General News and current events (non political)

[Couch Tomato]

I thought we had one of these... but twice over the past couple of weeks I wanted to discuss something but it didn't seem to fit anywhere. So I'm creating this topic for the next time that happens.

[Couch Tomato]

Bonuses for these wall street and banking executives. What have these people done to earn 50 million sign on bonuses and receives millions in exit bonuses. It's outrageous! Why was this business as usual even when things were good let alone when things are bad.

[djs111]

Because they are Pure Capitalists and Help Make America Great!!!!!!!!!!

Not that I am cynical or anything.

[jmh123]

Because they are Pure Capitalists and Help Make America Great!!!!!!!!!!

Not that I am cynical or anything.

And they Work Harder than those Lazy No-Good Poor People. And Obama is going to Take Money from those Hard Working Pure Capitalists that Help Make America Great and give it to those Lazy No-Good Poor People and make this a Socialist Nation. OMG.

I'm not cynical either...much.

[Couch Tomato]

I love Nancy Grace. But her preoccupation with Caylee is getting a bit freaky. The body is found. The mother is charged. Let the process run its course. She's turned this poor baby into a cottage industry with all kind of freaky guests. The last straw for me was playing the police interrogation tapes. HUH? Is that stuff public property? How on earth did she get her hands on it especially before the mother has had her day in court? And her whole "tot-mom" cutesy moniker is the freakiest thing of all. Come on Nancy - snap out of it.

[claytonic]

I had no idea who Nancy Grace was when I posted that Chicken Crossing the Road joke in the LAUGHTER thread.

(NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.)

Later on, I heard her name mentioned again and was told about the way she bamboozled Elizabeth Smart with inappropriate questions. Elizabeth had agreed to the interview only because she wanted to support the bill but the rule was that no questions relating to the abduction were allowed. I went looking for that interview clip on YouTube because I had just read the book written by Elizabeth's parents.

I've been following the Caylee case as well.

[Couch Tomato]

8 babies?

[djs111]

I have come to think of Nancy Grace as a horrible insane nasssty opportunistic self-serving dangerous bitch. She reminds me of the Martians in the newest, Jack Nicholson version of Mars Attacks! only she is less kind and less attractive.

She throws out the judge and jury of one's peers, and evidence, and all that other non-headline stuff, and has appointed herself as the sometimes deadly version of Judge Judy.

The Crap Network News version of a hanging judge.

The Melinda Duckett suicide kind of hardened my heart against Nancy Grace. At first I thought she had a brash charm.

Melinda Duckett suicide

I don't know why anybody would consent to being interviewed by her.

Yes, Couchie, 8 babies!

[Couch Tomato]

The funny part is that Nancy first came on the scene on the show Cochrane and Grace. And back then I couldn't stand her. Her personality didn't mesh with Johnny's and she just seemed to be overly harsh on her questioning. But later I came to like her on Court TV.

If her goal is all about finding missing children..then move on. There are actually missing children who could use the spotlight. Her "job" is done. All she is doing at this point is dirtying up the jury pool. And has the nerve to be outraged because someone made a cayley doll.

Well the "murder" by the Bart police will be with us for a long time. I just don't understand why in front of all those witnesses with cell phones and observational cameras everywhere why an unarmed person surrounded by big strong policemen ended up dead.

[Couch Tomato]

Drum Major John Coleman offered

-- all while keeping stride -- as he marched the Cleveland Firefighter's Memorial Pipes & Drums past President Barack Obama last week. Some might call it a heartwarming moment of patriotism during the inaugural parade.

The band's leader calls it a violation of the rules, captured by CNN. Coleman has been suspended as drum major for six months.

"We had gone over and over time and again with everyone in the band that this was a military parade. Protocol and proper decorum had to be followed at all times," said bandleader Pipe Major Mike Engle. "Unfortunately, John chose to ignore that."

Coleman said he didn't do anything grossly demonstrative: "I looked over, and he smiled and waved. I was just acknowledging the president, who was acknowledging our band."

Engle, who said other pipe bands complained about Coleman's gesture, said even sneaking a glimpse was out of bounds.

well geeze bwah. I think this is a bit much. Maybe someone in a marching band can explain why this was so horrible... the man was good..it was so discrete and he continued to march in time.

[claytonic]

Did this horrific story make the news in the US?

Melbourne bridge death girl, Darcey Freeman, 'was heading for first day at school'

An Australian girl on the way to her first day at school died after her father allegedly threw her off a bridge in front of her young brothers and scores of motorists.

Witnesses said that Arthur Phillip Freeman, 35, stopped his white Land Cruiser and with Darcey Iris, 4, in his arms, walked to the side of the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne, just after 9am.

He was reported to have dropped her over the railing into the shallow murky water 190ft below, before getting back into his vehicle and driving away.

Motorists called the emergency services as others ran to look for the girl. Some witnesses said that Darcey looked limp in her father’s arms before the plunge.

She survived the fall and was pulled from the water by police within ten minutes. Paramedics spent 50 minutes trying to resuscitate her on the bank of the Yarra River. She was airlifted to the nearby Royal Children’s Hospital and treated for four hours. The tragedy gripped the country as it unfolded on national television, with footage of frantic efforts to save the girl.

Mr Freeman, an IT consultant, was arrested by police an hour after the incident when he was spotted, accompanied by his sons Benjamin, 7, and Jack, 2, in a “visibly distressed” state outside the Commonwealth Law Courts across town in central Melbourne. The family had been in the middle of a custody battle. According to The Australian, the incident came a day after Mr Freeman and his wife, Peta, 39, reached a compromise that guaranteed him access. Security staff at the court said that Mr Freeman was shaking and wild-eyed when they saw him and alerted police.

Initially unaware that he had been involved in the bridge incident, officers said that they took him into custody peacefully. As he was being led away he begged court staff to “take care of my kids”.

“He was pretty down and he had the two other children with him and he tried to enter the court. He couldn’t talk to anyone, he was just a mess,” Vince Mascia, a witness, told the Nine Network.

Darcey died in hospital from internal injuries as Mr Freeman was being questioned by police. He was charged with murder and remanded in custody to appear in court on May 21. Psychiatrists judged that he was a suicide risk.

According to the Herald Sun, the Melbourne newspaper, Mr Freeman, described by his lawyers as a “loving, devoted father”, had been separated from his wife since March 2007. The two other children are now in the care of their mother.

Source:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle5612286.ece

[Couch Tomato]

That's just awful..and so incomprehensible to me.

In California there was a case of a man and his wife being fired from Kaiser. He went home and killed his wife, all his young kids and then himself. What causes people to break in this way? I don't get it. How can you hurt such innocent precious babies.

OK...soooooooooo 8 apparantly isn't enough. This woman has 6 other kids? Now i know this has turned into a sticky ethical issue and is all tied up in race..but I'll just be honest here - that woman had no business going through a process allowing her to have that many more children. I'm not sure how this works but supposedly she didn't know all 8 embryos could take? I really really hope she can afford these children without help from the state or her life will be hell. It's really hard NOT to be judgemental...when you have so many in a 3 bedroom house and now will add 8 more. However, I don't know all of their informtion..supposedly the family owns lots of real estate so maybe they can afford this. Geeze.

[claytonic]

OK...soooooooooo 8 apparantly isn't enough. This woman has 6 other kids?

Now i know this has turned into a sticky ethical issue and is all tied up in race..but I'll just be honest here - that woman had no business going through a process allowing her to have that many more children. I'm not sure how this works but supposedly she didn't know all 8 embryos could take?

I really really hope she can afford these children without help from the state or her life will be hell.

It's really hard NOT to be judgemental...when you have so many in a 3 bedroom house and now will add 8 more. However, I don't know all of their informtion..supposedly the family owns lots of real estate so maybe they can afford this. Geeze.

OMG that is outrageous. So that's 14 kids? You know the saying "if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em". I don't mind being judgmental in this instance either. It's not fair to any of the kids.

ETA: Actually, such a birth in Australia would pay them $5K per child, and the $40K is paid to them over a 13 week period. (It used to be a $5K lump sum bonus, for each newborn, but it was recently changed to the 13 weekly payments.)

It's so hot eggs are frying on the ground in Australia... while at least 20 are killed by ice storms in America

[claytonic]

Carol Thatcher was this week dropped from

her roving reporter role on "The One Show",

the main BBC1 television channel's daily prime

time topical programme,

[Couch Tomato]

I'm watching the Angie Mendoza murder trial on court tv.

It's heartbreaking.

What gets me is how he keeps referring to a person he killed as an "IT" and basically saying they deserved to pay for their deception - pay as in MURDERED.

But the other thing that gets to me is this: if he finds people who are not hetero so distasteful, why was he holding conversations on the bisexual side of mocospace.

[claytonic]

Not sure if this is non-political but since it isn't directly about politics, I'll put it here...

I received these two emails within hours of each other. I haven't fully digested any of it, but a quick scan has me wondering if I have suddenly caught the 'flu because my head starting aching while I was trying to take in the contents...

please watch this or at least understand what ís really going on !! drug companies already prepared 300 million vaccines for north america, you think they are going to leave them sit on the shelf !! please spread the word everywhere, Dr Leonard Horowitz is probably one of the greatest guys on the planet to tell the truth about this.....

To:

Hello Friends,

This is another take on the Swine Flu an URGENT FLU REPORT from Dr. Leonard Horowitz... this article just sent to me by a friend. Please watch the short 10 minute video at the link below... ou will find it VERY informative.

Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:06:38 -0400

Hello Ladies and Gents,

Please pass this on to all your contacts worldwide......ask them to read this short attachment and to watch the 10 minute video at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBeKB7aKzOs

Its simple facts, numbers and names....which is the evidence most require when wanting answers but it clearly puts 2 and 2 together! I love Dr. Horowitz as he seems to be making the most noise about the truth of vaccines along with Dr. Carley....I have two of Lens videos.....5 hours of facts, names, dates, papers, etc to back up all he says......but we don't really need those anymore, it is so clear.....Mother Nature did not create this virus!

These viruses are created by men in labs people, and wanting to distribute unto people for nefarious reasons, the least of which is maintenance of control over the populations and to take lives for profit......If you don't want to die by them, then you need to stand up to them.....

There are other ways to strengthen your immunity and to fight these creations of mad men.....learn about them.

Get to know your own body.....get to know Nature and how She works, and God........Know your inner and outer Garden.

A quote: "The most chilling evidence against Dr. Robertson’s EU research team, besides him being the gatekeeper and chief promoter for multi-billion dollar flu vaccine stockpiling deals, and besides his collaborators being caught red handed here by hard science and common sense, is his stated position that he believes it is wise to "prime" populations worldwide by releasing viruses he and his colleagues are creating. This warning comes from a April 27, 2006, scientific discourse in which Dr. Robertson, and members of his WHO (World Health Organization) working group, recommended his "biosimilars" (lab created) be 'used to prime the population in advance of the pandemic reaching the UK.' In other words, the doctors that hold infectious disease responsibility for the world have already decided to loose their viruses on unwitting populations in advance of threatened outbreaks."

Ingrid Naiman says: "Horowitz is not a warm and fuzzy guy, but he connects dots really, really well and so you will see the inside story"

From: WC Douglass realhealth@healthiernews.com

Media pigs misinforming public about so-called "epidemic"

Dear Friend,

Those filthy swine... The swine flu "epidemic" is only a few days old, and Big Pharma is already plotting to make a fortune.

European drug maker Roche announced it was scaling up production of Tamiflu, giving a boost to its stock price and sending millions into the Roche coffers. GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the anti-flu drug Relenza, is also seeing its stock price climb, as investors hope this swine flu is the biggest thing since the bubonic plague.

There's only one problem here – it's not going to happen. You read the Daily Dose because I always give you the straight scoop, and because I'm not afraid to tell you when the mainstream has it wrong.

And they have it wrong on swine flu. It won't be an epidemic – it'll barely even be a ripple. I've run medical clinics in Africa – I know what an epidemic looks like.

And this isn't it.

The media is blowing swine flu out of proportion so it can feed its 24-hour news cycle – the same media, mind you, that had us convinced that avian flu was going to destroy the planet a few years ago.

But here are the facts about swine flu – it has affected so few people in America that it's hardly worth discussing. There are 64 confirmed cases in America as I'm writing this – not 6,000 or even 600. There are 64.

Of course, the media is fixated on the 100 or so people who have died in Mexico from the swine flu. But let me clue you into something that no one seems to be discussing – health care in Mexico is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. I know – I've been there more times than I can count.

Disease spreads rapidly through Mexico because large areas of the country lack clean water and basic sanitation. Seeing a doctor – let alone a qualified doctor – is a luxury unavailable to most of the population. Of course the flu is killing people in Mexico – so are a lot of other diseases that are successfully treated in America. People in Mexico still die from diarrhea, for Pete's sake!

Yes, they have apparently had some cases of bad swine flu in Mexico. They've had lots of dengue fever and chagas, too, but you don't need to stay up at night worrying about it. Beating the swine flu isn't any different from beating the regular flu. Wash your hands. Avoid large crowds if you can. Get plenty of rest and fluids if you start getting sick.

And don't be afraid to eat pork or any other meat, for that matter, as it's not the pigs who are getting sick. Of course, I'm not recommending you eat Mexican pork – or any food produced in Mexico, for that matter. Hopefully the tainted peppers outbreak of 2008 taught us that. But don't change your diet because of some so-called swine flu epidemic.

It's no epidemic. It's no public health catastrophe. It's good theatre – and nothing more.

[Couch Tomato]

did anyone watch the whole ..is the kid in the balloon.. saga? Do ya'll think it was a publicity stunt? And if so..what should happen to the family. Boy everyone wants their 15 minutes.

[Scarlett]

wrong thread, sorry!

[clayschampion]

:04: Happy Birthday Alaska!

Hope your day was Fantastic. I'd like to be celebrating my birthday at an upcoming Clay Event soon.

Wouldn't a summer tour be GREAT!!!!

I'm missing Clay and all the magic he brings where ever he goes.

[FearofH2O]

Last night I watched Anderson Cooper to see that fool, sorry I don't usually use this term, who has a blog in which he mocks, threatens, harrasses a 21 year old college student who happens to be gay. The blooger is an assistant DA in Michigan. Supposedly his boss won't fire him for his foolishness because the DA's election campaign was supported by conservative Christian organizations of which this guy is a sad example. Supposedly his problem with the college student is that he supported both sex's housing on campus together.

Here is the CNN link:

Ass't DA blogger

This is just politics and religion gone bad.

[jmh123]

I read about that earlier--didn't see CNN. They're not going to fire the guy? No matter who he is doing it to, it is still harrassment, and public officials are not supposed to harrass people. GRRRR. Or do those conservative Christian voters condone the harrassment just because he is gay? Who's next? Immigrants? Oh wait....

Oh crap, you just reminded me. Yesterday I saw a pickup truck with big BIG lettering on the back window of his cab saying, "KILL EM ALL." Below that in smaller letters, Sanford Hunting Club. I guess that meant kill all the squirrels or deer or whatever, because you never hear that expression in any racist or prejudicial context. Oh no. :thumbnose:

What that expression reminds me of is when I was a little girl. We used to visit some family friends in Smithfield, which had that "This is Klan country" billboard at the entrance to the town. I remember what it was like when harrassing certain people was condoned around here; churches led the way, and it wasn't pretty. The guy crossed a line and he needs to be fired.

And speaking of firing, the clerk who's been smoking pot in the back in the Radio Shack I shopped at today is probably gonna be fired too.

ETA: Went over to Facebook and saw this: yet another teen suicide after bullying

[FearofH2O]

Tonight Anderson Cooper spoke with the Michigan AG or the boss of the fool. He defended his employees right to free speech. It was still implied on the show that it is a matter of who is politically backing the AG. When did MI become so conservative? I don't equate conservatives with being haters, it is just certain groups have put themselves under this umbrella and it is sad for those who are legitimate fiscal conservatives.

jmh, I hate to read about these young teens being tormented by bullies to the point of losing the will to live. Someone has to have raised the bullies, I say hold the parents responsible. Make them attend sessions where they can learn about kids that are bullied.

[shortyjill]

Interesting that you mention the parents of bullies. There was a story that came out last week or so from this area where the mother actually took her son to the location of another kid deliberately to let her son beat the other kid up, and this was in a public place! She IS being charged as well as her son. Here's the story link: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/25124745/detail.html

[FearofH2O]

That's just sick, shortyjill. People need to learn a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

[jmh123]

Coming back to harrassment of gay people (because bullying in general is a separate and gigantic social problem as well), the story of this young man who was videoed by webcam and broadcasted by his roommate.....

Friends are saying the roommate and his female friend are good people, people who are well-liked and would never deliberately harm anyone. And yet they may stand accused of a hate crime. Seems contradictory. So where might "good people" get the idea that it's OK to bully gay people? Perhaps from Conan? Jay Leno? Kathy Griffin? Pigez Hilton?

When society overtly or even tacitly condones bullying of a particular segment of society, "good people" are going to think it's perfectly OK to do so themselves. Right now American society is at a real crossroads when it comes to homosexuality, but IMO, until people no longer laugh at gay jokes or make "outing" a sport, this kind of thing will continue to happen.

So back to bullying for a second, I think it's a huge social problem, and yes, parents, society, and news and entertainment media are all contributing factors. I think bullying may be endemic to the social condition, to human nature, and therefore very, very difficult to defeat. Research shows that bullies are often the popular kids. Look at Glee for example. (Research also shows that students who get away with cheating in college are wealthier and more successful in their work lives, and continue the same sorts of behaviors on their way upward.) I think a disproportionate number of bullies are in positions of power and authority because they have social traits that make them more likely to succeed.

And of course, parents are a factor, but often (not always) kids become bullied because they themselves are bullied by a parent. It's not like a lot of these parents are going to be easy to get through to, when they are bullies themselves.

So yes, bullying, ugh, and hard to defeat, but I give our society credit for maturing to the point where a lot of bullying of specific groups is no longer condoned. But for gay folks, still a long tough road ahead. And a very important step is the recognition that it's not OK on any level, to bully or "out" people because they are gay.

Am I making any sense here? Probably not, just spitting out words, but this is an issue that bugs the hell out of me.