Obama on The Daily Show

You must be fucking kidding me...

I was thinking nothing.... Perhaps some jail time for some pretty fraudulent prospecti in some intstances. But definately not this...:

Broken Securities Industry Still Has $20 Billion to Pay Bonuses

By Christine Harper and Serena Saitto

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Five straight quarters of losses and a 70 percent slide in its stock this year haven't stopped Merrill Lynch & Co. from allocating about $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.

Now I'm thinking take them out behind the barn like Old Yeller.

American Stories, American Solutions

Obama's 30-minutes commercial.

The $400 Haircut vs. The $150,000 Wardrobe

Enjoy the comical hypocrisy...

B52's - Planet Claire

One of my favorite songs of all time. Enjoy.

Satisfaction (I Can't Get Me No) - Devo

Enjoy.

Interview with Mayor of Wasilla = Experience (Palin is qualified...)

Enjoy

Another "missing link" found...

The creationists will just claim "two more gaps:"

A pigeon-sized dinosaur that lived more than 100 million years ago sported four ribbon-like tail feathers that likely helped the creature balance on tree branches.

That picture comes from a fossil of a nearly complete skeleton and the well-preserved feathers of Epidexipteryx hui, discovered in Inner Mongolia, China. The finding, detailed in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Nature, fills in gaps about the transition from non-avian dinosaurs to birds.

Although scientists are not positive about the dates for the sediments that the skeleton was found in, researchers suspect the dinosaur lived some time around 152 million to 168 million years ago during the Middle to Late Jurassic Period. That makes the remains slightly older than Archaeopteryx, long considered the oldest bird, which lived about 150 million years ago.

Science is so much cooler than religion.

Gonna have to eat my words...

I'll be voting for Obama in the coming election. Not only has he grown on me as he's been more-substance less-messiah, but the Republicans and rest of the moon-bats on the right have gone stark, raving mad:

Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.

Can they possibly get any lower or creepier?

Ah, yes, I know, white women forced to be bondage sex-slaves to black men... Oh, and NAMBLA being given access to school yards. I'm sure, if they thought the could get away with that crap, they'd work that in too.

The Daily Show on the Socialist Leader John McCain

Evading Airport Security

A funny, yet sobering article, in The Atlantic:

The Things He Carried

If I were a terrorist, and I’m not, but if I were a terrorist—a frosty, tough-like-Chuck-Norris terrorist, say a C-title jihadist with Hezbollah or, more likely, a donkey-work operative with the Judean People’s Front—I would not do what I did in the bathroom of the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, which was to place myself in front of a sink in open view of the male American flying public and ostentatiously rip up a sheaf of counterfeit boarding passes that had been created for me by a frenetic and acerbic security expert named Bruce Schnei­er. He had made these boarding passes in his sophisticated underground forgery works, which consists of a Sony Vaio laptop and an HP LaserJet printer, in order to prove that the Transportation Security Administration, which is meant to protect American aviation from al-Qaeda, represents an egregious waste of tax dollars, dollars that could otherwise be used to catch terrorists before they arrive at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, by which time it is, generally speaking, too late.

I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again, those inspectors are nothing more than rent-a-cops with Federal Badges. Literally. That is the origin of the vast majority of the TSA inspectors. They were minimum-wage, low-skill flunkies working for Wackenhut, or Brinks or someother rent-a-cop firm.

These are not like FBI or DEA agents that have gone to college then endured a rigorous selection and training program. Not even close.

Sarah Palin - Petty Criminal

This is a reformer?

AP INVESTIGATION: Alaska funded Palin kids' travel

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

She's pathetic. A pitiful, little cheater nibbling at the edges... Not even the moxie to go all in like Ted Stevens.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 Has Gone Gold

Available in Stores on Oct. 28 in N. America, Oct. 30 in Europe/Australia, Oct. 31 in UK

October 9, 2008 (Rockville, MD) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, announced today that its highly anticipated title, Fallout® 3, has gone gold and will be available on store shelves and online in North America on October 28, in Europe and Australia on October 30, and in the UK on October 31. Developed at Bethesda Game Studios – creators of the 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® – Fallout 3 is slated for release on the Xbox 360®video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, and Games for Windows.

“Fallout 3 has been the biggest project we’ve ever undertaken,” said Todd Howard, game director for Fallout 3. “It’s been a long journey and we’re really happy with how it turned out. We can’t wait for everyone to get a chance to play it.”

Fallout 3 features one of the most realized game worlds ever created. Set more than 200 years following a nuclear war, you can create any kind of character you want and explore the open wastes of Washington, D.C however you choose. Every minute is a fight for survival as you encounter Super Mutants, Ghouls, Raiders, and other dangers of the Wasteland.

Fallout 3’s first review is featured as this month’s cover story in Official Xbox Magazine, hitting subscribers now and on newsstands October 21. Hailed as one of the most anticipated games for 2008, Fallout 3 has already won numerous awards including Best of Show from the official Game Critics Awards at E3 2008, a selection voted on by an independent group of journalists from 36 leading North American media outlets that cover the videogame industry.

Fallout® 3 has been rated Mature by the ESRB.

Oh yeah...

And we shouldn't paint the Republicans as racist?

It may not be Obama. Much like a Michael Jackson impersonator isn't Michale Jackson. But the similarities are too close for it to be an accident. Better they'd used a real terrorist, not a picture that looks like a slightly photo-shopped Obama.

And, how does any decent person remain a Republican after this campaign, with dog-whistle racism oozing from every pore?

At what point in time do you finally acknowledge the Republican party is over-run with bigots and racists? And yet, otherwise in good 'ol Virginia:

A new CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation survey in Virginia released Wednesday indicates that Obama holds a 10-point lead over McCain -- 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters.

All it does is alienate people like me. People who, if they weren't being such jack-napes, might actually vote Republican at some levels. Even if they are completely uninterested in McCain as a President.

Gee... Who would have thought it...

Yet ANOTHER contaminated food-product imported from Laissez-Faire China:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has increased inspections and product testing efforts in response to the melamine contamination problem which originated in Chinese dairy products. As a result of the FDA’s on-going testing program, the agency has detected melamine contamination in Blue Cat Flavor Drinks. The distributor of the product, Tristar Food Wholesale Co. Inc., initiated a recall of several flavors of Blue Cat Flavor Drink, based on the FDA’s findings. The FDA advises the public not to consume this product and recommends that retailers and food service operators remove the product from sale or service.

Other Recalls

On September 26, the FDA issued an alert to consumers that seven Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products were being recalled by the Taiwanese company, King Car Food Industrial Co. Ltd., due to possible contamination with melamine. King Car Food Industrial Co. used a non-dairy creamer manufactured by Shandong Duqing Inc., China, which was found to be contaminated with melamine. The recalled products are:

Mr. Brown Mandheling Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Arabica Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Blue Mountain Blend Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Caramel Macchiato Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown French Vanilla Instant Coffee (3-in-1)
Mr. Brown Mandhling Blend instant Coffee (2-in-1)
Mr. Brown Milk Tea (3-in-1)

The FDA recommends that consumers not consume any of the above Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products. The FDA also recommends that retailers and foodservice operators remove the products from sale or service.

Sunny Maid Corp. Monterey Park, Calif., who is an importer and distributor of Mr. Brown Instant Coffee products, is recalling the products in the United States.

The FDA is working with regulatory agencies in the United States as well as with other countries. The California Department of Public Health and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority reported that its testing of White Rabbit Creamy Candies has shown melamine contamination at high levels. In light of the widespread contamination of milk and milk-based products in China and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority’s finding, the FDA continues to recommend that consumers not eat White Rabbit Creamy Candy and that retailers and foodservice operations remove the product from sale or service.

A recall by QFCO Inc., Burlingame, Calif., of the White Rabbit Creamy Candies, is underway in the United States.

The FDA is closely monitoring these recalls and will continue to perform follow up activities of other recalls that may develop.

To date, the FDA is not aware of any illnesses in the United States stemming from consumption of Blue Cat Flavor Drinks, White Rabbit Creamy Candy, or the Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products.

Individuals who have experienced any health problems after consuming Blue Cat Flavor Drinks, White Rabbit Creamy Candy, or any of the identified Mr. Brown coffee and tea products are advised to contact their health care professional.

Markets without effective regulation are death-traps where the unscrupulous will make their millions then run off with them while the rest of suffer, lose everything they've made, or even die from faulty products.

And yet certain people demand a lack of regulation. And call you a socialist when all you're asking for is regulated capitalism.

I'm Captain Kirk!

Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You?:

Too funny.

Ippii's are cool.

Dey is cool!

If you lie down with dogs...

...you're going to get fleas. Conservative hack-pundit David Brooks cries about the anti-intellectual Republican Party base:

But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads.

Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts.

What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect.

Ah yes, "coastal pointy heads" and the freeper favorite "libtards" who should, at best be locked up away from our children and precious bodily fluids... I should point out, Mr. Brooks, that I was a Republican during the days you and your cultural warrior friends started this anti-intellectual, demonization campaign. I know who started it.

And like a back-fire run amok, it's done the Republicans far more harm than good. Smart people make this country go, Mr. Brooks. Not the mouth breathing fools to which you've been pandering.

And smart people will make the necessary changes in their behaviors because they can see where your path is leading us:

The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone.

The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Cry away, Mr. Brooks. Maybe someday you'll have an idea worth having and people will listen to you. Until then, dry up and blow away.

Lou Dobbs: Bigotry Run Amok

Jesus, he's such a bigot:

"Are you concerned that radical left-wing activist groups [ACORN] are trying to manipulate the outcome of this presidential election?"

I want to ask Lou Dobbs why signing people up to vote is "left-wing" or "radical." Oh wait, it's because they're black and Hispanic and we can't have that...

I could spend days writing posts about Dobbs and his bigotry. All of which is supported by CNN.

Of course, I could spend days wallowing in piles of steaming horse crap, too. At least with the horse crap, it'd keep me warm and, eventually, make the garden grow ever so well...

With Lou, I might suffer a stroke from reading, or viewing, his mendacious, deliberate falsehoods and evil propaganda he panders as 'the truth' while bristling at the very fair charges of racism that have been leveled his way...

Really, it's quite the no-brainer...

Ahhhh....

So that's what my shrink has been doing...

Learning How Not To Be Afraid

ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2008) — Why do some people have the ability to remain calm and relaxed even in the most stressful situations? New experiments in mice by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers are providing insight into how the brain changes when the animals learn to feel safe and secure in situations that would normally make them anxious.

HHMI investigator Eric R. Kandel and Daniela D. Pollak conducted experiments in which they conditioned mice to feel safe in stressful situations. Their experiments showed that the mice developed a conditioned inhibition of fear, which Kandel calls "learned safety."

The behavioral changes observed in the mice squelched anxiety as effectively as antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, said Kandel, who is at Columbia University. "It's a little bit like psychotherapy," he noted. "This shows that behavioral intervention works."

...

Two types of fear, instinctive and learned, have deep evolutionary roots and are essential for survival. But in some people, pathological forms of learned fear can lead to debilitating anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome, or depression. Learned safety, on the other hand, reduces chronic stress, one of the hallmarks of depression and other psychopathologies. "The ability to identify, develop, and exploit conditions of safety and security is central to survival and mental health," said Kandel, "but little is known of the neurobiology of these processes."

I kind of wondered, on-and-off, if I was just pissing my money down the toilet. Though, in recent weeks, it's become apparent that a lot of things have been changing internally. I still have my not great days, but I can see a marked decrease in reactivity.

There rest is here.

Power corrupts...

...especially in the hands of the police:

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said.

"The names don't belong in there," he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. "It's as simple as that."

The person that did this should be jailed in order to dissuade others. But nothing will happen. Because too many people worship police when, in fact, they're not any better than the average guy and, frankly, frequently worse.

SNL - Biden/Palin Debate.

Everclear - Volvo Driving Soccer Mom

Enjoy. :)

Welcome to Saudi Britain

Liked it.

Pretzels containing melamine recalled

When we didn't have the FDA, we suffered the same type of food scandals as the Chinese are inflicting upon the world:

A popular Chinese pretzel snack is being recalled after testing positive for melamine.

The Canadian Food Inspection agency (CFIA) is warning consumers not to eat chocolate or strawberry-flavoured pretzels being sold under the OK OK brand. The items are being sold across Ontario and are imported by Scarborough distributor Dai Jung.

The CFIA will continue monitoring as Dai Jung conducts a voluntary recall.

The products are labelled:

Kaiser Strawberry Dressing Pretzel

UPC 4 710757 036608

Approx. 40 g

Kaiser Choco Dressing Pretzel

UPC 4 710757 036301

50 g

There are no lot codes associated with the products.

But if we just repeat the holy mantra of "the markets work, the markets work" maybe one day we'll all go to happy-happy land where rotten bastards don't lie and cheat their way to riches at the expense of others. And then we woke up...

Science works...

No amount of hand-wringing or prayer would find this out:

RADIOACTIVE scorpion venom sounds like the ultimate doomsday weapon but it is now being tested as a treatment for malignant brain cancer.

The scorpion Leiurus quinquestriatus lives in the Middle East. Among the powerful cocktail of neurotoxins packed into its venom is a peptide that is non-toxic to humans and binds to a receptor found only on some tumour cells. In culture, the peptide has invaded tumours in breast, skin, brain and lung tissue, but left healthy cells untouched. "It's as if the tumours collect it," says Michael Egan of the company TransMolecular in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To see if the peptide could deliver lethal doses of radioactivity to cancer cells, researchers at the company have attached radioactive iodine isotopes to it.

No word if you get cool mutant powers...

Laissez-Faire equals Buyer Beware Squared...

Once again, the markets fail to self-regulate:

Candy with chemical in Chinese milk found in Conn.
By LARRY SMITH
Wed Oct 1, 6:49 PM ET

HARTFORD, Conn. - An industrial chemical blamed for sickening thousands of infants in China was found in candy in four Connecticut stores this week, a state official said Wednesday.

Days after contaminated White Rabbit Creamy Candy was found in California, Connecticut Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell Jr. said tests found melamine in bags of the candy sold at two New Haven stores, a West Hartford market and an East Haven store.

"We're concerned, obviously, there may have been bags sold of these before we got to them," Farrell said.

...

Melamine, which is high in nitrogen, is used to make plastics and fertilizers and experts say some amount of the chemical may be transferred from the environment during food processing. But in China's case, suppliers trying to boost output are believed to have diluted their milk, adding melamine because its nitrogen content can fool tests aimed at verifying protein content.

Melamine can cause kidney stones, leading to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable

So, if the Investment Banking meltdown hasn't convinced you... Or the Pet Food Scandal hasn't convinced you... Or all the dangerous drugs approved by the industry contaminated FDA approval process hasn't convinced you...

Maybe dead children will.

I have said for a very long time that markets do not self-regulate because those companies that do are punished in the short-run and do not survive to the long-run. Because of this irresponsible short-term management, markets require over-sight. I think this is, at this point, not only obvious but incontrovertible.

We need the Norquists and Free Marketers out of government so we can repair the damage of decades of mis-management. We need effective, non-corruptible government over-sight of consumer goods, especially the in the food supply and drug industries. Over-sight that bans food imports from places like China, who lack effective, meaningful regulatory controls. Over-sight that ensures executives aren't cheating and gambling their ways to fortune while exposing the rest of us to the consequences of their behaviors.

A-ha - Take On Me

80's hair!

Afghanistan is lost...

We're just too stupid and arrogant to admit it. However, the British having lost their empire the hard way, can see the writing on the wall. From the British Ambassador to Afghanistan to the Ambassador from France:

The British ambassador and his deputy have in turn contacted me to pass on their analysis of the situation before the Franco-British meeting on Afghanistan. These were their main points:

-- The current situation is bad. The security situation is getting worse. So is corruption and the government has lost all trust. Our public statements should not delude us over the fact that the insurrection, while incapable of winning a military victory, nevertheless has the capacity to make life increasingly difficult, including in the capital.

-- The presence -- especially the military presence -- of the coalition is part of the problem, not the solution. The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them. In doing so, they are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis (which, moreover, will probably be dramatic.

The reinforcement of the military presence would have a perverse effect: it would identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and it would multiply the number of targets (for the insurgents).

We have no alternative to supporting the United States in Afghanistan... but we should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one.

"Within five or ten years from now... (it would be positive) if Afghanistan were governed by an acceptable dictator... This outlook is the only realistic one and we should prepare our public opinion to accept it... In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan.... The American strategy is destined to fail.

And, at this point, we'll be lucky if Pakistan (which has nukes) doesn't fall under the sway of the Taliban, too.