? Once you reach a certain dollar amount, you are determined to be a drain and even though you may have contributed to the system all your life, it is more cost effective to eliminate you. Even Superman was affected by these policies. If Christopher Reeve had lived much longer, he would have used up his lifetime benefit and been left without proper coverage. Since he had a preexisting condition he could have kissed the idea of switching insurance companies goodbye.
Providing good medical care has become a business whose only concern is the bottom line, not the welfare of the patient. Hippocrates would be so proud.
My heart almost bleeds for him, but I would rather play the tiny violin instead. Albert Gonzales, Mr. I Don't Recall, can't find a job. It seems that no law offices want to hire him. Maybe it's because they practice law and not politics? Oh, and they require basic knowledge of the Constitution.
Just when you think that our Justice (since when?) Department can't go any lower, they do. The D.C Madam trial is a joke and a cruel one at that. To release their names and force the women to testify and not the men, shows that sexism is rampant in this country. There have been many sex scandals in the last seven years and for some odd reason only these women are paying the price. Senators asking for sex in the bathroom from a man is okay. Representatives trolling young pages for sex is okay. A woman providing diaper service to a Senator is not. She, and all her compatriots, must be shamed and punished. And the men who require these deviant acts go scott free. Because it is only the men who deserve pleasure and women are supposed to provide it. At any price, then they must be publicly humiliated. Only in America.
Which is why it's so surprising that it wasn't an American who purchased the nude photos of France's latest First Lady.
I hate to fly. I did it a lot when I was younger but my last few plane flights (fifteen years ago) were scarier than any amusement ride. There is something about smelling the rubber and seeing the smoke from the brakes invade the cabin because the pilot missed part of the runway. Even the stewardess was terrified. How anyone would want to fly on planes that hadn't been inspected bewilders me. Exactly where were these cracks? In the skin? Isn't that what brought the Hawaiian flight down a few years ago? The fact that we haven't had any planes fall out of the sky is just luck and in the grand scheme of things wouldn't you rather have your flight canceled for inspection than crashed for lack of maintenance?
If the Army is reading my blog then they know how much I despise the way the troops are treated. A tour of duty should not be a death sentence due to the incompetence of the leaders and the injured shouldn't be hidden behind closed doors so they can be ignored. It's been a long time since one of the crew without a clue blithely quipped that you go to war with the army you have, even with no plan and equipment that was stolen from the National Guard.
Not content with polluting the earth, it seems we even litter in space.
The quarterly drugs are bad for you story comes from our friends at ABC News. It seems that some enterprising (or very angry) dealer enhanced the weight of his pot with lead granules. Nice guy. But the quote from the drug professor from Kentucky was priceless, if not downright hyperbolic.
"Use of illicit drugs is then, in a sense, a bit like Russian roulette."
Well, duh! If belly fat increases your chances of Alzheimer's, then having diabetes at 50 is going to be another indicator of increased chances of dementia. Which is very unfortunate considering the rates of obesity and diabetes in America. In thirty years we'll have a generation of people who don't know who or where they are and a generation of people who never learned rational thinking. And let's not forget the physical pain of being overweight
"If a person is 10 pounds overweight and goes up the stairs, they will see 80 pounds extra weight on the knee," Paulos said. "So you can imagine the forces a knee will see if they're at 250 pounds, overweight and weak."
“…if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done — I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.”
Saturday Night Live had quite a few mentions on the 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches list, but they didn't include one that I thought was the funniest. Maybe because it was even more risque than the Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor word association skit. That would be Tina Fey written and Christopher Walken starring waiting for Colonel Angus skit.
That mid-life crisis can have fatal consequences, especially if you decide to start riding a motorcycle. Why people don't think it's necessary to protect your most valuable asset, your brain, baffles me. Freedom to have the wind whipping through your bald spot hair and bugs landing in your teeth, are not worth being brain injured or dead. My dad had an accident on his bike and if it hadn't been for the helmet, he would have died at 48 instead of 60. Everybody in my family has ridden a motorcycle and we have all worn helmets. It won't kill you to look dorky and it keeps your ears warm.
“It’s anybody’s guess how long the downturn will last,” Mr. Breyer said.
If it lasts through this year, he said, “it will be far more than an inconvenience for all companies.” The dried-up market for public offerings and acquisitions is affecting not just the atmosphere of innovation but also the lifestyle of its participants.
“Less cash coming into the Valley means less cash to purchase homes, and go out to nice dinners, spend on consumer products and go on vacations,” said Hans Swildens, founder and principal of Industry Ventures, an investment firm that buys stakes in start-up companies that need infusions of cash.
I almost feel for you, it must be hard to have to cut back. While I don't feel sorry for them not being able to enjoy some of the niceties, I do feel sorry for the people who provide those niceties. This is going to get ugly.
Hotpads.com has a dynamic color map that shows you the foreclosures (pictures, prices and description of the homes) in your area. Silicon Valley and surrounding areas are in the red zone at 1 in 500. Palo Alto, where the rich live, is in blue at 1 in 60000. The rest of the map is pretty much shades of pink on their way to red.
Have you ever felt like the world was picking on you? This guy thinks he's being picked on by aliens because his house has been hit by meteorites five times since November.
Does anybody think that this will end well? Considering the amount of road rage and workplace disgruntlement, allowing people to bring their guns to work doesn't sound like a good idea.
It seems that global warming is a threat to beer production. Severe shrinkage in malted barley production will be the result. As if the price of Guinness wasn't high enough.
The ownership society isn't limited to housing, health insurance and retirement, now it includes monitoring your own health care as you receive it. It used to be that nurses did that job (they wore uniforms with hats back then!) but now they have to spend so much time doing paperwork or data entry that they don't have time to interact or get to know the patient. And the consequences of that seem to be fatal.
In growing numbers of hospitals across the country, patients are allowed, even encouraged, to speak up by activating ‘Condition H,’ a code that summons immediate help. Patients call the same emergency number that doctors and nurses use. Worries of false alarms have proved generally groundless, Collier said.
Still Clarke worries about burdening patients and family members with the responsibility of monitoring.
“The onus shouldn’t be on the patient to do our job,” he said.
True enough, Collier said. But if consumers want to be certain they’re not victims of the most common safety error in the country, they’ll take on some of the responsibility themselves.
Right. My doctor gets his knickers in a knot if I question anything and he downplays any reports of pain or discomfort. I remember when we had a good medical system, but that was before it became a business.
It's bad enough that those in the Lower Ninth Ward were left behind during Katrina, now those that came back and tried to rebuild are at increased risk of foreclosure. If they received a grant to rebuild the house and it gets repossessed then they have to pay back the money that has already been spent rebuilding the house that the lender now owns. Ooh, double the debt, that'll help.
If Youngblood loses her home within three years of receiving the Road Home grant, she may be forced to return the money.
"I've worked hard all my life for what I have," said Youngblood, a seamstress. "I paid my bills my whole life. But when Katrina came, it messed everything up."
I'm pretty sure that was the plan.
With troops being killed in the Green Zone, of course Petraeus wants a 45 day extension of the surge that didn't work. Violence is increasing and we didn't have enough troops to do the job in the first place, so keeping them there is his only option to forestall the collapse that is going to come sooner or later. And it doesn't sound like he plans on sending the troops home right after the 45 day extension is up.
At the end of that period, we will commence a process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and, over time, determine when we can make recommendations for further reductions," Petraeus said.
No end in sight and no plans for an end. Stay the course and don't worry about the health of your troops, the lack of, and/or, the deterioration of equipment and how not one plan has worked out correctly.
Shouldn't they be worrying about taking care of the troops we have, before spending billion of dollars on theoretical weapons? Our troops aren't even safe in the Green Zone and the military is trying to build some interconnected weapons systems using technology that relies on the technician's ability to play video games. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if today's troops had decent body armor and properly reinforced vehicles? Just wondering. Mainly because the media has forgotten our troops in Iraq, since their sacrifices seem to mean nothing as long as the election is going on and the people they leave behind are quickly forgotten. While the blogosphere counted down up to 4000, one town in America has lost 400 of those 4000.
With so many painful memories, she is now preparing to leave Killeen.
She still questions whether the sacrifice was worth it.
"See a lot of people don't know that five of our soldiers died last week; and before that was three; and before that was six," she says.
"I know this because I go to my husband's grave.
"When he was buried the row ended, but now there's a whole new row in front of him, and there's 16 graves without markers. They can't make headstones fast enough."
That is just plain sad. And if you think the dead don't count, you should see the way the wounded have been forgotten.
A restaurant without waiters. What will the Germans think of next? One question, how do you send your food back if you don't like it?
Nope, it's not an abyss, it's a canyon. An abyss implies that you can't see the bottom and with a canyon you can. An abyss is dark, whereas with a canyon you can see the details. And the details of the Iraq war, from the flawed and untruthful beginning to the no way out for the innocent and not so pretty end, have been revealed in frightening clarity for Americans to see. The rest of the world saw the current situation for what it really was. A McGuffin, designed to mislead the public until irrevocable damage had been done.
While the citizens of this country were distracted by the rah rah antics of the crew without a clue (or a conscience); their civil rights have been terminated; they were beguiled into spending money on homes they couldn't afford with the promises that the sun would always be shining and the value wold always go up; they were encouraged to buy goods to support the economy, unfortunately it just didn't happen to be ours; the education system was reduced to a shambles and most of their jobs were shipped to another country so that the corporations could continue to make obscene profits for those who already had more than they need.
The so-called ownership society isn't about you owning your own home, it's about you having to bear all responsibility for every action and reaction around the globe while your ability to do so is reduced incrementally. One paycheck at a time. Until you don't have one.
Health care is overly costly and preventative care is virtually nonexistent and they still want you to pay for insurance that looks for ways to deny you coverage when you need it because it is a corporation in the business of making money and not actually providing the health care that they supposedly sell.
Foreclosures are increasing and that was before the latest round of job layoffs. In another six months they will reach levels never seen, mainly due to the increase in population but nevertheless it will be damaging. Many more people will be hurt by the rise in gas prices and when you're unemployed, paying your Cobra premium out of your rapidly dwindling and poor interest paying savings or putting food on the table while you still have a roof over your head, becomes less important with every nickel rise in gas. So, you wait until medical problems become emergency room visits, which is what the President recommends.
As acres of McMansions become empty and food becomes scarce, due to either a rise in prices or the inability of truck drivers to drive to outlying areas, some hard choices will have to be made. As a nation. And the election isn't going to solve, or even mitigate, the ruinous path we have trod. None of their plans or rhetoric actually deal with, or will have any positive impact on, the majority of Americans.
Those people who have already been forced out of the system already know this. The decreasing graduation rate from high school and the increasing rate of incarceration are not good trends and have quite a bit to do with each other. Meanwhile outside of the US, the world is becoming more technical but we won't be graduating students capable of competing on the world stage. And we will have to compete on the world stage because almost everything we need, we have to get from somewhere else. Because we shipped the jobs there.
Is it any wonder that our troops don't have the equipment they need to do their jobs and be properly protected? We don't manufacture anything so after five years of steady confrontation, we still can't make appropriate body armor for our soldiers. And then when they get hurt and become damaged beyond usefulness, some people expect them to take care of themselves. How nice.
The candidates all talk a good game but each of them have drawbacks, all of which will prevent them from making the changes that are needed and wanted by the American people. Another round of tax cuts won't solve the problem and neither will mandating that people pay for something they can't afford. Our infrastructure is falling apart and taxes need to be directed toward the public good, not the corporate trough. Our roads, bridges, dams, hospitals and schools need the help first, not some shareholder who's gambling with his money and your kid's future.
How do you go on strike when you have no work? Once summer arrives and the price of gas is consistently over $4 per gallon, eating locally will be necessary, not trendy. Too bad most of our food comes from somewhere else. And that most people don't know how to cook from scratch, but since they'll be unemployed they should have plenty of time to learn.
What, no taser? What possible explanation could there be for trying to drive a minivan...from the roof?
Women and children first? Not anymore, they get left behind. And not in a Christian way.
Hmm, I thought the trick to successful parenting was to love your child, to spend time with them and to be a good example. $6500 in equipment, toys and fripperies when all they want is you, seems to be a little extreme don't you think? But I guess when your a status symbol, the more, the merrier.
I almost cried when I saw this picture. It is absolutely gut wrenching. It shows the importance of being properly strapped in.
A friend sent this photo of a horrible highway accident in Germany. The picture may be kind of hard to take for some of you. If you look closely you can see what appear to be some survivors of the accident still in the wreckage. Although the picture is quite graphic, it makes you realize how quickly our loved ones can be taken from us.
My friend stayed on the scene to help and even though he performed mouth to mouth on quite a few of them, none apparently survived.
On the wrong track and headed over a cliff, another fine example of you get what you vote for. Unfortunately, the next election isn't going to change much.
How about not arresting pot smokers and releasing the ones that are in jail? Murderers, rapists and robbers should not be released because of budget cuts, the releases should be for those who "committed" nonviolent crimes and using marijuana is nowhere near as serious as using a gun. Unless you're guarding the Twinkies.
Not content to just run Firefox in beta mode (I'm still using B4, in B5 none of my extensions worked, the most important being Adblock), now I'm trying Blogger in draft. If I had the money you just know I'd be one of those early adopters of most technological toys.
I'm against the death penalty for many reasons but when the original sniper shootings started in Virginia, I thought that the cop who found the shooters should have shot them on sight and said he was defending himself. Why not, they do it with innocent people all the time. My reasoning was that the snipers weren't human and should be put down as rabid animals. Trials, publicity and appeals would never have been an issue, and nobody would be enticed to do it again because there wouldn't be a positive payoff. Wow, I sound like a Republican. In other words, there wouldn't be any copycats. Now they are everywhere
How far is too far? Some areas should be fragrance free, such as the doctors office, hospital and certain workplaces, but getting one's nose bent out of joint because someone is wearing body butter is overkill. Sheesh, some people really do think they are the only one in the world with rights and that everyone should accommodate their wishes or failings. My asthma is usually triggered by a certain perfume when it is really cold outside but I have no idea what it is since I'm more concerned with breathing and getting away than I am with trying to determine what other people do with their bodies. When my lungs are weak (before or after) an attack, I also can't walk down the soap aisle in the grocery store without wheezing. So, I avoid that aisle. I used to have a client who was a fanatic about scent, what a pain she was. My clothes had to have no fabric softener and I couldn't use a scented soap or lotion. I rarely wear fragrance because I find them too overpowering and I don't enjoy smelling like a fruit but I don't make the people around me dance to my tune, I just find somewhere else to go.
Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't watching you. What the article doesn't bring up are the amount of cameras and other devices that are omnipresent in our society might be triggering low levels of anxiety in everyone, so as a result most of society is suspicious of one another.
Pandering to the male ego. A few minutes is best. Three minutes of intercourse aren't worth taking your clothes off, let alone running around bragging about satisfying a woman in bed. It isn't about lasting forever but some effort should be made to match a woman's rhythm. Thirteen minutes is closer to the mark, but if it makes men feel better to think that three minutes will get the job done...
Oh good grief! The idea of school is to learn and be exposed to different ideas and ways of thinking. A federal lawsuit because a teacher says something that goes against your world view is just someone trying to make money that they haven't earned. I had a cop tell me that most of the sexual deviants were Catholic and I'm pretty sure he has more experience in this area than I do. Maybe the teacher has more experience than the student? Please, no. Next thing you know, Vanilla Ice will be back touring. With Rick Astley.
Who says kids can't get along and plan ahead? Nine kids in Georgia were suspended for being in a plot to harm their teacher. They had a broken steak knife, toy handcuffs, tape and other assorted items to do the job. My question is this: How bad of a teacher do you have to be for a group of third graders otherwise known as eight year olds to plot to harm you? The commenters believe that God, discipline and better parenting would have prevented this, but for a group of eight year olds to plan anything this devious there had to be a triggering factor.
I don't like to carry a purse, they are usually too big and bulky and I don't understand why they have to match my shoes. I usually carry a wallet if I have pockets, otherwise it's just my ID, debit, cell and keys. I leave everything else at home or in the car until needed. Pepper spray and chapstick? Whatever, I think the trick here is to consider the source.
Besides an empty bank account, here are seven signs of pain you shouldn't ignore. Great, the first one up is the worst headache of your life. Which I've had for the last three weeks. Don't think it is an aneurysm, I think it's stress from the empty bank account, no job (got screwed royally by Jose and the landlord) and mom's mind continues to wander away. The pain in my back and shoulder are on the right side and I think it's because I have a rib out of place from all the coughing I did during last month's asthma attack. If I had money I would go see a chiro and get things snapped back into place.
In 1967 the Atlantic published an article about computer databases and erosion of civil liberties. Not quite 1984, but we're getting there.
A quick primer on the Middle East. Too bad the crew without a clue don't have something like this. And somebody really should give a copy to McCain, it might help him be less confused.
Unfortunately, this isn't an April Fools joke. The Red Army choir and the Leningrad Cowboys performing one my most hated songs. I was stationed in Alabama when the song came out and they played it on every station, from rock to classical and the country stations played it every hour on the hour. Just not this version.
