Democrats in Congress today plan to introduce a bill to halt the recently-announced closing of some 600 Starbucks coffee stores, noting that the displacement of 12,000 Starbucks baristas would overwhelm government aid offices not prepared to handle so many clients for whom English is a second language.
Baristas, those who serve Starbucks beverages, speak a peculiar dialect that combines pseudo-Italian and American slang with inflections borrowed from ancient hemp-smoking cultures.
These people cant just walk out of Starbucks and get a job at a grocery store or a factory, said House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA. They would need ESL classes and cultural training to learn how to relate to ordinary Americans and function in society.
Rep. Pelosis bill would subsidize the 600 money-losing Starbucks locations by giving away millions of taxpayer dollars in so-called Venti Vouchers to residents of these hard-hit neighborhoods. If the effort fails to revive the flagging stores, Rep. Pelosi said Democrats would seriously consider nationalizing the coffee industry to ensure the free flow of java at fair prices.
This is just another one of our heroic Democrat efforts to protect Americans from the impact of the Bush economic policies, said Rep. Pelosi. Under this president, America has become a cold and desolate place where corporations cut unprofitable activities to focus on increasing the bottom line, and returning value to shareholders. When Democrats retake the White House next year, we will reverse that trend.
#1
With nowhere to take one hour breaks instead of the customary 15min. "coffee break", Government offices may find that they don't actually have enough chairs if all their employees actually try to work at the same time.
Up till now, Starbucks has prevented this dilemma, as you cannot get a cup of coffee in less than 20 minutes.
#3
Well alrightey then, looks like the proto-USSA Congresscritters have finally done something sensible - while they're at it send in the OWG People's Army Marines to force the donut shoppes to bring back the strawberry and cherry, etc. donuts = red/colored thingys.
Long piece by Simon Heffer, but wonderfully rewarding.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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But that is the truth. And Zimbabwe may be the prologue to what may happen in South Africa after a decade of failure by Thabo Mbeki is followed by the rule of the dubious Jacob Zuma. It may be very uncomfortable and embarrassing for whites to intervene to stop the butchery of black tyrants. But if they don't, hecatombs of lives will be lost.
With or without Jacob Zuma, the plan is already well under way. Intervention by the West? Highly unlikely.
WASHINGTON - North Korea's destruction last week of the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear facility was a spectacular piece of geopolitical theater. But as the concrete crumbled, did Pyongyang's ability to produce plutonium really crumble as well?
The tower's fall largely was symbolic, say experts. In addition, North Korea has yet to take some of the most important steps in its planned nuclear disablement. But North Korean officials have completed perhaps two-thirds of their disablement actions. While they technically could still resume plutonium production, the effort, expense, and time involved might make such a move prohibitively difficult.
"None of the steps North Korea has taken thus far are irreversible, but the destruction of this tower makes it harder to reconstitute their plutonium program," said Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in an analysis of the issue.
The events of the last week in June clearly constitute a turning point in the long, difficult effort to get North Korea to shut its fissile material production facilities, and perhaps eventually rid itself of its small nuclear weapon stockpile. Besides destroying the Yongbyon tower, North Korea delivered an accounting of its 30-year effort to produce nuclear weapons to the other countries involved in six-party talks: China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.
Though parsing that account is going to take time and a lot of hard work, and it's not as if the Norks have turned over a new leaf on accountability ...
Much hard diplomatic work remains. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed publicly on June 28, the US remains committed to convincing North Korea to turn over any stockpiled fissile material, plus nuclear bombs.
US officials will now pore over Pyongyang's nuclear declaration, matching it against intelligence data in an attempt to gauge its accuracy. Already, some have criticized the declaration, saying that North Korea does not admit sharing nuclear technology with other nations, such as Syria. Nor does it admit to what the US suspects is a clandestine effort to produce highly enriched uranium.
But some experts outside government dispute the evidence of an extensive secret North Korean uranium enrichment process. Any efforts by North Korean scientists in this area might be interesting and relevant, but they are a "footnote" in the context of the country's plutonium production, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, earlier this year.
Albright's been saying that for years, and he's the go-to guy when the press wants someone to dump on the whole uranium story. It would be helpful if the press found someone else who agreed, but that would be too much like work ...
In that sense, the disablement of Pyongyang's plutonium facilities, per an agreement reached in the six-party talks, remains an important diplomatic success.
"Highest priority must be placed on completing the disablement ... and proceeding to the dismantlement state," wrote Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Lab and current professor at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, in a report on his recent visit to Yongbyon.
Followed by the dismemberment state for Kimmie and his generals ...
The US State Department says North Korea has completed at least eight of an agreed-upon 11 disablement steps. According to Dr. Hecker, actions taken so far include removal of all of the Yongbyon complex's uranium conversion furnaces, the cutting of steel pipe cooling loops outside the reactor building, and the removal of the drive mechanism for the trolley that moves spent reactor fuel into the reprocessing facility.
At this point it would take at least six to 18 months for North Korea to repair and reconstitute its plutonium complex, according to Hecker's report. Once all fuel rods remaining in the Yongbyon reactor are removed, one of the most important of the disablement steps the removal of control rod drive mechanisms is scheduled to occur.
"My overall assessment is that the disablement actions are significant . . . However, they have retained a hedge to be able to restart the facilities if the agreement falls through," wrote Hecker.
Funny that, and just to see who wins the election in November ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Lest we fergit, RUSSIA + FRANCE + various SOKOR Perts, etc. had opined that NOKOR already has a number of deliverable nuke bombs [8-under 50]???
Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time.
This year, America doesn't deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.
For we have sinned.
We have failed to pay attention. We've settled for lame excuses. We've spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago.
The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner.
The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing.
The America they founded should never ship prisoners to foreign lands, knowing their new jailers might torture them.
Such abuses once were committed by the arrogant crowns of Europe, spawning rebellion.
Today, our nation does such things in the name of our safety. Petrified, unwilling to take the risks that love of liberty demands, we close our eyes.
We have done such things, on orders from the Oval Office. We have done them, without general outrage or shame.
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. CIA secret prisons. "Rendition" of prisoners to foreign torture chambers.
It's not enough that we had good reason to be scared.
The men huddled long ago in Philadelphia had better reason. A British fleet floated off the Jersey coast, full of hands eager to hang them from the nearest lampposts.
Yet they pledged their lives and sacred honor - no idle vow - to defend the "inalienable rights" of men. Inalienable - what does that signify? It means rights that belong to each person, simply by virtue of being human. Rights that can never be taken away, no matter what evil a person might do or might intend.
Surely one of those is the right not to be tortured. Surely that is a piece of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
This is the creed of July 4: No matter what it costs us, no matter how it scares us, no matter how foolish it seems to a cynical world, America should stand up for human rights.
No, not even the brave men who picked up a quill, dipped it in ink and signed the parchment that summer day in Philadelphia lived up perfectly to the creed. But they did something extraordinary, founding a new nation upon a vow to oppose all the evil habits of tyranny.
That is why history still honors them.
But what will history think of us, of how we responded to our great challenge? Sept. 11 was a hideous evil, a grievous wound. Yet, truth told, it has not summoned our better angels as often as our worst.
We have betrayed the July 4 creed. We trample the vows we make, hand to heart.
Don't imagine that only the torturer's hand bears the guilt. The guilt reaches deep inside our Capitol, and beyond that - to us.
Our silence is complicit. In our name, innocents were jailed, humans tortured, our Constitution mangled. And we said so little.
We can't claim not to have known. The best among us raised the alarm. Heroes in uniform, judges in robes, they opposed the perverse logic of an administration drenched in fear, drunk on power.
But did we heed them? Hardly. Barely . . .
We were so busy. Soccer practice at 6. A credit card balance to fret. The final vote on Idol.
We left it to those in power to keep our precious selves from harm. Whatever it took.
We took the coward's way.
The world sees this, even if we are too dim to grasp it. We've lost respect. We've shamed the memory of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.
And all for a scam. The waterboarding, the snarling dogs, the theft of sleep - all the diabolical tricks haven't made us safer. They may have averted this plot or that. But they've spawned new enemies by the thousands, made the jihadist rants ring true to so many ears.
So put out no flags.
Sing no patriotic hymns.
We deserve no Fourth this year.
Let us atone, in quiet and humility. Let us spend the day truly studying the example of our Founders. May we earn a new birth of courage before our nation's birthday next rolls around.
#2
I can guess what George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would have done if the Moors had murdered 3,000 New Yorkers. None of it would have involved panties or Habeas Corpus.
Posted by: ed ||
07/02/2008 1:47 Comments ||
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#3
I started to reply to this about four times. Each time I erased it. If I say what I want, I'll get sinktrapped. So I'll just think it /real/ hard and go shooting on the fourth...maybe I can find a nice pic of the author for a target...but that might contaminate the paper, the bullets passing through it and the ground as bits fall off. It'd be cruel to do that to American soil.
#4
Philadelphia is the city where a single muslim on a jury deciding a case against one of the recruit target communities, means acquittal by jury nullification. Obama is all about empowering anti socials rather than uniting diverse elements.
#5
When you say "first the traitors, then the enemy," it's oxygen thieves like this that come to mind.
Keep printing garbage like this, Philly Inq. and your death spiral will speed up and steepen.
I'll be a happy man when all these lefty rags are dead. Maybe then we'll get some news organizations dedicated to providing the facts, not just their moonbat opinions.
BTW, if you think you're helping 'Bama, keep thinking that. Just keep printing this crap, all the way to the election...
#6
Yup, the Founding Fathers probably would have been outraged.
But not by the politics and actions of conservatives.
They would, however, have been outraged by the politics of this author and his editor.
Hostility towards free expression of religion, widespread abortion as a form of casual birth control, attempts to disarm citizens, a public funded education industry propagandizing against Western Civilization, a public funded propaganda network (NPR & PBS) shilling almost exclusively for one political party, collectivism, Supreme Court Justices basing their decisions not upon the Constitution but on the "law" of socialist and autocratic nations abroad, local governments given the right to grab property to give to other private interests, coddling of violent criminals, being more aggrieved about what amount to frat hazing exercises or "the theft of sleep" than journalists getting their heads sawn off, contempt for the military, divorce laws which treat men as second-class citizens, etc.
All things that the author and editor no doubt find wonderful, or "a good start".
These are the things the Founding Fathers would have found, shall we say, revolting, not the stuff the writer talks about.
And what would the Founding Fathers have thought of an "American" who cared so much about what Europeans thought of our country in the manner of a high school sophomore trying to impress the "cool kids" and gain their approval?
Not very much, I suspect. Nor should we, now. This attitude, of worrying how much the Euro "cool kids" like America, is a form of mental illess that requires treatment ASAP.
Our Founding Fathers thought so little of decadent Europe that they essentially left.
That's the proper attitude now, as then.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/02/2008 6:55 Comments ||
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#7
Well written, NMU, and I heartily agree.
Unfortunately, many don't. Check out the wench in Denver who, at a formal city meeting, chose to sing the "Black National Anthem" rather than "The Star-Spangled Banner" she had agreed to sing.
She's playing to the Obama crowd. It's going to be real interesting to see how many U.S. blacks decide they hate America if he doesn't get elected.
#8
According to this logic, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt should be forgotten, too. Their policies and actions during war-time were more far-reaching and worse.
#9
The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner.
The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing.
The America they founded should never ship prisoners to foreign lands, knowing their new jailers might torture them.
The writer sorta missed what those Americans were doing to the natives for the first hundred years. Washington directed a scorched earth policy towards tribes along the frontier that participated in actions with or were just suspected of dealing with the British. And to the latter charge, go read up on the Trail of Tears.
Oh, by the way, dear author, just what outrage did the founding fathers express when the people drove out tens of thousands of Crown Tory Loyalist from the newly minted United States of America? Not much, because they understood the effect of tolerating snakes enemies amongst the population. Dear author consider following their righteous path if you so hate this society you are such a parasitic participant of.
#10
Sounds like a fund-raiser might be in order here. Raise money for the reporter for a one-way ticket to the country of his choice. I wouldn;t want this person to be uncomfortible with the country in which he lived.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/02/2008 10:23 Comments ||
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#11
This author, and those that agree with him, before the 4th, need to read (won't say re-read, cause I doubt they even know of its existence), A Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale.
#14
Another beauzeau for whom history begins in 1961.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 12:28 Comments ||
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#15
This is the creed of July 4: No matter what it costs us, no matter how it scares us, no matter how foolish it seems to a cynical world, America should stand up for human rights.
Does that include sitting back and awaiting our own destruction?
I would conclude from reading this drivel that Mr. Satullo thinks it does.
#16
"This is the creed of July 4: No matter what it costs us, no matter how it scares us, no matter how foolish it seems to a cynical world, America should stand up for human rights."
Except when it would actually mean using force to protect them. Gas-chamber loving, fascist-apologist maggots like this make any freedom-lovers skin crawl.
#17
This is independance day, FOAD, or better yet, come out west and meet a few of us vets that would love to introduce you to a 32oz Louivulle slugger. I will hold the rest of my comments, hate to get sink trapped.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/02/2008 16:28 Comments ||
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#21
This is the creed of July 4Independence Day: No matter what it costs us, no matter how it scares us, no matter how foolish it seems to a cynical world, America should stand up for human rightsLife, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Personally I'd be pissed if when I'm in my bomb shelter so many hours per day all I had to think about was the cost/benefit intersection point put together by the government charged with protecting me when you have to have both sides honorable for such an agreement to even be feasable; even then it is a dishonorable way to conduct a country - didn't work with the Mongols and won't work with the mongrols.
#2
The release of the movie 10,000 BC is the breaking of the final seal - a movie depicting Jesus and a Jedi coming down the mountain to fight the enslaving pyramid builders, casting doubt and shame upon the slaveholders and their descendant with every 'national geographic cover' shot of the woman in peril and her Arabian Nights captor.
Its all lined out in the George Takai's Secrets subliminal inserts in the Conan O'brian show - Conan the name based on the fictional conquoring barbarian in a Mongol landscape, the Mongols who introduced Timurlane and his destruction of the mohammadans even after his supposed conversion.
Will Smith is the latest overpaid navel-gazer to join the Embarrassed to Be a Rich American Celebrity Tour. On a recent Today Show appearance to hawk his upcoming movie Hancock which, if this report is correct, is likely to be a box office disaster Smith had this to say about his recent travels abroad:
You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London, and Paris and its the first, Ive been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasnt been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing.
Yup. That dastardly George W. Bush has made life incredibly difficult for the jet set. Imagine having to hide your face in shame every time you travel to Europe just because holier-than-thou Europeans think that since they dont like your president, you shouldnt either. It must really put a cramp in your ability to enjoy luxuries like private jet travel, expensive hotels, and fine wines. Oh, the horror. . . .
When I hear that Smith, who has climbed the ladder of incredible success over the past ten or fifteen years, says its not a good thing to be American just because the current president is unpopular, I get really steamed. How have Bushs decisions while in the White House affected Smiths ability to work and live the life that most of us can only dream of? If Smith and his cronies are embarrassed when they see the snooty folks at the Cannes Film Festival and other such gatherings, I have this to say: hard cheese.
My husband wonders why I bother to get all worked up over incidents like this. And every time I do, I swear it will be the last time I waste my breath. But then I hear things like Smiths comment and I get all hot under the collar again. Why? Because it really galls me that American celebrities, our unofficial ambassadors, feel like they have to go around denouncing the country that gave them the opportunities for the exceedingly good careers and lives they enjoy. Despite the fact that I believe history will be much kinder to George W. Bush than his contemporaries are, you dont have to agree with Bushs policies or even like the man to be proud to be an American. Despite any missteps throughout our history, we are responsible for much good in the world, and more people are clamoring to get in than to get out. That says more about how horrible America is than anything the chattering classes in Europe can come up with any day of the week.
So I say this to Will: you think it hasnt been good to be an American for the last few years? Try being a citizen of Zimbabwe, where people are starving to death due to the ham-fisted management of a brutal dictator and being killed if they dare oppose his policies. I hear North Korea is nice; they have a great new diet over there: eating grass. Or how about living in Cuba, which has been frozen in time for nearly fifty years and where political opponents of the president are tossed into prison for speaking up? And perhaps on a lesser scale but still alarming, how about being a citizen of the UK, where the impossibility of finding a dentist on the national health plan has led to some people, out of desperation, pulling out their own teeth, and where the government wants to inspect what parents pack in their childrens school lunch boxes and if it doesnt meet government standards, it might be confiscated and stern warnings sent home to Mum and Dad.
It shouldnt take the installation of a new president which happens every four and sometimes eight years, like clockwork to restore your pride in being an American. And if its really that bad, one of the other great things about this country is that if you want to leave, no ones stopping you.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/02/2008 06:32 ||
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You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London, and Paris and its the first, Ive been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasnt been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing.
hmmm, reminicient of Michelle not being proud of her country huh.
This trend of hollywood types makes me sick, and I like Will Smith's talent, too bad we're stuck with them for more than 4 years at a time, can we have term limits on these yah whos? What makes these hollywood types feel they have so much credibility to think their comments actually mean something while off the screen. Wow. Another thing, isn't it these guys that while visiting other countries that in a way represent us as Americans to these countries?
More buses in isle 5....
Posted by: Jan ||
07/02/2008 8:40 Comments ||
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#2
Don't listen to him...he is evil! I saw him smoke a cigar in a movie!
Since no movie is anymore just a movie, can anyone hear the title of this movie and not think "John" - so I understand it is a movie about an asshole with super powers that causes more harm than good when using his powers. Hollywood, getting the point of the theme vs. box office return - especially when you make your top billing actor pander what was supposed to be the subtlety of the box office smash on the f'n Today show?
Haaaa Ha ha ha! Whoooouu! hooo hoo!
Mr. Smith, you were just thrown onto the altar of burnt celluloids! The people who were going to go see your movie already saw it and now you look like a tool. Now go play golf with Cruise and enjoy your later years.
#4
I can't stand will smith, he's Mr. Narcissism incarnated (ok, so is Wesley Snipes, but I tend to like him in his various action flicks & in the great Del Toro's "Blade II")... plus, he's not an actor, an actor pretends to be what he isn't, all that smith does is "being" the character he's contructed for himself in real life (with the possible exception of "Ali", which I didn't bother to see, anyway, I don't watch movies anymore)...
From movie to movie, he "is" will smith, if you see what I mean, even it it kills the whole premise of the movie - the two worst betrayals were that ignominous "Wild wild West" (God, I really liked and still like that show, and I'm not even gay, at least, I think, I'll have to buy the DVDs to be sure), and "I am legend", a great novel whose whole point is lost by having him play the part (not his ethnicity, but his "image", as opposed to the hero and tone of the Bloch novel).
#5
So they don't like us in Eeeeurrrrope because of George Bush. Big whoop - newsflash to Will Smith - the Eeeeeurooopeeens have been snotty about the US since... well, forever. Just because a lot of them now are giving the big sloppy tongue-bath to the Obamessiah doesn't change much. Tomorrow, they will still be snotty about us obstreperous Yanks who have no culture and don't know our place and refuse to do as our betters command. Deal with it, Mr. Smith - and move on.
BTW, my next book - or rather, three of them are all about a bunch of European immigrants in the 19th century to came to Texas, looking for land and the chance to live without being lorded over by politicians and a so-called elite. They had a rough time at first, but eventually prospered, and were damn grateful for the opportunity to become Americans. The "Adelsverein Trilogy" will be released in December, but I am taking orders now, for all three books (with autograph!)to be delivered shortly before the release date.
I can promise that if I become rich and famous from this, I will never, ever whine to an interviewer about how perfectly horrid it is when Eeeeeuuuropeans don't like us!
But then, as Anony mentioned - he doesn't really act - he just forces his one character into whatever role the movie calls for. The character in 'Independance Day' is the same one in 'Wild Wild West', 'Men in Black (I&II)' and "I Robot" and any of his other movies.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
