Jack and Jill Politics - Latest Comments

Re: Nidal Malik Hasan: The Madness Time

IWordsmith — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:39:28 -0000

All male - apparently no ONE race, creed or color is sociopath FREE. The good side: Women apparently aren't.

Whew....that's a fucking relief.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

Guns3000 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:31:53 -0000

Who cares? They're goats.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:48:40 -0000

"So: does the army have a better means of ballistics testing now? Did they get in trouble with animal rights people? Are they raising their own goats now?"

AMERICA’S body parts scandal deepened yesterday with the disclosure that the US military had purchased bodies donated “to science” to blow up in landmine experiments.

A medical school at Tulane University has suspended its dealings with a body-broker after discovering that he sold some of its surplus cadavers to the US Army, which used them in tests of anti-mine footwear.

Donated bodies blown up in US Army mine tests

U.S. "security interest" projects reveal many paranormal efforts.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:26:24 -0000

Agreed.

This article seems to be addressing Vietnam redux: The Iraq War—On Drugs (giving troops bags of meds, pills). Returning soldiers must go "cold turkey" after free flowing drugs given to them to function while in Iraq.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

mon_dieu_ishmael — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:24:38 -0000

There are no native americans - only a long series of immigrants.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

djchefron — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:22:43 -0000

Dealing With The Blue Dogs
Posted by Zandar
The big story this morning is last night's deal with the Blue Dogs to strip any and all abortion funding from the House health care reform measure. Today's vote will indeed continue, but Nancy Pelosi has been forced to allow an amendment vote to block not only the public option from being used to pay for abortions, but from any insurance plan offered in the so called health insurance exchange. As Steve Benen reports, Pelosi had no choice.
The House Democratic leadership didn't want to go this route, but was out of options -- they just couldn't get to 218.
The idea, at this point, is to allow a vote on the amendment. Pro-choice Dems can register their opposition, but the amendment is expected to have the votes pass.

And that's when this might get a little trickier. If the Stupak/Ellsworth amendment is approved, Democrats who've withheld their support over this issue will throw their support to the larger reform bill. The angle to keep an eye on, however, is what happens to the strong, pro-choice leaders in the caucus -- will they switch sides and vote to kill the bill?

Most of the vote counts I've seen put the number of hard "no" votes in the Democratic caucus at 25. The majority can lose no more than 40. The vote is still expected for tonight, with top White House officials and cabinet sectaries working the phones and walking the halls of Congress, keeping the heat on wavering members.

On one hand, most private health insurance plans offered through the workplace simply don't cover abortions to begin with. Mine doesn't, for example. There's also a raft of state laws and limited doctors who will perform the procedure that make getting an abortion nearly impossible anyway no matter what the public option says.

On the other hand, the Dems are better people than to be misogynist assholes. The reality is this: Will the Blue Dogs who vote for the anti-abortion amendment vote for the House bill at the final vote?

I'm thinking no. If the measure dies in the House due to the abortion measure, well, there's no way anyone will ever touch health care reform in the future. Nancy just may have dealt herself into a corner, and the Blue Dogs may just end up putting the Dems out of business in 2010.

Hasn't anyone on Capitol Hill figured out that the reason the Republicans won in 1994 was because Democrats killed Clinton's health care reform?

http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2009/11/dealing-w...

Re: Saturday Open Thread

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:19:15 -0000

Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis "own" the U.S. Congress -- according to one of that institution's most powerful members -- demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.

The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials. Here is just one random item this week announcing a couple of standard personnel moves ...

Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress

Re: Saturday Open Thread

djchefron — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:13:08 -0000

Question of the day
Why does Michael Steele always look like his suit is two sizes too big? Is it because his head is so tiny in relation to his trunk?

Or does he pad the shoulders of his jackets to look all broad shouldered and manly and republican?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

djchefron — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:05:45 -0000

What does the Army really do with goats?

Cover of Men Who Stare at Goats
When I was a reporter in the Washington bureau of Jane’s Defence Weekly, it was my job to uncover new things that the U.S. military was up to. By far the most tedious way of doing this was to comb through the FedBizOpps website, where the government publicly has to solicit pretty much everything it wants to buy. But for every sexy new missile or helicopter program you’d come across, there would be 10,000 requests for office furniture or lawnmowing services. But that one in 10,000 made it worth the time, so about once a week I got an extra cup of coffee and set to it.

One day, in 2005, I came across this solicitation, from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.:

88 — LIVE, MALE, CAPRINES (GOATS)
This caught my attention. I had just read The Men Who Stare at Goats, and was blown away by the incredible story of serious military research done on the paranormal, and that it was ever considered that soldiers might walk into battle holding baby lambs to pacify enemies. And that the Army had a program called “Jedi Warrior.” And, of course, as per the title of the book, that researchers experimented on how to kill goats simply by staring at them. The research was being done, the book said, by U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Ft. Bragg.

So that listing obviously rang a bell. It went on: “The US Army has a a requirement for Caprines (goats) to be delivered to Fort Bragg, NC as required during the period 1 June 2002 thru 31 May 2003 with (2) one-year option periods. The caprines must be live, male, healthy, weighing fifty (50) pounds or more.”

Curious, I called the public affairs officer at Ft Bragg, and asked what it was about. He didn’t know — and, to my surprise, hadn’t heard of the book. I also emailed the author, Jon Ronson, through his website, thinking he might find the solicitation funny. (Unfortunately all of this email traffic was on my janes account, which has been lost, so I’m paraphrasing.)

I heard back quickly from Ronson, who said “Wow — so it might be true.” Which wasn’t the response I expected to get from an author of a purportedly nonfiction book. But as True/Slant’s Dan Kois reports, the opening title of the movie, opening Friday, reads: “More of this is true than you would believe.” So the filmmakers seem to be making no claims about airtight facts.

And then, I heard back from the public affairs officer at Ft. Bragg. He had found out what they used the goats for, but asked me not to report it: They were used for ballistics testing. Apparently goat flesh is a close enough approximation to human flesh that when researchers want to figure out how a human might react to being shot in various situations, well… (This was not a secret, anyway, plenty of people have discussed it.)

The army has solicited for goats lots of times, from at least 2002 to 2006. One time, for example, the army was looking for 150 goats, and specified that “[g]oats can not be fed the night prior to delivery.” Would cut down on the mess, I imagine. But I did a search on fedbizopps now, which lets you search for solicitations back 365 days, and found that there have been no goat orders in the past year.

So: does the army have a better means of ballistics testing now? Did they get in trouble with animal rights people? Are they raising their own goats now? Anyone reading this at Ft Bragg, drop a line…
http://trueslant.com/joshuakucera/2009/11/06/wh...

Re: This Week with Jasiri X — Stopping Violence Against Women

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:00:36 -0000

An ex-cop was sentenced to 25 years to life on Friday for the fatal shooting of his 22-year-old fiancée on a Queens street two years ago.

Former NYPD Transit cop Harry Rupnarine was convicted of second-degree murder in September following a three-week trial.

Queens prosecutors say Rupnarine fatally shot Guiatree Hardat in the back of the head with a service-issued Glock 9-mm. handgun during a heated argument on a Woodhaven street on May 10, 2007.

"The defendant's senseless act robbed a beautiful young woman of her life," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Rupnarine, 39, told jurors he accidentally shot Hardat while trying to protect her from two knife-wielding thugs.

"We loved each other," Rupnarine told Assistant District Attorney Jack Warsawsky. "We had a lovers' quarrel over the money for the wedding."

Lovers' quarrel over money of wedding: Ex-cop sentenced to 25 years for killing fiancée in argument

Police officers' abuse and murder of their companions is a huge problem.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

djchefron — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:38:22 -0000

But the earth is only 6000 years old and everyone knows adam and eve were the first people and they had two sons cain and able and that's how the human race started.Now if only someone explain to me where was cains wife ?

Re: Saturday Open Thread

mon_dieu_ishmael — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:37:59 -0000

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Nice little story about the "stimulus" package.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

zackboston — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:37:19 -0000

cosign, thinking about my own community. . .

Re: Saturday Open Thread

djchefron — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:34:03 -0000

Underwater Kite Harnesses Ocean Energy
A completely new concept of underwater wave energy using a simple 7 ton kite turbine design has been developed by Minesto; which is a spinoff from the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab. The Deep Green underwater turbine captures the power of the ocean just like a kite in wind.

The system could generate 18 terawatthours of energy annually, enough to provide nearly 4 million British households with reliably green electricity every year. UK households now use about a third of what average US households use in energy.

>>Find local group discounts on solar power for your home.
Originally Saab was working on a kite design for a wind turbine, but found that the concept would actually work better in water, which is 832 times more dense than air.

The kite twirls in a repeating figure eight pattern (video) that increases the ocean velocity ten-fold. The first stage increases the relative flow speed entering a turbine. When the tide hits the wing it turns down, which creates a lift force. The kite is mounted to the ocean bed with a tether and is controlled by a rudder to gently nudge it in the desired trajectory.

According to Minesto’s website, each megawatt-worth of kite(s) would weigh 14 tons, so it would seem that each 7 ton kite is a 500 KW unit. According to CEO Anders Jansson’s estimate, these could probably produce power for somewhere between $0.09 cents and $0.20 cents per kwh.

Certainly because these are such extremely simple-tech structures they would be cost effective - costing less in materials per power produced, and costing less in transporting them to the site, in installing them and even in ongoing maintenance costs.

Almost half the potential in Europe is in British waters, with the ocean moving an average of 1 to 2 metres per second between 60 and 120 metres below the surface.

The Carbon Trust based in the UK gave early development support. Minesto’s Deep Green is now funded in part by the UK and Swedish governments, and has nearly $3 million in additional capital from parent company Saab Group, Midroc New Technology, Verdane Capital and Encubator.

With these kinds of serious investors, and such a simple and cost effective design, this could be what gets wave power to the world.
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/23/underwater-...

Re: Saturday Open Thread

rikyrah — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:29:43 -0000

For the first lady, tradition gets side of Italian dressing
By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 5, 2009

MILAN -- The design team at Moschino, led by Rossella Jardini, didn't even realize that Michelle Obama was wearing one of the company's ensembles the first few times it happened. She'd selected a chartreuse suit for a campaign rally in Iowa. But she'd cinched the belt, which had been sold with the collarless, hip-length jacket, in a pleasingly eccentric manner. It was tied in a bow and then adorned with an abstract brooch that looked vaguely Native American. Later, at the Democratic National Convention, she wore the jacket with black trousers. And without a belt. The result was to render the suit virtually unrecognizable to its own designer. Not that that was a bad thing.

Yet even more surprising than Obama's personalized styling of the suit was the choice itself. Moschino is an Italian brand -- based in Milan, manufactured in Italy and with 54 percent of its sales in Europe, compared with only 10 percent in the United States. (Dresses, for instance, are priced between $895 and upward of $2,000.) In fact, it was only last year that the company opened a New York flagship after several years without a U.S. presence. In a politically correct world -- one in which first ladies traditionally wear clothes created by American designers for their most public appearances -- Jardini simply didn't think that Obama would ever wear a high-priced Italian designer brand, with a history for outrageous humor, on such public occasions.

After all, in the 1960s, Jackie Kennedy was taken to task by American apparel unions because of her fondness for French designers. As a remedy, she chose Oleg Cassini as her go-to dressmaker, in part, because he was an American designer who could and would re-interpret the work that came down the Paris runways. (Kennedy still managed to continue wearing French designs.) Since then, it has always been assumed that the first lady's state wardrobe would be handled by Americans. When Laura Bush, for instance, made one of her earliest trips abroad as first lady in 2001, she enlisted old-guard New York designers Arnold Scaasi and Oscar de la Renta to create her most significant ensembles. And other recent first ladies -- from Nancy Reagan to Hillary Clinton -- have relied on Scaasi and de la Renta, as well as St. John, James Galanos, Carolina Herrera and the occasional Donna Karan.

The executives at Moschino understood that long-standing tradition. So while they have been happy to claim credit when the first lady has worn the brand, they have not aggressively touted it. Their public comments have been brief. Bragging? Almost nonexistent. "It's a bit difficult to handle the situation because you don't want to push it," Jardini says. "That would seem indelicate."

In addition to Moschino, Obama has worn Lanvin, Junya Watanabe, Sonia Rykiel and plenty of Azzedine Alaia, one of the French fashion industry's most elusive designers. She has had the most international wardrobe of any modern first lady, turning her closet into a virtual United Nations and using her aesthetic sensibility as a form of non-verbal diplomacy as well as a reflection of an increasingly inter-connected world.

Of all the non-American labels Obama has worn, Moschino appears to be the one most frequently in rotation. And the clothes -- some of them dramatic, insouciant and attention-grabbing -- have made repeat appearances, often on the most memorable occasions. Obama wore a white blouse with a Brobdingnagian bow in Prague on her first overseas trip as first lady. She chose a lime-colored sequined dress with cap sleeves for the Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House. A coral-colored jacket with a pleated swing back and a matching skirt made an appearance during the "You lie!" address to Congress in September. At other public events, she has worn a purple floral dress, a pink and gray printed skirt, a black blazer with scalloped edges and a circular jeweled brooch. And perhaps most notably, she was in a modest black Moschino ensemble -- veil included -- when she met the pope in July.

"I was in front of the television when she went to visit the pope in our black bow blouse," Jardini says. "It was an extremely emotional moment."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Re: False Advertising With the First Lady Doll?

womanistmusings — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:29:35 -0000

The dress is a close approximation of the the inauguration gown, however everything else completely misses the mark. It was like they just slapped this together threw Michelle's name on it and expected to make a fortune from people looking for something tangible to celebrate the first African American FLOTUS. Shame on them.

Re: Evening Open Thread

mon_dieu_ishmael — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:29:02 -0000

Did you look at the picture of Mr Obama trying to put the Medal of Freedom on Mr Crow? Mr Crow is wearing what appears to my untrained eye to be a feathered head bonnet that is all up in Mr Obama's face as he tries to put the medal on Mr Crow. Look at Mr Obama's facial expression. My point is that it is funny.

Re: Saturday Open Thread

ecthompson — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:26:30 -0000

The progressive Errington Thompson show is now. Streaming at http://www.880therevolution.com. My guest is Alex Koppleman of the War Room on Salon.com. (I tried to get J&J's Jack Turner but he didn't return my e-mail. :-( Hopefully, I can get him on soon.)

Re: This Week with Jasiri X — Stopping Violence Against Women

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:24:50 -0000

A Queens judge Friday slapped Brigitte Harris with the toughest sentence possible for killing and dismembering her father to avenge years of sexual abuse.

Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman sentenced Harris to five to 15 years for the suffocation slaying of Eric Goodridge in her Rockaway apartment on July 28, 2007.

Harris admitted plotting to sever her father's penis with a scalpel by researching the case of Lorena and John Bobbitt. She wanted to prevent Goodridge, 55, from returning to his native Liberia with his granddaughters, she said.

"I never intended to kill him, and I'm sorry for his family's loss," she told Cooperman.

Cooperman acknowledged the findings of mental health professionals who agreed Goodridge repeatedly sexually abused his daughter from age 3, but he cautioned against victims taking the law into their own hands.

"Sometimes the crime itself warrants punishment," Cooperman said.

The judge also chided jurors for giving in to sympathies for Harris in reaching a second-degree manslaughter verdict that was inconsistent with the facts.

Sexually abused killer Brigitte Harris gets 5-15 years for penis-severing death of dad

Re: Saturday Open Thread

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:13:17 -0000

A series of caves and rock shelters located in the Summer Lake Basin north of Paisley in south-central Oregon, may hold evidence of the earliest Native Americans living in North America that has ever been discovered. An unassuming scraper-like tool fashioned from bone, found in one of the Paisley Caves, has been definitively carbon-dated as 14,230 years old, which is the oldest and only pre-Clovis artifact ever found in the Americas.

This exciting discovery lays waste to a still predominant theory that the earliest human inhabitants of North America, referred to as the Clovis culture, arrived here 12,900 to 12,400 years ago, while crossing the Bering Strait.

Scientists believe that pre-Clovis peoples migrated here south along the North American coastlines. The Paisley Caves are located upriver from the Pacific Ocean, placing them along the possible migration route of pre-Clovis Native Americans.

The recent excavation of the Paisley Caves was conducted by the Northern Great Basin Field School, with the University of Oregon, lead by archaeologist Dennis L. Jenkins. The head archaeologist presented his team’s exciting finding last month in a lecture at the University of Oregon. He explained that the simple bone tool was subjected to studies of sediment and radiocarbon dating, which suggested it belonged to a pre Clovis culture.

Jon Erlandson, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon said, “They can’t yet rule out the Paisley Cave people weren’t Clovis.” But none of the Clovis people’s distinct fluted spear and arrow points were found in the cave.

Oregon Caves Yield Rare Pre-Clovis Artifact 14,230 Years Old

Re: Saturday Open Thread

rikyrah — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:58:07 -0000

shouldn't be the policy only for veterans.

Re: Your Help Needed STAT — Healthcare Up for Vote in House!

TomDegan — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:55:59 -0000

"This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the nineteen years I have been here in Washington"

John Boehner
November 5, 2009

Oh, dear! Where was this knucklehead on September 11, 2001? Or when the Patriot Act was passed for that matter. Where was this fool in 2000 when the Supreme Court put a stop to the vote counting in the state of Florida and installed the Bush Mob in the White House? The greatest threat to freedom in nineteen years? Have another sip, Mr. Faux Tan Man.

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

Re: Saturday Open Thread

AM2k9 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:46:58 -0000

AM: When the history of the financial crisis and the bailouts for big corporate banks is written (perhaps when the history of the Obama's first time round is written) we will be told that the only alternative available was to bail out the bankers that created the crisis.

Elizabeth Warren: We Rescued The Top Of The System, Left The Bottom To Fend For Itself (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/elizab...

Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel charged with monitoring the bank bailout, was on Morning Joe Friday morning to dig in to the newly released unemployment report. The numbers are bleak -- unemployment has surpassed 10 percent for the first time since 1983 -- and Warren is not surprised.

"Let's face it," Warren said, "This is sort of how we went about the rescue -- we rescued at the top and we left the bottom to kind of fend for itself -- and that's showing up in the unemployment numbers."

Warren went on to explain that the report is really about the guarantees the Government made to protect banks' assets while leaving the public out to dry.
"Look, it saved the top of the system," Warren acknowledged. "It helped stabilize it, but not so much for families who are hard hit down on the ground, the real economy." There's always the question, Warren explains, about how you save the top -- in this case, the public pays for the banks' guarantees and the top executives benefit. "We said, in effect, at the top, there's really not any pain in return for taxpayer support. Not so much so when it comes to folks at the bottom. We said wait a year, we'll get there, we'll do what we can."
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough suggested that it was the old "socialize the profits, privatize the gains" scenario, but Warren took it one step further.

"The way I think of it is: they say something like 'Give me your money, investors and I'm going to Las Vegas and put it all on red 22. And if red 22 comes in -- woo! we are RICH. If red 22 doesn't come in, don't worry because the tax payers will pay you back the money you invested."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/elizab...

Re: Saturday Open Thread

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:33:09 -0000

Treatment, not incarceration, should be the first option for veterans who commit nonviolent drug-related offenses, a group advocating alternatives to the nation’s “war on drugs” said Wednesday in a new report.

The Drug Policy Alliance report also called on government agencies to adopt overdose prevention programs and policies for vets who misuse substances or take prescription medicines, and urged “significantly expanded” access to medication-assisted therapies, such as methadone and buprenorphine, for the treatment of dependence on opioid drugs used to treat pain and mood disorders.

During a conference call with a Drug Policy Alliance representative and seven other advocates for change in the treatment of veterans, the military’s Tricare health benefits program came under fire for what a New York-based physician and specialist in drug addiction treatment called its failure to pay for veterans’ and family members’ opioid dependence treatments.

The treatments, said Robert Newman of the Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute, are endorsed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Institute of Medicine.

Newman cited a 2008 speech by U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak in Hanoi, in which he acknowledged that U.S. dollars were being spent on methadone treatment for Vietnamese drug addicts.

“And yet, our government, our Department of Defense, has an insurance plan that simply excludes maintenance treatment,” Newman said. “I find that outrageous.”

Report: Vets need drug treatment, not jail

Re: Saturday Open Thread

morphusBfly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:13:11 -0000

Regulators on Friday shut small banks in Georgia and Michigan, bringing the number of bank failures this year to 117 amid the struggling economy and a cascade of defaults on loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over United Security Bank, based in Sparta, Ga., with $157 million in assets and $150 million in deposits, and Home Federal Savings Bank in Detroit, with $14.9 million in assets and $12.8 million in deposits.

Ameris Bank, based in Moultrie, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of United Security, while Liberty Bank and Trust Co., based in New Orleans, is buying the assets and deposits of Home Federal Savings.

The failure of United Security is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund an estimated $58 million; that of Home Federal Savings is expected to cost $5.4 million. The 117 failures this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007. The failures have cost the federal fund more than $27 billion so far this year

Two bank failures make 117 for the year