Bernice: BTW, I'm completely for private individuals/groups spearheading efforts to feed the hungry. And I also think we ALL should do something to help alleviate hunger. That said, it should NEVER be the job of the government to feed the hungry. The money will get wasted, stolen, costs will be triple what private groups would need. The government is incapable of doing an efficient job of this. That's perhaps the biggest reason to oppose government taking the lead on this problem.

Libya's interim leaders have given pro-Gaddafi forces until Saturday to surrender or face military force.

Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who leads the National Transitional Council (NTC), said the ultimatum applied to loyalists of Col Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte and in other towns.

The announcement came after Col Gaddafi's wife and three of his adult children fled to neighbouring Algeria. Algeria has defended the move, which the NTC called an "act of aggression".

The anti-Gaddafi forces are trying to overcome pockets of resistance by loyalists, and preparing to advance on Sirte.

Speaking at a news conference in Benghazi, Mr Jalil said that if there was no "peaceful indication" by Saturday that Gaddafi-loyalists intended to surrender, "we will decide this manner militarily"

A senior National Transitional Council official in Libya has told Al Jazeera that Saadi Gaddafi, the third son of deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi, is willing to give himself up.

Abdelhakim Belhaj, the NTC's military leader in Tripoli, said on Wednesday that Saddi called him and asked if he can surrender. In an exclusive interview, Belhaj said the revolutionaries know for sure where some of the regime leaders are, including unconfirmed reports on where Gaddafi is.

"Gaddafi is now fleeing - and we have a good idea where he is," Ali Tarhouni, a senior NTC minister said earlier, without elaborating. "We don't have any doubt that we will catch him." There has been speculation that Gaddafi is seeking refuge in Sirte or one of the other remaining regime strongholds, among them the towns of Bani Walid or Sabha.

Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from Tripoli said: “We asked him [Belhaj] about the military situation, remaining members of the Gaddafi family, and he said that he believes one of Gaddafi's sons, Saadi, is preparing to surrender.

Warren Buffet says the super rich should pay more in taxes and he'd "happy pay more."

Then why has he been fighting with the IRS for the past ten years on his tax obligations???

Boehner grows a pair, and Obummer shows his yellow streak.

President Obama has accepted House Speaker John Boehner's request to postpone his planned jobs speech by a day, after the White House announced Wednesday that it was scheduling the address for the same night as a GOP 2012 primary debate in California.

Ha! I love it! Instead of overshadowing the Republican debate, Obummer is going to be [ticking] off a very large part of the country if his blah blah blah pre-empts the first game of the NFL season.

Congrats to Speaker Boehner for buckling down and not giving in to this bully.

Artful Dodger: It seems it's okay to make fun of aliens (from outer space). No one has played the space card by called us spacists.. thus far.

Iamon lyme: ..by "calling" us spacists. (Ungh.. this always happens if I don't look at what I wrote)

Iamon lyme: or alienophobes either

Iamon lyme: my best friend is from out of this world

Artful Dodger: What I don't understand is why, with all of their superior technology able to travel through the dangerous vastness of space, when the aliens finally get here a lot of them crash land on earth. And they leave spaceship debris and bodies for us to find and spirit away to a secret site everyone knows about..

Iamon lyme: They do a lot of drinking on the flight here. And you probably know, that once you have had one too many, and hit fresh air, you really feel the effects. Once in our atmosphere they get light headed and disoriented. That's what those crop circles are all about. Some drunk alien having a little fun. But then once in a while they hit the trottle instead of the break and it's crash time.

But you probably knew that since you're me.

Iamon lyme: All the debris in space : !!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/space-debris-is-getting-out-of-hand/2011/09/01/gIQArLHouJ_blog.html

September 01, 2011

Clueless Obama Labour Secretary Buys Canadian SUV To 'Support The American Workers'

This would really be amusing if it wasn't destroying our great country (emphasis mine):

To show her support for American workers, President Obama's labor secretary, Hilda Solis, has junked the standard black limo and purchased a new Chevrolet Equinox to ride around Washington in. The problem: the crossover SUV is built and assembled in Canada from parts also made in Canada.
Solis proudly arrived at a media breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor today in the shiny silver vehicle, which she has dubbed the "bullet." She was asked about why she traded the standard-issue limo for the SUV. "What better example could I set if I encouraged my staff to go and purchase and seek how we could acquire a vehicle that would for me would send a signal that we're for supporting our American workers, American-made products, fuel efficient as well," she told the Monitor's Dave Cook, who provided this video of her answer.


What better example of the Obama Administration's total incompetency?

Solis added that she was inspired to buy the Chevy because of the pride she saw in American auto workers during trips to U.S. car and truck plants. She said that she was wowed by "the pride that they take making our automobiles here in America."

Such an idiot. If you're going to "support American workers" and use the failing economy to score a political point, at least have your staff make certain it is an American-made product.

2012 can't come soon enough. Let's hope our country is still salvageable when it does.

Quote of the day: “Racists that they are, blacks voted for Obama because he’s black, not because he’s qualified.” Black author Kevin Jackson


Gee, I said that a while back.

rod03801: lol Hey Vern, it's Earnest! I hadn't thought of that, but you're right! They have to get through the debris field before even getting to earth. By now some of that debris isn't even from us, know what I mean? Them aliens think they can get past all our garbage got a another think coming. Human beans rule!

Iamon lyme: I love beans.

Eating high levels of chocolate could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, according to a review of previous research.

Data from 114,009 patients suggested risk was cut by about a third, according to a study published on the BMJ website.

But the researchers warned that excessive consumption would result in other illnesses.

The British Heart Foundation said there were better ways to protect the heart.

The analysis, conducted by scientists at the University of Cambridge, compared the risk to the brain and heart in groups of people who reported eating low levels of chocolate, fewer than two bars per week, with those eating high levels - more than two bars per week.
Chocolate shield

It showed that the "highest levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29% reduction in stroke compared with the lowest levels".

(V): Thank you for that bit of info. Not sure how it pertains to aliens but maybe if we live longer we'll have a chance to meet a real alien. Or maybe aliens like chocolate too!

More children and young adults in the US are having strokes - with unhealthy lifestyles being a likely cause, scientists have said.

Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysed hospital data on up to eight million patients a year between 1995 and 2008. In Annals of Neurology, they say stroke rates in five to 44-year-olds rose by about a third in under 10 years.

Higher blood pressure, diabetes and obesity were common in stroke patients.

The researchers looked at figures for ischemic stroke, due to blood clots, and haemorrhagic stroke, which is caused by bleeding on the brain.The rate of ischemic stroke increased by 31% in five to 14-year-olds, from 3.2 strokes per 10,000 hospital cases to 4.2 per 10,000.

There were increases of 30% for people aged 15 to 34 and 37% in patients between the ages of 35 and 44. In all age groups the increase was greater in men than in women.

Supersize me??

(V): Big macs and other crappy food sources.

And to think Ronald Raygun wanted Tomato Ketchup classified as a vegetable to enable schools to ...."cut out a serving of cooked or fresh vegetable from hot lunch program child-nutrition requirements."

... at the same time ..."the White House purchased $209,508 worth of new china and place settings with the presidential seal embossed in gold."

.... Texas is now the place to live for those who are rich. The cuts or virtual non existence of state taxes have made it the state to be in.... unless you want to better yourself. As the Conservative run state has cut education and other services that give people the chance to be part of 'ThE aMeRiCaN DrEaM'...

But wth.. The rich can live in their gated communities and reassure themselves they are safe.

Artful Dodger: lol Yes, this is the politics board, and the political implications of an alien take over are staggering. No one fears a chocolate take over. If Obama shames us into giving up our guns and our Bibles, we will be completely helpless. If shootin em don't work, we can always whack em over thar spongy little grey heads with our Bibles. That'll learn em.

(V): I love Ronnie. And Ketchup. And it is a vegtable ... when it's not being a fruit.

Iamon lyme: Long live dark chocolate. And beer.

(V): Regan was joking. He was making fun of the fact that ketchup was already listed as a vegetable on a nutrition chart. Somehow it got turned around in news reports to say that Ragen thought it was vegetable. Typical news reporting, you can't say anything without someone trying to twist it around to mean something else. It worked though, most people still believe the lie.. including you.

Then as now, local school districts could receive reimbursement for each lunch served provided it met minimum standards. In mid-1981, only a few months after Reagan took office, Congress cut $1 billion from child-nutrition funding and gave the USDA 90 days--the blink of an eye, for the federal bureaucracy--to come up with new standards that would enable school districts to economize, in theory without compromising nutrition.

The USDA convened a panel of nutritionists and food service directors to ponder what to do. One option on the table--no one later would admit to putting it there--was to "accept catsup as a fruit/vegetable when used as an ingredient." Some panel members seized on this as an opportunity to discuss whether to count ketchup even if used as a condiment. From what I can tell, the motive wasn't so much penuriousness as trying to face facts about what kids would actually eat. USDA standards at the time required that a reimbursable lunch consist of five items: meat, milk, bread, and two servings of fruit or vegetables. Many kids refused to eat the veggies and the stuff wound up as "plate waste." Would-be realists on the panel reasoned that if they could count ketchup as a vegetable they could meet federal standards without having to throw away so many lima beans, thereby saving money while having no impact on the kids. Looked at in a certain light, it made sense. Ketchup wasn't the only newly permissible substitute: pickle relish and conceivably other condiments could also count as vegetables (precise interpretation was left to state officials); protein sources like tofu or cottage cheese could replace meat; and corn chips, pretzels, and other snacks could replace bread. Minimum portion sizes were also reduced, purportedly another effort to reduce waste.

Mid-level Reaganauts at the USDA saw all this as a matter of giving the states more latitude; wiser heads might have realized that the rest of the world would see it as taking food away from children. Unfortunately for Reagan, the 90-day deadline allowed no time for higher review. When the proposed new rules were released for comment in September 1981, food activists went ballistic. Democratic politicians staged photo ops where they feasted on skimpy-looking meals that conformed to the new standards. The mortified administration withdrew the proposal and the USDA official in charge of the program was transferred, a move widely interpreted as a firing.

I suppose if it was freshly made.....

Iamon lyme: I thought Reagan was dead and Obama was the president? hmmmmm

Artful Dodger: Yeah but, it distracts from the fact that Obama visited 57 states and couldn't make it to the other 3 or that he has family that has immigration problems

Vikings:

Vikings: Obama promised that, "I want to be first in wind power, first in solar power...."

The radio host said, "Well, you are first in wind power!"



Then she went on to explain how Obama praised Solyndra but that company is now filing for chapter 11. The left is going crazy and the right is saying, "see?"

Artful Dodger: the solar power plant that he gave millions of dollars to and made at least 3 speeches from stating that "...it's green plants like this that will be the catalyst to our economic recovery..." filed for bankruptcy this week

Vikings: Exactly. And yet people will still think Obama is a smart man. I think Obama blamed both Bush and the hurricane for this one.

(V): Ketchup is made from tomatos. The tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.

Another option is the government could close down its free lunch program and provide every family with paper bags, bread, and peanut butter. At one point in my life I was making less money than people on welfare were getting, and I was still able to supply enough food for my kids sack lunches.There were people we knew on welfare who would come to us to "borrow" food, money and toilet paper (who 'lends' toilet paper?) One mother became angry when I tried to suggest how she could make her food allowance stretch out for the entire month. After that, we stopped "lending" to people who had more to work with than we did. You can't fix stupid, so why even try?

Iamon lyme: I thought it was a fruity vegetable?

Or is it a fruit for vegetarians? You can't eat it like an apple. I tried once and it exploded!

Scientifically speaking, a tomato is definitely a fruit. True fruits are developed from the ovary in the base of the flower, and contain the seeds of the plant (though cultivated forms may be seedless). Blueberries, raspberries, and oranges are true fruits, and so are many kinds of nut. Some plants have a soft part which supports the seeds and is also called a 'fruit', though it is not developed from the ovary: the strawberry is an example.

As far as cooking is concerned, some things which are strictly fruits, such as tomatoes or bean pods, may be called 'vegetables' because they are used in savoury rather than sweet cooking. The term 'vegetable' is more generally used of other edible parts of plants, such as cabbage leaves, celery stalks, and potato tubers, which are not strictly the fruit of the plant from which they come. Occasionally the term 'fruit' may be used to refer to a part of a plant which is not a fruit, but which is used in sweet cooking: rhubarb, for example.

So, the answer to the question is that a tomato is technically the fruit of the tomato plant, but it's used as a vegetable in cooking.

Artful Dodger: That's too technical for me. I just can't wrap my head around the idea of a "Fruity Vegetable".

My 9th grade English teacher could eat a raw tomato, and without so much of a drop of it falling onto his desk. He would eat his sack lunch during our study period.. it was hard to study though, because you just had to watch this guy eating his lunch. He'd shove 3 or four saltines into his mouth, and then take another bite of tomato. During the summer he was a carpenter, and had built his own house. I visited him once at his home, and was amazed at what looked like an expensive home in an area where most of the high rollers lived.. on a high school english teachers salary! But like I said, he worked all year round and had built his own house, so I can see how he was able to do it. He was also a high school track coach, and ran with the guys when they went for their long distance runs. All this, and he didn't appear to have a high opinion of himself. That didn't stop a lot of us kids from having a high opinion of him.

Iamon lyme: Now is a banana a fruit or a veggie?

By the way, I knew a Tom Toe once. Middle name Andrew.

Tom A. Toe

kinda cute

here's where he lives

http://www.realtor.com/property-search/Boynton-Beach_FL/Tom-A-Toe-Rd?source=web

US authorities are to sue 17 major banks for losses on mortgage-backed investments that cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said it was taking action against banks including Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC. The agency says they misrepresented the quality of the mortgages they sold during the housing bubble.

The values plunged as the US was engulfed in the financial crisis.

The FHFA oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two firms lost more than $30bn (£18.5bn), partly because of their investments in the subprime mortgages, and were bailed out by the US government.

Since the rescues, US taxpayers have spent more than $140bn to keep the firms afloat. Other banks facing action include Royal Bank of Scotland, Nomura, Citigroup, and Societe Generale.

A spokesman for RBS said: "We believe we have substantial and credible legal and factual defences to these claims and will defend them vigorously." Speculation in recent days that the FHFA was about to launch legal action had led to falls in US bank share prices.

The FHFA said in a statement that there had been "improper actions by the firms and individuals".

"Based on our review, FHFA alleges that the loans had different and more risky characteristics than the descriptions contained in the marketing and sales materials provided to the Enterprises for those securities," the statement said.

Major banks are already negotiating with the attorneys general of all 50 states to settle mortgage abuses.

Propaganda, American-style
by Noam Chomsky

The Vietnam War is a classic example of America's propaganda system. In the mainstream media--the New York Times, CBS, and so on-- there was a lively debate about the war. It was between people called "doves" and people called "hawks." The hawks said, "If we keep at it we can win." The doves said, "Even if we keep at it, it would probably be too costly for use, and besides, maybe we're killing too many people." Both sides agreed on one thing. We had a right to carry out aggression against South Vietnam. Doves and hawks alike refused to admit that aggression was taking place. They both called our military presence in Southeast Asia the defense of South Vietnam, substituting "defense" for "aggression" in the standard Orwellian manner. In reality, we were attacking South Vietnam just as surely as the Soviets later attacked Afghanistan.

Consider the following facts. In 1962 the U.S. Air Force began direct attacks against the rural population of South Vietnam with heavy bombing and defoliation . It was part of a program intended to drive millions of people into detention camps where, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, they would be "protected" from the guerrillas they were supporting--the "Viet Cong," the southern branch of the former anti-French resistance (the Vietminh). This is what our government calls aggression or invasion when conducted by some official enemy. The Saigon government had no legitimacy and little popular support, and its leadership was regularly overthrown in U.S.-backed coups when it was feared they might arrange a settlement with the Viet Cong. Some 70,000 "Viet Cong" had already been killed in the U.S.-directed terror campaign before the outright U.S. invasion took place in 1972.

Like the Soviets in Afghanistan, we tried to establish a government in Saigon to invite us in. We had to overthrow regime after regime in that effort. Finally we simply invaded outright. That is plain, simple aggression. But anyone in the U.S. who thought that our policies in Vietnam were wrong in principle was not admitted to the discussion about the war. The debate was essentially over tactics. .......

While Energy Department officials steadfastly vouched for Solyndra -- even after an earlier round of layoffs raised eyebrows -- other federal agencies and industry analysts for months questioned the viability of the company. Peter Lynch, a longtime solar industry analyst, told ABC News the company's fate should have been obvious from the start.

"Here's the bottom line," Lynch said. "It costs them $6 to make a unit. They're selling it for $3. In order to be competitive today, they have to sell it for between $1.5 and $2. That is not a viable business plan."

Other flags have been raised about how the Energy Department pushed the deal forward. The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News and ABC disclosed that Energy Department officials announced the support for Solyndra even before final marketing and legal reviews were in. To government auditors, that move raised questions about just how fully the department vetted the deal -- and assessed its risk to taxpayers -- before signing off.

Here are some "fruity" vegetables:
Tomato
Tomatillo
Egg plant
Avocado (eaten both as fruit and vegetable)
Bell peppers
Chili peppers
Cucumber
Squash
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Chayote (aka christophene)
Snow peas
String beans

There are probably many others. These are what comes to mind at the moment!

The question is, are they political?

Forum for discussing local and world politics and issues.

it's an issue

Übergeek 바둑이: yes, it's all about context

Übergeek 바둑이: Green tomato's ... fruit or veg!!

And of course, the most controversial moment came when Ronald Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, proposed classifying ketchup as a vegetable to meet dietary requirements while also slashing costs.

Both federal and local officials have been trying to improve the school lunch programme, so it is more nutritious for students and the food is more liked by them. But it's a massive undertaking. The National School Lunch programme in the United States feeds more than 28 million students in 98,000 schools across the country.

Schools also provide breakfast in some districts to low-income children and, since 1998, the federal government has also given schools money to provide snacks to students who participate in after-school programmes.

In 2003, the US Department of Agriculture said the school lunch programme cost $7.1bn (£3.7bn). The menus vary greatly from district to district, but they must meet the applicable recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. These say no more than 30% of an individual's calories should come from fat, and less than 10% from saturated fat.

School lunches are also required to provide one-third of the recommended dietary allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.

The food is mostly packaged, with some critics complaining that lunchrooms are merely dumping grounds for agricultural surplus.

Dr Walter Willett, head of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, says of the foods offered to schools by the Department of Agriculture: "Their foods tend to be at the bottom of the barrel in terms of healthy nutrition."

A 2001 Department of Agriculture study showed that 80% of schools offered menu items that could be combined to meet dietary guidelines.

But more than one-fifth of lunch programmes offered commercial fast food, and most schools had vending machines. The study found that students often made bad choices.

But there are attempts at broader reforms.

A new programme partners schools with local small farmers to bring more fresh fruit and vegetables to students. And some states are pushing to ban vending machines in an attempt to keep the students from subsisting on snacks and junk food.

US and UK spy agencies built close ties with their Libyan counterparts during the so-called War on Terror, according to documents discovered at the office of Col Gaddafi's former spy chief.

The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli. The UK's MI6 also apparently gave the Gaddafi regime details of dissidents.

The documents, found by Human Rights Watch workers, have not been seen by the BBC or independently verified.....

.....The BBC's Kevin Connolly in Tripoli says the documents illuminate a short period when the Libyan intelligence agency was a trusted and valued ally of both MI6 and the CIA, with the tone of exchanges between agents breezy and bordering on the chummy.

Human Rights Watch accused the CIA of condoning torture.

"It wasn't just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence. The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it's very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves," said Peter Bouckaert of HRW.

The papers outline the rendition of several suspects, including one that Human Rights Watch has identified as Abdel Hakim Belhaj, known in the documents as Abdullah al-Sadiq, who is now the military commander of the anti-Gaddafi forces in Tripoli.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said: "It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats."

The documents also reveal details about the UK's relationship with the Gaddafi regime. One memo, dated 18 March 2004 and with the address "London SE1", congratulates Libya on the arrival of Mr Belhaj. It states "for the urgent personal attention of Musa Kusa" and is headed "following message to Musa in Tripoli from Mark in London", according to the Financial Times. Its authenticity could not be independently verified.

The UK intelligence agency apparently helped to write a speech for Col Gaddafi in 2004, when the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair was encouraging the colonel to give up his weapons programme. And British officials also insisted that Mr Blair's famous 2004 meeting with Col Gaddafi should be in his Bedouin tent, according to the UK's Independent newspaper, whose journalists also discovered the documents.

"[The prime minister's office is] keen that the prime minister meet the leader in his tent," the paper quotes a memo from an MI6 agent as saying. "I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is the journalists would love it."

In another memo, also seen by the Independent, UK intelligence appeared to give Tripoli details of a Libyan dissident who had been freed from jail in Britain. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague played down the revelations, telling Sky News that they "relate to a period under the previous government so I have no knowledge of those, of what was happening behind the scenes at that time".

Mr Blair and US President George W Bush lobbied hard to bring Col Gaddafi out of international isolation in the years after the 9/11 attacks, as Libya moved to normalise relations with former enemies in the West.