This is a fantastic compilation of all the political news for the week. Hats off to Collateral News, great job!
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Bashir’s revenge
Bashir expels aid workers, imperils Darfur.
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Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World
Nancy Pfotenhauer’s GOP Rhetoric Gets Vanquished
Joan Walsh and Peter Beinart shot down Nancy’s talking points. Beinart is awesome in this clip.
Kick Georgie’s can crown
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Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World
This day in history – Open Thread
March 16, 1988: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Unfortunately for the path of justice, while both were convicted, those convictions were overturned and neither of these criminals served any real time. In 1992, Bush I pardoned six of their fellow conspirators from the Iran-Contra scandal. It’s an unpleasant reminder that anti-American “patriots” in government are rarely punished for their treason.
Ahhhhh, science…
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Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
FDA Has Proven, Once Again, To Be A Failure..
The Public Citizen has sent the FDA four letters this week about regulation and approval of medical devices. The first letter is about the FDA’s approval of a Anti-Scarring Device for children. The SyntheMed’s REPEL-CV device is designed to reduce post-surgical scarring in children following open-heart surgery. Public Citizen found some major problems.
In the trial, there were also signs of possible dangers associated with REPEL-CV, including trends toward higher risks of death and chest infection. These differences were not statistically significant, but the consistent direction of the adverse effects observed, even if non-significant, is concerning. Because the trial was so small, we can only be assured that there was not more than a three-fold increase in mortality and not more than a 10-fold increase in chest infections for patients implanted with the device. This is hardly reassuring.
The approval of REPEL-CV bears an eerie resemblance to another device, Intergel, an anti-scarring device intended for pelvic surgeries that also demonstrated reduced scarring without clinically validated outcomes. That trial was also underpowered for safety and showed a consistent but non-statistically significant increase in infection rates. Less than two years after Intergel was approved, the company removed the product from the market due to reports of post-operative pain, foreign body reactions and tissue scarring requiring repeat surgery, including three deaths among women who received it. This history should have given the FDA pause before once again approving a similar device with a questionable safety record.
The second letter dated March 10th, concerned the FDA’s negligence in delaying their response to problems with a pediatric breathing device. The FDA on Monday, finally announced a Class I recall of the Shiley 3.0 PED tracheostomy tube.
The FDA’s lack of response is obscene.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird Eating From My Hand
By Russ Thompson:
In June of 2006 I was replacing empty feeders with clean ones and this hummingbird landed on the feeder as I was carrying it to the pole. I stopped instantly and stood perfectly still because motion will scare hummingbirds away. From this came the clips you will see in this video. It would eat from any feeder or cut flower that I would offer. Someone suggested I try to feed it directly from my palm and success came the first day I tried. This hummingbird continued this behavior until his 2006 migration to Central America. In April of 2007 he returned to the same little plot of land in Louisville, Ky for more of the same behavior. (Part two now available as Ruby-throated Hummingbird Following Directions & More).
For those of you who know me, you know how much I love hummingbirds. The Ruby-throated ones in particular (which are in abundance where I live). This video was simply amazing…
When I try and take their picture I have to hide in the house and click away through the window, and I STILL have difficulty getting a good shot.. Oh, and H/T to Andrew Sullivan.
Panty raid…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jeff Danziger, Syndicated Political Cartoonist
Too little, too late
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John Cole, Scranton, PA Times-Tribune
Cheney on Terror Threats: Enhanced Interrogation Program Prevented Attacks
So basically Cheney is saying that waterboarding, and other extreme methods that were used, help to keep us safe. Wow, nothing like rewriting history to make yourself look good.
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It’s Sunday! Woof-a-doodle-doo!!
Rise and shine! It’s a very nasty, windy, rainy Sunday here!
This is an open thread, so feel free to talk amongst yourselves..
Will Ferrell: “You’re Welcome America”
This is a clip from HBO’s premiere of “You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush”. “GW” recalls a number of Bush officials. A bit irreverent… A bit….
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Survey Shows Most Young People Are Financially Illiterate
The survey showed they have no concept of minimum payments, interest, identity theft or the fact they will be paying off student loans for years to come.
The part of the survey I found particularly alarming was that one-third of high school seniors have credit cards and half have debit cards. I remember when I tried establishing credit and the first credit card I received was from Sears. In order for me to finally get approved for a Visa, I had to make payments on a car loan for over six months without any late payments. My question is, when did the rules get so relaxed that they hand out credit cards to just anyone? I was amazed to find that 16 year-olds were getting credit card offers, now something is serious wrong when that is happening. The survey showed that college students didn’t fair well either.
One-third of college students have four credits cards apiece when they graduate, and more than half of graduates have piled up $5,000 each in high-interest debt. The number of 18- to 24-year-olds who’ve declared bankruptcy has increased 96 percent in 10 years.
This is what prompted Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to introduce a bill this week to target financial-literacy starting at the grade school level and reaching through adulthood.
Bye Bye Bozo…
Creator of Bozo the Clown, Alan Livingston died yesterday at the age of 91.
Did you know that he was also a music executive at Capitol Records? And that he was responsible from bringing the Beatles to America?
From the AP:
Alan W. Livingston, the music executive who created Bozo the Clown and signed the Beatles during his tenure as president of Capitol Records, has died. He was 91.
Livingston died Friday of age-related causes in his Beverly Hills home, said his stepdaughter, Jennifer Lerner.
Livingston began his multifaceted career in show business as a writer and producer of children’s read-along record albums for Capitol Records. He came up with the Bozo the Clown character for the 1946 album “Bozo at the Circus,” which became a hit and spawned a cottage industry of merchandise and the television series featuring the wing-haired clown.
When he moved into executive positions at Capitol Records in the early 1950s, Livingston signed Frank Sinatra, then at a low point in his career, and introduced him to arranger Nelson Riddle. Together, the pair produced “I’ve Got the World on a String” and “Young At Heart,” which led to Sinatra’s comeback.
Livingston left the record label in the late 1950s to work in television, where he produced the western series “Bonanza.” He returned to Capitol Records as president in the 1960s, when he signed the Beach Boys and Steve Miller and the Band.
When Livingston heard the Beatles song “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” he agreed to release the single and brought the Fab Four to the United States in 1964 to promote it. Capitol, which was partly owned by the Beatles’ record company EMI in the United Kingdom, earlier had rejected the group’s initial hit singles as unsuitable for the American market. More…
Episode of Bozo the Clown – Part 1 of “Bozo at the Dog Show”:
As the wind blows, so goes the money…
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Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!
UPDATE: AIG is actually planning to give out $450 million in bonuses this week to executives who led the firm to a $99.3 billion dollar loss in 2008!! W-T-F!!!??
Insurance giant AIG to pay $165 million in bonuses
American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars.
Need I say more?
“The group of top executives getting bonuses will receive half of the $9.6 million now, with the average payment around $112,000.”
Isn’t it nice to know those executives will receive more than twice the median income, as a bonus, on top of their annual salary? And it’s even more gratifying to know that their bonuses will be paid with our tax dollars. I mean, it’s one thing to know that Big Government is taking my hard-earned money and giving it to someone who is not working through no fault of their own, but quite another to know that it is going to some hard-working capitalist whose bad decisions have resulted in the destruction of the economy and elimination of my retirement savings and home equity.
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Riiight….and I have this swampland for sale…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartoonist and Animation Artist.
For Nick’s animations, visit Nick Anderson: Animation Archives.
For Nick’s cartoons, visit Nick Anderson.
Erin Burnett Compares The US Unemployment System With China
Erin Burnett questions unemployment benefits themselves:
“Places like China don’t have unemployment benefits and everyone says that makes them weak. But does that encourage people in places like China to go get jobs more quickly, rather than waiting to exhaust their unemployment benefits, as some say some people do here…”
Burnett starts to back peddle big time right there in the segment. She feels that it is a fair and legitimate question for discussion. She asks this question to Joe Scarborough at the (2:47) mark.
heathr456 posted this and she took the words right out of my mouth when she said ” Put this one under the you’ve got to be f*cking kidding me column.”
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Worthless piece of paper…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jeff Danziger, Syndicated Political Cartoonist
Moderate extremists…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartoonist and Animation Artist.
For Nick’s animations, visit Nick Anderson: Animation Archives.
For Nick’s cartoons, visit Nick Anderson.
Situational Envy
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Matt Davies, NY Journal News
Oh, the irony…
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Jen Sorensen, Slowpoke Comics
All ears…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jack Ohman, Portland Oregonian
Back for more…
