Would you give up the internet for $1 million? Check out Big Fat Whale site, and NFL lockout over

Informal study says most people wouldn’t give up the internet for just $1 million…

Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s time to get comfortable, sip some virtual coffee, and see what what the world is up to. A big week lies ahead as our dysfunctional government tries to balance the budget.

Would you give up the Internet for $1 million?

A not-very-scientific poll by the Fund for American Studies finds the answer to be "no" for two reasons: One, the dollar payoff isn't big enough (!) and two, the Internet has become so key that no amount of money would cover the loss of its place in our lives.

Big Fat Whale Site Profile

Big Fat Whale is a subversive comic by Brian McFadden. McFadden's weekly strips usually deal with politics, commercialization run amuck, and stupidity. The style is non-narrative, usually favoring single-panel gags dealing with a subject like "fatty foods of the future" or "how to opt in to your rights".

Best of "Big Fat Whale":The Metric Resistance -The World's Worst Web Ads -Future Stars of the GOP - Crap-ass Valentines - Internet Anti-Memes and Non-Sensations - 25 Cent Book Bin - Ineffective Public Service Announcements

NFL, players set on terms of deal

NFL owners and players agreed early Monday to the terms of a deal to end the lockout, and players were expected to begin their voting process later in the day, two people familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the process was supposed to remain secret and no formal announcement had been made.

The NFL Players Association's executive committee was to meet at its headquarters in Washington on Monday so it could be presented with the finalized agreement. NFLPA president Kevin Mawae arrived shortly after 9:30 a.m.

Time to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Real-life drama unfolds as Justice Department tries to cover up scandal

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 07/24/2011 02:30:24 AM PDT

OPENING SCENE: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) acting director, Kenneth Melson, tells Congressional investigators he didn't know about specific orders to let straw buyers walk off with guns purchased in the United States until the “Fast and Furious” scandal surfaced in the press. In the jargon of B films, “he's singing like a canary.”

Melson spills the beans about a Department of Justice/ BATFE operation called “Fast and Furious” that went horribly wrong. He's fighting for his life and is determined not to be the fall guy for something that involves his agency and numerous others.

In a desperate act of survival, Melson admits the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and possibly the Homeland Security Department are also involved in the growing Fast and Furious scandal.

NARRATOR: Thousands of U.S. operatives -- with virtually no principles -- will do whatever the government tells them to do. A few, like BATFE director Ken Melson, may be taken down, but the really big shot-callers will probably never answer for their crimes.

BACKROUND: “Allegations that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) allowed U.S. arms to flow to murderous Mexican cartels now face Congressional scrutiny in Washington,” according to a story by the Christian Science Monitor on July 16.

Also on the table is the involvement of a covert operation (Fast and Furious) that may have partially contributed to the deaths of a U.S. law enforcement officer and numerous Mexicans.

Operation Fast and Furious went bad after the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, and the Justice Department tried to cover up the connections. The gun used to kill Agent Brian Terry was traced, not to Mexico, but to a gun store in Phoenix. It turned out the store was cooperating with a federal investigation into arms trafficking, according to news reports.

U.S. agents didn't stop the sale or the transfer of the gun that the cartels used to kill Terry, despite internal information that was available about the shooter/buyer.

 A Reuters report stated, “Two semi-automatic Kalashnikov-pattern rifles were found at the scene.” When traced, they were discovered to have been purchased from an American gun shop cooperating with agents of the Phoenix office of the ATF in an investigation of gun smuggling known as “Project Gunrunner.”

Before Melson decided to come clean, five separate but connected accusations were leveled by current or former employees of the ATF against ATF and DOJ officials.

THE PLOT THICKENS: Word about agent whistleblowers reached U.S. Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Chuck Grassley of Iowa through news sources, who learned of their existence from their own sources within the ATF.

There has been a series of meetings between the senators and the whistleblowers. Protection is promised to the whistleblowers for sharing the true circumstances of Terry's death.

As the story gets wider coverage, more whistleblowers are coming out. A story recently surfaced in Florida in the Examiner (Special Report by David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh): “Breaking News: Source claims ATF's Tampa SAC walked guns to Honduras. Part of Operation Castaway?”

According to the article, “Virginia O'Brien, Special Agent in Charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Tampa Field Division, ran a gun-running investigation that walked guns to Honduras using techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious.”

In a letter recently released by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Daryl Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley accused the Justice Department of blocking their investigation into the burgeoning scandal. They said the Justice Department had muzzled the ATF and was involving other federal agencies, including the FBI and the DEA, in funding for flawed operations that stemmed from Project Gunrunner.

Both Obama and Holder have said they learned of Operation Fast and Furious only after the scandal broke in January. Despite Holder's claim, The Christian Science Monitor reported this month that he played up BATFE's Project Gunrunner, under which Fast and Furious was spawned, in a speech in Mexico in 2009, saying that $10 million of the 2009 stimulus bill would go to fund new arms interdiction measures.

There's evidence not only that the Justice Department allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities.

As It Stands, stay tuned to see if this is another dramatic reality show starring corrupt officials who get off the hook.

Websites carrying this column:

#1 Interceder – #2 CIPFA/Better Governance Forum #3 Star Pulse Online –#4 Broken Controllers

#5 Cen Sec Center for Defense, Space, Security (Global News-English) – #5 Scheme Root – an encyclopedia of current events #6 Misc. Legal Groups 

 

Parting Shots: Neanderthals had sex with humans, says DNA

At last, a scientific explanation for the existence of Creationists, Tea Baggers and Rush Limbaugh!

“Many modern-day humans may be carrying around a fragment of Neanderthal DNA on one of their sex chromosomes, a new study finds.”                             

The funniest part is that Neanderthal blood apparently isn't in Africans. I'm sure that will irk the northern Idaho types... Kinda screws their whole racial superiority thing.

“The research adds a piece of corroborating evidence to the theory that Neanderthals and humans interbred sometime after humans migrated out of Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago.”

Welcome folks: step right in, the Theatre of the Absurd is in progress

“The Theatre of the Absurd” is a term first used by the literary critic Martin Esslin for the work of a number of playwrights, mostly written in the 1950s and 1960s. The term is derived from an essay by the French philosopher Albert Camus. In his 'Myth of Sisyphus', written in 1942, he first defined the human situation as basically meaningless and absurd.

What we are witnessing in politics these days, is a politic Theatre of the Absurd, and the center stage is in Washington DC as both parties take the country to the brink of financial disaster.

The origins of the Theatre of the Absurd are rooted in the avant-garde experiments in art of the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, it was undoubtedly strongly influenced by the traumatic experience of the horrors of the Second World War, which showed the total impermanence of any values, shook the validity of any conventions and highlighted the precariousness of human life and its fundamental meaninglessness and arbitrariness.

Our current Theatre of the Absurd has proved traumatic for hundreds of thousands military personnel who have come home from warrantless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fundamental flaws in their missions came from arbitrary politics.   

As a result, absurd plays assumed a highly unusual, innovative form, directly aiming to startle the viewer, shaking him out of this comfortable, conventional life of everyday concerns. The Theatre of the Absurd openly rebelled against conventional theatre. Indeed, it was anti-theatre. It was surreal, illogical, with no conflicts or plots. The dialogue seemed total gobbledygook.

In the 21st century version of the Theatre of the Absurd our polarized politicians seek to scare the public into accepting their surreal and illogical arguments. Bits and pieces of the Constitution are thrown around like alms for the poor, but little seems to apply to today’s reality. 

One of the most important aspects of absurd drama was its distrust of language as a means of communication. Language had become a vehicle of conventionalized, stereotyped, meaningless exchanges. Absurd drama uses conventionalized speech, clichés, slogans and technical jargon, which it distorts, parodies and breaks down.

The way our government functions (?) politicians speak in cliches, spout slogans, and spew technical tidbits to the public about arcane laws few are interested in. All talk no substance. Our political system a parody of a democracy. A country in decline. 

In the realm of traditional verbal nonsense we have: François Rabelais, Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. Many serious poets occasionally wrote nonsense poetry (Johnson, Charles Lamb, Keats, Hugo, Byron, Thomas Hood).

In the world we live in, all the verbal nonsense that comes from our politicians could fill encyclopedias and instructional manuals on the absurd. The players are all clowns. The current act: GOP presidential hopefuls are preparing for a beauty contest in Iowa where verbal nonsense is a must!

Saturday stuff: Hackers ‘not scared anymore’, Great White jumps in boat, and a motorcyclist ends up in the back seat of a van

Good Afternoon Humboldt County!

Seeing as it’s after 11:43 a.m. I can’t say good morning. For those of you who slept in (like me) let’s have a cup of coffee and see what’s interesting in the news today. Oh yeah, for whatever reason a column I wrote on January 23rd ( Meth Kills: So Why is it Still Scourging Our Society?) has been the Most Viewed on the T-S List since 6:00 a.m. I just checked and it’s still #2 on the list. What brought it up? I suspect some well-read Blog somewhere found it and gave a link to their readers. Onward:

Hacker arrests: Some were on Facebook, some blogged

Related stories:

• Hackers to FBI: 'We are not scared anymore'
• Hackers claim to breach NATO security
• U.S. sees cyber arrests leading to more hackers
• U.S. arrests 16 in probe of Anonymous hackers

image source

Going to need a bigger boat: Great white shark leaps aboard

In the words of "Jaws" scientist Matt Hooper, "This is not a boat accident!"

According to the Cape Times, six researchers from South Africa are reflecting on what they describe as the fright of their lives after their own close encounter with a great white shark. The research team from Oceans Research was working off Seal Island, near Mossel Bay, on South Africa's Cape coast, when the nearly 10-foot-long creature reportedly made its move. image source

Motorcyclist hurls through van window, lands in rear seat

A Southern California motorcyclist rear-ended a minivan and was thrown through a window into the back seat but escaped unscathed, police said.

After the incident on Thursday, the driver of the minivan continued driving and pulled into his own driveway nearby, unaware that he had a new backseat passenger, the Victorville Daily Press reported.

"We're calling this one a non-injury collision with a twist," Karen Hunt, spokeswoman for the Victorville Police Department, told the newspaper. Victorville is a town of 115,000 people on the southwestern edge of the Mojave Desert.

The incident occurred when the motorcyclist failed to stop in time as the minivan slowed to make a turn, the newspaper reported. The motorcycle then crashed into the van, with the rider hurling through the minivan’s rear window and the motorcycle itself skidding beneath the larger vehicle.

The minivan driver then turned into his driveway, less than half a block away, and was preparing to return to the scene when he realized the stunned motorcyclist was in his backseat, the paper reported.

image source

Random thought: Stop calling Social Security an entitlement …

I don’t know about you, but I paid into Social Security throughout my career. I invested in a program that promised to help me out when I needed it in my “Golden” years.

So, I’m sick and tired of those asshats, on either side of the aisle, who call Social Security an entitlement program (like it’s somehow a tax payer giveaway).

The morons currently steering the Good Ship America are about to run it aground because they think Social Security is a give-away program for bums and old people. It’s one of many reasons they cite. Calling it an entitlement is a slap in the face of every American who has ever paid into the program. It’s been automatic all of our working years. The administration gathers up those revenues for future payouts to retirees, and the disabled.

Holding the nation hostage (debt crisis) to fill an agenda meant to strip away parts of something all Americans earned is an act of domestic terrorism!

Social Security does need reforms like any government entity that becomes stagnant and doesn’t pursue people who scam the system. I’ve heard the old refrain again and again : “There’s not enough money to chase the culprits who rip the system off.” It’s the same thing other government agencies say, such as the FDA. There’s something to that argument. But it’s still a situation that can be solved. And the billions recovered will help keep it solvent for the future.

My main gripe, is politicians who portray Social Security as something akin to a handout! That’s bullshit and the result of extreme conservatives trying to demonize the whole program. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out – are you ready for some prime irony? – wealthy elderly tea baggers are leading the charge!

As It Stands, the tea bag party negative influence in the House of Representatives is one reason the nation is on the brink of financial disaster right now…and their response? Let America default on loans and obligations to the American people – to them it’s all about ideology not reality.

top graphic source – bottom graphic source

Wine shipment worth $1 million dropped, 5 U.S. theme parks under $50, and a fake Apple store even fools staff!

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Glad you could join me this morning for a virtual cup of coffee or tea. It’s finally Friday, and a lot of people may wonder where they can find the best deal on an amusement park this weekend. I’ve got them for you here today.

Whatever you do today, do it with gusto. Life is too short not to! 

Oops! $1 million of wine lost after forklift drops it

More than $1 million of high-quality Australian wine destined for the United States was lost when a forklift dropped the consignment, according to a report Friday.Some 462 cases of 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove shiraz — worth 185 Australian dollars per bottle (nearly $200) — was lost when they were dropped about 20 feet while being loaded for export in the southern city of Adelaide, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

"We just couldn't believe it. This wine is our pride and joy, so to see it accidentally destroyed, and not consumed, has left us all a bit numb," winemaker Sparky Marquis told the paper. He added that the lost wine represented a third of his yearly production, and the paper said he was "working with" insurance companies in an attempt to cover the cost. graphic source

Here’s 5 U.S. theme parks under $50

With Disney parks recently raising their ticket prices to $85 for a single–park one day ticket — Universal Studios is just as bad — now is the perfect time to start thinking about smaller, regional theme parks where you can get your adrenaline fix for less. Here are five theme parks around the country where the daily price of adult admission is under $50.

                            The WindSeeker at Cedar Point spins riders nearly 30 stories above the Lake Erie shoreline.

 

Fake Apple Store even fools staff

Chinese counterfeiters have had a field-day pumping out knockoffs of Apple Inc's best-selling iPhones and iPads but one appears to have gone a step further -- a near flawless fake Apple Store that even employees believe is the real deal.

The store in Kunming was stumbled upon by a 27-year-old American blogger living in the city, the capital of China's mountainous southwestern Yunnan province.

Complete with the white Apple logo, wooden tables and cheery staff claiming they work for the iPhone maker, the store looks every bit like Apple Stores found all over the world, according to the blogger, who goes by the name "BirdAbroad."

"This was a total Apple store rip-off. A beautiful rip-off - a brilliant one - the best rip-off store we had ever seen," the anonymous blogger posted Wednesday. "Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple."

Time to walk on down the road…

I’m too poor to be a ‘greedy geezer’ but is it true a lot of my fellow Baby Boomers are setting up America for failure?

Baby boomers are greedy. It seems to be all I hear anymore. And what's worse, the wealthiest among them are reluctant to leave an inheritance to their children. Some of those polled say it's for fear that their adult children will squander the money it took a lifetime to earn. But in real life, the reason I've heard most often is "hey, you can't take it with you." The "it" being money.

    left image source –    right image source

To be clear: I don't object to consumer spending, especially when it's done offline and in the real world. These days, spending money is good for the economy -- and a way we can all do our part to contribute to the recovery. What troubles me is the selfish and shortsighted mentality about not leaving any money behind. What happened to taking care of your children, to leaving a legacy?

To read Thomas L. Friedman's most recent column in the New York Times, the "greedy geezer" isn't just a way to describe a select few. It's an ethos that's infected our political culture and will quite possibly change the future of the U.S. In comparing our country to Greece, Freidman says:

Indeed, if there is one sentiment that unites the crises in Europe and America it is a powerful sense of "baby boomers behaving badly" -- a powerful sense that the generation that came of age in the last 50 years, my generation, will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids. […] There are Eric Cantors everywhere -- reckless baby boomer politicians for whom no crisis is too serious to set aside political ambition and ideology.

This corrosive mentality, combined with a punishing economic reality, can make it really hard for this 30-year-old to breathe sometimes. And no wonder. Friedman continues:

What happens is that both the American and European dreams hang in the balance. Either we both put our nations on more sustainable growth paths -- which requires cutting, taxing and investing for the future -- or we're looking at a world in which democracies are going to turn on themselves and fight over shrinking pies, with China having a growing say over how big the slices will be. Photo source

Is it only a matter of time until  European-style riots erupt in the U.S.?

article source

Meet the Bachmanns' "Ex-Lesbian" Friend and Gay Hating Ministry

It’s hard to believe that in this day and age, people are so ignorant about homosexuality. Or is it something worse?

They’ll say and do anything to discredit a all homosexuals, regardless of the facts involved. All we’re really talking about is intolerance here: 

Janet Boynes discusses her 14 "miserable" years as a lesbian

and her ministry to those who want to "leave the homosexual lifestyle."

“You can change from gay to straight—I'm a living example of that," Boynes, 53, said. Having renounced lesbianism 13 years ago, she now runs a Maple Grove, Minn. organization called Janet Boynes Ministries that proclaims to minister to those who don't want to be gay anymore. Over the course of our conversation, Boynes likened homosexuality to drug addiction and pointed to a variety of causes for it, from domineering mothers to hanging around too much with gay people. She voiced her fear that half the nation's families might one day be helmed by same-sex couples.

On her website, she boasts an old endorsement from the then-state senator ("Janet's life is a powerful testimony of the changes that Christ can bring"). In 2005, Marcus Bachmann gave a talk called "The Truth to the Homosexual Lifestyle" at the Minnesota Pastors' Summit, and, according to attendee Curt Prins, Boynes was part of the presentation.

Prins, a gay tech marketer who attended the conference to gather intelligence on "the other side," recalls Boynes, a long-haired woman with striking features, putting up a "before" photo of herself as a lesbian, with short hair and mannish clothes.

The contrast prompted gasps and laughter from the audience. More recently, in her 2008 memoir, Called Out: A Former Lesbian's Discovery of Freedom, Boynes thanked "Marcus and Michele," saying "you never left my side when things got tough."

For his part, Marcus Bachmann has since been selling the book in the lobby of his clinic alongside a typed placard saying "Janet is a friend," according to this photograph taken by an undercover gay activist.”

Justice Department caught in growing gun scandal, Nazi shrine is no more, and ‘Snore patrols’ assure a good night’s sleep

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Pull up a chair and tilt a cup of Java with me this morning as we take a look at what’s happening in this crazy world around us:

Justice Department trying to shield officials in guns scandal, ATF chief says

Kenneth Melson (left), the ATF's acting director, claims Justice Department officials refuse to release a telling internal report on the Fast and Furious operation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look for my column in the Times-Standard this Sunday dealing with this Justice Department scandal.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Justice Department is trying to protect its political appointees from the Fast and Furious scandal by concealing an internal "smoking gun" report and other documents that acknowledge the role top officials played in the program that allowed firearms to flow illegally into Mexico, according to the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Shrine no more: Bones of Hitler aide exhumed

The remains of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess have been exhumed from a grave in Bavaria after it became a pilgrimage for thousands of right-wing extremists.

A church official in the southern town of Wunsiedel said Thursday the tomb had been razed and its headstone removed after consulting with Hess's family over how to handle the grave site.

"The bones were removed and brought to the crematorium, and the ashes are to be scattered at sea," Peter Seisser said.

An early, fervent member of the Nazi party, Hess spent time in prison with Hitler in the early 1920s and helped edit Mein Kampf -- the book in which the dictator outlined plans to destroy European Jewry and murder other groups he considered undesirable.

Extremist groups often portray him as a martyr figure, and some from as far away as Oregon and California have organized memorials for him in the past, including a number of outdoor 'white power' rock concerts.

The annual pilgrimage of neo-Nazis in Wunsiedel peaked in 2004, when authorities say some 5,000 people came from across Europe, including left-wing counter protesters.

"Now, hopefully we can put it all behind us," deputy mayor Roland Schoeffel said. "We hope the phantom has left."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Light sleepers rejoice: Hotel chain drafts 'snore patrols' as shuteye sentries

Guests at an international hotel chain may sleep more soundly after the introduction of "snore patrols" and "snore absorption rooms" at a number of sites worldwide.

Crowne Plaza is testing the first "snore absorption" rooms at 10 hotels in Europe and the Middle East, whilst six branches in Britain have implemented "snore patrols" this month in a bid to combat noisy sleepers.

"Snore monitors" patrol corridors in the designated quiet zones of Crowne Plaza hotels in the cities of London, Leeds and Manchester. Their job is to listen out for offensive noises and knock on the door of guests who snore too loudly.

"We have quiet zones on two floors of the hotel. As Snore Monitor, I conduct floor walks to check for noise disruptions, paying particular attention to the quiet zone rooms," said Laura Simpson, Snore Monitor at Leeds Crowne Plaza hotel in northern England.

"Guests can ask to stay our quiet zone rooms if they are particularly light sleepers."

Look, Enough With The 'Shared Sacrifice' Talk. We've Already Had More Than Our Share, Time For The Wealthy To Feel The Pain

Guest Opinion:

                         By Susie Madrak

“I've been looking over the Gang of Six's bipartisan class war manifesto. Uh, politicians? Although it's unlikely, you may successfully shove these radical and undemocratic changes down our collective throat (if the House progressives let you), but you can't make us go along with your pretense. You all keep talking about "shared sacrifice" and "belt-tightening" when there's an 16% or so effective unemployment rate, wages are continuing their 30-year decline, jobs are non-existent and millions have lost their homes. For far too many of us, if we tighten our belts any more, we'll break our backs!

Meanwhile, Wall Street is doing better than ever.

In what universe is this "shared" sacrifice?

So here's my question to the gentlemen millionaires of the Senate, and their dear friend in the White House: When is it your turn? Where's your pain? We already had our turn. No more.

Economist Dean Baker says it's "striking" that the Gang of Six chose to respond to the crisis created by the collapse of the housing bubble by developing a plan that will give even more money to top Wall Street executives and traders - by taking it from little old ladies' Social Security.

And just to add insult to injury, there's an upcoming series of trade deal votes that amount to a series of setbacks for American workers and taxpayers, unions and public interest groups. But hey, it makes it easier for the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers to offshore jobs -- and to keep their corporate tax havens.

Just a little historical deja vu....

It just makes me long for the days when we had actual, ass-kicking Democrats.”