Sanity Pills

Widely known as a cleaner-upper of downtrodden areas, Wal-Mart wants to move into the space soon to be vacated by Filene’s in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. That’s what one of the seediest areas of Boston needs, a magnet for the underemployed and the accompanying ignorant and cheap clientele (Wal-mart doesn’t actually have the lowest prices).

Before Wal-mart started looking at the site, Target, Kohl’s and Home Depot hinted at grabbing the space. I’d love to see a Home Depot there, people buying bags of cement and lumber that they’ll then have to lug to the nearest cramped and overpriced parking garage. Brilliant.

The move will never happen.

First, the poverty line is bullshit. It ignores people marginally above the line, the people that few would call financially sound, the health care workers, the janitors, the Wal-Mart employees. Some people call them the working poor, I call them the utterly fucked because they’re poor as hell and completely ignored. A more in depth look at the numbers makes the situation much scarier.

The number impoverished increased to 12.7% of the population, or 37 Million, in 2004. 37 FUCKING MILLION!!?!?!?! This is the fourth consecutive increase in the number living in poverty, which also coincides with the number of years Bush has been President.

The number of uninsured also grew, to 45.8 Million. You know what these people making $9,000 a year need? That’s right, a health savings account and a pat on the back. Three jobs? That’s great.

Bush is hopeless and he’ll never understand this issue, I wonder if he’ll understand anything besides acting like a dickhead from Texas.

The question is: how long will the poor take it? They, as one would expect, will be ignored by the Right and given lip service by the Dems.

The poor are the great sleeping giant of the world, I think we all better hope that they stay that way.

Eschewing his usual faux patriotism for a bit, Rush Limbaugh made a brilliant joke at the expense of The Nation’s editor, Katrina Vanden Heuvel. Get this, he referred to the recent catastrophic storm as Hurricane Katrina Vanden Heuvel.

That’s so funny I’m pissing myself right now. Now I understand why everyone listens to Rush. Where’s some MapLOL syrup when I need it? I guess I’ll just have to settle for an ice-cold glass of Lmaonade.

Actually, just like his political views and personal decisions, Rush’s jokes are excrutiatingly bad.

Katrina writes about it and actually has a pretty funny comeback:

It’s so very easy and childish to personalize tragedy. (Did you hear the one about OxyContin’s new tagline: ‘What a Rush!’?)

Head nod to Crooks and Liars.

Big Fucking Surprise #1:

A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.

Link

Big Fucking Surprise #2:

An Indiana Congressman says that divorce is as dangerous to society as same-sex marriage.

Without specifically calling for an amendment to ban divorce or for federal legislation to restrict divorce John Hostettler (R-Indiana) suggested that the Christian right is looking at divorce as its next big issue.

Link

Fun and Games:

Venezuela’s president says his government will take legal action against a US TV evangelist who called for US agents to kill him.
Hugo Chavez said Venezuela might even seek to extradite Pat Robertson. He also warned he would complain to the UN if the US failed to take action.

Link

Big Fucking Surprise #3

Lyle Craker, a professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Massachusetts, asked an administrative judge to overrule the agency so he could grow marijuana for F.D.A.-approved research projects by other scientists.

Dr. Craker is a well-regarded agronomist who’s being supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and both of his senators, Edward Kennedy and John Kerry. But for four years he’s been stymied by the D.E.A., which first stalled and then finally denied his request for a permit.

There are precedents for his re quest, because researchers already get supplies of other drugs – like heroin, LSD and Ecstasy – from independent laboratories licensed to make them. But researchers who want marijuana have only one legal source: a crop grown in Mississippi and dispensed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Scientists say they need an alternative partly because the government’s marijuana is of such poor quality – too many seeds and stems – and partly because the federal officials are so loath to give it out for research into its medical benefits.

Link

CNN hits a new high (low?) with it’s Katrina coverage. Today’s internets poll question is:

Do you believe global warming is a factor behind the recent severe weather?

The results as of 9:48 AM:

Yes 56% 95700 votes

No 32% 55124 votes

Not sure 12% 20230 votes

Total: 171054 votes

This QuickVote is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole. The QuickVote sponsor is not responsible for content, functionality or the opinions expressed therein.

Not Scientific?

Katrina darling, would you be a sweetheart and make a bit of a right-hand turn, spare New Orleans, and lay waste to Mississippi, Alabama, and some of the panhandle? That would be great.

Thanks.

In the United States, the September 11 attacks are seen as the catalyst for a period of fear, war and economic worry.

But in the oil-rich Arab countries of the Gulf, September 11 is increasingly being seen as the event that kicked off a galloping economic boom — and prodded investors to pull their money out of a United States perceived as hostile to Arabs, and instead invest it at home.

Since late 2001, economies in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries have soared, with stock markets up a collective 400 percent. During the same period, investments from those countries into the U.S. slowed to a trickle.

In Saudi Arabia, birthplace of 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks, gross domestic product rose 37 percent between 2001 and last year.

But investors and economists also credit a shift in strategy that led Gulf Arabs to pull their money out of slumping U.S. markets and invest it at home.

Before 9/11, World Bank figures show Middle Eastern oil exporters were plowing as much as US$25 billion (euro20 billion) year into U.S. investments. For the three years of 2001-2003, the figure only reached US$1.2 billion (euro0.98 billion).

The article speaks for itself.

Link (Source: CNN)

I hope this poor family sues you backwards, forwards, and inside out. Also, I love what this says about Fox News viewers. Not to mention – when was it the media’s job to identify where “suspected terrorists” live?

When Blame Knocks on the Wrong Door
Since Fox News wrongly identified a La Habra home as that of a terrorist, its five- member family has faced an angry backlash.

By H.G. Reza, Times Staff Writer

Randy and Ronnell Vorick thought La Habra was about as far away as one could get from terrorism. They were wrong.

For the last 2 1/2 weeks, the lives of the couple and their three children have been plunged into an unsettling routine of drivers shouting profanities, stopping to photograph their house and — most recently — spray-painting a slogan on their property.

Their house, a suburban fixer-upper the Voricks bought three years ago, was wrongly identified in a cable news broadcast as the home of a terrorist.

“I’m scared to go to work and leave my kids home. I call them every 30 minutes to make sure they’re OK,” Randy Vorick said.

“I keep telling myself this can’t be happening to me. This can’t be happening to my family. But it is. I want our lives to be normal again,” he said.

In what Fox News officials concede was a mistake, John Loftus, a former U.S. prosecutor, gave out the address Aug. 7, saying it was the home of a Middle Eastern man, Iyad K. Hilal, who was the leader of a terrorist group with ties to those responsible for the July 7 bombings in London.

Hilal, whom Loftus identified by name during the broadcast, moved out of the house about three years ago. But the consequences were immediate for the Voricks.

Satellite photos of the house and directions to the residence were posted online. The Voricks told police, who arranged for the content to be taken down. Someone even removed the street sign where the Voricks live to provide some protection.

Still, it has not been easy.

A driver yelled a profanity at the family and called them terrorists as they barbecued on their patio Aug. 14. Some drivers have stopped and photographed the house, Randy Vorick said.

Last weekend, someone spray-painted “Terrist” on their home. Police, who have regularly patrolled their house since the day after the broadcast, now station a squad car across the street.

Randy, a restaurant manager, and Ronnell, a manager at a staffing agency, have been married 19 years and met as teenagers when they worked at a local McDonald’s.

They grew up in La Habra and bought the house three years ago after Hilal moved out so they could be close to Ronnell Vorick’s parents.

La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said the department was “giving special attention to the family to make sure they’re safe,” but declined to elaborate.

“This thing broke on a Sunday, when we started receiving inquiries from the public about terrorists,” he said.

The Voricks said they had made several unsuccessful attempts to contact Fox News and Loftus by telephone and e-mail. They want a public apology and correction.

Both have issued apologies — Fox in a one-line statement to the Los Angeles Times and Loftus in an e-mail to the family — after being contacted by the newspaper. The Voricks say they have yet to see or hear a correction.

“John Loftus has been reprimanded for his careless error, and we sincerely apologize to the family,” said Fox spokeswoman Irena Brigante.

Loftus also apologized and told The Times last week that “mistakes happen.”

“I’m terribly sorry about that. I had no idea. That was the best information we had at the time,” he said.

Loftus said he gave out the address to help local police, and insisted that Hilal, a Garden Grove grocery store owner, was a terrorist.

“I thought it might help police in that area now that we have positively identified a terrorist living in [Orange County],” he said.

Cathy Viray, an FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said agents were looking into Loftus’ terrorist allegations but stopped short of calling it an investigation.

The Voricks’ nightmare began Aug. 7 when they were returning from SeaWorld in San Diego with their daughters, 17 and 5, and son, 14.

“I was driving home and my neighbor called saying that some guy on Fox said a terrorist lives at my house and gave out the address,” Randy Vorick said.

The next day, the couple left for a four-day cruise to Santa Catalina Island and Ensenada, leaving their children in the care of a house-sitter and Randy Vorick’s brother, all unaware of the growing fallout from Fox’s report.

When they returned Aug. 12, Randy Vorick said he had received several e-mails and messages on his cellphone from friends who told him that Loftus had been interviewed on KFI-AM (640) radio and repeated his allegation about a terrorist living in La Habra. The radio station did not broadcast his address.

In addition, the house-sitter said police had stopped by Aug. 8 to check on their safety and were keeping an eye on the house. Randy Vorick said he had e-mailed Fox and Loftus, asking for a public retraction and apology.

He said the apologies that came were too little, too late.

On Monday night, the day after someone spray-painted their house, the Voricks were up all night looking at the street and the cars that drove by.

“I just want a good night’s sleep,” Randy Vorick said. “I don’t know when I’m going to have it.”

Link (Source: LA Times (premium))

Hey guys, I found a good article… no seriously, I swear. I did. One exists, seriously. Stop laughing damnit.

Several years ago, two Harvard researchers, Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle, set out to interview people without health-care coverage for a book they were writing, “Uninsured in America.” They talked to as many kinds of people as they could find, collecting stories of untreated depression and struggling single mothers and chronically injured laborers—and the most common complaint they heard was about teeth. Gina, a hairdresser in Idaho, whose husband worked as a freight manager at a chain store, had “a peculiar mannerism of keeping her mouth closed even when speaking.” It turned out that she hadn’t been able to afford dental care for three years, and one of her front teeth was rotting. Daniel, a construction worker, pulled out his bad teeth with pliers. Then, there was Loretta, who worked nights at a university research center in Mississippi, and was missing most of her teeth. “They’ll break off after a while, and then you just grab a hold of them, and they work their way out,” she explained to Sered and Fernandopulle. “It hurts so bad, because the tooth aches. Then it’s a relief just to get it out of there. The hole closes up itself anyway. So it’s so much better.”

Lots of interesting tidbitty things in this article. Worth a read.

Link (Source: The New Yorker)