January 13, 2012

Chip Chip Chipping on Romney's Lead - South Carolina Antics (cartoon)

January 13, 2012

John Mc Cain critical of SCOTUS on Letterman

I can't but paraphrase, it just happened. But as I understood it to be he called the Supremes ignorant of what campaigns are all about.
He found great fault with the fact that our elections can now be bought.
And he said that the end result of their erroneous decision about giving corporations the power to buy elections is that there will be some catastrophe.

He indicated that in his opinion there will be the emergence of a third party in the future.

All told I got the impression that it was a veiled criticism of what his party has become, and a plain and unadulterated criticism of the Supreme Court decision that corporations are people.

I was quite surprised at his candor.
Still can't stand him, though.

January 13, 2012

Was it to be expected? Stephen Colbert is looking into a Presidential Run

Just now on the Ed Show:

We only had the fake clowns so far, I suppose the real ones are possibly on the way.

January 12, 2012

Alan Grayson - ruminating in his inimitable way about Governor Rick Perry

A letter I just found in my email inbox from Alan Grayson, I am amused, but not laughing. -

A few days ago, Governor Perry said: “I would send troops back into Iraq.” (He pronounced it “Eye-rack.”) And he gave a thought-provoking rationale: that the end of that occupation means that “every young man that [sic] lost his life in that country will have been for nothing.”

Well, I would like to do what Albert Einstein called a “thought experiment,” which is thinking through a hypothetical situation in order to examine its consequences.

Suppose, hypothetically, that there were a country in the Western Hemisphere called “Amurricuh,” and a country in the Middle East called “Irab.” Lots of Irabs live in Irab.
Suppose, hypothetically, that a terrorist group destroys two very large buildings in Amurricuh, and kills a couple of thousand Amurricuns in the process. Suppose, also, that the leaders of that group reside not in Irab, but rather (with apologies to Herman Cain) in “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan.” (Yes, this man once led in the polls to become the Republican candidate for President.) Suppose that less than 1000 Special Forces Amurricun troops overthrow the government of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan, and then force the leaders of that terrorist group out of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan. But not to Irab; to a totally different country called “Mohenjo-Daro.”

Are you still with me? Now this hypothetical gets really complicated. Suppose that the leader of Amurricuh believes, regarding the leader of Irab, that “he tried to kill my Daddy.” Real revenge stuff, like something out of “The Godfather.” Anyway, let’s suppose that the leader of Amurricuh then tries to stir his people up against the leader of Irab by saying that the leader of Irab supported the terrorists who destroyed those two large buildings. (A little irony here -- the leader of the terrorists always refers to the leader of Irab as “the infidel,” and is, in fact, his sworn and lifelong enemy.) Let’s also suppose that the leader of Amurricuh claims that the leader of Irab is planning to attack more large buildings in Amurricuh, with a fleet of giant dirigibles filled with hydrogen. “We can’t let the smoking gun be a smoking balloon,” his national security chief says. (Hypothetically, an oil company named Chev-Ron named an oil tanker after her, but that is neither here nor there.) Suppose that Amurricuh’s Minister of “Defense” says that an invasion of Irab will pay for itself, and that Irabs will greet Amurricun soldiers as liberators.

I know that this is really farfetched. But just suppose.

OK, so Amurricun forces invade Irab, and overthrow the leader of Irab. They capture him, and he is executed. But suppose that the Irabi government collapses in the process, that certain groups use this occupation as an excuse for ethnic cleansing, that approximately 500,000 Irabs die, and two or three million become refugees. Also, no electricity and no clean water for millions of Irabs, for years. Oh, and the Amurricuns tell the Irabs that Irab needs to turn over its oil wealth to foreign oil companies for “development.”

Suppose also that the Amurricun forces find no dirigibles, and no hydrogen. Not even any helium. Like, nothing. And, of course, no evidence that the leader of Irab ever supported the leader of the terrorists, because actually, they despised each other.

Now let’s suppose that for several years, Amurricun soldiers look for dirigibles that aren’t there, which makes them very hard to find, while Irab becomes just as dangerous for Irabs as Somalia is for Somalis. Let’s also suppose that during that time, the war in Irab costs the Amurricun people four trillion frogskins (so called because the currency is green). This is more than 13,000 frogskins per Amurricun, and roughly eight percent of Amurricuh’s net worth as a nation, accumulated over two centuries.

Also, let’s suppose that almost two million Amurricun soldiers eventually get shipped to Irab, and 250,000 return from Irab with permanent brain abnormalities. Hypothetically.

Let’s suppose that the Irabs eventually get their act together, and have an election. And every major party in that Irabi election pledges to get the Amurricun forces out of the country, for the simple reason that Irab has become a shambles since they came. Plus no one likes to have his country occupied by a foreign army, comprising soldiers of foreign races and faiths, who doesn’t speak his language (the language of Irabic). Just suppose.

OK, so the Irabs negotiate an agreement with the Amurricuns, in which the Amurricuns insist on staying for three more years. The Irabs say, “whatever,” but at least they know the Amurricuns are going to leave.

Now let’s suppose that during this three-year waiting period, 100,000 Amurricun soldiers are target practice for IEDs. More deaths, lots and lots of head injuries.

Meanwhile, the leader of a hypothetical country called “France” decides to remove the leader of another hypothetical country called “Libya.” He accomplishes this without landing a single “French” soldier in “Libya.” The total cost of this operation for “France” is 413 million frogskins, WHICH IS LESS THAN THE COST OF THE WAR IN IRAB EVERY SINGLE DAY. (Please excuse the capitalization. I just find hypotheticals incredibly exciting.)

So the Amurricun troops leave, almost nine years after the occupation began. Hypothetically, there is a governor of a rather large Southern state who wants to be President of the Confederacy, but finds out that it is 150 years too late for that. His name is Governor Cretin. (That’s pronounced “Creh-Teen,” with a Southern drawl. And it’s really wrong of you to make fun of his good family name.) Governor Cretin says that God has told him to run for President of Amurricah, but he never says which aspect of God – the Father, the Son, or . . . what’s that third one? Oops.

Now let’s suppose that Governor Cretin is in a Presidential debate, and he says that Amurricuh must re-invade Irab. Governor Cretin ignores all lies about how Irab helped the terrorists attack Amurricuh; the dirigibles that weren’t there; the Irabs who died, were injured, or lost their homes; the enormous expense of the occupation; the terrible effect it had on Amurricuh’s reputation in the world; and the rather unflattering comparison to what “France” was able to accomplish for microscopically less in money and blood. Forgetting all of that, he says that we must throw good lives after bad, because if not, then all of those earlier deaths “will have been for nothing.”

And that is the sad, sad conclusion of this thought experiment. Maybe they were lost for nothing. Maybe they were.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

January 12, 2012

OH Happy Day

FIRST I need to

with the new text abilities on top of the message text.

I'm making my way through them

testing them out, and getting familiar with them.

This is so easy that I can do it with no trouble at all, and that's a mouthful.

January 11, 2012

Greek Crisis Has Pharmacists Pleading for Aspirin as Drug Supply Dries Up

Greek Crisis Has Pharmacists Pleading for Aspirin as Drug Supply Dries Up

By Naomi Kresge - Jan 10, 2012 5:01 PM ET

For patients and pharmacists in financially stricken Greece, even finding aspirin has turned into a headache.

Mina Mavrou, who runs a pharmacy in a middle-class Athens suburb, spends hours each day pleading with drugmakers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients. Life-saving drugs such as Sanofi (SAN)’s blood-thinner Clexane and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s asthma inhaler Flixotide often appear as lines of crimson data on pharmacists’ computer screens, meaning the products aren’t in stock or that pharmacists can’t order as many units as they need.

“When we see red, we want to cry,” Mavrou said. “The situation is worsening day by day.”

The 12,000 pharmacies that dot almost every street corner in Greek cities are the damaged capillaries of a complex system for getting treatment to patients. The Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists reports shortages of almost half the country’s 500 most-used medicines. Even when drugs are available, pharmacists often must foot the bill up front, or patients simply do without.

The financial crisis is brewing a “Greek tragedy” of slowing access to medical care and worsening outcomes for patients, Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in an October article in The Lancet.

The Greek Ministry of Health didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
‘Many Difficulties’

“It would be unrealistic to deny that there are many difficulties regarding all public services due to the financial crisis,” Nicolaos Polyzos, secretary general of the Ministry of Health, wrote in a response to McKee’s article posted on the ministry’s website. “However, this cannot justify characterizing the current picture of (the) health sector in Greece as a ‘tragedy.’”


source and the rest:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-10/greek-crisis-has-pharmacists-pleading-for-aspirin-as-drug-supply-dries-up.html

January 11, 2012

Dang....Jury Duty Problem...

I went to read up on the situation, and then suddenly my only option was to bow out of service, and I was not able to vote.
Maybe just a fluke. All 25 other times there was no problem with my giving my opinion.

January 11, 2012

Winter in the South - What's outside my door today

January 10, 2012

Chris Hedges: The Gospel of the Penniless, Jobless, Marginalized and Despised

Mr. Fish

"The Cross and the Lynching Tree are separated by nearly two thousand years," James Cone writes in his new book, "The Cross and the Lynching Tree." ...

"One is the universal symbol of the Christian faith; the other is the quintessential symbol of black oppression in America. Though both are symbols of death, one represents a message of hope and salvation, while the other signifies the negation of that message by white supremacy. Despite the obvious similarities between Jesus' death on the cross and the death of thousands of black men and women strung up to die on a lamp post or tree, relatively few people, apart from the black poets, novelists, and other reality-seeing artists, have explored the symbolic connections. Yet, I believe this is the challenge we must face. What is at stake is the credibility and the promise of the Christian gospel and the hope that we may heal the wounds of racial violence that continue to divide our churches and our society."

So begins James Cone, perhaps the most important contemporary theologian in America, who has spent a lifetime pointing out the hypocrisy and mendacity of the white church and white-dominated society while lifting up and exalting the voices of the oppressed. He writes out of his experience as an African-American growing up in segregated Arkansas and his close association with the Black Power movement. But what is more important is that he writes out of a deep religious conviction, one I share, that the true power of the Christian gospel is its unambiguous call for liberation from forces of oppression and for a fierce and uncompromising condemnation of all who oppress.

Cone, who teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, writes on behalf of all those whom the Salvadoran theologian and martyr Ignacio Ellacuría called "the crucified peoples of history." He writes for the forgotten and abused, the marginalized and the despised. He writes for those who are penniless, jobless, landless and without political or social power. He writes for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and those who are transgender. He writes for undocumented farmworkers toiling in misery in the nation's agricultural fields. He writes for Muslims who live under the terror of war and empire in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he writes for us. He understands that until white Americans can see the cross and the lynching tree together, "until we can identify Christ with a 'recrucified' black-body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy."


for the rest go to:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Gospel-of-the-Penniles-by-Chris-Hedges-120109-178.html

January 10, 2012

U.S. Inquiry of MF Global Gains Speed - Search for $ 1.2 billion is on

January 9, 2012, 9:57 pmLegal/Regulatory
U.S. Inquiry of MF Global Gains Speed
By BEN PROTESS and AZAM AHMED

The investigation into MF Global is intensifying as federal authorities unearth new details and confront potential obstacles in their hunt for roughly $1.2 billion in customer money that disappeared from the brokerage firm.
While prosecutors and regulators have jointly conducted dozens of depositions with former and current employees, a senior official in the Chicago office of MF Global recently declined to meet with the federal authorities, people briefed on the investigation said.
That official, Edith O’Brien, a treasurer at MF Global, is considered a “person of interest” in the investigation, the people said. Federal authorities suspect that she transferred about $200 million to JPMorgan Chase in London on the eve of the bankruptcy of MF Global, money that turned out to be customer cash.
Authorities had expected to interview Ms. O’Brien last month. She instead balked at meeting voluntarily, asking first to strike a deal with criminal authorities that would excuse her from prosecution. the people said. The criminal investigation is led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Chicago and Manhattan.

for all of it go to:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/u-s-inquiry-of-mf-global-gains-speed/?nl=business&emc=dlbka8