Very interesting documentary on the evolution and recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?". Proper Crimbo!
The Band Aid Story (part 1/3)
Amazing acoustic segment with Bob Geldolf.
The Band Aid Story (part 2/3)
The Band Aid Story (part 3/3)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Trust In GOP Reaches Record Low
What's with the last sentence?
Source: WaPo
"Just 23 percent in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll said they trust Republicans more than Democrats to handle the main problems facing the nation, the lowest level reached by either party in surveys dating back to 1982.Have not translated? Um, the GOP has been crushed in elections in 2006 and 2008. Obama crushed McCain.
A majority, 56 percent, trust the Democrats to handle the nation's top issues over the next few years, also a record in Post-ABC polling. But the GOP's recent losses have not translated into big Democratic gains, instead the proportion who trust neither party has climbed to 15 percent."
Source: WaPo
Cheney Quote: Control The VP
Advice from the guy who was wrong on WMD, "last throes" of the insurgency, "greeted as liberators", elections in 2006 and 2008, and countless other decisions:
Republicans are hypocritical to the end.
"The best thing you can do is keep your VP under control."Is this an attempt at humor? The Prince of Darkness must have really liked the Bush Chief Of Staffs, but haven been one himself in the Ford administration, he knew exactly how to ignore them.
-- Vice President Dick Cheney, quoted by CNN, giving advice to White House chief of staff-designate Rahm Emanuel.
Republicans are hypocritical to the end.
Rwandan Mastermind Convicted of Genocide
A precursor to the War Crime trials of Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld?
A senior Rwandan military officer charged with being one of the masterminds of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which bands of Hutus massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, was convicted on Thursday by a United Nations court in Tanzania of genocide and sentenced to life in prison.
In a statement, the United Nations tribunal said that it had sentenced the officer, Col. Theoneste Bagosora, and his accomplices, two other Rwandan military officers who were also on trial, Maj. Aloys Ntabakuze and Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva, to life imprisonment for “genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” A fourth co-defendant, Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, was acquitted of all charges against him and the court ordered his release.Source: NYT
Colonel Bagosora, 67, was the cabinet director for Rwanda’s Defense Ministry at the start of the slaughter by Hutus of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus in 1994. The three other senior army officers had been on trial with him since 2002 at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is based in Arusha, Tanzania.
The court said that Colonel Bagosora had been “the highest authority in the Rwandan Defense Ministry with authority over the military” in the days after the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Naming Your Kid Adolph Hitler
For anyone who wants to defend New Jersey in the battle of the Tri-State:
A guy in Holland Township, NJ names his kid Adolph Hitler. Says it's just a name. Sad.
Source: LehighValleyLive
A guy in Holland Township, NJ names his kid Adolph Hitler. Says it's just a name. Sad.
Source: LehighValleyLive
"Americans Had To Die"
"Constituted a mortal threat"
Frank Gaffney, right-wing commentator, is in way over his head with Chris Matthews.
He said Iraq posed a mortal threat to Americans because they killed Americans? When? Gaffney is still trying to link 9/11 to Iraq.
He then jumps to biological weapons and Hussein's intent. Yes, Hussein used biological weapons on his own people, in the 1980s. After the first Iraq War in 1991, those were destroyed and Iraq was never allowed to rebuild that program through US and UN monitoring.
Then the kicker. Gaffney, responding to Matthews stating 4,000 lives were lost based on all these mistakes:
CrooksAndLiars adds:
Frank Gaffney, right-wing commentator, is in way over his head with Chris Matthews.
He said Iraq posed a mortal threat to Americans because they killed Americans? When? Gaffney is still trying to link 9/11 to Iraq.
He then jumps to biological weapons and Hussein's intent. Yes, Hussein used biological weapons on his own people, in the 1980s. After the first Iraq War in 1991, those were destroyed and Iraq was never allowed to rebuild that program through US and UN monitoring.
Then the kicker. Gaffney, responding to Matthews stating 4,000 lives were lost based on all these mistakes:
"My position is that it’s regrettable that any Americans died. It is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die."The ultimate Right Wing Chickenhawk NeoCon.
CrooksAndLiars adds:
"It astounds me that people like Gaffney can continue to cling to the idea that Saddam really did pose an imminent threat/that he really had WMD/that the intelligence wasn't cooked etc. and still be regarded as some sort of foreign policy expert who should be taken seriously. It's 100% clear now that the administration "fixed the facts around the policy" by cherry-picking dubious intelligence reports that supported their case while ignoring others (that were far more credible) that disproved it. Not only should Gaffney and his ilk be laughed out of town, they should be committed and/or indicted."Source: ThinkProgress
Obama To Undo Bush-Era Rules On Abortion, Birth Control
Command + "z" = undo on a mac. I hope they use that a lot.The
The outgoing Bush administration this week will finalize a regulation establishing a "right of conscience" allowing medical staff to refuse to participate in any practice they object to on moral grounds, including abortion but possibly birth control and other health care as well."Right of conscience" to deny services? Don't you take the hippocratic oath as a Doctor to ethically help everyone? The third part of the oath reads: "Never to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else's interest." Seems Bush opened the door on a slippery slope of refusal to just about anyone.
In transition offices across town, officials in the incoming Obama administration have begun considering how and when to undo it.
"We have a lot of work to do to fix the damage the Bush administration has done," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Right to privacy. Separation of Church and State. 40+ years of legal choice. Women's health and safety. Bush attacked them all.
Source: WSJ
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Fed Cuts Benchmark Rate To Near Zero
The Fed had to set a record to battle the epic Bush failure. We need a zero interest rate to fight a zero President. Not the first time "record new low" and "Bush" end up in the same sentence.
At what point are they just giving money away? Oh wait, that was in Iraq.
Source: NYT
At what point are they just giving money away? Oh wait, that was in Iraq.
"The Federal Reserve entered a new era on Tuesday, setting its benchmark interest rate so low that it will have to reach for new and untested tools in fighting both the recession and downward pressure on consumer prices."Worst. President. And. Administration. Ever.
Source: NYT
Quote Of The Day: Bill Baroni
Just tax it.
"The people who are asking us to do this today, these are people who can't play piggyback with their 3-year-old. These are people who get up every day and battle HIV/AIDS. They are people who wonder if their chemotherapy is going to work. I can't look at those folks and let them be perhaps the only ones who don't have the ability to have less pain,"- New Jersey state senator, Bill Baroni, on why he voted for a medical marijuana bill.
Parino Takes One For Team
Dana Parino, shoe terror victim. Although not hit by the actual show, she was hit with a microphone in the ensuing scuffle.
No pictures of coffins or military fighting in Iraq, but this will make the front page.
Source: HuffPo
No pictures of coffins or military fighting in Iraq, but this will make the front page.
Source: HuffPo
Throw Stuff At Bush
Throw stuff at Bush and listen to his inane babbling. Over 30 items to choose from: pretzel, Bill of Rights, New Orleans, the economy, stem cells. Click the link below.
Source: http://duckduckbush.com/
Source: http://duckduckbush.com/
Child Poverty: Let's Talk About It
Not knowing is one thing, not caring is another.
Check this chart from the OECD. While not the entire world, mostly Europe, Australia, NZ, US and Canada, not the kind of thing you want to be #1.
Also, keep in mind Norway has 4,796,700 people, Sweden has 9,234,2094, The US has 305,904,000.
Matt's point:
This is not an "us and them" problem. This is our problem.
Source: Matthew Yglesias
Check this chart from the OECD. While not the entire world, mostly Europe, Australia, NZ, US and Canada, not the kind of thing you want to be #1.
Also, keep in mind Norway has 4,796,700 people, Sweden has 9,234,2094, The US has 305,904,000.
Matt's point:
"There are things we could do to get more out of our school system, but ultimately it’s inconceivable to me that we’ll ever get a first-rate levels of educational attainment with these kind of child poverty rate — it basically guarantees that portions of the system will be overburdened by too many children with too many problems. That’ll be fine for those getting the long end of the hyper-inequality, but it’s sad to see the extent to which we’re slouching toward that future without any public acknowledgment of it or debate about the wisdom of our priorities. You would think that something like being by far the world leader in child poverty would dominate the political agenda — instead you never see it mentioned."Education is the key, uniting people is the key. Getting rid of "No Child Left Behind" standardized assessments is key. Paying teachers and supporting unions is key.
This is not an "us and them" problem. This is our problem.
Source: Matthew Yglesias
The "Official" Official Story
George Packer at The New Yorker has read the two official documents on Iraq and the war on terror: a bipartisan inquiry by the Senate Armed Services committee into treatment of detainees, and a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
With a democratic administration coming in, you know better questions will be asked than by McCain and Palin. You betcha.
Source: The New Yorker
"The trouble is, the information in these reports doesn’t tell the whole story, and it doesn’t tell it as a complete story. The reports only give us fragments, which will be too easily overlooked or forgotten. The official sanction of torture and the woeful management of occupied Iraq are related pieces of a much larger epic: the first is marked by criminality, the second by bureaucratic ineptitude, but they are joined together as expressions and outcomes of the ideas and habits of mind of the highest officials in the Bush Administration. Eventually the country will need, even if it won’t entirely want, the whole story to be told."I thinks it's buy one $3 trillion dollar war, get one FREE Congressional Commission.
With a democratic administration coming in, you know better questions will be asked than by McCain and Palin. You betcha.
Source: The New Yorker
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
