Archive for September, 2009
Maher Rips Baucus Bill
Bill Maher opened his show Friday night with a blistering monologue that took aim at the health care bill Senator Max Baucus released this week.
“It’s everything you could want in a reform bill, you know, except reform,” Maher said. “It is a watered-down, ineffectual blow job to the health insurance industry.”
Maher then went on to joke that he was so frustrated by what was in the bill that he was going to start going to “town halls and screaming now.”
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/19/maher-rips-baucus-bill-im_n_292134.html
Who Will Harness the Rage?
Ever since the economy crashed and the government paid hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the fat-cats who were responsible, a populist rage has been seething away across the country.
Home values have collapsed, more than two million homes have been foreclosed on, retirement nest eggs are decimated, seven million jobs have been lost. Hard-won feelings of financial security now seem like a distant memory. The economy is turning around, they say, but where are the jobs? And what about all the money that’s been lost?
Ex-CIA Chiefs Ask Obama To Stop Interrogations Probe
Seven former CIA directors asked President Barack Obama on Friday to quash a criminal probe of harsh interrogations of terror suspects during the Bush administration.
The CIA directors, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents and include three who worked under President George W. Bush, made their request in a letter Friday to the White House.
Shepard Fairey’s Studio Tagged with Anti-ACORN Graffiti
So much for HOPE. That, at least, is the symbolic message sent by an anti-ACORN activist or group that targeted Studio Number One in Los Angeles, the commercial design studio of Obama HOPE poster creator Shepard Fairey, with anti-ACORN graffiti.
Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxian Car Being Restored – Find Out How You Can Help!
The Dymaxion Car of R. Buckminster Fuller is being restored by the company Crosthwaite and Gardiner. [...]
Trevor Blake of synchronofile.com has been providing essential research material on the Dymaxion Car to Crosthwaite and Gardiner since February 2009. C&G researcher Phil King wrote: “More and more details are slowly coming out from the archives and from people like yourself, but I must say your information has been the most informative and the most prolific so far. [...] I know I keep saying it but your help has been fantastic and you have made a difference.”
synchronofile.com has been granted the great honor of announcing the restoration of the Dymaxion Car – because our readers are now invited to help in the project. Can you identify the manufacturer for this component?
China to World: No More Shiny Metals for You
Posted by Tracy Alloway:
Wowzers. Here’s one for the gold bugs — rumours on Thursday that China may ban the export of silver and gold.:
The excerpt below is from a Commodity Online piece written by Erik Bethel of SinoLatin Capital — a Shanghai-based merchant bank exclusively focused, as the name might suggest, on transactions between Latin America and China. In practice that means stuff like helping Chinese companies acquire LatAm goldmines, so the company clearly has an interest in promoting China’s apparent gold lust worldwide. Nevertheless, here’s the thrust of the piece:
Last week Alan Greenspan noted that “Rising prices of precious metals and other commodities are an indication of a very early stage of an endeavor to move away from paper currencies.”
In other words, people are buying gold as a hedge against inflation.
…How could China affect the price of gold? We live in China and spend a lot of time with…
Clinton: U.S. worried by Venezuelan arms purchases
By Andrew Quinn
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern on Tuesday about what she said was the growing number of arms purchases by Venezuela and the potential for an arms race in the region.
“We have expressed concerned about the number of Venezuelan arms purchases. They outpace all other countries in South America and certainly raise questions as to whether there is going to be an arms race in the region,” Clinton told reporters after a meeting with Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez.
The State Department said on Monday that President Hugo Chavez’ announcement that Russia would loan Venezuela $2.2 billion to purchase 92 tanks and advanced anti-aircraft missiles might spur other countries to add arms.
Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy, also set alarm bells ringing in Washington when he announced this month that Venezuela would step up energy sector cooperation with Iran, another U.S. foe.
In recent…
Regulators Seize 2 Banks; 94 Failures This Year
Regulators shut down two banking units of Irwin Financial Corp. Friday, marking the 93rd and 94th failures this year of federally insured banks.
Zoophiles Love and Have Sex with Animals. Will the World Ever Accept Them?
By Thomas Francis
During his sophomore year in high school, Cody Beck finally got fed up with hearing homophobic cracks. If his classmates thought being gay was weird (Beck was openly bisexual), he had a confession that would blow their minds. He told them he is sexually attracted to dogs and horses.
“I just couldn’t keep it in anymore,” Beck says. “Just for the hell of it, I figured I’d throw it out there and have them make fun of me even more.” Which they did. An 18-year-old from Arizona who graduated from high school this past year, Beck says classmates taunted him by calling him “Bestiality Dude.”
Being a “zoophile” in modern American society, Beck says, is “like being gay in the 1950s. You feel like you have to hide, that if you say it out loud, people will look at you like a freak.”
Now Beck believes he and other members of…
Obama Accelerates Push for Cost-Cutting Healthcare Plan
President Barack Obama spoke Thursday at the University of Maryland to continue his public relations drive for a cost-cutting overhaul of the health care system. Addressing students at the College Park, Maryland campus he claimed that his proposals would provide affordable health care for more young adults and lower medical-related debt for the student population — all this without adding “one dime to the deficit.”
Australian adviser to US military provides chilling insight into neo-colonial mentality
David Kilcullen, a top Australian-born advisor to the US military, delivered the annual Wallace Wurth Memorial Lecture at the University of New South Wales in Sydney on September 3. His remarks provided an insight into the methods and mentality of those directing the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kilcullen, 42, has had a rapid rise to international prominence. In 2004, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Australian Army, with experience in the Australian occupation of East Timor in 1999 and academic study in the field of counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare. His PhD thesis involved a study of Islamic extremism in Indonesia. He was seconded to the Pentagon and soon left the Australian armed forces to work for the Bush administration as a “chief strategist” for the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, reporting to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Clinton Takes Hard Line on Iran in Run-Up to Talks
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday enunciated a hard line against Iran in the run-up to talks scheduled to take place October 1 in Istanbul between Tehran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.
Speaking at the Brookings Institution, a Democratic-leaning Washington think tank, Clinton warned, “We have made clear our desire to resolve issues with Iran diplomatically. Iran must now decide whether to join us in this effort.” She indicated that should the Iranian government fail to bow to US demands relating to Iran’s nuclear program, it would face intensified retaliation.
The global jobs crisis
New reports on unemployment, poverty and hunger released this week demonstrate that the global economic crisis is being used to effect a basic restructuring of social relations characterized by long-term high unemployment and the impoverishment of the working class.
Take the Pledge to End American Socialism!
I, as an outstanding conservative warrior fighting against “socialism” in America, do hereby vow the following:
Places I will no longer visit:
National Parks
State Parks
City Parks
Public Libraries
Any sporting event stadium funded with public funds
I will never again travel on:
Sidewalks
City streets
The Interstate Highway System
Public transit
National Defense divisions no longer required to protect my family:
Army
Navy
Air Force
Marines
Benefits I will no longer accept:
VA loans
Pell Grants
Medicaid
Medicare
Social Security
Weekends
Farm Subsidies
Services I will no longer use:
U.S. Patent Office
Local Police service
Local Fire service
911 emergency phone service
State colleges
Community colleges
Public schools
Municipal garbage service
Balance The Budget
Here is a centralized location for people to search, decipher, and discuss the myriad ways federal funds are allocated every year, and even control where their tax dollars go, line by line, as they try their hand at balancing the federal budget.
BalanceTheBudget.com is a virtual ‘town hall’ where concerned citizens and groups can share their ideas on balancing the budget, gather for news, review resources and tutorials, blog about budget solutions, and vent fiscal frustrations.
Using data provided by the Congressional Budget Office,
BalanceTheBudget.com maps out the U.S. budget outlays, budget deficit,
and total accumulated debt in a user-friendly format so even political neophytes can assimilate the data and make informed changes.
Monopoly Looms on Electronic Voting
While we’ve been concentrating on the healthcare debate, the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, another story important to American democracy has gotten inadequate attention: a single company is poised to monopolize the counting of over 75 percent of the nation’s votes.
Baucus Health Plan Missing Public Option, Study Finds 45,000 Uninsured Die Every Year
DemocracyNow: A long-awaited healthcare bill from Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus includes no public option and would require almost all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty. This comes as a new study finds that nearly 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance. We speak with the study’s co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, primary care physician, and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Baucus Health Plan Missing Public Option, Study Finds 45,000 Uninsured Die Every Year
DemocracyNow: A long-awaited healthcare bill from Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus includes no public option and would require almost all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty. This comes as a new study finds that nearly 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance. We speak with the study’s co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, primary care physician, and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.
The Values Myth
The ultra conservative right wing kicked off the Values Voter Summit today in DC promising to “take the country back” from – well, anyone who’s not an ultra right wing conservative. If the world didn’t seem filled with so many hot headed gun toting neocons today, I might look at this as a great comedic opportunity. Already, ultra right celebrities like Carrie Prejean are taking the stage to show off the blinged out crosses they bear for the One True Cause. But, after reading (and admittedly laughing here and there) the breakout session schedule, the VVS is simply deluded. The session descriptions read crazier than the character list from Crispin Hellion Glover’s movie What Is It? and have me asking a similar question – what exactly is a values voter?
