Some campaigns aim to unseat board members. The CtW Investment Group, which is affiliated with a coalition of labor unions, wants board members at six financial firms, including Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, to explain what they did to manage subprime-loan risks. Says CtW’s Mike Garland: “Absent compelling explanations, we’ll recommend that shareholders vote against reelection.”
Department of about damn time. Notice that it is labor unions taking action, NOT institutional investors. Remember who your friends are, it is not the manager of your mutual fund.
The Republican party is an organized crime cartel that has been systematically stealing money from hard-working Americans and stuffing it all into the pockets of the very rich for 40 years. Read more
Surpise vacations, made possible by loving friends and family, in which both jacuzzis and learning are enjoyed, are the very Best. Thanks, People who Made it Possible.
So, what’s going on? It’s always fun to come back to the blogosphere after a few days off, to see what is bunching people’s panties today. Yawn, spare me the Hilbama wars for now, I didn’t miss that at all. Anything else on your brain?
My only question: why is it when brown people come together and take some kind of action to help themselves when the state has failed them, they are “gangs?” White people who do this are called “mavericks” and “pioneers” and “elite club members.” Anyway, this is totally cool. Out of a fucking shack in a ditch, people. Amazing.
Under a scorching summer sun, a swarm of 400 furious women engulfed the scruffy electricity office of Banda district in north India. They were all dressed identically in fluorescent pink saris. For more than a fortnight they and their families had had no electricity, plunged into darkness at dusk and stewed in sweat at dawn. But they had all been sent bills demanding payment for power they had never received.
It was at noon one day last May that the group, brandishing sticks, first surrounded and then charged into the office, punching the air and shouting slogans of solidarity. They wanted to confront the officer in charge but met instead his cowering juniors, at whom they bawled to telephone the boss. When the man refused to come to the office, the women became incensed. They snatched the office key, roughed up the terrified staff and, after herding them outside, locked the door and ran away, vowing to return the key only when they had electricity again. Read more
My Set will never, ever let me live this one down. Ohmygawd, I’m covering my face with both hands because I can’t bear to witness all my accumulated Kewl running, screaming, away from me. deep moment of self-reflection OK, clearly I’ve misjudged my duties here. Guys, gals even, the bottom line in the Game of Love: everyone wants to be with a winner.
Does that sound cruel, harsh, wrong, and/or shallow? I suppose it is. But it’s still true. Put another way: how many people imagine their ideal love as someone who is in every way, lesser than themselves? My money is on “not many.” You want it? Then you’ve got to be it. Read more
My niece gave me a cold yesterday while we were playing with stuffed animals and numbered legos, and I’m so sorry as I meant to blog heavily today and just don’t have the energy. But I was thinking of writing more about “why we fail,” or perhaps better put, “how we can win” or even “learn from your enemies/those who have beaten you/to fight again another day and win this time.” Joe noticed a good one.
The telemarketing campaign, run by a nonprofit organization called “Faith, Family and Freedom” begins its pitch by asking the callee if they were opposed to same sex marriage. If the callee responds positively, they are then transferred to a United American Technologies representative who will explain to them how the more common telephone service providers, such as AT&T, MCI and Verizon are supporters of gay marriage and child pornography, and that United American Technologies is “the only carrier that is taking an active stand against same sex marriages and hardcore child pornography”. Read more
This is likely the most important issue the Senate will face this year. I’m so glad they are using the force of their Constitutional power to apply their valuable and limited time to an investigation of this society-wide issue of consequence. I mean, if sports is rigged and the coaches and players cheat, why- how could anyone stand to spend all that time at the watercooler dissecting and deconstructing new and clever commercials’ deep, meaningful cultural relevance? Think of the Children, won’t you?
Americans and their Leaders know what matters most, and I for one look forward to voting for Bud over Miller Light in the fall…
Example A and the inevitable correction. I could say a lot about this, but instead I’ll just say: I can understand John’s frustration. Technically, he’s not wrong, and we all will pay back the irresponsible “tax cuts,” with interest. And what will the rich get, while we snap and snipe at each other about who is more poor? A bunch, I bet.
John isn’t hurting, he’s got a nice place and some security. But like the poorest, he too can sense how easily the rug could get pulled out from under him. It’s less likely that will happen to him than to say, a homeless Latina veteran. But he’s right to feel anxiety. This post just seems bitchy and self-concerned, and makes him look unaware of how much worse off the plight of those who will get a “tax cut” suffer. More common than you may think, that particular shortcoming and many of our leading “progressive” voices.
The lesson for the movement: make all tax increases on the truly wealthy. There are plenty of them, they can afford it, include corporations and then no better-than-average “centrists” or “liberals” will complain again.
“I go through airports, and people have buttons as if they knew I was coming,” Pelosi said with a smile, mimicking a protester pointing to an “Impeach” button on their chest.
But the California Democrat said she is sticking to her position that trying to remove Bush or Cheney would be divisive, and she added, most likely unsuccessful.
Pelosi, who is married to investor Paul Pelosi, has amassed a large portfolio of jointly owned real estate, including three properties in the Napa Valley. They sold an 8-acre vineyard on Skellenger Lane in Rutherford last year for $1 million to $5 million, according to her disclosure form. Read more
All my energy to go out and have fun got sucked out of me today by the need to Be Dutiful, and so I’m not going dancing tonight. But I’m not a complete looser: I’m going to make candles later instead. Peaceful, craft-driven, functional…I love candle making. I recycle my used wax as well as that of my friends; for some time now, despite burning one or two almost constantly, I buy very little in terms of ’new candle’ material as a result. I’m also into the whole “essential oil” silliness. Lemongrass is my new fav. It warms the whole room in the wintertime, walking into a room infused with lemongrass oil is like like slipping into a bathtub made of warm + yellow.
Men suck. OK, they don’t, but sometimes I just want to say that. You can forgive me, right?
I wanted to expend some energy talking about what people do to fill long winter nights. Other than sex. Or, we could talk about sex, if you’d like. Just be creative. I’m as tired of consumerist sex narratives as I am all the rest. What do you do when the sex is over/not available/too expensive/too much effort?
It’s very “funny,” and worth regular and front page blog posts on “liberal” blogs, to talk about Republican candidates who come in last, next to last, or nearly last. These same candidates get all kinds of free coverage from the media outlets the liberal blogosphere is supposed to “balance.” They also have plenty of money to purchase their own ads, money raised from rich people and big corporations and the avowed enemies of the liberal blogosphere.
It’s not funny, or worth any regular or front page blog posts, to talk about progressive Democratic candidates who finish just behind the “two front runners,” or way behind, or even second in some races. These candidates have little money with which to buy ad time, and are constantly shut out of the primary process by way of lawsuits, media blackouts, and fact-free misrepresentation by the SCLM. They are at the same time closest in policy, voting records, and speech to the “liberal blogosphere.”
100,000 dead. For no good reason except the executives at Aetna need another home in Gstaad. This number probably doesn’t include people who “have health care” but not the kind that actually provides them with the care that will keep them well. Be proud, America, we’ve slipped to dead last on the list of industrialized nations when it comes to providing citizens health care.
Mandatory insurance won’t cut it. “Working with insurance companines” won’t cut it. The toll of needlessly dead Americans is going to rise, and rise, and rise…all while we spend what could pay for total universal coverage on the sands of Iraq and put in the pockets of the already rich. What will it take? What will finally get people to understand- “profit” and “health care” don’t mix? Ever? Read more
A lot of things are more or less a ’done deal’ at this point; I’m not counting on environmental or economic conditions to be stable, let alone the political or cultural environment. So the imperative for me is about trying to reduce the chances of the “very, very bad” conclusion of this part of the cycle of American history. I’ve had enough of theocracy and government surveillance.
Having written this, I’m motivated to ask: could you write the budget? For your state, city, or even the nation? I’m being semi-serious here. Just pretend it’s like that movie “Dave,” and regular people like us get to see the hard numbers for real, and have the chance to rearrange them.
Two motivations behind this post. First, I just can’t do it anymore, or at least, I’m lacking energy of late to blog on the Daily Horror. “We must imagine, and create, the future we want to have.” So let’s imagine; it’s free and fun, even. Second, clearly there is a little intellectual disconnect going on in the minds of the Paulites and newcomers to the I Hate This Government club.
Folks, you need to better understand where the money is actually going, and actually coming from. Please turn off your television and access your (diminishing, remaining) mandated government services which provide you with information. FSM Bless President Gore for giving us that! Read more
You have no doubt heard of the Democrats’ imminent collapse on the budget, apparently willing to entertain negotiations with Republicans on a no-strings budget supplemental for our double wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (gosh, are we still at war both places, ’cause I thought we’d won those wars, or do we need to introduce a new concept for Republican led wars - the non-victory victory), in exchange for more domestic spending.
Well, I am happy and gratified to announce that those negotiations appear to have collapsed. And you’ll never guess why. Or maybe you just might be able to figure it out on your own. Read more
’Capture’ is a word that probably has different meaning to most of us from the one it has where ground water is concerned. In Texas, the owner of any property has ’rule of capture’ rights to anything they find - even if it cuts off water to neighboring property owners. Dig a well, finders keepers.
In a world with increasingly strained resources, it is past time to play a more controlling role in managing them, and the state has been coming to its senses as we hear about how possible it is to run dry. The population of some Dallas suburbs were leading the nation in percentage increase. The water supply was not. Read more
Everyone should always call it “Murdoch’s WSJ” just so we don’t forget. Subscription only but I’ll fair-use some of it for you here.
But polling data confirm business support for Republicans is eroding.
In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in September, 37% of
professionals and managers identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44% three years ago.
Richard Clinch, a 69-year-old New York native, illustrates the party’s plight. The retired Westinghouse manager and mechanical engineer says he has been “a lifelong Republican.” As a young fiscal conservative, he was attracted by the party’s reputation for frugal and competent governance, he says. The Democratic Party left him cold, he says, because of its social spending and ties to the unions that exasperated him at work. As a retiree in Annapolis, Md., he became a local
Republican officer.
Yet next year, for the first time since he began voting in 1960, Mr. Clinch won’t support the Republican presidential nominee, he says. He only “very reluctantly” voted for Mr. Bush’s re-election in 2004. “Like many Republicans, I am frustrated,” he says. “We’ve lost control of spending,” and the administration’s execution of the Iraq war has been “incompetent.” Mr. Clinch says he is liberal about rights for women and gays, and vexed that “we [Republicans] get sidetracked on these issues like gay marriage.”
Read more
To put this into perspective, we’re spending a billion dollars a day on the War in Iraq. In less than a week and a half, we will have spent the entire difference between the two proposals on the War. That is embarrassing. I can’t believe the White House is digging its heels in on this. Further, I can’t believe that they aren’t being publicly flogged by every politician and organization in America. Read more
Reading thru the comments at this thread, I’m overwhelmed by feelings of compassion and pity. So much of what is wrong with our world today stems from the fear some people have of coming out. So much. I’m going to be blunt and honest and share my story, because I think some of our trolls will understand. Bottom line: coming out is hard, but staying in the closet is harder.
I had to come out several times before it “took.” I’m a pretty woman, and it was hard for people to believe that I “had problems” with sex with men. Read more
The Academe: another victim in the War on Civilization, waged by Bushist Republicans who hate America. Oh well, I’m glad I got a chance to enjoy it before it became a complete joke. Sorry the younger folks won’t.
