Awww. Some days you just can't catch a break.

Koch brothers spooked by forthcoming story - Koch Brothers - Salon.com

Here’s a rule of thumb about public relations: When P.R. pros begin furiously spinning a story before it has even come out, there’s a pretty good chance the story is going to be damaging to the reputation of said P.R. pros’ bosses.

And that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now, as an anonymous person or persons in the orbit of the billionaire conservative donors Charles and David Koch try to discredit a forthcoming story in Bloomberg Markets magazine.

 

Yikes!

"Something to think about next time you fly out of JFK," suggests our Midwest bureau.

Some days we're glad we just walk.

And you thought you had nothing left to worry about?

BBC News - 'First Irish case' of death by spontaneous combustion

A man who burned to death in his home died as a result of spontaneous combustion, an Irish coroner has ruled.

Not working

Robert Reich (The American Jobs Depression, and How to Get Out of It)

Since the start of the Great Recession at the end of 2007, America’s potential labor force – that is, working-age people who want jobs - has grown by over 7 million. But since then, the number of Americans who actually have jobs has shrunk by more than 300,000....

America’s ongoing jobs depression - which is what it deserves to be called - is the worst economic calamity to hit this nation since the Great Depression.

 

Just following orders in Alabama

After immigration ruling at Foley school with Hispanic population, students cry, withdraw, no-show | al.com

Interim state schools Superintendent Larry Craven sent a letter to local superintendents Thursday detailing that process. But it remained unclear what might happen after the notation is made in the computer system. 

"We just key it in. That’s all we do. We are not the enforcers. We just put it in the system. What happens from there, I don’t know," Lawrence said.

 

The Shadow knows

Lake Cindy in autumn

(We've had a very rainy week.)

Sorry, there is no way...

Obama: America's Gone 'Soft' | The Weekly Standard

"I mean, there are a lot of things we can do," Obama said. "The way I think about it is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft...

...I would vote for this guy again. No. Way.

From a planet far, far away...

Personal incomes drop for first time in 2 years – USATODAY.com

WASHINGTON
(AP)

Consumers spent slightly more last month, but they earned less for the first time in nearly two years.

The hole gets deeper

Defeatism - NYTimes.com

I don’t fully understand it [the obsession in official circles for austerity]. But a large part of it, it seems obvious, is the intense desire to see economics as a morality play of sin and punishment, where the sinners are, of course, workers and governments, not the bankers. Pain is not an unfortunate consequence of policies, it’s what is supposed to happen.

How obsessive are these people? So obsessive that when the financial doom they predict fails to materialize, they consider this a bad thing...

 

If you're feeling a little under the weather, do not call the Dems

The unaffordable Affordable Care Act: Obamacare is already infecting America's economy

Someone call the doctor. The side effects of President Obama's Affordable Care Act are becoming apparent, and so is the irony. This week, nonprofit research group The Kaiser Family Foundation found that, despite the title, "affordable" health care premiums have risen steeply under the law - with the annual premium for family coverage through an employer reaching $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9% over the previous year. Or as Politico put it: Premiums are now costing families as much as a new car.

(Or, for that matter, the R's, and you probably shouldn't call a doctor either. Just take an asprin and hope for the best.)

The constitutional lawyer strikes again

Anwar al-Awlaki dead: what it means for US, Yemen - CSMonitor.com

Awlaki would appear to be the first US citizen to fall at the hands of a targeted killing from the government since what the "global war on terror" started 10 years ago.

U. S. Constitution, Amendment 5

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,
unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising
in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time
of War or public danger...nor be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law...

 

So what happened to the captain, we're wondering

ANA pilot nearly flips Boeing 737 by hitting wrong button - chicagotribune.com

In a chilling reminder of how a simple human error can override the highest of high technology, an investigation has shown that All Nippon Airways Co. narrowly escaped a catastrophe earlier this month when its plane almost flipped over after a co-pilot hit the wrong button while trying to open the cockpit door for the plane's captain, returning from the restroom.

Something old, something new

A 4-minute (and worth every bit) video from...

Oshkosh 2011

...noted by our Midwest bureau.

People said the same thing about archers

The Psychology of Killer Drones – action against our foes; reaction affecting us « Fabius Maximus

Social science research shows that drones are a gateway to moral disengagement dehumanization, and deindividuation. The great distances drones operate over, manipulated by faceless-nameless-lawyeristic-voyeurs, creates an emotional, mental, and physical divide between “us” ( i.e. our government) and the enemies we kill. Drones allow us to dissociate our actions from our values, a useful high-cost and high-tech justification.

Not to mention firearms, not to mention dropping bombs from airplanes...and on and on.

But, hey, it's always comforting to think deeply about the same old thing.

So, security for what then?

Border bill would expand Homeland Security powers – USATODAY.com

That question is driving a heated debate over a controversial bill to give the Department of Homeland Security sweeping authority over federal lands within 100 miles of the U. S. border.

The proposed National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would let the agency waive 36 federal environmental protection laws in the name of better border patrols on public lands.

(Emphasis mine.)

Why not just burn the place and be done with it?

 

And more on the whole occupy Wall Street thing, etc.

What's behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests? - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

The very idea that one can effectively battle Wall Street's corruption and control by working for the Democratic Party is absurd on its face: Wall Street's favorite candidate in 2008 was Barack Obama, whose administration -- led by a Wall Street White House Chief of Staff and Wall-Street-subservient Treasury Secretary and filled to the brim with Goldman Sachs officials -- is now working hard to protect bankers from meaningful accountability (and though he's behind Wall Street's own Mitt Romney in the Wall Street cash sweepstakes this year, Obama is still doing well)...

Yeah, but who votes anyway?

Diebold voting machines hacked with $10 in parts | Raw Replay

Anyone with about $10, physical access to a Diebold voting machine and rudimentary knowledge of electronics can remotely hack into the device, according to experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois....

“We believe these man-in-the-middle attacks are potentially possible on a wide variety of electronic voting machines,” said Roger Johnston, leader of the assessment team. “We think we can do similar things on pretty much every electronic voting machine.”

 

Can you imagine?

Calculating the odds of a U.S. deficit deal | Reuters

(Reuters) - A dispute over disaster relief that brought the government to the brink of a shutdown has fueled pessimism that Republicans and Democrats can find hundreds of billions in budget savings by November 23.

Anything but Romney!

Count the Chris Christie Headlines… : CJR

 

Count the Chris Christie Headlines…

…appearing on Politico’s home page right now (screen shot here)...

I spy these four highly informative headlines:

“Christie Still Not Running”

“Should Christie Take His ‘One Shot’?”

“Chris Christie, still no” (which actually links again, in case you missed it, to the first piece listed above)

“Running? Chris Christie’s many ‘no’s”

I think they have time to get at least a dozen more candidates into the race before next autumn. For example, how many Bushes are left?

"I've a garden in Sweden"

Library of Congress: National Jukebox

Oh, the humanity

Goldman Sachs Mulling Layoffs, Smaller Drinking Cups - Business - The Atlantic Wire

Goldman Sachs recently downsized the drinking cups in its New York headquarters to 10 ounces from 12 ounces, saving thousands of dollars. It has also gone mostly cashless in the cafeteria and other areas, eliminating the need to pay armored truck companies to haul away the money.

Finally, I get it: It's not a campaign they're running, it's a national dumb test

Bachmann Warns of Hezbollah 'Missile Sites' in Cuba | Video Cafe

"There is reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you are 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don't want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hezbollah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. "

Click the link, read the full piece on Crooks and Liars (with video for an extra special treat). 

True, there are a lot of things about science - particularly in Texas -I don't understand, but...

Undernews: Perry's appointees plotting refund to oil refineries. . . .from poor schools' budgets

Patricia Gonzales of Pasadena says the school her children attend has already laid off eight staff members and asked parents to donate money to pay for basketballs and gloves for science teachers.

Sure, I can imagine things science teachers – some science teachers – might do with basketballs. But gloves?

Or maybe some editor just stepped out for coffee.

This seems kind of strange

I got a promo code from JC Penny's today so just on the off chance they might have something I'd be interested in I took a look at their web site and they didn't; the strange thing is they only sell clothes for guys that are bent. Or leaning somehow. Crooked. That's weird, right?

Just feel the pain

September 25: Netanyahu, Bloomberg, Bennett, Shalala, Smiley, Shriver - Meet the Press - Transcripts - msnbc.com

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well, nobody has any confidence. If you're a bank and you have money, would you make a loan when people are talking about putting you in jail for what happened in the mortgage crisis three, four years ago? You hunker down. If you're a business, would you go take a loan and expand and hire more people when every day there's talk about different regulation, different tax policy? Business has to know what it's going to be in the future to plan because hiring people is a long-term commitment. If you're an individual, would you go take that extra vacation, buy a new house and that sort of thing when you're not sure whether Washington is going to do what's right to keep job creation going in America? That's the--in the end, it is confidence, confidence, confidence.

Also, horsepuckey.

Too late

"If we persist in treating politics as a three-ring circus, we just might find ourselves with nothing but clowns."

Frank Bruni in the New York Times today.

–Noted by our Midwest bureau

This would be just a test...

...but who knows where it might lead?

Drones

Kucinich On The Ever-Expanding Use of Drones to Kill: “Unaccountable, Immoral And, by Definition, Inhuman” | NationofChange

“The use of lethal force by the United States in coun­tries such as Pak­istan, Yemen and So­ma­lia – coun­tries we are not at war with – con­sti­tutes an al­ready trou­bling method of wag­ing war in which we are ac­count­able to no one. As Philip Al­ston, the United Na­tions Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Ex­tra­ju­di­cial, Sum­mary or Ar­bi­trary Ex­e­cu­tions rec­og­nizes: ‘Not even the Amer­i­can pub­lic, let alone the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity, knows when and where the CIA has au­tho­rized the kill, the cri­te­ria for in­di­vid­u­als who may be killed, how the CIA in­sures killings are legal, and what fol­low-up there is when civil­ians are il­le­gally killed.  It fol­lows that the in­ter­na­tional law re­quire­ments of trans­parency and ac­count­abil­ity are com­pre­hen­sively vi­o­lated."