Day: September 28, 2008

Man Sues After Dangle Was Cut Off

My first reaction was, “Ya Think?”, then it was OUCH!

Phillip Seaton, 61, and his wife are seeking unspecified compensation from Dr. John M. Patterson and the medical practice that performed the circumcision for “loss of service, love and affection.” The Seatons also are seeking unspecified punitive damages from Patterson and the medical practice, Commonwealth Urology.

A woman who answered the phone at Commonwealth Urology would not take a message for the doctor Thursday. But the Seaton’s attorney said the doctor’s post-surgical notes show the doctor thought he detected cancer and removed the penis. Attorney Kevin George said a later test did detect cancer.

The Seatons’ suit is similar to one in which an Indianapolis man was awarded more than $2.3 million in damages after he claimed his penis and left testicle were removed without his consent during surgery for an infection in 1997.

Lieberman, Spanking Postponed

Connecticut Democrats, angry that Sen. Joe Lieberman is campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate and criticizing his own party’s nominee, agreed Wednesday to circulate a resolution to censure the veteran politician but won’t consider acting on it until after Election Day.The state party’s central committee Wednesday agreed to send copies of the resolution to every local Democratic town committee in the state. The resolution condemns Lieberman for speaking at the Republicans’ convention and backing John McCain.

Party officials said the group plans to get input from the town officials and revisit the issue in December. The decision was met with a round of applause.

Lieberman, speaking earlier Wednesday to a radio station, said that he was surprised by the move to censure him.

“Honestly, I thought that was the kind of thing that happened only in the former Soviet Union. I understand that people are unhappy, but, you know, I’m doing something that I really believe,” Lieberman told WICH-AM. “I thought in this country you don’t get punished for that. So, I hope that in the end, my colleagues will understand and life will go on either way.”

Maybe I think differently but, the use of the USSR as some form of defense is just silly.  Why?  Back in the day about 85% of their representatives in the Duma were always returned to lead and that was somehow a show of how their system did not work and was controlled.  But yet, about 90-95% of US Congress are returned every election–please do not throw stones.

Give Peace A Chance?

The Taliban have been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a wide-ranging ‘peace process’ sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain, The Observer can reveal.

The unprecedented negotiations involve a senior former member of the hardline Islamist movement travelling between Kabul, the bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and European capitals. Britain has provided logistic and diplomatic support for the talks – despite official statements that negotiations can be held only with Taliban who are ready to renounce, or have renounced, violence.

Sources in Afghanistan confirmed the controversial talks, though they said that in recent weeks they had ‘lost momentum’. According to Afghan government officials in Kabul, the intensity of the fighting this summer has been one factor. Another is the inconsistency of the Taliban’s demands.

Although there have been low-level contacts with individual Taliban commanders at district level before, the Saudi initiative is the first attempt to talk to the Taliban leadership council based in or around the south-west Pakistan city of Quetta, known as the ‘Quetta Shura’.

The Taliban are understood to have submitted a list of 11 conditions for ending hostilities, which include demands to be allowed to run key ministries and a programmed withdrawal of western troops.

Breast Milk Ice Cream

Now here is a novel idea and of course PETA came up with it.

PEOPLE for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has urged US ice cream makers Ben & Jerry’s Homemade to replace cow’s milk in ice cream products with breast milk.

“PETA’s request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 per cent of the cow’s milk in the food he serves,” the animal rights group said

PETA officials say a move to breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their calves on factory farms and benefit human health.

“The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn’t make sense,” PETA spokeswoman Tracy Reiman said.

“Everyone knows that the breast is best, so, Ben & Jerry’s could do consumers and cows a big favour by making the switch to breast milk.”

Ben & Jerry’s said: “We applaud PETA’s novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child.”

Think about this–I would hate to see women hooked up to the milking machines–I mean they only think a mammogram is painful, just wait til the milk-o-matic gets a hold of them.

Ok since we cannot eat cows and now the milk is off limitis, what use will we have for cows at all?  We could eliminate the species and solve our global warming thing, since some blame cow farts with the phenom.  Maybe it is an idea that we predators should consider.

Could US Become A Battle Zone

For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest.

Beginning on October 1, the First Brigade Combat Team of the Third Division will be placed under the command of US Army North, the Army’s component of the Pentagon’s Northern Command (NorthCom), which was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with the stated mission of defending the US “homeland” and aiding federal, state and local authorities.

The unit—known as the “Raiders”—is among the Army’s most “blooded.” It has spent nearly three out of the last five years deployed in Iraq, leading the assault on Baghdad in 2003 and carrying out house-to-house combat in the suppression of resistance in the city of Ramadi. It was the first brigade combat team to be sent to Iraq three times.

The Pentagon’s official pronouncements have stressed the role of specialized units in a potential response to terrorist attack within the US. Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, attended a training exercise last week for about 250 members of the unit at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The focus of the exercise, according to the Army’s public affairs office, was how troops “might fly search and rescue missions, extract casualties and decontaminate people following a catastrophic nuclear attack in the nation’s heartland.”

“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control,” the paper reports. It quotes the unit’s commander, Col. Robert Cloutier, as saying that the 1st BCT’s soldiers are being trained in the use of “the first ever nonlethal package the Army has fielded.” The weapons, the paper reported, are “designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.” The equipment includes beanbag bullets, shields and batons and equipment for erecting roadblocks.

Justified as a response to terrorist threats, the real source of the growing preparations for the use of US military force within America’s borders lies not in the events of September 11, 2001 or the danger that they will be repeated. Rather, the domestic mobilization of the armed forces is a response by the US ruling establishment to the growing threat to political stability.

The Media And The Bailout

For years the financial media has been reporting the ups and the downs of the markets, but all in all they kept harping on just how healthy the economy was no matter the fluctuations in the markets. Yes, there were wild swings, but it always seemed to come back to a good bull market. Now the question is, why did not these reporters with their massive contacts within the financial sector not report on the approaching storm? Surely, the reporters have had some minor economic training, at least we would hope so, especially if they were advising people where to put their money and what to watch out for.

None of the media outlets, print and cable, reported on the extent of the crisis that was coming. Was it a huge secret? Please! It is Wall Street, secrets are a dime a dozen and the whole system is a piece of Swiss cheese.

I am old enough to remember the Chrysler bailout in 1979.

A special place of shame must be given to the national media and political elite. In 1979 they raised a hue and cry about the need for Chrysler’s workers to “sacrifice” and extolled the virtues of the free market. Today they offer few such sermons to the financial elite responsible for the current crisis. But they continue to insist, as they did in the days of the Chrysler bailout, that the working class must pay the bills for the failures of American capitalism. The working class is being asked to fork over trillions of dollars—the sum would have been unfathomable in 1979—to bail out a criminal financial aristocracy that has bankrupted American capitalism, and very nearly the state itself.

One possible reason for the lack of coverage of the developing storm was the fact that most of the news organizations are now part of a huge corporate structure, it was not so much so in 1979. So why would an organization that was knee deep in the financial wheeling and dealing actually report the failure of their parent corporation?

Houston, We Have a Breakthrough

Congressional leaders and the Bush administration reached a tentative deal early Sunday on a landmark bailout of imperiled financial markets whose collapse could plunge the nation into a deep recession.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the $700 billion accord just after midnight but said it still has to be put on paper.

“We’ve still got more to do to finalize it, but I think we’re there,” said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who also participated in the negotiations in the Capitol.

The plan calls for the Treasury Department to buy deeply distressed mortgage-backed securities and other bad debts held by banks and other investors. The money should help troubled lenders make new loans and keep credit lines open. The government would later try to sell the discounted loan packages at the best possible price.

At the insistence of House Republicans, some money would be devoted to a program that would encourage holders of distressed mortgage-backed securities to keep them and buy government insurance to cover defaults.

The legislation would place “reasonable” limits on severance packages for executives of companies that benefit from the rescue plan, said a senior administration official who was authorized to speak only on background. It would affect fired executives of financial firms, and executives of firms that go bankrupt. Some of the provisions would be retroactive and some prospective, the official said.

Also, the government would receive stock warrants in return for the bailout relief, giving taxpayers a chance to share in financial companies’ future profits.

To help struggling homeowners, the plan would require the government to try renegotiating the bad mortgages it acquires with the aim of lowering borrowers’ monthly payments so they can keep their homes.

The measure’s main elements were proposed a week ago by the Bush administration, with Paulson heading efforts to push it through the Democratic-controlled Congress. Democrats insisted on greater congressional oversight, more taxpayer protections, help for homeowners facing possible foreclosure, and restrictions on executives’ compensation.