Toadfish Monastery

Reminding us why we ought to vote for the Republican ticket. /sarcasm

QuoteIn the latest instance of inflammatory outbursts at McCain-Palin rallies, a crowd member screamed "treason!" during an event on Tuesday after Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of criticizing U.S. troops.
...

In the latest instance of inflammatory outbursts at McCain-Palin rallies, a crowd member screamed "treason!" during an event on Tuesday after Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of criticizing U.S. troops.

"[Obama] said, too, that our troops in Afghanistan are 'air raiding villages and killing civilians,'" Palin said, mischaracterizing a 2007 remark by Obama. "I hope Americans know that is not what our brave men and women in uniform are doing in Afghanistan. The U.S. military is fighting terrorism and protecting us and protecting our freedom."

Shortly afterward, a male member of the crowd in Jacksonville, Florida, yelled "treason!" loudly enough to be picked up by television microphones.

At a Palin rally on Monday, television stations picked up audio of a crowd member calling Obama a "terrorist," while Dana Milbank reported that "

• ne Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, 'Sit down, boy.'" Also on Monday, at a McCain rally, one member of the audience yelled, "Kill him!"

_{Edited to remove an error in copying}

Even if I didn't already loathe her, this would most certainly turn my vote.
Slight heads up, some of this is very distressing.
[youtube=425,350]6T85cOGc8L0[/youtube]

Goodbye freedom. Not that we've been properly free since the USA PATRIOT act was passed. 

Or at least that's what it's starting to look like.

Quote3rd Infantry's 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping 'people at home' may become a permanent part of the active Army.

The 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they're training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It goes on to mention the army units that were brought into help with Katrina--but that's a completely different thing.

QuoteAfter 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

I find this increasingly distressing.
Bolds are mine. Italics are comments.

QuoteThey may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the "jaws of life" to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The 1st BCT's soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

The package is for use only in war-zone operations, not for any domestic purpose. (then what's the point of even teaching it for this mission?)

"It's a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they're fielding. They've been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we're undertaking we were the first to get it."

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

"I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered," said Cloutier, describing the experience as "your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

"I'm not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in seconds."

The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced "sea-smurf").

"I can't think of a more noble mission than this," said Cloutier, who took command in July. "We've been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ... and depending on where an event occurred, you're going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones." (Oh yes, because we need protection. Mostly from you.)

While soldiers' combat training is applicable, he said, some nuances don't apply.

"If we go in, we're going in to help American citizens on American soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so it's kind of a different role," said Cloutier, who, as the division operations officer on the last rotation, learned of the homeland mission a few months ago while they were still in Iraq.

Some brigade elements will be on call around the clock, during which time they'll do their regular marksmanship, gunnery and other deployment training. That's because the unit will continue to train and reset for the next deployment, even as it serves in its CCMRF mission.
...
The active Army's new dwell-time mission is part of a NorthCom and DOD response package. (Should we really trust anything the DoD is involved with? I'm rather reluctant.)

On one hand, I can understand having a unit on call if we need them, but for them to be dedicated to this solely makes me uncomfortable, especially with the Bush administration's track record.
It's making a decidedly right wing (though libertarian) blog site rather antsy. They've got videos, which I have yet to watch (I'm at school, and the bandwidth here is capped really low).

Ain't McCain a classy, principled man? (screen shot of associated websites with votefortheMILF.com)
There's also argument that that the McCheney and Moose camp doesn't own the thing, but I find it damn fishy that the moment word gets out, the redirect goes from johnmccain.com to google, then to a wiki article about domain name services, and then to an article about how the thing was a prank.
The URL for the website has also swapped, from the same one associated with johnmccain.com to another one.

Interestingly, McCain-Cthulu.com redirects to http://www.johnmccain.com/palin.htm if you're a first time visitor. After that, it goes to another page in their website, called "Get Your John McCain Edition."

Louisiana lawmaker advocates eugenics: Sterilize poor women, encourage rich to procreate

QuoteThe New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that state Rep. John LaBruzzo (R) said yesterday that "he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied." LaBruzzo worries that people receiving food and housing assistance "are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated residents":

    He said he is gathering statistics now. ... "What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare," he said.

    He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men. It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.

LaBruzzo said that mainstream strategies against poverty, such as education and family planning, "have repeatedly failed to solve the problem," according to the Times-Picayune. "I don't know if it's a viable option...Of course people are going to get excited about it," he said of his plan.

Mind you, this man's district sent a KKK member to the state legislature in 1989.


Edited for link error   ~Griffin

[youtube=425,350]3QWS1xUkUaA[/youtube]

Silly, sometimes, but epic.

Thought it being a separate thread from the one discussing the market direction.
All I can really say is "Oh my god."
Here's the text from last night, sent to Congress for this morning.
Dodd's plan. More (meaning some) congressional oversight and apparently more taxpayer protection.
Paulson's bill (the first link) is basically a power grab. (all italics are mine)

Quote
Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.
(a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.
(b) Necessary Actions.--The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:
...
(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;
...
Sec. 3. Considerations.
In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for--
(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and
(2) protecting the taxpayer.
Sec. 4. Reports to Congress.
Within three months of the first exercise of the authority granted in section 2(a), and semiannually thereafter, the Secretary shall report to the Committees on the Budget, Financial Services, and Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committees on the Budget, Finance, and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate with respect to the authorities exercised under this Act and the considerations required by section 3.
Sec. 5. Rights; Management; Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.
(a) Exercise of Rights.--The Secretary may, at any time, exercise any rights received in connection with mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act.
...
(c) Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.--The Secretary may, at any time, upon terms and conditions and at prices determined by the Secretary, sell, or enter into securities loans, repurchase transactions or other financial transactions in regard to, any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act.
...
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Sec. 9. Termination of Authority.
The authorities under this Act, with the exception of authorities granted in sections 2(b)(5), 5 and 7, shall terminate two years from the date of enactment of this Act.
Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.
Sec. 11. Credit Reform.
...
(1) Mortgage-Related Assets.--The term "mortgage-related assets" means residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008.

Ok, can't challenge it, no specifications as to what 'protect the taxpayer' means (among other things), includes commercial properties, leaves it for the next guy to clean up, and securities and so on can be sold for whatever the secretary chooses. Great.
All right, we've established Cheney and his cronies* are stagnant-lake scum, Bush is a lemur (no insult mean to them, but he's not really even a monkey), and

Dodd's Bill (again, italics are mine) has it's own problems, but it's a little better.

Quote
3 (1) AUTHORITY.—The Secretary is authorized
4 to establish a program to purchase, and to make and
5 fund commitments to purchase troubled assets from
6 any financial institution, on such terms and condi7
tions as are determined by the Secretary, and in ac8
cordance with policies and procedures developed by
9 the Secretary.
Opens the door for international banks with assets owned by their American units.
Section 2.2 doesn't actually change (still says without limitation) but in sect. 2c, there's a caveat:
Quote
23 (c) LIMITATION ON AUTHORITY.—
24 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary may not pur
25    chase, or make any commitment to purchase, any (to page 4)
1      troubled asset unless the Secretary receives contin
2      gent shares in the financial institution from which
3      such assets are to be purchased equal in value to the
4      purchase price of the assets to be purchased.
5 (2) SHARES TO BE RECEIVED.—
6    (A) CONTINGENT SHARES.—
7       (i) IN GENERAL.—The contingent
8        shares to be received by the Secretary
9        under paragraph (1) may, at the deter
10      mination of the Secretary, include shares
11      of the financial institution, its parent com
12      pany, its holding company, any of its sub
13      sidiaries, or any other entity which is
14      owned, controlled, or managed by such in
15      stitution.

Not sure what that's supposed to do. Decide what shares of anything they own (including the most profitable sectors, assuming they have one)? Sorts sort of like a slap on the wrist.
Yup.

Quote
9 (B) MULTIPLE CLASS OF SHARES.—If the
10 financial institution from which troubled assets
11 are to be purchased has more than 1 class of
12 shares, the contingent shares to be received by
13 the Secretary shall be that class of shares with
14 the highest trading price during the 14 business
15 days prior to the date of the purchase of such
16 assets.

Ack! Editing, as I didn't post everything I wanted to! Will double post (sorry) when properly edited...which will be tomorrow, since the intarnets ate my post and it's really late and I want sleep.

*Do we want to insult scum, even? He's more like a virulent virus. Not really a living thing until he's in a host.

So anybody checked that out? He wants to tax you according to how much your employer pays for your health care. Of course, there's a $5k tax credit he will graciously give you, but the average family's health care costs are about $12k.
As someone on expensive meds, with the most expensive mental health condition to treat, this makes me very nervous. I won't have to pay anything (yet) as I'm not on Starbucks' health care plan, but my parents would have to pay a hefty amount, as all of us are on at least one medication, with my parents and youngest sister on four or more. And none of them are cheap.

Quotes from his website:

QuoteAmericans Are Worried About Health Care Costs. The problems with health care are well known: it is too expensive and 47 million people living in the United States lack health insurance.
...
John McCain Will Reform Health Care Making It Easier For Individuals And Families To Obtain Insurance. An important part of his plan is to use competition to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people's needs, lower prices, and portability. Families should be able to purchase health insurance nationwide, across state lines.

John McCain Will Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage. While still having the option of employer-based coverage, every family will receive a direct refundable tax credit - effectively cash - of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. Families will be able to choose the insurance provider that suits them best and the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider. Those obtaining innovative insurance that costs less than the credit can deposit the remainder in expanded Health Savings Accounts.
...
John McCain Proposes Making Insurance More Portable. Americans need insurance that follows them from job to job. They want insurance that is still there if they retire early and does not change if they take a few years off to raise the kids
...
John McCain's Plan Cares For The Traditionally Uninsurable. John McCain understands that those without prior group coverage and those with pre-existing conditions have the most difficulty on the individual market, and we need to make sure they get the high-quality coverage they need.

John McCain Will Work With States To Establish A Guaranteed Access Plan. As President, John McCain will work with governors to develop a best practice model that states can follow - a Guaranteed Access Plan or GAP - that would reflect the best experience of the states to ensure these patients have access to health coverage. One approach would establish a nonprofit corporation that would contract with insurers to cover patients who have been denied insurance and could join with other state plans to enlarge pools and lower overhead costs. There would be reasonable limits on premiums, and assistance would be available for Americans below a certain income level.

John McCain Will Promote Proper Incentives. John McCain will work with Congress, the governors, and industry to make sure this approach is funded adequately and has the right incentives to reduce costs such as disease management, individual case management, and health and wellness programs.

There's some other stuff--he wants to restructure the medical care system (not a bad idea in and of itself), but the rest of this sucks.

From Joe Klein's McCain's Health Care Tax Increase at Time:

Quote"But make no mistake: this plan will do little or nothing for those who do not have insurance now--unless they are young and healthy--and it may well hurt a fair number of workers, especially unionized workers, who get gold-plated benefits from their employers."

That's part of why this worries me--my mother's a teacher in a unionized school district. We have really, really good insurance and would pay through the nose on the remaining $7,000 to $10,000 of un-creditable health care taxes.
I have no idea what it would do to someone like Chatty (you're on medicare, right?), as I see no specifics as to what would be done with those on Medicare and so on.

Thoughts?

http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2008/09/north-carolina-school-district-may-add.html

QuoteArticles in the Wilmington, North Carolina Star News on Tuesday and Wednesday report that the Brunswick County (NC) School Board is looking for a way to teach creationism in the schools. The issue was raised at Tuesday's board meeting by parent Joel Fanti who told the board that it was unfair for evolution to be taught as a fact. Fanti said: "I wasn't here 2 million years ago. If evolution is so slow, why don't we see anything evolving now?" School board member Jimmy Hobbs responded: "It's really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism. The law says we can't have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists."

School board Chairwoman Shirley Babson said she does not agree with teaching evolution, but the state legislature requires it. Board attorney Joseph Causey said it might be possible under state law to add creationism to the curriculum if it does not replace the teaching of evolution. Superintendent Katie McGee said her staff would research the issue. Meanwhile, according to the Star News, the county school system offers a high school Bible as Literature course. However it is not being taught this year because no students signed up for it.

Palin's governmental email (with YAHOO!  ) just got [img=http://wikileaks.org/wiki/VP_contender_Sarah_Palin_hacked]http://HACKED[/img].

Super interesting TED talk about what values conservatives cherish and which ones liberals cherish, and how that relates to what we debate about.

I do believe that Beagle was the one to mention this in the Last Post thread, but here's the news.

From Boing Boing:

QuoteNot the first line you want to read in the top story in every major newspaper on the first day of the week. There it is, though. Today was one of the most bleak days ever in Wall Street's history, and Monday looks like it's gonna suck. The headlines will surely be easy to find; I'm publishing this post mostly just to create an open thread for the BB community to discuss whatever unfolds. Snip:

    The American financial system was shaken to its core on Sunday. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. faced the prospect of liquidation, and Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to be sold to Bank of America Corp. The U.S. government, which bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a week ago and orchestrated the sale of Bear Stearns Cos. to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in March, played much tougher with Lehman. It refused to provide a financial backstop to potential buyers. Without such support, Barclays PLC and Bank of America, the two most interested buyers, walked away. Late Sunday night, Lehman said it intends to file for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Hang on to your wigs, friends.

Here's more on insurer AIG's related meltdown, and here's the article from which the preceding graf was snipped: Crisis on Wall Street as Lehman Totters, Merrill Is Sold, AIG Seeks to Raise Cash (Wall Street Journal)

Delicious. I wonder what else is going to join the basket on the road to business hell?

[youtube=425,350]anxkrm9uEJk[/youtube]

Via Hotair.
"At what point did our crazy Hollywood types develop more sense than the entire Republican party? Damon is right- this is like a bad Hollywood movie, and that is how they are marketing her."

Cheney, of all people, is the last person in the US allowed to bash anyone for brutality.

QuoteMcCain provides the basic policy trajectory of a third Bush term, and Palin provides the biography of a folksy pro-life "reformer with results" governor of a large, oil-rich reliably Republican state in the West–it is pretty close to the Bush/Cheney ticket in reverse, isn't it?
The Palin choice was essentially a bow to current movement orthodoxy, but what does that mean after eight years of Bush?  What Ross said last year remains true today:

QuoteSince the Republicans' stinging defeat in the 2006 midterm elections, Bush's distinctive ideological cocktail—social conservatism and an accommodation with big government at home, and a moralistic interventionism abroad—has similarly been derided by many as political poison. The various ingredients of "Bushism," it's been argued, have alienated fiscal hawks and foreign-policy realists, Catholics and libertarians—in short, everyone but the party's evangelical base.

    But someone must have forgotten to tell the GOP presidential field. If you consider how the nation's most ambitious Republicans are positioning themselves for 2008, Bushism looks like it could have surprising staying power.

Aside from warring against the dreaded earmarks, the McCain/Palin ticket does not propose a radical break with any of the elements of Bushism that Ross describes.  McCain has succumbed to the demands of the movement and the party, but the movement and party have themselves imbibed so much of Bushism that McCain did not have to give up much of anything, except his personal preference for a ticket with Lieberman that would have been entirely obsessed with militarism and war.  In the warped universe of Bush Republicanism, McCain/Palin was the relatively moderate alternative to the extreme Lieberman option.  In truth, by choosing Palin McCain made more of a statement of continuity with the last eight years than if he had chosen any of the other people frequently named as possibilities.  Naturally, given the Bushist habit of abusing language, this is being presented as a clean break and a fresh start.  Rhetorically, McCain and Palin have aligned themselves as the enemies of the status quo, while Obama and Biden are setting themselves up as the steady preservers of establishment interests.  In reality, however, McCain and Palin are reformers every bit as much as the invasion of Iraq was a war of self-defense.

From here.

This is not happening. Not not not! ^{_{denial is just a river in Africa! JUST a RIVER!!}}

I suppose we can hope that most people have figured out Bushism doesn't work. But I think the new face will fool most folks.

What is this? 1540? Jeeeez.

QuoteStein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

from Time.

But why am I surprised?

At 53, he bit the dust. Press secretary nicked from FOX news.

Infinitely better than a mere gnome!

I'm about ready to transfer stores.

Hours: I have over 60 hours a week available. He gives me 12 when I was averaging 16-18 before he came. He gives everybody that's not a shift supervisor 12--this week's average is less than that. He spends more time on the floor than any other manager I've had and complains about the lack of managerial time. If he were to give us a few of those hours, we'd all be back to normal. Several people have gotten second jobs because of how many hours he's cut--they didn't need them before! There's people that have been dropped from the company insurance who NEED it because of those cuts.

Scheduling: I ask not to close Sunday through Thursday because I have a 7:30am class. He knows this. He's had me close four times in the last two weeks on a school night, wanted me to close last night and has me closing tonight.
I've given him my schedule twice and asked him last night if he got my note informing him for the second time what it was.
"Yeah, I got it. It's only 'till eleven, though."
"I know that. I have school remember?"
"Yeah, I remember."


Awkward!: I have a thing about my personal space--if I'm not friends with someone, they're not welcome in it. This man doesn't HAVE personal space (I'm not sure he knows what it is).
Our work area is small--I'd say four feet wide by fifteen long--so some invasion is going to happen and that's fine. But he's decided that you must be elbow-distant away to pat someone on the shoulder. I do not like this.
He's also not supposed to talk to us about religion or politics, but he does anyway (we can talk about it amongst ourselves, but he's not supposed to) and he questioned me fairly extensively why I'm an atheist when I finally gave up and told him--it wasn't completely friendly questioning or I'd not really care.
He actually said to one of the girls when she was getting her training done for shift supervisor (when he handed her the book for it), "I believe the Bible tells us how to live and is the word of God--this book will be like that for you."

When my coworkers come by to visit when they're off, they call ahead not make sure he's not there. Yesterday, our guy who's off on medical leave came by to see us.
"D's not here, is he?"
"No."
"Good."
"He's in at six, though."
"Crap. We'll make this a quick visit, then."
Honestly, when your subordinates run from you, there's a problem.

There's not an easy way to tell him any of this, either. He's so passive and lets us do whatever we want, pretty much, that it's weird--I could take an hour-long lunch, and he probably wouldn't even write me up. Trying to tell him that, hey, I have this thing about you getting too close, is difficult. If he wasn't my boss, it'd be a simple, "Dude, back up."
If he were any other manager I've had, it would be, "Hey, can I have some more hours, maybe? This whole not-breaking-two-hundred-dollars thing is making my wallet unhappy."

I've been the one to pick up slack so much he assumes that I'll always do it. He's added hours to my schedule at inconvenient times without asking me or pushed me to take hours that I can't or won't and I'm about ready to leave him out to dry.

Andrew Bandou has a really great gallery of his surrealist paintings--just a sample: