Jimmy Kimmel Whacks 'Uncle Scam'
6 hours ago
"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." [Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 8:38 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] |
The Obama administration won a temporary stay against the moratorium on "don't ask, don't tell" Wednesday, granting the Pentagon the right to once again enforce the 17-year-old ban on gay men and women serving openly in the military.Expect a 'final kill' during the lame duck congressional session after the elections because it's included in the already overdue Military Appropriations bill.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued the decision, giving itself time to consider the Justice Department's appeal of last week's injunction by U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips... Washington Post
"There are signs that the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan's Kandahar province is beginning to make progress, as military and local sources have reported that the Taliban have been driven from some of their key strongholds in the region. The improvement in conditions is the result of President Barack Obama's troop surge, which increased troop strength in the province to 12,000 coalition soldiers and 7,000 Afghan security forces, and made it possible to carry out operations in crucial areas of the province simultaneously.It's also notable that, under the rubric of "The Fog Of War"...
The offensive against the Taliban has targeted areas around Kandahar City: First, Afghan forces captured the town of Mehlajat, which had been largely abandoned, to the south of the city. U.S. forces then moved into the district of Arghandab to the north and the district of Zhare to the southwest. Last weekend, a joint U.S. and Afghan force tackled the district of Panjwai, to the west of Kandahar city. According to NATO commanders, local Afghan security forces, and even some of the Taliban themselves, the insurgents were surprised by the intensity of the attack and retreated to Pakistan in significant numbers.
One commander in Arghandab said that Taliban attacks had declined from 50 a week in August to only 15 per week in October." Source: Foreign Policy
"Blackwater prosecutions unravel: Almost four years after prosecutors indicted contractors operating under the security firm Blackwater for murder and excessive use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan, those cases are falling apart due to the difficulty of retrieving evidence from war zones, and a form of legal immunity granted to the contractors by U.S. embassy officials." (sourced from link above)
France clears fuel blockades before pension voteIn OTHER words: "If you all behave it won't hurt you as much economically as if you resist." That ALMOST passes for a backhanded insinuation of collective punishment against the citizens of France if they forcibly reject the French government's idea of what their 'Austerity" should consist of, and what ABOUT those "Others"? Should the average French worker care about that?
By Nick Vinocur
PARIS Wed Oct 20, 2010
(Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy sent in police to clear access to barricaded French fuel depots and restore supply as trade unions kept up their resistance on Wednesday to a pension reform due for a final vote this week.
Fuel imports hit a record high on Tuesday, the government said, as it tried to get round a 24-day blockade of France's largest oil port, near Marseille, where 51 oil tankers lay idle in the Mediterranean, unable to dock.
With more than 3,000 service stations out of nearly 12,500 in France out of fuel, police could also be deployed to clear access to striking oil refineries, according to Sarkozy's order.
A nine-day transport strike in 2007 cost France about 400 million euros ($550 million) a day, according to the economy ministry, although analysts do not see the current strikes costing as much.
Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Britain's Channel 4 television that she could not estimate the full cost of the strike action for France but it was unlikely to have a major impact on gross domestic product if it did not last too long.
Earlier on France's TF1 television Lagarde said the government hoped petrol pumps would be full again in a few days, and urged people rioting on the fringes of protests or blockading fuel depots to think about France's image and its need to speed up its economic recovery.
"I truly appeal to people's sense of responsibility, particularly those who think it's fun to blockade things and smash them up," Lagarde said. "It's serious for our country because France is missing a chance to come out of the crisis under better conditions than others." In Full @ Reuters
Rome - Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the Italian capital Rome on Saturday, demanding worker rights and democracy.And in NOT-SO-MERRY Olde England the biggest spending cuts since WWII are announced. For instance, the BBC has been 'restructured' with a 16% budget cut and...
Seven chartered trains and 70 buses from across Italy brought people to the protest, which had been called by the metal-worker union FIOM, local media reported.
Students and workers from other fields also took part.
'We want to defend work contracts, jobs and democracy -given one of the biggest assaults of all times on the rights of workers,' said the secretary general of FIOM, Maurizio Landini.
The protest came amid criticism of the economic policies pursued by the conservative government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, as well as an attempt by Italian carmaker Fiat to push through more flexible work conditions and contracts at its Pomigliano branch near Naples - threatening to close the plant otherwise. MORE
"...the Treasury finally backed off money-saving plans to remove child benefit from 17- and 18-year-olds, but went ahead with plans to cut the means-tested education maintenance allowance aimed at largely the same age group.Also, as reported here yesterday, the British Navy is going to scrap the last aircraft carrier in the fleet as part of the British military's cost-cutting plan.
There was acute embarrassment for the government, meanwhile, as Danny Alexander, the Treasury chief secretary, allowed himself to be photographed with a briefing paper showing that the government accepts that 490,000 public sector jobs will be lost by 2014-15 as a result of the spending cuts, which will finally be outlined by the chancellor, George Osborne, today.
Osborne acknowledges that his unprecedented spending review will take Britain into uncharted social and economic territory as he announces £83bn of spending cuts over the next four years.
The cuts will involve the loss of thousands of jobs, massive cuts in university funding, wholesale reform of public housing and further cuts to the welfare budget.
The coalition will also announce the state retirement age is to be raised to 66 in 2016, 10 years earlier than previously planned and liable to save billions of pounds in the medium term. It is also expected there will be big cuts to the budget for sport in schools and the abolition of the specialist school network. Some departments including the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Communities and Local Government and the culture department will see cuts of 30%, involving multibillion-pound reductions in the prison programme and to legal aid.
Voluntary groups and private companies operating on a payment-by-results basis will be asked to take over the rehabilitation of released prisoners. Guardian.co.uk For More
I B Bad. I'm The 897,186,093 Richest Person On Earth! Discover how rich you are Here! |
No comments:
Post a Comment