The bullshit flag.
This is not trimming survivor benefits. This is closing a few loopholes and killing a frankly stupid and useless “benefit”. A payment of $255 to cover funeral expenses is a joke. Especially since it probably costs damn near that much to administer. Requiring kids to stay in school to continue to receive death benefits is smart, not a “Republican agenda of cutting guaranteed Social Security benefits” as Pelosi put it.
Could we get some freaking perspective? Is this the “better way” the Dems propose? Continue a joke payment and give handouts to dropouts?
This is really, really bad news.
The Brits found NBC suits during a raid on a Mosque.
Those only have one purpose folks.
H/T LGF
The Democrats did this once before at the funeral for Paul Wellstone.
The death of the widow on Martin Luther King. They could not even have the class to refrain from attacking on politics.
I honestly think they have completely lost their collective minds. They do not see that this kind of trash does not play well with the majority of Americans in the middle.
I know it’s not possible, but they should be ashamed.
The Brazilian Government is distributing free condoms during Carnival.
25 MILLION condoms.
According to this website, the population of the entire country is 186 million.
Sounds like much partying is expected……
Somehow, this should get tied into this article….
I originally had a post up that addressed this article. It’s about a guy who threw a message in a bottle into the Atlantic, only to get back an angry letter from England that accused him of littering.
Cute story, right?
Except the letter was signed by a Henry Bigglesworth. Recognize the name? Mr. Bigglesworth is the name of Dr. Evil’s cat in the Austin Powers movies. Odd, isn’t it?
Well, I came across this while checking up on the story. I had the idea of searching records myself but didn’t find any easy way to do so. It looks like someone did, though.
So, another hoax, probably not perpetrated by the man in the original story.
Read everything with a skeptical eye.
The “Scandal of the Day” club is getting old. And it’s not working.
Maybe it’s time to actually address issues instead of trying to drum up scandals.
Well, this is an interesting comment:
“We’re facing a growing global crisis that has the potential to escalate
beyond the control of governments and other authorities,” Prime Minister Anders
Fogh Rasmussen said…..
I think that’s about right.
This is escalating and may very well spin out of control. I think many in the West are now reaching the end of patience with this behavior. I see more and more commentary that indicates bloggers, politicians and just plain folks are getting really angry about this. That everyone knows darn well at this point that this is not, and never has been, spontaneous is not helping calm the situation.
There are some moderate voices. Interestingly, Iraq is behaving in a fairly subdued fashion since Sistani came out for moderation. Maybe it just goes to show that democracies don’t behave the same way as authoritarian theocracies….
Here’s an interesting article. It describes a study of Civil War veteran’s health records.
What is the myth here? This line:
“Civil War battles frequently culminated in hand-to-hand combat…” (emphasis added)
I know it makes for great Hollywood and many of the paintings and illustrations made at the time show gallant hand-to-hand battles, but it just ain’t so. [I'll try to find specific references in Catton.]
The Civil War had the typical problem that the tactics were from the last war while the weapons had changed. Many authors note this fact. The use of rifled .58 caliber Minnie ball ammunition against essentially Napoleonic troop concentrations meant that hand-to-hand combat actually occurred very seldom. Especially by the end of the war, trench warfare was the norm. The defense had an enormous advantage over the attackers. Most troops never used their bayonets for anything more aggressive than picking weevils out of hardtack.
That is not to say that hand-to-hand combat never occurred - it did. But it happened very infrequently indeed. You can read about the battles of the war yourself and see how seldom it actually occurred.
Close on the heels of the Cartoon Wars, we find this article.
Here we have a really twisted group of “Christians” who think that they should picket the funerals of fallen soldiers. Some states want to restrict that.
As much as I think their behavior is wrong, I disagree with restricting them. I will not riot, burn their church or shoot people with no connection to them, though. Is their behavior offensive? Absolutely. Are they causing unnecessary pain to innocent people who are already suffering enough. Yes. Should they be silenced? No. Should their behavior be held up to public ridicule? Hell yes.
The correct response to this outrage is to either counter-demonstrate, picket their churches or even their homes or to try to reason with them.
Now, we all know reasoning will not work.
But somehow they must learn that their behavior is shameful. I suggest a silent vigil. No signs, no shouting, no talking. Just stand. Let the physical, silent presence of reasonable people rebuke them.
If that doesn’t work, pickets outside their church and/or homes. Will any of this work? Hell, I don’t know if any technique can penetrate the incredible ignorance and complete lack of human empathy these people display. But it is their right to express even the worst opinions. As it is our right to show them we don’t approve of their twisted hate.
I just love this stuff.
Today we have another fine example of stupid, lazy or deliberately lying journalism.
This quote from a story on recycling nuclear fuel:
Other experts worry the proposal may simply be using heightened concerns
over nuclear security and weapons of mass destruction as a way to get the US
back into uranium-processing research - research the US gave up decades ago as
uneconomical and dangerous.
Pretty well wraps it up. The United States did not give recycling up because it was either uneconomical or dangerous. We gave it up because Jimmy Carter believed the extraction of Plutonium was a potential proliferation issue. Period. You can look it up yourself on the internet in about two minutes with Google.
Both Japan and France can and do recycle fuel in a closed loop system. The US uses an open loop system for one reason - politics. Recycled fuel components can be used to take up to 30% of the new fuel fabrication.
More of my posts have been “disappeared” by Blogger… It’s definitely time to get a real domain……
Uncategorized | Gaius Tuesday, 7 February , 2006 | 
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