Ruining It For Everybody

Guy has a problem with his girlfriend so he has to burn the place down. Honestly I have not been to a topless coffee shop but it sounds pretty cool. This episode makes it that much less likely that I will have this wonderful experience. Drag.

Happy New Year. Really.

A man blamed for a fire that destroyed a coffee shop where topless waitresses worked has been found guilty of arson.

A jury convicted Raymond Bellavance Jr. on Friday after deliberating for four hours.

Prosecutors said "anger and jealousy" caused Bellavance to set fire to the coffee shop, where his ex-girlfriend worked as a waitress. Deputy District Attorney Alan Kelley told jurors Bellavance was "a volatile man" who was quick to anger because his former girlfriend was having a relationship with the shop's owner, the Bangor Daily News reported.

The Grand View Coffee Shop in Vassalboro, a town of about 4,000 residents just north of the state capital, Augusta, burned down June 3, 2009.

[Associated Press]

Like Minded People Watered Down, Thank God

This is always a problem. Where like minded people are watered down. Like plants. They should all throw in behind PALIN. I don't understand what's wrong with these people. Come on! Trump/Palin. If that isn't a LOCK to bust out Obama and his hopey changey shit I don't know what is. They ate PIZZA together. This country doesn't deserve them. Or Obama, who is doing his best and is under appreciated.

I personally would love to tell people to shut up because they are watering down my impact but I am powerless on this score. Also, religious people are easier to water down, but that is a trade secret.

Flip side, none of these people are even remotely qualified to be President in these trying and troubled times. Happy New Year.

Two politically active pastors in Iowa's robust evangelical conservative movement said Wednesday that an effort has been under way to persuade either Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann to consider quitting the Republican presidential race and endorsing the other to avoid splintering this influential voting bloc's influence in the state's caucuses.

"Otherwise, like-minded people will be divided and water down their impact," said Rev. Cary Gordon, a Sioux City minister. He said he asked Santorum several weeks ago to consider exiting the race but has since endorsed the former Pennsylvania senator, who is rising in polls.

Rev. Albert Calloway, a retired pastor from Indianola, said he asked Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, several days ago to consider quitting the race.

A group of voters that united behind former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's winning caucus campaign in 2008 fear that this year's caucuses could be won by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Neither track as closely to the religious right as Santorum, Bachmann or Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Santorum, long dismissed and short on campaign money, has diligently campaigned in Iowa for more than two years. A CNN poll of Iowa caucus-goers released Wednesday showed Santorum leaping into third place in Iowa, at 16 percentage points, behind Romney and Paul.

[Associated Press]

Goodness Outweighed By Cynicism At Every Turn

Here's a happy story about how good people are. I'm just going to present it here, almost without comment...

Except to say, why is it so shocking when something good happens? And I really think the Taiwanese Consulate or whoever needs to look into this, no matter how it turned out.

Ultimately the real downer here is carelessness? You loan this kid a nice axe and she's as spaced as Ace Frehley after a night in Detroit.

"Hey wha hey I forgot my stuff man hey. Yeah another seven and seven."

This could just as easily have triggered an entry about people grabbing whatever they could lay their hands on. It's all a roll of the dice.

Christmas came early for a Boston music student who was reunited with the $170,000 violin she forgot in the overhead compartment of a regional commuter bus she rode last week, police said.

Muchen Hsieh, a student at the New England Conservatory in Boston, had traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, arriving at roughly 11 p.m. on Tuesday.

Christine O'Brien, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia police, who helped Hsieh track down the missing instrument, said then came a moment of sheer panic for the student.

O'Brien said Hsieh realized she had forgotten the instrument after she was picked up from the bus station. She blamed her absent-mindedness on travel fatigue.

Hsieh called the bus company, Megabus, roughly 30 minutes after she arrived but the bus had already left the Philadelphia station, O'Brien said. Hsieh also notified police, making a plea for the instrument's recovery, O'Brien said.

The 176-year-old instrument, on loan to Hsieh from a Taiwanese cultural foundation, was found by bus cleaners in the same compartment in which Hsieh left it. They put it in storage, and police returned it to Hsieh on Friday.

[Reuters]

It Will All Be Over Soon

Just a brief interruption from shopping here, which is the whole point of Christmas anyway. It's good to know that we still have a safety net, the reliable hospital emergency room, when all else fails.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Daily Downers. Right.

On a recent shift at a Chicago emergency department, Dr. William Sullivan treated a newly homeless patient who was threatening to kill himself.

"He had been homeless for about two weeks. He hadn't showered or eaten a lot. He asked if we had a meal tray," said Sullivan, a physician at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago and a past president of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians.

Sullivan said the man kept repeating that he wanted to kill himself. "It seemed almost as if he was interested in being admitted."

Across the country, doctors like Sullivan are facing a spike in psychiatric emergencies - attempted suicide, severe depression, psychosis - as states slash mental health services and the country's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression takes its toll.

This trend is taxing emergency rooms already overburdened by uninsured patients who wait until ailments become acute before seeking treatment.

"These are people without a previous psychiatric history who are coming in and telling us they've lost their jobs, they've lost sometimes their homes, they can't provide for their families, and they are becoming severely depressed," said Dr. Felicia Smith, director of the acute psychiatric service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

[Reuters]

God Gives North Korea Most Favored Nation Status

Talk about a downer, this is just the clearest evidence that we are not the supreme beings on Earth. You never hear of anything like this happening when a President dies, right? So if this goes on when Kim Jong Il dies, that means God is clearly closer to North Korea than North America, and all of our ideas about ourselves as Americans being the center of the universe are upside down. God loves North Korea, and connects with THEM.

Snowstorms, volcanos, Manchurian cranes. We ain't got nothing like that. Shit.

North Korea says a fierce snowstorm paused and the sky began glowing red above sacred Mount Paektu just minutes before leader Kim Jong Il's death.

State media say the ice on volcanic Lake Chon at the mountain in the far north cracked with a load roar.

And in the city of Hamhung, a Manchurian crane circled a statue of Kim's father, late President Kim Il Sung, before alighting on a tree, its head drooping before it took off toward Pyongyang.

State media say Kim died Saturday morning at age 69. His death was announced two days later.

Similar myths and legends also surround Kim Jong Il's birth on Mount Paektu. Official biographies say he was born on Paektu and that a double rainbow filled the skies when he was born.

[Associated Press]

Cheer Up Jerks

If it makes them feel good why not? I wonder if pissing into this thing would cheer me up. It looks nice. I don't know if I could go? Maybe they should have a program to loan people money to buy these things in America as well. Can you get toilet financing?

I was going to try to link this to the decline of civilization but that may be incorrect. This could be real progress and I just can't see it. There's a lot of craftmanship involved? I don't have to be cynical about everything. Just because a guy is rich enough to have a crystal toilet doesn't make him a bad person. You'd have to look good sitting on one of these.

I had no idea about this whole toilet God thing either. You can write that in a sentence and some people will know what that means as a REAL God. Come on. Really worth reading this one through. I promise.

Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but crystals are clearly for asses. That's what Japanese interior-fixtures maker Lixil believes, and it's proving it with this awesomely blinged-out toilet under its Inax brand.

The Satis loo is decked out in 72,000 Swarovski crystals and is valued at $130,000, according to Lixil. It's on display at the company's showroom just outside Tokyo's tony Ginza district.

"2011 was a really tough year for Japan, with the earthquake and tsunami disasters," says Lixil's Shintaro Kaai. "We wanted to do this to cheer everybody up just before Christmas."

Japan's toilets are renowned for high-tech functions such as automatic lid opening, adjustable sprays, and remote controls. Satis models come with standard spray functions and can operate on as little as 1 gallon per flush.

Some toilets have more exotic features such as MP3 playback and urine analysis. Talking, rolling gag toilets have also been unleashed on the population.

Toilet engineering, however, reflects traditional beliefs in a "toilet god," a Shinto deity who lives around loos. Keeping the bathroom clean would not only please the god. It was said to promise beauty and easy childbirth for women.

[cnet.com]

Another Day, Another Disaster In The Making

I wonder how the arch right wing anti-global warming folks will spin this one? Maybe all that methane is going to be good? Will help us lower taxes on rich people? With any luck it won't matter or perhaps it will only have local impact on the Russians. This scientist here says it's "amazing." That sounds kind of optimistic. What's under all that ice? Well, I hope we'll come through this one okay.

I've got my fingers crossed.

Russian scientists have discovered hundreds of plumes of methane gas, some 1,000 meters in diameter, bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic Shelf recedes, the unprecedented levels of gas released could greatly accelerate global climate change.

Igor Semiletov of the Russian Academy of Sciences tells the UK's Independent that the plumes of methane, a gas 20 times as harmful as carbon dioxide, have shocked scientists who have been studying the region for decades. "Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of meters in diameter," he said. "This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing."

Semiletov said that while his research team has discovered more than 100 plumes, they estimate there to be "thousands" over the wider area, extending from the Russian mainland to the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.

"In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed," Semiletov said. "We carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale — I think on a scale not seen before. Some plumes were a kilometer or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere — the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal."

[yahoo! news]

New Budget Solution - Freeze The Poor

Raise taxes on the very wealthiest Americans? No. Cut funding for poor people to heat their homes, or trailers? Yes. Any more questions America?

I love where Senator Snowe (she's from Maine and talking about cold weather so OF COURSE her name is Snowe!) said this underscores how badly the nation needs a comprehensive energy policy. You mean driving Escalades until the sky turns black is not an energy policy? You're kidding? How about fracking to release natural gas and destroy the remaining supply of clean water? That doesn't count? Building more nuclear plants? What would she call a comprehensive energy policy if this isn't it? She must be talking about a policy to SAVE energy. Our policies to WASTE energy are the envy of the rest of the free world.

Ultimately this may be part of a "comprehensive" plan of another type. First we freeze the poor. Then we can them and serve them as food. This is more "out of the can" thinking rather than "out of the box" thinking, but either way we here at Daily Downers are doing a better job of coming up with plans and ideas than the mugs that pass for our leaders today.

Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid Massachusetts winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can't afford enough heating oil to stay warm.

She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston's West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius), as she plans.

"I will just have to crawl into bed with the covers over me and stay there," said Power, a widow who worked as a cashier and waitress until she was 80. "I will do what I have to do."

Thousands of poor people across the U.S. Northeast are bracing for a difficult winter with substantially less home heating aid coming from the federal government.

"They're playing Russian roulette with people's lives," said John Drew, who heads Action for Boston Community Development, Inc., which provides aid to low-income residents in Massachusetts.

The issue could flare just as New Hampshire votes in the Republican presidential primary.

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, said she hopes the candidates will take up the region's heating aid crunch because it underscores how badly the country needs a comprehensive energy policy.

Several Northeast states already have reduced heating aid benefits to families as Congress considers cutting more than $1 billion from last year's $4.7 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that served nearly 9 million households.

[Associated Press]

I Have A Dream

Trump is not the kingmaker he thinks he is but there is a real gem in here. It says he may do a third party run. He has said that if he couldn't find a decent GOP candidate to support he might have to run on his own and he also said he has the money to do it. Sounds like a real threat.

I don't know why having only two candidates would stop Trump from hosting the debate. He could do it without any candidates. I would tune in to watch him debate HIMSELF. Maybe he could do one of those exercises where you have to take both sides of the question.

But seriously, if he runs, my dream could still become reality. For first time readers, the dream is...Trump runs, picks Palin as VP, they win, divorce their respective spouses, get married and live in the White House. IT COULD STILL HAPPEN. As I'm waiting for this website to become my cash cow.

Business mogul Donald Trump said Friday he might scrub a presidential debate that so far has drawn only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

Trump, the reality television star who has not ruled out an independent White House bid, had hoped for all of the Republican candidates to join in a debate he would moderate Dec. 27 in Iowa. Most have decided not to, leaving only Gingrich, a former House speaker, and Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator.

"I have to look into it," Trump told Fox Business Network when asked whether he would host a two-candidate debate.

Trump was most indignant about Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann skipping out.

"She came up to see me four times. She would call me and ask me for advice," Trump said. "She said if she wins, she would like to think about me for the vice presidency. Most importantly, I did a two-hour phone call for her with her people. ... And after all that, she announced she was not going to do the debate. It's called loyalty. How do you do that? It's amazing to me."

Trump has said he might endorse a Republican but could make a third-party run himself.

Some conservatives grouse his involvement is tarnishing the GOP's image and nominating process.

"This is exactly what is wrong with politics. It's show business over substance," said former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who is skipping the debate.

"I didn't know he had the ability to lay on hands and anoint people," said Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who is also skipping it.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry also plan to skip it.

[Associated Press]

The One Percenters Of The Music World

Hubert Sumlin died Sunday. If you ask 10 people if they've ever heard of this guy, I'd say maybe TWO would know him. If you ask 10 people if they've ever heard of Eric Clapton, of course they have. All of them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for hard rocking Brit bands. I've been reading some interviews with Jim Dickinson, a Memphis music legend, and he has to defy political correctness to say that black people play the blues, and white people CAN'T play the blues, they play ROCK. And ROCK is cool. For one thing, the Brits made it LOUD, and they just hit everything HARDER. Good stuff in there.

Cream put out an album "Wheels of Fire." If you add up the tracks on this album, it should've had a disclaimer on it, "30% Hubert Sumlin," because about a side and a half had Sumlin as the foundation, and Clapton just blasted out over it and that was that. Extra downer here in that Sumlin was a sideman, and did not get any songwriting royalties when these songs were covered. Led Zeppelin tried to go even further and get around the songwriting royalties, they just STOLE songs from Willie Dixon and retitled them, until they had to go to court. This is part of why my favorites were The Who. They were not quite as derivative. It was really "ROCK" and not just "ROCK (that we made from blues)."

I don't begrudge these Brits their success. I love those records. Plus the Brits jammed with Hubert on his records to help him out. Can't help noticing though...Eric Clapton can roll out of bed tomorrow and phone his booking agent and get 30 gigs across the U.S. with about 25,000 people in each hall, charge $200 and up for tickets and make millions of dollars. Just like THAT.

I saw Hubert Sumlin once, at a place called Abilene Cafe in NYC. He was unbelievable, and he walked out in the street with a long guitar cable to jam with the passing traffic. The taxis honked at him, standing on the corner. Abilene Cafe held maybe 200 people. If he made $3,000 that night it would've been a lot.

So if you apply the "Occupy Wall Street" logic, my Brit guitar heroes are actually the One Percenters of music. Isn't every business ultimately like this? The richest of the rich rock hedge fund managers, living in castles, chauffered in limos, and no doubt able to boff models whenever they like despite their advanced age. And then there's Hubert Sumlin, working man.

RIP to an all-timer.

Hubert Sumlin, the guitarist whose slashing solos and innovative ideas galvanized the blues of Howlin’ Wolf and inspired rock guitar players like Jimmy Page, Robbie Robertson and Eric Clapton, died on Sunday in Wayne, N.J. He was 80.

His death was announced on his official Web site, hubertsumlinblues.com. No cause was specified.

Mr. Sumlin began appearing on Howlin’ Wolf’s recordings in 1953, first as a rhythm guitarist and then, beginning in 1955, on lead guitar. Mr. Sumlin’s eerie guitar counterpart to Howlin’ Wolf’s unearthly moaning on the 1956 hit “Smokestack Lightnin’ ” has lately been featured in a television commercial for Viagra. He also played lead on “Back Door Man,” “Spoonful” and “The Red Rooster,” all written and arranged by the Chicago blues trailblazer Willie Dixon.

“Dixon’s often astute novelty lyrics and shrewd arrangements were topped off by Sumlin’s imaginative, angular, taut attack, frequent glisses, maniacally wide vibrato and percussive chords, all drawn with an exaggerated brush,” the producer Dick Shurman observed of Mr. Sumlin’s relentlessly inventive playing in his liner notes to a 1991 boxed set of Howlin’ Wolf’s work for Chess Records.

“Back Door Man,” “Spoonful” and “The Red Rooster” were later made even more famous in versions released, respectively, by the Doors, Cream and the Rolling Stones. All three originally appeared on Howlin’ Wolf’s 1962 LP “Howlin’ Wolf,” which the critic Greil Marcus called “the finest of all Chicago blues albums,” largely because of Mr. Sumlin’s contribution.

[NY Times]

With A Whimper, Not A Bang

Changed dramatically for the worse. MUCH worse. Yawn. More yahoos arguing that global warming is bunk. There will not be a collective uprising on this until it is WAY too late with the water coming in through the windows.

Makes me wonder. Would you rather dissect each impending disaster, the way we do it here at Daily Downers, and mull it over each day, and then finally wake up to the zombies and realize how cool and RIGHT you were...or would you rather IGNORE everything and then wake up and see the zombies and be really surprised?

Either way the zombies are coming. If you read this all the time maybe you're getting upset about things that don't matter, because the zombies are coming anyway. And if you don't read it, maybe you had more fun, or maybe you DIDN'T have more fun because you weren't that smart or cool and couldn't find anything better than Daily Downers and you would've have had a few laughs over here on your way to the bitter end.

Two points. One - we'll never know. Two - it doesn't matter. I could go on through point three (you can't win), but you get the picture.

Federal officials say the Arctic region has changed dramatically in the past five years — for the worse.

It's melting at a near record pace, and it's darkening and absorbing too much of the sun's heat.

A new report card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rates the polar region with blazing red stop lights on three of five categories and yellow cautions for the other two. Overall, these are not good grades, but it doesn't mean the Arctic is doomed and it still will freeze in the winter, said report co-editor Jackie Richter-Menge.

The Arctic acts as Earth's refrigerator, cooling the planet. What's happening, scientists said, is like someone pushing the fridge's thermostat much too high.

"It's not cooling as well as it used to," Richter-Menge said.

The dramatic changes are from both man-made global warming and recent localized weather shifts, which were on top of the longer term warming trend, scientists said.

The report, written by 121 scientists from around the world, said statistics point to a shift in the Arctic health in 2006. That was right before 2007, when a mix of weather conditions and changing climate led to a record loss of sea ice, from which the region has never recovered. This summer's sea ice melt was the second worst on record, a tad behind 2007.

"We've got a new normal," said co-author Don Perovich, a geophysicist at the Army Corps of Engineers Cold Research and Engineering Lab. "Whether it's a tipping point and we'll never recover, who's to say?"

[Associated Press]

Man's Best Friend Is An Enemy Preparing For Global Conquest

Months ago, maybe even a year ago, I came across a story on Nazis and talking dogs and posted here about it. Once again, Daily Downers is ahead of the curve in predicting the evolving apocalyptic disaster that will soon engulf us all.

This is a story I haven't seen in the mainstream press. What's fascinating is that the author feels compelled to offer an explanation, even though he has NO IDEA what this DOG was thinking. How could he? Says, the dog "was apparently excited to join his owner in the marsh" and jumped up and stepped on the gun, causing it to discharge.

How the hell does this guy know the dog was EXCITED? This happens all the time, where writers assume they know what PEOPLE are thinking. Now it's DOG telepathy. Come on.

I'm reading this and I have a different interpetation. The dog was PISSED. He's out in a CANOE in a SHALLOW MARSH. My dog likes to sleep in, preferably next to a heater or on top of a blanket. So I think THIS dog said to himself "you know what, fuck this guy, I've had it with his bullshit." The dog has probably seen the guy shoot this gun before and knew exactly what he was doing. The dog can't pick up the gun and AIM it, but it was laying there, pointed at his owner's ass, and the dog figured, "this is the best shot I can get, so I'm going for it." Ka-boom!

Trust me, all these mutts are slowly gathering skills and intelligence and soon we'll be faced with an army of armed, talking dogs who know how to use weapons and then we are SCREWED. If you want to buy into this "man's best friend" line of crap you're welcome to it. But don't say I didn't warn you. AGAIN!

Dogs are man's best friend. Except, you know, when they're shooting a gun at you.

And strangely enough, that's what really happened to a hapless dog owner in Brigham City, Utah. The man in question--a 46-year-old hunting enthusiast who is not named in local news reports on the incident--got a behind-full of birdshot courtesy of his loyal canine companion when he was out duck hunting over the weekend.

KSL.com reports the man and his dog were traveling in a canoe-like boat when the man stepped out into a shallow marsh to set up some decoys. His left his 12-gauge shotgun resting across the bow of the boat, according to Box Elder County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Potter.

That's when the dog "did something to make the gun discharge," Potter said. "I don't know if the safety device was on. It's not impossible the dog could have taken it off safety."

Apparently excited to join his owner in the marsh, the dog jumped up on the boat's bow and stepped on the gun. The gun was fired, hitting the man in the buttocks with 27 pellets of birdshot.

The man promptly called 9-1-1, and is now reportedly recovering. Potter said that thanks to a well-positioned pair of waders--the hip-length rubber boots he was wearing at the time--the dog owner was able to avoid a more serious gunshot wound.

[yahoo! news]

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]