I think a swell idea would be for each member of Congress and The Obama Administration who supports allowing detainees to be released onto American soil to have to Adopt a Detainee™ and give them a job.
For example, Nancy Pelosi’s could be in charge of massaging anti-wrinkle cream onto her waddle every night while she’s wearing some little satin lingerie number.........
take that! Joe!
DeGeneres and de Rossi, who married in August when same-sex marriages in California were briefly legalized but who have no children, beat Angelina Jolie and partner Brad Pitt with their eclectic brood of six in the ParentDish.com poll of more than 10,000 moms.
The TV chat show host and de Rossi took 31 percent of votes with singleton Jennifer Aniston coming in second at 22 percent. Jolie and Pitt got 18 percent of votes, while chat show queen Oprah Winfrey got just nine percent.
Jolie also won few fans as a mom, coming bottom in a list of five best celebrity mothers. Former “Alias” star and mom of two Jennifer Garner won that round with 37 percent of votes, followed by first lady Michelle Obama and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon in a virtual tie.
In a close battle for worst celebrity mom, rock singer Courtney Love edged out Dina Lohan—mother of Lindsay Lohan—and pop star Britney Spears.
If you haven’t seen “ The Lives of Others “ yet, do it.
It gave me nightmares but then again, it happens to be the kind of stuff my nightmares are made of.......
~link~
Hence, my interest in civilization (grocery stores) and technology (firearms).
Y’know what really impressed me, though?
HotAir
What nobody mentioned, to my knowledge, is that flooding the Nisqually meadows now protected by the Brown Farm dike will mean the death of thousands, if not millions of creatures that live there, and have been living and proliferating there for decades.
I refer to insects, despised by many, like ants, bugs of all kinds, grasshoppers, also earthworms, spiders, snakes, birds nesting on shrubs, and the creatures that feed on the above mentioned species.
I read that in pre-Chinese Tibet the monks relocated all living creatures from the grounds on which they planned to extend their monasteries. Why can’t we do the same?
Send school children out with spades and buckets to save what can be saved and put the lives saved in other public parks or people’s back yards. Otherwise, the change from grassland to estuary wouldn’t be a good reason to celebrate.
Maybe there ought to be a gathering to commemorate all the creatures perishing by an act of government.
Bernard Vogt
Tumwater
The bells will play the 1971 song, which begins “Imagine there’s no Heaven”, as part of an arts festival on 16 May at 1300 BST and 1430 BST.
The co-director of the Miss California USA pageant says the fate of current title holder Carrie Prejean will be decided by Monday.
Keith Lewis said Friday that he, fellow co-director Shanna Moakler and Prejean’s representatives are close to a resolution.
The state pageant has been investigating whether the 21-year-old Prejean violated her contract by making public appearances with groups opposed to same-sex marriage..........
Two Pullman men were beaten with a golf club after urinating on a vehicle downtown.
Police say the men suffered injuries after they relieved themselves early Friday morning on a car they thought was unoccupied.
Police say the owner got out of the car and assaulted the two men with a golf club. One of the men suffered a possible arm fracture and was transported to Pullman Regional Hospital...........
Bet they won’t do that again!
Taking advantage of the warm spring weather Monday, Vice President Joe Biden parked his 1981 Trans Am in the White House driveway, removed his undershirt, and spent a leisurely afternoon washing the muscle car and drinking beer.............
mirin glazed halibut
steamed fresh spinach
mashed sweet potatoes
fresh corn (I know, it doesn’t really go but I wanted it )
He really thinks this shitty photo that doesn’t pass the mustard is going to appease us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
heckuva job, Caldera!
weee-bidooo-weee-bidooo-weee-bidooo.........
Louis Caldera is a fine person, who was an effective state legislator and also Secretary of the Army. This is a great pick by Obama. An effective public servant who can easily traverse the military and civilian worlds.
It’s not a bad idea to pool from the Clinton security officials. Bill Clinton has a good track record on his handling of the ‘93 bombing of the WTC and his establishment of counter terrorism measures.
Government researchers are spending more than $400,000 in taxpayer money to hit the bars in Argentina.
The National Institutes of Health are paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk—and just what can be done about it....
PatRiotic
A top White House aide resigned Friday for his role in Air Force One’s $328,835 photo-op flyover above New York City that sparked panic and flashbacks to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Louis Caldera said the controversy had made it impossible for him to effectively lead the White House Military Office. “Moreover, it has become a distraction in the important work you are doing as president,” Caldera said in his resignation letter to President Barack Obama.
~ * ~ Caldera, a former Army secretary, has headed the office that coordinates presidential travel on Air Force jets.
Scary that the PotUS doesn’t know what’s going on with his planes...........and can’t trust the people in charge.....and stuff.
JRs been singing this for the last couple of days of his “vacation” (he accrued some comp daze from last months overtime from hell stretch)....while laying the floor and replacing all the moulding and baseboards in the bedroom....
fiscal death trap
Holding to the principles that made the Great Depression great,
The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.
Schwarzenegger’s office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials.
So if CA tries to save a coupla bux thru wage cuts, no hand-outs from Big Brother Pockets.
California could run out of money as soon as July ...as a new poll showed voters poised to reject five budget-related measures on the May 19 ballot. [ie, new, massive taxes]…
If the propositions do not pass, the state could find itself as much as $23 billion short…
And what if we slash the $100,000 + salaries of the legislative aides? The Governator’s 10 assistants? The Little Hoover Commission???!??!?
“The voters seem interested in delivering a message,” said Mark Baldassare, Public Policy Institute of California president and survey director. “The measures are very complex and confusing to voters—and they don’t seem to have trust in what the governor and Legislature have put before them.”
bwaaaaahahahahahahahahhaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
ya think? What could possibly have given those damdumb redneck hippies that fool idea?
In the midst of the mounting mayhem surrounding Miss California USA Carrie Prejean, the pageant’s state directors Keith Lewis and Shanna Moakler rallied together a bevy of beauty queens ...............................to film a PSA entitled “I Believe … The Beauty of California.”
The gorgeous girls gathered together at a studio in Santa Monica on Thursday to record the message (expected to hit the web next week) which is aimed at promoting the diversity of California and includes such lines as “I believe when I express my opinion I have a responsibility to do it in a way that respects others who may not agree … I believe in love … I believe when two people with opposite views communicate with love and respect both points of view can be heard … I believe no one should be silenced if they are speaking from their heart with respect … I believe in the beauty of California.”
“This (PSA) has been in the works forever, but it got pushed to the front burner as we started to realize there was a vacuum sucking the life out of us. We were starting to feel that people might not be seeing our vision clearly right now,” Miss California Co-Director Keith Lewis told Tarts at the shoot. “We gathered these amazing women; these are the empowered spokespeople of our organization that are constantly in the front lines as the shining example of what this organization does. For us in state of California, its all about diversity, beauty, landscape and tourism. These are the women that are committed to that platform.”
However their current controversial crown-holder, Carrie Prejean, was notably absent from the shoot.
“We reached out; we tried to get her to be here..............
not. helping. 
A paedophile ring has been smashed after eight men were found guilty of a horrifying catalogue of more than 50 child pornography and abuse charges.
Among the crimes was a shocking sexual attack carried out on a three-month-old baby boy by an executive adviser on child sex issues.
James Rennie, chief executive of a publicly-funded gay rights group, was one of the men exposed yesterday as members of Scotland’s biggest paedophile ring.........
srsly?!?
Teh Governator, Ahnold, courageously overcoming his personal distaste, is threatening to close fire houses and let your children burn if we don’t vote in his obscene tax increase disguised as a “spending cap.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger says “I don’t like to use scare tactics,”… “Sacramento’s budget mess has already forced departments to lay off firefighters and paramedics. And it could get even worse. Without Props 1A and 1B, we have $16 billion in new cuts coming. Could lose another 24,000 firefighters and police. And you know who that hurts? The people who depend on us.”
Tell me how there is not ONE agency, program, or person who can be cut from one/all of these:
California Broadband Initiative
California Coastal Commission
California Council for the Humanities
California Cultural and Historical Endowment
California Digital Library
California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts
California Science Center
California State Association of Counties (CSAC)
California Tahoe Conservancy
California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs)
CaliforniaVolunteers
Governor’s Mentoring Partnership
Governor’s Office
Hearing Aid Dispensers Bureau
High-Speed Rail Authority
Land Resource Protection, Division of
Land Surveyors, Board for Professional Engineers and
Land Use Planning Information Network (LUPIN)
Lands Commission
Landscape Architects Technical Committee
Latino Legislative Caucus
Legislative Black Caucus
Legislative Information
Legislative Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Caucus
Legislature, California State
Legislature Internet Caucus
Library, California State
Library of California
Little Hoover Commission
Mine Reclamation, Office of
Mining and Geology Board
Museum Resource Center
Ocean Protection Council, California
Ocean Resources Management Program
Osteopathic Medical Board of California
OTAN (Outreach and Technical Assistance Network)
Professional Fiduciaries Bureau
Psychology, Board of
Smart Growth Caucus
State Architect
State Bar of California
State Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Summer School for the Arts, California State
Water Quality Control Boards, Regional
Water Resources Control Board
Water Resources, Department of
Women, Commission on the Status of
yet more
Yes. We’ll cut firefighters—particularly with Santa Barbara ablaze and the Santa Anas beginning—rather than cut one special assistant in the Little Hoover Commission.
Ahnold, you fake.
choice
∏eh Ch∅sen on ...erm, choices.
“Everyone should have a chief of staff and a set of personal assistants,” [First lady Michelle Obama] said. ...
Obama advocated for sick leave for parents, flexible work hours for employees and on-site child care, ...
“...my father was a blue-collar city worker who worked a shift job,” she said. “But because he earned enough as a shift worker without a college degree, he could still support a family of four on that salary. And because he could, with that salary, support us—we rented a home, we didn’t live lavishly—my mother was able to stay at home. She could afford to make the choice not to go to work while we were growing up. That was how families balanced back then.”
“One income really doesn’t always cut it anymore. ...”
With, apparently, no awareness of what she just actually said. Out loud.
dance, PearlGuurl! dance!
“Stupid” is her only defense option.
“In that or any other briefing...we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used.”
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. [Sept. 4, 2002,] ...
The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered “EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah.”
The document lists 40 briefings provided to lawmakers on intelligence, judiciary and other panels, the first of which was provided to then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, a Florida Republican, and Ms. Pelosi of California on Sept. 4, 2002. That briefing is described as covering “enhanced interrogation techniques.” It included the use of the techniques on detainee Abu Zubaydah, background on legal authority, and “a description of the particular [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed.”
A recently declassified Justice Department memo on the CIA program dated May 30, 2005, states the CIA used waterboarding to interrogate Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times during August 2002.”
“relieve the distress”
Sowell on “empathy.” RTWT
The very idea of the rule of law becomes meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.
Remember how leftist mocked when earlier this year people warned that the hastily passed Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act granted overly broad powers to regulate even small businesses and thrift shops? Well, it’s actually worse than people thought.
Hawaii’s state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate “Islam Day”...........
...........The resolution to proclaim Sept. 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote. It had previously passed the House.
The bill seeks to recognize ”the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions” that Islam and the Islamic world have made…
Mr.Grumpy
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and obtained by ABC News.
The report, submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee and other Capitol Hill officials Wednesday, appears to contradict Pelosi’s statement last month that she was never told about the use of waterboarding or other special interrogation tactics. Instead, she has said, she was told only that the Bush administration had legal opinions that would have supported the use of such techniques.
The report details a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting between intelligence officials and Pelosi, then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, and two aides. At the time, Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
The meeting is described as a “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.”
EITs stand for “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a classification of special interrogation tactics that includes waterboarding.........
Figures obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that Mr Brown claimed Ł6,577 in bills for a cleaner, which he shared with his brother, between January and March 2006.
He also claimed for a Ł150 plumbing bill twice. This was paid back when discovered and Downing Street says it was an inadvertent clerical error.
Mr Straw meanwhile overclaimed on council tax by Ł1,500 over a five year period.
It appears Mr Straw was given a 50% discount on council tax for his second home, but claimed the full amount.
Mr Straw says he “corrected” the situation when he realised the mistake.
Deputy Leader Harriet Harman immediately appeared on Sky News to assure the public that MPs were working hard to clean up the system.Among the expenses detailed by the Telegraph are...........
