No fucking way in hell

No goddamn son of a fucking bitch in hell fucking point but I love the headline.

Go to the source if you're curious.

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Happy Father’s Day

Wasn't gonna do this "happy father's day" shit, but...

BTW the ' in father's is wrong.

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Newspaper productivity: The prolific use of a comma

This be a strange story in that it has nothing to do with the headline. No mention of the oft maligned comma which I use too fucking often.

That said, I, for one, am averse, at least, to using, like, too many commas, that is, if at all, ya know, possible.

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Imperialism 101

My money is on a false flag attack. I'm still not sure about 9/11.

The moron has all the tools he needs to control America indefinitely. Will he use them? Ya got me.

Tinfoil hat extra: you heard it here first Cynics … my guess is that Bush and Cheney pull something to try and [to] cling to power. They’ve spent so much effort piling up that power - do you think they’ll give it up so easily? Do you think they won’t use it?

Just remember it ain't paranoia if they are really out to get ya.

Jesus H Christ on Diazepam (Valium®). Its becoming impossible to predict when the meds will kick in.

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Afghan villagers caught in the middle of conflict

I can't even relate to this. Sorry.

Just off Afghanistan's main highway, Taliban insurgents regularly visit the village of Khele Malal. So do Afghan and U.S. forces, leaving local farmers caught between the two sides.

The Taliban and Western-backed Afghan troops are locked in a battle for Highway One, Afghanistan's main trade route that runs south from the capital Kabul to the second city Kandahar before swinging northwest towards Iran.

Securing the highway means securing the villages either side of it through which the Taliban infiltrate from their mountain hideouts to launch ambushes and roadside bomb attacks against Afghan and international forces, or man impromptu checkpoints to demonstrate their presence.

"Security is not good," says village elder Haji Abdul Qader. "Yesterday there was fighting close by. The people are scared."

"Security is not good," No shit.

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Britain brands Zimbabwean situation "sadism"

Robert Mugabe
So its obvious the moron will attack Zimbabwe next and remove Mugabe because he's little different from Saddam Hussein, right? Don't bet your fucking over-stretched mortgage on it.

No problem here. Zimbabwe has no oil. Or does it?

Oh my fucking God! They might have.

God's speed to you in Zimbabwe. Your days are numbered.

Britain's foreign secretary likened President Robert Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe to "sadism" on Sunday and said South Africa had a responsibility to do more to bring pressure to bear on its neighbour.

David Miliband said countries had a duty to speak frankly about the crisis in the country as Mugabe's security forces ratchet up their intimidation of opposition leaders ahead of a presidential run-off election on June 27.

"The first thing is to be clear about the sadism, and I use that word advisedly, that's going on ... in Zimbabwe at the moment," Miliband told BBC television.

"People being killed, people being tortured, people being beaten. Election observers being stripped out, election officials being stripped out ... It's important that we speak plainly and frankly about that."

Miliband said he and Prime Minister Gordon Brown had spoken to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about the situation in the past two days and about the need for more election observers to ensure the run-off is not rigged.

"We can raise this at the U.N. and it's right that we do so because the pressure needs to be on absolutely clearly," he said, saying he hoped for more action from the security council.

"Four million refugees will not even have a vote in this election even if they dared to vote. It's important that the international community is clear about its own perspective because that can give confidence to the people in Zimbabwe."

Britain, the former colonial ruler in Zimbabwe, is usually reluctant to be outspoken in its condemnation of Mugabe as the Zimbabwean president tends to use the past as a stick to beat Britain and other Western powers with colonial histories.

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Deaths in Afghan prisoner search

This little blurb was taken from a story about how Iraqi and "combined forces" are trying to hunt down escapees from a Kandahar prison.

"The combined forces used precision air strikes to destroy the compound after insurgents attacked with small-arms fire."

Please stop using the term "precision air strikes". Thank you.

There's absolutely nothing precise about the fucking' air strikes. They're killing far more innocent Iraqis than insurgents. That's like trying to shoot one cat among 50 cats with a goddamn shotgun. The prime target ain't the only one that will be hit.

Hmmmm. Killing cats. Works for me.

Its a fucking joke, folks. I don't care much for cats, but don't want to kill any of them. K?

Well that last isn't entirely true. There's one slutty female cat around here who seems to constantly be in heat and yowls at all hours of the night. I blame the yowling on the tom cats which I am ready to kill.

Another fucking joke. Gawd you guys have to lighten up.

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Cost for polygamist raid expected to top $14 million

Have all of us become so inured to such dollar amounts we're not fucking shocked by this story?

I'll single out one charge mentioned. Others are available at the link.

Four hundred sixty children were taken in plus a number of adults. The state paid about $2.4 million! to rent buses and facilities to house the children and some of the mothers.

Jesus H Christ at the Burj Al Arab (Dubai - look it up). What kind of accommodations were provided?

The cost of the April raid on a polygamist compound in West Texas is expected to top $14 million, about one-third of it in lawyers' fees, according to a published analysis of state records.

A mother and son shriek with delight as they are reunited two months after the FLDS raid in Texas.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram published its findings Saturday after reviewing more than 400 pages of invoices, e-mails and other state records that it obtained under an open-records law request.

More invoices for overtime, travel and professional services are expected to boost the final tab, the records indicate.

The biggest chunk of spending is expected to stem from court proceedings after the state seized about 460 children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, which is owned by the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

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Barack Obama Visits Flood Zone Victims In Illinois

I'm sort of on a twofer jag right now.

A couple comments about this story.

1. Yes. Obama is campaigning and photo ops like this are invaluable and demonstrate his compassion and concern for Americans.

2. I've not read anywhere in the media about the moron visiting the Mid-West. Oh yeah. He's pressing flesh several thousand miles away. No sense in coming back to the US just because of a fucking catastrophe.

Starting with 9/11, which the idiot has milked for all its worth, to Katrina to the Mid-West to military funerals its obvious the moron doesn't and never did give a shit about Americans. I can't wait until he's out of office and hope no one like him ever gets elected again.

Can I get an amen?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has given hands-on help in

He helped locals in the town of Quincy to fill sandbags to place on the banks of the Mississippi river, which is swelling to dangerous levels.

Authorities predict it will rise to record levels next week.

Mr Obama said: "Since I've been involved in public office we've not seen this kind of devastation."

He pledged to push federal and state governments to provide aid to the affected areas.

Mr Obama had been scheduled to campaign in nearby Iowa, but that state is also badly affected by flooding and he did not want to draw government resources away from battling the problems.

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He’s On It Now

Damn you, Chuck. You read my mind and knew I was too lazy ass to write my post on this. Just for that I'm stealing every damn word of your post. Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah.

My curiosity makes me wonder if the idiot will catch bin Laden and if he could have much earlier if he hadn't needed a bogeyman. Can't leave a bogeyman out there for the next guy in the White House. Especially if you're pretty certain the next guy won't be McSame.

Of course bogeymen are a dime a dozen and can be created out of whole cloth at the drop of a speech.

Dead or alive, wasn’t that the threat?

Well, time’s running out, and having spent little or no effort on finding bin Laden, Bush has apparently decided it would be good PR to catch his nemesis/partner before leaving office. He’s in Britain now, begging assistance from the beleagured Gordon Brown; that’s how bad it is. Apparently Brown has agreed to provide folks from the British military units the Special Boat Service and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment.

Now that time is running out for Bush, he’s actually asking for help! Wonder if it would have made any difference if he did this six years ago? But whatever, he finally got around to it.

Intelligence on the whereabouts of Bin Laden is sketchy, but some analysts believe he is in the Bajaur tribal zone in northwest Pakistan. He has evaded capture for nearly seven years. “Bush is swinging for the fences in the hope of scoring a home run,” said an intelligence source, using a baseball metaphor.

One source said the hunt was “completely sanctioned” by the Pakistani government; another, a senior Pakistani government source, said President Musharraf had given tacit support to Predator attacks. Given Musharraf’s precarious hold on power, indeed freedom and possibly life itself, this doesn’t seem like an overwhelming vote of confidance. But when you’re down 3-1 with two games on the road yet to play, you’re desperate, and you’ll try anything.

PS: Good catch, Mr Dupree.

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Potential new weapon against TB: free cell minutes

Text (SMS) messaging: Not just for gossip, flirting, chatting anymore.

Researchers at MIT believe they've discovered a new weapon in the battle against tuberculosis: Free cell phone minutes.

For years, doctors have struggled to get some TB patients to take all their medication, which generally involves a six-month regimen of multiple drugs.

Now a student-led group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a way to use cell phones to let patients test themselves. And if the tests show patients are following doctor's orders, they get rewarded with free minutes.

"We're piggybacking on one of the bigger rollouts of infrastructure out there, which is wireless technology and telecom technology," said Jose Gomez-Marquez, one of the project's leaders.

The system works like this: Patients test their urine using a strip that reveals a numeric code if it detects TB medicine. They then text message the code to their health care provider and get credit toward incentives such as free minutes. [emphasis mine]

The in-home tests also eliminate the need for health care workers to make several patient-monitoring visits a week, a routine that is often impractical in remote places, Gomez-Marquez said.

Mobile phones are good tools for the project because they are common in the developing world, where it's often cheaper to erect cell towers than miles of poles and wires, Gomez-Marquez said.

Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of a World Health Organization program to fight TB, called the MIT idea "creative." But he said personal visits must continue because systems that depend heavily on patient self-reporting have often failed.

"I would think it's a dangerous game to rely only on incentives," he said.

My guess is Dr Raviglione's worries are probably overly cautionary. By using a numeric code the patients probably can't "cheat" the results. And who doesn't want to send text messages? Besides me that is. I fuck up on the keypad constantly.

The doctor is right about personal visits, but they're more important as a way to demonstrate interest in and support of the patients IMHO.

BTW that's my cell phone except mine is red.

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A quake-hardened school, built by a conscientious Chinese principal

Unfortunately the bad most definitely outweighs the good. But the good must be acknowledged.

Way to go "Angel Ye". You deserve a medal.

A principal known as "Angel Ye" scraped together tens of thousands of dollars to correct shoddy construction at his small-town middle school in Sichuan. As a result, none of his students died in the earthquake, but his success has put a spotlight on the less fortunate.

Would that more principals had been so concerned about the welfare of the children for whom they were responsible. It had to have been no small feat to gather tens of thousands of dollars but he did it and it paid off.

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STUDY: CEOS OVERCREDIT THEMSELVES FOR SUCCESSES

Interesting story
When CEOs are paid the outrageous salaries, stock options and other perks for the success of a business really attributable to the rank and file of course they see themselves as some sort of demi-gods.

I've only seen a handful of truly courageous business decisions by CEOs when they had to know they were risking their reputations and the future of their companies on their decisions and on "luck" but made those decisions after careful analysis and consideration. I could be wrong but I don't believe inflated egos or managerial overconfidence played a part in those decisions.

The thumbs up to build the Airbus A380 comes to mind.

The authors explore one such bias -- managerial overconfidence -- and find evidence suggesting CEOs develop overconfidence through 'self-attribution bias' when making merger and acquisition decisions. Individuals subject to self-attribution bias overcredit their role in bringing about good outcomes and underestimate the role of luck.

Consistent with this, they find that CEOs appear to overly attribute their role in successful deals, leading to more deals even though these subsequent deals are value destructive.

They also find evidence that CEOs alter their stock holdings prior to deals in a pattern consistent with overconfidence in the outcome of these subsequent deals. [emphasis mine]

Uh, isn't altering their stock holdings when the CEOs can be effecting (or rejecting for that matter) a merger or acquisition de facto insider trading? Just asking.

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College Student Gets Five Years For Scarring One Time Fling

This gal must have studied under Clayton Williams who stopped short of suggesting branding.

In my latest manuscript, ´Kelly´s Woes,´ the main character, Kelly, gets slapped for not returning a telephone call to what was a one night stand. And if you are interested, you can become familiar with this story that´s on my website. [hyperlink added -ed]

Just click on the Kelly´s Woes navigation bar. Anyway, that´s fiction. Consider my amazement when I learned about a New York college student who planned the branding of her one time date with a guy who did not call her.

Apparently, she, the 23 year old college student did not take it too well when the guy with whom she had sex on the first date did not call her. According to news reports, the student, Kristina Caban, recruited the help of her present boyfriend, Robert Testagrossa, kidnapped the victim, Samir Sara, after which she branded the letter R on his stomach/abdomen area.

For aiding his girlfriend in the matter, Mr. Testagrossa is already in jail where he is serving five years since February.

Ms. Caban, on the other hand, was allowed to complete her degree program from the School of Visual Arts before beginning her five years in jail.

I guess not everyone copes too well with rejection. It´s enough to make one wonder who was more victimized than whom, the young woman who was rejected, or the guy with the visible scar on his abdomen.

BTW, Kristina, you brand cattle on the hip and not on the belly.

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Report says more secret British government files left on train

A couple questions here:

1. Why is someone carrying secret files in public on what I am assuming is a commuter train in the first place?

2. Why are any of these secret files allowed out of the building? If someone needs to work with them they can do it at their place of employment.

A second batch of secret British government files have been found on a train, just days after intelligence on Al-Qaeda and Iraq were misplaced, according to a newspaper report.

Good movie BTW and, like Airplane, even better on second viewing. You see all the visual jokes you missed the first time. IIRC I've seen it about four times.

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Understatement of the week - at least

Illegal Israeli settlement

"Israel's continued settlement building could hurt Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations."

-- Condoleezza Rice
-- US Secretary of State
-- (15 June 2008)

Call me naive, but until I ran into the above picture I had no idea this is what's referred to as a "settlement". Its a fucking small town.

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They're not all smart

Normally I consider Microsoft to be a company that employees very competent if not brilliant people, but they ain't all smart.

The above is an advertisement I often see from Microsoft. And it displays in the window for...you got it:

Windows Live Messenger. Duh!

McCain event canceled over fundraiser's rape 'joke'

Insensitive beyond belief
Sometimes its beyond bizarre who politicians will embrace if they have money.

And do you really believe the campaign was "unaware" of this idiot's remarks or more likely just hoped no one would catch it.

The first thing any candidate should do is hire a bank of internet savvy people to vet their choices online before they become monumental embarrassments.

John McCain has called off a fundraiser at the home of a Texas oilman who joked about rape during a 1990 gubernatorial run in the state.

The Texan, Republican Clayton Williams, made the joke during his failed campaign against Democrat Ann Richards. Williams compared rape to the weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

He also compared Richards to the cattle on his ranch, saying he would "head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt."

Williams' comments made national news at the time and remain easy to find on the Internet. Even so, McCain's campaign said it hadn't known about the remarks.

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U.S. restaurant chain linked to 9 cases of tomato-borne salmonella

Sick tomato
Isn't this information you would want if you lived in Chicago? Just asking.

Two outlets of a restaurant chain might be linked with the sickening of nine people by a salmonella outbreak, a newspaper report said on Saturday.

The sick ate fresh tomatoes tained [sic] by salmonella at two restaurants from the same chain, said the Los Angeles Times, quoting federal officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

But the FDA declined to name the chain or the restaurant locations, citing confidentiality. A spokesman for the agency also declined to provide the time frame for the cases or say whether the restaurants were in the same state.

The Chicago Department of Public Health identified nine people who ate at a restaurant in May and came down with salmonella, said Tim Hadac, a spokesman for the department.

None of the nine Chicago victims were hospitalized. Hadac said the department was withholding the name of the restaurant, which he said had several related restaurants in the city but was not part of a national chain.

Please remind me again. Just who are the fucking people the FDA works for? Its only restaurant owners you say? Oh I see. My mistake.

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Mugabe: 'I'll go to war with MDC'

Pope Benedict XVI: I hope he does. I hope he does.
Not a new story (couple days old), but I just wanted to point out subtlety isn't one of Mugabe's strong suits. But ya gotta admire his grasp of power politics.

I wonder if the moron is too busy learning the rosary to notice this. Sure hope not. Like all five year old children he's far to susceptible to suggestion.

Robert Mugabe yesterday vowed to "go to war" to prevent the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from gaining power in next week's Zimbabwean presidential run-off election.

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Black conservatives conflicted on Obama campaign

Jesus H Christ with dark skin (I know), but this ranks right up there with "I'd like to have a beer with the guy" as a good reason to vote for someone as a world leader.

Come on you motherfucking stupid people. If you don't buy his policies and ideology, vote for someone else or write in a candidate. Just because he looks something like you just doesn't make sense in the voting booth.

Black conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams has never voted for a Democrat for president. That could change this year with Barack Obama as the Democratic Party's nominee.

"I don't necessarily like his policies; I don't like much that he advocates, but for the first time in my life, history thrusts me to really seriously think about it," Williams said. "I can honestly say I have no idea who I'm going to pull that lever for in November. And to me, that's incredible."

Just as Obama has touched black Democratic voters, he has engendered conflicting emotions among black Republicans. They revel over the possibility of a black president but wrestle with the thought that the Illinois senator doesn't sit beside them ideologically.

"Among black conservatives," Williams said, "they tell me privately, it would be very hard to vote against him in November."

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Unbelievable! Judge's ban on the use of the word 'rape' at trial reflects trend

Since when is clear, descriptive English not enough for such fucking judges. Next they will rule you can't say the defendant stabbed me.

In future assault cases you'll have to say something along the lines of the person standing accused inserted a knife into my stomach without my consent, I suppose.

It's the only way Tory Bowen knows to honestly describe what happened to her.

She was raped.

But a judge prohibited her from uttering the word "rape" in front of a jury. The term "sexual assault" also was taboo, and Bowen could not refer to herself as a victim or use the word "assailant" to describe the man who allegedly raped her.

The defendant's presumption of innocence and right to a fair trial trumps Bowen's right of free speech, said the Lincoln, Neb., judge who issued the order.

"It shouldn't be up to a judge to tell me whether or not I was raped," Bowen said. "I should be able to tell the jury in my own words what happened to me."

Bowen's case is part of what some prosecutors and victim advocates see as a national trend in sexual assault cases.

"It's a topic that's coming up more and more," said Joshua Marquis, an Oregon prosecutor and a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association. "You're moving away from what a criminal trial is really about."

In Jackson County, Senior Judge Gene Martin recently issued a similar order for the trial of a Kansas City man charged with raping a teenager in 2000. Despite the semantic restrictions, the Jackson County jury last week found Ray Slaughter guilty of forcible rape and two counts of forcible sodomy. [emphasis in original]

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Short timer syndrome

You've all known of people with this. Perhaps even been there yourself.

By definition its someone who has given two weeks notice or otherwise knows they have a short time before being out the door. And at that point their attitude can be either I'll do my best for this outfit until I'm gone or who gives a fuck. The later is most common and will often get you out the door quicker. Not with the moron. He doesn't give a fuck and is immune from early dismissal. Yeah, I'm talking to you Pelosi.

So the moron tells oil companies they can harass polar bears, wants to drill in ANWAR, intends to ignore the SCOTUS when it comes to Guantánamo Bay and the list goes on.

Ah, but the biggie is an attack on Iran. Will short timer syndrome enter into his decision? Probably.

APNewsBreak: Companies get OK to annoy polar bears

The moron's administration just can't surprise me anymore.

Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.

Environmentalists said the new regulations give oil companies a blank check to harass the polar bear.

Yes the bears will be coming around and are dangerous for workers, but why not just require the oil companies to fence off their sites? They can afford it.

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Popcorn and a movie

Picked up a movie. Should be good.

That Robert Englund always delivers as does Jenna Jameson (Wikipedia).

Brazil museum defends security after Picasso theft

Pablo Picasso
It seems "adequate" isn't quite the right word here.

A Sao Paulo museum hit by the theft of two Picasso engravings and two Brazilian paintings worth more than 550,000 dollars defended its security system Friday as "adequate."

The director of the Pinacoteca museum, Marcelo Araujo, told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that the daytime heist on Thursday by three armed men who rounded up the guards simply overwhelmed the measures in place, which he said were sufficient.

It gets even better.

None of the works was insured, the museum said Friday, correcting information given by Sao Paulo state secretariat of culture the previous day.

OK. I'll cut Marcelo some slack. He has a point.

"In cases of armed robbery we can't run the risk of resisting, because there could be unforeseeable consequences for the employees and for the public," he said.

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Maliki raises possibility that Iraq might ask U.S. to leave

GO HOME!
Should such a thing happen it will be quite interesting to see how it plays out.

Will the idiot or the next President take the opportunity? It is the perfect out.

My guess is the moron won't do it and neither will McCain. They both want US troops there indefinitely and undoubtedly couldn't care less what the UN or Maliki have to say about it. But it would raise the ire of most nations of the world when they've been asked to vacate Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki raised the possibility that his country won't sign a status of forces agreement with the United States and will ask U.S. troops to go home when their U.N. mandate to be in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

Maliki made the comment after weeks of complaints from Shiite Muslim lawmakers that U.S. proposals that would govern a continued troop presence in Iraq would infringe on Iraq's sovereignty.

"Iraq has another option that it may use," Maliki said during a visit to Amman, Jordan. "The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil."

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