California high schools

California high school dropout rate near one-quarter, report says
By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com
Last Updated 4:28 pm PDT
Thursday, July 17, 2008

The report shows Latino school kids now make-up almost half of the student population in California public schools.

53% of Latina teens get pregnant at least once before age 20—nearly twice the national average.1

The graduation rates for African-American and Latino students are even lower, 60 percent for Latino students and 56.6 percent for African-Americans

At inner-city LA high, nearly 6 in 10 drop out
By CHRISTINA HOAG – Aug 19, 2008

Army opens prep school for dropouts to fill ranks
By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008

Watching the DNC in Denver

It's better online without the ads.

Malkin is a monster

Hat tip to Sadly No
Alex Jones can be a little loud, but in this case I love it. I HATE Michelle Malkin.

Alex Jones Confronts Michelle Malkin at DNC

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

I know we've all seen this, but it still makes me smirk, & it's a perfect follow-up for yesterday's post.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

I missed Ted Kennedy's speech last night. I missed Michelle Obama's also. Full of hope for change, but I know what these guys are up against. An entrenched military-industrial-complex that is working for the rich and powerful and will fight to the end for it's dominance in American foreign policy and on the world stage.

If you think Granpa McSame ain't part of it, you ain't looking.

Americablog via Maru breaks it down for you if you ain't been looking.

Diebold Admits Their Tabulator Software Doesn't Count Votes Correctly

Blogged by Brad Friedman on 8/24/2008 5:17PM
UPDATED WITH VIDEO: CNN's Lou Dobbs Covers Stunning Admission...
Blogged by Brad Friedman from Boulder, CO...

...Diebold has admitted that their tabulator software, known as GEMS, and used all across the country, in at least 34 states, does not count votes correctly...

Beijing Olympics press freedom

Let me first say, Press freedom in China?
bwaaaa haaha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaa hhahahahah.

Bill Moyers covered this on Friday quite well. I guess the rest of American media had to skedaddle out of China before they could speak up?

U.S. Envoy Calls on China to Free Detained American Activists
By Chua Kong Ho
Aug. 24 (Bloomberg

US disappointed Olympics didn't open China more
By ROHAN SULLIVAN – 41 minutes ago

Olympic disaster for free expression in China
Reporters Without Borders condemns Chinese government cynicism and IOC inability to ensure respect for charter
2008 Beijing Games 22 August 2008

China shows flaws in trying to be perfect
BEIJING 2008 08-24

Fay get the gold for phucking up Florida

Ann Korin's Oil Solution

This is definitely worth watching.

pt 1 of 7



Comments from MDD's post are worth reading.

She is speaking of relatively short term solutions, like coal to gas . She is speaking to, and answering questions from college age conservatives, but her appeal must surely be with people my age or older because her solutions don't involve changing our unsustainable infrastructure. I agree with her that nuclear power is not the solution to our transportation problem, or our McMansion's needs for energy, for that matter.

Yes, I say temporary solutions, because I read Clusterfuck Nation and I've seen The End of Surburbia . I know that the problems that the American suburban middle class -> poor are facing right now, are not due only to fuel prices. The co2 problems created by our "our way of life" don't only affect us . They most certainly don't

Korin doesn't talk about ground water depletion via agriculture. Or the effect of agricultural ) , and or highway runoff .

She may have a point with the bleeding capital to Arabs only to have them so kindly re-infuse it into our economy. And yeah, it pisses me off that we are paying for the Arab world's arrogance and ignorance when it comes to overpopulation because they know they got the oil. The Asian expectation that you gotta keep squirting them out until you have a boy really makes me want to puke me.
Of course, they're not the only ones with that arrogance, we got 'em too:


Some countries in the Middle East do have a higher per capita co2 emissions rate , but not only are those rates all over the map, the US military may have something to do with those rates currently. I don't think she knows what kind of stranglehold the military-industrial-complex has on our government or how obligated they are to protect a very small minorty in the Middle East. Or maybe she does, but if she does, in this particular piece she doesn't talk about the dependence of the US Military and Arab monarchies upon each other.

She is right though, we are paying for both sides of this fucking war.

Obama's Veep Pick

Woo. Big Surprise.



Not that the Obama/Biden ticket has a chance in hell in San Diego County:

Posted date: 8/25/2008
State Officials Taking Aim at Fair Ballot Practices
By NED RANDOLPH
San Diego Business Journal Staff

Distrust of electronic voting machines around the country, and a decision last summer by California Secretary of State Debra Brown to decertify machines in 39 counties, including San Diego, has left the county elections supervisor with $25 million of mothballed voting equipment.

The county’s 1.4 million registered voters will choose between Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, Republican Sen. John McCain or none of the above by paper ballot in November....

“There was a paper trail before they were decertified,” said Seiler, an employee of Premier before becoming the elections supervisor...

Same Diebold optical scanners counting and tabulating the paper ballots, different name on 'em

Here's more local and statewide information from a local group

And in entertainment news:

'House Bunny' could be box-office leader
Melinda Sue Gordon / Associated Press

Oh Jeezus, Jehovah, Jiminy Christmas, and Oy. Why does the movie industry only cater to drooling, kleenex wielding thirteen year old boys?

Oh yeah, that's how mothers get a couple hours of peace from the little fuckers, they send their asses to the movies.

Dear Marwan Bishara,

While you focus on "The Politics of Evil in the US Elections" religious leaders in the country you came from encourage their followers to outbreed each other. There are 6.7 billion people on the planet. Wake the fuck up, and ask yourself what real evil is.

Friday squirrel blogging

Damn rodents.

Completely unrelated, but it made me laugh, the Onion returns Michael Phelps to his Sea World tank.

Well gosh, how's he gonna write a book from there?

Oh yeah, it doesn't really matter that he didn't learn how to write in college . He's been a professional athlete for a while. I used to have some unrealistic idea that the Olympics weren't for professional athletes. Boy was I deluded. I don't know how anyone could remain under that impression after China’s Potemkin Olympics

Protections Set for Antiabortion Health Workers

Opponents Denounce Proposed Regulation Allowing Federal Officials to Pull Funding

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 22, 2008; A01

The Bush administration yesterday announced plans to implement a controversial regulation designed to protect doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who object to abortion from being forced to deliver services that violate their personal beliefs.

..."People should not be forced to say or do things they believe are morally wrong," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "Health-care workers should not be forced to provide services that violate their own conscience."

...Both supporters and critics said the language remains broad enough to apply to contraceptives, as well as many other areas in medicine...

..."For example, an operating room nurse would assist in the performance of surgical procedures; an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be considered to assist in the performance of the particular procedure," the regulation states.

Are you fucking kidding me? If you object to abortions and you're working in the health care field in a facility that provides them, and you are forced to work with people who choose to have them, my question to you is "Why the hell don't you get another job you fucktard?" Don't shove your religious bullshit down other people's throats.

Soul Serenade

King Curtis & The Kingpins


David Sanborn

How to Burn the Speculators

NEWS: Why is the price of oil so high? Because the Bush administration did to the commodities market what it did to housing.
By James K. Galbraith
September/October 2008 Issue

...Yes, Virginia, speculators can affect the price—if they are large and relentless enough to dominate a market, and especially if they can store the commodity and keep it off the market as the price rises....

...But thanks to Phil "nation of whiners" Gramm—the former Texas senator who was until recently John McCain's top economic adviser (see "Foreclosure Phil")—futures market regulation went to hell. Under the "Enron loophole" pushed through by Gramm in 2000, energy futures were allowed to escape all federal and state regulation. Gramm embedded that loophole in a surprise 262-page rider, drafted at the behest of Wall Street and Enron, in an 11,000-page appropriations bill on a Friday evening two days after the Supreme Court handed down its Bush v. Gore ruling and as Congress was rushing home for Christmas....

Phelps and Franks

Yup, I expected this:



Record-setting Michael Phelps emulates Mark Spitz on Sports Illustrated cover
BY Kristie Ackert
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Tuesday, August 19th 2008, 8:31 AM




Michael Phelps Expected to Become Biggest Money-Making Olympian
He May Not be Tiger Woods or Jordan, but Phelps Could Make Millions
By MARCUS BARAM
Aug. 20, 2008

Congratulations to Phelps, by the sound of one of the songs he listens to on his iPod before events, that's great news.

Gawd, I'm getting old. I managed to listen to the crap once for the "lyrics" but ony made it through 43 seconds when I had to click on the link again. Blech. I hate rap.


Here's one of my favorites artists from San Diego, Michael Franks. Feels like home. "Under the Sun."



And again with Diana Krall (Popsicle Toes) with pretty ladies for those of you interested.


Oh. My. God. There ara lot of mouth breathers in this country in order for people to believe the crap that's flying around about Obama. Here's a must read:

The Right's Five Most Hilariously Boneheaded Anti-Obama Smears
By Brad Reed, AlterNet. Posted August 20, 2008.

PR Watch

Jed Babbin: The Pentagon's Most Prolific Pundit

China's Gold Medal Spin

Has Fake News Become the Real News?
An article in the New York Times asks whether Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's Daily Show has become the most trusted man in America, pointing out that his fake news comedy show has emerged in recent years as a "genuine cultural and political force."

Canada's Oilsands Tarred with the "Greenwash" Brush

Spin of the Day » Aug 18, 2008
Foxes Invited to Guard the Endangered Species Coop

'Uncounted' To Expose Election Fraud Message

Tuesday, 19 August 2008, 10:10 am
Press Release: Uncounted

NASHVILLE, TN, (August 18, 2008) – For the last seven months, documentary filmmaker David Earnhardt has taken UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections to more than 30 cities. During that time he used the film as a grassroots tool to shed some much-needed light on the systemic problems inherent in our elections - including voting machines that render every vote unverifiable and un-auditable and Jim Crow-like intimidation tactics. The screenings have drawn thousands, awakening in viewers an urgent need to help fix our electoral system.

Now with a critical presidential election looming, UNCOUNTED will take the leap from grassroots organizing tool to mainstream wake-up call with a timely convergence of events that will expose its message to wider audience.


First, premium movie service provider Starz will present the world television premiere of UNCOUNTED on Starz Edge, Monday, August 25 at 10:30 p.m. (et/pt), and Starz Cinema on Thursday, August 28 at 10:00 P.M...

UNCOUNTED will continue to spread its message until the November election with screenings and panel discussions all over the country, including a stop in Los Angeles at the Regency Fairfax Cinemas on Tuesday, September 23, and San Diego at the UltraStar Theatre at Hazard Center in Mission Valley, on Wednesday, September 24. The LA panel discussion will feature Earnhardt, journalist Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, Diebold-whistleblower Steve Heller, and Heller's lawyer, Blair Berk. The San Diego panel will feature Earnhardt and Friedman.

Mom, Can My Voting Machine Spend the Night?
August 19, 2008, 1:59 pm
By Anahad O'Connor

Oh, why of course dear! they can stay for a whole fucking week.

yessh, moving on...

Chewing the Buddha
By Greg Palast
For Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
18 August 2008
Lhasa, Tibet - China's secret police are just terrible at keeping themselves secret.

I don't care if you're sick of Michael Phelps

What this kid did is amazing:

How Phelps Made Swimming History
Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008 By ALICE PARK / BEIJING
Time CNN

Phelps' Olympic feat lifts NBC to 18-year record
Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:31am EDT
Reuters

Phelps Hopes to Change Face of Swimming
Olympics May Be Over for Phelps, but His Mission Has Just Begun
By MONICA NISTA
Aug. 18, 2008
ABC

Phelps Moves On to a New Challenge
By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 18, 2008; 9:58 AM

And he's got help from Coughlin and Torres:


Great support he had from team members we will see right there on our TV:


And some we might not:


And frankly, it's just nice to see some noble, hard-working and sportsman-like athletes grab the interest of the media in this country. As a country, we needed to see some winners after 8 years of our obnoxious loser President. To see the media focus on a largely ignored sport that I happen to have spent untold hours participating in, without ever dreaming of becoming an Olympic athlete is quite thrilling for me.

Winning relay and awards video

Phelps Earns Eighth Gold
Michael Phelps celebrates his eighth gold medal of the Beijing Games, which breaks Mark Spitz's mark of seven, set in 1972 at Munich. (By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 17, 2008; Page A01


And a wrap up of why the swimmers deserve so much attention.


Swimmers do not recieve the attention they deserve in this country. The work-out regimen has included a minimum of 3 to 5 hours a day for at least the last 30 years of the sport's history. It's tedious and expensive, and the public only gets interested when somebody like Phelps, with 14 Olympic golds, and who is is bulit for swimming ,comes along. The press over does it with other sports in my opinion. Hopefully things will change now.

I don't know why the women don't swim the 1500m in the Olympics. They swim it. Hell, I swam it 30 freaking years ago. So much has changed, but there was controversy then and there's some now.

Phelps ties Spitz with 7 golds in one Olympics

You have to watch him slam that wall in order to believe it.

Update

History written: Phelps wins No. 8
By Steven Nelson
Posted Saturday, August 16, 2008 7:12 PM ET

Shouldn't be too hard to watch the kid bathe in the glory of making history, he sure seems like a nice kid.

And Torres?

3 olympic silver medals at 41 in a sport where most people know they're going somewhere or they're not at 15.

Dara Torres

Dude. This woman is waaaaaaaaay inspiring to some of us old bitches.

Amazing swimmers

Go Michael!


Great job !

Just don't get those medals anywhere near your mouth!

Lead out of China?

Now who'da thunk it?

"We will smash them up!" France's Alain Bernard boasted on Sunday after the heats of the men's 4x100m freestyle relay.



Watching Lezak was incredibly exciting.
These guys are really good.

Wow

In an unbelievable string of bad luck when it comes to computers, the loaner, which looks like it does everything except wipe your butt for you, can't find the monitor.

I'm pretty fed up with this bullshit.

Russia expands Georgia blitz, deploys ships

Monday, Aug. 11, 2008
By MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI Associated Press Writer

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Russia and Georgia clashed on land and at sea Sunday despite a Georgian cease-fire offer and claim of withdrawal from the separatist province of South Ossetia, officials from both countries said...

Russia appears determined to subdue diminutive, U.S.-backed Georgia despite international condemnation. Russia ignored a wave of calls to observe Georgia's cease-fire, saying it must first be assured that Georgian troops had indeed pulled back from South Ossetia.

Illusions of Victory
How the United States Did Not Reinvent War… But Thought It Did
By Andrew Bacevich

Moving on-----

I've had three computers go down since the first week of June this year. My friend's computer is acting up also. Coinky-dink? Yeah sure, like all the weird coinky-dinks that happened to me 5 years ago. I've never been arrested, or questioned for anything before because I don't break the law. Whoever fucked with me and my family did.

I didn't need the road map of North Africa and the Middle East with a stranger's writing on it and Addis Ababa circled that I found in my car a couple of days after my car door was left hanging open. I don't have a passport. I never have had one. Not to mention the fact that a Muslim country full of just the kind of ignorant assholes that I love to hate is the last place a woman like me wants to be. I barbequed the fucker. Nobody I know has any idea where it came from, or who's writing was on it.

The little baby squidlies playing Billy BadAss who made sure I noticed them (I'll never forget that dark turquoisey matte SUV with the dealer paper instead of plates, the little black driver and the big white goon) noticing me on the way home from a friend's house way back then. There was more, but who knows? Could just be coinky-dink.

Glaring incompetence, arrogance and buffoonery give me a sneaking suspicion as to who was behind it, but I'm not going there. Seems to me that terrorizing me was a complete waste of time. That's exactly how I felt for a couple of weeks though. Terrorized. I'm still bitter. I haven't done anything wrong, unless having an e-mail conversation disagreeing on the usefulness of the Iraq war with a local right-wing dickhead mil-blogger was against the law 5 years ago was illegal.

Was it?

Whoops there it is.

This is a red county. They don't like dissidents here. Fucking red fucking fucks.

The County's gotta be pissing their pants over the new grant money from Homeland Security.

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego County has received $7.6 million in grants from the state Office of Homeland Security, an increase of 14 percent, the county announced Thursday

Aloof?

Chained ghosts
Aug 7th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Americans in the Gulag

Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union

Georgia's importance as an energy
transit state
- Fri Aug 8, 2008 11:21am

US army exercises begin in Georgia UPDATED ON:
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
20:21 Mecca time, 17:21 GMT

Did the U.S. Prep Georgia for War with Russia?
By Nathan Hodge August 08, 2008 12:52:00 PM
Categories: Crazy Ivans

Now onto the Olympics. And the question of repression. We believe that we are above it. Is that possible?

MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES
(in billions s of dollars)

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis

With a highly globalised world economy struggling with a current population of 6.7 billion, how long can we fool ourselves that we are aloof?

Corporate America Prepares for Battle Against Worker Campaign to Roll Back Assault on the Middle Class
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted August 8, 2008.
Big business has prepared a war chest of at least $150 million to stop progressive economic legislation that would seriously tax the rich.

Last Comic Standing

Iliza won.

Yessssssssssss!!!!!

Whiny titty baby repugnant thuglicans circle jerk

instead of telling their asinine trader buddies to quit fucking the world with their speculation.

Assholes.

Stopping the greedy f*ck$

S.D. agents help bust massive ID-theft ring

The thieves hacked into wireless networks of retailers, including BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW, as well as TJX Cos., owners of Marshalls and T.J. Maxx, authorities said.

I remember watching some news magazine show and they rode around in a van with a laptop computer that had some program downloaded from the internet on it that literally got your credit or debit card number out of the air outside the stores.

40 million of them in this bust.

The stores who lost the numbers in the newgazine that I watched had already lost millions of numbers and knew that they needed to upgrade to a more secure network and it was more expensive so they didn't.

So are these scumbag assholes who got busted (who look like they are from what used to be communist countries, where generally people survive by bribery, corruption and ruthlessness) to blame or are the stores who refuse to protect their own revenues, profits and your card numbers?

Ok, on to more soutions to greedy fucks that are making our lives harder.

Obama Nails It: Calls For Release of 70 Million Barrels From The Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Raymond J. Learsy
Posted August 4, 2008 05:35 PM (EST)

...Nothing would be more immediately effective than a willingness to release oil from the SPR to rein in oil prices. It would immediately impact the psychology of the traders, having them begin a run for the exits. It would be a signal to oil producers, most especially OPEC that our days of being patsies to their cartel corruption are at an end. And it would have an immediate and salutary impact on the price of oil. Witness today simply mentioning the possibility broke the price of oil almost immediately by over $5 per barrel to under $120/bbl ending the day a shade under $4 barrel lower...

Military spying

Controversial military counterspy office closed
By PAMELA HESS – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon on Monday officially dissolved an intelligence office that once created a controversial database about potential threats to military bases, shifting it to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Oh, so they won't be spying on Quakers anymore?


DIA's new mission adds to intel arsenal
By PAMELA HESS – 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Intelligence Agency, long a home for intelligence analysis, is joining the spy vs. spy game.

Mmmmmmm, OK.

Russian Judge Rules Sexual Harrassment is Ok as it Ensures Survival of the Human Race

Does this surprise me?

Nope, I'm still reading Anne Applebaums's Gulag. And chapter 11 in Naomi Klein's the Shock Doctrine is all about the Pinochet style economic shock treatment applied in Russia.





Not surprising to me either is that Amazon Warrior Priestess graves have been excavated on the Russian Steppes.