Visitors' civil comments encouraged.
Our Friends
A Deeply Ironic Post in Honor of Hopelessly Irony-Challenged Alan Simpson
The Confluence - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 8:21pm
Situational irony: an incongruity between expected or intended results and what actually happens
The system that automatically awards disability benefits to some veterans because of concerns about Agent Orange seems contrary to efforts to control federal spending, the Republican co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission said Tuesday.
The article quotes Simpson on the subject of irony:
“The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson’s comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.
Simpson thinks that Vietnam Veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange shouldn’t be demanding disability payments when they develop serious illnesses that may be associated with Agent Orange exposure. Instead these veterans should be sacrificing their own health in order to prevent banksters and other extremely wealthy people like Alan Simpson from having to pay more taxes to “save the country from this fiscal mess.”
Barack Obama and Alan Simpson discuss what to do about the "lesser people."
No, Mr. Simpson.
Irony is when extremely rich people like you don’t want to give back to the country that enabled you to become inordinately wealthy and powerful.
Irony is when people who gave up their health and their future to fight in wars supported by people like you are expected to die in agony on the street instead of getting health care, living a little longer, and dying with dignity.
But I wouldn’t expect you to understand that. Your values are just too warped. You are too selfish and, yes, evil, to comprehend normal human feelings like compassion and empathy.
Now Veteran’s groups are demanding that President Obama fire Simpson from the cat food commission. Will veterans groups be able to melt Obama’s cold cold heart where women’s groups have so far failed? Your guess is as good as mine.
Meanwhile, at Open Left, Paul Rosenberg thinks Alan Simpson should stay on as co-chair of the cat food commission.
The last thing I want is for Alan Simpson to depart from the Catfood Commission. He is such a perfect embodiment of it’s ignorant, mean-spirited mendacity that if he didn’t exist, atheists would be praying 24/7 for his creation.
Yet, I also think that it’s great that people are calling for his ouster. It’s the best possible way to bring heat to bear on the commission itself.
Ironically, Simpson’s inability to contain his revulsion for elderly people, veterans, and women may be our last best hope of saving Social Security and Medicare.
And one final irony: perennial losing political consultant Robert Shrum explains why saving Social Security is the best issue the Democrats have for their 2010 campaigns, and why they won’t be able to use this winning issue:
House Speaker Tip O’Neill laid the foundation in 1981 when he exclaimed of GOP designs to dismantle Social Security: “It’s a rotten thing to do. It’s a despicable thing to do.”
There’s plenty of evidence to justify reprising O’Neill’s tack this fall: The Social Security-privatizing, Medicare-shredding “roadmap” of GOP Rep. Paul Ryan; the barely disguised complicity of the GOP Congressional leadership; and, in a party where extreme has become mainstream, the blatant animus of candidates who see Social Security as “socialism”—and yearn to eviscerate it.
So why not campaign all out, in O’Neill’s plainspoken way, against a GOP that is disloyal to the most successful—and most popular—social program in American history?
Because Democrats have been disarmed by the President’s deficit reduction commission [AKA cat food commission], which plainly intends to propose Social Security cuts.
Isn’t it ironic?
Filed under: 2010 Elections, Barack Obama, cat food commission, Politics Tagged: Agent Orange, Alan Simpson, Barack Obama, irony, Paul Rosenberg, Robert Shrum, Vietnam Veterans
Categories: Our Friends
In Focus: Gulf Of Mexico Inducted Into OPEC
The Onion - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 3:00pm
Categories: Our Friends
Petro Wasteland
The Confluence - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 12:22pm
How many times does this have to happen before we actually minimize our use of oil and not just talk about it or subsidize fuels that still use it?
The Coast Guard is responding to a report of a rig explosion and fire “and people in the water” in the Gulf of Mexico south of Vermilion Bay, authorities said.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said the rig is around 90 miles south of Vermilion Bay and that a helicopter earlier today reported that it was in fire “and that there was smoke and there were people in the water.”
In an interview with CNN, Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough said there were 13 people on the rig and that all were accounted for. Twelve of the workers are in immersion suits and one is injured, he said.
Immersion suits protect the wearer from hypothermia.
All 13 people abandoned the rig after the explosion and are accounted for, but have not yet been rescued from the Gulf, the Coast Guard said.
Colclough said the rig was not actively producing at the time of the incident, but is still on fire. The explosion was reported around 9:30 this morning.
You can see the story at our local TV station WDSU.
They’re killing people for coal and oil and they’re ruining our environment and atmosphere. This has to stop. There’s no future in it for any one except the wealthy.
Just recently, there was a demonstration against the drilling moratorium in the Gulf with a representative of the company involved–Mariner Energy–interviewed by the FT.
Companies ranging from Chevron to Apache bussed in up to 5,000 employees to the Houston convention centre to underline to Washington the industry’s contribution to the country.
“We make America run, we make America work, and they need to remember that,’’ said Carroll Robinson of the Citizens Chamber of Commerce to cheers and applause. “If you stop drilling, if you stop producing, America stops working.’’
Attendants donned red T-shirts handed out at the door that proclaimed: “We are energy nation.’’ Others wore the “I am an energy citizen’’ and “Rally for jobs, our jobs, our future,’’ included in the gift bags. They roared when several speakers noted President Obama’s Air Force One flew on fuel the industry produced and the nation watched his speeches on televisions powered by industry fuel.
…
“I have been in the oil and gas industry for 40 years, and this administration is trying to break us,’’ said Barbara Dianne Hagood, senior landman for Mariner Energy, a small company. “The moratorium they imposed is going to be a financial disaster for the gulf coast, gulf coast employees and gulf coast residents.’’
Yeah, what about our Future?
Filed under: drill baby drill, energy efficiency Tagged: another oil rig explodes, oil rig explosion
Categories: Our Friends
American Voices: Menopause Meds May Harm Kids
The Onion - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 11:30am
The Food and Drug Administration has warned that Evamist, a prescription spray used to control hot flashes in menopausal women, may cause premature breast development in children.
Categories: Our Friends
Opinion: Sorry, I'm Just Really Bad With Names And Faces Of People Who Are Not Attractive And Can't Help Advance My Career (by Michael Warner)
The Onion - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 11:00am
Hi, how do you do? I'm Michael. Pleased to meet you. What? We've met three times before? Really! Well, how embarrassing.
Categories: Our Friends
Pentagon Ripped Off By Shady Weapons Dealer
The Onion - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 10:00am
ARLINGTON, VA—Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted losing $192 million in defense funds Tuesday when he unwittingly purchased a large number of bogus BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles from a disreputable arms dealer known only as "Steve." ...
Categories: Our Friends
8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live
The Onion - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 9:00am
NEW YORK—At 4:32 p.m. Tuesday, every single resident of New York City decided to evacuate the famed metropolis, having simultaneously realized it was nothing more than a massive, trash-ridden hellhole that slowly sucks the life out of every one of its inhabitants.
Categories: Our Friends
[audio] Hollywood Diet Secrets Have Fallen Into Non-Celebrity Hands
The Onion - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 8:30am
Categories: Our Friends
Not liberal, not even progressive
The Confluence - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 8:28am
So says Jay Ackroyd at Atrios regarding Christina Romer’s farewell note, which recognizes the severity of the crisis we’re in but recommends very, very weak tea as a remedy:
The pressing question, then, is what can be done to increase demand and bring unemployment down more quickly. Failing to do so would cause millions of workers to suffer unnecessarily. It also runs the risk of making high unemployment permanent as workers’ skills deteriorate with lack of use and their labor force attachment weakens as hope of another job fades.
….
Policymakers should also take sensible actions to increase confidence. While some in the business community talk about regulatory uncertainty as one reason they are cautious about hiring and investing, I suspect that uncertainty about future sales is a much larger determinant of firms’ actions. We can, however, do more to highlight and codify our pragmatic approach to regulation. As OIRA Administrator Cass Sunstein detailed in his recent Congressional testimony, the estimated net benefits (that is, the benefits minus the costs) of the Obama Administration’s regulatory actions during its first year far surpass those of the first year of the two previous administrations. For the health of the economy, we should continue and trumpet this prudent regulatory approach.
While we would all love to find the inexpensive magic bullet to our economic troubles, the truth is, it almost surely doesn’t exist. The only surefire ways for policymakers to substantially increase aggregate demand in the short run are for the government to spend more and tax less. In my view, we should be moving forward on both fronts.
I was talking to a French expat yesterday and I don’t think the idiots in charge have the slightest clue what is really wrong with the economy from the ground floor. The expat told me that she felt robbed when she came to this country. Everything comes with a fee slapped on it. Her salary is higher than her French colleagues, this is true. But everything here costs more. And her taxes here in the US are very high. She didn’t feel that she was getting the same bang for her taxpayer buck.
Now, it’s true that in France, you have to put up with a lot of striking workers. But they have a mass transit system that we can only dream about. Here, college is unaffordable for most people. There, college is nearly free. In France, maternity leaves are long and the government gives you a stipend for each child. Tax deductions are generous. Here, if you’re not employed, good luck with health insurance. There, the unemployed are covered and there are no Glenn Becks making the unfortunate feel guilty about collecting on the money they have paid into the system all their working lives.
The French are now complaining about their version of social security. The transit workers are going on strike to protest a proposed raise in the retirement age- to 62.
If that’s socialism, I’d take it. Yeah, they have problems but you don’t have to worry about becoming destitute over there. Here, you can be pretty sure that every sufficiently developed company has a sophisticated Metropolis algorithm optimization program designed to deprive you of the last disposable dollar in your wallet. There are fees on top of hidden costs on top of private free market taxes everywhere you turn. It has gotten a lot worse since Bush took office in 2000.
But we must be prudent with regulation. We must not hire a champion like Elizabeth Warren to look out for the consumer, who can’t pinch pennies any longer and pay both governmental and capitalist taxes. Heaven forfend we ask people who benefitted most from the Bush tax cuts to give them back. No, let’s just starve state and local governments, lay more people off and scratch our heads when businesses can’t seem to sell anything to anyone. And I am beyond appalled that Obama would appoint the Catfood Commission to find ways to cut social security, just about the only thing we have left between old age and poverty. He would do this on the backs of working people who have paid into social security all of their working lives and are now seeing pensions and 401Ks drying up. He would have us all starving in order to prevent him from going to the very rich and ask them to give back and act like they care about their fellow Americans. And to think that Alan Simpson has the ability to cut the military benefits of my brother and widowed mother enrages me beyond belief.
I want him gone. I want him out of the White House in 2012. No, I am not negotiable on this. There is nothing Democrats can say or do to make me want to have him running things for four additional years. Dont. Even. Ask. He is everything I feared he would be: self-centered, inexperienced and cowardly. He doesn’t have a clue how to get us out of this mess and he’s trying to please the wrong people. He’s got to go.
Filed under: financial bailout, Financial Meltdown of 2008 Tagged: Barack Obama, capitalist taxes, catfood commission, Christina Romer, Economy, Elizabeth Warren, fees, military benefits, Social Security, unemployment
Categories: Our Friends
Wednesday Night Don’t get married or have children Open Thread
The Confluence - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 8:47pm
Guess we finally solved the pay gap for women. Time Magazine says you’ll make more than the guy in your office if you forgo having children and leave any plan for getting married in the attic with your grandma’s wedding dress. Oh, and you have to live in a big blue city.
So, here’s to all those single ladies in their 20s who have to choose between money and family!! I hope this means I get to avoid having a son-in-law and that I never have to wear the grandma label but then, it’s my daughters’ dreams that count on that account and not mine. Girls,
… according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively. And it also holds true even in reasonably small areas like the Raleigh-Durham region and Charlotte in North Carolina (both 14% more), and Jacksonville, Fla. (6%). (See TIME’s special report on the state of the American woman.)
Here’s the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it’s known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don’t live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.
That’s sure what I fought for in those early days: separate but equal but hey, we still have Obamacare and those Jane Crow rules!! We’ve certainly come a long way! Blech!!! (and Yes, it’s one of THOSE ads)Filed under: live blog Tagged: wage equality
Categories: Our Friends
Statshot: What Are Our Favorite Small-Batch Beverages?
The Onion - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 3:00pm
Categories: Our Friends
Cached manifesto of Discovery Channel hostage taker
The Confluence - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 2:52pm
This is the cached version of Save The Planet Protest .Com which appears to be the manifesto of the hostage taker at Discovery Channel. I found a picture of him and he refers to himself as Lee.
You can live blog updates here or questions. The tone of the reporting has definitely changed since this is apparently an environmental activist with some obvious mental/emotional issues.
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:
1. The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn’t, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don’t build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!
8. Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You’re the media, you can reach enough people. It’s your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!
9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.
10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!
11. You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.
For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human’s lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It’s like a couple are having 30 babies even though it’s just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Also, war must be halted. Not because it’s morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
The humans? The planet does not need humans.
You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!
I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.
These are the demands and sayings of Lee.
Here’s some additional cached information. The police or FBI appear to have removed the site and the MSM is not providing any information at this point. (Update: FOX finally identified this guy at 3:07 est and CNN at 3:15)
The Discovery Channel produces many so-called “Environmental Programs” supposedly there to save the planet. But the truth is things are getting WORSE! Their programs are causing more harm than good. They are failures. If something is not functioning; there needs to be a change of course. It’s time to bring about new initiatives and try different approaches whether they are conventional or unconventional. It is evident that the old approach is ineffective. We can see this when we watch the news or read the newspapers that their ways are not working. It’s one disaster after another. They are deliberately showing ineffective shows to make it seem like something is being done when nothing is. Their ineffectiveness is evident by the lack of results. Things should be getting better because of their shows, not worse.
We are running out of time to save this planet and the Discovery Channel is a big part of the problem, not the solution. Instead of showing successful solutions, their broadcast programs seem to be doing the opposite. Shows like “Cash Cab” and “Dirty Jobs” serve as diversions to keep the focus off what is really important, which is Global Warming and Animal Extinction. Why do they broadcast a show like “Future Weapons” that only promise to destroy the planet even more? And their new lineup “Planet Green” is all about more products and other substandard solutions. Do we really need shows like these when the planet is in crisis? No, instead the focus should be on coming up with new formulas that actually work. Why would the broadcasters and programmers focus more on the destruction of the planet rather than saving it?
The reason television shows like these are maintained is due to lack of response. We as a society allowed them to continue; only we the people can demand change from them. If the networks are not doing their job, society should find new ways for them. Join us in this protest that will be taking place at One Discovery Place, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, just a short walking distance away from Silver Spring Red Line Metro Station. Please come and make your voice be heard around the world saying you want solutions sought today and you want it broadcast on television continually.
The debate about the state of the planet is done. Global Warming is a reality. The massive extinction of animals is happening all over the world. Now let us begin the debate on how to save the planet. We can’t wait anymore, something must be done immediately! Let’s act on it right away; let this be a new chapter in the earth’s history. As human beings we must join together to save it.
My name is Lee. Look for me on site. I will be demonstrating ideas on how t save the planet in front of the Discovery Channel Building each day until they give in. The idea to save the planet is based on the book “My Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, where he suggests people can build on each other’s ideas to find solutions for saving the remaining species and living sustainably. The Discovery Channel, the networks, and the government, don’t care about planet-saving ideas that actually work. I say that they must give other ideas a chance. Join us in the protest to save the planet. So please, bring yourself, and maybe a sign with your own slogan with saving the planet as a theme, and some friends.
I’ve noticed that since Fox has found out this is most likely an environmental activist that they are hyping up the day care in the building and the evacuation of babies in cribs. The news anchor (megan kelly) is totally shrill and pissy now. Thank goodness if I have to watch fox, Shephard is on now. (Fox just confirmed 2:07 that it is James J Lee who I am documenting here.) The tone of their reporting has sure changed focusing on a quote “human babies are parasites on the planet”.
Found another cached page:
The Discovery Channel produces a lot of shows about saving the planet that all have one thing in common: They don’t work. Why don’t they have REAL shows about SAVING THE PLANET? Have you ever noticed the crap they have on their network about just about everything else but that? They glorify fishermen who are overfishing the planet, they glorify Weapons of Mass Destruction. They highlight shows about people who build pollution machines and other environmentally harmful practices. What’s next? Whaling the Planet with Modern Whalers??? These guys have been very sneaky and deceptive as to their contribution to the planetary problems. Just look at their ‘new’ show about saving the planet, “Planet Green,” to me, it’s just another show about more PRODUCTS to make MONEY, not about actual solutions. We can’t let them get away with doing it anymore. Join me in the PROTEST AGAINST THE DISCOVERY NETWORK to get them to start broadcasting real shows that actually work to save the planet. But not just a show about THEM TELLING US WHAT LIGHTBULB TO USE, but shows where solutions are brought to the new shows from people all over with good ideas. This will be a democratic process searching for those with good ideas. Inventiveness has got us into this mess, and now inventiveness can get us out. Not necessarily with more products, but maybe by just being allowed to live a different way.
If their ‘environmental’ shows are actually working, then why is the news about the environment getting worse? It should be getting better if they were doing their job and we should be seeing that reflected on the nightly news. But NO! The Discovery Channel is actually not about saving the planet, they are just another ‘green’ corporation whose real interests lies in MONEY! Products! Junk! Trash!
The show they should broadcast is in the book, “My Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, where he talks about how people can build on each other’s ideas to come up with real solutions for saving the planet. I envisioned it would be like a contest, or competition … maybe a game show? I don’t know, so long as it WORKS! Keep bringing out new shows based on that idea until one actually WORKS! That’s all I ask.
I know the hours and days for the protest event seems a bit long, but if the Discovery Channel is going to take this protest serious, we need to show them we are serious and are willing to wait them out until they give into our demands.
Seems to be just one person with incredible issues but the media coverage is evolving as the story is evolving. That is the fascinating part to me. Fox is really playing up the left wing environmental whacko line.
Filed under: General, live blog Tagged: Discovery Channel, hostage taker, James J Lee
Categories: Our Friends
[video] In Focus: Hurricane Bound For Texas Slowed By Large Land Mass To The South
The Onion - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 1:15pm
Texas residents are relieved that the deadly Category 5 storm just missed them, destroying a horn-shaped land mass south of them instead.
Categories: Our Friends
Morning Again in America (for Bankers and CEOs)
The Confluence - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 1:05pm
The current bout of unemployment is so stubborn that there’s now talk of tax cuts coming from the Obama administration even though Obama has made it clear that the debt and the deficit are on high on his radar. Too bad they won’t help the people without jobs and the businesses without customers.
There’s also pressure on the Federal Reserve to do something, anything. If you know any thing about money creation, you know that bank lending is the critical channel for transmitting monetary policy into the real sector where the GDP growth resides. No bank lending, impotent monetary policy. It’s very simple.
The recession of the 1980s (Reagan’s first term) was somewhat created by high interest rates. Bringing interest rates down reinvigorated the economy. Well, that and Reagan’s war time spending in a period of relative peace which is basically highly stimulative fiscal policy. Reagan was a huge deficit spender and a lot of it went to rebuilding the Navy in American ship yards. So, that started the “morning in America” phenomenon.
This time things are different; especially if you’re just a little guy or the small business owner on Main street. It’s morning again in America for the privileged but NOT you.
The Institute for Policy Studies has just released its 17th annual executive survey on executive pay. The subheading is pretty telling and basically is summed up “how CEOs laid off thousands while raking in millions”. This recovery and the stimulus package and corporate bailouts have done very well by the nation’s already abfab rich.
Corporate executives, in reality, are not suffering at all. Their pay, to be sure, dipped on average in 2009 from 2008 levels, just as their pay in 2008, the first Great Recession year, dipped somewhat from 2007. But executive pay overall remains far above inflationadjusted levels of years past. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century.
American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s. Back in those years, precious few top executives made over 30 times what their workers made. In 2009, we calculate in the 17th annual Executive Excess, CEOs of major U.S. corporations averaged 263 times the average compensation of American workers. CEOs are clearly not hurting.
But they are, as we detail in these pages, causing others to needlessly hurt — by cutting jobs to feather their own already comfortable executive nests. In 2009, the CEOs who slashed their payrolls the deepest took home 42 percent more compensation than the year’s chief executive pay average for S&P 500 companies. Most careful analysts of the high-finance meltdown that ushered in the Great Recession have concluded that excessive executive compensation played a prime causal role. Outrageously high rewards gave executives an incentive to behave outrageously, to take the sorts of reckless risks that would eventually endanger our entire economy.
I thought I’d add something here just for Riverdaughter since we know there’s massive layoffs in her industry from CNN.
“I think that really shows a really perverse incentive system in this country,” said Sarah Anderson, lead author of the Institute for Policy Studies’ 17th Annual Executive Compensation Survey. “You are handsomely rewarded for slashing jobs in the middle of the worst economic crisis in 80 years,” she said.
It did for Fred Hassan of Schering-Plough, the man the report dubbed last year’s “Golden Parachuter.” Hassan was the highest paid layoff leader, earning $50 million in 2009 while his firm merged with Merck and cut 16,000 workers.
According to Anderson, “they’re prioritizing CEO pay at the welfare of their workers”.
So how do they get away with it? Anderson said you have to look at the make-up of many companies’ executive boards. She said they’re often made up of CEOs and high level executives from other companies “who really don’t want to question this ridiculous pay system we have in this country that continues to pay people these absurd amounts of money when they’re really not performing well for their company or the overall economy.”
Another disconcerting finding of the report: 72 percent of layoff-leading firms announced mass layoffs while delivering positive earnings reports. Anderson explained layoffs are really driven by efforts “to boost short-term profits even higher and also just to continue to have such high CEO pay levels.” She said these mass cuts are often bad for business over the long-term because they impact worker morale, which can lead to lower productivity. She said they also result in additional costs related to hiring and training new workers down the road
Here’s a link to Market Place from NPR where you can listen to an interview with one of the authors.
Yeah, let’s give them more tax breaks to stimulate the economy. Great idea Obama economic team! No wonder Christie Romer bailed.
Filed under: Economic Stimulus, Economy Tagged: Executive Pay survey 2010
Categories: Our Friends
Infographic: Original Kermit Donated To Smithsonian
The Onion - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 12:30pm
Last week, Jane Henson, widow of Jim Henson, donated 10 Muppets to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, including the original Kermit. Here are some of the other things donated to the museum in the past six months:
Categories: Our Friends
Vaccines, Oprah and Jenny McCarthy
Alegre's Corner Latest - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 11:45am
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a ruling that vaccines are not to blame for autism.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a decision last year by a special vaccine court, which concluded there's little if any evidence to support claims of a vaccine-autism link.
Scientist years ago reached that conclusion, but more than 5,500 families sought compensation through the government's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
Friday's ruling came in the case of Michelle Cedillo of Yuma, Ariz., who is disabled with autism, inflammatory bowel disease and other disorders that her parents blame on a measles vaccine given at 15 months.
In the 2009 ruling Special Master Denise Vowell wrote that the evidence "is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive. Sadly, the petitioners in this litigation have been the victims of bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding" of autism.
In its ruling Friday the appeals panel said "we have carefully reviewed the decision of the special master and we find that it is rationally supported by the evidence, well-articulated, and reasonable. We, therefore, affirm the denial of the Cedillos' petition for compensation."
Earlier this year the so-called vaccine court also concluded that the additive thimerosal is not to blame for autism, an added setback in a long-running battle by parents convinced there is a connection.
The decisions help to offer reassurance to parents scared about vaccinating their babies because of a small but vocal anti-vaccine movement. Some vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles, are on the rise.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/201...
Vaccines, when administered, spaced and timed as recommended, do not cause autism.
They never have.
Now ask yourself - - how many young lives were lost or ruined because of the pseudo scientific anti vaccine babbling of Oprah and Jenny McCarthy and other self styled "activists"?
http://farrightdemocrat.blogsp...
Categories: Our Friends
[video] Police Seize More Than $50 In Wire From Nation's Wealthiest Crystal Meth Dealer
The Onion - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 11:30am
Police invaded notorious meth dealer Daryl Krogen's home, seizing dozens of bicycle parts and more than ten dollars worth of stolen paint.
Categories: Our Friends
[video] Police Capture Nation's Largest Crystal Meth Kingpin
The Onion - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 11:30am
Police invaded notorious meth dealer Daryl Krogen's home, seizing dozens of bicycle parts and more than ten dollars worth of stolen paint.
Categories: Our Friends
Department Of Just Saying: 'Been A While Since An Athlete Has Died During A Game'
The Onion - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:30am
WASHINGTON—In a report written in collaboration with the Bureau of Just Throwing It Out There, the Department of Just Saying noted Wednesday that it had been a good long while since an athlete had died on the field during a major sporting event.
Categories: Our Friends
Man Arriving Early To Party To Walk Up And Down Street For 10 Minutes
The Onion - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:00am
MEDFORD, MA—After arriving early for a coworker's party Friday evening and wishing to avoid an awkward entrance, 29-year-old Scott Harrington reportedly devised a plan to walk back and forth along the residential street for 10 additional minutes.
Categories: Our Friends