Artful Dodger: Nope. I'd swear about this on a stack of Bibles. Many others who saw this would also be able to truthfully swear to such. I remember you thought all LDS were really, really hell bound. Or was that just you using religion?

"that rapes occured in the Occupy Wall Street camps."

Rapes happen in Texas. By your logic.. it is fair to say the rapists were Texans... Nothing about them being men, or unstable, drunk, on drugs, abused.

.. Just that they were Texans.

"And the leadership of the Occupy camps tried to cover up the crimes by "handling them internally.""

Some people after being attacked don't want the police involved. This is a fact.

"that they had to have a woman's only section (as well as a gay and lesbian sections) for the safety of others."

So they choose to protect the women, and the gay and lesbians from gay and lesbian haters... you are complaining about this?

"Only liberal thinkers like you would try to soft pedal the rapes."

I'm not. To say so is just petty fogging. You made a false statement based on one certain fraction of an equation, there were rapists and abusers and anti gay folk who 'blended' in and raped/attacked people at the OWS camps.

Just as their have been cases of rapes, sodomy, incest and abuse in Christian Churches by Christians... but that they were Christians is insignificant except to maybe explain how they may have gotten away with such activities. Especially as many within the Christian church covered up such matters and dealt with them internally..

.. some targeted groups even slept in separate areas to others as a matter of safety!!

Artful Dodger: Why? Because you can't remember being the "perfect christian"? Blasting everyone with your perceived new born christible God given wrath?

"some were rapists duh" .... some people that went along were rapists. Like some Christians and Conservatives are rapists but just use the label of being Conservatives and Christians as a pretence of being trustful.

Point being is about thinking.... Like you use to swear that you believed 100% that anyone who was not a Christian, and in particular one who believes in an ultimate literal 'Heaven' and 'Hell' as you did, were the only the Christians who were saved and going on to heaven.... all other Christians were damned, and all non Christians were damned.

You now seem to say you don't believe that any more, but you do now say anyone who diasgrees with your views on the economy, and all liberal points (as you call them) are 100% wrong?

Is this right thinking as you keep saying to me?

Or just needing to be 100%??

... Of course.. no-one here would say or imply that the OWS protesters were rapists, or feel that Andrew Breitbart is a hero for pointing out that the OWS protesters are rapists.

I mean isn't that changing the subject via a big lie?

Then to delete all such statements once pressed on the validity of such a big lie.

But hey such is the way of the politician.

.. or, as in the UK. The PPI industry. Billions to pay back to insurance plans deliberately mis-sold.

"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.

Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.

From time immemorial, however, the liberals have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a elite community, where as in reality they are bad thinking? And what an elite! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the liberals for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. He (McCarthy) called the liberal "The Great Master of Lies". Those who do not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail."


>>>>>Parad<<<<<

So correct thinking is trying to label all the 99% protesters as rapists.

Such wonderfully correct thinking... God bless responsible free speech!!

Dr. Angell is former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Senate Finance Committee's hearings on health reform earlier this month did not include testimony from any advocate for single-payer insurance. Physicians for a National Health Program, which represents 16,000 doctors, asked the committee to invite me to testify, but it chose not to. If I had been invited, this is what I would have said:

The reason our health system is in such trouble is that it is set up to generate profits, not to provide care. We rely on hundreds of investor-owned insurance companies that profit by refusing coverage to high-risk patients and limiting services to others. They also cream off about 20 percent of the premiums for profits and overhead.

In addition, we provide much of our medical care in investor-owned health facilities that profit by providing too many services for the well-insured and too few for those who cannot pay. Most physicians are paid fee-for-service, which gives them a similar incentive, particularly specialists who receive very high fees for performing expensive tests and procedures. Nonprofits behave much like for-profits, because they must compete with them. In sum, healthcare is directed toward maximizing income, not maximizing health. In economic terms, it's a highly successful industry, but it's a massive drain on the rest of the economy.

The reform proposals advocated by President Obama are meant to increase coverage for the uninsured. That is certainly a worthwhile goal, but the problem is that they leave the present profit-driven and highly inflationary system essentially unchanged, and simply pour more money into it - an unsustainable situation.

....

A single-payer system is ignored by lawmakers because of the influence of the health industry lobbies. They raise the specter of rationing and long waits for care. There are indeed waits for some elective procedures in some countries with national health systems, such as the United Kingdom. But that's because they spend far less on healthcare than we do. For them, the problem is not the system; it's inadequate funding. For us, it's not the funding; it's the system. We spend more than enough.

I urge you to consider a nonprofit single-payer system. The economic interests of the health industry should not be permitted to hold the rest of the economy hostage and threaten the health and well-being of the public.

Private is efficient!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vHAgjqnM68&

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

"Time is important"

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

But in the USA...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho-hnZcEs6g

Stockholders come first above the sick!!

Wonderful Christible attitude, just ignore Jesus in favour of ideology!!

INTERESTING:
I find it interesting that so many protesters spoke about the so called death panels if the presidents healthcare bill got passed,,What I really see is that the death panels have been in place for a long time when insurance companies refuse you coverage,or in some cases drop you and even out right refuse to cover many cancer treatments that they say is to costly,,or when the hospital refuses you treatment for lack of health care insurance,,Even cases where people are constantly denied medicaid 3 or 4 times with appeals after appeals in which I see that time does not give anyone a good mental outlook of a chance at improving there lives with this illness,,For the first time, Here we have a president who is looking out for the health of this country,and I have seen nothing but hatred,anger,bitterness from the opposition,,But that same opposition will take up the cause and beat the drums of war,and in the same breath claim to be pro-life..Interesting (Hummm)

Right now, under the private health care system, we have delays in treatment, threats to our health and even worse (corporate death panels).

There has been a tremendous consolidation in the health insurance industry over the past fifteen years. A cartel of very large for-profit insurance companies dominates the industry. One out of every three Americans is enrolled in some kind of plan offered by just seven of those large companies.

America has granted insurance companies the right to create bottlenecks in the financing of health care in order to extract profits out of the suffering of ordinary people, without providing any actual health care whatsoever.

The lure of economic incentives to provide unnecessary or unproven care, or even that known to be ineffective, drives many physicians to make the lucrative choice. Hospitals and especially academic medical centers are also motivated to profit from many expensive procedures.


The truth??

The Economist said the phrase was used as an "outrageous allegation" to confront politicians at town hall meetings during the August 2009 congressional recess.[54] The New York Times said the term became a standard slogan among many conservatives opposed to the Obama administration’s health care overhaul.[22] Former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham said it was "a lie crafted to foment opposition to the president's push for reform"[55] and Fox News analyst Juan Williams said "of course there is no such thing as any death panel."[56] The Christian Science Monitor reported that some Republicans used the term as a "jumping-off point" to discuss government rationing of health care services, while some liberal groups applied the term to private health insurance companies.[57] Journalist Paul Waldman of The American Prospect called the "death panel" charge a consequential policy lie, a falsehood about a policy that had definite effects on the policy, a type of lie that is not as condemned in the media as personal lies.[58]

The right-leaning British paper, The Daily Telegraph noted that some critics of the U.S. reform used the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)—"as an example of [doing] the sort of drug rationing that amounted to a 'death panel'". NICE, as one of its functions, uses cost-effectiveness analysis to determine whether new treatments and drugs should be available to those covered by Britain's National Health Service [59] The Sunday Times, a British paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, wrote that Sarah Palin's use of the "death panels" term was a reference to NICE.




Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) stated that "death panels" were a baseless charge that unnecessarily incited fear and detracted from real problems in the proposed legislation.[67] She said the proposed legislation was "bad enough that we don't need to be making things up". Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), thought there was illogical confusion over "death panels"; he said advance directives put "authority in the individual rather than the government."[68] In July 2010 Rep. Bob Inglis, (R-SC) said that he thought it was counterproductive for the conservative movement for some to promote misinformation about death panels when they do not exist.[69] Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) endorsed Rep. Charles Boustany's statement that "medical panels of people who care about what's best for their patients ... is good science and good medicine."[70] Speaking for himself, Issa said "Republicans have to step back from the words 'death panels'."[70] Michael F. Cannon, a former domestic policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee and a member of the Cato Institute, wrote that "[p]aying doctors to help seniors sort out their preferences for end-of-life care is consumer-directed rationing, not bureaucratic rationing."

The Nazis did say they learnt how to make a big lie from American politicians

Some Americans do not qualify for government-provided health insurance, are not provided health insurance by an employer, and are unable to afford, cannot qualify for, or choose not to purchase, private health insurance. When charity or "uncompensated" care is not available, they sometimes simply go without needed medical treatment. This problem has become a source of considerable political controversy on a national level.

A report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies states: "Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States." [27] A 2009 Harvard study published in the American Journal of Public Health found more than 44,800 excess deaths annually in the United States associated with uninsurance.[28][29] Johns Hopkins University professor Vicente Navarro stated, more broadly, in 2003, "the problem does not end here, with the uninsured. An even larger problem is the underinsured" and "The most credible estimate of the number of people in the United States who have died because of lack of medical care was provided by a study carried out by Harvard Medical School Professors David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler (New England Journal of Medicine 336, no. 11 [1997]). They concluded that almost 100,000 people died in the United States each year because of lack of needed care—three times the number of people who died of AIDS."[30]

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2009 found that "[u]ninsurance is associated with mortality. The strength of that association appears similar to that from a study that evaluated data from the mid-1980s, despite changes in medical therapeutics and the demography of the uninsured since that time."[46] The study estimated that lack of insurance is associated with 45,000 deaths annually.[46] This is two and a half times higher than an estimate produced by the Institute of Medicine in 2002.[47] One of the authors characterized the results as "now one dies every 12 minutes."

So.... the government picks up the tab YET AGAIN and yet can only cover 75% of the uninsured.

Golly!! Our system can handle 100%

And yet there are those in the USA who want this program stopped as it offends their Christible values.

Nice.

Interesting that some people don't seem to care about the health of women. After all... the 'pill' although being only $9 over the counter, means the women using this option has to miss out on making sure that it is medically safe for her to take it. While a doctor can check for risks that can be avoided by a simple 10 minute appointment.

Clots can be fatal, as be many of the other serious side effects. And through studies the percentage of actual cases of serious problems is less in those who see a doc.

I wonder how the matter of the parable of the good Samaritan escapes so many Conservative Christibles? I wonder why so many of them seem to hate women enough to say they should live in greater risk of dying over a few dollars?

"So no mention of the fact that Invisible Children share ties with the same fundamentalists who helped draw up Uganda's notorious "Kill the Gays" bill."

"Anyone donating to Invisible Children is funding a very dodgy organisation with it's own "Christian" agenda. Anti gay, pro the elite in Uganda and money grabbing. This is NOT a charity."

"Relative to some corrupt regimes in Africa, Kony is an easy target for this charity and politicos to flex. Let's forget Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni barring refugees from returning to their own settlements in the now peaceful north and remain in IDP camps. Ironically, Uganda's goverment is killing more people than Kony ever did by forcing northern Ugandans to remain in such death camps."

..........comments made regarding the release of a new Kony 2012 video.

Last weeks panic fuel buying caused by Conservative cabinet minister Francis Maude is over. That the Conservative MP decided to state that everyone needed to fill up and have some jerry cans stashed in the garage was totally false.

Why? .... The tanker drivers and companies are both looking to negotiate as is now happening through ACAS. The unions, if they through balloting their members found they wanted a strike, were required by law to give a minimum of seven days notice of the intent.

Calls have been made for the scare monger to resign, especially after one woman has suffered burns through following his advice, and the AA have seen people through panic even filling up jam jars with petrol.

It is likely that the ACAS talks will work, but if not the drivers will exercise their constitutional right to strike. Civil rights some Conservatives would like to see gone, but such a change to the rights of UK workers would never happen and would never be supported by the UK people.

... Luckily the masters haven't managed to brainwash the UK people through BIG lies.

Sky News has said it illegally hacked emails belonging to members of the public on two separate occasions.

The broadcaster said it hacked emails belonging to John Darwin - who faked his own death in a canoe - and his wife Anne. It also revealed it accessed the email accounts of a suspected paedophile and his wife.

Sky News said the action was in the public interest and amounted to "responsible journalism".

It released a statement which said: "Sky News is committed to the highest editorial standards.

"Like other news organisations, we are acutely aware of the tensions that can arise between the law and responsible investigative journalism. We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest."


......A Cleveland Police spokeswoman said: "Cleveland Police has conducted an initial review into these matters and can confirm that enquiries are ongoing into how the emails were obtained."

It is illegal to hack into emails under the Computer Misuse Act.

Tom Watson MP, a vocal critic of Rupert Murdoch journalists during the phone hacking scandal, said of the latest development: "There are many questions that need answering.

"The chair of BSkyB needs to say something on this and reassure viewers this has not been going on more widely."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju3XIpipHBU&feature=related

Less bias and more facts.

The case is that Zimmerman claims he shot in self defence. To which ... he gets a keep out of jail 'free' card.

Zimmerman phones up 911 claiming he's following a suspicious guy who is 'black', therefore using racial stereotyping. He then claims he shot the guy in self defence.

Yet other calls,as there is more than just one (but keeping all the talk to just 'one' is pettifogging) .. show that at the time of the shooting Trayvon Martin was indeed calling for help a few times and was indeed trying to get away from this strange dude following him.

Then there was a gunshot.

Self defence or trigger happy nut job?

And the recorded calls of people who phoned the police have the voice of a man screaming for help (Trayvon Martin's voice) and then a gun shot.

Guess some will always try and defend a racist attack by pettyfoggng.

Since our last broadband survey in July the US and Canada have both dropped one position in broadband penetration worldwide. According to a recent Point Topic survey, the US dropped from 22nd place to 23rd place (from Q1 2011 to Q3 2011). Canada also dropped one position to 19th place since our last survey.
US Drops to 23rd in Broadband Penetration Worldwide

The United States dropped to 23rd position worldwide in broadband penetration, down from 22nd position since our last worldwide broadband survey. Liechtenstein led the way with 63.2% of its population on broadband. Luxembourg followed a distant second at 53.6% of its population on broadband, followed by Malta at 46.4%, Monaco at 46.4%, and Denmark at 41.8% penetration by population (see Figure 1). The United Kingdom came in 17th overall at 34.3% (unchanged from our last survey), Canada dropped one position behind Germany to 19th at 33.7% of the population on broadband. The US came in 23rd with 30.4% of its population on broadband, according a Point Topic Q3 2011 survey.

The US also dropped one position from 27th place in Q1 2011 to 28th place in Q3 2011, according to Point Topic (see Figure 2). Qatar led all countries surveyed at 145% of households on broadband (multiple people subscribed to broadband within the same household), followed by Liechtenstein at 137.5%, Malta at 135.8%, Luxembourg at 133.9% and Singapore at 121.5%. The US came in 28th at 79.1% of households on broadband.

The BBC attracts a record weekly global audience of 241 million people to its international news services like BBC World Service and the BBC World News television channel, according to independent surveys. This is up three million on last year's overall audience estimate.

However, the multimedia BBC World Service lost 20 million short wave radio listeners during the year; reflecting the increasing global decline of the medium.

But during the year BBC World Service attracted around nine million new viewers to its television, online and mobile services; in addition to new listeners to BBC radio programmes through local FM and medium wave radio partner stations in a number of countries.

BBC Global News Director, Peter Horrocks, said: "BBC Global News's record audience demonstrates that people come to us for journalism that is challenging and asks difficult questions, yet respects different points of view and actively encourages debate.

BBC is No 1!!

"Investigations by the Australian Financial Review, the BBC’s Panorama programme in the UK and PBS’s Frontline in the US, have brought an array of allegations against News Corp back into the headlines on three continents", reports the Financial Times. It says many of the claims (about smartcard hacking at its NDS subsidiary) have been challenged by News Corp before. "But they come at a sensitive time, when Mr Murdoch’s company faces police investigations and an assessment of whether it is a 'fit and proper' media owner in the UK; inquiries by the FBI and other US agencies; and an Australian review of a bid for Austar by Foxtel, in which News Corp owns a stake.

http://delicious.com/BBCTorinDouglas#

Ofcom, the television regulator, is currently examining whether Mr Murdoch and News Corporation are "fit and proper" persons to be in control of BSkyB, the company that runs Sky TV. News Corporation currently owns 39% of BSkyB.

Tom Watson MP, a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee that has been examining the phone-hacking scandal, has called for Ofcom to examine these new allegations in their assessment.

"Clearly allegations of TV hacking are far more serious than phone hacking," he said. "It seems inconceivable that they (Ofcom) would not want to look at these new allegations. Ofcom are now applying the fit and proper person test to Rupert and James Murdoch. It also seems inconceivable to me that if these allegations are true that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch will pass that test."

NDS declined to be interviewed for the programme

Chase Carey, News Corp's chief operating officer, issued a statement on Wednesday in which he condemned "the BBC's inaccurate claims".

"The BBC's Panorama programme was a gross misrepresentation of NDS's role as a high quality and leading provider of technology and services to the pay-TV industry," his statement said.

"Panorama presented manipulated and mischaracterised emails to produce unfair and baseless accusations. News Corporation is proud to have worked with NDS and to have supported them in their aggressive fight against piracy and copyright infringement."

'Legitimate'

Writing on Twitter, Rupert Murdoch took a clear swipe at the BBC, asserting "enemies many different agendas, but worst old toffs and right wingers who still want last century's status quo with their monopolies".

"Let's have it on! Choice, freedom of thought and markets, individual personal responsibility."

NDS's UK security unit was 50% funded by Sky. But the satellite broadcaster, chaired by James Murdoch, told the programme it had no involvement in how the unit was run.

Abe Peled - executive chairman of NDS, which manufactures smartcards for all News Corporations' pay-TV companies across the world, published a detailed letter to Panorama demanding that the programme retract its claims.

Mr Peled insisted the BBC had "seriously misconstrued legitimate activities".

A BBC spokeswoman said: "We stand by the Panorama investigation.

"We have received NDS's correspondence and are aware of News Corp's rejection of Panorama's revelations. However, the emails shown in the programme were not manipulated, as NDS claims, and nothing in the correspondence undermines the evidence presented in the programme."

ITV Digital was first launched as On Digital and was set up as a rival to News Corporation's Sky TV in 1998.

But the widespread availability of secret codes to reproduce the cards needed to access the service meant ITV Digital's services could be accessed for free by pirates.

The Carlton and Granada-owned company folded in 2002.

A News Corporation company recruited a pay-TV "pirate" to post hacked details of a rival's secret codes online, BBC Panorama has found.

Lee Gibling set up a website in the late 1990s known as The House of Ill-Compute or Thoic.

He said NDS, a pay-TV smartcard maker, then funded expansion of the Thoic site and later had him distribute the set-top pay-TV codes of rival ITV Digital.

NDS denied this and said Thoic was only used to gather intelligence on hackers.

It says Lee Gibling worked as a consultant who was used legitimately to inform on hackers.

ITV Digital was first launched as "On Digital" and was set up as a rival to News Corporation's Sky TV in 1998.

But the widespread availability of the secret codes meant ITV Digital's services could be accessed for free by pirates. The company went bust in 2002.
'Killer blow'

ITV Digital's former chief technical officer, Simon Dore, told the programme that piracy was "the killer blow for the business, there is no question".

"The business had its issues aside from the piracy... but those issues I believe would have been solvable by careful and good management. The real killer, the hole beneath the water line, was the piracy. We couldn't recover from that."

Lee Gibling told Panorama the codes on the Thoic site originated from NDS.

"They delivered the actual software to be able to do this, with prior instructions that it should go to the widest possible community," he said.

Pink Floyd did try and warn us!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNDaOFQ6g2I&feature=related

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has been arrested as part of the police inquiry into allegations of phone hacking.

Five other people were detained, including Mrs Brooks' husband, the racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks. The arrests took place in Oxfordshire, London, Hampshire and Hertfordshire. Police said one woman and five men were held on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as part of the Operation Weeting hacking probe.

News International has confirmed that its head of security, Mark Hanna, is among the six people being held.

Former News of the World and Sun editor Mrs Brooks was arrested at her home in Oxfordshire. Her husband was also detained and they are now being held at separate police stations. Officers are searching addresses connected to the arrests.

As well as Mrs Brooks, 43, and Mr Brooks, 49, the other people arrested are a 39-year-old man from Hampshire, a 46-year-old man from west London, a 38-year-old man from Hertfordshire, and a 48-year-old man from east London.

The six are being interviewed at police stations in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and London.

"Washington isn't broken.... It's bought"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JlGcxsVNYBY#!

SL-Mark: pretty standard for any major public works going by low bids.

"A "flying squad" of social workers will have first contact with the homeless and then rely on police to remove those unwilling to cooperate. Among homeless people, hostels and boarding houses throughout the Sydney metropolitan area have the reputation of being more dangerous than the streets, because of the increasing frequency of violent assaults, theft and food poisoning that occur there.

Sydney City Council Rangers and private security guards employed by various local and Olympics authorities have been handed new powers to remove "by reasonable force" anyone deemed a nuisance. "Offences" ranging from drinking alcohol to demonstrating, begging, or camping in The Rocks, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour and Olympics sites "

...... "First Contact" ... Sounds like Star Trek. Where's the Captain!!

Pope rallies visiting US bishops against gay marriage

"Pope Benedict XVI has denounced gay marriage in a speech to US bishops visiting Vatican City.

The Pope warned of "powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage".

He also urged the bishops to emphasise to their Church that premarital sex and cohabitation was "gravely sinful" and "damaging to the stability of society"."

More so than the hiding of paedophile clergy?

Coke and Pepsi alter recipe to avoid cancer warning.

"Coca-Cola and Pepsi are changing the recipes for their drinks to avoid being legally obliged to put a cancer warning label on the bottle.

The new recipe for caramel colouring in the drinks has less 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI) - a chemical which California has added to its list of carcinogens.

The change to the recipe has already been introduced in California but will be rolled out across the US.

Coca-Cola says there is no health risk to justify the change. "

Is it still safe to use on metal as a rust remover...??

"It’s not clear if the qualification panel would have been put in place in time to keep the sheriff off the ballot. Laurens County Republican Party Chairman Bobby Smith didn’t return messages seeking comment Tuesday. He did issue a statement Monday saying the county party would not keep anyone from the GOP ballot in the June primary, but retained the right to vet candidates on its own.

Smith got into a public fight with one of the county’s chief Republicans last summer, when Sheriff Ricky Chastain admitted to having a two-and-a-half year affair with a subordinate at the sheriff’s office. The woman sued him for sexual harassment, accusing the sheriff of driving her to get an abortion in a county-owned car. That lawsuit is still pending.

Smith called for Chastain to resign. He refused, and the issue appeared to have died down until the pledge was passed Feb. 28.

Chastain, who plans to run for a fourth term, was worried the pledge was intended to keep him off the ballot. Chastain said it should be up to the voters in Laurens County to decide whether he returns to office.

“A small group shouldn’t decide who is best to represent Republicans in this county. It should be all Republicans,” Chastain said.

Retired state trooper Don Reynolds announced his bid to get the Republican nomination for sheriff last fall. He said he wasn’t consulted about the pledge. He supports its ideas, but has no plans to make Chastain’s indiscretions a part of his campaign because everyone in the county already knows about them.

“I don’t know how you can lack ethics in yourself and expect to be able to lead people,” Reynolds said."

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, March 6, 8:33 PM

>>>> Seems like the proposal had nothing to do with ethics, just who's to be the next sheriff.

The Col: By the fall in ratings of the likes of the Limbaugh, especially in advertisers 'golden zone' of 25-54.... getting bored of it.

'Talk Radio' steady listeners are the oldies... 60+. Those most exposed to the 'us and them' mentality that is messing up America.

Disney's purity ring all over again!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1DSjV16ORU

South park song ... all sing along now

... the point in the episode, the ring just made those wearing it think about premarital sex more.

I had a look at these once a month pills... some seem to be effectively an early abortion pill.

ie the pill Mifepristone.

Only 4 bucks?

Artful Dodger: Then don't make out it's only 4 dollars a month for contraception by the pill method then as you were implying.

ie like Limbaugh, stop exaggerating.

lizrising: He's just some old git, just trying to keep his ratings up.

Artful Dodger: ..... Is there a new pill that women only take once a month? Otherwise... it's 1everyday, or 21 days of the month (depending on the pill and woman)

Which (using the 21 day scenario) is 21 x 4 x 12 ie 1008

"You need a basic economics"

Looks like you need basic knowledge on how contraception is used!!

"when he called Palin a slut."

Maybe the word "slut" I don't find really that bad. It was the likes of this...

""If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch," he said on Thursday.""

....and his seemingly male need to call the woman a prostitute. Looks like he's threatened by the idea a woman can be in charge of her ability to have or not have children.

"BTW, I've never listened to Rush."

Never said you did.

"even though it was on that network that Ingraham was called a slut. "

Again, you seem to be concentrating on that word "slut".. as Jon said, that is pettyfogging.

Bwild: I suppose no votes for banning assault rifles then. Help more police live ya know. But heyyyy That's Texas for ya!!

A University of Maine engineer and his research team have discovered a revolutionary new chemical process that can transform forest residues, along with other materials such as municipal solid waste, grasses, and construction wastes into hydrocarbon fuel oil products. (UMaine News Release here)

Shortening up the process from biomass to hydrocarbons has long been an idea of intense interest, and usually skipped over to the easier fermentation, pyrolysis and other schemes to get molecular change.

Maine is driven by circumstances, a lot of wood, some 6 million green tons of additional available biomass, according to a 2008 Maine Forest Service Assessment of Sustainable Biomass Availability. The new process suggests the biomass could yield 120 million gallons per year of gasoline, diesel, heating oil and kerosene mixtures while providing all the steam and power needs of the processing plants.

The whole of the U.S. transportation industry, which is dependent on hydrocarbon fuels because of their high energy density, could benefit from the revolutionary finding.

The new process was developed by M. Clayton Wheeler, a UMaine associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, and undergraduate students in his lab. Based on a mixed-carboxylate platform, the fuel has been determined to have a number of properties that make it better suited to serve as a drop-in fuel than many alternative fuels being widely researched and, bravely suggested, even those currently on the market.

In an early round of analysis, the UMaine oil product was found to have boiling points that encompass those of jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline. Further refinement to meet emissions standards would be needed in order to use the UMaine oil in vehicles that drive on public ways, but Wheeler believes the oil can be refined as simply as any other current oil at a standard refinery.

The process creating the oil is known as thermal deoxygenation (TDO) is relatively simple, Wheeler says, and will work on the cellulose found in wood or other substances that contain cellulose or carbohydrates and the process requires no catalysts or hydrogen, and is “a spin on chemistry used to make acetone back in the 1800s.”

Wheeler says, “The process is unique. No one else in the world is doing this.”

The TDO process starts with the conversion of cellulose to organic acids. The acids are combined with calcium hydroxide to form a calcium salt. That salt is heated to 450 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit) in a reactor, which constantly stirs the salt. This produces a reaction resulting in a dark amber-colored oil.

Here it gets very interesting -the reaction removes nearly all of the oxygen from the oil, which is a key step that distinguishes TDO from other biofuel processes. Oxygen is removed from as both carbon dioxide and water, and without the need for any outside source of hydrogen to remove the oxygen. Therefore, most of the energy in the original cellulose source is contained in the new oil.

The research paper, free with a registration, is titled “Energy Densification of Levulinic Acid by Thermal Deoxygenation,” at Green Chemistry.

Wheeler explains, “Biomass has a lot of oxygen in it. All of that oxygen is dead weight and doesn’t provide any energy when you go to use that as a fuel. If you’re going to make a hydrocarbon fuel, one of the things you have to do is remove oxygen from biomass. You can do it by using hydrogen, which is expensive and also decreases the energy efficiency of your process. So if there’s a way to remove the oxygen from the biomass chemically, then you’ve densified it significantly. Our oil has less than 1 percent oxygenates. No one else has done anything like this. ”

Wheeler’s lab team recently used unpurified, mixed carboxylates, which were produced from grocery store waste such as banana peels, cardboard boxes and shelving to successfully make a batch of the fuel. The use of municipal solid waste illustrates another important point about the potential of the UMaine fuel – it does not require an uncontaminated cellulose source, which makes the TDO process and resulting oil even more attractive. Many other pathways to hydrocarbons require purified feedstocks or intermediates, which adds more complexity and cost to their processes.

“You don’t need pure wood or pure cellulose,” says Wheeler. “Anytime you can use something without having to separate it, your costs go down.”

http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Revolutionary-New-Process-Turns-Biomass-Waste-Into-Fuel-Oil.html

Artful Dodger: Really... anyone having the pill is having sex 5 times a day...

What about the case Miss Fluke stated?

"Her testimony included the case of a fellow student who needed birth control to control ovarian cysts.

Georgetown, a Catholic university with a prestigious law school, does not cover birth control to prevent pregnancy in its student health plan, and the student, who is gay, could not convince the insurance company she was ill."

"She is having so much sex she needs government help paying for it "

No she wants her health plan (from a religiously affiliated institution) to cover it.

"The real story here is"

That Limbaugh is now apologising as his advertisers are abandoning him.

"Limbaugh slut slur student Sandra Fluke gets Obama call

US President Barack Obama has called to offer support to a US law student attacked by radio host Rush Limbaugh for her views on contraception.

Mr Obama told Sandra Fluke he was disappointed she had been the subject of "unfortunate attacks", White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Limbaugh called Ms Fluke a "slut" and suggested her testimony to US lawmakers made her "a prostitute".

After criticism of his remarks, Limbaugh did not back down.

"If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch," he said on Thursday."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And Andrew Breitbart calls the OWS protesters rapists.

Is this the only the far right in America can fight?

"The birth certificate of US President Barack Obama could be a forgery, a controversial Arizona sheriff claims.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County - who styles himself as America's toughest - unveiled the results of a probe into the origins of the document. His investigators found "probable cause" the certificate may have been made by "forgery and fraud", he said.

Mr Arpaio, known for his tough stance on immigration, is being investigated over allegations of racial profiling. The US justice department alleges that his office routinely discriminated against Latinos.

He also faces a federal grand jury investigation into the activities of his anti-corruption unit, and a forthcoming re-election bid in Maricopa County....

.....Critics have suggested that Mr Arpaio launched his probe into Mr Obama's birth certificate to distract attention from his legal wrangles, as well as to aid his upcoming re-election bid.

But the sheriff denied those accusations, telling reporters at his news conference on Thursday: "I'm not going after Obama. I'm just doing my job.""


Really!!

Published February 29, 2012
FoxNews.com

James Murdoch has stepped down as executive chairman of News International to focus on News Corp.'s expanding international television businesses, News Corp. announced Wednesday.

James Murdoch and his role at News International have come under scrutiny amid Britain's expanding phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch-owned titles.

In a statement, James, 39, thanked the dedication of his colleagues who he said worked "tirelessly to inform the public." He also praised the company's latest British newspaper, The Sun on Sunday, which had its first edition last weekend.

"With the successful launch of The Sun on Sunday and new business practices in place across all titles, News International is now in a strong position to build on its successes in the future," he said in a statement.

Tom Mockridge, chief executive of News International, will continue in his post and will report to News Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey, the company said in a statement.

Newscore and the Associated Press contributed to this report.