If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness.
--Kurt Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus p151
Grand jury indicts Alaska senator - CNN.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
1:48 pm EDT, Jul 29, 2008
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was charged Tuesday with making false statements after a wide-ranging probe into ties between an energy company and lawmakers in his home state, according to a federal indictment.
Hey, look! Mr. Bridge to Nowhere is back in the news again. What a sonofabitch that guy is.
I don't consider 26 mpg highway for a V-6 exactly fuel-sipping, but the new bad ass design certainly doesn't conjure the "poor man's Corvette" in describing it.
As no repairs have been carried out for 34 years, all of the buildings are slowly falling apart. Nature is reclaiming the area, as metal corrodes, windows break, and plants work their roots into the walls and pavements.
Fascinating! Interesting that people will loot even under the threat of nuclear contamination.
flynn23 wrote: If you really want to support animals, boycott factory farming and genetic engineering of natural foods. Boycott vivisection and unnecessary testing on animals. And support proper hunting and game reserves that allow people to participate in the food cycle.
Shannon's right as well, but I have to recommend this succinct retort to PETA's fanticism. Their extremist views turn people off from the real issues stated above.
Opposition, From Both Parties, Over Bailout Plan - NYTimes.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
1:28 pm EDT, Jul 16, 2008
The Bush administration’s plan to rescue the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies ran into sharp criticism in Congress on Tuesday as some lawmakers questioned the open-ended request for money that could be used to help the companies.
No. More. Blank. Checks. We've seen what Bush did with the last one.
CDC reports on fluoridation - MainStream - Publications - AWWA
Topic: Miscellaneous
4:23 pm EDT, Jul 15, 2008
A new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) details progress toward its Healthy People 2010 goal of delivering optimally fluoridated water to 75 percent of the US population.
In 2006, that goal (defined as 0.7–1.2 mg/L) had been achieved for 69.6 percent of the population, an increase from 62.1 percent in 1992 and from 65 percent in 2000. By 2006, about half the states had reached the 75 percent target.
Some states are still drastically behind the curve on fluoridated public water.
Understanding Recent Changes to FISA — A Visual Guide
Topic: Society
12:24 pm EDT, Jul 14, 2008
Excellent article. Though, of course, the author is biased against "eviscerat[ing] [the] 4th amendment."
More good stuff:
On the face of it, this new loophole might not seem to be such a big problem, barring the facts of a) retroactive telecom immunity and b) the implication that Bush will never be held accountable for numerous felonies. Unfortunately, it also really is, as far as I can tell, a back door to greatly expanded wiretapping powers. Beyond the obvious fact that it requires only certification and loose judicial review rather than a warrant, it does so in the following way:
1. It Eliminates the requirement that there be probable cause that a foreign target is a suspect of any kind — terrorist, criminal, ore “foreign agent.” They merely need be your French grandmother, as long as they are outside the United States and not a U.S. person, and if the government says wiretapping them is for the purpose of collecting “foreign intelligence information” (e.g., her Pommes Frites recipe)
2. It requires the cooperation of telecoms in these efforts
3. It eliminates of the need to specify a particular email address or phone number to be wiretapped
4. 1-3 together imply that certifications of wiretapping on individuals is not the issue. The point is to use telecom cooperation to target large collections of data on communications between U.S. Persons and foreigners. This implies data mining — where, for instance, because a foreign target has communications passing through a given domestic switch, any communications (domestic or international) passing through that switch are subject to collection, analysis, and storage. There are “minimization requirements” meant to ameliorate this, but it is unclear if they really help.
5. The compromise of domestic communications in (4) is exacerbated by the fact that targets need only be “reasonably believed” to be outside the U.S.
6. It includes only minimal court oversight — who it is that is subject to warrantless wiretapping will not be know to the FISA court; the government can wiretap before it court order is sought and continue to do so even if it is denied — during a lengthy appeal process.
Fed unveils new rules aimed at curbing shady home loans - Jul. 14, 2008
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:16 pm EDT, Jul 14, 2008
The Federal Reserve unanimously approved new mortgage lending rules Monday in a crackdown on shady practices - particularly subprime loans made to borrowers with weak credit.
About fucking time! Where the hell have they been the last 5 years?
Also, a big F-U to Congress for stalling the homeowner foreclosure aid bill. Not that I agree with bailing people out, but it has taken them 10 times longer to do anything about the homeowners' woes than Wall Street banks'.
That anyone could even THINK about putting another Republican in the executive office is beyond me. We'll be trying to recover ground lost in the last eight years well into the next eighty!
At least he had the courtesy of telling her he was good in bed so she knew what she was missing out on!
I knew a Greek guy in college, and he was exactly like this! Totally God's gift to women, and thought all American women were stuck up because they didn't follow him around by the hundreds.
