Monday, June 11, 2012
Get it Straight - If Obama has their back, he doesn’t have your back
HERE IS THE “PRESS 2” VERSION:
AND IN CASE YOU DIDN”T GET THE GHETTO IN THE MESSAGE:
That’s the mild stuff. Here is the real good shit about “ Got your back.”Not familiar to most in Honkeytown:
(Busta Rhymes)
Catching my fever
Rob the passanger, the last griever
You don't lone my squad?
Fuck ya'll, we don't love your ass neither
Way off the meter
(Rampage)
Yo Bus, me and Spliff, we got heaters
Everything's allright, lets get drink up inside of Cheetah's
Go up in Cheetah's...
(Spliff Star)
... and see this motherfucker named Peter
Tried to stick me for five bricks but his broads the schemer
(Rah Digga)
Word is bond, I murder any bitch that fuck with my niggas
(Rampage)
Blow a hole up in your body, straight dismantle your figure
(Busta Rhymes)
A'yo where Rah Digga?
(Rah Digga)
Scopin out the little blaze chicken
Bitch stay trickin'
Fuckin with my niggas, gonna get her face kicked in
(Busta Rhymes)
A'yo Spliff, what you starting at?
Them bitches over there
Or them bitches over there
Or them bitches right here?
(Spliff Star)
Nah, that nigga on line
Motherfucker still drunk off'a Bacardi and lime
(Baby Sham)
Spliff, I feel this way
If it's for my squad, let's play
Back him 'gainst the door
Patch his body with gauze
Mop up the floors
Splatter nigga's blood on the walls
(Spliff Star)
Bust that nigga's shit
Make the nigga suffer for yours
Busta: And if they run up in your crib again
I got your back
Sham: Always keep the heat on me son
I got your back
Ramp: I'ma hold you down until I die
I got your back
Digga: And if you ever need stacks, yo
I got your back
Spliff: If I kill him and get knocked
I got your back
Busta: And if your bail is a hundred G's
I got your back
Ramp: Any nigga try to set you up
I got your back
Spliff: Yo let me set this shit off first, what!?
I got your back
VERY PRESIDENTIAL. I AM SURE YOU WILL AGREE. OF COURSE, IF YOU DO, I GOT YOUR BACK.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
The €100 billion Hail Mary Pass
MADRID (AP) — Europe is to offer Spain a bailout package of up to €100 billion ($125 billion) to help rescue the country’s banks and keep the 17-country eurozone from breaking apart.
After months of fierce denials, Spain admitted it would tap the fund as it moved faster than expected to stem the economic crisis that has ravaged Europe for two years.
Spain becomes the fourth - and largest - European economy to ask for help and its admission of help comes after months of market concern about its ability to pay its way. In recent weeks investors have demanded higher and higher costs to lend to Spain, and it became clear it would be just too expensive for the country to borrow the money necessary for a bank rescue from the markets.
The three countries that have received rescues thus far — Greece,Ireland and Portugal — are fairly small, and many have worried that bailing out much-larger Spain could call the entire euro project into question. Cyprus, also a small economy, could also be forced to seek a bailout soon.
Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said Saturday the aid will go to the banking sector only and so would not come with new austerity conditions attached for the economy in general — conditions that have been an integral part of previous bailouts to Portugal, Ireland and Greece.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Click & Clack:We've decided that it's time to stop and smell the cappuccino,"
'Car Talk' hosts retiring from hit show
updated 6:06 PM EDT, Fri June 8, 2012
Ray (left) and Tom Magliozzi of NPR's "Car Talk."
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Popular radio show's hosts will retire in October
- Shows will continue with archival material; website column will go on as well
- The show debuted on Boston radio in 1977 and moved to NPR 10 years later
(CNN) -- Click and Clack won't be making noise on "Car Talk" for much longer.
On Friday, hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi, known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers," announced that they would be retiring from the popular NPR program in October.
"We've decided that it's time to stop and smell the cappuccino," Raywrote on the show's website.
"As of October, we're not going to be recording any more new shows. That's right, we're retiring," Tom added, noting that "Car Talk" is celebrating its 25th anniversary on NPR this year.
However, fans will still be able to enjoy the show after the brothers' retirement. New "Car Talks" will be assembled from archival material, the brothers wrote.
They'll also continue their regular website column.
"Car Talk" debuted in 1977 on Boston radio station WBUR and was picked up by NPR 10 years later. It regularly ranks as one of public radio's most popular shows -- including the most popular weekend program -- with about 4 million listeners.
The show consists of the two brothers, who own a Cambridge, Massachusetts ("our fair city," as they've long called their home), garage, taking calls from listeners about their automobile -- and sometimes relationship -- problems. The two regularly insult one another, make each other laugh and force listeners to re-create the sounds of their car ailments on the air.
The program has inspired two TV shows -- one of them, "The George Wendt Show," ran for one season on CBS -- and at least two books.
Friday, June 08, 2012
Holder "the Corrupt” Hammered. Blinking, Squirming and Fidgeting.
The Congressional Soul-Train to the rescue.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Weapons that have all the potential to backfire on us.
Drones Over America: What Can They See?
EnlargeEric Gay/AP
A Predator B unmanned aircraft lands after a mission at the Naval Air Station last November in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, have long played a role in military operations. But imagine thousands of drones flying over U.S. skies — something we may see in just a few years. In February, President Obama signed an aviation bill requiring the Federal Aviation Administration to make plans to integrate drones into American airspace.
On Monday's Fresh Air, John Villasenor, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA, explains what these drones will be able to see and how they work. He also talks about the privacy and national security concerns raised by using drones for surveillance purposes.
Related NPR Stories
Villasenor tells Dave Davies that drones, which are currently in use over the U.S. border with Mexico, have an endless list of non-military uses, from providing overhead surveillance for police departments to spotting wildfires and monitoring illegal border crossings.
Drones could also be used commercially by real estate firms to get overhead images of a property, by surveyors and cinematographers, and even by paparazzi trying to fly over celebrity homes, says Villasenor.
"That is going to be certainly some of the tests of what the limits are going to be provided by [paparazzi]," he says. "The paparazzi will want to use drones if they can, and obviously that's going to raise some very significant questions."
One question about drone usage obviously concerns privacy. In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers who used a small single-engine airplane to spot hidden marijuana plants in someone's backyard in California did not violate the Fourth Amendment because they were in "public navigable airspace in a physically non-intrusive manner."
"Now if you take that ruling and apply it to a world in which there are hundreds or thousands of drones, that obviously gives rise to some very significant concerns," says Villasenor. "If you interpret that ruling by itself, as things stand today, that would certainly suggest that people would have a fair amount of latitude to make observations using drones."
But several rulings involving what can be observed from outside a property to look inside a property may also apply, says Villasenor. He points to the 2001 case Kyllo v. United States, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the use of a thermal imaging device to monitor heat radiated from inside someone's home without a search warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
"There's a very interesting piece of language in that ruling that when you map it to drones is really interesting," he says. "[It says] 'Where, as here, the government uses a device that is not in general public use to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a search.' One of the interesting phrases in that language is 'not in general public use.' If we fast-forward two or three years from now, when drones are in public use, does that change the legal foundation for what you can and can't observe from the outside of a home that would have been previously unknowable without physical intrusion?"
Carmen Bal /Courtesy of the guest
John Villasenor is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA.
Interview Highlights
On types of drones
"There are drones that are powered by jet. There are drones that could literally fit in a backpack or the palm of a hand. There are drones that are basically like balloons that sit up there in the sky in one place and can observe enormous swaths of territory."
On drones that can stay in the air for weeks at a time
"These drones aren't flying at 400 mph. They're going very slowly and they have wings which are paper thin, which have solar panels which are mounted on the top, and they also have batteries that store energy collected during the day so they can continue to turn the propellers and fly at night."
On whether drones can capture audio
"Drones generate some noise themselves, and so I don't think a drone could sit 1,000 feet above and hear the conversation of two people sitting at an outside table at a coffee shop. I think it's mostly imagery and then to a smaller extent, wireless signals."
On drones helping traffic patterns
"Five years from now, you can probably imagine that in addition to having helicopters with people in them, you'll have drones above the ground taking pictures of those things."
On drones being used by terrorists
"Unfortunately, I think that is a legitimate concern, and honestly it keeps me up at night. I worry about that. It doesn't take too much imagination to understand that a drone is very hard to stop. It flies low and it isn't stopped by all of the infrastructure we have in place to make sure people don't go to the places they're not supposed to go to. Fences and walls and gates and barriers, it simply goes over those things. ... As these drones get cheaper, more prevalent, easier to get, attract less attention, it raises the risks that they will fall into the wrong hands and be used inappropriately."
On the FAA and privacy concerns
"The FAA, I would imagine, has more aviation lawyers than Fourth Amendment constitutional lawyers. To be fair to the FAA, their primary mission ... is to provide what they call 'the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.' And frankly, I think they've done an extremely good job of that. So their concern, as they go through the steps of this aviation bill that was enacted on Feb. 14, 2012, is first and foremost to integrate drones into the airspace in a safe manner. And I think that is the right priority. In addition, of course, there are the privacy concerns. But I think it is going to be left to the broader government — obviously with the input of non-governmental groups — to address those."
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
San Jose voters Tuesday handed (Democrat) Mayor Chuck Reed a crucial victory with his nationally watched pension reform measure passing by a decisive margin.
It was a big night for pension reform, with a San Diego measure also winning by a wide margin. City employee unions who argued the measures are illegal were expected to challenge both in court.
But voter approval of San Jose's Measure B puts Reed and the city in the vanguard of efforts to shrink taxpayer bills for generous government pension plans. Passage also strengthen's Reed's hand as he and his City Council allies work to enact the measure's reforms with a vote next week to reduce pensions for new hires.
"I want to thank the voters of San Jose for their commitment to fiscal reform and to creating a more sustainable future for our children and grandchildren," Reed said as returns were coming in. He added in an interview that he expected a big win after talking with residents around the city and called it a victory not only for taxpayers who have watched city services trimmed as pension expenses surged, but also for employees whose retirement plans will be more sustainable with the changes.
The San Jose and San Diego votes drew interest around the country as a gauge of voter support for reforming pensions at the ballot box. Gov. Jerry Brown's pension reform proposals have gained little headway in the Legislature.
Voters like Howard Delano of Willow Glen were tired of watching their city shovel more and more tax money into government pensions far more generous than their own retirement.
"It's out of control," Delano, 60, said after dropping off his ballot. "Nobody gives me a pension."
But Yolanda Cruz, president of the city's largest union, called the measure "an unfortunate way to spend taxpayer money fighting it in court because we will definitely take it there. Taxpayer money would be better used getting services back."
Pension reform advocates saw the San Jose measure as a key test of how far cities can go in reducing pensions for current employees.
Unions argue that decades of court decisions effectively hold that government employers may increase but never decrease current employee pension benefits without offering something comparable in return.
Most pension reform around the state, including the San Diego measure and one approved in San Francisco last year, change benefits for new hires. But pension reform advocates and a state watchdog panel argue cutting only new hire benefits isn't enough to solve the cost problem.
Reed's Measure B goes further than other efforts in tackling current employee pension costs. He said that as a charter city San Jose has the authority to reduce pension benefits not only for future hires, but for current employees' remaining years on the job. If courts disagree, Measure B calls for the city to take the equivalent savings in pay cuts.
Among changes called for in Measure B:
•Current employees keep pension credits already earned but must pay up to 16 percent more of their salary to continue that benefit or choose a more modest and affordable plan for their remaining years on the job.
•Limit retirement benefits for future hires by requiring them to pay half the cost of a pension.
•Suspend current retirees' 3 percent yearly pension raises up to five years if the city declares a fiscal crisis.
•Discontinue "bonus" pension checks to retirees.
•Require voter approval for future pension increases.
•Change disability retirement with the aim of limiting it to those whose injuries prevent them from working.
Reed proposed Measure B a year ago after his efforts -- from championing new tax measures to imposing 10 percent pay cuts on city employees -- failed to erase budgetary red ink that has soaked the city ledger for a decade. Though the city projects a modest $9 million surplus in the upcoming budget, thanks largely to the pay cuts and hundreds of job cuts, a $22.5 million shortfall is expected the year after.
A key deficit driver has been the yearly pension bill that has more than tripled from $73 million to $245 million in a decade, far outpacing the 20 percent revenue growth and gobbling more than a fifth of the city's general fund. A city audit blamed the rise on a combination of benefit increases, flawed cost assumptions and investment losses.
City audits and news reports also assailed a system in which the city's police and firefighters take tax-free disability retirements at rates far exceeding those in other big cities.
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