Nature's Noblemen

The guys in Kentucky are saying this murderer can't run his horse there. And the murderer guy is going "yeah you're just ducking my horse." Unreal. Like they'll go "oh you think we're chicken huh?" and let him race. Too bad life moves past our schoolyard days. God bless these horse racing guys. They have more morals than the politicians. "Take your horse and go run against yourself you putz." Community standards. No murder genocide guys need apply.

Sad that the bluebloods are leading the way here but if you are going to battle through the mess that is America today you better be READY...so a shout out to the Kentucky guys for holding the line. You can kill a lot of people and run around and enjoy yourself all over the world, except a few racetracks in New York and Kentucky. Lesson learned. Imagine if Stalin was really into horses and wanted to race and they said "no way" and Stalin said "okay, I'll stop killing people and be nice but please let me race my horse" and then they say "okay" and that's the end of the war. That would have been something.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, because an isolated act of dignity doesn't mean shit in the sucktide of failure and misery that is coming down the pike.

Thoroughbred racing has always attracted a mix of royalty and rogues. Blue bloods like the Whitneys and the Vanderbilts have long been owners. So, too, have mischief-makers like the mobster Arnold Rothstein, who won the 1921 Travers at Saratoga with a racehorse named Sporting Blood.

Sweet Ducky won two minor stakes races at Monmouth Park last year but was taken out of the United States when Kadyrov purchased him, only to return.

It appears, though, at least in New York and in Kentucky, that there are limits to who can race a horse. Officials in those states have taken steps to exclude from racing a horse owned by Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, who has been accused by human rights groups of murder, torture and other abuses over the years.

The horse’s charming name, Sweet Ducky, has not seemed to help his case.

Last month at Keeneland racetrack in Lexington, Ky., with Sweet Ducky scheduled to race, the State Department reached out to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to make it fully aware of the longstanding allegations that have been made against Kadyrov. The commission subsequently ordered the horse scratched because Kadyrov and his representatives did not answer a request to appear at a hearing before his request for a license could be approved. Kadyrov, it should be noted, is not a frequent visitor to the United States.

Two months earlier the New York State Racing and Wagering Board had also received an application for a racing license for Kadyrov. Such requests are usually approved within a matter of days, but the New York racing officials, who also consulted with the State Department, delayed processing his application and appeared ready to delay the matter for the foreseeable future.

“Short of the State Department drastically changing its tune on Mr. Kadyrov,” said one New York racing official who refused to be identified by name, “it’s safe to assume he will not be racing horses in New York State.”

Alvi A. Karimov, a spokesman for Kadyrov, said he believed the licensing issue was a flimsy pretext for scratching a horse who was simply too good.

“I have no doubt that all this fuss was raised exclusively with one aim — to kick the horse out of the race,” Karimov said in a telephone interview. “The horse had all the qualities necessary to win the race. I am deeply convinced that there was no other reason than that.”

Karimov added that he regarded the decision as “ideological sabotage against the Chechen authorities,” adding, “Targeted work is being conducted by certain organizations in the United States.”

He said Sweet Ducky had received an invitation that granted him the right to participate, “and then at the last moment they said due to some reasons and so on and so forth.”

Kadyrov, 35, who became the leader of Chechnya in 2007, is an avid horse racing fan and has acquired a stable of top thoroughbreds who have competed in major races in Russia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and England.

[NY Times]

You Can't Win For Losing

For just the sheer unadulterated pointlessness of it all, this one takes the cake. There are no absolutes. There is no right and wrong. Not fighting a war or sending someone to get their head blown off, that really sounds like a good thing. But not if you were counting on this as an opportunity? And I'm not being sarcastic, I can totally see how you could be mega-bummed about changing all your plans around to go to Afghanistan and now you're not going, but ultimately war solves nothing, right? Peace is the goal.

But war provides a war economy, and that's better than what we have otherwise. There's plenty of money to be made on war. But we are still supposed to at least TRY to have peace, right? Or should we root for an uprising somewhere so we can send these guys in and they won't be bummed out? Can't they shovel snow this winter? Clear up some power lines? I'm totally confused, but I am still going to root for peace because I'm old and this is what I was taught.

This proves once and for all that doing the right thing is IMPOSSIBLE. You send these guys off to war and they get killed, and when you don't send them that sucks too. And you can't even count on WAR. Wars end. We lurch from temporary solution to lame temporary solution before we finally get down to the brass tacks of soldiers and ammo, and then just when we get it going good we pull the plug for peace and these guys are stuck doing nothing. Hopeless.

Maybe a full-time low scale war is the answer. As I'm writing this it occurs to me, peace never lasts. People really NEED war. It's a primal thing. And what we get is the spiraling vortex of war, peace, war, peace, misery, war, peace, war, war, peace for awhile, misery, war, peace, peace, war, Frank Sinatra, peace, war and it just never ends. So let's get it under control. A full-time war with very few, if any, casualties. More like keeping busy and firing a few rounds here and there, but analyzing everybody's movements and sending a lot of people all around the world just in case. And some poor countries could host the war for a fee and that would keep THEM going. Whoever is campaigning with a better idea I challenge them to come forward RIGHT NOW and match my full-time low scale war idea. You ask me for "out of the box" thinking and here it is. But it is hopeless because you people don't know what the hell you want anyway.

Two months ago, Demetries Luckett left his job in Michigan, turned in his cable box, sent his daughter to live with her mother, and headed for Camp Shelby in Mississippi.

As a 1st lieutenant in Michigan's National Guard, he was being deployed to Afghanistan.

But just a month after he arrived for training, the Army decided Uncle Sam didn't need him after all.

Now Luckett's unemployed and back home in Harper Woods, Mich. — a victim of the Obama administration's ongoing effort to pull at least 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by next fall.

Unlike active-duty soldiers who are stationed at U.S. military bases across the country and can be sent on a moment's notice to a conflict anywhere in the world — the nation's citizen soldiers have civilian jobs and lives they have to set aside when they get those deployment notices.

And unlike active-duty soldiers, Guard members may have little to go back to, if their country changes its mind.

Luckett is not alone.

In the last 60 days, as many as 8,900 Army National Guard soldiers were either sent home early from Iraq or Afghanistan, or were told that the Pentagon's plans to send them to war had either been shelved or changed. As a result, U.S. military and Guard leaders have been scrambling to find alternative missions for many of the soldiers — particularly those who had put their lives and jobs on hold and were depending on the deployment for their livelihood.

"If you're a 25-year-old infantryman, and you're a student at Ohio State University, and you decide not to register for school in July because you were going to mobilize, and we say your services aren't needed anymore — that becomes a significantly emotional event in that person's life," said Col. Ted Hildreth, chief of mobilization and readiness for the Army National Guard.

[Associated Press]

Charity Begins At Home

Proud, to stuff all that money in me own pocket man! Rebuilt an orphanage out of an outdoor toilet and turned a shantytown into a shower facility. Rock on brother. All for one million. And the rest...party on dude! Or whatever.

Paying a firm that does not exist...that takes this into the realm of Michael Crichton or one of those Scott Turow type authors. Way beyond what you are going to get here.

And ultimately that is fair because you are paying NOTHING. You want to talk about a downer? Come on.

Haiti hip hop star Wyclef Jean says he's proud of the way his charity responded after the earthquake almost two years ago.

He says his Yele Haiti Foundation rebuilt an orphanage and set up a system of outdoor toilet and shower facilities in one of the largest shanties in the Haitian capital.

Jean's comments Sunday follow reports published by The New York Post saying his foundation collected $16 million in 2010 but less than a third of that went to emergency efforts. The Post also says $1 million was paid to a Florida firm that doesn't appear to exist.

[Associated Press]

Nothing Matters

It doesn't even MATTER what we do here. If we fix everything HERE, they are messing everything up OVER THERE. The only way to solve anything is to fix everything EVERYWHERE, and what are the odds of that happening? A snowball's chance in hell.

I suppose we should still TRY to make things better but it makes me wonder what would happen if we just gave up completely? How fast would things fall apart? Or maybe things wouldn't fall apart and we'd actually be in better shape not trying, and by not trying or spending money on anything we'd get out of the deficit. It could happen. We'll never know.

I just hope everyone did a lot of shopping on Black Friday cause that is important for our recovery. But it might not matter since Europe didn't do their part. They don't even have Thanksgiving. We save their ass in WWII and now they can't even run out and buy a dishwasher or a coffee maker. Fucking elitists.

Stocks posted seven straight sessions of losses on Friday, ending the worst week in two months, as the lack of a credible solution to Europe's debt crisis kept investors away from risky assets.

Wall Street traded higher for most of the abbreviated session on hopes that "Black Friday," the traditional start of the U.S. holiday shopping season, would support major retailers. But gains were quickly offset by headlines out of Europe that further dented market sentiment. With less than 20 minutes before the close, all three stock indexes had turned negative.

Yields on Italy's debt approached recent highs that sparked a sell-off in world markets. Italy paid a record 6.5 percent to borrow money over six months on Friday, and its longer-term funding costs soared far above levels seen as sustainable for public finances.

High debt yields from major economies in Europe such as Spain, France and Germany suggest investing in the region is seen as being more risky.

"Trading remains cautious (since) the poor auction of German bonds mid-week raised concerns the debt crisis is spreading to Europe's core," said WhatsTrading.com options strategist Frederick Ruffy.

Adding to concerns, Standard & Poor's downgraded Belgium's credit rating to double-A from double-A-plus, citing concerns about funding and market pressures.

[Reuters]

If It's Romney Or Zombies I Pick The Zombies

I don't know what's better, that Romney is running this ad or that he is actually DEFENDING it even as it's being pointed out that Obama did NOT say this...he was only quoting a McCain adviser.

President Obama NEVER said that he didn't want to talk about the economy back in the last campaign. That was the REPUBLICAN line, as in "Bush has fucked things up so bad that if we talk about the economy we'll never win." Of course not talking about something doesn't mean people won't NOTICE how bad things are, but there you go.

Obama should just knit together Romney's words in an ad and have him say "I like to wear ladies clothes and beat my wife." What difference does it even make any more? Nothing matters. The zombies would almost be an improvement.

Happy Thanksgiving. Grrrrr.

Mitt Romney’s inaugural TV ad of the 2012 campaign aired today in New Hampshire just as President Obama traveled to the state, but the ad immediately came under fire from Democrats and fact-checkers for incorrectly quoting Obama.

The White House, the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s re-election campaign accused the Romney campaign today of unfairly twisting the president’s words.

Politifact , which monitors the accuracy of campaign statements, gave Romney’s ad a “Pants on fire” rating.

The Romney video uses footage from Obama’s trip to New Hampshire in 2008. In the ad, text rolls over the screen reading, “On October 16, 2008, Barack Obama visited New Hampshire. He promised he would fix the economy. He failed.”

As video footage shows vacated business and foreclosed homes, Obama can be heard saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”

But the ad does not make clear that in the speech Obama was actually quoting an aide to his Republican opponent at the time, Sen. John McCain.

The Romney campaign did not deny that it took the president’s words out of context and even provided Obama’s full quote in a press release accompanying the ad: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”

It’s a reference to an anonymous quote by a McCain adviser that appeared in an Oct. 2008 New York Daily News article.

“Now, the tables have turned – President Obama and his campaign are doing exactly what candidate Obama criticized,” the Romney campaign said in a statement. “President Obama and his team don’t want to talk about the economy and have tried to distract voters from his abysmal economic record.”

Democrats pounced on the ad as misleading.

“I mean, what — seriously? I mean, an ad in which they deliberately distort what the president said? I mean, it’s a rather remarkable way to start, and an unfortunate way to start,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters during the trip up to New Hampshire.

[ABC News]

Hippie Freaks Ken Kesey I've Had It With Your Crap YEAH!!!!!

So how do we fix this Mayor Genius? Oy Bubbeluh? He got his and now the rest of you...get lost! Occupy Wall Street doesn't have a clear message? Are you kidding me? In the 60s the grownups were saying the hippies had a clear message? He's got a BILLION dollars. That's...999 million dollars plus one. Million.

Courageously using his wealth to shield the condo owners and venture capitalists who have used my humble hometown of NYC (less than 24 square miles in total) to whack out more money than GOD Himself could yield in tolls for a century. The COMMISSIONS from condo sales could equal the GDP of some small countries.

He brought up Vietnam. And then patiently explaining how labor would move to "the lowest salary place" and thus people HERE would have to live with NOTHING according to his billionaire visionary bullshit worldview.

I would like to see Mayor Mike over in Vietnam. As opposed to patiently explaining the realities of me getting screwed and him getting rich. And somehow that is my fault and decision. I want him hunched up to his ass in the jungle. Personally I would prefer to be on the hippie side. I will take the hippies eight days a week vs. Bloomberg Corp.

And that whole COMBINE stuff from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is real. For real.

He took their gasoline, seized their tents, then had hundreds of them arrested for disorderly conduct and other offenses.

And now, Mayor Bloomberg has turned to dismissing the Occupy Wall Street protesters as a disjointed mob without a clear message.

“This is not the Vietnam era when you had 400,000 people on the Mall saying ‘let’s get out of Vietnam,’” Bloomberg told MSNBC Tuesday. “This is more a frustration kind of protest. They were chanting, ‘We don’t know what we want, but we want it now.’”

Bloomberg then went on to to suggest that the protesters are also ill-informed.

“They don’t know how to fix this,” he said. “They want their government to fix it. They don’t even know what the problem is, much less how to fix it, but they know that things aren’t working well and you see that around the world.”

The protesters do bring different points of view and a variety of causes to their movement — but they’ve never been known to chant that they don't know what they want.

Bloomberg, who made his fortune on Wall Street, has never had much sympathy for the movement. He went on to say that he understands the protesters’ frustrations.

“Partly it’s technology that’s automating repetitive jobs,” he said. “Partly it’s globalization that lets labor move to the lowest salary place, the lowest cost of labor.

“Partly it is just we’ve been overspending all around the world, monies we don't have, and now we’re going to have to pay the piper. So if you have to raise tuition in a school, the kids object to that, but somebody’s got to pay for the schools. If we have to stop some of the services, we just can’t afford them anymore, so it is a general frustration and it comes out in many ways.”

[nydailynews.com]

Hooters For One, Hooters For All

Every once in awhile I see a story and I think to myself, "is this true?" Listen, if your kid is LUCKY, she can be a waitress in HOOTERS as opposed to being UNEMPLOYED? What kind of negative attitude informs THIS protest? Bunch of HOUSEFRAUS saying this? My wife works her ass off and I cannot imagine her EVER criticizing a HOOTERS waitress for GIVING HER TIME and coming into school and talking to kids. They should load up these American housewives on a boat and sink it.

Plus, do you imagine your kid is never going to have to work for a living? And serve food? If one of my daughters turns out to work for HOOTERS God bless and keep her and KEEP IT REAL. She will make a living and if you touch her and she comes home and tells me I WILL KILL YOU. But otherwise let her make some money, and God willing they would let me submit my wings recipe, or let me MAKE the wings, which I believe are FAR superior to what they are serving.

Thank you, waitress. In my life I have depended on the kindness of waitresses now and again. And they are OUTRAGED that a PORN STAR would read to kids? Hey I read to my kids...get off your ass and DO something. Hats off to the PORN STAR for volunteering. Like the people that AREN'T volunteering are somehow BETTER than PORN STARS? How does THAT work? These people are just filling a void (spiraling vortex) that others are leaving behind by DOING NOTHING.

The downer is...America cannot accept reality, even when it is staring it in the face with an actual JOB. Well F U America. Except you guys, who are reading this. I love you all. And I don't say that enough.

A Florida school district runs a program that brings in adults to talk to children about their jobs, serving as inspirational leaders and models for the kids to look up to.

One parent was left less than inspired when she found out that a waitress from Hooters was brought into the class as one of the role models.
'It's just the wrong message,' said mother Ashley Dominicci.

A Florida school district runs a program that brings in adults to talk to children about their jobs, serving as inspirational leaders and models for the kids to look up to.

One parent was left less than inspired when she found out that a waitress from Hooters was brought into the class as one of the role models.

'It's just the wrong message,' said mother Ashley Dominicci.

Hooters waitress Brittany Morgan, 23, was careful to change out of the famed restaurant's trademark short orange shorts and low-cut tops and into a conservative sweater and sweat pants before speaking to the children of the Calvin A. Hunsinger School on Thursday.

'Most of us [Hooters waitresses] are going to school. We're aspiring to do other things in life. This isn't our career,' Ms Morgan said.

This incident comes just days after California parents were outraged to learn that actress and retired porn star Sasha Grey was able to volunteer to read to young children at a public school in Compton.

Though a waitress may be seen as a less distinguished career than a retired army general- who came into a different Florida school through the same Great American Teach-in program just a week earlier- school officials think that the profession should not be disregarded by parents.

[dailymail.co.uk]

The Bright Side Is There Is No Bright Side

I still can't figure out why so many ordinary people want to fight for less taxes for the rich. Read this, that the battle to be fought to increase capital gains taxes will be bloody. I think this guy is right. It's ironic that a country that was established by overthrowing tyranny and "taxation without representation" is now fully supportive of plutocracy. How did this happen? We used to have bloody fights about doing something big for the little guy.

On some level I suppose it's the whole thing where "you too can work hard and get rich" and that is true, but why is everything set up to help the rich hold on to all their money and make more AFTER they are rich? They won! That's enough! There are opportunities here to make out like a bandit. Why do they have to win AND not pay taxes? That just seems wacky. And why are all of these proles supporting it?

The "Tea Party" was originally a bunch of uppity pissed off commoners making it plain that the status quo was over. Now it's a bunch of guys helping out rich people? In the movies I saw the rich guys got thrown out of the castle, or learned a good lesson, like in "Scrooge." That was part of the fun. Will it be a good movie if the rich guy wins and everybody loses their job and there's just one rich guy left and he goes, "oh well, fuck 'em?" I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Capital gains are the key ingredient of income disparity in the US--and the force behind the winner takes all mantra of our economic system. If you want even out earning power in the U.S, you have to raise the 15% capital gains tax.

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation's earners-- rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%--about 315,000individuals out of 315 million--are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.

It's crystal clear that the Bush tax reduction on capital gains and dividend income in 2003 was the cutting edge policy that has created the immense increase in net worth of corporate executives, Wall St. professionals and other entrepreneurs.

Make no mistake; the battle that is to be fought over the coming attempt to reverse this reduction in capital gains will be bloody and intense. The facts are clear according to the Congressional Budget Office more than 80% of the increase in income inequality was the result of an increase in the share of household income from capital gains. In fact, you can go so far as to claim that "Capital Gains income is the most unevenly distributed--and volatile--source of household income," according to Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California business professor and former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

[Forbes]

Have You Heard The One About Tires You Can See From Space?

A giant rubber menace you can see from space? Sounds like a Rubbermaid dishrack. That could hurt you. This is just what we need on top of everything else. It's all signifying something. Not good. I just feel like all these stories are the same. Equally meaningful and meaningless. You know what I mean? You probably don't.

I've just had it up to here. I don't even know why I'm doing this but I can't stop. I'm up to my neck in tires you bastards. If we have a space program, how about making some SPACE here on Earth and launching some of these tires out into the distant past where those reptile HR Giger looking aliens live? Shouldn't we get to them first? Can we EVER effectively deal with ANYTHING?

The sprawling pile of hundreds of thousands of tires isn't easy to spot from the ground, sitting in a rural South Carolina clearing accessible by only a circuitous dirt path that winds through thick patches of trees. No one knows how all those tires got there, or when.

But, Calhoun County Council Chairman David Summers says of this giant rubber menace, "You can see it from space."

Authorities have charged one person in connection with the mess of roughly 250,000 tires, which covers more than 50 acres on satellite images. And now a Florida company is helping haul it all away.

Litter control officer Boyce Till said he contacted the local sheriff and state health department, which is investigating who had been dumping the tires. But the worst possible penalty that could be imposed locally? A single $475 ticket for littering.

Records show the property is owned by Michael Keitt Jr. of Far Rockaway, N.Y.
A phone number for Keitt could not be found, but local officials said the man was one of several heirs to the property, all of whom live out of state.

[Associated Press]

Who Could Remember A Million Bucks?

Highlights - Gingrich got all this money and they went bankrupt. So what was his advice worth?

He couldn't remember $1.5 million? That puts him in touch with the common man. Plus if they paid him a million dollars he must've done a pretty shit job right? So that disqualifies him as President. So let it be written, so let it be done!

When it suited him, he got up on his high horse and criticized Obama for taking money when he himself was soaking Freddie and Fannie dry for useless advice.

There's a saying in baseball, when someone has a really good season and it comes down to who is MVP - they go "they could've finished last without him."

You can't be that good if your team goes bust. On the other hand, if Gingrich gets Palin involved I'm in.

Rising in national polls, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich found himself on the defensive Wednesday over huge payments he received over the past decade from the federally backed housing agency Freddie Mac.

Gingrich said he didn't remember exactly how much he was paid, but a former Freddie Mac official said it was at least $1.5 million for consulting contracts stretching from 1999 to 2007. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter.

Speaking with reporters in Iowa, Gingrich said he provided "strategic advice for a long period of time" after he resigned as House speaker following his party's losses in the 1998 elections. He defended Freddie Mac's role and said, "every American should be interested in expanding housing opportunities."

Long unpopular among Republicans, the federally backed mortgage lender has become a focal point of anti-government sentiment because of the housing crisis.

On Tuesday, a House committee voted to strip top executives of Freddie and its larger competitor, Fannie Mae, of huge salaries and bonuses and put them on the same pay scale as federal employees.

In 2008, Gingrich suggested in a Fox News interview that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama should have to return campaign contributions he had received from executives of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He said that in a debate with Obama, GOP presidential nominee John McCain "should have turned and said, 'Senator Obama, are you prepared to give back all the money that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae gave you?'"

Gingrich sought Wednesday to portray his role as a sign of valuable
experience.

[Associated Press]

Er-Ah, What He Said

I've never been a big fan of the Kennedys, and I've always been shocked at how gullible Americans have been, believing these people to be truly gifted instead of just a bunch of silver spoon hacks enjoying a bootlegger's ill gotten gains. Beyond what is described below, it's entirely possible Joe Kennedy rigged the 1960 election with his Mafia pals in Chicago, and the country was denied the privilege of having Nixon as President at the beginning of the decade, instead of the end. Who knows, if Nixon had won in 1960 he might never have been brought down by scandal, and he could've geared up the Vietnam War much sooner, but we'll never know.

Even Kennedy's eloquence was not genuine, but rather the product of his life of prep schools where somewhat gifted teachers lectured ignorant rich brats who only had one real worry in life - "when do I get my trust fund?" Turns out this whole "ask not blah blah" thing is ripped off from some guy trying to instill a lifelong love of Choate. Fabulous.

There are a lot of writers who would love to turn to their Dad and say, "hey Dad, er ah can you get me a Pulitzer? Will help me look smart and win." And then Dad goes out and does it. I don't know if I'm more upset with the Kennedys or with my own Dad, who did not provide a Pulitzer OR a trust fund. Double downer, once again.

John F. Kennedy's most famous turn of phrase was inspired by the headmaster of his New England prep school, according to a new book on America's only president to have won the Pulitzer Prize.

In his 14-minute 1961 inaugural speech, which addressed the United States' role in the Cold War, Kennedy told Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country."

Kennedy, it turns out, had heard something like it before.

Two documents unearthed by MSNBC television host Chris Matthews in his book "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," show that the future president's headmaster at the elite Choate boarding school in Connecticut in the early 1930s had used a similar exhortation.

"The youth who loves his alma matter will always ask not 'What can she do for me?' but 'What can I do for her?" the headmaster said, quoting a Harvard University dean.

Kennedy's 1957 Pulitzer Prize for "Profiles of Courage," a credential that helped bolster his prestige as a candidate, was "no happy accident," the book says.

In fact, Kennedy's father, Joseph Kennedy, had lobbied members of the Pulitzer screening board one at a time.

[Reuters]

And Not A Moment Too Soon

I remember in school being assigned books to read. At some point I think we were assigned to read "Pride and Prejudice." I'm not saying I read it, but it was probably assigned. Now I'm a big reader, and I love the classics, especially anything concerning the sea, like "Moby Dick." Alright I just read the Cliff Notes, but the whole book must be fantastic. Melville himself would know how busy I've been and understand that I couldn't plow through 800 pages. Plus I know all that whaling shipboard crap and don't need to read it again. The fight with the whale is the whole thing anyway.

But I have to say there were times that we were assigned these "classics" to read and they were a stone cold bore.

As it stands, Jane Austen wrote quite a few books, and I can't remember anything about them so I think they were the kinds of books where people say "o that is a classic" but if you asked them they couldn't really tell you what was so great about it? You know the type. Thousands of these volumes floating around. Let me tell you, for every real old time classic like "Fanny Hill" there are a thousand snores out there. So maybe because of this arsenic accident Jane Austen got more attention for her brilliant short life, and since she didn't get to bury us in more boring books, by extension, things worked out for the rest of us as well. On the other hand, this sounds like a downer for Jane Austen and who knows, maybe she would have written something really good like "Batman" next and our whole culture suffered a tremendous loss. Potential double downer, or, as we say at the bar, the usual.

Few authors are as revered as Jane Austen. She wrote just a handful of novels, but all have gone on to be classics, read and re-read by generations. Now, though, a crime author has made a startling claim: Lindsay Ashford believes Austen may have been poisoned.

Indeed, the circumstances surrounding Austen's death have long been a bit mysterious. She died in 1817 at the age of 41. Experts haven't been able to come up with an exact cause of death, though most attribute her early demise to either cancer or Addison's disease. But Ashford now contends that the beloved author may have died of arsenic poisoning.

What's the reason behind the new theory? A buzzy article from the UK's Guardian explains: Three years ago, Ashford moved to Austen's village of Chawton to write a new crime novel. After she arrived, she started examining old letters of Austen and found a sentence that struck her as particularly suspicious.

Austen wrote: "I am considerably better now and am recovering my looks a little, which have been bad enough, black and white and every wrong colour."

Ashford had done plenty of crime research for her own novels, and says she recognized the symptoms as consistent with arsenic poisoning.

But that's not all. Ashford contacted the Jane Austen Society of North America with her newfound hunch--and the society's president told her that a lock of Austen's hair from a different museum was tested for arsenic and came up positive.

Still, arsenic poisoning per se doesn't necessarily mean murder. Back in Austen's time, arsenic was used as a kind of medicine (and you thought your HMO was the pits). As Ashford told the Guardian, "After all my research I think it's highly likely she was given a medicine containing arsenic. When you look at her list of symptoms and compare them to the list of arsenic symptoms, there is an amazing correlation."

[yahoo! news]

More Nukes Less Kooks

I'm just maxing and relaxing. These entries write themselves. Nuke Iran. Wow what a new idea. Regime change in Iran? I'd say that's more of a military FIRST resort as opposed to a last resort. By the time we get down to LAST resort it will be too late! Damn.

Feels like 1976. Remember where you were back then. How about on the verge of Saturday Night Fever!?! Whhhhhhhoooooohoooooooo!

Thank you very much indeed.

Sen. Lindsay Graham is siding with a Republican presidential candidate who's calling for military action if all else fails to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The South Carolina Republican says he supports "totally, absolutely, without any doubt" former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's call during a Saturday debate for the military last-resort option to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran.

Graham says in a television interview, quote, "If they develop nuclear weapons, the whole region is going to want a nuclear weapon. If you open Pandora's box, if you attack Iran if they get a nuclear weapon, you empty Pandora's box."

Graham also said it's important to "neuter this regime" by destroying its military and persuading Iranians to demand a regime change.

[Associated Press]

God Told Cain To Run, But Why?

I wonder if this is true? If it is, we really should vote for Cain. Whenever I hear people say they are talking to God I always think NUTJOB, but maybe I'm too cynical.

I'm wondering, even if God told him to run, does that mean God wants him to win? What if God wanted him to run so it would come out that he harassed all of those women? God may not want him to be President, God may have wanted to expose him as a lousy person. And this was one sure way to do it?

They say the Lord works in mysterious ways and maybe this is what they mean! "God told me to run for President and now every kooky broad I ever made a pass at is coming out of the woodwork!"

A year from now Cain will wish that God had left him the hell alone.

Republican Herman Cain said God convinced him to enter the race for president, comparing himself to Moses: "'You've got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'"

The Georgia business executive played up his faith Saturday after battling sexual harassment allegations for two weeks, trying to shift the conversation to religion, an issue vital to conservative Republicans, especially in the South.

In a speech Saturday to a national meeting of young Republicans, Cain said the Lord persuaded him after much prayer.

"That's when I prayed and prayed and prayed. I'm a man of faith — I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I've ever done before in my life," Cain said. "And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. 'You've got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'"

Once he made the decision, Cain said, he did not look back.

Four women have now accused Cain of sexually harassing them when he led the National Restaurant Association more than a decade ago. Cain, who has denied wrongdoing, was silent about the allegations and did not take reporters' questions.

[Associated Press]

Good Sense Cannot Prevail

If you think of the last fifty years, imagine how many of these plastic bottles are piling up everywhere, despite all of the recycling efforts. These porpoise chokers are everywhere, along with all of the other plastic rings holding the plastic bottles in place especially in big cases with that heavy plastic wrapped around it. That heavy plastic is good for choking big game, like elephant seals and polar bears.

So let's have one place that's sacred without this crap. The Grand Canyon. BUT NO. Coca Cola is spending $12 million a year and they want everyone to keep on dumping those bottles until the Grand Canyon FILLS UP and then babies can play in there like those sandboxes filled with balls.

Is it true that "banning anything is never the right answer?" If they banned plastic bottles, wouldn't that really address the problem? Duh hey it would. Methinks this spokeswoman speaks too much!

Officials at the Grand Canyon abruptly abandoned plans to ban the sale of plastic water bottles at the Arizona national park after conversations with Coca-Cola officials, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Stephen P. Martin, who crafted the plan, told the newspaper that the effort was scrapped after Coca-Cola officials raised concerns about the plan through the National Park Foundation. He was told the effort was being tabled about two weeks before its scheduled Jan. 1 start.

Coca-Cola, which distributes water under the Dasani brand, has donated more than $13 million to the parks.

The Times reported that Martin's account was verified by officials from the park, foundation and Coca-Cola.

David Barna, a National Park Service spokesman, said National Parks Service Director Jon Jarvis made the "decision to put it on hold until we can get more information.

"Reducing and eliminating disposable plastic bottles is one element of our green plan," Barna said. "This is a process, and we are at the beginning of it."

Neil J. Mulholland, president of the parks foundation, said a Coca-Cola representative contacted him late in the process to ask for details of the bottle ban and how it would work.

"There was not an overt statement made to me that they objected to the ban," Mulholland said. "There was never anything inferred by Coke that if this ban happens, we're losing their support."

Susan Stribling, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Refreshments USA, said the company would prefer to help address problems with littered plastic bottles by making more recycling programs available.

"Banning anything is never the right answer," she said. "If you do that, you don't necessarily address the problem." She also characterized the bottle ban as limiting personal choice. "You're not allowing people to decide what they want to eat and drink and consume," she said.

[Associated Press]

Yes It Gets Worse

He's absolutely devastated, but hey, we've got a game Saturday and we need to finish the season with dignity. Apparently dignity is a concept Joe Paterno can only apply to football, since he doesn't understand the meaning of the word in terms of responsibility to other people, especially young children who are unlucky enough to meet his pal here.

These comments reveal a man totally focused on HIMSELF, without any regard for anyone else who might not be completely consumed by Penn State football. It's great that he doesn't want the trustees to focus on his status, and he is graciously going to bow out when he's good and ready at the end of this season.

Maybe he doesn't want the trustees to spend a minute discussing his status because if they do, they will fire his ass. I'm not sure why any discussion of Paterno's status would even require a full minute. How does he still have a job? The trustees should fire themselves right after they fire Paterno, and then they should throw themselves under a train. If he gets to walk out on that field and coach Saturday, it will be yet another sign that the end is near, and as we move towards our inevitable apocalyptic destruction we will all be witness to the evaporation of even the pretense of morality as the human race proves it is fit only to serve as food for the walking dead.

Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach who preached success with honor for half a century but whose legend was shattered by a child sex abuse scandal, said Wednesday he will retire at the end of this season.

Paterno said he was “absolutely devastated” by the case, in which his onetime heir apparent, Jerry Sandusky, has been charged with molesting eight boys in 15 years, including at the Penn State football complex.

He said he hoped the team could finish its season with “dignity and determination.”

The school’s board of trustees could still force Paterno to leave immediately. It also could take action against the university president, Graham Spanier.

Paterno said the trustees, who had been considering his fate, should “not spend a single minute discussing my status” and have more important matters to address.

The 84-year-old Paterno has been engulfed by outrage that he did not take more action after a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, came to him in 2002 and reported seeing Sandusky in the Penn State showers with a 10-year-old boy. Paterno notified the athletic director, Tim Curley, and a vice president, Gary Schultz.

Curley and Schultz have since been charged with failing to report the incident to the authorities. Paterno hasn’t been accused of legal wrongdoing. But he has been assailed, in what the state police commissioner called a lapse of “moral responsibility,” for not doing more to stop Sandusky.

“This is a tragedy,” Paterno said in a statement. “It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

[Associated Press]

Satan Wears Cleats

There was supposed to be a press conference on this today. Initially Joe Paterno said he was only going to answer questions about football and the BIG GAME Saturday. But once he realized nobody in the media gives a shit about the game with this going on he cancelled.

How bad is this story? Here at Daily Downers it's our job to stay on top of these things, but this is easily one of the worst stories we've read in at least...a week. Now I have a lot of friends and co-workers. If I hear or witness one of them molesting children I'm going to call the police. And that's AT MINIMUM, assuming I'm not in a position to express real personal rage. Not these guys. It sounds like EVERYONE was informed about this and NOBODY called the police. The Mafia should send its members to Penn State to take lessons. I've read elsewhere that this Sandusky guy was still doing "football camps" with kids at Penn State facilities outside of their MAIN field.

Was there any small talk? "How's that child molesting thing going man?" I mean what did these people talk about when they saw each other? They pretended nobody saw anything and nobody heard anything? "Nice draw play on that third down Jerry, great call." Joe Paterno hears this and tells these other guys and moves on to the next game. How many people can imagine doing this? I'm no saint, but I can't. Nobody even knows who this kid was. Nobody asked and nobody cared.

It's ironic that football, this bastion of American manhood, would turn into this non-confrontational hear no evil mush when confronted with something that would make anyone's blood boil. I thought POLITICS was the last refuge of a scoundrel. Apparently Ben Franklin didn't know what would happen later on at Penn State. To compound this, in America today, guys that steal billions of dollars or help cover up child molesting are looking at less time than a guy holding a few rocks of crack. This story reflects an endless pit of downers at every turn. I think the Nittany Lions need to build a new field so they can put these guys under it. I'm even going to waive the "judge not, lest ye be judged" clause. Guilty! As for moral vs. legal guilt and "just dealing with legal issues" that's fine too. They better fill Joe Paterno's casket with ice cause he's gonna be HOT down there!

Pennsylvania attorney general Linda Kelly said in a news conference Monday that the Jerry Sandusky child-molestation case is an ongoing investigation but that Penn State football icon Joe Paterno is “not regarded as a target at this point.”

Kelly stopped short of offering the same protection for Penn State president Graham Spanier, declining to answer specific questions about his place in the investigation.

Kelly said Paterno responded as legally obligated when informed, in 2002, by a graduate assistant coach (identified in news reports as current Penn State staffer Mike McQueary) that he witnessed Sandusky sexually assaulting a child in the showers at the Penn State football facility. She said his timely reporting of the incident to his titular superior, athletic director Tim Curley, fulfilled the coach’s legal responsibility.

The Pennsylvania attorney general said Penn State coach Joe Paterno is "not regarded as a target at this point" in the Jerry Sandusky case.

“The graduate assistant reported to Paterno,” Kelly said. “Paterno then reported to school administrators. They were the ones who chose to act as they did.”

Kelly did not offer any extralegal opinion on Paterno’s handling of the situation.

“We know there is a difference between moral and legal guilt,” she said. “We’re dealing with legal issues.”

Despite the current clearance of Paterno, Kelly did acknowledge that the alleged presence of Sandusky at a 2007 preseason Penn State football practice with a child – identified only as Victim 1 in the attorney general’s finding of facts – could still be an avenue of investigation. When asked by Yahoo! Sports whether Paterno and McQueary would have had a heightened legal responsibility to report seeing Sandusky and a child together at their team’s practice, Kelly responded, ”That’s a good question. That might have to be addressed down the line.”

McQueary, according to the attorney general’s presentment, was “distraught” at the sight of Sandusky raping a child in the shower five years earlier. Yet he and Paterno presumably would have witnessed Sandusky with another child at practice. Once again, no report was made to police.

After the 2002 incident, the only action Curley and senior vice president Gary Schultz took was to ban Sandusky from bringing children from his charity, The Second Mile, into the football building. They did not report the incident to police, which led to both men being charged with felonies in the case. They stepped down from their university positions Sunday night and were arraigned in Harrisburg on Monday.

The question now is whether Spanier will be charged. According to the attorney general’s presentment of the case, Spanier “reviewed and approved … without further inquiry on his part” the ban placed upon Sandusky. Spanier did not inform police either.

[Yahoo! Sports]

The Ultimate Indignity - Go Rest In Peace Someplace Else

So you're laying there, dead, resting peacefully, and they come along and dig you up and bury you someplace else. How bad is that? On the one hand, if you're dead, you may not even notice. On the other hand, who really knows what's left after you're dead? Your eternal soul may need that body to stay connected to for some reason. What if they dig up your body and your soul can't find it again, for any recharging type thing you may need to do? And let's not even think about cremation and the mess that may cause.

The funniest part of this is the opportunity it provides to express discontent or get revenge on the not so dearly departed.

"I'm not paying for Uncle Pedro to be buried in paradise over there, he screwed around on Aunt Juanita and was a lousy drunk besides. Let them dig him up and throw him in the sewer for all I care."

What's not funny is the fact that this may be the trigger for the zombie attack? When the dead people see the other dead people getting moved that may be the key MOTIVATION to get these lazy dead bastards on the move again. And moving = energy = hunger = we are finished. If you don't believe in the impending zombie attack feel free to find whatever humor you can in the rest of this, but if I were you, I would take it seriously. Or not. Look, I'm not here to micromanage your lives. Just trust me on this.

Pushed for space, a Spanish cemetery has begun placing stickers on thousands of burial sites with lapsed leases as a warning to relatives that their ancestors face possible eviction.

Jose Abadia, deputy urban planning manager for Zaragoza in Spain's northeast, said Monday that the city's Torrero graveyard had already removed remains from some 420 crypts, and reburied them in common ground.

He said the cases involved graves whose leases had not been renewed for 15 years or more. Torrero, like many Spanish cemeteries, no longer allows people to buy grave sites, instead leasing them out for periods of five or 49 years.

Abadia said 7,000 of Torrero's 114,000 burial sites' leases had run out, many of which occurred because relatives — or caretakers — had died themselves, or moved house and failed to renew the contract.

In other cases, family descendants no longer wanted to pay for relatives' plots, he added.

[Associated Press]

Steve Jobs - "Genius" Profits By Working People To Death

Balzac said "behind every great fortune is a crime." While the media talks about Steve Jobs with a reverence usually reserved for God Himself, the fact is, Apple is a big company, and they make a lot of money. At some point in the process, someone is being exploited.

Turns out making those palm-sized miracle gadgets is harder than you may think. Massive production lines, long hours, repetitive tasks, and finally, suicide. All in the name of progress. How did we get along as a race without texting? How do these frills become inescapable necessities? Almost makes me want to root for the talking dogs and zombies against this so called human race.

Now all that remains for me regarding Steve Jobs are his positive comments on hallucinogens. So nobody is all bad.

With the passing of Steve Jobs last month, there have been countless tributes to the man who created the company that changed the world. But along side all the amazingly beautiful, functional and revolutionary products Jobs created, there is a slighter darker side to Apple, which rarely makes headlines.

Mike Daisey, storyteller extraordinaire and lifelong "Machead", explores both the good and the bad surrounding Apple in his new Off Broadway play appropriately titled, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."

The professional monologist joined The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task to talk about the show he created and currently performs in at Manhattan's Public Theater. In the accompanying video, Aaron and Daisey discuss the "agony " aspect of Apple, which focuses on the reportedly horrendous labor conditions in the Chinese manufacturing plants where some Apple products are made.

China's Foxconn: Workers Worked to Death
It was back in the spring of 2010 when at least 10 suicides were reported at Foxconn's manufacturing plant in Shenzhen China. Foxconn is the world's largest electronic manufacturer making product for Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Apple's iPad.

With nearly one million employees throughout China, the suicides raised many questions about the safety and working conditions for the people working in those plants.

As research for his show, Daisey visited Foxconn—a place many journalists and Americans have never visited—and what he found surprised him beyond belief.

"What I was really shocked by was institutionalized dehumanization," he says. "The systems that are put in place are working and the objective of them working is to work people, basically, to death."

He's talking about "massive production lines" where people work "endlessly." Workers are never rotated and end up doing the same task hundreds of thousand of times. "I met many workers whose joints in their hands have disintegrated from doing that work…. [Hands] literally swollen, literally deformed [and] permanently warped," he explains.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Most Americans don't give a second thought to how our toys and gadgets are made or how they make it onto store shelves. Daisey hopes his story will open a few eyes.

But without a question, he believes Steve Jobs, knew what the conditions where on the ground at Foxconn. And the same goes today for Apple's new CEO Tim Cook. "Apple is a company that believes in micromanagement. They pay attention to details," says Daisey. "There is not question in my mind that they know what conditions are like on the ground."

[Daily Ticker via Yahoo! News]

America Loafs While Nigerian Babies Strive For Greatness

I often wonder about the declining quality of journalism. Here's an article - maybe this baby was really qualified? There are some very smart babies out there, right?

Plus this article assumes OUR value system is good. Where babies don't work. All this child labor nonsense. You know what this gets us? Generation after generation of soft spoiled brats.

To me this article reads like a wake up call to America. How can we keep our competitive edge when our babies are falling so far behind? My kids didn't work when they were babies and half of them have moved back in with me. If I had to do it all over again, I would stay here in the US and send my kids to Nigeria, at least for awhile. I think that would have done all of us some good in the long run.

A one-month old baby, said to hold a diploma, was on the Nigerian government payroll, officials have discovered, exposing the levels to which corruption runs in Africa's most populous country.

The name of the infant was recently found on the payment voucher of a local government council in northern Nigeria during an exercise to fish out ghost employees from a bloated workforce, Garba Gajam, justice commissioner for Zamfara State told AFP late Wednesday.

"In the on-going verification exercise of the payrolls ... in the state we discovered that a month-old baby was among the employees of one local government who is paid a salary," Gajam said.

"What is even more astonishing is that it was indicated in the payroll that the infant holds an ordinary national diploma," said Gajam, revealing that the discovery is a "widespread trend in the local government service where senior officials stuff payrolls with the names of their wives and children".

[AFP via Yahoo! News]

Hey I'm Too Busy Running For President To Answer Questions

If there's another shoe, is it big enough to fit in his mouth and close it? I can't understand how they are captivated by this guy Cain when they have TRUMP. And PALIN. If there was a contest to see who could say more stupid things in a day I think Cain would come in third. So how did this happen? Where did this guy come from?

And I love that he can't answer any questions. For legal reasons. How can you think you get to be President without talking about this? Maybe everyone will just say it's okay, and we'll elect him and see how it plays out. If it turns out to be bad we can always impeach him. How bad could it be if he was President for a few weeks?

He ran Godfather's Pizza. How great is that? Hey, we'll have a pizza chain and name it Godfather's. Like the movie. Get it? Italians? They make pizza? Hardy har har.

Palin said she wasn't running for President, but it's possible she would go along for the ride as VP again, and that's the only reason I'm paying attention to this anymore. Once these conventions are over, if she's not on the ticket I'm tuning out and writing in my vote for Iggy Pop.

Is there another shoe? If so, how big? And how hard might it come down on Herman Cain, who so far, has managed to deflect — albeit awkwardly — the allegations of sexual harassment swirling around him this week?

At least one of his female accusers from his days at the National Restaurant Association is eager to talk, according to multiple news reports, but it’s now just a question of whether the lawyers and the association will let this happen.

“She’s been very upset about this since the story broke last Sunday because Mr. Cain has been giving the impression she came out and made false allegations,” Joel Bennett, the lawyer for one of Cain’s accusers said in an interview on CNN last night. “That’s certainly not true and she’s still deciding once we hear from the Restaurant Association what she’ll do — if they’ll waive the confidentiality. Until they do that, she’s not going to speak out.”

In his own television interview late yesterday on Fox News, Cain declined to say whether he would ask the Restaurant Association to waive the confidentiality agreement.

“I can’t answer that now because there are legal implications. If the restaurant association waves that — I just found out about this today — there are legal implications associated with that I am not totally familiar with yet,” he told Fox Brett Baier. “So, I can’t give you a definitive answer on that until we consult with our attorneys and talk with some others.”

[ABC News]