Losing your memory? You're gonna' love this song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzSaoN2LdfU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Get ready to laugh! I think most of us can recognize ourselves in this one!

Read More

Tim Pawlenty says Michele Bachmann would be a strong candidate for President

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/tim-pawlenty-michele-bachmann-president_n_816231.html

Oh PLEASE, PLEASE let her run!  Oh, PLEASE, PLEASE let her be the Republican candidate!!!  Oh PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!!!

Read More

Fascinating 45-minute online video -- Missing Secrets of Nikola Tesla

The Missing Secrets of Nikola Tesla  from The Phenomenon Archives -- Dean Stockwell, host
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2188562935002257117#

This is an excellent presentation of the work of Nikola Tesla.  It also reveals many of the "secrets" of Tesla's experiments that are no doubt being used by our country today (HAARP weather experimentation, for instance). Immediately upon Tesla's death in 1943, the FBI rushed into his small hotel room and took away all of his papers, which they made sure were kept hidden from the public eye. 

If you are at all curious and think of yourself as a seeker of truth in science and government, this video belongs on your "must-see" list.  Once you have viewed it, you may have a broader understanding of gpvernment mysteries in our present day.  For certain, you will experience wonderment at the lost opportunities of our world because of the greed of a few power-mad men such as J. P. Morgan.  Without their personal arrogance and lust for power, fueled by fear and greed, our world could have been completely different today.  But unfortunately those small-minded men would not allow us to benefit from the free energy Tesla was offering the planet.  Tesla was a man born too soon -- a man of genius and high consciousness, whose ideas and ideals were too far beyond the ken of the lower types on the planet.  That is still true today.  We are a species that evolves very slowly when it comes to consciousness.  J. P. Morgan and Dick Cheney, men of the same low consciousness, would have been best buddies had they been born in the same time period.

If you decide to view this video, I think you will agree it was well worth your time.  Even if you know about Tesla and his work, the video can add even more knowledge of the man--and the missed opportunities of our world.

Read More

Two Nobel prize winning scientists take homeopathy seriously

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/luc-montagnier-homeopathy-taken-seriously_b_814619.html 

It's good to see this information being presented to the public by credentialed scientists. My own experience with homeopathic remedies has proven to me that they are effective, but Big Pharma and the AMA have tried to bury the evidence. For anyone who may be curious to explore beyond the walls put up by those who deride alternative health care, this article can provide some very interesting information.

EXCERPT:

Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the AIDS virus, has surprised the scientific community with his strong support for homeopathic medicine.

In a remarkable interview published in Science magazine of December 24, 2010, (1) Professor Luc Montagnier, has expressed support for the often maligned and misunderstood medical specialty of homeopathic medicine. Although homeopathy has persisted for 200+ years throughout the world and has been the leading alternative treatment method used by physicians in Europe, (2) most conventional physicians and scientists have expressed skepticism about its efficacy due to the extremely small doses of medicines used.

Most clinical research conducted on homeopathic medicines that has been published in peer-review journals have shown positive clinical results,(3, 4) especially in the treatment of respiratory allergies (5, 6), influenza, (7) fibromyalgia, (8, 9) rheumatoid arthritis, (10) childhood diarrhea, (11) post-surgical abdominal surgery recovery, (12) attention deficit disorder, (13) and reduction in the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. (14) In addition to clinical trials, several hundred basic science studies have confirmed the biological activity of homeopathic medicines. One type of basic science trials, called in vitro studies, found 67 experiments (1/3 of them replications) and nearly 3/4 of all replications were positive. (15, 16)

Read More

THE TEA PARTY WAGS THE REPUBLICAN DOG

Ya' gotta' love the hypocrisy of Paul Ryan who now, with Obama as President, rages against doing the very things Ryan himself has done (i.e., voting twice to increase the debt limits in the Bush years).

THE TEA PARTY WAGS THE DOG
By Frank Rich
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/opinion/30rich.html?_r=1&hp

EXCERPT:

The most revealing moment in either Republican response [to Obama's State of the Union address] came from Ryan, who, as chairman of the House Budget Committee, implicitly threatened another government shutdown, or catastrophic fiscal meltdown, if the House majority doesn’t get its way. “The president is now urging Congress to increase the debt limit,” he said with distaste, referring to the vote required possibly as soon as March to allow the Treasury to keep paying its bills. Should the House majority hold that vote hostage to its vision of the budget, it will throw the markets into turmoil and upend our still-embryonic recovery.

It tells you all you need to know about Ryan’s tilt to the right that, for all his professed disapproval of increasing the debt limit during an Obama administration, he voted to do so twice himself during the gushing deficits of the Bush years. Funny he didn’t mention that Tuesday night. It tells you all you need to know about the G.O.P.’s overall tilt to the right that not just the Tea Party is making barely veiled threats to play dangerous political games with the debt limit. Mitch McConnell and Cantor did so last weekend, as have a plethora of potential 2012 presidential candidates, from Tim Pawlenty to Gingrich. The Bachmann-Beck-Palin tail is now firmly wagging the Republican dog.

Like virtually every other week since the shellacking, the State of the Union week was another salutary one for Obama. But the state of the union itself could yet be in the hands of radicals whose eagerness to see the president fail is outstripped only by their zeal to make an ideological point, even if it forces America into default.

Read More

Bachmann wants to cut health benefits for vets

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/bachmann-veterans-cuts/
I wonder how the right wing veterans will like this proposal by one of their favorite politicians?  I hope it doesn't make them admire and support her any the less.  I would love to see a Palin/Bachmann Republican ticket for president in 2012.

Read More

WONDERFUL VIDEO: How to cuddle with an elephant seal

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1621142371838

What a beautiful connection!  The elephant seal is smitten!  You're going to LOVE this video!

Read More

Enough is ENOUGH! Glenn Beck's latest target is receiving Death Threats

This is over the line, even for Beck. Tell advertisers to Drop Fox right now.

Glenn Beck's latest conspiracy theory target is a 78-year-old professor who, 45 years ago, published an article with her husband which posited that people overwhelming the welfare rolls could put enough stress on the system that it would force the need for certain reforms to help the poor.

The result? City University of New York professor and longtime advocate for the poor and working class, Frances Fox Piven has been receiving repeated death threats on online message boards and has personally received angry and violent emails.¹

Beck has chosen to escalate these attacks even after the sad instance of political violence we recently experienced -- and are still recovering from -- in Arizona. Amidst calls to bring an end to incendiary, violence-causing rhetoric, Beck is doubling down, and if his network and advertisers simply sit back and watch, they must be held accountable for any violence this rhetoric may reap.

This is over the line, even for Beck. Tell advertisers to Drop Fox right now.

Advertisers' sponsorship of the network that gives Beck his platform is unacceptable. Let these companies know that Americans are watching them and are ready to hold them accountable.

Beck says that the Frances Fox Piven and her now-deceased husband's goal was to "intentionally collapse our economic system," and he traces every paranoid fantasy of liberal plots to destroy America and capitalism (the mythical "voter fraud" by ACORN, health care and financial reform, the Obama presidency itself) directly to what he calls the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" (Cloward being Piven's late husband).

In light of the escalation of violent, rage-filled comments directed at Piven by presumed Beck fans, groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights have been calling on Fox News to make Beck cease his personal attacks. But Fox refuses. According to the New York Times:

Joel Cheatwood, a senior vice president, said Friday that Mr. Beck would not be ordered to stop talking about Ms. Piven on television. He said Mr. Beck had quoted her accurately and had never threatened her.

"'The Glenn Beck Program,' probably above and beyond any on television, has denounced violence repeatedly," Mr. Cheatwood said.

Mr. Cheatwood, that is simply not true. Here's what we know:

Byron Williams, the would-be assassin of staff of the ACLU and the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, who was stopped by police in a shootout in July 2010, cited Glenn Beck as his inspiration, specifically singling out Beck programs from June of that year in which Williams said Beck had "been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption." It was on his Fox News show of June 10 that year that Glenn Beck said, "You're gonna have to shoot them in the head," in reference to Democrats such as then U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who he described as a Marxist "revolutionary" and "communist."

Now this cycle is starting to repeat itself right before our very eyes!

Enough is enough. Make advertisers Drop Fox now.

It's very important that after you take action, you share this petition with others -- recommending it to your friends on Facebook is one great way.

Thanks for standing up to right-wing bullies and their dangerous attacks.

-- Ben Betz, Online Communications Manager

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/business/media/22beck.htmOO

Read More

Washington Post Milbank: Regarding Bachmann

It's hard to imagine that anyone would actually vote for Michele Bachmann. Yet she has her followers, whose IQ's are probably no higher than hers...which is very frightening to contemplate.  Heartening, though, to see all the Readers' Comments at the end, which proves sane people still inhabit our country.

Michele Bachmann's Alternate Universe
By Dana Milbank

  T he president was lofty.

"We will move forward together, or not at all - for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics," he said in his State of the Union address.

The official Republican response, too, aimed high.

"Americans are skeptical of both political parties, and that skepticism is justified - especially when it comes to spending," said Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. "So hold all of us accountable."

And then there was Michele Bachmann.

As the leader of the Tea Party Caucus in the House, the Minnesota Republican gave her own, unauthorized response to the State of the Union, live from the National Press Club, filmed by Fox News, broadcast live on CNN and telecast by the Tea Party Express. It had all the altitude of a punch to the gut.

"After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the massive budget bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money we don't have," Bachmann said. "But, instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt, unlike anything we have seen in the history of our country."

Armed with charts and photographs, but not a word of fellowship, she railed against "a bureaucracy that tells us which light bulbs to buy, and which may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama's health care bill."

The State of the Nation was conciliatory Tuesday night, as each side made gestures to the other, and lawmakers for the first time crossed the aisle to sit - and applaud - together. But Bachmann and her fellow Tea Partyers raged on.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, for one, was not pleased. "Paul Ryan is giving the official Republican response," he said when asked earlier about her dueling response. "Michele Bachmann, just as the other 534 members of the House and Senate, are going to have opinions as to the State of the Union."

For Republican leaders, it's more than a one-night problem. Bachmann is bidding to become the new voice of the opposition, replacing the titular leaders of the GOP.

In the past week alone, Bachmann visited Iowa to test the waters for a presidential campaign and scored fifth in a field of 20 presidential candidates in a New Hampshire straw poll, besting such established figures as Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, John Thune, Haley Barbour and Mike Pence.

Returning to Washington, she hosted Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at a gathering of her Tea Party Caucus, then went for an appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News and a keynote speech to the March for Life's annual dinner. And that was all before her Tea Party response to the State of the Union address.

Two dozen reporters chased her down a hall in the Capitol complex this week, seeking an explanation for the speech. "I never took this as a State of the Union response, necessarily," she said innocently. The title above the text of her speech her office released Tuesday night: "Bachmann's Response to State of the Union."

Party leaders, intimidated by the Tea Party activists, have little control over Bachmann. They denied her the party leadership post she sought, but when it came to her plan to upstage the authorized GOP response Tuesday night, the most House Speaker John Boehner could do was grumble that it's "a little unusual."

Bachmann is more than a little unusual. Her greatest hits are now legendary: Her suggestion that President Obama and the Democrats are "anti-American," her caution that the census could be used to create internment camps, her accusation that Obama is running a "gangster government" and her request that people be "armed and dangerous" to fight climate-change legislation.

At a time colleagues have toned down their words, Bachmann went to Iowa and proclaimed: "If we want to kill Obamacare and we want to end socialized medicine, it must be done in the next election!"

"It is my firm belief that America is under greater attack now ... than at any time," she warned, voicing "grave doubt" about the nation's survival. She presented to the assembled Iowans a novel view of American history in which the "founders ... worked tirelessly until slavery was no more." In Bachmann's version, "It didn't matter the color of their skin... . Once you got here, we were all the same."

She was at it again Tuesday night. She ignored the bipartisan seating plan and placed herself between two other Tea Party House Republicans. Soon after, she was on air herself, reading out choice slogans: "failed stimulus ... repeal Obamacare ... government-run coverage ... voted out the big-spending politicians."

It was angry, and at times wrong, but Bachmann has gone far with that formula.

Read More

Rewriting history -- Tea Party Style

The saddest thing about this is that the same followers of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin think Bachmann is wonderful, too -- and they believe EVERYthing that is told to them by these Tea Party nutcases.  The Limbaugh and Beck "dittoheads" actually see their "leaders" as the equals of Obama.  No, what is worse, they really see Bachmann and Palin and the others as better than Obama.  Pathetic and lamentably sad. 

From Talking Points Memo

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) had an interesting take this weekend on America's first European settlers, who she said "had different cultures, different backgrounds, different traditions."

"How unique in all of the world, that one nation that was the resting point from people groups all across the world," she said. "It didn't matter the color of their skin, it didn't matter their language, it didn't matter their economic status."

"Once you got here, we were all the same. Isn't that remarkable?" she asked.

Speaking at an Iowans For Tax Relief event, Bachmann (R-MN) also noted how slavery was a "scourge" on American history, but added that "we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

"And," she continued, "I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forebearers who worked tirelessly -- men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country."

It's true -- Adams became a vocal opponent of slavery, especially during his time in the House of Representatives. But Adams was not one of the founders, nor did he live to see the Emancipation Proclamation signed in 1863 (he died in 1848).

Bachmann's story has more shameful errors than one can recount, but the most disturbing thing about her speech is that these errors appear deliberate, in service of a whitewashed, Tea Party vision of the American founding, where the Founders could do no wrong.

Bachmann makes no mention of the Founders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who owned and sold slaves throughout their lives. Nor does she bring up those stinging phrases from the Constitution such as "three-fifths of all other persons" that enshrined the institution of the slavery in our Nation's charter until it was amended after the Civil War. Rather, she, like her colleagues on the House floor recently, left these portions out, and she ended her story about John Quincy Adams (age 8 when his father, John Adams, signed the Declaration of Independence) with the admonition that "Instead of continuously going back and looking at the weaknesses and stains of America, let's look at the greatness of America . . ."

America is great and so were our Founders, but America's Founders were not perfect. By deifying the founding moment, Bachmann and the Tea Party ignore the great and enduring accomplishments of successive generations of Americans -- the Reconstruction Republicans (Amendments 13-15), the Progressives (Amendments 16 -17), the Women's Suffrage Movement (Amendment 19), the Civil Rights Movement (Amendment 24) -- who fought tirelessly to make our Constitution and this country the "more perfect union" we live in today.

The lightness of Michele Bachmann's historical account isn't unbearable because of its inaccuracies: it's unbearable because it misrepresents the arc of historical progress that makes America great.

Read More

GOP MANTRA: "For me, but not for thee"

By David Sirota

"For me, but not for thee" -- this could be the motto of 21st-century elitists, or Republican politicians (which are more or less the same thing) and two stories this week show how that mantra works in practice.

The first comes from ThinkProgress about how 97 percent of Republican congresspeople are keeping their taxpayer subsidized health insurance while voting to deny that kind of health insurance to other Americans... because, you know, government health care is great for Republican politicians, but apparently too lavish for the Rest of Us:

According to a ThinkProgress analysis, seven, or just three percent of all the Republicans in the House have agreed to give up their insurance while they vote to repeal coverage for some 32 million Americans...The majority of the GOP still sees nothing wrong in purchasing tax-payer subsidized insurance while trying to deny coverage to the taxpayer.

The second story comes from Ohio's new archconservative governor, John Kasich. Here's an excerpt from the Akron Beacon Journal's editorial explaining the situation:

John Kasich kept his promise. When word surfaced that the governor would pay his top aides significantly higher salaries than paid during the Ted Strickland years, Kasich explained that his overall staff budget would be lower than his predecessor spent...Kasich suffers from a flaw in his logic. He argues that he must pay his staff members more because he is competing with the private sector for their talent...

(The) disconnect involves the governor's harsh words for many in the public sector, especially unions, about failing to understand the principle of sacrifice. Kasich insists they make do with less. Then, he turns around and pays his chief of staff $47,000 a year more than the Strickland chief of staff.

So when it comes to Gov. Kasich getting a top-notch, taxpayer-funded entourage around himself, he says he needs to pay employees a whole helluva lot more than they made under previous administrations. But when it comes to state services for his constituents, Gov. Kasich says taxpayers should cut pay for state workers and thus, by his own logic, not attract a top-notch workforce to deliver those services.

As I said -- the attitude among these Republican elitists is "For me, but not for thee."

Read More

Good essay on Olbermann

I agree -- Keith will be back, one way or another. Truth will always win out in the end.  As people grow wiser, they will eventually see the faux news put out by FOX and other right wing media for the pap that it is.  Common sense wedded to truth will appeal to all but the most ignorant right wingers.  There are many intelligent Republicans in our country, and they are not fooled by the likes of FOX, Limbaugh, Beck, or Palin. My brother is one of them. When I recently visited him, he told me: I will never vote for Sarah Palin--NEVER! I take heart from that (~.~), and I believe there are many others like him who want to cleave to the principles of the original Republican party, but recognize the Tea Party types for the ignoramuses that they are.  My brother is a compassionate, loving man--a true helper to others in this world. I believe he is more of a Democrat at heart than a Republican. He lives progressive (liberal) principles in his own life. I know other Republicans like him, who live the principles of empathy and compassion in their own lives.  One can only hope their numbers in that party will increase -- or that they will eventually realize they belong on the Democratic side of the political aisle.

The Olbermann Era
By William Rivers Pitt

Mr. Olbermann’s “Countdown” was something very special. In a polluted sea of corrupted corporate “news” brainwashing, his was a voice of loud, angry reason. He paved the way for the excellence of Rachel Maddow to make its own impressive mark on the TV “news” landscape. He spoke a great deal of truth that had not been heard on the airwaves for far too long. By modeling himself and his show after Edward R. Murrow, even going so far as to use Murrow's iconic "Good night, and good luck" sign-off at the end of every broadcast, he gave us a daily reminder that the "news" was not always like it is today, and that it can - nay, must - improve for the good of the republic.

His very existence became a thorn in the side of the corporation that owns his network, and the corporations behind all the other networks. He kicked some cash to a few Democratic candidates - Rep. Gabrielle Giffords being one - and it turned into a nine-day wonder of a debate about broadcasting standards and the hypocrisy of MSNBC's upper management. It still cracks me up when I think about it: here were these corporate network owners who scream bloody murder about money equaling speech, but when Olbermann exercised his constitutional right to participate in the political process by way of that particular brand of "speech," he got a two-day rip and a public scolding. The whole charade shamed his bosses deeply and publicly, and probably had more than a bit to do with his eventual departure from the network he pretty much single-handedly put on the map.

To me and so many others, he was a beacon of sanity during the bleak darkness of the Bush years. Remember the timeline here: the 2000 election catastrophe was followed by a ceaseless cable “news” refrain of, "This is an orderly transition of power, nothing to see here, go back to bed," which infuriated everyone who knew that particular game had been fixed. This was followed by the push for war in Iraq ballyhooed by every cable network - "Navy SEALS rock!" - until the bullets started flying and the IED's started going off. All throughout, the myriad scandals and crimes of the Bush administration went largely ignored and unreported...until Keith came along, reminding us that, "Today is the 521st day since the declaration of 'Mission Accomplished' in Iraq."

Mr. Olbermann was one of the only voices in broadcasting who openly discussed the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by the Bush administration. When the 2004 election results in Ohio were corrupted by brazen manipulation and vote fraud, it was Olbermann who raised the loudest televised cry. It was Olbermann who, day after day, hammered the awful truth about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it was Olbermann who pounded home the fact that the Bush administration was little more than a deranged criminal enterprise that threatened the very fabric of the nation.

For me, Mr. Olbermann delivered his most memorable, impassioned and important "Special Comment" in 2006, in the aftermath of George W. Bush's press conference in the Rose Garden, in which Bush played the Nazi card and essentially implied that anyone who disagreed with him and his policies was an ally of al Qaeda. That night, Mount Olbermann erupted:

It is to our deep national shame - and ultimately it will be to the President's deep personal regret - that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies - or even question their effectiveness or execution - to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 - without ever actually saying so - the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, "a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government."

Make no mistake here - the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the "media."

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle: the attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word - "media" - the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.

Mr. Bush and his colleagues have led us before to such waters.

We will not drink again.

And the President's re-writing and sanitizing of history, so it fits the expediencies of domestic politics, is just as false, and just as scurrilous.

"In the 1920's a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews," President Bush said today, "the world ignored Hitler's words, and paid a terrible price."

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek - a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration's recent Nazi "kick" is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

The manner of Mr. Olbermann's departure remains shrouded in mystery; the man himself has made no comment on the matter, which may have something to do with the deal that was cut to end his contract two years early. Many have opined – correctly, in all likelihood - that the looming Comcast takeover of NBC Universal played a large role. As Buzzflash Editor Mark Karlin wrote over the weekend:

According to James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, Ed Snider, is funding a right-wing cable channel/Internet site called "RightNetwork." Wolcott sniffs at "RightNetwork" as a "pseudo-populist operation" starring an array of right-wing freaks.

Ominously, Wolcott notes "that it was Snider who invited Sarah Palin to drop the hockey puck at the Flyers' season opener in 2008, and Palin's been dropping pucks ever since."

There's little reason to doubt that Olbermann's abrupt exit from MSNBC was the first puck to drop as Comcast slap shots MSNBC away from being a progressive beachhead.

In one man we find the confluence of so many pressing issues. Mr. Olbermann stands at the center of the dire need for – and dire lack of – progressive voices within “mainstream news” broadcasting; he threw his shoulder against the wall of corporate hypocrisy; he stood and bellowed against the misdeeds of those in political power; and, ultimately, he stands today as the likely victim of the continued right-wing domination of the “news” media.

People are understandably outraged and disturbed over his abrupt and ill-defined departure from MSNBC…[but] Keith Olbermann is not dead. He was not beamed to Neptune, never to be seen or heard from again.

Write it down, carve it in stone, make a note, and bet the farm:

Olbermann will be back.

Somewhere, somehow, some day, in one form or another, Mr. Olbermann will be with us again. We will hear or read his own words on the matter of his departure, and then we will hear him again, and again, and again. Giants do not fall easily, and this particular era of political commentary is not over by a long chalk. Edward R. Murrow had his own troubles with management in the darkness of the McCarthy days, and it did not keep him down or silent one iota. So shall it be with Mr. Olbermann in these dark days of corporate hegemony.

Same as it ever was.

Giants do not fall easily. Count on it.

In the meantime, good night, and good luck.

Read More

Right winger Cindy Jacobs tells us why birds are dying

An "interesting" video -- http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jacobs-birds-are-dying-because-dadt-repeal

If this woman were a member of your political party, wouldn't you seriously begin to question the company you are keeping?  Millions of right wingers wouldn't -- they already think Michelle Bachmann, Christine O'Donnell, and Sarah Palin are wonderful, and would like to see any one of them as President.  These are the people who watch FOX for their "news."  And, lamentably, they vote.

Read More

Scientists ID gene responsible for cancer's spread

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20029442-10391704.html?tag=stack

Read More

The difference between Olbermann and FAUX News

It's very important to distinguish between Keith Olbermann, who spoke truth (his facts were assiduously checked and were unassailable) and the fact-distorters at FOX News.  Following is an excellent assessment of the differences between Olbermann and the "let's-pretend-we're-presenting-real-news" characters on FOX.  As the author notes, Keith Olbermann was always shining a light on the facts, in the tradition of Edward R. Murrow and other REAL newsmen who preceded him.  Keith and his special comments will be greatly missed, for the simple reason that he did present truth in a world of flurrying lies, but I have hopes we will hear more from him via other news outlets.  Real news versus lies from the right.  Which do you prefer?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/a-tribute-to-olbermann-wh_b_812770.html

A TRIBUTE TO OLBERMANN: Why he is different from the pundits at FOX News
By Mitchell Bard

EXCERPT: Much focus is directed at how Olbermann made his points (his combative tone, his aggressive language, etc.), but it was the fact-based content that really mattered and separated him from his right-wing counterparts. The reason the founders accorded the press the protections of the First Amendment was under the belief that the press was, as Jeffery Smith described it, "A lash for government and a prod for the people." Under this point of view, government was rendered more stable by a free press, since it exposed problems (and allowed for reform), preserving the liberties of the people. What Olbermann did on his show, day in and day out, was to carry out that function, shining a light on elected officials (of both parties).

That's the difference between Olbermann and his Fox News counterparts. When Beck claims that radicals in the Obama administration want to kill 10 percent of the American population and overthrow the U.S. government, or Sean Hannity uses bogus footage to exaggerate attendance at a Tea Party event, or Fox News hosts give credibility to those claiming that the health care reform law included "death panels" or that the president wasn't born in the United States, they are not shining a light on anything. Instead, they are using the cloak of "the press" to lie, exaggerate and use innuendo as a way of promoting an agenda.

And one of the strengths of Olbermann's show was that he didn't only take on government officials, but he devoted part of nearly every program to fact-checking the lies being spewed by major right-wing media figures like Palin, Beck, Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. Again, Olbermann was consistently looking to shine a light on the facts.

Read More

Stupidity reigns in the far right when it comes to Social Security

FALSE ALARM
By Bob Herbert
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/opinion/25herbert.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1295946462-vAt6kez+vMqI1/LdtZIxEw
Good God! Will common sense never prevail? (Not as long as far right Republicans have a say in things!) We need to take money from the MAMMOTH DEFENSE BUDGET instead of taking away from those who most need it--the tiny bit they get (or will get) from Social Security.

EXCERPT: Mugging the nation’s grandparents by depriving them of some of their modest, hard-earned Social Security retirement benefits is hardly an answer to the nation’s ills. And, believe me, those benefits are modest. The average benefit is just $14,000 a year, which is less than the minimum wage would pay. With employer-provided pensions going the way of the typewriter and pay telephones, the income from Social Security is becoming more precious by the day.

“If we didn’t have Social Security, we’d have to invent it right now,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. “It’s perfectly suited to the terrible times we’re going through. Hardly anyone has pensions anymore. People’s private savings have taken a huge hit, and home prices have been hit hard. So the private savings that so many seniors and soon-to-be seniors have counted on have just been wiped out.

“Social Security is still there, and it’s still paying out retirement benefits indexed to wages. It’s the one part of the retirement stool that is working.”

The deficit hawks and the right-wingers can scream all they want, but there is no Social Security crisis. There is a foreseeable problem with the program’s long-term financing, but it can be fixed with changes that do no harm to its elderly beneficiaries. One obvious step would be to raise the cap on payroll taxes so that wealthy earners shoulder a fairer share of the burden.

Read More

More troops lost to suicide than to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan

http://www.congress.org/news/2011/01/24/more_troops_lost_to_suicide

Here is yet another reason (as if we needed one) to make sure soldiers/veterans who are stressed, feel threatened, and want to harm someone (themselves, in many cases) should NOT have firearms.  And the numbers of suicides are no doubt much larger than are being reported, as the reported numbers leave out other categories.

EXCERPT: For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan....

Last week’s figures, though, understate the problem of military suicides because the services do not report the statistics uniformly. Several do so only reluctantly.

Figures reported by each of the services last week, for instance, include suicides by members of the Guard and Reserve who were on active duty at the time. The Army and the Navy also add up statistics for certain reservists who kill themselves when they are not on active duty.

But the Air Force and Marine Corps do not include any non-mobilized reservists in their posted numbers. What’s more, none of the services count suicides that occur among a class of reservists known as the Individual Ready Reserve, the more than 123,000 people who are not assigned to particular units.

Read More

Re: To whom it may concern

I just got the following e-mail from a gun owner who is very sincere in wanting to get this information out to other gun owners/carriers.  Oh, yes -- Certainly don't tell your doctor or ANYone if you feel like doing harm to someone! And keep your gun close to you at all times so no one can take it from you. Then you'll be just like that guy in Arizona who was able to get a gun very easily, even though he was extremely mentally disturbed.  Telling a disturbed person to keep quiet about their paranoid feelings is the worst possible advice to give.  Anyone who is feeling stressed, threatened or wants to do harm to someone is not a person you want to be carrying a concealed gun!  These are exactly the people who should NOT have weapons in their possession.  This e-mail perfectly exemplifies the NRA-type of mentality that keeps us bound to violence in our society.  It's more than amazing, isn't it, that they want to hide and defend mental instability in gun owners, even after all the mass killings in our country from guns in the hands of the mentally disturbed? The divide in the consciousness of the political right and left in our country is so wide and deep, I wonder if it can ever be bridged.  A better solution might be to just live on two different planets.  If only that were possible...

Concealed Carry     Please pass this on to all the other retired guys and gun owners...Thanks   From a Vietnam Vet and retired Police Officer:   I had a doctors appointment at the local VA clinic yesterday and found out something very interesting that I would like to pass along.  While going through triage before seeing the doctor, I was asked at the end of the exam, three questions:   1. Did I feel stressed?   2. Did I feel threatened?   3. Did I feel like doing harm to someone?   The nurse then informed me, that if I had answered yes to any of the  questions, I would have lost my concealed carry permit as it would have gone into my medical records and the VA would have reported it to Homeland Security.  Looks like they are going after the vets first.   Other gun people like retired law enforcement will probably be next.  Then when they go after the civilians, what argument will they have?  Be forewarned and be aware.   The Obama administration has gone on record as considering veterans and gun owners potential terrorists.  Whether you are a gun owner veteran or not, you've been warned.   If you know veterans and gun owners, please pass this on to them.  Be very cautious about what you say and to whom.

Read More