Sean! Thx for this 'friendly bacteria' film! Genius' on this program here!.

Get back at ATT! Use Google phones- its free! You put your phone number and number to call into the computer and your call goes over the internet. If you cant figure out Google Phones try this: http://www.jajah.com/registration/

Thom, I found a wonderfully interesting video about bacteria on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVfmUfr8VPA

It seems they can communicate and exhibit democratic behavior!

They actually have a word called "quorum sensing". Ask Bernie Sanders if he uses chemicals to sense if the Senate has quorum.

I don't know if you've ever heard of TED Talks, but they're addictive! Technology Entertainment and Design talks led by the nations best and brightest. Look up the user "TEDTalksDirector" on Youtube to watch them.

Thom,

You mentioned the pulling out of the WTO.

I recently left on message on this blog that Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said in an interview on the Ron Reagan Show, that she found a footnote in a WTO document in which the Clinton Administration had pledged to get rid of Glass Steagall.

When you mentioned the WTO this morning, I remembered that she also said that she found language in a document from the recent G-20 meeting that committed the G-20 to upholding WTO rules, and that this would negate many of the agreements reached by the G-20.

By the way, I’ve heard that the agreements reached by the G-20 only required “voluntary” compliance.

Lori Walllach describes herself as a recovering trade attorney.

Interesting related links from a reader on Paul Krugman's blog, "The Conscience of a Liberal:"

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/warren-report/?apage=3#comments

Dear David James Brunner,

Since you liked Simon Johnson’s recent article (”The Quiet Coup”, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice)

Try these articles as well:

Matt Taibbi of The RollingStone recent article (”The Big Takeover: The global economic crisis isn’t about money - it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution” , http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print)

And, my blog’s article on (”Was Goldwater right in predicting an Economic Conspiracy?”)
http://pragmaticstatistic.blogspot.com/2009/04/was-goldwater-right-in-pr...

— PragmaticStatistic

Referring to above post... S582 -- meaning the cap on credit card rates / usury bill.

(Dang computers)
I just listened to William Greider on Now with Bill Moyers (3/27). He would make a great guest about the banking crisis and how we are going down the wrong path. Also The 4/3 NOW with guest Bill Black is very informative. Black asserts there is mass fraud going on in the banking system.

Louise, can you incorporate the AG's phone number into this article?

I keep up with the world with a RSS reader and the telephone number does not appear with the feed. The only way I found it was by signing in and going to the home page where it leads the Don Siegelman story.

For those still looking, the number is (202) 514-2001, or alt. # Office of the Attorney General - 202-353-1555

One more thing, what are the chances of pushing some funding out into the herbal medical professions. I have successfully healed everything on me so far and I am still ticking this way. This could also be introduced through nutrition education as Hippocrates said 'Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.'

Think of the money this would save our economy and also inject into it, demand for herbals and organic farming and apothecaries.

See http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topcontribs.php

3 of top 5 campaign contributers were Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Citigroup. Morgan Stanley was #8. American Bankers Assn #11.
BofA #17. Merrill Lynch #19. That is 7 of the top 20 (vs 3 political, 3 labor, 1 other national trade organization, and 6 other corporations).

Got to go to work.

Bernie,
Of course you got only about 30 votes on usury. Most of the biggest contributors to the other 70 Senators were big banks that have been bailed out, merged into banks, or went bankrupt. See the campaign finanace web site. I looked at a sample - 4 of 4 SenatorsI looked at, including 1 Democrat, had 4 of their 5 biggest cotributors that were banks). Bankruptcy probably stops Lehman.

Are any of these now prohibited from continuing to contribute to Congressional Campaigns?

Has there been any discussion of this in congress? I don't suppose anyone thought of banning contributions by the other bailed-out banks. What a confilict of interest!

This is going to be a major scandal. Not sure when, but it will be within the next 2 years.

Holy mackerel there Jared Allaway,

Thank you for responding to one of the least significant messages I’ve posted on this board. Although the last thing I expected to find when I checked back on this board was to find an angry response to a simple joke that wasn’t aimed at anyone, vegetarian or not.

I have to say that I’m disappointed that you flew off in a huff over that joke, so I’d like to offer a little advice about huffs. They can be very hard to pilot because they tend to be over-powered for the payloads they carry. And they make so much noise that the pilots, usually hunched over the yoke, can’t hear when people try to warn them that their about to crash. So before flying off in a huff, it’s a good idea to carefully go through your checklist. Taking special care that you have sufficient fuel and visibility is very important.

To address the points in your post:

I didn’t write about vegetarians. I made a joke. My main joke was about the “Easter Heifer”. Then I added the joke about the “Vegetable Liberation League”. That joke dates back to a video I thought of making back when fast food restaurants started offering veggie burgers. It never was about any animus towards vegetarians on my part. In fact, I have criticized a local talk show host for disparaging vegans and vegetarians, and this is a person who had Thom Hartmann on his show as an honored guest several times.

I guess the following line is what pulled the prop on your huff. “As far as you vegetarians, we members of the Vegetable Liberation League think you’re deplorable hypocrites.” Dude, there is no Vegetable Liberation League. To adapt a line from Sigmund Freud, “Sometimes a joke is just a joke.”

I think your overreaction to my little joke is an indication of oversensitivity on your part. That’s very common among people who feel very strongly about their issues. I’m going to guess that cruelty to animals is a very big part of that for you. Nevertheless, your response was over the top and oversensitive.

There was nothing in my post that suggested that “meat eaters are doing a noble thing”. You saying that indicates that your emotions got the best of your logic. Hey, I eat vegetable every day. I cut them, cook them and do all sorts of things that they wouldn’t think well of, if they thought at all.

Another indication of how you’ve overreacted is your comment that my joke showed the world that I haven’t done any research on vegetarianism. What world? How many people to you think read this blog? And your comment about how much research I’ve done on vegetarianism only makes sense if you think the joke was a criticism of vegetarianism, which it wasn’t.

For our information, I’m familiar with the basic arguments for vegetarianism. The health and environmental arguments are the most compelling to me, and have informed my eating habits, though I do eat and enjoy some meat. And I’ve known about vegetarianism since I was a child, because I had an uncle who was a vegetarian. He and his family lived very close to my family and I spent a lot of time at their house.

You say jokes about defenseless vegetable are old. So what! That statement shows that you don’t know much about jokes and humor. Last year there was a news story about research on the oldest jokes on record. The very oldest joke dates back around to 1900 BC and comes from ancient Sumer. It was a fart joke. In 2009, Stephanie Miller, one of the top rated “progressive” talkers has a promo running about the role of fart jokes on her show. In fact, articles about the oldest jokes noted that just like today, relationships, toilet humor and sex jokes were staples of ancient humor. I imagine that there were people who were offended by some of those jokes way back then.

Now completely out of the blue, you said, “I love Thom Hartmann.” Maybe that’s the source of part of your anger, because if you read this blog regularly, you may have noticed that I’m very critical of Thom.

Well, I have some major differences with Thom and I’m going to express them. I hope some of my comments help Thom expand his view. It’s hard to judge whether they do or not. Thom, like all of us has his comfort zone and a certain amount of rigidity in his opinions. Personally, I believe some of his ideas are just plain whack.

I saw your post about atheism. You seem to be an atheist. Thom believes in a spiritual dimension to the universe and if you listen to him over a long period of time, you may be amazed at how omnipresent Thom seems to believe this spiritual dimension is. But his spiritual views are only one area in which I disagree with him. There are also a lot of areas I do agree with him.

Well, this was a long response to a short post. I don’t know whether it will help you understand why I think you overreacted, but I don’t know if you’ll even see it.

My advice to you is to just chill. Me, I’m gonna veg out for a while.