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Posts by Richard Blair
Sex for World Series Tickets?
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on October 28, 2009 at 6:46 PM.
Let’s say that you’re a woman, and you’re a die hard fan of the home team. And let’s further stipulate that you’re not a season ticket holder, and you don’t have hundreds of dollars to buy a pair of tickets for yourself and your spouse, even for the cheap seats at the local stadium. What to do, what to do? How about placing an advertisement on Craig’s List, and hope that a sympathetic person who has a couple of spare tickets will help you out?
So, you’re writing the ad. After all, you’re the assistant director of communications at a local medical facility, and like any good ad copy writer, you know one thing for sure: “sexy” sells, and gets attention (particularly on Craig’s List). You settle on the following, and hit the submit button:
DESPERATE BLONDE NEEDS WS TIX!
Diehard Phillies fan - gorgeous tall buxom blonde - in desperate need of two World Series Tickets. Price negotiable. I’m the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!
Flirtatious? Perhaps. Solicitation? Hardly. But that’s what a vice cop in Bensalem, Pa. apparently thought when he read Susan Finkelstein’s advertisement in the ticket section of Philadelphia Craig’s List.
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Economic Alert: Unemployment Jumps to 6.1%
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on September 5, 2008 at 9:00 AM.
The late Tip O’Neil got it right - at least as far as politics being connected to one’s wallet. When pocketbook issues start to slam the average American, they’re not so worried about what’s happening in Washington, only that bad policy causes their personal woes. If that’s the case, then the GOP is in a heap of trouble this year.
A few months back, when her own job was eliminated, Susie Madrack ran out the old saying, “It’s a recession when you lose your job. It’s a depression when I lose mine.”
There are a lot more people today feeling like there’s an economic depression coming. According to figures released this morning, the unemployment rate jumped to 6.1% in August, up from 5.7% in July. Not to state the obvious, but that’s almost a 1/2 percent increase in a single month. And 84,000 people lost their jobs, which is a significantly higher figure than had been predicted.
The last eight years have been a nightmare in employment markets.
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It's MBNA Joe, and I'm Underwhelmed
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on August 24, 2008 at 12:30 PM.
Joe Biden has been selected as Barack Obama’s running mate. Please excuse me if my enthusiasm level for the presidential race has dropped a notch further than it already was. While Obama has moved toward the political center in the past few months, MBNA Joe was already there long ago on most issues.
I’m not quite sure what to say, other than I’m underwhelmed.
Joe Biden (D-MBNA) was always Barack Obama’s “safe choice” for the Democratic Party VP nomination, and if nothing else, Obama had to select a running mate who was:
Obama said he wanted somebody who is “prepared to be president” and who will be “a partner with me in strengthening this economy for the middle class and working families.”
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BushCo Diplomacy: Rice Tells Putin to Grow Up
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on August 14, 2008 at 10:17 AM.
This is what U.S. international diplomacy has been reduced to after seven years of the Bush administration:
"The message is that Russia has perhaps not accepted that it is time to move on from the Cold War and it is time to move to a new era in which relations between states are on the basis of equality, and sovereignty and economic integration," Rice said Wednesday.If the smarminess of the above quote doesn't quite come through in your head, try cranking up the inner voice of the most annoying heather you ever knew in middle school, then re-read the quote.
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Karl Rove Cited For Contempt
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on July 30, 2008 at 10:03 AM.
The House Judiciary Committee voted this morning to hold Karl Rove in contempt of congress. Big deal. The entire Bush administration has held congress in contempt for the past seven years. And there is no intent on the part of the House to actually, you know, enforce the citation. So what's the point?
Wonderful.
So what?
The Bush administration has held congress in extreme contempt for the past seven-plus years. For five of those years, it didn't much matter. The past two years haven't made much of a difference either.
So, Conyer's committee cites Karl Rove for contempt of congress because he wouldn't comply with a subpoena, claiming "executive privilege". And now, the full House must vote on the citation, at least if that isn't off of Speaker Pelosi's table, too.
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Proposed Ban on "Porn" Angers Soldiers
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on May 7, 2008 at 3:13 PM.
Should congress ban the sale of Playboy and Penthouse at U.S. military installations? Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga) thinks this is a big enough problem that he needed to introduce legislation to promote a ban on such men’s magazines as “porn”. Soldiers aren’t too happy about it…
Commentary By: Richard Blair
I heard some chatter about this issue not too long ago, but didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. Looks like it’s become a big issue within the military, though:
GRAFENWOHR, Germany — Legislation that would restrict the sale of certain men’s magazines on U.S. military bases around the world would be bad for morale, according to soldiers at Grafenwöhr.
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., has introduced legislation that would close a loophole in the current law that allows the sale of some sexually explicit material on military bases by lowering the threshold required to deem material “sexually explicit.”
A Department of Defense committee that reviews materials sold on bases ruled last year that magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse are not pornographic. But Broun’s Military Honor and Decency Act includes language that could make those magazines eligible for the ban…
…Broun, a Marine veteran, told Newsweek recently that the magazines sold in military exchanges are partly responsible for a rise in sexual assaults in the military and other problems…Being a veteran myself, I’m not quite sure where to start on this - but how about - STFU, Rep. Broun. You are part of a congressional coalition that is responsible for supporting the continuing quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, and taking the men (and women) away from their families for extended chunks of time. Maybe that has just a little something to do with sexual improprieties among the military? Or perhaps because the Army and Marines have had to lower recruiting standards so low that someone with a felony on their record can now serve?
GOP Rep: 9/11 Was 'Simply' a Plane Crash
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on April 3, 2008 at 1:03 PM.
As a frequent guest on Bill Maher’s show, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca) is no stranger to putting his foot in his mouth. Generally, that’s quite alright for Issa, because his targets are mostly liberals, progressives, and pro-immigration conservatives. The other day, though, he created a bit of a firestorm when, during a committee hearing that was considering creating new funding for treatment of 9/11 workers, Issa said:
“I have to ask, why damages from a fire that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it, it simply was an aircraft, residue of two aircraft, and residue from the materials used to build this building, why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the City of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration.” …
Darrell Issa failed to apologize for expressing in the House of Representatives sentiments that nearly fit the yahoo brigade of 9/11 revisionists, minimizers and deniers.
What Issa said Tuesday was callous in the extreme…
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Dem Senator's Hubby Caught in Hooker Bust
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on April 2, 2008 at 12:03 PM.
If today was April 1st, I’d view the following story a bit skeptically. However. It’s April 2nd.
The co-founder and former CEO of the liberal-progressive Democracy Radio and husband of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow was caught in February by a Troy police sting aimed at catching prostitutes, according to a police report.
Thomas L. Athans was stopped Feb. 26 by undercover officers investigating a possible prostitution ring in a room at the Residence Inn near Big Beaver and Interstate 75. Athans paid a 20-year-old prostitute $150 for sex in a Troy hotel but was not arrested, according to police reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Detroit News…
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11-Year-Old Girl Dies When Parents Choose Prayer Instead of Medical Care
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on March 28, 2008 at 1:37 PM.
It's not a long trip down the road to drive me absolutely insane, but these kind of reports are simply too prevalent in 21st century America:
The mother of an 11-year-old rural Weston girl who died of untreated diabetes says she didn't know her daughter was terminally ill as she prayed for her to get better instead of taking her to the doctor.
Madeline Neumann died Sunday from an undiagnosed and treatable form of diabetes.
Her mother, Leilani Neumann, tells The Associated Press her daughter's condition worsened suddenly, and the parents stayed in prayer, believing she would recover...I have no problem with the parents of this young lady being religious, or even bringing up their child as such. That's a personal decision that people make when they're raising their kids. In fact, it's quite possible that Madeline was cognizant of her own illness, and due to her faith, thought that her parents were doing the right thing.
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Three Years Ago This Week: Terri Schiavo
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on March 21, 2008 at 5:10 PM.
(Ed. Note: It’s hard to believe that three years have passed since the first significant battle of the 21st century culture wars was fought. Most Americans watched on in either rapt amazement or abject horror as a brain dead woman in Florida became a symbol of all that was wrong with the marriage of convenience between the Republican Party and the fundamentalist Christian conservative base. As a reminder of what took place in March, 2005, ASZ is republishing a post, below, that should take the reader back, and once again remind all progressives of what’s at stake in 2008, in both the presidential and congressional elections.)
March 20th, 2005:
The three ring media circus over a corpse that remains technically functional, yet who’s human spirit departed her earthly bonds so long ago, continues in earnest today. As I type this blog entry, both houses of congress are poised to bastardize the limits of legislative (and perhaps moral) authority as it attempts to deal with the Schiavo case.
This whole situation has gone well beyond extraordinary. The country is going to hell in a handbasket. The planet is going to hell in a handbasket. Hundreds of thousands of functional people will die around the world today from war, state sponsored genocide, starvation, AIDS, spousal abuse, execution, gang violence, narco terrorism, and many other social causes, yet the U.S. congress would never, in a million legislative days (the measurement of time in Washington, DC), consider meeting in emergency session to deal with those issues. Never. Yet they meet today to deal with the moral question of a brain dead woman being allowed to depart this mortal coil with some modicum of decency.
The Schiavo case has gone well beyond the realm of the sublime and absurd, and entered the venue of the ghoulish. But you know what? America is getting what the majority voted for, just like ANWR. Bitch, whine, and moan all you want, but there’s not a goddamn thing you or I can do about it. Progressives do not have the media reach. We do not have the high profile pitchmen (and women) who are willing to put everything on the line and pull out all the stops to wake up a nearly completely comatose America. DOCTOR Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, makes a bullshit eighth-hand medical diagnosis for the media, and the TASS-US stenos dutifully lap it up. DOCTOR Howard Dean, newly elected chairman of the DNC, says nothing publicly.
The hypocrisy is, indeed, stunning. Liz at Blondesense comments this morning:
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Was John McCain's Al-Qaeda Gaffe a Slip of the Tongue or a Deliberate Deception?
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on March 20, 2008 at 10:36 AM.
On the heels of John McCain's recent middle east political sojourn, he made a couple of statements linking al-Qaeda to the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran. If one of the two remaining Democratic Party presidential candidates had attempted to make such a linkage, the media would have blanketed the airwaves with GOP accusations of such statements being evidence of that the Dems are light on foreign policy experience. Perhaps Fox News would even go as far as to accuse the Dems of being "deceptive".
But St. John McCain? He gets a free pass - not just for the initial malaprop in Jordan - but for two subsequent statements claiming almost the same thing.
This morning, Glenn Greenwald put together a spot-on analysis of the media's treatment of McCain on not only the Iran / al-Qaeda issue, but in general:
...The tepidness of the TV "liberal" pundits when it comes to GOP political leaders is always a major factor in the imbalance of media coverage. As this last week yet again demonstrated, conservative commentators do not display any similar reluctance when it comes to eviscerating the character and fitness of Democratic candidates.
But there's an even more distortive aspect to all of this. The reality is that John McCain's understanding of foreign policy and his approach to national security has proven to be simplistic, destructive and idiotic. Nobody spewed more pre-invasion falsehoods and confused and misleading claims about Iraq than John McCain did. And he's been the Prime Cheerleader for one of the most destructive wars in U.S. history. The notion that he has expertise in foreign policy or sound judgment is a total myth, yet it's one that his press fans accept and enforce as orthodoxy...A few weeks ago, John McCain held a private, "no news" get-together in Arizona for the media corps that follows him around the country (and apparently overseas, as well). The affair was pure schmooze, booze, bbq'd ribs, and free beer. As the McCain campaign termed it, a "thank you" to the media for following him around and providing
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A Novel Idea for Gun Control? Vasectomies for a Permit
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on March 19, 2008 at 6:26 AM.
The Supreme Court has taken up the issue of a restrictive gun control ordinance in Washington, D.C., and is hearing the case today. It goes without saying that uncontrolled handgun proliferation, particularly in urban areas, has become anathema to law enforcement agencies across the country, but don’t look for SCOTUS to uphold the D.C. ordinance.
Perhaps there are other ways, more voluntary in nature, to control the permitting, licensing, and distribution of handguns? Hmmmmmm….
A bandit-infested region of India is trying to persuade men to undergo sterilization by offering to fast-track their gun licence applications, an official said on Tuesday.
Officials in central Madhya Pradesh state’s Shivpuri district decided to adopt the policy — already tried out by some neighboring states — to increase the low vascectomy rate.
“I came to know that it had to do with their perceived notion of manliness,” said Manish Shrivastav, administrative chief of Shivpuri district, part of the Indian Chambal region, which is famed for its lawlessness and bandits.
“I then decided to match it with a bigger symbol of manliness — a gun licence,” he said. “And the ploy worked.” …
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Is It a Recession? Or a Depression? Shocking New Gallup Poll…
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on March 18, 2008 at 6:41 AM.
Negatively loaded economic terms such as "recession" and "depression" rarely make a lot of news, simply because neither is used that frequently in polite company. A Gallup poll released today, however, may actually allow these words to creep into a national discussion:
More than three in four Americans think the United States is in a recession according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Tuesday...
...Seventy-six percent of to those polled said the economy is in recession, compared to 22 percent who said it is not, USA Today said.
Asked if the United States could slip into a depression lasting several years, 59 percent said it was likely and 79 percent said they were worried about it, the newspaper reported...The poll was taken even before the Bear Stearns bailout had been thoroughly digested by a disgusted American public. One wonders, as the media has bandied about another pejorative phrase - "bank run", to describe the initiating event of the Bear Stearns collapse last week - how much worse the same poll would look if taken today.
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Taxpayers Bail Out Bear Stearns; JP Morgan Buys for $2/Share Discount
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on March 17, 2008 at 5:19 AM.
A couple of months back, I wrote the following:
The unprecedented wealth transfer from poor and middle income families to the uber rich is nearly complete. The folks at the bottom of the GOP-led financial pyramid scheme are nearly bled dry, and the pyramid is about to collapse. To sustain itself a little longer, the folks at the top of the pyramid will have to start an Amway-style ritual of financial cannibalism amongst themselves. I think that (to an extent) this is exactly what we're seeing in the stock markets and big financial houses as the true meltdown begins...On Friday, it was announced that JP Morgan Chase Bank was acting as an intermediary to bail out the financial investment bank Bear Stearns, and essentially funneled billions of dollars from the U.S. Federal Reserve (read: you and me) to those who had entrusted their investment fortunes to Bear Sterns.
So the only possible justification for such Fed action is to engineer an orderly rather than a disorderly shutdown of this institution. But unfortunately the Fed is behaving as if Bear Stearns is illiquid but solvent. That is delusional and the official sector support of an otherwise insolvent institution will end up - like many other recent Fed actions - being paid for by the US tax-payer...On Friday, Bear Stearns stock closed at $30 / share, down nearly 50% from the prior day.
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What Do Nataline Sarkisyan and Britney Spears Have in Common?
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on March 15, 2008 at 7:51 AM.
They were both treated (or not, as the case may be) at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Just to refresh everyone’s memory, Nataline Sarkisyan was the young woman who, just before Christmas last year, was denied a liver transplant by her insurance company until it was too late. She died at UCLA Medical Center on the day that the transplant was approved.
And Britney Spears? Just to refresh everyone’s memory…oh…never mind. But she’s also been treated at UCLA Medical Center on various occasions. Britney gave birth there, and has also had a few encounters with staff in the psychiatric wing of the hospital.
The reason I bring up Nataline is that right after she died, I asked a simple question: why in the hell didn’t the hospital just do the transplant, and figure out the financials at a later time? I don’t believe that anyone at UCLA Medical Center was ever held to account for this lack of decision making that led, directly or indirectly, to the young woman’s death.
However, apparently some staff members at UCLA Medical Center were caught peeping in Britney Spears’ medical files - and have been fired for the offense:
UCLA Medical Center is taking steps to fire at least 13 employees and has suspended at least six others for snooping in the confidential medical records of pop star Britney Spears during her recent hospitalization in its psychiatric unit, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.
In addition, six physicians face discipline for peeking at her computerized records, the person said…
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