Archive for May 4, 2010
Attention: Massey Energy Employees
Concerned about intimidation by Massey Energy in its investigation of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion, the Department of Labor has set up a tip line where employees and others can file anonymous reports about the working conditions there. The number is 877-827-3966.
Expect a Fox Freak Out About the United Nations Tomorrow
Per Andrea Mitchell:
This is a FOX NEWS ALERT: Expect Fox to freak out about this tomorrow. One of Fox’s many goals is to make its viewers hate and distrust the United Nations because, allegedly, they make us do stuff we don’t want to do, and they get in the way of us doing whatever we want. They’re way too uppity and they’ve got to be stopped.
So a 60% approval rating is bad news and Fox will spend the next several days in emergency mode trying to quash it.
Yeah Sure, Fox Cares About “The Folks”
Wouldn’t it be great (and sane and humane) if every worker in the U.S. was guaranteed a set number of sick days annually? Well, the uber-pro-business Fox “News” doesn’t think so, despite their claim that they’re lookin’ out for “the folks.” They aired a segment Saturday during the “Cost of Freedom Business Block” about that and the gist of the discussion was that universal sick days would “coddle slackers and give them a free vacation.”
On Fox, the rich can do no wrong. As a matter of fact, you gotta feel sorry for the poor things. Kind and thoughtful people that they are — after all, they create all these jobs for us peons — they pay way, way too much in taxes. But us working stiffs? We can’t do anything right. The bank convinces us we can afford a humongous mortgage, or we run up credit card debt buying food because our wages don’t match the cost of living? We’re idiots because we didn’t read the damn mortgage contract or cut back on food. Give us a little crumb, a piddly four or five sick days a year, and we’re coddled slackers.
Why anyone watches this mean, corporatist propaganda is beyond me. I guess the Fox fans have all been suckered into believing that one day, yes, one day, they’ll be rich too so all this talk is okay by them.
Fox Implies That Even Angelina Jolie Hates President Obama
This graphic is up on TheFoxNation.com right now:
Click on the caption and one is usually taken to an explanation. Not today. This is what you get:
So I Googled it. Turns out, despite Fox’s devious implication, it isn’t about disliking Obama at all:
Everyone knows Angelina Jolie is an incredibly busy woman, but too busy to meet President Obama? Yep, rather than celebrate at the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend, Angie’s pal tells me she’d rather be doing something to help others as opposed to mingling at fancy, lavish parties. Applause all around, but this is the President of the United States we’re talking about!
When you read something on Fox’s website, verify it folks.
Death and Taxes, But Mostly Taxes
Check out this cool “Death and Taxes: 2011” poster (screenshot below). Click on + / - in the upper left-hand corner to zoom in (or out). Amazing to see what some governmental departments get vis-a-vis the big boys, like the military.
All in all, it’s a gobsmacking visual.
Rabid Anti-Gay Activist, George Rekers is, Well, Gay
My, my. Another rabid “Christian” rightie is outed as being a walking, talking, full-blooded, 100% pure hypocrite:
The pictures on the Rentboy.com profile show a shirtless young man with delicate features, guileless eyes, and sun-kissed, hairless skin. The profile touts his “smooth, sweet, tight ass” and “perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)” and explains he is “sensual,” “wild,” and “up for anything” — as long you ask first. And as long as you pay.
On April 13, the “rent boy” (whom we’ll call Lucien) arrived at Miami International Airport on Iberian Airlines Flight 6123, after a ten-day, fully subsidized trip to Europe. He was soon followed out of customs by an old man with an atavistic mustache and a desperate blond comb-over, pushing an overburdened baggage cart.
That man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami — the callboy’s client and, as it happens, one of America’s most prominent anti-gay activists. Rekers, a Baptist minister who is a leading scholar for the Christian right, left the terminal with his gay escort, looking a bit discomfited when a picture of the two was snapped with a hot-pink digital camera.
Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. “I had surgery,” Rekers said, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” (Though medical problems didn’t stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.)
Yet Rekers wouldn’t deny he met his slender, blond escort at Rentboy.com — which features homepage images of men in bondage and grainy videos of crotch-rubbing twinks — and Lucien confirmed it.
What a disgusting little man.
There’s a lot more about Rekers’ anti-gay work at the link above.
Republicans Turning Into Tree Huggers
Guess who said this today:
[T]his tragedy should remind us that America needs a real, comprehensive energy plan, like Republicans’ ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy, which includes more of everything: more clean and renewable sources of energy such as nuclear power, wind, and solar energy, more alternative fuels, more conservation, and more environmentally responsible development of America’s energy resources.
Was it, Al Franken? Rachel Maddow? President Obama? Sean Penn? Howard Dean? Joan Baez? Barbara Boxer? Bill Ayers?
No, it was……………………………………………….John Boehner Boner!
What a disingenuous, opportunistic hypocrite. (If only I had the time. I could go on and on.)
The Worst Places to be a Mother
The Save the Children Foundation is out with its annual “State of the World’s Mothers” report. It’s in PDF format so I prefer this summary. One statistic shocked me — such a huge disparity in the numbers:
One in seven women dies in pregnancy or childbirth in Niger and one in eight in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone; while the risk is one in 25,000 in Greece and one in 47,600 in Ireland.
The difference between Niger/Afghanistan and Greece/Ireland is incredible, but the difference between Greece and Ireland is stunning too.
Update on the Boycott Arizona Movement
I came across this article a few minutes ago about people, businesses and even cities boycotting Arizona due to the new “immigration law” there:
Arizona’s tough new immigration law has led more than a dozen U.S. cities, organizations and foreign governments to warn against traveling there. Many hotels say guests have canceled reservations. In a state that depends on tourism and conventions, business owners who had been looking for signs of an economic thaw are concerned.
On a recent lunch hour at the Clarendon Hotel in Phoenix, owner Ben Bethel talked about the latest punch to the gut. Customers canceled 80 room reservations in just one day last week, Bethel says. That translates to about $8,000 — a big deal for a small boutique hotel, particularly one trying to emerge from a recession.
This is a tough one.
Get Rid of MSNBC’s Morning Joe
The actor Donald Sutherland has a piece up at the Huffington Post titled, “Get Rid of Morning Joe“
Oooh eeeh, he rips Joe Scarborough a new one:
Who is this idiot? Why is he there? He can’t even listen. He doesn’t conduct a decent conversation. He runs over everyone else’s words with a landslide of diarrhea. I saw him on Friday, stomping around the stage like a posturing rooster, calling Paul Krugman a political hack. Paul Krugman’s a political hack? Surely they put make-up on Mr. Small Mouth. Doesn’t he look in the mirror? That’s where he’d see what a political hack looks it.
Good Morning
It’s a good morning because the puppies let us sleep until the alarm when off!
Ah, simple pleasures.
