JohnSmith2007
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Posts posted by JohnSmith2007
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What would happen if there were a delay and the car wasn't ready to leave the station when the train passed by?
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Iranian Cleric Says Promiscuous Women Are to Blame for Earthquakes
Associated Press
BEIRUT
BEIRUT -- A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.
Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric's unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair.
"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?" Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon Friday. "There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes."
Seismologists have warned for at least two decades that it is likely the sprawling capital will be struck by a catastrophic quake in the near future.
Some experts have even suggested Iran should move its capital to a less seismically active location. Tehran straddles scores of fault lines, including one more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) long, though it has not suffered a major quake since 1830.
In 2003, a powerful earthquake hit the southern city of Bam, killing 31,000 people — about a quarter of that city's population — and destroying its ancient mud-built citadel.
"A divine authority told me to tell the people to make a general repentance. Why? Because calamities threaten us," said Sedighi, Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader.
Referring to the violence that followed last June's disputed presidential election, he said, "The political earthquake that occurred was a reaction to some of the actions (that took place). And now, if a natural earthquake hits Tehran, no one will be able to confront such a calamity but God's power, only God's power. ... So let's not disappoint God."
The Iranian government and its security forces have been locked in a bloody battle with a large opposition movement that accuses Ahmadinejad of winning last year's vote by fraud.
Ahmadinejad made his quake prediction two weeks ago but said he could not give an exact date. He acknowledged that he could not order all of Tehran's 12 million people to evacuate. "But provisions have to be made. ... At least 5 million should leave Tehran so it is less crowded," the president said.
Minister of Welfare and Social Security Sadeq Mahsooli said prayers and pleas for forgiveness were the best "formulas to repel earthquakes."
"We cannot invent a system that prevents earthquakes, but God has created this system and that is to avoid sins, to pray, to seek forgiveness, pay alms and self-sacrifice," Mahsooli said.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/19/iranian-cleric-promiscuous-women-cause-quakes/
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Poll: 4 out of 5 Americans don't trust Washington
Apr 19, 8:04 AM (ET)
By LIZ SIDOTI
WASHINGTON (AP) - America's "Great Compromiser" Henry Clay called government "the great trust," but most Americans today have little faith in Washington's ability to deal with the nation's problems.
Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America's ills, the survey found.
The survey illustrates the ominous situation President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall's elections. Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.
The survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively affects their daily lives, a sentiment that's grown over the past dozen years.
This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week.
"The government's been lying to people for years. Politicians make promises to get elected, and when they get elected, they don't follow through," says Cindy Wanto, 57, a registered Democrat from Nemacolin, Pa., who joined several thousand for a rally in Washington on April 15 - the tax filing deadline. "There's too much government in my business. It was a problem before Obama, but he's certainly not helping fix it."
Majorities in the survey call Washington too big and too powerful, and say it's interfering too much in state and local matters. The public is split over whether the government should be responsible for dealing with critical problems or scaled back to reduce its power, presumably in favor of personal responsibility.
About half say they want a smaller government with fewer services, compared with roughly 40 percent who want a bigger government providing more. The public was evenly divided on those questions long before Obama was elected. Still, a majority supported the Obama administration exerting greater control over the economy during the recession.
"Trust in government rarely gets this low," said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan center that conducted the survey. "Some of it's backlash against Obama. But there are a lot of other things going on."
And, he added: "Politics has poisoned the well."
The survey found that Obama's policies were partly to blame for a rise in distrustful, anti-government views. In his first year in office, the president orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a $787 billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul the health care system.
But the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the electorate's hostility: the recession that Obama inherited from President George W. Bush; a dispirited public; and anger with Congress and politicians of all political leanings.
"I want an honest government. This isn't an honest government. It hasn't been for some time," said self-described independent David Willms, 54, of Sarasota, Fla. He faulted the White House and Congress under both parties.
The poll was based on four surveys done from March 11 to April 11 on landline and cell phones. The largest survey, of 2,500 adults, has a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points; the others, of about 1,000 adults each, has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.
In the short term, the deepening distrust is politically troubling for Obama and Democrats. Analysts say out-of-power Republicans could well benefit from the bitterness toward Washington come November, even though voters blame them, too, for partisan gridlock that hinders progress.
In a democracy built on the notion that citizens have a voice and a right to exercise it, the long-term consequences could prove to be simply unhealthy - or truly debilitating. Distrust could lead people to refuse to vote or get involved in their own communities. Apathy could set in, or worse - violence.
Democrats and Republicans both accept responsibility and fault the other party for the electorate's lack of confidence.
"This should be a wake-up call. Both sides are guilty," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. She pointed to "nonsense" that goes on during campaigns that leads to "promises made but not promises kept." Still, she added: "Distrust of government is an all-American activity. It's something we do as Americans and there's nothing wrong with it."
Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who won a long-held Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts in January by seizing on public antagonism toward Washington, said: "It's clear Washington is broken. There's too much partisan bickering to be able to solve the problems people want us to solve."
And, he added: "It's going to be reflected in the elections this fall."
But Matthew Dowd, a top strategist on Bush's re-election campaign who now shuns the GOP label, says both Republicans and Democrats are missing the mark.
"What the country wants is a community solution to the problems but not necessarily a federal government solution," Dowd said. Democrats are emphasizing the federal government, while Republicans are saying it's about the individual; neither is emphasizing the right combination to satisfy Americans, he said.
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Sure, but journalism has traditionally been self monitored here in the states. Before the huge media conglomerates swallowed up nearly all independent media outlets, no one was immune to some good investigative journalism that would expose their conflicts of interests, or write a scathing review when a news outlet was guilty of yellow journalism. Now we have a corporate run media that dominates the airwaves.
Yellow journalism has been going on for over 100 years. Nothing new here, only the medium.
Yellow Journalism
Yellow journalism, in short, is biased opinion masquerading as objective fact. Moreover, the practice of yellow journalism involved sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting newspaper sales and exciting public opinion. It was particularly indicative of two papers founded and popularized in the late 19th century- The New York World, run by Joseph Pulitzer and The New York Journal, run by William Randolph Hearst.
It all started, some historians believe, with the onset of the rapid industrialization that was happening all around the world. The Industrial Revolution eventually affected the newspaper industry, allowing newspapers access to machines that could easily print thousands of papers in a single night. This is believed to have brought into play one of the most important characteristics of yellow journalism - the endless drive for circulation. And unfortunately, the publisher's greed was very often put before ethics.
Although the actual practice of what would later become known as yellow journalism came into being during a more extended time period (between 1880-1890), the term was first coined based on a series of occurrences in and following the year of 1895. This was the year in which Hearst purchased the New York Journal, quickly becoming a key rival of Pulitzer's. The term was derived, through a series of peculiar circumstances, from a cartoon by the famous 19th century cartoonist, Robert Outcault called "The Yellow Kid" (see second from top). The cartoon was first published in The World, until Hearst hired him away to produce the strip in his newspaper. Pulitzer then hired another artist to produce the same strip in his newspaper. This comic strip happened to use a new special, non-smear yellow ink, and because of the significance of the comic strip, the term "yellow journalism" was coined by critics.
Sadly though, this period of sensationalist news delivery (where the so-called yellow press routinely outsold the more honest, truthful, unbiased newspapers) does stand out as a particularly dark era in journalistic history. The demand of the United States people for absolutely free press allowed such aforementioned newspapers, which often appealed to the shorter attention spans and interests of the lower class, to print whatever they so desired. This means that they could easily steal a headline and story directly from another paper, or simply fabricate a story to fit their particular agenda.
One of the more disturbing features involved with the former practice of yellow journalism, and the period in which it was most active in is that there is no definite line between this period of yellow journalism and the period afterwards. There only exists evidence that such practices were frowned upon by the general public - by 1910, circulation had dropped off very rapidly for such papers. But regardless, does this mean that yellow journalism simply faded away, never to return? Or did it absorb itself into the very heart of our newspapers, where it will remain forever? One thing is for certain - after the late 1800s, newspapers changed drastically, and still show no sign of changing back. The modernly present newspaper appearances of catchy headlines, humorous comic strips, special interest sections, intrusive investigative reporting, et cetera serve as a constant reminder that one must always stay skeptical when examining our news sources.
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I like the irony of it all. A democrat pollster is saying the only way to avoid a political bloodbath is to embrace the Tea Party values. Pretty rich.
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party dress
dress rehersal
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Wells Fargo isn't an investment bank, so I doubt they'll get indicted on the same kinds of charges for peddling ####### CDOs.
Merrill is now a part of BofA, so whatever suits are filed against Merrill will hit BofA.
But you're right that there is more to come. UBS, Credit Suisse, RBS, this is not just American banks.
I am sorry Scandal, I know that you are in the Wall Street line of business but how can we trust the big financal institutions again? I am very much anti-regulation but these guys nearly brought down the country. The really pissy part of it is they did it with the help of the Barney Frank and Criss Dodd types and they will walk scott free. These banks need a much shorter chain and the politicians that enabled them should be impeached.
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How the Democrats can avoid a November bloodbath
By Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. Caddell
Friday, April 16, 2010
Media reports suggest that President Obama is turning his attention toward the midterm congressional elections. There are a few things it is imperative he understand if he is to, at the least, minimize Democratic losses in November.
We are Democratic pollsters who argued against the health-care legislation ["Democrats' blind ambition," Washington Forum, March 12] that the Obama administration chose to pursue. Instead, we advocated incremental health-care reform. With the passage of health reform, some harsh political realities have emerged.
Recent polling shows that despite lofty predictions that a broad-based Democratic constituency would be activated by the bill's passage, the bill has been an incontrovertible disaster. The most recent Rasmussen Reports poll, released on April 12, shows that 58 percent of the electorate supports a repeal of the health-care reform bill -- up from 54 percent two weeks earlier. Fueling this backlash is concern that health-care reform will drive up health costs and expand the role of government, and the belief that passage was achieved by fundamentally anti-democratic means. Already we are seeing the implications play out with the retirement of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) -- who had effectively become the face of the last-minute, closed-door negotiations that resulted in passage.
Put simply, there has been no bounce, for the president or his party, from passing health care.
In fact, Monday's Gallup report showed the president's weekly job approval rating at a low of 47 percent. And as the Democratic Party's favorability has dropped to 41 percent -- the lowest in Gallup's 18-year history of measuring it -- this week's Rasmussen Reports survey shows the Republican Party with a nine-point lead in the generic congressional vote. Moreover, independents, who are more energized than Democrats, are leaning Republican by a 2-to-1 margin.
What all this means is that Republicans are ripe to pick up major gains in both chambers this November.
To turn a corner, Democrats need to start embracing an agenda that speaks to the broad concerns of the American electorate. It should be somewhat familiar: It is the agenda that is driving the Tea Party movement and one that has the capacity to motivate a broadly based segment of the electorate.
To be sure, great efforts have been made recently to demonize the Tea Party movement. But polling suggests that the Tea Party movement has not been diminished but, in fact, has grown stronger. The Winston Group found, in three national surveys conducted from December through February and published April 1, that the Tea Party movement is composed of a broad cross-section of the American people -- 40 to 50 percent of its supporters are non-Republicans. Indeed, one-third of self-identified Democrats say they support the Tea Party movement.
The electorate's dissatisfaction with the established political order has led the Tea Party movement to become as potent a force as any U.S. political party.
Last week, a Rasmussen Reports survey showed that overall more Americans say that they agree with the Tea Party movement on major issues than with the president of the United States -- 48 percent with the Tea Party and 44 percent with Obama. Among independents, 50 percent said that they're closer to the Tea Party, while only 38 percent are with Obama.
Moreover, the most recent Gallup poll shows that the Tea Party movement is at least as popular as the Democratic Party. And the Tea Party movement stands for fiscal discipline, limited government and balancing the budget -- an agenda that has broad public support extending well beyond the movement. Polling conducted by one of us (Schoen) found that 55 percent of respondents endorse that agenda. More important, a solid majority of swing voters endorse it.
The swing voters, who are key to the fate of the Democratic Party, care most about three things: reigniting the economy, reducing the deficit and creating jobs.
These voters are outraged by the seeming indifference of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, who they believe wasted a year on health-care reform. These voters will not tolerate more diversion from their pressing economic concerns. They view the Obama administration as working systematically to protect the interests of public-sector employees and organized labor -- by offering specific benefits such as pension protection and tax reductions at the expense of all taxpayers.
Democrats must understand that voters will not accept seeing their tax dollars used to pay for higher wages and better benefits for public-sector employees when they themselves are getting higher taxes and lower wages.
Winning over swing voters will require a bold, new focus from the president and his party. They must adopt an agenda aimed at reducing the debt, with an emphasis on tax cuts, while implementing carefully crafted initiatives to stimulate and encourage job creation. This is the agenda that largely motivated the Clinton administration from 1995 through 2000 and that led to a balanced budget and welfare reform. It promoted a modest degree of social welfare spending. This agenda is enormously popular with the electorate and could eventually turn around Democratic fortunes.
Democrats can avoid the electoral bloodbath we predicted before passage of the health-care bill, but in one way: through a bold commitment to fiscal discipline and targeted fiscal stimulus of the private sector and entrepreneurship.
Douglas E. Schoen, a pollster, is the author of "The Political Fix." Patrick H. Caddell is a political commentator and a pollster.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041504131.html
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Oh dear
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No arguments? Didn't think you would roll over that easily.
No arguments, I hope you tell all your friends your opinions. Start a web blog about your ideas on the Tea Party in fact. Go for it!
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I should add that it became obvious to me, at least locally, that the tea party movement was nothing but a way for politicians to cash in on the stupidity of the party's followers when Tommy Thompson was invited to speak. He shares almost nothing with the tea-baggers. He was only invited because he's a republican, and the tea party movement was supposed to be a new ideology, based on my understanding. I'm not sure what Palin and Hannity have to offer either, other than their ability to do nothing but come up with colorful insults.
Your absolutly right!! Good show!
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I'll be surprised if the tea party movement doesn't become as bland as the rest of mainstream politics. Let's face it, the tea party movement is not grassroots. Palin, Hannity, and others want to keep pushing that concept, but it simply isn't true. The fact that big names are now suddenly associated with the movement is some proof of this. Historically, once a political movement starts to cater to big-name politicians, especially politicians that do not share the same views as the initial members of the movement, it begins to lose momentum and eventually die. Case in point: the anti-war movement. The tea party movement is declining in strength, and will die out soon enough. You can take that to the bank.
Good for you! Tell your friends that!
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Don't tea-baggers have jobs? I can' imagine anything more ridiculous than spending my day at any political rally. Losers.
Furthermore, how in the hell is the tea-party movement grassroots? Never understood that one. I guess it sounds good, but it isn't true.
Just keep thinking that, all of you leftwing nuts will be in for a huge surprise in the fall.
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When I read the title, my initial reaction was "####### is a 'huge manunt'?"
I have no clue how that h moved from manhunt to the front.
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TWO escaped convicts have dodged a huge manhunt - by disguising themselves as SHEEP.
The pair dressed in full sheepskin fleeces, complete with heads, to lie low among farm flocks.
Robbers Maximiliano Pereyra, 25, and Ariel Diaz, 28, stole the sheep hides from a ranch after breaking out of an Argentinian maximum security prison a week ago.
And they have managed to evade the 300 cops on their trail - despite locals seeing them running through fields at night.
A farmworker at La Almeda said: "They were wearing grey clothes but had full sheepskins, including the sheeps' heads, over their heads and backs."
Police say spotting the pair among thousands of sheep is "almost impossible". But one warned: "They can't pull the wool over our eyes forever."
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A free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to outlaw and prosecute force or fraud. It is the opposite of a controlled market, where the government regulates how the means of production, goods, and services are used, priced, or distributed. This is the contemporary use of the term "free market" by economists and in popular culture; the term has had other uses historically. A free market economy is an economy where all markets within it are free. This requires protection of property rights, but no regulation, no subsidization, no government-imposed monopolistic monetary system, and no governmental monopolies.
The theory holds that within the ideal free market, property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged solely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. By definition, buyers and sellers do not coerce each other, in the sense that they obtain each other's property rights without the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud, nor are they coerced by a third party (such as by government via transfer payments) [1] and they engage in trade simply because they both consent and believe that what they are getting is worth more than or as much as what they give up. Price is the result of buying and selling decisions en masse as described by the theory of supply and demand.
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I don't know about that.
I'm a big believer in "free markets" too. Free - but level, and fair, and safe, and regulated.
For example, the "free for all" OTC CDS market proved to be a disaster. Some would say CDS were the problem - so ban them. I don't think that - I think they're an important risk diversification tool when used properly. I think the answer is a new market for CDS - but a regulated and exchange based one with central clearing and posted collateral as you would have on any proper exchange.
So I don't agree that "the ones that are closest to totally free are the best ones." Not if "closest to totally free" means unregulated and with counterparty credit risk that blows up in your face, no way.
Markets yes. Safe, secure, regulated, fair and equitable markets that promote commerce and innovation. Not markets that invite disaster.
Well, I wasn't talking specifically about the stock markets. I was talking about the economic markets in general. IMO the trading markets have gotten way out of hand. There is nothing wrong with the equity and commodity markets but the derivative markets are to much.
The only regulation in private business I agree with are for safety and the prevention of competition killing monopolies.
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Do you know of any real world examples of a truly free market? Any real world examples where a country was absolutely devoid of any socialist policies?
Yeah I know, your standard BS response. There are no 100% free markets. But the ones that are closest to totally free are the best ones. The USA used to be the freest and we were the best in the world. Now we are getting away from the free market and going toward what the rest of the world is doing and we are losing our edge.
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Was he right?
Since it came from the Wash times its all lies!!!!! Everyone got huge raises since Obama became President!!
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Ok, but in real terms, what do you suppose that would mean? For example, how many veterans services would suffer because of the cuts?
Pain would be felt across the board as well, no doubt of that. But as ###### said if we could just eleminate the waste and redundancy the pain would be minimized. You have to see that if we do nothing we are heading the way of Greece. In 10 years our debt service will be our biggest expenditure. It isn't going to be much longer and we will lose our AA credit rating. If that happens and we crash how big do you think the pain will be then? Sure taxing the ####### out of the rich seems like a good thing to do but even the rich doesn't have enough money to dig us out of the hole we are in.
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Where do you us to cut spending on?
Let make it easy, 25% accross the board. Every single program, nothing excluded.
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Exactly!
Which gets back to my original remark to you - what in your opinion is Socialism? We can ignore the celebrity megalomaniacs and their political opinions, but what about the others from the Right who echo similar sentiments? That this country is moving towards Socialism? What do they mean, in your opinion?Why do you keep trying to draw me into a circular argument? You very well know what is socialistic and what is not. To argue the semantics is just wasting time. To be clear, socialism is when the government controls private business. When it sets wages, profits and the rules above and beyond safety and trade laws. The things you seem to want fall right square in the middle of the classic definition of socialism as pertaining to the economic markets. Free market is the American way. I know you don't like it but that is just tough sh!t.
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I guess you don't understand sarcasm any better than you understand what socialism is. People like Glenn Beck use all kinds of fear mongering Nazi imagery to describe President Obama...except he's not being sarcastic.
Beck is a talk show host. Why do people like him and Limbaugh bother you so much? If you don't like them then ignore them! People that allow Beck and Limbaugh to form their opinions for them really don't have much of a brain to begin with. If they didn't get their radical ideas from talk show hosts they would be getting them from each other. The lefts constant drum beat is just embolding them. You want them to shut up and go away? Ignore them.
WOW! What piece of ####### this article is
Of the many misconceptions this article presents so that it can make the lefties out there feel good about there opinions it was number 9 that got to me.
Fact,U.S. government distributes more in foreign aid than any other country, by far. What this article does is hide behind the word "percentage" Thus giving the lefty loonies the "proof" they need.
Yeah, I know. We could give half of our GDP to charity and some leftist would say we still are not giving enough.
Australian cookbook calls for 'freshly ground black people'
in Off Topic
Posted
Heh, and these are Aussies good points! The best thing to come out of Austrailia is Mick Dundee, and I hate that asshat.