RE: Carl Levin KICK Fox News ass!! Way to go Carl!

VIDEO: Sen. Levin and Fox Anchor in On-Air Scuffle Over Iraq Plan
This morning on Fox & Friends, anchor Brian Kilmeade and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) had a heated exchange over Gen. George Casey’s stated plan to begin redeploying U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of 2006.
Levin ended the segment by telling the anchor, “Well, thank you for your opinion. But I was hoping this would be an interview of me rather than an interview of you.” Afterwards, Kilmeade was shown scowling and shaking his head. Watch it:


This way Carl Levin is one great senators for the Dems he look wise and won't let some Jerk from Fox News try to snow him and the rest of the veiwing public.

RE: Come on Jenny

Jenny better get Bitchy and put that uptight white guy from Grand Rapids in the DUST.Most of all she better have a plan.

RE: Another nail in the Coffin for Detroit

GM to shed quarter of workforce this year
By Bernard Simon in Toronto

General Motors will on Monday disclose details of one of most dramatic corporate downsizings in US history, exceeding a key target of its turnround plan and accelerating the demise of the privileged American car worker.
Rick Wagoner, chief executive, is expected to announce that about 30,000 workers – more than a quarter of GM's blue-collar US workforce – have taken up its offer of early retirement and severance packages.
Almost all will leave by the end of the year, achieving in a few months what the company had set out to accomplish over more than two years.
A total of 50,000 workers or more is set to leave the industry over the next few months.
Later this week, Delphi – the former GM subsidiary which is north America's biggest auto parts maker – is expected to disclose that at least 9,000 of its 31,000 unionised workers have accepted similar buy-outs.
Many Delphi workers not included in the original offer, have until late July to decide.
In addition, Ford, the second-biggest Detroit-based carmaker, has disclosed that more than 10,000 workers have taken packages. All three companies are also cutting salaried staff.
The GM buy-out "is really historic", said Gary Chaison, industrial relations professor at Clark University in Massachusetts. He said it marked "the end of the good jobs" in the auto industry, created when the Detroit carmakers held a dominant market share, or were willing to grant generous concessions in return for labour peace.
GM shares have soared by a third since the company announced the "accelerated attrition programme" late in March. They closed at $26.97 on Friday.
The buy-outs, from $35,000 to $140,000 depending on length of service, will bring big savings to GM, especially in future health and pension benefits.
They will also shrink the so-called Jobs Bank, which lets laid-off workers collect full pay just for showing up at an assembly plant each day or doing volunteer community service. The buyouts are part of GM's plan to bring north American capacity into line with its shrinking market share. It is cutting capacity by 1m vehicles a year, with a dozen plant closures by 2008.
GM's share of the car and light truck market fell to 22.5 per cent last month, the lowest for decades. It has sacrificed some market share in recent months to wean buyers off discounts and other sales incentives. Nonetheless, GM is expected to announce a new incentives programme tomorrow, in response to an aggressive promotion by DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler unit.
It heralds tougher times for the United Auto Workers union, once the aristocrat of the US labour movement. Membership fell to 557,000 last year, about a third of the level in its 1970s heyday

RE: Being a JEW in Hickville

In Wal-Mart's Home, Synagogue Signals Growth

Spencer Tirey for The New York Times
Members of Etz Chaim established their synagogue in a former Assembly of God church in Arkansas. There are about 100 members.






By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: June 20, 2006
BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches. For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display.

Related
Congregation Etz Chaim
Hindu Association of Northwest Arkansas
Bentonville Islamic Center
Institute of Southern Jewish Life
Eat This Restaurant
Two Arkansas DJs Explain a Bar Mitzvah (mp3)
Courtesy of the Winchester Family
Andrew Winchester, hatless at center, had the first bar mitzvah in the synagogue. Several branches of Judaism are represented at Etz Chaim.
Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived.
Recruited from around the country as workers for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters here, a growing number of Jewish families have become increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality in the county. They have asked school principals to rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have) and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the town square (it did).
Wal-Mart has transformed small towns across America, but perhaps its greatest impact has been on Bentonville, where the migration of executives from cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta has turned this sedate rural community into a teeming mini-metropolis populated by Hindus, Muslims and Jews.
It is the Jews of Benton County, however, who have asserted themselves most. Two years ago, they opened the county's first synagogue and, ever since, its roughly 100 members have become eager spokesmen and women for a religion that remains a mystery to most people here.
When the synagogue celebrated its first bar mitzvah, the boy's father — Scott Winchester, whose company sells propane tanks to Wal-Mart — invited two local radio D.J.'s, who broadcast the event across the county, even though, by their own admission, they had only a vague idea of what a bar mitzvah was.
"Jesus was Jewish," one D.J. noted in a dispatch from the reception at a local hotel. The other remarked, "I love Seinfeld."
Shortly after he moved to the area, Tom Douglass, a member of the synagogue who works in Wal-Mart's logistics department, made a presentation about Hanukkah to his son's kindergarten class. The lesson, complete with an explanation of how to play with a spinning dreidel and compete for chocolate coins, imported from New York, proved so popular that the school's librarian taped it for future classes.
Then there is Ron Haberman, a doctor and synagogue member, who has introduced Jewish cuisine to the county. His new restaurant, Eat This, next door to a new 140,000-square-foot glass-enclosed Baptist church, serves knishes, matzo ball soup and latkes. To guide the uninitiated, the menu explains that it is pronounced "LOT-kuz."
Not everyone is ordering the knishes, but Christians throughout Benton County are slowly learning the complexities of Jewish life. Gary Compton, the superintendent of schools in Bentonville and a member of a Methodist church in town, has learned not to schedule PTA meetings the night before Jewish holidays, which begin at sundown, and has encouraged the high school choir to incorporate Jewish songs into a largely Christian lineup.
"We need to get better at some things," he said. "You just don't go from being noninclusive to being inclusive overnight."
Surrounded by Christian neighbors, Bible study groups, 100-foot-tall crucifixes and free copies of the book "The Truth About Mary Magdalene" left in the seating area of the Bentonville IHOP, the Jews of Benton County say they have become more observant in — and protective of — their faith than ever before.
Marcy Winchester, the mother of the synagogue's first bar mitzvah, said, "You have to try harder to be Jewish down here."
Which may explain why what began as a dozen families, almost all of them tied to Wal-Mart and almost all of them sharing only a passing familiarity with one another, managed to create a free-standing synagogue in just under a year. Tired of being asked which church they attended, they decided to build the answer.
For several years, many of them had attended a small synagogue attached to the University of Arkansas about 30 miles south of Bentonville. But the drive was long and the university temple, a converted fraternity house, never felt like home.
So in 2004, the families — most of them like-minded transplants from big cities largely in their 30's — decided it was time to create a permanent Jewish community in Benton County. They bought a former Hispanic Assembly of God church a few blocks from the first five-and-dime store operated by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart's founder, and renamed it Congregation Etz Chaim, or Tree of Life.
A dozen families quickly turned into 20 families, then 40

Sign Signs everywhere their a sign

It says it all...........

RE: Rockies are a bunch of Jesus Freaks

The Rockies Pitch Religion
Dave Zirin



SUBSCRIBE TO THE NATIONIn Colorado, there stands a holy shrine called Coors Field. On this site, named for the holiest of beers, a team plays that has been chosen by Jesus Christ himself to play .500 baseball in the National League West. And if you don't believe me, just ask the manager, the general manager and the team's owner.
In a remarkable article from Wednesday's USA Today, the Colorado Rockies went public with the news that the organization has been explicitly looking for players with "character." And according to the Tribe of Coors, "character" means accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. "We're nervous, to be honest with you," Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd said. "It's the first time we ever talked about these issues publicly. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone because of our beliefs." When people are nervous that they will offend you with their beliefs, it's usually because their beliefs are offensive.
As Rockies chairman and CEO Charlie Monfort said, "We had to go to hell and back to know where the Holy Grail is. We went through a tough time and took a lot of arrows."
OAS_AD('Middle');

Club president Keli McGregor chimed in, "Who knows where we go from here? The ability to handle success will be a big part of the story, too. [Note to McGregor: You're in fourth place.] There will be distractions. There will be things that can change people. But we truly do have something going on here. And [God's] using us in a powerful way."
Well, someone is using somebody, but it ain't God. San Francisco Giants first baseman-outfielder Mark Sweeney, who spent 2003 and 2004 with the Rockies, said, "You wonder if some people are going along with it just to keep their jobs. Look, I pray every day. I have faith. It's always been part of my life. But I don't want something forced on me. Do they really have to check to see whether I have a Playboy in my locker?"
Then there is manager Clint Hurdle and GM O'Dowd. Hurdle, who has guided the team to a Philistine 302-376 record since 2002, as well as fourth or fifth place finishes every year, was rewarded with a 2007 contract extension in the off-season. Hurdle also claims he became a Christian three years ago and says, "We're not going to hide it. We're not going to deny it. This is who we are."
O'Dowd, who also received a contract extension, believes that their 27-26 2006 record has resulted from the active intervention of the Almighty. "You look at things that have happened to us this year. You look at some of the moves we made and didn't make. You look at some of the games we're winning. Those aren't just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this." Or maybe the management that prays together gets paid together.
O'Dowd and company bend over backward in the article to say they are "tolerant" of other views on the club, but that's contradicted by statements like this from CEO Monfort: "I don't want to offend anyone, but I think character-wise we're stronger than anyone in baseball. Christians, and what they've endured, are some of the strongest people in baseball. I believe God sends signs, and we're seeing those." Assumedly, Shawn Green (Jew), Ichiro Suzuki (Shinto) or any of the godless players from Cuba don't have the "character" Monfort is looking for.
Also, there are only two African-American players on the Rockies active roster. Is this because Monfort doesn't think black players have character? Does the organization endorse the statement of its stadium's namesake, William Coors, who told a group of black businessmen in 1984 that Africans "lack the intellectual capacity to succeed, and it's taking them down the tubes"? These are admittedly difficult questions. But these are the questions that need to be posed when the wafting odor of discrimination clouds the air.
Then there are the fans. I spoke with journalist Tom Krattenmaker, who has studied the connection between religion and sports. Krattenmaker said, "I have concerns about what this Christianization of the Rockies means for the community that supports the team in and around Denver--a community in which evangelical Christians are probably a minority, albeit a large and influential one. Taxpayers and ticket-buyers in a religiously diverse community have a right not to see their team--a quasi-public resource--used for the purpose of advancing a specific form of religion. Have the Colorado Rockies become a faith-based organization? This can be particularly problematic when the religion in question is one that makes exclusive claims and sometimes denigrates the validity of other belief systems."
You might think MLB Commissioner Bud Selig would have something stirring to say about this issue. But Selig, who hasn't actually registered a pulse since 1994, only said meekly, "They have to do what they feel is right."
It's not surprising that Selig would play it soft. First and foremost, Bud's First Commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Criticize the Owners. Second, Selig and Major League Baseball this year are experimenting for the first time with Faith Days at the Park. As if last season's Military Appreciation Nights weren't enough, the New York Times reported yesterday that this summer "religious promotions will hit Major League Baseball. The Atlanta Braves are planning three Faith Days this season, the Arizona Diamondbacks one. The Florida Marlins have tentatively scheduled a Faith Night for September." These religious promotions are attractive to owners because they leverage a market of evangelical Christians who are accustomed to mass worship in stadiums at events staged by sports-driven proselytizers like Promise Keepers and Athletes in Action.
As part of the MLB promotion, the Times reports, "local churches will get discounted tickets to family-friendly evenings of music and sports with a Christian theme. And in return, they mobilize their vast infrastructure of e-mail and phone lists, youth programs and chaperones, and of course their bus fleets, to help fill the stands."
At one of the Faith Days in Atlanta, the team will sell special vouchers. After the game, the stands will be cleared and then only those with the specially purchased vouchers will be re-admitted. Those lucky chosen "will be treated to an hour and a half of Christian music and a testimonial from the ace pitcher John Smoltz." Smoltz is the player who in 2004 opined on gay marriage to the Associated Press, saying, "What's next? Marrying an animal?" Good times for the whole family.
The Rockies right now are a noxious reflection of a time in US history when generals speak of crusades and the President recounts his personal conversations with Yahweh. ("You're doing a heckuva job, Goddy!")
If Monfort, O'Dowd and Hurdle want to pray on their own time, more power to them. But the ballpark isn't a church. Smoltz isn't a preacher. And fans aren't a flock. Instead of using their position of commercial power to field a God Squad, the Rockies might want to think about getting some decent players. There was once this guy named Babe Ruth. Not too much for the religion, and his character was less than sterling. But I hear he could play some decent ball.
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RE: The Fed chairman telling like it is

Fed Chairman concerned about Bush’s fiscal recklessness.
New Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: “The prospective increase in the budget deficit will place at risk future living standards of our country.” March 14, 2006 4:44 pm



Bush........taking down the road to ruin....what does the future look like? Pretty scarey.

RE: Neil Young Movie is 2Thumbs Up

RE: Neil Young "Heart of Gold"
If your a Neil Young fan which I am. This movie is two thumbs up. Neil is truly one of the greatest song writer of my time. Go see it like being there. It a MUST SEE.

RE: another GOP smuck I hope goes down

Dana Rohrabacher ♥ Jack Abramoff
A front page article in this morning's L.A. Times caught my attention...
Rohrabacher Defends Abramoff, a FriendWhile not excusing any illegalities, the Huntington Beach congressman decries a 'feeding frenzy' around the tainted lobbyist.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher offered a rare defense Monday of longtime friend and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty last week to influence peddling charges that have rocked Capitol Hill.
"The last thing I'm going to do is kick a friend when they're down," the nine-term congressman from Huntington Beach told The Times in an interview. He said the two met in the early 1980s, when Rohrabacher was a White House speechwriter and Abramoff was chairman of the College Republicans.
"I'm not excusing anything he did that was wrong or illegal," the congressman said. "It's just a sad commentary on democracy that when someone falls, there's this feeding frenzy and people are abandoned by those they thought were their friends."_______The congressman said he and Abramoff socialized over the years with their families and dined together frequently. Rohrabacher would eat at Abramoff's Washington restaurant, Signatures, or play host to the lobbyist in the congressional dining room. A House exemption allowed him to have the meals without reporting them, he said, because the two were friends before Rohrabacher was elected to Congress.Abramoff also asked Rohrabacher and his wife, Rhonda, to a baby shower for about 15 former staffers and congressional spouses to celebrate the birth of the Rohrabachers' triplets in 2004. The event was casual — between lunch and dinner — and featured only hors d'oeuvres, he said."My friend let us use his place for a baby shower," Rohrabacher said in the interview. "Right now there are people looking with a microscope trying to find any infringement to blow up and make look like a scandal."
Pal, you don't need a microscope. ThinkProgress found this nailed to your freakin' front door.
– Rohrabacher enjoyed free dinners at Signatures, Abramoff’s high-end restaurant, once or twice a month.
– Rohrabacher took one of Abramoff’s “Standard Operating Procedure”-style trips, visiting the Northern Mariana Islands while Abramoff was working to convince Congress keep factories in a U.S. territory free from complying with fair labor laws. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 28, 2005]
– Rohrabacher helped Abramoff score a $60 million loan to buy the SunCruz fleet of casino boats in Florida by allowing the lobbyist to list him as a personal reference. (Abramoff added a faked $23 million wire transfer to Rohrabacher’s reference to close the sale.)
Maybe he can help you finance some content on your pitiful PAC site. Or is that a monument to GOP unfinished business?
The guy is bad news. In all fairness, Rohrabacher has been a champion for NASA and seems to care about the environment (he is an avid surfer). He just seems to have a problem with...humanity. And propriety. And we still wonder if his phones, email and web surfing are being monitored closely if his pals in the White House are serious about tracking terrorists.

RE: Don't feel sad for Good Old Jack!!

RE: Jack Abramoff will get what he deserves!
Jack Abramoff I wasn't shock to hear that he is religious Jew. He was and is the type of Jews for Bush group. They all pretty much make me sick to my stomach. I'm Jewish so I feel I can throw stones at the those who claim they are part of that group. It really scares me about these types. They say they are the more religious Jews that everything they think of is all about Isreal. Believe me I want a strong Isreal but I not willing to sell out this country for Isreal. We need alot of things that Isreal has like NATIONAL HEALTH CARE. It funny we fighting in IRAQ and what kind of health is the U.S. setting up for them but Natioinal Health Program. It not good enough for us? The truth is what hurting the USA industry is National Health Care Program for everybody. But back to old Jack Abramoff who is total slime and totally think he is better than everybody that he came in contact with and was above the law because has or had money and infulence.Well my mother always said "every dog has their day". Old Jack is getting his. I can't stand people like him. I'm glad that it all caught to him. Well enough of me giving my two cents. Unless you all want to hear more? Over and out for the night! Peace.

RE: Now Energy Companies want to downsizes!Great

DTE braces for big layoffs to slash costs
Workers are on edge as utility prepares for what could be the largest downsizing in 50 years.
Nick Bunkley / The Detroit News
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DETROIT-- DTE Energy Co., Michigan's largest utility, has begun a sweeping cost-cutting endeavor that could lead to its largest round of layoffs in at least 50 years.
While it's not clear how many of DTE's 11,000 workers will lose their jobs, DTE President and Chief Operating Officer Gerard Anderson said that layoffs are a certainty.
"We're not going to get through this process without impacts on our employees," Anderson said in an interview with The Detroit News.
DTE, which owns Detroit Edison and Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., is scouring its operations to eliminate costs and become more efficient -- an effort that could eventually lead to lower bills for customers.
DTE has hired consultants to assist the effort and company officials hope to give employees an idea of what kind of reductions will take place in the first half of next year.
An internal report distributed to senior staff members at DTE in October and obtained this week by The Detroit News reveals the types of steps each unit of the company is taking to identify cost-cutting.
The report shows that DTE's fossil-fueled power plant division has 2,010 employees, 39 percent more than "top quality target" utilities, and that eliminating the extra workers could save $62 million a year. The unit spends 176 percent more on staff benefits and 50 percent more on overtime than best-practice companies.
Anderson called the internal report an "early diagnostic" effort to determine a course of action and not an indication of the company's plans. The numbers in it have not been agreed upon or validated, meaning the company has not analyzed whether those target utilities have differences that allow them to operate with fewer workers or lower costs than DTE.
Anderson said he and other executives have made it clear to employees, most of whom are in Metro Detroit, that there will be downsizing.
The leader of DTE's largest union, however, said that while workers are aware the utility is looking to cut costs and know the possible outcomes of such an undertaking, they have not been told to expect layoffs.
The process has created anxiety among workers because the company has never taken such broad steps. DTE continually examines its efficiency, but the initiative now under way goes far beyond that.
DTE has reduced its work force over the past two decades through attrition and recently with a few pink slips, said Jim Harrison, president of Utility Workers Union of America Local 223, which represents 4,500 DTE employees in a variety of positions. But a mass layoff hasn't happened since 1955, when the company eliminated its power plant construction department. Even then, most of those let go were rehired.
At a time when Michigan's economy is creating uncertainty for many workers, DTE employees fear hundreds of layoffs could be coming, Harrison said.
"They haven't said to us at all that layoffs or a reduction in work force are going to happen," he said. "What they have said to us is that benchmarking data suggests, based on first-quartile companies, that we may have too many people."
First-quartile companies are utilities whose costs are lower than 75 percent of others in their industry. As it determines cuts, DTE is comparing the size of its work force; spending on benefits and overtime; the number of contractors it hires; and other expenditures to top-performing utilities.
Anderson said a confluence of factors, including unprecedented fuel prices, regulatory requirements necessitating major investments and changes within the utility industry, have prompted the company's austerity push.
DTE said it is not responding to an ongoing investigation by the Michigan Public Service Commission into unusually high administrative costs, he said. The efficiency push was started months before regulators raised the issue. DTE must report to the commission on overhead costs by Feb. 1.
"Our customers are going through about as tough a time economically as we have seen," Anderson said. "They deserve to see us go through our costs as diligently as they have had to. They expect that their energy company is going to bear some of the burden here.
"We're not doing it because we're in financial distress or bankruptcy is looming. We're doing it because our customers deserve it and the evolution of the industry requires it."
DTE provides electricity to 2.1 million customers from the Ohio state line into Michigan's Thumb. It delivers natural gas to 1.2 million homes and businesses in most of Wayne and Washtenaw counties and other parts of the state.
Detroit Edison's rates are among the highest in the Midwest, and MichCon's rates, while among the lowest nationwide, are noticeably higher than the state's other big utility, Jackson-based Consumers Energy.
Rates are set by the public service commission, which reviews utilities' expenses when responding to requests for increases.
Daniele Seitz, a utility analyst for Maxcor Financial in New York, is glad to see DTE thoroughly examining its operations. Utilities can over time become bloated as they deal with regulatory requirements or when growth of their customer base slows
Now that they face competition -- Michigan enacted an electric choice law five years ago -- utilities are forced to be more vigilant over their operations, Seitz said.
"You don't want it to cost any reliability, but in any business it's always good to review the way you do things," she said.
Seitz said it is difficult to compare utilities' costs because of variables such as the amount of union labor they use and the density of the population they serve.
Layoffs rumors were addressed Monday in an employee newsletter, DTE Daily: "While there are no specific goals for the numbers of employees to be released, it is expected that job losses will be an outcome of the process efficiencies that currently are being identified and evaluated."
Harrison, the union president, said he hopes DTE proceeds cautiously and takes into account that many employees are nearing retirement. Sizeable cuts now, followed by many workers retiring in a few years, could lead to problems.
"If you have a lot of people go out the door," he said, "you compromise your knowledge, safety and reliability if you don't do it right."
Detroit News Staff Writer Brett Clanton contributed to this report. You can reach Nick Bunkley at (313) 222-2293 or nbunkley@detnews.com

RE: Ann Coulter....she just a plain bitch

Ann Coulter's penis, not that she has one, but I've never seen evidence to the contrary by John in DC - 12/01/2005 07:46:00 PM
You may not have noticed, because I try not to give the skank much attention, but Ann Coulter's latest hate-filled diatribe included the insinuation that Cong. John Murtha may not have really earn the Purple Hearts he received in Vietnam. Gosh, sound familiar?Here we have Ann attacking John Murtha while defending Oliver North:
And unlike Murtha, who refuses to release his medical records showing he was entitled to his two Purple Hearts, we know what North did. (These Democrat military veterans are hardly shrinking violets when it comes to citing their medals, but they get awfully squeamish when pressed for details.) Of course, I've never seen any medical records proving that Ann eats or doesn't have a penis (not that there's anything wrong with being anorexic or hermaphroditic, nor that I'm insuinating Ann is either of those, I'm just saying I've never seen any medical records.)There's reason to believe the McCarthyite Wing of the Republican party may kick off a larger campaign in a few days to Swift Boat Murtha. If that happens, I think we need to go nuclear in response. Teach the Coulters and all the rest that the real world of politics is a lot more brutal than a glass of Slim-Fast. If they want to play dirty, then someone needs to slam them down, hard enough, so that it never happens again.Stay tuned.

RE: Post-op says she a lesbian , my kind of girl !

Gender Bending
March 2005
Thai surgeons are renowned worldwide for turning men into women. Richard Ehrlich talks to a former soldier who has been reassigned to the ranks of womanhood After a former US Army corporal became a grandfather, he stopped secretly wearing women's clothes, flew to Bangkok for a sex change operation and emerged as a lesbian. “I heard about Bangkok from the Internet. My daughter found it for me,” Sherri Ann Higgins, 56, said in a recorded interview while recovering from surgery in a Bangkok hospital. “The price was reasonable. And what I liked about Bangkok is there was only a one-month waiting list, whereas in the US there is at least eight months to wait to have the change.” Thai doctors are experts at chopping off a male's sex organ and fashioning a vagina. ”It's not until they remove the bandages that you realise it's gone,” Ms. Higgins said, laughing in her modern hospital room. Some 170cm tall and 68 kilos svelte, Ms. Higgins said the operation was not painful and, after a prescription of hormones, she did not need silicone to create breasts. Her story – from birth as Robert James Higgins, a troubled Catholic childhood, marriage and parenting a daughter and becoming a grandfather – illustrates the plight of thousands of people worldwide who feel they were born in the body of the opposite gender. Successfully concealing his confusion, Higgins was drafted and served in the US Army from June 1968 to June 1970, including stints as a corporal and chief engineer in Okinawa. “Some people think it is strange that I was in the service and I'm [now] transgendered.” Unlike some men who lived as gays before becoming women, Ms. Higgins says she has always been aroused exclusively by women. Despite divorcing her wife in June over the sex-change issue, the couple still lives together in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. “The relationship is still the same,” she says. “I still change oil in the cars, and cut the grass and do the household chores. In fact, I even do the cooking now, because she works 12 hours sometimes and when she comes home, she's hungry, so I have a meal for her.”

RE: Am I dreaming....I only wish!

 

RE: The live in another world the Bushies

TOM WALSH: Detroit, U.S. worlds apart
Snow says manufacturing workers so productive that fewer are needed
November 1, 2005
BY TOM WALSH FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow flew a mission on Monday to Planet Detroit, which mysteriously left the economic orbit of GalaxyUSA several years ago along with the rest of Michigan and a chunk of northern Ohio.
Snow assured the restless exiles out on Planet Detroit that all is swell back in GalaxyUSA, where the economies of the remaining 48.7 states are chugging merrily forward, growing at a nearly 4% annual clip despite shocks from Hurricane Katrina and high energy prices.
"A lot of things are going right," Snow said in an interview before his luncheon speech to the Planet Detroit Economic Club. "You can't have results like that unless the fundamentals are in pretty good shape. What's happened to the American economy over the last 30 years or so is that we have built in an adjustment process, a set of shock absorbers that allow our system to take blows and respond." Not many other places can say that, he added.
Well, whoop-de-do, Mr. Secretary.
If GalaxyUSA's shock absorbers are so good, how did Planet Detroit blow a rod and spin out of orbit into deep space, with companies like Delphi Corp., Collins & Aikman and Federal-Mogul in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and our primary economic engines -- General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. -- sputtering along with junk-rated debt?
And how do the big honchos from Washington, D.C., plan to rescue and retrieve Planet Detroit so its people can again enjoy the same level of prosperity as the rest of GalaxyUSA someday?
Snow's explanation for how Planet Detroit veered out of orbit was creative.
The manufacturing workers of Planet Detroit became so efficient that many of them were no longer needed.
"It doesn't take as many people any more ... The increase in productivity in the manufacturing sector has been astonishing," Snow said. Therefore, many jobs disappeared.
What's more, many of the jobs that remained -- thanks to longstanding union labor contracts -- were the high-paying kind with good benefits, like those at Delphi, GM and Ford. With today's space-age technology allowing work to be beamed cheaply from one galaxy to the next, pressure kept building to slash wages on Planet Detroit or ship the work to other states, planets or galaxies.
Isn't there something you can do in Washington, Snow was asked, to help Planet Detroit return to its home galaxy and share in the economic expansion?
Remember when President George W. Bush slapped tariffs on imported steel to help the steel mills of Planet Pennsylvania a few years ago? Can't he do something similar to help Planet Detroit?
"I think the best help is to do the things we're doing to improve the overall strength of the economy -- good tax policy, lifting regulatory burdens and continuing to push on reducing health care costs," Snow said. Oh yes, and lowering trade barriers to make it easier for Planet Detroit's manufacturers to sell to other worlds.
That all sounds good, Mr. Secretary, but a lot of the restless exiles out here on Planet Detroit believe that all this free trade and lowering barriers stuff is what caused the job losses and wage cuts in the first place. There are some loud and angry voices arguing to throw up more trade barriers, not knock 'em down.
Snow's retort: Forget about it. If you don't like our brave new universe, tough noogies.
"Globalization," he said, "is here and it's not going to stop. It's inevitable, like it or dislike it, love it or hate it."
And with that, Snow departed at warp speed, leaving the confounding questions of Planet Detroit behind as he returned to the friendlier confines of GalaxyUSA.
Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com.
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow speaks to reporters after addressing the Detroit Economic Club on Monday. -->
"It doesn't take as many people ... The increase in productivity in the manufacturing sector has been astonishing," Snow said. -->
walsh
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RE: pretty funny and the truth!

Harriet Miers Speaks
Harriet Miers Speaks
SNL did a funny little skit about the Harriet Miers nomination being sandbagged because of a little "qualification" problem.
Video-WMP
Video QT
Harriet finally gets to speak out!
Can any of us really complain about her logic?

RE: Sister is right on! A clip from the CBS Moning Show

Nancy Giles on Cronyism
Nancy Giles' commentary on CBS SUNDAY MORNING about Bush's cronyism.
Video-QT only (hat tip Dan)
She rips Bush and the Senate on his "Clemenza" style attitutde towards key roles in the government.

RE: First real statement saying the FEDs are bad

Sunday, October 9, 2005
Governor Granholm's statement on Delphi bankruptcy filing

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Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today issued the following statement on the announcement that Delphi has filed for Chapter 11:
I am profoundly disturbed by Delphi's decision and what it means for the nearly 15,000 Michigan employees, many of whom have worked for decades for the company based upon the promise that they would have a pension and health care when they retired.
Globalization is ravaging Michigan's manufacturing job base. Delphi's decision will undoubtedly have a ripple effect through Michigan's economy - an economy already reeling from outsourcing.
I am angry that this action occurs one day after headlines blared that Delphi employees were being asked to accept brutal, draconian pay cuts while upper management is being offered golden parachutes.
I am equally angry about the lack of support from Washington for the industries that made our country great. There is an apparent indifference in Washington to the human pain that so-called free trade has brought to average, patriotic, hardworking citizens who believe in keeping promises.
Moreover, the silence from the federal government is deafening. Washington negotiates these trade agreements and is not offering needed investment in either training our citizens or providing assistance with health care to allow both workers and businesses to be competitive.
If we as a nation can invest billions in infrastructure at home and around the globe, surely we can invest in the human infrastructure -- our American citizens -- whose middle class dreams and plans are being rapidly extinguished by race-to-the-bottom global competition. - Governor Jennifer M. Granholm.

RE: Randi does rock...she on AirAmerica

Randi Rhodes Rocks
Thanks to Virtual Matter for the video and Norman from OneGoodMove for the reformat. Hat tip to David for the WMP.
Video-QT Bittorrent-QT
Video-WMP Bittorrent-WMP
Randy gets into it with Janet Parshall the right winger over NYC. JP uses the talking point of "we're fighting them over there rather than over here" nonsense. Randi quickly points her to the NYC subway scare.
Blondesense has more on her spot. "One side speaks in facts and from knowledge while the other side speaks in spin and ignorance and ideology....read on"

RE: Condi is a Lez...Great...Welcome to the community

Condi’s Cable Love Connection
After a grueling day of diplomatic affairs, Condoleezza Rice could probably use an affair of her own. But things must be pretty grim if even Fox News feels compelled to hook her up. Not surprisingly, the blog world is abuzz this week after a recent interview in which Fox correspondent James Rosen lobbied the defiantly single Secretary of State on the charms of a comely female colleague.
The odd interchange aired last Tuesday, when Rice sat down with Rosen for an interview in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Rosen opened the conversation with a few softball questions about President Aristide and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But he closed it with an impassioned testimonial on behalf of Fox & Friends anchor Lauren Green, a thirtysomething former Miss Minnesota who’s apparently a big fan of the Secretary’s. An excerpt:
ROSEN: … All right. I close with a gift for you. You met this person once, I believe, but you really, I think, ought to know each other because this woman is… I think you’ll have an interest in knowing her. She is one of our Fox News anchors in New York. Her name is Lauren Green. She is brilliant, she’s beautiful, she’s African-American, she’s single and she’s a concert pianist in her spare time.
RICE: My goodness.
ROSEN: And she asked me to give you her CD and I promised her that I would.
RICE: That’s perfect.
ROSEN: And here’s her doing a number of different classical pieces.
RICE: Well, that’s special.
ROSEN: So there you have it.RICE: Thank her very much and I look forward to seeing her sometime.
ROSEN: All right. She’s going to want to hear from you.
RICE: And maybe even playing dual piano sometime.
Not surprisingly, the curious exchange left many wondering if the wry reporter was trying to set Rice up on a date. But when we called to ask if he was trying to play matchmaker, Rosen insisted “nothing could be further from the truth…What I meant to say is that the two of them have a lot in common.” The veteran correspondent, who has frequently accompanied Rice on overseas trips, added, “I would never presume to deal at all with Secretary Rice’s personal life.”
Though Rice hasn’t been publicly linked with anyone since she stepped out with football player-turned-actor Gene Washington in the late 1980s, State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez dismisses online speculation about a Sapphic set-up. “I wouldn’t read anything into that,” he counseled when we called him yesterday. Vasquez says there is no date set for Rice’s proposed rendezvous to tickle the ivories with Green, but adds, “I don’t think she’d be averse to meeting her. Whether there’s time and her schedule opens up, that’s a different thing.”
Green, whose album, Classic Beauty, was released in 2004, could not be reached for comment.
Photos: NYDN