Saturday, July 10, 2010
Comments (43)
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Watched Johnny Depp in "Blow" (2001) last night. Had never seen it before. Great movie. Got me to studying up on Pablo Escobar. At one time he & his brother spent $1000 PER MONTH on RUBBER BANDS to put around the stacks of $100 bills they had to keep up with. It is estimated that rats ate $1 billion of Escobar's money. One billion.
I'm thinking I don't get paid enough.
like
dislike
Rick we still don't know who ate that $9 Bn wrapped in plastic and stacked on loading pallets from that downed chopper in Iraq in '05.
Rick,
If it was in U.S. Currency, then that's one billion off the national debt.
Kucinich: ‘We are losing our nation to lies about the necessity of war’
By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 -- 12:07 am
...
Rep. Nita Lowey's declaration of principle was made in response to a Wall Street Journal report that claimed over $3 billion has been legally shipped through the airport in Kabul over just the last three years, leading investigators to believe much of it comes from U.S. aid dollars being diverted by corrupt officials.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, making a speech to the House of Representatives on Monday, had a few choice words to describe the situation.
"We are losing our nation to lies about the necessity of war," the iconoclastic Democrat opined.
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0629/kucinich-…
The Journal reported that "the cash – packed into suitcases, piled into pallets and loaded into airplanes – is declared and legal to move" through the airport. The paper added: "The officials believe [...] customers who have sent millions of dollars of their money abroad include high-ranking officials and their associates in President Hamid Karzai's administration, including Vice President Mohammed Fahim, and one of the president's brothers, Mahmood Karzai, an influential businessman.
Billions over Baghdad
Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency—much of it belonging to the Iraqi people—was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam's palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.
Hidden in plain sight, 10 miles west of Manhattan, amid a suburban community of middle-class homes and small businesses, stands a fortress-like building shielded by big trees and lush plantings behind an iron fence. The steel-gray structure, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is all but invisible to the thousands of commuters who whiz by every day on Route 17. Even if they noticed it, they would scarcely guess that it is the largest repository of American currency in the world.
....
With storage space to rival a Wal-Mart's, the currency vault can reportedly hold upwards of $60 billion in cash. Human beings don't perform many functions inside the vault, and few are allowed in; a robotic system, immune to human temptation, handles everything. On that Tuesday in June the machines were especially busy. Though accustomed to receiving and shipping large quantities of cash, the vault had never before processed a single order of this magnitude: $2.4 billion in $100 bills.
....
Beginning soon after the invasion and continuing for more than a year, $12 billion in shrink-wrapped U.S. currency was airlifted to Baghdad, ostensibly as a stopgap measure to help run the Iraqi government and pay for basic services until a new Iraqi currency could be put into people's hands. In effect, the entire nation of Iraq needed walking-around money, and Washington mobilized to provide it.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feature…
". . . Tea Party maven Sharron Angle (R) has maintained a hardline view on abortion. Earlier this year, Angle insisted that women should not have control over their reproductive rights in cases of rape or incest, because it would “interfere with God’s ‘plan’ for them.” In a more recent interview obtained by the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, Angle refused to back down from her “pro-life sensibilities” and offered a more jarring take on rape victims. On the right-wing Alan Stock Show in June, Angle suggested that “a young girl raped by her father” deal with the “horrific situation” by making lemons into lemonade . . ."
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/08/angle-…
That just might spark a conversation or two . . .
I hope Candidate Angle gets widespread coverage for her abortion views which are just shy of Fay Boozman's lunatic claim that women have natural protection from getting pregnant from rape. Mz Blanche can thank F. Boozman's lunacy for her Senate seat.
We can hope that Americans can thank Angle's extremist views for Reid remaining in the Senate.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/201…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte…
Facts about immigration and crime don't support Jan Brewer's words about how bad it is in her state, and why her immigration law is necessary. Makes the AZ bill look even worse if she has to lie in order to garner support.
dearie me, I forgot that automatic b/c protection with rape. But if the rape is all in the family, and the Lord wants a 14-y/o girl to raise her daddy's baby, "Make lemonade out of crazyass fools, I mean, lemons," does the woman's body's auto-shield still become activated???
It is always interesting when the abortion issue comes up the pro abortion crowd always want to talk about rape and incest. However, the overwhelming majority of abortions are done due to 'inconvenience'. Why is it that we don't talk about those abortions?
A not-so-great Texas Rangers debut by Arkansas' Cliff Lee tonight (gave up 3 home runs to lowly Baltimore), but at the same time Lee was struggling in Arlington, Bryant native Travis Wood nearly pitched a perfect game for the Reds at Philadelphia. The rookie gave up a lead-off double in the bottom of the 9th to end the bid for perfection and what could have been the 21st perfect game ever.
Why is it that we don't talk about those abortions?
Cuz it is none of our business!
eLwood--I noticed you got some more responses to your LTE in the ADG lately. I loved it that someone actually knew it was satire!
Harvey--there is not a "pro abortion" crowd. There are many people who are pro choice believing that is up to the woman to choose and her reasons from choosing are not the business of anyone else whether the pregnancy was caused by rape, incest, birth control failure, etc. It is the people who want to interfere with her choice that make it "inconvenient".
I'm just trying to make sense of everything.
Sharron Angle "justified'' her comments by bringing up the God & lemonade, father-daughter rape rationale. And, she's the GOP nominee for Senate against the Majority Leader?
Then, the GOP continues to drift further right of center despite being thumped by a candidate in 2008 espousing left-of-center views.
Then, said candidate - who becomes President - starts abandoning what got him elected (and his base) to drift toward the GOP, who literally hates his guts and would never lift a finger for him.
Has the world gone mad?
And here's the topper....your resident lib lez of the blog - me - thinks a RW straight guy (Steven Estrada) is a darn fine fellow despite disagreeing with 92-percent of his political positions.
In my defense, I envision Steven as Erik Estrada during his heyday on CHiPs. He was a very handsome man who always got the girl, as a I recall (this was the '70s and I was an "L in bloom'' so my memory is fuzzy).
Here's what I imagine when I talk to Steven....my "Ponch''
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV-RxVHD7Es
I'm just poking you, Steven. Please don't take offense. I do think you're a nice, considerate man:)
Here's a question I've been pondering that I was discussing with a friend today...do we excuse bigoted ideas and expressions just because the person is older?
I, for one, am guilty of just that. Almost everyone I know over 60 is guilty of harboring bigoted thoughts about either gays, blacks or Hispanics. My parents, for example, are guilty of all three.
I don't challenge them because, a) they're my parents and I want to avoid a fight, b) they'll be gone soon and forward-thinking people will replace them.
I'm not sure if this approach is good or bad.
Let's talk about how many abortions the god of the Scriptures has caused. Those far outnumber the number of abortions due to rape, incest or "inconvenience." Why do we never talk about god's abortions?
Sister, I've had people calling me up and laughing their asses off about that LTE and others looking to shame me. Two fellows I haven't seen in 10 years thought it was a riot.
The letter proves ADG will publish the most stupid, false, ignorant pos you can make up so long as it bashes BHO and throws in "socialists." They have no standards and the LTE simply proves it.
At a certain point many people’s beliefs harden.
They don’t believe they can learn new things. This can be unfortunate.
“He is too old. Yes. Too old to begin the training.” Yoda
10 brand names that may disappear in 2011. Click on the blue.
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting…
>>do we excuse bigoted ideas and expressions just because the person is older?<<
No. I'm 65 and love to be straightened out, so to speak, when in error.
Some of the most bitter, intense verbal battles I've witnessed were by people over 70.
There's different ways to handle older thinkers or FOX's non-thinkers too. It's called reframing. Reframing, as most moderns like to think of it, is something George Lakoff pulled out of the hat.
Actually, it's practice devised in the 1960's to aid psychiatric nurses who deal with the mentally deranged, usually, aged patients. Sweetie pointed it out to me in an old nurses manual from the late 60s. It's simply a way to present an idea or argument in a different light, a more complete light. My sweetie is a pro at it. She finds it necessary to use on her very bigoted father from time to time. He will begin a rant about messicuns or n*ggers taking over and before long she has the conversation shifted to outstanding blacks or Hispanics he has heard about or one that has befriended him in the past. She also has a unique skill of turning any minority being into a real people and she can do it quickly.
I had a laid-back uncle who always managed to get on the other side of any family argument about race or religion. His topper came during a summer ice cream get together when my bigoted step-dad was ranting about Martin Luther King, Jr. My uncle asked step-dad if any good, Christian Negro would be going to Heaven. Then he asked s-dad if he planned to go to Heaven. He asked if there would be segregation in Heaven cause it sure isn't mentioned in the bible. My mom, brothers and I laughed about that one for a year.
Miss_Lola, thanks for posting both links. They are must reads for those of us who believe Americans must stand up to immigration bullies like AZ Governor Jan Brewer and 'losing-it-more-every-day' Senator John McCain. And to think just a few years ago McCain cosponsored a decent immigration bill with Ted Kennedy that failed to pass the senate. How far he has fallen!
And Sister, do you like Erik .... or maybe it's his motorcycle instead? :>)
Good points, eLwood. That's a good way to approach it but it still leaves me feeling hypocritical (i.e., denying minorities for the sake of placating the bigots.)
I'm a sucker for a man on a motorcycle, Sound. But then again, I just lied through my teeth. Dang it, you just can't trust an L:) No wonder we can't get equality.
Don't know who else saw this in today's ArDemGaz:
Stephen Colbert has a new job: farmworker. The host of Comedy Central’s
The Colbert Report teamed up Thursday night with Arturo Rodriguez, the president of the United Farm Workers of America, in a challenge to unemployed Americans: Come on, take our jobs. The union has been asking Americans to fill out an online form under the banner “I want to be a farm worker” at: TAKEOURJOBS.ORG Rodriguez says that so far just three have responded and were in the fields. “Make that four,” the comedian replied emphatically. The U.S. Labor Department says more than half of farmworkers are illegal aliens. The union argues that they’re not taking jobs from Americans because most Americans don’t want the work. Proponents of tougher immigration laws respond that the problem with the union’s proposition is that growers don’t want to raise wages and improve working conditions enough to attract Americans.
You don't suppose Harvey, Viper and ActMax are the 3 'Americans' other than Colbert? Nah, we don't know if those 3 are Americans and they sure wouldn't be volunteering for jobs like those.
One more lie used to oppose legal and illegal immigrants just bit the dust.
The only 'choice' that they advocate is abortion. This is a sham for the truth which is you are pro abortionists. Let's call a spade a spade. No one has the right to take the life of an innocent. I'm not going to let you off that easy. You either or pro abortion or pro life. There is no gray area when it comes to an unborn baby.
Thanks for the list Cato. I posted it on my website and hope my classmates use the information to their advantage.
Lion Tamer Joke
A circus owner runs an ad for a lion tamer and two people show up. One is a good looking, older retired golfer in his late sixties and the other is a gorgeous blond in her mid-twenties.
The circus owner tells them, "I'm not going to sugar coat it. This is one ferocious lion. He ate my last tamer so you two had better be good or you're history. Here's your equipment -- chair, whip and a gun. Who wants to try out first?"
The girl says, "I'll go first." She walks past the chair, the whip and the gun and steps right into the lion's cage. The lion starts to snarl and pant and begins to charge her. About halfway there, she throws open her coat revealing her beautiful naked body.
The lion stops dead in his tracks, sheepishly crawls up to her and starts licking her feet and ankles. He continues to lick and kiss her entire body for several minutes and then rests his head at her feet.
The circus owner's jaw is on the floor. He says, "I've never seen a display like that in my life." He then turns to the retired golfer and asks, "Can you top that?"
The tough old golfer replies, "No problem, just get that lion out of there.
Ya'll hadda go get all serious on me, with the abortion argument, din't ya? Yeah. We're gonna solve that one here, tonight. I'm telling you, a thousand bucks a month, for rubberbands!
So Harvey--if your wife (assuming you have one) or daughter were raped and became pregnant would you be pro life? Would you force them to have the child? If the birth a child, no matter the circumstances of conception, caused a medical situation where it could result in the death of your wife or daughter if the fetus was not aborted, are you still pro life? Whose life? That of your living family member or that of an unborn fetus? Do you think any woman who is pro choice makes the decision to abort the fetus lightly? Do you know how many who are pro choice, choose not have an abortion? The point is, they have the CHOICE. They make the decision about what is right for them. And if they CHOOSE to have the baby it is none of your business. And if they CHOOSE to abort it, that is not your business either.
We could skip the abortion business by stoning to death every unwed pregnant woman. Would that do for you Harv? Or we could put the little preggers girls in chutes like cattle, force em to squeeze out the babies. Then we sell the girl babies to the Saudis to become sex slaves and sell the boy babies to China to be used in the mines. Would that be Biblical enough for you Harv?
How many babies have you birthed, Harvey? How many unwanted pregnancies have you cause, Harvey? How many unwanted children have you taken in, Harvey? How much money do you send per month to the Unwed Mother's Home? Have you ever even had sex?
(washing hands) We spent the afternoon at the new and improved Lake Fort Smith today and while I hate nature with a passion, I have to say it's a gorgeous place! They're building more and more big family lodges, so keep that in mind if you have enough family and friends to fill one for the weekend. We saw big black spotted butterflies by the hundreds. We saw too many humming bird to count. We saw 2 half grown deer drinking from a stream and they just batted their big eyes at us.
The lake was so beautiful as were the big fluffy white clouds above it. It was like walking through a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. Happy families, happy campers camping, happy fishermen, nice big Ford trucks pulling shiny, fancy boats out of the lake and putting them in......even a nature hater like me has to say we live in one gorgeous state! If only all the people were as wonderful......wouldn't need no Rapture.
Speaking of stoning, how about your buddies the Muslims? Do you condone what they do?
The taking of an innocent life is wrong whatever the circumstances. Again, you choose to deal with rape and not the reason for abortion in the overwhelming number of cases---it is inconvenient. Why is that? Is it because it is so difficult to justify even for your ilk?
The abortion debate is NOT about murder, or whether life begins at conception. It's about whether women will have SAFE or UNSAFE abortions.
Women will figure out a way to have an abortion, legal or not. In places where it's illegal, there are just as many abortions done.
Whether they survive in a healthy enough state to go on to have other children if they want is the REAL issue. THAT is why it was legalized: to keep women alive and HEALTHY when they have abortions.
There were entire wards dedicated to caring for women that had botched back alley abortions before abortion was legal. If it were made illegal, we would have to pay for those wards once again, and there would be a huge black market for various pills and other things to induce abortions.
Anyone that tries to say it's about anything else is just BSing us.
Harvey, others have asked many of the same questions I would ask of your rigid attitude towards abortion, but let me take this in another direction. You claim to be 'pro-life'? Does that mean ALL life? Or is it just the 'life' of a small group of cells inside a woman's uterus?
As a pro-life person, what are your thoughts about all the innocent lives we (the U.S.) are taking every day in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries that we don't admit to? What about all the innocent starving people in the world? What about all the innocent people whose lives could be saved by the proper medicines or clean drinking water? By denying these innocent people the very things that could save their lives, are we (that is to say those of us who care about such things) not in some way responsible for their deaths? Or is it okay because those are mostly the lives of the brown and black people who live in places you can't even find on a map? Innocent though they may be.
So, Harvey, if you are as gung-ho 'pro-life' as you claim to be, why aren't you out there every day protesting against ALL war? Why aren't you out there raising money to provide medicines, food, mosquito nets, clean water systems, etc., to help save the lives of millions? Why aren't you out there every day raising hell to stop the needless deaths of ALL LIVING innocent people?
Sister, as always you are right on. For those of you who wish to become farm workers, the rich landowners in St. Francis and Lee counties can help you out with that. Just add a vowel to your last name, or choose one that belonged to a historic president, and put in your application. We'll see you in Walmart, when night has fallen.
HHW, I don't think you 'understand' Harvey. He and his kind are only interested in the unborn until they are born, then wash their hands of him/her. Can't have Harvey's tax money used to make sure that infant and then young child has a fighting chance at life. No sirree, Harvey! Get 'em born, then Harvey's out of there.
I'm beginning to come around to Jim Bob Duggar's way of thinking- if a married man and woman don't drop a new life into this world every 9+ months or so they are responsible for the deaths of scores of potential children. It's so sad to think of all those ununited eggs and sperm, isn't it (DBI will understand)? It doesn't matter if once born, those children must be provided for, even the basics, just getting them born is the most godly thing. What happens after that is god swill (oh, make that god's will)!
Rigid attitude toward abortion! Is there a gray area in regards to the life of an unborn child? Either you kill them or you let them live. So is there such a thing as being sort of dead? Obfuscation is the holy grail of the leftist.
Yes, Harvey, gray areas, such as in the cases of rape and incest, which happens far more often than you'd like to believe because there are a whole lot of SICK men out there. And gray areas in consideration of the life of the mother, which happens far more than you'd like to believe and is nobody's business except those involved.
Then, of course, there's all those 'good Christian' parents out there who just couldn't stand the embarrassment of having to admit that their 15 year old daughter got herself knocked up, which happens FAR more often than you'd like to believe. Oh, and let's not forget all those 'good Christian' men whose mistresses gets pregnant, which damn sure happpens far more often than you'd like to believe. That's just some of the reasons that the Repubs have never really done anything to make sure that a woman doesn't have the ability to obtain a LEGAL abortion in this country. Well, that, and their ability to fundraise tons of money on the issue.
So, Harvey, maybe your little world can be completely black and white, but the rest of us live in the real world where there are many shades of gray in just about every issue you could think of. And when it comes to abortion, unless it's your wife, daughter or girlfriend, then it's really none of your damn business.
" Is there a gray area in regards to the life of an unborn child?"
****
Actually, there are a number of gray areas, some of which divide even those who oppose abortion rights. For instance: does "life begin" (i.e., an "unborn child" come into existence) at the very moment a fertilized egg is implanted into the uterus? Does employing a drug that causes the uterine wall to reject that fertilized egg constitute murder?
At one point, some conservatives were hailing RU-486 as the "answer" to, or "cure" for abortions performed by physicians. I think that was the George Will-type social conservatives rather than the religious conservatives. Clearly, though, the religious conservatives regard the "abortion pill" as a murder weapon. Do you? (If you do, I won't argue -- I'm just exploring whether or not there are gray areas.)
Harvey may be willing to forbid physicians from performing abortions on rape victims in the (rare or not) instances when pregnancy results, but many other conservatives are not. It is one thing to take away a woman's options when the pregnancy was the result of "fun;" it would be another to require a rape victim to give birth to, say, a mixed-race child. In that case murder would be okay. (I've actually heard a conservative say that very thing -- that God visits the sins of the father onto the child, so "killing" an unborn child who resulted from rape would be okay. I hope that guy was in the minority.)
Here's another gray area. If abortion is "murder," are you willing to allow a teenager who solicits that murder to go unpunished? Are you willing to send everyone who procures an abortion, as well as everyone who aids, abets, or performs the abortion, to jail, at least for manslaughter? I mean if you choose to "kill them" rather than "let them live," is there any good reason government should not deal with these killers just like any other?
Or is that a gray area?
>>Again, you choose to deal with rape and not the reason for abortion in the overwhelming number of cases---it is inconvenient. Why is that? <<
Again, Harvey lies. The god of the Scriptures is the world's largest abortionist.
Why is that?
Either you believe god is in control or you don't.
tap, regardless of what happens in this life to someone who participates in an abortion there will be a final judgment by a perfect judge.
"tap, regardless of what happens in this life to someone who participates in an abortion there will be a final judgment by a perfect judge." Posted by Harvey
Meaning Harvey isn't about to answer your reasonable, real life questions, tap. See Harvey squirming? He's afraid of your questions. Harvey lives in Fantasyland.
Uh, Harv, if that judge is so perfect how come he lets those women get raped and impregnated? Doesn't sound anywhere close to 'perfect' to me.
Sista, as always, you are too kind. My K thinks I'm a handsome man, I'm ambivilent, trusting more in my character rather than rugged, Spanish good looks. You still haven' labelled me correctly, but that's okay, I cannot be pigeon-holed so easily. I KNOW your a damn fine lady. I judge you not by anything else but you words and actions. You religious beliefs (or lack there of) color, creed, orientation mean nothing to me. I do judge on how you think what you think.
Bigottry is not the purview of the right. We see our L-W bigottry here every single day. Those that call Harv a Nazi, because he speaks his mind are practising as nasty a bigotry as any Klan member, or Black Panther, or al Queda thug. My mother, FDR Democrat, could be a hard line bogot in the type of woman she wanted her darling son to marry. She always wanted me to hook up with anything but 'gringitas' or 'tintas'. Horrified her when I started dating a black woman that looked a bit like a young Eartha Kitt. I thought I was lucky, Mom thought I was 'loco'. And we still have disagreements. Talking would sometimes get VERY vocal. Sometimes, mother and I would go at it hammer and tong over politics. In the end though, she is my mother, and my love for her is as unconditional as her love is for me. We can get mad at each other without being hateful with each other. That is why I am not hateful on this blog, though there are those who share plenty of it with me, simply for being different. Sista takes me for what I am, excepts me, and I really, REALLY rspect and admire her. If your going to label, at least be accurate and reasoning.
Sista, you know where I stand on the abortion issue. It isn't out of anything but experiance and knowledge that I came to my conclusions. I had no choice if I followed logic and reason. Some would ask if you against abortion, what about wars. Well, I'm for choice. I'm just for informed choice, and not the pollyanna lies the pro-abortion crowd gets into, trying to say a life is not a life simply to ameliorate feelings of guilt. Yes, there certainly should be allowances for such extremes as rape and incest, but a large majority of abortions are made for conveniance sake, and a lot of these women are being told a gorss lie when they bare told that abroting a fetus that is 4 months old is simply aborting a fetus, and not ending the life of a child. My ex lives with that every single day of her life, that regret over the life she ended, the life of OUR child. It was a choice, I abided by it because it was her body, but she had been deceived. I don't wish that for women. I have more respect than that for them.
Again, Thanks, Sista, for your honest, heartfelt words. You are one of the more honest, nd tolerant members on this here blog. I do look forward to a coffe klatch, where maybe several of us could sit around a table, and over vats of coffee, discuss events, thoughts and politics. I do think that would be very lively.
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