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10 Nov 2010 22:01

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U.S.: Social Security solvency suggestions draw tons of criticism

  • good Obama’s bipartisan fiscal committee wants to ensure Medicare and Social Security are around at least another 75 years, if not longer. We want to retire someday.
  • bad Their plan to do it involves pushing the retirement age back to 69, and cutting down on cost-of-living increases. Liberal groups are in a huge uproar over this. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Nov 2010 21:34

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U.S.: Obama’s fiscal commission: Cut defense spending, lose the contractors

  • $4 billion in deficit cuts proposed over the next freaking decade
  • $3T the cost to keep the Bush tax cuts for households that make under $250,000 over the next decade
  • 3/4ths of the proposed cuts would be from the Defense Department; the rest would be from tax revenues
  • 250k number of contractors whose jobs would be eliminated under the proposal, saving $18.4 billion source
  • » How will Congress adopt these ideas? Don’t expect a wholesale adoption of these ideas pushed forward by a bipartisan team of Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, but the ideas will definitely push Congress in a fiscally mindful direction.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Nov 2010 09:31

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U.S.: Our kinda party: A stuck cruise ship, two tugboats and some spam

  • 4,500 number of people stuck on a Carnival cruise ship off the coast of Mexico  after the engines were damaged in a fire
  • two number of tugboats pulling the damaged cruise ship to shore (at a somewhat speedy four miles an hour)
  • 100’s number of cans of Spam passengers of the ship now have after the Coast Guard dropped off some supplies source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Nov 2010 22:07

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U.S.: Protip to teenagers: Text a lot and you’ll get high, drunk and laid

  • cause Teenagers like to text each other a lot, and some of them send over 120 a day (five an hour). Us old people won’t understand the reasoning behind this.
  • effect Those teens are more likely to take drugs, drink alcohol and have sex. Translation: They get invited to all the good parties because they text so much. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Nov 2010 00:02

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U.S.: Creepbag homophobic stalker dude Andrew Shirvell fired

  • creepy Michigan assistant attorney general Andrew Shirvell famously got infatuated with a gay University of Michigan student and wrote a hate blog about him. He then showed up on Anderson Cooper’s show, and some magic happened.
  • idiotic An investigation showed a few things: Shirvell was doing much of his blogging and harassment while on the job, he sat outside the guy’s home at 1:30 in the morning, and he stalked the guy’s friends around Ann Arbor. So, yeah.
  • fired In reaction to all this information (and let’s not forget the fact that he lied to investigators), Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox fired Shirvell today. Shirvell’s lawyer hilariously blamed “the liberal media” for his client’s firing. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Nov 2010 13:44

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U.S.: Four Loko banned in Michigan: Get your blackouts somewhere else

  • “Blackout in a Can” is losing the PR battle. So, it appears that Four Loko is about to become persona non grata in convenience stores across Michigan, as the state has banned the drink altogether (along with 55 other alcohol-plus-energy-drink concoctions) in the wake of a sexual assault case involving Four Loko. “Until further research is done by the FDA, they should no longer be on Michigan shelves,” said Michigan Liquor Control Commission Chairwoman Nida Samona. The makers of Four Loko are protesting the decision. (photo via ghostdad) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

06 Nov 2010 12:00

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U.S.: Oscar Grant death: Oakland gets unruly after yesterday’s sentencing

  • 1,000+ number of letters the judge received recommending a harsh sentence for BART officer Johannes Mehserle
  • 152 people arrested in Oakland last night in the wake of the light sentence for Mehserle source
  • » Why was the sentence so light? Well, a few things. First, Superior Court Judge Robert Perry felt that the cop had “tons of remorse” for his actions, and that lots of evidence suggested Oscar Grant’s killing was accidental. “I did the best I could with this case,” Perry said yesterday. “My decisions today will not be well-received by many people. I’m sorry for that.”
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

06 Nov 2010 11:38

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U.S.: Waste of time: The TSA’s coming ban on printer ink cartridges

  • Let’s admit a basic fact here: If you’re a passenger carrying a printer ink or toner cartridge on a plane, you’re probably a terrorist. It’s such a weird thing to be carrying on a plane in the first place that we can feel safe in saying this. This will inconvenience nobody except printer and printer ink manufacturers. Even so, when the TSA bans this device, it’s going to be a huge waste of time, because now that al-Qaeda knows that the TSA knows about it, they’ll never use it again. This, friends, is called security theater and won’t actually keep anyone safe. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Nov 2010 10:53

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U.S., World: India trip: Obama chooses Mumbai hotel attacked by terrorists

  • We visit here to send a very clear message that, in our determination to give our people a future of security and prosperity, the United States and India stand united.
  • President Barack Obama • Explaining why he chose to stay in, of all places, a Mumbai hotel that was infamously attacked back in 2008. Around 30 staff members and guests at the Taj were killed in November 2008, out of 164 overall deaths. Beyond commemorating the memories of those killed in the terrorist attack, dude’s working out some deals on his tour of India, including a $4.1 billion agreement to buy military transport planes from Boeing which would support 22,000 jobs. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 21:54

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U.S.: Depressing proof of Gulf Oil Spill’s ecological destruction, right here

  • “I think we have the smoking gun.” The Gulf Oil Spill hasn’t been in the news too much lately, but we’ve been making an effort to post about it as often as we find stuff. In this case, a bunch of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers happened to find evidence of environmental damage caused specifically by the Deepwater Horizon crapfest. See that thing wrapped around those ugly, blackened branches of coral? That’s a starfish. (In case you’re curious, you can find more photos from the research right here.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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