In The Jester's Court

Paul Krassner On The Virtues Of Irreverence, Indecency, And Illegal Drugs

 

by David Kupfer

Paul Krassner has been spreading his witty, sometimes snide, and often political brand of humor since the late 1950s. His publication the Realist was the underground journal of the counterculture during the sixties and seventies, breaking political stories and covering topics that were taboo for the mainstream press. Krassner became known for interweaving current events, social criticism, and satire in a manner not previously seen in print. 

Born and raised in New York City, Krassner was a violin prodigy, and in 1939, at the age of six, he became the youngest person ever to perform at Carnegie Hall. In the 1950s he worked as a writer for comedian Steve Allen and for Mad magazine, and he became friends with stand-up comic Lenny Bruce. Krassner edited Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, and at Bruce's encouragement began performing stand-up comedy himself at the Village Gate nightclub in New York City.

As editor of the Realist, Krassner approached journalism not as an objective observer but as a participant in many of the stories he covered. After he interviewed a doctor who performed illegal abortions, Krassner ran an underground abortion referral service. He wrote about the antiwar movement while he was an active member of it. And in addition to publishing articles on the psychedelic revolution, he took lsd with the revolution's unofficial leader, Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary, and the spiritual teacher Ram Dass, a former associate of Leary's at Harvard. Later Krassner joined novelist Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, who traveled the country spreading the gospel of psychedelics. 

In 1967 Krassner cofounded (with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin) the Yippies, a countercultural political party that led theatrical demonstrations outside the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. At the height of the Vietnam War, Krassner was on an fbi list of radicals to be rounded up in the event of a national emergency. His friends John Lennon and Yoko Ono financed a 1972 issue of the Realist that exposed the Watergate break-in before journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did so in the mainstream press. In 1978 publisher Larry Flynt hired Krassner to take over the pornographic men's magazine Hustler. The job lasted only six months, during which time Krassner appeared as a centerfold in the magazine. 

In 2004 Krassner received an American Civil Liberties Union Upton Sinclair Award for his dedication to freedom of expression, and at the fourteenth annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, Krassner was inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame by the publication High Times. His articles have been published in Rolling Stone, Playboy, Penthouse, Mother Jones, the Nation, the New York Press, National Lampoon, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, and Funny Times. The Realist printed its last issue in 2001, but Krassner is still active as a writer, contributing a monthly column to High Times and a bimonthly column to Adult Video News Online. He is a regular columnist for the Huffington Post website and has been actively involved in movements to end the Iraq War and to legalize marijuana. ("Cigarettes are legal, and smoking them causes the death of twelve hundred people a day," he says. "Marijuana is illegal, and the worst side effect is maybe you'll raid your neighbor's refrigerator.") 

Krassner has released six comedy albums and authored numerous books, including his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counter-Culture (Touchstone) — which he is currently updating and expanding for a possible new edition — and One Hand Jerking: Reports from an Investigative Satirist (Seven Stories Press). His most recent collection, Who's to Say What's Obscene? Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today, will be published by City Lights Books in July of this year.

Krassner lives in southern California's Desert Hot Springs with his wife, Nancy Cain, whom he married on April Fool's Day twenty years ago. When I arrived at their home, just prior to last year's presidential election, he answered the door wearing jeans and a black t-shirt that said, "Stop Bitching — Start a Revolution." He walks with a cane because of a beating he suffered at the hands of two San Francisco cops during the riot following the voluntary-manslaughter verdict in the trial of Dan White, who had assassinated Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk. Krassner's dark, curly hair and youthful demeanor make him appear younger than seventy-six.  

On the walls of Krassner's home office hang a portrait of Albert Einstein with the maxim "Imagination is more important than knowledge," a photo of the Great Pyramid of Giza (from when Krassner traveled to Egypt for the Grateful Dead concerts there in 1978), and a trickster icon from a healers-and-shamans expedition in Ecuador. Outside the window, in a part of the yard he calls "Birdland," doves, finches, and starlings were bathing, and hummingbirds hovered by huge blossoms. We were serenaded by a mockingbird Krassner had nicknamed "Plagiarist." True to form, halfway through our conversation, Krassner lit up a fat joint.

Kupfer: Who are your influences?

Krassner: I come out of a tradition of American humorists that includes Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, and Will Rogers. My first modern influence was Lyle Stuart, who published the Independent, where I did my apprenticeship in journalism and wrote a column titled "Freedom of Wit." Another of my mentors was Jean Shepherd, the radio humorist. In the middle of the night he'd talk about how you might explain an amusement park to a Venusian, or about a man who could taste an ice cube and tell you the make and model of the refrigerator it came from. Comedian Lenny Bruce was my role model as a stand-up performer, and novelist Joseph Heller was my biggest influence as a satirical writer. Heller explained to me how, in his book Catch-22, he used exaggeration so gradually that unreality became more credible than reality. 

Kupfer: You have done stand-up comedy for nearly fifty years. How have your audiences changed?

Krassner: I think they're more aware now of the contradictions in society: the phony piety, the hypocrisy. And I've evolved right along with them. Performing, for me, is a two-way street. English is my second language. Laughter is my first.

Kupfer: Do you aspire to foster social change with your satire, or do you just want to see how far you can push the limits? 

Krassner: In the wishful-thinking corner of my mind, pushing the limits and fostering social change are inextricably connected, but I don't have any delusions that I've inspired an epidemic of epiphanies. People don't like to be lectured to, but if you can make them laugh, their defenses come down, and for the time being they've accepted whatever truth is embedded in your humor. When a large audience of people are all laughing together, no matter how disparate their backgrounds are, it's a unifying moment. But who's to say how long that moment of truth or unity lasts and whether it leads to any action? It's one more positive input, but rarely a tipping point.

Kupfer: What pushed you into the role of provocateur?

Krassner: I couldn't help but notice the difference between what I experienced in the streets and the way it was reported in the mainstream media, which acted as cheerleaders for the suppression of dissent.

- way more -

Bush Jacketless In Oval Office: Photo Uncovered After Bush Chief Of Staff Slams Obama's Informal Appearance

by Anya Strzemien

One day after President Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card blasted President Obama for breaking the Bush dress code, which reportedly required that a jacket be worn by anyone entering the Oval Office, we've unearthed a photo of, well, a jacketless President Bush in the Oval Office.

On Wednesday night, Card told "Inside Edition" that "there should be a dress code of respect....I wish that [Obama] would wear a suit coat and tie." Much has been made of Obama's informal appearance in a photograph taken on January 21st, the day after his inauguration.

The photo of Bush was taken on January 22nd, 2001--two days after his own inauguration.

Card also told "Inside Edition":

"The Oval Office symbolizes...the Constitution, the hopes and dreams, and I'm going to say democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it's appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the President."

Ironically, the photo shows Bush signing papers with staff secretary Harriet Miers, whom he went on to nominate for the Supreme Court in 2005. (She later withdrew her nomination.)

It turns out that going casual in the Oval Office is a long, time-honored tradition that pre-dates the Bush administration: JFK did it. Gerald Ford did it. Ronald Reagan did it. Jimmy Carter did it. Clinton did it (a lot). See photographic evidence below.

In response to the Andrew Card controversy, Reuters' Jon Decker told MSNBC on Thursday morning that Bush "always wore a suit and tie in the Oval Office. There was never a picture of him that was seen by the public in which he wasn't wearing a suit and tie." Until now.

Will Andrew Card issue an apology? Only time will tell.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/05/bush-jacketless-in-oval-o_n_164513.html

The Juice Outsources, Scores Food Reviewer from New Delhi

by Eric Barton

 

New Delhi newsrooms don't feature Woodward or Bernstein.

The Juice has itself an Indian correspondent, an outsourced journalist, reporting live from New Delhi on the South Florida restaurant scene.

It began with a January 12 email from a freelance writer in India. We're making fun of journalism outsourcing here and not our correspondent, so we'll call her only by her first name, Shalini. Truth is, that's more identification than most of the outsourced media industry workers, who toil in obscurity, doing copy editing for the Miami Herald or taking subscription calls for the Sun-Sentinel.

Shalini's cover letter began: "I take this opportunity of submitting my resume to your esteemed organization, perchance there is an opening for a suitable position that your good self would deem suitable for the benefit of the establishment." Her resume promised "excellent written and oral communication skills" and said she had been a freelance writer for unnamed publications since October 2007.

So what the hell. We offered her a job.

 

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2009/01/the_juice_joins_trend_of_outsourcing_journalists_and_finds_food_reviewer_from_new_delhi.php

Top 10 Moments Caught on Google Maps Street View

We've all seen the embarrassing Google Maps images flying around the Web and, well, there are just too many to deny.

In this Web 2.0 world, the cameras are always rolling and the net is always ready to advertise our absurdity. So in the spirit of open information -- we've compiled our Top 10 Moments Caught on Google Maps!

Prepare to be exposed.

• 1. Viking Quest in Action!!

• 2. Drunk Dude Passed Out

• 3. Chinese Submarine Spotted by Scientist

• 4. Google Car Kills Bambi

• 5. Kid Caught About to Shoot Someone

http://www.urlesque.com/2009/02/05/top-10-moments-caught-on-google-maps-street-view/

The Next Catastrophe

Think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a politicized financial disaster? Just wait until pension funds implode.

by Jon Entine

Funds worth trillions of dollars start to plummet in value. Political pressure to be "socially responsible" distorts the market decisions of government-related enterprises, leading to risky investments. Investors who once considered their retirements safely protectedwake up to a sinking feeling of uncertainty and gloom.

Sound like the great mortgage-fueled financial crisis of 2008? Sure. But it also describes a calamity likely to hit as soon as 2009. State, local, and private pension plans covering millions of government employees and union workers with "defined benefit" accounts are teetering on the brink of implosion, victims of both a sinking stock market and investment strategies influenced by political considerations.

From January to October 2008, defined benefit funds—those promising a predetermined amount of retirement money to the payee—averaged losses of 26 percent, according to Northern Trust Investment Risk and Analytical Services, making it the worst year on record for corporate and public pension funds. The largest public pension fund in the United States, the California Public Employees Retirement Security System (CalPERS), lost a staggering 20 percent of its value in just three months last year. In May 2008, Vallejo, California, became the largest city in the state ever to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, thanks largely to unmanageable pension obligations. The situation in San Diego looks worryingly similar. And corporations with defined benefit plans are seeking relief in Washington as part of a bailout season that shows no sign of slowing down.

If the stock market remains in a funk for even a few more months, corporations that oversee union pension funds and state and municipal leaders responsible for public retirement pools may be faced with difficult choices. First on the docket might be postponing cost-of-living increases and reducing health care coverage for retirees. Over the longer term, benefits for new employees will have to be shaved and everyone is likely to see an increase in personal payroll contributions. Corporations will have to resort to more cost cutting and layoffs of their own just to guarantee the solvency of their pension funds. And things could go from bad to terrible if the managers of those funds do not quickly revise their investment practices.

http://reason.com/news/show/130843

From its artificial islands to its boring new skycraper, Dubai's architecture is beyond crass

by Germaine Greer

If Monaco is, in Jack Nicholson's phrase, Alcatraz for the rich, what shall we make of Dubai? Dubai is a city built between the desert and the pale blue sea, that uses more water per capita than anywhere else in the world, and derives 97% of it from desalination, which means that it is the most expensive water in the world. Much of that water is being used to create a garden in the desert. All across the sprawling conurbation, labourers can be seen planting out millions, possibly billions, of bedding plants, into sand banks perpetually moistened by drip irrigation. Dubai has been built on the premise that nothing succeeds like excess.

After years of popping in and out of Dubai airport on my way to and from Australia, this time I deliberately managed my travel itinerary so that I had a long layover, four hours of which I spent on the open top of a double-decker bus that wandered from Deira City Centre through the Wafi Mall, round the World Trade Centre, down to the Jumeira Beach Road and past Dubai World, before doubling back past the Mall of the Emirates and downtown Dubai.

Only 6% of Dubai's revenue comes from oil; the city makes most of its money out of inventing, creating, building and trading real estate. Hence Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's hubristic notion of building an archipelago out of sand dredged from the Persian Gulf, 300 islets arranged in a resemblance of the world map, and calling it Dubai World. Thousands of workers trucked in from poor countries constructed the patches of exposed sand, and the infrastructure that furnishes each with water and power. The islets have since sold for anything between US$15m and $250m apiece. It seems doubtful now that the countries and corporations that have bought into the scheme will have the resources to develop their patches of sand into themed resorts, which might be as well. We can only hope that the Irish company Larionovo, owners of the Ireland islet, never get to build their planned replica of the Giants' Causeway.

What I particularly wanted to see was the tallest building in the world, Burj Dubai, which topped out at 2,684ft on 17 January. As the bus trundled past, I hung out from under the sun canopy, peering up at this needle stuck in the buttock of the Almighty, and I noticed with a thrill of something like terror that there were cranes still working on the top of it, half a mile up in the air, supposing there was any air up there. Burj Dubai was originally meant to be entirely residential; when I saw it, it was entirely empty. The Armani residences are apparently selling at US$3,500 per sq ft and office space for rather more, but I had an eerie feeling no one would ever live there. Soaring up from that tongue of sand, with the Empty Quarter stretching away to the south, Burj Dubai seemed outrageously megalomaniacal, and defiantly worldly, a new Tower of Babel. The developer, Emaar, has lost 75% of its value on the Dubai stock exchange.

While Burj Dubai is a pretty conservative building, Burj al Arab, the huge sail-like luxury hotel built on the lines of an Arab dhow, is entirely innovative. The structure hangs from a steel exoskeleton. From the outside it is unbelievably elegant, light and clean (the interior is anything but). In afterthought, the reference to the tiny dhow seems somehow mocking. The only dhows on Dubai Creek these days take tourists on one-hour pleasure cruises. Though in Dubai you are surrounded by the poor, who labour on every building site, clean the streets and the houses, and wait on the children, they are as invisible as the plumbing. Here, there is no subsistence; here there is only shopping.

Crassest of all the real estate initiatives are the three Palms, off-shore developments of 16 branches emerging from a central trunk, enclosed within a circular breakwater, each intended to house hotels, villas, apartments, marinas, theme parks, sports facilities, and malls. At Palm Jumeira, still largely undeveloped, the water between the branches is stagnating and algae is forming along the man-made beachfront. How this will affect the dolphins that are shipped from the South Pacific to amuse the guests at the Hotel Atlantis, who pay $75 to swim with them, is anybody's guess.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/09/dubai-architecture-greer

Eat the rich

Politicians? Lawyers? Not anymore. Time to loathe the *real* American monsters

 

by Mark Morford

Call it the backlash against the recoil against the collapse. Call it the completely natural response to the downward-spiraling times, though that seems a bit feeble and pansy-assed and not at all in alignment with the general attitude of raging seethingosity.

Call it, then, the death of all we once held dear, if what you held dear consisted of seven McMansions and three trophy wives and five revolving psychiatrists and four personal trainers and regular spa treatments for the Wheaten terriers, along with blatantly rubbing your aging genitalia against the stiff leather of your fleet of Porsche Cayenne Turbos after drunkenly nailing your mistress in your corner office at Goldman Sachs. Ahh yes, that's more like it.

Whatever you call it, there's a bitter tang in the air, a nasty streak of anti-Everythingism, a collective bullet of disgust and frustration that's most violently aimed at the most precious American commodity of all: the rich, the overly entitled, the uberwealthy, the manicured bankers and CEOs and Wall Street cash jockeys we used to cherish like royalty but who now smell vaguely of death and foreclosure and Bernie Madoff.

What a strange phenomenon. From the public outcry against giant investment firms daring to hold fancy Christmas parties, to the image of those bloated Big Auto CEOs driving themselves to Congress in cute little hatchbacks, to Obama himself decrying the obscenity that is the typical executive salary, it's like you can't swing a dead Gulfstream 450 these days without hitting a wall of anti-privilege outrage. Frugality might be the current national pastime, but it's also a mean sonofabitch.

Empathy, however, can be a difficult thing to muster. How many stories did I read in the NYT over the holidays about, say, those poor multimillionaire socialites who think nothing of strolling into the Hermes store and dropping five grand on a handful of pretty scarves to hand out as party favors, who then quietly asked the sales clerk for an unmarked shopping bag so as not to appear too out of place, too ugly an overspoiled diva amongst the hoi polloi?

Or what of those shrill, heavily processed 20-something women with names like Laney and Chandler and Becca who all thought they'd hit the yuppie mother lode by dating young hotshot New York bankers, but now find their boyfriends are more interested in getting drunk and commiserating with their laid-off buddies than treating them to dinner and buying them new Jimmy Choos at Bergdorf's?

Or finally, what about just how difficult it really is to live the good life in NYC on a paltry $500,000 per year, as Obama dared to suggest? Waves of pity are decidedly not rolling forth.

Then again, while some antipathy is understandable, it's often strangely misguided. Take the example of old Wells Fargo bank, recently forced by way of public outcry to cancel its annual Vegas junket, a moderately pricey parade of self-congratulatory silliness aimed at rewarding its top 1,000 employees with all-you-can-eat shrimp buffets and tickets to Danny Gans and free banana daiquiris at the swim-up bar at the Wynn.

Wells Fargo just sucked up $25 billion in federal bailout assistance. Cancel the frivolous corporate junkets? You're damned right they should.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/02/11/notes021109.DTL

The Brightest and Best (Males) Are the Ones Being Laid Off

by Vicky Ward

Another day, another one bites the dust. Friends everywhere are losing their jobs.

They're bright. The New York Times described the growing ranks of the city's unemployed as the new chic club in town. In part, this is because the people who are losing their jobs are the best and ergo the most expensive talent around. I have been bewildered to see some of the cleverest people I know go down, while five goons get left sitting in their office chairs.

They're also mostly male. A study last week claimed that one result of the massive job cuts was that for the first time ever, women are poised to surpass men on America's payrolls: 82 per cent of the cuts have been men.

For those left in work, the cuts seem illogical. A really busy, productive photographer friend tells me he got an email from a bureaucrat's young female assistant asking him to account for every paper clip, pencil and battery in his desk -- with suggestions of cheaper places to buy them. Why, thought my friend, didn't they just cut the cost of the assistant, if she had time on her hands to add up how many paper clips he was using?

But cost-cutting bureaucrats are not thinking in these panic-stricken times. In one large media company the interns -- rich 21-year-old inheritors with zero experience -- have taken over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vicky-ward/bad-times-bring-out-the-b_b_165143.html

Talent like this

Madoff spouse withdrew $15.5 million in 2 weeks

On Dec. 10, the day before Bernard Madoff was arrested, his wife, Ruth, withdrew $10 million from a brokerage firm partly owned by her husband, according to a state regulatory complaint filed in Boston.

By DIANA B. HENRIQUES

NEW YORK — On Dec. 10, the day before Bernard Madoff was arrested, his wife, Ruth, withdrew $10 million from a brokerage firm partly owned by her husband, according to a state regulatory complaint filed in Boston.

It was her second withdrawal in less than three weeks. The first one, Nov. 25, had been for $5.5 million, the complaint said.

Federal prosecutors have cited Dec. 10 as the day Bernard Madoff confessed to his sons that he had been running a huge Ponzi scheme whose losses could approach $50 billion. After that conversation, the sons alerted law enforcement and Bernard Madoff was arrested the next morning.

Both withdrawals were made from Ruth Madoff's accounts at Cohmad Securities, a firm co-founded and partly owned by Bernard Madoff. Cohmad has been under investigation by William Galvin, the top securities regulator in Massachusetts, since soon after Madoff's arrest.

Ira Lee Sorkin, a lawyer for Bernard and Ruth Madoff, declined to comment.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008735237_wife12.html

Bush gave dozens of donors jobs in final days of administration

by John Byrne

Fred Fielding, Emmet Flood and William Burck have something in common.

They all work with President George W. Bush and were appointed to lucrative, obscure jobs by him in the closing days of his administration -- jobs that can pay as much as $3,000 an hour.

Less that two weeks before leaving office, Bush named the three to an obscure World Bank agency called the International Center for Settlement of Investment disputes, where, if called to hear a case, they can earn as much as $3,000 an hour -- plus expenses. Bush also named two other prominent Republicans to the agency.

The appointments last for six years.

According to the Washington Post's Dan Eggen, Bush made more than 100 such appointments, tapping associates to non-confirmable, obscure posts such as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commissions.

Roughly half of the jobs that Bush filled after Obama's election were given to donors who gave $1.9 million to Republicans since 2003. Twenty were filled by former Bush aides (Fielding was the White House Counsel, who sent the note to Rove about executive immunity in the fired US Attorneys case). Additional seats went to "old hands" at previous Republican presidencies, such as that of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

Working for Nixon, it appears, has now become a tangible asset.

 

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_gave_dozens_of_donors_jobs_0210.html

The day the election stood still

Broken record

Los Angeles: Two Years Before Stonewall-The History of LGBT Equality

by Jack Newby

Palm Springs CA - The Desert Pride Community Center announces a display and discussion of historic articles published 40 years ago in the Los Angeles Free Press on February 12, 2009 at 7pm at the Desert Pride Community Center located at 611 S. Palm Canyon Drive, 2nd Floor in Palm Springs. The presentation and discussion will be led by Steven Finger, Publisher of the LA Free Press. These rare articles will bring back a forgotten past of discriminations, declarations, and developments. In fact, the very first story of the very first public protest of the Los Angeles Gay Community was in the LA Free Press on its front page, and with what may be the first published photos of the event. It was a 'happening' that actually pre-dates by more than two full years the 1969 Stonewall incident in New York that is considered by most historians to be the beginning of the present-day Gay Movement. It is a history that must be known and disseminated to a society often ignorant of the pain and prejudice endured, and still needing to be set aright.

Arguably, the nation's first 'underground' newspaper, the Los Angeles Free Press was a window on the counter-culture of the 60's. While most remember the LA Free Press for its reports on anti-war protests, drugs and drug busts, tales of Timothy Leary, the Black Panthers and the Chicago 7, reviews of psychedelic music and all things hip and Hippie, it was, notably, often the only LA newspaper to publish articles and ads for the Gay Community.

http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090210/GETPUBLISHED/902100336

What got cut from the stimulus bill

A coalition of Democrats and some Republicans reached a compromise that trimmed billions in spending from an earlier version of the Senate economic stimulus bill.

CNN obtained, from a Democratic leadership aide, a list of some programs that have been cut, either entirely or partially:

Partially cut:

• $3.5 billion for energy-efficient federal buildings (original bill $7 billion)

• $75 million from Smithsonian (original bill $150 million)

• $200 million from Environmental Protection Agency Superfund (original bill $800 million)

• $100 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (original bill $427 million)

• $100 million from law enforcement wireless (original bill $200 million)

• $300 million from federal fleet of hybrid vehicles (original bill $600 million)

• $100 million from FBI construction (original bill $400 million)

Fully eliminated

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $122 million for Coast Guard polar icebreaker/cutters

• $100 million for Farm Service Agency modernization

• $50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service

• $65 million for watershed rehabilitation

• $100 million for distance learning

• $98 million for school nutrition

• $50 million for aquaculture

• $2 billion for broadband

• $100 million for National Institute of Standards and Technology

• $50 million for detention trustee

• $25 million for Marshalls Construction

• $300 million for federal prisons

• $300 million for BYRNE Formula grant program

• $140 million for BYRNE Competitive grant program

• $10 million state and local law enforcement

• $50 million for NASA

• $50 million for aeronautics

• $50 million for exploration

• $50 million for Cross Agency Support

• $200 million for National Science Foundation

• $100 million for science

• $1 billion for Energy Loan Guarantees

• $4.5 billion for General Services Administration

• $89 million General Services Administration operations

• $50 million from Department of Homeland Security

• $200 million Transportation Security Administration

• $122 million for Coast Guard Cutters, modifies use

• $25 million for Fish and Wildlife

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $20 million for working capital fund

• $165 million for Forest Service capital improvement

• $90 million for State and Private Wildlife Fire Management

• $1 billion for Head Start/Early Start

• $5.8 billion for Health Prevention Activity

• $2 billion for Health Information Technology Grants

• $600 million for Title I (No Child Left Behind)

• $16 billion for school construction

• $3.5 billion for higher education construction

• $1.25 billion for project based rental

• $2.25 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization

• $1.2 billion for retrofitting Project 8 housing

• $40 billion for state fiscal stabilization (includes $7.5 billion of state incentive grants)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/07/stimulus.cuts/index.html

Will You Help Me With My Next Film? ...a request from Michael Moore

Will You Help Me With My Next Film? ...a request from Michael Moore

Friends,

I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know. Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know "the real deal" about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear. I am humbly asking you for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history.

All correspondence with me will be kept confidential. Your identity will be protected and you will decide to what extent you wish to participate in telling the greatest crime story ever told.

The important thing here is for you to step up as an American and do your duty of shedding some light on this financial collapse. A few good people have already come forward, which leads me to believe there are many more of you out there who know what's going on. Here's your chance to let your fellow citizens in on the truth.

If you have any info that would help, please contact me at my private email address: bailout@michaelmoore.com.

For the rest of you on my email list who don't work in the financial industry, you're probably wondering, "What the heck is this all about? I thought he said he was making a romantic comedy!"

Well, I just can't say much right now. I'm sure you can understand why. One thing I can tell you is that you're gonna like this movie when I'm done with it. Oh, yeah...

So, again, if you work for a bank, a brokerage firm or an insurance company -- or if you have seen things or heard things that you believe the American people have a right to know -- please contact me at bailout@michaelmoore.com.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Yours,
Michael Moore
bailout@michaelmoore.com
MichaelMoore.com

Ahmadinejad says Iran ready to talk to US

President says world 'entering an era of dialogue and intellect' Remarks follow fresh Obama vow to seek diplomatic progress

by Haroon Siddique and agencies

Link to video

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, opened the door today to the prospect of talks with the US, less than 24 hours after Barack Obama said face-to-face discussions could take place within months.

"The new US administration has announced that they want to produce change and pursue the course of dialogue. It is quite clear that real change must be fundamental and not tactical. It is clear the Iranian nation welcomes real changes," Ahmadinejad told a rally in Tehran's Freedom Square during celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution.

"The Iranian nation is ready to hold talks, but talks in a fair atmosphere with mutual respect."

He said terrorism, the elimination of nuclear weapons, restructuring the UN security council and the fight against drug trafficking could be the subjects of discussion.

The Iranian leader said the world was "entering an era of dialogue and intellect" because military power had been unsuccessful, and "does not want to see the dark age of Bush repeated".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/10/iran-ahmadinejad-obama-talks

A President who admits mistakes?!

Psychedelic Israel

by Ido Hartogsohn

What is the Geula Party? Is it a political statement? Art? A spiritual manifesto? The Geula party seeks to be all of the above, but it is first of all an attempt to transmit a radically different message to the Israeli people on the eve of the Israeli elections which will take place this Tuesday, on the 10^th of February.

Like the Intergalactic Underground, the idea for the Geula Party came from voyages in the psychedelic realms. It was there, while traveling in inner space, that I confronted a voice which urged me: "In this chaotic reality in which you live, you have to raise your voice and say something that will break the wall of lies in which the people are caught, in which you yourself are caught."

"Israel," the voice said, "is in a psychotic state, and what it needs now is an holistic cure."

Psychedelically-induced voices tend to make some curious demands. This one called upon me to leave everything in my life in order to start a new party, one that will be radically different from everything Israeli politics has to offer, a psychedelic party which will bring a truly mind expanding message to the people. This was the Geula party.

"Geula" is the Hebrew biblical word for salvation or redemption, and it has an important part in Jewish thought about inner freedom and the end of time. The Geula Party uses both Israeli as well as Jewish symbols but plants them within a psychedelic context. It was designed to be an alien apparition in the field of Israeli politics, but all the while draw from the bank of the Jewish and Israeli collective unconscious.

So what is it? To put it briefly, I can call the Geula Party a consciousness expansion party. In contrast to the other parties that run for parliament, the Geula Party runs in the inner elections, i.e., the elections going on inside our consciousness (in Hebrew the word "elections" and the word "choices" are the same -- "B'chirot").

Who do we run against? Well, we run against various other inner parties and powers that compete for people's attention and state of mind. We run against carnivorous capitalism, the powers of nationalism, the powers of commercials and mass media, and also the powers of random choice, of just living your life with out making one truly aware choice.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/psychedelic_israel

Rare Hebrew books displayed at Sotheby's

In this handout photo released by Sotheby's, an illumination from the 18th century Viennese miniature manuscript 'Grace After Meals and Other Benedictions,' is shown, part of the Valmadonna Library Trust collection at Sotheby's in New York, Monday, Feb. 9, 2009. According to Sotheby's, the Valmadonna Trust is the finest private collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts in the world. Amassed over the past century, the group of 11,000 works is significant as a primary source on both world and literary history and Jewish life and culture. The auction house is seeking a buyer for what's considered the greatest collection of Judaica in private hands.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Rare-Hebrew-books-displayed-Sotheby-private-collection-Sotheby-18th-century/ss/events/lf/021009hebrewbooks/im:/090210/482/d3c4a9926d6d4764a61b3d1e32ff9e03/

Why is marijuana illegal?

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Obama and the lethal war on drugs

By JOHANN HARI

With the global economy collapsing all around us, the last issue President Barack Obama wants to talk about is the ongoing war on drugs. But if he doesn't -- and fast -- he may well have two collapsed and hemorrhaging countries on his hands.

The first lies in the distant mountains of Afghanistan. The second is right next door, on the other side of the Rio Grande.

Here's a starter about where this war has led us. Where in the world are you most likely to be beheaded? Where are the severed craniums of police officers being found week after week in the streets, pinned to bloody notes that tell their colleagues, "this is so that you learn respect"? Where are hand grenades being tossed into crowds to intimidate the public into shutting up? Which country was just named by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff as the most likely after Pakistan to suffer a "rapid and sudden collapse"?

Most of us would guess Iraq. The answer is Mexico. The death toll in Tijuana today is higher than in Baghdad. The story of how this came to happen is the story of this war -- and why it will have to end, soon.

When you criminalize a drug for which there is a large market, it doesn't disappear. The trade is simply transferred from chemists and doctors to gangs. In order to protect their patch and their supply routes, these gangs tool up and kill anyone who gets in their way. You can see this any day on the streets of London or Los Angeles, where teen gangs stab or shoot each other for control of the 3,000 percent profit margins on offer. Now imagine this process on a countrywide scale, and you have Mexico and Afghanistan today.

Drug syndicates control 8 percent of global GDP, which means they have greater resources than many national armies. They own helicopters and submarines and they can afford to spread the woodworm of corruption through poor countries right to the top.

Why Mexico? Why now? In the past decade, the U.S. has spent a fortune spraying carcinogenic chemicals over Colombia's coca-growing areas, so the drug trade has simply shifted to Mexico. It's known as the "balloon effect": press down in one place, and the air rushes to another.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/399517_harionline11.html

Pomegranates for Peace

by Elizabeth Hart

This spring farmers throughout Afghanistan, who would otherwise be preparing their fields for another poppy crop, have chosen to plant pomegranate trees instead. With the help of the UK charity Pom354 and the support of local tribal leaders, these farmers will replant their fields, build storage facilities to preserve the fruit throughout the season, and work together to find the best ways to process and market their product.

Opium poppies are largely grown to supply the world with heroin, and the production and exportation of heroin from Afghanistan is one reason for the excessive presence of foreign military in the region. Pom354 founder James Brett started the organization with a vision to empower rural farmers to create peace in their communities by reducing the supply of heroin, engaging in legitimate commerce, and freeing themselves and their families from the extortion and intimidation inherent in the drug trade.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/pomegranates_peace

FAKED Chinese Spacewalk !!! Under Water !!! PROOF !!!

Change you can download: a billion in secret Congressional reports

From Wikileaks

EDITORIAL

Change you can download.

Frontpage of sample CRS report, RL31555: China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues, dated January 7, 2009. A full listing of reports is available here.

 

 

Wikileaks has released nearly a billion dollars worth of quasi-secret reports commissioned by the United States Congress.

 

The 6,780 reports, current as of this month, comprise over 127,000 pages of material on some of the most contentious issues in the nation, from the U.S. relationship with Israel to the financial collapse. Nearly 2,300 of the reports were updated in the last 12 months, while the oldest report goes back to 1990. The release represents the total output of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) electronically available to Congressional offices. The CRS is Congress's analytical agency and has a budget in excess of $100M per year.

Open government lawmakers such as Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) have fought for years to make the reports public, with bills being introduced--and rejected--almost every year since 1998. The CRS, as a branch of Congress, is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

CRS reports are highly regarded as non-partisan, in-depth, and timely. The reports top the list of the "10 Most-Wanted Government Documents" compiled by the Washington based Center for Democracy and Technology^[1]. The Federation of American Scientists, in pushing for the reports to be made public, stated that the "CRS is Congress' Brain and it's useful for the public to be plugged into it,"^[2]. While Wired magazine called their concealment "The biggest Congressional scandal of the digital age"^[3].

Although all CRS reports are legally in the public domain, they are quasi-secret because the CRS, as a matter of policy, makes the reports available only to members of Congress, Congressional committees and select sister agencies such as the GAO.

Members of Congress are free to selectively release CRS reports to the public but are only motivated to do so when they feel the results would assist them politically. Universally embarrassing reports are kept quiet.

Each time the topic of opening up the reports comes up, it runs into walls erected by opposing lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who "like many members of Congress, views CRS as an extension of his staff,". If the reports were made public, "every time a member requests a particular document, the public may infer that he's staking out a particular policy position." (Aaron Saunders, Stevens' spokesman, Washington Post, 2007)^[4].

However that hasn't stopped a grey market forming around the documents. Opportunists smuggle out nearly all reports and sell them to cashed up special interests--lobbyists, law firms, multi-nationals, and presumably, foreign governments. Congress has turned a blind eye to special interest access, while continuing to vote down public access.

Opposition to public availability comes not only from members of Congress but, also, from within the CRS.

One might think that the CRS, as an agency of the Library of Congress, would institutionally support having a wider audience. But an internal memo reveals the CRS lobbying against bills (S. Res. 54 and H.R. 3630) which would have given the public access to its reports (Project on Government Secrecy, FAS, 2003)^[5].

The primary line pushed by the CRS is the one that appeals most to Congressional members--open publication would prevent spin control. The memo states this in delicate terms, referring to such spin failures as "Impairment of Member Communication with Constituents".

Of course the CRS doesn't really care about politicians facing much needed voter discipline, but it does have reasons of its own to avoid public oversight. Institutionally, the CRS has established an advisory relationship with members of Congress similar to the oversight-free relationship established between intelligence agencies and the office of the President.

Free from meaningful public oversight of its work, the CRS, as "Congress's brain", is able to influence Congressional outcomes, even when its reports contain errors. Arguably, its institutional power over congress is second only to the parties themselves. Public oversight would reduce its ability to exercise that influence without criticism. That is why it opposes such oversight, and that is why such oversight must be established immediately.

In 1913 Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, a forceful proponent for open government, stated "Sunlight is the best disinfectant; electric light the most efficient policeman". Those wise words are still true today.

Welcome, Congress, to our generation's electric sun.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Change_you_can_download:_a_billion_in_secret_Congressional_reports

The GOP's Filibuster Hypocrisy

By Robert Parry

Though seemingly forgotten by most TV talking heads, it was only three years ago, when the Republicans had control of both the White House and Congress – and "filibuster" was a dirty word.

It was usually coupled with "obstructionist" amid demands that any of George W. Bush's proposals deserved "an up-or-down vote."

Yet now, with the Democrats holding the White House and Congress, the Republicans and the Washington press corps have come to view the filibuster fondly, as a valued American tradition, a time-honored part of a healthy legislative process.

Today, it's seen as a good thing that Democrats must muster 60 votes in the Senate to pass almost anything.

When the TV pundits talk about Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan squeaking through the Senate, they're actually referring to a vote that might fall  in the range of 60 or more yes votes to perhaps 38 no's, a three-touchdown "squeaker."

The only thing close about the vote is whether the package can overcome a Republican filibuster and get 60 votes for "cloture." To reach this super-majority, Democrats have been forced to accept a higher percentage of tax cuts, even if leading economists consider tax cuts one of the least effective ways of stimulating the moribund economy.

Yet, this anti-democratic fact about the GOP strategy – that it seeks to frustrate the will of the American majority, which rejected the Republicans and their policies in the last two U.S. elections – is rarely mentioned in the news.

Nor is the fact that Republicans railed against even a hint of a filibuster when the Democrats were in the minority just a few years ago.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/020909.html

Obama... This one's for you!

The peasants are revolting

RIAA Takes Over DOJ

Posted by Alan Wexelblat

 

OK, enough with the funny stuff. The new Obama administration is shaping up to be a disaster for Copyfighters everywhere. In particular the new Department of Justice is stacked with lawyers who've been on the wrong side of copyright and intellectual property lawsuits for the last eight years.

First off, there's the #3 man at Justice, Thomas Perrelli, accurately described by CNET as "beloved by the RIAA". Not only has this guy been on the wrong side in the courtroom, he's fingered as instrumental in convincing the Copyright Board to strangle Web radio in its crib by imposing impossible fee structures.

Then there's Neil MacBride, who used to be the Business Software Alliance's general counsel. The BSA, to its credit, hasn't been suing teenagers. Generally their name is associated with large-scale raids on companies that are mass-producing illegal copies of software. Still, it's an industry flak group.

Then there's the #2 man, currently slated to be David Ogden. If that name only rings a faint bell it's because you have to cast your mind back to Eldred v Ashcroft, the argument on whether retroactive copyright term extensions were legal. Sitting over there on Ashcroft's side? That's Mr. Odgen. For extra-bonus ick points, Ogden also was involved in defending the heinous COPA legislation, fortunately now dead and buried (but not forgotten).

The capper on this line-up of suspicious characters is Donald Verrilli, now up for Associate Deputy Attorney General. This specimen of legal acumen is front and center in the Cartel's jihad, having appeared for Viacom when it sued YouTube, for the RIAA against Jammie Thomas, single mother. And if we peer back a little farther, we find Verrilli's dirty fingerprints on MGM v Grokster.

http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2009/02/06/riaa_takes_over_doj.php

Pete Seeger sings "Newspapermen Meet Such Interesting People"

National Security Team Delivers Grim Appraisal of Afghanistan War

By Craig Whitlock

MUNICH, Feb. 8 -- President Obama's national security team gave a dire assessment Sunday of the war in Afghanistan, with one official calling it a challenge "much tougher than Iraq" and others hinting that it could take years to turn around.

U.S. officials said more troops were urgently needed, both from America and its NATO allies, to counter the increasing strength of the Taliban and warlords opposed to the central government in Kabul. They also said new approaches were needed to untangle an inefficient and conflicting array of civilian-aid programs that have wasted billions of dollars.

"NATO's future is on the line here," Richard C. Holbrooke, the State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told attendees at an international security conference here. "It's going to be a long, difficult struggle. . . . In my view, it's going to be much tougher than Iraq."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020800695.html?hpid=moreheadlines

'Fiasco' author: Iraq war may be only 'halfway' over

by David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz

The American adventure in Iraq may be only halfway over, nearly six years after former President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. invasion. And the military gains from Bush's "surge" could evaporate this year.

That's according to Thomas Ricks, author of the widely acclaimed 2006 book on the war, Fiasco.

"I think a lot of people back here [in the U.S.] incorrectly think the war is over. We may be only halfway through this thing," Ricks told NBC's David Gregory on Meet the Press Sunday morning.

Ricks, whose new book is called The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, thinks that the Iraq war is far from over. "This year we're in now, '09, is going to be, I think, a surprisingly tough year," he said.

U.S. commander in Iraq General Raymond Odierno, who the Washington Post calls a "dissenter," sees negative effects of the surge, Rick says: many Iraqis used the breathing space the surge created to "step backwards" to become more sectarian and divided.

Leading Democrats such as Senator Dianne Feinstein have said that the U.S. troop surge in Iraq could fall short of its goal.

"None of the basic problems that the surge was meant to solve, have been solved. All the basic issues facing Iraq are still there," Ricks told Gregory. "Basically the surge succeeded militarily, failed politically."

 

10 Most Dangerous Foods

You might think you're eating healthy. You might want to think again.

by Michelle Brunner

We all love to eat, but the ugly reality is that some foods can make you sick. We're not talking about salmonella here; none of what's listed below should send you directly to the hospital with a debilitating illness, though Jeremy Piven recently claimed to have mercury sickness from a diet too rich in sushi. While the verdict is still out on Piven's poisoning, certain foods, when eaten too frequently, can pose a very real health risk over time (especially if you are thinking of having a baby or if you are feeding a small child).

The dangers of these foods range from PCBs in certain fish, to large trace amounts of pesticides on fresh fruit and veggies. This past year, the National Institutes of Health even linked long-term pesticide exposure to diabetes. To avoid these health risks, we came up with a list of ten foods to beware, both for your health and for the health of the environment.

1. Farmed Salmon
Tim Fitzgerald, a scientist with the Oceans Program of the Environmental Defense Fund, says, "Salmon is the third most popular seafood in the US, so people are eating a lot of it and most of what they're eating is farmed. As a result of the feed salmon are given, they are very high in PCBs and environmental contaminants. For reasons of health, the environment, and popularity with consumers, farmed salmon is at the top of the list of seafood to avoid." The average dioxin level in farmed-raised salmon is 11 times higher than that in wild salmon. 

2. Conventionally Grown Bell Peppers
Even though pesticides are present in most food at very small trace levels, their negative impact on health is well documented, and certain produce carries a greater risk. According to a report done by the Environmental Working Group, sweet bell peppers are the vegetable with the most pesticides detected on a single sample (as many as 11 were found on one sample). In addition, bell peppers are the vegetable with the most pesticides overall with 64 different pesticides found on samples. Better to buy organic and eliminate this risk.

 3. Non-Organic Strawberries
In order to increase sweetness, some growers of non-organic strawberries are said to irrigate the plants with water laced with the artificial sweetener NutraSweet. And that luscious red color is caused by the fungicide captan, recognized by the EPA as aprobable human carcinogen. Do you really want to eat something bathed in a chemical sweetener and doused with a likely cancer-causer? Probably not.

4. Chilean Sea Bass
Chilean sea bass, otherwise known as Patagonian toothfish, lives for a very long time and grows to a large size; both are automatic warning bells for being high in mercury. Fitzgerald says, "We have some pretty comprehensive data that Chilean sea bass are extraordinarily high in mercury and not something you want to eat very often. When you factor in the very serious environmental issues with illegal fishing and bycatch, it's definitely a double whammy for us." 

"That said, we don't want to give the impression that if you eat one piece of fish with mercury, you're going to get mercury poisoning. But if you continually eat fish with a lot of mercury over an extended period of time, that's when you're going to see more serious issues like unexplainable fatigue, memory problems, and tingling or numbness in your extremities," Fitzgerald says.

5. Non-Organic Peaches
Peaches aren't just juicy and delicious, they're magnets for pesticides, often topping the Organic Center's consumer's pocket guide for pesticide-riddled produce. The Center's chief scientist Charles Benbrook says, "Peaches top the list because their skins get soft at the end of their season on the tree and the last pesticide spray can move right through that skin and get into the tissue of the fruit in a matter of hours. That's why it's easy to find peaches with ten different pesticide residues in them."

Benbrook adds, "The last thing that we want to do is scrooge people from eating fresh fruits and vegetables. If anything, we want people to eat two to three more servings of produce a day. But the science is irrefutable. If the average family sought out organic versions of the top four fruits and vegetables they eat the most often, they could eliminate 90% of their overall pesticide exposure."

http://www.sprig.com/10_Most_Dangerous_Foods

Senate “Moderates” Cut 1 1/4 Million Jobs from Stimulus Bill

 

By: Ian Welsh

(Update: New numbers have come out indicating cuts are 88 billion, not the 120 we heard last night.  In that case the difference between the original Senate and the Gang of four compromise would be 951,000.)

The bottom line on the changes demanded by "centrist" gang of four Senators Collins, Specter, Lieberman and Nelson is that the compromise Senate bill will create about 728,143 fewer jobs less than the House bill.  This is a back on the envelope figure and very rough, but if anything it should be a slight underestimate.  If you compare the compromised Senate Bill to the pre-gang Senate bill, it comes out to 1,271,000 fewer jobs.

Friday night during the stimulus debate Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb) said that:

"Our plan pares back a very substantial amount of money that we believed didn't belong in the bill. Didn't belong in a bill that was designed to fix our economy called a stimulus package.

Now if we looked at these proposals many of them will work well in a budget or in another bill.

But we just didn't think that they deserved to be in this particular bill which was about jobs, jobs, jobs. Now if we ask taxpayers to support it as we are, they deserve to get the biggest bang for their buck. The remaining plan will generate new jobs, save jobs and expands job opportunities all across America as it also boosts our economy." 

Clearly, Ben Nelson doesn't know what he's talking about.  Worse than that, White House Press Officer Robert Gibbs then congratulated Nelson and co. for gutting the bill:

On the day when we learned 3.6 million people have lost their jobs since this recession began, we are pleased the process is moving forward and we are closer to getting Americans a plan to create millions of jobs and get people back to work 

Here are the assumptions and the math.

The Senate Bill is apparently $780 billion, 42% is tax cut, 58% spending.  That means tax cuts are: $327.6 billion.  Spending is $452.4

The House Bill was $819 billion.  Of that $275 billion were tax cuts.  Spending was $544 billion.

According to the CBO $140,000 of GDP means one job created.  However different types of stimulus have different GDP multipliers.  In general tax cuts, especially tax cuts like the AMT fix put into the Senate bill, have lower GDP multipliers.  For the purposes of this analysis let's assume that tax cuts have a .5 GDP multiplier.  For spending we'll assume a 1.4 multiplier, which is probably slightly low since, for example, food stamps appear to have been cut out of the bill and they have a 1.7+ multiplier.

The tax cut increases will increase job creation. Total tax cut increase is $52.6 billion.  $52.6 billion/140,000x0.5 jobs = 187,857 jobs created.

The spending cuts will decrease job creation.  Total spending cuts are $91.6 billion.  $91.6 billion/140,000x1.4 = 916,000 job losses.

Add job gains to job losses and you get a net loss of 728,143 jobs.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/07/senate-moderates-cut-1-14-million-job-from-stimulus-bill/

Republicans Turn Their Backs On The People Who Have Played By The Rules And Need Help

 

By Susie Madrak

This is what the Republicans and Blue Dog Dems are turning their backs on:

All over the New Jersey, the welfare lines are getting longer and longer. Victims of the recession are lining up to apply for food stamps and seek help paying for utilities, rent and subsidized health care in numbers that veteran social service workers have never seen before.

While the lines may run the longest in urban Essex County, rural Salem County and suburban Middlesex see the same thing: lines getting longer, lines made up more and more of people that have never stood there before.

Nikki Hernez, a 45-year-old Newark bus driver looking for work since October, said she has stood in lines all over the county. She walked 2 1/2 miles to a Newark office Monday to pick up a bus pass, only to be told to come back Thursday because the office was so jammed.

Hernez finds the line in East Orange office the most chaotic.

"The line at 50 South Clinton Avenue is crazy -- people get there early in the morning, a lot of the people are cursing, yelling and screaming," Hernez said.

"You gotta understand, people are under so much pressure there is only so much they can take," said Hernez, who ran out of unemployment benefits and applied for welfare in the fall. "But even I tell them, real nice, you're not going to get anything quick by cursing the worker out."

[...] They include people like Joan, a 52-year-old Warren County resident who applied for public assistance in December, after years of holding white-collar and part-time tutoring jobs. County workers told her to come back in January because they were "so overloaded," she said.

Joan, who declined to reveal her full name to protect her son's privacy, said she doesn't blame the county workers -- "good people doing the best they can. But I have always been a taxpaying citizen. I am playing by the rules and I can't get help."

And really, that's what it's about. If even people who worked hard and played by the rules can't get help, our leadership is a joke and our system a complete failure:

She said she pawned jewelry to make a car payment, and put food on the table by going to food pantries and taking handouts from friends and family until, upon her third visit, the county came through with a one-time food stamp grant for $227 last month.

"I never thought I would be in this situation," Joan added. "Something has to be done about people like me."

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/republicans-turn-their-backs-people-w

Repug finger in the dike

How Theresa Hatt Caused The Financial Crisis

By Zachary Roth

Last month, Theresa Hatt died at 52, after a brief struggle with cancer.

Hatt, who lived in Portland, Maine, and worked for the city of Scarborough, had had several credit cards in her name. So, shortly after her death, Hatt's son, Paul Kelleher, began the sad task of calling his mother's creditors, to inform them of her passing.

The calls were uneventful, if depressing, until Kelleher got to Bank of America. Here is how he says his conversation with a representative of the company's estates unit went:

Paul Kelleher: Yes, I'm calling to inform you that my mom died on the 24th of January.

Bank of America Estates representative: I'm sorry. Oh, it looks like she never even missed a payment. That's too bad. Well, how are you planning to take care of her balance?

PK: I'm not going to. She has no estate to speak of, but you should feel free to just go through the standard probate procedure. I'm certainly not legally obligated to pay for her.

BOA: You mean you're not going to help her out?

PK: I wouldn't be helping her out -- she's dead. I'd be helping you out.

BOA: Oh, that's really not the way to look at it. I know that if it were my mother, I'd pay it. That's why we're in the banking crisis we're in: banks having to write off defaulted loans.

"I lost it there," Kelleher, a mild-mannered 30-year-old who lives in Brookline, Mass., where he works remotely for a Washington DC-based non-profit, told TPMMuckraker. When pressed, he said, the estates rep backed off that last claim, but only a little, continuing to suggest that cases like his mothers had played a role in the financial crisis.

The rep's apparent intention, as Kelleher described it, was to mislead him into believing that he was obligated -- at first legally, then, failing that, morally -- to cover his mother's debt (which, in any case, was not large: she had had a $1000 limit on her card). Of course, Kelleher was sophisticated enough to know that's not true. But how many other less savvy callers in similar situations, he wondered, might respond to the rep's breezy "how are you planning to take care of her balance?," with a confused "I guess I'll mail in a check"?

And what bothered Kelleher as much as the estate rep's insensitivity, not to mention her apparent effort to deceive, was the impression he got that she wasn't winging it.

"It seemed rote," Kelleher said. "It was too naturally delivered to have been a misstatement."

That impression was strengthened when Kelleher eventually spoke with the rep's supervisor, Eric Davis. Kelleher said that when he recounted his conversation with the rep, Davis apologized -- for what, exactly, it was unclear -- but told him: "That's not how she meant it."

From his conversation with Davis, said Kelleher, "it sounded like [the rep's approach] was encouraged."

How strongly encouraged, we wondered? And how common was this particular rep's approach? So we tracked down a former rep for Bank of America's collections unit. And according to the former rep, Kelleher's interlocutor was doing just what she was told .

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/how_theresa_hatt_caused_the_financial_crisis.php

Boycott Kellogg's For Treatment Of Michael Phelps

To:  Kellogg's Corporation

Whereas...

1) Kellogg's is a major manufacturer of cereal and junk food products including but not limited to Frosted Flakes, Pop Tarts, Cheez-Its, Froot Loops, Keebler's Cookies, Rice Krispies, Eggo Frozen Waffles, Famous Amos Cookies and many other products known to be a part of the diet of many marijuana using Americans

2) The Kellogg's has profited for decades on the food tastes of marijuana using Americans with the munchies. In fact, we believe that most people over the age of twelve would not eat Kellogg's products were they not wicked high.

3)That Kellogg's has decided to end their relationship with Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps after pictures of him surfaced doing exactly what most Kellogg's customers do right before enjoying a bowl of Rice Krispies mixed with Keebler Cookies with an Eggo on top.

4) That this action by Kellogg's, while legal, is totally bogus.

5) That Kellogg's is a big fat hypocrite, just like our parents when they found our stash under our mattress and took it and then later they sat in the living room and listened the Dark Side Of The Moon over and over and danced and laughed and I swear we smelled something.
John Harvey.

6) That a quick Wikipedia search shows the founder of Kellogg's - john Harvey Kellogg - was a total frickin' weirdo who believe in putting children's genitals in a cage to keep them from playing with themselves and also believed in yogurt enemas.

7) That seriously, just Google John Harvey Kellogg. Dude was freaky.

8) That the thing about yogurt enemas makes us want to hurl when we look at that box of Kellogg's Yogos we have in the pantry.

9) That Michael Phelps should totally drop YOU dudes for your obsession with bran and fiber and masturbation and butts and stuff. You drop HIM? Dude won eight gold medals and probably didn't stick a single one in his butt or tie it in tourniquet around his naughty bits. Dude was just trying to relax. Seriously Kellogg's, WTF?

Given all these facts and the total disregard for your customer base and that thing with the yogurt, we the undersigned plan to BOYCOTT your products.

And we're serious.

Even though the Pop Tarts thing will be HARD.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

View Current Signatures

http://www.petitiononline.com/Kellogg/petition.html

Rewarding Failure

Plague-Infested Mice Missing From New Jersey Research Lab

by David Goodhue

The frozen remains of two mice infected with the bubonic plague are missing from a New Jersey bioterror research facility, and the facility waited seven weeks to report the incident to federal and state authorities.

Officials with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, where the remains went missing, and FBI officials, said the missing mice pose no public health threat.

This is the same facility where three live plague-inflected mice went missing in September 2005. Officials concluded those mice died.

The frozen mice were noticed missing when an animal care supervisor went to prepare them for sterilization and incineration, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported. University officials still think the remains were incinerated earlier, but lack the records to prove it.

University officials say they contacted the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health officials when they realized the dead mice were unaccounted for.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7013988330

Farewell, Monroe Doctrine

by Philip Brenner and Saul Landau

President Barack Obama could swiftly improve U.S. relations with Latin America by announcing the death of the Monroe Doctrine and then presiding over its funeral. Such a statement would cost him little domestically, and win him praise and appreciation throughout Latin America and much of the world. Most Americans don't know the details of this 185-year-old policy and could care less about it. Latin Americans, in contrast, not only can describe the Monroe Doctrine, but they revile it. In effect, it has become nothing more than hollow rhetoric that offends the very people it purports to defend. In 1823, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote, and President James Monroe proclaimed, a doctrine that asserted U.S. political character is different from Europe's. The United States, President Monroe declared, would consider the extension of Europe's monarchical political influence into the New World "as dangerous to our peace and safety." European powers should leave the Americas for the Americans, he warned, and he strongly implied that there existed a U.S. sphere of influence south of the border. At the time, Europe shrugged. After all, the United States possessed neither a formidable army nor navy. But three serious problems fundamentally vitiated this apparently noble gesture to protect newly independent republics in South America from European re-colonization. First, Washington proclaimed it unilaterally. Latin Americans didn't ask us for protection. U.S. diplomats didn't even consult their counterparts. That was ironic, since the Doctrine's "protection" involved placing the United States between Latin American countries and supposedly malevolent European states. Second, its paternalism — the claim that "our southern brethren" lack the ability to defend themselves — raises hackles in Latin America. Even if the implication had some validity at one time, it no longer corresponds to the region's reality. The third and most problematic issue Obama faces from the outmoded doctrine relates to its legacy. For more than a century, the United States has periodically intervened in the domestic affairs of Latin American countries. Typically the United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine — without threats from Europe — to justify self-serving intrusions that have inflicted heavy damage on Latin American dignity and sovereignty.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5830

Dr. Doom speaks

Limbaugh Hears a "Who's Running the GOP?"

 

"He's a good man. He's not hated."
      -- Rush talking about Dubya,    Link 

 

"Why is Rush even talking about Bush? We don't care about Bush anymore 
  unless Bush is being tried for treason and the war crimes that he committed." 
     -- Cats r Flyfishn,    Link 

 

"Bush was the most partisan, most divisive president the nation has ever known, 
  and the ravings of a fat-assed drug addict do little to change that fact." 
     -- marlow      Link 

 

"Bush wasn't partisan and baggyballs Limbaugh wasn't 43's personal nuthugger 
 and all was well in delusional neoclownland." 
     -- Bozo the neoclown,    Link