** gotta make a choice, no dbags allowed around here.
called my insurance and put in a claim, and SafeLite put in an order for a new windshield that should be installed tomorrow... there's $250 blown away – feel like these contruction guys should be liable for this crap... also found a small dent in my hood from a rock that really pissed me off.
i snapped this pic right after it happened... it's gotten worse since then.
mother. fuckers.
Obama's Second-Term Embarrassments
"Hope and change" is looking more like the 1973 Nixon White House.In Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, he ran to the left of Hillary Clinton as a moral reformer. Obama promised to transcend the old politics and bring a new era of hope-and-change transparency to Washington. Five years later, those vows are in shambles.
True, the murder of four Americans in Benghazi has become a mess of partisan bickering. But the disturbing facts now transcend politics. The Obama administration – the president himself, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, White House press secretary Jay Carney – all at various times blamed an obscure video maker for the "spontaneous violence" that killed Americans last September.
The problem is not just that such scapegoating was untrue, but that our officials knew it was untrue when they said it – given both prior CIA talking-point briefings and phone calls from those on the ground during the attacks.
One theme ties all the bizarre aspects of the Benghazi scandal – the doctored talking points, the inexplicable failure to beef up diplomatic security before the attacks and to send in help during the fighting, the jailing of a petty con artist on the false charge that his amateur video had led to attacks on our consulate, and the shabby treatment of nonpartisan State Department whistleblowers – together.
There was an overarching preelection desire last year to downplay any notion that al-Qaeda remained a serious danger after the much ballyhooed killing of Osama bin Laden. Likewise, Libya was not supposed to be a radical Islamic mess after the successful "lead from behind" removal of Moammar Qaddafi. Facts then had to change to fit a campaign narrative.
As the congressional hearings on Benghazi were taking place last week, we also learned that the IRS, administered by the Department of the Treasury, has been going after conservative groups in a politicized manner that we have not seen since Richard Nixon's White House. There was no evidence that any of these conservative associations had taken thousands of dollars in improper tax deductions – in the manner of former Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, the one-time overseer of the IRS.
Instead, groups with suspiciously American names like "Patriot" or "Tea Party" prompted IRS partisans to scrutinize their tax information in a way that they would not have for the tax-exempt MoveOn.org or the Obama-affiliated Organizing for Action.
On top of that, the Justice Department just announced that it had secretly seized the records of calls from at least 20 work and private phone lines belonging to editors and reporters at the Associated Press in efforts to stop suspected leaks. At about the same time as the Benghazi and IRS disclosures, it was learned that there was a strange relationship between the Obama White House and the very center of the American media – odd in a way that might explain the unusually favorable media coverage accorded this administration.
good stuff as always.
p.s. White House Wordplay
oh nina, nina, nina...
While McDonald's in many countries is trying (feigning?) to be healthier, in Japan, the fast food chain really doesn't seem to give a crap. If anything, McDonald's is running fast and hard to unhealthy. Super size, Japan!For the past few weeks, there have been rumors that McDonald's Japan is rolling out a huge size for French fries (which actually is replacing another super large size called "Share Potato"). Today, as IT Media reports, it's finally official. Dubbed "Mega Potato", you are looking at two large size fries in one wide friggin' container.
Two large fries usually cost around the equivalent of US$6 in Japan. These, however, are priced at 490 yen ($4.80) and will be on sale until late June.
dunno why, but find it kinda funny that you'd see something like this in a place like Japan before here in the US... i'm sure mayor bloomberg just had a heart attack, and chris christie just figured how where he's going on vacation next.
p.s. i could really go for some Five Guy fries right now.
David Beckham's retirement has been described as "loss to the game" by David Bernstein, the FA chairman, while the former England manager, Steve McClaren, who dropped then reinstated the midfielder, described him as a great footballer.Bernstein said: "In the week following Sir Alex Ferguson retiring, which came as a bit of a shock, now we have the iconic David Beckham coming out of the game. It's unexpected, even though he is getting to mature years for a footballer. He is an iconic figure in the game and produced wonderful performances for his clubs, particularly Manchester United. When you look at his playing and work for England, no one would ever accuse him of being unpatriotic and not giving everything for his country.
"He is a real loss to the game and I am sure the FA will want to embrace him and to get him closely associated with the organisation. I would personally wish him every luck and success – he will be quite a loss to the game."
Beckham, who won 115 caps, had stepped down as England captain following the 2006 World Cup and was then dropped from the squad by McClaren ahead of England's friendly with Greece that August, his first game in charge.
to be perfectly honest, i kind of thought that he'd retired awhile ago, but i guess not – jokes and soccer bias's aside, he was a really damn good player and i believe he helped the sport out quite a bit over the past decade or more.
p.s. i barely pay attention until the World Cup, though.
AP President Scoffs at DOJ Response to Phone Scandal The Associated Press is far from satisfied by the Department of Justice's initial response regarding the government grabbing months of phone records from the wire service. Gary Pruitt, president and CEO of The Associated Press, sent a sternly worded follow-up letter to the Department of Justice today, one which said its attempt at explaining what happened hardly proved reassuring and appeared dubious at face value.
The Benghazi Scandal Grows CIA director David Petraeus was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15. One day earlier, analysts with the CIA's Office of Terrorism Analysis had drafted a set of unclassified talking points policymakers could use to discuss the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. But this new version – produced with input from senior Obama administration policymakers – was a shadow of the original.
Obama Lied, Gets 4 Pinocchio's President Obama seems to either suffer from a mild case of amnesia, is having trouble keeping what he's said straight, or is just outright lying to the american people. again.
"In fact, as far as we can tell from combing through databases, Monday was the first time the president himself referred to Benghazi as an 'act of terrorism'." since the Benghazi attack more than 8 months ago.
Jon Stewart Slams Obama Claim He Learned About IRS Scandal 'Last Friday' It's easy to tell that President Obama is going through a scandal-ridden "tough time" since he's even under fire from Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show" on the Comedy Central cable channel, who said on Tuesday that the Democratic occupant of the White House "can't keep saying you found out about news at the same time as us!"
Chris Matthews Has Lost The Obama "Thrill in his Leg" For the last two days, Matthews has delivered blistering critiques of Obama. Matthews has combined his own frustration at Obama's inability to pass any of his agenda with the flap over the IRS and AP phone scandals that have developed over the past week.
"For anybody to run around in Washington and say, 'We don't run the IRS,' or, 'We can't control the Justice Department and I'm recusing myself,' ... the steering wheel doesn't control the car any more."
Alicia Gali of Australia was excited about her new job in the "desert paradise" of Dubai. American-owned Starwood Hotels, one of the world's largest hotel groups, even offered to pay for her plane ticket and accommodations as part of the contract that she become a manager.The United Arab Emirates had been aggressively targeting Australia for tourists when she took the job in 2008, portraying itself as "really progressive and forward-thinking and the 'new' Middle East," Gali said. But when she got there, she found another world entirely.
After being drugged and gang-raped by three of her colleagues, Gali says she found no help from her superiors at the hotel. After she took herself to the hospital, she was thrown in jail for eight months for sex outside of marriage.
Gali's Australian attorney explained that, as far as she understands, the crime is only considered rape under the country's strict Islamic laws if there are "four adult, male Muslim witnesses that can provide evidence that the sex was non-consensual."
drugged, gang-raped, and then thrown in jail for it? g'damn, that's horrible.
