Mitt's Making Friends

At least he didn’t use the phrase “You people”.

Mitt Romney’s Anglo-Saxon Disaster Tour 2012 rolls on as the Telegraph reports on Romney’s efforts at diplomacy in advising the Brits on how to run an Olympics.

But [Romney] told US television there were “disconcerting” signs about Britain’s readiness. “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out,” he said. “There are a few things that were disconcerting: the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”

G4S, a private security company, provided thousands fewer staff than were expected, forcing the armed forces to fill the gap. British immigration officers had threatened to go on strike during the Olympics, but this ultimatum was called off on Wednesday. The Government insists that all preparations have been made and the event will be a success.

Nonetheless, Mr Romney questioned the enthusiasm of the British public. “Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment?” he asked. “That’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.”

What a mensch, our Mittens.  It’s a good thing the GOP has a presumptive nominee who didn’t go over to the London games and embarrass the country or anything, trashing the President while overseas, making mildly racists remarks or insulting one of our oldest allies.  That was certainly close.

Next time, can we just send Rafalca Romney on over?

That's One Clever Little Kid

I bet this little guy has a bright future ahead of him, as long as he doesn't let his ability go to the dark side.  From USA Today:

At least five members of the British airline Jet2.com have been suspended after an 11-year-old runaway managed to board a flight to Rome without a passport, boarding card or ticket, theManchester Evening News reports.

The boy, named Liam, apparently slipped pass five control points at Manchester Airport on Tuesday by latching onto another family.

Britains's Transport minister, Justine Greening calls the incident 'incredibly concerning," the Evening News reports.

The newspaper says Liam apparently ran away from his mother while she was shopping near the airport and passed through security checkpoints without being asked for documents.

The newspaper says Liam then headed for a departure lounge and followed a family boarding the Jet2.com flight LS791 to Rome.

He charmed a few passengers, but eventually they figured out what was going on and alerted staff.  For as many things that could have gone wrong with a kid leaving his mom near an airport, this is a relatively good ending.  

Running From The Cops With Kids Underwear, Prescription Pills And A Wig Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son

Springfield, Mo. - A man wanted by The Greene County Sheriff's Department on a felony forgery charge was busted in Iowa with children's underwear, prescription pills, a wig, a ski mask and more than 4-thousand dollars in cash. 

The new information is in a probable cause statement filed in Greene County. The filing says Ronald Richard Reed was living in Strafford under the name of Stanley and/or Gary Wills last November. The man born in 1944 or 1945 lived and worked on a farm in Strafford. Law enforcement started looking into his background after Reed's employer asked him to fill out a W-4 form for tax purposes.

It happens that he has previous crimes on his record, related to indecent behavior towards kids.  He is a non-compliant registered sex offender in Colorado.  The best authorities can release, he is currently in jail in Iowa, which is hunky dory with me.

Whatever he was planning, it wasn't good.  I hope he cools his heels for a long time.

Inside Job, Outside Reality

The deadly Aurora, Colorado massacre that claimed 12 lives and destroyed dozens more last week is all just a plot to allow Obama to murder your family because TREE OF LIBERTY or some crazy nonsense, or so the nutjobs on the right believe.  MoJo's Tim Murphy:

All indications from the Aurora Police Department are that Batman gunman James Holmes acted alone, for reasons that have yet to be established. But Larry Pratt—the president of Gun Owners of America, a far-right Second Amendment group that's backed by prominent people like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—has a different theory. Pratt believes the timing of Holmes' rampage, which left 12 people dead and 58 wounded, seemed designed to coincide with the upcoming negotiation of the United Nations Small Arms Treaty. A press release sent out to radio bookers on Tuesday advertising Pratt's availability noted that, "In an article posted at The New American…one expert even outlined a theory that Holmes didn't act alone, but was possibly 'enlisted' to carry out his violent act." Pratt, the publicist stated, was free for interviews on Holmes' "impeccable" timing.

Awesome.   Oh, it gets worse:

…In other words, this has all the signs of Fast & Furious, Episode II. I wouldn't be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there's no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to "do something!" Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it's never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.

You know, I'm personally getting sick and tired of the binary view on firearms that there's no possible middle ground between "unlimited access to lethal weapons" and "your family will be murdered."   I'd love for these Second Amendment morons to hang out in the inner city of any major American urban center for 24 hours and then tell me that what they need on the bad side of MLK Boulevard is more firearms.  Aurora massacres happen daily in this country, they're just not reported because the victims aren't fresh-faced (and caucasian) teenagers at the suburban cineplex.

Besides, the same people who are screaming that "We need more guns!" are the first to say "Well, the thug-ass punk deserved it" to the victims whenever there's the police actually shooting and killing people.  They have no problem with those particular incidences of "government genocide".

If a law was passed tomorrow that automatically limited gun ownership to registered Republicans, none of these cats would blink an eye, ya know?

Keystone To The Election, Part 2

The Justice Department is looking into Pennsylvania's voter ID law, with every day important now as Republicans there are trying to eliminate as many valid Democratic voters as possible in order to win by default.  The impact in urban Philadelphia could be far worse than previously thought as potentially more than 40% of the voters there could lose their right to vote this November.

The number of Pennsylvanians who might not have the photo identification necessary to vote this November has more than doubled: at least 1,636,168 registered voters, or 20 percent of Pennsylvania voters, may not have valid PennDOT-issued ID, according to new data obtained by City Paper. In Philadelphia, an enormous 437,237 people, or 43 percent of city voters, may not possess the valid PennDOT ID necessary to vote under the state's controversial new law.

“Those are the numbers we sent,” says Nick Winkler, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, when asked to confirm the data. “If you want to add them together, I think it's misleading.”

The new data, received and processed by the AFL-CIO, for the first time includes voters who had PennDOT licenses that have (as of Monday) been expired since Nov. 6, 2011 or an earlier date. If those people do not renew their licenses, the licenses will be expired by at least one year on election day and thus invalid under the new law. And because the AFL-CIO's voter file (which shows the already-publicized large number of voters with no PennDOT record) is seven months old, it could actually represent an undercount since it does not address whether those who have registered as voters since January have valid ID.

In other words, as many as 1.6 million Pennsylvanians could be forced to cast provisional ballots, ballots that will almost certainly not count and will be thrown out.  Only 62% of those ballots were counted in 2008, and that was when the number of provisional ballots cast nationwide was 1.7 million.   There's no way that all those voters reasonably could comply with getting their ID shown in person at the election board office within six business days, all but guaranteeing that hundreds of thousands of provisional ballots will be rejected and these voters will lose their right to vote.

More importantly the loss of hundreds of thousands of votes in urban areas will hurt Democrats far more than Republicans, all but assuring Republicans maintain permanent majorities in these states.  But "protecting the integrity" of a handful of votes is more important than taking the right to vote away from millions across the country in 2012, millions of Democratic votes, especially.

This is how Republicans plan to win it all in November and all but eliminate the Democrats from power.

StupidiNews!

• For the first time since last week's deadly massacre in Aurora, Colorado, neighbors of suspect James Holmes are being allowed to return to their apartment building.
• The USDA is predicting this summer's drought could raise prices on meat and dairy by 5% or more this year as feed harvests wither in the fields.
• The FBI will investigate the shooting of an unarmed man Friday by police in Anaheim, California that continues to spark violent protests and demonstrations in the city.
• Banking giant Citigroup is now predicting a 90% chance that Greece will leave the euro currency by the end of 2013 as the country's finances continue to deteriorate.
• Some 97% of Greenland's ice sheet is thawing this year as scientists warn repeated summers like this could accelerate ocean levels rising.

Last Call

What's better than a Scottish couple tying the knot complete with kilt?  Same-sex Scottish couples tying the knot with double the kilts.  The BBC:

Scotland could become the first part of the UK to introduce gay marriage after the SNP government announced plans to make the change.

Ministers confirmed they would bring forward a bill on the issue, indicating the earliest ceremonies could take place by the start of 2015.

Political leaders, equality organisations and some faith groups welcomed introducing same-sex marriage.

But it was strongly opposed by the Catholic Church and Church of Scotland.

The announcement was made in the wake of a government consultation which produced a record 77,508 responses.

Same-sex couples in Scotland currently have the option to enter into civil partnerships and the Holyrood government has insisted no part of the religious community would be forced to hold same-sex weddings in churches.

Slàinte, Scotland, and here's to making this a reality across the highlands and the entire UK (nudge, nudge) and good on ya.

He's Off The Market, Ladies

North Korea's most eligible bachelor has tied the knot, folks.

North Korea’s state-run news media ended weeks of speculation about the identity of the poised young woman seen with the young leader Kim Jong-un at various recent public events, announcing Wednesday that she is his wife.

The North’s Central TV showed Mr. Kim attending a ceremony honoring the completion of an amusement park in the capital, Pyongyang, with the woman, and identified her as “Comrade Ri Sol-ju, wife of Marshal Kim Jong-un,” South Korean officials said. 

A North Korean state-run radio station also identified the woman as Mr. Kim’s wife. There were no official accounts, however, of when the marriage took place. 

The images were a major shift for North Korea. During the rule of Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, most ordinary North Koreans had never seen their first lady on television; many defectors in that era did not know her name or those of any of the leader’s children. Kim Jong-un himself was widely seen for the first time only in 2010, when he was formally introduced as successor to the leadership. 

In recent weeks, North Korean media has shown the woman, stylishly dressed and stately in manner, accompanying Mr. Kim to several state functions. She smiled warmly at people cheering at Mr. Kim and looked at ease while she talked to old generals and foreign dignitaries based in Pyongyang. 

The couple attended a July 6 concert that featured Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. They later visited a kindergarten together, and paid respects at the Kumsusan mausoleum where Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, and his grandfather, the North Korean founding president Kim Il-sung, lie in state. 

Somebody right now at the CIA's North Korea desk is banging their head against the wall going "A WOMAN?!? WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THAT!" and scrapping plans for one really cute robot companion/double agent.

Oh well.  Maybe she'll talk some sense into the guy and he'll come around on the whole nuclear thing.

Symphony For Block Heads

Harry Reid says he has the votes to get at least 50 of 53 Democrats in the Senate to vote for a bill that would extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone making up to $250,000, putting the Republicans in a spot where they're going to have to come up with 41 votes against tax cuts for the middle class to block it.

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats will offer their Republican counterparts a choice: agree to debate legislation extending the Bush tax cuts for income up to $250,000 for one year, or prove that you’re holding tax cuts for everybody hostage to tax cuts benefiting the very wealthiest Americans alone.

It’s Congressional maneuvering for the right to control political messaging, but this particular political message is central to the election-year debate over tax equity and the extent to which the federal government should provide and pay for domestic projects from infrastructure to safety net programs that help the elderly and poor.

The outcome of the vote is in little doubt.

On multiple occasions, Republicans have refused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s request to hold sequential votes — one to extend all the Bush tax cuts for a year; one to pass the Democrats’ plan — on a majority-rules basis.

Faced with this implicit filibuster threat, Reid’s challenge is to convince at least 50 members of his 53-member caucus to vote to extend middle-income tax cuts, and other tax benefits targeted at middle class voters. He’s already signaled he’s rounded them up. That won’t be enough to force a floor debate on the issue — but it gives Democrats a specific vote they can point voters to and validate their election-year argument that Republicans are so committed to preserving low marginal tax rates for wealthy Americans that they’d rather let everyone’s taxes go up instead.

If that's the way the Village reports it, sure.   I'm betting we'll all see headlines "Senate blocks tax cut bill" rather than "REPUBLICANS block tax cut bill" if even one Democrat votes against it, which of course will happen.

We'll see very soon.

The Fall Of The House Of Jackson Part II

It's getting tricky to weed out rumors from fact when it comes to the Jackson family.  The main information paints a picture that I'll put together here, but be forewarned that details are subject to change.

Janet and other siblings confronted Paris about using her phone.  Janet tried to take the phone out of her hands, and Paris put a flat out stop to the stupid.  Sources differ, but they all agree that this little girl who has been through so much even before Michael's death, put the adult morons in their place.

There have been multiple accusations of physical altercations.  Technically, it takes very little to create an assault or domestic disturbance, but they have crossed the lines.

TMZ released a statement from Katherine's attorney, confirming what many were afraid of, that she was being held against her will:

10:31 AM  TJ's lawyer, Charles Schultz, just told the court, Katherine is unavailable and all they want is a temporary guardianship so he seems to be saying Ross is an unnecessary party.  Schultz also said there was an "incident" at the Calabasas house last night that escalated.  He added TJ is unsure Katherine is acting voluntarily

10:33 AM  Katherine's lawyer, Sandra Ribera, just said she (Sandra) has been to the house several times recently and she believes Katherine has been held against her will.

10:34 AM  The judge just ordered that MJ's 3 kids NOT be removed from California without a court order.   The judge added that TJ should file a petition for PERMANENT GUARDIANSHIP.  The judge said in addition to giving Diana Ross notice, they must also give notice to Debbie Rowe.

Tito's son was the one who went in trying to gain control over the kids today.  Let's not fool ourselves here, anyone who gets the kids gets the cash, and that's all these squabbling jackasses seem to care about.  Michael Jackson was a bit nutty, but he was one hell of a businessman.  He knew the sibs would tear his fortune apart if he let them.  Trying to overpower his wishes after his death is a low blow, and they should all be ashamed.  Nobody has said one thing about concern for the kids, yet they are all first one there if money is up for grabs.

His family is being exposed for what it truly is.  The poor man must have put up with a lot through his life, and now his mother is facing the stupidity.

A Special Place In Hell

Apparently, starving children has become the new in thing.  This has come up several times lately, and it's never clear why the child was starved, or chosen from siblings to be starved.  This is the worst case I've heard of so far, and it's in Missouri.

JOPLIN, Mo. - Two women face child endangerment charges after an emaciated three-year-old child -- who weighed just over 12 pounds, according to police -- was taken to a Joplin hospital July 1.

Joplin police arrested the child's mother, Beth A. Williams, 26, of Joplin, and her roommate Christina M. Haidle, 27, on July 21 and recommended first-degree child endangerment charges for the two after the child was taken to Freeman Hospital from the home.

Charges have since been filed by the Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney's office.

A normal weight is between 25 and 38 for a girl of this age, ever slightly higher for a male child.  They rescued a kid who may not have been half the recommended weight.  So many things develop as a child grows.  It is likely this child will feel the outcome of this starvation for years to come.  Perhaps for the rest of their life, as eyes and nerves and organs were deprived of vitamins and minerals.

I'm just horrified.  This is so wrong that I don't even have words to express the depth of it.  This is why we should risk making a call if we feel a child is in danger.  Once upon a time, people knew this kid was alive and well.  What happened?  Kids don't shrink overnight.  We must be vigilant for those who cannot save themselves.

Cease And Desist: Doing It Right

Jack Daniels has a very distinctive label.  I cannot imagine how this crossed an editor's desk without scrutiny, but author Patrick Wensink took the design for the cover of his new novel.  In times where lawsuits are expected, they instead do the coolest thing ever and just ask him to cut it out on future reprints.  In fact, they go the extra mile and offer to help him pay for a redesign if it would speed things along or a reprint was coming soon.

How is that for being polite and helpful?  You can read the letter here, and a reply from the author in which he says he appreciates the offer but his publisher will handle the cost of the redesign.  Everyone did the right thing here, following the mistake that brought it about in the first place.

I'll put the jackass tag away.  Based on the headline, I thought for sure it was going to be used today.

The Anglo-Saxon Angle

Mitt Romney's campaign showed what they're made of as his foreign policy tour continued through the United Kingdom on Tuesday. alright:  made of sad, pathetic and flimsy character that resorts to race-baiting the GOP base at the expense of America's allies.

As the Republican presidential challenger accused Barack Obama of appeasing America's enemies in his first foreign policy speech of the US general election campaign, advisers told The Daily Telegraph that he would abandon Mr Obama’s “Left-wing” coolness towards London.

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa. 

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have”. 

Romney has about 24 hours left to fire that guy, frankly.   Next time, just say "You know, you're white, we're white, you want to deal with us rather than President Django Unchained over here, okay?"  "Shared Anglo-Saxon heritage"?  Really?  Ni-CLANG clock ticks towards midnight again.

But what do you expect from the Romney campaign, having to satisfy their rabidly racist base?

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

How much does FOX News hate President Obama?

This much.



Questions?

StupidiNews!

• The heaviest rains in more than 60 years in China have triggered devastating floods and landslides near Beijing, killing at least 37.
• Activists are vowing swift legal action to overturn yesterday's vote by the Los Angeles City Council to close all of the more than 850 medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.
• As the London Olympic prepare to get underway this week, the city and its citizens are facing an unprecedented security lockdown to guard the games.
• The SEC is ready to release a new rule that would require companies to report if they received metals from conflict zones in Africa.
• Comcast picks up the pace in the cable internet speed race with Verizon, offering download speeds of up to 305 Mbps.