Monkeyfister

I am as sick as I think I can be. Hit me around 8pm last night, and is ripping me up. Fever that won't break below 99-degrees, weak stomach, pain everywhere.

I've been fighting it off for most of the week, but, it finally has me.



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"Tangled Up In Blue." This is an extraordinarily good cover of the Dylan song. Every musician of the Jerry Garcia Band at peak of excellence. ..




If I had a personal theme song, this just might be it-- The Grateful Dead, "Foolish Heart"...




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Preznit 19% is stompin' his boots again.


via Reuters

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would not compromise with the Democratic-led Congress on his demand that phone companies that took part in his warrantless domestic spying program be shielded from lawsuits.

Bush has demanded Congress protect companies like AT&T; Inc and Verizon Communications from civil lawsuits that accuse them of violating Americans' privacy rights in the administration's anti-terrorism program.

The Senate approved a measure that would grant the companies retroactive immunity but the House of Representatives has opposed it. The surveillance program began in 2001 after the September 11 attacks and some 40 lawsuits are pending.

House and Senate Democrats said they would try to find a compromise even as they said their Republican counterparts refused to permit staff to meet with them on Thursday.

"I would just tell you there's no compromise on whether these phone companies get liability protection," Bush told reporters as he traveled back from a trip to Africa.

Don't give in, House of Representatives.


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Labels: Bush Scandal, Illegal Spying, Illegal Wiretapping, Warrantless Domestic Spying

Always getting into wacky mischief...

via Reuters

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serb rioters enraged by Kosovo's secession stormed the U.S. embassy in Belgrade and set it on fire, leaving one person dead and drawing swift condemnation from Washington and the U.N. Security Council.

The U.S. State Department said the lack of protection for its mission -- riot police were nowhere to be seen when the attack began -- was intolerable and demanded the Security Council respond.

"The members of the Security Council condemn in the strongest terms the mob attacks against embassies in Belgrade, which have resulted in damage to embassy premises and have endangered diplomatic personnel," the Security Council said in a unanimous statement.

Embarrassed, Serbia said it regretted what it called acts of isolated vandals who did not represent a nation which, while bitter at Kosovo's declaration of independence on Sunday, did not want further violence.

"The acts that were committed are absolutely unacceptable, absolutely regrettable," Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic told Reuters in an interview. "They hurt Serbia's image abroad."

Germany, Croatia and Britain also said their missions were vandalized. Local media added Bosnia's and Turkey's to the list.

Some 200,000 people attended the state-backed rally. Jeremic said police were overwhelmed by what was Serbia's biggest march since protesters stormed the old Yugoslav parliament building in 2000 to oust nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic.

But just a few score rioters -- many wearing balaclavas -- attacked the U.S. embassy for the second time in a week, forcing their way in while police were nowhere to be seen.

No Police? No Marines?


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Labels: NATO, Serbia, US Embassy

We're going to start seeing famine here, in the good ol' USA this year, I suspect. If you're not already planning as large a garden as you can grow, whether in your own yard, or a Community Garden, I can only wish you well come next winter.

via Bloomberg

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Grain farmers will need to harvest record crops every year to meet increasing global food demand and avoid famine, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. Chief Executive Officer William Doyle said.

People and livestock are consuming more grain than ever, draining world inventories and increasing the likelihood of shortages, Doyle said yesterday in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Global grain stockpiles fell to about 53 days of supply last year, the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1960, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

``If you had any major upset where you didn't have a crop in a major growing agricultural region this year, I believe you'd see famine,'' Doyle, 57, said in New York.

Potash, the world's largest maker of crop nutrients, has more than doubled in market value in the past year as record crop prices allowed farmers to spend more on fertilizer to boost yields. The company has more than doubled net income in the past two years to $1.1 billion and expects gross profit from potash to expand to $8 billion within five years from $912 million in 2007. Potash is a form of potassium that helps plants grow.

Potash, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, rose C$7.90, or 5.3 percent, to a record C$157.25 yesterday in Toronto Stock Exchange trading.

Mosaic Co., the world's largest producer of phosphate fertilizer, rose $6.18, or 6 percent, to $109.55 in New York. Agrium Inc., the largest retailer of crop nutrients in the U.S., rose C$3.22, or 4.9 percent, to C$69 in Toronto.

China and India

Crop prices have soared as much as fourfold this decade because of increased demand for food in India and China, where hundreds of millions of people are moving up to the middle class and can afford to eat more meat from animals raised on grain- based feeds, Doyle said.

Soybean futures rose to a record $14.2875 a bushel yesterday on the Chicago Board of Trade, capping an 85 percent gain in the past 12 months. Wheat prices, which have more than doubled in the past year in Chicago, reached a record on Feb. 11, and corn climbed to a record on Feb. 6.

``There is a dietary shift occurring in China today, particularly amongst the young,'' Hugh Grant, chief executive officer of Monsanto Co., the world's biggest seed producer, said in a Feb. 6 interview. ``As protein consumption increases, as they move from fish to chicken, chicken to pork, and pork to beef, the demand for commodities increases almost by an order of magnitude.''

`Enormous Pressure'

``We keep going to the cupboard without replacing and so there is enormous pressure on agriculture to have a record crop every year,'' Doyle said. ``We need to have a record crop in 2008 just to stay even with this very low inventory situation.''

We're just-now getting close to the last frost, here in West Tennessee. This weekend, I'm going to start to fill the three empty garden beds, and get some early seeds in-- sweet peas, spinach, radishes, chard. I'm going to "poly-tunnel" the beds to create mini-greenhouses to encourage growth.

I'll post pics of my first poly-tunnel, and the wonderful things growing in there this weekend. I am actually surprised with what's growing. I had torn everything up, and thought that I had turned nearly everything under but the perennial herbs and some cabbages. But, I've been munching on turnip greens, beets, chard, onions, and garlic through the winter. Cold frames and poly-tunnels are your friend.

Do yourself a favor this year, and commit to planting a large garden this year. Where you'd otherwise plant some flowers, plant lettuces, cabbages and green beans. Just do it. Produce is going to be scant and expensive this year. Learn to freeze, dry and can fruits and vegetables. Plan ahead.


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Labels: Food Preservation, Food Prices, Food Security, Gardening, Lawns To Gardens, Permaculture

Banks, brokers and cities are desperately trying to pin a value-- any value-- on their holdings of the Big Shitpile. But no one is buying.

via Mish Shedlock

Auction Rate Securities (ARS) auctions continue to fail. Todd Harrison on Minyanville noted that 186 out of 268 auctions failed yesterday. That's a failure rate of 69%. The failure rate was 73% Tuesday and 80% last Friday. Let's recap the ARS action starting with an explanation of what an ARS is.

What is an Auction Rate Security?

An Auction Rate Security (ARS) typically refers to a debt instrument such as corporate or municipal bonds that have a long-term nominal maturity, but are refinanced as often as every week via a dutch auction. Auctions are typically held every 7, 28, or 35 days and interest on these securities is paid at the end of each auction period.

The theory behind these auctions is that long term debts can be perpetually financed at short term rates. That theory has now blown sky high.

This failure rate is catastrophic. As long as no real market value is assigned to these toxic holdings, credit will continue to freeze up. Those holding these timebombs will be forced to eventually write-off the defaults, and declare losses. The longer this goes on, the deeper and longer the recession depression will go. There is no end in sight. It's still only beginning.

Mish has really written a good, easy to understand analysis of this part of the Shitpile and Collapse. Go read it. Learn something. Educate others.


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Labels: Collapse, Sub-Prime Crash, Wall Street Fairy

The world is saved!

via Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Thursday it has a "high degree of confidence" that a Navy missile struck the toxic fuel tank of a disabled U.S. spy satellite over the Pacific Ocean.

But Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters it could take another 24-48 hours to know for sure that the tank containing toxic hydrazine fuel had been destroyed.

"We're very confident that we hit the satellite. We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank," he said at a Pentagon briefing.

An SM-3 missile fired from a Navy warship northwest of Hawaii hit the defunct satellite on Wednesday at 10:26 p.m. EST in an attempt to breach the tank that officials said could have posed a threat to life on Earth if it had survived reentry.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Time to get to work.


UPDATE-- DoD Video:


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I'm as off-put as I am fascinated by this new video game.


via ABC

Sometime in the near future, gas will cost about $20 a gallon.

It gets worse: China and Russia will form a military alliance that threatens the security of the United States and Europe.

Amid hunger, water scarcity and power outages, the two sides will go to war. Soldiers will descend upon bombed-out cities and abandoned villages, where rusting appliances and old car engines litter the streets.

But don't let that get you down.

"What you're trying to deliver in the game is fun," said Luis Cataldi. "We don't want someone to come in and become depressed."

Cataldi, an art director at New York-based KAOS Studios, is one of dozens of minds behind the dystopian vision presented in Frontlines: Fuel of War, a new video game inspired in part by contemporary fears about oil, war and, yes, war over oil.

The game, which cost about $15 million to produce, is set in the year 2024. It is a time when, according to Frontlines' "speculative fiction," the Western Coalition (the U.S. and Europe) are at war with the Red Star Alliance (Russia and China) over the world's last oil reserves on the Caspian Basin in Turkmenistan. Taking on roles as American troops, gamers use futuristic weapons and vehicles to battle their way across Central Asian oil fields, ghost towns and crumbling cities. In the game's multi-player version, gamers can also assume the identities of Red Star troops.

OK. I'm too curious. I pre-ordered this game. It comes in a handy tin case


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Labels: Oil Wars, Peak Everything, Peak Oil, Video Games

Starting around 10pm EST/ 9pm CST/ 8pm MST/ 7pm PST, we'll be able to see a very fine Lunar Eclipse. Weather Permitting.

Here is a short video of what to expect to see, and the "eclipse forecast," via Weather.com

We love da Mooooooooon!



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Labels: Luna, Space

Damn-- When it's presented graphically, this song is gruesome. Nasty. Wicked.

Damn.

The BEATLES wrote this shit 40 years ago? PAUL sang it?

We ALL sang it?

Damn.

Must be good.




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And your hysterics, vitriol, invective, and very serious Google or even Nexus-based research only breaks-down, and discourages the fence-sitting voters, and feeds the OPPO.

Just saying.

Y'all. Please stop linking to, and repeating the Teh Stupid. Please? Please?


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Labels: Democratic Presidential Candidates 2008, Democratic Primaries

This ride-- not fun at all.

via Mish Shedlock

The city of Vallejo is on the brink of becoming the first California city ever to declare bankruptcy, City Council members said Tuesday. Vallejo may run out of cash as early as March, council member Stephanie Gomes said.

"Not only that, but now we have 20 police and fire employees retiring because they are afraid of not getting their payouts," Gomes said. "That means we have another few million dollars in payouts that we had not expected. So the situation is quite dire."

For 15 years the city council has been putting Band-Aids on the problem. (It has been) extending contracts and deferring payments for public safety to the next years as a way of balancing the current budget."

Public safety contracts for police and fire services make up 80 percent of the city's general fund.

"We've been spending more than we've been making for 20 years and it's time to pay the piper," Gomes said.

---

The city of Vallejo just fired one huge warning shot for a situation that is going to play out nationwide. Here are the issues.

* City and state governments have negotiated salary arrangements that are not affordable.
* City and state governments have guaranteed pension benefits to teachers, fire fighters, police, and other city and state employees that cannot possibly be met.
* Taxpayers cannot possibly afford higher taxes to pay bloated pension benefits of government workers in sweetheart deals.
* Should Vallejo file for bankruptcy, there will likely be a ripple effect in the pricing of municipal bonds.

Unions will not like this one bit but the decision is eventually going to come down to taking a shot at payouts in bankruptcy proceedings or dramatically reducing pay scales and pension benefits. Even if Vallejo avoids bankruptcy now, the issue is likely to resurface down the road, and not just at Vallejo, but across the nation.

Making matters worse are hundreds of underfunded pension plans, all with absurd assumptions about returns that will not be met. This recession is going to wreck havoc on those assumptions.

And off we go. One domino after another.


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Connections:

Labels: Collapse, Monoline Insurers, Sub-Prime Crash, Wall Street, Wall Street Casino

It's Tuesday, and so that can only mean that Monkeyfister was fretting over his cat's health, and didn't get around to posting the Monday Kunstler.


via Kunstler.com

The British government's move yesterday to nationalize the insolvent mortgage lender's remaining operations leaves shareholders holding an empty bag. Their only resort now will be to call their lawyers. What we may be witnessing, in a movement that will surely spread to the US, is a changing of the guard at the top of the financial food-chain between bankers and lawyers.
Shoes may have begun to drop in the US last week with Citigroup halting redemptions for its $500-million CSO mini hedge fund -- half a billion dollars being something less than walking-around-money in the Hamptons these days. Halting redemptions means that investors in the fund cannot withdraw their money -- the same as going to the bank and being told your account is frozen. Hedge funds can play rough with their investors because they are unregulated. The reason they remain unregulated is the presumption that anybody rich enough to "play" in a hedge fund can afford to lose (or be swindled) with no protection on the sidelines from government busybodies. What's more, the hedge fund managers do not have to make any of their operations open to public view, so that neither the investors nor any regulating authority knows what they are actually doing.
What the big banks who run many hedge funds are doing is going broke. They are pretending to be solvent by borrowing money from the Federal Reserve, the nation's alleged superbank. But borrowed money is not capital, i.e. surplus wealth wholly owned. Borrowed money is an obligation, a liability, a negative on the balance sheet. You can't have an entire financial system based on nothing more than a giant daisy-chain of liabilities. Somewhere there has to be a "reserve" of assets, items of value owned by somebody.
Through most of modern times, assets have been denoted by cash money. A given bank will hold in "reserve" say $10 billion in money that is not owed to anybody, allowing them to do things like pay depositors who show up at the window needing money for groceries. Up until a few decades ago, nations held an ultimate reserve of actual gold in a vault (Fort Knox, Kentucky, in the case of the USA) and the physical possession of this gold was said to "back up" the value of the certificates that circulated as a "medium-of-exchange" or currency.
But that system was considered too awkward and "reserves" were then denoted in just currencies themselves, or certificates that represented the existence of currencies held elsewhere, or pixels on a screen representing the movement of alleged piles of currency from one place to another, or the intention to move a notional pile of currency to a theoretical destination, and then that became an algorithm purporting to represent the future arrival of a notional pile of money at theoretical destination to-be-named-later, and so on.... And after another while, the nature of money became so detached from anything real, so abstract, that its very existence became hypothetical. Even this "worked" for a while, in terms of the managers of this money being able to "cream" substantial amounts of this hypothetical money off the top of their notional operations and translate that hypothetical cream into Tribeca lofts, Gulfstream jets, and other real luxuries.
The rest of the economic food chain -- and the social order that represented it -- got stripped of remaining asset value (and social value) until they had nothing left to trade with except debt, in one form or another, and this phase of the game turned out to have a short lifetime when the the only debts remaining to be monetized were the contracts on houses occupied by people with no hope of ever meeting their obligations -- and then the whole sorry racket started to go up in a vapor.
This is roughly where we are, and where the banks stand today. They are pretending to have money and desperately cadging loans from all comers to keep appearances up, but the loans can't come in fast enough. The appearance of confidence is crucial (as it is, of course, in any "con" game) to keep the investors (depositors) at bay. If a bunch of investors (depositors) all got nervous about the solvency of a given bank, they might try to slip in there during business hours and withdraw or redeem their "money" and perhaps translate it into items of value like gold coins, bottles of vodka, or cases of 9 millimeter pistol ammunition. And if enough of this bunch showed up at the same time, we would see a phenomenon called a "run" on a bank. And after that started at one bank, the thing Franklin Roosevelt called "fear itself" could easily spread to depositors in other banks pretending to be okay... and that would be the magic moment that the USA discovered it was no longer a rich nation.

More at the link.


I'm sorry if I took too much, Mr. Kunstler. I'm non-profit, and claim Fair Use.


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Labels: Collapse, Debt Economy, Monoline Insurers, Sub-Prime Crash, Wall Street

A semi-rural South African Citizen writes James Kunstler...

February 4, 2008

It began with a few potholes in the roads, the odd interruption to the water supply in the suburbs, a couple of days with strike action preventing the delivery of municipal services – no garbage collection, protest action disrupting the mining industry and picketing & toy toying at shopping malls…It continued over the next couple of years, largely with disregard for the disruptions, a little irritation to daily commercial and home life by the lack of service provision in food, gas, water and power.

In recent months, at the receivables end of the supply chain, there was a little aggravation at the delays, the lack of service, the shortage of a few consumer luxuries in the retail shops…, ‘but hey, what the hell, this is a great country, we cannot fault the lifestyle, the weather…’. For a couple of months, perhaps a year back or so, there seemed little or no reason to change our way of life, our lifestyles…a little further down the road and the disruptions become more frequent, we learn to cope, learn to accept the rising cost of living, gas supply shortages in the Winter of 2007, the intermittent water disruptions, the odd power outage and the potholes. Potholes may well be the singular measure of the calamity we are in or about to face.

We accept the transitions in South Africa, but it is all very well passing over these problems in the name of development, infrastructure development, greater housing plans and urbanization as a promised deliverable by the ANC government, together with the balancing of the wealth quotient. Access to finance and the shift of the material wealth are an indication of the success of the plans for economic growth in the New South Africa.

So, there have been interesting times, a few PDI’s (previously disadvantaged individuals), through black economic empowerment, becoming significantly enriched through commerce and business and, dare I say, politics. But the cracks that are now evident are tell tails signs, not only of the effectivity of the New South Africa and an explanation of the path traveled to this point in time, but more of what is promised for the future. And the future may be more a by product of global issues than issues unique and unfortunate to South Africa.

So what do we have at hand, what are the reactions and what are the consequences???

South Africa has been flung full tilt into a Premature Long Emergency. In the up market suburbs, not least to say generally all over the urban landscape, there is not a 1km (1/2 mile) strip of tarred road that is not full of potholes (hugh gapping holes, across which vehicles cannot drive), the roadside curbs are disintegrating, the road maintenance programmes over the last 10 years have failed to maintain the roads in a serviceable and passable state. The nation is gripped in a crisis of rolling power outages caused by the incompetence of highly paid government ministers and their charges. The news of the weekend is that the nation is in dire straits with the supply of clean, drinkable water to households and business alike. We are faced with unusual weather patterns, floods at the moment, high rain fall for the Summer, the expectation of an early, long cold Winter.

THE POWER EMERGENCY
The rolling power outages are resulting in about a 25% national power outage per month. The ramifications of this can be related directly to an income loss of the same amount, retail supplies are being interrupted and from a security point of view it is dangerous to shop in malls. The Electricity Supply Commission – ESKOM are indicating a forced reduction on power usage by 10%, further, the mines have been told not to work on Fridays. There are revenue and cost implications here that extend beyond the obvious monthly figures. What of the power saving measures that may in turn lead to greater problems, the mines are unable to pump excess ground water from the shafts, the maintenance programmes are due to suffer. And what of the safety indications, miners are protesting the possibility of being caught under ground or in lift shafts as the random power cuts hit the service grids.

It is not only that ESKOM have not maintained or expanded their operations in the last 15 years, but the next big whammy is that there is no coal to keep the power stations running…at most times, there is a couple of months supply of coal onsite for electricity operations, today there is hardly a few days supply. Incidentally the reason given for this catastrophe is that the trucks delivering the coal have been unable to get to the power stations as the road infrastructure has deteriorated- potholes again. In the Afrikaans language: ‘slaggate’ – a direct translation to ‘slaughter holes’. As this is written, we wait for the next couple of days to see the effect of the ‘coal emergency’.

THE WATER EMERGENCY
At some point the effect of the power emergency on water and sanitation supply should be considered and this would be part of the roll out of unexpected events resultant of the collapse of the power supply, but the water board have usurped the power supply with homegrown problems of their own…

So here we have it, 43% of the dams have safety problems and are in danger of collapsing. Further to this, the ground water in Gauteng, the province of Johannesburg, has radioactive contamination from mining operations.

Now, as a matter of interest, Johannesburg is one of the few cities in the world that is built on a hill and water has to be pumped up into the city!!!

From (former) Nuclear Arms Power to this? Hmmmmm. Much to research here.


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Connections:

Labels: Collapse, Powerdown, The Long Emergency

This ride is really beginning to suck.


via Yahoo!/AssPress

NEW YORK - Oil futures shot higher Tuesday, closing above $100 for the first time as investors bet that crude prices will keep climbing despite evidence of plentiful supplies and falling demand. At the pump, gas prices rose further above $3 a gallon.

There was no single driver behind oil's sharp price jump; investors seized on an explosion at a 67,000 barrel per day refinery in Texas, the falling dollar, the possibility that OPEC may cut production next month, the threat of new violence in Nigeria and continuing tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela.

The fact that there was no overriding reason for such a price spike could be a bad omen for consumers already bearing the burdens of high heating costs and falling real estate values. Many recent forecasts have said oil demand growth this year will be less than initially expected, yet prices continue to rise. That suggests they may continue rising as the weakening dollar attracts new investors to the futures market.

[MF Says-- OK, let's stop right here. If you're a regular reader, you're still catching your breath from laughing at those last two paragraphs, the rest need to understand that Chavez is (poorly) threatening an oil embargo against Exxon over lawsuits in American Courts, Mexico's "Giant" Canterell Oil Field passed Peak two years ago, and is fading at well over 8% per year, and that the Iranian Oil Bourse is finally open for trade of Oil Products and Derivatives outside of the PetroDollar model, following China and Russia. Any single one of these under-reported bits might be considered "overriding reason," but here they are, together with Fidel's announcement and the tail end of the great Global build-out demand, PLUS all of the above, and you get oil spike. Yeah, "No single driver..." No shit-- it's a MOUNTAIN of drivers!]

And rising oil prices mean higher gas prices.

"As the economy weakens, it's going to be met with $3.50 and $3.60 gasoline," said James Cordier, founder of OptionSellers.com, a Tampa, Fla., trading firm. "And that really spells trouble for the consumer."

Light, sweet crude for March delivery rose $4.51 to settle at a record $100.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising to $100.10, a new trading record. It was the first time since Jan. 3 that oil had been above $100.

More at the link. The numbers speak for themselves.


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Connections:

Labels: Collapse, Debt Economy, Food Prices, Food Security, Peak Oil, Petrodollar

Mountain Girl has a UTI. I'm taking the blame for slipping her the occasional shrimp, scoop of tuna, bite of ham, instead of keeping her to her the Hill's Prescription S/D and W/D diet prescribed for both her and Murray. I have been an over-indugent Bad Dad. She can be very persuasive. I just couldn't say, "No shrimp for you!" I will, now.

(click pic for big view)
I brought her into the vet late, Saturday Morning, and I just got home with her at 6:30pm.

They did every proper test on her, but always had to wait for her to urinate for a new sample. Then Sunday-- just the feeder/caretaker- emergency watch. Monday, more waiting for a good sample... more tests. An X-Ray. This morning, I had to go back to work, and they were waiting for one.more.sample for one.more.test. Thus the light posting the past few days. I can't blog and fret at the same time.

Bottom Line: She's going to be OK, I caught the signs early. Unless she is sick, she always uses the litter box. I caught her using the garden seedlings, and then the potted palm trees. It was immediately obvious that she was having troubles. A bit of antibiotics, and some quality cat-specific tinctures that I have on hand for just this emergency, and she'll get through it fine. I hope.

They started her on the antibiotics Saturday afternoon, and I can already see a big difference in her-- she's bleary-eyed from the antibiotic, still having some trouble urinating, but using the litter box consistently. I was glad to hear that she was a good patient. She didn't bite or scratch. She took her medicine from strangers just fine (she took tonight's dose from me just fine, too!).

When I brought her in to the Vet's place, she was screaming with fear from being in "THE CAGE," and going in THE CAR, no matter my soothing tones. The Vet's "House Cat," Lucky Cat, whom I almost adopted when he was a kitten, came right out to the waiting room, jumping over the Receptionist and the Customer Rail, to welcome Mountain Girl back, she didn't hiss, there in "THE CAGE," as is her usual reaction to Murray, or any strange male cat. He staid near her all the time, I'm told. The ladies at the Vet said that they think the two are fond of each other. I think so too.

Mountain Girl + Lucky Cat = BFFs Forevah!


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Labels: Catblogging, My Life... With Cats

Well. It's time. Hopefully, something good will come of the change. Hopefully George won't get another unnecessary war hard-on.

via Reuters

HAVANA (Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the country as president or commander-in-chief, retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.

Castro, 81, who has not appeared in public for almost 19 months after undergoing stomach surgery, said in a message to the communist nation that he would not seek a new presidential term when the National Assembly meets on February 24.

"To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honor in recent days of electing me a member of parliament ... I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept -- I repeat not aspire to or accept -- the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief," Castro said in the statement published on the Web site of the Communist Party's Granma newspaper.

The National Assembly or legislature is expected to nominate his brother and designated successor Raul Castro, 76, as president. Raul Castro has been running the country since emergency surgery to stop intestinal bleeding forced Castro to delegate power on July 31, 2006.

Raul is much less hard-line than Fidel. Here's to something better.


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Labels: Castro, Cuba

My, how time does fly.

WTF Is It Now ? is a strappin' and salty six big years old!




Here's to the next six years, Maru, you wonderful she-devil!






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Labels: The Blogohood

More than ever. A new high for the E. Coli Republicans. Dragging cows into slaughter. Illegal for a reason.

via Petulant Rumblings

Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats.

The federal agency said the recall will affect beef products dating to February 1, 2006, that came from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., which supplies meat to the federal school lunch program and to some major fast-food chains.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said his department has evidence that Westland did not routinely contact its veterinarian when cattle became non-ambulatory after passing inspection, violating health regulations.

---

Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease because they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.

About 150 school districts around the nation have stopped using ground beef from Hallmark Meat Packing Co., which is associated with Westland.

Jack in the Box, a San Diego-based company with restaurants in 18 states, told its meat suppliers not to use Hallmark until further notice, but it was unclear whether it had used any Hallmark meat. In-N-Out, an Irvine-based chain, also halted use of the Westland/Hallmark beef. Other chains such as McDonald's and Burger King said they do not buy beef from Westland.

I buy beef and poultry locally. I know where it came from, who raised it, and where it was processed.


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Labels: Food Recall

via Mark Fiore

Snuggles the Security Bear. Perrrrfect. We used to call the Italian Caribinieri, "The Care Bears," with similar irony.


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Labels: Protecting The TelCos Act

Sort of like this scene from Monty Python's "Life Of Brian."

P.F.J.: Shhhhh! Shh.

DEADLY DIRK: You bastards! We've been planning this for months.

FRANCIS: Well, tough titty for you, Fish Face. Oh! Oh.

RANDOM: All right.

WARRIS: Clever. You sly...

BRIAN: Brothers! Brothers! We should be struggling together!

FRANCIS: We are! Ohh.

BRIAN: We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!

EVERYONE: The Judean People's Front?!

BRIAN: No, no! The Romans Republicans!

EVERYONE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

FRANCIS: Yeah. He's right.

RANDOM: Look out!

RANDOM: Careful.

[footsteps]

DEADLY DIRK: Right! Where were we?

FRANCIS: Uhh, you were going to punch me.

DEADLY DIRK: Oh, yeah.

Let me know when we have a single candidate. I want nothing to do with any of that.


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Labels: Democratic Primaries