kpete
kpete's JournalBut We Painted All Those Schools
But We Painted All Those SchoolsIt's difficult to describe the madness of that era, when invading a country in order, it seemed, to provide fresh coats of paint for their schools made sense.
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2013/03/but-we-painted-all-those-schools.html
LARA JAKES MARCH 6, 2013, 8:30 AM 2218
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ten years and $60 billion in American taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation were worth the cost.
In his final report to Congress, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen’s conclusion was all too clear: Since the invasion a decade ago this month, the U.S. has spent too much money in Iraq for too few results.
The reconstruction effort “grew to a size much larger than was ever anticipated,” Bowen told The Associated Press in a preview of his last audit of U.S. funds spent in Iraq, to be released Wednesday. “Not enough was accomplished for the size of the funds expended.”
In interviews with Bowen, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the U.S. funding “could have brought great change in Iraq” but fell short too often. “There was misspending of money,” said al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim whose sect makes up about 60 percent of Iraq’s population.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/report-too-much-money-spent-in-iraq-for-too-few-results.php?ref=fpblg
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/money-spent-iraq-results-18663079
Cheney Now Officially On Maureen Dowd's Enemie's List
Repent, Dick CheneyBy MAUREEN DOWD
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Did he change, after the shock to his body of so many heart procedures and the shock to his mind of 9/11? Or was he the same person, patiently playing the courtier, once code-named “Backseat” by the Secret Service, until he found the perfect oblivious frontman who would allow him to unleash his harebrained, dictatorial impulses?
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Cheney still hearts waterboarding. “Are you going to trade the lives of a number of people because you want to preserve your honor?” he asked, his voice dripping with contempt.
“I don’t lie awake at night thinking, gee, what are they going to say about me?” he sums up.
They’re going to say you were a misguided powermonger who, in a paranoid spasm, led this nation into an unthinkable calamity. Sleep on that.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinion/dowd-repent-dick-cheney.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
How Mississippi Tackles Homelessness
Mornning media FAIL: how Mississippi tackles homelessness. LOL.
The caption says something about the Mississippi Karate Association, and doesn’t appear to have anything to do with “tackling homelessness.” File this one under unfortunate headline/photo juxtapositions.
http://www.gulflive.com/news/
http://southernbeale.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/how-mississippi-tackles-homelessness/
Reality Check For "Moderates" - Indisputable Visual Proof That The System is Rigged
TUE MAR 05, 2013 AT 11:58 PM PST
Reality Check For "Moderates" - Indisputable Visual Proof That The System is Rigged
by Ray Pensado
We live in a de facto Corporatocracy (Plutocracy) where corporatist cartel control all the levers of power, including the Republican and Democratic party establishments.
As much as the situation for the average U.S. citizen has deteriorated, it is getting worse by the day at a faster and faster pace. The collusion between these corporatist cartels and the puppet politicians of both parties is helping bring about an increasingly dystopian society for the majority of the population.
It is true that because of the propagandist effects of a totally bought off mainstream media, some middle class people still believe that we live in a normal society where the rule of law applies equally to all. But that is only an illusion; a lie some people have come to accept as the result of being exposed to the mind-numbing and incredibly harmful effects of the American mainstream media--the most effective and powerful propaganda machine the world has ever seen.
Think about that. The top 20 percent owns 85 % of the country's wealth, while the bottom 40 percent percent owns close to zero, as the middle class continues to be squeezed. I understand that some "moderates" may want to wait until the top one percent owns almost 90 percent of the wealth to maybe start thinking that there may be a problem, but at that point it will be too late. Unless people WAKE TFU, we will continue heading towards neo-feudalism at a faster and faster pace.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/06/1191960/-Reality-Check-For-Moderates-Indisputable-Visual-Proof-That-The-System-is-Rigged
Freedom...
There’s a moment here – about a minute in – when you see chimps who have lived almost all their lives in research cages finally see the world God made them for – either again or for the first time. Some are as old as 50. The look on their faces is simply one of awe. Andri Antoniades sets the scene:
http://www.chimphaven.org/
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/03/05/your-tuesday-cry-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Dish%29
still crying, kpete
Walmart shopper exercises her 2nd Amendement rights after her coupon is rejected
Woman arrested following gun altercation at Wal-Mart
On March 1, Mary Frances Alday, 61, of Crawfordville was arrested for four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of battery following an altercation at Wal-Mart that included four store employees.
Alday became verbally abusive toward a 48-year-old female employee when the employee explained that she could not use an Internet coupon. Alday struck the assistant manager with a shopping cart and was escorted out of the store. Alday went to her vehicle and retrieved a firearm in a holster. She removed the firearm from the holster and began waving it at the victim and three other store employees who had joined the investigation.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/05/1191768/-Walmart-shopper-exercises-her-2nd-Amendement-rights-after-her-coupon-is-rejected
http://www.wcso.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1565&Itemid=1
Guns are just so passé
Drones used by militaries around the world come in a variety of shapes and sizes. For instance:
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76 countries have UAVs of some kind, up from 41 countries in 2005. Here's a map and list from the 58-page document:
LOTS, LOTS MORE DRONES:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/drones-explained
KRUGMAN: I should have been ready to see this zombie attack me during the debate, but I wasn’t.
March 5, 2013, 9:46 am11 Comments
The Life Expectancy Zombie
So, one of the moments in my debate with JoScar — which wasn’t as bad as I felt, but should have gone much better — was my “wow” when JS raised the old line that life expectancy was 62 when Social Security started, so the program was no big deal.
Well, that’s still a “wow” thing: it’s incredible that people are still making that argument; when someone says something like that, he’s just proved himself ignorant, disingenuous, or both.
Let me just turn this over to the Social Security administration’s post on the issue:
http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
As Table 1 shows, the majority of Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65, and those who did live to 65 could look forward to collecting benefits for many years into the future. So we can observe that for men, for example, almost 54% of the them could expect to live to age 65 if they survived to age 21, and men who attained age 65 could expect to collect Social Security benefits for almost 13 years (and the numbers are even higher for women).
Also, it should be noted that there were already 7.8 million Americans age 65 or older in 1935 (cf. Table 2), so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.3 million Americans age 65 or older by 1940 (when monthly benefits started). So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits.
I should have been ready to see this zombie attack me during the debate, but I wasn’t. Silly me. Well, as a friend used to say, none of us are human.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/the-life-expectancy-zombie/
John Kerry sets a pick on Dennis Rodman
Source: Politico
Secretary of State John Kerry - who’s 6’ 4” tall - could hold his own against former NBA great Dennis Rodman better than your average diplomat.
But Kerry says he would prefer that Rodman — who recently took a trip to North Korea and asked President Barack Obama to call that country’s dictator, Kim Jong Un — stay on the bench.
“You know what?” Kerry said in an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “Dennis Rodman was a great basketball player, and as a diplomat, he was a great basketball player. And that’s where we’ll leave it.”
(PHOTOS: Dennis Rodman, Kim Jong Un in North Korea)
The flamboyant onetime NBA star - who has come under fire for the visit and calling Kim his “friend” - has defended his trip to the hermetic and impoverished nation by saying he was “not apologizing” for the dictator,
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/john-kerry-sets-a-pick-on-rodman-88421.html#ixzz2MgAkbuWp
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