An Afghan soldier killed three British service members with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the dead of night, a betrayal that highlights the difficulties in rapidly building up Afghan security forces so that foreign troops can go home.
At least eight American soldiers have been killed Tuesday and Wednesday in Afghanistan, the NATO-led command said.Also, explosions in Afghanistan killed 11 civilians Tuesday, Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
A commission that investigated the Alaska spill found that oil companies cut corners to maximize profits. Systems intended to prevent disaster failed, and no backups were in place. Regulators were too close to the oil industry and approved woefully inadequate accident response and cleanup plans.
Hmmm. We've come a long way.
"It's disappointing," said 84-year-old Walt Parker, chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission, which made dozens of recommendations for preventing a recurrence. "It's almost as though we had never written the report."
May I ask the nearest GOP "conservative" (or Libertarian, or Tea Partier – is that what you call someone from the Tea Pary?): What's to deregulate? We already don't.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
For weeks, Senate Republicans have filibustered an extension of unemployment benefits on the grounds that Democrats aren't willing to cut spending or raise taxes to pay for them. At the same time, the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, and Republicans want them to be renewed.
Of course they do. They're not unemployed.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
If you haven't seen this - you need to:
Additional:
Oil found mostly mixed with freshwater vegetation Thursday evening on a three-block stretch of Galveston beach came from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill off the Louisiana coast, a U.S. Coast Guard official said Tuesday.The test samples, which confirmed the first sighting of the BP oil spill on Galveston, were taken from 1.5 gallons of mousse-like substance collected Thursday between 51st and 53rd streets.
How the oil reached the island, whether by current, ship bilge water or other method, remains a mystery, officials said.
A security contractor who was once responsible for keeping reporters away from cleanup workers is now coming forward to blow the whistle on BP.Adam Dillon claims he was fired by the oil company after he took pictures showing how dispersants were being used in the Gulf.
[...]
"I took pictures of something and I brought it to the attention of the command structure and whatever I took pictures of, 12 hours later I was gone," he said.
[...]
"What this company is doing to this country right now is just wrong," said Dillon.
You think? And I suppose he would still be aiding and abetting, not whistleblowing, if he hadn't been fired?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
A seemingly anonymous gift left on the front porch of a Houston home owned by an oil company executive has the city's affluent population of oil profiteers on edge this weekend, after that package exploded and seriously injured a 62-year-old woman.[...]
The box apparently carried a simple note saying, "Thank you."
In a interview with Ralph Nader on C-SPAN's Book TV to promote his book Lies the Government Told You, Judge Andrew Napolitano said that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should have been indicted for "torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant."The judge believes that it is a fallacy to say that the US treats suspects as innocent until proven guilty. "The government acts as if a defendant is guilty merely on the basis of an accusation," said Napolitano.
[...]
"So what President Bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of Guantanamo Bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the Constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal," he continued.
"What should be the sanctions [for Bush and Cheney]?" asked Nader.
"They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant," said Napolitano.
Why is this a surprise? Because Judge Napolitano is Fox News' senior judicial analyst.
And, hey, I don't think it's too late for an indictment.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
“It’s open season on Obama, whom so many hoped would lead us out of the neoliberal wilderness,” Firedoglake blogger Les Leopold declared not long afterward. “He once was a community organizer and ought to know how working people have suffered through a generation of tax breaks for the rich, Wall Street deregulation and unfair competition. When the economy crashed, he was in the perfect position to limit the unjustified pay levels on Wall Street.“Instead, we got a multitrillion-dollar bailout for Wall Street, no health care reform, no serious financial reforms whatsoever, record unemployment and political gridlock that will be with us for years to come.”
And that was just the beginning.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The son of murdered Irish mobster Mickey Spillane tumbled out the window of his sixth-floor apartment in a fatal fall Saturday, police and his uncle said.
Suuuuuure he did.
Since I posted deep sea Jesus on Wednesday, I had to find something else for today - balloon Jesus on a cross:
In 2007, the top one percent earned 24 times as much as the middle fifth.[...]
A new report shows that the income gap between rich and poor in America is at an eight-decade high — the largest differential since the period immediately preceding the Great Depression.
[...]
The CBO data studied by the CBPP show that in just under three decades, the after-tax income for the top one percent rose by 281 percent. By contrast, incomes for the middle quintile of income distribution rose a much more modest 25 percent over the same time period, while incomes for the bottom fifth increased by only 16 percent. If Americans in the middle fifth of the income distribution curve had seen their incomes rise at the same rate as those of the top one percent, that would equal an extra $13,000 in annual income for middle-class households, says Sherman.
Meh. Who needs it?
“One of the things we know about the bottom fifth is that it’s harder for them to move up,” said Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress. “We talk a lot about encouraging people to work their way out of poverty, but without middle-class jobs, this consigns those at the bottom to staying there.”
Wow. No one could have guessed, huh Condi?
The EPI’s Shierholz concurs. “When you have both high inequality and low mobility, we’ve turned into a place that’s inconsistent with American values,” she said. “It becomes a set class system.”
Sounds like American values to me.
Even though the recession has put a small dent in the income gap, most economists agree that if the status quo holds, the trend will continue apace when the economy rebounds.
Whatever can we do?
Economists say there’s no silver bullet for narrowing the income gap, but a number of policies and programs could help. First up, says Chad Stone of the CBPP, is letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire on schedule. “That will return rates at the top to approximately where they were at the boom of the 90s,” he said. Some say the imbalance could be partially offset by a more progressive federal tax code, a higher minimum wage and legislation that gives workers more bargaining power, while CEPR’s Baker suggests what he terms a “financial speculation” tax to capture some of the outsize profits generated by Wall Street and the financial sector.
And pipe me up another dream, boys.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet. --Mark Twain
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The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet. --Mark Twain
Corexit: More toxic than the oil
IVAW: Iraq Veterans Against the War
