sitemeter
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Prostitution Scandal: 5 Members Of U.S. Military Accused Of Misconduct At Same Hotel As Secret Service
Holy moly, am I the only one who caught the fact that this story is a HUGE distraction from what is really going on at the Summit of Americas?
no, Bloomberg got it
"U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-14/obama-criticizes-media-coverage-of-summit-of-the-americas.html
and so did the BBC
"US President Barack Obama has said that legalising drugs is not the answer to the problems caused by the trafficking of illegal narcotics in the Americas....
...But he said that he was open to a debate about the issue...."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17716926
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Should America Be Involved in Democracy Promotion in the Arab World?
"...I provided a contrarian view that said, quite simply, "no."
Yep, totally understand that, but definitely not for the reasons you go on to describe. Change needs to come from within, not outside, which is why it's silly to expect Americans to understand this tidbit:
"...As our polling makes clear, what most Arabs want from America is not democracy, it is for Washington to play a role in pressuring Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands..."
Did y'all drink the Kool-Aid? How can you lump together "America" and the DC power structure? Y'all think that "we the people" can penetrate, and effectively influence the DC bubble?
Puhleeeeeeeze!
Friday, April 13, 2012
Secret Service Agents Relieved Of Duty Following Colombia Misconduct Allegations
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Ummm. Like this stuff is rare? What really happened? Oh ain't it fun to play with an article that tells ya nuthin?
to which someone replied:
What really is a shame is all the false outrage by baggers.
to which I replied:
I know huh? Makes you wonder if the baggers are stupid, unimaginative, hypocritical, or just so brainwashed that they can't wrap their head around it? Or maybe the powers that be just get away with this crap during a "conservative" administration? I mean, secret service agents' employment sometimes spans multiple administrations, right?
Anyway, these dudes should have known that working in the first black US President's administration, and a Dem administration would make their jobs harder. That they would have to be better than the best, and on their best behavior.
That gettting stupid drunk and forgetting to pay the hookers was a big-time no-no:
Secret Service Colombia scandal: Agents working too hard, or not hard enough?
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / April 14, 2012
CS Monitor
Twelve US Secret Service agents were sent back to the US from Cartagena, Colombia, after allegedly drinking heavily and consorting with prostitutes. Is the long-veiled agency struggling with an increasingly complex mission?
Thursday, April 12, 2012
JPMorgan Chase: The Great White Whale Of The Global Economy
Jamie Dimon is as full of poop as a Christmas goose. It's his job.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Anti-abortion activists using legislation to win
Abortion options fade in South
Have antiabortion activists finally found a way to drive two women's clinics out of Mississippi and Alabama?
BY IRIN CARMON
A million different thought flew through my mind as I read this article. Disgust was the predominate feeling. Who do the anti-abortion activists think they are? If you have ever had to cross those whack-jobs' picket lines yourself then you may understand the urge to take their retarded picket sign and beat them over the head with it, just long enough to shut them the fuck up.
Unfortunately, those vultures feed on anger if you show it to them. There is no such thing as trying to reason with them, they are completely convinced that they are correct and they have the right to shove their beliefs down your throat. There is no reasoning with that kind of mind, it's like beating your head against a brick wall.
The more vocal ones that I have encountered have been men, which infuriates me.
Do they get up in the middle of the night to feed and change a baby that may be seriously disabled? For 4o fucking years?
Do they adopt? Would they adopt a child whose chances for survival to adulthood were low and whose chances for independence if they did reach adulthood were non-existent?
Do they struggle with basic survival?
Do they go to work every day for shit pay as a single parent and depend on the government to provide checks for a daycare provider who constantly threatens to dump the kid if their check is delayed one more time?
Do they risk losing their job if they have to stay home with a sick kid because daycare won't take a sick kid?
Do they have abusive spouses that may eventually abuse the child that they made such assholes of themselves to "save?"
Their constant refrain seems to be "God will provide."
Hmmmm. Well God provided a planet that already has 7 billion humans on it, and only 3% of of the water on the planet is fresh water, approximately 1% is usable by humans. Last time I checked crops need water and crops feed humans, and lack of fresh water can kill humans in as little as 2 days. Don't even get me started on climate change and people's attitudes towards it.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Murder charge in Trayvon Martin killing
WATCH LIVE: Zimmerman’s lawyer speaks to reporters
By David Edwards
Thursday, April 12, 2012 13:34 EDT
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Subsidizing the Most Profitable Industry on Earth
April 5, 2012
by Bill McKibben
Along with “fivedollaragallongas,” the energy watchword for the next few months is: “subsidies.” Last week, for instance, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez proposed ending some of the billions of dollars in handouts enjoyed by the fossil-fuel industry with a “Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act.” It was, in truth, nothing to write home about — a curiously skimpy bill that only targeted oil companies, and just the five richest of them at that. Left out were coal and natural gas, and you won’t be surprised to learn that even then it didn’t pass.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Bill Moyers, Paul Volcker
Published on Monday, April 2, 2012 by Common Dreams
Five Preposterous, Persistent Conservative Myths
by Paul Buchheit
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Fracking California
It appears fracking has gone virtually unregulated in California for decades and now lawmakers are pushing back with legislation to expose the truth.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Trayvon/Alawadi conflation
4/12/12 update:
"...The documents also show the woman's 17-year-old daughter, Fatima Alhimidi, was distraught over her pending arranged marriage to a cousin..."
Monday, April 02, 2012
OIl and money, money and oil
Posted by Michael Klare at 5:09pm, April 1, 2012.
"...Fracking Our Way to a Toxic Planet
Such pressures in the Third World have forced the major U.S. and European firms -- BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total of France -- to look elsewhere for new sources of oil and natural gas. Unfortunately for them, there aren’t many places left in the world that possess promising hydrocarbon reserves and also welcome investment by private energy giants. That’s why some of the most attractive new energy markets now lie in Canada and the United States, or in the waters off their shores. As a result, both are experiencing a remarkable uptick in fresh investment from the major international firms.
Both countries still possess substantial oil and gas deposits, but not of the “easy” variety (deposits close to the surface, close to shore, or easily accessible for extraction). All that remains are “tough” energy reserves (deep underground, far offshore, hard to extract and process). To exploit these, the energy companies must deploy aggressive technologies likely to cause extensive damage to the environment and in many cases human health as well. They must also find ways to gain government approval to enter environmentally protected areas now off limits...
Put another way, North America will have to be Third-Worldified."
Raymond J. LearsyAuthor, 'Oil and Finance: The Epic Corruption Continues'
Shell Supports Iran's Murderous Mullahs; Should We Be Supporting Shell?
Posted: 04/ 2/2012 5:16 am
Russia Moves to Drill in Arctic, Oil Companies Follow Suit
Brian Merchant
Business / Corporate Responsibility
February 15, 2011
SUNDAY, APR 1, 2012 2:00 PM PDT
How billionaires destroy democracy
Wealthy Wall Streeters have rigged the economy and the government against the people. Here's how they did it
BY LINDA MCQUAIG AND NEIL BROOKS
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Bill Moyers | The Real Costs of War
Sunday, 01 April 2012 12:48
By Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers & Co. | News Analysis
*sigh*
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Palm Beach Elections Overturned After Hand-Count Reveals Op-Scans Mistallied Results
"...Yes, it's true that Palm Beach County simply cannot carry out an election properly on any type of voting system. It's true that..." (just read it)
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| People Who Are Destroying America - Teachers | ||||
| www.colbertnation.com | ||||
| ||||
March 29, 2012, 11:56 PM NYT opinion
Suppress the Vote!
By JIM ARKEDIS and LINDSAY MARK LEWIS
Friday, March 30, 2012
The Price of Oil: Saudi Hypocrisy, Our Gullibility
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Rachel Maddow on Supreme Court
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
This woman is brilliant!The Wall Street multibillion-dollar scandal no one is talking about
"Much of the talk about bad behavior on Wall Street since the financial crisis has been about mortgages...
...But there is another scandal that has come out of the financial crisis that at least to me makes the mortgage underwriting scandal look like small peanuts, and it has been heating up lately. Two weeks ago, the government disclosed that it is looking into bringing criminal cases against traders and banks that manipulated a key bank lending rate, called LIBOR....
...Consider what went on here. Banks took a rate that they artificially set themselves, and then went out and convinced municipalities and pension funds and others to bet against them on the rate.... "
Read the whole thing and tell me you are surprised? Or gee, maybe this article from 2003 was a clue?
I'm not surprised, especially since I have had a cautious at best and hateful and disgusted at worst attitude towards traders, and their disdain for government regulations.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Let the investigation continue in the Al-Awadi case
"...The documents also show the woman's 17-year-old daughter, Fatima Alhimidi, was distraught over her pending arranged marriage to a cousin..."
"...Records obtained at El Cajon Superior Court on Wednesday showed the victim's plans to leave her husband..."
"...Fatima also had a previous run-in with police last November when she was caught having sex with a 21-year-old man in a parked car, the search warrants stated.
After being picked up by her mother, Fatima jumped out of her mother's car going 35 mph, according to the search warrants. Fatima suffered a possible broken arm and was placed on a medical hold...."
The sheriff's crime lab determined it was a copy, not the original, according the documents.
Sat Mar 31 2012 The reporters must be frustrated at how little information is being revealed by the investigators. Perhaps the investigators are frustrated with how little new information is being discovered? Anyway they have no "persons of interest" at this time.
Iraqi-American woman slain in US is buried in Iraq
By BUSHRA JUHI and HADI MIZBAN Associated Press
Posted: 03/31/2012 08:50:21 AM PDT
NAJAF, Iraq—An Iraqi-American woman found bludgeoned to death in her California home last week, with a threatening note left beside her body, was buried in her native Iraq on Saturday. Family members wept uncontrollably by her graveside and her father asked God to exact revenge on those responsible for her death....
HATE CRIMES, 2010 ) Hey, where did that last paragrapgh go? lol.
Update: Police logs describe possible suspect in murder of El Cajon mother
Updated: Mar 28, 2012 5:50 PM PDT
Update: Family of murdered Iraqi-American woman recounts story of brutal attack
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Last Updated: Tue Mar 27, 2012 18:12 pm (KSA) 15:12 pm (GMT) Al Arabiya News
"...Hamidi said he and his wife are both from the city of al-Samawa in the governorate of al-Muthana in southern Iraq.
“We got married in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia.”
...
A muslim mother of four gets beaten to death in her California home and left with the message "Go back to your country, you terrorist." But there won't be a million hijab march for her.
By NINA BURLEIGH | @ninaburleigh | March 28, 2012
-------------
San Diego murder victim Shaima Alawadi to return to Iraq
A hate crime appears to be the most obvious answer because of the note (s), but I have alternate theories that may still pertain to the hateful note. It might have been smokescreen left there by the killer(s) and used by the police in order to continue their investigation.
Here are some other things to think about.
Even if the killer was a racist pig and/or a right-wing nut-job, methamphetimine use in El Cajon is well known, and the area is pretty well mixed as far as socioeconomic and educational levels go and racial make-up in the area is varied. (According to this, El Cajon is whiter than I thought, and thank you wikipedia for cluing me into the fact that there is a Chaldean mafia in bed with Mexican drugs cartels AND the Sicilian Mafia, because I didn't know about these arrests).
Also well known is that the Iraqi community in El Cajon has a majority of Chaldeans (kind of like Catholic Christians) and the Al Awadis are Shia and her “dream was to work and build bridges between the Muslim and Christian communities.”
"Redman said the ECPD (El Cajon Police Department) had never before recorded a hate crime against Iraqis or Chaldeans, tens of thousands of whom live in the East County."
The husband had worked for a US Army military contractor in San Diego as a cultural advisor to train US soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East, as did the brothers.
Yeah, sorry, but daughter’s dramatic skills are on display for the cameras here. I know that when I cry you can hear the stuffed up sinuses. Since the family came to the US in the early 90’s that kid was raised here, and most 17-year-olds do not consider their mother their best friend, even if the mother was very young when she started a family (15 in this case).
Common police procedure is to suspect the husband first, although he was taking some of his kids to school while his oldest daughter was sleeping upstairs and his wife was being hit in the head with a tire iron downstairs. Well some reports say she was sleeping upstairs and others say she came in the house and found her mother unconscious. The victim's father was a Shia cleric in Iraq. Neighbor interviewed by local tv station says it looked to her that the back slider door's glass shattered out, not in.
From what I can gather, the mother’s last name and the daughter’s last name are not the same, and the family lived in San Diego before and had very recently moved back.
So, those may be some factors in why nobody has been arrested in this case yet, or there just may not be any evidence that the killer(s) left, the labs haven’t finished processing any evidence or interrogations haven’t tripped anyone up yet. Obviously the killer(s) haven’t been caught.
Tragic Beating Death of Shaima Alawadi Feeds Into Trayvon Martin Race DebateBy Andre Tartar
Mar 25, 2012 NYmag
"We don't want to jump to any conclusions and say it's a hate crime when there is still a lot of investigation to be done," said Edgar Hopida, spokesman for CAIR in San Diego.
Update Tuesday March 27, 2012 7:45pm
"...10News learned that the family mini-van was hauled away on a flat-bed tow truck for forensic examination, as police crime scene technicians combed the house and backyard in search of additional clues on Tuesday morning..."
Hmmmmm. Maybe there is a suspicion that the attacker was acquainted with the family well enough to leave clues in the van? The attacker came in the house through the garage and grabbed the tire iron the daughter mentioned on the way into the house? The coroner's report was sealed by the police at least 2 days ago.
Health Care Reform: Opening Day At The Supreme Court
Defending ‘Obamacare’ In and Out of Court
March 26, 2012
http://billmoyers.com/2012/03/26/defending-obamacare-in-and-out-of-court/
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Shaima Alawadi Dead: Iraqi Woman Who Was Severely Beaten In California Home Dies
This makes me so sad. It also makes me wonder if the perps were on meth? El Cajon is kind of known for being tweaker hell. Condolences to friends and family.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Birkenstocks Anonymous?

Hmmm. It started with one pair in my 20's, then two. Stopped wearing them, got old and fat, thought I needed a bigger size, bigger size caused major problems, went back to smaller size and then just went crazy buying the damn things. So 14 of the 20 pairs pictured I can actually wear now. The soft footbeds for short periods, the regular footbeds on most days and the bad days, ONLY the high arch pairs.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Nice couple of days
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Merah dead
March 22, 2012
LA Times
"...Authorities said the suspect had acknowledged killing seven people in three separate shootings. Guéant said Merah had admitted gunning down a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday, saying it was in revenge for the killing of Palestinian children.
Officials reported that the suspect also said he shot three soldiers, two of them Muslims, in retaliation for French military involvement in Afghanistan. The drive-by attacks happened before the shooting at the Jewish school...."
Monday, March 19, 2012
As Occupy Arrestees Arraigned, Iris Scans Affect Bail
Categories: Courts, Occupy Wall Street, Privacy
Welcome to Police State America. Between that and a mention of Romney beating Obama in some poll somewhere and the possibly premature screams of anti-semitism in France over today's shooting I'm just absolutely disgusted.
Shit, what's on Netflix?
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Robert Bales, Afghan Killing Suspect, Plagued By Money And Job Strife
I know I'm going to get a lot of negative responses for saying this so I'll just say it.
Sgt. Bales' actions opened up a big ugly can of infected worms and maybe the sunlight shined on it will be a good thing in the long run.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
What a bunch of creeps
2010 R117 minutes
Director Alex Gibney turns the spotlight on the life and career of politician Eliot Spitzer, the New York governor whose potential to become the first Jewish president of the United States was thwarted by his indiscretions.
Cast:Eliot Spitzer, Joseph Bruno, Kenneth Langone, Roger Stone, Maurice R. 'Hank' Greenberg, Cecil Suwal, Lloyd Constantine, Peter Elkind

So nice to know that in one of the most powerful and wealthy cities in the world that some of the powerful are virtually indistinguishable from some of the characters in the Godfather or on the Sopranos. Bleh. I absolutely loathe those movies and that show. And oh yeah, these creeps have friends in the FBI (Fucking Bought off Idiots).
