Wed, Apr 29 2009
HERE, PIGGY PIGGY PIGGIE...
WHO confirms pandemic threat raised to 5 out of 6
GENEVA (Reuters) – World Health Organization director-general Dr. Margaret Chan raised the pandemic threat awareness level to 5 out of 6 on Wednesday, meaning the world is at imminent risk of a pandemic from H1N1 swine flu.
"I have decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5," Chan told a news briefing.
[had a feeling it would be pandemic and not nukes that ended up trimming overpopulation...]Wed, Apr 29 2009
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Mon, Apr 27 2009
END THE FED RALLY IN NYC
Peter Schiff talks at the "End The Fed" rally in New York City:
Sat, Apr 25 2009
GOODNIGHT, BEA
'Golden Girls' star Bea Arthur dies at 86
LOS ANGELES, Associated Press– Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress who considered herself lucky to be discovered by television executives after a long stage career that included a Tony award for the musical "Mame," died Saturday at age 86.
The star of the TV shows "Maude" and "The Golden Girls" died peacefully at her Los Angeles home with her family at her side, family spokesman Dan Watt said. She had cancer, he said, but declined to give details.
"She was a brilliant and witty woman," said Watt, who was Arthur's personal assistant for six years. "Bea will always have a special place in my heart."
Arthur first appeared in the landmark comedy series "All in the Family" as Edith Bunker's outspoken, liberal cousin, Maude Finley. She proved a perfect foil for blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), and their blistering exchanges were so entertaining that producer Norman Lear fashioned Arthur's own series.
In a 2008 interview with The Associated Press, Arthur recalled with bemusement being discovered by CBS executives asking about the new "girl."
"I was already 50 years old. I had done so much off-Broadway, on Broadway, but they said, `Who is that girl? Let's give her her own series,'" Arthur said.
"Maude" scored with television viewers immediately on its CBS debut in September 1972, and Arthur won an Emmy Award for the role in 1977.
The comedy flowed from Maude's efforts to cast off the traditional restraints that women faced, but the series often had a serious base. Her husband Walter (Bill Macy) became an alcoholic, and she underwent an abortion, which drew a torrent of viewer protests. Maude became a standard bearer for the growing feminist movement in America.
"She was an incredible actress and a woman I will miss, and I think everyone else will," said Bud Yorkin, producer of "Maude" with partner Lear.
The ratings of "Maude" in the early years approached those of its parent, "All in the Family," but by 1977 the audience started to dwindle. A major format change was planned, but in early 1978 Arthur announced she was quitting the show.
"It's been absolutely glorious; I've loved every minute of it," she said. "But it's been six years, and I think it's time to leave."
"Golden Girls" (1985-1992) was another groundbreaking comedy, finding surprising success in a television market increasingly skewed toward a younger, product-buying audience.
The series concerned three retirees — Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan — and the mother of Arthur's character, Estelle Getty, who lived together in a Miami house. In contrast to the violent "Miami Vice," the comedy was nicknamed "Miami Nice."
As Dorothy Zbornak, Arthur seemed as caustic and domineering as Maude. She was unconcerned about the similarity of the two roles. "Look — I'm 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice and I have a way with a line," she told an interviewer. "What can I do about it? I can't stay home waiting for something different. I think it's a total waste of energy worrying about typecasting."
The interplay among the four women and their relations with men fueled the comedy, and the show amassed a big audience and 10 Emmys, including two as best comedy series and individual awards for each of the stars.
More yaddah...Fri, Apr 24 2009
..AND THE FUCKERS GET AWAY WITH IT ALL...
Obama is a total tool.
Wed, Apr 22 2009
EARTH DAY IRONY
In this touching photo, school children celebrating Earth Day release balloons containing seeds, which theoretically will fall to earth when the balloon ruptures, take root, and grow into mighty trees.
So, what happens again to those plastic balloons tied with plastic string that fall back to earth and have a half-life of a gazillion years?Wed, Apr 22 2009
GLOBAL EXCESSES SINCE WORLD WAR 2 BEING PURGED
Like all cycles, this expansionary one since WW2 is coming to a close. Those that have pooh-pooed the contraction will now be bleating about 'unfairness' as they realize their pants are down around their ankles. These are the folks that are still hopeing for good times to come back any day now. Full capitulation to reality will take place sometime in summer of 2010. When you hear everyone saying there is no end to the bad, that's when we've turned the corner and it's time to buy back in.
Global economy may shrink for 1st time in 60 years
WASHINGTON, Associated Press – The world economy is likely to shrink this year for the first time in six decades.
The International Monetary Fund projected the 1.3 percent drop in a dour forecast released Wednesday. That could leave at least 10 million more people around the world jobless, some private economists said.
"By any measure, this downturn represents by far the deepest global recession since the Great Depression," the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook. "All corners of the globe are being affected."
The new forecast of a decline in global economic activity for 2009 is much weaker than the 0.5 percent growth the IMF had estimated in January.
Big factors in the gloomier outlook: It's expected to take longer than previously thought to stabilize world financial markets and get credit flowing freely again to consumers and businesses. Doing so will be necessary to lift the U.S., and the global economy, out of recession.
The report comes in advance of Friday's meetings between the United States and other major economic powers, and weekend sessions of the IMF and World Bank. The talks will seek to flesh out the commitments made at a G-20 leaders summit in London last month, when President Barack Obama and the others pledged to boost financial support for the IMF and other international lending institutions by $1.1 trillion.
The IMF's outlook for the U.S. is bleaker than for the world as a whole: It predicts the U.S. economy will shrink 2.8 percent this year. That would mark the biggest such decline since 1946.
Among the major industrialized nations studied, Japan is expected to suffer the sharpest contraction this year: 6.2 percent. Russia's economy would shrink 6 percent, Germany 5.6 percent and Britain 4.1 percent. Mexico's economic activity would contract 3.7 percent and Canada's 2.5 percent.
Global powerhouse China, meanwhile, is expected to see its growth slow to 6.5 percent this year. India's growth is likely to slow to 4.5 percent.
All told, the lost output could be as high as $4 trillion this year alone, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner estimated.
Besides trillions in lost business, a sinking world economy means fewer trade opportunities and higher unemployment. It raises the odds more people will fall into poverty, go hungry or lose their homes. And while keeping a lid on interest rates and consumer prices, the global recession increases the risk of deflation, which would drag down prices and wages, making it harder for people to make payments on their debt.
The jobless rate in the United States is expected to average 8.9 percent this year and climb to 10.1 percent next year, the IMF said.
More yaddah...Tue, Apr 21 2009
THINGS ARE LOOKING UP
Mon, Apr 20 2009
(OUR) STUDIES SHOW THAT'S NOT A PROBLEM
Tons of released drugs taint US water
Associated Press - U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.
The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.
To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.
More yaddah...Fri, Apr 17 2009
TESTING
WTF? Looks like the upload publish feature of the blog is broken. AM I gonna hafta finally move thisturkey to WordPress?
Fri, Apr 17 2009
EQUAL RIGHTS
Fri, Apr 17 2009
SUSAN BOYLE CAN SING
Hokey smokes. It was not a fluke, this girl really CAN sing:
"Cry Me A River" is about as far on the other end of "I Dreamed a Dream" as you can get, and Susan is actually doing a better cover than Diana Krall!
Whoa. BIG talent under that frumpy outside.Thu, Apr 16 2009
ROUBINI LOOKS INTO HIS CRYSTAL BALL
Professor Nouriel Roubini, the Global Implosion Yoda (correctly calling, years in advance, every single step of the avalanche so far), reassesses is prognosis and tells us:
"As I have argued over and over again I am not a perma-bear and will be the first to call for a sustained economic recovery and recovery of the financial markets when I see one. And while now the real economy is not any more in the L-shaped free fall in which it was in Q4 of 2008 and Q1 of 2009 (second derivatives are turning positive) we are still in the middle of a severe U-shaped recession that will last much longer than what expected by the current consensus that sees positive growth by Q3 of this year and growth close to potential (2% plus) next year. We at RGE (our 200 page Global Economic Outlook will be out in two weeks) instead see the US recession lasting until at least Q4 of this year (still -1.5% growth by Q4) and the positive growth next year being so low (0.5%) and the unemployment rate rising to 10% by the summer of this year and peaking well above 11% next year that it will feel like a recession even in 2010 even if we are technically out of it some time next year. The latest awful numbers on retail sales, job losses, initial claims, PPI deflation and business inventories are dashing the delusions of the optimists that there is light at the end of the tunnel already by Q3 of 2009. We don't see any meaningful evidence that the economy will bottom out before 2010."
Okey-dokey then.
Stormy weather gathering strength though the year, and heavy rain into summer of the following year, but it will still feel like the storm is on us at the end of next year even though technically the clouds are dissipating.
Good to know - buy gold now, buy real estate next summer, and batten down the hatches for an increasingly socialistic-leaning-towards-fascist government presence.
My plan: make teh moniez and blow teh countriez.
Wed, Apr 15 2009
NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER
48 years old. Lives with her cat. Looking for a job. Never been married. Frumpy and frowsy, you would never give her a second look on the street. Nice quiet church-going lady. Modest to a fault, with a cheeky sense of humor.
And a voice....
... like an angel.
Meet Susan Boyle, and listen to one of the finest renditions of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables ever performed. Musical theater enthusiasts know Les Miz is one of the greatest pieces of the genre ever written, and "Dream" is one of the most difficult songs to give the proper emotional tone and range it deserves, with perhaps 1 out of 100 top-tier professional performers able to give it justice.
Auditioning for a cynical audience and judges (including Simon Cowell) on the UK show "Britain's Got Talent", Susan effortlessly smacks it right out of the park:
Heck, I'll buy her CD. Girl can sing.
Tue, Apr 14 2009
GOODNIGHT, MARILYN
Marilyn Chambers passed away. Back in my misspent youth, she opened my eyes to what sexuality could be through her porn classic, "Behind The Green Door". She always struck me as an utterly self-posessed, sweet person. Have fun, girlfriend!
X-rated star Marilyn Chambers dies at 56
LOS ANGELES, Associated Press – Marilyn Chambers, the pretty Ivory Snow girl who helped bring hard-core adult films into the mainstream consciousness when she starred in the explicit 1972 movie "Behind the Green Door," has died at 56.
The cause of death was not immediately known. A family friend, Peggy McGinn, said Chambers' 17-year-old daughter found the actress' body Sunday night at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Canyon Country. Chambers was pronounced dead at the scene, the county coroner's office said Monday.
Chambers and fellow actresses Linda Lovelace and Georgina Spelvin shot to fame at a time in the early 1970s when both American social mores and the quality of hard-core sex films were changing.
For the first time, films like "Behind the Green Door" and "Deep Throat" (also released in 1972 and starring Lovelace) had decent acting and legitimate if fairly thin plots. As the audiences for them grew to include couples, they also began to take on higher production values and to be seen in places other than sleazy theaters.
But "Behind the Green Door" brought something more in Chambers, an attractive young woman who had begun her career as a legitimate actress and model.
While the film was still in theaters, the public learned that its star was the same young blonde smiling and holding a freshly diapered baby on boxes of Ivory Snow laundry soap (which the company touted as "99 and 44/100 percent pure"). The manufacturer quickly replaced her, but it was later discovered that she also had a small role in the 1970 Barbra Streisand film "The Owl and the Pussycat."
"She was the first crossover adult star. She was the Ivory Snow girl and when she decided to make an adult movie that was big news," Steven Hirsch, co-CEO of adult filmmaker Vivid Entertainment Group, told The Associated Press on Monday.
"It was the first adult movie that was more than just a bunch of sex scenes," Hirsch said of her breakthrough film. "She was an actress and she brought that ability to the set of 'Behind the Green Door.' That's part of what made that movie so successful."
In an online chat with AdultDVDtalk.com in 2000, Chambers attempted to explain what caused her to take such a radically different career path after "The Owl and the Pussycat" and her modeling work.
"Back then in my naive brain I was thinking that something like 'Behind the Green Door' had never been done before and the way our sexual revolution was traveling I really thought it was going to be a stepping stone which would further my acting career," she said.
She learned afterward, she said, that wasn't the case.
"There will always be a stigma on people who do adult films," she said. "It's unfortunate that that's the way society has made it."
She followed "Green Door" with the hard-core films "Resurrection of Eve," in 1973 and "Inside Marilyn Chambers" in 1975.
Then she announced in 1976 that she was giving up adult films to pursue other interests. She starred in the 1977 horror movie "Rabid" and put together a song-and-dance show that played Las Vegas and elsewhere.
She returned to adult films in 1980 in "Insatiable" and through the rest of her career went back and forth between explicit movies and R-rated ones.
"She was a pioneer, and an amazingly secure woman. I admired her for being at the forefront of an industry that was so taboo when she started," said Jenna Jameson, currently one of the industry's biggest stars.
Hirsch noted that one of the most striking things about Chambers' career was its longevity in a business where stars quickly fade. She still has a photo gallery on the Web site Adult Video News and the Internet Movie Database credits her as recently completing a film called, "Porndogs: The Adventures of Sadie" with Ron Jeremy.
Although Chambers was quick to point out in 2000 that she had done more R-rated films that X-rated ones, she made no apologies for the latter.
"I have to say that the adult films have been a total pleasure," she said. "They were like getting paid to live out my greatest fantasies. The rest of the stuff ... sometimes got to be a real grind."
Chambers, born Marilyn Ann Briggs, on April 22, 1952, grew up in Westport, Conn. She got her start in adult films after answering an ad placed in a San Francisco newspaper by pioneering adult filmmakers Jim and Artie Mitchell.
Married and divorced three times, she is survived by her daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor; her brother, Bill Briggs; and her sister, Jann Smith.
Mon, Apr 13 2009
WHAT IF
Ron Paul tells it like it is AGAIN...
Sat, Apr 11 2009
EQUALITY, FREEDOM, JUSTICE
Wed, Apr 08 2009
EVOLUTION CONTINUES UNABATED
Modern life's pressures may be hastening human evolution
WASHINGTON — We're not finished yet. Even today, scientists say that human beings are continuing to evolve as our genes respond to rapid changes in the world around us.
In fact, the pressures of modern life may be speeding up the pace of human evolution, some anthropologists think.
Their view contradicts the widespread 20th-century assumption that modern medical practice, antibiotics, better diet and other advances would protect people from the perils and stresses that drive evolutionary change.
Nowadays, the idea that "human evolution is a continuing process is widely accepted among anthropologists,'' said Robert Wald Sussman , the editor of the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis .
It's even conceivable, he said, that our genes eventually will change enough to create an entirely new human species, one no longer able to breed with our own species, Homo sapiens.
"Someday in the far distant future, enough genetic changes might have occurred so that future populations could not interbreed with the current one,'' Sussman said in an e-mail message.
The still-controversial concept of "ongoing evolution'' was much discussed last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Chicago .
It's also the topic of a new book, "The 10,000 Year Explosion,'' by anthropologists Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah , Salt Lake City .
"For most of the last century, the received wisdom in the social sciences has been that human evolution stopped a long time ago,'' Harpending said. "Clearly, received wisdom is wrong, and human evolution has continued.''
In their book, the Utah anthropologists contend that "human evolution has accelerated in the past 10,000 years, rather than slowing or stopping. . . . The pace has been so rapid that humans have changed significantly in body and mind over recorded history.''
Evolutionary changes result when random mutations or damage to DNA from such factors as radiation, smoking or toxic chemicals create new varieties of genes. Some gene changes are harmful, most have no effect and a few provide advantages that are passed on to future generations. If they're particularly beneficial, they spread throughout the population.
"Any gene variant that increases your chance of having children early and often should be favored,'' Cochran said in an e-mail message.
This is the process of "natural selection,'' which Charles Darwin proposed 150 years ago and is still the heart of modern evolutionary theory.
For example, a tiny change in a gene for skin color played a major role in the evolution of pale skin in humans who migrated from Africa to northern Europe , while people who remained in Africa kept their dark skin. That dark skin protected Africans from the tropical sun's dangerous ultraviolet rays; northerners' lighter skin allowed sunlight to produce more vitamin D, important for bone growth.
Another set of gene variants produced a different shade of light skin in Asia .
"Asians and Europeans are both bleached Africans, but they evolved different bleaches,'' Harpending said.
Despite modern medical and technological advances, the pressures that lead to evolution by natural selection have continued.
The massive AIDS epidemic that's raging in southern Africa , for example, is "almost certainly'' causing gene variants that protect against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to accumulate in the African population, Harpending said.
When he was asked how many genes currently are evolving, Harpending replied: "A lot. Several hundred at least, maybe over a thousand.''
Another anthropologist, John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison , said, "Our evolution has recently accelerated by around 100-fold.''
A key reason, Hawks said, is the enormous growth of the world's population, which multiplies the size of the gene pool available to launch new varieties.
"Today, beneficial mutation must be happening far more than ever before, since there are more than 6 billion of us,'' Cochran said.
The changes are so rapid that "we could, in the very near future, compare the genes of old people and young people'' to detect newly evolving genes, Cochran said. Skeletons from a few thousand or even a few hundred years ago also might provide evidence of genetic change.
"Human evolution didn't stop when anatomically modern humans appeared or when they expanded out of Africa ,'' Harpending said. "It never stopped.''Wed, Apr 08 2009
WHO OWNS THE USA
Wed, Apr 08 2009
WHO OWNS THE GOVERNMENT
Fri, Apr 03 2009
THE RIGHT WORD FOR OUR TIMES
Subject: SHIT
THE MOST FUNCTIONAL ENGLISH WORD
Well, it's shit ... that's right, shit!
Shit may just be the most functional word in the English language.
Consider:
You can get shit-faced, Be shit-out-of-luck, Or have shit for brains.
With a little effort, you can get your shit together, find a place for your shit, or be asked to shit or get off the pot.
You can smoke shit, buy shit, sell shit, lose shit, find shit, forget shit,
and tell others to eat shit.
Some people know their shit, while others can't tell the difference
between shit and shineola.
There are lucky shits, dumb shits, and crazy shits. There is bull shit, horse shit, and chicken shit.
You can throw shit, sling shit, catch shit, shoot the shit, or duck when the shit hits the fan.
You can give a shit or serve shit on a shingle.
You can find yourself in deep shit or be happier than a pig in shit.
Some days are colder than shit, some days are hotter than shit,
and some days are just plain shitty.
Some music sounds like shit, things can look like shit, and there are times when you feel like shit.
You can have too much shit, not enough shit, the right shit, the wrong shit or a lot of weird shit.
You can carry shit, have a mountain of shit, or find yourself up shit creek without a paddle.
Sometimes everything you touch turns to shit and other times you fall in a bucket of shit and come out smelling like a rose.
When you stop to consider all the facts, it's the basic building block of the English language.
And remember, once you know your shit, you don't need to know anything else!!
You could pass this along, if you give a shit; or not do so if you don't give a shit!
Well, Shit, it's time for me to go. Just wanted you to know that I do give a shit and hope you had a nice day, without a bunch of shit. But, if you happened to catch a load of shit from some shit-head...........
Well, Shit Happens!!!
Fri, Apr 03 2009
NOTHING NEW
Chicago Tribune, 1934. Has anything changed?
All news articles and images provided under the Fair Use Notice.