They Never Tell You the Whole Story

…about union dues does and don’ts, do they? This is a top ten list noone wants to make, but to be held hostage on top of it?

Gotta suck. (Oh, that’s right ~ tires blow. I stand corrected.)

6. Goodyear

Demand for Goodyear tires has sunk, and the company is saddled with massive debt and pension obligations.

It doesn’t help that The United Steelworkers union prevents the company from proper cost control by forcing factories to stay open.

Shareholders have to wonder how much value will be left of the company after bondholders and the union members have their way.

Schmaybe we should bail them out, too? I’m sure some union label lapel button’s suggested it already.

And that whole last sentence? Kinda like the taxpayers and Government Motors, n’est pas?

AP History

Remember Kyoto? And when it was negotiated and who was President and who was Vice-President and who chose not to try and get it ratified?

Well, according to the AP it was…

Former President George W. Bush rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in part because major developing nations like China and India were left out.

Un-freakin’ real.

If It Also Means No More “Have You Ever Taken Aspirin for a Headache ?!?!?!!”

…out-of-state law firm commercial solicitations trolling for class action lawsuit clients, I am ALLLLL for it.

Since passing tort reform in 2004, Mississippi has seen the number of medical malpractice claims plummet by 91 percent from its peak. The state’s largest medical liability insurer dropped its premiums by 42 percent, and has offered an additional 20 percent rebate each year since tort reform went into effect.

…”…But this is the lowest hanging fruit, this ain’t rocket science. If they want a demonstration project, come down to Mississippi, and I’ll show you a demonstration project.”

There Is No Honor Among Thieves

Or among terrorist sympathizing rat bastards, apparently

TYRE, Lebanon (Reuters) – Those who know wealthy Lebanese Shi’ite financier Salah Ezz el-Din say he is a deeply pious, humble man whose close links to Hezbollah made his credentials impeccable as he allegedly embezzled their savings.

Many Shi’ite Lebanese investors find it hard to believe the philanthropist could have defrauded them to the tune of at least $500 million (308 million pounds) — small change compared with the $65 billion in the U.S. fraudster Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, but made more painful by the connection with Hezbollah, which its followers regard as incorruptible.

“Whoever says he’s a thief, that is an incorrect assessment,” said Fouad Ajami, a 36-year-old steel factory owner from the southern Lebanese village of Toura of the embezzlement charges made earlier this month against Ezz el-Din, who is now in Roumieh prison and due for more questioning on September 24.

The charges include issuing cheques without sufficient funds.

“He was a do-gooder, he may have been subjected to a financial setback,” said Ajami. “And because he didn’t want to show that, maybe he created ghost investments to cover his losses.”

Ghost investments? From that high-yielding 72 Virgin Fund?

As Ace says:

How long before it is claimed he’s really a Jew?

OO-Rah!!

I Know All The Government Folks And Media Types Say Life Is Ducky

But does anyone believe them? Sure, there are a few looming issues out there, let alone deficit/healthcare chickens waiting to come home to roost, but do any of you think that we’re on the way up? I know the urge is to gloom-a-cize, and I certainly fall sway to that Siren call, but anecdotal evidence tells me that things still…stink. I know a few people who have been unemployed for a while, and none of them have much hope at this point of getting anything. It’s ugly, at least from what I can see.

And uglier still is that no one really has much confidence to spend anything; it’s still circle-the-wagons time. Am I wrong?

It’s Amazing How Quiet the House Is on a Sunday Morning

…with nary a TV blaring, be it Sports Center or (!) talk shows.

Thanks, Mr. Precedent!

Let’s See, He’s Doesn’t Want A Black Governor To Run For Re-Election, So…

He must be a racist!

ALBANY, N.Y. – National Democratic Party leaders have asked Gov. David Paterson to consider withdrawing from the 2010 governor’s race, according to two senior New York Democratic advisers.

Both advisers, who are close to the governor, spoke to The Associated Press on Saturday on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for Paterson. The sources said it was unclear what Paterson would do in response.

The New York Times, which originally reported the request on its Web site, said that it was President Barack Obama who asked Paterson to withdraw.

Leaving aside for a moment the inconvenient fact that Patterson is totally clueless about governing and a complete bumbling disaster, if we hold Obama to the same standard that we are held to when we criticize an elected black official (like, say, Obama), the answer is obviously ‘yes’.

Hello, bus!

Avast Ye, Scurvy Dogs and ARGH!!!!

Fergit ye not it’s the second most wonderful day o’ the year!

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Scurvy dog not included.

When Your Co-Anchor Has A Look Like This On Her Face

You know you’ve said something good.

Dissent Is The Highest Form Of Patriotism Racism Terrorism

At least according to the latest from Madam Speaker

Q: Madam Speaker, in terms of the political tone, the tone of the debate, Hoyer said earlier this week he thought it was the most vitriolic since ’93-’94. And around that time we also saw acts of domestic violence, domestic terrorism. How concerned are you about the tone of the political debate, in terms of people talking about anti-government rhetoric and so on and the possibility of violence?

Speaker Pelosi: Well, I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country, and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance.

I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this, myself, in the late ’70s in San Francisco. This kind of rhetoric was very frightening, and it created a climate in which violence took place.

So I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made, so that understanding that some of the people — the ears that it is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume.

But, again, our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe. But I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause.

Amazing.

Raise Your Hand If You Think Acorn Should Keep Getting Taxpayer Money

Congratulations! You agree with Rush Holt and Frank Pallone

The House of Representatives just voted overwhelmingly to de-fund ACORN, 345-75. The vote came on a Republican motion to recommit the educational loan bill. As a result, the anti-ACORN provision made it into the House-passed bill.

Below are the names of all 75 congressmen who voted to preserve ACORN’s stream of funding.

Rush Holt, D-N.J.
Frank Pallone, D-N.J.
Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.
Donald Payne, D-N.J.
Albio Sires, D-N.J.

Way to be all about fighting fraud and waste, there, guys!

Heck, I know I’d sure trust you with my health care.

Gwen Ifill Did Some Interviewing Last Night

…about “race”. (She also mentioned “Tea Baggers”.) (Oh, yes she did!) The fellow from Reason.com, Matt Welch, was there and perfectly lucid. It almost made up for having to listen to the rest of them.

Almost.

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL, Princeton University: …There’s also no question that, if one has principled disagreement with a person of color and you choose not to express it simply because that person is black or Latino or Asian, then that is actually more racist than going ahead and expressing your disagreement.

But I think it’s also clear — and this is what President Carter asked us to think about — that, in this particular context of American history, at this moment with a black president, we need to be particularly careful about how we frame and how we talk about our disagreements, because it’s clear, also, that racial animus and bigotry has found its way into the opposition in a way that’s quite distracting from the principled positions that the opposition may have.

…CORNELL BELCHER, Democratic pollster: Well, I think you can’t separate ideology from adverse racial attitudes, and I think it’s sort of a false conversation when people say, “Is it racism? Oh, no, it’s ideology.” We can quantify that the two do share a similar space, where you find that those on the furthest fringe of the right are, in fact, quantifiably those who hold the highest proportion of racial adverse attitudes.

GWEN IFILL: So you’re saying there’s evidence to support this notion that if you are very angry at the president for policy reasons, for some small portion or a large portion, as President Carter suggested, that is bound or driven by race?

CORNELL BELCHER: No, I’m not saying it’s bound or driven by race, but I think we should understand that racially adverse attitudes, as well as far-right sort of conservative thinking, share a similar space.

Now, I’m not saying they’re causal, but they certainly share a similar space, where you find those voters with the furthest right sort of ideological bent are also those with the highest percentage of racial-adverse attitudes.

Okay, okay, OKAY!! We GET it. The more right you are the more racist you are. Jeez, I need some fresh air…

…MATT WELCH: You know, not that much. You hear some of that. But, I mean, think about it. We just had a 2008 election. This is seven years, you know, after we were attacked by 19 foreign hijackers, and a guy who is not very well experienced in foreign policy, whose middle name is Hussein, who is black, he wins overwhelmingly in this country, I think we lose sight sometimes of the fact that we’ve made incredible progress. We have a much more tolerant country, I think, than people realize.

GWEN IFILL: How about that, John McWhorter? Is there a subliminal message here? Or is Matt Welch right, that maybe we’re overstating what the source of people’s discontent is?

JOHN MCWHORTER, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute: Well, it’s a difficult issue, and that’s an inherent part of this, that we really can’t know where to draw the line, because we don’t have the psychological tools yet.

But I personally feel that, for example, Joe Wilson would not have yelled the way he did if the president in an alternate universe had become, say, John Edwards. It’s just a — but it’s a gut feeling. We can’t know.

And Gwen, you sly dog…

GWEN IFILL: So whether it’s Jeremiah Wright or Henry Louis Gates, Jr., or what Jimmy Carter said about this, the Tea Baggers or whoever, it’s always going to be with us?

WAIT! Can I say that?

Danmell Ndonye

I just think her name should get some attention, since because of her lies and lies four young men were arrested and had their names splashed all over the media as “accused rapists.” And in all the stories saying that she had confessed to making it all up only the NY Post printed her name.

And that’s just wrong. Her name should be out there, and theirs should be erased.

Fellow students were outraged at Ndonye.

“This is ridiculous,” said senior Cyassandra Frith, 21.

“She should be charged — she destroyed four people’s lives.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Oh

Happy CONSTITUTION DAY, by the way.

Never more relevant than now.

Never more vunerable than now.

For a Guy Full of History and Soaring Oratory (Among Other Things)

…Obama sure shoulda double checked the date he announced his Polish double cross…

The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the beginning of the Nazi German attack on Poland. It ended in a decisive victory for the Soviet Union’s Red Army.

I’m speechless.

I Looked In Her Eye And I Saw Her…Teeth?

I’ve heard of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, but this is a bit much

MIAMI A 60-year-old woman blind for nine years has regained useful vision following a rare operation in Miami in which surgeons removed one of her teeth, drilled a hole in it, inserted a plastic lens into the hole and implanted the tooth-lens combination into her eye. It’s the first such operation in the U.S., they said.

With 20/70 vision now, Sharron “Kay” Thornton, of Smithdale, Miss., can recognize faces and read a newspaper with a magnifying glass, and should get better vision once she is healed and fitted with glasses, doctors say.

This is one of those things that is amazingly cool yet still somehow creepy as all hell at the same time.

(thanks to Crusader for the link)

“I Looked The Man In The Eye. I Was Able To Get A Sense Of His Soul”

And what I saw is making me yelp and roll over like the frightened little puppy I am

PRAGUE – President Barack Obama phoned the Czech prime minister to discuss a controversial missile defense system, a spokesman said Thursday, and Czech media reported that Obama told the premier he will shelve the plan that has so angered Russia.

…There have been signs that Obama’s administration is preparing to shelve many of the components of the missile shield proposed by the Bush administration, which called for 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.

The Bush administration had said the missile shield was a strategic way to counter a threat from Iran or another rogue state in the Middle East, but Russia was deeply angered by the prospect of having U.S. interceptor rockets in countries so close to its territory.

…Alexei Arbatov, head of the Russian Academy of Science’s Center for International Security, told a Moscow radio station Thursday that the U.S. was giving in on missile defense to get more cooperation from Russia on Iran.

“The United States is reckoning that by rejecting the missile-defense system or putting it off to the far future, Russia will be inclined together with the United States to take a harder line on sanctions against Iran,” he said.

Ah, the old “harder line” bit…like Putin indicated just 5 days ago he was so in favor of

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia — Russia’s prime minister warned Friday against using force or new sanctions against Iran for its defiance over its nuclear program, saying Moscow has no evidence that Tehran is seeking nuclear arms.

…Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, however, that Moscow has “no grounds to doubt” Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is purely peaceful, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Putin said, according to Peskov, that “any use of force, delivering any kind of strike, won’t help, won’t solve the problem. On the contrary, it will hurt the entire region. As for sanctions, they won’t bring the desired effect.”

…Russia, which is building a nuclear power plant in Iran, has made similar comments in the past, and has repeatedly warned against any attack on Iran.

But Putin’s remarks Friday could disappoint U.S. and Israeli officials, who have urged the Kremlin to put more pressure on Iran.

So…we are bailing on promises made to one of the strongest, most democratic allies we have in eastern Europe as a concession to an autocratically-inclined former head of state who still seems to be pulling an awful lot of strings in his KGB-esque trained way to get him to do something he’s said time and again he has not the slightest inclination to do? This is the ‘newer and smarter diplomacy’ we’ve been promised? Throwing Poland and the Czech Republic under the Slavic Bus?

A decision to scrap the plan would have future consequences for U.S. relations with eastern Europe.

Jan Vidim, a lawmaker with Czech Republic’s conservative Civic Democratic Party — which supported the missile defense plan — said it’s “hard to imagine how unfair” it would be for Obama to cancel at this stage.

“If the administration approaches us in the future with any request, I would be strongly against it,” he said.

How’s that “rebuilding the US’s image around the world” stuff going?

There Used to Be a Famous Smothers Brothers Routine

…called:

“My Old Man’s a CottonPickin’FingerLicken’ChickenPlucker“.

This isn’t remotely the same.

Police Investigating U.K. Supermarket ‘Chicken Licker’

Police in the U.K. are investigating hidden camera footage that shows a supermarket worker licking fresh chickens before putting them back on store shelves.

Delicious, no?

Eggzactly. It’s best to keep abreast of the fowler elements of society, even if you have to wing it. If you only scratch the surface, we’re left with nothing but dumb clucks.

Felt Like Going Old School Tonight

Who needs Unix kernels when you’ve got System 6?

There’s something about that ‘beep’ when she starts up that just sets my heart a flutter

I Never Get Tired Of This Video

Remember, boys and girls, the only people you can trust are the professional journalists:

And Now for Something Completely Different

One of these things is not like the others.

Celebrity Boob Jobs: Better Before or After

You thought it’d be some lame poll or something, right?

As if I’d do that to you…

(And it’s definitely SFW ~ it’s Fox.)

How’s That for “Change”?

The economic downturn will likely cost as many as 25 million people their jobs by end-2010 as the unemployment rate nears a record 10 percent in the OECD group of countries, according to a report released on Wednesday.

Money quote?

…”A major risk is that much of this large hike in unemployment becomes structural in nature,” the report said.

Caution: Economic genius on board and he brought all his BFF’s with him.

Just So You Don’t Forget: “Most Transparent Administration EH-vah”

These aren’t the liars we were looking for…

The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama’s promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet, the Washington Times reported.

You can go about your business.

Move along.

“Dissent Is Patriotic” Is So 2008

Life is much simpler when all who disagree with you are simply racist

ATLANTA (AP) – Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act “based on racism” and rooted in fears of a black president.

“I think it’s based on racism,” Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

“Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care,” he said. “It’s deeper than that.”

Good thing we have Jimmy around to shake us out of our malaise brought on by so many hours spent studying Mein Kampf, eh? I mean, remember, this is the courageous manly leader who inspired us all with that epic Beowulfian epic battle of his own

It’s amazing how smoothly he flows from saying that Wilson’s shouting “You lie” to Obama (who was, in fact, well, er, um, not really telling the truth, shall we say) came not from a factual disagreement with The Onester but was rather “based on racism”, which he then goes on to link to folks who think we shouldn’t have an African-American as President and thence to the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

My goodness, how shocking. Certainly we never saw any of that sort of behavior the past 8 years, did we?

Maybe it’s me, but there’s something, oh, ironic, about a guy who on one hand decries that lack of “sincere debate…on health care” and on the other hand calls any who disagree with Obama “racists.”