they're just evil, vicious

souless, heartless, money-grubbing, lyin' weasels (no offence to weasels)

John Bolton jokes about nuking Chicago, entire CPAC audience erupts in laughter.

this is sad and scary

and ugly and horrid and WE yes WE let it ALL happen without a second thought (and don't be fooled it's STILL happening)

How a Man Was Thrown into Gitmo and Tortured for Clicking on My Article
By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com

I like to think that some of the things I write cause discomfort in those readers who deserve to feel it. Ideally, they should squirm, they should flinch, they might even experience fleeting gastrointestinal symptoms. But I have always drawn the line at torture. It may be unpleasant to read some of my writings, especially if they have been assigned by a professor, but it should not result in uncontrollable screaming, genital mutilation or significant blood loss.

With such stringent journalistic ethics in place, I was shocked to read in the February 14
Daily Mail Online

a
brief article

headed "Food writer's online guide to building an H-bomb...the 'evidence' that put this man in Guantánamo." The "food writer" was identified as me, and the story began:

A British 'resident' held at Guantanamo Bay was identified as a terrorist after confessing he had visited a 'joke' website on how to build a nuclear weapon, it was revealed last night.

Binyam Mohamed, a former UK asylum seeker, admitted to having read the 'instructions' after allegedly being beaten, hung up by his wrists for a week and having a gun held to his head in a Pakistani jail..............

clean coal clean!!!

i love those coen bros!
Famed brothers Coen take on 'clean' coal in TV spoof
Stephen C. Webster
Beware the "greenwash."

That's the underlying message of famed filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen's latest side-project: A television commercial lampooning the myth of "clean" coal through the visual metaphor of an air freshener that spews black smoke.

"Is regular clean enough for your family?," asks a phony salesman as thick, noxious fumes permeate the air. "Get clean coal clean."

Watch the video, released on behalf of the Reality Coalition:...............

the ban HAS been lifted

and i for one couldn't be happier. well NOT happy about how the men and women i'm talking about are coming home. i'm happy their families get to decide if we, the public gets to see pictures of their arrival at dover. war is human. it has a FACE AND LOVED ONES

Media Ban Lifted For Bodies' Return
Families Will Decide Privacy Level

By Ann Scott Tyson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that he is lifting a 1991 government ban on news coverage of the return of the remains of fallen service members to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and will let families decide whether to allow photographs and videos.

The ban, upheld by both Republican and Democratic administrations, has generated lawsuits as well as conflicting emotions on the part of military families.

"After receiving input from a number of sources, including all of the military services and the organizations representing military families, I have decided that the decision regarding media coverage of the dignified transfer process at Dover should be made by those most directly affected: on an individual basis by the families of the fallen," Gates told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. "We ought not presume to make that decision in their place."................

i loved his work - rip pjf

science fiction is my favorite genre. i simply loved philip jose farmer

R.I.P. Philip José Farmer

By Charlie Jane Anders,
One of science fiction's most original voices passed away today. Philip José Farmer, author of the Riverworld and World Of Tiers series, is also known for writing as Kurt Vonnegut's fictional author Kilgore Trout.

I read the Riverworld series as a teen and it still sticks with me - I was thinking about it the other day. It represents 1970s science fiction at its trippiest and most random. Everyone who has ever lived on Earth wakes up together on a huge planet with an endless, winding river. They're all naked and bald, and they discover at length that they cannot die - at least not at first. His second series, World Of Tiers, follows a group of humans traveling through a series of stacked artificial parallel universes.

Farmer is also known for his first published short story, 1952's "The Lovers," which broke the taboo on explicit sexuality in science fiction and won a Hugo for Most Promising New Writer. According to Christopher Paul Carey:.....................

this is rather funny

"Kenneth The Page" Responds To Bobby Jindal Comparison (VIDEO)

wow-didn't know

ANY of this shite
but max blumenthal is making sure we ALL do (know that is). wow, this booby bobby is on a scary par with sarevil. wow

Did you know about the exorcism? The name that came from The Brady Bunch? Those and other surprising facts about one of America’s fastest rising young politicians.
Last night, on the evening of President Barack Obama’s first major speech, the Republicans put forward Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal as the face of the opposition, tapping him to deliver their response. As a 37-year-old Indian-American Rhodes Scholar, the first-term governor presented a deliberate visual counterpoint to Obama. His folksy speech last evening is meeting with mixed reviews. But with GOP politicians already jockeying for the 2012 primary, Jindal is emerging as a top contender......

...............

During his years at Brown University, Jindal pursued his Catholic faith with unbridled zeal. Jindal became emotionally involved with a classmate named Susan who had overcome skin cancer and struggled to cope with the suicide of a close friend. Jindal reflected in an article for a Catholic magazine (called “Beating a Demon: Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare”) that “sulfuric” scents hovered over Susan everywhere she went. In the middle of a prayer meeting, Jindal claimed that Susan collapsed and began convulsing on the floor. His prayer partners gathered together on the floor, holding hands and shouting, “Satan, I command you to leave this woman!”

While under the supposed control of satanic demons, Susan lashed out at Jindal and his friends. “Whenever I concentrated long enough to begin prayer, I felt some type of physical force distracting me,” Jindal reflected. “It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe… I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.”

Toward the conclusion of what Jindal called “the tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange and evil force,” Jindal and his friends forced Susan to read passages from the Bible. “She choked on certain passages and could not finish the sentence ‘Jesus is Lord.’ Over and over, she repeated "Jesus is L..L..LL," often ending in profanities,” Jindal wrote..............

apparently george will has NEVER been to an italian wedding

and what with out country going to hell in a handbasket, i know THE thing i'd talk about is:

Will's "final thought" on Obama speech: "I don't know when men started to hug each other, but hug they do, and look at that"

come on cbs

what the hell are you stepping into here?
i posted about cbs 'choosing' ballabon the other day. now here's MORE:

New CBS News VP tied to Jack Abramoff scheme
Muriel Kane
When it was announced last week that CBS News had hired Jeff Ballabon as a senior vice president for communications, with responsibility for "all media relations and public affairs," there were scattered complaints about Ballabon's extreme conservatism and apparent bias against Democrats.

One blogger at Huffington Post, Ira Forman, recalled that when he debated Ballabon a decade ago, "Ballabon claimed that, after his most recent job in Washington, he became convinced that Democrats are inherently bad people and Republicans are fundamentally good people."

However, what has not been widely noted is that Ballabon formerly had a close relationship with lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff, first as a client and then seemingly as a friend.

Ballabon was an executive vice president with Channel One in 1998 when it came under fire from Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL). .............

this is just because........

being one of 'the gays' is the same as being a MURDERER

(well according to this dip shite it is). once again i must wonder what are 'these people' so damn afraid of?

Republican state senator equates gays to murderers on Senate floor
by Nick Cargo
During a floor debate, Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe claimed legal and biblical precedent in his opposition to Senate Bill 88, which proposed equal access to benefits for same-sex spouses of state employees. Homosexuality should not be considered legal, and "the people" already spoke in 2006, he said, when legally recognized domestic partnerships (Referendum I) perished, and a constitutional marriage ban (Amendment 43) succeeded, by popular vote.............

............

"And I'm not saying that this is the only sin that's out there. Obviously, we have murder...we have adultery, and we don't make laws making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal. But what I'm saying that for is that all sin is equal. That sin there is as equal as any other sin that's in the Bible."

Among the verses quoted by Renfroe on the Senate floor were Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, which state that "man lying with man" is an abomination, punishable by death...........

this article almost slipped by my eyes

but in the end, i DID catch it. i don't think i was aware leonard cohen was an observant jew (i KNEW he practiced buddhism). i never saw him live. i sure would like to.

musically, he shaped my life just as much as anyone else (buffy sainte marie, joni, bessie smith, billie holiday, mississippi john hurt, pentangle, tim buckley, john fahey, fairport convention, bob dylan, joan baez, are a few others but leonard stands up in the top five)

On the Road, for Reasons Practical and Spiritual
By LARRY ROHTER
The day after his first American concert in more than 15 years, Leonard Cohen sat in a Manhattan hotel suite warily submitting to an interviewer’s questions, including one about the music in his laptop’s iTunes. In response, he played a klezmer-style Hebrew hymn, then followed it by singing along with one of George Jones’s weepy country morality tales. “I’ve had choices since the day that I was born,/There were voices that told me right from wrong,” Mr. Cohen crooned in his stern baritone. “If I had listened, no, I wouldn’t be here today,/Living and dying with the choices I’ve made.”..........




you gotta go here to hear jeff buckley's version (embedding is disabled). but DO go. it's worth it




picture:

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Leonard Cohen will embark on a two-month North American tour in April.

i am livid about what i read earlier

today in the daily news (i said the daily news NOT the new york post)
are they REALLY effing implying it's RIHANNA'S FAULT she (allegedly) got the shite beaten out of her? is that what they're REALLY saying? sounds like it to me

(can women be violent? absolutely yes. can women be idiots? absolutely yes. can women yell and scream? absolutely yes. do women ASK to be domestically abused? ABSOLUTELY NO)

Chris Brown learns anger management; could Rihanna use it too?

...............But insiders are rumbling that Chris shouldn't be taking the anger management classes alone. "Rihanna is temperamental, too," says our snitch. "They're both too hot-headed for their own good."

Adds another source: "It didn't help that Rihanna grabbed the keys out of his rented Lamborghini and threw them down the street. She knew it would really infuriate Chris, and it worked.".......................

so grabbing keys and throwing them on the street is the same thing as begging to be someone's (alleged) punching bag? NOT IN THIS EFFING LIFETIME

this is some kind of (unfunny) joke, right? they really didn't just say she deserved what she (allegedly) got, right?

this is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY cool

from ZaDiscs at youtube:
Katy Hill performed by Mei Han's Red Chamber with John Reischman and the Jaybirds at Vancouver Community College, May 2nd 2008. REDGRASS CD available at ASZA (dot) com
Featuring:
Mei Han - liuqin
John Reischman - mandolin
Trisha Gagnon - bass
Guilian Liu - pipa
Jim Nunally - guitar
Geling Jiang - sanxian
Nick Hornbuckle - banjo
Zhimin Yu - ruan
(ht: David Pescovitz at boing boing)

you know, i never thought about this

but it must be a horror. of course i think it is a horror to have to live in a country where one (if one is a WOMAN that is) has little if any rights, cannot drive, must ask their husband (or a male family member) if they can travel or even have surgery. i wouldn't last (or THEY wouldn't last) 30 seconds there

i just joined the campaign to ban men from selling lingerie in ksa on facebook

Saudi lingerie trade in a twist
By Stephanie Hancock
BBC News, Jeddah

It would be bizarre in any country to find that its lingerie shops are staffed entirely by men.

But in Saudi Arabia - an ultra-conservative nation where unmarried men and women cannot even be alone in a room together if they are not related - it is strange in the extreme.

Women, forced to negotiate their most intimate of purchases with male strangers, call the situation appalling and are demanding the system be changed.

"The way that underwear is being sold in Saudi Arabia is simply not acceptable to any population living anywhere in the modern world," says Reem Asaad, a finance lecturer at Dar al-Hikma Women's College in Jeddah, who is leading a campaign to get women working in lingerie shops rather than men...........

i don't in any way shape or form

like n.o.w. (i will NEVER forgive them for what they did and said during this past presidential election), but i don't like flush limburger even more. i fight hard with every ounce of my being to not only make people aware of the domestic violence problem but to STOP domestic violence. i have posted about the muzzammil hassan case before. what i said there and what i'm saying here is; i don't give a shite if you are muslim, catholic, jewish, jain, buddhist, baha'i, wiccan, agnostic, atheist, or whatever. domestic violence crosses ALL lines, ALL colors, ALL races, ALL religious (or non-religious) beliefs, all countries and all classes. IT MUST STOP

and so must the mouth of flush.

Ron Reagan Challenges Rush Limbaugh
By Scott Egelberg
Ron Reagan has had enough of loudmouth Rush Limbaugh spreading his lies and socially-backwards innuendo. Last week the bloviator of the golden microphone went too far while discussing the gruesome case of Muzzammil Hassan, who beheaded his wife in what was deemed an "honor killing."

Rush's response to that was inane:

That N.O.W. gang is out there saying "Ah now that’s not domestic violence, that’s just uh, that’s just uh, what'd they call it, “culturally honor killing” and this woman was gonna divorce him…it’s against the law, and, and, and, that's that's…that's his diversity."

Ron Reagan noticed this absurdity and had Kim Gandy, the President of the National Organization for Women, on his show to ask her if the organization truly does believe that this killing was not domestic violence. Gandy responded by saying, "That is an absolute outrage. Any violence against women is one of our top priorities." ..............

governor mark sanford (r. sc)

he sure as shite will PRAY for ya, but he sure as shite don't wanna take no 'colored man's' 'yankee' money

you're doin' a hell of a job

brownie booby bobby!!!

Bobby Jindal Response Panned By Pundits, Republicans And Democrats Alike
The Huffington Post News Team.

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s task tonight, to rebut President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress, was a thankless one. But it still constituted an opportunity for the Louisiana Republican to show that he could handle the national spotlight, present himself as a fresh face of the Republican Party, and stand up to the current president oratorically.

On each of these three hurdles, he came up short. Both Democrats and Republicans alike panned Jindal’s rebuttal in terms that were decidedly harsh: "amateurish," "laughable" and, most commonly, "a missed opportunity."

"After watching Jindal," one Democratic strategist emailed, "I’d pay a lot of money to be back watching a Palin speech."

"Awkward with capital A," emailed another.

The punditry was equally brutal. Part of the problem was the crux of Jindal’s address, which consisted almost entirely of red meat for conservatives. The Governor offered criticism for anything other than tax cuts and ridiculed government spending for items that are either widely supported -- "$8 billion for high-speed rail" -- or seemingly essential -- "$140 million for something called ’volcano monitoring’" (isn’t Louisiana Exhibit A in the need for natural disaster warning?)............

this is a VERY good article

i have said this before and i'll say it again. i am ALL FOR punishing terrorists (or criminals for that matter). but this is the united states. people have rights here. it's a free nation. we have a constitution and laws and rules we're bound to follow. we also agreed to follow the geneva conventions. we CANNOT keep someone locked up for years and years with NO CHARGES and NO TRIAL. if they are guilty they SHOULD 'pay', however, doesn't it say SOMEWHERE innocent UNTIL proven guilty (or is that my imagination)?

Obama’s “Humane” Guantánamo Is A Bitter Joke
-Andy Worthington
The “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where the majority of the remaining 241 prisoners have been held for seven years without charge or trial, “complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva Conventions,” according to a government official who spoke to the New York Times after reading an 85-page report prepared for President Obama by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations.

The report was commissioned by the President, on his second day in office, as part of an Executive Order dealing with the closure of Guantánamo. In it, he directed defense secretary Robert Gates to ensure that the Guantánamo prisoners were being held in conditions that comply with the Geneva Conventions regarding the humane treatment of prisoners, adding, “Such review shall be completed within 30 days and any necessary corrections implemented immediately thereafter.”

According to the government official, the report’s only recommendations for improving conditions at Guantánamo are “to increase social contact among the 16 prisoners described by the Bush administration as ‘high-value detainees,’” who are held in seclusion in Camp 7, and to allow more communal recreation time for prisoners in Camps 5 and 6.

The former, modeled on the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana, and used, initially at least, to house non-compliant prisoners and those regarded as being of significant intelligence value, was long regarded as the most oppressive of Guantánamo’s cell blocks (outside of the specific isolation blocks, including the notorious Camp Echo, where a small number of prisoners are held in permanent solitary confinement), but it soon lost its reputation after Camp 6 opened in December 2006...............

now children, play nice(ly)

or mommy will have to spank you

GOP Sen. Bunning threatens to sue fellow Republicans
Stephen C. Webster
It wasn't so long ago when one of the GOP's greatest rallying cries -- apart from keeping homosexuals away from wedding chapels -- was the elimination of frivolous lawsuits.

"Tort reform," they called it, evoking images of ambulance-chasing, money-grubbing "trial lawyers" and greedy, spoiled Americans eager to sue over so much as spilled coffee.

But really, what could be less frivolous than a little old-fashioned infighting? On Tuesday, Senator Jim Bunning threatened to sue fellow Republicans if they do not support his bid for reelection in 2010.

Bunning's threat was leveled after rumors that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was courting David Williams, president of the Kentucky State Senate, to take a shot at the incumbent senator's seat.
.............

this

is beautiful

(not an embed code to the vid from think progress, but here's one. not as good, but it will have to do)

the young turks have a say

you know i don't know if this stimulus plan

is a good thing or a bad thing or something in the middle. i'm far from being an economist. what i DO know is we're in deep deep deep shite and king george was at the helm when we started in that direction. he never swayed from the shitepile course though and NO ONE (democrats included) did anything to grab the wheel away from him. now republicans are screaming for accountabilty. well i'm screaming for it too BUT FROM KING GEORGE AND HIS ENTIRE COURT.

now shut the fuck up and take the money and make sure it gets to where it belongs

Obama Tells Certain Republican Govs to Cut the Crap
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly
President Obama hosted the nation's governors in the East Room this morning, and, among other things, announced that $15 billion to cover states' Medicaid costs would begin reaching capitals this week. The result is 20 million Americans nationwide who'll be able to keep their coverage.

But towards the end of his remarks, the president stopped looking at his notes and started responding directly to some of the recent talk about some governors rejecting some federal stimulus aid. Most notably, Govs. Jindal, Sanford, and Barbour have raised concerns about unemployment benefits for part-time workers.

Obama didn't mention any names, but he nevertheless made clear that now would be a very good time for everyone to cut the nonsense.
........................

i second this

what the f**k is faux cbs news thinking?


i wouldn't have a problem with a conservative in that position as long as that conservative was FAIR

CBS News Pick Claimed Democrats are Bad People

Ira Forman

Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council

Today, I learned that CBS News named Jeff Ballabon, a New York Republican activist, to serve as the Senior Vice President of Communications.

What is CBS thinking? This guy is very far out there with his partisan rhetoric.

A decade ago, I debated Ballabon in New York. I represented the Democratic Jewish community while he spoke on behalf of Republican Jews. During the debate, Ballabon claimed that, after his most recent job in Washington, he became convinced that Democrats are inherently bad people and Republicans are fundamentally good people.

What planet does this guy come from? It's astonishing that CBS News would name Ballabon to its senior management...........

wow the wapo discovers

gasp.............THERE ARE GAY BLOGGERS!


actually the article isn't bad at all. it is mostly about pam from pam's house blend (which i do read daily as i do americablog

wow i say to myself. these 'the gays' are sounding more and more like you and i each day.......IS THAT BECAUSE THEY AREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE JUST LIKE YOU AND I?

(yes, it is)

Gay Bloggers' Voices Rise in Chorus of Growing Political Influence

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer

Only the blogosphere, perhaps, has room for Pam Spaulding -- a black lesbian who lives in North Carolina, the only state in the South that has not banned same-sex marriage.

"California, Arizona and Florida all passed marriage amendments in November," says Spaulding, 44, an IT manager by day and a round-the-clock blogger. "All eyes are on North Carolina now." A few days ago, after reports that groups such as NC4Marriage and Christian Action League are organizing a rally in Raleigh to support "traditional marriage," Spaulding wrote on her blog, Pam's House Blend: "As predicted, the professional anti-gay forces plan to descend on NC." What she doesn't write is that, so long as she's blogging, what happens in North Carolina won't stay in the Tar Heel State.

Pam's House Blend is an influential voice in the gay political blogosphere, must-reads that include the Bilerico Project, Towleroad and AMERICAblog, each attracting a few hundred to a few thousand hits a day..............

just saw the last 3/4 of a WONDERFUL

documentary on the sundance channel


had me in tears


for the bible tells me so

they took the original article down.

where this asshole said what he did (i'm not going to repeat it, it's not only in bad taste, it's BAD KARMA). i am going to link to the NEW story where he apologizes for what he said. the new story has what he said in it. unbelievable as it is.

he's STILL an asshole though - apology or not. HOW DARE HE

Senator apologizes for Ginsburg remark
Jim Bunning said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could die within a year
ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. - Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning apologized Monday to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for saying he believes she could die within a year from pancreatic cancer.

At the same time, his planned bid for a third term in 2010 may have gotten tougher with one of Kentucky's top Republicans saying he has not ruled out a possible run.

Bunning, a Hall-of-Fame major league pitcher, who has no medical background, said during a speech Saturday that Ginsburg has "bad cancer. The kind that you don't get better from," the Courier-Journal of Louisville reported. "Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live" with pancreatic cancer.........

it looked generic

i don't think pepsico listened to calls or read people's emails. i think their sales fell through the roof. NO ONE was buying tropicana because they didn't recognize the new packaging. i for one didn't recognize it nor did i like it

Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging

By STUART ELLIOTT
IT took 24 years, but PepsiCo now has its own version of New Coke. The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and scrapping the changes made to a flagship product, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice. Redesigned packaging that was introduced in early January is being discontinued, executives plan to announce on Monday, and the previous version will be brought back in the next month.

Also returning will be the longtime Tropicana brand symbol, an orange from which a straw protrudes. The symbol, meant to evoke fresh taste, had been supplanted on the new packages by a glass of orange juice.

The about-face comes after consumers complained about the makeover in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls and clamored for a return of the original look...........

watch it!

Watch Amazing Oscar-Nominated Short "I Met the Walrus"

by: Loren Lankford, Paste Magazine
In 1969, 14-year-old Beatles fan Jerry Levitan tracked his idol, John Lennon, from a Toronto airport to his room at the King Edward Hotel. Inside, he convinced Lennon to do an impromptu interview. Thirty-eight years later, Levitan teamed with director Josh Raskin to create and edit a five-minute short film entitled I Met the Walrus based on the interview. Amazing, right? Using the interview as the actual dialogue for the film, the pair hired illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina to do a pen art work that plays off the interview as the background for the film. ..........

curious

how much proof does our government need about this corporation NOT being quite who they say they are (or their products NOT quite doing what they say they'll do nor not do)? i guess as much proof as the pentagon needs to NOT continue to contract with kbr

Diebold 'offices' listed in yellow pages are mostly Wal-Marts
Joe Byrne
Across the country, curious bloggers are calling up their local Diebold offices, and no one is answering.

Utah is among the number of states that now use a partial or fully electronic election system, and Premier Election Solutions, a subsidiary of Diebold, is the company that sold the machines to the state. To convince Utah decision-makers that Diebold was a big company with a substantial presence, Kathy Dopp, founder of UtahCountVotes.org, reported that a company representative told the decision-makers in 2006 that Diebold “has about 20 offices in Utah.” When pressed further, the representative refused to give the locations of any of the offices. In fact, the White Pages lists 18 Diebold offices.

However, when calls were made to all of these offices, only one picked up the phone. And when the addresses of offices listed under Diebold in the White Pages were visited, the addresses turned out to belong to either a Wal-Mart, a Sam's Club, or no building at all. In the end, 16 of the 18 Diebold offices in Utah listed in the White Pages were false listings. One is in Salt Lake, and the other is in Bountiful........

mcevil'sdonalds good luck and good bye is right

if you eat at mcdonald's i am BEGGING you DO NOT. do NOT ever eat at a mcdonalds again until nigel haskett gets justice. as in mcdonald's paying for his medical bills. mr haskett (while working at mcdonald's) got shot after ejecting a customer who was beating on a woman IN the mcdonald's itself.

not only is this INSANE (of mcdonald's), i really don't think they have a prayer in denying this medical claim. the bad publicity itself should be enough to get those f**kers to PAY the kid's medical bills.

McDonald's: No workers comp for employee shot protecting patron
Muriel Kane
Fast food giant McDonald's has denied workers compensation benefits to a minimum wage employee who was shot when he ejected a customer who had been beating a woman inside the restaurant.

A representative of the administrator for McDonald's workers compensation plan explained that "we have denied this claim in its entirety as it is our opinion that Mr. Haskett's injuries did not arise out of or within the course and scope of his employment."

Nigel Haskett, then aged 21, was working at a McDonald's in Little Rock, Arkansas last summer when he saw a patron, later identified as Perry Kennon, smacking a woman in the face. A surveillance video of the incident, which had been posted to YouTube, was taken down after McDonald's charged copyright infringement, but according to written descriptions of the video, Haskett tackled Kennon, threw him out, and then stood by the door to prevent him from reentering...........


joe's union review has a load more info on this story. go over and read that as well (please)

lovely!

---

Space bling: Video of eclipse from the moon

truth and justice

and the "american way"

NOT the america i know and love

Disappeared in the Name of National Security

Mohamed Farag Bashmilah

From October 2003 until May 2005, I was illegally detained by the U.S. government and held in CIA-run "black sites" with no contact with the outside world. On May 5, 2005, without explanation, my American captors removed me from my cell and cuffed, hooded, and bundled me onto a plane that delivered me to Sana'a, Yemen. I was transferred into the custody of my own government, which held me -- apparently at the behest of the United States -- until March 27, 2006, when I was finally released, never once having faced any terrorism-related charges. Since my release, the U.S. government has never explained why I was detained and has blocked all attempts to find out more about my detention.

What I do know is that the Jordanian government -- after torturing me for several days -- handed me over to a U.S. "rendition team" in Amman, which then abducted me, forced me onto a plane, and flew me to Afghanistan. During this, and several other transfers between CIA prisons, I was subjected to a brutal and deeply humiliating "preparation" ritual. I was stripped naked, dressed in a diaper, shackled, blindfolded and hooded, and then boarded onto a waiting plane. I was forced into painful positions, often reeling from the blows and kicks of the men who had "prepared" me for flight........................

this is NOT good

young girls thinking it's OK for a woman to be battered by her partner. there is NOTHING that can justify domestic violence (there are cases where it's woman on man, but that is rare indeed)

this is disturbing but not totally unexpected

i don't think ANY teenagers read my blog. in case any accidentally stumble across this posting......domestic violence is NEVER acceptable. NEVER

if you are being abused LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.

Many teens blame Rihanna, say dating violence normal
1 in 10 teens suffer abuse in romantic relationships, and many think it's often justified

By Megan Twohey and Bonnie Miller Rubin | Tribune reporters

Ed Loos, a junior at Lake Forest High School, said a common reaction among students to Chris Brown's alleged attack on Rihanna goes something like this: "Ha! She probably did something to provoke it."

In Chicago, Sullivan High School sophomore Adeola Matanmi has heard the same.

"People said, 'I would have punched her around too,' " Matanmi said. "And these were girls!"

As allegations of battery swirl around the famous couple, experts on domestic violence say the response from teenagers just a few years younger shows the desperate need to educate this age group about dating violence. Their acceptance, or even approval, of abuse in romantic relationships is not a universal reaction. But it comes at a time when 1 in 10 teenagers has suffered such abuse and females ages 16 to 24 experience the highest rates of any age group, research shows.

In recent years, some schools and youth organizations have started educating teens about the dangers of dating violence. Rhode Island and Virginia have adopted laws requiring such instruction in the public schools.....................

Related links

• Warning signs, sources of help

• Caring eyes focus on domestic violence court

• How can domestic abuse be stopped?

• One woman's struggle to escape abuse

• Her hope, and then her curse

• Courts are failing battered women

• State cuts program assisting victims of domestic violence

• Global eye to be kept on abusers

• Slain woman's family sues

• GPS seen as way to aid abuse victims

• Abusive parolees targeted

• Murder exposes flaws in parole system

• GPS may help enforce restraining orders

• Domestic violence services see cuts

• Domestic violence aid offered in victim's name

• The law didn't save her

it's NOT that the economy is funny

believe me IT'S NOT. it's just that this CLIP is funny.

Fox Business' Diamond explains to Hannity that the economy is not doing well

just read an article

where pat buchanan was spewing all sorts of racist bullshite. wasn't going to post it but now i am. why? because right after i read the buchanan drek, i read THIS:

EDITIORIAL >> Icy reception for repairmen
Madison County, the rugged mountain county south of Fayetteville through which the beautiful drive known as the Pig Trail traverses, does not make the news very often. Never would suit us better.

The Madison County Record, the sprightly weekly newspaper published at Huntsville, the county seat, broke the news first, but the nature of it guaranteed some national attention. Some 100 workers from Pennsylvania, about a third of them African Americans, came down to help the local electric cooperative restore power after the devastating ice storm last month took down just about every power pole in the county. They worked tirelessly clearing trees and putting up poles and lines in the ice and freezing rain to try to speed power to people.

For their trouble, they were harassed and threatened by roving groups of young men shouting racial epithets and pointing guns at them. The county sheriff said the young men would drive around the work teams waving Rebel flags and cursing the blacks. The workers were frightened enough to contact the sheriff’s office in nearby Washington County........

how sad is that? how effed up is that? how WHITE is that? does pat buchanan report THIS sort of thing? no, he sure as shite DOES NOT

does pat buchanan think white men do not rape black women? hmmmmmmmmmmm. doesn't he wonder why so very many black people (who were descended from american slaves) have white blood in them? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. does good ol' white boy pat think it was the slaves choice to fornicate? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Buchanan meltdown: Pundit rails against black 'illegitimacy' and 'gang rapes'
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster

When Eric Holder, Obama's Attorney General, called America a nation of "cowards" when it comes to matters of race, Patrick J. Buchanan must have taken it as a challenge.

To the man who once called Adolph Hitler "an individual of great courage," Holder's comment seemingly set a time-bomb ticking in his head. On a Thursday MSNBC broadcast, it exploded.

Seething about about crime rates among African American communities, Buchanan gave conflicting figures of black "illegitimacy" and railed about black "gang rapes." The entire episode seemed to evoke the underlying reasons why Buchanan's writing so often ends up cross-posted on ex-Klansman David Duke's Web site.

Speaking to Eric Michael Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University, Buchanan asked for a moment to "tell some truths."..............

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

this is my first glimpse

into the lives of the (immigrant) sheep herders. you bet your bottom dollar those that yell and scream about OTHER immigrants entering our country are all too happy to have their borregueros here. seems to me something is stinking really badly and it AIN'T the borregueros. at the very least this is an interesting read. at the very most, it's sad and telling about greedy hypocritical OUR SOCIETY

In Loneliness, Immigrants Tend the Flock
By DAN FROSCH
ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. — Somewhere in Wyoming’s vast, barren sagebrush country, Lorenzo Cortez Vargas pokes his head out of the rickety camper where he lives and stares into the dirt.

Mr. Vargas, a sheepherder from Chile, spends his days and nights on lonesome stretches of the Rockies, driving 2,000 sheep across Colorado and Wyoming as part of a federal temporary worker program he signed up for more than a year ago.

But like the other sheepherders, or “borregueros,” in the West, Mr. Vargas has barely any contact with his new country, where he earns $750 a month for working round the clock without a day off.

He lives alone in the crude 5-foot-by-10-foot “campito” with no running water, toilet or electricity, save for a car battery he has rigged to a small radio. A sputtering wood-burning stove is his only source of heat in winter, a collection of faded telephone cards his only connection to home.

“They never tell you exactly what it’s going to be like,” Mr. Vargas, 28, said in Spanish. “But you’ve got to stick it out here. What are you going to do?”..............

picture:

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

José Ruiz, a former sheepherder from Chile, at a “campito” in Wyoming. The harsh lives of foreign sheepherders in the American West have long been unchanged.