With all the chatter in the media about Congress spending $500 Billion for this and $500 billion for that, we thought it worthwhile to put all that cash in perspective. I have held a few $20 bills in my hand, so I can imagine what a few hundred dollars would look like, or perhaps even one thousand dollars. But a million dollars? A billion dollars?
This is $10,000 in $100 bills.
(more…)
Without much of a fuss made by the media, if even reported at all, last month Afghanistan’s new Shiite Personal Status Law was put into effect. The law grants Shiite men the legal right to starve their wives if their sexual demands are not met. These sexual demands are not defined or limited by the law. The law also requires Shiite women to obtain permission from their husbands to even leave their home. Parental custody is solely the father’s or, in his absence, the paternal grandfather. Incredibly, the law also allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying “blood money” to a girl who was injured when he raped her. That payment, of course, is offered to the father, paternal grandfather or the brothers of the raped girl. (more…)
Henry Louis Gates, James Crowley and Barack Obama (“the boys”) hoisted some cold suds on the South Lawn of the White House today in a carefully orchestrated event for the whole world to experience. This was, as the White House called it, a “teachable moment” on race in America.
We couldn’t be happier for them, you know, the boys – for they have suffered so much. (more…)
THE EXTORTION OF US TAX PAYERS (a.k.a., the Detroit Bailout)
Let’s do the math and perhaps put it out to a poll. I’ll focus on GM, you can do the same for Ford and Chrysler. GM employs about 252,000 people globally. The company website totals its US work force at 97,624 across some 87 US zip codes.
The pitch made by the Big Three last week puts the GM term loan “request” at least $12 billion they said was needed to bridge a funding gap in their global operations through just 2009. Unless you think that by the end of 2009 mobs of Americans will be buying enough GM cars to make a difference, by this time next year these same three will be asking for more tax payer money. They will site then, as they do now, a vast US unemployment amongst a plethora of other dire consequences should they be “allowed” to fail.
Now here is the math: if we consider only the US based employees of GM, that “term loan” works out to over $122,920 per current employee – including the over two dozen lucky top earners at the company that make well over $1 million per year. If we were to poll those same US employees of GM, asking simply, should GM management be handed $12 Billion IN CASH or instead should each US based employee given a severance package that includes nearly $123,000 IN CASH and then seek employment at the several other US based (but foreign) car manufacturers who for some reason are NOT asking for a bailout. By the way, these other car companies will most assuredly be delighted to increase their own US car production output to make up for the void should the “big three” go under. Now back to the math, what would those tax paying US based employees choose? Would they trust $12 Billion in the hands of a few pigeon headed multi-millionaires that drove their company, an icon of American manufacturing competence and power the world over, into total obsolescence or would they take a chance on themselves with that $122,920?
Now that $122,920 may seem like a paltry amount for some, and certainly that is so for the GM CEO who earns over $10 MILLION IN ADDITION TO his annual salary of $1.5 million (source WSJ) that he is now willing to “sacrifice”, for one year, for the sake of getting this bailout…presumingly because its good for the nation. What a patriot. Take note however, he is offering to giving up just over one tenth of his total compensation and this “sacrifice” does not include his use of the company’s air force (yes, we talking about a car company), fleet of chauffeured cars, personnel/family allowances and that all important multi-million dollar corporate expense account amongst the plethora of other perks.
Do we really need to debate this?
See also:
CNN has some great articles today about Stephen Colbert and the bid for whichever party will take him for Presidential nominee. Personally, I’m in favor of the Colbert, Colbert and Only Colbert Party, then again, there is already the ColbertNation.
If you jump below you can find the CNN links & one of the CNN articles.
When searching for some more “news”, we came across some more fun sites about Colbert running in 2008:
“A Nation Cries Out” : the site is “Colbertocrat”
Editor & Publisher online chimes in
and last but not least….
Read the article copied below…………………hmmmmmmmmmmm……….Colbert for President? See also, additional article at CNN Entertainment.
October 17, 2007
Colbert announces bid for the White House
Colbert said Tuesday he will run for president in South Carolina.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — He hinted at a possible run for the White House on CNN’s Larry King last week, but Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert made it official Tuesday night: he’s jumping into the presidential race in his home state of South Carolina.
“After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call….I am hereby declaring that I will enter the presidential primary in my native South Carolina, running as a favorite son,” Colbert said on his show Tuesday night. “I defy any other candidate to pander more to the people of South Carolina — those beautiful, beautiful people.”
South Carolina is one of four lead-off primary states that will likely play a crucial role in determining the eventual nominee of both parties.
On Larry King last Thursday, Colbert laid out his potential electoral strategy, saying he’d see how he did in South Carolina before deciding to move on to other states.
“I think maybe there’s something I could offer the campaign on a state-by-state basis,” he said. “I would target a state individually…a test run.”
Colbert, author of the recently released “I Am America (And So Can You!),” also told King he’d seek to run as both a Democrat and Republican.
“I’d let the people decide what party I belong in,” he said. “I don’t dictate the people’s actions.”
In the interview with King, Colbert also brushed aside suggestions that it was a “cop out” to run in both parties, calling it instead courageous, because, “I could lose twice.”
In the slim chance that he wins a party’s nomination, Colbert said Tuesday he’d consider either Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Russian President Vladimir Putin, or himself for a running mate.
“Colbert-Colbert — that’s a strong ticket,” he argued.
– CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney
Why are we even considering electing anyone that is less than diplomatic?
Is it really funny that people we would choose to lead our country, affect not only our country’s, but other countries’ children and families…stoop to barbs?
See, I’m simply confused.
If you have something meritorious to say, can’t it stand on its own without sarcasm?
I want to elect a leader that does not resort to such games. Let him or her then serve as a leader, an example, to all the lower levels of government, and to our children, the future leaders.
Is that too simple?
The big joke now is the young lady who launched a song about Obama, or the two or three girls, of course, profit being the bottom line, to sell t-shirts. Suggestive songs. Now, how does that affect Obama as a presidential candidate? Good, bad? Worse or better than Mrs. Clinton’s insurmountable==wait, seemingly surmountable odds on overcoming the base suggestiveness or alleged infidelity.
Again, media coverage comes back to what can we get you on? embarrass you about? judge you about? what can we get off on while dissing you?
yes, we do this as a society, but do I want my LEADER doing this?
No. It’s that simple.
Which movie do I need to cite?
Which news article?
How many crying children does it take?
There are more of us than “them”.
There are multitudes of us that would not harm another like the harm we see on television, in the newspaper, on the internet, in the blogs—-there are more of us………..how can we figure it out?
POST, COMMENT, DO WHAT YOU WILL, BUT SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS….one of you might yet make the difference.
Coffeegrounds.wordpress.com has had many posts dealing with the state of war and our reaction as to the troops of the war.
NPR had a linguist on board yesterday describing that the word troops is dehumanizing and one of his least favorites.
CNN shows us today a wife and a mother wearing a headscarf.
I am a mother, I am a wife, I am a litigation attorney, I am not a captured woman, wife, mother in Iran.
CNN presents:
“– Expressionless, smoking a cigarette and wearing a black head scarf that masks her blond hair, video of captured British sailor Faye Turney shows a soft-spoken mother — one of only 12 women in the British navy trained to drive inflatable patrol boats.
The 26-year-old mother was driving the Royal Navy’s boat Friday when armed Iranian troops seized her and 14 others, accusing them of crossing into their territorial waters and unleashing a diplomatic crisis. (Full story)
A week before her capture, she told the British Broadcasting Corp. she understood the risks of her work.
“You’ve got to have it in the back of your head that sometimes you may be called upon and, when you are, you have got to get on with it,” she said aboard the Navy Frigate HMS Cornwall in the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq.”
I hate war.
I have no desire for conflict.
Sitting at a deposition the other day, legal fees mounting into the hundreds of thousands, a party said something about the state of war.
I said, “This, here, is where war begins.”
Conflict begins in the smallest moments, the ones we feel are vindicated, “I believe you hurt me; therefore, ….”
Therefore, what?
I now hurt you?
I spoke to a dear friend the other day, upset with events in her life, seeking legal advice and retribution…I wanted to say, I needed to say……..stop……….meditate……..breath……..because negative energy and retribution leads to things beyond our control. And she is the dearest and best of ladies, believe me you. But sometimes when people are hurt and attacked, they have only one habit, retribution.
I’m not suggesting you all sit still and shut up, matter of fact, there is only one thing I am suggesting, take a look at this CNN article, take a look at this one person, divorced and shut off from the world she knows, beyond ability to help herself, at least as far as we know.
Ask yourself, how did we contribute to her getting there?
Yes, yes, I know, most of us are not the politicians or the moneymakers, the freemason power wheelers of the world, but to sit back and let them take all the blame, is for us to admit we have no voice, no say, in how this world evolves.
Namaste.
May God bless you all.
Or, if you are of the Einstein version of God, may you find your answer in the yet unknown expansion of the universe.
Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears
Candace Feit for The New York Times
“Long after the civil war, Sierra Leone diamond miners remain impoverished.”
Today’s New York Times shows us a picture of Diamond Miners. The photograph above gives a good enough depiction at what is presumed to be backbreaking work.
The irony is what does that backbreaking work cost those fellow human beings, and what profit does it give to others of us?
Where is the scale of morality?
Is it completely divorced from the realm of economics?
Within the article written by Lydia Polgreen is a photograph of two hands, a small piece of paper between the hands, and a dot within the hands upon the paper. The sheer smallness of the gem within the hardworking hands, made us stop and wonder how something so small could gain more on the market, than the larger hands portraying its alleged worth.
“An industrial grade gem, above, can bring $1 or so for days of work.”
“I don’t have choice,” Mr. Kamanda said, standing calf-deep in brown muddy water here at the Bondobush mine, where he works every day. “This is my only hope, really.”
How many of you earn more than a dollar a day?
Do you remember the story of the doctor prohibited from practicing medicine because he dared to suggest doctors should “scrub” up prior to surgery?
Well, I’m not sure how all of this comes around.
Surely, I don’t want an individual man in Gambia telling HIV patients they must stop proven medicines that prolong life, to take a herbal/spice concontion his ancestors gave him in a dream……but suppose……….he was right?
We already know what would happen if he is wrong, our media and society specialize in the bad news, I wonder though, what would happen if he were right?
Are you willing to say no? It doesn’t work?
BY NO MEANS DO WE ADVOCATE ABANDONING TRADITIONAL MEDICINE, WE SIMPLY DO NOT BELIEVE, ANY ONE PERSON YET HAS THE ONLY ANSWER.
On CNN today, a story features that the President of Gambia had a dream in which his ancestors gave him the cure for Aids.
This is not funny business, it appears real that people are believing that the herbal conconction works.
Apparently at this stage, there is not any medical documentation to confirm whether this dream induced “cure” may work, just imagine for a moment if it did………
Faith has many faces, I prefer not to discount the yet unproven. With that said, there is a fear that belief in this new “cure” may cause people to have false hope.
What would occur if faith alone, and not just the concoction worked to help cure all of the people inflicted with this dreadful disease? I can understand that there will be much in the media with a negative view, and quite frankly, it is understandable, because if the “cure” doesn’t work, people will become more and more ill.
The CNN article of March 17, 2007 is posted below. Following the article are several different resources, with Technorati Search listing the most returns on blogs currently discussing this subject from a variety of viewpoints.
CNN presents the following:
By Jeff Koinange
CNN
BANJUL, Gambia (CNN) — At the only hospital in the capital of this tiny West African nation, a 3-year-old AIDS patient named Suleiman receives his daily dose of medication — a murky brown concoction of seven herbs and spices served out of a bottle that once contained pancake syrup.
The boy is told a spoonful a day will make him better. His mother, Fatuma, takes the same concoction, as do several dozen other AIDS and HIV patients here. Adults take two spoonfuls.
“It’s amazing,” Fatuma says. “Two weeks ago, I was very ill, weak and couldn’t eat without vomiting.”
This has become the treatment for HIV/AIDS patients here since early January, when Gambian President Yahya Jammeh announced he had discovered a cure for the disease that has wreaked havoc across Africa. He made that announcement in front of a group of foreign diplomats, telling them the treatment was revealed to him by his ancestors in a dream.
His concoction has stirred controversy and anger among health officials who say the president’s claims will bring false hope to the nation’s more than 20,000 HIV/AIDS patients. They are also afraid that it could cause patients to stop taking the anti-retroviral drugs that have been proven to prolong life and improve quality of living.
One critic was Fadzai Gwaradzimba, the U.N. envoy to Gambia. She was abruptly kicked out of the country after saying on February 9 that patients should continue their normal treatment and that Jammeh’s concoction be “assessed by an international team of experts.”
“The U.N. system encourages all patients currently receiving anti-retroviral treatment to continue to comply with their recommended treatment regimens while the efficacy of the new treatment is being assessed,” she said. (Read full statement)
The U.N. Development Program stands by the envoy’s remarks. The World Health Organization has also been critical of Jammeh’s treatment.
Jammeh, 41, is a former army colonel who has no formal medical training. He wears white robes and carries a copy of the Quran with him in this mostly Muslim nation.
His degree is a high school diploma. But he claims his family has a history of healing people through traditional African medicine.
At the hospital in the capital, patients claim the president’s concoction is making a difference to them.
Ousman Sow, 54, said he’s been HIV-positive since 1996 and had been taking anti-retrovirals for the past fours years until he volunteered for this program.
Four weeks later, he said he’s gained 30 pounds and feels like a new person.
“I am cured at this moment,” he said.
Asked if he had any HIV symptoms, he responded, “No, I don’t. As I stand before you I can honestly tell you I have ceased to have any HIV symptoms.”
Patient after patient gave similar statements to CNN. But it was difficult to verify the authenticity of their testimony. The government claims to have scientific evidence, but it did not provide any to CNN.
Jammeh refused to speak to CNN for this report.
CNN also sought medical reports of the HIV/AIDS patients to see whether they are indeed on the mend. The material was not provided. The government would also not release the concoction to CNN for testing.
Gambian Health Minister Tamsim Mbowe, a trained physician with multiple medical degrees, defended the so-called herbal cure.
“I can swear, 100 percent, that this herbal medication His Excellency is using is working. It has the potency to treat and cure patients infected with the HIV-virus,” he told CNN.
What does he have to say to skeptics?
“I will tell them, as a Western medical trained doctor with 13 years experience meeting different professors, meeting different colleagues of mine, I’ve seen His Excellency, my leader, coming up with herbal medications that are able to treat and cure patients with HIV-virus, which have been proven within all medical and laboratory parameters.”
Health officials worldwide remain doubtful of these claims. Experts also say it’s in places like Gambia that the poor and desperate will latch onto anything resembling hope.
“For a country’s leader to come up with such an outlandish conclusion is not only irresponsible, but also very dangerous, and he should be reprimanded and stopped from proclaiming such nonsense,” said Professor Jerry Coovadia of the University of Kwa Zulu Natal in South Africa.
UNAIDS, WHO on Gambia’s “cure”: demanding “evidence-based” proof
Technorati Search: Gambia & the alleged cure for Aids: listing of blogs with differing viewpoints
Curious and more curious.
Gingrich was not a hypocrite. Yes, he now states he had an extramarital affair but really, he drew the line when pursuing Clinton…he went after him due to an alleged felony, perjury and obstruction of justice, not because of the sensationalist news regarding Ms. Lewinsky.
Check out some interesting articles on this fascinating non-hypocritical line drawing:
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