Archive for February, 2009
Wal-Mart Worker Commits Suicide
UPI: A Wal-Mart worker said he couldn’t “take it anymore” before fatally setting himself on fire by the store where he worked, police in Bloomingdale, Ill., said.
The 58-year-old man, who worked the overnight shift Thursday, used lighter fluid to set himself on fire adjacent to the store and then refused help from passersby to put out the fire with their coats, said Randy Sater, a police spokesman.
Bloomberg to Host Charter School in Living Room
GBN News: According to sources close to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his recent purchase and renovation of property adjacent to his East Side townhouse is not merely intended to increase his living space. The Mayor will instead use the extra space to house a charter school right in his own home.
The Mayor is reportedly hedging his bets due to his concern over the fate of Mayoral control of the school system. Legislative hearings have not been going well for Mr. Bloomberg, and he could lose at least some measure of the total control that he has been exercising over the public schools for the past seven years.
Mr. Bloomberg has bristled over the prospect of ceding some of his authority to stakeholders like parents and their elected representatives, who he feels are “annoying”. He is said to feel that it is preferable to have total control over one school than to have…
Man Arrested Over Sending HIV-Inflected Blood To Obama
Sky News: Saad Hussein, an Ethiopian refugee in his late 20s, sent a number of items to the offices of the Illinois government in the weeks before the US President’s inauguration, according to court documents.
One envelope contained a letter with reddish stains and an admission ticket for Mr Obama’s election night celebration in Grant Park, Chicago. Court documents claim Hussein told FBI agents he is “very sick with HIV” and cut his fingers with a razor so he could bleed on the letter.
Hazardous materials teams were called in after the envelope addressed to “Barack Obama” was opened. Days after the first letter was sent, Hussein allegedly placed two more letters in the mail, one addressed to “Emanuel”, an apparent reference to the President’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. The two letters contained what appeared to be dried blood, the court documents said.
Hussein, who is being treated for a mental illness,…
Rocky Mountain News Publishes Final Edition
Colorado’s oldest newspaper shuts 2 months short of its 150th anniversary
MSNBC: Questions about the future of the Rocky Mountain News had become so common, the newspaper’s staff put up a handwritten paper sign on the news desk that said, “We don’t know.”
On Thursday, someone wrote over it in heavy black marker: “Now we know.”Colorado’s oldest newspaper, which launched in Denver in 1859, printed its last edition Friday, leaving the Denver Post as the only daily newspaper in town.
“Goodbye, Colorado,” read the headline on a 52-page commemorative edition wrapping the regular newspaper. “STOP THE PRESSES,” read the front-page headline inside.
The E.W. Scripps Co., which owns the News, said Thursday the newspaper lost $16 million last year and the company was unable to find a viable buyer since announcing a sale Dec. 4.
“Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge…
SittingNow (Podcast) Pays Tribute to Robert Anton Wilson
HAIL ERIS!!! This week we present you with a BUMPER two hour Robert Anton Wilson tribute spectacular! Joining me, amongst a pleathora of guests, is the host of Disinformation: The Podcast Joe McFall (Mort also joins us for one section).
In this week’s episode we jump into the enlightening concepts of Discordianism, Magick, Conspiracy Theories, Subgenius, General Semantics, The CounterCulture old and new amongst other Wilsonian subjects. Also checkout the chance to win a copy of the amazing Robert Anton Wilson: Maybe Logic DVD, courtesy of the amazing Deep Leaf Productions.
This is Not George Bush’s Budget
Mike Madden | Salon: “Elections have consequences” is one of those political clichés that gets thrown around a lot in this city, especially in the first few months of a new administration. But President Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget proposal, released Thursday, actually reminds you that clichés become clichés for a reason: They’re true.
There were proposals to save money by modernizing the healthcare system, only paying for treatments that are proven to work, and by eliminating federal farm subsidies to the biggest…
The Credit Card Debt Crisis: The Next Economic Domino
Arianna Huffington: Hot on the heels of the banking crisis, the employment crisis, and the mortgage/foreclosure crisis, the country is on the verge of experiencing a credit card crisis.
According to the Federal Reserve, the total outstanding credit card debt carried by Americans reached a record $951 billion in 2008 — a number that will only climb higher as more and more people reach for the plastic to make ends meet. What’s more, roughly a third of that is debt held by risky borrowers with low credit ratings.
Credit card defaults are on the rise and are expected to hit 10 percent this year. This will obviously drive many banks closer to failing their stress tests — but it will have an even greater impact on the lives of people who find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into debt.
It’s a particularly vicious economic circle: every day, Americans, faced with layoffs and tough…
2012 Practices for Being Prepared: Meditation Basics
Well there is a lot of information coming out about events that may be related to 2012. There is more and more information about the signs and portents. This article takes a look at one of the most powerful preparation tools available, meditation.
Simple guide to the why and the how of it.
Randomness: Sexy Republican Style
The best in weird news, odd people, and funny events from across the globe. Proving once again that the Darwin principle lives in all of us.
Why Isn’t the Oil Industry Bailing Out the Auto Sector? End of Suburbia: Who Killed the Electric Car
Just one year’s worth of profits for the oil industry is approximately three times what the auto industry is asking for in their bailout package. If these five companies bailed out the US auto manufacturers, they would still be able to report billions in profit…
So here is my question: Since the oil industry is making record profits and the auto sector is on the verge of bankruptcy, shouldn’t the oil industry, instead of the US citizen, bailout the auto sector, especially considering how interconnected their business models happen to be?
Is Allen Stanford An Asset Of The CIA?
A federal agency killed the SEC’s investigation into Allen Stanford back in 2006. We don’t know which one it is, but some commenters suspect it could’ve been the CIA.
After all, last year, Stanford’s Venezuelan offices were raided on suspicion that the billionaire was a US government tool, involved in spying.
Telegraph: Officials from Venezuelan military intelligence raided a branch of his offshore bank over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the south American country.
The officials spent three hours searching files and documents at offices of Stanford International Banks in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, removing several of them for closer inspection.
The Stanford Group’s spokeswoman, Lula Rodriguez, denied that any of the bank’s employees were involved in spying. Read the whole thing.
If the SEC doesn’t know where Stanford is, is there any chance the CIA does?
Also see this Telegraph story from November 9th 2008.
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How Much Of The Federal Debt Is Financed With Drug Money?
Offshore banks, meanwhile, have grown rapidly as major purchasers of US treasuries over the years. As you can see in the chart below, they really spiked in the 04-05 range, right as Japanese holdings leveled off. According this table, Caribbean banks are now the fourth biggest holders of treasuries, having surpassed Brazil and all the oil states combined in just the last year.
So again, how much drug money goes into financing our debt?
Bill Maher on Snuggies, iFarts, Congress Twitters and Why Americans Must Start Building Things Again
“New Rules” from Real Time with Bill Maher for February 27, 2009:
Family Living in Cave Faces Foreclosure
ABC NEWS: You’ve heard plenty of stories about foreclosures, but the latest victims of this brutal recession are about to lose their cave.
That’s right. For nearly five years, Curt Sleeper and his family have lived in a cave. His mortgage is about to come due and, like millions of other Americans, he can’t refinance. So now, the 17,000-square-foot, subterranean home is being auctioned off on eBay. Sleeper and his wife Deborah bought the cave outside St. Louis in May 2004 for $160,000.
To pay for it, they sold their old home, TV and even the DVD collection. They made a 50 percent down payment and borrowed the other $80,000 from the seller. It was a five-year loan with a single balloon payment at the end. The Sleepers now have until May 1 to pay off the remaining $83,000 or sell the property.
Porn in the USA: Conservatives are Biggest Consumers
Ewen Callaway, New Scientist:
Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across the nation: the liking for online pornography.
A new nationwide study of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.
“When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different,” says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.
However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.
“Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by,” Edelman says.
Isaac Asimov on ‘A World of Ideas’
Classic interview with Isaac Asimov by Bill Moyers — about learning, computers, religion, population growth, the universe:
Attorney General Holder Vows To End Raids On Medical Marijuana Clubs
AP (LOS ANGELES): Medical marijuana advocates applauded Friday after the Obama administration signaled it will halt federal raids on dispensaries, easing a long-standing rift between California and federal law.
During the campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he would end the Justice Department raids, which continued even after he was inaugurated. California and 12 other states have laws permitting medicinal use of marijuana, but the federal government has not recognized those laws.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency raided a dispensary in South Lake Tahoe in January and four others in the Los Angeles area on Feb. 2, seizing marijuana and cash.
Asked about the raids Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters, “What the president said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing here in law enforcement. What he said during the campaign … is now American policy,” Holder said.
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Four Members of Assisted Suicide Group Arrested
ATLANTA (AP): Joining the Final Exit Network costs $50, and the privileges of membership include this: When you’re ready to die, the organization will send two “exit guides” to show you how to suffocate yourself using helium tanks and a plastic hood. The Georgia-based organization says it is providing an invaluable and humane service. Authorities call it a crime.
Four members of the Final Exit Network, including its president and its medical director, were arrested Wednesday and charged with assisted suicide in the death of 58-year-old John Celmer last June at his home near Atlanta. Investigators said the organization may have been involved in as many as 200 other deaths around the country.
“The law is very clear, and they clearly violated it,” said Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead. The arrests came after an eight-month investigation in which an undercover agent posing as someone bent on suicide infiltrated the Final…
What Caused Bobby Jindal’s Speech to Be a Disaster?
Howard Fine, HuffPo: I would like to examine from my perspective as an acting coach, the reason Bobby Jindal’s speech did not work. I have heard a great many theories espoused and none of them actually addresses the root of what made him seem so inauthentic in his prepared remarks and why he comes off better in live interviews. It comes down to the difference between “How and Why.”
In life we have thoughts and feelings and then we find the words to express those thoughts and feelings. It is a straight line. In acting as in public speaking, we start with the words. What should the great actor and the great orator do? They should find the thoughts feelings that make them need to say these words. In short they should find The Why.
What is a common mistake? It is focusing on The How. The actor or orator in this…
