Friday, July 9, 2010

Paul plays with Ringo

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M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F

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Today's question:  How the heck does the Greenland ice sheet survive accelerated disintegration from projected 20°F warming by the 2090s?

I previously blogged on how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change has joined the climate realists — the growing group of scientists who understand that the business as usual emissions path leads to unmitigated catastrophe (see "Hadley Center: "Catastrophic" 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path" and below).

Back in January, the Program issued a remarkable report in January, by over a dozen leading experts, doubling their 2095 warming projection to 5.2°C. The media mostly ignored it, which is no surprise, since the media generally ignores the realists in general (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: "Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised" — 1000 ppm).

Now, the MIT study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal — The American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate (subs. req'd) — which obviously it makes it much more credible and high-profile.  Reuters has a good story on it, "Global warming could be twice as bad as forecast."  The study concludes:

The MIT Integrated Global System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model's first projections were published in 2003 substantial improvements have been made to the model and improved estimates of the probability distributions of uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections, e.g., the median surface warming in 2091 to 2100 is 5.2°C compared to 2.4°C in the earlier study. Many changes contribute to the stronger warming; among the more important ones are taking into account the cooling in the second half of the 20th century due to volcanic eruptions for input parameter estimation and a more sophisticated method for projecting GDP growth which eliminated many low emission scenarios.

[Note:  That rise is compared to 1981-2000 temperature levels.  So you can add at least 0.5 °C and 1.0 °F for comparison with pre-industrial temperatures, which I did in the headline -- see "A (Hopefully) Clarifying Note on Temperature."]

The MIT press release calls for "rapid and massive" action to avoid this. 

http://climateprogress.org/2009/05/20/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections-2/

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Men active around the household are more attractive, survey says

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From: mX
Tony Abbott
Tony Abbott shows blokes everywhere how it's done. Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Australian

DOING household chores is a far better way to woo a woman than giving chocolate or flowers, a survey has said.

Just under half of the females surveyed by appliance group DeLonghi said helping around the house was the way to their heart admitting they'd be more impressed if their partner did the ironing than took them for a weekend away or a romantic candlelit dinner.

The results come alongside the revelation that women spend 5472 hours of their lives ironing, compared with 4680 hours for men, the Daily Mail reports.

A psychologist said the findings showed women were looking for a man willing to be more active in the household.

Cary Cooper, professor at the University of Lancaster, said women still thought men didn't pull their weight at home.

"Many women are still working the double shift, doing the household chores and having a career, whereas men still have a working role primarily," he said. "What women obviously want to see is somebody who will do the chores but also have an active domestic role in the family."

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Extending unemployment

  jobs
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Attacks on census workers nearly triple since 2000

 

censusworker20091124 Attacks on census workers nearly triple since 2000

More than 500 incidents reported, up from 180 in 2000

WASHINGTON — More Americans chose to participate in this year's US census than in the 2000 survey, but workers going door-to-door to follow up have also faced more harassment, a US official said Wednesday.

Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said 72 percent of occupied US households had returned the mailed questionnaires dispatched as part of the decennial survey, up from a 67 percent response rate in 2000.

"This was a glorious success given that all survey professionals expected a lower rate," he said.

But the work of following up with those who chose not to respond proved more difficult than in 2000, with workers facing a rise in assaults and finding it harder to track people down at their homes.

Follow-up census workers went to some 47 million homes to conduct face-to-face interviews with people who failed to respond to the mailed questionnaires.

At around 22 percent of those homes, repeated efforts to elicit information failed, forcing surveyors to rely on a neighbor or building manager for information about the tenants. That was up from 17 percent in 2000.

"There are a lot of different reasons, this tracks trends in surveys," Groves said. "It's harder to get a hold of us than it used to be."

"And then there's a reluctance in that contrast between 17 and 22 (percent)... people who open the door, they're at home, and they say 'I don't want to do this.'"

The percentage of people who refused to fill out the form, compared with those who simply weren't at home, was not yet clear, Groves said. But the number of attacks on census workers appeared to be on the rise.

"I believe the up-to-date figure is now over 500," Groves said, cautioning that the figure included a wide range of incidents.

"Some of those are minor things. An angry duck attacked one of our enumerators and she has bites on one of her ankles, she will survive," he said.

But other cases were more serious, he acknowledged, and the figure appeared to be a substantial increase from the estimated 180 incidents in 2000.

"Others are horrible events, there have been carjackings, there have been assaults, folks have been shot at," he said.

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Boehner Invites Lobbyists To Help Form GOP Agenda In Intimate Meeting At His Office

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Boehner5A few months ago, House Republicans launched an effort called Americans Speaking Out, which purports to give average Americans the ability to offer their input on what Congress should do. It became quickly apparent that the enterprise was little more than a taxpayer-funded PR gimmick to help Republicans market their agenda for this fall's elections, even as they ignored any ideas they didn't already support.

Now, under the banner of Americans Speaking Out, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has summoned advice from those who he truly seems interested in listening to: lobbyists. Roll Call reports that Boehner has invited "senior Republican lobbyists and top officials from several large trade groups" to a meeting at Boehner's office to discuss "their suggestions for a new GOP agenda":

The meeting is part of the House leaders' initiative called America Speaking Out, which is intended to draw broad input to create a new policy agenda for the party to launch in the fall.

An e-mail invitation sent to more than 20 trade representatives and obtained by Roll Call summoned guests to Boehner's second-floor office on July 16 "to discuss House Republican efforts to produce a new policy agenda with a small group of trade association leaders."

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Republican Logic...

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Thursday, July 8, 2010

Why do pelicans hate capitalism?

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How Much Cyber-Parenting Must Schools Do?

Froma Harropby Froma Harrop

A boy has apparently sent filthy text messages to your daughter over the weekend. Both are sixth-graders at the same school. You, the girl's father, coach sports with the boy's father. What would you do?

a. Disconnect your daughter from all texting services.

b. Talk to the boy's father, whom you know.

c. If the father refuses to do something about it, stop socializing with him.

d. Call the police.

e. Do some combination of a, b, c and d.

f. Complain to the school principal.

This is a real-life example, and the parents chose only f.

The two students attended Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, N.J. The principal, Tony Orsini, asked the girl's parents whether they had contacted the boy's family. No. That would upset the coaching arrangement. He asked whether they had called the police. They again said no, making several excuses.

In olden days, the parents probably would have intervened personally. They could have cut off their daughter's texting capabilities and diplomatically called the other parents. Or they might have gone directly to the door of the offending schoolmate's house to make their displeasure very clear.

The more aggressive approach is best done with calm. The parents may have had no idea of their child's activities and would be grateful for the information. Or, the odious messages may have come from someone else who had found the cell phone. That had happened in the above case.

But outsourcing this parenting role to teachers and principals seems to have become the common practice. (By the way, some students also viciously smear teachers and principals on networking sites.)

Most schools understandably don't have the time or desire to monitor their charges' electronic communications. And what's a school to do when one student sends obscene texts to another from home on a weekend? Obtain a search warrant?

Suppose the principal confiscates a cell phone and finds provocative photos of the owner on it, not uncommon for those who do "sexting." The educator risks having an unhinged parent retaliate by charging him (or her) of trafficking in child pornography.

Schools have come up with varied responses to the cyber-bully problem.

A Seattle middle school suspended 28 students who ganged up on a classmate on Facebook. By contrast, a mother asked a school in Fairfax, Va., to punish students involved in a Facebook pile-up on her son and was told there was nothing it could do.

My favorite response was Principal Orsini's. He sent an e-mail to all parents that described their responsibilities.

"There is absolutely NO reason for any middle school student to be part of a social networking site," Orsini wrote. He noted that cruel 12-year-olds pose more a threat to their middle-schoolers's well-being than the adult predators of parental nightmares. And he told parents whose children were attacked through networking sites or messages: "IMMEDIATELY GO TO THE POLICE!"

Typing these words, I feel like reaching for the hand sanitizer.

http://www.creators.com/liberal/froma-harrop/how-much-cyber-parenting-must-schools-do.html

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FRANKEN V. ROBERTS

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by Jim Hightower
Way to go, Al!

At last, there's a Democrat in the Senate who's acting like a real Democrat in the FDR mold, unafraid and unabashed to go right at the corporate powers who dominate our economy, environment, media, politics, and government. Al Franken, the new Minnesota senator who won the seat once held by the fighting populist, Paul Wellstone, is shaking up the Washington establishment on behalf of regular folks. Instead of going-along-to-get-along, Franken is speaking bluntly about the raw judicial activism and corporate obsequiousness of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, a lifelong servant of the corporate agenda.

For years, I've railed about the wimpiness of Democrats who approach every Supreme Court nomination strictly from the viewpoint of such social issues as abortion and gay rights. Of course those are important, but the Dems have given nominees a free pass on the fundamental issues of steadily-rising corporate supremacy. Most Supreme Court cases don't involve hot social issues, but questions of power between moneyed behemoths and the rest of us – things like pollution of our water and air, denial of basic worker rights, abuse of consumers, and usurpation of the People's governing authority.

By not delving deeply into every nominee's record and bias on these populist questions, Democrats have allowed the judicial branch, including today's five-man majority of the Roberts Court, to become a corporate wet dream, with corporatist judges ruling routinely to expand corporate power over the rest of us.

With Al Franken, we have a leader on our side, daring to challenge the enthronement of corporations over our democracy. Of course, the Powers That Be are coming down on him – so let's bolster Al with our grassroots support. Contact him at www.alfranken.com."Excerpts from Sen. Al Franken," www.washingtonpost.com, June 28, 2010.

"Al Franken hit on the truth about the Supreme Court," www.washingtonpost.com, June 30, 2010.

"Another rhetorical strikeout from Al Franken," www.washingtonpost.com, June 23, 2010.

http://www.jimhightower.com/node/7188

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Larry Flynt Urges Sen. Vitter (R-Louisiana) to Donate "Diapers and Other Personal Items" to Assist Victims of BP Disaster

 

Hustler Publisher requests Senator to donate "diapers and other personal items" to control costly effects of the disaster. 

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – July 1, 2010 – As rough seas from Hurricane Alex delay oil clean-up operations on the Gulf Coast, Hustler Magazine publisher, Larry Flynt, in a letter to Republican Senator David Vitter today, urged the Louisiana lawmaker to personally contribute "diapers and other personal items" in an effort to control the costly effects of the eleven week old British Petroleum oil disaster.

Three years ago, Flynt and his team of investigators assisted in exposing Senator Vitter's extracurricular activities with female prostitutes. Others have reported on the Senator's penchant for diapers during his transgressions.  Vitter later apologized for his "very serious sin" after documents released by the D.C. Madam, Deborah Jane Palfrey, revealed that he had patronized her high-end, fantasy escort service.

In the letter to Vitter, Flynt acknowledges the Senator's statement that everyone does their part to solve this catastrophe.  Additionally, he suggests that, when it comes to blocking the oil that's gushing into the Gulf, Vitter might consider donating his extensive collection of diapers, known for their super absorbency, to help stop the leak by creating a giant "plug."

"Senator Vitter has gone on record claiming that the oil spill in the Gulf is 'too big of an endeavor' for one company," said Flynt. "Accordingly, in an effort to protect the coastlines and marshes on the Gulf Coast, I am asking Senator Vitter to use the personal articles that he's best known for to aid in the relief.  His experience in the discipline of 'spills' is unprecedented."

The Letter:

Senator David Vitter
516 Hart Senate Building
Washington DC, 20510
 
Dear Senator Vitter:

Forgive me for intruding on your valuable time.  I know you are a very busy man, especially in regards to the current problems in the Gulf of Mexico. But that's exactly what I want to talk to you about. I concur that everybody must do their part to solve this serious catastrophe.  And that's where I think you, in particular, can be of so much help.

As I understand it, you have some expertise regarding diapers.  I have no idea how many diapers you actually have on hand (quite a collection from what I hear) but as you know, diapers are quite absorbent. So, when it comes to blocking the oil that's gushing into the Gulf, they might be a very effective way of solving that problem. With that in mind, I urge you to donate your extensive diaper collection to BP so they can use them to stop the leak by creating, for want of a better term, a giant "plug."  

It could be a historic moment: An ecological disaster thwarted. And you'll get the credit for it.  In fact, when people hear the word "diaper" they will automatically think of you. Hell, they already do.
Please don't piss away this golden opportunity.

Sincerely,

Larry Flynt
Publisher
Hustler

News release received from Julie Messing, Director of Public Relations for the Flynt Management Group.

http://blog.buzzflash.com//node/11474

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'Climategate' review clears scientists of dishonesty over data

'Rigour and honesty' of scientists not in doubt but Sir Muir Russell says UEA's Climatic Research Unit was not sufficiently open

by David Adam

Sir Muir Russell, second left, talks to the media about his report into leaked climate change emails
Sir Muir Russell, second left, talks to the media about his report into the leaked University of East Anglia climate change emails today. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

The climate scientists at the centre of a media storm were today cleared of accusations that they fudged their results and silenced critics to bolster the case for man-made global warming.

Sir Muir Russell, the senior civil servant who led a six-month inquiry into the affair, said the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists at the world-leading Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are not in doubt. They did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism as alleged, the panel found, while key data needed to reproduce their findings was freely available to any "competent" researcher.

The panel did criticise the scientists for not being open enough about their work, and said they were "unhelpful and defensive" when responding to legitimate requests made under freedom of information (FOI) laws.

The row was sparked when 13 years of emails from CRU scientists were hacked and released online last year. Climate change sceptics claimed they showed scientists manipulating and suppressing data to back up a theory of man-made climate change. Critics also alleged that the scientists abused their positions to cover up flaws and distort the peer review process that determines which studies are published in journals, and so enter the scientific record. Some alleged that the emails cast doubt on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Announcing the findings, Russell said: "Ultimately this has to be about what they did, not what they said."

He added: "The honesty and rigour of CRU as scientists are not in doubt ... We have not found any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/07/climategate-review-clears-scientists-dishonesty

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Alyeska CEO Steps Down Following Truthout Exposé

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(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: bigweasel, Travis S.)

Kevin Hostler, the chief executive officer of Alyeska Pipeline, informed company employees Wednesday morning that he "plans to retire to Houston and to spend time with his family." 

The announcement comes one day after Truthout published an extensive investigative report that was highly critical of his leadership of the company and revealed details, based on hundreds of pages of internal documents and in interviews with more than a dozen senior employees, of severe cost-cutting measures Hostler implemented that threatened the safety and integrity of the pipeline.

According to one email, "the budget cuts over the last couple of years is creating a large 'bow wave' of deferred projects and program work ... The oversight of the integrity of the system is at risk."

"Reductions in the budgets for the Aboveground [pipeline] program; fuel gas line; and mainline pipe can place the integrity of the system at risk," the email says. "There is a risk ranking exercise that is used and the concern that the risk ranking is being used primarily for budget reductions and although work is shown as lower risk it still should be done to protect the environment."

The employee who wrote the email alleged that Alyeska's 2010 budget was cut from $680 million to $600 million on orders from BP.

Over the past several months, Alyeska Pipeline and Hostler have been under intense scrutiny by a Congressional oversight committee and an independent investigator, who has been probing explosive allegations leveled by managers that severe cost-cutting efforts could put the integrity of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) at risk.

http://www.truth-out.org/alyeska-ceo-resigns-following-truthout-expose61134

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Crack the Code in Cyber Command’s Logo

The U.S. military's new Cyber Command is headquartered at Ft. Meade, Maryland, one of the military's most secretive and secure facilities. Its mission is largely opaque, even inside the armed forces. But the there's another mystery surrounding the emerging unit. It's embedded in the Cyber Command logo.

On the logo's inner gold ring is a code: 9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a

"It is not just random numbers and does 'decode' to something specific," a Cyber Command source tells Danger Room. "I believe it is specifically detailed in the official heraldry for the unit symbol."

"While there a few different proposals during the design phase, in the end the choice was obvious and something necessary for every military unit," the source adds. "The mission."

With that hint in hand, go crack this code open.

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Resurrection of a Scandal

 
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Too Old For A Job, Too Young For Medicare Or Social Security

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Here is a fact: There. Are. No. Jobs. I'm in Silicon Valley where the official unemployment rate dipped in May to 11.2%. This dip was, of course, because of so many people just giving up trying to get a job, certainly not because of some wave of hiring. The underemployed figure, known as "U-6," is 21.7% in California, 16.7% nationally.

You have to know someone to get a humiliating job standing on a corner waving a sign. And if you are over 40, things are even worse than that. Don't give me any conservative Rush Limbaugh-Ayn Rand dehumanizing nonsense about parasitic lazy people who won't look—there are no jobs.

I know so many people here who are over 40, were laid off in the 2000-era dot com crash, still haven't found a regular job and aren't going to. They have had occasional "contract" positions—which means no benefits, no security, a 15% "self-employment" tax and no unemployment check when the job ends. And now, 10 years later they're a lot over 40 and are not going to find a job because so many employers here won't hire people over 40.

And now there are so many more who lost their jobs in the mass layoffs of 2008-2009 and can't find a job. So many of them are also over 40. In fact, many were laid off in obvious purges of over-40 workers, offered a small severance that they could only receive if they promised to take no age-discrimination action against the employer. (I don't say "company" because some of these worked at nonprofits.)

Most of these people will not find another job, but are too young for Medicare and Social Security.

One Person's Story

I ran into a friend this weekend who I hadn't seen for a couple of years. He had been a computer engineer who had been making 6 figures in the dot-com years. Laid off in the 2000 crash, he moved in with his parents back in the Midwest and worked in a bakery. He came back out here when things picked up a bit and worked in one "contract" job after another. (Contracting is just a scam to get around employment laws—but the government doesn't enforce the rules.) But now he just can't find anything. He managed to get unemployment but now that is running out. He has no health insurance. He can't afford a place to live; he "house sits" for people or visits friends, and doesn't know what he is going to do even two days from now.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010072707/too-old-job-too-young-medicare-or-social-security

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Olbermann calls on Oprah to ‘crush’ ‘racist’ Limbaugh

rush limbaugh cigar Olbermann calls on Oprah to crush racist Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh may have met his match if MSNBC Keith Olbermann has his way. Olbermann wants Oprah Winfrey to take to the air and "crush" Limbaugh.

Limbaugh suggested Tuesday that Winfrey and other African-Americans owe their success to their skin color.

"If Obama weren`t black, he`d be a tour guide in Honolulu or he`d be teaching Saul Alinsky Constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago," Limbaugh announced.

"He wouldn`t have been voted president if he weren`t black. Somebody asked me over the -- oh, I need to remember. Somebody asked me over the weekend, why does somebody earn a lot of money, have a lot of money. I said it`s because he`s black," he continued.

Limbaugh then went on to attack Winfrey. "It was Oprah. No, it can't be. Yes, it is. There's a lot of guilt out there. To show we`re not racist, we`ll make this person wealthy and big and famous and so forth," said Limbaugh.

Olbermann named Limbaugh "Worst Person in the World" Tuesday.

There it is. See, the United States is tilted in favor of black people. That`s the premise. We have made it so easy that human beings inferior to the great Rush Limbaugh, the fired by ESPN one month into his dream job, Rush Limbaugh-- inferior creatures like Obama and Oprah Winfrey have been made wealthy and big and famous and so forth. They have not earned it. They aren`t actually talented. They haven`t actually done the job.

Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama and presumably every other black person in this country has not succeed despite the fact that they`re black, when this country is still filled with racists like this homunculus Limbaugh. They`ve succeeded because they`re black, and only because they`re black.

Well, you heard it. It`s naked, ugly racism. It`s the distillation of Rush Limbaugh`s view of our country.

"The only other thing I can say is, Oprah, please, crush this schmuck," Olbermann concluded.

 
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Two More Candidates for the McChrystal Treatment

 

It's not working. Time for the president to concede that the economy is at best stagnating and at worst about to take another steep nose dive. I don't know if we are headed for another Great Depression, as Nobel Prize economist Paul Krugman dared suggest recently, but it is amply clear that the Obama strategy, inherited from George W. Bush, of bailing out Wall Street in the forlorn hope that it would repair the economic damage the fat cats inflicted on the rest of us has not worked.

The housing market remains in dire shape, and with it the nest eggs of Americans who are responding by squelching their appetite for consumption. The Wall Street hustlers were made whole, but not so the people whose home mortgages the banks are foreclosing, or businesses and their customers looking for the credit that the banks had promised to free up.

The president conceded last week that our economy is 8 million jobs in the hole despite his bailout and stimulus program. With deficits running wild, heartless Republicans get to claim that six months more of unemployment insurance to 1.7 million out-of-work people whose benefits have ended is more than we can afford.

Of course it's not. That would be a $34 billion outlay to people who would actually spend the money instead of using it for acquisitions, as the big banks have done with far larger gifts of taxpayer funds. That the Republicans who favor huge military spending and tax breaks for the rich and who launched the Wall Street bailout are being hypocritical scoundrels when they say we don't have the money to help ordinary folks is obvious. But the problem is that Barack Obama embraced the GOP strategy, and the failures of the bailouts to turn the economy around, along with the cost of two wars, are now his problems to explain.

What we need is for the president's economic hotshots, Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, to grant damaging interviews to Rolling Stone as Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently did in self-destructing. Perhaps then President Obama would have the gumption to fire the misleaders of his economic team. It was always bizarre that those two, who did so much to wreck the economy, were put in charge of the effort to salvage it. Their previous records should have provided ample warning that their economic outlook begins and ends with the demands of Wall Street.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/two-more-candidates-for-t_b_637407.html

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Welcome to Big Brother T-Shirts

The perfect shirts for all you passive-aggressives annoyed at having to take your shoes off. And other Free Speech enthusiasts.
Front pocket: Tasteful CCTV camera and store address. Back: Text "Nobody is safer when yuo make me throw away my water bottle" with an image of a guy throwing away a water bottle and a small image of an airplane.
Nobody is safer when you take my water
Front pocket: Tasteful CCTV camera and store address. Back: Text proclaiming you to be cast member #3860227 of Airport Security Theater and an image of a guy standing at the security gate.
Cast Member of Airport Security Theater
Front pocket: Tasteful CCTV camera and store address. Back: Quote by Bruce Schneier
Technology can't solve security problems
Front pocket: Tasteful CCTV camera and store address. Back: Quote by Bruce Schneier
You can only detect and respond
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