TheChurchMilitant

Chicks, man.

2012-01-26T16:18:00.004-05:00

Ladies, you know this is dead on.

Guys, feel free to tell your woman that of course she's not like that.

Current brilliance from ZeroHedge.com

2012-01-23T16:01:00.011-05:00

This first one is a major smile...

Chart Of The Day: By 2109 Everything Will Be "Sustainable"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/23/2012 - 10:02

Long-time readers of Zero Hedge know that the application of Birinyi's ruler to any trend (traditionally the market, but anything works - after all extrapolating the future courtesy of a few data points is the new killing it) has long been a "favorite" topic of ours. So is media spin in the form of certain "hit" keywords, such as "transitory", "better than expected", and of course "sustainable." Which is why were are delighted when we can combine both concepts into one post, or in this case, chart, which today comes courtesy of xkcd.com, which plot the incidence of the word "sustainable" in English text, and comes up with some amusing predictions, such as that by the year 2109, at current trends, every sentence in the English language will consist solely of the world "sustainable" used over and over.

Charting The US (Un)Recovery

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/23/2012 - 12:23 Federal Deficit Gross Domestic Product Payroll Data Recession recovery World Trade

How does the current recovery compare to those of the past? The following charts from the Council on Foreign Relations puts the current (un)recovery in context and despite some apparently bright news recently, the pictures underline the economy's weakness since the NBER's recovery began in June 2009.

The Machines Are Back On As Randolph And Mortimer Stage Epic Comeback - OJ Trading At All Time High

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/23/2012 - 11:31 Brazil

As of today, Orange Juice has just hit an all time high price of $223.25 (this time on talk of an import ban in Brazil but who really cares), and has returned a jaw-dropping 32.4% YTD, or 7,032% annualized. This is the biggest 4 day surge since October 2006, and for all intents and purposes, essentially the biggest ever. Needless to say, Randolph and Mortimer Capital LLC is back up and running, and has been forced to limit investor inflows due to unprecedented interest in this asset class, which, yes, you can eat (a little freeze drying may be required in advance). At this rate, bottle service of Dom P at 1Oak will cost less than a small container of Tropicana.

Rand Paul Detained In Nashville For Refusing Full Body Pat Down

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/23/2012 - 10:52

ZeroHedge.com is a place you should visit.

2012-01-23T15:32:00.011-05:00

The "conservatives'" favorite serial adulterer has discovered the iconoclastic ZeroHedge.com and provides a link to an excellent piece from November 2010...

Zero Hedge: In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/22/2010 00:18 -0400

Tonight's stunning financial piece de resistance comes from Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. In what is sure to inspire some serious ire among all those who once believed Ronald Reagan that it was the USSR that was the "Evil Empire", Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year." And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks. America is now a country which punishes those middle-class people who not only try to work hard, but avoid scamming the system. Not surprisingly, it is not only the richest and most audacious thieves that prosper - it is also the penny scammers at the very bottom of the economic ladder that rip off the middle class each and every day, courtesy of the world's most generous entitlement system. Perhaps if Reagan were alive today, he would wish to modify the object of his once legendary remark.

From Emmerich:

You can do as well working one week a month at minimum wage as you can working $60,000-a-year, full-time, high-stress job.

My chart tells the story. It is pretty much self-explanatory.

Stunning? Just do it yourself.

Almost all welfare programs have Web sites where you can call up "benefits calculators." Just plug in your income and family size and, presto, your benefits are automatically calculated.

The chart is quite revealing. A one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimu wage) has more disposable income than a amily making $60,000 a year.

And if that wasn't enough, here is one that will blow your mind:

If the family provider works only one week a month at minimum wage, he or she makes 92 percent as much as a provider grossing $60,000 a year.

Ever wonder why Obama was so focused on health reform? It is so those who have no interest or ability in working, make as much as representatives of America's once exalted, and now merely endangered, middle class.

First of all, working one week a month, saves big-time on child care. But the real big-ticket item is Medicaid, which has minimal deductibles and copays. By working only one week a month at a minimum wage job, a provider is able to get total medical coverage for next to nothing.

Compare this to the family provider making $60,000 a year. A typical Mississippi family coverage would cost around $12,000, adding deductibles and copays adds an additional $4,500 or so to the bill. That's a huge hit.

There is a reason why a full time worker may not be too excited to learn there is little to show for doing the "right thing."

The full-time $60,000-a-year job is going to be much more demanding than woring one week a month at minimu wage. Presumably, the low-income parent will have more energy to attend to the various stresses of managing a household.

It gets even scarier if one assumes a little dishonesty is throwin in the equation.

If the one-week-a-month worker maintains an unreported cash-only job on the side, the deal gets better than a regular $60,000-a-year job. In this scenario, you maintain a reportable, payroll deductible, low-income job for federal tax purposes. This allows you to easily establish your qualification for all these welfare programs. Then your black-market job gives you additional cash without interfering with your benefits. Some economists estimate there is one trillion in unreported income each year in the United States.

This really got me thinking. Just how much money could I get if I set out to deliberately scam the system? I soon realized that getting a low-paying minimum wage job would set the stage for far more welfare benefits than you could earn in a real job, if you were weilling to cheat. Even if you dodn't cheat, you could do almost as well working one week a month at minimum wage than busting a gut at a $60,000-a-year job.

Now where it gets plainly out of control is if one throws in Supplemental Security Income.

SSI pays $8,088 per year for each "disabled" family member. A person can be deemed "disabled" if thy are totally lacking in the cultural and educational skills needed to be employable in the workforce.

If you add $24,262 a year for three disability checks, the lowest paid welfare family would now have far more take-home income than the $60,000-a-year family.

Best of all: being on welfare does not judge you if you are stupid enough not to take drugs all day, every day to make some sense out of this Mephistophelian tragicomedy known as living in the USA:

Most private workplaces require drug testing, but there is no drug testing to get welfare checks.

Alas, on America's way to to communist welfare, it has long since surpassed such bastions of capitalism as China:

The welfare system in communist China is far stringier. Those people have to work to eat.

We have been writing for over a year, how the very top of America's social order steals from the middle class each and every day. Now we finally know that the very bottom of the entitlement food chain also makes out like a bandit compared to that idiot American who actually works and pays their taxes. One can only also hope that in addition to seeing their disposable income be eaten away by a kleptocratic entitlement state, that the disappearing middle class is also selling off its weaponry. Because if it isn't, and if it finally decides it has had enough, the outcome will not be surprising at all: it will be the same old that has occurred in virtually every revolution in the history of the world to date.

h/t Nolsgrad

Etta James, Requiescat in pace.

2012-01-23T15:16:00.009-05:00

From ABC News:

Etta James, 73, Dies of Leukemia Complications

Blues singer Etta James, who is most famous for the hit song "At Last," has died from complications of leukemia, her friend and manager Lupe De Leon confirmed. She had been diagnosed with chronic leukemia in January 2011.

James died this morning at Riverside Community Hospital with her husband and two sons by her side, De Leon said.

Click here to see photos of Etta James through the years.

Court records show the 73-year-old entertainer also suffered from dementia and kidney failure. She had been under the 24-hour care of Dr. Elaine James, who is unrelated.

James was born in Los Angeles to a 14-year-old mother and an unknown father. She was brought up by a series of caregivers and began taking vocal lessons at the age of five through her local Baptist church.

James became a gospel prodigy and began singing with two other girls in a doo-wop trio called The Peaches in San Francisco. At 14, James met bandleader Johnny Otis, known today as the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues." Otis produced James' first hit with The Peaches, called "Roll With Me, Henry" (which was later renamed "The Wallflower"). The song was released in 1955 and soon reached No. 1 on the R&B charts.

Following the success of "Roll With Me, Henry," James left The Peaches and toured with singer Little Richard and guitarist and singer Johnny Watson. Her first major solo hit, "All I Could Do is Cry," reached No. 2 on the Billboard R&B Chart in 1960.

In 1960, James signed with Chess Records and recorded "At Last" a year later. In 1968, she released the album "Tell Mama," which included the song "I'd Rather Go Blind." It became an instant hit, as did the album's title track. In 1962, James recorded the hit song "Something's Got A Hold of Me," sections of which were used this year in rapper Flo Rida's song "Good Feeling."

"She is so evocative and provocative as an artist. She sang songs from the heart," Billboard magazine editor-in-chief Danyel Smith told ABCNews.com today. "It's not anything that anyone can copy or emulate but it has definitely set the bar really high as something to strive for."

Smith said that artists from Keisha Cole to Ciara to Beyonce Knowles have all been influenced by James.

Beyonce, who portrayed James in the 2008 movie "Cadillac Records," posted a statement about James' death on her website today:

"This is a huge loss. Etta James was one of the greatest vocalists of our time. I am so fortunate to have met such a queen. Her musical contributions will last a lifetime," Beyonce wrote. "Playing Etta James taught me so much about myself, and singing her music inspired me to be a stronger artist. When she effortlessly opened her mouth, you could hear her pain and triumph. Her deeply emotional way of delivering a song told her story with no filter. She was fearless, and had guts. She will be missed."

James battled a heroin addiction in the 1960's and 1970's. James had several legal problems relating to her addiction, including being accused of heroin possession, cashing bad checks and forgery. In 1974, after being in and out of rehab for over a decade, James was sentenced to drug treatment instead of serving time in prison and spent 17 months in the hospital. In 1988, at the age of 50, James returned to treatment at the Betty Ford Center in California.

James' tumultuous life was reflected in her on-again, off-again appearance on the Billboard charts, Smith said. James' signature song "At Last" went to No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

"Our charts tell the story but it really is bigger than the charts. It's bigger than the Grammy's and it's bigger than everything," Smith said. "She just conveyed emotion from the bottom of her gut, time and time again."

James' career made a comeback in 1989 with the album "Seven Year Itch." Four years later, she released "Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday" as a tribute to her idol. James was awarded her first Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, for that album in 1994.

Throughout her career, James has released 30 albums and 58 singles. She has explored the musical genres of gospel, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and jazz.

"That sound…it's so deceptively simple. It's so true and of the heart and there's not a lot of orchestration or production," Smith said. "It's just about maybe one or two, at most, instruments and it's about somebody voicing longing and, a lot of times, pain and the tough side of love."

James was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and 2008. In 2003, James received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She was awarded six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards, and was named No. 22 on Rolling Stones' 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Today, the Recording Academy released a statement about the "dynamic legacy" James has left behind.

"She will forever be remembered for her timeless ballad, 'At Last,' and a powerful voice that will echo around the world for generations to come," the statement said. "We extend our deepest sympathies to her family, friends, fans and all who have been stirred by her soulful songs and passion for music."

James is survived by her husband, Artis Mills, and their two sons, Donto and Sametto.

Joseph Vincent Paterno, Requiescat in pace.

2012-01-23T15:01:00.010-05:00

Mr. Paterno was a great man and a great coach. [Decent people know this is his legacy.]

Sadly, he trusted a long-time underling who turned out to be a homosexual who likes raping underage boys.

No, Coach Paterno didn't do enough. But as I said before, nobody did enough in this situation.

From Fox News:

Joe Paterno, Former Penn State Football Coach, Dies At 85

Happy Valley was perfect for Joe Paterno, a place where "JoePa" knew best, where he not only won more football games than any other major college coach, but won them the right way: with integrity and sportsmanship. A place where character came first, championships second.

Behind it all, however, was an ugly secret that ran counter to everything the revered coach stood for.

Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the child sex abuse scandal that led to his stunning dismissal, died Sunday at age 85.

His death came just 65 days after his son Scott said his father had been diagnosed with a treatable form of lung cancer. The cancer was found during a follow-up visit for a bronchial illness. A few weeks later, Paterno broke his pelvis after a fall but did not need surgery.

Mount Nittany Medical Center said in a statement that Paterno died at 9:25 a.m. of "metastatic small cell carcinoma of the lung." Metastatic indicates an illness that has spread from one part of the body to an unrelated area.

The hospital says Paterno was surrounded by family members, who have requested privacy.

Paterno had been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation after what his family called minor complications from his cancer treatments. Not long before that, he conducted his only interview since losing his job, with The Washington Post. Paterno was described as frail then, speaking mostly in a whisper and wearing a wig. The second half of the two-day interview was conducted at his bedside.

His family released a statement Sunday morning to announce his death: "His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled."

"He died as he lived," the statement said. "He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community."

Paterno's death just under three months following his last victory called to mind another coaching great, Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant, who died less than a month after retiring.

"Quit coaching?" Bryant said late in his career. "I'd croak in a week."

Paterno alluded to the remark made by his friend and rival, saying in 2003: "There isn't anything in my life anymore except my family and my football. I think about it all the time."

Two police officers were stationed to block traffic on the street where Paterno's modest ranch home stands next to a local park. The officers said the family had asked there be no public gathering outside the house, still decorated with a Christmas wreath, so Paterno's relatives could grieve privately. And, indeed, the street was quiet on a cold winter day.

Paterno's sons, Scott and Jay, arrived separately at the house late Sunday morning. Jay Paterno, who served as his father's quarterbacks coach, was crying.

Paterno built a program based on the credo of "Success with Honor," and he found both. The man known as "JoePa" won 409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and two national championships. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the NFL.

"He will go down as the greatest football coach in the history of the game," Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said after his former team, the Florida Gators, beat Penn State 37-24 in the 2011 Outback Bowl.

Paterno roamed the sidelines for 46 seasons, his thick-rimmed glasses, windbreaker and jet-black sneakers as familiar as the Nittany Lions' blue and white uniforms.

The reputation he built looked even more impressive because he insisted that on-field success not come at the expense of high graduation rates.

But in the middle of his 46th season, the legend was shattered. Paterno was engulfed in a child sex abuse scandal when a former trusted assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of molesting 10 boys over a 15-year span, sometimes in the football building.

Outrage built quickly when the state's top cop said the coach hadn't fulfilled a moral obligation to go to the authorities when a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, told Paterno he saw Sandusky with a young boy in the showers of the football complex in 2002.

At a preliminary hearing for the school officials, McQueary testified that he had seen Sandusky attacking the child with his hands around the boy's waist but said he wasn't 100 percent sure it was intercourse. McQueary described Paterno as shocked and saddened and said the coach told him he had "done the right thing" by reporting the encounter.

Paterno waited a day before alerting school officials and never went to the police.

"I didn't know which way to go ... and rather than get in there and make a mistake," Paterno said in the Post interview.

"You know, (McQueary) didn't want to get specific," Paterno said. "And to be frank with you I don't know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it."

When the scandal erupted in November, Paterno said he would retire following the 2011 season. He also said he was "absolutely devastated" by the abuse case.

"This is a tragedy," he said. "It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

But the university trustees fired Paterno, effective immediately. Graham Spanier, one of the longest-serving university presidents in the nation, also was fired.

Paterno was notified by phone, not in person, a decision that board vice chairman John Surma regretted, trustees said. Lanny Davis, the attorney retained by trustees as an adviser, said Surma intended to extend his regrets over the phone before Paterno hung up him.

After weeks of escalating criticism by some former players and alumni about a lack of transparency trustees last week said they fired Paterno in part because he failed a moral obligation to do more in reporting the 2002 allegation.

An attorney for Paterno on Thursday called the board's comments self-serving and unsupported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations, lawyer Wick Sollers said.

"He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time," Sollers said.

The university handed the football team to one of Paterno's assistants, Tom Bradley, who said Paterno "will go down in history as one of the greatest men, who maybe most of you know as a great football coach."

"As the last 61 years have shown, Joe made an incredible impact," said the statement from the family. "That impact has been felt and appreciated by our family in the form of thousands of letters and well wishes along with countless acts of kindness from people whose lives he touched. It is evident also in the thousands of successful student athletes who have gone on to multiply that impact as they spread out across the country."

New Penn State football coach Bill O'Brien, hired earlier this month, offered his condolences.

"The Penn State Football program is one of college football's iconic programs because it was led by an icon in the coaching profession in Joe Paterno," O'Brien said in a statement. "There are no words to express my respect for him as a man and as a coach. To be following in his footsteps at Penn State is an honor. Our families, our football program, our university and all of college football have suffered a great loss, and we will be eternally grateful for Coach Paterno's immeasurable contributions."

Paterno believed success was not measured entirely on the field. From his idealistic early days, he had implemented what he called a "grand experiment" -- to graduate more players while maintaining success on the field.

"He maintained a high standard in a very difficult profession. Joe preached toughness, hard work and clean competition," Sandusky said in a statement. "Most importantly, he had the courage to practice what he preached."

Paterno was a frequent speaker on ethics in sports, a conscience for a world often infiltrated by scandal.

The team consistently ranked among the best in the Big Ten for graduating players. As of 2011, it had 49 academic All-Americans, the third-highest among schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision. All but two played under Paterno.

"He teaches us about really just growing up and being a man," former linebacker Paul Posluszny, now with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, once said. "Besides the football, he's preparing us to be good men in life."

Paterno certainly had detractors. One former Penn State professor called his high-minded words on academics a farce, and a former administrator said players often got special treatment. His coaching style often was considered too conservative. Some thought he held on to his job too long, and a move to push him out in 2004 failed.

But the critics were in the minority, and his program was never cited for major NCAA violations. The child sex abuse scandal, however, did prompt separate inquiries by the U.S. Department of Education and the NCAA into the school's handling.

Paterno played quarterback and defensive back for Brown University and set a defensive record with 14 career interceptions, a distinction he still boasted about to his teams in his 80s. He graduated in 1950 with plans to go to law school. He said his father hoped he would someday be president.

But when Paterno was 23, a former coach at Brown was moving to Penn State to become the head coach and persuaded Paterno to come with him as an assistant.

"I had no intention to coach when I got out of Brown," Paterno said in 2007 in an interview at Penn State's Beaver Stadium before being inducted into college football's Hall of Fame. "Come to this hick town? From Brooklyn?"

In 1963, he was offered a job by the late Al Davis -- $18,000, triple his salary at Penn State, plus a car to become general manager and coach of the AFL's Oakland Raiders. He said no. Rip Engle retired as Penn State head coach three years later, and Paterno took over.

At the time, Penn State was considered "Eastern football" -- inferior -- and Paterno courted newspaper coverage to raise the team's profile. In 1967, PSU began a 30-0-1 streak.

But Penn State couldn't get to the top of the polls. The Nittany Lions finished second in 1968 and 1969 despite perfect seasons. They were undefeated and untied again in 1973 at 12-0 again but finished fifth. Texas edged them in 1969 after President Richard Nixon, impressed with the Longhorns' bowl performance, declared them No. 1.

"I'd like to know," Paterno said later, "how could the president know so little about Watergate in 1973, and so much about college football in 1969?"

A national title finally came in 1982, after a 27-23 win over Georgia at the Sugar Bowl. Another followed in 1986 after the Lions intercepted Vinny Testaverde five times and beat Miami 14-10 in the Fiesta Bowl.

They made several title runs after that, including a 2005 run to the Orange Bowl and an 11-1 season in 2008 that ended in a 37-23 loss to Southern California in the Rose Bowl.

In his later years, physical ailments wore the old coach down.

Paterno was run over on the sideline during a game at Wisconsin in November 2006 and underwent knee surgery. He hurt his hip in 2008 demonstrating an onside kick. An intestinal illness and a bad reaction to antibiotics prescribed for dental work slowed him for most of the 2010 season. He began scaling back his speaking engagements that year, ending his summer caravan of speeches to alumni across the state.

Then a receiver bowled over Paterno at practice in August, sending him to the hospital with shoulder and pelvis injuries and consigning him to coach much of what would be his last season from the press box.

"The fact that we've won a lot of games is that the good Lord kept me healthy, not because I'm better than anybody else," Paterno said two days before he won his 409th game and passed Eddie Robinson of Grambling State for the most in Division I. "It's because I've been around a lot longer than anybody else."

Paterno could be conservative on the field, especially in big games, relying on the tried-and-true formula of defense, the running game and field position.

He and his wife, Sue, raised five children in State College. Anybody could telephone him at his home -- the same one he appeared in front of on the night he was fired -- by looking up "Paterno, Joseph V." in the phone book.

He walked to home games and was greeted and wished good luck by fans on the street. Former players paraded through his living room for the chance to say hello. But for the most part, he stayed out of the spotlight.

Paterno did have a knack for jokes. He referred to Twitter, the social media site, as "Twittle-do, Twittle-dee."

He also could be abrasive and stubborn, and he had his share of run-ins with his bosses or administrators. And as his legend grew, so did the attention to his on-field decisions, and the questions about when he would hang it up.

Calls for his retirement reached a crescendo in 2004. The next year, Penn State went 11-1 and won the Big Ten. In the Orange Bowl, PSU beat Florida State, whose coach, Bobby Bowden, was eased out after the 2009 season after 34 years and 389 wins.

Like many others, he was outlasted by "JoePa."

Are there enough people of good will left in FL to extirpate the Romnoid cancer from the body politic?

2012-01-23T14:25:00.031-05:00

Of course it would be better if Santorum wins in Florida next week, but I'll take another lizard win to help take out the lizard whisperer.

Two new polls show Gingrich leading in Florida
- The Palm Beach Post

Please donate now:

Santorum For President - Elect The True Conservative

Thanks to the independents and the ladies of S.C. for voting ANTI-ROMNEY.

2012-01-23T14:10:00.013-05:00

Republican voters are getting closer to the realization that Rick Santorum is the only conservative running.

The first step toward sanity is stopping the REPANSYCAN establishment candidate, Mitterand Romney.

The next step is putting aside your protestant moral relativism and anti-Catholic hatred [which is merely rebellion against your conscience].

From Washington's other newspaper:

Newt Gingrich wins South Carolina primary

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich scored an easy victory Saturday in the South Carolina primary, blowing a hole in Mitt Romney’s aura of inevitability.

The 12-point win represented a swift and extraordinary turnaround in Gingrich’s fortunes — thanks largely to strong performances in two debates. In those forums, he issued a stirring appeal to the state’s strident conservatism, convinced its voters he would be a formidable opponent against President Obama and threw Romney off his stride.

“We don’t have the kind of money that at least one of the candidates has,” Gingrich said in his victory speech in Columbia, referring to Romney. “But we do have ideas, and we do have people and we proved here in South Carolina that people power with the right ideas beats big money.”

He also peppered his speech with dismissive references to “elites” in the media and in Washington and New York — a sign that he intends to continue the truculently populist tone that resonated with voters in South Carolina.

After disappointing distant finishes in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Gingrich had limped into South Carolina more than 10 points down in most polls. So battered was his candidacy that Gingrich himself had conceded that his campaign might be over if he failed to turn in a strong performance.

His victory not only changes the near-term dynamic of this presidential campaign but also defies political history. South Carolina is known as a firewall for the GOP establishment in presidential contests, traditionally extinguishing the hopes of insurgent candidates such as Gingrich.

This year also marks the first time that a different Republican candidate has won each of the first trio of contests — still further evidence of how unsettled and dissatisfied the party’s voters are in a year when they are anxious to unseat a vulnerable incumbent president.

Since 1980, every South Carolina GOP primary winner has gone on to win the party’s nomination. But how far this victory will carry Gingrich remains very much in question. Although Romney has yet to win over the Republican activist base, he has by far the most formidable financial resources and organization. Those give him a substantial edge as the contest moves next to the vast state of Florida, which holds its primary Jan. 31.

And in his concession speech, Romney — who has until now trained most of his fire on Obama — signaled that he will be taking a harder line against Gingrich as the contest goes forward.

“The choice within our party has also come into stark focus. President Obama has no experience running a business and no experience running a state. Our party can’t be led to victory by someone who also has never run a business and never run a state,” Romney said. “Our president has divided the nation, engaged in class warfare and attacked the free-enterprise system that has made America the economic envy of the world. We cannot defeat that president with a candidate who has joined in that very assault on free enterprise.”

The jug-eared commie's war against God continues apace.

2012-01-23T13:55:00.004-05:00

The Constitution is dead and if you are a person who is pissed about it, you're next on the hit list. The blood-soaked ghoul in the the White [Racist.] House must be stopped and only a return to the One, True Faith can stop it.

Thousands of our fellow Pennsylvanians are travelling to Washington, D.C., today to mark the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. On Friday, the Obama Administration announced that it would not honor the request of millions of Americans by allowing for a conscience exemption in its requirement that all employers pay for “health care” that includes sterilization, contraception and abortion-causing drugs. These two events are not unrelated; both signal a lack of respect for life and for the rights of those who uphold the dignity of all people.

SEND A MESSAGE IN SUPPORT OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

Many of you sent emails last fall asking the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to respect conscience rights and religious liberty. Unfortunately, Friday’s ruling means that this mandate and the very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

This ruling will force Catholics to decide between violating their consciences and providing the basic right of health care. At issue is the constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans. In this ruling, you and I were told that we can call ourselves Catholic, we just can’t act like we are.

So what is next? If the Administration will not rescind this violation of the First Amendment, Congress must do so. Voice your disappointment with the HHS ruling and ask your legislators to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (HR1170/S 1467).

PS- Another pro-life bill, The Women’s Right to Know Act, is in front of the Pennsylvania House. Please send a message in support of that pro-life legislation as well!

Click the link below to log in and send your message:
http://www.votervoice.net/link/target/pacc/5MBr8FFf.aspx

VOTE CONSERVATIVE. VOTE SANTORUM.

2012-01-19T14:04:00.005-05:00

Mr. Santorum needs your help to restore some sanity to American politics.

Donate now...

Rick Santorum for President

Mittens the Pompadoured Pussy is not fit to be president.

2012-01-19T13:49:00.006-05:00

Unless you believe that sometime after 1994 Mittens was visited by a talking salamander [not a newt] who told him abortion was bad, he can't be trusted.

Of course, even if you are a babykilling Repansycan, there are still plenty of reasons not to trust him.

Again, Newt is unfit to be president. Must I draw you kiddies a picture?

2012-01-19T13:42:00.004-05:00

As I've said before, Newt should drop out of politics and spend his time living his conversion to Catholicism, not just talking about it.

From WABC-TV:

Newt's ex-wife says Gingrich wanted 'open marriage'

Rick Santorum is the only conservative sttill runniong.

2012-01-19T13:34:00.005-05:00

Perry wasn't all that conservative, anyway. He was too in love with the idea of turning illegal Mexicans into Repansycan voters.

From AP via Yahoo! News:

Perry drops presidential bid, endorses Gingrich

SANTORUM WINS IOWA!

2012-01-19T13:27:00.006-05:00

Santorum edges Romney in belated Iowa GOP count

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — In a surprise flip, Rick Santorum edged front-runner Mitt Romney by 34 votes in the final tally of the Iowa caucuses, Republican officials said Thursday. But no winner was declared because some votes still remain missing two weeks after the event's closest contest ever.

The state party initially had declared Romney the victor — by just 8 votes — in the first voting for the Republican presidential nomination, based on the count the morning after the Jan. 3 caucuses. Iowa Republican Chairman Matt Strawn announced the new, certified totals in a statement Thursday, but said the party would not name an official winner because the results were so close and some votes can't be counted. Results from 8 of the state's 1,774 precincts were not certified to the state party by Wednesday's 5 pm deadline.

"We understand the importance to the candidates involved, but as Iowans we understand the responsibility we have as temporary caretakers of the Iowa caucuses," said Strawn. He congratulated Santorum and Romney "on a hard-fought effort during the closest contest in caucus history."

Unofficial election night results from the 8 precincts gave Santorum 81 votes and Romney 46. If those results had been certified, Santorum's lead in the final tally would have been 69 votes. Santorum was quick to claim the Iowa victory, saying in a fundraising email that "the incredible news" makes the score for Romney and himself 1-1. Romney followed Iowa with a strong win in New Hampshire. The third contest, South Carolina's primary, is Saturday.

For the gentlemen of a certain age, Fyodor presents...

2012-01-10T12:39:00.004-05:00

...a Princess Leia pillow fight.

Courtesy of The King Abdullah Gazette, of course.

This may be the greatest photograph EVER.

2012-01-10T12:09:00.009-05:00

From the pages of The King Abdullah Gazette:

Alessandra Ambrosio lives up to her name.

Life now imitates every '50's B-grade sci-fi and horror movie.

2012-01-06T13:25:00.007-05:00

From LiveScience.com via Yahoo! News:

Scientists Make Supersoldier Ants

When eight bizarrely big-headed soldier ants turned up in a wild colony collected from Long Island, N.Y., scientists knew they had found something interesting.

This discovery of these oversized versions of soldier ants, whose job is to defend the nest, led researchers to create their own supersoldier ants in the lab with the help of a hormone, and, by doing so, offer an explanation for how ants, and possibly other social insects, take on specific forms with dedicated jobs within their colonies.

It turns out these abnormal soldier ants were throwbacks to an ancestral state, one that no longer shows up within their species except, apparently, by accident. This phenomenon occasionally pops up elsewhere, in the form of whales bearing limbs their ancestors lost, chickens with teeth or humans with tails. [10 Vestigial Limbs & Organs]

"It's been known for a long time that these kinds of slips occur, and they are viewed as the Barnum and Bailey of evolution," said the study's senior researcher Ehad Abouheif, Canada research chair in evolutionary developmental biology at McGill University. "What we are showing for the first time is there is this ancestral potential sitting there, and when poked by the environment it can really unleash this potential that can power evolution."

Meet the supersoldiers

The species collected in New York, Pheidole morrisi, normally has two types of worker ants, according to Abouheif: minor workers, which are responsible for foraging, nursing, feeding eggs and larvae, and taking care of the queen; and soldier ants, which defend the nest and use their big mandibles to crack seeds harvested by the minor workers.

This species doesn't have supersoldiers, but the big-headed critters resembled the supersoldier ants occurring among eight species of ants found in the American Southwest and northern Mexico. All nine species belong to the genus Pheidole, which contains about 1,100 species.

So it made sense that the out-of-place supersoldiers could reveal something about the origin of supersoldiers among the eight other species.

Making a supersoldier

To find out, the researchers, led by Rajendhran Rajakumar, a doctoral student in Abouheif's lab, watched the development of supersoldier larvae from two of the eight species that normally produce them. (The researchers wanted to study the behavior of the P. morrisi they had collected, but they were killed in the lab by other ants.)

An ant's caste, or role in the colony, is determined by environmental switches, or periods during its larval development when it is receptive to certain environmental cues. Adult ants in the colony can manipulate these switches by, for instance, applying certain hormones called pheromones to the larvae.

In the first period of development, this switch determines whether the egg will become a queen or a worker and then another switch second determines whether the larva will become a soldier or a minor worker.

Just before the second switch, they applied a chemical that acts like juvenile hormone to the larvae of three species that do not produce supersoldiers. Juvenile hormone is involved in translating environmental cues, such as nutrition, into the identity of the larvae. By applying it artificially, the researchers not only pushed the larvae past the threshold at which they would normally become regular soldiers, but past a second threshold, one that is normally hidden, creating supersoldiers.

But these lab-created supersoldiers weren't perfect matches to the natural ones. As adults they retained little vestigial wings buds, something normal supersoldiers lose when they mature.

"The potential [to be supersoldiers] is there, but it is a little raw," Abouheif said.

The researchers also looked at the expression of a gene involved in the control of wing development, and found similarity between the lab-induced supersoldiers and the natural ones. They also found similar changes occurred in two different species of naturally occurring supersoldiers, this indicated both relied on the same developmental mechanism.

So why have supersoldiers?

The naturally occurring supersoldiers appear to have a defense function. These species live in the same areas as army ants, which attack their colonies. During a raid, the supersoldiers use their large heads to block the tunnels to their nests to keep the attackers out.

However, other species of Pheidole ants, those without supersoldiers, also live alongside army ants. One of the species in which the researchers induced the supersoldiers, P. hyatti, grabs its brood and climbs up stalks of grass to escape army ant raids.

Moreau suggests another reason the giant heads of the supersoldiers might come in handy: grinding seeds. Supersoldiers could grind larger seeds than regular soldiers, she said.

A mystery from the family tree

The findings could help to solve a mystery of the origin of such supersoldier ants. Past work by Corrie Moreau, an evolutionary biologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, who was not involved with this study, revealed that one of the supersoldier species is located near the base of the Pheidole family tree, closely related to the ancestral ant, while other supersoldier species were scattered within the tree.

There are two possible explanations for this arrangement: Either each of the species evolved different ways of creating supersoldiers, or the mechanism evolved with the earliest common ancestor about 35 million to 60 million years ago, according to Moreau.

The work of Abouheif's team points to the latter — that supersoldiers date back to the root of the family tree — and it reveals how supersoldiers are created.

The implications extend beyond ants, according to Moreau.

"The question becomes, 'Do all insects use a similar pathway as was found in the big-headed ants or is this something special to this group,'" she wrote in an email to LiveScience. "Regardless, it suggests that we should look for evolutionary conserved pathways across the tree of life."

Another TV related tragedy.

2012-01-06T12:51:00.005-05:00

From MyFoxChicago,com:

Joliet Man Charged With Ripping Out Uncle's Eyeballs

Police say career criminal Exulam I. Holman gouged out his uncle’s eyes while the two men fought over a remote control New Year’s Eve in southwest suburban Joliet Township.

Will County Sheriff’s police were called shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday to a residence in the 1100 block of McKay Street in Joliet Township, where a 62-year-old man reported he’d been attacked.

A deputy was allowed inside and found the victim at the bottom of the basement stairs with his hands stretched out in front of him, saying, “Please help. I cannot see,” reports said.

The victim, whose name was not released, had “blood streaming from both eyeballs, covering his face below his eyes. Both of his eyeballs were swollen, dislocated and were protruding approximately a quarter-inch from the eye sockets,” police said.

The man told police he and his nephew, Holman, 32, had been arguing over the TV’s remote control. Both men live at the McKay Street home.

Holman broke the remote on the ground, pushed his uncle to the kitchen floor and straddled him. Holman is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 280 pounds. His uncle is five inches shorter and weighs 140 pounds less.

The victim told deputies that Holman “inserted his thumbs into his eyes … and attempted to pry the eyeballs out of the sockets.”

Holman then allegedly pushed his uncle down the basement stairs.

Despite being in “excruciating” pain and losing consciousness, he was able to call 911.

A deputy found Holman in a locked bedroom and arrested him on a charge of aggravated domestic battery.

The victim was taken to Silver Cross Hospital and later transferred to the University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital for advanced care.

Sources reported he is now blind in his left eye and will require additional surgery for the limited vision in his right.

On Tuesday, Holman’s bond was set at $1 million.

Police report he has been arrested 25 times since 1999 for aggravated assault, aggravated battery, domestic battery, violating orders of protection, resisting arrest and numerous driving violations after previous convictions on weapons and narcotics charges.

In 1999, then-Joliet Officer Bernard Mooney allegedly beat Holman while breaking up a dice game in Joliet.

Holman received a $100,000 settlement after threatening to file a lawsuit over his broken nose, and Mooney was fired from the department.

The following summer, another officer allegedly found Holman passed out behind the wheel of a car running in the 1300 block of Woodruff Road in Joliet. When Holman woke up and was told he’d be arrested for driving under the influence, he put the car in gear and struck the police officer, causing minor injuries.

Wow. Even US News & World Report is drinking Okhrana's hemlock.

2012-01-06T12:45:00.003-05:00

From Yahoo! News:

Could President Obama be a 'job creator'?

That buzzphrase has been the Republicans' way of referring to business owners who are supposedly hamstrung by overregulation and outdated economic policies that Obama has pursued over the last three years, including the controversial stimulus program from 2009. Obama himself is a "job killer" in the argot of leading Republicans like Mitt Romney and John Boehner. But Obama may have some persuasive facts at hand to help refute that claim come Election Day.

[See 11 companies on the edge in 2012.]

The latest unemployment report was modestly better than expected, with 200,000 new jobs added to the economy and a slight drop in the unemployment rate, to 8.5 percent. For once there was no need for caveats explaining that the seemingly good news actually masked more troubling signs deeper in the numbers. The economy has now added jobs every month since September 2010, and the pace of job gains appears to be accelerating. After many fits and starts, in other words, the economy may finally be strengthening in earnest.

There's almost no plausible scenario in which an Obama re-election in November would be a shoe-in. The unemployment rate on Election Day will probably still be above 8 percent, which would make Obama, if re-elected, the only president since the Depression to win a second term with such a high jobless rate. Housing will still be a mess and many middle-class Americans will feel they're worse off than they were four years earlier.

But if current trends continue, Obama will have some upbeat news to run on. The economy has already added about 2.7 million jobs since employment bottomed out at the beginning of 2010. If the economy keeps adding 200,000 jobs per month, on average, it would mean another 2 million new jobs by the time Election Day rolls around. That would allow Obama to say--accurately--that under his stewardship, the economy has added nearly 5 million new jobs over the last two years.

[See 3 scenarios for the economy on Election Day.]

That could all happen with the unemployment rate going up, not down, as discouraged workers who had given up finding a job re-enter the workforce, creating a bigger pool of people technically counted as unemployed. Conventional wisdom holds that no president can get re-elected with such a high unemployment rate, no matter what else is happening. But this could be yet another rule of thumb proven obsolete by the dramatically changing economy.

Voters on Election Day will probably be much more influenced by whether they feel their own fortunes are improving than they will by the number that represents the unemployment rate. When Ronald Reagan got re-elected in 1984, the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent, then a record-high for a post-Depression president winning a second term. But the economy had been adding jobs for 20 straight months at that point, which created a tangible sense of things getting better. If the current string of job gains continues, Obama will have 26 straight months of job gains behind him, besting Reagan's run.

There's still a lot that could go wrong for Obama. Many economists expect a pullback in consumer spending in 2012, because spending in 2011 rose faster than income, which means shoppers used their credit cards more and drew down their savings. As they become more frugal in 2012, that's likely to slow the overall economy. A financial meltdown in Europe remains possible and could throw the U.S. economy back into recession. A showdown with Iran could cause an oil spike that pushes gas prices above $4 per gallon. And unforeseen shocks are always a possibility.

[See why shoppers will pull back in 2012.]

But we might finally be seeing a modest recovery that can sustain itself, without any more blood transfusions from the Federal Reserve or temporary subsidies from Congress. At least that's how Obama is likely to portray it. Voters, increasingly, may agree.

Rick Newman is the author of Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success , to be published in May. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman

Memo to the "conservative" protestant "evangelical" kiddies...

2012-01-06T11:35:00.030-05:00

RE: Santorum or Romney?

First, let me make one thing clear: This is a political thing, not a religious one. I know you're all heretics and deep down inside your very heart of hearts, you know it too. But let's put that aside for the moment and agree we've got to stop that non-observant mormon, big-government statist, babykilling elitist, and DeathLoving fraud Mitterand "MittCain" Romnoid from ensuring another four years of dictatorial power for that jug-eared jackass who's an even greater Lover of Death. [Heck, even a real mormon would be preferable. I could live with a federal ban on caffeine but I'm not prepared to put up with trapshooting with babies as the new national pastime.]

That's right, kiddies. You heard it here first. Mittens the Pompadoured Pussy will lose the general election so badly it will make his newest friend, Senator War Hero, look like a winner.

If you're a regular visitor to my neighborhood, you know I think the good ol' USA has been dead for a long, long time. But that doesn't mean our elections [if they are still free and fair, of course] don't matter. Bolshevik the Clown will kill millions. President Mittens will kill tens of thousands. And don't forget the untold number of souls lost to Hell under either of these geniuses.

We need Rick Santorum. Rick is a Catholic gentleman with only one wife and a passel of kids. His father was a lifelong coal miner. He's pro-life, pro-gun, anti-commie and anti-terrorist.

Sure, Mr. Santorum is a professional politician. But we the people are responsible for the fact we have a ruling political class in the land of the "free" and the home of the "brave".

Romnoid won't attack Emperor Haile Unlikely. Santorum will.

MittCain will be rightly seen as not that different from Insane Hussein Insaner. Santorum will revel in the contrast between himself and the ruling DeathLoving elite. [Just watch him in the upcoming primaries.]

The bottom line?

Defeating the DeathLovers and rolling back their culture of death [religious, economic, political, and everything] will take millions of small steps. Electing Rick Santorum president would be an obvious one.

Don't worry. She's still got a couple hundred million left.

2012-01-06T11:20:00.009-05:00

From the Devil Ball golf blog comes news of more fallout from the most expensive hooker binge in human history:

Tiger's ex destroys $12 million mansion

Courtesy of Pacific Coast News

There are times when divorce forces people to do strange things. Burn sheets. Throw out clothes. Toss rings into the ocean. But when you get $100 million in your divorce, you can trump just about anything and that's what happened with Tiger Woods' ex-wife when she bought a $12 million home and bulldozed the whole thing.

Yes, according to TMZ, Elin Nordegren bought a $12 million home in North Palm Beach, Fla., but didn't like it, and has plowed the whole thing.

The house, which had six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, is now just rubble, with no word yet on what is going to replace the beautiful building you see above, but I guess when you have nine figures in the bank, it doesn't really matter what you want.

I guess we can all applaud Elin on not rolling over after all this happened and continuing on with her life. But I think we can all agree on one thing: Why in the world is she still in Florida? Wouldn't you want to move back home for good?

Courtesy of With Leather

Fyodor's Headlinks make their triumphant return!

2012-01-06T11:12:00.003-05:00

Just another day in the universe, kiddies.

Many doctors harbor 'embarrassing' secret

Across the country, family physicians and even surgeons are going broke.

Ha! Just wait until they are forced to work in Okhrana's government abattoirs.

Gingrich to black people: Demand paychecks, not food aid

Let me guess...Newt's a racist.

You can tell a lot about a man by the nature of his enemies.

2012-01-05T10:54:00.011-05:00

DONATE NOW, SAVE A COUNTRY!

Iowa Was Just The Beginning | Rick Santorum for President

Check out the collection of sick perverts who hate Rick Santorum:

Rick Santorum's Anal Sex Problem | Motherf***er Jones

Rick Santorum: States Should Have Power To Ban Birth Control - Huffington Pissed

Rick Santorum is coming for your birth control - Salon.com

Behold one of the allegedly "respectable" perverts at Washington's other newspaper whine like a three year old:

Rick Santorum's curious closing argument

At least the sodomites are honest about why they hate the man so.

The Catholic crackup continues apace.

2012-01-05T10:44:00.005-05:00

It's time for some serious repenting.

From AP via Yahoo! News:

Catholic bishop resigns, admits fathering 2 children

The resignation of a Los Angeles bishop who fathered two children has shocked the nation's most populous Roman Catholic archdiocese, where Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala grew up and was an outspoken supporter of causes dear to the huge Hispanic population.

Zavala, 60, who once urged Catholic media to report scandals such as clergy sex abuse "in a spirit of love and mercy," had his resignation accepted Wednesday by Pope Benedict XVI. Roman Catholic canon law permits bishops to step down earlier than the normal retirement age of 75 if they are sick or otherwise unfit for office.

"This is unexpected, sad and disorienting news for many people who know and like Bishop Zavala," archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg said. "Remember, he was raised here. He has deep roots in Los Angeles and so he's very well-known here."

Tamberg said he knew nothing about Zavala's affair except that it involved consenting adults and that no church funds were used.

A message left at a Hacienda Heights telephone number for a Gabino Zavala was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Zavala was one of five auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese and was the primary pastoral and liturgical administrator for 66 churches in the San Gabriel region east of Los Angeles, Tamberg said. Archbishop Jose Gomez has selected someone to handle those duties until the Vatican can appoint a replacement.

Zavala informed the archbishop last month that he had fathered two children who live with their mother in another state, Gomez said in a letter to the archdiocese's approximately 5 million Catholics. The archbishop said Zavala told him that he had submitted his resignation to the pope.

"Since that time, he has not been in ministry and will be living privately," the archbishop said in the letter, which was posted on a Catholic blog.

Tamberg did not know the children's ages or gender but revealed that they are not twins — indicating Zavala and the woman had more than a passing relationship.

"The archdiocese has reached out to the mother and children to provide spiritual care as well as funding to assist the children with college costs. The family's identity is not known to the public, and I wish to respect their right to privacy," the archbishop wrote.

Roman Catholic priests are required to be celibate, though Eastern rite priests can be married and married Anglican priests who convert can become Catholic priests.

Zavala was born in Guerrero, Mexico, but grew up in Los Angeles. He was ordained in 1977 and was assigned to Our Lady of Guadalupe, a church in the heavily Mexican-American East Los Angeles area. He was appointed an auxiliary bishop in 1994.

In a June 2010 speech to the Catholic Media Association, Zavala spoke about the duty of Catholic media to "report the truth, because the truth does set us free," but with mercy and concern for individuals.

In his role as auxiliary bishop, Zavala spoke out in support of immigration rights and prison reforms, better conditions for the working poor and against the death penalty.

A handful of other priests have quit their post over sexual relationships, including: Florida priest Alberto Cutie, who resigned in 2009 and married his then-girlfriend; Auxiliary Bishop James McCarthy of New York, who resigned in 2002 after the archdiocese was alerted about his affairs with women; and Archbishop Robert Sanchez of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who resigned in 1993 after confessing relationships with women.

The late Archbishop Eugene Marino of Atlanta resigned in 1990 when his relationship with a parishioner was made public; the woman said she and the archbishop had secretly married.

Hysterical Animal Nonsense from the Science Nazis.

2012-01-04T17:22:00.019-05:00

No, kiddies, it's not "evolution in action". All you need to do is look up the definition of the word "species".

Heck, even the lamebrains who contribute to Wikipedia know this one:

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.

This is just a case of a few randy sharks gettin' some strange.

From AFP via Yahoo! News:

World-first hybrid shark found off Australia

Hee-hee. "Hybrid". I wonder if it spontaneously combusts like the Chevy Volt...

Scientists said on Tuesday that they had discovered the world's first hybrid sharks in Australian waters, a potential sign the predators were adapting to cope with climate change.

...Give me a call when they walk out of the water, put on suits and ties, and start taking our jobs.

The mating of the local Australian black-tip shark with its global counterpart, the common black-tip, was an unprecedented discovery with implications for the entire shark world, said lead researcher Jess Morgan.

"Unprecedented discovery", kiddies, not "unprecedented event". Just because it's new to us, doesn't mean it's new to the sharks.

One needs to learn how to read and think critically...

"It's very surprising because no one's ever seen shark hybrids before, this is not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination," Morgan, from the University of Queensland, told AFP.

Sounds like a Science Nazi who preys on those who don't know how to think for themselves...

"This is evolution in action."

More H. A. N.:

Justifiable Homicide of the Day.

2012-01-04T17:13:00.004-05:00

Sarah McKinley for Mother of the Year!

Woman kills intruder: 911 says okay to shoot
- Good Morning America

A young Oklahoma mother shot and killed an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby on New Year's Eve, less than a week after the baby's father died of cancer.

Sarah McKinley says that a week earlier a man named Justin Martin dropped by on the day of her husband's funeral, claiming that he was a neighbor who wanted to say hello. The 18-year-old Oklahoma City area woman did not let him into her home that day.

On New Year's Eve Martin returned with another man, Dustin Stewart, and this time was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The two soon began trying to break into McKinley's home.

As one of the men was going from door to door outside her home trying to gain entry, McKinley called 911 and grabbed her 12-gauge shotgun.

McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and called 911.

"I've got two guns in my hand -- is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?" the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. "I'm here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?"

The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.

"I can't tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby," the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.

When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.

May God have mercy on his black, bloody soul.

"You're allowed to shoot an unauthorized person that is in your home. The law provides you the remedy, and sanctions the use of deadly force," Det. Dan Huff of the Blanchard police said.

Stewart soon turned himself in to police.

McKinley said that she was at home alone with her newborn that night because her husband just died of cancer on Christmas Day.

"I wouldn't have done it, but it was my son," McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO. "It's not an easy decision to make, but it was either going to be him or my son. And it wasn't going to be my son. There's nothing more dangerous than a woman with a child."

It is good to know America can still produce a real woman or two...

None dare call it treason...

2012-01-04T17:03:00.010-05:00

...except your humble narraator.

More evidence for Hussein Insane Husseiner's treason trial [ We can impeach him too.] from Drudge:

'Unprecedented' power grab from Congress... Violates administration's own policy... Big Labor Applauds... LEGAL SHOWDOWN...Obama bypasses Senate to fill labor board posts
- AP

President Barack Obama recess-appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, bypassing fierce opposition from Republicans who claim the agency has leaned too far in favor of unions

Take that, "libertarian" fraud! Next up: MittCain The Babykiller, then the jug-eared commie criminal...

2012-01-04T16:45:00.016-05:00

8 VOTES...
Soaring Santorum: 'Game on'...

- Drudge Report

The knives have been brandished quickly...

Santorum surge brings fresh attention to ethics questions
- ABC News

Third-party politics the real Iowa winner?
- Yahoo! Contributor Network

The big winner from Iowa's caucus might not be Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney. The thin margin between the two reflects a dangerous reality for Republicans: They're not sold on Romney

Hey, Iowa! Vote CONSERVATIVE. Vote SANTORUM!

2011-12-29T14:18:00.008-05:00

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Santorum surges in new Iowa poll

Mitt Romney has claimed a narrow lead over Ron Paul in Iowa, according to a new CNN/Time poll. But it is Rick Santorum who may be showing the most momentum with just days left before the caucuses...

...Santorum has watched all year as a rotating cast of Republicans enjoyed nominal front-runner status, and the media attention that comes with it. His moment may be coming at the most opportune time...

The former Pennsylvania senator may be catching fire with the social conservative voters who also propelled Mike Huckabee to a surprise victory four years ago. Santorum has been lining up endorsements from prominent evangelical leaders, most notably former gubernatorial candidate and Huckabee backer Bob Vander Plaats.

According to the CNN/Time poll, 43% of likely caucusgoers say they can still change their mind.

Katrina Bowden's yummy tummy and other bits.

2011-12-27T15:45:00.060-05:00

From the pages of The King Abdullah Gazette:

First, here are three shots from the previously mentioned film...

...and now here's more Katrina...

Does anyone actually read Esquire?

Another Dumbass Cinema classic enters the pantheon.

2011-12-27T13:40:00.013-05:00

Starring the always underrated Tyler Labine, Katrina Bowden [Cerie from 30 Rock. Please don't hold that against her. She has to pay the rent somehow.], who gets to show off the cutest tummy this reviewer has seen in quite some time [See the next post for visual confirmation], and Alan Tudyk, whom I consider to be the show stealer here. There's a lot of bloody cartoon violence and some inappropriate language that is really unnecessary, [Seriously. Try making one without it and see what happens.] so it's not for the little kiddies, kiddies. It's not an all-timer, but it's fun and it's dumb.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

From IMDB:

Two lovable West Virginian hillbillies, are headed to their "fixer-upper" vacation cabin to drink some beer, do some fishin', and have a good time. But when they run into a group of preppy college kids who assume from their looks that they must be in-bred, chainsaw wielding killers, Tucker & Dale's vacation takes a bloody & hilarious turn for the worse.

Rated R for bloody horror violence, language and brief nudity

Release Date: 9 December 2010 (Kazakhstan)

????????

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

LVL 1,678 (Latvia) (12 December 2010) (1 Screen)

???????????

Gross:

$222,011 (USA) (20 November 2011)

From the Nature Shall Not Be Mocked Department:

2011-12-22T14:25:00.001-05:00

...Or, Bite the hand that doesn't feed.

Could the UN possibly suck more?

2011-12-22T13:44:00.010-05:00

From MRCtv:

De-fund these perverts now!

Vaclav Havel, Requiescat in pace.

2011-12-20T13:19:00.009-05:00

One of the greatest freedom-fighters of the twentieth century has gone to his reward. Lovers of the rule of law and haters of the rule of men owe Mr. Havel a debt that can never be repaid, but try we must.

To the ash heap with all tyrants!

From Fox News:

Former Czech President And Anti-Communist Icon Vaclav Havel Dies At 75

Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75.

Havel died Sunday morning at his weekend house in the northern Czech Republic, his assistant Sabina Tancecova said.

Havel was his country's first democratically elected president after the nonviolent "Velvet Revolution" that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as "Absurdistan."

As president, he oversaw the country's bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Even out of office, the diminutive Czech remained a world figure. He was part of the "new Europe" -- in the coinage of then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- of ex-communist countries that stood up for the U.S. when the democracies of "old Europe" opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion.

A former chain-smoker, Havel had a history of chronic respiratory problems dating back to his years in communist jails. He was hospitalized in Prague on Jan. 12, 2009, with an unspecified inflammation, and had developed breathing difficulties after undergoing minor throat surgery.

Havel left office in 2003, 10 years after Czechoslovakia broke up and just months before both nations joined the European Union. He was credited with laying the groundwork that brought his Czech Republic into the 27-nation bloc, and was president when it joined NATO in 1999.

Shy and bookish, with wispy mustache and unkempt hair, Havel came to symbolize the power of the people to peacefully overcome totalitarian rule.

"Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred," Havel famously said. It became his revolutionary motto which he said he always strove to live by.

Havel was nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and collected dozens of other accolades worldwide for his efforts as a global ambassador of conscience, defended the downtrodden from Darfur to Myanmar.

Among his many honors were Sweden's prestigious Olof Palme Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award, bestowed on him by President George W. Bush for being "one of liberty's great heroes."

An avowed peacenik whose heroes included rockers such as Frank Zappa, he never quite shed his flower-child past and often signed his name with a small heart as a flourish.

In an October 2008 interview with The Associated Press, Havel rebuked Russia for invading Georgia two months earlier, and warned EU leaders against appeasing Moscow.

"We should not turn a blind eye ... It's a big test for the West," he said.

Havel also said he saw the global economic crisis as a warning not to abandon basic human values in the scramble to prosper.

"It's a warning against the idea that we understand the world, that we know how everything works," he told the AP in his office in Prague. The cramped work space was packed with his books, plays and rock memorabilia.

Havel first made a name for himself after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion that crushed the Prague Spring reforms of Alexander Dubcek and other liberally minded communists in what was then Czechoslovakia.

Havel's plays were banned as hard-liners installed by Moscow snuffed out every whiff of rebellion. But he continued to write, producing a series of underground essays that stand with the work of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov as the most incisive and eloquent analyses of what communism did to society and the individual.

One of his best-known essays, "The Power and the Powerless" written in 1978, borrowed slyly from the immortal opening line of the mid-19th century Communist Manifesto, writing: "A specter is haunting eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called 'dissent."'

In the essay, he dissected what he called the "dictatorship of ritual" -- the ossified Soviet bloc system under Leonid Brezhnev -- and imagined what happens when an ordinary greengrocer stops displaying communist slogans and begins "living in truth," rediscovering "his suppressed identity and dignity."

Havel knew that suppression firsthand.

Born Oct. 5, 1936, in Prague, the child of a wealthy family which lost extensive property to communist nationalization in 1948, Havel was denied a formal education, eventually earning a degree at night school and starting out in theater as a stagehand.

His political activism began in earnest in January 1977, when he co-authored the human rights manifesto Charter 77, and the cause drew widening attention in the West.

Havel was detained countless times and spent four years in communist jails. His letters from prison to his wife became one of his best-known works. "Letters to Olga" blended deep philosophy with a stream of stern advice to the spouse he saw as his mentor and best friend, and who tolerated his reputed philandering and other foibles.

The events of August 1988 -- the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion -- first suggested that Havel and his friends might one day replace the faceless apparatchiks who jailed them.

Thousands of mostly young people marched through central Prague, yelling Havel's name and that of the playwright's hero, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the philosopher who was Czechoslovakia's first president after it was founded in 1918.

Havel's arrest in January 1989 at another street protest and his subsequent trial generated anger at home and abroad. Pressure for change was so strong that the communists released him again in May.

That fall, communism began to collapse across Eastern Europe, and in November the Berlin Wall fell. Eight days later, communist police brutally broke up a demonstration by thousands of Prague students.

It was the signal that Havel and his country had awaited. Within 48 hours, a broad new opposition movement was founded, and a day later, hundreds of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks took to the streets.

In three heady weeks, communist rule was broken. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones arrived just as the Soviet army was leaving. Posters in Prague proclaimed: "The tanks are rolling out -- the Stones are rolling in."

On Dec. 29, 1989, Havel was elected Czechoslovakia's president by the country's still-communist parliament. Three days later, he told the nation in a televised New Year's address: "Out of gifted and sovereign people, the regime made us little screws in a monstrously big, rattling and stinking machine."

Although he continued to be regarded a moral voice as he decried the shortcomings of his society under democracy, he eventually bent to the dictates of convention and power. His watchwords -- "what the heart thinks, the tongue speaks" -- had to be modified for day-to-day politics.

And post-revolutionary life contained many challenges.

In July 1992, it became clear that the Czechoslovak federation was heading for a split. Considering it a personal failure, Havel resigned as president.

But he remained popular and was elected president of the new Czech Republic uncontested.

He was small, but his presence and wit could fill a room. Even late in life, he retained a certain impishness and boyish grin, shifting easily from philosophy to jokes or plain old Prague gossip.

In December 1996, just 11 months after his first wife, Olga Havlova, died of cancer, he lost a third of his right lung during surgery to remove a 15-millimeter (half-inch) malignant tumor.

He gave up smoking and married Dagmar Veskrnova, a dashing actress almost 20 years his junior.

Holding a post of immense prestige but little power, Havel's image suffered in the latter years as his people discovered the difficulties of transforming their society in the post-communist era.

His attempts to reconcile rival politicians were considered by many as unconstitutional intrusions, and his pleas for political leaders to build a "civic society" based on respect, tolerance and individual responsibility went largely unanswered.

Media criticism, once unthinkable, became unrelenting. Serious newspapers questioned his political visions; tabloids focused mainly on his private life and his flashy second wife.

Havel himself acknowledged that his handling of domestic issues never matched his flair for foreign affairs. But when the Czech Republic joined NATO in March 1999, and the European Union in May 2004, his dreams came true.

"I can't stop rejoicing that I live in this time and can participate in it," Havel exulted.

Early in 2008, Havel returned to his first love: the stage. He published a new play, "Leaving," about the struggles of a leader on his way out of office, and the work gained critical acclaim.

Theater, he told the AP, was once again his major interest.

"My return to the stage was not easy," he said. "It's not a common thing for someone to be involved in theater, become a president, and then go back."

Attention All Trekkers!

2011-12-19T12:59:00.003-05:00

I would like to humbly ask for the help of all who speak Klingon in translating the following lyrics from English to Klingon.

The ultimate goal is to have this sung in Klingon onstage accompanied by an accordion.

I know, I know...But there are many out there who will get it.

Theme Song from the TV show "Psych" [Long Version]

In between the lines there's a lot of obscurity

I'm not inclined to resign to maturity

If it's all right, then you're all wrong.

Why bounce around to the same damn song?

You'd rather run when you can crawl.

I know you know that I'm not telling the truth.

I know you know they just don't have any proof.

Raised on deception, learn how to bend

your worst inhibitions they'll psych you out in the end.

Many thanks in advance.

Penis Bad, Vagina Good Story of the Year.

2011-12-19T12:24:00.004-05:00

From Buzzfeed.com:

Tattoo Artist's Revenge On His Cheating Girlfriend: Poop Tattoo

File this under "news" stories that we are dubious of, and yet really hope are true:

"Tattoo artist, Ryan L. Fitzjerald was hit with a $100,000 lawsuit last week by his ex-girlfriend Rossie Brovent. She claims that her boyfriend was supposed to tattoo a scene from Narnia on her back but instead tattooed an image of a pile of excrement with flies buzzing around it."

Source: veryweirdnews.com

It turns out that Rossie had been cheating on Ryan with one of his oldest friends, but rather than confront her, Ryan hatched a plan. He got Rossie to sign a waiver saying that the design of the tattoo was up to the "artist's discretion" and then went to work.

Worst Story of the Year.

2011-12-19T11:00:00.005-05:00

From GlobalPost.com:

Zimbabwean orders prostitute; daughter arrives

A man in Zimbabwe called for a prostitute and was answered by his daughter. Not exactly every father's dream.

Titus Ncube from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, called for a prostitute to his hotel room and fell to the ground in shock and horror when the young woman who arrived at his door was his own daughter, according to the Zimbabwe News.

His daughter, age 20, responded by running away from the hotel.

The father has since expressed his deep regret for calling a prostitute while married, according to the Huffington Post.

“I am sorry for what I did,” he said. “I spoke to my wife and my daughter… I apologized for my actions because I just wanted my family back."

He claims his daughter has since returned to school and is in therapy.

The man's wife has reacted as well: "If it were not for my children," she reportedly said, "I could have divorced him a long time ago.”

The world's greatest golfer ever now knows the Truth.

2011-12-19T10:49:00.003-05:00

Once again, kiddies, I find it impossible to pray for the soul of a mass murderer. [Of course, a case can be made that Christopher Hitchens was an accessory to mass murder. So sue me.] All one needs to do is take a look at Free Korea to realize the enormity of Citizen Kim's crimes.

From AP via KSL.com:

Kim Jong Il, a Cold War-era leader in modern times

Even as the world changed around him, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il remained firmly in control, ruling absolutely at home and keeping the rest of the world on edge through a nuclear weapons program.

Inheriting power from his father in 1994, he led his nation through a devastating famine while frustrating the U.S. and other global powers with an on-again, off-again approach to talks on giving up nuclear arms in return for energy and other assistance. Kim was one of the last remnants of a Cold War-era that ended years earlier in most other countries.

His death was announced Monday by state television two days after he died. North Korea's news agency reported that he had died at 8:30 a.m. Saturday after having a heart attack on a train, adding that he had been treated for cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases for a long time. He was 69.

Kim, who reputedly had a taste for cigars, cognac and gourmet cuisine, is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but he had appeared relatively vigorous in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in numerous trips around the country documented by state media.

His longtime pursuit of nuclear weapons and his military's repeated threats to South Korea and the U.S. stoked worries that fighting might break out again on the Korean peninsula or that North Korea might provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorist movements. The Korean War ended more than 50 years ago in a cease-fire, and the two sides remain technically in a state of war.

Kim Jong Il, who took power after the death of his father, unveiled his third son as his successor in September 2010, putting the twenty-something Kim Jong Un in high-ranking posts. On Monday, the North Korean news agency dubbed the son a "great successor" as the country rallied around him.

Few firm facts are available when it comes to North Korea, and not much is clear about Kim Jong Il, the man known as the "Dear Leader."

North Korean legend has it that Kim was born on Mount Paektu, one of Korea's most cherished sites, in 1942, a birth heralded in the heavens by a pair of rainbows and a brilliant new star. Soviet records, however, indicate he was born in Siberia in 1941.

His father, Kim Il Sung, is still revered as the founder of North Korea. The elder Kim fought for independence from Korea's colonial ruler, Japan, from a base in Russia for years. He returned to Korea in 1945, emerging as a communist leader and becoming North Korea's first leader in 1948.

He meshed Stalinist ideology with a cult of personality that encompassed him and his son. Their portraits hang in every building in North Korea, and every dutiful North Korean wears a Kim Il Sung lapel pin.

Kim Jong Il, a graduate of Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University, was 33 when his father anointed him his eventual successor.

Even before he took over, there were signs the younger Kim would maintain _ and perhaps exceed _ his father's hard-line stance.

South Korea has accused Kim of masterminding a 1983 bombing that killed 17 South Korean officials visiting Burma, now known as Myanmar. In 1987, the bombing of a Korean Air flight killed all 115 people on board; a North Korean agent who confessed to planting the device said Kim had ordered the downing of the plane.

When Kim came to power in 1994, he had been groomed for 20 years to become leader. He eventually took the posts of chairman of the National Defense Commission, commander of the Korean People's Army and head of the ruling Worker's Party. His father remained as North Korea's "eternal president."

He continued his father's policy of "military first," devoting much of the country's scarce resources to its troops _ even as his people suffered from a prolonged famine _ and built the world's fifth-largest military.

Kim also sought to build up the country's nuclear arms arsenal, leading to North Korea's first nuclear test, an underground blast conducted in October 2006. Another test came in 2009, prompting U.N. sanctions.

Alarmed, regional leaders negotiated a disarmament-for-aid pact that the North signed in 2007 and began implementing later that year. The process has since stalled, though diplomats are working to restart negotiations.

Following the famine, the number of North Koreans fleeing the country rose dramatically, with many telling tales of hunger, political persecution and rights abuses. North Korea is estimated to hold 150,000 to 200,000 people in political prisons; the government denies operating any such camps.

Kim often blamed the U.S. for his country's troubles and his regime routinely derides Washington-allied South Korea as a puppet of the Western superpower.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush described Kim as a tyrant. "Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person. He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps. And ... there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon," Bush said in 2005.

Defectors from North Korea describe Kim as an eloquent and tireless orator, primarily to the military units that form the base of his support.

He also made numerous trips to factories and other sites to offer what North Korea calls "field guidance." As recently as last week, the North's news agency reported on trips to a supermarket and a music and dance center.

"In order to run the center in an effective way, he said, it is important above all to collect a lot of art pieces including Korean music and world famous music," the Korean Central News Agency story read in part.

The world's best glimpse of the man came in 2000, when a liberal South Korean government's conciliatory "sunshine" policy toward the North culminated in the first-ever summit between the two Koreas. A second summit was held in 2007 with then South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

Standing 5-foot-3, Kim wore platform shoes and sported a permed bouffant. His trademark attire of jumpsuits and sunglasses was mocked in the American film "Team America: World Police," a movie populated by puppets that was released in 2004.

Kim was said to have wide interests, including professional basketball, cars and foreign films. He reportedly produced several films, mostly historical epics with an ideological tinge.

A South Korean film director claims Kim had him and his movie star wife kidnapped in the late 1970s, spiriting them to North Korea to make movies for a decade before they managed to escape during a trip to Austria.

Kim rarely traveled abroad and then only by train because of an alleged fear of flying, once heading all the way by luxury rail car to Moscow, indulging in his taste for fine food along the way.

One account of Kim's lavish lifestyle came from Konstantin Pulikovsky, a former Russian presidential envoy who wrote the book "The Orient Express" about Kim's train trip through Russia in July and August 2001.

Pulikovsky, who accompanied the North Korean leader, said Kim's 16-car private train was stocked with crates of French wine. Live lobsters were delivered in advance to stations.

A Japanese cook later claimed he was Kim's personal sushi chef for a decade, writing that Kim had a wine cellar stocked with 10,000 bottles, and that, besides sushi, Kim ate shark's fin soup _ a rare delicacy _ weekly.

"His banquets often started at midnight and lasted until morning. The longest lasted for four days," the chef, who goes by the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto, was quoted as saying.

Kim is believed to have curbed his indulgent ways in recent years and looked slimmer in more recent video footage aired by North Korea's state-run broadcaster.

Disputing accounts that Kim was "peculiar," former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright characterized Kim as intelligent and well-informed, saying the two had wide-ranging discussions during her visits to Pyongyang when Bill Clinton was U.S. president. "I found him very much on top of his brief," she said.

Kim's marital status wasn't clear but he is believed to have married once and had at least three other companions. He had at least three sons with two women, as well as a daughter by a third.

His eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, who is about 40, is believed to have fallen out of favor with his father after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001 saying he wanted to visit Disney's Tokyo resort.

His other sons include likely successor Kim Jong Un and the heir-apparent's older brother, Kim Jong Chol. Their mother reportedly died several years ago.

Christopher Hitchens, Requiescat in pace.

2011-12-19T10:23:00.008-05:00

Ol' Christobel apparently died the way he lived, as an ignorant, mendacious, and [again, apparently] unrepentant left-fascist enemy of his fellow men. But, as I typed when I learned of his terminal diagnosis {Can a Hail Mary a day [or a billion for that matter] help Cristobel Hitchens find his way?} I shall pray for the salvation of his immortal soul, for God is a much bigger man than Hitchens was and a serious stretch in Purgatory may be just what the doctor ordered.

From Roto-Reuters:

Atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens dead at 62

British-born journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who made the United States his home and backed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, died on Thursday at the age of 62.

Hitchens died in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of cancer of the esophagus, Vanity Fair magazine said.

"Christopher Hitchens - the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant - died today at the age of 62," Vanity Fair said.

A heavy smoker and drinker, Hitchens cut short a book tour for his memoir "Hitch 22" last year to undergo chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer.

As a journalist, war correspondent and literary critic, Hitchens carved out a reputation for barbed repartee, scathing critiques of public figures and a fierce intelligence.

In his 2007 book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," Hitchens took on major religions with his trenchant atheism. He argued that religion was the source of all tyranny and that many of the world's evils have been done in the name of religion.

The son of a British naval officer, Hitchens studied at Oxford University and worked as literary critic for the New Statesman magazine in London before moving to New York to work as a journalist in 1981. He settled in Washington the following year, initially as correspondent for the left-wing magazine The Nation. He retained his British citizenship when he became an American citizen in 2007.

Hitchens was not one to mince words. In his book on Bill Clinton "No one left to lie to", he called the former U.S. president a "rapist" and a "con man." He once referred to Mother Teresa of Calcutta as a "fanatical Albanian dwarf."

The author of 25 books - including works on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and George Orwell - and countless articles and columns, Hitchens never lost his biting humor.

'CANCER ELITE'

"I'm a member of a cancer elite. I rather look down on people with lesser cancers," Hitchens said in an interview with CBS "60 Minutes" aired on March 6, 2011.

In a 2010 interview with Reuters, Hitchens dismissed criticism that he moved from left to right and helped former U.S. President George W. Bush sell the 2003 war with Iraq to the American public with what turned out to be bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.

"Saddam was an enemy of the civilized world and he should have been taken out a long time before," Hitchens said of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "I have no regrets about that at all."

The 2001 attacks on the United States by Islamic fundamentalists in hijacked passenger planes made Hitchens ever more critical of the role of religion in the world, and led him to appreciate the merits of American democracy.

"I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hatred in the world is religion, and organized religion," he wrote.

Hitchens is survived by his wife, Carol Blue; their daughter, Antonia; and his children from a previous marriage, Alexander and Sophia, Vanity Fair said.

In his last essay on www.vanityfair.com, dated "January 2012," Hitchens said his illness made him question the saying attributed to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

A painkiller injection just before typing the article titled "Trial of the Will," Hitchens wrote, caused "numbness in the extremities, filling me with the not irrational fear that I shall lose the ability to write. Without that ability, I feel sure in advance, my 'will to live' would be hugely attenuated."

Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.

2011-12-08T10:38:00.015-05:00

Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Patronal Feastday of the United States of America. Today we celebrate the redemption of Mary at the very moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, St. Ann, by her beloved Son. This means the Blessed Mother was conceived without the taint of Original Sin.

Pray for us, our Mother.

Today's first reading is Genesis 3:9-15, 20
Today's Responsorial Psalms are Psalms 98:1, 2-3, 4
Today's second reading is Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12
Today's Gospel reading is Luke 1:26-38

Everyday links:

The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today
ZENIT - The World Seen From Rome

Just in case you are wondering what exactly it is we Catholics believe, here is

The Apostles' Creed [The new and improved translation effective Advent 2011]

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

And for good measure, here is the new translation of the Nicene Creed:

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made,
consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds
from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son
is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.
And one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection
of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.

St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.

Anima Christi

Soul of Christ, sanctify me; Body of Christ, save me; Blood of Christ, inebriate me; Water from Christ's side, wash me; Passion of Christ, strengthen me; O good Jesus, hear me; Within Thy wounds hide me; Suffer me not to be separated from Thee; From the malicious enemy defend me; In the hour of my death call me; And bid me come unto Thee; That I may praise Thee with Thy saints and with Thy angels Forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)

Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Prayer to End Abortion

Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer For Vocations

Send forth your Spirit, Lord, into the hearts of your faithful people, that we may be conscious of our vocation to holiness and sevice to others. Grant that many of us may dedicate ourselves to You through the priesthood and the religious life.We pray especially for the needs of our own parish and diocese. Grant that we may always have sufficient good and holy priests, and dedicated Sisters to serve our commumities.We pray, too, for religious orders; that generous men may join them to become zealous missionaries in preaching the Gospel in word and action, especially to the poor and abandoned.We make this prayer through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Redeemer. Amen.

Prayer Before The Crucifix

Behold, O kind and gentle Jesus, I kneel before Thee and pray that Thou would impress upon my heart the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, with true repentance for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment. At the same time, with sorrow I meditate on Thy five precious wounds, having in mind the words which David spoke in prophecy: "They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones."

Divine Praises

Blessed be God.
Blessed be His Holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus.
Blessed be His most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
May the Heart of Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament
Be praised, adored and loved
With grateful affection at every moment
In all the tabernacles of the world
Even to the end of time. Amen.

Prayer to Saint Benedict

Sanctissime Confessor Domini, monachorum Pater et dux,
Benedicte, intercede pro nostra omniumque salute.

V. Domine Deus virtutum converte nos.

R. Et ostende faciem tuam et salvi erimus.

Oremus.

Excita, Domine, in Ecclesia tua Spiritum cui beatus Pater noster Benedictus Abbas servivit: ut eodem nos repleti, studeamus amare quod amavit, et opere exercere quod docuit.

Da nobis, quaesumus, Domine, perseverantem in tua voluntate famulatum: ut in
Diebus nostris et merito et numero populus tibi serviens augeatur. Per Christum Dominum Nostrum. Amen.

For those whose Latin is a bit rusty:

O most holy Confessor of the Lord, Benedict, father and guide of monks, intercede for our salvation and that of everyone.

V. Lord, God of armies, convert us.

R. Show us Thy Face and we shall be saved.

Let us pray.

Awaken, O Lord, in Thy Church the Spirit that our blessed Father Saint Benedict
obeyed, so that, filled with the same Spirit we may strive to love what he loved and practice what he taught.

Grant us the grace to persevere in the service of Thy will, so that our days may
see the people of Thy servants grow in merit and number. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Space: Really just another frontier like all the others.

2011-12-07T13:01:00.015-05:00

Sadly, some moron from CNET trying to be funny [I think.] seems to be as close to the voice of reason as we're gonna get on this story, kiddies.

The sad self-obsession surrounding NASA's Kepler-22b discovery

by Chris Matyszczyk December 5, 2011 7:35 PM PST

Here we are, burning up our planet until it is a wasteland fit only for Denzel Washington.

Yet the minute we discover that there might exist another place out there whose average temperature is 72 degrees, we get all excited that it's "another Earth."

We don't even say "another San Diego," which seems more approximate to that average temperature than, say, New Jersey. No, we're excited because there might be more people like us out there. Or, perhaps, because there might be somewhere to which we can escape when we finally blow up this little place.

In case you have spent the last 24 hours staring into the mirror and wondering about buying yourself plastic surgery for Christmas, NASA today unveiled the discovery of Kepler-22b, a planet that might house water and therefore might house life as we know it.

With a tiny leap of logic, we are therefore forced to imagine that we might have found our twin.

I know that the current Facebook fun has encouraged so many people to trawl its pages in the hope of finding someone who looks exactly like them. But why are we so obsessed about finding a planet--and, therefore, people--just like us?

Personally, I am faintly tired of people just like us. I would dearly love to communicate and commune with entities that have 10 limbs, 15 methods of sound and vision, and no such thing as hockey.

I want to meet beings who know that Buddha was a bit of a fantasist and that this earth is fourteen eons backward compared to the hundreds of other civilizations that spend their days making sure they never get too close to this one.

I want to listen to other-worldly beings laugh at us and our pathetic, counter-productive ways. I want to learn how beings out there can make themselves entirely invisible and never even contemplate becoming a Kardashian. I want to hear them guffaw at the notion that we would dare to call a planet 600 light years from us "another Earth."

The notion that Kepler-22b is "another Earth" is surely as valuable as the notion that pink is the new black. Or that Justin Bieber is the new Van Morrison.

How sad that we would wish to look at discovery through out own narrow prism, instead of wondering just what forms of "life" beyond ours might exist in worlds beyond ours.

Chris Matyszczyk

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.

The racists at Space.com discover the vacuity that haunts the White [Racist.] House:

Monster Black Holes Are Most Massive Ever Discovered

Hee-hee. "Holes". Get it?

And finally, the latest news about everybody's third-favorite prop from the Star Trek franchise.

From The Canadian Press via Yahoo! Canada News:

Voyager 1 enters new region at solar system's edge

More than three decades after launching, NASA's workhorse spacecraft is inching closer to leaving the solar system behind.

Currently 11 billion miles away from the sun, Voyager 1 has been exploring the fringes of the solar system since 2004. Scientists said Monday the spacecraft has entered a new region in the solar system that they have dubbed the "stagnation zone."

Voyager 1 still has a little way to go before it completely exits the solar system and becomes the first man-made probe to cross into interstellar space, or the vast space between stars.

The spacecraft has enough battery power to last until 2020, but scientists think it will reach interstellar space before that — in a matter of several months to years.

Chief scientist Ed Stone of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the timing is unclear because no spacecraft has ever ventured this far.

"The journey continues," Stone told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

For the past year, Voyager 1 used its instruments to explore the new region. It appeared to be the cosmic doldrums where solar winds streaming out from the sun at 1 million mph have dramatically eased and high-energy particles from outside are seeping in — a sign that Voyager 1 is at the doorstep of interstellar space.

Scientists expect to see several telltale signs when Voyager 1 finally crosses the boundary including a change in the magnetic field direction and the type of wind. Interstellar wind is slower, colder and denser than solar wind.

Even with certain expectations, Stone warned that the milestone won't be cut-and-dried.

"We will be confused when it first happens," Stone said.

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched in 1977 to tour the outer planets including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. After their main mission ended, both headed toward interstellar space in opposite directions. Voyager 2 is travelling slower than Voyager 1 and is currently 9 billion away miles from the sun.

None dare call it treason. [Except your humble narrator.]

2011-12-07T12:44:00.007-05:00

America's Lenin opens his blood-caked maw, bares his fangs, and declares war on his own country.

The LA Times provides all the evidence we will need at this sociopath's trial:

December 6, 2011, 2:07 p.m.

The following is the full transcript of President Obama's remarks in Osawatomie, Kan., Tuesday as provided by the White House.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to start by thanking a few folks who've joined us today. We've got the mayor of Osawatomie, Phil Dudley is here. (Applause.) We have your superintendent Gary French in the house. (Applause.) And we have the principal of Osawatomie High, Doug Chisam. (Applause.) And I have brought your former governor, who is doing now an outstanding job as Secretary of Health and Human Services -- Kathleen Sebelius is in the house. (Applause.) We love Kathleen.

Well, it is great to be back in the state of Tex -- (laughter) -- state of Kansas. I was giving Bill Self a hard time, he was here a while back. As many of you know, I have roots here. (Applause.) I'm sure you're all familiar with the Obamas of Osawatomie. (Laughter.) Actually, I like to say that I got my name from my father, but I got my accent -- and my values -- from my mother. (Applause.) She was born in Wichita. (Applause.) Her mother grew up in Augusta. Her father was from El Dorado. So my Kansas roots run deep.

My grandparents served during World War II. He was a soldier in Patton's Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried -- no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out. (Applause.)

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success -- from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor. (Applause.) So you could have some confidence that if you gave it your all, you'd take enough home to raise your family and send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away for retirement. Today, we're still home to the world's most productive workers. We're still home to the world's most innovative companies. But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments -- wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren't -- and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

Now, for many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over this harsh reality. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn't afford them, or even sometimes understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets -- and huge bonuses -- made with other people's money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn't have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system. And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we're still fighting to recover. It claimed the jobs and the homes and the basic security of millions of people -- innocent, hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left holding the bag.

And ever since, there's been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness. Throughout the country, it's sparked protests and political movements -- from the tea party to the people who've been occupying the streets of New York and other cities. It's left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock. It's been the topic of heated and sometimes colorful discussion among the men and women running for president. (Laughter.)

But, Osawatomie, this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what's at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

I am here to say they are wrong. (Applause.) I'm here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we're greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. (Applause.) These aren't Democratic values or Republican values. These aren't 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They're American values. And we have to reclaim them. (Applause.)

You see, this isn't the first time America has faced this choice. At the turn of the last century, when a nation of farmers was transitioning to become the world's industrial giant, we had to decide: Would we settle for a country where most of the new railroads and factories were being controlled by a few giant monopolies that kept prices high and wages low? Would we allow our citizens and even our children to work ungodly hours in conditions that were unsafe and unsanitary? Would we restrict education to the privileged few? Because there were people who thought massive inequality and exploitation of people was just the price you pay for progress.

Theodore Roosevelt disagreed. He was the Republican son of a wealthy family. He praised what the titans of industry had done to create jobs and grow the economy. He believed then what we know is true today, that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. It's led to a prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can. (Applause.) He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for consumers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn't profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine that wasn't safe. And today, they still can't.
And in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie and he laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism. “Our country,” he said, “…means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy…of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.” (Applause.)

Now, for this, Roosevelt was called a radical. He was called a socialist -- (laughter) -- even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women -- (applause) -- insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax. (Applause.)

Today, over 100 years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and it's made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere they want in the world. And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.
Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper. Steel mills that needed 100 -- or 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. And these changes didn't just affect blue-collar workers. If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs and the Internet.

Today, even higher-skilled jobs, like accountants and middle management can be outsourced to countries like China or India. And if you're somebody whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone in another country, you don't have a lot of leverage with your employer when it comes to asking for better wages or better benefits, especially since fewer Americans today are part of a union.

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt's time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let's respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes -- especially for the wealthy -- our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn't trickle down, well, that's the price of liberty.

Now, it's a simple theory. And we have to admit, it's one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That's in America's DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. (Laughter.) But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked. (Applause.) It didn't work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It's not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn't work when we tried it during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it's not as if we haven't tried this theory.

Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class -- things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security.

Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people's premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn't afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you're on your own” economics if we're serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. (Applause.) We know that it doesn't result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and in its future. We know it doesn't result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that's enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.

Look at the statistics. In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1 percent has gone up by more than 250 percent to $1.2 million per year. I'm not talking about millionaires, people who have a million dollars. I'm saying people who make a million dollars every single year. For the top one hundredth of 1 percent, the average income is now $27 million per year. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her worker now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about 6 percent.

Now, this kind of inequality -- a level that we haven't seen since the Great Depression -- hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity, of strong consumers all across the country. That's why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars he made. It's also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. (Applause.) It leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them, that our elected representatives aren't looking out for the interests of most Americans.

But there's an even more fundamental issue at stake. This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that's at the very heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try. We tell people -- we tell our kids -- that in this country, even if you're born with nothing, work hard and you can get into the middle class. We tell them that your children will have a chance to do even better than you do. That's why immigrants from around the world historically have flocked to our shores.

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. You know, a few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance had fallen to around 40 percent. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it's estimated that a child born today will only have a one-in-three chance of making it to the middle class -- 33 percent.

It's heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal. But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work? That's inexcusable. It is wrong. (Applause.) It flies in the face of everything that we stand for. (Applause.)

Now, fortunately, that's not a future that we have to accept, because there's another view about how we build a strong middle class in this country -- a view that's truer to our history, a vision that's been embraced in the past by people of both parties for more than 200 years.

It's not a view that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around America. It's not a view that says we should punish profit or success or pretend that government knows how to fix all of society's problems. It is a view that says in America we are greater together -- when everyone engages in fair play and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share. (Applause.)

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today's economy? Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we'll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who's best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who's best at busting unions, who's best at letting companies pollute as much as they want. That's a race to the bottom that we can't win, and we shouldn't want to win that race. (Applause.) Those countries don't have a strong middle class. They don't have our standard of living.

The race we want to win, the race we can win is a race to the top -- the race for good jobs that pay well and offer middle-class security. Businesses will create those jobs in countries with the highest-skilled, highest-educated workers, the most advanced transportation and communication, the strongest commitment to research and technology.

The world is shifting to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than America. Nobody does it better. (Applause.) No one has better colleges. Nobody has better universities. Nobody has a greater diversity of talent and ingenuity. No one's workers or entrepreneurs are more driven or more daring. The things that have always been our strengths match up perfectly with the demands of the moment.

But we need to meet the moment. We've got to up our game. We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. In this economy, a higher education is the surest route to the middle class. The unemployment rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half the national average. And their incomes are twice as high as those who don't have a high school diploma. Which means we shouldn't be laying off good teachers right now -- we should be hiring them. (Applause.) We shouldn't be expecting less of our schools –- we should be demanding more. (Applause.) We shouldn't be making it harder to afford college -- we should be a country where everyone has a chance to go and doesn't rack up $100,000 of debt just because they went. (Applause.)

In today's innovation economy, we also need a world-class commitment to science and research, the next generation of high-tech manufacturing. Our factories and our workers shouldn't be idle. We should be giving people the chance to get new skills and training at community colleges so they can learn how to make wind turbines and semiconductors and high-powered batteries. And by the way, if we don't have an economy that's built on bubbles and financial speculation, our best and brightest won't all gravitate towards careers in banking and finance. (Applause.) Because if we want an economy that's built to last, we need more of those young people in science and engineering. (Applause.) This country should not be known for bad debt and phony profits. We should be known for creating and selling products all around the world that are stamped with three proud words: Made in America. (Applause.)

Today, manufacturers and other companies are setting up shop in the places with the best infrastructure to ship their products, move their workers, communicate with the rest of the world. And that's why the over 1 million construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed, they shouldn't be sitting at home with nothing to do. They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools -- (applause) -- all the things other countries are already doing to attract good jobs and businesses to their shores.

Yes, business, and not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs with incomes that lift people into the middle class and keep them there. But as a nation, we've always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed. (Applause.) And historically, that hasn't been a partisan idea. Franklin Roosevelt worked with Democrats and Republicans to give veterans of World War II -- including my grandfather, Stanley Dunham -- the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill. It was a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, a proud son of Kansas -- (applause) -- who started the Interstate Highway System, and doubled down on science and research to stay ahead of the Soviets.

Of course, those productive investments cost money. They're not free. And so we've also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share. Look, if we had unlimited resources, no one would ever have to pay any taxes and we would never have to cut any spending. But we don't have unlimited resources. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.

Today that choice is very clear. To reduce our deficit, I've already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I've proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. (Applause.)

But in order to structurally close the deficit, get our fiscal house in order, we have to decide what our priorities are. Now, most immediately, short term, we need to extend a payroll tax cut that's set to expire at the end of this month. (Applause.) If we don't do that, 160 million Americans, including most of the people here, will see their taxes go up by an average of $1,000 starting in January and it would badly weaken our recovery. That's the short term.

In the long term, we have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to make the investments we need in things like education and research and high-tech manufacturing -- all those things that helped make us an economic superpower? Or do we want to keep in place the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in our country? Because we can't afford to do both. That is not politics. That's just math. (Laughter and applause.)

Now, so far, most of my Republican friends in Washington have refused under any circumstance to ask the wealthiest Americans to go to the same tax rate they were paying when Bill Clinton was president. So let's just do a trip down memory lane here.

Keep in mind, when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. (Applause.) Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century. This isn't like in the early ‘50s, when the top tax rate was over 90 percent. This isn't even like the early ‘80s, when the top tax rate was about 70 percent. Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39 percent. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of you, millions of middle-class families. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent. One percent.

That is the height of unfairness. It is wrong. (Applause.) It's wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker, maybe earns $50,000 a year, should pay a higher tax rate than somebody raking in $50 million. (Applause.) It's wrong for Warren Buffett's secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. (Applause.) And by the way, Warren Buffett agrees with me. (Laughter.) So do most Americans -- Democrats, independents and Republicans. And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

This isn't about class warfare. This is about the nation's welfare. It's about making choices that benefit not just the people who've done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get into the middle class, and the economy as a whole.

Finally, a strong middle class can only exist in an economy where everyone plays by the same rules, from Wall Street to Main Street. (Applause.) As infuriating as it was for all of us, we rescued our major banks from collapse, not only because a full-blown financial meltdown would have sent us into a second Depression, but because we need a strong, healthy financial sector in this country.

But part of the deal was that we wouldn't go back to business as usual. And that's why last year we put in place new rules of the road that refocus the financial sector on what should be their core purpose: getting capital to the entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and financing millions of families who want to buy a home or send their kids to college.

Now, we're not all the way there yet, and the banks are fighting us every inch of the way. But already, some of these reforms are being implemented.

If you're a big bank or risky financial institution, you now have to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you'll pay the bills if you fail, so that taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street's mistakes. (Applause.) There are also limits on the size of banks and new abilities for regulators to dismantle a firm that is going under. The new law bans banks from making risky bets with their customers' deposits, and it takes away big bonuses and paydays from failed CEOs, while giving shareholders a say on executive salaries.

This is the law that we passed. We are in the process of implementing it now. All of this is being put in place as we speak. Now, unless you're a financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers and making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you should have nothing to fear from these new rules.

Some of you may know, my grandmother worked as a banker for most of her life -- worked her way up, started as a secretary, ended up being a vice president of a bank. And I know from her, and I know from all the people that I've come in contact with, that the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals, they want to do right by their customers. They want to have rules in place that don't put them at a disadvantage for doing the right thing. And yet, Republicans in Congress are fighting as hard as they can to make sure that these rules aren't enforced.

I'll give you a specific example. For the first time in history, the reforms that we passed put in place a consumer watchdog who is charged with protecting everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders or payday lenders or debt collectors. And the man we nominated for the post, Richard Cordray, is a former attorney general of Ohio who has the support of most attorney generals, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the country. Nobody claims he's not qualified.

But the Republicans in the Senate refuse to confirm him for the job; they refuse to let him do his job. Why? Does anybody here think that the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: Of course not. Every day we go without a consumer watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our Armed Forces -- because they are very vulnerable to some of this stuff -- could be tricked into a loan that they can't afford -- something that happens all the time. And the fact is that financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. (Applause.) And I intend to make sure they do. (Applause.) And I want you to hear me, Kansas: I will veto any effort to delay or defund or dismantle the new rules that we put in place. (Applause.)

We shouldn't be weakening oversight and accountability. We should be strengthening oversight and accountability. I'll give you another example. Too often, we've seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there's no price for being a repeat offender. No more. I'll be calling for legislation that makes those penalties count so that firms don't see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business. (Applause.)

The fact is this crisis has left a huge deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. And major banks that were rescued by the taxpayers have an obligation to go the extra mile in helping to close that deficit of trust. At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led to the financial crisis. They should be working to keep responsible homeowners in their home. We're going to keep pushing them to provide more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry about immediately losing their house.

The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven't yet benefited from historically low interest rates. And the big banks should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of middle-class families and the broader economy, it will also be in the banks' own long-term financial interest. What will be good for consumers over the long term will be good for the banks. (Applause.)

Investing in things like education that give everybody a chance to succeed. A tax code that makes sure everybody pays their fair share. And laws that make sure everybody follows the rules. That's what will transform our economy. That's what will grow our middle class again. In the end, rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair share will require all of us to see that we have a stake in each other's success. And it will require all of us to take some responsibility.

It will require parents to get more involved in their children's education. It will require students to study harder. (Applause.) It will require some workers to start studying all over again. It will require greater responsibility from homeowners not to take out mortgages they can't afford. They need to remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It will require those of us in public service to make government more efficient and more effective, more consumer-friendly, more responsive to people's needs. That's why we're cutting programs that we don't need to pay for those we do. (Applause.) That's why we've made hundreds of regulatory reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars. That's why we're not just throwing money at education, we're challenging schools to come up with the most innovative reforms and the best results.
And it will require American business leaders to understand that their obligations don't just end with their shareholders. Andy Grove, the legendary former CEO of Intel, put it best. He said, “There is another obligation I feel personally, given that everything I've achieved in my career, and a lot of what Intel has achieved…were made possible by a climate of democracy, an economic climate and investment climate provided by the United States.”

This broader obligation can take many forms. At a time when the cost of hiring workers in China is rising rapidly, it should mean more CEOs deciding that it's time to bring jobs back to the United States -- (applause) -- not just because it's good for business, but because it's good for the country that made their business and their personal success possible. (Applause.)

I think about the Big Three auto companies who, during recent negotiations, agreed to create more jobs and cars here in America, and then decided to give bonuses not just to their executives, but to all their employees, so that everyone was invested in the company's success. (Applause.)

I think about a company based in Warroad, Minnesota. It's called Marvin Windows and Doors. During the recession, Marvin's competitors closed dozens of plants, let hundreds of workers go. But Marvin's did not lay off a single one of their 4,000 or so employees -- not one. In fact, they've only laid off workers once in over a hundred years. Mr. Marvin's grandfather even kept his eight employees during the Great Depression.

Now, at Marvin's when times get tough, the workers agree to give up some perks and some pay, and so do the owners. As one owner said, “You can't grow if you're cutting your lifeblood -- and that's the skills and experience your workforce delivers.” (Applause.) For the CEO of Marvin's, it's about the community. He said, “These are people we went to school with. We go to church with them. We see them in the same restaurants. Indeed, a lot of us have married local girls and boys. We could be anywhere, but we are in Warroad.”

That's how America was built. That's why we're the greatest nation on Earth. That's what our greatest companies understand. Our success has never just been about survival of the fittest. It's about building a nation where we're all better off. We pull together. We pitch in. We do our part. We believe that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded, and that our children will inherit a nation where those values live on. (Applause.)

And it is that belief that rallied thousands of Americans to Osawatomie -- (applause) -- maybe even some of your ancestors -- on a rain-soaked day more than a century ago. By train, by wagon, on buggy, bicycle, on foot, they came to hear the vision of a man who loved this country and was determined to perfect it.

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance. (Applause.)

And well into our third century as a nation, we have grown and we've changed in many ways since Roosevelt's time. The world is faster and the playing field is larger and the challenges are more complex. But what hasn't changed -- what can never change -- are the values that got us this far. We still have a stake in each other's success. We still believe that this should be a place where you can make it if you try. And we still believe, in the words of the man who called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule of our national life,” he said, “the rule which underlies all others -- is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.” And I believe America is on the way up. (Applause.)

Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America.

THE END IS NIGH!

2011-12-06T16:59:00.016-05:00

Kiddies, the Okhranian Luddites were right. Man has reached the terminus of technological advancement and now we must go back to gathering nuts and berries and voting communist.

What could have so crushed my spirit, you ask?

They did it, kiddies. They have actually created a razor so big it cannot be used to shave between one's nose and one's upper lip. [Go ahead. Ask any member of NOW if you doubt me.]

Of course, this could be the work of the powerful Midwestern mustache interests...

Mommy, what was "Occupy Wall Street"?

2011-12-06T16:49:00.002-05:00

From the New York Post:

Occupy Wall Street protester lands a job on Wall Street

Fyodor endorses Rick Santorum for President!

2011-12-06T13:09:00.006-05:00

Are you looking for a real conservative candidate who would never play patty-fingers with Nancy Pelosi on a couch?

Are you wondering in Newt's conversion to Catholicism really took?

Do you want a man who has lived his faith and his political convictions his whole life?

Look here...

Rick Santorum for President

Can you imagine the headlines we'd see if that fat thief Corzine was a Repansycan? Or Jewish?

2011-12-06T13:01:00.004-05:00

From Human Events:

Clinton Collected $50K Per Month From MF Global

A former MF Global employee accused former president William J. Clinton of collecting $50,000 per month through his Teneo advisory firm in the months before the brokerage careened towards its Halloween filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Teneo was hired by MF Global’s former CEO Jon S. Corzine to improve his image and to enhance his connections with Clinton’s political family, said the employee, who asked that his name be withheld because he feared retribution.

“They were supposed to be helping Corzine improve his image as a CEO—I guess you can tell how that went,” he said. Corzine resigned as CEO and chairman November 4.

Before Corzine joined MF Global in May 2010, the firm was a smart and well-run commodities broker, a culture that was turned upside-down by his leadership style, he said.

“The traders would be shaking their heads,” he said. “They would come back to their desk and say, ‘Well, I thought we were going to do this—but Corzine would come by and do something else all by himself,’” he said.

The Teneo contract with MF Global lasted at least five months, he said. “The board cancelled it after Corzine resigned.”

The source, who is no longer associated with MF Global, said Teneo is a dual-track company with one side devoted to merchant and investment banking and the other side set up to provide image and strategy consulting services.

Clinton is the chairman of the company’s advisory board. His duties and compensation have not been released. The other member of the board is former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Two of the three founding partners are very close to the former president and his wife, Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton. They are Douglas J. Band, who is the former president’s counselor and has served on his personal staff since 1995 and Declan Kelly, who earned the “Hillraiser” status in the secretary’s 2008 run for president for bundling more than $100,000 for the campaign.

Another prominent member of the Clinton political family is Tom Shea. Shea is a senior vice president for Teneo Strategy and served as Corzine’s chief of staff, when Corzine was the governor of New Jersey.

Kelly sold his public relations firm Financial Dynamics in 2006 to FTI for $340 million, and stayed with that company until July 2009, when he joined the State Department as the Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland.

The source said, “Kelly was given a job they created out our whole cloth.” The job did not exist previously.

“He basically got to ride around developing a book of business, while he waited for his non-compete clause to run out,” he said.

Kelley and the former president traveled together networking and making introductions at international conferences and events, he said.

The Secretary of State also traveled with Kelly, including the October 2010 U.S. – Northern Ireland Economics Conference, which Kelly organized and at which the secretary was the featured speaker.

The secretary announced that she accepted Kelly’s resignation May 11.

Teneo landed its first major client June 1, when the Rockefeller Foundation gave Teneo a $3,447,150, six-month contract to help plan the foundation’s 2013 centennial.

The foundation is another member of the Clinton’s extended family. It gave Clinton its Lifetime Innovation Achievement Award July 27 and the foundation is listed as a between $1 to $5 million contributor to the William J. Clinton Foundation, along with several members of the Rockefeller family who are listed as individual contributors.

[In the preparation of this story, several emails and phone calls were placed to Teneo, MF Global and the State Department for comment. In each case, there was no response.]

DON'T BUY OKHRANA'S DEATH WAGONS!

2011-12-06T12:44:00.004-05:00

No, I'm not talking about the buses that give black and brown girls free rides to the baby-chopping centers. I'm not even talking about those "Health Care" panel vans with the exhaust piped inside for old geezers with really expensive conditions.

It's the less-popular-than-MSNBC Chevy Volt, financed with money stolen from you, Senor Taxpayer!

From USA Today:

GM offers to buy back Chevrolet Volts from fearful owners

General Motors will buy a Chevrolet Volt back from any owner who is afraid the plug-in extended-range electric car will catch fire...

Herman, we hardly knew ye.

2011-12-05T15:52:00.009-05:00

Mr. Cain is still preferable to the jug-eared jughead, but since he's no longer in the race, I hereby throw my support to Rick Santorum.

From CBS:

Herman Cain drops White House bid

Ann Coulter knows the racist left-fascists well...

Once You Go Conservative Black, You Better Watch Your Back

by Ann Coulter (more by this author)

Posted 11/30/2011 ET

With the mainstream media giddily reporting on an alleged affair involving Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, how long can it be before they break the news that their 2004 vice presidential candidate conceived a "love child" with his mistress, Rielle Hunter?

The left is trying to destroy Cain with a miasma of hazy accusations leveled by three troubled women. Considered individually, the accusations are utterly unbelievable. They are even less credible taken together. This is how liberals destroy a man, out of nothing.

After the first round of baseless accusations against Cain, an endless stream of pundits rolled out the cliche -- as if it were the height of originality -- "This isn't he said-she said; it's he-said, she-said, she-said, she-said, she–said."

Au contraire: We had two "shes" and only one "said."

Remember? Only two women were willing to give their names. And as soon as they did, we discovered that they were highly suspicious accusers with nothing more than their personal honor to support the allegations. Only one of the two would even say what Cain allegedly did.

The first one was Sharon Bialek, who claimed that Cain grabbed her crotch in a car.

Then we found out Bialek was in constant financial trouble, had been involved in a paternity lawsuit, was known as a "gold digger," had a string of debts and had twice filed for personal bankruptcy. Also, she admitted she knew Obama's dirty tricks specialist, David Axelrod, from living in the same building with him.

Her personal history is relevant because she produced no evidence. We had to take her word. (Which was not helped by seeing her standing with Gloria Allred.)

The second one, Karen Kraushaar, made unspecified allegations of a "hostile environment" when she was working for Cain, but refuses to say what those allegations were. This despite the fact that the National Restaurant Association waived her confidentiality agreement, thus allowing her to go public.

That's one "she," but no "said."

Cain said he had once told Kraushaar she was as tall as his wife -- which would be one of the more worthy sexual harassment claims settled by an American company in recent years.

Why won't she say? We're not talking about rape. Kraushaar can't say, "I don't want to relive being told I was the same height as his wife!" With all the nonsense that passes for a "hostile environment," either Kraushaar tells us what Cain allegedly did, or her blind accusation is worth less than nothing.

As if that weren't enough, then it turned out that Kraushaar had also filed a complaint at her next job just three years later, charging that a manager had circulated a sexually explicit joke email comparing computers to men and women. She demanded a raise and the right to work at home.

Maybe Kraushaar is the most unlucky woman in the world. But the simpler explanation is that she is not a credible witness on the workplace atmosphere.

And now we have Ginger White stepping forward to claim that she had a 13-year affair with Cain. Cain admits he was friends with White, but he categorically, adamantly denies having an affair with her.

White has the whole combo-platter of questionable accuser attributes: She's another financially troubled, twice-divorced, unemployed single mother, who has claimed sexual harassment in the past, declared bankruptcy once, was accused of stalking and had a libel judgment entered against her just this year. So far in 2011, she's had nine liens put on her property.

But we're supposed to ignore all of that because she's the third woman of questionable character to make an implausible allegation. Liberals say there's a pattern, but the only pattern is of their making far-fetched accusations of a sexual nature against Cain.

White's proof that she had a 13-year affair is that she has two of Cain's books signed by him -- one with the incriminating inscription, "Friends are forever! Everything else is a bonus," and the other, "Miss G, you have already made a 'big difference!' Stay focused as you pursue your next destination." (I know -- filthy!)

If that's proof of an affair, I've had thousands of them without even realizing it.

Also, White produced evidence that Cain had texted or called her cell phone 61 times during four non-consecutive months -- but did not reveal what those texts said. ("Would you please return my lawn mower?")

Again, if that's proof of an affair, I'm having hundreds of them at this very moment.

This is the sort of evidence you get with an actual sexual predator: Bill Clinton's accusers had gifts, taped phone conversations with him and a semen-stained dress.

Gennifer Flowers produced taped telephone calls with Clinton totaling thousands of words between them, with him counseling her on how to deny their affair: "If they ever hit you with it, just say no, and go on. There's nothing they can do ... But when they -- if somebody contacts you, I need to know ... All you got to do is deny it."

Paula Jones had multiple same-day witnesses -- including the state troopers who worked for Clinton and had already told the press about a "Paula" they brought to Clinton's hotel room. And that was for a single incident.

Monica Lewinsky had lots of gifts from Clinton, including a hat pin, two brooches, a marble bear figurine, a T-shirt from Martha's Vineyard and Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," all of which she mysteriously placed with Clinton's secretary, Betty Currie, during the investigation, as well as a semen-stained dress, which Monica kept.

Ginger White claims she had a 13-year affair with Cain -- and all she has are two books with inscriptions that could have been written to an auto mechanic who waited in line at a Cain book signing. Even her business partner during the alleged affair says White never mentioned Cain's name.

These women are like triple-A ball players with the stats being: number of bankruptcies, smallest bank account, number of liens, most false claims, number of children out of wedlock, degrees of separation from David Axelrod, total trips to human resources and so on.

That wouldn't be dispositive -- except for the fact that their only evidence is their word.

But this is how liberals dirty you up when they've got nothing: They launch a series of false accusations, knowing that Americans with busy lives won't follow each story to the end and notice that they were all blind alleys.

The liberal media is an old story, but it's still a big story when it comes to creating the impression of scandal out of thin air.

Most people say, "Where there's smoke, there's fire." I say, "Where there's smoke around a conservative, there are journalists furiously rubbing two sticks together."

Ron Lyle, Requiescat in pace.

2011-11-29T13:33:00.013-05:00

From The Denver Post comes news of the death of another great heavyweight fighter from the 1970's.

Denver's Ron Lyle, heavyweight boxer, dies at age 70

Denver's Ron Lyle, the son of a preacher father and missionary mother who brawled with the best during a golden age of boxing heavyweights, died Saturday morning. He was 70.

With Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and others, Lyle was part of a string of boxers who dominated the sport in the 1970s. They faced off in a series of classic fights, back when boxing was broadcast on radio and network television.

"Ron was a good-hearted guy. But he could fight like hell," said Earnie Shavers, a hard-hitting fellow heavyweight who fought Lyle in 1975. "He was tough. He could take a good punch."

Lyle entered a Denver hospital Nov. 18 with stomach pains and died eight days later after a stomach abscess became septic,

said Sharon Dempsey, his sister.

The former contender is on the short list of the greatest boxers in Colorado history, along with "Manassa Mauler" Jack Dempsey and Denver's Sonny Liston.

Lyle's tenure in the ring, though, started later in life — and was part of a decades-long shot at redemption.

One of 19 brothers and sisters, Lyle grew up in a strict God-fearing family in northeast Denver. But at 19, after dropping out of Manual High School, Lyle was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of 21-year-old gang rival Douglas Byrd. Lyle argued he was being attacked with a lead pipe and was not the one who pulled the trigger.

"We were all in it together. I was involved," Lyle told The Denver Post, saying he could have received a softer sentence if he had revealed the killer. "But where do you live after that?"

He served 7 1/2 years in a Cañon City prison and nearly died on the operating table after being stabbed by an inmate.

A standout basketball player as a teen, Lyle learned to box in prison, where Denver cable-TV magnate Bill Daniels noticed his standout talent. Daniels asked Gov. John Love to pardon Lyle, then took Lyle under his wing on a city boxing team.

After winning a national amateur title, Lyle turned professional at 29 — a late start for prize fighters. But he won his debut bout at the Auditorium Arena in Denver in 1971.

It was the first step in what Lyle hoped would be his atonement, especially in the eyes of his very religious parents.

"(My mother) died a saint. The things I did broke her heart," Lyle told The Post in 1994. "When I was in prison, my mother traveled in the snow to see me. So I decided I would do something to make her proud. I decided to become heavyweight champion of the world."

Lyle in the mid-1970s took part in a grand trio of fights that pitted him against the best in the boxing business.

He fought Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas in May 1975 for the heavyweight title, during Ali's second reign as champion. Lyle, a heavy underdog, was well ahead of Ali on scorecards through 10 rounds, as Ali played rope-a-dope, letting Lyle lunge at him with punches. But Ali let loose with combinations in the 11th, and the referee stopped the fight, giving Ali a TKO — a technical knockout.

Four months later, Lyle got the better of Shavers in Denver, rallying from a second-round knockdown to knock out Shavers in the sixth.

Then, in January 1976, Lyle fought George Foreman in a classic slugfest. In the fourth round, Lyle and Foreman traded huge punches. Lyle stunned Foreman with a knockdown, but Foreman stood up to put Lyle to the canvas twice. When it seemed as if Foreman was near a TKO victory, Lyle came back to knock down Foreman, face first. Foreman barely got up, then staggered to his corner.

Howard Cosell, who called the fight for ABC's "Wide World of Sports," yelled: "It's not artistic, but it is slugging!" Foreman in the fifth was falling forward onto Lyle, but he pushed Lyle into the corner and KO'd him late in the round.

In 1978, Lyle killed a man, a fellow former inmate who was in Lyle's home. It was ruled self-defense, and he was found not guilty.

Lyle retired in 1980, then attempted a comeback in 1995, winning four fights. He stopped soon after with a career record of 43-7-1, with 31 KOs.

In recent years, Lyle coached kids in the Cox-Lyle boxing program at the Salvation Army Red Shield Center in the Whittier-Five Points neighborhood, near where he grew up. In March, he was elected to the Colorado Golden Gloves Hall of Fame.

Lyle's brother Kenneth said his younger brother loved his family and his neighborhood. "He was the toughest guy in the neighborhood. He would never pick a fight, but he always defended the underdog."

It was Lyle's dream to train heavyweight champions, his sister said Saturday. And for a short time, he helped coach a young Victor Ortiz in Denver, before Ortiz went on to win and lose the welterweight title this year.

"He lived out all his dreams. He trained young kids to feel good about themselves," Sharon Dempsey said. "He loved boxing. That was his heart, his passion. He proved that you can pick yourself up, no matter how far you fall."

Lyle remained part of a small brotherhood of former heavyweights, bonded by their bruises: Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Shavers, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Jerry Quarry, Leon Spinks, Jimmy Ellis — and Lyle.

"Fighters are the same," Lyle said earlier this month, after Joe Frazier's death at 67. "It's who we are."

Lyle and Shavers talked on the phone every few weeks, and they often crossed paths with their former rivals.

"In our hearts, we each knew we were the best," Shavers said. "So we didn't argue it. We just knew we fought in the golden era.

"We're gonna miss Ron. He was a friend."

Ron Lyle's career

Ron Lyle born Feb. 12, 1941.
As a teenager he is convicted of second-degree murder, and while in prison he learns how to box.
On. Nov. 22 1969, Lyle, then 28, is released after serving 7 1/2 years.
After his release, Lyle begins training with cable TV magnate Bill Daniels in Denver and wins the National Amateur Union heavyweight championship.
In 1970, Lyle turned professional, winning his first fight over A.J. Staples at the Auditorium Arena in Denver on April 23, 1971.
In the early '70s, Lyle continues his career winning his first 19 bouts, 17 of them by knockout.
On July 16, 1974, Lyle wins by decision over Jimmy Ellis at the Denver Coliseum.
After leading for most of the fight, Lyle loses to Muhammad Ali during a bout on May 16, 1975.
On Sept. 13, 1975, Lyle fights Earnie Shavers in Denver, winning by a knockout in the sixth round.
Lyle knocks down George Foreman twice during a nationally-televised heavyweight title fight in Las Vegas on Jan. 24, 1976. Foreman wins the fight in the fifth round.
On Oct. 24, 1980, Lyle is knocked out by Gerry Cooney in the first round, then leaves the sport for 15 years.
During a comeback in 1995, Lyle enters the ring again on July 4, 1995 and wins against Bruce Johnson. He fights and beats Tim Pollard on May 12, Ed Strickland on June 9 and Dave Slaughter on Aug. 18.
In 1995 he leaves the sport for good with a record of 51 fights, 43 wins, seven knockouts and one draw.

If Bar Refaeli didn't exist, we would have to invent her.

2011-11-28T15:43:00.134-05:00

From the pages of The King Abdullah Gazette:

A Very Czabe Thanksgiving.

2011-11-28T15:22:00.005-05:00

From Czabe.com:

If you're still wondering why Steve Czaban is the only national sports talk host worth anything, check this out:

Maybe, The Most Glorious Fall Afternoon Ever

November 27, 2011

When I was a kid, we had a neighborhood "open space" that served as our football field.

We did not have official endzone pylons.

The end zones were the faint gravel walking track that encircled the space. One sideline was roughly defined by a concrete drainage sewer, which thankfully never killed anyone. Although it surely could have.

The other sideline was defined by a few sweatshirts plopped down by one of us kids.

The grass was anywhere from 3 to 4 inches in height, mowed on a very random basis by some entity the HOA employed for the task.

So when I decided to move way the F out to the suburban Washington D.C. countryside (note: never, ever take a fall "pumpkin" drive, or "apple picking" excursion. Events can spiral out of control...) and absorb a 56 minute door-to-door commute, I was excited to have some land to play with, and some grass to mow.

And I was especially happy that my brother-in-law Todd, the Giants fan from Jersey who lives in suburban Philly, was bringing his two similar aged sons (9 and 13) to my daughters (9 and 12) for the weekend and they wanted to play some football.

So with that in mind, I sought out the flattest chunk of grass I could find, and promptly brought the blade down to 2.5 inches. I then brought my walk mower down for a deeper scalping to define the outer boundaries of the field.

After that, it was about 24 cans of spray paint, and maybe 4-5 hours of good ol' grown-up fun.

Just making the field, would have been enough to tickle me silly inside for weeks. Having a little 3 on 3 game with my own family was even better.

But two things happened that made the day after Thanksgiving truly awesome.

One: the weather. It was unreal. I mean, insanely nice. 62 degrees, low angle late fall sunshine. Not a breath of wind.

Then something pretty nutty happened. A group of kids, perfectly aged between 8 and 14, boys and girls just came walking down the gravel road behind the house.

LOOKING FOR A PICKUP FOOTBALL GAME.

I am not making any of this up.

Mind you, we have a smattering of neighbors in our little swatch of western Loudoun County, but the amount of "foot traffic" on that gravel road is maybe 2 people per day. Maybe.

These kids were visiting their in-laws, about a mile up the road. And you should have seen their faces when they saw the field I had made.

So when they asked if they could play, I told them to beat it, and if they don't I would CALL THE COPS!

Ha. Kidding.

They poured over the gap in the stone fence and onto the field, and the rest of the evening was nothing short of awesome. Having daughters myself, I was thrilled that just as many girls were in the visiting group as boys.

And guess what? They were some of the best players!

I made them all pose for a trading card style photo on my NFL Shield logo. Some of them didn't want to. I would not take "no" for an answer. I told their mom and dad I would send them the pics. Being an adult, and knowing how I would KILL to have more pictures of myself as a kid, I know someday they'll enjoy the shit out of these pictures.

Now, as for the logo, how did I do it?

Simple.

Excel spreadsheet.
8 x 8 grid. (each square = 2 ft.)
Download logo.
Resize to fill grid.
Print.
Bring grid to field.
Make grid with kite string and golf tees. (Tedious, but necessary).
Stare at grid, start with outline, and go from there.

Of course, a sadness came over me when I saw my in-laws leave, and the weekend drained out. I don't have friends who live close enough to play. The field is a bit small for big boys. And I'm gonna watch that sweet grid fade away from my back window as the winter sets in.

But I had that one glorious day. And I have the photos (and video) to prove it.

It was, perhaps, the best Thanksgiving ever.

Thank you Czabe, Scotty, Solly, and Al. May God bless you and yours always...and those Field of Dreams kids, too.

Heat Nazis disagree on exactly how quickly you are to be raped, robbed, beaten, and killed.

2011-11-28T14:45:00.021-05:00

Heat Miser [Not a Heat Nazi]

From AP via Mail.com:

Divergent views signal tough climate talks ahead

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) — With heat-trapping carbon at record levels in the atmosphere, U.N. climate negotiations opened Monday with pressure building to salvage the only treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S., Europe and the developing countries laid out diverging positions at the outset, signaling tough talks ahead even as South African President Jacob Zuma called for national interests to be laid aside "for a common good and benefit of all humanity."

Jacob Zuma - Heat Nazi

As if to illustrate the effects of global warming, [!!!???!!! - F.G.] a fierce storm on the eve of the talks flooded shack settlements and killed at least five people in the port city hosting the international gathering. In a statement, municipal officials said the toll could go as high as 10, based on unconfirmed reports. The climate talks were not affected, though the roof of the sprawling center where the conference was being held was damaged.

Scientists say such unusual [???!!!??? - F.G.] weather has become more frequent and will continue to happen more often as the Earth warms, although it is impossible to attribute any individual event to climate change. The talks face a looming one-year deadline with the expiry next December of the commitment by 37 industrial countries to cut carbon emissions, as required under the Kyoto Protocol. At issue is whether those countries would accept another period of greater emission reductions.

As the talks opened, Canadian television reported that Ottawa will announce its formal withdraw from the Kyoto accord next month. Canada, joined by Japan and Russia, said last year it will not accept new commitments, but renouncing the accord would be another setback to the treaty concluded with much fanfare in 1997.

Wow. You know we're in trouble if the Canadians have bigger balls than we do.

Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent said he would neither confirm or deny the report. "This isn't the day. This is not the time to make an announcement," he said. "Countries are running away from the Kyoto Protocol," said Artur Runge-Metzger, the chief negotiator for the European Union.

Canada's withdrawal would not immediately affect the Durban talks, he said. But doubts about the Kyoto deal were one reason the EU was conditioning its acceptance of new commitments on an agreement in Durban from China, India and other major emitting countries that they will adopt legally binding commitments by 2015.

Developing countries say Kyoto is the only instrument that binds wealthy countries to specific targets. The protocol was "the cornerstone of the climate regime, and its second commitment period is the essential priority for the success of the Durban conference," Chinese delegate Su Wei told the inaugural session.

U.S. chief delegate Jonathan Pershing said the United States, which shunned Kyoto as unfair, would accept legally binding emissions limits in the future as long as all major emitters took on equal legal obligations.

But the U.S. wants to know exactly what such an agreement would contain before it agreed to the principle of a legal treaty — which would require the endorsement of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. "Putting the form of the action before the substance doesn't make a great deal of sense," Pershing told reporters.

Opposition in Congress, which includes outspoken climate skeptics and a Republican majority generally considered climate-unfriendly, has prompted a widespread belief that U.S. negotiators are foot-dragging on emissions issues.

Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s top climate official, said Kyoto's future is "the defining issue of this conference." She said an extension of Kyoto targets is linked to pledges that developing countries must make to join the fight against climate change.

The task is daunting, she said, then she quoted anti-apartheid legend and former President Nelson Mandela: "It always seems impossible until it is done." In his address opening the conference, Zuma said global warming already is causing suffering and conflict in Africa, from drought in Sudan and Somalia to flooding in South Africa.

"For most people in the developing world and Africa, climate change is a matter of life and death," said the South African leader. Zuma said Sudan's drought is partly responsible for tribal wars there, and that drought and famine have driven people from their homes in Somalia. Floods along the South African coast have cost people their homes and jobs, he said.

"Change and solutions are always possible. In these talks, state parties will need to look beyond their national interests to find a global solution for a common good and benefit of all humanity." One of the greatest threats of global warming is to food supplies.

In its first global assessment of the planet's resources, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that farmers will have to produce 70 percent more food by 2050 to meet the needs of the world's expected 9 billion-strong population.

But most available farmland is already being farmed, and in ways that decrease productivity through practices that lead to soil erosion and wasting of water, the FAO said in a report released Monday in Rome.

Climate change compounded problems caused by poor farming practices, it found. Adjusting to a changing world will require $1 trillion in irrigation water management alone for developing countries by 2015, the FAO said.

President Token's Final Solution.

2011-11-28T14:14:00.010-05:00

From the Old Gray Whore:

Democrat Party "Will Explicitly Abandon the White Working Class"

If you're afraid you'll burst into flame if you read all the hate speech at the link above, try this synopsis from the "conservatives'" favorite serial adulterer:

RUSH: There is a fascinating story in the New York Times by Thomas Edsall: "The Future of the Obama Coalition." Let me read this first paragraph to you. "The Future of the Obama Coalition -- For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class." The Democrat Party is just abandoning white working class voters. The Democrat Party is punting. The Democrat Party is saying, "Sayonara, we don't care." They are going after the welfare state full-fledged. They are going after the entitlement mentality people in this country full-fledged. They're not making any pretenses.

Here's a pull quote. "A top priority of the less affluent wing of today’s left alliance is the strengthening of the safety net, including health care, food stamps, infant nutrition and unemployment compensation. These voters generally take the brunt of recessions and are most in need of government assistance to survive. According to recent data from the Department of Agriculture, 45.8 million people, nearly 15 percent of the population, depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to meet their needs for food."
And yet these same people's kids are fed three meals a day at school.

"All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment -- professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists -- and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic." So the Democrat Party, according to the Obama coalition, according to the New York Times, is going after the entitlement class, the welfare dependent class and the elite in academia, art, human resource management, lawyers, librarians, and social workers and so forth. What a coalition, the backbone of America. And that's who they're going after. They're ceding it, c-e-d-i-n-g. They are ceding working class voters. They've already ceded Republican voters. They have ceded conservative voters.

The New York Times is admitting that the Democrat Party and the Obama coalition is saying, "If you work, we don't want you. If you work, we know you don't want us. If you work, you're the targets. If you work, you are the people we are gunning for. If you work, we are coming after you to make sure that the other elements of our constituency are able to eat." That's what the Obama coalition is saying. Can you imagine if there were a story in the New York Times, "Republican Party to White Workers: Screw You." Can you imagine the charges of racism and what have you that would be flowing from this? And then the New York Times: this is a brilliant, brilliant piece of political strategery.

"It's instructive," says the New York Times, "to trace the evolution of a political strategy based on securing this coalition in the writings and comments, over time, of such Democratic analysts as Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira. Both men were initially determined to win back the white working-class majority, but both currently advocate a revised Democratic alliance in which whites without college degrees are effectively replaced by well-educated socially liberal whites in alliance with the growing ranks of less affluent minority voters, especially Hispanics." It's purposeful. Here you have the sitting president plotting his reelection, and in order to win reelection, what do you need more than your opponent? You need more votes than the other guy gets. In order to do that, you jettison people who work.

Now, think of that. You throw people who work who are white overboard, and instead your coalition includes the eggheads who have taught all these people the entitlement mentality and the entitlement mentality recipients, the people who think that they're owed something simply because they are Americans or because they are in America. And here's Obama and the Democrat Party saying, "You are who we're looking for. You who don't work; you who need welfare; you who need unemployment compensation extension; you who need food stamps, that's who we want. You are our people." Well, how do you get those people? You promise 'em more. You don't challenge them. You don't tell 'em that they're gonna have to improve themselves. You don't tell 'em that they're gonna have to go out and find work. No. You excuse them. We understand. We understand you're where you are because of people like these conservative Republicans who hate you. Well, we're here to take care of you.

I am not surprised that this is their coalition. I'm just stunned that they're so publicly admitting it. I think it's a big deal. It's not a big deal in the sense that it's always been the case. Well, not always, but I mean in recent years this has been the Democrat coalition. But to come out here and have it admitted to in the New York Times is almost a matter of pride and brilliant strategy. What this means is the white working class is the Tea Party. The white working class has abandoned the Democrat Party, is what this means. This is the old Reagan Democrat coalition in part. White working class people had decided that they're voting Republican. That's who voted in the 2010 midterms.

Now, I should point out also that these voters, these white working-class voters, there are some in the Republican establishment who are very embarrassed by them. They're not college educated. They're a group of people wandering around out there aimlessly, and not everybody wants 'em. We here are happy. We're happy to have 'em as part of the audience. I mean they're the backbone of America, working people, for crying out loud. I don't mean union people. This is not what they're talking about when they talk about working people. Normally when the Democrats use that term "working people" they mean unions. They don't mean it in this case.

"Obama’s alternative path to victory, according to Teixeira and Halpin, would be to keep his losses among all white voters at the same level John Kerry did in 2004, when he lost them by 17 points, 58-41. This would be a step backwards for Obama, who lost among all whites in 2008 by only 12 points (55-43). Obama can afford to drop to Kerry’s white margins because, between 2008 and 2012, the pro-Democratic minority share of the electorate is expected to grow by two percentage points and the white share to decline by the same amount, reflecting the changing composition of the national electorate."

And again, "A top priority of the less affluent wing of today’s left alliance is the strengthening of the safety net, including health care, food stamps, infant nutrition and unemployment compensation. These voters generally take the brunt of recessions and are most in need of government assistance to survive. According to recent data from the Department of Agriculture, 45.8 million people, nearly 15 percent of the population, depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to meet their needs for food."

So the Democrat Party and Obama are making it official. We're going after life's losers, and we're going to empower them. We're gonna make them the reason we win. Now, everybody, you should know this, this should not be a surprise. This is what the Democrat Party's been doing for years, they're admitting it now. They're admitting it. They are saying they're not interested in voters who work.

TEBOW! TEBOW! TEBOW!

2011-11-28T14:01:00.003-05:00

Kiddies, I don't care if the Denver Broncos ever win. Ever.

And I'm obviously no fan of the sad and silly heresy known as protestantism.

But it is quite enjoyable watching the Tebow-haters [who are really Christian-haters] choke on their bile as St. Timmie goes 5 - 1 as an NFL starter.

From AP via Yahoo! News:

Tebow leads Broncos to 16-13 OT win over Chargers

Tebow Time had just seconds to spare in overtime before the Denver Broncos beat the staggering San Diego Chargers.

Matt Prater kicked a 37-yard field goal with 29 seconds left in overtime to lift Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos to a 16-13 victory Sunday over the Chargers, who've lost six straight games for the first time in 10 years.

The Broncos narrowly avoided the first NFL tie since Cincinnati and Philadelphia ended deadlocked at 13 on Nov. 16, 2008.

Tebow, now 5-1 as the Broncos' starter, led Denver from its 43 after San Diego's Nick Novak was wide right on a 53-yard field goal attempt with 2:31 left in overtime. Novak made a 53-yarder in the first quarter, a career-best, and was wide right on a 48-yard try early in the fourth quarter.

Tebow had a 12-yard gain and Willis McGahee ran 24 yards up the middle to set up Prater's winning kick, which was right down the middle.

Tebow, the talk of the NFL because he runs the read option and often struggles while passing, carried 22 times for 67 yards — the most carries by a quarterback in a game since at 1950, according to STATS LLC. He also threw for one touchdown and finished with a better rating than Philip Rivers, 95.4 to 77.1. Rivers was pressured all day by Elvis Dumervil, who had two sacks, and rookie Von Miller, who had one.

The Broncos (6-5) won their fourth straight game and remained in second place in the AFC West. The Chargers (4-7) are on their longest streak since ending 2001 with nine straight defeats and are last in the division, three games behind Oakland with five to play.

Tebow's first start was also an overtime win, 18-15 at Miami on Oct. 23.

Tebow got a final chance to try to win it in regulation after the Broncos forced the Chargers to punt. Starting on his own 26, Tebow kept the drive going with a 39-yard completion to Eric Decker — which the Chargers unsuccessfully challenged — and a 23-yarder to Dante Rosario. The Broncos had to settle for Prater's 24-yard field goal that tied it at 13 with 1:34 to go.

Referee Jeff Triplette confused the crowd and TV viewers by saying each team would get a possession in OT. He then corrected himself, saying it would be sudden-death.

The Broncos won it on their third possession in OT.

McGahee ran 23 times for 117 yards. A week after having a critical fumble in a loss at Chicago, San Diego's Ryan Mathews ran 22 times for 137 yards.

Rivers was 19 of 36 for 188 yards. Tebow was 9 of 18 for 143 yards.

The Chargers took a 10-0 lead midway through the second quarter when Rivers hit Antonio Gates on a 6-yard scoring pass in the back of the end zone to cap a 15-play, 91-yard drive. On San Diego's first drive, Novak kicked a career-best 53-yard field goal.

The Broncos forced a Chargers punt and started a drive with 1:27 left before halftime at the San Diego 46. Tebow threw a 20-yard pass to Daniel Fells, who fumbled near a swarm of defenders. Somehow, Denver tackle Orlando Franklin recovered at the 24. After a 1-yard gain by Tebow and a penalty against cornerback Quentin Jammer, Decker slipped behind the coverage and Tebow hit him for an 18-yard TD to pull to 10-7.

The Chargers had to settle for Novak's 25-yard field goal early in the third quarter. Denver had a long drive later in the quarter before Prater kicked a 41-yard field goal to pull to 13-10.

Don't let your kids spend time alone with their coaches, kiddies.

2011-11-28T13:54:00.008-05:00

From Deadspin comes news of at least one pervert at Syracuse:

Syracuse Has Fired Bernie Fine

Bernie Fine has been "terminated, effective immediately" according to a statement released by Kevin Quinn, the senior vice president for public affairs at Syracuse University. More »

Penn State May Have Broken Federal Law By Trying To Cover Up What It Knew About Jerry Sandusky

The Clery Act requires universities to disclose criminal acts and, under certain circumstances, to issue a warning for particular threats. Starting today, the U.S. Department of Education is thus looking into whether Penn State's actions violated federal law. Also, per the New York Times, as many as 11 victims are looking into filing civil suits against The Second Mile, which is why the attorney for one of the victims filed an injunction to keep Jerry Sandusky's former charity from ridding itself of its assets by folding. More »

Jerry Sandusky's favorite congressthingee calls it quits.

2011-11-28T13:49:00.002-05:00

From AP via Yahoo! News:

Rep. Barney Frank announces he will not seek re-election

Fyodor doesn't know surfing from shinola, but this is pretty cool.

2011-11-09T12:53:00.007-05:00

It looks even more terrifying here:

Dwight Arrington Meyers, Requiescat in pace.

2011-11-09T12:48:00.006-05:00

From Roto-Reuters via Yahoo! News:

Rapper Heavy D is dead at 44

Rapper Heavy D, who rose to fame during the 1990s and scored hit singles such as "Now That We Found Love", died on Tuesday after collapsing outside his Beverly Hills home. He was 44.

Beverly Hills Police Lt. Mark Rosen said in a statement that the rapper, whose real name is Dwight Arrington Meyers, was found on a walkway at 11:25 a.m. PST outside his condominium. He conscious and talking, but having difficulty breathing. Paramedics were called and the singer was rushed to a nearby hospital.

"The individual ultimately died at the hospital," Rosen said. He added that there were no signs of foul play, and the death is believed to be medically related. An official cause is pending an autopsy by Los Angeles County coroners.

The singer's New York-based agent was not immediately available for comment.

Rotund rapper Heavy D was born in Jamaica and moved to Mt. Vernon, New York as a child. He enjoyed hip hop music as a kid and formed his first group, the Boyz, with high school friends who took the stage names DJ Eddie F, Trouble T-Roy and G-Wiz.

The group became Heavy D & The Boyz and released their first album in 1987, which included singles "Mr. Big Stuff" and "The Overweight Lover's in the House." Their breakout album came with 1989's "Big Tyme," which included the hits "Somebody for Me" and "We Got Our Own Thang."

The band met with tragedy in 1990 when Trouble T-Roy died in an accident. One year later, they scored their biggest hit with the album "Peaceful Journey" and single "Now That We Found Love," which reached the top five on R&B charts and crossed over to mainstream pop audiences.

A string of hits followed in the 1990s. The band sang the theme song for popular TV show "In Living Color," and Heavy D's 1999 CD "Heavy" became his seventh album to chart among the R&B top 10.

During those years, the rapper also began acting, working in small roles on film and TV before landing a role in high-school TV drama "Boston Public". His film work included parts in "The Cider House Rules," "Step Up" and "Big Trouble."

Musicians and fans mourned the rapper's death on Twitter.

"U will be missed Heavy D so many laughs we've shared but your Music is Timeless and will Always be Around 4ever Love u Heav...," posted rapper Missy Elliot.

"NCIS: Los Angeles" star LL Cool J also tweeted, "May GOD embrace the soul of Heavy D and Bless his family. I respected you Heavy and I always will."

R&B artist Ne-Yo, who was with Heavy D in London recently, said "Had I known it'd be the last time I'd see him, I woulda told him he was truly great. RIP..."

Heavy D performed at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards and at the Michael Jackson tribute show in Cardiff, Wales, both in October.

Fyodor gives JoePa the benefit of the doubt.

2011-11-09T11:31:00.014-05:00

By all accounts, Coach Paterno is a good Catholic, a gentleman, and a good husband, father, and grandfather. Sadly, our times are so benighted as to render those things insufficient. [Did you hear him ask people to pray for Sandusky's victim's? Did you hear how he was then mocked for being a senile old fool? That tells you everything you need to know about the death of our civilization.]

There have always been and always will be men who choose evil to satisfy their disordered desires, whether they desire children or political power or money. There are also men who recognize their desires are disordered and by the grace of God refuse to succumb to their weakness by sinning against God and their fellow men. [That's right, kiddies. Homosexuals can go to heaven if they keep their pants on and repent and go to confession if they don't.]

Coach Paterno comes from a time when homosexuals knew their place. Today, all sorts of perversions are not only tolerated, they are encouraged and celebrated by politicians, Hollyweird, the media, and corporations that see green, not pink. It is quite possible Jerry Sandusky became a football coach just to indulge his vile desires. It is even more likely he created his Second Mile charity so he could more easily find "at risk" boys. You know, boys from poor and broken families who have nobody to protect them, nobody who cares about them...boys with no self esteem who probably won't fight back and probably won't tell anyone...

There used to be more checks on guys like Sandusky. They knew they were perverts who didn't belong in the company of decent folks. They stayed in the dank, dark shadows and mostly preyed on each other. In the bad old days, Sandusky probably would have spent his life masturbating while thinking about little boys - a pervert harming only himself.

But in our endarkened age, perversion is celebrated, as if it were the same as dying your hair purple because your favorite lead singer did it. [Yippee! Free will! No consequences!] No one is allowed to look askance at homosexuals and their self-destructive, other-destructive, public health threatening behavior, much less label them sinners who need to repent. [I know...quaint, right?]

The clowns who run Penn State have been trying to get rid of Joe Paterno for years and now they've succeeded. I hope they get taken out as well, because nobody did enough in this situation, and all are morally culpable.

From ABC via Yahoo! News:

Joe Paterno to retire

Legendary coach Joe Paterno said today that he is "absolutely devastated" by the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the school and announced that he will retire at the end of this season.

Paterno's retirement after 46 years is the latest casualty of the Penn State sex abuse scandal.

"I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case," Paterno, 84, said in a statement today. "I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief."

"This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more," he said.

Paterno, who set a record this year as the winningest coach in top level college football ever, said it has been his intention to "serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care."

"That's why I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can," Paterno said.

Paterno's exit will mark one of the biggest losses amid the sex abuse scandal that has shaken the university and seen two of its top officials and a former coach arrested and charged criminally.

Penn State president Graham Spanier's tenure is also uncertain, as the board of trustees is reportedly considering replacing him with former Pennsylvania governor and Department of Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, according to ESPN.

Penn State representatives did not have an immediate comment.

Paterno's decision was made after he came under intense criticism following allegations of a school cover-up of sexual abuse of children by his longtime assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky. The incidents occurred on campus and were brought to the attention of Paterno and others, according to a grand jury presentment.

"I've lived for this place. I've lived for people like you guys and girls," Paterno said Tuesday night to fans who had gathered outside his home. "It's hard for me to say how much this means.

"As you know, the kids that were the victims. I think we ought to say a prayer for them," he said.

Sandusky was arrested Saturday and charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years, all of whom he met through his charitable organization, The Second Mile, a group home and outreach program for troubled boys.

Also arrested were athletic director Tim Curly and Vice President for Finance Gary Shultz, who are charged with not reporting the sexual abuse to police and lying to a grand jury under oath during the investigation.

The charges stem from a March 2002, incident in which graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary allegedly saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a locker room shower in the Penn State football department. McQueary told Paterno what he saw, and Paterno in turn told Curly and Shultz. None of the men reported the incident to police.

The Pennsylvania attorney general said Monday that Curly and Shultz were legally required to alert police to the incident, while Paterno was only legally obligated to tell his superiors. But Paterno has come under fire for failing what police called a "moral obligation" to alert them to the crimes.

Penn State Sex Scandal Grows

Pressure has also increased for university president Graham Spanier to step down for his role in the scandal. Curly and Shultz reported to Spanier that there had been an inappropriate incident with Sandusky and a child in the locker room showers, and that they had taken away Sandusky's privilege of bringing children onto campus. Spanier approved the decision and never reported the Sandusky incident to police.

Sandusky allegedly molested some of the children that he brought to the Penn State campus to meet the team members and work out at the facilities. He also brought them along on trips to away games and plied them with gifts, according to the presentment.

Two earlier sexual assaults on campus had been brought to the attention of employees and administrators, neither of which were reported to the police, according to the attorney general. In 1998 two boys reportedly came forward to say Sandusky had fondled them in the team's showers. Campus police had eavesdropped on a conversation between Sandusky and one boy's mother. That mother recently described the exchange to local reporter Sara Ganim with the Patriot News.

"He admitted to taking the shower, he admitted to some extent something bad happened," the woman, who was not identified, said. "He asked her for forgiveness. He said 'I probably won't get it from you,' and then he said 'I wish I were dead.'"

The mother said that she was proud of her son, who had the courage stand up to one of the giants of college football, according to Ganim. The boy's allegation led to the three-year grand jury investigation that resulted in sexual assault charges.

Sandusky was a coach and defensive coordinator for the team for 23 years before retiring in 1999. After his retirement, he continued to have unlimited access to the football department and campus, and continued to run football camps for boys at Penn State's campuses.

And now for a real sex scandal.

2011-11-09T10:59:00.011-05:00

Pedophile State University? Pederasty State University? It's a tough call, kiddies, because it seems that Coach Jerry likes teens and preteens.

First of all, this isn't "child abuse". This is statutory rape of boys by a homosexual male predator.

If this sick shit is true, I hope Sandusky gets sent to a real prison where pedophiles are treated worse than cockroaches. The same goes for anyone who committed a crime to cover this up and protect the reputation of PSU...but I won't hold my breath.

I don't expect anyone to be a hero anymore. I don't expect anyone to jump into the shower, rescue the 10 year old, and leave the homosexual predator in a pool of his own blood. I don't even expect anyone to call the cops and report hearsay.

However, I do expect people in authority at a public institution to prohibit a "man" suspected of such perversion from using the university's facilities as soon as they become aware of the suspicions.

From Washington's other newspaper:

If Jerry Sandusky allegations are true...

If the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office is to be taken at its word about Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State program is now close to beyond redemption.

From Deadspin:

A Guide To The Child Sexual Abuse Charges Against Jerry Sandusky...

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office has made public the entire 23-page grand jury report that is the basis for former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky's indictment. The report is a graphic, disturbing account of the litany of sex crimes that Sandusky is accused of committing against eight boys from the mid-1990s until the late-2000s. It also details the sequence of events that led to charges of perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse (the latter is a summary offense in Pennsylvania) against two Penn State administrators, including athletic director Tim Curley.

The allegations against Sandusky were handed down Friday, and he was arrested Saturday. Curley is expected to turn himself in Monday, according to the Associated Press.

Sandusky, 67, coached at Penn State for more than 30 years. He spent the final 23 of those years—the last of which was 1999—as the Nittany Lions' defensive coordinator. From 1977 until his retirement last year, Sandusky had also run a foster home in State College, Pa., for troubled children called The Second Mile. (The photo above is from a Sports Illustrated story published in 1999 and depicts children from The Second Mile program. We've blacked out the faces, since the grand jury report identifies one of them as a victim of Sandusky.) The Second Mile, according to the report, "gave [Sandusky] access to hundreds of boys, many of whom were vulnerable due to their social situations." After his retirement from coaching, Sandusky also still had full access to Penn State's football facilities.

What follows is a summary of the grand jury's report.

• Sandusky's victims all reported a wide array of sexual abuse allegations. Sandusky, who is married, met many of them through The Second Mile. Many spent the night at his home. He brought them to Philadelphia Eagles games, plus Penn State practices, tailgate parties, and home games. One of the victims traveled to the 1998 Outback Bowl and the 1999 Alamo Bowl as a member of Sandusky's family's party. That same victim often stayed with Sandusky at a State College-area hotel on the night before home games. He also frequently dined with the coaching staff and accompanied Sandusky to numerous charity outings. Sandusky had lavished this victim with a variety of gifts. According to the report, "Sandusky even guaranteed [this victim] he could be a walk-on player at Penn State. [The victim] was in a video about linebackers that featured Sandusky, and he appeared with him in a photo accompanying an article about Sandusky in Sports Illustrated." Sandusky later tried to bribe this victim with cigarettes and marijuana after this victim began refusing his advances.

• Also: "[This victim] remembers Sandusky being emotionally upset after having a meeting with Joe Paterno in which Paterno told Sandusky he would not be the next head coach at Penn State and which preceded Sandusky's retirement. Sandusky told the victim not to tell anyone about the meeting. That meeting occurred in May 1999."

• Sandusky was investigated by university police in 1998 after a mother reported to them that her 11-year-old son had showered with Sandusky. A university police detective and a municipal police detective later eavesdropped on a conversation between the mother and Sandusky in which Sandusky answered "I don't know ... maybe" when the mother asked him if he had touched her son inappropriately. He also admitted he had showered with the boy to an investigator with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. The university police detective advised Sandusky not to shower with a child again, and Sandusky promised he would not. No charges were filed.

• In March 2002, a graduate assistant stumbled upon Sandusky and a boy showering together at Penn State's football facility. The grand jury report included the horrifying details of what that graduate assistant saw and heard:

As the graduate assistant entered the locker room doors, he was surprised to find the lights and the showers on. He then heard rhythmic, slapping sounds. He believed the sounds to be those of sexual activity. As the graduate assistant put his sneakers in his locker, he looked in the shower. He saw a naked boy ... whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both [the victim] and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.

• The graduate assistant informed Joe Paterno the next day, and Paterno told Curley the day after that. About a week and a half after that, the graduate assistant met with Curley and Gary Schultz, Penn State's Vice President for Finance and Business and the other school administrator to be charged with perjury and failure to report an allegation. The graduate assistant described what he saw as being of a "sexual nature." Paterno said the graduate assistant had told him Sandusky's actions were "disturbing" and "inappropriate." Curley acknowledged to the grand jury that he was told Sandusky's actions were "inappropriate" and that they had made the graduate assistant "uncomfortable"; however, Curley denied under oath that he was told Sandusky had done anything sexual. Schultz conceded under oath that the graduate assistant had told him of inappropriate sexual conduct. But he also testified that the allegations were "not that serious" and that he and Curley were unaware any crime had taken place.

• It is worth noting here what Paterno did upon hearing a first-hand story from a "very upset" graduate assistant, in the words of the report, about "Jerry Sandusky ... fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy": Paterno took no action except to tell his athletic director.

• Curley and Schultz did tell Penn State president Graham Spanier what they had heard, but Spanier told the grand jury that Curley and Schultz had described Sandusky's actions to him as mere "horsing around in the shower." Spanier also denied any knowledge of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky by university police. Spanier issued a statement Saturday saying Curley and Schultz had his "unconditional support."

• Schultz's duties included oversight of the university police. He testified that he was aware of the 1998 incident and acknowledged similarities between it and the 2002 allegations. But according to the grand jury report, Schultz "never sought or reviewed a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002. No one from the university did so. Schultz did not ask the graduate assistant for specifics. No one ever did. Schultz expressed surprise upon learning that the 1998 investigation by University Police produced a lengthy police report. Schultz said there was never any discussion between himself and Curley about turning the 2002 incident over to any police agency." The graduate assistant was also never questioned by police.

• Sandusky was told he could no longer bring children into Penn State's football facility in light of the 2002 incident, and the executive director of The Second Mile was made aware of that fact, in addition to the incident. Schultz testified that Spanier had approved this decision. Schultz also said he believed he and Curley had informed a "child protection agency" about the 2002 incident. Curley also admitted "the ban on bringing children to the campus was unenforceable," in the words of the report.

• Records show that the 2002 incident was never reported to the Department of Public Welfare, Children and Youth Services, or the university police, in violation of state law.

• The Patriot-News of Harrisburg reported Saturday that a source close to the investigation said Paterno would not be charged and that he would testify against Sandusky at trial.

• One of Sandusky's victims told the grand jury Sandusky had brought him to Penn State's preseason practices in 2007—a full five years after Paterno was made aware of sexual activity involving Sandusky and another boy.

The entire grand jury report can be seen at Deadspin.

The top 10 reasons why losers, dopes, dolts, commies, nazis, and racists hate [read FEAR] Herman Cain.

2011-11-09T10:38:00.028-05:00

10. Mr. Cain is a real mensch.
9. Mr. Cain has the "slave blood" in his veins Benito Insane Hussseiner only wishes he had.
8. Mr. Cain has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, not Commie-Unity Organizing.
7. Mr. Cain has a Master's Degree in computer science, not Commie-Unity Organizing.
6. Mr. Cain has had several real jobs and was very successful at all of them.
5. Mr. Cain has never stolen a dime of anyones's money and bought votes with it.
4. Mr. Cain's mom worked as a maid and his dad worked as a janitor.
3. Mr. Cain knows it's okay for you to believe in God and own guns.
2. One compound word: Anti-Romney!

And the Number 1 reason why losers, dopes, dolts, commies, nazis, and racists hate [read FEAR] Herman Cain is...

Mr. Cain is not REPEAT NOT a politician.