JPMorgan sued for ‘abetting’ Madoff | Raw Story
NEW YORK — The trustee charged with recouping assets for victims of Wall Street fraudster Bernard Madoff said Thursday he was seeking $6.4 billion from JPMorgan Chase for supporting the scam.
12.04.2010
Let the games begin
Fat cats: Give us your money or we'll take away your gruel (and Merry Christmas, suckers)
Senate Republicans Defeat Reauthorization Of Jobless Aid, Tax Cuts
Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats Saturday defeated a bill to reauthorize unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and a plethora of tax provisions for the middle class not because of the bill's trillion-dollar deficit impact, but because it did not include tax cuts for the rich....
After Saturday's vote, it seems the only way Democrats will be able to overcome Republican opposition to the benefits will be by attaching them to a reauthorization of tax cuts for the rich.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said after the vote that he expected a tax cut deal to be reached by Thursday.
Promises, promises
She Who Must Not Be Named - NYTimes.com
This is it. This is the last time I’m going to write the name Sarah Palin until she does something truly newsworthy...
"Keeping government open"
WikiLeaks Archive - Resentment, and Shrugs, Around the World - NYTimes.com
PARIS — In the world of diplomacy, known for its ambiguity and opacity, the WikiLeaks organization says its function is to “keep government open.” But with the release of some 250,000 American diplomatic cables, the outcome may be more ambiguous, closing doors to United States diplomats, turning candor to reticence and leaving many people leery of baring their souls and secrets to American officials.
12.03.2010
For the easily surprised...
U.S. Adds 39,000 Jobs in November - Rate Rises to 9.8% - NYTimes.com
In a jolting surprise to the economic recovery and market expectations, the United States economy added just 39,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, according to the Department of Labor....
More than 15 million people remained out of work last month, and 6.3 million of them have been unemployed for six months or longer.
This is starting to remind me of people who write weather forecasts and don't look out the friggin' window. Surprise, my ass.
And we have moron Republicans (and yes, you, Juan Williams) saying hey, why don't they just go get a job. Here's an idea: We could find a few hundred jobs in the Congress if we just throw the current collection of rascals out. Let them just go get a job.
Catfood commission slinks off
Stand Up And Be Counted! | Talking Points Memo
By the statements of the members, we know only 11 were in support. But actually put their votes on the official record? Nah.
Worms? Does that include worms?
A shopping guide for the holidays : The New Yorker
“Nobody’s ever too old for toys,” a ten-year-old named Addie Ezersky told the writer. “Even if they say they are. That is my theory.” A young mother the writer knows agrees. She says that toys will endure, for two reasons: to give parents a break to use the bathroom or wash dishes, and to keep kids away from what they really want to play with—namely, sharp objects and disgusting things.
There'll always be an England
Rod King and the slow-driving movement : The New Yorker
Rod King, the founder of a British slow-driving advocacy organization called 20’s Plenty for Us...
Beep, beep.
Unpersuasive
American Diplomacy Revealed — as Good - NYTimes.com
Assange himself clearly understands nothing of Iran or the Middle East or diplomacy. In an interview with Time, he expressed approval for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “coming out with a very interesting statement that leaders should speak in public like they do in private whenever they can” and bought into Netanyahu’s view that this, in Assange’s words, would “lead to some kind of increase in the peace process in the Middle East and particularly in relation to Iran.”
Huh? Netanyahu was referring to Arab leaders’ now-documented private calls for a U.S.-led war against Iran, an option he also favors. And that, for Assange, is a step forward to peace! He’s all over the place.
What should we make of this brainy naïf who told my colleague John Burns that America is a threat to democracy? He’s a loose canon; let him be. My impression is he’s self-armed with a spade and he’s digging.
And what of the messenger’s message? The cables are intriguing, offering plenty of voyeuristic titillation but no gasp of discovery. They provide texture but break little new ground. Yet their publication has done significant damage to the courageous work of America’s diplomats and may endanger lives. That’s a tradeoff that I find troubling and unpersuasive.
Exactly that.
Alas
Freezing Out Hope - NYTimes.com
It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.
The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?
Trading stuff we don't need to trade for stuff we don't need to trade for
Senate plans weekend votes on Democratic tax plans - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – A deal to extend expiring tax cuts for all taxpayers is starting to take shape even as Senate Democrats plan weekend votes on bills that would let the tax cuts for the wealthy die.
Planning a trip?
Underclothes That Display The 4th Amendment When X-Rayed by TSA
4th Amendment Wear is a series of underclothes that have the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution printed on them with metallic ink that so that it will show up when worn through a TSA X-Ray machine.
12.02.2010
I may have to revise my opinion of WikiLeaks somewhat (probably not much)
Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe | Mother Jones
In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.
This is cold
The local agency that administers fuel assistance to the area's low-income residents is planning to do more with much less this year. It expects about half as much money from the federal government as last year, rising fuel costs and more people to apply.
Last year, Community Action gave out up to $1,240 per household, which was for families at 100 percent of the poverty level. This year, the agency is planning on doling out a maximum of $515.
It gets cold here in New England and there is no way you can heat a house or even an apartment all winter on $515. Even if you can afford to double it - or even triple it - you're liable to have some chilly evenings in store. And now with people out of work an barely able to manage as it is it's unconscionable to cut fuel aid like this.
I say let the congressbimbos come here and live the winter with no heat themselves. Screw them and all their horses, every one.
My bet would be on the zombies
Lame Ducks Gone Mad - NYTimes.com
Maybe things will work out. Maybe the White House will not cave, and the Republicans will not be intransigent, and the Democrats will get their act together and be canny and unified.
Maybe we should not rule out the possibility of zombie otters.
The question of the hour
Bailouts Are For Banks: Unemployed People Get Zilch
How could there have been so many billions for Wall Street, so much room to lower taxes for people with golf memberships and country houses, yet a $500-a-week check to help him pay the rent while he looks for another job suddenly threatens to bankrupt the nation?
12.01.2010
Story not told
Robert Reich (The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn't Telling It)
Unless the President and Democrats explain why the economy still stinks for most Americans and offer a plan to fix it, the Republican explanation and solution – it’s big government’s fault, and all we need do is shrink it – will prevail.
That will mean more hardship for tens of millions of Americans. It will make it harder to remedy the bad economy. And it will set Republicans up for bigger wins in the future.
No, not even Obama's panel, it turns out
National debt: Will anyone buy Obama panel's bold plan? - Yahoo! News
The co-chairmen of President Obama's fiscal commission have agreed to a bold plan to slash federal deficits and put America's fiscal house in order. The problem is they're not sure if the rest of the bipartisan commission – let alone Congress – will sign on....
"We'll get somewhere between two and 14 votes," said [co-chairman] Bowles...
It is a wonderment indeed
Enough To Make You Crazy | Talking Points Memo
Sometimes you have to step back and just marvel at the madness of it all.
So ha, take that, you wimps
Senate fails to advance unemployment insurance measure - Nov. 30, 2010
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Senate failed Tuesday to advance a bill that would have extended the deadline to file for federal unemployment insurance through next year.
Democrats sought to pass the $56.4 billion measure through unanimous consent, but Sen. Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, objected, saying the extension should be paid for by rescinding unobligated discretionary funding.
It was our very own naked senator from the commie hippie pinko state of Massachusetts who shot down an extension of unemployment benefits in the Senate. Quelle disgrace.
Here's a guy who would feel at home in the TSA
Do Scans of Our Teeth Help or Hurt? - NYTimes.com
A cone-beam CT scan with minute radiation exposure seems to be a small price to pay for a healthy smile with no headaches and no snoring....
The writer, a dentist, is a clinical professor at New York University College of Dentistry.
Spuds!
Washington state potato booster in spuds-only protest - Yahoo! News
SEATTLE (Reuters) – The head of the Washington State Potato Commission ended a self-imposed diet of potatoes-only that he said allowed him to shed more than 20 pounds in two months.
Chris Voigt, 45, began his spuds-only regimen to protest a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule barring low-income recipients of food vouchers under the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program from using their benefits to purchase white potatoes.
And while Voigt is not recommending his diet to others as a "healthy sustainable" weight-loss plan, it did help him lower his blood sugar, cut his total cholesterol by over a third, and reduce his weight from 197 to 176 pounds, he said.
11.30.2010
But I didn't get anything to put on my refrigerator, so that's too bad
I took the 7:00 bus this morning down to the VA hospital in Leeds (Northampton) for my ultrasound and was back before noon. Cost: $2.50. So not bad. And I'm not pregnant, it turns out, which is fine with me. Whatever else I may or may not be I have to wait and find out from my doctor. This was just a routine screening but, of course, it might possibly turn out they find what they were screening for (imminent death); I am, however, enthusiastically hopeful.
Unfortunately, while this was going on, I didn't get to lie in any one position long enough to go to sleep but while I was rolled over onto one side I was able, briefly, to see the video screen on which this ultrasound thing was being displayed. It reminded me of the 1952 Rose Bowl (Wisconsin v. USC) which I saw on a black-and-white TV in Duluth, Minnesota, a city with no TV. So I couldn't make any sense of that either, except Wisconsin lost.
OK...
Harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice – now for humans | Science | The Guardian
...remind me why we need younger mice.
(And while we're on the subject, are we really sure we want younger people? Can you imagine how screwed up that would be? Do you really want to be in high school again? I don't. Oh no. Not a chance. How would you like to be 34 and flipping burgers? Thanks, I'll stay old.
(Also, why do we need Harvard?)
Bad sex
No Bad Sex in Fiction Award for Franzen | Jacket Copy | Los Angeles Times
The annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award was announced in London Monday, and American author Jonathan Franzen, who was in the running for passages in his novel "Freedom," did not make the cut. It just goes to show that the visibility afforded to Franzen's big literary bestseller may not be enough to guarantee recognition at awards time. (Franzen didn't get the National Book Award either.)
The award went to London-born writer Rowan Somerville for his novel "The Shape of Her."
11.29.2010
A leak too far
WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.
Because the less money people have the more they'll spend, and the next thing you know we'll all be rich, I tell you, rich
Federal Eye - Obama announces 2-year pay freeze for federal workers
Bowing to growing budget concerns and months of Republican political pressure on federal pay and benefits, President Obama will announce a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers Monday, the White House said.
11.28.2010
No! No!
I'm not kidding - yesterday I saw a car with a Christmas tree tied on top. And it's not even December yet. Ain't there no decency left?
Also it snew last night. OK, if you actually want to see it you have to crawl around peeking under grass blades, but still it's there. Take my word. I have an excellent snow detector. And I wouldn't mind it if it would calm these white Christmas people down a little but it won't, they'll just keep right on chirping to the very end.
Bah.
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