Alyona: Today is “Bank Transfer Day”:
Thom with The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
Conan does a same-sex wedding on his show (via Slog).
Ann Telnaes: Seven Billion.
Daily Show on how a bill donsn’t become a law.
America Occupied:
- Thom: OWS vs. Koch-ville
- South Park takes on the Occupy Movement.
- Young Turks: OWS-inspired Constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United.
- Gov. Scott Walker gets a taste of the human microphone (via Slog).
- Sam Seder: Anatomy of an OWS smear.
- The Occupy Main Street movement:
- Liberal Viewer: FAUX News blames protesters for police violence.
- Thom on revolutions
- Stephen tries to buy OWS
- Stephen isn’t done trying to buy OWS
- Thom: OWS is America’s first general strike in 65 years.
Sam Seder: The Republican “God” job plan.
Alyona: Mass corporate tax dodging.
Ann Telnaes: China to bail out the Euro.
Thom with some more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
The Republican Primary Asylum:
- Mitt’s spending plan.
- Thom on the Mitness protection program.
- Why Mitt Romney is very bad for women.
- Mark Fiore: Zero-zero-zero.
- Liberal Viewer: FAUX News bias on Ron Paul poll.
- Stephen: Herman Cain’s foreign policy experience.
- Herman Cain’s innocent gesture.
- Newsy: Cain supporters call it a high tech lynching.
- Stephen on the impending sexual harassment allegations against him.
- Actual Audio: Rick Perry has an awesome tax plan.
Alyona’s Tool Time: John Boehner on Norquist.
Obama: On investing.
Glenn Beck is just happy to be noticed as Worst Person in the World.
Jon the Racist:
- Jon on The Donald’s charges of racism.
- Alyona’s Tool Time: The Donald on accusing Jon of being a racist.
White House: West Wing Week.
Judge William Adams (Arkansas County Court-at-Law, Texas) is Worst Person in the World.
Sam Seder: Ann Coulter’s, “Our blacks are the best blacks.
Twilight: “Say it”:
Are the Koch brothers denying your vote?
Alyona’s Fire Side chat: Escalating drone war unnoticed.
Thom: The secret list of 14 words.
Sam Seder: How do you debunk a Libertarian? Let ’em talk.
G.O.P.’s Big Job Creation Idea:
- Alyona’s Tool Time: The GOP’s “In God We Trust” resolution
- Jon: In God We Trust resolution.
Sam Seder: How racism still influences American politics.
Ann Telnaes: The McFib.
Ed and Pap: Tea Party is okay with sexual harassment.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
My neighbors, Democrats and Republicans alike but mostly Republicans,aren’t cleaning their yards of fallen trees, I guess they are waiting for FEMA to help them. I already paid to have my yard cleaned-up. You got to love small government minded people. They want small government until they need the hand out.
I think my neighbors, dems and repubs but more repubs, are waiting for FEMA to clean up their yards of fallen trees. Small government minded people that have their hands out. What hypocrites.
I became a Libertarian thanks to the Vietnam War about the time Sam Seder was in diapers and long ago came to the conclusion that we cannot build a society based on peace by using coercion as a social tool. How we get there, of course, is the question?
Many of these people who get on the idiot box and claim to be Libertarians fail to see the difference between Libertarians and conservatives. They run around and holler “Capitalism Rocks!” That is the extent of their thinking skills.
For the record there are some of us who believe that government should protect consumers and that the idea of strict liability is what the law should be about.
I’ll let RR discuss the theory of strict liability since I have other work to do.
Enjoy the weekend.
Earlier this week a pugnacious Herman Cain responded beliigerently to criticism by saying, “I’m proud to know the Koch brothers” and called himself “their brother from another mother.”
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....her-mother
Roger Rabbit Comentary: Why does Herman Cain want to identify himself (and his campaign) so closely with the Koches? They’re secretive, they’re extremist, and they’re awfully awfully rich. The Koches are the planet’s biggest financial supporters of global warming anti-science denialism. Koch Industries is one of America’s top-ten Big Polluters. Cain is, of course, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koches; but why go out of his way to advertise it? Maybe the latest poll numbers scared the shit out of him, made him realize he might actually have to be president, when all he wanted to do was hustle his book, and so he’s now trying his damnedest to make sure he doesn’t get nominated? Maybe Cain is the General Sherman candidate?
The formatting of this thread is messed up.
Republicans Want To Renege On Budget Deal
As the Senate supercommittee wrestles with budget cuts, and finds itself at impsse, House Republicans “are readying legislation that would undo the automatic across-the-board cuts totaling nearly $500 billion for military programs, or exchange them for cuts in other areas of the federal budget.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45.....ork_times/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Same old GOP bullshit with an added layer: You can’t make deals with these bastards, because they won’t keep their end of the deal.
By now, the GOP meme is all too familiar: Starve the government of revenues by giving massive tax breaks to millionaires and corporations; then claim we can’t afford government spending; but inflict all the spending cuts on social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment benefits, food assistance, housing and heating assistance, and other programs that help the ordinary citizens who do the country’s work and pay the taxes — while refusing to cut one penny from the super-bloated Pentagon war-making budget.
The Republicans made a deal this summer. Now it’s time for Democrats to grow a pair and shove it down their throats: Either they agree to a deficit reduction package that includes taxing those who can afford to pay and aren’t paying enough, or the Pentagon eats across-the-board spending cuts along with social programs.
Food Shortages Coming?
A frequent topic of conservation between Mrs. Rabbit and me lately has been the not-so-subtle changes at our neighborhood grocery, including massive price hikes and increasingly empty shelves.
Other people are noticing, too. Mrs. Rabbit went on the Inner Tubes and compiled the following quotes:
“I’ve been noticing that the shelves at grocery stores are staying empty longer, prices have almost doubled and sizes are getting smaller. This has been happening for the last year or so but has rapidly accelerated over the last 3 months.”
“I have noticed that our local stores don’t carry as much inventory as they used to … i mean you reach for a can of chili and there is nothing behind it … just empty space.
A lot of repeat brands … not as much variety … the vegetables look worse than they used to and fruit too. But the prices keep going up. When the store has a sale, if you don’t go there the day of the sale … and i mean EARLY … there is nothing left to buy of that sale item. You ask for a rain check and they tell you they don’t know when they will be getting that item in again. Kinda spooky.”
“Kansas City here. Target … things are conspicuously missing from shelves, just empty spaces, like they are waiting ‘for a truck’. Walmart … Same thing, except Walmart simply expands the neighboring item to fill the gap. Price Chopper … shelves aren’t being stocked as deeply. Hen House … produce selection scaled back. … I noticed that the shelves at my local Super Target were ALL one level shorter across the entire store? I’ve also noticed that products are only one or two deep on the shelf.”
“I work at a warehouse store. It is my job to notice what is out of stock. Well, lately it has been taking much longer to fill orders. Things are coming in, but slowly. What people fail to realize is that the disasters all over the world have affected how things work. Take a loaf of bread for example: The bakery may get its flour from the flood ravaged midwest. The bags could come from Japan. The twist ties from Korea. The issues are ones that can be overcome, but take time to reroute supplies.
Then there are issues where the entire product is made in a flood area or in Japan. You aren’t going to see that product any time soon. Stock up on food and water. Trust me. If you do, you will buy yourself some time.”
“Wal-Mart was out of coney sauce. How does Wal-Mart run out of coney sauce????????????”
“Have noticed it for quite awhile. Prices really going up.”
“Pretty soon, there’ll only be one job left in this country: ‘Welcome to WalMart. Thanks for shopping at WalMart. Welcome to WalMart. Thanks for shopping at Walmart. Welcome to WalMart …’ I’ve got it DOWN – been practicin’ and everything!”
“Over five million acres of farm land is underwater. The crops that were planted are under water. Florida, Arizona, and Texas are in major fires and drought. I suspect there is a shortage of food to be canned and what we are seeing maybe is older stock being brought up to cover the shortages. Weather conditions are terrible to say the least all over the world. Stock up on canned goods while you still have the chance.”
“We had a BBQ 2 days ago. We had purchased 10 packs of hot dogs and 3 of them only had 7 hot dogs. I called the manufacturer and they said it happens sometimes in the same lot numbers. Problem with that is the fact there were 3 different lot numbers. Seemed very odd. They didn’t offer any compensation or a coupon or anything. My mother says she’s never had a pack of these hotdogs with missing hot dogs before. She’s 75. I’m working like crazy on my chicken coop and seeing about getting a couple goats.”
“They have stopped selling beansprouts for some reason … ??”
“Go to other countries and you’ll notice that their grocery stores aren’t stocked up either. America is changing from a plentiful country to being equal with other nations. Wake up America, your country is being changed right in front of your eyes and we can’t even see it.”
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There are plenty more
such quotes, but that’s probably enough, you get the idea. First they took away our pensions and health benefits. Then they took away our jobs. Then they took our social security, medicare, and unemployment benefits. Food stamps won’t mean anything because there won’t be any food to buy with them. Looks like they want to starve us into submission.
Okay, so that last “Roger Rabbit Commentary” was b.s., but what the hey, one good conspiracy theory deserves another. Besides, who knows, there might be something to it.
@7
Thanks to flooding on the Missouri river lot’s of corn and soybeans didn’t get planted in the midwest this year. Thailand’s normally a big exporter of rice, but much of this years crop is shot because of flooding. Australia’s wheat crop has been shrinking for the last couple of years do to drought.
I don’t by into conspiracy theories, but that we have more people on the planet and less food to feed them isn’t a conspiracy, it’s fact.
Roger Rabbit @ 5
“The formatting of this thread is messed up.”
My bad. Fixed.
Russia today?…what no Pravda link?
Evergreen Libertarian at 3,
I was turned into a Libertarian when I realized there wasn’t really much difference between the major parties in that they both wanted expanded government control, although in different areas. Republicans wanted control over much of one’s personal life while Democrats wanted control over more of one’s public life. Both parties really believed they were entitled to whatever wealth you may have acccumulated, be it for “social good” or “growth of the economy.”
Also, I believe the Libertarians are more true to the Constitution than the other parties. It’s appalling how much the Constitution is trampled upon by federal government officials and employees. Take the Patriot Act, for example. It is definitely an outright attack against the Bill of Rights and our Constitution, yet neither party will repeal it because it is so useful in subverting the Constitition to further their personal goals of dominating and controlling American society.
BTW, how’s it going with all my Excellent Neo-Socialist friends?
asshat @ 11
Feeling nostalgic huh?
@7 Roger, I’ve had friends report that this started several years earlier in smaller communities (where consumers have fewer alternatives), and is now becoming more manifest in major urban markets. The big Safeway store in Astoria has had stock only one or two rows deep in the canned-goods and prepared foods shelves for four or five years. Granted, there have been some weather events here and abroad that have disrupted supplies, but it’s a pretty sure bet that somewhere away “Food, Inc.” hit on the idea (or learned it from the energy industry) that if the public becomes convinced that something’s in short supply, we’ll put up with higher prices after having had “the law of supply and demand” drilled into our heads since infancy. It’s the ultimate capitalist’s wet dream–the opportunity to give the customer less for more.
Meanwhile, interestingly enough, the region’s several year-around weekly “farmers’ markets” still have vendors showing up with generous stocks of high-quality, largely organic local products–ad prices that are now becoming competitive with the GMO and pesticide laden stuff at the supermarkets.
Rail freight traffic is up, which I’ll take as a good sign.
Calculated Risk is a pretty good site.
@14 Fox beat me to it — they predicted food shortages back in January.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob-ubrC2RnU
Glenn Beck predicted 700% to 1000% food inflation in 2011 — food inflation is bad, but not that bad; looks like Beck lied again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?N.....e_VFGMnpKo
Based on what? This ought to be good…
Let me guess?
Goldline getting busted??? (You can probably tell I don’t pay much attention to that charlatan.)
@18 Remember that wingnut mayor in Mount Vernon who honored Beck with the “keys to the city” over the objetions of the city council? I want to see him get bounced out of office. Is he up for election on Tuesday?
Breaking news! The White House has come clean about UFOs and alien visitors!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45.....nce-space/
Don’t you just love it? The two GOP presidential candidates with the biggest zipper problems agreed not to mention each other’s zipper problems in their man-on-man debate!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45174347/ns/politics/
In Ohio, GOP legislation stripping public workers of collective bargaining rights goes to a public vote on Tuesday. An Oct. 25 poll showed likely voters in a mood to throw the law out by a 57% to 32% margin. That would be a major defeat for the GOP’s anti-worker agenda.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45....._politics/
19 – Larry Otos??? I have no idea if that’s the guy but he’s running this Nov 8 vs. a Jill Boudreau.
Anyone have stories of Bank Transfer day? I was at my Credit Union and they said they were insanely busy yesterday. Any stories?
Anyone got any numbers on what percentage changed hands?
24 – Enough for the bastards to take notice I’m sure. It’s not going to stop anytime soon.
Next thing that’s got to happen is that State Governments must charter State banks like North Dakota did. ND’s state bank is a raging success story.
Yay!
I’m on a trip and bored out of my mind so I’m checking the free republic site.
There was this gem in the Anyone but Romney thread
Rove is a liberal? What world do these people live in?
@24 News stories say hundreds of thousands of people are switching from big banks to credit unions — not enough to make a deep dent in bank revenues and profits but certainly a statement.
@28 The question should be what galaxy they live in.
Shale Gas and Fracking
This has been a subject of comments on HA, but hasn’t received intense discussion on this blog yet.
Here’s an interesting story about shale gas and fracking in Business Week.
http://www.businessweek.com/ma.....32011.html
The first thing I want to say is that I was trained to be a newspaper reporter and then a lawyer, so I have a pretty strong background in getting facts, approaching issues objectively, and reaching conclusions through a process of rational reasoning.
(That doesn’t stop me from being a Democratic party hack and liberal propagandist, but I don’t have to be an asshole all the time — it’s just that kicking Republicans around is so much fun it’s hard to stop. This comment, however, is addressed to my liberal brethren.)
The underlying theme of the Business Week article is that the shale gas industry has gone through growing pains and a learning curve, but is coming around to the notion of reasonable regulation. States, for their part, are moving toward enacting laws requiring full disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking fluids and stricter standards and inspections of well construction, in response to environmental concerns.
The U.S. has a lot of shale gas, and while gas is used for a lot of things, the trend is for cheap and plentiful shale gas to replace dirty coal in electricity generation. Burning natural gas does contribute to greenhouse emissions, but it puts less pollution — and less dangerous pollutants — into the air than the coal it replaces.
I certainly don’t think we should swallow industry propaganda uncritically, but when we see environmental organizations working with federal and state regulators and industry representatives to make responsible shale gas development a reality, that should tell us that knee-jerk opposition to any and all shale gas development may not be in our own best interest. If the alternative is digging more coal and burning it in power plants, our advocacy might be more fruitful by getting behind the most environmentally friendly regulation of gas drillers that’s attainable.
31 – That article glosses over a lot of issues.
I’ll address them tomorrow but I’ll start with a little comment.
The train has left the station. The boom from this hydrofracking technology is real and gaining almost unstoppable momentum.
People in this economy are DESPERATE for well-paying jobs and if you look at the states whose unemployment is lowest North Dakota and Wyoming stand out as places where the boom is driving good employment numbers..
The areas of Pennsylvania and upstate New York where the Marcellus shale gas boom is gaining momentum have been depressed economically for years. People who live in those places are about evenly divided about the boom. Half want it and half don’t. I can’t say I blame those who want it but those who don’t tend to be the ones getting sick , suffering with their livestock and pets being poisoned, lighting their well water on fire and having their nerves frazzled with all the noise from the drilling operations.
This kind of oil and gas exploitation is different. The main flaw in the article I saw is that it says that hydraulic fracturing is decades old and has been done a “million times” but the new twist is horizonal drilling which allows multiple fracs in different directions to keep the well producing from the same pad. This is a relatively recent innovation or at least its combination with fracking. Each of these fracs from the same pad requires more water and more chemicals (I’ve heard as much as 40,000 lbs of chemicals all told). You put multiple shots of water and chemical concoctions in and you get some of that stuff back out (“produced water”) which has to be stored in a pit to be dealt with somehow.
How that effluent is dealt with makes all the difference. Sorry when there’s money to made hand over fist – shortcuts are taken – by the roughneckers especially but ALSO the regulators. Look at any extraction boom throughout history you can think of.
P.S.: radium 226 is coming out of the Marcellus shale wells into those fracking fluid waste pits. Bet no one ever bargained for that.
“Roger Rabbit spews: @28 The question should be what galaxy they live in.”
It’s not even an alternate universe. It’s just an alternate reality. This is why we don’t get through to them. These people were once alone with their delusions. With the internet, they now gather in forums, reinforcing the krazy. As a group, they’ve proven to be even more useful tools than they were before as they’re so much more easily manipulated now. The totality of the problem with these people can probably be reduced to a single sentence. Any capacity for these people to feel love, compassion and hope has been displaced by delusional fears, unfounded hate and insatiable rage. heh. Yeah, that about puts it in a nutshell.
Check this out:
http://theenergycollective.com.....ome-it-hot
You know the most interesting “fracking” operation (not hydraulic mind you) ever tried in this country to me has to be the time the AEC tried using a nuclear device to open up a gas well in Colorado.
No need to horizontal drill. Just a vertical shaft to the shale (I believe) formation and set the damn thing off.
Worked wonders. Produced a good well. Only the gas was HOT HOT HOT if you know what I mean. That well is sealed to this day. Here’s a recent article about it:
http://www.commondreams.org/he.....509-04.htm
@35 That was going on when I lived in Boulder. You can imagine that the nuke idea wasn’t going over too big with the folks in that particular town.
I don’t bother arguing with libertarians anymore – they are too dense to actually understand something as simple as the banking crisis. When banks are unregulated and responding to immediate profits that investors want instead of the long-term health of the institution – they gamble away their (and our) money and wreck the financial health of our country.
Libertarians argue (with absolutely no evidence) that too MUCH regulation caused the problems. Of course, the partial repeal of Glass-Steagall was engineered by Phil Gramm and the banks to help “deregulate” them. I agree with libertarians on some things – but as an overall philosophy libertarianism is like dreaming, it imagines some perfect world in the past or the future but fails to account for reality.
Puddy would be proud to know that Ann Coulter thinks her “blacks” are the best. I bet Ann is also proud of her servants and her dog catcher….
re 37 you might want to start with the Monetary Control Act of 1980, which was sponsored by Senator William Proxmire and signed by Jimmy Carter. That began the deregulation that a couple of regimes passed over the years.
What we need are some laws that will put people behind bars when the embark on a career of fraud and theft as we have seen in recent years. Unfortunately neither the Republicans or Democrats have seen it necessary to pass such laws.