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Palindromedary ~ The audacity and arrogance of these people to think that they have the right to put themselves above God and the law of man. I can't wait to see their house of cards collapse and justice prevail.
...heres a good one to help gauge where things went wrong. I studied graphic art, was going to be a printer, worked in printing for 20 years. even back when i was a kid going to school in that small town there was any number of printers, PIP, Minuteman press, Quicky print as well as Lyman print and a number of small private shops and a few industrial type printers as well as the local newspaper. So comes the digital age and Kinko's is a boom. I'm in socal now. A great business model until?Greed got hold of someone and the owner, who shall be nameless, who was wealthy enough by far sold out his business model and basically shafted all his partners. Sure they were well compinsated as many jumped ship but what of the up and comers? cats like me in management who were so close to being invited to be a partner and what of the co-op like way the staff were paid, a decent wage with benes, 401k as well as profit sharing. "it was" the America i wanted to be part of. So he sells out in an effort supposedly to offer an IPO but...winds up evolving into FED EX office? Just walking into one of those places today you can tell it's all about bottom line. Scarce staff and when you do get some help? Minimum wage attitude from the new working class! But what really makes me puke? Every time i pick up a book and read, "printed in china." Hells belss and ginger snapps i just found out today that one of the most classic papers for letter head and envelopes is no longer avaiable!!! Makes ya wonder, huh?
Boston Brakes and thermite!
Michael Hastings' crash:
http://www.examiner.com/article/information-regarding-michael-hastings-d...
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The concept of "Boston Brakes" (aka: "no skid marks") has been around for some time. Michael Hastings wasn't the first person to get assassinated in this manner.
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7/25/2010 article by Gordon Duff:
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http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/07/25/gordon-duff-boston-brakes-no-ski...
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http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/06/29/nsa-spy-scandal-its-even-worse-t...
NSA Whistleblower Russ Tice interviewed by Sibel Edmonds on the Boiling Frogs web site (podcast show #112):
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/tag/podcast-episode/
Reprinted from last Friday's blog on the same subject:
Republican Austerity
A man walks into a bathroom and up to a urinal next to a very short hairy young man. While relieving himself he can't help but notice that the little man is incredibly endowed. "My God!" He exclaims. "You certainly are unproportionally endowed! Congratulations!"
In an Irish accent the little man explains. "Tis nothing, Lad. You see, I'm a Leprechaun. Such a condition is characteristic of my people."
"Oh, I see." Said the man. "Wait a minute! You're a Leprechaun? And I saw you. That means you owe me three wishes."
"Alright, you got me. What be ya wishes?"
"I want a Billion dollars!"
"Very well. Go to your bank and you'll see your account topped off at $1 billion. What be ya second wish, Lad?"
"I want a huge mansion on a hill with a beautiful wife."
"Very well, Lad. When you go home tonight, you will find your home has become a three story mansion and your beautiful Lass wait'in for ya. What be ya last wish, Lad?"
"I want to be endowed just like you."
"Oh, no Lad! I'm sorry! Can't do that. That would be against the code of the Leprechaun."
"I insist!" Demanded the man. "I saw you! You have to do anything I ask!"
"Aye, you got me." The Leprechaun sighed. "But to do it, I'll have to rape you."
"What?"
"It's the only way Lad. The code of the Leprechaun, you know."
After thinking about it for a minute, the man agrees, lowers his pants and bends over the sink. "I'll do anything to be hung like that." He says. The Leprechaun responds in kind. Several minutes later the Leprechaun finishes and immediately pulls his pants back up. The man still bent over the sink howls out in pain. Crying with tears streaming down his face he exclaims, "I can't believe I just let you do that too me!"
Walking out of the bathroom door the Leprechaun pauses and says, "Laddie, I can't believe you think I'm a Leprechaun!"
What have we learned from this story. Two things. First, If something sounds too good to be true it probably is. Secondly, people tend to be very gullible when you tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Austerity is nothing more than smoke and mirrors designed to rape the masses.
??? let us not forget the benton harbor fiasco, hmmm? while somewhet smaller it really is all about mis management and likely thievery. Detroit today? America tomorrow and not to far off in the future? we may well be the united states of china. The saddest thing about it all? i use to love my Michigan but like dust blowin' in the wind its gone from a place i once lived and wanted to return to, to ghetto after ghetto. My home town back in the 70s had kellogg, post, purina, clark equipment, michigan carton company and a number of other industries, several very large auto salvage yards a main trunk line for rail, a sizable stock yard that cattle traders would trade at and who knows what else i may have forgotten. much of it disappeared back in the 70s. memeory tells me it was somehting to do with michigan taxes? not quite sure. Last time i went back to bury my mom i went to the working/middle class hood i grew up in a lot of which now is just that, looks like the hood. I'm kind of thinkin another 15-20 down the road 91 Sherman road will look like some the deralict homes in detroit. But who can we really blame? I just work in America i didn't sell it out!
Carlyle Group Lawyers, Trust Companies and Securities Traders are to blame. They want EVERYTHING, including your DNA. How insane is that?
Argon ~ Like I said before, Ronald Wilson (666) Reagan!
Hence the phrase "pulling apart the very fabric of our society"...the very well-educated concubine of intellectual prostitutes in the think tanks of ALEC and the John Birch Society---most of them educated on the backs and from the pockets of poor laborers--in places like the American Heritage Foundation, etc., very astutely understood the key pressure points at which to peck in order to pull this fabric apart...
If there was a social safety net which could keep a portion of "undesirables" among the citizenry, dismantle it (for the elderly, it was Social Security...for "blacks" and immigrants, the unions and the welfare system--of course, these also affected all of the middle class as well, but who cares about them)...and, if all else failed, they would find a way to infest the very heart and lungs of the system itself--the legislature and the judiciary--to ensure that those final defenses, those societal antibodies, were neutralized...
You've got to hand it to them...like any good pariah, like any superior virus, they analyzed the anatomy of our society and found the core values to attack... In some cases, they--like the Shingles/Chickenpox virus--found ways to lay dormant until the perfect moment to strike... (Personally, I feel their most egregious error was in allowing the VA and other veteran's support mechanisms to deteriorate, exposing them for the traitors they are--but, in a society with an "all-vounteer" military, where most serving are from the "underclass" of the economy and race, there would probably not be much furor from the bulk of the infected host...)
And, like most of us in the face of personal illness, we ignored the symptoms until they became so egregious, so overwhelming, that we knew we were in dire peril, and sought medical attention... Of course, then they decided to dismantle our access to that attention: Obamacare....
So, all hail the conquering Neocon Virus... Kneel before the new God of Oligarch, and praise his prophets... And kiss another city, another formerly-middle-class bastion, goodbye...
Just as the right may use the Detroit issues to push their agenda, so the left will do also. Unfortunately the people of Detroit cannot eat, live in, or warm themselves in winter on agenda, left or right.
I happened to catch a local event, a speaker addressing city planning for our area, but what he had to say about cooperatives and what was shown on a short video about changes in some neighborhoods in Cleveland was encouraging. Crime was reduced because everyone in the neighborhood had a stake in the community hydroponic greenhouse they had built. People were owners in the company that grows and sells organic herbs and vegetables, mainly lettuce. You can read more about them: http://evergreencooperatives.com/business/green-city-growers/
I think some folks from Detroit would benefit greatly, if they could get some grant funding or something to start something similar. I believe this is one great way to fight back!
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USian whites are so racist, the vast majority, probably 75 percent, will accept without question the meme of African-American political ineptitude. Combine that with the presidential transformation from Obama the Orator to Barack the Betrayer -- already the greatest political betrayal in U.S. history -- and the cause of minority rights is being methodically positioned to suffer its most devastating setback ever. Nor, knowing the Machiavellian cunning of the One Percent, can I imagine even for a moment this positioning is accidental. The impetus for humanitarian change in the United States has always come from minorities, and African-Americans have been by far its most vocal and most effective advocates. Silence them and silence women -- note the parallel attacks on women's sexual freedom -- and the One Percent will not only have suppressed any and all hope for human betterment, but will have imposed a New Dark Age that will end only when our entire species is extinct.
Mark Saulys ~ "Willfully obtuse shills" is an accurate description. However, if I understand you correctly the proper term you are looking for is "INTERNET TROLLS". Please check out this description and correct me if I'm wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
In my opinion, the best way to discourage this behavior is to constantly use the correct term, as well as, to ignore these individuals. Without confrontation they tend to go away--henceforth the term, "Don't feed the Trolls."
An odd twist! Has any heard the news? George Zimmerman just saved a family from an overturned SUV. Now he's a hero! What a crazy world. Who's going to murder a hero?
I hope you're not another one of those willfully obtuse shills we got on this site. We gotta explain to you what the president was saying?
The President aknowledged that African-Americans commit a disproportionate amount of crime in our society and that things have gotten better and keep getting better with regards to racism in our society but he wanted you to know how it is for innocent blacks always being suspected and accused (and often arrested, roughed up and sometimes even convicted) just because they are black. It is not at all uncommon for black folks to be stalked by one or more weird "crackers" (a southern black term that, in the strictest traditional sense, means racist white, segregationist or what), some KKK or other vigilante racist when walking through a white neighborhood and not at all unrealistic to think they could lose their livess to an encounter with some such types.
MMmmNACHOS ~ I don't know if I'd go that far, but the analogy is sound. The New Black Panthers is relatively new. Until they run up a list of white lynchings I wouldn't make that link too soon. The Buckeye Firearms Association, The Tea Party, or even White neoNazis would be a much fairer comparison. Although I certainly agree that with their mentality they can certainly be considered KKK wannabes.
Isn't it strange how foolishness, ignorance and sheer stupidity come in all colors and flavors? Kind of like Skittles candy, don't you think? All the colors of the rainbow!
The good news is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Too bad intellectuals don't make as much noise as blithering idiots!
rs allen ~ It is true that we have a way to go to get to the utopia visualized by Dr. Martin Luther King. However, we are almost there. The effort to get the rest of the way needs to be not only a social priority but a priority of the individual as well. Equality and peace will never be a public reality till it is a reality in our hearts.
As far as the effects of this minor civil case are concerned, I don't see how it proves anything. There is no large divide in our ethos. This case focuses on the worst common denominators in society. Even a small cut hurts like hell if you rub salt into it. This media story means nothing and only makes a small wound seem unbearable. Were it not for the overt media coverage this story would hold no ones attention. I'm still waiting patiently for the media outrage about the shooting murder of a 8 year old black girl in the streets here in my hometown. Nothing yet. Yet that bothers me a lot more than this Zimmerman case. I'm not sure what bothers me more, the shooting or the fact that the media has swept it under the carpet. I guess its just not divisive enough of a tragedy to be newsworthy.
Cheers to you PALINDROMEDARY!!!Cheers to your ability to see past the B.S of being politically correct... To understand that sometimes using socially sensitive words or phrases is necessary in order to fully express emotion and/or a point.
It has been my opinion that the majority of people and our social/class divide stems more from being "politically correct" than from not. In other words people are afraid to just say what they "actually" feel, or ask tough "unpopular" questions because it might spark a controversial debate, and/or be offensive.
Is it a "hate crime" to say hateful things? When does saying "socially unacceptable" things or not being "politically correct" become a crime? Just where do you draw the line? Who determines that line? If we're not there now, it looks like we are sure getting there soon. So many things are just so arbitrary and subjective. Some people get offended if you just smile at them others get offended if you complement them. Some compliments can easily get taken as sexual harassments. Some magazines have been chastised and/or lost backers for just putting photos of people on their front cover. Cooking show hosts have been blackballed (no pun intended) for admitting to have used a "socially unacceptable" or "politically incorrect" word which is causing her to lose not only her show but millions of dollars. Do we really have freedom of speech here in the US? Helen Thomas fully exercised her "freedom of speech" when she dared to ask challenging questions of a number of US Presidents. She was fired from her reporter's job for daring to say something that Israel didn't like...that the Palestinians had the right to return to their homeland...Palestine. How many people have been cowed to shut up and not challenge Israel? Certainly, not many "investigative" reporters in main stream media will ask too many questions of our government about 9/11. Thank Zod for RT-Russia Today and KPFA and Al Jazeera. Without them, we'd all be shut out of what is really happening in this world.
This is planned. It is not unintended consequences.
For the last couple of decades in Oklahoma The State Employees and Teachers Pension Plan(s) are woefully underfunded and every year the shortfall is brought to the state house and senate floor.
The failure to sufficiently fund the State Employee and Teachers Pension is a deliberate policy just as the yearly call for income "tax Cuts". (funny how the tax cuts are never for unemployment or sales tax on food).
This year the OK Legislature lifted the vail and called for the State employees and Teachers to be converted to IRA's and 401ks.
Very true, DAnneMarc! Very odd, isn't it?
I do not fly or salute any flag, nor do I pledge my allegience to any Lord or Government that puts profit before its people.
Cheers.
As with most things it wasn't a single act
General Explanation Of The Economic Recovery Tax Act Of 1981, (H.R. 4242, 97th Congress, Public Law 97-34).
...Self-employed retirement savings
The Act increases from $7,500 to $15,000 the maximum annual
deduction for a contribution to a self-employed retirement plan
(Keogh or H.R. 10 plan), and for employer contributions to a simplified
employee pension, and makes other changes in tax rules applicable
to such plans, generally effective for taxable years beginning
after 1981...
For Years the Employees (non-union) of Cities Service over funded the company pension plan with the tacit understanding that it would be returned. All the employees from the CEO and Pension Fund Manager to the lowest janitor was vested.
I believe this all started with TBoone Pickens 1976 and later Lee Iaccoco 1979 attempted takeover of Cities Service Oil Company and its overfunded pension plan (explained as money not used for stock holders).Think of the movie "other peoples money"
The response was the "poisen pill" defense. Companies cried about how their pension plans made them targets by takeover "artists".
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/03/business/reagan-set-to-ask-sweeping-ch...
REAGAN SET TO ASK SWEEPING CHANGES FOR PENSION RULES
By ROBERT PEAR, Special to the New York Times
Published: February 03, 1987
President Reagan will soon propose sweeping changes in the Federal pension law, making it easier for companies to take surplus money out of pension funds and use it for their own benefit, Administration officials said today.
The President also intends to propose stricter standards for determining how much employers must contribute to their pension plans, the officials said. Under these standards, many employers would have to set aside more money than they now do to cover a given level of promised benefits.
David M. Walker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor, said ''the Administration believes it is time to make fundamental changes'' in the nation's 13-year-old pension law. Varying Impact Planned
The proposed changes, Mr. Walker said, would make the law more flexible in dealing with healthy pension plans and ''less lenient'' in dealing with employers who did not adequately finance their pension obligations.
Details of the proposals, which Mr. Reagan plans to send to Congress in a few weeks, were given in confidential documents from the White House, the Labor Department and the Internal Revenue Service. The proposals will be offered as an amendment to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which sets minimum standards for pension plans covering more than 70 million people.
Thanks Nacho for coming out of the closet. Do you also fly the CSA flag?
D'Marc, see how this minor civil criminal case has bought to bear what is a very large divide in our ethos? And I may add, a divide that must be breached if we are as a nation to move on after what 150 years or so after that war was fought?