Are_grits_groceries
Are_grits_groceries's JournalWell, good thing Brown intervened in the BART strike to be:
@LauraGarciaCann: Huge 2 hr backup expected on Bay Bridge after big rig fire at 5th street ramp. BART now your best bet on commute
(morning anchor NBC news By Area)
Timing is everything.
Jim Messina, How Could You Flip From Barack Obama to David Cameron?
WTF, Jim Messina? How does a person go from running Barack Obama’s reelection campaign to working for David Cameron and the Tories? Well, you might be thinking, perhaps there really isn’t all that much space between Obama and Cameron. The big-C Conservatives over there, after all, aren’t remotely like our small-c conservatives over here. I say that’s about as faint as praise can possibly be. I also say, and will hope to show you, that it isn’t as true as you think it is. How an operative willing to tether himself to some of Cameron’s policies can come back home and work again in Democratic politics without facing some very tough questioning indeed is hard to imagine.
Let’s start with immigration. A pretty hot topic in America, and one on which Obama’s position—a course toward citizenship for 11 million people who are here illegally—is well-known and universally shared within the Democratic Party. Turns out immigration is pretty hot stuff in the U.K. too—specifically, illegal immigration. Earlier this year, the Home Office reported 863,000 undocumented people living in Britain. That’s about 1.3 percent of the total population, considerably less than the United States’ roughly 3.6 percent. Still, the people are in a state, or some of them are. So the Tory government has just recently begun a campaign. What kind of campaign, you ask?
Well, imagine if a border-state conservative governor—Rick Perry of Texas, Jan Brewer of Arizona—started sending a billboarded van into immigrant neighborhoods advising illegals to “go home.” That would be rather controversial here, don’t you think? And I daresay that nearly every Democratic politician I can think of, starting with Obama, would denounce such an effort.
Yet that is precisely what Cameron’s government is doing now, in six London boroughs. Vince Cable, the government’s own business secretary—he’s from the Lib-Dems—calls the policy “stupid and offensive.” That’s the kind of politics that Messina wants to sign on to? It’s Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” made flesh. It’s right out of the Joe Arpaio playbook, but I’m not sure even the Maricopa County sheriff would try that one. Closer to the Arpaio spirit, however, police have also just begun instituting spot checks of people acting suspiciously near suburban Tube stations. The Home Office defends this, as it does the vans, and says, of course, that a person’s skin “colour” plays no role in the spot checks.
<snip>
Maybe the same thing he was doing back in 2002, when he made what’s often called the most homophobic ad in U.S. political history for his old mentor, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). But Cameron, it seems, wouldn’t have liked that ad. Two weeks ago he said he wants “to export gay marriage around the world.” So at least Messina won’t be proposing any ads that poke “fun” at male hairdressers. I suppose that’s progress.
Political consulting isn’t a profession known for its demanding ethical standards. But no matter how flexible your relationship to the truth or how sleazy your ads, there is one line you aren’t supposed to cross—going to work for the other side. The Tories aren’t the Texas Republican Party. But they are the other side. I hope the Democrats who consider hiring him in 2016 understand that.
More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/05/jim-messina-how-could-you-flip-from-barack-obama-to-david-cameron.html
I thought the same thing.
I realize there is money to be had," but first, kill all the political consultants."
Repost-"OFFICIAL SC LAW ENFORCEMENT HURRICANE INST" (since the heart of the season is here):
(If a hurricane is imminent, this will be broadcast)
URGENT - URGENT - URGENT (FOR IMMEDIATE DISSEMINATION STATEWIDE)
Warning to all South Carolina residents of a possible hurricane threat. The path of this hurricane is still unclear and may be a threat to our state.
Although meteorologists are predicting landfall somewhere to the north of South Carolina, state emergency preparedness officials are making two basic but important points:
(1) There is no need to panic.
(2) We could all be killed.
Hurricane season is an exciting time to be in South Carolina. If you're new to the area, you're probably wondering what you need to do to prepare for the possibility that we'll get hit by "the big one." Based on experience, we recommend that you follow this simple three-step hurricane preparedness plan:
STEP 1. Buy enough food, beer, and bottled water to last your family for at least three days.
STEP 2. Put these supplies into your car.
STEP 3. Drive to Nebraska and remain there until Halloween.
Unfortunately, statistics show that most people will not follow this sensible plan. Most people will foolishly stay here in South Carolina. We'll start with one of the most important hurricane preparedness items: HOMEOWNERS' INSURANCE: If you own a home, you must have hurricane insurance. Fortunately, this insurance is cheap and easy to get, as long as your home meets two basic requirements:
(1) It is reasonably well-built, and
(2) It is located in Nebraska.
Unfortunately, if your home is located in South Carolina, or any other area that might actually be hit by a hurricane, most insurance companies would prefer not to sell you hurricane insurance, because then they might be required to pay YOU money, and that is certainly not why they got into the insurance business in the first place. So you'll have to scrounge around for an insurance company, which will charge you an annual premium roughly equal to the replacement value of your house. At any moment, this company can drop you like used dental floss.
Since Hurricane George, I have had an estimated 27 different home-insurance companies. This week, I'm covered by the Bubba and Big Stan Insurance Company, under a policy which states that, in addition to my premium, Bubba and Big Stan are entitled, on demand, to my kidneys.
SHUTTERS: Your house should have hurricane shutters on all the windows, all the doors, and -- if it's a major hurricane -- all the toilets. There are several types of shutters, with advantages and disadvantages:
Plywood shutters: The advantage is that, because you make them yourself, they're cheap. The disadvantage is that, because you make them yourself, they will fall off.
Sheet-metal shutters: The advantage is that these work well, once you get them all up. The disadvantage is that once you get them all up, your hands will be useless bleeding stumps, and it will be December.
Roll-down shutters: The advantages are that they're very easy to use, and will definitely protect your house. The disadvantage is that you will have to sell your house to pay for them.
Hurricane-proof windows: These are the newest wrinkle in hurricane protection: They look like ordinary windows, but they can withstand hurricane winds! You can be sure of this, because the salesman says so. He lives in Nebraska.
Hurricane Proofing Your Property: As the hurricane approaches, check your yard for movable objects like barbecue grills, planters, patio furniture, visiting relatives, etc.. You should, as a precaution, throw these items into your swimming pool (if you don't have a swimming pool, you should have one built immediately). Otherwise, the hurricane winds will turn these objects into deadly missiles.
EVACUATION ROUTE: If you live in a low-lying area, you should have an evacuation route planned out. (To determine whether you live in a low-lying area, look at your driver's license; if it says "South Carolina," you live in a low-lying area.) The purpose of having an evacuation route is to avoid being trapped in your home when a major storm hits. Instead, you will be trapped in a gigantic traffic jam several miles from your home, along with two hundred thousand other evacuees. So, as a bonus, you will not be lonely.
HURRICANE SUPPLIES: If you don't evacuate, you will need a mess of supplies. Do not buy them now! South Carolina tradition requires that you wait until the last possible minute, then go to the supermarket and get into vicious fights with strangers over who gets the last can of SPAM. In addition to food and water, you will need the following supplies: 23 flashlights At least $167 worth of batteries that turn out, when the power goes off, to be the wrong size for the flashlights. Bleach. (We don't know what the bleach is for. NOBODY knows what the bleach is for, but it's traditional, so GET some!) A 55-gallon drum of underarm deodorant. A big knife that you can strap to your leg. (This will be useless in a hurricane, but it looks cool.) A large quantity of raw chicken, to placate the alligators. (Ask anybody who went through Hugo. After the hurricane, there WILL be irate alligators.) $35,000 in cash or diamonds so that, after the hurricane passes, you can buy a generator from a man with no discernible teeth.
Of course these are just basic precautions. As the hurricane draws near, it is vitally important that you keep abreast of the situation by turning on your television and watching TV reporters in rain slickers stand right next to the ocean and tell you over and over how vitally important it is for everybody to stay away from the ocean.
Good luck, and remember: It's great living in South Carolina.
********************************************
If anyone was offended by this, it is gallows humor. In addition, it is almost spot on.
The Serial Killer Has Second Thoughts: The Confessions of Thomas Quick (Unbelievable, scary & weird)
In a remote psychiatric hospital in Sweden, there is a man known as Thomas Quick who has been convicted of unspeakable crimes. Over the course of multiple trials, he would tell his brutal stories—of stabbings, stranglings, rape, incest, cannibalism—to almost anyone who would listen. Then, after his eighth and final murder conviction, he went silent for nearly a decade. In the last few years, though, he has been thinking about all he has said and done, and now he has something new to confess: He left out the worst part of all.
Part 1: Inside the asylum.
Sture Bergwall woke up at 5:30 a.m. this morning, as he does every morning, and at 6 a.m. he walked for an hour in the interior yard of the secure psychiatric unit at Säter hospital, his home for the past twenty-three years. He likes to do this every day, pacing a figure eight over and over again. Sometimes he listens to music, but more often to the morning news, eavesdropping on a world he was separated from more than two decades ago.
Sweden is the kind of country where being a convicted murderer in a secure psychiatric unit is not necessarily an impediment to having a Twitter feed, and Bergwall often tweets about these endless morning circuits. "Exercise yard reflections," he titles them. Small wistful poems about what you can see when this is your only physical access to the world beyond: the budding of a branch, the way fresh snow sits on top of the courtyard walls, the glow against the underside of the sky that he knows is from the lights of the waking town to the east. On a good day, he sees a nightingale.
Sture Bergwall is better known to most people in Sweden as Thomas Quick, the name he took not long after he arrived at this institution in 1991. Quick is his mother's family name. Thomas, he liked to explain, was the name of his first victim, a 14-year-old boy whose body was found in a bicycle shed, belt undone, trouser button ripped off, and face bloody. Bergwall was never prosecuted for that murder, because he was 14 years old when it happened, and by the time he confessed to it, the statute of limitations had expired. But he was later convicted in six separate trials for eight other murders, and the full number of murders he has claimed responsibility for is around thirty. That is how he became Sweden's most famous serial killer. "Sweden's answer," as he himself would later put it, "to Hannibal Lecter."
For a time it was a role he seemed to revel in, but then in 2001, after his eighth murder conviction, Bergwall announced that he was no longer going to cooperate with prosecutors and he was no longer going to speak with the media. He reclaimed the name Sture Bergwall and went silent. As his reputation swirled, the man at its center kept his own counsel. But recently he has decided to start talking again, and he has agreed to see me. I have come here to try and understand his story—an awful story about what human beings can do, and about responsibility and guilt, and about deceit and retribution, one that has lessons for us all.
<snip>
Much more: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201308/thomas-quick-serial-killer-august-2013?printable=true
All I could think after I read this was WTF? Just WTF?
Bear Steals Dumpster From Restaurant Twice In 24 Hours
This is by far the most determined bear I have ever seen. This is perhaps the best bear I have ever seen.
On Wednesday, this bear got hungry. So she took a little stroll over to the Edelweiss restaurant (A quaint Bavarian setting!) in Colorado Springs to get some food. She then decided that she was more than just a little hungry, and took the restaurant's entire dumpster with her. This bear takes her late-night snacking very seriously.
And then, nearly a day later, she returned! You're goddamn right she stole another dumpster:
http://deadspin.com/bear-steals-dumpster-from-restaurant-twice-in-24-hours-1001128290
Ha!
NC: Battle royale with Old South vs New South
The 2 divisions are simplistic, but the fight does boil down to old vs new.
The Old South is made up of the usual suspects. They do not want to recognize the demographic changes in NC. They believe they have gerrymandered their way into perpetual power. However, NC's changes are real and steady.
The New South is made up of a solid base of Dems that will not go away. They are in the minority, but they serve as a reminder and warning to the right. This group is a core to build around. The alles are minorites, many newcomers, and people that have become fed up with the regressive laws passed.
Those who are fed up with these overreaching rules are definitely a swing group. They are neither comfortable with the RW nutjobs nor those who want to move too fast in a liberal direction. They have gone back and forth many times. Even as Republicans are claiming victory after victory, these are phyrric gains.
Gerrymandering and voting monkey business will only carry them so far. There is a building backlash now that does not portend well for them. There may not be enough change in the next election cycle, but who knows.
NC is being forced rightward by a solid group of ideologues that put their policies and needs above trying to better the state. NC has had a long history of activism for the people and it has not gone away. They are obscured now by the cloud of Republican power grabs, but clouds disapear.
I have never given up on NC during this hot mess. It is in another conservative pothole vortex in the inexorable march forward. Getting through this will take time and energy, but it will be done.
As far as South Carolina goes, the whole state is a political vortex made up of every possible ideology thrown in. That we haven't gone rapidly down the path NC is on is due to one reason. The people "running" the show are divided into groups that hate each other with a passion.
There are the following:
The Haleys- A group of Teashitters who are afraid to travel because they might fall off their flat earth.
The basic RW GOP who now look moderte in comparison to the Haleys. The have seniority, know every trick in the book, and everyone of them is meaner than a porcupine with lice.
The Assteroids- A GOP member who orbits in and out of the other groups and expresses the ideology of the planet he came from. Each is crazier than a s***house mouse.
The Dems make up a separate block that is generally in agreement. There are differences among them, but they stick together. They use flanking maneuvers and guerrilla attacks. They also form temporary pacts with devils to pass or block certain bills.
Make no mistake. There is still rightward movement. However it has been impeded by the infighting.
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