February 14, 2013

BREAKING: AP Sources: American Airlines and US Airways agree to merge and create world's biggest air

The long anticipated merger has begun


https://twitter.com/AP/statuses/301852639367401472?source=email_rt_mc_body



http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/826621?source=email_rt_mc_readmore

This in from the NYTimes:
BREAKING NEWS Wednesday, February 13, 2013 8:04 PM EST
Boards of American and US Airways Are Said to Approve a Merger
Ending a yearlong courtship by US Airways, American Airlines agreed on Wednesday to merge with the smaller carrier, paving the way for the creation of the nation’s largest airline.
The boards of both companies met separately to approve the combination, according to two people with knowledge of the vote. A merger would bolster American’s domestic footprint, strengthen its presence in the Northeast and give it a bigger network to attract business travelers and corporate accounts.
The merger, the details of which will be announced Thursday morning, would create a rival with the size and breadth to compete against United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which have both grown through mergers of their own in recent years and are currently the biggest.

February 13, 2013

A letter from Kim Jong-un - delivered by Andy Borowitz

YONGYANG (The Borowitz Report)—Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, has issued the following letter to the citizens of the world:

Dear World People:

For decades, North Korea was threatened by hostile foes with nuclear weapons. With our safety constantly at risk from violent intruders, we asked: How can we possibly defend ourselves? In the immortal words of my Dad, the glorious Kim Jong-il: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.”

I sleep safely at night knowing that a loaded nuclear silo is as close as the launch button on my nightstand. And now I understand what Dad, in his genius, instinctively knew: that the world will not be truly safe until every nation has nuclear weapons.

Perhaps because these weapons are so necessary to our defense, the U.S. government, with its lapdogs at the United Nations, is plotting to take them away from us. But as Dad used to say, “When they come for our nukes….”

That is why today I am founding the Nuclear Retaliation Association to defend the sovereign right of every nation on the planet to engulf that planet in a hellish inferno. If you join today, we will waive the initiation fee and send you this bumper sticker: “Nuclear weapons don’t kill people. People kill people who don’t have nuclear weapons.”

Peace out,

Kim Jong-un

Get the Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/02/a-letter-from-kim-jong-un.html#ixzz2KolJDc00

February 13, 2013

Asheville is SOOO excited. Obama is there and said he may retire in Asheville. Says he LOVES IT SO.

The day after the SOTU our President is on the job in Asheville.


Air Force One flying over Biltmore






Here are the articles from the Asheville Citizen Times

http://cmsimg.citizen-times.com//apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B0&Date=20130213&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=130213012&

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20130213/NEWS01/130213012/Obama-visit-updates-Air-Force-One-lands-roads-close

http://www.ashvegas.com/obama-in-asheville-part-2-president-says-he-might-retire-here



and here is my post about him and 12 Bones Restaurant from around Christmas time.
Apparently dark bespectacled folks picked up take out from there and the bill was $ 108. Must have been our President eating BBQ yet again

http://www.democraticunderground.com/103612743

February 13, 2013

The Disastrous Influence of Pope Benedict XVI by John Cassidy / The New Yorker

The Disastrous Influence of Pope Benedict XVI
by John Cassidy
Spare me any more reverential coverage about Pope Benedict XVI and his decision to give up his office. On a personal level, I wish him well. At the age of eighty-five and increasingly infirm, he surely deserves a rest. But as far as his record goes, he can’t leave office a moment too soon. His lengthy tenure at the Vatican, which included more than twenty years as the Catholic Church’s chief theological enforcer before he became Pope, in 2005, has been little short of disastrous. By setting its face against the modern world in general, and by dragging its feet in response to one of the worst scandals since the Reformation, Benedict’s Vatican has called the Church’s future into question, needlessly alienating countless people around the world who were brought up in its teachings.

Not that it matters much, but you can count me among them. When I was a boy, in Leeds, West Yorkshire, the nuns at Sacred Heart Primary School taught my classmates and me the New Testament from slim paperbacks with embossed navy-blue covers. We each got four of them: “The Good News According to Luke,” The Good News According to Matthew,” “The Good News According to Mark,” and “The Good News According to John.” Of the four gospels, the most thumbed, by far, were those of Luke, which contains many of Jesus’s parables, and Matthew, which features the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth…”

It was the early seventies, an era of hope and optimism for many Catholics. Following the lengthy Second Vatican Council, called by Pope John XXIII in 1959, the Church had made a determined effort to modernize some of its doctrines and practices. Masses, which for many centuries had been confined to Latin, were now celebrated in other languages. Priests, who traditionally faced the altar during services, had been instructed to face their congregations and invite them to participate. In place of a stultifying focus on ancient dogmas and ceremonies, there was a return to the actual teachings of Jesus, which were being interpreted in increasingly liberal and egalitarian ways, as evidenced by the words of a popular folk hymn we used to sing, a few lines of which I recount from memory:
He sent me to give the Good News to the poor.
Tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more.
Tell blind people that they can see,
And set the downtrodden free.

For the entire piece go here:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/02/good-riddance-to-pope-benedict-he-was-a-disaster.html#ixzz2KnTQSluz

February 13, 2013

YEAH, Yeah, yeah. We were granted the payment for our efforts. TONIGHT could have been Romney.

I'm sitting here listening to one who gets it. OUR PRESIDENT.
I'm sitting here watching one who has suggestions and hopes and understanding - and the power to get them worked for and understood
The more I hear, the more I know he is our Champion.

I know we have reasons to not understand decisions and choices he makes.
But honest to God
I need to simply trust
He is what we have been offered, He is who we worked to elect, He is who represents us. Gracias a Dios.

The sheer thought of the alternative makes me almost go and be sick.
I'll instead reserve that response to those who are about to come and attempt to dissuade his ideas to be what's good for this country.

I possibly am doing a lousy job writing this up.
But really - we on DU fought hard, and got this man back in office, and emotion is the proper and grateful response.

February 13, 2013

First time here, hope it's right. If you miss eating french fries...

and are tired of celery do this:

cut broccoli into the usual florets. Shake it in a plastic bag with a T or less of olive oil depending on how much of it you are using.
Sprinkle with a little salt after you put it in your small toaster oven at 400 for about 35 - 40 min til it's good and crisped.

I just ate that, and I'm amazed at how good it is. And I don't see how it could have any more calories than celery.
And it's winter, and it's warm. Like real food ought to be in my mind.

February 12, 2013

This video made me cry - selfishly. It shows the destruction of what I posted about a month ago

Here is the video of the destruction:

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013302120024
what makes me sad is that history is being eradicated.

Here's the post I made after Christmas:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/103612782

The post wasn't a real show stopper. But the fact that I was able to crawl all over the place and take the photos, and now it's all destroyed makes me sad and I want some company in the mourning.

February 12, 2013

Be amazed: Tea Party rebuttal to the SOTU - they are so smart, they can do it ahead of time-Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a break with tradition, Tea Party Republicans issued their official rebuttal to tonight’s State of the Union address a full twelve hours before President Obama was scheduled to deliver it.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) appeared on Fox News Channel at 9 A.M. (E.T.) to read the rebuttal, which some historians called the most brutal response ever to a Presidential speech that had not yet been made.
Calling Mr. Obama’s speech “full of the same empty promises and bald-faced lies we’ve come to expect,” Sen. Paul added that “tonight Barack Obama made his case: for his own impeachment.”
Laced with sarcasm and invective, Sen. Paul’s rebuttal eviscerated Mr. Obama’s not-yet-given speech, ending with a call for the President to be tried for treason and banished from the U.S.

Roger Ailes, President of Fox News Channel, defended the decision to air a blistering attack on a speech that Mr. Obama was not scheduled to give for another twelve hours: “Our viewers are very unlikely to sit through Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Airing the rebuttal beforehand gives them a sense of what they would have thought was reprehensible about it.”

For his part, Sen. Paul made no apologies for calling a speech he had never actually heard “worthy of President Ahmadinejad.” “Look, if I had waited to listen to the speech, I bet I would have hated it even more.”

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/02/tea-party-issues-scathing-rebuttal-to-state-of-union-twelve-hours-before-speech.html#ixzz2Kh5Og8dn

February 12, 2013

Hemp! Hemp! Hurrah.

..........just showin'............

February 11, 2013

This Future Map Of The United States Is Way Cooler Than Any Current Map Of The United States

America's economy could be growing more quickly if we just focused on the right things—like high speed rail, for example. It takes cars off the road, creates thousands of jobs, makes travel easier, etc. One artist decided to draw up his vision of one potential future. We hope people consider it.





This currently is just a designer's dream. It can become a reality though, if you sign the official White House petition. It needs 100,000 signatures in order to get an official response

where I found it:

http://www.upworthy.com/this-future-map-of-the-united-states-is-way-cooler-than-any-current-map-of-the-u?c=upw1