THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION IS BUGGED

  

BUG 1:

Hey, where are you sleeping tonight?

BUG 2:

Not with you.  I'm going to go to Joe Biden's room, and see if I can tick him off.

BUG 1:

Be careful, he might put you in shackles!

BUG 2:

No problem.  I've been running a lot lately, so I'm faster than usual.  Where do you plan to sleep?

BUG 1:

In Mrs. Clinton's suite.

BUG 2:

Good choice.  Well, we'd better get going.  The convention's almost ready to begin.

IT’S THE OIL STUPID

By David Hill

The Washington Times

Monday, September 3, 2012 

 

  Bedbugs, like those shown here, have been reported at nine of the hotels being used for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. (Associated Press)

Bottom of Form

Charlotte has a long way to go before its bedbug levels approach cities such as New York, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., where recent infestations have made national news, but a study this year by pest control company Orkin shows activity there has been on the rise.

The survey, released in March, rated Charlotte as having the 33rd-most bedbug reports of any city in 2011. The list was topped by Cincinnati, Chicago and Detroit.

By contrast, the GOP’s choice for its convention last week, Tampa, Fla., didn’t make the list of the 50 most-infested cities.

Jung W. Kim, environmental senior specialist for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said that bedbugs are on the rise, but about half of cases go unreported because victims don’t react to bites.

Mr. Kim said upon checking into a hotel, guests should inspect their mattress, box spring and the back of their headboard for bedbug fecal matter in the form of tiny black dots.

He said guests should request a new room if they suspect bedbugs, and could take other steps such as keeping their luggage in the bathroom or putting washable items in the dryer immediately after returning home.

“You may get bites, but you’re not going to bring any bedbugs to your home,” he said. “As long as you don’t bring bedbugs to your home, you should be fine.”

THE BEST JUMP SHOT WINS

Voyager:

Looks pretty quiet out here, but boy there are a lot of stars!  Hold on, is that a spaceship ahead?

(The spaceship quickly comes up to Voyager)

Visitor:

@*&%##@@  *&&^%%$$##

Voyager:

Please speak English.  I don’t understand your language.

Visitor:

Identify yourself!

Voyager:

 I am a spacecraft.

Visitor:

What are you doing out here?

Voyager:

 I’m an interstellar space probe launched by the United States of America in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and interstellar medium.

Visitor:

Oh, right, I know about you.  You’re from that beautiful but bellicose planet called Earth.  What’s new?

Voyager:

Well, my country is voting for a new President in November.

Visitor:

What is this president’s job?

Voyager:

He makes the world safe for democracy.

Visitor:

Who are the candidates?

Voyager:

One white guy and one black guy.

Visitor:

Who has the better jump shot?

Voyager:

The black guy.

Visitor:

He’ll win. 

Voyager:

Really?

Visitor:

Really.  Well, so long, I’ve got to shove off.  Happy trails!

IT’S THE OIL STUPID!


***

Spacecraft to starship? 35 years after launch, Voyager 1 is barreling toward the stars

(NASA/ Associated Press ) - This artists rendering provided by NASA shows the Voyager spacecraft. Launched in 1977, the twin spacecraft are exploring the edge of the solar system. Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars. Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space _ the first time a man-made object will have escaped to the other side.

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, September 4, 3:58 AM

PASADENA, Calif. — Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars.
Sooner or later, the workhorse spacecraft will bid adieu to the solar system and enter a new realm of space — the first time a manmade object will have escaped to the other side.

Perhaps no one on Earth will relish the moment more than 76-year-old Ed Stone, who has toiled on the project from the start.
“We’re anxious to get outside and find what’s out there,” he said.
When NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 first rocketed out of Earth’s grip in 1977, no one knew how long they would live. Now, they are the longest-operating spacecraft in history and the most distant, at billions of miles from Earth but in different directions.
Wednesday marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1’s launch to Jupiter and Saturn. It is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun.
Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way — the space between stars. Once it plows through, scientists expect a calmer environment by comparison.
When that would happen is anyone’s guess. Voyager 1 is in uncharted celestial territory. One thing is clear: The boundary that separates the solar system and interstellar space is near, but it could take days, months or years to cross that milestone.
Voyager 1 is currently more than 11 billion miles from the sun. Twin Voyager 2, which celebrated its launch anniversary two weeks ago, trails behind at 9 billion miles from the sun.
They’re still ticking despite being relics of the early Space Age.
Each only has 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod — an 8-gigabyte iPod Nano — is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder. Today’s spacecraft use digital memory.
The Voyagers’ original goal was to tour Jupiter and Saturn, and they sent back postcards of Jupiter’s big red spot and Saturn’s glittery rings. They also beamed home a torrent of discoveries: erupting volcanoes on the Jupiter moon Io; hints of an ocean below the icy surface of Europa, another Jupiter moon; signs of methane rain on the Saturn moon Titan.
Voyager 2 then journeyed to Uranus and Neptune. It remains the only spacecraft to fly by these two outer planets. Voyager 1 used Saturn as a gravitational slingshot to catapult itself toward the edge of the solar system.
“Time after time, Voyager revealed unexpected — kind of counterintuitive — results, which means we have a lot to learn,” said Stone, Voyager’s chief scientist and a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology.
These days, a handful of engineers diligently listen for the Voyagers from a satellite campus not far from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built the spacecraft.
The control room, with its cubicles and carpeting, could be mistaken for an insurance office if not for a blue sign overhead that reads “Mission Controller” and a warning on a computer: “Voyager mission critical hardware. Please do not touch!”

SUBSTANCE AND SUPERFICIALITY

Ryan Voted "For":

• Opening the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling. (May 2011)
• Barring EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. (April 2011)
• Drilling the Outer Continental Shelf and licensing new nuclear power plants. (March 2011)
• Barring greenhouse gases from Clean Air Act rules. (January 2009)
• Making tax deduction permanent for conservation easements. (March 2009)
• Inter-state compact for Great Lakes water resources. (July 2008)

Ryan Voted “Against”:

• $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program. (July 2009)
• Protecting free-roaming horses and burros. (July 2009)
• Environmental education grants for outdoor experiences. (September 2008)
• Enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution. (June 2009)
• Tax credits for renewable electricity, with PAYGO offsets. (September 2008)
• Tax incentives for energy production and conservation. (May 2008)
• Tax incentives for renewable energy. (February 2008)

***

SUPERFICIALITY

expialadocious

NOT.

The Republicans had a lot of show, but not much was showing.

Distortions

and

Contortions.

Pistol-pointing

 at

Empty chairs.

A lot of bashing

And

 Trashing,

But very little substance.

Smoky mirrors

And

Shady mirages. 

Where were the specifics?

FABRICATIONS

vs.

 Facts.

Here is one glaring example:

During his speech, Eastwood said he was crying for the 23 million unemployed Americans. The only problem: there are actually only 12.8 million unemployed Americans as of July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose job it is to keep track of that sort of thing.

The BLS doesn’t keep track of the number of Americans who are underemployed because of the “difficulty of developing an objective set of criteria,” according to the agency's website. But if you add the 8.2 million Americans working part-time who wish they had a full time job and the 2.5 million people.who are “marginally attached” to the labor force to the 12.8 million officially unemployed bisjAmericans, then you can get to Eastwood’s 23 million figure.

[From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/clint-eastwood-unemployment_n_1846779.html]

But word is out that if Romney and Ryan are elected---and “win back America”---they will recruit most of the George W. Bush’s White House.

Nonetheless, Romney and Ryan have some things

On

 Their

 Chairs…I mean table:

ELIMINATE MEDICARE

ELIMINATE 

THE E.P.A. (again!)

ELIMINATE IRAN

ELIMINATE SOCIAL SECURITY

ELIMINATE THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

ELIMINATE GREEN ENERGY FUNDING

END THE WORLD (Only kidding, OR…)

Or do I exaggerate

 And

 protest too much?

Let me know.

IT’S THE OIL STUPID!

*** 

Labor Day Question: Are you Better off than You were in 1970?

Posted on 09/03/2012 by Juan

 [http://www.juancole.com]

Thoughts for a Labor Day in 2012:

The real question isn’t whether we are better off than we were four years ago. It takes a long time to recover from burst bubbles and near-depressions (the Japanese have still not recovered from their burst bubble of the early 1990s). The real question is whether the working and middle classes of the United States will go on allowing themselves to be taken advantage of by our super-rich, who are gathering to themselves more and more of the national income. The top 1% owned 25% of the privately held national wealth in the United States in the 1950s, but have 38% of it today.
In contrast, real wages per hour for the average worker in the United States, adjusted for inflation, peaked in 1970. We’re now down from that, with a generation and a half blocked from meaningful economic advancement.

h/t Faustian urGe.
But, you will say, the US is a much wealthier society now than it was in 1970 or 1990. Where has all the extra money generated by American labor and investment gone?
It has gone to the rich. Yes, folks, the rich are taking home a fifth of everything we make as a country each year, up from ten percent in 1970. We are 310 million people. About 3 million get a fifth of the annual income. Those 3 million people are 3 million Mitt Romneys. They want low taxes and they want to get rid of social security, medicare and Obamacare.

h/t Adviser Perspectives
See, in general, Who Rules America?.
The rich in this country now see an opportunity to take us back to the age of the robber barons– and get rid of all government programs for the middle classes and the workers and make us wait to age 70 (when most people will be more decrepit than they expect) to retire. Because the more of the national income they take home every year, the more politicians they can buy, and the more they can cut their taxes and shift the burden of road-building and other government services to the middle classes and workers.
It is a ratcheting process that is leaving the US an increasingly unequal society, and one in which hopes of upward mobility for ordinary people are increasingly crushed. Indeed, Europe (the “Old World”) now offers more opportunities for upward mobility and getting ahead than the United States.
The way to reverse this crisis of income stagnation is to restore rights to unionize and collectively bargain and to make the rich pay their fare share for government-provided infrastructure and for educating the work force they exploit.
Guess who will do the opposite if they win in November?

RIBBONS AND HEARTSTRINGS

[NOTE: The following is an abbreviated version of Ann Romney’s speech at the Republican National Convention.  I’ve added satire not to demean Mrs. Romney, but to contrast her heart strings with the crooked ribbons being spun by candidates Ryan and Romney.]

***

I want to talk to you tonight not about politics and not about party.

(But party animals unite!)

And while there are many important issues we'll hear discussed in this convention and throughout this campaign, tonight I want to talk to you from my heart about our hearts.

(When was the last time all of you had your cholesterol checked?)

I want to talk not about what divides us, but what holds us together as an American family.

(Offshore accounts?)

I want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us, that one thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good, and the deepest solace in our dark hours.

(Television?)

Tonight I want to talk to you about love.

(Not lust.)

I want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love I have for a man I met at a dance many years ago. And the profound love I have, and I know we share, for this country.

(“All you need is love…all you need is lov…”!)

I want to talk to you about that love so deep only a mother can fathom it (Sorry about that all of you fathers) — the love we have for our children and our children's children.

And I want us to think tonight about the love we all share for those Americans, our brothers and sisters, who are going through difficult times, whose days are never easy, nights are always long, and whose work never seems done.

(Republicans are not bleeding hearts!)

They are here among us tonight in this hall (Dispel the notion that only rich donors are here); they are here in neighborhoods across Tampa and all across America. The parents (Normal men and women, not gay couples!) who lie awake at night side by side, wondering how they'll be able to pay the mortgage or make the rent…

I've been all across this country for the past year and a half and heard these stories of how hard it is to get ahead now. (You don’t live off the interest of your investments like Mitt and I do.) I've heard your voices: "I'm running in place," ''we just can't get ahead." (“Please tax the rich a little more.”)

Sometimes I think that late at night, if we were all silent for just a few moments and listened carefully, we could hear a great collective sigh from the moms and dads across America who made it through another day (Of info commercials), and know that they'll make it through another one tomorrow. But in that end of the day moment, they just aren't sure how.

(Keep the television on.)

And if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men.

(They have to live with the men.)

It's how it is, isn't it?

It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right.

(Be good, little housewives.  Bake some more cookies!)

It's the moms of this nation—single, married, widowed (No lesbians, please.)—who really hold this country together. We're the mothers, we're the wives, we're the grandmothers, we're the big sisters, we're the little sisters, we're the daughters.

You know it's true, don't you? You're the ones who always have to do a little more.
You are the best of America. You are the hope of America. There would not be an America without you.

(Why do we even need these men to be President and Vice-President?)

Tonight, we salute you and sing your praises.

I'm not sure if men really understand this, but I don't think there's a woman in America who really expects her life to be easy. In our own ways, we all know better!

(We gladly accept our roles as the servants to our bread-winning husbands!)

And that is where this boy I met at a high school dance comes in. His name is Mitt Romney and you really should get to know him.

(He’s a Mormon, and so he might marry you, too.)

I could tell you why I fell in love with him—he was tall, laughed a lot, was nervous—girls like that, it shows the guy's a little intimidated — and he was nice to my parents but he was really glad when my parents weren't around.

(I think you know why.)
That's a good thing. And he made me laugh.

I am the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner who was determined that his kids get out of the mines.

(It was very dark and dirty down there!  Now I have Mitt.) 

IT’S THE OIL STUPID!