Judi Dench is on board. Nuf said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3530607/Lawyers-call-for-international-court-for-the-environment.html

http://www.albertotomba.com/

HARRY SMITH: When they, as they were perpetrating their attacks in the beginning, they were clearly, they said, were looking for British citizens, were looking for American citizens. Sadly, so many of the people were killed were Indians.

Badass

makes me smile. song great too.

http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/baby-ernie-has-that-attitude/

this guy makes Dan Savage look like Dear Abby-

http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/ask-blognigger-should-i-admit-to-my-wife-that-im-gay/#more-5532

A&E reality suits Steven Seagal
'Lawman' slated for late 2009 bow
By MIKE FLAHERTY
Action star Steven Seagal is heading to A&E in a reality skein that follows his life as a fully commissioned sheriff's deputy in New Orleans.

Seagal can now add "reality TV lead" to his resume, as A&E is in production on nonfiction skein "Steven Seagal: Lawman" in New Orleans.
According to the net, Seagal has been working on and off as a fully commissioned deputy with the Jefferson Parish County Sheriff's Office for nearly two decades. One of his stints found him assisting with recovery efforts during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"Lawman" also will document his life off the beat, including his musical and philanthropic activities in the Big Easy.
Seagal toplined a series of successful actioners in the '90s, most profitably in the "Under Siege" couplet. His Warner Bros. contract was not renewed in 1997; since then he has appeared mostly in straight-to-video projects and exclusively so since 2003. Most recently, he wrote and starred in "Kill Switch" for First Look Intl.; it bowed on Oct. 7.
The pickup occurs amid A&E's plan to resurrect another '90s stalwart, Patrick Swayze, in FBI drama "The Beast," which will bow in January.
"I decided to work with A&E on this series now because I believe it's important to show the nation all the positive work being accomplished here in Louisiana," Seagal said of the new venture.
Seagal "helps fight crime because he cares about the community," said Robert Sharenow, A&E's senior veep of nonfiction and alternative programming. "Lawman" is skedded for a late 2009 bow.

Conrad

November 23, 2008

From my cell I scent the reeking soul of US justice
Conrad Black


I write to you from a US federal prison. It is far from a country club or even a regimental health spa. I work quite hard but fulfillingly, teaching English and the history of the United States to some of my co-residents. There is practically unlimited access to e-mails and the media and plenty of time for visitors.
Many of the other co-residents are quite interesting and affable, often in a Damon Runyon way, and the regime is not uncivilised. In eight months here there has not been the slightest unpleasantness with anyone. It is a little like going back to boarding school, which I somewhat enjoyed nearly 50 years ago (before being expelled for insubordination) and is a sharp change of pace after 16 years as chairman of The Daily Telegraph. I can report that a change is not always as good as a rest.
However, apart from missing the constant companionship of my magnificent wife Barbara, who visits me once, twice or even three times each week and lives nearby in our Florida home with her splendid Hungarian dogs, I enjoy some aspects of my status as a victim of the American prosecutocracy.
My appeal continues. Given the putrefaction of the US justice system, it is an unsought but distinct honour to fight this out and already to have won 85% of the case and 99% of the financial case. The initial allegation against me of a “$500m corporate kleptocracy” has shrunk to a false finding against me - that even some of the jurors have already fled from in post-trial comments – of the underdocumented receipt of $2.9m. There is no evidence to support this charge.
It has been a grim pleasure to expose the hypocrisy of the corporate governance establishment, who have bankrupted our Canadian company and reduced the share price of the American one from $21, when I left, to a miraculous two cents (yes, two cents). They have vaporised $2 billion of public shareholder value; fine titles in several countries have deteriorated; and for their infamies, the protectors of the public interest have cheerfully trousered more than $200m.
US federal prosecutors, almost all of whom would be disbarred for their antics if they were in Britain or Canada, win more than 90% of their cases thanks to the withering of the constitutional guarantees of due process – that is, the grand jury as an assurance against capricious prosecution, no seizure of property without just compensation, access to counsel, an impartial jury, speedy justice and reasonable bail.
We did not know the grand jury was sitting, have never seen the transcript of its proceedings and I was denied counsel of choice by the ex parte seizure, which the jury later judged to be improper, of the proceeds of the sale of an apartment in New York that I was going to use as the retainer for trial counsel.
The system is based on the plea bargain: the barefaced exchange of incriminating testimony for immunity or a reduced sentence. It is intimidation and suborned or extorted perjury, an outright rape of any plausible definition of justice.
The US is now a carceral state that imprisons eight to 12 times more people (2.5m) per capita than the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany or Japan. US justice has become a command economy based on the avarice of private prison companies, a gigantic prison service industry and politically influential correctional officers’ unions that agitate for an unlimited increase in the number of prosecutions and the length of sentences. The entire “war on drugs”, by contrast, is a classic illustration of supply-side economics: a trillion taxpayers’ dollars squandered and 1m small fry imprisoned at a cost of $50 billion a year; as supply of and demand for illegal drugs have increased, prices have fallen and product quality has improved.
I wish to advise Lord Hurd that when I return to the UK I would like to take up more energetically than I did initially his request for assistance in his custodial system reform activities.
Obviously, the bloom is off my long-notorious affection for America. But I note from recent comment in Britain and Europe that the habit of blaming anything that goes awry in the world on the US is alive and well. However, the United States has not disintegrated and American capitalism is not dead, nor even in failing health. The recent financial upheavals have exposed the folly of the US Congress and Federal Reserve and will aggravate a cyclical recession and take some time to shake out.
The United States has just retained the riveted interest of the whole world, most of which does not wish it well, in the billion-dollar vulgarity of its election process for an entire year. And it surely has earned the respect of the world in elevating a very capable leader as the first non-white man to head any western nation.
I would be distinctly consolable if the United States really was in decline and I have more legitimate grievances against that country than do The Guardian or the BBC, but it is still a country of incomparable vitality even as its moral, judicial soul atrophies and reeks.

This is an edited version of an article by the former Daily Telegraph proprietor that appears in the current edition of Spear’s Wealth Management Survey magazine

1 Liver please


http://www.kare11.com/news/national/national_article.aspx?storyid=529950&catid=18

"Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row"

– after finally beating Jimmy Connors at the 1979 Masters following sixteen straight losses.

A story for which Napier is famous involves a delegation of Hindu locals approaching him and complaining about prohibition of Sati, often referred to at the time as suttee, by British authorities. This was the custom of burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. The exact wording of his response varies somewhat in different reports, but the following version captures its essence:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."[3]

In 1796 George Washington wrote to Alexander Hamilton:

“The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”

Z

In real life, the prosecutor who prevailed in the face of official opposition, Christos Sartzetakis (played here by Jean-Louis Trintignant), was later arrested by the junta and imprisoned and tortured. Upon the restoration of democracy in 1974 he was honored for his service and appointed to the Greek Supreme Court in 1982. Eventually he was proposed by PASOK for the presidency of Greece. He served one term as president from 1985 to 1990.

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present".

---Babatunde Olatunji

Auto Assault-12 (AA-12) Full-Auto Shotgun

It just warms my heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhDPoVm74To&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_veterans_of_World_War_I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VHKpGJX29s

'Chosen One' Rocks Paula!!!

Paula Abdul: Obama Victory Triggers Tears and Texting
By Mark Dagostino

With the election of Barack Obama, Paula Idol of American Idol will stay just that – an American. "I was crying!" she tells PEOPLE. "You feel such a sense of pride that you can't even articulate how good you feel. It's unbelievable! I have chills. I was just so excited. I was texting everyone: 'Peace has begun.' And then I was texting everyone, 'I don't have to move to Vancouver now!'" Abdul, 46, is in New York City hosting Paula Abdul's RAH Cheerleading Bowl, a high-energy cheerleading squad competition that will air New Year's Day on MTV.
S
eeing an African-American become President is something she never imagined would happen. "I prayed for it. But four years ago? Not even a thought. The only point of reference was Rev. Jesse Jackson's (campaign), which was just embarrassing. But there's a presence with this man."

While she was excited for the Clinton election back in the 1990s, it pales in comparison to Obama's election: "I just feel like the presence of this man is so calm, and so serene, and he is so confident and sure of himself. There's a calming effect that just feels so good. I feel like it's a universal shift towards kindness, towards patience, towards peace. That's the only way I can explain it.' She's also looking forward to seeing the Obama family in the White House. "I love his wife. And those little girls, I just want to squish 'em they're so beautiful!" she said. "I'll offer to baby sit anytime!"

The Possibilities of President ObamaIn historic victory, he reaches out to the loyal opposition.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

For one night at least, it was all about possibilities. Possibilities that Barack Obama, America’s new president-elect, weaved in a tapestry of patriotism and change, with his trademark eloquence — in that effortless baritone that starts from someplace down here.For one night, a night of smashing victory unseen in American politics in nearly a generation, he exuded a confident humility that was beyond his years but seemed, in him, so natural and alluring. It was a night that invited haughtiness. And make no mistake about it: His core supporters yearn for payback — over the Clinton impeachment, over what their lore says was stolen from them in 2000, over the frenzy into which each Bush initiative seemed to drive them these eight long years. But on this night, to his great credit, our new president would have none of it.

Be under no illusions: The president-elect knows where he came from and who got him to this point. “Change” has come to America, he proclaimed to a waving sea of jubilant supporters. Exactly what that change will be is not yet clear, but it would be foolish not to feel the ground beneath us shifting. Change will lean leftward. It will be statist. The questions are how far and how fast — and with his sweeping coattails that solidified Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, how far and how fast will really be up to President Obama.It is here, though, that Obama, at least for one night, was at his most gracious. He addressed himself directly to us — to conservatives and other skeptical Americans who opposed him, often stridently. On a night of glorious triumph for him and his ravenous supporters, the message could easily have been: Time for you bitter clingers to get with the program. It wasn’t. Instead, the new president spoke humbly to those whose votes he said he had not yet “earned.” He promised to be our president too — to listen with a heightened attentiveness especially when we disagree, which, to be certain, will be often.Does he mean it? Here’s hoping so. What is so unnerving is that even now, after the longest presidential campaign in American history, in a country whose deep divisions should lend themselves to the media vetting of candidates from both sides, Obama remains an enigma. The mainstream press, with its Watergate-bred self-image, its Sixties-driven J-school mission of sculpting rather than reporting news, and its intoxication by the historic moment, became Obama’s palace guard — determined to get him to the palace. Basic information about him remains unexplored: the circumstances of his birth, his immersion in a radical environment, his affiliation with a socialist political party in the mid-Nineties, his fringe opposition to medical care for infants who survive attempted abortions, and so on.Is he the quietly effective radical strongly suggested by his hard-edged record and his confederation with anti-American revolutionaries? Or is he the centrist healer of his aspirational, inspirational rhetoric? We don’t know for sure. That’s why many of us opposed him, even against a deeply flawed (albeit personally heroic) Republican, the slim prospect of whose victory was as much a source of anxiety as enthusiasm. Is Obama a Leftist revolutionary? He denies ideological mooring, insisting he is a pragmatist. That should bring some comfort, but it doesn’t really. In his formative community-organizer days, our new president mastered the groundbreaking work of Saul Alinsky, who made pragmatism the clarion call of a systematized, disciplined radicalism. Alinsky, too, rejected ideological dogmatism. He taught that the successful radical is the wolf in sheep’s clothing: burrowing into the institutions of Western capitalism, altering their character from within, seducing the society with a high-minded summons to “social justice,” “participatory democracy,” and, yes, “change.” Is Obama following this stealthy roadmap? If that is his intention, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done so more perfectly.On the other hand, people I know and respect, including some who knew Obama when he initially made history as The Harvard Law Review’s first black editor, insist that he is most decidedly not a radical. They say he is just what he now purports to be: a consensus builder whose “progressive” leanings are undeniable but do not render him deaf to persuasive arguments from the other side. On this accounting, the Ayers, Klonskys and Khalidis in his closet are to be understood not as kindred spirits but merely as voices of the hard Left that a confident Obama can hear out, and occasionally even collaborate with, while maintaining his safe, pragmatic distance.Which is right? We don’t know, or at least I certainly don’t know. But I admit to worrying. A few days ago, as the contest wended toward the finish line with the outcome no longer much in doubt, Obama asserted that he sensed a “righteous wind” at his back. Some sloughed this off as campaign cant. Others among us, having studied Obama’s background, couldn’t help but hear Chairman Mao. Is that paranoia or well-informed dread? Alas, the jury is still out, and that shouldn’t be. We ought to know the manner of man we are installing in the world’s most powerful office before the installation takes place.

Yet for one night, I was impressed. Impressed most by the dignity with which he bore the weight of his historic achievement: satisfied but not gloating, victorious but magnanimous, gratified by what he has accomplished and what it so obviously means to African Americans, but mindful of the enormous burdens he has assumed and the duties he now owes to all Americans, including the loyal opposition.Emphasis here on loyal. President-Elect Obama correctly but no less honorably said he still needed to earn our support. For our part, we need to offer our support earnestly. He is our president now, the president of our beloved nation. Too many have given their lives for this union, and too many are risking their lives for America even now, for us to shrink from honoring their sacrifice. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight President Obama when we think he is wrong. In fact, it means we must fight him. Fighting him when he is wrong will make him a better president, which in turn will make our country stronger. That’s the opposition part, and the freedom to oppose is our nation’s greatest strength. Still, the loyal part means we must support our president when we think he is right. We must meet him when he reaches out to us. We must try to guide him toward what we believe is best for national security and prosperity. Just as we demand that President Obama put America first, we must be Americans first ourselves.Our country has had an election. Our side got trounced. We’ve strayed far from our principles. We’ve too often failed to make our case even when it was right there for the making. If the best we have to offer America is Democrat-lite, Americans can’t be blamed for deciding they’d just as soon have the real thing. If we operate in stealth and incoherence, abdicating our duty to convince our fellow citizens of the rightness of measures taken for our security, they can’t be blamed for suspecting we are in the wrong. It is on us to fix these things. They urgently need fixing if we are to offer the country something worthy.For the moment, however, let’s accept defeat with the same purposeful grace President Obama exhibited in victory. And as power once again shifts peacefully from one hand to the next, from one party to the other, let’s remember how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation in human history.

— National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy chairs the FDD’s Center for Law & Counterterrorism and is the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books 2008).

Obama! Let's hope he governs as skillfully as he campaigned-Country before party.

And they both gave great speeches too.

Treasury and Federal Reserve actions:

Mar. 16: J.P. Morgan Chase's (JPM: 40.56, -0.69, -1.67%) takeover of Bear Stearns approved, with $29 billion in Federal Reserve financing.
Mar. 18: Target for federal-funds rate cut by 75 basis points to 2.25%.
May 2: In conjunction with the Swiss National Bank and the European Central Bank, amounts eligible under biweekly Term Auction Facility expanded to $75 billion from $50 billion.
July 13: New York Federal Reserve authorized to lend directly to Fannie Mae (FNM: 0.91, -0.01, -1.08%) and Freddie Mac (FRE: 1.03, +0.00, +0.00%) should such lending prove necessary.
July 15: Fannie and Freddie backstopped by feds.
July 30: Primary Dealer Credit Facility and Term Security Lending Facility extended to Jan. 30, 2009; auctions on options of $50 billion of draws on the Term Securities Lending Facility introduced; 84-day Term Auction Facility loans as complement to 28-day loans introduced; and swap line with European Central Bank increased to $55 billion from $50 billion.
Sept. 7: Fannie and Freddie placed into conservatorship.
Sept. 16: Agreed to lend AIG (AIG: 2.09, +0.18, +9.42%) up to $85 billion at a penalty rate to prevent the insurer from going bankrupt.
Sept. 19: Money-market
assets already on deposit guaranteed.
Sept. 29: Jointly announced a plan with central banks of Canada, U.K., Japan, Denmark, Norway, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland and the euro zone to provide liquidity for quarter-end reporting requirements.
Oct. 3: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 passed. The legislation authorized Treasury to acquire up to $700 billion in distressed securities.
Oct. 7: Commercial Paper Funding Facility created to provide liquidity to term funding markets.
Oct. 8: Target for federal-funds rate cut to 1.5% in an intermeeting move.
Oct. 13: Jointly announced a plan with central banks of U.K., Japan, Switzerland and Eurozone to provide unlimited liquidity to banking system and to effectively guarantee interbank loans.
Oct. 21: Money Market Investor Funding Facility created to provide liquidity to money-market investors. The New York Federal Reserve stood to provide funding for dollar-denominated certificates of deposit and highly rated commercial paper with maturities of 90 days or less; amounts can extend up to $540 billion.
Oct. 29: Target for federal-funds rate cut to 1%.
Oct. 29: A $120 billion swap line created with the central banks of Brazil, South Korea, Singapore and Mexico to ease the dollar-buying panic in those countries and elsewhere.