cows coming home to roost

...site. xxoo to U, Sam, & Ur Family. ;)

The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
by Jane Mayer

In May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995, and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small.

The gala marked the social ascent of Koch, who, at the age of seventy, has become one of the city’s most prominent philanthropists. In 2008, he donated a hundred million dollars to modernize Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre building, which now bears his name. He has given twenty million to the American Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him. This spring, after noticing the decrepit state of the fountains outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Koch pledged at least ten million dollars for their renovation. He is a trustee of the museum, perhaps the most coveted social prize in the city, and serves on the board of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where, after he donated more than forty million dollars, an endowed chair and a research center were named for him.

One dignitary was conspicuously absent from the gala: the event’s third honorary co-chair, Michelle Obama. Her office said that a scheduling conflict had prevented her from attending. Yet had the First Lady shared the stage with Koch it might have created an awkward tableau. In Washington, Koch is best known as part of a family that has repeatedly funded stealth attacks on the federal government, and on the Obama Administration in particular.

With his brother Charles, who is seventy-four, David Koch owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars. The company has grown spectacularly since their father, Fred, died, in 1967, and the brothers took charge. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns:
Brawny paper towels,
Dixie cups,
Georgia-Pacific lumber,
Stainmaster carpet, and
Lycra,
(BOYCOTT THESE ITEMS)
among other products.
Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

In a statement, Koch Industries said that the Greenpeace report “distorts the environmental record of our companies.” And David Koch, in a recent, admiring article about him in New York, protested that the “radical press” had turned his family into “whipping boys,” and had exaggerated its influence on American politics. But Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0x...

By Michael Neumann

August 24, 2010

Michael Neumann is a Professor of Philosophy at Trent University, Canada. He has long been a tireless critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, and has written extensively on the topic. He has also sharply intervened in debates within the Palestinian solidarity movement about a two-state settlement and the role of the ‘Israel lobby’ in determining US foreign policy. In this interview with New Left Project’s Edward Lewis, Neumann discusses some of the fundamental concepts at stake in the Israel-Palestine conflict - the legitimacy of Palestinian violence, the principle of self-determination and the case for a Palestinian state.

You are critical of the principle of national self-determination – that every nation should be able to form an independent political community. Yet this idea is one of the major moral foundations on which support for Palestinian statehood is based. Why are you opposed to the idea of national self-determination? On what alternative grounds do you support Palestinian claims to a state of their own?

"Every nation should be able to form an independent political community"? - that contains a fateful ambiguity.

If ‘nation’ means ‘whoever happens to be living in some country-sized geographical area’ - see your second question, about boundaries - then I’m not against the principle. I tepidly support it. Yes, political power should ultimately reside in the hands of ‘the people’ - another fatefully ambiguous expression - meaning *everyone* residing in that area. That alone would be enough to make some sort of case for a Palestinian state - hell, these folks were living there. At the very least, *everyone* residing in Palestine should have the power of the state that rules it. And at the very least, that justifies either a bi-national, one-state or a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

The case is not air-tight because not every act of self-determination is legitimate. If you - an individual or a nation - are free, and determine your own future, you might do so for good or for evil. You might even do irreparable harm to *yourself*. The best case for a Palestinian state is more straightforward. The Israelis treat the Palestinians like crap, and that has to stop. There’s no need to get into the intricacies of self-determination. The right not to be treated like crap is better established, and quite sufficient in this context.

As for why I’m critical of "the principle of national self-determination", that’s because ‘nation’ or ‘people’ is constantly used to mean ‘ethnic group’. So interpreted, the ‘principle of national self-determination’ is one of the most destructive ideals ever advanced.

We might suppose there is an ethnically homogeneous population on some planet, and members of that population wants the same thing. Their interests never clash with the interests of other populations on the planet - maybe there *isn’t* any other population on the planet. Should they be able to determine ‘their destiny’? Sure, why not - as long as they do this for good, not evil.

On *this* planet, whenever the clamour for ethnic self-determination arises, it’s shamefully, blatantly bogus. The ethnic groups in question are almost never well-defined and never monolithic: not every member of the group has the same interests. What really happens is that you have some fake ‘community leaders’ spouting all sorts of self-induced lies about how important their ‘identity’ is to them. These posers claim their vitally important identity needs someone to ‘preserve’ it. Oddly enough for such spiritually attuned people, preserving it usually requires something quite material, like a bunch of land, or a wad of government cash. In fact their identity is *not* so important to them. They’d readily abandon it to preserve, say, the little finger on their left hand. We are no longer simple peasants who never heard of Michael Jackson or the internet. Anyone sophisticated enough to demand self-determination to preserve their ethnic identity, no longer has such an identity. They’re running the best sort of con game, the one where the con artist believes his own bullshit.
http://www.zcommunications.org/fundamentals-of-the-israel-palestine-conf...

...finally a progressive Democrat challenging House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Does he stand a chance? Maybe not, but certainly gives me someone to vote for in the primary. But according to AP test returns, Gall's chances are promising...

209 of 209 precincts - 100 percent
x-Steny Hoyer (i) 51,052 - 45 percent
Andrew Gall 45,380 - 40 percent
Sylvanus Bent 17,018 - 15 percent
http://www2.wnct.com/news/2010/aug/23/ap-md-dem-house-contested-ar-33604...

"My fundamental philosophy of governance is guided by the idea that every child, no matter the circumstances they are born into, should have as close to an equal opportunity in life to succeed as possible." For Andrew, "government, when at its best, gives a voice to the voiceless and champions policy for the powerless... if I make a mistake, let it be in favor of those that have the least among us." Andrew hopes to be able to carry his vision for change to the people of Maryland, "whether advocating for resources to preserve our Bay, or standing up to bullying lobbyists, I firmly believe that, if given the opportunity to represent Maryland in congress, I will make this district incredibly proud.” --Andrew Gall
more here--
http://samsedershow.com/node/5954

CeeCee on Tue, 08/24/2010 - 8:34pm.

...{continued from above post}...
Brawny paper towels,
Dixie cups,
Georgia-Pacific lumber,
Stainmaster carpet, and
Lycra,
(BOYCOTT THESE ITEMS)
among other products.
Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America.

SEE ABOVE POST FOR LINK AND MORE IMPORTANT INFO {CeeCee on Tue, 08/24/2010 - 8:34pm.}

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/business/25vaccine.html?src=mv

The street
filled with tomatoes
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera,
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhausible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth,
recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

=Pablo Neruda=

*

"I mixed these two songs, because some girl was like, ''I HOPE SOMEONE MIXES THESE SONGS!!'; And, so I did. And, on this computer I can't hear the sounds. But, I know it works"

But I thought that was the SSSB!!!

Tongue hurts, and unfortunately not from indulging in any fish tartlettes.
(¿Con petroleo o sin petroleo?)

THANK YOU SAM!!!

Glenn Greenwald - Salon.Com
TUESDAY, AUG 24, 2010 08:25 ET

"Julian Assanage -- you know, molesting charges aside -- is a criminal. He broke the law. He is, you know, a murderer of American and Afghani people. His carelessness has killed people. Even besides that, he broke U.S. law. Why -- [nervous cackling] -- just the very idea that Glenn thinks the Pentagon should cooperate with them blows my mind."

To say that these statements evince a reckless disregard for truth is to give them too much credit. There is not a shred of evidence that any act WikiLeaks has undertaken -- including the release of the last batch of Afghan war documents -- "has killed people." To say that Assange is "a murderer of American and Afghani people" is so far removed from reality, exhibits such an irresponsible detachment from the truth, that it's hard to express in words. Even the Pentagon admits that there is no evidence whatsoever to support Carroll's factual claims.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/24/wikileaks/i...

« When you are trying to change the status quo, self-sacrifice is the price of admission…..
Breaking: FBI Raids Utah Activist House for the Second Time »
Free Bryan

Posted by thomaspainescorner on August 12, 2010

Photobucket

Simulposted with Justice for Activists

On July 28th, 2010, animal activist Bryan Monell was arrested at a circus demo in Anaheim CA, as he innocently and peacefully protested the circus. During the arrest Bryan sustained major injuries that sent him to the hospital and required medical care.

His case in ongoing so details will not be posted to protect the security of his legal case. What is public information is that Bryan is currently out of jail on a $5,000 bail. Bryan potentially faces years in prison. He is loved by his friends, has the support of every activist who did see what happened that day, and is an asset to this movement.

To contribute to Bryan’s legal fund, click HERE and then click on DONATE at the top of the page….

Bryan’s legal fees are mounting and will continue to grow. His only hope is a solid defense. Please support Bryan Monell in this time of need.

CASE UPDATES

Bryan’s arraignment is currently scheduled for September 15, 2010 at 8:30 a.m. at the Superior Court of Orange County: North Justice Center, located at:

1275 North Berkeley Avenue, Fullerton, CA 92832

Court support is always welcome. Please dress appropriately. Either business attire or purchase a Free Bryan shirt (see bottom of page for details).

OUR FRIEND BRYAN

“I learned more about animal rights from my childhood best friend and dog Sam than all the AR books (and I’ve read a ton of them).” ~Bryan Monell

Bryan Monell is one of the most committed and determined activists the AR movement has. He has dedicated his adult life to animal rights and other social justice causes by participating in protests, organizing benefits, and speaking to media outlets on the movement’s behalf. One of the most selfless things Bryan has done is to go undercover to capture footage of the heinous cruelty that occurs in animal enterprises.

Risking his personal safety, Bryan has documented animal cruelty in a large number of undercover investigations. The undercover footage he has captured has changed many laws and made many people become vegan. Footage form his investigations is featured in Dealing Dogs, Earthlings, and Meet Your Meat. His amazing undercover work includes:

• several circuses as an elephant groom (footage of these investigations is in the video above)
• as a live hanger at a chicken slaughterhouse;
• undercover at a pig farrowing plant;
• at countless puppy-mills all over the country,
• documenting almost all of the B dealers selling to labs;
• investigated Premarin and horse-slaughter plants in the U.S. and Canada rescued horses from a killer buyer in PA;
• documenting the cruelty to crustaceans as a live crab cooker.

Bryan has attended and/or organized well over 500 demos, including pet stores, circuses, Fur Free Friday, World Week for Laboratory Animal Liberation, lobster, foi gras, rodeo, McDonald’s, KFC, and more. His activism has taken him around the globe, to Mexico, Japan and Greece. He has worked and volunteered at several humane societies around the country, worked as a veterinary technician, worked at two National animal rights groups, as well as on behalf of several grass roots groups in the U.S. and Canada. Bryan was the president of his college animal rights club, and taught ecology courses to children.

Rescuing animals is also a part of Bryan’s work. He rescued harbor seals and elephant seals as a member of the Humboldt Marine Mammal Rescue team. Personally, he has also rescued countless dogs, cats, chickens, fish, turkeys, seals, and sea lions. Bryan was one of the first people in the group allowed to enter St. Bernard’s Parish in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina to rescue animals.

His work and activism is also multi-issue; he was the Director of Recreation for a set of group homes in Oregon for developmentally disabled adults, involved in anti-Iraq War protests and has done jail support for other activists over the years.

Bryan has a voice that speaks eloquently for our movement and on behalf of animals. He has spoken at various City Councils, spoken at the national AR Conference in 2010, testified before the Rhode Island House of Representatives on the circus, and has been interviewed on CBS, ABC, BBC, CBC, and NPR.

Bryan has done so much for animals in his time as an activist and continues to labor selflessly for the cause. Please support Bryan to insure that he can remain free to do what he does best, especially since his work is integral to the freedom of so many others.

You can buy a Free Bryan Shirt to show your support as well. Prices range depending on what type of shirt you choose. Wear yours to show solidarity if you plan on attending any of Bryan’s court dates or support parties. Proceeds from this shirt are minimal, but they will go to Bryan. Thanks to Jenna at NittyGritty for donating her design work.

To receive periodic updates from Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC) and Bite Club of KC (TPC’s “on the street” sister blog), send a request to willpowerful@hotmail.com

This entry was posted on August 12, 2010 at 9:08 pm and is filed under Animal Defense, Animal Rights, Animal Rights Activism, Perverse Justice, Political Persecution, Political Prisoners, Prisoner Support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tea Cheers...

*** ***
RE ALASKA'S VOTE:
WHY ARE WTP VOTING ON RETHUG MACHINES STILL? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND?!

snip
The Right to Choose Healthy Food (RTCHF) is a not-for-profit trust association formed to protect individuals` rights to obtain and consume healthy food. The club members are well-educated and intelligent, who daily choose to reject standard toxic governmental food restrictions, preparations and packaging for natural God-given healthy food. RTCHF contracts with farmers to lease their animals and/or fields and owns the produce of those animals and fields. Therefore, all members of all clubs own the produce, not the farmer. The farmer does not sell people anything but gets paid for his services to cultivate, grow, harvest, and board and care for animals, as well as collect, package and ship the produce owned by club members.

http://www.naturalnews.com/029547_raw_food_buyers_club.html

(Reuters) - WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website that published secret U.S. military files on the war in Afghanistan last month, said it plans to release a document from the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been accused by two women of sexual molestation in Sweden, where he has spent the past couple of weeks. Authorities in the Nordic country are investigating the allegations and will soon decide whether to call Assange in for questioning.

WikiLeaks said in a short Twitter update that was dated late on Tuesday: "WikiLeaks to release CIA paper tomorrow."

Assange has said through Twitter that he is innocent of the accusations. He told Al Jazeera television on Sunday that he was warned by Australian intelligence of plans to discredit Wikileaks as it prepares to release more secret documents.

Swedish authorities had issued an arrest warrant for Assange, an Australian citizen, on suspicion of rape http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67O1IM20100825

snip
The researchers found 2,776 binding sites for the vitamin D receptor along the length of the genome. These were unusually concentrated near a number of genes associated with susceptibility to autoimmune conditions such as MS, Crohn's disease, systemic lupus erythematosus (or 'lupus') and rheumatoid arthritis, and to cancers such as chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and colorectal cancer.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/198681.php

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/24/facebook-says-no-to.html

It is not often said but the general poluation does not have the proper intestenal Flora aka the good bacteria .Replenishing or re -inoculating( the correct term) The Pro-biotics daily will vastly improve one's ability to resist the bad bacteria. If ones comes in contact with bad bacteria the chances are much better that you can resist the Bad bacteria, and The chances of a severe infection are greatly reduced. Activia is not active enough. So much of the human immune response in your digestive tract. If you get colds alot or your not assimilating nutrients as well as you used to the wise move is to seek out products that will do this for you . Those that have a healthy digestive tract are more likely to survive from food poisoning.

http://www.drpressman.com/probiotic-bacteria’s-immune-enhancing-mechanism-reported

http://www.drpressman.com/?s=pro+biotics&x=0&y=0
--------------------
Since the food chain is compromised it seems prudent to get that intestinal flora to flourish and crowd out the bad bacteria.

http://www.drpressman.com/products-page/all-products-browse-complete-pro...

BTW NOW!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/24/dea.ebonics/

Maybe hiring agents of color from the ghetto might help too?

I don't remember which state, prolly PA. It was instructing people about how one votes on this wonderful new invention--the paper ballot (with boxes not with punch).

It even said that the ballot would still be optically scanned after you mark it, so not to worry...

Good morning. I'll be scarce today.

(Promise.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?ref=todayspape...

...also tell the Commission what you think:

National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/
Submit Ideas
The Commission welcomes your input as we seek out creative solutions to our nation's mid- and long-term fiscal challenges. Anyone can submit comments, ideas, and suggestions at anytime via email by contacting commission@fc.eop.gov. All comments received, including attachments and other supporting materials, are part of the public record. Due to the volume of comments we receive, we are not able to respond to each submission.

Email comments to commission@fc.eop.gov.

Upcoming Meetings
Wednesday, Sept. 29, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Wednesday, Nov. 10, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Wednesday, Dec. 1, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/08/24/obama-appointed-deficit-comm...

Weekly Address: Honoring Social Security, Not Privatizing It
Posted by Jesse Lee on August 14, 2010 at 06:00 AM EDT
On the 75th anniversary of Social Security, President Obama promises to protect it from Republican leaders in Congress who have made privatization a key part of their agenda. He makes clear that, especially in light of the financial crisis, gambling Social Security on Wall Street makes no sense.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/14/weekly-address-honoring-social...

From the Social Security Administration, advisory reports addressing trust fund solvency...
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/index.html

...and please be sure to contact the White House and let them know what you think too.

If they're going to create a STAMPEDE, it might as well be in their direction.

After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters

Alex Brandon/The Times-Picayune

New Orleans Police Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann aims his gun on the Claiborne Overpass in New Orleans on Sept. 1, 2005.

By Sabrina Shankman and Tom Jennings of Frontline, Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The New Orleans Times-Picayune and A.C. Thompson of ProPublica
August 24, 2010 7:00 pm EDT
This story was co-published with The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

In the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department.

It's not clear how broadly the order was communicated. Some officers who heard it say they refused to carry it out. Others say they understood it as a fundamental change in the standards on deadly force, which allow police to fire only to protect themselves or others from what appears to be an imminent physical threat...

http://www.propublica.org/nola/story/nopd-order-to-shoot-looters-hurrica...

-----
As reported on DN!

After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters

This story should always be told. It is outright racism in action.

sister on DN!

Judge Rejects Death Row Prisoner Troy Davis’s Innocence Claim
A federal judge in Georgia has rejected death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis’s claims of innocence. Last year the Supreme Court took the unusual step of ordering a district court in Georgia to hold a special evidentiary hearing to consider evidence that surfaced after Davis’s conviction and might establish his innocence. Davis was convicted for the 1989 killing of an off-duty white police officer, Mark MacPhail. Since then, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, and there is no physical evidence tying him to the crime scene. [includes rush transcript]

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/25/judge_rejects_death_row_prisoner_t...

... also, will contact local SF offices ... also the rest of links u left {about half} I will be doing during next break...
;)

Canada has confirmed bisphenol A (BPA) is to be added to its national register of toxic substances after dismissing industry calls to review its stance on the chemical.
Environment Canada (EC) remained unmoved by charges from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) that a failure to hold a review would leave it open to charges of pandering to emotional zealots and damage its reputation. The government body told FoodProductionDaily.com it would complete the process started in 2008 to add BPA to its official List of Toxic Substances within weeks.

“We expect to conclude the process of having bisphenol A added to the List of Toxic Substances in Schedule I of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act,1999 (CEPA, 1999) in 8-10 weeks,” said EC spokesman Henry Lau.

more
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety/Canada-to-add-bispheno...

As CNN lags behind ! This seems hopeful.

The crazier the tea bag Movement is the more it pushes people to the center.

ICE Refocuses Deportation Priorities - UPI.Com

Published: Aug. 25, 2010 at 12:42 PM

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been dropping efforts to deport illegal immigrants who appear to pose no threat, officials say.

Richard Rocha, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told The Houston Chronicle the agency has to make choices. That means going after criminals and people with suspected terrorist ties.

"Our agency focuses our limited resources on criminal aliens and those who are considered national security and public safety threats," Rocha said Tuesday.

In an Aug. 20 memo given to the Chronicle, John Morton, assistant secretary for ICE, said agents should examine the cases of potential deportees based on whether they have a close relationship to a U.S. citizen. In an earlier memo, dated June 30, Morton said the department has the resources to deport 400,000 people a year, which is about 4 percent of the estimated population of illegal immigrants.

While immigration lawyers welcome the change, critics say President Obama reneged on a promise for immigration reform.

"They've made clear that they have no interest in enforcing immigration laws against people who are not convicted criminals," Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Chronicle.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/08/25/ICE-refocuses-deportation-prio...

as usual.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#38841689

Quoting Glenn Greenwald, this "virtually renders future critiques -- at least of the nation's newsweeklies, other Time/CNN properties, and most television "news" shows -- completely unnecessary".

TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults

One of the best ONN evah!!

Why when you try to embed some vids the text hyper-indents like that I don't know.

Tis why I had to go from embedding to just linking on the Maddow thing. Same prob.

"El avestruz tiene huevos ENORMES."

(And that is where I should be focusing my attn.)

... hahaha ... {ya know I might just have to read "TIME" again hahaha}

but it was the first one. (I won't tell you which one. Not "Telephone.")

Maybe we should just turn this into a kid's site... ;)

It says this is her in hs.

Anyhow, "More and more..."

there is one of him with a bear he shot last fall (asshole).

http://www.parkrapidsenterprise.com/event/image/id/9745/headline/Joe%20K...

(I think it is THE him. Old news?)

-----
Anyhow, I think he is too docile and accustomed to the proximity of politicians. Isn't there a law about that? ;)

(I get to wear the teabagger cap for the day now...)

Published on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 by Black Agenda Report
We Are Cornered: There's No Way Out Without a Fight

by Glen Ford

There is no cavalry coming over the ridge to save the people from massed capital. Certainly not the Democrats, whose self-caged left wing now finds its marginalized encampments under lockdown by their own president's hostile patrols, while the GOP and its Tea Party irregulars howl from the circling darkness....

The leftish brigades rallied to a commander who styled himself an incarnation of Abraham Lincoln, but turned out to be a General George McClellan, the Union's first commander of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was great at rousing the troops and putting his army on parade, but constantly overestimated his Confederate adversaries and, in Lincoln's final estimation, refused to fight....

It has long been clear that Barack Obama's idea of victory required decisively defeating the Left of his own party. Everyone to his left is to be neutralized, while those to his right rate an open hand and endless concessions, the scenario from the very start of his health care "negotiations" with the drug and insurance industries. Victory in the racial arena means an end to race agitation, a Black stand-down, which remains largely in place. Success in war, not pursuit of peace, is his goal, one that will surely elude him, but not for lack of trying....

Obviously, Goldman Sachs and BP considered Obama a "greater good," in terms of their interests, than John McCain. And they made out like bandits, confirming their assessment of Obama's immense value to their side in the class war. The question is, how in the hell did lefties conclude that Big Capital's and Big Oil's "greater good" candidate was also the progressive side's fountain of Hope -- or even a "lesser evil" -- in 2008? Both camps placed their bets on Obama, but only one side could possibly win.

It is the Left that wound up trapped in the cul-de-sac, with every major item on its 2008 political wish list betrayed, sidetracked, mangled or spat upon by Obama and his friends -- although, to be fair to the Devil, the Left had often simply imagined they had Obama's ear or support when such was not even remotely true. On war, for example....

One truth remains: only a massed people can defeat massed capital. If the American Left is capable of bearing that in mind in the critical times ahead, it might just escape the cul-de-sac and make some modest contribution to the world.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/25-5

....There is no way that Obama can begin to seriously reverse this course without shedding the economic team led by the Clinton-era "experts" like Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who got us into this mess in the first place. They are spooked by one overwhelmingly crippling idea-don't rattle the financial titans whom we must rely on for investment. But when it comes to keeping people in their homes, it is precisely the big banks that must be rattled into doing the right thing.

Obama gained credibility through sacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal for making untoward remarks. Why not sack Summers and Geithner for untoward policies that have inflicted such misery on the general public?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/25-0

Samantha Smith, the 13-year-old "ambassador" to the Soviet Union, dies in a plane crash. Smith was best known for writing to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1982 and visiting the Soviet Union as Andropov's guest in 1983.

In late 1982, Smith, a fifth-grader at Manchester Elementary School in Manchester, Maine, wrote a plaintive letter to Soviet leader Andropov. She said that she was "worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to have a war or not?" A few months later, Smith's letter was reprinted in Russia and it was announced that Andropov was writing a response. Smith received his letter in April 1983. Andropov assured Smith that he did not want a nuclear war with the United States or any other country. Calling Smith a "courageous and honest" little girl, Andropov closed the letter with an invitation for her to visit the Soviet Union.....

Smith's legacy lived on, however. Her mother began the Samantha Smith Foundation, which has as its goal bringing people from different nations and cultures together to share their experiences. In particular, the foundation established a student exchange program with the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, news of Smith's death was met with great sadness. The Russian government responded by issuing a stamp in her honor and naming a mountain after the young girl.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/samantha-smith-dies-in-plane-...

Wikileaks posts classified CIA memo

The whistleblower organisation Wikileaks has released a classified CIA document asking what would happen if foreign countries began to view the US as an "exporter of terrorism".

The document was prepared by the CIA's "red cell", a unit responsible for preparing analysis papers from an adversarial perspective....

'Simply to provoke thought'

The CIA concluded that foreign governments would be less likely to cooperate with the US on detention, intelligence-sharing, and other issues.

"If the US were seen as an exporter of terrorism, foreign partners may be less willing to cooperate with the United States on extrajudicial activities," the report noted.

George Little, a CIA spokesman, said in a statement that the document was merely a think piece - one of many prepared by the agency.

"These sorts of analytic products, clearly identified as coming from the agency's 'red cell', are designed simply to provoke thought and present different points of view," he said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/2010825182649321511.h...

Republican National Committee Slashes New York Muslim Cabbie
Posted on August 25, 2010 by Juan

It wasn’t the 21-year-old Michael Enright who drunkenly slashed his New York city cab driver after asking ‘Are you Muslim?’

It was the Republican National Committee. From August of 2006, the RNC decided to demonize Muslims and Islam as a campaign ploy, to scare apparently easily spooked white Christians. In recent weeks, Newt Gingrich sharpened the blade by comparing Muslims to Nazis. Gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio asked if the Sunni Kuwaiti Sufi Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is on a good will mission to the Muslim world on behalf of the US State Department and was deployed in the same way by George W. Bush, is a terrorist in the employ of Shiite Iran.....
http://www.juancole.com/2010/08/republican-national-committee-slashes-ne...

And shame on you president Obama for expanding occupations or conducting illegal, drone assassination campaigns against more than half of the Islamic world. It's the policies of the WH that are demonizing Muslims.

....A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2010/aug/24/cat-wheelie-bin
"I don't know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin, which was right beside me.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3110434/Its-just-a-cat-I-put-L...

that slips out from time to time.

This "coming home to roost" has got to be one of the least violent metaphors that is now almost always associated with violent backlash or retribution.

It's just kind of strange when you compare the literal picture with the events.

Ass burgers. Anyhow...

"[Chickens] coming home to roost," that is.

There are less than three weeks until primary election day in Rhode Island, where a grassroots champion is fighting to represent the best of our progressive values in Congress. Running to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Patrick Kennedy, David Segal is the candidate that will remain a tireless advocate for working families, while standing up to the most challenging special interests.

DFA members know that Primaries Matter... and you know that Grassroots support is how you win the most important fights. Well Druid, I can tell you that this is one of those important fights. That's why DFA has partnered with our good friends at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee to make sure that David Segal wins this important primary.

With the support of the Grassroots all across America, we've organized a PhoneBomb for David -- making phone calls with hundreds of other DFA and PCCC members -- THIS SATURDAY, AUGUST 28th.

I want make calls and be a part of the People-Powered volunteer force that pushes David over the top!

These calls are easy and fast. We're only calling already-identified Democratic voters. The key is getting them engaged on this race in a non-presidential election year. We'll provide the script, the numbers, everything. David just needs you to provide the people-power.

David got his strong reputation for passing laws that cracked down on the big banks -- taking on both predatory lending and foreclosures. But that's not all. Last year, when the Republican Governor tried to cut critical funds for schools and services from the state's budget, David led the fight to restore $25 million in funding for these important programs.

David gets the importance of winning battles for regular people -- that's why David's campaign has in turn won the support of DFA members across the state, and across the country, as a true grassroots effort.

I want to join David's winning Grassroots team. I can call from home this Saturday!

This is an opportunity to elect a true progressive champion. Now is the time to get involved.

I look forward to joining you on the phones this Saturday!

-Nick

Nick Passanante, Deputy Field Director
Democracy for America

Democracy for America relies on you and the people-power of more than one million members to fund the grassroots organizing and training that delivers progressive change on the issues that matter. Please Contribute Today and support our mission.

This "coming home to roost" has got to be one of the least violent metaphors that is now almost always associated with violent backlash or retribution.
===
What do you want, images of Dealy Plaza along with Malcolm X ranting?

McCain:

if what I wrote shows up there).

If you want to bring your ass back over here I will explain every one of my "cryptic" comments I directed at you. (Did you really not understand the pee pee, dear?)

Along with being human, I have the problems you so patronizingly point out. (Which you are spared, in the former instance, by not admitting you have any problems.) They cause me to go overboard, even with you. _I_ apologize, every time I think I have.

I am not apologizing for anything I have directed at you since I've been back here. Nothing. I do not plead insanity, [need for meds adjustment, sleep deprivation,] misunderstanding or anything else.

I think I understand you perfectly. Every time I think I may be wrong about that, you prove me right.

And in case you don't show up (in order to prove your restraint, of course, couldn't be for any other reason), I just wanted to give this uninteresting, fatuously complimentary blog a heads up as far as the dissertation you are writing on us over there.

=====
SCUMSUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!

------
Oh yeah and hey, Captain America over there --oh glorious defender of free speech. [Zeek.] All I got to say to you is "The other Slim Shadys are just imitating."

Like I said, it was just one of my annoying observations.

(Although, come to think of it, it depends on what you mean by "ranting...")

:)

and they will not wait forever.

Big surprise, another anti-gay gay republican

I guess now that muslim is the new gay, he decided it was safe.

Yeah...some people MIGHT not see through that, if they try reeeal hard.

That reminds me--ostriches (aka pretzels).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/aug/25/david-bailey

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11079725

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11079717

Founded by Jimi Hendrix in 1970, it was an oddity for its time. Instead of following the usual studio model — a big, impersonal box tended by buttoned-down staff engineers — it was a psychedelic lair, with curved walls, groovy multicolored lights and sci-fi erotica murals to aid the creative flow. Hendrix died less than a month after its opening party on Aug. 26, 1970, but he left libraries of tape from his sessions there, and the list of greats who have worked at the studio includes the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and Led Zeppelin.

more of the story

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/arts/music/26hendrix.html?_r=1&hp

...Instead, the millions of American soldiers who have passed through Iraq have brought the Iraqis a plague. From Afghanistan – in which they showed as much interest after 2001 as they will show when they start "leaving" that country next year – they brought the infection of al-Qa'ida. They brought the disease of civil war. They injected Iraq with corruption on a grand scale. They stamped the seal of torture on Abu Ghraib – a worthy successor to the same prison under Saddam's vile rule – after stamping the seal of torture on Bagram and the black prisons of Afghanistan. They sectarianised a country that, for all its Saddamite brutality and corruption, had hitherto held its Sunnis and Shias together....
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-us-tr...

n Greece they make this dish with rusks — twice-baked breads made of different types of flour, including barley, wheat, chickpea flour and rye. You can make your own rusks by drying out thick slices of whole grain bread in the oven. It’s a good way of preserving bread before it goes stale or moldy, but it does take about eight hours. For a quicker version, toast thick pieces of bread — or just look for rusks in a local Greek market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/health/nutrition/26recipehealth.html?r...

$

..... Mr. Enright asked the taxi driver, who was from Bangladesh, whether he was Muslim, Mr. Zaleta said.

After the driver said he was, Mr. Enright responded with the Arabic greeting, “Assalamu alaikum,” according to the criminal court complaint....

...Jason A. Martin, Mr. Enright’s lawyer, said his client lived with his parents and was an honor student at the School of Visual Arts, where he is a senior.

Mr. Enright is a volunteer with Intersections International, a nonprofit that works to promote cross-cultural understanding and has spoken out in favor of the proposed Islamic cultural center near ground zero. Mr. Enright, who shuffled into court with a collared T-shirt, cargo shorts and shackles around his ankles, has also worked with veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, Mr. Martin said...

The man, Michael Enright, 21, volunteers for Intersections International, a group “dedicated to justice, reconciliation and peace across lines of faith, culture, ideology, race, class, national borders and other boundaries that divide humanity.” Mr. Enright works with the group’s “veteran-civilian dialogue program.”

Intersections International released a statement this month supporting the construction of an Islamic cultural center [pdf] a few blocks from ground zero.

Intersections International, run by the Collegiate Churches of New York, said in a statement:

The news that one of our volunteers (if confirmed) was involved in a hate-crime runs counter to everything Intersections stands for.

Our hearts are with the cab driver and everyone in his family. We work aggressively to build bridges of understanding across lines of faith, and cultures especially around the Muslim community. The news that Michael (if confirmed) was involved in this hate crime, runs counter to everything we stand for and is shocking, based on our experience with him as a volunteer.

Any act committed against someone because they are Muslim is deplorable. If confirmed, his actions are no excuse, and inexcusable. We intend to reach out to him and try to help in his healing at the appropriate time.

Mr. Enright, who is also a student at the School of Visual Arts, recently traveled to Afghanistan for his senior thesis film about young American soldiers deployed there.

He told The Journal News in Westchester in a March interview that he wanted to make the movie to show the perspective of young men like a childhood friend of his who was deployed. “I wanted to do him justice,” he said.

In the trailer for the film (also see video below), a Marine tells Mr. Enright about how Sept. 11 made him want to enlist.

“I was in eighth grade social studies class,” the soldier says. “I remember seeing it. So I joined the Marine Corps to literally get rid of the bad people in the world....

...“I feel very sad,” Mr. Sharif said in a statement released by the taxi workers’ alliance. “I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before.”
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/cabbie-attacked/

August 25, 2010, 3:20 pm
Workers at City-Run Laundry to Protest Privatization
By CATE DOTY

In the battle against filth, the workers at the Brooklyn Central Laundry in East Flatbush are stalwart foot soldiers. About 80 union workers wash the dirty sheets, towels and uniforms for most of New York City’s hospitals, folding more than 10 million pounds of laundry a year. Employees say the linens sometimes hold body parts. They nearly always contain blood.

But under a proposed reorganization plan announced in May by the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the laundry, the service would be taken over by an undetermined private company. The city says private companies can beat the laundry’s price per pound, which the union estimates at $1.30.

The 80 laundry workers, members of DC 37 Local 420, staged a rally in front of the corporation’s offices on Worth Street in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon to protest the privatization.

Ana Marengo, a spokeswoman for the hospitals corporation, said the outsourcing of the laundry was part of a needed reorganization to close the $1.2 billion budget gap faced by the city’s hospital system. The corporation spends about $17.3 million a year on laundry, she said, and outsourcing the laundry would save the corporation $6.1 million. Ms. Marengo said the aging laundry facility needed at least $2 million in maintenance work.

She also said that no body parts in the linens had been reported to the hospitals corporation.

“Blankets, baby clothes, scrubs, doctors coats, it goes back out neat,” said Hulie White, 61, who has worked at the laundry for 38 years as a washer and receiver. “We don’t have no complaints.”

Mr. White said that after the Sept. 11 attacks, workers on the third floor, where the sorting takes place, wore special masks and gloves to deal with the hundreds of contaminated uniforms from first responders. The three floors – one for sorting, one for washing and one for folding – get tortuously hot in the summer, he said.

“We don’t care because we know we have a responsibility to the hospitals,” Mr. White said.

The Giuliani administration tried to close the laundry in 1998, and eventually struck a deal in which half the laundry would be done by a private firm in New Jersey, and the other half would be done by the Brooklyn laundry. The hospitals corporation was then supposed to evaluate which company performed better and more cheaply. The union claims the city never actually conducted the study.

“The laundry should stay right where it’s at,” Mr. White said.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/workers-at-city-run-laundry...

I.e, you've never had much staying power with those before and now even have someplace to run away to where you can still beat your chops and be adulated for it. (You are a fine one to talk about backslapping>)

However, if we're going to do it, you set it up.

I am already getting pretty pissed off that your bullshit is going to be eating up my time yet again, and I do have schoolwork to do, but I will respond eventually...

As you can be sure I will to any other bullshit you bring over here that becomes too egregious for me to ignore.

Sign the Pledge—Be Safer Around Eggs and More Humane to Hens
One of the easiest ways you can help farm animals and reduce your risk of Salmonella is simply to avoid eating eggs from hens crammed into cages. With less space than a sheet of paper on which to spend her life, each one of the nearly 280 million caged hens in this country can’t even spread her wings.

While more than half a billion eggs have recently been recalled in the U.S. due to Salmonella concerns, it’s important to remember that the egg industry’s cruel confinement of hens in tiny cages is not only inhumane, but increases Salmonella risk. An abundance of science shows that forcing hens to endure such extreme confinement inside cages increases the risk of Salmonella compared to keeping hens in a cage-free environment.

https://secure.humanesociety.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=Us...

Sister Sarah. Censorship? Please.

Barking orders? Jesus you are so full of it. And it is getting so fucking boring.

I obviously can't keep you from addressing me over there, like a chickenshit asshole, because you know my options as to how I can respond are circumscribed by my desire to abide by the supposed rules of that place (among other reasons). But you're not going to get another answer from me unless you talk to me here.

There, now, is that clearer? Golly, I sure hope so.

here is WaDo. Can you say the same?

Tea Cheers. I already signed. ;) I get most from e-mail.

I ask the same thing. I have anger that DEMS have allowed this HateFest.
But the true anger is with "rethugs".

Why are Dems giving SO MUCH "air time" to dealing with rethug twits? NOTHING MUCH NEW JUST rehashing the rethug LIES! eye-roll

Billy Preston on vocals and keyboards, Keith Richards on bass, Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Ginger Baker on Drums, and George Harrison on rhythm guitar

I saw these guys at U-Hall in '73 but that preceded this by a bit.

I think a lot of the old Apple non-Beatle stuff is about to start coming out again. They had a pretty good label.

Well howdy do!?
T&I hardly ever hang out in this joint anymore.
But there you are.
Love yez -

See Zeek supra (above):

Well howdy do!?
T&I hardly ever hang out in this joint anymore.
But there you are.
Love yez -

Xs and Os
- T&A

:):( freshly brewed tea cheers *
{BTW I have always loved Poe, since a wee youth in GRAMMAR school. :}

http://www.thebiguneasy.com/

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-big-uneasy/trailer

I heard Harry interviewed and he brought up that the way Bush handled the situation appears to be racial cleansing and all those issues about de-populating the dems from the area so that the thugs could take over.

Grand! This was talked about the same then, as now. {...still grrr re
"racial cleansing and all those issues about de-populating the dems from the area..." ...and even Prez O is constantly embracing rethugs...grrr}

Rethugs, do not get me wrong - I may have some problems with President O, YET I VOTE FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA and NEVER 4 republican-twits!

A German pop star was found guilty Thursday of causing grievous bodily harm and attempted bodily harm for failing to tell sexual partners that she was infected with HIV.
Nadja Benaissa, 28, former singer in the girl band No Angels, was given a two-year suspended sentence. She was also ordered to complete 300 hours of community service with people who are HIV-positive.
The trial has been taking place at a court here in Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt.
Benaissa had unprotected sex five times between 2000 and 2004 with three people and did not tell them she was infected, according to multiple media reports.
One of her partners became infected with the virus. Benaissa had allegedly known her status since 1999.
Benaissa admitted not telling sexual partners she was HIV-positive but denied intending to infect anyone, telling the court during the trial, "I am sorry from the heart."
Benaissa had said she believed there was little chance of her passing on the virus and she did not want it made public because of the harm it might cause her daughter and the band, according to the German newspaper Bild.
Bild also reported that one of Benaissa's alleged victims told the court he had unprotected sex with Benaissa on about three occasions. He said he went to the doctor after learning of Benaissa's condition from her aunt, and discovered he had contracted the virus.
He told Benaissa: "You have borne so much suffering in the world," according to the newspaper.
No Angels became Germany's most successful all-female group after they formed on the international television show "Popstars" in 2000. The band reformed in 2007 and competed in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest.
Benaissa is appearing in youth court because she was 17 at the time of the first alleged offence.
The fact that Benaissa is HIV-positive was not made public until her arrest in April last year. She spent 10 days in custody after her arrest before being released on bail.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/26/germany.hiv.case/?hpt=T2

A suspected serial robber who likes to don disguises is no longer on the prowl.
Police say Shanna Spalding, 28, of Queens, was arrested in SoHo Wednesday afternoon just minutes after a robbery on Greene Street.
Spalding is suspected of robbing four shoe and beauty stores in Manhattan and Queens between April and June.
Police say she wore several disguises during the burglaries, including a cat mask and a black scarf.
Spalding faces robbery and weapons charges.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/08/26/nypd-arrest-alleged-cat-woman-bur...

Katrina was handled so poorly that it might have helped to unite the left and the indies to become Obamas Base.

The Mosque issue seems to have the effect of uniting fearful racists and the way the M$M keeps hyping it up is an obvious attempt to reunite the uneducated and "spiritually arrogant/ignorant Americans who wouldnt know the constitution or the few words of "acceptance" that Jesus was trying to express.

I feel so bad for the Taxi driver who was slashed for being a Muslim. Those Like Rush and Beck and others are inciting people to riot. They are earning their money by advocating violence.

The well heeled have no sole.
The well healed are all soul.

the horrid toxic twit female human-thing that "threw away a dear cat".
I know of a few garbage receptacles that I would "love" to "throw" her away in.

I give it up again to Mayor Bloomberg. He is doing the right thing . the way Mike is going I expect to see him in third world sandals real soon. We really must praise the mayor on his good points.

Yes, the Cabbies slashing has gotten me enraged. We DEMS Better stand strong & "HANG" as ONE, re this horrid issue. I cannot understand why WTP haven't taken to The Streets!

I READ ABOUT "IT" yesterday ... and NO ONE is "LOUDLY PROCLAIMING" against this action & NO ONE is in The Streets yet!

This is also the rethug plan TO DIVIDE & CONQUER we dems!

I am CONFUSED WHY WE DEMS ARE SO BLOODY QUIET over this OBVIOUS rethug PLAN!

NY Mayor Bloomberg has been "doing many correct actions" re The Cabbie. Tis tres kewl ;)

TeaHee, TZ ... "the way Mike is going I expect to see him in third world sandals real soon."

snipped

“Can you imagine what this will do to our image around the world?” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. “And the additional danger it will add whenever there is an American presence in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

Mr. Jones, in a lengthy interview at his church, said he sincerely hoped that his planned Koran-burning would not lead to violence. He dismissed the idea that it could put American troops at greater risk, and — echoing his sermons — he said that his church was being persecuted.

He said his bank recently demanded immediate repayment of the $140,000 balance on the church mortgage; that his property insurance had been canceled since he announced in late July that he intended to burn copies of the Koran; and that death threats now come in regularly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/26gainesville.html?th&emc=th

Gotta work. Can't think anyhow--"distracted." Probably just being dumb, is why I took it down.

Gotta work. Gotta work.

"divide & conquer" & to run the DEMS around as "chickens with their heads cut off"... :(

...YET FOR NOW WE HAVE "THE NET". Let OUR VOICES RING OUT AS ONE, as OUR CONTEMPORARY "PAUL REVERE"! To Arms To Arms {VERBALLY}, BP (British Petroleum) and the ReThugs {Republican Thugs} are coming!

{I think I need to BREW more tea, teehee}

I could see myself allowing for anger to cloud my Constitutional Understanding of Freedom for Religion/ and freedom from religions so clearly expressed by the founding Fathers.
\
BUT I DON'T BELIEVE THE OFFICAL STORY..

those that call US conspiritorial clowns are unwilling to admit "they" got lied to and aren't able to confront their own inadequate thinking processes.

=========
as the night shift turns into the day shift the common thread of staying united remains a topic for posting. Lets work on a united front. lets promote our similarities and drop the side issues that divide us.

believe in the constitution. Let's not make false dichotomies either. Leave that to others. K?

:)

I have respect for all the regular posters (and even most of the irregular posters).

Let's just be respectful in our disagreement, K?

That doesn't mean pick fights. I'm sure not gonna. (And I didn't last night either.)

----
Being respectful might be more important than it has been in the past, in the situation we are in. That much is true.

that was because that person hardly ever shows up here, and the last time I can remember her doing so she laid into Alice real good. So that was what that was about.

I didn't think we needed that complication.

I was laid into...? Do I have to read backwards now to figure this out...?

There are people who believe the official story and still
new
Submitted by gloryoski on Thu, 08/26/2010 - 10:55am

Of course this is where we can see our similarities and work on a united populist "green Tea" type of resistance..

Jim Hightower always appealed to me. what are his views on the 9.11 government whitewashing of the misinformation?.

Some believe the dream comes from the gods. Some believe that the dream comes from the ancestors. Some believe that dreams come from a part of the dreamer’s self usually remote or removed from consciousness. Some believe that dreams are scraps of memory and fantasy, remnants of the day. All of these beliefs are probably true enough in their ways, and certainly all have been productive of creative and analytic results. Scriptures and assassinations, benzene rings and orphic odes arise from dreams.

What if the dream is something else as well? Not individual, not a message from God or from the archetypes or from the soul. We hear Freudians speak of the language of dream, but what if dream is language, is language the way language is language: systematic, intentional, focused on saying something. What if dream is above all, exactly as language is, social. This is the aspect of the dream that is seldom considered, dream as arising from the speaking back into a community, a community of native dreamers (so to say).

It was to examine the idea that a dream seeks an intended audience outside the dreamer, that the Annandale Dream Gazette was founded years ago. The dreamer dreams towards someone—and that someone is within the community. Thus two goals are achieved by harvesting the night’s dreams and publishing them: the dream may find its intended hearer, and we may gradually come to learn the nature and shape of the community itself, the community into which one dreams.

So: the dream is public. The dream is social. The dream is communication. The dream intends to speak to you. These are the notions to investigate.

—Robert Kelly

http://dreamgazettedescription.blogspot.com/

Submitted by taozen on Thu, 08/26/2010 - 10:49a

to address those who are protesting agasinst the Mosque today!

---------------

As the decades go by It appears to me that the Killings of the kennedys and MLK and others is being seen and accepted by more and more younger adults as "done by rogue elements in our our government"not by lone gunmen.. CIA FBI

"... that is another piece of the puzzle"

MAKING 'we' caring individuals "Too Busy":
-WORK WORK WORK
-Children/Furry Friends
-groceries
-mandatory shopping

...even a quick trip to a store can take much of one's precious time...

We must SOMEHOW make a STAND AGAINST the rethug evil onslaught of NEGATIVE actions. I am tired of everyone treating rethugs with such CARE! ick!
I CALL FOR A RETHUG PROBATION PERIOD! Everyone Bush put in office IS INVALID! Bush WAS AN ILLEGAL faux-president {voted by HIS APPOINTED Supreme Court} AND bush-gov STILL IS CAUSING PROBLEMS, even recently, with a BushJudge voting down PRESIDENT OBAMA! :o

thats why you are my dream girl.

I was on the phone but I got off to tie up loose ends here so that I could be off except for personal email again.

As I keep telling everyone and not doing anything about it, I am not really done with school yet.

(unfortunate enjambment) the ball away from Charlie Brown. (I don't remember the basis for that analogy if I ever understood it.)

Other than that it was just the standard fare. You were the problem for not supporting the Pres (who was trying his best) for supporting Ralph. Don't remember a lot of details just that it was fairly long and it was mean--especially since at the time we talked about it and you said you didn't even really know or remember who she was.

I wish I could forget bad things like you do, Alice. (Well, not all bad things, but little mosquito bites like that, yeah I wish I could, like you.)

And I (obviously) need a break.

to long to post here but worth looking at when you have the time

http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/a-month-without-monsanto

April Dávila wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national,
nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical
actions. April is a freelance writer living and working in Los
Angeles. Find out more about her at AprilDavila.com.
===========================
INSTEAD OF PUTTING ALL OUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

we could buy seeds from other sources
http://www.garden-of-eatin.com/how-to-avoid-monsanto/

Food Coop
By Peter Bohmer

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The decision by the board of the Olympia Food Coop to not buy Israeli made goods and boycott them is a positive and important contribution towards ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is part of a global grassroots boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement to pressure the United States and Israel to fundamentally change their policies. I strongly support this courageous and important decision made by consensus by the Olympia Food Coop board on July, 15th, 2010.

Since, 1967, when Israel seized and occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Israel has continued to expand colonial settlements of Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, depriving Palestinians of more and more of their land as well as subjecting them to military occupation. In Gaza, although Israel withdrew their settlements in 2005, they have since 2006, blockaded Gaza by sea, air and land. This blockade has made it impossible for most of the 1.4 million people in Gaza to meet their daily needs. In January, 2009, Israel invaded Gaza, killing over 1400 residents there and further devastating the land and infrastructure. Massive war crimes were committed by Israel. The Israel destruction was totally disproportionate to any attacks from Gaza against Israel. This was documented in the U.N. report commonly referred to as the Goldstone report. This May 31st, 2010, the Israeli military (IDF) brutally attacked the Gaza peace flotilla, which were bringing food and humanitarian aid to Gaza. The IDF killed nine people on the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara.

Israel with U.S. support has continued to take Palestinian land, humiliate and oppress Palestinian people and refuse to accept a fully functioning and independent Palestinian society and state. Israel has served U.S. imperialist needs in the Middle East by attacking movements and governments, e.g., Egypt under President Nasser, who have tried to assert independence from U.S. domination.
http://www.zcommunications.org/why-i-support-the-boycott-of-israeli-good...

:):( ... I wish we would all "just get along" {...kinda as before} ... but "forcing" nice is not "healthy" ... and I iz an opinionated one...and healthy ;)

Aug 26, 1968:
Democratic convention besieged by protesters

As the Democratic National Convention gets underway in Chicago, thousands of antiwar demonstrators take to Chicago's streets to protest the Vietnam War and its support by the top Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. During the four-day convention, the most violent in U.S. history, police and National Guardsmen clashed with protesters outside the International Amphitheater, and hundreds of people, including innocent bystanders, were beaten by the Chicago police. The violence even spilled into the convention hall, as guards roughed up delegates and members of the press, including CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace, who was punched in the face. On August 29, Humphrey secured the nomination and the convention ended.

In the convention's aftermath, a federal commission investigating the convention described one of the confrontations as a "police riot" and blamed Chicago Mayor Richard Daley for inciting his police to violence. Nevertheless, eight political radicals--the so-called "Chicago Eight"--were arrested on charges of conspiring to incite the violence, and in 1969 their trial began in Chicago, sparking new waves of protests in the city.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/democratic-convention-besiege...

I have used Heirloom Seeds and Territorial seeds FOR DECADES

... when I had full Wolves {don't say anything much about The Wolves or even Hybrids as my last Wolf was/{is} cuz i will cry - I miss them so, still}
{tears falling still} now where was I ...
The Wolves needed to smell meat on me. I would feed them chicken & Dry Dog Food from Costco {for vitamins especially ... & I had to eat chickens, periodically, to be Pack Leader -- WITCH HAS KEPT ME ACTIVE - KNOWING THAT CHIX MUST IMMEDIATELY, AT THE VERY LEAST, MUST BE FREE RANGE WITH A GOOD {SACRED} DEATH. Then we should be "steered" toward a MEATLESS Society or FauxMeat. CARE!

"We started the AIDS virus. … We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty."
Jeremiah Wright

Report: Karzai aide paid by CIA

An aide to the Afghan president at the centre of a corruption probe is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, The New York Times has reported, citing Afghan and American officials.

Mohammed Zia Salehi, chief of administration for the National Security Council, appears to have been on the CIA's payroll for many years, the US news organisation quoted officials in Kabul and Washington saying, although exactly what services he provides for the money was unclear.

Afghan security forces arrested Salehi in July, for allegedly soliciting a bribe in exchange for impeding a US backed investigation into a company suspected of shipping billions of dollars out of Afghanistan in the service of government officials, drug smugglers and anti-government fighters........
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/08/201082643550599917.html

Want a raise? Wash your vagina.
ShareNew 0
by dhonig
Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 10:41:18 AM PDT

So, ladies, you say you want a raise? How should you go about getting it....
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/8/26/896386/-Want-a-raise-Wash-yo....

Pakistan wants to stay on track with its International Monetary Fund loan program and demonstrate its resolve to make tough economic decisions, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said on Thursday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWBT01410720100826

Pakistan turns to IMF for help

Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said Pakistan will have to 'revisit' its budget

Pakistani officials will reportedly press the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to loosen the terms of a $10 billion loan in an effort to cope with the worst floods in the country's history.

The two sides met in Washington DC on Monday, where they were set to discuss the flooding and the scheduled release of the final instalment of a $10.66 billion loan extended by the IMF in 2008.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/08/201082314222598650.html

The Pakistani economy had already been reeling from the global economic crisis and the militancy fueled by Islamabad’s partnership with US imperialism even before the onset of the floods. Over 30 percent of the country’s cultivated farmland is submerged while nearly 20 million Pakistanis, 13 percent of the population, have been displaced by the floods. The Pakistani ruling elite and its allies abroad fear that widespread social unrest could arise out of food shortages and inflation caused by the devastation.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/pkst-a26.shtml

Robert Scheer's Columns
They Go or Obama Goes

Posted on Aug 25, 2010
By Robert Scheer

Barack Obama and the Democrats he led to a stunning victory two years ago are going down hard in the face of an economic crisis that he did nothing to create but which he has failed to solve. That is somewhat unfair because the basic blame belongs to his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who let the bulls of Wall Street run wild in the streets where ordinary folks lived. And there was universal Republican support in Congress for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that produced this debacle.

The core issue for the economy is the continued cost of a housing bubble made possible only after what Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers back then trumpeted as necessary “legal certainty” was provided to derivative packages made up of suspect Alt-A and subprime mortgages. It was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Senate Republican Phil Gramm drafted and which Clinton signed into law, that made legal the trafficking in packages of dubious home mortgages. In any decent society the creation of such untenable mortgages and the securitization of risk irrationally associated with it would have been judged a criminal scam. But no such judgment was possible because thanks to Wall Street’s sway under Clinton and Bush the bankers got to rewrite the laws to sanction their treachery.

It is Obama’s continued deference to the sensibilities of the financiers and his relative indifference to the suffering of ordinary people that threaten his legacy, not to mention the nation’s economic well-being. There have been more than 300,000 foreclosure filings every single month that Obama has been president, and as The New York Times editorialized, “Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the Obama administration’s efforts to address the foreclosure problem will make an appreciable dent.” The Times noted that the administration’s main program has been a bust, with only $321 million of the $30 billion allocated to the program having been spent to help folks stay in their homes.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/2799-t...

As GOP civil war rages, Democrats look to benefit
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer – Wed Aug 25, 10:23 pm ET
WASHINGTON – A Republican civil war is raging, with righter-than-thou conservatives dominating ever more primaries in a fight for the party's soul. And the Democrats hope to benefit.

The latest examples of conservative insurgents' clout came Tuesday at opposite ends of the country. In Florida, political newcomer Rick Scott beat longtime congressman and state Attorney General Bill McCollum for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. And in Alaska, tea party activists and Sarah Palin pushed Sen. Lisa Murkowski to the brink of defeat, depending on absentee ballot counts in her race against outsider Joe Miller.
The GOP is likely to survive its bitter intraparty battles in such states as Alaska and Utah, even if voters oust veteran senators in both. But tea party-backed candidates might be a godsend to desperate Democrats elsewhere — in Nevada, Florida and perhaps Kentucky, where the Democrats portray GOP nominees as too extreme for their states.
If Murkowski joins Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, as a victim of party activists who demand ideological purity, other Republicans are still likely to win in November, though Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would have to deal with more maverick members who are loathe to compromise. And the conservative insurgency is hardly all-powerful, as Sen. John McCain proved by easily winning renomination in Arizona despite a challenge from the right by J.D. Hayworth.
The Republican Party's chief danger lies in battleground states such as Florida and Nevada, where great opportunities might slip away. President Barack Obama and his Democrats see a silver lining amid political troubles driven by high unemployment and a stubbornly slow economic recovery.
The White House has tried to link the Republican Party with the fledgling conservative-libertarian tea party coalition — and demonize the combination as too extreme for the country.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/2799-t...

;) Club or Bat HaHaTeaHee

Can the Catfood Commission: Sign the Petition

Deficit Commission chair Alan Simpson says that Social Security is "a milk cow with 300 million tits."

Wrong: it's a vital lifeline for senior citizens. And if it's cut in any way, the elderly will be forced into poverty and eat cat food to survive.

Sign the petition to President Barack Obama to can the Catfood Commission before it guts Social Security:

The deficit commission is a stacked deck that will needlessly cut Social Security. Alan Simpson's vulgar assertion that the program is "a milk cow with 300 million tits" shows the true intent of the deficit commission: cutting Social Security at all costs.
Don't fire Alan Simpson. Can the whole Catfood Commission to save Social Security.

Add your name to the left to sign our petition.
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/CanTheCatfoodCommission

now being munched thoroughly by bacteria.

First Tony won't testify--

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_go_co/us_hayward_lockerbie_hea...

--and then another bacterium is said to play a role--

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/24/MNCP1F21ON.D...

[excerpt]

Berkeley scientists have discovered a voracious species of primitive oil-eating bacteria that have largely consumed the huge deep-sea plume of dispersed oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico since the deadly BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in April.

As a result of the bacteria, the toxic plume that was once 22 miles long and more than 3,600 feet deep is now "undetectable," Terry C. Hazen, the chief microbiologist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, reported Tuesday.

[end excerpt]

Terry C. Hazen, the chief microbiologist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, reported Tuesday.

...& many folks there have lost their LIVELIHOOD (sp)!
What is truth?

If I believed the WTC/ 9.11 offical's stories
Submitted by taozen on Thu, 08/26/2010 - 10:49am.
-------
taozen,
This reminded me of the film Fabled Enemies about 9/11 . I highly recommend it.

I just watched Fabled Enemies by Jason Bermas who does an awesome job putting all the 9/11 details together: the terror, the Fabled Enemies, how the fear and confusion caused the American to rally around the leader (remember proud leader with the bullhorn and people yelling USA USA USA?).

Then nightmarish legislation was passed, piece by piece people lost their rights and took it like sheeple ... esp. after the election of Democratic Prez Obama who excels in doing the tasks he was selected to do... setting up the Police State.
.
The film ends with the members of Congress standing on the steps singing "God bless America.
Then you hear the 20-year-old student beg "Don't tase me, bro! Don't tase me, bro!

Kudos to Bermas to add that powerful Symbol at the end because I remember clearly what I was thinking when this happened (while John Kerry kept on yakking on stage in his lame way and ignoring the whole sorry affair and the college security people abused this young student. The Senator did not lift a finger to help.

I actually read on dailykos that the student deserved it because he talked too long or pushed ahead in the line or something line that. Sheeple again.

Its not been that long that I was in college and we would have never allowed that to happen.

How fast people adjust and beg for authoritarian leadership in times of crisis. And listen to the mouthpiece of the leadership: the mainstream servant news.

... just like in Germany 1930's.

People who went thru that part of our history always say that things changed incredibly fast and once Hitler was elected (not even by a majority mind you) it was all over and the police was in charge.

===
This is an excellent 9/11 film. Watch it. Lots of clips I hadn't seen before although I have seen several of 9/11 docus incl. Loose Change.

I watched it on YouTube. As you can see This video is on a diff. site. But it should be okay I hope.

http://vodpod.com/watch/1483995-fabled-enemies-full-length-14216

=====NORA,
are you okay? If you haven't seen Fabled Enemies, I know you would like it. Greetings, bridge.

I haven't been on the blog this week and hope Nora is doing well.

This is a very interesting film - in 16 parts - pointing out the Coincidences. I watched it on Youtube and just found it on this site. I haven't read the comments but it was very worth seeing.

So Don't miss!

http://100777.com/911/coincidences

-----
If you haven't watched the films

The Obama Deception
The Fall of the Republic
Invisible Empire
and
ENDGAME (a MUST SEE) WELL ALL OF THEM ARE

and Police State 4 - FEMA

I urge you to take the time and watch it. Its on Youtube and other sites.

The more you know what is coming at you, the better you will be prepared when the &*&&%$& hits the Fan. The servant MSM wont tell you.

---btw.
There is v. little info about the fact that the US, Mexico and Canada have made a pact already several years ago. Do you ever hear that on liberal radio? Probably not. But is a fact. Research!!! It is all out in the open.

Watch this film on YouTube:
United We Fall : 3 Nations, 1 Union

JFK Assassination Cover-Up Blown Sky High

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, August 26, 2010

It is a story the corporate media, with the notable exception of one lone Fox News affiliate, refuses to report. A former FBI agent, Don Adams, has compelling evidence Lee Harvey Oswald did not assassinate president John F. Kennedy. Adams was assigned to an FBI office in Thomasville, Georgia, on November 22, 1963. Adams was responsible for investigating Joseph Adams Milteer, described as a radical with connections to the States Rights Party and KKK. Milteer, according to Adams, was involved in Kennedy’s assassination.

see the Don Adams interview: V I D E O

read more here

http://www.prisonplanet.com/jfk-assassination-cover-up-blown-sky-high.ht...

wonderful film -
director Tim Burton's bold adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic.

We saw this film on Sat/Sun and enjoyed it a lot.
After all that is going on right now - and nothing is good - we were glad we picked
Alice in Wonderland. Everybody in it, the actors (incl. the fabulous Johnny Depp), the animation, the adorable animals, the choreography, everything, was first class.

Loved it.

byebye

Brazil government gives go-ahead for huge Amazon dam
The proposal to build a dam on the Xingu river has long been a source of controversy Brazil's government has given the formal go-ahead for the building on a tributary of the Amazon of the world's third biggest hydroelectric dam.

After several failed legal challenges, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed the contract for the Belo Monte dam with the Norte Energia consortium.

Environmental groups say the 6km-long (3.75-mile) long dam will threaten the survival of indigenous groups, and the lives of up to 50,000 people could be affected as 500 sq km (190 sq miles) of land would be flooded.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11101842

Runaway Drone Violated Capital Airspace
Sharon Weinberger

DENVER (Aug. 26) -- A military drone that was supposed to be remotely controlled broke off contact with its operators and wandered into restricted airspace around the nation's capital, the military has revealed.

More than an hour into what was otherwise a normal flight, pilots remotely operating the MQ-8 Fire Scout lost contact with the unmanned helicopter on Aug. 2. The drone then traveled 23 miles away from Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland and toward Washington. Though it never reached the District of Columbia, it did cross into the National Capital Region airspace, which is restricted.

"The operator team shifted to [the] other Ground Control Station, restoring link and successfully commanding vehicle to recover at Webster Field," Capt. Tim Dunigan, the Fire Scout program manager, said in a statement released to AOL News. "The aircraft returned to Webster Field safely without injuries, and without damage to the aircraft or vessel."

The lost communication link was attributed to a software anomaly that has since been identified and fixed, Dunigan said.

News of the runaway drone was released amid a popular industry conference dedicated to unmanned aircraft and robots being held in Denver. It also comes at a time when supporters of drones are trying to convince the Federal Aviation Administration to loosen restrictions on operating unmanned aircraft in civil airspace.

Speaking Wednesday at the conference in Denver, Air Force official Gerald Sayer briefed attendees on the Defense Department's plans to have the military fly drones more freely in civilian airspace. "We want to have full access to the National Airspace," he said.

He warned, however, that a major accident involving an unmanned aircraft would have major repercussions on the Pentagon's efforts. "That would set us back at least a decade," he said.

Asked about the Fire Scout incident, Sayer said he was unsure of the specific details, but pointed out that it had "corrected itself" and avoided any accident.

"These things happen," he said.

The Navy office in charge of the unmanned helicopters has suspended flights until its investigation into the incident is completed.

"We are in the final stages of the investigation and plan on briefing leadership next week," said Dunigan, the program manager. "We anticipate resuming flight operations in early September."
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/miltary-says-runaway-drone-violate...

"When we don't have our land, what will we do - become a Maoist or a terrorist?"

Thousands of farmers have held a protest in the Indian capital, Delhi, against the forced acquisition of their land for a new motorway.

The farmers say the land is being taken away before compensation is agreed.

Traffic in central Delhi was gridlocked for hours as they were addressed by opposition politicians.

The use of land for industrial purposes is hugely controversial in India - protests have stalled similar projects elsewhere in the country
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11102791

Obama,like Clinton, will be alright it's US I am concerned about
Submitted by CeeCee on Tue, 08/24/2010 - 8:34pm.
http://samsedershow.com/node/5953#comment-414557

Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Koch Industries gave funding to the DLC and served on its Executive Council
by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 8/25/2010 02:01:00 PM

Last March, Chris wrote a post explaining how Greenpeace uncovered massive anti-climate change payouts of $73 million to right wing think tanks from an obscure company, Koch Industries. This week, Koch Industries is in the news again following an expose by Jane Meyer at the New Yorker titled, "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama":

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

Meyer's article has been generating a lot of attention.

But, here's a key piece of information: the Kochs haven't just given to right-wingers. Back in April of 2001, The American Prospect's Bob Dreyfuss reported that the Kochs also funded the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC):
And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

The DLC board of trustees is an elite body whose membership is reserved for major donors, and many of the trustees are financial wheeler-dealers who run investment companies and capital management firms--though senior executives from a handful of corporations, such as Koch, Aetna, and Coca-Cola, are included.
I added the emphasis.

Fitting, isn't it? The entity that tries to undermine the progressive agenda from within the Democratic Party was getting funding from the guys who are trying to destroy the Democratic Party from the outside.

Just a side note: The DLC's long-time CEO, Bruce Reed, is now the Executive Director of the Obama administration's Debt Commission, a.k.a. the Cat Food Commission.
http://www.americablog.com/2010/08/koch-industries-gave-funding-to-dlc-a...

oil-eating bacteria, where are you?

http://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2010/06/alc...

Through the Sandglass

/|\)0(

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Martha (149510633)
To: (149808415)
Date: 8/26/2010 7:06:25 PM
Subject: How Has it Come to This?

Reposted with thanks by:Martha The Man Common (33891466)Date: 26/08/2010 15:22:41Subject: How Has it Come to This?How Has It Come to This?

Go To Original

The scene is post-....apocalyptic. Under a gray sky, two families play in the surf just off the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana. To get to the beach, we walk past a red, plastic barrier fence that until very recently was there to keep people away from the oil-soaked area. Now, there are a few openings that beach goers can use. The fence is left largely intact, I presume, for when they will need to close the beach again when the next invasion of BP’s oil occurs.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

A father jokingly throws sand at his little boy who laughs while dodging it. This, against a background of oil rigs and platforms looming in the Gulf. In the foreground, littering the beach, are tar balls. We stroll through the area, eyeing even more tar balls that bob lazily underwater, amidst sand ripples in the shallows … they are in the same location where the father sits, grabbing handfuls of sand to toss near his son.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

We stroll back to our hotel. Beside us is a large beach house that has been rented to the National Guard. Two military Humvees, one olive green, the other tan, are parked near the road just yards from our car. It is a grim feeling here, like living in the bowels of some greed-driven, security-....obsessed, lumbering giant so disconnected from its heart that reality has long since ceased to figure into its outer perception.

The next morning, we head out in a boat from Fourchon with Jonathan Henderson from the Gulf Restoration Network, his friend Randy, who is a cameraman, and Craig, our charter fishing captain and guide. It is August 16, the day that several of Louisiana’s fisheries have been reopened for shrimping.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Just after leaving the boat launch, we pass a shrimper coming back in.

"How did you do out there?" Craig asks him. "Nothing. Nothing at all," the despondent fisherman replies. "How much do you usually catch?" Craig asks. "Hundreds of pounds, sometimes a thousand pounds," comes the reply.

Craig looks at me and says, "That’s not good."

Minutes later another shrimper passes us, returning to port. "How’d you do?" Craig asks. "We caught 12 shrimp," he replies, "That’s one-two shrimp."

A brief reminder of the toxicity of the dispersants BP is using in the Gulf: "According to the EPA’s latest analysis of dispersant toxicity released in the document Comparative Toxicity of Eight Oil Dispersant Products on Two Gulf of Mexico Aquatic Test Species, Corexit 9500, at a concentration of 42 parts per million, killed 50% of mysid shrimp tested." Most of the remaining shrimp died shortly thereafter.

Craig worked as a deckhand on a shrimp boat when he was 12 years old, and has been on the water ever since. He knows these areas like the back of his hand, and he is torn up by what he sees. "We find fish feeding that cause fish-oil slicks atop the water," he explains as we make our way out of the bayou towards the Gulf. "But now, thanks to BP, most of the slicks we see are oil."

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

A little further, we pass dozens of large shrimp boats laden with boom and skimming gear. They’ve been converted into response vessels for BP's fading Vessels of Opportunity (VOO) program that has created a false economy for the now out of work fishermen. "BP is buying out a way of life," Craig says when he sees me eyeing the boats, all of which are tied to the dock. "Generations of shrimping … done."

After a short time we arrive in Devil's Bay, to find forests of white PVC pipe sticking out of the water. The pipe is used to hold absorbent boom in place. Much of the boom is washed ashore, or gone completely. "That PVC doesn't rot," Craig comments, "It'll be there a long time."

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Boom contaminated with oil is abundant. Craig turns the boat out towards the bay, which is empty. "Right now, there should be 50 or 60 shrimp boats in here, but now it's like this … closed, and most folks are afraid to fish. We need good testing of the seafood, and it needs to be done right. We only have one shot at this."

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Out in Devil's Bay we encounter a boat pulling a closed-off harbor skimmer: equipment used to skim up oil slicks. The boat is accompanied by an unmarked Carolina Skiff, driven by a man wearing desert camouflage pants and a tan shirt. Our captain will not let us get close enough to the boat pulling the skimmer to talk to its captain, nor will the boat's captain even look at us.

"These boats don't even have their Louisiana numbers," Craig says, annoyed. "Somebody brought these boats down here and threw them in the water, and they are not even from this state. It's another part of the scam."

I've written recently about how private contractors are being brought in from out of state to use these boats to spray dispersant on oil located by fisherman working in the VOO program in the four most heavily affected states.

We carry on to arrive at Casse-tete Ise. We find large amounts of absorbent boom washed ashore. Some of this had been there so long it is largely covered in sand.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

"I guarantee you they'll come pick that up," Craig says angrily, mocking BP. Given that there is boom washed ashore and oiled PVC pipes around much of the island, it's clear that BP is aware of the island being hit by oil. It is also clear that nobody has been back to check on it for a very long time.

We offload from the boat and step ashore. Oil-soaked marsh abounds, and the island smells like a gas station. Noxious fumes infiltrate my nose, causing me to cough. Piles of oiled oysters rest on the tide line.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Everywhere I step near the water, sheen bubbles up out of the soil. Hermit crabs scuttle over dead, oiled marsh grass. Inland, we find tide pools filled with brown oil and sheen. The horrible smell makes me dizzy and nauseous. Each of us walks around on our own, trying to take in the devastating scene. Anger and a deep sadness comingle inside me. Rage at BP melds into a broader anger at all of us for having let it come to this.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

I watch a bird looking for food among the blackened stubs of marsh grass. I think of how the oil brings death to everything it touches, sooner or later.

We get back in Craig's boat and move on toward another island, but skirt the coast of this one whilst en route. Around the south side we find the entire coast oiled. Contaminated sorbent boom litters the coast above tide line.

"So when are they gonna come pick this up?" Craig asks angrily to no one. "In 10 years? So did they just not care about this island?"

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

There is another forest of PVC pipe sticking out of the water.

I look down at Craig's GPS map on the boat. We float in the bay, but the map shows us on land. "This is a post-Katrina map," Craig points out. "That's how fast we're losing the marsh."

Early upon our arrival in Louisiana, I was made aware of how every 30 minutes, the state loses a football-....field-sized chunk of land to the Gulf of Mexico. The first of two primary causes is the hemming in of the Mississippi River, which prevents it from dumping sediment to replenish the land. The second is the oil and gas industry, which has carved out channels and canals, causing between 30-60 percent of this erosion. One third of the island on Craig's map is now gone. There are other islands on his map that no longer exist.

As we continue on, Craig says that the water seems odd, and "not as crisp" as it usually is. He says, "It seems like it has cellophane over it." Several times throughout the day Craig makes this comment. To me, given that the water has a slight chop, it is hard to see his point - but that will soon change.

We arrive at Timbalier Isle, a barrier island of Timbalier Bay. After we offload, Jonathan calls me over. He'd filled his rubber boots with water while wading ashore. He pulls off one of his boots and dumps the contents on the sand. The water is full of silvery sheen as it splashes onto the sand. We both shake our heads.

We begin walking and find tar balls everywhere. In some places, there are literally huge mats of fresh tar.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

The farther inland we travel, the worse things become. It's as though the entire island is a sponge filled with sheen and oil. There is a pile of yellow boom, and another of red boom, in the middle of the southern beach. BP knows of this island, too. It has had workers here. And again, no one has been here in a very long time.

We walk along the bank of an inland lagoon. Fiddler crabs skitter away from us as we walk across sheen-covered sand. The pool is covered in brown, stringy oil and sheen - the rainbow colors tracing lazily across the surface. My stomach feels sick when I think of these crabs, and all the others along the Gulf Coast, that are filtering in sheen, oil and dispersants. We watch them move toward the waters oily edge, and stop. Are they trying to enter the water, as is their nature, and can't because it is too toxic? What will become of these crabs? What will become of the marine life and wildlife that feed on these crabs?

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

There are several inland pools that are literally oil pits. We are appalled at what we find. In one of the pools, brown liquid oil floats atop areas where the sand underneath is literally black with crude oil.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

The scene is apocalyptic. Sorbent booms blackened and browned with oil lay chaotically in the lagoon. It is one of the more disgusting, vile scenes I've ever seen. All of us fall silent. All we can do is take photos. The stench is overpowering. I gag. My eyes water from the burning chemicals in the air, but also from sadness. My throat is sore, my voice instantaneously.... hoarse, and I feel dizzy. I look over to see Erika taking photos, tears running down her cheeks.

All of us are devastated. "This is some of the worst I've seen," says Jonathan, who has been out investigating the results of the BP oil disaster every week since it started in April. He continues to take samples. I hear him gagging and look over as he coughs the stench from his lungs before bending down again to take another sample.

Shortly thereafter he finishes taking samples, and we are off, all of us hobbled and shaken by what we've just seen, along with the exposure to such a vast amount of chemicals.

During the ten-minute walk back to the boat, we hardly speak. I look out at the Gulf, the oil rigs and platforms in the distance, then down at the sheen oozing out of the sand at the water's edge as I walk alongside another tide pool.

Craig picks us up in the boat, and we begin the trip back to Fourchon. I climb up atop the "crow's nest," a small seat overlooking Craig's boat. I write in my notepad about what we've just seen, but mostly, I just look out at the Gulf. I've long since surrendered trying to get my head around the enormity and longevity of this disaster. The government cover-ups and its complicity with BP. The profiteering happening from this disaster, not dissimilar to the rampant war profiteering I've seen in Iraq.

The cost of this? The Gulf of Mexico, the ninth largest body of water on the planet, befouled with oil and toxic dispersants.

About halfway back to port we come upon a thick sheen layer that is covered in emulsified, white foam … the same kind I've seen in videos taken by VOO workers, in which dispersants have been used atop oil.

We stop so Jonathan can take more water samples. As we do so, the stench burns my eyes.

We carry on, only to pass more slicks like this. The entire day we've been in sheen, and we've traveled more than 40 nautical miles, much of it in open Gulf waters. All the water we've boated across and all the islands we've explored are entirely covered in sheen or oil.

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

From back atop my platform, I'm amazed at the myriad rigs and platforms we pass, sometimes thick enough in number to resemble floating cities.

Throughout the day, the question "what have we done" drifts into my consciousness. What have we done? How has it come to this?

Thousands of lives along the Gulf Coast are being devastated by this disaster. This is merely the beginning of yet another toxic epoch for the Gulf of Mexico, all the humans that live along the coast, and all the marine life and wildlife that make their homes here.

What have we done? How has it come to this? Where do we go from here?

"LIES". :| GRRR

Nothing.

How has it come to this?

see above - same thing - by doing nothing
listening to Obama and doing nothing

Where do we go from here?

Wake Up!

Read this article

and watch this VIDEO - its a MUST WATCH
it really is
and tell it to your friends and family

(I am still terribly upset from reading the Gulf of Mexico post above BUT I have to add this SOFT KILL WEAPONS article and video today because I won't be here tomorrow and everybody must know about the Soft Kill Weapons as soon as possible). Does the mainstream servant press and liberal radio shows tell you about It? I doubt it. But Let me know if I am wrong.

WATCH THE ALEX JONES VIDEO AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE
----

Lindsay Lohan Poisoned: Get the Word Out About BPA and Other Soft Kill Weapons

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
August 26, 2010

Increasingly, it is getting impossible to hide the detrimental effects of Bisphenol A, the toxic chemical in food and beverage containers. Earlier this week, Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein urged California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign legislation banning the deadly chemical in children’s food and beverage containers.

“More research is necessary to determine the harm that BPA poses to human health, but until we know more, we need to err on the side of caution and remove this potentially harmful substance from our products,” Feinstein wrote to Schwarzenegger Monday, reports The Hill.

read here

and WATCH the VIDEO

http://www.infowars.com/lindsay-lohan-poisoned-get-the-word-out-about-bp...

ACLU Calls On Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Officials to Abandon Plans to Use Military Heat Ray Device Against Jail Inmates
Use of “Assault Intervention Device” Tantamount to Torture

LOS ANGELES - August 26 - The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Southern California today sent a letter to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca demanding that he not employ a high-tech ray gun built for the military against prisoners at the Los Angeles County Jail.

Sheriff's Department officials announced last week they intend to begin using an "Assault Intervention Device" developed by the Raytheon Co. that fires an invisible heat beam capable of causing unbearable pain on inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center's North County Correctional Facility.

"The idea that a military weapon designed to cause intolerable pain should be used against county jail inmates is staggeringly wrongheaded," said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. "Unnecessarily inflicting severe pain and taking such unnecessary risks with people's lives is a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment and due process clause of the U.S. Constitution."

The ACLU's letter dismisses claims made by Baca last week that the "Assault Intervention Device" is uniquely suited to address some of the more difficult inmate violence issues and will allow Sheriff's Department officials to intervene in disturbances involving inmates without risking injury to jail staff or inmates. The ACLU letter highlights the fact that the military incarnation of the device was briefly fielded in Afghanistan in June and then withdrawn in July without ever being used. While the device was being tested by the Air Force, a miscalibration of the device's power settings caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting burns, including one whose injuries were so severe that he was airlifted to an off-base burn treatment center.

The ACLU's letter also cites a 2008 report by physicist and less-lethal weapons expert Dr. Juergen Altmann that says the device has the ability to cause second and third degree burns over up to 50 percent of the body's surface and that without reliable protections against the re-triggering of the device against the same target subject, it has the potential to produce permanent injury or even death.

"I'm extremely disappointed in the willingness of Sheriff Lee Baca to employ this weapon-like device without consulting with the ACLU, which has court-appointment responsibility to monitor the Los Angeles County jails," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "Historically, we have found Sheriff Baca to understand that not everybody in county jail has been convicted of a crime. We have had advance discussions with Sheriff Baca about several different procedures, but we have not been consulted about this inhumane device."

A copy of the ACLU's letter is available online at: www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/aclu-letter-los-angeles-county-sheriff-lee...

Additional information about the ACLU National Prison Project is available online at: www.aclu.org/prison

Additional information about the ACLU of Southern California is available online at: www.aclu-sc.org

...evil is in the "house."

...is it keeping hope alive?
...is it now less is more?
...what to make of it?

See comments, etc.
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

WOW, Ms_Anthrope, is this America? Read on...
new
Submitted by CeeCee on Fri, 08/27/2010 - 12:12am.

I do not know where MY/OUR County has been going, FOR DECADES!

...and I am still "fit to be tied" about glenn beck. Eye-roll...

{sorry I get involved in work at times :}, then took a bit of nap, even, but then I get frustrated at Bill Press show and the constant talk about glenn beck... ick

glenn beck and TO STOP Proselytizing his stupid whatever, today or tomorrow, but ALL I HEAR WITH DEMS is this STUPID rally. eye-roll

had a bigger effect than I realized. The mercury retrograde thing does it's usual damage to communications. This time the bad guys are getting frantic and I hope none of the good guys get caught in a crossfire.

cautious waiting or some other I- Ching bit of wisdom seems like my approach for today.

Look for the good around you. let go of the dissapointments long enough for a fresh wave of insight and compassion to wash away some of those fears and lies that the big news machine produces at an ever faster pace.

FOR NEXT YEAR! He sounds glorious (Mark Thomson, a news broadcaster). FINALLY!

i dont even think most people who are against the mosque understand this perspective.

Except for Earl on WWRL in NYC I havent heard this distinction brought up. I am a fan of the Sufi tradition.

Sufi's are not terrorists. sufi's are not Wahabi's or caught up in the Shiite Sunni Battle. why arent people educated enought o see the difference. THAT MOSQUE/COMMUNITY CENTER MUST BE ALLOWED.

{I have used the I-Ching for decades :} what I say now is that is not the only way. I can meditate into deep "depths" for decades ... for hours {but not time for most these days} that was great until after the 80's. BUT WHERE ARE THE FIGHTERS {VERBAL ONLY} NOW? We need to verbally fight, and not JUST in the "MIND".
rethugs have taken VERBAL lead by using "OUR" type of protests and TWISTING and making our honourable protests dishonourable. It is time, as our Take By The Night protests, which we (I was involved but didn't start) started at first WORKING A MASSIVE LIVING Performance ART at UCLA and then "walking" protests - SEE, & NOW THERE ARE MANY MARCHES NATIONWIDE.
BUT NOW IMHO, these days, since coming back to town, {since I am 108, just writing, kinda ...} & local protests and national & local phone calls and polls and "blogs" & whatever... ;)

I believe in the power of The Balance, but with a "KICK" now! Tea Hee.
;) IMHO

Yes, I heard a day or two ago ... which I didn't know. I was very gleeful when I heard - and even "wished" to be there to stand with them.

Americans let the Cheney/Bush machine go wild because fear of Muslims was greater than their trust in the true principals of Democracy with compassion. Well America does have bad karma for all the robbing we have done to other countries resources. Our biggest business is War products/ guns and drones etc..

I dont know if enough people will make the personal changes required to move the country in the right direction. But I remain an optimist , I cant allow myself to give in to fear. I remain a pacifist I will not allow myself to ever get swept up in the negativity of fear.

Too simple? not wonky enough? Let me be in this space again. Take your angers and feed them to the oil eating algaes. surround yourself in hopeful wiser people. Set an example.. Tune out the bad guys. Resist in anyway that protects your sanity. Try not to fall for violence as a solutuion.

who cares what lesser evolved people say to you anyway? make some art ,play some music. save some animals, find a massage partner dig your garden.

and when "they call you naive" remember the words of kinder more evolved souls > Protest like MLK and Ghandhi. If fighting the system is rewarding then do it the right way. Help a neighbor or an animal everytime the negative devil shows up. fight the fire of anger with the water of love.

I really enjoy our mornings/evening connection. I hear your last post and I I take your experiences and steadfastness into account. . I am sad that my son's generation (he is 33 in nov) has intellectualised too much and wont get out to protest in the right way. They have too many distractions to entertain them.

I read everthing you bring to the table. I forward your work to others. You do a good service. your perspectives are very valuable. . You are cool

...Philadelphia Blogs must pay $300 for the privilege
Submitted by CeeCee on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 9:51pm.
http://samsedershow.com/node/5948#comment-414498

5 Myths About Philadelphia’s ‘Blogging Tax’
By Tim Carmody August 26, 2010

The city of Philadelphia has been under fire on the web for what’s been called a “blogging tax,” a new business tax under which several local bloggers have been billed on business revenue earned on their sites. As a blogger who lives in Philadelphia — and the newest member of the Wired.com team — I feel I have to dispel some myths guiding the “WTF?” reaction many writers had to this story.

But I also want to point to some larger problems beneath the surface. This problem is much bigger than blogs in my city.

A roundup of blog coverage at The Atlantic Wire nicely condenses and distills many of these myths:

The city of Philadelphia is now requiring bloggers who sell ad space to register for a $300 “business privilege license” to continue working in the city. The move to bolster the city’s finances — first reported by the Philadelphia City Paper – was greeted with deep skepticism.

Let’s take these one at a time.

Myth #1: Philadelphia has a new blogging tax.
Truth: The tax isn’t new, and it isn’t for bloggers. It covers any business in the city of Philadelphia, whether you’re a multinational oil company or (in principle) a kid running a lemonade stand. In particular, it falls hard on freelancers, or anyone working for anything that doesn’t fall under a traditional payroll wage.

Like many people who do freelance work, I claimed federal income last year on a 1099. In my case, it wasn’t for writing, but for tutoring SAT students in the Philadelphia suburbs. I worked for a company, but I was technically a freelancer.

Then I got a letter from the city of Philadelphia, where I live, announcing that I qualified for its tax amnesty program. The federal government had shared some or all of my tax return with the city’s revenue department, and the city wanted to tax that income. I had to register my “business,” pay either a $300 lifetime fee or $50 just for that particular year, and calculate both my gross receipts and net profits, both of which fell under the city’s business privilege tax. (And before you ask, oh yes, we make fun of that name here in Philadelphia.) If I came forward to voluntarily pay up before June, I wouldn’t be assessed penalties. If I didn’t, the city would report me to credit agencies, hire collectors, and/or sue me to get their wanted revenue.

My position had been that since all my tutoring had been in the suburbs, I didn’t have a business presence in the city of Philadelphia and didn’t fall under the tax. But on my return, I’d claimed my travel expenses as a business expense against my tutoring income. That meant (according to them) that since I lived here, I did in fact do business in the city. I imagine even bloggers aware of the possibility that they might have to pay the BPT had the same confusion. Online retailers have resisted states’ efforts to collect sales tax. Where is a blog located? Where are the revenues paid?

But it’s not just bloggers who’ve been surprised by this tax, or the city’s ramped-up efforts to collect it. It’s anyone whose contract employer files a 1099 or who voluntarily claims non-wage income on their federal return. (If you claim wage income, the city has a tax for that too.) That’s a lot of people.

Myth #2: The tax is for bloggers who sell ads on their sites.
Truth: The tax would cover any kind of income. Do you use Google AdSense? Are you an affiliate of Amazon or other retail sites? Do you sell shirts, mugs, prints, or posters? Sell anything on eBay or Etsy? Collect donations via PayPal?

PayPal/eBay doesn’t provide 1099s at all, except for interest on PayPal’s money market account. Amazon Associates and Google AdSense accounts with revenues greater than $600 get a 1099, which is the minimum amount required by federal law.

None of these sites provide any guidance on payment of state and local taxes. All of them have resisted efforts from local governments to collect sales tax, claiming that their websites don’t constitute a business/retail presence.

So if your neighbor buys something from Amazon through your site, they don’t pay sales tax on it. Neither does Amazon. But you could be billed for helping to sell it.

Myth #3: The blogging tax is unique to Philadelphia.
Many cities have local taxes on wages, income, business revenue, and gross receipts. New York City charges a commercial rent tax, a general corporation tax, and an unincorporated business tax, which would probably fall on any income-generating blog or other website. New York, however, exempts the first $3400 of tax liability. (Technically, they provide a credit.) Philadelphia doesn’t, which is why we have the specter of bloggers being billed upwards of $300 for earnings less than $20. New York also has a website that’s easy to understand. Do you know what your city’s tax policy is?

Myth #4: This is just about business revenue.
Cities can easily make exemptions not just for the amount of money earned, but for the kind of activity as well. Philadelphia has a sales tax exemption for clothing, to encourage commuters and residents to shop in-town. As NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen told wired.com: “In New York City, the law says if you’re a street vendor you have to get a license, which costs money, but there’s an exception if you’re selling books. No license needed. That would be a smart thing for Philly to do with bloggers who have small incomes. A First Amendment exception.”

Bloggers who pay business taxes have the same responsibilities to the government as newspapers or other established media outlets, without always receiving the same journalistic courtesies and protections under the law. Newspaper chains can also take advantage of a common tactic to large businesses, arranging their books so that none of their profits (but most of their overhead) falls under the jurisdiction of a municipal tax. Sole-proprietor resident-bloggers can’t do that.

The city’s largest paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, was remarkably dismissive of the bloggers’ position, more concerned that the city had been made “the subject of head-scratching and ridicule”:

On BuzzFeed, a popular website for stories, photos, and video competing to go viral, “Philadelphia Blogger’s License: $300″ was in the running, in between videos of a bored cat having a birthday party and Lady Gaga dancing at a Kiss concert…

Well, some bloggers who make a few dollars from Web ads were informed recently that they had to obtain a license. Not because they were bloggers, the city says. But because they made money.

Something about small-time bloggers getting hit up for money by the government got a lot of blog writers and readers fired up.

Actually, most of us were fired up about the cat’s birthday party. Getting threatened with lawsuits and debt collectors raises a lot of emotions, but “fired up” isn’t one of them.

There’s another first amendment issue at work here. Because cities have tremendous latitude as to how far to go in pursuing a blogger’s taxes — offering amnesty for some, lawsuits for others — they can potentially use revenue collection as a means to punish dissenting, unfriendly, or unconnected voices. Philadelphia isn’t the only American city with a long history of selective taxation and enforcement, favors to friends, or pay-to-play.

Myth #5: Philadelphia is collecting this tax because they’re strapped for cash.
Now, let me be clear: the city, like many other local governments, is absolutely facing shortfalls, partly from the economic crisis, mostly from long-term problems in the city’s budget. They’re charging businesses for trash collection, which always fell under property tax before. The water department is charging property owners with a special fee for water collected in the city’s storm drains. The revenue department has been nothing if not innovative.

But the city isn’t pursuing this tax because of the money. They’re doing it because, like many other governments, their tax structures haven’t kept pace with a changing economy, and the political and bureaucratic structures have been unable to do anything about that apart from tinker around the edges.

Last year, the local City Paper (the same one who initially broadcast the blogging tax to the world) highlighted a new Philadelphia institution called Independents Hall. Just a few blocks from Independence Hall, it’s a co-working office for freelancers and folks who work outside the office: “designers, developers, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, educators, small business owners, telecommuters, marketers, videographers, game developers, and more.” For $275/month, you get 24/7 access, a dedicated desk, and a place to store your stuff. For less, you can get a day or a monthly part-time pass. Last year, memberships and reservations spiked:

It’s too early to know whether self-employment has been trending upward in Philly since the recession hit (between 2002 and 2005 — the last time data on entrepreneurship was collected — it rose from 13.5 percent to 15 percent). Meg Shope-Koppel, director of research at the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board, says that “as recessions begin, some industries start using more contractual workers,” though “it’s not going to be a huge spike, because in some areas, businesses are failing.”

Most of the people at IndyHall knew about the BPT and had already paid their lifetime passes. They talk with each other about how to structure their finances so they don’t get walloped with a huge bill. They help each other set up LLCs and register their businesses as nonprofits (who are completely exempt from the tax).

They stick together. They have to. They’re the only ones who know. Nobody else knows anything.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/five-myths-about-philadelphias-bl...

...it's mutual. Thank YOU!

DITTO to u ;) ... I have a terror terrier that HAD to go for a "walk". Then My Computer had "attitude". eye-roll ;)

I too am an optimist (with a realist "eye") or I never would have "pried" myself away from the mountains.

{It is nice to have someone speak of spirit & KARMA. I had two darling ex-dead-rats walking (soon to be parents NAMED - KARMA & DHARMA,(then) soon to be parents of My {:(}Precious Gems)...}

I was sad when I finally had time to write for those whom are T. Buddhists left. I was hoping for a debate, since I had been a Buddhist for many a Moon, yet they moved on. Oh Well. :)
;)

It is a new tax, not very big but time consuming to figure out what to pay.

it appears more and more people are self employed. Big cities are so mismanaged that they would rather break the backs of entrepreneurs than God Forbid get some taxes from the Corporations or the high income earners. It is class warfare..

As long as we let government take our taxes to fight wars of aggression and greed we will continue to slide down a hole like the poor miner's in South America find themselves in. Their plight is so upsetting.

Obama fails this country by not standing up to The MIC. He feeds it with our tax dollars

His actions do not bring the middle class any help. There are no public works projects. He says he is working to straighten out the banks. A pyramid is a structure with a large base that grows to the high point. Obama has an upside down pyramid as his model. He is not about fundamental change.

Bloomberg enjoys his status as the biggest little man in the city. Just because he is pro mosque he still hasnt done a thing for people out of work. He cuts the busses and trains, he cuts the library time , he falsifies school records to look like a good leader. He is afraid to collect any more taxes from the Investment enities.

Mike Bloomberg sees tourism as a solution for NYC. Why would people want to come here to see other tourists? the theater sucks the clear channel music venues are way over priced and supply 2nd class entertainment.

He is losing his hearing and Louise Hayes has a perspective about illness and the patient's attitude that seems applicable to me. What are the leaders waiting for?. a rebellion that they could squash and really enslave the middle class?.

We have to do something by ourselves. Organize mega marches, boycott , keep our monies in our communities. Use the net roots to organise and communicate. I am saying nothing new because as a society nothing new is happening.

so I am glad to get out and make some $.

... and besides signing petitions & sending a few post cards about (cuz people read :} I know not what to do? The LOSS is HAPPENING SO QUICKLY! ;)

Dr. Bonner's buys 90% of its olive oil through fair trade with Palestinian farmers.
http://www.drbronner.com/DBMS/LS.htm

That's the Reverend Mark Thompson, Make It Plain. I listen to some of his show most evenings during the week. XM167 5-8 p.m. est Monday through Friday. The best show is on Wednesday when Glen Ford or Bruce Dixon is on with him. Dave Marsh, the real radical, has been filling in for Mark all week. Too bad, Dave is usually on only Sundays.

A Warm Hello from Jenin, Palestine

Based in Jenin, Palestine, Canaan Fair Trade sells olive oil and other delicacies produced by over 1,700 small farmers organized in informal cooperatives and represented by the Palestine Fair Trade Association (PFTA). We supply bulk as well as finished and packaged olive oil and other goods to Europe, North America and the Middle East. Our olive oil and all of our products are offered with a Palestinian Certificate of Origin. A large and growing portion of them are certified Organic.

We Create Opportunity For Farmers and Communities
FVVVVVVCCanaan Fair Trade uses the fair trade concept to empower marginalized Palestinian rural communities caught in conflict so they can sustain their livelihoods and culture. To that end, we have built direct working relationships with these communities, paying sustainable prices for their agricultural products to ensure fair wages for labor along the supply chain.

We support farmers in enhancing production procedures and product quality, building their capacities to work collectively, and to sell to international markets.

We educate farmers about sustainable practices and support conversion to certified organic production. We ensure sterling quality standards, while implementing social and economic empowerment programs.

Canaan promotes cross-cultural, interfaith, and multi-ethnic connection of all participants in the production and trade processes: workers, farmers, processors, traders, exporters, importers, distributors, and consumers. The idea is to create one community connected by the fair exchange of goods in a cross-cultural setting.

The Reestablishment of Traditional Sustainable Farming In Palestine

By giving incentives to produce a high quality product, Canaan and its partners hope to reestablish traditional sustainable farming as an avenue for Palestinian farmers earning a livelihood. Fair trade provides a vehicle for alternative cultural expression and the opportunity for communities caught in conflict to connect with the outside world.

From our fields to your table.

For generations, our farms have given us some of the most delicately flavorful olives, almonds, tomatoes and other treasures of the earth.

In the tradition of Palestinian hospitality and in the spirit of fair trade, we invite you to experience these pleasures.
https://www.canaanfairtrade.com/

elsewhere...and I just am not ready yet. ;)

He was awesome and brought tears to my eyes. I haven't been so "inspired" since, I know not when, perhaps since MLK or Bobby Kennedy.
again thank you GD... {bow with reverence}

-Occupied Territories
Submitted by Leah on Fri, 08/27/2010 - 12:20pm.

Dr. Bonner's buys 90% of its olive oil through fair trade with Palestinian farmers.
http://www.drbronner.com/DBMS/LS.htm-

And I thought that Dr. B was hardcore Christian based on the writings on the bottles...neat news, Leah, thanks.

Wikileaked CIA Memo Warns of American Jewish Extremists Exporting Terror Abroad
A CIA memo released by Wikileaks on Wednesday looks at America's long tradition of exporting violent extremism abroad, and its implications for U.S. foreign policy.

The report highlighted the consequences of American violence abroad. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish doctor from New York, “emigrated to Israel, joined the extremist group Kach, and killed 29 Palestinians during their prayers in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.” The deadly attack “helped to trigger a wave of bus bombings by HAMAS in early 1995.” Kach was founded by Meier Kahane, an American Israeli rabbi best described as a “radical cleric.”

Violent extremism among American Jews isn’t a new phenomenon. Kahane also founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL), which the FBI listed as “a violent extremist Jewish organization.” According to a 1999 article in the Washington Report on Mideast Affairs, “A 1985 FBI study of terrorist acts in the United States since 1981 found 18 incidents initiated by Jews, 15 of the acts by the JDL.”
http://www.alternet.org/world/147987/wikileaked_cia_memo_warns_of_americ...

The Ultimate Escape: The Bizarre Libertarian Plan of Uploading Brains into Robots to Escape Society
Led by Futurist Roy Kurzweil, "Transhumanism," promotes the adoption of technologies that will eventually help “humans transcend biology."
August 27, 2010 |

Perhaps you've had a good laugh over seasteading, the scheme hatched by rich libertarians to escape the clutches of democracy by living on giant metal platforms in the middle of the ocean. But as it turns out, seasteading is something of a wet dry run for some libertarians’ ultimate escape plan of uploading their brains into robot bodies and blasting off into
space.

This is also known as “transhumanism,” which is (very) loosely defined as a movement of people/future androids who are promoting the adoption of technologies that will eventually help “humans transcend biology,”
...The endgame in all this is known as the Singularity -- a state in which man and machine meld to such an extent it is no longer possible to distinguish between the two. At that point, we all become a race of immortal software bits that move throughout the universe experiencing virtual oral sex for eons on end, or something to that effect...

...Bryan Caplan, a George Mason University economics professor and another libertarian proponent of unfettered adoption of any and all new technology. Caplan’s dream is to create a clone baby of himself and then raise himself as his own son.

“Yes, I wish to clone myself and raise the baby as my son,” he confessed earlier this year. “I want to experience the sublime bond I'm sure we'd share. I'm confident that he'd be delighted, too, because I would love to be raised by me.”

http://www.alternet.org/media/147978/the_ultimate_escape%3A_the_bizarre_...

President Woodrow Wilson introduced segregation in Federal offices, despite much protest.[7] Wilson appointed Southern politicians who were segregationists, because of his firm belief that racial segregation was in the best interest of black and white Americans alike.[7] At Gettysburg on July 4, 1913, the semi-centennial of Abraham Lincoln's declaration that "all men are created equal", Wilson addressed the crowd:

How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as state after state has been added to this, our great family of free men![8]

A Washington Bee editorial wondered if the "reunion" of 1913 was a reunion of those who fought for "the extinction of slavery" or a reunion of those who fought to "perpetuate slavery and who are now employing every artifice and argument known to deceit" to present emancipation as a failed venture.[8] One historian notes that the "Peace Jubilee" at which Wilson presided at Gettysburg in 1913 "was a Jim Crow reunion, and white supremacy might be said to have been the silent, invisible master of ceremonies."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

snipped

Emanuel Bronner had come to America after a falling-out with his strict Orthodox Jewish father in Germany. The senior Bronner wanted his son to stick to the family trade, soap making, and not get involved in politics. Young Emanuel, however, often brought up political issues with other workers at the soap factory.

more info on a cool dude.

http://www.drbronner.com/drb_press_story4.html

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Ghettodefender a minor correction Is it Ray Kurzweil. ? H e does make amasing synthesizers and more importantly voice recognition systems that helped many disabled people have a life. this other trip he is on seems unappealing to me.

Its the least I can do. I have friends who use his basic houehold soap ( not the fragrant peppermint or almond) to wash clothes. Who else remembers his corn chips with his mineral salts on it?... later back to work again ..

TZ, I hope you keep updating on the Jake Holmes matter. I remember those records (Tower 'the label Records as I remember). They used to play them on WPLJ and/or WNEW when I was in school in NYC.

I love seeing LZ getting their ass handed to them for plagiarism. I had some friends who took them on and won on Willie Dixon's behalf. My friend Little Roger did not fare so well.

I must say that Plant has redeemed himself a little of late with his work with Allison Krause and T-Bone Burnett. I am actually excited about his new album and tour with Buddy Miller. I hear he has turned into a pretty nice almost regular guy.

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5957