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Latest Articles: United States News
Report says too many whites, men leading military
Post Date: 2011-03-07 20:49:26 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday. Seventy-seven percent of senior officers in the active-duty military are white, while only 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women, the report by an independent panel said, quoting data from September 2008. One barrier that keeps women from the highest ranks is their inability to serve in combat units. Promotion and job opportunities have favored those with battlefield leadership credentials. The report ordered by Congress in 2009 calls for greater ...
Lockheed Martin Tried to Trade F-16s for Frozen Chickens
Post Date: 2011-03-07 19:58:33 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
The secretive world of international arms sales just became a little less secret thanks to a special report by Reuters. After an in-depth review of last year's leaked State Department cables, the wire service has uncovered several strange and unsettling dealings between military contractors and foreign governments, with U.S. diplomats obseqiously paving the way. There are a bunch of oddball deals in here, but want to know our two favorites? The deal to give Chad planes to kill pro-democracy demonstrators and the part where Lockheed Martin nearly sold Thailand F-16s in exchange for several boatloads of frozen chickens. Behold. The Deal: Lockheed Martin wanted to sell C-130 military ...
Obama takes on cyber bullies
Post Date: 2011-03-07 19:40:34 by A K A Stone
6 Comments
The eastern world is exploding with violence flaring, bullets loading and gasoline fast approaching $5 a gallon. Luckily, President Obama will be taking time out of his busy golfing schedule to address the issue of cyber bullying on March 10. Yes, digital bullying may not be as headline grabbing as say the bloody civil war in Libya, but it is still a major problem plaguing American youth today. 72;72; "Out of 15 million children's IM accounts analyzed we found that 5.6 million children received cyber bullying messages," Crisp Thinking CEO Adam Hildreth told TG Daily in an e-mailed statement. "This conference [on March 10] is a vital step towards a greater understanding ...
Facebook to release phone numbers, addresses to third-party developers
Post Date: 2011-03-07 19:35:02 by A K A Stone
2 Comments
Facebook is reportedly moving forward with plans to provide third-party developers and external websites with access to the home addresses and cellphone numbers of its members. The social networking site originally announced the feature in its Developer Blog in January only to incur serious public outcry over security concerns. Within three days of the announcement, Facebook suspended the feature until the hype died down, only to reintroduce it today. In response to January’s announcement, Representatives Edward Markey (D-Mass) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) sent Facebook execs a letter expressing their concern. Facebook reaffirmed it would indeed be allowing third parties to request ...
Milwaukee teachers union drops lawsuit seeking to include Viagra in insurance plans
Post Date: 2011-03-07 19:25:37 by Happy Quanzaa
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The Milwaukee teachers union has dropped a lawsuit seeking to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back. The union sued in July 2010 to force the school board to again include the erectile dysfunction drug and similar pills in its health insurance plans. The union has argued the board's policy of excluding such drugs from the plans discriminates against male employees; the board has countered the 2005 move was meant to save money. Court records indicate attorneys for the union, the school board and the state Labor and Industry Review Commission agreed to dismiss the lawsuit on March 1. Messages for all three groups' attorneys weren't immediately returned.
Honor guard rallies crowd to Ark. veteran’s burial Mourners pay respects to warrior [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2011-03-07 17:37:48 by Mad Dog
97 Comments
SHERWOOD, Ark. | More than 300 people showed up for the funeral of an airman most of them didn’t know Friday, drawn to the cemetery after members of an honor guard feared no one would show up to attend the burial of a veteran thought to be homeless and without a family. Leroy Earl Brumbaugh died two weeks ago at age 74, but until his relatives contacted the funeral home sometime last week, it appeared the only ones planning to attend Friday’s graveside service at the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery were veterans, active members of the Army and Air Force and a patriotic group of motorcycle riders. “We don’t know what his circumstances were in life or how he ended up ...
Nevada Sen. John Ensign announces he will not run for reelection
Post Date: 2011-03-07 15:33:47 by go65
3 Comments
Republican Sen. John Ensign, who became mired in a scandal surrounding an extramarital affair, announces he will not seek reelection in 2012. He's the eighth Senate incumbent to choose not to run.
Faggot Wisconsin Dems Roll Over and Pee On Their Bellies and Say Yes Sir to Their Master Scott Walker
Post Date: 2011-03-07 10:25:17 by no gnu taxes
2 Comments
Sen. Mark Miller said he and his fellow Democrats intend to let the full Senate vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget-repair” bill, which includes the proposed limits on public unions’ collective bargaining rights. The bill, which had been blocked because the missing Democrats were needed for the Senate to have enough members present to consider the bill, is expected to pass the Republican-controlled chamber. He said he thinks recent polls showing voter discontent with Mr. Walker over limits on bargaining rights have been “disastrous” for the governor and give Democrats more leverage to seek changes in a broader two-year budget bill Mr. Walker proposed Tuesday. ...
Wisconsin Democrats May Return Soon
Post Date: 2011-03-07 09:49:12 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
Playing a game of political chicken, Democratic senators who fled Wisconsin to stymie restrictions on public-employee unions said Sunday they planned to come back from exile soon, betting that even though their return will allow the bill to pass, the curbs are so unpopular they'll taint the state's Republican governor and legislators. The Wisconsin standoff, which drew thousands of demonstrators to occupy the capitol in Madison for days at a time, has come to highlight efforts in other states to address budget problems in part by limiting the powers and benefits accorded public-sector unions. Sen. Mark Miller said he and his fellow Democrats intend to let the full Senate vote on ...
US farmers fear the return of the Dust Bowl
Post Date: 2011-03-07 09:42:49 by A K A Stone
8 Comments
For years the Ogallala Aquifer, the world’s largest underground body of fresh water, has irrigated thousands of square miles of American farmland. Now it is running dry There is not much to be happy about these days in Happy, Texas. Main Street is shuttered but for the Happy National Bank, slowly but inexorably disappearing into a High Plains wind that turns all to dust. The old Picture House, the cinema, has closed. Tumbleweed rolls into the still corners behind the grain elevators, soaring prairie cathedrals that spoke of prosperity before they were abandoned for lack of business. Happy's problem is that it has run out of water for its farms. Its population, dropping 10 per ...
82 year old WWII vet fired for saying "faggot"
Post Date: 2011-03-07 07:39:04 by Happy Quanzaa
37 Comments
'Pink slip' at 82Airline veteran's gay-slur remorse After 54 years working for American Airlines, Freddy Schmitt says he just wants the same thing the US Army gave him six decades ago -- an honorable discharge. Instead, the 82-year-old WWII vet was handed his walking papers after allegedly using a derogatory term for gays during a workplace bull session about "Don't Ask Don't Tell." The fact that Schmitt was defending gay soldiers' right to serve -- "Back then, a faggot coulda saved my life" -- hasn't changed the airline's decision. Neither has his blemish-free employment record, nor the pleas of former JFK co-workers upset over the ...
Why Scott Walker Must Win
Post Date: 2011-03-06 18:04:08 by jwpegler
15 Comments
The anti-democratic methods President Obama’s union allies are using in Wisconsin testify to the crucial character of the battle being fought. Teachers have walked off in wildcat strikes, taking pupils with them. Doctors have issued lying affidavits saying the teachers were sick, a good example of ethical conduct for the school kids. Thousands of demonstrators have daily invaded the Capitol, chanting, hooting, banging drums. Hundreds have camped out there and refused to leave so the Capitol building can be cleaned. Is this democracy in action? Is this what 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green went out to see that Saturday morning in Tucson? Picketers have carried placards with the ...
Air Force launches second mysterious space plane
Post Date: 2011-03-06 17:35:37 by A K A Stone
2 Comments
A second mysterious, robotic space plane was launched into orbit by the U.S. Air Force today, after the first craft safely returned to Earth late last year following a secretive months-long mission and speculation about its potential military or intelligence uses. The second Boeing-built X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, left Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 2:46 p.m. PT, atop an Atlas V rocket, Boeing said. "History was made in December when the X-37B became the United States' first unmanned vehicle to return from space and land on its own," Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, said in a statement today. "The success ...
Kid Rock’s use of Confederate flag sparks NAACP boycott
Post Date: 2011-03-06 17:19:25 by A K A Stone
3 Comments
Some NAACP supporters plan to boycott the Detroit arm's annual fundraiser over an honor for Kid Rock they say doesn't mesh with the civil rights group's goals. The rocker is set to receive the Detroit branch's Great Expectations Award at the annual dinner, which typically attracts about 10,000 people, on May 1 at Cobo Center. But Adolph Mongo, a longtime political consultant and head of Detroiters for Progress, said he and others will sit out over Kid Rock's use of the controversial Confederate flag during performances. "It's a slap in the face for anyone who fought for civil rights in this country," Mongo said Thursday. "It's a symbol of hatred ...
Glenn Beck apologizes for comparing Reform Judaism to radical Islam; says it was a bad analogy
Post Date: 2011-03-06 16:07:09 by go65
1 Comments
Glenn Beck took to the airwaves on Thursday to do something he rarely does: apologize. Two days after comparing Reform Judaism to radicalized Islam on his show, Beck retracted his words. "I was wrong on this," he said. "I also apologize for it...I've always told you to do your own homework and in this case I didn't do enough homework." He made the original remarks during his ongoing feud with George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who recently slammed Fox News and compared the network's reporting to propaganda used Nazi Germany. ----------------- "I'm on the air for four hours every day live without a script," he said. "That is a ...
Rand Paul adds New Hampshire trip in April
Post Date: 2011-03-06 12:19:26 by A K A Stone
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will make a trip to New Hampshire, along with his father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), this spring. Rand Paul will head to the Granite State in late April following a trip to Iowa earlier that month, raising reporters' eyebrows because of both states' status in the presidential nominating cycle. The Kentucky senator will keynote a Cheshire County Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader's John DiStasio. He'll deliver the speech several days before his father travels to New Hampshire for a series of fundraisers. Rand Paul is also slated to headline the Iowa Republican Party's "Night of Rising Stars" on April 2, ...
Oil Shale Reserves
Post Date: 2011-03-06 12:17:31 by CZ82
24 Comments
Oil Shale Reserves Oil Shale Reserves: Stinky Water, Sweet Oil A Daily Reckoning White Paper Report By Dan Denning You won’t think much of Rio Blanco County if you ever drive through it. In fact, unless you take a right turn off Interstate-70 West at Rifle, head north on Railroad Avenue and then west on Government road to Colorado state highway number thirteen, odds are you’ll never even step foot in Rio Blanco County. But even if you keep heading west toward Grand Junction, through the town of Parachute and the shuttered oil shale refineries from the 1970s, you’ll see the Book Cliffs geologic formation on your right. For miles and miles. It’s a bleak landscape. ...
Paul book signing draws diverse crowd
Post Date: 2011-03-06 12:17:20 by A K A Stone
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Young and older stood in a long line Saturday at Barnes & Noble Booksellers to grab the autograph of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul on his new book: “The Tea Party Goes to Washington.” “I don’t think the tea party encompasses any particular age group,” said Rick Montgomery, 65, of Bowling Green. “Just look around, there are lots of young people here.” Fourteen-year-old Matthew Embry of Butler County was one of the younger crowd. “I got his book a week ago,” Matthew said. “It was refreshing. It speaks to how we need to take back our government and focus on conservative values that include smaller government and lower taxes.” Matthew comes ...
Singel-Minded: Facebook Comments Are Another ‘Good News, Bad News’ Proposition
Post Date: 2011-03-06 12:12:20 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
Facebook unleashed a new commenting system this week that promises to help online publications clean up their commenting cesspools, while simultaneously extending Facebook’s tentacles further into the web outside its walls.
Unfortunately for those with visions of a non-Facebook dominated web, this initiative has the potential to dramatically expand the ginormous social network’s already imperial reach.
The new system lets website owners replace their current commenting system with Facebook’s simply by dropping in a few lines of Javascript. Then, commenters have to sign in using either their Facebook or Yahoo IDs, an attempt to ensure a commenter is a real person. Commenters can opt to ...
Congressmen disagree over 'premise' of hearing on radicalization of Muslim America
Post Date: 2011-03-06 10:39:46 by A K A Stone
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Washington (CNN)- Republican Rep. Peter King of New York says "something from within" the Muslim community is a "threat" to America that needs to be explored. The issue will be discussed in the upcoming week as King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, holds hearings on the radicalization of Muslim Americans. Democratic Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, openly disagreed with the premise of the hearings as King gave a preview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley of what will be discussed Thursday on the Hill. "I challenge the basic premise of the hearings," Ellison said. ...
Captain Bullshit
Post Date: 2011-03-06 09:36:51 by CZ82
3 Comments
Alan Simpson, Senator from Wyoming, Co-Chair of Obama's deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security" to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. August, 2010. Here's a response in a letter from a unknown fellow in Montana... I think he is a little ticked off ! He also tells it like it is ! "Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight... 1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS. 2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63). 3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an ...
The phony drop in unemployment???
Post Date: 2011-03-06 09:32:49 by CZ82
2 Comments
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has again issued data that appears to contradict what the average American sees in his neighborhood and instinctively questions. The official unemployment rate of 8.9% is a factor of data input which reflects how many people are looking for work, how many ceased to do so, and an estimated size of the current labor force. However there is a statistic the BLS puts out that does cast a more accurate shadow on the labor situation. That is the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate -- which is essentially the ratio of the labor force as compared to the total working age (over 16) population. In November 2008, when Obama was elected that ratio was 65.5%. In ...
Five Budget Cuts That Could Be Harmful to Your Health [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2011-03-05 22:00:59 by go65
44 Comments
Hard-fought-for laws and regulations to save lives and the environment will be gutted or eliminated in budget cuts passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives or ordered by President Barack Obama's team, experts say. Public health and environmental experts say it's indisputable that lives will be lost if these cuts are made: 1) The Consumer Product Safety Commission. The commission is scheduled next week to roll out its long-awaited public database on the safety of consumer products. For the first time, it will allow shoppers to quickly determine whether products they own or plan to by are associated with safety hazards or recalls. But the cuts strip funding ...
Cutting Poison Control (GOP budget cuts)
Post Date: 2011-03-05 21:57:43 by go65
1 Comments
PRESIDENT’S F.Y. 2010-11 REQUEST: $29 MILLION HOUSE VOTED: $2 MILLION Eliminating nearly all the money for poison control centers would save $27 million — not even a rounding error when it comes to the deficit. Yet it is so foolish that it perfectly illustrates the thoughtlessness of the House Republican bill to cut $61 billion from the budget over the next seven months. The nation’s network of 57 poison control centers takes four million calls a year about people who may have been exposed to a toxic substance. In three-quarters of all cases, the centers are able to provide treatment advice that does not require a visit to a hospital or a doctor, saving tens of millions of ...
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