Liberal Times

I’m sure you’ve seen the High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) commercials paid for by the corn industry where they basically accuse family members of being brain dead for not wanting to eat their factory produced garbage. Some smart people have come up with some funny parodies…

The TRUTH about HFCS:

It’s amazing how much Michael Jackson I heard over this weekend of Pride generated amplified sound. I grew up with him, Beat It is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a child. It’s interesting now going back and watching some of his older videos. The man was really amazingly talented. Smooth Criminal was one of my favorites, thank god for Youtube because I can watch the 10 minute longform version of the video again for the first time in 15-20 years.

I’m not feeling much of anything about his passing other than some nostalgia for his older music. Watching his videos now though the amazing talent that was inside him in his 20’s and 30’s is pretty impressive.

Today news has come out that the Credit Card companies have decided to hurt their customers as retribution for the passage of the new credit card rules that were written into law earlier this year.

Are you doing everything you can to fire bad companies?

Close your accounts with credit card companies that treat you poorly. Move your balances to credit card companies that provide you with more favorable terms. Don’t let them walk all over you.

Shooting into a crowd of peaceful civilian protestors and hitting a young women with roof top snipers.

The video is upsetting to watch, this young woman dies so quietly. Sometimes we should rightfully be upset…

I’m not normally a fan of Jib Jab… but this is actually pretty good…

I consider it somewhat shocking to read this morning on the Drudge Report that ABC News is going to let the White House anchor a night of their News.  So I began to investigate the claims made in the Drudge Report piece and by the RNC:

Dear Mr. Westin:

As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC’s astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform “town hall” at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news “will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.” This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.

Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party’s views to those of the President’s to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party’s opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

Respectfully,
Ken McKay
Republican National Committee
Chief of Staff

Oh how rich!

Ring! Ring!

Hello? Kettle residence.

Pot here.  You’re black!!!!

*click*

The irony of the Republicans complaining about media domination by one party is apparently beyond Mr. McKay.  While the Republicans have worked for thirty years to abolish the FCC mandated equal time provisions, now that they’ve finally achieved what they were looking for they’ve found themselves on the outside looking in.

Despite my personal glee in knowing that the Republicans are getting exactly what they deserve in this case, I have to begrudgingly agree with them that it is wrong for ABC News to turn over the keys to the White House for the night.   It is a principled stand to continue demanding truth in reporting and unbiased viewpoints from news services, even when the current bias benefits us.

Bring back the equal time and fairness doctrines!

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the right to marry extends to everybody, including gays.    The Unanimous ruling has of course upset life intruding conservatives that feel the need to force their hate filled values onto the rest of society.

Today’s decision makes Iowa the first Midwestern state, and the third in the country, to allow same-sex marriages. Lambda Legal, a gay rights group, financed the court battle and represented six couples who challenged Iowa’s 10-year-old ban on gay marriage.

Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the unanimous decision, at one point invoked the court’s first-ever decision, in 1839, which struck down slavery laws 17 years before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of a slave owner to treat a person as property.

Iowa’s gay marriage ban “is unconstitutional, because the county has been unable to identify a constitutionally adequate justification for excluding plaintiffs from the institution of civil marriage,” Cady wrote in the 69-page opinion that seemed to dismiss the concept of civil unions as an option for gay couples.

It is a great day for America when we extend rights to include classes of people who had previously gone without those rights.

DesMoinesRegister.com

It has been years since I ordered pizza from Dominos.   Today though I saw the $5 ea. for three pizza deal they have and I decided to give it another try.   I remember getting Dominos when I lived in Southern California as a child, but I hadn’t had it for years due to the ever decreasing quality of their pizzas.

The three pizzas I got:
Deep dish Italian Sausage.
Original Crust Pepperoni
Thin & Crispy Crust Bacon

Well, time hasn’t changed anything, their pizzas are still awful.  For the same price I could have bought frozen pizzas that would have tasted better.  Frescheta, Di Giorno, Red Barren, hell… I would’ve enjoyed a Tino’s $1 frozen pizza more than the thin crust pizza.

Dominos current marketing scam of “30 You Got It” hearkens back to the days when Dominos had a 30 minute delivery guarantee in the 80s.  It was this amazing “it’s there in 30 minutes or it’s free” promise that made them into the huge success that they became.

Apparently realizing their pizzas can’t win on taste they’ve tried to return to this marketing scheme.  However you’ll notice at the bottom of their website they don’t gaurantee on time delivery… in fact, they don’t promise you anything.  Mine arrived almost an hour after the order was placed despite living only 3 miles away from the location and only having three stop signals between us and them.

I wish I hadn’t paid for the terrible pizza they delivered.  Over salted, cheese that seems processed and fake, luke warm,  bland sauce, boring cardboard crust.

Pure garbage.

If you want  cheap delivery go with Pizza Hut.  If you want high quality (more expensive) pizza go with Round Table.  If you want to save money over all and get a higher quality product just get an “expensive” $6 frozen pizza from the grocery store.

As the public’s incredulous uproar continues The Economist has an interesting take on the financial crisis:

As the uproar grew, lawmakers began crafting bills that would impose taxes of up to 100% on the bonuses. Andrew Cuomo, New York’s hyperactive attorney-general, entered the fray, slapping subpoenas on the firm and muttering about possible fraud. His office stoked public ire by revealing that 73 employees had received over $1m, and that $57m of its “retention” payments were earmarked for staff it planned to lay off. At the hearing, Mr Liddy said he had asked all those who received more than $100,000 to give back at least half, and that some—no doubt motivated by death threats and the unwelcome attention of paparazzi—had offered to return the full amount. But he also worried that they would leave AIG, making it harder to manage the toxic financial-products business.

Shocking though the bonuses have been, they pale in comparison with the $49.5 billion of payments that AIG has made to counterparties in its disastrous foray into credit-default swaps—many of them foreign banks (see chart). This was no accident: it was precisely bailing out these trading partners that the government viewed as necessary to avoid a systemic meltdown. Still, the transfers—including almost $13 billion to Goldman Sachs, making it, as one newspaper put it, a “charity case”—are likely to receive more scrutiny as the bonus storm subsides.

You can read the rest of the article here.