Tuesday, August 28, 2012

SAR #12240

No matter how bad times get, Wall Street can make them worse.

Picking Up Pennies: Unilever, which says it “makes decent money” selling individual packs of shampoo for 2 or 3 cents in Indonesia says “poverty is returning to Europe,” and plans to do the same thing in places like Spain. As they observed, it is difficult to sell a consumer a big box of detergent for €7 when they've only got €17 for the whole week's shopping.

Insert Foot Here: Romney claims that he is "very proud" that Obamacare his Massachusetts health care law has expanded access to women’s health care services, including contraception.

It's The Economy, Stupid: Virginia's public shools had 8,742 students who were homeless last year, a 75% increase over 2008. And that's probably an undercount. In Mississippi, 25% of the population struggle to afford their daily food. In North Dakota, the state with the best  food security, 10% have difficulty buying sufficient food for their families. Over 30% (15 million) of US homeowners remain underwater. Yet neither Obama nor Romney want's to talk about poverty in the US of A.

Sophistication: Only 11% of the highly paid, master of the universe hedge fund managers managed to beat the S&P so far this year. That's why they earn the big bucks. That, and the stupidity of their investors.

Burning The Commons: More and more parents are deciding not to vaccinate their children, often because of irrational fears or irrational religious beliefs. Your freedom of religion does not include sacrificing my child's life for your beliefs, nor do your “parental rights” overrule years of scientific research. The population as a whole has the right to defend itself from assault by its individual members.

Hope, Dawning: Surveys show that 80% of homeowners believe that their house will be worth more in a couple of years and over 60% say this is a good time to buy a house - theirs, for example.

Guns R US: Peace-loving Uncle Sam sold $66.3 billion worth of weapons overseas last year - more than twice the previous record - mostly to dictators and tyrants and those controlling our oil. That's 75% of the global arms market. Russia was a distant second with about $5 billion in sales.

Weapons of Mass Delusion, Or It's About Controlling the Oil, Stupid: While the United States and its allies keep talking about the threat Iran poses, US officials have repeatedly acknowledged that there is no evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

A Quote: "You can’t pay attention to the Party platform – those are just our fundamental beliefs that we don’t care about.” Let's just call it Anonymous - it could have been any number of senior pols from either party.

Quoted: There was a time, not long ago, when Republicans — whatever you might think of their other ideas — were not batshit crazy.

Porn O'Graph: Nowhere to go but down...

The Parting Shot:

120828

8 comments:

mistah charley, ph.d. said...

Who is Justice Party presidential candidate Rocky Anderson's running mate?

Luis Rodriguez, a leading Chicano writer, speaker, gang expert and interventionist, and activist for justice in urban peace, the arts, labor, and human rights, has joined Rocky Anderson's 2012 presidential campaign as Anderson’s vice presidential running mate. "The search for a highly competent, dignified, principled running mate has been arduous," Rocky stated. "Luis exceeds any expectations I had. He will inform, uplift, and motivate in this campaign, just as he does every day in his inspirational work."

Where is Luis Rodriguez coming from?

He is a co-founder of the Network for Revolutionary Change, trying to fill the gap of strategic and unified leadership among the poor, the pushed-out, the dismissed, and forgotten. He's also co-founder of the nonprofit Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore and its publishing wing, Tia Chucha Press, in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles. He has fifteen published books in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature, including the bestselling 1993 memoir Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. and its 2011 sequel, It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Bernardino, and fifteen years in Chicago. He's now a resident of San Fernando, CA.

For over thirty years Luis conducted workshops, readings, and talks in prisons, juvenile facilities, homeless shelters, migrant camps, universities, public and private schools, conferences, churches, Native American reservations, and men's conferences.

What awards has Luis received?

Luis has received the Inner City Struggle of East L.A.’s “Spirit of Struggle”/Ruben Salazar Award; the “Local Hero of Community” Award from KCET-TV of L.A. and Union Bank of California; “Hero of Nonviolence” Award from Rev. Michael Beckwith and the Agape Christian Center in Culver City, CA; and an "Unsung Heroes of Compassion" Award, presented by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

How is this candidate for high public office different from most candidates for high public office?

Rocky Anderson says, "Luis brings with him a wealth of knowledge and real-life experience, inspirational personal growth, and proven commitment to social, economic, and environmental justice. Such justice is an essential element of a nation committed to equal opportunity, peace, and genuine freedom for all.”

What does Luis Rodriguez say about the Justice Party?

"It's important to find a politically independent means to voice the real issues of justice in this country. The Justice Party comes at a crucial time, when the truth about who holds power and wealth in this country is daily more evident and the failures of the two-party system become increasingly irreparable. This is a vision for a new America, new ideas, new forms of struggle--of true justice in our time and for generations to come. The Justice Party is part of a growing movement in the United States for true peace, justice, equity, and dignity. People are understanding more and more that to have a healthy and full development for each person we need to have the healthy and full development of all."

What is Luis Rodriguez' personal goal in running for Vice President as the Justice Party candidate?

"My aim in being part of this ticket with Rocky Anderson in the Justice Party is to help spread the conversation in this country about how we need to incorporate more voices, stories, ideas, and people into how we govern and take care of everyone. Two directions for true justice are to have meaningful, respectful and healthy relations with the environment, the earth, and its bountiful resources. And to have meaningful, respectful, and healthy relations with each other."

HS said...

Burning The Commons: "The population as a whole has the right to defend itself from assault by its individual members."

Big Pharma has lied to us and cooked the data so many other times, I can understand not wanting to allow them to inject a kid with weakened antigens. Particularly, when novel vaccination strategies, like pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccination have been shown to be ineffective at best. Vaccination has been known about for hundreds of years and only now, in this Golden Age of Regulatory Capture, we're just discovering new cures to old diseases? Bullshit. All they've done is discover new ways to generate profit from scaring and potentially harming the US population. Call me a conspiracy nut, but the "conspiracy" is the same one that's running the planet for the last two decades: corporate greed.

Matte Gray said...

Parents who don't vaccinate their children are taking a free ride off the "herd immunity" conferred by their kins' vaccinated classmates. Much better to let somebody else's kid take the risk of vaccination, however slight, while your kid reaps the benefits.

Matte Gray said...

Picking up Pennies: Even as San Francisco booms with upscale condos for all the well paid new workers sprouting like weeds, you can still go into downscale markets and buy cigarettes by the each.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Dear Conspiracy Nut - I devoutly hope that those who refuse to vaccinate their children also refuse the shingles vaccine for themselves...

Matte - I've visited lots of poor places, but cigarettes "by the each" in the Republic of San Fran?

And I didn't know what to think about mistah charlie's post, but concluded that as long as we don't live in one of the six or seven states where our vote actually matters, we might as well show our support for the idea of competitive democracy. Besides - if we can give them a little (and I reserve the right to determine 'little') attention here, it'll be more than they get from the MSM.

ckm

Anonymous said...

CKM - you are truly our own King Solomon..thanks for the daily dose.

~Darwindows

Anonymous said...

Vaccines

First, here's Pfizer's conviction for Fraud and Racketeering:

http://blog.prescriptionaccess.org/?p=784

Now here's Pfizer shilling its Vaccines:

http://www.pfizer.com/vaccines/

Any reasonable person would surely question why they should be vaccinated by a Racketeer.

In the area in which I live in Canada, the last time they pushed H1N1 vaccine agressively two years ago, only 40% of health professionals chose to be vaccinated.

So. before anyone jabs me, I am still going to do due diligence. Unfortunately, in this day and age of Groupthink, some think that is unreasonable.

mistah charley, ph.d. said...

"as long as we don't live in one of the six or seven states where our vote actually matters" - as you point out, CKM, most of us live in states where the disposition of the electoral vote is not in question. Certainly that's true in my case.

I am impressed by the bio and positions of Rocky Anderson, formerly Democratic mayor of Salt Lake City and current candidate of the Justice Party. The Green Party folks are good too, but what I most hunger and thirst for - and what I think our country is starving for (metaphorically speaking) - is Justice.

Luis Rodgriguez, the veep candidate of the Justice Party, has a couple of autobiographical works out which I have requested from my local library. I expect, when reading these, to learn something about a world I have no direct and precious little vicarious experience with.