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Economist’s View – “Raise Retirement Age and More Become Disabled”
From Economist’s View:
“Raise Retirement Age and More Become Disabled”
Raising the retirement age also raises disability applications, so this won’t save as much money as many people think, and could even make things worse if the early retirement age is changed (the early retirement age is currently 62):
Raise Retirement Age and More Become Disabled, by Merrill Goozner: Most people are working and living longer, so it seems like a no-brainer to raise the retirement age to help close the long-term Social Security funding gap. But the move could backfire and not save as much as predicted. Why? Not all groups are able to work longer, a new report from the Government Accountability Office says.
“Raising the retirement ages would likely increase the number of workers applying for and receiving disability insurance benefits,” which also comes out of Social Security, said the report…
Arizona Has Death Panels – Thanks, Jan Brewer!
AlterNet – Soft Drinks Companies Push Their Products as a Solution to Childhood Malnutrition
From AlterNet:
Soft Drinks Companies Push Their Products as a Solution to Childhood Malnutrition
Here is another one you can’t make up. An article in Pediatrics, entitled “Malnutrition and the role of the soft drink industry in improving child health in sub-Saharan Africa,” advocates for fortifying soft drinks with micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).
Oddly, it does this after explaining how consumption of soft drinks actually ”perpetuates problems of undernutrition in children, pregnant women, and other vulnerable populations in the developing world.” Why? Because in “sub-Saharan Africa, for example, distribution of soft drinks and other beverages produced by soft drink companies is extensive, and consumption is high given the extensive poverty in this part of the world.” Read more
Pat Rabbitte sticks it to Pat Carey on Prime Time
AlterNet – Tawdry Scandal Distracting AIPAC from its Usual Task of Standing in the Way of Peace
From AlterNet:
Tawdry Scandal Distracting AIPAC from its Usual Task of Standing in the Way of Peace
The latest AIPAC scandal has not found its way into the mainstream media, although the Jewish media has done a great job in highlighting this very explosive story. (LATE UPDATE: The Washington Post is now reporting on the story).
The good news is that it doesn’t much matter whether the New York Times runs the story or not. The Rosen vs. AIPAC case is grinding its way through the courts and could well destroy the lobby without ever making its way on to the front page. AIPAC is under siege, and is spending millions to stay alive. But that won’t be easy — even if Steve Rosen ultimately accepts a payoff from the organization and refrains from telling what he knows. Read more
Friends of Israel — Enemies Inside the Gates
David Swanson: All wars require lies
Truthout – New Afghan War Plans Could Cost US Taxpayers an Extra $125 Billion
From Truthout:
New Afghan War Plans Could Cost US Taxpayers an Extra $125 Billion
Ben Arnoldy, The Christian Science Monitor: “‘As leaders at the NATO summit in Lisbon meet this weekend to discuss strategy in Afghanistan, US war planners have been signaling that troop withdrawals set to begin in 2011 will be mostly symbolic and that the handover to Afghan forces in 2014 is “aspirational”…. Such could cost American taxpayers handsomely at a time when deficit cutting has gripped Washington. According to one estimate, softening those deadlines could add at least $125 billion in war spending – not including long-term costs like debt servicing and health care for veterans.”
Read the Article
Susie Madrak – Explosive Truthout Story: Did Israelis Fabricate ‘Evidence’ Of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program?
From Crooks and Liars:
Explosive Truthout Story: Did Israelis Fabricate ‘Evidence’ Of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program?
By Susie Madrak
The investigative team at Truthout has a stunning story raising serious questions about the information that was thought to reveal a nuclear arms program in Iran — and Israel’s Mossad appears to have provided the false intelligence.
Are we about to be tricked into yet another war under false pretenses? Why isn’t the mainstream media asking these questions?
The Obama administration says there can be no diplomatic negotiations with Iran unless Iran satisfies the IAEA fully in regard to the allegations derived from the documents that it had covert nuclear weapons program.
That position is based on the premise that the intelligence documents that Iran has been asked to explain are genuine. The evidence now available, however, indicates that they are fabrications.
The drawings of the Iranian missile warhead that were said by the IAEA to show an intent to accommodate a nuclear weapon actually depict a missile design that Iran is now known to have already abandoned in favor of an improved model by the time the technical drawings were allegedly made. And one of the major components of the purported Iranian military research program allegedly included a project labeled with a number that turns out to have been assigned by Iran’s civilian nuclear authority years before the covert program is said to have been initiated.
The former head of the agency’s safeguards department, Olli Heinonen, who shaped its approach to the issue of the intelligence documents from 2005 and 2010, has offered no real explanation for these anomalies in recent interviews with Truthout.
These telltale indicators of fraud bring into question the central pillar of the case against Iran and raise more fundamental questions about the handling of the Iranian nuclear issue by the IAEA, the United States and its key European allies.
techdirt – TSA Agents Absolutely Hate New Pat Downs, Find Them Disgusting And Morale Breaking
From techdirt:
TSA Agents Absolutely Hate New Pat Downs, Find Them Disgusting And Morale Breaking (News You Could Do Without)
by Mike Masnick from the this-is-what-you-get-with-security-theater dept on Friday, November 19th, 2010 @ 11:17AM
One of the common themes that people keep mentioning in talking about the new TSA pat down procedures is that those involved must “enjoy” the groping they’re giving people. But, of course, most TSA agents are normal every day people who don’t actually want to grope random people. Chris Tolles points us to a post from BoardingArea.com, who reached out to some TSA agents and found that many TSA agents hate the new rules and find it to be sapping morale to have to grope passengers. Some of it appears to be the verbal abuse they’re getting from travelers, but some of it is just the fact that they have to keep touching people they’d rather not touch in that way:
“It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man’s private parts, their butt, their inner thigh. Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!”
The Nation – The Breakdown: Why Did the GOP Block the Paycheck Fairness Act?
From The Nation:
The Breakdown: Why Did the GOP Block the Paycheck Fairness Act?
Christopher Hayes
November 19, 2010Women still earn 77 cents on a man’s dollar for full-time work. The Paycheck Fairness Act would have helped remedy that unequal pay. On this week’s The Breakdown, the Center for American Progress’s Heather Boushey joins Christopher Hayes to talk about why Republican senators blocked the bill.
More…
Meg Whitman Pays $144 Million for her Own Campaign, $5,500 to Her Housekeeper
Missing in Memoir: When Bush Joked About Those Dang Missing WMDs
RWW – Fischer: God Honors Those Who Inflict “Massive Casualties” Because “Christianity is Not a Religion of Pacifism”
From Right Wing Watch:
- Right Wing Round-Up
- Right Wing Leftovers
- Random Book Blogging: The Day Will Come When Prophets Will Work With Presidents
- Believers in American Exceptionalism More Likely to Support Torture
- If Ensign Votes To Repeal DADT, Expect the Right To Suddenly Care About His Infidelity
- Renewed Push for Birther Bills Following GOP’s Midterm Gains
- CPAC Board To Decide GOProud’s Fate
- Vander Plaats: “Bryan Fisher and AFA Do Not Speak For Me”
- Right Wing Round-Up
- Right Wing Leftovers
Submitted by Kyle on November 18, 2010 – 12:34pm
Bryan Fischer responds to the latest outrage he has provoked with his recent blog post decrying “the feminization of the Medal of Honor.”
As he typically does in these situations, Fischer reacts by accusing everyone else of intentionally misrepresenting his point and then proceeds to “clarify” it by reiterating his position in such a way that it makes the extent of his extremism all the more obvious, as if the problem was that somehow people just misunderstood him the first time.
And so we end up with posts like this in which he explains that all he was saying was that we as a nation need to start honoring soldiers who kill lots of people because such actions are greatly pleasing to God:[…]
OMB Watch – Chamber Tries to Fool America Again
From OMB Watch:
Chamber Tries to Fool America Again
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is back in the news today. According to The New York Times, “The United States Chamber of Commerce warned today that antipollution laws could kill entire industries and that the Government should be ready to pay for the economic consequences.”
Wait, that’s not from today, that’s from May 18, 1971. A thousand pardons.
(Matthew Madia 11/17/10) Read More >>
More…
OMB Watch Criticizes U.S. Chamber of Commerce over Irresponsible Attack on Public Protections
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2010—OMB Watch today criticized the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for an irresponsible attack on government regulation, a key mechanism for providing public safeguards. The rebuke was in response to news that the Chamber will target environmental and worker protections and health care and financial reform regulations in the coming months.
Boris Johnson – George W. Bush can’t fight for freedom and authorize torture
From The Telegraph:
George W. Bush can’t fight for freedom and authorize torture
It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us his memoirs, but if I were his PR people I would urge caution. As book tours go, this one would be an absolute corker. It is not just that every European capital would be brought to a standstill, as book-signings turned into anti-war riots. The real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.
One moment he might be holding forth to a great perspiring tent at Hay-on-Wye. The next moment, click, some embarrassed member of the Welsh constabulary could walk on stage, place some handcuffs on the former leader of the Free World, and take him away to be charged. Of course, we are told this scenario is unlikely. Dubya is the former leader of a friendly power, with whom this country is determined to have good relations. But that is what torture-authorizing Augusto Pinochet thought. And unlike Pinochet, Mr Bush is making no bones about what he has done.
Unless the 43rd president of the United States has been grievously misrepresented, he has admitted to authorizing and sponsoring the use of torture. Asked whether he approved of “waterboarding” in three specific cases, he told his interviewer that “damn right” he did, and that this practice had saved lives in America and Britain. It is hard to overstate the enormity of this admission.
Related…
Categories: Uncategorized George W. Bush, War Crimes
Economist’s View – Paul Krugman: Axis of Depression
From the Economist’s View:
- “Questioning a Payroll Tax Holiday”
- Paul Krugman: Axis of Depression
- Bernanke: Rebalancing the Global Recovery
- links for 2010-11-18
- Eggertsson and Krugman: Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap
- Shiller: Shorting Fiscal Consolidation
- “When is Economic Growth Good for the Poor?”
- What We Can and Cannot Afford
- “Herbert Scarf’s 1964 Lectures: An Eyewitness Account”
- links for 2010-11-17
Paul Krugman: Axis of Depression
What’s behind recent attacks on the Federal Reserve?:
Axis of Depression, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: What do the government of China, the government of Germany and the Republican Party have in common? They’re all trying to bully the Federal Reserve into calling off its efforts to create jobs. And the motives of all three are highly suspect. …
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