My hero - or not!

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/frank-panel-wants-1t-in-defense-cuts

Would love to hear the military interpretation, especially the bit about
reforming military compensation which could save about $55 billion.

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Re: Barbara Boxer - An American Badass

I don't think that means what you think it does.  If that is all you have then you have lost right off the bat.

euwe wrote:

Sher kicked Senate Republican ass 96 - 1.  On Jun 11, 6:21 pm, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:   

I will agree with the first  word and she certainly matches up witht he second word because that is what she is.  Put together the way you are trying to do so just doesn't cut it, however.  euwe wrote:     

Barbara Boxer.       

On Jun 11, 12:07 pm, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:       

You would pick a Republican bad-ass.  Can't find a Dem one?         

euwe wrote:         

http://www.cmt.com/videos/kid-rock/9043/american-bad-ass.jhtml           

On Jun 11, 11:46 am, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:           

That explains your failure to govern.   He is honest and intelligent?   Don't think so.   What has he accomplished?             

euwe wrote:             

can you name an intelligent member of the demwit party?               

and honest one? ----------- Just one?               

Al Franken.               

On Jun 11, 11:32 am, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:               

can you name an intelligent member of the demwit party?                 

and honest one?                 

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 12:16 PM, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net>wrote:                 

 That is all you got?  That is your game?  One of the two dumbest senators in Congress and you support her?   Open your eyes and see what you voted for - and don't you dare call her Ma'am - call her Senator!!  You betcha.                   

euwe wrote:                   

Barbara Boxer - as I said, makes Republicans shake in their boots from fear. They are in her thrall.                   

NINETY SIX TO ONE!                   

On Jun 11, 9:05 am, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:                   

 actually even worse than Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/Community Reinvestment Act is the government control of money, credit, and interest rates through a state monopoly currency                   

that causes most recession cyces                   

those other programs just made this one housing and mortage-centered                   

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 8:31 AM, Zebnick <zebn...@gmail.com> <zebn...@gmail.com> wrote:                   

 Populist bullshit. Wall Street didn't fuck up the financial system, Democrats did. They directly intervened in the risk profile used to write loans and injected poison throughout the financial system. Perpetual self-interested assholes.                   

 On Jun 10, 6:55 pm, euwe <machgie...@gmail.com> <machgie...@gmail.com> wrote:                   

 96-1                   

  On Jun 10, 5:41 pm, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:                   

   one is  a shitty alzheimers case, the other a lying hypocritical dyke''                   

   both airheads                   

   On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 3:41 PM, euwe <machgie...@gmail.com> <machgie...@gmail.com> wrote:                   

 Both Boxer and Pelosi scare the bejesus out of Republicans. They are what they fear the most - liberal women - confident, successful, strong.                   

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Would love to hear a woman's perspective on this interpretation of feminism and politics

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-09/carly-fiorinas-win-sets-up-feminist-test-with-barbara-boxer/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC5

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Some Perspective on the Oil

Some Perspective on the Oil

Posted by Lew Rockwell on June 11, 2010 09:25 AM

Writes Daniel Mahaffey:

Just for fun, I looked at how fast the Gulf of Mexico is filling with oil.

The Gulf's volume is approximately 2.5 quadrillion cubic meters, 660 quadrillion gallons (660,000,000,000,000,000 gallons) or 600,000 cubic miles.

Estimates of the oil released vary from 40 million to 100 million gallons. Let's use 66 million gallons to make the arithmetic easy.

The amount of oil released is 1/10,000,000,000 of the volume of the Gulf (one ten billionth).

If it has taken 53 days to release 66 million gallons, it will take 530,000,000,000 days to fill the Gulf of Mexico. That's 1.45 billion years.

If the earth is 4.54 billion years old, it would take 1/3 the life of the earth to fill the Gulf.

If the universe is 13.75 billion years old, it would take 1/10 the life of the universe to fill the Gulf.

Stop! This is not possible. Here's another view:

Tiber field (on which the platform was drilling) contains 250,000,000 barrels of oil (at 42 gallons per barrel).

At 66 million gallons per 53 day period, it would take 8,400 days to drain Tiber field (23 years).

If emptied, Tiber field would cover the 615,000 square miles of the Gulf surface with 0.00098 (about 1/1000) inch of oil after 23 years.

The point of all this is perspective. We are very small so everything looks big to us. When journalists report massive oil plumes underwater, or foot deep oil collections on shore, we should be aware that things are still very, very small relative to the enormity of the Gulf of Mexico. The plumes may not actually be massive, and the oil may not be 1 foot deep everywhere. None of this is intended to excuse BP­it's just perspective.

UPDATE from Roland Walkenhorst:

Thanks so much to you and Daniel for the perspective. That's the question I've had in mind for weeks now: "How many gallons of water are in the Gulf of Mexico?" I was too lazy to look it up myself.

I think I heard an NBC reporter the other day lamenting the loss of some 260 turtles, after we were treated again to pictures of the same pitiful oil-soaked birds we've been seeing every evening.

Heck, we have only about 350 acres here, and I'll bet there are more turtles than that on our property. It surely seems that way when they're eating the ripe tomatoes in the garden. (Two words, turtles: ELECTRIC FENCE!)

Sad to see that so many people think God made our world so junky that it can't heal itself from our relatively small misadventures.

Terrorism: Made in the U.S.A.

Terrorism: Made in the U.S.A.
by Sheldon Richman, June 11, 2010

It's a perilous world, as our so-called leaders love to remind us. And for a change they're right. It is a perilous world. But guess who is most responsible for the peril to Americans? Those very same "leaders" and a long line of predecessors.

Moreover, they ­ along with anyone else who takes time to examine the matter ­ know that they create the greatest dangers Americans face. They just don't care. They have bigger fish to fry than keeping Americans safe. Besides, the dangers they create provide excuses for more power.

Let's just say what many people already know: the "war on terrorism" produces terrorists. No half-intelligent person could think that U.S. treatment of the Muslim world could have any effect other than to produce violent, vengeful anti-Americanism. Even in the government-friendly mainstream media you will find the facts, though you'll have to connect the dots yourself.

When you treat people like they are worthless, or help others to treat them that way, some of those people will get mad and vow to get even. If desperate enough they will even be willing to give their lives to the cause.

Isn't this already obvious? For over 50 years U.S. administrations, for the sake of geopolitical hegemony and preferential access to resources, have treated much of the Muslim world like personal property. They've backed brutal dictators, subverted governments, and invaded and occupied countries as it suited their agenda of "world leadership." The program included defying the will of the Iranian people (1953), backing the repressive Saudi monarchy and the Egyptian and Iraqi dictatorships, financing Israel's wars against Lebanon and oppression of the Palestinians, and so much more. It was bad enough that England and France had betrayed the trust of the Arabs after World War I and turned the Middle East into a colonial playground, with all the humiliation and repression that implies. The U.S. government then compounded the crime by picking up the mantle of empire after World War II. Power and oil were the reasons. Were the brutalized and mortified people supposed to be grateful to the West?

We kid ourselves when we pretend that history began on Sept. 11, 2001. Can anyone say with a straight face that before that date America was minding its own business according to the noninterventionist guidelines set out by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson? Read some history. Or does American exceptionalism mean not having to know anything before dropping bombs on people and torturing detainees?

The Muslims who wish Americans ill have never been mysterious about their grievances. Osama bin Laden's fatwa against the United States is online. Read it for yourself. It was issued in 1996, soon after U.S.-financed Israel conducted one of its regular onslaughts against the Lebanese. What are his specific grievances? American troops stationed near Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia. The 1990s killer U.S. embargo on Iraq. U.S. sponsorship of Israel's domination of the Palestinians and its neighbors. "Terrorising you, while you are carrying arms on our land, is a legitimate and morally demanded duty," he wrote.

You don't need to take bin Laden's word for it. Bush administration officials acknowledged that U.S. policy creates more terrorists than it kills. Bush strategist Paul Wolfowitz himself said that occupying Iraq permitted U.S. troops to leave Saudi Arabia, where they had created so much hostility to America. Correct: American policy manufactures terrorism.

With impunity the U.S. government fires missiles from pilotless drones into Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere, killing innocents. Its occupation forces leave death and misery in their wake. Gen. Stanley McChrystal concedes that in Afghanistan "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force." And in the latest incident, Israel killed nine aid volunteers (including an American citizen) on the high seas while enforcing a cruel blockade of Gaza, the latest mistreatment of Palestinians. How can this not come back to haunt us, Israel's financiers?

U.S. policy ­ no matter who's in power ­ couldn't be better tailored to recruit terrorists. We can keep pretending we are innocent victims. Or we can finally put the responsibility where it belongs: in Washington, D.C.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com1006d.asp