August 2009 archive

64 years ago, the United States blew up Hiroshima, killing over 110,000 people.

Many of our favorite ‘left’ wen sites have nothing about this at all, in their effort to not piss off any potential web traffic.

But still there’s a few interesting items:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

http://www.politics.co.uk/news…

http://www.truthdig.com/report…

1. Sure good to see President Obama looking out for corporate America. The NY Times reports White House acknowledges it will protect Big Pharma.

   Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.

   Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.

   In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul.

   Meanwhile, Congress seeks $1 trillion to cover the the health legislation.

2. ABC News reports Environmental groups say Obama’s mining pick is an industry stooge. President Obama’s nominee to oversee the American coal mining industry is Joseph Pizarchik, Pennsylvania’s top environmental official for mining since 2002.

   “Pizarchik’s office, the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, has drawn fire in the past for taking steps that activists and others said limited public input on controversial mining projects… Activists also object to Pizarchik’s support of disposing toxic ash from burned coal into Pennsylvania mines, which they say leads to poisoned streams and drinking water.”

   “The consensus among several current and former Office of Surface Mining employees was that Pizarchik was likely to speed approval for mining projects, not address environmental concerns, said Jeff Ruch of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.”

3. McClatchy reports Older workers hang on to jobs longer because they have to.

   “Everyone is seeing huge increases in unemployment – people dropping out of the labor force across the board – but older workers have seen a big increase in labor-force participation since the start of the recession. And I think it has a lot to do with declining retirement security,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group.

   A close look at work force data reveals that when the recession began in December 2007, workers 55 and older constituted 18 percent of the labor market. Today, they make up more than 19 percent. That means more Americans are working well into what would have been retirement, by choice and, increasingly, by necessity…

   “For older people right now, the crisis is not jobs, it is wealth,” Shierholz said. “They thought they had money tied up in their homes, and that’s gone or halved. If they have a 401(k), they’ve also seen a decline there … they are simply not leaving the labor force. In fact, they are still coming in.”

4. The Hill reports Harry Reid opposes democratic elections for senate vacancies. “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that he will oppose an effort to require that Senate vacancies be filled by election instead of gubernatorial appointment… Earlier in the day, the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee advanced a proposed constitutional amendment sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to require that Senate vacancies be filled by direct elections.”

   “I’m not in favor of our dictating to a state what it should do,” Reid told reporters. “We have a system now where some states have special elections and some have governors appoint.

Yup, things can’t be that bad in America if we continue to kill innocent foreign children in faraway countries.

That means the war machine is working well.  Ratcheting up the demonic hatred, guranteeing that America will have more “enemies” to slaughter in the future, so we can keep the trillion dollar war machine moving right along.  God knows that employs a lot of people!  

The only problem I’m having with this is remembering when Afghanistan attacked us?  When did the Afghan people attack the United States of America?   I’m drawing a blank here.  Somebody help me out.

‘What was the fault of my innocent children? They were not Taliban,’ Rahim said. “Did they come here to build our country or kill our innocent children?’

Oh, Rahim, Rahim.  You just don’t understand.  We can’t withdraw from your country and we cannot quit killing your children because that would make our dear El Presidente look like a “failure!”  Or worse, a wimp!   So you and your children will continue to be sacrificed as part of the President’s PR machine.  And it’s okay, really, because most Americans will never see these photos, or hear about your kids, or anything.  Even the well-intentioned “liberal” of them will be more concerned with the rantings of an actor named Glenn Beck, or doing the bidding of their corporate leaders to keep themselves from having health care, than they will be with your dead children.

It’s all about the PR, baby.  It’s all about “image”.  We can’t have the President look like a failure, now, can we?  And he can only be a “success” if “you people” quit being terrorists!  Oh wait, you’re not terrorists?  Well, somebody there must be, or we wouldn’t be bombing you, right?  Right!

Murdoch’s paywall is a gift to the competition

The UK Telegraph, Shane Richmond, August 06, 2009

They’ll be doing the conga round the office at The Daily Mirror today following news that Rupert Murdoch plans to charge for the online versions of The Sun and The News of the World by next summer.

It’s not clear exactly what the plan is but based on Murdoch’s comments it sounds like a paywall. He said: “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”

Ok, now repeat after me:

We have never charged for news.

We have never charged for news.

We have never charged for news.

Back to Murdoch: “Quality journalism is not cheap.”

I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about The Sun.

This is a great opportunity for the Mirror, The Daily Star and, I suppose, producers of pictures of topless women, to hoover up those Sun readers who aren’t sure whether they want to pay.