Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Micky D's in different cultures
The McArabia is made with grilled chicken or grilled kofta (beef with spices). Comes with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and garlic mayonnaise, wrapped in an Arabic style pita bread.
Friday, September 02, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Eight False Things
Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day
(Note: The words that appear in red are links that you can click.)
There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.
Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:
1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.
2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.
3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.
4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.
5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.
6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.
7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.
8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is governmentthat builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.
This stuff really matters.
Bachmann is just a joke. -God
Just a joke: Bachmann's hurricane message from God
 | CNN Political Unit |
(CNN) - Michele Bachmann's press secretary characterized comments by the Republican presidential candidate, when she said Hurricane Irene was a message to Washington, as a joke.
"Obviously she was saying it in jest," Alice Stewart told TalkingPointsMemo Monday.
The Hurricane
The Hurricane
by William Carlos Williams The tree lay down
on the garage roof
and stretched, You
have your heaven,
it said, go to it.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The deal about theology
Theology is to truth like a model globe is to the earth. A globe is spherical and represents the proper placement of the continents and oceans. But a globe is not wet, contains no dirt, lacks any living creatures, and is a bit on the small side. When we build theology we take the raw materials of revelation, tradition, community, and experience and build the best model we possibly can. We are thankful that in many ways we have built an excellent model of truth, but absolute adherence to even the best model is somewhere between hubris and lunacy.
-- Overheard
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Nobody but yourself
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight --- and never stop fighting.
E. E. Cummings
But can he take the heat?
Texas' Perry rejects manmade global warming
By STEVE PEOPLES, Associated Press
BEDFORD, N.H. — GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry told New Hampshire voters Wednesday that he does not believe in manmade global warming, calling it a scientific theory that has not been proven.“I think we’re seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists that are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change,” the Texas governor said on the first stop of a two-day trip to the first-in-the-nation primary state. He said some want billions or trillions of taxpayer dollars spent to address the issue, but he added: “I don’t think from my perspective that I want to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven and from my perspective is more and more being put into question.”
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Ya see? That's what you get for jailing anti-corruption activists. D'oh!
Anna Hazare, India's Leading Anti-Corruption Activist, Refuses to Leave Delhi Jail
BY: SIMON DENYER, RAMA LAKSHMI | THE WASHINGTON POSTNEW DELHI - Indian police jailed a leading anti-corruption campaigner and detained thousands of his supporters Tuesday morning, hours before the veteran activist was due to begin an indefinite hunger strike to demand tougher laws against graft.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
You might be a conservative if...
1: You’re irate over the president taking so many vacation days on the taxpayer’s dime (61 thus far), but you thought George W. Bush earned every minute of his leisure time (196 days at the same point in his presidency).
2: You’re happy with your 40 hour work week, paid vacations and company-provided healthcare, but you’re strongly anti-union, because those commies haven’t done anything for you lately.
3: You strongly support the First Amendment and it’s guarantee of religious freedom to all, but you don’t think Muslims have a right to build an Islamic Community Center in Manhattan.
4: You believe Ronald Reagan was a devout Christian, even though he hated going to church, but any president who spends twenty years going to the same Trinity United Church in Chicago must be a Muslim.
5: You believe when a Republican governor creates a healthcare package with an individual mandate for everyone in his state, that’s a good idea. But when a Democratic president does it, suddenly it’s unconstitutional.
6: You’re so enthused about demonstrating your Second Amendment rights, you can think of no finer place to brandish your pistol in public than at a presidential rally.
7: You believe Bill Clinton was responsible for Osama bin Laden’s escape ten years ago, but thankfully George W. Bush caught up with him and killed him in Pakistan.
8: You believe in putting American jobs first, except when president Obama rescued 1.5 million GM and Chrysler autoworkers, because that was socialism.
9: It angers you that you can’t communicate with the Mexican busboy at your local Olive Garden, but when you took a vacation to San Francisco’s Chinatown, you thought it’s quaint that so many Chinese-Americans are holding fast to their traditional language. Because that’s America!
10: You deny that the lunatic who tried to murder Gaby Giffords was a conservative, even though he targeted a Jewish, pro-choice, pro gay rights, Democratic Congresswoman.
11: You thought it was perfectly normal that every president in history had an untethered right to raise the debt ceiling when warranted, but when Obama asked the GOP held congress to do it, you thought it only natural that it be tied to cutting Social Security and Medicare.
12: When the new 112th Congress was sworn in, you swooned as they promised to focus on “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” But when they pivoted, and went after NPR, Planned Parenthood and gay rights, you cheered.
13: You accuse president Obama of raising your taxes to the highest point ever, even though they’re lower today than at any time since 1950.
14: You believe the wealthiest Americans are “job creators,” and they are — but it doesn’t bother you that all the workers in those positions are in India, China and Malaysia, and they’re doing the jobs that our fathers once did.
15: You believe gays are anti-American, because their lifestyle is a threat to the children… unless they’re married to Tea Party-backed presidential candidates from Minnesota.
16: You strongly defend individual freedom, but that freedom doesn’t include a woman’s right to decide her own healthcare needs.
17: You believe corporations are people too, and are deserving of the same rights as the rest of us. Just not the same obligations to pay personal income tax free of corporate loopholes, or penalties for massive criminal behavior and tax evasion. In these matters, corporations are deserving of special rights.
18: And since corporations are now people too, you must believe in their right to a driver’s license, the right to marry, to adopt children, etc. These rights shall not be denied to Exxon, Halliburton and BP (but still immune from the right of the People to try, convict and sentence to death any corporation that conspires to commit a felony… because at that point, they’re suddenly not people again.)
19: You still believe Climate Change is a myth, and the recent record highs, lows, floods and droughts around the world coinciding with climate scientist’s predictions are all an amazing coincidence. Oh, and Al Gore is FAT!
20: You believe when George W. Bush took the national debt from $5 trillion to $11 trillion, it was necessary for him to do so to keep America safe. But when Barack Obama added to it by trying to rescue the country from a second Great Depression, he was deliberately trying to destroy America!
21: You believe America is a God fearing country, and that the Almighty protects those who believe just as you do. But it’s never crossed your mind that the majority of tornados, hurricanes and floods all occur in the Bible Belt.
22: You believe that no matter who’s in the White House, the office, if not the man himself is deserving of your respect. The only exceptions to this rule, are if his middle name sounds Muslim, and if he’s not at least as white as that black guy who works down in the mailroom at the office.
[ LINK: Addicting Info ]
Monday, August 15, 2011
What makes America look unreliable
"What makes America look unreliable isn’t budget math, it’s politics. And please, let’s not have the usual declarations that both sides are at fault. Our problems are almost entirely one-sided -- specifically, they’re caused by the rise of an extremist right that is prepared to create repeated crises rather than give an inch on its demands." -- Paul Krugman in yesterday's Times [LINK: Stolen entirely from Deus Ex Malcontent ]
Sunday, August 14, 2011
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