News Stories

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by mg1942

Why is Omaba trying to close GITMO again? Seems like GITMO was/is the ideal place to hold these guys AND the ideal place to place them on trial in a military court

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN...pe=marketsNews

You're seeing a general level of spinelessness in both parties. I like that town in the desolate part of the midWest who WANTS to take them into their dormant prison there: they see opportunity

To me.... giving these guys a "military trial" just validates their "warrior mentality". They kill civilians, non-combatants, women, children... a civilian murder trial is all they rate.

That, of course, is entirely separate from the large number of people who should never have been in there -- ones we've *made* hate the US because we were so incompetent at identifying and grabbing the right people.

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Large Portion Of GOP Thinks Obama Is Racist, Socialist, Non-U.S. Citizen: Poll

A third of these people think using birth control pills constitutes abortion (strange since the effect of birth control pills happens when the unfertilized egg drops), two-thirds believe that Christianity offers the only way to heaven, and nearly eighty percent believe "public school students [should] be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world."

Complete poll results

a poll from the Daily Kossacks?
please tell me you dont take that poll seriously.


keep in mind that same kossak/research 2k poll showed Coakley winning by 4 pts over Scott Brown the day of the MA election.

[Nosauz]

did you guys see the reuters article that was pulled, about obama's tax increase for the middle class. It's the first time I've ever seen this here is the digg link since the link to the reuters article is a 404.
http://digg.com/politics/Backdoor_ta...middle_class_2
the retraction is what is interesting although letting middle class tax cuts not get renewed while super rich tax cuts do sounded a bit too much of shift in wealth in america.

Link to the actual article released by reuters, http://bit.ly/cykiP

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/01/...bc-huffington/
ABC's This Week up as Ailes is confronted on why FOX cut coverage of President's 'Question Time' with Republicans.

[justsomeguy]

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/la...175-7/fulltext
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/02...ex.html?hpt=T1
The vaccine-autism link is fake. "Dr." Andrew Wakefield has been discredited, and The Lancet has retracted his bullshit paper.

[Haruka_Kitten]

Mother gets son, 5, drunk

Originally Posted by Herald Sun Variant

A Mum got her five year old son so drunk he could barely speak or stand up

The boy was taken to hospital by ambulance with a blood-alcohol content of .09 after she gave him four or five shots of home brew.

The drink was later found to be 44 percent ethanol.

Kylie Eastwood, who drank litres of alcohol a day, told police she "just wanted to have a drink with her son because he likes his alcohol", Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court at Morwell heard.

Eastwood, 33, of Moe, was spared jail despite breaching 2 previous suspended sentences and a call by police for her to be jailed.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by mg1942

a poll from the Daily Kossacks?
please tell me you dont take that poll seriously.
keep in mind that same kossak/research 2k poll showed Coakley winning by 4 pts over Scott Brown the day of the MA election.

It's a random-digit-dialing sample of self-identified Republicans. Like most polls in today's world, it's subject to substantial problems arising from selection bias. In general that means it's tilted toward the more involved respondents, which probably means an over-representation of the most conservative members of the Republican coalition. Still I don't find these results especially surprising, nor do the questions they ask seem especially slanted.

Being off in one pre-election poll doesn't invalidate an entire organization's efforts. In 1988 I polled for a major newspaper. Throughout our polling, including daily tracking polls and panels with a subsample of respondents, Bob Dole held a slight lead over George H.W. Bush among "likely" New Hampshire Republican primary voters. On the day of the election, Bush won by over ten points. We detected this late swing to Bush the night before the election, but it seemed too implausible to credit. We had double the number of refusals that night, and the results were obviously quite out of whack compared to our earlier research. We had a similar experience polling in a Congressional primary, where the polling made the race look more competitive than it turned out to be. Late surges and differential turnout can sometimes matter much more than the actual distribution of opinion when trying to extrapolate from polls to voting behavior. I'd argue both those factors applied to the MA Senate race.

These results aren't that out-of-line compared to other polls of Republicans that I've seen. It would be very informative to know how many people they had to call to get one self-described Republican cooperator. As I posted in a couple of other places above, the Republican party of 2010 looks very little like the Republican party I grew up with in the 1950's and 1960's. What we can't tell from the Kos article is how large a fraction of American citizens the people they interviewed represent.

I will say that, after browsing the Research2000 website, they're remarkably closed-mouthed about their methodology.

[mg1942]

Stewart to Appear on O'RLY Factor

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...reilly-factor/

Fox News knows it’s got a hot interview... it is showing the interview over two nights, Wednesday and Thursday.

Fox says in a press release that “the wide-ranging interview will touch on an array of topics, including President Obama, the political landscape and media bias.”

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

... As I posted in a couple of other places above, the Republican party of 2010 looks very little like the Republican party I grew up with in the 1950's and 1960's. ...

Requoted for Great Truth -- and I'd even include the 70s and early 80s.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

...the Republican party of 2010 looks very little like the Republican party I grew up with in the 1950's and 1960's.

The Conservative movement, in general, is so vastly different from when we were younger (not that I was around in the 50s or 60s ), that it is hard to actually identify a Republican as a Republican anymore (sure they claim to be the Republican Party, but simply because they use the name doesn't mean they represent what the party stood for even 20 years ago, let alone 40 or 50; you can call ti a rose, but if it looks like shit and and smells like shit, then even if you call it a rose, it's probably just shit). Goldwater (even Nixon) would hate what the party has become; even the "original" Kristol would abhor the recent iteration of the Republican Party.

That's not to say that the Democratic party, nor the Liberal movemenet, haven't become a little unrecognizable over the years...

[Vexx]

On American PBS, there's a series called Frontline which has an interesting documentary called "Digital Nation". Worth a watch... it discusses the impact of the digital age on people (positive and negative) in a variety of countries.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

The section on Korea and how they're adapting and course-correcting is fascinating. For the US section, the main complaint I have is that some of the documentary is from the perspective of what I'll call the "fearful pre-Internet" people. On the other hand, we do get to see a number of older folks (like me) who *paid attention* during the evolution and trying to help drive it in positive directions.

Of particular interest is the human brain and multi-tasking ... as well as the hilarious bit with the principal who monitors the kid's activity via sniff-monitor tools. He's very laid back about it

It also mentions a science book called, "The Dumbest Generation" which discusses the fragmentation of deep thinking and ability to stay focused on one topic because of the distraction levels. The author would love to be proved wrong but says the data suggests otherwise. Personally, I contend the differences are more complex.

One profile of an 83 year old woman who started a cooking blog with her grandson was hilarious.

Anyway.. the documentary was interesting whether or not one agreed with all aspects of it.

[karthak]

Originally Posted by james0246

The Conservative movement, in general, is so vastly different from when we were younger (not that I was around in the 50s or 60s ), that it is hard to actually identify a Republican as a Republican anymore (sure they claim to be the Republican Party, but simply because they use the name doesn't mean they represent what the party stood for even 20 years ago, let alone 40 or 50; you can call ti a rose, but if it looks like shit and and smells like shit, then even if you call it a rose, it's probably just shit). Goldwater (even Nixon) would hate what the party has become; even the "original" Kristol would abhor the recent iteration of the Republican Party.

That's not to say that the Democratic party, nor the Liberal movemenet, haven't become a little unrecognizable over the years...

Parties change over the years. Back in the 1800s, it was the republicans who wanted to abolish slavery and the democrats who wanted to keep it legal. Then the democrats changed and they lost the south because they supported anti-discrimination measures.

[Ansalem]

Murray Hill PR Firm Plans (Satirical) Run For Maryland Congressional Seat

Supreme Court Ruling Spurs Corporation Run for Congress First Test of “Corporate Personhood” In Politics

“Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Ansalem

Murray Hill PR Firm Plans (Satirical) Run For Maryland Congressional Seat

Supreme Court Ruling Spurs Corporation Run for Congress First Test of “Corporate Personhood” In Politics

I wish them luck getting on the ballot. If they succeed it might be a wake up call to the politicians to get some real campaign reform done. Of course they won't, as the Supreme Court ruling didn't grant citizenship to corporations, but hopefully it'll still be a wake up call knowing that we're one bad decision by the SC from granting exactly that.

[mg1942]

Obama dings Las Vegas - again

Spoiler for extended edition:

[Reckoner]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_450049.html

BROKEN SYSTEM
Martha Johnson: GSA Chief Confirmed After 9 Month Senate Hold-Up

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm Martha N. Johnson as head of the General Services Administration, nearly 10 months after she was first nominated to head the federal agency.

Upon assuming office, Johnson "will become the first permanent Administrator of the General Services Administration in nearly two years."

Earlier in 2009, Johnson was unanimously approved by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. But a single senator, Republican Kit Bond from Missouri, has used his symbolic 'privilege' to hold up consideration of Johnson's nomination since last summer. The delay was meant to pressure GSA administrators to approve a $175 million federal building project in Kansas City.

The LA Times noted, "the nomination became another example for the Obama administration of how the political process in Washington has been poisoned by politics that often have nothing to do with the merits. Just this week, Obama brought up the nomination in his session with Senate Democrats when he called for both sides of the aisle to work toward pragmatic solutions to problems."

"I don't have a GSA administrator, even though I nominated somebody who was well-qualified several months ago, and nobody can tell me that there's anything particularly wrong with her," Obama complained. Republicans are "blocking her because of some unrelated matter ... that has to end. It has to end. And the American people want it to end."

Within minutes of the Senate vote, the White House website had published a statement by communications director Dan Pfeiffer expressing incredulity over the delay.

What happened in between was a perfect example of why Americans are so frustrated with Washington.


Martha Johnson is an ideal candidate for Administrator, which is highlighted by the unanimous vote she received in committee. And the only thing that's changed between now and then is that some in Congress found it to be politically expedient to delay her vote. This isn't just about one person filling one job - it hampers our ability reform the way government works and save taxpayer dollars by making it more efficient and effective.

What's worse, Martha Johnson is hardly the first nominee to fall victim to this trend of opposition for opposition's sake. Nine of the President's nominees found themselves stuck in this same situation only to be confirmed by 70 or more votes or a voice vote. Several nominees, including two members of the Council of Economic Advisers, had cloture withdrawn and were passed by a voice vote.

Just another moment to sigh about.

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by justinstrife

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100128/...ate_debt_limit

Dear God has any of these morons ever balanced a checkbook in their lives?

The House just passed it too...

[mg1942]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100204/.../toyota_recall

Toyota acknowledged design problems with the brakes in its prized Prius, adding to the catalog of woes for the Japanese automaker still reeling from massive gas-pedal recalls in the U.S.

Can't blame a U.S. supplier this time!




related news...

Steve Wozniak (Apple Inc founder) claims Toyota Prius has "scary" software Problem he can dupilcate!

[cors8]

http://www.thegrio.com/news/nbc-cook...tory-month.php

Now this is political correctness gone crazy.

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by mg1942

The House just passed it too...

The numbers I'm hearing now is 1.9 trillion. When do we as citizens wake up to the corruption in our Government and vote all of these elitists out of office? I don't give a damn if they have an R, a D, or an I infront of their name. Boot them out!

[Seitsuki]

And who will replace them? "power corrupts." inevitably even the best will become disillusioned and fall from where they were. the world is a screwed up place, even if you have good intentions it's too little compared to the tide of self interest that is prevalent everywhere. you can only comprimise, and choose whoever you think is better, and hope for the best.