Saturday, March 07, 2009
king george and his merry band o' whiteboyz
30 pieces of silver? hmmmmmmmmmm
(this is my seventh posting on chiquita. i'm not even going to link to the other ones. they all say the same thing. chiquita supported BOTH sides of TWO TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS. they paid a few pence for the cloth to wipe the blood off of their hands and now they want to just walk away. i'm sickened by it. that's it in a nutshell)
Chiquita seeks dismissal of Colombia death lawsuit
By CURT ANDERSON
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Chiquita Brands International asked a judge Friday to dismiss lawsuits claiming the banana company paid Colombian paramilitary groups that killed hundreds or even thousands of people.
Lawyers for Chiquita insisted that the money it paid over a seven-year period to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia had no direct connection to massacres, kidnappings, assassinations and acts of intimidation committed by the group in banana-growing regions.
"There are no allegations that Chiquita was directly involved in any of these incidents," said Gregg Levy, an attorney for Cincinnati-based Chiquita.
The company acknowledges a subsidiary had paid the right-wing paramilitary group _ known by its Spanish acronym AUC _ and another group. But its lawyers contend the company was essentially extorted by the groups that controlled areas where its bananas are grown.
But lawyers for the Colombian plaintiffs claim in the lawsuits that Chiquita should be held liable for billions of dollars in wrongful death damages, alleging it paid both the AUC and the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The U.S. lists both as terrorist groups........
i think both of these generals are courageous
Generals share their experience with PTSD
By Larry Shaughnessy and Barbara Starr
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Army generals aren't known for talking about their feelings.
But two high-ranking officers are doing just that, hoping that by going public they can remove the stigma that many soldiers say keeps them from getting help for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Brig. General Gary S. Patton and Gen. Carter Ham have both sought counseling for the emotional trauma of their time in the Iraq war.
"One of our soldiers in that unit, Spec. Robert Unruh, took a gunshot wound to the torso, I was involved in medevacing him off the battlefield. And in a short period of time, he died before my eyes," Patton told CNN in an exclusive interview. "That's a memory [that] will stay with me the rest of my life."
Ham was the commander in Mosul when a suicide bomber blew up a mess tent. Twenty-two people died.
"The 21st of December, 2004, worst day of my life. Ever," Ham said. "To this day I still ask myself what should I have done differently, what could I have done as the commander responsible that would have perhaps saved the lives of those soldiers, sailors, civilians."....
Friday, March 06, 2009
he does what no one else can do
jon, you are one of my heroes (and yes, i am also giving credit to your writers too)
oh no they didn't
oh fuck them
(they wanted a NINE YEAR OLD GIRL to bear twins)
Catholic Church Excommunicates Mother and Doctors Over 9-Year-Old Rape Victim’s Abortion
Posted by: CaraIn Brazil, there is a horrific story of a 9-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated (h/t Falloch’s comment). It’s believed that the rape was committed by her step-father. The girl was not only pregnant at that young age, but also pregnant with twins. And so, as makes perfect sense, she had an abortion. Because she was raped, because she was much to young to have a child, and because the stress of having twins would of course have been far too much for a 9-year-old’s body to handle. And she could have died.
Now, the Catholic Church has excommunicated both the girl’s mother and the doctors who performed the abortion, which likely saved the girl’s life.
Well then. At least they didn’t excommunicate the girl, right? Maybe they decided that she was much too young to have made the decision to have the abortion on her own, or to understand what was happening. But not too young, apparently, to be forced to give birth to the twins caused by her rapist. Not too young to quite possibly die in the process.................
Conversation of the day
me (a arose is a rose): i'm sick and tired of being stupid
this is pretty damn good
Fears of a Clown
Timothy Egan
.............................
Behold: |
class
By Rachel L. Swarns
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press First Lady Michelle Obama served lunch at Miriams Kitchen in Washington on Thursday.
The homeless men and women gathered at Miriam’s Kitchen as they often do on a Thursday for a cup a coffee, a hot meal, a hair cut and some help finding a job or a place to stay.
But on this day, they received an unexpected greeting from an unexpected visitor. First Lady Michelle Obama was in the kitchen, serving up mushroom risotto and a warm welcome.
“How are you doing?” Mrs. Obama asked the astonished patrons as they lined up for risotto, steamed broccoli, fruit salad and apple-carrot muffins. “My job here is to serve you.”
Miriam’s Kitchen was the latest stop on the first lady’s getting-to-know Washington tour.
“My purpose here is to listen, learn and scoop some risotto,’’ Mrs. Obama told the group of about 50 homeless men and women. She said she hoped her visit would also encourage Americans to volunteer to help the needy during these difficult economic times.
“There is a moment in time when each and every one of us needs a helping hand,’’ Mrs. Obama said. She described Miriam’s Kitchen as “an example of what we can do as a country and a community to help folks when they’re down.”......
insanity
what i want to know is HOW THE HELL do these fuckers KEEP GETTING ELECTED?
Healthcare is 'a privilege...not a right': GOP lawmaker
David Edwards and Ron Brynaert
President Obama is set to convene a summit on reforming healthcare Thursday, and some Republicans are already taking shots. Rep. Zach Wamp (Rep-Tenn) told MSNBC's Tamron Hall that Obama's proposed healthcare plans would be a "fast march to socialism", and that he believes that healthcare is not a right because many choose not to have insurance.
"This is almost class warfare in order for him to be able to say everyone now has health care. Listen, healthcare is a privilege," said Wamp.
The MSNBC anchor was almost taken aback by the "privilege" remark and asked Wamp to explain. "If you have cancer right now do you see it as a privilege to get some treatment?"
............
my state capital
speaking of the capital, love makes a family (ct) wants us all to REPRESENT at the legislative office building today. i may stop on by after work. the following is from love makes a family:
The CT legislature’s Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing on the Marriage Codification bill on Friday, March 6, at 10am in Room 2C of the Legislative Office Building.
We want to fill the hearing room with our yellow EQUALITY stickers on Friday to show legislators and Governor Rell that Connecticut is proud of our new law allowing same-sex couples to marry.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR ALL OR PART OF THE HEARING ON FRIDAY!
SB 899, An Act Implementing the Guarantee of Equal Protections Under the Constitution of the State for Same-Sex Couples, will:
- Conform our state statutes to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kerrigan and remove all discriminatory “DOMA-like” language.
- Provide for recognition, by the state of Connecticut, of marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships from other states which provide substantially similar benefits to marriage.
- Urge other states to recognize all of Connecticut’s marriages.
- Remove demeaning language that was included in statute with the passage of the “gay rights law” in 1991.
- Clarify the status of civil unions, merging them into marriages after October 2010.
Can you make it? E-mail Matt at matt@lmfct.org and let us know. Visit www.lmfct.org to learn more.
Can’t attend? Then e-mail your legislators and urge them to support this bill! www.lmfct.org
Thursday, March 05, 2009
this is worth reading
10 Things We Didn’t Know About Food
How the authors of the new Rough Guide to Food lost their appetites for the food industry.
by George Miller and Katharine Reeve
A surprise consequence of writing a book about food was that we lost our appetite. A month in, we realised we had underestimated just how devastating the effects of our industrial food systems are on our health, animal welfare, climate change and the earth's resources. Thankfully, a few trips to some farmers markets with their good news story of artisan baking, handmade cheeses and fresh-from-the-ground veg offered the escapism we needed and helped provide a sense of perspective.
Food, lies and red tape
Overwhelmingly we found that most of us simply don't know much about food, having grown up knowing only supermarkets. In our confusion we are at the mercy of food manufacturers' aggressive marketing campaigns, especially for highly profitable "healthy" foods.
The Food Standards Agency and the EU are now challenging manufacturers' health claims. Yakult, we discovered, is essentially overpriced sweetened water with added bacteria marketed as a probiotic health drink (check the label: we naively assumed it was diluted live yoghurt!). Why spend your money on foods that are not all they're cracked up to be? Become a label checker and edit your shopping list: a good rule of thumb is the fewer and simpler the ingredients the better. .........
i've written about the chocolate industry before. never hurts to remind us about it from time to time
..........Bitter chocolate
The extent of child labour in the cocoa industry came as a shock. It's especially prevalent in the world's leading producers in West Africa. Côte d'Ivoire, the biggest grower, has more than 100,000 child workers often enduring slave labour conditions involving the use of dangerous pesticides and machetes. There's also cross-border child trafficking. The multi-billion-pound "Big Chocolate" industry hasn't shown much interest in cleaning up its supply chain. Another good reason to choose Fairtrade. .............
i'm a fan
it IS a pretty cool vid!
Death Cab for Cutie Loves Boing Boing Video (and BB!) -- and we, in Turn, All Love Animator/Artist Bill Barminski.
Posted by Xeni Jardin,
Well, this is neat. About the video above, one of our viewers/readers writes:
My name is Nick Harmer and I play the bass guitar in Death Cab for Cutie. I'm writing to you because Bill Barminski of Walter Robot fame just informed me that you'd be posting something about the video they recently completed for our song "Grapevine Fires" on Boing Boing. ............
i didn't know a thing about this practice
i knew about the practice of ostracizing menstruating women (from the house, from their families, from their husbands, etc. several cultures practice this. several cultures think women are "UNCLEAN". i'm not just talking rural third world countries either. i'm talking right here right now. second class citizens - that is if we make it to the level of citizen at all)
and oh by the way, we are your sisters, your wives, your neighbors, your aunts, your friends. WE ARE NOT UNCLEAN because we are able to give birth
Nepal's 'confined women' want change
By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Dadeldhura, western Nepal
In the darkness, a 10-day-old baby boy wails.
It is midday, but the infant has not been allowed out of this special room, separate from the rest of the house, since being brought home after birth.
Only his young mother, Basanti Devi Bhul, can touch him.
She goes out a little but cannot touch anybody else because until the 11th day after the birth, society considers her to be unclean.
"I'm not doing any work," she tells the BBC.
"I just eat dry bread, green vegetables and rice - no lentils or meat. I can't touch any pots or pans or go into the main house. I just go out to wash myself and my clothes, that's all."
This practice of confinement, known as chhaupadi, extends also to women during their monthly period.
Some sort of confinement during menstruation is common in this and other societies. But here in western Nepal it takes extreme forms, with a woman sometimes restricted to a dirty cow-shed or other special huts. .........
picture from the bbc: Besanti Devi's confinement shed is airless and dark
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
yeah, sure give this dude back his gun
Ex-cop who 'saw demon' sues to get gun, badge back
Ron Brynaert
Father Damien Karras was warned by The Exorcist in the 1973 movie "to avoid conversations with the demon," who will "lie to confuse us."
If the younger priest had moonlighted as a police officer he might have also been advised to keep any encounters of the demon kind to himself.
"A police lieutenant who once reported seeing a 'demon' at police headquarters is suing to get his gun and shield back, claiming supervisors took them from him because of his religious practices," the Associated Press reports. "Dominic Maglione, a desk officer at Brooklyn's 90th Precinct, says in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court that he is a Christian who worships at two Queens churches and prays and fasts regularly."........
how much do i love dave?
dave, you're the best. dave you're smart. dave you're funny. dave keep on keepin' on!
the lateshow with david letterman
you have until march 15th!
so get busy RIGHT NOW for the wapo's third annual peeps diorama contest. yes virginia, i think i'm going to enter this year
(rules and regs at the link below)
Power to the Peeps
The wait is over. It's Peeps season again. Welcome to our third annual Peeps Diorama Contest.
We want you to make a diorama of a famous occurrence or scene or concept. It can be a historic, current or future event. It can be a nod to pop culture. It can be an evocation of an idea or abstraction. The one rule is that all the characters in the diorama must be played by Peeps, those marshmallowy chicks and rabbits plaguing checkout lines in every convenience store this season..........
picture: "Mommie Peepest: No More Wire Hangers" by Kathye Hamilton, a semifinalist in last year's contest. (By Kathye Hamilton)
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
oh my goddess scalia
if there is any more CLEAR case than this one, i don't know it. judge benjamin not only should have recused himself, he should be punished for NOT recusing himself.
Supreme Court Divided Over Judicial Bias Case
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Supreme Court seemed divided on familiar ideological grounds today when it confronted the question of whether a judge should recuse himself in a case where one of the parties spent millions of dollars supporting his election.
The justices struggled with whether an "appearance" of bias was enough to mean a judge should recuse himself from a case and, if so, how they would write a standard that defined it.
But Justice John Paul Stevens said it was clear that the case at hand -- in which West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin refused to recuse himself and eventually cast the decisive vote in favor of a coal company whose chief executive spent $3 million to help elect him -- offered the chance to say when the line had been crossed..........
just what sort of blackmail photos IS jabba the flush holding?
Limbaugh lashes back at Steele for 'entertainer' diss
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
UPDATE (at bottom): Steele apologizes to Limbaugh
Responding to criticism by recently-elected RNC chairman Michael Steele, talk show host Rush Limbaugh tore into the party's leader, contending that Steele is actually "not the head of the Republican Party," cautioning that the chairman is off to a "shaky start."
ABC News said that Limbaugh had "practically declared war" on the Republican leadership.
"Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer," Steele told D.L. Hughley during a Saturday broadcast of CNN's D.L. Hughley Breaks the News. "Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly."..............
.............Update: Steele apologizes to Limbaugh
In an exclusive interview with Politico, RNC Chairman Michael Steele said he's sorry for his remarks about Republican talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
"My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh," Steele said. "I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. ... There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership."
"I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking," he said. "It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people ... want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not."................
(I'M SICK TO THE PIT OF MY STOMACH)
and more from americablog
Dem party chair: Steele's apology proves Limbaugh is leading force behind GOP
John Aravosis (DC)
Democratic National Committee chair, Governor Tim Kaine, just released the following statement:
Kaine Statement: Steele Apology to Rush Limbaugh Proves the Point:
Limbaugh is Leading Force behind Republican Party
Washington, DC – On the same day GOP Chairman Michael Steele apologized to conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh for courageously challenging Limbaugh’s role as leader of the Republican Party calling his show “incendiary” and “ugly,” Governor Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued the following statement calling on Republicans in Washington to stop following Rush Limbaugh’s lead:
“I was briefly encouraged by the courageous comments made my counterpart in the Republican Party over the weekend challenging Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party and referring to his show as ‘incendiary’ and ‘ugly.’ However, Chairman Steele’s reversal this evening and his apology to Limbaugh proves the unfortunate point that Limbaugh is the leading force behind the Republican Party, its politics and its obstruction of President Obama’s agenda in Washington. Just this weekend, Rush Limbaugh repeated his claim that he is rooting for the President to fail. The last time Rush Limbaugh said he wanted the President to fail, virtually every single Republican in Congress followed his lead and voted against the President’s plan to create or save 3.5 million jobs................
after the big storm yesterday (i worked from my toasty living room)
Rove: Bush administration 'fulfilled' its Katrina responsibilities
David Edwards and John Byrne
Don't be surprised if this causes you to spill your coffee. When pundits began to critique the recent speech of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in an ABC News green room on Sunday, former Bush adviser Karl Rove declared that the federal government met its responsibilities with regard to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
The following exchange appears on the video below at 2:11.
"With all due respect, the government official who was responsible for managing Katrina under the Stafford Act was the governor of Louisiana and she lost office in large measure due to the poor quality of her performance," Rove quipped.
............................
ummmmmmmm duh
Post-9/11 Memos Show More Bush-Era Legal Errors
Washington Post Staff Writers
The number of major legal errors committed by Bush administration lawyers during the formulation of its early counterterrorism policies was far greater than previously known, according to internal Bush administration documents released for the first time by the Justice Department yesterday. Those policies were based on at least 10 legal opinions conferring broad powers on the president that the Justice Department later deemed flawed and ordered withdrawn, including several approving the military's search, detention or trial of civilians in the United States without congressional input, according to the documents..........
Monday, March 02, 2009
oh wow wow wow
What do you get when you cross Ray Charles and the Beach Boys?
thanks to jazz from hell for originally posting this RAY CHARLES and the beach boys. sail on sailor (wow wow wow)
i made a new facebook group
oh my goddess he IS a giant dick (but i got a new hero out of this)
i cannot believe he (the GIANT DICK armey) said that and i cannot believe matthews did NOT say one effing word (well he did say something about prattle at the end, but that was way too little way too late)
why is flush limburger being listened to? what sorts of pictures does he possess of the republicans with what kinds of animals? that is the ONLY reason i can think anyone would grovel (much less listen) to him
oh and a big fat shout out to all us CHICKS WHO PRATTLE!
(ht: greatscat!)
don't be fooled
UPDATE:
Playboy has apparently taken down its story. The Atlantic's Megan McArdle has the full text.
The link between Santelli and the so-called astroturfing groups "is potentially libelous, which is, I assume, why the article disappeared this morning," wrote McArdle.
"If I were Santelli, I'd sue. Aside from the fact that I have absolutely no reason to question Santelli's sincerity, I find it pretty hard to believe that any private group would be willing to front enough money to make it worth a television correspondent's while to risk all his future salary payments."
A phone call to Playboy media relations went unreturned late Monday.
Stephen C. Webster contributed to this report.
these aren't 'ordinary' citizens protesting. they're (allegedly of course) the voices of big big big bid-nez
i'm very apt to believe it too!
(and who knew playboy published such things? i sure didn't. i'm still not going to click over there though. it's the PRINCIPAL of what it is in general. i just can't)
Bloggers charge 'Tea Party' anti-stimulus protests are corporate front
Muriel Kane
When a few hundred protesters showed up in each of some 30 or 40 cities nationwide on Friday to object to President Obama's stimulus plan, they claimed that the well-coordinated protests had arisen spontaneously in response to a tirade against mortgage bailouts, delivered just over a week earlier, on February 19, by CNBC's Rick Santelli..........
...................Now fresh revelations suggest that the skepticism may be well-placed. Mark Ames and Yasha Levine allege in their blog at Playboy.com that the protests were planned well in advance, coordinated by old-line anti-tax organizations, and funded by right-wing corporate interests.
"What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s 'tea party' rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine," they write, "from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called 'astroturfing') to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape...............
if you're in the mood to read
New Yorker Publishes Part Of Unfinished Wallace Novel
By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
When David Foster Wallace killed himself last September, his death shocked and saddened the literary world -- and provoked immediate speculation about what posthumous work might emerge.
This week's New Yorker offers at least a partial answer to that question. In a pile on Wallace's Claremont, Calif., desk when he died were nearly 200 pages from an unfinished novel called "The Pale King," on which the author of "Infinite Jest" had worked for years. Much more material related to the novel turned up in Wallace's files.
The magazine, due on newsstands today, is publishing a short excerpt from the novel as well as a long article on Wallace by D.T. Max that tells the story of the unfinished work. .......
and here's the new yorker piece:
The Unfinished
David Foster Wallace’s struggle to surpass “Infinite Jest.”
by D. T. Max
The writer David Foster Wallace committed suicide on September 12th of last year. His wife, Karen Green, came home to find that he had hanged himself on the patio of their house, in Claremont, California. For many months, Wallace had been in a deep depression. The condition had first been diagnosed when he was an undergraduate at Amherst College, in the early eighties; ever since, he had taken medication to manage its symptoms. During this time, he produced two long novels, three collections of short stories, two books of essays and reporting, and “Everything and More,” a history of infinity. Depression often figured in his work..............
Sunday, March 01, 2009
the coolest fish EVER
from the youtube page:
MBARI researchers Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler used video taken by unmanned, undersea robots called remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to study barreleye fish in the deep waters just offshore of Central California. At depths of 600 to 800 meters (2,000 to 2,600 feet) below the surface, the ROV cameras typically showed these fish hanging motionless in the water, their eyes glowing a vivid green in the ROV's bright lights. The ROV video also revealed a previously undescribed feature of these fish--its eyes are surrounded by a transparent, fluid-filled shield that covers the top of the fish's head.
This video is narrated by senior scientist Bruce Robison.
For more on this story, see the news page on MBARIs web site at http://www.mbari.org
i haven't read this yet,
Sean Williams's Darwinian religion novel CROOKED LETTER now free download
Posted by Cory Doctorow
if you go to the link above, boing boing has the link to the pdf download
faux 'news' - you gotta love 'em!
although i don't work for the defense industry
Report: Obama helicopter security breached
Pa. company says blueprints for Marine One found at Iran IP address
NBC News and msnbc.com
A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter, NBC affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh reported Saturday.
Employees of Tiversa, a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology, reportedly found engineering and communications information about Marine One at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.
Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, told WPXI-TV: "We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter.".............
they really ARE a bunch o' slime buckets
i hated practically EVERYTHING king george did, but i never WISHED him ill or harm in any way shape or form. i WANTED to be proven wrong (of course i wasn't though)
Santorum At CPAC: ‘Absolutely We Hope That’ Obama Fails, ‘I Believe His Policies Will Fail’
i'm torn here
Court: Va. man owns 1776 copy of Declaration
Tech entrepreneur purchased document from a book dealer for $475,000
By Michael Felberbaum
RICHMOND, Va. - A rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence belongs to a Virginia technology entrepreneur, not the state of Maine, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday. Richard Adams Jr. of Fairfax County purchased the document from a London book dealer in 2001 for $475,000. But the state of Maine claimed it belongs to the town of Wiscasset, where it was kept by the town clerk in 1776.
Virginia's high court said that a lower court did not err in its ruling in Adams' favor because Maine didn't prove the document was ever an official town record and that Adams had superior title to the print.
Adams' attorney, Robert K. Richardson, has argued that Wiscasset's town clerk copied the text of the Declaration of Independence into the town's record books on Nov. 10, 1776. It's that transcription, not the document upon which it was based, that is the official town record, Richardson said..........