Open Thread–11/7/2011

 Posted by at 12:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 072011
 

Yesterday was a day of delightful meditation on the holy Ellipsoid Orb.  I’m current on replies.  Today I have housework and volunteer paperwork to do.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:47 (average 4:34).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

1111-Broncos38-Raiders24

Beating Oakland in Oakland is especially sweet!

Short Takes:

From Village Voice: Stand down, Zuccotti protesters, the banks have heard your calls for reform and are yielding to your demands. The majority of the country has been enveloped in financial turmoil, and one of the big banks is finally taking steps to institute change: Wells Fargo is creating a boutique bank for the super rich. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the wealth management unit will be named "Abbot Downing" and will only service families with more than $50 million in their coffers. Rumor has it, when you open an account you get free Looney Tunes checks.

Absolutely obscene flaunting of wealth.  I wonder if they’ll have a special zone at their ATMs for robbers to line up. 😉

From Haaretz: The Israeli government denied on Sunday that a cyber-attack was the reason several websites went down, including those of the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet security service and government ministries. IDF spokesman said there was most likely a malfunction with the servers.

Given that they had received anonymous threats of retribution, if they boarded the relief ships, I consider it probable that Israel’s government is lying.

From Common Dreams: Thousands of protesters, including a Nobel laureate and a film star, are slated to join hands and encircle the White House on Sunday in opposition to TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.

The demonstration is the latest in a series of White House protests aimed at convincing U.S. President Barack Obama to block the $7 billion project that would carry Alberta oilsands crude through six American states to Gulf Coast refineries.

I am fully support the protesters against the Keystone XL pipeline.

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Open Thread–11/6/2011

 Posted by at 12:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 062011
 

Yesterday was a lazy day.  I did a little housework and did some extra research.  I’m current with replies.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  The prayer meeting between my Broncos and the Oakland congregation will be televised here, so I shall be deep in meditation.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:08 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Andy Rooney, whose prickly wit was long a mainstay of CBS News and whose homespun commentary on “60 Minutes,” delivered every week from 1978 until 2011, made him a household name, died on Friday in New York City.

He was 92 and lived in Manhattan, though he kept a family vacation home in Rensselaerville, N.Y.

While I was never a fan of his, as I preferred hard news to infotainment, he made a mark on the industry.  Condolences to all who loved him.

From Huffington Post: Protesters marched on the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Friday evening where Americans for Prosperity, a conservative organization funded in part by the Koch brothers, was assembled for its Defending The American Dream Summit and Ronald Reagan tribute dinner.

During the dinner, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said "I am proud to know the Koch brothers," according to The New York Times.

Bravo!  Nobody is more emblematic of the 1%.

From Raw Story: Bill Maher: Republicans should nominate Tom Tebow.

 

Bill is funny, even if he is picking on my team’s QB. 🙁

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Open Thread–11/5/2011

 Posted by at 12:01 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 052011
 

Yesterday, I didn’t get my housework done.  It’s  patient and always waits for me.  However, I did go out to run errands, caught up an email backlog (self-renewing daily), purchased a couple needed items online, cooked a three day meal, set my fantasy football lineup, and got enough sleep for a change.  I’m current on replies.  Today I have that housework and volunteer paperwork to do.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:21 (average 5:33).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Reuters: Jon Corzine resigned as MF Global Holdings Ltd’s chairman and chief executive in the face of mounting pressure from regulators searching for customer money that has gone missing from the brokerage’s accounts.

Corzine, a former chief of Goldman Sachs & Co , called his departure "difficult" but voluntary, capping a rapid downfall for one of Wall Street’s best-known stars.

Could we possibly get a Bankster behind bars?

From Washington Monthly: Faced with increasing push-back from the public, the media, government watchdogs and a bipartisan list of lawmakers, the Department of Justice Thursday agreed to drop a proposed regulation that would have allowed government agencies to lie to members of the public seeking records through the Freedom of Information Act.

I consider it reprehensible that such a rule was even considered.

From Alternet: The Cuban government has approved a law allowing individuals to buy and sell homes for the first time in 50 years, in the latest instalment [sic] of President Raul Castro’s reforms of the island’s Soviet-style economy.

It is time for the US to end our embargo of that nation.  The cold war is over.

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Open Thread–11/4/2011

 Posted by at 12:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 042011
 

Yesterday I was very tired, because I had to get up early to be ready for my O2 delivery.  After it arrived, I took a cat nap, slept through the afternoon and into the evening, and got a late start on my research, so I’m groggy, and my body says to go back to bed.  I’m current on replies, even if more brief than moral.  Today is a recovery and housework day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 6:37 (average 7:50).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From ABC: Occupy Wall Street supporters who staged rallies that shut down the nation’s fifth-busiest port during a day of protests condemned on Thursday the demonstrators who clashed with police in the latest flare-up of violence in Oakland, Calif.

I commend the demonstrators for condemning the people that used this peaceful movement as cover.

From Think Progress: One of the tactics the 99 Percenters are using to take back the country from the 1 percent is to move their money from big banks to credit unions, community banks, and other smaller financial unions that aren’t gambling with our nation’s future.

Now, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that a whopping 650,000 Americans have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 — the date that Bank of America announced it would start charging a $5 monthly debit fee, a move it backed down on this week.

My bank is not one of the TBTF Banksters, but they are fairly large.  I looked into moving, but there are no community banks or credit unions close enough to me to use, due to disability.  However, since I won my SSDI claim two years ago, they have not gotten a penny from me in interest or fees.

From Raw Story: The Chinese are the world’s “most active and persistent perpetrators” of economic espionage, a US intelligence agency said on Thursday in an unusually blunt report on a sensitive topic.

The report on foreign cyber spying efforts submitted to the US Congress also pointed the finger at Russia’s intelligence services, saying they were snooping on US companies for economic information and technology.

The report, “Foreign Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets in Cyberspace,” was compiled by the office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, part of the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

I agree that this is a serious problem and something must be done to address it.  I do not have the expertise to suggest the method, but “Big Brother Is Watching You” is not an acceptable choice.

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Webb Slams GOP Over Prison Reform

 Posted by at 12:05 am  Personal, Politics
Nov 032011
 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not a Jim Webb (DINO-VA) supporter, even though he’s far better that what he replaced: George Allen, aka Macaca Man.  Webb is a DINO.  In the video that follows, he even brags about being a DINO.  It makes me sick! I hope he faces a primary challenge. However, when someone I oppose does something right, I give them credit for it.  If Joe LIEberman, whose name I consider so foul that I would not write it on toilet paper, lest it soil my pristine arse, did something right, I would even give him credit for it, because I don’t get to make up my own facts.  On the issue of Prison Reform, Jim Webb is right.

3webbAnother month, another dismaying example of a smart measure stymied in Congress by Republican intransigence. This time, 43 GOP members of the Senate blocked passage of legislation that would have created a new National Criminal Justice Commission, a bipartisan group designed to help figure out how to bring some order to the chaos that currently exists in the nation’s criminal justice systems. The cops supported the bill.

The American Civil Liberties Union supported it. But Senate Republicans wouldn’t even allow a merits vote on it. On October 19th, they filibustered.

Predictably, the primary sponsor of the measure, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), was furious. One of the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus, and someone with legitimate street cred when it comes to law and order, Webb took to the Senate floor Tuesday and delivered these biting remarks…

 

…Serious issues of actual governance. Sen. Webb is right — that’s what this legislation was and is; a necessary and practical effort by the federal government to address a serious problem that is bad and getting worse. And yet for all the senator’s work, and all the bipartisanship the idea garnered beyond Capitol Hill, he could not overcome persistent Republican hostility.

I would call it "mindless" hostility since it’s so destructive but, of course, it’s not "mindless" at all. It’s all part of some grand political plan to make Democrats look inapt and inept.

You use the Constitution as sword when you want to. You use it as a shield when you want to (Sen. Coburn’s remark above is priceless). And no matter what you figure out a way to do nothing that would benefit the American people. The demise of this legislation ultimately will cost the country a ton of money. And the absence of necessary recommendations from a blue-ribbon Commission will guarantee further injustice to thousands of Americans in the justice system. This is your Senate today — snatching defeat from the jaws of victory… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Atlantic>

As most of you know, I was in prison last Thursday doing volunteer work there.  Both the prisoners and the correctional officers, with whom I discussed this, were appalled that Republicans obstructed this bill.  I can guarantee you that something is terribly wrong when the cons and the guards are on the same side if an issue.

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Open Thread–11/3/2011

 Posted by at 12:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 032011
 

Yesterday I got a lot of personal business done and caught up on a huge email backlog.  I’m running short of sleep, because the home services company woke me up at 4:30 PM to tell me they wanted to to deliver my O2, that was marked “must be before 4:00 PM”, at 8:00 PM.  I rescheduled to today.  When I got back to sleep, UPS woke me up at 7:30 PM to pick up my RMA package that was scheduled “must be before 4:00 PM”.  ARGH!  It’s a Republican conspiracy! 😉

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:51 (average 5:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: What OWS is all about.

Great Presentation!

From Common Dreams: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to rally support in his cabinet for an attack on Iran, according to government sources.

The country’s defence minister Ehud Barak and the foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman are said to be among those backing a pre-emptive strike to neutralise Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

But a narrow majority of ministers currently oppose the move, which could trigger a wave of regional retaliation.

The man is crazy!  It would put any hope for peace back years, but I think that what these ideologues want.

From Think Progress: Led by right-wing Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the House Foreign Affairs Committee today marked up and passed new legislation on U.S.-Iran policies. Amendments to the bill, H.R. 1905, included one that says, “No person employed with the United States Government may contact in an official or unofficial capacity any person that…is an agent, instrumentality, or official of, is affiliated with, or is serving as a representative of the Government of Iran.” The president may request a waiver, but only with 15 days notice and if the contact averts an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States.”

I believe this bill would be unconstitutional on its face, a violation of the separation of powers.  Diplomacy is the purview of the Executive Branch.  Congress’ role is the requirement that the Senate ratify any treaties negotiated.

From Countdown: Amendment to Overturn Citizens United

Bernie has it down. I fully support the amendment, even though it does not go far enough.

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Open Thread–11/2/2011

 Posted by at 12:10 am  Open Thread, Personal, Plus, Politics
Nov 022011
 

Yesterday I spent most of my free time collecting the data for today’s Monthly Report.  In addition, I did housework, prepared a keyboard for RMA, and catching up on business on the phone.  I’m current with replies.  Tomorrow I’ll be home most of the day waiting for an O2 delivery and a UPS pickup.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:08 (average 4:49).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from out fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Scores:

TomCat Teabag Trashers

hugos renegades

113.50

100.66

ManOnDogSantorum

Playing without a helmet

33.90

109.56

Texans Will Rise Again

Progressive Underdogs

48.86

116.22

Standings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Points

 

Rank

Team Name

W-L-T

Pct

Streak

Waiver

For

Against

1 (1)

Progressive Underdogs

7-1-0

.875

W3

6

968.66

805.76

2 (2)

ManOnDogSantorum

5-3-0

.625

L1

5

902.44

825.44

3 (3)

TomCat Teabag Trashers

4-4-0

.500

W2

4

959.00

875.48

4 (4)

hugos renegades

4-4-0

.500

L2

3

916.34

877.16

5 (5)

Playing without a helmet

4-4-0

.500

W1

2

857.24

822.98

6 (6)

Texans Will Rise Again

0-8-0

.000

L8

1

613.88

1010.74

I’m coming up in the world.

Short Takes:

From Reuters: After Oakland emerged as a new center for the Occupy Wall Street movement — largely because an Iraq war veteran was seriously injured in a clash with police — local protest leaders decided on a tactic with a storied history in the city: a general strike.

The strike, scheduled for Wednesday, aims to disrupt commerce, with a special focus on banks and other symbols of corporate America. Protesters will also try to shut the city’s port, one of the nation’s largest, in the late afternoon.

Local labor leaders, although generally sympathetic to the Occupy movement, say their contracts prohibit them from proclaiming an official strike. City officials say government offices are scheduled to be open; it’s unclear whether many businesses will heed the call to close down for the day.

I fear that they may have called a general strike too soon to get the participation needed to be effective.  Nevertheless, I support them 100% and pray that I have to admit I was wrong.

From Think Progress: A favorite conservative pastime since the financial crisis of 2008 struck is to try and deflect blame away from Wall Street and its excesses and onto Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and government housing policy. No matter how many times the theory that the government mortgage giants caused the crisis gets debunked, it keeps on coming back to life.

The latest political figure to join this parade was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), who responded to a question about the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests by saying that the protesters’ grievances are “unfounded,” since “it was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis“.

Horse feathers!  What are we supposed to think, that the mortgage crisis was caused by Obama’s great-great-great grandparents’ Kenyan conspiracy, hatched before the South won the war?

From AP/Google: Canada is joining the U.S. in cutting off funding for the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO because it approved a Palestinian bid for full membership.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Tuesday the decision is not in the best interests of peace in the Middle East, so Canada is freezing all future voluntary contributions to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Canada contributes about $10 million a year to the agency.

Canada is supposed to follow the the US when we do something right, not when we screw up, big time!

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Open Thread–11/1/2011

 Posted by at 12:21 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 012011
 

Welcome to November.  Yesterday I ran errands, including getting a new transit pass, and worked on the blog.  I’m current on replies.  Today I will spend most of the day collecting the data that will become Wednesday’s Monthly Report.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:07 (average 4:52).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MSNBC: NBC News has confirmed that one woman received a settlement from the National Restaurant Association after complaining about inappropriate sexual conduct by Herman Cain.

NBC News is not disclosing the name of the woman nor characterizing who she is.

Cain has changed stories as much as Romney has changed position.  No wonder Cain is so attracted to Clarence Thomas, the 999 of Injustices.

From BBC: The United States is cancelling funding for the UN cultural body Unesco after it voted to grant full membership to the Palestinians.

The motion was passed by a substantial majority, despite strong opposition from the United States and Israel.

A US state department spokeswoman said a payment of some $60m (£37m) due next month would not be made.

This is wrong!  Unesco is a Democratic body, not a US puppet organization, and I commend them for not bowing to US pressure.  Hillary is trying to bully like Bush.

From LA Times: Well before the first votes of the 2012 campaign are to be cast, the Commission on Presidential Debates has determined the dates and locations for general election confrontations between the major candidates.

The first of three televised debates will be on Oct. 3 at the University of Denver. A town hall meeting-style debate will be held on Oct. 16 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. The final meeting, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., will be on Oct. 22 — just two weeks before Election Day on Nov. 6.

The vice presidential nominees will debate only once, on Oct. 11 at Centre College in Danville, Ky.

Considering that these are all over eleven months away, campaign season is too damn long!

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