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Contrast "By the people" with "Street fight" - which chronicled Cory Booker's quest for Mayor in Newark and the corruption of the city of Newark as a whole - and I think most people would agree about the weakness of the former film.
'bout what I thought but liked it all the same.
and the twittersphere is all a buzz - check out the #cltvote hashtag where it was stated (and I quote) @JamesWillamor: OH at Lassiter party: "it is a ghetto world after all" #cltvote (i guess OH is overheard)
Pray for us up here.
I'm CRYIN' - - -AGAIN!!! :>) :>)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjEQ5V0KQhQ
Posted by Zandar
Hey Teabaggers? You lost. You guys managed to lose a district that has been blood-red Republican for 140 years with your little Doug Hoffman civil war. TBogg notes the spin has already begun:
Erick Erickson on Oct 16th:
In New York 23, the conservative movement has made it a Hill to Die On. Here, in New York of all places, the conservative movement will tell the GOP that it will either win with conservatives or lose without them. Conservatives across the spectrum of conservatism from Fred Thompson to Mike Huckabee and on and on have told the GOP it is time to turn back to limited government and will fight the GOP in NY-23 for supporting a woman who embraces large government and destructive social policies.
Doug Hoffman concedes and here comes Erick Erickson tonight:
The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.
This is a huge win for conservatives.
“Whaaaa. . . ?” you say.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2009/11/epic-is-o...
There are two big victories at work in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.
I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the establishment backed GOP candidate.
And make no mistake, despite the Beltway spin, we know for certain based on statements from the local Republican parties, that they chose Scozzafava based on advice from the Washington crowd.
So we have demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted. The GOP spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. Were we to combine Scozzafava and Hoffman’s votes, Hoffman would have won.
And Erick and Sarah Palin and Fred Thompson and Rush Limbaugh and Tim Pawlenty and George Pataki and the New York Post all endorsed Doug Hoffman and now the Republican Party (that Erick wants purged of nonbelievers) should listen to him because the teabaggers favorite son just lost a seat that Republicans have held for 140 years.
This pretty much is the definition of EPIC FAIL, guys. Teabaggers can't even win in one of the reddest House district in the entire country. On the other hand, moderate Republicans did win in New Jersey and Virginia.
Somewhere, Dede Scozzafava is laughing her ass off. Will the Republicans learn the lesson of the Hoffman Effect?
Of course not.
EPIC FAIL.
While the background and many details of Scearce's story remain unclear, the incident comes at a time of continued job loss and economic instability. Evictions around the US are still increasing, and anxiety about housing is everywhere.
In New Orleans, rents are now more than 50% higher than before Katrina, more than 65,000 residential addresses remain empty or unlivable, and the city's homeless population is estimated at about 12,000. This means that more than 3% of the city's population has no place to live. If New York City had a similar percentage, the equivalent proportion would add up to a quarter million people. It's for exactly this reason that our city hosted United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing Raquel Rolnik last weekend. We are in a crisis, locally and nationally.
In cities around the country, people are turning to direct action. The US Human Rights Network has formed The Land and Housing Action Group, with "an ambitious campaign to house tens of thousands displaced by the destruction of public housing, foreclosures, and other means of forced eviction." According to organizers, "the overall objective of this campaign is to compel the United States government to recognize that housing is a fundamental human right and to meet its obligations under international law." Organizations like Take Back The Land in Miami have already taken the lead, moving homeless families into empty homes in defiance of banks and local sheriff's departments, and have received wide support from their community.
Hopefully, the combination of grassroots action and international pressure will result in real change for those who need it the most
New Orleans' Housing Crisis Takes Violent Turn
Changin' - Brass Construction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FimHjcqwZ7E
He said from his experience and discussions, he had concluded that blacks and whites do not readily accept offspring of such relationships, so the children end up suffering.
His latest rebuff to a bride and groom of different races turned out to be his last. After weeks of calls for his ouster, Bardwell resigned after 34 years in office Tuesday, leaving his reasons a secret.
La. judge done after flap over interracial wedding
time to go, you racist mofo.
Here's what he says now:
I said that Keflezighi's win, the first by an American since 1982, wasn't as big as it was being made out to be because there was a difference between being an American-born product and being an American citizen. Frankly I didn't account for the fact that virtually all of Keflezighi's running experience came as a US citizen. I never said he didn't deserve to be called American.
All I was saying was that we should celebrate an American marathon champion who has completely been brought up through the American system.
Here's what he actually wrote - note the repeated references to being "American-born":
It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82.
Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds.
Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies...
Given our disappointing results, embracing Keflezighi is understandable. But Keflezighi's country of origin is Eritrea, a small country in Africa. He is an American citizen thanks to taking a test and living in our country.
Nothing against Keflezighi, but he's like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.
CNBC writer issues convoluted sort-of apology for racist column
Non-whites are NOT Real Americans(tm).
lol!
Hoffman who admitted that Glenn Beck was his mentor conceded the race to Democrat Bill Owens just after midnight, eastern time.
In other election news, New York City Mayor Bloomberg (I) has narrowly defeated his Democratic rival despite spending some $340 million on the campaign.
In the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, Republicans won the day. Virginia's Democratic candidate, Creigh Deeds was unable to pull in the Democratic vote when he declared that he would opt out of a public option for his state. Republican candidate Bob McDonnel won.
In New Jersey, incumbent governor, Jon Corzine, an unpopular Democratic governor in that state, lost to the 'corruption-busting' Chris Christie.
The most surprising election result of the night was the Democratic win in New York's 23rd district by the Democrat. The ultra conservatives like Sarah Palin who quit her job as governor, unable to fulfill her duties, and unstable talk show host, Glenn Beck, seem bent on shrinking the Republican party by excluding moderate Republicans. Even though their efforts didn't work in New York's notoriously Republican 23rd district, it is likely they will try again. Together, Beck and Palin have been quite effecient in sinking the Grand old Party.
Democratic candidate wins New York's 23rd for first time since Civil War
As Harry Truman always said, "If it comes down to voting for a Fake Republican or a real one, the people will go with the Real Republican."
Same principle applies, and the Blue Dogs STILL DON'T GET IT.
NOBODY can stand there with a straight face and tell me they EVER gave the other guy that close a chance of winning. they'd be lying.
This is inaccurate. Creigh Deeds was always 15 points behind McDonnell. The public option denial was the icing on top of the cake. It's not like it was a tight race and then all of a sudden Deeds' support collapsed with the public option statement. He never had support to begin with.
If there's anyone (besides Deeds) to blame it would be Terry McAuliffe for jumping in a race he had no business being in, sucking up fundraising money, beating down Moran and leading to a Deeds win in the primary. Although I don't think Moran would have done any better and McAuliffe may have done worse.
Now he just insured that Virginia is going to be phucked up for the next four years, and we'll need to elect back to back Democrats to clean up the shyt McDonnell is going to leave behind.
And yeah, Deeds went the "winnable Democrat" route and lost big time. He should have had Howard Dean all over Virginia, but noooooo, he allowed McAuliffe to suck the life out of the party.
Didn't learn from the strategy that put Obama in the White House just over a year ago, did they? McAuliffe ain't won shyt since Bill Clinton got elected in 1992, and that was because Clinton did his own thing during the elections.
Virginia is going to be FUBAR....thanks McAuliffe and Deeds.
Sad, though, that some "progressives" are going with the Republican meme of this being Obama's fault.
that says it all.
I bet there won't be any other officials hollering about how Glen Beck is their mentor.
Obama is visiting Wisconsin, where lawmakers are poised to change a law to boost their state's chances at $5 billion in education grants, the most money a president has ever had for overhauling schools.
Nine other states have taken similar steps, even though states can't apply for the money yet and only a few states may end up getting grants.
"We're seeing extraordinary progress," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm hopeful the pace of change will continue."
Wisconsin lawmakers planned to vote Thursday to lift a ban on using student test scores to judge teachers. That helps clear the way for an Obama priority, teacher pay tied to student performance.
California lifted a similar ban last month. And before that, charter school restrictions or budget cuts were eased in eight states - Louisiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Delaware, Indiana, Ohio, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Duncan had repeatedly warned that such restrictions would hurt a state's chances at the money. The administration can't really tell states and schools what to do, since education has been largely a state and local responsibility throughout the history of the U.S.
Obama coaxes states to change with school dollars
That is what an economy as large and diverse as the United States’ looks like, and a full understanding of its complexities requires the ability to look deeper than last month’s national averages.
Introducing Economy Track: a new Web site created by EPI featuring a collection of charts containing our exclusive data. Economy Track offers a detailed picture of the recession and the current jobs crisis unavailable elsewhere.
The site (www.economytrack.org) presents a collection of often complex economic data in an interactive, easy-to-use format that lets users see the context behind the numbers by comparing the latest employment data to that from past recessions. Users can also parse the numbers by race, gender, region, and level of education. Rather than just charting total unemployment, for example, Economy Track illustrates how unemployment is higher for blacks and Hispanics than for whites, higher for men than for women, and much higher for blue-collar workers than for those with white-collar jobs.
One image that best shows the severity of the current recession in comparison to past downturns is the underemployment rate, a figure that measures the number of people who have been unable to find full-time work and are working either part time or not at all. Underemployment now stands at 17% -- meaning that more than one in six workers are now unemployed or underemployed -- and Economy Track charts how that number steeply rose over the course of the latest recession. During the prior recession of 2001, underemployment showed a much more modest increase and never rose much above 10%.
EPI launches Economy Track
On Monday, a New York District Court ruled against motions to dismiss from the defendants in a suit that alleges their patents for breast cancer gene testing is unconstitutional.
By John Timmer | Last updated November 3, 2009 2:29 PM CTText Size Print this articleLeave a comment In May, the ACLU announced that it was suing to invalidate a patent that covers testing for genetic variants associated with breast cancer. The suit targeted Myriad Genetics, which licenses the patent, and the University of Utah officials that licensed it to them, but also targets the US Patent and Trademark Office, which allowed this form of gene patent in the first place. In a move that surprised no one, each of the three defendants filed motions to have the case against them thrown out. The judge overseeing the case, Robert Sweet, has now dismissed these motions, allowing the case to go forward.
Our earlier coverage described the scientific background of the case in detail. In brief, researchers at the University of Utah identified two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, that are mutated in many families that have high incidences of breast and ovarian cancer. The University patented the use of this information for medical testing, and has licensed the patents to Myriad Genetics. The company has since attempted to prevent academic researchers that sequenced these genes in the course of their research from revealing the implications of the results to their patients.
The ACLU, joined by patients, researchers, patent reform groups, and medical organizations, sued in an attempt to invalidate the patents. But, rather than challenge on the grounds typical in technology cases—prior art or obviousness—the suit challenged the whole notion of gene patents as unconstitutional. As the judge summarized in his decision, "Plaintiffs assert that the patents-in-suit grant Myriad ownership rights over products of nature, laws of nature, natural phenomena, abstract ideas, and basic human knowledge and thought in violation of the First Amendment's protections over freedom of thought." In addition, the potential of these patents to stifle research is unconstitutional, as section 8, clause 8 "directs Congress to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.'"
None of that is addressed by the current decision, which simply dismisses the legal arguments provided by the defendants as grounds for summary dismissal. For example, the USPTO argued that District Courts don't have jurisdiction over patent validity issues, which are handled by a separate court system. Since these are constitutional issues, however, the case against the USPTO was allowed to proceed.
Myriad and the U of Utah had argued that the plaintiffs had no standing, as they hadn't violated the patent, and therefore had never been targeted. Here, the legal preparation by the plaintiff's team payed off; several researchers had submitted affidavits indicating they would engage in BRCA research the moment the patents were invalidated. This led the judge to conclude that a sufficient controversy existed, and the plaintiffs had standing to sue, even in the absence of a cease-and-desist letter.
The University also argued that, as a branch of the Utah state government, it shouldn't have to defend itself in New York. That was shot down, as its licensing of the patent had drawn it into business there.
The ruling gives very little indication of whether the judge found any of the arguments put forward by the plaintiffs compelling. Instead, at this stage of the process, he was legally required to assume their allegations were accurate in order to determine whether the case should be dismissed. It was clear, however, that he recognized the significance of the issues at stake. "The widespread use of gene sequence information as the foundation for biomedical research means that resolution of these issues will have far-reaching implications," Judge Sweet wrote, "not only for gene-based health care and the health of millions of women facing the specter of breast cancer, but also for the future course of biomedical research.
The next step will be for the defendants to provide arguments against the plaintiff's attempts to receive summary judgment in their favor. Those are due in early December, with oral arguments to follow on the 11th.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/11/jud...
With this attempt people may pay attention.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3833110...
Also Gary Nabhan in the Southwest has written some very beautiful and lyrical books on the issues and needs and practices of seed-saving. . . especially as they relate to Native nations.
Low income and especially People of Color live in neighborhoods that bear the disproportionate burden of toxics --- siting of waste transfer and bus depots, brownfields, etc. --- and a lack of some of the good things in society like parks, public transportation and even grocery stores. The main thing I am trying to get across to my future leaders is that people from the communities need to be represented at decisionmaking tables and that their voices and expertise needs to be respected. It's this lack of community representation and respect in city and state governmental bodies that leads to environmental racism in our communities.
As these yahoos fight for their "rights" to control a gene in court the ability develop diagnoses and therapies are stalled. While these battles go forward in court help for individuals needing a cure or advancement for their disease is stalled.
In my book, the gene fights are up there with giving ownership of air or water to one group or person.
Ghost imaging is a technique that allows a high-resolution camera to produce an image of an object that the camera itself cannot see. It uses two sensors: one that looks at a light source and another that looks at the object. These sensors point in different directions. For example, the camera can face the sun and the light meter can face an object.
That object might be a soldier, a tank or an airplane, Ron Meyers, a laboratory quantum physicist explained during an Oct. 28 interview on the Pentagon Channel podcast “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military.”
Once this is done, a computer program compares and combines the patterns received from the object and the light. This creates a "ghost image," a black-and-white or color picture of the object being photographed. The earliest ghost images were silhouettes, but current ones depict the objects more realistically.
Meyers and his team produced the first ghost image of an opaque object in his quantum laboratory at the Army research facility.
Army Develops 'Ghost' Imaging
Army gonna join "ghost hunters"?
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
At last the results are in, and they show …. not a whole lot.
Here’s what Adam Nagourney wrote in The New York Times Monday before he forgot what he’d just said and joined everyone else swept up by the significance of this off-year election.
“Off-year elections are typically the subject of frenzied discussion and overinterpretation by political observers — though rarely, it seems as frenzied as this year, a reflection of the heightened interest in politics created by Mr. Obama’s rise.”
The reporter had it right the first time — lots of frenzied discussion, lots of overinterpretation, lots of malarkey. You’ll likely hear an earful of it from the chattering class all week, things like: “Is Obama on the ropes? …. Are Republicans poised for a big win in the Midterm elections? … Get ready for a sea change …” Or not.
In the end, the 2009 election produced but one vote of truly national significance — yet another close recall of a gay marriage law, this time in Maine. That battle mattered. It will continue and in time be won by gay rights supporters, whether next decade or in two or three. Everyone deserves civil rights, religious or personal reservations (the polite word) notwithstanding.
Yet most of the punditry so far has looked instead toward the much less significant, the outcome of three elected offices. Republicans won the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, in the latter unseating incumbent Jon Corzine in an historically Democratic state.
But Democrats had their own surprise in store, narrowly winning a House seat in Upstate New York for the first time in decades (159 years in some parts of the district). That race drew widespread attention when the True Believer wing of the Republican Party drove out of the race a moderate conservative who had received the Republican nomination and backed a Conservative Party candidate who passed all rigid litmus tests. (Long live Republican homogeneity. Or maybe short live it. We’ll see.)
So. Storm clouds on the horizon for Democrats? Not really. They even have New York District 23 to rally around. History and a few facts help, too.
Michael Tomasky notes in his British Guardian blog, that Democratic candidates for governor won handily in Virginia and New Jersey in 2001. And did it spell doom for the Republican Bush White House? Not exactly. Republicans gained eight house seats in the 2002 election, he notes, and, in case you’ve forgotten, the country elected W. for four more years in 2004.
But, hey. This is the age of Obama, where everyone goes ga-ga every time the man goes to the beach with his family, let alone to New Jersey to campaign for soon-to-be-ex-Governor Corzine. So Corzine’s loss, that’s gotta really hurt Obama, right?
Wrong again. Consider that CBS did exit polls showing a majority in New Jersey and Virginia cast ballots neither for nor against Obama. In New Jersey, the 40 percent making a statement by voting for or against a party split just about evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
Or note the results of a random NBC/Wall Street Journal poll less than two weeks old. Of the 1,009 people polled, just 6 percent identified themselves as “very positive” about the Republican Party, compared to 14 percent for the Democratic Party and 36 percent for Barack Obama. Republicans still trailed Democrats 19 to 28 percent in the category of those who felt “somewhat positive.”
Put another way, one in four Americans feel real good or somewhat good about the Republican Party. Now that is one resurgent party.
In the end, Frank Rich got it right even before the voting began. In his column last Sunday for The New York Times he ended with these words: There is only one political opponent whom Obama really has to worry about at this moment: Hamid Karzai. It’s Afghanistan and joblessness, not the Stalinists of the right, that have the power to bring this president down.
So, while the rest of the pundits settle back for days of political rumination, can I interest anyone in a game of tennis?
http://trueslant.com/jerrylanson/2009/11/04/ele...
It was on NPR this morning at 8:20am EST. Here is the link. You can listen to the story.
Corruption eruptions in Texas' criminal justice system are too numerous to cite. One that sticks .. In Houston, Texas, after learning about 280 boxes of "lost evidence" in warehouse affecting cases from about 1979 to 1991 with evidence that might be linked to more than 379 cases, NOTHING happened.
Unrestrained prosecutors are at core of disparate sentencing.
I don't hold out much hope for these guys, but, if folks were interested in actual JUSTICE, I know which way things should be.
I'm from the state where 13 men were freed from DEATH ROW, because they were INNOCENT.
and not ONE mofo has been indicted for prosecutorial misconduct. not one police officer, not one prosecutor, and I believe a whole lot of them should lose their livelihoods for prosecuting INNOCENT PEOPLE.
I don't need to tell you who wrote the lone dissenting opinion, do I? This case was so racist, even Fat Tony Scalia concurred with the majority.
If these guys win, Texas will have to overhaul their own judicial system just to be constitutional.
It's times like these when I wish that bastard had to face Lani Guinier sitting across from him on the bench.
"It is both peculiar and troubling that eight years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime, in Afghanistan, and more than six years since the overthrow of Baathist regime in Iraq, we still don't know how many contractor employees are working in the region," said Michael Thibault, co-chairman of the commission on wartime contracting.
The independent commission found that "there is no single source for a clear, complete and accurate picture of contractor numbers, locations, contracts and cost," Thibault said at a commission hearing.
"How can contractors be properly managed if we aren't sure how many there are, where they are and what are they doing?"
The Pentagon had a data base for contractors but it did not take into account the large number of foreign nationals performing contract work, while a data base kept by US Central Command did not count employees with the State Department, he said.
The Pentagon in April counted about 160,000 contractors mainly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait but Central Command recorded more than 242,000 contractors a month earlier, he said.
The lack of precise numbers for contractors "permits and invites waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money and undermines the achievement of US mission objectives," he said.
The problem also raises concerns over security, he said.
Although most contractors were doing valuable work, often at personal risk, Thibault said "it takes only one foreign national contractor employee smuggling explosives into a dining facility, headquarters, hospital or barracks to create a mass casualty disaster," he said.
The bipartisan commission on wartime contracting was created last year by Congress to examine government contracting for reconstruction, logistics and security operations and to recommend reforms.
Commission: ‘We still don’t know’ how many contractors US employs in Iraq, Afghanistan
At one time, there were actually more contractors on the ground in Iraq than military personnel, which makes the latest whines about need to increase military forces even more curious to me. Some of the "contractors" are literally "slave labor".
Old posts:
The shadow government (contract jobs) with more than 17 million jobs (1996 headcount) held and control by a small group dispensing jobs as they please.
The True Size of Government: [T]he people who work under federal contracts and grants or mandates imposed on state and local governments and the illusion of smallness [will disappear]... . In 1996, the federal government's $200 billion in contracts created an estimated 5.6 million jobs, its $55 billion in grants created another 2.4 million jobs, and its array of mandates in such fields as air and water quality and health and safety regulation encumbered another 4.7 million jobs in state, county and municipal governments. Add these 12.7 million shadow jobs to the 4.25 million civilian, military and postal jobs, and the true size of government in 1996 expands to nearly 17 million, or more than eight times larger than the standard headcount of 1.9 million used by Congress and the President to declare the era of big government over. And the count does not even include the full-time equivalent employment of the people who work on a part-time or temporary basis for Uncle Sam--for example, the 884,000 members of the military reserves.
Senate GOPers have temper tantrum over not getting their way on climate change
by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 11/04/2009 09:13:00 AM
These people are supposed to be dealing with one of the most important issues facing our planet, but, instead they act like children. Senate GOPers didn't get their way, so they wouldn't attend a hearing. Really? :
Republicans today boycotted the start of a Senate hearing on climate-change legislation.
The Republican members of the Environment and Public Works Committee are demanding a full Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the climate bill.
But despite the boycott, committee Chairwoman Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) still held the meeting, arguing that the EPA's partial analysis, based on a similar bill passed by the House of Representatives in June, was sufficient.
Making all the projections and running all the models would take the EPA about five weeks.
Because the Senate bill is largely based on the House legislation, the EPA said that full analysis "would likely show the impacts ... would be similar." So the EPA conducted a simplified analysis, drawing heavily on the study it already had made of the House bill and highlighting the parts that differed.
But that approach was not enough for committee Republicans, who were demanding a full, original analysis before they would take a vote on moving the bill out of the committee.
I guess they really showed Barbara Boxer, huh? It's mind-numbing how puerile these Senators are. No wonder climate change has become such a problem. Our so-called leaders have temper tantrums if they don't get their own way.
http://www.americablog.com/2009/11/senate-goper...
No bond set for man after 10 bodies found
November 4, 2009 -- Updated 1458 GMT (2258 HKT)
(CNN) -- Investigators will continue their grisly dig Wednesday after finding that the Cleveland, Ohio home of a convicted rapist had been turned into a tomb holding at least 10 bodies.
Fire officials were scheduled to help in the search inside Anthony Sowell's house with plans to tear into walls and floors of the three-story structure for more remains.
"I like to believe there is nothing else more there, but we will not know until we finish the search," said Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath. "It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to fill."
Authorities on Tuesday charged Sowell, 50, with five counts of aggravated murder, police said. He also was charged with rape, felonious assault and kidnapping, police said. A judge set no bond for Sowell at a hearing Wednesday.
He was arrested Saturday, two days after police discovered the decomposing bodies of five females inside his home and another woman's body outside the house.
Four more bodies were discovered Tuesday buried in the yard behind the home, police said. A skull wrapped in a bag also was found in a bucket in the basement.
Authorities have not identified any of the victims yet. Because of the conditions of the bodies, authorities would have to conduct the lengthy process of DNA tests, McGrath said.
The first six bodies found last week were all African-American women, and five of them had been strangled, McGrath said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/04/ohio.cl...
*spits and kicks the cat off the porch in anger* (will apologize to Fluffy when she comes back for her afternoon snack)
At any given time 20 - 50 unidentified active serial killers are at work continually changing their targets and methods.
Having a high number of serial killers among us gives one pause.
they only occur in industrialized countries.
From How Serial Killers Work
According to a recent FBI study, there have been approximately 400 serial killers in the United States in the past century, with anywhere from 2,526 to 3,860 victims [source: Hickey]. However, there's no way to really know how many serial killers are active at any point in time -- experts have suggested numbers ranging from 50 to 300, but there's no evidence to support them.
Serial murders also appear to have increased over the past 30 years. Eighty percent of the 400 serial killers of the past century have emerged since 1950 [source: Vronsky]. Why this is happening is a question of some debate; there is no answer, just as there is no simple answer as to why some people become serial killers.
By: Scarecrow Tuesday November 3, 2009 12:35 pm
Ezra Klein thinks that the reason Joe Lieberman is an unprincipled opportunist is not because he was always an unprincipled opportunist and Democrats in Connecticut wanted to replace him. No, it’s because those foolish liberals made him go bad:
Look at the Senate right now: If Democrats have 60 votes, it’s because conservative activists kept running primary challengers against Arlen Specter. If they fall short, it’s likely to be because liberal activists ran a primary challenge against Joe Lieberman.
I guess my friends and I who spent our weekends trying to help Connecticut elect a genuinely decent human being for Senator should apologize to America for turning Joe Lieberman into an unprincipled skunk. From now on, we really need to support the incumbent protection racket.
And I really need to talk to that Hamsher woman.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/12646
by kos
Tue Nov 03, 2009 at 09:32:52 PM PST
There will be much number-crunching tomorrow, but preliminary numbers (at least in Virginia) show that GOP turnout remained the same as last year, but Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:
If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary "bipartisanship", you will lose votes.
If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.
If you forget why you were elected -- health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform -- you will lose votes.
Tonight proved conclusively that we're not going to turn out just because you have a (D) next to your name, or because Obama tells us to. We'll turn out if we feel it's worth our time and effort to vote, and we'll work hard to make sure others turn out if you inspire us with bold and decisive action.
The choice is yours. Give us a reason to vote for you, or we sit home. And you aren't going to make up the margins with conservative voters. They already know exactly who they're voting for, and it ain't you.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/4/800...
Semiotics Of Marco Rubio's New Website
Marco Rubio's new $$ site: semioticians, have a go: http://www.charlieandobama.com/
Looks like two guys about kiss, don't it? Kinda a sensitive issue in Florida, where Gov. Crist was dogged by gay rumors... and where he embraced Barack Obama's stimulus package. This is an interesting way to link Crist to Obama....maybe especially in light of the way New York's 23rd CD will be interpreted...not as a rejection of bipartisanship but as an acceptance of it. Anyway, lots going on here.
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/11/semioti...
Prostitution has immediately become a misdemeanor crime irrespective of where it occurs after the new law was signed.
Rhode Island Bans Indoor Prostitution
Rhode Island brothels? News to me.
Obama Seizing The Moment?
Scott Lucas guides us through the president's statement on 13 Aban:
At first glance, it is extremely clever: Obama turns the history of the 1979 Embassy takeover into his desire to “move beyond this past and seek a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect”.
Obama then moves to the current nuclear talks — “if Iran lives up to the obligations that every nation has, it will have a path to a more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community” — but it is his shift to the situation inside Iran that is most significant. Having already declared, “We do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs,” he concludes:
Iran must choose. We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for. The American people have great respect for the people of Iran and their rich history. The world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice, and their courageous pursuit of universal rights. It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people.
To my knowledge, this is the first direct comment by a high-level US official, let alone Obama, on Iran’s political situation since June.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...
Well, we've known for some time that Pat Boone has gone wingnutty, but his latest column for the wingnutty WorldNetDaily is one of the most vile pieces of eliminationist rhetoric to come down the pike in awhile:
In time, it seems to happen to all older houses, no matter how well tended they may be.
All manner of parasites, vermin, roaches, rats, worms and termites find their way into the building. Long before they're detected, they infiltrate the walls, the floors, the roofs – and then chew their way into the structure, the supporting beams and the very foundation of the house itself. Silently, surreptitiously, whole communities of invaders make places for themselves, hidden but thriving, totally unknown by the homeowner
.
Then, in time, tell-tale signs are seen. Little droppings, discolored trails, proliferating piles of residue appear in corners, on tabletops, little hanging sacs from ceilings – alarming evidence that the grand old dwelling has been invaded. Decidedly unwelcome creatures have made this place their home, and by their very existence will eventually destroy the house and bring it to ruin.
What can be done, when you learn that your house has already been invaded?
Well, the tried and true remedy is tenting.
Experts come in, actually envelope the whole dwelling in a giant tent – and send a very powerful fumigant, lethal to the varmints and unwelcome creatures, into every nook and cranny of the house. Done thoroughly, every last destructive insect or rodent is sent to varmint hell – and in a day or two, the grand house is habitable again.
I believe – figuratively, but in a very real way – we need to tent the White House!
For reasons only he can explain, the current occupant has purposely brought a whole flock of social and political voracious varmints with him into our House. He doesn't own it; he hasn't even rented it; we the people have simply given him the keys and invited him to live there for four years, making it convenient to serve us better, to carry out our expressed wishes for our country.
To the dismay of millions of us, this occupant seems to think we need an emperor. Even though all polls show that the majority of Americans don't want a whole new government-run health-care system, detest the trillions of dollars in un-payable debt he has foisted on us, question the whole "global warming" scare and disagree with him on many other issues, he boldly announces: "We're going to fundamentally transform America!" And he makes it clear that he is going to cram things down our throats whether we want them or not.
Boone then launches into a tirade based almost entirely on the Glenn Beck program (with a dash of Sean Hannity thrown in for good measure): A laundry list of the supposed Marxist radicals who have "infested" the White House, from Van Jones to Kevin Jennings. If you watch Fox,
all this is familiar territory.
But what's disturbing about all this is that Boone seems to want the White House "fumigated" right now -- though he's vague on the details of just how we do that. What matters is the vile "varmints" Obama has let into his administration:
No, he wants people who think like this, in order to "radically transform America," as he has pledged.
And they will do just that, drastically … unless we act, decisively and powerfully. Our White House is being eaten away from within. We urgently need to throw a "tent" of public remonstration and outcry over that hallowed abode, to cause them to quake and hunker down inside. And then treat the invaders, the alien rodents, to massive voter gas – the most lethal antidote to would-be tyrants and usurpers.
We must clean house – starting with our own White House.
Tyrants and usurpers? A duly elected president? And when, exactly, does Boone foresee applying the "massive voter gas"? Because, you know, 2012 is quite a ways off still.
This kind of talk is an open invitation to violence; it creates permission for someone to act on this kind of exhortation, especially because it not only dehumanizes, it reduces people to the level of vermin, objects not only fit but desired for elimination.
If Pat Boone is any kind of gauge of the state of mainstream conservatism, I think it's safe to say these people have gone over a cliff and into a deep, yawning abyss.
Remember my discussion of this kind of rhetoric in The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right:
What motivates this kind of talk and behavior is called eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.
Rhetorically, eliminationism takes on certain distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale, the embodiment of evil itself, unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus worthy of elimination. It often further depicts its designated Enemy as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and disease-like cancers on the body politic. A close corollary—but not as nakedly eliminationist—are claims that opponents are traitors or criminals and that they pose a threat to our national security.
Eliminationism is often voiced as crude "jokes," a sense of humor inevitably predicated on venomous hatred. And such rhetoric—we know as surely as we know that night follows day—eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/pat-boo...
All these "Christians" are coming out of the woodwork and praying for the POTUS' death, just like they nailed Jesus to the Cross and thought they were in the right.
Only Real Americans(tm) are Christians.
Jesus was a Real American(tm), too.
We (Black and Brown folk) have to get to work, and make our voices heard. If we let the tea bags of this country speak unchecked, then we certainly will have only that one moment in time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/us/politics/0...
There is an L-shaped crescent of the state that you MUST win and run up the score if you want to win statewide office. Deeds did not do that, he even lost FAIRFAX. If you lose Fairfax you might as well pack your shit and go home.
It appears from the voter turnout that it was much the same as it was in 2005, when Deeds lost to McDonnell by 325 votes. They are saying the Republican vote total was pretty much the same as last year's, which means Deeds lost the 200K votes he had in 2005 to McDonnell.
You need to spend 2/3 of your time in the 95/64 Crescent and pump those people up. Yes, campaign in other parts of the state, but run up the score in the 95/64 Crescent. Deeds didn't and now he's a Dud.
He lost FAIRFAX!
It's not that black people didn't get out and vote...a whole lot of white people didn't vote or they switched their vote to McDonnell.
By the end of his campaign, Deeds was running ads attacking Obama’s clean energy agenda, saying Obama’s “cap and trade bill” would “hurt the people of Virginia.” Other ads carried the same message: “Creigh Deeds says no to any new energy taxes from Washington.” Instead of disputing his Republican opponent’s false attacks on climate legislation, Deeds amplified them. Deeds chose to run away from his past record on environment and climate issues.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/04/creigh-deed...
And much like you said, Town, I heard Roland Martin & Tom Joyner this morning blaming black folk AND Obama for these Dems not winning. And speculating over whether Obama could win TODAY. Their memories are pretty short. Obama can't carry everybody, THEY have to appeal to voters too.
I'm willing to bet that if the healthcare bill was passed and the troops started coming home before Election Day, the Dems would've swept.
Besides, if I recall correctly Obama won the election because of independents NOT democrats and PO worked his as* off and earned the win. Why should it be any different for those two men? They deserved to lose and their loss has nothing to do with the President or his administration. They did their job. They won their race. If the thought is that PO is responsible for EVERY democratic loss then why are tax payers wasting money paying those people if the President is solely responsible and is accountable for everything?
This should serve as a wake up call that Dems can't take anything or any vote for granted. They have to work for it and they better do right in the eyes of their constituents
Hey just curious, why do you surmise that AAs are the reason for the loss and it wasn't a collective thing (mix of races didn't turn out for those candidates)?
New York has 29 congressional districts. As of today, the state is represented by 27 Democrats. As recently as a few years ago, Dems had "only" 21 seats from New York.
What's more, New England, made up of six states, has 22 congressional districts. Currently, the region is represented by 22 Democrats.
So, north of the Pennsylvania border, there 51 congressional districts representing 34 million people. Republicans have a whopping two seats.
Just a random observation.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/indiv...
exactly.