DON'T LIVE IN NY.
ALBANY (CBS) ― You may want to think twice next year before downloading a song, going to the movies, or even kicking back with a beer. New Yorkers are about to pay more for just about everything under the sun with Gov. David Paterson's proposed $121 billion budget.More after the jump...
O.J. Simpson choked back tears before a Vegas judge today sacked him for a nine-year loss, sending the disgraced grid great away for a botched robbery and kidnapping.NY Post.com More after the jump...
Embarrassing quiz result...
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Am I the only one who finds this a little weird:
Florida teen commits suicide broadcasted online via webcam.
A Florida teen committed suicide in front of a live Web cam audience hours after blogging that he was going to overdose on prescription drugs, authorities said Friday.
Abraham Biggs, 19, made his macabre claim on the forum at bodybuilding.com and even posted a suicide note early Wednesday.
Well XM radio changed all of my channels around, but I found a channel of just hair bands, it's my new addiction.
Scorpions - "Still Loving You"
One of my pet peeves is idiotic lawsuits - so this made me laugh:
She should just shut up, be a drunken whore and OD at 35.
Germany: A shoplifter with no arms has walked straight out of a Munich retailer with a 24" television having been assisted to clamp the set to his chest by two other people. It wasn't until later that the missing set was noticed and CCTV reviewed.More after the jump...
"Staff only knew about the theft after they saw one of the display TVs had been taken off its stand. It's hard to believe that the sight of an armless man walking along with a giant TV clamped to his body did not get anyone's attention," said police.
A Minden man, arrested by Dixie Inn authorities after an alligator chased him from his hiding place, has pleaded guilty to theft and resisting an officer.I can think of no other state but Louisiana where an Alligator is credited with nabbing a suspect. More after the jump...
Terry Jones, 23, was arrested September 22, by Dixie Inn Police and charged with misdemeanor theft and resisting an officer. On November 3, Jones was sentenced to serve 30 days for the charge of theft and 20 days for resisting. The sentences are to run concurrent.
On the day of Jones’ arrest, Dixie Inn officers were called to Thirsty’s Liquor Store after employees observed Jones steal a bottle of Grey Goose vodka. When the officers arrived on scene, Jones, who was sitting in a vehicle on the premises, removed his pants and ran across the street where he entered into a bar pit to hide. A short time later, a large alligator prompted Jones’ quick exit from the water.
The Dixie Inn police report states, “Jones had gone into the water and had been hiding in there when a very large alligator appeared and flushed him out of his hiding spot.”
Sherb Sentell, Webster Parish chief assistant district attorney, said the bar pits are home to several large alligators.
“If we had a dog, we could give him a citation or award for his assistance, but an alligator — it would be hard to find him again,” chuckled Sentell. “The Dixie Inn officers were quick to the scene and did an awesome job as always, and we appreciate the alligator’s assistance as well.”
NY Nerd, has decided to take our blog in a new direction, and I agree after a year of political talk we will focus on being more lighthearted, so I give her free reign to post all of the adorable puppy pics, cats getting their heads stuck in shit videos and what ever else her cute little mind comes up with.
But... I want to leave with this.. and I felt it needed to be said.
I am not going to be the douche that says, "Hey, he is not my President"
I will not spend the next 4 years in my parents basement setting up a "ImpeachObama.com" website and trying to sell ObamaHitler shirts on cafepress.
He is our President, the American people have spoken, right or wrong the choice has been made and we have to deal with it for the next 4 years.
We as Republicans should not take this lying down, we need to find out what went wrong and fix it so we are not put in a situation ever again where our choices are a Socialist or an old Washington insider.
I don't look at this as much as an Obama victory but a McCain loss, for all the money spent for all the infomercials for all the promise of hope and change it translated to just over 1 million more votes than Bush got in 2004, and Bush won on the "better of two evils" platform.
So how do we make sure this does not happen again, the Democrat's now have control of the House and Senate and they almost won the majority against a filibuster but the Republicans won some squeakers.
Which brings me to how we can fix it. Obama's biggest strength is that he realized that Americans for the most part are morons, he didn't bog us down with stats, and numbers and reasons and of course facts.
His platform was simple, "Hope and Change" no one knew what the fuck that ment but hey it sounded good.
People didnt want to hear about how Clinton caused the sub-prime mess through his revamping of the community re-investment act, the public didn't care that groups like ACORN and the Rainbow coalition blackmailed huge corporations and threatned to stop the mergers if companies didnt give them a "contribution".
Americans did nothing as we allowed our free speech to be suppressed, our liberties taken away from us and watched as the media brutalized our own people.
Republicans need to revisit their vision, things start at the local level, a senate seat here, a district there, our message needs to be refined and retuned, small goverment works, you can not make a poor person rich by giving them money, but you can make him wealthy by allowing him to grab a hold of the American dream and create his own wealth with out fear that the goverment is going to take it away.
This country is centrist at heart, and we need to get that message out there, we need to let people know that with hard work, with some passion and some determination you can be successful, American's wanted a babysitter for the most part and well we are going to find out unless your sleeping with the sitter its not all it is cracked up to be.
Republicans lost focus, they lost the small "l" libertarians, they lost their message we have 2 years till midterm elections to regain some seats in the senate, and another 2 years to get our message out there and focus on the big picture.
2012 is not a long time away, we can all deal with 4 years of a shitty president but unless we have a message we are looking at 8 years and that... is a scary thing.
- Chris
Take from it what you will:
"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” — Marcus Aurelius
That's my final word on this election, so we will be shifting over from politics to more lighthearted stuff.
Take it away NY Nerd.
I cannot control my co-blogger but...for the immediately foreseeable future, my portion of the blog will consist solely of cute animals, rainbows, and silly jokes.
More after the jump...I'm told that we here on Life On Terra Firma are going to be having a Live Blogging of the Election Coverage Event. Not only will I not be participating, I am: a) going to bed early; b) refusing to read or watch any news whatsoever for the next week (or however long it takes for everyone to stop talking about this fucking election); and c) putting the entire US of A in a timeout.
I thought I was sick of this shit before. I thought I had seen and heard every stupid political argument on both sides of the fence. I published posts here on this very blog decrying the lack of civil discussion & talking about my disdain for the two major parties.
But now it's gone too far. Seriously people? You take a blog that is devoted to discussing the daily comics - and not the "serious" ones; not the "political" ones; not the fucking editorial cartoons - just the stupid day to day comics like fucking Hagar the Horrible and Marmaduke and you still are not capable of having a discussion in the Comments Thread that does not disintegrate into political bullshit name-calling. You have defiled my last sanctuary on the internet and I will not have it!
You are ALL in timeout! Go! NOW!! Do not talk to me again until you are ready to discuss the latest Mary Worth's "I'm a busybody" storyline or snark on how depressing Funky Winkerbean is.
It's finally here, so just vote dammit.
(oh and make sure its for McCain)
We are a slightly center-right nation right now, and if Obama loses track of that, he’ll be a weak-ass Jimmy Carter in office, especially with all those Clinton-clones hanging around - Thomas BarnettMore after the jump...
For the second time in a week, a prominent Democrat has downgraded Barack Obama's definition of the middle class -- leading Republicans to question whether he'll stick to his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making under $250,000.
The latest hiccup in the campaign message came Friday morning on KOA-AM, when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson pegged the middle class as those making $120,000 and under.
Foxnews.com
BRUNSWICK, Ga.-- A family still mourning a 6-year-old boy killed last year was shocked to see a picture of the child used in a recent soap opera on SOAPnet. The ABC television network has since apologized, calling the bizarre soap opera slip-up an indefensible error.
A photo of Christopher Barrios, a 6-year-old Georgia boy who was killed in 2007, was used as a prop in a scene of "General Hospital: Night Shift."
A Channel 4 viewer who also watches SOAPnet and is a fan of the soap opera brought the picture to the attention of the local station. She said she recognized Christopher's photo being used on the show and decided to send an e-mail.
Christopher's grandmother, Sue Rodriquez, said she had no idea how the network obtained the photo and they have no right to use it in an entertainment program.
"Oh my, God have mercy," Rodriquez said after seeing Christopher's picture on the show. "They ain't got no right doing that -- not a bit of right."
She cried as she watched a clip from the soap opera. She said it still hurts to think about her grandson, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in March 2007.
"That baby meant the world to us, and people don’t have the right to do this kind of stuff. That's our baby," Rodriquez said.
In the soap opera, Billy Dee Williams plays a hospital worker. In the episode in which Christopher's photo appeared, Williams' character apparently received a letter and a photo from a son he abandoned. The photo was of Christopher.
Channel 4 has the same picture of the Christopher, which provided by the Barrios family to media outlets during the March 2007 search for the boy.
"First, who gave them permission to use his picture? Second, I'm glad I don’t watch this kind of mess -- soap operas -- because if I had seen Christopher's picture on there, I would have gone nuts," Rodriquez said.
ABC, which produces the show, told Channel 4's Jennifer Bauer it does not know how they got the photo.
The network offered the following apology:
"While the production team would never have knowingly chosen this particular photo, its use was a terrible error. We offer our deepest condolences to the Barrios family for their loss and our sincerest apologies for any pain caused by our mistake. In the coming weeks, SOAPnet will air a series of public service announcements in Christopher's honor, to raise awareness of missing and exploited children. Meanwhile, the episode is being edited to permanently remove the photo, and we have taken steps, including reviewing internal processes to determine how it happened in hopes of preventing this type of mistake from occurring again."
Rodriquez said knowing that such an error would never happen again makes her very happy.
This morning the Columbia Journalism Review puts into pictures what most could have guessed about the political leaning of King's County: Brooklyn's pretty blue. Working with data from opensecrets.org, CJ mapped political contributions to Obama and McCain by zip code. Only seven areas donated in McCain's favor, and they were all in the south. By far the most pro-McCain neighborhood was Bensonhurst, where the war hero got 95% of the loot. The percentage was flipped in Park Slope.
When they realize they aren't actually getting free houses & gas:
Apparently the answer, for many people, is "Yes".
Jacob Sullum over at Reason's Hit & Run blog discussing a NY Times article on the proposed mortgage bailout programs:
The New York Times discovers the moral hazard lurking in the various plans to save homeowners from their bad investments. "Experts say it is difficult to devise programs to aid distressed homeowners without giving everyone else a reason to mail the keys back to their lenders," it reports. You think?
The story opens with Todd Lawrence, an airline pilot in Norwich, Connecticut, who "has a traditional 30-year mortgage that he has no trouble paying every month" but who "owes more on his house than it is worth, like millions of other people." Lawrence feels like a chump, continuing to pay his mortgage while his taxes go to more reckless people who overborrowed and have begun to miss their payments. Such homeowners can take advantage of government programs that reduce their interest rates and principal. "Why am I being punished for having bought a house I could afford?" Lawrence asks. "I am beginning to think I would have rocks in my head if I keep paying my mortgage."
Financial experts agree that there is some sort of hard, naturally formed mineral or petrified matter where Lawrence's brain should be. "From a purely economic standpoint, there's not a whole lot to be gained from staying," says one. Another "says he thinks just about everyone who is underwater and has few other assets should stop paying." The Times does note in passing that "many people...consider paying their debts a moral obligation."
The story closes with an unnamed homeowner who owes $350,000 on a house in a Los Angeles suburb "that is worth only $150,000." As a former Los Angeles resident who looked into the housing market there a few years ago, I find it hard to believe you can buy a house anywhere near L.A. for $150,000 even today, but never mind. The point is that the homeowner who owes more on the house than it's worth realizes he is more likely to get government help if he stops regarding paying his debts as a moral obligation. "I guess they are forcing me to deliberately stop paying to look worse than I am," he says. "Crazy, don't you think?"
So I saw this:
With Halloween quickly approaching, the Humane Society of West Texas is altering its adoption policy. If you go to the Humane Society's adoption center at PetSmart, you won't find any black cats there this month because they're afraid people will use them for Halloween animal sacrifices.
"DPS and police officers have literally found cats that have been gutted open and found, you know, where it looks like there has been a ritual of some sort, and so we just don't want that to happen," said the cat coordinator for the Humane Society, Judy Steinbock.
Humane Society volunteers say they've seen black cats spray painted, mummified in duct tape, shaved, burned, and worse.
The local chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said Monday it is banning the adoption of black cats from Oct. 24 through Nov. 1 to ensure their safety during Halloween season.
The animal rights group said pranksters target black cats to use as party props and for "Satanic and sacrificial rituals."
Madeline Bernstein said the spcaLA takes the precaution every year.
"The Halloween ban has been in place for several years in order to prevent people who have ulterior motives from adopting black cats," she said.
"Because of all the myths and superstitions about black cats, they are simply not safe from some people around this holiday."
The spcaLA also recommends keeping cats, especially black or darkly colored ones, indoors during the Halloween season for their protection.
The other night, on Obama-TV he shared with us his belief that we are in "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression". Wow - that's pretty bad! Shit - what do we do now? I'll have to cancel my cable!
Matt Welch of Reason Magazine doesn't quite see it though:
I don't mean to minimize the pain here. But as Nick Gillespie pointed out a couple weeks back, "Any comparison with the Depression, which featured an unemployment rate of 25 percent and a contraction in GDP of over 33 percent at its worst moments, strains credulity."
As a confirmed apocalyptic, I continue to expect the sky to fall; but as a stat dweeb I'm just not seeing the elephant tracks. Right now, during our Worst Economic Crisis Since the Great Depression, unemployment is at 6.1 percent, inflation is at 4.9 percent, and GDP shrank 0.3 percent this quarter, though it's still up for the year. I don't see how that even begins to compete with the late-Carter, early-Reagan era, when GDP shrank in both 1980 and 1982, unemployment never dipped below 8 percent from November 1981 to January 1984, and inflation never dipped below 8 percent between September 1978 and January 1982.
One big difference between that Next Great Depression and this one: Washington, in the form of Reagan and Paul Volcker, was forcing us to swallow our medicine to whip inflation and create conditions for future growth. Nowadays the only government medicine being doled out is temporary pain relief.
Turns out the Bailout Sleuth blog , which is attempting to figure out where the hell our trillion dollars in bailout funds are actually going, was started with the help of Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and libertarian.
Go Mavs!
HSUS MySpace Page | Get Banners
November 2nd - 8th is National Animal Shelter Week. Animal Shelters do an amazing job considering how the odds are stacked against them. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that animal shelters care for between 6–8 million dogs and cats every year in the United States, of whom approximately 3–4 million are euthanized. At this time The HSUS can only estimate these figures because there is no central data reporting agency for animal shelters.
This overpopulation of companion animals is widely acknowledged across the country by professionals and experts in the animal welfare field. Overpopulation is a tragedy. There are simply not enough responsible homes for all of these wonderful, innocent animals. At this point in time, it would be impossible to humanely house every unwanted animal in the United States.
What can you do to help? First - spay or neuter your animals! This cannot be said often enough. Did you read those statistics above? There are 3-4 million animals killed each year because there is simply no place for them. There are 3-4 million cats and dogs available for adoption through shelters every single year. There is no reason to keep breeding more animals. I strongly urge you to adopt your pet from an animal shelter, rather than purchasing a pet from a pet store or breeder. Shelters offer an all-shapes-and-sizes potpourri of potential new best friends. You will find puppies and kittens at shelters as well as mature animals. In addition, The HSUS estimates that approximately 25% of shelter animals are purebred.
From that LAT poll of Florida of Ohio (here is the PDF with all the numbers):
Already Voted:
Florida: McCain 49%, Obama 45%, Don't Know 6%
Ohio: Obama 57%, McCain 35%, Don't Know 3%
That's right: Almost 9% of Florida and Ohio voters that have already voted don't know who they voted for.
The Bradley Effect is merely a subset of the "socially desirable answer" phenomenon. People tend to tell pollsters the socially desirable answer.
Lets hope so.
Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.
Obama's affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.
"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully," the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father." "The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists."
Obama's interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called "the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union."
After graduating from Columbia in 1983, Obama spent a year working for a consulting firm and then went to work for what he described as "a Ralph Nader offshoot" in Harlem.
Foxnews.com
Eyewitness News AccuWeather:
Your AccuWeather Forecast By Bill Evans
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A coastal low pressure system will be the key role-player across the Northeast and in much of the mid-Atlantic states during the next 36 hours.
In addition to soaking most areas east of the Appalachians today, it will also bring at least a few inches of heavy, wet snow to most of the higher elevations located north and west of the tri-state area.
And from the Weather Channel:
Oct 28 Tonight
Occasional rain and wind. Some snow showers mixing in overnight. Low 36F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of precip 70%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
Yeah, I guess I must have imagined that whole "snow" thing, Chris.
DETROIT -- After nearly seven years in an exclusive 11th-floor office, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will see the city through cloudy, narrow windows in a cell on the second floor of the Wayne County jail.
Kilpatrick appears in court Tuesday to receive a 120-day sentence, the punishment for a scandal of sex, lies and text messages that was a millstone around the neck of a region already staggering from the woes of the auto industry.
With good behavior, Kilpatrick could be out in February after 100 days. He will also get a bill from the jail: $60 a day.
(Stay Classy Detroit)
Best Parent Ever - a blog much like Stuff White People Like, only for today's parents who believe nothing is too good for their special little snowflakes.
Along the same lines - take your blood pressure medicine and check out this article from the Boston Globe which explains why buying the perfect costume is soooo important to your child's health, welfare, and future:
Lorraine Shevlin has nerves of steel. With the Halloween clock ticking down, the Waltham mother found - but passed up - the very costume her 10-year-old son, Xavier Terrelonge, simply must have, gambling that she'd find the Power Rangers Jungle Fury, in red, and in his size, for less than the $25.99 iParty wanted.
"It's stressful," Shevlin said, as she shopped at Target in Watertown recently, Xavier by her side. And what would happen if, heaven forbid, Shevlin timed it wrong and missed out on all the Power Ranger Jungle Fury outfits, forcing Xavier to wear one of the two ninja costumes he already owns? Shevlin was momentarily speechless. She and Xavier hugged for support.
"He would be an emotional wreck," she said finally.
Spotted on 85th Street and 17th Ave in Bensonhurst Brooklyn.
This editorial is a better reflection of what my feelings were yesterday, before the City Council vote:
The Council is moving quickly to vote on extending term limits, so that more New Yorkers don't have a chance to understand what's really going on. They've reduced the entire public discourse on this event to a slim two-week window and arranged for only a single, solitary public hearing on the issue – and only in Manhattan. By comparison, when the City was considering banning horse-drawn carriages, there were nine public hearings on the bill. Imagine how many there would be if we wanted to build a new highway.
In any case, if the Council were willing to put term limits on the ballot for us to decide, this whole debate would be over in an instant.
But the Mayor and Speaker Quinn know that their scheme doesn't stand a chance if the voters get their say. They argue that a ballot referendum would be undemocratic because so few voters participate in special elections that the outcome of a vote just on term limits wouldn't really be representative of public opinion.
This is simply not true.
The real reason is that they don't trust the voters to do their bidding. They know that if we vote their initiative will fail and then they'd be out of a job. Twice in the last 15, New Yorkers have voted in favor of term limits. Recent polls show there is no reason to suspect that the third time would be any different. In fact, what Bloomberg and Quinn secretly understand is that generally only the most passionate and informed voters tend to show up for special elections – precisely the voters they won't be able to dupe with their self-serving propaganda.
A lot of fear has been used to manipulate us. Above all, we've been threatened that only New York City's richest man has the business skills to pull us back from the brink of economic collapse. Maybe. That's why I'm for the Council letting the people decide if we want to keep Bloomberg in office.
But until we get the chance to vote, I ask you to put your personal feelings aside about Mayor Bloomberg. Were you among the legions of New Yorkers outraged when Mayor Giuliani announced after 9/11 he wanted to stick around for another term, because only he could keep us safe? Are you a New Yorker who would have rioted in the streets and stormed the White House if President Bush had insisted on a third term? When we change the rules to benefit a good man, we also benefit those with the worst of intentions.
More after the jump...
Another thing I'm not worrying my pretty little head about? Term Limits! No sir! I saw a lady at the City Council meeting yesterday saying that having another vote on term limits would just confuse the voters. 
Boy, I don't need to be confused any more than I already am! It's all I can do to remember not to eat trans fats - oh wait! I don't have to remember that anymore! Thank goodness for Mayor Bloomberg.
I'm sure our very smart overlords politicians know best. I really don't need to know where they are spending my $300 trillion dollars.
But in case you care, Bailout Sleuth and Washington Watch are trying to get to the bottom of it.
A bunny covered in kittehs - can you stand it?
A few days ago, Chris (to no one's surprise) endorsed John McCain for President. At the time he asked me to do my own endorsement post. I told him I was still thinking about it. My initial intention was to endorse the Libertarian Party candidate, Bob Barr - even though many think it's a wasted vote & honestly, I do have some reservations about Mr. Barr (albeit considerably less than I do for Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama), I still felt I should remain committed to my ideals even if for a lost cause.
Then yesterday, I read an article by Radley Balko on the Fox News website and it really struck a chord with me. You see, I used to vote Republican. Even though I believed in the libertarian ideal, I felt that you had to work within the system you had to make changes - and of the two major parties, at least the Republicans were the "small government" party. They were the ones who wouldn't try to be your Nanny or your parent - they believed people should be self-reliant whenever possible & government intervention should be kept to a minimum. True they held some platform positions on social issues I wasn't comfortable with (pro-life, anti-gay for instance) but for the most part they believed, as I did, that regulations for those type of social issues should be made, if at all, on a local level and based on the preferences of the voters in the local area.
After Ronald Reagan's presidency, something happened to the Republican Party. Little by little they gave up the mantle of "limited government" and became the same kind of bloated government bureaucracy as the Democrats. By 2004 my disillisionment with the Republicans was complete and I voted for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Party candidate for President. I knew that living in New York - especially in New York City - I could have voted for Mickey Mouse and it wouldn't have mattered, since John Kerry was a done deal for New York, so it was my own little protest. Maybe meaningless in the bigger picture but meaningful to me.
Radley Balko has apparently had a similar journey and his recent article holds the position that the Republicans need to lose this election this year, if only to send them a message.
I grew up in a particularly conservative part of the already conservative state of Indiana. I voted for Bob Dole in 1996 and George Bush in 2000, generally because — though I'm not a conservative (I'm a libertarian) — I'd always thought the GOP was the party of limited government. By 2002, I was less sure of that. And by 2004, I was so fed up with the party that I did what I thought I'd never do — vote for an unabashed leftist for president.
Since then, "fed up" has soured to "given up." The Republican Party has exiled its Goldwater-Reagan wing and given up all pretense of any allegiance to limited government. In the last eight years, the GOP has given us a monstrous new federal bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security. In the prescription drug benefit, it's given us the largest new federal entitlement since the Johnson administration. Federal spending — even on items not related to war or national security — has soared. And we now get to watch as the party that's supposed to be "free market" nationalizes huge chunks of the economy's financial sector.
This isn't to say that Barack Obama would be any better. Government would undoubtedly grow under his watch. And from my libertarian perspective, he has been increasingly disappointing even on the issues where he's supposed to be good. We may not go to war with Iran in an Obama administration, but we'd likely become entrenched in a prolonged nation-building adventure in the Sudan. Obama's vote on the FISA bill and telecom immunity also suggests that, for all his criticisms of President Bush's use of executive power and assaults on civil liberties, Obama wouldn't be much better. On the drug war, Obama has promised to end the federal raids on medical marijuana clinics in states that have legalized the drug for treatment, but he wants to resurrect failed federal criminal justice block grant programs that have had some disastrous effects on civil liberties.
While I'm not thrilled at the prospect of an Obama administration (especially with a friendly Congress), the Republicans still need to get their clocks cleaned in two weeks, for a couple of reasons.
First, they had their shot at holding power, and they failed. They've failed in staying true to their principals of limited government and free markets. They've failed in preventing elected leaders of their party from becoming corrupted by the trappings of power, and they've failed to hold those leaders accountable after the fact. Congressional Republicans failed to rein in the Bush administration's naked bid to vastly expand the power of the presidency (a failure they're going to come to regret should Obama take office in January). They failed to apply due scrutiny and skepticism to the administration's claims before undertaking Congress' most solemn task — sending the nation to war. I could go on.
As for the Bush administration, the only consistent principle we've seen from the White House over the last eight years is that of elevating the American president (and, I guess, the vice president) to that of an elected dictator. That isn't hyperbole. This administration believes that on any issue that can remotely be tied to foreign policy or national security (and on quite a few other issues as well), the president has boundless, limitless, unchecked power to do anything he wants. They believe that on these matters, neither Congress nor the courts can restrain him.
That's the second reason the GOP needs to lose. American voters need to send a clear, convincing repudiation of these dangerous ideas.
I have maintained for quite some time that the TSA & their ridiculous and excessive rules on what you can & can't carry on to an airplane are a sham - solely for the purpose of creating the "illusion" of security for the (dumb) masses. We aren't any more or less safe today than we were before 9/11 - we're just more over-regulated and majorly inconvenienced. But, as with the Patriot Act, the politicians put on a show to tranquilize the public into believing they are actually doing something to make us safer. It's life people - you can't ever be "safe". You can't live your life wrapped up in bubble wrap. There is always going to be a chance that something will happen to you. But people persist in carrying on about how we need these safety measures...blah, blah, blah.
So I read with a great deal of interest an article in this month's "The Atlantic" on airline security. Here's the tagline:
Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease.
The author, Jeffrey Goldberg, has boarded planes at different airports with fake boarding passes and carried on a large assortment of prohibited items - and items that probably should have at least raised an eyebrow or two.
And because I have a fair amount of experience reporting on terrorists, and because terrorist groups produce large quantities of branded knickknacks, I’ve amassed an inspiring collection of al-Qaeda T-shirts, Islamic Jihad flags, Hezbollah videotapes, and inflatable Yasir Arafat dolls (really). All these things I’ve carried with me through airports across the country. I’ve also carried, at various times: pocketknives, matches from hotels in Beirut and Peshawar, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, eight-ounce tubes of toothpaste (in my front pocket), bottles of Fiji Water (which is foreign), and, of course, box cutters. I was selected for secondary screening four times—out of dozens of passages through security checkpoints—during this extended experiment. At one screening, I was relieved of a pair of nail clippers; during another, a can of shaving cream.
During one secondary inspection, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, I was wearing under my shirt a spectacular, only-in-America device called a “Beerbelly,” a neoprene sling that holds a polyurethane bladder and drinking tube. The Beerbelly, designed originally to sneak alcohol—up to 80 ounces—into football games, can quite obviously be used to sneak up to 80 ounces of liquid through airport security. (The company that manufactures the Beerbelly also makes something called a “Winerack,” a bra that holds up to 25 ounces of booze and is recommended, according to the company’s Web site, for PTA meetings.) My Beerbelly, which fit comfortably over my beer belly, contained two cans’ worth of Bud Light at the time of the inspection. It went undetected. The eight-ounce bottle of water in my carry-on bag, however, was seized by the federal government.
On another occasion, at LaGuardia, in New York, the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads Then surely the party of God are they who will be triumphant. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, “That’s a Hezbollah flag.” She said, “Uh-huh.” Not “Uh-huh, I’ve been trained to recognize the symbols of anti-American terror groups, but after careful inspection of your physical person, your behavior, and your last name, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are not a Bekaa Valley–trained threat to the United States commercial aviation system,” but “Uh-huh, I’m going on break, why are you talking to me?”
Apparently Port St. Lucie, Florida has eliminated all violent crime. That's why they have all this manpower to waste use on this:
Here's a warning from St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara to prostitutes, pimps and their customers using the popular Craigslist.org Web site to set up illegal "dates" in St. Lucie County: You may wind up going to jail.
...
Port St. Lucie police detectives used agency surveillance equipment to provide technical support to St. Lucie County deputies in the operation. "This is another example of our agencies working together on criminal cases," Mascara said.
"In the past few years, we have arrested hundreds of sexual predators using Internet chat rooms to try to exploit children sexually," Mascara said. "The recent operation of Internet-based prostitution is another example of the illegal use of the Internet for sexual exploitation. Whether people arrange for prostitution on street corners or over the Internet, it's still prostitution, and it's still illegal."
Type "Barack Obama" into this online English to German translator and see what you get. (Note: Case sensitive)
Then type "Barack Hussein Obama" into the translator and see what you get.
Kind of reinforces my theory that all major party politicians are basically the same person, I guess.
Palin is not only willing to hit The One but to savor it.
Thanks to NY Nerd who is having problems logging on today.
By Orson Scott Card
An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
Read the rest HERE.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say a West Palm Beach teen accidentally shot himself while talking on the phone.
Investigators believe the 16-year-old boy, whose name has not been released, was home alone Tuesday night. It appears the teen was talking on the phone and playing with a handgun when it went off.
He was found dead at the scene.
Says William Ayers is A-ok.
Oh and likes Obama too.
Khalidi, a Palestinian activist, was a director of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's press agency in 1982, according to The New York Times, when the PLO was still designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
Obama spent time with Khalidi when the two were professors in Chicago, and paid him a special tribute during a farewell dinner for the firebrand professor in 2003, reminiscing about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, according to the LA Times.
Foxnews.com
AP presidential poll: All even in the homestretch
More after the jump...
Arizona Senator John McCain.
Barack Obama promises “change,” which is an appealing concept to an American public weary of a beleaguered administration and worried about the future. They are faced with a candidate who promises them everything: Tax cuts for 95% of Americans, universal healthcare, peace, saving the planet, and—according to his wife—the “healing” of Americans’ souls. As the saying goes, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Questions abound: Is this man prepared to be president? Does he hold mainstream values and policy preferences? Who has influenced his thinking, and where does he want to take the country? Has he been honest with the people from whom he seeks votes?
The Wall St. Journal doesn't buy the bullshit he is selling, and neither do I.
You Should Be Allowed to Vote |
 You got 15/15 questions correct. Generally speaking, you're very well informed. If you vote this election, you'll know exactly who (and what) you'll be voting for. You're likely to have strong opinions, and you have the facts to back them up. |
Although I know this will out me as the nerdiest nerd that ever nerded, I have to share this. If you know anything at all about Dungeons & Dragons, this will be LOL-ROTFLMAO territory.
Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign is Getting Ugly
GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do?
OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.
MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I'm a level 72 ranger and he's only a level 8 paladin.
OBAMA: Well, if you'd bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you...
MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.
OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty "Matterhorn, son of Marathon" shtick you keep doing. Dude, could you be any less original?
MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.
OBAMA: "My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype. I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one."
MCCAIN: Yeah, well, you pal around with dark elves.
OBAMA: OH NO YOU DIDN'T.
MCCAIN: Whatever, so's your mom.
OBAMA: So's your FACE.
MCCAIN: So's your Mom's face!
HILARY: WTF you guys. Why am I playing the cleric?
MCCAIN: Hilary, we've been over this.
HILARY: No, dude. I am so sick of being the girlfriend healer. Seriously, I can't even use a sword. Fuck this noise.
And that's just the beginning...wait until Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Sarah Palin join the party. Read the whole thing here.
To be a total geek...
Well one of the many things that me and NY Nerd disagree about is laptop computers.
I am a Window guy she love her MAC.
So I have been doing some research on the new Mac Books and I found this cool little thing.
Apple has taken their fraud protection up a notch in the new MacBooks by adding tiny Liquid Submersion Indicators (LSIs) throughout the notebook’s chassis.
When you bring in your device for warranty repair Apple technicians will inspect the small dots with an otoscope. If they’re white, you’ll be covered under AppleCare. If they’re red, indicating the presence of moisture, you may have ’splaining to do.
Don’t feed coffee to your MacBook. Apple will know that you did.More after the jump...
Sony has just recalled/delayed what was supposed to be an "instant classic" for Playstation 3, It's a sandbox community game called LittleBigPlanet, because, well, listen to CNN:
The release of one of the most hotly awaited computer games in the past year has been delayed over concerns some of the background music may offend Muslims.
"LittleBigPlanet," described by review Web site IGN.com as an "instant classic," has been pulled from warehouses after it was noticed that one of its music tracks contained words from the Islamic holy text, the Quran.
[...]
"We're sure that most of you have heard by now that one of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Quran," a statement on the game's Web site said.
"We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused."
What an interesting admission from Joe Biden, who states pretty clearly that Barack Obama’s youth and lack of experience will lead to “an international crisis.”
Read More Here.
This is Part 1 of 6 - watch them all..
Chris & I had a talk this weekend about Joe the Plumber. We both believe what has been done to Joe, who is just a citizen who asked a question of a Presidential Candidate is ridiculous and unfair. Joe didn't ask to become a symbol. He certainly didn't ask to be the focus of a media witchhunt - and that's exactly what has happened to him. I find the whole thing chilling. I don't care what side of the Presidential campaign you are on - what happened to Joe should disturb you.
Iowahawk has a post up regarding Joe which does a great job of expressing my feelings:
We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.
Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. -- obviously have to put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's right there in the jobs description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house when a politician picked him out as a prop for a 30 second newsbite for the cable news cameras. Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated, harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.
Howard Stern sends someone out to Harlem to find out why people support Obama in Harlem.
Listen Here.
You may have noticed that Chris added a new poll to our page (while simultaneously managing to wipe out both of our blogrolls) asking who you will be voting for in the Presidential Election. Typical of Chris, he totally ignored those of us who are not in lockstep with the two major parties & can think on our own - and he gave you only two choices, Obama or McCain.
Being the brains of this outfit, I have gone ahead and created a new poll which allows you the freedom to vote as you wish:
This is clearly not the place for gossip, but myself and NY Nerd were talking about this over dinner, and she wanted to see Guy Ritchie take Madonna to the cleaners.
And she got her wish according to the New York Daily News.
The marriage is over - but the war has just begun.More after the jump...
Madonna didn't make Guy Ritchie sign a prenuptial agreement - and now he's going after a chunk of her massive fortune.
PREPARE for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.
He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration."
The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.
Newyorkpost.com
I go through this every night with my cat, Scratch - except it's while I'm trying to play XBox.
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo has a broken pinkie on his throwing hand and will be out four weeks, a team source told ESPN's Michael Smith.
Romo initially was diagnosed with a pinkie sprain in Sunday's 30-24 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
Veteran quarterback Brad Johnson, the Cowboys' holder on kicks, is Romo's backup.
The Cowboys have lost two of their last three games after starting the season 3-0.
I give you:
The Brokers with Hands on Their Faces Blog
Check it out - I dare you not to laugh!
(A little early, but I don't want to forget this "important" holiday, that I don't even get the day off for!)
If you've never read Michele Catalano, I encourage you to do so. I've been following her for a lot of years - beginning right after 9/11 when she mirrored my terror, dismay, anger, and confusion. Over the years she has grown so much as a writer/blogger. I can't tell you how often I find myself nodding as I read her blog, saying "Yes! Exactly!" She has come a long way - and apparently she has found a lot of peace and happiness in her personal life lately & I am very happy for her! But with all that, she still manages to hit on that vein of anger I have running through me in her post today. I am going to quote the entirety of the post and I sincerely hope she doesn't mind. I strongly encourage you to add her to your blogroll & read her on a regular basis!
I hate this election.More after the jump...
I hate everything about it.
I hate my choices.
I hate that this is the first time my daughter will be voting and she wanted so badly to get involved and campaign, but there's no candidate that has stirred her passion.
I hate that the country seems to be falling apart at the height of the election cycle.
I hate the campaign tactics of both sides.
I hate the spittle coming out of the mouths of some of my friends and family.
I hate the lack of polite discourse.
I hate the ads.
I hate that things are uglier than they were in 2004.
I hate that this is all making me feel so hateful.
I hate the conspiracy theorists I have to listen to all day at work.
I hate the violently angry bumper stickers I see.
I hate condescension, belittling, sarcasm and rhetoric in a political campaign.
I hate when people hang onto their party's line even though that party no longer represents them.
I hate feeling like this.
I hate when thickheaded, belligerent people refuse to see both sides of an issue.
I hate that there are people who believe everything they read/see/hear on the internet.
I hate when people are so easily swept up in groupthink.
I hate this election.
And I hate motherfucking circus peanuts*. Seriously.
But
I love this country.
I love our freedom to say stupid, angry, belligerent things.
I love listening to the people that make me feel hate, because at the same time it makes me feel good that we live in a place where people can talk freely.
I still hate circus peanuts.
Ok, I am exhausted, I am tired of talking to mouth breathing morons, 9/11 troofers, idiots with blinders on who cant see through the double speak and jerkoffs who just mumble, "Hope and Change" like that's the answer to all of our nation's ill's.
I have resigned to the fact that McCain will probably not win in November, he has been fighting an uphill battle since the beginning, he has been dealing with an unfriendly media a ruthless, endless money pit in George Soros who will do anything to finally own the White House and of course dissension in his own party.
Democrats cannot or will not see that this economic crisis falls square in their hands, oh there is enough blame to go around, but all the shit of this sub-prime mortgage mess is all on them.
Republicans have thrown up their hands, they say that McCain is not a "real" Republican because he doesn't toe the company line, that he has worked with Democrats and in the end he is not a total religious nut and bible thumping freak.
The Republicans are going to stay home watch Fox News and bitch about how can America let a Muslim become a president, and I am ok with that.
Why the sudden change of attitude, why am I no longer spouting the Republican mantra and singing the praises of Sarah Palin, well you can thank Robert Wuhl for that.
Last night on HBO I watched Robert Wuhl's comedy/history special, "Assume the position" and one thing that was made perfectly clear is that since we became a country not under British rule we have made mistakes, we have elected bad presidents we have made bad decisions as a nation and you know what, we survived, thrived and prospered, because as Americans that's what we do.
This country, like the City of New Orleans, needs a good douching, maybe this is the catalyst for true hope and change, maybe this country needs a bad leader, a total fucking ignoramus, another Jimmy Carter so to speak, to finally get its collective heads out of its asses.
A lot of people don't remember the 70's Jimmy Carter became president because of Nixon, Ford, and what was perceived as an Old Man's Club so this country wanted something different. They elected some bumbling fool from the south to govern our country to lead us. (I was only 10 at the time so I didn't vote) Americans wanted a leader to give us strength and to help us move into the next decade.
What we got was a dizzy fool who was afraid of his own shadow, a drunk brother who gave us Billy Beer and Iranians that pissed all over us and we accepted it.
Then 2 things happened, Lake Placid, New York and a Hockey team with the heart and pain of a whole nation on its shoulders and a Governor from California who spoke softly but wielded a big stick.
Americans finally woke up, Reagan's commercial, "It's A New Day" sat in everyone's subconscious and he became victorious. Reagan felt our pain, he was strong yet compassionate he was feared yet respected admired and loved.
To this day pollsters and the media still use the term, "Reagan Democrats" when conducting surveys and to explain how Republicans can gain so much ground in typical Democratic strongholds and to get a true understanding of how much our nation was hurting, Reagan won New York, a city that was on the brink of financial ruin.
I am afraid of an Obama Presidency, I fear for our nation's safety and for the good men and women that will fall in harms way because Obama is too stupid, weak or retarded to speak softly and carry a big stick.
It's going to be a very painful 4 years under Obama, but we will survive and a leader will come out of the ashes and again bring us to the point where we are a great country once again.
So for the next 4 years I am just going to watch Fox News and drink Brawndo, because it has electrolytes and shit.
A Democratic state representative's son has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Tennessee for intentionally hacking into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account.
David C. Kernell, 20, was charged with one count of breaking into the Republican vice presidential nominee's personal Yahoo e-mail account. Kernell, an economics student at the University of Tennessee, is the son of state Rep. Michael Kernell of Memphis.
Foxnews.com
So you may have heard of the Twilight phenomenon. Stephenie Meyer's series of books about Emo Teenage Vampires that have been on the bestsellers lists for quite some time now. Teenage girls are buying these books like crazy and even adults jumped on the bandwagon.
Since I enjoy a good vampire story, I decided to give the books a try. I eagerly picked up Twilight & began to read. I hated it almost immediately. It is the worst written, most boring book I've read in a very long time. The funny thing about bad writing is that you can kind of excuse it if there is a decent story behind it - witness the Harry Potter books. J.K. Rowling's writing style makes me cringe, but the story itself roped me in & I gladly plowed through all of the books to see how it all ended. But this book has bad writing & no real plot. Nevertheless, I paid for the stupid thing, so I persevered and finished it. I didn't buy any of the other books in the series because, frankly, I really don't give a shit what happens next.
Well today I found someone who thought the book was as bad as I did - and she has done an amazingly funny, way more interesting than the original, recap of the book. It begins here and even if you didn't read the book, I think you'll find the recap hilarious.
