text:
Taste is above all a personal thing, isn't it? Mine is probably as pedestrian as the next person's.
I've watched a couple of the Spectacle: Elvis Costello With... series lately, however, and the only spectacle I've observed is Elvis Costello phoning in his persona by shamelessly whoring himself to whichever crimp, spung, or feeb he can get onstage with him at the moment.
Spare me the rotten lettuce, too. I've been a fairly decent Costello fan since 1978; I've seen him in concert a couple of times, and he really doesn't offend me. But it's time we all faced it: Elvis is a fucking poseur, and a half-talent grasper. He couldn't carry Bob Dylan's harmonica, for fuck's sake.
We all have a few Costello tunes we like. My personal favorite is Beyond Belief. But I'm a Neanderthal in that I like sex and drugs with my rock and roll. Keep your irony to yourself, unless you're Joe Strummer. Costello as a rock and roll icon? Eh.
Normally I'd give old MacManus a pass, but these Spectacle shows are beyond the pale. I've watched Declan create these "spontaneous" "happenings" for 25 years, with everyone from Garcia to Bacharach. They are always staged as his personal voyage as acolyte and historiographer to the grand, sweet glory of Elvis actually performing with his one of his heroes!
Watch closely, however, and you will see Elvis eventually muscle his way onto a shared mike, and thence onto center stage. Trust me. I've watched this 'spectacle' for a long time. And the other sad fact is, Elvis can't sing or play guitar worth a tinker's fuck, so the performance is necessarily the worse for the wear. The only satisfaction one takes from it is seeing an old-timer who may have been out of the limelight for a while getting a boner out of having such a fanboy as Elvis.
Nice, but I wonder who scrapes the majority of the royalties off the sawdust floor? Perhaps I'm just a cynic. Perhaps Elvis is in actuality a brilliant impresario, a genius alchemist who, like Rumplestiltskin, weaves his own over-the-hill talent with another old fart's over-the-hill talent into a fine fabric of gold, selling it to a standing-room-only crowd during a savage economic depression.
In which case, I probably should salute him as, at least, Bill Graham.
I see the next episode has "Elvis" interviewing and performing with "Bono" and "The Edge."
Good Lord, grant me the strength to weather this daisy chain of self-congratulatory back-slapping and cock-sucking whilst keeping my sanity intact.
I see where Sullivan has the vapors again over Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
I'm a little confused. Jewish settlements aren't fucking military installations. They're neighborhoods. Why shouldn't there be Jewish neighborhoods in a Palestinian state, just as there are Arab neighborhoods in Israel? Why does every fucking square inch of Arab land have to be judenrein?
Perhaps the Israelis should just rename the settlements ghettos. The Palestinians would then no doubt help them build some more. With cute little Arbeit Macht Frei signs on the subdivision entrances.
This little church is around the corner from the house, three-tenths of a mile or so, or a thousand hilly feet if you choose to walk through the woods:
It's a rather humble house of worship as these things go, with no sign whatsoever, broken windows, no hint of denomination, and a pathetic little graveyard. But its walls are decently whitewashed, its parking lot is swept clean, and a dozen or so cars arrive on Sundays for service.
I say the graveyard is pathetic, which seems a harsh term, but it is.
The graves are cut rough in the ground, and the only delineation between one and the next is an outline of leftover bricks. Of the two dozen or so graves, many are forgotten or unknown:
Many have homemade headstones:
A few of the graves show pride of place. Here is the grave of a son killed in Vietnam, whose memorial is a bit fancier than the others:
This World War II veteran likewise has a more prominent and professional headstone, probably paid for with ancient veterans' benefits:
This lady has the fanciest set up in the cemetery, no doubt an homage to her standing in this tight-knit community:
For the most part, however, the graves are merely forgotten
or the deceased was acknowledged in the crude runes of the semi-literate survivors:
I've often considered joining these rustic folk for an hour of worship on a Sunday, but I'm convinced their outward friendliness and bonhomie would be a veneer masquerading a truer desire to simply be left alone. I could no more know their history or intramural alliances and enmities than I could fathom the pecking order in a mosque. I'm not even sure if this congregation is black or white, nor would that be germane to the issue.
Better, I think, to leave them to their prayers and thoughts, and intrude not upon the sanctity of their tiny circle of worship.
How do I know the name of their church, this chapel with no name or denomination on it? In these parts most roads are named for the church that perches beside it. Like Galilee Church Road and Mt. Moriah Church Road, this one sits upon Gum Springs Church Road. And so as to be neighborly to the postman, they dutifully misspelled it upon the mailbox:
Pitiful, perhaps, but in all things community it is the thought that counts. One cannot purchase neighbors like this for any sum of gold; and why I need to go back with a rake and tidy those unkempt gravesites.
Everyone else has weighed in on this flick, I suppose I shall, too.
Bottom line: very enjoyable special effects, with some good killin' at the end. That's always important.
Nit picking: well, open my intestines up. This might take a moment or two. Bear with me.
This was, as many have said, Dances With Wolves. Protagonist goes native with the savages, learns a higher morality. Yes. In fact, I expected the prototypical rival aborigine to scream at the end "Can you not see I am Wind In His Hair? Can you not see I am your friend?" Except that Indian guy was a fucking stud hoss, and the Na'Vri'ti'lova creatures looked like rejects from the first storyboards from "Antz."
I say it was Dances, but the intelligence quotient was more Pocahontas.
Avatars: let's see: looking back at Cameron's ouvre, we see the giant robotic fighting pods as avatars of the construction robot from Aliens. Pretty hot gunship pilot Trudy is an avatar of Ferro and Vasquez from Aliens. Sigourney Weaver is of course an avatar of, who else? Ripley.
The neon plant life are avatars from The Abyss. (Remember Ed Harris gulping that amniotic fluid? Fuck that!)
Meta-avatars: the usual suspects: nice the way Cameron blended the Evil Corporation with the Evil Military by making the military mercenaries in the pay of the Evil Corporation, like Blackwater or Executive Outcomes. Bonus points, that. Because once you throw the profit motive at a soldier, he becomes a fucking Killing Machine! We see this all the time. Where? Shut up.
This planet Pandora was also all spiritually interconnected via roots and vines and shit, with a Mother Nature/Gaia figure called Eyra. Like Enya, I suppose. Avatar? No idea on this one. No one has gone quite that gay before. Maybe an avatar for Signs, by the 5 Man Electrical Band, if I had to reach.
Another nice meta-avatar was blending the aborigines: they rode hossie-like creatures, shot bows and arrows, and yip-yip-yipped in a fashion so stereotypical of Injuns I thought for a moment I was watching a B-Western from 1932. I was actually embarrassed for a sound effect. There's a first. And blended with the African-American-Caribbean hair braids, it was an unassailable minority in-yo-face bitchslap to us honkeys. Plus, the matriarchal shaman woman had an inexplicable Jamaican/Geechee accent, like the old witch-doctoress in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Wow! Have these Hollywood types ever actually talked to a black person, since illegal Guatemalans took over the domestic work in LA? I mean, besides the staff at Sandals Negril?
My favorite character? Stephen Lang as Miles Quaritch. I loved this guy. Fuck the morality of the mission, let's get 'er done. Sipping coffee in the flagship, declaring "Let's wrap this up and get back in time for supper." Fuckin' Ada, baby. He was a voice of sanity in a sea of hand-wringing. Make the big blue Antz move. We need us some fucking unobtainium. Yes.
Final nit pick: the message. Gee, if all of Mother Earth's (or Mother Pandora's) creatures band together, we can repel and destroy these disgusting human beings.
Indeedy. And then we can put on a show to raise enough money to save the old theater from the goddamn capitalist wrecking ball, Judy Rooney.
P.S. post scriptum mortem complaint: tiny tits on the aliens, and not a single nipple shot. Doesn't Cameron understand the Basic Rule of sci-fi? Women, regardless of race, shall have large, pendulous breasts, and perky, Palinesque nipples. Shit, man, I knew that by the time I was eight.
A Trip of Goats is available from Amazon. It's always been there, it just showed out of print, with limited availability. I never figured out if it was Lulu or Amazon that had bollixed the works.
Anyway, if you like your Judeo-Christian allegory served in a thick porridge of sexual deviancy, and your imperiled child narrative filleted close to the bone, this is the book for you.
You won't get it for Christmas now, even though they're promising overnight availability, but it makes a wonderful MLK Day remembrance gift, especially if you include a fruit basket.
... episode is thankfully over. Let's recap:
Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do.
Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play?
Well, I can see Barack Obama, gingerly rubbing his tush after an obviously unsyncopated date-rape reaming by Wen Jaibao, complaining that those Chinee need to be "getting out of that mindset, and moving towards the position where everybody recognises that we all need to move together."
I can see Lumumba Di-Aping (you can't make these names up), the Sudanese chief negotiator for the G77, bitching that this farce possessed "the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It's nothing short of climate change scepticism in action. It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush." He failed to mention that the biggest difference is that Bush actually cared about the genocide in Darfur that Di-Aping's buddies have been perpetrating for a decade. Obama, on the other hand, has been noticeably fucking absent on the Darfur holocaust. So there's that difference, if he needs an example.
I can see John Sauven of Greenpeace UK gibbering "The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport." One presumes he is referring to the free strumpet bint the attendees gobbled up. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? All-you-can-eat tacos, right there on Valundsgade.
Finally, I can see Lydia Baker of Save the Children sobbing that her fellow attendees "effectively signed a death warrant for many of the world's poorest children. Up to 250,000 children from poor communities could die before the next major meeting in Mexico at the end of next year."
The operative word there is "could," meaning this hysteric is foisting a bald-faced lie upon the slavering presshounds.
Here's a real statistic for you, shrew: One million African children will die next year from malaria, all because you progressive environmentalist kommissars refuse to let the poor nappy-headed savages spray DDT. That's one million entirely preventable child deaths the Left may sniff cognac over. That is despicable by any measure of intentional savagery inflicted upon innocent humans. Six millions over six years are fucking Hitler numbers, for God's sake. The only thing coming close to being as dangerous and pestilential for African children is a visit by UN peacekeepers.
I suppose I should be happy with this Romper Room episode. No one was killed in the street-fighting, and it's always nice to see the Don't-Bees lose, and us Do-Bees win the day. At least for this day.
The last of the hold outs caved once the deal was sufficiently sweetened. I suppose Nelson believes throwing fuckfuls of other peoples' money at his constituents will get him reelected in 2012, despite Nebraska voters seeing him for the craven whore he is.
Have any elective surgery you've been meaning to have done? Like having the legs of your homunculus twin removed from your thorax? Better get it done now. If you have a heart condition I suggest you do wind sprints up the library steps so that you can have your myocardial infarction treated now, by somewhat motivated cardiologists, rather than later, when we're importing them from Zimbabwe for the price of a bowl of gruel.
Apparently the abortion verbiage Nelson demanded isn't even in the fucking rework, so it was all about the vigorish with this hypocritical cunt. And once physicians realize the only procedure left that doesn't expose them to the jackal-headed malpractice lawyers is baby-whacking, don't bother looking for a hospital if you have an emergency. Just get one of those "I've fallen and I can't get up" alert necklaces, pre-programmed to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic. You'll stand a better chance of finding a physician there than anywhere else. Doctors have to eat like everyone else, and that's where the low-hanging fruit and high-yield reimbursements will be.
Me? I'm quitting smoking and having an intravenous transfusion of Zerex in the hope of staving off any trips to a medico unless it's to get my free rations of
purple pecker pills Viagra. I figure if I'm going to get screwed this badly I might as well screw something back, with every inch ounce of energy I can erect.
Official portrait of Senator Ben Nelson, D(ouche) - Nebraska.
Artist's depiction of a malpractice attorney holding a tiny, freshly-hatched malpractice attorney
Like any good bordello proprietor I occasionally have to cull the stables known as my blogroll of the stinkier meat and put some fresh meat on tap for my personal enjoyment, and perhaps even that of my guests. Nothing wrong with most of the old meat, you understand, but occasionally I have hit a link only to discover the blogger has been literally daid for a year. Embarrassing, that, even though they obviously won't know you hit their dead blog. Their survivors might, though, and my cheeks will redden in cyber-mortification. It's similar to calling a long lost cousin to put the bite on him for some money, only to find he's taken his own life over his enormous debts from the porn and gambling sites you turned him on to.
Here's the thing: my blogroll is for my convenience. Not really an endorsement of the blogs as such. I've tried several RSS feeds and aggregators and find that scrolling through them is more work than I'd expected.
Some blogs I wonder why I even hit at all. A few are as lazy and diffident about posting as I am. We aren't real blogs; we're just retirement homes for the not yet completely senile. Then there's the one blog, you think What the fuck is up with this? Why do I go here? Oh, yeah: because every Christmas he reposts his annual Ten Ways I Can Kill You With My Bare Hands screed, and you like to silently mouth the words too tightly wound. Of course this prototypical blogger will immediately follow that up with a picture of a naked girl that causes you to immediately kill the window because, fuck! There's about a ten percent chance that picture wasn't legal. Pretty sure I abolished those bloggers a few years back, you FBI agents pretending to be 13-year-old girls. (Note to self: I wonder how satisfying that job is? Creepy, sucky. No, Sir!).
The point, which I'm meandering toward as quickly as the Lazy River Ride (Navelgazing version) will take me, is that I often run across some damned fine writers out there, but forget to link them up. Or I'm too lazy to do it at the time, creating a situation where I go to the other person I've been reading for years, then hit the new person from there. Not efficient, and it does not allow the new person to look at his or her stats and think That weird velociguy was here again. Wonder if I should block him? He writes like he has a blood disease.
Well, that's my resolution for the new year. That and single-handedly overthrowing the duly-elected government of the United States of America, if I have enough free time left after nodding over a glass of wine and a 7,000 word treatise on the alleged iron cores of the gas giants I ran across somewhere or other in the cyberslums.
...of something. And my Spidey-sense is telling me this won't go well.
Anyway, I'm starting this post with about three friends in the world. I have a nice five-dollar bill for the one who leaves a comment averring I am still The Man. Okay, fifty dollars. And I'll wash your car on alternate Saturdays.
I commented at a post at Dick's about the female softball player suing the city and her coach for injuries sustained because she wasn't taught how to slide. The post elicited some indignation, all right, but I think Dick et al are missing the point:
What the hell are girls doing playing contact sports for in the first place?
Yea, verily, hate me now, dads. Hurl rotted tomatoes at my oddly-shaped noggin, and call me a misogynist pig.
And hear me out: I'm not anti-girl. I'm very much pro-girl. Not pro girl, just pro-girl. And I just don't find anything appealing about girls playing contact sports. Not because I don't think they are able to, or as competitive as boys. I just think it's a rough and unfeminine thing for females to do. It ain't civilized, and it flies in the face of 500 years of attempts to civilize ourselves.
Here: I've never been attracted to a girl with dirt under her fingernails from scooping up a barehanded grounder. Have you? And I've never been attracted to a girl sitting on the bench during a basketball game mopping sweat off her brow while her armpits drip. You? Don't answer that.
Ain't soft. Ain't purty. Don't smell good. And I wouldn't want my girls swapping towel snaps in the showers with lesbians anymore than I'd want my son giddily applying greasepaint on some flamboyant, trolling cocksucker backstage. I don't believe in putting my kids in a nest of vipers at a tender age. They aren't St. Patrick. They're children. Plenty of time to let them sort out their own sexual preferences without placing them in a locker room alone with a chain-smoking bull queer authority figure.
I file that under What the fuck were you thinking? They won't say anything now, but wait ten, twenty years. Ask your girl if a coach or assistant coach or teammate ever hit on them. Trust me, you're going to feel like a real fucknozzle.
I suppose I was lucky in that my girls were both extremely feminine, and took to dance like otters to water, or maybe baby seals, or something nice and cutie. I also thank their mama for that. Tough? Oh, yes. My older daughter won a state championship after we heard her ankle snap across the auditorium during her performance. She also blew out her knee on her school team. Horrible pain, had to get the knee scoped, long recovery, the whole thing. She's now a third-year NFL cheerleader, BTW, and that audition is like trying to make Ranger School.
My younger daughter won a competition while her eye was in excrutiating pain, as if her cornea was being devoured by some strange amoeba. Turned out to be a strange amoebae eating her cornea off. That was a nine-month cure. But she never lost her composure during that performance.
So I know a little bit about competition, and girls, and athleticism. I'm just glad my girls never asked me to play hoops or field hockey or fast pitch. Look: girls' college hoops is full of scandals about coaches getting it on with players. What makes you think high school hoops is any different? The same queer authority figures, they just possess a lower caliber of skill sets. They didn't grow up wanting to be sexual predators. They just found out at a relatively early age that they were good at it, and liked it.
Now that Billy Jean and Martina are gone from tennis that sport at least has some fucking sweet hotties. Golf? Neh. Even Annika and Michelle Wie couldn't save that game. Full of the bull grazers. Look at their legs, for God's sake.
My humble point? Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be naive unsuspecting children getting their perspiring bodies tenderly dried off by some cup-wearing crone named Madge. Want your kid to spit in the dirt, grab their crotch, and ass-slap their teammates? Cool. Have a boy, Mr. I'm Living My Failed High School Sports Career Through The Only Outlet I Have, my poor daughter. Or adopt a boy if you're a seedless bitch. There's plenty available. Good boys, who need a father figure.
Personally, I blame Title IX. Because I've learned over the years that in this crazy old thing we call life, there is always, always, something or someone else you can blame. It says it right there on the apple pie. Not the one Mom made, but the rancid tartlet from McDonalds.
Post scriptum: I cross-posted this at Big Dick's, as it was originally intended for his site, but he was in some kind of alcoholic funk, or somesuch, so I went with the primo slot: me. Apparently his bride Kelly isna too happy with my worldview, either, so I offer her a bit of tea and sympathy:
Obviously no one around here is interested in meaningful argumentation, therefore below the fold I give you tits!
My tranny-cred is suspect, so I'm not sure if this is a kinda disgusting looking female or a kinda hot looking guy. I do, however, nominate it to star opposite Andrew Sullivan in the re-re-remake of the classic A Species Is Born.
I am a firm believer in the conceit that nothing lends more dignity, style, and, yes, class to a Christmas tree than Musical Stooges in Tuxedo ornaments.
I am, alas, in the minority in this viewpoint.
The Left is predictably outraged over Joe Lieberman's steadfast refusal to vote for a Senate health takeover bill with a public option:
Ezra Klein, the Washington Post: Lieberman "seems willing to cause the death of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score."
Mcjoan, DailyKos: ...btw, no-class Lieberman's opposition to the CLASS Act is yet another F-you to the memory of his colleague, Ted Kennedy, whose bill this was.
Gawker: Lieberman has decided, in his infinite fuckheadedness, that any public option and any expansion of Medicare — the two last vestiges of hope for an even slightly helpful bill — is too much.
Despicable rapid-cycler Jane Hamscher at firedoglake is circulating a petition to have Lieberman's wife removed as a global ambassador for the cancer research foundation Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
We all know what this is about: the Left hates Lieberman for supporting the Iraq War. So much so that they ran a semi-retarded silver-spoon boy named Ned Lamont against Lieberman for his Senate seat. Lieberman lost that primary, ran as an independent, and kicked the retard's ass in the general election. The rest is history.
Or should be. Grievances die hard on the left. So now they are accusing Lieberman of betrayal, and backstabbing. Fuck the lot of them.
Let me tell you something: if you pulled out the infamous litmus tests, Joe Lieberman and I would disagree on about 60-70% of them. But Lieberman believes in three things I believe are existentially important: the moral imperative of the state of Israel, the critical battle against medieval Islamism, and apparently the naked power grab known as ObamaCare.
He can therefore agree to disagree with me on the other issues. Because I see that rarest of things: a liberal who stands on principle as opposed to race-mongering, class warfare, and pilferage of the public fisc.
Lieberman put his integrity on the line in his Senate race, and he's doing it again today with the healthcare vote. He doesn't have to prove anything to these cretins. They claim he's backstabbing them, but he's actually staring them down, and they individually find themselves lacking in courage, hence the sniping attacks upon his wife, who is, as far as I can ascertain, as above suspicion as Caesar's wife. If Lieberman were really backstabbing them, he wouldn't choose to caucus with them, after they so shamefully tried to destroy him. In fact, if I see a fault in Lieberman, it is that I consider him far too loyal to that pack of feral hyenas for his own good.
Joe Lieberman, policy differences notwithstanding, is my kind of man, politics be damned. If the Democrats aren't complete idiots (and of course they are) they should be kissing his ass, because at this stage of the game he appears to be one of only 2 or 3 people in the country who could corral the tea partiers, the disaffected independents, the libertarians, and the disillusioned conservatives, and make a serious third party run in 2012. Because, let's face it: Barack Obama is as spent and useless as last year's bird's nest.
I know one thing: I'd vote for Big Joe. On integrity alone.
My pal Mentos is traveling, so his rebuttal to my response to the Showtime post may take a day or two. In the meantime, he sez:
Open the comments! Let slip the dogs of war!
You can comment here, or back at the original post. Or tell me to piss off and post some tits.
Also: I'm only going to warn you once: have something relevant to say. If you merely indulge in personal attacks I'll delete your comments. And post some tits. With your face on 'em.
As an aside, Mentos begged off on an immediate response because he was suffering jet lag from a 24-hour flight. I told him you're supposed to deplane when Goofy stops the Barnstormer.
The worm turns:
Isn't Wasn't Colorado a blue state?
"Herbert Hoover is dead and therefore unavailable for comment," said tent city resident Tom Joad. "By the way, have you seen Tiger? My sister Rose of Sharon's knocked up again."
A few weeks back commenter Daniel Mintosh engaged in single combat in my comments section with some of my more opinionated readers. The topic was Obama, of course, and leftism in general. Most memorably in my Tin Drum allegory There Once Was A Gullible People... and A Bad Man posts.
Now I appreciate someone doing battle outmanned and outgunned, even if I consider them outbrained as well, so I sent an e-mail to young Mintosh (Mentos, to me, because he freshmakes my comments section) and posited 8 questions to him. All eight questions I'll post below. He readily
swallowed the bait agreed so long as he could reply to one question at a time. I agreed, and stipulated that I would reply to his response, and allow him a rebuttal to my reply. I also stated I would disable comments, because I truly would like to have a reasonable discussion with him, probe his anus mind, as it were, and see what makes a leftist tick.
If Daniel agrees, I will enable the comments after he reads this, or after his rebuttal. His call. I'd just like to avoid a degeneration of this discussion into name-calling, vitriol, ad hominem attacks, and all-purpose FUCK YOU's. You know, my normal style of discourse.
Here are my eight questions, and below the fold is Mentos's reply, with my rebuttal:
1. Obama campaigned as a centrist moderate. For example, he promised to pursue the Afghanistan war aggressively, cut spending, and shield the middle class from tax increases. Once in office he has pursued far more radical policies, such as mandated health care, cap and trade taxes, and unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Did you expect him to move so hard left once in office? If not, do you still approve of the policies he's pursuing?
2. The House and Senate versions of health care reform create a public option, and will effectively nationalize 1/6th of the U.S. economy. This is revolutionary by any standard of measurement. Yet polls consistently show Americans are not in favor of nationalized health care.
Do you feel the president and congress have the mandate to pass legislation a large majority of the citizens do not want or agree with? Do you feel public servants should be able to pass laws the vast majority of their constituents do not want?
3. Polls show a large majority of Americans are happy with their current health care, but would like to see some reform to bring costs down. The GOP has offered several options for containing costs that do not involve nationalizing health care, for instance eliminating laws that prevent people from purchasing health insurance across state lines, allowing individuals and small businesses to pool resources to leverage purchasing power, and enacting tort reform to limit malpractice awards.
Do you think implementing these incremental reforms would be preferable to an all-in total restructuring of health care in the United States? If not, why not?
4. Obama has promised to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from Medicare and Medicaid to lower costs. To date he has not attempted to do so. Obamacare is being modeled on Medicare and Medicaid, and these programs as currently structured are rife with waste, fraud, and abuse per the President.
Do you think we should reform Medicare and Medicaid before enacting national health care reform? If not, why not?
5. The House version of Health Care Reform stipulates aggressive fines and even imprisonment for failure to purchase government-mandated health insurance, or failure to pay the attendant penalty should one not purchase the mandated insurance.
Do you feel people should be fined and imprisoned for failing to buy health insurance? Do you feel this is constitutional? What judicial precedent would inform this opinion?
6. Obama promised to develop a new strategy on Afghanistan. He appointed a new theater commander in Stanley McChrystal, who submitted a recommendation for aditional troops last summer. Obama has not acted on this recommendation, and has only given McChrystal one twenty-minute meeting in the five months since his recommendation.
Do you believe the delay in implementation of the McChrystal strategy endangers troops? If not, why not?
7. Bush was famously lambasted by the mainstream media for the duration of his presidency. He chose not to address the attacks. Obama has personally and particularly attacked the few media entities to question him, including Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
Do you feel it is appropriate for the President to personally attack his detractors? If so, why?
8. Many Republicans, conservatives, and independents voted for Obama despite policy differences because they felt he had a first-class temperament, and would heal racial divisions in the country.
Do you feel Obama has exhibited a first-class temperament since his election?
Do you feel Obama has been gracious to the opposition since his election?
Do you feel the nation has experienced improvement in racial tensions since Obama's election?
(For the below I shall use the following initials: for Daniel, M (Mentos). For me, G (Godhead).
Question 1:
G: Obama campaigned as a centrist moderate. For example, he promised to pursue the Afghanistan war aggressively, cut spending, and shield the middle class from tax increases. Once in office he has pursued far more radical policies, such as mandated health care, cap and trade taxes, and unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Did you expect him to move so hard left once in office? If not, do you still approve of the policies he's pursuing?
M:One problem with a democracy - is that in the election process one is tempted (well, more than tempted) to be all things to all people. Clinton ran back to Arkansas to affirm the execution or Ricky Ray Rector. George W. was the compassionate conservative. That some people saw a candidate in Obama that was more conservative than he turned out to be is not really much of a surprise in the larger context of election year politics.
However - I also simply don't see Obama as having moved to the left.
On mandated healthcare, I guess you are talking about the flop described here -- http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/20/barack-obama/obama-flip-flops-requiring-people-buy-health-care/
As the article says - Obama does have a bit of wiggle-room against accusations of a flop in that he wants an "extreme hardship" exclusion. Lame as this is as an excuse - it is also the kind of political waffling that is ubiquitous in politics. Moreover - the plans currently before the house and senate are just that - house and senate plans, suggesting that waffling in this case amounts to nothing more than dealing realistically with the hand he is being dealt. Do I approve of the type of politics that makes things like this happen? Of course not. But it is the system we have.
I suspect that one reason you find the mandate as worrying as you do (and see a huge flip flop on Obama's part) relates to question 5, so I will go ahead and respond to that here:
5. The House version of Health Care Reform stipulates aggressive fines and even imprisonment for failure to purchase government-mandated health insurance, or failure to pay the attendant penalty should one not purchase the mandated insurance.
Do you feel people should be fined and imprisoned for failing to buy health insurance? Do you feel this is constitutional? What judicial precedent would inform this opinion?
Now – the problem here is that it is simply not true that the bill stipulates "imprisonment" for failure to purchase health insurance, although it is theoretically possible that someone could be imprisoned as a result of nonpayment. See politifact, again: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/29/patients-first/conservative-group-says-youll-be-imprisoned-not-ha/
The confusion here – is that any fines levied as a result of not having health insurance would be added to the individual's federal tax bill. And any consequent imprisonment would be for non-payment of federal taxes. So yes – somebody could be imprisoned as a consequence of refusing to purchase health insurance. But there is nothing fundamentally new or radical about this. According to the current tax system someone could also be jailed for nonpayment of taxes - who, perhaps, had withheld payment because he did not want to help pay for the military industrial complex or for federal farm subsidies. The tax code is a complex Leviathon, and none of us gets to pick and choose what government programs we wish to support and which ones we don't. This of course opens up a whole new bucket of worms – but that really is my point. That bucket gets opened for various and sundry reasons by the left and by the right, and I really don't see how Obama's flop in this case is different than politics as usual.
Many of the other items you suggest as indicative of Obama having swerved to the left are also attached to other questions in your list – which I will address in turn – with perhaps the exception of the following:
Shielding the middle class from taxes – and cap and trade (which I take it as your example of something which will have consequences on the middle class). Of course, there is much disagreement about the financial impact of cap and trade – as politifact reminds us -- http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jun/25/your-guide-cap-and-trade/. In any case, Obama campaigned on cap and trade ( http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/465/use-revenue-from-cap-and-trade-to-support-clean-en/ ) so accusing him of veering to the left on this is a non-starter.
Cutting Spending – The economic collapse was the great game changer on this. We can disagree about whether Bush is at fault or not – and even disagree about whether the stimulus packages were good policy – but if you want to go the extra mile and say that the collapse was just a convenient excuse to do the type of spending leftists have wanted to do all along (which many on the right have implied) – this is verging on the conspiratorial. What – did Obama plan this all along? As one voice in Congress? With a republican president? The good faith (non conspiratorial) reading of the increased spending is that Obama is trying to make the best of a very bad situation. Holding Obama accountable for campaign talking points while ignoring the financial collapse - is quibbling with him in bad faith.
Now – please try and explain Bush's spending to me? (and if you're tired of politifact, here is the very conservative Cato institute - http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0510-26.pdf )
G: First, Mentos makes the claim that politicans promise all things to all people to get elected. This is true, however it does not answer the question: did Obama veer leftward? Certainly Clinton ran back to Arkansas to put a retarded man to death to seal his tough-on-crime bona fides, but that was political theater during the campaign. George Bush ran as a compassionate conservative, and, to the dismay of many of us, the bastard proceeded to govern like one. Unlike most leftists, conservatives are willing to cry foul on policies their guy champions, such as the prescription drug benefit, the steel tariff, and the education bill of W's presidency. Leftists are all about the battle, not the principles involved, and do not ever criticize their guy publicly for his litmus-test shortcomings.
Mentos claims Obama has not moved to the left on health care, but until recently Obama was still braying "If you like your insurance you can keep it," all the while aggressively pursuing a single payer plan that would put the private options out of business. It was a campaign lie, pure and simple. Employers hate subsidizing health insurance, and whack wages to pay for it. A subsidized public option will have them bailing out of the health plan they provide employees as quickly as they can. If you like your current insurance, in other words, too fucking bad. Because it's going to go away.
Mentos calls the fines and imprisonment portion of Obamacare "simply not true" because the fines would be assessed against federal income taxes, so one's imprisonment would not be the direct result of not paying the fine, but rather one of not paying the taxes. Clever ruse, this, but it's three-card-monte to the rest of us. And no, it is not "politics as usual." Never in the history of this country has anyone been compelled to engage in an economic activity, to pay for something they may not want. Even car insurance: hell, if you feel that strongly about it, you can forego ownership of a car and ride the bus. No so with Obamacare: you WILL buy it, or you WILL pay the penalty, or you WILL go to prison. How's that wiggle-room working out, Mentos?
As for cap-and-trade, you are correct: Obama did campaign on that. In fact, he specifically said "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." The only trouble is, I don't believe he meant to let the cat out of that particular bag. But once a person is in love, they don't hear what the other party's saying. Ask Tiger.
As for the reckless spending, I don't think Obama and the Democrats are spending like drunken sailors because of the tanking economy: their spending isn't repairing a damned thing. They're spending like crazy in spite of the bad economy. Trillion dollar deficits don't right an economy, they wreck it. Ask FDR.
The only real question to ask is: is the administration so ignorant of macroeconomics they don't understand their deficit spending is making things much, much worse, and prolonging or destroying an economic recovery, or do they understand it, and consider it a feature, not a bug? The first is understandable idiocy, the second is sinister treason. And I do not consider anyone in this administration to be an idiot.
So, on question one, Mentos, I believe Obama has veered sharply left, and moreso than merely edging leftward from the honeyed center. And the question was not did love-struck voters read their own desires into Obama? That's a question for Tiger Beat. The disintegration of Obama's popularity with moderates tells me Obama's agenda is decidedly left of his promises. And his poll numbers overall have the high stink of failure, disillusionment, and indignation all over them.
Do I activate comments? I'll leave that up to Daniel.
Coming attractions: Question 2, and I paraphrase: are Pelosi and Reid fucking fascists, or what?
...and other racist iconography...
I wasn't going to traffic in any schadenfreudesque (that couldn't possibly be a word) jabs at Tiger Woods. The fellow is taking a long hard fall from grace, and it surely sucks to be in a place where no amount of money can rescue you from global humiliation and shame. He will literally have no where to run, no where to hide, for the rest of his days. He will be the butt of a thousand jokes.
I am curious about two things, however: first, forget the pre-nup. Didn't this guy think to have the postprandial sipping of the cognac conversation that goes Babe, you realize of course that as the hottest athlete in the world, with a half-billion in the bank, I'll be sticking my cock in all kinds of strange places, don't you?
Well, I would. Seems only fair. Plus, you get a glimpse of the potential for skull damage well in advance.
The other thing is, yes his wife is a classic Nordic beauty. His flings? Good God, what a feral pack of sleazy, Floam-tittied jezebels.
Tiger apparently suffers from a slattern pattern: party hags breast-juiced to the point of translucent varicose veinage, with bodies only fairly hot due to the graces of youth, and all with rather odd facial anomalies. A weird crooked nose here. Acneal scarring there. A bit of an overbite right ch'eah. Capped teeth.
Surely Li'l Tige has been to a proper gentleman's club once or twice, and seen what USDA Prime looka like. Apparently the lad likes the down-and-dirty scooter trash look. Passing strange, that.
But as Johnny Mathis advised us, It's Not For Me To Say. And as Oscar Wilde admitted, I can resist everything but temptation.
Still, for the stakes involved, I believe I would have been able to resist scub ugly.
Exhibit A:
I rest my case.
An interesting discussion going on over at Ace's. He's written one of his periodic posts excoriating commenters for going racist and gay-bashing. I understand his point. There is humor, and there is hate. It's a fine line, and, hell, I cross it at times here. I don't mean to: I just find everyone potentially fair game for a little ox-goring, most notably my own cracker-assed Scotch-Irish self.
To exclude any one person or demographic from the ultimately humanizing prospect of being able to laugh at oneself is to infer that they are not human enough to take it in the first place. On the other hand, there is speech designed to wound, to hurt. That is even more dehumanizing.
Here's a good example of where I draw the line:
When I first took over my ex-company's Memphis operation our new facility was not quite ready, and six of us were crammed into a wretched construction trailer for about a month. I'd had a couple of customer service people quit just prior to my arrival, and was training a couple of new hires. One of the newbs seemed pretty normal at first. 40ish year old guy.
After a couple of days of monitoring his phone calls I realized he was terminating every phone call with my customers with
"Phantasmagorical!" or
At first I chalked it up to an odd day, or new peep blues fitting in. Then I realized it had been going on for over a week.
These were my customers he was talking to. The people I'd crawl over broken glass for. The folks I needed to maintain a solid professional relationship with.
I had to fire him. In retrospect, it was really not a firing offense. Perhaps I could have worked with him, trained him not to do that. But we'd crossed the Rubicon at that point. I was offended.
He also had a couple of really strange fingers. No fingernails. At least not on top of the fingertips. It looked as if he'd been born without fingernails, and someone had jammed Lee Press-On Nails into his fingertips. It was fucking phantasmagorical, is what it was. And creepy.
So that's my bottom line: don't embarrass me, shithead. Or nauseate me with machinery-damaged hands. And we'll get along just fine.
He's no Bloody Ebsen, but he ain't bad.
I was perusing the Athens, Georgia Craigslist, looking for things I want but do not really need. Farm & Garden strictly. I am afeared of perusal for amusement purposes only of the Personals. I assume every ad is actually a GBI agent, and clicking on an innocuous advert like Wholesome Threesome! will bring up pictures of children in bondage in a chicken house in Commerce, and bludgeoning by outraged instruments of The State. So I stick to Farm & Garden.
Look what I found:
A Horse Davis Boot!
Never heard of it, even under its likely proper name of a Davis horse boot, but apparently you put your horse's hoof in there if it's suffering from abscesses or the thrush, like Illya Kuryakin. 10 bucks! I don't own a horse, but I might could use that for a paperweight on my desk, or devise a drinking game using it.
I also found bunnies:
Also 10 dollars, and ready to fatten up for that Christmas hasenpfeffer.
A 1959 John Deere tractor for $4,950:
Probably $500 new. It'd look better if it was in the front yard, and I scraped most of that paint off for the rusty "distressed" look that's so popular.
Lookee here:
Only $750 for a used Big Green Egg. That's right. $750. For a Fucking. Used. Charcoal. Grill.
Them $10 rabbits are looking better about now, aren't they?
Here was the prize, the ad that grabbed me:
Well, all the ad said was SUGAR GLIDER. No pix, nothing else in the header. Now, I am recently arrived from the rear de-escalating end of a rather impersonal turnip truck, so I don't know what a sugar glider is. If it's a device for stripping or processing sugar cane, well, fuck me, I don't need it, but that doesn't mean I won't buy it! Especially if it is at the rather common Craigslist going rate of ten dollars.
It could also be one of those contraptions you put on the front porch. Half swing, half couch. A glider. For getting sugar from your baby. Key has a wrought iron glider on the back deck, but it ain't no sugar glider, I'll bet, as it seems too uncomfortable for us to sit on together.
So I clicked on the ad. It said:
I found a sugar glider, it is really shy, but doesnt bite. I do not have a cage or any supllies so buyer will need these items. I am asking 100 dollars. It would make a great christmas gift!
Now, I'm assuming found means stold, but that's just the loosey-goosey nature of the internets, isn't it? It's one big fencing operation, as far as I can tell. But the mention of a cage, and supllies [sic] had me a little worried. What the fuck do you need to cage it for? Is it like a Tasmanian Devil? Never had to cage a porch swing before.
So I Googlied it, of course, and found out it does indeed live in Tasmania:
Oh, ho: it's like one of those filthy flying squirrels, only cuter. Now you sordid people may know what a sugar glider is, but I don't truck with vermin like that, so it was a revelation. $100 doesn't seem that much, though, considering the trouble this seller has had to go to, pawning his hot cargo. On the other hand, that's 10 coneys in the pot.
I'm torn. Perhaps I could get the sugar glider, keep it in the horse boot, feed it bits of alfalfa freshly mown with the John Deere, let it play with the bunnies, and then cook them all together on the Big Green Egg. That would cover the justifications to buy all that stuff, while assuaging my sense of cosmic OCD. And simultaneously bringing some truly stinky karma down on my head, I'll wager.
I'm not really sure why they're calling that BCS game in January a "national championship game." It will feature #1 versus #3. The regular season is over, and the real national championship game is today: #1 versus #2. Florida vs. Alabama. Fuck a bunch of Texas backing into a title game in January.
I'm rooting for Alabama because Georgia sucked penises this year and, well, memories of the Bear. Plus Florida is a bunch of homos. In fact, theirs was one of the penises Georgia sucked.
I'll be playing the Tim Tebow drinking game:
In honor of Tebow's sheer awesomeness, we give you the Tebow
SEC Championship Drinking Game!
* Drink every time Tebow is called "a warrior."
* Drink every time Tebow's called "a leader," then salute.
* Drink every time Tebow's called a "special athlete," then yell
* Finish your drink if the announcers suggest Tebow should win the
Heisman again this year.
* Drink every time Tebow points to the sky. Then realize the only
reason the sky hasn't fallen is the strength of his pointing.
* Drink every time Tebow references God. Or himself.
* Drink every time he's shown on the sidelines flapping his arms
like a bird (or an idiot) to pump up the crowd.
* If (when) Tebow actually takes flight, finish your drink and do a
* Drink every time Tebow's on camera for no reason when the Florida
defense is on the field.
* Drink every time Tebow is seen screaming with his helmet off.
* Drink every time they show a "I Heart Tebow" sign in the stands.
* Drink every time you see a Florida fan in jorts. (Small sips on
this one. Otherwise it could kill you).
* Shot every time they mention his experience as missionary.
* If they mention him performing circumcisions in the Philippines
while he was a missionary - Chug your beer, do a shot of Patron.
I'm pretty sure Obama is upset about this pretender to the throne. I call for a cage match in God's Octagon, also known as Dick Cheney's back yard.
Oh, yeah: Alabama 27, Florida 24.
H/T Belinda and Scott for the Tebow game.
1st QUARTER UPDATE: 9-0 Tide. The mood is one of cautious optimism. I am cautiously optimistic. At least Florida got rid of the queer helmets:
It is oft mocked as the Sunkist helmet:
Not exactly light in the loafers, just... feathery.
2nd QUARTER UPDATE: I can't make out Tebow's eye black Bible verse. John16:3-something. Probably 16:31: Jesus answered them: do ye now believe?
Pretty much sums it up. You know, I'm not much of a conspiracle theorist, but I find it passing strange that Tebow plays for a guy named after a long line of controversial popes. Urban VIII, for instance: he not only had a famous dust up with Galileo over heliocentrism, he also excommunicated people for tobacco use. He thought the sneezing it caused too closely resembled sexual ecstasy.
Just like Tebow.
Oops: It's John 16:33: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...I have overcome the world.
Indeed. God just texted me. He's upset with Tebow's Simon Cowell haircut. Says it looks like they're planning to plant a row of corn down the center of their skull.
Oh, yeah: 12-3 Tide.
HALF TIME UPDATE: 19-13 Tide. To the locker rooms: coaches and coordinators will swear and curse. Chalkboards will be scribbled upon. Adjustments will be made. The true measure of a team is how they react, how they adjust. Like me. I adjusted. Switched to an adult diaper, hell, I can shite myself and not miss a play at this point.
Which fact brings us full circle back to the mood of cautious optimism, don't it?
3rd QUARTER UPDATE: 26-13 Tide. But Alabama is about to score...
32-13 Alabama.
4th QUARTER UPDATE: Apparently being Jesus isn't enough these days. Bama ruled this game from start to finish. That's a fact. Now: who wins the Heisman? Mark Ingram deserves it, but Colt McCoy will win because he's a quarterback. And a white boy.
Diamonique on QVC NOW!
Cheap watches at Instapundit NOW!
Chip Reid at CBS's Political Hotsheet:
During the Senate Armed Services hearing today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was pressed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. on whether the July 2011 date for beginning to withdrawal troops is "locked in."
Gates seemed to suggest there was some flexibility, that "it was a clear statement of his strong intent" and that "the president always has the freedom to re-evaluate his decisions." After the hearing Graham said he took that to mean the date is "not locked in" and will depend on conditions on the ground.
It was a point of contention at the White House briefing today – I asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs if senators were incorrect calling the date a "target."
After the briefing, Gibbs went to the president for clarification. Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in – there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel.
Poor Van der Leun had a Billy Joel situation.
My sympathies. We've all had those, and they always suck.
Myself, I'm still rather proud of the fact that I got bounced from the indoor "tiki bar" lounge of the Polynesian Resort at Disney World in 1978. For having a headful of MDMA and tequila. Or, more properly, for threatening to beat the bloody shit out of the gig musician if he played one more damned Billy Joel song.
It was okay. After being unceremoniously tossed I hopped on the monorail, rode it back and forth for two hours while I smoked some ganja to chill, and gave that Billy Joel-loving prick both fingers every time it stopped outside the lounge.
That, that fucker.
Here's a graph for the climate scientists:
No, you may not see my raw data.
Yes, it was peer-reviewed (cf. Doc's Bar, Tybee Island, GA, 2009).
No, I am not skilled enough to publish a higher-rez graph.


text:
Louisville Recreation Center Hours & Schedules
General Hours of Operations
Attention Parents: Children need to be picked up by closing time of the center. Center staff will notify the Louisville Police Department if children are left at the center past closing.
Schedules for 2015
Gym Schedules
North Gym Schedule -November 2015
South Gym Schedule - November 2015
*Time not listed indicate Open Gym*
Louisville Recreation Center Indoor Pool
Recreation Center Pool Schedule - November
Memory Square Outdoor Pool - Closed until Memorial Day 2016

subset: commoncrawl


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Thursday, January 5, 2012
© Copyright 2015 Newton Citizen
Let me tell you about a friend of mine. Her name is Laura Wisner. She was a long time FBC choir member and is still a faithful member. Laura lives at the Remington House in Conyers and has to be one of the most colorful women there.
If you are looking for a good way to spend an hour, you should go and pay her a visit. One of the things you will enjoy about your visit with Laura Wisner is that she is an observer. She is quick to notice some of the most minute, yet colorful aspects of life.
Observation is a special gift from God that I hope we all will find time to enjoy. We get so busy living life, we often fail to take time to observe it. It is clear that Laura has spent hours enjoying the gift of observation and because of this she has become an excellent writer.
Laura shared two short stories with me during our chat. The first was about a baby deer named "Freckles" that lived with her for 14 weeks and the other was about a hummingbird friend of hers.
Laura lived in a house on Indie Circle for many years with a friend of hers named Jane. The two were such a pair that everyone in town called them sisters and as time went by that is what they became. Laura and Jane weren't the only ones in the house, though.
They also had two dogs named Domino and Tuffy who were just as an important part of the household as anyone. Laura has seen a lot through the years. She has observed the best and the worst of life through many tears of joy and pain. And those tears are her secret to seeing so much.
She told me, "that when you look through your tears you can see things better than when you look through your glasses."
I hope this week we all learn a little lesson from Laura, and pause, and look, if only for a minute. I don't want us to miss all of the glorious ways that God shows Himself to us in life.
Jason Dees is senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Covington. He can be reached at 770-786-9031 or www.firstbaptistcovington.com or www.facebook.com/jasondees.
More like this story
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- First Baptist member organizes blood drive at church ( August 30, 2012 )
- JASON DEES: New child will give greatest of joys, deepest of pains ( October 2, 2011 )


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Archive for Thursday, March 1, 2007
Building bridges
Tucker Gabriel, Hannah Thevarajoo, Emma Lee Elmer and Keith Reynolds test how much weight it takes to crush their toothpick bridge while teacher Denise Kendall looks on. The group won first place in an engineering contest at Eudora West Elementary School sponsored by teachers Barbie Hartwell and Kendall. The bridge finally crumbled under 168 pounds of pressure. The school's engineering club will have another contest in April.
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Biotech Goes Wild
Page 4 of 4
Who's Watching the Greenhouse?
The uncertainty is due, in part, to the lack of a rigorous regulatory framework to sort out the risks inherent in agricultural biotech. The plastic cages covering the heads of the sunflowers help keep the transgenic pollen out of the environment, a general requirement for obtaining a federal permit to grow a test crop of bioengineered plants. But other than monitoring the plots, the government imposes few conditions on biotech tests. The main reason is that Congress has not passed any specific environmental law for genetically engineered agriculture. Instead, transgenic crops are evaluated by three overlapping federal agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Agriculture.
Each government agency has a different statutory responsibility, which sometimes leads to anomalies-and gaps in regulations. The FDA, for example, doesn't look at the safety of foods that have been engineered to express pesticides, because pesticides are by law exempt from the agency's purview. Nor does the EPA, which is required to treat such foods as pesticides. Because pesticides, of course, are toxic substances, the agency only establishes human "tolerances" for each compound. (Responding to critics' concerns, the agency announced this spring that it may rethink its approach.) For its part, the USDA simply tries to make sure that the crop grows in the way that the manufacturer says it will. The disjointed legal mandates, observes EPA biotechnology adviser Elizabeth Milewski, "make life interesting."
One worrying consequence of this patchwork of regulations is that no one has direct responsibility for looking at long-term effects on the environment. "We have a first-approximation understanding of the population biology of these plants and the insects, microbes and virus populations," says Neal Stewart, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. "But we know very little about the community ecology and virtually nothing about the ecosystem ecology of what these genes will do. And we are not pursuing this knowledge actively." Stewart's concerns bore fruit in May, when Cornell scientists reported that pollen from Bt corn can kill the caterpillars of monarch butterflies.
According to Sally McCammon, science adviser to the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, biotech field trials can be of any size and last for any length of time, though one or two years is the standard. From the companies' point of view, the tests are efforts to learn whether new crop varieties will perform as intended. The government's main job, McCammon says, "is to certify that the test is biologically contained." Transgenic plants must be kept apart from plants they might cross-pollinate. "Afterwards you have to account for it," McCammon says. "We make sure that you bag what you take out and that the plant material is plowed under."
These measures are necessary, to Snow's way of thinking. But by ensuring that transgenic genes won't escape into the environment, they also make it impossible to learn what will happen if they do. "The ecological questions don't even get touched," she says. "In fact, it's illegal to touch them." She believes that the environment and industry would be better served by introducing a second level of testing devoted to ecological questions. Another step, in her view, would be to fund academic research into the ecological hazards-currently the sole source of federal funds, the biotechnology-risks panel of the USDA, has a budget of less than $2 million.
Technical controls may also be possible, says Gressel of the Weizmann Institute. Most transgenic crops today have a single foreign gene. But companies are already working on inserting several genes simultaneously into the plant's genome. In a May article in the journal Trends in Biotechnology, Gressel argues that if these multiple genes were inserted in close proximity to each other on the chromosome, potential hybrids would inherit all of them at once. And if the secondary genes coded for traits such as preventing dormancy, the hybrids would be less, not more, dangerous than their wild parents. For crops, the inability to lie dormant doesn't matter, because the seed is harvested and replanted each year. But a weed that is unable to produce seed that can remain dormant until an opportune time to germinate is at a significant disadvantage. "The hybrid weed will be weaker, not stronger," Gressel says.
"I'm more worried about the future than the present," Ellstrand says. "So far it's okay-we don't have killer tomatoes flying through the air. But we need to be thoughtful and careful about what we're doing, and there are some people and some portions of the industry where they have a better tradition of that than others. People who have worked with plants outside in real life seem to have a better handle on it than people who have worked with chemicals all their life. If we keep paying attention to what's happening in the field, we might be able to make this technology realize its promise."
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The Magazine
'Student Loan Relief Now'
The case for allowing these debts to be erased via bankruptcy.
Jun 30, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 40 • By IKE BRANNON
My father is one of the reasons that student loans cannot normally be discharged via bankruptcy. Such an outcome was never his goal: quite the opposite, in fact, because exempting student debt from bankruptcy relief makes little economic sense and is patently unfair to the students saddled with such debt. A sensible reform of this law could slow tuition growth and put a lid on exploding student debt while sparing young adults the debilitating stress of a debt they can never hope to repay.
Let's just sign the loan papers. What's the worst that could happen?
The path by which a small-town lawyer inadvertently helped change bankruptcy law began shortly after the Supreme Court in 1977 ended prohibitions against lawyers advertising. Soon after the decision my father placed an ad for his services in the Peoria Journal Star, making him the first lawyer in Illinois to advertise.
He knew that the novelty of an ad for legal services would create some buzz around town: However, he wanted a lot of buzz. So his ad—a 1-inch-by-2-inch display buried amongst the box scores on the sports page—read "Student Loan Relief Now: Discharge your Debts via Bankruptcy."
Mission accomplished: The editorial page of the same paper thundered against such a tawdry ad shortly thereafter, back when such a thing mattered greatly, and a local TV station chimed in. A federal judge referred to my father as a shyster in court for publishing the ad, which earned the judge a formal censure and created another media storm. My father found himself in the news quite a bit in the ensuing months, and as a result became known as the bankruptcy expert in Central Illinois. His practice exploded: At one point he filed the majority of bankruptcy cases in the area.
At the time my father placed his ad, student loans were treated much like any other debt. A Chapter 7 or "straight" bankruptcy discharges most obligations, save tax debt or loans that were secured by pledging an asset against their repayment, as is commonly done with car loans. In 1976 Congress had made student loans slightly more difficult to escape by deeming that they could not be discharged via bankruptcy during the first five years of repayment unless there was "undue hardship," although judges had considerable latitude to interpret hardship.
The year after my father's advertisement appeared, Congress passed legislation making it much more difficult. A few years later further legislation made it all but impossible.
The rationale typically given for exempting student loan debt from bankruptcy relief is that new college graduates may attempt to jettison debt just before they reap the fruits of their education. It only takes a few medical residents or newly minted lawyers stiffing their lenders to gin up enough outrage to get a law passed, helped along by a provocative newspaper ad.
But my father didn't write his ad solely to provoke: The burden of student loan debt is not a new phenomenon, and he did not—and in retirement still does not—see any special difference between someone who can't afford to pay back their student loans and one who can't afford to pay their credit card debt or health care bills.
We allow people to declare bankruptcy in acknowledgment that letting people escape from debt they cannot repay is a beneficial policy for both society and the economy. To exempt a particular type of debt—for an activity society should very much like to encourage—belies the very reason for a bankruptcy law in the first place.
Lending a student $60,000 to attend a private school he may have little chance of graduating from is not terribly different than the mortgage lenders who gave imprudent loans to people buying homes they could not really afford. Both the school and the company that made the student loan get their money regardless of what happens to the student, and as a result neither has any compunction about helping a student attend a school where his prospects are poor.
The provision prohibiting the discharge of student debt via bankruptcy is in some respects an anachronism, given that the bankruptcy reform of 2005 addressed the bogeyman the provision was originally written to prevent—by precluding people with an income above the median from filing a straight bankruptcy. Instead, those people must file a Chapter 13 "reorganization," which requires debtors to assume a repayment plan set forth by the court that requires as close to a full repayment of their debt as deemed reasonable.
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Back to the Future Trilogy Will Stream Exclusively on Amazon Prime In October
Are you ready for October 21, 2015? That's the date that Marty McFly arrives in the future — at least according to the second Back to the Future movie. But if you're planning on watching the trilogy to celebrate, you'll only have one streaming option: Amazon Prime. »


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This is a lesson about using evidence to construct sequences of geologic events. Learners will interpret real NASA science data to identify features on the surface of Mars, determine the surface history of the area, calculate the size of features,... (View More) and develope investigable questions. Students will study images taken by NASA's Mars Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera orbiting Mars. Students will use the THEMIS images to analyze the surface features and geological history of Mars. The lesson models scientific inquiry using the 5E instructional model and includes teacher notes and vocabulary. (View Less)
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In this demonstration, students explore the concept of greenhouse warming. They determine whether an increase in the amount of heat-trappping gases in the atmosphere can cause the temperature on Earth to rise. Students compare the relative heat... (View More) retention in two experimental systems that are identical except for one being covered with plastic wrap. Materials required include two small aquarium tanks, plastic wrap, two clamp lamps with 60 watt bulbs, modeling clay, rocks and pebbles, and two thermometers. Teacher background information, student worksheets and a scoring rubric are included. This is Activity 1 of the module Too Many Blankets, part of the lesson series, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. (View Less)
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CBS shakes up its schedule: 5 new fall shows, 4 moving, and NFL
Here's how we know that CBS did not have its usual, stellar season in 2013-14 - the network is making a lot of changes to its fall schedule.
Oh, there aren't that many new shows. Just four dramas and one comedy, which isn't a particularly high number. But the network is making changes on every night but Sunday, moving four shows around and adding NFL games to the Thursday-night schedule in September and October.
And, for the first time in almost two decades, CBS will not have a four-comedy block on Monday nights. Instead, it will give viewers two sitcoms and the hourlong drama-with-comedy "Scorpion" at 8 p.m.
The addition of football means that every Thursday-night show but "The Big Bang Theory" won't premiere until Oct. 30. "Big Bang,' however, is one of the biggest hits on television, so it will air Mondays at 7 p.m. before moving back to Thursdays at the end of October.
It's not like CBS is operating from a completely new playbook. "NCIS: New Orleans" will join "NCIS" and "NCIS: Los Angeles" on the fall schedule, and "CSI: Cyber" is among the network's midseason shows.
One show that's not on the schedule is worth mentioning. CBS did not pick up "How I Met Your Dad." CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said her team wanted to reshoot the pilot because it had "some problems," but the show's producers - who also ran "How I Met Your Mother" - were unresponsive.
CBS canceled "Bad Teacher," "The Crazy Ones," "Friends with Better Live," "Hostages," "Intelligence," "Unforgettable" and "We Are Men." "How I Met Your Mother" ended its run in March.
CBS 2014 Fall schedule (new shows are UPPERCASED; returning shows in new time slots are in italics)
7 p.m. - "Big Bang Theory"/"2 Broke Girls"
7:30 p.m. - "Mom"
8 p.m. - "SCORPION"
9 p.m. - "NCIS: Los Angeles"
7 p.m. - "NCIS"
8 p.m. - "NCIS: NEW ORLEANS"
9 p.m. - "Person of Interest"
7 p.m. - "Survivor"
8 p.m. - "Criminal Minds"
9 p.m. - "STALKER"
6 p.m. - THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (Sept 11-Oct. 23)
7 p.m. - "Big Bang Theory" (beginning Oct. 30)
7:30 p.m. - "The Millers" (beginning Oct. 30)
8 p.m. - "Two and a Half Men" (beginning Oct. 30)
8:30 p.m. - "THE MCCARTHYS" (beginning Oct. 30)
9 p.m. - "Elementary" (beginning Oct. 30)
7 p.m. - "The Amazing Race"
8 p.m. - "Hawaii Five-0"
9 p.m. - "Blue Bloods"
7 p.m. - Crimetime Saturday (repeats)
8 p.m. - Crimetime Saturday (repeats)
9 p.m. - "48 Hours"
6 p.m. - "60 Minutes"
7 p.m. - "MADAME SECRETARY"
8 p.m. - "The Good Wife"
9 p.m. - "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" ("CSI:CYBER" will take over the time slot later in the season)
In addition to two dramas and a comedy that CBS has waiting in the wings for later in the season, returning series "Mike & Molly," "The Mentalist" and "Undercover Boss" are also on that list.
Here are CBS' descriptions of its new series:
"Madam Secretary" (Sundays, 7 p.m.) stars Téa Leoni as Elizabeth McCord, the shrewd, determined, newly appointed Secretary of State who drives international diplomacy, battles office politics and circumvents protocol as she negotiates global and domestic issues, both at the White House and at home.
A college professor and a brilliant former CIA analyst who left for ethical reasons, Elizabeth returns to public life at the request of the President following the suspicious death of her predecessor. The President values her apolitical leanings, her deep knowledge of the Middle East, her flair for languages and her ability to not just think outside the box, but to not even acknowledge there is a box.
McCord's team includes her Chief of Staff Nadine Tolliver (Emmy Award winner Bebe Neuwirth), speechwriter Matt Mahoney (Geoffrey Arend), press coordinator Daisy Grant (Patina Miller) and her charming assistant, Blake Moran (Erich Bergen). As McCord debates third world problems and finesses foreign dignitaries at work, that's just a warm-up for when she goes home to her supportive husband Henry (Tim Daly) and their two bright children (Katherine Herzer and Evan Roe), where "politics" and "compromise" take on new meaning.
MADAM SECRETARY is a CBS Television Studios production, in association with Revelations Entertainment. Barbara Hall ("Judging Amy") is an executive producer with Revelations' Lori McCreary and Academy and Golden Globe Award winner Morgan Freeman, and David Semel. The pilot was directed by David Semel.
"NCIS: New Orleans" (Tuesdays, 8 p.m.) is a drama about the local field office that investigates criminal cases affecting military personnel in the Big Easy, a city known for its music, entertainment and decadence.
Leading the team is Special Agent Dwayne Pride (Golden Globe Award winner Scott Bakula), aka "King," a native of NOLA who is driven by his need to do what is right. Working with Pride is Special Agent Christopher LaSalle (Lucas Black), who plays hard but works harder; and Special Agent Meredith "Merri" Brody (Zoe McLellan), a charismatic and tough interrogator who transferred from the Great Lakes office in search of a fresh start.
Supporting them is coroner Dr. Loretta Wade (CCH Pounder), who is as eccentric as she is smart. This colorful city that harbors a dark side is a magnet for service personnel on leave, and when overindulgence is followed by trouble, Pride's team is at its best.
Gary Glasberg ("NCIS"), Mark Harmon ("NCIS") and Martha Haight are the executive producers for CBS Television Studios.
"Scorpion" (Mondays, 8 p..m.), inspired by a true story, is a high-octane drama about eccentric genius Walter O'Brien (Elyes Gabel) and his team of brilliant misfits who comprise the last line of defense against complex, high-tech threats of the modern age.
As Homeland Security's new think tank, O'Brien's "Scorpion" team includes Toby Curtis (Eddie Kaye Thomas), an expert behaviorist who can read anyone; Happy Quinn (Jadyn Wong), a mechanical prodigy; and Sylvester Dodd (Ari Stidham), a statistics guru. Pooling their extensive technological knowledge to solve mind-boggling predicaments amazes federal agent Cabe Gallo (Robert Patrick), who shares a harrowing history with O'Brien.
However, while this socially awkward group is comfortable with each other's humor and quirks, life outside their circle confounds them, so they rely on Paige Dineen (Katharine McPhee), who has a young, gifted son, to translate the world for them.
At last, these nerdy masterminds have found the perfect job: a place where they can apply their exceptional brainpower to solve the nation's crises, while also helping each other learn how to fit in.
Nick Santora, Emmy Award winner Nicholas Wootton, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Heather Kadin, Walter O'Brien, Scooter Braun and Justin Lin are the executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Justin Lin ("The Fast and the Furious") directed the pilot.
"Stalker" (Wednesdays, 9 p.m.) stars Maggie Q and Golden Globe Award winner Dylan McDermott in a psychological thriller about detectives who investigate stalking incidents - including voyeurism, cyber harassment and romantic fixation - for the Threat Assessment Unit of the LAPD. Det.
Jack Larsen (McDermott) is a recent transfer to the Unit from New York City's homicide division, whose confidence, strong personality and questionable behavior has landed him in trouble before - but whose past behavior may also prove valuable in his new job. His boss, Lt. Beth Davis (Maggie Q), is strong, focused and an expert in the field, driven by her traumatic personal experience as a victim.
With the rest of their team, young but eager Det. Ben Caldwell (Victor Rasuk) and deceptively smart Det. Janice Lawrence (Mariana Klaveno), Larsen and Davis assess the threat level of cases and respond before the stalking and intimidation spirals out of control, all while trying to keep their personal obsessions at bay.
Kevin Williamson ("Scream") is the executive producer for Warner Bros. Television.
"Battle Creek" (midseason) stars Josh Duhamel and Dean Winters in a drama about two mismatched law enforcement officers whose polar opposite views of the world and crime-solving breed frustration, disdain, humor and possibly a grudging respect as they team together to clean up the hardscrabble streets of Battle Creek, Mich.
Det. Russ Agnew (Dean Winters), a good but gruff, hard-boiled detective, has his world upended when strikingly handsome, charismatic Special Agent Milton Chamberlain (Josh Duhamel) opens an FBI field office at the police station and chooses Russ to be his partner. Milt's polished sophistication and access to unlimited state-of-the-art equipment is impressive to his new co-workers in the absurdly underfunded department.
As Russ and Milt work long hours together in the economically distressed city of Battle Creek, the question is: will it be Milt's charm and endless supply of high-end resources or Russ's old-fashioned cynicism, guile and deception that prove to be the keys to catching the bad guys in his beloved hometown? Janet McTeer, Kal Penn, Edward Fordham and Aubrey Dollar also star.
Emmy Award winners Vince Gilligan and David Shore as well as Mark Johnson and Bryan Singer are the executive producers for Sony Pictures Television in association with CBS Television Studios.
"CSI: Cyber" (Sundays, 9 p.m., midseason) stars Emmy Award winner Patricia Arquette in a drama inspired by the advanced technological work of real-life CyberPsychologist Mary Aiken.
Special Agent Avery Ryan (Arquette) heads the Cyber Crime Division of the FBI, a unit at the forefront of solving illegal activities that start in the mind, live online, and play out in the real world. She also knows firsthand how today's technology allows people to hide in the shadows of the Internet and commit serious crimes of global proportion.
While other agents search for criminals in dark homes and alleys, Ryan searches the "dark net," a place deep in the bowels of the Web where criminals are anonymous, money is untraceable and where everything is for sale with just a keystroke.
Emmy Award winner Ann Donahue, Carol Mendelsohn, Anthony Zuiker, and Emmy Award winners Jerry Bruckheimer and Jonathan Littman are executive producers for CBS Television Studios.
"The McCarthys" (Thursdays, 8:30 p.m.) is a multi-camera comedy about a loud, sports-crazed Boston family whose somewhat athletically challenged son, Ronny (Tyler Ritter), is chosen by his father to be his assistant high school basketball coach, much to the surprise of his more qualified siblings.
Ronny wants nothing more than to move away, join the singles scene and find a partner. His distraught mother, Marjorie (Laurie Metcalf), is not upset that her favorite son is gay, but that he wants to leave Boston and his family. Ronny's plans change, however, when his politically incorrect and outspoken father, Arthur (Jack McGee), stuns everyone with his choice for an assistant.
Touched by his father's offer, Ronny embarks on a completely different future - and he can be sure that his loving, tight-knit family is going to have a very vocal opinion about it. Jimmy Dunn, Joey McIntyre and Kelen Coleman also star.
Brian Gallivan, Mike Sikowitz, Will Gluck and Andy Ackerman are the executive producers for Sony Pictures Television in association with CBS Television Studios. Emmy Award winner Andy Ackerman directed the pilot.
"The Odd Couple" (midseason) stars Matthew Perry as endearing slob Oscar Madison and Thomas Lennon as uptight neat freak Felix Unger, two former college buddies who become unlikely roommates after the demise of their marriages.
It's not long after Oscar lets Felix move in that Oscar fears he's made a monumental mistake. However, despite how exasperated they make each other, these mismatched friends agree they can help each other move on from their divorces and somehow make this crazy living arrangement work. Wendell Pierce and Lindsay Sloane also star.
Matthew Perry, Emmy Award winner Joe Keenan, Bob Daily, Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, Eric Tannenbaum and Kim Tannenbaum are executive producers for CBS Television Studios.


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Subscribe to Security and News announcements
Sign up to TurnKey's low-traffic announcements newsletter to get important security bulletins and updates on major new releases.
In the works: dozens of new apps, high-security deterministic builds, clustering, multi-app installations, better backups...
LAMP Stack-
Web Stack (MySQL)
LAMP stack is a popular open source web platform commonly used to run dynamic web sites and servers. It includes Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Python/Perl and is considered by many the platform of choice for development and deployment of high performance web applications which require a solid and reliable foundation.
Run from browser:
TKLDev Source:
Stable version: 14.0 (changelog)
LAMP stack includes all the standard features in TurnKey Core, and on top of that:
- SSL support out of the box.
- PHP, Python and Perl support for Apache2 and MySQL.
- PHP development helpers
- phpsh: interactive shell
- php5-xdebug: debugging and profiling
- php-pear: php extension and application repository
- php5-cli: command-line interpreter
- XCache - PHP opcode caching acceleration.
- Adminer administration frontend for MySQL (listening on port 12322 - uses SSL).
- Postfix MTA (bound to localhost) to allow sending of email from web applications (e.g., password recovery).
- Webmin modules for configuring Apache2, PHP, MySQL and Postfix.
A separate LAPP stack appliance features PostgreSQL instead of MySQL.
Credentials (passwords set at first boot):
- Webmin, SSH, MySQL, Adminer: username root


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By Tribune Staff
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By Tribune Staff
South Lake Tahoe police have arrested a 64-year-old man on suspicion of an attempted robbery at El Dorado Savings Bank in the Bijou Center last week.
Robert Allen Larson was arrested about 2:45 a.m. Sunday morning after Barton Memorial Hospital staff reported Larson admitted to being the individual involved in the Thursday afternoon robbery attempt, said Lt. Brian Williams. Police arrived at the hospital and took Larson into custody, Williams said.
"The suspect passed a demand note to a teller and then appeared to change his mind about following through with the robbery," according to a previous statement from police. "No weapon was ever threatened or displayed. The suspect left through the front doors and rode a bicycle eastbound."
Larson confessed to the robbery attempt after being taken into custody, Williams said. Larson remained in custody in El Dorado County Jail in South Lake Tahoe Tuesday afternoon. It is unknown whether he has an attorney.


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Studies have show that the arts teach children that problems can have more then one solution and that questions can have more than one answer. Kareen Sanchez, first found her passion for the arts in latino youth development while she was a City Year member in LA — and will soon be leaving on a Peace Corp mission in the Dominican Republic. She came on-air to explain.
RadioActive—The Art of Learning: The Role of the Arts in Latino Youth Development by Wvumnews on Mixcloud
Michael Matthiesen
Mike is the host of "RadioActive" on WVUM.His show airs Sundays at 6pm and features thought-provoking interviews with community leaders with innovative and progressive ideas to make society better.
Latest posts by Michael Matthiesen (see all)
- RadioActive—Flip the What? Shaking up the classroom and how we think about learning - 15 September, 2014
- RadioActive — What is this thing we call Community Psychology: Does anyone really know? - 8 September, 2014
- RadioActive — RadioActive 2.0 Harder, Bigger, Faster, Community Psychologier - 1 September, 2014


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Photoshop: CS6 Move Tool Not Working as Before
Photoshop: CS6 Move Tool Not Working as Before
I am running Photoshop CS6 (Creative Suite) on iMac (Lion). For some reason, I can not get an object or text to move by selecting a layer and simply using the move tool like I've done for decades. Only by selecting Cmd+T will the Move Tool work. Any suggestions?
Responding to my own post. It appears as though this issue is applicable to only one file that I have. Still puzzled what I've done in "configurations" to make this happen.
I run into this issue a lot when I "place" an object.
EMPLOYEE0Jeffrey Tranberry (Chief Customer Advocate) October 31, 2012 15:00Are you using a Wacom Tablet? http://forums.adobe.com/message/42561...
Hi Jeffrey, thank you for the reply!
I am not using a tablet when placing an object.
I also get a similar error with the resizing handles not working every now and then (mostly when, again, placing an object).
I'm trying to figure out what triggers this event but I haven't nailed down the exact sequence that causes it.
EMPLOYEE0Jeffrey Tranberry (Chief Customer Advocate) October 31, 2012 19:17Usually, things like this are the result of another process (application or extension) running and stealing clicks and key events from Photoshop.
What other applications are running at the same time? If you get into this state, quit any other running applications one at a time and see if the problem goes away.
Are you running any system extensions? They usually show up here in System Preferences:
I'm usually just running Chrome and iTunes.
If it is an extension, it might be a challenge to pinpoint which one is the culprit.
When I "command + tab" to another window/application (with the exception of Chrome–because that's another mess on its own) and then come back to Photoshop, the resize handles and move tool are now working properly.
Again, this isn't a major issue. Just one of those PS annoyances.
Jeffrey Tranberry (Chief Customer Advocate) October 31, 2012 20:11You could keep Chrome closed when you're working for a while and see if that keeps the problem from occurring.


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Ball State's Dante Love was carted off the field in their game against Indiana with a career-ending spinal injury.
Maybe it was the euphoria of the moment. A feel-good instant where a week's worth of hard work paid off with a gratifying result.
We've all been there in some manner.
Literally seconds after Ball State finished off a sound 48-27 thumping of Virginia on the road last Saturday, Cardinals coach Pete Lembo stepped in front of a radio microphone and proclaimed the achievement the greatest football triumph in school history. ...


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Updated 06/22/2011
The villas here are none too fancy, but their magnificent views over pristine Natewa Bay and their beautifully manicured grounds are. It's easy to relax at the large, pretty saltwater pool and hedged-in area. Some of the mostly middle-age couples and honeymooners who come here order room service to the wide decks of their large studio-style units, all of which have two-person tubs and large walk-in showers. Owner and Seattle-native Collin McKenny consults guests prior to their arrival and has the chef design the all-inclusive menu. Guided snorkeling, fishing, dolphin-watching, and diving (bring your own gear) are available from her small boat. A patch of sandy beach is a short downhill hike or complimentary drive away. The two slightly cheaper villas are lower on the hill and so have less-impressive views. Villa 5 has the best view, while Villa 6 is the most isolated.
Salt Lake Rd., turnoff for which is about 24 km (15 mi) east of Savusavu, along Hibiscus Hwy., Savusavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji
Website: www.lomalagi.com
Hotel Details:
Updated 06/22/2011
No Thanks


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POSTED: 6:40 p.m. HST, Oct 29, 2012
With his libel-slander lawsuit, Ben Cayetano is calling out the cabal that has shamelessly tried to cast him as a crook. He's saying he's not going to take the slurs anymore.
He should not have to, but whether he can win in court is another matter. It is a challenging case, given his long career in public office, but if anyone has the will to stop or slow the relentless proliferation of dirty tricks in island campaigns, Cayetano does.
Pacific Resource Partnership and its allies, the targets of the suit, have relentlessly and falsely accused him of taking bribes when he was governor in its effort to run his candidacy for Honolulu mayor into the ground and elevate the city rail project he opposes. PRP and its brigade have millions of dollars to gain in building the ill-conceived rail line that will tax the city's finances, and their fetid offensive to nail him comes with the blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The anti-Cayetano scheme is Hawaii's addition to the toxic national political pollution that the court's 2010 ruling has bred. The infamous "corporations are people" decision allowed unlimited spending by groups to support or oppose candidates and public policies without having to disclose who is behind the money.
Jim Bickerton, one of Cayetano's lawyers, describes the libel case as one "about big money for big lies."
"It's about whether we're going to let secret, shadowy groups with unlimited funds pump lies into the public discourse," he said.
The ruling, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, was seen as an advantage to Republicans who were largely favored by the wealthy-Wall Street-corporate world. They did not expect that Democratic organizations, who were not as well financed, would use their money tactically to target GOP candidates for the U.S. House and Senate as well as state and local offices.
Feeling the breath of challengers on the back of their Republican necks, influential members of Congress are finally acknowledging the consequences of Citizens United and considering reform. But this may all be pre-election jitters. Depending on the outcome of the elections, legislative curbs may not materialize.
Because of Citizens United, no person or entity has to tie their names to the ugly. Cayetano's lawsuit pulls away part of PRP's veil, naming the trustees of the Hawaii Carpenters Union, and its PR firm's principals. It also hopes to later identify an unknown number of behind-the-scenes individuals who are believed to have taken part in the vicious campaign.
One person who has stood clear of the muck is Cayetano's rival, Kirk Caldwell. To his credit, the former city managing director under Mayor Mufi Hannemann has not followed PRP's lead. Caldwell this week would not discuss the suit, saying the law that disallows candidates from coordinating campaigns with PACs prevents him from speaking to PRP. The law, however, doesn't prevent him from censuring PRP's unethical behavior from which he will benefit.
Watching from the sidelines while his opponent is maligned is cheap.
Can you honestly say you never did anything wild and "inappropriate" when you were a teenager? If you can honestly get in touch with your "inner teenager," maybe you can stop being such a whining crybaby.
Show some class and leave the kid alone.
More and more Honolulu voters are realizing that PRP's desperate tactics must be a ploy to distract the voting public's attention away from the issue of the merits of Rail vs. that of the F.A.S.T. plan.
If Rail was truly a better solution for Honolulu's traffic problem than F.A.S.T., that would be where PRP's focus would be on, in their spending of $millions for radio & TV commercials, and newspaper ads.
I find it kind of schizophrenic the way some people blame Inouye for not forcing something through, then in the next breath, criticizing him for expressing a preference. Inouye is not the dictator-bully so many people like to paint him as. But I guess seeing Inouye's influence through the prism of your relationship with your own father serves some emotional purpose for you that you do not want to abandon. You are totally free to disagree with Inouye's views, just as he is free to express them. But first, you have to be free in your own mind. Which is your problem, not the senator's fault.
There, fixed it for you.


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Japan are under more pressure than Australia to win their crucial 2010 FIFA World Cup™ qualifier next month, Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek has said.
Australia are unbeaten after three qualifiers and lead Japan by two points in Group A of Asian qualifying heading into the February 11 crunch match in Yokohama. The top two teams of both Asian groups qualify directly for the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals in South Africa.
"They have to win at home against us. That means they are under more pressure than we are," Verbeek told The Sydney Morning Herald. "Ok, we want to win, but we don't have to win. The pressure is more on their side."
The Dutchman rated Uzbekistan, who have only one point from three games, a bigger away test than Japan. "We always thought Uzbekistan would be one of the danger teams and they are still in the race, don't forget," he said. "Japan still have to go there, so anything is possible."
Verbeek confirmed that injured Newcastle United striker Mark Viduka will not be selected for the Yokohama clash. "Viduka will not be there It would be a big, big surprise if he would be fit and we don't put him under any pressure."


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Missed the Oscars? No worries, just click here for everything you need to know from last night's show.
Everything You Need To See From Last Night's Oscars
More Ryan & Gretchen!
Tuesday, November 24, 201511/24/2015
Tennessee Is Second In the Nation For Black Friday Fights
Tennesseans like to get into fights on Black Friday.
Monday, November 23, 201511/23/2015
This Optical Illusion Video Is Very Trippy
Watching this will do weird things to your vision for a few seconds.
Monday, November 23, 201511/23/2015
Kid Won't Let Hiccups Ruin His Chance To Sing The Australian National Anthem
He won't let the hiccups ruin his big chance to sing.
Monday, November 23, 201511/23/2015
An Entire Town Learned Sign Language To Surprise Their Deaf Neighbor
Town goes out of their way to surprise deaf neighbor.
Monday, November 23, 201511/23/2015
In Case You Didn't Know Adele Can Really Sing
Someone leaked the raw microphone feed from her SNL performance of "Hello" and to no surprise it's amazing.


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|Stoke St Mary
"STOKE ST. MARY, a parish in the hundred of Taunton, county Somerset, 3 miles S.E. of Taunton, its post town, and 10 N. of Chard. The village is situated on the road from Taunton to Chard, and is chiefly agricultural. The soil is of a clayey nature. The parish includes the hamlet of Stoke Hill. The living is a rectory and donative in the diocese of Bath and Wells, value £133. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is an ancient edifice with a tower and four bells. The Independents have a chapel. R. Mattock, Esq., is lord of the manor."
"BROUGHTON, a hamlet in the parish of Stoke St. Mary, hundred of Taunton, in the county of Somerset, 3 miles to the S.E. of Taunton."


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What you can expect when Carmelo Anthony meets with Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks brain trust
Assuming the big black limo that pulled out of Toyota Center in Houston wasn't a smokescreen, Carmelo Anthony's visit with the Rockets is finished and he apparently is Dallas bound for his sit-down with the Mavericks.
The four heavy hitters who will woo the high-scoring forward: Dirk Nowitzki, Rick Carlisle, Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson.
No confirmation on where the meeting will take place, but apparently it won't be at American Airlines Center.
More likely somebody's house, either Cuban's or Nowitzki's.
The Mavericks will be the third of five teams on Melo's radar. He was in Chicago Tuesday before chatting up the Rockets Wednesday morning.
After the Mavericks, he's scheduled to see Kobe Bryant and the Lakers on Thursday, then the New York Knicks get their chance to persuade Anthony to stay in the Big Apple.
All signs point to a decision this weekend or early next week.