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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) deliciouspear | |
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So I'm awake now, because I had a terrifying dream. I have LOTS of nightmares (always have) but they are usually frustration=scary or real-life-scary rather than supernatural-scary. It'd had Victorian travel expeditions, weird Lovecraftian begining-of-the-universe-brain-bending, caves, gemstones, cute blonde traveling companions, base camps, psychic communication, alien creatures drilling holes in heads with lazers and also, Jaleel White. It had a passage in it (that was some sort of glimpsing the aliens (or whatever they were) minds) that I wish I could remember like "They almost took [word] out of [the universe?] because they could hear the sound of [creation?] without time." It's making me crazy that I can't remember it, but maybe my waking brain can't handle the concept, just like in the dream. Tags: dreams, horror, i have issues, nightmares, science fiction, spooky
Seòl :  awake
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif?v=91.7) daily_kos | |
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/LUvcDASHWnY/-Open-thread-for-night-owls-The-newest-birther-conspiracy
Talking Points Memo:
“Dreams From My Real Father,” a 97-minute film narrated by an Obama impersonator, weaves the narrative that Obama’s grandfather wasn’t a furniture salesman but an undercover CIA agent who convinced Barack Obama Sr. to marry his teenage daughter to hide the fact that she was impregnated by a 55-year-old communist named Frank Marshall Davis. [...]
The film has been favorably reviewed by WND’s Jerome R. Corsi, who wrote an entire book arguing that Obama’s birth certificate is a fake and that he was really born in Kenya and ineligible to be president of the United States.
Of course, both conspiracies cannot simultaneously be true (for that matter, not even one of them can be true, given the readily available evidence, but setting that aside for a moment, etc). It is a bit odd, however, that now "secret Muslim Kenyan" is no longer the go-to conspiracy theory for some people. No, "secret Muslim Kenyan" is what the government wants you to think. In reality, Barack Obama was the offspring of a communist, his grandpa was an undercover CIA agent and he was quickly shuttled off to Bill Ayers for proper indoctrination into how to someday be a secret communist president posing instead as a secret Muslim Kenyan president. Oh, and all of this took place so that, many decades later, children could stay on their parents' health insurance a bit longer. I think.
This does, however, nix the whole notion of Barack Obama not being a citizen, so not all birthers are as quick to endorse it as Jerome Corsi. Jerome Corsi, after all, would endorse the notion that Barack Obama was a space alien brought here to help Hitler take over France but that the time-traveling plotters involved got their timing wrong by 70 years or so, so long as it made Jerome Corsi a few bucks to say it. Orly Taitz, for one, is not amused:
WND and Corsi, wrote Taitz, are “trying to kill the case by making up an American citizen father for Obama.”
Conflicting conspiracy theories? Which one to believe? That one over there has America's Dumbest Sheriff endorsing it, but this one comes with a film narrated by an Obama impersonator. If that isn't evidence, what is?
On the other hand, why would you even go with the "Obama's father was really an elderly secret communist" angle? Is this a new schism between people who are more afraid of a black president and those who are more afraid of a communist one? Was the original conspiracy just getting too cluttered, just like any other long running franchise, so that a reboot was needed in order to wedge all the new, most fashionable ideas in? I have no idea. I had some previous notion that perhaps Corsi would, for his newest trick, announce that Barack Obama was in fact fathered by bad kerning, and as a typographical-American should be removed from office on that basis. It hardly matters what the conspiracy is, so long as you provide it with a decent narrator.
Hearing about things like this (and how very, very prevalent they are, when it comes to politics, science, or anything else that somebody, somewhere, finds personally objectionable), the only conclusion one can come to is that humankind is, for all our preening, made up of some damn stupid individuals—and that our ancestors are unbelievably damn lucky to have managed to form governments or civilizations at all, given what they had to work with.
I can't imagine how many of our primate ancestors made the very early discovery that fire equals good, only to have their heads caved in by fellow primates that were certain fire was a plot by the primate devil and/or the primate Illuminati. How many thousands of years went by before the whole "let's use fire to keep warm" or "hey, let's cook this damn meat to make it less putrid" thing took off to the point where the vaguely bipedal practitioners didn't just get torn to bits for suggesting the idea? That is impressive enough, but then to have gone on to develop bronze, or cement, or Nintendo systems—now that took some true miracles. No, the astonishing thing about civilization is that it can withstand such a very large percentage of crackpots, during any given era, who are bent on knocking down the whole thing because it conflicts with their own personal motivations or notions of which particular bogeymen are waiting behind which particular corners.
What was I talking about? Oh, I was saying how miraculous it was that human civilization can actually exist, given the omnipresence of such profound dunderheads as Jerome Corsi, Orly Taitz, et al. Yeah, that. I don't know why I can no longer hear the name "Jerome Corsi" without thinking of world-shattering, civilization-crumbling stupidity, but it just pops into my head, every single damn time.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:
Reading coverage of the presidential race, I think perhaps I may be the one of the few remaining people on the planet that remember that George W. Bush ran for the presidency, in 2000, on a theme of being a bipartisan who would "change the tone" in Washington.
This was dutifully reported by, well, everyone. We were told that George W. Bush was terribly bipartisan as governor of Texas. Republican cronies were marched up in front of the cameras to tell us that he was great at working across the aisle, blah blah blah.
Coupled with these constant assertions of bipartisanship and CEO acumen was the campaign theme of "compassionate" conservatism: conservatism tempered with sympathy for the poor, and the sick, and the elderly, and minorities, and schoolchildren, and all those other groups of Americans that conservatism normally couldn't be bothered with (after all, they own very little stock), so all his handlers and speechwriters needed to make up a new word for Bush's supposed new brand of conservatism, to sort of cram the notion of basic human empathy and decentness into it somewhere. This, too, was roundly applauded by reporters and pundits in spite of absolutely no actual evidence that anyone anywhere meant a word of it, and considerable evidence that they did not.
Tweet of the Day:
 When Herman Cain's endorsement is worth more than the endorsement of the last Republican president, all you can do is sabotage the economy.
— @LOLGOP via TweetDeck
High Impact Posts. Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/JWsFIrmGglo/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Polling-Wrap-Bizarro-world-as-Democrats-hail-great-poll-from-Fox-News- 
Welcome to ass-backwards Wednesday, where Republicans breathlessly flog a CBS poll, while Democrats turn to Fox News for a counterpoint.
No shit. It's been that kind of a week on the political data front. Democrats took a number of hits this week from less-than-encouraging polling (Wisconsin has been a particular disappointment, though there is still time left on the clock, and the margins remain quite close). And, then, out of nowhere, Fox News produces a poll that one feels confident will not get six seconds of airtime on their own network.
They'll probably flog the new Rasmussen polls, instead.
Here are the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Fox News): Obama d. Romney (46-39)
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama tied with Romney (45-45)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (47-46)
NATIONAL (YouGov for the Economist): Obama d. Romney (46-42)
NEW JERSEY (Quinnipiac): Obama d. Romney (49-39)
NORTH CAROLINA (PPP): Obama d. Romney (48-47)
NORTH CAROLINA (Rasmussen): Romney d. Obama (51-43)
WISCONSIN (Marquette Law): Obama tied with Romney (46-46)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
NH-GOV (PPP): Ovide Lamontagne (R) 40, Maggie Hassan (D) 39; Lamontagne 38, Jackie Cilley (D) 38; Hassan 37, Kevin Smith (R) 31; Cilley 37, Smith 32
NH-GOV—D (PPP): Maggie Hassan 23, Jackie Cilley 20
NH-GOV—R (PPP): Ovide Lamontagne 53, Kevin Smith 13
NJ-SEN (Quinnipiac): Sen. Robert Menendez (D) 45, Joseph Kyrillos (R) 35
RI-01—D (Fleming and Associates): Rep. David Cicilline 40, Anthony Gemma 36
WI-GOV (Marquette Law): Gov. Scott Walker (R) 50, Tom Barrett (D) 44
WI-LT GOV (Marquette Law): Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R) 47, Mahlon Mitchell (D) 41
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/nqRtEA0egVM/how-to-fly-first-class-for-free.html http://www.lifehack.org/?p=25719 
 
There’s a way for you to fly first class for free over and over again.
The best part? It doesn’t require incredible negotiation skills or dumb luck. Anyone can do it.
Let me tell you everything you need to know so you can decide if this powerful travel strategy is right for you.
How to Fly for Free
A few years back, I started searching for the best ways to travel for cheap. I wanted to get out and see the world … or at least the United States.
What I ended up finding were a small group of people that were booking free flights over and over again with a strategy that was the complete opposite of what most people do.
You see, most people know that you can book a free flight by using frequent flyer miles. And if you have enough frequent flyer miles, then you can even fly first class for free. Of course, the only problem is that it’s really hard to accumulate a lot of miles by flying.
Luckily, there is a way to get hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles without flying at all.
This travel strategy is a special process called “credit card churning” and here’s how it works…
The credit card industry is extremely competitive. As a result, many credit card companies are willing to offer you huge frequent flyer mile bonuses if you sign up for their card.
This strategy works so well for getting frequent flyer miles that a group of people called credit card “churners” have used it to earn more than 1 million frequent flyer miles in a year. They apply for card after card and churn through as many applications as possible. Then, they spend the minimum amount needed to get the bonus (for example, $1,000 in 3 months) and move on to the next card. Some people routinely have over 15 credit cards on rotation!
The good news is that credit card bonuses work just as well for normal people like you and me. By simply getting 1 or 2 new cards, you can get enough frequent flyer miles for multiple round–trip flights.
There is no need to go crazy and get 15+ new cards. Of course, if you did, then you could literally earn enough miles to fly around the world multiple times.
Regardless of how many cards you’re comfortable with getting, these frequent flyer mile bonuses are the best way to fly for free because you can use frequent flyer miles to book flights anywhere and at anytime. For example, I used frequent flyer miles to book a free flight to Costa Rica last December, which is during the “high season” down there.
Where to Get Started
Many credit card churners get their information from a variety of blogs, forums, and websites. Thankfully, there are services that can do all of that research for you.
A great one to start with is The Credit Card Fly. It’s a free email newsletter that sends you a short weekly update of the best credit card deals for earning frequent flyer miles, free hotel stays, and rewards points.
Once you know the deals to apply for, the 3–step process looks like this:
- Apply for a new credit card that has a big frequent flyer mile bonus.
- If necessary, spend the minimum amount to get the bonus. Many cards have no spending requirement.
- Redeem your miles and fly anywhere.
Does this Hurt Your Credit Score?
Applying for new credit cards actually helps your score in one way and hurts it in another. Let me explain…
When you apply for a new credit card there is an inquiry on your account. New credit inquiries usually drop your score by a few points, but new inquiries only make up 10% of your overall credit score so the drop is small.
On the flip side, when you get a new credit card this also increases your overall credit limit and this will probably help your credit utilization ratio.
For example, let’s say that before your new card you were spending $2,000 and your total credit limit was $10,000. In this case, your credit utilization ratio was 20% ($2,000/$10,000). Then you get a new card and let’s say your credit limit raises to $15,000. Remember, your spending habits should be about the same because you’re only spending the minimum needed to get your frequent flyer miles. So now your credit utilization ratio is only 13% ($2,000/$15,000).
This is a good thing. A lower credit utilization ratio helps your credit score. For this reason, many credit card churners actually see their score increase over time. Many churners have 10 or more credit cards and still hold excellent credit scores in the 780 to 800 range.
How to Know if This Will Work for You
As a rule of thumb, your credit score should be 700 or above if you’re thinking about following this credit card travel rewards strategy.
And if you’re planning on applying for a bunch of cards to get tons of frequent flyer miles, then you should probably have a credit score above 720.
No matter what your score is, this strategy will only work if you pay your balance in full each month and carry no debt on your new cards. It doesn’t matter how good your history is, if you get a new credit card and start piling on debt, then your credit score will suffer and this travel strategy is useless.
If you have the discipline to pay your balance in full each month, then you’re ready to hit the skies.
(Photo credit: Passenger Windows on Plane via Shutterstock)
 
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dorktowerfeed | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dorktower/comic/~3/Y8SR43crA5c/ http://dorktower.kovalic.com/?p=7183 FIRST OFF: Point of business. I’ll be at MAKER FAIRE, Bay Area, this Saturday and Sunday, with the Geek Dad crew! Seek me out! I am VERY excited about this one. I may be starting to become a bit of a convention recluse, but I had so much fun at Maker Faire, last year, I can’t wait to get back!
****
SECOND POINT OF BUSINESS: Between that, a small family vacation, and the Memorial Day holiday (May 28, for those of you not living in the US), Dork Tower will be udpated Tuesday-Thursday through the end of May. My apologies, but it was either that, or run repeats, which I really don’t want to do.
It will go back to Monday-Wednesday-Friday as soon as possible. Most likely the first week of July.
****
ANYHOO, main thing:
OK, so last week I did this. The conceit being, this is how I now see every single “Keep Calm” poster – parody or otherwise:
And some folks asked for a version they could print out.
SO…here you go: First off, a PDF version of it, as an 8.5 x 11″ poster:
And now: First off, a high-res JPG version of it, as an 8.5 x 11″ poster:
Have fun! I hope they work, and if they don’t, Keep Calm and Blah Blah Blah…
John
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/n3VBRRgaM10/-Republican-House-candidate-Either-way-people-and-stegosaurs-were-living-at-the-same-time-
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Crazy Town) has a new favorite candidate for the House, and he sure seems like an interesting fellow:
Allen Quist, a 67-year-old soybean farmer and onetime anti-sodomy crusader who believes that humans and dinosaurs may have coexisted in Southeast Asia as late as the 11th century. [...]
During his time as a state representative, Quist slammed a gay counseling clinic at Mankato State University by comparing it to the Ku Klux Klan (both would be breeding grounds for evil—AIDS, in this case) and went undercover at an adult bookstore and a gay bathhouse in an effort to prove to a local newspaper reporter that they had become a "haven for anal intercourse."
He "went undercover," eh? Is that what they're calling it now? Too bad Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig didn't think of that one.
Quist doesn't just hate gays, though. He's not very fond of women either:
In one memorable interview, Quist told a British reporter he believed women were "genetically predisposed" to be subservient to men, pointing to, among other things, the behavior of wild animals.
It's easy to see why Michele Bachmann would consider Quist her intellectual soulmate:
"But the Lord says, 'Be submissive wives; you are to be submissive to your husbands.'"
Quist and Bachmann also share a particular fetus fetish:
Quist was a staunch pro-lifer who once argued that abortion should be classified as a first-degree homicide.
Quist, like Bachmann, has also devoted years to fighting against public education, including this contribution to an online curriculum supplemental:
One section asks this leading question: "Did dinosaurs and people live at the same time, and why do so many recently discovered ancient art works accurately picture dinosaurs?" The answer is a resounding "yes." "The only reasonable explanation for the stegosaurus carved in stone on the wall of the Cambodian temple is that the artist had either seen a stegosaur or had seen other art works of a stegosaur," Quist writes. "Either way, people and stegosaurs were living at the same time."
What's most striking about Quist, and his work with Bachmann, is that when they first found each other in the '90s and joined forces to "take down Minnesota's state curriculum standards, which they considered a gateway to a totalitarian society built on moral relativism," their brand of conservatism was considered, you know, extreme. When Quist launched a challenge to then-Gov. Arne Carlson (a Republican), even Republicans thought Quist was a nutjob:
"At one point," the St. Petersburg Times reported in 1994, "a Senate leader suggested he had an unhealthy preoccupation with sex, having devoted 30 hours to it in a single session." [...]
Mike Triggs, a former Carlson aide, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "Mr. and Mrs. Gopher are going to think [the Quists] are damn weird." He dismissed Quist supporters as "zombies." The governor himself played up his opponent's under-the-covers ops. "Instead of prowling through dirty bookstores, why didn't he go out and change state spending policy?" the governor asked the Associated Press.
But that was then, and now that the nutjobs have taken over the Republican Party, this once-radical Republican is now just another standard Republican on a mission to spread the gospel of stupid.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/39iJs0l84a4/-Oil-companies-want-more-federal-leases-to-add-to-the-ones-they-aren-t-using 
Stripper well in California's Central Valley.
(Rendering by navajo)
The U.S. Department of Interior has released its latest assessment of oil and gas leases on federal land. Two-thirds of the off-shore leased acreage and half the on-shore acreage in the 48 contiguous states is idle. The companies holding those leases are not actively exploring or otherwise developing them.
According to the report, more than 70 percent of the tens of millions of offshore acres currently under lease are inactive, neither producing nor currently subject to approved or pending exploration or development plans. Out of nearly 36 million acres leased offshore, only about 10 million acres are active—leaving nearly 72 percent of the offshore leased area idle.
In the lower 48 states, an additional 20.8 million acres, or 56 percent of onshore leased acres, remain idle.
In the long run, we need to wean the nation—and the rest of the world—off these fossil fuels insofar as they are burned for transportation, pumping massive gobs of CO2 into the atmosphere and altering our climate in detrimental ways we can both foresee as well as only guess at.
There are some places, deep-water off-shore places, Arctic wilderness places, for instance, where oil and gas production should be more limited than it is now or prohibited outright. Some techniques, like hydraulic fracking, and some resources, like oil shale, should not be part of the mix now. But in the transition to non-fossil fuels, some exploration and production are going to continue for a considerable while. And if they are going to continue on public land, then, in the words of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, leases should be developed "in a timely and responsible manner and with a fair return to taxpayers."
The industry says the Obama administration is presenting an unfair picture of the situation. American Petroleum Institute Pres. Jack N. Gerard said the administration is trying to distract voters from what the industry considers bad policies standing in the way of more drilling:
“It’s absurd to contend the industry pays the government billions of dollars every year in bonus bids and rents to leave land idle,” he maintained. [The industry] develops leases as expeditiously as it can—often in the face of inordinate delays the administration’s own policies create. The administration is being willfully misleading when it identifies leases as idle when companies are seeking permits, doing exploratory drilling, or fighting lawsuits.”
Uh-huh. The administration has opened up tens of millions of acres of land for oil and gas leasing. It held a lease auction last year and it's holding another one this year. Drilling is now at its highest level since the Reagan administration. The industry was upset because the White House held back on leasing while BP was spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It's upset that it has to pay more to lease each acre. It's upset that some modest new restrictions have been placed on drilling. And no doubt it's upset about the shutting down of its cozy arrangement of partying and sleeping with employees of a now-extinct division of the Department of Interior charged with governing leases.
Currently, the industry has three Colorado Republican congressmen in its pocket pushing three outrageous pieces of legislation designed to cut the public out of the leasing review process:
H.R. 4383 creates a $5,000 fee for individuals who wish to participate in the decision-making process for oil and gas development on publicly owned lands. That includes families living near drilling sites who could be forced to live with the effects of drilling on their air and drinking water.
H.R. 4382 outlaws the right of public, local governments, and stakeholders to review lease sales, preventing new information from affecting leasing decisions. It also prevents the BLM from revising leasing plans.
H.R. 4381 gives oil companies first crack at all federal lands, rather than creating a level playing field between renewable energy and fossil fuels. It puts drilling über alles – making it the primary use of public lands above scientific, scenic, historical, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water resource, and archeological values.
If these bills manage somehow to clear Congress, President Obama should ink up that too-little used veto stamp and deep-six them with as much ceremony that is given to bills that get signed.
The fact of the matter is the oil-and-gas industry isn't being held back by onerous red tape on developing land it's leased. It's not using 7,000 already-approved drilling permits for federal and Indian lands. 7,000. Already got the lease. Already got the final permit to go ahead. So what's the problem again?
If Big Oil were producing energy from its own bullshit, we'd already be free of fossil fuel.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/bGeGWipnMgo/-Safeway-s-general-counsel-tells-hilarious-sexist-joke-at-annual-shareholder-meeting
Everyone knows that opening a meeting with a joke is a great icebreaker. And at the annual meeting of Safeway Inc.'s shareholders, Senior Vice President and General Counsel Robert Gordon opened with a real knee-slapper:
You know, this is the season when companies and other institutions are interested in enhancing their reputation and their image for the general public, and one of the institutions that's doing this is the Secret Service, particularly after the calamity in Colombia. And among the instructions given to the Secret Service agents was to try to agree with the president more and support his decisions. And that led to this exchange that took place last week, when the president flew into the White House lawn and an agent greeted him at the helicopter.
The president was carrying two pigs under his arms and the Secret Service agents said, "Nice pigs, sir."
And the president said, "These are not ordinary pigs, these are genuine Arkansas razorback hogs. I got one for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and one for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."
And the Secret Service agent said, "Excellent trade, sir."
(Laughter)
Isn't that funny? Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton are worth less than pigs! Ha!
If you can't see the humor in that joke, you obviously are a humorless feminist who refuses to see the inherent comedy in unfavorably comparing two of the most powerful women in the world to pigs. It's just a joke, after all. Lighten up. A senior executive of a major corporation would never engage in actual sexism, especially at a meeting that he knew would be recorded and posted to the internet. So obviously it was just some harmless, lighthearted fun. Right? And not one single person in that room who laughed at this "joke" would find humor in real sexism. After all, it's 2012. Women can vote and run for office and own property and everything! And just look at the huge advancements women have made in the boardroom. Why, even a whopping, record-breaking 3.6 percent of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. (Even though they make only 69 percent of what male CEOs make.) And only 10 percent of those Fortune 500 companies (of which Safeway is number 63) have all-male boards of directors. Even Safeway has one. Just one. Progress!
And besides, Safeway has a strict Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which Steve Burd, Safeway's chairman, president and CEO, proudly claims is a hallmark of its "well-deserved reputation for honesty, integrity and fair dealing."
Because nothing says "integrity" like making jokes about powerful women who are worth less than pigs. Ha ha ha!
Of course, what's extraordinary about this "joke" is that it's not extraordinary. It's a blatantly sexist, disrespectful joke that a high-level executive at a major Fortune 500 corporation felt perfectly comfortable telling at a meeting that he knew was being recorded and webcast out to the world. Because it's just a joke. Who could possibly take offense? Certainly this kind of run-of-the-mill sexism garners laughs in boardrooms and executive offices all over America. This is just the way it works.
And that's the problem. It's this kind of casual sexism that contributes to a corporate culture in which women are still not especially welcome. Yes, things have changed and improved, but women are still woefully underrepresented—and underpaid—and it's not hard to see why, when corporate America is still so obviously a boys' club where women are merely the butt of a joke to warm up a crowd.
Until the highest echelons of corporate America no longer feel perfectly comfortable cracking "jokes" like this, women—even the 3.6 percent who now run Fortune 500 companies (at a reduced rate)—still have a long road ahead before we can achieve full equality.
Send an email to Safeway to let them know what you think of the general counsel's "joke."
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/mdwCpJXJmP8/-Politico-Sunday-talk-shows-don-t-want-to-appear-partisan 
Sunday talk show roster
Politico's Dylan Byers weighed in Wednesday morning with a theory about why the Sunday talk shows haven't booked Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein. It's all because "none of these shows want to appear partisan."
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
And, puhleez.
Prompted by Greg Sargent's commentary, I noted Tuesday that Mann and Ornstein's hotly discussed op-ed saying Republican extremism is behind government dysfunctionalism ought to be the topic of at least one of the Sunday talk shows. Their format is tailor-made for the kind of in-depth dissection that such a thesis deserves. And yet, the two men have not been invited on any of the shows to explain themselves.
Byers called CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC to ask why not and got what he called a "nearly unanimous" response: They don't comment on their booking practices. "Nearly unanimous" would suggest that one out of the four did explain why the two men hadn't been booked. But we aren't told what that one said. Instead:
Worth noting, too, that all of these shows have a pretty significant backlog of potential guests, and only an hour each week. But there's a fair chance the thesis is being overlooked because none of these shows want to appear partisan.
Apparently, Byers sleeps in on Sundays. I don't blame him. But as I documented by not sleeping in over a 16-month period, and others also have demonstrated here and here and here and here and here, the Sunday talk shows are relentlessly partisan. A partisanship that favors Republicans when Republicans are in power and out of power.
Perhaps, if they didn't dial up John McCain every Friday to see if he's available to discuss whatever they decide needs discussing, some headway could be made on that "backlog of potential guests."
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/wnW6mu9dSrw/-Brian-Schweitzer-defeats-Max-Baucus-in-2014-hypothetical-Montana-primary
Public Policy Polling (PDF). 4/26-29. Usual Democratic primary voters. MoE 5.4%
Max Baucus (D) 37
Brian Schweitzer (D) 48
As chair of the Senate finance committee, Sen. Max Baucus led the charge against even cursory exploration of a single-payer system (which could've been used, at worst, as a bargaining chip toward making the public option the default compromise), then hosted the so-called Gang of Six "negotiations" with Sens. Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley and arch-conservative Mike Enzi. For Baucus' troubles, those Republicans would later brag about how they used those pretend negotiations to delay consideration of any law through the end of 2009.
"If I hadn't been involved in this process as long as I have and to the depth as I have, you would already have national health care," [Sen. Mike Enzi] said. "It's not where I get them to compromise, it's what I get them to leave out."
In other words, if it wasn't for Baucus enabling Enzi and his friends, we could've avoided the long, protracted battle over the health care law that allowed conservatives to rally around the tea party and demonize the law, all the while demoralizing liberals into electoral-crushing apathy.
It's no secret that Baucus and Gov. Brian Schweitzer hate each other, and it's partly due to health care. Schweitzer has been aggressively pushing a single-payer health care system in Montana, while Baucus finds Schweitzer to be foolish and unrealistic in pushing for it.
If Schweitzer ran for Senate, it wouldn't be close. In fact, expect Baucus to retire in that eventuality. However, Schweitzer has been coy about his political future. One factor potentially at play—he'll be far less likely to pull the trigger on a 2014 Senate bid if he has designs on a 2016 White House bid. Don't discount the latter.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/AGj9qBnDqKc/-John-Boehner-s-debt-ceiling-line-in-the-sand-stops-short-at-the-Paul-Ryan-budget- 
Speaker John Boehner (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
House Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling hostage-taking threats include the requirement that any increase to the debt limit has be matched "dollar-for-dollar" by other cuts and "reforms."
Tough stance he's taking there, and a selective one, too, since the House-approved Paul Ryan budget would actually increase the deficit by $5 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Boehner's debt ceiling demand doesn't extend to that $5 trillion increase, and he's unbothered by the inconsistency.
CNN’s Erin Burnett, interviewing Boehner Tuesday after his speech, confronted him about the contradiction.
“Yeah, the big bad House Republican budget that would just gut everything under the sun, according to my friends across the aisle, would still require a $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling over the next 10 years,” Boehner said. “Why? Because of the great big demographic bubble—baby boomers like me, that are going to retire and continue to retire for the next 20-25 years. It’s a big challenge.”
In fact, the Ryan budget includes large tax cuts that would bring about a $4.6 trillion reduction in federal revenues, according to the Tax Policy Center.
Do the Republicans care about the deficit? Of course not. They care about keeping tax cuts for rich people, exploding the defense budget, and undoing every good thing government does for the American people. It's not about the deficit. It's never been about the deficit.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/R8JXfikBUX4/-The-Chronicles-of-Mitt-May-16-2012
Hello, human diary. It is I again, Mitt Romney, your better.
We are in Florida today. Never have I seen a state in which the trees were so obviously of the wrong height. As president, one of my first actions would be to order the removal of every tree in this state. Whether it be trees, hair, or workforces, nothing irritates me as much as things that are of the wrong dimension.
Today we instituted a new campaign policy in which reporter units are no longer permitted to ask questions or, for that matter, approach me closely. Eric F. is for some reason of the opinion that this will limit the number of gaffes within the campaign. It will also allow me more time to bond with the local commoners, which I believe I am getting more practiced at. I now think of it as algorithmically similar to water-skiing. If I am doing well, it is because of my skill. If I am not doing well, it is because the water is the wrong height. (I also have inquiries out as to which local food Florida might be most known for, so that I may praise it and assert my satisfaction with it.)
We have now received the endorsement of my old debate opponent, Herman Cain. We have been doing fairly well recently in gathering the endorsements of washed-up or discredited Republican units. I have instructed the campaign to also seek out endorsements from competent Republicans, but they have informed me that this will be problematic for various reasons.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/M8KLJ-UDnwA/-James-O-Keefe-s-dead-North-Carolina-voter-not-dead-yet-
James O'Keefe's criminal sloppiness in his "journalistic" efforts to prove that voter fraud is real is becoming legion. His antics in North Carolina aren't helping his case. Fact checkers have already found out that a voter he said wasn't a citizen actually is a citizen, and more than qualified to vote.
And now we find out that a tactic that bit him in the ass in New Hampshire—attempting to obtain a ballot in the name of a dead person who turned out not to be dead at all—got him again in North Carolina.
Here's what O'Keefe proclaims on the latest Project Veritas video from North Carolina:
O'KEEFE: We found ballots being offered out in the name of the dead. One man, Michael Bolton, had died April 23, but apparently the Board of Elections didn't get the memo, and his ballot was offered to us on May 8.
Here's what the raw footage O'Keefe's minions took shows:
In the ensuing video clip, an O'Keefe operative at a polling place tells a poll worker, "The name is Michael G. Bolton." There is then a jump cut, and in the next clip the poll worker is telling the operative to sign or make an mark in the pollbook to affirm his identity. The operative then says he would feel more comfortable if he could show his photo ID, and leaves.
Something very important happens during that jump cut. As the raw video reveals, the poll worker says, "You must be a junior? ... Michael G. Bolton, Jr.?" to which O'Keefe's operative responds: "That would be correct."
Yes, as multiple obituaries for Bolton note, he was survived by, among others, his son Michael Gordon Bolton, Jr. Public records searches using the Nexis database confirm that Bolton Jr. was registered to vote at the same address given to the poll worker by the O'Keefe operative.
Gee, who'd have guessed O'Keefe would have heavily edited his video to further a big lie? His researchers had to have read the obituary they used to know that he was dead (that's how they get their list of dead voters to try to get ballots for) and have seen, oh yeah, his son has the same name. But they don't really care about nailing down the details like that, because they can always just edit away anything that's inconvenient for them.
But you'd think at this point he'd have been burned enough to either do his homework better, or leave out the stuff that it's so easy to catch him lying about. Of course, if he were actually committed to telling the truth, I guess there wouldn't be anything to put in any of his videos. Because, outside of his stunts, voter fraud doesn't really happen.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/Ik_2SjUI-0o/-Mitt-Romney-finally-responds-to-Bain-attacks-by-blaming-Obama-for-destroying-auto-industry 
Sorry, Mitt: Under President Obama, the auto industry is doing quite well
(Chart: Total auto industry employment. Source: BLS.gov.)
My God, Mitt Romney is delusional. I mean, he really is. It's almost getting to the point where Sarah Palin ain't got nothing on him. Check out the latest, via the Washington Post's Philip Rucker:
“The most recent attacks are really off target and I think they know,” Romney said. “They said, ‘Oh, gosh, Governor Romney at Bain Capital closed down a steel factory.’ But their problem, of course, is that the steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital. I was no longer there, so that’s hardly something which is on my watch.”
Then Romney tried to lay blame for auto job losses on Obama.
“We were able to help create over 100,000 jobs,” Romney said of his tenure at Bain, the venture capital and corporate buyout firm he founded. “On the president’s watch, about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry and auto dealers and auto manufacturers, so he’s hardly one to point a finger.”
Romney was talking with a conservative blogger, which explains why he was willing to talk about Bain—he's unwilling to touch the subject with anyone who isn't firmly in his camp. And it's a good thing (for him) that he was talking to an ally, because if he made that comment to any decent reporter (yeah, I know, fat chance), he'd have gotten himself in trouble.
First of all, on Romney's claim that he had left Bain by the time GST Steel went bankrupt, he had "full, sole ownership" of Bain when GST Steel went under. Yes, he was running the Olympics at the time, but Bain was still his company—and it was (and is) where he got his paycheck from. More importantly, he was the CEO of Bain when the company was bought in 1993 and he was CEO of Bain when it was loaded up with debt. Romney was there for all the decisions that led to the bankruptcy.
Second, his claim of creating 100,000 jobs is totally absurd (which explains why he only uses it in front of friendly audiences). Neither Romney nor Bain have ever opened their books to verify anything about the claims made by Romney, but given that he claimed to have created 10,000 jobs in 1994, any sort of defense of the 100,000 number would carry past 1999 ... even though he says he can't be held accountable for anything that happened after 1999. But again, Romney has never explained that number, so there's no way for anyone to assess it's veracity.
Third, Mitt Romney is lying when he says President Obama destroyed 100,000 jobs in the auto industry. In fact, the auto industry as a whole has gained nearly 75,000 jobs since January 2009 and is up by nearly 140,000 jobs since June 2009. Contrast that exploding growth with 255,000 jobs that were lost in the industry in the year before Obama took office—and consider the fact that the industry would have disappeared had Obama not taken action, destroying hundreds of thousands more jobs.
The bottom line is that those numbers show why Mitt Romney tried to claim credit for saving the auto industry last week even though he said he wanted it to go bankrupt. President Obama saved the auto industry and he a took a big political risk in doing so. Unlike Mitt Romney, President Obama had nothing at stake financially. He was just trying to do the right thing.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, put thousands of workers' jobs on the line by loading their companies up with debt and paying himself with borrowed money. Many of those companies survived, but when they failed, it was the workers (and sometimes taxpayers) who paid the price—not Mitt Romney. He still made money. Heads he won, tails they lost. Either way, he came out ahead. Mitt Romney calls that free enterprise, but I think most Americans would call it playing by a different set of rules.
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http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/KcDRcnTUmn0/-Republicans-in-Senate-vote-overwhelmingly-for-Paul-Ryan-s-extreme-nbsp-budget- 
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Jim Young/Reuters)
Today, except for a couple of hypocrites worried about reelection, Senate Republicans joined their House brethren and voted to end Medicare as we know it. The only really interesting vote was on Rep. Paul Ryan's budget, the one that the House passed and that Mitt Romney has endorsed. It failed 58-41.
Five Republicans (Scott Brown [MA], Susan Collins [ME], Dean Heller [NV], Rand Paul [KY] and Olympia Snowe [ME]) rejected that bill. For his part, Heller (in a tight reelection race with Rep. Shelley Berkley) said:
“Today’s votes were not a serious effort to pass a budget. After this charade, our nation is no closer to economic prosperity or addressing our massive national debt. I have voted on Republican budgets in the past. It’s no secret where I stand, but every measure brought up for a vote today was meant to fail. It is past time Members of Congress hold themselves accountable and do the job they were elected to do, not hold meaningless votes designed for nothing more than campaign press releases. The biggest problem is both sides of the aisle are at fault. [...]"
As with Brown, Heller's no vote likely had a lot more to do with reelection than with principle. Neither of them wants anything to do with ending Medicare as we know it, and giving their Democratic opponents this ammunition.
Which makes you wonder why 41 Republicans were so anxious to embrace it. Embrace it they did, much to Democrats' delight. The Ryan budget will be no more popular this year than it was last year. Which makes this not a totally useless day in the Senate. Just a mostly useless one.
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/u3tEhqO41_g/just-breathe.html http://www.lifehack.org/?p=24766 
 
One of the things I like about my job is that I can do things like watch iTunesU…and claim it’s work.
While doing that recently I came across a lecture by Dr Margaret Chesney of the UCSF Osher Centre for Integrative Medicine. It’s a long (nearly 90 minutes long) lecture ,but the contents are great if you’re trying to find tools for coping and dealing the crud life throws at you. So I’ve put together a summary in this piece.
(If you want the subtlties you’ll just have to listen through for yourself.)
There’s a lot in common with the work of people like Professor Martin Seligman’s work on confidence and happiness (and so on), but there’s a new twist to it too — which is covered a lot more in the video than in this summary.
In short…it’s based on the acronym BREATHE.
B
Be in the moment. Simple. Make a point of noticing what’s going on around you, right here, right now. Try some conscious breathing exercises to help increase your awareness. (You can have a look at almost any writing about ‘mindfulness‘ to help you here, too.) The important thing is to become aware of the here-and-now.
R
Realistic goals – set ‘em. Don’t set yourself targets that you can’t possibly achieve. That way you’re making things worse for yourself because you’re setting yourself up for a continuous stream of failure. By all means stretch yourself but don’t over-stretch yourself. Stretch shouldn’t become ‘strain’.
E
Everyday events – notice them. Dr Chesney has a lovely moment of pointing out to people that they really hate not being able to breathe easily when they’ve got a cold… and they hate it… and they notice it… but how many people notice it when they’ve not got a cold and can breathe easily? Things like ‘gratitude logs’ help here.
Or just stop, right now, and do nothing for a few minutes except jot down the good things around you that you should be grateful for.. and that you are grateful for, now you’ve taken the time to think of them! Let’s start with the fact that you’ve got eyes that work enough to read this (or something to read it for you!) and electricity to work your computer to display it…. you get the idea!
A
Acts of kindness – do ‘em! Creating positive moments for other people makes you feel better and makes you feel better about yourself. Quite apart from that, it makes their day better too! Making the world a better place one act of kindness at a time? Cool!
T
Turn around the negatives. This one’s a challenge. It’s about reframing stuff and finding the ‘silver lining’ to your cloud. Sure it’s not easy and some things just don’t have a silver lining that you can find at the time but a lot of stuff does. Most things in fact. Almost everything.
No one is saying it’s easy or that bad stuff isn’t bad stuff – just that trying to use the bad stuff and mitigate it with a sliver of good is better than just being a victim.
H
Honour your strengths – be true to yourself. Be true to your values. Be true to what you’re good at – and admit that you’re good at things. Make a point of listing them. Don’t pretend you don’t have any – false modesty isn’t anything to be proud of… and people see through it easily enough anyway recognising it as a form of arrogance. So what’s wrong with just accepting to yourself that you’re good at something – and then acting on it!!?
E
End each day with gratitude – check what has happened that day. Go over it and find the good in it. For those things that weren’t so good, decide what you can do about them. What can you learn; what can you do differently? If there’s nothing (really?!!?) let go. Sleep well, knowing that you’ve got a plan and you’re not wallowing in the bad…. :)
I hope I’ve done Dr Chesney justice. If you want the full thing, here you go!
(Photo credit: Breathe via Shutterstock)
Simon runs a soft skills training company called Aware Plus in the UK, but is probably best known for his work as a presentation skills trainer. He's also becoming known as a speaker on emotional robustness and personal resilience... he's also a fairly proficient fire-eater!  
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annathepiper | |
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The Kickstarter has concluded, with a grand final tally of $5,010.23 raised by 137 backers, and 125% of the funding goal! I got a lovely little flurry of backers in at the last minute, and backer Andrew in Fort St. John in Canada snuck in in the very final seconds–mad props to Andrew for that timing!
Many, many thanks to all who’ve supported the project, and I’m looking very forward to getting the stories and the soundtrack out to backers! I commend everyone’s attention to Update #31 on the project page, wherein I give a rough schedule of when everything is targeted to go out!
Any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! And again, mad, mad thanks, love, and hugs to all y’all out there who’ve chimed in with your support and your signal boosts! Each and every one of you are made entirely of awesome! 
Mirrored from angelakorrati.com. Tags: bone walker kickstarter
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busy
cranky
This volume contains the first half of Season 1. Volume 2 should be available in about a month, with other volumes to follow.
chipper
