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DECENT MOVIE BUT IT WASN’T RIBBITTING
It’s not just kittehs that love captions! ALL THE ANIMALS DO! Check out Animal Capshunz for MOAR!
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HEY I JUST MET YOU, AND THIS IS CRAZY BUT I’M YOUR KITTEN SO PET ME MAYBE?
Love LOLcats? Who doesn’t?! There are so many more over here!
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It’s so nice when two different animals can get together to make each other look even better.
Life’s too short to avoid the *SPLORT*! Visit Daily Squee for your daily cuteness!
Squee! Spotter: Unknown
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</p>
Turns out that penguin chicks are great cuddlers. True fact.
Rise Out supports teens who want to leave high school early and take charge of their own education.
(founded by our own Laura Fokkena)
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1) I've only ever been to one game at Fenway, and at the time I really wasn't paying attention to such things. But I'm assuming there'd have to be police presence at home games. Are the officers that work there during games assigned as part of their regular duties/shift? Is it considered regular duty, but something you volunteer for rather than are assigned? Is it considered extra/overtime work?
2) If I'm understanding the website correctly, you don't have to attend the Academy to become an officer, but doing so does give you preference in the hiring process. Other than that preference, are there any other advantages to going through the academy? (Does it speed up your career path if you do/hold you back if you don't?)
3) How old do you have to be to attend the Academy? (The website gives conflicting information on this. In one place is says you have to be at least 21 to be an officer. In another it says you have to be between 18 and 24 to work for the BPD.)
I guess I'll stop there for now. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
Me: Sorry, but it's £5 or more to pay with a card.
Him: Um... I think you'll find you're wrong there.
Me: Sorry, but it's been this way since I've worked here.
Him: *laughs mockingly* I don't THINK so love! *he then inserts his card into the card machine*
Me: There's an ATM just over the road. I can hold these items to the side for you if you've got no cash on you.
Him: I don't WANT to go over the road! I just want to use my card!
Me: There is a minimum spend of £5 for cards.
Him: No, there isn't! There's never been a limit here!
Me: I've worked here for two and a half years and there's always been a £5 limit. *I point again to the ATM over the road and tell him that he can draw some money out if he wants to*
Him: *throws his hands in the air and walks off, leaving me with his three items*
WHY do customers think they know better than the people that actually work at the store? Why would a customer argue about something like this to a cashier? I deal with a lot of card transactions. I KNOW there is a minimum spend of £5. UGH.
http://apronmemories.blogspot.com/2012/0
Whether filled with homemade treats or store-bought, a basket delivery in person is often the greater gift and Memorial Day week-end is the perfect time to take the time to make someone's day brighter.
xxea
Tie One On…an apron, of course!
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A new Quinnipeac poll in Florida shows a majority of Floridians still approve of the state's Stand Your Ground law and oppose gun control
Republicans lean heavily in favor of the law, with 78 percent supporting it, while 59 percent of Democrats are against it. Fifty-eight percent of independent voters support the law, while 35 percent are against it.
The poll shows there remains a gender gap on the law as 65 percent of men and 48 percent of women say they support "stand your ground." There is also a major gender gap in Florida over gun control. According to the poll, 62 percent of men are against more gun control. A majority of women surveyed -- 54 percent -- back increased gun control in the Sunshine State.
The George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin shooting doesn't seem to have changed their opinions. [More...]
Commenters here have asked for a place to discuss the Stand Your Ground law in the context of the Zimmerman-Martin shooting. Here's a thread to so so.
If you are writing what you think the law allows and doesn't allow, or how it applies or doesn't apply, please state it as your opinion (so it doesn't end up on Google as TalkLeft's opinion or my opinion. )
You may also discuss your position on the laws, however, keep in mind that I oppose changing the law as well as most gun control restrictions, so do not use this site to promote (rather than state) your opinion by linking to petitions or groups trying to change the law. That moves the discussion from opinion to advocacy for a position I oppose.
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Busy day.
Have a great Memorial Day Weekend.
Open Thread.
http://getting-stitched-on-the-farm.blog
Most people, I manage to surprise. I was raised on a farm, and spent a lot of time lifting bales of straw and 50lb feed bags, so it's nothing I'm not accustomed to. And I don't really mind the occasional, "You gonna be able to get that?" comment, because then when I am indeed able to lift everything and carry it to their cars, they drop the subject. The ones I do mind are the ones that are rude and nasty, and the customers who just won't shut up about my size - or, worse, my gender.
I'm a feminist. So it really, really gets to me when I have to hear, "Why don't you have any men to help me do this?" fifteen times a day. (Not that I have anything against men, at all, but it still offends me that so many customers think that only men are capable of manual labor.) Usually I'll just nod and smile and tell them that it's not necessary, and I'm completely up to the task. And then I prove as such, and it's all fine and dandy. And yet, there are always a few that just won't get it go. "Well, I still think you should have a man out here." "Yeah, you're fine now, but you're not going to be feeling that good when you're older, after you spend years lifting all this. Don't you have any men working here?"
I'm not going to lie - it would be nice if we had a few more strong people working here, especially for things like unloading the weekly truck, but the insistence that it be a man omg, it just makes me rage. We only have two men who work here, and both are elderly and come in maybe once a week, for a four-hour shift. Our store is otherwise entirely female-run, so we don't have any men to send out, anyway. My one manager, J, can lift pretty much anything in the store and make it look very easy - and she is female. Of course, that doesn't stop some customers from asking her why she "doesn't just have a man do it," when she's the one that hauled their entire bed set out to their truck for them.
I guess, on some level, I can appreciate the concern from some customers (like I said, I am very small, so until they actually see that I am quite capable of lifting heavy objects, I suppose it may be a little worrying to them), but come on. A former roommate of mine is a mechanic, and she is also very small (smaller than me, topping off at about 4'11" or so and never weighing more than 95lbs), and she gets the same comments all the time - despite that she's probably the best mechanic at her shop. Ugh.
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Manolo says, here is the Manolo’s latest column for the Express of the Washington Post.
Dear Manolo,
At the end of June I’m going to Dubai for a business conference. For the meetings, I’m going to be in strict business attire, but afterwards, I plan on dressing up and hitting the malls and the restaurants. What I need is a pair of sandals that will look great for both shopping and dining out afterwards.
Andrea
Manolo says, what could be better than Dubai in the summer? Where the outside temperature at noon is 615 degrees, Celsius!
Ah, but inside the Dolce-Gabbana-Prada-Gucci-Tiffany mega store, where the richy-rich oil sheikhs pay for their purchases with suitcases of gold bullion, the air is conditioned down to the very lovely 72 degrees, American.
Indeed, who else but the oil sheikhs would build something in the desert as crazy-beautiful as the Ski Dubai, the giant indoor ski resort in the Mall of the Emirates, where the temperature is always just below freezing, and the bunny hill beckons.
Of the course, one must celebrate such ostentatious defiance of Mother Nature with beautiful shoes, although, buying the new shoes to go to Dubai is like building the indoor ski resort in Siberia. The shoe shopping in Dubai is perhaps the best in the world. Everything is available from the most humble sandals, through the best Louboutins, Zanottis, and Blahniks, and even the bespoke shoes can be ordered.
However, if you must have the shoes before you go, the Manolo suggests this DSquared2 platform sandal, the Gladiator Maine in the brick color.
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I'm sure this will be the last of it.
haha. I like how google translates it as "ransom."
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I don't know how this could have happened. Nobody could have predicted it.
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*get that drug decriminalization isn't just a social issue (nor are most social issues just social issues) but it roughly fits in that category.
Last week, a few dozen hedge fund and investment executives arrived at the Park Avenue home of Hamilton E. James, president of the private equity firm Blackstone. Each had paid $35,800 to spend two hours at a fund-raiser with President Obama, but the timing proved awkward: A few hours earlier, Mr. Obama’s campaign had begun a blistering attack on Mitt Romney’s career in private equity, the same business in which Mr. James has earned his many millions.Oh noes! The horror! Imagine having enough money to throw around that you can spend a spare $35k on a two hour event, but still having to listen to mild, indirect criticism of someone who is in the same general line of business as you! I am very sad just thinking about it.“Campaigns do what campaigns have to do,” Mr. James later told friends. But not everyone was as forgiving. “People were incredulous,” said one person who attended the dinner. “They could have waited a week.”
What do we need to do here to make this better? Wait, I know—let's put Wall Street bankers in more top-level government positions. We're jam-packed with them already, though, so we'll have to invent some entirely new departments just to wedge more Wall Street folks in there. Maybe a Bureau of Gutting Financial Regulations In a Super-Duper Expedited Fashion? A cabinet position dedicated to the private jet industry? What the hell, let's give Wall Street bankers their own aircraft carrier. God help us if we have to listen to how terribly oppressed and downtrodden they all are. (Although if any Wall Street tycoons want to pay me $35k to sit down with me for two hours and gripe about how terribly oppressed they are, I'm all ears. For that price, I'll even provide the bag of chips.)
Most Democratic lawmakers are sympathetic to their concerns, because Money. There are, however, some exceptions:
Former Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, said Wednesday that while he “didn’t like the tone of the attacks on Bain,” he thought the party’s relationship with Wall Street had shifted with good reason.I think the answer to that question has been pretty sincere, on their parts. They want taxpayer-funded bailouts without consequence, a promise that nothing they've ever f--d up will ever be subject to any new anti-effing-things-up regulation, and a recognition that wealthy people who professionally gamble with other people's money are the Titans of All Industry, to be honored as such. Given that they have something close to all of that already, now the new sticking point is that you're not allowed to make them feel bad about it, either.“Wall Street screwed up the nation’s economy and the world economy,” Mr. Rendell said. The White House’s approach to regulation was reasonable, he added. “What do they want us to do?”
I swear. There are large swaths of America who get yelled at by politicians every damn day, often for decidedly more ridiculous reasons, and don't have anything to show for it. These guys get access to government that even other ultra-wealthy power groups could only dream of (A mere oil tycoon? Pfft, I spit on your having-an-actual-physical-product industry. Oil derivatives is the true gentleman's calling!), and still they spend their time carping to reporters about how insulted and misunderstood they feel.
Self-proclaimed birther Donald Trump is now so doubtful of Mitt Romney's birthplace that he's sent a team of his own investigators to Michigan in hopes of getting to the bottom of the issue.Of course, none of that is true. (Or, as I should perhaps say, Trump sent as many investigators to Michigan as he did to Hawaii.)That's according to Trump himself, who, in an interview with NBC, warned his investigators just might uncover "one of the greatest cons in the history of politics and beyond."
"I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding," Trump said an interview that aired Friday morning.
Asked if he has assigned people specifically to search in Michigan, Trump said, "Absolutely."
What is true is that Trump—who will campaign with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich on Tuesday in Las Vegas—has held Romney to a much lower standard than President Obama when it comes to proving his Americanism ... and even his real name. As The Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi wrote last year:
IF DONALD Trump is so interested in birth certificates, he should ask Republican rival Mitt Romney to produce his.But even though President Obama has gone way beyond anything Mitt Romney has ever been asked to do, releasing everything but his mother's amniotic fluid to document his true birthplace of Hawaii, birthers like Trump remains unconvinced. Yet The Donald has raised no questions about Romney, whose father was born in Mexico and whose birth certificate has never been seen by the public.That could finally solve the mild Mitt-stery surrounding Romney’s given name.
His first name is “Willard,’’ after the hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, his father’s best friend.
His middle name comes from his father’s cousin, who played quarterback for the Chicago Bears from 1925 to 1929. That cousin’s name was “Milton’’ and his nickname was “Mitt’’ — a totally understandable preference for a football player or a presidential candidate. But what does the birth certificate belonging to the presidential candidate actually state?
Four years ago, I asked Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom to settle the matter.
“It’s Willard Mitt Romney on the birth certificate,’’ he replied, via e-mail.
Could I see it? I asked. “Sure. He was born in Detroit. City Hall should have it,’’ he e-mailed back.
Birth records are restricted in Michigan and only a person or parent named on the record, or a legal guardian or representative can request a copy. “That shouldn’t be a problem for an old reporter like you,’’ Fehrnstrom responded. It was.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a Mitt Romney birther (though I do wonder if we should start calling him Milton). But isn't it pathetic that Romney doesn't even have the political courage to keep his distance from the biggest and most offensive Obama birther of them all?
Mitt Romney’s campaign sees the time he spent at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded and ran for more than a decade, as a positive experience that highlights his leadership skills and his ability to turn around companies and create jobs....but notes that turning it into a positive presents a serious challenge:
For Mr. Romney’s campaign, the scrutiny of his time at Bain poses a delicate challenge: not only must he defend himself against attacks coming from the president, but he also must try to cast Bain and the lessons he learned there as a testament to his management skills.So how is Mr. Bain doing at explaining why his CEO record qualifies him for the presidency? Here's how he tried to sell it to Mark Halperin:
Halperin: The President says that your experience at Bain Capital will be central in this election. He says it does not qualify you to be a job creator as President. I know you think that working in the private sector in and of itself gives you insight into how the economy works, but what specific skills or policies did you learn at Bain that would help you create an environment where jobs would be created?Not only did Romney fail to answer ... he complained about the question. But Halperin asked again:Romney: Well that’s a bit of a question like saying, what have you learned in life that would help you lead? My whole life has been learning to lead, from my parents, to my education, to the experience I had in the private sector, to helping run the Olympics, and then of course helping guide a state.
Halperin: I want to ask you to be just a little bit more specific about that, because again, he said this is like the central way he’s going to run this campaign, to focus on your business career. You said you know how to read a balance sheet. There are a lot of people in America who know how to do that. What would make you qualify to be President – again, specific things you’ve learned, things you know, policies that grow out of your experience at Bain Capital that would lead toward job creation.Yet another swing and a miss. As Jonathan Chait pointed out, you don't need to be CEO of Bain Capital to know that the cost of energy is very important to businesses. In fact, President Obama has talked about the importance of energy costs to the economy. Moreover, the cost of energy to businesses isn't the only important part of energy policy. Things like climate change are also important—and those are things that CEOs don't have to spend their time thinking about.Romney: Well Mark, let’s be a little more specific as to the area you’d like to suggest. Trade policies? Labor policies? Energy policies? Let’s take energy, for instance. I understand that in some industries, the input cost of energy is a major factor in whether an industry is going to locate in the United States or go elsewhere. So, when at Bain Capital, we started a new steel company called Steel Dynamics in Indiana, the cost of energy was a very important factor to the success of that enterprise.
Halperin pressed forward on Bain, giving Romney yet another shot to sell his record:
Halperin: So when the President says he wants to focus a lot of the election and debate on your career at Bain Capital, do you welcome that?Romney didn't even swing at that one. He just moved right into an attack on President Obama. But Halperin still gave him one last chance:Romney: Well of course, I’d like to also focus on his record. What is it that he’s done as the President of the United States over the last four years? And the American people are interested in, not so much in the history of where I was at Bain Capital, or that I have understanding of the private sector, but instead, has the President made things better for the American people?
Halperin: But you welcome scrutiny of your business record, is that right?Sorry, Mitt: if you're asking the interviewer how to explain why your track record at CEO of Bain Capital qualifies you for the presidency ... then it doesn't.Romney: Mark, what I can tell you is this. The fact is that I spent twenty five years in the private sector. And that obviously teaches you something that you don’t learn if you haven’t spent any time in the private sector. If you were to say to me, tell me what you learned from your schooling that would help you be a President, it’s like, how do I begin going through a list like that?
• AZ-08: Republican Jesse Kelly's having some trouble answering questions—and he sure is going to remind you of someone. In a recent interview with local TV station KGUN9, reporter Jennifer Waddell tried to ask Kelly about an endorsement he once received from the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (aka ALIPAC)—an organization the ADL says is backed by white supremacists. John Ellinwood, a Kelly aide who was serving as some kind of Soviet-style "minder" for his candidate, flipped out over the question and after the interview concluded, berated Waddell and questioned her "professionalism."
Ellinwood seemed to be most furious about the fact that Waddell characterized the 2010 endorsement as "recent," but it's a moot point, since ALIPAC just re-endorsed Kelly a few days ago. In a fit of rage, he cancelled a second interview scheduled with Kelly, but KGUN got the better of them, airing a clip of the first interview and describing Ellinwood's reaction in detail. So Kelly backed down and agreed to do the second Q&A after all. Only it really didn't go too well. I strongly urge you to watch it—it will only take 37 seconds of your time:
Benito: "Do you plan on accepting that endorsement this time around?"Kelly: "Our campaign is going to stay focused on lower gas prices using American energy, lower taxes, and creating jobs."
Benito: "Do you plan on accepting that endorsement?"
Kelly: "Our campaign is going to stay focused on lower taxes, lowering gas prices using American energy, and creating jobs."
Benito: "So it that a yes or a no?"
Kelly: "Our campaign is going to stay focused on lowering gas prices, creating jobs, and lowering gas prices using American energy."
Benito: "So no comment?"
Kelly: "Our campaign is going to stay focused on lowering gas prices, creating jobs, and lowering taxes."
No serious surprises yesterday in the Senate, but I felt like you should get a wrap-up, because of how much was still on the table, and if you've been reading along at all, you might actually end up wondering over the recess what happened to all that stuff they kept agreeing to agree to, but never actually following through on.
Well, what ended up happening was that they did get around to the FDA bill after all. They shot down all the amendments (tabling two of them), and passed the bill. Then, they moved on to not passing the student loan bill, by a vote of 51-43-1. Yep. Another victim of the "painless filibuster." All the obstruction of the regular filibuster, but in a convenient, travel size.
There actually is a committee meeting scheduled for today, so I'm putting that below the fold, along with yesterday's Senate floor wrap-up, which I included so that you could see the full recitation of the traditional pre-recess flood of executive appointments and military promotions passed by unanimous consent. It never fails.
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When the class is silent
And you fart
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If it pleases the Court, I will be defending myself in Goldfish v. Black Cat.
With that, awl rise, foar the honerubble Judj Whiskers!
Love LOLcats? Who doesn’t?! There are so many more over here!
Picture by: Unknown
http://sewing.about.com/od/homedecprojec
i know i need to replace the rod, but i also want to make it easy (and cheap) on myself. would a tension rod work here? i'm worried about the clothes being too heavy and the closet being too wide.
thanks!
I got a blowjob.
Upon first being introduced to someone, what pleasantry are you most likely to speak?
"How are you?"
What song do you think has a terrific first line?
"Sittin' over here starin' in your face with lust in my eyes sure don't give a damn and you don't know that I've been dreamin' of ya in my fantasy."
What’s a film that started off poorly but turned out to be quite good?
I have no clue.
What’s usually a good early sign that your weekend is going to be great?
I get butterflies in my stomach thinking about it.
I considering driving up to Lake City and hiking Handies Peak on Sunday if I'm up to it. If not, maybe Monday. That fucking southwest ridge on Little Bear is, for lack of a better word, a bear. It's going to probably take over 13 hours.
What are all y'alls Memorial Day weekend plans?
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clothdiapering and maybe i still will as i have some more specific questions for them, but i think i'm more likely to get a wider range of unbiased answers here, so here we go...i am in a process of somewhat reluctantly switching from disposable diapers to cloth, or maybe just introducing cloth diapers for part time use? at this point i'm experimenting and not committing to anything. before dd was born, i was determined to do cloth, and then it turned out that the supposedly one-size diapers i had purchased did not fit her (and they still don't seem to, at 6 m/o), plus they were extremely bulky and 100% polyester (not breathable). it really turned me off, plus i felt bad about having spent all this money on something i'm not going to use, and i just happily moved on with the disposables.
what made me want to give cloth another chance were the explosive poop outs happening on a daily basis, sometimes more than once. so i bought some bummis prefolds, 100% organic cotton. they seem great, but i'm still concerned. together with the cover, they still create quite a bit of bulk and i'm concerned about my daughter's comfort. how does it feel to have all this fabric around your bum? and doesn't she get hot, especially now in the summer? the lady in the diaper store told me that there was a study that demonstrated that the inside of a disposable diaper is warmer by three degrees than the inside of a cloth diaper. i just took it in at the time, as i was a bit overwhelmed, but now i'm wondering... does it depend which cloth/disposable diaper? does it include the cover which obviously contributes to the heat? we had no issues with the pure and natural huggies (other than the poop outs, of course). i even tried putting a diaper cover on top of her disposable diaper before the daily poop out, and that works well, but doesn't it make her even hotter?
we are also at the point where we are trying to figure out if she can sit unsupported (she can but only for a couple of seconds), and i can't help wondering if all this bulk in the diaper is making it more difficult.
also, she was never one of those babies fussing over a wet diaper - not that i would take advantage of it, i check her diaper very frequently, and this morning she was in wet cloth and was crying... it broke my heart. and, of course, cloth diapers are more difficult to just "check".
i still feel a strong pull towards cloth diapering, but i have so many doubts... mostly about my daughter's comfort. any words of advice, experience or encouragement would be great.
also, if you dealt with those explosive poop outs with an exclusively breastfed baby, did you find that there was a significant change when you introduced solids? we will be starting solids when she is sitting unassisted, which will likely be soon, but we will be doing it very slowly, the blw way, so i wonder if it will even make a difference for a while...
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Manolo asked, whose shoes?
Manolo answers, it is the Edie Falco!
This week, none of the Manolo’s internet friends was able to correctly identify the Showtime celebrity of note.
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The spiralling cost of bailing out Spain's fourth largest bank, Bankia, rose further on Thursday night after sources close to the bank said it would ask for more than €15bn (£12bn) from the government on Friday.
As I've said a million times, it's one thing to bail out the institutions, yet another to bail out the shareholders, and still another to bail out the current management. We'll see what happens here.
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Make no mistake. There is a Beltway consensus to cut Social Security benefits--that they're gonna raise the retirement age, and also reduce the COLA. They just have to find a way to do it that will leave nobody accountable.
As Alex said, SS is the most successful government program in American history, providing vital insurance for unpredictable catastrophe and for the predictable reduction of income in old age. SS uses an elegant self-sustaining funding mechanism that will go on forever if left alone.
Our oligarchical elite has no intention of leaving it alone. They've had the program in their sights for at least the last fifteen years. But they have to find an unaccountable, non-democratic way to gut the program. Last try was the President's B-S commission.
Next up, the lame duck session.
Visual source: Newseum
Paul Krugman at The New York Times:
[H]ere’s the thing: If Wall Streeters are spoiled brats, they are spoiled brats with immense power and wealth at their disposal. And what they’re trying to do with that power and wealth right now is buy themselves not just policies that serve their interests, but immunity from criticism.[...]Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post explains why examining Mitt Romney's Bain record is the right thing to do:Think about where we are right now, in the fifth year of a slump brought on by irresponsible bankers. The bankers themselves have been bailed out, but the rest of the nation continues to suffer terribly, with long-term unemployment still at levels not seen since the Great Depression, with a whole cohort of young Americans graduating into an abysmal job market.
And in the midst of this national nightmare, all too many members of the economic elite seem mainly concerned with the way the president apparently hurt their feelings. That isn’t funny. It’s shameful.
President Obama is right to raise this issue now. I wish he had done so during the debate on financial regulatory reform — only now is he posing the kind of fundamental questions that needed to be asked — but better late than never. In his defense, a tough reelection campaign does tend to focus the mind.Gail MarksJarvis at the Chicago Sun-Times examines the massive amount of debt burden carried by low and middle income families:There’s nothing inherently wrong with private equity, which plays an important role in the economy. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with wealth; those who risk their capital in private-equity ventures should be rewarded when those deals pay off. No one begrudges Romney his offshore investment accounts, his mansions or his wife’s Cadillacs.
But as Romney himself acknowledges, free markets need rules and regulations in order to function. Some kinds of dealings are prohibited or even criminalized — insider trading, for example, because of the way it benefits a select few at the expense of other investors.
The 2008 financial crisis was a brutal wake-up call for many, as banks abruptly shut down cards and cut debt limits at the same time companies were tossing millions out of work. About 39 percent of households surveyed by Demos experienced some cuts in their credit, and about half of those reduced spending as a result. But 28 percent have taken on more debt in the last year.The New York Times Editorial Board looks at the failure of austerity:Now, the average debt on cards held by low- and middle-income people is $7,145, compared with $9,887 in 2008, according to the survey. Fifty-one percent said cost-of-living expenses contributed most to their current card debt. [...]
The greatest debt burdens are being carried by older Americans, with people 65 and over averaging $9,283 in credit card debt, according to the survey. Demos attributes problems to the financial crisis, which slashed household savings in 2008 and 2009 and left individuals insecure at retirement. [...] Medical bills have also contributed to problems for seniors and others, Demos said. Nearly half of households carried debt from medical bills on their credit cards, with the average expense at $1,678.
By this point, there should be no debate: Austerity has been a failure, shrinking economies and making it ever harder for indebted countries to repay their debts.Tom Engelhardt at the New Yorker writes about the history of Memorial Day and the war in Afghanistan:The political costs are also rising. In parliamentary elections earlier this month, Greece’s voters rejected candidates from the two major political parties that had agreed to a German-dictated “rescue” package, and the country has been unable to form a government since. In that vote, the far-right party, Golden Dawn, whose xenophobic members perform Nazi salutes, did frighteningly well — a warning that no responsible political leader in Europe can afford to ignore.
Meanwhile, the unthinkable becomes increasingly imaginable: Greece fails to meet the conditions of its bailout and drops out, or is forced out of the euro zone. The financial chaos could quickly spread, spooking investors and destabilizing the banks and economies of other struggling European nations, with knock-on effects for the global financial system and the world economy.
And yet, when it comes to the major war the United States is still fighting, now in its 11th year, the word remembrance is surely inappropriate, as is the “Memorial” in Memorial Day. It’s not just that the dead of the Afghan War have largely been tossed down the memory hole of history (even if they do get official attention on Memorial Day itself). Even the fact that Americans are still dying in Afghanistan seems largely to have been forgotten, along with the war itself.Alex Koppelman at the New Yorker looks at the birther controversy dynamic and the fact that it benefits Democrats:As the endlessly plummeting opinion polls indicate, the Afghan War is one Americans would clearly prefer to forget — yesterday, not tomorrow. It was, in fact, regularly classified as “the forgotten war” almost from the moment that the Bush administration turned its attention to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and so declared its urge to create a Pax Americana in the Greater Middle East. Despite the massive “surge” of troops, special operations forces, CIA agents, and civilian personnel sent to Afghanistan by President Obama in 2009-2010, and the ending of the military part of the Iraq debacle in 2011, the Afghan War has never made it out of the grave of forgetfulness to which it was so early consigned.
Count on one thing: there will be no Afghan version of Maya Lin, no Afghan Wall on the National Mall. Unlike the Vietnam conflict, tens of thousands of books won’t be pouring out for decades to come arguing passionately about the conflict. There may not even be a “who lost Afghanistan” debate in its aftermath.
Anger is a great motivator. Political campaigns rake in the money when their supporters are enraged at their opponents; media outlets that lean to one side or the other often do best when their audience is looking for a fight. (If you’ve ever been puzzled as to why Glenn Beck was such a success on Fox News for a little while, this is your answer.) And birtherism inspires a whole lot of anger on the left. That’s why, when there are more birther outbursts as Election Day draws closer, you’re likely to see the Romney campaign running for the hills—and people from the Obama campaign gladly talking about them. Now that they’re reasonably sure independents don’t doubt the President’s eligibility, they can use the issue to excite a comparatively apathetic base, and do some fundraising. It’s why you’re far more likely to see the issue come up on MSNBC than you are to see it on Fox News. And it’s why, if you were paying attention, you saw Talking Points Memo and its blogs—which were driving forces behind the Bennett controversy—beating this particular story to death.Here's follow-up from the Chicago Sun-Times on the Joe Ricketts/Rahm showdown:
By my count, over the six days between May 18th, when TPM started covering Bennett, and yesterday, its blogs devoted at least thirteen posts either fully or partly to the story. That’s more than three posts per business day, and that number doesn’t include one post about the state of the birther controversy generally and another that was just the document Bennett received from Hawaii.
It looks like the controversy over Joe Ricketts’ conservative politics will not stand in the way of a $300 million deal to renovate Wrigley Field, but it could pave the way for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to play hardball with the Cubs.With Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts running around doing damage control and admittedly in a weakened political position, it’s advantage Emanuel, which is precisely where Chicago’s controlling mayor likes to be. [...]
But, Emanuel said “the point has been made” and he sees no need to prolong the dispute, nor will he allow the controversy to sabotage Wrigley negotiations that were rounding third and heading home before Joe Ricketts started the political fire.
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You must have quite the blow dryer, loris! Your locks are so full and bouncy!
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Ashley Hogan wins Round 4 in our Fat Quarter Idol Contest!...http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2012/05/give
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Thank you for the great reception for Summer Camp Adventure Club!...Page Summary
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