Banks and corporations prosper based on government money loaned at zero percent
By: Abby Schultz
Special to CNBC.com
Banks rose ahead of major earnings releases, beginning with JPMorgan's on Friday.
The positive tone comes as investors realize corporations are well positioned to take advantage of a strengthening economy, said Marc Pado, market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald.
In the fourth quarter, corporations kept costs low and inventories down as sales rose, Pado said
____________________________________________________
No trickle down here. Where are the free loans for homeowners like the ones banks get from government.
msnbc.com news services
Banks repossessed a record million homes in 2010 and this year is set to be even worse with 5 million borrowers at least two months behind on mortgage payments.
More homeowners are expected to start missing payments as they struggle with job losses and loans worth more than their home's value, industry analysts forecast.
"2011 is going to be the peak," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc.
___________________________________________________
In Fate of the Earth, Jonathan Schell asked if we had the right to destroy the world with nuclear weapons
Wynne Parry
LiveScience Senior Writer
Thu Jan 13, 9:00 am ET
Even if humans stop producing excess carbon dioxide in 2100, the lingering effects of global warming could span the next millennia. The results? By the year 3000, global warming would be more than a hot topic - the West Antarctic ice sheet could collapse, and global sea levels would rise by about 13 feet (4 meters), according to a new study.
Using a computer model, researchers looked at two scenarios - an end to humans' industrial carbon dioxide emissions by 2010 and by 2100 - stretched out to the year 3000.
____________________________________________
Gates is getting it
by Mathieu Rabechault Mathieu Rabechault – Thu Jan 13, 10:35 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP)
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned the cost overruns cannot continue. "The culture of endless money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of restraint," he said recently.
______________________________________________________
More educated people than jobs. More businesses than business. Replace fiction with balance
by Catey Hill
Friday, January 14, 2011
When Joyce Kalivas-Griffin, 57, saw a job opening at a private school nearby, she immediately sent in her resume. She was hopeful — the description matched her skills almost perfectly — but heard nothing. Then, she noticed that the job had been posted again, so she tweaked her resume to obscure her age and resubmitted it. This time, the school called her in for an interview. Kalivas-Griffin says she nailed it, but she didn't get the job: She believes that when the interviewer met her and realized she's no 30-something, her age tipped the scales against her.
Kalivas-Griffin will never know for sure, but as the workforce gets grayer, age bias is likely to increase, experts say. Roughly 25% of employers said they were reluctant to hire older workers, according to a 2006 survey by the Center on Aging and Work at Boston College
_______________________________________________
Keeping the restive workforce in line--not sharing shared success. That sentiment captures the coming problems
BILL VLASIC and NICK BUNKLEY, January 13, 2011
DETROIT — The sweeping overhaul and surprising recovery of the American auto industry is about to pay off handsomely for the blue-collar workers at Ford and General Motors.
While the payouts — expected to top $5,000 at Ford — underscore the turnaround being celebrated at the Detroit auto show this week, they also foreshadow the enormous challenge awaiting the rebounding companies: how to maintain and build on their financial health while keeping their historically restive work force in line.
________________________________________________
War comes first
Public Pressure Delays Deployment of Wounded Soldier
As reported by Sarah Lazare and Ryan Harvey
Jeff Hanks, a soldier out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was deployed to Afghanistan early last year and returned in September 2010 in need of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Hanks was denied treatment by two separate military bases for his traumatic injuries and was forced to go Absent Without Official Leave in order to get medical attention from civilian professionals. After surrendering himself at Fort Campbell, he was set to redeploy to Afghanistan yesterday, despite concerns for his fitness for combat. However, a joint campaign called Operation Recovery, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Civilian-Soldier Alliance, mobilized volunteers in support of Hanks and, as of yesterday, Hanks was not deployed on his scheduled date. Hanks still faces deployment or a dishonorable discharge, but details of his current status are unknown.
________________________________________________
Tea Party Billionaire David Koch Denies Climate Change, Shrugs Off His Carbon Pollution
Lee Fang, ThinkProgress: "This week, ThinkProgress conducted an impromptu interview with David Koch - one of the richest men in America, co-owner of the conglomerate Koch Industries, and a top financier of right-wing front groups - after we found him leaving the swearing-in ceremony for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). In the first part of the interview, Koch said that he 'admire[s]' the Tea Party movement, and that 'the rank and file are just normal people like us.'
Asked why Koch’s Americans for Prosperity focuses so much on denying climate change, Koch said it was because “regulating CO2 excessively … really damage[s] the economy.” _______________________________________________
Attacks against people’s employment rights unabated. What’s wrong with this picture?
Understanding the Attacks on Public Employees
Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: "You can barely open a newspaper or turn on a radio without hearing about states and local governments bankrupted by high-paid public employees, their pensions and their unions. How much of what you are hearing is really true, and how much is just one more Wall Street-funded campaign to turn people against each other and our government?"
Stocks are soaring, corporate profits are way up, Wall Street gets trillions in bailouts and pays millions upon millions in bonuses. But regular people are having a hard time making ends meet and unemployment is still through the roof.
_________________________________________________
Palin sticks her foot in it again
Jewish groups respond to Palin’s use of ‘blood libel’
By Zachary
We wish that Palin had not invoked the phrase 'blood-libel' in reference to the actions of journalists and pundits in placing blame for the shooting in Tucson on others. While the term 'blood-libel' has become part of the English parlance to refer to someone being falsely accused, we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history."
The National Jewish Democratic Council, a group of Jewish Democrats, said:
"Instead of dialing down the rhetoric at this difficult moment, Sarah Palin chose to accuse others trying to sort out the meaning of this tragedy of somehow engaging in a 'blood libel' against her and others. This is of course a particularly heinous term for American Jews, given that the repeated fiction of blood libels are directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries — and given that blood libels are so directly intertwined with deeply ingrained anti-Semitism around the globe, even today. [...]
____________________________________________________
Where is the oversight on corporations?
Is Lockheed Martin Shadowing You?
William D. Hartung, TomDispatch: "Have you noticed that Lockheed Martin, the giant weapons corporation, is shadowing you? No? Then you haven't been paying much attention. Let me put it this way: If you have a life, Lockheed Martin is likely a part of it. True, Lockheed Martin doesn't actually run the U.S. government, but sometimes it seems as if it might as well.
It’s involved in surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Pentagon, the Census Bureau, and the Postal Service.
___________________________________________________
Cutting off employment opportunities for generals
Solution: Fixing General Disgust
Dina Rasor, Truthout: "I suggest that the Congress pass a law that allows generals to work for any corporation that they want when they retire, but they must wait ten years before they are allowed to work or consult for any company that interacts with the DoD or gives financial advise on buying defense contractor stock. After ten years, most of the contacts in DoD will be gone so that they can no longer pressure their former colleagues and they will be giving advice based on their military knowledge, not the influence they had in the Pentagon while they were there."
____________________________________________________
Life sometimes the luck of the draw--as in Timothy McVeigh Loughner
TUCSON, Ariz. – A wildlife officer pulled over the suspect in the assassination attempt against an Arizona congresswoman less than three hours before the deadly attack, authorities said Wednesday as they pieced together more details of a frenzied morning.
"...an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society - cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian." -Howard Zinn,
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Record heat; reasons for COPD; banks home free; paying for High; democracy on decline; public opposed to debt limit increase; Doublethink Congress
I suppose the doubting Thomases will love this. The world has only equaled an old record
Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Wed Jan 12, 12:26 pm ET
WASHINGTON – It's a tie: Last year equaled 2005 as the warmest year on record, government climate experts reported Wednesday.
The average worldwide temperature was 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 degree Celsius) above normal last year. That's the same as six years ago, the National Climatic Data Center announced.
_____________________________________________________
Another cost of corporations’ uninhibited right to poison our air
Health Tip: Help Prevent COPD
Fri Jan 7, 5:02 pm ET
(HealthDay News) .
The American Lung Association suggests these steps to help protect you from COPD:.
Avoid exposure to lung-damaging chemicals.
Take steps to help promote clean air in your community
Don't smoke, and quit if you currently smoke.
Stay away from secondhand smoke, and don't allow other people to smoke in your home
_____________________________________________
Banks get free borrowing for their outrageous rebound to obscene profits. Where’s the free borrowing for homeowners? Deck is stacked in favor of the powerful. Why they are vested interests.
Housing prices to hit bottom this spring: economist
Reuters – An auction sign for a property in Miami Gardens, Florida, September 15, 2009.
By Barbara Liston Barbara Liston – Wed Jan 12, 5:07 pm ET
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – U.S. housing prices overall are expected to hit bottom by spring 2011 and begin a gradual rise in 2012, Frank Nothaft, chief economist and vice president of housing lender Freddie Mac said on Wednesday.
"I do think we'll see these housing prices bottom out, maybe by the spring," Nothaft said.
______________________________________________________
Another war we are financing. Wars all around us so we can live high
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Mark Stevenson, Associated Press – 36 mins ago
MEXICO CITY – A total of 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in Mexico in the four years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an offensive against drug cartels, officials said Wednesday.
_______________________________________________
While we are measuring the other 25, what about the illegal wars, the Patriot Act, the endemic government corruption, the rigged system of earmarks to help incumbents keep their seats?
Watchdog group: Freedom slipped worldwide in 2010
Barry Schweid, Ap Diplomatic Writer – Thu Jan 13, 12:01 am ET
WASHINGTON – Twenty-five countries showed significant declines in democracy in 2010 with little serious resistance from the democratic world, the watchdog group Freedom House reported Thursday.
The 25 countries listed as declining in their levels of freedom were Afghanistan, Bahrain, Burundi, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Hungary, Iran, Kuwait, Latvia, Madagascar, Mexico, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zambia.
_________________________________________________
Public strongly opposes debt level increase: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Let’s shut the government down. A witless public easily manipulated and dangerous to democracy. Why Jefferson and Hamilton struck a deal to insulate government from stupidity
By Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
A man dressed as a destitute Uncle Sam begging for $12 trillion demonstrates in New York January 19, 2010. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
By Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country's debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America's international standing and push up borrowing costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.
Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase.
_______________________________________________
The shame is that Giffords’ strip mall visit had only roused less than a handful of interested citizens, most of them victims of the shooter
TUCSON, Ariz. – Summoning the soul of a nation, President Barack Obama on Wednesday implored Americans to honor those slain and injured in the Arizona shootings by becoming better people, telling a polarized citizenry that it is time to talk with each other "in a way that heals, not in a way wounds."
Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 14,000 in an arena and thousands more listened on from an overflow area in the football stadium. About a mile away, at University Medical Center, Giffords lay fighting for her life. Other victims also remained there hospitalized
_______________________________________________________
If they can break the AMA monopoly, I bet they’ll do it better, cheaper, faster than our industry protected by our government to sell at outrageous profits
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – British entrepreneurs touting new technologies for concerns such as keeping tabs on addled elderly or trouble getting pregnant were courting Silicon Valley connections on Wednesday.
"We brought the best and the brightest companies that we think are on the bottom of the growth hockey stick to the San Francisco Bay Area," said the board's Zahid Latif.
"Where else would you bring them but one of the most innovative areas on the planet?"
________________________________________________
Shades of 1984 Double Think
House Republicans Remove "Civil Rights" and "Labor" From Committee Names
Nadia Prupis, Truthout: "House Republicans have renamed several Congressional committees by changing or removing certain hot-button words such as 'civil rights' and 'labor' from their titles. The Education and Labor Committee became the Education and Workforce Committee, while the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties is set to be renamed the Constitution Subcommittee
[ED’S NOTE, excerpt from novel 1984: But since in reality BIG BROTHER is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known as doublethink.
The official ideology abounds with contradictions even when there is no reason for them. Simultaneously, true to the principles of doublethink, the Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does this in the name of socialism. It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family all the while appealing to the sentiment of family. Even the names of the four Ministries by which Oceania is governed are a deliberate reversal of facts:
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with War;
the Ministry of Truth with Lies;
the Ministry of Love with Torture;
and the Ministry of Plenty with Starvation.
These contradictions are not accidental. They are a deliberate exercise of doublethink. If the High are to keep their places permanently - then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.]
Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Wed Jan 12, 12:26 pm ET
WASHINGTON – It's a tie: Last year equaled 2005 as the warmest year on record, government climate experts reported Wednesday.
The average worldwide temperature was 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 degree Celsius) above normal last year. That's the same as six years ago, the National Climatic Data Center announced.
_____________________________________________________
Another cost of corporations’ uninhibited right to poison our air
Health Tip: Help Prevent COPD
Fri Jan 7, 5:02 pm ET
(HealthDay News) .
The American Lung Association suggests these steps to help protect you from COPD:.
Avoid exposure to lung-damaging chemicals.
Take steps to help promote clean air in your community
Don't smoke, and quit if you currently smoke.
Stay away from secondhand smoke, and don't allow other people to smoke in your home
_____________________________________________
Banks get free borrowing for their outrageous rebound to obscene profits. Where’s the free borrowing for homeowners? Deck is stacked in favor of the powerful. Why they are vested interests.
Housing prices to hit bottom this spring: economist
Reuters – An auction sign for a property in Miami Gardens, Florida, September 15, 2009.
By Barbara Liston Barbara Liston – Wed Jan 12, 5:07 pm ET
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – U.S. housing prices overall are expected to hit bottom by spring 2011 and begin a gradual rise in 2012, Frank Nothaft, chief economist and vice president of housing lender Freddie Mac said on Wednesday.
"I do think we'll see these housing prices bottom out, maybe by the spring," Nothaft said.
______________________________________________________
Another war we are financing. Wars all around us so we can live high
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Mark Stevenson, Associated Press – 36 mins ago
MEXICO CITY – A total of 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in Mexico in the four years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an offensive against drug cartels, officials said Wednesday.
_______________________________________________
While we are measuring the other 25, what about the illegal wars, the Patriot Act, the endemic government corruption, the rigged system of earmarks to help incumbents keep their seats?
Watchdog group: Freedom slipped worldwide in 2010
Barry Schweid, Ap Diplomatic Writer – Thu Jan 13, 12:01 am ET
WASHINGTON – Twenty-five countries showed significant declines in democracy in 2010 with little serious resistance from the democratic world, the watchdog group Freedom House reported Thursday.
The 25 countries listed as declining in their levels of freedom were Afghanistan, Bahrain, Burundi, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Hungary, Iran, Kuwait, Latvia, Madagascar, Mexico, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zambia.
_________________________________________________
Public strongly opposes debt level increase: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Let’s shut the government down. A witless public easily manipulated and dangerous to democracy. Why Jefferson and Hamilton struck a deal to insulate government from stupidity
By Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
A man dressed as a destitute Uncle Sam begging for $12 trillion demonstrates in New York January 19, 2010. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
By Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country's debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America's international standing and push up borrowing costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.
Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase.
_______________________________________________
The shame is that Giffords’ strip mall visit had only roused less than a handful of interested citizens, most of them victims of the shooter
TUCSON, Ariz. – Summoning the soul of a nation, President Barack Obama on Wednesday implored Americans to honor those slain and injured in the Arizona shootings by becoming better people, telling a polarized citizenry that it is time to talk with each other "in a way that heals, not in a way wounds."
Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 14,000 in an arena and thousands more listened on from an overflow area in the football stadium. About a mile away, at University Medical Center, Giffords lay fighting for her life. Other victims also remained there hospitalized
_______________________________________________________
If they can break the AMA monopoly, I bet they’ll do it better, cheaper, faster than our industry protected by our government to sell at outrageous profits
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – British entrepreneurs touting new technologies for concerns such as keeping tabs on addled elderly or trouble getting pregnant were courting Silicon Valley connections on Wednesday.
"We brought the best and the brightest companies that we think are on the bottom of the growth hockey stick to the San Francisco Bay Area," said the board's Zahid Latif.
"Where else would you bring them but one of the most innovative areas on the planet?"
________________________________________________
Shades of 1984 Double Think
House Republicans Remove "Civil Rights" and "Labor" From Committee Names
Nadia Prupis, Truthout: "House Republicans have renamed several Congressional committees by changing or removing certain hot-button words such as 'civil rights' and 'labor' from their titles. The Education and Labor Committee became the Education and Workforce Committee, while the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties is set to be renamed the Constitution Subcommittee
[ED’S NOTE, excerpt from novel 1984: But since in reality BIG BROTHER is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known as doublethink.
The official ideology abounds with contradictions even when there is no reason for them. Simultaneously, true to the principles of doublethink, the Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does this in the name of socialism. It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family all the while appealing to the sentiment of family. Even the names of the four Ministries by which Oceania is governed are a deliberate reversal of facts:
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with War;
the Ministry of Truth with Lies;
the Ministry of Love with Torture;
and the Ministry of Plenty with Starvation.
These contradictions are not accidental. They are a deliberate exercise of doublethink. If the High are to keep their places permanently - then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.]
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The end of Empire, Social Security, raising taxes, Second Amendment abuses, Japan to the rescue, U.S losing power of intimidation
Social Security payments have been plundered since he Johnson Administration to pay for the General Budget. Now Congress wants to erase the debt owed by the US, Government. Not reducing entitlements but robbing the public who pai into their retirement accounts.
by Irwin Kellner
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Any use of Social Security tax revenues other than paying benefits to those people who are eligible to receive them is not only morally wrong — it is also against the law.
Lately, most discussions about ways of reducing Washington's budget deficit have inevitably turned to cutting entitlements. So much so that the New York Times in a recent editorial was upset that many elected officials have pledged to "shield seniors from spending cuts, apparently to please recipients of entitlements like ... Social Security."
Breaking this particular promise would break the law — which, I would hope, the New York Times respects. The law that I am referring to is the FICA Act of 1935, which specifically stated that revenues raised under that act can be used only to pay Social Security benefits.
To add insult to injury the pols — aided and abetted by some in the media — now want to grab even more money from seniors in order to reduce Washington's humongous budget deficit.
___________________________________________________________
The way to pay the bills. Finally somebody in the provinces figures it out. When will Washington?
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A major Illinois tax increase has jumped its first legislative hurdle, setting the stage for a vote by the entire Illinois House.
__________________________________________________
When are we going to come to our senses and cut all the Second Amendment abuse?
The Daily Beast The Daily Beast – Tue Jan 11, 1:13 am ET
NEW YORK – You're five times more likely to die from a gun in Arizona than Hawaii.
Advocates for gun laws argue that restrictions prevent suicides, gun trafficking and domestic violence. A study commissioned by Mayors Against Illegal Guns last year concluded that the states with the most lenient gun laws are responsible for the guns used in crimes across state lines at much higher rate than states with strict laws, concluding that "certain gun laws are an important component in reducing criminal access to firearms."
___________________________________________________
You can always count on the Feds in a ponch
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
The Associated Press 
2011-01-11
The Food and Drug Administration, which has long maintained that it has nothing to do with drugs used in executions, has quietly helped Arizona and California obtain a scarce type of anesthetic so the states could continue putting inmates to death.
The shortage of sodium thiopental has disrupted executions around the country. But newly released documents show the FDA helped import it from Britain
________________________________________________
All the news in the U.S. about Japan’s economy is negative. Wonder how Japan can bail out Europe and maintain its own social services?
On Tuesday January 11, 2011, 7:17 am EST
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks firmed on Tuesday on hopes for a solid earnings season, while the euro steadied above four-month lows after Japan offered to buy euro zone bonds.
Japan said it was considering buying about 20 percent of the bonds to be jointly issued later this month to raise funds to support Ireland, but investors remained cautious ahead of a make-or-break debt auction in struggling Portugal on Wednesday
_________________________________________________________
U.S losing its intimidation factor in world affairs
China Flexes Its Muscles with Stealth Fighter Flight Test
By AUSTIN RAMZY, Time
For a stealth fighter it was a remarkably obvious flight, but perhaps that was the point. On a day when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Beijing meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, China's new stealth fighter took what is believed to be its maiden test flight, according to a defense analyst.
Gates maintains that the U.S. will keep its edge in stealth aircraft development for some time. "In 2020 or 2025 ... there would still be a vast disparity in the number of deployed fifth-generation aircraft that the United States had compared to anybody else in the world."
____________________________________________________________
U.S may have to forget hopes for regime change in North Korea. What’s this world coming to when North Korea can defend its government from being hijacked ala Iraq, Afghanistan?
BEIJING (Reuters) – North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States and could develop an inter-continental ballistic missile within five years, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on Tuesday.
"I think that North Korea will have developed an inter-continental ballistic missile within that time -- not that they will have huge numbers or anything like that," Gates said. "But they will have, I believe they will have a very limited capability."
North Korea has more than 800 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 missiles of various ranges.
______________________________________________________
Collapse of Empire not a bad thing. The Brits survived without being crushed by a war. So have the Russians. Now the American Empire dying by our own hand from the Reagan treatment? Break the bank
Nick Turse, TomDispatch: "Like all empires, the US military's empire of bases will someday crumble. These bases, however, are not apt to fall like so many dominos in some silver-screen last-stand sequence. They won't, that is, go out with the 'bang' of futuristic Alamos, but with the 'whimper' of insolvency. Last year, rumbling began even among Washington lawmakers about this increasingly likely prospect. 'I do not think we should be spending money to have troops in Germany 65 years after World War II. We have a terrible deficit and we have to cut back,' said Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank."
_____________________________________________
Figuring out who’s nutty
Fox News: The No. 1 Name in Murder Fantasies
Steve Rendall, FAIR: "Bill O'Reilly's recent 'joke' about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview. During the cable channel's 2008 election coverage, in what she later called an attempt at humor, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta linked Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama as people who both should be assassinated: 'And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could.'"
by Irwin Kellner
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Any use of Social Security tax revenues other than paying benefits to those people who are eligible to receive them is not only morally wrong — it is also against the law.
Lately, most discussions about ways of reducing Washington's budget deficit have inevitably turned to cutting entitlements. So much so that the New York Times in a recent editorial was upset that many elected officials have pledged to "shield seniors from spending cuts, apparently to please recipients of entitlements like ... Social Security."
Breaking this particular promise would break the law — which, I would hope, the New York Times respects. The law that I am referring to is the FICA Act of 1935, which specifically stated that revenues raised under that act can be used only to pay Social Security benefits.
To add insult to injury the pols — aided and abetted by some in the media — now want to grab even more money from seniors in order to reduce Washington's humongous budget deficit.
___________________________________________________________
The way to pay the bills. Finally somebody in the provinces figures it out. When will Washington?
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A major Illinois tax increase has jumped its first legislative hurdle, setting the stage for a vote by the entire Illinois House.
__________________________________________________
When are we going to come to our senses and cut all the Second Amendment abuse?
The Daily Beast The Daily Beast – Tue Jan 11, 1:13 am ET
NEW YORK – You're five times more likely to die from a gun in Arizona than Hawaii.
Advocates for gun laws argue that restrictions prevent suicides, gun trafficking and domestic violence. A study commissioned by Mayors Against Illegal Guns last year concluded that the states with the most lenient gun laws are responsible for the guns used in crimes across state lines at much higher rate than states with strict laws, concluding that "certain gun laws are an important component in reducing criminal access to firearms."
___________________________________________________
You can always count on the Feds in a ponch
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
The Associated Press 
2011-01-11
The Food and Drug Administration, which has long maintained that it has nothing to do with drugs used in executions, has quietly helped Arizona and California obtain a scarce type of anesthetic so the states could continue putting inmates to death.
The shortage of sodium thiopental has disrupted executions around the country. But newly released documents show the FDA helped import it from Britain
________________________________________________
All the news in the U.S. about Japan’s economy is negative. Wonder how Japan can bail out Europe and maintain its own social services?
On Tuesday January 11, 2011, 7:17 am EST
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks firmed on Tuesday on hopes for a solid earnings season, while the euro steadied above four-month lows after Japan offered to buy euro zone bonds.
Japan said it was considering buying about 20 percent of the bonds to be jointly issued later this month to raise funds to support Ireland, but investors remained cautious ahead of a make-or-break debt auction in struggling Portugal on Wednesday
_________________________________________________________
U.S losing its intimidation factor in world affairs
China Flexes Its Muscles with Stealth Fighter Flight Test
By AUSTIN RAMZY, Time
For a stealth fighter it was a remarkably obvious flight, but perhaps that was the point. On a day when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Beijing meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, China's new stealth fighter took what is believed to be its maiden test flight, according to a defense analyst.
Gates maintains that the U.S. will keep its edge in stealth aircraft development for some time. "In 2020 or 2025 ... there would still be a vast disparity in the number of deployed fifth-generation aircraft that the United States had compared to anybody else in the world."
____________________________________________________________
U.S may have to forget hopes for regime change in North Korea. What’s this world coming to when North Korea can defend its government from being hijacked ala Iraq, Afghanistan?
BEIJING (Reuters) – North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States and could develop an inter-continental ballistic missile within five years, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on Tuesday.
"I think that North Korea will have developed an inter-continental ballistic missile within that time -- not that they will have huge numbers or anything like that," Gates said. "But they will have, I believe they will have a very limited capability."
North Korea has more than 800 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 missiles of various ranges.
______________________________________________________
Collapse of Empire not a bad thing. The Brits survived without being crushed by a war. So have the Russians. Now the American Empire dying by our own hand from the Reagan treatment? Break the bank
Nick Turse, TomDispatch: "Like all empires, the US military's empire of bases will someday crumble. These bases, however, are not apt to fall like so many dominos in some silver-screen last-stand sequence. They won't, that is, go out with the 'bang' of futuristic Alamos, but with the 'whimper' of insolvency. Last year, rumbling began even among Washington lawmakers about this increasingly likely prospect. 'I do not think we should be spending money to have troops in Germany 65 years after World War II. We have a terrible deficit and we have to cut back,' said Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank."
_____________________________________________
Figuring out who’s nutty
Fox News: The No. 1 Name in Murder Fantasies
Steve Rendall, FAIR: "Bill O'Reilly's recent 'joke' about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview. During the cable channel's 2008 election coverage, in what she later called an attempt at humor, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta linked Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama as people who both should be assassinated: 'And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could.'"
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Focus: Hope; Auburn wins BCS; Kardashian void; Palin on petard; power behind the throne; fees to enter Gaza; Republican base runs agenda; religious tolerance finds new ally
Message of prophets still lives in some places
From Wikipedia
Focus: HOPE is a Detroit-based, non-denominational, non-profit organization whose aim is to overcome racism and poverty by providing education and training for underrepresented minorities and others.
Focus: HOPE was established in Detroit, Michigan in March, 1968 by co-founders Father William T. Cunningham, Father Jerome Fraser and Eleanor Josaitis. At the time the social environment in northern Detroit was one of severe racial tension as a result of the 12th Street Riot of the previous summer. The co-founders’ objective was to create a harmonious community where diverse people live and work together. Starting out in the basement of the Catholic Church of Madonna, where Father Cunningham was pastor, Focus: HOPE eventually grew to encompass a 40-acre (160,000 m2) campus along
Oakman Boulevard in Detroit. Despite its origins, however, Focus: HOPE has no affiliation with the Catholic Church.
______________________________________________________
Auburn wins BCS. Sports keeps teaching the same lesson. Don’t give up till your problems got you on your knees.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS • January 11, 2011
"My knee wasn't down," Dyer said. "I didn't hear a whistle, not yet, so I was kind of like, looking, like, what's going on?'"
Three plays later, Dyer ran 16 yards to push the ball to the 1 and set up Wes Byrum's 19-yard field goal with no time left. It capped off a perfect 14-0 season.
_________________________________________________________
Some of our current stalwart T.V heroines. A tribute to our emptiness?
FRESNO, Calif. - The Kardashian sisters have been sued by a California company that created a prepaid debit card endorsed the reality show starlets.
___________________________________________
Palin hoisted on her own petard--and we aren’t any better
Jonathan Martin Jonathan Martin – Mon Jan 10, 4:54 am ET
With a long list of enemies, a taste for incendiary rhetoric and responsibility for a campaign website graphic that placed gunsight logos on a map of targeted congressional districts, it didn’t take long for Sarah Palin to get pulled into the orbit of Saturday’s massacre in Tucson.
Still, once the Tucson tragedy begins to fade from view, the same incentives for bombast and scorched-earth rhetoric are likely to return.
“The fact is that politicians say these things because they work,” said Republican consultant Todd Harris. “The public, or at least segments of the public on the right and the left, respond to it. It raises money and builds organization.”
___________________________________________
Democratic window dressing. The control of power is behind the throne
A Union Activist's Call for Change
Nick Egnatz, Online Journal: "Kim Scipes’ new book 'AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country Workers' (Lexington Books, 2010) documents the history of AFL-CIO leadership in supporting the U.S. government policy of Empire in the developing world. AFL-CIO leadership, in secret and completely without the consent and support of their rank and file membership, has worked to thwart popular bottom-up organic democracy in the developing world and instead supported elite top-down democracy, friendly to U.S. corporate interests."
____________________________________________
Israeli corruption adds insult to injury
OSLO (AFP)--U.S. firms complained in 2006 of corruption by Israeli officials at the Karni crossing into Gaza, then the Palestinian territory's main commercial transit point, a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable showed Thursday, Norwegian daily Aftenposten reports.
According to a cable from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and consulate in Jerusalem, U.S. firms complained to embassy officials of a "lack of a clear and predictable truck registration system" which enabled "widespread corruption at Karni crossing."
The companies included Coca Cola, Procter and Gamble, Caterpillar, Philip Morris, Westinghouse, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Aramex and Dell.
At the end of May 2006, "Thirty four shipments of American goods, amounting to nearly $1.9 million [had) been waiting three to four months to cross into Gaza," it added.
Israel shut the Karni crossing when the radical Hamas movement took control of Gaza in June 2007. Only a minimum of goods are now let through, using a conveyor belt
________________________________________________
Republicans have to write off assassination attempt to nut case because addressing hate at the heart of their base is suicide
Rabbi Michael Lerner, Tikkun: "Why does what Hillary Clinton once quite accurately described as 'the vast right-wing conspiracy' get a free pass when its rhetoric can easily be seen to contribute to the climate of hate from which the actions of this "lone gunman" can be easily understood to have emerged? Isn't it time for us to demand that our government investigate the violence-generating discourse of the racist and the haters? Why, when the House of Representatives was in the hands of Democrats, did they not have any committee or subcommittee at work holding pubic hearings to explore what kind of legislation might help protect us citizens and our liberal and progressive representatives from the kind of violence that exploded in Arizona earlier today?"
_____________________________________________
Influencing political dialog when corporate control is systemic
Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout: "The truism has it right. If you're not depressed or angry about the state of the world, you're not paying attention. A quick glance at the daily headlines is enough to have many of us wringing our hands in despair. Countless wars seem like they'll never end; social welfare programs are being slashed; the Tea Party is on the rise; ultraconservatives have picked up the mantle of feminism; and schoolyard bullies have pushed an escalating number of LGBTQ youth to commit suicide, to name just a few of the atrocities presently hitting home.... Enter Celebrate People's History, a stunning look at street art - usually in the form of two-color posters - that recognizes the countless men and women who, since time immemorial, have participated in political actions to challenge the status quo."
_______________________________________________________
Religious freedom finds unexpected defenders
Thousands of Egyptian Muslims Show Up as "Human Shields" to Defend Coptic Christians From Terorism
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: "As Egyptian Copts attended mass at churches across the country, 'thousands' of Muslims, including 'the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak,' joined them, acting as “human shields” to protect from terrorist attacks by extremists. The Muslims organized under the slogan 'We either live together, or we die together,' inspired by Mohamed El-Sawy, an Egyptian artist."
From Wikipedia
Focus: HOPE is a Detroit-based, non-denominational, non-profit organization whose aim is to overcome racism and poverty by providing education and training for underrepresented minorities and others.
Focus: HOPE was established in Detroit, Michigan in March, 1968 by co-founders Father William T. Cunningham, Father Jerome Fraser and Eleanor Josaitis. At the time the social environment in northern Detroit was one of severe racial tension as a result of the 12th Street Riot of the previous summer. The co-founders’ objective was to create a harmonious community where diverse people live and work together. Starting out in the basement of the Catholic Church of Madonna, where Father Cunningham was pastor, Focus: HOPE eventually grew to encompass a 40-acre (160,000 m2) campus along
Oakman Boulevard in Detroit. Despite its origins, however, Focus: HOPE has no affiliation with the Catholic Church.
______________________________________________________
Auburn wins BCS. Sports keeps teaching the same lesson. Don’t give up till your problems got you on your knees.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS • January 11, 2011
"My knee wasn't down," Dyer said. "I didn't hear a whistle, not yet, so I was kind of like, looking, like, what's going on?'"
Three plays later, Dyer ran 16 yards to push the ball to the 1 and set up Wes Byrum's 19-yard field goal with no time left. It capped off a perfect 14-0 season.
_________________________________________________________
Some of our current stalwart T.V heroines. A tribute to our emptiness?
FRESNO, Calif. - The Kardashian sisters have been sued by a California company that created a prepaid debit card endorsed the reality show starlets.
___________________________________________
Palin hoisted on her own petard--and we aren’t any better
Jonathan Martin Jonathan Martin – Mon Jan 10, 4:54 am ET
With a long list of enemies, a taste for incendiary rhetoric and responsibility for a campaign website graphic that placed gunsight logos on a map of targeted congressional districts, it didn’t take long for Sarah Palin to get pulled into the orbit of Saturday’s massacre in Tucson.
Still, once the Tucson tragedy begins to fade from view, the same incentives for bombast and scorched-earth rhetoric are likely to return.
“The fact is that politicians say these things because they work,” said Republican consultant Todd Harris. “The public, or at least segments of the public on the right and the left, respond to it. It raises money and builds organization.”
___________________________________________
Democratic window dressing. The control of power is behind the throne
A Union Activist's Call for Change
Nick Egnatz, Online Journal: "Kim Scipes’ new book 'AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country Workers' (Lexington Books, 2010) documents the history of AFL-CIO leadership in supporting the U.S. government policy of Empire in the developing world. AFL-CIO leadership, in secret and completely without the consent and support of their rank and file membership, has worked to thwart popular bottom-up organic democracy in the developing world and instead supported elite top-down democracy, friendly to U.S. corporate interests."
____________________________________________
Israeli corruption adds insult to injury
OSLO (AFP)--U.S. firms complained in 2006 of corruption by Israeli officials at the Karni crossing into Gaza, then the Palestinian territory's main commercial transit point, a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable showed Thursday, Norwegian daily Aftenposten reports.
According to a cable from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and consulate in Jerusalem, U.S. firms complained to embassy officials of a "lack of a clear and predictable truck registration system" which enabled "widespread corruption at Karni crossing."
The companies included Coca Cola, Procter and Gamble, Caterpillar, Philip Morris, Westinghouse, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Aramex and Dell.
At the end of May 2006, "Thirty four shipments of American goods, amounting to nearly $1.9 million [had) been waiting three to four months to cross into Gaza," it added.
Israel shut the Karni crossing when the radical Hamas movement took control of Gaza in June 2007. Only a minimum of goods are now let through, using a conveyor belt
________________________________________________
Republicans have to write off assassination attempt to nut case because addressing hate at the heart of their base is suicide
Rabbi Michael Lerner, Tikkun: "Why does what Hillary Clinton once quite accurately described as 'the vast right-wing conspiracy' get a free pass when its rhetoric can easily be seen to contribute to the climate of hate from which the actions of this "lone gunman" can be easily understood to have emerged? Isn't it time for us to demand that our government investigate the violence-generating discourse of the racist and the haters? Why, when the House of Representatives was in the hands of Democrats, did they not have any committee or subcommittee at work holding pubic hearings to explore what kind of legislation might help protect us citizens and our liberal and progressive representatives from the kind of violence that exploded in Arizona earlier today?"
_____________________________________________
Influencing political dialog when corporate control is systemic
Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout: "The truism has it right. If you're not depressed or angry about the state of the world, you're not paying attention. A quick glance at the daily headlines is enough to have many of us wringing our hands in despair. Countless wars seem like they'll never end; social welfare programs are being slashed; the Tea Party is on the rise; ultraconservatives have picked up the mantle of feminism; and schoolyard bullies have pushed an escalating number of LGBTQ youth to commit suicide, to name just a few of the atrocities presently hitting home.... Enter Celebrate People's History, a stunning look at street art - usually in the form of two-color posters - that recognizes the countless men and women who, since time immemorial, have participated in political actions to challenge the status quo."
_______________________________________________________
Religious freedom finds unexpected defenders
Thousands of Egyptian Muslims Show Up as "Human Shields" to Defend Coptic Christians From Terorism
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: "As Egyptian Copts attended mass at churches across the country, 'thousands' of Muslims, including 'the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak,' joined them, acting as “human shields” to protect from terrorist attacks by extremists. The Muslims organized under the slogan 'We either live together, or we die together,' inspired by Mohamed El-Sawy, an Egyptian artist."
Monday, January 10, 2011
Brain injury, oil leak, Iceland, paying for war, religion, hate, death
Thanks to NRA’s effective lobbying and the support of enlightened hunters, 240,000 people die annually from traumatic brain injury
Bullet's path leaves uncertain future for trauma victims
Giffords will face a long and difficult recovery, but some victims have prevailed
By JoNel Aleccia Health writer
About 1.7 million people in the United States suffer traumatic brain injuries every year, with about 20 percent of them caused by violence, including gunshots. About 52,000 people die as a result of their injuries and about 275,000 are hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
_________________________________________
And we put faith in oil industry’s guarantees of no environmental impact in The Tongass National Forest
Alaska pipeline shut down after leak discovered
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, 1/9/2011
Oil producers are in the process of cutting output to 5 percent of the normal rate of around 630,000 barrels per day.
The last time the pipeline was shut down unexpectedly was in May, when a power outage at a pump station triggered a series of events that caused an estimated 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) of crude oil to spill out of the storage tank at Pump Station 9, located about 105 miles south of Fairbanks.
The spill, which shut the pipeline for 79 hours, was the biggest in Alaska since the 212,252-gallon spill in 2006 from a corroded transit pipeline at the Prudhoe Bay field.
__________________________________________
It take little Iceland and not Sweden or Britain to understand the U.S. invasion obscured by rape charges
LONDON – The American ambassador to Reykjavik has been summoned to explain why U.S. investigators are trying to access the private details of an Icelandic lawmaker's online activity as they try to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks
"(It is) very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official," Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson told Icelandic broadcaster RUV.
"This is even more serious when put (in) perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people's freedom in general," he added.
_____________________________________________
Who pays to keep wars going and who benefits
AFGOYE, Somalia – Dr. Hawa Abdi has treated sick and wounded Somalis since 1983, through famine and civil war. But it only took one day for Islamist rebels to wreck her life's work
She has visited international donors to appeal for money, if only a fraction of the millions the international community spends on military support for the weak, corrupt Somali government. Some Somali expatriates are also trying to help.
________________________________________
The irrational hold religion has and its impact goes back to the Crusades and the Inquisition and before and continues today in support for wars, social injustice, and in other ways
KARACHI (AFP) – More than 50,000 people rallied in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi on Sunday, police said, against the controversial reform of a blasphemy law that was behind the killing of a senior politician.
Religious groups blocked a main thoroughfare in Karachi's teeming metropolis holding banners in support of the police commando who shot dead Punjab governor Salman Taseer on Tuesday over his views favouring an amendment of the law.
_________________________________________
Collateral damage of hate talk radio/TV/state organized violence, and those who support it
By CARL HULSE and KATE ZERNIKE .
The New York Times
Not since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 has an event generated as much attention as to whether extremism, antigovernment sentiment and even simple political passion at both ends of the ideological spectrum have created a climate promoting violence. The fallout seemed to hold the potential to upend the effort by Republicans to keep their agenda front and center in the new Congress and to alter the political narrative in other ways.
Dallas Green's granddaughter dies in Arizona shooting
By David Brown
Among the six killed and 13 injured reportedly in Tucson, Ariz. was 9-year-old third-grader Christina-Taylor Green. .
From the portrait painted in the Arizona Daily Star, she seemed like a neat little girl all on her own:
• Already a good speaker, her father said, Green recently was elected to the student council at her elementary school.
• Green told her parents she wanted to attend Penn State and make a career helping those less fortunate.
• She loved animals and dancing — especially ballet — along with hip-hop and jazz music.
• She was athletic, too; Green liked to go swimming with her 11-year-old brother, also named Dallas. She also was the only girl on her Little League baseball team. She played second base.
Green had two personal connections to Major League Baseball; She was a daughter of Los Angeles Dodgers scout John Green and a granddaughter of former Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green.
_______________________________________________
Where is the outrage and the grief, the continuing media coverage over destruction/dislocation in Iraq and Afghanistan

9 January 2011
What is the real death toll in Iraq?
The Americans learned one lesson from Vietnam: don't count the civilian dead. As a result, no one knows how many Iraqis have been killed in the ten years since the invasion. Estimates put the toll at between 100,000 and one million, and now a bitter war of numbers is raging. Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg report
So ten years after Bush and Tony Blair launched the invasion of Iraq against the wishes of a majority of UN members, no one knows how many Iraqis have died. We do know that more than two million fled abroad. Another 1.5 million sought safety elsewhere in Iraq. We know that the combined horror of car bombs, suicide attacks, sectarian killing and disproportionate US counter-insurgency tactics and air strikes have produced the worst humanitarian catastrophe in today's world. But the exact death toll remains a mystery.
Bullet's path leaves uncertain future for trauma victims
Giffords will face a long and difficult recovery, but some victims have prevailed
By JoNel Aleccia Health writer
About 1.7 million people in the United States suffer traumatic brain injuries every year, with about 20 percent of them caused by violence, including gunshots. About 52,000 people die as a result of their injuries and about 275,000 are hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
_________________________________________
And we put faith in oil industry’s guarantees of no environmental impact in The Tongass National Forest
Alaska pipeline shut down after leak discovered
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, 1/9/2011
Oil producers are in the process of cutting output to 5 percent of the normal rate of around 630,000 barrels per day.
The last time the pipeline was shut down unexpectedly was in May, when a power outage at a pump station triggered a series of events that caused an estimated 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) of crude oil to spill out of the storage tank at Pump Station 9, located about 105 miles south of Fairbanks.
The spill, which shut the pipeline for 79 hours, was the biggest in Alaska since the 212,252-gallon spill in 2006 from a corroded transit pipeline at the Prudhoe Bay field.
__________________________________________
It take little Iceland and not Sweden or Britain to understand the U.S. invasion obscured by rape charges
LONDON – The American ambassador to Reykjavik has been summoned to explain why U.S. investigators are trying to access the private details of an Icelandic lawmaker's online activity as they try to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks
"(It is) very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official," Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson told Icelandic broadcaster RUV.
"This is even more serious when put (in) perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people's freedom in general," he added.
_____________________________________________
Who pays to keep wars going and who benefits
AFGOYE, Somalia – Dr. Hawa Abdi has treated sick and wounded Somalis since 1983, through famine and civil war. But it only took one day for Islamist rebels to wreck her life's work
She has visited international donors to appeal for money, if only a fraction of the millions the international community spends on military support for the weak, corrupt Somali government. Some Somali expatriates are also trying to help.
________________________________________
The irrational hold religion has and its impact goes back to the Crusades and the Inquisition and before and continues today in support for wars, social injustice, and in other ways
KARACHI (AFP) – More than 50,000 people rallied in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi on Sunday, police said, against the controversial reform of a blasphemy law that was behind the killing of a senior politician.
Religious groups blocked a main thoroughfare in Karachi's teeming metropolis holding banners in support of the police commando who shot dead Punjab governor Salman Taseer on Tuesday over his views favouring an amendment of the law.
_________________________________________
Collateral damage of hate talk radio/TV/state organized violence, and those who support it
By CARL HULSE and KATE ZERNIKE .
The New York Times
Not since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 has an event generated as much attention as to whether extremism, antigovernment sentiment and even simple political passion at both ends of the ideological spectrum have created a climate promoting violence. The fallout seemed to hold the potential to upend the effort by Republicans to keep their agenda front and center in the new Congress and to alter the political narrative in other ways.
Dallas Green's granddaughter dies in Arizona shooting
By David Brown
Among the six killed and 13 injured reportedly in Tucson, Ariz. was 9-year-old third-grader Christina-Taylor Green. .
From the portrait painted in the Arizona Daily Star, she seemed like a neat little girl all on her own:
• Already a good speaker, her father said, Green recently was elected to the student council at her elementary school.
• Green told her parents she wanted to attend Penn State and make a career helping those less fortunate.
• She loved animals and dancing — especially ballet — along with hip-hop and jazz music.
• She was athletic, too; Green liked to go swimming with her 11-year-old brother, also named Dallas. She also was the only girl on her Little League baseball team. She played second base.
Green had two personal connections to Major League Baseball; She was a daughter of Los Angeles Dodgers scout John Green and a granddaughter of former Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green.
_______________________________________________
Where is the outrage and the grief, the continuing media coverage over destruction/dislocation in Iraq and Afghanistan

9 January 2011
What is the real death toll in Iraq?
The Americans learned one lesson from Vietnam: don't count the civilian dead. As a result, no one knows how many Iraqis have been killed in the ten years since the invasion. Estimates put the toll at between 100,000 and one million, and now a bitter war of numbers is raging. Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg report
So ten years after Bush and Tony Blair launched the invasion of Iraq against the wishes of a majority of UN members, no one knows how many Iraqis have died. We do know that more than two million fled abroad. Another 1.5 million sought safety elsewhere in Iraq. We know that the combined horror of car bombs, suicide attacks, sectarian killing and disproportionate US counter-insurgency tactics and air strikes have produced the worst humanitarian catastrophe in today's world. But the exact death toll remains a mystery.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The bill is coming due--Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Palin, Fox, Giffords, Twitter subpoena, Business Obama, suicide
Finally somebody who says it the way it is--and the way it is ain’t close to pretty
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press
WASHINGTON
"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," said Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list," Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said last March. "The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action."
_________________________________________
How the screw turns and who will be on the end of it next?
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press
LONDON – U.S. officials have issued a subpoena to demand details about WikiLeaks' Twitter account, according to court documents obtained Saturday. WikiLeaks says other American Internet companies may also have been ordered to hand over information about its activities.
Assange blasted the order, saying ,"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out."
__________________________________________
Backbone of American economy proves to be spineless, feels rejected, is pouting....
That great bastion of risk takers won’t grow business to make money because Business feels uncertain, unloved.
Washington – President Obama is making a full-court press to patch up his relations with the business community.
“We keep hearing that the corporate world not only feels disconnnected from the White House, but also has a sense that there’s not the level of predictability they need to start making investments,” says Matt Bennett, vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank. The appointment of Daley is “a signal that predictability is on its way.”
___________________________________________
Say what you want about Europe and Japan, they value their workers’ rights and are still competitive with the U.S.
Will Our Economy Ever Recover From the "Greatest Recovery"?
Mark Provost, Truthout: "For the past two years, American workers submitted to the president's appeal - taking steep paycuts despite hectic productivity growth. By contrast, corporate executives have extracted record profits by sabotaging the recovery on every front - eliminating employees, repressing wages, withholding investment and shirking federal taxes.... The global recession increased unemployment in every country, but the American experience is unparalleled.... Washington's embrace of labor market flexibility ensured companies encountered little resistance when they launched their brutal recovery plans. Leading into the recession, the US had the weakest worker protections against individual and collective dismissals in the world."
______________________________________________
Forecast of coming events?
Protest by Suicide Highlights Economic and Political Oppression in Tunisia
Basel Saleh, Truthout: "Bouazizi's attempted suicide, which comes hard on the heels of police humiliation and confiscation of his only source of income, reveals the utter despair prevalent today among Tunisia's population, especially college graduates. Twenty-four years of ruthless corruption, dictatorship and neoliberal economic policies led to a concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few people.... The miserable economic conditions in the interior of the country and the lack of employment opportunities and political freedoms pushed Bouazizi, like thousands of other young men and women in the Maghreb countries, to the margins of society."
Rioting to protest joblessness and other social ills has scarred numerous cities across this tiny country since Dec. 17, after a 26-year-old man with a university degree set himself on fire when police confiscated his fruits and vegetables for selling without a permit
_______________________________________________
Sounds like something McCain or the governor or any other number of public figures have been heard driving home for the past couple of years. Why is anybody surprised at the result?
By Zachary Roth
It is not yet known whether or not the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and as many as a dozen other people at a public event in Tucson, was an act of political violence.
The AP has reported that the gunman has been identified as Jared Loughner. There's still uncertainty about Loughner's motives and politics. But a Youtube video posted under the name Jared Lee Loughner of Tucson proposes creating a "new currency," and rails against non-English speakers "in District 8" -- Giffords's congressional district.
But it's worth noting that Giffords -- who in 2006 became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, at 36 -- has, for more than a year, been the target of violence-tinged rhetoric from political opponents and of threats that appear to have come from right-wing activists.
Asked by the New York Post whether his daughter had any enemies, Giffords's father replied: "The whole tea party."
In August 2009, an attendee at a Giffords town-hall meeting dropped a handgun, leading Giffords's staff to call the police. "We have never felt the need before to notify law enforcement when we hold these events," her spokesman said at the time.
That same month, Sarah Palin's political action committee posted a map of the US, showing the locations of the 20 Democratic members of Congress, including Giffords, it was targeting for defeat. Each location was marked by an image of a gun crosshairs.
The AP has reported that the gunman has been identified as Jared Loughner. There's still uncertainty about Loughner's motives and politics. But a Youtube video posted under the name Jared Lee Loughner of Tucson proposes creating a "new currency," and rails against non-English speakers "in District 8" -- Giffords's congressional district.
____________________________________________
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press
WASHINGTON
"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," said Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list," Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said last March. "The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action."
_________________________________________
How the screw turns and who will be on the end of it next?
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press
LONDON – U.S. officials have issued a subpoena to demand details about WikiLeaks' Twitter account, according to court documents obtained Saturday. WikiLeaks says other American Internet companies may also have been ordered to hand over information about its activities.
Assange blasted the order, saying ,"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out."
__________________________________________
Backbone of American economy proves to be spineless, feels rejected, is pouting....
That great bastion of risk takers won’t grow business to make money because Business feels uncertain, unloved.
Washington – President Obama is making a full-court press to patch up his relations with the business community.
“We keep hearing that the corporate world not only feels disconnnected from the White House, but also has a sense that there’s not the level of predictability they need to start making investments,” says Matt Bennett, vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank. The appointment of Daley is “a signal that predictability is on its way.”
___________________________________________
Say what you want about Europe and Japan, they value their workers’ rights and are still competitive with the U.S.
Will Our Economy Ever Recover From the "Greatest Recovery"?
Mark Provost, Truthout: "For the past two years, American workers submitted to the president's appeal - taking steep paycuts despite hectic productivity growth. By contrast, corporate executives have extracted record profits by sabotaging the recovery on every front - eliminating employees, repressing wages, withholding investment and shirking federal taxes.... The global recession increased unemployment in every country, but the American experience is unparalleled.... Washington's embrace of labor market flexibility ensured companies encountered little resistance when they launched their brutal recovery plans. Leading into the recession, the US had the weakest worker protections against individual and collective dismissals in the world."
______________________________________________
Forecast of coming events?
Protest by Suicide Highlights Economic and Political Oppression in Tunisia
Basel Saleh, Truthout: "Bouazizi's attempted suicide, which comes hard on the heels of police humiliation and confiscation of his only source of income, reveals the utter despair prevalent today among Tunisia's population, especially college graduates. Twenty-four years of ruthless corruption, dictatorship and neoliberal economic policies led to a concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few people.... The miserable economic conditions in the interior of the country and the lack of employment opportunities and political freedoms pushed Bouazizi, like thousands of other young men and women in the Maghreb countries, to the margins of society."
Rioting to protest joblessness and other social ills has scarred numerous cities across this tiny country since Dec. 17, after a 26-year-old man with a university degree set himself on fire when police confiscated his fruits and vegetables for selling without a permit
_______________________________________________
Sounds like something McCain or the governor or any other number of public figures have been heard driving home for the past couple of years. Why is anybody surprised at the result?
By Zachary Roth
It is not yet known whether or not the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and as many as a dozen other people at a public event in Tucson, was an act of political violence.
The AP has reported that the gunman has been identified as Jared Loughner. There's still uncertainty about Loughner's motives and politics. But a Youtube video posted under the name Jared Lee Loughner of Tucson proposes creating a "new currency," and rails against non-English speakers "in District 8" -- Giffords's congressional district.
But it's worth noting that Giffords -- who in 2006 became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, at 36 -- has, for more than a year, been the target of violence-tinged rhetoric from political opponents and of threats that appear to have come from right-wing activists.
Asked by the New York Post whether his daughter had any enemies, Giffords's father replied: "The whole tea party."
In August 2009, an attendee at a Giffords town-hall meeting dropped a handgun, leading Giffords's staff to call the police. "We have never felt the need before to notify law enforcement when we hold these events," her spokesman said at the time.
That same month, Sarah Palin's political action committee posted a map of the US, showing the locations of the 20 Democratic members of Congress, including Giffords, it was targeting for defeat. Each location was marked by an image of a gun crosshairs.
The AP has reported that the gunman has been identified as Jared Loughner. There's still uncertainty about Loughner's motives and politics. But a Youtube video posted under the name Jared Lee Loughner of Tucson proposes creating a "new currency," and rails against non-English speakers "in District 8" -- Giffords's congressional district.
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Purchaing power, Sharia Constitution, Public schools, Wall Street, Unions, Obama spin, Pelosi, racism
What’s needed is purchasing power, not hiring power. Companies hold trillions or are investing them abroad while whining for the government to give them more--and Obama is doing it with investment credits and tax breaks and hiring incentives. A great Republican gift from the Republicratic president
Richard D. Wolff | 2011: Calling Time on Capitalism
Richard D. Wolff: "Recent decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth, imposing the cost of successive crises on the poorest. Enough! The end of 2010 brought renewed Washington rhetoric, media hype and academic me–too declarations about the US economy 'recovering.' We've heard them before since the crisis hit in 2007. They always proved wrong."
FORTUNE -- With record cash on hand and a swell of profits at many large companies, it's hard not to wonder if corporate America has what it takes to help turn this sluggish economy around.
But hiring new employees isn't the only way that companies sitting on piles of cash can help stimulate things. Not enough companies are using this time to invest in their future growth without adding to headcount. Investment spending this year on new equipment, buildings, product development, research and other projects has picked up this year, but still falls short of levels seen before the recession.
_________________________________________________
Thinking of the Constitution in Sharia terms may be appropriate these days according to a reader
I support the Constitution, don't you? But I don't support the fundamentalist, "literalist" Sharia version that the GOP touts.
I think that the Constitution is a remarkable document in the development of governments that empowered individuals against oppressive rule and institutions.
It overthrew the privileged reign of royal lineage and put the direction of America in the hands of the population at large. You could argue that the Constitution is the ultimate populist charter for a nation. But on Thursday, the GOP is putting on a political theater performance in the House by reading the Constitution out loud, even though the new red tide of right-wingers don't support large chunks of it, such as the 14th Amendment, the 17th Amendment, and much, much more.
_________________________________________
Why not empower teachers in public schools rather than transferring the tuition to private schools
Got Dough? Public School Reform in the Age of Venture Philanthropy
Joanne Barkan, Dissent Magazine: "The cost of K-12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to define the national debate on education; sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms; and determine public policy at the local, state, and national levels. In the domain of venture philanthropy - where donors decide what social transformation they want to engineer and then design and fund projects to implement their vision - investing in education yields great bang for the buck."
______________________________________________
Believe it or not--Robert Ripley
Huffington Post
During a little-noticed hearing this week in Sacramento, Calif., a firm hired by Wall Street to analyze mortgages given to borrowers with poor credit, which were then packaged and sold to investors during the boom years, revealed that as much as 28 percent of those loans failed to meet basic underwriting standards -- and Wall Street knew all along.
Worse, when the firm flagged those loans for potential issues, Wall Street banks ignored its recommendation nearly half the time and likely purchased those loans anyway -- selling them to unwitting investors who were never told that the biggest home loan due diligence firm in the country had found potential defects in these mortgages.
_________________________________________
Let the ones with the broomsticks get the shaft--cleaning up after us
Robert Reich | The Shameful Attack on Public Employees
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they've earned. But now the right is going after public employees. Public servants are convenient scapegoats."
________________________________________
Democrats feel the same way about Obama but are more shy about saying it
Sen. Scott Brown rankles the right, again
By Rachel Rose Hartman
The latest scathing condemnation comes from Scott Wheeler of the National Republican Trust PAC, which helped elect Brown to the Senate in the Jan. 2010 special election.
Wheeler writes for the Daily Caller Friday that his group is turning on Brown because "there is no difference between him and a Democrat":
An organization I run, The National Republican Trust PAC, raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help Scott Brown win the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat vacated upon the death of Ted Kennedy. That organization will now do everything possible to see that Brown is defeated by a primary opponent when he faces re-election in 2012.
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One smart cookie
Watch Out John - Nancy's Still on the Job
Linda Bustyn, Ms. Magazine: "As Nancy Pelosi hands off the Speaker's gavel to John Boehner today, she also hands him a tough act to follow. Despite insistent attempts to malign her during her four years as Speaker of the House, the California congresswoman turns out to have been arguably the most effective person in that post in US history. And it's not just rah-rah Democrats saying so."
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Racism is a way of interpreting the world
ATLANTA – In Atlanta, where Vick was cast away in 2007 amid a repulsive scandal over dogfighting, he is still many things that start on a football field and go well beyond its boundaries. Vick has the unbelievable ability to polarize people. One Falcons employee said recently that he expects more fans to show up wearing Vick jerseys than Matt Ryan(notes) jerseys if the teams play.
To some, socially, Vick was young, powerful and hip while also remaining loyal to the people he grew up with in Virginia. In fact, Vick went bankrupt, despite being paid millions, because he couldn’t say no to friends and family.
In a city where more than 50 percent of the population is black and there is a great history of black leaders, including Aaron, Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr., discussing Vick isn’t just about sports. It’s about culture.
“I’d really like to have a discussion with Carlson, sit down and talk about it and get down to what is really going on there,” said Gil Tyree, a former sportscaster in Atlanta who is black. “There is something more and so many of us are afraid to talk about it. [Ryan Stewart] is right, race is the elephant in the room, but maybe the thing about Michael is that he provides us a chance to talk about it.”
“There is so much more to this that you can’t imagine,” said Ryan Stewart, who is black and, along with brother Doug, hosts the syndicated radio show “2 Live Stews” out of Atlanta. “…the big elephant in the room is race. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
“Talking about Michael Vick in this town is like what it was like when O.J. [Simpson] was on trial. Black people didn’t talk to white people and white people didn’t talk to black people about it. It was too uncomfortable and this is the same way. When I’m out with my white friends, I don’t bring it up because it’s just going to make things tense. When we’re doing the show, we bring it up and we’re not afraid to talk about it because it gets conversation going. But away from the show, no, I don’t bring it up. It’s not worth the aggravation.”
Richard D. Wolff | 2011: Calling Time on Capitalism
Richard D. Wolff: "Recent decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth, imposing the cost of successive crises on the poorest. Enough! The end of 2010 brought renewed Washington rhetoric, media hype and academic me–too declarations about the US economy 'recovering.' We've heard them before since the crisis hit in 2007. They always proved wrong."
FORTUNE -- With record cash on hand and a swell of profits at many large companies, it's hard not to wonder if corporate America has what it takes to help turn this sluggish economy around.
But hiring new employees isn't the only way that companies sitting on piles of cash can help stimulate things. Not enough companies are using this time to invest in their future growth without adding to headcount. Investment spending this year on new equipment, buildings, product development, research and other projects has picked up this year, but still falls short of levels seen before the recession.
_________________________________________________
Thinking of the Constitution in Sharia terms may be appropriate these days according to a reader
I support the Constitution, don't you? But I don't support the fundamentalist, "literalist" Sharia version that the GOP touts.
I think that the Constitution is a remarkable document in the development of governments that empowered individuals against oppressive rule and institutions.
It overthrew the privileged reign of royal lineage and put the direction of America in the hands of the population at large. You could argue that the Constitution is the ultimate populist charter for a nation. But on Thursday, the GOP is putting on a political theater performance in the House by reading the Constitution out loud, even though the new red tide of right-wingers don't support large chunks of it, such as the 14th Amendment, the 17th Amendment, and much, much more.
_________________________________________
Why not empower teachers in public schools rather than transferring the tuition to private schools
Got Dough? Public School Reform in the Age of Venture Philanthropy
Joanne Barkan, Dissent Magazine: "The cost of K-12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to define the national debate on education; sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms; and determine public policy at the local, state, and national levels. In the domain of venture philanthropy - where donors decide what social transformation they want to engineer and then design and fund projects to implement their vision - investing in education yields great bang for the buck."
______________________________________________
Believe it or not--Robert Ripley
Huffington Post
During a little-noticed hearing this week in Sacramento, Calif., a firm hired by Wall Street to analyze mortgages given to borrowers with poor credit, which were then packaged and sold to investors during the boom years, revealed that as much as 28 percent of those loans failed to meet basic underwriting standards -- and Wall Street knew all along.
Worse, when the firm flagged those loans for potential issues, Wall Street banks ignored its recommendation nearly half the time and likely purchased those loans anyway -- selling them to unwitting investors who were never told that the biggest home loan due diligence firm in the country had found potential defects in these mortgages.
_________________________________________
Let the ones with the broomsticks get the shaft--cleaning up after us
Robert Reich | The Shameful Attack on Public Employees
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they've earned. But now the right is going after public employees. Public servants are convenient scapegoats."
________________________________________
Democrats feel the same way about Obama but are more shy about saying it
Sen. Scott Brown rankles the right, again
By Rachel Rose Hartman
The latest scathing condemnation comes from Scott Wheeler of the National Republican Trust PAC, which helped elect Brown to the Senate in the Jan. 2010 special election.
Wheeler writes for the Daily Caller Friday that his group is turning on Brown because "there is no difference between him and a Democrat":
An organization I run, The National Republican Trust PAC, raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help Scott Brown win the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat vacated upon the death of Ted Kennedy. That organization will now do everything possible to see that Brown is defeated by a primary opponent when he faces re-election in 2012.
_________________________________________
One smart cookie
Watch Out John - Nancy's Still on the Job
Linda Bustyn, Ms. Magazine: "As Nancy Pelosi hands off the Speaker's gavel to John Boehner today, she also hands him a tough act to follow. Despite insistent attempts to malign her during her four years as Speaker of the House, the California congresswoman turns out to have been arguably the most effective person in that post in US history. And it's not just rah-rah Democrats saying so."
_____________________________________________
\
Racism is a way of interpreting the world
ATLANTA – In Atlanta, where Vick was cast away in 2007 amid a repulsive scandal over dogfighting, he is still many things that start on a football field and go well beyond its boundaries. Vick has the unbelievable ability to polarize people. One Falcons employee said recently that he expects more fans to show up wearing Vick jerseys than Matt Ryan(notes) jerseys if the teams play.
To some, socially, Vick was young, powerful and hip while also remaining loyal to the people he grew up with in Virginia. In fact, Vick went bankrupt, despite being paid millions, because he couldn’t say no to friends and family.
In a city where more than 50 percent of the population is black and there is a great history of black leaders, including Aaron, Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr., discussing Vick isn’t just about sports. It’s about culture.
“I’d really like to have a discussion with Carlson, sit down and talk about it and get down to what is really going on there,” said Gil Tyree, a former sportscaster in Atlanta who is black. “There is something more and so many of us are afraid to talk about it. [Ryan Stewart] is right, race is the elephant in the room, but maybe the thing about Michael is that he provides us a chance to talk about it.”
“There is so much more to this that you can’t imagine,” said Ryan Stewart, who is black and, along with brother Doug, hosts the syndicated radio show “2 Live Stews” out of Atlanta. “…the big elephant in the room is race. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
“Talking about Michael Vick in this town is like what it was like when O.J. [Simpson] was on trial. Black people didn’t talk to white people and white people didn’t talk to black people about it. It was too uncomfortable and this is the same way. When I’m out with my white friends, I don’t bring it up because it’s just going to make things tense. When we’re doing the show, we bring it up and we’re not afraid to talk about it because it gets conversation going. But away from the show, no, I don’t bring it up. It’s not worth the aggravation.”
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