Clipmarks | Kauaiguy's Pops

30 things I do not understand about airport security

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:37:53 GMT

clipped by: petercasier

Clip Source: www.theroadtothehorizon.org

I am a frequent traveller. A very frequent traveller. With questions.

1. Why can I not go through security with a flask of aftershave, but can buy all the aftershave I want in the duty free? If duty free goods are screened in a different way, why can my check-in luggage not be screened in the same way?

4. How come I have to put things like a deodorant and toothpaste in a sealed zip-lock plastic bag, but no-one ever sees the bag tucked in my carry-on?

Tags: airport, airport security, security, flying, travel, airlines, airplane

Hmmm, this pretty much sums up the mainstream media problem...

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:45:05 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Not really humour, more satire.

Clip Source: mail.google.com

Tags: satire

We Didn't Start the Fire: Wall Street Meltdown

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:59:20 GMT

clipped by: rmowery

Clip Source: mashable.com

View

We Didn’t Start the Fire

October 13, 2008 - 1:52 am PDT - by Pete Cashmore Add a Comment

[Video]

I don’t blame my fellow 20-something tech bambinos for striking the match that burned down our money-tree last week. The VCs aren’t to blame either.

No, if you’re looking for an anthem for the web crash, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” isn’t it. Try instead, Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. Better still, pick the remixed version (above), which points the finger of blame in the right direction.

What makes this doubly apt: we were humming the same tune in the good old days, too.

Tags: wall street, billy joel, meltdown, start fire, cyprus gang, economy

Al Franken Moving Up

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:43:40 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.time.com

Not So Funny

If running for Senate were an Olympic event, Franken would win. If it were a battle of wills or a name-recognition poll or some kind of nerdy trivia battle, he'd win those too. Even if it were just a question of having people agree with your policies, he'd win a Senate seat in the state, where Barack Obama is ahead of John McCain. But getting elected means making people believe you can relate to them, and that's why Franken — writer, actor, comedian, talk-show host and longtime denizen of Saturday Night Live — is running behind Republican Senator Norm Coleman.

And at that moment, Franken is an unbeatable politician. Not because he's funny or smart. But because all the people in the room know he understands them.

Tags: franken, politics

Blaming the Victim

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:42:19 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: It seems it's become de rigueur for the Conservatives to blame the victims these days. IMO, it shows how out of touch these conservative pundits truly are.

BTW, for those not familiar, the SPLC is a watchdog organization dedicated to exposing hate groups and suing them out of business. They've done impressive work particularly against the KKK and the American Aryan party.

Clip Source: www.splcenter.org

Fox’s Cavuto Wins SPLC’s Dobbsy Award for Pinning Blame on Minorities for Mortgage Crisis

The first wave of nominations are in, and one man stands head and shoulders above the rest to claim our inaugural Dobbsy Award – Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

The host of “Your World with Neil Cavuto” used his program to put the blame for the subprime mortgage meltdown squarely where he believes it belongs – on the shoulders of poor minorities who have dared try to own a home. In doing so, Cavuto has exemplified what it means to be a Dobbsy winner – a “mainstream” figure who makes utterly false or misleading statements that denigrate or defame an entire group of people.

That’s right. In Cavuto’s world, the real problem isn’t Wall Street greed or lax federal regulation of reckless banking behemoths. No, it’s all a matter of those irresponsible minorities who were willing to destroy the country’s economy for a two-bedroom home in the ‘burbs.

Krugman Wins Nobel in Economics

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:09:21 GMT

clipped by: Wisco
clipper's remarks: Look for the right to really hate this. It gives you an idea of just how devalued unregulated markets and supply-side economics has become.

It's too bad it took a market-failure to finally kill it off.

Clip Source: afp.google.com

US economist Paul Krugman, a fierce critic of President George W. Bush's handling of the global financial crisis, on Monday won the 2008 Nobel Economics Prize.

The 55-year-old Princeton University professor, and a New York Times columnist, has worked intensely on the impact of free trade and globalisation, as well as the driving forces behind urbanisation, the Nobel citation said.

The financial turmoil, which has sent shares crashing, has cast a shadow over this year's prize and after his triumph, Krugman said he was "extremely terrified" by the crisis, Sweden's TT news agency reported.

"I'm happier about it now than I was five days ago. I was extremely happy with the European summit yesterday (Sunday), so I'm feeling better today, but it's still terrifying," he said.

"I never thought I would see anything that looked like 1931 in my lifetime, but in many ways this crisis does," he added.

Tags: news

It's Gonna Be a Landslide, Folks

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:25:45 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Freakin' INDIANA is a swing state!

Clip Source: www.indystar.com

Palin to visit Indianapolis area Friday

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, will hold a rally in the Indianapolis area Friday.

The visit will be Palin's first visit to Indiana. McCain last visited the state July 1, when he spoke to a convention of the nation's sheriffs in Indianapolis.

Palin's visit will come a little more than a week after McCain's opponent, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, held a rally that was attended by about 21,000 people at the State Fairgrounds. Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, was in Southern Indiana in September.

A recent Indianapolis Star/WTHR (Channel 13) poll showed Obama leading McCain 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters in Indiana.

Palin's rally will be a ticketed event. Details on how to get tickets will be announced later.

Tags: hoosiers!

The Great Iraqi Oil Auction for the Spoils of War

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:40:43 GMT

clipped by: blueridge
clipper's remarks: 'Hey bidder, bidder'..40 billion barrels of oil on the auction block and access to 40 percent of Iraqi oil reserves.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Iraqi government fuels 'war for oil' theories by putting reserves up for biggest ever sale

· BP, Shell and Exxon in meeting with minister
· Unprecedented 40bn barrels up for grabs

The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London.

BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani.

Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation's reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces.

Two smaller agreements have already been signed with Shell and the China National Petroleum Corporation, but today's sale will ignite arguments over whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a "war for oil" that is now to be consummated by western multinationals seizing control of strategic Iraqi reserves.

Tags: iraq war, oil, neoconservatives, bush

"Arming" for Armageddon

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:44:21 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Militant Joel's Army Followers Seek Theocracy under Christian Dominionism.

Clip Source: www.splcenter.org

'Arming' for Armageddon

Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors.

To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars

Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes.

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.

Tags: dominionism, joel's army, theocracy, militancy

Are men smarter than women?

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:28:30 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: So women have a self-esteem problem?
I'm not advocating for self-esteem training and therapy. I think that many of the self-help gurus argue incorrectly that improved self-esteem increases performance. Helping people to perform better increases their self esteem. Giving a kind of carte blanche to self-esteem isn't a good idea in my mind. Rather, I think it should be that increased performance and feedback on the causes of that performance, ability or effort raises self-esteem. As I said, in primary and secondary schools, girls are outperforming boys. And where appropriate, their self-beliefs, hopefully, are increasing.

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

A British researcher reports that the male ego is often larger than his actual IQ

Are men smarter than women? No. But they sure think they are. An analysis of some 30 studies by British researcher , a professor of psychology at University College London, shows that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ. But women, it seems, underestimate their own candlepower (and that of women in general), while men overestimate theirs.

Universally, men tend to score higher on certain specialized skills, such as spatial awareness. In the real world, that means they might be better at reading maps or navigating. Women score higher in terms of language development and emotional intelligence

So do most men think they're Albert Einstein?

There certainly is a greater male ego. It's what we call the male hubris and female humility effect

Do women tend to think that men are smarter than they are?

Surprisingly, [both] men and women perceive men being smarter across generations

Tags: news

WANT TO USE IT? PAY FOR IT YOURSELF! Health care (lack of) for the impoverished takes a back seat.

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:00:19 GMT

clipped by: ianschneider
clipper's remarks: AS if this "Associate Professor" (I am bowled over) does not have to namedrop a school from the city where I first went to school, CHICAGO, he drops "the University that today has added yet another Nobel Prize winner in the sciences for the US" anyway.
Three million dollars? If the benefit to the "children" is so great, let the parents of Chicago, the parents of Illinois or, BEST YET, the people who attend such science events, AS I OFTEN DID AT THE AMAZING CHICAGO MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & INDUSTRY pay for it. My parents took me to that museum, with the submarine and the NYC apartment sized washing machine. I think we paid, like, an ADMISSION AT THE DOOR.
Last year I could not come CLOSE to paying for the Health care I was prescribed. I could not come close to affording my medication. Frankly, I could not care less about a parent actually having to pay a dollar a child to get into the museum where people suffering FAR WORSE than I am could use that money simply to LIVE AND BREATHE.
T

Clip Source: content2.clipmarks.com

I am an Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Chicago (the University that today has added yet another Nobel Prize winner in the sciences for the US). I would like to comment on Sen. McCain's statement during the today's debate that Sen. Obama has earmarked "$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

The way Sen. McCain has phrased it suggests that Sen. Obama approved spending $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment (overhead projector).

The 3 million is actually for an upgrade of the SkyTheater - a full dome projection system, which is probably the main attraction of the Adler Planetarium and is quite sophisticated and impressive piece of equipment.

I find it appalling that Sen. McCain would call a science education tool for public (largely children) for
a historic planetarium with millions of visitors a year a wasteful earmark.

Tags: entitlements, earmarks, science, health, healthcare

Over 70 Percent Of CEOs Fear An Obama Presidency Will Be A Disaster

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:35:37 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: “Overall, many CEOs are concerned about the future of the U.S. economy and its ability to compete in the global market, but they look to John McCain and hope that this self-described political maverick may yet shake up established thinking and not give into to the tired policies of the past,” concluded Kopko

Clip Source: www.chiefexecutive.net

Even though CEOs rated McCain’s policies over Obama’s in the most recent polling, their support came with reservations, as can be witnessed by the B- grade given to McCain’s overall policies. McCain received strong marks for defense and foreign policy but only a C+ on energy, environment and education. Conversely, Barack Obama’s overall plan received a barely passing C- with four out of eight policy areas receiving D grades. Neither candidate received an A.

Policy Areas	Grade for Obama	Grade for McCain
Energy Policy	C-	C+
Economic/Fiscal Policy	D+	B-
Foreign Policy	D+	B
Defense Policy	D+	B+
Environmental Policy	C+	C+
Educational Policy	C+	C+
Tax Policy	D	B-
Healthcare Policy	C-	C+
OVERALL	C-	B-

In expressing their rejection of Senator Obama, some CEOs who responded to the survey went as far as to say that “some of his programs would bankrupt the country within three years, if implemented.” In fact, the poll highlights that Obama’s tax policies, which scored the lowest grade in the poll

Clip Source: www.clubforgrowth.org

Tags: ceo's ratings, presidential candidates, mccain, obama, u.s.competition, global economy, policies on tax, decrease governmental spending

Cost of Global Warming equivalent to solving ALL the major problems in the world 3x over

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:40:00 GMT

clipped by: infopunk
clipper's remarks: Details not included in this short clip.

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

To make a simple comparison, the UN estimates that for about £40 billion annually, we could solve all major basic problems in the world - we could give clean drinking water, sanitation, basic education and healthcare to every person in the world.

efforts to reduce the speed of global warming will cost huge sums of money and have a pitifully tiny effect

global warming's total cost will be only about one half of 1 per cent of the net worth of the 21st century; that is the current worth of all the wealth projected to be generated in this century.

£100 billion annually for the rest of the century.

best-case scenario

temperature at the end of the century would be 2.4532342C. The effect is a difference of about 0.00038C - or about one three-thousandth of a degree in a hundred years.

This is the equivalent of delaying the temperature increase by the end of the century by a little less than a week.

But instead we are spending a fortune achieving almost nothing.

we have to come to our senses.

Tags: global warming, poverty, climate change

US CAPITALISM - ANTI DEMOCRATIC

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:18:33 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Privatization of Profits and the socializing of loss

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism is Being Exposed

Bretton Woods was the system of global financial management set up at the end of the second World War to ensure the interests of capital did not smother wider social concerns in post-war democracies. It was hated by the US neoliberals - the very people who created the banking crisis writes Noam Chomsky

THE SIMULTANEOUS unfolding of the US presidential campaign and unraveling of the financial markets presents one of those occasions where the political and economic systems starkly reveal their nature.

Passion about the campaign may not be universally shared but almost everybody can feel the anxiety from the foreclosure of a million homes, and concerns about jobs, savings and healthcare at risk.

These steps predictably increased the frequency and depth of severe reversals, which now threaten to bring about the worst crisis since the Great Depression.

John McCain will DESTROY Healthcare in America

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:22:24 GMT

clipped by: glennbah

Clip Source: www.youtube.com