Daily Kos: Confirmed: Ocean circulation patterns changing.

Daily Kos: Confirmed: Ocean circulation patterns changing.:
"The Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off. ... Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat today: 'We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at two metres an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 metres deep.

That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year.' ... He had flown over the Ilulissat glacier and 'seen gigantic holes in it through which swirling masses of melt water were falling. I first looked at this glacier in the 1960s and there were no holes. These so-called moulins, 10 to 15 metres across, have opened up all over the place. There are hundreds of them.'"

Assholes

Chip implants linked to animal tumors - Yahoo! News: "When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly.

The FDA found 'reasonable assurance' the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top 'innovative technologies.' But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had 'induced' malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats."

The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip's approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options.

Brain type may dictate politics | Science | The Guardian

Brain type may dictate politics | Science | The Guardian: "Political differences might be explained by a fundamental variation in how our brains are 'wired' to process information, according to a study published today. Scientists have found that the brains of people calling themselves liberals are more able to handle conflicting and unexpected information than the brains of their conservative counterparts. The study points to a likely neurological basis for complex personality and behavioural traits. David Amodio, of New York University, writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, says conservatives were found to be 'more structured and persistent in their judgments'; in tests they had 'higher average scores' on measures of the personal need for 'order, structure and closure'. Liberals showed 'higher tolerance of ambiguity and complexity'."

Some Food Additives Raise Hyperactivity, Study Finds - New York Times

Some Food Additives Raise Hyperactivity, Study Finds - New York Times:
"The Lancet study focused on a variety of food colorings and on sodium benzoate, a common preservative. The researchers note that removing this preservative from food could cause problems in itself by increasing spoilage.

In the six-week trial, researchers gave a randomly selected group of several hundred 3-year-olds and of 8- and 9-year-olds drinks with additives — colors and sodium benzoate — that mimicked the mix in children’s drinks that are commercially available. The dose of additives consumed was equivalent to that in one or two servings of candy a day, the researchers said. Their diet was otherwise controlled to avoid other sources of the additives. A control group was given an additive-free placebo drink that looked and tasted the same.

All of the children were evaluated for inattention and hyperactivity by parents, teachers (for school-age children) and through a computer test. Neither the researchers nor the subject knew which drink any of the children had consumed. The researchers discovered that children in both age groups were significantly more hyperactive and that they had shorter attention spans if they had consumed the drink containing the additives. The study did not try to link specific consumption with specific behaviors. The study’s authors noted that other research suggested that the hyperactivity could increase in as little as an hour after artificial additives were consumed.

The Lancet study could not determine which of the additives caused the poor performances because all the children received a mix. “This was a very complicated study, and it will take an even more complicated study to figure out which components caused the effect,” Professor Stevenson said.

Things a Man Should Know About Women - Esquire

Things a Man Should Know About Women - Esquire:
Never let her arrive at an event alone.

Sometimes women want it when you don't, and for you not to give in on such occasions sets a terrible precedent.

Her job is just as important as yours.

If she works out, compliment her muscles."

7 U.S. troops killed in 2 Iraq attacks - Yahoo! News

7 U.S. troops killed in 2 Iraq attacks - Yahoo! News: "BAGHDAD - Four U.S. Marines were killed in fighting in Anbar province, and three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq, the military said Friday.

Britain's Defense Ministry announced Friday the death of British soldier killed two days earlier. It gave no details on where or how the soldier died."

No End in Sight

NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions? NO END IN SIGHT dissects the people, issues and facts behind the Bush Administration’s decisions and their consequences on the ground to provide a powerful look into how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war.

Daily Kos: Reality check: "The Arctic ice cap has collapsed"

Daily Kos: Reality check: "The Arctic ice cap has collapsed": "Loss of Arctic ice leaves experts stunned David Adam, environment correspondent Guardian Unlimited Tuesday September 4 2007 The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at record lows, scientists have announced. Experts say they are 'stunned' by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone."

CEO pay and benefits on the rise: report - Yahoo! News

CEO pay and benefits on the rise: report - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top executives at major businesses last year made as much money in one day of work on the job as the average worker made over the entire year, according to a report released on Wednesday.

Chief executive officers from the nation's biggest businesses averaged nearly $11 million in total compensation, according to the 14th annual CEO compensation survey released jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies based in Washington and United for a Fair Economy, a national organization based in Boston. At the same time, workers at the bottom rung of the U.S. economy received the first federal minimum wage increase in a decade.

But the new wage of $5.85 an hour, after being adjusted for inflation, stands 7 percent below where the minimum wage stood a decade ago.

"CEO pay, over that same decade, has increased by roughly 45 percent," the study found.

On average, CEOs at major American corporations saw $1.3 million in pension gains last year. By contrast, 58.5 percent of American households led by a 45- to 54-year old even had a retirement account in 2004, the most recent year these figures were available.

According to the report, between 2001 and 2004, retirement accounts of these average households gained only $3,775 in value a year.

The top 386 CEOs in the study took in perks, such as housing allowances and travel benefits, worth on average $438,342 in 2006. It would take a minimum wage worker 36 years to earn the equivalent of what CEOs averaged in just perks alone.

The 20 highest-paid individuals at publicly traded corporations last year took home, on average, $36.4 million. That's 38 times more than the 20 highest-paid leaders in the non-profit sector and 204 times more than the 20 highest-paid generals in the U.S. military.

American executives significantly out-earn their European counterparts, the study found. In 2006, the 20 highest-paid European managers made an average of $12.5 million, a third as much as the 20 highest-paid U.S. executives took home last year.

College Guys More Romantic Than Gals - Yahoo! News

College Guys More Romantic Than Gals - Yahoo! News: "The romantic guy might be found right on our college campuses. A recent study finds male undergraduate students were more likely than women to choose intimate relationships over their careers and education.

While the results seem to contradict stereotypical notions of gender roles (women choose family and men choose high-powered jobs), perhaps it's a case of how 'romance' is defined. Do guys equate a romantic relationship with a chance to get lucky?"

Overall, 61 percent of the guys chose a romantic relationship rather than achievement goals, while 51 percent of gals chose romance. The boys and men were particularly more likely to swap a career, education and traveling for "charming companions."

More specifically, just 20 percent of female students chose romantic relationships over careers, specifically, while about 35 percent of the males picked romance. About 15 percent of females said they would ditch education for romance compared with nearly 30 percent of male respondents.

"I think that those are the issues in which people find tension often in real life, between having a career and making time for relationships," Mosher told LiveScience.

Guys will be guys

Rather than revealing guys' romantic sides, the results could support the view that guys think with their…

"Maybe for the men they're thinking close romantic relationship, but that doesn't necessarily mean long-term commitment of getting married and having children," Kruger said.

Kruger also pointed out that evolutionarily, guys tried to achieve high-status positions to ensure better mating opportunities. "So in a way it's kind of like saying, you're doing all this stuff to strive for something, but if you can get that 'thing' without additional striving, wouldn’t you?" Kruger explained.

The study researchers, however, suggest female students in the study may have been so strongly committed to success along career paths they were hesitant to drop these goals for romantic relationships.

As to why romance ruled for male students, the study researchers noted that unlike women, men seem to derive more emotional support from their opposite-sex relationships than from same-sex pals.

China denies its military hacked into Pentagon network - Yahoo! News

China denies its military hacked into Pentagon network - Yahoo! News: "BEIJING — China denied charges Tuesday that its military had hacked into a Pentagon computer network, the second time in a week that the nation has fended off accusations of cyber-attacks from within its borders.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the latest charges 'reflect a Cold War mentality.' Britain's Financial Times reported in its U.S. edition Tuesday that Chinese hackers had broken into a Pentagon computer network in June, leading to a shutdown of a system that serves the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates .

The newspaper quoted an unnamed senior U.S. official as saying that the source of the attack had been traced to the People's Liberation Army. Other unnamed officials said they also were fairly certain that the attacks came from within China's military."

SUCKERS:)

Nearly a month of 110 or more in Phoenix - Yahoo! News: "Phoenix reached a shoe-melting, spirit-crushing milestone Wednesday: 29 days of temperatures 110 degrees or higher in a single year. The previous record of 28 days was set in 1970 and matched in 2002, according to the National Weather Service. The streak is enough to vaporize any humor left in the phrase 'It's a dry heat.' The average number of days 110 or higher in a given year is 10. 'It's a dry heat because we're in a desert!' Ollie Lewis said as she walked to a bus stop in downtown Phoenix. Austin Jamison, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Phoenix, said an oven produces dry heat, too. 'You can put your head in the oven, but that's not comfortable.'"

Daily Kos: Obama's radical proposals on mortgages

Daily Kos: Obama's radical proposals on mortgages: "The intro pulls no punches, and is very heartening to me - not because it's good news that a 'devastating' financial crisis is likely, but because it is, as far as I can tell, the first acknowledgement by a senior politician anywhere of the gravity of what's unfolding. If you read my diaries, you may have noted that I personally think that the financial crisis will be massive, and I also note how important it is that Democrats put the blame properly where it belongs, i.e. in the feudalistic, class warfare economic policies of the right, which use massive debt (borne by the poor) to hide the capture of an increasingly large share of the economic pie by the ultra rich. The first step is to not deny the economic realities, and to speak up against that wall of debt, and it is good to see Obama making that step clearly."

indifference

Broadsheet: Women's Articles, Women's Stories, Women's Blog - Salon.com: "Police: Woman raped, witnesses do nothing Minnesota police report that a security camera caught a 26-year-old woman being beaten and raped for over an hour in the hallway of an apartment building. What's more, the security footage shows at least 10 neighbors peeking out of their apartments and venturing down the hallway to investigate the commotion -- but no one intervened. The police were finally called nearly 90 minutes into the attack, reports the Star Tribune. (One man claims to have called the police when the alleged victim knocked on his door, asking for help; they have no record of his call.) When police arrived, they found Rage Ibrahim, 26, lying in the hallway with the alleged victim. By then the woman was unconscious and had scratches on her face and blood on her thigh."

Whistleblowers on Fraud Facing Penalties - Forbes.com

Whistleblowers on Fraud Facing Penalties - Forbes.com:
"Most of the lawsuits are brought by former employees of giant firms. Some plaintiffs have testified before members of Congress, providing examples of fraud they say they witnessed and the retaliation they experienced after speaking up.
Julie McBride testified last year that as a 'morale, welfare and recreation coordinator' at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR exaggerate costs by double- and triple-counting the number of soldiers who used recreational facilities. She also said the company took supplies destined for a Super Bowl party for U.S. troops and instead used them to stage a celebration for themselves.
'After I voiced my concerns about what I believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion,' she told the committee. 'My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country.'"

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Now we know who and why

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Now we know who and why: "In a clear sign that the credit crunch is still affecting the nation's largest financial institutions, the Federal Reserve agreed this week to bend key banking regulations to help out Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC), according to documents posted Friday on the Fed's web site.

The Aug. 20 letters from the Fed to Citigroup and Bank of America state that the Fed, which regulates large parts of the U.S. financial system, has agreed to exempt both banks from rules that effectively limit the amount of lending that their federally-insured banks can do with their brokerage affiliates. The exemption, which is temporary, means, for example, that Citigroup's Citibank entity can substantially increase funding to Citigroup Global Markets, its brokerage subsidiary. Citigroup and Bank of America requested the exemptions, according to the letters, to provide liquidity to those holding mortgage loans, mortgage-backed securities, and other securities.

So, how serious is this rule-bending? Very. One of the central tenets of banking regulation is that banks with federally insured deposits should never be over-exposed to brokerage subsidiaries; indeed, for decades financial institutions were legally required to keep the two units completely separate. This move by the Fed eats away at the principle."

Top Swiss banker attacks US lending standards as 'unbelievable' - Telegraph

Top Swiss banker attacks US lending standards as 'unbelievable' - Telegraph: "Switzerland's top banker has warned of massive losses from the unfolding credit crisis, describing the collapse in US lending standards as 'unbelievable'. Jean-Pierre Roth, president of the Swiss National Bank, said market turmoil was far from over as tremors from the sub-prime debacle continued to rock the world. 'We're certainly not at the end of the story. There are question marks surrounding the development of the American economy,' he said. 'Something unbelievable happened. People who had neither income nor capital got credit with very attractive conditions. Now reality is striking back,' he said."

Truth is disturbing

Daily Kos: Rolling Stone: an article that could end the war: "What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureauc­racy. This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profit­eering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole."

Innovating stupidity

Tougher US immigration leading to 'reverse brain-drain': study - Yahoo! News: "'The United States benefits from having foreign-born innovators create their ideas in this country,' said Vivek Wadhwa, a Harvard Law School fellow and co-author of the report. 'Their departures would be detrimental to US economic well-being.' The study by researchers at Duke, New York and Harvard universities is the third in a series of studies focusing on immigrants' contributions to the US economy. In this study, 'Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog, and a Reverse Brain-Drain,' the researchers concluded that the number of skilled workers waiting for visas is significantly larger than the number that can be admitted to the United States. 'This imbalance creates the potential for a sizeable reverse brain-drain from the United States to the skilled workers' home countries,' the foundation said. The report said a majority of immigrant company founders, including many in the tech sector, came to the United States as students. Many ended up staying in the United States after graduation, with a number founding new companies. It said 31 percent of the startups in tech centers had an immigrant key founder, including 52.4 percent in California's Silicon Valley. The researchers said Indian immigrants founded more companies than those from the"

no shit sherlock

Poll: Family ties key to youth happiness - Yahoo! News: "Turns out the real answer is quite different. Spending time with family was the top answer to that open-ended question, according to an extensive survey — more than 100 questions asked of 1,280 people ages 13-24 — conducted by The Associated Press and MTV on the nature of happiness among America's young people. Next was spending time with friends, followed by time with a significant other. And even better for parents: Nearly three-quarters of young people say their relationship with their parents makes them happy."

Unlucky in Love

still to come,
the worst part and you know it,
there is a numbness,
in your heart and it's growing,
with burnt sage and a forest of bygones,
i click my heels,
get the devils in line,
a list of things i could lay the blame on,
might give me a way out,

but with each turn,
it's this front and center,
like a dart stuck square in your eye,
every post you can hitch your faith on,
is a pie in the sky,
chock full of lies,
a tool we devise,
to make sinking stones fly,

and still to come,
the worst part and you know it,
there is a numbness,
in your heart and it's growing.

To call it a rough week is kind. There are all sorts of things you should learn from experience. To be specific, I know that if I drink more than 3 cosmos in a night, I will regret said action in the morning. Most of the time I adhere quite easily to this known fact, but still at this late stage in my life I will occasionally down a volume of cosmos that render me utterly useless.

Then there is the stuff you really don't know. Why do some people end up Paris Hilton and others child soldiers in a war over resources? Now neither of these are appealing obviously, but the question plagues me. I've tried so many ways to approach the issue: Acceptance, Defiance, Inquisition etc. I've wrestled with the relative value of struggle, the reality that humans with control of vast resources are nearly always incapable of wielding said resources effectively. I mean fucking Oprah is now telling herself that her largess is as a result of positive thinking. Oh Oprah, how you have betrayed us, but I understand. The idea that your life, existence, the universe is in anyway attributable to luck is depressing. Luck is not only completely beyond our control, it is also a complete mystery. No one even has a theory on how luck gets doled out. Similarly, there is no quota for the suffering any one person needs to bear. Now, you may argue that my pessimism is in fact "creating" bad luck. My response to that lovely cop out, is fuck you and the bullshit you rode in on.

I may not be able to penetrate the mysteries of the universe with any particularly useful insight, but I have read others much more reasoned insights and I feel that it is safe to conclude that no one has any notion of why things work out the way they do. I mean you are just as likely to find your bliss in crystals as you are in the pursuit of power.

So yes I think I am unlucky in love and if there was a way for me to give an offering to the gods that would change my luck, I would gladly oblige.

Daily Kos: UPDATED - McClatchy: Huge Fed Doleouts Followed Pro-GOP Agency Briefings

Daily Kos: UPDATED - McClatchy: Huge Fed Doleouts Followed Pro-GOP Agency Briefings:
"But, you know, it isn't just the power point parades or the pep rallies or the largesse being doled out to GOP candidates in trouble that's being investigated for Hatch Act violations. There's this, and if it has traction, it could open up a very interesting avenue into the big crimes: ...fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias revealed key new details about the Office of Special Counsel’s (OSC) probe into Karl Rove and other White House officials reported today by the Los Angeles Times. Iglesias said that on April 3, he filed a Hatch Act complaint with the OSC, charging that Karl Rove and others may have violated the law by firing him over his failure to initiate partisan-motivated prosecutions. These Hatch act investigations may end up being more potent than anybody realizes. Remember, Watergate started out as a third rate burglary."

Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus - New York Times

Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus - New York Times: "Until this year, only pregnant women 35 and older were routinely tested to see if their fetuses had the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome. As a result many couples were given the diagnosis only at birth. But under a new recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, doctors have begun to offer a new, safer screening procedure to all pregnant women, regardless of age. About 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion. Convinced that more couples would choose to continue their pregnancies if they better appreciated what it meant to raise a child with Down syndrome, a growing group of parents is seeking to insert their own positive perspectives into a decision often dominated by daunting medical statistics and doctors who feel obligated to describe the difficulties of life with a disabled child."

They really are watching you....

U.S. to Expand Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites - WSJ.com: "Access to the high-tech surveillance tools would, for the first time, allow Homeland Security and law-enforcement officials to see real-time, high-resolution images and data, which would allow them, for example, to identify smuggler staging areas, a gang safehouse, or possibly even a building being used by would-be terrorists to manufacture chemical weapons."

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/08/2007 | Hedge funds may pose a risk to U.S. economy

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/08/2007 | Hedge funds may pose a risk to U.S. economy: "The funds — managed pools of investors' money, often supplemented with huge borrowings from banks — often bet on highly speculative and exotic financial derivatives, such as 'options,' which more regulated mutual funds aren't allowed to buy, and that poses risks to all the U.S. financial institutions that are tied to them, as much of Wall Street is. It poses risks to the broader economy as well, and those risks are impossible to measure because no one knows how risky hedge fund assets are. The big systemic risk is that 'people don't know anything about (hedge fund) activities,' said Steven Brown, a finance expert at New York University's Stern Business School. 'When you have a complete lack of disclosure, everybody is locked in the same category, and the sins of the few are visited on the many.'"

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/14/2007 | Study: Half of nation's poor don't get food stamps

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/14/2007 | Study: Half of nation's poor don't get food stamps: "The study found that a significant number of counties, 13.2 percent, had below-average percentages of low-income people participating in the program, even though they had above-average poverty rates. The authors cited many reasons for the disparities, including the stigma of government benefits, eligibility rules and lack of information about the benefits. Under the food-stamp program, a family is eligible for aid if its income is 130 percent of the poverty level. Nearly all of the states followed a national trend of increasing the number and percentage of low-income people participating in the food-stamp program in recent years. The study said that much of the increase was the result of changes in eligibility rules that took effect in 2002. And since 2004, all states are now using electronic benefits transfer systems, which allow food-stamp beneficiaries to appear to be using debit cards."

oh it gets worse

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/14/2007 | Prices for key foods are rising sharply: "MIDLAND, Va. — The Labor Department’s most recent inflation data showed that U.S. food prices rose by 4.1 percent for the 12 months ending in June, but a deeper look at the numbers reveals that the price of milk, eggs and other essentials in the American diet are actually rising by double digits. Already stung by a two-year rise in gasoline prices, American consumers now face sharply higher prices for foods they can’t do without. This little-known fact may go a long way to explaining why, despite healthy job statistics, Americans remain glum about the economy."

Misanthrope

I hate the world today. The financial markets are imploding. People are making me insane and all I want to do is escape.

it all falls apart

Subprime News:
"Subprime US news (most relevant) * Federal Reserve finds US banks tightening standards on subprime ...
- International Herald Tribune - Aug 13, 2007
* The end of risk as we knew it - Economic Times - Aug 12, 2007
* When subprime debt's price falls, confidence will rise - Globe and Mail - Aug 13, 2007
* Milan shares rebound midday; subprime uncertainty persists - Forbes - Aug 13, 2007
* Easing subprime worries boost Toronto stocks - Reuters Canada - Aug 13, 2007"

It'll be us sucking wind not the rich assholes who did this.

US given sexual orientation information on travellers- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News

US given sexual orientation information on travellers- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News: "The European Commission quietly approved an agreement this Monday which gives the US Department of Homeland Security unprecedented access to the personal information of anyone on a transatlantic flight, including details of their sexual orientation.

The DHS insists on the right to use the information for disease control, and there are fears that gay passengers may be singled out as possible HIV risks.

The plans involve upgrading information which is already sent by airlines to the DHS on the 4-million-plus Britons who visit the US every year, including payment details, home address and the passengers in-flight meal choice.

The agreement adds 19 possible new categories, including information on ethnic origin, political and philosophical opinions, credit card numbers, trade union membership, sex life and details of the passengers' health.

The information will be provided by passengers when making bookings.

The US is not required to provide this information about its citizens."

U.S. credit squeeze frays world financial markets | Reuters

U.S. credit squeeze frays world financial markets | Reuters: "NEW YORK (Reuters) - The unraveling U.S. subprime mortgage market is causing other markets to fray around the edges faster than anyone expected.

As the Federal Reserve convenes for its latest meeting on Tuesday, the corporate credit markets are grinding to a halt. About $90 billion of bonds and nearly $250 billion of loans are still awaiting buyers, several high-profile hedge funds from the U.S. East Coast to Australia have failed, and a major U.S. mortgage lender this week closed its doors.

'All these people saying there is no credit crunch and no economic impact - 'Are you kidding me?'', said Jeffrey Gundlach, chief investment officer at TCW Group in Los Angeles, which manages assets worth $160 billion.

'Ask Goldman if there is no credit crunch, ask Bear Stearns if there is no credit crunch, call up American Home Mortgage and ask them if there is no credit crunch. Come on! It is staring you in the face,' Gundlach added."

My weekend

I spent the weekend in Chicago at YearlyKos. It was not the nirvana I had hoped. It was still fabulous. I love Chicago. It is beautiful and walkable. I went to the break out session with Hillary Clinton and was far more impressed than I expected to be. She is infinitely more dynamic, compelling and human in person than she seems on TV. I also went to a panel on foreign policy that was brilliant and fascinating. It gave me hope that there are people in the smoky insider rooms who think critically and accurately about the world we live in. I'm not saying get optimistic, I'm just saying there is room for optimism amongst the depressing realism.


Democrats court liberal bloggers - Yahoo! News: "The Kos convention is a sign of the times.

Gone are the days when candidates and political parties could talk to passive voters through mass media, largely controlling what messages were distributed, how the messages went out and who heard them. The Internet has helped create millions of media outlets and given anyone the power to express an opinion or disseminate information in a global forum, and connect with others who have similar interests.

Clinton is viewed skeptically by the the blogging community, mainly for her history of hawkish views on Iraq. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of Daily Kos and spiritual leader of the convention, said Clinton still might be able to mitigate her problems.

'We may decide she's not our first choice, but she's not a bad choice,' he said.

Appearing solo at a session of bloggers before the debate, Clinton was warmly received, especially when she jokingly blamed a microphone malfunction on the 'vast right-wing conspiracy.'

One thing most bloggers have in common — regardless of their political leanings — is an intense frustration with the political establishment. And so it was a convention dripping in irony when liberal bloggers welcomed the living symbols of the Democratic status quo — seven presidential candidates."

As U.S. income stagnates, Democrats reject free trade - Yahoo! News

As U.S. income stagnates, Democrats reject free trade - Yahoo! News: "'For decades we took for granted that everyone agreed with us economists that free trade is good, protectionism is bad. Somewhere along the way, that stopped being the conventional wisdom,' acknowledged U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab , in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers . 'And whereas the default vote on a trade bill in Congress used to be a 'yes' vote, the default vote on a trade bill now in Congress is a 'no' vote.'

Why? Because lots of people are no longer convinced that a rising tide of trade lifts all boats— and there's evidence to back them up.

For three decades, the richest 10 percent of Americans have been growing even richer much faster than everyone else. Over the past five years, real wages for all the rest of American workers have been almost flat. Many blame globalization.

During a mid-July congressional hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke contended that education levels largely determine income inequality. But he was angrily interrupted by Rep. Barney Frank , D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who declared, 'Mr. Bernanke, that's simply not true.'

Frank said that the 29 percent of Americans who have bachelor's and even master's degrees haven't seen real income growth, on average, over the past five years. That's what Democrats in Congress are focused on, he said.

Daily Kos: Realigning For Revolution

Daily Kos: Realigning For Revolution: "First, we need to understand what's going on, and that may be boiled down to one word: 'globalization.' We are now, and have been, in an era of 'post-modern politics.' 'Modern' politics was centered on the nation-state, as indeed was the basic economic system we call 'capitalism.' National capitalist economies of the so-called 'core' nations spread over the world in a competition for control over colonies -- where resources were exploited for the benefit of core nation elites. Gradually, since the end of World War II, capitalist elites have become internationalized -- first among the 'core nations' and now among elites in the formerly colonial periphery. A recent kos diary, for example, revealed that Saudi princes own a sizable chunk of stock in Murdoch's Fox empire.

With a globalized capitalist elite comes a global economic order, enforced by a global political order. That global political order has one central requirement, namely, integration into the global economic order. The catch is that such integration must be on terms acceptable to the global capitalist elite -- which winds up meaning, on terms dictated by the global capitalist elite. This is the great sin of such regimes as Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and of course, Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. Everybody asks why some authoritarian regimes like Saddam Hussein's, must be "changed," while others like the dictatorships still found in Central America or sub-Saharan Africa excite no particular concern. The reason is that some dictatorships benefit global corporate elites, while others do not. If Hugo Chavez permitted the continued exploitation of his nation's oil wealth on terms dictated by international oil companies, no one would have the least concern for any "tyranny" found within his borders.

As for the American working class, In the "good old days" of American affluence -- that would be the '50's and '60's -- the traditional division of the world between the "core" and the "periphery" permitted US elites to spread the wealth to American wage earners. This is classic imperialist theory, where national elites essentially buy off their own working classes. As national elites have gradually fused into one international corporate elite, the basic deal between elites and certain preferred elements of the working class has broken down.

Duh.

Why people have sex: It feels good - Yahoo! News: "'It's refuted a lot of gender stereotypes ... that men only want sex for the physical pleasure and women want love,' said University of Texas clinical psychology professor Cindy Meston, the study's co-author. 'That's not what I came up with in my findings.'

Forget thinking that men are from Mars and women from Venus, 'the more we look, the more we find similarity,' said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego. Goldstein, who wasn't part of Meston's study, said the Texas research made a lot of sense and adds to growing evidence that the vaunted differences in the genders may only be among people with sexual problems."

The Sonnet

The Sonnet: "The Sonnet
Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLD)

Romantic, hopeful, and composed. You are the Sonnet. Get it? Composed?

Sonnets want Love and have high ideals about it. They're conscientious people, caring & careful. You yourself have deep convictions, and you devote a lot of thought to romance and what it should be. This will frighten away most potential mates, but that's okay, because you're very choosy with your affections anyway. You'd absolutely refuse to date someone dumber than you, for instance."

Daily Kos: Fox News wins in court.

Daily Kos: Fox News wins in court.: "Akre and Wilson refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired.

August 18, 2000, a unanimous Florida jury found that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury's words) 'a false, distorted or slanted story' The jury awarded her $425,000 in damages.

FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals overturned the settlement awarded to Akre.

In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a 'law, rule, or regulation,' it was simply a 'policy.' Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so.


Fox then filed a series of motions seeking more than $1.7 million in trial fees and costs from both Akre and Wilson."

The End of the Harry Potter Series - Windypundit

The End of the Harry Potter Series - Windypundit: "Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly) :

As the conflict with Voldemort comes to a head, Ron Weasley is suddenly and shockingly killed. Hermione responds with steely determination, joined by Luna Lovegood, who turns out to be a rare witch who has super-powerful martial arts skills. While Harry tries ineffectively to help—often with comic results—Luna kills the Death Eaters with Unblockable Scorpion Kicks and Hermione defeats Voldemort in a head-on battle of magic."

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream: "'Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush�s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.'

Actually, if you listen to the 30-minute BBC story, there is not one word of so much as speculation as to why this story is so little known. I think a clue to the answer can be found by looking into why this BBC report has not led to any U.S. media outlets picking up the story this week."

Econ-Atrocity / Econ-Utopia » Blog Archive » Econ-Atrocity: Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstance

Econ-Atrocity / Econ-Utopia » Blog Archive » Econ-Atrocity: Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to: "
# Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds. More than one-half of the world’s diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

# Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa. There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers."

FSU Editorial: "The Dow is Crashing" by Mike Maloney 04/16/2007

FSU Editorial: "The Dow is Crashing" by Mike Maloney 04/16/2007: "Anytime that it looks like everything is going up, stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, and virtually every kind of investment there is, you have to stop and ask yourself, 'why?' The only reason the Dow looks like it is going up is because the Fed has pumped so many more dollars into the currency supply, that all asset classes are rising.

Under these conditions, the only way to see where true value lies is to eliminate the dollar from the equation… you have to measure each asset class, not with the dollar, but against another asset class."

Sex-abuse case dropped because of delays in search for interpreter - CNN.com

Sex-abuse case dropped because of delays in search for interpreter - CNN.com: "ROCKVILLE, Maryland (AP) -- Charges against a man accused of raping and repeatedly molesting a 7-year-old girl have been dropped because the court took too long to find an interpreter fluent in his native West African language.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Katherine D. Savage dismissed the nearly three-year-old case against Mahamu Kanneh last week, saying the delays had violated the Liberian immigrant's right to a speedy trial.

'This is one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make in a long time,' Savage said from the bench Tuesday. She said she was mindful of 'the gravity of this case and the community's concern about offenses of this type.'

Prosecutors are considering whether to appeal the dismissal. They cannot refile the charges.

Police arrested Kanneh, of Gaithersburg, in August 2004 after witnesses told police he assaulted the girl multiple times. He spent one night in jail and was released on a $10,000 bond with the restriction that he have no contact with minors.

Prosecutors at first maintained Kanneh could understand the proceedings without translation into his native Vai, a tribal language that linguists estimate is spoken by about 100,000 people mostly in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Prosecutors pointed out that Kanneh attended high school and community college in Montgo"

The FBI Can Eavesdrop on You Even When Your Cell Phone is Turned Off

The FBI Can Eavesdrop on You Even When Your Cell Phone is Turned Off: "Did you know that the FBI can listen in to any and all of your conversations through your cell phone–even when you’re not actually speaking on the phone?

Using your cell phone’s tracking device, the FBI can turn on the microphone in your cell phone and listen to any conversations taking place nearby."

pay attention

Newhouse News Service - Congressman Denied Access To Post-Attack Continuity Plans: "WASHINGTON — Constituents called Rep. Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.


As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure 'bubbleroom'' in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.

On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.

'I just can't believe they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack,'' DeFazio said.

Homeland Security Committee staffers told his office that the White House initially approved his request, but it was later quashed. DeFazio doesn't know who did it or why.

'We're talking about the continuity of the government of the United States of America,'' DeFazio said. 'I would think that would be relevant to any member of Congress, let alone a member of the Homeland Security Committee.''"

Where I've been

Crooks and Liars » What if you held a debate and *almost* no one came?: "The one photo the GOP does not want anyone to see was snapped at yesterday’s NAACP GOP Presidential Candidate Forum. The NAACP invited all 9 Republican candidates to the forum, but only one showed up: Tom Tancredo. All the Democratic Presidential hopefuls showed up for their forum."

I know it is a long time between postings right now. I am in Detroit for work and there isn't much free time and the free time that there is, I am usually trying to sleep. That said, I am loving life. I go to YearlyKos in two weeks, I am reading Harry Potter this weekend and am hoping to take a week off to go to San Francisco in the fall. Additionally, the congress seems to be actually getting a backbone and the word impeachment is screaming to get back on the table:) Things can't be all that bad, right?

"Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign" | Salon.com

"Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign" | Salon.com: "Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign. Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush. And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney. You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday. Which one of you chose the route no longer matters. Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant. But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics is the only fact that remains relevant."

James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey

Pronto condoms - the best way to get it on

Pronto condoms - the best way to get it on: "Fortunately, those days are over. Introducing PRONTO, the condom for the new millennium. The PRONTO condom can be applied in a few seconds. And it’s a lot more convenient to use, compared to an ordinary condom. You simply crack the pack open and unroll the condom directly onto the penis. Sounds too good to be true? See for yourself, by clicking on the demo:"

What THE FUCK!

Details Blog: "Albert (his middle name), a good-looking 29-year-old who's fairly well-known in the music industry, says he asks the women he dates to have anal sex with him because it raises the level of intimacy in the relationship. He doesn't demand anal sex—especially not if it's a one-time hookup—but he won't commit to a woman who refuses to grant him a backstage pass. 'I had a girlfriend who I was with for a long time and she wasn't into it,' Albert says. 'There was definitely a thing in the back of my head like, 'I can't marry her.' How can I, knowing I can't go to all the places I can go with her? The physicality of it, being painful or whatever, shows how comfortable the girl is with you.' Here, he pointedly stops short of romanticizing screwing a woman rectally. 'Ideally, every girl is a disgusting pig who wants it,' he says. 'But only with you.'"

The Persian Sufism

The Persian Sufism: "The Sufi phenomenon is not easy to sum up or define. The Sufis never set out to found a new religion, a mazhab or denomination. They were content to live and work within the framework of the Moslem religion, using texts from the Quran much as Christian mystics have used to Bible to illustrate their tenets. Their aim was to purify and spiritualize Islam from within, to give it a deeper, mystical interpretation, and infuse into it a spirit of love and liberty. In the broader sense, therefore, in which the word religion is used in our time, their movement could well be called a religious one, one which did not aim at tying men down with a new set of rules but rather at setting them free from external rules and open to the movement of the spirit.

This religion was disseminated mainly by poetry, it breathed in an atmosphere of poetry and song. In it the place of great dogmatic treatises is taken by mystical romances, such as Yusuf and Zuleikha or Leila and Majnun. Its one dogma, and interpretation of the Moslem witness: 'There is no god by God', is that the human heart must turn always, unreservedly, to the one, divine Beloved."

Feministe » Joss Whedon is the coolest.

Feministe » Joss Whedon is the coolest.

That's right, Defective I said!

Pope: Other Christians not true churches - Yahoo! News: "LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI (JACKASS) has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches."

Smells like Peak Oil?

How the World Works: Globalization, Globalization Blogs - Salon.com: "But there's a problem with this formulation that demonstrates a very careful, if not disingenuous, attempt to skirt the troubling implication of 'peak oil.' Peak oil does not mean, as has been emphasized a thousand times before, here and elsewhere, that 'the world is running out of oil.' It means that 'the world is running out of cheap oil.'

And that interpretation seems to be completely justified by the IEA report. Take, for instance, BP's much delayed 'Thunder Horse' Gulf of Mexico offshore oil project. The IEA report notes that the project has faced a 'perfect storm' of problems, including technical issues related to the new challenges of ultra-deepwater oil drilling, hurricanes and more mundane bumps in the road. Then the report notes that 'Other projects may not face the same litany of problems as Thunder Horse, but as incremental non-OPEC supply becomes increasingly concentrated in technologically challenging areas, so cost over-runs and delays will remain part of the industrial landscape.'

That's the most important sentence in the report. New supply is going to be harder to get, posing greater technological challenges and requiring higher levels of investment.

The world's oil companies and national governments will no doubt respond to this challenge. All those new middle-class citizens driving in their air-conditioned cars to their air-conditioned offices will demand it. But it's not going to be cheap. It's going to get more and more expensive.

Ironically, or tragically, there appears to be only one thing that can effectively dampen growing demand for oil. And that would be a collapse of economic growth, which, quite possibly, could be a result of the ever-higher prices for fossil fuel products that economic growth mandates.

Meanwhile, crude oil futures sit tight around $72 a barrel.

CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S. - CNN.com

CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S. - CNN.com: "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Dr. Ronald Dworkin tells the story of a woman who didn't like the way her husband was handling the family finances. She wanted to start keeping the books herself but didn't want to insult her husband."

The doctor suggested she try an antidepressant to make herself feel better.

She got the antidepressant, and she did feel better, said Dr. Dworkin, a Maryland anesthesiologist and senior fellow at Washington's Hudson Institute, who told the story in his book "Artificial Unhappiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class." But in the meantime, Dworkin says, the woman's husband led the family into financial ruin.

Salon.com | News Wires

Salon.com | News Wires: "July 09,2007 | BAGHDAD -- Turkey has massed 140,000 soldiers on its border with northern Iraq, Iraq's foreign minister said Monday, calling the neighboring country's fears of Kurdish rebels based there 'legitimate' but better resolved through negotiation."


Start panicking.....

Live Earth-Society falls apart quietly

The majority in a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled on a narrow ground, saying the plaintiffs, including lawyers and journalists, could not show injury direct and concrete enough to allow them to have standing to sue.

Because it may be impossible for any plaintiff to demonstrate injury from the highly classified wiretapping program, the effect of the ruling was to insulate it from judicial scrutiny. Thus, the program’s secrecy is proving to be its best legal protection.

Much of US favors Bush impeachment: poll - Yahoo! News

Much of US favors Bush impeachment: poll - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (AFP) - Nearly half of the US public wants President George W. Bush to face impeachment, and even more favor that fate for Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a poll out Friday."

Are people starting to pay attention?

Poll: Majorities say income gap too wide - Yahoo! News: "About seven in 10 said discrepancies between income levels are too large, a sentiment voiced by nearly two-thirds of those from households earning at least $80,000 a year, the survey said. Three-fourths of people earning less than $80,000 agreed.

Eight in 10 said the gap between the rich and the middle class has worsened over the last 25 years, said the survey by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis.

The poll comes in the early stages of a 2008 presidential campaign in which several Democratic candidates have discussed a widening distance between the country's rich and poor."

I am going to YearlyKos in August after all. All by myself! I am hoping for political geek heaven.

WTF?

New Drug Deletes Bad Memories - Yahoo! News: "Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled."

....

The rats were trained to associate two musical tones with a mild electrical shock so that when they heard either of the tones they would brace themselves for a shock. The researchers then gave half the rats the drug when playing one of the musical tones.

After the treatment, the rats that had been given the drug no longer associated that particular tone with an imminent shock but still braced themselves upon hearing the second tone, demonstrating only one memory had been deleted.

Drinking the blood of puppies and fish

Leaving No Tracks | Cheney | washingtonpost.com: "In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River."

Amazing!

The World of the Happy - Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen: "Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen"

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil - earth - 26 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil - earth - 26 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment: "A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.

All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers).

Key to GRC’s process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas."

Saturday's Full Moon Offers Strange Illusion - Yahoo! News

Saturday's Full Moon Offers Strange Illusion - Yahoo! News: "When low on the horizon, the Moon can appear to be larger than when it's higher in the sky. It's all an illusion, scientists say, and it does not involve any enlarging effects of the atmosphere. Rather, it's all in your mind."

Air travel

I will presumably spend a lot of time in planes in the next couple of years. It gives me lots of time in the in between space. I can feel the contours of my mind easier and think I can see where I am and maybe sometimes glimpse where I might be going. It is precious time, but it is also time that I am utterly separated from those things that humanize me. It was a beautiful flight tonight, an almost full moon welcomed me home. And it is home and it is so much more than I hoped.

Daily Kos: The USS Enterprise headed for Iran, Is the administration planning to use it

Daily Kos: The USS Enterprise headed for Iran, Is the administration planning to use it: "That is an amazing amount of firepower. That is in reality about 300 planes and 1700 Tomahawk and Asroc missiles. To put that in perspective, during the first Gulf War the US used a total of 286 Tomahawks in that engagement. If joined by a fourth Carrier force those totals will jump to 400 planes and around 2200 Tomahawk and Asroc missiles.

For those of you who may not quite understand just how much power that is, that battle group is capable of causing more destruction than was caused in every war in the last century. Not just American wars, but all of the worlds wars in the last century.

So why would the U.S. put so much Naval power in the region? I am not sure what our intentions are. You might say with Iran thumbing their nose at the U.S. and the U.N. there is the possibility of a naval blockade of Iran. There is a distinct possibility of a blockade. However, the two carrier groups in the region could do so with out a problem. Could it just be saber rattling to intimidate Iran? I believe anyone who knows the military potential of two carrier groups would know that two is intimidating enough, but three and, according to promises made by Dick Cheney and reported to the FreeMarket News, a fourth still to come."

ABC News: Murder a Top Killer of Pregnant Women

ABC News: Murder a Top Killer of Pregnant Women: "According to a number of studies, homicide is one of the leading causes of death for pregnant women in the United States. Studies in Maryland, New York and Chicago determined that about 20 percent of women who die during pregnancy are murder victims."

Scotsman.com Business - Latest News - Roundtable CEOs' pay rose 10.6 percent

Scotsman.com Business - Latest News - Roundtable CEOs' pay rose 10.6 percent: "Members of the influential Business Roundtable, which opposes Congressional attempts to reform executive pay, saw 2006 pay rise by an average of 10.6 percent, or nearly three times that of a typical U.S. white collar worker, according to a report released on Tuesday"

Read the whole thing, hand to Republicans

What Every American Should Know About Iraq - CommonDreams.org: "Right after 9/11, according to Clarke, “The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, ‘I want you to find whether Iraq did this.’ Now he never said, ‘Make it up.’ But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this. I said, ‘Mr. President. We’ve done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There’s no connection.’ He came back at me and said, ‘Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there’s a connection’. And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report. It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, ‘Will you sign this report?’ They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, ‘Wrong answer. … Do it again’.”"

Study: People Literally Feel Pain of Others | LiveScience

Study: People Literally Feel Pain of Others | LiveScience: "One mirror-touch synaesthete, Alice, said 'I have never been able to understand how people can enjoy looking at bloodthirsty films, or laugh at the painful misfortunes of others when I can not only not look but also feel it.'"

cranky

I am sick again this morning. I feel like I have been sick with something or other this entire year and I am officially cranky. that's all.

Stupid People

I'm a subservient wife and love it: "Like many of the book's other disciples, Skye now has 'no idea' how much money she and her husband have. 'I have handed all of our financial matters over to Frank. He is the breadwinner. I am the homemaker,' she says. 'He has all the power. He buys what we need and gives me pocket money.'

And she swears the arrangement works wonderfully. 'I've never been happier!'

Frank says that now his wife has handed over control of everything in their life to him, she is much more feminine and their sex life has never been better.

'She wears make-up, takes real good care of herself and leaps into my arms when I come home each day,' he says. 'She looks after me properly, attends to my every whim and really listens to what I say.

'She loves that I'm in charge and that she doesn't have to worry about making any decisions. She knows it's all taken care of, and I love being the boss of the house…'"

I have never been married. I'm probably not that likely to get married. Marriage always freaked me out for various reasons. Then I read crap like this and my head wants to explode. I know married people, I even know happily married people and I feel confident saying that it would be deeply offensive to them to intimate that happiness will only exist if one person (likely the female) submits totally to the other person. Who are these freaks and why do we have to read about their disturbing relationships? People are offended by gay marriage but not these weirdos? I really don't understand.

DampOwls » Blog Archive » Ridiculously Cool Technology

DampOwls » Blog Archive » Ridiculously Cool Technology: "June 6th, 2007 by admin

This is some very cool technology from a division of Microsoft. It was demonstrated at the TED conference and shows some amazing manipulation of various images."

Officially Evil

CoolAqua: Giuliani Campaign's Dirty Secret: "One has to wonder how much of the funds donated to the Bush Campaign, and promised funds for the Giuliani campaign, were essentially stolen thru quasi legal means from US debt relief funds appropriated by the well meaning US Congress, at the behest of the Bush Administration, for African or third world country Debt Relief.

Billionare Paul Singer's and other Vulture capitalists scam to fleece American Taxpayers appears to work as follows:

Well meaning Americans empathize with the suffering of starving third world citizen, being attacked by a changing climate, overpopulation, civil war and strife, and aids. President Bush magnanimously offers up a program to offer Debt Relief to the third world country, and the US Congress responds by approving funds, which are then held in a US account.

Simultaneously, Vulture funds such as Paul Singer's, knowing that the target country finances are about to be re-capitalized by the US Taxpayers, go out and buy up the debt which was supposed to be forgiven. Here's a recent example:

'...By extraordinary coincidence, the amount claimed is almost exactly the sum which Zambia is due to receive this year as a result of the Gleneagles debt deal...'

The Vulture funds then sue in England or other countries, and gain awards for the junk bonds that were about to be forgiven. After the Court rules in favor of the Vulture fund, the Vulture fund can then tap into the funds approved by the US Congress for debt relief.

In the case of the Vulture fund suit won Friday against Zambia, the $2 million dollar junk bonds bought by the Vulture fund must now be repaid with interest. Debt that the US Government planned on forgiving for $2 million dollars is now worth $40 million due to the British Court settlement.

Every now and then, something good happens!

Judge: No 10-year sentence for teen sex - Yahoo! News: "'If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish ... justice being served in a fair and equal manner,' the judge wrote.

Wilson's original sentence, for aggravated child molestation, was widely criticized on the grounds it was grossly disproportionate to the crime. State lawmakers later passed a law to close the loophole that led to the 10-year sentence."

We got it wrong, says former torturer - World - smh.com.au

We got it wrong, says former torturer - World - smh.com.au: "Between January 2004 and January 2005, first at Abu Ghraib prison and then in Mosul, in northern Babil province, he tortured suspects, most of whom he said were innocent. He realised he had entered a moral dungeon when he found himself reading a Holocaust memoir, hoping to pick up torture tips from the Nazis.

Mr Lagouranis told The Sunday Telegraph: 'When I first got back I had a lot of anxiety. I had a personal crisis because I felt I had done immoral things and I didn't see a way to cope with that.'

Disturbingly for the British military, which has distanced itself from the worst excesses of Abu Ghraib, Mr Lagouranis says the Americans learnt much of their uncompromising approach from British interrogators.

'We heard about interrogators in Northern Ireland who were successful. Some of our interrogators went on the British interrogation course, which was tough. People wanted to emulate that, but we went too far.'"

Autism is a bio-neurological developmental disability that generally appears before the age of 3.

Autism is a bio-neurological developmental disability that generally appears before the age of 3.: "Contrary to claims by vaccine manufacturers touting 'mercury free' vaccines an investigation by Health Advocacy in the Public Interest (HAPI) recently found mercury in all four vials tested. This despite manufacturer claims that two of the vials were completely mercury free. Boyd Haley, PhD, Chemistry Department Chair, University of Kentucky, feels that if mercury can be detected in any vaccine using standard instrumentation, the content should be disclosed in the product insert and manufacturers should not be allowed to call the product 'mercury free.' "

Things I want to do

YearlyKos Convention - n. yier-lee-KOS k&n-'ven(t)-sh&n An annual convention gathering people from all walks of life who belong to the Netroots community, the US-based (but globally focused and inclusive) non-partisan grassroots political action community that uses the Internet and blogs as primary tools for: expressing viewpoints, building consensus, acting to change the status quo, mobilizing huge numbers of people and informing each other and the world about current events, grassroots actions, networks, meetings, policy and more. The YearlyKos Convention is a project of bloggerpower.org with the generous support of the Netroots Arts and Education Initiative (NAEI).


I Really want to go, but have no one to go with..so sad. Maybe I will go by myself?

Are we really this hated?

The Guardian:
The United States is the most hated country on the planet, followed by, to the extent that there is a distinction, Israel. So far as I know, there are no other contenders. You can say "Who cares?", as many will say, or "Screw’em if they can’t take a joke" or "I’d rather be feared than loved". All very droll. Still, it is an interesting datum. No country ever lives up to its own PR, but there was a time when America was widely admired. Now, almost universally, it is seen as a rogue state. And is.
......

"The increasing, detailed, intrusive regulation of life, the national desire for control, control, control. Everything is the business of some form of government. Want to paint your shutters? The condo association won’t let you. Let dogs in your bar? Never. Decide who to sell your house to? Racial matter. Own a dog? Shot card, pooper-scooper, leash, gotta be spayed, etc. Have a bar for men only, women only, whites or blacks only? Here come the federal marshals. What isn’t controlled by government is controlled by the crypto-vindictive mob rule of political correctness. This wasn’t always in the American character. Add the continuing presence of police in the schools, the arrest in handcuffs of children of seven, the expulsions for drawing a picture of a soldier with a gun. Something very twisted is going on.

How much of the public knows what is happening, or even knows that something is happening? I don’t know. But I don’t think that it’s going to go away. In ten years it will be an entirely different place with the same name. Almost is now."

Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About

Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About

Obsidian Wings: Are We Disappearing Children?

Obsidian Wings: Are We Disappearing Children?: "Also according to Mohammed, he and Majid were detained in the same place where two of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s young children, ages about 6 and 8, were held. The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs, and were denied food and water by other guards. They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding."

Oh BUT! Don't fear...

“We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care.”

More reasons to hate the Media

Glenn Greenwald - Salon: "The great fraud being perpetrated in our political discourse is the concerted attempt by movement conservatives, now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins, to repudiate George Bush by claiming that he is not, and never has been, a 'real conservative.' This con game is being perpetrated by the very same conservatives who -- when his presidency looked to be an epic success -- glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism.

This fraud is as transparent as it is dishonest, yet there are signs that the media is nonetheless beginning to adopt this theme that there is some sort of epic and long-standing 'Bush-conservative schism.' But very little effort is required to see what a fraud that storyline is."

super cool

not sure why i think this is so cool, but i love it.

http://www.shadowcards.com/

Witnesses To Alleged De Anza Rape Speak Out - News Story - KTVU San Francisco

Witnesses To Alleged De Anza Rape Speak Out - News Story - KTVU San Francisco: "'When I looked in, I saw about ten pairs of legs surrounding a girl, lying on the mattress on the floor and a guy on top of her with his pants down and his hips thrusting on top of her,' recall Chief Elk. 'And when I saw that I knew immediately something wasn't right. It just didn't look right.'

'I saw that this young girl did not want to be in there, and that's when we just went 'We're getting this girl out of there,'' says Grolle.

April and Lauren -- along with a third soccer player named Lauren Breayans -- broke down the door and were shocked with what they found.

'This poor girl was not moving. She had vomit dribbling down her face. We had to scoop vomit out of her mouth [and] lift her up. Her pants were completely off her body,' says Chief Elk. 'She had her one shoe one, her jeans were wrapped around one of her ankles and her underwear was left around her ankles. To the left of the bed there was some condom thrown on the ground.'

'When they lifted her head up, her eyes moved and she said 'I'm sorry,'' says Grolle. 'One of the guys who was in the room said 'This is her fault. She got drunk and she did this to herself.''

Lauren Chief Elk didn't believe him: 'You have to be conscious to consent to something, andthat was not the case at all."

The three girls were the only ones at the party to take the alleged victim to the hospital and have spent the last ten weeks telling their story to authorities. They were shocked when the district attorney said there would be no charges. That is why they are telling their disturbing story."What we saw was rape. It was a crime," says Grolle. "It was assault against a 17 year girl. I will forever know in my heart that is what happened."

Oh Joss, why?

Female action pics need heroes of their own - Yahoo! News: "The other problem, according to many writers and executives, is that there hasn't been that knockout feature script starring a female action hero. If 'Buffy' creator Joss Whedon is let go for not being able to nail a 'Wonder Woman' script, what hope do lesser mortals have?"

The crazies are in the house!

Inside the Creation Museum | Salon News: "At the ribbon cutting, Ken Ham, the rugged-faced CEO and president of Answers in Genesis, the nonprofit ministry that built the museum, tells an enthusiastic crowd that the Creation Museum will undo the damage done 82 years ago when Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand in the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn. 'It was the first time the Bible was ridiculed by the media in America, and that was a downward turning point for Christendom,' Ham says. 'We are going to undo all of that here at the Creation Museum. We are going to answer the questions Bryan wasn't prepared to, and show that belief in every word of the Bible can be defended by modern science.'

The Book of Genesis, that famous first chapter of the Bible, which Ham's group has interpreted to claim that the universe was created in six 24-hour days a mere 6,000 years ago, serves as the blueprint for the museum. Astronomy, geology and evolution, as they are commonly understood in mainstream science, have no place here. As Ham later tells me, the conclusions of modern science are not to be trusted, as they are biased by the fickle reasoning of man and a modern antagonism toward faith. On the other hand, he says, the Book of Genesis is true 'from the first word to the last.'"

Justice, 'tied at hip' to White House, hurts respect for law - Yahoo! News

Justice, 'tied at hip' to White House, hurts respect for law - Yahoo! News: "Daniel Metcalfe worked at the Justice Department for more than three decades - through seven presidents, Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative. But he recently told Legal Times that Alberto Gonzales did something no other attorney general had managed during Metcalfe's long career: In just two years, Gonzales 'shattered' the department's 'strong tradition of independence' and left it 'artificially tied at the hip' to the White House."

FEMA Concentration Camps

FEMA Concentration Camps: "MASSACHUSETTS

Fort Devens - New prison a factory facilities and reservoir that have been built around the camp. It was constructed last year and the railroad had to reconstruct tracks into the prison from Canada and from Boston. Livingston"

Daily Kos: How I learned to stop being angry

Daily Kos: How I learned to stop being angry: "It's today that I realized that we are, indeed, a one-party state in this country. Oh, we have two official parties, but that's just for show. The reality is that they all work for the same people. Sure, there are different factions and personalities within this all-encompassing group, and granted there might be a few people here and there who doggedly fight the system and actually work for us, but they are VASTLY outnumbered, and more importantly, not taken seriously by the rest of the members of this theatrical group known as the U.S. two-party system.

It's a real relief, to realize this. I no longer have to be angry, and I no longer have to wonder how these people can be so SPINELESS and STUPID. They're neither. They simply work for people other than us.

So the reality is that the Democrats have done us a favor today.

The Democratic Party conceded today that they have absolutely no ability at all to do anything in this country, not even against The Worst President In History.

They've shown us that this country is officially under One Party Rule, not by either party in particular, but by the Corporatocracy itself that actually runs things.

It's the old 'Golden Rule'. You know, 'the guy with the gold makes the rules'. "

I went to Hooter's

I'm in Oklahoma for work and I got roped into going to Hooter's. I swore I would never go to a place like that. So I went and I was fascinated. Totally fascinated. Wouldn't go again or anything, but it was fascinating.

Extremely drug-resistant TB spreading in India - Yahoo! News

Extremely drug-resistant TB spreading in India - Yahoo! News: "He said the death rate among the XDR-TB patients was an 'alarmingly high' 42 percent.

'An important finding was that the majority of patients with XDR-TB were of younger age group (averaging 30 years old), thus posing a major threat to our economically productive population,' Jain said.

He said it was impossible to determine the prevalence of XDR-TB in India, since most of its labs are not equipped to perform drug susceptibility tests, and that treatment of the disease was compounded by its huge cost.

'Serious efforts are needed to tackle this deadly disease which may become a global emergency,' Jain said."

Long time No write

I haven't written anything in awhile. There has been a generalized funk about my world for no real specific reason, other than the aforementioned sense of foreboding.

LONDON (AFP) - Internet censorship is growing worldwide, with 26 out of 40 countries blocking or filtering political or social content, a study reported Friday.

No updates on the bees. The FDA is a mess, thus you now have to afraid of the food you eat and Bush is more nuts than ever. I watched Children of Men , not the best idea I've ever had, but such is my funk that it didn't do much to move me. My new job is less new, but not really less confusing. It's a very opaque corporate dynamic and my efforts so far to understand its currents have been largely fruitless. So I'm just going on as one does when you don't really know where you are going.

Print Story: French workers biggest whiners, Irish happiest: study on Yahoo! News

Print Story: French workers biggest whiners, Irish happiest: study on Yahoo! News: "French workers are the world's biggest whiners, according to a study published Monday which said the Irish complain least about their lot.

Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia. Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but don't complain so much.

The lowest levels of whining were found in the Netherlands, Thailand and Ireland, according to the study by the FDS research group.

'It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world's biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income,' said FDS chief Charlotte Cornish."

Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story -

Spying in the Death Star: The AT&T Whistle-Blower Tells His Story -: "Those documents are under seal, but Wired News independently acquired and published a significant portion of them last year. They show that AT&T built a network-monitoring facility in a nondescript room at an internet switching hub in San Francisco, at 611 Folsom St. Diagrams in the document show that AT&T technicians split fiber-optic cables handling AT&T's WorldNet internet service -- as well as traffic to and from other major ISPs -- diverting copies of the traffic into the room, which was packed with internet-monitoring equipment.

In this rare interview, Klein supplies details of how he first learned about the secret room even before being transferred to the Folsom Street office. He also lashes out at Congress for failing to hold hearings, and says he won't be satisfied until he can visit the AT&T building and see that the room has been dismantled."

U.S. hospitals charge uninsured more, study says - Yahoo! News

U.S. hospitals charge uninsured more, study says - Yahoo! News: "In 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, hospital patients without health insurance and others who pay for medical care out of their own pockets were charged an average 2.57 times more than those with health insurance, according to the study published in the May-June issue of the journal Health Affairs.

That number has been rising steadily since 1984, but has jumped more quickly since 2000, the analysis of government data said."

Vile at I Blame The Patriarchy

Vile at I Blame The Patriarchy: " All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. — that putz Nietzsche

It is with curled lip and bloodshot eye that I anticipate a total lack of surprise at the news that last month a 17-year-old Iraqi girl was stoned to death in an “honor killing” — words I cannot type without overloading my Oxymoronitron. I expect abhorrence, yes. Disgust, yes. A crushing sense of the futility of it all, yes. Surprise, no."

Warning, the video is disturbing.

George Tenet cashes in on Iraq | Salon News

George Tenet cashes in on Iraq | Salon News: "When Tenet hit the talk-show circuit last week to defend his stewardship of the CIA and his role in the run-up to the war, he did not mention that he is a director and advisor to four corporations that earn millions of dollars in revenue from contracts with U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense. Nor is it ever mentioned in his book. But according to public records, Tenet has received at least $2.3 million from those corporations in stock and other compensation. Meanwhile, one of the CIA's largest contractors gave Tenet access to a highly secured room where he could work on classified material for his book."

Funny and Sad.

John & Belle Have A Blog: Anatramy: "To learn about this peculiar organ [the extraordinarily long phallus found in some species of ducks], Dr. Brennan decided she would have to make careful dissections of male tinamous. In 2005 she traveled to the University of Sheffield to learn the art of bird dissection from [otherwise apparently intelligent] Tim Birkhead, an evolutionary biologist. Dr. Birkhead had her practice on some male ducks from a local farm.

Gazing at the enormous organs, she asked herself a question that apparently no one had asked before [because they were semiliterate morons who weren't aware of sexual dimorphism].

“So what does the female look like?” she said. “Obviously you can’t have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car.”

The lower oviduct (the equivalent of the vagina in birds) is typically a simple tube. But when Dr. Brennan dissected some female ducks, she discovered they had a radically different anatomy. “There were all these weird structures, these pockets and spirals,” she said.

Somehow, generations of biologists had never noticed this anatomy before, [probably because they were afraid they would suffer the fate of Nicholas Schooenhoek, who perished of a severe case of the cooties in 1712, in the first reported case of bird-to-human transmission]. Pondering it, Dr. Brennan came to doubt the conventional explanation for how duck phalluses evolved. [The conventional theory, first expressed in a Nature article from 1954, was that "ducks with, like, huge dicks, totally kick ASS."]

Corn up nearly 700 percent in Zimbabwe - Yahoo! News

Corn up nearly 700 percent in Zimbabwe - Yahoo! News: "The price of an 11-pound bag of corn meal — which provides an average family of six one meal a day for about five days — now will sell for $1.45, up from 21 cents.

'Sadza is part of our way of life. Things are terrible all around, but it (the price increase) makes it worse,' said Bridget Mhkizwe of Harare.

She said her husband, a delivery man, earns about half the official poverty-level salary of $92 a month for a family of five"

See? Spooky.

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said on Tuesday.

This means the ocean at the top of the world could be free or nearly free of summer ice by 2020, three decades sooner than the global panel's gloomiest forecast of 2050."

ABC News: The New Immigrant Backlash: KKK Targets Mexicans

ABC News: The New Immigrant Backlash: KKK Targets Mexicans: "Take David Ritcheson, 16, a Mexican-American football star born in Houston. He was beaten nearly to death by two skinheads at a teen party. They poured bleach on him and beat him mercilessly. Ritcheson was in a coma for days, and suffered massive internal injuries, internal bleeding and a shattered cheekbone. He is now deaf in one ear.

'I just didn't expect my race to become a situation,' Ritcheson told ABC News senior Law & Justice correspondent Jim Avila.

Ritcheson testified before a congressional committee last month about the need for stronger hate crime legislation.

'I don't think there's any question at all that hate crimes against Hispanics and anyone really perceived to be an immigrant are very much on the rise,' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center."