George Carlin on Fat People

From The Huffington Post: 13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush's Watch Without a Peep from Fox News

by Bob Cesca

The Republican inquisition over the attacks against Americans in Benghazi has never really gone away, but it appears as though in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the House Oversight Committee's Benghazi hearings this week there are renewed psycho-histrionics over Benghazi.

Lindsey Graham and Fox News Channel in particular are each crapping their cages over new allegations from an alleged whistleblower, while they continue to deal in previously debunked falsehoods about the sequence of events during and following the attacks. Fox News is predictably helming the biggest raft of hooey on the situation -- turning its attention to Hillary Clinton in an abundantly obvious early move to stymie her presidential run before it even begins.

So I thought I'd revisit some territory I covered back in October as a bit of a refresher -- especially since it appears as if no one, including and especially the traditional press, intends to ask any of these obnoxious, opportunistic liars about why they're so obsessed by this one attack yet they entirely ignored the dozen-plus consulate/embassy attacks that occurred when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were allegedly "keeping us safe."

The Benghazi attacks (the consulate and the CIA compound) are absolutely not unprecedented even though they're being treated that way by Republicans who are deliberately ignoring anything that happened prior to Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al Qaeda attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of "Bali Bombings." No fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al Qaeda terrorists storm the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.

December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.

March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers. (I wonder if Lindsey Graham or Fox News would even recognize the name "David Foy." This is the third Karachi terrorist attack in four years on what's considered American soil.)

September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar" storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.

January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.

March 18, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.

September 17, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband (they had been married three weeks when the attack occurred). This was the second attack on this embassy in seven months.

To read the entire article click here.

To Be With You

by Dee Newman

On the steepest slope or the desert plain,
Whatever the scope, the scale or terrain,
Be it small and profound, a vast allure,
Safe and sound or ruggedly insecure,
In the cool of the night or the heat of the day,
Beneath sunlight or the Milky Way,
Beyond the shore, the sea cliffs and caves
As the gulls soar over white-capped waves,
Off the asphalt beyond the tossed-debris
Where the Great Fault meets the Joshua Tree,
Among ancient pines older than history,
Gnarled shrines veiled in moonlight and mystery,
Along a wild remote alpine expanse,
Scenes of mountain goat and flowering plants,
Toward a towering quest of ice and snow,
Lit from the west with the evening’s glow,
To share a perspective, a point of view,
Ah, what I would give to be with you.

TED Talk (Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud)

Pioneers in Telemedicine

by Dee Newman

Forty-three years ago a federally funded research and demonstration project I helped coordinate in southern Arizona received national media and congressional attention when it demonstrated on April 4, 1970, the feasibility of utilizing microwave transmission for mobile medical units in isolated rural areas.

The project was the brainchild of my good friend Jack Reeves. At the time Jack was the Coordinator of Resources and Planning for Arizona Rural Effort, Inc. (ARE), a five-county Community Action Agency (CAA) headquartered in Yuma, Arizona.

ARE was one of the War on Poverty programs created as part of President Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda. The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) was established in 1964 to oversee Community Action Agencies (CAAs), VISTA, Job Corps and Head Start. Its first director was R. Sargent Shriver.

In 1969 OEO selected ARE as one of 229 Community Action Agencies throughout the United States to compete for grants to address rural poverty. Jack’s FURPO (Full Utilization of Rural Program Opportunities) proposal was one of the nine funded. The grant was for two years, $150K for each year.

In order to secure the grant Jack wrote to the President, Richard Milhous Nixon, met with Senator Barry Goldwater and Representative Morris Udall and sought the support of the OEO director at the time, Donald Rumsfeld. All four men provided needed support for the project. For example, the president’s introduction to a General Motors Corporation executive was instrumental in obtaining a Chevrolet step van that would eventually house state of the art telecommunication equipment.

The R&D project consisted of a number of features, including the before mention mobile television van designed to produce radio and television broadcasting material for stations throughout the state of Arizona. Jack had persuaded radio stations in all 15 Arizona counties to air a weekly broadcast produced by our Community Action Broadcasting System (CABS). The University of Arizona’s KUAT, a PBS affiliate and the nation’s most powerful noncommercial station aired the broadcast twice a week.

Utilizing the van’s equipment (radio phone and cameras), images of patients were sent via microwave transmission from a high desert location north of Nogales in rural Pima County to doctors in Sierra Vista who were waiting to diagnose their medical needs.

While viewing the television images, Pacific Bell provided audio communications from the remote desert location to Tucson, then on to Sierra Vista via land line, allowing Ft. Huachuca (US Army) physicians to talked with the patients, the nurse, and a lab technician.

The telemedicine demonstration received national attention. Newspapers from all over Arizona covered it. It was one of AP’s top ten news stories. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley ran footage on “NBC Nightly News.”

President Nixon was briefed. Senator Paul Fannin entered a two-page account into the Congressional Record, and Representative Morris Udall (who we had interviewed on a number of occasions) authored a congratulatory letter: “The experiment you are now conducting using mobile TV might just be the ray of hope we need for some lowering of medical costs.”

Though it did not immediately launch a new approach on how we administer and provide health care to rural and remote populations, it certainly proved to be a seminal event in the effort to extend health care to all Arizonans.

Within a year General Electric got involved, wanting to demonstrate use of satellite technology to connect patients and physicians, setting up a demonstration with the Navajo Nation and the University of Arizona Medical School.

Today, the high-tech Arizona Telemedicine Program at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine has little resemblance to our primitive telemedicine demonstration back in 1970. As the leading authority on providing long-distance medical care, U of A’s telemedicine program links 180 sites across the state to provide medical care to residents of rural Arizona, tribal lands and state prisons.

Richie Havens Dead at 72

The Livestock Cruelty Prevention Act is a Hoax

by Dee Newman

I am urging everyone I know to call Governor Bill Haslam and ask him to veto HB 1191 by Holt and SB 1248 by Gresham. The Ag Bill would require anyone recording images of animal abuse to submit unedited footage or photos to law enforcement within 48 hours.

The House sponsor of the legislation State Rep. Andy Holt, a Republican of Dresden, TN, has said:

"I think what we need to do is make sure and recognize that if animals are being abused it needs to come to justice, and it needs to come to justice quickly . . . And that's the intention of this bill, bar none. No matter what anybody tells you. That's the intention of this legislation."

But, is it?

The Livestock Cruelty Prevention Act’s short reporting deadline would, in fact, force investigations to be brief and incomplete, possibly rendering them legally unindictable. It would also discourages prospective whistleblowers from coming forward out of fear of prosecution.

The intention of the bill is to prevent further prosecutions – like the 2011 prosecutions of trainer Jackie McConnell who was secretly videoed by the Humane Society applying caustic substances to the hooves of Tennessee Walking Horses and his beating of those horses to make them stand that lead to his conviction.

Mercy for Animals, the ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States have all appealed to Governor Haslam to veto the legislation.

Please call and/or email the Governor as soon as possible to encourage him to veto this bill. His phone number is (615) 741-2001 and his email address is: bill.haslem@tn.gov


The following is a copy of the legislation:

HB 1191 by *Holt. (SB 1248 by *Gresham.)

Animal Cruelty and Abuse - As introduced, requires a person who records cruelty to animals as committed against livestock to report such violation and submit any unedited photographs or video recordings to law enforcement authorities within 24 hours of the photograph's or recording’s creation. - Amends TCA Title 39 and Title 44.

Fiscal Summary

NOT SIGNIFICANT

Bill Summary

ON APRIL 11, 2013, THE SENATE ADOPTED AMENDMENT #1 AND RESET SENATE BILL 1248, AS AMENDED.

AMENDMENT #1 rewrites this bill to require a person who intentionally records by photograph, digital image, video or similar medium for the purpose of documenting the offense of cruelty to animals committed against livestock, within 48 hours, or by the close of business the next business day, whichever is later, to:

(1) Report such violation to a law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the alleged offense; and 

(2) Submit any unedited photographs, digital images or video recordings to law enforcement authorities.

A violation of this amendment is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by fine only.

ON APRIL 16, 2013, THE SENATE FURTHER CONSIDERED SENATE BILL 1248, AS AMENDED BY AMENDMENT #1, AND PASSED SENATE BILL 1248, AS AMENDED.

Olivia Munn for PETA