The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth. Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.
James Abercromby is replaced as supreme
commander of British forces after his defeat by French commander the
Marquis of Montcalm at Fort Ticonderoga during the French and Indian
War.
1759
Quebec surrenders to the British after a
battle which sees the deaths of both James Wolfe and Louis Montcalm,
the British and French commanders.
1793
George Washington lays the foundation stone for the U.S. Capitol.
1830
Tom Thumb, the first locomotive built in the United States, loses a nine-mile race in Maryland to a horse.
1850
Congress passes the second Fugitive Slave
Bill into law (the first was enacted in 1793), requiring the return of
escaped slaves to their owners.
1862
After waiting all day for a Union attack
which never came at Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins a
retreat out of Maryland and back to Virginia.
1863
Union cavalry troops clash with a group of Confederates at Chickamauga Creek.
1874
The Nebraska Relief and Aid Society is
formed to help farmers whose crops were destroyed by grasshoppers
swarming throughout the American West.
1911
Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin dies four days after being shot at the Kiev opera house by socialist lawyer Dimitri Bogroff.
1914
The Irish Home Rule Bill becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I.
1929
Charles Lindbergh takes off on a 10,000 mile air tour of South America.
1934
The League of Nations admits the Soviet Union.
1939
A German U-boat sinks the British aircraft carrier Courageous, killing 500 people.
1948
Margaret Chase Smith
becomes the first woman elected to the Senate without completing
another senator's term when she defeats Democratic opponent Adrian
Scolten. Smith is also the only woman to be elected to and serve in
both houses of Congress.
1960
Two thousand cheer Castro's arrival in New York for the United Nations session.
1964
U.S. destroyers fire on hostile targets in Vietnam.
1980
Cosmonaut Arnoldo Tamayo, a Cuban, becomes the first black to be sent on a mission in space.
This will be shocking news for the repugicans, though it
shouldn't be. The US has had higher growth rates during times of much
higher taxes but somehow that is always glossed over by the tax cut
proponents.
Even Mitt Romney himself proves how little tax rates are connected to
employment creation investments. The man hasn't worked in years and has
paid no more than 14% in taxes yet we don't see him setting up new
businesses with the extra income. He fails his own test on tax breaks.
Analysis of six decades of data found that top tax rates
"have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity
growth." However, the study found that reductions of capital gains taxes
and top marginal rate taxes have led to greater income inequality. Past
studies cited in the report have suggested that a broad-based tax rate
reduction can have "a small to modest, positive effect on economic
growth" or "no effect on economic growth."
Well into the 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was above 90%. Today it's
35%. But both real GDP and real per capita GDP were growing more than
twice as fast in the 1950s as in the 2000s. At the same time, the
average tax rate paid by the top tenth of a percent fell from about 50%
to 25% in the last 60 years, while their share of income increased from
4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% before the recession.
The Daily Dish latches on to another part of the now infamous secret video of Mitt Romney
telling rich donors earlier this year that the 47% of Americans who
support Barack Obama are all welfare queens who don't have jobs, and
don't want jobs.
"My own view is that if we win on November 6th, there will
be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see
capital come back and we'll see — without actually doing anything —
we'll actually get a boost in the economy."
Not too full of ourselves, are we?
There's almost a religious self-importance to Romney's comments.
Capital will come back (does he mean business will start to invest
more?) simply because the Great Romney has spoken.
This is why Mitt Romney doesn't have any specifics to his policies. He doesn't think he needs specifics. He quite seriously believes that he has some magical powerful to simply bring unemployment down to 4% again.
He doesn't need a plan. He's the messiah.
What a pathetically disturbing view of one's self.
UPDATE: Romney campaign appears to stand by Romney's
statement that half of America, and all Democrats, are welfare queens.
In a statement just released by the Romney campaign, no clarification
was given - they simply just reiterated their concerns that too many
Americans are sucking at the federal teat.
"Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the
Obama economy. As the governor has made clear all year, he is concerned
about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal
government, including the record number of people who are on food
stamps, nearly one in six Americans in poverty, and the 23 million
Americans who are struggling to find work. Mitt Romney's plan creates 12
million new jobs in four years, grows the economy and moves Americans
off of government dependency and into jobs." – Gail Gitcho, Romney
Campaign Communications Director
Actually, what Romney said
was that half of Americans suck off the federal teat, and they like it
because they're lazy, don't have jobs, and don't want jobs. And "my job
is not to worry about those people."
Romney is basically standing by his incredibly offensive statement about half the country.
UPDATE: The Obama campaign has weighed in:
"It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.”
And there's video of it (see below).
I've been noticing some folks on Twitter and Facebook not quite getting it. Romney wasn't talking about just "poor people." He was talking about every single Democrat in America. He specifically said he's talking about the 47% of Americans who would support the President no matter what - i.e., Democrats across the board. The only people he's excluding are independents and Republicans.
Romney was suggesting that all Democrats are poor, minority,
don't have a job, and don't want one. It was racist, bigoted, and
insulting to probably ten different groups of Americans in twenty
different ways. It's bad enough that he thinks minorities are lazy
slobs, but to then suggest that the Democratic party is made up 100% of
lazy slobs. It's unbelievably contemptuous.
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the
president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with
him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are
victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for
them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to
housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government
should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter
what…These are people who pay no income tax.
Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll
never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care
for their lives."
I pay my taxes, you jerk. Have you paid
yours? What an incredibly obnoxious thing to say by a man who refuses
to release his own tax returns when insiders are claiming that he hasn't
paid taxes in ten years.
What a pompous, arrogant, elitist, jerk.
And there's video.
UPDATE: Carl Kerstann comments:
I was supporting the Green Party but after coughing up a
much higher tax rate than Romney pays this comment really ticked me off.
This ass cannot be allowed to win, go Obama.
Unless the President does something incredibly stupid, this campaign is over. Mitt Romney tonight is standing by his comments, revealed earlier in a secretly recorded via taken at a high-dollar fundraiser, in which the repugican candidate said that half of America - Obama voters - pay no taxes, believe they are victims, don't care for their lives.
Here's a prime snippet from the press conference, above, in which Romney stands by his idiotic comments:
"It's a message which I'm gonna carry, and continue to carry, which is, look, the
President's approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes
because frankly my discussion about lowering taxes isn't as attractive
to them, and therefore I'm [not] likely to draw them into my
campaign as effectively as those who were in the middle. This is really a
discussion about, about the political process of winning the election."
So
once again Mitt Romney reiterates that the reason voters don't like his
policies is because they're not paying enough taxes (guess what he's
doing to you after he's election, then) - well, actually, they're not
paying any taxes at all, he claims. What an astoundingly idiotic and
offensive thing to claim. That those of who don't like this man's
candidacy simply aren't paying our fair share of taxes.
Romney's right, I'm paying less in taxes today than I did three years
ago. That's because I'm making a lot less money today than I did three
years ago. And it's 1130 at night and I'm still working, so I don't
appreciate being called lazy by the repugican presidential candidate.
Mitt Romney really has a propensity, a predilection really, to double down on stupid.
Remember how, after issuing that insane press release trying to take
partisan advantage of the death of a State Department official last week
(at the time we didn't know it was the ambassador), Romney then went on
national TV the next morning, with a back drop intended to look like
the White House, and stuck his foot in it even more.
It's a dilemma of his own making. One of Romney's chief attack points
against the President is the lie that the President has apologized for
America around the world. The fact checkers say this isn't true. But
Romney has so cornered himself in on the "no apologies" meme that he
can't now apologize himself.
And Romney's own "no apologies" tour is running smack into Romney's
other propensity for arrogance, which usually leads to insult. Whether
it's your freshly baked cookies that Romney doesn't approve of, or your
entire nation, that inner sphincter that tells someone to STFU just
doesn't work in Mitt Romney's case.
And it's leading to a lot of fun, and embarrassment, and a presidential campaign going down in flames.
Some people were expecting an October Surprise from the repugicans. But we never thought Mitt Romney would give it to us in
September!
By now you may have heard that Mitt Romney ended his race for the
presidency last night. Well, not officially. But the race is all but
over. Anyone who gives this man a dime after last night's fiasco, truly
doesn't care about a return on their investment.
You see, last night we learned,
from a secret video, that Mitt Romney had told some high-paying donors
that half of America is worthless, lazy people who don't pay taxes,
don't have a job, and don't really want one.
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the
president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with
him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are
victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for
them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to
housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government
should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter
what…These are people who pay no income tax.
Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll
never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care
for their lives."
Then, in case you didn't get the message the first time, Romney reiterated his key point, that Democrats don't pay taxes.
"It's a message which I'm gonna carry, and continue to
carry, which is, look, the President's approach is attractive to people
who are not paying taxes because frankly my discussion about lowering
taxes isn't as attractive to them, and therefore I'm [not] likely to
draw them into my campaign as effectively as those who were in the
middle. This is really a discussion about, about the political process
of winning the election."
And if that weren't clear enough, rnc Chair Reince Priebus, always good for adding insult to injury, said Romney's words were "on message."
So the entire repugican cabal is now embracing Mitt Romney's claim
that half of the American people are jobless and lazy and see themselves
as victims.
Nice job, Reince. I think I see ripples of impact for the House and
Senate races ("The chair of the Republican party says you're lazy and
you don't pay enough in taxes...").
CNN's Jim Acosta @jimacostacnn
Shorter Romney statement... no apologies.
AP's Kasie Hunt @kasie
Category of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes: U.S. troops serving in combatzones.
TIME's Mark Halperin @MarkHalperin
Many of us have seen pols pander to donors in closed events. I've heard my share Rs+Ds. Never anything this damaging however.
CNN/Daily Beast's @HowardKurtz
Romney on the 47 percent seems a stereotype of an unsympathetic venture
capitalist--going to be hard to overcome among non-base voters.
@JohnJHarwood
Dem pollster Garin on Romney fund-raiser tape: "Reinforces impression
he's mistake/prone & arrogant. would be better off if he apologized"
Things are getting so bad, this piece of satire by Andy Borowitz may not be so far off from the truth.
In what his campaign described today as a bold strategy to
insure victory in the Presidential contest, repugican nominee Mitt
Romney will undergo a procedure to have his mouth wired shut until
Tuesday, November 6th.
And
let the games begin. When the ship starts sinking, the rats start
talking to the media (to mix my metaphors). The article reads like an
election postmortem. I was waiting for these stories to begin - where
insiders start talking about other insiders to deflect the blame for
losing the election. I just didn't think they'd start this early.
Just eight days before the most important speech of Mitt
Romney's campaign, his top strategist, Stuart Stevens, junked it and
created a new one for the repugican national cabal. Politico
reports on escalating instability within the Romney campaign that is
pushing Obama into an early lead, especially after the disastrous rnc.
"The hasty process resulted in a colossal oversight: Romney did not
include a salute to troops serving in war zones, and did not mention Al
Qaeda or Afghanistan, putting him on the defensive on national security
just as the Middle East was about to erupt," Politico reports. Stevens
seems to have taken on too much and the results could be disastrous for
the campaign.
This is very bad for Romney. At some point,
big donors are going to stop giving big bucks to a candidate who's going
to lose. In any venture, you stop throwing good money after bad.
From Politico,
first we learn of how they scrapped Romney's speech 8 days before the
convention, and started anew, which totally screwed things up:
The hasty process resulted in a colossal oversight: Romney
did not include a salute to troops serving in war zones, and did not
mention Al Qaeda or Afghanistan, putting him on the defensive on
national security just as the Middle East was about to erupt. It was
also very light on policy specifics, much to the chagrin of
conservatives who were certain the addition of Ryan and inclusion of
Wehner meant a real battle of ideas was about to begin.
The damage had been compounded when, in compressing the program from
four days to three because of a hurricane delay, convention organizers
had scrapped a planned remote appearance by Romney and veterans that was
to be fed live into the Tampa hall from a speech he was giving to an
American Legion convention in Indiana. With the salute-the-troops
tribute out, the assumption was Romney would pay tribute to them in the
speech. He didn’t.
The convention finale was undermined even further by Eastwood’s rambling
comedy routine, which became the only glimpse that many swing voters
got of the repugican show. Eastwood had been added to the program after
chatting with Romney at a fundraiser in Idaho just weeks before the
convention.
Add
Joe Scarborough to the list of repugicans who are upset with how Romney
is running his campaign.
“How can it be that this man who turned around countless businesses,
saved the 2002 Olympics, and ran
Democratic Massachusetts like a pro is the head of such a disastrous
campaign?” Scarborough writes.
He cites a litany of errors by the scum-sucking, bottom-dweller.
• Who was responsible for burying his convention video behind the
bumbling bluster of Clint Eastwood?
• Who told Romney to issue a political broadside against the
commander-in-chief the day after a U.S. ambassador was murdered?
• And who decided that Romney would use his general election campaign
to stand for absolutely nothing?
As for the debt, “when it comes to balancing the budget, Mr. Romney has
no plan,” Scarborough writes.
And as for defense spending, “all Mitt Romney can do is promise bigger
budgets and longer wars.”
Wingnut Groups Focus on Registration in Swing States
It might as well be Harry Potter’s invisible Knight Bus, because no one can prove it exists.
The bus has been repeatedly cited by True the Vote, a national
group focused on voter fraud. Catherine Engelbrecht, the group’s leader,
told a gathering in July about buses carrying dozens of voters showing
up at polling places during the recent Wisconsin recall election.
What is funny is that of the infinitesimal number of persons committing 'voter fraud' that has been found it has been a wingnut committing the fraud ... curious now isn't it?
Marshall Taylor (1878 - 1932) was an American cyclist who won the world 1
mile track cycling championship in 1899 after setting numerous world
records and overcoming racial discrimination. Taylor was the first
African-American athlete to achieve the level of world champion.
Marshall Taylor
was just a teenager when he turned professional and began winning races
on the world stage, and President Theodore Roosevelt became one of his
greatest admirers. Nicknamed 'the Black Cyclone,' he would burst to fame
as the world champion of his sport.
But Taylor's crossing of the color line was not without complication,
especially in the United States, where he often had no choice but to
ride ahead of his white competitors to avoid being pulled or jostled
from his bicycle at high speeds.
The battle of Antietam, which
occurred on Sept. 17, 1862, is often overshadowed by Gettysburg, but it
was the bloodiest one-day battle in American history.
For 60 years the logging town of Bordeaux, Washington
prospered because it was located in the heart of Capital Forest where
towering fir and cedar trees provided beams for buildings, spars for
sailing ships and shingles for roofs. The 120 ft. straight, clear spars
went to Maine to provide the masts for the fast clipper ships.
Mumby cedar shingles were prized in the Midwest as the best quality for
homes and businesses. After 100 years or more, the warehouses of Seattle
and Tacoma are now offices and upscale restaurants with the original,
massive, open beams milled from forest giants that once were common, but
now are protected.
Robert Cringely speculates on the reasoning behind Google's decision to
continue hosting the controversial "Innocence of Muslims" clip despite a
request from the State Department to remove it. Cringely believes that
Google worries that if it were to begin removing videos, it would lose
access to the "Safe Harbor" defense of the 1998 Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, which exempts it from liability for copyright violations
by its users, provided that it does not police the users' uploads
(except to ensure compliance with its terms of service). Thus if Google
were to begin removing videos from US view on
non-copyright/non-terms-of-service grounds, it could be liable for
$150,000 copyright fines for every infringing video in the YouTube
collection.
Muhammad v. YouTube
An Oklahoma woman who was found alive in a chest-type deep freezer may
have climbed in due to bad weather. Theresa Christian, 59, was last seen
over the weekend. Her son found her on Wednesday morning in a large
freezer at her Tulsa apartment and called police.
"Apparently
family members had reported her missing since Saturday and they finally
got her son in who recognized immediately that there was no way she
could have left the residence willingly without her purse and other
belongings and left her TV on."
"So they started searching the
house and neighbours said possibly she thought maybe there was tornado
coming but their sure why or how she got there but her son heard a moan
coming from the area of the freezer and opened up and discovered her
sitting inside," said Cpl. Daisy Vallely with the Tulsa Police
Department.
Family members say Christian is scared of storms and may have climbed into the freezer for safety. She was taken to the hospital in serious condition with frostbite. Police do not suspect foul play.
"In an interview with Defense Technology International [March 1],
prominent Anonymous front man Barrett Brown alluded to the significance
of the HB Gary hacking in the movement." - Mandy Nagy , Breitbart.com,
"FBI Bust, Aided by 'Anonymous' Snitch, Reveals Left-Hacker Alliance,"
March 9, 2012 "I got to find out, thanks to a hack - thanks to another
...
Rowan County Sheriff’s officers arrested a man last week for
using counterfeit money on multiple occasions to purchase auto parts.
Authorities charged Milton McKnight with 4 counts of obtaining property by false pretense on September 12.
The sheriff’s office began its investigation in early August
after Matlock’s Used Cars and Parts in Cleveland and LKQ Auto Parts in
Salisbury reported receiving counterfeit $50 and $100 dollar bills on
several occasions.
During the investigation, Detective C. Brown determined the bills were coming from Knight’s Auto in Charlotte.
The sheriff’s office worked with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police as
well as the U.S. Secret Service to determine that McKnight would call
and order parts from the Rowan County business and pay with counterfeit
cash.
After a search warrant was obtained for McKnight’s house and
business, investigators found counterfeit money on McKnight that matched
the bills passed in Rowan County. They also found counterfeit money at
his house.
McKnight was arrested and placed in the Mecklenburg County Jail under $15,000 secured bond.
Instead of helping a man who had passed out on a subway track in
Stockholm, a passer-by chose to rob the unconscious victim before
leaving him to be run over by a train. “This shows an unusual
ruthlessness,” said Peter Brottman of the South Stockholm police. The
victim, referred to in the Swedish media as Johnny, 38, was returning
home after a drunken night out on the town with his friends when he fell
down on the tracks at Sandsborg metro station south of Stockholm.
Shortly thereafter he was robbed of all his valuables and left on the
tracks before being run over by an oncoming train.
Despite
sustaining serious injuries, Johnny nevertheless survived the accident,
as only five metres of the train actually ran him over. “He had
amazing luck, really. The train came from the other direction and the
driver managed to see him and pull the emergency brakes,” Brottman said.
The incident, which occurred early on Sunday morning, was caught by
security cameras. Police are hoping that someone might be able to
identify the perpetrator from the security camera footage.
The
man jumped down on the tracks, got back up again, and exited the
turnstiles. “He pocketed a wallet, a mobile phone and a gold chain. Then he jumped back up on the platform and just walked away. He
didn’t call the emergency services or notify the ticket collector at
the station“ said Peter Brottman. Johnny is still being treated in
hospital. Half of his left foot has been amputated and his right knee
has been damaged to a point where he’ll need a prosthetic in future.
However, based on the footage, police have classified the incident as
aggravated theft.
“We
are classifying it as aggravated theft rather than robbery, as the
latter implies that the perpetrator threatens or renders his victim in a
state of powerlessness and we didn’t see anything like that. The person
who was drunk had achieved that state of powerlessness himself," said
Östman. That the perpetrator didn’t try to assist the helpless man on
the tracks or call emergency services is not something he could be
charged for. “There is no law that says he has to take action,” said
Östman. Johnny’s partner Louise is still in shock from what has
happened. “I have cried, cried and cried. When I heard what had happened
I was angry, sad and full of hatred. I was shocked that anyone could
leave a person on the track to die," she said.
"There is wisdom in a raven's head." - Gaelic Proverb
In England, tombstones are sometimes called "ravenstones".
Prophesy states that as long as Ravens live at the Tower of London, the kingdom is safe.
Folklore of the Hebrides tells that giving a newborn his first drink
from the skull of a raven will give the child wisdom and the power of
prophesy.
Because King Arthur lived on in the form of a raven, in Corwall it is considered very unlucky to kill one.
"To have a raven's knowledge" is an Irish proverb meaning to have a
seer's supernatural powers. The raven is considered to be one of the
oldest and wisest of all animals.
Ravens were the favorite bird
of the god Lludd, the Celtic god of artists and artisans. He was said
to have two ravens to attend to all of his needs (similar to Odin and
his ravens).
The Scottish Goddess of winter, The Cailleach, sometimes appears as a raven. A touch from her is said to bring death.
Among the Irish Celts, the raven was associated with the Triple
Goddess, the Morrigan, who took the shape of a raven over battlefields
while acting as "Chooser of the Slain" and the protector of warriors.
The raven is also intimately associated with Morgan le Fay.
Irish and Scots Bean Sidhes (Banshees) can take the form of ravens.
Their calls from over the roof of a dwelling was considered to be an
omen of death for the occupants.
They were depicted as slobbering, slow-witted beasts by Disney in the
hit movie The Lion King, but hyenas are far more intelligent than they
have been given credit for. New research has revealed the African
carnivores are adept at solving problems and can even 'count.'
Scientists now believe the animals may have intelligence levels that
match some primates.
Hyenas,
which are highly social, have been found to assess the size of a
competing pack which is invading their territory, by listening to their
calls. They will only confront the intruders if the 'count' shows they
have a numerical advantage.
The National Zoo's female giant panda has given birth to a cub
following five consecutive pseudopregnancies in as many years.
Mei Xiang gave birth Sunday at 10:46 p.m., the zoo said. The staff can
hear the cub, but has yet to see it because Mei Xiang has built a large
nest in her den.
This summer the White Sea was filled with jelly-fish. A jelly-fish
has 24 eyes and its body consists of water for 95%. As soon as the
creature comes to the coast in
a wave it dies getting dried in the sun without water. The photos
below were taken during a small excursion into the world of the
beautiful creatures.
More
A koala has been rescued from down a mineshaft twice by Victorian
university students after the unlucky creature fell back down the hole
on its first bid for freedom.
The
third-year University of Ballarat students were on an excursion in the
Victorian goldfields for an outdoor education class recently when they
walked past the mineshaft and saw the koala trapped down the 4.5m hole.
In an attempt to save the exhausted creature, they lowered a branch down
so it could climb up to safety.
The koala managed to climb up the long branch but when it got to the top, it tried to leap to another tree and missed. It plummeted down to the bottom of the shaft, prompting horrified shrieks and gasps from the students.
The
koala seemed to recover quickly and managed to climb back up the branch
to safety, choosing not to jump to another tree this time. The
University of Ballarat Outdoor Education department suspects it may have
been trapped down the shaft for days.
A
friend of the owner of the dogs said 10-year-old Daphne the dachshund
was recovering well, whilst the younger of the two, 4-year-old Ester,
was still deeply traumatised.
In this Sept. 5, 2012 photo, Jungle Island volunteer Linda Jacobs
comforts Peanut, one of the orangutans from a private zoo, as a group of
medical professionals gather over the medical table for R-CHOP therapy,
a combination of drugs used in chemotherapy to treat her aggressive
non-Hodgkin lymphoma in Miami. More
