28 December 09 - 09:56Poll Results Show that 47% of Politico's Readers are Reality Detatched, Complete Idiots.

Politics, Political News - POLITICO.com

Pollitico Yay or nay Who was the biggest winner of 2009? Michelle Obama 5% Hillary Clinton 10% Barack Obama 17% Sonia Sotomayor 8% Sarah Palin 47% Someone else. 9% Results are based on 9618 votes

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28 December 09 - 09:04Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression

Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression | Health and Wellness | AlterNet

Can anything be done to turn this around? When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale. What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down. The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals -- at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage. Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ." If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything -- they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism." A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read." An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.

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28 December 09 - 08:10Dave Barry's year in review: 2009

Dave Barry's year in review: 2009 - 12/26/2009 - MiamiHerald.com

It was a year of Hope -- at first in the sense of ``I feel hopeful!'' and later in the sense of ``I hope this year ends soon!'' It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting ``business as usual,'' finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it. To be sure, it was a year that saw plenty of bad news. But in almost every instance, there was offsetting good news:

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18 December 09 - 09:21Obama IS Right of Center!

Senators push Wall Street restructuring with Depression-era rule | Raw Story

Obama administration officials have dismissed the idea that the financial sector should or can be changed in more fundamental ways than they are now proposing. You can't turn back the clock, they say, and the new requirements they plan to impose on big banks to hold more capital in reserve, put up $150 billion for a rainy-day rescue fund, and disclose more of their risky trades should be enough to keep the financial sector from imploding again. Many of these requirements, among others, are contained in two giant bills making their way through Congress—one that passed the House last week and another that will be debated in the Senate in the new year. "I think going back to Glass-Steagall would be like going back to the Walkman," says one senior Treasury official.

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14 December 09 - 11:43Game Over. Insurance Companies Win. We All Lost.

White House to Harry Reid: Cut deal with Joe Lieberman - - POLITICO.com

The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the negotiations. But Reid is described as so frustrated with Lieberman that he is not ready to sacrifice a key element of the health care bill, and first wants to see the Congressional Budget Office cost analysis of the Medicare buy-in. The analysis is expected early this week. "There is a weariness and a lot of frustration that one person is holding up the will of 59 others," the official said. “There is still too much anger and confusion at one particular senator’s reversal.”

From a "single payer system" during the campaign to a "public option" to a "medicare buy in" to "nothing at all" to "yearly caps on how much insurance companies have to pay..." That's where we are folks. Your family will still go bankrupt if you get sick and die. Obama has managed to make America's Health Care System worse.

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08 December 09 - 05:35Gaming Companies Might Want to Keep in Mind... Devs & Customers Have Rights Too.

Geist: Record industry faces liability over `infringement' - thestar.com

Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history. His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year. The infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim could exceed $60 billion. If the dollars don't shock, the target of the lawsuit undoubtedly will: The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association. The CRIA members were hit with the lawsuit in October 2008 after artists decided to turn to the courts following decades of frustration with the rampant infringement (I am adviser to the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, which is co-counsel, but have had no involvement in the case). The claims arise from a longstanding practice of the recording industry in Canada, described in the lawsuit as "exploit now, pay later if at all." It involves the use of works that are often included in compilation CDs (ie. the top dance tracks of 2009) or live recordings. The record labels create, press, distribute and sell the CDs, but do not obtain the necessary copyright licences. Instead, the names of the songs on the CDs are placed on a "pending list," which signifies that approval and payment is pending. The pending list dates back to the late 1980s, when Canada changed its copyright law by replacing a compulsory licence with the need for specific authorization for each use. It is perhaps better characterized as a copyright infringement admission list, however, since for each use of the work, the record label openly admits that it has not obtained copyright permission and not paid any royalty or fee. Over the years, the size of the pending list has grown dramatically, now containing more than 300,000 songs. From Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen, the artists waiting for payment are far from obscure, as thousands of Canadian and foreign artists have seen their copyrights used without permission and payment. It is difficult to understand why the industry has been so reluctant to pay its bills. Some works may be in the public domain or belong to a copyright owner difficult to ascertain or locate, yet the likes of Sarah McLachlan, Bruce Cockburn, Sloan, or the Watchmen are not hidden from view.

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07 December 09 - 11:35I Have A Job for My Pro-Life Friends.

We Can't Avert Our Eyes From China's Forced Abortions - Baltimore Sun

The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development. Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, docs recently traded tips in a discussion titled: "What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?" ChinaAid translated a thread regarding an 8-month-old fetus that survived the procedure. "Xuexia" wrote: "Actually, you should have punctured the fetus' skull." Another poster, "Damohuyang," wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and "would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days."

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07 December 09 - 08:25Help Me!

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07 December 09 - 08:22Children are Crazy

New Study Reveals Most Children Unrepentant Sociopaths | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

MINNEAPOLIS—A study published Monday in The Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry has concluded that an estimated 98 percent of children under the age of 10 are remorseless sociopaths with little regard for anything other than their own egocentric interests and pleasures.

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04 December 09 - 08:20Smiling Bob Chokes to Death on Enzyte!

The $100 Million Sex Pill Scandal | North America > United States from AllBusiness.com

Most people have never heard of Berkeley or its controversial CEO, Steve Warshak. But many people are familiar with Berkeley's largest brand, Enzyte, which bills itself as "the once-a-day tablet for natural male enhancement." Enzyte is promoted heavily on late-night cable TV with commercials that feature "Smiling Bob." In the spots, Bob grins his way through golf games and pool parties while a double-entendre-laced voiceover talks about "working with wood," and "a big new swing of confidence." The product itself promises "fuller, firmer erections."

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03 December 09 - 08:55Wealth Before Nation

Op-Ed Contributor - A Cloud Still Hangs Over Bhopal - NYTimes.com

By comparison, the total settlement for Bhopal was $470 million. The families of the dead got an average of $2,200; the wounded got $550; a Dow spokeswoman explained, that amount “is plenty good for an Indian.” As Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey observed in 2006, “In Bhopal, some of the world’s poorest people are being mistreated by one of the world’s richest corporations.” Union Carbide and Dow were allowed to get away with it because of the international legal structures that protect multinationals from liability. Union Carbide sold its Indian subsidiary and pulled out of India. Warren Anderson, the Union Carbide chief executive at the time of the gas leak, lives in luxurious exile in the Hamptons, even though there’s an international arrest warrant out for him for culpable homicide. The Indian government has yet to pursue an extradition request. Imagine if an Indian chief executive had jumped bail for causing an industrial disaster that killed tens of thousands of Americans. What are the chances he’d be sunning himself in Goa? The Indian government, fearful of scaring away foreign investors, has not pushed the issue with American authorities. Dow has used a kind of blackmail with the Indians; a 2006 letter from Andrew Liveris, the chief executive, to India’s ambassador to the United States asked for guarantees that Dow would not be held liable for the cleanup, and thanked him for his “efforts to ensure that we have the appropriate investment climate.”

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03 December 09 - 07:15Balance of power. Or Why you should never get married.

Many Dads Asking For Changes In Child Support - News Story - WFTV Orlando

Eyewitness News found a local teacher who's only bringing home around $50 per week. A family court child support decision left him struggling to live and Eyewitness News found out it is not an isolated case. "I was left with $58 a week," science teacher John Nelson said. The court garnished most of his pay for child support, leaving him with around $200 per month. "I could probably panhandle at the corner (of the interstate) and make more money," he said.

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02 December 09 - 07:36You Are Paying Sprint to Spy On You.

Sprint fed customer GPS data to cops over 8 million times

Christopher Soghoian, a graduate student at Indiana University's School of Informatics and Computing, has made public an audio recording of Sprint/Nextel's Electronic Surveillance Manager describing how his company has provided GPS location data about its wireless customers to law enforcement over 8 million times. That's potentially millions of Sprint/Nextel customers who not only were probably unaware that their wireless provider even had an Electronic Surveillance Department, but who certainly did not know that law enforcement offers could log into a special Sprint Web portal and, without ever having to demonstrate probable cause to a judge, gain access to geolocation logs detailing where they've been and where they are.

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01 December 09 - 05:16For The Children!

Oh, Hi, I Have A Blog « Broken Toys

I briefly considered putting up forums but then realized ARE YOU FRACKING INSANE????!!!????? and stopped considering it. So, um, use some self-control or something. Or just keep the web server humming while I go 2 weeks without posting anything!

Give the Lumites a forum to create their own topics of discussion in? That thought cause a smile to form and then a big nasty frown. Sure the adults were able to take a forum post as just a forum post but the younger members. They got out of hand. I still remember the misery that was hurled my way for posting less than popular comments and "trolling" as it was called. From the spamming attempts to DOS the forums at the old TINAC forums to the threatening phone calls at my home. Besides, there's always the corporations forums of waterthreads forums or f13's forums right?

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