COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Chris Matthews MSNBC Reports



73 comments:

  1. Does not the Country need a successful President?

    Shouldn't we all put Country First?

    Matthews is part of the "Make News" press. An ideological press, as the US press has always been.

    The myth of unbiased reporting, that is a product of the same Journalism Schools that produced the reality of our moment.

    The switcheroo, for two.

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  2. NBC Universal is a media and entertainment company formed in May 2004 by the combination of General Electric's NBC with Vivendi Universal Entertainment (part of the French Media Group, Vivendi Universal (now Vivendi SA)). GE owns 80% of NBC Universal with the remaining 20% owned by Vivendi SA. The company develops, produces, and markets entertainment, news, and information to a global customer base.

    NBC Universal owns and operates a United States television network, numerous cable networks, a group of local stations throughout the country, motion picture companies, a number of television production companies, and multiple theme parks. Universal Music Group was not included in the 2004 deal and is not part of NBC Universal.

    Jeff Zucker was named president and CEO of NBC Universal on February 6, 2007, replacing Bob Wright, who remains chairman of NBC Universal and vice chairman of General Electric. Zucker previously served as chief executive of the company's television operations.[1] The logo of NBC Universal is a combination of the NBC peacock logo and the Universal Studios globe and text.


    GE is:

    GE's divisions include GE Capital (including GE Commercial Finance and GE Money and GE Consumer Finance,[16]), GE Technology Infrastructure (including GE Aviation,the former Smiths Aerospace and GE Healthcare), GE Energy Infrastructure, and NBC Universal, an entertainment company.

    Through these businesses, GE participates in a wide variety of markets including the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity (eg. Nuclear,[17] gas and solar), lighting, industrial automation, medical imaging equipment, motors, railway locomotives, aircraft jet engines, and aviation services. It was co-founded and is 80% owner (with Vivendi) of NBC Universal, the National Broadcasting Company. Through GE Commercial Finance, GE Consumer Finance, GE Equipment Services, and GE Insurance it offers a range of financial services as well. It has a presence in over 100 countries.


    Since over half of GE's revenue is derived from financial services, it is arguably a financial company with a manufacturing arm. It is also one of the largest lenders in countries other than the United States, such as Japan. ...
    It was announced in May 2008 that General Electric would auction off its appliances business for an expected sale of $5-8 billion.[19]


    GE's Board of Directors

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  3. Wonder if President-elect Obama will be meeting with General P, before 21JAN09?

    To be a fly in that room ...

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  4. Macy's, Target Monthly Sales Fall, Wal-Mart Gains (Update2)

    By Heather Burke and Cotten Timberlake

    Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Macy's Inc., Target Corp. and Gap Inc. posted sales declines after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression halted consumer spending heading into the holiday-shopping season.

    Department-store chains Nordstrom Inc., Kohl's Corp. and J.C. Penney Co. also reduced their profit forecasts.
    Wal-Mart Stores Inc. remained a bright spot as sales at stores open at least a year climbed 2.4 percent, exceeding its forecast.


    Spending declines accelerated in the first part of October after the Wall Street meltdown and increased job cuts led consumers to forgo most purchases. The results indicate that shoppers may cut back on holiday gift-buying, eroding profits during the retail industry's biggest sales period of the year.

    ``The Christmas season looks to be the worst in memory, you'd have to go back at least to the '81-'82 recession period,'' Ken Perkins, president of research firm Retail Metrics LLC, said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview. ``You're going to have to do above and beyond to stimulate the consumer to come into your store this year.''

    October same-store sales fell 0.9 percent, the first drop in seven months, and 4.2 percent excluding Wal-Mart, the International Council of Shopping Centers said today, based on the results of 37 chains. The trade group said holiday sales may climb 1 percent, less than the 1.7 percent it had forecast.

    Retail Metrics said the decrease was 0.5 percent and, excluding the effect of the shifting Easter holiday, the first decline since at least 2000.

    ...

    Wal-Mart fell 3 cents to $54.10 at 1:30 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, while Target declined 4.2 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 Retailing Index decreased 4.2 percent, adding to a 31 percent decline this year before today.

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  5. Wal-Mart's October increase was more than its 1 percent to 2 percent forecast after customer visited more and bought more on average. Analysts estimated a 1.6 percent gain, according to data compiled by Swampscott, Massachusetts-based Retail Metrics.

    The retailer forecast November same-store sales to rise as much as 3 percent.

    ``Customers see that we are broadening the price gap against our competitors,'' Wal-Mart U.S. President Eduardo Castro-Wright said today in a statement. ``They saw it during the Halloween season and they will continue to see it during the Christmas shopping season.''

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  6. Dang! I did it! No daughter to help!

    Now that Mr. and Mrs. Palin are gone, but not lost, I want to say, one last time, how much I really like that wonderful woman.

    She came over to me as so full of JOY and such a good lady, all around, that it was like a gust of cool wind.

    I like her.

    And I wish her and all her family all the very best.

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  7. Thanks, Mat.

    We're down to the radio, and the computer.

    Soon, it will be smoke signals, which is best:)

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  8. Ah, that should read, thanks Linear.

    My head is so screwed around by the election, I can't think straight.

    I do know I like Sarah Palin!

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  9. Walt Minnick, the democrat, won by a few votes over Sali, here in my district.

    Sali is a good guy, just not very articulate, for a lawyer.

    Minnick is a turd, but my hunch is, he won't last long.

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  10. Chris Matthews should quit his current job and get hired on as Obama's personal ass kisser....

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  11. I had a talk with my engineer a few days ago.

    He had just got back from a trip to the Nordic countries, and also Russia.

    He had stayed a few nights in St. Petersburg.

    What he said was, for a port, it's still the shits.

    Looking at it from an American engineers point of view, it was the craps.

    Everything was in disrepair, and the railroad lines were hardly passable.

    So, I asked, "What is it about the Russians."

    "I don't know, Bob."

    He said, St. Petersburg is their second largest city, and they are just now trying to make some highways that actually work, will carry traffic.

    I have to pay something on the order of ten thousand dollars to fund a traffic survey on my last developement. After which, I hope to go fishing.

    We all known what the traffic survey is about, and how it will come out. It is a big waste of my money, and everybody knows it, my engineer, the city, everybody.

    But, we must go through the motions.

    Dad built Indian Hills Drive, in Moscow, Idaho.

    He and I built Baker Street and the "A" Street extension.

    I have extended Baker up into the old farm land.

    And now, I am almost out of the developement business.

    My engineer has been with us all these years.

    Why can't the Russians make a decent port in their secondd largest city, he asks?

    A damn good question.

    It isn't all that hard.

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  12. The Russians are basically imcompetent, is the answer I come up with.

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  13. The Russians are basically imcompetent, is the answer I come up with.
    ==

    Or maybe they use rail. :)

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  14. Mat, I want a little blowback on my girl fishing...how does it look to you, ok?

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  16. how does it look to you, ok?
    ==

    Oh my, I'm too young to look at such things.

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  17. Mat, if you look closely, that might be a "Coors Lite" there in her bikini!

    That's real engineering!

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  18. Or, maybe a "Bud Lite" I ain't shur.

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  20. Bob, you need to learn to focus more when you take these pictures. :)

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  21. Damn I'm tryin' Mat, I'm just a little older now.

    :)

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  22. Stocks continue post Obama plunge.

    Everybody knows it.

    It's gonna be the shits.

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  23. Reading Perrin brought sad old Bobal to mind:

    "What truly stuns me is that Obama won Indiana. He fucking took the Hoosier state. I'm a native son, and let me assure you that Indiana has countless outright racists -- open, proud, uncompromising. It was one of the reasons why I moved to New York, and have never moved back. God knows what those losers are thinking today. Their shabby, shitty worlds got rolled last night, and I'm certain that they don't know who to trust anymore. Did one of their neighbors, or worse, relatives, vote for that Marxist Muslim Supremacist? Somebody near them sure as fuck did. But who? Oh man, picturing those assholes chasing their tails makes me smile. Part of me would like to say to them, "This is for King! This is for Malcolm! This is for Fred Hampton! How's it taste, motherfuckers?" Of course, Obama's not on the same moral plane as those murdered men, but most crackers don't know that. It's what ninjas call "naked kill" -- using the tools at hand. To them, President Obama is the biggest, scariest black man they've ever seen. Take what you can get."

    http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/

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  25. Nah, I like competence Ash.

    As I have tried to point out.

    Competence is good.

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  26. I'm sick of it.

    If you think the niggers are going to farm the land, and stick with it, you are so sorry away from it.

    You don't know.

    The mask comes off now.

    I'm sick of your bullshit,Ash.


    I can't walk through a blcak neighborhood without fear.

    But, they can walk in my neighborhood here.

    Fuck you, Ash.

    You go teach them in Philly, you peice of white crap.

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  27. Try to do actually something, Ash.

    It's tougher than you think.

    The mask comes off of all this racial bullshit now.

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  28. End Affirmitive Action Now.

    Let the competent be in charge.

    At long last.

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  29. I like a damned good white engineer.

    I like somebody that can actually do something.

    I don't like niggers that just kill and kill, and cost us money.

    Fuck you, Ash.

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  30. You go teach 'em in Philly, Ash, see how long you last.

    Moron.

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  31. You bring them test scores up, Ash.

    Moron.

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  32. I want to be able to walk through a black neighorhood in safety.

    I remember when my sis, working in Oakland,
    California, got scared by some niggers who threatened to rape her.

    And, she was working at the hospital.

    She shewed them away with a "no,no,no".

    And, I was with her.

    My sister should not have to walk in fear.

    Ash. you are a moron.

    I'm sick of it.

    Let the blacks create their own schools.

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  33. She was a med tech, from the University of Idaho, and she went to Oakland, and got scared of the niggers, who she was trying to help.

    I'm finished with this racial bullshit.

    Let the niggers create their own schools, and come help us.

    We won't threaten to rape the black women.

    I've had it with this crap.

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  34. And when my brother, a better man than me, went to the Univers

    ity of Oregon Medical School, there were a couple of blacks that dropped out. But the whites druged on.

    Tell the truth now Ash.

    That's a start.

    I;m finished with this racial bull shit.

    Let competence rule.

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  35. Bob, I too live in fear. Check this out:
    http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=45903

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  36. And, I remember how my brother took me to the cut em up room.
    And, I saw all the dead bodies that they were learning from

    It made me sick.

    I asked mu brother, "where do they get them from."

    He said, "From the street, and with the alcoholics you can't even follow the brains.
    They are mush."

    Grow up, Ash.

    Do something yourself.

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  37. My brother is retired now, an old white doctor, having done his best.

    Fuck Ash, and all people like him.

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  38. Fuck Ash, and all people like him.
    ==

    Bob, I'll tell you a little secret. When I see Ashley posting, I can actually see her smile. The only thing to do with the likes of Ashley, is to abuse her long enough so that she finally leaves to enjoy the sunshine over at the other's side.

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  39. JPOST is reporting:

    The city of Moscow will invest $100 million through a subsidiary to build a luxury resort hotel in Ein Bokek, on the southern shores of the Dead Sea, the Israel Tourism Ministry said on Wednesday.
    ==

    Bob! The Dead Sea! The girls can go naked and we never have to worry about losing our beer in the water! And think about it, the girls can be fishing all day, never catch a fish and never get sun burned!

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  40. Obama
    First affirmative action president.
    Shoulda known it would come.

    Back story.
    During the 80s an uppity female clerk at the Berzerkeley Forest and Range Experiment Station filed an employment discrimination suit vs Region 5, USFS. She eventually took it to the 9th Circuit, and the pussified regional forester rolled over, signing a "consent decree."

    The court took over effective management of hiring and promotions to enable the agency to meet court decreed employment quotas for women and minorities, including promotions, all grades and job catagories affected. It literally was the end of their careers for thousands of competent and deserving white males.

    When merit promotion criteria were used to rank candidates for promotion rosters, the inevitable conflicts arose. All the white males ranked highest, for the most part, but this didn't enable meeting the quotas imposed by the consent decree. At this point the bureaucrats driving the process, with the assistance of the uppity court appointed woman lawyer "consent decree monitor", came up with some alternative language inserted into the assessment formats for the ranking criteria: "...or have the potential to perform." It was that simple. You can all imagine how things played out after that.

    Now we have Obama. A near zero in proven performance vs his opponent.

    Does he even have the potential to perform?

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  41. He became President, lineman.

    So, yes, there is plenty of potential, there.

    Team Obama, he has started out with Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. They'll get a lot done, may not like it a lot, but Team Obama will be effective, betcha another Amero.

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  42. Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question

    By C. J. CHIVERS and ELLEN BARRY

    TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

    Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

    .
    .

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html

    ==

    Trish, of course, knew better.

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  43. They'll get a lot done, may not like it a lot, but Team Obama will be effective, betcha another Amero.

    Oh, they'll get a lot done, all right. We won't like it at all, so no sense betting, rat. You're always welcome for donuts, though.

    It'll be unraveling down range as fast as the leaders work their magic from the top.

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  44. They just opened a Krispy Kreme over by the Mall, they sure can make the doughnuts.

    Tasty vittles, them Krispy Kremes.

    So far it looks like Clinton redux, Obamasan's Team44. Rahm Emanuel, he's a Daley machine man, another Crown proxy, from Chi-town.

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  45. Bob! The Dead Sea! The girls can go naked

    I'm thinking, I'm thinking....:)

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  46. Open Secrets/prt reports

    As a member of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee--which has jurisdiction over tax legislation, Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs--Emanuel is a popular industry target. Private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners has given Emanuel more than any other contributor over his career at $93,600.
    Emanuel and Obama have more than just Chicago in common; investment bank UBS, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are among both men's lists of top donors

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  47. And think about it, the girls can be fishing all day, never catch a fish and never get sun burned!

    How they do that?

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  48. And with nothing on, Linear

    I'm checking my Triple A card....for the discounts....

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  49. Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) is a private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts of privately held or publicly traded companies, or divisions of larger companies; recapitalizations of family-owned or closely held companies; balance sheet restructurings; acquisition financings; and growth capital investments in mature companies
    ...
    Madison Dearborn Partners was founded in 1992 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. The founders of Madison Dearborn had previously made private equity investments for First Chicago Bank.[2]


    First Chicago Bank, that was Lester Crown's, before it merged with Bank One and then JPMorgan Chase.

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  50. Looks like Israel will still be safe, under the US security blanket bob.

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  51. I am amazed that so many people are excited by a slick politician. Of course, 70% of the Russians just think Putin is the be all and end all, they want to make him czar for life. Hitler had them mesmerized, as did Stalin and Chavez , Mussolini, the Ayatollah, and Reverend Moon. Why am i not impressed and by the way, just what is Obama going to do for these pathetic bleating sheep?

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  52. deuce, we out here in Idaho aren't being taken in...nor are the folk in Alaska.....or Utah...I think there is something about being away from the cities that makes for sanity....

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  53. Well, bob, those three States get you 12 Electoral College votes.

    Only 258 to go.

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  54. Wrinkled Raisin Gazette

    News item

    Meridian, Mississippi

    George Phillips, an elderly man, was going up to bed when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn out the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

    Phillips phoned the police, who asked, "Is someone in your house?" He said no. The police dispatcher then said, "All patrols are busy. Lock your doors, and an officer will be along when one is available."

    Phillips said, "Okay." He hung up the phone, counted to slowly to thirty, and called the police again.

    "Hello. I just called a little bit ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. You don't have to worry about them now because I just shot them." He hung up.

    Within five minutes, six police cars, the SWAT team, one helicopter, two fire trucks, a paramedic, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips' residence. The burglars were caught red-handed.

    A policeman said to Phillips, "I thought you said you'd shot them!"

    Phillips said, "I thought you said there was nobody available."

    -----

    Friend of Rufus, no doubt.

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  55. How they do that?
    ==

    Lowest place on earth. The Sun's rays dont burn there. :)

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  56. Cool Polymers: Toward the Microwave Oven Version of the Refrigerator
    Getting a bigger chill out of polymers that respond to electric fields


    By Steven Ashley

    Whether they sit in your kitchen or inside your personal computer, refrigerators and other cooling devices are typically bulky, often noisy and frequently power-hungry. A team at Pennsylvania State University recently found that certain plastics cool off a significant amount—12 degrees Celsius—when an applied electric field is removed. Should the technique become feasible, the resulting solid-state coolers could efficiently and quietly eliminate heat from, say, integrated-circuit boards, enabling smaller, faster computers.

    Engineers have long known of so-called electrocaloric substances that drop in temperature when an external electric field is withdrawn, but the amount of chilling either was too small at practical temperatures or occurred at too high a temperature to be useful. Effective chip cooling, for instance, requires reductions of at least 10 degrees C from typical operating temperatures—about 85 degrees C, says G. Dan Hutcheson, chief executive officer at VLSI Research, a microelectronics industry market research firm in Santa Clara, Calif. Computers usually require heat sinks, radiators, fans, heat pipes or even fluid-based heat pumps to extract the surplus degrees.

    If successful, the new technology should be compact and at least 10 times more energy-efficient than conventional cooling techniques, according to Penn State electrical engineer Qiming Zhang, who led the team. The group found that a micron-thick film of a polyvinylidene fluo­ride co-polymer—polyvinylidene fluo­ride trifluoroethylene—heats up a dozen degrees C when zapped with 120 volts at ambient temperatures as low as 55 degrees C. Such a rise constitutes an order of magnitude improvement over other electrocaloric materials (mostly ceramics) at that temperature range.
    .
    .

    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cool-polymers

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  57. Somali Pirates Update

    3 Recent Incidents

    ... They tried to board the ship using a ladder but the pirate boat's skipper fell overboard and they aborted the boarding and rescued him. Master activated SSAS and contacted the coalition warships. During a second approach to the vessel, the pirate boat's engine failed...

    EagleSpeak

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  58. Melamine in eggs, fisheries being examined in China.

    Many consumers are unaware that most processed food contains a wide range of ingredients, many of which may come from low-priced Chinese wholesalers of food concentrates. As the dragnet for melamine widens it is quite likely that some widely consumed western brands contain the contaminant via "no-name" low cost ingredients from Chinese distributors. Fortunately, most of these western brands are unlikely to contain the high concentrations of the contaminant that were present in Chinese baby formulas.

    AP: The practice of mixing melamine into animal feed is an "open secret" in the industry, the Nanfang Daily reported Thursday, describing a process of repackaging melamine scrap into an inexpensive product called "protein powder," which is then sold to feed suppliers.

    ...

    The inexpensive powder was first used to give the impression of higher protein levels in aquatic feed, then later in feed for livestock and poultry, the report said. _AP



    Al Fin

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  59. "Cohabitation is here to stay," says David Popenoe, a Rutgers sociology professor and report co-author. "I don't think it's good news, especially for children," he says. "As society shifts from marriage to cohabitation — which is what's happening — you have an increase in family instability."

    The Family Is Breaking Down

    On all sides. Surely this cannot be good.

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  60. A society that doesn't think to put its kids first is a society on the way out the back door.

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  61. Why is my wife afraid to walk alone in a black neighborhood?

    Why?

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  62. Why?

    She's got good instincts.

    ---------

    Goodnight, all.

    Here's a couple of my Arkansas fishin' pals for you, Bob.

    Arkansas, the Natural State!

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  63. Why can any black in the US of A walk through my neighborhood without fear, and my wife is afraid to walk in a black neighborhood?

    Why?

    I've had it with this hypocritical shit.

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  64. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  65. A society that doesn't think to put its kids first is a society on the way out the back door.

    Country First, bob, Country First!

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  66. Indeed, eight years after Karl Rove stormed into Washington proclaiming that he would create a 21st-century version of the Republican realignment that emerged from William McKinley's victory over William Jennings Bryan in 1896, today's emerging Republican minority looks confined to Bryan's base in America's rural backwaters.
    The future in American politics belongs to the party that can win a more racially diverse, better educated, more metropolitan electorate. ...

    meyersonh@washpost.com


    The future in American politics belongs to the party that can win a more racially diverse, better educated, more metropolitan electorate.

    Because that is where the voters are, amigos, and they are not white males, over forty.
    Not any more.

    That is an American reality.

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  67. During the campaign, Joe Biden predicted that within six months of taking office, a President Barack Obama would be tested on the international stage by a crisis. While the rest of the world shares the jubilant emotions of a majority of Americans at the outcome of the election (even our "eternal enemies" in Iran and Venezuela) Russia remains petulant, because Obama has vowed to contain any Russian neo-expansionism. Are they really a threat? No.

    Russia is a great power in sharp decline. They lose one million people in population every year and this is accelerating. Births now stand at 1.1 per woman, far short of the 2.4 babies each that would be needed to stabilize the population. Their eastern marches especially are being hollowed out. Russia already has more land than any other nation, and its population might fall to half of current levels in fifty years, which makes any potential grap for "lebensraum" inconceivable. All they have left are a few symbols of their former glory: rocket ships, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and a dwindling stock of aging ICBMs. The oil-based economy is taking a big hit from the collapse of commodity prices. The Kremlin seizes any enterprise that grows too big and puts their own apparatchiks in charge, cutting the legs out from any future innovation as surely as nationalizing MickeySoft or Boeing would do here.

    Their sole remaining business model is a new form of hydralic despotism, disrupting the flow of oil and natural gas to artificially jack up prices and intimidate European politicians. But this is a plan which contains the seeds of its own destruction: By becoming an unreliable provider of energy, Russia accelerates European efforts to develop a sustainable energy infrastruture which doesn't rely on fossil fuels, a process that is greatly boosted by a pre-existing European attentiveness to their own carbon footprint.

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