At the Food Bank
Back from the food bank. Busy day with lots of clients coming in. They had a great bunch of volunteers there on Wednesday and Thursday so the shelves were well stocked. When lots of clients come through we don’t have time to stock so it’s nice to start the day ahead on that score.
We had wonderful fresh veggies — tomatoes, corn, eggplant, zucchini and carrots as well as fruit like cherries, grapes, plums, apples and bananas.
We gave everyone (who wanted one) a frozen pack of hot dogs to help celebrate Labor Day!
Add comment September 3, 2010
Good Morning
It’s a good morning because I ate a healthful breakfast – a pear and some yogurt with blueberries — instead of what I really wanted — a greasy cheeseburger!
Add comment September 3, 2010
Evening Break — Take a Breath
Add comment September 2, 2010
Republicans Embrace Stupid as a Badge of Honor
Apropos of what Jan Brewer did (or didn’t do) last night, when did “stupid become a badge of honor” for Republicans?
That would be Keith Olbermann tonight.
My thought? Two words: Fox News.
Add comment September 2, 2010
Four Minutes in Oil Spill News
Oil is good? It took me all of four minutes to find these stories. Imagine how many more are out there.
Fuel Tanker Runs Aground in Canadian Waters,
carrying 2.4 million gallons of diesel fuel that risk spilling into the Arctic waters, the Canadian Coast Guard said Thursday.
Another oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Texas Company Working to Plug North Dakota Oil Well:
A Texas company worked Thursday to seal the underground piping of a faulty oil well that has leaked more than 1,100 barrels of crude and water at a drill site in western North Dakota.
The spill happened about 2 1/2 miles southwest of Killdeer and was reported early Wednesday morning, said Lynn Helms, director of the state Department of Mineral Resources.
Helms called it the worst spill in the state’s oil patch since the recent resurgence in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, a process that uses pressurized fluid and sand to break open oil-bearing rock some two miles underground.
Eldridge Execuive Who Responded to the Michigan Oil Spill to Retire:
Elbridge Energy Partners, the company involved in the oil spill in the Kalamazoo River, announced this morning that their Executive Vice President is retiring effective November 1st.
Add comment September 2, 2010
The White House is Scared To Death of the Right
So, Rahm Emanuel calls liberals “fu*king retards” and Robert Gibbs lashes out at the “professional left.“ In addition, I heard someone talking on the radio today about a new book coming out (don’t remember the title or the name of the author because I didn’t think I needed to … until now) about the inner workings of the Obama White House and its disdain for unions.
OK, so that said, we learn that Robert Gibbs “got into it” today on Twitter with uber-neocon Stephen Hayes of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard:
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs got into it with critic Stephen Hayes on Twitter Thursday after the Weekly Standard contributor suggested that the small business aid bill currently stalled in the Senate would not improve businesses’ hiring.
“In conversations w/small biz owners, they’ll give you dozens of reasons they’re not hiring. Never had anyone mention small biz aid bill,” Hayes said in a Thursday tweet.
“ATTN @stephenfhayes,” Gibbs fired back. His tweet linked to an article from USA Today reporting that some business owners were delaying hiring and purchasing to wait out a vote on the bill, which was expected earlier this summer.
Hayes quickly responded, saying “Ask small business owners across the country if they’d rather have across-the-bd tax cuts or gov-backed loans @PressSec.”
He followed with a series of tweets, citing a National Federation of Independent Business report that stated that poor sales, rather than an inability to access credit, was their “top problem.”
Hayes went on to quote the report:
“‘Small bus owner responses make clear that the Admin and Cong nvr understood and still do not understand Main Street’s problem’
“Admin and Cong “knowingly initiated major destabilizing, policy changes in a deep, destabilizing recession.”
Gibbs responded after a long pause.
“The facts @stephenfhayes there would be ZERO capital gains on small business investment, expand tax cuts for new equip investments,” he said.
(Who knows, this tit for tat could continue so follow it and see the original tweets mentioned above at Robert Gibbs’ Twitter feed and Stephen Hayes Twitter feed.)
Anyway, what we learn from this is that when the “professional left” criticizes the White House — as in, oh, say the lack of a public option in the health care “reform” bill, they get irritated, call us names, and blow us off. When one of the most prominent, radical conservatives in the country criticizes what’s lacking in a White House bill, they take him seriously and respond.
As Chris Hayes tweeted a few minutes ago:
And he’s exactly right.
The White House is scared to death of the right while it simultaneously appears to loath its base.
Is it any wonder there’s “malaise” amongst Democrats this year?
Add comment September 2, 2010
Break Time — “Last Photos”
The folks over at “Weird Existence” have put together a series of what they call “last photos” supposedly taken by people in the last seconds of their life, of other people in the last seconds of their life or just before a major catastrophe.
They’ve got to be photoshopped (some are obvious), but they’re cleaver nonetheless.
Here are a few examples:
Add comment September 2, 2010
This Seems Like Kind of a Big Deal
This seems like kind of a big deal: Thad Allen: In Hindsight, BP Might Have Shut Down Oil Well Sooner…
In hindsight, if BP had removed the 5,000-foot-long tangle of riser pipe from its damaged Gulf well in the early days of the spill, a new blowout preventer or cap could have been installed, shutting down the well perhaps within weeks instead of months, according to both the federal incident commander and petroleum engineers.
…but after a quick check of the cable “news” websites, I don’t see a thing.
Add comment September 2, 2010
How is Arizona Governor Jan Brewer the Governor of Anything?
This would be Arizona’s Republican Governor, Jan Brewer, making an opening statement last night during a debate with her Democratic opponent, Terry Goddard.
I think the poor woman has a vocabulary of maybe — maybe — 25 words:
This is Jan Brewer’s opportunity to detail what she would do if elected. So what does she do? She mumbles and fumbles and bumbles and giggles and bashes Obama and health care reform.
She ain’t got nothin’ — just like the rest of the GOP.
Add comment September 2, 2010
Wingers: The Hostage Situation at the Discovery Channel Yesterday Was Al Gore’s Fault
I kid you not — an anti-climate change group — the “Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow” — is out with an article today blaming Al Gore for what James Lee did yesterday, i.e., taking three Discovery Channel employees hostage at the company’s Maryland headquarters before being shot to death:
James Lee, the gunman and hostage taker who was shot and killed by a SWAT team in the Discovery Channel Building in Silver Spring, Maryland, is the latest of a long line of eco-terrorists who have killed and maimed innocent people for over three decades.
The quick and decisive action by the Montgomery County Police Department enabled Lee’s three hostages to escape unharmed, a happy ending to an incident that brought the scourge of eco-terrorism to the gates of the nation’s capital. Before he met his end, Lee issued a manifesto which contained a set of demands aimed at the Discovery Channel. While his demands come from a deeply disturbed mind, they are rooted in an apocalyptic environmentalism that we have seen before.
[...]
According to the Maryland Gazette, James Lee was influenced by Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” While Gore’s controversial documentary does not advocate violence, the film’s catastrophic vision of earth’s future and man’s alleged role therein, will weigh heavily on the psychologically vulnerable among us. Let’s hope that Lee’s case is an isolated one and that we’re not facing a resurgence of eco-terrorism. The country has enough problems as it is.
The righties are famous for their “think tanks.” Too bad they don’t spend their time thinking about how to put Americans back to work or how to get us off our dependence on oil, instead of thinking about how to blame Democrats for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
Add comment September 2, 2010
Citigroup Tells American Taxpayers to Go F Themselves
Too bad the Bush administration’s TARP bank bailout plan didn’t include a provision requiring companies who received bailout money– as in taxpayer money — to return the favor and do their hiring here in the U.S., instead of overseas:
Citigroup Inc. plans to almost triple its workforce in China to as many as 12,000 people in the next three years, intensifying its rivalry with HSBC Holdings Plc in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
The New York-based bank will hire more in China than in any other Asia-Pacific country, Stephen Bird, Citigroup’s co-chief executive officer for the region, said yesterday in an interview. The expansion may make China Citigroup’s third-largest market by staff, after the U.S. and Mexico, said spokesman James Griffiths.
Infuriating.
Add comment September 2, 2010
Another Rig Has Exploded in the Gulf
Say it ain’t so already.
NEW ORLEANS — One person is missing after a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay, the U.S. Coast Guard said.It happened around 9 a.m., and as of 10:15 a.m., the rig was still burning, the Coast Guard said. Rescue crews from New Orleans and Houston are responding.Officials said there were 13 people aboard the rig, and all but one are accounted for.
Add comment September 2, 2010
Rupert Murdoch’s Big Fail
Hah! Rupert Murdoch thought it would be a great idea to put a subscription paywall around the websites of The Times and The Sunday Times (of London), “thus removing their content from search engines.” Well guess what, traffic to those sites is — duh — collapsing and advertisers are leaving in droves.
Gee (I say sarcastically), nobody could have predicted that.
What a greedy fool.
Add comment September 2, 2010
Big Brother Just Got Bigger
Did you hear about this:
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.
It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.[...]
The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno’s driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited.Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month’s decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people’s. The court’s ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.
Add comment September 2, 2010
Good Morning
It’s a good morning because I had a great sleep and I’m ready to face the world!
Add comment September 2, 2010
Health Care @ $5,000 Per Month?
This would be our profits-are-all-we-care-about, corporations rule tweet of the day:
Add comment September 1, 2010
MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell Pretends She’s a Wise Person
Norah O’Donnell on Hardball tonight re Sarah Palin:
“I think she might be beginning to like some of the adoration she’s getting out there.”
Wow. Yeah think?
That’s deep.
Add comment September 1, 2010
Kim Kardashian Rapes Justin Bieber
OMG. This is apparently what right-wingers, specifically the “Concerned Women For America,” think is the most important issue of the day: Kim Kardashian-as-pedophile when it comes to poor, innocent Justin Bieber:
In today�s culture, the term �cougar� refers to an attractive mature woman who can still attract young men. According to About.com, a cougar is �primarily attracted to and has sex with significantly younger men.� The site also notes that �cougars prey upon men almost young enough to be their sons.�
At 29, Kim Kardashian could be called a cougar and recently projected that image in a magazine photo shoot with 16-year-old pop star Justin Bieber. Sadly, Bieber looks more like a 13-year-old � adding to the pedophilic look and feel of the photos.
Kardashian�s dalliance with Justin Bieber has netted her the publicity she seems so insatiably to crave. Her famous face, however, would join other Hollywood celebs as a PSA for statutory rape if she were to take her sexual teasing to a consummation of the relationship. California�s age of consent is 18, and Justin Bieber is still a minor.
One would think the failure of capitalism — you know, women and families stressing about how to pay for food while juggling two or three shitty jobs while dealing with after-school care for their kids — might be more important.
But, no!
Vote Republican!
Add comment September 1, 2010
Blog Stats
I started this blog in March, 2009. I had 301 hits at the end of that month.
Last month I had 5,404.
Thanks to all.
So, let’s keep on keepin’ on — on to November.
2 comments September 1, 2010
Michael Steele Giving Us 116 Opportunity to Watch Put His Foot in His Mouth
Oh, this is gonna be fun: The head of the GOP, Michael Steele, who seems to put his foot in it every time he opens his mouth, is going to do a 48-state, 116-event bus tour this fall.
Get your cameras ready!
P.S. What? You mean to tell me there isn’t a “What Michael Steele Says” blog out there somewhere?
Add comment September 1, 2010
Fox Business Network (FBN) v. CNBC
The cable news channels are covering BREAKING NEWS this afternoon: a hostage crisis in Silver Spring, Maryland at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox are all on it as is, what, the Fox “Business” Network?
Meanwhile, CNBC, a real business news network, is covering business news.
Add comment September 1, 2010
Happy Birthday Lily Tomlin
Today is Lily Tomlin’s birthday and in her honor, I bring you this (it’s not what you think):
2 comments September 1, 2010
The B-Grade Actors at the Fascist Noise Channel Reach a New Low
It’s amazing how low the B-grade actors at the Fascist Noise Channel will go — to levels I am sure they don’t even believe — literally. Take this for example: Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Objects to Family Photos Behind Obama’s Desk.
You’ve got to hand it to these liars. How they keep a straight face when they complain about stuff like this is beyond me because there is no way in hell they believe any of it.
Gosh, golly gee. Look at the pictures on the desk behind these presidents:
Fox-watchers — they think you’re really, really, REALLY stupid.
Add comment September 1, 2010
Ok to Demonize Democrats, Poor People, the Unemployed, But Leave the Oil Industry Alone!
We all know Republicans have no problem demonizing anyone they don’t like or are afraid of, but as for the oil companies who are polluting our planet? Leave the poor things alone!
President Obama and Democrats in Congress should stop demonizing the oil industry, a top Republican on economic issues said Wednesday.
Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas), the top House Republican of the Joint Economic Committee and a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he hoped a Republican majority in the House would end the scapegoating of the industry.
The article goes on to talk about how the oil industry provides jobs…as if Republicans care about jobs. What a joke. They care about one thing: helping the oil industry make as much money as possible.
Add comment September 1, 2010
The Worst Political Interview of All Time
Chris Young is a Democratic candidate for major of Providence, Rhode Island. Late last month he gave an interview to FoxProvidence in their series, “Coffee With the Candidates.” It has got to be, by far, the worst interview ever given by a political candidate in the history of the world:
Poor guy.
Add comment September 1, 2010
Tea Partiers on Welfare
Have you heard about what’s going on in Colorado Springs, Colorado? The place is so anti-tax that they’re flat broke — so broke they’re turning off the street lights, letting the grass in parks die, and deputizing cab drivers to do the work of the police.
Colorado Springs is in El Paso County which was in the news yesterday:
El Paso County — home of Colorado Springs — received the most federal spending in fiscal 2009 of any Colorado county, $9.1 billion, followed by Denver County with $8.6 billion and Jefferson County with $5.7 billion.
Overall, federal domestic spending totaled $3.2 trillion in fiscal-year 2009, up 16 percent from the previous year. It was the largest year-over-year percentage increase since the Census Bureau began tracking domestic spending in 1983.
No doubt they’ll be turning away that $9.1 million any day now.
And then there’s this interesting little ditty about Alaska, where the Tea Party rules and everyone is supposedly rough and wild and independent, unlike the coddled wusses in the lower 48:
The states with the highest per capita federal spending were Alaska ($20,351), Virginia ($19,734) and Hawaii ($19,001). Those with the lowest rates were Nevada ($7,148), Utah ($7,435) and Georgia ($8,538).
So yeah, the anti-tax crowd is one tough bunch all right.
Add comment September 1, 2010
So, Will Lisa Murkowski Get Her Own Reality Show Now?
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has conceded the primary election to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller.
As I understand Alaska politics, Murkowski will now set up a Facebook and Twitter account and start criticizing Democrats and then she’ll get her own reality show on TLC. Heh?
Add comment September 1, 2010
Laying Off Workers Pays Big Money for CEO’s
This is disgusting: CEO’s Who Laid Off the Most Workers Rake in the Most Treasure:
The biggest scandals at HP haven’t made the headlines because they are so commonplace in Great Recession Corporate America. CEOs in one company after another are throwing workers onto the unemployment rolls and dodging taxes to boost short-term profits and fatten their own paychecks. They are shifting the burden of a poor economy onto the public purse — while continuing to line their own pockets.
According to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies, CEOs from the 50 firms that have laid off 3,000 or more workers since the onset of the crisis took home nearly $12 million on average in 2009. That’s 42 percent more than the average for CEOs of S&P 500 firms as a whole.
There are some areas in which we need to revamp the culture, and this is one of them.
Add comment September 1, 2010
Obama: I Was There — I Remember — Don’t BS Me
I am so tired of this lie:
Add comment August 31, 2010
