Verizon: The Hillbilly Phone company

There are often clicks, pops, whines, whirs, static and tiny explosions on my phone.
Given my political views I thought it was the FBI until I happened across this neighborhood phone box, lovingly covered with a plastic bag by highly trained Verizon service personnel.

Or maybe they've outsourced infrastructure maintenance to India or the Philippines. Could be. Tech phone calls to Verizon go those countries.

Verizon has no objection to using slave labor or screwing the American work first or screwing their customers. Anything for a buck. Well, anything other than reliable service at a fair price.

Tom Delay. This is What Happens when you inhale too much pesticide.

Go Rocky!

Watchdog Asks, What about Abramoff?

Boxer Slams Down Inhofe’s Global Warming Filibuste

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has said Al Gore is “full of crap” and compared people who believe in global warming to “the Third Reich.” During today’s Senate hearing, Inhofe used a considerable amount of time to attack Gore’s use of carbon offsets and try to convince him to sign a sham “energy ethics pledge.” (Find the real facts on Gore’s energy usage HERE and HERE.)

Inhofe asked Gore for his reaction, but then quickly cut him off saying Gore had taken up too much time. When Gore tried to go on, Inhofe repeatedly interrupted, adding, “I don’t want to be rude, but from now on, I’m going to ask you to respond…in writing.” Inhofe said Gore could respond verbally only if it was a “ve

Why they hate us. US soldier gets only 27 months in Iraq gang-rape and murder case

The Porn Plot Against Prosecutors

Frieda Hughes

Scotland set to be a world leader with first subsea tide energy farm

Icy map to probe Europa's secrets

GLOBAL DECEMBER-FEBRUARY TEMPERATURE WARMEST ON RECORD

Immense ice deposits found at south pole of Mars

Will this news speed up Cheney's plans to colonize it and take it's minerals?

Pumps scandal rocks Big Easy

[...]

The 2006 hurricane season turned out to be mild, and the new pumps were never pressed into action. But the corps and the politically connected manufacturer of the equipment are still struggling to get the 34 heavy-duty pumps working properly.

[...]

Blackwater boss, former CIA execs create new firm or privatization of intelligence services

Germany's Schroeder slams U.S. missile shield plans

[...]

Moscow sees the system as an encroachment on its former sphere of influence and an attempt to shift the post-Cold War balance of power. Germany has criticized the project's planners for failing to discuss it sufficiently with Russia.

Schroeder said the missile shield plan was pushing Russia further away from the West at a time when the European Union should be trying to strengthen ties with Moscow.

"What we need instead is the exact opposite. Out of our own interest we must align Russia as closely as possible to Europe and European structures," he said.

[...]

Oil prices plunged Monday

Zionist Terrorist Olmert planned Lebanon war before soldiers capture

The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals

Big Surge Expected In Offshore Outsourcing By Banks

[...]

Offshoring tech work offers big savings as programmers in India, for example, are paid anywhere from 40% to 80% less than their U.S. counterparts.

Deloitte says banks can save 40% on most IT projects by moving them to an offshore service provider. The study also claims that media reports of rampant wage inflation eating into the cost savings offered by offshore outsourcing are overblown. Deloitte says 55% of the banking IT executives it interviewed for the study expect their offshoring costs to rise by less than 10% this year, while 36% expect the costs to remain flat or decline.

[...]

Guatemala's indigenous Maya leaders were furious Monday after protestors were expelled and arrested at an archeological site being visited by Chimpy

Bill Gates asks US Senate panel to ease skilled-worker visas

Hallibuton Moves to UAE. Think Progress on UAE

Some facts about the UAE:

– The UAE was one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

– The UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Lybia.

– According to the FBI, money was transferred to the 9/11 hijackers through the UAE banking system.

– After 9/11, the Treasury Department reported that the UAE was not cooperating in efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden’s bank accounts.

Kucinich on Universal Health care

Our health care system is broken, and H.R. 676, the Conyers-Kucinich bill, is the only comprehensive solution to the problem.
[...]

• Americans are The Healthiest People in the World.
  FACT: Citizens of 34 nations live longer than Americans.
• The U.S. is the Best Place to Get Sick.
  FACT: The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in the world for health system performance. Countries like Australia and the United Kingdom rank above the U.S. Americans have lower odds of surviving colorectal cancer and childhood leukemia than Canadians who do have national health care. Americans also experience greater problems in coordination of care than the previously mentioned countries and New Zealand.
• Covering All Americans Will Lead to Rationing.
  FACT: Same-day access to primary-care physicians in the U.S. (33%) is far less available than in the United Kingdom (41%), Australia (54%) and New Zealand (60%). Per capita spending for health care averaged $2,696 in countries without waiting lists and $5,267 in the U.S.
• Global Competitiveness is Hampered in Comprehensive System.
  FACT: "Health care costs are not just a burden and barrier to care for individuals; they are taking a heavy toll on American businesses." The strain on employers in 2005 was staggering. "The average total premiums for an employer-based family plan was $9,979 in 2005 ..." Most of our competitors in the world markets finance their systems outside corporate taxes and employer mandates. Without Medicare for Everyone, the U.S. will continue to hemorrhage jobs.
• We Cannot Afford to Cover All Americans.
  FACT: We already spend enough to have universal health care. "The truth is, we cannot afford to not reform the health system." We spend about 50% more than the next most expensive nation and nearly twice per person what the Canadians do. On May 1, 2006 Paul Krugman explained in Death by Insurance how incredibly wasteful the current system is. The doctor he referenced has two full-time staff members for billing, and two secretaries spend half their time collecting insurance information on the 301 different private plans they deal with. This type of waste is easily 20%. Also consider that 98% of Medicare funds are spent on medical care.
• [...]
  

Election complaints being investigated

Columbia Greets Bush with demonstrations and riots

Bush Ordering Wounded Troops Back to Iraq

[...]

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.

The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he said flatly.

[...]

That's right. This is how the republikkkan president supports the troops: Privatizes the VA then orders sick and wounded back into combat. Probably a lot cheaper to kill them than give them expensive privatized medical treatments.

Crisis Looms in Market for Mortgages

This is what comes of right wing sponsored lack of government oversight and regulation.

Climate report warns of drought, disease

The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.

At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.

Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.

For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.

[...]

Bush Family Operative and Right Wing propagandist threatens Democrats they better suck up to FOX

Tacoma Police Attack Peaceful Protestors. Makes sense in a police state which Amerikkka is.

[...]
Home video shows a peaceful demonstration, with people sitting down, singing songs, but then police fired several canisters of tear gas toward the crowd.

A University of Puget Sound student, who was filming the protest, was caught up in the frenzy and started choking from the gas.

"You can't breathe, you feel like your airway's just kind of restricted up, so you're just gasping for air," he said.

[...]

Ann Coulter's Greatest Fits

Dengue Rages South America

Asuncion, Mar 9 (Prensa Latina) Dengue fever is spreading throughout South America, and health officials in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay have reported more than 192,000 cases this year.

Paraguay Health Minister Oscar Martinez said it has reached epidemic scale, and that country's ABC Color daily says Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, has the worst situation with over 42,000 cases confirmed.

[...]

Duarte, German pres sign biofuels agreement

Mr. Butcher Go Home!

SOME arrived clutching banners telling "Mr Butcher" to go home. Others brought effigies of "The Warlord" dangling miserably from a hangman's noose. A handful dressed up as the grim reaper, while some women paraded through the streets with stickers of George Bush and Adolf Hitler placed tastefully over their nipples.

Fabio Silva had other ideas. He stuffed a sock into his mouth for three hours. "It means that the Brazilian authorities have tried to censor us — to pretend to Bushy that we don't exist," said the 21-year-old student, using the President's nickname in these parts after briefly removing his gag. "It means that we are remembering the silent victims of Iraq. And it means that the censorship will not shut me up."

[...]

Chilean gov't not to promote use of nuclear energy

US Troops in Columbia in January

Analysis: How the US 'lost' Latin America

It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America.

While the Bush administration has been fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, relations between the United States and the countries of Latin America have become a festering sore - the worst for years.

Virtually anyone paying attention to events in Venezuela and Nicaragua in the north to Peru and Bolivia further south, plus in different ways Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, comes to the same conclusion: there is a wave of profound anti-American feeling stretching from the Texas border to the Antarctic.

[...]

Nicaragua Enmeshed in Latin America Plan

[...]
Faced with an enormous challenge of pulling 70 percent of the 5.1 million population out of poverty, Ortega is looking to the South for solidarity, complementary aid and fair trade.

These tenets of ALBA are diametrically opposed to the US "free trade" deals being panhandled in Latin America.

Venezuelan aid is already pouring in and helping with fuel needs, and its Social and Economic Development Bank will open an office in Managua to manage the 10 million dollars earmarked for seeding in Nicaraguan agricultural cooperatives in 2007, 7.3 million for mechanization and another 10 million Hugo Chavez donated in January to help guarantee free education and health.
[...]

Venezuela Fortifies Socialist Party, Bolivar

Washington Post Reports Right Wing Disinformation Claiming Chavez is unpopular in Bolivia.

Morales and Chavez were to give away shiny red tractors jointly made by Venezuela and Iran. Since Morales took office a year ago, Chavez has pledged more than $1 billion for Bolivian petroleum projects, community radio stations and a factory to make tea from coca leaves.

In contrast, the Bush administration's 2008 budget proposal slashes U.S. aid to Bolivia by more than 20 percent, from $125 million to $98 million, part of a deep aid cut targeting much of Latin America.

The U.S. has criticized Bolivia for failing to deal with increased coca production under Morales, though ties have recently improved with the two countries negotiating a trade deal.

The dueling tours continue Sunday, with Bush moving on from Uruguay to U.S.-friendly Colombia, while Chavez visits impoverished Haiti to discuss sending aid.

Bush's Latin America tour was met with protests in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Guatemala.

In Guatemala City, protesters burned American flags in front of the U.S. embassy on Saturday and held up posters of Bush bearing a Hitler-style mustache. In El Salvador about 100 protesters staged a small demonstration against the president's tour, though he was not scheduled to visit the Central American country.

Bush Not Smart Enough to Respond to Chavez

"I believe the chief objective of the Bush trip is to try to scrub clean the face of the empire in Latin America. But it's too late," Chavez said on Argentine state television before the rally.

"Those who want to go directly to hell, they can follow capitalism," Mr Chavez said in the town of Trinidad in Bolivia

"And those of us who want to build heaven here on earth, we will follow socialism," he added.

Recent floods in the town left thousands of homeless and their livestock drowned.

Venezuela's aid package of $15m (11.4m euros) outweighed the sum offered by the US tenfold.

The country also sent in aid workers who attended their president's speech on the airport runway.

During his visit, Mr Chavez also pledged more than $1bn (£0.5bn; 0.76bn euros) for oil projects and community radio stations in the country.

Mr Bush spent Saturday in Uruguay where he spoke of the US care for the "human condition" and its "quiet, effective diplomacy".

Rural retreat

He defended capitalism, saying one way to lift people out of poverty was to encourage investment.

"I would call our diplomacy quiet and effective...aimed at helping people, elevating the human condition, aimed at expressing the great compassion of the American people," he said.

The US president has pointedly refused to directly respond to Mr Chavez's comments as they make parallel tours of the region.

Mr Bush's presence in Latin American states has been met with protests and marches, some of which have turned violent.

Privatized Postal Carriers put your Mail in unaccountable Hands

[...]

Looking to cut costs nationwide, the Postal Service will now award contracts to nonpostal employees for deliveries in large new housing tracts, usually located on the fringes of cities.

These independent contractors don't get benefits. They drive their own cars. The only sign that they are associated with the Postal Service may be a badge at their waist or hanging from a lanyard around their neck.

"This is the wave of the future," said Susan Sensano, growth coordinator for the Fresno post office.

[...]

Negroponte's Death Squad Past

Chavez calls Negroponte 'professional killer'. I'd agree with that assessment

Still more ways Bush is screwing returning vets. Cutting VA funding. Privatizing.

[...]

The Pentagon's Defense Health Program—which includes the Tricare health-insurance plan, used by 9.1 million veterans and involving 65 inpatient clinics, 414 medical and dental clinics, and 257 veterans centers—has actually had its budget cut the past two years. In fiscal year 2006, the program's budget for medical care went up from $15.9 billion to $21.2 billion. But since then, it's gone down slightly—to $20.8 billion in FY 2007 and a proposed $20.7 billion in FY 2008.

These numbers understate the magnitude of the cuts. To keep up with inflation in the cost of goods and payroll, the Defense Department actually had to cut medical-care programs by $1.6 and $1.4 billion in FY07 and FY08, respectively.

Money is similarly tight at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA's budget for medical care has risen in the past few years—from $28.8 billion in FY 2006 to $29.3 billion in FY 2007 to a request for $34.2 billion in FY 2008—but this hasn't been enough. In each of the past four years, according to a March 1 report by the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the VA has systematically underestimated the number of veterans applying for benefits in the coming fiscal year. The result is a shortfall of $2.8 billion in the FY08 budget, just to cover the current level of medical services.

[..,]

REPORT: 72 Percent Of Army Brigades Have Served Multiple Tours of Duty

Indians face health clinic crunch

CPAC Star Is A Gay Porn Star Rod Majors

1. The Best of Dave Logan (1999) (V)
2. Touched by an Anal (1997) (V)
3. Jawbreaker (1995) (V) .... Convict 3
4. All About Last Night (1995) (V)
5. Built Tough (1995) (V) .... Rod
6. Beat Off Frenzy (1994) (V)
7. Bi-conflict (1994) (V) .... David
8. Conflict of Interest (1994) (V) .... Rod
9. Idol Country (1994) (V) .... First guy in barn
10. Laid to Order (1994) (V) .... Third guy on couch
11. Lunch Hour 2: Sweating Grease (1994) (V) .... Garage thief
12. Man to Men (1994) (V) .... No-nonsense top
13. Secret Sex 2: The Sex Radicals (1994) (V)
14. Montreal Men (1993) (V) (as Pierre LaBranche) .... First hustler
15. Woody's (1993) (V) .... Rod
16. Call of the Wild (1992) (V) (as Pierre LaBranche)
    

Newt has a confirmed Diagnosis. Terminal Satyriasis and Deadly Hypocrisy

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

Does Little Al Suffer from Terminal Satyriasis?

As anyone who has Done a careful reading of Annie Proulx's superb stories knows, Wyoming in great danger from terrorists

WASHINGTON - Montana and Wyoming would get a smaller share of $3.1 billion in homeland security grants under a proposal that has pitted lawmakers from rural states against those from more urban areas and sparked a California senator's dig at Wyoming.

Under current law, each state receives 0.75 percent of the total money in the state homeland security grant program, with the remaining money distributed by risk and threat assessment. A bill being debated in the Senate would reduce the amount guaranteed to each state to 0.45 percent.

Senators from California, Texas and New York wanted to reduce that amount even further. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., unsuccessfully pushed an amendment that would have dropped the level to 0.25 percent.

"We (in California) have the nation's largest ports, iconic bridges, towering skyscrapers, enormous infrastructure and the busiest border crossing in the world," she said on the Senate floor. "Texas, with 23.5 million residents, has great cities, towering skyscrapers, vital industries and a vast international border. Wyoming - I don't want to pick on Wyoming. Love it. But as a state, it is like a national park."
[...]

Feds Seek To Gag D.C. Madam

MARCH 7--Federal prosecutors want to gag an indicted former Washington, D.C. madam who has recently threatened to go public with details about her former customers. In a motion filed Monday in U.S. District Court, investigators are seeking a protective order covering discovery material to be provided to Deborah Palfrey and her lawyers. Palfrey, 50, was indicted last week on racketeering and money laundering charges stemming from her operation of the Pamela Martin & Associates escort service, which closed last summer after 13 years in business.
[...]

Priests to purify site after Bush visit

Afghan anti-corruption chief sold heroin in Vegas

Malkin is more than Odious. She's STUPID

I said the other day I thought CPAC organizers would be justified in being embarrassed if the rumors about Sanchez’s porn star past 15 years ago turned out to be true. Well, the rumors are true. But it is neither CPAC nor Cpl. Sanchez who should feel embarrassed.

It’s the nasty, gloating liberals who claim to stand for tolerance, privacy, human rights, and compassion. I predicted the other day that left-wing bigotry would rear its ugly head. I was right. The e-mail I’ve received is more disgusting than anything Ann Coulter stupidly said at CPAC.

It’s unclear why liberals should be embarrassed because they believe in privacy (Sanchez’ history was completely public) or tolerance and human rights (liberals don’t care if he was gay). What’s notable is that Malkin compares Coulter to these alleged “liberal” emailers. Malkin doesn’t get it: the random people allegedly writing her don’t have regular appearances on NBC News or receive warm praise from leading presidential candidates. Malkin’s attempt to conflate Coulter with random emailers simply downplays Coulter’s influence. Ann Coulter is a leader of modern conservatism, and it looks like that’s how things will stay.

Anti-Bush march shuts down Brazil's Wall Street

Congress’ Upcoming "Free" Trade Fight: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

"Free" trade means corporations and their lap dog politicians are free from regulation and accountability of any kind.

Communism in Cuba should end when Castro dies: Bush

Does this mean fascism in Amerikkka will end when Bush leaves office?

Colombia's mass graves and electoral fraud

[...]

Mr. Bush will be the first U.S. President to visit Bogota since John F. Kennedy, and only in Colombia will he find an unconditional friend in President Alvaro Uribe, whom he has praised as an ally and granted billions of dollars in military aid. But on the eve of the visit, Mr. Bush's best friend is becoming his biggest embarrassment. Mr. Uribe leads a country mired in corruption, violence, and drugs — the source of 90 per cent of the cocaine in the U.S. — and where critics of the government receive death threats and drug barons and death squad leaders win amnesty.

Long-standing problems

Mr. Uribe didn't invent Colombia's problems — it has endured 40 years of civil war and narcotics flourished long before he became president in 2002. But President Uribe, who changed the constitution to permit his own re-election last year, has devised a "peace" plan that has opened the door to a future incorporation of amnestied narco-paramilitary groups into Colombian politics, who have close ties with Mr. Uribe's own political machine.

[...]

Colombian students protest Bush visit

The War on Easter. IS John Gibson the easter bunny?

Food prices to rise at grocery stores: industry

[...]
The price increase will be felt across a large swatch of products -- from ketchup and beverages that depend on corn sweeteners to beef, poultry and pork where animals are fed corn.
[...]

Manufacturers can easily make bread and catsup and whatever other products without adding corn syrup to them.

In fact the unhealthy and detestable practice of adding corn syrup to everything, the basis for yet another public health crisis, came about because of overproduction of corn and the food mafia's ability to maximize profit by buying corn cheap and adding the syrup as empty calories.

We might also lower the rates of caner and other disease if we stopped packaging everything in plastic and concentrated on producing, packaging and distributing more food locally or at least regionally.

However, when American business must choose between more profit and less death they'll take more profit everytime.

Help Repeal the REAL ID Act!

The federal government has taken another step towards forcing you to carry a national ID in order to get on airplanes, open a bank account, enter federal buildings, and much more. But with state legislatures and Congressional representatives increasingly turning against the REAL ID Act, you can help stop this costly, privacy-invasive mandate. Use the form below to voice your opposition.

On March 1, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released draft regulations [PDF] for implementing REAL ID, which makes states standardize drivers licenses and create a vast national database linking all of the ID records together. Once in place, uses of the IDs and database will inevitably expand to facilitate a wide range of tracking and surveillance activities. Remember, the Social Security number started innocuously enough, but it has become a prerequisite for a host of government services and been co-opted by private companies to create massive databases of personal information.

REAL ID won't just cost you your privacy. The states and individual taxpayers bear the estimated 23 billion dollar burden of implementing the law, and that figure is probably low given that the necessary verification systems don't exist yet.

And what will you get in return? Not improved national security, because IDs do little to stop those who haven't already been identified as threats, and wrongdoers will still be able to create fake documents.

The case for socialized medicine

Suppose the national defense of the United States were relegated to the private sector. Instead of the publicly funded Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, the country would be defended by private militias funded mainly by insurance companies. In the event of foreign attack on U.S. soil, the militias would defend those citizens in the affected areas who'd paid defense insurance premiums through their places of work (or, if self-employed, as individuals).

Rummy and friends were woking on it. That's how we got Blackwater and other mercenaries in action here at home and abroad.

The advantage of a market-based national defense is obvious: Every citizen would receive an individualized amount of military protection, based on the value each of us placed on defending the homeland. Those who were particularly fretful about another 9/11 would pay a lot; those inclined to dwell on the rarity of foreign attack (two from the air and one by land in all of U.S. history) might prefer to use that money to buy a pottery wheel and a kiln for the basement. The freedom to choose is what this country is all about.
[...]

Totalitarian Measures Taken in France

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

[...]

In More Fabulous News Part Of Earth's Mantle Cover Is Missing

[...]
Cardiff University scientists discovered an area extending thousands of square miles in the middle of the Atlantic in which the Earth's mantle -- the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many miles thick -- is exposed on the sea floor, nearly 10,000 feet below the surface.
[...]

Bush Administration Cuts Food Inspections despite recurrent outbreaks of deadly food poisoning around country

[...]
“We have a food safety crisis on the horizon,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.
[...]
Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

FDA ‘just can't manage the job’
That’s not all that’s dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

• There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.
• Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency’s own statistics.

Juror Speaks Out: Libby is guilty, but he’s the fall guy

Is Malkin Idiot Heir Apparent to Kkkoulter?

Democrats Fought Privatization of Walter Reed

In a letter today, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) joined several of her Senate colleagues, including Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), to urge Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Ranking Member Robert C. Byrd (D-W.V.) to preserve language in the House Defense Appropriations bill that prohibits the U.S. Army from outsourcing 350 federal jobs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A similar provision, introduced by Senators Mikulski and Sarbanes, was defeated by a close 50-48 vote, during the bill's consideration in the Senate last week.

"Our federal employees are on the front lines every day, working hard for America. These hardworking men and women deserve to be treated fairly and, at the very least, deserve to have the same rights that contractors do," said Senator Mikulski. "I will keep fighting to fix the competition process that is shamefully slanted in favor of private contractors."

{...}

Impeachment rally packs auditorium

Where Do I Sign Up? Grassroots effort under way to force impeachment of Bush and Cheney

Coulter: Edwards' Campaign Manager 'Fronting for Arab Terrorists'

Ann Coulter, fresh from implying that John Edwards is a "faggot," now has a statement on her Web site saying Edwards campaign manager David Bonior "is fronting for Arab terrorists."

Coulter made the homophobic slur about Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate married to a woman, during a Friday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
[...]

NYT does damage control for the KKKonservatives who applaud Man Coulter, transexual and drinker of virgin blood

Doesn't it make you want to take the national social security trust, put it in the stock market and pay fees to have it managed by wall street hos?

Nato Strike Kills Afghan Civilians

Nine civilians, including two children, have been killed after a Nato air attack hit a house in northern Afghanistan according to a local official.[...]
The attack comes just a day after another
deadly attack near Jalalabad [AF

The second Great Depression

Bush Knows They're There. Katrina Victims Forced to Evacuate Trailer Park

[...]
Besides the sewage that pours onto the grass, FEMA said electricity was cut off last week for the third time since Oct. 12. Broussard said the landowners had not paid the bills on time. Frank Bonner, a co-owner of the site, said FEMA has not paid on time.

Typically Lawless republikkkan Bastards tamper with federal prosecutions

'It Is Just Not Walter Reed'

Thought Crime Punished by Bush Administration

[...]

The activists had done nothing to disrupt the forum, and two of them sued over the incident.

In sworn legal depositions, bouncers Michael Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman for the first time named the White House officials who they say ordered the Denver Three to be excluded.

An American Civil Liberties Union legal team is challenging the expulsion in federal court, arguing that it violated the activists' constitutional free-speech rights. They had obtained tickets to attend the taxpayer-financed public forum about Social Security.

[...]

Halliburton could lose $400 million

Military contracting giant KBR Inc. could be docked up to $400 million for improperly using private security companies in Iraq, the company disclosed this week.

The Army has already said it withheld about $20 million in payments to KBR's parent company, Halliburton, because the company's subcontractors used private security contractors, including North Carolina-based Blackwater USA. Army officials have said that private security companies were not allowed under Halliburton's main contract in Iraq and that the military was to provide security.

[...]

LAST CHANCE: The fight to save a disappearing coast

t took the Mississippi River 6,000 years to build the La. coast. It took man 75 years to wash away a third of it. Experts agree we have 10 years or less to act before the loss becomes irreversible.

New Life Church Layoffs

A Colorado Springs television station reports that the New Life Church, hit by a sex scandal that forced the ouster of its founder, is cutting staff.

Church sources say 30 to 50 staff have been laid off.

The cuts range from pastoral staff to part-time nursery workers.

Officials of the 14-thousand member church declined to talk about the cutbacks, saying they would be announced to the congregation first.

Pictures of the Lunar Eclipse

Boycott Hershey

Alcohol ‘worse than’ ecstasy

But no substance is as dangerous as the frothing, foaming, chest thumping, knuckle dragging, greed driven, loud mouth, anti democratic radical right wing extremists who run America

Feeding Eighteen Thousand Families Each Month in One Neighborhood in New Orleans

[...]

Why do thousands of people need food and why are people living in gutted-out houses with no electricity? Look at New Orleans eighteen months after Katrina and you will realize why it is so difficult for people to exercise the human right to return to their homes.

Half the homes in New Orleans still do not have electricity. Eighteen months after Katrina, a third of a million people in the New Orleans metro area have not returned.

FEMA told Congress that 60,000 families in Louisiana still live in 240 square foot trailers – usually at least 3 to a trailer. The Louisiana Hurricane Task Force estimated in December 2006 that there was an “urgent need” for 30,000 affordable rental apartments in New Orleans alone – and another 15,000 around the rest of the state.

Eighteen months after Katrina, over 80 percent of the 5100 New Orleans occupied public housing apartments remained closed by order of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) which controlled the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) since 2002. HUD pressed ahead even though internal HANO documents revealed the cost for repair and renovation was significantly less than for demolition and redevelopment. A professor from MIT inspected the buildings and declared them structurally sound. Architecture critics applaud the current garden-style buildings. Yet HUD plows ahead planning to spend tens of millions of Katrina dollars to tear down millions of dollars of habitable housing and end up with far fewer affordable apartments – a clear loss for the community.

Over $100 billion was approved by Congress to rebuild the Gulf Coast. Over $50 billion of that money was allocated to temporary and long-term housing. Just under $30 billion was for emergency response and Department of Defense spending. Over $18 billion was for State and local response and the rebuilding of infrastructure. $3.6 billion was for health, social services and job training and $3.2 for non-housing cash assistance. $1.9 billion was allocated for education and $1.2 billion for agriculture.

Louisiana received $10 billion to fix up housing. Over 109,000 homeowners applied for federal funds to fix up their homes. Eighteen months later, less than 700 families have received this federal assistance. Renters, who comprised a majority of New Orleans, are worse off – they get nothing at all. Some money is scheduled to go to some landlords and apartment developers for some apartments at some time. There were uncountable generous and courageous and heroic acts of people and communities who stretched themselves to assist people displaced by the hurricane. Many of these continue. However, there are several notable exceptions.

[...]

Where Republikkkans feel free to gay bash, back lash, bask in racist ideology and displayan utter lack of compassion & complete contempt for humans

Vice President Dick Cheney - Sean Hannity - Senator Mitch McConnell - Ann Coulter - Tom Delay - Michelle Malkin - David Horowitz - Congressman Mike Pence - Newt Gingrich - Phyllis Schlafly - Wayne LaPierre - and many more!

CPAC features book signings by the nation’s leading conservative authors, live broadcasts of national and local radio talk shows, hands-on training sessions from grassroots activism to
media strategy, internet row and a bloggers’ corner, and much, much more!

CPAC 2007: The Unauthorized Documentary

Presidential Hopeful Newt Gingrich Blames Victims of Katrina

Newt Gingrich, speaking at CPAC) blamed the residents of New Orleans' 9th Ward for a "failure of citizenship," by being "so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."

Monsanto Used Sick people like laboratory rats in GM trials or Boundless Corporate Evil

[...]
It goes on: "A certain risk of GM food products for human health does exist, as there can be by-effects of inserted genes besides the designed ones." The report describes the patients as "volunteers" and says they liked the GM potato so much they all "expressed their intention to consume it at home".
[...]

National "ID" Card for USA

Homeland Security officials released long-delayed guidelines that turn state-issued identification cards into de facto internal passports Thursday, estimating the changes will cost states and individuals $23 billion over 10 years.
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Rat Droppings, Pateint Neglect and privatization at Walter Reed go hand in hand, and with a Halliburton Connection

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Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and subcommittee Chairman John Tierney asked Weightman to testify about an internal memo that showed privatization of services at Walter Reed could put “patient care services at risk of mission failure.”

But Army officials refused to allow Weightman to appear before the committee after he was relieved of command.

“The Army was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the decision to prevent General Weightman from testifying,” committee members said in a statement today.

[...]

The letter said Walter Reed also awarded a five-year, $120-million contract to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official.

They also found that more than 300 federal employees providing facilities management services at Walter Reed had drooped to fewer than 60 by Feb. 3, 2007, the day before IAP took over facilities management. IAP replaced the remaining 60 employees with only 50 private workers.

Bandar Bush

The key figure in Middle Eastern diplomacy is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian National Security Adviser. Bandar is the man behind the Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas for the establishment of a Palestinian unity government. He was also active in calming the rival parties in Lebanon, and has tried to mediate between Iran and the U.S. administration. Two weeks ago he brought President George W. Bush up to date on his efforts, and last week he participated in a meeting of intelligence chiefs from Arab states with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which took place in Amman the day after the tripartite meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem.

GOP lawmakers tried to influence federal investigation in order to throw another election

Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico pressured the U.S. attorney in their state to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved at least one former Democratic state senator, according to two people familiar with the contacts.

The alleged involvement of the two Republican lawmakers raises questions about possible violations of House of Representatives and Senate ethics rules and could taint the criminal investigation into the award of an $82 million courthouse contract.

The two people with knowledge of the incident said Domenici and Wilson intervened in mid-October, when Wilson was in a competitive re-election campaign that she won by 875 votes out of nearly 211,000 cast.

David Iglesias, who stepped down as U.S. attorney in New Mexico on Wednesday, told McClatchy Newspapers that he believed the Bush administration fired him Dec. 7 because he resisted the pressure to rush an indictment.

According to the two individuals, Domenici and Wilson called to press Iglesias for details of the case.

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Virginia to force children to be vaccinated against venereal disease.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Thursday he would sign legislation requiring all sixth-grade girls to be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer.
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Merck, makers of Vioxx, a drug known to cause heart attack, death and extraordinary profit, expects about 3 billion dollars a year from this new drug. It doesn't cost nearly that much to buy a governor or two.

Jihad not nearly as terrifying ato republikkkans as unions

President Bush and his Senate allies will kill a Sept. 11 antiterror bill if Congress sends it to the White House with a provision to let airport screeners unionize, the White House and 36 Republicans said Tuesday.
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How Long Can The U.S. Count On Foreign Funding?

As the dollar sags and other investments beckon, a shakeout looms
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The greatest potential vulnerability lies with the U.S. dollar and its role as the balancing agent between the financing needs of the U.S. and the willingness of foreigners to supply those funds. The fear is a sudden plunge in the greenback. The U.S. will always obtain the foreign financing it needs, but what level of the dollar will it take to attract those funds? U.S. indebtedness is a key reason why the dollar has already declined 27% against a basket of major currencies since early 2002.
[...]

Bush Administration Announces to the world Just how serious it is about containing spread of nuclear weapons

The Bush administration selected a design Friday for a new generation of atomic warheads, taking a major step toward building the first new nuclear weapon since the end of the Cold War nearly two decades ago.

The military and the Energy Department selected a design developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over a competing design by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

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Former Terrorist and current Bush administration bedfellow Gaddafi says fear drives world economic system

CO2 output from shipping twice as much as airlines

Wounded Soldiers Told Not to Talk to Media

Snowstorms sock upper Midwest

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he storm left more than a foot of snow in some areas Friday. Even as the flakes stopped falling by afternoon, gusts of 40 mph prompted blizzard warnings and prevented major highways from reopening.

Officials at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport canceled 500 flights, blaming bad weather elsewhere.

In the Northeast, a storm dumped snow across northern New England, while areas to the south were left with a messy mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain.

Hundreds of miles of interstate highway in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota remained closed for much of Friday, with plow drivers forced to pull off roads because of the wind-blown snow.

More than 100 vehicles were abandoned as their stranded drivers were rescued in Iowa, where blizzard warnings were extended into Saturday.

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Majority of Americans support National single payer health care for all, even if it means paying more taxes

Report: National Guard unprepared for domestic missions

Because of the wars, the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves found, 88 percent of Army National Guard units and 45 percent of Air National Guard units that aren't deployed overseas have severe equipment shortages. That's reduced the Guard to its lowest readiness level ever and posed an unacceptable risk to Americans, said Arnold J. Punaro, the commission chairman and a retired Marine Corps major general.

In a report issued Thursday to Congress, the commission also faulted the Department of Homeland Security for failing to identify the domestic missions the National Guard should be expected to perform and criticized the Defense Department for not equipping the National Guard adequately for those missions.

Punaro said the Defense Department had told at least one governor, whom he didn't identify, that it could take as long as four years to replace equipment his state's National Guard units had left in Iraq.

"If major changes are not made, the Guard and Reserve, the capability to carry out their missions, will continue to deteriorate," Punaro told reporters. "And it will go down, down, down. They will be less and less ready, and we will be taking more and more risks."

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Air Force captain sentenced to 50 years in prison for raping 4 men