Saturday, February 14, 2009
Welcome to the NFL
But for some reason, this reporter thinks it would be a good idea if republicans join in on the porkulus bill.
On the day before the big vote, President Obama took a freshman Republican member of Congress aboard Air Force One to visit Illinois. Before an audience in Representative Aaron Schock’s district, Mr. Obama praised him as “a very talented young man” and expressed “great confidence in him to do the right thing for the people of Peoria.”But when Mr. Schock stood up on the House floor on Friday, less than 24 hours later, his view of the right thing for the people of Peoria was to vote against the most important initiative of Mr. Obama’s young presidency.
“They know that this bill is not stimulus,” Mr. Schock, 27, said of his constituents. “They know that this bill will not do anything to create long-term, sustained economic growth.”
Whatever it will do for the economy, the legislation that passed Friday will clearly not do anything to create long-term, sustained bipartisan reconciliation. Not one Republican voted for Mr. Obama’s plan in the House and just three voted for it in the Senate as it headed to final passage on Friday night. The party-line schism, coupled with the withdrawal on Thursday of a Republican senator, Judd Gregg, as a nominee to Mr. Obama’s cabinet, made clear the futility so far of the president’s effort to move Washington toward post-partisanship.
Their unrequited overtures to Republicans over the past several weeks taught Mr. Obama and his aides some hard lessons. Advisers concluded that they allowed the measure of bipartisanship to be defined as winning Republican votes rather than bringing civility to the debate, distracting attention from what have otherwise been major legislative victories. Although Mr. Obama vowed to keep reaching out to Republicans, advisers now believe the environment will probably not change in coming months.
This kind of reminds me of my relationship with my ex-wife. Whenever "we" had to make a decision, my input was always permitted if "we" = "she". That's how democrats define bipartisanship.
So because the Messiah allowed this republican to touch his cloak he's supposed to vote for horrible legislation? Give me a break.
Maybe this clown forgets all those movies where Bush invited Ted Kennedy, et al and what did that get him? A lot of prison love with a broom stick.
It's all about getting your way. Obama got his way, now he owns it. there's no sharing the blame from this point on.
more....
Animal Farm
Today's word is transparency.
This is how the Obamamunists operate in a transparent government......
It takes a certain amount of nerve to have an event at the National Press Club and then ban the press from covering it.It takes another level of chutzpah entirely to admit members of the general public to your event at the National Press Club, recruit a news organization as the co-sponsor and then tell the press they can't cover it.
But that's exactly what former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and Georgetown University did yesterday.
Plouffe was listed as the keynote speaker at the luncheon yesterday for "Transition 2009," sponsored by Georgetown University and Politico. The public was invited to the event -- students free of charge and everybody else for a fee. But at the last minute, Georgetown announced that Plouffe's speech would be "closed press," even though the speech was being given in the National Press Club ballroom, described on a plaque at the door as "the sanctum sanctorum of American journalists."
National Press Club President Donna Leinwand fired off an e-mail to Plouffe and his agents stating her "strong opposition" to the press banishment from its own club. "If Mr. Plouffe wants to keep secrets," she said, "Mr. Plouffe should stay at home."
I find it hilarious that people in the media are bitching and moaning about this. What did they expect from a leftist.
Do you think Hugo and Fidel allow free press in their respective communist regimes?
It's always amazed me that journalists are leftists. They spent this whole campaign blowing Obama and now that he's got his happy ending he throws them a towel and tells them to clean it up.
And now they're surprised? What did they expect? This is standard operating procedure for lefties.
More bogus outrage here....
Thought of the day.
Isn't it interesting that the bill has funding for bike trails and rail car systems in the state but absolutely no funding for the Brent Spence Bridge; the I-71/I-75 bridge across the Ohio that everyone who's ever crossed it knows it to be a collapse waiting to happen and that the next death on that bridge might be your own.
A bridge the transportation department has deemed functionally obsolete.....
A bridge that will take 10 billion dollars to replace....
A bridge that would invigorate a local construction and steel business....
No there's no money for that kind of project that needs to be done. But there's plenty if you want about 600 billion condoms.
I'm guessing that Trojan must have one serious lobbying effort.
Friday, February 13, 2009
More from the most ethical congress in history
Well, if you are a democrat, you simply loan your campaign lot's of money and never pay it back except for the 18% interest you charge on the principle.....
During a decade in Congress, California Representative Grace Napolitano has pocketed more than $200,000 of political contributions by charging as much as 18 percent interest on money she loaned to her own campaign.The suburban Los Angeles Democrat made the $150,000 loan in 1998, when she was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Through Dec. 31, her campaign committee has used donations to pay Napolitano $221,780 of interest while reducing the principal by just $64,727, a review of her Federal Election Commission filings shows.
As recently as June 2008, Napolitano held a fundraiser asking supporters and political action committees for money to pay down the 1998 debt. Napolitano, her spokesman and her campaign’s lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“I find this practice quite reprehensible,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a Washington advocacy group. Interest payments from Napolitano’s campaign treasury have “proven exorbitantly profitable,” he said. “Candidates are not supposed to personally benefit from these campaign funds.”
Four more years of Bush
From the Chicago Sun Times
I flashed back to the fall of 2001 upon reading the subhead over a New York Times story about Monday's presidential press conference: "He Says That Failing to Act Could Lead to Catastrophe." To rush a complex, ill-considered piece of legislation through Congress, George W. Bush invoked the specter of another terrorist attack. Barack Obama, bringing the change he promised, invoked the specter of economic collapse.More...Just as the Patriot Act was a grab bag of legal changes that law enforcement and intelligence agencies had been seeking for years, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a grab bag of expenditures that leftish Democrats have long wanted, repackaged for the crisis du jour. In both cases, instilling fear was the key to suspending skepticism and cutting off debate.
Getting your priorities straight
I guess it's not so bad that you still can't schedule a trip to Italy.....
Rep. John Culberson, TX claims the "stimulus" bill must be urgently voted on today -- because Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leaving at 6:00 PM for an 8 day trip to Europe!
Culberson made the charge on Houston's KSEV radio.
Pelosi is hoping to lead a delegation to Europe; there's a meeting with the Pope and an award from an Italian legislative group.
Calls to Pelosi's spokesman went unreturned.
In the rushing, Democrats have now broken their promise to have the public see the $790 billion bill for 48 hours before any vote.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) predicted that none of his Senate colleagues would 'have the chance' to read the entire final version of the 1,071-page bill before it comes up for a final vote.
righhhhtttt
From Drudge
Get your personal stimulus
Click here to write your own stimulus idea.
Here is my request that got thrown into the package subtitled Wireless & Broadband deployment programs....
(including transfer of funds to Gordon Gekko for the Gordon Gekko Personal Economic Stimulus Program)
For necessary and unnecessary expenses related to the Wireless and Broadband Deployment Grant Programs established by section 6002 of division B of this Act, $2,825,000,000, of which $1,000,000,000 shall be for Wireless Deployment Grants and $1,825,000,000 shall be for Broadband Deployment Grants: Provided, That an additional $750000000 shall be paid directly to Gordon Gekko in the form of subsidized loans that do not require repayment. Provided Further, That the funds be used by Gordon Gekko to Free beer for midgets or for whatever. Provided Even Further, That Gordon Gekko will receive free Chicago Bears tickets for life. Provided Even Further Still, That Gordon Gekko shall be treated as a cabinet-level appointment for the purpose of income tax reporting, and therefore no taxes shall be paid on any of the aformentioned benefits. And one more thing: George Voinovich is hereby expelled from Congress, effective immediately upon enactment.
Thought of the day
In two years, we'll see who wins.
A product of the system
Like a lot of these gatherings, the subject of the Octuplet mother came up from the progressive in the group (pig) who seems to have an opinion about everything. So I thought I would have some fun with her.
PIG Can you believe that bitch with the 14 kids in California?
GG What's your opinion on that? I thought you were all about reproductive rights? I've heard you say a hundred times that we need to stay out your bedroom. But it's OK be in her bedroom?
PIG Except that we're going to be paying for them.
GG Hey what do you think bred the notion in her mind that this was OK?
PIG What do you mean?
GG I mean it's liberal policies and beliefs that account for her thinking that this was A-OK.
PIG That's bull.
GG Really? First, liberals have marginalized fathers in homes with welfare. Fathers are not needed. Ask any bra burner at a NOW convention and they'll tell you that a family doesn't need a father.
Second, welfare allows this woman to continue her dysfunction. There's no accountablility to anyone.
Third, If the dad in this equation had nailed this ding dong in a drunken mistake he would be paying for it in the form of child support the rest of his life. Instead our society has invented a "no repsonsibilty" clause for a sperm donor so this woman can breed. I think every sperm donor should be liable for child support. My guess is this derelict wouldn't have been so damn eager to offer his "services".
Fourth, socialized medicine in the form of Medicaid and SCHIP will allow her to have free healthcare for years.
Fifth, this woman appears to have mental issues. Unfortunately, a family member can't have her committed because of liberal judges claiming that she has to "be a threat to herself or other".
What do you have to say about that.
PIG Can you believe how fat Jessica Simpson's is?
I always find it hilarious that liberals are the first to condemn someone for just exercising, to an extreme, their own policies. Of course it makes sense. They know more than anyone how people should run their lives.
Well, citizens of California, congratulations. You get to be the ward of 14 beautiful children. Good luck on that one.
More here.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Who did she vote for? #78
For the second time in a week, a 29-year-old woman has been arrested for leading police on a car chase.Forest Park police said Tiya McCowan, of North Fairmount, ran a red light at Waycross Road and Winton Road Thursday morning and refused to pull over for police. A police officer said she was going 70 to 80 miles an hour in a 35-mph zone.
A chase ended three miles later when McCowan crashed her four-door sedan into the back of a Honda sitting at a traffic light at Waycross Road and Hamilton Avenue, said Forest Park Police Sgt. John Thompson. No one was injured.
Forest Park police said they had to smash McCowan’s rear driver’s side window to get her out of the car and take her into custody.
"We were surprised," Thompson said. "She refused to get out of the car. She had her face up against the driver’s side, so we broke out the rear driver’s side right behind her to unlock her door and push her out."
Once officers pushed her from the vehicle, they put her to the ground and handcuffed her.
This offense doesn't make her unusual...... Well....except that it's the second high speed chase in two days.
So this past November, did Tiya vote for Hope and Change guy or Mr. Whitebread.
More....
Who did he vote for? #5
If you didn't catch his interview with Letterman, you have to watch it here. He makes Letterman's Farrah Fawcett's interview look like Frost-Nixon.
So it's apparent that Phoenix's grip on reality has deteriorated badly, which of course makes him an ideal voter in 2008.
Did he vote for Obamamania or McCain this past election?
A Walmart in the White House?
From TaxProf............
The Wal-Mart Foundation yesterday announced a $3.6 million grant to provide free tax prepararion services for taxpayers earning less than $56,000 per year through Mobile Tax Center vans which will be set up in various Wal-Mart parking lots for two to three weeks at a time between February 10 and April 11. Wal-Mart is partnering with the United Way and One Economy Corporation to offer this service. Visit see www.myfreetaxes.com for van locations.
More....
Thought of the day
If all it took to "stimulate" an economy was high taxes and lots of government spending, why isn't California kicking ass right now? Especially since that state is so hell bent on spending on "green" technologies and such.
Here's what we know. The more "progressive" your politics, the crappier your area is to live in. You need look no further than every city, state, school district across this country.
No the entire nation gets to live the "progressive" malaise.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Senators can't do their own returns
What Gordon needs to do is set up a branch office in Washington DC, where it appears no one can do their own damn tax returns without screwing them up.......
When Timothy Geithner appeared before the Senate Finance Committee last month, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) accused the soon-to-be treasury secretary of “dancing around” questions about his taxes.
When news broke that Tom Daschle had failed to pay taxes due on a car and driver, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) declared himself “very troubled by it.”
But neither Kyl nor Cornyn seems interested in answering questions about his own tax history.
They’re hardly alone.
Last week, Politico asked the offices of all 99 sitting senators to say who prepares their taxes, whether they or the Internal Revenue Service has ever discovered an error on returns they’ve filed, and whether they’ve ever had to pay back taxes.
Of the 57 senators who have responded to the survey, nine said that mistakes have been made on their tax returns, and seven said they have paid back taxes. Thirty-one senators said that no mistakes have been discovered on their returns and that they’ve never paid back taxes — at least to the best of their recollection.
Nine out of 57? Sixteen percent of these bozos who write the laws can do their own returns correctly? And those were the ones who were honest about it.
As part of my 2009 business plan, I'm opening a branch office in front of the capitol building.
More....
Change? That's for that other candidate
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.
Hey, I didn't make it up. It's right here on change man's own web site.
Do you think there's going to be five days waiting on this porkulus bill?
Obama - setting the bar low and crawling under it
The day after President Obama’s big news conference, and on the day Treasury-man Tim Geithner unveiled his Bank Bailout Nation TARP III Plan, stock markets plunged in a vote of no-confidence, with the Dow dropping nearly 400 points.More....
Obama got the ball rolling by painting a dismal picture of the U.S. economy, saying recovery won’t arrive until 2010 at the earliest. He then said only big-government spending can jolt our economy back to life. He also bitterly attacked supply-siders and the Bush tax cuts, especially “tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans.” He added that these strategies have “only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now.”
You can say a lot of things about President George W. Bush’s big-government mistakes. But blaming the Bush tax cuts for the credit-crunched downturn is utter nonsense. It’s ideological politics at its worst. (It’s worth noting that while Obama was trashing supply-siders on Monday night, Scott Rasmussen’s latest poll showed 62 percent of U.S. voters wanting the stimulus plan to include more tax cuts and less government spending.)
Later in the news conference, Obama acknowledged how businesses that suddenly couldn’t get credit pulled back on their investment and laid off workers — workers who then cut back on their spending. That — along with the Fed’s stop-and-go monetary policy and a huge oil shock — is much closer to the true cause of this recession.
This is all most strange. Obama’s attack on supply-side economics would rule out the successful Kennedy-Johnson tax cuts that spurred growth in the 1960s and the Reagan tax cuts that ignited growth in the 1980s. Even Bill Clinton cut the capital-gains tax. And George W. Bush’s tax cuts helped generate a six-year economic expansion before the oil shock and credit crunch took hold.
On Tuesday morning, stocks opened down about 75 points in the wake of Obama’s pessimism. But stocks really started to tumble when Tim Geithner stepped to the microphone. He totally bombed in his debut.
Let's not forget that Geithner ran the NY Fed. He had his hand on the pulse of all this financial meltdown. Either he was too dumb to notice or too much of a wimp to call it out. Either way we're screwed.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
School House Rock - Dollars and Sense
A lesson for Obama, Geithner and friends they didn't seem to learn in harvard
The country's most miserable cities
Chicago would seem to be on quite a roll these days. The city is a leading contender to host the Summer Olympics in 2016. The hometown Cubs had the most wins of any team in the National League last year and are one of the early favorites to win the 2009 World Series. And, of course, one of its own just became the most powerful person in the world (we're not talking about Oprah either, but she's close).So with all of the good vibes coming out of Chicago, how does it show up as the third worst city on our second annual list of America's Most Miserable Cities?
Maybe the fact that more Americans are murdered there than die in Iraq.
Seriously, you'd think that "progressives" would almost be embarrassed to admit that they run and reside in every shithole in America.
One way to know when it's time to move out of your neighborhood? When people in rusted Toyota Corollas with Obama stickers start parking on your street. It's only a matter of time when unemployment, murders and bad schools follow.Help Wanted
A high schooler with grand designs of changing the world through hope & change for a position to spend lots of money with little to no gratification. Successful candidate will have a cursory knowledge of financial markets and ability to narrow down estimates between 1 and 15 trillion dollars, pesos, or yen.
Experience in a Junior Achievement business and/or high school Econ 101 a plus.
Issues with unpaid taxes a must.
Send all inquiries to 1600pa@ave.gov
Hey - it's her body she can do what she wants to....
Usama See Profile I'm a Fan of Usama permalink
But hey, it's her body right? She should be able to do whatever the hell she damn well pleases with that body right? Who is this person to judge what this babe wants to objectify or demean? For that matter, if it's her body and we should allow choice, what's wrong if she wants to become a high end prostitute? Again, her body.... right?
Academic freedom
Last week we came to the section on academic freedom in my course on the law of higher education and I posed this hypothetical to the students: Suppose you were a member of a law firm or a mid-level executive in a corporation and you skipped meetings or came late, blew off assignments or altered them according to your whims, abused your colleagues and were habitually rude to clients. What would happen to you?The chorus of answers cascaded immediately: “I’d be fired.” Now, I continued, imagine the same scenario and the same set of behaviors, but this time you’re a tenured professor in a North American university. What then?
I answered this one myself: “You’d be celebrated as a brave nonconformist, a tilter against orthodoxies, a pedagogical visionary and an exemplar of academic freedom.”
The article lays out the case of this derelict who gave all of his students an A+.
Is it any wonder why our universities are the bastion for liberal goof balls.
Bring liberal talk show hosts to the party.
How is it that Rush couldn't get a front row seat in the press room to lob a few softballs to Bush yet liberals found room for Ed Shultz.
Think of how the reverse would have made the main stream media.
Here's an account at Politico
A new nominee for Obama
Prosecutors asked a federal judge Monday to send former Washington mayor Marion Barry to jail for failing to file his tax returns for the eighth time in nine years.In a motion filed in U.S. District Court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Zeno said Barry, who's also a current District of Columbia Council member did not file his taxes in 2007, violating his probation for previous tax offenses.
Barry, 72, was given three years of probation in 2006 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges for failing to file his tax returns from 1999 to 2004. As part of a plea bargain, he agreed to file future federal and local tax returns annually.
Two years ago, however, prosecutors sought to have that probation revoked after Barry failed to file his 2005 taxes. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson refused, ruling that prosecutors did not prove Barry willfully failed to file his returns, even if he was aware that he missed the deadline.
In Monday's motion, prosecutors noted that Barry has now failed to file his taxes on time for the eighth time in nine years and called his conduct "indefensible."
More....
How to instill confidence in the markets
"We will have to adapt it as conditions change. We will have to try things we've never tried before. We will make mistakes. We will go through periods in which things get worse and progress is uneven or interrupted."
Sound familiar? This is an excerpt from Tim "Turbo Tax" Geitner speech this morning.
It's sounds eerily similar to Bush's speech on the war on terror.
We all know how that worked out, right?
It seems to have worked. The market is down about 400 points today.
Why be bipartisan?
Reich says, “Republicans don’t want their fingerprints on the stimulus bill or the next bank bailout because they plan to make the midterm election of 2010 a national referendum on Barack Obama’s handling of the economy. They know that by then the economy will still appear sufficiently weak that they can dub the entire Obama effort a failure — even if the economy would have been far worse without it, even if the economy is beginning to turn around. They’ll say “he wanted more government spending, and we said no, but we didn’t have the votes. Elect us and we’ll turn the economy around by cutting taxes and getting government out of the private sector.”
Riddle me this Batman. Why does Obi Won Obama give two shakes about bi partisan support for this bill?
Could it be that most rational democrats know this thing is a trillion dollar boondoggle and they want the cover of "bipartisanship" so that two years from now they won't have to be accountable for this pile of excrement?
The way I see. If this bill was so damn good, I'd go out of my way to make sure not one republican did vote for it. Then there would be no ability for anyone in GOP to co op credit for it two years from now.
The fact is. Reich knows that this bill will do nothing to change an already weak economy for at least two years; election time. If they had any confidence this bill was a game changer, they'd do it........... without the GOP.
As we've learned from the bank bailout, lot's of crap gets pushed into this sausage casing under the guise "we have to act now". These clowns know this bill is a red herring. That's why they want the cover of "bipartisanship".
Frankly, I have to give one up to the republican party members who will stay true to voting against this bill. If this bill works, it ensures democratic governance for decades. In my reading, it's apparent that many of them believe that doing nothing is better than passing this bill and that the risk is minimal. That's a big thumbs up to me.
How did he do?
Through most of his inaugural primetime press conference, Barack Obama seemed like he was channeling a particularly loquacious combination of Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and the ghost of Hubert Humphrey. The president's response to the first question from the Associated Press about the risks of sounding too apocalyptic about the economy ran (or, to be more accurate, crawled) for nearly 1,200 words--and ended with Obama saying "Okay" with an implicit question mark as if he were requesting permission to keep on talking. A national poll from the Pew Research Center released Monday afternoon found that 92 percent of Americans described Obama as a "good communicator." There is a suspicion that those astronomic numbers had dipped by the time that Obama exited from the East Room of the White House at 9 p.m. on the dot.In Obama's defense, the press conference was the first extended glimpse that many Americans had of their new president since the Inaugural Address. No one can deny the complexity of the economic challenges facing the nation--and President Obama is uniquely equipped to play Explainer in Chief. But Obama radiated the sense of a leader who has digested too many economic briefings and memorized too many talking points in preparation for his primetime rendezvous with the public. He clearly came out in an over-caffeinated mood ready to do battle with his Republican congressional foes, whom he had already vanquished-and, as a result, he over-reacted to last week's Fox News commentary instead of focusing on the exact shape of the stimulus. What shone through the entire press conference is how irked the president is with laissez-faire conservatives who believe, even now, "that the government has no business interfering in the marketplace" and that "FDR was wrong to intervene back in the New Deal." (Presumably Amity Shlaes, the Roosevelt-ripping author, should not plan on any immediate Oval Office invitations).
It is inevitable that the Obama press conference will be reviewed as political theater, since it was light on ... well ... that amorphous thing called news. The president's strongest answer was in response to the evening's fluffiest question, about Alex Rodriguez's confession that he had taken steroids. After an honest baseball fan's lament ("it tarnishes an entire era"), Obama jumped to a larger point that transcends sports--the lesson in A-Rod's downfall for the young: "There are no shortcuts; that when you try to take shortcuts you may end up tarnishing your whole career." Obama also took advantage of the presidential prerogative to duck when he was asked a tricky question about ending the ban on media coverage of the flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base. "We are in the process of reviewing those policies in conversations with the Defense Department," Obama said without revealing his hand. "So I don't want to give you an answer now, before I've evaluated that review and understand all the implications involved."
I'm still looking for the elusive liberal blog who defends this billion dollar Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich as "stimulus". The best I can find is a lib who likes it because conservatives hate it.
If you know if one please let me know.
Life in a "progressive" state
I don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
While the town got high
A panel of three federal judges, saying overcrowding in state prisons has deprived inmates of their right to adequate healthcare, tentatively ruled Monday that the state must reduce the population in those lockups by as many as 57,000 people.
The judges issued the decision after a trial in two long-running cases brought by inmates to protest the state of medical and mental healthcare in the prisons.
How would you like this motley crew of ding dongs, derelicts and douchebags unleashed on your home town?
The conventional wisdom is that liberals have compassion for the poor. But who do you think this motley crew is going to prey on when they get out? Are they going to go hang with Rob Reiner in Malibu? Sharon Stone in San Fransisco? Ahnauld in Sacramento? No. They'll be victimizing the poor people of South Central LA, Chinatown, et al.
If California fried up a bunch of these miscreants, they have more space for criminals.
More....
Monday, February 09, 2009
Non Keynsians
Check out this full page ad from the Cato Institute
More from the most ethical congress in history....
The FBI raided the offices of a defense lobbying firm with close ties to Democratic Rep. John Murtha (Penn.), sources tell ABC News.The FBI searched the Virginia headquarters of the PMA Group in November, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. PMA was founded by former Murtha aide Paul Magliochetti and specializes in winning earmarked taxpayer funds for its clients.
Good government groups have long criticized Murtha's cozy relationship with a handful of lobbyists and defense firms, ties that see millions of dollars in government spending go out from Murtha's office, and hundreds of thousands in campaign donations come in. Murtha has said his earmarking has helped revive his economically depressed district.
A break through for women although late for Madonna
An Indevus Pharmaceuticals gel formulated to protect women from the virus that causes AIDS appeared to protect about a third of them from infection -- the first time a so-called microbicide has been shown to work, researchers told a conference in Montreal.Here's a news flash, if you don't sleep with ding dongs, derelicts and douche bags, you stand no chance of getting HIV. And you don't need health insurance to pay for it.
Dr. Salim Abdool Karim of the Center for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa and colleagues said the trial of 3,000 women showed the gel may have protected 30 percent of the women from infection.
More...
Doing the POTUS
a) The ethics, or lack there of of his cabinet nominees?
b) His leadership, or lack there of, on the porkulus bill?
c) All the babes that want to do the guy?
If you answered c you would be correct......
The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.
The other day a friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed so perfect. “I was at a place where I was tempted daily to throttle my husband,” she said. “This coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful things about Barack. Each time I heard her speak about him I got tears in my eyes — because I felt so far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous presidential couples, they are our age, have children the same age and (just imagine the stress of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts should have been fighting even more than we were.”
No word yet on whether Andrew Sullivan wants to do the president. Oh sorry, I guess that came out last year.
More here if you can take it.......
Monday funny
From reader Bernie
An ATF officer stops at a ranch in Texas and talks with anold rancher.
He tells the rancher, 'I need to inspect your ranch for illegallygrown drugs.'
The old rancher says, 'Okay, but don't go in that field overthere.'
The ATF officer verbally explodes saying, 'Mister! I have theauthority of The Federal Government with me!' Reaching into his rearpants pocket and removing his badge, the officer proudly displays it to thefarmer. 'See this badge? This badge means I am allowed to go wherever Iwish..on any land! No questions asked or answers given. Have I made myselfclear? Do you understand?'
The old rancher nods politely and goes about his chores.
Later, the old rancher hears loud screams and spies the ATFofficer running for his life and close behind is the rancher's bull. Withevery step the bull is gaining ground on the officer. The officer is clearlyterrified. The old rancher immediately throws down his tools, runs to thefence and yells at the top of his lungs.....
'Your Badge! Show Him Your Badge!!!
GOP on the porkulus bill
Not much of a surprise where they shook out.
THE SQUISHES:
These are the people whose votes are liable to change, along with any notes I wrote down about my conversations with them.Richard Shelby — I got busy signals on both lines, so I just put him in the squish column. Lisa Murkowski — definite squish; plus, her staffer was a huge asshat on the phone. Thad Cochran Judd Gregg — said he was abstaining from voting. Joe Lieberman Mel Martinez Saxby Chambliss — said he currently opposed it, but was “open to compromise” George Voinovich — voted no in appropriations but is still open to voting for the bill Johnny Isakson Arlen Specter — both of his lines were busy, I never actually got through Richard Lugar Chuck Grassley Roger Wicker Lamar Alexander — likely a “no” vote, but still possibly squishy John Cornyn — no answer on either line Kay Bailey Hutchison — busy on both lines Susan Collins Olympia Snowe Michael Enzi — “leaning towards no”
Nice to see Rinovich right there in the hunt with Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe. Can this clown go fast enough?
Slopping the hogs
The new president who vowed to change Washington’s culture will have to fight much harder to keep from being co-opted by it instead. There are simply too many major players in the Obama team who are either alumni of the financial bubble’s insiders’ club or of the somnambulant governmental establishment that presided over the catastrophe.This includes Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary. Washington hands repeatedly observe how “lucky” Geithner was to be the first cabinet nominee with an I.R.S. problem, not the second, and therefore get confirmed by Congress while the getting was good. Whether or not this is “lucky” for him, it is hardly lucky for Obama. Geithner should have left ahead of Daschle.
Now more than ever, the president must inspire confidence and stave off panic. As Friday’s new unemployment figures showed, the economy kept plummeting while Congress postured. Though Obama is a genius at building public support, he is not Jesus and he can’t do it all alone. On Monday, it’s Geithner who will unveil the thorniest piece of the economic recovery plan to date — phase two of a bank rescue. The public face of this inevitably controversial package is now best known as the guy who escaped the tax reckoning that brought Daschle down.
He's not Jesus? Wait a minute. Who the hell did we vote for in November?
More here.....
Hey.... Aren't guns are illegal in bars
Police are investigating a fatal shooting this morning at the Almost Home bar, 10956 Hamilton Ave.
A male bar employee was killed about 1:50 a.m. after a patron fired several shots inside, Springfield Township Police Chief David Heimpold told reporters at the scene.The patron had been thrown out of the bar earlier in the evening after some kind of altercation.
He returned shortly after, slipped inside and fired a number of shots, hitting a male employee, according to the chief.
The suspect fled to a nearby residence in the 10000 block of Pleasant Hill Drive. When police arrived, he refused to come out, so the Hamilton County Police Association SWAT team was called about 3:44 a.m.
At 5:40 a.m., a man with blood on his shirt came out of the residence with his hands up. He walked into the front yard, was taken into custody and handed over to Springfield Township police.
Maybe, the shooter didn't know he wasn't allowed to bring a gun into a bar. Maybe, he didn't know he wasn't allowed to murder someone either.
Question for you gun control freaks. Have you ever noticed that no one ever raids a police station with guns a blazin'? How about your average target shooting range? Kind of funny how that works. People looking to kill someone in a public place always seem to go where they know everyone is unarmed.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
A story that needs to be told
The Board of Medicine has revoked the license of a Florida doctor accused of medical malpractice in a botched abortion case in which a live baby was delivered, but ended up dead in a cardboard box.
The board on Friday found Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique in violation of Florida statutes by committing medical malpractice, delegating responsibility to unlicensed personnel, and failing to keep an accurate medical record. Renelique and his attorney declined to comment after the hearing.
The Department of Health said Renelique was scheduled to perform an abortion on a teenager who was 23 weeks pregnant in 2006. Sycloria Williams had been given drugs in advance to dilate her cervix.
According to the complaint, she gave birth at a Hialeah clinic after waiting hours for Renelique to arrive. The complaint said one of the clinic owners put the baby in a bag that was thrown away.
Police found the infant's decomposing remains a week later.
A medical examiner determined the cause of death was extreme prematurity, the complaint states.
At Friday's hearing, Renelique told the board of his life-long quest to be a doctor. He said there are generations of physicians in his family, and that he decided to follow the same path after seeing his father treat patients.
Renelique described saving a woman's life during the second year of his medical residency in Haiti. He later left his home country to work and train in the United States. It was never his intention to do abortions, he said.
News from the most ethical congress in history
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd went one contrivance too far last week at his carefully choreographed press event to explain his mortgage deals with Countrywide Financial. Dodd has engaged in so many contradictions in trying to manage the gathering storm that he probably did not recognize his stunning blunder.
At his Monday event, Dodd wouldn't let reporters have copies of the selected documents he let them glimpse. Instead, Dodd released a report from a Chicago firm hired with campaign funds to review his mortgage transactions. The report is carefully constructed to vindicate the Dodds and even make them appear to have fared worse than many other borrowers. It includes references to "detailed evaluation" of internal Countrywide documents that the mortgage giant used in processing the Dodds' applications for more than $800,000 in loans. The firm hired by Dodd, it's clear, had documents from Countrywide.
The report, which Dodd evidently sees as his invulnerable Maginot Line, is dated July 22, 2008. There is no indication that it has been updated or changed since then. On Friday, July 25, 2008, The Courant quoted Dodd declaring, "We've had very little response from" Countrywide to his request for information. He wanted to wait to release information "to make sure we have the full picture." The report Dodd distributed Monday had already been completed for three days when he made those comments.
Dodd knew at the end of July that not only had he obtained internal Countrywide documents that he now relies on for his murky defense, but he also had to have known that those documents had been given to a financial firm to review and apply to the market conditions that existed in 2003.
Maybe last Monday he forgot what he'd said at the end of July, since it was one more invention in eight months of them. Perhaps Dodd thought no one would compare the dates. Someone in his office or at the law firm he's hired to represent him must have known Dodd risked revealing the grimy truth Monday when he trotted out that report.
Monday's revelation tells us something we are reluctant to conclude about a leader: We cannot believe Christopher Dodd.
I'm not reluctant about not believing him.
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Connecting in the 21st century
From reader Cathy....
Family interaction in the 21st century.
I guess talking to the person next to you is soooo '80's.
She's beautiful, but God gave her that beauty. And its a shame that she sold herself into this. I would add that swimsuit issues serve to demean women by objectifying them. They also serve to demean men by playing to men's sexual instinctual inclinations which serves to distract, even mislead. It would interesting to find out how she is treated on the street, at the grocery store, at the subway station, once this gets out. Knowing how men can be, stalking is an understatement.