DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
Volusia County (Orlando) Sheriff's Deputy Keith Baughman threw a towel on an alligator he and other deputies encountered in an apartment parking lot. He jumped on its back and tried to wrestle it. Baughman was thrown off the back and then bitten, witnesses said. "His pants ripped up and blood was gushing out and everything," witness Carlos Martinez said. "He started limping away and the alligator was laughing at him. The dude then shot it twice in the head."
(LOCAL6.COM, unearthed by Fark)
Friday, June 20, 2008
The Associated Press: Texas GOP cuts off vendor that sold racist button
NOW THEY'RE PC!
The Texas Republican Party is distancing itself from a vendor who sold campaign buttons at last weekend's state convention that asked, "If Obama is president ... will we still call it The White House?
(AP)
The Texas Republican Party is distancing itself from a vendor who sold campaign buttons at last weekend's state convention that asked, "If Obama is president ... will we still call it The White House?
(AP)
Fairhope safe opened, marijuana found inside - Breaking News from the Press-Register - al.com
EAT YOUR HEART OUT, GERALDO
A crowd of nearly 30 Fairhope, Alabama citizens and media folks watched as a locksmith lifted away the heavy, black door of a city safe that had been abandoned and unused since 1971. The event, planned and advertised for weeks as a promotional for the new Fairhope Museum of History turned out to be a surprise. Apparently, (hopefully?), it had last been used by the Police Department prior to 1971 to store drug evidence and yielded a small cache of marijuana.
(PRESS-REGISTER BLOG)
A crowd of nearly 30 Fairhope, Alabama citizens and media folks watched as a locksmith lifted away the heavy, black door of a city safe that had been abandoned and unused since 1971. The event, planned and advertised for weeks as a promotional for the new Fairhope Museum of History turned out to be a surprise. Apparently, (hopefully?), it had last been used by the Police Department prior to 1971 to store drug evidence and yielded a small cache of marijuana.
(PRESS-REGISTER BLOG)
West Virginia Blue - Democratic politics and progressive policies for WVa
MCCAIN IGNORES GOVERNOR'S REQUEST
An aide to Gov. Chet Culver said Thursday that Republican presidential candidate John McCain ignored the governor's request to cancel a campaign visit amid a massive flood recovery effort in the state.
(WEST VIRGINIA BLUE)
An aide to Gov. Chet Culver said Thursday that Republican presidential candidate John McCain ignored the governor's request to cancel a campaign visit amid a massive flood recovery effort in the state.
(WEST VIRGINIA BLUE)
t r u t h o u t | Big Oil Firms Ready to Sign Agreements With Iraq
BIG OIL TO GARNER IRAQ CONTRACTS
Iraq is preparing to award contracts to several Western energy companies to help develop its vast oil resources. The two-year, no-bid contracts will be awarded to companies that have been advising the Iraqi Oil Ministry in recent years, said Asim Jihad, a spokesman for the ministry. He said officials expect that U.S.-based Exxon Mobil and Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, France's Total and British oil company BP will secure the biggest contracts.
(TRUTHOUT)
Iraq is preparing to award contracts to several Western energy companies to help develop its vast oil resources. The two-year, no-bid contracts will be awarded to companies that have been advising the Iraqi Oil Ministry in recent years, said Asim Jihad, a spokesman for the ministry. He said officials expect that U.S.-based Exxon Mobil and Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, France's Total and British oil company BP will secure the biggest contracts.
(TRUTHOUT)
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist - Frank Rich - Do Angry Clinton Women Love McCain? - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
MCCAIN'S SOFTER SIDE
While the McCain campaign apparently believes that women are easy marks for its latent feminist cross-dressing, a reality check suggests that most women can instantly identify any man who’s hitting on them for selfish ends.
(NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED)
While the McCain campaign apparently believes that women are easy marks for its latent feminist cross-dressing, a reality check suggests that most women can instantly identify any man who’s hitting on them for selfish ends.
(NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED)
Friday, June 13, 2008
mediabistro.com: FishbowlLA
TWO AND TEN, DAMN IT!
Carlos drove his brother and I to Dauphin Island yesterday, so this video struck me as particularly funny. The video is part of a marketing strategy for a company trying to raise the awareness of some new California laws and to call attention to their hands-free mobile devices.
(MEDIA BISTRO)
Carlos drove his brother and I to Dauphin Island yesterday, so this video struck me as particularly funny. The video is part of a marketing strategy for a company trying to raise the awareness of some new California laws and to call attention to their hands-free mobile devices.
(MEDIA BISTRO)
Global Paradigms
WHAT A CONSERVATIVE HAS TO SAY
McCain's kind of Churchillian posturing doesn't seem to be having much impact on the American public, which notwithstanding the short-term improvement in the security in Baghdad and a few other cities, continues to regard the Iraq War as a costly mistake and wants to see the next president drawing up a plan for a gradual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
(GLOBAL PARADIGMS)
McCain's kind of Churchillian posturing doesn't seem to be having much impact on the American public, which notwithstanding the short-term improvement in the security in Baghdad and a few other cities, continues to regard the Iraq War as a costly mistake and wants to see the next president drawing up a plan for a gradual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
(GLOBAL PARADIGMS)
Saturday, May 31, 2008
MODERATE GOPers ABANDONING SINKING SHIP
"Swift Boaters" continue to attack Hillary's sex, her aggressiveness, her supposed lack of sexuality. They ridicule Obama's middle name and talk about his minister, while still, somehow, characterizing him as a non-Christian. They're the loud mouths who want to talk through the movie you just spent eight bucks to see. But these silly ad hominem attacks haven't masked the fact that continuing to support the war and apologizing for the fiasco that has been the last eight years is having a tremendous impact on the folks in "THE MIDDLE". The middle is not just the class. It isn't dependent on one's income. It's all of us who have been caught in the raging cultural, political, and ideological noise and want the shit to just stop. For example, a newspaper syndicate's computer analysis has found that hundreds of people who gave at least $200 to Bush's 2004 campaign have donated to Obama. Among them are Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the granddaughter of the late GOP president Dwight Eisenhower; Connie Ballmer, the wife of Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer; and Tom Fanning, the chief operating officer of the Southern Company. Is this just the "Big Dogs" hedging their bets, a Limbaugh-like conspiracy to put up a strawman, or is the country's political DNA going through a permutation? I have friends who fall into the category that is spoken about in this story. They're not the Microsoft Execs, but they make up the bulwark of the Republican Party. They're culturally liberal and economically conservative. They work their asses off. They party just as hard, maybe not always legally. They may or may not go to church and consider your decisions about your God to be your business. I've always wondered how they could continue to make excuses for folks with whom they really share little. Judging from my recent conversations with them, at least some of them have stopped. Some of them supported McCain because he was the most progressive, some Hillary and some Obama and that could be the real Bush legacy; that the blowhards will be silenced long enough so we can get the real picture. Pass the popcorn, please. (TRUTHOUT)
"Swift Boaters" continue to attack Hillary's sex, her aggressiveness, her supposed lack of sexuality. They ridicule Obama's middle name and talk about his minister, while still, somehow, characterizing him as a non-Christian. They're the loud mouths who want to talk through the movie you just spent eight bucks to see. But these silly ad hominem attacks haven't masked the fact that continuing to support the war and apologizing for the fiasco that has been the last eight years is having a tremendous impact on the folks in "THE MIDDLE". The middle is not just the class. It isn't dependent on one's income. It's all of us who have been caught in the raging cultural, political, and ideological noise and want the shit to just stop. For example, a newspaper syndicate's computer analysis has found that hundreds of people who gave at least $200 to Bush's 2004 campaign have donated to Obama. Among them are Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the granddaughter of the late GOP president Dwight Eisenhower; Connie Ballmer, the wife of Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer; and Tom Fanning, the chief operating officer of the Southern Company. Is this just the "Big Dogs" hedging their bets, a Limbaugh-like conspiracy to put up a strawman, or is the country's political DNA going through a permutation? I have friends who fall into the category that is spoken about in this story. They're not the Microsoft Execs, but they make up the bulwark of the Republican Party. They're culturally liberal and economically conservative. They work their asses off. They party just as hard, maybe not always legally. They may or may not go to church and consider your decisions about your God to be your business. I've always wondered how they could continue to make excuses for folks with whom they really share little. Judging from my recent conversations with them, at least some of them have stopped. Some of them supported McCain because he was the most progressive, some Hillary and some Obama and that could be the real Bush legacy; that the blowhards will be silenced long enough so we can get the real picture. Pass the popcorn, please. (TRUTHOUT)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
t r u t h o u t | The Fall of Conservatism
BEING RIGHT
"The era of American politics that has been dying before our eyes was born in 1966. That January, a twenty-seven-year-old editorial writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat named Patrick Buchanan went to work for Richard Nixon, who was just beginning the most improbable political comeback in American history. Having served as Vice-President in the Eisenhower Administration, Nixon had lost the Presidency by a whisker to John F. Kennedy, in 1960, and had been humiliated in a 1962 bid for the California governorship. But he saw that he could propel himself back to power on the strength of a new feeling among Americans who, appalled by the chaos of the cities, the moral heedlessness of the young, and the insults to national pride in Vietnam, were ready to blame it all on the liberalism of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Right-wing populism was bubbling up from below; it needed to be guided by a leader who understood its resentments because he felt them, too.
(TRUTHOUT)
"The era of American politics that has been dying before our eyes was born in 1966. That January, a twenty-seven-year-old editorial writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat named Patrick Buchanan went to work for Richard Nixon, who was just beginning the most improbable political comeback in American history. Having served as Vice-President in the Eisenhower Administration, Nixon had lost the Presidency by a whisker to John F. Kennedy, in 1960, and had been humiliated in a 1962 bid for the California governorship. But he saw that he could propel himself back to power on the strength of a new feeling among Americans who, appalled by the chaos of the cities, the moral heedlessness of the young, and the insults to national pride in Vietnam, were ready to blame it all on the liberalism of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Right-wing populism was bubbling up from below; it needed to be guided by a leader who understood its resentments because he felt them, too.
(TRUTHOUT)
Friday, May 23, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor - Puerto Rico’s Moment in the Sun - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
MOMENT IN THE SUN
This article about Puerto Rico and the national election was sent to me by my good friend Connie Acevedo whose uncle was the "go to" guy for Muñoz Marin (our FDR).
(NEW YORK TIMES, unearthed by Connie Acevedo)
This article about Puerto Rico and the national election was sent to me by my good friend Connie Acevedo whose uncle was the "go to" guy for Muñoz Marin (our FDR).
(NEW YORK TIMES, unearthed by Connie Acevedo)
Too Poor to Parent? | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet
TOO POOR TO PARENT?
At lunch yesterday I watched as the Texas FLDS children were loaded on buses in order to rightfully return them to their parents. It seems a misplaced concern to worry about children who are being cared and loved (if they are not truly being abused) and not worry about the countless kids out there who are being abused and who we know do go hungry every day as a routine matter of course. As this article shows, black children are twice as likely to enter U.S. foster care than white children. While some just use this as kindling for their own racial notions, the real culprit is our inattention to poverty.
(MS, unearthed by AlterNet)
At lunch yesterday I watched as the Texas FLDS children were loaded on buses in order to rightfully return them to their parents. It seems a misplaced concern to worry about children who are being cared and loved (if they are not truly being abused) and not worry about the countless kids out there who are being abused and who we know do go hungry every day as a routine matter of course. As this article shows, black children are twice as likely to enter U.S. foster care than white children. While some just use this as kindling for their own racial notions, the real culprit is our inattention to poverty.
(MS, unearthed by AlterNet)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Noel Luis Rios
REMEMBERING
I got an email recently called "Meaning of Flag Draped Coffin". It was one of those well-meaning but jingoistic emails that is spreading a slough of urban legends about the flag. In responding to the sender I sent her these sites that debunk the email's contents and another that had interesting facts about the flag:
I got an email recently called "Meaning of Flag Draped Coffin". It was one of those well-meaning but jingoistic emails that is spreading a slough of urban legends about the flag. In responding to the sender I sent her these sites that debunk the email's contents and another that had interesting facts about the flag:
http://www.ushistory.org/BETSY/more/folds.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/BETSY/flagetiq.html
I also ran across this page I had put together about five years ago about my cousin Noel Luis Rios who died in Viet Nam. Since Monday is Memorial Day, I thought it was worth a read.
t r u t h o u t | Liberals Work to Change McCain's Image
OUTTING MCCAIN
Changing the media image of John McCain won't be easy. Outside groups, though unaffiliated with the presidential campaigns, are doing the Democrats' dirty work.
(TRUTHOUT)
Changing the media image of John McCain won't be easy. Outside groups, though unaffiliated with the presidential campaigns, are doing the Democrats' dirty work.
(TRUTHOUT)
Media Matters Action Network: Fear and Loathing in Prime Time
HATE TV
There are many serious problems facing the United States today: a faltering economy, a health-care crisis, and the ongoing war in Iraq, to name a few. Yet, in certain corners of the Hate TV one issue stands above all others: illegal immigration.
(MEDIA MATTERS)
There are many serious problems facing the United States today: a faltering economy, a health-care crisis, and the ongoing war in Iraq, to name a few. Yet, in certain corners of the Hate TV one issue stands above all others: illegal immigration.
(MEDIA MATTERS)
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